I remember once asking a museum attendant in Barcelona, Spain, whether a particular statue was supposed to represent Mary. The virgin mother Mary, he said. To clarify, I repeated, So it is Mary. The virgin mother Mary, he repeated, as though I were dense. He had a defiant, challenging look, as though he were daring me to contradict him. It seemed odd and inappropriate for a museum attendant to take a partisan religious position, filled with assumptions and metaphysical magic based on mistranslations and misunderstandings propagated for so long western Christians forget how divisive and hurtful those radical claims were, or how many innocents were burned alive for questioning them once they became dogma of the part of the church under Roman control. But he could be forgiven I suppose. SCOTUS cant. We now have the spectacle of five men who apparently believe that Mary died a virgin despite bearing Jesus and his brothers and sisters, something that might be shrugged in the name of tradition until you consider some of their recent rulings. Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities, Voltaire once said. Or at least deliver terrible rulings that restrict the health choices of women simply because the same church that teaches a mother can be a virgin (or that this matters in any way) has recently started teaching that restricting womens access to gynecology is just what Jesus would have wanted.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 00:35:35 +0000
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