The Strange Case of Maggie Gallagher: the Silence of the Lambs
Comments in a recent interview by Maggie Gallagher, co-founder of the
National Organization for Marriage, left some scratching their heads and wondering whether she was getting ready to throw in the towel:
- "As
I said last summer, it was clear to me from reading Windsor [the U.S.
Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor], gay marriage
advocates now have five votes for inserting a right to gay marriage in
our Constitution. We are now in the 'gay marriage in all 50 states'
phase whether we like it or not. What's next? In my view people who
believe in the traditional understanding of marriage, and believe that
it matters, have to become a creative minority, finding way to both
express these sexual views, culturally, artistically and intellectually
and to engage with the newly dominant cultural view of marriage
respectfully but not submissively" (Huffington Post, 3/21/14).
Perhaps, Maggie probably should have let those comments stand, because her subsequent "clariffication" was more confusing!
- "A friend asked me, after reading my last interview with HuffPo, 'So are you really stepping down from the marriage and religious liberty fight?'
"No, I told him. Sorry if it sounded like that. What I am advocating
doing is three very big, and very hard things:
a) accepting where we
are and
b) learning from what we did not succeed in so that we can get
to
c) how do we build anew?....
"People are afraid to say this: 'marriage is the union of
husband and wife, because kids need a mother and a father.' They are
afraid and they are falling silent....
"Will we recognize we are a subculture now facing a dominant culture
and build subculture strategies?....
"We need to find new ways to come around the people under attack to
build community, to give them (and us) a reason to suffer, if necessary,
in the hope that someone cares.
"And we need to negotiate with the new powers that be, from the position of our relative newfound weakness....
"If
they can get us to silence ourselves, they do not have to accept moral
responsibility for silencing us....
"Christian conservatives have been doing politics stupidly and on the cheap....
"To win a space for us at the American table, we are going to need to
invest large amounts of money in new and directly political
institution—organizations capable of unelecting those who would shut us
out, and those capable of rewarding the courage of those who agree with
us....
"Here’s the truth: Two percent of the American population, worked a cultural revolution....We have the resources to survive, and if we survive, to eventually flourish" (Maggie Gallagher).
Maggie, it's clear you believe that new strategies are in order, but it's quite unclear what you are specifically advocating. Sounds a little bit like "
out with the old and in with the new."
The Strange Case of Quebec Province
"Out with the old and in with the new" was the strategy for many in Quebec province, where the historic Catholic influence is still apparent in the name of every locale and street. Yet, what's happened with respect to abortion and marriage/family suggests Catholic influence to be "out" - part of a bygone era:
- "The province-wide rate of church attendance, which, prior to the 1960s ranged between 80 to 90 percent, has now plunged to below eight percent....The decline of church authority is also reflected in the province’s record-low birth rate, increased abortion rate, single parent homes, divorce rates, and reluctance to marry" (Robert J. Galbratith).
- "Canada is in fact a 'land without restrictions' with respect to abortion. In Canada abortion is completely legal, at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. Minors do not need parental consent and most parents don’t know this" (Daniel Caza).
- "Statistics show roughly 90 per cent of young people say they'd like to marry, but that fewer Canadians actually are. The fastest growing relationship form in Canada is cohabitation" (Andrew Mrozek).
On this side of the Canadian/U.S. border, few may realize Quebec's historic role as the "capitol" of North American Catholicism and be aware of its continued Catholic beauty....
Montreal, Quebec Province
Notre Dame Bascilica
Notre Dame de BonSecours Chapelle
St Patrick's Bascilica (from the bus)
St Joe's Oratory
Quebec City, Quebec Province
Notre Dame des Victoires - the oldest church in North America
St Zéphirin’s Church (2011) and in Hitchcock's "I Confess"
So, what happened to "Catholic Quebec" and what can we learn?
"No two times and no two places are entirely alike, and no time and place was very much like Quebec in the 1960s....the 'Quiet Revolution' ( Revolution tranquille) began as a reaction against the almost total synthesis of Church, culture, and state.... For the most part, the Church willingly, even eagerly, retreated....
"The state of Catholicism in Quebec today is grim. Sociologists describe it as a free fall. To be sure, 80 percent of Quebecers say they are Catholics, and many still expect certain services from the Church, but their relationship to the Church is much like their relationship to the company that provides gas and electricity....
"Thousands of parish churches, many of them bereft of people, are physically maintained by the provincial government under its 'heritage' program....
"Long before the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, the great majority of priests said there was no problem with the pill and other contraceptives. By 1968, the Church’s teaching on this question, and almost everything else, was a dead letter.
"Key to the Quiet Revolution was contempt for the past....Those who marched under the banner of 'renewal' and 'reform' too often exhibited a contempt for the fervent piety and frequently heroic labors of prior generations. There was a desperate eagerness to distance themselves from the 'immigrant' and 'ghetto' Catholicism of the past" (Rev. Richard John Neuhaus).
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