Rowan Williams calls for more gun control in the U.S.

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From here:

The leader of the world’s 80 million-strong Anglican Communion has thrown his support behind stricter gun control in the U.S., saying the easy availability of powerful weapons drew vulnerable people toward violence.

[….]

Turning to the issue of gun control, Williams said: “People use guns but, in a sense, guns use people too. When we have the technology for violence easily to hand, our choices are skewed and we are more vulnerable to being manipulated into violent action.”

If Rowan Williams is right and “guns use people” then, if the citizens of the U.S. are completely disarmed and only the police and armed forces have guns, only the police and armed forces will be “vulnerable to being manipulated into violent action”, potentially leaving ordinary citizens at their mercy.

If Williams is right – and I’m not sure he is – that’s a good reason why U.S. citizens should not be disarmed.

Richard Dawkins reckons being raised Catholic is child abuse

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Richard Dawkins made the point during an interview on Al Jazeera, a broadcaster owned by Qatar whose state religion is Wahhabism, the religion that places its children in madrassas to replenish the ranks of the Taliban.

Dawkins, a self-styled man of reason, ignores this and concentrates instead on Christianity – in its Catholic expression – a religion whose founder became a child in order to redeem mankind and, when children came to him, said: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these”.

His reasoning is based on the contention that Catholicism teaches something that it doesn’t actually teach: that the eternal destination of protestants, including children, is hell. Based on an anecdote from one person, he reaches the conclusion that paedophilia is merely “yucky” – a free expression of the Selfish Gene – and Catholicism is a malignant spawn from the eighth circle of, where else – hell.

From here:

The remarks are due to be broadcast tonight by Qatar-based TV network Al Jazeera.

Interviewer Mehdi Hasan asked Professor Dawkins about previous comments he made, when he said: ‘Horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place.’

Mr Hasan asked: ‘You believe that being bought up as a Catholic is worse than being abused by a priest?’. Professor Dawkins replied: ‘There are shades of being abused by a priest, and I quoted an example of a woman in America who wrote to me saying that when she was seven years old she was sexually abused by a priest in his car.

‘At the same time a friend of hers, also seven, who was of a Protestant family, died, and she was told that because her friend was Protestant she had gone to Hell and will be roasting in Hell forever.

‘She told me of those two abuses,  she got over the physical abuse; it was yucky but she got over it.

‘But the mental abuse of being told about Hell, she took years to get over.’

 

Sandy Hook and guns

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The NRA has released a statement on the Sandy Hook murders: you can read it here. Naturally, at the NRA press conference, Code Pink preferred disruption to discourse – the videos are below.

The NRA believes the best way to protect school children from murderous individuals with guns is to arm those in charge of the children. I think it’s hard to fault the logic of that position although, having grown up in the UK where the most lethal weapons I encountered in the classroom were a rack of proudly displayed canes sized to fit every behind, the necessity of gun slinging teachers in my child’s classroom is yet another example of cultural decay that I would find hard to come to terms with.

Perhaps if the canes had remained and been strenuously administered to Adam Lanza in his formative years, there would be no need to arm teachers and 28 more people would be alive in Sandy Hook school today.

In the interests not of solving the problem, but bowing to an impulse to be seen to do something, Dalton McGuinty has decided to spend $10 million for front door locks, entry buzzer systems and security cameras for every elementary school in Ontario. Someone in his cabinet should tell him that Adam Lanza shot his way through the front door of Sandy Hook.

If anyone thinks that the firearm murder rate in a country is determined solely by the percentage of its citizens who own guns – it isn’t so. From the National Post:

In 2007, the U.S. had the highest gun ownership rate in the world – an average of 88 per 100 people. But the U.S. does not have the worst firearm murder rate – that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the U.S. is well down the list with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people.

 

Teacher in Anglican School to begin next term as a cross-dresser

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Nathan Upton will start Christmas as a man and end it as a man pretending to be a woman; when he returns he wants to be addressed by his pupils as “Miss Lucy”.

Naturally, he has the full support of the headmistress, school governors, local education authority and church diocese; after all, who wants to be the victim of an Equality Act investigation?

Nevertheless, this isn’t going to end well. When I think back to my school days and the torment to which we subjected any teacher who displayed any manner of weakness – I shudder to think what we would have done to the hapless Mr. John had he arrived dressed as a woman in addition to acting like one – I fear Mr/Miss Upton is doomed.

From here:

A Church of England Primary school has written to parents to explain that a male teacher will be returning after Christmas as a woman.

St Mary Magdalen’s School in Accrington have asked pupils to address Nathan Upton as Miss Lucy Meadows from the start of the Spring term.

Karen Hardman, the head teacher at the school, said Mr Upton, who will also be dressing as a woman, has her full support.

Parents were informed of the decision at the bottom of a school letter, after a number of other retirement announcements and class room changes.

Ashu Solo wishes you a Miserable Christmas

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bus displays2.jpgAshu Solo is a professional whiner or, to use the euphemism currently in vogue, “activist”. He complained about the saying of grace at a volunteer appreciation night and now he is complaining that the City of Saskatoon is wishing everyone Merry Christmas on its buses.

It violates his right to freedom from religion.

From here:

The city of Saskatoon is facing the possibility of a human rights complaint after it refused to yank the “Merry Christmas” message from the top of its buses despite allegations of discrimination.

On Monday, local activist Ashu Solo vowed to take the matter to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, claiming the Christmas greetings violate his right to be free from religion.

He said the salutation also favours Christianity over other religions, which is particularly problematic for Saskatoon’s immigrant community, many of whom rely on bus service.

“Christmas messages on Saskatoon Transit buses make them feel like they need to convert to Christianity to be first-class citizens,” he wrote in a complaint.

There is only one thing I can think of to say to Mr. Solo:

prayer2.jpg

Diocese of B.C. selling churches to pay off debt

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From here:

A year ago, the Anglican Diocese of B.C. made the traumatic and dramatic decision to sell nine Vancouver Island church properties or see its $1.2-million debt escalate further.

The move has turned out to be a blessing, despite the turmoil it caused for members whose families had attended the historic congregations for generations.

Five of the nine church properties have sold, the accumulated debt of the diocese is gone, and its financial future and mission potential have been “helped tremendously” for the next several years, said Chris Pease, the diocese’s asset manager.

Listed at $175,000 to $1.4 million, sale prices came “very close” to asking prices, he said.

In combination with cuts to expenditures, the diocese has paid off its accumulated debt, and will use some of the proceeds “to finance the annual operating deficit until revenues and expenses are back in balance,” Pease said in an email.

What does this really mean?

snake

Gay Baby Jesus

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Gay Baby Jesus

St Matthew in the City, Auckland is at it again with its Christmas billboards. This time they have decided that Baby Jesus may have been gay. He may not of course.

Similarly, the Reverend Glynn Cardy, rector of St Matthew in the City, may be subject to bouts of schizotypal personality disorder during which he bites the heads off stoats. He may not, of course.

From here:

Jesus may have been progressive in more ways than one, according to a new billboard in Auckland.

The St Matthew in the City billboard, which is released each Christmas, this year depicts the baby Jesus in his crib surrounded by a halo of rainbow colours.

“It’s Christmas,” the billboard reads. “It’s time for Jesus to come out.”

Reverend Glynn Cardy said the sign was about trying to lift the humanity of Jesus.

“The fact is we don’t know what his sexual orientation was.”

[….]

More importantly the billboard was meant to ask whether Jesus’ desires in the bedroom would make a difference for those of faith.

“Would it make a difference if he was gay? Would that change the picture for you? Would it mean what we revere about him changes?”

Bullied by Baby Jesus

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When something becomes a fad – and placing anything and everything in the category of bullying is a fad – then people normally regarded as sane are prone fall for the most extreme and ridiculous manifestations of the fad. Hence we have reached the point where carols about baby Jesus are a form of bullying.

Be warned: I will subdue any hint of disagreement with a rousing chorus of:

Bully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, bully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child,
Bye, bye, bully, lullay.

From here:

A group of parents in Missoula, Mont. are upset over the religious nature of Christmas songs performed at a local elementary school – alleging the songs about the Baby Jesus is unconstitutional and a “form of bullying.”

Bestiality to become illegal in Germany

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From here:

Newspaper die Tageszeitung reports that the governing coalition are soon to amend the country’s Animal Welfare Act to make sex with animals punishable with a fine of up to 25,000 euros ($31,000).

Bestiality was legalised in Germany in 1969, the same year that gay sex was also removed from the criminal code. After that, sex with animals was only punishable if the animal was severely injured.

However animal welfare groups have pushed for the ban to be reinstated, in an advertising campaign that used dramatic examples of “animal rape”.

Agriculture minister Ilse Aigner has agreed to change the law to make it illegal for people to “use (animals) for their own sexual activities or sexual acts of third parties” – which also bans the ‘pimping’ of animals to others.

However the move has aroused the ire of zoophile group ZETA.

Lobbyist Michael Kiok, who lives with his dog Cassie, told the newspaper there were more than 100,000 zoophiles in Germany.

“Mere morals have no place in law,” he said.

Kiok makes the familiar argument: you can’t legislate morality, therefore you cannot outlaw sex with animals.

However, you have to base your legislation on some moral framework. Judeo-Christian morality has served Christendom quite well up until now; and it does not approve of bestiality. Most Western nations are working vigorously to undermine their own heritage, hence we have legalised homosexuality, prostitution, pornography, drug use, abortion and we are now working on paedophilia, polygamy and bestiality.

When we attempt to remove morality from our laws, we replace it with the only thing left: immorality, and by doing so give tacit permission for demonic howling chaos to have its way.

Besides that, what about a generous pastoral response to long-term monogamous man-beast relationships?