Posted on 08/27/2003 12:25:34 AM PDT by kattracks
We know the ideal of sexual purity and a clarion call for abstinence are seen by Hollywood as quaint. In some Tinseltown circles it's even dangerous. Miramax recently released another in a series of Catholic-bashing movies, "The Magdalene Sisters," which takes the regrettable story of Ireland's Magdalene laundries, where young women who were sexually active, pregnant or even just too flirty were consigned to hard labor. Predictably, the movie turns it all into a broad-brushed propagandistic vision of a church pulsing with pure evil.
That is hardly the cultural predicament for young American women today. They not only are encouraged to be sexual by their male contemporaries, they are also heartily encouraged by women and women's media to rid themselves of purity.
The Chicago Tribune reported that the trendiness of HBO's "Sex in the City," as personified by Sarah Jessica Parker's cool booty-call chronicler, has resulted in a new sensation: "Sex columnists are as routine at college campuses as midterms." For example, the Tribune told the story of Julia Baugher, who writes a sex-advice column for the Hoya, the student newspaper at Jesuit-run Georgetown University. Her advice to the college audience: Get some sex.
Julia encourages incoming freshmen females to dump their distant boyfriends for some sex play away from the constraints of home: "If you left a high-school honey to come to college, don't spend your time hanging on to what's back home. You'll miss out on the fun of your new place, only to break up by February anyway." She suggests that if girls don't have a relationship, they ought not "go nuts," since "you don't want a bad reputation stalking you for the next four years." In other words, the only limits on a lady's "liberation" is her vulnerability to gossip. Even in Catholic corners of the culture, the notion of God sometimes seems to have disappeared.
In the September issue of Glamour magazine (circulation: almost 3 million, many of them teenage girls), actress Holly Robinson Peete gives this advice to the single girl: "You are in a blissful stage. Really enjoy yourself right now because it does change. I want you to have a lot of sex and get a lot of sleep."
But that's not the worst of it. This edition of Glamour also contains advice if that sex goes wrong and she accidentally becomes pregnant. It is, incredibly, this: You can not only get an abortion, but you can feel good about yourself while you do it. A group of abortion clinic operators calling themselves the "November Gang" is encouraging their customers to write little valentines on pink paper hearts to the babies they've killed.
Glamour finds it "poignant" that one woman wrote to her victim: "To my little angel, Please understand that you are better off in the hands of God than mine at this moment." (This is hard to debate.) "I smile when I think of you, even if I cry. You have given me reason to be strong and wise and responsible. You will always be my baby. I will see you in heaven, sweetheart. Love you! Love always and unconditionally, your mommy."
The hearts are posted in one Pittsburgh clinic, "rows and rows of them taped to the walls." Some are more fist-pumping feminist notes, such as: "Women: this is your life and your body. What you think is right ... Is! ... And if you think this is a 'sin,' remember, God forgives!" Glamour reported that counselors push this notion hard to the more religious girls. When one girl says she goes to church every Sunday, the counselor asks, "Do you think there are any things God considers completely unforgivable?" The clinics also invite more religious girls to "pray over their fetuses, even to sprinkle them with holy water in impromptu baptismal rites."
Even abortionists are conceding the "fetus" is a child of God; it's just a child of God they have the right to kill. Women can be forgiven for abortions, but that requires real regret and repentance, not paper valentines and happy talk. Abortion advocates also disdain this approach. The Glamour article mentioned that "mainstream abortion rights proponents don't think such candor is helpful." Kate Michelman of NARAL protests that it's not her job to "wear every woman's feelings publicly."
In today's culture we condemn women's magazines for encouraging girls to obsess about their appearance, their weight and the happiness that comes only from cosmetic products like "deep thermal refinisher." I'm waiting for the rebuke of these magazines for encouraging girls to indulge in sex without consequences, and when the consequences arrive, encouraging them to butcher them, then air-kiss them with a ridiculous love note.
Brent Bozell is President of Media Research Center, a TownHall.com member group.
©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
When a culture has reached the point where the people can look straight at darkness and call it light, there is no hope. The mind that composed this paragraph could literally justify Treblinka.
...and our boys into penises with feet.
.
Which is our honour, bitter torture shall
Winnow the truth from falsehood.---
Remember me at court; where I was taught
Of your chaste daughter the wide difference
'Twixt amorous and villanous--Shakespeare, Cymberline
Planned Parenthood is perdition.
The Jebbies should be dismantled and rebuilt! They no longer serve the Church and defend the Pope, but are in many ways, the enemy of the Church. Before I get flamed; I know there are some good Jesuit,; but they are few and the bad are many!
Georgetown is Catholic in name only! The Pope should remove the Jesuits from there or remove the Catholic identity.
Uh, maybe not...I was doing just fine in our no-TV, homeschooling home where this stuff is nothing more than sick fiction.
Its still possible to step out of this sick culture of death, if parents are willing to make the necessary sacrifices. It starts with getting rid of that damnable TV set everyone places in the central areas of "worship" in the home.
Christians need to abandon this pop culture of death completely and build a parallel counter-culture society. Again, it starts with shooting your TV (literally or figuritively, doesn't matter.)
cf. the church before Constantine
Well, think about it.
My experience is that
most kids regard most
stuff they learn in schools
to be worthless crap. If schools
don't teach abstinence,
then kids will never
link abstinence to the stuff
they already hate...
While watching an excellent reshowing of a Law & Order: SVU episode, ads with nude actresses aboard males flashed up on the screen, and females were boasting of their single sexuality. Since the democrat party has chosen to speciously defend the hiring of a serial killer to off the consequences of sexual looseness, the sluts (male and female) have a defended way to avoid responsibility ... and now, apparently, the niggling of conscience. End times, my friend.
Good point. This stuff doesn't have to have a hold on you, but it will if you watch it. You can't believe that you can watch TV and go to movies, etc., but then avoid the effects. It's like believing that you can drink all day but you won't be an alchoholic.
Its still possible to step out of this sick culture of death, if parents are willing to make the necessary sacrifices. It starts with getting rid of that damnable TV set everyone places in the central areas of "worship" in the home.
Good suggestion. Moving the TV off to a corner of the house where it's available for special occasions can be a good start. Get it out of the living room or the family room where the family spends most of their time. As you say, in most homes it's set up like an altar in the focal point of the main living area.
Christians need to abandon this pop culture of death completely and build a parallel counter-culture society.
I agree. Maybe we need to look to some groups like the Orthodox Jews and the Amish. This doesn't mean that we need to adopt their religion, but they could have some lessons to teach us about how one goes about maintaining a religious culture in the midst of depravity. One way or another, Christians need to opt out entirely. And as you say, it starts with getting rid of the TV.
There just isn't anything clean anymore.
Between the Pro-life Boycott, the Liberal Media Boycott and the Anything Froggie Boycott, Sooner or later I will be reduced to living in a cave, eating rocks and wearing a burlap sack.
Tia
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