Tea at Trianon: Trans-Gender Tactics of Intimidation

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Trans-Gender Tactics of Intimidation

From David Montgomery at The Chesapeake Observer:

Our experience was not all bad. At the most recent Council meeting, June 15, the audience was almost equally divided between critics and supporters. Several supporters rose to state that free speech goes both ways, and that Frank and I had an equal right to state our opinions and have them discussed civilly. The most eloquent was a retired Army sergeant who talked about his 22 years of service and many deployments in defense of the right of all of us to speak our minds. If our actions in taking a stand against on the Pride Festival and flags encouraged others to take the risky step of stating their opinions in public, it was all worthwhile.

Which brings me to the subject of this issue. My first Worth Reading suggestion is an article that first appeared in the Easton Gazette by Jeff Cleghorn, who describes himself as “a gay rights advocate.” It is titled “The Truth About Queer Theory and Transgenderism” He documents at length — for that I apologize — the scientific basis for my opposition to anything that would encourage children to consider gender alteration and my statement that there is abundant evidence that gender alteration, by any means, is generally harmful.

He begins his article with the sentence “Maryland, the birthplace of transgender medicine in the United States, is again front-and-center on the transgender issue, with the unfolding scandal about medical ethics and fraud committed on vulnerable children.” I hope you will continue and read the entire article.

But I am not finished with my own reflections. A friend suggested that my opposition to the Pride Festival violated the separation of Church and State. That surprised me, since I purposely chose an entirely secular — and by itself sufficient — reason for my opposition. Since I have spent a great deal of time in the last decade reflecting on how Christians — and Catholics in particular — should participate in the politics, I decided to write some of those reflections down.

I will start a bit indirectly. As I understand it, Federal law bans giving material support to terrorism. In terms of our town, I think that approving a pro-Hamas march would be giving material support to terrorism. I would deny any such proposal a public assembly permit, on both legal and moral grounds.

That is one example of the principle that it is wrong, and sometimes illegal as well, to give material support to an immoral activity. We all make moral choices when we decide whether or not to take part in a questionable activity. Public officials make moral choices when they pass laws and regulations that permit questionable activities.

Approving a pro-abortion march is a clear example in my mind. I am convinced that the unborn are human beings from the moment of conception. Abortion is killing innocent human beings. That killing an innocent human being is wrong has been recognized in times and places far removed from Christianity. I conclude that no one in authority can approve abortion without giving material support to the killing of babies — a gravely immoral act.

Likewise, approving Pride Marchs, which have been taken over by transgender activists and glamorize sex change, give material support to the immoral activity of chemically and surgically mutilating children too young to make reasoned decisions. Maybe medical opinion is divided about whether or not procedures changing sexual characteristics of children cause long term physical or emotional harm. But applying the Precautionary Principle — or just the rule “do no harm” — requires that treatments with an unknown likelihood of causing harm should be avoided. That would ban all surgical or chemical treatments of minors. Approving a Pride Festival that could lead children into wanting to change gender thus also gives material support to immoral activity. (Read more.)