A movement based openly on lies

Is a movement that should be avoided.  As should be those organizations and agencies that support that movement by sharing the lies, or simply avoiding mentioning the lies.  My first question when I saw the headline was 'What surgeries?  We've been told for a dozen years that nobody is performing sex change surgeries on minors.': 

Here is the story.  The second image is from one of many such discussion a few years ago. 

Yep. What do you expect from a movement that insists there is no objective biological gender or that men can have babies?  Of course originally, the Trans Rights movement was a fringe offshoot worried about people trying to keep tax payer funding from going for sex change operations on adults, often in prison or similar institutions. 

Then the Mental Health Industry dropped the bomb and said transgenderism was no longer a mental health problem.  Which shocked everyone at the time.  How could this be?  If I say I'm Napoleon Bonaparte, you'll say I have a mental health problem that needs addressed.  

Easy.  We'll just say there is no objective definition of Napoleon Bonaparte.  In the case of Transgenderism, we'll just say there is merely a myth that was thrust upon humanity that gender is binary (male and female of species) or that it has anything to do with our bodies.  

What was stunning was the speed with which this was picked up and enforced.  It took the Obama Administration no time to pick up phone and pen and announce that anyone receiving federal funding will accommodate this new post-gender reality or pay the piper.  Which was quickly mandated across the country, often becoming a problem when it resulted in a four year old girl in a bathroom with a 300 pound biker named Thor.

But it was clear that the Left now sanctioned this new 'squares are in fact round' reality:  Anything to destroy any truth claim of the Christian, Western Tradition. The press, academia, much of the medical world, certainly the entertainment industry, and at least by omission, the Democrats.  Liberal branches of various religious traditions also jumped on board.  See Dave's Rules of History: That no matter how stupid or evil something is, if the ruling institutions sanction it, 1/3 of the population will jump on board, and 1/3 will simply look away and avoid talking about it. 

Of course all of this was still largely confined to accommodating men with a yearning for showering and relieving themselves in women's facilities.  When it came to sex changes, we were assured without hesitation that this only pertained to adults, that no procedures were done on minors.  

As it became clear that minors were, in fact, receiving guidance and even medical procedures to change their sex, suddenly it became true and obvious.  Though we were assured that at no point would parents ever, ever be kept out of the loop.  Plus, it was only a vicious transphobic lie that minors were actually being surgically altered.

By the 2020s, the movement came to Ohio.  And by that time, the jig was up.  Activists pouring into the State House made it clear that parents in no way can be allowed to harm their trans children by denying them the only care that will keep them from killing themselves (the 'condone or suicide' tactic being something the whole of the Gay Rights Movement had already adopted years before).  However - and this is important - it was still screamed from the rooftops that nobody, and they mean nobody, was performing surgeries on minors.

A rare photo of our bishops confronting transgenderism

Of course we knew all of this was and had been lies. Though that dead thing people used to call the news media has all but ignored the stories.  So getting information was difficult, and that happy second 1/3 of the population was free to ignore since the press certainly wouldn't actually investigate the movement.  And I include most of the modern Church leadership in this category.  

Now, of course, with stories emerging of high profile lawsuits going the way of young girls who were given mastectomies as minors, it's been hard to contain.  The press still largely ignores it, but it's out there and the press knows it.  So we have this.  Acting like it's no big deal.  Of course they're performing surgeries.  Has anyone said otherwise?  So what do you think of Trump ending care for this?  

None of this is to address the trend of rising violence and violent rhetoric of the transgender movement.  The horrifying threats and attacks on women, the mocking of victims of transgender shooters.  Nope.  This is merely pointing out that the entire movement from its Mental Health Industry sanctioned kick off has been one giant lie, wrapped in lies, and for nothing other than to do what it had to lie about since it admitted at the time it would be a grave evil to cut up minors.  

When the entire substance of a movement has been lie, lie, lie, slander, attack, harm children, destroy families, lie and lie some more, I'd wager it's a movement one should flee from.  All movements have people and people can do bad things.  But when a the essence of a movement has shown itself time and again to be driven by evil, to do evil, to be grounded in evil, to celebrate evil, and to consistently lie and slander to accomplish that evil, one becomes a living mockery of God and man to do anything other than condemn it. 

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  John 8.44

Maybe it is time to stop with the talking points

We live in an era where violence and stigmatizing is across the board. We saw seen four policemen shot, one killed, in two days in our neck of the woods. We just witnessed two separate attacks on Jewish Americans, resulting in fatalities. People in every demographic are facing the results of our modern society's insistence that we break apart and hate each other. So why is this particular group somehow uniquely harmed by this so as to take it to the next level? Just saying 'mistreatment or stigmatized' - especially in our age where across our nation the LGBTQ community is almost deified, celebrated, defended and endorsed and supported - just doesn't cut it.  Again, the days of just yelling 'Bigots!' as the all explaining answer to everything is fading, at least if we really care and want to solve the problems.

Courage, Rebel, Counterculture, Non-Conformist

Are words that came to my mind as I note the growing whirlwind of rage from the always tolerant and open minded progressive wing of American society.  That whirlwind involves Harrison Butker, a kicker for the Kansas City Swifts.  Apparently a more traditional leaning Catholic, he gave a commencement speech at Benedictine College.  This might be because he now holds the record for the longest kick in a Super Bowl game ever.  One that figured prominently in the team's victory I'm told.  I don't know.  

Anyhoo, from the clips the news showed this morning, he must have questioned abortion rights.  He spoke of pride in light of God, rather than the pride we see demonstrated in June. Which was reported as an attack on the LGBTQ community (note: does this mean they're saying the type of pride he condemns is, in fact, what is celebrated in June?).  And he said no matter what women in the audience want to accomplish in Corporate America, the real excitement they're waiting for is the beauty of childbirth and family.  

That last part seems to be what really got people.  In a nation that celebrates that most wonderful accomplishment of aborting 60 million pregnancies in barely three generations, you can see why.  I mean, the central message of modern progressivism is that the only reason God decided to exist was to create a vast universe spinning around me.  So suggesting anything close to giving oneself up for others is anathema.  

I've seen some pointing out that the NFL not immediately throwing him out, as compared to Colin Kaepernick who wasn't immediately thrown out, just shows racism and all.  Others - and I saw plenty of examples, since the news broadcasts only showed the critics - attacked him for...thinking women should be excited by childbirth?  Pride isn't good?  I don't know.  A whole lot of people were interviewed and quoted, outrage and more self-righteous outrage and indignation, and yet nobody said exactly what was wrong with the substance of what he said.  As usual, it was just assumed that, having not conformed to leftwing same think, it had to be stupid, wrong, hateful and evil.  At least from what I've seen so far.  I'm sure editorials explaining just what was wrong will be forthcoming.  

For instance, on Good Morning America, Robin Roberts said the problem was that a graduation speech should be about the grads, not about the speaker's opinions.  I'll have to find other examples of leftwing speakers vomiting leftwing ideological and political opinions and see if she reacted that way as well. 

On the whole, this is what being a counterculture rebel, a non-conformist, and demonstrating a certain level of courage is all about.  Conforming to post-Christian secular leftwing ideology today is about as courageous as wearing scarlet and gray to an Ohio State football game in Columbus.  But challenging leftwing dogma and activism?  When running afoul of progressive tolerance and inclusion and diversity, you're probably being as courageous as you can be outside of a real totalitarian state. 

Added Note:  I should mention that, as I prepared to publish this, I was informed by one of my sons  that there is pushback against the MSM witch hunt.  And not just conservatives.  Apparently some on the liberal side are saying hey, the guy is a Catholic speaking at a private Catholic university.  It's his beliefs.  Take a chill pill people.   Let liberal Catholics freak out and go Fred Phelps on the guy.  So not all on the Left are into this, just most in the media from what I can tell.  

More leftwing tolerance.  Now about that guy paid millions to throw a football calling cops racist

UPDATE:  That didn't take long:

From an order that appears proud to have kicked the habit, as they say.  

How old am I?

I'm old enough to remember when the Gay Rights Movement insisted nobody would ever be punished for disagreeing with gay marriage.  That was back in the 80s, when the - then - ludicrous notion that we could redefine marriage to include a gay couple was first floated.  As usual, the non liberals saw a clash of interests if gay marriage ever became a thing.  That was certainly an issue when I entered ministry, yet more than one liberal leaning colleague couldn't understand the worries.  Nothing but paranoia (or latent homosexual desires) they insisted.  All they wanted was for two adults to be able to be married and express their love for one another.  At no point would someone who disagrees be punished.  

Again, if I had three nickels for every time a progressive activist insisted they won't do something, only to watch them do it a few years later, I could buy Twitter.  It happens so regularly that, by now, we realize it isn't a coincidence or some strange development that occasionally happens.  It is part of the strategy, and has been all along. 

Oh, and that goes for the liberal objection that Kim Davis broke the law.  Yeah.  That's what comes from doing what those liberals I grew up with said is a no-no: legislating morality to impose your values on others.  You can never impose your values on others, so I was told a million times.  Again, here today, gone yesterday.  That is the modernist approach to principles. 

2SLGBTQI+?

I remember when writing something like 2SLGBTQI+ was a joke, a slight.  An insult.  It was a way of digging the LGBT community back in the day.  The community that, instead of confronting the question of just what makes a bi-sexual person only bi-sexual if a gay person is a matter of birth, simply added bi-sexual to the list of 'born that way.'  Because of course it did. 

Most non-conformists saw the problem, and stupidity. At that point, however, we should have realized the precarious position we were in for having allowed a generation of barn bat crazy kvetches ascend to the level of 'authoritative expert'.  We should have done something about it while there was still time. 

Many leftists blast Babylon Bee for not being funny.  In fairness, they are correct.  I seldom find BB to be terribly amusing.  That's because its sympathies swing toward conservative, and thus it spends its time trying mock and lampoon liberalism.  But when you see what liberalism has become, that's a mighty tall order.  How does one mock such a thing that is well beyond mockery?  Except to remember this is an official release from a Western government in the 21st Century world. 

I've quoted my son before but it bears repeating.  With each passing day the Left drags the world into this pit of madness and duplicitous turpitude, it becomes easier to sympathize with the Germans who lived in the 1930s.  

Important message from Pope Francis to Fr. James Martin

 R.P. James Martin, SJ

Querido hermano,

Muchas gracias por tu correo. Gracias por todo el bien que estás haciendo. ¡Gracias!

Rezo por vos, por favor hacélo por mi.

Les envio un cordial saludo a los miembros de la reunión en la Universidad de Fordham. Te agradezco se los haga llegar. En mi oración y buenos deseos están vos y todos los que trabajan en la Conferencia Outreach.

De nuevo, gracias, gracias por tu testimonio.

Que Jesús te bendiga y la Virgen Santa los cuide.

Fraternamente,

Francisco

English translation

5/6/23

R.P. James Martin, SJ

Dear brother,

Thank you very much for your email. Thank you for all the good you are doing. Thank you!

I pray for you, please do so for me.

I send my best regards to the members of the meeting at Fordham University. Thank you for delivering it to them. In my prayers and good wishes are you and all who are working at the Outreach Conference.

Again, thank you, thank you for your witness.

May Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin take care of you.

Fraternally,

Francisco

Transgenderism and the Mark of the Beast

How's that for hyperbole?  I obviously read through Revelation during Lent.  It's one of my favorite books of the Bible, just because.  

I don't get into how locusts prove Russian helicopters or the prophet represents The Beatles.  I do feel the  book is given to Christians at that time in history for Christians through all times in history.  One of the mega-lessons is perseverance.  Don't lose faith. Stay close to God, even when the world seems to be collapsing around you and turning against you.

Yes, there are certainly digs against things like Rome that are steeped in apocryphal symbolism.  But the greater message is that as the Church struggles with its place in Rome, and as Rome changes and events unfold, it's important to remember what the Gospel is all about.  Don't be like those who curse God.  Don't be like some in the seven churches who simply find ways to compromise with the pagan world.  Be faithful, even to the point of persecution.

A famous passage from the book is the Mark of the Beast.  Theologians have pondered that for centuries.  Most agree it has to do with gematria, calculating the number given and ending up with a name, likely Nero.  There are debates of course, as there always are in scholarship.  But everyone agrees that it would have made sense to the first century reader within the Christian beltway. 

Debates about particulars aside, the Mark represents the willingness of people to sign off on the grave evils of the age in order to get along.  In order to continue buying and selling in the marketplace, you sign off on something that is clear and obvious evil - an afront to God.  You receive the Mark willingly. 

Therefore, the Mark is simply that thing which you openly and willingly accept in order to keep on keeping on, rather than suffer hardships or persecution.  In Nazi Germany, the Mark was going along with, if not supporting, the Nazis.  In the Jim Crow south, accepting or defending Jim Crow racism.  It might be continuing to support and defend the sexual revolution in light of 36 million dead from AIDS. It could be turning a blind eye to the oppressions in the Islamic world or persecution in China out of fealty to an ideology.   It typically means something so nakedly bad with overwhelming evidence that it's without excuse, and yet you sign on anyway. 

Hence transgenderism, which I have called the eugenics of the 21st Century.  In fairness to eugenics, it's likely that the average schmuck in America or Europe had little to no clue about eugenics or the practices visited upon people groups because of the theory.  Most were likely ignorant of such evils.  

Transgenderism, which continues to lower the age in which we will surgically alter the bodies of teens, push to keep parents from having say, and increasingly says anyone who believes in boys and girls had best watch their derrières, is not hidden in the halls of science and academia.  It is visible for all to see, shouted from the rooftops and increasingly laid out as the Mark you will receive if you wish to continue buying and selling in the marketplace.  Hence, Mark of the Beast.  It's obvious, it's clear, most in their guts know it is bad news, most with brain cells know it is idiocy and lies.  The harm and damage done?  It can be put in lights on Broadway and we won't say anything.  It is pure evil based on cowardly idiocy. 

Yet how many are fully embracing it?  How many more are simply burying their heads in the sand to avoid it?  That second one is also a way to receive the Mark.  Remember, the Mark merely symbolizes a willingness to openly and willingly side with a force of evil in order to keep on with life in this world.  The point of Revelation being that if you do so, then this world is likely all you're going to get.  

I think she means Fr. James Martin

I could be wrong, because she mentions no names.  But Simcha Fisher is pretty upset about those trying to sweep the problems with Bishop Weakland under the carpet.  

Now, I had never heard of the fellow. RIP.  Apparently he was heavily linked to the cover ups in the sex abuse scandal.  That, remember, is what really made the Church look bad.  Only anti-Catholic bigots would fry the Church over the sinful actions of some priests.  But it was the systemic cover ups that sent the reputation over the edge. 

I've seen Fr. James Martin's response to his death criticized in multiple venues .  Donald McClarey's The American Catholic is just one site that looked aghast at Fr. Martin's all but ignoring the real problems with Bishop Weakland.  To see Fr. Martin's response, you'd think the baddies were the ones who had a problem with the bishop paying for gay sex.  He mentions nothing at all about Bishop Weakland's links to the sex abuse scandal.  Which, per Ms. Fisher, is a no-no and fails to account for the ongoing pain from the abuse scandal.  Though, again, she mentions nobody by name. 

Ms. Fisher does bring in Covid and links her point to those who questioned various approaches to the Covid pandemic.  Personally I don't see a connection between those questioning the ever evolving responses to the Covid pandemic and those who enabled and defended the sex abuse scandal.  But that's just me.  Ms. Fisher and I obviously disagree. 

UPDATE:

It looks like Fr. Martin apologized.  

He apologized for ignoring the abuse scandal aspect of Bishop Weakland's legacy.  More importantly he apologized for making one sin sound like all the others in order to defend him.  This is an argument, it's worth noting, he has used before about those who indulge in the sins to the left of center.  So that was actually not at all out of step for him.  Does that mean he is retracting that line of reasoning where participants in the sins of the Left are concerned?  We'll see.  If so, then that is definitely a step in the right direction.  As it is, he apologized and that should be good enough for any Christian. 

Google ironically ignores Father's Day for Juneteenth

Not a white person in sight

Yep.  Probably no demographic group has been more devastated by absent fatherhood and the rise of broken families more than African Americans.  In fact, it's become so obvious that we say it and miss the implications of what we're saying.   

A few years ago, to demonstrate the idea of 'privilege', some PSA organization produced a video.  In that video, it had a hundred or so people line up on one side of a field.  Then the narrator asked questions.  If the answer was yes (or no, can't remember which), you stayed put while everyone else stepped forward.  The line of people attempted to represent people from every possible demographic group, and who had the real privilege at the end. 

The first question out of the box was 'How many of you gre3w up in a broken home?'  It seemed almost half the people stayed put.  And of those who stayed put, the vast majority were black.  And among those who remained to continue the walk across the field, very few blacks were left.

The message was supposed to be what privilege is really all about. Yet nobody who made the video, or the outlets that showed and promoted the video, or the various websites that shared the video, seemed to get the most obvious problem.  Per the sampling chosen for the video, the overwhelming number of blacks were left standing after the first question because of one reason: broken households. 

So naturally today Google, like most of our nation (our own parish notwithstanding), chose to emphasis the inconsistently promoted Juneteenth and downplay, if not altogether ignore, Father's Day. Except for a brief mention on the news and a special BBQ segment on the local news, it was Juneteenth all the way (with Pride Celebrations elbowing in for a close third, if not second). 

With each passing day, I become less able to convince myself that our leftwing ruling class isn't purposefully encouraging the worst behavior and attitudes in the black community in order to foster a self-fulfilling prophecy that can be used to dismantle the heritage of America and the Christian West.  At some point, there simply isn't any other explanation for what our eyes can see and our ears can hear.  

True, it could be our modern arrogance and hubris that leads to continuing support for the LGBTQ lifestyle and a whole month of PRIDE in the era of AIDS. But more and more it seems deliberate.  After all, even the most obstinate narcissists can't possibly miss what is so nakedly obvious.  

Note:  Apparently this is already a meme.  Google had to do Fathers Day before Juneteenth because you can't celebrate blacks and fathers at the same time.   Ouch, yet as one fellow said, don't blame the messenger, Google wrote that joke itself.   

NBC shows us how it's done

In this piece, NBC goes to war over the importance of bringing sexual attraction to the world of young girls' doll collections.  The importance of sexing up our children so that we may bring our children into the sexual fold continues apace. 

I'll admit you have to love how the Left has all but thrown out the pretense of its post-war duplicity.  There is no room for debate.  There is no room for dialogue.  There is no room for discussion.  No tolerance.  No diversity.  You either conform 100% to leftwing same-think or you're a homophobic bigot.  Period. End of statement.  The old 'stop being divisive and admit you're a Nazi' that defines the leftwing concept of unity.

Think of it.  As long as you conform 100% to the Left's dogmatic definition of diversity, the Left is completely tolerant and open to anyone who thinks the way the Left demands you think under threat of retaliation.  Thus is the double-talk that is taught in schools and colleges, endorsed by the media, promoted by pop culture, reinforced by our publishing industry, mandated by our Wall Street corporate interests and increasingly injected into the Gospel Message in too many churches. Thus is life in our secular pagan age. 

I feel a great era of purging and pruning is on the way.  I fear too many of us believed we were on the  straight path heading toward the narrow gate. We're finding out now just how many had, all along, been trudging along the broad path toward destruction and didn't even realize it.  I believe the point  of what we're seeing is to make the distinction crystal clear. To give a clear warning of who might be the tares and who might be the wheat.  And if you're shrugging your shoulders over mutilating the bodies of youth in order to inject sexual desire into their pre-K minds, I'll leave you to figure out which side of the harvest you're likely on. 

Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and straight is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!  Matthew 7.13-14

Understanding why some are parsing Putin in one easy image

I know.  When Putin first invaded Ukraine, some nuts ran out and said how awesome he was and he's a genius.  That was to score points against Biden mostly. It was stupid and wrong.  Especially since Putin's invasion has been anything but genius.  It's also wrong to put a positive spin on such an atrocious action as invading a neighboring country.

Nonetheless, with that said, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking at this from a distance to see what is happening.  If I don't like folks praising Putin, I like even less those saying we all must scream 'It's the Nazi fascists all over again and we must do anything or  you love Hitler!'  That rush to push me down a road nobody wants to define has me as bothered as anyone putting an Einstein label around Putin. 

Included in this is smacking anyone down for daring to do anything but say 'Putin/Hitler, end of debate.'  There is plenty to look at here.  It's fair to ask how we got here.  It's fair to ask what the stakes are.  It's fair to see what is happening.  And it's fair to ask why some are trying to halt the 'If it's Putin/Russia, it's bad' juggernaut. 

One of the things several have pointed out is Putin's stance on the LGBTQ movement.  To the Left, that's one more piece of evidence that he's evil Hitler redux.  Even to those who oppose the LGBTQ movement, his methods and policies have been cringe worthy, brining back visions of gulags and labor camps dancing in our heads. 

Nonetheless, allow me to explain why we need to be careful.  Here is a single image that says it all:

It's from a group rallying support against Florida's parental rights bill that prevents sex lessons for students under fourth grade.  Derogatorily named the Don't Say Gay bill by the gay rights movement (a label universally accepted by the LGBTQ partners in the global press), it stops what we were told would never happen, and that's teaching kids about genitals and sex urges in grades where kids are too young to pack their own lunches.  

Note the circled part (I did that).  See that?  There is no such thing as other people's kids.  Sorry Left, but your continued insistence that anyone right of center is a fascist masks the fact that most of what the Left wants is nothing but a fascist state.  That's where the LGBTQ movement is going, and the Left is helping it.

Not because I think the Left cares a rip for gays or transgenders any more than it does blacks or women.  It just sees the LBGTQ movement as invulnerable.  Even churches and faith leaders cower before it, begging mercy for doing anything but celebrating all things non-heterosexual and post-gender, and breaking the back of reality to accommodate this movement in all ways but the most trivial (that is, marriage is still technically for men and women, but civil unions can rock it awesome style!).

Knowing and counting on this, the Left realizes the LGBTQ can openly say we're coming for your kids.  That we will soon be teaching elementary school kids, the way we now teach middle schoolers, the joys of oral sex or why using science to change your body is the most praiseworthy action a person can take.  The Left knows the LGBTQ movement can do this, admit they are doing it, and almost everyone will turn their heads and wish it would go away, if they do anything at all.  

Such faith leaders and shakers as Ms. Eden won't stop it.  They won't speak to it.  After all, where are the Catholic leaders about this issue?  The Evangelical leaders?  The Orthodox leaders?  The establishment conservative leaders?  Anyone?  Bueller?  If anything they will attack anyone who tries to stop this as some half-baked gay basher who wants all transgender kids murdered because they hate black people. 

If such voices speak to it at all, they'll make a quick and slick statement about men and women, immediately followed by bemoaning the first two thousand years of reprehensible Christians terrorizing the always beautiful people in the ever expanding LGBTQ++++ movement.  They'll then reach out and insist there's nothing real and nothing to get hung about, we only want love and love and all you need is love and walruses and blackbirds and raccoons. Again, reserving true wrath for anyone trying to take a stand against this, especially if they're white. 

So when you see this on our shores, you can get why some are saying Putin might be a monster.  He is certainly the villain here and needs defeated.  But it might be worth our while to see what Putin was likely pandering to.  Whether he personally cares about stopping the gay based steamroller or not, I don't know. But he points to an issue that needs addressed.

At the end of the day, we're going to have to admit an ugly truth about our particular era of history. Many bemoaning the thousands killed in Ukraine more than happily accept the tens of millions who have died of AIDS.  And, based on everything, are intent on continuing to do so.  Perhaps the smart move is to call out both atrocities equally, as well as those who wail over the thousands but have learned to stop worrying and almost celebrate their tens of millions.  

From the CDC, the breakdown of the latest batch of HIV infections

I have to admit it made me laugh

Funny alternate dialogue from my college days come to mind

I never put much stock in what celebrities, Hollywood or athletic or music or otherwise, have to say about almost anything.  I care about their opinions less than those who are important to me, such as my priest, the guy fixing my car or the girl taking my money in the checkout lane in the grocery store.  To me, such locals' opinions are not only more important, but likely better informed, than most coming from old Tinsel Town. 

Plus, it's a sure fire way of becoming disappointed in people.  So Mark Hamill, a childhood hero of mine, who has embarrassed himself for anyone with a maturity level above puberty for years, had this to say about Florida's bill prohibiting sexual themed lessons aimed at children under fourth grade:

That's from the LGBTQ talking point erroneously calling it the "Don't Say Gay" bill, which has been repeated by almost every objective national news outlet in the country.  So betting Hamill likely never read the bill in the first place, I'll give him a pass as yet one more Internet era pundit who simply vomits talking points from the correct side, actual facts and truth be damned.  

Nonetheless, I did get a kick out of this response:

Heh.  Taking a shot at Hamill  and backhanding Lucas in the meantime.  Which I don't mind.  Lucas continues to be a genuine jerk by refusing to release the original theatrical cuts of his first Star Wars trilogy.  That's because he remains forever pissed at his fanbase for saying his CGI enhanced releases in the 1990s were der poop piles, with most preferring the original cuts. A fellow who treats his fanbase like thralls who are only there to worship his billionaire grandness deserves a few backhanded digs at the obvious aimed his way. 

An Advent greeting from the Pride Community

 Here:

Any movement that takes its name from one of the Seven Deadly Sins should be avoided. 

On the other hand, Pride fits.  Only a movement wrapped in pride would continue in the same direction as millions of its own members die from the very goals the movement has obtained.  In America, the majority who have died of AIDS identify as homosexual.  But that seems to be small potatoes.  As does the endless millions of others who of have died of AIDS worldwide.  Never mind the hundreds of millions of abortions and millions of lives otherwise wrecked and shattered.  It takes a certain golly-gee-wiz to stand on a pile of bodies higher than Everest and still have pride in your accomplishments.  Such is the 21st Century in a nutshell. 

Yet, despite this, the Church has been utterly impotent when it comes to standing up to the carnage and suffering of this sexual revolution.  I'm not sure which is worse. 

Remember kids, Christmas is all about us being saved from such sin, not being given a blank check to embrace it no matter how many die.  That might be the Xmas of the world, but it isn't the Christmas of the Gospel of Christ. 

The leftwing lynch mob pics up steam

During the Kavanaugh hearings, we heard pundits, politicians and even some fine religious leaders remind us that it isn't a case of evidence or not, but it's about offending women who want to abort their pregnancies.  The whole 'it's not necessary to have evidence when you know someone is guilty' has been picking up pace among the American Left for some years.  

Of course uncritically condemning past ages for failing to conform to the infallibility of our own sensitivities is the only way to approach historical studies nowadays. That has allowed the Left to challenge the idea that anything dreamed up in the past - including, but not limited to, ideas of democracy, freedom of speech, sanctity of life, or presumption of innocence - have to be good.  Because everyone in the past was bad, anything they came up with can be judged and dispensed with accordingly.

But what of the cases in which we're not sure? Maybe someone in the past wasn't so bad, or guilty of the sins of the age.  My friends, I give you the Leftwing.  There are no principles, values, morals, truths, facts, or any such rubbish.  They simply say things and they happen.  Because they control our nation and have for decades. 

Therefore, voila:

You see that?  Rod Dreher gets it.  They don't have to prove he was a person who didn't bow before the altar of gay sex.  It's enough that he lived then.  And we can condemn the entire period of time and everyone in an entire nation or demographic at any given period in time, so it's enough he was part of those.  Guilt by chronological association.  That's all we need.

Expect many "Christians" to realize just how great it is we no longer need anything but when and where someone lived to condemn and exterminate accordingly.  

At least the gestapo went through the motions of a kangaroo court to eliminate someone.  The modern Left is seeing to it that no such burden will be placed on its followers.  It will be enough to say someone might be guilty just because, and then proceed to eliminate. 

These are dark times we live in, and they are only going to get blacker.  

Same sex attraction and celebate Christians

To be blunt, I don't care.  I don't particularly care what your sinful desires happen to be.  We all have them.  We all have temptations.  We all struggle with temptations.  On our better days, we overcome them.  Some heroic believers actually find ways to live a life without succumbing to their greater temptations, and more power to them.  If that's the case here, then hats off.  

What many believers don't do, however, is jump up on a table, proclaim our temptations to the world, and then seem to expect ... something?  What?  Kudos?  Praise and adoration?  Treatment as if we're the only people in history to overcome sin?  I don't know.

I do reject the post-Freudian basis of the entire Sexual Revolution, as well as its chief offspring the LGBTQ movement. That is, the idea that beyond all other things we are first and foremost defined by our sexuality.  I feel that would probably seem strange to even the most sexually broad cultures in history up until the 19th Century.  Nor do I see how embracing that view has benefited humanity over the last century or so.

Likewise, I reject the idea common in the Sexual Revolution/AIDS Era that, unlike food, water and oxygen, we must have sex at all times or we'll end up like Belloq at the end of Raiders of he Lost Ark. 

I also don't imagine the entire LGBTQ community is a giant monolith of clones.  I actually believe the reasons why people have various desires and attractions and identities might just be varied and complex, and sometimes different for different people.  As much as I risk offending the sensitivities of the progressive prophet Lady Gaga, I mean I don't think everyone with various non-heterosexual desires and identities are necessarily 'born that way.' 

Furthermore, I reject the idea that history is defined by Group A oppressing Group B, and in this case no Jew in Auschwitz ever experienced true terrors of hate and evil like a wealthy celebrity in Hollywood who has same sex attraction.  Or at least this template is true for now when convenient; subject to change at a moment's notice when no longer convenient. 

Oh, and I also believe gender exists and sexuality and childbirth are somehow related. Call me a radical. 

As for the young woman above, I couldn't care less what her inner temptations are.  Nor upon hearing of them, since she apparently insists we all hear of them, do I define her by those temptations.  May God not treat us as we increasingly treat ourselves in order to justify aligning with the catastrophes of modern progressive agendas and ideologies. 

Whatever her struggles or anyone's struggles are, that's for them.  If she seeks help and openness about her struggles with others, then there are times and places for that.  If she didn't run about declaring her desires and attractions, however, people would have no reason to think anything about her.  After all, if she's celibate it's not as if she's out sexually involved with women or marrying them or anything.  

Yet this is, and has been, a common tactic among progressives for years.  Jump up, kick down our doors, declare something new to be true, insist we all think about that something the way they insist we think about it, and then accuse us of somehow imposing our values on them or judging them if we don't.  It's stupid and false, and yet I've seen it used for decades to devastating effect. 

Mothers have no special value where raising kids is concerned

 It must be true, it says so right here in the NYT:

Of course that's not what the NYT is trying to say.  That's just what is implied, as many things that promote leftwing agendas can send shivers down the spine when you consider the implication of what they're saying.  In this case, the NYT, like all leftwing propaganda organs, is about destroying the concept of anything true or real other than the dogmas of the Left.  Families? Whatever you want them to be.  Gender?  Whatever you want it to be.  Napoleon Bonaparte?  Whatever you want him to be.  

So the purpose of the piece is, no doubt, to insist it's the most normal thing in the world to define family, reality and whatever you want however you want.  Exactly what is true about the wellbeing of kids raised by same sex parents is tough to say.  I didn't find much info out there, at least info not reported by the propaganda ministry.  

Like the lack of hard evidence that looser gun laws leads to more gun violence, I'll bet that's because the stats don't benefit the agenda.  In fact, I've come to assume that if I don't hear something reported in our modern propaganda ministry, I'll assume it's because that something is true, and yet not helpful to the Left's agendas.  

I could be wrong of course.  I did find this study, which actually suggests it's not always a healthy thing for kids to be raised by same sex parents.  But that was one.  Others I found through Google were merely news posts praising the glories of same sex parenting, or a few obviously traditional, Christian sites insisting it's bad - both sides seeming to be rather biased in their approach to the subject.  This was the closest thing to a study by something not immediately connected to such agendas, and it doesn't read well for the LGBTQ parenting movement.  But it's only one study.

Nonetheless, I doubt we care.  Based on National Geographic interviewing experts from Harvard and Johns Hopkins a few years back, we're still trying to pinpoint why a disease spread overwhelming by sexual behavior and drug use like AIDS suddenly exploded in the world during the 1970s. Big mystery that.  An age willing to look away from a mounting pile of dead bodies numbering in the tens of millions rather than admit the obvious is not an age that is going to sweat studies that don't say what it wants to hear. 

Why this does not work

My general dislike of Internet memes is well documented.  Yes, sometimes they hit home and make more sense than what is taught in our universities or reported in our news media nowadays.  On the whole, however, at best they're a poor man's editorial cartoon, but without the wit. At worst they're used to attack, lie or otherwise misrepresent issues and people.  

So I saw this pass by at Facebook:

Yeah, I get it.  But here's the point.  First, I know it's a joke.  I get jokes. I have a sense of humor.  But that's falling into the pit of sin that somehow we'll fight the Left by adopting its elevation of pride as virtue and biblical ethics as dependent upon one's group identity.  That's one problem.

The other problem?  Pride in being straight?  That's like saying pride in gravity.  To imagine there is some alternative to being straight that being straight has to vie with is already conceding the position to the opposition.  It's playing their game, as if Straight is the option I'm proud of, as opposed to that other legitimate option they're proud of.

I know.  I'm being a poo-poo.  But you get my point.  I've said one way in which Christians, as well as the broader world of conservatism in general, have lost has been repeatedly conceding the high ground with a host of issues by accepting the rules, the premises, even the broader narratives of the Left.  

That would be like playing a game of Monopoly with someone who insists on writing their own rules.   So they demand the game begins with them having all the money, all the properties, railroads and unities, and hotels on every monopoly - and you say, OK, that's fair, let's play.  I'll bet you lose. And so those who would resist the Left by conceding the Left so much ground have lost, and lost, and lost again. 

That's why I'd wager LGTBQ activists are more than happy with something like this.  Not only can they shoot it down, as many FB commenters did, insisting with science and laboratories we have all we need to get gay people pregnant today. But in their guts, they know somehow we're handing them a tremendous amount of high ground in the process by accepting their basic premises. 

This is why I advised my sons not to join the military

This is what our military has been reduced to.  At a time of increased fatalities through accidents, cases in which servicemen have proven ill-prepared for combat, and mounting cases of criminal assault and unexplained murders, our military focuses on - all things gay sex. Because that's what the leftwing says to focus on. 

So what if as many Americans have died of AIDS - with the majority being homosexual men - as have been killed in all of America's wars combined?     If anyone doubts the 'cold civil war' or 'culture war' or whatever you prefer has been lost by those who would preserve the Christian Western tradition, I give you this. 

I try to imagine what future history will say about us. I don't think it will be pretty. 'So dad, you're saying that in a world of pandemic and mounting crisis, the thing they care about the most was who those in their military units wanted to have sex with?' 'Yes son, that explains a lot.'

Blessing gay unions and the Catholic Left

A tale of two apologists.

First, the Shea.  Naturally Mark waded into this one as we all could guess.  He wasn't alone.  Many I saw on the more radical leftwing segment of the Church swung into action.  A couple openly condemned it, but most did what Mark appears to be doing here, and that's stating variations on 'next year and then Jerusalem.'  That is Development of Doctrine, the key teaching upon which the whole of liberal Protestant denominations came to be founded, is the capstone.  

With development of doctrine you have a real thing - just read the Bible.  And ostensibly this real thing is alive and well and forever teaching us what parts of old doctrines need discarded or rewritten.  It was such a powerful force in mainline Protestantism that I remember debating issues with leaders from those denominations who had no problem saying that they didn't know how to square, say, gay marriage with Jesus' claim God made marriage around man and woman, but they could assume development of doctrine and discover Jesus never actually said such a thing after all. It became a 'get out of jail free' card when it comes to changing things around to keep with the times. 

For Mark, he doesn't give an actual, definitive answer to where the Church will go from here. Thankfully the Church has embraced the post-Freudian idea that we are defined by our sexual desires, and that those are likely as much a part of God's plan for us as any other charism.  Therefore as long as no penetration is involved, all is blessing and glory where our sexual inclinations are concerned.  It's just that pesky no physical sex part that's the tricky point.  To this, Mark appears to argue that it's about the sex and the sacraments.  The sex is about the person, and the sacraments are for the person not the other way around, and since someday the sacraments will pass but the dignity of the person will not, well, you do the math. 

The second piece is from Dawn Eden, who has openly apologized for the harm she caused by standing up to modern, liberal values and beliefs.  In this piece, she makes it about love.  God is love and love is love, and all you need is love, and I am the walrus and a hard day's night and all.  It's about the love and the chastity.  Once again, the gift of same sex desires can be gloriously lived out in love because that's what it's all about.   Exactly why this desire leads to a sinful act if fulfilled and yet we insist God doesn't tempt us to sin, I'm not sure.  But it's about the love, and that's good enough.  Naturally her piece tends toward that approach in which we insist same sex attraction shouldn't be treated any differently than any other sinful inclination all while treating it differently than we treat any other sinful inclination. 

Now, I will not wade into the meat and potatoes of this.  Others far more versed and schooled in the nitty-gritty can do the heavy lifting.  I will note that much of what they are saying is merely what the Church teaches, and has been teaching for many years now.  There is development of doctrine.  There is modifying in light of new discoveries.  There is, for want of a better phrase, keeping up with the Jonses.  When the world zigs, the Church had best zig with it lest it zag in the wrong direction and be laughed at, or worse.  I'm at a loss to figure how someone could say that hasn't been the Church's approach for quite some time.  And it isn't alone.  That's where many religions have been since it appeared humanity entered into a new age of finally discovering how things really work. 

But what struck me in both of these was something I've noticed that is common when debating various topics driven by the modern Left.  Notice that in both, there is no question as to the motives of the LGBTQ community, openly gay believers, gay activists, or anything.  They are pure as the wind driven (but not white) snow.  There is no dealing with the seedier sides, or possibility that it is all part of a much larger revolution aiming at the very heart of the Faith.  There is not even the possibility that anything but the pure quest for love and God is at the heart of everything to do with this call to challenge the Church's teachings regarding one of the most fundamental beliefs in the Christian stockpile: the very definition of humanity, its relations with itself and subsequently with God.

Nope.  Dawn doesn't go into much regarding detractors or those troubled by the Church's direction.  Mark, of course, makes it clear where the bad motives are.  Echoing my former ethics professor David Gushee, he assumes it's always been about the kindly liberals pushing forward against the ever clinging conservatives fighting the Left's true revelations due to their wicked ways.  And in a way not at all foreign to Pope Francis, he can assume the motives for not jumping on the good ship Leftism are the most reprehensible, while the inner intentions of those individuals indulging in even full out gay sex (or abortion, or any 'sin of the left') should never be questioned or judged.

That is, IMHO, one of the most powerful weapons in the Left's arsenal, that every debate begins with the assumption of the Left's infallibility and blameless motives.  So true is what the Left proposes, so clear the evils the Left is attempting to fix, so blameless the Left's designs, that any resistance can only be attributed to the most questionable, if not the most evil, of reasons.  Just pick a topic: immigration, socialism, gay rights, transgender rights, Covid lockdowns, gun control - the list is endless.  

After all, it's how Pope Francis could so easily accept the decidedly progressive spin on Global Warming.  Are there scientists who question the mainline narrative regarding climate change?  Sure.  But if you recall, Pope Francis had no problem dismissing them as a wretched brood likely on the fossil fuel industry dole, and therefore not as purely motivated as those who march to the MMGW beat.  Same here.  Same anywhere in which we approach issues driven by the modern Left.  And that, kiddies, is a powerful attack that those who would resist the directions in which we are going have yet to overcome. 

One more thing.  During my sojourn with the Orthodox, I will say it has done a better job resisting the 'times changes, churches change' approach to the world.  Better, but not solid. Now, after about two generations of post-Soviet believers, the up and coming wee ones are itching to join the West in at least this regard, and shuffle off some old, antiquated notions about genders, sex and 'reproductive health' if nothing else.  How long the Orthodox can hold out is anyone's guess.  If they are smart, they'll look long and hard and see where too much of that has gotten the West.  But then, if Catholics were smart, they would look at where too much of that got all of those dying Protestant denominations. 

Thom Brennaman gets sent to the glue factory

 Apparently Brennaman, Cincinnati Reds announcer, was caught on an open microphone making a "homophobic' slur. 

Mr. Brennaman has groveled and paid obeisance to the Soviet God of the Leftist State, but right now,  he's out.  He says his word doesn't reflect him.  My guess is, it does.  Like so many high profile people whose wealth and success depends on being in line with the powers that be, he could never say what he really thinks.  This is modern America after all. 

Nothing new in the 21st Century.  No country is ever free in the sense of 'no rules, just right' or 'if it feels good, it is good.'   Liberalism promised this.  Perhaps we were stupid enough to believe it.  But the Left is now making it clear that when it comes to freedom, it never mans able to do and say anything you want.  In fact, as you watch the Left morph, you begin to wonder if freedom is even a thing anymore. 

Remember, in a totalitarian state, no amount of  past fealty to the State will do.  The minute you digress from obedience, the second you cease to be useful, then it's into the truck, and off to the glue factory you go.