Showing posts with label World magazine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World magazine. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

A good overview of the Supreme Court's gay "marriage" cases and their possible outcome.

Here's a good summary by Emily Belz of World magazine and where things are at with gay "marriage" and the Supreme Court and where to from here.
In the national debate gay marriage advocates appear triumphant, even though the Supreme Court justices strongly indicated they don’t intend to issue the sweeping ruling that gay advocates want. Despite the political pressure, the justices don’t appear ready to say that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, but instead in the arguments they sought to  narrow how they decide the questions before them. 
 She notes that 
The high court seemed ready to let that battle in the ballot boxes continue, which is what traditional marriage supporters had advocated. Both the DOMA and Prop 8 cases are exceedingly complex, and the court has many options for resolving them. The justices could issue broad rulings, issue narrow rulings, or dismiss the cases on technicalities like standing or jurisdiction.

If the court does decide the cases on their merits, Justice Anthony Kennedy, the key vote who has written the court’s two major gay-rights opinions, seemed unwilling to go as far as the challengers to Prop 8 and DOMA want: that gay marriage is a constitutional right. During arguments he said gay marriage advocates were asking the court to go into “uncharted waters,” and he wasn’t sure which metaphor those waters led to: a “wonderful destination” or a “cliff.” 

The one thing that apparently held Kennedy back was the lack of social science evidence of the effect of gay marriage on children. In the Prop 8 arguments he noted, “We have five years of information to weigh against 2,000 years of history or more.”  
 And the final result?  Continued battling it out in the states.  
If the justices do what it looks like Kennedy may want them to do—ban the federal government from defining marriage and give that power to individual states—the political future is not necessarily inevitably and nationally victorious for gay marriage advocates. As of now, 41 states have defined marriage as between a man and a woman, and nine have legalized same-sex marriage. Despite polls shifting in favor of same-sex marriage, states remain that will probably maintain traditional marriage laws for the foreseeable future.

The morning of the DOMA arguments, several Supreme Court litigators sat in the court’s cafeteria drinking coffee and parsing the arguments. One had printed out the transcript from the previous day’s arguments, which he thumbed through as his colleagues brought up points. They made educated predictions, but landed ultimately where the most novice Supreme Court observer is: They have no idea what the court will do when it rules on the cases this summer. 



Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Are all "orientations" OK?

This World magazine column highlights the moral confusion and bankruptcy of modern society's understanding of human sexuality.
I almost started this column by saying The Guardian is a mainstream British daily newspaper and not the U.K.’s version of the National Enquirer. But that would insult the National Enquirer, which, whatever you want to say about supermarket tabloids, was the first to expose presidential candidate John Edwards’ dalliances when respectable papers held their noses.

On Jan. 2 the respectable Guardian published an article, “Paedophilia: bringing dark desires to light.” The title choice is more prophetic than intended, calling to mind Isaiah’s “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20). Below are excerpts, a case study in journalistic slouching toward Gomorrah.
“There is little agreement about paedophilia, even among those considered experts on the subject.”

Right off the bat we are introduced to the notion of different opinions, which is Strategy No. 1. The Dark Side (Ephesians 2:2; 5:11; 6:12) need merely suggest that something evil is really only “controversial.” When the discussion begins at that level, the bad guys have already won ground: Pedophilia is now put forth as a subject on which reasonable people disagree.

Note a maneuver in 1 Kings 20, when the Israelites soundly defeat Syrian King Ben-hadad: His servants tell him, “The kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Let us put sackcloth around our waists and ropes on our heads and go out to the king of Israel.” They do that, asking King Ahab for mercy, and Ahab says of Ben-hadad, “He is my brother.”  

The Syrian servants who “were watching for a sign” then say, “Yes, your brother Ben-hadad.” The purveyors of darkness are looking for a sign from us too, for mercy unmoored to truth corrodes to leniency. Relinquish the word “wrong,” accept the softer “reasonable difference of opinion,” and the camel’s nose is well under the tent. 

Strategy No. 2: “A paedophile is someone who has a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children. Savile [Jimmy Savile, high-profile English pedophile] appears to have been primarily an ephebophile, defined as someone who has a similar preferential attraction to adolescents.”

Ephebophile is a brand new word for me; I suspect it will become nauseatingly familiar. But the point to notice is that now we have distinctions being proffered, a sophisticated taxonomy. Distinctions are strategy No. 2 for normalizing evil. The making of them automatically confers a certain legitimacy without even having to argue for it. After all, you cannot have varieties of something that doesn’t exist. So, circularly, if there are varieties of sexual orientation, they are real, and if real, they are not to be condemned. 

Strategy No. 3: “Sarah Goode, a senior lecturer at the University of Winchester and author of two major 2009 and 2011 sociological studies on paedophilia in society, says the best current estimate … is that ‘one in five of all men are, to some degree, capable of being sexually aroused by children. … There is a growing conviction, notably in Canada, that paedophilia should probably be classified as a distinct sexual orientation, like heterosexuality or homosexuality. Two eminent researchers testified to that effect to a Canadian parliamentary commission last year, and the Harvard Mental Health Letter of July 2010 stated baldly that paedophilia ‘is a sexual orientation.’”

“Harvard.” “U of Winchester.” “Major sociological studies.” The canny takeaway message here: These people are smarter than you. Strategy No. 3 is the domain of the professional.

“And few agree about what causes it. Is paedophilia innate or acquired?” 

Professionals will pretend to argue about Nature versus Nurture for another year or so, as they did in the early days of the gay movement. Then someone will say, “You say potato and I say potahto, let’s call the whole thing off,” and no one will care anymore. Polymorphous promiscuity will prevail. The jig will be up.

“Some academics do not dispute the view of Tom O’Carroll, a former chairman of PIE [Paedophile Information Exchange] … that society’s outrage at paedophilic relationships is essentially emotional, irrational, and not justified by science. ‘It is the quality of the relationship that matters,’ O’Carroll insists.”

The thing to notice here is that while you weren’t looking the word “relationships” snuck in without debate. Another place gained. The language of alternative lifestyle slowly replaces today’s more common terminology of “abuse” and “victim.”
Sexual orientation is a recent creation in terms of human history.  The way it's bandied about today, all sexual orientations are created equal.  This column shows what moral relativism is leading -- acceptance of pedophilia.  Children are sacrificed on the altar of adult desires. 

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Hollywood and pro-life movie themes: Are they seeing the light or reality?

Probably a bit of both. World magazine had an interesting article entitled "The plots thicken" on the emergence of pro-life themes in Hollywood movies and a number of television shows. After years of a strong pro-abortion bias, pro-life themes and messages are starting to emerge in films and shows.

Why is it? I think ultimately reality can't be denied forever. The culture is moving in the pro-life direction as witnessed by the growing pro-life views of young people. The damage which has inflicted millions of people touched by abortion can't be denied forever. The development of modern technology which allows people to see color pictures of unborn babies is also playing a role. The debate over partial birth abortion has helped driving home the reality that abortion ends a human life. And the economics of movie making have allowed lesser financed movies to reach more people who are looking for a pro-life perspective in films. This has made the major studios to take note. And I think there are more conservatives heading into the film and entertainment industry. They are having an impact as well.

It will be interesting seeing what is coming out of Hollywood ten years from now.