University of Alberta researcher Sonya Thompson found that, in a similar study, “…almost one-quarter of the boys watched pornographic DVDs or videos ‘too many times to count’ and 35 percent said the same about Internet smut.”[2]
Now, a Christian social conservative like me naturally finds these statistics troubling, but to many there is nothing wrong with pornography or masturbation. They consider such things to be simply part of the “sexual exploration” that children go through as they mature. Though many who oppose pornography say that it denigrates women and is responsible for much of the sexual violence against women, these arguments are often scoffed at or brushed aside as groundless by those who find pornography harmless. Regardless, pornography is readily available to children and causes them to think about sex, or even partake in it, at a time when they are emotionally and physically immature, robbing them of their childhood.
Lynn Segal, professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of London, categorized views on pornography in three different ways: Liberal, Moral Right and Feminist (though the feminist view has many factions). In a 1990 article in the Feminist Review entitled “Pornography and Violence: What the ‘Experts’ Really Say”, Segal summarizes each view: the Liberal “…argues that there is no scientific evidence for pornography causing harm in society, and therefore no sound reason for banning it.”[3] The Moral Right “…sees pornography as a threat to traditional family values, arguing that sex exists for procreation and should be confined to marriage.”[4] And the Feminist view disapproves of pornography “[i]n its heterosexual versions, reducing women to flesh—or bits of flesh—[since] it celebrates the idea of men’s insatiable appetite and women’s ubiquitous sexual availability.”[5]
The Liberal view prevails in our current culture, and yet I am more inclined to side with the Moral Right (though I would throw the word “enjoyment” in alongside with “procreation”). The aforementioned feminist view troubles Segal, herself a feminist, and she “…fear[s] that the evolving exploration by women of their own sexuality is put at risk by forming alliances with—instead of combating—the conservative anti-pornography crusade…”[6]
I think that the more important issue is whether or not pornography really does have a negative effect on the viewer, especially the child viewer. If it does, then the Liberal view is invalidated, and the Feminist view should be altered to accommodate all pornography, not just that which makes women appear submissive.
In a 1988 study reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers Donnerstein, Linz and Penrod[7] concluded, in Segal’s own words, “…that exposure to violent pornography (for example, depictions of rape) does increase sexual arousal in some men, especially if the victim is shown as ‘enjoying’ the rape.”
A good portion of pornography on the Internet has advanced from relatively tame Playboy centerfolds to more of the shocking and perverse stuff. Since many are no longer excited by bare skin alone, pornography has become increasingly more explicit and taboo, and rape is now a common fantasy realized in pornography—especially Japanese pornography.
“Within Japan itself, the dramatic increase in available pornography and sexually explicit materials is apparent to even a casual observer,” wrote Professor Milton Diamond of the University of Hawaii in 1999 in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. “The [pornography] produced caters to every taste and fetish and is typically much more aggressive and violent than that seen in the United States.”[8] Much of Japanese pornography makes its way onto the Internet, and the sheer amount that is dedicated to the genre of rape is certainly disturbing. “Most charges of obscenity presently are related to depictions of group or violent rape,” said Diamond, “or realistic and graphic film or video depictions of sexual behaviors considered deviant and dangerous…”
So when we hear that children have easy access to pornography while online, we would be naïve to think that they do not come into contact with the shocking and violent kind that permeates cyberspace. In an interview with MSNBC, University of Chicago psychiatrist Sharon Hirsch says, “[Children are] seeing things that they’re really not emotionally prepared to see yet, which can cause trauma to them.”
I would argue that children are not emotionally prepared to see any sort of sexual activity, not just the violent kind, which obviously places me in the camp of the Moral Right. Few will be surprised that I believe sex should exist between a husband and wife, not on the Internet, in magazines, or in the classroom. This is not to say, of course, that children should not receive sexual education.
So no, pornography is not harmless—it robs children of innocence. It’s probably not that great for the rest of us, either.
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[1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16981028/
[2] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17284408/
[3] http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0141-7789%28199023%290%3A36%3C29%3APAVWT%27%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
[4] http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0141-7789%28199023%290%3A36%3C29%3APAVWT%27%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
[5] http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0141-7789%28199023%290%3A36%3C29%3APAVWT%27%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
[6] http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0141-7789%28199023%290%3A36%3C29%3APAVWT%27%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
[7] http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/dan_linz.htm
[8] http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html ¶ 8:16 AM 3 comments
The issue of homosexual marriage seems to inavoidably spiral around children. Take Mary Cheney, for instance. She has become pregnant, and she and her life mate Heather Poe will raise the child together as a lesbian couple. Leonard Pitts Jr., syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald and no conservative, dissaproves of this.
“…[F]athers matter,” he wrote, “something we seem to have forgotten, so busy we are pretending that women and men are interchangable. My problem with Cheney and Poe is the same problem I’d have wth a heterosexual single mom who decided to make herself a baby without benefit of a man in her life.”[1]
For this stance, Pitts was raked over the coals by readers. He was so inundated by hate mail that he felt it necessary to explain his position in an additional column in which he defended his position saying, “I believe that our slide towards a fatherless society, a society where the male parent is considered optional, irrelevant or interchangable, is toxic for our children.”[2]
Pitts’ stance is not outrageous. It is clear that it is best for a child to be raised, not by two mommies or two daddies, but by a mother and a father. In a paper by George A. Rekers, Professor of Neuropsychiatry & Behavioral Science at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, he concludes that the nature of households with homosexual adults “uniquely endangers foster children by exposing them to a substantial level of harmful stress” and “deprives foster children of vitally needed positive contributions.”[3]
As Pitts put it, “…what makes no sense is to pretend that you can remove a father from a child’s life and have the child not notice. …I definitely have something against the idea, whether advanced by straight women or lesbians, that father is unnecessary, that so long as there’s some uncle around to show a boy how to hit the mark in the toilet, everything is hunky dory.”[4]
Even with all of this in mind, an argument about same-sex marriage doesn’t have to completely revolve around children. There are other reasons why homosexual marriage should not exist, children aside. This is not an issue about equality, but is instead an issue about what marriage is and what it is not.
Those who support same-sex marriage vehemently assert that it is blatant inequality for opposite-sex couples to get married while same-sex couples are forbidden to. The problem with this argument is that it does not address what equality means. All adult citizens in the United States of America, regardless of sex, race, religion or orientation, are free to marry an adult of the opposite sex. As the Supreme Court of the State of Washington succinctly put it, “The people of Washington have not had in the past nor, at this time, are they entitled to an expectation that they may choose to marry a person of the same sex,” and again, “DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] treats both sexes the same; neither a man nor a woman may marry a person of the same sex.”[5]
Some argue that homosexuals should be free to marry the person that they love. This argument fails because no one—regardless of sexual orientation—is free to marry anyone they happen to love. For example, if I was in love with Christina Aguilera, I would not be free to marry her. I could love her sincerely and with all my heart, but that still gives me no right to marry. Similarly, even if she loved me back, we would not be free to marry because she is already married. If one is going to argue that love validates marriage, then he must make way for polygamy, among other things.
Lastly, many same-sex marriage proponents argue that along with marriage come civil rights and benefits that same-sex couples who live together and depend upon each other should have access to. This argument definitely has validity, which is why I am not opposed to civil unions. Unlike marriage, civil unions are purely legal affairs which help those who, regardless of sex or orientation, depend upon each other throughout daily life. And yet civil unions are not enough for some homosexuals; they want to be called married, because they realize that marriage is more than just a legal agreement. In the end, then, it is not about the benefits and rights that heterosexual married couples have. It is about pretending that same-sex couples are exactly the same as opposite-sex couples. They just aren’t.
It is clear that those who support same-sex marriage are not trying to “even the playing field”, but are in reality trying to redefine what marriage fundamentally is. I’m a bit put off by the incredibly small minority of those who are so obsessed with their own radical agenda that they want to redefine marriage for the rest of America, and who throw a tantrum when they don’t get their way, labeling those who do not believe the way they do as homophobic, prejudiced bigots. After all, no one likes a bully.
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[1] http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=pitts11&date=20070211
[2] http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/16710167.htm
[3] http://www.narth.com/docs/RationaleBasisFinal0405.pdf
[4] http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/16710167.htm
[5] http://www.courts.wa.gov/newsinfo/content/pdf/759341opn.pdf
I received my Associate of Arts degree from Highline Community College. While there, I took a philosophy course in order to fulfill my distribution requirements. On the very first day of class, my teacher stood up and said, “There is no truth and there is no right and wrong.” For the remainder of the quarter I found myself subjected to odd-ball reasoning and wild conclusions. I was to walk away from the course with the following lesson: there is no way to know anything, and morality is the product of culture, so therefore it is best to hold nothing to be true and have no morals, for right and wrong are just ideas. I did not take this lesson very well.
My teacher is not alone in holding this philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, who uttered the infamous “God is dead,” thought of morality as an error, and that power, over oneself and others, is all that matters. “What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness.” In his essay, “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense,” says the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Nietzsche rejects the idea of universal constants, and claims that what we call ‘truth’ is only ‘a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms.’” Nietzsche is one among many moral relativists who believe that there are no universal moral truths—a philosophy that has become increasingly popular over the years.[1]
I would like to tie in the concepts of truth and morality with beauty. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” goes the popular maxim. This idea has been challenged recently. In an article in The Washington Post last November[2], David Von Drehle talked about Stephen Marquardt, a reconstructive surgeon who used the Golden Mean to discover what he calls the “beauty mask”. The Golden Mean is a mathematical ratio between one and phi—which is 1.618. Marquardt found that a number of proportions in nature, including the human body, directly correspond to this number, 1.618. “Beauty,” wrote Drehle, “…is the name we give to certain signals processed instinctively by our animal brains. It isn't invented by Hollywood or fashion magazines so much as it is programmed into our DNA.”[3]
The theory goes that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but is something that is hard-wired into us, and is something that we all recognize. This is why art throughout the ages—from the bust of an Egyptian queen to Michelangelo’s statue of David—is considered beautiful, regardless of time or culture.
If there is such a thing as absolute beauty, can there not also be absolute truth? Yes, humans interpret all that they see around them in different ways, and these interpretations are often influenced by society, culture, and historical and personal biases. However, even if there were no humans around to interpret that which exists, things would still exist, for reality is not bound by our acknowledgement of it. If there were no more people, the sun would still rise, the wind would still blow, the earth would still shake, and our world would still spin on its great voyage through the universe. These are all truths that remain unchanged regardless of human understanding of them.
Humanity is not the author of truth. All we can do is approach it and try to comprehend it, and our understanding of truth is tainted by our own cultural and personal quirks. Therefore people have different understandings of truth and disagree with each other, but their disagreement has no effect on truth itself. I believe the same is true of right and wrong. All men have their own understandings of right and wrong. Cultures have their own morals and taboos, which sometimes differ from those of their neighbors, but even if there were no humans around to understand morality, right and wrong would still exist.
Let us take, for example, the practice of pederasty. In ancient times, adult men would take adolescent boys under their wing to teach, mentor, and have sex with. It was common in ancient times, took place during the Renaissance[4], and even occurs in some places to this day. It was practiced in ancient Greece and Rome[5], pre-modern Japan and China[6], numerous places throughout Europe[7] and was practiced by the Aztecs and Maya before their conquest.
Our society is repulsed by such behavior. But in order for a moral relativist to remain reputable, he cannot condemn it. To Nietzsche, pederasty must truly be good, for it “heightens the feeling of power” in the man who has sex with a child.
If morality is the result of cultural quirks, then pederasty could never have been evil, for those cultures that practiced it did so because they thought it was good for all parties involved. I must therefore conclude that moral relativism is a load of rubbish. Pederasty, among many other things, is a bad, evil, morally wrong practice, regardless of society, culture and time, for it violates a morality that is not bound by human perception and cannot be manipulated by human interpretation. Like beauty and truth, morality is a constant, universal thing that exists whether or not man exists to understand it.
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[1] http://www.pitt.edu/~wbcurry/nietzsche.html; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/08/AR2006110801477_pf.html
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/08/AR2006110801477_pf.html
[4] Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice, Oxford, 1985
[5] Bruce L. Gerig, "Homosexuality in the Ancient Near East, beyond Egypt", in HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE, Supplement 11A, 2005
[6] T. Watanabe & J. Iwata, The Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality, London: GMP Publishers, 1987
[7] Arié, Rachel. España musulmana (Siglos VIII-XV) in Historia de España, ed. Manuel Tuñón de Lara, III. Barcelona: Labor, 1984.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited, and though I had never smoked at all until then, I felt obliged to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps and take up pipe smoking.
I decided to find myself a nice, high-quality tobacco, and so I drove down to the Kirsten pipe shop in Ballard, right at Fisherman’s Terminal. The shop is family run, and I was privileged to meet the granddaughter of the man who invented my inherited pipe. She had a number of different tobaccos to choose from, and I thus spent the following thirty minutes sniffing humidors to find the perfect blend.
The problem is that due to a sinus surgery that I had when I was a child, I can’t smell very well anymore—if at all. When I asked if I could smoke a few to sample, she sighed and told me that, due to the indoor smoking ban that passed in late 2005, I couldn’t smoke in her shop.
Now that surprised me. I was vaguely familiar with the smoking ban, but I thought it only affected places like restaurants and hotels. I was wrong. The ban forbids smoking in all public places and workplaces—even pipe shops.
I was not daunted in my quest to make pipe smoking a hobby, and so I decided to attend one of the monthly meetings of the Seattle Pipe Club. I got directions from their website, and then was on my way.
I managed to drag an old high school buddy of mine along, and together we made our way to the Rainier Club in downtown Seattle for the monthly meeting. When I asked the receptionist on which floor the pipe club was holding their meeting, she stared at me blankly. As it turns out, the pipe club stopped meeting there back in late 2005, when the smoking ban came into effect, and hadn’t bothered to update the webpage.
Despite being foiled twice by that infernal smoking ban, I have some rather mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I believe the public should not be subject to smoke in restaurants, hotels and similar public places. On the other hand, the Draconian nature of the current law prohibits smoking in sensible smoking places like tobacco shops, which is a shame. A happy medium needs to be found.
Defendants of the smoking ban argue that second-hand smoke can harm employees and guests as much as if they were smoking themselves, but it has become clear to me that the dangers of second-hand smoke are greatly exaggerated.
118,094 people participated in a 2003 study by the American Cancer Society. The findings of the study may surprise many. “In a large study of Californians followed for 40 years,” wrote researchers James E. Enstrom of the University of California School of Public Health and Geoffrey C. Kabat of the Department of Preventive Medicine at New York State University, “environmental tobacco smoke was not associated with coronary heart disease or lung cancer mortality at any level of exposure. These findings suggest that the effects of environmental tobacco smoke, particularly for coronary heart disease, are considerably smaller than generally believed.”[1] They go on to defend the study: “None of the other cohort studies on environmental tobacco smoke has more strengths, and none has presented as many detailed results.”
Now, I’m not using the results of this study to suggest that there are no dangers to smoking tobacco. Cigarettes are especially dangerous and, due to their addictive nature, are best not to be smoked by anyone—ever. Cigars are less threatening, but even they, if smoked at all, should be used as a treat on rare occasions. Pipes are by far the safest form of tobacco use because you do not inhale pipe smoke and the pipe acts as a natural filter. From my personal experience, I am convinced that it is well-nigh impossible to get addicted to pipe tobacco, unless you smoke incessantly. Even so, pipes are not completely harmless and shouldn’t be smoked on a daily basis.
Do the unsubstantiated health risks of second-hand smoke justify an outright ban on smoking in public places? Second-hand smoke is surely unpleasant to some people due to its smell and tendency to aggravate allergies and asthma. I think these are reasons enough to regulate smoking in public without pumping the populous full of false fears of getting cancer from second-hand smoke, but shopkeepers should also be free to have places open to the public that are set aside specifically for smokers.
The point is that most things—even tobacco—are harmless when used in moderation. Just as alcohol and sugary-sweets are not dangerous if consumed sparingly as a treat, so are some tobacco products when not used habitually. Seattle’s Initiative 901 which banned smoking in all public and work places had the best of intentions, I’m sure, but in striving to protect the sensitive noses of those who hate tobacco smoke, the ban has effectively transformed even the most casual of smokers into lepers, and this needs to change. There should be places where smokers can smoke—such as at pipe shops and pipe clubs—without fear of persecution or being fined. This is America, after all.
[1] http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057 ¶ 12:24 PM 4 comments
One politician recently announced his candidacy for the White House. He then felt compelled to comment on others who are running, and when he got to Senator Barack Obama, he had this to say: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy ... I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”[1]
Was that a racist comment? It sort of appears to be. After all, it infers that all other mainstream African-Americans are not articulate, are not bright and are not very clean. Ok, so now I want you to consider your answer to my first question. Do you think the author of this sentence is a Democrat or a Republican? Why?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that most of you chose “Republican” as your answer to my first question. Indeed, the concept that Republicans are racist and Democrats are not is a very popular one. “Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks,” said Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University.[2] When criticizing the then Republican-run House of Representatives, Senator Hillary Clinton said, “When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about.”[3] It is clear to me that this view of racist Republicans is a well-entrenched one.
For those that don’t keep up with the news, it may be a shock then to discover that the man quoted in my second paragraph was actually a Democrat. It was Democratic Senator Joe Biden, having just announced his bid for the presidency, who was commenting on Barack Obama, calling him the first bright, articulate and clean mainstream African-American.
This isn’t the first time Senator Biden has said something that could be considered racist. In June of 2006 he was caught on film saying, “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”[4]
Now, just as then, he has gotten a pass by the media. For a few days after Biden made the comment about Senator Obama, the media dabbled with the story, but always explained it away or approached it as if it were an “oops!” moment on his part. Indeed, in a four-page article, ABCNews.com described it as simply another foot-in-mouth moment for Senator Biden, and then used the remainder of the article to demonstrate why Biden is not really a racist.[5]
The same courtesy was not given to Republican Senator Trent Lott. In December of 2002, Senator Lott made a comment during the birthday party of Senator Strom Thurmond in which he said, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.”[6] This rather vague statement was interpreted by the media to signify that Lott supported racial segregation. As a direct result of this comment, Lott was forced to resign as Senate Republican Leader.
It is a horrible injustice, in my view, to paint Republicans as racist. Indeed, if you read the unofficial “this is what we do to discredit and combat Republicans” manual for liberals, calling your opponent a racist is first on the list. What might be irksome for some to realize is that Democrats and liberals have often been caught dabbling in racism themselves.
For instance, when the black Maryland Republican Michael S. Steele was campaigning for the Senate, he was pelted by those who were Democratic supporters with Oreos and called “Uncle Tom” during a campaign appearance. This behavior was justified by Democratic Maryland State Senator Lisa A. Gladden: “Party trumps race, especially on the national level. If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you.”[7]
Or how about when Ted Rall, a left-wing columnist and cartoonist, called Condoleezza Rice a “house nigga”?[8] Or when left-wing[9] radio host Neil Rogers said, “Is you their black-haired answer-mammy who be smart? Does they like how you shine their shoes, Condoleezza? Or the way you wash and park the whitey’s cars?”[10] What about when Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, when talking about phony insurance policies when he didn’t think the camera was rolling, said, “Blacks and Hispanics were too busy eating watermelons and tacos to read the fine-print…”?
Republicans are not racist simply because they are Republicans. This stereotype perpetuated by some on the Left harms not just the Right but all of American discourse. Senator Biden’s comments were not well thought out, but he apologized for them and insists that he meant no harm by them. What good does it do to rabble about racism and brand him with a scarlet “R”? I am rather inclined to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt. Unlike what happened to Trent Lott, Biden shouldn’t be harangued by the media until he is forced to resign. But of course, this wouldn’t happen anyway. After all, as far as the media are concerned, no Democrat can really be a racist.
[1] http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/01/biden_on_obama_.html
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900642_pf.html
[3] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/16/211637.shtml
[4] http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2838420&page=3
[5] http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2838420&page=1
[6] http://www.samsloan.com/lottties.htm
[7] http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20051101-104932-4054r.htm
[8] http://thebluesite.com/images/ted_rall_is_an_idiot.gif
[9] http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_44_16/ai_72272523; http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/7/24/125554.shtml
[10] http://hiphoprepublican.com/2006/08/top-racist-democrat-quotes_30.html; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/774601/posts; http://www.rbr.com/epaper/pages/nov02/02-90_news.html ¶ 12:20 PM 4 comments
Some of us have no intention of ever getting married. In last Sunday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Maria Anglin[1] wrote a column about the modern single female. She quoted a number of interesting statistics, including one from a recent New York Times poll which stated that 51 percent of women live without a spouse. She interpreted this as indicating that woman are increasingly “…in control of their own happiness, or unhappiness.”
How much control any of us have over our happiness is, I think, quite debatable, but the notion that being single makes one just as happy as or happier than being married, is false.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with being single, and there are many single people who live happy lives. I think, however, that the majority of us were built with an innate desire for marriage, and that it is often monogamous matrimony, not hedonistic singleness, that can bring us a greater happiness.
“On average,” says Linda J. Waite, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, “…marriage seems to produce substantial benefits for men and women in the form of better health, longer life, more and better sex…greater wealth and better outcomes for children.”[2]
I find additional evidence of this innate desire for marriage in the prevalence of casual sex, which is viewed as a sort of recreational activity. I do not think it is. Rather, I think sex was designed specifically to exist between a husband and wife. It is the widespread desire of men and women to partake in casual sex which betrays, in my view, a deeper desire for a marriage relationship. A fellow and his girlfriend who romp beneath the sheets on a regular basis are not simply seeking sexual pleasure for its own sake but are playing marriage, and doing so in a haphazard way.
“Here,” says Waite, “both married men and married women report more emotional satisfaction with their sex lives than do those who are single or cohabitating… sexual nonmonogamy leads to a less satisfying sexual relationship with any one partner.”[3]
Former groupie Dawn Eden recently wrote an article in The Sunday Times of London entitled “Casual sex is a con: women just aren’t like men”[4] in which she explores the emotional effects of casual sex on women. “It’s in the nature of sex to awaken deep emotions within us,” she said, “emotions that are unwelcome when one is trying to keep it light.”
These emotions are designed to strengthen the bond between spouses. Andrew M. Greeley, Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona, has come to similar conclusions, believing that sex helps keep marriages healthy by bringing couples closer emotionally and helping them weather life’s troubles together.[5] Thus I do not think that sex can ever be truly recreational, for whenever people have sex, a bond is formed, and if people have sex with multiple partners, they can and do become emotionally confused or hurt, and don’t know why.
The Declaration says that we have the right to pursue happiness. The problem is that a lot of things that we think make us happy, like casual sex, really don’t. They excite us for a time but then we grow bored with them, or they look appealing, but once we have them we are unfulfilled. Marriage is a lot of work—very hard work—but before a clay vessel can be put to good use it must first be cured by the flame. Likewise, those things we work for the hardest are the things we value the most. The difficulty of marriage should not be a roadblock, but should instead be the narrow path that leads to fulfillment and ultimate happiness.
“The misguided, hedonistic philosophy which urges young women into this kind of behaviour harms both men and women,” said Eden; “but it is particularly damaging to women, as it pressures them to subvert their deepest emotional desires.”
This view is echoed by G. W. Jones, Professor and Co-ordinator of the Demography Program at the Australian National University: “The increasing trend towards consensual [sexual] partnering in the West, seen by many as an emancipation from the rigid concepts of marriage, may represent a new enslavement rather than freedom for women.”[6]
It is for these reasons and others that I think sex is marriage. Not a legal marriage, surely, but marriage has existed long before there were governments to hand out certificates, and it is this soulful union that is intrinsically caught up with, and demonstrated by, the physical act of intercourse.
With Valentine’s Day swiftly approaching, it is time for couples to start their meticulous planning—the flowers, the candy, the romantic outings—with the hope of ending the evening with a salacious spree in bed. I therefore urge couples to pause and ask themselves a few questions. What am I really wanting? Is it making me happy? Am I being fulfilled? If not, maybe there really is something to this chastity thing.
[1] http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/301349_woman28.html
[2] “Does Marriage Matter?” Linda J. Waite. Demography, Vol. 32, No. 4, (Nov., 1995), pp. 483-507
[3] “Does Marriage Matter?” Linda J. Waite. Demography, Vol. 32, No. 4, (Nov., 1995), pp. 483-507
[4] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2545852,00.html
[5] Greely, A. 1994. Sex: The Catholic Experience. Allen, TX: Tabor.
[6] (1994:900). Jones, G.W, 1994. Review of William J. Goode, “World Changes in Divorce Patterns.” Population and Development review 20:899-901 ¶ 8:07 AM 0 comments
People have reacted to the news a number of ways; some supportive, some compassionate but others with fury. “Ashley's parents have committed the ultimate betrayal,” said David, a man who suffers from sever cerebral palsy, on his blog recently. “They have treated their daughter as less than human, not worthy of dignity.... What strikes me about ‘the Ashley treatment’ and has brought me to tears is that the very people in all of society whom this child should trust have betrayed her.”[2] Fox News reported one reader reacting to the story by saying, “I find this offensive if not perverse. Truly a milestone in our convenience-minded society.”[3]
When I first heard about the story, I was also very upset. While science has provided us with uncountable advantages, especially in medicine, scientists are merely human and make their fair share of blunders; misdiagnoses, for instance, being among them. Additionally, some doctors can lie to patients or misrepresent the truth in order to further their own aims, such as the case with David Reimer who was raised as a girl in an experiment by Dr. John Money, who theorized that gender was due to how the child is raised rather than genetic coding (he was wrong, by the way).[4] But after reading everything I could on the issue, I have come to the conclusion that Ashley’s parents made the right decision.
Now, I’m a conservative who was disgusted over the fate of Terry Schiavo. I think that the possibility of “designer babies”[5], where parents manipulate their child’s embryo in order to design their baby with desirable or cosmetic characteristics, is wrong—ethically, legally and morally. But with Ashley, I think her parents made use of technology, not for their own personal benefit, but for the well-being of their child, and I do not believe that Ashley’s womanhood or dignity was violated or betrayed in any way.
Before the operation as done, the case was presented to the ethics committee at Seattle Children’s Hospital, who approved of the procedure.[6] Despite this, feminist groups and disability activists protested outside of the American Medical Association headquarters in Chicago not long ago, demanding that Ashley’s doctors be condemned for the procedure.[7] Some argue that her womanhood was violated and by sterilizing her she will never be free to choose to have children. However, since she has the mind of a three-month-old, she will never have the mental capacity to choose to have a child or not, and just as parents make decisions in the best interests of their infants, so did Ashley’s parents in carrying out the operation.
“If the concern has something to do with the girl’s dignity being violated,” wrote George Dvorsky, member of the Board of Directors for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, “then I have to protest by arguing that the girl lacks the cognitive capacity to experience any sense of indignity… The estrogen treatment is not what is grotesque here. Rather, it is the prospect of having a full-grown and fertile woman endowed with the mind of a baby.”[8]
Some have looked at this issue as perverse because they think the parents are changing their child’s body simply for their own convenience, desiring to keep Ashley a child forever. Her parents responded to such allegations on their blog[9], saying, “A fundamental and universal misconception about the treatment is that it is intended to convenience the caregiver; rather, the central purpose is to improve Ashley’s quality of life.” We, on the outside, can speculate about the parent’s motives all we want, but none of us can read their minds. It is therefore irresponsible for us to assume the worst of parents who have to deal with so difficult a situation. I think it is better to take them at their word. It is clear to me that Ashley’s parents made the best decision they could, solely for the wellbeing of their child.
This is a tricky and touchy subject, for to tackle it means to tread through water that has been rather untouched. Any science that deals with manipulating the very basics of human existence makes me altogether squeamish, but Ashley’s parents make a rather good point when they point out that, “The objection that this treatment interferes with nature is one of the most ridiculous objections of all; medicine is all about interfering with nature.” People have strong emotions about this and similar issues, and they generally have the best of intentions. I think in this case we should bless Ashley and her parents and pray that Ashley’s treatment ends up bringing her greater happiness.
[1] http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/
[2] http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/01/11/ashley.outcry/index.html
[3] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,241279,00.html
[4]http://www.canadiancrc.com/articles/Globe_and_Mail_Boy_raised_as_girl_suffered_final_indignity_11MAY04.htm
[5] http://www.bionetonline.org/English/Content/db_cont1.htm
[6] http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/
[7] http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/01/11/ashley.outcry/index.html
[8] http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/
[9] http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/ ¶ 9:25 PM 1 comments
The desire of men and women to practice their religion freely goes way back. After a twelve year sojourn in Holland, the English Separatists came to North America in 1620 to separate themselves from the Church of England.[1] This desire to practice ones religion separate from the government is echoed in the words of the English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon: “To prevent for ever the possibility of Papists roasting Protestants, Anglicans hanging Romish priests, and Puritans flogging Quakers, let every form of state-churchism be utterly abolished, and the remembrance of the long curse which it has cast upon the world be blotted out for ever.”[2]
This separation is essential and no nation should ever be ruled as a theocracy. Being a Christian, I find vindication of this stance in the Bible. In 1st Samuel the people of Israel come to Samuel and ask for a king, having been ruled by God through his prophets up until that point. Samuel is troubled by this request, and he tells them what will happen to them if they have a king. Their crops will be taken, their flocks will be taken, their sons and daughters will be conscribed to serve the king alone and they themselves will become slaves. But the Israelites don’t care and want to be like the other nations so much that they ignore Samuel and insist on having a king.[3]
Since then it has been up to man to rule man, and sadly we do a poor job of it. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”[4]
Despite my insistence that church and state must be separate, people have used this separation to persecute the religious or restrict their freedoms unnecessarily. The ACLU, for instance, forced Los Angeles County to remove a tiny cross from their municipal seal in 2004,[5] and yet it also filed a lawsuit in 2006 to allow veterans and their families to place pentacles and other Wiccan symbols on headstones in federal cemeteries (a right I incidentally believe Wiccans should have). Both of these were done under the pretence of separating church and state, and while I approve of the latter, the former is unnecessary and outrageous (for it seems that the ACLU overlooked the obvious—Los Angeles, along with San Diego, San Francisco, San Antonio and a host of other cities have religious names, which is no reason for them to be renamed). I do not believe that this separation should be used as an excuse to purge all memory of, or reference to, religion from the public square.
When looking for examples of governments run by religion, we need look no further than the Islamic salafi jihad movement which seeks to restore “authentic” Islam by establishing a great Islamist state that would eliminate present national boundaries and stretch from Morocco to the Philippines.[6] This great state would be a theocracy ruled by Sharia Law which regulates daily life, including sexuality, religion and social issues.[7]
It was in compliance with Sharia Law that a man named Rahman in Afghanistan was sentenced to death in 2006 for converting to Christianity.[8] It was only after a huge outcry from the West that the man was released from prison, whereupon he promptly fled to Italy for asylum. Five hundred or more Afghans gathered at a mosque and demanded that Rahman be forced to convert to Islam or be killed.[9]
When British Muslims were surveyed in the UK, an alarming forty percent of them wanted Sharia Law introduced in Brittan.[10] The framer’s of our constitution understood that any theocracy, whether Christian, Islamic or what have you, would be unacceptable, because men with absolute power claiming to do the bidding of the divine are far too susceptible to corruption and abuse of that power. We must therefore remember what is at stake and contemplate the bigger picture before flying off the handle over a little cross on a county seal.
[1] Rorabaugh, William, et al. America’s Promise Volume I. Pages 44-45.
[2] Spurgeon, Charles H. (August 1988). "The Inquisition". Sword and Trowel.
[3] 1st Samuel 8:1-20
[4] http://jpetrie.myweb.uga.edu/bulldog.html (I used this URL because it is an .edu site; however there are plenty of other sites [some of which are more accurate and reliable] that still assuredly attribute this quote to Winston Churchill.)
[5] http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040913/news_1n13seal.html
[6] http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/warwithoutborders/salafist.html
[7] http://www.answering-islam.org/Sharia/
[8] http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/22/afghan.christian/index.html
[9] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189440,00.html
[10] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/19/nsharia19.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_19022006 ¶ 12:30 PM 2 comments
We gave our presentation to the class and were met with stunned silence. One vocal student responded by asking us if we knew what the acronym USA PATRIOT stood for, as if the answer to this question would completely invalidate the actual content of the Act. Thus we began to argue, and after watching us go back and forth, our teacher interceded and gave us a lengthy lecture.
I’m not exactly sure how it pertained to the topic, but she told us at that moment in a very blunt, confident manner, that Fox News was the most biased and blatantly partisan media publication in existence. If I do recall correctly, I think I actually laughed out loud, for I was met with harsh stares and evil looks from some of my classmates (most notably by the rather vocal one). Having immersed myself in media of various formats over the past few years, I have had time to reflect upon the words of my former teacher and am obliged to disagree with her.
Now, I do not disagree with her because I think that Fox News is unbiased. Far from it. I think the fact that they present themselves as “fair and balanced” is silly. Rather, I disagree with her because I think that all news media are equally biased and equally partisan. You see, when a reporter sifts through the news of the day and chooses the story that he is to report on, he doesn’t do so free from bias. It is through a reporter’s (or publication’s) own personal bias, molded by religious or political beliefs, personal experiences or professional expediency, that he chooses a topic, finds a source or otherwise molds his article. When he interviews a source, he crafts his questions in order to illicit responses that either agree with his own viewpoint or make a contrary one look ridiculous. And when he can get neither from a source, he can quote a statement to say whatever he wants it to, for example, turning “I am sure that there is no such thing as a fairy,” into “I am…a fairy.”
That said, I do not think that bias is necessarily a bad thing. Since we are all biased and since it is impossible to be wholly free from bias, I think it would be better for us to simply admit our bias and get on with things instead of pretending that it isn’t there. It is a good thing that we have so many sources of news out there that report different stories in different ways, for if we had just select stories reported from only one viewpoint we would be left with a very incomplete knowledge of the issues.
I listen to talk radio while I am at work, and I get raked over the coals by friends for doing so. After all, they say, those radio talk show personalities are all biased sell-outs who do not adhere to the same standards as journalists. An argument can be made for this, but the nice thing about talk radio is that many of them admit that they are biased and don’t put up this false venire of pristine journalistic non-partisanship. They instead make purposeful arguments that they are passionate about and leave it to the listener to either accept their argument or do a little fact checking on their own to verify it.
The problem with the Old Media, as it has come to be known, is that it dresses itself up as a sort of untouchable standard of truthfulness, and this presents many problems, the greatest of which is a misguided sense of infallibility. It is from behind the shield of mainstream professional publications that some journalists, such as Jayson Blair, Jack Kelly and Janet Cooke, have been caught plagiarizing other sources or completely fabricating stories. And let us not forget “Rathergate” and his escapade with the Killian documents. It is only when ones feels sufficiently invulnerable to outside criticism that he can muster the cojones to betray journalistic standards and simply lie.
It is naïve of us to consider any media source to be unbiased. We cannot rely on one form of media, be it talk radio, newspapers, the internet or news broadcasts, if we want to know what is really going on out there. It is our responsibility to peruse many different forms of media and then make our own informed decisions instead of taking The New York Times, CNN or Fox News at face value. I disagree with my former teacher because she gave the impression that all major news broadcasts are superior to Fox News because Fox is biased by leaning conservative. Instead, we should be glad that Fox leans conservative (and that everything else leans liberal) so that we can familiarize ourselves with different points of view in order to become more informed individuals. Otherwise we just become pawns to those who monopolize the media. ¶ 12:53 PM 2 comments
By Brandon Dennis
WorldNetDaily reported recently that more U.S. citizens were killed every day by illegal immigrants than U.S. soldiers by the war. Data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research has led a number of groups and researchers to this conclusion, including Rep. Steve King who released numbers determining that 4,380 U.S. citizens are murdered annually by illegal immigrants.
As of this writing, the total number of deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq alone is reported at 2,941 since the beginning of the war, and the total number from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan over the past five years combined comes to 289. Compare this to the estimated 21,900 citizens murdered by illegal immigrants since September 11th, 2001.
When we hear the story of an impoverished family racing across the border, dodging minutemen and the INS in order to obtain better lives for themselves, our hearts go out to them. Who wouldn’t do the same, if placed in their circumstances? It is from this compassion that we are naturally inclined to a viewpoint that leaves our borders wide open, for after all, this nation is a nation founded by immigrants, and shouldn’t we let anyone inside who wants to be here?
In the end, no, we should not, and not because we are cruel, evil or otherwise malicious, but because the safety of our own citizens takes the highest priority. There are plenty of reasons why our current immigration laws, which have existed for decades, should be enforced, but the one that has the most immediate effect upon our everyday lives is how greatly our physical wellbeing is compromised with an open border policy.
In addition to the 4,380 that are murdered by illegals every year, 4,754 are killed by drunken illegal immigrant drivers, as reported by WorldNetDaily. When you do the math, the number of people who have been killed since 9/11 as the direct result of an open border is nearly 8 times greater than the number of U.S. servicemen killed since the beginning of the war.
We must stop playing political games by cloaking this issue with the mantle of racism because the consequences of an open border are real and deadly. It is true that the majority of illegal immigrants are peaceful, good and honest people who just want to better their lives, but the stark and horrible reality of the matter is that along with them come the miscreants that plague any society. And they come in droves.
King reported that 2,920 children are molested by illegal immigrants annually. According to Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta, there are an estimated 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States with an average of four victims each. The Government Accountability Office released a report in April of 2005 concluding that, of the 55,322 incarcerated illegal aliens studied, each had an average of 8 arrests and 13 criminal offenses.
Politicians cry from their podiums to bring the soldiers home, and the war has understandably become a very emotional and politically charged issue. After all, just recently the number of U.S. servicemen lost over the past five years has surpassed the number of civilians killed on one day in September. But I think we need some perspective:
- Mexican-American War: Lasted 2 years, 13,283 U.S. servicemen died
- Civil War: Lasted 4 years, 562,130 U.S. servicemen died
- World War I: Lasted 4 years, 116,708 U.S. servicemen died
- World War II: Lasted 6 years, 408,306 U.S. servicemen died
- Korean War: Lasted 3 years, 54,246 U.S. servicemen died
- Vietnam War: Lasted 14 years, 58,219 U.S. servicemen died
So far the War on Terror has lasted five years at the cost of 3,230 U.S. servicemen. If we care about human life as much as we say we do, then we would at least be equally horrified at the number of deaths that are the direct result of illegal immigration—which over the past five years have amounted to nearly half as much as the total deaths of the 14 year-long Vietnam War—as we are over the deaths of our soldiers overseas. I think it behooves us all to not brush away the topic for fear of being labeled with a scarlet “R”. ¶ 12:15 PM 8 comments
