Tuesday July 10th 07
MARRIAGE AND MORE....
Good headlines this morning as Iain Duncan Smith's excellent report on the urgent need to restore the status of marriage is widely highlighted. Phone call from the Jeremy Vine Show, BBC Radio 2 - can I get in to the studio in time for a 12 noon discussion? I hurry up to BBC, Great Portland St. They have found a person to oppose me, a former member of the Scottish Parliament whose solution to the breakdown of family life and community cohesion is to "raise more taxes and fund youth workers...marriage is only a bit of paper and what about people who don't want to get married...." etc...etc...all the old tripe we've had for the past decade and more. I enjoy demolishing this. It's now time to rediscover reality: human beings are designed to raise children in a male/female lifebond bond and this is the basis of a society and community. Children do not belong to Government-sponsored youth workers. They have a right to belong to families. Marriage today has been robbed of its status, and casual reltionships are fostered at the expense of justice, and of human values. At present, not only has marriage little if any practical status in law, but divorce practices are grossly unjust, especially towards men: a woman can take her children away from their dad, and make them live with her new boyfriend. It's time for a re-think: give back marriage its due place, allow children to belong to families, each with a common name and sense of identity and loyalty. This is the only human and just way forward from the social chaos and high crime rate of modern Britain.
In fifty years' time people will look back with horror on the social engineering and cruelty imposed on two generations, resulting in so many children growing up without a stable family to love and support them. Trapped in a gang culture which is the only immediately available alternative, young people's involvement in vicious crimes is hardly unpredictable. Restoring marriage to its rightful place - legally, and in the tax system, and in the message children recieve in school, and in the pronouncments of official organisations, and in policies adopted by official bodies, is a workable and practical plan and this is the way to go.
Readers of this blog could help a bit by writing to David Cameron at the House of Commons to tell him this...
7 comments:
Hello Joanne,
I heard yo on the radio and think it a pity that you had lost your temper and sounded terribly aggressive throughout. I think you have some very important points and people need to hear them, but ranting and being nasty will not help people hear the content.i am so sorry this happened to you. Please try to be calm and ratioanal in future for everyone's sake so you can better articulate the facts and points.
A wellwisher and believer in parental love.
The Conservative Party's campaign for the family is to be welcomed but I hope it is not a cynical political ploy that will be forgotten if they form a new Government. I don't trust David Cameron and see him as opportunistic as New Labour. Anonymous 1 is right about your public manner, Joanna. Although many of us agree with what you say, the way you say it makes our toes curl, and it gives the Catholic Church a bad reputation. The BBC knows this and I suspect that the reason why they invite you to participate is because you become an Aunt Sally and serious debate is turned into farce.
JOANNA COVER YOUR EYES!!
C'mon dudes, give the lady a break;
regrettably on occasion the vivacity, vim and vigour and vitality - the oo-jah-cum-spiff that bertie wooster is filled with,
comes out in the wrong way - but a lot of this sincere fervour is indicative of time spent with a lot of kids and the childlike at heart.
Mrs Bogle is like a Terrier - lively, utterly loyal but prone to defend anything she feels has been compromised with a bark*;
but who do you want as a commentator ? a pragmatic situationist and gossip-queen like Peter Sandford? Clifford Longley who wouldn't know what catholicism was if it bit him on the rear end? An idiot from the Lash or Hebblethwaite schools of anti-catholicism ; or some cleric who's more interested with being on the telly /radio than having anything constructive to say - so terrified of offending anyone , so , how does Livia in 'I Claudius ' put it? So wanting to be loved...
Joanna, you go girl ; but for crying out loud I worked for Labour students before the Blair took over, and apart from a few in the oldguard shadow cabinet -they were awful!!! Of course we have had the pro-Death Blair and Brown - but trust me the Tories are going to be much worse - put not your faith in Cameron - just because he knows the right things to say and buttons to push doesn't mean he intends to implement anything - all of us should be out forming a pro-life political party anyway. Don't forget the PFI debts come home to roost very soon after the next election - the first thing that will be assaulted will be the NHS and Welfare - these pro-family policies will look great on paper but there will never be any money no will to implement them. Trust none of them.
'Auntie Joanna' 's problem is being unwilling to play the 'professional' commentator's game. Ever notice on the grotesque 'Heaven and Earth show' how it's the anti-church, anti-dogma, pro-gay pro-death, pro-sexual profligacy who are presented as being the 'voice of reason in a contemporary world'.
the reason for this is that they have very few scruples and a great deal of opportunism with very few qualms about being self-contradictory in opinions.
Give it time ; Mrs Bogle will slowly learn that sincere dismissive , almost patronisisng , condescension regarding people's positions contrary to hers, plus a handful of axioms - soundbites and retorts corresponding to the intrinsic realities on every issue will help her to overcome the fact that a] she has scruples and b]even against an adversary she'll play fair.
It's very easy to lose one's temper when people are so reprehensibly negligent and dismissive of children's safety or Issue of Lie against the culture of death [I know I'd want to throttle half the people she ends up in a studio with]
*[and I've been a victim of it somewhere,sometime in the past - I'm practically sure she was condemning me for being too pessimistic about something and telling me to lighten up because I was letting the side down or something - but what the hey ?]
Apparently a single mum working 16 hours a week on the minimum wage gets something like £23,000 after all the benefits are topped up. That's more than a lot of people get for a full time job you need qualifications for.
YOu need to focus on the corrupting effect of all this free money, not tax breaks for married couples.
What worries me about this is the fact that the argument is in danger of being lost to the sounbite about the "£20 tax break".
How about the massive financial disincentives to single mothers to marry their children's fathers, thus giving them all a stable home life? How about the staggering cost to the nation of the explosion in single households? (When this was raised last night, Yvette Cooper came out with some disingenuous twaddle about widows -it ain't widows who are the problem, dear, it's the burgeoning numbers of divorced and never-married parents). And how about the cost to the nation of the proven underachievement of children raised in single households? It all makes £20 look pretty paltry, but if no one says so, pro-marriage and family policies are doomed.
Malcolm, you are so very right. The brave new world of the ‘chattering classes’ is completely upside-down; especially so if you have a modest background, as there is no encouragement to work and improve your lot when others around you appear to be raking it in for little or no effort.
Once again Joanna, thank you for taking a stand for the family.
(BTW, I love your history show on EWTN.)
Joanna,
Have to say - don't know why you (charitably) allow such negative uncharitable comments from "anonymous" on your blog. Actually, I think I do: you know that such comments diminish "anonymous" person more than they do you - hence he/she needs to remain anonymous…. How easy it is to criticise when he/she is not the person facing bias/hostility when speaking in the media. Don't listen to it. We're all fallible. Thank you for standing up for Catholicism. Let "anonymous" get out there - with an identity - and stand up, speak out. But no, of course not … he/she will probably just remain in hiding on the Internet and carry on being nasty to Catholics who do speak out…
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