Irish government threatens Catholic marriage agency over gay couples

by Staff Reporter

posted Friday, 26 Jan 2018

(Getty Images)

A marriage counselling service could be forced to close unless it accepts same-sex spouses

The Irish government has threatened to stop funding the bishops’ marriage counselling agency unless it changes its policy to accept gay couples.
Accord, an agency of the Irish bishops’ conference, received £1.4 million in state funding last year and could potentially be forced to close if such funding is withdrawn.
The Times said that Tusla, the government’s childcare agency, has said that any agency it funds must make its services “accessible to everyone”. A new agreement has been sent to state-funded counselling services including Accord.
In England and Wales the bishops’ marriage counselling agency, Marriage Care, already offers its service to same-sex couples. (This service is offered as part of its general counselling, which is separate from its Catholic marriage preparation.) The agency received over £850,000 from national government contracts in 2014-5.
The dilemma facing Accord recalls that of Catholic adoption agencies in England and Wales following the 2006 Equality Act. About a dozen agencies either had to stop placing children with families, which often meant closure, or offer services to gay couples and cut their links to the Church.

Why Hate Groups Went After Johnny Cash in the 1960s

By Erin Blakemore // August 2, 2017

Country singer/songwriter Johnny Cash sits on a bed playing acoustic guitar to his first wife Vivian Liberto. (Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Threatening pamphlets. Canceled shows. It was 1965, and embattled country music star Johnny Cash was facing a boycott in some parts of the Jim Crow South. But the reason was not his recent arrest for potential drug smuggling—it was his appearance on the steps of a courthouse with a woman some thought was African-American.

Back in 1951, Cash was just an Air Force radio operator about to be sent overseas to intercept Soviet transmissions. That was about the time he met Vivian Liberto, a shy 17-year-old from San Antonio, at a skating rink.

After a courtship that included thousands of letters, they married in 1954. Soon after, Cash skyrocketed to fame as a rockabilly and country artist. His deft songwriting and deep voice soon gained him a fanbase, as did his outlaw-like image. Not only did he wear black to nearly all of his performances, but Cash pushed the stodgy boundaries of country music with his anti-authoritarian songs and on-stage attitude.

As he climbed to country stardom, Cash developed an addiction to prescription drugs—and a passion for another married woman, June Carter. His marriage with Vivian was on the rocks when, on October 4, 1965 he was arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border after purchasing a large quantity of amphetamines and sedatives from a Mexican dealer. Customs agents found 475 Equanil tablets and 688 Dexedrine capsules stashed in his guitar case and threw him in jail. Cash spent a night in jail and, two months later, plead guilty to the possession of illegal drugs.

Johnny Cash poses for a mug shot after U.S. Customs agents found hundreds of pep pills & tranquilizers in his luggage as he returned from Mexico in October 1965. (Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

He got off with a deferred sentence and a $1,000 fine—and had no idea that, as he walked down the courthouse steps in El Paso, Texas, with his wife Vivian, he was about to spark a firestorm.

An Associated Press photo of Cash and Vivian ran in newspapers the next day—and to some readers, it appeared that Vivian, an Italian-American woman who was rarely photographed, was black.

The National States Rights Party, an Alabama white supremacist group, republished the photo in its newspaper, The Thunderbolt, with an article that dripped with racist rhetoric. The money generated by Cash’s hit records, it claimed, went “to scum like Johnny Cash to keep them supplied with dope and negro women.”

Cash was harassed and boycotted by some Southern fans. “Johnny and I received death threats, and an already shameful situation was made infinitely worse,” recalled Vivian in her 2008 memoir.

In an October 1966 article, Variety described Cash as “the innocent victim of a targeted hate campaign in the south.” The “racial error,” wrote the anonymous author, had sparked boycotts and threats. “In the code of the south,” the article continued, “there is no greater crime than miscegenation.” At the time, interracial marriages were banned throughout the South.

Though the National States Rights Party was not the Ku Klux Klan, it had close ties to the organization and in publicity about the campaign against Cash, many outlets—and Cash himself—identified it as the KKK.

“Cash’s manager had to respond,” says Cash biographer Michael Streissguth, author of Johnny Cash: The Biography. “He was out there saying that Cash was not married to a black woman.” Cash made a statement that his wife was, in fact, white, and threatened a lawsuit.

Country singer/songwriter Johnny Cash holds a guitar as his wife Vivian Liberto and daughters, Rosanne and Kathy, look on, 1957. (Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

“I remember talking to his daughter Roseanne about it,” says Streissguth. “She got a letter from him saying ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been home, but I’ve been out fighting the KKK.’ She said she took the letter and ripped it in half—it was just another excuse for his long absences from home.”

Streissguth finds it troubling that Cash felt he had to deny being married to a black woman so vehemently. But, he says, Cash’s career shows he was racially tolerant. He points to Cash’s partnerships with black artists on his ABC television show and songs like “All of God’s Children Ain’t Free,” which touches on issues of racial equality, as better indicators of Cash’s own feelings about race. Cash also commented on the United States’ treatment of indigenous people on his 1964 album Bitter Tears, a concept album that explores the destruction of Native American land and atrocities against Native Americans.

The incident “had the potential to affect his core, Southern audience,” says Streissguth, but ultimately it remained a footnote in his bigger story.

So did the National States Rights Party. Though The Thunderbolt had a subscriber base of 15,000 at its height, the party itself was small and only played a brief role in the history of American hate. “Its propaganda and public activities are all geared to arousing the passions of avowed racists and hatemongers, and in some instances, at least, it has been successful,” the FBI wrote in a 1966 report.

But its campaign against Cash only partly succeeded. “There were more cancellations of his concerts over the drug arrest than these charges the separatist group made,” says Streissguth.

Cash and Vivian’s marriage ended in 1967, a year after the stressful campaign lost steam. That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia. Today, attitudes about interracial marriage have changed dramatically. According to a 2013 Gallup poll, 87 percent of Americans favor marriage between black and white people—up from a mere four percent in 1958.

To Detterling: An apology

To Detterling: An apology

Detterling it has been troubling me that I posted something that you interpreted very negatively - that was my recounting of Sir Henry Rawlinson's scepticism about the fostering/adoption by your nephew and his partner of a disabled little boy.

Now I'm a pretty intuitive guy and something tells me that you are being truthful here. You have been very consistent on this over the years and it rings true.

It is so admirable what your nephew and his partner have done. I take my hat off to them.

Please let them know that they have Gene's approval and admiration.

I will be writing an open letter to you shortly Detters.

GENE

Message of his Holiness Pope Francis For World Communications Day 24th January 2018

Message of his Holiness Pope Francis

For World Communications Day 
24th January 2018



“The truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32).

Fake news and journalism for peace

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Communication is part of God’s plan for us and an essential way to experience fellowship.  Made in the image and likeness of our Creator, we are able to express and share all that is true, good, and beautiful.  We are able to describe our own experiences and the world around us, and thus to create historical memory and the understanding of events.  But when we yield to our own pride and selfishness, we can also distort the way we use our ability to communicate.  This can be seen from the earliest times, in the biblical stories of Cain and Abel and the Tower of Babel (cf. Gen 4:4-16; 11:1-9).  The capacity to twist the truth is symptomatic of our condition, both as individuals and communities.  On the other hand, when we are faithful to God’s plan, communication becomes an effective expression of our responsible search for truth and our pursuit of goodness.  

In today’s fast-changing world of communications and digital systems, we are witnessing the spread of what has come to be known as “fake news”.  This calls for reflection, which is why I have decided to return in this World Communications Day Message to the issue of truth, which was raised time and time again by my predecessors, beginning with Pope Paul VI, whose 1972 Message took as its theme: “Social Communications at the Service of Truth”.  In this way, I would like to contribute to our shared commitment to stemming the spread of fake news and to rediscovering the dignity of journalism and the personal responsibility of journalists to communicate the truth.

The term “fake news” has been the object of great discussion and debate.  In general, it refers to the spreading of disinformation on line or in the traditional media.  It has to do with false information based on non-existent or distorted data meant to deceive and manipulate the reader.  Spreading fake news can serve to advance specific goals, influence political decisions, and serve economic interests.

The effectiveness of fake news is primarily due to its ability to mimic real news, to seem plausible.  Secondly, this false but believable news is “captious”, inasmuch as it grasps people’s attention by appealing to stereotypes and common social prejudices, and exploiting instantaneous emotions like anxiety, contempt, anger and frustration. The ability to spread such fake news often relies on a manipulative use of the social networks and the way they function.  Untrue stories can spread so quickly that even authoritative denials fail to contain the damage.     

The difficulty of unmasking and eliminating fake news is due also to the fact that many people interact in homogeneous digital environments impervious to differing perspectives and opinions.  Disinformation thus thrives on the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue; instead, it risks turning people into unwilling accomplices in spreading biased and baseless ideas.  The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others, presenting them as enemies, to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict.  Fake news is a sign of intolerant and hypersensitive attitudes, and leads only to the spread of arrogance and hatred.  That is the end result of untruth.

2.   How can we recognize fake news?

None of us can feel exempted from the duty of countering these falsehoods.  This is no easy task, since disinformation is often based on deliberately evasive and subtly misleading rhetoric and at times the use of sophisticated psychological mechanisms.  Praiseworthy efforts are being made to create educational programmes aimed at helping people to interpret and assess information provided by the media, and teaching them to take an active part in unmasking falsehoods, rather than unwittingly contributing to the spread of disinformation.  Praiseworthy too are those institutional and legal initiatives aimed at developing regulations for curbing the phenomenon, to say nothing of the work being done by tech and media companies in coming up with new criteria for verifying the personal identities concealed behind millions of digital profiles.

Yet preventing and identifying the way disinformation works also calls for a profound and careful process of discernment.  We need to unmask what could be called the "snake-tactics" used by those who disguise themselves in order to strike at any time and place.  This was the strategy employed by the "crafty serpent" in the Book of Genesis, who, at the dawn of humanity, created the first fake news (cf. Gen 3:1-15), which began the tragic history of human sin, beginning with the first fratricide (cf. Gen 4) and issuing in the countless other evils committed against God, neighbour, society and creation.  The strategy of this skilled "Father of Lies" (Jn 8:44) is precisely mimicry, that sly and dangerous

In the account of the first sin, the tempter approaches the woman by pretending to be her friend, concerned only for her welfare, and begins by saying something only partly true: "Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?" (Gen 3:1).  In fact, God never told Adam not to eat from any tree, but only from the one tree: "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat" (Gen 2:17).  The woman corrects the serpent, but lets herself be taken in by his provocation: "Of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, “You must not eat it nor touch it, under pain of death" (Gen 3:2).  Her answer is couched in legalistic and negative terms; after listening to the deceiver and letting herself be taken in by his version of the facts, the woman is misled.  So she heeds his words of reassurance: "You will not die!" (Gen 3:4).        

The tempter’s “deconstruction” then takes on an appearance of truth: "God knows that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:5).  God’s paternal command, meant for their good, is discredited by the seductive enticement of the enemy: "The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye and desirable" (Gen 3:6).  This biblical episode brings to light an essential element for our reflection: there is no such thing as harmless disinformation; on the contrary, trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences. Even a seemingly slight distortion of the truth can have dangerous effects.

What is at stake is our greed.  Fake news often goes viral, spreading so fast that it is hard to stop, not because of the sense of sharing that inspires the social media, but because it appeals to the insatiable greed so easily aroused in human beings.  The economic and manipulative aims that feed disinformation are rooted in a thirst for power, a desire to possess and enjoy, which ultimately makes us victims of something much more tragic: the deceptive power of evil that moves from one lie to another in order to rob us of our interior freedom.  That is why education for truth means teaching people how to discern, evaluate and understand our deepest desires and inclinations, lest we lose sight of what is good and yield to every temptation.

3.   "The truth will set you free" (Jn 8:32)

Constant contamination by deceptive language can end up darkening our interior life.  Dostoevsky’s observation is illuminating: "People who lie to themselves and listen to their own lie come to such a pass that they cannot distinguish the truth within them, or around them, and so lose all respect for themselves and for others.  And having no respect, they cease to love, and in order to occupy and distract themselves without love they give way to passions and to coarse pleasures, and sink to bestiality in their vices, all from continual lying to others and to themselves.” (The Brothers Karamazov, II, 2).

So how do we defend ourselves?  The most radical antidote to the virus of falsehood is purification by the truth.  In Christianity, truth is not just a conceptual reality that regards how we judge things, defining them as true or false.  The truth is not just bringing to light things that are concealed, "revealing reality", as the ancient Greek term aletheia (from a-lethès, "not hidden") might lead us to believe.  Truth involves our whole life.  In the Bible, it carries with it the sense of support, solidity, and trust, as implied by the root 'aman, the source of our liturgical expression Amen.  Truth is something you can lean on, so as not to fall.  In this relational sense, the only truly reliable and trustworthy One – the One on whom we can count – is the living God.  Hence, Jesus can say: "I am the truth" (Jn 14:6).  We discover and rediscover the truth when we experience it within ourselves in the loyalty and trustworthiness of the One who loves us.  This alone can liberate us: "The truth will set you free" (Jn 8:32).

Freedom from falsehood and the search for relationship: these two ingredients cannot be lacking if our words and gestures are to be true, authentic, and trustworthy.  To discern the truth, we need to discern everything that encourages communion and promotes goodness from whatever instead tends to isolate, divide, and oppose.  Truth, therefore, is not really grasped when it is imposed from without as something impersonal, but only when it flows from free relationships between persons, from listening to one another.  Nor can we ever stop seeking the truth, because falsehood can always creep in, even when we state things that are true.  An impeccable argument can indeed rest on undeniable facts, but if it is used to hurt another and to discredit that person in the eyes of others, however correct it may appear, it is not truthful.  We can recognize the truth of statements from their fruits: whether they provoke quarrels, foment division, encourage resignation; or, on the other hand, they promote informed and mature reflection leading to constructive dialogue and fruitful results.

4.   Peace is the true news

The best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies, but people: people who are not greedy but ready to listen, people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can emerge; people who are attracted by goodness and take responsibility for how they use language.  If responsibility is the answer to the spread of fake news, then a weighty responsibility rests on the shoulders of those whose job is to provide information, namely, journalists, the protectors of news.  In today’s world, theirs is, in every sense, not just a job; it is a mission.  Amid feeding frenzies and the mad rush for a scoop, they must remember that the heart of information is not the speed with which it is reported or its audience impact, but persons.  Informing others means forming others; it means being in touch with people’s lives.  That is why ensuring the accuracy of sources and protecting communication are real means of promoting goodness, generating trust, and opening the way to communion and peace.

I would like, then, to invite everyone to promote a journalism of peace.  By that, I do not mean the saccharine kind of journalism that refuses to acknowledge the existence of serious problems or smacks of sentimentalism.  On the contrary, I mean a journalism that is truthful and opposed to falsehoods, rhetorical slogans, and sensational headlines.  A journalism created by people for people, one that is at the service of all, especially those – and they are the majority in our world – who have no voice.  A journalism less concentrated on breaking news than on exploring the underlying causes of conflicts, in order to promote deeper understanding and contribute to their resolution by setting in place virtuous processes.  A journalism committed to pointing out alternatives to the escalation of shouting matches and verbal violence.

To this end, drawing inspiration from a Franciscan prayer, we might turn to the Truth in person:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. 

Help us to recognize the evil latent in a communication that does not build communion.

Help us to remove the venom from our judgements. 

Help us to speak about others as our brothers and sisters. 

You are faithful and trustworthy;
may our words be seeds of goodness for the world:

where there is shouting, let us practise listening; 

where there is confusion, let us inspire harmony;

where there is ambiguity, let us bring clarity; 

where there is exclusion, let us offer solidarity; 

where there is sensationalism, let us use sobriety; 

where there is superficiality, let us raise real questions; 

where there is prejudice, let us awaken trust; 

where there is hostility, let us bring respect; 

where there is falsehood, let us bring truth. 

Amen.

Vatican, 24 January 2018

Dutch euthanasia regulator quits over dementia killings

by Simon Caldwell

posted Tuesday, 23 Jan 2018

(Getty)

The number of dementia patients killed by euthanasia has risen fourfold over the past five years

A Dutch euthanasia regulator has quit her post in protest at the killings of patients suffering from dementia.

Berna van Baarsen, a medical ethicist, said she could not support “a major shift” in the interpretation of her country’s euthanasia law to endorse lethal injections for increasing numbers of dementia patients.

She has now resigned from one of Holland’s five regional assessment committees set up to oversee the provision of euthanasia.

Miss van Baarsen becomes at least the second regulator to quit in just three years and follows Professor Theo Boer who stepped down in 2014 after he warned British parliamentarians not to follow the Dutch example and to vote against Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill.

Euthanasia is permissible for mentally incapacitated adult patients under Article 2.2 of the 15-year-old law as long as a patient has left a “written declaration requesting that his life be terminated” in advance.

But Miss van Baarsen, in an interview with Medisch Contact magazine, suggested that lethal injections were increasingly given to patients with fluctuating capacity, leading to a fourfold surge in euthanasia deaths of mental health patients in five years.

“I have seen a major shift in the interpretation of this article in recent years. I cannot support that,” she said.

“I do not believe a written declaration of intent can replace an oral request for incapacitated patients with advanced dementia,” she added. “I find that too short.”

In an interview with Trouw newspaper, Miss van Baarsen said that Article 2.2 applied fairly, for example, to a cancer patient with a wish to die and who slips into a coma.

But she said that dementia was “more erratic and patients often live longer”, with their mental capacity more fluid.

Such patients, she explained, were sometimes able to recognise loved ones in one instance but not on another.

In such situations, she asked: “What is the right moment to grant euthanasia?”

Miss van Baarsen said it was also very difficult to assess if patients with dementia were suffering unbearably, one of the criteria that has to be met before an act of euthanasia is legally permissible.

“If you are not entirely sure, you cannot assume unbearable suffering,” she said. “Euthanasia based on a prior declaration of consent may only be carried out if all other due diligence requirements have been met – and it has therefore been established that the suffering is indeed unbearable.”

The resignation of Miss van Baarsen comes just months after police in Holland launched their first investigation into a death by euthanasia.

This followed the referral to prosecutors of the case of an elderly woman with dementia who was drugged and then pinned down while she was injected with lethal drugs.

The doctor involved has already been formally reprimanded for performing the euthanasia because the patient could not properly consent.

When the woman was first diagnosed with dementia, however, she had indicated that she was willing to end her life by euthanasia “but not now”.

Her nursing home decided that the moment had arrived when her condition deteriorated and she began to wander the wards at night and behave aggressively.

The doctor drugged the woman’s coffee to calm her and also asked the woman’s family to hold her down when she “reacted negatively” to the procedure and ripped out a drip carrying the euthanasia drugs.

What’s really behind the push for ‘buffer zones’?

by Ed Condon

posted Thursday, 18 Jan 2018

(Picture: Christian Adams)

The abortion lobby is running scared. No wonder it's targeting pro-lifers

Last year Britain marked the 50th anniversary of the Abortion Act. Given how often we are told that “reproductive rights” are a sine qua non of modern democratic society, it was a surprisingly muted affair. There were no hashtags, no parades, no endless series of television specials. When 50 years of legal abortion was discussed, as it was on Radio 4’s Moral Maze, it was debated, not celebrated. It seems that, far from having become a settled part of our cultural landscape, abortion is more hotly contested now than it has been for years.

Much of the renewed debate has centred on vigils (or “protests”, depending on who you ask) outside abortion clinics. Local councils in Ealing and Portsmouth are seeking to ban outright any pro-life presence outside local clinics. Ealing MP Rupa Huq has spoken of “phoney” pro-life vigils where protesters are supposedly “weaponising rosary beads”.

The Mayor of London has backed a ban on vigils outside clinics, and 113 MPs have signed a letter calling for the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, to impose “buffer zones” around them, preventing any sort of gathering nearby. Rudd appears to be sympathetic and told Parliament that she too is concerned by “aggressive” protesters.

But evidence of such “aggressive protests” stubbornly refuses to materialise. Last month the House of Commons home affairs select committee held a session on the allegations of “harassment” outside abortion clinics. It was a typically one-sided affair. Pro-abortion councillors from Ealing were given free rein to air their concerns and repeat calls for a ban, but failed to come up with any actual examples of harassment occurring.

A spokeswoman for an abortion provider was allowed to praise her organisation’s high standards, practice and counselling. Yet pro-life advocates, who were interrupted to the point of heckling by committee members, were strongly discouraged from mentioning the recent Care Quality Commission report which severely criticised parts of the abortion industry on exactly these issues.

On the floor of the House, Sir Edward Leigh asked the Home Secretary to confirm the Government’s commitment to the right to peaceful protest, and noted that if action was taken against pro-life demonstrations, similar action would be needed against anti-fox hunting campaigners and animal rights activists. Amber Rudd managed a general affirmation of the right to demonstrate, but made sure to finish on a rather more passionate-sounding commitment to a woman’s right to enter an abortion clinic “safe from harassment and intimidation”, though she declined to give any specific examples of what this meant.

Some of the more “aggressive” tactics which have been said to have been deployed include praying (apparently to Rupa Huq’s mind a symbolically violent act), handing out leaflets and audibly referring to women entering the clinics as “mothers”.

These are a far cry from the more robust and even aggressive protests which, as Sir Edward noted, go on uninterrupted outside companies performing animal testing or accompany hunt meetings. Other protests that we have seen recently absolutely do cross the line into aggression. Consider those protesters who have spat at members of our Armed Forces and called them “rapists” and “murderers” as they paraded. But even then, law enforcement seems to err on the side of free expression.

It is a curious anomaly that the right to free speech, peaceful assembly and protest are so robustly entrenched in our country, except when it comes to abortion. Why is it such a special case?

Some suggest that abortion protesters are being singled out because abortion is a liberal-left article of faith and other, much more aggressive protests happen to be broadly in line with the worldview of those backing a woman’s “right to choose”. They would also note that protesters against abortion are overwhelmingly and obviously Christians, a group whose moral qualms and concerns are rather less deserving of a full and fair hearing to the mind of many in the political and media establishment.

But is abortion as much of a settled issue as some like to claim? Take another example by way of comparison: meat-eating. If vegans protested outside Tesco, calling for the end of meat production and its sale, most would instinctively suspect that they would be left alone.

But the figures suggest the British public is rather more uneasy about abortion than it is about meat-eating. Less than one per cent of the British population is vegan, yet 60 per cent want to see a reduction in the availability of abortion from the current limit of 24 weeks to 20 weeks or less. This rises to 70 per cent among British women, and the number is growing.

Here, I suspect, is the real reason for the sudden crackdown on vocal opposition to abortion: it is changing minds. You do not have to look far to find stories of individual women who have been approached outside a clinic and, thanks to the support they were offered, decided against an abortion.

Speaking at a debate about buffer zones in Westminster Hall, Sir Edward Leigh read out the testimony of a woman who had felt pressure from those around her to have an abortion, even to the point of them escorting her to the clinic. Someone at a pro-life vigil outside the gates gave her a leaflet on the way in. The woman then, in her own words, “leapt out of the ground-floor window and cleared three fences to escape” before returning to the vigil, where she was “offered any support [she] needed to keep [the] baby and this gave [her] the confidence” she needed. Meeting a stranger at the gate was enough to show her she did actually have a choice.

Evidence is increasingly emerging that women are being counselled into abortions without being told of other options. At the same time, serious concerns have been highlighted by the Care Quality Commission about safeguarding and consent in Marie Stopes clinics. A voice at the door offering an alternative is often more powerful than we credit.

More widely, as medical science improves all the time, it has become increasingly difficult to pretend that a baby in the womb isn’t a real human life. We know that a baby is a new genetically unique human life from the moment of conception. There is a new heartbeat by the fourth week.

Brain activity can be detected at four to six weeks. By week 15 the child has a full set of taste buds.Children delivered prematurely are surviving from younger and younger ages. A government report in 2007 found that more than 60 babies had survived the abortion process that year and continued breathing unaided without medical care. One of them lived for 10 hours unaided; it later died of exposure.

Today, government statistics give a baby born at 24 weeks of gestation, the legal limit for essentially unfettered access to abortion, a 50 per cent chance of survival. But this number is a reflection of the care the baby is given, not its own innate chances of survival. For example, a baby born in a University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust hospital has, at 23 weeks of gestation, a 70 per cent chance of survival. Many of the supposedly “graphic” and “disturbing” images displayed by pro-life protesters do nothing more than show, in living colour, how obviously a baby a child in the womb is.

…….

It is hard to fight a growing majority of public opinion. It’s hard to fight increasingly obvious science. It is nearly impossible to beat both together in a free and fair fight. This is why we are seeing a renewed crackdown on pro-life protests: they are simply too effective, and represent the very inconvenient truth that we, as a postmodern, secular society, actually don’t much care for abortion. When you find yourself defending a shrinking minority position, the most effective thing to do is close down the debate.

These sort of heavy-handed tactics should not come as a huge surprise. While the pro-abortion movement wraps itself in the language of rights and freedom, its roots are deeply imbedded in authoritarianism, racism and eugenics. From the Fabian Society to Margaret Sanger, abortion has been seen as an essential means not of liberating women, but of preventing the birth of undesirable babies, be they poor, socially or economically marginal, or, worst of all, disabled.

A movement that thinks nothing of the very right to life can hardly be expected to cherish the right to free speech for its opponents. The recent attempts to suppress opposition to abortion, and to stop people offering an alternative to women who feel they have none, perversely demonstrate the growing strength of the pro-life movement. What is essential now is ensuring that the debate continues, and that the pro-life voice remains equally pro the mothers who find themselves in terrible circumstances.

Ed Condon is a canon lawyer and contributing editor of the Catholic Herald

This article first appeared in the January 19 2018 issue of the Catholic Herald.

GENE DENIES SEXUAL ENCOUNTER WITH KIM KARDASHIAN

GENE DENIES SEXUAL ENCOUNTER WITH KIM KARDASHIAN

With the media awash with rumours of an affair between Gene and the reality TV star Kim Kardashian a spokesman for Gene has issued the following statement:

'Gene denies any truth in allegations of a relationship, sexual or otherwise, between himself and Ms Kim Kardashian. Got that?'

KIM KARDASHIAN

Former Liberal Democrat leader: I regret saying gay sex isn’t a sin

by Staff Reporter

posted Wednesday, 10 Jan 2018

Tim Farron (Getty Images) 

Tim Farron said he was pressured into making the statement

Tim Farron, former leader of the Liberal Democrats, has expressed his “regret” at bowing to pressure to say gay sex is not sinful.

Speaking to Premier Christian Radio, Mr Farron, who is an Evangelical Anglican, also expressed frustration that his views on sexuality distracted attention from his party’s election campaign last year.

“The bottom line is, of course, I did [feel pressured] and there are things – including that – that I said that I regret,” he said.

“All they wanted to do is talk about my Christian beliefs and what they actually meant.
“Foolishly and wrongly, [I] attempted to push it away by giving an answer that, frankly, was not right.”


Throughout his two-year leadership of the party, Mr Farron faced continued scrutiny over his Christian beliefs. Shortly after becoming leader, he was constantly asked his view on gay sex during an interview with Channel 4’s Cathy Newman. He avoided answering directly.
The issue flared up again during the 2017 General Election campaign, which resulted in Mr Farron finally caving and saying he did not think it was sinful.

He resigned shorting after the election, saying he felt “torn” between following his faith and leading his party.

In a speech in November, he said faithful Christians are seen as “dangerous and offensive” in modern Britain.

“Liberalism has eaten itself because it has eaten the very world view that gave birth to it, that made it possible, and which makes it possible,” he said. “To relegate Christianity is to hollow out liberalism.”

ADIOS AMIGO ... AN ALMOST THIRTEEN YEAR WAR OF ATTRITION COMES TO AN END

ADIOS AMIGO ... AN ALMOST THIRTEEN YEAR WAR OF ATTRITION COMES TO AN END

Well folks ... this is it. The long war of attrition between Detterling and Gene is finally over. On 29th December 2017 at 15.47 (Pacific Time) Detterling threw in the towel. All over. The end came with such surprising suddeness and finality. Detterling seemed to be on the very point of victory when, as one of the members of the Good Yarn Friday  Night Club pithily commented: "My God! Detterling has snatched defeat from the very jaws of victory!" A spectacular and in the circumstances such an astonishing defeat. But then again Gene was always known to be at his most dangerous when forced onto the ropes.

Is Gene gloating? No way. This coming Friday night, 5th January 2018, in the Good Yarn no doubt some in the Friday Night Club will want to celebrate and declare 'another victory for Gene'. But Gene will not go along with this and will ask all to raise a glass to his old enemy declaring that the manner of Detterling's surrender was noble and dignified.

Gene has prepared two features for this blog - one a hilarious skit about Delia and the other a humorous but insightful piece about Detterling's nephew - but publication will be suspended until the old boy is is better shape. He has a lot to cope with at the moment: the spectacular collapse of his campaign against Gene, serious health issues, his failure to have his memoirs published and his estrangement from his nephew.

We shall all miss old Detters. Yes we shall even miss his bullying intolerance, his pomposity, his self-righteousness, and his pseudo intellectual posing.

In tribute to Detterling Gene is republishing these three photos: the hilarious shot of Detterling trainspotting in 1959 and a photo of  socks in open-toed sandals and a photo of Delia dressed up as a sexpot.

Detterling aged fifteen trainspotting in 1959

Delia Detterling

ADIOS AMIGO


GENE

Alive in metal, stone, plaster, concrete, wood etc. Some of my favourite sculptures

                             

  

 Alive in metal, stone, plaster, concrete, wood etc. Some of my favourite sculptures

 

SAINT PETER

 

SAMUEL BECKETT

    

                                                              EINSTEIN

 

BURGHERS OF CALAIS

 

 

BILLY FURY