Here we go again.  The Episcopal Church is once again in the news over homosexuality.  According to the Associated Press, the leadership of the Anglican Communion, including its titular head, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has set a 30 September deadline for the American bishops to pledge (a) not to appoint another gay bishop and (b) to stop offering prayer services for same-sex couples.  The article I read did not go into specifics over what the consequences would be if the Episcopalians refused to make this pledge, but the suspicion is that it would cause a major schism in the Anglican Church, with most Episcopalians breaking away. 

One of the issues that has brought the church to this point is that, yet again, the Episcopalians are considering a homosexual to be a bishop.  This time it is a lesbian who has a partner, and she is being considered for the seat in Chicago.  I have mentioned before in this space that I believe that active homosexuality disqualifies anyone from being a clergyman in any religion.  Mainly because (a) all of the “Abrahamic” religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) teach, in their scriptures, anyway, that homosexual acts are “wicked” and (b) as homosexual “marriage” is a non sequitur, “active” homosexuals are performing sexual acts outside the bond of marriage, and that, itself is a gravely sinful act.  People who live gravely and openly sinful lives ought not be the same people charged with being the moral authority to hundreds or thousands of people.  To do so risks hypocrisy (“Do what I say not what I do”) or heresy (teaching something that goes against established doctrine.  Stating that homosexuality is now moral because the people want it to be is a heretical teaching). 

I commend the Archbishop of Canterbury for trying to prevent a split.  I also pray that the Episcopalian bishops will see the light, as it were, and do the right thing.  Personally, I’d also like to see them ask V. Gene Robinson, the current openly, actively gay bishop, for his resignation, but that’s wishful thinking on my part.

I’ll probably have more to say on this issue as the story develops. 

HJG

In yet another showing that we as a nation are far too stuck on race, the “plight” of the “Jena 6” has been national news for the last several days.  As I understand the story, six black high school students in the town of Jena, LA, have been charged in the beating of a white student.  The initial charge brought was attempted murder (2^nd degree) and it has since been reduced to battery.  Because of the initial, very serious, charge, the town has been called racist, and the US Justice System is again under fire for setting double standards, one (presumably lighter) standard for whites and one (presumably tougher) for blacks.  Predictably the media has taken up the racial banner and has trumpeted the views of the usual suspects (Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, et al.) that America is a racist nation and every bad thing that happens to a black person is because of racism. 

By strange coincidence, no evidence of a double standard is offered in the press.  The only description of any incident other than the beating to unconsciousness of a single student of one race by six of another is of a single intimidating display.  Apparently a tree on the school grounds is a popular hangout of some white students.  (If this tree is like the trees that served similar purposes near my high school 20 years ago, it was probably white students who are smokers and delinquents anyway, but I don’t know for sure.)  Soon after a black student asked the principal if he (the student) could hang out under the tree, three nooses were hung there, apparently to discourage blacks.  The perpetrators were suspended, but not criminally prosecuted because hanging a noose without someone’s neck in it is not a crime in Louisiana. 

So for all those who feel “solidarity” for the “plight” of the “Jena 6” I have a few questions:

1. Do you feel that people who commit an act that is not criminal should be criminally prosecuted?
2. Even presuming that hanging an empty noose in a tree is a criminal act, do you feel that it meets the same level of criminality as a six-on-one beat down?
3. Were the six black kids justified in beating a single white kid to unconsciousness?  Why?
4. Was the beat down a hate crime?
5. If it had been six white kids beating a black kid to unconsciousness would it be a hate crime?
6. Again, reverse the race of the incident.  What would your protest be about if the six white kids had their charges reduced from attempted murder to battery?  Would you not still be protesting because the system reduced the charges of six white kids who had clearly been trying to kill that one, poor, black kid because the white kids were racists?
7. Where is the double standard?
8. Was black stripper Crystal Mangum raped by three racist white Duke University students last year?  Was she raped at all last year?  Was she raped at all by anyone, at any time, ever?
9. Was Ms. Mangum wrong for pressing charges over a crime that never happened?
10. Were you calling for the heads of the Duke University lacrosse team last year?  Are you still calling for their heads?
11. Do you feel any solidarity at all for the three victims of the Duke Rape Case who were not only charged with very serious crimes, but were blasted by the media and the “adults” in their school, used as pawns in a political game by a corrupt DA, and forced to sit through a trial for an incident that did not even occur?
12. What is the appropriate charge to be levied against six white kids who beat a black kid to unconsciousness while shouting the “N” word? 
13. Where is the double standard?

Every time something bad happens to a black person, white racism is the culprit.  That is what Jackson and Sharpton would have you believe.  We hear it every time a black person is involved in a crime.  If the black person was the victim, it is immediately called a hate crime.  If the black person was the perpetrator, his prosecution is racially motivated.  The fact that almost half the people on death row are black – compared with 12% of the population as a whole – has nothing to do with the fact that more blacks commit capital murder than whites and everything to do with the racism ingrained in the criminal justice system.  (Please note that while more blacks commit murder, more whites are actually sentenced to death.  Check the FBI crime statistics if you don’t believe me.)  To people like Sharpton and Jackson, the only way the US criminal justice system would be fair is if blacks simply weren’t prosecuted for the crimes they commit and if whites are prosecuted any time they offend blacks.  You have to wonder what kind of attention would be garnered from this case if it was white on white crime (which happens in high schools across the country) or black on black crime.  You also have to wonder about things like the Duke Rape Case or the Kobe Bryant Rape Case if race hadn’t been a factor. 

Does racism exist?  Of course it does, and I’m sure a number of crimes are committed solely because of race.  That racism exists isn’t the issue.  Anyone who flatly denies it is either blind or a liar.  The issue is that racism is not the prime motivator in every crime that involves blacks, nor is it the cause of every misfortune any black person ever experiences.  Sometimes black people bring their own problems on themselves, just like white people.  Racism will never be stamped out.  It can’t.  People have prejudices and they act on them.  It’s human nature.  However, if we want to reduce it as much as possible, the hate-mongers who call themselves black leaders need to tend to the plank in their own eyes rather than the splinter in others’.  The world would be a better place without people who subsist on the perpetuation of hate and racism.

HJG

I’ve been out of commission for a few months because my schedule barely allowed me time to do things like work, school, church, and sleep.  In that time there have been a few noteworthy things happening in the news that, had I the time, I’d have certainly had a few things to say.  Note that these are in no particular order.

• The Michael Vick dog-fighting incident.  I will confess, I was a fan of Michael Vick.  He went to my school (VA Tech).  He led the Hokies to the national title game and put their football program on the map.  He was a really good player in college and an exciting player to watch in the NFL.  (By this point, the savvy reader will have picked up on all the past tense I used.)  Then, early this year, it came out that he owned the house in which some buddies of his have been staging dog fights.  As time went on, we heard worse and worse things about it to the point that Vick was said to have been killing dogs that didn’t perform well (one wonders how he would have thought about that sort of discipline for a quarterback who throws a few interceptions in an important game), gambling on the fights, and stealing people’s dogs to use as training bait for the fighting dogs.  He has since pleaded guilty for a few federal crimes, and has been suspended indefinitely by the NFL.  At the beginning, I took the “innocent until proven guilty” stance, but as time went on, and he did prove himself guilty, I generally agreed with the punishments handed down to him.  We’ll see what happens in a couple of years if he is allowed back in the NFL.
• The Virginia Tech Shootings.  My old school got another round of horrible news when a deranged English major murdered 32 students and teachers before killing himself.  There was never much question as to who the murderer was, and it had been apparent that he was, in fact, clinically insane.  So much so that the court had had him committed at one point.  Predictably, the Left started screaming “Gun Control” and talking about how if gun laws were in place, none of this would have happened.  Unfortunately, the laws ARE in place that should have prevented this tragedy.  The gunman should not have been allowed to carry weapons on campus, Virginia Law restricts gun possession on school grounds.  The gunman should not have been allowed to purchase guns in the first place.  He had been committed by the courts, and judged clinically insane.  Virginia laws are in place to prevent those people from purchasing guns. The problem was not gun laws, it was the handling of psychiatric cases and privacy.  Medical privacy laws essentially invalidate gun laws intent on keeping the criminally insane unarmed.  Those laws are being researched, and more will come on that case, I am sure.
• Mike Nifong is disbarred.  Mike Nifong, the abusive, politically motivated, fraudulent former Durham County, NC, District Attorney was disbarred for his handling of what is known as the Duke Rape Case.  Nifong’s disgraceful prosecution of three innocent men for a brutal crime that no one committed showed just how bad the race issue has gotten in this country.  Before charges were even proffered, the university and the community had condemned the entire Duke lacrosse team and their alleged actions surrounding the allegedly brutal, allegedly racially motivated alleged rape of a black stripper who was performing at the party.  Nifong, with the help of the stripper, picked three students at random and proceded to draw out their prosecution for several months until after he won the 2006 election for Durham DA.  Within weeks of the election the case collapsed because no rape had occurred.  Nifong was accused of prosecutorial fraud, and in May was disbarred in the State of North Carolina.  Nifong has also admitted that he had no evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing by the accused.  So we see that justice can be done
• The death of Chris Benoit.  Chris Benoit was a popular and successful professional wrestler with Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE.)  In June, Benoit was found dead in his home along with his wife and 7-year-old son.  According to police reports Benoit had tied up his wife before strangling her, and had later drugged then strangled his son, all of this before hanging himself.  Benoit had likely been scheduled to win one of WWE’s three “World” championships.  He was also one wrestler about whom bad things were very rarely said.  His name was never mentioned with drug abuse, domestic violence, or other problems that plague professional wrestlers.  Most of the performers interviewed stated that they couldn’t understand why Benoit had murdered his family and killed himself.  One wrestler (Chris Jericho, I believe) even said that if the name of the wrestler were omitted from the story, and it had come out simply that a wrestler had killed himself and his family, Chris Benoit would be the last name he would have expected to fill in the blank.
  Steroid abuse and so-called ‘roid rage were the initial culprits in the media, but as time went on, it became apparent that (A) this was not a crime were violent rage could explain it and (B) ‘roid rage itself seems to be an urban legend more than medical fact.  It was clear that the deaths had been premeditated, though Benoit’s suicide, and possibly the murder of his child, had been twisted acts of remorse and “mercy” rather than anger or passion.  (I say “mercy” because several people have felt that Benoit may have killed his son so that the child would not have to suffer through the violent deaths of his parents.)  Recently it came out that Benoit had severe brain damage resulting from numerous concussions throughout his career and the killings may have been a result of dementia he suffered as a result.  This harkens back to the death of former football player Andre Waters who killed himself earlier this year.  Waters’s brain showed similar damage to Benoit’s. 
• Don Imus is a “racist.”  I don’t have any great opinion either way about Don Imus.  I’ve heard his show and consider it inane, just like just about every other radio talk show with a few exceptions.  In April, Imus made a tasteless, insensitive comment about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, most of whose members are black.  Because a bad thing happened to black people, the entire weight of the Leftist establishment was brought down on Imus.  Al Sharpton blasted Imus on Sharpton’s radio show, sponsors pulled their ads, and Imus was eventually fired from CBS.  All for one stupid comment.  What galls me about this is not so much that Imus was fired, but that Al Sharpton, a man who has at least twice advocated the prosecution of whites for brutal, racially motivated rapes that did not occur, never gets flak for his race-baiting and racist statements.  In my mind “those racist whites raped that poor black woman, and they need to spend the rest of their lives in jail” is a far, far worse statement than “Nappy-headed ‘ho’s.”

HJG