Mirror of Justice

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

"The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth"

In Sunday's New York Times, Gregg Easterbrook had this review, "The Capitalist Manifesto", of Benjamin Friedman's book, "The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth." Here is the intro:

ECONOMIC growth has gotten a bad name in recent decades - seen in many quarters as a cause of resource depletion, stress and sprawl, and as an excuse for pro-business policies that mainly benefit plutocrats. Some have described growth as a false god: after all, the spending caused by car crashes and lawsuits increases the gross domestic product. One nonprofit organization, Redefining Progress, proposes tossing out growth as the first economic yardstick and substituting a "Genuine Progress Indicator" that, among other things, weighs volunteer work as well as the output of goods and services. By this group's measure, American society peaked in 1976 and has been declining ever since. Others think ending the fascination with economic growth would make Western life less materialistic and more fulfilling. Modern families "work themselves to exhaustion to pay for stuff that sits around not being used," Thomas Naylor, a professor emeritus of economics at Duke University, has written. If economic growth were no longer the goal, there would be less anxiety and more leisurely meals.

But would there be more social justice? No, says Benjamin Friedman, a professor of economics at Harvard University, in "The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth." Friedman argues that economic growth is essential to "greater opportunity, tolerance of diversity, social mobility, commitment to fairness and dedication to democracy." During times of expansion, he writes, nations tend to liberalize - increasing rights, reducing restrictions, expanding benefits for the needy. During times of stagnation, they veer toward authoritarianism. Economic growth not only raises living standards and makes liberal social policies possible, it causes people to be optimistic about the future, which improves human happiness. "It is simply not true that moral considerations argue wholly against economic growth," Friedman contends. Instead, moral considerations argue that large-scale growth must continue at least for several generations, both in the West and the developing world.

Thoughts?

Clemency, the Death Penalty, and Reform

By Rick Garnett

Here is an interesting piece: "Death Row: Does Personal Reform Count?" It opens with this:

Exactly 229 death-row inmates have been granted clemency since the United States reinstated capital punishment in 1976, and the list of reasons is short. The 16 governors who have given such pardons cited just three reasons: lingering doubt about guilt, a governor's own philosophical opposition to the death penalty, and mental disability of the accused.

Starkly absent from the list - notable because of a high-profile clemency request now pending in California - is character reform of the guilty.

After discussing that California case (involving "Tookie" Williams, the founder of the Crips and a "four-time murderer"), the essay continues:

"If he goes ahead and puts to death a man who has clearly shown he has turned himself around, [and] is not the man he once was, what does that say to all other prisoners who are similarly incarcerated and are trying to reform themselves - that personal reform doesn't matter?" asks Jan Handzlik, a member of Williams's defense team.

Similarly, what message does a commuted death sentence send to prosecutors and law-enforcement officers, who daily work to fulfill the requirements of the legal system to obtain proper prosecutions? Or to victims' families and other convicts?

"It sends the worst signal to the criminal element if you commute someone," says Michael Paranzino, who runs a nonpartisan research group dedicated to crime victims and their families. "What are other criminals supposed to think ... that if you suddenly write poetry, say all the right things, and find a champion on the outside that you get a 'get out of jail free' card?"

Because of all this, "clemency is a very lonely decision," says Margaret Love, former head of the pardon office in the US Justice Department. "It is a question of how to blend mercy with justice, the human and the legal in light of all circumstances before you, with life on the line."

Putting aside (for now) questions concerning the morality or wisdom of capital punishment, and putting aside also (for now) any questions about the scope, under the relevant legal regime, of an executive's clemency power, should clemency be extended on the (sole) ground that a convict has reformed?

More on Ave Maria Town

By Rick Garnett

A few weeks ago, in the Wall Street Journal, an editorial -- "Bringing a Catholic Law School Down" -- appeared about the debates going on at Ave Maria about the possibility of a move to Florida. The editorial prompted, among other things, a ton of comments over at Volokh's blog, and also this post (with some important clarifications) by Professor Althouse. Now, Professor Andy Morriss, at the (very interesting) blog, "St. Maximos' Hut," weighs in, and writes:

The interesting issue here - i.e. the one I haven't puzzled out yet - is why people with whom I usually find myself in agreement think it is a bad idea to move the law school into Ave Maria town independently of whether they think that moving the law school at all is a bad idea. Those who find it "creepy" (like Juan) seem to do so because they object to the closing off of the community from the wider community. The very idea of a university, however, is to some extent a place where people are to a degree sheltered from the "real world" to allow them to focus on learning. What's particularly creepy about people wanting to be in an environment free from pornography, etc.? This doesn't strike me as any different from, say, people at a law school in a rural town touting the atmosphere available from rural living. Given UPS, the internet, Amazon.com, Netflix, and so on, I don't think "Ave Maria town" is likely to be particularly more closed off from the "real world" than most small towns in rural areas are today. What will be different is that it will be a community that shares values, Catholic values as it turns out, and that, in turn, strikes me as sounding a bit like what you might find in a monastic community.

And, in response, Althouse has revisited the debate:

. . . Morriss is missing one huge thing. There is an existing community of scholars in Ann Arbor that is not volunteering to move. They like it where they are, in a lively university town, where they've established lives for themselves and contributed to the building of an institution. (Don't believe me? Ask them!) The move is to be imposed, top-down, by one man who happens to have the money.

Now (thanks to Juan Non-Volokh for the link), the Dean of the Ave Maria School of Law, Bernard Dobranski, has weighed in with a letter to the editor of the Journal. (The letter itself is available only to subscribers). Here is a taste:

Ave Maria University and the Barron Collier Companies have agreed that the town will promote the traditional family values that prospective residents are seeking. We believe this can best be achieved by attracting retail establishments that share this commitment to, for example, an environment free of the degradation of women that pornography represents. Retailers who know their market can be expected to stock only those products that sell. Although restrictions on both pornography and contraception effectively will be imposed by the marketplace, it is Ave Maria's fervent hope that Catholics will shun both of these. It is an outrage that this sincere desire to help fellow Catholics live in accord with their faith invites a comparison with Jonestown's infamous Jim Jones. . . .

Ave Maria University includes . . . on its board of trustees and board of regents (advisory) such prominent clerics and Catholic intellectuals as Father Benedict Groeschel, Prof. Robert George of Princeton, Prof. Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School and Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute. The idea that any of these people would countenance the sort of Catholic ghetto Ms. Riley imagines is patently absurd. Ave Maria seeks to be no more than mainstream Catholic; meaning, of course, unreserved fidelity to the teaching of the Catholic Church. This may be offensive to the secular left in the culture wars now raging, but it ought to be applauded even by a dissident faculty member of a Catholic law school, even if he prefers to remain in Michigan.

UPDATE: D'oh! I just realized that Rob already blogged about this letter. Sorry!

ABORTION BY THE NUMBERS

By Michael Perry

[From The American Prospect online edition, Nov. 28, 2005. Thanks to Chris Eberle for calling this to my attention.]

ABORTION BY THE NUMBERS. Over at The New Republic I have a story up about the rising numbers of repeat abortions in America (link requires free registration):

Amy's experience with multiple abortions was life-changing enough that she decided to volunteer at Exhale, a telephone hotline where women who have had abortions can speak openly about their experiences. Exhale, which calls itself "pro-voice," is part of a new approach to abortion that eschews dogmas, left and right. Through the organization, which went national in June, Amy counsels women like herself, some of whom have been through multiple abortions. Their numbers are growing. According to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights organization respected for its data collection, close to half of the 1.3 million abortions performed in the United States each year are repeat abortions, up from just 12 percent in 1973. Most repeat abortions are, like Amy's, a woman's second, yet the number of third abortions is not insubstantial. In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that 18 percent of abortions were performed on women seeking at least their third pregnancy termination. In contrast, studies have shown that rape and incest victims, the most politically sympathetic and high-profile group of abortion-seekers, account for about 1 percent of abortions.

Despite its prevalence, repeat abortion is the least discussed or researched aspect of abortion in the United States. In the past year, liberals and Democrats have increasingly focused on preventing unwanted pregnancies as a means of preventing abortion. But they have yet to address the specific needs of women who have already had abortions, partly out of fear of affirming conservative stereotypes about why women abort or how they react to an abortion....

The sad fact is that, three decades after legalization, abortion is no longer mainly a tool women use to shape their own destinies, but rather a symptom of larger social problems that ought to be addressed by policymakers.

"Talkback to TNR" writers, in the main, agreed with my policy proposals, but disliked my criticism of liberals for not talking about the still-taboo subject of repeat abortions. And yet, I think it's noteworthy that in recent months, I have hardly been the only younger, liberally-situated woman to raise questions about the way pro-choice professionals talk and think about abortion, or to suggest that pro-choice liberals could benefit from some fresh thinking. The younger set, it seems, is increasingly disturbed by our rhetorical and conceptual inheritence on this issue, even as abortion rights face greater challenges than at any time since the 1970s.

Last December, Prospect deputy editor Sarah Blustain wrote about her dislike of pro-choice rhetoric in our pages:

Ok, I’ve unlisted my phone number, changed my name, and moved to a different (red) state. Now I can safely say it: The Democratic defense of abortion makes me cringe.

It’s the stridency, the insistence, the repetition of a “woman’s right to choose.” It rubs me the wrong way -- and I’m one of those classic 30-something, northeastern, educated, pro-choice women who believes the message. I’m tormented by the idea that even as I support Democratic candidates -- and, yes, on this issue -- I’m turned off by their abortion rhetoric.

I’m not alone. Poll after poll shows that a majority, albeit a slim one, of Americans favor access to abortion. An ABC News/Washington Post poll from May of this year found that 54 percent of those asked said they thought that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Similarly, 55 percent told a Time/CNN poll in January 2003 that they favored the Supreme Court ruling “that women have the right to have an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy.” And yet, as our most recent election made clear, some percentage of those poll respondents obviously support anti-abortion candidates. Put more precisely, fully one-third of pro-choice Americans voted for George W. Bush, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America. So the question is, how can Democrats soften their rhetoric while maintaining their support for safe, accessible abortion?

As long as I can remember, the tone of the liberal message on abortion has been defiant, sometimes even celebratory. It’s an attitude that reflects the victory of legal abortion over back-alley dangers three decades ago -- a success that many who remember it still experience with deep emotion...

Still, for those of us who came after Roe v. Wade, there is a significantly different reality. The context has changed. Back alleys and coat hangers are not part of our visceral memory. To this generation, the “choice” of a legal abortion is no longer something to celebrate. It is a decision made in crisis, and it is never one made happily.

More recently, the literate smut website Nerve.com, of all places, ran a couple of very provocative articles about abortion, including one on repeat abortions by Third Wave feminist Jennifer Baumgardner that describes an abortion clinic director who "thinks multiple abortions points to something larger than an individual snafu."

The delightful Ada Calhoun (a Nerve editor who, I might add, is also a friend of TAP Online editor Tara McKelvey's and the daughter of New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldal, as well as one of the few people I've met in adult life who also had Mr. Tobin as her fourth grade teacher at P.S. 41) bravely laid out her very un-P.C. qualms about second-term abortions, thinking back to the time when she was in high school and her family hosted a young woman seeking a second-term abortion who was in town from upstate:

...looking at Andrea, I felt revulsion. Politically, I still felt I had to defend her right to do what she was doing, but personally and morally I felt it was wrong. Even though I was a godless, liberal native New Yorker, I saw second-term abortion as a sin. If there had been a Bible in our home, I would have thumped it.

I've never said this out loud before, that I have such reluctance about abortion past a certain point — which in my case is definitely before Andrea's five months, when the fetus kicks, has a heartbeat, and sucks its thumb. Being pro-choice with reservations is taboo. It is to wrestle with guilt and doubt and feel that you must be silent. And I understand why. Last year, my colleague Lynn Harris wrote a great essay about how she and her husband help women get access to second-term abortions. I hear and agree with everything she says. I see how it's a class issue, and I appreciate the many totally legitimate reasons why many women can't or don't get them before they're so far along. I applaud Lynn. But privately, I still can't get over this deep moral anxiety about it. And I think that's something we should talk about. At the same time, I fear that by saying such a thing I'm stoking the fire of the fundamentalists, giving comfort to a political enemy that would also restrict access to safe and effective birth control if they could.

...I do wonder if maybe we pro-choice advocates aren't more conflicted than we let on, and therefore if maybe pro-life advocates aren't as well. Maybe the deal is that pro-choicers have to say, "Allow abortion up until the ninth month! Free and on every corner!" And pro-lifers have to say, "We can never, ever allow it, even in cases of rape and incest, even if the mother might die!" That way, we meet in an awkward demilitarized zone, the first trimester, with restrictions and obstacles that hurt the poor and the young. And so we fight back and forth and make it easier this month and harder the next, so everyone's almost okay with the way things are, but no one really is.

I think Ada is quite right that it has been nearly impossible for people in public life to talk honestly about abortion, and that it can be especially difficult to do so in pro-choice circles. Indeed, there are two conversations we have about abortion in this country. There is, as Ada describes, the public confrontation between rigid ideological camps, and then there is the nuanced private conversation we have among ourselves. I am more interested in the latter, because I think that a politics that is not based on the truth of life as it is really lived is worthless. And sometimes even worse than that.

I don't expect professional political actors or activists to necessarily agree, but if the gap between the private conversation and the public one grows too wide, they may find abortion rights themselves falling into the breach.

--Garance Franke-Ruta

Cardinal Grocholewski on the instruction, teaching

By Patrick McKinley Brennan

A New Instruction, but Perennial Teaching
Cardinal Grocholewski Comments on Document

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 29, 2005 (Zenit.org).- The Holy See's new document on the admission of men with homosexual tendencies to seminaries and the priesthood does not contain any groundbreaking points, says a Vatican official.

Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, the prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, was responsible for writing the Instruction "Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders."

The document, published today, confirms that it is not possible to admit to the priesthood men "who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture.'"

"The newspapers have talked about this document as if it were something extraordinary," said the Polish cardinal when presenting the text on Vatican Radio.

"But it is not strange that our congregation publishes specific documents regarding priestly formation because we have published some 20 documents since the [Second Vatican] Council concerning the different aspects of formation in seminaries," he observed.

Nothing extraordinary

"There has been a document on celibacy, on priestly chastity, talks on different impediments for the priesthood," the 66-year-old cardinal said. "Now this document has nothing extraordinary because, on the problem of homosexuality, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has pronounced itself many times.

"And it has pronounced itself many times because in this area in the world of today, there is a certain disorientation. Many defend the position according to which the homosexual condition is a normal condition of the human person, something like a third gender; instead, this absolutely contradicts human anthropology. It contradicts, according to the thought of the Church, the natural law, and what God has marked in human nature."

Cardinal Grocholewski explained that the new Instruction takes up again the distinction presented by the Catechism of the Catholic Church between "homosexual acts" and "homosexual tendencies."

"Homosexual acts are considered in sacred Scripture, both in the Old as well as the New Testament, from St. Paul and later in the whole Tradition of the Church [and] by the Councils as grave sins, contrary to the natural law," the cardinal said. "Therefore, these acts can never be approved."

Different, however, are "the inclination or deep-seated homosexual tendencies. This homosexual tendency is considered in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as an objectively disordered inclination," he added.

"Why?" asked the cardinal. "Because an inclination as such is not a sin, but it is a more or less strong tendency toward an intrinsically evil conduct from the moral point of view."

3 categories

"These persons therefore are in a situation of trial; they need understanding but must not be discriminated against in any way whatsoever," he added. "On the part of the Church they are called, as everyone, to observe the divine law although, perhaps for some of them, it will cost more."

The Vatican prefect continued: "We have adopted as principle three categories of people who cannot be admitted either to the seminary or to priestly ordination: those who practice homosexuality; those who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, and those who support the so-called gay culture.

"In regard to people who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies, we are profoundly convinced that it is an obstacle for a correct relationship with men and women, with negative consequences for the Church's pastoral development."

"Obviously, if we speak of deep-seated tendencies, this means that there can also be transitory tendencies, which do not constitute an obstacle. But in these cases, they must have disappeared three years before diaconal ordination," specified the cardinal.

Regarding priests with homosexual tendencies, Cardinal Grocholewski clarified that "these priestly ordinations are valid, because we do not affirm their invalidity."

"A person that discovers their homosexuality after priestly ordination, must obviously live the priesthood itself, must live chastity," he observed. "Perhaps he will have greater need of spiritual help than others, but I think he must carry out the priesthood itself in the best way possible."

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More on Ave Maria

By Rob Vischer

The Volokh Conspiracy reports on Dean Dobranski's response to the Wall Street Journal article on the controversy surrounding Ave Maria Law School's proposed move to Florida.

Rob

Re the Death Penalty

By Michael Perry

[A friend sent this. Thought it would be of interest.]

citymayors.com

More than 300 cities worldwide will rally against death penalty

Rome, 27 November 2005: More than 300 cities, including Dallas and Austin from the US state of Texas, will be taking part in an initiative against the death penalty called Cities for Life, Cities against the Death Penalty. The Catholic Community of Sant'Egidio in Rome, organizer of the initiative, says it will be the largest ever mobilization against capital punishment.

The Cities for Life, Cities against the Death Penalty is an initiative staged every year by the Catholic Community of Sant'Egidio in Rome on 30 November. This year, the fourth edition, there will be 320 cities in the world taking part, including 30 national capitals. For the event, many of the cities will offer their main squares and logos dres! sed in a special way, or light up their symbolic monuments like the Coliseum in Rome, the obelisk in Buenos Aires.

The spokesman of the Community of Sant'Egidio, Mario Marazziti, says special events and shows will bring together city administrators, ordinary people and students. "Whoever wants to be there will try to think of how it is possible now to have a higher level of justice, justice without revenge and a restorative justice than never denies life," he said.

Mr. Marazziti says the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams, a double homicide convict who has become an ardent anti-gang activist on death row, is set for 13 December in California. Californias governor Schwarzenegger has been urged to stop the execution from going ahead. In addition the 1,000th execution in the history of the United States is expected in Virginia around 30 November.

The worldwide trend, Mr Marazziti said, was against imposing capital punishment. "We have 115 countries that have abo! lished the death penalty, we have about 101 countries that are either active retentionists or passive retentionists, that are de facto abolitionists but they still have the death penalty," he said. "But just 25-30 years ago we had the contrary, we had 60 countries that had abolished the death penalty."

He says he is convinced the death penalty will disappear one day, as did slavery in the past. The United States, China, India, Japan and many Arab countries are among those that impose and carry out capital punishment.

Special focus is being placed this year on Africa, which has rapidly moved from being one of the most conservative continents to the one where changes are occurring fastest. Mr. Marazziti says that Africa, racked by AIDS, civil conflicts and poverty, is moving toward abolishing the death penalty. "We had just one country that had abolished the death penalty in 1981, we have now 13 countries and we have 20 de facto abolitionist countries," he said. The la! test country to abolish the death penalty in Africa is Senegal. (Report by Sabina Castelfranco, VOA)

Relationships in Law: is there a place for fraternity?

By Amy Uelmen

Thank you to Mark for holding the blog fort with his “Roman holiday” posts. I’m not sure it was a holiday for me, but it certainly was an amazing event. Relationships in law: is there a place for fraternity? was a three day conference sponsored by the Focolare Movement's "Comunione e Diritto" (Communion and Law) project, which is working to draw out the implications of the spirituality of communion for legal theory and the legal profession.

The event was held in Castelgandolfo, outside of Rome from November 18-20. Participation exceeded every expectation—reaching almost 700 people from 35 countries and four continents. It opened with a wonderful panorama in which ten representatives from four continents spoke of the challenges of bringing the ideal of “fraternity” to their own legal systems and environments, and their hopes for the congress. The US was represented by David Shaheed, a Muslim judge from Indiana who has been involved with Muslim-Catholic dialogue for a number of years. (he's here in the first picture, on the left, next to representatives from the Philipines and Hungary).

This was followed by a message from the founder of the Focolare Movement, Chiara Lubich, inviting the participants to reflect on how legal theory and practice might be enriched by the dimension of relationships of mutual love. To give you a taste:

“Every human being feels the need to be loved and to give to others the love he or she has received. On the other hand, it is the love that is received and given that allows people to fulfill themselves and also to live in communion with one another. It is in this sense that fraternity can be understood and practiced. But this fraternity has an ontological foundation, I dare say, in the love of God who in creating every human being made us brothers and sisters to one another, therefore equal and inclined toward the good of a common family, the human family. . . .

How can we concretely live out this fraternity in our daily lives? We have understood that the way is mutual love, lived on the model of the Most Holy Trinity, where the three persons annul themselves out of love for each other, to find themselves again in a continual crescendo of Life—if we can thus say in human terms—always more authentically persons and always more deeply in communion, in unity.

We, men and women, are called to imitate this sublime model of life in all our relations, in every sphere of social life. Law, right from its inception, has been perceived as the set of rules governing social life, indeed as the order of society itself. I would like to see this regulating function vivified by the new commandment of mutual love, to encourage the complete fulfillment of people and the relations they establish.”

The project is still at the beginning of the enormous task of drawing out a fruitful international exchange between legal systems, and is still working through numerous cultural and linguistic challenges. But the program reflected a promising start. In addition to those listed on the program, other brief interventions such as one from Cameroon, gave glimpses of the traumas, hopes and heroism entailed in the efforts to develop functioning legal systems and to protect human rights.

We were 23 professors, lawyers and judges from the US, including six from Fordham, and with MOJ well represented by Mark! His comments on how the solution to the limitations of homo ecomonicus can be found in Christian anthropology, were very well received. My brief “Seeds of Fraternity in Corporate Law,” explored themes similar to my earlier essay, “Toward a Trinitarian Theory of Products Liability,” (see side bar under my papers) with further reflections on John Rawls as an unlikely ally in the venture.

Other US contributions touched on mediation in family law disputes, drug courts’ emphasis on treatment rather than punishment, and the Georgia Justice Project as a successful example of restorative justice and social re-integration. The final word of the concluding roundtable was given to Fordham's Prof. Russ Pearce, who gave a Jewish perspective on how the concept and practice of love of neighbor could transform legal structures and practice. (Pictures of some of our group and the roundtable are here)

The Italian and Vatican press gave extensive coverage to the event. (If you read italian, check out the Avvenire article, “Se la fraternità si sposa con il diritto”). Doug Ammar and I were also interviewed by the English version of Vatican Radio, I’ll let you know when it runs. The Italian versions of the presentations will be published in the interdisciplinary cultural review, Nuova Umanità. Plans for an English version are also underway.

I know that many of you had this event in your prayers - thank you - and we'll keep you posted on the plans for a local follow-up, probably during the next academic year.

Amy

Gays: Response to Questions

By Steve Shiffrin

I am at home too sick to go into the office and do not have Helminiak’s book in front of me, but I think the book’s most important contribution (see interview, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/interviews/helminiak.html) is to emphasize a criticism of the standard reading of Romans, ch.1(the most difficult passage to reconcile with his position). Helminiak argues that “When you read Paul the way it's translated, it seems pretty clear. ‘Unnatural’ is a mistranslation, pure and simple. It should read "atypical". The Greek words are ‘para physin’--beyond the natural. All [the standard translations of the Bible] are mistranslated. And this is only recent scholarship, like in the past ten years. The word ‘para physin’ comes out of early Stoic philosophy, from the early centuries when Christianity was forming. If it was being used in the Stoic sense, then it would mean ‘unnatural.’ The fact is that Paul, who was using it, didn't know Stoic philosophy. He used it in his own sense, which squares with the popular usage of the day. ... When they were talking about men and women, if you did things that weren't the standard way of behaving, it was called ‘unnatural.’ What it meant was ‘unconventional.’ . . . They can say that Paul is condemning. But if you read him very, very closely, you see what he's really saying. Take out the prejudices that we have, and he's portraying two things that happen to the Gentiles. They're into dirty behaviors, uncleanness (and that's the sexual stuff), and they're into really evil and wicked things as well. And later on he goes to say, ‘But nothing is unclean in Christ.’

“And his lesson is, ‘Let's stop splitting up the church over stuff that doesn't matter.’ I'm saying that today, as well as Paul saying it then. We shouldn't be bickering over sexual practices. What we should be concerned about is love and charity and concern”

Far more persuasive to me is the fact that the Jews of Paul’s time had a very different conception of gays and lesbians than we do. They thought of people as heterosexuals who, at best, were engaging in recreational same sex relations on the side (some biblical passages imagine far worse including rape, prostitution, and perderasty). They were unaware of the millions of persons who through no fault of their own are not attracted to people of the opposite sex . They did not face up to the question whether God created these millions with a demand of mandatory celibacy. And, of course, Jesus has nothing to say on the subject.

In response to Patrick (I do not suppose he would disagree whatever his position on the merits), I would say that many who accept the immorality of same sex relations need not think that gays and lesbians are incapable of rich spiritual lives. Indeed, the Catechism speaks against any such view. They might reject the Vatican’s opposition to anti-discrimination laws against gays and lesbians, against the Vatican’s position on gay/lesbian adoption, against the apparent view that gays present special risks of pedophilia, against the view that gays are so disordered that they can not relate well to men or women, and they might favor the Church’s prior more generous practice of admitting gays to the priesthood. They might favor some of these positions, but not others.

Subsidiarity and Sex Education