While I Was Sleeping...

My apologies for the delays in posting. Truth is, I just got caught up in other things. Not especially important things, I'm afraid. But I guess we all go through phases where we are easily diverted.

Nevertheless, it has been an eventful few weeks in the world. The events in Iran have especially dominated the news of late. While I express my deepest sympathies and solidarity with the brave Iranians protesting the results of an obviously rigged election, I marvel that people can express shock at the fact that the election was, in fact, rigged. Expressing shock at a fraudulent display of democracy by a murderous dictatorial regime is akin to expressing shock at Keith Olbermann for making a fool of himself. You expect the snake to bite: it's inherent to its nature. As the old adage goes: "Never trust a snake." And while this world has more than its fair share of snakes - and more than its fair share of them in positions of power - few are more adept at crawling on their bellies than Mahmoud Ahmadenijad and the Ayatollah Khameini.

On the domestic front, Barack Obama continues to name left fringe crazies to high ranking positions within his administration. Two recent examples especially stand out in this regard. On the education front, he has very quietly nominated militant gay activist Kevin Jennings as Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. Jennings has a long track record of trying to push a sexually deviant agenda through the public school system, and is a vocal advocate of homosexual indoctrination starting in kindergarten. More on the nomination - and Obama's general use of the press to divert attention away from his prolific nomination of radical leftists to key government posts - can be found in this great Townhall piece by Kevin McCullough.

The second nomination that caught my eye has been the subject of a rather humorous subplot in the past few weeks. Alexia Kelley, who is one of the core members of the apostate left wing front group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, was appointed by Obama as Director of Faith-based and Community Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services (Kelley, by the way, is the fourth person associated with Catholics in Alliance/Catholics United to be appointed by Obama to a government post, and all 4 appointments are widely recognized as political payback for help during Obama's presidential campaign. Yet Catholics in Alliance/Catholics United laughably continue to hold themselves out as nonpartisan entities). The humor arises from the fact that shortly after the appointment was made, John O'Brien, successor to the semi-retired and hardly lamented Frances Kissling as head of the militantly pro-abortion and bitterly anti-Catholic group Catholics for Choice (formerly Catholics for a Free Choice. Why these groups think that name changes will rehabilitate their images is really quite beyond me) issued a statement calling the appointment a "defeat for reason and logic" on the grounds that Alexia Kelley was allegedly pro-life. This prompted a response from James Salt of Catholics United accusing Catholics for Choice of "joining the far right" in launching vicious unfounded smears against Kelley (the statement was posted on the Catholics United website, but has since been removed), after which Kissling herself joined the fray. Jack Smith wrote an excellent piece covering Kissling's confused response on The Catholic Key blog.

Two things strike me as humorous in this entire exchange. First is the mistaken notion that Alexia Kelley - or anyone else involved with Catholics in Alliance/Catholics United - holds pro-life views. The two entities hold themselves out as pro-life, but consistently support pro-abortion politicians. Not only that, they quite viciously attack pro-life politicians who dare oppose their candidates and office-holders of choice. They pay a great deal of lip service to supporting politicians who "work to reduce the number of abortions," yet studiously avoid supporting a single politician who advocates the one action guaranteed to reduce the number of abortions: namely, making abortion illegal.

The second thing is this: there is no unity in heresy or apostasy. Unity comes only through adherence to the truth. Dissenting groups tend to fall under large umbrella organizations, and the best-known dissenters tend to be involved in multiple groups. There is so much overlap that, generally speaking, one dissident organization is indistinguishable from another. But having so many different group names creates the impression that the movement of dissent is far bigger than it really is. The virtually identical natures of Catholics in Alliance/Catholics United are but one example. In that sense, such groups are rightly considered unified, and they certainly do organize together in most of their endeavors to create the illusion of larger numbers for their projects.

However, each dissident group - while generally supportive of the overall agenda of dismantling the hierarchical nature of the Church and replacing it with a faux democracy steeped in the values of moral relativism - tends to embrace one or two pet causes, whether it be promoting abortion, contraception, the acceptance of homosexual behavior, liberation theology, etc. It happens in rare occasions that one or more of those causes come into direct conflict, and that is what happened here. Catholics in Alliance/Catholics United promotes itself as pro-life in order to gain support among poorly informed but well-meaning Catholics for its aggressive pursuit of a socialist form of government. In doing this, they ran afoul of Catholics for (a Free) Choice, which has in the past compared the Vatican to the Taliban for its supposed oppression of women because of its pro-life positions (and yes, they made this comparison with a straight face, which should give you some insight as to just how disturbingly demonic the ideology of this group truly is). When Catholics for (a Free) Choice hears anyone identify themselves as pro-life, they don't check to verify the authenticity of the claim. They instead fly into full-blown panic mode at the prospect that such individuals will save the life of even one unborn child with their policy decisions. And so a dishonest pretension by Catholics in Alliance/Catholics United led to an amusing side show that left egg on the faces of two different dissident factions.

One other thing I've noticed is just how selective Catholics in Alliance/Catholics United is in its criticisms. Catholics for (a Free) Choice is at least consistent in that it will bash anyone who expresses the slightest concern for the plight of the unborn, however sick and disturbing such an approach may be. Catholics United, on the other hand, claims to champion the cause of peace and justice, but only ever seems to criticize the pro-life movement, those who criticize Barack Obama, and those who dare criticize any of Catholics in Alliance/Catholics United's core members. They also made it a point to "lament" the murder of Dr. George Tiller, but it seems they only did this as an excuse to take a pot shot at the pro-life movement. Yet when it comes to things like speaking out in support of the oppressed people in Iran, denouncing the slave trade in the Sudan, or addressing human rights abuses in China, all you hear are crickets chirping. I guess Obama needs to address those issues first, so Catholics in Alliance/Catholics United can receive their talking points from him - or rather, his teleprompter.

Regarding the murder of Dr. George Tiller, which also happened since my last blog post, I will share two statements I issued on my Facebook page concerning the incident. Besides expressing my utter disgust with how the Obama administration has chosen to use this tragedy as a means of marginalizing the pro-life movement, I will let these two statements reflect my thoughts on the matter until new developments arise:

"George Tiller's murder was certainly beyond the pale, but so is using that murder as an excuse to score cheap political points at the pro-life movement's expense."

"The murder of George Tiller was an atrocity. It was morally unjustifiable, and I will have words with anyone who says otherwise. But let no one dare insult my intelligence by pretending he is a martyr for humanitarian causes. There are approximately 60,000 reasons why I vehemently beg to differ."

Lastly, to those of you who have sent me e-mails regarding my blog, I'd like to say thank you. Even though I have not had the chance to reply to each of you individually, just know that your comments are appreciated, and I do plan to address some of the issues raised in your e-mails. And no, I am not on Twitter, and don't plan to be at this time, though that might change at a later date. Please keep the feedback coming. I pray this post finds each of you well. God bless!


In Jesus and Mary,
Gerald