Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Roger Scruton - Why Beauty Matters - BBC documentary
I thought I posted this before, in bits, but can't find it now. It's excellent!
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
White House Recognizes Unborn as Full Human Beings
The White House Visitors Office requires that an unborn child—still residing in utero—must be counted as a full human being when its parents register for a White House tour, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
As Elizabeth Scalia notes on her Anchoress blog, White House Visitors Office director Ellie Schafer sent an email to a Capitol Hill staffer Tuesday morning explaining the process for registering an unborn fetus for a White House tour:
As Elizabeth Scalia notes on her Anchoress blog, White House Visitors Office director Ellie Schafer sent an email to a Capitol Hill staffer Tuesday morning explaining the process for registering an unborn fetus for a White House tour:
We have received a number of calls regarding how to enter security information for a baby that has not yet been born.Crazy as it may sound, you MUST include the baby in the overall count of guests in the tour. It’s an easy process.
You have to count your unborn child as a full human being if you want to tour the White House. In case you missed it, Ms. Schafer uses the term baby twice in two sentences, not fetus, not clump of tissue, but baby.
I just think it’s good that the answer to this question is fully, finally, and forever, on the record, by the authority of the White House Visitors Office: an unborn child is a full human being.
It follows, therefore, that abortion is the willful killing of a full human being. A full, whole human being, not an abstraction.
Let us hope and pray that this realization at the White House spreads from the Visitors Office to the President's Office. But recognizing the full humanity of the child in the womb does not necessarily lead all to the conclusion that killing her is wrong. So according to the Visitors Office, unborn babies are full human beings, but according to the President you can kill them at will. Well, that's roughly ethicist Peter Singer's position. He holds both positions at the same time. The White House is not so consistent or transparent in its endorsement of evil.
Swift's Modest Proposal in 2012 - Chinese Babies in Capsules
In 1729, the great satirist Jonathan Swift published a savagely ironic "Modest Proposal" -
"A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick." The tract is proposes to "find out a fair, cheap, and easy Method" for converting the starving children of Ireland into "sound and useful members of the Commonwealth." Now a new method has been found for profiting from China's notorious one-child policy by grinding up the flesh of dead babies in fetal or infant stage into capsules for sale in South Korea.
The South Korean authorities are cracking down on this trade...because it is a health risk for South Koreans! Turns out the dead Chinese babies in capsule form are not, after all, Beneficial to the Publick.
Good evening all, the weather here in Nu Zeld has turned – it is raining and windy and generally miserable outside. So it is a perfect backdrop to the horror and revulsion that I felt when I read this article from the BBC. The facts as reported need no embellishment:
So, some people are eating the flesh of dead babies and foetuses to boost their stamina? Isn’t this the very apotheosis of treating human beings as a product that are valuable as long as they can be useful and not something intrinsically worthwhile? Why is this story not leading news agencies everywhere as a vast and horrendous practise that should be rooted out and destroyed by a world that calls itself civilised? This is simply and literally diabolical. What instantly springs to mind is how many of these powdered dead babies were aborted under the one child policy and how many were aborted against their mother’s wishes?
One can imagine some officials making a tidy packet on the side in the trafficking of baby flesh. “You will burden China down, dear baby. Therefore we must abort you. But do not fear, because even your death can be useful. We will turn your flesh into powder and sell you to people who wish to be cured of disease.”
What is perhaps even more disturbing is the reason given by the Koreans why they are cracking down on these capsules:
But if these capsules were shown to be safe, we’d be fine with it? Is that what the officials are saying? I hate to break it to these officials and anyone who agrees with them, but even if these were beneficial to your body, they would be decidedly harmful to your soul.
But perhaps I am being too quick to judge and to scold. After all, what is the difference between eating baby flesh to cure disease and relying on stem cell research to do the same thing? Aren’t we in both cases merely reducing the unborn to something that we value only if and when it suits us to use them?
PS: Make sure you check this great blogpost from Sheila Liaugminas at Sheila Reports about Chen Guangcheng and the Obama administration. (Sheila even mentions our favourite Chicken Little impersonator – Paul Erlich!)
Posted at MercatorNet.
"A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick." The tract is proposes to "find out a fair, cheap, and easy Method" for converting the starving children of Ireland into "sound and useful members of the Commonwealth." Now a new method has been found for profiting from China's notorious one-child policy by grinding up the flesh of dead babies in fetal or infant stage into capsules for sale in South Korea.
The South Korean authorities are cracking down on this trade...because it is a health risk for South Koreans! Turns out the dead Chinese babies in capsule form are not, after all, Beneficial to the Publick.
Baby Flesh - now available in capsule form!
Marcus Roberts | 8 May, 2012
Good evening all, the weather here in Nu Zeld has turned – it is raining and windy and generally miserable outside. So it is a perfect backdrop to the horror and revulsion that I felt when I read this article from the BBC. The facts as reported need no embellishment:
“South Korea says it will increase customs inspections targeting capsules containing powdered human flesh.
The Korea Customs Service said it had found almost 17,500 of the capsules being smuggled into the country from China since August 2011.
The powdered flesh, which officials said came from dead babies and foetuses, is reportedly thought by some to cure disease and boost stamina.”
So, some people are eating the flesh of dead babies and foetuses to boost their stamina? Isn’t this the very apotheosis of treating human beings as a product that are valuable as long as they can be useful and not something intrinsically worthwhile? Why is this story not leading news agencies everywhere as a vast and horrendous practise that should be rooted out and destroyed by a world that calls itself civilised? This is simply and literally diabolical. What instantly springs to mind is how many of these powdered dead babies were aborted under the one child policy and how many were aborted against their mother’s wishes?
One can imagine some officials making a tidy packet on the side in the trafficking of baby flesh. “You will burden China down, dear baby. Therefore we must abort you. But do not fear, because even your death can be useful. We will turn your flesh into powder and sell you to people who wish to be cured of disease.”
What is perhaps even more disturbing is the reason given by the Koreans why they are cracking down on these capsules:
“…officials said the capsules were full of bacteria and a health risk.
‘It was confirmed those capsules contain materials harmful to the human body, such as super bacteria. We need to take tougher measures to protect public health,’ a customs official was quoted as saying by the Korea Times.”
But if these capsules were shown to be safe, we’d be fine with it? Is that what the officials are saying? I hate to break it to these officials and anyone who agrees with them, but even if these were beneficial to your body, they would be decidedly harmful to your soul.
But perhaps I am being too quick to judge and to scold. After all, what is the difference between eating baby flesh to cure disease and relying on stem cell research to do the same thing? Aren’t we in both cases merely reducing the unborn to something that we value only if and when it suits us to use them?
PS: Make sure you check this great blogpost from Sheila Liaugminas at Sheila Reports about Chen Guangcheng and the Obama administration. (Sheila even mentions our favourite Chicken Little impersonator – Paul Erlich!)
Posted at MercatorNet.
Scientific Study Challenges Assumptions About Abortion and Women's Health
A ground-breaking abortion study from Chile
Before 1989 abortion was legal in Chile; after 1989 it was illegal. The author of a controversial study explains what happened to women's health.
A groundbreaking study of abortion in Chile published last week in the scientific journal PLoS One found that illegal abortion is not associated with maternal mortality. At a time when access to legal abortion is deemed absolutely necessary for women’s health, this shatters long-standing assumptions. In this exclusive interview, Dr Elard S. Koch, the lead author of the study, defends his findings.
MercatorNet: Chile is not alone in restricting abortion. Poland, Malta and Ireland also have very restrictive rules and a low maternal mortality rates. But this has been known for years. Has no one studied it before?
Elard Koch: The Chilean study is the first in-depth analysis of a large time series, year by year, of maternal deaths and their determinants, including years of education, per capita income, total fertility rate, birth order, clean water supply, sanitation, and childbirth delivery by skilled attendants, and including simultaneously different historical policies.
In this sense, it is a unique natural experiment conducted in a developing country. Thus, a first difference between the data from Chile and data from Poland, Malta and Ireland is that, in the case of Chile, there is a rigorous analysis controlled by multiple confounders. It is not a matter of circumstantial or anecdotal evidence, but a matter of scientific data representing real, vital events whose methodology has been published for the first time in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
A second consideration relates to the degree of abortion prohibition in the different countries. Taking into account the countries in your question: in Chile, all types of abortion were prohibited in 1989. In Malta, abortion is banned in all cases but it is not prosecuted when pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. In Ireland, abortion is illegal except in cases of substantial risk to the mother, including the threat of suicide. Finally, in Poland, abortion is prohibited except in the case of danger to the mother’s health, when the pregnancy is the result of a criminal act, or when the foetus is seriously malformed.
It is worth noting that since most European countries allow elective abortion, it may be easier for women from Malta, Ireland, and Poland to travel for an abortion and this may be acting as a confounder which is difficult to control.
In contrast, due to abortion prohibitions in most Latin American countries, it is unlikely that a significant number of abortions can be performed by Chilean women abroad.
In addition, for Poland maternal mortality rates were already low at the time of passing restrictive abortion laws, possibly due to public policies similar to those promoting the decrease of maternal mortality in Chile. To test this hypothesis, analysis of maternal mortality data from this country is required, possibly in a similar manner to the one published for Chilean data.
Finally, the evolution of maternal mortality in Poland, Malta, and Ireland is yet to be analyzed in depth in the formal biomedical literature. In fact, such analysis was also lacking for Chile before our publication.
MercatorNet: Chile’s National Women’s Service (Sernam), estimates that at least 10 percent of maternal deaths are caused by complications from attempted abortions. Abortion is the fourth most common cause of maternal death in Chile. Your comment?
Elard Koch: This constitutes a harmful misinformation spread by Sernam. Indeed, according to the tenth revision of the International Codes of Disease (ICD), in 2008 5 deaths were attributed to codes O00-O07 out of 41 total maternal deaths (codes O00-O99) -- 12% of maternal deaths. Knowledge of and familiarity with the ICD-10 revision quickly orientates interpretation and correct translation. Maternal mortality comprises codes O00 to O99. Codes O00-O08 are labelled “pregnancy with abortive outcome”. In Spanish this should be translated as “Embarazo con desenlace abortivo”, and not “Embarazo terminado en aborto” (literally: pregnancy ended in abortion) as the Chilean Ministry of Health depicts.
To declare that abortion is present in all these pregnancies is misleading, because it is then interpreted as induced abortion and actually means that “10 percent of maternal deaths are caused by complications from attempted abortions”.
In fact, of the 5 cases that took place in 2008, 3 were ectopic pregnancies and 2 were actually unspecified abortions, presumably attributable to clandestine abortion. Thus, a more precise statement should be that 2 out of 41 cases were attributable to complications of abortion. This means 4.87% and not more than 10% of the total maternal deaths registered that year.
Moreover, due to the very low maternal mortality exhibited by Chile, it is inappropriate to use percentages to refer those causes that only have 1 or 2 cases. The risk of maternal death by abortion in Chile was 1 in 2,000,000 women at fertile age in 2008 and 1 in 4,000,000 women at fertile age in 2009.
In other words and from an epidemiological perspective, when the numerators are very low, the proportions and rates are very unstable for comparison purposes because 1 or 2 cases make a big change in the proportion or rates.
As discussed in our article, according to the most recent report published by Chilean National Institute of Statistics, the maternal mortality ratio for 2009 was 16.9 per 100,000 live births (43 deaths) and the figures for indirect causes (codes O99, O98), gestational hypertension and eclampsia (codes O14, O15), abortion (code O06), and other direct obstetric causes were 18 (41.9%), 11 (25.6%), 1 (2.3%) and 13 (30.2%) respectively.
MercatorNet: Some critics argue that the decline is mostly attributed to women's increasing use of misoprostol and mifepristone, which are far safer than other clandestine methods. What will eventually be the effect of widespread use of RU-486 and other do-it-yourself abortion drugs?
Elard Koch: Explaining the decrease of maternal mortality ratio in Chile as a result of using drugs such as misoprostol, mifepristone or RU-486 is speculation unsupported by our epidemiological data. As a scientist, I am concerned about actual empirical data supporting any causal assumption. It is a matter of scientific facts supported by real vital data. Clearly, no study currently exists which seriously supports a decline in maternal mortality associated with the use of abortifacient drugs such as misoprostol or mifeprestone in Chile.
Therefore, this is just a speculative assumption. Indeed, our study shows that global maternal mortality ratio -- as well as mortality by abortion -- steadily decreased from 1965-1967. This was before the development and commercialization of the abovementioned drugs with abortifacient effects.
In fact, these drugs were introduced in the Chilean black market in the late 1990s, making it extremely unlikely that their introduction had any important influence on overall rates of maternal mortality, which were already significantly reduced at that time.
In addition, and as discussed in our article, the methods used to conduct clandestine abortions at present may have lower rates of severe complications than the methods used in the 1960s, mainly based on highly invasive self-conducted procedures. Therefore, the practically null abortion mortality observed in Chile nowadays can be explained by both a reduced number of clandestine abortions and a lower rate of severe abortion-related complications. This phenomenon also seems to be related to joint-effects between increasing educational levels and changes in the reproductive behaviour of Chilean women, an observation that requires further research.
We also discuss the fact that the practically null abortion mortality observed does not imply that there are no illegal or clandestine abortions in Chile nowadays.
Rather, the current abortion mortality ratio and recent epidemiologic studies of abortion rates in this country suggest that clandestine abortion may have been reduced in parallel with maternal mortality and may have currently reached a steady state based on stable ratios between live births and hospitalizations by abortion.
It is to be expected that any major increase in the magnitude of clandestine abortions will necessarily be followed by an increase in abortion hospitalizations. But our analysis shows that Chile exhibits a steady decrease in abortion-related hospitalizations over the last four decades, suggesting a decrease in clandestine abortions. In consequence, by observing the current Chilean registry of hospitalization for any kind of abortion, we can monitor possible changes in the trend of clandestine abortions, whatever the method used.
MercatorNet: In hindsight, was the 1989 ban justified? Did it save lives?
Elard Koch: In Chile, therapeutic abortion was prohibited in 1989 since it was considered unnecessary for protecting the life of the mother and her baby. From the perspective of the Chilean medical practice, the exceptional cases in which the life of the mother is at risk are regarded as a medical ethics problem to be solved by applying the principle of double effect and the concept of indirect abortion.
Thus, in Chile, exceptional problems that require medical intervention to save the life of the mother are considered a decision of medical ethics and not a legal issue. Therefore, any kind of directly provoked abortion was prohibited in 1989, in agreement with Article 19 of the Chilean Constitution which protects the life of the unborn.
The second question -- does it save lives? -- is very complex and important. We can address this important issue from different perspectives.
First, from a public health view, restrictive laws are hypothesized to cause a dissuasive effect on the population, similar to restrictions on tobacco or alcohol consumption. We observed that reduction of maternal mortality in Chile was paralleled by the number of hospitalizations attributable to complications of clandestine abortions. While over 50% of all abortion-related hospitalizations were attributable to complications of clandestine abortions during the 1960s, this proportion decreased rapidly in the following decades.
Indeed, only 12-19% of all hospitalization from abortion can be attributable to clandestine abortions between 2001 and 2008. These data suggest that over time, restrictive laws may have a restraining effect on the practice of abortion and promote its decrease. In fact, Chile exhibits today one of the lowest abortion-related maternal deaths in the world, with a 92.3% decrease since 1989 and a 99.1% accumulated decrease over 50 years.
Second, from the perspective of human life, especially if a developing country is looking to simultaneously protect the life of the mother and the unborn child, a plausible hypothesis after the Chilean study is that abortion restriction may be effective when it is combined with adequately-implemented public policies to increase educational levels of women and to improve access to maternal health facilities. A restrictive law may discourage practice, which is suggested by the decrease of hospitalizations due to clandestine abortions estimated in Chile.
Third, from the perspective of protecting human life from the very beginning, obviously, abortion restriction saves many lives, in contrast to countries where elective -- on demand -- abortion is allowed, because in these countries all the unborn lose their lives.
Finally, it is necessary to remark that our study confirms that abortion prohibition is not related to overall rates of maternal mortality. In other words, making abortion illegal does not increase maternal deaths: it is a matter of scientific fact in our study.
Nevertheless, although our study definitively ruled out any deleterious influence of abortion prohibition on the maternal mortality trend, it cannot be immediately concluded that solely making abortion illegal is a direct causal factor for decreasing maternal mortality by itself.
The reduction in the maternal mortality trend in Chile is controlled by other factors, especially the educational level of women that positively influences other key variables, such as access to maternal health facilities, sanitary services and reproductive behaviour.
Elard S. Koch is an epidemiologist from the Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile.
Paradoxes of Abortion - Carolyn Moynihan discusses an important study
Chile study challenges the “safe abortion” myth
Contrary to claims, a ban on abortion is consistent with one of the world’s lowest maternal mortality rates.
The West, as we know from many statements from the World Health Organisation and reproductive health groups, is anxious to reduce this awful statistic, which is an important aim of the Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, this altogether worthy goal is entangled with another: the reduction of fertility in the developing countries, by the quickest means possible. This means that, often before other basic medical and social improvements are in place, there must be universal access to birth control technology -- not only contraception but abortion.
Abortion, however, must be safe for the woman -- that is, provided by medically qualified people or by medically certified means -- and to be safe it must be legal. Where it is illegal it will happen anyway but it will be unsafe, and often lethal. States which persist in keeping abortion illegal or severely restricted (and not the agents who are pushing this form of birth control) are thus contributing to the dire maternal mortality statistics. And states which ban abortion after it has been legal are similarly putting women’s lives at risk. That, as they say, is the narrative.
There’s just one problem with the drift of this story: there is no proof that it is true. The only hard evidence that we have on the subject of restrictive abortion laws and maternal mortality rates (MMR) is very new and it points in the opposite direction.
Research from Chile published a few days ago shows that, when therapeutic abortion was banned in 1989 after a long period when it had been legal in that country, there was no increase in maternal mortality. None at all. On the contrary, maternal deaths continued to decline. Chile today has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world (16 per 100,000 live births), outstripping the United States (18) and, within the Americas, second only to Canada (9). Rather than the rogue violator of women’s reproductive health that the UN makes it out to be, Chile is looking this week like a model for countries that really want to save the lives of mothers.
Figure 1. Trend for maternal mortality ratio, Chile 1957–2007.
It’s important to note here what the study, Women's Education Level, Maternal Health Facilities, Abortion Legislation and Maternal Deaths: A Natural Experiment in Chile from 1957 to 2007, does not claim. It does not say that making abortion illegal caused a decline in maternal deaths. But it shows, importantly, that the 1989 law did not increase mortality. It continued to decline substantially, although other factors were at work in the decline -- notably, the education of women and their ability to shape their own reproductive behaviour. (The latter does not mean quite what birth control fundamentalists mean, as we shall see.)
The study, published in the open access online journal PLoS One, is the work of Chilean and American researchers led by Dr Elard Koch, epidemiologist and a professor at the University of Chile and Universidad Católica de la SantÃsima Concepción (UCSC). The group, who formed the Chilean Maternal Mortality Research Initiative (CMMRI) for the purpose of the study, had access to exceptionally good data: 50 years of official records from Chile’s National Institute of Statistics, 1957 to 2007. These provide the basis of what the authors call a “natural experiment” in fertility and abortion policy.
What these records show is a dramatic decline in MMR from 1965, when abortions were numerous and abortion was the main cause of mortality, through to 1981; a continuing but slower reduction from 1981 to 2003; and a steady state from 2003 to 2007. To explain this pattern the researchers analysed social policies and trends likely to influence maternal mortality. Here are the key ones, especially for the first phase:
* Delivery by skilled birth attendants. For each 1 per cent increase in the number of deliveries performed by skilled attendants there was an estimated decrease of 4.58 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Clean water and other sanitary improvements also played a part.
* Access to maternal healthcare services. Nutrition programmes for mother and child, coupled with the distribution of fortified milk at primary care clinics created new opportunities for pregnancy and birth care for both mother and child. This strategy practically eradicated malnutrition, increased birth weight and contributed to the noteworthy reduction in infant mortality observed in Chile, 3.1/1000 live births for infants 28 days to 1 year of age.
* Women’s educational level. This, says Koch, is the most important factor, and the one which increased the effect of all other factors. Educating women enhances a woman’s ability to access existing health care resources and directly leads to a reduction in her risk of dying during pregnancy and childbirth. Data showed that for every additional year of maternal education in Chile there was a corresponding decrease in the MMR of 29.3/100,000 live births.
Boosting female education did something else: it brought down the fertility rate (currently the TFR is 1.87). To return to a point mentioned earlier, the authors point out that “education promotes higher autonomy in women, allowing them to take control of their own fertility” using the method they prefer. Interestingly, a majority of Chilean women do not prefer artificial contraceptives. The authors note:
“Although the primary care system currently provides universal access to a variety of contraceptives methods, actual use of hormonal contraceptives and intrauterine devices in Chile reaches approximately 36% of women of reproductive age. Therefore, as in developed nations, other factors not limited to the use of artificial contraceptives seem to be contributing to the reduction in TFR in Chile. One such factor could be women’s increasing level of education.”
And here the news stops being good. At this point Chilean woman meets North American and European and Antipodean woman in a pattern of delayed motherhood -- and pathologies associated with that delay. Koch and colleagues describe this “fertility paradox” as follows:
Although a strong correlation did exist between the decline on the MMR and the reduction on total fertility rate (i.e. the average number of children that would have been born to a woman over her reproductive lifetime), the increase in the number of first pregnancies at advanced ages was directly associated with an increase on maternal deaths. For every 1% increment in primiparous women giving birth older than 30 years of age, an increase of 30 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births was estimated. Thus, when the total fertility decreases and produces a delayed motherhood it can also provoke a deleterious effect on maternal health via an increase of the obstetric risk associated with childbearing at advanced ages.
Before 1980 the causes of MMR in Chile were on the whole directly related to pregnancy and birth. From then on the underlying health problems of “aging pregnancy” began to take over in the mortality stakes: hypertension, diabetes and obesity among others. The problem now, there and here in the developed world, “is not a matter of how many children a mother has, but a matter of when.”
Did the reproductive health brigade get that? Delayed motherhood can be literally deadly. At a certain point, the gains of education and good health and social services are taken too far and recoil upon the modern woman. With the greater part of the world, including many developing countries, now below replacement TFR, maternal mortality from social progress is set to climb before deaths from deprivation have been thoroughly, and one could say properly, addressed.
Koch’s study shows that the custodians of reproductive health profoundly misunderstand the remedy for maternal mortality in developing countries. Will they do any better when they try to come to grips with the fertility paradox?
Carolyn Moynihan is deputy editor of MercatorNet. Posted first at MercatorNet.
Is Same-Sex Marriage a Civil Right?
The Video:
This video, titled “Is Gay Marriage a Civil Right? African-American and Latino Leaders Speak for Themselves," was produced by the National Organization for Marriage as part of an effort to counter the propaganda campaign to equate same-sex marriage with civil rights and the struggle for racial equality.
The Response:
Here is a representative - representative in style and rhetoric as well as 'argument' - from the other side, posted by Scott Rose on the blog Pam's House Blend. You can read the full post HERE.
This video, titled “Is Gay Marriage a Civil Right? African-American and Latino Leaders Speak for Themselves," was produced by the National Organization for Marriage as part of an effort to counter the propaganda campaign to equate same-sex marriage with civil rights and the struggle for racial equality.
The Response:
Here is a representative - representative in style and rhetoric as well as 'argument' - from the other side, posted by Scott Rose on the blog Pam's House Blend. You can read the full post HERE.
For its gay-bashing hate video, NOM did not interview any African-American and Latino leaders who favor LGBT equality.
You read that right; NOM has not posed the question “Is gay marriage a civil right?” in order to provide an objective answer to that question. It has posed the question in a hateful propagandistic attempt to rile African-American and Latino anti-gay bigots up against gay people, to fan, disgracefully, hostilities between the minorities.
NOM and its supporters are scumbag anti-gay bigots.
NOM’s Maggie Gallagher is a lying scumbag. NOM’s Robert George is a lying scumbag.
NOM’s latest hate video lies about civil rights, and lies in implying that no African-American or Latino leader supports LGBT equality.
Compare the video with that response. Which is hate-filled? Who calls whom hateful names? Where in all the propaganda for SSM do you find an objective examination of the question at hand or interviews with opponents of SSM, African-American, Latino, or white?
A few supporters of SSM, like Andrew Sullivan, are willing to engage the argument in a serious way. The overwhelmingly normative response, however, is to engage in precisely the vilification exemplified in Rose's post. Princeton scholar and leading public intellectual, Robert P. George, has co-authored a serious and sustained argument, published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Rose's response is to avoid serious engagement with the argument and instead and absurdly to denounce both the article - as "anti-gay hate speech" - and the Princeton trustees for allowing Professor George to exercise his academic freedom. Rose's treatment of Maggie Gallagher is no less despicable. Again and again, in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, we see the attempt to criminalize rather than respond to the arguments of defenders of the institution of marriage as it has been understood for millennia and across cultures and religions. The aim is to intimidate and silence, to threaten and drive from their jobs and careers those the pro-SSM advocates disagree with - all the while claiming that same-sex marriage will not affect the rest of society.
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