Wednesday, August 10, 2005
The Sanctity of Marriage
Abu Ghraib, Gitmo? Nope, just a little old-fashioned adultery, with a civilian, not involving his command, so apparently not even any sexual harassment claims, and his divorce just was finalized.A justifiably exasperated Nadezhda asks:
What is this obsession with sex as the organizing moral principle for America in the 21st century? I'm beyond snark.Good question Nadezhda. What is not in question, though, is that sex is indeed the issue that raises the most ire from the supposed moral values crowd in America - or so it seems by the attention given by the mainstream media and election watchers. But it's not just pundits and media personalities. Our own Congress, for example, thought that investigating Clinton's sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky was worthy of almost three times as much money ($40 million) as the 9/11 Commission investigating the most devastating terrorist attack ever perpetrated on US soil ($15 million). Whereas Congress has been lax in trying to probe the manipulation of intelligence pertaining to Iraq's phantom WMD, a blow job in the Oval Office was given top priority - grounds for impeachment even.
The nation's religious leaders, regrettably, are all too obsessed with the more prurient storylines, to the exclusion of more crucial ones such as poverty, inequality, injustice and violence (all of which received far greater attention in the Bible than sex - especially in Jesus' words). The targets are all too familiar. Blame is cast on the tolerance of Liberals (Jesus was famous for his condemnation of tolerance), the loose mores of the 1960s and 1970s and, of course, the decadence of Hollywood and the entertainment industry. Take, for example, Catholic relationships expert Monsignor Eugene Clark.
"A whole generation of Americans has been solicited...by American popular culture which is Hollywood and the media, Hollywood taking the most advanced step in this," Clark says in one of a series of radio talks titled "Relationships with Monsignor Eugene Clark."Recruited? I've lived in New York City, which aside from San Francisco, is probably the most homosexual friendly city in the United States, for the past fifteen years and I have yet to be "recruited." I've never even heard of a "recruitment." What paranoia, or fantasy, is this? More from Clark, the sanctimonious expert, on the poisonous message purveyed by the Homosexual/Hollywood cabal.
The priest who currently is the rector at St. Patrick's Cathedral goes on, "Hollywood is not a Christian place at all, at all, at all. Most of the writers, the creative people are homosexually inclined or homosexually recruited."
So from Clark we here the same sex-obsessed demonization of the homosexuals and liberals out to undermine marriage and the notions of fidelity in America. Clark and his allies, with no sense of irony apparently, seek to stem this tide by preventing homosexuals from partaking in marriage - the very institution that enshrines fidelity. Beware these sex-crusaders though. They are all too often manipulating insecurities and fears of their fellow humans in order to control certain behaviors and enhance their power. Most of the time, if you dig around a little, these charlatans are exposed for what they really are.Clark declares these homosexuals and their recruits to be "the enemy of Christian marriage and Christian falling in love and all the tenderness that goes with that....They are saying, 'Don't pay attention to that business of permanence and fidelity.'" [...]
"Fidelity," Clark says. "Fidelity. A serious business. We say faithful meaning faithful to one's spouse. Faithful to my wife. Faithful to my husband that I will not wander....I will not be unfaithful in the sense of having a sexual union with someone else and thinking it of no account. It's a shocking injury to your spouse and that's what the Lord is telling us. It destroys family confidence and trust."
He goes on, "There's no question that even the sexual side of marriage also requires permanence and fidelity for psychological health and for physical health - obviously the directive of the Creator."
Against these principles of fidelity and permanence, Clark imagines, stand his Hollywood homosexuals and their popular culture.
"We are in the midst of one of the great religious and intellectual and emotional battles in Christian history," Clark says.
He poses a question.
"Where are you at 45 if you're a wife who preferred a handsomer, more interesting man than the man you married?" Clark asks. "If your children are deprived of a father or mother because of your strong desire, you've done something terrible to them....No way you can make it up."
The Archdiocese of New York is looking into explosive allegations that a top priest who publicly railed against our "sex-saturated society" had a long-term affair with his married church secretary.Shocked, shocked I tell you. I, like Msgr. Clark, blame the homosexuals for his affair with a married woman. The "recruiters" must have gotten to the priest long ago. In other news, Jesus favors supply side tax cuts, vast disparities in wealth, elective wars, torture, gay-bashing and the spoiling of the environment.
Msgr. Eugene Clark allegedly romanced 46-year-old Laura DeFilippo at his Hamptons home and a Long Island motel, according to police and court records. [...]
The accusations against Clark were brought by DeFilippo's husband, Philip, who had an investigator tail the duo to a Hamptons motel - videotaping them last month arriving together and then checking out several hours later.
And in signed statements to Eastchester Police in Westchester County, Philip DeFilippo, his 14-year-old daughter and his wife's sister all describe how the teen allegedly found her mother "sitting on [Clark's] lap wearing a satin teddy." [emphasis added]
