Oh, brother.

"Men but not women get to preside at Mass. Men but never women wear the cassock of a cardinal, the vestments of a pope. Male clergy are typically called 'father,' which connotes authority. Women in religious orders are usually called 'sister,' which doesn�t."

Says Frank Bruni in the middle of a rant titled "Catholicism Undervalues Women."

Whatever else he may want to say about Catholics and women, there's no lack of parallelism in that father/sister terminology. Men in religious orders are called "brother," and female leaders of orders are called "mother."

Should NYT columnist Frank Bruni get in trouble for calling the relationship between Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin "marsupial"?

Bruni wrote: "'Everyday Americans' specifically included 'everyday Iowans' when Clinton traveled across the heartland in her Scooby van with Huma Abedin, who clings to her so tightly that their relationship could be called marsupial."

Instapundit says: "HUH. I WONDER WHAT HE�S TRYING TO SAY WITH THAT?" I wonder what Instapundit is trying to say with that. I assume what I assumed when I read Bruni: He's saying � with deniability � that Hillary and Huma are lesbians.

Now, Frank Bruni himself is openly gay, so there's no reason to imagine him to be antagonistic to lesbians or to think it's amusing to float the rumor that the 2 women are lesbians. Or... maybe not. It's possible that an openly gay person would want to pressure closeted gay people to come out. Bruni must know that he's giving air to a rumor that some anti-Hillary people get off on.

And to use an animal to say something about a person...



... you are inviting trouble if you're using that animal to represent membership in a traditionally discriminated-against group.

"A girl tries to prove her academic seriousness by writing in her application essay that rather than curtail a discussion with her French teacher, she urinated on herself."

"A boy tries to demonstrate his pluck in the face of adversity by writing that he�s undiscouraged by the fact that his genitalia are small."

From a book review titled "In 'Where You Go Is Not Who You�ll Be,' Frank Bruni Examines College Admissions Mania."

(You can the book here.)