There’s Courage, and then there’s Courage

May 8, 2013 (Breakpoint.org) - Unless you’ve been completely unplugged recently, you likely saw the flood of news stories concerning Jason Collins, the NBA player who recently announced his homosexuality. Collins was called “brave” and “courageous” for the step he took, as the first active male player in a major sport to come out as homosexual.

Now, I’m not interested in questioning Collins’s courage. It’s likely that this announcement wasn’t easy for him. I do think it’s worth noting, however, how many pundits and other public figures were tripping over each other to shower him with encouragement, support, and praise. When you get a call from the President of the United States to congratulate you on the step you’ve just taken, it’s a safe guess you really didn’t have much to fear in taking it.

Chris Broussard

But what about the other sports figure who said something bold and controversial? That would be Chris Broussard, the ESPN analyst who was asked to comment on Collins announcement that he was not only gay but a Christian who focused on the “tolerant” words of Jesus. Broussard called homosexuality a sin, and then added, “If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever that may be,” including heterosexual sex outside of marriage, you are “walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ.”

Broussard went on to say that he knew many in his field would disagree with him, but that he hoped they could discuss the subject like “mature adults.”

Well, no such luck. Broussard’s boldness didn’t receive the same response as Collins. Broussard has been called a “bigot,” “intolerant,” “homophobic,” “irrelevant,” and even worse.

Former basketball player Kenny Smith claimed that as a black man, Broussard should be more dedicated to “inclusion.” (Smith and Collins are both black as well.) The hashtag #FireChrisBroussard quickly became popular on Twitter. ESPN hurried to assure everyone that it was “fully committed to diversity.”

Read more at Life Site News.

The Impossibility of Gay Marriage and the Threat of Biopolitical Control

In the first place, it [same-sex 'marriage'] would end public recognition of the importance of marriage as a union of sexual difference. But the joining together and harmonisation of the asymmetrical perspectives of the two sexes are crucial both to kinship relations over time and to social peace. Where the reality of sexual difference is denied, then it gets reinvented in perverse ways - just as the over-sexualisation of women and the confinement of men to a marginalised machismo.

Secondly, it would end the public legal recognition of a social reality defined in terms of the natural link between sex and procreation. In direct consequence, the natural children of heterosexual couples would then be only legally their children if the state decided that they might be legally "adopted" by them.

And this, I argue, reveals what is really at issue here. There was no demand for "gay marriage" and this has nothing to do with gay rights. Instead, it is a strategic move in the modern state's drive to assume direct control over the reproduction of the population, bypassing our interpersonal encounters. This is not about natural justice, but the desire on the part of biopolitical tyranny to destroy marriage and the family as the most fundamental mediating social institution.

Heterosexual exchange and reproduction has always been the very "grammar" of social relating as such. The abandonment of this grammar would thus imply a society no longer primarily constituted by extended kinship, but rather by state control and merely monetary exchange and reproduction.

Read more at ABC.net

Even Candy Land Isn't Safe From Sexy

Candy Land isn't the only classic that has, without our notice, gotten a hot makeover. (And I'm not the only one who finds this evolution alarming.) The Disney Princesses have grown gradually more skinny and coy over time. And,check out Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Trolls (now called "Trollz"). Even Care Bears and My Little Pony have been put on a diet.

When our kids play with toys that we played with, we assume that they are the same as they were when we were younger. But they aren't. Not at all. Our girls (and our boys) are now bombarded from the get-go with images of women whose bodies range from unattainable to implausible (Disney Princesses, anyone?).

Toymakers say they are reflecting the changing taste of their demographic. Maybe, but then it's the change that's so disturbing. Consider a recent study on body image among elementary school-aged girls. Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 60 girls ages six to nine recruited largely from public schools. The girls were shown two dolls: One was dressed in tight, revealing "sexy" clothes and the other in a trendy but covered-up loose outfit. Both dolls, as you can see, were skinny and would be considered "pretty" by little girls.

Read more at the Atlantic.

Abercrombie & Fitch Refuses To Make Clothes For Large Women

Teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't stock XL or XXL sizes in women's clothing because they don't want overweight women wearing their brand. 

They want the "cool kids," and they don't consider plus-sized women as being a part of that group. 

Abercrombie is sticking to its guns of conventional beauty, even as that standard becomes outdated. 

Contrast Abercrombie with H&M, another favorite with the teen set, who just subtly introduced a plus-sized model in its latest swimwear collection. 

H&M has a plus-sized line. American Eagle, Abercrombie's biggest competitor, offers up to size XXL for men and women. 

Abercrombie doesn't even list women's XL or XXL on its size chart. Its largest women's pants are a size 10, while H&M's standard line goes up to a size 16, and American Eagle offers up to 18. 

It's not surprising that Abercrombie excludes plus-sized women considering the attitude of CEO Mike Jeffries, said Robin Lewis, co-author of The New Rules of Retail and CEO of newsletter The Robin Report.

He doesn't want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people," Lewis told Business Insider. "He doesn't want his core customers to see people who aren't as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they're one of the 'cool kids.'" 

The only reason Abercrombie offers XL and XXL men's sizes is probably to appeal to beefy football players and wrestlers, Lewis said. 

We asked the company why it doesn't offer larger sizes for women. A spokeswoman told us that Abercrombie wasn't available to provide a comment. 

In a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries himself said that his business was built around sex appeal. 

“It’s almost everything. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that,” Jeffries said. 

Read more at Business Insider.

Gosnell Abortion Horrors are only Tip of the Iceberg

Photo: Kermit Gosnell/AP

WASHINGTON D.C., May 6, 2013 — America awaits the verdict in the murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell. What is still not making the news is that the Gosnell house of horrors is merely an unintended glimpse into the daily reality of the abortion industry.  

What Gosnell was doing is no different than what happens in Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro–Choice and other abortion clinics over 1.2 million times every year. It stems from the same mindset found in any abortuary in any building in any small town community or big city.

He named his house of horrors Women’s Medical Society. It sounded so nice and clean, almost alike a Victorian society of gentile women. That is all the Pennsylvania authorities and “pro-choicers” wanted to see.

In reality, Gosnell happily worked in foul conditions and was cavalier about death to the point of pathology. But, the abortions for which he is on trial, the murders that he committed, in the end are like any abortion—inflicting death on the most innocent for personal profit.

Gosnell just did not bother with fancy window dressing. In that sense, his operations were more honest than most: Abortion is a filthy business, a white-tiled shiny abortion chamber does not change that.

Death, deception and exploitation of women and young girls are standard operating procedure in a field that is in the business of killing preborn human beings for money. Why would abortionists not tell a girl to just flush an untimely birth down the toilet?

Read more at the Washington Times.

Top bioethicists defend killing babies after birth this week in leading medical journal

May 6, 2013 (PJSaunders) - In February 2012 two bioethicists provoked international outrage with an article advocating infanticide.

Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics (JME), Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva argued in ‘After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?’, that foetuses and newborns ‘do not have the same moral status as actual persons’.

They concluded that ‘after birth abortion (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled’.

The same journal (JME) has this week responded to the crisis with a special issue containing 31 commentaries from a range of ethicists, some of whom have argued for years that infanticide can be a moral action; others who believe that even suggesting it is a vile stain on academic integrity.

Editor Julian Savulescu introduces the issue with these words: 

‘Infanticide is an important issue and one worthy of scholarly attention because it touches on an area of concern that few societies have had the courage to tackle honestly and openly: euthanasia. We hope that the papers in this issue will stimulate ethical reflection on practices of euthanasia that are occurring and its proper justification and limits.’

Savulescu claims to be ‘strongly opposed to the legalisation of infanticide along the lines discussed by Giubilini and Minerva’ but says that they are not alone in advocating it.

Infanticide is already practised openly and legally in the Netherlands under the ‘Groningen Protocol’ which allows doctors to end the life of neonates at the request of their parents if the infant is experiencing ‘hopeless and unbearable suffering’.

In addition some of the world's most famous living philosophers have written about its merits and justification over the last 40 years, including Michael Tooley, Jonathan Glover, Peter Singer, Jeff McMahan and John Harris.

Four of these five have contributed to this issue of JME and the full text of their articles is currently available on line.

McMahan argues that the permissibility of infanticide in some circumstances is not only implied by certain theories, but by beliefs that are widely held and difficult to reject.

Michael Tooley's book is entitled "Abortion and infanticide."

Peter Singer wrote a book in 1985 with Helga Kuhse called "Should the baby live?"

Jonathan Glover's landmark "Causing death and saving lives" notes that ‘Dr Francis Crick (the Nobel Laureate who discovered DNA with Jim Watson in 1956) once proposed a two-day period for detecting abnormalities, after which infanticide would not be permissible’.

Many will be shocked by what these philosophers are saying, but Savulescu argues that the issue throws up a broad range of ethical questions fundamental to medical ethics.

What constitutes a person with rights? Is there a moral difference between killing a baby of the same gestation inside and outside the womb? Is there a moral difference between euthanasia and withdrawal of treatment and/or sedation with the explicit intention that the baby will die? In what circumstance is ‘letting die’ morally different from killing?

Read more at Life Site News.

Stand with the Scouts on Sunday

Join us for our simulcast, "Stand with Scouts Sunday," on Sunday, May 5, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. (ET).  You will learn what you can do to preserve Scouting as its founders envisioned it - as a resource for young men to develop in morally, mentally, and physically healthy ways, free to be boys and teens without the invasion of cultural controversies.

Speakers include:

• Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
• John Stemberger, President, OnMyHonor.net
• Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas)
• Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.)
• Pastor Robert Hall, Calvary Chapel Rio Rancho

Read more at Stand with Scouts.