Tag Archives: Abortion

Bible and Theology, Books by the Author, Games, Law and Politics, Logic and Reasoning, Memories, Music, Reviews, Temporal Anomalies/Time Travel

#500: A Five Cent Review

June 23, 2024 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #500, on the subject of A Five Cent Review.

As I was posting the four hundred forty-ninth mark Joseph “young” web log post, I realized I was approaching half a thousand, and wondered whether I should do something to note that milestone. I decided that a quick look back picking out some of my favorite posts might be worth the effort. If you missed these, well, I won’t say that there weren’t other good posts nor even that these are all necessarily the best, only that they are the ones I remember fondly.

Unfortunately, on my first pass through those original four hundred forty-nine posts, I marked sixty-five as significant in one way or another, and realized that I would be publishing another fifty before I hit the milestone in question, so I was going to have to go back and read quite a few articles and pare down the list a bit. I did remove some of those originally included, but I added one or two as well. Hopefully I’ve succeeded in producing something of quality.

Of course, I have made a practice since this mark Joseph “young” web log began of posting an annual review of almost everything I published over the previous year, here or elsewhere. The most recent one was #490: Looking Back, and the previous ones are linked from there.

I test, politically, as a moderate slightly left of center, but I hold a number of more conservative views; one of those is on abortion. I somewhere suggested that conservatives needed to find way to promote and explain their views to people on the fence, and this, #7: The Most Persecuted Minority, was a proposed television spot. It was eventually turned into a radio spot and aired on Lift-FM for a while.
Also on the subject of abortion, #9: Abolition compares the pro-life movement to the abolition of slavery, in an unexpected way.
#10: The Unimportance of Facts is my proposed explanation for why voters don’t care what the facts actually are, only whether the politician holds the same views as themselves.
Written a few days after my father died, #51: In Memoriam on Groundhog Day memorializes him with my recollections.
Having read that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (now deceased) believed that abortion should be strictly a woman’s decision as an equal protection right (and not a privacy right to be decided by her and her doctor), I wrote #63: Equal Protection When Boy Meets Girl, suggesting that in regard to unexpected pregnancies most of the advantages are with the mothers.
I’m glad I wrote #65: Being Married, because I have referred quite a few young couples to it in the years since. It is a collection of some of the best marital advice I ever received, and worth a read even if you’ve been married as long as I have.
#72: Being an Author discusses how to identify such a person, that is, how to know whether you can call someone, including yourself, an author, or indeed a poet, artist, or musician.
Having read that Neil DeGrasse Tyson stated it was highly likely that the universe was a similation, I suggested in #76: Intelligent Simulation that this was entirely inconsistent with his assertion that the theory of intelligent design was not scientific. The article quotes from my then-pending book Why I Believe.
A satirical article becomes the springboard for a consideration of #79: Normal Promiscuity, which looks at the fact that what were once identified as illicit and abberant sexual liasons because they were dangerous are now embraced and encouraged as normative.
I genuinely enjoyed writing #83: Help! I’m a Lesbian Trapped in a Man’s Body!, a satirical look at the notion that our gender is dependent on something we believe about ourselves.
#84: Man-Made Religion challenges the notion that the diversity of religions demonstrates that they are all human inventions.
A famous landmark ice cream shop in Milwaukee faced a protest and a boycott when the owner would not permit customers to order in Spanish, and in #87: Spanish Ice Cream I explain why expecting him to do so is unreasonable.
#88: Sheep and Goats explains why the popular parable is so badly misunderstood and what it really means.
I almost cut this one as I reread it, but it struck me that #90: Footnotes on Guidance, as a recounting of my own experiences, might be useful to those whom God is leading to places they did not expect to go.
#93: What Is a Friend? describes two different understandings of what constitutes friendship, and how that matters.
The notion of government taxing the rich to help the poor is put into perspective in #105: Forced Philanthropy, asking whether we want the government eagerly awaiting our deaths so it can spend our money.
I wrote what I consider a very valuable nine-part series about ministry, how to recognize and identify it, and how music sometimes fits into it. The last of those, #107: Miscellaneous Music Ministries, is not the best of them nor the most useful, but it does briefly identify and link the other eight, and so is the easiest to include here. I would recommend the entire series, but usually find myself recommending specific entries in it which relate to particular ministries.
Reacting to a discussion of my previously mentioned article on forced philanthropy, #108: The Value of Ostentation looks at how ostentation actually helps the poor, and why it is a bit illogical to object to it.
I explain why so much current popular Christian music is comprised of simplistic songs, and why this is not so bad a thing as good musicians tend to think, in #109: Simple Songs.
#114: Saint Teresa, Pedophile Priests, and Miracles responds to the argument that God cannot exist if He allows priests to abuse children.
Inspired by a television show, #115: Disregarding Facts About Sexual Preference applies it to reality, noting that people who deny a connection between environmental factors and homosexuality are ignoring facts.
#120: Giving Offense is primarily about tolerance, that it does not mean declining to state opinions but only willingness to respect those with whom we disagree.
#126: Equity and Religion addresses the argument that governments should not provide funding for pre-school education run by religious organizations.
#130: Economics and Racism explains why racism, by and against everyone, rises when economic conditions fall.
#132: Writing Horror gives a few tips on writing horror stories and running horror in games which must be worth reading, because Places to Go, People to Be republished it in French as Maîtriser l’Horreur.
A misunderstanding of what it is to be “racist” inspired the composition of #135: What Racism Is, clarifying that blacks and other non-whites can be and frequently are racist against whites, and that assuming that because someone is white she is racist is a racist assumption.
I wrote a four-part miniseries on the sin and judgment in the first chapter of Romans. The fourth part, #141: The Solution to the Romans I Problem, links and summarizes the first three, and gives the solution, that we Christians need to repent of our hidden idolatry.
Responding to a foolish statement from PETA, #162: Furry Thinking discusses the proper relationship between humans and animals.
In the 70s and 80s I asked a lot of major contemporary Christian musicians their advice for anyone wanting to do what they do, and in #163: So You Want to Be a Christian Musician I consider the best of that advice, and what we should really want.
I refer people to #168: Praying For You frequently–whenever someone asks me to pray for them–as it explains what I think is a correct understanding of the obligations created by such prayer requests.
I was hesitant to write #193: Yelling: An Introspection, which discusses the futility of yelling and the negative counter-productive impact it has, but several readers thanked me for it.
I would be remiss were I not to mention at least one article about temporal anomalies, and my list includes #199: Time Travel Movies That Work, a few films in which the outcome is not disastrous.
#200: Confederates actually argues that the American Civil War was about modern issues like state drug policy and immigration rules.
#207: The Gender Identity Trap suggests that the idea that someone can be a different gender inside than their physical sex is entirely about prejudices and stereotypes, with nothing to support it in reality.
#208: Halloween is one of two articles I wrote about the holiday (the other Faith in Play #11: Halloween) examining Christian attitudes toward it.
Following up on #207: The Gender Identity Trap, #212: Gender Subjectivity observes that no one can know that he feels like the wrong gender inside, because that isn’t more than that he doesn’t feel the way he thinks society expects him to feel, and in this case society is simply wrong.
#215: What Forty-One Years of Marriage Really Means is an addendum to the previous #65: Being Married, providing an important understanding of what it means that marriage is a covenant, not a contract.
#216: Why Are You Here? answers the existential question, that is, why do we exist.
#230: No Womb No Say challenges the notion that men, not having uteruses, should not be able to express an opinion about abortion, by raising a different issue in which men lack the requisite anatomy but still are expected to express an opinion.
#239: A Departing Member of the Christian Gamers Guild answers suggestions that involvement in fantasy role playing games is detrimental for Christian faith.
#245: Unspoken Prayer Requests explains why I think they are theologically invalid.
In June of 2019, after attending The Objective Session of The Extreme Tour, I began publishing my songs on this web log. I ranked about forty of them based on music, lyrics, and the quality of the performance and recording I had available, and began with the one I thought (with a bit of input from one of my sons) best, #301: The Song “Holocaust”. It includes a link to a recording of the song. Additional songs are chained beginning with the second, at the bottom of the article.
#309: Racially Discriminatory Ticketing highlights and explains a blatant example of racial discrimination by blacks against whites.
In March of 2018 I began a miniseries about early contemporary Christian and Christian rock musicians, still ongoing, with Larry Norman. Two years later the thirty-ninth entry in that series focused on one of the best bands of the eighties, #342: Fireworks Times Five, with extensive links to videos from all four of their excellent albums. It also links the previous thirty-eight such articles.
In 2020, after COVID-19 caused the cancellation of the live Origins game festival, Black Lives Matter protestors demanded that the corporation running the gaming convention make a public statement in support of their position or face a boycott, which shut down efforts to launch an online convention. #344: Is It O.K. Not to Make a Statement? attacks this divisive and destructive policy as a blow against the constitutional right not to speak about something.
A frustrated musician asked the question on a Christian music Facebook group, and I offered an answer in #352: Why No One Cares About Your Songs, which I think might be a must-read for those who aspire to any creative endeavor.
In the discussion of the polarization of America, I suggest in #375: Fixing the Focus that many Christians have our eyes on the wrong things.
The old economic principle derived from sheep grazing on common land finds a new and problematic application in the world of online retailing, elucidated in #377: A New Tragedy of the Common.
Normally I link reviews, but this one was sent to me privately, and was the first review I saw of my book Why I Believe, so I feel I would be remiss if I failed to mention my reprinting of it in #386: An Unsolicited Private Review.
A popular song, a friend’s pregnancy, and the recollection of a spoiled surprise party prompted me to write #394: Unplanned, suggesting that there aren’t really any accidents, and, again, talking about abortion.
The question was asked, specifically in relation to worship, and I offered an answer in that context which extends beyond it, explaining #396: Why Music Matters.
#406: Internet Racism gives reasons for rejecting the call (in Great Britain) that those who post racial slurs against the poor performance of black athletes should be brought up on criminal charges.
I was personally asked to respond to a long article giving ten reasons why the Biblical account of the exodus was untrue, so I wrote an eleven-part miniseries. It concluded with #425: Do Similarities Between the Accounts of Moses’ Birth and Certain Myths Make Him a Fictional Character?, which also links and briefly summarizes the ten previous articles.
One of my patrons asked me for #426: A Christian View of Horror, which suggests that to some degree it can be embraced, but ultimately there is one insurmountable problem.
#429: Luther College of the Bible and Liberal Arts speaks of the legacy of a small school whose campus has been almost completely obliterated by time.
A couple decades back, the respected Australian role playing e-zine Places to Go, People to Be launched a French edition, and asked my permission to translate articles I had written for them to release in another language, and subsequently to do so with articles I had published through other sites. Late in 2021 I finally got around to compiling a linked list of what was was then twenty-six translated articles, in #431: Mark Joseph Young En Français.
#434: Foolish Wisemen draws a lesson about celebrating Christmas versus the rest of the story from the account of these visitors.
#444: Ability versus Popularity discusses contests in which the public is asked to vote for the best, and contestants encourage friends who know nothing of the competitors to vote for a friend.
I had recently seen the argument that laws restricting abortion were an impingement on the religious practice of Jewish women, and since I had heard the same argument decades before in Senate hearings I wrote #446: The Religious Freedom Abortion Argument, and decided to include it here.
#449: Cruel and Unusual is not exactly about the death penalty and expresses no opinion on it, but does find fault with the protest that opposes it by attempting to make it more painful.
#459: Publication Anticipation provided a list of my books recently published in 2021-2 plus my expectations for 2023 and beyond. Those mentioned there which have been published since are listed in the 2023 review article mentioned at the top of this page.
I’m listing #469: Church History because it was an answer to the last question I was asked by my long-time friend John Mastick which I answered in a web log post before he died. His question was about what distinguished Calvinists, Pentecostals, and Charismatics from each other, and I threw in Catholics, Lutherans, and Evangelicals for clarity. He had previously prompted #413: The Abomination of Desolation and #465: Believing in Ghosts.
The issue arose in our study of the Gospel According to Mark in the Christian Gamers Guild’s Chaplain’s Bible Study, leading to an expanded exploration of it in #475: The Mother of Jairus’ Daughter, which I contend is the woman cured of bleeding in the healing nested in the middle of that miracle account.

Bible and Theology, Law and Politics

#446: The Religious Freedom Abortion Argument

May 16, 2022 M.J. 3 Comments

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #446, on the subject of The Religious Freedom Abortion Argument.

It happens that I have twice heard this argument raised, some forty years apart, by Jewish women. I do not know whether it is exclusive to them, but that will to some degree influence my treatment here. The argument appears to be that Jewish law gives women the right to abort unwanted children, and therefore any national law forbidding that is an impingement on freedom of religious practice.

I had trouble believing that Jewish women had an affirmative obligation to abort a child under any circumstance, but I am no Talmudic scholar–so I consulted those who were. Rabbi David M. Feldman’s article Abortion: The Jewish View (here in PDF) has been adopted as a majority opinion of The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly, sixteen to none with one abstention; it thus represents the interpretation of the Talmud from the perspective of Conservative Judaism, although it is not binding.

It may be worthwhile to acquaint the non-Jewish reader with a few concepts in connection with modern Judaism.

The Talmud is a large collection of writings interpreting earlier writings by thousands of rabbis interpreting the Torah, and is to a significant degree the fundamental basis for Jewish theology and practice. The image accompanying this post gives an impression of its encyclopedic breadth. It was completed around 500 A.D.
There are effectively four “denominations” of Judaism in the modern world, and they approach subjects differently.
- Hasidic Judaism is the most conservative, adopting the most traditional views and many traditional practices. These are the men you see in the wide-brimmed hats with the side curls and frequently robes. They might be somewhat analogous to the Amish, separating themselves from the world and focusing on their own faith communities.
- Orthodox Judaism is not quite as conservative as that, but sticks to traditional doctrine very closely. The men of this denomination are often seen in yarmulkes and prayer shawls when out in public, and they follow many rules modern society would consider archaic–such as the concern that a man not come in contact even accidentally with a woman who is not a member of his family. They might be most analogized to the Eastern Orthodox churches.
- Conservative Judaism probably comprises the bulk of those in the modern world who are recognizably but not extremely Jewish. Some will wear yarmulkes in public, but not all will, reserving their religious clothing for religious services. They frequently have mezuzah, those small emblems of the Ten Commandments, on the doorframes of their homes. Yet they are fairly fully integrated into the modern world. From an outside perspective, they perhaps provide the best balance between religious piety and secular integration. In one sense they are most similar to Lutheran and Episcopalian denominations.
- The fourth group of Judaism is called Reformed, and it is perhaps the most diverse. There was a joke in Mad Magazine many decades back to the effect that Orthodox and Conservative Jews had a different name for Reformed Jews, calling them “Christians”. Those I have known have generally been kosher and observed most of the usual rituals, but you would have to know them to be aware that they were Jewish. Individual beliefs of this group are the most varied, making them perhaps most comparable to Baptists.

This hopefully establishes why I consider Conservative Talmudic scholarship the best representation of modern Judaism.

There are a few critical points in the article.

The Talmud does not believe that the Torah establishes the unborn child as a living person. It is regarded part of the mother until the moment either its head or a substantially large portion of its body has emerged.
Nevertheless, a mother may not decide to abort a child; it is a decision made by an attending medic, who must make the determination that it is a choice between the life of the child and the life of the mother. The principle is that although the child’s potential life has value to be protected and once the child is born we do not trade one actual life for another, until that moment the mother’s actual life is more valuable than the child’s potential life. It is thus incumbent on the doctor to abort the child if the mother cannot survive the birth.
Extrapolated from this, it is argued that if the birth of the child will have serious medical–not social or economic–impact on the mother, a doctor may decide to abort it. It is specifically asserted that aborting a child because of a belief that genetic defects will result in a poor quality of life for the child is not permitted, because we cannot know that having no life would be better than having that into which the child will be born. It is only the mother’s physical well-being that can be the justification for this.

At no point in Talmudic Law is a woman given the right, let alone the obligation, to abort an unborn child.

However, as mentioned, Reformed Judaism is a lot looser in its interpretations. It is certainly within the realm of plausiblity that a Reformed Rabbi might believe and teach that a woman has the divinely-given right to abort a child she does not wish to carry to term. That certainly does not have roots in traditional Judaism from ancient times, but if someone believes it, that makes it their religion, and they do under the Constitution have the right to believe whatever they choose. Does that give us a religious argument?

Classical Islamic Law, as expressed in Shari’ah, requires that apostates be put to death. This is done not so much as a punishment for abandoning Islam but as a protection of the community from the errors of the apostate. Although the practice is rare in the modern world, there are still countries in which apostacy is punishable by death. Similarly, many Muslims believe that killing an infidel–someone who does not believe in Islam–is a free ticket to paradise. This is a religious view in a centuries-old religion. However, killing people for unbelief in a particular religion is against the law in these United States, and in the majority of countries around the world. If you murder your sister, the claim that she abandoned Islam for another faith is not a valid defense.

Yet it is a claim of religious liberty: my religion says that I should kill someone who does this, so by killing them I am exercising the requirements of my relgion.

It should be clear that the fact that a religion requires certain conduct does not always stand as an excuse for the performance of that conduct–you cannot kill people for abandoning Islam despite the fact that your religion says you must.

The question of whether an unborn child is or is not a person is clearly a religious one; at the same time, it is one that the law has the right to decide. We have decided that negroes are human beings and have the rights of human beings–something relatively new in the European-American world. If the law decides that someone is a person, a religious belief to the contrary does not justify, legally, treating him as not a person. In the same way, if the law were to say that abortion is not legal, a relgious belief that it should be does not justify it.

Further, the claim cannot be made that women have a religious obligation to get abortions. It can be claimed only (and as we have seen on dubious grounds) that they have the freedom under their beliefs to do so, and that doctors are obligated to perform them at least in life-threatening situations (which in the modern world would ordinarily be addressed by a Caesarean section). There are many things that are permitted but not required by many religions that are forbidden in our country or other countries, and the accommodation in such cases is that we limit our conduct to that which is permissible, opposing the law only when it is in conflict with that which is required, and, as in all cases of civil disobedience, accepting that we will receive the appropriate punishment for breaking the law.

Thus the claim of religious freedom as a basis for abortion appears to me to fail twice, first because there is no religion that requires practitioners to get abortions, and second because the law is permitted to decide whether or not a particular group is a protected class and thus can protect the unborn if it so chooses.

That makes it an issue to be determined by the democratic process.

Bible and Theology

#394: Unplanned

May 2, 2021 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #394, on the subject of Unplanned.

Maybe a couple years back there was a story of a woman who received a note from someone she had known thirty-some years before in high school apologizing that she would not be able to make it to the surprise birthday party her daughters were secretly planning for her.

Singer/Songwriter Matthew West and family.

Yeah, big mistake. But it calls attention to something. Surprise parties don’t just happen. It never is that a bunch of your friends accidentally showed up at the restaurant where you happened to decide to go for dinner, and they all shouted, “surprise” and brought out a cake. Someone planned it, did a lot of work, and made it happen. In fact, surprise parties require a lot more planning and work than the ordinary ones, because among the tasks involved are keeping it a secret from the birthday celebrant and ensuring that he or she gets to the right time and place. It is certainly never an accident.

In fact, I’m inclined to think that there are no accidents in life. Oh, certainly there are events, many of them from our perspective undesirable, which can be at least in part attributed to our own individual or collective negligence or poor planning. Yet the number of times people are awakened by they-know-not-what before they drive off the road or over the center line, or managed to find the brake before they collided with the car that cut them off, reminds me that God could prevent these other accidents and for one reason or another chooses not to do so.

In the words of a recent popular song,

Oh I don’t believe in accidents.
Miracles, they don’t just happen by chance.
As long as my God holds the world in his hands.
I know that there’s no such thing as unplanned.

The impetus for writing this is that a friend I know only over the internet, but fairly well for that, very recently realized that she might be pregnant. She has one child, and horror stories of that pregnancy. She also has a horrifying medical history that includes (prior to that birth) a grueling miscarriage that had her comatose for several days, of a child who was far enough along that she had already named him, and other medical problems that would make a full-term pregnancy torture, possibly crippling, possibly life-threatening. She says she cannot have another child, as much as she would want one. I have no right even to suggest what she should do, and unless you count this article I have not done so; I know that she is in tears over the choice she faces, and the moreso because she is sure her choice will disappoint me. I doubt she will read this, simply for that reason, and it is possible that by the time I post this the matter will have been, one way or another, resolved. Yet it is a situation that haunts many women.

I will say that I cannot know what God’s intention is in this event. Anything more that I might say about it would be unfair and unkind. However, that song, the title song of Matthew West’s 2019 album, Unplanned, continues:

I thought it was my story’s end,
But now the future’s all I see.
Instead of asking who you might’ve been,
I’m wondering who you’re gonna be.

I pray for wisdom for her, and wish her a positive outcome in this. I believe in a God who cares for us, each of us, all of us, born and unborn. I believe in a God who has His hands on all the events we think are accidents. We suffered five miscarriages; we have five sons. Pregnancy is never easy, but children are one of the gifts God gives.

Bible and Theology, Books by the Author, Elections, Games, Law and Politics, Logic and Reasoning, Music, Reviews, Temporal Anomalies/Time Travel, Time Travel Movies

#325: The 2019 Recap

January 1, 2020 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #325, on the subject of The 2019 Recap.

Happy New Year to you. A year ago I continued the tradition of recapitulating in the most sketchy of fashions everything I had published over the previous year, in mark Joseph “young” web log post #278: The 2018 Recap. I am back to continue that tradition, as briefly as reasonable, so that if you missed something you can find it, or if you vaguely remember something you want to read again you can hunt it down. Some of that brevity will be achieved by referencing index pages, other collections of links to articles and installments.

For example, that day also saw the publication of the first Faith in Play article of the year, but all twelve of those plus the dozen RPG-ology series articles are listed, described, and linked in 2019 at the Christian Gamers Guild Reviewed, published yesterday. There’s some good game stuff there in addition to some good Bible stuff, including links to some articles by other talented gaming writers, and a couple contributions involving me one way or another that were not parts of either series. Also CGG-related, I finished the Bible study on Revelation and began John in January; we’re still working through John, but thanks to a late-in-the-year problem with Yahoo!Groups that had been hosting us we had to move everything to Groups.IO, and I haven’t managed to fix all the important links yet.

At that point we were also about a quarter of the way through the novel Garden of Versers as we posted a Robert Slade chapter that same day, but that entire novel is indexed there, along with links to the web log posts giving background on the writing process. In October we launched the sixth novel, Versers Versus Versers, which is heating up in three chapters a week, again indexed along with behind-the-writings posts there, and it will continue in the new year. There are also links to the support pages, character sheets for the major protagonists and a few antagonists in the stories. Also related to the novels, in October I invited reader input on which characters should be the focus of the seventh, in #318: Toward a Seventh Multiverser Novel.

I wrote a few book reviews at Goodreads, which you can find there if you’re interested. More of my earlier articles were translated for publication at the Places to Go, People to Be French edition.

So let’s turn to the web log posts.

The first one after the recap of the previous year was an answer to a personal question asked impersonally on a public forum: how did I know I was called to writing and composing? The answer is found in web log post #279: My Journey to Becoming a Writer.

I had already begun a miniseries on the Christian contemporary and rock music of the seventies and early eighties–the time when I was working at the radio station and what I remembered from before that. That series continued (and hopefully will continue this year) with:

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it is evident that the music dominated the web log this year. In May I was invited to a sort of conference/convention in Nashville, which I attended and from which I benefited significantly. I wrote about that in web log post #297: An Objective Look at The Extreme Tour Objective Session. While there I talked to several persons in the Christian music industry, and one of them advised me to found my own publishing company and publish my songs. After considerable consideration I recognized that I have no skills for business, but I could put the songs out there, and so I began with a sort of song-of-the-month miniseries, the first seven songs posted this year:

I admit that I have to some degree soured on law and politics. Polarization has gotten so bad that moderates are regarded enemies by the extremists on both sides. However, I tackled a few Supreme Court cases, some issues in taxes including tariffs, a couple election articles, and a couple of recurring issues:

I was hospitalized more than once this year, but the big one was right near the beginning when the emergency room informed me that that pain was a myocardial infarction–in the vernacular, a heart attack. Many of you supported me in many ways, and so I offered web log post #285: An Expression of Gratitude.

Most of the game-related material went to the RPG-ology series mentioned at the beginning of this article, and you should visit that index for those. I did include one role playing game article here as web log post #303: A Nightmare Game World, a very strange scenario from a dream.

Finally, I did eventually post some time travel analyses, two movies available on Netflix. The first was a kind of offbeat not quite a love story, Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies unravels When We First Met; the second a Spike Lee film focused on trying to fix the past, Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies unravels See You Yesterday. For those wondering, I have not yet figured out how I can get access to the new Marvel movie Endgame, as it appears it will not be airing on Netflix and I do not expect to spring for a Disney subscription despite its appeal, at least, not unless the Patreon account grows significantly.

So that’s pretty much what I wrote this year, not counting the fact that I’m working on the second edition of Multiverser, looking for a publisher for a book entitled Why I Believe, and continuing to produce the material to continue the ongoing series into the new year. We’ll do this again in a dozen months.

Elections, Law and Politics

#308: Assembly Candidate Edward Durr Interview

July 4, 2019 M.J. 1 Comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #308, on the subject of Assembly Candidate Edward Durr Interview.

I received a letter from Edward Durr, seeking my support for his candidacy for New Jersey State Assembly in the 3rd Assembly District. It was one of those fortuitous mistakes–he was contacting churches, and Google Maps somehow has determined that there is a church at my address. Yet as Chaplain of the Christian Gamers Guild I am in a real sense clergy, and TheExaminer never, to my knowledge, revoked my title as Newark Political Buzz Examiner, even though I no longer write for them–I simply don’t submit articles, and since I don’t do that I don’t get paid for them. However, as I sent Mr. Durr an e-mail to explain the mistake, I recalled that in 2015 I published interviews with several New Jersey candidates for House of Representatives. Although I am not actively going to attempt to contact all the candidates for State Assembly in this election cycle (with eighty seats and two party candidates plus some number of independents for each, there must be near two hundred of them), I will commit to interviewing any candidate for state office who contacts me. Mr. Durr was pleased to do so, and I sent questions within a couple days which he answered promptly.

Thank you, Mr. Durr, for taking the time to answer a few questions.

First I want to thank you for taking the time to do this and provide me the chance to share with your readers my position.

Next I want to take this time to wish you and yours and Happy 4th & may it be safe.

You are running on the Republican ticket for New Jersey State Assemblyman in the 3rd Assembly District. Looking at the map (correct me if I’m mistaken), it appears that this includes all of Salem County and parts of Gloucester and Cumberland Counties including the cities of Glassboro and Bridgeton. I’m assuming you live in the district; have you lived here all your life, or when and why did you come here?

Yes you are correct about the counties and district. Yes I live in the district however I grew up just a little north of where I live. I was born and raised in NJ and grew up in Gloucester city where I lived til I was 18 when my parents moved where they live now in Logan [T]wp.

Two years ago you ran for that seat as an independent, and did fairly well for an independent in a heavily party-oriented state, drawing about one half of one percent of the vote. As far as I can tell you have no other political experience. What prompted you to run this time?

I ran as Independent in 2017 because I jump[ed] into it after primary so I was made to list that way. I decided to run again because I still believe NJ can be turned around. Yes it is true I have no political experience but I do not think that should be considered a negative. So I approached the NJGOP end of last year letting it know I wanted to run again and they welcomed me in giving me full endorsement.

Although in national politics district 3 has been something of a swing vote (supported Trump in 2016, Obama in 2012), Democrats have rather solidly held the Assembly seats for quite a while. One of your incumbent opponents has been in the Assembly since 2001, and the other has been there since he was appointed to replace a predecessor in 2015. In 2017 the incumbent Democrats defeated their Republican opponents by a three-to-two margin, and while incumbency certainly has a lot to do with that, an unknown Republican candidate has an uphill battle here. What prompted you to run as a Republican?

I am conservative so only natural for me to run as [R]epublican. I believe in fiscal responsibility I am firm believer in the constitution and all it entails including the right of self defense including the owning and bearing of firearms. Yes I am fighting an uphill battle but I believe my fight is needed.

Online information suggests that you have worked as a carpenter and a truck driver, but is a bit sketchy otherwise. What about your experience do you think qualifies you to serve in the State Assembly?

I have had a number of jobs over my life. It is true I am not a lawyer or doctor or have a PHD but I do not think that is needed to understand that our state is in trouble. Look at all the lawyers and doctors and executives in Trenton and consider the job they have done I think maybe we should not worry about degrees so much.

I’m going to ask you about three issues you listed on Ballotpedia as your top priorities. The first is cutting taxes, which appears primarily to mean reducing property tax rates. As I understand it, the State spends every penny it collects and is not permitted to borrow money without approval by the voters. That means to reduce taxes you have to reduce spending. Do you have any specific ideas on how to do that?

Yes I believe we need to cut taxes. I believe home owners are in desperate need of tax relief. Yes we have many pork items in the spending and should be cut. Lets go with first no legal aid for illegal aliens or free college aid. I also do not think we should be funding Plan Parenthood. Tax payer money should not be used for abortions when as a society we are split on issue. [It w]ould be like funding the NRA when many citizens are not in favor of guns.

Second on your list is concealed carry for law abiding citizens. Our State has quite a few locations in which gun violence is a problem, and it is growing–I recently read that there was a drive-by shooting in so small a city as Vineland. Why should we permit concealed carry?

I believe the 2nd amendment says it all[:] “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. The constitution is for all 50 states, name me another amendment that we need to pay to exercise or be told from state to state what we are allowed. No man has the right to tell me how I should defend myself, my family or my property. It is not why we should allow, we already have the natural right of self defense by any means, spelled out in the 2nd amendment. It is why we should stop infringing upon people[‘]s rights.

Perhaps the most controversial of your positions is support for a Heartbeat Bill, which has passed in some of the more conservative states, essentially saying that an unborn child is a person protected by law as soon as there is a detectable heartbeat. If my information on fetal development is correct, that is generally about the twenty-fourth day of pregnancy, which would make abortion for practical purposes impossible, save for methods which prevent implantation. Do you think this position has popular support?

Yes the topic of abortions is very controversial but that does not mean we should not discuss it. The states that have passed the #HeartBeatBill use the guide lines between 8 & 12 weeks the heart is detectable. I feel this allows those who are against abortion the comfort of curbing abortion while not outlawing it altogether. Abortion is not healthcare. I do think the democratic party [] went too far with abortion so I do feel my stand on having a #HeartBeatBill is reasonable and would have support. When Roe v Wade was passed it was intended for 1st trimester which is about 12 weeks I believe and rare after that.

Perhaps connected to that, you were contacting churches in the area for support for your candidacy. Some would say that churches, as non-profit organizations, should not support or endorse political candidates; others would say that to have a voice in the political world Christians need to be politically organized, and their churches are the best starting points for that. How do you view this disjunction between church and state?

First I want to say that people always go to separation of church and state. That statement was taken from Thomas Jefferson and what he was actually intending was that he wanted government to stay out of people’s religion. If you recall in England Henry VIII created the church of England when he could not get his way with the pope.

Plus no one seems to have issue with non profits like Plan[ned] Parenthood or SPLC or AARP pushing their political interest. So yes I think churches do need to start getting involved. They have every right just like others to make their voices heard.

What else do you think the voters should know about you, personally, or your positions politically?

I believe things need to change in Trenton and the only way that can happen is if the voters make the change. People talk all the time about “term limits” yet they continue to vote the same people in year after year. What is the definition of Insanity: [“]Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. I want the voters to know I am not looking to be a ruler, I want to be a voice for the people. And I promise I will work hard for every one to make NJ better.

You appear to be running alongside someone named Beth Sawyer, about whom there is even less online information than about you. She slightly outpolled you in the Republican Primary, but has no other reported political experience. Do you know her or know anything about her that you would share with the readers?

Yes I have met Beth and she is a nice person. I did not know her before the primary, I really can not tell you anything about her except I know she is in real estate.

If readers want to know more about you or want to contact or support you, what are the best means to do this?

They can find me on all sorts of social media. My web page is http://www.3D4NJ.com Twitter @edwarddurr1 Instagram edward.durr.9 Facebook.com/ED4NJ/ and email is edward_durr@yahoo.com.

Thank you for your time.

I thank you for this opportunity and hope to hear from you again.

Thank You.

As previously said, I am not seeking candidates, but will gladly interview any candidate for state office who contacts me. Facebook is the most efficient means of doing so.

Bible and Theology, Law and Politics, Logic and Reasoning

#282: The Fragility of Unborn Life Argument

February 6, 2019 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #282, on the subject of The Fragility of Unborn Life Argument.

Sometime during the explosion of legal news surrounding the Supreme Court session (much of which still awaits my attention) I somewhere encountered the notion that aborting the unborn is permissible because so many of them die anyway. Unborn children have such a high mortality rate, why would killing one be a big deal?

Talk about kicking a man when he’s down, this seems so wrong on so many levels.

I certainly recognize the fragility of unborn life. We went through enough miscarriages that pregnancies became an occasion more for dread than hope. Yet the fact that someone might die, even has a good chance of dying, is not ordinarily a good argument for killing him.

Consider baby seals. People get all upset about other people killing them, when it is obvious that baby seals are a primary food source for sharks. Seriously, what is the life expectancy of a baby seal? O.K., part of the objection is that the methods used by seal hunters are perceived as particularly cruel, so maybe that’s not the best example. I don’t know that being clubbed to death is more painful than being torn apart by a shark, but I understand the objection.

However, children also have a high mortality rate. We have lowered the rates of infant mortality significantly in western countries, but they are still high in third world countries. Should we say that the killing of children in undeveloped nations is not a big deal because they were likely to die anyway? Indeed, how likely to die would be enough to put someone in this category? Obviously unborn children do not all die, and apart from abortion a great number of them survive to be born–more now than ever before, again because we have improved our ability to keep people alive.

After all, fragility is relative. People die all the time. Many die suddenly of heart attacks, anaphylactic shock, strokes, traumatic accidents, often with no warning. If a person is having a heart attack and can’t get medical attention, there is a high probability that he will die. Does that make it O.K. to kill him? If a person is struggling to escape from a burning vehicle and not likely to succeed, can I shoot him?

Seriously, what chance of death meets the minimum requirement for killing someone? Is it thirty percent? Is it sixty percent? I am sure that the mortality rate of unborn children does not reach eighty percent, but would that be high enough?

It is one hundred percent likely that you will die. After all, everyone does, eventually. It probably won’t happen for a while–many years, if you’re lucky, but is that a long time? You are unlikely to live to one hundred years. Does that mean that killing you is not a big deal, because you were going to die soon enough anyway? If the world were run by artificially intelligent machines, we mere humans would be short-lived beings probably perceived as wastes of resources–we die, and everything we have learned is lost. To them, we are not better than insects, brief lives of limited ability who are going to die. They might as well kill us now, because we are likely to die fairly soon anyway.

Why should that argument apply to the unborn, and not to you?

My Judeo-Christian scriptures tell me to protect the weak. I see none weaker than these. If someone wants to kill the weak, I am obligated to defend them. Yet apart from this, I see that it is in my own self-interest to do so. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran minister and writer arrested by Adolph Hitler in World War II, said (perhaps paraphrasing–I cannot find the original quote),

When they came for the Federalists, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Federalist. When they came for the Jews, I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew. When they came for the Catholics, I didn’t speak up because I was not a Catholic. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak up.

You are also among the weak who are likely to die anyway, so why should society not be able to kill you?

Be careful of your judgements.

Bible and Theology, Books by the Author, Elections, Games, Law and Politics, Music, Reviews, Temporal Anomalies/Time Travel, Time Travel Movies

#278: The 2018 Recap

January 1, 2019 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #278, on the subject of The 2018 Recap.

A year ago I continued a tradition of recapitulating in the most sketchy of fashions everything I had published over the previous year, in mark Joseph “young” web log post #219: A 2017 Retrospective. I am back to continue that tradition, as briefly as reasonable. Some of that brevity will be achieved by referencing index pages, other collections of links to articles and installments.

For example, on the second of January, the same day I published that retrospective here, I also posted another chapter in the series of Multiverser novels, at which point we were at the twenty-third chapter of the fourth book, Spy Verses (which contains one hundred forty-seven short chapters). We had just published the first of seven behind-the-writings web log posts looking at the writing process, but all of that is indexed at that link. Also on that same day the Christian Gamers Guild released the second installment of the new series Faith in Play, but all of those articles along with all the articles in the RPG-ology series are listed, briefly described, and linked (along with other excellent articles from other members of the guild) in the just-published Thirteen Months in Review on their site. That saves recapping here two dozen more titles in the realms of Bible/theology and gaming, many of them excellent. It should also be mentioned that six days a week I post to the Chaplain’s Bible study list, finishing Revelation probably early next week, and posting “Musings” on Fridays.

Spy Verses wrapped up in October, and was followed by the release of an expansion of Multiverser Novel Support Pages, updated character sheets through the end of that book, and by the end of that month we had begun publishing, several chapters per week, Garden of Versers, which is still going as I write this.

Now would probably be a good time to mention that all of that writing is free to read, supported by reader contributions–that means you–through Patreon or PayPal Me. If you’ve been following and enjoying any of those series, your encouragement and support through those means goes a long way to keeping them going, along with much else that has been written–and although that may be the bulk of what was written, there is still much else.

Since on January 10th the first of the year’s web log posts on law and politics appeared, we’ll cover those next.

#220: The Right to Repair presents the new New Jersey law requiring manufacturers of consumer electronics to provide schematics, parts, and tools to owners at reasonable prices, so that those with some knowledge in the field can troubleshoot and repair their own cell phones and other electronics, and none of us need be at the mercy of price-gouging company stores.

#221: Silence on the Lesbian Front addressed the ramifications of a Supreme Court decision not to hear a case against a Mississippi law permitting merchants to decline wedding services to homosexual weddings.

#222: The Range War Explodes: Interstate Water Rights arose at the Supreme Court level when Florida claimed Georgia was using too much of the water that should flow downstream to it.

#225: Give Me Your Poor talks about our immigrant history, the illusion that it was entirely altruistic, and the question of what we do going forward.

#229: A Challenge to Winner-Take-All in the Electoral College looks at a federal lawsuit claiming that the standard electoral college election system violates the one-person-one-vote rule.

#230: No Womb No Say? challenges the notion that men should not have a say in abortion law.

#231: Benefits of Free-Range Parenting discusses the recent idea that parents who do not closely monitor their kids are not being negligent.

#241: Deportation of Dangerous Felons considers the Supreme Court case which decided that the law permitting deportation of immigrants for “aggravated felonies” is too vague.

#247: The Homosexual Wedding Cake Case examines in some detail the decision that protected a baker from legal action against him for refusing service to a homosexual couple, based primarily on the prejudicial language of the lower court decision.

#251: Voter Unregistration Law examined a somewhat complicated case upholding a law that permits removal of non-responsive voters from the registration lists.

#253: Political Messages at Polling Places presented the decision that non-specific political clothing and such cannot be banned from polling places.

#255: On Sveen: Divorcees, Check Your Beneficiaries examined a convoluted probate case in which a law passed subsequent to a divorce dictated how life insurance policy assets should be distributed.

#259: Saying No to Public Employee Union Agency Fees is the case the unions feared, in which they were stripped of their ability to charge non-members fees for representation.

#261: A Small Victory for Pro-Life Advocates hinged on free speech and a California law compelling crisis pregnancy centers to post notices that the state provides free and low-cost abortions.

#270: New Jersey’s 2018 Election Ballot was the first of two parts on the election in our state, #271: New Jersey’s 2018 Election Results providing the second part.

#274: Close Races and Third Parties arose in part from the fact that one of our congressional districts was undecided for several days, and in part from the fact that Maine has enacted a new experimental system which benefits third parties by having voters rank all candidates in order of preference.

One post that not only bridges the space between religion and politics but explains why the two cannot really be separated should be mentioned, #224: Religious Politics.

My practice of late has been to put my book reviews on Goodreads, and you’ll find quite a few there, but for several reasons I included #223: In re: Full Moon Rising, by T. M. Becker as a web log post. I also copied information from a series of Facebook posts about books I recommended into #263: The Ten Book Cover Challenge.

There were a few entries in time travel, mostly posted to the Temporal Anomalies section of the site, including Temporal Anomalies in Synchronicity, which is pretty good once you understand what it really is; Temporal Anomalies in Paradox, which is a remarkably convoluted action-packed time travel story; Temporal Anomalies in O Homen Do Futuro a.k.a. The Man From the Future, a wonderfully clever Brazilian film in which the time traveler has to fix what he tried to fix, interacting with himself in the past; and Temporal Anomalies in Abby Sen, an Indian film that is ultimately pretty dull but not without some interesting ideas.

In the miscellaneous realm, we had #227: Toward Better Subtitles suggesting how to improve the closed captioning on television shows; #228: Applying the Rules of Grammar encourages writers to understand the rules and the reasons for them before breaking them; and #273: Maintaining Fictional Character Records gives some details of my way of keeping character information consistent from book to book.

This year we also began a subseries on the roots of Christian Contemporary and Rock Music, starting with #232: Larry Norman, Visitor in March, and continuing with

Looking at our Bible and Theology posts, the first of the year landed in the end of March, as #233: Does Hell Exist? attempts to explore how the modern conception of hell compares with the Biblical one; #245: Unspoken Prayer Requests finds theological problems with asking people to pray without telling them what to pray; and #267: A Mass Revival Meeting explains what is really necessary to bring about a revival.

There were also a couple of entries related to gaming, including the republication of a lost article as #237: Morality and Consequences: Overlooked Roleplay Essentials–the first article I ever wrote to be published on someone else’s web site. There was also a response to some comments made by #239: A Departing Member of the Christian Gamers Guild, and a sort of review of a convention appearance, #249: A 2018 AnimeNEXT Adventure.

A couple previously published pieces appeared in translation in the French edition of Places to Go, People to Be, which you can find indexed under my name there.

So that is a look at what was published online under my name this past year–a couple hundred articles, when you count all the chapters of the books (and more if you count all the Bible study posts). In the future, well, I have a lot more to write about Christian music, I’m only getting started with Garden of Versers and have another novel, Versers Versus Versers, set up and ready to run, several Faith in Play and RPG-ology articles are in the queue (one publishes today), and there’s a study of the Gospel According to John ready to post and the Gospel According to Mark being prepared to follow it, plus some preliminary notes on Supreme Court cases, an analysis of a time travel movie that’s taking too long to finish, and more.

Again, your support through Patreon or PayPal.me helps make all of it possible. Thank you for your support and encouragement.

Bible and Theology, Music

#276: Best Guitarist Phil Keaggy

December 7, 2018 M.J. 1 Comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #276, on the subject of Best Guitarist Phil Keaggy.

The rumor was always that Jimi Hendrix claimed Phil Keaggy was the best guitarist in the world.

The way I eventually heard the story, Hendrix was being interviewed and was asked what it was like to be the best guitarist in the world, and he replied, “I don’t know, ask Phil Keaggy.”

Keaggy always maintained that Hendrix never said he was the best in the world, and I suppose you could take that version of the story in a way which doesn’t say that. On the other hand, Keaggy was and still is an amazing musician.

He began with a band called Glass Harp, and they were a more than moderately successful ensemble–they recorded a live album in Carnegie Hall sometime in the early 1970s, but it wasn’t released until the late 90s, after Keaggy was more than established. For most aficionados his first Christian album was the breakthrough, and the title song What a Day put him on the map, showcasing his lead stylings.

It was again the title song of his next album, Love Broke Thru, which caught the ear; it was also recorded by its co-writer, still ahead on our survey, and although people still debate which version is better, the song propelled both of them into the spotlight. It led to a tour and concert album with 2nd Chapter of Acts, under the title How the West Was Won, a good album which never achieved the greatness of To the Bride.

This was followed by a more fusion-styled album, The Master and the Musician, from which the only track I remember was the instrumental Agora (The Marketplace).

Not long after I arrived at the radio station, Ph’lip Side landed on our desk. It was a much-played album, from the rocky opening A Royal Commandment to the gentle mostly acoustic closing I Belong to You, but the big cut for us, coming out when a major movement was bringing a Crisis Pregnancy Center to our local city, was Little Ones, still one of the most powerful songs in defense of the unborn.

I don’t recall ever having seen, let alone heard, the album Town to Town, but somewhere I still have a vinyl copy of Play Through Me, and whenever I think of Keaggy the first song that comes to my mind is probably the opener of that album, Happy, which is instrumental for probably four-fifths of its run. Obviously, if I owned the album I heard it, probably many times, and would probably recognize any of the cuts from it, but the only other title that rings a bell is Nobody’s Playgirl Now.

Keaggy is still recording, so there’s a lot of his stuff I’ve never heard; but there was one more album he released in that last year before I left, and as 1983 came to an end I put it on a list of the ten most significant Christian albums of the year. The album was double-titled, The Private Collection Volume I (there doesn’t appear to have been a Volume II) and Underground. I recognize one track title from it, What a Love, but the quality of the music or the memorability of the songs was not what was significant with this. It was the way it was produced.

TEAC, one of the leaders in recording equipment of the era, had released an all-in-one recording studio that used two cassettes–that’s right, cassettes, those tiny little tapes that were always getting chewed up inside the players but which abruptly produced a remarkable audio quality with the development of “metal tape”–to record four tracks on each and permit mixing from one tape to the other. Keaggy sat at home and laid track upon track, drums, guitars, bass, multiple vocals, all using this gadget, and came up with an album that was at least passable by the standards of the day.

I say passable, but in a sense it wasn’t. Sparrow Records, which at the time was contracted as Keaggy’s label, felt it was below their production standards, and if you listen to the album on good equipment and attend to the background tracks, you can hear the kind of distortion one gets from copying one tape to another repeatedly (I’ve done it, using a pair of TEAC 3340 reel-to-reel decks and a Tascam 3 mixer; alas my children destroyed those tapes). Sparrow found itself in a bind, because the music was excellent but the production was below par, so they created a new label, Nissi Records, for the purpose. I understand the label eventually carried more of Keaggy and several other artists, but I was no longer in touch with the industry so I don’t know the details.

To me, though, this was significant. In the late 50s and very early 60s it was still possible to record a song in your garage on a small reel-to-reel recorder and have it break through to be a national hit. By the early 80s hourly rates for studio time for the quality required to make a major label record ran six digits. Keaggy’s record was the first glimmer of the possibility that it was still possible to make good recordings of good music at home at a not completely unreasonable cost. It was well outside my budget as a barely-above-minimum-wage Christian radio DJ and PD, but it was not impossible to imagine being able to afford such a thing, even though I never could.

To wrap up, in college I knew someone who said that Keaggy was technically brilliant and undoubtedly impressed other musicians with his skill, but he found the music boring. He did impress other musicians. I attended a live solo concert of his in the early 70s, and he would perform these incredibly difficult pieces, and then give an embarrassed laugh and comment that he should have practiced that one. However, I recently encountered evidence that Phil might just be the best guitarist in the world, in his live rendition of True Believers (video begins with an extended spoken intro). He is obviously using some fancy equipment on his acoustic guitar, such as one or more ditto boxes, but even so the performance is technically brilliant, and the audience recognizes it. He does things I’m not sure I could even tell you how to do, and I’ve been playing for almost as long as he has.

*****

The series to this point has included:

Law and Politics

#261: A Small Victory for Pro-Life Advocates

July 25, 2018 M.J. 2 Comments

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #261, on the subject of A Small Victory for Pro-Life Advocates.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra 585 U. S. ____ (2018), in favor of pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Centers who, under the California Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act (FACT Act), were required to communicate to their clients that the State of California was ready to assist them in obtaining abortions.

It should be understood up front that the Court did not actually rule that the FACT Act was unconstitutional. That was technically not what was on appeal. The National Institute for Family and Life Advocates, NIFLA, had raised a challenge to the law and requested an injunction preventing its enforcement while the case was being heard. The lower courts ruled that NIFLA probably could not win and so was not entitled to an injunction; the Supreme Court granted the injunction, stating that NIFLA probably could win on the merits and so enforcement should be stayed until the case had been heard.

Justice Thomas wrote the opinion of the court, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Alito, and Gorsuch. He observed that the law appeared to be targeted specifically at clinics and similar services which focused on alternatives to abortion and attempted to encourage women to give birth to their babies, often providing prenatal and post-natal care for such mothers. Clinics run by licensed professionals or run under a state license were required to deliver a notice consisting, in English, of forty-two words (one hyphenated) plus a phone number (top notice in the picture), informing clients that the State of California was ready to help them kill their unborn babies if they so wished. This notice had to be prominently posted in large letters within the facility, included as a full-sized document with any papers given to clients, and included in any advertising. Further, this notice had to be delivered in every language recognized by the local county as a major spoken language within the county–at least English and Spanish, and in Los Angeles County thirteen distinct languages.

Thomas observed that this was requiring an organization whose very purpose was to reduce the number of abortions to communicate the reverse message, that abortions were readily available elsewhere. He further observed that this was a controversial message, and that the weight of the requirement was excessive–if such a licensed organization decided to post a billboard in Los Angeles County that said “Choose Life” with a phone number, that billboard would also have to have that forty-two word notice in thirteen languages in the same sized print as the core message, overwhelming the intended message with what amounts to paid advertising for their competition.

It would be something like requiring all politicians of any party to include in their paid advertising equal space promoting each other candidate in the same race.

Facilities serving the same purpose that were not licensed or run by licensed personnel were required similarly to post a shorter notice, again in all the same ways and places, stating that California has not licensed them as medical care providers. Again, it was to be posted prominently, included in all advertising, and given to clients in printed form. Further, the legislation was worded such that the requirement would only apply to pro-life organizations.

So egregious was this animosity toward pro-life organizations that Justice Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito and Gorsuch, attacking the “viewpoint bias” of the law. The legislative history made it clear that legislators were attempting to force opponents of abortion to publish material contrary to their views. He observed that the official history included a self-congratulatory statement that the Act was part of California’s legacy of “forward thinking”, and then wrote,

[I]t is not forward thinking to force individuals to “be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view [they] fin[d] unacceptable.” Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, 715 (1977).

That amounts to religious/political discrimination, and again a violation of the First Amendment.

*****

Writing the dissent, and joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan, Justice Breyer makes several significant points.

The fact is we regularly require organizations to post informational signs at least obliquely relevant to their purpose. One example leaps to mind. A few years back New Jersey had a problem, that several newborn babies were rescued from public trash cans because young parents did want them and could not care for them. Today, all emergency rooms and many other care clinics have signs on the walls informing anyone who enters the building that there are safe drop points where you can abandon a child no questions asked. Obviously that notice is irrelevant to the majority of clients in those facilities; just as obviously such locations are good choices for reaching persons who need that information. We might debate whether such a program fosters teen-aged irresponsibility (a mother who would never dream of putting her baby in a trash bin might abandon it at a safe drop point if made aware of such, and so free herself of the task of caring for the child), but creating and promoting the option saves lives. Other notifications are posted; the lawfully-required notices on tobacco products and in tobacco ads are clearly counter to the interests of tobacco companies.

However, Breyer attempts to sweep away the aspect that these laws were carefully tailored to target pro-life organizations. He tells us that organizations that are not pro-life don’t need to be required to tell women about the availability of abortions, as they are probably already doing so. That’s hardly a sufficient basis for a distinction regarding compelled speech.

For the moment, all that NIFLA has won is a delay, that the law cannot be enforced until the case has been heard. However, the majority opinion and the significant concurrence are filled with good reasons for the law to be overturned, and as the case returns to the lower courts NIFLA has a good chance winning, probably without another Supreme Court intervention.

Law and Politics, Logic and Reasoning

#230: No Womb No Say?

March 23, 2018 M.J. Leave a comment

This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #230, on the subject of No Womb No Say?.

I read an excellent article by the President of Care Net, Roland C. Warren (pictured), addressing the question of how men who oppose abortion should respond to women who say that because they are incapable of becoming pregant they have no right to an opinion on the subject. Warren provides an excellent response, including first that those who use this argument want to include the opinions of men who agree with them but exclude opinions of men who oppose them (and in so doing agree with other women), and second that there are many issues on which people who are not directly affected still deserve to express opinions because we are indirectly affected. However, I felt that there was a very strong argument that he missed.

Let me be clear that, as I have previously expressed, men are not on equal footing with women once there is an unintended pregnancy; women have all the advantages. I note that I have never met a woman who was sent to jail for failing to pay child support for an unwanted pregnancy, but have known several men for whom it has happened and others who lost drivers licenses and went into hiding because they were unemployed and that’s a sure ticket to jail. Even if abortion were off the table, women would still have more options than men under current law.

Certainly men could say that. Yet I think there is a much more potent argument. I would ask whether men are permitted to have an opinion about vaginal rape.

I certainly think that vaginal rape is wrong, and I think it ought to be a crime. That’s not because of some sort of medieval ownership of women notion; it’s because, as I said in the other article, “anyone who has been raped has had rights fundamentally violated, quite apart from the problem of potential pregnancy.” The fact that I do not have a vagina should not mean I’m not permitted to have an opinion on the subject.

I recognize therein that the fact that my position against vaginal rape is my opinion means that others might have a contrary opinion. We have previously noted that the Marquis de Sade believed that rape was a correct and morally praiseworthy act, because nature made men stronger than women and it is therefore right that men exercise that strength against women. He managed to persuade some women to believe that as well, apparently. That there exists a minority who honestly believes rape is good does not mean that the majority of us cannot express our opinion against it and based on that opinion enact and enforce laws against it. Perpetrators of rape might think we ought not be entitled to our opinion, but victims and potential victims are likely to appreciate our support.

Part of that lies in the fact that the opinion that vaginal rape is wrong and therefore ought to be criminal is an opinion that defends a usually weaker victim against the assaults of a usually stronger attacker. We generally applaud those who come to the defense of the weak, even if they only do so by words and the support of public policies and laws.

Yet when it comes to the question of abortion, those of us who would defend the weaker party against the attacks of the stronger are told it is not our business. If the accidental but capable mother decides she wishes to kill the completely defenseless unborn child, the opinion of someone else supporting that defenseless child should not be considered relevant.

Yet if the powerful and cunning rapist decides he wishes to ravage the weaker almost defenseless woman, suddenly an opinion in defense of the woman matters.

Go figure.

mark Joseph "young"