Adam MacLeod and Andrew Beckwith show that redefining marriage to ignore sexual difference leads to rejecting sexual difference in all aspects of life.

Sky Fall: 

Gender Ideology Comes to the Schoolhouse

by Adam J. MacLeod and Andrew Beckwith

Since redefining marriage requires us to deny sexual differences, 

even school children now have to conform to that principle 

at the risk of punishment.

In our discussions with advocates of redefining marriage, we often hear that defenders of marriage and sexual difference are overreacting to cultural and legal changes. "You run around yelling that the sky is falling," we're told. "We've had same-sex marriage for a decade now in Massachusetts, and guess what: The sky is not falling."
This is not an argument, of course, but an attempt to end any discussion of what it would mean to remove sexual distinctions from the law. As it did to James Bond's psychiatric evaluation in the recent hit movie, the mention of the phrase "sky fall" is supposed to terminate the proceedings.

No serious participants in the current marriage discussion are running around like Chicken Little. Defenders of marriage are concerned primarily about the long-term implications of redefining the institution. We might not expect the redefinition of marriage to alter cultural practices dramatically right away. After all, it took nearly two generations to realize the full effects of the divorce revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. But strange things are nevertheless happening in Massachusetts, where sexual difference was eliminated from marriage laws in 2003.

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Read more: www.thepublicdiscourse.com

UK - Credit-rating downgrade is symptom of a universal spending problem

The British slide

By Nita Ghei

Moody's decision last week to downgrade Great Britain’s credit rating surprised no one, including the markets, which largely shrugged the news off. The credit-rating agency arrived late to the party, just as it did in the United States and in several of the eurozone’s distressed countries. The market is quicker to take into account the botched finances of each nation.
That’s cold comfort to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, who have used the need to maintain the country’s Aaa rating to advocate for fiscal austerity.

The problem is that the talk of austerity has been exactly that: just talk. 

Her Majesty's government has continued to spend ever larger amounts, even during the Great Recession. 

• Government outlays were about $955 billion in 2009. 
• That jumped to $1.04 trillion last year, 
• and is expected to climb even higher — to $1.14 trillion by 2017. 

Whatever else might be shrinking in the United Kingdom, it isn’t the size of government — or the size of deficits.

The increase in spending has outstripped increases in revenue from the only “austerity” being practiced — tax hikes. 

The British government already pulls in a staggering 39 percent of the economy’s output. (The U.S. federal government, by comparison, collects 26 percent.) Nonetheless, the United Kingdom’s fiscal deficit is larger than that of Europe’s near-bankrupt nations.

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Read more: www.washingtontimes.com

On State Culpability for Social Problems - government has failed to admit that its own selfishness is the root of many societal problems it has tried to address

The Least of These

by Anthony Esolen

In Philadelphia, about half of all students in ninth grade will graduate from high school. The dropout rate is especially high among black and Hispanic boys. President Obama’s answer to this problem is typical of the left: compulsion. Make dropping out illegal. In other words, force boys who are learning nothing to remain where they are learning nothing, to help make sure that nobody else learns anything, either. If they drop out anyway, turn them into criminals to be rounded up.

All this would cost a great deal of money, which Philadelphia does not have. And even if you could compel the boy, seething with resentment and contempt, to occupy a desk in a dreary schoolroom, you cannot compel him to learn. To try is a distant, “technological” response to a human problem. It is a way to pretend to generosity, while keeping those who suffer from your heedlessness far from your sight and smell.

Philadelphia has been engaging in a years-long lawsuit, at great expense, to force the Boy Scouts from their headquarters, which they occupy rent-free. Why no rent? Well, back in 1929, the year of the stock market collapse, the city fathers invited the Boy Scouts to occupy land on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Back then, the city fathers actually cared for the well-being of boys.

So the Scouts agreed. They built the building themselves. They then graciously turned ownership over to the city, with the understanding that they might use the building without paying rent. They, not the city, have assumed all the costs of maintenance ever since. It has not cost the city a penny. The Boy Scouts, in other words, did the city a tremendous favor, and are now rewarded for it with contempt.

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Read more: www.thepublicdiscourse.com

Quali sono stati i tratti salienti di questo Pontificato?

Afferrato da Cristo

di Davide Perillo

Il Papa ci ha spiegato la fede, da maestro. Ma soprattutto «l’ha fatta accadere». L’umiltà dell’inizio e della fine indicano il vero contenuto di ogni suo passo: «La prima iniziativa è di Dio». Il teologo JAVIER PRADES ci accompagna dentro questi otto anni

L’inizio e la fine. Certo, si specchiano già a prima vista. Difficile non vedere nell’umiltà con cui ha rinunciato al Soglio pontificio lo stesso tratto con cui Benedetto XVI si era presentato al popolo di Dio, il 19 aprile di otto anni fa: «Dopo il grande papa Giovanni Paolo II, i signori cardinali hanno eletto me, un semplice e umile lavoratore nella vigna del Signore». 

Ma ora che il lavoro si conclude, ed è tempo di bilanci, si capisce che c’è qualcosa di più nel legame che unisce quei due gesti. 

«C’è una testimonianza che abbraccia tutto il resto», dice Javier Prades, 52 anni, teologo e rettore dell’Università San Dámaso di Madrid: «In come il cardinale Ratzinger aveva accettato la carica c’era già, in nuce, il cuore di quello che è venuto dopo: la prima iniziativa è di Dio, non nostra. Benedetto XVI lo ha mostrato a tutti con grande chiarezza. È un uomo libero. E lo si è visto bene, in questi anni».

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www.tracce.it

«Sarò sempre con voi. E insieme andiamo avanti con il Signore, nella certezza: vince il Signore! Grazie!».

Lui, e niente altro

«guardate che non andiamo a Roma per sostenere il Papa, 

ma per essere sostenuti da lui»

Ora, forse, iniziamo a vedere. C’è voluto tempo, certo. Come accade davanti a un fatto così imponente, così capace di stravolgere la nostra misura, da richiedere un cammino lungo perché cuore e ragione si allarghino a fargli spazio. Ma adesso, forse... 

Domenica 24 febbraio, Benedetto XVI ha recitato il suo ultimo Angelus. Centomila persone in piazza, milioni collegati in diretta. E a molti è venuto in mente un altro Angelus, una domenica di maggio di tre anni fa. San Pietro era stracolma di fedeli, arrivati con l’idea di manifestare il loro affetto a un Pontefice sotto tiro per la campagna di stampa sullo scandalo-pedofilia. Alcuni di loro s’erano ritrovati capovolti. Prima da una frase di don Julián Carrón, la guida di Cl («guardate che non andiamo a Roma per sostenere il Papa, ma per essere sostenuti da lui»), poi dall’impressione vivissima data proprio da lui, da quell’uomo che visto dal colonnato sembrava ancora più piccolo, quasi un puntino bianco, eppure così saldo e forte da potercisi davvero appoggiare. Da sostenere tutto il peso non solo di quei giorni, ma della Chiesa. 

Bene, è la stessa immagine che molti hanno portato con sé anche dall’ultimo Angelus. A quella finestra c’era un uomo più anziano, dall’apparenza ancora più fragile - anzi, così fragile da ammettere di aver bisogno di «un modo più adatto alla mia età e alle mie forze» per servire la Chiesa. E tuttavia in grado di trasmettere al suo popolo quello che si respirava in piazza: una serenità impensabile. Una letizia imprevedibile, pur nel dolore del distacco. In una parola, una libertà potente. Perché? Da dove viene quella forza?

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www.tracce.it Editoriale

La mission s’inscrit dans la durée, pour ne pas gâcher l’acquis des opérations. Elle exige une stratégie, autant militaire que politique. Où est-elle ?

Vérités et chimères au Mali

Par Frédéric Pons

Afrique. La France et la communauté internationale doivent regarder la réalité en face. La mission s’inscrit dans la durée, pour ne pas gâcher l’acquis des opérations. Elle exige une stratégie, autant militaire que politique. Où est-elle ?
Patience et détermination ! Pour réussir au Mali, sur les plans militaire et politique, la France n’a guère d’autre choix que de s’installer dans la durée et de fixer une stratégie, ce qui n’est pas encore le cas. C’est la seule façon de ne pas ruiner les efforts accomplis jusque-là.

Contre un ennemi qui utilise tous les moyens à sa portée, il faudra de la patience. Il faudra aussi de la détermination face aux procès d’intention (le “néocolonialisme”) qui accompagnent la moindre action française en Afrique. La “mauvaise conscience de l’homme blanc” affleure en permanence, au risque d’empêcher de bâtir cette nécessaire vision stratégique dont notre pays a besoin sur ce continent. C’est son intérêt, dans cette relation singulière entre la France et l’Afrique, que certains voudraient nier.

Le Mali a besoin de la France pour l’aider à rétablir son État, failli, son armée, désintégrée, et son unité nationale, fracturée par les luttes ethniques et claniques qu’exacerbent les trafiquants de la zone sahélienne (drogues, armes, otages, clandestins). L’intérêt de la France — et de l’Europe — est de stabiliser au plus vite le Mali, pour éviter la contagion islamo-terroriste à l’ensemble du Sahel. Abandonner cette région en ferait la proie immédiate des réseaux qui rêvent autant d’un émirat islamique que d’un sanctuaire pour leurs trafics vers l’Europe.

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Lire ici: www.valeursactuelles.com

Outre la tristesse, je ressens au jourd’hui la fierté rare d’avoir pu rencontrer, alors qu’il marchait vers son destin, un héros. Un héros français.

Rencontre avec un héros

Par Geoffroy Lejeune

Mort pour la France. 

Nous avions interviewé l’été dernier le sergent-chef Harold Vormezeele, au 2e Rep, à Calvi (Corse). Histoire d’une rencontre avec un soldat d’élite, tué au Mali le 19 février.
Une aura singulière émane de ce personnage aux muscles saillants, à l’air sombre et aux yeux perçants. Il demande à n’être pas cité dans mon article, m’interdit de faire apparaître une quelconque description physique. Il ne donnera ni son nom, ni son grade, ni sa nationalité. Bridé par une humilité non feinte, il ne souhaite parler qu’en tant que légionnaire. 

Rencontré en juin dernier, alors que je parcourais les régiments de Légion pour nourrir un reportage paru en septembre dans le Spectacle du monde, le sergent- chef Vormezeele appartenait au Groupement de commandos parachutistes (GCP) du 2e régiment étranger de parachutistes. Il a trouvé la mort huit mois après notre rencontre au cours de l’opération Serval au Mali (lire page 36).

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Lire cici: www.valeursactuelles.com