Category Archives: Catholic Church
Pope Benedict XVI: Gay Marriage A Threat To ‘Future Of Humanity’
“This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself” -Pope Benedict XVI
VATICAN CITY, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Pope Benedict said on January 9th, 2012 that gay marriage was one of several threats to the traditional family that undermined “the future of humanity itself”.
The pope made his strongest comments against gay marriage in a new year address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican in which he touched on some economic and social issues facing the world today.
He told diplomats from nearly 180 countries that the education of children needed proper “settings” and that “pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman.”
The Vatican and Catholic officials have protested against moves to legalize gay marriage in Europe and other developed parts of the world. Gay marriage is legal in a number of advanced civilized European countries, including Spain and the Netherlands.
One leading opponent of gay marriage in the United States is New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who fought against gay marriage before it became legal in New York state last June, and in September sent a letter to President Barack Obama criticizing his administration’s decision not to support a federal ban on gay marriage.
The Roman Catholic Church, which has some 1.3 billion members worldwide, teaches that while homosexual tendencies are not sinful, homosexual acts are, and that children should grow up in a traditional family with a mother and a father.
“The family unit is fundamental for the educational process and for the development both of individuals and states; hence there is a need for policies which promote the family and aid social cohesion and dialogue,” Benedict told the diplomats.
——————————
Threats To Humanity? Plentiful, but…
Listen, Pope… I’m supposed to take seriously a sheltered, celibate man who dresses in medieval garb? A dress, no less? The validity of your ideas are so far removed from reality, that it confounds why your banal utterances are even reported as news.
Truth be known, Pope, there are real threats to the future of Humanity:
-It’s the Catholic Church that is a threat to the “Future of Humanity”. Look no further than all of the sex scandals rocking the Catholic world, the young boys’ lives you’ve ruined, the deaths you have caused. It’s shameful and an embarrassment to modern civilization.
-Humanity — the quality or lack thereof — as you advocate… a threat to future of Humanity.
-Religion has throughout history led to judgment and war against the heathen; it continues as a great threat to Humanity.
-Great threat to the future of Humanity: uncontrolled human breeding, which all the major religions not only accept but vigorously promote. Ergo, it’s not a stretch to say that organized religion itself is a threat to the future of humanity, based purely on its stance on birth control.
-Far more than an honest, loving “gay marriage,” it is ” Catholic intolerance” as the threat to Humanity.
- A clear example of one of the great problems of the world today: “Half” the population has entered the 21st century and the other “half” still has its head in the Dark Ages. All of this “old world” thinking is being driven by the established religions of the world… science and logical thinking be damned.
The Catholic Church. Still hundreds of years behind the times.
No church should ever be forced to recognize gay marriage, or any other kind of marriage which violates its moral standards, but that is NOT the issue at hand, here. Pope Benedict is not worried that the laws of various countries will force his church to accept gay marriages, he is worried that laws allowing gay marriage would allow other religions to recognize them. He wants our government to enforce the Catholic Church’s version of morality.
The Taliban is an evil in the world because it is intolerant, ruthless, and dictatorial… NOT because it is Muslim. Your Christian Taliban is no better.
“We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate.” - Ronald Reagan
SHE NEEDS MORE SEX: Rise of The American Social Taliban
American Republicans: “I Do Want to Turn Back the Clock”
Over the weekend, a New York Times editorial properly accused the GOP of waging a “War on Women.” The editors call a spate of bills that would limit funding for abortion, contraceptives, and maternal health initiatives “an assault on women’s health and freedom” and warn that “this is just the beginning” — which, of course, is true.
But at the staunchly conservative National Review, Kathryn Jean Lopez — entrapped by her own familial/cultural history and the confines of her dictatorial Catholicism — says conservatives aren’t waging a war on women, just a war on sex. She argues that most Americans are entirely too casual about copulating, and as a result…
“we’ve let Planned Parenthood step in as a mainstream band-aid, applying contraception and even abortion to problems that require much more fundamental solutions.”
While most likely a great deal of stress and potential, harmful sexual “acting-out” have been alleviated by movement toward wonderfully enjoyable consensual sex, Lopez would have us believe that because casual sex is inherently harmful… the best solution, then: to defund the organizations that make so much consequence-free hanky-panky possible.
Truth, though, is simply that many Planned Parenthood clients are married women trying to conserve the family’s resources for the children they already have. Conservatives love the unborn and love lots of procreation, but their interest wanes rapidly as the conditions of lives degrade by their own policies.
If liberals accuse Lopez of turning back the clock on women’s rights (and we do), that’s fine with her.
“I do want to turn back the clock,” she says. “To a time when we valued love and marriage and didn’t expect, support, and even encourage promiscuity.”
Oh my! Lions and tigers and bear! Get real!
The American Taliban Party contradiction: Interestingly, it seems to be Right-wing conservatives including Newt Gingrich, John McCain, and Guilianni who have had serial marriages, mistresses, and even discarded sick wives for hotter models, and yet are considered by conservatives to be presidential material.
This conservatism — this American Social Taliban — is inherently pathological… a disease of the mind and spirit… wielding tools of democracy destructively.
The truth of the matter, though, is that bills limiting funding for abortion, contraceptives, and maternal health initiatives are injurious to women. It is absolutely reprehensible that in our modern age we must revisit the conversation of maturing and progressing as a functional society:
- Yes, let’s go back to putting scarlet “A”‘s on women’s chests and stone a few more in public squares. The National Review was always backward looking, but this is astounding. The American Social Taliban is alive and well in the Republican Party and the hearts of most conservatives.
- Ah yes, if only we can turn back the clock to that magical, long ago time that never actually existed…
- Frankly, the new Republican/conservative movement is a regressive return to the social and legal inequalities commonly imposed upon women by a patriarchal culture.
John Stuart Mill — noted late-nineteenth-century British philosopher and author — argued correctly that inequality of women was a relic from the past, but it had no place in the modern world. Mill saw this subjugation of women as a hindrance to human development, since effectively half the human race were unable to contribute to society outside of the home confines.
“… [T]he legal subordination of one sex to another — is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a system of perfect equality, admitting no power and privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.”
Having a Baby May Be Worse for Mental Health Than Having an Abortion
Now How Could THAT Be?
According to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, having an abortion does not increase a woman’s risk of having mental health problems, but actually giving birth and keeping a baby does.
The study, conducted by Danish researchers, based on the medical records of 265,550 Danish women who did not have a history of mental health problems before getting pregnant, “further debunks the notion that terminating a pregnancy can trigger mental illness and shows postpartum depression to be much more of a factor.”
The study’s lead researcher concluded, “A woman should know that her risk of having a psychiatric episode is not increased,” after aborting.
Jezebel isn’t surprised (“having an abortion is essentially the end of the event, whereas having a baby is a 24/7 experience, fraught with both physical and emotional stresses”), and the folks at LifeNews are horrified (“there is plenty of evidence suggesting that the negative effects of abortion may not surface for several years”).
“The Unfinished Business Is Done”
I Give Thanks & Respect to The Liberal Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy
“Tip O’Neill / Ted Kennedy Clansmen,” that was the description I used for Ted Kennedy in a 1982 economic editorial written for the Cincinnati Enquirer — back when I swallowed whole the rhetoric of Reagan Republicanism and before I grew into a Liberal who saw Kennedy as a source of strength and motivation to improve this nation. Today, I give thanks and respect to his legacy, for it is “the cause of his life” that kept the embers of national health insurance alive so that Obama could make the cause a reality.
Liberal Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy
Ted spoke these words in a eulogy to his assassinated brother, and today, they represent a fitting thought for him:
Beneath it all, he has tried to engender a social conscience. There were wrongs which needed attention. There were people who were poor and needed help. And we have a responsibility to them and to this country. Through no virtues and accomplishments of our own, we have been fortunate enough to be born in the United States under the most comfortable conditions. We, therefore, have a responsibility to others who are less well off.
Obama Finishes The Business
With the strokes of 20 pens, President Obama signed the landmark health care overhaul — the most extensive social legislation enacted in decades — into law on Tuesday March 24th, 2010, saying it enshrines “the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health care.”
President Obama signed the measure, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, during a high-spirited ceremony in the East Room of the White House. Ted Kennedy’s last legacy became official at 11:52 a.m. Tuesday, when Obama signed the Act into Law.
“The bill I’m signing will set in motion reforms that generations of Americans have fought for and marched for and hungered to see,” Mr. Obama said, adding, “Today we are affirming that essential truth, a truth every generation is called to rediscover for itself, that we are not a nation that scales back its aspirations.”
Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Senator Ted Kennedy, who had made passing the legislation his life’s work, stood by the President and wore a blue bracelet on her wrist that said “Tedstrong.” On their right wrists, President Obama, Vice President Biden, and members of Congress also wore the inscribed blue bracelets.
The senator’s son Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, also with the President, carried a gift for Obama: a copy of a bill his father introduced in 1970 to provide national health insurance. On it, the younger Mr. Kennedy had written a personal message of thanks and appreciation to Mr. Obama. Just a day before, Patrick visited his father’s gravesite and left behind a note written on his congressional stationery Monday morning.
While President Obama gathered with lawmakers for the bill-signing ceremony Tuesday in the White House, dozens of others came to commemorate health-care legislation on a quiet hillside in Section 45 of Arlington National Cemetery. Health-care advocates and student groups were led to the grave by tour guides, one of whom pointed to the white cross and recalled, “The Great Ted Kennedy, the man who championed health care.”
The political odyssey of health-care reform is in many ways the story of Ted Kennedy. He dedicated his career to reforming the system. It was, as he said himself, the cause of his life.
Kennedy had ignored doctors’ advice and given a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver about health-care reform. Then, in a final plea, he had reiterated his feelings in a letter to Obama, which Vicki delivered after her husband died.
You will be the president who at long last signs into law the health care reform that is the great unfinished business of our society. For me, this cause stretched across decades; it has been disappointed, but never finally defeated. It was the cause of my life. - Senator Kennedy posthumously to Obama
After a seizure from his brain tumor, Sen. Kennedy appeared to support the President
“I remember seeing Ted walk through that door in a summit in this room a year ago — one of his last public appearances,” Obama said. “And it was hard for him to make it. But he was confident that we would do the right thing.”
Obama evoked Kennedy in conversations with members of Congress during the final days before the vote. Pelosi mentioned Kennedy in her floor speech Sunday night, causing Democratic members to erupt in chants of “Teddy! Teddy! Teddy!”
Patrick Kennedy, the son, also spoke on the House floor in the hours before the vote, and his father was foremost in his mind. “His heart and soul are in this bill,” he said.
The next morning, after he cast his vote, Patrick visited his father’s grave. There, alone in Section 45, he was more succinct. He pulled out one of his congressional note cards, which he would leave at the footstone.
“Dad,” he wrote in blue marker, “The ‘Unfinished Business’ is Done.”
————————–
Ted Kennedy would be so proud that his dream of universal health care is nearing fruition.
His intuition that Barack Obama was the president this nation needed was confirmed as Obama signed into Law the achievement that had eluded every president before him for nearly a century. At the president’s side in this battle stood the most determined Speaker of the House in modern history, Nancy Pelosi. She refused to allow this effort for guaranteed health care to die and helped resuscitate Obama’s drive for reform — a project his advisors thought dead and not winnable.
Only Nixon could go to China. Well, only Barack Obama could have pulled off this legislative victory. Behind the stoic, no-drama exterior and megawatt smile exists a disciplined, ruthless, pragmatic president equipped with a flawless mastery of policy detail.
Despite plaintive wails of a coming Armageddon for the nation, the president’s forceful efforts ultimately resulted in the enactment of a recycled package of Republican proposals from the last health care showdown 16 years ago that provide at last a framework for health insurance for most Americans. Republican hypocrisy and penchant for misrepresentations and lies is nothing if not breathtaking.
Unlike our last president, this President can set aside ideology to achieve the art of the possible to improve lives.
After a year of Republicans sputtering unintelligible nonsense, Obama and the People won. Republicans showed their asses like enraged monkeys during the final night’s debate. They used every arrow in their quiver to defeat reform: fear, deception, xenophobia, and racism. They still lost!
Over the course of the next few years, 32 million Americans will finally gain access to health insurance they should have had all along. American health care is the most expensive in the industrialized world and doesn’t cover what it should. Now, finally, we may catch up to the more advanced nations of the industrialized world, which already have universal insurance and costs that remain half of ours.
My admiration goes to the Commander-In-Chief for this triumph over unadulterated Republican evil. My thanks and respect go to the legacy of Senator Ted Kennedy.
I still want a public option, though. Our next step must be a single-payer system : )
This is what change looks like! (Nearly) Universal Health Insurance for U.S. Citizens… Finally!
After nearly a century of attempts by both political parties to reform the American healthcare system…
After more than a year of debate…
Health Care Insurance Reform will become the law of the land!
A Democratic President and a Democratic Congress made this dream come true.
All Republicans voted against the bill, in unthinking lock-step with commands issued by their Party Overlords.
The House passed the Senate’s version of health care reform by a 219-212 margin, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature.
Obama said, accurately, shortly before midnight,
This isn’t radical reform, but it is major reform… This is what change looks like.
This Health Insurance Reform offers all Americans greater benefits and more security, while it also enables 32 million additional Americans to obtain health insurance coverage:
- Medicaid eligibility will be expanded, and subsidies provided for low- and moderate-income individuals to purchase private insurance.
- Individuals and small businesses obtain the choice to purchase insurance through new state-based exchanges, which will offer plans meeting minimum federal standards.
- Small businesses with low-wage workers will be eligible for temporary tax credits to help them pay for insurance coverage.
- Individuals will be required to obtain insurance coverage, thus reducing risk and cost per person to the lowest level (the entire concept of how insurance works)
- Businesses that employ more than 50 workers must provide coverage or pay a penalty of $2,000 per worker if any of their employees receives government-subsidized coverage on their own.
- A tax on high-cost insurance plans begins in 2018.
- New corporate taxes will be imposed on insurance industry, medical device manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies.
- Individuals who make more than $200,000 ($250,000 for families) will pay additional Medicare payroll taxes.
- Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions or rescind coverage when someone gets ill.
- Insurance companies will be prohibited from capping the amount of benefits individuals could receiver over their lifetime.
- Insurance coverage will now be affordable to all Americans and abusive insurance company practices reined in.
- National deficit will be cut by more than $100 billion over the next 10 years and by more than $1 trillion in the next twenty — making this the largest deficit reduction in more than a decade.
Republicans, however, continue to manipulate the issue and their constituents with fear and lies.
Repugnicans also called into question the Senate’s ability to pass a separate bill fixing the House’s problems with the Senate’s health care reform legislation. To avoid the need to get 60 votes in the Senate, Democrats decided to have the House vote on the Senate-passed bill, and then approve a package of fixes through a budget-related process known as reconciliation, which only requires 51 votes to clear the Senate.
The problem, according to Republicans, is that the reconciliation bill would generate additional contributions to the Social Security Trust Fund, and changes to Social Security aren’t eligible for consideration in a reconciliation bill.
Well, if that’s how they want to play it, fine… Repugnicans will ensure that THEIR deficits from financing two immoral and unnecessary wars will simply not be reduced as much as planned, leaving their children and grandchildren to pay for their follies. We’ll teach them who’s at fault.
The Republican argument didn’t sway any Democratic House members, anyway. The House passed the reconciliation bill by a 220-211 margin.
Let’s enjoy this victory! We have effected good policy that empowers all Americans, lowers our budget deficit, and more importantly, provides life and health for us all to pursue the opportunity of happiness this nation purports to grant citizens.
Pollution & Global Warming: The Most Important Question Is NOT Who Is Right! (#1 in Series)
In this constant and weary bickering over who’s right — Deniers or Acceptors — about the reality of pollution and resultant global warming, I’m decidedly in the camp that pollution/global warming is a factual process for which we must take action.
But… I’ve also realized that the MOST important question is NOT who is right.
The MOST important question is… WHAT IF WE’RE (YOU’RE) WRONG?
Really, both partisan sides need to look at what worst outcome is likely if they are wrong. The truth of the matter for any person of sane mind is to avoid the worst outcome in any decision-making scenario. So, we just need to look at the two sides and ask, “What happens if we’re wrong?” “What happens if you’re wrong?” The answer with the most damaging and least recoverable is THE ONE TO AVOID.
It’s really that simple.
Now, the question is begged, what do those two wrong alternatives look like? What world do we leave behind for our children and families if Deniers (you) are wrong? What world do we leave behind if Acceptors (we) are wrong? The former saves (hordes) big bucks with which to do something, presumably invest in growing traditional industry within a “competition-consumer society.” The latter spends (wastes) a helluva lot of money on a non-problem, investing in and developing new technological industries in a “cooperation-quality society.”
The Following Two Posts (below) Show The Alternate Worlds Encountered By Our Children & Their Children If You’re Wrong (Deniers) Or If We’re Wrong (Acceptors).
Which reality is the most damaging and least recoverable… THE ONE TO AVOID?
Pollution & Global Warming: What If You’re Wrong? (#2 in Series)
If you’re a Global Warming Denier, what is the world you would leave for your children and their children… IF YOU ARE WRONG?
Click the first image for a clickable slide show or click individual images for full size picture.
Faustian urGe Fist
Mostly Harmless
