Category Archives: Moral Relativism

The indoctrination of our children 2

Faith, Moral Relativism, Religion • Tags: ,

By Tom Quiner

“Hi, f*gg*t!”

Quiner’s Diner is repulsed by anti gay slurs, anti-Christian slurs, anti-black, anti … well, you get the idea.

The two words I bleeped in the sentence above are the two words that advice columnist, Dan Savage, uses to begin his column, “Savage Love.” He uses the words to reclaim them from those who wish to use them hatefully against those with same-sex attractions.

Mr. Savage is gay.

Mr. Savage is profane.

Mr. Savage is virulently anti-Christian.

And of course, this is a man invited to a White House reception, along with his husband.

They honor his viewpoint.

So do the Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA). Despite Mr. Savage’s well-publicized views on human sexuality and religion, they invited him to speak at their anti-bullying conference targeting high schoolers.

Mr. Savage unleashed a hostile attack on our kids who embrace Christianity.

A teenage girl in attendance said:

“The first thing he told the audience was, ‘I hope you’re all using birth control,’” he said there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong. Right after that, he said we can ignore all the (expletive deleted) in the Bible.”

To their credit, a hundred or so students got up and walked out.

Mr. Savage called then “pansy-asses.”

“You can tell the Bible guys in the hall they can come back now because I’m done beating up the Bible. It’s funny as someone who is on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible how pansy-assed people react when you push back.”

In other words, this wasn’t an anti-bullying conference. It was a bullying conference. Mr. Savage was there to bully Christians.

That is okay to the secular humanists who dominate the power structure of our educational institutions.

He continued his assault on students of faith:

“But I have a right to defend myself and to point out the hypocrisy of people who justify anti-gay bigotry by pointing to the Bible and insisting we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other.”

His diatribe elicited cheers from the remaining students.

You can watch Mr. Savage’s bullying in the video clip above.

How did the power structure react to Mr. Savages bullying rhetoric toward Christians?

“We appreciate the level of thoughtfulness and deliberation regarding Dan Savage’s keynote address. Some audience members who felt hurt by his words and tone decided to leave in the middle of his speech, and to this, we want to make our point very clear: While as a journalist it’s important to be able to listen to speech that offends you, these students and advisers had simply reached their tolerance level for what they were willing to hear.”

Thoughtfulness. Deliberation. It is important to listen to speech that offends.

Somehow the students who walked out are perceived as weak for not hearing out Mr. Savage.

Note that the NSPA official who made this comment did not apologize.

Would they say the same if it were a speaker of a Christian orientation promoting chastity and a traditional view of sexuality, such as this:

“Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. The union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator’s generosity and fecundity: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.”121 All human generations proceed from this union.”

This excerpt from the Catholic Catechism pretty much states the Christian viewpoint of sexuality, until recent years when some denominations thought the Dan Savages of the world were right and the Bible was wrong.

Fine. But now the educational elite in this country will only allow in one viewpoint, and that is Dan Savage’s.

I saw this in action right here in Des Moines at my alma mater, Roosevelt High School. A few years ago, Alveda King, Martin Luther King’s niece, was invited to speak at Roosevelt. A few parents complained about her pro-life views. Ms. King was promptly disinvited.

Secular humanists embrace a different religion, called Moral Relativism, which embraces abortion and the gay agenda. They use anti-bullying rhetoric as leverage to promote their agenda to our children.

Now you know why home schooling is growing. Parents are getting sick of the indoctrination to which their children are being subjected by this power structure.

 

 

What is the truth? 2

Moral Relativism, Politics, Truth

Moral Relativists view truth as an oozing, fluid idea. What was true yesterday may not be true tomorrow. Feelings determine morality. Truth is an evolving entity, much like the Constitution of the United States in their eyes. The self-esteem movement is a reflection of the impact moral relativism has had on our culture. Moral absolutism produces guilt when we do something wrong. Guilt is bad. On the other hand, moral relativism allows us to rationalize away such unpleasantness, which makes us happy. Happiness is good. Therefore, feelings ultimately define morality for the Relativist. Self-esteem is the name of the game. For moral absolutists, it is just the opposite … More…

Who are the oppressors? Reply

Moral Relativism, Political Correctness, Politics, Truth • Tags: , ,

By Tom Quiner

Step back with me.

Let us look at the big picture.

These are strange times. The Left thinks we are nuts. We on the Right think they are nuts.

A personal story: A fellow parishioner from my church put up a post on her Facebook page with a link to an article where Mitt Romney said, as president, he would try to get rid of Planned Parenthood.

The parishioner’s response? “Another reason to vote for Obama.”

This comment comes from a Catholic running for public office as a Democrat. Her philosophy: anyone against Planned Parenthood is against the Democratic Party.

By the way, she is a lovely person, other than this benign notion of Planned Parenthood.

She and I represent the disconnect in America.

How can people who are so similar in so many ways see the world so differently?

It’s complicated. But I think it comes down to this question: who are the oppressors?

You’ve watched two highly visible and opposing movements emerge in recent history: the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street (OWS).

Both are concerned with oppression, but view the oppressors through different lenses.

Tea Partiers view Big Government as the oppressors. Tea Partiers rail against Constitutional overreach by the government. They oppose expansion of entitlement programs, because they know we just can’t afford them. They feel oppressed by a government that reaches deeper and deeper into their lives … and pocketbooks … with the corresponding diminishment of personal freedom.

The OWSers view productive people (“the rich”) as their oppressors. They loath Wall Street. Government is the solution. Government must reach deeper into the lives of everyone to right the ship, but they should only reach deeper in the pocketbooks of the productive. Curtailment of freedom is fine, as long as the playing field is leveled through redistribution of wealth.

Who are the oppressors?

The Left reveres Planned Parenthood as an agent for “liberating” women’s bodys, the fulfillment of the feminist manifesto, “Our Bodies Ourselves,” written some 40 years ago. The oppressors? Men. The Catholic Church. Anyone who is pro-life, since they infringe on a woman’s “freedom” to discard inconvenient children.

The Left very much views the pre-born as their oppressors and fights ferociously to strip them of any human rights. They use their very powerful clout not just to defeat the pre-born politically, but to indiscriminately destroy “their bodies, themselves.”

The Right reviles Planned Parenthood as the oppressor of not only the human beings they destroy in the womb, but as the oppressors of women themselves. How does Planned Parenthood oppress women? According to the Right, PP seduces them into committing an atrocity against their own flesh and blood, all on the altar of profits (PP’s, that is). These seduced and discarded women bear the psychic scars of their actions for the rest of their lives.

Who are the oppressors?

This question may help us to understand President Obama better. The title of his book, “Dreams from My Father,” reveals his late father’s influence. Mr. Obama writes how he wept at his father’s grave, “the pain I felt was my father’s pain. My questions were my brothers’ questions, their struggle, my birthright.”

Who was his father? A man from Kenya who fought colonialism. In other words, he was an anti-colonialist who fought British domination of his country.

Anti-colonialism is the strongest force in Africa, Asia, and South America in the past one-hundred years, according to author and president of The Kings College in New York, Dinesh D’Souza. Mr. D’Souza knows something about this having grown up in India with a father who was also an anti-colonialist.

This anti-colonialism is a root cause of anti-American feelings around the world. Why? Because the philosophy divides the world into two camps: the oppressed and the oppressor. The West is the oppressor. The West, goes the thinking of the anti-colonialist, is rich on the backs of the rest of the world’s poor.

The senior Obama, writing in the East Africa Journal in 1965, said the solution to dismantling the power structure of the oppressor was confiscatory tax rates of up to one-hundred percent.

One-hundred percent.

President Obama embraced America’s equivalent to the anti-colonialists as his mentors, men like the terrorist Bill Ayers and anti-America preacher, Jeremiah Wright. Mr. Obama’s dreams, according to the title of his book, came “from” his father, the anti-colonialist, the fighter of Kenya’s oppressors, the West. His father’s struggle is his “birthright” suggests the president’s book.

Who are the oppressors?

Whether they live in Des Moines or Kenya, the two sides just can’t agree,

The evolution of principle 4

Moral Relativism, Politics, Pro-Life, Truth • Tags: , , , ,

By Tom Quiner

What is a principle?

It is an essential truth upon which other truths are based.

Former U.S. Senator and Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, embraced a principle that human life begins at conception. He was clear and unequivocal:

Al Gore

“It is my deep personal conviction that abortion is wrong. I hope that some day we will see the current outrageously large number of abortions drop sharply.”

In 1987, he wrote to a constituent the following:

“During my 11 years in congress, I have consistently opposed federal funding for abortions. In my opinion, it is wrong to spend federal funds for what is arguably taking of a human life. Let me assure you that I share your belief that innocent human life must be protected, and I am committed to furthering this goal.”

Al Gore’s essential truth was clear: abortion kills a human being.

The late Senator Edward Kennedy was even more eloquent in his defense of human life at its earliest stages:

“While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is

Edward Kennedy

my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized — the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.”

What separates man from the animals? It is the ability to love. Senator Kennedy recognized that man is made in God’s image. What is God? Why God is an eternal exchange of love, says Pope Benedict XVI. Ted Kennedy acknowledged the right to life on the basis that every human being, from her or his conception, has the right to love. After all, God IS love.

Mr. Kennedy’s support for the rights of the preborn was grounded in the longstanding tradition of American liberalism to watch out for the little guy, as powerfully confirmed with these words of compassion:

“I share the confidence of those who feel that America is working to care for its unwanted as well as wanted children, protecting particularly those who cannot protect themselves. I also share the opinions of those who do not accept abortion as a response to our society’s problems — an inadequate welfare system, unsatisfactory job training programs, and insufficient financial support for all its citizens. When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.”

Mssrs. Gore and Kennedy were joined in their commitment to life by other stalwarts of the Democratic Party.

Former Congressman and presidential candidate, Richard Gephardt, was crystal clear in his support of the principle that human life begins at conception in these words from 1984:

Dick Gephardt

“Life is the division of human cells, a process that begins with conception…. The [Supreme Court's abortion] ruling was unjust, and it is incumbent on the Congress to correct the injustice. I have always been supportive of pro-life legislation. I intend to remain steadfast on this issue…. I believe that the life of the unborn should be protected at all costs.”

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, a man of God and former Democratic candidate for president, compared abortion to slavery:

“There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of [a] higher order than the right to life … that was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned.”

Mr. Jackson’s point is compelling. With soaring rhetoric, he extrapolated that unchecked abortion rights could create a “hell right here on earth” …

“What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the

Jesse Jackson

life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth.”

Even former President Bill Clinton, voiced his opposition to abortion in these remarks in 1986 when he was Governor of Arkansas:

Bill Clinton

“I am opposed to abortion and to government funding of abortions. We should not spend state funds on abortions because so many people believe abortion is wrong.”

Mr. Clinton’s remarks were revealing, though. You’ll notice that he wasn’t opposed to abortion based on an essential truth. Rather, he opposed it because enough voters thought it was wrong.

Mr. Clinton revealed the true principle of his party. They weren’t truly concerned with the little guy. They were concerned about votes. They wanted power. They had their finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing, and when it shifted direction, they abandoned their essential truth and embraced another. And so each of the men quoted above not only changed their mind on this subject, they became vocal supporters of unfettered abortion rights.

This wasn’t a little issue like, say, the minimum wage. This was a life and death issue. And one by one, the party of the little guy abandoned their essential principle to win votes from a powerful and growing constituency, liberal, anti life feminists.

For years, Democrats tried to straddle this issue in their Platform by calling for abortions to be “safe, legal, and rare.” But by 2008 and the arrival of Barack Obama, they dropped the charade. Their Platform, which expresses their current essential truths, is clear:

“The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”

Not only do they view abortion as a fundamental right, they have set the stage for taxpayers to fund their newest essential truth, regardless of the religious sensibilities of the electorate.

The Democratic Party now says that the essential truth they so fervently embraced yesterday was wrong, that they have discovered a new essential truth in abortion.

Who knows what they will believe in tomorrow? Anything is possible for a party that believes Truth is fluid.

In the meantime, 54 million Americans are dead because of their abandonment of their principle and hell has come to earth.