CHANGE OF VENUE
I've relocated to OMF Serge's blog, Imago Dei. I'll be posting there, hopefully with greater regularity, until further notice.

Thanks for tuning in!

Steve 
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  Prenatal Rapist? Eileen McDonagh of Radcliff College advanced a radical version of Judith Jarvis Thomson's Violinist argument for abortion rights in her Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice to Consent (Oxford University Press, 1996). She attempted to establish a separation between consent to sex and consent to pregnancy, and with that in mind she compared pregnancy without consent to, of all things, rape (i.e. sex without consent), with the fetus being the guilty party. She was supported by prominent members of the pro-choice movement in taking this radical position.

I had the privilege of co-authoring an article with Dr. Frank Beckwith (of Baylor University) to spell out a few of the difficulties with McDonagh's position - some of which, even a comatose person could help to expose. The article is now online at the Journal of Libertarian Studies (also available at FJB's website). 
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  TAKE ACTION TO PRESERVE MARRIAGE With the crucial battle over marriage heating up, I've pieced together some resources on the issue of homosexual marriage:

First, in case you missed it, Focus On The Family just put out great radio programs on the subject (the July 6th & 7th programs).

Second, Greg Koukl of Stand To Reason has aptly addressed a number of the arguments for same-sex marriage in his piece, Same-Sex Marriage: Challenges and Responses (PDF). You can also hear the Issues, Etc. interviews with Mr. Koukl in MP3 - Part 1 and Part 2.

Third, I wrote an essay back in April critiquing the elevation and normalization of homosexuality (including same-sex marriage) by way of responding to an argument made by Congressman Barney Frank (D., Mass.). Read Frankly Misguided and find out "just how deep the fissures go in the homosexual understanding of human nature, and what effects its principles do and may have on the people of our times and the generations to come."

(BTW, Dr. Francis J. Beckwith of Baylor University has recommended both my piece and Mr. Koukl's. See here and here, respectively.)

Finally, take action:



 
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  A Church Without Provisions Archbishop Cañizares of Spain took up the cause of traditional marriage in his Sunday homily:

[I]t is not even valid to call by the word 'marriage' -- stable union of one man and one woman open to life -- these homosexual unions, because they disfigure at its very core what this word expresses and has always expressed in all areas of the world and at all times.

The article ends with this

Aware that the worsening of Church-state relations might lead some to propose the end of public financing of the Church, the prelate advocated a Church "without provisions."

"Don't let them [intimidate] us with the threat of taking away our provisions," the archbishop said. "The Church is able to live in poverty; as she doesn't know, or must not be able to know, how to live without proclaiming Jesus Christ and the sole Lordship of God, or sell herself for riches."

AMEN! Go, Archbishop, go!

Do we have a similar situation here, with the tax-exempt status of churches keeping them from speaking the truth in the clearest possible way? Should we abandon that and speak without reservation before the time for action has passed? 
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  Darwin's Last Stand? Get the new Intelligent Design issue from Touchstone magazine for great articles on the state of ID and the coming demise of naturalistic views of human origins. Includes articles by Phillip Johnson, Jonathan Witt, Richard Weikart, Edward Sisson, Jay Richards, William Dembski, Carson Holloway, David Mills, Graeme Hunter, Paul Nelson, James Kushiner, Anthony Esolen, and David Mills.

(Click on the cover for details and ordering information)

 
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  Art Imitating Life I just stumbled across the Broadway play, "I Am My Own Wife":

The 2004 Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning I Am My Own Wife tells of author Doug Wright's fascination with the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transvestite caught up in the great European dramas of the 20th century.

A photo of the lovely "couple":

This recalls the thoughts of Hadley Arkes, from his testimony on the Defense of Marriage Act:

Of course, the "problem" here would dissolve as a problem if the understanding of marriage could simply be broadened to encompass people of the same sex. And if marriage were simply an artifact of the "positive law," if it could mean just anything the positive law proclaimed it to mean, then the positive law could define just about anything as a marriage. It could discard, as so many arbitrary vestiges of the past, the restrictions placed on the age of the married partners, or their degree of blood relation. If it were simply a matter of promulgating, through the positive law, a definition of marriage and the partners, why shouldn't it be possible to permit a mature woman, past child bearing, to marry her grown son? In fact, why would it not be possible to permit a man, much taken with himself, to marry himself? Enough people, about us, have already fallen into a certain kind of "dualism"--as when they tell us, for example, that they are "at ease with themselves"--so that it requires no conceptual stretch these days for a man to wed himself. The notion of a no-fault divorce later may raise stickier problems, but the marriage itself may be easier to entertain. Of course, certain sticklers for language are likely to wonder whether a "marriage" or "wedding" must not imply at least two persons. But when matters are taken back to an original ground, we may raise the question of just why the law would be justified in attaching such decisive importance to numbers: Why would it be warranted then in withholding then the blessings of marriage from a man who had not yet found a spouse?

Those who object to this lifestyle option (probably that same group that opposes same-sex "marriage", myself included) are undoubtedly guilty of what Francis J. Beckwith calls numberism: "the prejudice that marriage must include more than one person." Please report to the nearest re-education center.

COMING SOON: "I Am My Own Mother" 
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