Batwoman’s Secret Identity

Batwoman_1

Socialite Kathy Kane has a secret. No, not that she’s alive after the world thought her dead for a quarter-century. No, not even that she is also known to Gotham City as Batwoman. Now she is ready to let the world in on her secret:

Batwoman is a lesbian.

"Years after she first emerged from the Batcave, Batwoman is coming out of the closet. DC Comics is resurrecting the classic comic book character as a lesbian, unveiling the new Batwoman in July as part of an ongoing weekly series that began this year.

"The 5-foot-10 superhero comes with flowing red hair, knee-high red boots with spiked heels, and a form-fitting black outfit.

"’We decided to give her a different point of view,’ explained Dan DiDio, vice president and executive editor at DC. ‘We wanted to make her a more unique personality than others in the Bat-family. That’s one of the reasons we went in this direction.’"

GET THE STORY.

Homosexuality is "a different point of view"? And here I thought that Straight America was supposed to believe that homosexuality was an inalterable genetic trait like skin color and hand dominance. If it’s merely a point of view, doesn’t that imply that it could change?

Homosexuality: Viewpoint or identity? Someone page The Riddler. We have a conundrum for him to unleash upon Gotham City.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

51 thoughts on “Batwoman’s Secret Identity”

  1. This isn’t surprising. In the comics industry making a female superhero a lesbian means “added sexiness” for the predominantly male fanbase; it doesn’t have anything to do with liberal political correctness. For whatever reason, guys just like that stuff. Now when they come up with an openly gay male superhero, THAT will be news.

  2. “Now when they come up with an openly gay male superhero, THAT will be news.”
    Marvel already has a few. That french guy North Star comes to mind…(maybe its because he’s french? j/k!)
    But yeah, unlike this lipstick lesbo Batwoman, none of them were actually centers of comic book attention.

  3. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 1) homosexuality is an innate, genetic trait and 2) we must celebrate diversity and difference. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, 1) homosexuality is a point of view, gender is a mere social construct, and 3) we must not discriminate homosexuals from heterosexuals. On Sundays, we rest and try to get over the feeling that someone’s been jerking our chain all week.

  4. Hey, every jr. high boy in the 1960’s already knew this. After all, her male counterparts were gay and their real hero names were “Butt-Man” and “Rubbin'” Old news.

  5. Ummm…I haven’t read a comic book in years, but I don’t recall ANYbody’s sexual preferences coming into play when fighting crime.
    Have things changed? Are comic books showing sex scenes now that we have to know what each superhero’s sexual activities are?

  6. Comic books have been pushing gay and lesbian characters as well as gay marriages for a while now. That particular angle is old news.
    The big suprise is that they’re going to be doing it with Batwoman.

  7. Holy Flannel Shirts!
    Do you think Batwoman’s homosexuality will be one of her super powers?
    Wait… the whole Bat crew don’t have super powers.
    Maybe her lesbian-ness only applies to her super-hero self, and her mild mannered alter ego is straight. She would become gay while going down the Batpole.
    The guy they interviewed for the story said “It’s kind of weird… we had a feeling it would attract some attention, but we’re a little surprised it did this much.”
    Yeah. The money quote there is “we had a feeling it would attract some attention”.
    Maybe she uses her same-sex attraction as a way to fight crime… “If I can… only… reach…my….utility belt…”

  8. She would become gay while going down the Batpole.

    That, that is the most disturbing sentence I have read all week. That’ll be a ten-minute time-out for you, Timster.

  9. Colossus has been made gay.
    This was done by the same guy who made Nightcrawler’s priesthood a plot by anti-mutant activists to get him made Pope so he could be revealed as a demonic looking mutant, after they’d killed thousands simulating The Rapture. (The previously-very-holy spiritual advisor to Nightcrawler explained that this fake rapture would drive folks back into the Church…this was while he was dying and giving away the game, he also explained that they’d made Nightcrawler hallucinate everything related to being a priest, and none of the X-men knew he was supposed to be a Priest. They just thought he dressed funny and left at odd times. Seriously.)
    Oh, and later in the same arc, we find out that the ancient mutant that started the stories of Satan and was banished by an ancient race of mutants that are *exactly* like Angel the X-Man is Nightcrawler’s father, and he’s been [somehow] having teleporting-able children that he can mind control with women in our dimension so he can…return to our dimension?
    Some really STUPID things get done in comics.
    Oh, and the guy who wrote the above? Claims he has no problem with religion. Nope. None at all. He just turned the only openly, orthodox, main-stream superhero from “looks like a demon but has the heart of a saint” into “Well, he’s the son of Satan, actually.”

  10. TM- To go into Mexico or Canada from the US, I answered a few questions and walked or drove (respectively). To get back, there were questions, checking of ID, car-searches, and we had one guy want to keep us from coming back because we didn’t have ID on the two-year-old twins. (He finally let us through when my aunt offered to leave them there for two days while she went home and got copies of their birth certificates, and they started crying.)
    I think you’re just far too ready to be insulted or get angry.
    You jump to the conclusion that illegal aliens that cross from Mexico MUST be Mexican, get upset without offering any alternative to the proposal of how to fix the leaky border, then get huffy because someone wants to work on securing the border that has the most illegal coming across before they worry about the one with very, very (relative) few.
    On a side note, from what I’ve seen of the Canadian border, there is a much lower risk of folks sneaking across because of the nasty-steep mountainous areas, the fact that even in summer you can get hypothermia during the night, and that the places where there are roads or areas that are easy to pass through have a large number of drug control agents patrolling. Perhaps further east it’s a nicer area to cross, but I lived in WA for about six years. That border is NOT easy to cross on foot or by off-road vehicle without being observed.

  11. Ugh, I hope Chris Nolan doesn’t use this story in Batman Begins 2.
    And former jr. high boy, I don’t appreciate your ‘joke’ concerning Batman.

  12. The second issue of “52” (the same series Batwoman will appear in) has a panel of two women in their skivvies sharing a bed.
    I had already decided not to continue reading “52” because of that scene. This news confirms my decision. Thanks Michelle!

  13. Note also that “52” DOES NOT carry the Comics Code seal. Even those titles that do carry the seal have, IMHO, been pushing it lately.

  14. make that…even *some* titles that carry the seal….
    The current storyline running through Superman and Action Comics (starting with Supes #650) seems to be okay.

  15. >You jump to the conclusion that illegal aliens that >cross from Mexico MUST be Mexican, get
    Speaking of which, Superman wasn’t born in the US, he didn’t have a visa to enter the US, therefore he’s an illegal alien, par excellence. I hope he gets amnesty too.

  16. I think Nathan’s on target here. As for DC, there was a gay Starman in the 70’s, but I think he was eventually killed or otherwise removed from the picture. Nobody was interested..

  17. As someone who hasn’t read any comics for a looong time, who is Batwoman? I know about Batman (Bruce Wayne), Robin (Dick Grayson) and Batgirl (Barbara Gordon, but I’ve never heard of this character.

  18. “Colossus has been made gay.”
    Really?! Was this Joss Whedon’s doing? That weasel.
    “Now when they come up with an openly gay male superhero, THAT will be news.”
    Marvel has a new group of teen superheroes called the Young Avengers & 2 of them are apparently homosexual boys having a relationship. Nice, huh?
    So far, DC has only ventured into the lesbian superhero realm & Batwoman is it. There’s only one male homosexual character I can name & that’s the Pied Piper, a secondary character in Flash (& former bad guy). I’d blame comic writer Greg Rucka for this change in Batwoman. He seems to have some strange adolescent fantasy about lesbians & he’s changed another popular secondary Batman character, Renee Montoya, into a lesbian, too. It came from nowhere & had all the earmarks of a truly bad retcon. The writing of the character has become more about her sexuality than trying to depict a 3-D person. Really clumsy. So there are very few homosexual characters in the DC universe. So far . . .
    Frankly, I hate this stuff. It’s always a veneer imposed on the character & the story & is never organic. (But I still wouldn’t like it if it were organic.) It’s always handled in a clumsy & silly way. Most readers I know really dislike this stuff when it’s imposed on characters so I’m not sure why they do it.

  19. Yeah, I stopped reading comics when I was 17 because:
    –DC put out an anti-gun comic whose profits went to gun-control groups.
    –DC started having “AIDS Awareness” segments wherein their “heroes” advocated condom use. (Nice, huh? They made it look like part of the story line, too. Frikkin’ Booster Gold and Blue Beatle. What a coupla … malcontents.)
    –DC started sneaking little political messages into their story-lines, always from a leftist perspective.
    And that was all in the early ’90’s. I’m surprised nobody’s yet mentioned the Green Lantern gay-basher story-line from, I think, ’99 or 2000.
    Yeah, this is only one more knot in the string of events in the comics industry. Sorta makes me think that the guy who wrote “The Seduction of the Innocent” study was only a few decades early.
    Ugh.

  20. > who is Batwoman?
    Batgirl’s aunt.

    True, though misleading.
    The original Batwoman was introduced decades ago as a female equivalent and love interest for Batman. She appeared in a few stories, but never really took off.
    In some of those stories, they introduced her neice as Batgirl, who was a female counterpart for Robin, so you had a Batman & Robin compared to Batwoman & Batgirl dynamic.
    This Batgirl–the original one–was *not* Barbara Gordon. The Barbara Gordon Batgirl was introduced in the 1960s after the original Batgirl had largely faded from memory.

  21. Jimmy,
    You make joke?
    “Batwoman … She appeared in a few stories, but never really took off.”
    Batwoman…never really took off!
    What, she had wings from Prada?
    Ha! Ha! Ha!

  22. >Speaking of which, Superman wasn’t born in the US, he didn’t have a visa to enter the US, therefore he’s an illegal alien, par excellence. I hope he gets amnesty too.
    Aw, I figure 1) he’s been adopted, and 2) he’s a refugee whose life would be in danger if he had to return to his homeplace.
    *grin*

  23. Gene–Don’t forget Maggie Sawyer, head of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit (at least she was last time I checked) from the Superman books.
    As someone pointed out, Marvel did it back in late 1991/early 1992 with Northstar of Alpha Flight, although I’ve heard that creator John Byrne always envisioned him as gay.

  24. “DC started sneaking little political messages into their story-lines, always from a leftist perspective.”
    What’s really interesting about this, Jared, is the almost inherent pro-life aspect of superheroes. Yes, it seems that many (most?) current comic writers tend to promote liberal ideas in their scripts (when political ideas are dealt with). But there is still a very specific belief that human life is sacred in the vast majority of superheroes. I just don’t see that changing. They do what they do because of the sanctity of life; otherwise, why do it? And the majority of superheroes believe in a justice that is higher than that of earthly, secular government. There is objective right & wrong for these characters. Perhaps that’s a hold-over from their creators in many cases. But it’s what drives these characters to a very great extent.
    It’s very interesting to see this dichotomy between the liberal POV of certain writer’s & the very real traditionally conservative aspects of the superheroes they write.

  25. These days the badguys are usually doing something that’s against liberal values– although the major examples like wiping out the human race, everybody (mainstream) thinks are bad.

  26. This kind of junk is one of the reasons I’m drawing comics again. It’s like one of the famous (was it Tolkein to Lewis?) Tolkein/Lewis conversations: if they’re not going to make the sort of stories we like, then we’re going to have to write our own.
    An equivalent of Act One for comics wouldn’t hurt either.

  27. Yes, Matthew. And there’s always DC’s Camelot 3000 from the early 80’s, which is, to my knowledge, the first depiction of lesbians in comics. Didn’t like that one, either, way back when I read it as a trade.
    This stuff happens so infrequently that I don’t think it could be said there’s an agenda here. DC has stated an agenda to re-think some characters so the DCU more reflects the “multicultural” (per Dan DiDio) aspects of our society. That’s why the new Blue Beatle is hispanic, the new Firestorm is black, another one is an Asian now, etc. I guess Batwoman could be considered part of that. Still, it’s clumsy & silly.
    Ultimately, what does it matter what a hero’s race or sexual preference is while they’re fighting crime? To stamp them as the “hispanic” character or the “gay” character only draws attention to that one aspect & takes away from the character as a whole, making for flat & shallow characterization & stories. And, if that’s not good, the fans will walk. The new Blue Beatle comic is so far very successful at not allowing the character’s ethnicity become the Whole Point(tm) of the title. Can’t say Batwoman will be. Not that I’ll give it a chance. Doesn’t appeal to me.

  28. Gene and Sailorette: Considering the liberalization of much of comic-dom, one of the villains I’ve found most facinating is Batman’s Ra’s Al-Ghul. As originally conceived, he’s basically an immortal Uni-Bomber type–an eco-terrorist bent on returning the planet to some form of non-techno utopia. (Wouldn’t be surprised if they found a copy of Algore’s _Earth in the Balance_ in some darkened corner of his Lazarus Pit. Heck, he probably ghost-wrote the thing for the Wooden One.)
    This is all the more interesting considering the version of him that appears in _Batman Begins_. Don’t get me wrong; I LOVE that film. (Particularly the line, “It’s not who you are on the outside. It’s what you DO that defines you.” Talk about a Catholic, Book of James, Faith-without-works-is-dead line of thought. LOVE IT!) There truly have never been any Batman films until that film was made. No sex, good message, good cinematography, good acting, and Bale looks like he could take on the evil world of Gotham and win. BUT, Ra’s Al-Ghul’s motives seem a bit vague. Maybe that the nature of the film beast versus the comic wherein you can explore a bit more.
    So, yeah, I still have hope for the medium. It’s just gonna take some writers with a clue about WHY, after all these decades, these characters still WORK. Until that happens … well, let’s just hope the second Batman film lives up to its one-and-only predecessor.

  29. ‘Zacly, Jared! The point in your final paragraph ties neatly into Man’s from above:
    “An equivalent of Act One for comics wouldn’t hurt either.”
    How true. But couldn’t one attend Act One for comics? It’s a very similar medium to film, frankly. A good script is a good script. I know Barb Nicolosi has mentioned on her blog that at least one AO grad is now working in comics. Personally, I’d love to write for comics & try to affect a change from within. I know there are a few Christians in the comics biz (artist Scott McDaniel comes immediately to mind).

  30. When you mention how superheroes are inherently pro-life, I am reminded of the fact that many of the best and most popular ones, though open to the idea of a personal romance, usually live committed to their vocation of crime-fighting above all. The more I pondered this, the more I realized that the celibate priest is a kind of archetype for the modern comic book hero.
    But because modern society cannot process simple concepts like “devotion” and “vocation”, writers usually indulge in convoluted stories about their personal lives in order to add what they perceive as “depth”. And because most comic book writers are unschooled and barely literate, the best they can do is make stories that reflect what they see on the TV.
    Which results in drawn-out, soap-operaesque story arcs that do little more than pad out the comic. As long as they are not so boring that readers lose interest, they serve a definite economic function.
    But they are really dumb. They often reduce the characters to whiney, self-centered, and one-dimensional caricatures of what they used to be.
    And this is important because traditionally critics of comic books have called them low-brow, puerile, unrealistic, too escapist, etc. But to my knowledge they never called them “dumb”.
    One wonders why the fascination with hooking characters up — heterosexual or otherwise — when it usually sounds the death knell for that character’s popularity.
    Compare the theatrical release of Dare Devil to the Director’s cut where Matt does not fall into bed with Elecktra but instead runs off to fight crime.
    Did Bruce Wayne suddenly decide to forego crime fighting when Rachel criticized his “mask”? Yet Batman Begins was a great film of “classic” super hero drama.
    Because there are times when our sympathy for the heroes drive us to see them finally wedded and in bliss, it has been rewarding for fans to see such moments as in Superman II and the end of Spiderman II. But these are usually frustrated. And in the comics, these “clever” plot twists are normally dissolved away by more prescient writers given the task of “rebooting” the story line.
    Why? It creates too much baggage — just like a marriage does in real life. The title is “Spiderman” and not “Spiderman and His Wife”.
    And if you take a look at heroes throughout history, we see that most were not married. Though Moses was married, his married life does not try to take center stage of the story to save the Israelites. Elijah the Prophet was not married, nor was his boy-wonder Elisha. Was Jonah married? If he was, it does not play a part in his story. Jesus was not married, nor were many of his disciples, nor was Peter. Other heroes, like Robin Hood and Aragorn, do not marry except upon completion of their mission. The worst thing that could have happened in X-Files would have been if Mulder and Scully fell in love. And if a Jedi blithely flaunts Order rules to marry … well, we need not go there…
    Trying to draw readers into a hero’s personal life like that is too invasive –even for many die-hard fans. What next, detailed stories about the grass stains on their socks?

  31. I’d much rather they create a new “Batwoman” (although this one is technically “new” in current continuity) than used an actual character (Kathy Kane) created by some well-meaning writer in the 1950s. That way if it doesn’t work out they can forget the character ever existed without any trouble to their old comics. But no….they have to be politically correct and make a character who didn’t use to be a lesbian into one just to fill a quota (and thats just what this is).

  32. Re: superheroism as the religious life
    Alex Ross’ Astro City comics examined this, in his Batman-like story of a hero who dressed like a priest, had his lair in a church, and had an altarboy sidekick (named Acolyte, IIRC). Good story and art, btw, though very odd.

  33. DC REGULARLY makes me nuts. I can’t even go into all the ways this makes me nuts. Well, ok, I can try. First of all… QUIT with the bringing dead people back to life. It was necessary with Superman, your major cash cow. It was cute with Green Arrow, slightly annoying with Green Lantern…and my only real problem with Jason Todd (robin II) being alive is that it makes him less DEAD. Kathy Kane has waited out two universe-ending crises to come back as the former lover of Renee Montoya?? Come on, guys. Get real. if we’re going to bring back someone, can it be Ted Kord, or Or Sue Dinby? What the heck did SUE ever do to anyone??
    And the bringing her back with a completely new history thing. Back in the golden age, she was Bruce’s girlfriend. Probably to get rid of the whole three guys living alone in a house overtones. But now we’re bringing back the character of Batwoman, and giving her the name of Kathy Kane, but really she’s just this completely original character whom you’ve attached a “historical” name to. Ugg. Quit acting like you’re so brilliant.
    Then the “different point of view” thing… And what point of view is that?? The girl?? Well, you guys chucked batgirl off to the side for this story. Which stinks, cuz I liked Cassandra Cain. Uh… some poor, tortured minority?? Nope. That would have been Cassandra, too. Asian, motherless and illiterate. That’s like three to your one protected minority. Or perhaps the unaccepted bad-a$$ outsider?? Well, you killed Spoiler, and I guess Huntress doesn’t count any more now that you filed down her little claws. And you brought Jason Todd back, who’s morally ambiguous and enjoys killing bad guys… so I think you have that angle covered.
    Oh wait, you think the whole lesbian thing is original and different and cool. It wasn’t really all that original or cool or different when you went through this whole thing with Rene Montoya in the Bat books a few years ago. Why is it suddenly cool and interesting now?? I mean, we have a sexually tortured character. Bruce is emotionally retarded and incapable of having a real relationship with anyone and Dick is a manwhore. Lets go off and explore THAT for a little while.
    GEEZE. DC ALWAYS does this crap. They keep mistaking gimics and “events” for actual story telling and craft. Sure, if you’re going to have a world that’s a fantastical representation in the real world, you’re going to have the occational gay character. Heck, we have TWO of them in Catwoman… one of them even took over the Catwoman monkier while Selina pops out her child by some unnamed father. Lookie, we have the lesbian superhero in a bat-book covered! But that doesn’t get any press. No one’s interested, because it’s just something ABOUT this character, it isn’t the entire purpose of the character. And the way they’re doing the PR on this thing at comicbooknews and everywhere in the traditional media, you’d think this was the first gay comic book character… EVER.
    Moral issues aside, I’m irritated with the way they’re approaching this, like it’s something new and exciting. Dick Grayson in a steady, monogamous relationship that doesn’t break up over something stupid would be exciting. I’d probably pay my $3.50 and crap my pants in the doorway of my local comic shop if that ever came to pass.
    I think the major problem with the Bat Books (and DC in general) is that the place isn’t really run by the DC editorial staff. It’s really run by the suits at AOL/Time Warner. And if they think XYZ is marketable in the merchandizing or movie or tv departments, they’ll hand down a decree, and the DC staff better just tow the line. A whole result of this latest crisis/52 has been this whole “cultural diversification” thing with the DC characters. Blue Beetle didn’t do anything to anyone except be a white male. He got capped in the head just to make way for someone with a more “culturally diverse” background to step in. Same with Firestorm and a few other characters. It’s like… geeze. Cut me a break.
    Meanwhile, the Dick Grayson/Nightwing character cant catch a break because there’s some executive who doesn’t like him (who has a grudge against a fictional character, really!!??).
    I grew up with these characters, they’ve been a part of my whole life (met my husband on a Nightwing fan forum), but DC is just finding a new way to irritate me like every three months or so. Maybe it’s getting time to save myself the hassle, and the $$ and just find a new hobby.

  34. Stubblespark writes: “Jesus was not married, nor were many of his disciples, nor was Peter”.
    Not to be anal or anything, but didn’t Jesus cure Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever? If I’m wrong, I stand corrected.

  35. Colossus is only a sodomite in the Ultimate universe (where it’s freaking Nightcrawler out)–in normal continuity he’s still straight and still seeing Kitty Pride.
    After a lot of years I can’t decide if I like comic books or not. Stuff like “Infinite Crisis” and “House of M” really annoy me. How many times can you almost destroy the universe, really, before we stop caring? And please, just let Superman be all-powerful–that’s the whole point! Stop trying to up the ante and just deal with what makes Supes really interesting: the fact that he’s really out of everyone’s league and therefore lonely. The crossover stuff rarely works well. Batman and Superman together, fine. But Batman in the Justice League is stupid. Look at the difference between Dark Night Returns and Dark Night Strikes Back, sheesh. I keep coming back for Batman and Spider-Man, but the whole continuity thing inevitably leads me to all the other books, where things get stupid and messy. Batman with the Justice League is just not very much like the Batman back in Gotham, but rather a caricature drawn by non-Batman people. It’s like in the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys crossover books. You could always tell that they were written by the Nancy Drew people because Nancy seemed normal but the Hardy Boys were all wrong and unconvincing in this new context.
    Okay. Deep breath. Going out of geek mode . . . now.

  36. “Not to be anal or anything, but didn’t Jesus cure Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever? If I’m wrong, I stand corrected.”
    Nope, you’re right, Larry. Peter was married.

  37. Jesus was not married, nor were many of his disciples, nor was Peter.
    I suspect Stubblespark was thinking of Paul, especially since the person in question is mentioned distinct from “his disciples”.
    Am I wrong or is there a tradition that even the apostles who were married “set aside” their wives for the sake of their vocation, providing for them but living apart and celibate?

  38. > I suspect Stubblespark was thinking of Paul
    Or he could be thinking of Peter’s super-heroism: despite the fact that it was his mother-in-law, Peter asked for her to be cured… ;-);-)

  39. Sorry Michael… haveta disagree on a few points there… 1) I like superman with powers, like you do. But I think what they were trying to correct is that he appears to be all-powerful. Being able to move planets out of their orbit is just a tad too much. Not because it’s not “right” for him to be quite so powerful, it’s that it writes them into a hole. They have to keep coming up with bigger and more grandiouse badguys, because they use the “action” in Action Comics as a crutch. My favorite superman stories are the ones where Clark and Lois are doing their thing. Clark doesn’t need to be pounding things into the ground all the time. LOVE the Batman/Superman team-ups too. They’re so much alike and so different. It’s fun to watch them quibble 😉
    2) I only read Justice League when Batman is in it. They’re lame without him 😉 Seriously…its fun to just watch him take over strategy, etc. Because usually, he knows the league memebers’ abilities better than they do and he knows how to get the most bang for the buck with them. And any question about batman can always be answered by “he’s batman, he can do that.” so yes, he’s jsut that smart and that devious and that good 😉

  40. Hi all:
    I’ve never enjoyed reading English comics after the Golden age. I dunno but ther seems to be a complete breakdown starting in the 60s. Way too much politicization and artifical stories that bore me. It’s no longer fun to read English language comics. They come across as too strident or so farfetched in the stories that I prefer reading the French BDs. The quality is still quite high and the stories are very imaginative. They’re fun to read.

  41. Interesting points, Tammy. But I could make all the same points (& many, many more) about the Marvel U. At least the changes DC makes in these big universe re-boots are far more permanent than Marvel’s ever have been. And how many times will Marvel agree to give a “top” writer a #1 on the same books? Cap, the Spider-Man titles, & the X-Men titles have gone thorough more #1s than DC’s had in the last 10 years! (He said, employing hyperbole.) Can you say marketing ploy to lure fanboys (& girls, of course)? Must Wolverine be the savior of the Marvel U every time? And Marvel resurrectes their characters as much, if not more, than DC does. I guess it’s all in how you look at it.
    Some of this stuff is is part & parcel of comics. I’ve been enjoying Infinte Crisis & many of the titles that have surrounded it. And the Superman & Batman titles have been pretty interesting recently. As silly as some of it is, it would be sillier to keep the same characters year in & year out without the re-boots & retconning that can make stuff interesting & give writers impetus for more interesting storylines. Otherwise, it’d be about as interersting & contrived as All My Children. (Which some of it is, I guess.)

  42. The testimony of the Bible tells us that St. Peter had been married and still had a mother-in-law when Jesus called him, but there’ no reason to presume that St. Peter or any of the other apostles had wives to put aside at the time when Jesus called them.
    PVO

  43. A Catholic priest for whom I have respect told me that the seminary he attended is known as the “pink palace.” Recent surveys have indicated that 35% to 50% of Roman Catholic priests are homosexual.
    This scandal results from the Roman church’s unbiblical requirement of celibacy. The Roman church freely admits that celibacy is merely a matter of discipline, not a matter of faith, and requirement was not imposed until 1123. By requiring priests to be celibate, the church drastically reduces the pool of available candidates.
    Having started down the unbiblical path of requiring celibacy, and finding few applicants, it is forced to the unbiblical (some would say satanic) practice of accepting homosexuals so long as they remain celibate.
    In the Eastern Church, which is in full communion with the Apostolic See of Rome, married men are ordained to the priesthood. I am a Ukrainian Catholic, and the pastor is married and has three fine children, and there is nothing wrong with that.
    Just the other day, the pastor mentioned that his older son is 16 and will be applying for a driver license, and that he and his wife are hoping everything will turn out okay.
    When was the last time you met a Catholic priest who had that sort of grasp on the reality of family life?
    Roman Catholics are entirely free to attend Eastern Catholic services, and to receive communion therein, just as we are free to do the opposite. If you are Roman Catholic, and desire more information, I invite you to find an Eastern Catholic church and check us out.

  44. John,
    It’s getting hard to keep track of all the different “John”s posting here.
    This scandal results from the Roman church’s unbiblical requirement of celibacy.
    You are wrong on two points here. The practice is not “unbiblical” and it does not cause the scandal to which you refer. Other than that, you’re doing fine so far.
    requirement was not imposed until 1123
    But practiced for centuries before that.
    In the Eastern Church, which is in full communion with the Apostolic See of Rome, married men are ordained to the priesthood. I am a Ukrainian Catholic, and the pastor is married and has three fine children, and there is nothing wrong with that.
    You’re right. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.
    Just the other day, the pastor mentioned that his older son is 16 and will be applying for a driver license, and that he and his wife are hoping everything will turn out okay.
    That’s nice.
    When was the last time you met a Catholic priest who had that sort of grasp on the reality of family life?
    Actually, this morning. And last weekend. I know quite a few Catholic priests who have quite a firm grasp on the reality of family life. (I also know some priests who haven’t a clue, but then again, I also know many married folk who also haven’t a clue.)
    Roman Catholics are entirely free to attend Eastern Catholic services, and to receive communion therein, just as we are free to do the opposite. If you are Roman Catholic, and desire more information, I invite you to find an Eastern Catholic church and check us out.
    And your liturgies, in my limited experience, are quite beautiful. Enough to make some of us Romans jealous. But again, that has little to do with a married clergy.

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