New Site Alert

I found some folks coming over here from a new site called Notes on the Culture Wars. It seems to be a clone of Drudge, only with a Catholic filter. I'm honored that this blog is under the list of selected columnists and I'm adding it to the side bar.

There have been times in the past in which I have vigorously opposed the phrase "culture wars," as it seemed to me that it set up "my people" (ie. my Christian/traditional Biblical values brethren) against my, um, "other people" (ie. my Hollywood artist media making elite brethren). I wasn't sure where I fit in to the world if both halves of my family were at war, and as long as there was still hope for detente between the two sides, I wasn't sure it was helpful to employ militaristic language in the relationship.

That, however, was before I woke up to the Connecticut State Assembly debating a "special" law last week, to rein in the authority of Catholic bishops in their dioceses. It was before the House passed a bill this week to make three years of mandatory service to the federal government, um, well, mandatory. It was before my parish church had human excrement rubbed all over the vestibule in vicious retaliation for our support of Prop 8. It was before the city of West Hollywood denied our parish the permit to have a preschool because of the assertion that "Catholic ideology" is dangerous to children. It was before Obama administration brown-shirts sneeringly dismissed the idea that Christian physicians should have a "conscience clause" exempting them from being forced to perform abortions. It was before the Treasury Department asserted that major gifts to charities(ie. churches and ministries) should not be tax exempt. It was before the member of a formerly oppressed group, President Obama, signed the execution orders for little humans to be grown in labs and mutilated for scientific research. It was before House disdainfully proclaimed a few weeks ago that "all doctors who care about their patients are doing it" about euthanasia. It was before the CA Supreme Court began brooding over whether there was any way it could AGAIN throw out the man and woman marriage passed by the voters, um, again.

In this moment it seems to me that as inflammatory as words like "culture wars" are, it is much more dangerous for any of us to assume the posture of critiquing the names by which others of us want to be called. When NY Sen. Chuck Schumer is comparing talk radio to pornography, it seems to me that First Amendment free speech is getting near to be toppled like so much other 18th Century idealism - freedom of conscience, religion, property and arms. And it all started by stripping the "right to life" guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence of its application to little humans. Weird how the 20th Century Popes have been so consistently right about that slippery slope, eh? How freakishly haphazard of them to all seize on the notion that the right to life is the pre-eminent foundation of all other rights? I mean, how lucky can a bunch of guys in white cassocks be?!

Anyway, so if you want to call yourself Culture Warriors or Freakin' Wild-Eyed Maniac Shock Troops for Jesus Christ, go for it. I expect a horde of us will die for your right to do so. So, do make it worth the sacrifice.