LAST MONTH, we discussed the publication of two disturbing articles by British female academics. The ethicist Francesca Minerva argued in an academic journal that it is not immoral for parents to put to death newborns with cognitive problems. And, another ethicist, Anna Smajdor, wrote in a prestigious journal that because pregnancy is unfair to women and prevents them from attaining equality with men, the development of artificial wombs is necessary and good.

Now, as if all this wasn’t enough to prove the bankruptcy of British intellectual life, another shallow, unprincipled, and hopelessly juvenile feminist professor makes her mark.

Susannah Cornwall, a theology professor at Manchester University’s Lincoln Theological Institute, argues in a lengthy paper for the Centre for Religion and Political Culture that there is no proof  that Jesus was a man. He may have been an “intersex” person, neither fully male nor female.

Cornwall, (I know she looks like a waitress at the local sports bar, but she is a certified theologian), writes:

(more…)

JONAS HIMMELSTRAND, a well-known Swedish family activist, has left his native country to escape heavy fines for homeschooling his two children, according to Caroline Moynihan of MercatorNet.com. Homeschooling is illegal in Sweden.

Himmelstrand is the founder of Mireja, a pro-family organization critical of Swedish family policies, which offer generous parental leaves for parents of babies and heavily subsidized day care. As discussed in this previous post, Himmelstrand contends socialized child care has caused an increase in  childhood psychological problems and an inability by Swedish parents to discipline their children. He has spoken widely in Europe and North America. At Mireja, Himmelstrand writes: (more…)

  SEE my comments on the Violence Against Women Act at U.S. News and World Report.  Readers are able to register their agreement or disagreement with me by clicking one of the boxes to the left of my entry.                                               

  JAMES P. writes: The Daily Mail has some photos of America in 1940. WARNING: Modern readers may find the images of clean, well-dressed white people with large families shocking and offensive; they are rated "NC-17" (Not Correct for readers under the age of 17). Note also the article's obsessive interest in Japanese-Americans, who were a tiny fraction of the 1940 population.

DIANA writes:

These are not questions that address the actual legal swamp/thicket that Dharun Ravi was placed in during his trial for hate crimes by the New Jersey state prosecutors office. That is a whole can of worms, which begins in the legislature, and which involves such noisome organizations as “Garden State Pride” – I checked their website after this wretched verdict, and it reeked of preening triumphalism. (more…)

THIS DETAIL from Federico Fiori Barocci’s Flight to Egypt (1570) depicts Joseph, whose feast day is today, in an unusually carefree pose as he playfully hands an olive branch to Christ.

Joseph, most faithful and most courageous, mirror of patience and lover of poverty, watch over us.

(more…)

MISS UNIVERSE Canada has accepted a “transexual” male as a contestant in its beauty pageant, according to the pageant website Missosology. Given that Jenna Talackova is legally female even though he is a man, pageant officials concluded that it was inappropriate to exclude him and by the logic of radical equality and homosexual liberation, they are correct. (more…)

IN THE entry on the Democratic Party’s sinister, idiotic and thoroughly baseless allegations of a Republican “War on Women,” I stated that it is actually liberalism that has conducted a war on women for decades. By every conceivable social indicator, with the exception of how much money women earn, females at large – and that includes children – are worse off than they were prior to the 1960s. This is not to exonerate the Republicans, who are typically supporters of feminism too and haven’t the conviction to defend themselves against such claims. My intention is merely to point to the irreversibly warped state of mind behind the Democratic campaign.

To a reader who said liberalism’s freedoms, presumably sexual and economic freedoms, cannot possibly be construed as anti-woman, the reader Jesse Powell, who is a man, responds:

When a man says to a woman “you are free” he is at the same time saying “you are on your own.” Women’s liberation equals male abandonment. From the man’s point of view the purpose of liberating women is precisely to enable and justify abandoning women. (more…)

AT VFR, Lawrence Auster writes:

Dharun Ravi, the 20 year old former Rutgers freshman, has been found guilty of most counts in the peeping Tom “hate crimes” case in which his roommate, Tyler Clementi, committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. I opined last month that the case seemed very weak. The application of the still-new category of “hate crime” to Ravi’s behavior, under the even more questionable sub-category of “bias intimidation,” seemed so strained that I thought the jury would reject the charges. (more…)

JOHN E. writes:

Fr. Marcel Guarnizo, the Catholic priest who refused Communion to a lesbian and has been suspended from pastoral work, does well  to warn priests of what is likely to come for the faithful among them. It looks like it is taking heroic fortitude for this priest to stand firm and not violate his conscience as it relates to his simple duties as a priest. (more…)

PETER SCHIFF explains the obvious. Also, as Schiff points out, the issue is not Church vs. State, but State -- and the unconstitutional demand that citizens buy a product, i.e. national health insurance.

FR. Marcel Guarnizo, the priest who declined Communion to a Maryland woman who identified herself as a lesbian minutes before her mother’s funeral Mass has been removed from pastoral duties by the Archdiocese of Washington. In this letter to the public, posted at CNA, he explained the events that occurred on the day of Loetta Johnson’s funeral and clarified how his removal from duty was connected to the incident, in contradiction to the archdiocesan statement that he was suspended because of “intimidating behavior” toward staff.

Fr. Guarnizo’s letter is an extraordinary document, both because it is an unusual departure from normal protocol under which a priest who has been disciplined would defer to higher authorities and because of the actual events of that day. Barbara Johnson appeared in his office to introduce her lesbian lover a few minutes before the funeral Mass. Fr. Guarnizo was physically blocked by Johnson’s lover from leaving his office in order to follow Johnson and inform her of her obligation to abstain from Communion. He says he was overcome by a migraine after the funeral Mass, no doubt because of stress brought on by the evident hostility and defiance of the deceased’s daughter, whom he had no choice but to refuse publicly at the altar.

According to The Washington Post, Johnson, who contends she is both a Buddhist and a Catholic, told Fr. Guarnizo in a letter, “I will do everything in my power to see that you are removed from parish life so that you will not be permitted to harm any more families.”

The Archdiocese of Washington has made good this Buddhist lesbian’s threats and condemned the man adhering to Catholic doctrine.

Here is his letter:

I would like to begin by once again sending my condolences to the Johnson family on the death of Mrs. Loetta Johnson.

(more…)

JESSE POWELL writes:

Men have a duty to provide for and protect women; this is the basic code of chivalry. Protecting women from domestic violence committed by men certainly falls under the “protect” aspect of any civilized chivalrous code. There is an attribute of chivalry though that is important to emphasize in the context of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA): What chivalry dictates is decided upon by men. Chivalry encompasses the masculine duties towards women for the benefit of women that are defined and enforced by men. (more…)

THE Violence Against Women Act, the federal domestic violence bill, has destroyed countless homes, victimized many innocent men and employed thousands of feminist hacks on the public dollar. It’s one more example of how women and men with a pathological distrust of men and a belief in state control of the family have taken over our country. If you would like to know more about VAWA, which is currently up for reauthorization before the Senate, I recommend this recent piece by Phyllis Schlafly. I am posting in its entirety below.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein told The New York Times this week that renewed opposition to the bill “is part of a larger effort, candidly, to cut back on rights and services to women. We’ve seen it go from discussions on Roe v. Wade, to partial birth abortion, to contraception, to preventive services for women. This seems to be one more thing.” Feminists allow no challenge to their agenda without proclaiming an all-out war on women. All of the issues Feinstein refers to are features of feminist totalitarianism. Her comment is similar to a Communist bureaucrat saying that objections to his putting innocent people in jail are “one more thing” he has to cope with.

From Schlafly’s site:

The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 2 on a straight party-line vote. That proves again that the feminists control the Democratic Party, and also is a refreshing indication that Republicans are no longer intimidated by feminist demands. (more…)

LAWRENCE AUSTER writes:

As I have said before, the non-discriminatory principle at the core of modern liberalism means that every traditional institution and community, every nation, every culture, every religion, must be eliminated. In line with that principle, the UN-affiliated human rights organization Gherush 92 demands that Dante’s Divine Comedy be banned from classroom teaching because it is “offensive and discriminatory” against Muslims, homosexuals, and Jews. This is not, as one critic predictably calls it, “an excess of political correctness”; it is simply consistent liberalism. Which means that if people want such attacks on our culture to end, it is liberalism itself that they must reject.

On a side point, I recently re-read The Inferno, and I don’t remember any anti-Jewish material in it. However, when it comes his offensive treatment of Muhammad, Dante is spot on. See my entry, “Muhammad in Hell.”

(more…)