On Writing Obscure Polemics

A few days ago, I posted a snarkfest about an incredibly obscure event, a peace gabbathon at UCSD where R. Scott Appleby of Notre Dame floundered miserably. I wrestled with it for a while for a variety of reasons, but in the end decided to post it. It was rewritten several times to reduce the level of vitriol.

Professor Appleby seemed to be highly regarded and was given a prestigious speaking engagement in front of a group of academics and, from his biography, this was not his first such talk. He's given plenty of platforms to share his thoughts where he's trotted out as a learned representative of the Catholic Church, of which I am a member.

I thought he was a terrible representative of my faith.

Blogging gives the rest of us a chance to respond. None of us will ever be invited to UCSD to talk. That doesn't make our point of view any less valid. By blogging my disapproval, I'm able to respond in public and somewhat level the playing field with Professor Appleby. I've got a decent Google ranking, so my polemic might end up being found often enough to contribute something to the debate. If that's a problem for the good professor, he can always respond in the comments.

In addition, I'm still pretty ticked that the ostensibly Catholic Professor Appleby performed a public face plant in front of a pack of secular academics at UCSD last week. Here's something he might have noted, a gift to all of us from the modern secular world, a group of high school seniors doing poorly in school, all of whom are the products of sexual libertinism.

"Why don't you guys study like the kids from Africa?"

In a moment of exasperation last spring, I asked that question to a virtually all-black class of 12th-graders who had done horribly on a test I had just given. A kid who seldom came to class -- and was constantly distracting other students when he did -- shot back: "It's because they have fathers who kick their butts and make them study."

Another student angrily challenged me: "You ask the class, just ask how many of us have our fathers living with us." When I did, not one hand went up.

For the secularists, marriage and sex are only tangentially related. For these black children, that moral code has led to catastrophe. For the last several decades, the popular culture has attacked the morality taught by the Catholic Church and it's theological allies, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim. As a people, we worshipped at the Altar of the Orgasm. Now we pay the price.

I probably ought to stop writing right here because this is just going to turn into a particularly nasty rant. I guess I'll just leave it with this:

Professor Appleby ought to recognize that the reason the Catholic Church has been around for 2000 years is because its moral code works. That's what the secular world can learn from us. That point could have been made in his talk in about 90 seconds and without kissing the hem of Obama's robe.

Enough. Let's stop the anger right here. Let's conclude with a happy song, one that secular America can really get behind and support.

Hooray for unfettered sex and fatherless children crashing and burning all over the country! The real problem is income inequality and the greed of wingnut corporate fatcats, right?