William Bradford Quotes

He dispatched the army to eliminate sin.

Planned Parenthood was at the time one of the most respectable, non-profit organizations. They never advocated or taught homosexuality, adultery, or bestiality, but the did teach and advocate birth control which made them anathema to some religious fundamentalists.

Explaining the chief cause of the rising divorce rate:

What makes this quotation noteworthy is the Judge's personal distaste for the general social/sexual mores of many young people. Historically, it documents not only the sexual behavior of the culture but the fact that the Internet had become a common modality for people meeting others of the opposite sex.

The King abdicated and became the Duke of Windsor. The surface reason was so he could pursue his love for a divorced woman. However, Edward was very sympathetic to and supportive of English and European Fascists like Hitler and WWII with Germany was imminent and the king’s views and relationships would have been very awkward. His younger brother, who became king, was a democrat.

Referring to Martin Luther King: Hoover tried to prejudice his staff against King when King had not committed any crimes other than being arrested for demonstrating in the South. Hoover ordered a wire tap on King and while no crime was discovered, they learned that King was engaged in some extra marital sexual liaisons. Hoover at the time was in a clandestine, secret, monogamous relationship with another male official of the FBI. Yet he was offended by King's promiscuity. Hoover honestly believed that segregation was the American way, and King's civil rights and equality advocacy in his view was an important part of the Communist program.

Mulcts are fines.

Mulcts were fines. This was the then common view of educated people regarding the criminal justice system and what we would consider today as barbarous punishments. Note the view that those who had money should pay fines for some crimes but those without money should have their bodies mutilated for the same crimes.

The Synod was held in Ankara, the current capitol of modern Turkey, and at the time, the provincial Roman capitol of Galatia, The Church leaders wanted to make the punishment more lenient than the lifetime of penance that had previously been required. Abortion was very frequent at the time. Note that the penalty was a religious one that did not curtail the civil freedom of the offending woman. When abortion has been outlawed by law in the last century, the penalties have been much harsher than 10 years of penance.

This establishment and enforcement of the Christian Sabbath was really made unconstitutional when the Constitution including the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1789. None the less, many communities in the United States maintained laws and law enforcement regarding the Christian Sabbath (called “Blue Laws”) for years. It was only into the 20th century before the practice died out after a number of cases were declared unconstitutional. Even into the 20th century, there are occasional cases where communities try and use the civil law to enforce their religious beliefs about the Sabbath. There was even a Jewish community in upstate New York which passed laws enforcing the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday. That also was a violation of the First Amendment and thus was unconstitutional.

This sad quotation illustrates how some of the leaders of the Church were so out of touch with law and morality. The Archbishop justified the archdiocesan cover-up of the crimes of sexually predatory priests and actually tried to lay much of the responsibility on children who might have been streetwise. It is almost like the Priests were seduced. The typical action of the church authorities was to transfer the sexually predatory priest to another assignment where in most cases he continued the predation with other children. Even if the children were very sexually active, the law is that they are under the age of consent and may not consent to sexual activity. Any adult having sex with a teen ager is guilty of statutory rape. However, the Church authorities decided in many cases that the age of consent was 12 contrary to state law in most states. Therefore in their minds there was no crime because the child was old enough to consent so they felt justified in not referring the crime to the police. See {633188} . Of course, few of the child victims of the priests were sexually sophisticated. Most were innocent and totally intimidated by the high spiritual and community role of the priest. Weakland was removed from his position of authority as part of the Church program to eliminate the problem of predatory priests and irresponsible bishops.

Legal Religious Ruling

He was one of the few world leaders who publicly decried the racism that was implicit in much of the well-meaning discussion of the AIDS problem in the world in general and Africa in particular. However right about the racism issue me might have been, he allowed that to color and shape his terrible policies regarding AIDS. He argued that those urging the use of antiretroviral drugs were just trying to make more money when they would do no good. Use of condoms was an attempt to diminish the Black world population. He and his Health Minister maintained that AIDS was not caused by a virus—that condoms would not help. And he would not approve any kind of social marketing to try and reduce promiscuous sex or even try and promote pre-marital chastity. Other African nations, with even fewer resources (like Uganda) reduced its AIDS rate of transmission markedly until proper retroviral drug regimens were developed and then used them right away. South Africa instead, relied on traditional herbs and other useless superstitious solutions. The result was a much higher AIDS rate than every other country of the world. Millions of South Africans died needlessly as a direct result of his terrible choice of policies. Like many South African leaders, Mbeki was a brilliant man who had a very limited education as schools were boycotted in the struggle against the apartheid state. He was ignorant about science, and viewed science as a white thing and not part of the black tradition.