New Zealand Conservative

There's a bit of a battle brewing in Ontario, Canada, over what Catholic schools should and shouldn't be forced to do in contravention of authentic Catholicism. The Ontario government’s decision forcing Catholic schools to host anti-bullying groups called “gay-straight alliances” has brought to the fore a deep divide between Roman Catholic teaching and secular society, even calling into question whether public funding for Catholic schools should continue. At the root of the issue is a polarizing debate about whether public money should be used to support a religious education system that says homosexuals deserve love and respect but that gay sex is a mortal sin. “The question as to whether Catholic schools should be required to support gay-straight alliances has been satisfactorily answered,” Justin Trottier, spokesman for the Toronto-based Centre for Inquiry, an atheist group, said. “The real question now is whether Ontario should be required to continue to support Catho...

Hope you're not thinking of setting up a harem, there, Whale. In his post Family First opposes big families , Whale Oil conflates big families with those with multiple wives. He says, "I mean seriously if a bloke wants two mothers in law then all power to him." Right, it's all about the bloke.

I'm going to a school meeting tonight on sex education Positive Puberty for Year 7 & 8 pupils. I'm not particularly impressed with the list of items I've been given that they will be studying, and even less impressed that this list was read out to the class before I was even given the option to withdraw my child. The list included, "Coping with wet dreams, periods and erections." Apparently the bishops have approved the content of the programme. So this post is in effect my notes for tonight. SEX EDUCATION AND CATHOLIC SCHOOLS ~ EWTN chapter XI of On Teaching the Faith, by Thomas P. Dolan, 1984. Bishops who countenance sex education in schools quite probably tell themselves that if the instruction is given under Catholic auspices, it will be given "the right way." But there is no right way to give explicit sex instruction to children who are mentally and emotionally unready for it. There is no right way to give information in groups th...

Before Karol Wojtyla was elected as Pope John Paul II in 1978, the Communist authorities in Poland considered him dangerous enough to keep under constant surveillance. “During the communist era, authorities saw all priests as enemies of the people and the party – Lasota explains – and they were placed under surveillance by the political police, the “Bezpieca”. Wojtyla had been under surveillance since 1946. This intensified in 1958 when he became Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow. As an archbishop in the ‘60s, he was considered a dangerous political opponent . This is why he was ferociously monitored in everything he did.” The Communists wanted to know everything about him, even down to what underwear he wore and who washed it! One of the documents presented in the book is particularly striking. It contains 98 questions which spies who kept an eye on the future pope had to answer: attention was paid to every minute detail of his daily life. From the time at which he got up in the morni...

Asterix is a fearless tree climber. See her balancing on very thin branches at roof level on the silk tree in our front yard. Sometimes she will jump onto the roof from those branches, but not this time. Occasionally, a branch breaks and she has to hold on almost like a gymnast and swing herself back up again. Again, not this time.

Dawn Stefanowicz was only able to write the book of her life, Out from Under, what it was like being raised by a gay father and a passive mother, once her parents were dead. It's pretty intense reading, but very worthwhile for those who want to know more about gay parenting now that gay adoption and gay marriage is in the media again. See also a previous post on this book .

Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxbusiness.com">video.foxbusiness.com</a> Seen at : Fr. Sirico (about new book) interviewed by Stuart Varney – fun! ~ WDTPRS

I have a child in intermediate this year. It's his first year back to school after a number of years home-schooling. One of the highlights for him has been getting on the bus once a week to travel to the local college for his technology class. Back in the day for me, I remember it being called "Manual". It was a special class where we learned sewing, woodwork and cooking. I personally found it the most valuable for the sewing lessons which continued on into college level to form four. I was so proficient at sewing that I was able to put together quite a few fashionable items of clothing that my family would never had been able to afford to buy me. I don't know how every one thinks about their "Manual" days, but I feel like they were sort of rite of passage. And now it looks like this is going to be their final year with the funding changes for education that have recently been announced. Hundreds of technology teachers nationwide could lose thei...

A common theme seems to be that some boys who haven't had their masculinity positively affirmed as they were growing up sexualise what is missing in them and seek it in others. Before, I was powerfully attracted to men sexually, but I didn't like them as people. I craved their bodies and their attention, but I didn't like men in a fraternal, platonic way. I didn't want to be around them. I didn't feel like one of them. In therapy, I uncovered abuse issues and dealt with the lingering impact of peer abuse and bullying in my past, as well as my disaffection from my father and other men. I discovered how those things had put me on a track of isolation and alienation from other males and from my own masculinity that I had been unconsciously trying to heal through homosexual lust, without ever realizing that's what was driving those feelings. I had this lust-hate relationship with men where I wanted them sexually but I had vengeful feelings for them at the same ...

New movie out soon, based on a true story of the Cristeros war in Mexico 1926, when the Govt tried to outlaw Catholicism and other religions. The blurb at Brietbart says of the movie - The film, “For Greater Glory,” hits theaters on June 1 and tells a little known chapter of Mexican history — the Cristero War of 1926 to 1929, which pitted an army of devout Catholic rebels (led in the movie by Andy Garcia) against the government of Mexican President Plutarco Calles (played by Ruben Blades). For Catholics enraged by the Obama administration’s proposed contraception mandate, the film about the Mexican church’s fight in 1920s is a heartening and timely cinematic boost in the American church’s battle to preserve “religious freedom” in 2012. For other Catholics and non-Catholics, the film is, more simply, action, suspense and a good cast. Besides Garcia and Blades, there’s “Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria and the legendary actor Peter O’Toole.  For a fuller account o...

Just goes to show the attraction that real Catholicism has. In our forthcoming book, Beyond the Catholic Culture Wars (Encounter Books), my coauthor and I survey a number of dioceses across the United States that are experiencing an upward trend in their vocation rates. The two common characteristics of these dioceses is that they are led by bishops that are committed to a bold and courageous defense of orthodox Catholicism, and they are making vocations a number one priority within their dioceses through building strong vocation teams that are actively recruiting new priests. If your diocese is not getting vocations, then you're in a place (like me) where only watered down quasi Catholicism is taught. Related link: Traditional Catholicism winning in New York

I walked into Whitcoulls bookstore today, and saw that they have a big cardboard stand featuring the books of one E.L James - a female author. For those that don't know, she has authored a number of very successful novels, beginning with Fifty Shades Of Grey . It's basically "porn for mommies" (as one reviewer described it) and has taken off like wildfire. It is the number one bestselling book on Amazon at the moment, and the two sequels are numbers #2 and #3. I know that some women have read Mills & Boon and other such books for titillation, but this one seems overtly pornographic with supposed explicit scenes and heavy doses of bondage and sadomasochism. I had to wonder if a book like this would have been popular in a mainstream bookstore only a few years ago? Or is it only popular because it is said to have been inspired by the Twilight series? All I can say is that we as a society seem to be getting further and further away from genuine love and it is lu...

Forget sexually transmitted diseases, the greatest danger to women today is not having sex before marriage, because if you don't, you're obviously uptight and therefore will be unable to have sex when you are married. Just have a look at this article, complete with a picture of a bride showing her legs, but she has no torso or head, implying you know what: The danger of saving yourself until marriage . Sheesh, just as bad as a previous article encouraging married people to flirt to rekindle their desire for each other, "so that each spouse becomes aware of their own, and their partner's, power to attract". I wonder how well that works for encouraging fidelity? UPDATE: Just found a blog post by Simcha Fisher who is horrified by a type of abstinence only education that she came across. She quotes the following: [G]irls were given two glasses of water and told to chew up food and spit it into one of them. Their teacher -- a guest speaker from an anti-ab...

Carrying on from my previous post today , here is how wives respond to their husband's pornography use. It is adultery and women typically will suffer from post-traumatic stress after discovering their husband's habit. It's a big deal.

As much as I am disappointed in National, listening to what Labour would do were they in charge made my skin crawl just now. A capital gains tax and compulsory super would save us all, apparently. Meanwhile, National taking tax from kids' after-school jobs is a bit of an own goal. Doesn't make them look good, even though I'm pretty sure the rationale was to clamp down on parents channelling money through their tax-free children. Just because a loophole exists, doesn't mean you have to take it. A great example of the greedy ruining it for everyone. For more on the budget, read this: Budget 2012: English's nickel and dime Budget

View Part 2 of the interview. The General Debate on Kiwiblog a couple of days ago inspired me to point out to one of the commenters who mentioned wanting porn, that the use of porn would lead to impotence . Thus started a bit of a debate, which mostly degenerated into how crazy I was for daring to suggest that porn use in marriage was cheating on one's wife. So, for Dime, the one to whom I first replied, I have found the above YouTube video of an interview with the founder of The Porn Effect , Matthew Fradd. Matt talks about when he first came across porn accidentally at age 8; how by age 11 he and a friend were stealing magazines from the local newstand; how his father when he found his boy's porn stash just told him to not let his mother know; how at age 12 - 13, his friend's mother would hire a porn video for his friend and him to watch. And how he knew as he got older, he just knew he didn't want to be the type of man who crept away to his bedroom to loo...

We separate public bathrooms by sex because women should have the right to privacy when going to the toilet. But transgender "women" (men who think they are women) are making it easier and easier for men to gain access to previous no go zones, thus endangering all women and girls who enter such places. But obviously female safety is not important, it's all about the men being able to feel like women. Fantastic. Adding transgender rights could facilitate another kind of abuse. Campaign Life Coalition national president Jim Hughes has warned that such laws give sexual predators “legitimized access” to women’s restrooms. “Wherever this [provision] is passed, privacy and decency are eroded,” agrees Staver. Canadian women have suffered a flurry of restroom attacks by men. In 2010, an Ottawa man was sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a 15-year-old girl at Nepean High School. The year before, a Halifax woman was assaulted with a sharp object in a restroo...

The US Government mandating that Catholic organisations fund contraception has galvanised Catholics across the US to fight back against this blow to religious liberty and interference through the courts. It begins. Washington D.C., May 21, 2012 / 10:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Forty-three Catholic dioceses and organizations across the country have announced religious liberty lawsuits against the federal government to challenge the Obama administration’s contraception mandate. The announcement was applauded by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who called it “a compelling display of the unity of the Church in defense of religious liberty.” “We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress – and we’ll keep at it – but there's still no fix,” said Cardinal Dolan, who is the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Time is running out, and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to...

This is truly awful. A serial rapist who kept one of his teenage victims as a sex slave in a remote bush hut is expected to walk free from court because he has developed mild dementia. Court delays, including more than two years elapsing since he was first charged with abduction and rape, have also contributed to what one of his victims says is the justice system failing them. A judge has accepted the man committed what amounted to hundreds of rapes involving four women – some aged as young as 15 . But h e is expected to walk free on the charges when he appears in court next month. He is also seeking permanent name suppression. The dragged-out court process has appalled one of his victims, who was 19 when she was lured to a remote part of the North Island and kept as a sex slave for five months. She said the public should know who the 79-year-old is and believes his violent sexual history has close parallels to one of New Zealand's worse sexual offenders, the "...

The gay marriage debate seems to bring out the anti-Catholics in force. One of the main talking points always seems to be Hitler being Catholic and having never been excommunicated . As if this proves the Catholic Church was behind Nazism all along. I have posted about this previously, but probably didn't make too big a deal of it, so now this subject has it's own post totally dedicated to debunking the false notion that Hitler was never excommunicated by the Catholic Church. NEW YORK, APRIL 16, 2010 (Zenit.org).- An interreligious group trying to discover the facts regarding Pope Pius XII and his efforts to help Jews during World War II has announced the discovery of documents showing how the Church excommunicated Catholics who joined the Nazis. The New-York based Pave the Way Foundation said that its representative Michael Hesemann found a large series of documents from 1930 to 1933. The documents indicate that any Catholic who joined the Nazi party, wore the unifor...

Alison Mau, mother, ex-wife of Simon Dallow, and now partner of Karleen Edmonds wants the homophobes to "chill out". "I don't really know where these attitudes come from. It shocks and shames me that they still exist in New Zealand," Mau told the Sunday Star-Times. "It's time for everybody to wake up, and not just those who hold such ridiculous views." She said those who discriminated needed to "chill out" because their stance was old-fashioned. "Why should anybody be uncomfortable about something that is normal?" Yes, it is normal* for some people have desire for those of the same-sex. Just as it is basically normal for most men to want to have sex with anything. However, acting on many of our desires is harmful. A pagan society doesn't care who a person has sex with, while as a Christian society does. That's really where the attitudes come from. The whole self-control thing and doing the right by your chi...

Especially if you are the daughter of Sarah Palin. The daughter of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin received vicious, hateful, and incendiary criticism – including death threats – after posting a blog registering her opposition to same-sex “marriage.” She revealed the hatred she has endured in a follow-up post, “Hate in the Name of Love, Bullying in the Name of Tolerance,”   earlier this week. * ~ * ~ * And in Australia, a doctor who signed a petition to the Government stating that children do better with a married mother and father has had to resign soon after his name became public knowledge from his job in the Human Rights Commission. A board member of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC) has resigned less than 48 hours after Australian media reported that he had signed a submission supporting true marriage . Professor Kuruvilla George, who is also Victoria’s deputy chief psychiatrist, signed a pro-marriage submiss...

The secular attack on religion in the public sphere should concern everyone in a free society. Some quotes from the video: The right to worship, as one sees fit and the right to live one religious life as one sees fit is the most fundamental of rights. Why? Because it has to do with the most important relationship we could possibly have ... with God. And it reaches down to the deepest level of one's personhood. We speak of the person as inviolable. Well, what's the deepest level of the person, it's the person in relationship to God. And that's why religious liberty is absolutely fundamental. [...] Tyrants, both ancient and modern, first go after religious liberty. [...] Tyrants want dominate the mind and the soul [not just our bodies].

It's amazing how many hits we get on this post every, single day. Every day. The number of perverts out there is just astounding and more than a little scary. I can only hope that the concept that pornography destroys marriage enters their consciousness in some way. Related link: Marriage Destroyers - Pornography (Lolicon Edition)

I've just noticed a new blog, The Contrarian , through a comment in Kiwiblog from a very new commenter. Looks like the blog is not really ideologically aligned with this one, but his first post: That first taste of fermented gibberish , got my attention as he mentions that he's not been writing for a few years. It’s been a long time since I did any writing, several years in fact, and over that period I have been studying politics, intensely scanning all avenues of the media, trawling the seedy back alleys of the internet and getting into arguments with religious conservatives, far left hippies, right-wing neo Nazi’s, communists, rationalists and, quite bizarrely, people who believe that the world is secretly run by shape changing reptiles from another dimension. These online antics have taught me a few things about constructing logical arguments, how to find and present evidence for or against a position and that people are incredibly reluctant to give up a notion once held...

Cameron Slater, on his Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, wrote a post last month about a young man, Matthew Vines, who argued that the traditional interpretation of Bible on homosexuality was wrong . The post linked to a You-Tube clip of over an hour in which Matthew articulated his arguments, and listening to him, I have to admit I was moved. Here was a young man who was in pain, and who was searching for answers, and had spent two years studying the Bible looking for those answers. However, I stopped listening about 15 minutes in, because Matthew Vines, in my opinion, had made two fundamental errors in his interpretation of Scripture at that point. All his other arguments rested on these two errors and therefore it seemed pointless for me to continue. Thankfully, after investigating the link given, I found a transcript of Matthew's hour long presentation , which helped enormously in understanding his arguments and being able to counter them.  Here's the first argument where he...

Any position is extreme to a fence-sitter. The Conservatives have been touted as a future coalition party for National since ACT leader John Banks' donations scandal. Leader Colin Craig has risen to prominence lately with controversial views on promiscuity and gay marriage. Now Mr Dunne – who has a confidence and supply deal with National – has launched an attack on the political newcomers . And he says he should know, as two of his former MPs – Larry Baldock and Gordon Copeland – stood for the Conservatives in last year's elections. Mr Baldock was third on the party list, while Mr Copeland stood in Hutt South. "They're extreme," he said. " Look at Larry Baldock's fanaticism over smacking. Copeland, the fact he left UnitedFuture over smacking, for goodness sake, when it was a conscience issue. "Any relationship with the Conservative Party ... suggests it's going to be dogma on one side versus pragmatism on the other side, and I th...

The effect of a complaint can be devastating, even if there is nothing to it as is the case here. Running an advertisement for the defence of traditional marriage where male/female couples are shown is not offensive. And yet, in Britain, that sort of carry-on gets you the attention of a government agency who asks you to please explain. His Grace apologises to his readers and communicants for his brief absence from his cyber pulpit: he has been closeted with lawyers and advisers, and has downed one or two vodka-martinis (‘dirty’, two olives) along with sundry bottles of Rioja. It’s interesting how a request to comply with an official investigation and a demand to respond to a formal inquiry becomes distracting and all-consuming: the mere request is a formidable weapon of harassment in itself, sapping energy, time and money (vid. His Grace’s Collection Plate ‘donate’ button on the right: all solidarity contributions welcome). Read more : ASA – His Grace responds ~ Archbishop Cranme...

The place to be tonight is in front of the fire. This is after Asterix gave up trying to figure out what I was doing pointing the camera at her and making strange noises. Sleep became more interesting.

I'm impressed. To view, click here . Hattip Kereopa, of Being Frank .

Considering that most New Zealanders support the Governments plans to offer free long term contraception to female beneficiaries and their older teenage daughters, the cartoon above from today's Dominion Post should really have had a mob with pitchforks rather than a lone Nazi wanting to butcher all and sundry. Related link : Free Birth Control wins Public Support ~ Stuff UPDATE 4:40 pm: KiwiBlog and Keeping Stock have published their own scanned copies ofthe cartoon now as well. They are outraged at it's offensiveness. I'm kind of meh... so used to offensive cartoons aimed at Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church and anything Catholic and/or Christian, that this is just another one those.

The first I heard of this story was from the Protect the Pope blog. A prominent Christian and conservative blogger, Cranmer has fallen foul of the British Advertising Standards Authority for an advertisement that he ran on his site which asked readers to sign the petition to defend traditional marriage. As many of you here may know already, there seems to be a strong desire by David Cameron, the British PM to implement "gay marriage" , even though the option of a civil union is available for those of the same sex who wish to be seen as unified by government contract, and even though the population seems dead set against the idea. Already, Catholic Bishops could be in trouble for asking Catholic schools to publicise the marriage petition . Apparently this is "political indoctrination". Right, never mind that marriage between a man and a woman is the orthodox Catholic doctrinal position. Meanwhile, Cranmer was told to keep the matter confidential, but ra...

Msgr. Charles Pope has written a post on The President, Gay unions, and the problem of selective Christianity where he looks at what Obama said to use Our Lord to justify his endorsement of "gay marriage". In this post however lets consider the problematic appeal of the President to Jesus to affirm Gay “marriage.” Specifically Mr Obama said to ABC News: …In the end the values that I care most deeply about and she [Michele] cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me….[ 1 ] It is a commo...

Now that the gay marriage debate is raging about equality of rights for homosexuals, how many realise that the widespread acceptance of same-sex relationships as we are seeing, herald the long-term devaluation of women in marriage and in society in general? We need to learn from history. In societies where men sought out men for love and sex, women were relegated to society's periphery . Thus, for example, ancient Greece, which elevated homosexuality to an ideal, was characterized by "a misogynistic attitude," in Norman Sussman's words. Homosexuality in ancient Greece, he writes, "was closely linked to an idealized concept of the man as the focus of intellectual and physical activities...The woman was seen as serving but two roles. As a wife, she ran the home. As a courtesan, she satisfied male sexual desires." Classicist Eva Keuls describes Athens at its height of philosophical and artistic greatness as "a society dominated by men who sequester thei...

I really enjoyed listening to this podcast interview with Peter Kreeft by the Catholic Cafe. Kreeft talks about his conversion from Calvinism, which he was brought up in, to Catholicism when he was in his early 20's. Worth listening to if you've got nothing better to do this evening.

From WDTPRS: Obama the Theologian invokes Christ while endorsing unnatural sexual acts, same-sex “marriage”. Fr. Z rants. Obama instrumentalized the Lord’s Sacrifice, the ultimate act of the love which is charity, to promote unnatural sex and the overturning of one of our most important societal bonds. We, according to charity, must act for the true good of the other. It is not for the true good of another person to help them to sin or to undermine Christian morals. But that is exactly what Obama is doing. This is an astounding example of both scandal and blasphemy. It is beyond absurd to to invoke the Lord’s Sacrifice in an attempt to violate our human nature and God’s laws. Obama invoked the Sacrifice of the Cross for the sake of justifying the destruction of the definition of “marriage”, as if that is “good” for people. It is NOT for the good of anyone, because it promotes and condones a sin that cries to heaven. We cannot wish that people sin. We cannot help them sin. ...

Melinda Gates (Bill Gates' wife), wants to make contracption a priority so that "120 million more women access to contraceptives by 2020". You can watch the video above to see what she says, or check out the story in Newsweek . Some quotations from the story - As she revealed in an exclusive interview with Newsweek, she has decided to make family planning her signature issue and primary public health a priority. “My goal is to get this back on the global agenda,” she says. [...] Now the foundation, which is worth almost $34 billion, is putting her agenda into practice. In July it’s teaming up with the British government to cosponsor a summit of world leaders in London, to start raising the $4 billion the foundation says it will cost to get 120 million more women access to contraceptives by 2020. And in a move that could be hugely significant for American women, it is pouring money into the long-neglected field of contraceptive research, seeking entirely new meth...

Chile is proving to be a good testing ground with regard to abortion laws. While other countries have embraced abortion - we have abortion-on-demand for all intents and purposes - Chile went the other way in 1989, banning all "therapeutic" abortions. A new study, headed by Dr. Elard Koch, an epidemiologist from the Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Chile, shows that - a) outlawing abortion is remarkably effective at reducing the number of abortions that take place in a country, including clandestine ones, and b) there is absolutely no link between making abortion illegal and an increase in the number of deaths from clandestine abortions. More snippets below the fold

Thankfully, during all the years of my confusion over right and wrong, I never went on the pill. I knew that was wrong, taking chemicals to mess with my fertility. I objected to it on health grounds, having known so many women whose hormones were wrecked though the pill, some of whom still managed to get pregnant. I really wondered what the point was. However, my husband and I have contracepted through other means, until I returned to the Catholic faith that is. And I can tell everyone that our marriage has been greatly enhanced by not using contraception any more. It's different, really different. I feel more respected and more. Approaching one's spouse with a genuine openness to the possibility of parenthood represents one of the most profound expressions of love and total acceptance of the other person in marriage. When a husband and wife are truly open to life in their marital relations, it is as if they are looking each other in the eye and saying, "I love ...

Government funding of contraception was inevitable. So far it's not compulsory, but I'm sure that it will be so in the future. Women on benefits - including teenagers and the daughters of beneficiaries - will be offered free long-term contraception as part of a $287.5 million Budget package for the Government's welfare reforms. But critics say the measure borders on state control of women's reproductive choices. I agree, this is heading into very dangerous territory. From a Catholic perspective, the use of contraception is completely immoral. (See Contraception, Why Not? ) I suppose the problem is that the Government is acting as quasi-husband to thousands of single women with children, so is therefore theoretically within it's right to demand that those women not have more children. But instead it ignores the activity that creates the children (ie sex) and just wants the women to keep doing what they are doing (having casual relationships with men who won...

The front page of the Dominion Post today has a young boy in a Yoga meditation position, complete with thumb and forefinger together learning how to meditate. This is not an after school activity that his wacky parents have enrolled him in, this is being taught in a Catholic school in Wellington. Specifically, Holy Cross School in Miramar, the school I used to go to when I was a child. When visited by The Dominion Post, a classroom of Holy Cross children sat with their eyes shut tightly and legs crossed, breathing slowly. "Meditation makes me feel happy, and also afterwards it makes me relaxed and calmful," said Dallas Arthurs, 10, after the five-minute session. Others had been thinking about God, or about those less fortunate. "I feel sad for all the people because some people have no food, and I felt sad for the people who have no homes or anything," said Bailey Abbie, 9. Principal Celeste Hastings said the school had introduced meditation so children co...

Something to think about. “I knew a guy, and I couldn’t actually believe he was saying this, but he said, ‘Why would I want to eat in the same restaurant every night when the world’s a buffet?’ I thought people said that only on 'Entourage.'" This relational cowardice, this disinclination to commit to the sacrament of marriage, and especially this reduction of women to selections on a “buffet” — this is utterly beneath the dignity of a man made in the image of God. The greatest calling we have as men is to love like Jesus Christ. Christ loved his disciples “to the very last” — and in his commitment to love, he suffered; he was wounded; and in the end, he was murdered. True love involves a tremendous commitment to danger. Related link: Pornography Is for Cowards ~ NCRegister, Vaughn Kohler

This is one of those issues that will not die and putting it out of it's misery is not an option; what is needed is a complete change of heart. Every one dies. Choosing to kill yourself or some one you love when it all looks too hard is selling life short, is selling those last days or weeks short. My Dad died of (lung and liver) cancer when I was in my early 20's and I am so grateful that he didn't have the option to be killed. He spent his last few days on morphine, so I was able to get there in time to see him before he died. Yes, it was awful, but I would not trade that last afternoon and morning that I was with him for anything. Sometimes, I still miss him so much it hurts. I didn't believe in anything at that point, but I knew absolutely after being there when he took his last breath that he went to God. It was like Heaven opened for a brief time and let me know that there was far more to life that just what we have here. Of course, I filed that incre...

A lesson for so called "conservative parties", don't pick up issues that your constituency doesn't back you on. An opinion poll carried out by ComRes has found that PM Cameron’s plans to legalise homosexual marriage by 2015 could lose the Conservative party 1 million votes at the next election,and up to 30 seats in the Commons. For every disaffected Tory supporter attracted back to the party, it loses almost three because of its stance on the issue. In The Sun today,Trevor Kavanagh says Tory supporters are “deserting in droves over [David Cameron's] irrelevant campaign for gay marriage ” and other unpopular issues. A Home Counties Tory MP said: ‘We’re worried we’ll haemorrhage votes unless Cameron backs down. These protests are not from the usual suspects of complainants. These are from quiet,unassuming Tory supporters telling us,do this and we won’t vote for you again. ’ The Mail on Sunday has been told that Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin has privatel...

Now that the ACT Party has basically died, Tracy Watkins muses as to what National needs to do in order to get more than 50% of the vote in the next election. The unpalatable choices facing National, then, are a deal with Colin Craig's hardline Christian Conservative Party, and hope it might make it into Parliament in numbers – though most National MPs would probably view that relationship as even more toxic than the relationship with ACT – or extending an olive branch to NZ First. I suppose this is what happens when you ignore a huge number of people on what they consider vital issues (remember that anti-smacking law that National supported and then ignored the referendum results on?), you then start relying on smaller parties supported by the really annoyed ones in order to try and get yourself re-elected. Related link: ACT 1, final scene: exit stage Right ~ Stuff UPDATE: 6:00pm David Farrar asks if the Conservatives will replace ACT , however, he calls them the CCCP in ...

Thanks to Luc Hansen on Kiwiblog for mentioning this. MOSCOW — Russia’s top military officer has threatened to carry out a pre-emptive strike on U.S.-led NATO missile defense facilities in Eastern Europe if Washington goes ahead with its controversial plan to build a missile shield. President Dmitry Medvedev said last year that Russia will retaliate militarily if it does not reach an agreement with the United States and NATO on the missile defense system. Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov went even further Thursday. “A decision to use destructive force pre-emptively will be taken if the situation worsens ,” he said at an international conference attended by senior U.S. and NATO officials. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov also warned on Thursday that talks between Moscow and Washington on the topic are “close to a dead end.” Related link: Russia’s military threatens preemptive strike if NATO goes ahead with missile plan

Isn't it interesting that a higher rate of relationship breakdown for civil unions is reported in the positive? Civil unions have proved to be almost as durable as traditional marriages in the first seven years since the legal status was introduced. Statistics New Zealand figures provided to the Herald show that 4.4 per cent of civil unions registered in New Zealand from 2005 to the end of 2009 were dissolved by the end of last year, compared with 3.8 per cent of marriages in the same period. The actual numbers - 82 civil unions dissolved out of 1876 - were so small that Statistics NZ demographer Anne Howard said any differences with the rate of marriage breakdown were unreliable. That's from Civil union splits match divorce rate in  the NZ Herald Another article in the same paper, Same sex marriage can last , talks about the difficulties that same sex couples have with recognition of their union. Grey Lynn couple Diana Rands and Anna Birkenhead are pleased to fin...