Punditry

Funny how we can go from the Obama Administration talking about the “War on women” to “Women in war” now that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has lifted the ban on women in combat.

Although these two things are totally related. The false “War on women” was about contraception and women in combat derive from the same roots. Contraception is demanded so that women can functionally be like men. Having and maintaining a desirable job can be torpedoed by that inconvenient pregnancy. Children if desired must only appear in the fullness of time when everything is situationally perfect. To do this women must be able totally control their fecundity. What feminism has brought us is not femininity but a desire to be men with “lady parts” as the Obama campaign used the term. This view leads to a view of equality that flatten any physical differences between men and women puts “anything you can do, I can do better” into the law. Thus women in combat is the natural progression of this thought process.

What it also means is that once again military readiness will be sacrificed for political correctness. I served on the U.S.S. Eisenhower (CVN–69) when it was the first aircraft carrier to deploy with women in the crew. It does not take a genius to imagine the consequences of putting men and women together at sea for months at a time. Almost every wrinkle of those consequences occurred when we went on cruise. There were many scandals and I remember a cartoon in the newspaper showing our ship with a Stork asking permission to land. I also witnessed first hand that the majority of the women were not up to the physical requirements for carrying equipment during the drills run at sea. Yet we were not allowed to note this problems or to complain about them. It was the Emperors’ new clothes when it came to observing such problems. I observed this multiple times during my Navy career and things like women techs who weren’t able to carry a toolbox up into the cockpit. Somebody else had to do it for them. If an emergency would have occurred while deployed and fire-fighting was called for breaking out the hoses and P–250 pumps and other equipment it was obvious that our readiness for that scenario was diminished. A scenario where more deaths would likely result.

We won’t be seeing men and women compete in the same events in the Olympics because the events would be dominated mostly by men. We won’t be seeing women linebackers in the NFL anytime soon or almost any professional sport. Great women athletes will be competing against other great women athletes. There are just physical differences that can’t be overcome by even the most intense training.

Yet while the segregation of men and women in sports teams is totally understandable it takes a bit of political correct insanity to think women in combat makes sense. We won’t be legislating the NFL to force them to hire women players (at least for now), but somehow in the PC universe it is fine to put women in combat situations and pretend that it will have no effect in the intense physical environment of combat. Democrats in recent decades have used the military like a social experiment. The fact that people will die because of this is not their concern. I remember when the U.S.S. Stark was hit by a missile one crewman was able to evacuate two other crewman who were unconscious by carrying them up a ladder to safety. If that crewman was a women what do you thing the odds are of the same result occurring?

On the Laura Ingraham show today I heard one women who was a former Marine officer defend this change. At least she was realistic enough to not believe that the majority of the women in the military would be up to the physical requirements of combat. She placed it at around 1 percent or less. She thought that women should have a choice in whether they wanted to be in combat situations. That perhaps if they met some level of physical qualifications and volunteered. Now I would freely admit that there are some women who are probably more physically capable than some men in the military. This female officer apparently has no real understanding about how things work. For one things the gods of PC would never admit that not all women would be qualified for combat duty. The military is forced to accept all women to this role and will not be allowed to set specific criteria. For example Physical Readiness Tests, at least in the Navy, were specific for sex. Men and women had different physical requirements despite serving in the same jobs. The physical standards for women were lower than that for men. It is a given there will be disparities like this in combat situations and many have already occurred. For example women being flown out at Kandahar to be able to take showers. This disparity in testing and treatment angers people. PC fairness almost never results in actual fairness, but to closing your eyes to expected results.

This is not a harangue against women serving in the military. Just putting women in combat situations or possible combat situations like shipboard. Even if you could remove the physical differences in capability you still have the dynamic of men and women in close quarters that introduces problems and does nothing to increase capability.

Harvard geneticist George Church recently told Der Spiegel he’s close to developing the necessary technology to clone a Neanderthal, at which point all he’d need is an ‘adventurous human woman’ to be a surrogate mother for the first Neanderthal baby to be born in 30,000 years (article in German, translation to English). Church said, ’We have lots of Neanderthal parts around the lab. We are creating Neanderthal cells. Let’s say someone has a healthy, normal Neanderthal baby. Well, then, everyone will want to have a Neanderthal kid. Were they superstrong or supersmart? Who knows? But there’s one way to find out. (source)

Coming soon to an island off the coast of Costa Rica “Neanderthal Park.’

While the novel Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton was of course fictional the arrogance of the scientists within it is not. I’ve got Neanderthal parts around the lab, just add an adventurous human woman and all is set. No evil maniacal laugh, just an attitude where the human person can become a laboratory and just a convenient incubator for an experiment. The ethics of scientism comes down only to “what is possible.”

I’ve posted before about the petition on the White House site to Officially recognize the Roman Catholic Church as a hate group. While sad it isn’t really something to pay attention to since anybody can start one of these petitions and even after publicity both pro and con it still only has a little over 3,000 signatures.

I bring this up today because there was this story.

The White House has removed a petition from its We the People Web site calling for singer Beyonce to be disinvited from performing the national anthem at President Obama’s inauguration.

The star and longtime Obama supporter has a $50 million sponsorship contract with PepsiCo. Public health advocates urged her to reconsider the deal last month, citing health issues linked to soft drinks.

So now we know what is beyond the pale for White House petitions. Catholics as a hate group, fine. Criticism of Beyonce, that can’t stand.

The irony is also very rich considering Michelle Obama’s food nanny state proclivities and her association with “public health advocates.”

A White House spokesperson told the Obama Foodarama blog that Beyonce’s performance at the inaugural is “not something the White House actually has jurisdiction over.”

Selecting performers is a function of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, not the White House. We the People’s terms of participation state that users cannot post “petitions that do not address the current or potential actions or policies of the federal government.”

For the Obama Administration, Catholics as a hate group did not meet the last criteria mentioned.

In other recent petition news the White House responded to a petition to make a Death Star to spur job creation. There was a rather humorous response in rejecting the idea. Although the real reason they declined is that they felt Planned Parenthood was doing a good enough job and a Death Star would be overkill.

Many have noted the President’s heavily ironic proclaiming of January 16, 2013 as Religious Freedom Day. I have stated before that many liberals are irony deficient and the President suffers from the same deficiency.

Whenever a quote is used which contains multiple ellipses it is usually interesting what was taken out. In this case the quote from Thomas Jefferson also included.

All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.

Right now if you are a religious believer and refuse to support an insurance plan because of its support of intrinsic evils you are indeed punished and burdened. If $100 dollars per day is not a punishment and burden I am not sure what is. Although for a President who goes through trillions as if it was tissue paper it might not seem like much in perspective. Well maybe not since this was intended as a fine so large as to be an encouragement to just buckle under to the oppression.

This is social engineering akin to Mafia fire insurance. “You don’t want something to happen to your fine business”? Pay up or you will be put out of business via fines.

So you might ask how the President can be so paradoxical between what he says and what he does? I mean other than the fact that this is typical politician behavior. Is he just totally being a hypocrite here? I would say probably not. A thrust of the Obama administration has been the emphasis of “worship” over “religion.” Where religious freedom comes to mean being able to belong to a church and to attend worship services. You are even allowed to practice your faith in everyday life just as long as it does not intersect with some government/culture created right.

This is the Chinese government model where they have Patriotic churches created by the government. A Catholic would be allowed by the government to belong to a Patriotic Catholic Church, but would not be allowed to rebel against intrinsic evils such as abortion or contraception. Citing conscience against the one child policy will get you nowhere except possibly prison. We have not gone that far down this road, but there are many similarities. Somebody who totally accepts the culture of death will not be having their conscience violated by Obamacare. This is why most so-called progressive Catholics have no problem with the HHS mandate. They might talk about this being the result of living in a pluralistic society, but really it is because they have no problem with abortion, sterilization, and contraception in the first place. An article in Commonweal today illustrates this.

As bad as the current situation is, no doubt it will only get worse as more phony rights are created and weighed against actual rights. When God-given rights are balanced against created rights the current administration has their thumb on the scales.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

Foremost among the rights Americans hold sacred is the freedom to worship as we choose. Today, we celebrate one of our Nation’s first laws to protect that right — the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Written by Thomas Jefferson and guided through the Virginia legislature by James Madison, the Statute affirmed that “Almighty God hath created the mind free” and “all men shall be free to profess … their opinions in matters of religion.” Years later, our Founders looked to the Statute as a model when they enshrined the principle of religious liberty in the Bill of Rights.

Because of the protections guaranteed by our Constitution, each of us has the right to practice our faith openly and as we choose. As a free country, our story has been shaped by every language and enriched by every culture. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, Sikhs and non-believers. Our patchwork heritage is a strength we owe to our religious freedom.

Americans of every faith have molded the character of our Nation. They were pilgrims who sought refuge from persecution; pioneers who pursued brighter horizons; protesters who fought for abolition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights. Each generation has seen people of different faiths join together to advance peace, justice, and dignity for all.

Today, we also remember that religious liberty is not just an American right; it is a universal human right to be protected here at home and across the globe. This freedom is an essential part of human dignity, and without it our world cannot know lasting peace.

As we observe Religious Freedom Day, let us remember the legacy of faith and independence we have inherited, and let us honor it by forever upholding our right to exercise our beliefs free from prejudice or persecution.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 16, 2013, as Religious Freedom Day. I call on all Americans to commemorate this day with events and activities that teach us about this critical foundation of our Nation’s liberty, and show us how we can protect it for future generations at home and around the world.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.

Irony Alert! Today is Religious Freedom Day – Frank Weathers

Who Knew Our President Was Such a Great Comedian? – Tom McDonald

Media boosterism of women priests is nothing new. PBS totally one-sided coverage on this issue is just the latest broadside.

This bit is also pretty muddle headed.

REV. THOMAS RAUSCH (Professor of Catholic Theology, Loyola Marymount University): The Catholic Church is not ready for the ordination of women right now.

… As far as the church is concerned, these are not valid ordinations. Ordination is an act of the whole church, and this is not an act of the whole church. In a sense, this is an act against the communion of the whole church. It is very difficult to call yourself a Roman Catholic if you are not living in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and communion means you are recognized by the bishop and you have this network of relationships, which is…It’s the kind of glue that holds the Catholic Church together.

… I think that, you know, the culture was patriarchal. It was very much male-centered. Males were educated. They took roles of leadership. They played leading roles in the churches. So I think those cultural reasons really have to be taken into account in order to understand the exclusion of women from ordained ministry in the life of the church.

Why am I not surprised to find that this priest has also been a favorite on the History Channel.

It does remind me of a parody I did back in 2007 of this fawning coverage of women’s ordination and maybe I also feel I have a call to be a PBS reporter.

I have quite an announcement to make. I am now a reporter for Newsweek magazine! I always felt a call to be a reporter for Newsweek magazine so this is something very important for me. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am at this news and the impact this has on my life and hopefully the lives of others.

The hierarchy of Newsweek magazine though doesn’t recognize my call to be a reporter for them. So I had to have reporter credentials given me by an Ecumenical magazine group that also see themselves nevertheless as Newsweek employees and don’t recognize the authority of Newsweek’s editors to make hiring decisions.

So for my first article as a Newsweek employee I am going to interview myself, this way nobody can charge me with making up interviews as in the case of ABC’s Alexis Debat.

NEWSWEEK: What made you decide to become a Newsweek reporter?
Jeff Miller: It was a long process that started at a very young age. I grew up reading bad religion reporting and was always attracted to Newsweek’s egregious reporting and I was affirmed by others that I had gifts for bad reporting.

Have you heard from the Newsweek hierarchy?
The reporting community I belong to hasn’t felt anything from the editors, but local stringers have informed others not to read my reporting since I wasn’t a “validly credentialed” reporters for Newsweek.

How has your family handled your decision? Are they still Newsweek readers?
They are. They are actually incredibly supportive. My immediate family came for my giving a Newsweek credentials. My grandmother bought me an old typewriter.

How many people read your Newsweek articles?
We have 80 registered members. And we have a number of people who come who are subscribe to Newsweek but who come to read with us as a place to refresh their souls—a lot of them are ex-Newsweek readers who are uncomfortable with Newsweek’s discriminatory hiring practices.

Do you know the other Ecumenically credentialed Newsweek reporters?
In the Ecumenical Newsweek Communion there are six other reporters. I know all of them. In the Ecumenical Reporters Communion we no longer claim that we’re underneath the authority of the editors. [There’s also a group called the Roman Newsweek Reporters, which also credentials some reporters.] During the last several years there have been organized giving of Newsweek reporter credentials primarily on river boats.

Have you received any hate mail?
I personally have not received hate mail, although there are plenty of blogs that I have found online that like to slander my name when they get hold of information about my credentials. It’s unfortunate and sad. The people I serve are excited to see a place where men and women can read my articles side by side. Just because I wasn’t actually hired by Newsweek and I receive no salary from them or actually turn my stories over to them to be published doesn’t prevent me from being a validly credentialed Newsweek reporters. Defenders of Newsweek’s reporter tradition says that since founders of Newsweek (Ward Cheney, John Hay Whitney, and Paul Mellon) didn’t allow people to call themselves Newsweek reporters without actually being hired by them that this can’t be changed. There has been recent archaeological evidence in Newsweek headquarters of a statue of a reporter who does not seem to have ever been on their pay role. I think this is evidence of self-named Newsweek reporters in the early history of the magazine. If only people would get with the modern time and to understand how discriminatory Newsweek’s present hiring practices are by not hiring everybody that would apply.

Is there anything else you wish people knew?
It’s important to me that people see that I did what the others do to prepare to be a reporter. I took that traditional path. I got a certificate from an online journalism school for a reasonable fee. I forced myself to cover local news of minor happenings to prepare myself. I just wish more reporters who find themselves alienated from the magazine could find a magazine home. I am taking this step forward so that others in the future will have the opportunity to be a Newsweek reporter without having to face their discriminatory hiring practice of only hiring those with a journalism degree and having the ability to write and to act as a reporter.

 

Oh did I say the Dalai Lama?

An electricity company in New Zealand is lighting up the media worldwide with a four-story billboard painting that shows a smiling Pope Benedict XVI blessing a mixed race gay couple, at a time when New Zealand’s parliament is considering whether to legalize same-sex marriage. (source)

Well I say fight the power! It is rather shocking in the current time and we must offer resistance to this volt fraud.

Note: Dalai Lama on homosexual acts

Of course, you’ve heard about the petition on the Whitehouse.gov site that urges President Obama to designate Catholics as a hate group, right?

“Let me tell you about the petition I started to label the Catholic Church as a hate group.”

Well, now there’s a petition to designate the people who made the first petition as a hate group.

My wife says we could turn the other cheek, and she’s probably correct.

But it is kind of funny to call the haters haters.  So, let’s turn the other cheek, but also quickly, as we are turning, call them hateful bigots and then finish by turning the other cheek.

Let’s see if we can get 25,000 signatures before the anti-Catholic bigots can get their signatures.

I saw the petition last week and pretty much ignored it. Petitions on the Whitehouse.gov site are a dime-a-dozen and can be just about any idiotic thing. Besides how could this petition really affect the Whitehouse? They already treat Catholics as second-class citizens and certainly many members of the Obama administration already fall inline with this attitude.

I also notice the irony in that those who describe the actions of others as based on hatred, usually fall into a bigoted stereotype that in no way engages in what others think. Really reading what the Pope actually wrote and coming up with the idea that what he wrote was based on hate said more about the people who created and signed the petition than anything about what the Church teaches.

So if turnabout fair play in calling them haters? The problem with the whole hate crime environment is that is a failure of charity to always describe opponents as having the motive of hate.

Maybe the mindset of some who signed this petition was actually motivated by hate, but I think it is mainly motivated by a false understanding.

“There are no more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church,” – Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

This quote is particularly apropos in regards this view of the Church. Condemning homosexual acts is suppose to be based on hatred of the person with same-sex attraction. Yet the action of the Church is based on the love of the person in not wanting them to sin. If we truly hated persons with same-sex attraction we would not warn them against the sin of homosexual acts. Hatred leads to wanting somebody to continue in sin.

Now I don’t expect proponents of homosexuality to agree that this is a sin. What I would expect is that they at least attempt to understand what the Church actually teaches and to make assertions based on that. To call the Church hateful just displays a bigoted and just plain ignorant understanding. Understanding of another’s view point is not the same as agreement.

The fact that they claim that Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 Christmas address to the Roman Curia “demeaned and belittled homosexual people around the world”, “Using hateful language and discriminatory remarks, the Pope painted a portrait in which gay people are second-class global citizens,” shows something beyond simple ignorance since the Pope said nothing of the kind and had more to say on the state of marriage and the family today than anything about homosexual marriage or homosexuality at all. They had to totally read this into the speech. Most of the reaction seems to be more towards false press reports regarding this document than to the actual words.

So I would not call the creator of this petition hateful. Either they are just plain ignorant and did not read the document themselves, or that they have really poor skills in reading and comprehension, or perhaps purposely distorted what the Pope said to advance an agenda. Whatever motivated this petition I am not much concerned with. I am more concerned with the ignorance and lack of understanding it shows and how many people display the same ignorance. Although it is also certainly true the Church has not really communicated the message regarding Church teaching at a very wide level. Church teaching when wrung through the filter of the media becomes a parody of distortion.

While we can all have fun with the women’s ordination video “Ordain a Lady”, it is really indicative of so much of this movement. The Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC) really does not have serious replies regarding their advocacy.

For example if you read through their “Why Ordination” section they really fail to answer basic objections and introduce very dubious information on past women priestesses. The image of the women with the title of Theodora Episcopa in Rome is suppose to prove this when in fact she was the widowed mother of Paschal, who was Bishop of Rome at the time. Their view of Jesus is also very odd. Instead of the Lion of Judah he is more like the kitten of Judah afraid to ordain women because of the culture of the time.  He could change everything else, but not that.  Every culture around Israel had women priests, yet this would be too radical to accept.  What their cultural conditioning view also forgets is that the reason women priests would have been a new thing to the Jewish people is that God previously had restricted the ministerial priesthood to male members of the Tribe of Levi.

They have really been unwilling to engage with actual arguments both theologically and concerning the nature of the Church. There super-negative view of ecclesiology, the popes, and the teachings of the Church really make you wonder why they want to belong to it at all. It reminds me of Kathy Shaidle’s reaction to 9/11 Truthers “How can you believe that your President killed 2,000 people, and in between bitching about this, just carry on buying your vente latte and so forth?” I have a similar reaction to those who believe such terrible things about the Church and believe she has been resisting the Holy Spirit for 2,000 plus years. Maybe it is the part of human nature when you are told you can’t do something that you are more attracted to doing it.

In the past I reviewed The Catholic Priesthood and Women: A Guide to the Teaching of the Church by Sr. Sarah Butler (Who once was for women’s ordination) In 1978, she headed a task force of the Catholic Theological Society of America that came out in support of female priests. Later though she realized the error of the arguments made and wrote this book that rebuts them and totally supports the Church’s teaching. In this book she looks at all the arguments for women’s ordination and answers them. You just don’t see the same type of rigorous intellectual endeavor on the other side. Instead you get appeals to scripture as if they are the authentic interpreters of scripture. Who needs the magisterium when you have the WOC and the National Catholic Reporter.

Part of their lack of seriousness is that they have really not thought this through. As the video suggests the criteria for becoming a women priest is a perceived call from God. Where is the discernment? Why are there no seminaries created by WOC? When a man perceives such a calling he just doesn’t go to his bishop, get ordained, and assigned a parish. There is a rigorous screening and years of discernment both by the man and by his bishop and the bishop’s representatives in the seminary. There are plenty of men who entered the seminary only to have discerned later that they were not called to the priesthood. Remember when Sinead O’Connor was “ordained” a women priest – yes lots of discernment there.

There is also a distorted view of the priesthood as mainly a means of power. If you don’t have access to the priesthood then you don’t have access to church power. There is also an irony in their non-contextual use of St. Therese “If only I were a priest!” Yes what Therese who is a saint and a Doctor of the Church was lacking was being a priest. If only she had been a priest imagine what she could have done! Funny thing that I am much more likely to run across a parish named after a women saint then one named after a parish priest. I am much more likely to run across a statue of a women saint than a male priest. If only Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and Hildegard of Bingen could also have been priests. Imagine what they could have done. Really everybody should be ordained priests, imagine what St. Francis could have done if he had been a priest.

The Women’s ordination conference doesn’t seem to have much concern regarding women saints. Their site is pretty much devoid of them and there are no images of these saints. The Blessed Virgin Mary is also noticeably lacking on their site. Maybe it is because there was not a women saint in history who noticed that the Church was persecuting them and that not ordaining women was directly opposed to the Holy Spirit. I guess they were all just tools of the male hierarchy and male magisterium. Although they explain much of this as just cultural shifts of view. Well if the culture can currently be in favor of it, it also means in the future it might not be. Why do they think their view is not culturally conditioned?

Obviously when it comes to discernment we can see that the Women’s Ordination Conference which insults St. Paul and Blessed John Paul II are the ones being lead by the Holy Spirit. A group that could not discern that their video would be a laugh-riot for faithful Catholics is super smart.

On the serious side, what I pray for supporters of women’s ordination is that instead of wasting their time in this advocacy that they dedicate it to becoming saints – as we are all called to do. Nothing is more glorious for the Church than her saints – and you don’t even have to be priest.