No phones, no selfie sticks, and a dress code - should our churches look more like major sporting events?

A few weeks ago I asked if golf was more sacred than church when the Augusta National banned cell phones at the golf tournament. 

Three years ago I asked a similar question about tennis when Wimbledon introduced a dress code for its members. Today I learned that Wimbledon has now joined the growing list of places where selfie sticks - a.k.a. wands of idiocy or narcisticks - are banned:

The ticketholders' guide said: "In common with many other major sports and entertainment events and cultural attractions, the championships will not allow selfie sticks into the grounds."

The devices have already been banned at some museums and sports grounds.

A spokesman for the club told the Sunday Times the move was brought in partly because of the "nuisance value" but "primarily so it doesn't interfere with spectators' enjoyment" [more].

I've long been a critic of the great devotion that so many people give to sports. How many of your friends can rattle off the roster of their favorite team going back decades, but cannot list even the Twelve Apostles? It isn't so much that sports are bad, but they people too much importance on them and devote too little to what really matters. It won't matter in eternity who won, say, the World Series in 1953, to pick a random year, but it might help to be able to recognize the brother of Simon Peter.

Even so, I'm beginning to wish more of our churches looked more like a major sporting event, at least those seeking to bring back a sense of public decency and respect for others, if not for God.

Before anyone objects to churches instituting dress codes and claiming that Jesus only cares that I'm there, I've answered these objections before: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

A news round up - 11 March 2015

Here are a few news stories you may have missed:

• The European city with more bicycles than people (Amsterdam) is planning to construct an underwater bicycle garage because it has run out of room for them above ground.

• According to the findings of a survey conducted by the Public Religion  Research Institute, for the first time in the history of the United States of America Protestants no longer make up a majority of the American populace.

• They said we were crazy for even suggesting something like this might happen because, you know, the "slippery slope" argument is a fallacy, and yet it happened: three men with same-sex attraction have entered into what is being called the world's first "gay married 'throuple'".

• Even as snow sits on Hawaii's Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea (which has delayed the construction of a telescope), the Iditarod - Alaska's famed dogsled race - went on this past Saturday as scheduled, despite a lack of snow. 
• Legislators in the state of Utah recently passed a bill to make Utah the only state in the union in which those receiving the death penalty may be brought before a firing squad. The governor has not yet said if he will sign the law.

Selfies at graduation? What happened to living in a society?

A few days after my critique on selfies, one of our seminarians wrote to tell me he wrote a paper on "dealing with alienation in the modern world" and used my comments "to talk about alienation today." I'm grateful for the inclusion and a bit surprised by it; my blog has been referenced in papers before, but not for a topic like this.

He also sent along a link to an article at Everyday Feminism titled, "Selfies and Misogyny: The Importance of Selfies as Self-Love." The title alone clearly demonstrates my claim that "the selfie indicates, in a way perhaps more clearly than any other, the great ego-centrism of our own day."

Yesterday morning I read with interest that both the University of South Florida and Bryant University have asked their graduates not to take selfies as they shake hands and receive their diplomas (that such a request even has to be made is baffling).

One of the graduates from the University of South Florida is quoted in the article:

"I didn't think it was that big of a deal," she said as she posed on campus in her cap and gown for some early graduation pictures. "But I don't want to be disrespectful."

Give that statement some thought. The fact that didn't think taking a selfie on stage in a ceremony that is intended to be marked with some dignity shows how little respect she - and others like her - has for those around her. That her taking a selfie might inconvenience others or take away from the ceremony never occurred to her. There are, after all, official photographers and family and friends with cameras in attendance to capture a better record of the moment than a selfie could ever hope to do.

To be sure, I am not criticizing her as a person (her desire to be respectful is commendable), but rather the utter thoughtlessness with which so many in her generation - and the generation ahead of her and, regrettably, behind - live their lives. In effect, life is about me and those around me aren't all that important.

It is high time we remembered that we live in a society and that other people exist around me and matter. It is time to consider what effect our actions will have others and simply the effect they have on ourselves.

What to wear when flying

The Associated Press today has a story about dress codes for airlines – or the lack thereof - in which it is lamented that some passengers are "lectured" about the clothing they wear while flying and some are refused entry to the aircraft (not surprisingly, a woman wearing a shirt with a 4-letter expletive works for an abortuary).

The author, David Koenig, complains: 

It's not always clear what's appropriate. Airlines don't publish dress codes. There are no rules that spell out the highest hemline or the lowest neckline allowed. That can leave passengers guessing how far to push fashion boundaries. Every once in a while the airline says: Not that far. 

If we remembered modesty and decency in clothing, this would not be an issue at all.  If we respected other people as much as we demand that they respect us, this would be not an issue at all.  If we actually respected ourselves, this would not be an issue at all.

Frankly, I’m all in favor of the “airline clothing cops” and wouldn’t mind having other such cops elsewhere, so long as it brings back a level of decency and mutual respect in society.  I’m tired of seeing people out and about in their pajamas.

And they said this wouldn't happen: the legalization of polygamy based on the legalization of homosexual relationships

Jimmy Akin passes on news from the New York Times of the following story from Utah where the law against polgyamy is being challenged based on the Supreme Court's decision in favor of homosexual relationships.
The text of the story follows, with my emphases and comments:

Kody Brown is a proud polygamist, and a relatively famous one. Now Mr. Brown, his four wives and 16 children and stepchildren are going to court to keep from being punished for it.
       
The family is the focus of a reality TV show, “Sister Wives,” that first appeared in 2010. Law enforcement officials in the Browns’ home state, Utah, announced soon after the show began that the family was under investigation for violating the state law prohibiting polygamy.

On Wednesday, the Browns are expected to file a lawsuit to challenge the polygamy law.

The lawsuit is not demanding that states recognize polygamous marriage. Instead, the lawsuit builds on a 2003 United States Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state sodomy laws as unconstitutional intrusions on the “intimate conduct” of consenting adults [at the time there were those who warned this day would come and we were told the day would not come]. It will ask the federal courts to tell states that they cannot punish polygamists for their own “intimate conduct” so long as they are not breaking other laws, like those regarding child abuse, incest or seeking multiple marriage licenses.         

Mr. Brown has a civil marriage with only one of his wives; the rest are “sister wives,” not formally wedded. The Browns are members of the Apostolic United Brethren Church, a fundamentalist offshoot of the Mormon Church, which gave up polygamy around 1890 as Utah was seeking statehood.

Making polygamous unions illegal, they argue, violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, as well as the free exercise, establishment, free speech and freedom of association clauses of the First Amendment.

“We only wish to live our private lives according to our beliefs [we've heard this argument before, but from others],” Mr. Brown said in a statement provided by his lead attorney, Jonathan Turley, who is a law professor at George Washington University.

The connection with Lawrence v. Texas, a case that broadened legal rights for gay people, is sensitive for those who have sought the right of same-sex marriage. Opponents of such unions often refer to polygamy as one of the all-but-inevitable outcomes of allowing same-sex marriage [it seems we were right]. In his dissenting opinion in the Lawrence case, Justice Antonin Scalia cited a threat to state laws “based on moral choices” against “bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity” [he was right, too]. 

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in New York, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, made a similar comparison on his blog on Thursday in an essay criticizing the state’s legalization of same-sex marriage and the possible “next step,” which could be “another redefinition to justify multiple partners and infidelity.”

Such arguments, often referred to as the “parade of horribles,” are logically flawed, said Jennifer C. Pizer, a professor at the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, and legal director for the school’s Williams Institute, which focuses on sexual orientation law [apparently it is actually the logic of Professor Pizer that is logically flawed because].

The questions surrounding whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry are significantly different from those involved in criminal prosecution of multiple marriages [then why is the line of argument the same?], Ms. Pizer noted. Same-sex couples are seeking merely to participate in the existing system of family law for married couples, she said, while “you’d have to restructure the family law system in a pretty fundamental way” to recognize polygamy [not in a more fundamentally different way than is necessary for homosexual "marriages".  Her logic really is flawed.  The reality of the situation is right in front of her and she refuses to see it.  Where's that forest?].

Professor Turley called the one-thing-leads-to-another arguments “a bit of a constitutional canard,” and argued that removing criminal penalties for polygamy “will take society nowhere in particular” [that's what they said about allowing homosexual relationships, and that certainly does seem to have taken us somewhere in particular].

The Supreme Court supported the power of states to restrict polygamy in an 1879 case, Reynolds v. United States. Professor Turley suggests that the fundamental reasoning of Reynolds, which said polygamy “fetters the people in stationary despotism,” is outdated and has been swept away by cases like Lawrence [a similar argument was made in favor of homosexuality and in favor of "same-sex marriages."  It's a great wonder this is missed not only by the professor but also by the reporter].

Douglas Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University, said today’s courts might not agree with the sweeping societal conclusions of the 19th-century courts, but noted that more attention has been paid in recent decades to the importance of internal family issues as part of the public policy sphere. Questions of child abuse and spousal domination, he said, could figure into a judicial examination of polygamy.

“We’re more sensitive to the fact that a household can be quite repressive,” he said, and so reservations about polygamy “might be even more profound” [I regret to say that I doubt that, as much as I would like to believe it.  Similar arguments were made against homosexual relationships and "marriages" and have been routinely ignored].

Professor Turley disagreed, noting that “there are many religious practices in monogamous families that many believe as obnoxious and patriarchal [see],” and added, “The criminal code is not a license for social engineering” [perhaps not originally, but it seems to have become so].

Now I suppose we really do just have to wait for someone to sue to be legally allowed to enter into a relationship with his or her dog, or some other such animal.

Sociology is simply

Societal curiosities

The Compare People Facebook application sent an updated list of my strengths and weaknesses, as voted by my friends who use the application:

STRENGTHS:

• most powerful
• best to hang out with for a day
• toughest

WEAKNESSES:

• most punctual
• most loyal

While I'm thrilled to consider a good person to hang with for the day, I still fail to see how being loyal is a weakness. Can anyone enlighten me on this?

Vice or virtue

There is on Facebook.com an application called "Compare People" by which users can compare their friends in a number of various categories.

To be sure, it is a mostly silly and meaningless enterprise, but it can give insights into various personalities by viewing how a number of people "rate" them.

Recently, I received an e-mail saying that I been judged to possess the following positive traits:

• most powerful (I'm not sure why);
• toughest (again, I'm not sure why); and
• most studious (I like this one).

I was also judged to possess the following negative traits, so the e-mail said:

• most loyal (I'm very pleased at this); and
• most punctual.

I was struck not so much at the positive characteristics I was judged to possess, but by what passed for negative characteristics: loyalty and punctuality.

These can only be seen as negative qualities by a society which places a great emphasis on the individual and personal "freedom," and very little emphasis on respect of other people and the common good.

It is a very sad society indeed where loyalty is undervalued and seen as a quality not worth possessing. A society that does not value loyalty and honor cannot long survive.

I've often wondered if I wasn't born a century too late and an ocean away from where I truly seem to fit; this only seems to confirm this suspicion.

N.B.: There is an excellent - and lengthy - article on loyalty here.