E pur si muove: A response to Keith Fournier’s lies and disinformation

Deacon Keith Fournier recently wrote an ignorant, inflammatory and inaccurate piece on transgender activism which was published at Catholic Online, entitled Exchanging the Truth of God for a Lie: Transgender Activists, Cultural Revolution

Fournier’s article is evidence of the continued resistance of the tradition-encrusted Roman Catholic Church’s to advances in scientific understanding that caused that Church to bring Galileo to trial for heresy, to condemn the more advanced (though still rather simple, cosmologically, as the Sun itself is not now understood to be the center of the universe, and is only a rather minor star in a peripheral spiral arm of a galaxy of over 200 million stars in a Universe that is staggeringly huge) scientific understanding of heliocentricity as being “false and contrary to Holy Scripture" because Galileo dared challenge the prevailing Church-accepted Ptolomaic geocentric theory of the solar system’s workings.

The Cardinals who condemned Galileo in their profound 17th century ignorance of the advances in cosmological science, pronounced in their decision that heliocentrism is “absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture” and that “The proposition that the earth is not the center of the universe and immovable, but that it moves (around the sun) and also with a rotational motion, is equally absurd, philosophically false and theologically erroneous.”

After a study of the Galileo trial that was commenced in 1979, on Halloween in 1992 Pope John Paul II finally issued an explanation, lifting the edict of Inquisition against Galileo, 359 years after the fact. While not actually apologizing, the pope said that

"Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions."

Pope John Paul II pointed out at that time that the province of the Church is theology, and not science or astronomy. The pope indicated that the lack of modern scientific knowledge among the Cardinals on the tribunal,

"led them unduly to transpose into the realm of the doctrine of the faith, a question which in fact pertained to scientific investigation.”

And yet, Deacon Fournier, like many in that Church’s Magisterium, seems to have learned nothing at all from the serious error of those who put science on trial, and decided incorrectly.

Deacon Fournier is today in the same position of those 17th century Inquisition cardinals. He confuses his erroneous theological interpretation with Truth, he misstates and misinterprets the science and he ignores the evidence that explains the physiology of transgender people, the evidence for genetic predispositions and ontological development of brain structures along one sexed blueprint, while genital duct systems follow the other blueprint.

Instead, he starts with accusations that transgender people are the product of moral corruption, ignoring the moral corruption and mean-spirited attitudes that infest his church’s Magisterium. He misinterprets Romans 1 as a condemnation of homosexuality, rather than understanding that it is a condemnation of people who engage in sexual practices against their God-given natures while intoxicated during Bacchanalian religious rites. But why is Fournier beginning with a misdirected attack on homosexuality when the intended victims of his bullying are transgender people?

Does he not know the difference between sexual orientation and sex assignment, or with gender identity?

When Fournier erroneously declares that there are biblical references that must be ripped out of the Bible by those who maintain that “there is no reference to the rejection of homosexual practices in the Bible” - he is the one who has apparently ignored 1 Samuel 18, 2 Samuel 1 and many references in between, that relate to the marriage of David and Jonathan. In addition, he would have to rip out the often is interpreted story of the Men of Sodom – because a proper reading of that passage actually condemns Fournier’s own position, which, while wholly wrong, are consistent with the interpretive writings of Benedict XVI about things that “everyone knows” about Sodom, when he was merely Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and the head of the successor to the Inquisition, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

But Fournier iss supposedly condemning transgender people – so lets start with Isaiah 56, Matthew 19:12 and Acts 8 - all of which don’t seem to appear in Deacon Keith’s Bible – or he would understand that even Jesus knew about transgender and intersex people, and that we are special to God. Or he might ponder about the relationship between Genesis 1:27 and the secret name of God derived from reading the Tetragrammaton backward in Hebrew – which translates out as “He/She.” (This analysis is courtesy of Rabbi Mark Sameth of Pleasantville, who knows more about Jewish scripture than Deacon Fournier and any college of Cardinals combined.)

Fournier cites to the Reuters story about the lawsuits challenging New York’s birth certificate regulations. As I am the plaintiff in the first of these cases, I would suggest that he would do much better to refer to the actual legal documents and to the scientific materials that provide the basis for some of the challenge, rather than engaging in fanciful flights of illogic.

After quoting from the Reuters article, including a quote from me, he still does not have a clue, despite the words pointing him in the right direction for inquiry.
The next thing, Deacon Fournier starts some gibberish about the Australian Human Rights Commission recognizing “23 genders.” The ignorant article he first refers to cites to the Australian document – which does not identify 23 genders at all, but rather 23 terms for various gender identities on the spectrum of transgender identity that is in the gray area at the edge of the artificial binary that Western society imposes on the physiological sexual diversity in the nature of human beings. Those who accept the binary of sex as some strict “male and female” construct will shrug off those who don’t quite fit into their arbitrary definitions as abnormal, as “freakazoids,” or as delusional.

For Deacon Fournier’s edification, my best guess as to what “neutroi” might mean, is perhaps a weakly bigender identity that is the gender identity equivalent of asexuality. But that is not itself a “gender” if by gender Fournier means “sex assignment.”

Fournier is confused by all this, and he is in turn confusing apples with oranges – it is as if he is saying that some school board is no longer dealing with students as “boys” and “girls” but as” jocks, brainiacs, nerds, geeks, cheerleaders, skaters, outcasts, preppies, artsies, druggies, goths, gangstas, punks, rednecks, queers, etc.”

Interestingly, the Australian commission looks with favor on the language being considered by “the United States Senate” called “for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009” which defines gender identity as:

‘the gender-related identity, appearance, or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, with or without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth’.

The wording of the federal Bill has a number of advantages over the narrower Australian definitions that only protect people who identify as a member of the ‘opposite’ or ‘other’ sex.

I could go through a detailed history of how the American definition grew and evolved between 1979 and the present day – but I will leave that to another essay.
Of course, Fournier is too busy making things up about “23 genders” to actually find anything useful to discuss, at least until he gets really deep into his article.
Fournier attacks hormonal and surgical treatments that are used to help those transgender people who feel the sociocultural pressure to conform those parts of our bodies that can be brought into greater conformity with the artificial binary expectation of society.

Perhaps in a society that respected the diversity of natural sex as was common among many world cultures in ancient times and even more recently, before those cultures were exposed to western binary prejudices, there would be a cultural niche appropriate for those who are different. However, we live in a society that recognizes two sexes, so the accepted medical practice is to try to help transgenderr people conform more closely to the physiological norm for those whose brain development is similar to our own.

Certainly, the late iranian Shi’ite Ayatollah Khomenei actually understood more about transgender people than the Catholic Church – even though the mullahs who have followed him have twisted his fatwa on the subject to give gay people they plan to execute by stoning, an alternative, to subject themselves to transsexual surgeries rather than a painful death.

Fournier writes, without a clue as to the real science:

“Medical science confirms that our identity as male or female affects even our brains. In addition, even the physical appearance must be sustained by massive doses of synthetic hormones.”

In the first sentence, he gets a glimmer of the truth – yes, there are sexed differences in brains – but he ignores the science – that transgender people have sex-differentiated brain structures in the hypothalamus that conform to those of the other genital sex.

In 1995, in a peer-reviewed article in Nature, entitled A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality [Nature 378, 68 - 70 (02 November 1995); doi:10.1038/378068a0] the researchers involved gave us a first glimmer into transsexual brain structures.

This was confirmed in a follow-up study in 2000, entitled Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus, published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Vol. 85, No. 5 2034-2041


But Deacon Fournier, as little as he understands the theology of transgender people (or gay people, for that matter) fails even more spectacularly to understand medical science. The first thing is that not all hormone therapy is by way of “synthetic” hormones. (He apparently does not know how premarin is manufactured, for example). Then he does not undertsand that synthetic hormonal therapies are used for a number of medical treatments – for example, one of the diabetes drugs that keep me alive every day is called Byetta, and it is a synthetic hormone derived from Gila monster saliva, which works as a mimetic for hormones secreted by the first two feet of the small intestine at the beginning of the digestive process and which stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin.

In rejecting surgeery for those transgender people who need it and can have it, he should also reject other life-saving surgery - perhaps he should forgo a needed triple bypass, because the intervention of a surgeon would violate his body as a temple of the Holy Spirit and interfere with God’s plan for his life and death. Applying this sort of “theology” to science is exactly what went wrong with the Galileo case – and Fournier is repeating history.

He also does not really understand the source of the “sub secretum” document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – it was issued first in 2000, and then circulated in 2002 to the bishops when it became apparent that none of the bishops had been asking their papal representatives anything about transgender people.

This document was leaked to Catholic News Service in February 2003 – and that is where a lot of the information available to the public about this document comes from.

It is believed that the source for mush of the erroneous information about transgender people in the sub secretum document came from Dr. Paul McHugh, an Opus Dei zealot whose area of psychiatric expertise is eating disorders, but who, as head of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, shut down that institution’s sex reassignment surgery clinic. Much of the thrust of McHugh’s animus against transgender people comes from his severe lack of understanding of the facts – and his attack is on the discredited theories of the late John Money – an attack that Deacon Fournier continues. But the attack is misdirected, and is not against the actual science, but only at John Money's discredited ideas.

In addition to McHugh, another person thought to have been a source for the document was Urbano Cardinal Navarrete, a Spanish Jesuit most noted for being responsible for the enforced masculinization by the of the three persons of the Holy Trinity – Navarrete is thought to have been responsible for the invalidation of Catholic baptisms performed using gender-neutral references to the Trinity (example: Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier), rather than the traditional patriarchal masculine Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This pronouncement of masculine attributes of God is as ridiculous as the Church’s position on transgender people – but as long as they are sticking to theology for the adherents of their increasingly irrelevant and morally backward Church, that last is something that does not affect me, and as ludicrous as it is, there is no reason for me to do more than snicker at their patriarchist chutzpah, especially since I've since rejected the trinitarian doctrine and the divinity of that great Jewish teacher, the Rabbi Yeshua ben Miriam.

The place where the Church goes wrong on the science as it relates to transgender people is in its insistence on birth genital essentialism as a reaction to the unsound theories of John Money, and to certain aspects of feminism (though the Church itself is the source of the birth-genital essentialism espoused by some who style themselves radical feminist separatists based on Catholic-influenced doctrine passed to them by the late Mary Daly and her protege, Janice Raymond, the infamous author of The Transsexual Empire.

Fournier directs his attack without taking into account the individual’s personal biological, genetic and developmental factors that indicate that this birth genital-based assignment is incorrect.

In 2008, two separate studies from Australia established separate genetic predispositions for different kinds of transgender development.

In one study, the predisposition for those who develop with female-identified brains and male genital tracts was shown to involve a long androgen receptor gene:
Lauren Hare, Pascal Bernard, Francisco J. Sanchez, Paul N. Baird, Eric Vilain, Trudy Kennedy and Vincent R. Harley. Androgen Receptor (AR) Repeat Length Polymorphism Associated with Male-to-female Transsexualism. Biological Psychiatry, Advance online publication date 27 Oct 2008, Jan 2009 print edition

The other study,aimed at those who develop with male-identified brains and female genital tract development, was entitled A Polymorphism of the CYP17 Gene Related to Sex Steroid Metabolism is Associated With Female-to-Male But Not Male-to-Female Transsexualism by Bentz, Eva-Katrin; Hefler, Lukas A.; Kaufmann, Ulrike; Huber, Johannes C.; Kolbus, Andrea; Tempfer, Clemens B., published in Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey: December 2008 - Volume 63 - Issue 12 - pp 775-777
doi: 10.1097/01.ogx.0000338093.21452.0b

These studies, and the brain structure studies from 1995 and 2000, provide clues to the ontological developments that result in transgender people. While there is much additional study required, these studies make it possible to discredit the earlier understandings of transgender people that date back to 1965, in which transgender people were seen as merely delusional members of their initially-assigned sex, for whom any treatment is seen as merely palliative. It is the erroneous assumption at the root of the Roman Catholic Church Magisterium's position, and it is just as wrong as relying on the Bible to classify bats as birds merely because they fly, or whales as fish because they swim in the ocean.

Strangely enough, once one realizes that this misplaced genital essentialism is the primary issue with the Magisterium’s doctrine, it becomes apparent that things like Bishop Gregory’s quote about “canonical condition” can be made to make sense. Of course, it’s okay to see gender as fixed at birth, as long as we understand that it is the brain and not the genitalia, that is the predominant factor in the correct assignment. In addition, it should be obvious that even the Bible recognized some people as falling outside the male/female binary - the people classified as "eunuchs."

After all – my own situation is one in which I am asking the City of New York for a correction of the error made in my assignment at birth, as well as to conform my birth certificate with my other identity documentation. I am looking for a correction, not a change. There is a difference, one lost on Deacon Fournier.

Indeed, the Church’s position is and should be purely theological, and not scientific. He Magisterium should keep its theological noses out of the scientific arena and the medical science as it relates to who is properly assigned to which sex, unless it wishes to conform its theology to the prevailing science, and is willing to change that theology when the scientific understanding becomes more complete.

I am not calling for a right to “choose” a gender – I am calling for a legal right to correct my sex designation on a document that was erroneous at the time of my birth. And if the Church won't change my baptismal certificate, that's perfectly fine, since I have rejected their theology a while ago.

Deacon Fournier and his Church have a nasty habit of interfering in areas about which their Magisterium has no credible scientific, legal or cultural business. These include civil marriage, women’s reproductive rights in the civil arena (they can call whatever they want to be “sinful”), and the human rights, dignity and worth of transgender, lesbian, intersex, bisexual and gay people. The Church can deny us the priesthood, it can deny us the right to a sacrament of matrimony, but when it interferes in the civil arena in its gross, immoral and theologically unsound manner, they should expect pushback from those they oppress in their mean-spirited effort to impose their peculiar and backward morality on those whose moral compass actually points in the right direction.

Western Civilization became what it was in large part despite the resistance ot the Church, not because of it.

Thank the Arabs. Thank the Irish. Thank the Jews. Thank the Greeks and the Romans. Thank Thomas Aquinas, who more than anyone else was responsible for the Church accepting Aristotle, which allowed for a jump-start for the renaissance. Thank Martin Luther and Henry VIII, at least a little. Thank the scientists, engineers and inventors who brought the Industrial Revolution.

But the Church itself has done more harm than good over its lifetime, particularly when it acts in ignorant tradition-bound resistance to advances in science and to a kinder, gentler, superior morality. And rather than making me wait 359 years for a tepid apology, perhaps Deacon Fournier can start the ball rolling by apologizing now. But I won’t hold my breath or that. I would only hope and pray that the day comes when God will open his eyes, soften his heart and make him open up to the idea that at least some of the things he knows for sure about sex and gender may not be right 100% of the time.

Skidmarks on the Road: Part II

Yesterday, I posted the first part of my response to Mary Kochan’s “Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Part I” that was published over at Catholic Exchange.

In a nutshell, in my first chapter, I took Mary’s foundational points – that sacred scripture is only properly interpreted by the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, and that the doctrines of the Church have an “incarnational aspect” – in whuch the doctrine is incarnated (becomes alive) by an act. Mary used several examples: rituals, sacraments, vows, prayers and acts of penance.

Rather than addressing the treatment of transsexual people directly, I chose to take a completely different social and moral controversy – abortion and the point at which a human being becomes a person – to illustrate how the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church has failed in its interpretations of sacred scripture. The span of personhood on the continuum of human life is scripturally associated with the time between “birth and breath” and “breathing one’s last.” Our breath is the breath of God. This scriptural doctrine is “incarnated” by the sacrament of Baptism. I pointed out how the Magisterium’s current teachings about abortion have changed over the centuries, and that the Church has failed to properly interpret sacred scripture.

The structure of Roman Catholic doctrine is like a house built on loose sand, in the face of an incoming hurricane’s storm surge. By claiming to have all the Truth, the establishment of just one falsehood makes the whole structure subject to question.

With that foundational point firmly in place, let’s turn to more of Mary’s essay, and let's also turn to the issue of transsexual people.

Mary turns to an e-mail message she received from a transsexual woman, which refers to a 2009 article in Catholic Exchange by Dale O’Leary, and Mary’s many comments on that article. We are going to have to look further into the source materials, but for now, let’s turn to this.

At first Mary thinks that the letter might be a prank, but decides to respond to it as if it is genuine.

Mary writes:

“Let me begin with something that is biologically and medically true. The sex of
all infants at birth and of all persons later in life is not unambiguous. There
are conditions — deformities of genitalia, genetic anomalies, intrauterine
interference with normal development, etc. — that can make what is usually a
straightforward identification of someone as male or female problematic. While
these are blessedly rare, they are real medical conditions and the persons
afflicted with them deserve and should have access to medical care that performs
two critical functions: 1. Determining to the best of scientific accuracy what
the sex of the person really is 2. Providing the person with the medical and/or
surgical and/or psychological intervention to promote physically, emotionally,
and socially healthy adaptation to that sex. Where an error has been made
in documentation, due to the person having been misidentified at birth as one
sex while actually being the other, simple justice demands that the records
should be corrected.”

Immediately, Mary falls into the trap imposed by the sex and gender binary.

Dr. Milton Diamond of the University of Hawaii has said it best:

“Nature loves diversity, but society hates it.”

The binary of sex is not a biological reality, but is rather a social construct imposed on the diversity of reality. While it is true that the large majority of human beings will fall unambiguously into one or the other binary sexes (male or female), there is a small minority that does not fit into the social construct hat society imposes on this reality.

Rather than seeing these variations as natural differences, Mary, and many other cissexual people, will see anyone who is different as abnormal. And while the term “abnormal” in and of itself in this situation simply means “not like the 99% who fit into the societal expectation of sex assignment,” the term carries with it an enormous negative baggage. Of course, Mary jumps into this with both feet, gleefully pathologizing people who are different.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t some circumstances that don’t require immediate life-saving medical and/or surgical treatment – but surgeons who operate on newborns with ambiguous genitalia often stray too far from life-saving treatment into genital mutilation for the purpose of defining which of the two societally-expected boxes – and often enough, since it is “easier to dig a hole than erect a pole,” the surgeons will tend to make more of these infants into someone more easily assigned as “female.”

Society has strong expectations from the sex and gender binary. The very first thing anyone asks when a baby is born, is, “is it a boy or a girl?” The assignment of the blue or pink blanket in the maternity ward nursery is perhaps a societal “incarnational aspect” of this binary doctrine.

Yet, when we look at sacred scripture, we see in Genesis 1:27 that:

So God created humans in God’s own image, God created them in the image of God;
male and female God created them.

In nearly all translations of this verse, the conjunction “and” is used – showing us that the image of God is “male *and* female” - and not "male *or* female."

In another essay in this blog, I have mentioned Rabbi Mark Sameth’s writings on the tetragrammaton, revealing that a secret name of God is found by reading the YHWH backward, and it comes out as the Hebrew words for HE/SHE. If we relate this back to Genesis 1:27, it makes it clear that if we are created in God’s image, we are not male *or* female, we are male *and* female.

Scripture is fairly clear on this, but as much as it may inform a Christian’s faith, scripture isn’t science. While the story is an allegory, the underlying truth is undeniable. Looking at other traditions:

In every yin there is a small bit of yang, and in every yang a small bit of yin.

In Plato’s Symposium, we get a very similar yet broader story from Aristophanes, who uses a rather interesting allegory to explain the diversity of sexual orientation.

Biological diversity exists.

In 1995 and 2000, scientists examining the human brain were able to determine that the central strata of the basal stria terminalis in brains of transsexual people resemble the brains of cissexual people who are assigned to the “opposite” sex. Recent studies have shown genetic propensities for the development of transsexualism, a “long androgen receptor” gene for those who are trans women, and a gene that efficiently processes androgens for trans men. These may not be the sole causes, as transsexuality and other intersex conditions involve developmental differences from the standard binary paths. Whether these are based on changes in the blueprint (the genes) or whether they are caused or encouraged by intrauterine hormonal levels at different times during gestation, is not yet fully known.

Mary writes, in reference to her correspondent:

“. . . the writer identifies as a person who has gone from being male –
revealing no ambiguity, genetically or anatomically — to being female. ”

And this is pretty much the way MAry's correspondent tells her narrative.

Many transsexual people have narratives that are based on the binary underlying assumptions that society has foisted on us from the time we were given the wrong color blanket when we were born. We can’t blame the obstetrician, our parents, or others, for believing that we “belonged” to this wrong assignment, because the standard for making the determination works more than 99% of the time.

Considering the fact that the newborn’s brain and coordination are not developed well enough to enable the doctor to ask, and the baby to answer, how the baby identifies, it’s not until a transsexual person is somewhere around four years old that the situation may surface. (And this is complicated further by the fact that there are also children exhibiting similar behavior patterns who don’t turn out to be trans at all, they turn out to be orientationally different – the result of society training small children to be heterosexual. When a little boy, not yet aware of his sexual orientation, is absolutely sure that he wants to marry another boy when he grows up, he may, given the lack of information and appropriate role models, assume that he “should have been a girl.” From what I have read, this may be the case with the majority of children who present with gender differences at an early age. But even if trans kids are actually In the minority, we are still different.)

At around this time, the trans child may be insistent about her or his identity, or may learn to cope by hiding their identity and attempting to assimilate. For trans kids who take the hide and assimilate road,, the experience is often one that involves a great deal of inner turmoil. Puberty will often bring the inner conflict between societal expectations and inner reality back into a sharper focus.

At this point, coping strategies may change.

Some, often those trans kids oriented to what would be the opposite of their identified sex, are likely to transition earlier. Others, often those trans kids who are oriented toward those who would be the opposite of their incorrect assigned sex, will go through a further “hide and assimilate” route. This is how strong the societal expectation of heterosexuality is. It’s also an explanation or the bimodal emergence of transition – a much more accurate interpretation of the experience than that imposed on us by cissexual outside observers (examples: Blanchard and Bailey), and even some trans people (Anne Lawrence, as an example, an adherent of the “autogynephilia” pathology).

If we take into account the evidence for biological diversity in the human species, rather than pathologizing transsexual and other intersex people who do not fit squarely within the confines of the “male *or* female” binary construct created by society, it is better to acknowledge merely that we are not-male, not-female, but other, and that our initial assignment was incorrect, rather than forcing us into the assignment that does not match our brrain development.

So, essentially, Mary’s correspondent is not properly “male-to-female” (MTF or M2F), not having really been fully biologically male in the first place, but is rather “transsexual-to-female” (T2F) or a “woman born transsexual (“WBT”). The identification as MTF in the correspondent’s narrative is based on an acceptance of the initial societal parameters of the binary.

In her letter to Mary, her correspondent wrote:

“When we married, I wanted desperately to believe her love would cure me, and so
I didn’t tell her.”

Such a narrative is often told by trans women who adopted the “hide and assimilate” strategy. It pretty much echoes my own experience with my ex, over thirty years ago. And we had five priests concelebrating our nuptial mass.

Still, the biological fact is that transsexual people are biologically different. We do not ever belong in the sex assignment we were given at birth. Our genital tract may have developed along one of the standard blueprint paths, but our brains, or at least a critical part of them, developed along the other standard path. We are, perhaps, made more in God’s image and likeness than cissexual people. In some cultures, there has been a recognition of these differences, and trans people have been shamans, priests and priestesses, and spiritual leaders, precisely because as we were made by God we have aspects that are both male and female.

Yet, once the Roman Empire became Christianized, western society engaged in a pogrom against the various Greco-roman mystery religions and their eunuch (who in most cases would be seen as trans in modern eyes) priest(esse)s. Much like the victorious Muslims erected a mosque on the site of the Temple of Jerusalem, and on the site of the Temple of the birthplace of Rama in India, the Christian Church erected the Vatican on the site of the Phrygianum of Cybele, Magna Mater, a mystery religion that was served by gallae, who were eunuch priestesses. Augustine of Hippo was an ardent foe of the Cybele-worshippers and their gallae priestesses.

Augustine is also responsible for the Manichean influence on Christian theology. This is clearly evidenced by Mary’s “basic point to get out of the way” at the outset:

“where the rubber meets the road we all have a blowout. We all sin and fall
short of the glory of God. We are all wretches saved by His amazing grace. When
I think about my own besetting sins, I am sickened. That I go to confession with
the same stupid black marks on my own soul week after week, is just pitiful. I
must be boring Jesus to death with my petty selfishness. Actually I am not
just boring Jesus to death; I am really putting the nails in His sacred hands
and feet. We all are. We are such a mess — everyone of us.”

I feel sorry for Mary and her guilty self-flagellation, whether it is literal or merely figurative. (If Mary is involved with Opus Dei, it might well be literal, but we’ll assume the best and hope not.) But this attitude of wretched sinfulness is a mark of the Manichean influence on the development of Christianity. Indeed, there is evidence that Augustine’s Manichean background contributed to his thinking and thus further influenced the development of Christian theology. The Augustinian teachings with regard to sin, and particularly Original Sin, are based in Manichean teachings.

Augustine was also a rather despicable person, particularly in the manner in which he engineered the decision that his rival Pelagius and his teachings, which rejected Original Sin, were heretical.

It looks like it’s time to wrap up this essay. So, we’ve pretty much gotten to the end of Mary’s Rubber Meets the Road: Part I, and in our next essay we’ll start to tackle her Part II.

In this essay, we’ve pointed out that Mary’s view of biology isn’t accurate. She thinks transsexual and other intersex people should be pathologized solely because we don’t fit into the standard societal binary of sex, or rather, because she believes we should be shoe-horned into that binary in accordance with societal expectations, rather than recognizing the diversity of nature.

Before I end this essay chapter, I have one more thought. Even though we are made by God as different and diverse, transsexual and intersex people do live in a society that expects us to fit into the mold of being male or female. Otherness is societally unacceptable. So many of us seek to fit into the binary as best as we can – which includes hormonal and surgical treatment to make things so that we fit better into the sex assignment that fits us best. The acknowledgment that we do not belong to our initial assignment also comes with the understanding that we do not fully belong in the other assignment, either, except by way of reasonable accommodation. If society cannot recognize the diversity of reality and insists on the imposition of social constructs of binary sex, a humane society would do well to be accommodative to the tiny fraction of people who do not fit the constraints of the construct.

Skidmarks on the Road: Part I

I have been reading a two part essay that largely relates to the treatment of transsexual people in the Catholic Church. I decided to address a number of the points made by the author, in some detail. This first essay is foundational – the premise is that The Magisterium of the Catholic Church is in error on at least some moral issues, and since it claims to be the holder of all truth, if anything can be proven false, the entirety of the magisterial teachings and interpretations come into question.

In this first essay, we find that in author Mary Kochan’s first two paragraphs, there are issues already – so let’s explore them, shall we?


Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Part One
By Mary Kochan

“I once had an interesting debate regarding “sola scriptura” with a Protestant apologist. I insisted scripturally and historically on the Catholic position that 1. Scripture could not interpret itself anymore than it could read itself and 2. that the task of authoritative interpretation belonged to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. My clever interlocutor rejoined with a great question: Who then interprets the interpretation? Doesn’t this just become an endless loop?

My answer was that this question missed the incarnational aspect of the Catholic faith. Everything does not remain on paper, or floating up in the rarefied air of theological theory. Every doctrine comes down to earth, becomes incarnated by an act: a ritual is performed; a Sacrament is received; a vow is made and kept for life; a prayer is made by human lips and ascends to God; an act of penance is performed. This is where the rubber meets the road. We act on, pray on, live, what we believe.”

Mary's first two paragraphs are designed to establish that the Church's Magisterium is authoritative on matters of scriptural interpretation. It isn't to far to go from there to matters of "faith and morals."

After many years of examining the failures of the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church in interpreting sacred scripture on numerous moral issues, I have come to the conclusion that the problem is in part with the fact that the Magisterium is made up of fallible men, and even the Pope’s claim to infallibility when officially speaking on matters of faith and morals, officially confirmed by the First Vatican Council in 1870, is suspect.

In this essay, I am going to explore one area where the Magisterium misinterprets sacred scripture, and has used its interpretation in a less than moral manner to interfere with secular affairs involving people who don’t agree with Church teachings, and the law as it relates to everyone and not just Roman Catholics. My point of view is that of a cradle Catholic who was asked not to come back to Church over ten years ago, and who has evolved a theological perspective free from the constraints imposed on the faithful, using my informed conscience, right reason, sacred scripture, law, science, and history.

Let’s start with the whole idea of ensoulment as imaged in sacred scripture, and then incarnated in the Sacrament of Baptism, and how that relates to the Church’s current teaching on women’s reproductive rights.

Here’s a snippet of something I wrote on this topic to New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan, when I challenged him on his claim, made in a speech, that the Roman Catholic Church is “unchanging.” I wrote:

The Church’s initial teachings on “ensoulment” and abortion are based on writings of Aristotle, St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas – all of whom believed that “ensoulment” occurred several weeks after conception. Pope Innocent III, to whom one might ascribe “infallibility” (though there is the story of one Pope trying and condemning a deceased predecessor – try sorting *that* out), made it Church doctrine around the 13th century that abortion was permitted until fetal animation (called “quickening” – Aquinas posited that girl souls were implanted at 90 days after conception, while boys got souls after only 40.

Of course, this medieval and Aristotelian-based philosophical stuff ignored the majestic message of Sacred Scripture, in which the infusion of the soul (and the soul’s taking leave of the body) is inextricably intertwined with breathing – the soul itself involves the “breath of God” or “the breath of life.”

It was not until the 19th century that the Church started to change its position on abortion – and, of course, we have Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae that is largely responsible for the Church losing its moral compass on the ideas and concepts of ensoulment and what constitutes a human being. Human life is a continuum, but a human being does not exist until birth and breath. Humanae Vitae prohibited Catholics from the use of any sort of artificial birth control.

It’s clear what the current Church hierarchy teachings are on abortion and birth control – I submit that while these may be binding on those Roman Catholics who accept the apostasy of the Church hierarchy in its misguidance of the flock, it is in no way appropriate for the hierarchy, and that means you, your Excellency, to take action as the agent of a foreign power to interfere with the constitution and laws of the State of New York and the United States as they apply to those citizens and inhabitants of the United States and the State of New York who do not subscribe to your hierarchical apostasy.

So, let’s look at some examples of the “majestic message” of the breath of life I noted:

Genesis 2:7 -
the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Job 7:7 -
Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.

Job 27:3 -
as long as I have life within me, the breath of God in my nostrils,

Job 33:4 –
The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

Psalm 39:5 –
You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath. Selah

Ezekial 37:5-6 –
This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: “I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "

Revelation 11:11 -
But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them.

Death is described in scripture as occurring when one takes a last breath – See:

Genesis 25:8 –
Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people.

(Also Gen. 25:17, 35:18, 25:29, and 49:33)

Job 14:10 –
But man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.

Jeremiah 15:9 –
The mother of seven will grow faint and breathe her last. Her sun will set while it is still day; she will be disgraced and humiliated. I will put the survivors to the sword before their enemies," declares the LORD.

Mark 15:37 –
With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

Luke 23:46 –
Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.

It is reasonable for a Christian to conclude from passages like these in sacred scripture that from a Christian perspective, the span of our lives runs from the moment we are born and take our first breath, and lasts until we die and take our last breath – that our soul enters and leaves as the breath of God.

Now, Mary Kochan wrote, as we quoted above:

“Every doctrine comes down to earth, becomes incarnated by an act: a ritual is
performed; a Sacrament is received; . . .”

If I understand this correctly, the Sacrament of Baptism, for Christians, is the incarnational embodiment of the act of birth and breath, and relates this event to ensoulment. While the Roman Catholic ritual allows for pouring water over the initiate, the Church still permits, and many Protestant denominations (mostly those that reject infant baptism) insist, on the original sacramental ritual, which involves immersion of the initiate in a body of water, holding them down just long enough, and then raising them up to take that first, new breath of air. The immersion is symbolic of the state of being prior to birth, the raising up is a re-enactment of birth, and the “first breath” is symbolic of the initiate’s new life as a believer in Christ’s message. The initiate is given a white garment, also symbolic of the new life.

In the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), Justice Blackmun’s majority opinion delved into the origins of the English common law, which, prior to 1776, is the source of American jurisprudence. For those who haven’t read the decision, I will excerpt it here:

3. The common law. It is undisputed that at common law, abortion performed before "quickening" - the first recognizable movement of the fetus in utero, appearing usually from the 16th to the 18th week of pregnancy - was not an indictable offense. The absence of a common-law crime for pre-quickening abortion appears to have developed from a confluence of earlier philosophical, theological, and civil and canon law concepts of when life begins. These disciplines variously approached the question in terms of the point at which the embryo or fetus became "formed" or recognizably human, or in terms of when a "person" came into being, that is, infused with a "soul" or animated." A loose consensus evolved in early English law that these events occurred at some point between conception and live birth. This was "mediate animation." Although Christian theology and the canon law came to fix the point of animation at 40 days for a male and 80 days for a female, a view that persisted until the 19th century, there was otherwise little agreement about the precise time of formation or animation. There was agreement, however, that prior to this point the fetus was to be regarded as part of the mother, and its destruction, therefore, was not homicide. Due to continued uncertainty about the precise time when animation occurred, to the lack of any empirical basis for the 40-80-day view, and perhaps to Aquinas' definition of movement as one of the two first principles of life, Bracton focused upon quickening as the critical point. The significance of quickening was echoed by later common-law scholars and found its way into the received common law in this country.

Whether abortion of a quick fetus was a felony at common law, or even a lesser crime, is still disputed. Bracton, writing early in the 13th century, thought it homicide. But the later and predominant view, following the great common-law scholars, has been that it was, at most, a lesser offense. In a frequently passage, Coke took the position that abortion of a woman "quick with childe" is "a great misprision, and no murder." Blackstone followed, saying that while abortion after quickening had once been considered manslaughter (though not murder), "modern law" took a less severe view. A recent review of the common-law precedents argues, however, that those precedents contradict Coke and that even post-quickening abortion was never established as a common-law crime. This is of some importance because while most American courts ruled, in holding or dictum, that abortion of an unquickened fetus was not criminal under their received common law, others followed Coke in stating that abortion of a quick fetus was a "misprision," a term they translated to mean "misdemeanor." That their reliance on Coke on this aspect of the law was uncritical and, apparently in all the reported cases, dictum (due probably to the paucity of common-law prosecutions for post-quickening abortion), makes it now appear doubtful that abortion was ever firmly established as a common-law crime even with respect to the destruction of a quick fetus.

In point 4, Justice Blackmun examines English statutory law – but I note only that the first English criminal abortion statute came in 1803. That statute made a distinction between pre-“quickening” (quickening being when the pregnant woman can feel the fetus moving) and post-quickening abortions.

The permitting of abortion until quickening, which Justice Blackmun indicates may have been a part of the received common law of the United States, is ultimately based on Christian teaching dating back to the time of Thomas Aquinas and Pope Innocent III. However, Justice Blackmun indicates that some early American cases that followed Sir Edward Coke’s treatise that erroneously indicated that post-quickening abortion was a “misprision, but not murder” put

“reliance on Coke on this aspect of the law was uncritical and, apparently in all the reported cases, dictum (due probably to the paucity of common-law prosecutions for post-quickening abortion), makes it now appear doubtful that abortion was ever firmly established as a common-law crime even with respect to the destruction of a quick fetus.”

It’s clear that by the 13th Century, Roman Catholic teachings on abortion involved a retreat from the “birth and breath” concept. Even at the time, this did not have an effect on the concept that the human being becomes a person at “birth and breath.”

On the concept of “when life begins,” Justice Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade delves into many sources, including religious ones:

It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth. This was the belief of the Stoics. It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith. It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family. As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physicians and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks. The Aristotelian theory of "mediate animation," that held sway throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, continued to be official Roman Catholic dogma until the 19th century, despite opposition to this "ensoulment" theory from those in the Church who would recognize the existence of life from the moment of conception. The latter is now, of course, the official belief of the Catholic Church. As one brief amicus discloses, this is a view strongly held by many non-Catholics as well, and by many physicians. Substantial problems for precise definition of this view are posed, however, by new embryological data that purport to indicate that conception is a "process" over time, rather than an event, and by new medical techniques such as menstrual extraction, the "morning-after" pill, implantation of embryos, artificial insemination, and even artificial wombs.

Blackmun continues with this:

In areas other than criminal abortion, the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before live birth or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth. For example, the traditional rule of tort law denied recovery for prenatal injuries even though the child was born alive. That rule has been changed in almost every jurisdiction. In most States, recovery is said to be permitted only if the fetus was viable, or at least quick, when the injuries were sustained, though few courts have squarely so held. In a recent development, generally opposed by the commentators, some States permit the parents of a stillborn child to maintain an action for wrongful death because of prenatal injuries. Such an action, however, would appear to be one to vindicate the parents' interest and is thus consistent with the view that the fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life. Similarly, unborn children have been recognized as acquiring rights or interests by way of inheritance or other devolution of property, and have been represented by guardians ad litem. Perfection of the interests involved, again, has generally been contingent upon live birth. In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.

That may have been true in 1973, but there have been developments in some parts of the United States, perhaps inspired by Justice Blackmun's opinion, to legislate personhood as beginning with conception. Let's look at one recent state law that illustrates the absurdity of the idea.

In late February, the state of Utah passed a law that reportedly criminalizes "a woman's 'intentional, knowing, or reckless act' leading to a pregnancy's illegal termination. It specifies that a woman cannot be prosecuted for arranging a legal abortion."

On news article went on to state:

Some Senate Democrats attempted a last-minute amendment to remove the word
"reckless" from the list of criminal acts leading to miscarriage.

The ACLU of Utah sent a letter in the attempt to convince the Governor to veto:

http://www.acluutah.org/HB12VetoLetter.pdf

The actual bill text, as enrolled (passed) is at:

http://le.utah.gov/~2010/bills/hbillenr/hb0012.htm

There is some convolution, including at least one double negative, in the bill (not put in quotes here to preserve the line numbers):

68 (3) A person is not guilty of criminal homicide of an unborn child if the sole reason
69 for the death of the unborn child is that the person:
70 (a) refused to consent to:
71 (i) medical treatment; or
72 (ii) a cesarean section; or
73 (b) failed to follow medical advice.
74 (4) A woman is not guilty of criminal homicide of her own unborn child if the death of
75 her unborn child:
76 (a) is caused by a criminally negligent act of the woman; and
77 (b) is not caused by an intentional, knowing, or reckless act of the woman.

So, to eliminate the double negative, let's rephrase 4, option b:

(4) A woman is guilty of criminal homicide if the death of her unborn child: (b)
is caused by an intentional, knowing or reckless act of the woman.

There is an "or" in there - so a "reckless" act might be one that is unintentional, or one that without any knowledge that the act is reckless. All that would be necessary would be for a court to determine that whatever it is that the women has done that is deemed to be the cause of fetal "death" - courts might presume that any act of a woman that could result in the "death" of a fetus would be by definition "reckless" if it results in the "death" of a fetus. Perhaps the only situation that might allow an escape from conviction would be if someone else's act caused the fetal "death" and the woman did not put herself in harm's way in any way. If she stupidly walks down a dark alley at night and gets mugged, and has a miscarriage because of that unintentional, unknowing, but potentially reckless act of walking into that alley, she could be held criminally liable.

It will depend on what is meant by "reckless." My thought on this is that the mens rea standard of "reckless" requires only an attitude of "I don't care what the result might be."

The mugging example could be determined to be reckless.

The following acts, if they result in the "death" of her fetus?

Drinking while pregnant? Reckless.

Taking illegal drugs while pregnant? Reckless.

Driving while pregnant? Maybe not.

Speeding while pregnant? Reckless, as far as harming or causing the death of a fetus. The speeding in and of itself may or may not be inntional or unknowing as well.

Disobeying traffic laws or driving in a negligent manner, causing a traffic accident? Reckless.

The law here is scary for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the scariest reason is the inclusion of "reckless" as a part of the standard, and the principal sponsor's reckless disregard for the concerns of those few Democrats who sought to have the word removed.

While the bill excludes "failing to follow medical advice" it remains to be seen what may fall under the umbra of "reckless."

Utah legislators seem to be comfortable with the idea of elevating the rights of fetuses to new heights, as long as the law adversely affects only women, or reduces pregnant women to the status of criminally responsible baby machines.

If women are ultimately to be reduced to chattel property in Utah and stripped of their rights as citizens and human beings, the Utah legislature might at some time in their dystopian future seriously consider amending the law so that the man who is legally in charge of the woman as property - her husband, father (grandfather or uncle), eldest son, or nearest male relative, would be held criminally responsible for allowing such an "intentional, knowing or reckless" act to take place. Why not? In their world, women would be reduced to the status of incompetents in most other ways, so that perhaps criminal responsibility should be transferred to their owners.

--- NOTE: The word "death" is in quotes as it relates to a fetus because a fetus does not have a life independent of the pregnant woman, and until birth and taking a first breath, is not a human being, regardless of Utah law. In Utah, one becomes a human being at the point at which the fertilized ovum is implanted in in the uterine lining - which insanity results in laws like this as their logical progression.

From the Wikipedia entry on "reckless" as used as a legal standard:

Black's Law Dictionary defines recklessness in American law as "Conduct whereby the actor does not desire harmful consequence but...foresees the possibility and consciously takes the risk," or alternatively as "a state of mind in which a person does not care about the consequences of his or her actions." Black's Law dictionary 1053 (Bryan A. Garner ed., 8th ed. abr. 2005). In American courts, a wrongdoer who recklessly causes harm can be held to the same liability as a person who intentionally does so.

In my above analysis, I made use of the alternative definition.

The reason for this is that the in phraseology "intentional, knowing, or reckless" it would appear that "knowing" would include within its ambit the first definition from Black's. All of this would be subject to the definitional usage in the courts of the State of Utah.

Still, some jurisdictions that are in the grip of reactionary right wing religionists have begun to hange their definition of when a human personhood begins – abandoning the time-honored and scripturally-based “birth and breath” doctrine. Down the road. If laws like these catch on, there will be major changes in the way the laws of descent, distribution and inheritance are interpreted. Birthdays may be abandoned in favor of conception days, and people will (in most cases) all get 9 months older. Absurd, but the logical consequence of the Utah law and the Roman Catholic Magisterium’s teachings.

The doctrine that life begins at birth and breath was firmly established under the common law – and that establishment is based largely on the biblical soul as “breath of life” doctrine. The distinction between legal doctrines that hold that life begins at birth and breath, and legal doctrines that criminalized abortion as a crime (in violation of the woman’s constitutional rights as a person, are more likely to be based on misogyny than anything else – the idea that an abortion denies the party who provided the sperm of any rights to the potential child.

Now, returning to the point – the Roman Church’s current doctrine on things like abortion and artificial birth control have changed over time. The current teachings are based on the July 25, 1958 encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae.

Paul VI makes it clear that Catholics cannot deny that the Church is

“competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law.”

Mary Kochan certainly concurs in this view, though the feelings of many Catholics with regard to the magisterium’s teachings on numerous issues has eroded greatly since 1968. Way before I was tossed out of the Church, I had become a “cafeteria Catholic” with regard to Church teachings I felt were at best wrong, and at worst, immoral.

In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI wrote:

"With regard to man's innate drives and emotions, responsible parenthood means that man's reason and will must exert control over them."

It appears that the pope was not mindful of 1 Cor. 7:8-9, where St. Paul proclaims that marriage is reserved for those who cannot control their passions and remain celibate. The degree of self control the Pope expected of married lay people certainly went beyond the capacity of many married lay people.

Thankfully, the pope left at least a recourse to “lawful therapeutic means,” which allows for “impediments to procreation” if necessary to cure bodily diseases. This reasoning has also been available to Catholic moralists for justification for removal of an ectopic pregnancy.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith addressed abortion in its Declaration on Procured Abortion, promulgated November 18, 1974. In this document, the Congregation rewrites the history of the Church’s position on abortion, though it acknowledged that, “It is true that in the Middle Ages, when the opinion was generally held that the spiritual soul was not present until after the first few weeks, a distinction was made in the evaluation of the sin and the gravity of penal sanctions.”

The Second Vatican Council found that Life must be safeguarded with extreme care
from conception; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes. Gaudium et
spes," 51. Cf. 27 (AAS 58 [1966], p. 1072; cf. 1047).

Of course, references to the writings of 19th and 20th century popes seems to reflect the changes in thinking about abortion that were reflected in the common Western culture of the times. While secular society has recovered from this, the Church has only dug in deeper.

The Congregation, in considering human life before birth and breath to be the same as human life after birth, made a grave error. Abortion was never deemed to be murder, even when it was a felony, even after quickening. The crime was rooted in the idea of the property rights of the party that provided the sperm.

The Congregation confused the blueprint with the home. The Congregation confuses the house under construction with the home, stating:

“From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother, it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already.”

The human person becomes a person at birth, when God breathes life into the infant. Sacred scripture is clear on that, even if medieval thinking made an issue over “quickening” and 19th century legislators were focused on male property rights and sometimes the danger of the surgical procedures of the time, which were often a threat to the woman.

The Congregation claimed to base its thinking on science, and yet ignored the science that Justice Blackmun struggled with, when he sought to extend a “state interest” in the potential life, in which he analyzed the fetal potential for breathing during the 3rd trimester. Science also understands that there is insufficient myelinization within the brain until the 3rd trimester, for a claim to “brain life.”

Having drawn itself into a corner by misunderstanding the science and confusing the home with the blueprint, the Congregation took a draconian position against the lives and health of women who would be affected:

“The gravity of the problem comes from the fact that in certain cases, perhaps in quite a considerable number of cases, by denying abortion one endangers important values to which it is normal to attach great value, and which may sometimes even seem to have priority.”

Endangered values? Such as the life and health of a woman who is already certifiably alive, breathing and has a soul? The Congregation exhibits a callous disregard for a female human life in being, by trumping up the portion of the continuum of life that involves the construction of the human body for the soul to enter, and placing that portion of the human existence on an equal plane with a human life already in personhood.

Chillingly, the Congregation writes:

“We do not deny these very great difficulties. It may be a serious question of health, sometimes of life or death, for the mother; it may be the burden represented by an additional child, especially if there are good reasons to fear that the child will be abnormal or retarded; it may be the importance attributed in different classes of society to considerations of honor or dishonor, of loss of social standing, and so forth. We proclaim only that none of these reasons can ever objectively confer the right to dispose of another's life, even when that life is only beginning.”

Unfortunately, the magisterium’s irresponsible disregard for the lives and health of women, in favor of fetuses that have not yet received the breath of life, flies in the face of scriptural authority. What makes it easier for the Congregation to so cavalierly treat women, is the fact that not one of them is capable of getting pregnant. It has been said that if men could ge pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

The evolution of magisterial teaching on the subject of abortion and on ensoulment cannot be hidden by de-emphasizing the teachings of the past. The invocation of science without a scientific basis, as a justification for teaching that a human being is a person from conception, or that the soul is infused before birth and breath (as found in scripture), with the “incarnational aspect” that Mary refers to, found in the Sacrament of Baptism.

The Church’s confusion of the blueprint with the home, and even the foundation and framing with the home, does not justify ignoring the foundational scriptural authority.

From the 13th century, Aquinas, Innocent III and others, propounded a doctrine of “mediate animation” – by taking the perception of fetal movement into consideration, the idea of prohibiting abortion thereafter was a huge leap from the scriptural birth and breath. We do note that this “mediate animation” idea was not used in the secular law to change the understanding that a human becomes a person at “birth and breath,” only to decide the point at which abortion would become considered a gravely sinful act.

The perceptions of the 19th and early 20th century lawmakers and the culture of the times dictated unfair treatment of women in favor of the rights of the providers of sperm, with perhaps some mind being paid to the risks of surgical abortion. Yet when secular society became more enlightened on the issue of women's human rights, the Church decided to intrude on the secular law, and retreat from real science in favor of pseudo-science. Once basing its stand on erroneous principles, the conclusions that proceed are like a house built on loose sand and not on a firm foundation, magisterium or no magisterium.

Vatican II was the Church's brief encounter with the Modern World, a world from whose reality the Church has been retreating ever since.

When the Church further intrudes its doctrine of sin into the secular world, where society has in many places become more civilized in the treatment of women’s reproductive rights, the Church has transformed itself into a powerful force for evil.

While I do respect the right of the Roman Catholic Church to bind the faithful to follow its teachings at the peril of excommunication, I do not respect the Church’s unwarranted intrusion into secular matters, by its opposition to laws protecting women and their rights against the intrusion of those who would enslave them or treat them as human beings whose lives are subordinate to lives not yet in being. Having shaken their dust from my sandals, It is a wonder why I care so much to comment and point out the Church's failings - perhaps I wish to inspire it to reform.

We hope to have more to write based on Mary’s two part essay, but this essay has become overly long already. My final conclusion today is that the concept that “the task of authoritative interpretation belonged to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church” relates solely in relation to the spiritual guidance of the faithful, and where that “authoritative interpretation” flies in the face of science, reason and the reasonable beliefs of those who disagree with the Magisterium, the Church has no business dictating to Caesar.

With that in mind, and from the perspective of a transsexual woman who has rejected the immoral teachings of the Magisterium in other ways, I hope to address more of Mary’s writing in my next essay.

Start a Dialogue? Yes, we CAN!

Now that Rev. Rick Warren has delivered his invocation at the Obama inauguration, perhaps we can start to focus on how we’re going to be advancing the cause of gaining recognition of equal civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people under federal law.

For those who don’t think we should be ready to move forward, ready, let’s recap the situation:

Rick Warren is the pastor of the Saddleback Church, an evangelical mega-congregation in Lake Forest, California, and is the author of a best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life.

His notoriety in LGBT circles peaked when, after having equated same-sex marriage with incest, pedophilia and polygamy (though it’s pretty obvious to me that the equivalency of these things in his mind may charitably be limited to “these are things Rick doesn’t equate with marriage”), he was invited by the Obama people to deliver the invocation at the Inaugural.

Here is what he said at the time, in an interview:

Rick Warren: But the issue to me is, I’m not opposed to that as much as I’m opposed to the redefinition of a 5,000-year definition of marriage. I’m opposed to having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage. I’m opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I’m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

Steven Waldman: Do you think, though, that they are equivalent to having gays getting married?

Rick Warren: Oh I do.

If it was merely a matter of drawing a line from Point A to Point B, it might have been what Joe Solmonese of HRC hysterically called “a punch in the gut.” Or it might not.


There was was more to it – there was a point in the presidential campaign at which Barack Obama and John McCain appeared to speak at the Saddleback Church, and Rick Warren endured much criticism from hard core Right Wing Christianists for allowing Obama to speak.

I’ll let singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge have the floor now – I’ve said and written from a similar viewpoint, but I think I’ll give the platform to her. She actually had a chance to talk to Warren. Here is what she says about her meeting:

"On the day of the [Muslim Public Affairs Council ] conference [at which Rick Warren was the guest speaker] I received a call from Pastor Rick, and before I could say anything, he told me what a fan he was. He had most of my albums from the very first one. What? This didn’t sound like a gay hater, much less a preacher. He explained in very thoughtful words that as a Christian he believed in equal rights for everyone. He believed every loving relationship should have equal protection. He struggled with Proposition 8 because he didn’t want to see marriage redefined as anything other than between a man and a woman. He said he regretted his choice of words in his video message to his congregation about proposition 8 when he mentioned pedophiles and those who commit incest. He said that in no way, is that how he thought about gays. He invited me to his church, I invited him to my home to meet my wife and kids. He told me of his wife’s struggle with breast cancer just a year before mine. When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.”

After her meeting, Melissa Etheridge bravely went forth with her message of peace and reconciliation:

"I believe I understand Obama's choice here. I believe that Barack Obama wants to be the President of the entire United States. Pastor Rick Warren reached out to him, brought him into his church during the campaign, which outraged many members of his church. Yet he reaches across and I think this is Obama reaching back and going, 'I think we can disagree on things, yet we can still all move forward. We need to get past our differences.' And I just want to make sure that as the liberals and progressives and Democrats or whatever you want to call us are moving into this new time with this new president do not say that they, the Evangelicals who say such horrible things about gays, they have to stay over here and we're not going to let them in. That makes us no better than the last administration."

After hearing the actual words Warren used, Melissa continues:

"Just because he (compares gays to incest or polygamy) does not mean I have to not speak to him, or don't ever want to be in his company. We had a crazy experience at the Muslim Public Affairs Council conference...We met, we spoke. He's a fine person...He said he was trying to make the definition of marriage not change, not necessarily saying that gays are pedophiles or any of that stuff. One can draw whatever they want from that. This is what he told me."

Now, I am going to reproduce the Rick Warren invocation here, highlighting what may be words of conciliation:

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our father, everything we see and everything we can't see exists because of you alone. It all comes from you, it all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory. History is your story.

The Scripture tells us Hear, oh Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is one. And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.

Now today we rejoice not only in America's peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time. We celebrate a hinge-point of history with the inauguration of our first African-American president of the United States.

We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where the son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership.

And we know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in Heaven.

Give to our new president, Barack Obama, the wisdom to lead us with humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, the compassion to lead us with generosity. Bless and protect him, his family, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet, and every one of our freely elected leaders.

Help us, oh God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race or religion or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all.

When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the Earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us.

And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ.

Help us to share, to serve and to seek the common good of all.

May all people of good will today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day all nations and all people will stand accountable before you.

We now commit our new president and his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, into your loving care.

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus, Jesus (hay-SOOS), who taught us to pray, Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

Amen.

I underlined the parts of the prayer that seem to be showing a conciliatoty attitude. Certainly invoking the idea of a loving God who loves all his creation (even gay and trans people) is a good start.

Invoking the idea that as Americans, we must be dedicated and committed to "freedom and justice for all" doesn't seem to close the door on civil marriage for same-sex couples.

And if I want to be charitable (and why shouldn’t I be?), I would put a very positive spin on his “When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the Earth with the respect that they deserve, forgive us.”

Of course, this last sentiment might be in accord with one of the schizophrenic sections of the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church with respect to the treatment of gay people:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,[140] tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."[141] They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Now, aside from the catechism being totally incorrect about Sacred Scripture and natural law in relation to “homosexual acts” in Paragraph 2357, leading to the false conclusion that such “acts” cannot be approved, the next section, with regard to the treatment of gay people, says “They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

Now, I know Rick Warren isn’t Catholic, but perhaps he’s suffering from the same sort of schizophrenic “I want to treat gay people with compassion, but I can’t condone gay marriage or human rights laws” theology that grips the Catholic hierarchy.

I think that unlike those evangelicals who believe that “homosexuality is a choice” Warren may be reachable on the theological side. (Alas, with the Catholic hierarchy, the encrustations of mistaken “tradition” keep the Church on a wrong course.)

Let’s look at Warren’s prayer asking for forgiveness for failing to treat “our fellow human beings and all the earth” with the respect we deserve as a start.

On the other hand, it may not be so far removed from the Pope’s 2008 Christmas Greeting to the Curia and Prelature referred to in my last post. The key is to discern what Pastor Warren might mean, regarding the LGBT community, to be the respect that we “deserve.”


I think that Pastor Warren, despite being “on the other side” on the marriage issue, may have a more open mind on the subject than he gets credit for when things are painted in pure black-white, good-evil terms. And he isn’t encrusted with as many barnacles of “tradition” as the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

We have to remember, too, that President Barack Obama, while certainly better on LGBT issues than anyone who has ever been President of the United States, still himself falls short of endorsing full equal civil rights for our community. There is a need for dialogue with the Administration as much as there is a need to dialogue with those with whom we have a fundamental disagreement.

The immediate and marked change on the White House website, including us under Civil Rights in the Administration’s agenda, is a huge step. The inclusion of “gender identity and expression” for the first time in the anti-discrimination hiring policy of this administration, in addition to the inclusion of sexual orientation (first added by President Clinton), is also monumental.

We have hope. With this Administration, we have a chance to change minds – and the opportunity is also clear that we must engage those who oppose the recognition of our rights with clearly articulated arguments from all perspectives. We do have the Judaeo-Christian ideological high ground, as well as the constitutional high ground, as well as the critical underpinning of the basic underlying rational philosophy under which the United States was created. It is only a matter of articulating these things in a way in which reasonable opponents can understand.

There may well be a basic disconnect between our understanding and that of our opponents. We can look at the same constitution, and the same sacred scripture, and the same philosophical writing, and come to such an amazingly and diametrically opposed conclusion.

If we can come to the point where we can resolve this underlying disconnection, I believe that we will find much more support in unanticipated places – support we can never find if we do not engage in the conversation. We may not have to convince, we may only have to go so far as to get the opposition to realize that “reasonable minds may differ” in order to defuse the opposition. After all, America is founded on the idea of respect, tolerance and free exercise for the religious beliefs of others as well as ourselves. If we can convince Christianists that their beliefs are not the only valid Judaeo-Christian understanding on our issues, they might well be willing to go the distance with regard to civil marriage – especially when they come to the realization that there would be no infringement of their right to refuse to sanctify a marriage that does not follow their interpretation of scripture.

Yes, we CAN!