November 16, 2004
ENDORSING SELF-HATRED IS NOT A VIRTUE:
Intolerance Is Not a 'Value' (Timothy M. Gay, November 16, 2004, Washington Post)
One of my favorite teachers was a wiry little man with thick, horn-rimmed glasses who taught us fifth grade. It's been 40 years, but I can still see his crooked grin and hear his voice cracking with excitement.He made learning fun, constantly getting the class to act out skits to reinforce one lesson or another. His eyes were keen and his heart was big: He always made sure that kids from broken homes or the wrong side of the tracks got starring roles in our productions. He helped implant in me a lifelong love of history. I was out sick with the flu for a couple of days that year; he waited until I returned to resume class readings of a Civil War book that he knew I loved. He was everything a great teacher is supposed to be: unfailingly kind, considerate and dedicated.
He was, also, we learned much later, gay. But because this was the mid-1960s in a small town, he didn't dare live as such -- especially since he doubled as the school's principal. Only in his twilight years did he follow his heart, moving to a city to live as a gay American.
Imagine for a moment, however, that it wasn't four decades ago but four days ago that my teacher was reaching out to help a less fortunate kid with a thorny math problem. And imagine that he'd had the courage in that small town to "come out" and had taken up residence with his partner. In the new world order dictated by champions of "moral values," this wonderful, caring teacher might be branded dangerous. Emboldened by national conservative leaders, the town's evangelicals -- and there are plenty of them -- could well have raised a hue and cry to keep this teacher and "his kind" away from their children. And the town's young people would have been denied the chance to have their lives shaped by a remarkable educator.
Here's what Republicans of conscience have to understand about the machinations of Karl Rove and company. Fear isn't some emotion that can be easily bottled back up after it's been -- viciously -- unleashed. It isn't a once-every-four-years vehicle that can be wheeled out for a few months, then stowed back in the garage to be retooled for the next election cycle. Encouraging fundamentalist preachers to pound their pulpits and inveigh against gay people has consequences. It puts men and women in communities across this country at personal and professional risk. There's nothing more despicable than creating a phony political issue (just how many gay couples are clamoring for marriage certificates in the state of Ohio, anyhow?) and preying on people's prejudices.
You can't love someone and be indifferent to or even approving of their immoral and self-destructive behavior.
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
As Bad As We Get: Homosexuality as a Sign of Ultimate Corruption (A. J. Conyers, June 2004, Touchstone)
The biblical condemnation of homosexual acts is not a violation of its real teaching of love and inclusiveness, but in part a sign of what sin is and does, and how it so disorders and corrupts human desire that we do not want the created nature through which God will bring us true love and true inclusivity.I will illustrate this from the Pentateuch (Genesis 18 and 19), the Deuteronomic history (Judges 17ff.), and the Pauline epistles (Romans 1). In the Old Testament especially, but also in the New, homosexuality is treated like most moral issues, within the story of humanity, a nation, and a regenerate community, all of which have an essentially moral vocation: a vocation to be holy, righteous, and reconciled with God, nature, and each other.
The problem depicted in each of the three passages is not only that men are so depraved that they have left behind the natural desire for women, but also that the social situation is now irredeemable without drastic intervention and judgment. Homosexuality is a sign that the social situation has gotten that bad. To this end, the writers typically use it as a means of illustrating the anti-naturalism of sin: the vaporous sexual imagination that rejects the natural relation to the other (the other sex) and instead seeks union with the same (as a nearer reflection of the self).
The result is even at first glance obvious: an unfruitful relation that begets nothing and denies the power of sex in relation to one truly other than the self, and thus destroys the community itself. Scripture never sees created nature as antagonistic to God’s purposes, but as the context in which those purposes—including human happiness—are to be pursued. Scripture opposes the actions that deny nature, and thus deny true human happiness: when the human imagination refuses to accept the limits (and the benefits) of nature, but seeks to overcome nature to satisfy its fallen fantasies.
We can see this in each of the passages I have listed. Each: (1) uses homosexuality to illustrate the degree to which a community, or mankind itself, has declined in evil and disorder; (2) describes homosexuality as not only the object of judgment but also the very form of the judgment; (3) sees it as a rejection of nature; and (4) understands it as a violation against community.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18 and 19) draws the reader into a consideration of the possibility that human evil might become so intractable that it overreaches even the mercy of God. The story is not about homosexuality by itself, but about the fact of human evil and its perilous end, as shown in the picture of a disorder deeply woven into the community’s life. Abraham’s bargaining with the divine messengers makes clear that if there are fifty, or forty-five, or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or ten who are righteous, the Lord will not destroy the city—the length of the passage serving to underline the willingness of God to bring judgment only in the most extreme case of the community’s depravity.
The two angels who proceed to Sodom are offered hospitality by Lot. “But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both the young and the old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; and they called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.’” Lot, highlighting the indelible character of their perversity, says to them: “I beg you, my brethren, do not act so wickedly. Behold I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
The ancient Near-Eastern obligation of a host to his guest, of course, plays a part in this. And though we are naturally shocked by the offer of Lot’s virgin daughters to the crowd of men, this device is a common one when the biblical writer is giving an account of the depth of wickedness to which a community might descend. The point is that these men are so depraved that they do not want the women.
No King in Israel
We find a similar episode in the Deuteronomic account (Judges 17ff.), which depicts Israel’s downwardly spiraling society. The story is punctuated with the words: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” It tells of a deeply disordered society, one that had reached such depths that the people of Israel are represented as asking “Tell us, how was this wickedness [which included the brutal murder of a concubine by a sexually wanton crowd of men] brought to pass?”
At the climax of the story, a Levite arrives with his concubine and his male servant at a place near Jerusalem, which was at this time still occupied by the Jebusites. They decline to lodge with the Jebusites, who were foreigners, but travel farther so as to stay with their own countrymen in Gibeah. This point is significant, because the story goes on to show that the Israelites had become worse than the foreign Jebusites. An old man takes in the trio. Then, “As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, base fellows, beset the house round about, beating on the door; and they said to the old man, the master of the house, ‘Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.’”
This passage mirrors the story of Sodom, suggesting a literary convention that depicts the depth of evil in a society by the stubborn presence of homosexual desire. Its stubbornness is underlined in a slightly different fashion in the balance of this passage, but it is clearly devised so that it stresses the pathology of corporate sin that is so entrenched that it becomes inescapable. These lines follow:
And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them, “No, my brethren, do not act so wickedly; seeing that this man has come into my house, do not do this vile thing. Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine; let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do with them what seems good to you; but against this man do not do so vile a thing.”
In this story, the city is not destroyed as is the case for Sodom, but the concubine is thrown out of the house, abused and murdered by the crowd of men. So once again, deep disorder, the rebellion of sin, is disclosed by the presence of homosexual practice, and comes to fruition in violence. In both passages there is no extensive discussion of the depravity of a society. In each case, one is informed of the depth of depravity by reference to the presence of homosexual aggressiveness.
Paul does little more than draw upon this Old Testament imagery when he unfolds the nature of sin in Romans 1. He is using homosexual practice, which in his mind is self-evidently corrupt, in order to explain and condemn the sin that corrupts all of humanity. As in the passages from Genesis and Judges, homosexuality serves to illustrate the human predicament and the deadliness of the unredeemed human imagination. It is the stock biblical illustration of social corruption en extremis.
Thus, he explains that sin is rooted in self-deception, and becomes its own judgment as “God gives them up” to their self-destructive practices. That sin and judgment are one and the same is proven, according to Paul, by the extremes to which the human imagination leads to “dishonorable passions”: “Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”
Thus, not only is sin forgetful of the fact that it is God who is the author of nature, but the logic of sin is that it first draws a person to worship nature, and then to turn against it in violence and vanity.
As human dignity is a gift from God, so destroying that dignity--your own or another's--defines sin. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 16, 2004 8:05 PM
Yeah, that guy sounds like a real immoral jerk.
Who, despite being self destructive, seems to have lived quite a long time.
That's OK, don't let little facts like that get in your way.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 16, 2004 8:23 PMHating and demeaning himself. Someone who loved him should have helped him.
Posted by: oj at November 16, 2004 8:25 PMHere's what Republicans of conscience have to understand about the machinations of Karl Rove and company.
i.e.
"It's All The Republicans' Fault,
The Republicans Are To Blame;
It's All The Republicans' Fault,
The Republicans Are To Blame;
It's All The Republicans' Fault,
The Republicans Are To Blame;
It's All The Republicans' Fault,
The Republicans Are To Blame..."
Maybe he lived a "long time" because he didn't live the full San Francisco lifestyle, and because of that he didn't die of AIDS in the late 1980s.
Then again, I'd bet there are quite a few Christians and conservatives living "in the closet "in San Francisco because they know what sort of reaction they'd receive from the openminded, tolerant neightbors if they only knew...
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at November 16, 2004 8:42 PMRepublicans didn't bring up the issue of gay marriage; gays did.
Many, perhaps most, of those voting against gay marriage don't hate or fear gays, they merely have illogical emotional associations with the word "marriage".
Orrin:
You're projecting again.
Besides, by your own words and standards, you should be for lesbian marriage.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 16, 2004 8:59 PM> Many, perhaps most, of those voting against gay marriage don't hate or fear gays, they merely have illogical emotional associations with the word "marriage".
My own take would be that those associations are neither illogical nor emotional. Certainly it is a "knee-jerk" reaction for much of the voting populace, but ultimately it is simply recognizing a fact which, in times past, was too obvious for discussion. Gay behavior is tolerable in any era as long as it is among "consenting adults" and doesn't try to present itself as a virtue. It goes without saying that men like Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing have made great contributions to the sum of human knowledge; but they also accepted the notion that "the love that dare not speak its name" really dare not speak its name.
In our era, though, there is a small but vocal lobby trying to promote homosexuality as morally equivalent to heterosexuality. That can't fly in a stable society, no matter how much the citizens may, commendably, sympathize with the gay minority.
The indisputable facts are: 1) A stiff dick has no conscience, and in sexual matters, having someone involved, male or female, is preferable to relying on Rosie Palmer (i.e., self-pleasuring), which means that many men will transmit STD's among themselves if they have the chance; 2) It's beneficial for children to grow up with both masculine and feminine influences; 3) Masculinity is needed by every society, just as femininity is needed by every society (otherwise your society devolves into either Hollywood/Paris [too feminine] or Nazis/Taliban [too masculine]), and empirical evidence suggests that a significant percentage of homosexuals expressly embrace femininity (and moreover there is not a corresponding number of female homosexuals embracing masculinity); and so on.
The upshot of my argument is that the idea of "marriage" is not merely an arbitrary social construct, but rather, a recognition of the fact that there is a meaningful difference between the masculine and the feminine, and that both sides can learn from the other, and most of all, the maintenance of a stable society requires that the male/female bond be exalted above all others.
Posted by: Guy T. at November 16, 2004 9:47 PMMichael: No one cares about lesbians.
I'd be interesting in knowing who was the last teacher fired for being homosexual or the last significant other refused access to a same-sex loved one in the hospital.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 16, 2004 10:59 PMGuy T.:
No.s 2 & 3 don't depend on the absence of gay marriage. As you point out, it's possible to get them wrong even if only hetero-marriage is allowed, and allowing gays to marry wouldn't much change what kids see.
No. 1 is occuring now, without gay marriage. Why would being allowed to be married increase the rate of STDs among gays ?
David Cohen:
Thus the hypocricy of the anti gay marriage movement.
Unless, like Orrin, one has some heartfelt nutty theories about human sexuality, it's logically required that lesbians be just as oppressed as gay men.
To the extent that they're not, we can see that the basis for denying gays marriage is simple revulsion.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 16, 2004 11:33 PMDenying gay marriage is not from revulsion, no more than saying that a piece of turkey between two slices of bread is not a ham sandwich is from revulsion. It is a simple matter of definition. Why do gays think that they have the right to change the basic meaning of a commonly understood word and institution? Whatever two gay men living in a commited relationship is, it is not a marriage, it is something else. That word is taken. That institution is taken.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at November 17, 2004 12:40 AMOJ:
"You can't love someone and be indifferent to or even approving of their immoral and self-destructive behavior."
Hm. That's a new take on gay-bashing.
"I'm doing this because I love you!" (as the jackboots swing).
Posted by: Brit at November 17, 2004 5:26 AMMichael: To the extent that the difference in treatment of lesbians and gay men is due to the ickiness factor, I suppose it can rationally be called hypocracy. Though that is a difference, it is a difference that makes no difference.
But there are other differences that make a difference and that lead to our treating lesbians differently. It is mostly due to political correctness that we don't acknowledge that we treat these two different categories differently.
Lesbians tend to form serial-monogomous relationships. Lesbians are less self-destructive. Lesbians are least likely to have and spread strs. Lesbians are more likely to have custody of small children in the natural course. Outside of traditional marriage (and, for that matter, inside) we trust woman alone with small children much more than we trust men alone with small children. Lesbians are much less likely to use illicit narcotics. Lesbians tend to be more neurotic, but less psychotic than homosexual men. Lesbian sexual acts are not a method of tribal dominance in primate communities. A significant cohort of homosexual men believe that rampant, ultra-promiscuity is integral to their sexual identity.
Now, in all these ways we're dealing with very small portions of a small minority. So, when dealing individually with a gay man, we cannot assume that he is a pedophilic, disease ridden addict who compulsively engages in icky sex with strangers. He almost certainly won't be. But in changing the basic institutions of human society (the default settings, if you will), it is nuts to ignore all these differences.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 17, 2004 8:27 AMBrit:
That's why sin must be opposed, out of love for fellow men. If your friend was an alcoholic, drug addict, gambler, cheating on his wife, abusing his kids, etc., you'd intervene wouldn't you?
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 8:37 AMMichael:
It's perfectly understandable that some women are so overwhelmed by men that they seek comfort from women. But men degrade themselves by submitting to other men--that's why sodomy is a tool of hierarchical male institutions.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 8:52 AMOJ:
Indubitably. It's the 'homosexuality is a sin' (or was it a freudian accident?) notion that we disagree over.
Funnily enough, I do have an old friend who, after a string of disastrous attempts at relationships with women, finally came out as gay a couple of years ago. He now lives with a partner. It didn't seem appropriate to intervene and tell him to stop being happy.
If love for your fellow man is what motivates your opinions OJ, you hide it very well.
Robert:
I fully agree. If a gay couple want some kind of recognised civil union, fine. But don't call it 'marriage'. It's an abuse of the language.
So what do you do when you encounter a homosexual?
How do you go about helping your fellow man?
Posted by: Brit at November 17, 2004 9:24 AMDavid:
There are very high rates of alcoholism and domestic violence within the lesbian community.
Michael:
Since homosexual men spread a lot of STDs, the government should discourage not encourage destructive activity.
Posted by: Vince at November 17, 2004 11:26 AMTry to love them and let them know they needn't hate themselves. Then, later, when it all goes bung, clean 'em up and drive them to the hospital for testing.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 11:30 AMVince:
"Since homosexual men spread a lot of STDs, the government should discourage not encourage destructive activity"
That's a hopeless argument against gay marriage as it implies that marriage is destructive.
It might work as an argument for criminalising homosexuality. Which is never going to happen.
Posted by: Brit at November 17, 2004 11:36 AMOJ:
I see you're as serious on this subject as you are on evolution.
Posted by: Brit at November 17, 2004 11:37 AMBrit:
Ever taken a friend to the hospital so he could find out he has AIDs?
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 11:49 AMNo.
Posted by: Brit at November 17, 2004 11:58 AMNo. And you'd not be so blithe about its merely being a choice if you'd seen its consequences.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 12:24 PMMethinks you confuse homosexuality with promiscuous unsafe behaviour among some homosexuals.
And if you think heterosexuals don't behave as irresponsibly, you've obviously never been on a Club 18-30 holiday.
Posted by: Brit at November 17, 2004 1:35 PMBrit:
No. All homosexuals have terrible health problems--men aren't evolved for that. AIDs is merely the deadliest.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 2:07 PMBut like you say, OJ, despite the fact that I have been acquainted with numerous homosexuals over the years, not once have I had to discover that one of them has AIDs.
If it's the circulation of STDs among gays that concerns you, then your best position might be: ban gay clubs, promote gay marriage.
Posted by: Brit at November 17, 2004 2:12 PMBrit:
No. STDs are just the least of it. Simply having anal sex inflicts physical damage.
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/008826.html
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 2:19 PMWell, we must protect people from themselves.
Put it on the list of dangerous things to ban, along with smoking, drinking, fatty foods, driving, skiing and climbing trees.
Posted by: Brit at November 17, 2004 2:50 PMOJ,
If AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality, then he must love lesbians and hate hemophiliacs.
Oh, and be sure not to eat any shrimp or shellfish, that too is an abomination unto the Lord.
Posted by: Dan Duffy at November 17, 2004 3:33 PMWhat does God have to do with gay men getting AIDs, other than they wouldn't if they obeyed his laws?
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 4:22 PMOJ,
Leviticus is a health code, not a moral code. Which is why eating shellfish is listed as an "abomination". Some poor Israelite had a violent allergic reaction to a shellfish. So to be on the safe side, the Levis banned all shellfish.
I, like many people, get an allergic reaction from eating peanuts. If goobers had been arround in Old Testament times, peanut butter would be an abomination unto the Lord.
Now you could make the argument that harming your own health is a sin. If so, then tobacco and fatty cheeseburgers are also abominations.
Posted by: Dan Duffy at November 17, 2004 4:43 PMOJ:
They are obeying his laws--He made them that way, just like He made you incapable of voluntary homosexuality.
Brit, Mike: Well said.
Through my brother, I've known a fair number of gays. One has died of AIDS. All the rest seem pretty darn healthy. I know for sure my brother is--I'll bet he is far healthier than OJ is, for instance.
While I wish gays had just given this whole marriage thing a rest for another generation, they didn't. Which means the 11 states constitutionalizing gay marriage bans have seem to have voted themselves into something of a corner.
Civil marriage between gays is hereby prohibited.
Yet any religion that chooses to may marry as many as they want, and there isn't the first thing the state can do about it.
Guy T.
So what effect could gay marriage possibly have on the heterosexual kind?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 17, 2004 5:27 PMJeff:
If He had they'd be designed that way. They aren't. It's just an emotional problem.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 5:43 PMOJ,
So let me get this straight. Peanuts, shellfish, tobacco and cheese burgers are all sinfull abominations and those who indulge in these abominations will go to hell a surely as any homosexual?
Posted by: Dan Duffy at November 17, 2004 5:56 PMNo. As you said it was of the nature of a health code. At the time a very sound one. Many of the provisions are no longer needed to protect your health. To intentionally destroy your own health--via alcoholism, smolking, obesity, homosexuality, etc.--is a sin.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 6:00 PMWell sinners go to hell to burn for eternity don't they?
Besides, do you know anyone who is intentionally an alcholic, intentionally a heavy smoker, intentionally unhealthily obese -
- or intentionally a homosexual?
Posted by: Dan Duffy at November 17, 2004 7:31 PMVince --
Worse than heterosexuals, but not worse than gay men.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 17, 2004 8:17 PMOJ,
So you can quit being Straight anytime you want?
And why would anyone want to be Gay if they could possibly help it?
Posted by: Dan Duffy at November 17, 2004 8:26 PMDan:
Ever been in a fraternity, prison, boarding school, or the British Navy?
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 8:28 PMOJ,
One last time, and please answer yes or no:
Are smokers, obese people, and alcoholics going to burn in the firey torment of hell for all of eternity along with the Gays?
Posted by: Dan Duffy at November 17, 2004 8:28 PMOJ,
I'm surprised you left out Turkish prisons. Though isolated groups of men cut off from women for long durations will see some temporary increase in buggery, that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about Gays who are permanently oriented to their own gender despite the ready availablity of women. Such men are often subject to physical, verbal and other forms of abuse.
So given the abuse society heaps on them, why would anyone voluntarily chose to be Gay? Please answer the question.
Dan:
The point being we can all choose buggery. Gay men choose it because of self-image problems and the need to be debased and/or to dominate other men. It's hardly the strangest self-abusive behavior folks engage in. Know any anorexics?
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 8:40 PMDan:
I don't know what God's going to do with me, nevermind anyone else in the next world. But He's made His commands about how we behave while we're in this one explicit.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 8:41 PMSo are anorexics going to hell too?
I don't know about you but I could not ever, ever chose buggery. So speak for yourself.
Posted by: Dan Duffy at November 17, 2004 8:47 PMI don't know what God's going to do with me, nevermind anyone else in the next world.
That sir is a cowardly dodge. Buck up man, and show us the courage of your convictions. Take your argument to its logical conclusion and declare without shame that smokers, obese people and alcoholics are sinners and sinners go to hell to burn in torment and agony forever. It logically follows as night follows day.
And while your at it, why aren't you out right now killing Gays since God directly commanded them to be stoned to death? Why aren't you following God's commands?
Don't knock it 'til your pledge master tries you.
So what you're saying is that you had (or almost had) a forced Gay experience and kind of liked it?
Posted by: Dan Duffy at November 17, 2004 8:56 PMDan:
No one likes it, but it's easy enough to find yourself in a situation where you get to try it. The experience was no worse tha attending a soccer game.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 9:02 PMWhat on Earth are you guys talking about?
Posted by: Vince at November 17, 2004 9:42 PMOJ:
Stop dodging the questions questions. They are completely on point, and your evasive responses are unbecoming.
"We're talking about Gays who are permanently oriented to their own gender despite the ready availablity of women."
Most, if not all, the self hatred gays may have is due to the abuse heaped upon them by Christians. Remember: "As you do unto the least of my children, so you do unto Me."
The dietary danger equivocation seems particularly disengenuous. Water born diseases were at least as prevalent as food related illness. Funny. Water isn't on that list.
Dan--If memory serves, Leveticus says it is an abomination in God's eyes for women to wear pants.
I find it particularly telling that probably not one poster here, including OJ, was anything but a confirmed heterosexual from the very first day they were aware of the difference between girls and boys--probably by 7. Yet despite the complete lack of choice they have had in the matter, they somehow presume gays do.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 17, 2004 10:02 PMDavid Cohen:
While it's true that the lesbian and gay communities have little in common, aggregating only for political and legal reasons, can we legitimately separate the two for moral purposes ?
If marriage or sex is only moral between one man and one woman, then any violation of that code must be a sin, regardless of whether lesbians are easier to tolerate.
Persecuting gays while ignoring lesbians must itself be sinful.
oj:
Absolutely, forced sodomy is, at the very least, an expression of dominance and power.
However, men often submit to other men for positive reasons, out of love: We submit to our fathers, our commanders, our country, God... As well as for many other reasons of duty, or matters of honor. Civilization as we know it depends on males submitting to other males' power and authority.
You would agree, I'm sure, that male submission for reasons of philia or agape are proper and sometimes noble; thus, the assertation that male submission is degrading only when in the cause of eros is critically suspect.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 17, 2004 10:07 PMDavid Cohen:
While it's true that the lesbian and gay communities have little in common, aggregating only for political and legal reasons, can we legitimately separate the two for moral purposes ?
If marriage or sex is only moral between one man and one woman, then any violation of that code must be a sin, regardless of whether lesbians are easier to tolerate.
Persecuting gays while ignoring lesbians must itself be sinful.
oj:
Absolutely, forced sodomy is, at the very least, an expression of dominance and power.
However, men often submit to other men for positive reasons, out of love: We submit to our fathers, our commanders, our country, God... As well as for many other reasons of duty, or matters of honor. Civilization as we know it depends on males submitting to other males' power and authority.
You would agree, I'm sure, that male submission for reasons of philia or agape are proper and sometimes noble; thus, the assertation that male submission is degrading only when in the cause of eros is critically suspect.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 17, 2004 10:08 PMMichael:
Sexual submission is ever and always about dominance hierarchies and personal degradation.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 10:32 PMJeff:
Yes, they choose it for reasons of low self-esteem and displaced sexuality. They can be helped.
Posted by: oj at November 17, 2004 10:35 PMI'm with Vince. I didn't mind too much when my imaginary computer friends started to answer back, or even when they started to argue amongst themselves, but when they start working on their own psychological problems in public, hoo boy.
I don't keep kosher (although I never eat ham) and I'm not shomer shabbas, but dismissing the laws of kashrut as a rule-of-thumb health code is pretty insulting and doesn't even explain that much. The second best known rule of kashrut (don't mix milk with meat), for example, has nothing whatsoever to do with human health nor does it pretend to.
OJ is something of his own prophet. Neither tobacco, nor alcohol, nor eating to excess are sinful, other than in some nebulous "the body is
G-d's gift" "absention is holy" sort of way. All us fat, smoking drunks can still get into heaven where, for all we know, all the waiters will be gay.
Michael -- I have no interest in persecuting gays or lesbians, I'm just arguing for the status quo as of two years ago, and asking that any change come from the people or the legislature. I do think that someone (not me) could rationally argue that men should be able to marry women, and women should be able to marry women, but that men should not be allowed to marry men. The 14th Amendment, as currently interpreted, wouldn't allow that rule, but I don't agree with the current interpretation and I don't mistake "Constitutional" with "good", or vice versa.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 17, 2004 10:54 PMDavid:
As usual, you make great sense.
As a lawyer, you are familiar with how judges should decide things.
If a Constitution says everyone has equal standing before the law, then deprives a sub-group of some of that standing, how to square the circle?
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 18, 2004 6:51 PMJeff:
How are they deprived of equal treatment by the law?
Posted by: oj at November 18, 2004 7:08 PMOddly, some gods require homosexuality.
Others volunteer. Read the Gospel of Thomas.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 18, 2004 9:13 PMFalse gods.
Posted by: oj at November 18, 2004 9:24 PMGnostic gods.
Posted by: Dave at November 18, 2004 9:46 PMoj:
Again, you're projecting.
I'm not being flippant, but quite serious.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 18, 2004 11:48 PMMichael:
So am I. Submitting to another male or dominating him in an aberrant manner is about submission and domination--nothing more.
Posted by: oj at November 19, 2004 8:46 AMGods.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 19, 2004 1:44 PMOJ:
Taxation and inheritance, for two.
The law provides special consideration for married couples, while preventing a subgroup from marrying in order to get those benefits.
Of course, this whole argument could be put to bed if the state got out of the marriage business, leaving religious sanctification of the institution to the various sects to deal with as they see fit.
And replace civil marriage with cohabitation contract law, which could conceivably strengthen marriage by making such contracts harder to unilaterally break.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 20, 2004 9:05 AMNot without lying.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 21, 2004 7:51 AM