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Katie van Schaijik

Joined: Aug. 12, 2011

Bio:

Restless, melancholic soul of Irish descent. Born and raised in Connecticut, married to a Dutchman, mother of two daughters and three sons. I love books, conversation, friendship, delicious food, gardens, long walks and beautiful places. I am easily ensnared in politics and web-browsing. I crave silence, sweetness, poetry and peace. I am always wanting to write and ever-failing to write. All my hope is in God’s power and will to save; all my trust is in His promise.


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Confusions of the day in the SSM debate

May. 23 at 9:00am | Comments: 0

NRO has an article by Kevin Williamson today that exhibits some basic confusions in the SSM debate. He begins with a bit of Eisenhower lore. One of my favorite political fables concerns Dwight D. Eisenhower and his tenure as president of Columbia University. The campus was undergoing an expansion, and Ike was presented with two very different plans for laying out new sidewalks. The architects were irreconcilable, each insisting that his plan was the only way to go and that...

To speak or not to speak: a dilemma in the debate surrounding SSM

May. 21 at 3:12pm | Comments: 17 | Most recent comment: May. 22 at 3:43pm

President Obama's announced support of "same-sex marriage" (SSM) has put the issue in the center of public attention.  Articles and blogs on the subject are proliferating all over the internet.  It's become the stuff of casual conversation even among home-schooled teenagers.  It is practially impossible to keep young children from hearing about homosexuality and asking questions. This raises a serious dilemma for me, and all of us.  On the one hand,  the SSM lobby relies...

Cardinal George sounds a strong warning

May. 15 at 9:21am | Comments: 1 | Most recent comment: May. 15 at 10:57am

An online friend pointed me to a  sobering article in Business Insider on Cardinal George's warnings about the HHS mandate. George wrote in his column that the "The State was making itself into a Church" and said he longed for "the separation of Church and State" that Americans enjoyed recently, "when the government couldn’t tell us which of our ministries are Catholic and which not." George compared the Obama's vision of "religious liberty" of...

About being under the circumstances

May. 14 at 1:43pm | Comments: 2 | Most recent comment: May. 14 at 4:09pm

One of the lines that stays with me from the high-flying years of the charismatic renewal in the '80s came from a homily or a talk by (I think) Fr. Michael Scanlon at FUS.  He recounted the day when a fellow-traveler in the renewal asked him, "How are you doing, Father?" He replied, "Pretty well, under the circumstances."  Then came the robust retort: "What are you doing under the circumstances?" It was a great laugh...

Bumping up against a bogus notion of charity

May. 9 at 1:36pm | Comments: 0

The other day a friend sent me a message asking if I'd be interested in reviewing a book she's just published.  I told her I was scared I would hate it, which would put me in a dilemma.  I'm a critic by nature and vocation.  I can't dissemble.  And I'm afraid my honest impressions would discourage her in her work.   She laughed and assured me that she finds private criticism helpful.  Then she sent...


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Re: To speak or not to speak: a dilemma in the debate surrounding SSM

May. 22 at 10:48am | see this comment in context

Here's more from the same article:

Well-designed research studies, published in leading peer-reviewed journals, 15 have shown a number of psychiatric disorders to be far more prevalent in teenagers and adults with SSA: major depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts and sexual abuse victimization.

The SSM lobby claims that this is because people with SSA are rejected and shamed by society.  But,

Many of these studies were done in countries where homosexuality is widely accepted, such as in New Zealand and the Netherlands.

I think it's important to show (what I'm sure is true) that it is the nature of the acts that causes and/or greatly exacerbates human misery and anguish.

As Kant said, persons are ends-in-themselves, never to be used as a mere means.  Those acts, in their nature and structure, reduce persons to "mere means," regardless of subjective intention.

Re: To speak or not to speak: a dilemma in the debate surrounding SSM

May. 22 at 10:30am | see this comment in context

A friend who counsels teens with addictions has alerted me to an article in Homiletic and Pastoral Review that deepens my sense that the left is defrauding the youth with dangerous lies. [emphasis added]

Youth have the right to be provided with the accurate medical and psychological knowledge about homosexuality by pediatricians, mental health professionals, school counselors, educators and parents.  Presently, well-organized attempts are under way to attempt to block youth from being given both the appropriate scientific knowledge, and informed consent about: same-sex attractions, gender identity disorder, transsexual issues, the psychological needs of a child for father and mother, and marriage.

One example of this activity is the American Psychological Association publication, Just the Facts 1, that was sent to all the school superintendents in this country two years ago. It was sponsored by a coalition of 13 national organizations, including the American School Counselors Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Just the Facts advised schools that all forms of sexual attraction are normal, warned against psychotherapy for homosexual attractions, encouraged on-campus gay clubs, and cautioned schools about the scientific literature—such as studies by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH)—that presents heterosexuality as normative.

Re: To speak or not to speak: a dilemma in the debate surrounding SSM

May. 22 at 10:08am | see this comment in context

 

Scott Johnston, May. 21 at 10:07pm

Katie, when it comes to disucussing this issue politically and especially what our laws should be, it seems to me (and I've heard Michael Medved speak of it this way) that the main question is, what sort of relationship should the state give special sanction?

Yes, I agree.  But, having participated in many such discussions, I can only say that they often reach an impasse, where I feel pressed to spell out more explicitly why there is no comparison between a conjugal union and a SS liaison.  I find myself up against the assertion that since marriage is about companionship and commitment, there's no reason why SS couples can't participate it in.  IVF and adoption allow them to be parents, many of them are good parents, etc.

What I think needs showing is that it is a grave injustice, even a kind of insanity, to declare in law that these two kinds of relationships are moral and social equivalents.  The conjugal union is something beautiful and good, integrated and integrating, healthy and life-giving.  

Homosexual acts are not.  

Re: To speak or not to speak: a dilemma in the debate surrounding SSM

May. 22 at 10:01am | see this comment in context

 

Rhett Segall, May. 21 at 6:40pm

Another issue in the same genre as "such things shouldn't even be mentioned among you" is oral sex among the young. Again, is passive resistance the best educative approach? 

I don't use the term "passive", but "non-violent".  In the analogy, proponents of non-violent resistance are not at all passive.  They are heroically staunch, absorbing blows with courage and self-sacrifice, in order to expose the evil for what it is, and induce shame in the evil-doers and their enablers.

My concern is that many "normal people" (by which I mean people whose sexual desires are not perverse) do not conceive what homosexual acts entail, so they tend to be naive, which leaves a clear field for the shameless to occupy.

On the other hand, to speak or write about the truth of those acts is to participate in the debauching.  At least, that's what I fear.

Re: The Outsourced Self?

May. 21 at 10:17pm | see this comment in context

You remind me of a Charles Williams novel, Descent into Hell (I think it was.)  One of the characters is attracted to a woman at his workplace, but she's aloof.  So he creates through his imagination a woman the same in every respect, except that she conforms herself completely to his will.

The reader sees him descending into a self-enclosed hell.

I remember reading it, and thinking of Scheler's saying that "reality is resistance."  

But your post made me think more of the small outsourcings-of-self we might fall into.  How often do we wish others could decide a difficult moral question for us?  Don't we even do this often in our praying?  "Lord, just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it," when I think, very often, what he wants is exactly for us to taking responsibility for ourselves.

The students who often went to Fr. Wojtyla for help and adives would help them mostly by listening and asking them questions, and then reminding them, "You must decide."

In a way, it's how we become real and substatials moral beings.  Selves.

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