On June 19, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled in favor of a high school student named Daniel Glowacki, who had charged that his high school teacher, Jay McDowell, had violated his constitutional right to freedom of speech. He was granted one dollar in compensation. The court’s verdict, in vulgar … Read more
A psychiatrist of the early 20th century coined “homosexual panic” to describe an overreaction by heterosexuals who have been hit on by a gay guy. Now it’s the gays turn to panic, in this case by any public criticism, imaginary or otherwise, or legal restriction on their proselytizing. Gay writer Jonathan Capehart published a short … Read more
For Catholic parents with intelligent high school children, this can be a trying time. A good many ostensibly Catholic universities have simply become indistinguishable from the mass of U.S. colleges. Take Georgetown, for example, which the New York Times gleefully reports has become a gay-friendly campus. During the month of “OUTober,” described by the Times … Read more
Very few popes give off-the-cuff interviews to reporters to begin with, and even less joke and have fun with the reporters. So, when Pope Francis did just that as he returned from World Youth Day, it was a stunner. It wasn’t so much that he said he “does not judge gays”—after all, the meaning itself … Read more
From the standpoint of Catholicism there is no more important right than religious liberty. It is the first of our freedoms. As Catholics, we cherish religious liberty because we have been made by God and for God—our hearts are restless, as Saint Augustine wrote, until they rest in Him. God gave us freedom so that … Read more
The state legislature of California has passed a bill to protect self-identification in matters of class and race. If a child in a public school identifies himself as the Prince of Pasadena, and dresses and behaves accordingly, then he must be addressed as such by the teachers and his fellow students. Special care is to … Read more
Chesterton once wrote that the madman is not the fellow who has lost his reason, but the fellow who has lost everything but his reason. Such a person, seized by a single monomaniacal idea, loses his balance, as if under the weight of a mental hyptertrophy on one side. Because a man may add five … Read more
My favorite of Russell Kirk’s many books always has been Enemies of the Permanent Things. This wonderful, at times ironic, volume is a collection of social commentary, hopeful reminders of work still being done by important thinkers, and biting criticism. The book signals its central theme in its subtitle, “Observations of Abnormity in Literature and … Read more
It was Victoria Day in Canada and the Toronto Blue Jays were hosting the Rays of Tampa Bay. The word “hosting,” however, hardly applied to the treatment that one Yunel Escobar, the Rays shortstop, received, who was lustfully booed each time he came to the plate. When he homered in the 9th inning, he was … Read more
The Boy Scouts have fought long and hard against being forced to include avowed homosexuals in its ranks as either Scouts or scoutmasters. In the Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), the Supreme Court upheld the Boy Scouts’ First Amendment right of expressive association in removing an assistant scoutmaster who was “an avowed homosexual … Read more
The absurdity of the mantra “don’t judge” is lost on the ideologues. Ideology is the worship of an idea and as such it is the worship of self because in deciding what ideas to worship, the ideologue makes himself the arbiter of truth and in doing so increases in his own sight. We Catholics worship … Read more
The liberationist philosophy underpinning Obama’s co-ed, gay-friendly military holds, on the one hand, that sexuality is inherently fixed and thus beyond the control of individuals, and on the other that sexuality is subject to re-shaping “through changes in culture.” The social engineers of the military promised that age-old problems between men and women thrown together … Read more
Belgian Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard was participating in a debate on blasphemy at the Free University of Brussels on April 23rd when he became the target of a blasphemy. Four topless women emerged from the attendees and mobbed the prelate, dousing him with water from bottles shaped like the Virgin Mary and screaming accusations of homophobia … Read more
A number of developments in the past month have put the spotlight squarely on the question, not too far back in people’s minds since last year’s election campaign, of what direction American conservatism is going to take in the foreseeable future. Until this year, after receiving criticism, the organizers of the annual Conservative Political Action … Read more
I see that Mr Cameron has tweeted that he is “delighted that principle of wearing religious symbols at work has been upheld.” The genial Eric Pickles said that he too is delighted. They were referring, of course, to the judgment in which, by a majority of five to two, judges of the European Court of … Read more
Homosexual groups are celebrating in Europe this week as once more they have triumphed in a court of law over believing Christians. The European Court of Human Rights upheld decisions of British courts that had decided homosexual rights trump the rights of Christians whose faith teaches them homosexuality is wrong. To be sure, the results … Read more
It was, not so very long ago, widely regarded in this country as morally wrong and, not infrequently, socially ruinous, for a man to walk out on his wife and children. In 1961, for example, Nelson Rockefeller, who was then Governor of New York, decided to divorce his wife of more than twenty years, for … Read more
How much is victory worth? And after you win, if you win, what do you have to show for it? As these principles go with warfare, so they go with propaganda. The Greek word polemos, “war,” led not to the English word “war,” but rather to the English word “polemics.” The gay movement is not … Read more
Election Day was a drubbing for marriage. The ballot initiatives to protect marriage lost by over 4% in Maine, Minnesota, Washington State, and Maryland. Those who support same-sex “marriage” reportedly spent over $33 million, while those who defend marriage spent just over $10 million. Many friends have said that same-sex marriage is inevitable. It is … Read more
The success that the gay community has achieved in shedding the “deviant” label has relied upon convincing the heterosexual world that homosexual behavior is perfectly normal. The recent uproar over a social work course titled “Deviant Behavior” at Franciscan University of Steubenville—which lists homosexuality as a form of deviant behavior—demonstrates just how vigilant the gay … Read more