Douglas Whaley

Recently at a mass in Manila Pope Francis made this startling declaration: The family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage. These realities are increasingly under attack from powerful forces which threaten to disfigure God’s plan for creation. . . .   Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. This is a major retreat from his supportive comment in 2013 when he casually stated in an airplane interview that “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?"   Certainly that question was a startling change from the views of prior pontiffs, and it gave the gay community hope that the Catholic Church was going to drop the virulent homophobia that had so smeared it in the past.   For my blog post on point then see http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2013/08/who-am-i-to-judge-pope-francis-and.html . I guess this shouldn’t be such a surprise, but it is a disappointment.   F

The treatment of rape and sexual harassment is a hot topic in the news these days.   Institutional responses vary from (1) the military where it appears to be true that in spite of recent rule changes men still can get away with about anything and a woman who complains jeopardizes her military career without getting relief, to   (2) college campuses where a new focus on using Title IX to help women get more protection than they had in the past is granting some help.   This is not a subject on which I have any expertise, and perhaps the wisest thing to do is shut up, but I want to suggest that the whole topic should be viewed with more focus on biology: both the biology of how the sexes relate to one another and on how our brains work.   Doing that might lead to solutions that are not currently being considered. I am perfectly sure that if I were a woman I often would be fearful that some man was going to prey upon me in some unwanted sexual way, everything from being snatched