Persecution Complex

Evangelical Christians are having a difficult emotional time living in a pluralistic society.  400 of them met in Washington D.C. over the past few days to bemoan secularist opposition.  There they regailed themselves with stories of Christian persecution.  In fact, one self-loathing Jew called Christians the "Jews" of today--comparing their treatment with that of the Jews in Europe from 1930-1945.  The rational response was succinctly stated by the Rev. Robert M. Franklin, a minister in the Church of God in Christ and professor of social ethics at Emory University:

"This is a skirmish over religious pluralism, and the inclination to see it as a war against Christianity strikes me as a spoiled-brat response by Christians who have always enjoyed the privileges of a majority position."

Another conference attendee remonstrated the liberal media: "The media doesn't understand (conservative Christians') inability to compromise on principles."  Jeez leweeze Evangelicals, if only you explained your totally intractable point of view, maybe they'd have some sympathy. 

So, let me see if I understand the situation here: a conservative Christian president has just appointed two conservative Christian judges to the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress are lead by Christian conservatives.  Wow.  Sounds like the concentration camps are right around the corner...

Now

Seattle gunman Kyle Huff spray-painted "now" on sidewalks as he approached the house where he would shortly massacre six innocent people.  That has got to be credible evidence of command hallucinations.

My heart goes out to the victims and their loved ones.

As for Mr. Huff...

Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

Job 3:3

Contra Catholica 1

I note that my intuition was at least 50% correct yesterday, that slain Tennessee pastor Matthew Winkler's wife will be charged with his murder.  Time will tell if her defense will be his molestation of their daughters.

Now on to something completely different.  I confess to an anti-Catholic prejudice, or maybe even bigotry.  This animus is limited to Catholic theology, which I generally disagree with, and Catholic politics, which I currently universally condemn.  I do, however, wholeheartedly believe that Catholicism is a legitimate path to salvation.  And, of course, I love, respect and admire all of my Catholic relatives.  So, while I love my Catholic bretheren, I hate their politics.

I ran across this Blog the other day and it made me quiver with fury.  I don't have time to parse every logical blunder or downright lie therein, but I will indulge myself a few responses.  "Under heavy fire from advocates of gay adoption, [the Boston Archdiocese] has acted on principle."  So, by demanding that the Archdiocese comply with established law, "advocates of gay adoption" have somehow diminished the religious rights of Catholic Charities?  That is a straw man argument.  Of course, restricting the right to worship is unconstitutional and unconscionable.  But nobody has a "right" to discriminate, and nobody has the "right" to broker adoptions.  Religion does not equate with adoption.  The state has the obligation to enforce the law.  And citizens are obligated to follow them, even those with which they disagree. 

Furthermore, Catholic Charities has indeed placed children in gay households in its 103 year history.  This wasn't an issue two years ago, or four years ago, or ten years ago.  It is only an issue NOW, after Pope Benedict decided that it was "gravely immoral" (and I've tried to find out exactly where this was said, although it's been widely reported, I can't cite it).  But my question is, if it was okay three years ago, why must it now suddenly cease?  My view: 1. Benedict said so and O'Malley (archbishop of Boston) takes his marching orders from the Vatican, 2. the REASON it must cease is to deflect attention from the ongoing child molestation scandal which has plagued the church for the past ten years.  Perhaps the Vatican correctly anticipated that if they took a hard line against gay marriage and adoptions, it would cause an uproar and that uproar would serve to underscore the notion that the church isn't soft on gays.  So, it could be nothing more than a PR campaign. 

Let me quote here from Blackstone's commentaries on English law (which is the foundation of American law):  "But while [catholics] acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they cannot complain if the laws of that kingdom will not treat them upon the footing of good subjects."

This is, of course, anti-American as well as anti-Catholic, but it illustrates what I consider to be the central theme of anti-Catholic bigotry in the United States (at least historically so).  That no matter what, a Catholic will always owe the greater allegiance to his Church than his country, and that his opinions will change in accord with whatever dictate he receives from Rome.

So, while I acknowledge this to be a form of bigotry, it's difficult not to hold such a belief when 1. Benedict says that gay adoption is anathema, and his prelates in the United States discontinue it, even though it has not overly troubled them up until that edict from the Pope. 

Fair enough.  They're free to make their own rules.  But they can't pick and choose which secular laws they wish to obey.  That the Boston Catholic Charities chose to discontinue their adoption practice is testiment to their true religious conviction, but also to their religious freedom.  They were free to say no.

Crime Speculation

The pastor of a church (not sure what denomination) in Tennessee was found shot to death in his parsonage after he didn't show up for services on Wednesday evening.  His wife and three daughters are missing.  For a picture of the family, click here and then click on one of the thumbnails off to the right side of the page. 

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to take a "blame the victim" approach here.  I speculate that the minister's wife fired the shots that killed him and it was because she believed him to be molesting his daughters.  If so, it's also possible that her belief might be a complete delusion caused by insanity. 

It's always interesting when men of the cloth are murdered.  In 9 out of every 10 cases I've read, the perpetrators suffer from significant paranoid delusions.  My intuition tells me that  in this case, the minister's vocation had nothing to do with his murder.

O, Canada!

Ferries sink all over the world, but almost nowhere do they do so with no loss of human life.  Apparently, Canada is the exception to the rule.  Now granted, there were only a hundred or so persons on board, rather than the thousands of passengers typical in stories from the south seas or the Indian Ocean or the Baltic; and the ferry didn't go down in a storm, but zero is still O--there can be no upward adjustment when one of the numbers is zero.  Kudos to Canadian mariners. 

Plagarism

Copyright laws are very straightforward.  How they are being interpreted though is a bit more Byzantine.  Dan Brown, as is being universally reported, is in court in England on a charge of plagarizing Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Leigh and Baigent.  In scholarly works one can lift ideas with proper attribution (such as a footnote or a textual note) so why should it be different with fiction?  Copyright, at least in the U.S., protects completed works from being reproduced in whole or in part.  Thus, you can't take sections of completed works, characters, settings, plot devices, etc. and use them in another work.  In the Dan Brown case, however, Leigh and Baigent are suing based on Brown's use of their speculative theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were husband and wife, and that after Jesus' death, the Magdalene settled in the south of France and sired a lineage which persists up to this day, and which has been protected by a variety of secret societies, including the Knights Templar and the Priory of Zion. 

Though Brown's book recites this theory, he gives full credit to Leigh and Baigent.  Furthermore, it forms a small portion of the "completed work."  The characters, plot, events, settings and textual conflicts in the novel go far, far beyond Leigh and Baigent's work.  The Da Vinci Code stands on its own as a work of fiction.  Certainly Dan Brown was cognizant of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, he mentions it in his novel.  But ideas, in and of themselves, are not copyrightable.  It is within my rights as an author to cite other authors' work for analysis, discussion and/or inspiration.  Having read both works, the conclusion I have reached is that Brown's best ideas are his own, that his use of the theories presented in Holy Blood, Holy Grail is innocuous and does not rise to the level of plagarism.  Having CITED the work in question it cannot be plagarism in that word's common definition and meaning.

Let's also look at Leigh and Baigent's motives.  There have been two other works which have copied far greater portions of Holy Blood, Holy Grail than The Da Vinci Code.  One of them is Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.  The other is an episode of The Secret Life of Jules Verne.  Neither of those two works, to my knowledge, were sued by Mssrs. Leigh and Baigent.  It was only Dan Brown, with his 40 million copies world-wide, who attracted the lightning-bolts of their solicitors.  Where deep-pockets are concerned, you'll always find blood-suckers. 

Come back soon for my analysis of the Larry Cohen/Fox lawsuit over The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it will answer the question why Alan Moore refuses to have his name associated with V for Vendetta.  Don't miss it!

Bird Flu 2

Bird flu has spread to Sweden.

Watch this story called The Bird Flu Reality Check and tremble in your shoes.