Vincent Tumy spoke to my theology class on Tuesday. He was very conservative. At one point he commended the social value of caring for the handicapped and otherwise disadvantaged, comparing the example of a nomadic society which carried a woman who had been born disabled around the desert for the entire duration of her life to the example of women who have sued hospitals for depriving them of their opportunity to abort their handicapped children by not informing them of the handicaps. I have some questions for the good doctor:
Have you ever carried a handicapped woman around the desert? Have you ever carried any handicapped person anywhere? Have you ever even pushed one around in a wheelchair?
Have you ever become pregnant with or given birth to a handicapped child, and thus been saddled with the rewards and responsibilities of raising one? Have you ever fathered such a child? Have you ever demonstrated your commitment to the commendable values of sacrifice and service, and simultaneously preserved the valuable life of a child, by going to a woman who was planning to abort her handicapped child and offering to assume responsibility for raising the child if she would consent to give birth to it? Have you ever looked into adopting one of the many abandoned or orphaned handicapped children who are routinely passed over in favor of healthy orphans, thereby demonstrating your commitment to these values which you commend?
Or have you simply spent your life pointing to some one's behavior as commendable, and some other's contrary behavior as disgraceful, without actually applying to your own life these lessons that you impart to others through your writing? Have you in any way followed the example of the sacrificing nomadic tribe which you cite favorably? Has your behavior in any way set you apart from the women who decline the opportunity to make similar sacrifices? Do you realize that you too have this opportunity, or are you too busy encouraging other people to sacrifice for the good of the world and their souls?
Also, he distinguished Catholicism from Islam by saying that Catholicism grows and changes.
I must get back to updating this journal. I like this journal. Now that I am home there is much fuel for the fire but limited access. I must remember that this is here, and be better also about posting rants here instead of in my main journal. Perhaps I will transfer some here...
Bad France! Haven't you learned, you are supposed to just do whatever the US wants you to do!? What's with this "I think you're being reckless and needlessly pushing for war" shit? You French, unlike us, have been overrun by war in your homeland so many damn times in the last century. You have an unbelievable amount of experience of having your entire nation be under attack by a large national army. That, if anything, shows how little you know about what exactly is at stake here.
(I must confess I did not come up with that wonderful title myself.)
New York Times, Jan. 19, 2003
"Schlafly has pushed for child tax credits . . . and opposed tax breaks for the costs of child care . . . . She has fought for years to ensure that marriage-penalty relief flows to families with stay-at-home moms."
Fuck Phyllis Schlafly. Oh, and fuck the Times. Obviously familes in which one spouse can afford to stay at home are those most in need of tax relief.
There's this commercial on the Christian radio station my mother listens to about persecuted Christians in Afghanistan. They say that Christians in that nation have lost everything they own and been turned out of their homes because of their faith, and now that winter is on, we should "share the love of Christ" with them ny sending blankets and things. Apparently the non-Christians in Afghanistan who are in the same situation because of us attacking them do not need this kind of help. For that matter, I have trouble believing that the problems currently suffered by Christians in Afghanistan (which are, remember, the same problems that non-Christians in Afghanistan are currently experiencing), are caused by persecution rather than by the cause of these same problems for non-Christians - the war.