Amazing Grace: A Former Prostitute Tells Her Story

April 29, 2013 By 34 Comments

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Linda Cavanah is the founder and Director of All Things New, a ministry for women coming out of prostitution and trafficking. In what I regard as a singular act of courage, she volunteered to write a guest post for Public Catholic telling the truth of what “sex-work” really is. The result is a first-hand, no-holds-barred witness to the reality of prostitution. Here, in her own words, is her story

.… anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone, and a new life has begun.

0943 allthingsnew

My name is Linda Cavanah, and I am the founder of All Things New Inc., a faith-based organization providing residential services for victims of sex trafficking.

All Things New exists because of the healing power of Jesus Christ in my own life many years ago when I was one of the women we are now serving.

My cycle of sexual abuse began at the age of 14 when an uncle raped me in my parent’s home.  I was too frightened to tell my parents what had happened and held everything inside for many years.  At that time, I did not realize how devastating that event was to become in my life, leading to a succession of problems emotionally and spiritually. Eventually, the things that were hidden deep within me escalated into a dual addiction of alcohol and cocaine.

My first marriage lasted two years and ended in divorce. I then promptly entered into a common law marriage, and it was during this union that my ex-husband and I began dealing drugs. The drug addiction increased over the next couple of years until I was drinking approximately 13 alcoholic beverages and snorting several lines of cocaine on a daily basis. This marriage also ended in divorce.

I do need to say that both of these unions were not true marriages because we were all addicts and they were not ordained of God.

I moved to New Orleans in 1980 and lived there for several years.  I managed a restaurant and hotel on the outskirts of the French Quarter, and continued the downward spiral in my life.  it was during this time that I became involved with the owners of the hotel, and my addictions had increased to the point of having delirium tremors if I did not get up and have a drink at 2am every morning.

One night we had a party at the hotel, and I went and had sex with one of the owners.  The next morning I woke up and there was a pile of money beside my bed. In the prostitution world, this is similar to being “jumped” into a gang.

There were six men involved in the operation. They each had their own business and then had one together. All of the men each had a woman, and one had control over me.  I was sold to cops in New Orleans (used as hush money) to keep them quiet.  I had to watch pornographic films and then perform those same acts, all the while enduring painful sexual acts behind closed doors.

I wanted to run but there was no way to escape. We were not allowed to use a phone and I was trapped, both physically and emotionally. I was being “groomed” to be a madame for them, and I wanted out so badly. They told me they would kill me if I ever said anything, and they meant it.

 Even though I did not know Jesus at the time, I know He had his hand on me. I was able to leave the situation through the help of another person, and I am still here to tell this story today! I was a single mother to two children, and decided to go to nursing school.  I had a Christian nursing instructor and within a few months I came to know Jesus.

I was immediately delivered from alcohol and drugs, and have had a continual healing from the emotional wounds of my past. Last Easter I was confirmed in the Catholic Church.

God has changed my life and I am eternally grateful. However, there are hundreds of thousands of young women and girls who are trapped in the horrible world of sex trafficking/prostitution.  Anyone who is forced to have sex with other people, is severely beaten and/or has to turn the money over to someone who has control of them is a victim of sex trafficking. Prostitution and sex trafficking are the same thing.

44425220 human traffick 416map

Sex trafficking is slavery. Young women and girls are made to stand on street corners, or in a room in front of a potential john, and they feel like they are on an auction block, sold to the highest bidder. They endure eyes full of lust staring at their bodies, up and down, up and down, men sizing them up like a horse, not caring anything about them, just looking for their next sexual fix. Inside, the girl is slowly dying emotionally, and probably physically.

I want you to understand that prostitution/sex trafficking is the rape of the body and the soul. Pimps, traffickers and johns are rapists.  Some of them are also murderers.

Destinationnationsinhumantraffickin

Ninety percent of the prostituted women we have helped have had a forced abortion. They are physically held down in the place they are trapped in, and an abortion is performed on them. Included in this statistic are those women who are beaten until their babies die.  These monsters are murderers!  The traffickers starve the women, tell them when they can eat, what they can eat and if they don’t bring in a certain quota, they don’t eat at all.

About a year ago I was called to talk to a young woman who had been severely beaten by a john.  She was black and blue from the top of her head to her feet, and was eating bowl after bowl of food. She said the john had thrown her against a wall and her pimp got mad at HER, so he had not let her eat for several days. Her pimp found out through one of his other girls where she was at, and I found out later that day he drug her by the hair down a street. The next day she was unrecognizable and the pimp had her out on  the street.  Men were still buying her.

Another girl was trapped in a house.  Her trafficker put her in a bathtub of cold water, poured several pitchers of ice on her, held her down until she started bleeding, then threw her against a wall and beat her until she passed out.

We have women who were forced underground and sold twenty to twenty five times a day.  One woman had been trapped for 16 days in an apartment with her tormentors and they had sold her 400 times.  Four hundred times she had been raped!

Women who are victims of sex trafficking feel like a piece of meat.  They are so degraded and traumatized that they sometimes never recover. Their souls and their lives have been stolen. They are dead inside. Multiple personalities abound.  How else can they survive? Despair runs deep and hopelessness abounds.  These victims have a tendency to blame everything on themselves and they don’t realize it is not their fault.  They feel they are falling into a dark, deep bottomless pit.

At the bottom of it all is the pornography that fuels the fire for the demand side of sex trafficking and prostitution.

     Can you hear the cries of the human beings who are being sold?

555442 405923999436050 991680559 n

 

 

All Things New is a 501c3 non profit corporation.

Donations are tax-deductible.

Send donations to:

All Things New, Inc.

PO Box 513

San Antonio, TX 78292

Filed Under: America, Calling Evil Good, Catholic, Christianity, Conversion, Faith, Following Christ, Misogyny, Pro Life, Slavery, The War on Girls, Uncategorized, Violence Against Women, Violence in America, Women's Rights Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 34 Comments

Why Don’t Christian Bashers Ever Get Tired of Themselves?

April 27, 2013 By 32 Comments

SciencefliesyoutothemoonBussign

Why don’t Christian bashers ever get tired of themselves?

I don’t read atheist blogs. But I am aware that at least some of them appear to have no purpose except Christian bashing.

Based on the topics I see posted, it appears that all they do, day after day, post after post, is churn out one attack on Christ, Christianity and Christians after another. I don’t claim or want to be an expert on atheist blogs, but from what I see of these, they are negative to the point of implosion.

Anti christian bible photo

They offer nothing — nothing — on which to build a life or a society except broad (and baseless) claims that they represent “reason.” There is nothing reasonable, healthy or sustaining about a life built on attacking other people.

And that, of course, is the trouble with atheism as a philosophy. It’s a zero. There is no “there” there. When you get past the constant attacking and tearing down and destroying of Christianity and Christian social structures and morality, all you have is … nothing. You cannot sustain a society or a person on nihilism and negativity. It’s like trying to stay healthy by eating styrofoam. 

Cannibalism

You can make good money preaching hatred of Christians and Christianity. You can become a legendary folk hero to people who want to be told that there are no limits to what they may do to other people. But you can not build anything based on a philosophy of tearing down, attacking and destroying.

I am not writing this to encourage atheists to become pretend Christians so that they can avoid looking off the side of the cliff they’ve built and seeing the nothing that their philosophy leads them to. I am writing it to encourage Christians to stop being intimidated by these little thinkers.

Abortion They offer nothing except the emptiness of what is left when your whole purpose is destruction. 

The question isn’t how to answer them, but why don’t they ever get tired of themselves? How many times can you write the same tripe attacking other people and other people’s beliefs before the echo chamber of your own repetitiveness begins to bore you?

Why don’t Christian bashers ever get tired of themselves?  Atheist definition christianity

Filed Under: Calling Evil Good, calling good evil, Christian Persecution, Culture, Following Christ, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , 32 Comments

Christian Persecution: Six Quick Takes

April 26, 2013 By 7 Comments

Six 290x300

This week’s six quick takes on Christian Persecution include one that I’m not entirely sure about, another that deals with a 100-year-old genocide, and the usual dismal roundup of wanton killings, abductions and imprisonment of Christians around the globe. 

I think there are two reasons why Christianity is attacked. First, as President Obama said in a speech a few years ago, it is revolutionary. His complaint at the time was that the Sermon on the Mount, would, if it was followed, lead to disarmament.

Indeed.

Governments the world over have tried to control the revolutionary message of Christ in one of two ways: Co-opt it, or attack it. Hitler was an example of co-opting coupled with attacks against those who didn’t buy into his program, while Stalin and the Communist states are examples of outright attack.

That division seems to hold up right to this day and even here in America. Right wing politicians are more prone to claim their religiosity while attempting to twist the Gospels to support their goals and left-wing politicians tend to veer toward limiting religious freedom with ironic claims of inclusion and tolerance.

Christianity has a better record of standing up to outright attack than it does co-option. I suppose that’s only natural. If somebody punches you in the nose, you know you’ve been hit. But if they flatter you and tell you how great you are while they ask you to sign the title to your house away, it’s harder to catch. Or, at least it is for some people.

The second reason is that Christianity is attacked is that it is true. Jesus really is the Son of God. He really did die for our sins and He really did rise again on the third day. He really is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

It is politically incorrect to say that, but taking offense to the truth does not make it untrue. People resent the claims that Jesus makes on their hearts and their lives. They want to be their own little gods, but they are unwilling to admit what that means. So … they attack the only hope they have.

Pope Francis talks about satan more than is politically correct, even for a Pope. But he is right to do this. Christianity is attacked because it is the Light, and the darkness hates it.

This week’s quick takes focus mainly on the nose-punching type of attack on Christians, rather than the soft-soap of the co-opters. As always, there’s a heavy dose of persecution from the Middle East. I decided to include the Armenian genocide because these people have been forgotten in the name of political expedience. I’ve read that out of a population of 2 million Armenian Christians, 1.5 million were murdered. Their blood, like Abel’s, cries out from the ground. 

I also included a story about the Pentagon blocking the Southern Baptist web site. I had read about this in several places, but only decided to take it seriously (I’m still confused by it.) because Fox News carried it. Note: I was wise to doubt this story. The Pentagon has explained that their computer detected malware on the SBC website. They say they were not blocking the site. You can read about that here. 

Idoppersecution

Here are the Six Quick Takes about Christian Persecution this week. I hope that you read each of them prayerfully. 

1. NIGERIA 

391284 242882725846310 1385215752 n

18 More Followers Of Christ Slaughtered By Muslim Attackers In Christian Village Of Mile Bakwai

Morning Star News – “Hosea Mashaf was resting in his village of Chirang Mangor, Nigeria, when area Christian youths told him that armed, Muslim Fulani herdsmen were attacking the Christian village of Mile Bakwai.

The 45-year-old farmer and other Christians rushed to Mile Bakwai, three kilometers away in the Bokkos Local Council Area of Plateau State, the night of March 27 to see how they might aid the Christians there, he told Morning Star News.

‘When we got there, the gunmen had already retreated,’ Mashaf said. ‘I saw dead bodies scattered all over the village. I counted the dead bodies we recovered, and in all we had 18 Christians who were killed by the Muslim attackers.’

They found five of those bodies in a minibus, he said.

‘They were travelling in a bus back to our village when they ran into the attack going on at Mile Bakwai village,’ Mashaf said. ‘They were killed by the attackers when they shot at the bus, which crashed into a building, but the attackers went to the place where the bus was and shot the occupants. Five of them were killed, while two others were injured.’

Dead were Geofrey Mafuyai, 35; Mahana Jamok, 50; Arandon Yusuf, 18; Dung Dalyop, 38; and, Mbata Machif, 36. Maju Mahana, 25, and Nanle Enoch, 18 were wounded and received treatment at the ECWA Evangel Hospital in Jos, he said.

The 18 slain were members of Nigerian Baptist Convention, Christ Apostolic Church and Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) congregations, sources said. The Rev. James Danladi Mahwash of the Bishara Baptist Church in Mile Bakwai village said five of his church members were killed, including the financial secretary of the Men’s Missionary Union of his church, 25-year-old Jamle Benjamin Sunday. (Read more here.)

2. USA

Cross Flag

Pentagon Blocks Access to Southern Baptist Website

By Todd Starnes

NOTE: A reader passed along the Pentagon’s response to this. They say that the problem was a result of their software detecting malware on the SBC’s website. You can read that story here.

The U.S. Military has blocked access to the Southern Baptist Convention’s website on an unknown number of military bases because it contains “hostile content” — just weeks after an Army briefing labeled Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics as examples of religious extremism, Fox News has learned.

The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination known for its support of the pro-life movement and its strong belief in traditional marriage.

Southern Baptist chaplains reported that SBC.net   had been blocked at military installations around the nation. An Air Force officer told Fox News that when he tried to log on to the website he received a message that his Internet usage was being logged and monitored for trying to access a blocked site.

The censorship was made public after an Army officer tried to log onto the denomination’s website and instead — received a warning message.

“The site you have requested has been blocked by Team CONUS (C-TNOSC/RCERT-CONUS) due to hostile content,” the message read.

Team CONUS protects the computer network of the Dept. of Defense. The SBC’s website was not blocked at the Pentagon.

It’s unclear what the “hostile content” might have been. The SBC is pro-life and opposed to same-sex marriage. (Read more here.)

3. EGYPT

2013041633

Egyptian Muslims murdering Christians with impunity

Ten people are dead following clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt. The people have been killed over the past few weeks which have seen spates of violence between Christians defending their churches and homes from angry Muslims. Few Muslim attackers ever face justice.

CAIRO, EGYPT (Catholic Online) – Clashes between Muslims and Christians have claimed 10 live in Egypt where sectarian violence between the groups has been renewed in the face of Mohammed Morsi’s administration.

The most recent spate of violence started after children drew crosses on the walls of an Islamic institute in Khosoos, just north of Cairo. That acts of children’s vandalism sparked a bloody retaliation from Muslims in which four Christians and a Muslim were killed.

At the Christian funeral, Muslims struck again, this time carrying on until they reached the Coptic cathedral and damaged the structure. More Christians were murdered. (Read more here.)

4. TURKEY

Armen1

The Armenian Genocide and Turkey’s Attempt to Deny It

From 1915 to 1917 the Young Turk regime in the Ottoman Empire carried out a systematic, premeditated, centrally planned genocide against the Armenian people.  One of the documents authenticated by Turkish authorities in 1919 is a telegram sent in June 1915 by Dr. Sakir, one of the leaders of the secret organization that carried out the planning and implementation of the Genocide.  He asks the provincial party official who is responsible for carrying out the deportations and massacres of Armenians within his district: “Are the Armenians, who are being dispatched from there, being liquidated? Are those harmful persons whom you inform us you are exiling and banishing, being exterminated, or are they being merely dispatched and exiled? Answer explicitly….”

The evidence of intent is backed also by the outcome of the actions against the Armenians: it is inconceivable that over a million persons could have died due to even a badly flawed effort at resettlement.  Moreover, the pattern of destruction was repeated over and over in different parts of Turkey, many of them far from any war zone; such repetition could only have come from a central design.  Further, the reward structure was geared toward destruction of the Christian minority: provincial governors and officials who refused to carry out orders to annihilate the Armenians were summarily replaced.

More than one million Armenians perished as the result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment, and physical abuse.  A people who lived in eastern Turkey for nearly 3,000 years lost its homeland and was profoundly decimated in the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century.  At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.

Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic evidence, the reports of diplomats, and the testimony of survivors, denial of the Armenian Genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present.

The basic argument of denial has remained the same, it never happened, Turkey is not responsible, the term “genocide” does not apply. (Read more here.)

5. SYRIA

0424 kidnapped syrian bishops full 380

Kidnapped bishops raise fears of Christian nightmare in Syria

ICC Note: Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, condemned the kidnapping of two archbishops and said Pope Francis is “following [the] events with deep participation and intense prayer.” The bishops were abducted by armed rebels on Monday in the village of Kfar Dael, near Aleppo, Syria while carrying out humanitarian work. The bishops are the most senior church leaders abducted in the conflict which has now killed more than 70,000 people across Syria. The kidnapping “is a dramatic confirmation of the tragic situation in which the Syrian people and its Christian community are living,” Lombardi said.

By John L. Allen Jr.

4/23/2013 Syria (National Catholic Reporter) – Rome on Tuesday reacted with alarm to the kidnapping of two Orthodox bishops in Syria, fearing it may mark the beginning of the nightmare scenario: that Syria will become the next Iraq, meaning the next Middle Eastern country where Christians emerge as primary victims of the chaos following the disintegration of a police state.

A Vatican spokesman called the kidnappings “a dramatic confirmation of the tragic situation in which the Syrian people and its Christian community are living.”

According to a report from the Asia News agency, the two bishops were stopped at gunpoint by armed men Monday on their way to the city of Aleppo. A catechist traveling with them was shot to death while the two bishops were forced out of the car and taken away.

The prelates involved are the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Aleppo, Msgr. Youhanna Ibrahim, and the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Aleppo and Iskenderun, Msgr. Boulos al-Yaziji. Both are well known in Rome as veterans of ecumenical dialogue with the Catholic church.

The identity of their kidnappers remains unclear, but sources in Syria say kidnapping of Christians has become a growth industry as various armed factions look for ways to fund their activities. (Read more here.)

6. CHINA: 

China20house20church202005 300x225

Seven House Church Leaders Sentenced to Prison

4/21/2013 China (ChinaAid) – Also in Henan, seven house church leaders were sentenced on April 1 to prison sentences ranging from three to 7-1/2 years, according to the well-known Christian lawyer Li Baiguang. Their defense lawyers received the verdict and sentencing papers just last week.

Han Hai, 7-1/2 year sentence, male, aged 60, previously administratively detained twice, was also sentenced to a labor camp for three years. Now held in the Ye County Detention Center.

Hu Linpo, seven year sentence, from Singapore, male, aged 49, the house church’s main preacher, was detained in 1989 for 30 days. Criminally detained on April 18 and is now held in the Ye County Detention Center.

Yang Lianbing, three-year sentence, male, aged 23, working in Zhengzhou. Now held in the Ye County Detention Center.

Zhang Mian, four-year sentence, female, aged 37, owner of the residence where the church meets. Criminally detained on April 20, now held in the Pingdingshan Detention Center.

Cao Xia, 3-1/2-year sentence, female, in her 50s, owner of another residence where the church meets. Police seized from her home CDs of Hu Linpo preaching and a computer used to make copies of the sermon CDs. Police also confiscated a Chinese-made Liebao SUV parked outside Cao’s home that belonged to a Christian man who was there to listen to the preaching. Cao was criminally detained on April 20 and is now held in the Pingdingshan Detention Center.

Wang En, three-year sentence, female, in her 20s, taken from Cao Xia’s home, said to have helped make copies of Preacher Hu’s sermon CDs. Held in the Ye County Detention Center.

Li Dan, three-year sentence, female, in her 20s, taken from Cao Xia’s home, probably for copying CDs. Held in the Pindingshan Detention Center. (Read more here.)

 

Filed Under: America, Calling Evil Good, calling good evil, Christian Persecution, Christianity, clergy, Conversion, Faith, Following Christ, Gun Violence, Holy Father, Nigeria, Politics, Religious Freedom, Scripture, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

Battling Sisters of Stone Park, IL Hold Their Own Against Strip Club

April 25, 2013 By 12 Comments

Melrose Park 255x256Sr Noemia Silva. Courtesy of Rudy Lopez, CNA

When the city fathers of Stone Park Il came out in support of the worthy project of building a strip club next to a convent, they failed to reckon with the grit, guts and determination of nuns. 

I’ve written before about the moral courage of women. When that moral courage is empowered by an unwavering commitment to the love of Jesus Christ, it becomes the kind of force that wears away stone. 

I don’t know too much about Stone Park, Il, even though we have similar towns here in Oklahoma. From what I’ve read it’s a small town with a large number of strip clubs. So far as I know, they’ve gotten away with this up to now.

Bishop Scalabrini Community of the Missionary Sisters of St Charles Borromeo Scalabrinians in Melrose Park IL EWTN US Catholic News 2 10 12 300x225

Bishop Scalabrini Community of the Missionary Sisters of St Charles Scalabrinians

But when they decided to build a multi-million dollar “adult entertainment” club across from the convent of the Missionary Sisters of St Charles Borromeo, Scalabrinian, they started a fight with people who aren’t impressed by money or scared of bouncers.

The intransigent support for this particular strip club, might lead to the conclusion that the people who run this town are what you might call dedicated to having this particular strip club in this particular location.

They want a strip joint next to these nuns and they aren’t going to give an inch until they get it. Earlier in the on-going battle the owner of the club played the Christian-bashing card.

Dont “… impose your religious beliefs,” he said. 

Uh-huh.

This guy makes his living by treating women like animals in a zoo. I can certainly see why he wouldn’t welcome the nun’s “religious beliefs” on his premises. What I don’t understand is why he has fought so hard to put his premises on the nun’s doorstep. 

NYC081

Why is it so very important to place a strip club next to this convent? You’d think that piece of land was the last place in the continental United States that was available for such uplifting civic projects. The people who run this town are dug in on this. Is Stone Park in some sort of strip club competition with another town? Do they perceive a strip club gap developing that they have to fill?

The strip club is called “Get It,” which I think says a lot about the services it plans to offer. The intention was to open this club during Holy Week 2012. I think that speaks for itself. 

The war is one year on and the sisters are still holding their ground. They recently held a rally to celebrate this fact, which says a lot in itself.

As many as 500 people have gathered for a prayer vigil. More than 3,000 people have signed petitions against the Club.

“It’s not only for the sisters, but for the community itself,” Sister Noemia Silva said. “All of our communities are praying for this; it’s just constant, constant prayer.

She compared their fight to David and Goliath. “David won the battle because he trusted the Lord. He’ll fight this battle for us.”

From CNA:

CHICAGO — Residents and religious of a small Chicago suburb rallied to celebrate their so far successful campaign against the opening of a multi-million dollar “adult entertainment” club across from a convent.
“We came together as a community, as people of faith and stood together fighting for family values against what some thought was an unbreakable giant,” Sister Noemia Silva of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo, Scalabrinian said at an April 22 press conference.

“It’s not only for the sisters, but for the community itself,” she told CNA in a later interview.
Outrage has erupted locally over the building of the establishment, particularly because of its location next to the missionary sisters’ convent and retirement home. Proprietors of the business have been accused of breaking state law, which requires a 1,000-foot “buffer zone” between places of worship and such businesses.

“They haven’t respected state law and so we’re going to tell them, ‘You need to respect that,” Sister Noemia Silva said. “This should not have even happened so close to a worship area.”
Although the $3 million establishment, “Get It,” was slated to open during Holy Week of 2012, it has yet to open its doors to the public largely due to community protest and a legal battle between the landowner and building owner.

Sister Noemia said the sisters, who are spread throughout 18 countries, have been praying for the intercession of St. Michael. “All of our communities are praying for this; it’s just constant, constant prayer.”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/religious-sisters-celebrate-one-year-of-blocking-illinois-adult-club?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NCRegisterDailyBlog+National+Catholic+Register#When:2013-04-25%2013:47:01#ixzz2RUdAXUIu

 

 

 

Filed Under: America, Calling Evil Good, calling good evil, Catholic, Christian Persecution, Culture, Following Christ, Holy Week, Nuns, Politics, Religious Freedom, The War on Girls, Uncategorized, Violence Against Women, Women's Rights Tagged With: , , , , , , , 12 Comments

Gay Marriage: French Opposition Continues

April 25, 2013 By 17 Comments

 

Ay 101377277

Opponents to France’s new law legalizing gay marriage say they will continue the fight. 

This unwise action by the French government in forcing the vote to legalize gay marriage on an unwilling population appears to have the potential to push France into a protracted struggle. Roe v Wade certainly did that here in America. This kind of government-created civil disturbance is almost always a bad idea.

I haven’t read the new law, but news reports about it say that it specifically allows medical technological interventions to create children for gay couples. Aside from the obvious commodification for children, this process also requires farming women’s bodies for eggs and then  using them for surrogates. The obvious misogyny in that is mind boggling.

This practice is widespread here in America. We have celebrities parading around with their manufactured children that were created by this use of women bodies. We also have a television show that “normalizes” the egregious practice. The violation of the basic human rights of both women and children to be treated as people and not commodities are entirely ignored in our public discussion of this issue. 

According to Vatican Radio, there are reports of “English-speaking companies offering to provide same sex couples in France with children at a cost of $100,000.” I would not be at all surprised if these companies were the same American companies that run baby-manufacturing mills here in America. 

From Vatican Radio:

(Vatican Radio) Opponents of a new French law legalizing marriage for same sex couples are vowing to continue their campaign, one day after France became the 14th country to pass the controversial legislation.
A bill, which also allows for adoption by same-sex couples, passed by 321 votes to 225 in the French parliament yesterday, amid heated debate and protests both in and outside the National Assembly building.
French President François Hollande is expected to sign the bill once it has cleared any constitutional challenges. But a broad coalition of opponents, including the Catholic Church, says it will continue contesting the legislation and is planning further demonstrations.
Tugdual Derville is a spokesman for the opposition movement and a leader of the Alliance Vita, pro-life organization. 
Listen: RealAudioMP3 
He says this movement marks the birth of a real reawakening in France of those who are concerned that the most vulnerable people, children, the aged, the handicapped, remain a priority for economic and social policies….today, he says, we see English speaking companies offering to provide same sex couples in France with children at a cost of $100.000 – this is deeply shocking to us.
It is time, Derville says, to open a serious discussion about what we call human ecology, aimed at recognizing, protecting and transmitting to future generations the truth about our human procreation, our birth from a man and a woman. Beyond the public protests, the movement will continue to promote serious reflection and the development of a culture at the service of all human beings.

Text from page http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/04/24/french_opposition_continues_to_same-sex_marriage/en1-686133 
of the Vatican Radio website

Filed Under: America, Calling Evil Good, calling good evil, Catholic, Christian Persecution, Culture, Faith, Family, Marriage, Misogyny, Politics, The War on Girls, Uncategorized, Violence Against Women, Women's Rights Tagged With: , , , , 17 Comments

Where are all the good people dead: In the Heart, or In the Head?

April 24, 2013 By 31 Comments

0415 AUDRIE POTT sized jpg full 600

Sheila Pott, mother of Audrie Pott, with photo of Audrie 

Here are the facts.

  • Fifteen year old girl attends a party in one of the elite zip codes in this country.
  • She drinks. Maybe she drinks too much. Maybe her drink was doctored.
  • What is certain is that she was raped by boys she thought were her friends.
  • The boys put graphic photos of the rape on the internet.
  • The girl hanged herself.

I have had to deal twice with situations like this in my job as a representative. One was a girl who killed herself after a gang rape by five men who took photos and showed them around, including to the police. When the police told the girl there were photos, she went home, got in the bathtub and killed herself with a shotgun blast to the face.

The other girl tried to kill herself. After four days in critical care, she survived. 

I’m going to post an excerpt of an article about the little girl who hung herself. I want to talk about the attitudes that show through this article. I have no grievance with the person who wrote it. They’ve just fallen into our societal trap of cleaning up what should be faced and excusing that for which there is no excuse.

The article begins by saying that 15-year-old Audrie got drunk at a party and when she woke up, concluded that she had been “sexually abused.” Let’s get our terminology straight. She concluded, probably due to some grisly physical evidence, that she’d been raped. 

Remember that word: Rape. It’s ugly and people don’t like it. But the word isn’t the real ugliness. The ugliness is living in a society where 15-year-old girls can be treated like this and then suffer the further indignity of having reporters try to clean the horror up for the perps with the use of “soft” expressions like “sexual abuse” to describe what happened. 

These upstanding young men posted “graphic” photos of their rape of their friend on Facebook. After Audrie saw the photos on the internet, and endured the mockery of emails and texts circulating about what had been done to her, eight days after she was raped, she hung herself.

According to our reporter, “the case underscored the seeming callousness with which some young people use technology.”

Is that what’s this “case” is about? “Sexual abuse” and “callous” use of technology? 

If we accept this kind of bland obfuscation of the brutal rape and murder by suicide of this young girl as a problem with technology and “cyber-bullying,” we need to burn our Member of the Human Race Card and go sit in the corner with the trolls and monsters of our deepest darkness.

To paraphrase a line from the movie Grosse Point Blank, where are all the good people dead:  In the heart, or in the head? 

Let’s get one thing clear: I don’t talk about misunderstood mass murderers and rapists who are otherwise such good people on this blog. You won’t see sweet-face lists of these young men’s accomplishments and wonderment about “how could such fine boys do this?” You’ll not read a word of sympathy and grief if they get sent to the prison where they belong, no matter how much they cry for themselves when they are sentenced. 

They were without pity for Audrie. I don’t care if they bawl their eyes out for themselves. I hope they spend the rest of their lives in jail. I don’t think they should ever breathe another free breath again. 

If you do something like this, then I put you in the monster column. The only way to get off that column is to manifest extreme remorse and humble grief for what you have done, coupled with a willingness to admit that you have in fact done it and that you are willing to do anything it takes to make up for it and to change. Even then, I want the proof of a changed life, and I mean a really changed life. 

Nice people do not rape their friends. They do not — ever — treat other people like things. They do not take photos of their raping and then post them on the internet, along with sending emails and texts to taunt, degrade and destroy their “friend” socially. What these men did to this girl, the rape, was physical torture. What they did later was emotional torture. What this young girl faced was social death.

People who treat other people like this are monsters. They will remain monsters so long as they continue to excuse, defend and deny the utter depravity and sub-human cruelty of what they have allowed themselves to become.  

From The Washington Post: 

SARATOGA, Calif. — Fifteen-year-old Audrie Pott passed out drunk at a friend’s house, woke up and concluded she had been sexually abused.

In the days that followed, she was shocked to see an explicit photo of herself circulating among her classmates along with emails and text messages about the episode. And she was horrified to discover that her attackers were three of her friends, her family’s lawyer says.

Eight days after the party, she hanged herself.

“She pieced together with emails and texts who had done this to her. They were her friends. Her friends!” said family attorney Robert Allard. “That was the worst”

On Thursday, sheriff’s officials arrested three 16-year-old boys on suspicion of sexual battery against Audrie, who committed suicide in September.

The arrests and the details that came spilling out shocked many in this prosperous Silicon Valley suburb of 30,000. And together with two other episodes recently in the news — a suicide in Canada and a rape in Steubenville, Ohio — the case underscored the seeming callousness with which some young people use technology.

“The problem with digital technologies is they can expand the harm that people suffer greatly,” said Nancy Willard, an Oregon-based cyberbullying expert and creator of a prevention program for schools.

Santa Clara County sheriff’s officials would not give any details on the circumstances around Audrie’s suicide. But Allard said Audrie had been drinking at a sleepover at a friend’s house, passed out and “woke up to the worst nightmare imaginable.” She knew she had been assaulted, he said.

She soon found an abundance of material online about that night, including a picture. (Read the rest here.) 

 

Filed Under: America, Calling Evil Good, Misogyny, The War on Girls, Uncategorized, Violence Against Women, Violence in America, Women's Rights Tagged With: , , , , , , , , 31 Comments

Update: French Protests Against Gay Marriage Vote Turn Violent

April 23, 2013 By 20 Comments

Protesters against the French government’s action legalizing gay marriage grew in numbers after the vote Tuesday, then turned more violent toward midnight.

According to an Associated Press story, protestors threw bottles, cans and metal bars at police who lobbed tear gas back. 

Much of the press I’ve read has treated the action of the French government as heroic. One headline talked about how the French government had “stared down the conservatives” to pass the law. An issue that sets off marches of as much as a million and a half citizens is deeply controversial, at best. What the French government “stared down” was its own citizens.

I have no idea how things will proceed now that the measure, which takes effect in June, has passed.

From the Associated Press:

 

French Protest Against Gay Marriage Turns Violent

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 23, 2013 6:47 PM

PARIS (AP) — France legalized gay marriage on Tuesday after a wrenching national debate that exposed deep conservatism in the nation’s heartland and triggered huge demonstrations that tapped into intense discontent with the Socialist government. Within hours, fiery clashes broke out between protesters and riot police.

Legions of officers stayed late into the night, and a protest against the measure turned violent near the Invalides complex of museums and monuments. Protesters threw glass bottles, cans and metal bars at police, who responded with tear gas. (Read more here.)

Filed Under: Calling Evil Good, calling good evil, Child Rearing, Family, Marriage, Politics, The War on Girls, Uncategorized, Women's Rights Tagged With: , , , 20 Comments

A Government at War with its People: France Legalizes Gay Marriage

April 23, 2013 By 32 Comments

Ay 101377277 France legalized gay marriage today. According to a Reuters news report “legions of officers and water cannon stood ready ahead of the final vote,” bracing for pubic reaction. 

The vote came after the Claude Bartelone, President of the French National Assembly ordered the expulsion of a protester. In one of the most ridiculous statements I’ve read in a while, he said, “Only those who love democracy are welcome here.”

Images

This is not the way to pass legislation of this magnitude. It is also not the way to work for social change. Several states in America have passed gay marriage referendums by popular vote. This has been accepted by everyone, including those who opposed the referendums. States in which the courts or the legislature have tried to impose gay marriage have met resistance. Most of the time, these efforts have been overturned by popular votes.

Gay people certainly do have the right to petition their government for change. However, governments which impose draconian changes in social practice on an unwilling population are not representing their people.

When a government has to call in the police and set up high-pressure water hoses to protect itself from its own people before a vote, it maybe needs to consider that the vote itself is unwise.

Children hold french flags

The French politicians who have voted for this measure were elected to their positions, but they are not behaving like representatives of the people. They also, in my opinion, are creating unrest and discord in their country which can only harm it.

American government has made similar mistakes. The Brady Bill of the early 1990s was a mistake because the American people did not want it. I’m not talking about the merits of the bill. I am talking about the merits of government of, by and for the people.

Dsc 0195 copy

Roe v Wade was a judicial fiat which stopped the on-going public debate on abortion by imposing a “decision” on the people that they were not ready for. The resulting culture wars have fractured this country and done enormous harm to it. None of this would have happened if the Court had simply let the democratic process in the states work this issue through.

With very rare exceptions (I can think of only one in the history of this country) the people, if they are allowed to do so, can and will work these things out in a manner that allows everyone to live together in harmony. However, when governments begin to impose unwanted solutions to debates that reach into the intimate lives of their citizens in the manner that the French government did today, they harm the country they claim to love. They also step over the boundaries of their moral authority as representatives of the people.

From Reuters:

PARIS (AP) — France legalized gay marriage on Tuesday after a wrenching national debate and protests that flooded the streets of Paris. Legions of officers and water cannon stood ready near France’s National Assembly ahead of the final vote, bracing for possible violence on an issue that galvanized the country’s faltering conservative movement.

The measure passed easily in the Socialist-majority Assembly, 331-225, just minutes after the president of the legislative body expelled a disruptive protester in pink, the color adopted by French opponents of gay marriage.

“Only those who love democracy are here,” Claude Bartelone, the Assembly president, said angrily.

 

Filed Under: America, Calling Evil Good, calling good evil, Catholic, Christian Persecution, Family, Marriage, Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Uncategorized, Women's Rights Tagged With: , , , , , , 32 Comments

Nearly 15,000 French Mayors Say They Will Refuse to Marry Gay Couples

April 22, 2013 By 23 Comments

What they are hiding from: 1.4 million French march in protest of gay marriage legislation.

It seems to me that there is a wee bit of resistance to French President Francois Hollande’s plans to legalize gay marriage.

First, the government re-scheduled the gay marriage vote to a different day. They were trying to avoid their own citizens’ protests against the vote. It seems that the previous marches with over a million participants got on their nerves.

I’ve seen videos and photos of the earlier marches. The marchers were moms and dads with their children, little old ladies and gray-haired priests. Their sheer numbers were impressive. But it’s even more impressive that they looked like the kind of people who form the backbone of a country. If the government is afraid of them, then it is afraid of its own middle class.

French Wedding Town Hall 02

Civil wedding. France. 

 

Ditto, or maybe double ditto, for the mayors. The Association of Mayors for Children has announced that, if this law passes, its 14,900 members will refuse to perform gay marriages.

I don’t want to rush to judgement here, but it’s beginning to look like the French government is running over its people with this vote. Let’s look at the situation. We have a national government that is moving votes around because it is so overwhelmed by citizen marchers against an issue. We also have a large number of local officials — people who are part of the government — flat-out saying that they will not abide by the law if it passes. Is the French government strong-arming its people with this law? It sounds that way.

I think that duly elected officials who have even half a brain would take note of this much resistance from the electorate. But then I’m assuming that these duly elected officials have half a brain. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they checked their brains to their party when they ran for office and don’t remember where they left them. I can’t think of any other reason for forcing a law this divisive on an aroused citizenry.

I am well aware that the com boxes on this blog are going to fill up with comments trying to equate gay marriage to human slavery and miscegenation, but those analogies don’t hold up. I realize why they do this. It’s because there really isn’t some innate right to gay marriage. They’re forced to link their cause to some other cause to give it legitimacy. It doesn’t stand on its own.

The reason there isn’t an innate right to gay marriage is because the concept itself is something of an oxymoron. Gay people have sex with one another and fall in love with one another. But theirs is a sterile union. For that simple reason, it serves no larger purpose to the overall society to call their pairing “marriage.”

Marriage between a man and a woman, by its very nature, produces other human beings. Marriage is the institution by which we nurture and raise our young to become stable and productive citizens who can nurture and raise the next generation after them. 

Divorce

The pitiful mess that heterosexuals have made of marriage these past few decades doesn’t negate that. It underscores it. Look at the messed up kids our messed up marriages are producing. We have degraded family and home life to the point that we have raised a generation of young people who appear to be unable to bond to form marriages and raise children of their own. They have never known a stable home and because of that, they can not create one for themselves.

This doesn’t mean that marriage is unimportant. It shows how drastically important it is. Nothing can replace it.

Degrading marriage further will only shove us further along in our cycle of social and cultural self-destruction.

The French people seem to understand this a lot better than the rest of the Western world. They understand that children matter. 

They are trying their best to tell this to their government. Meanwhile, the government appears to have put stoppers in its ears so that it won’t have to listen. I would not be surprised if the French find themselves subjected to another lecture like that the New Zealand statesman du jour delivered to his constituents, explaining to them what an ignorant and bigoted bunch of backward hayseeds they are for thinking for themselves instead of seeing things the way their government wants them to.

It’s a mistake when elected officials start to assume that people stupid enough to elect them must be complete idiots. There is every possibility that they will discover that their election was just a momentary lapse in judgement.

From CNA:

Paris, France, Apr 19, 2013 / 04:12 pm (CNA).- A group of at least 14,900 French mayors has said it will not perform “gay marriages,” even if the government moves ahead with plans to legalize the practice.

The administration of French President Francois Hollande has put forth a measure that would legalize “gay marriage,” allow gay couples to receive medical treatment for artificial procreation and to adopt children.

“It is foolish to think that the mobilization of the elected mayors would stop if the law is passed,” said Franck Meyer, spokesman for the association Mayors for Children.

“As citizens, we elected officials will not give up,” he emphasized in statements to the media.

Meyer, who is mayor of Sotteville-sous-le-Val in northern France, observed that some of the mayors in the group have said they “would resign if the law is adopted,” while others “have said they will refuse” to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples.

On April 12, the French Senate passed the measure sponsored by President Hollande, but it has yet to go before the French National Assembly. (Read the rest here.)

Filed Under: Calling Evil Good, calling good evil, Child Rearing, Divorce, Family, Marriage, Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , 23 Comments

Gay Marriage and Politicians Going In Your Face With the People Who Elected Them

April 22, 2013 By 18 Comments

What they are hiding from: 1.4 million French march in protest of gay marriage legislation. Photo from LifeSiteNews

When a government starts changing the date for votes to avoid its own people, something is wrong.

This is evidently what is happening in France concerning the move to legalize gay marriage. According to a Reuters news report, the French government moved the date for a vote on legislation to legalize gay marriage to avoid a big rally set by opponents for later this month.

The French people responded with a hastily-put-together rally to which “only” 50,000 people were able to come.

When a government starts re-scheduling votes on major legislation for the purpose of avoiding its own people, it clearly is time for that government to take a good, long, look at itself. There is a tendency for governments to take an in-your-face attitude toward their own citizens whenever and wherever they legalize gay marriage.

In the debate over legalizing gay marriage in New Zealand, an MP made an extremely witty and intelligent speech which, despite the good fun of it, did essentially that. This MP has become an international sensation and the toast of the media. I’ve read that he’s even going to have a guest spot on Ellen.

 

While I enjoyed his speech, I also saw through it to the core reason behind it: He was going in-your-face with his constituents, and exhorting his colleagues to do the same. I’ve sat in on a number of witty and intelligent speeches urging legislators to ignore their constituents. I remember quite clearly watching and listening while Democratic House Speakers in the Oklahoma Legislature urged the passage of large tax increases which the public had made abundantly clear they did not want.

These tax increases were passed largely for one special interest.

The short-term result was that the tax increases went through, a number of Democratic legislators lost their house seats to Republicans, but the Democrats maintained their huge dominance in state government. The long-term result was that Oklahoma is now the reddest of red states in the Union.

Aside from the simple shift in party politics, this has meant replacing one set of special interests for another in our government. The process of going in-your-face with the electorate on behalf of these special interests has already begun again, just from a different direction.

When a government starts dipping and dodging, running and hiding to avoid contact with the people it governs, there is something seriously wrong with its governance. When legislators take to the floor to lecture the electorate on their ignorance for opposing what that legislator is doing, there is something out of whack with that action.

It is so easy for government by consent of the governed to turn into an elected dictatorship. There’s no great trick to standing up and giving a four-minute speech aligning yourself with an issue that is being hard-sold by the media against your constituents. It gives you the chance to be, as this mp has become, the statesman du jour. Often the celebrity will carry you over any anger your constituents might feel.

I don’t know about this particular MP, but it’s entirely possible that he isn’t going so much in-your-face with his constituents as he is those of his colleagues. He may represent an area that either supports what he is doing, or that is willing to re-elect him despite it. If that is true, what he is doing here is lecturing his colleagues’ constituents and convincing these same dim-witted colleagues to go against their own people.

I see a lot of that, too. Extreme liberals push more moderate Democrats into suicidal votes. Extreme conservatives push more moderate Republicans into the same sort of thing. The interesting thing is that the extremists get re-elected because of the districts they represent, while the ones they push into these votes get defeated.

I don’t know that this will happen in New Zealand. But I do know I’ve seen it happen over and over again here in America.

As for France, when you have a national government re-scheduling a vote to avoid contact with the people it governs, something is really wrong with that government. If you’re an elected official, and you are doing something that the people you govern find so egregious that you have to hide from them to do it, you’re not doing your job right.

I’m going to put an excerpt from the Reuters article below and a link to the New Zealand mp’s speech below that. Notice that, despite the sarcasm and humor of this mp’s speech, he really doesn’t say anything of substance.

From Reuters:

PARIS (Reuters) – Thousands of gay marriage opponents wavingpink and blue flags marched through Paris on Sunday in a last-ditch protest before a law allowing same-sex union and adoption is passed next week.

Chanting “We don’t want your law, Hollande!”, some 50,000 protesters massed behind a banner reading: “All born of a Mum and a Dad” and said it was undemocratic to bring about such a fundamental social change without holding a referendum.

Hastily organized after the law’s passage was sped up to circumvent a big rally set for late April, Sunday’s march capped months of protests by a dogged opposition movement that has sullied President Francois Hollande‘s flagship social reform.

“We warned the president back in November that we would not give up and that we would do everything to stop this law being passed, or to get it repealed if it is adopted,” one of the protest organizers,Alberic Dumon, told Reuters. (Read the rest here.)

YouTube Preview Image

Filed Under: America, Calling Evil Good, calling good evil, Child Rearing, Family, Marriage, Politics, Same Sex Marriage, Uncategorized, Women's Rights Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , 18 Comments