Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
I want to thank reader Santiago for recommending this video - May Feelings - of students of University of Madrid explaining why they pray the rosary to Mary. It's so counter-cultural ... so "not" what I think of when I think of Spanish college students! It's been up for a month and has over 265,500 hits. http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=YxjjyXhO9EA That's inspirational. Enjoy.
Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
Over the big pond, there's been a tongue-wagging, sometimes brutal, deluge of opinion gathered from Natasha Bedingfield's 2007 "I Wanna Have Your Babies" - yet to be released into the US market despite having its very own Wikipedia entry. First, watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOAbvaIVp2c. Then, note the success of Natasha's catchy, hip-hop capture of the age-old tug of interest between young men and women, reaching 7th and 8th on the singles' charts in the UK and Ireland. Next, glimpse some of the more venomous dissing of the song, video and entire person of Natasha Bedingfield: "this is an abhorrence you cannot return from unscathed; you will wear a veil of pestilence ‘til your days grow dark."
Now, what do you think of "I Wanna Have Your Babies"?
Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
My husband does not know it yet, but I've given him a very Special Valentine's Day gift: I threw his Sports Illustrated "Swimsuit" 2008 in the recycle bin yesterday when it arrived in the mail. He'll never see it.
Happy Valentine's Day, honey!
Here's why I committed mail theft to honor my husband.
1. The issue - entitled "Barely Bikinis" - should be called "Bare, Naked Broads". The cover girl, Marisa Miller, wears but a string bottom - busy stewarding her God-given beauty with a strategically draped string of blue gems and carefully placed blond hair. Hmmmmmm. Compared to the 1965 cover girl, pictured here, Ms. Miller's future does not look too fertile, unless you value your crop by bucks and gasps of lust.
2. "Bare, Naked Broads" 2008 boasts another remarkable feature: if the "models" wear anything, they are mostly in the process of taking it off. Ms. Miller has her thumb teasingly tucked under one of only two strings that aspire to be a purchasable consumer item. I suppose if she wore what SI's male gapers actually want - nothing - then nothing would be sold as next year's top-selling swim suits.
3. On Tuesday night, Father Patrick said an intimate Mass for me, my husband and the other Board members of a Catholic preschool here in San Francisco. Father looked us in the eyeballs - as bold priests seem to enjoy in these small celebrations - and said, "When 40% of men are addicted to pornography, what does that tell us about our culture?" Uck. I did not want to hear that at Mass. And I did not want to see it on my kitchen counter, tempting bait for emasculating the men and boys I love into sex obsessed pansies.
4. Of course, the yearly swimsuit episode has become a major consumer event of controversy between sports seasons - it must be fueled anew every issue, just as teams recharge themselves with new plays, players and promises. It's a big game of Money, Lust and Sex in the Market. And I don't want to play. I like to play by Christ's rules whenever I can - without excuses. These rules include the Church's rules which are crisply and convincingly well put by Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn in his Ash Wednesday 2007 pastoral letter "Blessed Are the Pure of Heart". Read it here.
5. We have 14 and 11 year old sons. Need I say more?
So Happy Valentine's Day, my beloved. I have recycled your Sports Illustrated Bare, Naked Broads ... with the hope it will come back to you - perhaps the very paper upon which I write you my love letter next Valentine's Day.
Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
With Epiphany upon us, Christmas continues its Catholic course and I persist in my annual refusal to un-decorate just yet. I savor the hope and the innocence. So, if you missed this YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8) , you still have time to timely enjoy the University of Indiana men's a cappella Straight No Chaser's rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas. There's a reason this YouTube boasts 6,767,836, and mounting, hits. My husband and sons are particularly fond of joyfully singing and jiggling along with "I had Christmas down in Africa" . . . you'll see what I mean. Visit here for more SNC information and listening.
Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
My daughter's high school pals find the best YouTubes - thanks to Jacqueline for this one. You can find "Charlie Bit Me" here , or cut and paste, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM. I hope the presidential candidates can have this brother's quick, well-humored recovery after the Iowa caucus!
Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
Deal, you write "The other protected groups -- including gender . . . -- are objective and do not require an invasion of privacy to determine." But gender is not objective in California, don't you know?
On October 12 2007, Governor Schwartzenegger signed Senate Bill 777 - the California Student Civil Rights Act - over the fervent opposition and to the shock of pro-family groups like Catholics for the Common Good. Among other purposes , SB 777 prohibits discrimination in all schools based on gender, a category commonly included among protected classes and traditionally referencing the sex - that is male or female - of a person. But California has given a new, subjective definition to the word "gender," distinguishing one's selected gender from the mundane gender assigned by onlookers at a birth. “Gender” means sex, and includes a person’s gender identity and gender related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.
Under this definition of gender, the mostly-assigned-sex-male San Francisco Sisters of Perpetual Adoration - "a leading-edge order of queer nuns" - would be protected against discrimination as students using restroom facilities at a post-secondary school, for example, based upon the gender to which each associates, subject, presumably, to revision. While each "Sister" may well have a stable, associated gender, many persons do not. They suffer from conditions such as gender confusion, one of a growing list of transgender problems and challenges. The emotional, biological and social causes driving this burgeoning field are little understood. As one source states, "Usually, the only way to find out how exactly people identify themselves is to ask them, and sometimes, transgender people either cannot or will not define themselves any more specifically than transgender, queer or genderqueer."
But lack of understanding has not stopped this tidal wave of confusion from sweeping into California's schools, regardless the location or age of student. Here, the state's children will be exposed to disturbing, frightening and inappropriate displays of adult sexual uncertainty and confusion - an exposure no child requested and no child deserves. Only harm to the environment requires "impact studies" - deleterious effects of adult social experimentation on our children don't factor to those pushing their political social agenda into school corridors.
And you thought, Deal, that gender was objective.
Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
While researchers reported a STD "epidemic" in California among its highly "sex-educated" young people, school board members approved the distribution of birth control pills and patches to girls in 7-8 grades (11-14 year olds) at a Maine Middle School where condoms available since 2000 have failed to prevent all pregnancies there. Apparently unaware or unwilling to address the disastrous results being reported from California's broad sex education program - a program that receives no federal funds in order to exclude abstinence education - school officials in Portland Maine asserted, ""This isn't encouraging kids to have sex. This is about the kids who are engaging in sexual activity."
I beg your pardon? When did we extend the Culture of Adult Desire to 11 year old girls to make their own choice to have sex? That's called "child depredation" because 11 year old girls have not formed the judgmental capacity to choose responsibly and without influence from, say the 16 year old boys, the school nurse offering free birth control pills and a school board saying "kids will be kids ... they just love to have sex these days!"
I smell Baby Boomer finks here, deciding to impose upon our children their own taste for sexual irresponsibility and refusing to protect growing girls from sexual predators - a growing national disaster evident in reports like Miriam Grossman's "Unprotected" and the Center for Disease Control's alert over the rise in female suicide rates.
It does not take a rocket scientist to conclude that 11-14 year old girls should not be sexually servicing anyone, including the cute boys who know the way to the student health center. We consider these kids "children" which is why a girl cannot "choose" to drive to school, buy a round of martinis for the gang, ride her bike without a helmet, quit school to get a job or buy cigarettes. Imagine offering free cigarettes in the student health center not to encourage smoking, but for the little children who are already enjoying cigarettes!"
This Board no doubt longs to educate and protect these children in a challenging culture - but it is no protection to let children choose their own predators.
Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
A lot of folks are experiencing a touch of nausea this morning, Deal. I think I found an antidote.
First, visit The Inconvenient Truth at Amazon.com and sort the 987 customer reviews with the lowest rating first. Stop at Dr. Stephen Gruber's review "How Green Was My Planet"; tarry at retired attorney John Linnell's "An Inconvenient Myth and Miles from the Truth" and enjoy meteorologist D. Hall Jethro's "A Convenient Truth for the Democrats". There are some unprofessional, uncharitable remarks here, unfortunately, like "Al Gore Sucks ... Zero Stars", which, apparently, is not really an option on the Amazon 5-star scale, and a comparison of Mr. Gore to Mr. Borat.
Next, read the "nine significant errors within the former presidential candidate’s documentary" and “the context of alarmism and exaggeration”, found yesterday by Mr. Justice Burton of London's High Court.
When you are done there, visit Thomas Malthus at Wikipedia. "Pop" (short for population) Malthus sounds like a pretty likable guy (British, 1766-1834) who, perhaps like Mr. Gore, really wanted to believe in the perfection of mankind - but he got distracted by the appearance of limited food supplies and man's unrestrained appetite for sex. His influential, famously dire and, well, wrong, predictions about over-population and the demise of humans remind us that unfolding facts can temper a man's predictive claim to fame.
Finally, grab a Krispy Kreme donut and cup of coffee and reread Sean Dailey's wonderfully reassuring"The Lost Art of Catholic Drinking".
Let me know if you're feeling better in the morning.
Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
As a tearful Mayor revealed that his daughter is Lesbian and reversed his promise to San Diego to oppose same-sex marriage, the pain and plight of children under modern maneuvering of marriage boundaries went, once again, IGNORED. I say "ignored" because the stark, unemotional reality of the emotionally- stressed lives being carved for children by the ever-expanding Culture of Adult Desire was placed squarely on the table. "Look at the consequences to the children, PLEASE," was the message delivered by the brave Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse to the San Diego City Council before its vote last week to support same-sex marriage. Apparently moved to do "what's right" for his adult daughter, but unmoved by the emotional well-being of San Diego's children, by the 62% of San Diego voters who supported one-man, one-woman marriage in 2000 and by his own campaign promise to protect marriage and children, the Republican Mayor Jerry Sanders signed the Council's resolution supporting same-sex marriage.
Dr. Morse's comments warrant a full read. She speaks authoritatively and effectively on behalf of our children - to those who care to listen. More, her courage challenges each of us to speak up and give voice to the children whose needs and well-being are being shunted from the public square, like the God whose gift they are.
Next week, I will be going to Canada to do a briefing for their Members of Parliament about why cohabitation is not the same as marriage. I mention that to indicate that my primary job is to straighten out the straight people. And believe me, it is a full-time job. I am here today to explain why I believe instituting same sex marriage will make that job immeasurably more difficult. The needs of same sex couples and opposite sex couples would both be better served by having distinct institutional arrangements, rather than by trying to have one institution serve the needs of both groups.
Opposite sex couples have children, without any specific intervention by the state. Same sex couples can not have children without specific legal institutions in place to do two things: first, the rights of at least one of the genetic parents must be terminated. Second, at least one member of the same sex couple must have parental rights specifically assigned to them.
The advocates of same sex marriage hope that "marriage" will allow them to skip these steps. They hope, for instance, that any child born to either member of a lesbian couple will be presumed to be the child of both. But that requires that somehow, the male contributor to the conception of the child must be safely out of the way. That step still has to be taken, no matter what kind of union the members of the lesbian couple have with each other. Renaming their relationship should not be enough to invalidate the father's rights to his child.
In practice, there are two possible things that can happen with the opposite sex parent. Either that parent will be considered legally superfluous. Or, the child can have three parents, the two same sex parents, plus the cooperating opposite sex parent.
Neither of these options are particularly good for children. We know that children thrive when they are raised by two married parents. We know that children suffer specific kinds of losses from the absence of their mother or from the absence of their father. And we know that children in step-families have a specific set of emotional and behavioral risks. We can only imagine how those problems would be compounded in the event of three, rather than two, legal parents juggling the children from one home to another, disputing about custody schedules and fighting over child support.
These are some of the negative outcomes we can expect from trying to make marriage into a gender-neutral institution that applies identically to same sex and opposite sex couples.
1. Triple parenting will emerge, as it has already done in both Canada and Pennsylvania.
2. The state will have to determine, not just record, parentage of same sex couples. If same sex marriage is really treated as the equivalent of opposite sex marriage, that authority will be extended to cover opposite sex couples as well.
3. There will no longer be "natural parents," only "legal parents." In Spain, the birth certificates were changed from "mother" and "father" to "Progenitor A" and "Progenitor B." In Canada, the birth certificates were changed from "natural mother" and "natural father" to "legal parent A" and "legal parent B."
4. Same sex marriage will further the process of marginalizing men from the family. If children don't really need one parent of each gender, the natural conclusion will be that fathers, not mothers, are disposable.
Legally recognizing same sex marriage will destabilize the legal determination of parentage. In cases in both Canada, which has legal same sex marriage, and Pennsylvania, which does not, courts have recognized three adults as legal parents. In the Pennsylvania case, Jacob v. Schulz-Jacob, the two members of the estranged lesbian couple as well as the biological father, all dispute one another's rights and responsibilities. The children have all the trauma of divorce, multiplied. They have visitation with three adults, none of whom live together, none of whom are cooperating with each other. It is a psychologist's nightmare.
We have all seen children of divorced parents shuttling from one household to another. If same sex marriage comes to California, we will be seeing children going among three or even more parents. I urge you to vote against this resolution. Picture a little girl, going from her mom's house to her mom's former partner's house, to her dad's, to her dad's former partner's. Those little children, with their backpacks and their sleeping bags, will be on your head, if the resolution supporting same sex marriage passes.
I speak on behalf of the many supporters of traditional marriage who are arrayed in this room. We come from all the major faith traditions, and no religion at all. But we are united in two core beliefs.
1. We believe that men and women are different in socially significant ways. We believe that mothers and fathers are not perfectly interchangeable. The advocates of same sex marriage must insist that gender is irrelevant to parenting.
2. We believe that something is owed to the child. We believe that every child is entitled to be born into a family of the mother and father who brought them into being through an act of love. Every child is entitled to a relationship with both parents.
Like many others here today, I am devoted to helping opposite sex couples see the importance of life-long married love. Our efforts would be greatly hampered by a judgment of the state saying adults are entitled to cut off a child's relationship with one of his parents at birth, and that the child should be indifferent as to whether he has both parents or not.
That is why we have come here today: to speak on behalf of those children yet to be born, to affirm our commitment to the principle that every child deserves a mother and a father.
Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com
If you don't receive Father Thomas Berg's periodic email columns, you are missing a valuable resource on ethics and the human person, offered by the Westchester Institute. You can subscribe here.
Father Berg's current e-column, Stem Cells, the Presidential Candidates and the Bush Principles,
provides a lucid summary of the limits placed by President Bush on embryonic stem cell research and the ethical considerations supporting these critical limits. Father Berg comments:
Pursuing the potential benefits of human pluripotent stem cells, making sure the science goes forward, but without compromising our respect for embryonic human life: this has been the President’s policy during his entire administration.
I have always found such a policy to be deeply principled and thoroughly reasonable. Bearing in mind that stem cell research will prove to be a central issue in 2008, I’ve yet to find a presidential candidate who affords us a similar degree of principled and painstaking conviction with regard to that research.
Which candidates, then, come closest to the current ethical controls and which candidates promise to abandon ethical considerations altogether, considering "human embryos as essentially raw material" to be exploited as commercial product ? It's worth a full read.
