Marc Angelucci: modern martyr like ancient Saint Vincent

A voice that witnesses to the truth cannot be extinguished.

{ vox veritatis testis extingui nequit }

Marc Angelucci, a civil-rights attorney who worked selflessly for decades to overcome gender injustices against men, was murdered on July 11, 2020. Among much other important work, this Angelucci worked for years to get sexist selective service overturned in court. He was victorious through a U.S. District Court ruling that declared sexist selective service to be unconstitutional. The media, Congress, and dominant elites have largely ignored Angelucci’s victory for gender equality. The U.S. Selective Service System itself continues to require only men to register to have their bodies drafted for death in war.

Marc Angelucci was a hero quite unlike the hypocrites, posers, popularity-seekers, speech-policers, and panderers the U.S. has nurtured over the past decades. Consider, for comparison, the career of Niel L. Golightly. By worldly standards, Marc Angelucci had a much less successful career than has Niel Golightly. Angelucci was murdered as a relatively low-profile civil rights attorney uncovering local-government corruption, addressing family court travesties, and helping men falsely accused of rape. These are very unfashionable concerns. Niel Golightly, in contrast, ascended to the top of corporate public relations. About six months ago, he was hired as the lead spokesperson and Senior Vice President of Communications at the Boeing Company.

In 1987, Niel Golightly sought to provide better for the common defense and exclude women from the mortal dangers that men face in combat. He was then a fighter pilot and lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. Golightly wrote an article questioning including women in combat. Combat forces are a small share of overall military personnel. Non-sexist selective service registration is operationally reasonable even if only men are subject to death in combat. In his article, Golightly supported only men being subject to death in combat:

Before we impose combat duty on women, we should understand that successful warfare depends less on manual or mental skills than on an amalgam of intangible human qualities including cohesion, morale, efficiency, esprit, and aggressiveness. We should ask ourselves not only whether women can physically and mentally perform basic combat functions — shooting a rifle, operating a mis­sile system, loading bombs on a carrier deck — but, as well, whether women and men can adapt emotionally to the socially radical step of fighting side-by-side. The debate must acknowledge some of the basic realities of armed service.

The young Niel Golightly failed to recognize basic realities of gynocentrism. In the U.S., a majority of voters are women, 70% of consumer spending is controlled by women, women predominate among elementary-school teachers and news journalists, and women are more active than men in social networking on social media. When women want an opportunity that only men have, women easily get it. When women don’t want a burden that only men have, only courageous heroes like Marc Angelucci speak up for gender justice. So it is with women in combat and sexist selective service registration.

From a 29-year-old fighter pilot questioning women in combat, but not sexist selective service, Golightly as a 62-year-old corporate executive came to understand women’s power. On July 2, 2020, Golightly resigned from his position as Boeing’s lead spokesperson. A Boeing Company press release explained:

Niel’s decision to resign stems from an employee complaint that brought to the Company’s attention an article he wrote in 1987 while serving in the military, about whether women should serve in combat.

Boeing does not agree with the views expressed in the article, and it does not reflect Niel’s views today. “My article was a 29-year-old Cold War navy pilot’s misguided contribution to a debate that was live at the time. My argument was embarrassingly wrong and offensive. The dialogue that followed its publication 33 years ago quickly opened my eyes, indelibly changed my mind, and shaped the principles of fairness, inclusion, respect and diversity that have guided my professional life since. The article is not a reflection of who I am; but nonetheless I have decided that in the interest of the company I will step down,” said Golightly.

This cowardly, foolish decision wasn’t a rash one:

“Niel and I discussed at length the article and its implications for his role as the Company’s lead spokesman,” said David Calhoun, President and CEO. “I greatly respect Niel for stepping down in the interest of the company. I thank him for his contributions to the Boeing Company, which have been substantial even in a short time. Our Executive Council and I thank him and wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”

Mr. Calhoun added, “I want to emphasize our Company’s unrelenting commitment to diversity and inclusion in all its dimensions, and to ensuring that all of our employees have an equal opportunity to contribute and excel.”

Principles of fairness, inclusion, respect, and diversity are now claimed to require the resignation a person who 33 years ago wrote against having women in combat, but didn’t write against sexist selective service. Principles of fairness, inclusion, respect, and diversity actually meant to Marc Angelucci what those words are rightly understood to mean. Often those words now merely provide cover for bigotry, exclusion, viciousness, and ideological purification. Such deceptive practices lead to airplanes crashing.

We now live in a nasty, brutish world very different from what Marc Angelucci sought. The modern martyr Marc Angelucci belongs in the tradition of the ancient martyr Saint Vincent of Saragossa. In the third century, Vincent became a deacon in a nascent Christian church in Spain. Fearing the growth of Christianity, the Roman Emperor Diocletian sought to force all to worship the dominant, traditional Roman gods. Vincent refused. He had a different understanding of the truth about god. Dacian, Emperor Diocletian’s governor for Spain, threatened Vincent:

“Dare you, unhappy man,” says he,
“to violate with coarse words
this law of gods and emperors,
a law both sacred and civic
that humankind must obey?
Does not pressing danger rouse
you in your passionate youth?
This is an order you must accept.
Either with incense and vegetation
you now supplicate this altar,
or you pay with bloody death.”

{ “audesne, non felix,” ait,
“ius hoc deorum et principum
violare verbis asperis,
ius et sacratum et publicum,
cui cedit humanum genus?
nec te iuventae fervidae
instans periclum permovet,
hoc namque decretum cape:
aut ara ture et caespite
precanda iam nunc est tibi,
aut mors luenda est sanguine.” }

Having the high and mighty threaten him didn’t intimidate Vincent:

Do it thus, with whatever powers,
whatever authority you have,
I openly resist, go ahead!
Hear what our voice is:
Christ and the Father are God,
we are his servants and witnesses.
Tear out, if you can, our faith!
Torture, imprisonment, iron claws,
flaming plates hissing,
even the ultimate punishment itself,
death, are merely play to Christians.
Oh, how vain and inane is
the brutish decree of Caesar!
You order that I worship divinities
carved by a worker’s hand
or refined by hollow bellows,
divinities lacking in voice and step,
immobile, blind, mute.
For these divinities, you raise costly,
gleaming shrines of marble;
for these, mooing cattle you
strike in the throat and sacrifice.
…
Your gods are also demons!

{ age ergo, quidquid virium,
quidquid potestatis tibi est,
palam reluctor, exere!
vox nostra quae sit, accipe:
est Christus et Pater Deus:
servi huius et testes sumus;
extorque, si potes, fidem!
tormenta, carcer, ungulae
stridensque flammis lammina,
atque ipsa poenarum ultima
mors Christianis ludus est.
o vestra inanis vanitas
scitumque brutum Caesaris!
condigna vestris sensibus
coli iubetis numina
excisa fabrili manu,
cavis recocta et follibus,
quae voce, quae gressu carent,
inmota, caeca, elinguia.
his sumptuosa splendido
delubra crescunt marmore,
his colla mugientium
percussa taurorum cadunt.
…
divique et idem daemones. }

A bright, energetic person fearlessly speaking the truth enrages the principalities, powers, and rulers of gynocentrism in this world — the preservers of wickedness in high places. Just so, Vincent’s defiant statement infuriated Caesar’s governor of Spain. The governor shouted:

Stuff his mouth,
the immoral one will speak no more.
His speaking voice will be imprisoned.
Quick, give him to the executioners,
those underworld conductors of the accused.
They feed on cut flesh.
Now the government’s law will be done;
the slanderer will feel it.
He will not, free of punishment,
amuse himself in destroying our gods.

{ os obtrudite,
ne plura iactet inprobus.
vocem loquentis claudite
raptimque lictores date,
illos reorum Plutones
pastos resectis carnibus.
iam faxo ius praetorium
conviciator sentiat,
inpune ne nostris sibi
dis destruendis luserit. }

Christians understand death not as imprisonment in the underworld, but for the deserving liberation to spend eternity with God. Christians were famous for fearlessness in the ancient Roman Empire.

The Spanish governor put Vincent to worse punishment than the quick gunshot killing that Marc Angelucci suffered. First the executioners held Vincent’s arms behind his back and slammed him up and down until they had broken all his limbs. Then they tore the flesh off his ribs so that his throbbing heart and lungs were exposed. His executioners tore at him so much that they tired and had to rest. Watching, the governor exclaimed:

He rejoices, smiles, challenges
the torturer to sharper torture!
You practice techniques of power
for the deaths of all criminals
that in this contest make no progress.
Pain’s very art is being conquered.

{ gaudet, renidet, provocat
tortore tortus acrior!
nil illa vis exercita
tot noxiorum mortibus
agone in isto proficit,
ars et dolorum vincitur. }

Vincent challenged the governor to take up the torturing himself and be even more brutish. Vincent proclaimed a certain invincibility:

You error, blood-thirsty one, if from me
you think you are exacting punishment
when you kill by tearing apart
limbs subject to death.
Another exists, is within me,
whom no one is able to violate.
That one is free, quiet, whole,
exempt from mournful pains.
This, which you labor to destroy
with such furious power,
is only a vessel made from clay,
inescapably destined to be broken.
Yet why not strive now
to cut and flog that
which stands within, which
tramples on your madness, tyrant?
This, this you must attack, this you must destroy,
this that is invincible, insurmountable,
that is subject to no storms,
but rests under God alone.

{ erras, cruente, si meam
te rere poenam sumere
cum membra morti obnoxia
dilancinata interficis.
est alter, est intrinsecus,
violare quem nullus potest,
liber, quietus, integer,
exsors dolorum tristium.
hoc, quod laboras perdere
tantis furoris viribus,
vas est solutum ac fictile,
quocumque frangendum modo.
quin immo nunc enitere
illum secare ac plectere
qui perstat intus, qui tuam
calcat, tyranne, insaniam.
hunc, hunc lacesse, hunc discute,
invictum, inexsuperabilem,
nullis procellis subditum,
solique subiectum Deo. }

The governor in response ordered that punishment recommence more harshly. He demanded that Vincent provide all his writings so that those books could be burned. Vincent refused, declaring:

You, malignant one, threaten
our spiritual writings with fire;
you yourself will more justly burn with this,
for the swords of Heaven
are vindicators of our volumes,
burning by thunderbolt the tongue
that is your broker of such venom.
See the glowing ashes that indicate
Gomorrah’s crimes;
Sodom’s cold ashes also provide
a witness of everlasting death.
This is your example, serpent.
Soon sulfurous soot
and coal mixed with pitch
will envelop you in the deepest Hell.

{ quem tu, maligne, mysticis
minitaris ignem litteris,
flagrabis ipse hoc iustius.
romphaea nam caelestium
vindex erit voluminum
tanti veneni interpretem
linguam perurens fulmine.
vides favillas indices
Gomorreorum criminum.
Sodomita nec latet cinis,
testis perennis funeris.
exemplar hoc, serpens, tuum est,
fuligo quem mox sulphuris
bitumen et mixtum pice
imo inplicabunt Tartaro. }

These words shocked Vincent’s persecutor. He turned pale, then red. His eyes rolled frantically, he gnashed his teeth and foamed at the mouth. He then ordered that Vincent be pressed into a burning, spiked bed by a heavy iron plate.

Vincent was wholly invincible. With eyes on Heaven, he endured the brutal torture. Then, with his legs stretched in stocks, he was thrust into a pitch-black dungeon. There he was laid on broken pots having jagged corners and sharp points. But God smashed the stocks binding Vincent’s legs, bathed the dungeon in bright light, and clothed the broken pots with tender flowers. An angel invited Vincent to join in the companionship of celestial angels:

Arise, illustrious martyr,
arise, secure in your self,
arise, our companion,
and join our kind union.
Now to the end you have fulfilled
your duties under menacing punishment.
With your noble departing in death,
every suffering you have traversed.
Oh most invincible soldier,
bravest of the brave,
now for you the savage, bitter
torments themselves tremble at their conqueror.
The God Christ, who watched this,
compensates you with eternal life.
He with generous right hand crowns
you associate of his cross and his mother.
Lay aside this frail vessel,
a fabric of earthen framework
that dissolves and dissipates,
and come in freedom to the sky.

{ exsurge, martyr inclyte,
exsurge securus tui,
exsurge et almis coetibus
noster sodalis addere.
decursa iam satis tibi
poenae minacis munia,
pulchroque mortis exitu
omnis peracta est passio.
o miles invictissime,
fortissimorum fortior,
iam te ipsa saeva et aspera
tormenta victorem tremunt.
spectator haec Christus Deus
conpensat aevo intermino,
propriaeque collegam crucis
larga coronat dextera.
pone hoc caducum vasculum
conpage textum terrea,
quod dissipatum solvitur,
et liber in caelum veni. }

Vincent and the angel began to sing together. The light shining in the dungeon broke through the closed doors. The dungeon keeper noticed the light. He peeked inside and was astonished to see flowers and Vincent walking freely and singing.

News of the strange happenings in Vincent’s dungeon reached the governor. He was furious. He ordered that Vincent be taken from the dungeon and placed outside for further punishment. A throng of faithful persons from the town gathered around him. They built for him a soft bed. They tended his wounds. When Vincent rested his head on that soft bed, his soul went straight to God in Heaven. He died not under torture, but supported with the generous love of good people.

Marc Angelucci delighted in court victories over the reigning authorities of gynocentric injustice. More than a decade ago, he worried that he would die in a plane crash and that his promising appeal of blatant discrimination against men by domestic violence shelters would vanish. He wrote argument notes so that another attorney could argue the case if he himself died in a plane crash. Angelucci probably never imagined that one day he would be murdered.

Marc Angelucci believed that men deserve rights and justice, just like any other human beings. Today, vicious tribes destroying civilized life smear men’s rights and justice for men as if they were demonic ideas. “Angelucci” literally means angel of light. Marc Angelucci is an angel of light. May Angelucci continue to inspire men and women in righteous progress toward gender justice for all.

Now you shine brightly, sharing
in the exalted robe of the angels.
As an indomitable witness,
you washed your robe in streams of blood,
when the minister of idols,
encircled with dismal laws,
would with iron and chains force
you to worship the gods of the tribes.

{ nunc angelorum particeps
conlucis insigni stola,
quam testis indomabilis
rivis cruoris laveras,
cum te satelles idoli
praecinctus atris legibus
litare divis gentium
ferro et catenis cogeret. }

*  *  *  *  *

Read more:

• sexist Selective Service overturned; gender equality progress at last
• Jaye’s Red Pill documents social failure to promote gender equality
• medieval poetry on the horror of men absent and dying in war

Notes:

Marc Angelucci served for many years as Vice-President and Board Member of the National Coalition for Men (NCFM), a leading men’s human rights organization. Here’s NCFM’s eulogy for Marc. Angelucci appeared in The Red Pill, Cassie Jaye’s wonderful documentary about the men’s rights movement. Here’s Cassie Jaye’s eulogy for Marc. A Voice for Men, a pioneering website advocating for men, has hosted a video memorial in which Marc Angelucci’s friends and colleagues struggle to accept the reality of Marc having been murdered. Alex Baker, who has worked extensively with Marc, wrote a brave eulogy for his friend. While I never met or talked with Marc Angelucci, for about two decades I have known and admired his work.

Marc Angelucci’s pioneering victory against anti-men sex discrimination in services for domestic violence victims is Woods v. Horton, 167 Cal.App.4th 658 (2008). Marc mentioned his concern about dying in a plane crash before he could argue this appeal in his presentation to the International Conference on Men’s Issues 2019 (see time 17:43 in the above video). Anti-men sex discrimination, gender profiling, and gender stereotyping sadly continue in the historically anti-men gender-bigoted field of domestic violence issue advocacy and services. Even after his landmark court victory, Angelucci continued to struggle for gender justice in addressing domestic violence.

The Washington Examiner reported on Niel Golightly’s resignation from the Boeing Company. That news report has links to its sources. It provided me with the link to the Boeing Company press release of July 2, 2020, which is quoted above. It also provided me with the link to Golightly (1987), which is also quoted above. News organizations that don’t include in their articles links to their sources apparently want to keep you ignorant so that they can more easily manipulate you. Such news sources deserve to be ignored.

The subsequent issue (February, 1988) of the journal containing Golightly (1987) printed comments about Golightly’s article. None of the comments mentioned sexist selective service registration. Lieutenant Lori Melling, U. S. Navy, A-7 Pilot, stated:

It is difficult to believe that Proceedings would publish an article so reminiscent of the arguments used against integrating blacks into the ranks.

I can assure Golightly that there is no need to create “mil spec” tampons. As a female A-7 pilot who has transited the Pacific to Hawaii and frequently spends lengthy periods in the cockpit on long-range strikes, I can assure anyone who is concerned that normal female aviators (we have nine) do not have a problem in such an environment.

I have never been treated “with patronizing tolerance, as the unit’s mascot,” whether I was the only woman in my squadron or one of many. Our squadron shares the strong bond of camaraderie that comes from long hours away from home and from the challenging and difficult experiences we have been through together as pilot and wingman or pilot and electronic warfare officer. As long as commanders do not tolerate sexual fraternization, the presence of women does not degrade a unit’s morale.

In theory, the military services could maintain a database of all service members’ DNA and require any woman who becomes pregnant to have DNA paternity testing to detect and punish illicit sexual fraternization. For many reasons, such sex policing is unimaginable in the U.S. military today. In practice, fairly policing “sexual fraternization” isn’t easy.

On July 3, the day after Boeing announced that Niel Golightly had resigned as its lead spokesperson, Lori Gattuso, née Melling, posted a comment under Golightly (1987). She strongly supporting effective freedom of thought and expression:

It is truly a shame that Mr. Golightly was forced to resign over this article. I was a (female) Navy A-7 pilot at the time and went on to fly F/A-18’s. I disagreed with the article and even wrote a rebuttal, but he made some excellent points and he had the right to be heard; in fact he still has the right to his opinion, or at least he should have the right to his opinion. To lose his job over an article he wrote 33 years ago is a sign that our country is becoming a totalitarian state. I hope that Mr. Golightly keeps his honor and does not snivel for social approval during what must be a difficult time for him. Time to stop mentally castrating our fighters.

Castration culture is real. I think Marc Angelucci would be delighted with Lori Gattuso’s sense of fairness, justice, and respect for men.

Saint Vincent was born in Saragossa and become deacon in the Christian church at Saragossa under Bishop Valerius of Saragossa. Bishop Valerius had a speech defect. He thus had in his place Vincent preach throughout the diocese of Saragossa. The life and death of Saint Vincent is celebrated with a feast day in the Christian liturgical calendar. Here are some hymns used for Saint Vincent’s feast day. More on Vincent as celebrated in the Christian liturgy.

The above quotes concerning Vincent are from Prudentius, Book about the Crowns {Liber Peristephanon} 5, The Passion of Saint Vincent the Martyr {Passio Sancti Vincenti Martyris}. Prudentius, a highly educated former Roman official probably born in Spain, wrote Liber Peristephanon about the year 400 GC. Prudentius’s account of the martyrdom of Vincent is its earliest surviving written testimony. It probably wasn’t, however, the first one written. Prudentius displays Vincent’s skill in speaking. More generally, Prudentius uses Latin words in sophisticated ways and is intensely concerned with the effects of words. On Prudentius’s concern for speech, Nicholas (2017).

Prudentius also describes Saint Vincent in Liber Peristephanon 4, A Hymn in Honor of the Eighteen Holy Martyrs of Saragossa {Hymnus in Honorem Sanctorum Decem et Octo Martyrum Caesaraugustanorum}, vv. 77-108. The eighteen holy martyrs of Saragossa apparently were martyred under an earlier persecution of Christians. Vincent is thought to have been martyred in 304 GC under Emperor Diocletian.

The first quote above (vox veritatis testis extingui nequit) is from Prudentius, Liber Peristephanon 10, The Declarations of Saint Romanus the Martyr against the Pagans {Sancti Romani Martyris contra Gentiles Dicta}, v. 9. Witness and martyr are linguistically closed related:

Romanus is described as a witness of the truth. Testis is the Latin translation of the word martyr which in Greek means ‘witness’ (μάρτυς).  …

martyr: (Gr. μάρτυς) originally meaning (judicial) witness, it eventually came to mean the supporter of God who (suffers and finally) dies to confess Christian faith. The latter connotation was developed and fluctuated during the second century.

Tsartsidis (2016) pp. 104, 139.

Prudentius vigorously criticized what he regarded as false gods and idolatry. He ridiculed traditional Roman religion:

You pray to Venus, then earnestly pray also to an ape;
The sacred snake of Aesculapius is acceptable to you,
yet a crocodile, an ibis, and a dog are objectionable?
Set up devout little altars for leeks,
venerate the bitter onion or pungent garlic!
Are your smoke-grimed house-spirits pleased with incense
yet consecrated vegetables are rejected?
So why are fireplaces believed to have greater majesty
than that born in a cultivated garden?
If there’s divinity in fireplaces, there’s also divinity in leeks.

{ Venerem precaris, conprecare et simiam.
placet sacratus aspis Aesculapii,
crocodillus, ibis et canis cur displicent?
adpone porris religiosas arulas,
venerare acerbum caepe, mordax allium.
Fuliginosi ture placantur lares
et respuuntur consecrata holuscula?
aut unde maior esse maiestas focis
quam nata in hortis sarculatis creditur?
si numen ollis, numen et porris inest. }

Liber Peristephanon 10.256-65. The crocodile, ibis, and dog are animials sacred in ancient Egyptian religion. Romans traditionally had household gods associated with a home’s hearth. On this passage, Tsartsidis (2016) pp. 182-6. Idolatry was a central concern of Lucretius, the great Roman debunker of dominant delusions, in his De rerum natura.

The quoted Latin texts of Prudentius are from Thomson (1949) vol. 2, with my English translation, benefiting from that of id. Specific citations (by chapter.verse in Thomson’s edition of Peristephanon): 10.9 (A voice that witnesses to the truth…), 5.42-52 (Dare you, unhappy man…), 5.54-75, 92 (Do it thus, with whatever powers…), 5.95-104 (Stuff his mouth…), 5.131-6 (He rejoices, smiles…), 5.153-72 (You error, blood-thirsty one…), 5.186-200 (You, malignant one…), 5.285-304 (Arise, illustrious martyr…), 5.9-16 (Now you shine brightly…).

[images] (1) Photo of Marc Angelucci, used in accordance with fair-use rights under U.S. copyright law. This low-resolution image is important for showing the character of the deceased in this non-commercial tribute to his life. (2) YouTube video of Marc Angelucci giving his presentation “Sue the Bastards” at the International Conference on Men’s Issues 2019, held in Chicago, presentation on August 17, 2019. Video thanks to An Ear for Men / A Voice For Men.

References:

Golightly, Lieutenant Niel L., USN. 1987. “No Right to Fight.” Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. Vol. 113/12/1,018 (December 1987).

Nicholas, Lucy. 2017. “Pagans and Christians: A battle over the power of speech in the poems of Prudentius.” Online.

Thomson, Henry John, ed. and trans. 1949. Prudentius. Loeb Classical Library 387, 398. Vol. 1, Vol. 2. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Tsartsidis, Thomas. 2016. Commentary on Prudentius’ Hymn to Romanus 1-650 (Peristephanon 10). PhD in Classics. The University of Edinburgh.