PEACE ON EARTH

GOODWILL TOWARD ALL MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN, BORN AND UNBORN

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Gabrielle

YOU CANNOT PUT A GOOD WOMAN DOWN.

No Marriage For You

Remember Seinfeld's Soup Nazi? Here are the people that the Catholic Church thinks are not good enough to marry each other so they won't permit it in their church 1. Mixed religions- no Hindu, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim or other religion may marry a catholic by a priest in a catholic church 2. No divorced person without an official annulment from Rome may marry anyone in a catholic church by a catholic priest. 3. No gay person may marry anyone in a catholic church by a catholic priest. 4. No Catholic Priest may marry anyone in a catholic church by a catholic priest. And this is a reflection of a Life doctrine? REALLY?? "...and he came that you should have LIFE and HAVE IT ABUNDANTLY." Here I am compelled to advertise www.RENTAPRIEST.com where you can find the many tens of thousands of priests kicked out of the catholic church because they got married to women. Also see, Episcopalian.
There was once upon a time a woman who loved a man like a brother who knew he really wanted children but was gay. So she agreed to be an egg donor. Another woman agrees to be a surrogate. The gay man's sperm and the woman who loved him's egg was implanted in a surrogate and conceived a child that was then adopted by the man and his partner-a gay couple. True Story. Repeated a thousand times around the world. The one close enough that you might have heard about is Elton John and partner David who now have two children by that method. Should the church refuse to baptize such children? Should the church wish they had never been conceived 'in the best interest of the child.' Another true story: Two gay men who worked for a University had been monogamous together for about a decade. They had established themselves in the community and did lots of volunteer work for a church. They met through working with immigrants subject to deportation a woman who was illegally in the country being deported back to her home country of Senegal. She found out during her deportation proceedings she was pregnant. Because she was being deported penniless she wanted to abort the child. They offered to pay for everything she needed if only she would not abort. They then adopted the child- an African child to a white gay couple. This child would no doubt never have been born without this loving gay couple. The Angry, Zealots who refuse gay marriage seem to me to be so moronic and ignorant of what is going on in the world. In England over a quarter of all children under the age of 30 now have been conceived using some form of invitro. That is also against the rigid catholic church doctrine. Should they all not be baptized also? A woman died and left a widower husband and a small son. The husband was despirately in love with his wife but she died. He discovered he was bisexual. He found a lover after she died. They lived together and together raised his son. They for all practical purposes were married. What does the church do about that? Tell them not to be gay? Constitutionally there are serious problems with equal protection grounds that should in my view overrule gay marriage as a constitutional right. However in common sense there are fewer problems understanding what a government should do. That 800,000 people in France- a country in which women could not even vote until after WWII--would take to the streets to break up families that are not male-female spouses strikes me as horrendously stupid. What right do you have to tell anyone who they have to love or cannot love? Priests, who easily are told and believe they can marry NO ONE have no problem telling other people what they have no business telling anyone- you cannot marry that person. They are so lacking in identity as a person of any identity often they let someone living in a country thousands of miles away tell them they cannot marry anyone. A quarter are estimated to be repressed homosexuals who chose celibacy from a desire to suppress their natural attractions. Those are sometimes so secretly self loathing they despise happy gays. No, Sorry --you are wrong. Your ideology has cost you friends and supporters.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

There is NO Greek or Jew, Slave or Free, MALE or FEMALE in Christ Jesus. There is NO Greek or Jew, Slave or Free, MALE or FEMALE in Christ Jesus. There is NO Greek or Jew, Slave or Free, MALE or FEMALE in Christ Jesus. Click your heels three times and say There is no Place Like Home.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Politics of Papal Persecution How many more ways could the Archdiocene church (religious orders excluded except Dominicans) tell women that they are not wanted, not needed, nothing without their own kids that they can get paid to educate, and insignificant lives not worth living to their fullest potential? We should just slash our wrists and bleed to death on the front steps of the church because the church demands our ripped out bleeding hearts like Aztec sacrifices to appease the master Lord in Rome. Front and Center on the Cathedral's main website in Washington, DC- the website for the Cardinal's church, is a whole section on the "Home" page which boasts the litigation against HHS regulations on contraception when about 90% of all women in America including Catholic women have at one time or another in their lives taken contraception. Let me be clear. I am one of the 10% (due to my celibate singleness and a non-existent romantic life and if i got pregnant at my age it would be a divine miracle)- but I am a tiny minority. The Cardinal feels free to insult 90% of American women right on his church website- and sue the government to make the point about how much he can't stand womenkind. And they wonder why attendance drops. Was the last election a referendum on a 'War on Women?' Or was it just a statement that the world of mean vicious old men who take care of no families of their own and think they can be total sick Ba-tards because they bring Jesus to a piece of wafer is not a version of Christ that anyone recognizes as really Jesus. It is not 'goodness.' It is not 'kindness.' Rudeness, insult, ignorance, arrogance -which the church in parts thinks is a virtue- are not traits anyone finds in Jesus anywhere. In fact he hates the proud- scatters them in their own conceit. Lifts up the lowly. America is a country founded by outcast persecuted immigrants who fled the Dominican persecutions of Europe and other religious persecutions and religious wars. They said that sort of rigid ideological condemnation is not how we want to live, not a country we want to create. It is not a place big enough for Jesus to enter when one has rigid ideological even theological interpretations that cast out Love in the name of Religion. It doesn't matter how big the house annex is or how big your church is, if you cast out Love in the name of Religion you have thrown out the Baby with the Baptismal waters. You have created a massive idol of your own power. The church is a mess. Have you noticed? Old viciously jealous rich widows run parish counsels for their own emotional needs meddling in everyone's business like its their business and priests feel widow-whipped to cater to their meanness. It builds and maintains massive buildings that fewer and fewer people want to actually sit in. It takes money from people scraping by with barely enough to budget for gas money to feed litigations that no one wants in the name of a political party all tax exempt. And they wonder why. Building castles to your own egos isn't God. Its the opposite. ---------------------------------- UPDATE- they took down the BullShine about the HHS Litigation and in its place a more appropriate blurb about lent. Thank God. I mean it.

Friday, January 25, 2013

More Thoughts on Gay Marriage

And Gay Divorce, and Gay reMarriage and Gay Anulments and Gay Turned Straightness. Oh My- Someone can be born with a predisposition to jealousy, or covetesness. Both are considered sins in the eyes of most major religions as a deviation of, to or for the highest path of God's will. But they are not illegal. Jealousy and covetesness are permitted sins in society. We figure you will work it out for yourself when you figure you are your best enemy and either straighen up and fly right or face the consequences. The Being of Jealous or the Being of Covetous isn't illegal. Just wrong. Say Most-and Moses. But if you take it one step further and in a jealous rage you take a sledge hammer to the object of your jealousy's car that is illegal. If instead of quietly coveting something (a leap beyond admiring) and you actually steal the thing, that is against the law. If you lust or long after someone's genitals which look like your own most major religions find that not the highest path to the advancement of God's will in your life- or 'sin.' A deviation off your highest path. But that is not illegal- just harmful (believe many if not most Americans.) If you however want to concretize your insistence upon lusting or longing after someone who has parts that look like yours now people who do so want to make that also legal- They want ALL of society to say that this is fine-OK, not sin, not a deviation from the highest path of God's will for them or society at large and anyone else involved. They want to make everyone say what is clearly in their minds sin is not sin, and is fine- Who is being more intolerant then? The people demanding that the other people agree with them and legalize something that they think is wrong or the people who insist it's still wrong, was wrong, always has been wrong and will forever be wrong? Are they equally intolerant of each other? Its not illegal to be gay. You can be gay in the privacy of your own home- if you want to act gay, and ask society as a whole to say acting gay, or being in gay relations is right, fine and legal-that is another matter all together. And if society doesn't have a right to say- sorry- no, then does it have a right to say stealing is wrong if someone is born covetous?

Thursday, January 24, 2013

"Its at the core of who we are-the tolerance on which the United States is founded is one of our greater attributes....the puritains came to Massachusetts...and a guy named Roger Williams..travelled through the woods in the winter, called a place 'Providence' which became Providence, Rhode Island ....they all were getting away from religious persecution. It took us a while to get it right but I think we do. One of our roles in the State Department is to make people understand how important it is ..." John Kerry on Religious Liberty. "I have a lot of friends who are Muslim whom i have met over the years in my travels. Leaders in the region would be the first to tell others that what you see in radical Islam is not Islam-it is radicalized Islam-a hijacking of an old religion. We have to work at making people understand how that is happening....carrying the banner of religious tolerance is critical." John Kerry, SECRETARY OF STATE.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The legacy of Martin Luther King

Isn't Sodomy. There is a difference between doing something and being something. All laws regulate behavior. The Rule of Law seeks to impose a regime that separates good behavior from bad behavior, sheep from goats. I sometimes find it amazing that an African American (half at least) President would find an equivalence between Gay so called 'rights' and the civil rights struggle of African Americans- who were enslaved because of their color and national origin. What Gay person has ever been enslaved in America? It is true that the religious right zealots are obnoxious. They are so full of themselves its hard to ferret out the truth from their bravado and bullying sometimes. But Constitutionally, behavioral choices are not the same thing as that which one is created with or as. One may be created gay or 'born that way' but what one does with it is ones choice. One does not have a choice of race or gender. All persons are CREATED EQUAL. So the law should honor for equal protection purposes those things given by God as human attributes, not what one chooses to do with what one has been given. All persons are created equal, but not all persons do with that creation equal things, or advance to the potential of their humanity or evolve their persons in any aspect of human endeavor equally. All persons are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights by virtue of what they are created with. All persons are not thereafter equally educated, work equally hard, apply equally their intelligence, make equally wise life choices or equally produce to the maximum of their potential. We are each unique in that regard. Some choices are a function of opportunity and some are a function of will. I choose to work not sit at home watching soap operas. I chose to go to school not be a teenage drop out single parent. It is fair, right and just that different choices bear natural consequences. Those consequences should naturally then be unequal. Gayness may be intrinsic. But acting gay sexually is not the same thing as being Gay. Being and Doing are different. The Constitutional equal protection principles do not extend to behavioral choices. It is not value neutral when it comes to behavioral matters such that it is required to consider all behaviors the same. But this is not just a Constitutional argument but also a moral one- as all law is intrinsically a moral value judgment on what is or is not right and acceptable behavioral qualities. Consider this scenario- A woman and her husband have three children together. The woman one day decides one day after years of pondering that she is disgusted with her husband and leaves him for another women. The husband now has to raise three children without his wife. The lover of the abandoning wife wants now the same spousal rights to the wife's original spousal property- half the house the family lived in for example. To be 'equal' and give the gay couple equal treatment what happens to the house- and the three kids living in it. Suppose Michele Obama has secretly had an affair for years with Valerie Jarrett and Jarrett wants half the house in Chicago. What happens to Malia's and Sasha's inheritence rights in the house? You think that odd? It happens whenver a gay man announces he is leaving for another man- as in the former Governor of New Jersey. Where do Malia and Sasha live in that case? Whose house is it? Equal behaviors are not what is meant by 'created equal.' Endowed with certain inalienable rights does not mean endowed with the right to engage in any sort of behavior or decide anything is moral one wishes to decide is moral for them in a relativistic sense. What motivated 800,000 french people to take to the streets in a massive protest 'manifestation' against the marriage equality legislation there? One frenchman told me it was a deep concern for the welfare of the children involved. ---as in the above scenario. But gayness is not condemned by Jesus anywhere in the bible you argue. Right, and neither is clubbing your mother in law with a hard sausage or eating raw cat with Miso sauce- because it was so unheard of in Jesus' day it didn't merit mention as just preposterous. Every single monotheistic religion has a prohibition against gay relations. It's not a comment on people's predispositions-it is a comment on what they do with them. Being sexual with your same gender has a strong prohibition in Christian scripture, and it merits serious penalty in the Muslim world. In Christian scripture it is classed in the same category as drunkards and fornicators. Practcing Homosexuals are expressly excluded from the Kingdom in scripture so for those bible believing scriptural adherents it has a moral component to it which cannot be ignored. If any behaviors enjoy the same equal protection as any other behaviors where is the 'limiting principle' for equal protection purposes? Where is the dividing line? The Constitutional issues are not as clear as the Inaugural speech would make it. It appeared less the moral high ground than grounds for moral confusion and Robert Bork is rolling over in his grave.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Where's My Camera

ONLY IN AMERICA This is a F-----abulously Awesome Country! What a great country. I have heard stories from my uncle about how my father was on a crew that paved the Homestead Highlevel Bridge and worked in the steel mills as a teenager. Everybody did those days apparently in their hood. Either the coal mines or the steel mills to earn pocket cash. My Dad also parked cars for some nightclub in the Hill District in Pittsburgh when that was a rockin rollin place in the 40s. My Dad was born in 1932 before WWII. His uncle was a legit war hero in "The War" whose boat was sunk off the North African coast and he swam a mile to shore dragging someone with him, as the fish tale goes. His photo rests to this day on a table my uncle has in his living room in his Embassy Row house. Its a long way from a metal fenced small house in a suburb of Pittsburgh, but my uncle did well enough at Harvard and Yale law to be one of the officially Honorable Senate appointees and his brother, my Dad became eventually an international business executive starting offices all around the world for a Fortune 400 company. Its a long way from Pleasant Hills. This is a Great Country. Their father, my grandfather Francis Joseph Butler is buried in Thomas Jefferson cemetary in a suburb of Pittsburgh. That's where all my dead relatives live-- in the 'Garden of Peace' in the Thomas Jefferson cemetary. There is enough there to ponder on for a while. Francis Joseph was partially schooled by ruler knuckle slapping nuns and from an irish catholic immigrant family. That's where I can claim to be any part Irish- which seems to be a fairly dominant gene because my freckles overtake me with age. I am a JFK baby, born the year JFK was campaigning and won the Presidency in 1960. I can only imagine how my father felt when JFK was running. Probably something like unbelievable pride, admiration and a hope filled belief that if the skinny kid from "NINA" country (No Irish Need Apply, as it was known in Boston then) can be President, then ANYONE can do anything. My Dad can run a company, and did. My small claim to my strong willed irish side landed me today at the Irish Americans for Obama brunch where the Irish Ambassador reminded us that this year, 2013, everyone Irish is invited back to the motherland for a special "Gathering." The carrot-top from County Waterford sitting to my right told me to google it. Schumer, yes, the Senator, made an appearance at the coctail hour just before the sit-down, schmoozed a bit floating through on his way to solving the fiscal cliff. And I got to thank the wife of a former Ambassador to the Holy See for her talk at the JPII Center at the beatification of JPII, and thank her husband for coming even though he was a Bush appointee. I recognized him, I told him from Mass at the Catholic Information Center which shocked him because he wouldn't have expected anyone from the CIC to be at an Obama event. I was equally shocked to see him- but his claim to Irish is probably less tenuous than mine. I just kept thinking- what an unbelievably great country. And how unbelievably blessed I am to be American. I can sit and chat with a Senator, an Ambassador, a union President, a bunch of lawyers, who may or may not agree with me on everything or anything. But, Thank God Almighty We Are Free --at last. Congratulations to Obama on his Second Inaugural.

AMEN


Saturday, January 19, 2013

Monday, January 07, 2013

update

The Supreme Court will hear argument in March on the Marriage Equality business. And if they come out in disagreement with the Pope will that silence the critics? Will there be more castigating the sodomites in the Judiciary? Scalia will surely vote down any marriage equality legislation-he all but said as much. Roberts did some pro bono work for a gay organization as he testified in his confirmation hearings. Doesn't mean he sympathizes with them but that he could be an independent advocate. Leviticus makes gayness evil. It also makes eating mussels, shrimp, and oysters evil. It also makes mandatory that a woman who assists her husband in fighting off an attacker by grabbing the guy by the cahoonas has to have her hand cut off. If gay is unmariageable, what about someone who defrauded their customers or subcontractors- no marriage for them too? What other evil people (so called) can't be married? What's the difference between one class of sinning folks and another. How about haters- hate is the opposite of God, thus really in a state of sin-the opposite of a state of grace. All haters - no marriage for you. Will the Supreme Court be like Seinfeld's 'soup nazi' on the "No Marriage For You" meme or will they say- hey, we all fall short of the glory of God, so why deny the tax breaks to other sinners? Anyone's guess. You got me there. No clue what they will do. There is one argument that distinguishes it perhaps. Not to get theological, but Gay Marriage is something that would be affirming gay sex which is a behavior and not an immutable character trait like race or gender for equal protection purposes- and clearly not all behaviors are permitted on equality grounds just because someone wants to commit said behaviors. Inquiring Constitutional scholars want to know. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/supreme-court-gay-marriage_n_2426035.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing9%7Cdl1%7Csec3_lnk3%26pLid%3D253785

Friday, January 04, 2013

Sore Losers and Other Biblical Error

The Anti-Gay Marriage rant has ignited an unbelievable fury of self righteous indignation, especially in Maryland. "Welcome to Sodom" was how one Pastor titled his "Pastoral Letter." I wonder how Pastoral any gay person visiting his church would have felt he was picking up that bulletin. Biblically we all know that Sodom was where Lot lived with his wife and daughters until Abraham called him out. The wife turned to stone because she looked back when told not to- they fled debauchery, where gay men tried to rape forcibly angels at Lot's door. Rape. Gay Marriage is the opposite of Rape. It is by definition an act of consent-and one gay people apparently want badly enough to try to change the law about it. It is also the opposite of wild screwing about in orgiastic licentiousness which is what Sodom was all about. That is not gay marriage legislation either. It is a statement against it in fact when any two people make a lifetime monogamous commitment of intimate care to each other- something the "Welcome to Sodom" priest knows nothing about. Millions of Republican dollars were wasted on this fight to give people who already are gay, already living together in most cases certain legal adjustments other straight people have. Millions of dollars, collected that no one pays taxes on, because it's 'charitable.' And it was done with such an obnoxious self righteousness as if the opposers had no greater sin on their shoulders or rail road tye plank in their own eye that they could sit there spewing all kinds of hate to a community they know nothing about. "Satan's little helpers" is how the "Welcome to Sodom" Pastor called people like the Maryland Governor,(in writing no less, now all over the web by clicking on the bulletin feature of his parish website) who wants to make sure that if there is a loving stable gay family who is willing to house, feed, clothe, educate, nurture, love and support a child that this is preferable to them rotting in an orphanage with no parental figure. And people wonder why the Catholic Church as it makes a hard right turn to exclusionism, and driving out disagreement, is losing lots of fans and members who think 85 year old guys who persecuted anyone in their higher employ who wished to marry in dresses should not be dictating sexual policy to anyone. Maryland has a better cause- the Death Penalty. Now that is a real "LIFE" issue - or didn't you notice? The Death Penalty elimination legislation is a hot topic now in Annapolis. Why don't you mobilize your little posse of Annapolis 'lobbyists' to take that one on. It's actually a worthy fight.

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

The Letter

Every Lawyer Wishes They Could Write Once in Their Life Dear Client------------ While Your matter is intriguing and you certainly have a profound sense of the injustice done to you after thorough and thoughtful investigation we conclude that you are Crazy. While we would love to take your money and delude you otherwise until a Court confirms our suspicion that your next residence should be the Altzheimers Unit of Saint Es, that feels like stealing candy from a baby. Your file will be available for pick up at the front desk as soon as we have copied everything we need to in the event you decide to do something ridiculous like walk it next door for another opinion and that guy asks for the money back for all the time it took to conclude that you are indeed Crazy to pay him-because naturally you are broke. That is why you came to us thinking lawyers are ATM machines activated by insane griping. Plumb Bonkers. Bat out of Hades zooier than an arse -scratching ape-Crazy. If any of these terms confuses you feel free to call for clarification at the usual hourly rate. If you start obsessively emailing us demanding to know why we are dropping you on your head please be advised there is such a thing as cyber-stalking. p.s. this is a privileged and confidential attorney client communication so we only forwarded it to our spouses to get a chuckle. Happy Blessed Prosperous New Year. juuuust kiiiiiidding!

FLIM FLAM VICTIMHOOD

Have you ever met someone who is insistent that they, and they alone have the 'canary in the minefield' sensitivity to anything and everyone else is a brute because they can't smell it? Mold-heads, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity people, and others who are sure that their environment is killing them. It might be, but it also might be that they caused their sensitivity with the recreational cheap laced weed that they insist on using (because its medicinal) with about 400 known chemicals in it-and if it is the bad stuff from the wrong places it can even contain embalming fluids and chemicals. Tell me that doesn't fry your synapses. There is something called Contributory Negligence in the Tort world. That means, you are not a victim if you shot yourself in the head. If you forgot to tell me about the three abortions that you got and want to blame mold for your emotional distress I am not going to take on that case. If you are a mold-head you are not doing yourself any favors by smoking recreational weed. If you are a Multiple chemical sensitive personality, experimenting in illicit drugs isn't making life easier for you. If you get caught you go to jail for one thing. I imagine the smells in there are worse than the laundry detergent you can't stand the smell of. Do not come looking for a lawyer if you want to sue someone for using generic laundry detergent in your building basement while you are smoking weed in your apartment because you say the laundry detergent makes you sick. That isn't to say that mold isn't dangerous or some chemicals aren't dangerous. Some canaries however are really vultures. Also, it is not a defense to assault and battery that you can't stand the smell of dry cleaning and the clorox bleach made you crazy. Can't wait till that chemical sensitivity insanity defense gets briefed. I'm sorry you honor, she smelled bleach and it drove her in a frenzy to a point where she assaulted her roomate demanding cash. This growing field of 'environmental' ailments brings with it a spectrum of funny quack pretend experts- like pediatricians who call themselves environmental medicine practitioners diagnosing neurological disorders. After the massive flooding from Sandy and other disasters around the country, mold is something to pay attention to- but it can be treated and eliminated quickly. Remediation isn't hard. It isn't brain surgery. Its on you to go get it out quickly- by finding a good remediator. If you sit around and watch it grow so you can sue someone you should have your head examined. And not by a pediatrician. I can't believe I am a lawyer some days watching this nonsense.