The Book of Gomorrah

Oh, boy, this is a good one.

"The "cancer" of sodomy among priests threatens to bring down the wrath of God upon the Church, according to a Catholic saint and doctor who addressed a similar crisis in the priesthood over 900 years ago."

Priest banging each other 900 years ago? You don't say! Hopefully it was all adult and consensual and less like the molestation that's the real scandal today.

This Saint Damien wrote the Book of Gomorrah because of this dreaded scourge and a new translation is out.

"Following Scripture and the Tradition of the Church, Damian sees homosexuality as a “diabolical” corruption of God’s beautiful plan for sexuality between a man and a woman. It is a direct assault against God. Not only must it not be tolerated, but it must be condemned and stamped out, he writes. Homosexuality is a “lethal wound festering in the very body of the holy Church” that must first be recognized as a wound before any treatment and healing can take place."

Um, ok. You'd think if it was such a slap in God's face, he would have made it impossible or something,

“This vice [of same-sex activity] is the death of bodies, the destruction of souls, pollutes the flesh, extinguishes the light of the intellect, expels the Holy Spirit from the temple of the human heart, introduces the diabolical inciter of lust, throws into confusion, and removes the truth completely from the deceived mind.”

Wow. "Extinguishes the light of  the intellect?" I didn't know that taking it in the ass could ERASE YOUR BRAIN.

"“It prepares snares for the one who walks, and for him who falls into the pit, it obstructs the escape. It opens up hell and closes the door of paradise. It makes the citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem into an heir of the Babylonian underworld. From the star of heaven, it produces the kindling of eternal fire. It cuts off a member of the Church and casts him into the voracious conflagration of raging Gehenna.”

May I just say that "heir of the Babylonian underworld" sounds awesome!

“For it is this which violates sobriety, kills modesty, slays chastity. It butchers virginity with the sword of a most filthy contagion. It befouls everything, it stains everything, it pollutes everything, and for itself it permits nothing pure, nothing foreign to filth, nothing clean,” he states."

"Slayer of Chastity" is also an awesome title. Also, dude, if there's that much santorum, clean up beforehand, you know?

" Damian is clear that homosexual activity cuts off the life of God in the soul and makes one “unworthy of receiving in his mouth the heavenly offering of the Eucharist.”

BWHAHAHAHAHA!

 “Arise, arise, I implore you! Wake up O man who sinks in the sleep of wretched pleasure! Revive at last, you who have fallen by the lethal sword before the face of your enemies!…Enter into a constant struggle with the flesh, and always stand armed against the importunate fury of lust. If the flame of wantonness burns in your bones, the recollection of perpetual fire should immediately extinguish it,” he said."

This part is a bit more sad and serious. This is where people are to live a life full of constant struggle and fear because of their natural desires that hurt no one.

The second part of the Liesitenews article is an interview with the translator of the book.

" Damian reminded Pope Leo IX of the traditional law that was to be applied to priests who were caught in any kind of lascivious behavior with minors: they were to be publicly humiliated, their heads shorn of their tonsure, spittle rubbed in their faces, imprisoned in a monastic cell for six months and forced to fast on barley bread while they engaged in penance, and then to be held under the guard of two other monks for the rest of their lives. This very rigorous punishment reflected an understanding of the gravity of such evil that was diminished dramatically in recent decades."

Ok, that reflects a very punishment and vengeance oriented view of dealing with child sex abusers, but I can't say that I blame them.

" The tough penances imposed by the Church for sodomy helped to maintain a sense of the gravity of the deed. Such penances could last for decades. Even clerics who might be readmitted to the clerical state would have to do those penances and would in fact be subject to harsher ones than those imposed on the laity.

Although the Church continues to teach that any sexual act outside of marriage is gravely sinful, its system of punishment for clerics who commit acts of sodomy and child sex abuse was relaxed very substantially following the Second Vatican Council. We reaped the fruit of that laxity in the form of a very large number of tragic sexual abuse cases that could easily have been prevented if the Church’s clerical leadership had adhered to traditional doctrine."

Um, WHAT? Did he just conflate abuse and consensual sex? Yes he did. And he implied that being lax on one correlates with being lax on the other.

" Damian writes that those who are given over to sodomy are provoked to fight “impious wars against God,” and are consumed by guilt and shame. "

Yes, because it's not like being told you're evil and defiled does anything to you...

 "He also anticipates modern critiques of homosexual attraction by noting that no authentic complementarity exists between people of the same sex. “What do you seek in a man, that you are unable to find in yourself—what difference of sexes, what diverse features of members ...?” he asks. "

They want the SAME sex, that's kind of the point.

" He assures those who have fallen into the sin of sodomy that they can rise to even greater spiritual heights than those from which they fell, although he is also clear in his view that those guilty of the worst kinds of sodomy cannot be permitted to return to the clerical state."

Rape would NOT be a "worst kind of sodomy" it's an entirely different thing. Christians just can't grasp consent, can they?

" Damian does not regard the condemnation of sodomy as a mere technical matter of Church doctrine, as many prelates in the Church appear to do today. He sees it as “the worst of sins,” and even evidence of demonic possession. This is in keeping with the Scriptures that regard sodomy as one of the four sins that cries out for the revenge of God. His perspective on this matter is also clearly affirmed by Pope St. Leo IX, who wrote to Damian that “everything that this little book contains has been pleasing to our judgment, being as opposed to diabolical fire as is water.” It is also consistent with the Holy Office’s 1962 decree on priest sex abusers that called sodomy and child sex abuse “the worst crime.”

OMFG STOP CONFLATING CONSENSUAL SEX AND ABUSE!!!!

This is sickening. Why is homosexuality so constantly conflated with abuse? Why is it held with more contempt than virtually anything else? And again, why the erasure of lesbians? Why are the ravings of an old monk held to be important today? How can God be so offended by a thing he made? WTF?

Sexy Girls Chapter 3 and 4

Chapter 3: Is Your Closet Too Hot?

This chapter starts out by attempting to gross out teen girls by telling them that if they dress immodestly, it is not only young men that will lust after them, but creepy old dudes, including the preacher.

"If you walk down the street and see a bench lined with 70-year-old men, they are looking at your breasts and smacking their lips....Just think about the poor pastor who has to stand in front of his congregation and talk about God while trying to avoid seeing your breasts popping out from your baby doll top"

I think it's rather telling that this woman feels like she has to say this. It's quite a bit of privilege to assume that her readers have never been street-harassed before.

Dimarco expands on the "menu"and "advertising" framing more and more. Bare midriffs apparently advertise that you are ready to have your belly touched and you're a "tease" if you're not up for it. Also, any advances or harassment you get is deserved because

"Don't blame them for your PR campaign...they're just hoping to get a chance to purchase or steal a piece of you."

This ideology dehumanizes males as predators and females as prey and objects. The use of "steal" in this line tells us what Dimarco would think of rape victim-blaming.

"We can't get mad at guys for being guys. We can't blame them for following us down the path of objectification when that's the package we've put together."

Holy Hell!!! Does this woman think dudes have ANY responsibility for anything? If what she said was true, we would need to lock up all the men! This is the kind of shit that MRAs put in the mouths of feminists.


After a suitable round of shaming and blaming, Dimarco brings up Ephesians 5:3 and how there shouldn't be "even a hint of sexual immorality" among us. She also opines on how self-esteem is fleeting, but "god-esteem" is the foundation of a healthy self-image.


Chapter 4: The Art of the Body

This chapter is about tattoos and piercings. Interestingly, she is not wholly against them as a matter of biblical principle, but her restrictions on how you shouldn't show your navel piercing or lower back tattoo pretty act as blanket prohibitions. Her menu metaphor is stretched as she likens these piercings and tattoos to the "best-seller" icons on a menu.

Her worst ire is reserved for the blatantly sexual tongue ring, though she stops short of saying oral sex, using the euphemism of guys imagining how it will feel "on their body."

Girls who get tongue rings:

"Don't expect your romantic dreams to come true...to make yourself a sexual object is to kill a part of you that was created expressly for relationship."

Yes, tongue rings will make you into a spinster or some sort of loveless robot!

"God didn't create you to be some boy's toy. He didn't create you to meet the sexual needs of random guys...he made you for one man and one man only, and that man won't be too happy to know that you shared yourself with other men just to get the feeling of being loved." 

How dare you act as a sex object for multiple men, you're a sex object for  just for ONE MAN! Because that's so much better. And again, complete erasure of female sexual desire, because women trade sex for love...

The Tragedy of NFP

In case you didn't know, Actual Catholic Doctrine is that no contraception can be used by anyone at any time. Even if you will die from another pregnancy, the only measures you can take are complete abstinence or scheduling sex around your cycle using Natural Family Planning (this is not the same as the rhythm method, which I will expand on at some later time). Obviously, many people fail at NFP, since it has to block off large portions of your cycle to be effective.

In trolling around on the internet, I came across this heartbreaking comment in a Catholic forum.

"I've had 3 kids in the 4 years I've been married. I've never been able to relax and enjoy anything in my marriage. Not once. 

It's too much. I could get pregnant at anytime..except when I'm already pregnant.

I stopped being able to have sex whenever the day I got married.

I'm literally in am impossible situation. Completely impossible.

It's awful. I hate it. I love my husband very much...but not enough to open myself up to another pregnancy.

I hate being pregnant more then anything. The constant physical pain and feeling sick followed by months and months of psychological issues is too much.

Sex leads to pregnancy. Since I'm completely terrified of pregnancy...I'm all set with it.

Maybe Marquette will work. Maybe it will give me a clearer picture and allow me more then 4 or 5 green light days a month.

I don't know. Right now I'm way too terrified to find out."

What does the Catholic Church have to say to this woman? SUFFER. That's basically all it can say. Don't have sex with your husband, unless you're willing to have more and more babies. A piece of latex, a little pill or implant could have given her these 4 years to grow and learn with her husband, they could have planned 1 or 2 babies in these years. But no, because of "natural law" this woman has to suffer this. The reference to Marquette in her comment is a type of NFP using an actual hormone monitor, which has proven worthwhile in more difficult cases, but still, why? We have safe and effective 99.99% contraception she can use.

God is a lie. The naturalistic fallacy the church teaches about contraception is a lie. She and others like her suffer and even die for a lie. It's a tragedy.

Yoga pants are not a reward

After a good article on yoga pants at work, some snooty person wrote in to say this:

"AS A 21-year-old about to take off into the workforce, I have to disagree that yoga pants should be considered business casual (Good Life, Oct. 31). Yes, they have become a leisure staple in just about every woman’s wardrobe, but I do believe that they should be left out of the workplace.

As years go by, our society has lost the art of dressing up. We have become so dependent on leisure wear that even the most fashionable outfits include yoga pants. I cannot say I do not wear yoga pants, since I am still in college, but I would not wear them to work with a formal top and a blazer."

Yes, I am DEPENDENT on clothes to actually fit me, which means soft pants. That's so arbitrary that soft pants aren't professional, but ill-fitting hard ones are?

There should be a line between business and casual wear. Yoga pants should be a reward after work, not a uniform."

No, FIT and COMFORT are basic, not a reward.

10 "reasons" women should be anti-choice according to Lie Action News

I sort of love going through anti-choice listicles like this one. I especially love it when they purport to  be feminist.

1. "Abortion is an insult to all women.

Telling a woman she needs to have an abortion is belittling. Anyone who says a woman is too young or that she can’t handle going to school and having a child, or working and having a child is telling her that she isn’t good enough, smart enough, or strong enough."

You know who I think is qualified to determine if they're "strong enough" to go through pregnancy and parenting? The person who is pregnant!!! Pro-choicers aren't telling women they can't or shouldn't do these things if they want to. It is anti-choicers who are minimizing pregnancy and parenting instead of treating them like serious choices. Society can do a lot to make pregnancy and parenting less burdensome, but not all of the issues of those things are societally imposed, some are just inherent. There is nothing wrong with deciding that you aren't up to the task of dealing with it, and it does not mean you are weak. They think you should be FORCED to go through it, and oh, well, you'll just buck up. It's just what women are for, they do it every day, and you should be able to handle it.

 "Pregnancy is empowering, abortion is not.

Carrying your baby and giving birth while you’re going to school or working at your job or furthering your career is a feminist move. It’s also empowering to succeed when people are telling you that you can’t. You can love and care for your baby while you pursue other goals. Your children don’t have to suffer or die in order for you to succeed in other areas of your life."

How is this not just a restatement of 1? Being FORCED is not empowering. Succeeding through hardship is admirable, but there is no virtue in imposing unnecessary hardship and gaslighting people that they just need to be "strong".

"3. Women are not sexual objects.

This is one of the main issues true feminism works to overcome. But abortion allows more women than ever to be treated as sex objects.

“Abortion is misogyny in action. Nothing helps men use women, and helps women (sadly) participate in their own objectification, like abortion,” says Hatten. “It’s men who treat women as objects – be they rapists, pedophiles, or just run-of-the-mill douchebags – who benefit the most from abortion. Nothing allows a woman to be used for sex and thrown away like convincing her that subjugating her fertility to someone else’s desires is liberating. That killing her own child is liberating. Women don’t get abortions because they are liberated, but because they are the opposite of liberated: coerced, trapped, ill-equipped, frightened, ashamed.”

COMPLETE ERASURE OF WOMEN'S SEXUAL DESIRE!!!!

" 4. The first feminists were pro-life.

Take a look at the first days of the feminist movement, and you’ll see that true feminists are anti-abortion. From Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the first feminists wanted women to be treated equally, while still remaining who they are."

First of all, I don't care. I'm not bound to their opinions.

Second, I'm not sure that their opinions would extend to modern abortion rights. Abortion was far more dangerous at that time and routinely used to control women by men. They also may have simply lied in public statements in order to seem more respectable. Who knows?

5. "Abortion is an act of discrimination.

Women have spent decades fighting against inequality and in many ways we still are. So why would we allow the same discrimination to happen to our children? Preborn humans are equal to all other humans, whether they are male, female, completely healthy, or diagnosed prenatally with a health condition. The pro-life movement doesn’t say that fetuses are more important than women. It says that fetuses are people, too, and that since they are human beings, they deserve to be treated as such. To be pro-life means to fight for the rights of all of our children like the women of yesterday fought for equal rights for us."

If you FORCE women to carry fetuses, you are giving fetuses MORE rights than pregnant people or anyone else. It is a zero-sum game.  Apparently equal rights means commandeering people's bodies.

"6. Women are independent, and we worked hard to gain that independence.

Planned Parenthood wants women to believe that we can’t be successful without them and their abortion services. But women are far more capable than Planned Parenthood wants us to believe."

 Lie Action is now just throwing buzzwords around. Women can be independent as hell, they still require actual medical care.

" Abortion is linked to mental illness.

Countless women suffer from post-abortion syndrome after they’ve had an abortion. It’s a form of post-traumatic stress disorder and includes symptoms such as feelings of guilt, anxiety, depression, and even thoughts of suicide."

ACOG and the APA say that there is no post-abortion syndrome or major effects of abortion on mental health. Poor mental health after abortion is either associated with other issues going on in the patients' lives or with abortion stigma.

"8. Pro-life organizations provide true support.

"Did you know that Planned Parenthood offers no support if you choose life for your baby? They don’t have any programs in place to help women who are in tough circumstances but who want to choose life. That’s because Planned Parenthood isn’t in the business of giving things away for free – they made a profit of $127 million in 2014 alone. If you have your baby, they don’t stand to make a profit since they do not deliver babies and they do not provide adoption services.

Pro-life centers, on the other hand, not only help women get a plan in action, they reward them for working hard, for taking parenting classes, and for bettering themselves. Some even help them get out of debt, finish earning their degrees, and start new lives away from the troubles that had consumed them previously, so that they can move forward as independent, self-sufficient women who aren’t dependent on anyone else ever again."

Planned Parenthood is a NON-PROFIT organization. It is true that they don't do a lot of prenatal care, but that would be because prenatal care is performed by all the other OBs in the area. They also refer for adoption.

As for Crisis Pregnancy Centers, they usually don't provide medical services, have been caught lying to women, and their help is usually limited to some baby items and help signing up for WIC and other programs.

"9. Abortion is linked to breast cancer.

The American College of Pediatricians recently spoke out about a 2013 study linking breast cancer to abortions. The more abortions a woman has, the greater her risk of developing breast cancer."

ACAP is a sham conservative organization. ACOG says there is no link.

"10. Abortion is dangerous to women’s health.

Women who walk into an abortion clinic have no idea what the true risks are because, just as with the breast cancer risk, no one tells them. Since abortion became legal, hundreds of women have been killed by the procedure."

ACOG says abortion is very safe.

"Women don’t need abortion. Women in abusive relationships, women in college, women in the workforce, women struggling financially, women who have been raped, women who are facing a health crisis – abortion is not the answer for any of them"

Abortion is the answer to not wanting to be pregnant.

" It’s a way to cover up the real issues that women and couples face and it’s a way for businesses like Planned Parenthood to make money off of those struggles. Instead of providing practical resources to help new mothers, abortion advocates would rather abort the baby, which opens the door to an entirely new group of troubles for women and does nothing to improve her previous struggles."

Abortion is the answer to not wanting to be pregnant. That is all it does. It is not a panacea.

" “We need to liberate ourselves from the very idea that we need abortion,” said Hatten. “It’s difficult for me to understand how people who call themselves feminists actually believe that without taking our little pink pill from our condescending little pink compact and having our babies vacuumed out of us, we can’t be truly free.”

So we're "truly free" if we can't control our wombs, the very thing that is the reason we've been historically oppressed?

No, Women and everyone should be PRO-CHOICE.

Overprotective dads and Patriarchy

A certain set of pictures has gone viral showing a father posing with his daughter's date, with overtones (playful as they might be) of the overprotective father trope. Feminists have then commented on this issue, and Patrice Lewis of WND has decided to lambaste them.

The very idea of a father threatening his daughter's date for consensual sex is a manifestation of patriarchy. It denies the sexuality and agency of the daughter, and unfairly characterizes boys as predatory. It reinforces these things, even done playfully.

Patrice says:

"You see, only a feminist would view this scenario with suspicion and disgust. How dare a father protect his minor daughter living under his roof? How dare he step in to “police” his daughter’s “private life”?"...

"Criminey, this borders on sick. What Ms. Williams carelessly ignores in her screed is the operative word GIRL. This is a minor child. This is a minor child raised and supported entirely by her parents. At this point, she doesn’t really have a “private” life. Minor children who are still entirely dependent on their parents are not autonomous, nor are they capable of full adult understanding of taking “ownership of their choices and actions.”

Yes, only a feminist would see that his daughter has agency and doesn't need to be "protected" from a boy who we have no evidence is going to assault her. And minors have sexuality, they do not belong to their parents. You don't get to threaten their partners like they don't have a hand in it. And if you think your child is being abused or assaulted, take action on that.

"You see, for liberal permissive parents like Williams, when it comes to “empowering” girls, it always comes down to one thing: SEX. Girls are encouraged to view sex through the exact same lens as boys."

Why shouldn't girls view sex like boys? And I see far more liberal parents pushing for empowerment through education. It seems like conservative parents push for disempowerment through having no sexual autonomy.

"Let’s face it: Boys are “inherently predatory.” It’s the nature of testosterone, which is why it takes a man to teach a boy to control himself and not be predatory toward girls and women."

WOW! That's more "misandrist" a statement than I've ever seen from any mainstream feminist. 

"As much as feminists try to deny it, girls pin a great deal more emotion on sex than boys do. Sex is biologically linked (through the hormone oxytocin) with nurturing, emotion, love."

Oxytocin is present in males and females at orgasm. There is no evidence that girls are more emotional than boys outside of our social context.

"You see, I have this little pet theory. I have a theory that girls who learn self-control do better in life than girls who don’t."

Having sex does not meaningfully correspond to "self-control." Sex does not automatically ruin your life.

"I theorize that girls who learn to value their bodies do better than girls who slut around with an endless succession of random hookups and have three abortions by the time they reach their majority. I theorize that the best way to “empower” girls is to cultivate what’s between their ears, not what’s between their legs."

Having sex does not devalue your body. Slinging slurs doesn't help your case. Multiple abortions are rare, and would be a sign of many other issues in a teen's life. Sex and education are not mutually exclusive.

"But Ms. Williams apparently finds ANY degree of female sexual self-control weird, freaky and unrealistic. The sad thing is, she has a 15-year-old daughter."

I thought we were talking about threatening boys to not have sex with your daughter. What would that have to do with her self-control? 

"Mr. Schock’s fatherly protection of his daughter is, in the eyes of Ms. Williams, a bad thing. It’s understandable feminists would object to paternal concern. After all, if more dads behaved like Mr. Schock, their daughters would be far less likely to grow up to be feminists.

And we can’t have that, can we?"

I seriously doubt that being treated like a disempowered object correlates much with feminism. Quite a few feminists come out of extremely patriarchal contexts. 

So, all Ms.Lewis has is slut-shaming to sling at people who think girls should be autonomous. Typical.

Sin Wears Short Shorts

Oh, I love Antichoice365, it is a damn gold mine...

"It has gotten to the point where, in times of warm weather, the women who wear short shorts in public outnumber those who don’t. Does anyone else feel this same way?"

First of all, I don't know why you're writing this in late October, where it's not even shorts weather in Texas anymore, much less most other areas. And no, I see far more pants and skirts than shorts of any kind most of the time. And how short is short? Is he cool with culottes?

"In charity, we must assume those who wear short shorts, bikinis, spaghetti straps, and other immodest clothing were never told not to. If that’s the case for you, after reading this you can no longer claim ignorance."

He calls it charity, I call it infantilizing and giving women no agency to assume that we haven't heard these bullshit lectures before. I do not claim ignorance, I claim agency.

" The problem with wearing immodest clothing lies in the beauty of the female body. It is so attractive that it must be kept veiled, lest it lead men to sin."

That's a very...Muslim...viewpoint, don't you think?

" As we shall see, each woman bears a responsibility toward men to help them not to fall into sin"

Sin isn't real. NO, we have no responsibility for you.

" This is not to say women bear the entire responsibility. Men still ought to divert their eyes. But, still, it would be better that men not be provided n opportunities to lust, can’t we all agree?"

There's nothing wrong with lust. Thoughtcrime is bullshit.


Now he'll give some quotes from some saints:

" You have prepared the abominable cup, you have given the death dealing drink, and you are more criminal than are those who poison the body; you murder not the body but the soul."

Dude sounds seriously messed up and misogynistic. Women are worse than murderers!

" “More souls go to hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.”

Sex is basically the ONLY sin in all religion.

"One of the seers, Jacinta tells us Our Lady of Fatima also told her this: “Unless My message is heeded, Satan will introduce certain fashions that will offend My Son very much.”

Pretty sure I don't care if my outfits offend Jesus. I'm also sure that Satan is a great stylist.

 “Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5.28). That is how seriously the Son of God takes this matter."

That is thoughtcrime and is one of the most abominable and damaging things in all Christianity. Those who praise Jesus can fucking stop just based on this one verse.

Where does this end? Men can lust after a burka-clad figure, it doesn't matter. They blame the existence of women for the damnation of their very souls.