Stuart Biegel on Bullying of Gay Youth: An Ongoing Problem

At Salon today, Thomas Rogers interviews Stuart Biegel about his new book The Right to Be Out, which finds that anti-gay prejudice is pervasive in American schools, gay youth are punished more severely than straight ones for the same infractions, and gay students reporting harassment still frequently receive no hearing when they appeal to school authorities about their bullying.  Biegel notes that, though things may have improved for gay youngsters in some parts of the country, this is not the case in other parts of the nation, and articles in high-profile publications like the New York Times which imply that harassment of gay students is a thing of the past do a disservice, in hiding the ongoing bullying in places like the Midwest and the South.

Irish Times on Vatican Response to Abuse Situation in Irish Church: Days of Genuflection Are Over

Commenting on the revelation of the wikileaks that many in the Vatican were "offended" when the Irish government asked for Vatican cooperation with the government's attempt to uncover as much information as possible about predator priests in Ireland, Irish Times writes today that "the days of genuflection are over."  The Vatican refused to cooperate with the Irish government, and the Times suggests that it did so because concern to protect the assets of the Catholic church trump concern for those abused by priests:

Patricia Hampl on How Liberal Societies Deal with Difference and Otherness

And then there's this (again, from one of my journals of the past): Patricia Hampl, A Romantic Education (NY: W.W. Norton, 1981):

That, after all, is the core of racism: these others, because they are discernibly unlike us, must not live.  Or, in relatively tolerant times, need not live.  Or most typically, in liberal societies, need not live as we do (p. 33).

Hampl grew up Catholic in St. Paul, I seem to recall, in a household with an Irish-American mother and a Czech-American father.   This insightful analysis of racism applies, of course, to homophobia, as well, since both social impulses spring from the need to construe other human beings who are built different than we are from birth, as threateningly other.  

On the Acceptability of Homophobic Discourse in Mainstream Culture, and the Complicity of the Catholic Center

I wrote yesterday, 

Something about the way even "good" Catholics of the center are dealing with their gay brothers and sisters these days seems just not right.

And today I'd like to tackle that thought again.  

Robert Reich on Why Obama Shouldn't Listen to Clinton re: Tax Cuts

With its emphasis on core principles, Robert Reich's analysis of why President Obama should not be touting the wisdom of former President Clinton vis-a-vis the shameful tax-cut deal seems to me right on target:

Scott Lively's Pink Swastika Thesis Promoted on Catholic Blog: Some Necessary Critical Questions

I had thought better of noticing this recent discussion at the blog site of a leading American Catholic journal of the center.  It's Advent, and I'm deliberately trying to cultivate hope these days, when so much conduces to quench the fire and light of hope in my heart--and, I suspect, in the hearts of others, as well.

Another Blast from the Past: Reflections on the Legacy of John Paul II, Superstar

Another blast from the past.  This journal entry is one I wrote on 13 April 2005, following the death of John Paul II and in the midst of the deliberations about the pope to succeed him.  It's one that seems to me still pertinent: