Quick Hits: Trump, the Vatican gay lobby, and the next step after gay marriage

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jan 15, 2016

• In 1999, Donald Trump said that he was "very pro-choice." Politicians can change their minds. As governor of California, Ronald Reagan once signed the nation's most liberal abortion legislation; as President he wrote a book against abortion. But until we have clear evidence that Trump has changed his mind (not just his message), some serious skepticism is in order.


• Although the Pope's top adviser has acknowledged the existence of a "gay lobby" within the Vatican, John Allen of Crux cautions that the term doesn't mean quite what Americans think it means. As usual, Allen has a point. Allen explains that any Vatican prelate who has something to hide—whether it's aberrant sexuality or financial shenanigans—has an incentive to cooperate in the efforts to keep things quiet and thwart reforms. As Allen puts it, "'gay lobby' is a placeholder term for all sorts of corruption and mutual back-scratching." This is not to deny that active active homosexuals exert influence in Rome; they do. But other cliques, with their own nefarious motives, are quite willing to play along—which is another reason why the lobby flourishes.


• When same-sex marriage gained legal approval, social conservatives warned that the next step would be acceptance of even more bizzare household arrangements. Liberal activists scoffed, but we've already seen new fronts opened in the war on traditional morality. The Boston Globe now offers a look at "Love's new frontier," with a sympathetic report on practitioners of "polyamory"—the latest practice that is "creeping out of the closet, making gay marriage feel somewhat last decade here in Massachusetts." Polyamory, in case you're wondering, means having multiple romantic relationships simultaneously; these consensual couplings may involve members of the same sex, the opposite sex, or both.