Catholics still obsessed with sex

MAXWELL Laurie’s attack 
on the Charity Commission, whose successful opposition 
to the adoption agency 
Catholic Care’s refusal to recognise same-sex couples as potential adopters, once more betrays the Catholic Church’s obsession with sex (Yorkshire Post, November 8).

Despite the tenuous etymological argument that 
the word “couple” means 
sexual union, I’m sure most of us would never immediately associate it with copulation. Nor is it true that homosexuality precludes sexual union: clearly it doesn’t and this still bothers some people.

But this is to miss the point. Parenting has nothing to do with sex.

It is deeply insulting to Sir Elton John and his partner to question their ability to help an adopted daughter in dealing with menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth.

You might as well say that a father, no matter how sensitive, should stand aside and leave it all to his wife.

And is a caring mum incapable of understanding the dramatic effects of puberty on her teenage son?

And where do these attitudes leave the widower or abandoned husband, left to bring up a daughter?

Ladies’ excuse-me?

From: John Wilson, Horsforth, Leeds.

THIS problem of the 
expense of childcare is really interesting. Many years ago, 
when I was a lad, ladies would 
stay home to look after their children.

But now several decades 
on we see that the onward 
march of equality and 
liberation have led us on to 
a great new world of freedom 
for the fairer sex in which 
women instead stay home to 
look after other people’s 
children.

The only problem is the constant complaints that 
looking after other people’s children doesn’t make enough money to enable the ladies concerned to pay to have their own children looked after by somebody else.

And of course conversely the other lady complains that she isn’t making enough out of it from the first to be able to 
afford someone to look after hers either.

Maybe the answer is to make another great leap forward in liberation and equality by empowering women to make the choice to stay home and look after their own children.

Or even, perish the thought, get the men to do it.

Razors – or rashes?

From: John H Langley, Rosewood Close, Bridlington.

I WAS fascinated to read Ian McMillan’s article (Yorkshire Post, November 6) on the subject of shaving and razors.

His story really caught my attention. As a gents hairdresser in Leeds in the mid to late 
1950s, wet shaves, particularly 
at weekends, were very 
popular.

I initially worked in Kirkstall Road, where this service continued well into the evening on a Friday and Saturday to eventually moving to a city centre salon (off Boar Lane) and providing this service on a daily basis with, of course, hot towels and a cut-throat razor.

A far superior finish to an electric razor. I didn’t quite understand the appearance of the raw red ring around Ian’s neck.

My advice to you Ian would be, get rid of your bathroom Lambretta and contemplate whilst you enjoy a wet shave after which, rinse your face with cold water and, after drying, apply Nivea cream as I have done for the past 60 years. Incidentally, the finish was known years ago as smooth as a babies’ bottom.

Clerical relevance

From: Peter Hyde, Kendale View, Driffield.

I FULLY agree with Gary Streeter (Yorkshire Post, November 9) on how the new Archbishop of Canterbury can become more relevant, but am afraid that it will never happen.

I am a Methodist who attends the Anglican Church, although I support both and am happy doing so, there are far too many who think that having archdeacons, bishops and vicars donning their finery somehow makes them special.

Palaces are a thing of the past and are a burden on the people who attend services each 
Sunday.

Churches are wonderful creations, but they are too costly to heat in winter and a hole into which we pour money.

The Church should be the people and our church has a wonderful, welcoming congregation who struggle to make ends meet.

From: John Gordon, Whitcliffe Lane, Ripon.

THE new Archbishop of Canterbury fits neatly into the Governing Class but one cannot help feeling that to unite Christians both here and abroad a candidate nearer home would have been preferable.