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Catholic Bishops React to CA Supreme Court Decision on Gay Marriage

SACRAMENTO, California

Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, released the following statement on behalf of California Bishops and the California Catholic Conference, following the California Supreme Court decision declaring the state Defense of Marriage Act (Proposition 22) unconstitutional, thus allowing same-sex marriages to take place in California:

The California Catholic Conference of Bishops must express its disappointment in the California Supreme Court decision to declare Proposition 22 unconstitutional. 

Proposition 22, which states, Only marriage between one man and one woman is valid and recognized in California, passed eight years ago by a vote of 61.2 to 38.8 percent. That statute reflected the wisdom of the voters of California in retaining the traditional definition of marriage as a biological reality and a societal good. Unfortunately, today, the Court saw fit to disregard the will of the majority of people of California.

Catholic teaching maintains that marriage is a faithful, exclusive and lifelong union between one man and one woman joined in an intimate partnership of life and love a union instituted by God for the mutual fulfillment of the husband and wife as well as for the procreation and education of children.

Partnerships of committed same-sex individuals are already legal in California. Our state has also granted domestic partners spousal-type rights and responsibilities which facilitate their relationships with each other and any children they bring to the partnership. Every person involved in the family of domestic partners is a child of God and deserves respect in the eyes of the law and their community. However, those partnerships are not and can never be marriage as it has been understood since the founding of the United States. Today's decision of California’s high court opens the door for policymakers to deconstruct traditional marriage and create another institution under the guise of equal protection.

Although we strongly disagree with the ruling, we ask our Catholic people, as well as all the people of California, to continue to uphold the dignity of every person, to acknowledge individual rights and responsibilities, and to maintain support for the unique and irreplaceable role of traditional marriage as   an institution which is fundamental to society.

*******

Questions?

Nounicide

The following, from Catholic Online, is a week old but not a minute dated. (From "Marriage Under Assault at the California Supreme Court" by Deacon Keith Fournier.)

The “Human Rights Campaign” has succeeded in reframing this entire issue by now framing the debate in the public square. They speak of “the freedom to marry”, as though the efforts to protect authentic marriage as marriage is to somehow deny homosexual practitioners from “freedom” or to refuse them a “right” to marry.
 
This was a smart and calculated move.
 
I understand the approach very well. I practiced public interest law for years. They simply recast the effort and redefined the word. Now, it is the proponents of true marriage who are on the defensive. In short, some of our difficulties are of our own doing.
 
I understand public interest law because, as a practicing Catholic, I helped to establish and lead the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a predominantly evangelical public interest legal group, for seven years.
 
This was long before many of my fellow Catholics either knew that the battle for marriage had been engaged, or accepted the idea that Christians could come together, in an authentic ecumenical effort, to engage the cultural struggle.
 
In addition, well intended “orthodox” (by which I mean classically faithful) Christians and Jews, in trying to defend marriage, have sadly used expressions such as “traditional marriage”, thinking they were helping the effort to defend true marriage. In fact, they were playing into another very skillful rhetorical move. They might as well walk around with a huge bull’s eye on.
 
The expression has become fuel for the homosexual activist war machine which is intent on redefining “marriage” to include those who engage in homosexual sex with one another for a protracted period of time. The proponents of equal status for homosexual paramours with authentically married heterosexual couples can now simply ask the question “whose tradition”?
 
They also argue that we Christians are trying to force our “religious” views on the Nation. They follow this by painting the effort to defend authentic marriage as a “religious” bigotry.
 
Philosophers speak of ontology as the science or philosophy of being, the essence of a thing. For example, a rock is a rock and not a cabbage; a man is a man and a woman is a woman.
 
Marriage is ontologically between a man and a woman, ordered toward the loving union of the spouses, open to life through the conjugal act in procreation. It also forms the foundation of family.
 
There can be no such thing as “marriage” between two same sex people engaging in sexual acts, even if they engage in such acts only with one another and for a protracted period of time. This is true no matter what a Court or legislature may try to impose to the contrary.

 The late great C. S. Lewis coined the phrase, “verbicide” in his Book entitled “Studies in Words”. The term referred to the murder of a word. In the past, when I wrote concerning the fundamental human rights issue of our age, the right to life, I referred to the current assault against words as “verbal engineering” and maintained that it is always the first step in social, legal, political, and cultural engineering.
 
We must never forget the power of words. Remember, it was by using the word “choice” to describe the killing of a child in the womb that advocates of legalized abortion (child killing) paved the way for abortion on demand, once universally opposed, and opened the door for it to be heralded as a “right” in America - and throughout the West.
 
The same revolutionary trajectory is now at work in the move to redefine marriage.

[emphasis mine]

At work, and working quite well, it would seem.

Read the article here.

New Math

A WorldNetDaily reader has summed up today's California Supreme Court decision perfectly:

Four vs. 4,618,673.

The four won.

Must be California math.

The Next Sound You Hear...

...will be Cardinal Mahony coming to the defense of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.

...any minute now...

In Which I Become a Bigger Nut

So I'm minding my own business, and into my e-mailbox comes: California Supreme Court's rules that defining marriage as being between a man a woman is "unconstitutional."

I guess because I'm a writer, and it's what we do, I rarely read a headline without extrapolating.  So I read that headline and my mind immediately goes to "Akmed Has Six Mommies" and to Dial commercials with married couples of the same gender in the shower together, or to that billboard in Massachusetts with the two naked guys wrapped in the flag, don't make me tell you the caption again.

I think about the things that will be commonplace, in my everyday landscape and, more importantly, in the everyday landscape of my small child.  He still sleeps with a blanket. He's probably too old for that, but I've been trying to push that thought out of my head. Along with a lot of others.

There is so little innocence left in the world, and we seem so hell-bent on stripping the world of what little there is left, as fast as we possibly can. Somehow, we think this will improve things. 

I just had an idea!  How about this?  Anybody can marry anybody/thing/place/you-name-it -- BUT, we all have to keep it a secret.  If anyone finds out, you're no longer married and you can never get married again.  Oh yeah, and it's illegal to touch anyone unless you're married to them.  Works for me!

I'm sorry. It's just the stress of waiting for Armageddon.

I can't stop the tsunami. I can put Caleb in an uber-Catholic school, but he still has to go with me to the grocery store.  I could take my family and go hide in the hills, but whenever I think of doing that, the parable of the talents comes slamming into my brain. I was given a hideously specific gift. It can be done from somewhere other than Los Angeles for periods of time, but my consistent experience has been that four years at a time is about as long as I can get away with. When I've compared notes with colleagues, they have found the same thing. 

So let's say I'm here in L.A., which the Republican in-name-only governor has turned into a place where absolutely everyone feels perfectly at home to do absolutely anything...

...except for orthodox Catholics/Christians.  From my "what will the future look like?" vantage point, it seems to me that we will be explaining to our children that our religion teaches that "Mom" and "Dad" are not "hate speech" and the concept of marriage as being between one man and one woman is an idea that we got from God -- it's not something we plucked from a shelf at Wal-Mart and then later realized there was a better deal to be had.

In California, "family" is now hate speech, unless you go out of your way, with charts and graphs and anatomically correct dolls, to show that "family" is not a mom and day and a child/children. That is to say, it's not a reflection of the Holy Family.  If you believe that, you have to keep it to yourself. Behind closed doors somewhere. (Certainly not at church!) In your house, maybe. Get a fish for your door so no no peace-loving people will show up there by accident.

I know that when he gets old enough, Caleb will notice that the other mothers aren't like me. The other mothers are just happily singing "Gather Us In" and going to coffee and donuts and they're not furiously scribbling during the deacon's homily and they don't care who's married to whom or what or how many, and he'll think I'm a nut. The way I used to think people like me were nuts.

With any luck, he'll think "Mom and her friends are nuts."

Obama's Catholics vs. Bill Donahue

Deal Hudson explains it all to you:

Read 'em here. (Don't expect to be surprised.)

When Obama's Catholic supporters attacked Catholic League president Bill Donohue for his criticism of their candidate, they did not mention Obama's support for infanticide.

The question will inevitably arise for the distinguished group of Catholics supporting Obama as to how they can defend his preference for infanticide in cases where a child survives a botched abortion. The fury Obama's Catholics vented toward Donohue will only force them to face that question sooner than they may have expected.

It's clear to me how it will be answered: It won't. Obama's Catholics are already attempting to reframe the abortion issue in their favor. They will do everything they can to divert attention from the fact that their candidate is actually the most extreme pro-abortion advocate ever to be nominated by a political party for president of the United States.

The letter to Donohue reveals the arguments Obama's Catholics will use to evade the question of infanticide

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Some Have Hats Exclusive!

(From a member of my fan base...)

For the Record...

You will never find me cozying up to the kindly space brothers -- no matter who tells me it's a fine idea.

"Why can't we speak of a 'brother extraterrestrial'? It would still be part of creation."

Funes, who runs the observatory that is based south of Rome and in Arizona, held out the possibility that the human race might actually be the "lost sheep" of the universe.

There could be other beings "who remained in full friendship with their creator," he said.

And...might there be another possibility?

This is where reading the Bible would have come in handy.

How NOT to Get Your Hair Cut in Los Angeles

On Mother's Day evening, my sister and I had dinner with our daughters, something we haven't done in a long time because Julie and I have been living on the east coast.  Julie and her cousin Faith are very close -- more like sisters than cousins -- and, thanks to iChat and Facebook and other such modern wonders, have remained very close even while 3000 miles away.  So Sunday was a day full of fun L.A. reunions.

While Julie and I were at brunch at Lynn's house, Julie was (of course) sitting with her Sidekick in her lap, texting Faith.  Suddenly there were big OMG!!!s being passed back and forth.  It seems Faith had just returned from a haircut that didn't turn out well.  I've had several of those myself, so I offered, "It's probably not as bad as she thinks it is."  Julie said, "She said the stylist stood back and laughed when she was done."  I admitted that probably wasn't a good sign.

When we got to dinner, Barbara said, "How do you like Faith's hair?" Being me, and incapable of lying, I said, "Um...I liked it better when it was...there."  Then we all spent ten minutes explaining to Faith that it will look fine in two weeks and I said to her what I have said to myself and to all my kids over the years, when faced with such a disaster:  "It's hair. It'll grow back."  Because it's easy to forget that, when you look in a mirror right after you've done something catastrophic.

And then Faith said, "Well...it's my fault anyway."

Me: How is it your fault?
Faith:  I sort of told her I was gay.
Me: You what?
Faith: By accident.
Me:  Okaaaayyy...How?
Faith: She asked me if I had a boyfriend.  I said no.  She asked why not.  I said, "I go to an all-girls school, so..."
Me:  So far you're not gay.
Faith:  Well, then we talked a little more and then she said, "Are your parents okay with it?" And I thought she meant are they okay with me having a boyfriend.  So I said, "Well, they would be." Later I figured out she thought I meant they'd be okay with it if they knew I was gay.  And so she cut all my hair off.

Good to know.  I mean, I knew haircuts could make statements, but I hadn't thought it through quite that much.  It's pretty difficult to come out of the salon with spiked hot pink hair that got there by accident.  But a buzz cut while you were reading a magazine, based on the stylist's assumptions about your sensible shoes?

I've been trying to let my hair grow out because it has looked the same way for thirty years and I'm finally tired of it. We're in the battle of the wills stage and I wouldn't dare to predict which one of us is going to win this fight.  However, if I decide to cut it while I'm still in L.A., I'm going to be very careful when I give the instructions. 

I think it's going to go something like, "My husband likes it long in the back."

Why I Make My Friends Drink Bottled Water (And Other Inconvenient Stuff)

The following fun facts just showed up in my e-mailbox, and since I was taught to share:

Did you know that the Live Earth concert to "save the planet" released more Co2 into the atmosphere than every SUV in America?

Or that estrogen from birth control and "morning after" pills is causing male fish across America to develop female sex organs - and that environmentalists, who are overwhelmingly "pro-choice," have helped cover it up?

Or that the #1 killer in Africa today today isn't AIDS, but malaria -- thanks to environmentalists who banned the pesticide that used to have the disease under control?

The e-mail that brought me all of the above wants to sell me a book that I would buy for the title alone, if I didn't already have a large stack of "Must Read These NOW!" books on my nightstand.  It's called "The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes the Liberals Don't Want You to Know Because They Caused Them" by Iain Murray.  I don't know much about Iain Murray, except he's a Scot, so even if he's lying, you won't be bored. 

Here's another article by him from National Review, with 25 Inconvenient Truths.  Anyone who wants to spend his spare time making Al Gore look like an idiot (a bigger idiot?) is okay by me.

The Morning After

No time to do the Mother's Day rant; besides, I had a lovely day yesterday.  (My take on Mother's Day has something to do with the fact that my Mom is 83 and my mother-in-law is ... I'm not allowed to say) and three of my four kids are now out of the house and I'm still waiting for someone to take me to brunch.  I might have to wait until I'm 83.

But yesterday my good friend and former nextdoor neighbor Lynn made brunch for me and Julie.  We used to call our houses "The Compound" and we made the gardener that we shared clip a hole in the hedge so we could go back and forth to each other's houses easily.  We spent all major (and minor) holidays together and since Lynn and I were single mothers with single children (at the time), the four of us were a family for many years.  So yesterday we had a Compound Reunion.  The last time we'd all been together, Caleb was an infant, and Julie and Andrew were 12.  Now Julie and Andrew are in college and sitting at the table with us  instead of in the other room fighting over video games.  Very odd.  But great.

Here are a couple of photos to prove I'm telling you the truth.  I might be back with more Mother's Day debriefing.  It depends entirely on the day.
 

Dear Hallmark (cc: children everywhere)

If I had time to write a rant right now, the title of it would be: "Did Anyone Ask Us if We WANTED Mother's Day."

For full rant, pre-order here.

(p.s. I'd say more, but I'm rushing to make the last Fedex drop.)

Family Tidbit

My brother is doing this.

I didn't know it until I was googling him for some other reason. 

Ah, the 21st century family.  Maybe I should see google some more and see what everybody else is up to.

(Oh yeah, and in his spare time, he's doing this.  I couldn't help noticing that it took me a lot of clicking to get to his picture.  Unlike ... websites of other members of the clergy.)

The Prosecution Rests

Or, at least, wishes she could.

Someone in the combox posted a "has anybody heard of this guy?" link.  I clicked on it.  I kid you not, it was my priest.  Pictured below.

But this is the must-see photo.

But wait, there's more:

Click here for his lyrics.

Click here to see his memorabilia.

Click here for a wide assortment of articles about him, and photos of him wearing Bruce Springsteen's  hand-me-downs.

I am very grateful to the person who supplied this link, because I have spent three years now, sitting in the pew, trying to figure this guy out.  The website was an eye-opening experience in that regard. 

Not comforting, but definitely eye-opening.

 

Warning: Stay Away From Beverages While Watching the Following

It is possible that you have to be a Facebook type in order to understand this, but I don't think so.  I laughed so hard I missed half of it and will have to go back and watch again.

(p.s. This and the new Charlie made me decide against suicide. Oh yeah, and the threat of Hell.)

Bye.

Thanks to Diogenes, this will be my last blog post.  Because I have to go kill myself now.

Way Too Good to Be True: Charlie, the Sequel!!!!

Another One Bites the Dust

Deadline that is.  Actually, that had long since come and gone. But I just finished my first draft of my first Brotherhood script.  I am a happy camper.  At least, I am between now and 2 p.m., when I get notes on it.

But even then, I will be happy.  There is NOTHING worse than a first draft.  If I ever drive my car into on-coming traffic, I can promise you that there will be a half-finished first draft in the seat next to me.

Tonight I'm celebrating with Nicolosi. Tomorrow night with Matt Lickona and the lovely Mrs. Matt Lickona. 

Barbara and I have been invited (by a "fan" -- I'm not sure of whom or what, but I do NOT look gift food & wine in the mouth) to this restaurant, which is supposed to be one of the best in L.A., if not the country, if not the world, if not... you get the drift.  I just love the fact that it's called Providence, and I'm celebrating finishing a script that is both set in and completely about the city.  And then there's, you know, Providence.

I'm trying to decide which of my favorite restaurants the Lickonas would like to try. 

I like this part of writing!

p.s. Only my husband could tell you how accurate that picture is.

It Ain't Shakespeare, But...

I'm always a little touchy about people using words like "stupid" and "garbage" when talking about what I do for a living. In large part because it is and always has been factually incorrect.  Yes, there are always embarrassing examples of the art form, out there for everyone to see and scoff at. But as I've said for three decades, read me the current NYT bestsellers list.

I'm not here to pick a fight. But it was on my mind as I returned to the office today.  Because here's how the first five minutes went:

[Exchange of amenities and "You're FINALLY here!" etc.]

Me: So how's it going?
Writer A (indicating Writer B): He made me lose my Hobbesian run.
Me: (looking at Writer B): You didn't. Why?

Writer B gets a smirky look on his face.

Me:   It must have been for length because it couldn't have been for lack of brilliance.
Writer B:  No, it was too brilliant.
Writer A: He thought it wasn't believable.
Me: Oh. This doesn't bode well for my Marcus Aurelius run and call-back.

Writer B gives me a look.

Me:  It's motivated.  There's a statue of him at Brown.
Writer B: Okay... I guess that could work.
Writer A:  Hey, wait a minute!
...

(For the overly curious:  Hobbes is gone. Jury is still out on Marcus Aurelius.  Stay tuned.)

Update on Mars...and L.A.

I am FINALLY in L.A.  I am typing like mad to finish my script before midnight so the guys can read it in the a.m. and I can get notes tomorrow afternoon. 

My flights were very nice today.  LAX, on the other hand, was a ring of Hell Dante somehow missed.  Forty-five minutes for the bags to show up. (There was some kind of mechanical malfunction in the belt that drops them down the slide to the passengers.)  Another half an hour of standing on the curb waiting for the Avis shuttle.  Meanwhile, the Hertz, Dollar, Budget, National, Enterprise, and several unknown (but prompt) shuttles passed me four times each.  I finally called Avis' 800 number and expressed displeasure.  The nice lady transferred my call to the L.A. office at LAX.  It rang a lot and finally I hung up.  I stood there for another ten minutes and had many uncharitable thoughts that involved the stock market and the Avis' CEO's. 

While stuck in traffic on the way to the airport in Orlando this morning, I placed a call to North Carolina -- the one I'd been dreading -- and asked Brandon the caretaker how Mars was doing.  I am happy to report that God answers even prayers about 34 year old horses. Brandon reported that Mars is fine, seems just like his old self.

In honor of that, I'm posting another photo from our glory days.  He's a different color here because it was summer and we were going to a lot of shows and he was shaved as bare as we could get him for expedience in the horse version of a car wash.  For folks who don't know, you actually squeegee a horse after you bathe them, so the short coat helps that process immensely. But Mars' summer coat is not as lovely as his winter coat.  In fact, my friends used to tell me that he looked "tubercular" in the summer. 

(When I first bought him, his name was "Sunny."  I thought that was a dumb name for a big red horse, so I changed it to Mars.  Then I had him clipped for the first time, and it made a little more sense.)

Here is a fact that will be marginaly interesting and will get you nowhere in life: the day after this photo was taken, I found out that Julie was on the way.  (Having lived through a miscarriage exactly six weeks before, I packed Mars up and we went right home!)