A lie, a rotten lie

It is possible, perhaps, to agree that homosexual activity is wicked, that it is one of the four sins which cry out to Heaven for vengeance (CCC 1867) , while still thinking there must be something healthy in the stable relationships between two men one encounters from time to time. Ronald G. Lee, a homosexual man who has returned to the Catholic faith is anxious to disabuse us.

I met Wyatt (not his real name) online. For five years he was in a disastrous same-sex relationship. His partner was unfaithful, and an alcoholic with drug problems. The relationship was something that would give Strindberg nightmares. When Vermont legalized same-sex "marriage," Wyatt saw it as one last chance to make their relationship work. He and his partner would fly to Vermont to get "married." This came to the attention of the local newspaper in his area, which did a story with photos of the wedding reception. In it, Wyatt and his partner were depicted as a loving couple who finally had a chance to celebrate their commitment publicly. Nothing was said about the drugs or the alcoholism or the infidelity. But the marriage was a failure and ended in flames a few months later. And the newspaper did not do a follow-up. In other words, the leading daily of one of America's largest cities printed a misleading story about a bad relationship, a story that probably persuaded more than one young man that someday he could be just as happy as Wyatt and his "partner." And that is the sad part.

But one very seldom reads about people like my friend Harry. Harry (not his real name) was a balding, middle-aged man with a potbelly. He was married, and had a couple of grown daughters. And he was unhappy. Harry persuaded himself that he was unhappy because he was gay. He divorced his wife, who is now married to someone else, his daughters are not speaking to him, and he is discovering that pudgy, bald, middle-aged men are not all that popular in gay bars. Somehow, Oprah forgot to mention that. Now Harry is taking anti-depressants in order to keep from killing himself.

If it disappears from OrthodoxyToday.org, the article was first published by the New Oxford Review in February 2006 and may still be available to purchase there.

Everybody thinks, nobody says it

It’s no coincidence the MPs found guilty of fiddling are all Labour

By contrast, progressives view social conventions and restraints as the crucial impediment to human fulfilment. As far as Karl Marx was concerned, law, morality and religion were simply mechanisms for maintaining bourgeois dominance. Indeed Marx’s followers explicitly licensed falsehood and deceit as instruments of revolutionary change. As J A Schumpeter observed: “The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.” I suggest, therefore, that the readiness of Labour MPs to fabricate their expenses is symbolic of a wider philosophical disposition: a structural tolerance of lying and cheating as a justification for political action.

Mickey Mouse Morals

The phrase "Mickey Mouse" used as an adjective suggests incompetence and ineptness. If you watch the classic early Disney cartoons, with their wit, their skill and their invention you realise how unfair this is. Walt Disney Animation – leaving aside the horror that is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse –   is always worth watching.

That is why it is so galling to watch Donald Duck promote population control in this propaganda film from 1968:

The naivety is refreshing. IThey are not worried about there being too many people, they are worried about too many brown people. Donald would not appear again in a Disney cartoon until Mickey's Christmas Carol from 1983.  

…it's like the female infanticide, isn't it yeah?

Abortion is illegal in the United Kingdom except when (outside of Northern Ireland) two doctors agree that it is in the interests of the psychological or physical health of the mother that the pregnancy be terminated. For some reason nobody seems to notice that two human beings go in to an abortion clinic and (usually) only one comes out alive. It absolutely is not grounds for abortion that "we wanted a boy but this is a girl".

The London Daily Telegraph filmed two doctors being told by a woman that she wanted an abortion because of the baby's gender and then conniving in putting something more acceptable on the paperwork. You can hear the woman saying of her putative baby girl "…that's not really appropriate for us right now. We were hoping for a boy and so we are not looking to have this baby at the moment." At a clinic in Manchester, Dr Prabha Sivaraman changes the subject: "I don't ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a termination". Then, on the telephone she is telling a colleague "it is basically social reasons". Sivaraman seems to be putting the strong arm on the other doctor at 1:40 "you are part of our team and she doesn't want questions asked". At 1:58 the woman says "it is the wrong gender" Sivaraman seems to be embarrassed but she says nothing.

Dr Raj Mohan in Birmingham says frankly "it's like the female infanticide isn't it?" Then the woman asks him to put down a different reason so he agrees and says "I'll put too young for pregnancy." Even though the woman has already told him she already has a child and a "partner" and wanted another baby, provided that baby is a boy.

None of this should be surprising. These doctors are already making a living ripping tiny human beings to pieces, for the convenience of adults. They can hardly be expected to refuse because the only reason for doing so is because of the baby's sex. The shocking thing is that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) deliberated about this case for nineteen months, agreed there was enough evidence to proceed with a prosecution for criminal attempt but insisted that it was not in the public interest to do so. It is difficult to see under what circumstances, according to the CPS, it would ever be in the public interest to prosecute.

It is possible to be convicted of criminal attempt if the accused believes he is committing the offence (smuggling heroin in the leading case) but in fact he is not (the heroin turned out to be harmless powder. Therefore it is immaterial whether or not the woman truly wanted an abortion or even whether or not she was pregnant.

Philip Johnston alludes to the fact that sex selection abortions are the concern of certain  *ahem* ethnic groups. 

It is hard to see any reason not to proceed with a prosecution other than because the two subjects – abortion and ethnicity – were seen as too politically toxic.

He also posts the "reasons" given by the CPS for its decision. 

On re-translating Humanae Vitae

Just as the draftsmen of Papal documents are usually unknown – except in exceptional circumstances – so are the translators, although I noted an exception yesterday.

In 'On Retranslating Humanae Vitae' John Finnis talks about his experience preparing a new version of Paul VI's encyclical.  This is on p.344 of his Religion and Public Reasons  (Volume 5 of his collected works). You may be able to see this paper at the book's page on Google (it is blocked to me now, it was available earlier). But buy a copy anyway.

Professor full stop

Professor J. Budziszewski   of the University of Texas at Austin writes an occasional column for the online Christian magazine (oh, all right, webzine) Boundless. He generally writes under the pseudonym Dr Theophilus. It was from his writings I learnt the definition "love is a commitment of the will to the true good of another". It might be from somebody else but I heard it first at the feet of Dr Theophilus.

The conceit of the Dr Theophilus' columns is that he is a professor pestered for advice – mostly moral – by his students. His writing is gentle but firm. No squishiness. His complete columns for Boundless appear to be all online (but there is no index, have to use the search vbar). They stretch back to 1998, including the one I nearly made the attention grabbing title of this post: I Got My Girlfriend Pregnant. What Now? Instead I made an undergraduate allusion to the general ignorance of Professor J. Budziszewski's Christian name. He became a Catholic in 2004.

I love Americans

(The pro-life ones certainly).

I can't quite see this initiative working. But God bless them for trying. How unlike our own "Captain Catholic" shufflers.

Note to Australian readers. Despite the mention of "senators" and "dollars" in this video, this applies to the United States only. Apparently they have dollars and senators too. Yes I know – it is really confusing.

Note to British readers. the Pro-life Alliance (note the hyphen) mentioned is not the organisation for which I used to work.

The economics of recycling

When my workplace replaced its computers I volunteered to take them to be recycled. (I was the boss, it was a political campaign organisation, that was the sort of stupid thing you do). They sat in my flat in Homebush Bay. Then when I moved to much smaller accommodation they took up a corner of my parents' place before coming with me when I moved to my present home. Eventually I got round to finding a good place to recycle them...which turned out to be in Homebush Bay a short drive from my old flat.

While I was living there, in a block that was pretty much the last building on the road before the Parramatta River (and no bridge at the end of it) I was puzzled by the amount of traffic that went past at all hours. I surmised there was a brothel or something tucked away in the industrial estate at the end of the road. It turned out there was in fact a collection of recycling depots* down there and the traffic was trucks taking stuff to be saved from wastage.

*(A grove of recycling depots?)

A brief primer on the merits of recycling from The Corner at National Review by Veronique de Rugy. She refers to an article in the Washington Examiner, this is a more up to date link.

Some more links:

"Recycling is the philosophy that everything is worth saving except your time." – Bryan Caplan.

I Recycle! by Donald J. Boudreaux.

After I awaken, I shower and dry myself with a towel that I’ve had for a few years. I use this towel day after day. I don’t discard it after one use. When it gets dirty, I toss it in the washing machine to clean it for further use. I recycle my towel.

Recycling from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.

Recycling Is Garbage by John Tierney, in The New York Times, yes, The New York Times. It was 1996, a different age.

The English Day for Life

When I lived in England, there was a Day for life when the Bishops urged us to consider the effect of dog fæces on the streets. Not much has changed. JPII's request is one of those rules nobody keeps.

William Oddie, The Bishops’ Conference has decided that Day for Life 2012 is all about the Olympic Games. Every year, it’s anything BUT what Pope John Paul intended.

A week or two ago, I referred to “the great conundrum, for the English Church, about the reign of John Paul II: why was it, when he had appointed most of our bishops, did nearly all of them go out of their way to undermine his vision for the Church?” Now, perhaps the greatest and most persistent example of this undermining of John Paul’s teaching has been the English bishops’ failure, over the years, collectively to oppose abortion and euthanasia as they should have been opposed. And perhaps the most grotesque and cynical example of this phenomenon is in the annual Day for Life, which year after year has in this country been about anything but what Pope John Paul, when he called for its annual observance, intended that it should be about.

Living first and foremost as the beneficiary of a bounty

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, Ignatius (2004).

Part Two: Jesus Christ, Excursus: Christian Structures
4, The law of excess or superfluity, (p. 260).

…he who is always calculating how much he must do to be just adequate and to be able to regard himself, after a few casuistical flicks, as a man with a nice, white shirtfront, is still no Christian. And similarly, he who tries to reckon where duty ends and where he can gain a little extra merit by an opus superogatorium is a Pharisee, not a Christian. Being a Christian does not mean duly making a certain obligatory contribution and perhaps, as an especially perfect person, even going a little further than is required for the fulfillment of the obligation. On the contrary, a Christian is someone who knows that in any case he lives first and foremost as the beneficiary of a bounty and that, consequently, all righteousness can only consist in being himself a donor, like the beggar who is grateful for what he receives and generously passes part of it on to others.