Jun

27

2003

Gay-bashing, bad – Catholic-bashing, good

Filed Under Religion | Comments Off

I respect Andrew Sullivan for much of his writing, but the one thing where we differ wildly is obvious. And no, it’s not proof of my homophobia, because many times I can discount his opinion as, well, his opinion, and be done with it. But he is so arrogantly sure he is right on matters of sex, he allows himself to be just as prejudiced against his opponents on the issue as he thinks they are of him.

Lately his number one enemy has been Rich Santorum. For example, in referring to the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas yesterday:

Sex in our culture

Jun

25

2003

Andrew Sullivan: Liberal

Filed Under Politics | Comments Off

I missed this one:

Am I an extremist to be disappointed that SCOTUS didn’t just strike down both Michigan Law School’s racist entrance policies and the undergraduate admissions scheme? In terms of what might happen to the racial make-up in higher education, perhaps I am. But I still don’t believe that discrimination as a means is justified by diversity as an end. And I think that kind of squeamishness is integral to liberalism as a political philosophy. It’s part of the long American story: how race has always been the greatest solvent for political liberalism; and still is.
Wouldn’t you like to be a (real) liberal, too?

I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat myself: soon, “conservative” and “liberal” will be replaced by new labels. I don’t know what they’ll be, but “The Times, They Are A-Changin’”

Jun

25

2003

Could Maureen Dowd Be Any More Condescending?

Filed Under Race and Prejudice | Comments Off

I’m absolutely flummoxed by this.

In his dissent, he snidely dismisses the University of Michigan Law School’s desire to see minority faces in the mix as “racial aesthetics,” giving the effort to balance bigotry in society the moral weight of a Benetton ad. The phrase “racial aesthetics” would be more appropriately applied to W.’s nominating convention in Philadelphia, when the Republicans put on a minstrel show for the white fat cats in the audience.

Justice Thomas scorns affirmative action as “a faddish slogan of the cognoscenti.” Quoting Frederick Douglass on the “Negro” 140 years ago, he urges: ” `All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! . . . Your interference is doing him positive injury.’ “

He is at the pinnacle, an African-American who succeeded in getting past the Anita Hill sexual harassment scandal by playing the race card, calling the hearing “a high-tech lynching,” and who got a $1.5 million advance to write his African-American Horatio Alger story, “From Pin Point to Points After.”

So why, despite his racial blessings, does he come across as an angry, bitter, self-pitying victim?

This woman is so steeped in her own delusion of superiority that she can’t see she just casually discounted the words of one of the greatest orators and civil rights crusaders in American history as the rant of an “angry, bitter” black man.

The good news: they’ve had so little to be happy about lately, this ruling has catapulted the Left into an orgasm of stupidity that will only hasten their demise as a valid brand of political thought.

Jun

25

2003

Affirmative Action, aka White Guilt Syndrome

Filed Under Race and Prejudice | Comments Off

John McWhorter has an excellent column today, very reminiscent of Thomas on Monday.

But it’s hard to see bigotry in the white administrators so elated this week that they will be able to continue jerryrigging classes into a suitable level of “diversity.” O’Connor’s statement tiptoes around the elephant sitting in the middle of the room: Why is it that even well-off black students so rarely hit the highest note in grades and scores?

The answer is a culture-internal tendency, largely tacit but powerful, to associate scholarly endeavor with being “white.” This affects black students’ performance regardless of class, as countless journalistic reports have demonstrated and UC-Berkeley professor of anthropology John Ogbu’s book-length study of the problem now confirms. If we wish to undo that tendency, lowering standards for all black people regardless of life circumstances will only nurture it.

McWhorter even brought his own Douglass-style quote along, courtesy of Zora Neale Hurston: “If others are in there, deal me a hand and let me see what I can make of it.”

Amen, sister.

Jun

24

2003

A victory for America, or another step back?

Filed Under Law and Ethics, Race and Prejudice | Comments Off

The voices of America are rippling with discussion over yesterday’s Supreme Court decision regarding racial discrimination. Since that issue is very much the central part of the purpose of this website (thank you again, Mr. Lott), you’d think I’d have a lot to say on the issue. But I’ll let some other people comment on the subject matter in a fashion far better than I could.

I’ll concentrate on the dissenting opinion of one of the “minority” justices, who said:

Frederick Douglass, speaking to a group of abolitionists almost 140 years ago, delivered a message lost on today

Jun

21

2003

The Rebellion Strikes Back

Filed Under Law and Ethics, Religion | Comments Off

Bill Buckley, the Old Man of the Grand Old Party, has taken the lectern, and has he got a funny story to tell…

Attorney General Pryor has run into the high risk of sassing critically situated senators. Not that there was ever any possibility that Sen. Feingold would vote to confirm the nomination of Pryor to the court of appeals. The 41-year-old Pryor had given the committee an answer to the big question. He said it with a straight face. Said it as matter-of-factly as if he had been asked by the short- order cook if he wanted his steak well-done. The great question:

“Mr. Pryor, you once said that you thought the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was `the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.’ Do you still think that?”

“Oh yes,” said Pryor.

When asked whether he thought that that decision had had moral consequences, he said, oh yes. He explained: “It has led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children.”

Woo-hoo! There’s more funnies from the Pryor hearings, so read the article. Gotta catch that rerun on C-SPAN2.

Jun

21

2003

A miter full of denial

Filed Under Religion | Comments Off

Yet another public Catholic recites his woes, this time E.J. Dionne, who spends an entire column discussing the plight of the post-Keating Catholic lay review board.

But beyond the internal politics is a problem of spiritual leadership. “We’re in month 18 of the most serious crisis in the history of the American Catholic Church,” says Scott Appleby, a Notre Dame professor of religious history who addressed the bishops last year. “And we have yet to hear from leading figures in the church about how we should make moral, ethical, theological and spiritual sense of what happened.”

Lay Catholic leader Peggy Steinfels argues that much of the responsibility for doing this now falls on the lay board: “They have to write a final report that’s not just numbers and statistics but also explains to people why this happened — and tells the truth.” The truth may not protect bishops from lawsuits, but, as the New Testament says, it could make them free.

Why is it that after all we’ve been through, the bishops are waiting until next spring for a bunch of lay people (who they constantly insist are irrelevant) to tell them what to do? Is there no one among the ecclesiastics willing to stand up and – GASP! – preach the Gospel?

Disillusionment doesn’t even begin to describe my attitude toward the church these days.

Jun

19

2003

Hope is a Gift

Filed Under Religion | Comments Off

Frank Keating has resigned as Chairman of the Catholic lay review board founded after last year’s National Council of Bishops meeting. He wrote an op-ed in today’s New York Times.

Sadly, a few church leaders, including some in large dioceses, chose to resist and obstruct the board. When we asked valid questions, they gave us few or no answers. Where information and cooperation was called for, we received delay or an outright refusal to help.

These few leaders turned to their lawyers when they should have looked into their hearts

  • Featured Sponsor

  • Recent Comments

  • Recent Posts

  • Archives

  • Categories