[xico]

Originally Posted by Wet Chicken

Yes, everyday when I was growing up

We weren't allowed to do anything until we read it, and I also attended Catholic school and drove the nuns crazy ( I can still feel their paddle on my butt)

But I was also raised to always seek the truth and question everything

Hah! Only paddled? LOL

I have an article here from Shamir's Yahoo Group which posts all sorts of questions, answers, points of view and things to think about. I'm thinking about this one. It's interesting, but needs to be read all the way through, since you get the answer to the original article first.

Our friend Dr Spritzler adds this valuable comment to Simon Jones' essay. He wrote:

In recent years the corporations have aggressively promoted the idea that
homosexuality is as good and natural and moral a basis for a family as
heterosexuality, and that anyone who disagrees with this view is a bigoted
"homophobe." Judges in Massachusetts have legalized homosexual marriage.
Most people believe that the best thing for children is to be raised by their real mother and father in a strong and loving family. Big Capital attacks people for feeling this way, and calls them bigots, because it likes the direction in which homosexuality moves society. In capital's ideal world where everyone is an isolated individual, sexuality is not a social relationship connecting parents with children, but just a way people use each other, and children are just something you buy. If two men want a
child, then they can rent a womb and buy an egg from a surrogate mother. Why
not? It's just a business transaction the way all human relationships ought
to be. Or if two women want a baby, just buy some sperm. Why not? Fatherhood
is just a commodity like toothpaste or clothing. A professor of law
testifying before Congress described sperm donors as "providers of gametes,"
and offered the legal opinion that "A consumer's right 'to make contracts
with providers of gametes' cannot be prohibited or limited except to assure
that such contracts 'are knowingly and freely entered into.'" (Blankenhorn,
p. 179) This is the capitalist idea of Paradise, in which people are no more
than their constituent parts: a womb, a source of sperm, a "male presence,"
a child support check, a "day care provider." No longer will children's
mothers and fathers be unique and beyond price.

(Full article below)

Here's who is behind the liberal same-sex agenda in Massachusetts. The following was sent to me by the group in Massachusetts which is opposed to the recent Mass. Supreme Court ruling making same-sex marriage legal in this state. The interesting thing is that the corporate powers are lining up so forcefully to keep same-sex marriage legal. Note the bolded list of corporate sponsors of the big fundraiser for same-sex candidates, below. -- John

Major corporations donate.



A recent Boston Globe described how the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a radical national homosexual political organization, has funneled $650,000 into Massachusetts – specifically to defeat pro-marriage lawmakers in local state Legislature races, in the Nov. 2 election.

Well, it turns out that's just the beginning.



Last Saturday evening, October 23, the HRC came to Boston and put on an enormous, lavish fundraiser to raise even more money to radically change our Legislature. It was held at the Hynes Convention Center. Tickets were a minimum of $200 each. Phil Donahue and Grammy Award Winner Jennifer Holliday came and provided entertainment. Over 150 expensive items, were donated for a silent auction. A door prize of a 2005 Volvo XC90 was donated by Volvo Cars of North America. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino allowed a "Lunch with Mayor Menino" to be auctioned off, and was also given an award for his pro-homosexual civic activism.



The list of corporate sponsors of this event is truly sickening – and frightening – including:



John Hancock, IBM, Bank of America, Comcast, The Gillette Company, Kessler Family Foundation, Summit Mortgage, WHDH-TV/Channel 7, Accenture, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, Mellon New England, Novations/J. Howard & Associates, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Staples, Verizon, Bingham McCutchen, BlueCross BlueShield, Boston Business Journal, Citizens Bank, Ernst & Young, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, Harvard University, Hill Holliday, KPMG, Raytheon, Jordan 's Furniture, Mercer HR Consulting, NorthStar Asset Managerment, State Street, Wainwright Bank, Edwards and Angell LLP, Evergreen Investments, NSTAR, Eastern Bank.



Click to see list of dinner's corporate sponsors.




http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/Cul...y-families.htm
WHY ARE FAMILIES UNDER ATTACK?

by John Spritzler

July, 2004
(This is an updated version of the article originally published in 1997 in
New Democracy)

newdemocracyworld.org
massrefusal.org



The cover of the March 1997 Fortune magazine asks, "Is Your Family Wrecking
Your Career?" Inside is an article headed "Oh, Quit Whining and Get Back to
Work! It's heresy to say so, but let's say it anyway: Sometimes your job is
more important than your kid's Kodak moment." The article describes the
demands that top-ranked corporations place on working couples trying to
raise children and make time for their families. The culture of the most
successful corporations, according to the article, is one in which devotion
to the company comes first, before family. The message to Fortune's CEO
readers seems to be that successful corporations must be anti-family.


The anti-family culture reflected in this pro-business magazine is something
that millions of people must buck everyday as they work to make their
families healthy and keep them intact. In spite of politicians' talk about
"family values," the pressures on working families have grown more intense
in the last decade in many different ways.


Capitalists would have us believe that the pressures on families result from
economic necessity. This is not true. From 1947 to 2000 the productivity of
American workers has almost quadrupled.
(http://www.bls.gov/opub/rtaw/pdf/table24.pdf ). We could produce more now
than we did then if our families sent only one parent to work for twenty
hours a week or each parent to work for ten hours. The "Leisure Society"
that was foreseen in the '60s is just as feasible economically as the
massive "downsizing" and overtime work that capitalists prefer. The
necessity driving the attacks on the family is not economic but political.
It results from capital's need to control working people by attacking the
most fundamental bonds of solidarity among human beings.


WHY IS CAPITALISM HOSTILE TO FAMILIES?

Families are a social institution within which the values of selfishness and
competition B the bedrock values of capitalism B are not viewed as
appropriate. In healthy families, the important things like emotional
support, shelter, medical care and food, are shared according to need: not
sold, but given freely. People work hard in families, not for pay but out of
love and solidarity. The self-serving values and behavior that are viewed as
normal when engaged in by corporations, if practiced inside a family are
seen as sick. Corporations are built on greed and competition: buy low and
sell dear, move the factory to where labor is cheaper, bring in scabs to
break strikes, pit people against each other, sell tobacco to kids. To
capitalists, anything is OK as long as it makes money. The corporate leaders
who engage in the most vicious practices are frequently rewarded with the
highest salaries. Healthy families are a challenge to capitalism. The
countless things we do as family members, caring and providing for one
another, making family events from an evening meal to a large family
reunion, helping each other in an emergency, giving advice and hugs,
listening sympathetically, enjoying each others' company, and even
squabbling and arguing to resolve conflicts or giving valuable negative
feedback - all these things we do everyday in our families have a
significance which often goes unnoticed. They are efforts to make our little
corner of the world the opposite of the world of buying and selling.
Capital's hostility to families is part of a broader hostility to the values
of working people generally. Working class culture values solidarity and
equality over selfishness and greed. It's a culture that says you shouldn't
cross a picket line and if you do you're a scab. Working class struggles
have always drawn much of their strength from family ties. Working class
family values are an active force against capitalist power. The great
sit-down strikes of the '30s, the valiant struggles of Hormel meatpackers
and Staley workers and Detroit newspaper strikers in the 80's and 90's, and
the strikes by janitors and grocery store workers in more recent times, have
all depended on family ties and values of solidarity and equality forged in
the families of working people.


HOW CAPITALISM ATTACKS FAMILIES

One key form of capitalist attack on the family lies in a process called
"commodification," in which capital seeks to undermine the natural forms of
human interaction in all spheres of life and replace them with commercial
relations. In particular, capital strives to turn loving family relations
into mere "commodities"- services bought and sold in the marketplace. By
reducing important aspects of our humanity to commodities, capital creates
an image of human "freedom" in which people are "freed" of all social
commitments and all social norms and morality. The ruling elite hope in this
way to undermine bonds of solidarity and reduce people to solitary
individuals, isolated and powerless. The owning class is trying to do more
thoroughly to the family what it has long done to people at work. Corporate
owners don't want labor to be a social activity that people engage in
collectively for shared goals--a process which makes people very conscious
of their power--but rather a commodity the owners can purchase by the hour.
By purchasing our labor, capital seeks to take control of the labor process
and product out of our hands. Capital tries to chop working people up into
pieces of "usefulness"--our ability to turn a screw or punch a number or fry
a hamburger--so that we ourselves can be treated like commodities: cheap and
easy to replace. In recent years the impact of this process on specifically
family-related aspects of our lives has been accelerating.


"OUTSOURCING" MOM

Corporations used to hire only men for jobs that paid enough to support a
family. This demeaned women and undermined family solidarity by making it
impossible for husbands and wives meaningfully to share outside work,
child-raising, and housework. But capital's "reform" of the unequal roles of
men and women in the family is a further attack. In the last 30 years,
capital has outsourced or automated millions of "family wage" industrial
jobs and cut the pay of others, thereby forcing working class wives into the
labor market to compete for the remaining low-paid jobs, all in the name of
"freedom for women." Now families are stressed even more, since both parents
typically have to work at least one job, and sometimes two or three, leaving
little time to devote to children or relaxation, to community service, or to
anything else. Additionally, capital is attacking mothers by trying to
commodify everything about them that makes them valuable members of a
family.

a.. Having driven mothers of infants and toddlers to take jobs, capital
now forces them to purchase mothering as "day care" from a growing industry
whose employees are often themselves mothers of small children. (This is
particularly ironic in the case of mothers on welfare forced into day-care
jobs.)

b.. After forcing people to work such long hours that they don't have time
to prepare their own meals, capital is using restaurant chains, like "Boston
Market" specializing in "home-cooked, family-style" meals, to move
hard-pressed moms (and dads) from their own homes, where cooking was an act
of love, to corporate kitchens where it's wage labor.

c.. Capital is moving women out of their own homes to be maids in
wealthier homes working for a growing housekeeping industry.

d.. Corporations are making Grandmother's wisdom a "wholly owned
subsidiary" by hiring women to give advice on child-rearing and other
domestic questions to their employees. The more corporations undermine
families, relocating people away from family and friends, the more
"Corporate Grandma" is needed.

e.. Capital even puts a mother's womb on the market with the growing
phenomenon of paid "surrogate mothers," whose motherhood and humanity is
commodified as a womb put out for hire.

DOWNSIZING DAD

Capital is challenging the simple truth that a child's relation with his or
her biological father is valuable. The image of fathers has come under
increasing attack, as more TV sit-coms feature fathers as incompetents (The
Simpsons and King of Queens are current examples) and movie plots involve
abusive fathers (The Breakfast Club, Affliction, and Daredevil to name only
a few.) Many courageous women have long been forced by circumstances to
raise their children alone. Now, however, as celebrities like Camryn Manheim
(Ellenor of TV's hit lawyer show, The Practice) choose to have and raise
babies without a father (both in real life and as her fictional character,
in the case of Manheim), Hollywood sends the message, "Who needs a father?"
Academics deride fatherhood in books like Feminism, Children, and The New
Families, in which Susan E. Krantz dismisses the notion that "two parents
are necessary for the well-being of a child" and argues that "the role of
the father is overemphasized." Academic "experts" are trying to split off
Dad's "male presence" from the rest of him and make it just another
commodity. Writing in the Journal of Marriage and the Family, Alan J.
Hawkins and David J. Eggenbeen state, "Men may be important to children's
healthy development, but biological fathers can readily be replaced by other
adult men." (Cited in David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America, p. 80)
Stepfathers may be nice people, but the claim that children have no need for
a close relation with their biological father cannot bear the weight of
common sense or scientific scrutiny.(For example, a study of 17,000 British
children born in 1958 showed that children in step-families "experienced far
worse outcomes than did children who grew up with their two biological
parents." Blankenhorn, p. 191). The "any male will do" notion is
ideologically driven by capital's desire to commodify men. This
commodification of men is quite apparent in states like Massachusetts, where
the "progressive" agenda is well advanced, and divorce courts aggressively
separate fathers from their children. (The author has personal experience
with Massachusetts' family courts.) Courts routinely restrain fathers from
seeing their children, sometimes for years, without due process, evidentiary
hearings, or the rules of evidence that are accorded accused criminals. The
courts' attitude is that a father's only important relationship to his
children is financial, so there's no real loss if a loving father is barred
from seeing his children.


SPLITTING UP MOM AND DAD

Liberal politicians and advocacy organizations have increased the rate of
divorce in the United States enormously by enacting policies based on the
premise that fatherhood is not important. The result has been a host of
social, psychological and economic problems suffered by children and caused
by their fatherlessness.
[http://www.childrensjustice.org/fatherlessness1.htm] A major cause of the
increased divorce rate has been the introduction of "no-fault" divorce
coupled with the policy of family courts of awarding the mother solely,
instead of both parents jointly, exclusive physical custody of the children
(unless the mother is grossly unfit) and requiring the father to pay child
support sufficient for the mother and children to maintain their former
standard of living, even though it impoverishes him (courts often garnish
the man's paycheck directly.) Once rare, divorce is now common and two
thirds of divorces in the U.S. are initiated by women.
[http://health.discovery.com/centers/...s/divorce.html
] The state has essentially told women, "Feel free to leave your husband
whenever you feel like it, no matter how trivial the reason, because the
state will make sure you keep your children and your husband's income." The
result is that in millions of broken families the state has moved in to
assume the role of head of the family and "parent" to both the mother and
father. All concerned B the mother, the children and the father B have
become more directly controlled by and, in the case of the mother and
children, more dependent upon the state, and therefore less able to stand up
against the capitalist class. It would be difficult to imagine a policy
better suited to covertly undermine marriages and families.


The liberal attack on marriages would not be able to succeed, however, were
it not for the helpful role of the right-wing "pro-family" and
pro-capitalist religious leaders and their ilk. Together these groups play a
"damned if you do and damned if you don't" routine that makes people feel
hopeless about improving the situation. The right-wing religious leaders
point to the evils of the liberal agenda on families but they insist that
the only alternative is a patriarchal society where women must submit to
men. Some women and some men may support this view but most men and women
want relationships based on equality. But no mainstream leadership
articulates what most people want in this regard. Although it is
economically perfectly feasible, what leader today calls for all wages to be
raised enough, and corporate practices to be changed, so that a mother and
father can each work a half-time job (or only one parent work outside the
home full time, if they prefer) and raise their children comfortably on the
income? With no opposition except from the right wing, which calls for a
patriarchal nightmare for women, the elite get a free pass to carry out
their liberal attack on our families.




MAKING CHILDHOOD "LEAN AND MEAN"

In healthy families, parents love and protect their children as special
people. They value them for themselves, not as a means to an end.
Capitalism, in contrast, uses children as little workers and consumers, and
tries to replace relations of love with marketplace transactions.
Corporations flood Saturday morning TV with shows designed to manipulate
children to measure their parents' love by the toys and "Happy Meals" they
buy. For capitalism, parental love is a cash transaction that passes through
the Toys 'R Us cash register. Millions of children overseas work in
factories preparing goods for the U.S. market. In the U.S., children are
increasingly told that childhood is a time to prepare themselves to meet the
needs of corporations. Corporate leaders call for increased standardized
testing in public schools, so that we can "better compete with Germany and
Japan." Capital insists that children be graded from "A" through "F" - to
teach them to compete against each other, and to sort them like cuts of beef
so that corporations in the market for labor will know what "grade" of
employee they're hiring. Corporate "education reformers" view our children
not as people who should receive a well-rounded education, but rather as
commodities to be sorted, graded, and prepared for sale to corporations.



HOMOSEXUAL FAMILIES AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER

In recent years the capitalist class has aggressively promoted the idea that
homosexuality is as good and natural and moral a basis for a family as
heterosexuality, and that anyone who disagrees with this view is a bigoted
"homophobe." Television promotes homosexual families with lesbian characters
like Carol and Susan on Friends, Melanie and Lindsay on Queer as Folk, and
the characters on Showtime's lesbian series The L Word. Judges in
Massachusetts have legalized homosexual marriage. While they attack
traditional families, corporations increasingly treat homosexual couples as
if they were married. The Massachusetts Department of Education encourages
students to form "Gay-Straight Alliances"
[http://www.doe.mass.edu/hssss/GSA/Intro.html] to eliminate any stigma
associated with homosexuality, despite the fact that the current Republican
governor, Mitt Romney, purports to be a solid "conservative" on the issue.


Marriage and sexuality are not just about procreation, and to the extent
that children are not involved there would be no reason for legislation to
meddle in these private affairs between individuals. But since marriage and
sexuality do often lead to procreation, society has a responsibility to
decide what to promote and what to discourage in this otherwise private
sphere of life. The concerns that people have about laws regarding marriage
and society's attitude towards homosexuality are largely related to the
impact of these things on children. Most people believe that the best thing
for children is to be raised by their real mother and father in a strong and
loving family. An important reason people disapprove of homosexuality is
because it is impossible for a gay couple to make this kind of family. This
is why parents don't want the schools teaching their children that it makes
no difference if they marry someone of the same sex or the opposite sex.
Most people rightly believe in tolerance when it comes to civil rights for
homosexuals, but they don't believe that society should endorse the idea
that a homosexual relationship is just as good or healthy a basis for a
family as a heterosexual one.

Capital attacks people for feeling this way, and calls them bigots, because
it likes the direction in which homosexuality moves society. In capital's
ideal world where everyone is an isolated individual, sexuality is not a
social relationship connecting parents with children, but just a way people
use each other, and children are just something you buy. If two men want a
child, then they can rent a womb and buy an egg from a surrogate mother. Why
not? It's just a business transaction the way all human relationships ought
to be. Or if two women want a baby, just buy some sperm. Why not? Fatherhood
is just a commodity like toothpaste or clothing. A professor of law
testifying before Congress described sperm donors as "providers of gametes,"
and offered the legal opinion that "A consumer's right 'to make contracts
with providers of gametes' cannot be prohibited or limited except to assure
that such contracts 'are knowingly and freely entered into.'" (Blankenhorn,
p. 179) This is the capitalist idea of Paradise, in which people are no more
than their constituent parts: a womb, a source of sperm, a "male presence,"
a child support check, a "day care provider." No longer will children's
mothers and fathers be unique and beyond price.




HOW CAN WE DEFEND OUR FAMILIES?

The media are full of very sophisticated anti-family messages, which can
come from both the right and the left. Liberals denigrate the value of
families in which children are raised by their real mother and father, and
they sometimes suggest that such families are often patriarchies with
abusive fathers. Conservatives often call for "family values" in which women
are subordinate to men and inequality prevails. Neither liberal nor
conservative views reflect true family values of equality and commitment to
each other. There are immediate steps we can take to defend families. One
step is to reject anti-family propaganda for what it is. Another is to
recognize the attack families are under and to see that it is part of
capital's attempt to control ordinary people. Fully to defeat the attack on
our families, and to create a truly pro-family society, we need to build a
revolutionary movement that challenges capitalism, its values, and its right
to rule society. The revolution we need is one which aims to extend to all
of society the kind of relationships we work so hard to build within our
families.

Back to "Culture and Values"

newdemocracyworld.org
massrefusal.org





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Wet Chicken]

Originally Posted by xico

Hah! Only paddled? LOL

Hey I swear those nuns had a good swing. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they pumped iron And that was when they drilled holes in the paddle to make it 'sting' You could always tell who got paddled by the way that they walked the rest of the day

[poochee]

Well, all I can say is "keep" on reading! I could suggest some verses to read, but I truly feel that reading the whole story is the answer. Then you will be able to tie it all together.

I can read a chapter in about 15 minutes. You can get through the whole Bible in about a year. Then start over. It is a continuous learning process. This will resolve your questions. I am the kind of person that wants to understand on my own, not just believe what I hear in church or from other people. I also feel that a lot of people make having faith a difficult thing and it isn't. Understanding gives peace. It's not about what Christian religion you are, it's about Jesus Christ and your belief in him.

I am a Protestant, but went to Catholic school for 8 years. I did all the religious things my school mates did (my parents respected other faiths) and I got a great education. The Nuns were very good to me.

Good Luck!!

[Deathblow]

First Dugg, There are more than just the 10 commandments, if you had read the Bible, you would know this. It is clearly stated throughout the Bible that homosexuality is a sin, and it was punishable by death in Leviticus. Last I checked, nothing in the Bible that was punishable by death, became acceptable.

As for agreeing what the law of man should be, the law of man should never be put above the law of God.

[dugq]

Originally Posted by Deathblow

First Dugg, There are more than just the 10 commandments, if you had read the Bible, you would know this. It is clearly stated throughout the Bible that homosexuality is a sin, and it was punishable by death in Leviticus. Last I checked, nothing in the Bible that was punishable by death, became acceptable.

As for agreeing what the law of man should be, the law of man should never be put above the law of God.

I think your the one who needs Bible lesssons.

Exodus 35:2 Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the LORD: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.

Now since "nothing in the Bible that was punishable by death, became acceptable. " and "the law of man should never be put above the law of God." Do you believe that anyone who works on a Saturday is commiting a sin and should be put to death?

[Deathblow]

I believe that unneeded labor on the sabbath is a Sin.

[dugq]

Originally Posted by Deathblow

I believe that unneeded labor on the sabbath is a Sin.

What we are discussing here is not whether homosexuality is a sin, if you want to discuss that then this is the thread

http://forums.techguy.org/t173730.html

What we are discussing here is whether same sex marriages should be legal. So the relevent question is: Do you think working on a the Sabbath should be illegal?

[xico]

To subscribe to this group, send an email to: shamireaders-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
The items published in the group can be seen on
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shamireaders/messages


A Reassessment of Gaylib
by Simon Jones
www.dissidentvoice.org
November 3, 2004
It's high time that we step back from the euphoria
of 40 years of "gay is beautiful" to take a hard
look at what the effect of gaylib has been on
society and what direction it should take to both
consolidate the remarkable gains made and to
ensure that this new minority voice can play a
constructive role in society.
There is an implicit understanding in the gaylib
movement that sexual relations between men or
between women are just as legitimate an expression
of one's sexuality as that between men and women.
This has culminated in the present human rights
legislation in most developed countries up to and
even including gay marriage and the ordination of
openly gay ministers. In some countries, schools
are even encouraged to provide gay-positive sex
education.
Understandably, this has led to a reaction by
traditionalists who assert the primacy of
heterosexuality and decry the concurrent collapse
of traditional morality, pointing the finger at
gays as a prime cause for the social malaise which
now grips us.
So who is right? Is homosexuality just another
equally valid lifestyle choice for people, like
wearing Nikes or eating organic food? Does God
look favorably on two men or two women tying the
knot in holy matrimony? Should schools promote gay
families as if they were just as good as the
traditional family?
Homosexuality in nature and history
Evidence of homosexual activity in nature abounds,
but it is marginal, merely a substitute for the
"real thing" or perhaps practice. The lack of the
advanced brain in animals, with its massive
cerebral cortex and highly specialized left-right
hemispheres, means that all sex is
reproduction-related and there is no psychological
problem arising from the more refined brain
activities of thought and consciousness as in
humans. Also humans are sexually active at all
times, putting sex at the center of all human
activity.
In lower animals, as a rule, males fight for
territory and females, but this fighting is highly
ritualized and the males almost never kill each
other before one yields. The less dominant males
and young males are tolerated by the alpha male as
ersatz females, this explaining the homosexual
role in lower animals (submission to the dominant
male or expulsion from the group) as a necessary
compromise for group survival.
In humans, especially with the rise of patriarchy,
it is necessary for men to vie for females and
territory. Because humans are always "in heat,"
this territorial and herd rivalry is ongoing,
unending. This is the impulse behind the incessant
history of war and the tendency to murder/kill
other humans, both of which are lacking as
permanent features in lower animals, even those
governed by male dominance.
Because of the greater brain capacity and the
increased complexity of consciousness, it leads to
a myriad of ways to incorporate sex in a stable
fashion within the social order. This human
constellation of "instincts" is harnessed by
establishing traditions in relations within and
between tribes. These traditions also must
incorporate homosexuality, generally as a highly
ritualized though marginal phenomenon, though
sometimes homosexual rituals as part of initiation
involve(d) all men and teenage boys in the tribe.
[1] Sometimes homosexuality has just been ignored
or suppressed. This was the case with the advent
of large states by the second millennium BC. Greek
society allowed it in a ritualized form between
well-placed patrons and teenage boys as part of
initiation to adulthood and Roman society allowed
it as part of a very licentious culture, but for
the next 2,000 years homosexuality was more or
less written out of history.
As far as historical records tell us, until
recently at no time and in no society was
homosexuality treated the SAME as heterosexuality.
Sometimes a boy who had feminine characteristics
was given the role of shaman, sometimes he was
adopted into the tribe functioning as a woman
(berdache). Mostly homosexuality was treated as a
passing phase of boyhood, and even the few who
"got stuck" in that phase still usually married
the opposite sex, had children, and either
suffered in silence or found some relief on the
side. Whatever the case, they fitted into a role
pre-determined by tradition, and did not upset the
social order. Even where homosexuality was frowned
upon, they were generally tolerated as long as
they were discrete, especially in the upper
classes.
The Greeks, Christianity and homosexuality
The Greek renaissance culminating in Plato was the
golden age for homosexuality (or rather "love of
boys"), though sexuality wasn't conceived of in
homo/hetero terms, but rather as masculine
(active) and feminine (passive), with men as
lovers and women and boys as beloveds. The ideal
man is a moderate, self-possessed man vs. one who
is a slave of desires/pleasures. Whether or not he
preferred boys or women was quite secondary.
Sexual activity was not highly codified. It was OK
to covet your neighbor's wife as long as you left
her alone (there were slaves and prostitutes for
that). It was OK to court a teenage boy, initiate
him into the adult world as his patron.
Not for Christianity, which insisted that even
that was a sin and you must renounce these
pleasures. Sex was strictly for procreation and
had nothing to do with your spiritual make-up.
This was probably the nadir for all sexuality and
is our legacy coming into this era of
free-for-all, i.e., libertinism. No longer did
"the real man" "become himself" Nietzsche-like
through exercising his body, mind and soul,
gaining self-mastery and attaining wisdom. The
good man must submit to God's will, follow a
highly codified life of what to do and not do.
Traditional Judaism, Christianity and Islam have a
lot in common in attitudes towards homosexuality
and marriage, not surprisingly given their common
origins.
The breakdown of Christianity and transformation
of Judaism into a secular racial movement weakened
the codified rules of behavior, and the
commodification of sexuality weakened the sanctity
of the heterosexual bond, making homo vs. hetero
more a lifestyle choice than something determined
by cultural tradition.
Islam and homosexuality
As was the case with Christianity until the rise
of gaylib, neither open homosexuality or a
promiscuous heterosexual lifestyle was tolerated.
With the rise of western secularism both options
have now became acceptable in the West. However,
Islamic society still does not tolerate either.
Openly declaring that you are gay is as
unacceptable as openly declaring that you engage
in pre-marital heterosexual sex.
As long as Islam remains strong, this will be
unlikely to change. Many homosexuals have achieved
high positions in Muslim society. Some religious
and political Islamic leaders have been
homosexual. Many Islamic poets and writers were
homosexual and homosexuality was condoned behind
the veil of privacy in many Islamic Harems. What
has never been acceptable is to openly declare
your homosexuality in the cause of being
"liberated".
As many western homosexuals have discovered to
their delight (for example, Paul Bowles and Jean
Genet), because of enforced separation of male and
female and the strong prohibition of premarital
sex for women, homosexual sex is widely practiced
in the Muslim world, discretely and mostly by
young, unmarried men.
Gaylib
The rise of "gaylib" in the West dates to the 19th
century and the rise of the "science" of
psychology, when theories about a third sex or a
psychological spectrum in the individual from pure
feminine to pure masculine began to be discussed.
For the first time the term "homosexual" was
coined and entered the medical literature as a
disease. The condemnation of Europe's greatest
playwright, Oscar Wilde, became the cornerstone of
the gaylib edifice now busily being built today in
advance countries. After the Stonewall riots in
1969, the campaign for gay rights got into high
gear, demanding equal treatment for homosexual and
heterosexual acts before the law.
The new freedoms and privileged upper middle class
niche of most gays now give them disproportionate
clout, and their famous narcissism and media-savvy
energy have been used to push a gay agenda into
broader society. This is driven by hundreds of gay
lobby groups which pursue a radical gay agenda
politically (electing openly gay politicians and
lobbying for legal reform), socially (lobbying in
media, education and health) and even economically
(boycotting gay-unfriendly goods).
Fitting back into society
But it is time to reflect on the breathtaking
success of the past 40 years. This social
experiment reminds me of drug companies which push
drugs whose long-term side effects are unknown and
potentially dangerous. Is it really "no big deal"
to demand traditional marriage rites for gays? Is
a gay union really the same as a straight union?
Is this really a perverse longing to "be just like
the Joneses" when in fact we are very different
from these Joneses? And in any case, is it worth
provoking traditionalists (not an insignificant
part of the population) and stirring up
unnecessary hatred or just angst?
It is definitely perceived as a slap in the face
of thousands of years of tradition. Though there
are touching stories of monks joining together in
holy matrimony somewhere in the Middle Ages,
traditional depictions of homosexual passion are
the warrior lovers or Zeus abducting Hermes.
Whatever. The important point to realize is that
these manifestations of homosexuality confirm it
as a specific and marginal social phenomena.
Hermes is not up there with Hera. And Castor and
Pollux had a tragic fate.
Yes, we as humans have the ability to shape our
own social norms by changing laws, but it is time
to assess what a responsible role in society for
self-identified homosexuals could be. Gaylib's
implicit assumption is that being gay or straight
is like driving a blue or a yellow Chevrolet. But
this is to trivialize one of nature's mysteries.
It is time to state clearly that gay is neither
good nor bad. It just IS. And more to the point,
it is and will remain MARGINAL to society,
possibly a useful evolutionary device for
humanity, possibly harmful (just like anything).
Yes, basic human rights belong to all. But now
that gays have them, they should stop seeking
self-respect from OTHERS through aping hetero
traditions, and let sexuality become a personal,
private matter again. There definitely is no
justification for forcing overwhelmingly straight
society to contemplate OUR navels publicly.
Most people are bisexual and should BOTH be
encouraged to choose a straight lifestyle and to
tolerate homosexuals. Gays can expect tolerance,
acceptance -- nothing less. But nothing more. Like
any other minority, gays should accept their
minority status and try to fit into the "cultural
mosaic" in a constructive way. If history is any
guide, this will be discreet and in a role
supportive to the dominant heterosexual norm. The
movement to recognize homosexuality as a
legitimate form of sexual expression can even play
a CONSTRUCTIVE role in society if it emphasizes
the non-confrontational element inherent in
homosexuality and accepts a modest place in social
relations, critical of the warmongering,
possessive side of heterosexuality which has
characterized all of human history to date.
Redefining gaylib
Western society today is a veritable golden age
for gays. Not only have laws been changed to
prevent discrimination, but the movement to make
homosexuality more or less acceptable as just
another lifestyle choice has been largely
successful, at least in large cities, where most
gays live (or move to as soon as they
realize/decide that they are gay).
Formerly, homosexuals were "in the closet,"
politely ignored for the most part by society,
"confirmed bachelors" or "old maids." In trying to
imagine a way to reintegrate this part of human
life into society, what better place to look than
the previous golden age, classical Greece. Michel
Foucault's History of Sexuality provides a good
starting place.
The Greeks had nothing against male-male
relations, their golden rule was self-control,
control of your household (family life), control
of eros (relations with youths). This makes for a
free citizen. The real sin was indulging desires,
excess, be it food, sex whatever. The citizen must
not be a SLAVE (i.e., unfree) to his desires,
which drag him down to earth, away from his
spiritual life.
This is a male ethics -- women figured only as
objects or at most as partners that one has
trained and watches over but are otherwise
off-limits, so to bring the Greeks up to date, we
must extend the ethics to both men and women.
Sexual activity was not highly codified and was
not considered the be-all and end-all of love
relationships. In marriage, it was more a duty,
aimed at producing legitimate and healthy
offspring who would take a worthy place in
society. True love was more likely between a man
and his beloved, a youth who the man would court
and introduce into the adult world, preferably in
a Platonic relationship, eventually leading to
philia or friendship. Sexual attraction is
ephemeral but can lead to a lifelong friendship if
the latter is cultivated, erasing the age and
status differences between lover and beloved.
This results in a reversal of the lover-beloved
chase: beloveds flock to (ugly) Socrates to
receive his wisdom, since Socrates is moved by the
force of true love (not lechery, which is of no
interest to beloveds). This structures the love
relation as a relation to truth (not satisfaction
of base desire).
So for the Greeks, homo and hetero not opposites.
Rather the opposites are a moderate,
self-possessed man vs. one who is a slave of
desires/ pleasures.
Principles for all lovers, then, in the Greek
world, are self-mastery and restraint, and a
striving to love beauty. And the higher the form
of beauty (i.e., wisdom, truth), the better. The
elements of a sexual ethics that will ultimately
renounce the physical love require: 1) symmetry
and reciprocity in love relationship, 2) a long
arduous struggle with oneself, 3) gradual
purification of the love addressed to the beloved
in its truth, 4) self analysis as the subject of
desire.
Ideas about marriage fit the standard
understanding more readily: a husband's
obligations to his wife include to provide for the
family, to train and take responsibility for his
wife, and to refrain from adultery (i.e., with a
married woman who is under another respectable
man's authority). The wife must manage the
household. Make-up is a deception and not
encouraged. A faithful husband is one who
steadfastly maintains the privileges the wife is
entitled to by marriage (not 'sexual fidelity').
This does not provide a set prescription for
today's ethics, but the principles of
self-mastery, moderation, and responsibility, and
the special place reserved for higher, nonsensual
love contrast sharply with what is generally
understood as the gay (or for that matter str8)
lifestyle. Today there is an understanding that
m/m, f/f and m/f sexual relations are somehow the
same, and ideally can be squeezed into a
monogamous type of marriage with or without
children. This would more no sense at all to
Plato, for whom the male was active and
strong-willed, and the female was passive and
weak-willed, and the marriage contract was
centered on raising children.
Considering for a moment the situation in the
Muslim world. While there is no excuse for active
persecution of homosexuals, is the scenario of
discrete relations in a strictly male culture
really so bad? Muslim states such as Turkey and
Kazakhstan have removed homosexual activity from
the criminal code, and a quiet but persistent
campaign to change the harsh punishment (which is
rarely carried out) in others should be continued
as part of human rights lobbying. But insisting
that homosexual activity be kept out of sight and
not be publicly encouraged is a social option
which the West has no right to condemn. I would
argue that BOTH persecution and advocacy of a
homosexual lifestyle is detrimental to the fabric
of society. The middle way is best; keep your
sexual preferences to yourself; whether you are
homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual.
To structure social relations using the Greek
model would entail drastically reducing the actual
amount of sexual activity in society, encouraging
men and women to honor both the active,
self-control male aspect and the passive,
submissive female virtue within oneself, be one
physically male or female. To love is to support
and develop the beloved towards the ideal of
beauty, and the highest form of love is
friendship. I see no place here for 'gay
marriage', but definitely see a role for men to
play the role of 'big brother' to younger males
(and women as 'big sisters'). But this assumes
restraint, even celibacy, which our present
culture of hedonism discourages.
Simon Jones is a Canadian freelance journalist
living in Uzbekistan. He writes for Peace Magazine
(Toronto) and has published pieces in Counterpunch
and YellowTimes.org. He can be contacted at
sj958@yahoo.com
Note

1) The '(d)' is because this continues today in
even the most advanced countries. It is well known
that Skull & Bones initiations include male
homosexual activity for all initiates.

Other Articles by Simon Jones

* Uzbekistan's Terrorism: Who to Blame?
* The Protocols: a Neocon Manifesto
* Understanding Iran
* Who's Whose Proxy? Or K - Last of the Mohicans
* Just What Does Kissinger Think of the Neocons?
* Tashkent Through Gold-Tinted Lenses
* We are All Jews Now





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links

To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shamireaders/

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
shamireaders-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Wet Chicken]

Originally Posted by Deathblow

As for agreeing what the law of man should be, the law of man should never be put above the law of God.

So then by what you are saying, we should be killing innocent children, because God said to kill children and infants

In I Samuel 15:3, God ordered Saul to massacre the Amalekites: "Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants…"

You can't have it both ways

[Deathblow]

Yes, but were not living under levitical law, and were not living in a Theocracy. That doesn't mean that I think it's right or acceptable. The same applies to same sex marriages.

[Deathblow]

Originally Posted by Wet Chicken

So then by what you are saying, we should be killing innocent children, because God said to kill children and infants

In I Samuel 15:3, God ordered Saul to massacre the Amalekites: "Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants…"

You can't have it both ways

God never told US to do that. When that was told to the Israelites, it was appropriate for them to do it.

[xico]

WC, did they ever get you by the sideburns? I'll bet Jackie Chan studied under them too. Ears, nose, sideburns, you jellyfish! No backbone! Two hundred times, I must not . . . shoot spitball, pull Sally's pigtails, etc.

[dugq]

Originally Posted by Deathblow

Yes, but were not living under levitical law, and were not living in a Theocracy. That doesn't mean that I think it's right or acceptable. The same applies to same sex marriages.

Given that we are not living out Levitical law, nor living in a theocracy, do you believe same-sec marriages are wrong, but should be legal. If not, why should some Biblical rules become law, while others shouldn't (e.g the sabbath)

[Wet Chicken]

Originally Posted by xico

WC, did they ever get you by the sideburns?

Oh yeah those nuns would pick us up right off of our seats, by grabbing us by our ears You'd think that we were basset hounds instead of children the way they did it so casually

[Wet Chicken]

Originally Posted by Deathblow

God never told US to do that. When that was told to the Israelites, it was appropriate for them to do it.

Yes but since God supposedly did say it, that must mean that God thinks that it is alright to do on occasion

Personally I don't think that God said it. I think that people misread the bible and misinterpret what it is supposed to represent