THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH'S REVOLVING DOOR:
For Many Parishioners, Gay Bishops and Gay "Marriage" Were the Last Straws

The New York Times reported this week that once again the membership of the Episcopal Church USA is undergoing migrations in and out the church's doors, this time in response to the ECUSA's ordination of an openly active gay bishop and it's increasingly liberal stance on gay "marriage" or "unions":

...Some lifelong Episcopalians have left their churches, saying the vote to affirm a gay bishop was the last straw in what they saw as the church's long slide away from orthodoxy. Many of these people have started attending Roman Catholic churches.

"It breaks my heart," said Shari de Silva, a neurologist in Fort Wayne, Ind., who converted from Episcopalian to Catholic this year. "I think the Episcopal Church is headed down the path to secular humanism."

Some Episcopal parishes, meanwhile, are welcoming clusters of new members, many from Roman Catholic churches, who say they want to belong to a church that regards inclusivity as a Christian virtue. The newcomers include singles and families, gay people and straight people...

The main church of choice amongst Exiting Episcopalians seems to be the one across the Tiber River in Rome, primarily because...

"...[t]he Catholic Church has reiterated its position on homosexuality, one that is a stark contrast to the Episcopal Church's. In July, the Vatican denounced homosexual acts as 'deviant behavior' and said the church could not condone gay marriage or adoptions by gay couples. In September, the American Catholic bishops said they would support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage."

It seems that in its new gay bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the clueless upper echelon of the ECUSA has found its very own Howard Dean: Robinson is likely to doom the ECUSA to irrelevance, if not extinction, the same way Dr. Dean will ensure the Democratic Party's slow demise, especially after the Presidential election next Fall.

In related news: Today's Washington Times reports that in Canada the liberal Anglican bishop of Vancouver, B.C. has shut down Holy Cross parish for protesting his policy of blessing same-sex "unions." However, the parish's conservative rector, Rev. James Wagner, continues to hold services at his home.

H. L. MENCKEN AND RELIGION:
An "Atheist" Reader Takes Exception

Early last week --barely three days before Christmas Day, of all times!-- a self-styled "atheist" sent us an e-mail to let us "know" something he had apparently already determined we did not know, namely that our "patron saint," early 20th century pundit and skeptic H. L. Mencken, was "agin" religion (as we Virginia gentlemen would put it).

Of course, anyone with more than two brain cells working can tell just by reading a good cross-section of Mencken's writings, the Bard of Baltimore was no friend to the "established" religions of his time --Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish-- and disdained religious belief and theology in general.

No argument there.

The problem, and point of departure with our "atheist" interlocutor, comes when some folks with ideological axes to grind hijack Mencken to make him appear to be one of their crowd. Just do a Google search with "Mencken" and "atheism," and up will pop more "atheists" on the internet than Hosts in Heaven selectively quoting Mencken's most bombastic and less mature statements about religion and religious persons as "proof" that Mencken was an extremist unto their own image and likeness.

Never mind that Mencken at times had some complimentary things to say about some religious persons (cf., his obituary of the scholarly Presbyterian theologian J.Gresham Machen), and even some religious institutions (cf., his comparison of the Catholic and Protestant churches of his time).

And never mind that Mencken never once called himself an atheist, preferring instead to be seen as a "doubter" or a "skeptic," and only because "sound thought," he wrote in 1921 to his then-girlfriend Marion Bloom, cannot take us further than that:

...No sane man denies that the universe presents phenomena quite beyond human understanding, and so it is a fair assumption that they are directed by some understanding that is superhuman. But that is as far as sound thought can go. All religions pretend to go further. That is, they pretend to explain the unknowable...

In other words, to Mencken, both theism and, by implication, atheism (which also "pretends to go further ...[and] explain the unknowable," namely by denying that category en toto) were presumptuous, so he embraced neither camp although he was more sympathetic to the latter. Catholic journalist and Mencken scholar George Weigel puts it this way in his thoughtful First Things article, "God, Man, and H. L. Mencken":

Throughout his mature life, Mencken insisted that he was not an atheist (for such a judgment would require a knowledge that was beyond "sound thought") but rather an agnostic. Asked once what he would do if on his death he found himself facing the twelve apostles, he answered (and in this instance we may be sure that beneath the humor lay deep convictions about intellectual honesty), "I would simply say, 'Gentlemen, I was mistaken.'" Imagine Carl Sagan saying such a thing about the possibility of his encounter with a postmortem minyan, and you begin to understand the difference between the agnostic Mencken and the true village atheist.

Noted essayist and Mencken scholar Joseph Epstein, as cited by Weigel, presents a more nuanced interpretation of Mencken's relationship to religion than the simplistic militant atheist P-R image both Protestant Fundamentalists and Atheist Fundamentalists like to promote:

...[Mencken's] objection to religion is that it represents an effort by ignorance to account for a mystery that knowledge simply puts aside as intrinsically impenetrable...

None of this is to deny that Mencken regularly made mock of religious convictions and practices. But he did it with a deftness and, in most cases, a good humor in which was rarely found the arrogance of sheer contempt. Moreover, Mencken was not insensible to the allure of religion or to religious contributions to what he regarded as the world's meager stock of decency. Thus Mencken on Roman Catholicism in 1923 (and in what some will regard as virtually a prophetic mode):

"The Latin Church, which I constantly find myself admiring, despite its frequent astonishing imbecilities, has always kept clearly before it the fact that religion is not a syllogism, but a poem. . . . Rome, indeed, has not only preserved the original poetry in Christianity; it has made capital additions to that poetry-for example, the poetry of the saints, of Mary, and of the liturgy itself. A solemn high mass must be a thousand times as impressive, to a man with any genuine religious sense in him, as the most powerful sermons ever roared under the big-top by a Presbyterian auctioneer of God. In the face of such overwhelming beauty it is not necessary to belabor the faithful with logic; they are better convinced by letting them alone. . . .

"[But the Roman] clergy begin to grow argumentative, doctrinaire, ridiculous. It is a pity. . . . If they keep on spoiling poetry and spouting ideas, the day will come when some extra-bombastic deacon will astound humanity and insult God by proposing to translate the liturgy into American, that the faithful may be convinced by it."

In summary, as in the areas of politics, economics, social criticism, journalism, and culture Mencken was "a party of [his] own" when it came to religion. Neither atheist nor theist can squeeze him into their prefabricated pigeonholes. He was simply too big for them.

Of course, such "inconvenient" facts serve only to irritate those who prefer caricatures and fantasies over reality, and who --like our "atheist" interlocutor-- prefer to call those who present them "liars" and "sophists" for having the temerity to cast doubt upon those caricatures and fantasies.

HELP WANTED: NEW ANTI-CHRIST NEEDED!
Saddam's Capture Re-Opens Much Sought-After Position

The Office of the Anti-Christ is vacant once again, according to National Review Online columnist and Veteran Rapture Watcher DeLuxe Carl Olson. It seems that Bible prophecy researchers had regarded ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein as the leading candidate for that position.

As End Times expert Timothy LaHaye put it in his 1999 book Are We Living in the End Times? ("a nonfiction companion to the Left Behind series"), "Long before Saddam Hussein became a household name, he was busy fulfilling Bible prophecy" [by rebuilding "Babylon," as Iraq was known in ancient times]. Also said LaHaye, as quoted by Olson,

"As sure as there is a God in heaven who keeps His word, Babylon will live again as ‘the seat of Satan.' . . . Even now, in our lifetime, Babylon is being prepared for its final appearance on the stage of human history. The ancient prophecies about Babylon are unfolding before us — just like so many other prophecies of the end times."

Of course, this scenario went belly-up as soon as U. S. forces found the Anti-Christ and World Dictator hiding in a hole in the Babylonian mud disguised as a Bedford-Styvesant wino --and (in our humble opinion, providentially) only a week before Christmas. Thus ends the satanic career of yet another in a long line of has-beens who have failed to keep the Office of Anti-Christ intact, including Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, Henry Kissinger, Anwar Sadat, Bill Gates, Martha Stewart, and whoever invented those flimsy and practically useless plastic grocery bags.

Just goes to show that you can't find good help anymore.

But Old Scratch seems to have had great difficulty for over 100 years recruiting and keeping reliable personnel to carry out his nefarious work. Perhaps he ought to consider contracting the job out to one of the many high-profile Washington, DC head-hunters. We suspect they would have long lists of former Congressmen, retired CEOs, and practicing lawyers who would easily qualify.

TAKING CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS...
...and Everything Else Too

  Fox News reports that there is an alarming and growing trend afoot to remove all vestiges of our Christian heritage not only from public Yuletide celebrations and displays, but from everything else the public square as well.

It seems militant secularist groups with more time and $$$ than brains on their hands are increasingly Hell-bent upon shoving Christianity, including Christmas itself, and Western religion in general down George Orwell's Memory Hole: 
 
...Burning the flag is considered free speech; erecting crosses as roadside memorials is not. The FCC allows the "F-word" on television, but thanking God at a high school graduation is a no-no. And some schools freely dispense condoms to kids, but pencils that read "Jesus loves little children" were confiscated from a first-grade class in Virginia.

Some, like War on Christianity author David Limbaugh, say the list of examples is long and is evidence of an undeclared cultural war on the religion.

But those on the other side of the battle, like Elliot Minceberg of People for the American Way, point to the Constitutional separation of church and state as the reason behind keeping religion out of public life.

...[But] the Constitution doesn't explicitly discuss separating church and state. Instead, what it does say is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...," which means that, unlike in England, the United States decided not to form an official national religion, nor can the government interfere with the practice of any religion.

In fact, in 1789, in the days after Congress passed the First Amendment, it declared a national day of prayer.

Still, the number of bans on public displays of Christianity continue to grow...

  ...AND TAKING CHRISTMAS OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE:
The American Public Takes on the Grinches

  In his nationally syndicated op-ed column of this past Sunday, pundit John Leo notes that there is a growing popular resistance against efforts by the ACLU and other radical "First Amendment" groups to erase Christmas and traditional seasonal references, as well as Christmas carols and symbols, from all public "holiday" displays and events: 

....on the whole, things are not going well for the Grinches. In New Jersey, for example, the Hanover Township school district said it was considering a ban on Christmas carols and other religious songs at school concerts. Parents protested and threatened to sue, so the school board beat a hasty retreat. “If a school wants religious music, they can have it, the way they could before,” said the school board president.

The key phrase here is “threatened to sue.” In the old days, when an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer would show up to hammer some tiny school board into submission, the legal costs of resisting were so high that the boards usually caved in. Now the anti-Grinches have legal muscle of their own. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which supported the Hanover parents, claims to have 700 lawyers ready to fight anti-Christmas assaults around the country. The ADF played a lead role in blocking an attempt by the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League to force a charter school in Elbert County, Colo., to ban religious songs from its holiday concert. The Anti-Defamation League said the school’s program was harming the sense of well-being of Jewish students. But how harmful can it be to sing six Christmas carols, two Hanukkah songs, and a lot of ditties about Rudolph and Frosty?

In Plano, Texas, a school district refused to allow a third grader at a class party to hand out candy canes with a religious message attached. The Liberty Legal Institute and the ADF jumped in last week and demanded that the district back down, arguing that “public schools are not zones of religious censorship.”

The [Catholic] Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., supported a parent’s legal challenge to the New York City public schools’ policy that allows the Islamic star and crescent and the Jewish menorah (which the Anti-Defamation League concedes is a religious symbol) but not Christian religious symbols such as a Nativity display. The schools’ chancellor offered a tortured argument in court: The menorah has a “secular dimension” large enough to qualify as nonreligious. The judge, who was caustic about the school policy during arguments, is expected to rule any day....

STILL STUPID AFTER ALL THESE YEARS:
PETA "Hires" the Blessed Virgin Mary

Just when we thought there was already too much eye pollution along the nation's highways, along comes the perennially obnoxious "animal rights" group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to add even more, this time in the form of a billboard in Rhode Island and (eventually) five other states seemingly designed to offend Catholics. We say "seemingly" because, it turns out, what PETA really had in mind was appealing to Catholics in its ongoing anti-meateating campaign.

The billboard in question depicts Jesus' Mom holding a dead chicken. Alongside this "icon" in large, bold text is the message "Go Vegetarian. It's an Immaculate Conception." The "O" in "Go" resembles a Celtic cross.

In response to an avalanche of protesting emails, letters, and phone calls from offended Catholics (including William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights) and other Christians (including the Rev. John E. Holt, head of the Rhode Island Council of Churches, who found the billboard "insulting to any Christian"), PETA "explained" that the ad was designed by "a devout Catholic" on PETA's staff and, according to PETA Director Bruce Friedrich (who says he's "a practicing Catholic"), was intended to "raise awareness" of the "plight of chickens" to Catholics, not mock their faith.

"Mary is the embodiment of selfless love and compassion," Friedrich said. "The most oppressed creatures on the planet are chickens." Friedrich added that "The intention isn't to offend people. The intention is to shock people into thinking about the violence they are supporting."

Instead, what Friedrich really succeeded in doing was make even more people think about what utter dunderheads he and his comrades can be. PETA, which seems consistently run by dumb clucks, continues to be even more clueless than the pea-brained poultry they want the rest of us to help them rescue.

ON MUSIC AND SUFFERING:
Within the Darkest of Times Can Lie Beauty and Heroism

Two months ago we noted that Washington DC area singer and recording artist Grace Griffith, a long-time fixture in the DC-MD-VA folk & Celtic music scene, had begun to experience debilitating advanced stages of Parkinson’s Disease and that she was determined to keep making music in the face of it –and to keep mentoring up-and-coming young artists, such as the late Eva Cassidy, whom Griffith almost single-handedly launched to international stardom despite her awareness of the cost to her own career.

On another note of heroism on the part of another artist, we found in this month’s edition of First Things a particularly moving and thoughtful piece written by theology professor Peter M. Chandler, Jr., a tribute to the late singer Johnny Cash, who died three months ago at age 71 after several years of declining health.

Chandler focuses on how Cash used the suffering in his own life, up to and including his impending death, to grow as an artist and thereby leave behind a body of some of the most remarkable and remarkably original music in modern history. This was only possible, notes Chandler, because in his music Cash both embraced and revealed his own soul, drawing no distinction between himself as a man and himself as an artist:

…Johnny was the kind of person who could simultaneously hold in tension the conflicting parts of his personality and communicate to those who are alienated by a deeply counterfeit culture —particularly a counterfeit Christianity. …We seem to prefer the smile that conceals an inner deception to the honest purgative truth about ourselves. But with Johnny it was otherwise.

That’s because he lived, sang, and played truthfully. There was in him no hint of fraud. At a time when he could have resurrected his career by riding the coattails of others’ popularity (as is the trend today), Johnny did the reverse. On 1994’s American Recordings (on the cover he stands in a field wearing a long black preacher’s coat, alone except for two dogs), he did not simply return to the “old” Johnny Cash and commodify himself for a younger audience. …in a world full of fakes, Cash was authentic.

…[I]n a culture that by and large loves death but does not know what to do with it —a culture simultaneously repulsed and attracted by it— Johnny’s confrontation with his own imminent demise was largely misunderstood. The critics who complained that his voice was not what it used to be missed the point entirely. It is precisely because his voice was not what it used to be that the songs have such power. The beauty of the record lies in that very frailty, the tremolo in his voice that became more pronounced with each album. Even in his younger days, the inimitable strength and fortitude in his voice was mixed with the occasional moment of weakness, the odd quaver and show of vulnerability. In the last few years those moments became more frequent, and his voice became more diaphonous, disclosing more of the effects of illness.

Yet for that very reason, Cash’s voice was all the more beautiful —it had a weakness stronger than others’ strengths….

ON GIVING THANKS:
It's About So Much More Than the Food

In his wonderful reflection this past Thursday, St. Blog's own inimitable Fr. Rob Johansen (who like yours truly is grateful for "good Scotch whisky, good Bourbon, cigars, and micro-brewed beers," among other things) reminds us what Thanksgiving should be all about. In part, he notes:

Gratitude is an indicator of holiness. If you read the writings of, or the Lives of, the great Saints, you'll see that they were suffused with a spirit of Gratitude. They were always thanking God for all they had, and taking notice of the smallest blessings.

Gratitude is also a remedy against Sin. It's the times when I'm most self-satisfied and taking things for granted that I end up being the most susceptible to temptation, and prone to become self-absorbed. Gratitude takes the attention away from yourself and puts it on the Giver. If you make the effort to practice gratitude, you will be come Holy. It's that simple....

There's a "CAT IN THE HAT" MOVIE REVIEW
penned in Dr. Seuss style.
We came across it on the Internet,
reading e-mail awhile.

It's funny and clever,
and as you can see,
is written by a Cath'lic fellow
who has one kid and three.

The reviewer loves the Cat books,
which he knows by heart,
but he says the movie version
is not worthy Seuss art.

The alarmed writer warns
there's no more innocence there,
so in his opinion,
"Parents, beware!"

So it seems Hollywood moguls
have screwed the thing up,
making Seuss fans wonder
if there were drugs in their cup.

MASSACHUSETTS’ JUDICIAL COUP D’ETAT:
Did Four Judges Turn the Bay State Into a Banana Republic?

In the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision legalizing gay "marriage," Daily Standard columnist Hugh Hewitt thinks so:

"JOHN MARSHALL has made his decision," Andrew Jackson is said to have remarked in the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision he disliked, "now let him enforce it."

…It is an interesting time for the Massachusetts Supreme Court to have seized control of the elected branches in its state, given the connection between Thanksgiving and the Bay State. Unlike its neighbor to the north, the Look-at-Me State of Vermont, Massachusetts actually has a place in the collective national consciousness and Americans of all regions are interested in its history. Now, in the aftermath of Tuesday's radical diktat from four justices to Massachusetts' elected representatives, Americans are interested in the state's future as well.

…the people of Massachusetts … didn't sign up for a banana republic run by pretenders in robes, and no one in the state's illustrious history ever sacrificed life or limb --from Boston Harbor to Concord, Antietam or the battlefields of Europe and Asia-- for the proposition that four judges get to change everything when they decide to conjure up a reason for doing so….

JACK KENNEDY AND THE CATHOLIC FAITH:
At His Death, JFK’s Catholicism May Have Been More Pivotal Than During His Life

Catholic Exchange writer Michael H. Brown ponders the effect of the Catholic faith on both JFK himself and his wife Jackie, despite JFK's now well-known philandering as well as his indulgence in reckless behavior in other matters, including geopolitics (e.g., the Bay of Pigs debacle and several misguided covert attempts to assassinate Castro).

For example, Brown notes:

Kennedy, despite his roguish ways, had a streak of devotion inspired by his mother Rose — a daily communicant — and so did his wife, who in Dallas had prayed with a priest as he administered the last anointing.

…Did the sacrament count? No one was sure. Extreme Unction — as it was then known — was not valid if the soul had departed. Father Huber sensed that Kennedy's soul was still there. "Through this anointing, may God forgive you whatever sins you may have committed," he had prayed. Through a faculty granted by the Holy See he dispensed remission of sins and a plenary indulgence….

NOVEMBER 22, 40 YEARS LATER:
Noted Blogger Mark Shea Asks His Readers, "Where Were You...?"

Read some fascinating rememberances of that tragic day in Mark's Comments Box HERE

WHAT'S IN IT FOR THE REST OF US?
On Legislating Same-Sex "Marriage" vs. the Common Good

One of the most fundamental principles upon which civil law is based is the concept of "the Common Good," i.e., what is best for the stability and healthy growth of society as a whole. For example, society as a whole benefits greatly when laws and policies are enacted which give deference and certain advantages to men wed to women and vice versa. Why? Because, among other things, it is from these unions that children --and future citizens-- spring. And the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable the children, the happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- are the citizens they become.

Moreover, even without children coming from their unions, the evidence has shown since the beginning of recorded history that married adults tend to be happier, more well-adjusted, and more stable --and more productive-- as couples than they are as singles. This in turn makes the whole fabric of society stronger and more resilient, particularly because marriage is as much about, if not more about, shared life goals, shared interests, shared enterprises, and shared values than it is about shared beds.

Hence, the protection and strengthening of this timeless and universal institution of monogamous, one-man-and-one-woman-for-life is for the Common Good. And it's no accident that every human society on every continent on this planet since Homo Sapiens arose on the planet has had laws protecting it as well as giving special deference to it. Contrariwise, none of them --with the possible exceptions of ancient Sparta or a handful of polygamous tribal cultures-- has ever legalized or otherwise given the social stamp of approval to "alternative life-style" "unions." That's because they weren't stupid, even if they may have been "intolerant" and "unenlightened" by presumptuous modern Western secularist standards.

Yet all this seems to have been completely forgotten by the four judges sitting on Massachusetts' highest court this week. In fact, they've completely ignored, if not completely jettisoned, the principle of the Common Good when they decided instead that, in essence, official recognition of unions between two adults should be based solely on the whims and preferences of the two adults in question --i.e., merely because "they love each other." In fact, the judges themselves said as much, and there can be no other explanation for their decision; for in what ways can same-sex "marriages" serve the Common Good, as outlined above? The answer is "none," for --by their very nature-- they cannot.

MASSACHUSETTS' COUNTERFEIT MARRIAGE PROPOSAL:
Devalueing Marriage the Way "Counterfeit Money Devalues the Real Thing"

In yesterday's USA Today, op-ed guest columnist Tony Perkins focuses on the central absurdities and disasterous implications of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's asininely arrogant decision to radically redefine marriage by lifting the state ban on same-sex marriage:

....Marriage is the most fundamental institution of society. The law does not create it, it merely recognizes it. Marriage exists to bridge the gap between the sexes by bringing a man and a woman together in the context that is best for the reproduction of the human race and for raising children to be responsible adults. Healthy families are beneficial to the state.

A large and growing body of social science research has shown that husbands and wives and their children are happier, healthier and more prosperous than adults or children in any other living arrangement. The benefits conferred upon marriage under the law are not an entitlement — they are a recognition of the benefits that marriage confers upon society.

Other research has shown that same-sex relationships lack permanence and fidelity. Therefore, if such unions are recognized as "marriage," those values will be further stripped from the ideal of marriage that is held up to our children.

The deliberate creation of motherless and fatherless families will have the government's highest stamp of approval. Expanding the definition of marriage will weaken the institution, not strengthen it, in the same way that counterfeit money devalues even the real thing.....

Next to come down the pike, as surely as we stand here, is the legalization of polygamy and group "marriage," if not incest as well --the end result being the end of marriage itself.

Far fetched? Paranoid? Absurd? NOT REALLY, as Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow with the Hoover Institution, points out.

MARRIAGE: "NOTHING TO DO WITH GETTING CHILDREN WHAT THEY NEED":
Columnist Maggie Gallegher's Analysis Cuts Through Massachusetts B.S.

Observes Gallagher in her column today:

Four judges in Massachusetts, ruling in a same-sex marriage case, have decided that children don't need mothers and fathers, that marriage has nothing to do with getting children what they need. Marriage is a passing plaything of the latest fashionable ideology, a toy for adults with graduate degrees to tinker with, at their pleasure.

[These judges] displayed their own massive ignorance about marriage, its history and its public purposes. Four people claim that "the government creates marriage." There is no rational reason, they claim, for the state legislature to require that for a marriage you need a husband and a wife, who can become a mother and a father for their children.

So why have marriage at all?, Gallagher asks. Because [quoting the judges]:

"Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones. It is central to the way the Commonwealth identifies individuals, provides for the orderly distribution of property, insures that children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds, and tracks important epidemiological and demographic data."

Translation: "So that the civil government can operate more efficiently" and, as Gallagher points out, in this mindset,

"Marriage is whatever the adults want. People have a right to conduct a great social experiment on children because, well, adults want to do it, and doing your own thing is the new law of the land.

As one philosopher pointed out long ago regarding pantheism, if everything is God then there is no such thing as God, for there is no dictinction between the Creator and the created. Likewise, the bottom line is that if marriage can be any and every sort of "relationship" between any and every sort of couple --i.e., there are no dictinctions to be made between marriage and mere coupling-- then, ultimately, there's no such thing as marriage.

MASSACHUSETTS COURT LEGALIZES GAY MARRIAGE:
Plans Now Underway to Legalize All Other Unions

In the wake of its decision to lift the ban on same-sex marriage, the Massachusetts Supreme Court will soon be hearing cases in support of other non-traditional unions.

Consider, for example, the efforts of the National Association of Narcissists to seek the legalization of same-person marriage. Or the campaign by the animal rights advocacy group, People for Equal Treatment of Animals, promoting the right of their members to marry their pets. Then there are all those guys who are married to their jobs, their golf clubs, their remotes, or their SUVs --but with no legal recognition whatsoever.

How unfair.

But let not your heart be troubled, at least if you live in Massachusetts: It's only a matter of time.

INTRODUCING "THE PERKY PAPIST":
A Promising New Blog Penned by the Irrepressible Meg Quinn...

...a very talented Catholic writer, and a friend of yours truly.

May her tribe --and content-- increase!

"WAS TERRI BEATEN IN 1990?"
Nat Hentoff Continues His Inquiry Into the Terri Case

This past Friday, in the latest installment of his columns on the Terri Schindler-Schaivo case, Hentoff notes that a Federal agency, the Advocacy Center for Persons With Disabilities (ACPD),

...has sent Michael Schiavo's lawyer a request that he authorize the release of Terri Schiavo's medical records. There was initial resistance, but the records have been turned over.

The purpose for this request by the ACPD is to be better able to determine if husband and guardian Michael Schiavo was telling the truth about how his wife underwent the heart failure which resulted in her brain damaged and quadraplegic condition.

NEW HOPE FOR TERRI?
Nat Hentoff Thinks So In His Follow-up Column

Notes Hentoff this past Tuesday:

In the most bitterly contested right-to-die or right-to-life case in many years, Terri Schiavo's husband and legal guardian, Michael, is back in court urging the removal of her feeding tube. But now, a federally funded investigation has begun by a disability advocacy agency. And a renowned forensic pathologist is asking questions about what actually put Terri in her current condition....

...The investigation — as Jeff Johnson reported on CNSNews.com Oct. 29 (and confirmed by Patricia Anderson, the attorney for Terri's parents) — will probe allegations of neglect and abuse, including therapy judgments, during Michael Schiavo's guardianship of his wife...

On another related note: Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, are scheduled to be interviewed on CNN's Larry King Live this Friday (Nov. 14) at 9:00 PM, Eastern time.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
Mark Shea Responds to Scrappleface's "Report" About the "Matrix" Filmmakers

"As a friend of mine said, it takes a peculiar sort of mind to attend academic conferences in which brilliant people offer massive, closely-reason monographs proving that language has no meaning, especially when they then break for lunch and haggle with the waitress over the bill."

NAT HENTOFF ON THE TERRI "RIGHT-TO-DIE" CASE:
Establishment Media Engaging in "Journalistic Malpractice"

Nationally syndicated Village Voice columnist and long-time pro-life libertarian Nat Hentoff had some choice things to say today about the major media's "reporting" of the court fight in Florida to save brain-damaged Terri Schindler-Schiavo from a court-ordered death via starvation and dehydration:

I have covered highly visible, dramatic "right to die" cases—including those of Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan—for more than 25 years. Each time, most of the media, mirroring one another, have been shoddy and inaccurate.

The reporting on the fierce battle for the life of 39-year-old Terri Schiavo has been the worst case of this kind of journalistic malpractice I've seen.....

The media continually report that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state, and a number of neurologists and bioethicists have more than implied to the press that "persistent" is actually synonymous with "permanent." This is not true, as I shall factually demonstrate in upcoming columns. I will also provide statements from neurologists who say that if Terri were given the proper therapy —denied to her by her husband and guardian after he decided therapy was becoming too expensive despite $750,000 from a malpractice suit— she could learn to eat by herself and become more responsive....

...In all the stories on Terri Schiavo and her parents' determined efforts to save her life, the media continually report that the Florida legislature intervened because of many thousands of calls, letters, and e-mails from the Christian Right and pro-lifers. Those groups and individuals are indeed a major factor in rousing support to prevent Terri from being starved to death. But among the many others who sent urgent messages are disabled Americans and their organizations....

...[Yet] I have seen hardly any mention in the press of the deeply concerned voices of the disabled, many of whom, in their own lives, have survived being terminated by bioethicists and other physicians who strongly believe that certain lives are not worth living....

[Many thanks to Amy Wellborn for making us aware of Hentoff's very timely column.]