Sock It To Us! Fling Us Into That Brier-Patch

You’ve probably heard of Pete Vere. He has had a book published by Our Sunday Visitor Books and a book published by Servant Books, now owned by St. Anthony Messenger Press. He also writes frequently for The Wanderer. But please don’t confuse him with Pieter Vree, the NOR’s Deputy Editor.

On Vere’s Internet blog, The Lidless Eye Inquisition (Feb. 16 and 17), he socks it to the NOR because of our critique of Michael O’Brien of Canada. O’Brien wrote an article in another magazine where, according to Vere, he “warned [that] the homosexual agenda was leading to a new totalitarianism in Canada.” Vere says, “the folks at NOR made use of their first ammendment [sic] rights to attack O’Brien and other Catholics from Canada for standing up to the gay agenda.” In our February 2006 issue, we published a long article revealing “The Truth About the Homosexual Rights Movement,” and as a result, we’ve been directly threatened by a homosexual. No First Amendment rights will protect us from violence.

Vere says the “New Oxford Review are useful idiots of the gay agenda.” Huh?

On a post commenting on Vere’s complaint, Ben Yachov, who is all over the Internet denouncing the NOR and who is a big fan of Scott Hahn, says: “He [Dale Vree] accuses Scott Hahn of believing Jesus has two Mommies…. What a truly QUEER belief system Heir [sic; it’s Heer in Dutch] Vree holds to.” Vere responds: “Since NOR loves the term ‘fag,’ if they were gay would that make them a ‘Fag Rag’?” Whoa!

Yes, we realize that Vere is highly emotional, but we wish he would calm down. We never criticized O’Brien, let alone other Catholics, for standing up to the “gay” agenda. Vere is referring to our New Oxford Note “Hysteria Central” (Oct. 2005). The essence of our critique of O’Brien was this: “Michael O’Brien is an accomplished Catholic novelist. His strength is fiction. In The Catholic World Report (Aprib| he ventures into nonfiction, specifically political science, and what he writes turns out to be fiction as well. He writes about ‘The New Totalitarianism’ that is already here or on its way because of ‘hate’ crimes legislation and same-sex ‘marriage.’ The NOR has spoken out against active homosexuals (even calling them fags, rump rangers, and light in the loafers), and as a result subscriptions have been canceled. And the NOR has spoken out against ‘hate’ crimes legislation and same-sex ‘marriage’ several times, but they do not portend a ‘New Totalitarianism.’ O’Brien doesn’t understand that there is no such thing as a perfect democracy. For example, in the U.S., women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920, during World War II Japanese-Americans were held in internment camps, in 2000 Al Gore got the popular democratic vote but because of the Electoral College George W. Bush became President, filibustering in the Senate thwarts the will of the majority, our two-party system is less democratic than multi-party systems, the Mormons are still not allowed to practice their religion freely (i.e., polygamy), there is still no provision for selective conscientious objectors (which accords with the Just War teaching of the Catholic Church), and because of a recent Supreme Court ruling your home can be seized by private developers. Moreover, the Supreme Court — whose members are not elected, are not accountable to the people, and serve for life — can veto legislation passed by the people’s representatives and can veto initiatives passed by the people themselves. But none of this means that America was not or is not a democracy, that America was or is a totalitarian state or that it is headed toward totalitarianism.”