Most people, I believe, want to be kind, want to be tolerant, and want, indeed, to follow the Christian precept of “love thy neighbour”.
One of the reasons why many people in Ireland voted for the legalisation of same-sex marriage was just that: they wanted to be kind, tolerant and friendly to their neighbours. They might not always believe that marriage between persons of the same sex is “equal” to marriage between those of the opposite sex. Many Christians of all denominations may still privately think that marriage is essentially between a man and a woman, and, as it says in the Book of Common Prayer, first ordained for the procreation of children.
But many gay couples are sweet people, and thus the majority of voters saw no reason to deny this legal union to those of the same sex.
And something similar applies in the controversial area of transgender identity – changing sex. Told the stories of individuals who are desperately unhappy because they feel they were “born into the wrong body”, most people want to be kind, tolerant and understanding.
But for some of us, this is just a step too far removed from the natural law. Compassion is one thing, but agreeing, say, that a man, who has retained all his male bodily parts, may legally “self-identify” as a woman is – for many – Alice in Wonderland nonsense.
It’s just baloney – and it is unsurprising that it can lead to men who “identify” as females carrying out assaults in female prisons, or male athletes who “identify” as women always outperforming competitors born female.
All through history there have been men who felt more womanly than manly, and women who thought they would have been happier as boys – Jo, in Little Women, constantly speaks of herself as “the man of the family”. If the compulsion is so strong that individuals seek a sex change through surgery and hormonal medication, so be it. But surely, this has to be, under the norms of nature, exceptional.
The Gender Recognition Act is under review at the moment and the conclusion may well be that you will be able to declare yourself male or female simply because that is how you identify yourself. Most people, I believe, will want to be kind, polite, tolerant and compassionate: but deep in their hearts, they’ll still think it’s Alice in Wonderland.
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The movie First Man chronicles the pioneering achievement of Neil Armstrong (and Buzz Aldrin) landing on the moon in July 1969.
It’s very long – 141 minutes – and focuses in detail on all the space technology required for a successful moon shot.
Several critics have remarked that the biopic portrays Neil Armstrong (convincingly played by Ryan Gosling) as essentially a boring, introverted man. But how could it be otherwise? To be an astronaut, buckled into a claustrophobia-inducing spacecraft, and fired off by a rocket into the darkness of the Milky Way, requires an exceptionally stable personality. It would not suit the colourful, volatile or gregarious.
The movie underlines how lonely space is, and how deserted are the craters of the moon. And yet, how awesome is the venture, and how rich, varied and unique planet Earth is from afar. It is said that astronauts develop a sense of the spiritual from their flights. The film doesn’t really touch on this, but it’s well expressed in John Gillespie Magee’s pilot’s poem “High Flight”, which finishes with the lines: “And while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod / The high untrespassed sanctity of space / Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”
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Princess Eugenie’s wedding last week wasn’t to everyone’s taste. There were grumbles about the cost to the taxpayer, and too many guests being from the international celebrity circuit. But the music was superb.
Was this the first time that Gounod’s Ave Maria and César Frank’s Panis Angelicus were sung in St George’s Chapel at Windsor?
Both are associated with Catholic rather than Anglican ceremonies. But the question wasn’t raised in the public realm, and I get the impression nobody much minds either way. Certainly Andrea Bocelli, the blind Italian tenor, sang both with great lyricism, exquisitely backed by the peerless strings of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
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