Do You Know What Your Kids Are Up To?

You may think that you have an open and honest relationship with your children. You may think that of course they’d know that they could always tell you anything, no matter how bad. And you may even be right. But, in this day and age, they may be out arranging for an abortion behind your back.

"In 1985, the summer after my freshman year in high school, my 16-year-old sister told me she was pregnant. Andrea, a National Merit Scholar, knew two things: She wanted an abortion and she didn’t want to tell mom and dad.

"’I’ll help you,’ I said, honored that she’d turned to me.

"Andrea wasn’t worried that my parents would throw her out or beat her. She, like many minors who become pregnant, was more concerned about preserving her relationship with her family.

"’I remember feeling like I can’t add this to the official roster of things I’ve done,’ Andrea told me recently. ‘I was too young emotionally to have sex, but physically I wasn’t. Any conversation I would have had with mom and dad would have ended with them telling me not to do it.’ She didn’t want them to know anything about what felt to her like ‘a big mistake.’"

From the point of view of a teenager, it might seem reasonable to help your sister hide an embarrassing "mistake" from your parents, but surely the adults to whom this duo turned would encourage them to tell Mom and Dad anyway, particularly since the pregnant girl knew her parents would not hurt her and even more particularly since there was a parental notification law in place requiring that both parents consent to this young woman’s abortion.

If you were naive enough to think that, you thought wrong.

"Andrea had $60 saved from her job at Burger King. I helped her raise the additional $200 she needed by borrowing it from an acquaintance at school. Although North Dakota had had an abortion clinic since 1980, there was also a law, in place since 1981, stipulating that both parents consent to a minor’s abortion. Andrea went through the process of getting a judicial bypass. The clinic steered her though an interview with an amenable judge, I got her the money just in time and Andrea got her abortion. Although the experience was difficult for her, we were rather proud that we’d gone through it alone."

GET THE STORY.

Two young girls, one sixteen and the other probably fourteen or fifteen, managed to go to court and obtain a "judicial bypass" around their state’s parental consent laws, all without their parents ever being the wiser… at the time. Once Mom and Dad found out, they were rightly "heartsick and frustrated." The author of this essay professes "understanding" for their pain, yet still piously pronounces that parents should only know that their minor daughter is undergoing a major medical procedure — setting aside the fact that the major medical procedure in question also kills their grandchild — if their daughter "willingly" wants to tell them.

Words fail to capture just how mind-bogglingly stupid our society has become. But then, as Mark Shea has so pithily put it, sin makes you stupid.

Join The Rebel Alliance!

Captain Ed has a GOOD ARTICLE on the Harriet Miers disaster.

(There’s also CONFIRMATION FROM BORK that the Miers disaster IS a disaster–from the man who knows more about confirmation disasters than anybody else.)

Captain Ed divides conservative blogger reaction to the Miers disaster into three camps: The (very tiny) Loyalist Army (who support the nomination), the (vast) Rebel Alliance (who don’t), and the Trench-Dwelling Dogfaces (who are caught between the two; the good captain counts himself as one of these).

When it comes to the Harriet Miers nomination, I’m a rebel!

I think that the situation is intolerable, and my views on the matter have hardened as I’ve learned more about it. (Helpful reminder: What’s mine is mine.)

Conservatives have worked for thirty years to have the opportunity to put together a constellation of Supreme Court justices in place that would be willing to overturn Roe v. Wade, which has led to TENS OF MILLIONS OF BABY-MURDERS IN THE U.S. thus far, with MILLIONS AND MILLIONS MORE TO COME.

Bush ran on the promise that he would appoint justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, yet instead of doing so in a straightforward manner and saying, "Hey, this is what I said I’d do," he switches to a stealth nominee strategy, which is precisely the kind of capitulation that gave us Darth Souter.

John "I don’t really have an overarching philosophy of consitutional interpretation" Roberts may well not vote to overturn Roe, and Harriet "I need a crash course in constitutional law before my hearings" Miers may not either. Bush has said that he has no anti-Roe litmus test on his nominees, and one has to take him at his word.

Further, the pressure he feels to go all stealthy with his nominees is a product of the PUSILLANIMOUS WAY IN WHICH HE DEALT WITH THE FILIBUSTER ISSUE IN THE FIRST PLACE (Warning: Evil registration requirement).

John Hinderaker over at Powerline is saying that "it’s time to move on" when it comes to protesting the Miers nomination, but I disagree.

If you’re a Republican first and a conservative second then it makes sense to want to quieten things down lest the party be so ruptured come 2006 that it suffers on Election Day.

But I don’t care a flip about political parties. I care about principle, and BABIES ARE BEING MURDERED OUT THERE (not to mention all the other HORRENDOUS unconstitutional things that SCOTUS has forced on us in recent decades).

Pro-lifers have worked too hard for too long to let a petulant president SQUANDER a chance to save millions of babies lives by shortening the abortion holocaust. This is THE MOMENT for which Bush was elected, and he’s blowing it royally.

I therefore DON’T think that it’s time to "move on." I think that it’s time for pro-lifers to send a STRONG MESSAGE to the Senate and the president that this is NOT what they were put in office for.

If Miers nomination can be derailed, great.

If not, a painful enough lesson can be taught that this DOES NOT HAPPEN AGAIN (and Bush is likely to get a third and even fourth chance to nominate someone).

That lesson may have to wait until 2006, but I’d rather have it learned now.

The sooner the better.

I’m therefore encouraging folks to enlist in the Rebel Alliance!

CALL YOUR SENATORS (BOTH OF THEM, REGARDLESS OF THEIR POLITICAL PARTY) AND TELL THEM HOW UNHAPPY YOU ARE WITH MIERS.

Call the president, too, and tell him how unhappy you are!

The White House comments line is 202-456-1111.

REMEMBER: ACQUIESCING AND FAILING TO PROTEST THIS DISASTER WILL ONLY ENCOURAGE SIMILAR DISASTERS IN THE FUTURE!

“Two By Two, Hands Of Blue”

The other day I was having routine maintenance done on my pickup and I noticed the employees of Jiffy Lube were wearing something VERY unusual that I had seen before:

Dsc00295

This seems to prove that either Jiffy Lube is part of the BLUE SUN CORPORATION or that the Blue Sun Corporation will evolve out of Jiffy Lube, 500 years hence.

Or maybe it just means that Joss Whedon goes to Jiffy Lube.

Fortunately, none of their customers were bleeding from their eyes and fingernails.

Gay Blessings From The Church Of Sweden

The Church of England has taken it on the chin for its capitulation to the sexual revolution in all of its perverse forms, but it is not the only national church in the process of shrugging off traditional Christian morality. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden is inching closer to offering "blessing ceremonies" to homosexual couples, who profess themselves still dissatisfied at the potential compromise and holding out for "marriage":

"The Church of Sweden has come a step closer to introducing church blessings for gay couples who have signed civil partnership agreements, after a powerful church committee overwhelmingly approved the plans.

"Gay rights group RFSL welcomed the news, but said it would not be satisfied until same-sex couples got the same treatment as their straight counterparts.

"The liturgical committee of the Church Assembly has said that a service of blessing for gay partnerships should be included in the church’s official guidelines.

"The final decision will be taken by the full Church Assembly later this month, but the proposal won a large majority on the committee, with twelve out of fifteen members supporting the blessings."

A gay rights activist worries that it will take another generation before the Church of Sweden allows for gay "marriage":

"Gay rights groups have welcomed the announcement, but Sören Andersson, chairman of Sweden’s largest gay organisation, RFSL, told The Local that he would have liked the church to have gone further.

"’While I think this is a positive step that they are acknowledging relationships is this way, I think it’s sad that they won’t offer the same ceremonies to all couples.’

"’It has taken 30 years for us to come this far; I hope it doesn’t take another 30 years for us to be offered the same ceremonies.’"

GET THE STORY.

Oh, I don’t think he need worry about that. The way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Church of Sweden cave to the pressure for gay "marriage" within five years.

When Martin Luther and his fellow Reformers stripped northern Europe from the Catholic Church and nationalized the churches in Protestant countries, I wonder if they realized that they would be politicizing religion? History has shown that Caesar is rarely satisfied with his due; without a universal Church led by a supranational pope to keep Caesar in check, the church in a particular country is all too vulnerable to becoming the plaything of Caesar’s lobbyists and activists.

The Eucharist & Excommunication

A reader recently wrote me and asked about whether he might be in a state of excommunication. I’d reproduce text from his e-mails here, but they were rather detailed, so let me summarize:

The reader had worked as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion and had been taught to purify the chalice by pouring a small amount of water into it and then pouring the result down the sacrarium. He says that he would not have violated any Church laws that he had known about, but he learned that it is an offense incurring automatic excommunication to throw away the sacred species. Although he could not remember any times when he poured out the Precious Blood itself, he was concerned about whether he might be excommunicated.

He’s not.

I told him this by e-mail and promised a follow-up post to explain why, so here goes:

First, if sufficient water is added to what drops of the Precious Blood may remain in the chalice so that they no longer would appear to be wine in the common estimation of men then the Real Presence does not remain. Neither do the sacred species since what remains is not sacred (no Real Presence) and not the species of wine any more (does not appear to be wine in the common estimation of men).

Therefore, there are no sacred species to throw away in this circumstance and thus no possibility of triggering excommunication.

But suppose that there was a case in which no water was added to the sacred species and some of them were simply poured into the sacrarium. Would that trigger the excommunication?

Not under the circumstances the reader described by e-mail.

Although the Code of Canon Law provides automatic excommunication for a small number of offenses, it also provides an extensive list of exceptions in which penalties such as excommunication will not be triggered. According to the Code:

Can. 1323 The following are not subject to a penalty when they have violated a law or precept: . . .

2/ a person who without negligence was ignorant that he or she violated a law or precept; inadvertence and error are equivalent to ignorance;

That right there is going to block any excommunication from happening in the case of the reader. He had been trained to do his task a certain way and did what he was told. He was not a canon law expert who negligently failed to examine the law. He was an ordinary person who was simply doing what he had been trained to do.

We have NO EVIDENCE that the law against throwing away the sacred species was even violated, but since the reader was innocently unaware of the law against doing so, he would not be struck by the penalty of excommunication.

Note also that the canon provides that inadvertence or error are equivalent to error. This means that even if he did know about the law against throwing away the sacred species, excommunication still would not result if he had inadvertently failed to pour water, or enough water, into the chalice to remove the appearances of wine. Nor would a person be excommunicated who threw away the sacred species while erroneously thinking that they were unconsecrated or that they had ceased to have the Real Presence.

There is also another ground that occurs to me for why excommunication in his case would be blocked. The following canon provides:

Can. 1324 §1. The perpetrator of a violation is not exempt from a penalty, but the penalty established by law or precept must be tempered or a penance employed in its place if the delict was committed: . . .

9/ by a person who without negligence did not know that a penalty was attached to a law or precept; . . .

§3. In the circumstances mentioned in §1, the accused is not bound by a latae sententiae [automatic] penalty.

The automatic or latae sententiae excommunication that attaches to throwing away the sacred species does not apply, according to §3 of this canon, to people mentioned in §1. Among those mentioned in §1 are those who without negligence did not know that a penalty was attached to a law.

The reader did not know that there was an automatic excommunication attached to throwing away the sacred species (which–it should be reiterated–we have no evidence that he even did). He was not a canon law expert who be expected to have checked this out on his own, so there was no negligence. Therefore, he is not bound by the automatic excommunication.

We therefore have no evidence that the reader even did throw away the sacred species, and even if he had the excommunication would not have taken effect because he did not know about the law (can. 1323) or the penalty (can. 1324). Further, even if he had known about both he still would not be struck by the penalty if he had thrown away the sacred species inadvertently or through error.

All this goes to show how really HARD it is to get automatically excommunicated for something (and these are only a FEW of the conditions that block penalties from coming into effect). An ordinary person really has to know BOTH the law AND the penalty AND do it anyway, WITHOUT inadvertence OR error.

I mention this because a lot of people end up committing excommunicable offenses (e.g., abortion) and later learn of the penalty’s existence and get worried that they may be excommunicated. In the vast majority of such cases, they’re not.

For an ordinary person, you really have to know EXACTLY what you are doing, AND the penalty attached, and do it anyway.

There thus should not be any scruples on this point.

20

Spaying Men?

Well, it’s not quite to the point of "spaying" men, of course (since men don’t have ovaries to be removed), but apparently medical science is prepared to introduce a whole new line of male contraceptives, including pills, patches, and gels. But there are a couple of creases in Contraceptive Wonderland that have yet to be ironed out. Some men are cool with the idea of having "choice" but don’t like the idea of medicating themselves:

"Forty-year-old Scott Hardin says he’s glad that men may soon have a new choice when it comes to birth control. But, he adds, he would not even consider taking a male hormonal contraceptive. Hardin is like many men who are pleased to hear they may have a new option but are wary of taking any type of hormones.

"’I would rather rely on a solution that doesn’t involving medicating myself and the problems women have had with hormone therapy doesn’t make me anxious to want to sign on to taking a hormone-type therapy,’ says Hardin, who is single and a college administrator."

Other men are thrilled at the idea of "protecting" themselves. The only problem is that they are eager to "protect" themselves from the real or imagined evil designs of the women they mistrust but have no problem sleeping with:

"[Quentin] Brown has been taking hormonal contraceptives for more than a year. He reports no problems with weight gain or acne, two side effects that occurred in earlier versions of MHCs [male hormonal contraceptives] tested in the 1990s.

"Brown, who is married and has three children, hopes his kids will one day be able to benefit from the new technology. His would like his son, who is now 17, to one day have the option of taking a male birth control pill. Brown believes many men will see ‘their pill’ as a good idea and will want to use it.

"’It is time for men to have some control. I think it would empower men and deter some women out there from their nefarious plans,’ says Brown. ‘Some women are out there to use men to get pregnant. This could deter women from doing this. An athlete or a singer is someone who could be a target and they could put a stop to that.’"

GET THE STORY.

So, once again, contraceptive technology breeds disrespect for and abuse of women. Whether it is the sense that it is a woman’s "job" to "fumigate" herself, something a man rightly figures he doesn’t want to do to himself but has no apparent problem with subjecting a woman to, or whether it is a fear that women are conniving gold-diggers whom a man may use for sex but avoid further responsibility to, Pope Paul VI’s warning in Humanae Vitae that contraception can only have dire consequences for the relationships between men and women is once more proven right.

Beth Sarim

Dsc00268_4This is Beth Sarim.

Beth Sarim is a house in San Diego that was built by the Jehovah’s Witnesses–for a really WEIRD purpose–during the days when "Judge" Rutherford was president of the Watchtower Society (quotation marks because he only served as a temporary substitute judge).

Rutherford actually lived here. The leader of the JWs walked through the front door you see to the left and looked out the windows of this house.

It was my first visit to the location. I’d known about it for years but had never discovered the street address until this week. (It’s 4440 Braeburn Rd, though don’t bug the current inhabitants if you visit there; they have nothing to do with the JWs.)

Turns out that I used to live within a couple of miles of the location (it’s on the south side of Mission Valley, and I used to live on the north side, near Qualcomm Stadium).

When I visited Friday I sent a mystery photo to the blog using my camera phone, but the quality of camera phones ain’t what I’m looking for yet, so I took along a better camera as well. Here’s some pictures from the visit. (click any of these pictures to enlarge them.)

Continue reading “Beth Sarim”

Mystery Photo

What’s this?

I know, I know. It’s a house. But WHOSE house is it? Or was it? Or was it meant to be’s?

Therein lies a mystery.

NOTE: Sorry for the PIX-FLIX message that appeared here originally. I’m still hammering out the bugs from my moblogging systems and I accudentally sent the picture before getting to attach text to it.