feminine-genius

"He was a good person"

For some reason, Rhode Islanders are scratching their heads over a recent murder in which a young man (47) was killed by the mother of one of his children. There were actually six mothers who bore his children and five of them thought he was an excellent father. The sixth? Not so much.

On Wednesday afternoon, the five other mothers and Holland’s relatives gathered at an apartment on Hymer Street to talk about his life. They said Holland had been characterized unfairly in The Journal as an abuser.

“There was also love there,” said Candace Smith, a niece. “He took care of his children. He spent time with them. The mothers [of his children] put aside all of their differences, and the kids spent time with all of their mothers.”

Leihani Rose — who has three children with Holland — and Silvia Vides, Melissa DeCosta, Keiojfa Hie and Jessenia Delossantos –– each with one child from Holland –– said that he made them all a family. They hugged each other and said in unison, “We love our baby mamas!”

He supported them by dealing drugs, his family said –– the best he could do because he was a high-school dropout and had so many children, so quickly.

His mother also thought he was a good son, who provided what she needed with those drug profits. He couldn't help himself, she said, having his first child at age 15 (with a woman ten years older).

OK, so women are their own worst enemies. The first "baby mama" passed him on to her best friend, and he roved from bed to bed after that -- with each woman fully aware of who she was inviting into her life. This is not a question of "more contraception," but one of standards, by which young women have no expectation of a life-long singular commitment from the men they give themselves to. How did they get to this point?

Well, to beat the dead horse, we must move the hands of the clock back to the 1960's with the introduction of devices that separated the marital embrace from the possibility of children; abortion protected that assumption, and soon the marital embrace was effectively separated from marriage -- "free love" (without consequences) was in the air that kids breathed -- the kids, that is, who survived the gauntlet of birth control and abortion.

With a litle help from no-fault divorce, the waning societal approbiation of promiscuity (smart kids know how to protect themselves!) and the ensuing generation who cleaved to government handouts when fathers fell off their radar screen, and voila! We come to a plateau forty years later where six women can share one man, eight children, drug profits and and a group hug in which they can say with a straight face: "“It’s normal! Everybody goes through it.”

Well, perhaps they're absolutely right. More people do go through it than we'd like, considering that only a minority of children are raised with a biological father in the home. These kids had one around occasionally until one baby mama changed her mind about how things worked.

The loving grandmother said her son didn't like drama. And yet he lived one in spades thanks to decades of lies about the dignity of persons and what God has in store for them if they choose well. One less drug dealer on the streets, that much more for welfare to pick up in the coming years, and five smiling women who still cannot see that he wasn't such a good man after all.

Solitary confinement

Rifqa Bary has been remanded to the care of her parents, the same parents who have been pressured by leaders in the local mosque to do something about her embrace of Christianity, which is a capital offence under Islamic law. Not only has she been placed in a toxic environment, where she was previously beaten and emotionally battered on a regular basis, but she is now being shut down from outside help.

Rifqa then arrived back to Ohio on Tuesday October 27’th. Upon her arrival came a new set of restrictions that her parents and Muslim attorneys have been trying to impose on her from the beginning…solitary confinement! While Rifqa was being protected in Florida, they repeatedly tried to separate Rifqa from other Christians that she leaned on for strength and encouragement. Rifqa’s Muslim parents have been saying from the beginning that they don’t believe that Rifqa became a Christian on her own accord, rather they believe that her real problem is that she has been brain washed by other people through facebook and over the phone.

Immediately upon Rifqa’s arrival to Ohio, came new draconian measures to limit her freedom already! Franklin County Juvenile Magistrate Mary Goodrich put these restrictions on Rifqa at the request of the Franklin county children's services agency immediately upon her arrival back to the state of Ohio.

“Bary's use of Facebook was one issue that led to the situation, said Jim Zorn, a children's services attorney, who asked Goodrich to restrict Bary from using the Internet and her cell phone. "What we want to restrict is the other people, the other organizations, the other forces, that have interjected themselves into this case inappropriately, and has caused the additional problems that we've seen," Zorn said.

Zorn’s account of Rifqa’s situation is absolutely false! Where is he getting his information? It seems as if the Ohio director of children’s services in Franklin County is reading right out of the C.A.I.R. and radical Muslim playbook for this case. Facebook did not in any way lead to this situation. What led to this situation was the fact that a very bright and intelligent girl decided to leave Islam and become a Christian. According to numerous passages in the Qur’an and other Islamic scriptures, this is called apostasy and is punishable by death. Like many others all over the world, Rifqa faced this threat of death, or even deportation back to Sri-Lanka by her own family along with pressure from the Columbus Ohio mosque that her family was actively apart of.

What crime did Rifqa Bary commit that she would be held with such restrictions from communicating to the outside world? While it is legal for 17 year old girls in this country to have abortions without parental agreement, this 17 year old girl is forbidden to have unrestricted access to her phone or facebook friends of her choosing! Is she under house arrest because she is a Christian? This sounds like Sharia law in Ohio!

Imagine the hue and cry if any other parent limited his child's communications to that degree. The irony about usual freedoms allowed to teenagers (whether prudent or not) being denied by the court is staggering. But then special rules carved out for the needs of Muslims is becoming commonplace. Prayers for the safety of this young girl.

Wednesday woes VIII

Today we consider the women of Saudi Arabia who are subject to stringent laws concerning guardianship, which is part of the Muslim world. This summer, a Saudi activist, Wajeha Al-Huweidar, sought to change the existing laws which require a woman to have a man's permission for everything that she does, in addition to traveling with a male escort when leaving the country. In response, a counter-proposal has been launched in the name of Princess Jawaher bint Jalawi. (There are scores of princes and princesses attached to the House of Saud who are wealthy beyond all our imagination.)

This campaign has been called "My Guardian Knows What's Best For Me," and is specifically opposed to calls by those with liberal views to improve the status of women in Saudi Arabia. Some suspect that this has really been started by men, but the point is clear: no reform of existing laws stands a chance of success within the Wahhabi regime in Saudi Arabia.

"[This campaign's] slogan gives the man greater tyranny and greater control, and greater humiliation and greater disregard [for the woman], and expresses a view [of women] as inferior... because of customs from the Jahiliya [i.e. the pre-Islamic period] which some consider to be 'religion.' How can the term ['guardian'] be given to a cheating husband, a drug dealer, a misyar husband or a 'summer husband [these terms are explained in footnotes].

"[The campaign's slogan] is illegitimate and illogical – it is a catastrophe, and the greatest catastrophe is that women themselves fall victim to this idea, and justify the myth of [their own inferiority] and become enthusiastic about it. Even if [the term] 'guardian' in this slogan refers to the ruler, Allah did not create woman so that man should speak in her name...

"Men no longer customarily bury their daughters [alive] as they did during the Jahiliya [the time before Islam]. But some among us have buried women's emotional and psychological needs... [as well as] affection and attention [to them]. The ill treatment of women is [not limited] to any one trend or party. It exists in all streams – Islamic, liberal, and secular. How women are treated is the result of upbringing in the home and of the culture of an entire society, a combination of customs handed down [from generation to generation].

The debate is frenzied and complicated, with many insisting that Islam isn't the problem, but irresponsible men are; some say that this is a plot from Western enemies who want to weaken the country through its women -- implying that patriotism would lead women to love their guardians; others say that it's too big a change and smaller steps would have a better chance -- which would leave the system basically intact.

As I read A God Who Hates (Wafi Sultan) it becomes clearer that Islam cannot see women as anything other than chattel and property of the men in their lives, unequal in dignity to men and tainted from birth by being sources of sin and unable to rise beyond it.

[Her grandmother instilled in her] the Muslim belief that “She is defective! She is grateful to her husband for covering up one tenth of this defect of hers and is waiting for the grave to hide the other nine tenths” (p. 117).

“The most terrifying thing about a Muslim woman’s birthmark is that part which comes from the Prophet’s stories about his wives that create a trap every Muslim woman falls into: no man in my life can be better than his Prophet and I cannot be less obedient to him than his Prophet’s wives were to their husband. Men have internalized the Prophet, and women have internalized his wives” (p. 119).

I want to discuss the moral importance and what [Muhammad's marriage to Aisha] has done, and is still doing, to destroy the moral and mental fiber of Muslim men and women. A fifty-year old man marries a six-year-old girl and consummates their marriage when she turns nine. This is a crime, pure and simple. It may not have been one at the time it happened, but the time has come for it to be considered as such.  The ugliness of this crime does not lie only in the event itself, but in the religious and legal legitimization it has been accorded. It is the moral examples the individual Muslim extracts from this incident which invest it with its importance and gravity, not its time or place.

Islamic culture attaches no value to childhood. A child is his father’s property, who has the right to dispose of him as he would of any other property. When a mother picks up her young daughter of no more than nine years and places her in the arms of a man her grandfather’s age, her daughter’s childhood has been irreparably violated. When the mother’s action acquired religious and legal legitimacy, it became a way of life for fourteen centuries. (God hates. 120)

Islam was born in an environment that sanctioned the capture and rape of women, holding them – not the man committing the crime – responsible. Islam did not proscribe what was already permissible. On the contrary, it legalized it and enshrined it in canonical law. Man’s need to take his revenge on women because he considered them a source of disgrace was a pressing one (p. 129).

Your women are your fields: go, then, into your fields as you please (Koran 2:223). A woman therefore, is like/the land – the dirt – while the man is the farmer who plows that land and casts his seed into it. The dirt cannot protest as the farmer furrows it, nor can it determine the rime or place of planting. The whole operation takes place under the man’s control and is carried out in accordiance with his wishes. Can the dirt protest? Cant the dirt decide how it is plowed and planted? For fourteen centuries Muslim women have been the dirt of Islam that Muslim men have trod on and “planted” in their role as the farmer  (pp 133-4).

Can anyone explain rules about guardianship (that a Muslim woman is first subject to her father, then brothers, then husband, and later sons) apart from the example set by Muhammad -- the owner of many wives and concubine/slaves? Is this a religion likely to be reformed without renouncing the prophet? He set the example that Muslim men have followed ever since. And for women to say that guardians are necessary and good only exhibits their Stockholm Syndrome. Very, very sad.

UPDATE: Speakingof those guardians and whether or not they know best, consider this guardian who sold his ten-year-old into marriage with an, ahem, considerably older man.

Saudi columnist and former editor of the Saudi daily Shams Khalaf Al-Harbi harshly criticized the practice of underage marriage. In an article titled "Save Elementary School Girls!" in the Saudi daily 'Okaz, he wrote: "How is it possible that an elementary school girl is married to an 80-year-old man and no one lifts a finger to prevent this disaster? [And] how is it possible that, [although] this sad episode is reported on the front page [of a newspaper], the public treats it as a 'private matter'?...

"In an interview with 'Okaz, the bridegroom denied that he was 80 years old… [He also said] that according to shari'a, [such] a marriage is permissible as long as the father of the bride consents to it… and that he was originally supposed to wed the older sister... What is the meaning of all this? The older sister refuses to marry an 80-year-old man, so the father offers him the next in line…

"How can anyone accept such injustice? Where are all the heroic women [who led] the [My Guardian Knows What's Best for Me] campaign? [2] Let them explain the difference between fatherhood and selling vegetables [in the market].

The little girl hid in her aunt's home for over a week until she was found and handed back. For those who wonder about Saudi Arabia's signature to the "International Convention on the Rights of the Child," remember that their the Islamic version of human rights insists that shari'a always takes preference over what the rest of the world considers settled law.

UPDATE: Rachel Abrams is a little more blunt --

The marriage of a grown—not to say aged—man to a ten-year-old girl is a solution only to the case of a pedophile seeking his next victim. If that’s Islamic, call me a Crusader.

Enter the Magdalene

For the first time ever, relics of Saint Mary Magdalene are being brought to the United States, and not a moment too soon. They are in the care of the Dominicans of a French province, who themselves honoured the conversion of the penitent woman:

The saint's relics are kept in the Grotto of St. Mary Magdalene, known as La Sainte Baume, where tradition has it that Mary Magdalene spent the last 30 years of her life. The relic--a piece of the tibia, or shinbone--is accompanied by a letter of authentication signed by the local bishop.

The cult of Mary Magdalene began to rise to prominence in the 11th century, and began flourishing in particular in the Dominican Order. In the 13th century, the Church set great store by the conversion of prostitutes, the most devout of whom where incorporated into communities of penitents by the bishops. These communities, which were given a Dominican constitution, took St. Mary Magdalene as their patron, as the saint herself was believed to have belonged to their ranks.

Charles II of Anjou, King of Naples, had founded the Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene in the town of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume and strongly promoted the cult of the saint. Pope Boniface VIII put the basilica under the jurisdiction of the Dominican Order. In 1297, relics believed to be those of Mary Magdalene were discovered in the town's Church of St. Maximin.

That year the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene was first celebrated throughout the Order. It was thus that Mary Magdalene became a patroness of the Order alongside the Virgin Mary. The Dominicans honor her as the "Apostle to the Apostles" by virtue of her mission to announce the news of the Resurrection to Christ's disciples-a mission the Friars compare to their own.

This will be discussed on EWTN on Oct 27th -- details here. Let us hope that her profound purity and love of Christ will be a means of grace for our continent, which is so confused about God's gift of human sexuality.

Well, there you go

The court decided in the case of Rifqa Bary that there was no threat, no danger, no risk to sending her back to Ohio to live with her parents.

• Her father is a member of the Noor Islamic Center in Ohio which has radical ties to terrorists;
• The members of the mosque have visited his home and told him about the responsibilities he has to make sure his "apostate" daughter renounces her Christianity;
• The father has aready threatened Rifqa and beaten her over the years;
• The family is in the country illegally;
• The family has arranged a marriage for Rifqa back in Sri Lanka;
• The court and press have insinuated that the Christians who protected her are the real danger;
• Once she disappears from public scrutiny, she will have no protection;
• Once she leaves the country (esp. with an angry father whose immigration status was revealed by her flight to Florida) she will have lost any hopes of a peaceful life -- if she lives at all.

The press refused to frame the story in an honest way, and even those gov't officials admitted that they didn't know anything about Islam. So parents can lose their children for poor nutrition and a variety of suspected behaviours, but not for death threats and harassment. (The extent of the problem is chronicled here -- scroll down for a host of beautiful women, no longer with us.)

UPDATE: Robert Spencer connects the dots on the dangers to Rifqa by means of another tragic attack on a Muslim girl:
 

 

A great gift to the Church

Mothers matter. And this mother made a great difference:

October 21, Gertrud Gänswein, the 78-year-old mother of Pope Benedict's personal secretary, Msgr. Georg Gänswein, passed away at her home in Freiburg, Germany. Her death was unexpected.

She had appeared in vibrant health just two months ago at the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the priestly ordination of her son and she was at the time received in an audience by Pope Benedict XVI.

The Italian writer Alessandra Borghese, a friend of don Georg, in an article published four months ago, on June 11, in Gente, said that Msgr. Georg's relationship with his mother was "decisive and fundamental" for his priestly vocation, and that this relationship was then still "extremely close."

In an interview two years ago, Msgr. Georg said his mother was "a woman who above all knew how to give answers to the questions of her children."

I imagine, according to custom, she will be buried with the linen cloth that wrapped the hands of her son, Fr Georg, at his ordination. (I know one dear woman whose eyes positively sparkle when she thinks of that detail of her passing!) Rest in peace, dear sister in faith.

[The above portion came from the regular newsletter offered by Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican. Always informative and well-written, I highly recommend it -- here.]

Relevant radio

I'll be on Relevant Radio for about 45 minutes beginning later this afternoon at 5:30. Mark Armstrong and I will be talking about rebuilding the culture through motherhood. If you don't get it in your area, it looks like you listen over the internet (as you prepare that transformative dinner!)

UPDATE: Half-way through hour three of the Drew Mariani Show.

"Getting Real"

Pauline Cooper has written an excellent review of a new book, Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls. It's more than timely, well overdue, actually, and the review includes this gem:

As the contributors to this book demonstrate, women are instructed from an early age that their value stems from their sexual allure and availability. No longer are young girls aspiring to a place in parliament or to shatter the glass ceiling in their local law firm. Nowadays, they are taught that real girl power is acquired in the bedroom. From their peers, the media and other social authorities they are learning to prostitute themselves (metaphorically and literally) in the hope that in return they will receive love, intimacy, social acceptance and attain the happiness that is supposedly acquired with the perfect body (and outfit to match).

As Noni Hazlehurst affirms, “We have to wake up and smell the crap. It’s everywhere. And the weight of evidence that we are causing irreparable damage to our children is becoming overwhelming. Our children are bombarded with images and concepts that that they are not able to assimilate, understand or contextualise, even if they have parents or carers who might try and explain.”

The only quibble I would have with one of the essays is the obfucation about feminism:

Betty McLellan ... warns that it is dangerous to equate feminism with the sexual revolution as they are two completely different social movements. Promoters of the sexualisation of women and girls tell us that it is a matter of personal, individual choice. Yet McLellan makes the point that feminism must reject this assertion: “‘the personal is political,’ we say, ‘the way women and girls are treated in their personal lives is actually a political issue’. We suggest that the increasing focus on sex and sexiness is not so much a matter of personal preference but pressures coming from people and institutions in society with power to shape the way others think and feel.”

Nonsense. Although there are different schools of feminism, all of them (except for specifically pro-life feminists) require access to birth control and abortion in order to free women for all options. To fail to connect the dots between eliminating the moral constraints concerning "reproductive freedom" and the uber sexualisation of girls is disingenuous. It sounds like Ms McLellan would like to stand on the high ground of advancing the cause of women (and respect for their brains) while thinking it can be compartmentalised from the effects that sexual autonomy had on the ensuing generation -- wholly unrealistic.

All in all, though, it looks like an excellent book.