“The liberal case against gay marriage” is an article in the Summer 2004 issue of The Public Interest by Susan M. Shell. While I don’t expect universal agreement with it, I’m curious what our readers think of the article. For those wishing to comment, I’m not interested in what you think about Same Sex Marriage. I’m interested in what you think of Shell’s arguments. Read more
Gay marriage is inevitable. It became inevitable when legitimate achievements in reducing discrimination against gay people ran headlong into an altered definition of marriage that came to prominence in the 1960s and 1070s. Instead of being seen as a social institution geared toward the bearing and rearing of children, it emphasized the fulfilment of individual desires. Instead of a sacrament of mutual self-giving, it became a civil institution for the pursuit of mutual happiness. When looked at this way, there is no... Read more
Often those of us who make mistakes are reticent to admit them publicly. Unfortunately what results is that people are misled. Today, I wish to confess that I went to a for-profit diploma mill. I graduated from there in 2001 with an Associate’s Degree in Information Technology. There were red flags from the beginning. I had the option of continuing my investment for another year and earning a bachelor’s degree. I declined to do so for a number of reasons,... Read more
It has always been clear to me that the most loathed part of healthcare reform for the right was the individual mandate. For too many, abortion was a smokescreen to gloss over the real objection, an objection with no real grounding in Catholic teaching. And when you see challenges to health care reform, they nearly always zero in on the individual mandate. This is the issue close to the heart of the particularly repulsive attorney general of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli,... Read more
From Ed Luce of the Financial Times: “Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on... Read more
Every culture and political tradition has their problems. In modernity, the biggest problem is not big government, but big politics. Everyone is told they must be political. To fulfill that obligation, people feel they must be kept up to date on current events; their focus is on the secular state and all of its mechanizations. They must develop informed opinions which then leads them to make political decisions – decisions which are realized (and then left behind) first in the... Read more
Yesterday was the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, but due to the exuberant celebrations that tend to mark the day, we were unable to post anything. I would like to offer some reflections on what is something of a trademark of Ignatian spirituality, and that is devotion to the Trinity. For starters, in his autobiography, paragraph 28, Ignatius recounts: One day while he was reciting the Hours of our Lady on the steps of the same monastery, his understanding... Read more
Martin Wolf of the Financial Times draws attention to a key finding by Raghuram Rajan: “of every dollar of real income growth that was generated between 1976 and 2007, 58 cents went to the top 1 per cent of households…This is surely stunning.” It is indeed stunning. The story of the last 30 years is basically that the rich did spectacularly well, the middle class stagnated, and the poor faced greater dislocation. I think we can all agree that this does not accord... Read more
About 30 years ago, I was involved in an RCIA class being taught by a Dominican sister. The general topic was sin and its consequences, and the discussion had turned to the distinction between mortal and venial sins. The pastor was sitting in during the class, and a question came from one candidate: How common is mortal sin? The sister offered the opinion that for those who practice their faith regularly (e.g., go to Mass every Sunday, pray the rosary,... Read more
The silent majority is a fairly ubiquitous rhetorical device. Often enough, we like to imagine ourselves a part of it. Even if the silent majority isn’t being falsely invoked in some cause – it prefers to be left alone – it certainly is real. At some point you realize in life that people are more likely to tell you what you want to hear than to tell you what they really think. Anonymous surveying has cleared up some of this,... Read more
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