Abbé Weems?

After the breach with Great Britain, Americans wanting to become Episcopalian clergy were refused orders unless they took an oath of allegiance to the British crown. The famous Parson Weems, author of the children's life of Washington ("I cannot tell a lie"), was frustrated enough as a 25-year-old Episcopalian theological student to be willing to be ordained in the Catholic church. Below is the letter from Weems and his friend and fellow divinity student Edward Gant seeking advice from Benjamin Franklin:

Mason Weems and Edward Gant (unpublished)

No 170 Strand. July 9th 1784

Not having the honour to be known to your Excellency we should preface this with an Apology, but as it relates to a subject of public and Important Concern, we hope your Excellency will excuse form and Ceremony.

We are Natives of America and Students of Divinity, having no form of Episcopal Ordination in our own Country we Came to England more than a twelvemonth ago for Orders and have been all that time Soliciting the Arch Bishop but in vain. his Grace will not ordain us unless we will consent to take the Oath of Allegiance. Mr. Chase a Friend of ours advised us to write to your Excellency and acquaint you with the Deplorable Condition of our Church. Waving all Pathetic Discription, permit us to assure Your Excellency that of Sixty Churches in our State (Maryland) there are upwards of thirty vacant.

Romish Orders are Good. We shall take it as a great favour done to our selves and state if your Excellency will inform us as soon as possible whether we can take Orders in France.

Be pleased to Let us know very particularly what Oaths we must take and what Tenets we must subscribe. If the ArchBishop of Paris will ordain Us we will come over most Chearfully. Your Excellency will add to the Obligation by giving us a Speedy Reply. Mr. Adams has invited us to go over to Denmark, but the Orders from Denmark are not so Good as we wish them to be. We have the honour to be Your Excellency’s Most Obedient humble Servants

Mason Weems

Edward Gant

Endorsed: Edd. Gant July 9. 1784

Grant Wood, Parson Weems' Fable, 1939.
Oil on canvas, 38 3/8 x 50 1/8 inches. Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. 1970.43.

The paradox of consevative radicalism

In every country, conservatives harken back to their nation's origins. For most nations, that origin is a mythical foundation: Romulus founding Rome, Moses and Joshua founding Israel, the sun goddess Ameterasu founding Japan. When Americans turn to their founding for ultimate values, they find a revolution. So we have the unique situation in this country of the most conservative citizens also being the most radically anti-authority and anti-government. This is why the Federalists felt that we should hearken back to the British constitution, with its ancient roots (after all, a "revolution" is literally a return to the beginning). Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, thought we should have a revolution every couple of generations; felt the French Revolution had to be defended at ALL COSTS ("rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is"). There is a purity in such an outlook, but it does not do much to promote a comfortable life. It is no accident that the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, when he was apprehended, had a tee shirt on with Jefferson's statement, “Occasionally the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants.” That's pure Trotsky and Lenin, isn't it? I'll take Adamsite Federalism, or better still Monrovian National Republicanism. All honor to Washington!

Providence cardinal virtues

Nice the way the streets in Providence are named after virtues and positive goods: Hope, Benevolent, Benefit, Charity, Faith, Prudence, Justice, Clemence. The city's preeminent figure, slave-trading merchant and statesman John Brown, lived on Power Street.

The Sandy Hook "truther" movement

I can comprehend why some people would be inclined to holocaust denial. To accept that human beings could conceive of and implement a system as insanely evil as the Final Solution is just too much for some decent souls to bear. But the purpose of the Sandy Hook truthers--I call them "lie-ers"--is not to vindicate slandered human nature but to--what? defend a Bushmaster against a bum rap, and pin the crime on some shady handguns who are getting off scot-free? (I thought guns didn't kill people.) There is no more evidence against the official story than in any confused and chaotic crime scene, and there is no hint of implausibility in the crime: gun did exactly what it was intended to do, kudos to the designer. It should not be necessary for me to note that a friend of mine was on duty in the ER of Danbury Hospital on 12/14 and will live with the horror of those children's macerated bodies for the rest of his life. There is a twistedness to the thinking of the conspiracists in this situation. It doesn't even rise to the dignity of paranoia. Instead, it's a deep-seated laziness of political non-thought that just reflexively rolls into the gutter of vapid anti-government sloganeering, never endangering a single pin. It's the intellectual laziness that really gets my goat. If thinking were work, these people would be on permanent disability.

God bless the Connecticut General Assembly and Governor Molloy.

Our legislature acted like responsible adults. I'm very proud to be a Connectican.

Editorial in today's Hartford Courant.

Any idea what the pro-Proposition 8 attorney is talking about?

How does this guy's argument promote banning gay marriage? For that matter, what IS his argument, anyway? 

MR. COOPER: Yes, Your Honor. The concern is that redefining marriage as a genderless institution will sever its abiding connection to its historic traditional procreative purposes, and it will refocus, refocus the purpose of marriage and the definition of marriage away from the raising of children and to the emotional needs and desires of adults, of adult couples. Suppose, in turn —

JUSTICE KAGAN: Well, suppose a State said, Mr. Cooper, suppose a State said that, Because we think that the focus of marriage really should be on procreation, we are not going to give marriage licenses anymore to any couple where both people are over the age of 55. Would that be constitutional?

MR. COOPER: No, Your Honor, it would not be constitutional.

JUSTICE KAGAN: Because that's the same State interest, I would think, you know. If you are over the age of 55, you don't help us serve the Government's interest in regulating procreation through marriage. So why is that different?

MR. COOPER: Your Honor, even with respect to couples over the age of 55, it is very rare that both couples — both parties to the couple are, and the traditional — (Laughter.)

JUSTICE KAGAN: No, really, because if the couple — I can just assure you, if both the woman and the man are over the age of 55, there are not a lot of children coming out of that marriage.

(Laughter.)

MR. COOPER: Your Honor, society's — society's interest in responsible procreation isn't just with respect to the procreative capacities of the couple itself. The marital norm, which imposes the obligations of fidelity and monogamy, Your Honor, advances the interests in responsible procreation by making it more likely that neither party, including the fertile party to that —

JUSTICE KAGAN: Actually, I'm not even —

JUSTICE SCALIA: I suppose we could have a questionnaire at the marriage desk when people come in to get the marriage — you know, Are you fertile or are you not fertile?

(Laughter.)

JUSTICE SCALIA: I suspect this Court would hold that to be an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, don't you think?

JUSTICE KAGAN: Well, I just asked about age. I didn't ask about anything else. That's not — we ask about people's age all the time.

MR. COOPER: Your Honor, and even asking about age, you would have to ask if both parties are infertile. Again —

JUSTICE SCALIA: Strom Thurmond was — was not the chairman of the Senate committee when Justice Kagan was confirmed.

(Laughter.)

MR. COOPER: Very few men — very few men outlive their own fertility.

Does God hate flags?

Across the street from Westboro Baptist Church

Great story on Huffington Post on the latest and most colorful protest against the infamous hate church in Wichita.

How Doctors Die

Physicians don't go through the torture of long, extended periods of incapacity before death. Some refuse the very treatments they themselves discovered. Interesting discussion on Martin Bayne's blog.  For more on Martin, "The Voice of Aging Boomers" and a first-hand champion of good assisted living, see this article in today's New York Times.

Habemus papadum