I think they do have the right to protest, though he’s right that vitriol is unseemly and hypocritical.  People have a right to vote in a certain way that accords with their beliefs, and to protest their places of worship is totally disrespectful and not at all in the spirit of charity.  I support gay marriage: I do.  But I also recognize that if the public voted a certain way, then it’s the responsibility of social movements to get society to act (and vote) differently.  And I’m just not sure these protests are going to make those changes.  If anything, they’ll be counterproductive.  Anyways, your thoughts?  Here’s a bit from the First Things article:

So, for example, as a Christian in a regime that requires religious liberty, I may reject my Muslim neighbor’s theology as mistaken, but I may not obstruct her religious freedom. If, however, her husband wants to acquire another wife, consistent with Islamic teaching, he may do so. But he may not require, as an entailment of his religious liberty, that the laws of our community recognize his polygamous union as a marriage that would require by the force of law that the institutions and members of that community recognize it as well. He could, if he wanted to, change the laws by the legislative mechanisms afforded to him by our system of government. But this would require that he secure the cooperation of his fellow citizens by means of argument and persuasion. And if he were to be successful, polygamy would no longer be an object of mere toleration, but a public good supported by the community and enshrined in its laws. Those who dissent from this point of view may harbor their dissent in private, just as racists may in their hearts remain racists. But they would have no right to practice their dissent in their public lives, including employment, education, housing, and public accommodations.

The greatest American poet, or at least well up there. Find out more about her here, read all of her poems here, and get additional information here. The following isn’t as well-known and I think captures well her own desire to understand all of life within her own world (”charge within the bosom”) (the opposite of Whitman, who went everywhere and did everything):

To fight aloud is very brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom,
The cavalry of woe.

Who win, and nations do not see,
Who fall, and none observe,
Whose dying eyes no country
Regards with patriot love.

We trust, in plumed procession,
For such the angels go,
Rank after rank, with even feet
And uniforms of snow.

A new biography that Jim Martin, a Jesuit, really likes, mostly because it shows other Jesuits liked Hopkins too, and Hopkins liked them back:

Mariani rightly restores spirituality to the center of the life of one of the greatest of all English poets.  And this is no surprise for not only is Mariani a Catholic, he is also professor at Boston College, author of the book Thirty Days, about his experience making the Spiritual Exercises, but also the father of a Jesuit, to whom his book is dedicated.  (And, btw, he’s the former poetry editor of America.)

Mariani’s book also challenges the now standard portrait of Hopkins as living a miserable life after he entered the Society of Jesus (a depiction influenced by those who relied heavily on a few sources, and, especially, Bridges, who grieved for what he saw as the loss of his friend’s muse after entering the novitiate).  Hopkins’s Jesuit life, particularly in Ireland, was exceedingly stress-filled, but he is in earlier years as a beloved member of the community, mainly for his humor.  He is described by one fellow Jesuit as follows:  “He was the most popular man in the house. Superiors and equal, everybody liked him.  We laughed at him a good deal, but he took it good-humouredly, and joined in the amusement.”

A lot of folks are making a big deal of Obama’s attendance at Church.  Some don’t care, or even think the attention is ridiculous, but here’s a good point that, if true, Obama was being a bit of a hypocrite:

My hunch here is that mainstream news organizations are reporting on this not to hint at “moral depravity” but rather to raise the issue of hypocrisy, or dishonesty. If Obama had only talked about his faith when he appeared on CBN, or visited churches in Iowa, that would be one thing. But it was an issue he chose to highlight. In fact, his only joint, public appearance with McCain–after the nomination fight and prior to the first debate–was with Rick Warren, if I remember correctly. And Obama’s religious life also takes up (the weakest) sections of his excellent first book. If politicians want their religious lives to remain private, then they can do the rest of us the favor of not talking so much about them.

This is pretty disgusting.  I really hope Obama and his people’s hands are clean.

llinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was captured on tape saying that unless he received “something real good” for the appointment of a top adviser to Barack Obama to fill the president-elect’s Senate seat he would appoint himself, according to the criminal complaint.

“Unless I get something real good [for Senate candidate 1], s***, I’ll just send myself, you know what I’m saying,” Blagojevich said was taped saying on November 3rd, the day before Election Day.

It’s really not necessary, and can often distract from the fact you have nothing funny to say (h/t: ALDaily):

In modern times, Lenny Bruce pushed comedy into forbidden areas, and those who thought that he was shining a necessary light on darkness were right to praise him. Later on Richard Pryor took it further and people were right to praise him too. But always these liberating advances into a less squeamish awareness - a true and necessary breaking down of barriers - depended more on the picture conjured up than on the words employed, and trouble began to arrive when there were suddenly thousands of comedians who had no pictures to conjure up, only bad language to distract the listener from their paucity of invention.

It’s a big day for Milton and for his scholars.  ‘ll be honest: Paradise Lost is real hard to read. But it is a great book, and his poems and stuff on education is really good too. Learn more about Milton here and here. These are the last lines of Paradise Lost, about Adam and Even leaving Eden to make their way in the world:

They looking back, all th’ Eastern side beheld

Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,

Wav’d over by that flaming Brand, the Gate

With dreadful Faces throng’d and fierie Armes:

Som natural tears they drop’d, but wip’d them soon;

The World was all before them, where to choose

Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:

They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,

Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

Some say the best.  Of course, others disagree. Read more here.

Reform vs. entrenched interests at TNR:

In The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote that “ideological battles [in education] . . . are as outdated as they are predictable.” Too bad he’s just started another one.

I honestly did not want to click on it.  I think these sorts of things are abritrary and silly.  But still: I spent about 20 minutes loooking at the various lists, which are really fun, evne if still silly and arbitrary.  I mean top ten everything?  You have to at least admire the ambition.