Catholics and climate change

As I drive streets of my area and elsewhere, I often see cars sporting bumper stickers bearing the legend "I'm Catholic and I Vote," and I often wonder not so much about what the cars' owners mean but what they could mean, for the Catholic Church's teachings on disparate political issues can easily carrying very different political messages for voters in the world of American politics.

I sort of assume that for many such drivers, the statement is more than anything else a coded phrase on abortion and abortion rights, which would imply a vote for right-wing Republicans and/or anti-choice conservative Democrats. But it could just as easily signify support for social welfare or economic justice, or against capital punishment or aggressive war, for the Church's teachings on these topics are very clear, and definitely don't favor the electoral interests of those conservatives and right-wingers.

With that in mind I read with great interest recent comments by Pope Francis that "We are the Custodians of Creation," a point expanded upon by a Vatican statement* that
  
The perspective given by this spiritual gift leads us to respect God’s gift of creation and to exercise wise stewardship of its resources for the benefit of the whole human family.

A recent editorial in the National Catholic Reporter on climate change expands upon that point.

The problem is enormous, but so is the opportunity for the church to use its resources, its access to some of the best experts in its academies and the attention of those in its parochial structures to begin to educate. This is a human life issue of enormous proportions, and one in which the young should be fully engaged. 

Finding a fix for climate change and its potentially disastrous consequences, particularly for the global poor, is not the work of a single discipline or a single group or a single political strategy. Its solution lies as much in people of faith as in scientific data, as much or more in a love for God's creation as it does in our instinct for self-preservation.

I tend to look at public policy and environmental issues from a secular persepctive, but this line of reasoning is extremely apt. For better or for worse, we are the stewards of our planet, and the message for those of us who see a divine purpose in that stewardship, the message is very, very clear. 

If those bumper-sticker Catholic voters mean to say that they are "Pro-Life," there should no bigger issue than the stewardship of our planet. For them, or for anybody else. 

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*  Andrew C. Revkin, "Pope Francis: 'We are Custodians of Creation'," New York Times, May 22, 2014

People Power in Istanbul

I'm watching with great interest and concern the current developments in Istanbul and elsewhere throughout the Republic of Turkey. 

I have long distrusted the government of Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP). Most of that comes from my general wariness of politicians who exploit conservative, religious populism, and not from any personal knowledge of Turkey. 

But following the increasingly alarming news being reported in the better press outlets available in the U.S., I have become more and more troubled. It has seemed to me that much as rich American ideologues pull the strings manipulating both the seemingly similar strains of right-wing, religious populism in the Republican Party, so it is seeming that Erdogan and the corporate interests and investors backing him are using pious conservatives and traditional to advance a political and economic  far removed from the interests of the masses providing the AKP with its votes.

That said, it is extremely heartening to see the multitudes mobilizing to resist Erdogan and the AKP, and I wish them well. (I also wish we saw their like in the U.S.!)

But don't listen to my views. Turn to the reports flowing from Turkey, from the people challenging the autocracy of the AKP ... flowing, it must be said, through social media; the AKP controlled and intimidated formal media of Turkey have been all but ignoring what is happening under their very noses, while the mainstream press of the west is only beginning to pay attention.

On that note, I recommend recent postings by a dear friend who brings intimate personal knowledge of Turkey combined with considerable wisdom and scholarship, in her own blog, Reflections and Meditations on the Path. 

Washington joins the list; why doesn't everybody?

Yesterday the state senate in Washington passed a bill which would permit same-sex couples to marry. Passage is apparently expected in the Assembly, and the governor has indicated that she will sign the bill. Washington will then join Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and the District of Columbia is permitting such marriages.

However, opponents in Washington are already threatening a referendum to overturn the law, although a similar effort in 2009 failed to overturn a civil union law. Prominent among these opponents is the Catholic Church.

This reminds me of a discussion a friend and I had last week. An acquaintance of hers had fulminated against gay marriage, and she was dismayed that her defense hadn’t been a coherent as she would have wished.

In light of these two events, I thought I would commit my thoughts to paper, or at least electrons flitting about the web.

Let me start by noting that I have a number of close friends and relatives who collectively personify all four letters of LGBT, and I've thought about related issues quite a lot.

It seems to me that there's a good chance my friend’s acquaintance was blurring the distinctions between marriage as a legal institution and marriage as a religious institution. That's easy to do, since for most couples the two occur simultaneously; most American couples are married in religious ceremonies officiated by clerics empowered by both the church and the state to perform both functions, and from then on, everybody views the couple as being simply "married."

However, the two aspects of marriage are quite different. The preeminent earthly aspect is, of course, the secular one, as marriage is a unique contractual agreement that conveys specific legal rights and privileges (e.g., preferential tax and inheritance rights). Granted, a civil union law can conceptually be tweaked to fully mimic the legal rights of marriage, but what's the purpose? If the goal is to have exactly parallel legal ramifications, why maintain the separate status? That makes no sense. And at a gut level, my friend’s interlocutor probably realizes this ... and since he perceives a difference, he wants the legal definition to reflect something of the antipathy he feels for "gay marriage."

But of course, civil union laws do not fully mimic marriage laws. The federal "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) and other federal statutes prevent individuals in civil unions (or even same-sex marriages legally sanctioned by states) from enjoying the same rights and privileges of marriage (again, for example, federal tax treatment, and for federal employees, insurance benefits). As was the case with public schools in the era of legal segregation, "separate" is in fact unequal.

There is another, more abstract issue here, as well. Formal marriage carries an imprimatur that is socially valuable. Let's face it: marriage means that we accept without reservation the right of two individuals to engage in behavior which would in any other context be subject to some opprobrium. Further, spouses enjoy a higher social status than “partners.” Granted, standards are more lax now than they once were, but members of a couple desiring to be wed wants the world to recognize their partner as their spouse, and any form of civil union less than marriage fails on that measure.

What then is the basis of the opposition to legally recognizing same-sex marriages? Some argue that the purpose of marriage is procreation, but of course that is a specious argument since our laws and our culture happily embrace the marriages of heterosexual couples unable or unwilling to have children. (For example, who would criticize my 90 year old father if he were to wed his 81 year old "girlfriend"? Or the marital plans of a much younger friend who is sterile because of her endometriosis?)

The other major argument is that homosexual marriage is "wrong." That might be a convincing argument if there was societal unanimity on the subject (as there is, say, with murder or pedophilia), but clearly there isn't. The views of large numbers of citizens who view such marriage as acceptable are just as valid as those who oppose it, with the difference that the former group would not prevent the latter from exercising the right, while the latter group would prevent gays in the former group from doing so.

The core of the argument that it is wrong has religious roots, yet even there we have a good deal of diversity of opinion. A number of faith communities feel very strongly that same-sex marriage is wrong. I have no problem with that. But if we acknowledge the relevance of that perspective, we must also acknowledge the relevance of the opposing perspective, since a goodly number of faith communities and non-faith based value systems embrace the concept, and many of them celebrate such marriages. Examples include the United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalists (Unitarians), most meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and Reform Judaism.

That being the case, it is inappropriate to cloak within the law the perspective of one or more faith communities to the exclusion or denial of the beliefs of other faith communities and non-faith based value systems. It is inconsistent with our standard of the separation of church and state, for example, for the Catholic Church to use the power of the state to enforce its concept of marriage and prevent the Unitarian Universalists from celebrating theirs.

In other words, the state has no valid reason to limit this class of contractual relationship to heterosexuals, and any attempt to do so should be seen as violating the first amendment's establishment clause, as well as the fourteenth amendment's standard of equality before the law.

This is not to say that homosexual marriage is "right" any more than it is "wrong," since both are value judgments held by members of our society. It is merely to say that in this pluralistic society, such value judgments should be reserved for private entities and not be given the force of law by the state. Nor should one faith seek to use the law to codify its perspective to the negation of the perspectives of other faiths.

However, were same-sex marriage be universally permitted, non-state institutions would still be free to continue to hold such values as they choose, and if they wished to prohibit extending the religious aspects of marriage to homosexual members of their own communities, they could continue to refuse to perform such marriages. If the Catholic Church, for example, refused to marry same-sex couples, that would be fine. Marriage-minded gay or lesbian couples within religious communities prohibiting same-sex marriages would then be able to change religions if religious marriage were still a goal, and they would be free to obtain a state-sanctioned marriage (e.g., before a judge) if they so wished.

Of course, there is yet another argument raised in opposition to same-sex marriage, that somehow such marriages would weaken the traditional institution of marriage between men and women. But that argument is specious; in no way would the ability of two men to marry or two women to marry in any way impinge upon the right or ability of a man and woman to marry. And if one needs proof of this assertion, one merely has to look at those states already permitting same-sex marriage. In all of them, straights still marry straights, and nobody objects.

To have been on the mountaintop

In the hope we never forget why we have a holiday tomorrow, nor why it matters today, tomorrow, and forever ....

In memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., and more important, his work, I offer these links to his final speech, the one popularly known as his "Mountaintop Speech." He gave it the night before his assassination, speaking in support of striking sanitation workers of Memphis, Tennessee. It is memorable for it captures well his views on non-violence; on the importance of economic freedom, economic injustice and economic rights; and on history and his role in it. The speech is also known for his prophetic view of his own mortality, so cruelly realized the next day.

The text of the speech, from (quite fittingly) the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, AFSCME: “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A video of the speech, from the series Great Speeches, volume 6th, published by the Educational Video Group, and to be viewed for educational purposes only: Martin Luther King, Jr: "Mountaintop" speech full length.

Cell phones and driving

On December 13 the National Traffic Safety Board came out with a recommendation that all states "Ban the nonemergency use of portable electronic devices" in response to its study of a fatal traffic accident caused by a driver texting while in heavy traffic. Although the recommendation deals with all portable electronic devices, most of the media attention has pertained to its impact on cell phone usage by drivers. The recommendation has gotten a lot of press. It's also generated a lot of opposition, much of which, it seems to me, raises the red herring of other distractions to drivers.

It seems to me that the big difference is the context of the distraction. Whether it's eating or listening to the radio or carrying on a conversation with a passenger, the context of the distracting event remains the car and the traffic conditions in which it is operating. The driver and any passenger are aware of what's happening on the road, and automatically pause while the driver deals with anything requiring a reaction.

It's happened to me countless times. A conversation will halt while I deal with the suddenly changed traffic condition, and then resumes without a break when the situation permits. Or I disregard the piece of fruit or sandwich I had been considering a moment before. Or the radio is ignored until I am able to listen again. The normal sort of distracting event hardly interferes with my attention to the road at all, or with my ability to handle the car.

A phone call is different. The other person on the call has no awareness of what's happening in traffic, and indeed may have no awareness that the talkative driver is even driving. So they won't pause if somebody suddenly turns in front of their conversationalist, or the driver needs to check a blind spot while changing lanes. Worse, the driver too easily falls into the trap of concentrating on the phone call, and truly is distracted from the demands of safely driving. How else to explain such egregious lapses of attention, such as one I saw the other day when a driver at a "T" intersection when straight ahead when the light turned green, and plowed into the signal box controlling the intersection's traffic lights?

As a professional driver, I see many, many questionable and dangerous maneuvers, and almost invariably when I look at the drivers, I see that they are holding a cell phone to their ear, or are talking to somebody who isn't in the car with them.

Cell phones are wonderful conveniences. I rely on mine so much I've given up my land line. But they become dangerous when used by drivers. It's as simple as that. There can be no justification for driving while on the phone.

Virginia Treason Month

The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, my own state, has named April to be "Confederate History Month." One wonders why. What does he think we should celebrate? Treason? Bloody, needless war? The attempted destruction of the United States? Slavery?

Oh, I know, apologists for the secessionists will reject the treason charge. But what is the truth? Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, George Pickett, Jeb Stuart, Jubal Early, and just about all of the other Confederate "heroes" swore to "bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and [to] serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever." No exceptions, no limitations, no avenues for evasion, no escape clause. And certainly no allowance for rebellion. Oath-breakers, all. Enemies and opposers of the United States. Treason. Is this what Governor McDonell wants to honor?

The same apologists will blithely skip over the terrible blood price of their war, or wrap it in a filmy gauze. But face it; the War of Southern Treason was the bloodiest war in our history, even when counted in absolute numbers; deadlier than both World Wars combined. As a proportion of our population, their war was even worse, killing nearly one out of every 50 Americans, and maiming far more. Those weren't numbers; they were sons, husbands, brothers, fathers, dying in agony, millions of man-years of potential life, snuffed out. Hundreds of thousands of families shattered, widows and children thrust into destitution, wives and mothers keening for their dead. Is that what Governor McDonell wants to celebrate?

The proclamation refers to the South's treasonous war as "a war between the states for independence." Independence? No, destruction of the United States. Destruction just as sure as envisioned by any of our foreign enemies. Funny how many apologists for the Confederacy today proclaim loudly an espoused patriotism for the country their heros tried to destroy. Had the South succeeded in seceding, what would have become of what was left? Every regional squabble would have carried the threat of further dissolution, until North America was utterly Balkanized, with its various fragments lurching form one European alliance to another, dragging us into innumerable wars. Where, then, would have been the bastion of hope, the arsenal of democracy, when the Nazis marched over Europe, when Stalin looked for conquest?

The governor speaks of the "sacrifices" of Confederate leaders and soldiers. What of the sacrifices of the millions of heros who paid with their blood and sweat to save the United States from the terror the Southerners brought to the land? They are the ones I would honor.

And then there was that little matter unmentioned by the governor, that curious institution which bound men and women as property of other men and women. What was slavery? Do they reflect on that as they celebrate "Confederate History Month"? What do those who wax nostalgic for the Old South think of slavery? As little more than a form of employment for those enslaved, exchanging their labor for room and board, and not of much significance beyond that? Slavery was oppression, at its most vile. A human being who had no future but toil. A human being utterly subjected to the whims and caprices of his and her oppressor. Men and women denied the ability to strive for better lives, build families, raise children, know their parents and their brothers and sisters. Women raped to serve the carnal lusts of their oppressors. Men beaten and humiliated to profit and amuse the heartless who commanded them, the psychopaths who abused them. What would the governor have us celebrate about the effect of the Confederacy upon their lives?

Oh, I know, the apologists will argue that the South's treason was about states rights, and a way of life, and an economic order. But slavery was the essential link to all of those things. Without slavery, the supposed cause of states' rights would have been meaningless, except perhaps to debating societies. Without slavery, the Southern way of life wouldn't have existed. Without slavery, the Southern economic order would not have been opposed to the rest of the country. The Civil War was about slavery; the Confederacy was about the debasement of millions of Americans. Is that what Governor McDonell wants to honor?

I hope not. For if it is, neither he nor his supporters understand anything about what America is. The Confederacy belongs in the dustbin of history. If this sorry chapter in Virginia's history is to be remembered, it should be understood for what it was, so that this country can finally overcome the errors that led to this greatest violation of Americans' rights, and our bloodiest war.

Subtle media bias on the mix of religion and politics

A recent article and headline in the New York Times well illustrates the bias prevalent in the mainstream media when they cover abortion and religion. Both the headline and the content of the article "Christian Leaders Unite on Political Issues" by Laurie Goodstein imply a unity among Christian leaders which does not exist, especially on the issues which are the central topics of the article, abortion rights and gay rights.

Although many Catholic and evangelical Protestants find the common cause reported in the article, a great many Christian churches, Christian leaders, Christian theologians and lay Christians (including many Catholics and evangelicals) take -- and advocate -- very different perspectives on these issues. Their voices should be reflected in any article and any headline which implies directly or indirectly that it is reporting on some sort of consensus within the Christian community.

Instead, the only critical comment in the article come from an individual affiliated with an academic institution rather than a religious one, implicitly a secular intellectual rather than a believer. The casual reader would wrongly infer from this that the issues involve a divide between religion and academe, but would not be aware of the substantial disagreement within the Christian community itself, as well as the broader religious world.

A more accurate headline would have been "Some Catholic and Evangelical Leaders Unite on Abortion and Gay Rights Issues," or perhaps "Christian Leaders Lack Consensus on Political Issues." A more balanced article would have mentioned some of the prominent voices within the Christian community which favor abortion rights and gay marriage, or at least oppose entangling the state in such issues.

It is also worth noting that the article cites not a single woman on the issue of abortion; all the voices quoted or referenced are men. Curious.

And this is the New York Times, supposed bastion of the effete intellectual snobs of the left.

When does life begin?

In a recent forum on faith in Pennsylvania, both Democratic candidates were asked whether they thought life begins at conception, and both accepted an erroneous assumption that has skewed and inflamed the national debate over abortion ever since the issue became prominent. Life is a continuum; it does not begin at conception but began at the beginning. If we all understood that, we might be able to begin finding a way to successfully address the divisiveness of abortion and abortion rights issues in our culture.

Okay, what do I mean? Biology 101. All organisms which reproduce sexually alternate between haploid and diploid generations. A haploid cell or organism has but one set of chromosomes; a diploid has two. With humans, the people we see walking around are the diploid generation; the vast majority of our cells are diploid while our sperm and eggs are our haploid generation. In sexual reproduction, two haploid individuals join to form one diploid individual ... which, upon maturity, spends much of its time trying to find another diploid individual with which to share the haploid individuals it is producing and thereby form diploid zygotes which grow up to be mature diploid individuals, and so on. In some species, such as all mammals, the diploid generation is the one we notice the most. In others, the haploid is the more obvious.

But in one important sense, it doesn't matter which generation attracts our notice, for they're both part of an unending continuum which stretches back to the origins of life and this is true whether you are a firm believer in the validity of creationist doctrine or of evolutionary theory. Individual lives may end, but in every case their beginnings stretch in an unbroken chain back across countless generations to the origin of life, and forward through their progeny to the end of time (at least, as earthly life experiences it).

Conception thus represents nothing more (nor less) than a recombination of genetic material occurring when two haploid individuals join to form a single diploid individual. It is no more a beginning of life than when a diploid individual creates haploid individuals (a process which happens without our conscious knowledge), but is just an alternation of forms occurring repeatedly in an unending continuum.

Life does not begin at conception.

And that has profound implications for the social and political debate over abortion and abortion rights, as the question shifts away from when life "begins" to a determination of when we should recognize a new diploid generation of our species as an individual with "inalienable rights." And that question is one of interpretation, over which people of good will and sincere beliefs may honestly disagree.

But more on that in another posting.

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 17 April 2008

Another letter on the 2nd

To the editor,
New York Times

Your analysis of the Washington, D.C. gun control case before the U.S. Supreme Court (Gun Case Causes Bush Administration Rift,” March 17, 2008) is interesting, but like many stories reviewing the Second Amendment, it relies on the standard but confusing punctuation which inserts a comma between the words “Militia” and “being.”

However, examination of volume I of the Journal of the Senate of the United States and the Annals of Congress for the first Congress shows that text of the amendment actually submitted to the states for ratification lacks that comma, resulting in a sentence which clearly links the concept of militia service to the right to bear arms: "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

That linkage is all the more important given the technological development of weaponry from the time of the Revolution to the modern day. In the late 18th Century, the militia relied on the same types of weapons a common citizen might possess, but the responsibilities of today’s militia -- the National Guard and the Reserves -- demands weapons nobody would suggest should be in private hands.

This is not merely an interesting grammatical distinction, for a proper understanding of the Second Amendment best serves the needs of this nation even now.

Submitted March 17, 2008

Note: this was originally posted on ketches, yaks & hawks 17 March 2008

The second comma and the Second

By now, we should all realize that the Second Amendment is used by the N.R.A. and its sycophants to argue that we should all have the right to possess grotesquely lethal arsenals.

We should also recognize the the Second links gun ownership to membership in the militia. Here as a reminder is the text as usually printed, from the National Archives:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

First, let's dispense with one of the sillier arguments one sometimes hears from gun advocates, that the term "militia" somehow includes odd collections of alienated "survivalists" crashing around in the woods. No, thanks to the use of the "well regulated" phrase, we may easily dismiss that fatuous argument: in the modern day, a "well regulated Militia" means the National Guard and the various Reserve units of the regular military.

Without any further ado, one might -- I would argue, should -- read the Second as linking the right to "keep and bear Arms" to membership in such a "well regulated Militia." Apparently, however, some argue that because of the positioning of the three commas in the Second, the phrase about the Militia is essentially window dressing.

But their grammatical gymnastics fall apart when one examines the version of what we now call the Second as actually submitted to the States for ratification and sees that it does not include the first or third comma! Here is is, as printed in volume I of the Journal of the Senate of the United States of America:

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

One finds the same punctuation in the Annals of Congress for the first Congress, in which is copied the ratification of the Bill of Rights by the several States, either directly or by reference.

With this punctuation, it becomes abundantly clear that the right to "keep and bear Arms" qualifies and is inextricably linked to the necessity of having a "well regulated Militia." Simply put, Congress intended and the States ratified an amendment making that linkage quite clear. Put another way, there is no Constitutional right to private ownership of guns for private purposes.

I wish this analysis was entirely my own, but modesty forfends; I direct you to a very interesting and insightful column on the punctuation of the Second Amendment published in today's New York Times by Adam Freedman, a regular columnist with the New York Law Journal.

Not only should guns be strictly controlled for protection of the public safety, but the Constitutional basis exists for doing so. Let's get rid of the guns. We should, and we can.

Note: this was originally posted in a slightly different form on ketches, yaks & hawks 16 December 2007