Oh, sorry, it’s “poly” for polyamorous – what used to be called fornication. It would appear that it’s the next Big Thing, meaning that the poor old Anglican Church – in its never ending pursuit of trendy cultural decadence – has some catching up to do.

Terisa and Matt and Vera and Larry—along with Scott, who’s also at this dinner—are not swingers, per se; they aren’t pursuing casual sex. Nor are they polygamists of the sort portrayed on HBO’s Big Love; they aren’t religious, and they don’t have multiple wives. But they do believe in “ethical nonmonogamy,” or engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person—based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. They are polyamorous, to use the term of art applied to multiple-partner families like theirs, and they wouldn’t want to live any other way.

The idea of “ethical nonmonogamy,” or engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person” is begging for liturgical enshrinement by heretical bishops like Michael Bird. I am looking forward to the inevitable densely impenetrable theological reflections that explain why being poly is not contrary to the machinations of contemporary biblical deconstructionism. Rowan Williams is half way there already:

Rowan Williams believes that gay sexual relationships can “reflect the love of God” in a way that is comparable to marriage, The Times has learnt. Gay partnerships pose the same ethical questions as those between men and women, and the key issue for Christians is that they are faithful and lifelong, he believes.

… “definitely come to the conclusion” that the Bible did not denounce faithful relationships between people who happened to be gay.

Substitute poly for gay and the Anglican church can take another confident step towards oblivion.

Human vs dog health care:

In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to compare the human and veterinary health services of Great Britain, and on the whole it is better to be a dog.

As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first.

Things aren’t much different in Canada: our much vaunted health care may be “free” but it doesn’t work very well.

A few years back our dog was sick and needed an ultrasound on his liver; the wait time was 1 day. Coincidentally, my wife also needed an ultrasound; the wait time was 2 months. While at the veterinary hospital I suggested a two for one discount – dog and wife – but was turned down.

My dog tells me that he finds it comforting that all humans are treated equally (badly) in our free health care system – but he doesn’t want to enrol.

This is what happens when you redefine marriage:

Amy Wolfe, a US church organist who claims to have objectum sexuality, a condition that makes sufferers be attracted to inanimate objects, plans to marry a magic carpet fairground ride.

This follows a “courtship” of 3,000 rides over ten years with the 80ft gondola ride called 1001 Nachts.

Miss Wolfe, 33, from Pennsylvania, will change her surname to Weber after the manufacturer of the ride she travels 160 miles to visit 10 times per year, according to reports

“I love him as much as women love their husbands and know we’ll be together forever,” she said.

Miss Wolfe first fell for the ride when she was 13: “I was instantly attracted to him sexually and mentally.

“I wasn’t freaked out, as it just felt so natural, but I didn’t tell anyone about it because I knew it wasn’t ‘normal’ to have feelings for a fairground ride.”

Ten years later, she decided to go back to Knoebels Amusement Park to declare her love. She now sleeps with a picture of the ride on her ceiling and carries its spare nuts and bolts around to feel closer to it.

Of course it’s normal: it could be the fairground gene and even if it isn’t it is simply a lifestyle choice. Who are we to judge what is normal; soon you will both be getting married in an Anglican church, adopting babies – if you don’t reproduce any little nuts of your own – and organising pride parades.

I only wish someone had told me this when I was a teenager; I had no idea:

A leaflet promoting the idea that sex is fun sounds like a waste of taxpayers’ money. Uh, tell us something we don’t know.

But a sex education leaflet telling teenagers that sex is fun – in a bid to prevent underage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections – is not only a waste of taxpayers’ money, it’s misguided do-gooding gone crazy.

And yet that’s exactly what NHS Sheffield has just published.

The leaflet, entitled ‘Pleasure’, advises school kids that they not only have a ‘right’ to an enjoyable sex life, but also that regular sex is good for their health.

Its authors believe it’s time to update the sex education message, which they say has for too long concentrated on contraception and the need to be in a loving relationship, and ignored the main reason people have sex — because it’s jolly good fun.

How to make everyone’s life miserable: Equality Camp:

The Government’s ‘equality’ watchdog is recruiting 14 and 15-year-olds for its second annual summer camp.

The camp, called Our Space, will consist of a few days in the Lake District with outdoor activities and “modules to discuss diversity, equality and rights”.

The camp is being organised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the body which recently funded a leading homosexual lobby group to write a guide for employers on how to deal with religious workers.

In practice, equality means the reduction of everything and everyone to the same squalid level of grey mediocrity; the fortunate few who escape the malevolent levelling are the government officials employed to inflict the misery on everyone else.

As Theodore Dalrymple observes:

Equality of opportunity is a thoroughly nasty and totalitarian concept. It is the demand that no one should start (or continue) life with any advantages relative to another. But how could such a condition actually be achieved? Leaving aside genetic differences, which must persist until all hereditary endowments can be made precisely the same, and which for the time being must be accepted even though they are unfair (not unjust, although most people nowadays seem to have difficulty distinguishing between the two), the only way environmental factors affecting opportunities can be made equal is by social engineering on a scale that would make North Korea look like a paradise of laissez-faire..

A study from A&M University, Texas shows what every sane parent already knows: boys are different from girls:

Boys are genetically programmed to prefer Bob the Builder to Barbie dolls, say scientists.

Tests involving children as young as three months suggest biological differences and not social pressures dictate which toys children like to play with.

The U.S. study looked at babies aged three to eight months – before they can identify even the gender of other people.

Undaunted by mere science, gender confusion marches onward in Sweden where parents of a 2 year old declare by fiat that gender is a social construction, even though science, common sense and bodily apparatus says it isn’t. The truly repulsive part of this is that the “parents” are sacrificing their own child to further their miserably twisted delusions:

A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl.

Pop’s parents, both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.

In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”

The news media’s nauseating gushing about Michael Jackson’s death is a prime illustration of what is wrong with the cult of celebrity in our declining civilisation. From the family lawyer telling us he has been crying to the effusive ageustia of empty-headed Hollywood entertainment merchants – enough!

Jackson was abused as a child, possibly abused other children, was sufficiently obsessed with his appearance to have repeated operations that transformed his face into a grotesque mask, lived in the type of fantasy world that only an excess of money and ego can provide and was addicted to drugs.

The truly sad thing about Michael Jackson was that he was a victim of the sycophancy that accompanies celebrities, most of whom have characters that are too feeble to cope with it. He is being hailed as a pop icon – an object of uncritical devotion; Mother Teresa may have been closer to deserving this kind of adulation, but her death was largely ignored.

In case anyone is wondering, no, I don’t like his music.