The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Patricia Jannuzzi Is Right

Posted on | March 13, 2015 | 88 Comments

“We need healthy families with a mother and a father for the sake of the children and humanity,” wrote Patricia Januzzi, in a Facebook post in which she warned that same-sex marriage is part of an “agenda” that aims toward the “slow extinction” of Western civilization.

Ms. Januzzi is a teacher at Immaculata High School, a private Catholic school in New Jersey. While I am not Catholic, I am sufficiently acquainted with their doctrines on marriage and the family to conclude that Ms. Januzzi said nothing in her rant with which the Pope would disagree. And having spent the past several months researching radical feminism, I can say with absolute certainty that the “agenda” is exactly what Ms. Januzzi says it is. But the 21st-Century Thought Police can’t let the truth be spoken:

SOMERVILLE, N.J. — An anti-gay rant by a religion teacher at a Catholic high school in New Jersey is drawing the ire of alumni across the country, including a former Real Housewives of New Jersey cast member and New-Jersey-raised Susan Sarandon.
On her now-deleted Facebook profile earlier this week, the veteran private Catholic school teacher said gays or gay activists “want to reengineer western civ (sic) into a slow extinction” as part of their “agenda.”
“We need healthy families with a mother and a father for the sake of the children and humanity!!!!!” wrote Immaculata High School teacher Patricia Jannuzzi, adding that the argument that gays are protected under the 14th Amendment is “bologna.” . . .

Let me interrupt here to quote more of Ms. Januzzi’s post. She was reacting emotionally to a story (“Crass: Gay Activist Tweets THIS To Ben Carson Following CNN Interview”) that she linked on her Facebook page, and her point was not very clearly made. She said gay activists, after using the “born that way” argument to gain status under the 14th Amendment “equal protection” clause, will then “argue everyone should be able to choose” homosexuality. Anyone familiar with feminist theory knows that radical lesbians have never accepted the “born that way” argument, instead advocating lesbianism as a “challenge to male supremacy and its basic institution of heterosexuality,” to quote Professor Sheila Jeffreys. This feminist perspective was celebrated in a 1973 song by Alix Dobkin, “Every Woman Can Be a Lesbian.”

The radical “choice” view of sexuality advocated by lesbian feminists is seldom heard from gay males, who usually describe their homosexual desires as an uncontrollable urge. However, one finds across the spectrum of the LGBT rainbow a unanimous consensus on what we might call the Compulsory Approval Doctrine:

No one can ever be permitted to express a personal aversion or moral objection to homosexual behavior.

Disapproval is synonymous with “hate,” according to gay activists, and the cultural consequence of the Compulsory Approval Doctrine is to stigmatize heterosexuality as an expression of prejudice. Many gay people have convinced themselves that the “straight” person’s rejection of homosexual behavior is implicit proof of homophobia — an irrational fear — so that all heterosexuals are basically viewed as ignorant bigots afflicted with neurotic sexual repression. And if you dare cite religious injunctions against homosexuality, you thereby prove that you are certainly a hater. Quod erat demonstrandum.

The Compulsory Approval Doctrine of the gay-rights movement is exemplified by the thug mob reaction to Mrs. Januzzi:

The school has since forced Jannuzzi to take down her Facebook page, which was no longer visible Wednesday evening, but not before others took screenshots of the rant and shared it on social media.
Immaculata principal Jean Kline on Wednesday distanced her school from Jannuzzi’s comments and said that “through an investigation, we have determined that the information posted on this social media page has not been reflected in the curriculum content of the classes she teaches.”
In her statement, Kline said the school “takes this situation very seriously.”
“We are dedicated to creating a school environment that promotes mutual respect and provides a challenging academic program, rooted in the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.”
It remains to be seen whether the school’s response will allay reaction by alumni, some of whom remember losing a gay classmate to suicide.
Former Real Housewives cast member Greg Bennett, who graduated from Immaculata in 2004 and who had Jannuzzi as a teacher his senior year, shared the screenshot of Jannuzzi’s post on his Twitter account, asking his 165,000 followers to sign a petition addressed to school administrators calling “for action to be taken and hate speech to stop at Immaculata.” . . .
Earlier on Wednesday, Sarandon, who graduated from Edison High School, shared a letter written by her nephew, Scott Lyons, to Jannuzzi, his former teacher at the high school.
“You have a responsibility as a teacher to lead by example and the words that you have been throwing out there are detrimental to the well being and health of the youth that you inspire,” Lyons, who has an adopted son with his husband, writes. “I am certain that the pope himself would take issue with your extreme point of view on homosexuality.” . . .
“I left this school after being told in religion class I must live a celibate single life if I had gay ‘feelings,’ ” writes Doug Bednarczyk of Marlton, N.J. “Around the same time, a gay classmate committed suicide.”
Lucas Bernardo, of Philadelphia, says he was 16 when he took a class taught by Jannuzzi.
“I didn’t feel comfortable in her class with the negative messages about gay and lesbian people she was preaching to us,” he writes. “I remember arguing with her about such topics and being in total disbelief that such blatant hate could be taught in a religion class.”

Read the whole thing. The Thought Police never bothered to disprove what Ms. Januzzi wrote. They offered no evidence to contradict her claims. Instead, they denounced her for engaging in “hate speech,” having an “extreme point of view,” teaching “blatant hate” and, they insinuated, Ms. Januzzi is responsible for teenagers committing suicide.

Look: I’m old enough to remember when a boy could be suspended from public school if his hair was long enough to touch his shirt collar in back. I remember when a girl could get kicked off the cheerleading squad if she engaged in PDA (public display of affection) by holding hands with her boyfriend. There was a time — and not really that long ago, either — when young people could not demand approval from their elders, and in fact teenagers were constantly subjected to lectures of adult disapproval for their adolescent wildness. Yet we did not commit suicide, nor did we organize petitions to get our teachers fired because they disapproved of us, inter alia, smoking dope and listening to Led Zeppelin.

Our parents and teachers told us we were hellbound heathens and, once we grew up and looked back on our misspent youth, most of us agreed they were right. God forbid any of my kids should ever go wild like I went wild in the ’70s. America was still a free country back then, and adults weren’t expected to tiptoe around lest they bruise the fragile self-esteem of a Special Snowflake. Back then, totalitarianism was a threat posed by the Soviet Union. Now the totalitarians are here among us, organizing to suppress dissent, punishing expression of opinions contrary to those of the progressive elite. It is not yet illegal to speak truth, however, and I will exercise my First Amendment right to say this: Damn the Thought Police. Damn them all to hell.

“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself . . . she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1786

“If you only stand up for speech you approve of, you’re a hack. If you only stand up for speech that everyone approves of, you’re a coward.”
Glenn Reynolds, 2015

The “slow extinction” of Western civilization is beginning to accelerate. If a Catholic teacher at a Catholic school is not free to express Catholic teaching, who among us is truly free?

The Thought Police are everywhere now, monitoring our opinions, so we can only think what Our Moral Superiors™ want us to think.

(Hat-tip: Donald Douglas on Twitter.)





 

Comments

88 Responses to “Patricia Jannuzzi Is Right”

  1. Quartermaster
    March 13th, 2015 @ 2:55 pm

    Nurture outstrips any other factor in child rearing. A poor couple dedicated to proper nurture, encouraging the kid to excel under the conditions handed to them, will do far better than a kid with a rich single parent that neglects the kid.

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 13th, 2015 @ 3:00 pm

    Money is most definitely not the critical factor in a happy healthy childhood. Love by the parents combined with reasonable boundaries/discipline are the critical factors.

    Darleen is right, economic success generally follows the values.

  3. Adobe_Walls
    March 13th, 2015 @ 3:12 pm

    I didn’t say drug use causes poverty, though it will keep people in poverty, I said drug use is the single greatest curse of the poor. Nor does poverty cause drug use. Those studies are liberal claptrap. Poor people use drugs for the same reasons well off people use drugs. To feel better, for thrills and to escape whatever they think needs to be, but can’t be escaped. Rich and poor use drugs because it’s the easy way, believe me I know where of I speak. Drugs are dearly paid for in terms of money and consequences but cheaply acquired in terms of effort. People use drugs because they can. Extended drug use creates dysfunctional people, being legal wouldn’t change that.
    As a strictly theoretical ideological question I’d agree that drugs should be legal. People have the right to destroy themselves as they please. However other than states legalizing pot if they wish, I oppose legalization. Our society isn’t able to properly handle legalization because we’re not capable of stepping over the bodies, including the children, and going on our way. There isn’t enough money in the world to cure the effects of drug use and I’m not willing to pay for attempting to save people from themselves.

  4. Chris Wysocki
    March 13th, 2015 @ 4:04 pm

    The homofascists “won.” Immaculata caved. Patricia Jannuzzi has been sacked.

    http://www.nj.com/somerset/index.ssf/2015/03/teacher_who_made_anti-gay_facebook_posts_placed_on.html#incart_river

  5. Adobe_Walls
    March 13th, 2015 @ 4:37 pm

    Whether poverty builds character or not is a chicken or the egg argument, having character certainly is a major factor in escaping it. Poverty doesn’t cause people to go to prison, a lack of character or proper upbringing causes people to commit crimes. Now that’ll land you in prison.
    We could end poverty in America in a couple of minutes.
    Step one: don’t change the dollar income amount thresh hold establishing the poverty level.
    Step two: Count all transfer payments including medicaid and housing as income.
    I feel better about myself already.

  6. DeadMessenger
    March 13th, 2015 @ 4:51 pm

    The notion that money builds character is ridiculous, and decent people recognize this intuitively. I’d guess though, based upon my own experience, that more decent people come from a poor background than a wealthy one.

    Furthermore, poverty only breeds “misery, hate, envy, and a fundamental disgust with life and your very self” only if that person has an entitlement mentality. Otherwise, poverty breeds a fundamental desire to change your circumstances by the sweat of your own brow, which is as it should be.

  7. DeadMessenger
    March 13th, 2015 @ 5:00 pm

    I like that. I think I’ll swipe it and use it.

  8. DeadMessenger
    March 13th, 2015 @ 5:06 pm

    What’s worse are the comments at the bottom of the article. I could only read a few because I’m actually now literally nauseated. And heartsick, at the sheer stupidity and lack of critical thinking and intelligence on the part of the commenters.

    Interesting, though, that Ecclesiastes 10:2 says, “The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.”

  9. The Osprey
    March 13th, 2015 @ 5:15 pm

    Homodisgustia.

  10. Daniel Freeman
    March 13th, 2015 @ 5:21 pm

    Here’s a link. Which reminds me, I still need to read the book.

  11. Daniel Freeman
    March 13th, 2015 @ 5:42 pm

    A Social-Media Mistake Is No Reason to Be Fired: “We’d all be better off if Americans developed a broad aversion to people being fired for public missteps.” We could argue that she didn’t even say anything wrong, but that only strengthens his point.

  12. Saltyron1977
    March 13th, 2015 @ 8:56 pm

    I use “homorevulsion”. It is accurate and has the added bonus of raising WHY people find it revolting. Gay sex is easy to sell these days until you force the customer to view what it actually is, ala Alex in “A Clockwork Orange”. I also add “must we bust out the human anatomy and biology textbooks?”

  13. Saltyron1977
    March 13th, 2015 @ 9:04 pm

    Homophobia is just a term used to facilitate its user’s projection. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness, so what do they do to slander any opposition? Call it a phobia, an irrational fear, a mental illness.

  14. WyBlog - NJ Catholic high school sacks a teacher for posting Catholic doctrine on Facebook
    March 13th, 2015 @ 9:38 pm

    NJ Catholic high school sacks a teacher for posting Catholic doctrine on Facebook

    Stacy McCain calls out the hypocritical dichotomy.

  15. K-Bob
    March 14th, 2015 @ 12:51 am

    Smart Money: now it raises your kids!!!

    What could possibly go wrong?

  16. K-Bob
    March 14th, 2015 @ 12:59 am

    You have absolutely no idea what you are writing here. I’ve been around a LOT of parents who were very well off. The degree of emotional disturbance among their kids was much higher than among kids raised in the rural county where I went to high school.

    Most of the kids my sons went to high school with are now stuck paying back massive college loans for degrees in “studies”, “social science”, and other useless disciplines, and they still don’t know what they want to do with their lives.

    Kids who grow up among normal parents tend to do much better than kids from broken families, “gay” families, and single parent households.

  17. Clinton
    March 14th, 2015 @ 10:36 am

    Absolutely. In my experience, most parents
    who send their kids to parochial schools
    today do so not because they want their
    kids to have a Catholic education,
    but because they want them to have a
    private school education. A teacher
    who has the stones to actually explain what
    the Church teaches will not be getting much support from that crowd.

  18. Dan Cobb
    March 14th, 2015 @ 12:05 pm

    Oh boy… so many errata, where to begin.

    First, it is not part of Catholic Theology to teach that the “gay agenda” is attempting to bring the western world to extinction. Just is not part of the Catholic Catechism. Sorry, but the Pope most assuredly would disagree with Ms. Jannuzzi on that point. So apparently you are not as savvy about the centuries old Catholic doctrine on homosexuality as you thought. (Over-estimation of one’s skills and knowledge is a sign of narcissism). Ms. Jannuzzi’s assertions that gays are intending to bring down western civilization is hateful in that it is 1) patently untrue; 2) incendiary; 3) intended to spark resentment and distrust of all gay people; and 4) her proselytizing this position from her “pulpit” in the classroom will undoubtedly serve only to fill some young gay boy or girl with self-loathing -an act which I believe to be evil.

    Next you create a mythical doctrine you call the
    “Compulsory Approval Doctrine: No one can ever be permitted to express a personal aversion or moral objection to homosexual behavior.” Gee, isn’t that exactly what Ms. Jannuzzi was doing? And what you’re doing in your article?

    You believe all straight people have the same “ick” factor about gay sex that you do, and you assume that for that reason all straight people are viscerally against gay people. Well, I am sorry to inform you that only about 1/3 of straight men have this “ick” factor response to gay sex. About 50% of straight men are fairly neutral about gay sex -neither positive or negative. The remaining 17% or so are fascinated/interested in it from afar.

    The fact is that gay people have existed in steady numbers in every human society on the face of the earth for as long as humanity has existed. Every nation on earth has gay men and women. Gays existed in ancient Egypt, in Judea and Sumaria, in Babylon, in Rome, in Greece in the darkest corners of Africa and in all nations of the New World. And never in the history of humanity, including in the present time, have Adam and Steve in any way hindered the progress of the world or achieved any success in “making the Western world extinct”. It is simply laughable and stupid to make such an accusation!! In my opinion, all of this goes to show that Ms. Jannuzzi is a whacked-out zealot who has no perspective on world history whatsoever. A crazy. A loon -someone with whom the “other Mccain” has a lot in common.

  19. Measure of Measure
    March 14th, 2015 @ 1:36 pm

    You gave the impression that you were going to be rational, yet you ended you post with ad hominem.

    Botton line , Do you think people should be fired for expressing opinions you disagree on Facebook with or no? If you do, you’re a totalitarian and do not believe in free speech.

  20. Measure For Measure
    March 14th, 2015 @ 2:18 pm

    Something I found darkly amusing was this comment:

    “This nightmare dumpster human taught me in high school, and still teaches there”. Keep it classy, Immaculata.

    Because he was so classy calling someone he disagrees with “a nightmare dumpster human.” Keep it classy, Greg.

  21. Daniel Freeman
    March 14th, 2015 @ 2:33 pm

    (Over-estimation of one’s skills and knowledge is a sign of narcissism)

    Actually, it’s just a sign of lack of knowledge. See: Dunning-Kruger effect. You should be able to relate, since you exhibit that particular cognitive bias with regard to psychology.

  22. Marianne
    March 14th, 2015 @ 3:12 pm

    Satan loves to twist the truth and make it seem like good people are evil for upholding God’s values and the sanctity of marriage between man and woman. I think we need to look at the context of Jannuzzi’s comments, which advocate and uphold the Catholic teachings. Her post begins with “See this is the agenda.” This tells me that this is a continuing dialogue and if we knew what she was
    responding to it could go a long way in explaining her remarks.

    In my opinion, based on this short “sound bite” she was not spewing a “rant” of hatred of gays, she was expressing that gay marriage (not the individual souls of the parties involved but the entity of gay marriage itself) is not what our Creator intended and detracts from the sanctity of marriage. Not to mention all the societal ills that can be traced to the disordered family. Where do we suppose the children of gay parents are coming from? Either they are adopted (after creation between a man and a woman) or they are created in a petri dish. Need I say more?

    As we prepare for the World Meeting of Families Congress (WMOF) later on this year, let us remember THIS sound bite:
    “Love is Our Mission:
    The Family fully alive
    Called together from all over the world in faithful
    celebration of the family—the sanctuary of love and life.”

    On this web site you’ll see the preparatory catechism – a collection of what Catholics believe about human purpose, marriage, and the family: http://www.worldmeeting2015.org/about-the-event/catechesis/

    This would be the perfect opportunity to send a positive message about the Catholic Church to the world while they’re listening, to people who normally wouldn’t bother to read or hear the message.

  23. Joe Cee
    March 15th, 2015 @ 12:57 am

    Don’t want any. Only a sadist would bring children into this world. Better to have never lived at all.

  24. Joe Cee
    March 15th, 2015 @ 12:58 am

    Sometimes, but odds are rich parents can make everything a hell of a lot easier.

  25. Daniel Freeman
    March 15th, 2015 @ 2:53 am

    Don’t want any. Only a sadist would bring children into this world. Better to have never lived at all.

    That’s cute, how little self-awareness you have. You’re so delicate about race that you’re inappropriately offended on behalf of other people, yet you think it’s totally okay for an anti-breeder like you to express an opinion about how kids should be raised. So precious.

  26. DeadMessenger
    March 15th, 2015 @ 9:21 am

    That’s easy for you to say. bet you’re glad your parents didn’t have that attitude.

  27. Rob Delisa
    March 15th, 2015 @ 9:56 am

    As a Catholic school teacher myself, I find this whole thing horrifying. A Catholic school teacher isn’t allowed to believe and teach what her own Church teaches, at a job where these values and morals are expected to be taught? She freely expressed herself on Facebook where her Catholic values could be seen by the world. Isn’t this something the Catholic Church and Gospel calls all of us to do? Jesus directly says, don’t hide your faith under your night-stand.

  28. Joe Cee
    March 15th, 2015 @ 1:26 pm

    Not really. Might be a blessing to never know the frustration of human and personal limitations.

  29. Marianne
    March 15th, 2015 @ 2:18 pm

    What do you mean, “outcome of the child”? The emotional stability of the child?

    There are things money can’t buy. It can be a blessing and a curse. How many of these children will have real friends that value them for themselves, and not their money? If the parent(s) is/are too busy making the money to spend quality time with the child, no amount of money can make up for the lack of a loving, stable family.

  30. RS
    March 15th, 2015 @ 2:21 pm

    Are you saying the Catholic Church does not teach that homosexual behavior is a sin? That marriage is a sacrament between one man and one woman? That sexual relations outside of marriage are sin? Did I miss some sort of encyclical?

  31. Joshua Kingdon
    March 15th, 2015 @ 3:39 pm

    I disagree that the Church teaches hate. Our Catechism states specifically thus regarding homosexuals:

    2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

    You may disagree with this as the truth of the human person but it would be hard to argue that the official teachings of the church are hateful.

  32. Jeanette Victoria
    March 15th, 2015 @ 4:45 pm

    I do not believe that the church teaches hate, moral truth is seen as hate by people who are promoting immorality and evil.

  33. Quartermaster
    March 15th, 2015 @ 5:48 pm

    Wealth can help you avoid some of the consequences of lack of nurture, but that’s all it will do. There is no substitute for nurture.

  34. DeadMessenger
    March 15th, 2015 @ 6:56 pm

    No it isn’t. Life is a precious gift. (Squandered on you apparently, though.) Your attitude is the same as women who have abortions, aka baby killers.

  35. RufusChoate
    March 17th, 2015 @ 11:16 am

    The best part of the pedophile priest meme for the Left was that it was basically a lie about their favorite sexual minority. The real numbers for “abuse” was 85% to 87% homosexual activity with young men and teenagers and the remaining percentage heterosexual with a tiny number of pedophillia.

    Pedophillia was a fantasy from the start.

  36. Mumzyknowsbest
    March 17th, 2015 @ 11:31 pm
  37. disqus_v3SHzvCspj
    March 19th, 2015 @ 8:32 pm

    she’s right, they’re wrong. There, fixed it.

  38. disqus_v3SHzvCspj
    March 19th, 2015 @ 8:35 pm

    Seem to recall priests have fewer percentage of child abuser/molesters than public school teachers. Doesn’t fit their agenda, though.