feminine-genius

A different global warming

The bearded lady and troops of midgets are so passe. Now the world wants aberrations to keep pace with its already-established sense of deconstructed truths, and one [wo]man is happy to oblige.

Thracy has two X chromosomes, a fully functioning set of female genitalia, and a uterus -- and a voice higher than Alvin the Chipmunk's. She's a plain old lesbian who was weirdly fascinated with the idea of using a Schick Quattro on her face. Though Thracy's decision to artificially inseminate herself is the height of narcissism, it is hardly a medical anomaly.

But the Thracy story is told by the media as though it is a triumph of man over nature. "Thomas, 34, posed naked for our fascinating new pictures which show just how extraordinary this pregnancy is as he even SHAVES while resting his elbow on his baby bump," gasps News of the World. "Is the world ready for this?" asks Oprah.

Well, at least the world has been well-primed by the media for decades -- sumo-wrestling "the family" out of the circle, playing mind-games with children, selling sex from every billboard and umbrella vendor, hiring contortionists to manage the language in schools to assure no one resorts to patriarchal drivel in forming the young.

Is this really a "gotcha" moment? Ben Shapiro continues:

The media, then, has a tacit deal with Thracy: forward her political agenda, and in return, get the shots that will boost viewership. For Thracy is no innocent, "hounded" by the media, as Oprah describes her -- she is a militant lesbian activist willing to use her body to undermine gender roles and promote sexual confusion. She is a propagandist of the first order. She plasters pictures of herself topless in her front yard, her self-butchered breasts over her pregnant belly, then claims victimization when receptionists look at her sideways. She appears on Oprah, then has the unremitting gall to claim that others are targeting her with cameras.

Playing in the sprinkler and hide and seek are long gone. Children in the present age will be forced to absorb and process how a man can have a baby -- before they should know how babies are made. Talk about "rock my world." Try raising children in a perpetual earthquake. The media profits, the lesbians get their jollies, and kids live in a state of emotional melt-down.

As California goes, so goes... what?

My dear friend Dale (who is supposed to be co-blogger here, but is highly distracted by her new "paradise") has been interviewed by Inside Catholic. Her book is essential reading, and would make a great gift for priest friends, who don't have time to wade through the essential data.

Her arguments come on two levels. The first, the lie:

Right. But once you start to lie, you've got to keep the lie going. So you have the case of a little boy who thinks he's a little girl. So the school has to tell everyone else -- including the kids who know it's not true -- that they should pretend that this little boy is a little girl, instead of explaining that he has a serious psychological disorder which needs treatment.

Every time we speak the truth, that truth will offend the defenders of the lie. In Massachusetts, the Catholic Church can't oversee adoptions because they won't give children to same-sex couples. So with each move we make, we'll come up against this.

You know the line the activists use -- "How does marrying the person I love affect you?" Well here's how. Now we know how it affects us. They don't simply want to have that relationship called a marriage by law. They have to silence everyone who says it's not a marriage.

The second is the truth. Dale's thesis since converting to the Church has been this: If the Church teaches something about how we are to behave, then scientific evidence will eventually back it up, showing that to depart from this teaching is to 1. diminish us as persons, and 2. have adversive physical or psychological effects. The trick is, scientists often have agendas and will present something that isn't true -- for various reasons. Dale has done the "grunt work" for decades, reading "their" material, poring over the research, and nailing the lies. God bless her!

UPDATE: a follow-up piece here. You simply must buy her book.

A very successful business

No, not Mary Kay cosmetics, but surrogate motherhood offered to help male couples who want to express their [fatherhood?] without cleaving to a woman.

The "gay baby boom" has made families with two fathers a common sight in New York City's daycare centers and parks, although gay couples legally marry only in one US state, Massachusetts.

"It is not looked at anymore as something so weird or strange," said Sanford Benardo, president of the Northeast Assisted Fertility Group from Boston, Massachusetts.

So we have sodomy, masturbation, hyper-ovulation, egg retrieval, in vitro fertilisation, foetal reduction (i.e abortion), womb rental, and dispassionate motherhood so that children can be conceived and introduced into motherless homes.

The title of the piece, "Surrogate mothers fulfilling gay men's parenthood dreams," says it all: it's not about the children, or their inherent rights, but about the selfishness and greed of others.

Circle Surrogacy [is] a company that helps people find egg donors and host mothers and navigate through the legal and medical insurance process. "It is a very successful business," said Circle Surrogacy President John Weltman.

"In 12 years we have grown 6,000 percent with no borrowing whatsoever and profit made every month," he said. "We expect to double in the next two and half years."

Every market needs a niche, and every dream simply needs a little money, in this case roughly $100,000.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, between one million and nine million children under the age of 18 have same-sex parents today.

Henry, a blue-eyed baby turning two in August, has two fathers -- Christopher Hietikko and Jeffrey Parsons -- both in their 40s. His surrogate mother, a lesbian from California, has been made part of the family. "We became very close and we still are very close," said Parsons, a psychology professor at Hunter College. "We didn't want to treat it as a business arrangement. We wanted to treat it more like creating a family."

The two men don't know who fathered Henry, but they will take a DNA test once they are ready for a second child to decide who will be the next baby's biological dad. For their first child, the sperm samples from both men were mixed together to give each an equal chance at becoming the biological father, Parsons said.

Cute -- a new parlour game. Perhaps family folklore will include this treasured piece of information as a bedtime story for Henry as he grows up. And sad to say, he may tell a story of his own similar to this one in a few decades.

For now, cheerleaders for this market rely on the professionals:

The psychologist insists that children born in these 21st-century families are as happy as kids whose parents are a woman and a man. "The research shows very clearly that what children need the most to strive and survive is a safe, and secure, and loving home," he said.

"It really doesn't matter whether there are two moms in that home, two dads in that home, a single dad, a single mom, whatever, as long as a child knows that he/she is loved and is cared for."

Such are the theories in vogue. In light of this, one woman (herself traumatised by being raised by a homosexual father) makes a brilliant point about the availability of counseling for these children:

I feel sorry for kids today, because they can't even go to most counsellors or teachers without hearing the gay rights rhetoric. The professional may try to change your negative perspective about your parent's lifestyle choices as if you, as the child, have the problem. There's no really safe place to go to get help.

And yet, their support of the gay lifestyle is based on very flawed data:

Robert Lerner, Ph.D., and Althea Nagai, Ph.D., professionals in the field of quantitative analysis, evaluated 49 empirical studies on samesex parenting. They found at least one "fatal" research flaw in all fortynine studies. Some major problems uncovered in those studies include the following:

• Unclear hypotheses and research designs
• Missing or inadequate comparison groups
• Self-constructed, unreliable and invalid measurements
• Non-random samples, including use of "friendship circles" (participants who recruit other participants)
• Samples too small to yield meaningful results
• Missing or inadequate statistical analysis

As a result, the authors concluded that no generalizations can reliably be made based on any of these studies.

Sadly all too typical. But facts shouldn't stand in the way of dreams, should they? And similar to all "choice" campaigns, the child is simply a by-product. It's never about him as a person. It was all in Humanae Vitae, which we ignore to our peril. Forty years of madness.

Emptying both barrels

Fr Jonathan Tobias has a small mountain of spent shells at his feet after this salvo. I've been bugged (like most) about the latest revelations from JKRowling, since it was an unnecessary and clumsy add-on. But it's done now. Second Terrace reveals the breadth of the damage. One snippet:

That was a neat trick, JK. You turned Dumbledore into a hero for zillions of kids. You waited until the book sales smashed one superlative after another, and the Brinks trucks lined the drive of your post-welfare mansion.

Then, after the kids (and priests like me) were lined up in your palm, eating out of your hand, you squeezed the bird, Slytherin-like. Dumbledore the hero, the wise man, the quasi-Christ-figure, you outed. Gay, despite no real narrative logic that demanded him to be so.

The gayness of Dumbledore is only a useless appendix (though, doubtless, quite a profitable one: now that the family market has been exhausted, this latest revelation opens up the new über-rich childless childish gold-vein of the self-involved, who practice their simultaneous (not mutual) communion before the Mirror of Erised).

Ex post facto, and clearly tangential to the story line, you announced this hero as a homosexual. The syllogism is neat, I have to admit. To bring out of the closet what had been squirreled away inside, the argument goes something like this in the daylight:

• Major Premise: I admire Dumbledore the powerful and wise and mostly good …
• Minor Premise: Dumbledore is gay …
• Conclusion: therefore all gays are powerful and wise and mostly good and I must admire them.

If anyone doubts Father's syllogism, it's been verified already in the MSM:

"Jo Rowling calling any Harry Potter character gay would make wonderful strides in tolerance toward homosexuality," Melissa Anelli, webmaster of the fan site http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org, told The Associated Press. "By dubbing someone so respected, so talented and so kind, as someone who just happens to be also homosexual, she's reinforcing the idea that a person's gayness is not something of which they should be ashamed."

Very young children are drawn to this revelation in wonder. What does it mean? What is "gay" anyway? I cannot think of any motive other than a very dark one that would lead to this. Millstones come to mind...  Oremus.

________________________________

UPDATE: One self-professed gay man is not pleased with the revelation.

But as far as we know, Dumbledore had not a single fully realized romance in 115 years of life. That's pathetic, and a little creepy. It's also a throwback to an era of pop culture when the only gay characters were those who committed suicide or were murdered (as Dumbledore was) ... Like a lisping weakling, Dumbledore is a painfully selfless, celibate, dead gay man, so forgive me if I don't see Rowling's revelation as great progress.

Giving rise to scandal

Joanna Bogle offers some troubling news:

According to a report in the Evening Standard, Cherie Blair is to attend the Civil Union (ie a same-sex marriage, or "gay wedding") of a friend, and play an active role by "giving away" this friend - ie sort of like the father of a bride does in a real marriage - as part of the ceremony.

If this is true, this is serious. No Catholic can in good conscience take part in such a ceremony, and a Catholic in public life has the extra responsibility of giving scandal by celebrating the "gay lifestyle", ie active homosexual lifestyle, in this way. Any sort of legal ceremony between two people of the same sex which masquerades as a marriage is a mockery of the great reality of matrimony which is the unique lifelong bond between a man and a woman which establishes a new family. The Church teaches this plainly, it was spelled out in some detail in a special document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith because of the importance of this matter, and the Holy father has made it the subject of specific teachings in recent weeks.

I love her initial reaction: "If this is true...." which is always an excellent way to respond to such stories. Only aging has allowed me the wisdom not to jump to my feet at every whiff of silliness, knowing that the press [and others] are basically pot-stirrers at heart. That said, if this is true, Joanna has clarified in a nut-shell why we cannot participate in such events. This could be a teaching moment, for such ceremonies are now ubiquitous and we have to always be ready to give an answer for the faith we hold.

[She didn't provide an original link, so I don't have one handy. Any search engine would be more than happy to help in that quest.]

Physiology is pretty straightforward

President Bush has nominated Dr. James Holsinger for Surgeon General, but the gay rights activists are not happy. In 1991 Dr Holsinger, a member of the United Methodist Church, prepared a document for that body entitled Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality. In that [graphic] study he noted the following obvious fact:

It is absolutely clear that anatomically and physiologically the alimentary and reproductive systems in humans are separate organ systems; i.e., the human does not have a cloaca. Likewise it is clear that even primitive cultures understand the nature of waste elimination, sexual intercourse, and the birth of children. Indeed our own children appear to intuitively understand these facts. I think we should note that these simple "scientific facts are the same in any culture - patriarchal or matriarchal, modern or primitive, Jewish or gentile, etc. The anatomic and physiologic facts of alimentation and reproduction simply do not change based on any cultural setting. In fact, the logical complementarity of the human sexes has been so recognized in our culture that it has entered our vocabulary in the form of naming various pipe fittings either the male pipe fitting or the female pipe fitting depending upon which one interlocks within the other. When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and disease may occur as noted above.

Therefore, based on the simplest known anatomy and physiology, when dealing with the complementarity of the human sexes, one can simply say, Res ipsa loquitor - the thing speaks for itself!

Well, the language the human race has spoken for many millennia is under attack and the straight-forward physiological complications from confusing the sexual organs with the alimentary organs are well-documented (not to mention the problems with confusing the naturally private sexual organs as public property). Will we found our health-care decisions on biology -- or continue to play "let's pretend" with social games -- at the price of millions of lives? Stay tuned.

Confusing mental illness with rights

Mercator.net has two good articles concerning same-sex attraction disorder and gender confusion. Women must understand these things, because of guiding souls and our tendency to confuse love with enabling behaviour. First Dale O'Leary comments on a bill working its way through the legislature:

One of the problems with the legislation is that the new categories are not clearly defined. For example, the reference to "actual or perceived…gender identity" in the legislation is an effort to cover persons classified as transgender, transsexual, and transvestite, conditions that have been classified as psychological disorders.

Those pushing for the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to protected categories insist that they are normal variants -- part of human sexual diversity. Others see these "variants" as deviations from the normal and evidence of underlying psychological disorders.

It is true that the American Psychiatric Association decided that "homosexuality per se" is not a sign of mental illness; however, subsequent research has found that persons with same-sex attractions (SSA) are more likely than the general public to suffer from a host of psychological problems. Four large well designed studies* found significantly higher rates of diagnosed psychological disorders among persons with SSA.

No one should be mean to the mentally ill, but when people suffer from mental illness they often interpret ordinary differences of opinion as personal attacks. By including sexual orientation and gender identity in the hate crimes legislation Congress would open the door for mentally ill persons to claim they are victims of intimidation or "hate" every time someone disagrees with them or opposes their political demands.

Many have had the experience of "walking on eggshells" when dealing with persons in one of these categories, indicating that it's impossible to speak freely or discuss some things rationally. Hence, the fragility that is part of this sad situation.

Secondly, Theron Bowers writes specifically about the medical industry's current approach to gender "reassignment," which requires at present two years of counseling before drastic measures are taken. Referring to Newsweek's recent sympathetic view towards this population

Newsweek also avoided the other key debate about this difficult issue: whether or not transgenders have a mental illness or merely an inconsequential desire. The word "transgender" is a neologism coined by activists to denote people who at least sometimes identify themselves with the opposite sex. Typically, these folks are transsexuals and/or transvestites. Both transsexuals and transvestites have been in the psychiatric "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM). Transvestitism is intense sexual arousal to women’s clothing. Transsexuals identify themselves as the opposite sex. In 1980, transsexualism was added to the third edition of DSM. In 1994, the term "gender identity disorder" replaced transsexualism.

Doctors get involved because transsexuals often demand hormones and surgery to fulfill their desires. But are physicians enabling a mental illness or merely complying with a cosmetic request?

Many transgender activists object to the "crazy" label. The brother/sister of actors, Rosanna, David and Patricia Arquette was featured in Newsweek. Alexis Arquette is on a crusade against current standards of care. He/she complains that sceptics are "questioning the sanity of people like myself". Most sexual reassignment centers require two years of counselling before the procedure. Alexis objects to the counselling and seems to propose that physicians ought to treat castration and penile amputations as casually as nose jobs.

Then the author wades into the philosophy behind gender "stereotypes" which are now said to be simply cultural constructs, created because of the disconnect between biology and vocation, i.e. sex and procreation. The surgical option, it has been found, is no panacea and brings a host of problems with it for the patient and all family and friends who cooperated with the decision. Dr Paul McHugh has studied the issue for a long time and convinced his institution (Johns Hopkins) to stop gender reassignments and to focus on the mental illness behind the desire to change genders.

Still, confusion reigns and we would do well to be familiar with the hard evidence.

School secrets...

"What goes on in Ms Buford's class stays in Ms Buford's class" said the substitute, as she shut the door. Now if she'd opened a Bible, or preached chastity, or made a plea for the sanctity of marriage, she'd be all over the news. But this conniving woman thought a bunch of 12-year-olds ought to see an R-rated movie -- on school property, on the government dime, when the kids should have been learning something ...else.

A girl and her grandparents have sued the Chicago Board of Education, alleging that a substitute teacher showed the R-rated film Brokeback Mountain in class. The lawsuit claims that Jessica Turner, 12, suffered psychological distress after viewing the movie in her 8th grade class at [her school] last year.

The film, which won three Oscars, depicts two cowboys who conceal their homosexual affair. Turner and her grandparents, Kenneth and LaVerne Richardson, are seeking around $500,000 in damages. "It is very important to me that my children not be exposed to this," said Kenneth Richardson, Turner's guardian. "The teacher knew she was not supposed to do this."

Evidently, either the rest of the kids followed her instructions and didn't tell, or they told and their parents didn't have a problem with the way their children were "taught" that day. Now how does the administration see Jessica's emotional distress? Something she'll have to deal with in order to get along in the brave new world? Or a red flag that something's deeply troubling about same-sex attraction disorder? Woe to those who scandalise the little ones.

[Btw, evidently our school district has complied with the re-education of youth towards this end. A male-male couple took to the dance floor early at the local prom, while the rest were still eating, in order to engage in their own dance complete with lip-lock -- to wild cheers. A real NEA success story; Ms Buford would be so proud!]

What's in a number?

Three parents were recognised by the state, two to raise the children, one from outside the home to pay support, although as a father he was happy to look in on them as well.

A sperm donor who helped a lesbian couple conceive two children is liable for child support under a state appellate court ruling that a legal expert believes might be the first of its kind in the U.S.

A Superior Court panel last week ordered a Dauphin County judge to establish how much Carl L. Frampton, Jr. would have to pay to the birth mother of the 8-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl.

But Frampton, 60, of Indiana, PA, died suddenly of a stroke in March, leaving lawyers involved in the case with different theories about how his death may affect the precedent-setting case.

The two women split up, and there was a battle over support there as well. So ultimately the birth-mother ended up with two sources of child-support: her lesbian lover (who I guess was the bread-winner of the couple) and the man whose sperm was used to impregnate the mother.

The children knew he was their biological father, but Frampton opposed the effort to compel support from him. "We made the argument that, according to Pennsylvania law as it stands, there can really only be two adult individuals that can be held liable for support in a child-custody case," said Frampton's lawyer, Matthew Aaron Smith.

[The departed lesbian partner's] lawyer, Heather Z. Reynosa, wants Frampton's support obligation to be made retroactive to when [the brith mother] first filed for support. Frampton's social security survivor benefits may also help reduce Shultz-Jacob's monthly obligation.

It is unclear how the child-support guidelines, which assume two parents, will be adapted to account for three parents. "That's what's going to be interesting, because there's not a whole lot of guidance out there," Reynosa said.

Thus there are two big problems here: one, the sad acceptance by these children of a very unstable family life as "normal," with the help of the courts, no doubt their circle of friends, and probably their school. Whatever anxieties or dysfunction they show over the coming years cannot be attributed to the unorthodoxies in their life, but will have to be pinned on the unsophisticated people around them, or perhaps residual Judeo-Christian notions that cast aspersions on the rest of society.

The second is the precedent of three parents. This may seem peculiar and inconsequential, but it is not. We know how precedent is used in America, and it has been a goal of the same-sex attraction crowd to blow the nuclear family to bits. Although they say that same-sex couples simply want the rights and access that complementary couples have, their literature shows nothing but contempt for faithful, exclusive conjugal life.

If they have managed to redefine "family" in one more way with this case, they have a major victory. They've already managed to get man-man and woman-woman couples on the radar screen; now it's time to get rid of the anachronism of two parents. (Of course, "victory" has its casualties, like any combat. Poor, poor children.)

Who are the bullies here?

An important petition is being solicited by C-Fam, which attempts to protect Poland's ability to make its own laws. The European Union has passed a resolution condeming Poland for trying to keep the homosexual agenda out of its schools. It is essential that family advocates support the right of individual governments to reflect the will of their constituents.

We, thousands of citizens from all over the world, stand in solidarity with the Polish people and strongly condemn the European Parliament resolution on homosexuality in Europe. The resolution is a blatant attempt to bully the people of Poland from exercising their rights to educate their sons and daughters according to their cultural and national traditions.  We call on the Parliament to stop this promotion of a radical social agenda, including the proposed "fact finding mission" to Warsaw and the Parliament’s threat of legal action against Poland.

The EU wording is typical of the anti-family rhetoric:

whereas this resolution, like the above-mentioned resolutions, has been triggered by the proliferation of hate speech and other series of worrying events, such as the prohibition by local authorities of holding equality and gay pride marches, the use by leading politicians and religious leaders of inflammatory or threatening language or hate speech, and the failure by the police to provide adequate protection against violent demonstrations by homophobic groups, even while breaking up peaceful demonstrations,

D.   whereas equality and gay pride events are planned throughout Europe and the world in the forthcoming months, with participants and organisers facing possible physical violence, despite their fundamental right to freedom of expression and assembly, as recalled inter alia by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights...

The gay agenda is a bastion of peace and pride, while the family thugs are hateful and violent. (Who throws red paint, condoms, and epithets at whom during any confrontation? Anyone ever been to a pro-life rally or a Eucharistic celebration, as contrasted with a gay pride celebration in San Francisco or the like...?) Never mind. Poland could use your help, as we exhibit solidarity once more. Sign here. (Today's the last chance to sign.)