Eric Johnson – Page 76 – Catholic Light

Contraception leads to gay marriage

OpinionJournal.com has a piece by Methodist minister Donald Sensing about the connection between artificial contraception and gay marriage. Though on the surface, the two phenomena have little in common, he makes the right connections:

Sex, childbearing and marriage now have no necessary connection to one another, because the biological connection between sex and childbearing is controllable. The fundamental basis for marriage has thus been technologically obviated. Pair that development with rampant, easy divorce without social stigma, and talk in 2004 of “saving marriage” is pretty specious. There’s little there left to save. Men and women today who have successful, enduring marriages till death do them part do so in spite of society, not because of it.
If society has abandoned regulating heterosexual conduct of men and women, what right does it have to regulate homosexual conduct, including the regulation of their legal and property relationship with one another to mirror exactly that of hetero, married couples?
I believe that this state of affairs is contrary to the will of God. But traditionalists, especially Christian traditionalists (in whose ranks I include myself) need to get a clue about what has really been going on and face the fact that same-sex marriage, if it comes about, will not cause the degeneration of the institution of marriage; it is the result of it.

I don’t share his pessimistic view of how modern people view marriage — from my perspective, most secular married couples want to remain married until death, though many are woefully unprepared to make that happen — but he’s a pastor and deals with married people on a more intimate level than I do.
It is my fervent hope that Protestants join the Catholic Church in opposing artificial contraception, the exacerbating cause of bad marriages, illegitimacy, spousal abuse, and abortion. (It isn’t the sole cause, and eliminating it wouldn’t make those problems disappear, but it drives those problems.) Such a change would only be a return to the universal Protestant tradition until 70 years ago, when the Anglicans decided they would abandon Christianity for the siren-call of the world, and decide to place their faith in latex and chemicals instead of God’s providence.

Found a house

As I mentioned in a previous post, our family was hunting for a house for the last few weeks. We just bought one today. It’s about three miles south of where we live right now — that will add maybe another 5-8 minutes to my commute. No big deal when your commute is already a bit less than an hour.
Just to add to the “praying to the saints” discussion, we have been asking for St. Joseph’s intercession all along. We think he came through for us, big-time: the house is bigger than we thought we’d get, and at a very fair price. We’re still going to finish our novena, though.

Terrorists overturn government in major European country

The going rate for ousting a pro-American European government: 200 dead Spaniards.
The cliché is right this time: the terrorists did win. They might not have been on the ballot, but they managed to turn mass murder into an effective political tool.
UPDATE: David Frum voices the same opinion at NRO today. “Lesson: terrorism can work. Prediction: therefore expect more of it. Expect more terrorism aimed at the United Kingdom, against Australia, against Poland, and – ultimately – against the United States. For the terrorists must now wonder: If murder can influence elections in Spain – why not in the United States?”

Hating Martha

I wrote this essay about Martha Stewart four years ago in a writing class. I had intended to shop it around for publication somewhere, but my daughter was born a month later and I never got around to it. Not knowing much about Ms. Stewart and her empire, but seeing that she made a lot of people angry, I wanted to know more about her. An excerpt:
Feminists probably think of Martha Stewart the way capitalists think of pawnshops – the seedy side of their ideology, unsightly yet unavoidable. She may be a success on her own terms, but that success is compromised by her subject matter. It’s all right to be a rich corporate lawyer, but to become wealthy by telling people how to give parties, well, that’s so very…domestic.

A social-justice question for JFK

I have a social-justice question for Senator John Kerry: how can you be for “international cooperation” and against “Benedict Arnold CEOs” who “outsource” American jobs?
Translated, that means we aren’t going to let Indians compete for American IT contracts or allow the Chinese to sell us Happy Meal toys. So you’re going to simultaneously deny those countries access to American markets, and then expect they’ll support your foreign policy?
How will that work, exactly?