Justice Elena Kagan: Not as clever as she thinks on same-sex "marriage"

Surpreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, responding to Charles Cooper, the lawyer defending Proposition 8, the California "gay marriage" ban, after he insisted that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation, responded sarcastically, "..if the couple - I can 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."  See here.

Yes, it's entirely true that people marry for a variety of motives: for love, for companionship, for money or economic considerations, for position.  And the idea of having children may be very secondary and perhaps only tolerated rather than desired, in the minds of couples marrying.  The idea of having children need not be uppermost in their minds.  But there is no doubt that within marriage, procreation is primary in nature's design.  We eat mostly for the pleasure we obtain from eating and we rarely think of its necessity for sustaining life.  Nevertheless, the latter is the primary purpose of eating.  The same is true for the sexual act.  It may be done for pleasure, but its primary purpose is to sustain the race - procreation.

Marriage must conform to the natural law which is promulgated by God and is the objective order established by Him.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that, "The 'divine and natural' law shows man the way to follow so as to practice the good and attain his end." (CCC, 1955).  And again: "The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men.  It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties." (CCC, 1956).

The eternal law is in God.  When applied to creatures, this eternal law is called the natural law.  In nature we see that all things are bound by constant and uniform inclinations to attain definite ends.  For example, it is natural for the sun to rise and light and heat the earth, for flowers to grow and bloom, for fish to swim and birds to fly, and for man to think thoughts and to share them with others.  In each case, these things are simply obeying the law which is stamped on their natures by their Creator.  This temporal effect of the eternal law which shows itself in creatures is what we mean by the natural law.  It is called natural law because it is grounded in nature itself and manifests itself through nature, or essence or the constitution of things.

Now, getting back to Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.  Her response to attorney Charles Cooper was not amusing and betrays her ignorance of the natural law, which is the basis for all civil law.  The primary purpose of marriage is procreation.  Besides this primary purpose, marriage has secondary ends, the mutual material and spiritual assistance to the married parties and protection from the abuse of sex life.  But the primary purpose of marriage is essential for its validity to the extent that the right to marital commerce may never be excluded.  The marriage contract is valid even when it is certain that there is no possibility of having children (some couples are unable to have children), provided that the primary purpose of marriage, which is procreation, is not excluded.  But two people of the same sex are not able to have children.  In a homosexual union, procreation is excluded.  As we read in the Catechism, homosexual acts are, "..contrary to the natural law.  They close the sexual act to the gift of life." (CCC, 2357).

Justice Kagan's response to attorney Cooper does not invalidate his argument.  It only serves to highlight her paucity of intellect.  But then, this is the same Elena Kagan who issued a Socialist call to action to change America

and to defeat the "entrenched foe."  Presumably, this entrenched foe is the Judeo-Christian foundation upon which America was built.

850 Orthodox Rabbis: Elena Kagan will "homosexualize every segment of society"

Pope Saint Pius X, in his 1903 encyclical, E Supremi, "On the Restoration of All Things in Christ," had this to say, "When all this is considered there is good reason to fear lest this great perversity may be as it were a foretaste, and perhaps the beginning of those evils which are reserved for the last days; and that there may be already in the world the “Son of Perdition” of whom the Apostle speaks (2 Thess 2: 3). Such, in truth, is the audacity and the wrath employed everywhere in persecuting religion, in combating the dogmas of the faith, in brazen effort to uproot and destroy all relations between man and the Divinity! While, on the other hand, and this according to the same apostle is the distinguishing mark of Antichrist, man has with infinite temerity put himself in the place of God, raising himself above all that is called God; in such a way that although he cannot utterly extinguish in himself all knowledge of God, he has despised God’s majesty and, as it were, made of the universe a temple wherein he himself is to be adored. “He seats himself in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God” (2 Thess 2:4).

Memos Show Elena Kagan's Views on Abortion and Assisted Suicide

The Psalmist tells us that, "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it" (Psalm 126). This scriptural truth holds for the building of families, societies, nations, international communities and, most of all, Churches. Ignoring this immutable truth, the culture-of-death advocates are determined to create a Moloch state where the God of love is replaced by "the god of technocracy who experiments and flouts the law of love in the laboratory" (Fr. Miceli).

Having abandoned the God of love, the Supreme Creator, 21st-century man is now ready to worship himself and to usurp the divine powers of creation and destruction. In the words of Dr. Edmund Leach of King's College at Cambridge: "The scientist can now play God in his role as wonder-worker, but can he - and should he - also play God as moral arbiter?...There can be no source for these moral judgments except the scientist himself. In traditional religion, morality was held to derive from God, but God was only credited with the authority to establish and enforce moral laws because He was also credited with supernatural powers of creation and destruction. Those powers have now been usurped by man, and he must take on the moral responsibility that goes with them" (Edmund Leach, "We Scientists Have the Right to Play God," The Saturday Evening Post, November 16, 1968, p. 16).

God is withdrawing His Blessings from America as our nation continues to condone immoral acts such as abortion and homosexuality. When the State condones such acts by codifying them into positive law, it separates itself from Divine and Natural Law. In so doing, as Saint Thomas Aquinas explains, positive law perverts itself: As Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5) 'That which is not just seems to be no law at all': wherefore the force of a law depends on the extent of its justice. Now in human affairs a thing is said to be just, from being right, according to the rule of reason. But the first rule of reason is the law of nature, as is clear from what has been stated above (Q. 91, Art. 2 ad 2). Consequently every human law has just so much of the nature of law, as it is derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law." (Summa Theologica, II-I, Q. 95, Art. 2).

Witness the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Will this have even unforeseen consequences? Will this man-made disaster contribute to widespread crop damage? Read here.

America in turmoil

Does Elena Kagan also believe that judicial power is unlimited?

During her time as Dean of Harvard Law, Elena Kagan referred to Aharon Barak , a professor of law who served as a judge on the Supreme Court of Israel from 1978 to 1995 and as President of that Court from 1995 to 2006, as "my judicial hero." Kagan added, "He is the judge who best advanced democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and justice." But, as C-FAM has noted, "Barak is known amongst both conservative and liberal legal minds as one of the most activist judges on record." Kagan's own views are so disturbing that C-FAM notes, "Based on a review of the rather meager writings and public statements by Kagan, a picture still emerges of a liberal activist whose sympathies for foreign law raise serious questions about how she would follow the U.S. Constitution if she is confirmed."

Just how radical is Elena Kagan's "hero" Aharon Barak? Professor Amnon Rubinstein of Israel has been quoted as having said that, "..in many respects the Supreme Court under Barak has become an alternate government." And Richard Posner, a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals as well as a highly-respected authority on jurisprudence, has been critical of Barak's view of the separation of powers, arguing that, in effect, his view is that "judicial power is unlimited and the legislature cannot remove judges."

Does Elena Kagan share this view? In our own time, many federal judges have strayed from their constitutional role of interpreting the law to actively legislating from the bench in order to impose their radical vision for America. This violates the separation of powers, that political doctrine by which the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government are kept distinct in order to prevent an abuse of power. What is Elena Kagan's vision for America?


Related reading here. And here.

Chief Justice John Roberts: Elena Kagan claim "startling and dangerous."

In an article written by Jacob Sullum entitled "Elena Kagan Looks Wobbly on Freedom of Speech," Jacob Sullum explains that, "Defending a 1999 federal ban on depictions of animal cruelty, Kagan boldly asked the Supreme Court to recognize a new category of speech that, along with such historical exceptions as defamation, incitement and obscenity, is entirely outside the scope of the First Amendment. 'Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection,' she wrote, 'depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs.'

Writing for the 8-to-1 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts called this claim 'startling and dangerous,' adding: 'The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits. The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the Government outweigh the costs. Our Constitution forecloses any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it.'"

Knowing that socialists view orthodox Christianity as an enemy and an obstacle to their program, how would Christian speech which expresses moral opposition toward abortion and homosexuality fare under Elena Kagan when placed within "a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs"? We know that socialists make special efforts to gain control of key communications media in society. Already, FCC "Diversity" Chief Mark Lloyd, who is inspired by Saul Alinsky, has argued that government is the "only" institution that can manage the communications of the public. See here.

The Obama administration, as this Blog post details, is overrun with socialists, communists, sexual radicals, Alinskyites and globalists. Where is all this leading? It was Pope Pius XII who warned, in his Encyclical Letter Summi Pontificatus, that, "Once the authority of God and the sway of His law are denied..the civil authority as an inevitable result tends to attribute to itself that absolute autonomy which belongs exclusively to the Supreme Maker. It puts itself in the place of the Almighty and elevates the State or group into the last end of life, the supreme criterion of the moral and juridical order, and therefore forbids every appeal to the principles of natural reason and of the Christian conscience." (No. 53).


Related reading: Vatican Cardinal: New World Order gaining ground.

Elena Kagan: An Alinskyite Trojan Horse?

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks." - Queen Gertrude, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2.

Saul Alinsky, a Communist/Marxist who is considered to be the founder of modern community organizing, wrote the following in his "Rules for Radicals": "True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within." Alinsky was greatly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, an Italian philosopher and political theorist who was a founding member and one-time leader of the Communist Party of Italy. Gramsci proposed gradualism, infiltration and the dialectic process rather than bloody revolution, a transformational Marxism which would infiltrate a host in a subtle manner in order to defeat it from within. This tactic of infiltration was encapsulated in a speech given by Communist International General Secretary Georgi Dimitroff to the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in 1935:

"Comrades, you remember the ancient tale of the capture of Troy. Troy was inaccessible to the armies attacking her, thanks to her impregnable walls. And the attacking army, after suffering many sacrifices, was unable to achieve victory until, with the aid of the famous Trojan horse, it managed to penetrate to the very heart of the enemy's camp."

But until the revolutionary can perform his task as a Trojan horse, he must not flaunt his radicalism. If he is to infiltrate the system from within as Alinsky taught, he must at least appear to be part of that system. Elena Kagan's history professor, Sean Wilentz, who assisted her on her senior thesis "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933," has responded to those who are rightly concerned about certain passages in Kagan's thesis by trying to downplay the significance of what she wrote. He has been quoted as having said that, "Sympathy for the movement of people who are trying to better their lives isn't something to look down on...Studying something doesn't mean that you endorse it. It means that you're into it. That's what historians do."

Let's examine this defense for a moment shall we? Professor Wilentz is asserting that Elena Kagan was merely "studying something" (Socialism in New York City during the first third of the 20th century) and this doesn't necessarily imply that she endorses Socialism. Why then did Ms. Kagan lament the fact that "Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness"? Referring to Socialism as being great isn't an endorsement? In heaven's name then, what is it? Kagan continues, "Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation's established parties." Kagan extols the "greatness" of Socialism while noting that her host society is "by no means perfect." She then adds, "The story [of Socialist Party internal feuding] is a sad but chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America." And is Kagan herself one of those who would like to ""change America"? Why else would she describe the fracturing of the Socialist Party in the early 20th century as a "sad" and "chastening" story while adding that if Socialism is to defeat the "entrenched and powerful foe" radicals must remember that "In unity lies their only hope"?

These are not the words of an impartial historian. They are the words of one who possesses a bias in favor of Socialism. For Ms. Kagan, America is "a society by no means perfect" (and who could argue this) but Socialism is defined by its "greatness." Kagan has said her brother's "involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas." And her history professor was quoted as having said that, "Elena Kagan is about the furthest thing from a socialist. Period. And always had been. Period." (See here).

The lady doth protest too much.

Toward a New Religion: A Humanist Cult of the Secular

"Christ becomes the flame of human efforts, he reveals himself as the form of faith which is most appropriate for modern needs - a religion for progress, the religion even for progress on earth; I dare say: the religion of evolution." - Pere Teilhard de Chardin

We are witnessing the gradual emergence of a new humanitarian religion which proposes man, instead of God, as the object of worship. This "religion for progress," as Teilhard de Chardin referred to it, is anti-supernatural. Robert Hugh Benson describes it in his classic "The Lord of the World" thusly:

"Humanitarianism...is becoming the an actual religion itself, though anti-supernatural. It is a Pantheism. Pantheism deifies all nature, God is the world, but naturally, man above all is God since he is the highest expression of nature. It is a religion devoid of the 'super' natural, because since God is nature itself, there is no longer a distinction between Creator and creature. The creature is God and hence arbitrator of his own destinyand establishes the moral law for himself. Nature, and man is its highest expression, has all the divine attributes. Humanitarianism is a religion devoid of the supernatural. It is developing a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, 'God is man'; and the rest. It has, therefore, a real food of a sort to offer religious cravings: it idealizes, and yet makes no demands upon the spiritual faculties. Then, they have the use of all the churches except ours, and of all the Cathedrals; and they are beginning at last to encourage sentiment. Then they may display their symbols and we may not..."

Marxism was an expression of the humanitarian religion. It worshipped society and the state symbols of the party: Lenin, Stalin and Mao. National Socialism deified the state and its Fuhrer Adolph Hitler. Today the United States is moving toward Socialism and that "..supreme religious deception..that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 675).

How can Vice-President Joseph Biden, a Catholic (at least in name) make an appearance on Good Morning America and defend the nomination of an avowed Socialist for the Supreme Court of the United States? Albert Drexel, in Ein Neuer Prophet? (Stein am Rhein: Christiana, 1971) explains that:

"The modernism or neo-modernism within Christianity, and especially within the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council, is above all characterized by a turning away from the supernatural and an exclusive predilection for this world, the Aggiornamento of Pope John XXIII interpreted one-sidedly and hence misapplied. Teilhard's ideology was was a definitive precondition for this. Inasmuch as he turned his back to the past, fused God and the supernatural with the process of a universal evolutionism, and proclaimed religion to be an active participation in a progressive development ending in Point Omega, the basis was given for a humanist cult of the secular." (p. 115).

In the New World Order, man will no longer believe in a God whom he cannot control. Man will worship himself and his new leader who will, like Hitler, be deified: the man spoken of by Saint Paul as the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition. This world ruler will not tolerate anyone who adores any god other than himself. As Romano Guardini has noted, "The ultimate aim of all aims will be to prove that existence without Christ is possible - nay rather, that Christ is the enemy of existence, which can be fully realized only when all Christian values have been destroyed.." (The Lord, p. 513).

Elena Kagan: A wish to change America

In his Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius XI warned that, "Whether considered as a doctrine, or an historical fact, or a movement, Socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, even after it has yielded to truth and justice on the points which we have mentioned, cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.

For, according to Christian teaching, man, endowed with a social nature, is placed on this earth so that by leading a life in society and under an authority ordained of God he may fully cultivate and develop all his faculties unto the praise and glory of his Creator; and that by faithfully fulfilling the duties of his craft or other calling he may obtain for himself temporal and at the same time eternal happiness. Socialism, on the other hand, wholly ignoring and indifferent to this sublime end of both man and society, affirms that human association has been instituted for the sake of material advantage alone." (Nos. 117, 118).

As Dr. Germain Grisez explains, the Church, "Insisting on social solidarity...proposes a nonindividualistic alternative to collectivism. It is that larger societies, with resources (such as revenues from taxation) unavailable to the smaller communities within them, can and should help these smaller communities survive and pursue their own purposes. The ideal relationship is analogous to that of good parents to their growing children: rather than trying to live their children's lives, the parents provide the regulation, support, and encouragement that children need to live their own lives. This relationship of political parties to the smaller communities within them, which involves both respecting their liberty and helping them, is called 'subsidiarity." The principle of subsidiarity, which resists centralization and excludes collectivism, can be formulated this way: the larger society should not absorb the functions of smaller communities when the latter, given suitable help, can fulfill these functions; rather, the larger society should help smaller communities within it to carry out their proper functions. Here subsidiarity (drawn from the Latin word subsidium, which means help) does not mean the smaller community is politically or juridically subordinate to the larger, although that may be so. Rather, it means that the larger community supports smaller ones within it in their proper activities (in practice, supports often means subsidizes with grants of money, but in principle it refers to any kind of help, including regulation and coordination with other segments of the society)."

The ultimate goal of organized socialism is the fully socialized state. A society in which all the means of production are taken from private hands and turned over to the state. There is only one way in which the fully socialized state can succeed. And that is through a total and complete submersion of individual human rights and the institution of a totalitarian regime.

As Robert H. Bork notes in his book "Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline," "In our time...left-wing politics..offers a comprehensive world view and a promise of ultimate salvation in a utopia that conventional politics cannot offer. The religious impulse underlying left radicalism has often been noted. Weber remarked that when certain types of German intellectualism turned against religion, there occurred 'the rise of the economic, eschatological faith ofsocialism.' Not only communism but fascism and Naziism were faith systems of the left, offering transcendental meaning to their adherents.....Modern liberalism, the descendant and spiritual heir of the New Left, is what fascism looks like when it has captured significant institutions, most notably the universities, but has no possibility of becoming a mass movement or of gaining power over government or the broader society through force or the threat of force. Power must then be sought in increments and by indirection.." (p. 85).

And this is precisely what is occurring even now. Incremental socialism is making its advance. It is obtaining power gradually, incrementally. And when it has obtained sufficient power and control of government, we will have the New Order, the totalitarian regime which will serve the Man of Sin.

Elena Kagan, President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court, wrote approvingly of socialists who "wish to change America." And that is precisely what the New Left intends to do.

Related reading: Father John Corapi on the evils of socialism.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan has called for Socialists to unite in order to defeat the "entrenched foe."

"We are living in the days of the Apocalypse - the last days of our era...The two great forces of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist are beginning to draw up the battle lines for the catastrophic contest." - Archbishop Fulton John Sheen.

White House aides expect President Obama to select Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. See here. Ms. Kagan, while attending Princeton University as an undergraduate, entitled her senior thesis "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933." In her thesis, Ms. Kagan wrote, "In our times [this was 30 years ago], a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of Capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness. Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation's established parties?" (p. 127).

And then Ms. Kagan issues her call to action, her call for Socialists to unite in order to defeat "the entrenched foe." She writes, "Through its own internal feuding..the SP [Socialist Party] exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one's fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope." (pp. 129-130).

And who is this "entrenched foe"? Primarily the Church. What Ms. Kagan refers to as the "final conflict," Pope John Paul II called the "final confrontation." Just two years before he was elected to the papacy, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla visited the United States. This was 1976. In his farewell speech, Cardinal Wojtyla said:


"We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think the wide circle of the American society or the wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. This confrontation lies within the plans of divine providence; it is a trial which the whole Church, and the Polish Church in particular, must take up. It is a trial not only of our nation and the Church, but in a sense, it is a test of 2,000 years of culture and Christian civilization with all its consequences for human dignity, individual rights, human rights and the rights of nations."


In short, two camps are aligning for a final conflict, a final confrontation: the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist. The Democratic Party has been radicalized and is now advancing Socialism. It is merely a tool of a Satanic worldwide movement to neutralize the Catholic Church and to prepare the way for the Man of Sin.