Month: March 2005

The "Gay Gene" Bill

What’s the origin of homosexuality?

I dunno.

I suspect, in a species as highly cognitive as homo sapiens, that homosexuality has an origin that is significantly cognitive. That is: Though few individuals may have a moment where they deliberately choose to be homosexual, most find themselves faced with homosexual temptations that they indulge over the course of time and that result in a pattern of temptations toward their own sex.

If the researches of some psychological professionals are a guide, such temptations may be especially strong among individuals who fail, for whatever reason, to form a strong, healthy relationship with their parents–and particular with their fathers (this is true regardless of whether it is male or female homosexuality).

Though I recognize that humanity is a highly cognitive species with a sexuality that is significantly susceptible to cognitive training, I can’t rule out that there are other factors involved in the genesis of homosexual temptations. There may be a genetic or hormonal component that is independent of the environment in which an individual is raised.

Suppose there is.

Suppose that researchers one day produce significant evidence that there is a specific gene or combination of genes that inclines a child toward homosexual temptations. Alternately, suppose that they find evidence that a specific combination of hormones at a particular stage of gestation that affects a child’s later sexual orientation.

What should happen in such a situation?

Many parents would choose, given the right resources, to correct the situation. They would ask that their unborn child be given genetic or hormonal therapy to correct the problem so that their child would experience only the ordinary sexual temptations that affect normal people and thus not be faced with homosexual temptations.

But suppose that such genetic or hormonal therapy is not available.

What would parents do? Some might willingly shoulder the burden of raising a child who will likely have homosexual temptations. But some may not. Some parents might shy away from this burden and choose, instead, to abort the child they have conceived.

THAT WOULD BE MURDER.

I’m sorry, but one cannot kill someone–before or after their emergence from the womb–on the grounds that they have a particular sexual orientation.

Do you support laws against murder?

YOU SHOULD.

And I ask you to join me in supporting a Maine bill that would prevent parents from aborting their children should future science be able to show that their children may have a predisposition toward homosexual temptations.

No man is the sum of his temptations. Nor is any woman the sum of hers.

ALL individuals are human beings who deserve respect and compassion, regardless of what their particular temptations may be.

If science can help allieviate some of these temptations, it is a cause for rejoicing. But whether science can or cannot do this, nobody may be murdered to prevent the arrival of an individual because of the temptations he may face.

Conscientious Christians should therefore support the current Maine bill against aborting babies that might one day be shown to have a predisposition to homosexual tempations.

GET THE STORY.

The “Gay Gene” Bill

What’s the origin of homosexuality?

I dunno.

I suspect, in a species as highly cognitive as homo sapiens, that homosexuality has an origin that is significantly cognitive. That is: Though few individuals may have a moment where they deliberately choose to be homosexual, most find themselves faced with homosexual temptations that they indulge over the course of time and that result in a pattern of temptations toward their own sex.

If the researches of some psychological professionals are a guide, such temptations may be especially strong among individuals who fail, for whatever reason, to form a strong, healthy relationship with their parents–and particular with their fathers (this is true regardless of whether it is male or female homosexuality).

Though I recognize that humanity is a highly cognitive species with a sexuality that is significantly susceptible to cognitive training, I can’t rule out that there are other factors involved in the genesis of homosexual temptations. There may be a genetic or hormonal component that is independent of the environment in which an individual is raised.

Suppose there is.

Suppose that researchers one day produce significant evidence that there is a specific gene or combination of genes that inclines a child toward homosexual temptations. Alternately, suppose that they find evidence that a specific combination of hormones at a particular stage of gestation that affects a child’s later sexual orientation.

What should happen in such a situation?

Many parents would choose, given the right resources, to correct the situation. They would ask that their unborn child be given genetic or hormonal therapy to correct the problem so that their child would experience only the ordinary sexual temptations that affect normal people and thus not be faced with homosexual temptations.

But suppose that such genetic or hormonal therapy is not available.

What would parents do? Some might willingly shoulder the burden of raising a child who will likely have homosexual temptations. But some may not. Some parents might shy away from this burden and choose, instead, to abort the child they have conceived.

THAT WOULD BE MURDER.

I’m sorry, but one cannot kill someone–before or after their emergence from the womb–on the grounds that they have a particular sexual orientation.

Do you support laws against murder?

YOU SHOULD.

And I ask you to join me in supporting a Maine bill that would prevent parents from aborting their children should future science be able to show that their children may have a predisposition toward homosexual temptations.

No man is the sum of his temptations. Nor is any woman the sum of hers.

ALL individuals are human beings who deserve respect and compassion, regardless of what their particular temptations may be.

If science can help allieviate some of these temptations, it is a cause for rejoicing. But whether science can or cannot do this, nobody may be murdered to prevent the arrival of an individual because of the temptations he may face.

Conscientious Christians should therefore support the current Maine bill against aborting babies that might one day be shown to have a predisposition to homosexual tempations.

GET THE STORY.

我是天主教徒

Tsang"I am a Catholic."

That’s what the Chinese characters in this post’s title are supposed to say (assuming your browser displays them), though I can’t vouch for them as I don’t (yet) read Mandarin logograms (though I do have a little familiarity with spoken Mandarin, as I occasionally use to the disadvantage of local Cantonese speakers–I haven’t yet studied Cantonese).

In any event, Donald Tsang (left) is reportedly a devout Catholic, so 我是天主教徒 is supposed to represent what he should be willing to say.

Also, Tsang is the logical person to take over the position of head man in Hong Kong, despite his religion. He already has a long history of service in government positions.

Let’s pray, if he is the best man for the job, he gets the chance to serve in the top slot as administrator of Hong Kong.

GET THE STORY.

Vatican Official Again Weighs In On Terri Shiavo

Though there may be doubt on where some churchmen are on the Terri Shiavo issue, the head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has spoken.

GET THE STORY.

Excerpt from Cardinal Martino:

She will die a horrible and cruel death. She will not simply die; she will have death inflicted upon her over a number of terrible days even weeks . . . how is it that this woman, who has done nothing wrong, will suffer a fate which society would never tolerate in the case of a convicted murderer or anyone else convicted of the most horrendous crimes?

Million Dollar Movie

The movie Million Dollar Baby walked away with far too many Oscars this year, what with it bein’ a pro-euthanasia flick an’ all.

The Passion of the Christ deserved best pic, not this flick.

(EARTH TO HOLLYWOOD!!! HELLOOOOOOO!!!)

Some try to defend Million Dollar Baby on the grounds that, despite its problematic euthanasia message, "It’s just a movie."

Not Ed Peters.

GET THE STORY.

Lovecraft Enters The American Canon

Lovecraft The mad Arab Abdul Alhazred (a.k.a. H. P. Lovecraft) has had a volume published by the Library of America, a prestigious non-profit publisher devoted to preserving the works of America’s greatest writers.

In the judgment of author Michael Dirda, that means he’s entered the American canon.

GET THE STORY.

(Cowboy hat tip to the reader who pointed it out!)

Excerpts:

NO FULL UNDERSTANDING OF MODERN literature is possible without taking into account an exceedingly peculiar, self-educated, semi-recluse from Providence named Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

That is a conclusion no one, including Lovecraft himself, would have predicted. As he was dying in 1937 at age forty-six, he may well have felt he had lived in vain. His stories–sixty or seventy works of various lengths and completeness–resided in scattered notebooks and throwaway pulp magazines, uncollected and unlikely to be remembered.

But it now seems beyond dispute that H.P. Lovecraft is the most important American writer of weird fiction in the twentieth century–and one of the century’s most influential writers of any kind of fiction. His admirers range from the Argentine fabulist Jorge Luis Borges to such contemporary masters of darkness as Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. Each year winners of the "World Fantasy Award" take home a trophy modeled on Lovecraft’s gaunt, lantern-jawed face. Nearly every author of supernatural fiction and dark fantasy sooner or later tries his hand at a Lovecraftian homage or pastiche.

The article contains some good analysis of Lovecraft’s literary work, but it also contains information on Lovecraft’s private side:

Lovecraft–under-sexed, neurasthenic, a Mama’s boy–actually got married in 1924, to a Jewish woman who described him, mirabile dictu, as "an adequately excellent lover." The couple resided in hated New York City for two years, until the marriage broke up and Lovecraft happily moved back home to Providence. In his later years, this once wholly introspective voyager traveled all around eastern America, from Quebec to New Orleans, from Cleveland to Key West.

He actually competed in an ice-cream eating contest and was reportedly offered the editorship of a periodical called the Magazine of Fun. He remained an almost literally starving writer, however, with so little income at one point that he ate his suppers out of cans, being unable to afford a stove. A typical dinner might consist of cold hot dogs, biscuits, and mayonnaise. Lovecraft died from cancer in 1937: forty-six years old and apparently doomed to be forgotten.

I can sympathize with Lovecraft’s poverty, as there was a time in grad school when I was so dirt poor in Arkansas that we were in constant danger of being evicted from our apartment, we couldn’t afford much-needed medicine, dollar packs of hot dogs were a principle means of subsistence, and cheese was something I regarded as "rich man’s food." I well remember picking loose change out of the couch to try to get enough coins that my wife and I could go to the market for a pack of hot dogs and a can of frozen lemonade, which would represent all the food we’d have to eat, ’cause the cupboard was bare.

Another summer (before I was married), I was so poor that all I could afford to eat was 17 cent boxes of low-quality, generic, Always Save Macaroni & Cheese–every single day. While macaroni & cheese had previously been a favorite dish, I couldn’t stand the thought of eating it for several years afterward.

Something that the article doesn’t mention is that Lovecraft’s friend, correspondent, and fellow weird fiction author Clark Ashton Smith (whom Lovecraft referred to as Klarkash-Ton) attributed Lovecraft’s death to malnutrition. Apparently Lovecraft was so impoverished that at certain points he was subsisting on food costing only $1.40 a week (a ridiculously small sum even in the 1930s).

Perhaps it was severe malnutrition that weakened his immune system enough to allow his stomach cancer to develop.

Bitterly ironic that a man who ate so little would be killed by a disease that gave him intense stomach pains.

Even more bitter is the fact that Lovecraft would have made more money if he had written more fiction, but criticism of his work demoralized him as a writer, keeping him from writing as much as he otherwise would have.

Now he’s considered one of the giants of 20th century American literature.

I still don’t buy his thesis that the universe is vast and uncaring and doesn’t give a whit about puny men.

God still loves H. P. Lovecraft.

Can You Hear Me. Now?

Alexander_graham_bell March 10, 1876: The first bi-directional telephone message is sent by Alexander Graham Bell.

The message?

"Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."

The previous year Bell had sent a uni-directional message: "Do you understand what I say?" and Watson rushed in and announced "Yes!"

LEARN MORE ABOUT BELL.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PHONE.

What I want to know is: Why wasn’t the Bell Phone Company (remember that?) known colloquially as "Pa Bell"?

Stripped Books

Here’s a guestblog from reader <Rule 15 Suspended With Author’s Consent>Mary Catelli</Rule 15 Suspended With Author’s Consent>, who writes:

It occured to me that you or your readers might be interested in a little detail about books.

Sometimes you see stories with boxes and boxes of books, really cheap. The books don’t have covers.

The reason they are cheap is that they were obtained by fraud. The bookstore stripped off the covers and sent them back to the publisher as proof they didn’t sell. They are supposed to destroy the books, as this is cheaper than sending them back.

But they don’t always.

(For this reason, although writers seldom (if ever) object to used bookstores, it would be rash indeed to ask a writer to autograph a stripped book.)

Peters On Crocker On NFP

Crisis magazine published a startling article mocking NFP by H. W. Crocker III, author of the book Triumph.

READ THE ARTICLE.

Ed Peters has a response.

READ IT.

Peters also recommends that people tell Crisis what they think of Crocker’s article.

TELL THEM.

I found it a sneering, theologically- and scientifically inaccurate article that stands to irresponsibly damage to Church’s reputation and the faithful’s confidence in it for having blessed periodic continence as a means of regulating births and giving those who want to contracept to have one more malevolent moment of satisfaction in (wrongly) thinking that NFP doesn’t work.