Notes: Thursday, August 30-Monday, October 8, 2012

1. On Wednesday, August 29, 2012, Ms Gillard launched "Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development", which is an initiative—reportedly a personal one of hers—for propagating Feminism throughout the Pacific Islands at a cost of $320 million (over a decade) to Australian taxpayers, part of which sum will be spent on "reproductive health (including family planning) education, awareness and service programs".

My source for saying that Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development is a "personal initiative" by The Hon. Jullia Gillard M.P. is the article "PM gets lift on way to raise status of women", by Daniel Flitton, dated August 30, 2012, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/pm-gets-lift-on-way-to-raise-status-of-women-20120829-2512n.html?skin=text-only

My inference that part of that $320 million will be spent on "reproductive health (including family planning) education, awareness and service programs" follows from the identification, in the "PACIFIC LEADERS GENDER EQUALITY DECLARATION" (Annex 1 to the "43rd Pacific Islands Forum Communique"), of "[e]nsur[ing that] reproductive health (including family planning) education, awareness and service programs receive adequate funding support" as one of the "specific national policy actions to progress gender equality in the areas of gender responsive government programs and policies, decision making, economic empowerment, ending violence against women, and health and education"; one can also infer it from Ms Gillard's media release of Wednesday, August 29, 2012 titled "Addressing gender inequality in the Pacific", which says that

We know that violence against women and poor maternal health outcomes persist in this region.

Promoting gender equality is about addressing these injustices. …

See also this AusAID web-page and the downloadable brochure there:

http://www.ausaid.gov.au/Publications/Pages/brochure-pacific-women-development.aspx

and "‘Shaping Pacific development', speech at the Pacific Islands Forum", given by Ms Gillard, Wednesday, August 29, 2012, downloaded from the "Press Office" section of the Prime Ministerial website:

http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/%E2%80%98shaping-pacific-development-speech-pacific-islands-forum

Labels: abortion, contraception, Julia Gillard

2. "Greater Exposure to Sexual Content in Popular Movies Predicts Earlier Sexual Debut and Increased Sexual Risk Taking"

The quotation in that headline is the title of an article (doi: 10.1177/0956797611435529) by Ross E. O'Hara et al. in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science; that article's abstract is available here:

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/9/984

(That article came to my attention via Adam Taor's "PULSE" column on p. 5 of the "HEALTH" section of the "WEEKEND PROFESSIONAL" supplement in The Weekend Australian, September 1-2, 2012, First Edition, No. 14901, ISSN 1038-8761, published by Nationwide News Pty. Limited, a version of which column is available on-line, but behind a paywall, here.)

Labels: films, vice

3. "Israel and Taiwan are the biggest national supporters of trips by Australian politicians, recording 44 and 16 partly or fully funded trips respectively."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "All the little extras in an MP's grab-bag", by Stuart Washington, Tom Allard, Lawrence Bull, and Frances Mao, dated September 1, 2012, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/all-the-little-extras-in-an-mps-grabbag-20120831-255mu.html?skin=text-only

(That article came to my attention via the version of it, with the same headline and by the same authors, which was printed on p. 3 of the "News Review" supplement in The Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend Edition, September 1-2, 2012, No. 54572, ISSN 0312-6315.)

Labels: State of Israel

4. "only 2 per cent of the population is gay"

The quotation in that headline was attributed to "Andrew Grulich, head of HIV epidemiology and prevention programs at the Kirby Institute at the University of NSW," in the article "Suicide a bigger danger to gays: health experts", by Adam Cresswell, dated September 13, 2012, downloaded from The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/suicide-a-bigger-danger-to-gays-health-experts/story-e6frg8y6-1226472976036

For more on the homosexual proportion of the (Australian) population, see the "Sex in Australia" report in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, April 2003, Volume 27, Issue 2, pp. 103–256, available on-line here, the most relevant—in the present context—parts of which are "Sex in Australia: Sexual identity, sexual attraction and sexual experience among a representative sample of adults" and "Sex in Australia: Homosexual experience and recent homosexual encounters", both of which have Prof. Grulich as one of their co-authors.

(Those "Sex in Australia" U.R.L.s came to my attention via the Frequently Asked Questions page at the Australian Marriage Forum website. (And the Australian Marriage Forum came to my attention via the opinion piece "Gay marriage is not the cure", by Dr. David van Gend, dated Sepember 14, 2012, downloaded from The Australian's website.))

Labels: demography, G.L.B.T.

5. "''When they're younger both men and women tended to aspire to a larger family size. When they were older they tended to revise down their expectations,'' Dr[. Daryl] Higgins[", the deputy director of research at the Australian Institute of Family Studies,"] said."

The quotations in that headline come from the article "Just your average couple: one for mum, one for dad … and none for the country", by Stephanie Gardiner, dated September 14, 2012, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/just-your-average-couple-one-for-mum-one-for-dad-8230-and-none-for-the-country-20120913-25v8x.html?skin=text-only

Labels: contraception, demography, families

6. On recent Russo-American relations

See the article "Russia boots US aid out amid accusations of meddling in elections", by Alan Cullison, dated September 21, 2012, and the comment piece "Vladimir Putin doesn't want to be buddies", by Tony Halpin, also dated September 21, 2012, both downloaded from the The Australian's website:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/russia-boots-us-aid-out-amid-accusations-of-meddling-in-elections/story-fnay3ubk-1226478359601

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/vladimir-putin-doesnt-want-to-be-buddies/story-fnb64oi6-1226478312416

Labels: Russia, Vladimir Putin

7. "When [equally ]well-educated families were compared, marriage lifted a child's chance of avoiding poverty by 75 per cent."

The quotation in that headline comes from the article "Stability a big factor in poverty", no by-line, p. 15, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Tuesday, September 18, 2012, Vol. 1, No. 2646, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd. That article is not available at the Tele's website, but a longer version of it is available at the British Daily Mail's website under the headline "Growing up with married parents is as important as a good education to escaping poverty", by Simon Caldwell, dated September 16/17, 2012:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204263/Growing-married-parents-important-good-education-escaping-poverty.html

The report on which those articles are based—"Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty", by Mr. Robert Rector for The Heritage Foundation, dated September 5, 2012—is available here:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/09/marriage-americas-greatest-weapon-against-child-poverty

See also the LifeSiteNews.com article "Marriage is the most effective weapon to fight child poverty, study finds", by Ben Johnson, dated Thursday, September 13, 2012:

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/marriage-is-the-most-effective-weapon-to-fight-child-poverty-study-finds

Labels: marriage, poverty

8. "Bottle-fed infants experienced a 4.6-fold higher risk of PS[, i.e., pyloric stenosis,] compared with infants who were not bottle-fed."

The quotation in that headline comes from the abstract of a Pediatrics article titled "Bottle-feeding and the Risk of Pyloric Stenosis" (doi: 10.1542/peds.2011-2785) by Camilla Krogh et al. That article is available on-line here:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/08/28/peds.2011-2785

(That article came to my attention via the second item in Adam Taor's "PULSE" column on p. 47 of the "HEALTH" section of the "WEEKEND PROFESSIONAL" section in the "SPORT" pages of The Weekend Australian, September 15-16, 2012, First Edition, No. 14913, ISSN 1038-8761, published by Nationwide News Pty. Limited. According to Dr. Taor, pyloric stenosis is "a narrowing of the opening from the stomach to the first part of the small intestine", and it "can cause severe vomiting." (Apparently, that installment of "PULSE" is not available on-line.))

Labels: breastfeeding

9. "Schools in sex education revolution"

The article "Schools in sex education revolution", by Natasha Bita (national social editor for the Sydney Daily Telegraph (among other newspapers?)), dated September 17, 2012 is available at the Tele's website:

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sex-educaction-gets-physical/story-e6freuy9-1226475402901

(It came to my attention via the version of it which was published under the heading "Sex ed revolution in schools", by the same author, on p. 03 of the Sydney Daily Telegraph of Monday, September 17, 2012, Vol. 1, No. 2645, ISSN 1038-8745, published by Nationwide News Pty. Ltd.)

See also the article "Puberty lessons to begin in grade five", no by-line, dated September 17, 2012, downloaded from The Sydney Morning Herald's website:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/puberty-lessons-to-begin-in-grade-five-20120917-261yd.html?skin=text-only

Labels: A.C.A.R.A., education, sex ed, vice

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Bridget, Widow, A.D. 2012

Notes: Wednesday, March 16-Monday, March 21, 2011 (part 2 of 2)

8. A couple of recent Australian developments regarding so-called gay marriage

8.1 "Same-sex marriage ban hurts economy"

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/same-sex-marriage-ban-hurts-economy/story-fn59niix-1226025059327

Labels: economics, G.L.B.T., marriage

8.2 Ms Gillard on, among other things, her opposition to 'gay marriage'

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pm-offers-no-hope-to-social-left/story-fn59niix-1226025038933

Labels: G.L.B.T., Julia Gillard, marriage

9. "Recriminalise prostitution in ACT, urges Church"

http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=25542

Labels: A.C.T., Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, vice

10. Mr. Raj, once again, on, among other things, multiculturalism as a justification for the so-called gay culture

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/pray-away-the-gay-app-a-sign-of-deeper-bigotry/

Labels: G.L.B.T., multiculturalism

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Benedict, Abbot, A.D. 2011

Notes: Thursday, November 18, 2010

1. The latest regarding so-called gay marriage in Australia

1.1 "K[evin] Rudd agreed to back same-sex civil unions at last year's ALP National Conference in a private deal with key Left faction leaders", and, "[a] Sky News poll of 39 Labor MPs yesterday found 22 in support of marriage equality"

(Warning: The following link leads to a web-page with a photo, at the top of the page, of a pair of presumably 'newlywed' Lesbians smooching)
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/gay-marriage-policy-splits-labor/story-e6freuzr-1225954652794

1.2 "Gillard clears way for gay marriage debate"

"JULIA GILLARD has given the green light for Labor's national conference to be brought forward by more than six months so the party can have a full-blown fight over policy differences without hurting its election chances":
http://www.smh.com.au/national/gillard-clears-way-for-gay-marriage-debate-20101117-17xps.html?skin=text-only

"Party may decide on gay marriage, but I choose whether to implement it: Gillard"
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/party-may-decide-on-gay-marriage-but-i-choose-whether-to-implement-it-gillard/story-fn59niix-1225955208166

1.3 Analysis, by Ms Grattan, of the implications of Federal Labor's decision to support the gay-marriage-related motion in Parliament

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/hot-issue-poses-dilemma-for-pm-20101116-17vyl.html?skin=text-only

2. A couple of recent developments regarding Russia

2.1 "Russia plans to move its people to big towns"

http://www.smh.com.au/world/russia-plans-to-move-its-people-to-big-towns-20101117-17xp9.html?skin=text-only

2.2 "Church restitution: Orthodox send threatening response to Mgr. Pezzi"

http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34733

3. Blog comments by me

At Mr. Schütz's new website: Too many comments, one of which is quite long, to bother reproducing them here, so I'll just give the link to the main thread:

http://scecclesia.com/?p=4569#comments

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of the Dedication of the Basilicas of Sts. Peter and Paul, A.D. 2010

Facts and Figures: On abortion in Australia ("with some caveats") (plus the respective histories and policies of Ms Gillard and Mr. Abbott on it)

The following comes from an article which appeared on what was presumably page ten of the "Health" section of the "Weekend Professional" supplement of last Saturday's edition of The Weekend Australian:

Weekend Health recently obtained government data on pregnancy terminations. It's not the full picture but a valuable snapshot of trends and comparisons in abortion supply and demand.

In 2008-09, 69,026 patients had 72,203 services under a Medicare item number the Department of Health and Ageing nominates as the most accurate indicator of abortion numbers, albeit with some caveats. That item number may cover services for other conditions but does not include abortions conducted in public hospitals or under third-party insurance arrangements.

The number of patients identified under that item number increased by less than 2 per cent since 2004-05. Numbers were down in NSW-ACT, Western Australia and South Australia-Northern Territory but up in other states.

The age group using the most services was the over-35s, with 16,592, followed by the 20 to 24age group with 16,049, the 25 to 29 group with 13,982, the 30 to 34 group with 12,821, and the 19 and younger group with 9841.

More women have those services in large cities (54,614) than inner regional (10,516) and outer regional or remote areas (4158), and the cost to Medicare in 2008-09 was $11,338,880.

Abortion and the issue of embryonic stem cell research have sparked some of the most emotive and divisive debates in federal parliament.

When he was health minister, Abbott handed $22 million over four years to an outspoken critic of ES cell research to establish an adult stem cell institute, bypassing National Health and Medical Research Council review. He also labelled the abortion rate a "national tragedy" and an "unutterable shame", and vowed to reduce the number of pregnancy terminations conducted in Australia.

"Somehow up to 100,000 abortions a year is accepted as a fact of life, almost by some as a badge of liberation from old oppressions," Abbott told parliament.

"We have a bizarre double standard in this country where someone who kills a pregnant woman's baby is guilty of murder, but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice."

In that debate, Gillard felt the need to tell Abbott the discussion was "not about you, Tony," as Labor accused the conservative Christian of putting religion before policy. She suggested the debate take into account the broader issues around contraception, pregnancy and the treatment of women.

"If we were to truly live in a world where abortion was safe, legal and rare, then we would need to live in a world where there was no sexual violence against women . . . where contraception never failed," Gillard said at the time.

"I wish we lived in that world, and we should all be striving to attain it, but the stark reality is that we do not."

Abbott lost ministerial control of the RU-486 drug, and the hotline he established to dissuade women from having an abortion last month became a broader parents' helpline.

Yet, even though former leaders such as John Howard and Kevin Rudd have actively pursued the Christian vote, Abbott isn't using abortion as leverage.

He was uncharacteristically brief this week when asked if he would block RU-486, list abortion as a separate Medicare item number to aid research or ban Medicare funding for terminations.

"The answer is no, we're not going to do any of those things," he said. "We have no plans whatsoever for any change in that area."

Gillard hasn't been drawn on the issue, but a spokesman for Labor's campaign echoed Abbott, saying no changes were planned.
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/dont-mention-the-a-word-abortion/story-e6frg8y6-1225904661029]

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Feast of St. Hyacinth, Confessor, A.D. 2010

Notes: Friday, July 2, 2010

Mr. Croome and Mr. Raj on so-called gay marriage

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/australia-lags-shamefully-on-gay-marriage-20100701-zqia.html?skin=text-only
http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/new-pm-same-old-stance-on-gay-marriage/

Both these opinion pieces are rubbish, but both are worth highlighting, Mr. Raj's because it provides a useful summary of the standard (fallacious) arguments for 'gay marriage', and Mr. Croome's because it's good for a laugh: He begins by considering some reasons why The Hon. Julia Gillard M.P. might have a 'personal view', as has been reported, against gay marriage, one of which is the following astounding non sequitur:

She has no children, so it can't be because she believes there's an obligatory link between procreation and the right to marry.

Did it not occur to Mr. Croome that the link between marriage and procreation might be precisely why Ms Gillard has neither married nor procreated? Whether it's a matter of not wanting to marry because there would be an obligation to have children, or not wanting to have children because it would entail an obligation to marry, either way, there's clearly no reason inherent in the condition of childlessness to think that the childless reject an obligatory link between marriage and children. Quite the contrary, in fact--a desire not to marry might be precisely why they haven't had children.

And I was interested to learn the following:

["[M]arriage equality advocates"] have asked the Icelandic Prime Minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, who married her same-sex partner a few days ago, to explain to Gillard why marriage equality is so important to same-sex couples and their families, and to a just society.

The Icelandic leader would also do well to ask Gillard if the Australian government will officially recognise her wife, should the couple visit Australia, and, if so, why that recognition can't be extended to the hundreds of Australian same-sex couples who are also legally married overseas.

Ha! What a sight that would be! Mr. Croome goes on to ponder why Ms Gillard might be personally opposed to gay marriage:

Perhaps she believes the overreaching claims of Pentecostal pastors about the influence of their mega-churches in key marginal seats. Perhaps she owes something to those right-wing Catholic MPs who are, in turn, under the unhealthy influence of Rome. Perhaps she simply wants to convince voters that she is a leader of conviction, even when she knows those convictions are wrong.

Perhaps Mr. Croome's intellect is under the unhealthy influence of Sodom, because it seems not to have occured to him that marriage, in any sense of the word, is the uniting of two complementary parts into a whole, that in marriage, in the sense of matrimony, the complementarity is primarily sexual (not merely semi- or quasi-sexual), and that, since two persons of the same sex have no sexual complementarity, then just as an opposite-sex couple in which at least one member is relatively or absolutely impotent cannot have matrimony, neither can a same-sex couple have matrimony. Could it be that Ms Gillard is, her atheism notwithstanding, clear-minded enough to recognise this, and hence she is opposed to so-called gay marriage?

Link to an on-line transcription of the 1859 Haydock Bible commentary:

http://haydock1859.tripod.com/index.html
(Discovered here: http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=367400#367400)

A couple of observations regarding the recent Roman Curial appointments

From LifeSiteNews via AQ:

In his seventh year as a Cardinal and at age 66, Cardinal Ouellet still has at least 9 more years to be in a prominent role of service to the Church (official retirement age is 75). His appointment as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops comes at an especially opportune time given that nine of the 19 Latin Rite bishops in his home province of Quebec are set to retire in the next two years. And within that number are four of the five most powerful posts or 'metropolitan sees' as they are known.

Quebec's bishops, with the current exception of Cardinal Ouellet and perhaps one or two others, are known to be the principal force behind the spread of damaging liberalism throughout the Church in Canada - a situation many hope will change with the appointment of Cardinal Ouellet to head the Pope's 'bishop selection committee.'
[http://angelqueen.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32324]

From Dr. Brown at Fr. Zuhlsdorf's blog:

If the cardinal cannot appoint orthodox staff to his own seminary, I have no idea how he is going to appoint orthodox bishops to the universal Church.
Comment by Deimater

He won’t because it will not be his job. Bishops are nominated by the pope. Of course, the Prefect does have power, and there was a difference between the Congregation run by Gantin. On the other hand, the nominations are the result of a complex process involving the Prefect, the Sec (who seems to be a Re clone), the members, the nunzio, and certain powerful members of a nation’s episcopacy.

IMHO, of equal importance is that another Sodano ally is out of power. When BXVI became pope, Sodano was Sec of State, Sandri the Sostituto, and Re was at Bishops. That made it possible to frustrate whatever BXVI wanted to do.

Comment by robtbrown — 1 July 2010 @ 8:19 am
[bold type in the original,
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/06/important-appointments-made-by-pope-benedict/#comment-212584]

Mr. Obeid refutes some of the standard Fundamentalist objections to Catholic beliefs and practices

http://davidobeid.blogspot.com/2010/07/reply-to-onesimus.html

H.H. The Pope appoints The Lord Bishop of Basel as President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity

From today's Vatican Information Service daily e-mail bulletin:

OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 1 JUL 2010 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Bishop Kurt Koch of Basel, Switzerland, as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, he succeeds Cardinal Walter Kasper whose resignation from the same office the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.
NA/ VIS 20100701 (60)

A couple of blog comments by me:

At "For the Sake of Science", by Mr. Michael Hawkins: I just couldn't resist making this comment:

Cardinal Pole, on July 1, 2010 at 2:08 pm Said:

“No new data is gained from logic.”

No new data are gained from grammar, either.
[http://forthesakeofscience.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/thought-of-the-day-126/#comment-5889]

which I published after my introductory comment:

Cardinal Pole, on July 1, 2010 at 2:07 pm Said:

Hello Mr. Hawkins, I came across your blog while looking for a transcript of the comment by Ms Gillard which you’ve quoted here.

I’m trying to work out why you support same-sex marriage. (Naturally I checked your “gay marriage” and “Same-sex marriage” labels first, but they contained links to posts from other blogs; I also skim-read your blog’s first page, to no avail.) Could you explain why, or direct me to a post where you do so? I can understand how, as an atheist/anti-theist, you would see no moral reason to oppose it (no higher being than man => no such thing as true and proper moral obligation, no natural law, &c.), but there would still be the logical reasons (following from the definition of marriage, in its most general sense, as the uniting of two complementary parts into a whole, with marriage in the particular sense of matrimony involving sexual complementarity) .

(I’ll be back on Monday night, Australian time.)
[http://forthesakeofscience.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/gillard-is-against-gay-marriage/#comment-5888]

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of the Visitation of The Blessed Virgin Mary, A.D. 2010

Notes: Thursday, July 1, 2010

Herald letters on Ms Gillard's opposition to so-called gay marriage and on Ms Keneally's support for adoption by same-sex couples

http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/gillard-needs-to-get-it-straight-on-gay-marriage-20100630-zmnw.html?skin=text-only

Interesting to read the following sentence from one of the correspondents:

Marriage equality will come to Australia in time, and Ms Gillard, Kristina Keneally, Tony Abbott and their ilk will be remembered as having been on the wrong side of history as the last defenders of this historic injustice and breach of civil rights.

Note two things there: The terms '[m]arriage equality' and 'wrong side of history'. Each of these terms is a part of the Sodomites' League's rhetorical repertory in discussions on so-called gay marriage; the former is in the name of an Australian pro-'gay-marriage' lobby organisation "Australian Marriage Equality" (whose website's F.A.Q. answers I refuted here), and a pro-real-marriage person--I'm not sure, but it might have been Prof. Robert George--predicted that we will see the latter used repeatedly by the Sodomites' League. Both these pieces of rhetoric are easy to refute though: As for the former, homosexuals already have complete marriage equality with heterosexuals, and as for the latter, the fact that something is on the 'wrong' or 'right side of history' is neither here nor there; what matters is whether it is logically and morally valid. One can easily imagine, say, the Bolsheviks warning their opponents about being on the 'wrong side of history', especially given the Marxist view of the stages of history, as they rose to power, but that doesn't make Bolshevism a good thing.

"John" with some information from MercatorNet about same-sex parenting

http://members7.boardhost.com/CathPews/thread/1277854467.html
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_other_story_about_same-sex_parenting/

Two of "John"'s excerpts from the article were particularly noteworthy:

Research is increasingly clear that many lesbigay partners enter into their versions of a committed relationship with expectations that cheating is acceptable. Some research suggests that gay men have more stable relationships only if cheating is permitted.

and

Richard Redding, writing in a 2008 issue of the Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, concluded that gay parents were more likely to have gay children. My meta-analyses of 26 studies and ten books on GLBT parenting concur with his findings (Schumm, in press). Furthermore, my research indicates that many literature reviews have systematically excluded information about negative child outcomes associated with gay parenting -- that is, greater levels of insecure attachment and drug abuse among daughters of gay fathers.

Neither of these findings should come as suprises; as regards the former, as even the "homosexual advocate and intellectual" Mr. Andrew Sullivan has acknowledged, "[t]here is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman" (cited in the submission from The Archdiocese of Sydney to the N.S.W. Inquiry into adoption by same-sex couples, p. 5, section 17--go hither in order to download the P.D.F. submission) (and didn't you just love the paradox of "gay men hav[ing] more stable relationships only if cheating is permitted"?!).

A letter to the Tele on the natural law

I was pleased to see the following letter published on page thirty-four of yesterday's Sydney Daily Telegraph (apparently not available on-line, so the following is my own transcription), in a collection of letters under the heading "Waiting to see what this PM can do for us", with "Keep it personal" as the letter's own heading:

I AGREE with David Ridge (Your Say, June 29) that a politician should not push their [sic] religious views on to the general public.
However, every politician has a duty to uphold the natural law in all things, irrespective of their religious leanings or lack of.
In respect to abortion, natural law dictates that human life is sacrosanct from its embryotic [sic] beginning through to its natural or accidental demise, and any deliberate and intentional extinction of this life is a crime against nature.
Again, the erosion of human rights -- partiuclarly against women -- is in defiance of the natural law.
All people, irrespective of race, colour or religion are equal.
They may have different natural roles to play, but all people are entitled to the same respect. Because a politician is a member of a particular religion does not mean they are pushing their religious convictions politically.
All Christian religions have their basis in the natural law.
Tony Byrne Whitebridge

Obviously the letter wasn't perfect (for instance, the natural law does not forbid all deliberate and intentional destruction of human life, just the destruction of innocent human life on human authority), but I was nevertheless pleased to see it published, for a couple of reasons:

1. One problem with arguing for the morality or immorality of a certain act by appeal to 'traditional morality/ethics/values', 'Christian morality/ethics/values', or, most problematically of all, 'Judeo-Christian morality/ethics/values', is that one's opponent can simply dismiss one's reasoning as being perhaps internally consistent, but nevertheless not valid for those who are don't belong to that tradition or religion. (See this blog post, and particularly its combox, for examples.)

2. It's also just nice to see the natural law being mentioned in the mainstream media, in which we usually see 'traditional/Christian/Judeo-Christian morality/ethics/values' pitted against 'secular/non-religious morality/ethics/values', when we would do better to speak of the contest as being between natural-law morality and positivist (a/im)morality.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of The Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, A.D. 2010

Notes: Wednesday, June 30, 2010

An accurate reflection of present-day Australian views on marriage and family?

Today's Herald's letters page is leading with the reaction to an article (which I seem to have missed) by a well-known relationships counsellor who apparently suggested that living in sin is inferior to being married. Eight letters, to which two sections, and the first two, of the letters page have been devoted, were published on the matter, all of them from women, none of them supporting the counsellor's views, and some of them objecting to them quite vehemently. I wonder whether the coming days will see any supporters of the natural law's commands and prohibitions in domestic matters sending in their letters? Presumably they haven't already, or the Herald would have published them, if only for balance.

"How Far We Have Sunk- a case for censorship as a social good"

Mr. Michael Webb has posted at Cath Pews a link to an interesting Australian Catholic Truth Society pamphlet on censorship. The pamphlet is quite long but might be worth reading if you have the time.

Confirmed: Ms Gillard is an atheist

Until this disclosure The Hon. Julia Gillard M.P. apparently identified as a "non-practising Baptist", but clearly not any more:

Julia Gillard on Jon Faine ABC 774 yesterday:

Faine: Do you believe in God?

Gillard: No, I don't, Jon, I'm not a religious person. I'm of course a great respecter of religious beliefs but they're not my beliefs, Jon.
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/the-prime-minister-was-the-great-pretender/story-e6frg6zo-1225885911523
See also
http://www.smh.com.au/national/pm-nudged-about-wrath-of-god-20100629-zjcw.html?skin=text-only
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/julia-gillard-risks-christian-vote-with-doubts-on-god/story-e6frg6nf-1225885897505
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/julia-gillard-respects-religious-beliefs-but-will-not-pretend-to-have-faith-for-votes/story-e6frgczf-1225885581225]

One wonders whence she thinks the binding force of the laws which she takes part in enacting comes. Or maybe, like any atheist who follows his or her beliefs to their logical conclusions, she does not think that laws impose any true obligation.

Blog comment by me:

At Coo-ees:

Cardinal Pole said...

"And all because "Jesus sat with the sinners and the saints"."

I'm having trouble working out the missing step/s in Ms Keneally's logical sequence:

Jesus sat with sinners and saints.
[Missing step/s]
Therefore we should legislate for adoption by same-sex couples.

"Is this an issue to remind Catholic politicians of the consequences in the life of the church?"

A very good question.

June 30, 2010 3:37 AM
Your comment has been saved and will be visible after blog owner approval.
[http://coo-eesfromthecloister.blogspot.com/2010/06/in-principle-support-for-gay-adoption.html]

Reginaldvs Cantvar

Commemoration of St. Paul, Apostle, A.D. 2010