Rod Dreher: November 2009 Archives

In a lecture in which he expressed fear of rising religious fundamentalism in Europe [code for: Islamic fundamentalism] Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, draws meaning from the fact that the birth rate has collapsed in secular Europe -- and, soon to follow, European civilization:

Parenthood involves massive sacrifice: money, attention, time and emotional energy. Where today, in European culture with its consumerism and its instant gratification because you're worth it. In that culture, where will you find space for the concept of sacrifice for the sake of generations not yet heard?

'Europe is dying, exactly as Poledious said about ancient Greece in the third pre-Christina century. The century which is intellectually as similar to our own - the sceptics, epicureans and cynics. He wrote this: 'the fact is, that the people of Hellas had entered upon the fools path of ostentations, avorous and laziness. Were therefore unwilling to marry, or if they did to bring up the children born to them. The majority were bringing up at most one or two.'

'That is where Europe is today. That is one of the un-sayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it. [Emphasis mine -- RD] Albert Camus once said 'the only serious philosophical question is why should I not commit suicide.' I think he was wrong; the only serious philosophical question is why should I have a child? Our culture is not giving an easy answer to that question.'

A reader in Britain e-mails:

One of the constant complaints by pro-SSM readers on your blog is that your fears about the impact of SSM on free speech and freedom of religion are overblown. As you know, I tend to agree with you rather than your critics, despite my cautiously pro-SSM stance (although if I am honest I have been slowly returning to my neglected faith of late and am starting to think again).

My worries were confirmed by this story from here in Britain, which may interest you.

What has happened is this: the Labour government here brought forward a Bill that included clauses to ban incitement to hatred against homosexuals. Many people -- including, but definitely not limited to, traditional Christians -- felt that the wording was imprecise and might inhibit people from expressing opinions on the morality of sexual behaviour, for fear that what they said might be construed as inciting hatred (there have been numerous cases now in Britain of people being visited by the police and informally "warned" about incitement after expressing the orthodox Christian position on sexuality). So a member of the House of Lords put forward the following amendment to the Bill:

"In this Part, for the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred."

Very reasonable, you might think. But when the amended Bill went back to the House of Commons the government MPs voted to remove this "free speech" amendment. When the Bill returned to the Lords -- the two Houses often play legislative ping-pong in this way -- the Lords put it back in. This continued until the Commons, under the direction of the government, had removed the "free speech" clause four times. Yesterday the government finally gave in after a late vote in the Lords on Wednesday re-inserted the clause for the fourth time. The "free speech" clause will stay in the final Act of Parliament.

So, in short, what we have here is a supposedly liberal government consistently ordering its MPs to vote to deny explicit free speech protection to critics of homosexuality, lumping in such criticism with incitement to violence and hatred. Now of course the obvious rejoinder from your critics is that in the US this couldn't happen because of the First Amendment, but that's not really the point. The point is that, contrary to the wishful thinking of many on the pro-SSM side, there are plenty of members of our political and cultural elites who are willing to sacrifice free speech and the free exercise of religion on the altar of sexual liberation, when they get the power to do so.

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that we'd see the same thing here, if not for the First Amendment, which bans so-called "hate speech" restrictions. What Americans don't understand, and what we in the media prefer not to report, is that in the coming legal regime, churches and religious institutions will face significant curtailment of their own activity, outside of speech itself, with regard to same-sex marriage and related phenomena. As the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington knows very well, no matter how vociferously SSM proponents try to deny it.

I'll say one good thing about the increasing legal hostility to Christianity in repaganizing Europe: it may serve to make the Orthodox churches wake up and realize that whatever divides Orthodoxy from Western Christianity pales before the great battle the remnants of the Church in Europe faces in the coming decades. See this from Greece. Time for as much unity as can be managed. I'm pleased that Kyrill, ,the Moscow patriarch, and Pope Benedict are moving closer. They're going to need each other. Given where we know this is going, and going fast, we all will.

This is interesting, and kind of touching. Excerpt:

If you have been reading us for any length of time, you know that we used to make fun of "Dubya" nearly every day...parroting the same comedic bits we heard in our Democrat circles, where Bush is still, to this day, lampooned as a chimp, a bumbling idiot, and a poor, clumsy public speaker.

But they've had a change of heart:

[W]e will always be grateful for what George and Laura Bush did this week, with no media attention, when they very quietly went to Ft. Hood and met personally with the families of the victims of this terrorist attack.

FOR HOURS.

The Bushes went and met privately with these families for HOURS, hugging them, holding them, comforting them.

If there are any of you out there with any connection at all to the Bushes, we implore you to give them our thanks...you tell them that a bunch of gay Hillary guys in Boystown, Chicago were wrong about the Bushes...and are deeply, deeply sorry for any jokes we told about them in the past, any bad thoughts we had about these good, good people.

You may be as surprised by this as we are ourselves, but from this day forward George W. and Laura Bush are now on the same list for us as the Clintons, Geraldine Ferraro, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and the other political figures we keep in our hearts and never allow anyone to badmouth.

Criticize their policies academically and intelligently and discuss the Bush presidency in historical and political terms...but you mess with the Bushes personally and, from this day forward, you'll answer to us.

Read the whole thing. I hadn't realized the Bushes did that. God bless them, that was kind and loving.

Hey! Leave our raw ersters alone! Excerpt:

Since the Food and Drug Administration announced last month that it plans to ban the sale of unprocessed Gulf of Mexico oysters from April through October, people in New Orleans have been gobbling the things down as if there's no tomorrow. That's the Big Easy for you. Risky as it is just to live there, you think dey go worry about itty-bitty bacteria?

"I served 50 dozen raw oysters yesterday," Mark Defelice, the chef at Pascal's Manale on Napoleon Street, told me Thursday. "People see the articles and TV about it, and they start thinking, 'Man, I'm going to eat me some raw oysters.' "

Like most people who sell or eat oysters in Louisiana, Defelice doesn't think much of the FDA's decision, which would take effect in 2011 and which is intended to stop the 15 or so annual food-poisoning deaths caused by Vibrio vulnificus, a choleralike bacteria that thrives in the Gulf. "It's just the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life," he said.

Abso-damn-lutely. This is obscene. The last time I was in New Orleans, I ate four dozen at the Acme, as God intended. This Slate article explains why this is an incredibly stupid, culture-and-livelihood-destroying policy. They can have my raw erster when they pry my cold, dead fingers from around it, the communiss! I am serious about this: what is wrong with our government, when it allows factory farms to grow all kinds of pathogens that kill lots of people every year, but has to all but kill the raw oyster industry because four people die from eating the things per annum.

"It's really a people-over-profit story," says the FDA's Rita Chappelle. My a*s it is. What about the people of Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast, and their traditions, and livelihood?!Oh, federal government, you have no idea what you're messin' with now.

This satire is impeccable.