Preaching in Times Square

[World, October 1, 1994] 

Sexist treatment is blatant on Broadway. Street hawkers hand women, not men, fliers advertising nail salons (with puzzling semi-English names like "Tanning Nail"). Men, on the other hand, get fliers advertising the "World's Hottest Dancers." The latter fliers suggest that a woman who hopes to attract men by investing in her fingernails has chosen one of the least likely sites of interest.

At the corner of 42nd street a slight, city-pale man is handing out pamphlets freely, without regard to gender.

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Is America "the greatest force for good"?

[World, September 17, 1994]

Tom Clancy is the novelist for patriots, and Pat Buchanan is one of his biggest fans. But one of Buchanan’s recent columns, devoted to praising Clancy’s work, had a line that pulled me up short: “[His characters] put duty, honor, country above all else. And in a Clancy novel there is no moral equivalence: The U.S.A. is the greatest force for good on the planet.”

I write this as the U.N. International Conference on Population and Development begins in Cairo. The U.S.A. is there, parading as the greatest force for abortion, birth control, and eugenic population management on the planet. Our immense wealth and power make us a force hard to withstand.

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Twice Liberated: A Personal Journey Through Feminism

[Touchstone, Summer 1994]

When I joined the college newspaper as a shy freshman many years ago, the editor gave me my first assignment: “Find out what’s all this stuff about women’s lib.” I was baffled as to how to do that; reports of feminism (which was then usually called “women’s lib”) were just beginning to titillate the public, just beginning to show up in Johnny Carson jokes about “bra-burners.” Was it possible to dig up any local “libbers”? My editor had a suggestion: go to the Student Union and have them announce over the loudspeaker, “Anyone representing the women’s liberation movement, please come to the information desk.”

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Prolifers' Long Dark Night

[Christianity Today, April 24, 1994] 

In a year which has seen many discouragements for the pro‑life movement, March 10 marks a particularly low point; it is the anniversary of the killing of abortionist David Gunn in Pensacola, Florida. When the pro‑choice movement tragically gained a martyr, they gained another boost in the fashionability of their cause. And those of us who oppose both abortion and murder must wonder once again why God allows these setbacks to occur.

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Tyrranical Victims

[World, April 23, 1994] 

The American Association of University Women, which last year issued a report equating boy-girl schoolyard teasing with sexual harassment, is now concerned about how schools damage little girls' fragile self-esteem. The problem is that they don't have enough role models.

Wait a minute, you say. The last time you visited a school, at least half the teachers looked to be female.

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Do-It-Yourself Deity

[World, February 5, 1994] 

During my college years I lived on "Olympia Hill," a site less heavenly than its name suggests. Our southern city had once been host to a booming textile industry, and a hundred years ago a ramshackle collection of unheated wooden houses for employees had been thrown together beyond the railroad tracks. By the time I arrived, Olympia Hill had developed a mixed population:

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Let God be God

[World, January 29, 1994]

The book's title was The Power of Their Glory; its subhead described Episcopalians as "America's Ruling Class." The Episcopal church was just one of several mainline denominations that rocketed in membership, prominence, and influence in the years after World War II. The horrors of war had been such a foretaste of hell

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Fraternizing with the Enemy

[World, October 23, 1993]

I arrived a little early to pick up my 11-year-old son at church camp. It was dinnertime in the long wooden hall, 263 kids noisily banging the cups and wolfing down cherry cobbler. Suddenly a table of boys burst into incoherent song--the words a blur, but the tone tauntingly playful. It was greeted with a mixture of applause and boos. "That's Cabin 44," Stephen grinned. "Every night they have a battle with Cabin 5. They make up rhymes about each other."

When a few minutes had lapsed another song struck up, this one all in girls' voices. "That's Cabin 5," Stephen told me. When they finished, I joined the yays (Go, team!) while Stephen went "Boo!" "I had to go 'boo,'" he explained to me, sincerely. "I knew they were making fun of men. I knew it was a sexist joke."

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The Three Pauls

[World, April 17, 1993] 

Thanks to the eclectic tastes of my thirteen-year-old son, whenever a tape player is on I'm apt to be serenaded by one of the Pauls--Simon or McCartney. Hours of exposure have reaquainted me with these luminaries of my adolesence, and have led, surprisingly, to new reflections on the mystery of election.

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On Taking the Wrong Test

[The NOEL News, Spring 1991] 

Did you ever study for the wrong exam? There you were with freshly sharpened pencils and a head full of trigonometry--and you were handed a blue book and a list of essay questions about the Spanish-American War. Oh no!

There are times that I wonder whether the pro-life movement is confused about which test we're taking.

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