Listened to Al Kresta interviewing Dr. Kenneth Howell and his attorney Jordan Lawrence from the Alliance Defense Fund today. One of the things Mr. Howell said was that it was explained to him he was being fired because he violated the policy on inclusiveness. As the old joke goes you have to be really well educated to be able to say something that stupid. So I guess inclusiveness means there can only be one opinion about the morality of homosexual acts. So inclusive has now had the same turnaround as the word bad experienced where being bad could mean really good and cool. To be inclusive now means to be exclusive of an opinion. The school to support its policy on inclusiveness obviously had to fire and exude Dr. Howell. It all makes sense in academic land where everyday is opposite day.

So I urge parents to be inclusive by excluding the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to exclude their children from going there.

“People want to live in democracy, under the rule of law, with a real participation of all citizens, in a climate of justice and freedom,” the bishops said. “Therefore, the imposition of a socialist state inspired by the Cuban communist regime that has been enforced through laws and facts that ignore the popular will and the Constitution is absolutely unacceptable.”

This is part of a statement from the Venezuela’s Bishop’s Conference in regards to Hugo Chavez. Though I think the USCCB could release a similar statement and I am not talking about in regards to Hugo Chavez.

Via Catholic Culture

In a parody post once on women’s ordination I had quipped how unfair it was that men can’t become nuns.  Well there goes another avenue of parody as it become reality.

I thought this was a spoof at first, but it seems not: a General Synod working party is exploring whether the Church of England’s male bishops can join religious orders previously reserved for women. In other words, become Anglican nuns.

As usual, the Synod’s topsy-turvy ecclesiology is a mystery to me, but I gather that the idea is that bishops would be entitled to take vows in orders of nuns so that they can provide special episcopal oversight to the sisters. It’s a typically ingenious Anglican response to the forthcoming ordination of women bishops. “There will be jokes about bishops in wimples, but having bishop-nuns would introduce a degree of mutual cooperation that could make the introduction of women bishops much smoother,” says my Synod source.

And just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, I learn the identity of the bishop who is rumoured to have volunteered to take nun’s vows: the Rt Rev Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon, often spoken of as a successor to Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury. Says my informant: “Nick is a big fan of Sister Act, and we knew he was keen to ‘get ahead,’ as it were, so he was the obvious person to ask. And apparently he was delighted, because he’s all about challenging gender stereotypes.”

Tip to Damian Thompson

When you drop Apostolic Tradition, Scripture, and frankly plain common sense you get the Anglican Communion.  The vote for women bishop’s was inevitable after women priests since once you theological swallowed the first you might as well drink in the rest of the camel.  And of course the term Anglican Communion gets even more oxymoronic every day.

I followed with interest last week about the story of Dr. Ken Howell firing from the University of Illinois for a discussion on Natural Law and how it relates to homosexual acts. When Thomas Peters published an email address for the University, I like many others wrote them about this. Of course the punchline to this story was that he was teaching a course on “Catholicism 101.”

The university took this action after a student who was not in this class wrote in regards to student who had attended the class and called this teaching “Hate Speech.”  Unfortunately this episode it not at all surprising and just more evidence about how Political Correctness will trump so-called tolerance.  Just another attempt to closet Catholics and to try to force them to not say anything that disagrees  with secular dogmas. Or maybe it is just a cowardly action taken by bureaucrats afraid to stand up against homosexual activism.  Academic freedom so espoused by the academic system is use to defend almost anything I guess except having students think about how Natural Law Theory applies in relation to homosexual acts.

Then of course there can be no debate about this without the terms “homophobia” and “hate crime” launched repeatedly at you.  That they use these terms without even attempting to determine your motives shows both phobia and hate – you are simply condemned or fired as in Dr. Howell’s case.  Thomas Peters also posted the schools pledge to be “inclusive”:

[Inclusive Illinois] encourages the exploration of how perceptions, ideas, and experiences influence conduct and behavior. The University’s goal is to heighten awareness and engagement about issues of identity andimportance of examining and respecting differences based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, age, physical ability,religion, as well as the multiple and intersecting ways we see ourselves and others. [Unless you’re Catholic.]

American Papist further reports that the Alliance Defense Fund is now representing Dr. Howell and are seeking to have him rehired.

You can also help out by emailing the school.

Good to see that NASA Administrator Charles Bolder has his priorities in order.

Bolden created a firestorm after telling Al Jazeera last month that President Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science, expand international relationships and “perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering.”

When you have to go back at least 600 years and primarily to the period between the 7th and 13th centuries for self-esteem you know something is wrong. Yeah self-esteem outreach will really work to overcome the fact that a country like Israel releases more patents in a year than all of the Arab world. Though the Islamic world could return to their heyday. All they have to do is copy the past and conquer countries with more scientific advancement and then take advantage of that until Islamic philosophy causes the same stagnation as before. Not surprising that some of the great figures of that so-called golden age were not exactly what you would call great Muslims believers. The late Fr. Jaki in his great book “Science & Creation, from eternal cycles to an oscillating universe.” goes into depth why science did not develop outside of Western Civilization and included a chapter on why Islamic philosophy itself prevented the scientific method from developing in Islamic culture. Pope Benedict’s famous Regensburg address included one of these reasons is the belief that God’s absolute transcendence understood in an extreme way leads to an idea that the laws of science could change because God is not bound to them.

But then again look how well concentrating on self-esteem worked out in our public educational system – oh wait. Yeah reminding the Arab world that they haven’t contributed hardly anything to science in 600 years is a great idea and one I am sure they will take well.

In other news:

Suspected Islamic militants have chopped off a Catholic professor’s hand in Kerala for allegedly insulting Islam in an exam question paper.

Professor T.J. Joseph was attacked on July 4 in while returning home from Sunday mass with his mother and sister, a Catholic nun.

Kochi inspector-general of police, B. Sandya, told ucanews.com that an Islamic extremist group is suspected of the crime and have arrested four people and impounded a vehicle. [Via Jay Anderson]

We need to get those suspected Islamic Terrorists some self-esteem stat!

Joseph was arrested in April last after the question paper set by him for the B Com II year internal exams sparked protests by Muslim outfits, which claimed it had hurt their religious sentiments. He was later suspended from the college and was out on bail when attacked.