HANNON writes:

With all the tribulations around us that your blog cannot avoid of late I thought I would share these recent photos from Forrest Park, St. Louis, Missouri. This magnificent statue of Saint Louis commemorates the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Though he failed in his crusades, Louis IX was a figure of charity and honor in the late Medieval period. He was at once a soldier and humanitarian and led (in a former sense of the word) France during a brighter period of their history.

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DANIEL S. writes:

Counter-jihad activists and bloggers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller have been banned from entry into Britain for their critical views on Islam. Spencer has provided a copy of the British Home Secretary’s letter outlining the reason for his being banned from speaking at an English Defense League rally, specifically this statement:  Read More »

HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

Sometimes a picture really is worth a few words. For those unfamiliar with U.S. Army insignia, these “soldiers” in their pixellated pyjamas are wearing the shoulder patch of the 1st Infantry Division, which served on the Western Front during World War I, in North Africa, Sicily and Northwest Europe (including Omaha Beach on D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge) during World War II, somehow sat out Korea on occupation duty in Germany, spent five years in-country during Vietnam, served in Desert Shield/Storm, and more recently in the Balkans, Iraq (including the invasion) and Afghanistan. Read More »

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin; 1852

PETER writes:

It’s fascinating to witness our gnostic elite’s attempt to dissolve our civilization conceptually. When you observe people yelling and screaming for “gay” marriage, it generates a whole range of reactions and reflection about the nature of this issue.

The gnostic aspect is our ruling class’s intellectual error in misconceiving our civilization as a cosmic fact, a necessary part of the universe that must and will continue to exist.  Eric Voegelin masterfully elaborated on this in his Walgreen-sponsored lectures in 1952.  He used the phrase ‘propaganda for moral insanity’ in describing the symptoms of gnostic intoxication, getting all of reality’s defaults precisely backwards all the time, with elites who are confused by their dream conception as it blurs the structure of reality as it truly is. In this case, the misappropriation of one thing and its application to something wholly different.  Marriage cannot mean the same experience between heterosexuals and homosexuals.  The most obvious and economic point for a brief discourse is no children.  Only heterosexual unions can naturally transmit life. Marriage is the representative symbol of that unalterable reality, so it’s a natural target for gnosticism.

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HERE IS an opening excerpt from Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court ruling on DOMA. Scalia is already the subject of a blizzard of scoldings and reprimands from the mainstream press, which supports the decision but cannot abide a critic. Scalia is Public Enemy No. 1. If you think this ruling will mitigate animosity toward those who oppose normalization of homosexuality, think again. It will only heighten this intolerance.

Justice Scalia writes:

This case is about power in several respects. It is about the power of our people to govern themselves, and the power of this Court to pronounce the law. Today’s opinion aggrandizes the latter, with the predictable consequence of diminishing the former. We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.

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THE SUPREME COURT, by a ruling of 5-4, has struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex “marriages.” The decision, which was released this morning, can be found here. The justices also dismissed the suit over California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex “marriage,” clearing the way for legal “marriages” to take place there.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority:

“The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”

Just to clarify this unwieldy conclusion, which could easily be used to defend the polygamist, here is the text of the Fifth Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The modern constitutional democracy, founded on equality and individual rights, is bankrupt. It has eaten up its very foundations. It is a rapacious, all-consuming beast that devours the common good and tears communities apart.

Under the ruling, not just marriage but parenthood will be redefined as the federal government grants equal status and parental rights to non-procreative unions.  “Mother” and “father” are discriminatory terms which do not recognize the “personhood” and “dignity” of homosexual couples. In other areas, the implications for taxes, Social Security, military benefits and other federal provisions are considerable as DOMA, signed into law in 1996, grants residents of states where homosexual unions are legal the right to all federal benefits granted to married couples. Nothing is to keep a friend from “marrying” another friend to grant him or her years of Social Security benefits. Harsh government measures will necessarily follow to force those who consider homosexuality immoral to recognize same-sex unions.

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JOHN R. SCHINDLER writes at Politico:

With each day and new disclosure, [Edward] Snowden has appeared less a whistleblower and more something sinister, perhaps even a traitor to his country.

He later writes: Read More »

La Manif Pour Tous en France by FreeMyFrance

AT Galliawatch, Tiberge writes:

The recent events in France, so tumultuous and spontaneous, cannot be condensed in a six-minute video. However, despite the overly ambitious goal of this video, it recaptures (with helpful English titles) the energy, the enthusiasm of the demonstrators, the police actions, and the protests in the National Assembly by some politicians with a modicum of courage. These are just a few of the events that have filled the web pages, the newspapers, the blogs, the streets of Paris, and public squares in towns and villages throughout France for the past several months.

Note: Commercials interrupt the video near the end.

Tiberge also has many other interesting posts about events in France, including entries on the imprisonment of the protester Nicolas Bernard-Buss.

DANIEL S. writes:

Majorie Jeffrey at Crisis Magazine has written what I believe to be one of the most balanced articles on the thought and suicide of the French historian and European nationalist Dominique Venner.

She doesn’t get bogged down in moral judgments of Venner’s suicides, she just states in a matter-of-fact manner that Catholic teachings clearly prohibit suicide, but that Venner was a pagan and so it is pointless to expect him to embody traditional Catholic moral teachings. At the same time she doesn’t use this divergence to dismiss Venner’s message: Read More »

THOSE who say Jessica Rey, the swimsuit retailer and former television actress (discussed here and here), is a champion of female modesty should get a load of this photo of Rey and her worshipful, devirilized husband. Here Rey takes part in the faddish, narcissistic eroticizing of the womb which first began with celebrities but is now more widespread as photographers capture pregnant women in various navel-gazing poses, a trend that could only take place in a culture that sentimentalizes and trivializes motherhood. No woman who appears like this is an authority on modesty. [Many readers below disagree.]

Don’t miss Kidist P. Asrat’s post on Rey at Reclaiming Beauty.

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JEWEL A. writes:

It just wears me out trying to keep the modern, revisionist’s narrative out of my mind. I have to purge myself linguistically several times a day!

Just before I read your brilliant letter to Jill Pasternak, I read this article, “The Devirilization of the Liturgy in the Novus Ordo Mass” by Fr. Richard G. Cipolla at Rorate Cæli.

Devirilization. A new word I plan to use often.

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In 1930, the harpist Edna Phillips became the first woman principal player of a major American orchestra.

ON SATURDAY, I listened to an interesting radio program about the first woman principal player of an American orchestra. The  program will be aired again this Friday and can be heard on the Internet at that time. Today, I sent this letter to Jill Pasternak, of WRTI-Radio.

Dear Ms. Pasternak,

I have often admired your radio voice, interviewing style and erudition. Thank you for all you do to educate, delight and inform.

I would like to take exception, however, to views you expressed in your fascinating interview of Mary Sue Welsh about her new book, One Woman in a Hundred, on the life of Edna Phillips, a harpist who joined the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1930 and was the first female principal player of a major orchestra.

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ALL POLITICAL factions in Britain, left and right, consider Paul Weston, the founder of the Liberty GB Party, to be racist. In this video, posted at Gates of Vienna, Weston, whom readers of VFR may remember as a commenter, agrees that he is racist. “Why am I a racist? It’s very simple. I wish to preserve the culture of my country. I wish to preserve the people of my country and in doing so that makes me a designated racist in today’s society.”

He continues, “In order to be termed a racist 30 or 40 years ago you had to actively dislike foreign people. Now I don’t dislike foreign people. What I do like, what I love is my country, my people and I see that under a terrible threat at this moment.”

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Courtesy of the Daily Mail

KARL D. writes:

A divorced mother of two, who was a stuntwoman and wing walker, died along with the pilot when their stunt went wrong, killing them both in a ball of fire. She leaves behind two teenaged sons. When any parent dies it is extremely tragic for the children. If my father had died because he was a stunt pilot, it would have been tragic and I would have even questioned his choice of career given that he had a family. But in the end I would have seen his dying as a man doing something dangerous yet masculine. And I would respect that. However, if my mother had died in this way, I would have seen it as a completely foolish waste. I know. That makes me a total sexist, doesn’t it?

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The Westwood Children, Joshua Johnston; 1807

THERE is no advertising at this site and that is intentional. Not that advertising is bad, but there’s too much of it everywhere. There need to be some zones in which we feel nothing is being pitched. You won’t see anything sold here — except ideas. And those go for a tiny price. That price is your voluntary support. Please help defer the very costly hours of labor. If you wish to see this site continue in its current form, please donate. Thank you.

A READER writes:

I’m not married, but if I ever have children, I am NOT letting them watch Disney Channel. Disney was so much cleaner when I was young 17 years ago. I’m sad at how far gone it is. Here’s news about a Disney show that will feature a “married” lesbian couple.

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KIDIST P. ASRAT writes:

I read your post on Jessica Rey, the former television actress and current swimsuit retailer, and I didn’t buy her “modesty” angle. I think she just found a niche which would include her diluted Catholic beliefs, her pretensions at being a designer, and a way to make money.

A business, however small, takes up a lot of time. She has an infant and is according to some sites expecting another baby. So how is she a dutiful wife, mother to infants and a homemaker when she’s got her own full-fledged career going? This is no home-based business working out of a kitchen. Plus, what is she giving us? Nothing that Sears, or even Walmart, can’t give us. Except her items are four times as expensive.

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Judy Nicastro, left

HENRY McCULLOCH writes:

If you are pro-life, as I am, you may want to have a sick-bag ready before you read this New York Times op-ed.  Taking a brief break from its hell-bent advocacy of the Schumer-Rubio Gang of Eight’s illegal-alien amnesty (might the bailout of the Times by Carlos Slim Helú, Mexico’s – and currently the world’s – richest man, have something to do with that?), the Times offers us a sweetly soothing velvet version of pro-abortion propaganda, as a mother who decided to abort – at 23 weeks – a son with serious medical problems tells us this:

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