“ Misery can only be removed from the world by painless extermination of the miserable.”  a Nazi writer quoted by Robert J. Lifton in The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide

The case of Terri Schiavo has been framed by the media as the battle between the “right to die”  and pro-life groups, with the latter often referred to as “right-wing Christians.” Little attention has been paid to the more than twenty major  isability rights organizations firmly supporting Schiavo’s right to nutrition and hydration. Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a
severely disabled woman, is being starved and dehydrated to death in the name of supposed “dignity.” Polls show that most Americans believe that her death is a private matter and that her removal from a feeding tube— a low-tech, simple and inexpensive device used to feed many sick and disabled people” is a reasonable solution to the conflict between her husband and her parents over her right to life.

The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency.

Our country has learned that we cannot judge people on the basis of minority status, but for some reason we have not erased our prejudice against disability. One insidious form of this bias is to distinguish cognitively disabled persons from persons whose disabilities are “just” physical. Cognitively disabled people are shown a manifest lack of respect in daily life, as well. This has gotten so perturbing to me that when I fly, I try to wear my Harvard t-shirt so I can “pass” as a person without cognitive disability. (I have severe cerebral palsy, the result of being deprived of oxygen at birth. While some people with cerebral palsy do have cognitive disability, my articulation difference and atypical muscle tone are automatically associated with cognitive disability in the minds of some people.)

The result of this disrespect is the devaluation of lives of people like Terri Schiavo. In the Schiavo case and others like it, non-disabled decision makers assert that the disabled person should die because he or she” ordinarily a person who had little or no experience with disability before acquiring one” “would not want to live like this.” In the Schiavo case, the family is forced to argue that Terri should be kept alive because she might “get better” that is, might be able to regain or to communicate her cognitive processes. The mere assertion that disability (particularly cognitive disability, sometimes called “mental retardation’) is present seems to provide ample proof that death is desirable.

Essentially, then, we have arrived at the point where we starve people to death because he or she cannot communicate their experiences to us. What is this but sheer egotism? Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, this is obviously an attempt to play God.

Not Dead Yet, an organization of persons with disabilities who oppose assisted suicide and euthanasia, maintains that the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo will put the lives of thousands of severely disabled children and adults at risk. (The organization takes its name from the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which a plague victim not dying fast enough is hit over the head and carted away after repeatedly insisting he is not dead yet.)

Not Dead Yet exposes important biases in the “right to die” movement, including the fact that as early as 1988, Jack Kevorkian advertised his intention of performing medical experimentation (“hitherto conducted on rats”) on living children with spina bifida, at the same time harvesting their organs for reuse.

Besides being disabled, Schiavo and I have something important in common, that is, someone attempted to terminate my life by removing my endotracheal tube during resuscitation in my first hour of life. This was a quality-of-life decision: I was simply taking too long to breathe on my own, and the person who pulled the tube believed I would be severely disabled if I lived, since lack of oxygen causes cerebral palsy. (I was saved by my family doctor inserting another tube as quickly as possible.) The point of this is not that I ended up at Harvard and Schiavo did not, as some people would undoubtedly conclude. The point is that society already believes to some degree that it is acceptable to murder disabled people.

As Schiavo starves to death, we are entering a world last encountered in Nazi Europe. Prior to the genocide of Jews, Gypsies, and Poles, the Nazis engaged in the mass murder of disabled children and adults, many of whom were taken from their families under the guise of receiving treatment for their disabling conditions. The Nazis believed that killing was the highest form of treatment for disability.

As the opening quote suggests, Nazi doctors believed, or claimed to believe, they were performing humanitarian acts. Doctors were trained to believe that curing society required the elimination of individual patients. This sick twisting of medical ethics led to a sense of fulfillment of duty experienced by Nazi doctors, leading them to a conviction that they were relieving suffering. Not Dead Yet has uncovered the same perverse sense of duty in members of the Hemlock Society, now called End-of-Life Choices. (In 1997, the executive
director of the Hemlock Society suggested that judicial review be used regularly “when it is necessary to hasten the death of an individual whether it be a demented parent, a suffering, severely disabled spouse or a child.” This illustrates that the “right to die” movement favors the imposition of death sentences on disabled people by means of the judicial branch.)

For an overview of what “end-of-life choices” mean for Schiavo, I refer you to the Exit Protocol prepared for her in 2003 by her health care providers (available online at http://www.cst hl.com/050113/sixth.html). In the midst of her starvation, Terri will most likely be treated for “pain or discomfort” and nausea which may arise as the result of the supposedly humane process of bringing about her death. (Remember that Schiavo is not terminally ill.) She may be given morphine for respiratory distress and may experience seizures. This protocol confirms what we have learned from famines and death camps: death by starvation is a horrible death.

This apparently is what it means to have “rights” as a disabled person in America today.

The public conversation about Terri Schiavo has gotten so debased that Steve Otto of the Tampa Tribune notes that one side speaks of ‘an already dead’ woman.  Indeed, consider James Kutkowski, Jordan Ross and Jim Seeber of the University of Mississippi, Oklahoma State University and Northern State University, respectively: they are confident that Terri is already dead.  But no one is more cock-sure than Christopher Hitchens, a man whose comments are so obscene as to forever discredit him as a human-rights advocate for any cause.

“Last week, on the MSNBC-TV show ‘Hardball,’ Hitchens told me that ‘Mrs. Schiavo is dead and has been for some time.’  He also spoke of her ‘nonlife,’ only to contradict himself by saying, ‘I would just give her a morphine injection.’  He did not say why it would be necessary to poison a corpse.  And today, Hitchens wrote of ‘the late and long-dead Terri Schiavo.’

“History has taught that deadly consequences follow when one segment of the human population declares another segment of the human population to be less than human.  At various times in history, American Indians, Jews, African Americans, Asians, the unborn and infants have been classified as subhuman.  Terms like ‘parasites,’ ‘lower animals,’ ‘primitive animals,’ ‘inferior race,’ ‘inferior class of beings,’ ‘untamable, carnivorous animals,’ ‘beasts of burden,’ ‘sicklers,’ ‘transit material,’ ‘raw material,’ ‘anthropological specimens,’ ‘article of property,’ ‘rubbish,’ ‘garbage,’ ‘refuse’ and ‘nonpersons’ have frequently been employed.  To this Hitchens adds, ‘nonlife.’

“Albert Speer, one of Hitler’s henchmen, once explained how it was possible for him to kill so many Jews.  He emphatically denied hating Jews, saying only that ‘I simply depersonalized them.’  Get it Hitchens?” 

When Nelli Gray asked me to be a speaker at the 1996 March for Life convention, I was delighted to accept. Nelli has been out in front of the abortion issue for years and has done as much as anyone in the country to keep this issue before the public. Reflecting on what I would say, I kept coming back to the time when I first gave serious thought to the subject.

Prior to Roe v. Wade, I had not thought much about abortion. However, soon after abortion was legalized in 1973, I began teaching at St. Edwards School in Twin Falls, Idaho. As a third grade teacher, I was asked to teach all subjects, including religion. It was while I was teaching religion that I came to read about abortion and ultimately to form a position on the issue.

As a Catholic, I knew full well what the Church's teachings were on the subject, but as a young graduate student at the time, I wanted to read about all sides of the issue. In the course of doing so, I read about the physical qualities of very young fetuses, the meaning of "unsuccessful" abortions, the contrary positions of Jesse Jackson and a black M.D. from Mississippi, and the consequences of dehumanization. All left a lasting impression on me.

When I read about how soon after conception the organs of the body began to develop, and how the physical qualities that make us human were there from practically the beginning, it seemed plain that the fetus was a child that had not yet been born. To have claimed otherwise struck me as simply dishonest. This being so, it quickly became apparent that the only difference between a fetus and an infant was location, or, put differently, there was no moral difference between feticide and infanticide.

Reading about "unsuccessful" abortions sealed the issue for me even further. An "unsuccessful" abortion, my readings explained, occurred when the baby came out alive. In such cases, doctors and nurses would then try to save the life of the very same baby they said didn't exist just moments before. How the doctors and nurses could live with themselves after all this, I could not understand. It was beyond me how anyone could pretend that abortion wasn't homicide after reading about "unsuccessful" abortions. My students, who at that time were seventh and eighth graders, felt the same way.

In the mid-1970s, Jesse Jackson was still a pro-lifer. So much so that he contended that abortion was a form of genocide against blacks. I remember discussing this with my students, and while I had mixed feelings about Jackson's argument, I felt Jackson's position was far more plausible than the one that was being promoted by another black professional, a doctor from the Deep South.

In a magazine interview, the M.D. (whose name I do not recall) complained that life was difficult for him growing up as a black person in the Mississippi Delta. No doubt he was telling the truth. But then he added an incredible non sequitur: ergo, legalized abortions were necessary.

It struck me as bizarre that a man who was obviously doing quite well in life--despite his "difficult" upbringing--would now recommend to other blacks, as well as everyone else, the merits of abortion. My students, almost all of whom were black or Puerto Rican, and came from equally troubled circumstances, saw little to admire in the idea that they would have been better off had their mothers aborted them (quite obviously, life was not so bad for either them or the good doctor that suicide was preferable to living). To this day, when I hear that unwanted children should never be born, I see the faces of my St. Lucy's students, and wonder how anyone could dare suggest that they would have been better off dead.

Finally, I remember reading how Albert Speer, one of Hitler's henchmen, could justify killing innocent people. After spending some 20 years in Spandau prison, Speer admitted that though he helped kill massive numbers of Jews, he never had anything against them as a people. When I first read this, it didn't make any sense to me. Was he lying after all these years? Then he explained his behavior by saying, "I simply depersonalized them."

For Speer, Jews were less than human and were therefore not worthy of human rights. He could not kill a person, but he could kill a Jew. It began to make sense to me.

When I stepped on an ant, I reasoned, I felt nothing. But would I not feel guilt and remorse if I were to step on a human being, however inadvertently? Surely there was a difference between humans and everything else, and that is why humans must be thought of as human, lest we begin to treat them as non-humans. [For more on this, see the splendid book by William Brennan, Dehumanizing the Vulnerables: When Word Games Take Lives, just published by Loyola University Press.]

Many years have passed since I presented these thoughts to my students at St. Ed's, but nothing has happened to make me change my mind. Yes, abortion is about biology, morality, ethics, philosophy, religion, medicine and law. But it is also about honesty and logic. Unfortunately, these properties are in short supply, and nowhere is this more evident than among those walking around with their advanced degrees.

The pending death of Terri Schiavo, coupled with the Minnesota massacre, are emblematic of our culture of death. 

In Terri’s case, an innocent person is being intentionally starved to death because lawmakers have decided to honor the words of her discredited, morally delinquent husband, preferring to err on the side of death.  In the Minnesota tragedy, nine innocent persons—plus their killer—are dead because school teachers, administrators and counselors decided not to honor the telltale signs that were right before their eyes.  In both cases, insouciance and passivity produced deadly consequences.

Terri’s fate did not land on the laps of Florida lawmakers overnight.  They have had years to address antiquated case law on the subject of euthanasia, but they’ve been too busy contemplating the hidden meaning of hanging chads to do so.  Moreover, one would have thought that following the Elian debacle, these lawmakers might have taken the time to reconsider the wisdom of family law in all its aspects.  But instead they did what they do best—they procrastinated.

Jeff Weise went to school wearing eye makeup and a black trench coat.  He wore combat boots, had chains on his pants and sported black spiky hair.  He wrote stories about zombies, drew pictures of people with bullet holes in their heads, and depicted himself with monster’s teeth.  The self-described loner frequently posted messages on the Internet site of www.nazi.org, and no doubt believed what the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party had to say.  Not only does the site flatly reject Christianity and Judaism, it expressly says, ‘We reject morality in all its forms as unnatural.’

So there you have it.  Legislative lassitude, combined with an increasingly amoral culture, has left death in its wake.

Mention Terri Schiavo to left-wing Christians and feminists and immediately they panic. 

That’s because they find it impossible to think about euthanasia without first thinking about abortion. 

And anything that might jeopardize their precious right to abort a child must be resisted at all cost.  Tragically, as this case has revealed, even when the specter of domestic violence is raised, it is not enough to get the ‘pro-women’ advocates to take Terri’s side.  Consider the following.

Western civilization is shuddering under a tidal wave of activism in favor of same-sex marriage. Here is a careful response to their most compelling arguments.

America is entangled in the most heated battle of the culture wars to date. Many consider it a Waterloo. State supreme courts and city governments, senators and congressmen, community leaders, celebrities, and even clergy all have mounted a powerful offensive in support of gay "marriage." What follows is a point-by-point reply to those who are demanding this revision of civilization.

Same-Sex Marriage and Civil Rights

"We're being denied the same rights as heterosexuals. This is unconstitutional discrimination."

There are two complaints here. First, homosexuals don't have the same legal liberties heterosexuals have. Second, homosexual couples don't have the same legal benefits as married couples.

The first charge is simply false. Any homosexual can marry in any state of the Union and receive every one of the privileges and benefits of state-sanctioned matrimony. He just cannot marry someone of the same sex. These are rights and restrictions all citizens share equally.

I realize that for homosexuals this is a profoundly unsatisfying response, but it is a legitimate one, nonetheless.

Let me illustrate. Smith and Jones both qualify to vote in America where they are citizens. Neither is allowed to vote in France. Jones, however, has no interest in U. S. politics; he's partial to European concerns. Would Jones have a case if he complained, "Smith gets to vote [in California], but I don't get to vote [in France]. That's unequal protection under the law. He has a right I don't have." No, both have the same rights and the same restrictions. There is no legal inequality, only an inequality of desire, but that is not the state's concern.

The marriage licensing law applies to each citizen in the same way; everyone is treated exactly alike. Homosexuals want the right to do something no one, straight or gay, has the right to do: wed someone of the same sex. Denying them that right is not a violation of the equal protection clause.

The second complaint is more substantial. It's true that homosexual couples do not have the same legal benefits as married heterosexuals regarding taxation, family leave, health care, hospital visitation, inheritance, etc. However, no other non-marital relationships between individuals--non-gay brothers, a pair of spinsters, college roommates, fraternity brothers-share those benefits, either. Why should they?

If homosexual couples face "unequal protection" in this area, so does every other pair of unmarried citizens who have deep, loving commitments to each other. Why should gays get preferential treatment just because they are sexually involved?

The government gives special benefits to marriages and not to others for good reason. It's not because they involve long-term, loving, committed relationships. Many others qualify there. It's because they involve children. Inheritance rights flow naturally to progeny. Tax relief for families eases the financial burden children make on paychecks. Insurance policies reflect the unique relationship between a wage earner and his or her dependents (if Mom stays home to care for kids, she--and they--are still covered).¹

These circumstances, inherent to families, simply are not intrinsic to other relationships, as a rule, including homosexual ones. There is no obligation for government to give every human coupling the same entitlements simply to "stabilize" the relationship. The unique benefits of marriage fit its unique purpose. Marriage is not meant to be a shortcut to group insurance rates or tax relief. It's meant to build families.

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council sums the issue up nicely:

"Gay citizens" already have the same right to marry as anyone else--subject to the same restrictions. No one may marry a close blood relative, a child, a person who is already married, or a person of the same sex. However much those restrictions may disappoint the incestuous, pedophiles, polygamists, and homosexuals, the issue is not discrimination. It is the nature of marriage itself.²

"They said the same thing about interracial marriage."

This challenge has great rhetorical force, but it is a silly objection.

Consider two men, one rich and one poor, seeking to withdraw money from their bank. The rich man is denied because his account is empty. However, on closer inspection, a clerk discovers an error, corrects it, and releases the cash. Next in line, the poor man is denied for the same reason: insufficient funds. "That's the same thing you said about the last guy," he snaps. "Yes," the clerk replies. "We made a mistake with his account, but not with yours. You're broke."

In the same way, it simply is not relevant that the same objection has been used to deny both interracial and homosexual marriage. It's only relevant if the circumstances are the same, regardless of the objection. They are not.

Same-sex marriage and interracial marriage have nothing in common. There is no difference between a black and a white human being because skin color is morally trivial. There is an enormous difference, however, between a man and a woman. Ethnicity has no bearing on marriage. Sex is fundamental to marriage.

This approach won't work to justify polygamous or incestuous unions ("In the past people wouldn't allow interracial marriages, either."). It is equally ineffectual here. The objection may be the same, but the circumstances are entirely different.³

"We shouldn't be denied the freedom to love who we want."

Columnist Ellen Goodman writes, "The state is on shaky ground when it tries to criminalize sexual relations of the consensual living arrangements of adults."⁴ In San Francisco, a giddy newly "married" lesbian celebrates, "Now we're not second-class citizens; now we can have a loving relationship like every other married couple we know."⁵ Another opines, "Anybody who is in love and wants to spend the rest of their life together should be able to do it."⁶ [emphasis added in all]

These remarks reflect a common misconception: Same?sex marriage will secure new liberties for homosexuals that have eluded them thus far. This will not happen because no personal liberty is being denied them. Gay couples can already do everything married people do--express love, set up housekeeping, share home ownership, have sex, raise children, commingle property, receive inheritance,⁷ and spend the rest of their lives together. It's not criminal to do any of these things.

Homosexuals can even have a wedding. Yes, it's done all the time. Entire cottage industries have sprung up from Hollywood to the Big Apple serving the needs--from wedding cakes to honeymoons--of same-sex lovers looking to tie the knot.

Gay marriage grants no new freedom, and denying marriage licenses to homosexuals does not restrict any liberty. Nothing stops anyone--of any age, race, gender, class, or sexual preference--from making lifelong loving commitments to each other, pledging their troth until death do them part. They may lack certain entitlements, but not freedoms.

Denying marriage doesn't restrict anyone. It merely withholds social approval from a lifestyle and set of behaviors that homosexuals have complete freedom to pursue without it. A marriage license doesn't give liberty; it gives respect.

And respect is precisely what homosexual activists long for, as one newly licensed lesbian spouse makes clear: "It was a moving experience after a truly lifelong commitment, to have a government entity say, ?Your relationship is valid and important in the eyes of the law.'"⁸ Another admits, "This is about other people recognizing what we have already recognized with each other for a long time."⁹ And another: "I didn't start out feeling this way, but that piece of paper, it's just so important I can't even put it into words. It's so important to have society support you... . It's about society saying you're recognized as a couple."¹⁰

Ironically, heterosexuals have been living together for years enjoying every liberty of matrimony without the "piece of paper." Suddenly that meaningless piece of paper means everything to homosexuals. Why? Not because it confers liberty, but because it confers legitimacy. Note this telling passage from Time magazine's "Will Gay Marriage be Legal?"

Ultimately, of course, the battle for gay marriage has always been about more than winning the second-driver discount at the Avis counter. In fact, the individual who has done most to push same-sex marriage--a brilliant 43-year-old lawyer-activist named Evan Wolfson--doesn't even have a boyfriend. He and the others who brought the marriage lawsuits of the past decade want nothing less than full social equality, total validation--not just the right to inherit a mother-in-law's Cadillac. As Andrew Sullivan, the (also persistently single) intellectual force behind gay marriage, has written, "Including homosexuals within marriage would be a means of conferring the highest form social approval imaginable."¹¹ [emphasis added]

Same-sex marriage is not about civil rights. It's about validation and social respect. It is a radical attempt at civil engineering using government muscle to strong-arm the people into accommodating a lifestyle many find deeply offensive, contrary to nature, socially destructive, and morally repugnant. Columnist Jeff Jacoby summed it up this way in The Boston Globe:

The marriage radicals... have not been deprived of the right to marry--only of the right to insist that a single-sex union is a "marriage." They cloak their demands in the language of civil rights because it sounds so much better than the truth: They don't want to accept or reject marriage on the same terms that it is available to everyone else. They want it on entirely new terms. They want it to be given a meaning it has never before had, and they prefer that it be done undemocratically--by judicial fiat, for example, or by mayors flouting the law. Whatever else that may be, it isn't civil rights.¹²

The Meaning of Marriage

The controversy about same-sex marriage churns principally around the definition of marriage. Activists deny the traditional view, that marriage is about children. Instead, marriage is an ever changing, socially-constructed institution constantly being redefined by society. There is no essential connection with children. Rather, at the core of the enterprise are two people in love.

"Marriage is about love."

Understandably, love is a predominant theme in discussions about marriage. "As long as people love each other," one person asserted, "it shouldn't matter whether they are the same sex. What's important in marriage is love."¹³

Initially, this seems hard to deny. In our culture, love is often the immediate motivation for marriage. On reflection, though, it's clear that love and marriage don't always go together. In fact, they seldom do.

If marriage were about love, then billions of people in the history of the world who thought they were married were not. Most marriages have been arranged. Love may percolate later, but only as a result of marriage, not the reason for it.

Further, if love were the sine qua non of marriage, no "for better or for worse" promises would be needed at the altar. Vows aren't meant to sustain love; they are meant to sustain the union when love wanes. A pledge keeps a family intact not for love, but for the sake of children.

The state doesn't care if the bride and groom love each other. There are no questions about a couple's affections when granting a license. No proof of passion is required. Why? Because marriage isn't about love.

Yes, love may be the reason some people get married, but it isn't the reason for marriage. It may be a constituent of marriage, but it isn't the purpose of marriage. Something else is.

"Marriage is constantly being redefined."

The definition of marriage has not been in flux in the way people suggest. In fact, marriage itself has not been redefined at all. Because there have been variations on the theme does not mean there has been no theme. From the dawn of civilization marriage has always been between men and women.

There have been changes. Historically some have been denied marriage (e. g. , the young, the genetically aberrant, and interracial couples). Others were allowed to marry more than once, either consecutively (divorce and remarriage), or concurrently (polygamy). Spousal rights have altered and traditions have evolved. But marriage has still been marriage. And spouses have always been male and female.

To say something has changed is to say some core thing has remained the same. When an old curtain is changed into a work smock, or an irresponsible bachelor becomes a conscientious dad, something stays the same, the cloth and the man, in these two cases.

In the midst of these obvious changes in marriage, what feature remains the same? What is the essential core that makes marriage distinct from any other relationship? In spite of the variations, spouses have always been male and female. Why? What is unique about this human pairing?

"Not all marriages have children."

Initially it is easy to resist any suggestion that "marriage" and "family" are essentially connected with "offspring." Clearly, not all families have children. Some marriages are barren, by choice or by design.

This proves nothing, though. Books are written by authors to be read, even if large ones are used as doorstops or discarded ones help ignite campfires. The fact that many lie unread and covered with dust, or piled atop coffee tables for decorative effect doesn't mean they were not destined for higher purpose.

In the same way, the natural tie of marriage to procreation is not nullified because in some individual cases children are not intended or even possible. Marriage still is what it is even if its essential purpose is never actualized. The exceptions prove the rule, they don't nullify it. Marriage is intrinsically about and for children.

Ironically, heterosexuals and homosexuals alike confirmed this while lining up to wed at city halls on Valentines day. "After seven years and the birth of a baby," the L.A. Times reported, "Robert Manzo and Anna Parker decided to make their union official for 9-month-old Kyle, who they believe should have the legal protection that a marriage gives to a family."¹⁴

More than 300 miles away, Kathy Palmer-Lohan stood in line in San Francisco with her partner, Laura, who was seven months pregnant. "We're having kids," Palmer-Lohan said, "and [marriage] gives some formality to the relationship and the family structure.¹⁵

"Marriage is a social construction we can redefine as we please."

What is marriage? There are only two possible kinds of answers to this question: Either marriage and family have a fixed, natural purpose (a natural "teleology") or they do not. If not, marriage is some kind of social construction, an invention of culture like knickers or bow ties, fashions that change with the times. Marriages defined by convention can be anything culture defines them to be. No particular detail is essential.

It is not possible, however, that marriage is a social construction. Here's why.

Columnist Dennis Prager has observed, "Every higher civilization has defined marriage as an institution joining members of the opposite sex."¹⁶ I agree with Prager's position on marriage, though I take exception with one of his words.

I don't think marriage has been defined by cultures. Rather, I think it has been described by them. The difference in terms is significant. If marriage is defined by culture, then it is merely a construction that culture is free to change when it desires. The definition may have been stable for millennia, yet it is still a convention and therefore subject to alteration. This is, in fact, the argument of the those in favor of gay marriage.

The truth is, it is not culture that constructs marriages or the families that marriages begin. Rather, it is the other way around: Marriage and family construct culture. As the building blocks of civilization, families are logically prior to society as the parts are prior to the whole. Bricks aren't the result of the building because the building is made up of bricks. You must have the first before you can get the second.

Societies are large groups of families. Since families are constituent of culture, cultures cannot define them. They merely observe their parts, as it were, and acknowledge what they have discovered. Society then enacts laws not to create marriage and families according to arbitrary convention, but to protect that which already exists, being essential to the whole.

Why has civilization always characterized families as a union of men and women? Because men and women are the natural source of the children that allow civilized culture to persist. This is the only understanding that makes sense of the definition, structure, legitimacy, identity, and government entitlements of marriage. This alone answers our question, "What is marriage?"

Marriage begins a family. Families are the building blocks of cultures. Families--and therefore marriages--are logically prior to culture.

If the definition of marriage is established by nature, then we have no liberty to redefine it. In fact, marriage itself wouldn't change at all even if we did. Philosopher Francis Beckwith has wryly observed, "Just because you can eat an ashtray doesn't make it food." Linguistic tricks can't change what nature has already determined something to be. Neither ashtrays nor same-sex marriage provide the nourishment intended by food or families, respectively.

The fact that same-sex couples can legally adopt changes nothing. This, too, subverts the purpose of marriage by robbing families (and children) of a vital ingredient: mothers and fathers. By licensing same-sex marriage, society declares by law that two men or two women are equally suited to raise a child, that mothers and fathers contribute nothing unique to healthy child-rearing. This is self-evidently false. Moms and dads are not interchangeable.¹⁷

Marriage begins a family. The purpose of family is to produce the next generation. Therefore, family is designed by nature for children. This description alone is consistent with our deepest intuitions, which is why every culture since the birth of time has recognized this. No other characterization fits what societies have been doing for millennia.

Families may fail to produce children, either by choice or by accident, but they are about children, nonetheless. That's why marriages have always been between men and women; they are the only ones, in the natural state, who have kids.

Government has no interest in affirming any other kind of relationship. It privileges and sustains marriage in order to protect the future of civilization.

Same-sex marriage is radically revisionist. It severs family from its roots, eviscerates marriage of any normative content, and robs children of a mother and a father. This must not happen.

Homosexuality is broadly tolerated in this country. Gays are allowed to pursue their "lifestyles" without reprisal, even to the point of forming committed, monogamous unions. They may not be universally respected or admired, but they have the liberty to live as they choose. This is all they have the right to demand.

A "Disability Vendetta" Surfaces in Hollywood

HOLLYWOOD, California, MARCH 19, 2005

The recent Academy Awards saw the triumph of two films that promote a favorable view of euthanasia. "Million Dollar Baby," a story about a female boxer severely wounded in a bout, won four of the top Oscars, including that of best director for Clint Eastwood. Hilary Swank won for best actress for her portrayal of Maggie Fitzgerald, who ends up prostrated with a spinal injury. Her pleas to be helped in seeking release from suffering by death are fulfilled.

The Oscar for best foreign film went to "The Sea Inside," which depicts the real-life case of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro, who ended up a quadriplegic after a diving accident. His requests to put an end to his life met were turned down after legal battles, but he committed suicide by drinking a cyanide-laced mixture.

The awards won by the films have focused attention on the situation of severely injured or handicapped people, with many protesting that the cinematic versions so popular in Hollywood are both dangerous and demeaning.

The British Telegraph newspaper reported Jan. 23 that the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, one of America's most respected organizations for disabled people, accused Eastwood of a "disability vendetta."

The association described the concluding scene of "Million Dollar Baby" as a "brilliantly executed attack on life after a spinal cord injury." Protesters in Chicago from the organization Not Dead Yet claimed that the film "promotes the killing of disabled people as the solution to the 'problem' of disability."

Matthew Eppinette, from the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, pointed out in a commentary published by the organization Feb. 28 that the film portrays humans as if they were mere animals to be put out of their suffering.

On the contrary, he stated, "Euthanasia, suicide and assisted suicide are wrong because they deliberately end a human life -- a life that bears the image of God." Moreover, even being a quadriplegic does not prevent us from deepening our relationship with God.

People in this situation certainly suffer greatly, Eppinette pointed out. But, as the example of Christopher Reeve amply demonstrated, "even the most severely paralyzed can live a rich and vibrant life, given proper care and support."

Real-life testimonies

In fact, many people in this situation have published testimonies affirming their will to live. Daniel Timmons, writing in Canada's National Post last Oct. 8, described how he has lost much of the use of his hands and legs. He suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. "Every day is not only a difficult physical struggle, but also a torturous psychological one," he explained.

"From my own experience, it's a challenge to see the purpose of living when your body declines so rapidly and fear fills your mind," stated Timmons. Nevertheless, he opposes assisted suicide, noting that it would be more accurate to call it assisted killing.

Our dignity does not depend on existing without pain, he added. "If people's suffering prevents them from seeing the value of living, they deserve our pity. But no one should deliberately act to kill them."

The case of another ALS sufferer, Jules Lodish, was described in the New York Times last Nov. 7. Reporters visited his Bethesda, Maryland, home when he had already lived for 10 years with the disease. By now almost every muscle in Lodish's body is paralyzed and he types into a computer by twitching the muscles of his cheek.

Asked how he feels about his life, Lodish responded: "I still look forward to every day."

Linda Ganzini, a professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, told the New York Times that many patients have deep religious beliefs that help sustain them, and they are able "to find hope in the future, find meaning and tolerate the daily ongoing losses that they are experiencing."

Living flawed lives

From London, Jane Campbell, a commissioner for the Disability Rights Commission, spoke of her experience suffering from spinal muscular atrophy. Writing in the Times on Dec. 2, she explained what happened when in January 2004 she was admitted to hospital with severe pneumonia.

The consultant who was treating her commented that if she were to go into respiratory failure "he assumed that I would not want to be resuscitated on a ventilator." She replied: "Of course I would want to be ventilated." The same scenario was repeated the following day with another consultant, and Campbell feared for her life. Scared that the doctors would let her die, she refused to sleep for the next 48 hours.

"This incident, and similar ones that come to the attention of the Disability Rights Commission, reflect society's view that people such as myself live flawed and unsustainable lives and that death is preferable to living with a severe impairment," she explained in the article.

She also noted that the concept of terminal illness is not easy to define. More than a quarter of the doctors who authorize assisted deaths in Oregon said that they were not confident they could give an accurate six-month prognosis.

Another recent testimony came from Spain, where a champion of the Athens Para-Olympics, José Javier Curto, described to the newspaper La Razón that after 11 years of living in a wheelchair, due to a muscular disease, he is firmly opposed to euthanasia.

Our lives belong to God, he said, with or without suffering. Moreover, he affirmed that the case of Ramón Sampedro was not typical. In fact, he calculated that the great majority of paralyzed want to keep on living and are opposed to euthanasia.

Another case from England is that of Baroness Chapman of Leeds, reported in the Telegraph on Feb. 6. Baroness Chapman sits in the House of Lords, where the British government's Mental Capacity Bill at the time of writing was being debated. The bill, it is argued, would open the doors to euthanasia.

The baroness was born with brittle bone disease. At her birth, the doctors maintained she would be unable to communicate and would have no noticeable mental function. She took her seat in the Lords last October, and in her maiden speech condemned the Mental Capacity Bill, saying, "If this bill had been passed 43 years ago, I would not be here."

After a few months of her birth in 1961 she said the doctors sent her home, saying there was nothing more they could do for her. "They sent me home to die," she said, "and I'm still waiting."

Born with 50 bone fractures, she has suffered 600 fractures in all, and at only 2 feet 9 inches tall she has had to overcome serious obstacles. Yet, "I think that in any situation a person should be given every chance to survive," she argued.

True compassion

In a speech Nov. 12, John Paul II outlined the ethical principles that should guide medical treatment. "Medicine is always at the service of life," he told participants in the International Conference of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers.

And when treatment cannot overcome a serious disease, then efforts should be directed to the alleviation of suffering. In every case it is important to remember "the inalienable dignity of every human being, even in the extreme conditions of terminal illness," the Pope said.

Euthanasia can be motivated by sentiments of compassion, or by a false idea of preserving dignity. But instead of relieving suffering it just eliminates the person, the Holy Father pointed out. A lesson Hollywood needs to learn.

The Enneagram is alleged to be a 2000 year old Sufi system of personality types from Islamic mystics who lived before the time of Christ.

The Enneagram is a circle, meant to symbolise the Cosmos and the "one-ness": this comes from a monist perspective. The Sufis are monists believing that we are all one with each other and with the universe and at the same time pantheists believing that the universe is god. So that's why they're not highly regarded in Islam, because they're kind of Heterodox.

Inside the circle is a triangle, and it connects up the points of the 9, the 3 and the 6; and it symbolises God. We should notice right away that it's God inside the cosmos, not the cosmos inside God.

There's another figure that is 6 sided and it connects from the I to the 4, 4 to the 2, 2 to the 8, 8 to the 5, 5 to the 7 and the 7 back to the I again. And there you have your Enneagram. (Ennea is Greek for "nine").

It is claimed that the Enneagram is a system revealing nine personality types and it is used in the various workshops and taught in seminaries.

This 'typing' system, and its 'Sufi' origins, are quite problematic

First of all: It cannot be a 2000 year old Sufi system. That is absolute nonsense. Sufism is part of Islam. Islam is from the 7th century AD. Sufism is from the 10th Century AD. How can the Sufis invent something 1000 years before they exist?

Secondly: As the Enneagram proponents pointed out, it is based on the decimal point to form these 2 figures inside the circle. The decimal point was not invented until the late 14th, more likely the 15th century AD. How can something based on the decimal point exist before the decimal point was invented?

Where then did the Enneagram come from?

The earliest evidence that we have for the existence of the Enneagram is around 1900 AD. It was brought in by a man named George Ilych Gurdjieff from Georgia. He was half Armenian, half Greek, and was a seminarian for some years as a young boy; by age 13, he left the seminary in pursuit of the occult. He became heavily involved in the occult and the pursuit of it, travelling around the Mediterranean, Egypt, India, Tibet, until he came across a group of Sufis who lived in Central Asia.

He learned the Enneagram from them. Originally, the Enneagram had been used in Central Asia for fortune telling through numerology, hence the importance of the decimal points.

The Sufis picked it up and used it as a symbol of the 9 stages of enlightenment: You move from your "ego" into your essence. What do they mean by essence? Your essence is that same being within you that has the same image as God. So your inner being has the same divine nature as God has. So it's a very pantheistic and monist system. But it's through very rigorous cleansing yourself of your ego and getting into your essence.

Gurdjieff also came across a spirit that he used to get in contact with called "the pillar of time". And he came from Central Asia to Moscow a millionaire, making a million dollars through shady techniques, and made more money selling Persian rugs.

He eventually ended up in Paris where he taught the Enneagram — again as a symbol of the 9 stages of getting to your essence and to your divine interior life. That was his goal.

Nothing of personality types. Nothing. None of his students described personality types. People like Piotto Dimetri Ouspensky, a mathematician who worked with him, and worked a lot with the mathematics, and the planets and the colours and notes. All that stuff is in their books, but nothing on personalities.

When I took the Enneagram, we were told this myth of it being 2000 years old, or even 4000 years old, and so on. However, I fortunately came across other information, and I'll give you some details.

First of all you have Don Riso, an ex-Jesuit, who studied the Enneagram from the same man that taught me, Bob Ochs. Also, Oscar Ichazo, and Claudio Naranjo. These are going to be key characters.

Don Riso is the head of the Enneagram research and study — and I use the term 'research' very loosely — in New York city. Claudio Naranjo is a psychologist from the Esselin Institute, in California, which is a pretty New Age, humanistic psychology mixed bag, centre, on the Coast of California. As a matter of fact, Esselin got so bad one year they had to close down the dormitories because they had so many students committing suicide. Not really the pinnacle of mental health if you ask me. But Claudio Naranjo teaches at Esselin.

These two tell the same story. That Oscar Ichazo invented the Enneagram. By the way I am not dealing with any of the enemies of the Enneagram, all of these are Enneagram enthusiasts. I am only using the Enneagram teachers, inventors and enthusiasts for my own source.

In one of Don Riso's books, he said that Oscar Ichazo, a Chilean occultist, is in contact with spirits like Metatron, the chief of the Archangels. I said wait a minute. Whose side is that Archangel on? I don't think it's St. Michael's.

Oscar Ichazo claims to have the source of all grace on planet earth today. All grace on the earth comes through Ichazo. He is in contact with all the ascended masters and is himself an ascended master. He was given the Enneagram personality types by his spirit, Metatron. Metatron told him to take the Enneagram — just as a drawing without any names on it — and on the Enneagram place the capital sins.

Wait a minute-how many capital sins are there? 7, so he didn't have enough, so he made up 2 more. For No. 3, appropriately enough, he added the capital sin of "deceit". Then for the No. 6 he added "cowardice". He put the other capital sins-I Anger, 2 Pride, 4 Envy, 5 Avarice 7 Gluttony, 8 Lust, and then of course, indolence is sloth. So he put the 7 capital sins plus deceit and cowardice on the points, and then gave them these names of ego-flattery etc. And that's all that he had. That's all that Ichazo had from the spirit.

Claudio Naranjo, also a Chilean, came down to Chile on a home visit from America. He met Ichazo and said, "I wasn't impressed with Ichazo when I first met him. But when I sat and meditated in his presence, I felt his power and I accepted him as a teacher. I became very fascinated with his Enneagram".

Naranjo took the personal characteristics from Karen Home's psychology system, and he put them on the Enneagram associated with each type. Naranjo added descriptions for each type. He also took the Freudian defence mechanisms and put one around for each type. Together, Ichazo and Naranjo taught a course in the Enneagram, around 1969, to a group of Americans in Chile, right on the border of Chile and Peru.

Naranjo went back to Esselin and taught a course on the Enneagram at Esselin, to people like Helen Palmer, Fr. Robert Ochs and a number of other people.

Bob Ochs, after that course, came and taught it at our theologate, to people like Pat O'Leary from Cleveland, Colly Moloney in Canada, and later on, Gerry Hare who taught Richard Rohr. And I, who'd also taught Richard Rohr the Enneagram (before Gerry Hare taught him). We began to teach the Enneagram course, and it has spread from these people in that course at the Jesuit School of Theology. Don Riso, a Jesuit who'd studied under Ochs, has also been spreading it.

Today, there is not a single Jesuit in my province, or the next province over, teaching the Enneagram: there is not a single Jesuit left in the Society teaching the Enneagram. Either they've stopped teaching the Enneagram, or they've left the Society. Not a single one is left.

Pat O'Leary drove our retreat centre in Cleveland into the red so far that it went bankrupt. He was giving 52 Enneagram seminars a year at this place-plus going out to other places to give Enneagram seminars, and he is still driving it into the ground. Same thing has happened at the retreat house in Western Massachussetts and another one on the coast run by the Dominicans-two Dominicans, a priest and a nun, on full time Enneagram work. It runs them out of business. It's something that people in your dioceses better pay attention to.

Critiques

I have mentioned all this in terms of its roots, to demythologise the absolute nonsensical myth of it being a 2000 year old Sufi system. That is untrue. It's less than 30 years old. I am not trying to say, I don't intend to say in any way that the Catholic teachers of the Enneagram are promoting pantheism; they don't know its pantheistic roots; they don't know about its occultic roots; they don't know that it came from spirit channelling; they don't know that it was originally a form of fortune-telling. They haven't got a clue of that. They all believe the old myth-or the not so old myth-the 30 year old myth of it being an ancient system. I am not accusing them of any of that sort of thing at all. My concern is to expose its roots, and then raise up these six questions.

The first question is: How do we know that the core of characterological structure is one capital sin? That's the assumption of the Enneagram. What evidence do we have that the core of each characterological structure is one capital sin? I don't brag about this. It's simply a fact —1 commit more than one of the capital sins. Sometimes I make the rounds. And to focus just on one capital sin is a mistake. This was one of the problems I saw with the Enneagram when I used it, and with other people using it. You just focus on your one sin, and not the other capital sins that you commit. I don't think that that's legitimate. What evidence do we have that there's one capital sin at the core of your personality? Except Oscar Ichazo and his spirit Metatron said so.

Secondly: How do we know that there are only 9 personality types? Except Oscar Ichazo and his spirit said so. Remember, he had to force the capital sins to fit into the Enneagram by making up 2 more. Richard Rohr — maybe you've heard about him — has tapes on the Enneagram, and there he just waxes eloquently about how deep and insightful these Sufis are. We in the Western tradition only have 7 capital sins, they have 9. Richard, that's not the way it works. The guy had to force the capital sins into the system. What evidence do we have that that is true — except Ichazo and his spirit said so? That's not good enough.

Thirdly, how do we know that these are the nine capital sins or types except Oscar Ichazo and his spirit Metatron said so?

Fourthly, how do we know that the descriptions for each one of these types is accurate and true except Claudio Naranjo said so? There's no other evidence. It's never been tested.

Fifthly, and I think a very important point, is that the system also has within it these arrows on the lines, and the arrows point in a certain direction.

The direction of getting worse, so that a 7 gets worse by becoming like an angry I. The angry I gets worse by becoming a melancholic envious type. The 4 gets worse by becoming like a 2, full of flattery, and the 2 gets worse by becoming vengeful like the 8 and the 8 gets worse by becoming stingy like the 5, and so on. How do you know that that's true?

More importantly, to get better, according to the Enneagram, you have to go against the arrow. So to improve the I has to become like the 7, the 7 like the 5, the 5 like the 8, and so on.

How do we know that's true? Except Ichazo and Naranjo said so. There's no evidence for that. Goofy advice is being given in spiritual direction on the basis of this.

One nun was told by another nun: "What you need to do because you're a number 2 on the Enneagram, is move out of your convent, get yourself a new apartment and buy a cat, and learn to become creatively self-centred." Why? Because each one of these Enneagram numbers also has its own totem animal, and the totem of a 2 is a cat. You know, I don't remember that part of the sermon on the Mount, where Our Lord told us to be creatively self-centred, or uncreatively self-centred? This is nonsense.

When I was in Singapore I read three more books on the Enneagram by some of its newer proponents. One was by a nun from the Philippines who still has a lot of the old sufi lingo with it. She obviously got the material fairly close to the source, and she's still talking a lot of this sufi nonsense. The other one by a Benedictine from Chicago, has a book on how to 'type' the people, and she has another book on spiritual direction. In her book on spiritual direction Jesus Christ is mentioned once in the whole book! God is mentioned 7 times in the whole book! Now what is she directing these people towards? One of the examples she uses has a woman who says: "Well, Michael and I began to act out sexually, and at first I felt this guilt. But I realised God doesn't give me this guilt God just loves us so unconditionally. It's the guilt I feel because my mother would not approve, and so I had to learn to overcome my mother's lack of approval." The nun who wrote the book never commented. She was happy the woman came to 'enlightenment'. This is part of th