Before we begin, a heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful people who’ve contributed to the World O’ Crap Beg-A-Thon. (For the no doubt also wonderful but slightly confused folks who may be tuning in late, we’re having a fund raiser this week. Why? That’s a good question, and I feel like you deserve to know, so here’s a brief, if whiny précis of our situation.)
Matt C. Abbott, as you may recall, is a “Catholic columnist” for RenewAmerica who has broken with the stodgy old norms of punditry, developing a syncretic form of new New Journalism that is relevant to the hip hop, mash-up generation. By that I mean that he doesn’t actually write his columns, in the manner of his dinosaur predecessors, but produces a sort of decoupage of Vatican talking points out of bits and pieces he scavenges from email, orthodox Catholic newsletters, and other peoples’ articles. But even though he’s young, Matt’s technique allows him to speak with authority, since most of his sources are dyspeptic older clerics who seem fed up with the wishy-washy modern laity, and would rather be manning the front counter of their local AutoZone-da-fé.
This solution to the age-old problem of journalism, or “having to write stuff down,” is efficient, but not without its pitfalls. Sometimes, for instance, you wind up quoting the authoritative voice of an anti-Semite with ties to Holocaust deniers, because he believes that the birth control pill turns black men into gangsters. But hey, when in Rome…And Matt must be doing something right, because he has quite a fan base in the Rhythm Method Nation. The last time we talked him up, it made the front page of a Catholic news portal, and was a hot topic on Angelqueen, a forum for the ultra-doctrinaire Catholic community, where one commenter remarked: “No offense meant to the poster of this thread, but does anyone else find the word ‘disses’ to be somewhat crude for the nature of this forum? (Methinks it is not an english word, moreso the use of eubonics, which isn’t appropriate for this forum; Just a thought).”
Later, Matt himself showed up and thanked the forum members for their “comments in defense of me (and the Church)!” So he’s both highly admired and connected. But I have to wonder if perhaps it’s all beginning to go to his head, because this week he deviates from his tried and true formula, and actually writes almost four of his column’s twelve paragraphs.
‘The Impact of Homosexual Parenting’
I recently had the pleasure of having a lengthy telephone conversation with Dawn Stefanowicz, author of the book Out from Under: The Impact of Homosexual Parenting.
Dawn has an important story to tell, particularly at a time when the homosexual lobby is making significant inroads into family life. Yes, there are, sad to say, a number of bad parents who are heterosexual. But homosexual parenting, like homosexual “marriage,” is not a good thing.
Matt himself is unmarried and childless, so you can’t say he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions. (Not to imply that he’s gay, just that he’s clearly made a commitment not to contribute to things that are not good.) Moreover, Matt doesn’t reserve his fire solely for the homosexuals. Recently he sniped at Rush Limbaugh on the occasion of his fourth nuptials: “[A]s a pro-life, pro-family Catholic, I’m disappointed in Rush. He just got married for the fourth time and even paid Elton John, the anti-Christian queen of pop-rock, a reported $1 million to perform at his wedding.”
This tongue-lashing didn’t go over terribly well with the base, and Matt was forced to defend himself and Canon Law, which still applies to you Protestants and atheists, even if you don’t believe the Pope is the boss of you!
Even though Rush is not Catholic, it doesn’t exempt him from the moral law. We’re not talking about Catholic discipline here; we’re talking about the Church’s moral teaching on divorce and remarriage. A non-Catholic probably won’t accept that teaching, but it still applies to him or her, as does the intrinsic immorality of abortion, contraception, fornication, adultery, sodomy and masturbation.
So allowing gays to marry and raise children causes Rush to commit sodomy. Q.E.D.
Anyway, back to Dawn (not Dawn Eden, who Matt quoted last time, and who wrote a DIY book about building yourself a brand new virginity out of old, cast-off hymens you find around the house.)
The Introduction to Out from Under is chilling:
It’s as if a cold, clammy hand was tickling your armpits.
‘Will you come with me to the end of the pier?’ Dad asks. Ordinarily there is nothing I long for more than times alone with this man I too rarely get to be with. But tonight his question fills me with foreboding. The old wooden pier stretches out into the inky blue lake to a depth where the water that laps against its weathered posts is well over my head. I’m a pretty good swimmer, but even so, his request unnerves me. It would be one thing to walk out there with a father who loved me unconditionally and could be depended on to protect me, but more and more I am coming to understand that this is not the kind of father I have.”
If your father is a homosexual, then he’ll mostly likely drown you, because that’s what Montgomery Clift did to Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun, and he was gay!
I am nine years old, and our family is staying for a week in mid August at the cottage of some friends…While Dad helped bring us all up here and he is here this last night of our holidays, most of this week he has been unwilling to stay with us. It hasn’t been work that has called him away, but pleasure. The hard truth that all of us struggle to understand is that Dad prefers the company of other men to that of his wife and children.
Maybe it’s because the other men are less jumpy and don’t immediately assume Dad is going to kill them every time he wants to take a snapshot. But as it turns out, the joke’s on them!
A few of the transitory and violent relationships he has had with these men have ended in their suicides.
I totally believe you, Dawn. Why, add in a couple of Hairy Navels and the Collector’s Edition DVD of Liza with a “Z”, and that’s your average weekend on Fire Island.
Though I cannot help but love him, I am starting to see that my father is a very dangerous man. If he can behave so abominably toward those men he professes to love, then what might he do to those he does not love, like us?
Well, he might not drive you to suicide. In fact, if everyone my father loved offed themselves, I might consider taking a break from our relationship and seeing other Dads.
‘Dawn, will you come with me to the end of the pier?’ he asks again. ‘So I can get a picture?’ I hadn’t noticed the camera before.
Water…Camera…Run, Dawn! It’s An American Tragedy all over — but gayer!
We proceed along the boardwalk of sun-bleached boards, and about three-quarters of the way out he stops and waves me out to the very end. Out this far the boards don’t feel as solid as I’d like, but I want to please him and so I go out to perch on the very last one and turn around to face him. ‘That’s fine; stay there,’ he calls, framing the shot as I gingerly kneel down on one knee, holding the front paws of our Chihuahua, Skipper, who — just as nervous as I am — carefully balances on his hind legs. The picture taken, Dad immediately and wordlessly turns and walks away, leaving me alone and afraid in this precarious place to which he’s invited me. This is the story of my life.
Wow. And I thought I’d had an abusive childhood. Anyway, Matt is so moved by Dawn’s story that he actually writes some more.
And it’s been a difficult life for Dawn — then and now. She has to face the wrath of gay activists
…who get irrationally angry when you suggest that gay parents neglect their children in favor of using an Instamatic and fornicating with the suicidal.
…and a less-than-friendly government (she resides in Canada). But she’s up to the task.
You know, I’ve liked almost every Canadian I’ve ever met, but maybe we’re building that border fence in the wrong place.
In her book’s Preface, Dawn writes: “The purpose in writing this book is to deliver an open, honest, and balanced account of what it was like growing up with a homosexual father and a weak, subservient mother.
If only her mother had been a bull dyke, Dawn’s home life probably would have been much more stable, and Mom would have seen that she got a real dog instead of that Chihuahua.
As a child, I struggled to deal with all the vivid and explicit sexual experiences, conflicts, and confusion I faced within this family setting.”
I would have been fine if my dad had been gay, but I would have drawn the line at him having sex on my Twister set with men who’d later go hang themselves in the bonus room.
Despite the many troubling and emotionally damaging situations she encountered while growing up, Dawn writes that she “will always love” her father, who died in 1991.
…thus neatly avoiding some awkward, post-publication silences at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
“In writing this book, my aim is not to hurt his name or reputation in any way.”
Well, you did imply he raised a panicky nitwit.
“Rather, I would like to honor him”
Mission Accomplished, honey.
So, apparently the point of the book is that homosexuality should be accepted, and gay marriage should be legal, so that people like her closeted father won’t feel compelled to enter into a loveless marriage end up trying to take candid photos of chihuahuas pushing their children off of piers. Right? I mean, what other conclusion could a rational person draw from this account? Oops… “rational person,” right. Never mind.
Left by Penh on June 16th, 2010