Hugo Schwyzer

Vaccines, Hot Modesty, and more on Lance

I'm off to run errands, including getting vaccinated before our trip to Colombia next week. I need shots for yellow fever and hepatitis A, as well as pills for typhoid. (Mom, if you're reading this, take a deep breath and relax!)

But in addition to posting more about coming home to the Episcopal Church immediately below, I wanted to take note of a couple of things.

Jonathan Dresner, fellow Cliopatriarch, sends me a link to this New York Times story on Mormons in Illinois; it includes the brief mention of a t-shirt slogan that connects to my entry on t-shirts earlier this week. In Nauvoo, one can buy shirts that proclaim "Modest Girls are the Hottest Girls." You've really got to love that. Jonathan asks in an e-mail:

Is it me, or is the attempt to associate modesty with hyper-sexuality self-defeating?

I'm with you, brother, I'm with you. But what I like best about the t-shirt is that it addresses a fundamental truth (the erotics of the concealed) with an obvious contradiction -- advertising that truth so blatantly undercuts all of its real power. Really, one could spend hours working through the layers of meaning here.

Please do go and read the latest updates on Sam Carrasco's battle with leukemia here. Even as he undergoes surgery, Sam is waging battles with his parents about food -- he wants his McDonalds. I think we can take that as a good sign.

Go and read Jen Lemen this morning, because no one I've found in the blogosphere has her mastery of prose. Sample from today's post:

autumn is coming, i remind myself. which always quickly brings me around to christmas. this is a clear defining moment of the planning personality type. that the hottest day in july can fill you with sadness that summer will fade. that the thought, the mere thought of summer fading, can fill you pure delight that christmas will come again at last! just thinking about cranberry breads and clove pierced oranges makes you sigh.

And any number of people have been asking about how I reconcile my admiration for Lance Armstrong with his troubled personal life. I tend to go on and on about personal responsibility and masculinity. And Lance is away from his three small children for much of the year, divorced from their mother, and living with a rock star (Sheryl Crow). I know that I can't possibly know all the details of what transpired in his marriage to the mother of his children. (I hear from many sources that his wife left him, rather than the other way around.) Judging other folks' divorces is dangerous, not because we ought never make judgments, but because if there is one thing almost impossible to truly understand, it is other people's marriages. Do I believe that all things considered, it is better for a father to stay married to the mother of his children, and be devoted to her and to them? Of course. Do I wish Lance's children had been with him on the podium in Paris? Of course.

But I don't need my sports heroes to be perfect. I don't look to a Lance Armstrong to show me how to live in every aspect of my life, because that is both an abdication of my responsibility and an imposition of an impossible burden on his shoulders. He's a remarkable athlete and an inspiring figure, and I can admire him and still surmise that beneath all of that dedication and talent and brilliance is just another flawed human being like everyone else. I honor his commitment to excellence, his commitment to survival, and his decision to spend so much time and energy on inspiring others to battle cancer. Surely, those are reasons enough to honor a man, even if in his private life, he falls short of the mark.

Okay. Off to get a haircut, to the gym, and to the market. And to get those shots.

Follow-up on leaving the Mennonites

Well, I certainly do need a follow-up on yesterday's rather abrupt post about my imminent departure from Pasadena Mennonite Church. The several excellent comments below that post have challenged me.

Rereading yesterday's post, it certainly sounded as if I was leaving the Mennonites simply because I found myself challenged socially and culturally. My words, a day later, seem a bit glib and somewhat elitist. Let me try and clarify:

Certain principles of Anabaptist theology, such as pacifism, simplicity,and the call to personal holiness have tremendous appeal for me still. (Even as I have found it difficult, at times, to defend pacifism adequately against its more thoughtful theological critics!) There is something about "what it means to be a Christian" that Mennonites "get" on a very deep level, especially in terms of practical tools for living "as the church."

I also want to make it clear that I am not looking for a church that will just validate me in terms of "where I am" at the present moment. I want and need to be pushed and to be challenged. Indeed, in different ways, coming home to the Episcopal Church will mean that I (as an evangelical in terms of my personal relationship with Christ) will be pushed very, very hard indeed.

But the fact that I am to be married next year for the fourth time is a tough thing for many folks to deal with. (Let me say, parenthetically, that my fiancee is an amazingly brave woman to take on a thrice-divorced 37 year-old; she knows, however, that I am doing the necessary spiritual and psychological work.) On a personal level, my friends at the Mennonite Church have been tremendously supportive of my own journey and my relationship with my fiancee. (I intend to keep those friendships alive and thriving, mind you.) But on an institutional level, I find that my past has closed certain doors to me within the Mennonite Church, and I confess that that has been quite troubling and upsetting at times. I am not going to go into greater detail on my blog, but those who are familiar with Mennonite theology can likely see the problem.

Even while spending the last two years worshipping in the Mennonite church, I have continued to volunteer as a youth leader and confirmation class teacher at All Saints Episcopal Church. The congregation at Pasadena Mennonite is so young that there are virtually no teenagers (though there are a healthy number of toddlers!) All Saints has dozens of teens with whom I am in relationship and whom I love; I am quite clear on the fact that I am called to work with adolescents in a vounteer capacity. But it's been hard to explain to the kids at All Saints why I don't worship there on Sundays! And it's been very hard to teach a confirmation class at one church when I have been part of another community that doesn't believe in confirmation, but rather in adult baptism!

I've learned through lots of church shopping that there "is no perfect church". I've learned that church-hopping is dangerous, especially when it involves packing up and leaving whenever things get tough. I know my own capacity for endless self-reinvention and redefinition plays a part as well! Like many of my fellow Southern Californians, my own personal spiritual narrative is one characterized by restlessness. Sooner or later, I know, we have to find a place to call home. I called All Saints home for years. I left it in the aftermath of 9/11 because I wanted something more radical, more prophetic, more counter-cultural. I found what I was looking for, but I also found challenges I didn't anticipate. And I also missed the Anglican liturgy more than I had imagined I would. And I've made the decision to come back to the Episcopal Church.

At times on this blog, I go back and forth between the nakedly confessional and the deliberately opaque. This medium is funny that way, I suppose. I've carved out a niche for myself as a "consistent-life ethic Anabaptist Democrat with a chinchilla", and that has given me, at least in my own mind, a unique presence in the blogosphere. I still have the chinchilla, I'm still a registered Democrat, and I still hold quite strongly to the consistent-life ethic. But just as it is being rent asunder by divisive debates over human sexuality and theology, I am choosing to come home to the Anglican Communion, ultimately, both because it "works for me" and because I truly have come to believe that it is within that communion that I can best be of service to my Lord and Savior. I may be wrong, but for now, here is where I choose to stand.

Living in Community, and leaving the Mennonites

One of my favorite young Christian writers is Bethany Torode, whose essays I have often recommended without reservation. She's got a new one up at Boundless this month, entitled "Searching for Community." Given that Bethany grew up in an intentional Christian community, she has some authority on the subject. I was struck by this excerpt:

A lot of people are drawn to communities — whether churches, university groups, missions, or actual communes — for the wrong reasons. Some want to become leaders and control others (though they usually aren’t aware of it). Others think community will solve their financial or marital difficulties. Many have personal identity issues they need to work through before joining — issues such as the need to save people, the need to be seen as giving or the need to be affirmed by others.

Community can become a placebo for dealing with these issues. Often a person channels his energies into creating external utopia in an effort to run from his inner confusion. Then, ironically, the quest for community results in the neglect of spiritual and family life. Community is good, but the home is the primary community, the primary ministry. If your soul, spouse and children aren’t given the attention they need, community on a wider scale will inevitably disintegrate.

That's important to remember.

I've always liked living in groups. I loved living in a co-operative house in Berkeley from my sophomore through senior years. (I was even house president for a year). My first year in grad school at UCLA, I chose to live in a co-op again. I loved having people around me all the time. Of course, I'm an ENFJ, so it made sense from a personality standpoint. Really, what I liked best about cooperative living was the guarantee, as I figured out very quickly, that I would never, ever have to be lonely. But I was doing just what Torode warns of in the excerpt above: "creating external utopia" (the co-ops, with their left-wing politics and consensus-based politics, were quite utopian in a secular sense) "in an effort to run from (my) inner confusion".

Growing up a child of divorce, I was well aware that nuclear families could and did split. I was always enchanted -- and to some extent still am -- with the ideal of communal living as an alternative. With lots and lots of people around, I reasoned, one would never have to depend too much on one other human being. If one relationship (either a friendship or a love affair) failed within the community, there were always more people around to serve as a distraction. I liked that. A lot.

Let me go off on a tangent here. One of the reasons I was so interested in joining the Mennonites was that the Mennonites emphasized group discernment and discipleship, as well as accountability to the entire community. Not surprisingly, that has led to considerable discomfort. I wrote weeks ago that I was thinking about leaving the Mennonite Church to return to regular worship at All Saints Episcopal Church. (Technically, I never let my membership at the latter lapse, as I am still a pledger and active in youth ministry.) I like Mennonite theology a lot. I like the Mennonites I've met and worshipped with a great deal. But my own life and background are, to put it mildly, unusual for a Mennonite (even a convert). I've only met two divorced Mennonites; none with multiple divorces. Socially, that gulf has been much more difficult to overcome than I imagined. As much as I hate to admit it, every fiber of my being is more at home among upper middle-class liberal Episcopalians than it is among the terrific folks I've met within Mennonite Church USA.

Within the next few months, I will leave Pasadena Mennonite Church and return to All Saints. I've been reflecting on this for a long time, and praying earnestly as well. I'm glad I tried the Mennonite community; there is much there I still profoundly admire. I hope to keep many of the friends I've made at Pasadena Mennonite Church. I'll still hold on to some of the tenets of Anabaptism. But I'm returning to the Episcopal fold.

Thursday Short Poem #4 -- Sharon Olds

It's hard not to be captivated by the compellingly confessional style of Berkeley's own Sharon Olds. I've always liked her stuff, but after reading through a bunch of my favorites, I picked this one:

The Abandoned Newborn

When they found you, you were not breathing.
It was ten degrees below freezing, and you were
wrapped only in plastic. They lifted you
up out of the litter basket, as one
lifts a baby out of the crib after nap
and they unswaddled you from the Sloan's shopping bag.
As far as you were concerned it was all over,
you were feeling nothing, everything had stopped
some time ago,
and they bent over you and forced the short
knife-blade of breath back
down into your chest, over and
over, until you began to feel
the pain of life again. They took you
from silence and darkness right back
through birth, the gasping, the bright lights, they
achieved their miracle: on the second
day of the new year they brought you
back to being a boy whose parents
left him in a garbage can,
and everyone in the Emergency Room
wept to see your very small body
moving again. I saw you on the news,
the discs of the electrocardiogram
blazing like medals on your body, your hair
thick and ruffed as the head of a weed, your
large intelligent forehead dully
glowing in the hospital TV light, your
mouth pushed out as if you are angry, and
something on your upper lip, a
dried glaze from your nose,
and I thought how you are the most American baby,
child of all of us through your very
American parents, and through the two young medics,
Lee Merklin and Frank Jennings,
who brought you around and gave you their names,
forced you to resume the hard
American task you had laid down so young,
and though I see the broken glass on your path, the
shit, the statistics -- you will be a man who
wraps his child in plastic and leaves it in the trash -- I
see the light too as you saw it
forced a second time in silver ice between your lids, I am
full of joy to see your new face among us,
Lee Frank Merklin Jennings I am
standing here in dumb American praise for your life.

Olds writes about childbirth, sex, death, illness, adolescence, old age -- always with an unerring ability to describe what it is to live a life in the flesh. No one writes the body the way she does.

Hurrah for Barack Obama

I'm kicking myself that I missed Barack Obama's speech last night; the transcript is here. When and if (and I think it is when) he runs for president, he has my vote. Perhaps with Gavin Newsom as his veep... I can dream, can't I?

Really, I'll love him forever for this already-famous segment:

The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.

We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.

Take that, all you pundits who seem so certain God has no place in the Democratic Party! (The bold emphasis is mine.) Unless some really ugly skeleton pops out of his closet, in the next senator from Illinois, a political star has surely been born. And all God's people said, "amen."

Enough for today.

Waterparks. And the T-Shirt.

Am home and tired after a day at the water park. What an extraordinary place a water park is. So much water. So much sun. So many diverse people in various states of undress. I went on one particular ride and ended up with a great deal of water up my nose.

Annika and XRLQ have been blogging today about this Planned Parenthood t-shirt (Candace noted it in the comments below.)

The shirt's logo is simple: "I Had an Abortion." The language at PPFA's site describing the shirt:

Planned Parenthood is proud to offer yet another t-shirt in our new social fashion line: "I Had an Abortion" fitted T-shirts are now available. These soft and comfortable fitted tees assert a powerful message in support of women's rights.

Though my view of the t-shirt is not all that different from Annika's or XRLQ's, I'm going to try and take this in a different direction. And, for the record, let me reassert my reasonably solid pro-life bona fides. (I'm a monthly sustaining contributor to Feminists for Life).

It was about 1997 or 1998 when I began to see the most remarkable slogans showing up on the fitted t-shirts of my female students: "Porn Star". "Juicy." "Real American Bitch." "I Just Slept with your Boyfriend" (I've seen gay men where these too, but I see 'em more often on women; I've seen other verbs besides "slept" as well.) "Too Hot to Handle". "You Know you Wanna Touch." There are probably others (you can mention them in the comments section) but those have lingered in my memory. I associate all this with the banal and infuriating "girl power" movement; largely a creation of advertisers, it sold young women a message of empowerment through shock and sexuality. Adolescents love to upset adults; this adult initially found it difficult to know how to deal with female students whose t-shirts read "You Know you Wanna Touch". (I do a splendid job of affecting blindness in such situations nowadays.)

What I disliked about these shirts was not so much their brazenness as their rank commercialism. Nothing genuinely radical, edgy, or dangerous is sold at Abercrombie and Fitch or Urban Outfitters (two known sources of said shirts; no doubt, there are others.) Newsflash, kiddies: The fact that it horrifies your parents doesn't make it any less a product of the very same corporate America in which your parents are investing. What these places sell is the cleverly marketed opportunity to outrage the older generation while simultaneously offering a superficially feminist message. The message is "Only a bold, strong, brave young woman who doesn't care about conforming to stereotypes would wear a shirt like this. Thus if you wear this shirt, you bear witness to your fiery, indominatable, wild grrl soul." Please. What you bear witness to, darlin', is nothing more than your own socially constructed insecurity, and any sensible person over 25 is abundantly aware of that.

I write all this because this all came to mind the moment I saw this Planned Parenthood shirt. On one level, giving PPFA the benefit of the doubt, the shirt makes sense. A truly effective pro-choice strategy involves breaking the link between guilt and shame on one hand and one's own abortion on the other. Just as the t-shirts I refer to above advertise the wearer's sexual confidence, so too does this shirt advertise the wearer's refusal to feel remorse for what, after all, was an important and empowering choice. (Perhaps I shall start to see the "I Just Slept with Your Boyfriend" shirts in the autumn semester, and then the "I Had an Abortion" shirts in the spring. The wearer could thus keep us all updated, and, helpfully, indicate the all-too-frequent consequence of out-of-wedlock sex.) Planned Parenthood is borrowing from the cynical strategies of good corporate citizens like Abercrombie and Fitch. Just as A&F and other t-shirt manufacturers used an image of bold sexual assertiveness to market clothes, so Planned Parenthood is using a message of unrepentant, unremorseful pride in abortion both to market t-shirts and to trivialize the emotional consequences of terminating an unwanted pregnancy. If the stigma of abortion can be removed, than the pro-choice movement can win a major battle.

As I write this, I am imagining every woman in America who ever had an abortion wearing the shirt on the same day. I am sure Planned Parenthood would love that, hoping that it would send a powerful message about the absolute necessity of defending women's access to that particular procedure. I'd like to go further, and have other t-shirts printed up for my sex: "I got a woman pregnant, and refused to marry her. She had an abortion." Or: "I told her I'd pull out in time. She just had an abortion." What grim fun we could have thinking up still more slogans. By the time we had put t-shirts on every man and woman and teen in this country to whom they could apply, we'd have an awful lot of folks dressed in soft and comfortable fitted tees. But knowing who has had an abortion, and who has been responsible for one, doesn't change the basic truth of what abortion is.

In Las Vegas on Sunday, while leaving our hotel, I saw a pretty girl of about 15 standing with her parents. She had on a brand-new hot pink tight t-shirt. It read "Real American Bad Girl." She was looking around the way young teenagers will, trying to affect a sophisticated world-weariness while obviously eager to see who was looking at her. Her outfit proclaimed: I'm hot and bold and devil-may-care. Her stance proclaimed: I just want some attention, please look at me, please like me, please tell me I'm okay. I knew better than to believe the words emblazoned across her chest.

When I see girls like that wearing these shirts with overtly sexual messages, I know damn well that the vast majority of them don't want random sex; they want validation. And when, some day soon, I see a woman on the street with the new Planned Parenthood t-shirt, I will be absolutely certain down to the core of my being that she too, regardless of her age, is looking for validation that her choice was okay. But that validation is not mine to give.

All of these posts about Amy Richards here and elsewhere have humbled me. I've been reminded, yet again, of how different this issue of abortion is from all other issues. Nothing else, not even same-sex marriage, inflames passions and exposes divisions like this one. Add in a hotly contended political season like this one, and it becomes difficult not to give into blustering self-righteousness. In 1992, I walked precincts for NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) on behalf of Bill Clinton and Barbara Boxer. The folks I walked with were good, loving, kind people who had thought long and hard about the abortion issue. In more recent years, I've met with and walked with folks from a variety of pro-life groups. Though there were many social and religious differences between the two groups, the sincerity and decency of both sides was very, very clear to me. In this week of the Democratic convention, as we come closer and closer to this pivotal election, and as we write about some fairly emotional stuff, I say again, people, let's be committed to seeing the best in our opponents, even as we hold strong to what we think we know to be right.

End of rant. Matilde is ready for her dust bath.

Why Kerry?

Not much time to post today. My fiancee's teenage nieces are in town, as is her 16 year-old younger brother; I'm taking all three of them today to Raging Waters, a nearby water park.

I got an email the other day from a reader, asking me how I as a pro-lifer could defend a vote for Kerry. The answer is in the question! To me, being pro-life is always about being more than anti-abortion. Opposition to abortion is merely one facet of a larger set of positions on issues ranging from war to just policing to the death penalty to euthanasia. On my more inclusive days, it even includes opposition to factory farming. No party in this country is going to offer me a candidate who takes a broad, consistent-life ethic position on all the issues. (Though Dennis Kucinich, pre-2002, came close; as regular readers know, he was strongly pro-life on all issues until he ran for president. He's even a vegan!)

President Bush's position on abortion is indeed closer to mine than Senator Kerry's. (Though I confess I am a bit confused as to what Senator Kerry's position is -- it does seem to change). But on every other major issue that I can think of, Kerry's views are closer to a consistent-life ethic than the president's. Note that I said "closer"; the Democratic Party is a long way from where I would like it to be, but it is a good deal nearer to the goal than the GOP.

I have gay and lesbian friends who vote Republican. (Think the Boi from Troy). I don't call them fools for staying within the GOP and trying to change their party; I honor their willingness to fight for change from within. I'm a pro-life Democrat, willing to stay and fight for similar changes within my party. It may be a long time comin', but I am patient. In the meantime, I'll be voting for and giving money to the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future.

Okay, off to slather on sunscreen and cavort in the smog, heat, and chlorine of Raging Waters.

Monday morning, Elton John, and thoughts on Las Vegas

First off, thank you to all who issued congratulations in response to my news about the engagement. I am very excited. Though a few folks have asked for details about she who will become Mrs. Schwyzer, I am committed to protecting her identity in the blogosphere. I am very public, obviously, blogging under my full name. (Tenure allows me to do so, and I see no reason for a nom de plume.) But I don't want anything I write and post to reflect on my gal; she has her own life and her own privacy. As tempting as it is to do so, I'm not going to share details of our engagement and our wedding plans on the Internet. Some things, I think, can stay personal.

The weather in Las Vegas was searingly hot -- 108 degrees on Saturday. Elton John's show was terrific, but also disconcerting. I know he was playing in Las Vegas, but the video monitors behind him kept displaying bare-breasted strippers; during his rendition of "The Bitch is Back", a Pamela Anderson look-alike writhed around a pole. During other songs, huge inflatable breasts appeared, suspended from the ceiling. Confetti streamed from the "nipples." I didn't find it funny; I found it troubling. The objectification and fetishization of women's bodies is expected in "sin city", but I didn't expect it from one of my musical heroes. It left a bad taste in my mouth. It's beyond me why Linda Ronstadt was thrown out of a casino for making a political reference, while no one sees the exploitation of young women in those very same casinos as problematic! It will be a while before I feel the need to go back to Las Vegas.

As we walked through the oppressive heat along the strip, young men and women (every one of them with a Latino face, looking like a recent arrival) tried to thrust leaflets advertising strippers and prostitutes into our hands. What on earth must they think as they do this? All I could see was one group of exploited folks (migrant workers) risking heat exhaustion to promote the services of another group of the similarly exploited (female sex workers), all for the enjoyment of predominantly white, middle-class tourists. The outfits the cocktail servers (who aren't formally sex workers) wore in the casinos were (to my mind anyway) stunningly revealing to the point of leaving me discomfited and embarrassed. I know damn well just how hard and cold so many of these young women must have to become in order to endure the harrassment they surely must receive. The whole thing was absolutely obscene.

I'll confess I have a strong censorious streak within me. Perhaps it comes from my own past experience of living near the opposite end of the moral scale. But what viscerally upsets me about Las Vegas is the commodification of human fragility, something of which I am keenly and constantly aware. The cocktail waitresses brought sexuality and alcohol to the customers at the slots and the gaming tables, creating what seemed to me to be an unholy trifecta of addiction. Gambling offers false and illusory hope to folks of all social classes, but most obviously to those whose own circumstances are marginal. It's instantly addictive, as I was reminded. Mennonites aren't supposed to gamble, but I put plenty of money into quarter slots, letting the excitement overwhelm me. The thrill of winning something -- even a few dollars -- was stunningly strong. It wasn't just the smell of cigarette smoke in the casinos that left me feeling unclean; it was the sense (quite strong on this Monday morning) that I had participated in (and relished) an activity that at its core isn't really fun at all. Playing the slots touched something dark and grasping inside of Hugo. Like most bad things, the pleasure was fleeting and the regret enduring.

What saddened me most was the many, many small children I saw in Las Vegas. Some were even in the casinos, oblivious to the signs insisting that one had to be 21 to gamble. (That was a rule more honored in the breach than in the observance, judging from the teens I saw at the slots in the Aladdin and the Paris casinos). The local newspaper told me that tourism in Vegas was expected to hit an all-time high in 2004, as were profits from the hotels and casinos on the Strip. My fiancee (how happy to write that) and I contributed our share. The hotel was very comfortable, the food splendid, the music of Elton John sublime. I did have a good weekend. (To be with my gal to celebrate our engagement would have made a weekend in Barstow seem equally delightful, of course). But I'm damn sure our children aren't going to Las Vegas while they are under our care, and our visits back will be few and far between.

Friday notes, and one key bit of news

It's Friday, and my summer school classes are at an end. Five weeks off lie ahead.

Something I didn't know: One of Lance Armstrong's most trusted and reliable teammates on the US Postal team, Floyd Landis, is a Mennonite who grew up in a household strict enough to ban TV and short pants. Here's the story. Landis came heartbreakingly close to winning yesterday's stage, and Armstrong did everything he could to make that possible. As always, keep up with the Tour news here. In any event, I am hunting on the Internet for other famous Mennonite athletes. Suggestions are welcome.

In not unrelated news, I have gone out and bought myself a road bike. This one. It will take me a while to get to know how to use it, but given the kind of mileage I am putting on my knees as a distance runner, it's time to do some heavy-duty cross-training.

Some links for today:

Amy came across a disturbing article that raised real questions for her about men, sexuality, and trustworthiness -- her words are challenging me (in a good way) this morning.

Rudy Carrasco has updates on his son Sam; Jen Lemen has organized a Friends for Sam group that everyone can join for free here.

Annie at After Abortion has news of a research project seeking women who have been coerced into abortions -- submissions are apparently still very much welcome. On a similar note, David at Sed Contra takes apart this challenging Barbara Ehrenreich op-ed entitled "Owning up to Abortion."

Christy at Dry Bones Dance spent the past few weeks in the former Yugoslavia; her very readable travel reports are highly recommended.

That's it for today, folks. My girlfriend and I are off to Las Vegas for the weekend; we'll see Elton John in concert and enjoy the desert heat. Family will be providing chinchilla-sitting services.

And the real news is this: my girlfriend (whose anonymity I protect on this blog) isn't really my girlfriend any longer. Wednesday afternoon, I asked her to marry me. She said yes.

No, we aren't getting married in Vegas this weekend! But we are to get married next summer. I am blessed beyond all measure, and very, very happy today.

One more on Amy Richards, and "Choice for Men"

I've got a post percolating in my brain (by request, no less) on the subject of contemporary Christian men and their attitudes towards independent women. It will take a while to flesh out.

I've been thinking still more about men and abortion. Trish got me thinking with her post in response to my posts on Amy Richards. In Trish's final paragraph, she mentioned one particular men's rights outfit with which I wasn't familiar: Choice4Men, which seems to exist largely as an internet discussion group. She used C4M as an example of where many men might be in terms of the "men's rights in abortion" movement. Trish wrote:

As far as calling for men's rights in abortion, a quick reality check to that line of thought lies in looking at the misogynistic men's rights group Choice4Men and the backlash men's rights in abortion movement. This movement calls for men's rights to overshadow a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body. These men wish to control women's reproductive freedom, for their own benefit. The movement is about avoiding responsibility when men should take it and complaining about being "forced into daddyhood."

So I went and visited Choice for Men today, and got very sad. And angry. (Those emotions seem to constitute a theme this week!) I read through some of their letters and messages, and agree thoroughly they are misogynistic to the core, not to mention remarkably whiny. If you go to their site, you can read their statement of principles; I'll just quote the first two:

Choice4Men is about the right to choose to be a parent. Or not.
Choice4Men is about men who have been trapped into parenting without consent.

C4M is worried about men who have impregnated women who have chosen to keep the child, despite the fact that the man involved had no desire to become a father. (Hence the "trapped into parenting" line). I can't say I have even an iota of sympathy for these fellows.

I've been blunt this week. (Folks who believe in astrology would say it's because we're in Leo.) So let me continue to be straightforward:

Every man who ejaculates inside a woman, whether or not contraception is used, is signalling his willingness to become a father. If men are not ready and willing to raise a child conceived through an act of sex, they are morally responsible for refraining from sex. (I'll let my sisters make a similar case for women. I'm in enough trouble on that side of the fence already). A man who opposes abortion ought to be certain of his partner's feelings before he engages in sexual intercourse with her, lest she get pregnant and choose to abort the child that he may well wish to care for. A pro-life man whose girlfriend chooses abortion can hardly blame her for her "choice". Similarly, a man who has no wish to become a father has no right to complain when biology works as nature intended.

This is not to say that I think sex should be purely for procreation, nor even that sex ought always be confined to marriage. But those who believe that heterosexual intercourse can be fully divorced from procreation do so at the risk of both their own heartache and the destruction of innocent life. I have no desire to "control women" by making them breeding machines. But I see no reason why feminism must be linked to the right to have sexual intercourse without responsibility. The mystery and thrill and excitement and wonder and intimacy of sexual intercourse are ultimately linked to its procreativity, even when the folks engaged in it are unready and unwilling to become parents. We need to get this message across to our sons as well as to our daughters.

I still think what Amy Richards did was evil. That doesn't mean I am unsympathetic to her! Reading all the comments at various places (including here at my blog), I have a real sense of how overwhelmed she surely must have been. I'm choosing to be charitable and believe that she did what she thought best for her surviving child. But I can understand and sympathize with the reasons for the choice while simultaneously condemning the choice! Compassion does not equal support; empathy does not equal endorsement.

I have no sympathy for the guys at Choice4Men. Not only do I find their irresponsibility appalling, I find their sense of their own victimhood to be repellant. (Maybe it's my upbringing, but there's something about men who complain about mistreatment at the hands of women that turns my stomach.) But the boys at C4M and Amy Richards have something in common: they are convinced that they are entitled to enjoy sexual intercourse without accepting its inevitable attendant consequences. The former wish to change the laws in order to avoid their responsibilities, the latter used medicine to terminate hers.

I'm praying for the whole damn lot of them.