Although my readership as of right now is basically Zero, I'm going to carry on as though I have a readership of thousands. "Fake it till you make it." If hip-hop artists have taught me anything, it's that.
I've recently begun blogging for LiveAction.org, so a lot of my strictly abortion-focused writing will probably go there. I will continue to do what I can to grow this blog, writing about spiritual war and the culture war more broadly, including issues of faith, morality, virtue, post-modernism, and so forth.
On a personal note, I've decided to return to school. Due to the large amount of time that's passed since I was enrolled and the customary changes in curriculum and courses, I will be left with only a fraction of my credit hours; I will return as a second semester freshman. Humbling? Why, yes! But humility is an important virtue and one I am sometimes lacking. I've done some figurin', and it looks like if I get started in earnest now, I can have my PhD before I turn 40. The idea is to do a couple semesters at Richland, then somehow acquire the money (scholarships, loans, grants, selling kidneys, etc.) to transfer to the University of Dallas, a well-regarded private Catholic liberal arts school in Irving. They have a Comparative Literary Studies B.A. that looks completely wonderful.
Meanwhile, New Wave Femmes are increasing our Facebook presence and gearing up to protest the annual Planned Parenthood luncheon at the Anatole Hotel one month from today. A planning meeting is tentatively scheduled for next month, at which we will begin formulating our big schemes for the coming year.
If you haven't yet, please visit New Wave Femmes on Facebook and add us!
More to come soon...
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Eye Witness Testimony
Courtesy of LiveAction.org, a much needed youth-led media assault on abortion.
What follows is the testimony of Abby Johnson, former executive director of the Bryan, TX, Planned Parenthood. After being told in no uncertain terms by her supervisor that committing abortions, not preventing them, was to be her priority, Ms. Johnson realized she had ideological differences with PP. It wasn't until the incident she describes below that she realized the extent of what she had been contributing to.
What follows is the testimony of Abby Johnson, former executive director of the Bryan, TX, Planned Parenthood. After being told in no uncertain terms by her supervisor that committing abortions, not preventing them, was to be her priority, Ms. Johnson realized she had ideological differences with PP. It wasn't until the incident she describes below that she realized the extent of what she had been contributing to.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Marching for Life
All across the country this week, protesters gather to mourn the day 37 years ago when Roe v. Wade was filed in Dallas, TX. Appropriately, the first major gathering was held right here in Dallas, at the source of the river, on January 16th.
At 10:00 a.m., a memorial Mass was concelebrated by the Bishops of Dallas and Ft. Worth at the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, that imposing High Victorian Gothic edifice of red brick smack-dab in the middle of the downtown Arts District.
The highlight of this Mass -- aside from, of course, the Eucharist -- the Rose Procession moves me to tears every time I see it: one person born each year since Roe in 1973 carries a rose for the approximately 1.2 million children lost to abortion the year he or she was born. As each places a rose in the basket in front of the altar, a bell is rung. The final rose bearers are themselves borne by a parent or grandparent. (The 2009 representative was asleep on his daddy's shoulder.)
Finally, a pregnant woman, her hair covered with a mantilla, carried the last rose and placed it in the basket. The bell sounded. She turned and stood, her full belly suspended over the basket of roses, the icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe above and behind her bowed and covered head. A beautiful picture, and I couldn't help but hear Mary's timeless Fiat in my head as I saw it.
I exited the sanctuary to find myself standing above a sea of people. While we were inside, thousands had gathered outside in the plaza, awaiting the March. Because the president of New Wave Femmes and her son were in the Rose Procession, and we had to go back to the car to get our banner, we were at the end of the line.
The March was different from previous years; the biggest difference was that we were confined to the sidewalks, so the route that should have taken us 30 minutes took an hour. Also, the rally that usually took place in the street outside the federal building was now in a parking lot. We froze in the shadow of skyscrapers, but it was worth it to hear uplifting speakers, such as Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas and Kyleen Wright of Texans for Life Coalition.
The March for Life has two purposes: one, it is a powerful public witness. It says to our city -- and the nation, if the media will report the truth -- that pro-lifers are not a few hundred fringe religious fanatics, but a large, vocal, powerful community with a voice. Its other purpose is edification. It brings us together in one place to remind us that we are not alone, that others see the Truth as we do. Gifted speakers rally us and lift our spirits before sending us back out to fight the good fight.
An interesting thing happened after the March: the New Wave Femmes, honoring tradition, met at a Chili's in North Dallas. When I arrived, I heard that one of our members, Jackie, was bringing a "new friend" she met at the March. Knowing Jackie, this didn't surprise me. Her new friend was an 18-year-old vegan who talked a lot about her art collective; she reminded me of people I knew in Austin and San Francisco: the same loopy, navel-gazing "spiritual but not religious" Whole Foods philosophy. Destiny said she had seen her across the street from the March, holding a sign that said something about acceptance and tolerance. Destiny asked her if she was a counterprotester, and the girl -- we'll call her Leslie -- said no, but not with much conviction.
I found out later that she spoke to a reporter for the National Catholic Register and called us hypocrites who were overpopulating the world.
I am so proud of Jackie and the rest of the New Wave Femmes for welcoming her to our table and showing her that we are intelligent, kind people with a sense of humor, not the beady-eyed zealots she probably imagined. It was a powerful witness to the only counterprotester at the March; maybe we gave her some food for thought to go with her veggie burger.
This video courtesy of Fallible Blogma. The girls holding signs reading The Strong Choose Life and Empowered by Birth are Destiny and Julie of New Wave Femmes.
At 10:00 a.m., a memorial Mass was concelebrated by the Bishops of Dallas and Ft. Worth at the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, that imposing High Victorian Gothic edifice of red brick smack-dab in the middle of the downtown Arts District.
The highlight of this Mass -- aside from, of course, the Eucharist -- the Rose Procession moves me to tears every time I see it: one person born each year since Roe in 1973 carries a rose for the approximately 1.2 million children lost to abortion the year he or she was born. As each places a rose in the basket in front of the altar, a bell is rung. The final rose bearers are themselves borne by a parent or grandparent. (The 2009 representative was asleep on his daddy's shoulder.)
Finally, a pregnant woman, her hair covered with a mantilla, carried the last rose and placed it in the basket. The bell sounded. She turned and stood, her full belly suspended over the basket of roses, the icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe above and behind her bowed and covered head. A beautiful picture, and I couldn't help but hear Mary's timeless Fiat in my head as I saw it.
I exited the sanctuary to find myself standing above a sea of people. While we were inside, thousands had gathered outside in the plaza, awaiting the March. Because the president of New Wave Femmes and her son were in the Rose Procession, and we had to go back to the car to get our banner, we were at the end of the line.
The March was different from previous years; the biggest difference was that we were confined to the sidewalks, so the route that should have taken us 30 minutes took an hour. Also, the rally that usually took place in the street outside the federal building was now in a parking lot. We froze in the shadow of skyscrapers, but it was worth it to hear uplifting speakers, such as Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas and Kyleen Wright of Texans for Life Coalition.
The March for Life has two purposes: one, it is a powerful public witness. It says to our city -- and the nation, if the media will report the truth -- that pro-lifers are not a few hundred fringe religious fanatics, but a large, vocal, powerful community with a voice. Its other purpose is edification. It brings us together in one place to remind us that we are not alone, that others see the Truth as we do. Gifted speakers rally us and lift our spirits before sending us back out to fight the good fight.
An interesting thing happened after the March: the New Wave Femmes, honoring tradition, met at a Chili's in North Dallas. When I arrived, I heard that one of our members, Jackie, was bringing a "new friend" she met at the March. Knowing Jackie, this didn't surprise me. Her new friend was an 18-year-old vegan who talked a lot about her art collective; she reminded me of people I knew in Austin and San Francisco: the same loopy, navel-gazing "spiritual but not religious" Whole Foods philosophy. Destiny said she had seen her across the street from the March, holding a sign that said something about acceptance and tolerance. Destiny asked her if she was a counterprotester, and the girl -- we'll call her Leslie -- said no, but not with much conviction.
I found out later that she spoke to a reporter for the National Catholic Register and called us hypocrites who were overpopulating the world.
I am so proud of Jackie and the rest of the New Wave Femmes for welcoming her to our table and showing her that we are intelligent, kind people with a sense of humor, not the beady-eyed zealots she probably imagined. It was a powerful witness to the only counterprotester at the March; maybe we gave her some food for thought to go with her veggie burger.
This video courtesy of Fallible Blogma. The girls holding signs reading The Strong Choose Life and Empowered by Birth are Destiny and Julie of New Wave Femmes.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Attention, Dallas County Voters!
No matter your political party, you can make your pro-life voice heard in the upcoming Republican primary on March 2. State Bill 182 will require medical personnel to show women considering an abortion an ultrasound and make them listen to the fetal heartbeat. There's a reason why Planned Parenthood and other pro-aborts have fought long and hard against these "informed consent" laws: they work. When the doctor or tech is required by law to "describe the features of the ultrasound, including fetus size," women begin to understand that what they're about to do is not flush away some tissue but kill a baby.
Read a brief article about the bill here. The bill itself is located here.
If you're not registered to vote, click here to get that way now! The deadline is February 1st.
Read a brief article about the bill here. The bill itself is located here.
If you're not registered to vote, click here to get that way now! The deadline is February 1st.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Feminist Case Against Abortion
Former Feminists for Life of America president Serrin Foster's wonderful 1999 speech can be found here. (Scroll down to pg. 28.)
An excerpt:
An excerpt:
Without known exception, the early feminists condemned abortion in the strongest terms.
Susan B. Anthony’s and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s radical feminist newspaper, The Revolution, called abortion “child murder.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who in 1848 organized the first women’s convention in Seneca Falls, New York, classified abortion as a form of “infanticide” and said, “When we consider that women have been treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.”
Since there were no American laws to protect women and children from abortion, the early feminists worked to outlaw abortion. (This is the dirty little secret of women’s studies departments across the United States.) Feminists, doctors, and the media worked together in an uneasy alliance for anti-abortion laws.
The feminists agreed with doctors and the media about providing legal protection for the unborn, but they disagreed sharply on the reasons that women had abortions—and on their proposed remedies.
Male physicians blamed the woman, saying that if she just did what men said, she wouldn’t have gotten herself into “trouble.”
Feminists argued that women who had abortions were responsible for their actions, but women resorted to abortion primarily because of their lack of autonomy within the family and society and their lack of financial resources and emotional support.
A passage in Susan B. Anthony’s and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s newspaper, The Revolution, states:
Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh, thrice guilty is he who drove her to the des- peration which impelled her to the crime!
The first woman to run for president, Victoria Woodhull, said: “Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, or think of murdering one before its birth.”
Some—who begrudgingly admit the early American feminists were anti-abortion—have suggested that the reason was the Victorian attitude about sex. That’s not true either.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton shocked Victorian society by parading around in public visibly pregnant. She raised a flag to celebrate the birth of a child in a time when children were not seen in socie- ty until the age of two. She celebrated womanhood. She was “in your face” about her ability to have children.
Yet like today’s pro-life feminists, early feminists recognized that women do not have to bear children to share in this celebration of womanhood.
Susan B. Anthony was once complimented by a friend who thought that she would have made a wonderful mother. Anthony responded, “Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them.”Read the full speech on pg. 28 and marvel at the wisdom of Ms. Foster and the Feminists for Life.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Pope Benedict Speaks
Thanks to Jill Stanek for posting this on her wonderful blog.
Taking a functionalist view of humanity is typical of people who argue for abortion. Overpopulation is no argument for murder. Society is a way of structuring civilization, created by humans, for humans. It is a tool intended for our benefit, not the other way around. If society is broken -- in other words, if some people have plenty of space, food, and other necessities, while others have too little to survive -- we should no more consider killing people than we would consider cutting off our feet if our pants didn't fit.
Overpopulation is a myth perpetuated in the West by people who would rather advocate killing "extraneous" humans than give up their Xbox 360 to feed a hungry child.
If we wish to build true peace, how can we separate, or even set at odds, the protection of the environment and the protection of human life, including the life of the unborn? It is in man's respect for himself that his sense of responsibility for creation is shown...
Furthermore, as I noted during the recent FAO World Summit on Food Security, 'the world has enough food for all its inhabitants' provided that selfishness does not lead some to hoard the goods which are intended for all.~Pope Benedict XVI, making it clear that abortion is not an acceptable means of protecting the environment, as quoted by Zenit, January 11.
Taking a functionalist view of humanity is typical of people who argue for abortion. Overpopulation is no argument for murder. Society is a way of structuring civilization, created by humans, for humans. It is a tool intended for our benefit, not the other way around. If society is broken -- in other words, if some people have plenty of space, food, and other necessities, while others have too little to survive -- we should no more consider killing people than we would consider cutting off our feet if our pants didn't fit.
Overpopulation is a myth perpetuated in the West by people who would rather advocate killing "extraneous" humans than give up their Xbox 360 to feed a hungry child.
"What Is A Saint?"
It's short and simple, and it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever read. It was (of course) written by Dr. Peter Kreeft. Found at Catholic Education Resource Center:
Saints are not freaks or exceptions; they are the standard operating model for human beings.
Because, as Charles Peguy put it, “life holds only one tragedy, ultimately: not to have been a saint."
Saints are not freaks or exceptions. They are the standard operating model for human beings. In fact, in the biblical sense of the word, all believers are saints. “Sanctity” means holiness. All men, women and children, born or unborn, beautiful or ugly, straight or gay, are holy, for they bear the image of God.
Saints are not the opposite of sinners. There are no opposites of sinners in this world. There are only saved sinners and unsaved sinners. Thus holy does not mean “sinless” but “set-apart:” called out of the world to the destiny of eternal ecstasy with God...I highly recommend you continue reading here.
Brave New World
Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.
Just came across this 2006 article from LifeSiteNews.com. Here is an excerpt:
Just came across this 2006 article from LifeSiteNews.com. Here is an excerpt:
Concerned Women for America says that poor women are being paid up to $200 dollars to have their unborn children killed between 8 and 12 weeks gestation when the foetuses are “harvested” for their stem cells, which are then sold to exclusive cosmetic clinics.Read the full article here.
Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Senior Fellow of CWA’s Beverly LaHaye Institute, said “It is hard to believe that such atrocities are going on today. These exclusive and exorbitant treatments are available in such varied locales as Barbados, Moscow, Dominican Republic and in Rotterdam.”
“Not only is the origin of the foetuses immoral and inhumane; there are medical problems and complications associated with the injections. This savage and repulsive ‘brave new world’ of human sacrifices in the quest for eternal youth is a prime example of the end results when all moral boundaries are destroyed,” Crouse continued.
The Culture War
Besides perhaps G. K. Chesterton, no writer has played a bigger part in the formation of my faith than Dr. Peter Kreeft. A Calvinist turned Catholic, he is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and the author of somewhere around 40 books on Christianity, culture, theology, philosophy, and social issues. His entire body of work is, to me, the most compelling evidence there is that reason and faith are not enemies, but best friends.
Recently, over the course of a year or so I began to turn away from orthodox Catholicism. I began to live in the world. For several months, I could feel God beginning to call me back. Ultimately, He used Dr. Kreeft's book, You Can Understand the Bible, to win back my soul. A loving, worshipful, enlightening exploration and synopsis of each book of Scripture, this book acquainted me with God again by whispering excerpts of His love letter to me -- the Bible -- into my ear and explaining to me their significance and meaning. I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to learn more about God and Who He really is.
Dr. Kreeft is a warrior for Good, and therefore for God. His writing teaches you how to fight the good fight. For example, it is profoundly important that pro-life activists be able to make a sound secular argument against abortion. I was a liberal agnostic when I was converted to pro-life. It took one Conversation (I capitalize it because it was probably the most important conversation of my life) with a Catholic to change my mind. She didn't mention God, which would have turned me off right away. She used reason and an appeal to human rights -- which, like most liberals, I was all for! -- to change my mind. She also, with my permission, showed me some photographs that sealed my conversion instantly. A picture truly is worth a thousand words, and it's impossible to look at an image of a broken, mangled little baby's body and not know in your very soul that it is WRONG. I had an instant, irrevocable, visceral reaction that I can still recall. It was a horrifying, soul-shattering experience that I liken to Paul's on the road to Damascus. Although my realization that I had been addressed by Christ would not happen instantly, I saw the face of God in those children just as surely as Paul heard His voice.
Although I had been vocally, stubbornly, even angrily anti-Christian for years, almost exactly one year after the Conversation that made me pro-life, I was received into the Catholic church. A coincidence? I don't think so. In fact, I no longer believe in them. But my story is important for Christians to hear because many of them think they are somehow thumbing their nose at faith when they do not mention God in their pro-life argument. I say, tailor the argument to the person. God will use any foothold he can get in a person's soul. Once I recognized that Catholics were absolutely right about abortion, it made me wonder what else they were right about. The Truth really will set you free, and the Truth -- not to mention the Way and the Life -- is not just an idea, but a Person. Saying yes to Truth is, whether we know it at the time or not, saying yes to Him.
I strongly suggest you visit Dr. Kreeft's website, http://www.peterkreeft.com/, and visit the Featured Writing and Featured Audio sections. Please note there is a small link at the bottom of those pages where you can find more writing and audio. Read everything you can of his. His words will strengthen your faith and your power to reason. In particular, I urge pro-lifers to read "The Argument for Personhood." It is a sound, and in my opinion irrefutable, secular argument against abortion.
I also strongly urge you to read his writing on spiritual warfare, available on his website and also at http://www.catholiceducation.org/. (Enter his name into the search box for pages of his articles.)
I would like to post here a brief excerpt from "A Defense of Culture War: A Call for Counterrevolution." This is itself an excerpt from his book How to Win the Culture War by Intervarsity Press. The following excerpt specifically concerns abortion:
Read the full article here at Dr. Kreeft's website.
Recently, over the course of a year or so I began to turn away from orthodox Catholicism. I began to live in the world. For several months, I could feel God beginning to call me back. Ultimately, He used Dr. Kreeft's book, You Can Understand the Bible, to win back my soul. A loving, worshipful, enlightening exploration and synopsis of each book of Scripture, this book acquainted me with God again by whispering excerpts of His love letter to me -- the Bible -- into my ear and explaining to me their significance and meaning. I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to learn more about God and Who He really is.
Dr. Kreeft is a warrior for Good, and therefore for God. His writing teaches you how to fight the good fight. For example, it is profoundly important that pro-life activists be able to make a sound secular argument against abortion. I was a liberal agnostic when I was converted to pro-life. It took one Conversation (I capitalize it because it was probably the most important conversation of my life) with a Catholic to change my mind. She didn't mention God, which would have turned me off right away. She used reason and an appeal to human rights -- which, like most liberals, I was all for! -- to change my mind. She also, with my permission, showed me some photographs that sealed my conversion instantly. A picture truly is worth a thousand words, and it's impossible to look at an image of a broken, mangled little baby's body and not know in your very soul that it is WRONG. I had an instant, irrevocable, visceral reaction that I can still recall. It was a horrifying, soul-shattering experience that I liken to Paul's on the road to Damascus. Although my realization that I had been addressed by Christ would not happen instantly, I saw the face of God in those children just as surely as Paul heard His voice.
Although I had been vocally, stubbornly, even angrily anti-Christian for years, almost exactly one year after the Conversation that made me pro-life, I was received into the Catholic church. A coincidence? I don't think so. In fact, I no longer believe in them. But my story is important for Christians to hear because many of them think they are somehow thumbing their nose at faith when they do not mention God in their pro-life argument. I say, tailor the argument to the person. God will use any foothold he can get in a person's soul. Once I recognized that Catholics were absolutely right about abortion, it made me wonder what else they were right about. The Truth really will set you free, and the Truth -- not to mention the Way and the Life -- is not just an idea, but a Person. Saying yes to Truth is, whether we know it at the time or not, saying yes to Him.
I strongly suggest you visit Dr. Kreeft's website, http://www.peterkreeft.com/, and visit the Featured Writing and Featured Audio sections. Please note there is a small link at the bottom of those pages where you can find more writing and audio. Read everything you can of his. His words will strengthen your faith and your power to reason. In particular, I urge pro-lifers to read "The Argument for Personhood." It is a sound, and in my opinion irrefutable, secular argument against abortion.
I also strongly urge you to read his writing on spiritual warfare, available on his website and also at http://www.catholiceducation.org/. (Enter his name into the search box for pages of his articles.)
I would like to post here a brief excerpt from "A Defense of Culture War: A Call for Counterrevolution." This is itself an excerpt from his book How to Win the Culture War by Intervarsity Press. The following excerpt specifically concerns abortion:
Even people who identify themselves as "pro-choice", like President Clinton, say they want to reduce the number of abortions. This means they, too, assume abortion is bad, for no one wants to reduce the number of something good. Surely the deliberate killing of unborn children is not something good!
Most Americans will not deny that abortion is at least a moral tragedy. But it is more than that. It is a barbaric act that degrades a civilization.
Polls repeatedly show that the majority of Americans are ignorant of the basic facts about abortion:
the stages of development of life in the womb: just what it is that is aborted;
the biological and medical facts about just how an abortion is performed. You can see absolutely anything today on TV or MTV or HBO except the most frequent medical procedure in America. There is a total media censorship of the facts;
the numbers: more than one and a half million abortions per year. One out of every three children conceived in the United States is aborted;
the fact that Roe v. Wade did not restrict abortions, but any woman in America can get an abortion for any reason at all (including sex selection: wanting a son, therefore aborting a daughter) at any time whatsoever;
the fact that abortion clinics are not legally subject to the same stringent standards of sanitation and safety as all other medical facilities;
that the anti-abortion movement is much larger than the civil rights movement of the sixties ever was, in numbers of participants and numbers jailed, but the media simply black out these facts;
that an overwhelming number of women who have had abortions say they regret it later and wish they had not done so;
that post-abortion trauma is common and crushing; that most women who abort—by their own admission—do not believe their "fetus" was "only tissue" or "only potential life" but believe they killed their baby; and this sense of guilt haunts them for life if not dealt with. But this fact is also denied or censored by a total media blackout.
Abortion splits the family in a literal and lethal way. It literally rips mother and child apart. And it desensitizes us in a gruesome way. We are starting to see the next stage in our "culture of death"—legalized suicide and euthanasia. The same principle that justifies killing at one end of life justifies it at the other: we will dispose of unwanted people.
Read the full article here at Dr. Kreeft's website.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Definition
I found this on A Conservative Blog for Peace, which is always a great read.
"What is ‘tolerant conservatism’?
Charity and discretion about people’s failings while at the same time not making excuses for those vices either.
Don’t ask, don’t tell, we give you your space and God forgives but we don’t teach that it’s not a sin."
(The man who coined the term? The Right Rev. Peter Robinson, Rector of St. Paul's Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ.)
I like this definition, except maybe for the "don't ask, don't tell" part. I need to think that bit over before I decide.
This weekend some core members of New Wave Femmes gathered to make signs for next weekend's Roe v. Wade memorial events in downtown Dallas. (There will be a memorial mass for the approximately 50,000,000 children killed in the U.S. since abortion was legalized in 1973, followed by a rally and a peaceful march to the federal courts building and back.)
It was a wonderful experience of fellowship for NWF, with probably too much wine. We spent hours discussing matters of faith, morals, womanhood, sex, hair dye, swearing, attractive monks, ghost hunting, bean dip, and more.
What came out of this evening of work and fun, other than attending Mass with a pounding headache, were some dynamic ideas about where New Wave Femmes is going and what the next year might have in store for us. Together we can do a great deal to help women and children, and the men who love them.
Later I'll be posting more about NWF, but meanwhile I am reflecting on the definition of "tolerant conservatism" and what it means for our organization.
While discussing what we should print on our signs for the rally and march, knowing that there will be press there and whatever we write might be on the 6 o'clock news, I found myself saying to the other girls: "Never apologize for telling the Truth." I want to capitalize truth because I do believe there is an objective Truth that exists independent of what (or whether) we think about it. While we want to be nurturing to people, to show them compassion and act always from love and kindness, we are only doing them a disservice if we lie to them.
That's why I like, for the most part, the term "tolerant conservatism" and the way it's defined. It is possible to love people and even understand why they do what they do without condoning it.
"What is ‘tolerant conservatism’?
Charity and discretion about people’s failings while at the same time not making excuses for those vices either.
Don’t ask, don’t tell, we give you your space and God forgives but we don’t teach that it’s not a sin."
(The man who coined the term? The Right Rev. Peter Robinson, Rector of St. Paul's Anglican Church, Prescott, AZ.)
I like this definition, except maybe for the "don't ask, don't tell" part. I need to think that bit over before I decide.
This weekend some core members of New Wave Femmes gathered to make signs for next weekend's Roe v. Wade memorial events in downtown Dallas. (There will be a memorial mass for the approximately 50,000,000 children killed in the U.S. since abortion was legalized in 1973, followed by a rally and a peaceful march to the federal courts building and back.)
It was a wonderful experience of fellowship for NWF, with probably too much wine. We spent hours discussing matters of faith, morals, womanhood, sex, hair dye, swearing, attractive monks, ghost hunting, bean dip, and more.
What came out of this evening of work and fun, other than attending Mass with a pounding headache, were some dynamic ideas about where New Wave Femmes is going and what the next year might have in store for us. Together we can do a great deal to help women and children, and the men who love them.
Later I'll be posting more about NWF, but meanwhile I am reflecting on the definition of "tolerant conservatism" and what it means for our organization.
While discussing what we should print on our signs for the rally and march, knowing that there will be press there and whatever we write might be on the 6 o'clock news, I found myself saying to the other girls: "Never apologize for telling the Truth." I want to capitalize truth because I do believe there is an objective Truth that exists independent of what (or whether) we think about it. While we want to be nurturing to people, to show them compassion and act always from love and kindness, we are only doing them a disservice if we lie to them.
That's why I like, for the most part, the term "tolerant conservatism" and the way it's defined. It is possible to love people and even understand why they do what they do without condoning it.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
"What to Expect When You're Aborting"
I just found a website that filled me with sadness. It's the blog of a young woman who had an abortion. The description says: "I'm 23, I'm knocked up, I'm not keeping it. You can fuck yourself Judd Apatow." (She is referring to the director of the film Knocked Up, in which a young professional woman, played by Katherine Heigl, becomes pregnant during a one night stand and, despite her mother's advice that she abort this one so later she can get married and have "a real baby," decides to keep it.)
"What to Expect When You're Aborting" treats the subject of the author's abortion with a sort of dark, dry humor. I can identify with her sense of humor, but not about this particular subject matter. While she seems to obliquely admit to having an emotional response to the experience, in the few posts I read, she has the bitter, snarky tone I've found common to pro-abortion activists.
The pro-choice anger has always struck me as interesting. You'd think we'd be the bitter ones; they have what they want: abortion is legal. But consistently I find pro-lifers to be hopeful, caring people, while there seems to be a lot of barely-concealed rage from pro-aborts. I know this is true because I was one, and I felt the rage. It was a feeling of "How dare they tell us what to do!" It was the anger of indignation, which is self-focused. Now, as a pro-lifer, I feel the the righteous anger that is focused on others -- the innocent, misguided, and lost -- and tempered by sadness and love. It is a totally different feeling.
I remember in particular some photos taken at a pro-life march in San Francisco -- in the lions' den! Having lived in San Francisco, I could almost have predicted the content of those photos. The pro-lifers had been taught to be quiet, respectful, and prayerful. The pro-aborts -- many of them -- were out of control. Several women were dressed in all white, with their crotches splattered with red paint and wire hangers hanging off their clothes.
The author of "What to Expect..." makes it clear that she's not interested in debate, but she certainly can't stop us from praying for her. What she is doing is not only activism -- and it is activism, make no mistake, as surely as this blog is -- but also a cry for help that she might not even be aware she is making.
Pro-lifers need to read these sorts of blogs. We need to get to know the women we are trying to help. We need to understand the way she thinks, why she did what she did, how she feels about it. It is essential to what we are trying to do here. We're not just saving babies, we're saving women, too.
We should also stay abreast of news, events, victories, setbacks and trends in the pro-choice community. "Know your enemy" is a rule of warfare. But remember: although we have to study the pro-choice movement to know how they think, what they fear, and how to fight them, they are not really our enemy. Just like the women who abort, they are the people we are trying to save. Evil is the real enemy, and it comes from a place darker than any on this earth, and an Enemy crueler than any earthly foe.
"What to Expect When You're Aborting" treats the subject of the author's abortion with a sort of dark, dry humor. I can identify with her sense of humor, but not about this particular subject matter. While she seems to obliquely admit to having an emotional response to the experience, in the few posts I read, she has the bitter, snarky tone I've found common to pro-abortion activists.
The pro-choice anger has always struck me as interesting. You'd think we'd be the bitter ones; they have what they want: abortion is legal. But consistently I find pro-lifers to be hopeful, caring people, while there seems to be a lot of barely-concealed rage from pro-aborts. I know this is true because I was one, and I felt the rage. It was a feeling of "How dare they tell us what to do!" It was the anger of indignation, which is self-focused. Now, as a pro-lifer, I feel the the righteous anger that is focused on others -- the innocent, misguided, and lost -- and tempered by sadness and love. It is a totally different feeling.
I remember in particular some photos taken at a pro-life march in San Francisco -- in the lions' den! Having lived in San Francisco, I could almost have predicted the content of those photos. The pro-lifers had been taught to be quiet, respectful, and prayerful. The pro-aborts -- many of them -- were out of control. Several women were dressed in all white, with their crotches splattered with red paint and wire hangers hanging off their clothes.
The author of "What to Expect..." makes it clear that she's not interested in debate, but she certainly can't stop us from praying for her. What she is doing is not only activism -- and it is activism, make no mistake, as surely as this blog is -- but also a cry for help that she might not even be aware she is making.
Pro-lifers need to read these sorts of blogs. We need to get to know the women we are trying to help. We need to understand the way she thinks, why she did what she did, how she feels about it. It is essential to what we are trying to do here. We're not just saving babies, we're saving women, too.
We should also stay abreast of news, events, victories, setbacks and trends in the pro-choice community. "Know your enemy" is a rule of warfare. But remember: although we have to study the pro-choice movement to know how they think, what they fear, and how to fight them, they are not really our enemy. Just like the women who abort, they are the people we are trying to save. Evil is the real enemy, and it comes from a place darker than any on this earth, and an Enemy crueler than any earthly foe.
The Abortion-Breast Cancer Link: It's Real
Special thanks to Leslie for posting this on her wonderful blog, THE PASSIONATE PRO-LIFER. She reposted from Black Christian News.
"Although the study was published nine months ago, the NCI, the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer fundraising businesses have made no efforts to reduce breast cancer rates by issuing nationwide warnings to women."
"Although the study was published nine months ago, the NCI, the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer fundraising businesses have made no efforts to reduce breast cancer rates by issuing nationwide warnings to women."
Less than two months since the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued new guidelines recommending against routine mammograms for women in their forties, a second breast cancer scandal involving a U.S. government panel of experts has come to light which has implications for healthcare reform.
An April 2009 study by Jessica Dolle et al. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center examining the relationship between oral contraceptives (OCs) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in women under age 45 contained an admission from U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) researcher Louise Brinton and her colleagues (including Janet Daling) that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%."
Friday, January 8, 2010
A Black Pastor Speaks: "My People Are Dying"
One of the most eloquent and moving essays about the genocidal nature of abortion I have ever read:
Walter Hoye
December 25, 2009
On more than one occasion it has been suggested to me … to wait.
The cause is just, but wait.
The cause is worthy, but wait.
The cause is righteous, but wait.
That is, wait for a more opportune or favorable time to pursue the just, worthy and righteous cause of the California Human Rights Amendment.
This suggestion to wait, has come to me by way of men and women:
• Who love me and have proven themselves under trying circumstances to be my friends.
• Whom I highly respect, whose moral credentials are infinitely greater than mine.
• Whose wisdom has been tried, forged in the raging fires of spiritual warfare and found true.
• Whose commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ is beyond question.
• Whose lives reflect the sacred beauty of sacrifice for “love’s sake” itself. (Philemon 1:9)
To each and everyone of these wonderful saints of God, I want to say thank you for the time you have spent with me. Thank you for your wisdom, for your prayers and for your love. I want you to know that I have taken every word to heart.
Yet, I cannot wait.
With all due respect, I cannot wait for a more opportune or favorable time to pursue the just, worthy and righteous cause of the California Human Rights Amendment.
You see, my people are dying.
Arnold M. Culbreath, the Urban Outreach Director for “Protecting Black Life,” reports since 1973, over 14.5 million black babies have been killed by abortion and that 1,200 black babies die by abortion daily.
My people are dying.
According to Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), the research arm of Planned Parenthood, Black women are nearly five (5) times as likely as non-Hispanic white women to have an abortion.
My people are dying.
According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) report entitled, “Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2006,” the abortion ratio among black women, defined as the number of abortions per 1,000 live births, is 450 abortions per 1,000 live births. The abortion ratio for Black women far exceeds the abortion rate for any other people group.
Considering the fact that abortion is not the only reason a baby in the womb of his or her mother dies, today a Black American child has less than a 50% chance of being born. It is safer on the streets for a Black child in the worse neighborhoods America has to offer than on the inside of the womb of his or her mother.
My people are dying.
Abortion remains the leading cause of death in the Black America. Abortion alone accounts for three (3) times more deaths in our community than HIV/AIDS, Violent Crimes, Accidents, Cancer, and Heart Disease combined.
My people are dying.
The U.S. fertility rate is an indicator that shows the potential for population change in the country. A rate below 2.1 indicates populations decreasing in size and growing older. Today, according to the 2006 U.S. Census, our fertility rate is below the replacement level at 1.9. Black America is no longer replacing herself.
My people are dying.
According to the National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 48, No. 11, the abortion rate among married Black American women is three (3) times greater than it is among white women.
My people are dying.
Again, according to the National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 58, No. 4, October 14th, 2009, today for every 100 Black babies born alive, there are another 77 Black babies killed by abortion. Said another way, for every 1 Black baby born alive, practically 1 Black baby is killed by abortion.
My people are dying.
According to the archives at the Tuskegee Institute, between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 Negroes were lynched by the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) in the United States of America. Today, abortion in the Black community kills more Black Americans in less than three (3) days than the Klu Klux Klan could kill in eighty-six (86) years.
My people are dying.
According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), since 1973 (i.e., the year abortion was legalized in the U.S.) more Black American babies have been killed by abortion than the total number of Black American deaths from all other causes combined.
My people are dying.
If we were to ask the average high-school student how many U.S. soldiers died in the Vietnam War, the most probable answer would be roughly 58,000. This is the number of American military personnel deaths. Today more black babies are killed in less than two (2) months from abortion than the total number of American military personnel that died in the Vietnam War.
My people are dying.
According to a study in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 13 Number 4, Winter 2008, entitled “Does Induced Abortion Account for Racial Disparity in Preterm Births, and Violate the Nuremberg Code?” Black American women have three (3) times the risk of suffering an early preterm birth (EPB, birth under 32 weeks) and four (4) times the risk of an extremely preterm birth (XPB, birth under 28 weeks).
This report, authored by Brent Rooney, M.Sc., Byron C. Calhoun, M.D., M.B.A. and Lisa E. Roche, J.D., reports a “statistically significant” increase in the risk of EBP or XPB in women who have a history of induced abortion (IA) when compared to women with no history of induced abortion.
When one considers the fact that XPB babies have a 129 times higher risk of being born with the horribly debilitating effects of cerebral palsy (CP) and that according to Rooney, Calhoun and Roche, “about 43% of pregnancies in Black American women end in induced abortion” alone and when you understand that these numbers describe a rate of death in the Black community that only reflects the impact of induced abortion, you are at a point where you are beginning to understand that …
My people are dying.
The targeting of Black America by eugenic minded, pro-abortion forces is easy to see when you consider that black Americans make up about twelve (12) percent of the population of the United States of America and yet according to Planned Parenthood’s Alan Guttmacher Institute, 37 percent of all abortions in the country are performed on Black American women and their preborn children.
In other words, twelve (12) percent of the population of this country, Black Americans, is responsible for thirty-seven (37) percent of all abortions in the United States of America.
If you consider about half of Black America is female then you’re looking at around six (6) percent of the population of this country being responsible for thirty-seven (37) percent of all abortions in the United States of America.
If you consider child bearing age from 15 to 44 then you’re looking at around three (3) percent of the population of this country, Black Americans, being responsible for thirty-seven (37) percent of all abortions in the United States of America.
Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council says:
“Preliminary data currently being compiled on all abortion facilities in the U.S. shows that over twenty (20) states have abortion facilities in areas where the African-American population is fifty (50) percent or higher,”
Tony goes on to say:
“In fact, ten (10) states and in Washington, D.C. have abortion centers located exclusively in minority areas.”
I cannot wait, my people are dying.
Abortion is the Darfur of the Black American community.
If nothing changes.
If America does not become more efficient at killing babies in the womb of their mothers in the future.
If we do not take into consideration the number of chemical abortions.
If the rate of death, due solely to the impact of induced abortion in the Black community, remains constant and does not increase or decrease over time.
Black America will face the very real possibility of being an endangered species by the year of our Lord Jesus Christ two thousand one hundred (2100).
That is, I said, if nothing changes …
However, everything is changing.
If [Alleged] President Obama is successful in his efforts to install his health care vision for America, the numbers of Black babies killed by abortion will skyrocket.
Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has said:
“Those of us who care about the civil rights of all Americans, born and unborn, oppose Obamacare because we oppose the expansion of the most racist industry in America – the abortion industry.”
Frankly, time for my people is running out.
The time for me to act is now.
I simply cannot wait.
Perhaps others can afford to wait.
Nevertheless, I cannot wait because the abortion numbers are higher in my community, among my people than in any other people group.
Perhaps others can tell the future.
However, I do not have the power to tell the future.
I can only tell you about the One who holds the future.
Perhaps others are wiser than I am.
After all there are “certain political realities” at work in our world today and the mere presence of such realities surely calls for an experienced hand.
While I am sure others are wiser, have more experience and know how to come in and go out, I still cannot wait.
I cannot wait for …
• Public opinion to favor me.
• Political equity or capital necessary to guarantee victory to be voted into office.
• Proper funding required to meet the surely inevitable challenges that will come.
America is changing, my people are dying and I cannot wait.
I believe faith in Christ along with a repentant heart will allow us to receive His forgiveness and boldly face the wickedness in high places that walks among us today.
I believe such faith in Christ will allow His Body and Bride to perform the works of life that will overcome the works of death.
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment, by embracing the issue of “Personhood,” addresses the most profound and the most serious ethical dilemma this country has ever faced.
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment offers all of us an unprecedented opportunity for dialogue centered on the core issue of the abortion debate, the “humanity” of us all.
Imagine the power of Christ at work in us as we engage the culture for His sake by asking such questions as:
What does it mean …
• To be made in the image of God?
• To be fearfully and wonderfully made?
• To be respected as a person?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in defense of his belief in “Nonviolence” said:
“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals. Both a practical and a moral answer to the Negro’s cry for justice, nonviolent direct action proved that it could win victories without losing wars, and so became the triumphant tactic of the Negro Revolution of 1963.”
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment today is what nonviolent direct action was to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s. It is a powerful, just and righteous weapon.
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment “ennobles the man who wields it.” It is the kind of weapon that God favors and will honor as His people engage the world around them in dialogue for Christ’s sake.
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment is both a practical and moral answer to the preborn’s cry for justice, for righteousness and for life itself.
I believe, on this side of heaven, it is never too late to start doing right.
Maybe you believe in God the same way I do and/or maybe you see the same divinely inspired opportunity that is set before us today, as I do?
If you can, then help me today, because you cannot wait either.
Stay tuned, there is more to come.
Walter Hoye
December 25, 2009
On more than one occasion it has been suggested to me … to wait.
The cause is just, but wait.
The cause is worthy, but wait.
The cause is righteous, but wait.
That is, wait for a more opportune or favorable time to pursue the just, worthy and righteous cause of the California Human Rights Amendment.
This suggestion to wait, has come to me by way of men and women:
• Who love me and have proven themselves under trying circumstances to be my friends.
• Whom I highly respect, whose moral credentials are infinitely greater than mine.
• Whose wisdom has been tried, forged in the raging fires of spiritual warfare and found true.
• Whose commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ is beyond question.
• Whose lives reflect the sacred beauty of sacrifice for “love’s sake” itself. (Philemon 1:9)
To each and everyone of these wonderful saints of God, I want to say thank you for the time you have spent with me. Thank you for your wisdom, for your prayers and for your love. I want you to know that I have taken every word to heart.
Yet, I cannot wait.
With all due respect, I cannot wait for a more opportune or favorable time to pursue the just, worthy and righteous cause of the California Human Rights Amendment.
You see, my people are dying.
Arnold M. Culbreath, the Urban Outreach Director for “Protecting Black Life,” reports since 1973, over 14.5 million black babies have been killed by abortion and that 1,200 black babies die by abortion daily.
My people are dying.
According to Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), the research arm of Planned Parenthood, Black women are nearly five (5) times as likely as non-Hispanic white women to have an abortion.
My people are dying.
According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) report entitled, “Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2006,” the abortion ratio among black women, defined as the number of abortions per 1,000 live births, is 450 abortions per 1,000 live births. The abortion ratio for Black women far exceeds the abortion rate for any other people group.
Considering the fact that abortion is not the only reason a baby in the womb of his or her mother dies, today a Black American child has less than a 50% chance of being born. It is safer on the streets for a Black child in the worse neighborhoods America has to offer than on the inside of the womb of his or her mother.
My people are dying.
Abortion remains the leading cause of death in the Black America. Abortion alone accounts for three (3) times more deaths in our community than HIV/AIDS, Violent Crimes, Accidents, Cancer, and Heart Disease combined.
My people are dying.
The U.S. fertility rate is an indicator that shows the potential for population change in the country. A rate below 2.1 indicates populations decreasing in size and growing older. Today, according to the 2006 U.S. Census, our fertility rate is below the replacement level at 1.9. Black America is no longer replacing herself.
My people are dying.
According to the National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 48, No. 11, the abortion rate among married Black American women is three (3) times greater than it is among white women.
My people are dying.
Again, according to the National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 58, No. 4, October 14th, 2009, today for every 100 Black babies born alive, there are another 77 Black babies killed by abortion. Said another way, for every 1 Black baby born alive, practically 1 Black baby is killed by abortion.
My people are dying.
According to the archives at the Tuskegee Institute, between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 Negroes were lynched by the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) in the United States of America. Today, abortion in the Black community kills more Black Americans in less than three (3) days than the Klu Klux Klan could kill in eighty-six (86) years.
My people are dying.
According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), since 1973 (i.e., the year abortion was legalized in the U.S.) more Black American babies have been killed by abortion than the total number of Black American deaths from all other causes combined.
My people are dying.
If we were to ask the average high-school student how many U.S. soldiers died in the Vietnam War, the most probable answer would be roughly 58,000. This is the number of American military personnel deaths. Today more black babies are killed in less than two (2) months from abortion than the total number of American military personnel that died in the Vietnam War.
My people are dying.
According to a study in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 13 Number 4, Winter 2008, entitled “Does Induced Abortion Account for Racial Disparity in Preterm Births, and Violate the Nuremberg Code?” Black American women have three (3) times the risk of suffering an early preterm birth (EPB, birth under 32 weeks) and four (4) times the risk of an extremely preterm birth (XPB, birth under 28 weeks).
This report, authored by Brent Rooney, M.Sc., Byron C. Calhoun, M.D., M.B.A. and Lisa E. Roche, J.D., reports a “statistically significant” increase in the risk of EBP or XPB in women who have a history of induced abortion (IA) when compared to women with no history of induced abortion.
When one considers the fact that XPB babies have a 129 times higher risk of being born with the horribly debilitating effects of cerebral palsy (CP) and that according to Rooney, Calhoun and Roche, “about 43% of pregnancies in Black American women end in induced abortion” alone and when you understand that these numbers describe a rate of death in the Black community that only reflects the impact of induced abortion, you are at a point where you are beginning to understand that …
My people are dying.
The targeting of Black America by eugenic minded, pro-abortion forces is easy to see when you consider that black Americans make up about twelve (12) percent of the population of the United States of America and yet according to Planned Parenthood’s Alan Guttmacher Institute, 37 percent of all abortions in the country are performed on Black American women and their preborn children.
In other words, twelve (12) percent of the population of this country, Black Americans, is responsible for thirty-seven (37) percent of all abortions in the United States of America.
If you consider about half of Black America is female then you’re looking at around six (6) percent of the population of this country being responsible for thirty-seven (37) percent of all abortions in the United States of America.
If you consider child bearing age from 15 to 44 then you’re looking at around three (3) percent of the population of this country, Black Americans, being responsible for thirty-seven (37) percent of all abortions in the United States of America.
Tony Perkins, the President of the Family Research Council says:
“Preliminary data currently being compiled on all abortion facilities in the U.S. shows that over twenty (20) states have abortion facilities in areas where the African-American population is fifty (50) percent or higher,”
Tony goes on to say:
“In fact, ten (10) states and in Washington, D.C. have abortion centers located exclusively in minority areas.”
I cannot wait, my people are dying.
Abortion is the Darfur of the Black American community.
If nothing changes.
If America does not become more efficient at killing babies in the womb of their mothers in the future.
If we do not take into consideration the number of chemical abortions.
If the rate of death, due solely to the impact of induced abortion in the Black community, remains constant and does not increase or decrease over time.
Black America will face the very real possibility of being an endangered species by the year of our Lord Jesus Christ two thousand one hundred (2100).
That is, I said, if nothing changes …
However, everything is changing.
If [Alleged] President Obama is successful in his efforts to install his health care vision for America, the numbers of Black babies killed by abortion will skyrocket.
Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has said:
“Those of us who care about the civil rights of all Americans, born and unborn, oppose Obamacare because we oppose the expansion of the most racist industry in America – the abortion industry.”
Frankly, time for my people is running out.
The time for me to act is now.
I simply cannot wait.
Perhaps others can afford to wait.
Nevertheless, I cannot wait because the abortion numbers are higher in my community, among my people than in any other people group.
Perhaps others can tell the future.
However, I do not have the power to tell the future.
I can only tell you about the One who holds the future.
Perhaps others are wiser than I am.
After all there are “certain political realities” at work in our world today and the mere presence of such realities surely calls for an experienced hand.
While I am sure others are wiser, have more experience and know how to come in and go out, I still cannot wait.
I cannot wait for …
• Public opinion to favor me.
• Political equity or capital necessary to guarantee victory to be voted into office.
• Proper funding required to meet the surely inevitable challenges that will come.
America is changing, my people are dying and I cannot wait.
I believe faith in Christ along with a repentant heart will allow us to receive His forgiveness and boldly face the wickedness in high places that walks among us today.
I believe such faith in Christ will allow His Body and Bride to perform the works of life that will overcome the works of death.
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment, by embracing the issue of “Personhood,” addresses the most profound and the most serious ethical dilemma this country has ever faced.
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment offers all of us an unprecedented opportunity for dialogue centered on the core issue of the abortion debate, the “humanity” of us all.
Imagine the power of Christ at work in us as we engage the culture for His sake by asking such questions as:
What does it mean …
• To be made in the image of God?
• To be fearfully and wonderfully made?
• To be respected as a person?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in defense of his belief in “Nonviolence” said:
“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals. Both a practical and a moral answer to the Negro’s cry for justice, nonviolent direct action proved that it could win victories without losing wars, and so became the triumphant tactic of the Negro Revolution of 1963.”
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment today is what nonviolent direct action was to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s. It is a powerful, just and righteous weapon.
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment “ennobles the man who wields it.” It is the kind of weapon that God favors and will honor as His people engage the world around them in dialogue for Christ’s sake.
I believe the California Human Rights Amendment is both a practical and moral answer to the preborn’s cry for justice, for righteousness and for life itself.
I believe, on this side of heaven, it is never too late to start doing right.
Maybe you believe in God the same way I do and/or maybe you see the same divinely inspired opportunity that is set before us today, as I do?
If you can, then help me today, because you cannot wait either.
Stay tuned, there is more to come.
A Comment
I wrote too much to post this as a comment. Figures! So I am posting it here. MBS said:
"really trying to figure out how you reconcile a feminist pov while trashing on a 'culture of contraception' and abortion rights. feminists got us where we are now with those things! that stuff is all about women taking control of their bodies and their futures..."
I replied:
Thanks for commenting, MBS. You bring up some interesting points.
First of all, I claim a New Feminism. I do not share the classic feminist view of "reproductive rights."
Secondly, yes, our feminist sisters got us the right to vote and the right to enter the workplace as equals, and we thank them for that, but they also got us to deny the differentness that makes us unique and special, and in so doing opened up a Pandora's box that us Catholics call the Culture of Death.
Before I step up on my soapbox, please understand: you don't have to be a Catholic, a Christian, or anything at all to understand what I'm about to say. I was pro-life before I was Catholic, Christian, or anything at all. I would probably have described myself as an Agnostic Pagan, and had been for years, on the night when I had The Conversation. (Yes, I was stubbornly pro-choice for as long as I could remember, but it only took one Conversation to change my mind. Such is the power of Truth.)
You've given a great example of the standard party line of feminism when you say "that stuff is all about women taking control of their bodies and their futures."
I agree, first of all, that women should take control of their bodies and their futures. I absolutely agree with those things! Wholeheartedly!
What I do not agree with is what feminists consider "taking control of their bodies and their futures." It is a lie.
First, when it comes to abortion, it is quite simply not "their bodies" we are talking about. It is someone else's body. Now, back in the 70s, during and just after Roe v. Wade, there was still some more or less intelligent argument about when life began. That argument is over, thanks to advancing science. Open any obstetrics textbook, ask any biologist, and they will tell you that human life begins at conception. Period. Only people trying really hard to defend abortion will argue that point, such as a Planned Parenthood abortionist who recently claimed that in "his opinion" life began when "the child was viable," as in, able to live outside the womb. Of course that has nothing to do with a definition of life; he's just trying to justify what he does for a living. We know that children are alive long before they're viable. Things that aren't alive do not yawn and suck their thumbs.
So, life begins at conception. That point is no longer even questioned in intelligent debate about the subject. So what you're doing when you abort a child is, you're killing a human being. Period. Any honest abortionist will admit that to you. The abortionist at Southwestern, right here in Dallas, has admitted in writing, "I know that what I'm doing is killing."
From there, pro-choicers like to get into semantics and toss around words like "personhood" and "viability" and then start screaming about "women's bodies." But what they are really doing is trying to justify murder in one of two ways: either by claiming that, despite the fact that it most definitely is a life, it isn't really and TRULY a life because we can't see it walking around and going to Starbuck's and stuff. They'll say it's a human life but not a PERSON, forgetting that it most definitely would end up a PERSON (in their definition) if they didn't KILL it.
The other argument they like to make is that, yeah, it may be a human being, but it is inside another human being. In other words, it's okay to kill it because of where it's LOCATED. So, killing a baby in a bassinet by the hospital bed is murder, but killing a baby three feet to the left in its mother's womb, that's okay. Never mind the fact that in more than 99% of cases, the woman voluntarily let it in to her womb by having concensual sex. (If you want to debate cases of rape and incest, let's do that later 'cause this is getting long; and they also count for less than half of one percent of abortions.)
Oh, I forgot about another argument, which is surprisingly prevalent and incredibly disgusting: the argument that all those murdered babies, if they had been born, would have been a drain on society, and grown up to have more unwanted babies and so on and so forth. This makes a lot of sense if you hold a utilitarian view of human life, the kind of view that the Nazis held and that told them it was a really good idea to gas prisoners who couldn't work and to use natural selection to create a super race. At some point they forgot that society exists for people, not the other way around. If your pants are too short, you don't cut your feet off, you buy longer pants. Darwinist natural selection leads to eugenics leads to murder. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was an American pioneer of eugenics. (Don't take my word for it; look it up.) Her platform was that it was a terrible idea to let poor brown people breed. That's why to this day most Planned Parenthood offices are in poor brown neighborhoods.
That's not helping women take control of their bodies and their futures. That's genocide. If we cared about those women, we would help them value themselves and their bodies so they become pregnant in loving, committed relationships, and promote a culture that takes care of women and children so women are able to afford health and child care. THAT is helping women.
You know who gives a shitload of money to Planned Parenthood? Playboy Magazine. That's right. Hugh Hefner. Know why? Because birth control and abortion are not about empowering women. They're about making it easier to view women as objects, something to use for pleasure and throw away. Do you think Playboy cares about women's liberation? Think again. Let's train that gal to take her little pink pill every day like a good girl, never mind what it does to her hormones and her body, and if she does get knocked up, give her a few hundred bucks to get the little bugger sucked out of her. It's cheaper than child support! Then, we'll convince her that all of this an EMPOWERING EXPERIENCE!!!
My advice to you is, don't be like I was. I embraced the tenets of feminism because I thought it was part and parcel of being a strong, independent, intelligent person. It came with the "liberal starter pack," so I accepted it without really questioning it. Before November of 2006, I would have called you a lot of nasty names if you had tried to sell me your pro-life rhetoric. Then someone cared enough about me to show me pictures of aborted children, and I became aware, while having a visceral, soul-shaking experience, that what I was looking at was not okay, could never be justified as okay. It was the broken, shredded, discarded body of an innocent human child.
A culture that does that to its most innocent, helpless members is doomed. It's sick to its very soul.
That's why to me abortion is the most important issue there is. It is the ultimate human rights issue because abortion "rights" are the ultimate in "might makes right" thinking. It's the most important issue because while this is going wrong, even if everything else goes right, it's still a sign of a deep sickness in our culture.
I implore to you to find out exactly -- EXACTLY -- what it is that you're defending. I never did until I had the Conversation. Most people don't. They consider it "distasteful" to look at pictures of aborted fetuses. (It kills me when pro-choicers say this "disrespects the dead." They don't mind the actual killing, but they mind photographs of it. Unreal.) Viewing these images is a horrible experience. But you owe it to them and to yourself. Know what you're defending. If you're gonna say it's okay, go look at it. Look at the pictures, and while you're looking, see if you can say to yourself, honestly, "This is okay." Never mind "good" or "righteous." Try to say, "This is okay."
If you have a heart, or a conscience, you won't be able to do it.
"really trying to figure out how you reconcile a feminist pov while trashing on a 'culture of contraception' and abortion rights. feminists got us where we are now with those things! that stuff is all about women taking control of their bodies and their futures..."
I replied:
Thanks for commenting, MBS. You bring up some interesting points.
First of all, I claim a New Feminism. I do not share the classic feminist view of "reproductive rights."
Secondly, yes, our feminist sisters got us the right to vote and the right to enter the workplace as equals, and we thank them for that, but they also got us to deny the differentness that makes us unique and special, and in so doing opened up a Pandora's box that us Catholics call the Culture of Death.
Before I step up on my soapbox, please understand: you don't have to be a Catholic, a Christian, or anything at all to understand what I'm about to say. I was pro-life before I was Catholic, Christian, or anything at all. I would probably have described myself as an Agnostic Pagan, and had been for years, on the night when I had The Conversation. (Yes, I was stubbornly pro-choice for as long as I could remember, but it only took one Conversation to change my mind. Such is the power of Truth.)
You've given a great example of the standard party line of feminism when you say "that stuff is all about women taking control of their bodies and their futures."
I agree, first of all, that women should take control of their bodies and their futures. I absolutely agree with those things! Wholeheartedly!
What I do not agree with is what feminists consider "taking control of their bodies and their futures." It is a lie.
First, when it comes to abortion, it is quite simply not "their bodies" we are talking about. It is someone else's body. Now, back in the 70s, during and just after Roe v. Wade, there was still some more or less intelligent argument about when life began. That argument is over, thanks to advancing science. Open any obstetrics textbook, ask any biologist, and they will tell you that human life begins at conception. Period. Only people trying really hard to defend abortion will argue that point, such as a Planned Parenthood abortionist who recently claimed that in "his opinion" life began when "the child was viable," as in, able to live outside the womb. Of course that has nothing to do with a definition of life; he's just trying to justify what he does for a living. We know that children are alive long before they're viable. Things that aren't alive do not yawn and suck their thumbs.
So, life begins at conception. That point is no longer even questioned in intelligent debate about the subject. So what you're doing when you abort a child is, you're killing a human being. Period. Any honest abortionist will admit that to you. The abortionist at Southwestern, right here in Dallas, has admitted in writing, "I know that what I'm doing is killing."
From there, pro-choicers like to get into semantics and toss around words like "personhood" and "viability" and then start screaming about "women's bodies." But what they are really doing is trying to justify murder in one of two ways: either by claiming that, despite the fact that it most definitely is a life, it isn't really and TRULY a life because we can't see it walking around and going to Starbuck's and stuff. They'll say it's a human life but not a PERSON, forgetting that it most definitely would end up a PERSON (in their definition) if they didn't KILL it.
The other argument they like to make is that, yeah, it may be a human being, but it is inside another human being. In other words, it's okay to kill it because of where it's LOCATED. So, killing a baby in a bassinet by the hospital bed is murder, but killing a baby three feet to the left in its mother's womb, that's okay. Never mind the fact that in more than 99% of cases, the woman voluntarily let it in to her womb by having concensual sex. (If you want to debate cases of rape and incest, let's do that later 'cause this is getting long; and they also count for less than half of one percent of abortions.)
Oh, I forgot about another argument, which is surprisingly prevalent and incredibly disgusting: the argument that all those murdered babies, if they had been born, would have been a drain on society, and grown up to have more unwanted babies and so on and so forth. This makes a lot of sense if you hold a utilitarian view of human life, the kind of view that the Nazis held and that told them it was a really good idea to gas prisoners who couldn't work and to use natural selection to create a super race. At some point they forgot that society exists for people, not the other way around. If your pants are too short, you don't cut your feet off, you buy longer pants. Darwinist natural selection leads to eugenics leads to murder. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, was an American pioneer of eugenics. (Don't take my word for it; look it up.) Her platform was that it was a terrible idea to let poor brown people breed. That's why to this day most Planned Parenthood offices are in poor brown neighborhoods.
That's not helping women take control of their bodies and their futures. That's genocide. If we cared about those women, we would help them value themselves and their bodies so they become pregnant in loving, committed relationships, and promote a culture that takes care of women and children so women are able to afford health and child care. THAT is helping women.
You know who gives a shitload of money to Planned Parenthood? Playboy Magazine. That's right. Hugh Hefner. Know why? Because birth control and abortion are not about empowering women. They're about making it easier to view women as objects, something to use for pleasure and throw away. Do you think Playboy cares about women's liberation? Think again. Let's train that gal to take her little pink pill every day like a good girl, never mind what it does to her hormones and her body, and if she does get knocked up, give her a few hundred bucks to get the little bugger sucked out of her. It's cheaper than child support! Then, we'll convince her that all of this an EMPOWERING EXPERIENCE!!!
My advice to you is, don't be like I was. I embraced the tenets of feminism because I thought it was part and parcel of being a strong, independent, intelligent person. It came with the "liberal starter pack," so I accepted it without really questioning it. Before November of 2006, I would have called you a lot of nasty names if you had tried to sell me your pro-life rhetoric. Then someone cared enough about me to show me pictures of aborted children, and I became aware, while having a visceral, soul-shaking experience, that what I was looking at was not okay, could never be justified as okay. It was the broken, shredded, discarded body of an innocent human child.
A culture that does that to its most innocent, helpless members is doomed. It's sick to its very soul.
That's why to me abortion is the most important issue there is. It is the ultimate human rights issue because abortion "rights" are the ultimate in "might makes right" thinking. It's the most important issue because while this is going wrong, even if everything else goes right, it's still a sign of a deep sickness in our culture.
I implore to you to find out exactly -- EXACTLY -- what it is that you're defending. I never did until I had the Conversation. Most people don't. They consider it "distasteful" to look at pictures of aborted fetuses. (It kills me when pro-choicers say this "disrespects the dead." They don't mind the actual killing, but they mind photographs of it. Unreal.) Viewing these images is a horrible experience. But you owe it to them and to yourself. Know what you're defending. If you're gonna say it's okay, go look at it. Look at the pictures, and while you're looking, see if you can say to yourself, honestly, "This is okay." Never mind "good" or "righteous." Try to say, "This is okay."
If you have a heart, or a conscience, you won't be able to do it.
Fashion Rocks
I am flipping through magazines.
I should explain.
I have this piece of poster board on my wall covered in random images torn from magazines, newspapers, old calendars, and so on. It is my Visualization Board. It is supposed to keep what I want in life constantly visible to me and on my mind, the idea being that you get what you focus on. So far I don’t have a Scottish castle or a Ducati Superbike or Liam Neeson, but I am sticking with it.
So I am flipping through fashion magazines. I hardly ever do this because it is demoralizing. I tell myself, "Don't read, don't focus. Just look for details, little details – things you can cut out and put on your board, images that symbolize love and kindness and family and faith and creativity and good times."
I do not find any of these images. Well, I take that back. I find three very small things, after 400 pages of glossy full-color madness. These three tiny images were not worth the bile I am choking on at the moment.
First, a special Vogue supplement called “Fashion Rocks!,” with J-Lo on the cover. Up-and-coming models pose with their favorite bands. In the section that disgusts me most grievously, a gaggle of leggy supermodels pose in page after page of bony tableaux, each spread representing a different musical genre.
"Punk" is my favorite: here are seven skeletal nineteen-year-old girls, each making several thousand dollars an hour, decked out in ripped fishnets and a great deal of plaid clothing that is supposed to look distressed and authentic but which actually costs about eight hundred dollars per item. They have had their makeup and wigs – my favorite is the two-foot Mohawk strapped on over a girl's peroxide-blonde ponytail – professionally applied, and they have been told by the photographer or the production designer or whoever to look surly and vicious. Their legs are spread, their spines curved, in disdain, and they are trying very hard to look anarchistic or apathetic – one even manages to stick her tongue out – but instead they look like what they are: children playing pretend, making a mockery of a movement that once meant something to working class kids.
The "goth" spread is almost as bad; it features the same models, looking how Siouxsie Sioux would have looked if she'd had a lot more money in 1979 and the means with which to drape her backyard in black gauze and lie about with wolves. That's right, wolves. Somebody rented wolves for the shoot. They look bored.
Meanwhile, on another page, Sean Lennon is frolicking with something called an "it girl" (there are a lot of those in this magazine) and on yet another page a model is demonstrating how you can capture Janis Joplin's soulfulness and spirit by choosing the right sort of shaggy coat.
I'm glad I came across this magazine, because I used to think it was David Bowie's music that made him an icon, not his orange hair and pale skin and fedora. And I'm also really glad that I know how to dress like Debbie Harry and Marianne Faithfull. I used to think that the whole point was being yourself – which is, after all, what made Marianne and Debbie's styles interesting in the first place – but apparently it is not about that at all. It is about how the right combination of skirt and tunic can make you look like Stevie Nicks, only better.
However, upon closing the pages of this magazine, I still feel a little too good about myself, so I open up Bazaar's fall fashion issue, featuring Kate Hudson on the cover, looking like a little girl playing dress-up. The first two hundred or so pages are nothing but ads. By the time I have finished looking at these ads, I feel like my handbag collection is terribly inadequate. Nevertheless, I plunge on, and I am sorry I did. Scarlett Johannson is everywhere. She is very beautiful, but is this so important? I ponder this.
I come upon an article about Courtney Love. Apparently everyone started hating her because she wore a Chanel knock-off to Paris Hilton's birthday party. I feel stupid for being so far behind the times. Here I was hating her because she is a foolish and repugnant woman, when all the time I could have been hating her for her clothes. She appears naked on one page, but in dim lighting. In the three photos, you never get to see her face, I would imagine because she has paid plastic surgeons to disfigure it beyond recognition. Throughout the interview, she talks about clothes a lot, and mentions over and over how cool it is that she is no longer a size 8. She talks about how she was unable to be anybody in the fashion world as a size 8. Everyone accepts her now, because she is a size 4 or whatever, and because the Chanel guy forgave her for the fashion faux-pas. She fired the assistant who told her that dress was real, and now her life is okay again. She can hold her head up high in public, assuming of course that she is physically capable of holding her head up.
I am flipping faster now. I am no longer concerned with cutting out images for my Visualization Board. There is nothing in here that I want. Occasionally I see a pair of cool shoes, but the amount of attention that is paid to the shoes makes me loathe to cut them out. They are not just shoes, you see. They are something more, much more. I flip even faster. A shiny top and gray trousers will take you from day to evening. Keep your quilted bags but opt for a glossy black piece this season. The talk of the runways is tailored; you can't have too many turtlenecks. Invest in a hip-length cape. Sarah Jessica Parker's new perfume is named after the least interesting of the seven deadly sins (Covet) and a Manhattan socialite talks about juggling motherhood, charity work, and shopping (her secret: two nannies).
I understand that we as humans have an aesthetic sense. We like what is beautiful, what attracts us by its form and content. I mean, Scarlett Johannson is very beautiful, but: so what? Those shoes are really cool, but: so what? Louis Vuitton bags are apparently beautifully made and stuff: so what?
It's not fashion that bothers me, the idea of making yourself look as lovely as you can just for the sake of it – I appreciate art in all its forms. It is pretension, coupled with elitism, that makes the whole thing so repulsive. There is no "otherness" in these magazines. You are thin and tall and rich or you are nothing. Period. Nothing. You are not invited in.
This is what we worship. More Americans read magazines than any printed material, even more than newspapers. This is where we get our values: shiny, expensive, gorgeous, decadent, rich, famous, modern, cool, edgy, young. These words have replaced faith, hope, love, charity, kindness, warmth, family, friends. These are the new values—how much your stuff costs, how much you own that is new and "cool," how many people recognize you, how many clubs you can get into without having to wait in line, what film director you sat next to at that bistro in Tribeca.
I feel sorry for the people in these magazines, and I feel sorry for the people who buy into what they see in these magazines. They are going to wake up one day and realize that they are 56 years old, they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on things that mean nothing, and they are still going to die one day. They are going to die in a suite at Cedars Sinai, wearing a Gaultier kimono, but they are still going to die, and everyone at their funeral will be looking at what everyone else, including the corpse, is wearing, and dabbing at their plastic faces with couture hankies.
I will die fat and happy in my bed at home, in my Wal-Mart pee-jays, surrounded by people I love, people who do not care if I am a size 8 or 18. To me there is nothing more shiny, expensive, or gorgeous than that.
I should explain.
I have this piece of poster board on my wall covered in random images torn from magazines, newspapers, old calendars, and so on. It is my Visualization Board. It is supposed to keep what I want in life constantly visible to me and on my mind, the idea being that you get what you focus on. So far I don’t have a Scottish castle or a Ducati Superbike or Liam Neeson, but I am sticking with it.
So I am flipping through fashion magazines. I hardly ever do this because it is demoralizing. I tell myself, "Don't read, don't focus. Just look for details, little details – things you can cut out and put on your board, images that symbolize love and kindness and family and faith and creativity and good times."
I do not find any of these images. Well, I take that back. I find three very small things, after 400 pages of glossy full-color madness. These three tiny images were not worth the bile I am choking on at the moment.
First, a special Vogue supplement called “Fashion Rocks!,” with J-Lo on the cover. Up-and-coming models pose with their favorite bands. In the section that disgusts me most grievously, a gaggle of leggy supermodels pose in page after page of bony tableaux, each spread representing a different musical genre.
"Punk" is my favorite: here are seven skeletal nineteen-year-old girls, each making several thousand dollars an hour, decked out in ripped fishnets and a great deal of plaid clothing that is supposed to look distressed and authentic but which actually costs about eight hundred dollars per item. They have had their makeup and wigs – my favorite is the two-foot Mohawk strapped on over a girl's peroxide-blonde ponytail – professionally applied, and they have been told by the photographer or the production designer or whoever to look surly and vicious. Their legs are spread, their spines curved, in disdain, and they are trying very hard to look anarchistic or apathetic – one even manages to stick her tongue out – but instead they look like what they are: children playing pretend, making a mockery of a movement that once meant something to working class kids.
The "goth" spread is almost as bad; it features the same models, looking how Siouxsie Sioux would have looked if she'd had a lot more money in 1979 and the means with which to drape her backyard in black gauze and lie about with wolves. That's right, wolves. Somebody rented wolves for the shoot. They look bored.
Meanwhile, on another page, Sean Lennon is frolicking with something called an "it girl" (there are a lot of those in this magazine) and on yet another page a model is demonstrating how you can capture Janis Joplin's soulfulness and spirit by choosing the right sort of shaggy coat.
I'm glad I came across this magazine, because I used to think it was David Bowie's music that made him an icon, not his orange hair and pale skin and fedora. And I'm also really glad that I know how to dress like Debbie Harry and Marianne Faithfull. I used to think that the whole point was being yourself – which is, after all, what made Marianne and Debbie's styles interesting in the first place – but apparently it is not about that at all. It is about how the right combination of skirt and tunic can make you look like Stevie Nicks, only better.
However, upon closing the pages of this magazine, I still feel a little too good about myself, so I open up Bazaar's fall fashion issue, featuring Kate Hudson on the cover, looking like a little girl playing dress-up. The first two hundred or so pages are nothing but ads. By the time I have finished looking at these ads, I feel like my handbag collection is terribly inadequate. Nevertheless, I plunge on, and I am sorry I did. Scarlett Johannson is everywhere. She is very beautiful, but is this so important? I ponder this.
I come upon an article about Courtney Love. Apparently everyone started hating her because she wore a Chanel knock-off to Paris Hilton's birthday party. I feel stupid for being so far behind the times. Here I was hating her because she is a foolish and repugnant woman, when all the time I could have been hating her for her clothes. She appears naked on one page, but in dim lighting. In the three photos, you never get to see her face, I would imagine because she has paid plastic surgeons to disfigure it beyond recognition. Throughout the interview, she talks about clothes a lot, and mentions over and over how cool it is that she is no longer a size 8. She talks about how she was unable to be anybody in the fashion world as a size 8. Everyone accepts her now, because she is a size 4 or whatever, and because the Chanel guy forgave her for the fashion faux-pas. She fired the assistant who told her that dress was real, and now her life is okay again. She can hold her head up high in public, assuming of course that she is physically capable of holding her head up.
I am flipping faster now. I am no longer concerned with cutting out images for my Visualization Board. There is nothing in here that I want. Occasionally I see a pair of cool shoes, but the amount of attention that is paid to the shoes makes me loathe to cut them out. They are not just shoes, you see. They are something more, much more. I flip even faster. A shiny top and gray trousers will take you from day to evening. Keep your quilted bags but opt for a glossy black piece this season. The talk of the runways is tailored; you can't have too many turtlenecks. Invest in a hip-length cape. Sarah Jessica Parker's new perfume is named after the least interesting of the seven deadly sins (Covet) and a Manhattan socialite talks about juggling motherhood, charity work, and shopping (her secret: two nannies).
I understand that we as humans have an aesthetic sense. We like what is beautiful, what attracts us by its form and content. I mean, Scarlett Johannson is very beautiful, but: so what? Those shoes are really cool, but: so what? Louis Vuitton bags are apparently beautifully made and stuff: so what?
It's not fashion that bothers me, the idea of making yourself look as lovely as you can just for the sake of it – I appreciate art in all its forms. It is pretension, coupled with elitism, that makes the whole thing so repulsive. There is no "otherness" in these magazines. You are thin and tall and rich or you are nothing. Period. Nothing. You are not invited in.
This is what we worship. More Americans read magazines than any printed material, even more than newspapers. This is where we get our values: shiny, expensive, gorgeous, decadent, rich, famous, modern, cool, edgy, young. These words have replaced faith, hope, love, charity, kindness, warmth, family, friends. These are the new values—how much your stuff costs, how much you own that is new and "cool," how many people recognize you, how many clubs you can get into without having to wait in line, what film director you sat next to at that bistro in Tribeca.
I feel sorry for the people in these magazines, and I feel sorry for the people who buy into what they see in these magazines. They are going to wake up one day and realize that they are 56 years old, they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on things that mean nothing, and they are still going to die one day. They are going to die in a suite at Cedars Sinai, wearing a Gaultier kimono, but they are still going to die, and everyone at their funeral will be looking at what everyone else, including the corpse, is wearing, and dabbing at their plastic faces with couture hankies.
I will die fat and happy in my bed at home, in my Wal-Mart pee-jays, surrounded by people I love, people who do not care if I am a size 8 or 18. To me there is nothing more shiny, expensive, or gorgeous than that.
The New Eve
Every woman alive today was born on a battlefield.
The war is not between women and men, or women and the state, as "feminists" would have you believe. The war is between Good and Evil. It is a spiritual war.
Do not be fooled into thinking that Good and Evil are abstract, subjective concepts. They exist as surely as you and I exist. If they did not exist, we would not have conscience. We wouldn't know the difference between right and wrong in our hearts. But we do know, don't we? We know in our hearts it is evil to harm the innocent, good to help those in need. Good and Evil are real, and they are really at war, all around you, all the time. If you don't believe it, open a newspaper or turn on the TV.
I call on today's woman to be a warrior for Good, and it starts with being a rebel. We need to be rebels, not in the way the "feminists" would have us be, by denying our womanhood and our femininity, but in the most radical way possible.
G. K. Chesterton said, "The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice." It is as true today as it was a hundred years ago.
There is nothing rebellious about radical feminism. There is nothing revolutionary about immorality. Promiscuity, pornography, abortion: these things are the status quo. This is the age of the hook-up; we are expected to embrace casual sex, the denigration of our bodies and an "easy fix" for the "inconvenience" of pregnancy.
Women will not be respected until we respect ourselves. It's that simple.
I call on today's woman to embrace womanhood, not run from it. The most rebellious thing a woman can do today is refuse to be objectified by pornography and the advertising and fashion industries; refuse to be disrespected by the culture of promiscuity, contraception, and misogyny; refuse to be made complicit in the sins of the world by harming your body and soul and killing your children through abortion.
We will be treated no better than we treat ourselves. It's time to give ourselves the respect and care we deserve. Only then can we demand the same from the world. Only then can we call ourselves warriors, and begin to fight.
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