Where the Rubber Hits the Road

 I've taken up again my dear friend, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus' (RIP) last book American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile. I was sitting in the sun and quiet of my cottage  enjoying a  few hours of relaxation  when my attention was captured by an ad from the radio playing in the background. It was one of the ubiquitous jingles promoting a national lottery announcing some mind-blowing prize for an upcoming draw. The conjunction of these two thoughts (RJN's discourse on what it means to be an exile; thoughts of fancy about what I would do if I won such an obscene amount of money) led me to ask myself whether there was  ENOUGH wealth and power to  satisfy that human innate desire for wanting 'more'. One might think of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett who have given away the majority of their money in pursuit of causes such as the elimination of malaria, the amelioration of poverty. Yet it is pertinent to note that they still kept to themselves sufficient fund...

CNN is advertising an upcoming 'Solidad O'Brien Investigates' special entitled "Gary & Tony Have a Baby". The documentary is being previewed at 'Newfest: a LGBT Film Festival in New York. I believe that it is to be aired on CNN on June 24th. Watch for further details. I look forward to the broadcast. I do so, not to follow that old Irish  maxim 'know your enemy', rather to grow in my understanding of the reality of gay families today. It may not be a traditional configuration, but my previous training as a social worker as well as my life experiences have taught me that children raised in any stable, loving and chaste relationship will be as normal as a child raised in a traditional family. One cannot know the full truth of any social, moral or medical experiment until the matter is broadly studied, but if the state says that gay couples merit the same legal status as heterosexual marriages, then they are entitled to the same rights, privile...

G. Tracy Mehan has written an excellent review of American Babylon:Notes of a Christian Exile . It is published here . Any one who appreciated Neuhaus' insightful writings in First Things , especially his "The Public Square" ruminations at the end of each issue will no doubt enjoy reading this book.