Indeed, he seems inclined to “normalize” what GLAAD is doing. But, if he truly finds my “derogatory language” offensive, I’d rather he just indefinitely suspend me than twist himself into a soggy pretzel of ambivalent inertia trying to avoid the central point — that a society where lives are ruined over an aside because some identity-group... decides it must be so is ugly and profoundly illiberal.Via Power Line, which says:
As to the terms Steyn used, I understand [National Review editor, Jason Lee] Steorts’ point. I too would have liked the column better without the unfunny Rat Pack joke. And I agree with Steorts that courteous disagreement, devoid of insults, is usually preferable to lack of courtesy, even when one is disagreeing with the dangerous and the uncivil.The point of the Rat Pack joke — “How do you make a fruit cordial?”/ “Be nice to him.” — wasn't that it's funny. It's that not too long ago junk like that was the norm. It was probably considered sweet, gentle and even gay-friendly. Steyn is paying attention to how cultural norms change. This is something I've been talking about too, and I am confounded by what a hard time people have understanding this subject. (Read my posts and the response in the comments here and here.)
Some things really are beyond what decent people who care about their standing in society want to be caught saying, even in jokes, even in bandying around ideas in a noncommittal fashion. But what belongs in that category of things you don't want to say (unless you're okay with being a pariah)? The content of that category is continually evolving, and some players in the culture — like GLAAD in the "Duck Dynasty" incident — are getting quite aggressive in their efforts to push things into that category.
I don't like this kind of cultural aggression. I'd like to see slower change, with more tolerance of disagreement, and more allowance for debate and expression. I'm not too sympathetic to the homophobes — the mild and the virulent — if when they had the cultural upper hand they squelched the people who are now out to de-normalize them. Turnabout is fair play, and karma is a bitch. But free speech is a higher value, and the greater benefit to all of us lies in keeping the conversation rolling.
ADDED: Here's something a little different that corresponds to that Rat Pack joke, not in the realm of comedy, but in a best selling history book that was published in 1961 and got high praise in places like The New York Times Book Review and won the National Book Award. It's William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." Listening to the audiobook, I was struck by the references to homosexuality, made in an offhandedly negative way that you'd never encounter in a book published today by a respectable publisher and an author who meant to be taken seriously. Examples:
A tough, ruthless, driving man— albeit, like so many of the early Nazis, a homosexual— [Ernst Roehm] helped to organize the first Nazi strong-arm squads which grew into the S.A., the army of storm troopers which he commanded until his execution by Hitler in 1934....
Such was the weird assortment of misfits who founded National Socialism.... The confused locksmith Drexler provided the kernel, the drunken poet Eckart some of the “spiritual” foundation, the economic crank Feder what passed as an ideology, the homosexual Roehm the support of the Army and the war veterans, but it was now the former tramp, Adolf Hitler... who took the lead....
“I know Esser is a scoundrel,” Hitler retorted in public, “but I shall hold on to him as long as he can be of use to me.” This was to be his attitude toward almost all of his close collaborators, no matter how murky their past— or indeed their present. Murderers, pimps, homosexual perverts, drug addicts or just plain rowdies were all the same to him if they served his purposes....
But the brown-shirted S.A. never became much more than a motley mob of brawlers. Many of its top leaders, beginning with its chief, Roehm, were notorious homosexual perverts. Lieutenant Edmund Heines, who led the Munich S.A., was not only a homosexual but a convicted murderer. These two and dozens of others quarreled and feuded as only men of unnatural sexual inclinations, with their peculiar jealousies, can....
No other party in Germany came near to attracting so many shady characters. As we have seen, a conglomeration of pimps, murderers, homosexuals, alcoholics and blackmailers flocked to the party as if to a natural haven. Hitler did not care, as long as they were useful to him.....
Posts
279 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 279 of 279As for the type of behavior we are supposed to celebrate, see pictures of the Folsom Street Fair here:
http://www.zombietime.com/folsom_sf_2007_part_1/index.php
Definitely NSFW
I would have no problem at all with any of this behavior if they rented a hall or a stadium and did it outside of the public view.
My problem is that they are doing it on the public streets.
John Henry
The end of true libertarianism will be when they do a mind meld with the religious right and it's happening right before our eyes.
I wonder if there are clouds in the sky on Inga's world.
Titus is often disgusting in a TMI - no boundaries way. However, Alex openly gloats over anticipated future sufferings of millions of others. Just on this thread "better take cover . . . There will be no forgiving or forgetting. Revenge will be ongoing. . . . life for you guys is gonna be like a fucking HELL on earth." I'm quite serious in suggesting that he seek professional help in dealing with his sick sadistic fantasies and Stalinist tendencies.
"...these criticisms aren't really apt... I have given Robertson his due."
But he's apparently still a "homophobe" because he holds mainstream religious beliefs. No?
As for the type of behavior we are supposed to celebrate, see pictures of the Folsom Street Fair here:
"You are wrong because I found a weird picture of someone like you on the Internet" is getting common enough that it really should have its own entry in lists of basic fallacies, instead of just being lumped under "guilt by association".
So John believes that the military was just and right in kicking homosexuals out of the military for engaging in sex with their partner in their own homes? Does he seriously not see anything wrong with this?
John,
Under the UCMJ regulation, even under DADT, the criteria to initiate separation for homosexuality was proof by either Statement, Act or Marriage.
All that was required to administratively separate a gay soldier was his voluntary declaration by word that he was gay. No conduct was required. The rule was that nobody in the Command could ask anybody if they were gay only on suspicion.
Now, a Commander had to investigate and make sure he was really gay, as cowards would claim homosexuality to avoid combat service from time to time. But if substantiated, there was no choice but to separate the soldier.
I think my favorite part of gays being allowed to serve is that it shut off that avenue for cowards to avoid service in combat.
I wonder if there are clouds in the sky on Inga's world.
And what colors they are.
Althouse to Farmer: "You've been doing this a lot in the past year or so, and almost always in regards to comments you make about homosexuality. It's as though you can't conceive that your readers would disagree with your take if they only understood it. "
No, it's as though I believe that people are able to understand a position that they don't agree with. But in fact I do know that emotion introduces static that impairs reading skill.
No, you're doing exactly what Farmer describes. You have not been saying anything in these threads subtle or complex enough to distort the comprehension of the most rabid partisan. There is nothing you have said here that anyone is deliberately refusing to address, and that this is so would be apparent to any disinterested reader perusing the comments here. That you can't see that yourself, and appear incapable of comprehending what is actually being said, suggests that, ahem, your emotion must introducing static that impairs your reading skill.
I'm not going to write on a lower level however and I'm not going to stop writing things that provoke people. I do what I do and I really don't expect to persuade anyone. I do have a hope of creating a common ground where people can talk to each other.
No, it's your readers who are refusing to meet you on the dumbed-down and emotionalized level to which you're attempting to restrict this debate. You're not succeeding in forcing everyone on to your question-begging "common ground", so you're doubling-down on the civility bullshit and pettish foot-stamping about being willfully misunderstood.
But he's apparently still a "homophobe" because he holds mainstream religious beliefs. No?
Could you explain why you think a belief can't be homophobic if it is a "mainstream religious view"?
Heck, looking at the world as a whole it would be safe to say that "homosexuals should be killed" is a pretty mainstream religious view; hundreds of millions of people agree with it.
I am only triumphalist today to rub it your faces. Believe me, once this dies down a bit I'll be back to my normal obnoxious self.
Blue sky, with occasional clouds and a rainbow of course. No unicorns or pots of gold, alas.
Inga said:
"So John believes that the military was just and right in kicking homosexuals out of the military for engaging in sex with their partner in their own homes? Does he seriously not see anything wrong with this?"
First, I don't think I expressed an opinion one way or the other about whether it was right or not. All I did was point out that it was the act, not the thought, that got one kicked out.
Perhaps you could quote where I said I agreed with the policy?
2) Back in the 50s though 80s, were people being kicked out for engaging in sex with their partner in their own homes? Perhaps there was a case or two that you could name. Mostly it was people being kicked out for engaging in homosexual sex in bus stations, bathhouses, parks, in some of the more obscure area of ships, behind the barracks and so on.
So perhaps you could get your strawman right.
Some of it was unwilling. I once officiated, as a Master At Arms, at a Captains Mast where a female sailor raped another female sailor against her will. But I guess now that would be OK, right?
3) As someone else mentioned, there was a serious security issue where soldiers and sailors might be blackmailed. Even if they had no particular security clearance, they still knew things that could cause harm if revealed to the wrong people. For example, when my ship was carrying nuclear weapons or not.
I might also point out that in the British Navy through the 1800's, sodomy was a capital offense. Might be the better way to handle it. As Stalin said: "No man, no problem."
I AM JUST KIDDING ABOVE!!!!
John Henry
(US Navy 1967-74)
I was taken back when I saw the cover of The Advocate that had NOH8 imprinted on Pope Francis' cheek.
Doesnt NOH8 include not hating an united love a man and a woman have that opens itself to children?
Anyone who had to coparent while not in a relationship with other parent knows how non-ideal the situation is on children, even if separation was needed.
I just weep at the stress of friends and family, trying to ensure kids have both parents but unable to physically be in the same room with both parents.
Argh...
Sorry I give a sh!t, about something other then gay people. Yes, I love gay people, but because something isnt about a same-sex relationship doesnt make it homophobic. Because it doesn't seem anyone cares about our complete break down of family. No one wants to rebuild. No one wants to discuss policy that could assist. Because it may offend the ones who control the press and media.
John Henry, ok take a breath and untwist your boxer shorts. I asked you a question, phrased as a question rather than a statment because I was hoping you would refute your own statement a 3:05. You now have backed down from it and it's OK, everyone makes mistakes. You are forgiven, it's just a day after Christmas afterall.
SSGT Ted said:
Now, a Commander had to investigate and make sure he was really gay, as cowards would claim homosexuality to avoid combat service from time to time. But if substantiated, there was no choice but to separate the soldier.
I was in the Navy at the height of Vietnam and heard this discussed both officially (as in lectures about it) and unofficially (Mess decks scuttlebutt)
My understanding was always that evidence of an act or an attempted act was required to charge someone with homosexuality.
Self-declaration was not enough for the reasons you note. This would not just be in wartime. Someone might pull it to get out of going on a cruise or to an undesired duty station.
John Henry
Calling homosexuality a sin isn't a homophobic act, in and of itself, anymore than calling masturbation and porn a sin is a heterophobic act.
I think telling gays to "keep it in your house" is the equivalent of what GLAAD is telling Phil Robertson to do with his religion.
Gays have always served in any unit I was in. Most served honorably. Some have stellar qualifications. None of them ever had to work extra hard to overcome any stereotypes, they just had to do their jobs. We all knew they were gay, usually, (esp. the lesbos) and they always had the best gay jokes. As long as they pulled your weight, nobody really cared.
I don't think I'm a 'phobe of any sort, and I agree that the Duck Dynasty guy's language was pretty crude, but I think I agree with his basic sentiment. It seems obvious that men and women were designed to fit together sexually. It also seems obvious that the human form does not easily accomodate same gender sex. Particularly among men, the incompatibility of same gender sex is underscored by the real possibility of spreading disease. Same gender sex, carried to extremes, leads to the end of humanity.
Despite this, there is no denying that some individuals have a same-gender attraction. Why is it phobic or hateful to suggest that such an attraction is disordered? I do not wish any ill-will toward those with such an orientation, I just don't understand why same-sex attraction must be treated as normal, perhaps even celebrated. It is, at bottom, unnatural.
The whole world seems to have gone a bit crazy.
Alex said "The hilarious part to me is that as normalization continues the fundie Christians will lash out even more, causing normal people to hate Christians ever more and causing a feedback loop that will ultimately lead to the complete demolition of fundamentalist Christianity in America by 2020.
Mark my words."
Alex, it is quite clear you are not a student of history. The reason Christianity spread as rapidly as it did was because the Disciples/Apostles were persecuted. They scattered and took the Word with them.
Look at China. Christianity is banned. It has become the fastest growing country for the Christian faith in the world.
You are one bitter guy. I wish you well.
Inga:
I am neither libertarian nor religious, other than I have adopted a similar moral philosophy. I can be better described as objectivist with a moral temperance. My faith is decidedly neutral. I am neither theist nor atheist. I am not pro-choice is the contemporary sense. I do not find common alliance with people who live in a selective reality. That has been the cause, and continues to be the cause, of an unprecedented violation of civil and human rights. For some reason, that matters to me.
YH: Well, clearly the Jacobins didn't expect the "reversion to the mean" of the Thermidorian Reaction.
It'll always be the summer of '68 and never the summer of '94 for history's anointed, dontcha know.
I just weep at the stress of friends and family, trying to ensure kids have both parents but unable to physically be in the same room with both parents.
I'm sure you weep about a lot of things regarding (however tangentially) Teh Gays, Renee. But it appears a lot of the rough and tough characters who defend 'Murica around here and elsewhere also do the same, so you have a lot of company.
"Could you explain why you think a belief can't be homophobic if it is a "mainstream religious view"?"
I don't think that. I find an odd conflict between Althouse's protestations of moderation, e.g., "Myself, I support gay rights, but I do not like the simple portrayal of traditional religionists as mean or bigoted", and then turning around and calling hundreds of millions of people "homophobes". If you want to call religious people bigots, just call them bigots.
Inga said:
"I asked you a question, phrased as a question rather than a statment because I was hoping you would refute your own statement a 3:05. You now have backed down from it"
Bullshit, Inga,
I back down from nothing and refute nothing in my 3:05 statement. I said nothing at all about the rightness or wrongness of the policy.
Here is the full comment. Please show where I said it was OK.
Otherwise apologize.
++++++++++++++++
Ann,
You are wrong about people being kicked out of the military for believing in gay rights. Can you name me a single person who was kicked out for this in the past 100 years or so?
Nobody has even been kicked out for being homosexual, as far as I know.
A lot of people have been kicked out for engaging in homosexual sex.
None, AFAIK, for believing that it should be OK.
As in Christianity, it is the act that is forbidden, not the tendency.
John Henry
John,
Yes, usually the Statement thing goes away during wartime, for the stated reasons. My CO said we'd take all the guys who pissed hot for drugs to Iraq where they could dry out, rather than kick them out if need be. Retention standards always are flexible during war.
I am referring to the volunteer Military during peacetime. If the SM made the statement to an officer, the CO HAD to act. It wasn't ever a court marshal, merely an administrative action.
Dr. Weevil: I'm quite serious in suggesting that [Alex] seek professional help in dealing with his sick sadistic fantasies and Stalinist tendencies.
Nah. He's just the world's lamest troll. His merely extremely stupid posts weren't getting any response, so he's pissing on the carpet and breaking the glassware to get attention.
Point being, John, is that I did see people discharged for being gay, but only because they wanted to be kicked out.
I might also point out that in the British Navy through the 1800's, sodomy was a capital offense.
It was a capital offense in Britain as a whole, not just in the Navy.
John Henry, calm yourself and I suggest you don't hold your breath until you get an apology from me for calling you on what you said at 3:05. You have a right to say it and I have a right to point out that sound like a homophobe. Sort of like Robertson and GLAAD, huh?
I offer an olive branch and you pock it in my eye.
Is "pock" a verb?
Same gender sex, carried to extremes, leads to the end of humanity.
Similarly, since the human race would be extinguished if everyone simultaneously shot themselves in the head, owning a gun is crazy.
Does biology show us that men are "supposed" to have sex with women instead of men? Sure. Specifically, biology shows us that men are supposed to impregnate as many women as they can possibly get away with, regardless of whether or not they intend to help raise the kids. Rape's fine, too. In fact, "the leader gets all the women, the other men get nothing" is pretty much the norm among social mammals.
Amusingly, the folks who cluck their tongues at the inevitable logic of male-female sex also cluck their tongues at the modern inner-city trend towards absentee dads with multiple baby-mommas. Apparently biology = morality... but only when it is convenient to the current argument. :)
We have monogamy hormones in our males, as humans.
Vasopressin but it has to work with oxytocin.
But with the Pill everyone sensors are completely off.
" We all knew they were gay, usually, (esp. the lesbos) and they always had the best gay jokes. As long as they pulled your weight, nobody really cared."
A friend is a charge nurse in the operating room. Her complaint is that lesbian nurses are constantly talking about their sexual experiences openly and daring anyone to complain. Nobody says anything for fear of being charged, as Inga would do in a nanosecond, that they are "homophobic." That charge would probably cause them trouble with administration.
Relevant and what pushed dads out if the home in lower working class communities?
Government programs.
Back 15 years ago progressives and liberals cares about this issue, but they all have been bought out.
Inga: "So John believes that the military was just and right in kicking homosexuals out of the military for engaging in sex with their partner in their own homes?"
"The Military" does not set policy for the military.
Civilian leadership sets policy for the military.
sheesh.
Speak about Congress and the President and stop talking about "the military".
And yes, during my time in (which was not insignificant, actual "acts" or attempted "acts" were required to move the ball forward on separating a military member from service as opposed to just voicing an opinion or making a declarative statement.
Michael K, any nurse who talks about her sexual exploits at work is probably seeking the attention of some horny doctor.
Seriously though, I was too damn busy and running my ass off at work to have time for chit chat.
@ShoutingThomas,
This from Wikipedia: A phobia (from the Greek: φόβος, Phóbos, meaning "fear" or "morbid fear") is, when used in the context of clinical psychology, a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational.
In my opinion, by using the term Homophobia the LGBT community is saying that straight people who don't understand homosexual behavior are unreasoning, akin to the superstitious rubes who worshiped ,and sacrificed to, the god of the harvest and used leeches to bleed people with diseases. Subtle way of saying that straight people are less than Gay people. In effect granting themselves a higher preferential status before the conversation even starts.
Also, I have three friends that I went to high school with, between graduation and now they have all come out to me. One says that being gay is more or less a learned behavior that he can't unlearn. The second says she was born that way and is "hardwired" to be a lesbian, that is it's genetic, like the color of her eyes. The third has told me that he made a choice. So which is it? I have heard and read of 'leaders' in the LGBTQ community who ascribe to the second, i.e. it's genetic, and the third, that it's a choice of lifestyle. So which is it? My suspicion is that no one in the LGBTQ community wants to admit to choice 1 or 3 if those are really the "causes" of homosexuality, because if its a learned behavior, the practitioners could be sent away (maybe to a camp) so that they can't teach that behavior to anyone else. If it's a lifestyle choice, they could be shunned, like drug addicts and alcoholics, for making such choice. And if it is genetic, with the advances in gene therapy and genetics in general, what could be the outcome if a scientist were to isolate the "gay gene"?
The outcomes of all three are bad for homosexuals, and so, they must put straight people on the defensive.
And by the way, I couldn't care less what consenting adults between themselves in the privacy of their own homes.
And if it is genetic, with the advances in gene therapy and genetics in general, what could be the outcome if a scientist were to isolate the "gay gene"?
Leftists will suddenly pass laws against abortion.
Look on the bright side Alex, you're in good company. Voltaire predicted Christianity would die out within 100 years of his death.
His words were marked. Not sure about yours.
BTW, he died in 1778.
In some respects, you're missing the point. You're right that it doesn't matter whether or not the joke was not funny (it lasted 25 years on stage - it was funny) any more than whether or not the cartoons of Mohamed were funny, accurate or what you will. The point is whether or not one wants a free society or a coercion society.
Is homosexuality a perverted behavior? Is coercion part of its norm? I submit that both flattery followed by undermining and coercion are normative homosexual attitudes which mirror exactly the two male homosexual acts of buggery and fellatio. Are we having an honest discussion yet?
I don't want PC history either, though. I appreciate this blogger's defense of free speech, but her riff on Rise and Fall of the Third Reich didn't ring true. The weird reality is that the Nazis singled out homosexuals for abuse in the concentration camps; the truth, ironic and inconvenient as it might be, is that the Nazis also had a gay subculture (as might any movement in any culture). Growing up in L.A., I knew gays who still toyed with Nazi camp (the regalia, not the belief system). History is messy and there are no perfect groups (not even the gays). Freedom of speech and all of our other Human Rights assume that all people are imperfect and unfit to "manage" the rights of others - so those rights need to be above degradation by any group of our presumed "betters."
Leftists will suddenly pass laws against abortion.
Abortion is a Holy Sacrament to leftists. Instead of passing laws, lefties will simply shut down clinics that abort "homosexual" babies and pull the medical licenses of doctors who are accused of doing it. But the Holy and Sacred Abortion Law will remain unsoiled by the hands of the unwashed heathen.
For a vision of selective enforcement of the law, look at the IRS scandal.
Recovering Lutheran:
Once you embrace sacrificial rites for money, sex, and ego, you will never recover your humanity. The upper echelons conceived it as part of a population control protocol. The Dodo Dynasty will never know what hit them, but the rest of humanity will feels its reverberations.
RecChief:
First, "don't ask don't tell" is a reasonable compromise, which is applicable to everyone. We make reasonable accommodations for couples, but only to promote a normative (i.e. to promote evolutionary fitness) relationship.
Second, homophobia is a projected fear. It is expressed by people who are anxious that normalization through diversion or coercion will not hold.
Ironically, if the feminists are correct, then men and women who express a preference for homosexual behavior should be reeducated. They are a product of their environment, which has resulted in their capture by a dysfunctional behavior. Perhaps we should listen to the feminists, and affiliated special interests, just this once.
In any case, it calls into question the motives of people who are teaching young boys and girls that homosexual behavior is normal. I wonder what else they are teaching their captive audience.
Perhaps something about the euphemistically labeled "women's rights" and "reproductive health", which has lead to state-sponsored execution of around one million Baracks, Harrys, Anns, etc. through lethal injection or physical assault, every year in America alone, through the "well-intentioned" counseling of Planned Parenthood and related Democratic affiliated businesses.
If there is a "gay gene," then gays will die out due to their newly acquired freedom not to procreate except in those cultures that refuse to accept the lifestyle and force them into traditional marriages.
A lot of current subcultures that abjure procreation (owners of "Thank You for Not Having Children" bumper stickers, for example) will probably go the way of the Shakers.
Ms Althouse, am I given to understand you are "offended" by the citation regarding the fact homosexuals like Ernst Röhm lifted Hitler to power? Do you think speaking truth to out the special snowflake status homosexual radicals demand be applied to them? Take that up with more down to earth homosexuals, read the piece at the HuffPo by a gay writer titled, The Strange, Strange Story of Gay Fascism, it was published in 2010.
It's irrelevant whether you care for Phil Robertson, he cited scripture, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Listing all the major sins listed in the verse, that humanity is becoming inured to sin and is the worse for it. He then continued on to say he doesn;t judge, that he believes human beings should love one another. Im astounded by how many self appointed poohbahs who couldn't be bothered to read the piece freely available at gq.com, preferring to swallow cnn's lies instead. If cnn's lefty queens were offended by Robertson's graphic use of anitomically correct terms, why weren't they equally so offended when a homosexual man on storage wars referred to preferring "man ass" on the A&E show with no repercussions. I'd also save ypur ire, because the homosexualist lobby are demanding the laws outlawing pedophilia be overturned, and they're pushing graphic, vulgar pornography be used to titilate little children, to sexualize them.
Christians have 1st & 14th amendment freedoms, and they won't be marginalized by the left, or RINO, libertarian useful idiots who pimp themselves out to them.
In noticed on a gay board, former gay favorites like Madonna and Britney Spears really get raked over the coals even though they had clocked decades of being gay-friendly when it was less fashionable. Madonna likely just because she's old. Britney's recent comments that her gay friends are "adorable" were roundly decried as falsely stereotyping gays as feminine pets, instead of the total masculine manly man (who happens to be gay) 85% of posters now claim to be.
At this point, it is entering the same zone as black people, where rather than vocalize support or observations of any kind and risk being misunderstood, I find it easier to say nothing at all about race, ethnicity, and/or sexual-orientation. At my age (40s), that's really not such a hardship. Let the nextgen run the next leg. Unless it's your kids, it's really only obligatory when you're in your dating years.
Also, Steyn's pushback is a completely lost cause while society worships celebrity culture and mass culture is now a worldwide adn 24/7 affair especially for the young. He might keep some people on the right side of the law which could be useful for other types of cases later on, but he's not going to change the new normal.
Mark Steyn gave a good part of himself fighting off the Canadian progressives and their stupid human rights laws that permitted anyone to drag anybody to trial simply by claiming a human rights violation.
The juvenile chant about sticks and stones is largely correct and gaming the system with false claims was favorite tactic among resident Muslims up north.
GLAAD is doing the same thing and there is no excuse that you can present to me that gay rights trump fat rights or old rights and especially "fat and old" rights. We all have our crosses to bear so GLAAD should shut up and do some lifting exercises.
Relevant and what pushed dads out if the home in lower working class communities? Government programs. Back 15 years ago progressives and liberals cares about this issue, but they all have been bought out.
You missed the point. I'm simply observing that knocking up a bunch of women and leaving the kids to be raised by someone else is entirely natural. It is a valid and extremely successful reproductive strategy. Men are predisposed to it and biologically optimized for it; women can have only a few dozen kids at most, but men can have thousands.
People who crow that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality because the former is "natural" do not get to complain about other forms of natural human behavior. I don't want to hear anybody play the "natural is better" card until they've impregnated at *least* two separate women. :)
Sowing seeds far and wide but not tending them is not necessarily the most effective reproductive strategy. The offspring of males that do not protect them are vulnerable, particularly in a species with a long maturation period such as humans. We are not dandelions : )
You would think that gay males with their superior sense of aesthetics would develop a more cultivated way of expressing their sexuality. Anal intercourse is just gross. Gays should get off by holding hands during ballet performances.......Maybe homosexuality is just a form of sexual dyslexia. It doesn't have any real significance, but we like to pretend it does. Dyslexic kids aren't stupid--unless, of course,they are--and homosexuals aren't evil--unless, of course, they are.
Althouse: "Myself, I support gay rights, but I do not like the simple portrayal of traditional religionists as mean or bigoted (even though I do understand that it may be the most effective way to defeat them politically).""
Well, that's refreshing!
Althouse, a law professor, engages in a shocking, full-frontal disclosure that she "understands"/ratifies bullying and vicious brow-beating as a legitimate form of "argument".
None of this arguing "on the merits", right...Professor?
I'd like to see you engage in that line of thinking in court, Professor Ann.
Interesting comment about this over at PowerLine, where they pointed out that GLADD was trying to make a pariah out of Phil Robertson, and when he wouldn't back down, somewhat observant Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. This isn't going to work, as long as the People of The Book keep together, at least within their own faith. Robertson said nothing about homosexuality that isn't in the Bible. And, when the fact that GLADD and other LBGT activists are essentially attacking the Gospel accepted by 70% or so of Americans, to one extent, or another, becomes obvious, it really ceases to be GLADD v DD, but rather GLADD against Christianity, Islam, etc. And, when that becomes obvious, they cannot win, and instead are the ones likely to become the pariahs.
They are the ones screaming intolerance, while showing almost complete intolerance for the religious tenets shared by a majority of Americans. My position is that they should be called out for the bigots they are. And if they end up the pariahs, it would only be because of their bigotry and intolerance of the religions of most of their countrymen.
Shouting Thomas (@ 11:02 AM and 11:13am):
Wow, I have no idea who finally got to you and said: Brother, regardless of the past, please tone down the rhetoric and stay with the substance of your beef... but regardless, it's totally welcome and today (or at least at the cited moments) you are on a roll! Stay with it, stay with the substance, and let the other side look like they're reacting just on their emotions.
Texas West,
Surely you aren't saying that the danger is in the fellow who came up with the telling and accurate TWANLOC appelation, rather than with those to whom that pejorative fitly applies?
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OMG, what is happening to the world? Even C4 has something fairly non-objectionable to say!!!!
Should I be buying lottery tickets today or something???
(Oh, and SomoneHasToo... sorry, I've run all out of superlatives at the moment; unfairly they've all been given to those who have moved from an unreasonable position to a more-reasonable one. Those who started out reasonable have to content themselve with having been right all along. Sorry....)
TosaGuy, I quite disagree. It's not that Steyn is being melodramatic as opposed to those saying "Perhaps we do have a bit of a problem here", it's that Steyn is looking at the Long Term and the Big Picture, and quite rightly seeing The Suicide Of The West.
Althouse,
In a way, a very wistful way, I sympathize with you. Your (perhaps literally, perhaps only figuratively; and perhaps you specifically, but perhaps your your class) will be one of the first against the wall if push really does come to shove, and regardless of who wins. I say this because I could easily have gone the academic route myself in career #1, rather than becoming a field practitioner.
Ironically, or something like that this is part of why I abominate Noam Chomsky so thoroughly, because of the deleterious effects his theoritic-supremacy position had on the subject of field linguist and the study of actual languages as used by real speakers, especially in the third world where the specifics of the language did not lends themselves well to being forced in the procrustean bed of the (mirabile dictu!) English-like mold of his "deep structure", and where many of the fascinating differences from the Indo-European fold were in the discourse structure (which Chomsky peremptorily dismissed as "not of interest".)
And then also ironically, in career #2 in software development, I find myself deeply indebted to him for his theoritical crap which greatly advanced the field of computer language compiler design.
It's almost like the world, and life, is a weird place or something!
And regarding:
"Does the military count as an organization? "
Nope. Not a part of civil society (not while the members are on duty/on deployment) and they have special requirements and considerations all around. So far, at least (G-d be praised!) no one has a civil right to be a member of the military.
Relevant,
Sadly war is natural. As well.
Because we ummm.... are 'sinners'. That free will thingy gets us every time.
damikesc,
"If gays cannot handle that, then honestly, screw the lot of them. [emphasis added]"
No, not at all.
There are likely to be just as many folk out here who didn't ask to be prepresented by these loathsome creeps are there are black folk who didn't ask for Al Sharpton to represent them.
The trick, in both cases, is to shut down the demagogues in such a way as to invite those they are exploiting to separate themselves from them.
"Exactly Alex. Excellent observation. "
Whoa. Speaks huge volumes about, not bi-troller extraordinaire Alex, but about those who would praise him, doesn't it?
Rev,
"If [the writers of THe Corner] all had the same opinion, who but the most mentally numb of doctrinaire Republicans would bother to read NR?"
YOu and I agree here, but I do fear that that dystopia is exactly what would satisfy Steorts .
Hmmmm......I've soldiered through all the comments, and I am struck by the stark reality that the tone and substance of a very great many of them are ungenerous and, in many cases, disrespectfull to our hostess. Oddly enough, so many of you have made her point in living color.
Ann has tried valiantly (and I believe unrealistically) to make the case repeatedly that there is room for a conversation about contentious issues without the parties having to concede ground on their foundational views and not risk being labeled in some hateful way for having those views.
I think it's unrealistic because you walk into such a conversation already granting the other party unilateral power to denounce you for hate speech or as a homophobe if you aren't sufficiently obsequious and bow conclusively to the other's greater moral authority.
Steyn was called down for making the same point. It was his observation that you just can't be cordial enough.
Soon it would be insufficient merely to be “tolerant” — warily accepting, blithely indifferent, mildly amused, tepidly supportive, according to taste. The forces of “tolerance” would become intolerant of anything less than full-blown celebratory approval.
In this regard, I don't see how any headway on his excellent point can be made when the very act of speaking these words subjects one to the threat of being 'denormalized'.
And yet, the treatment of Ann in this thread seems to guarantee that making any such point is a losing proposition before the words ever reach the page.
- Krumhorn
And Shouting Thomas, I often find you interesting and...errrr...unusual. But tonight you have been strident, shrill and a harpy. Even worse, your point was utterly irrelevant.
The post wasn't about a guy telling a couple of jokes about gay sex. The history of our treatment of gays has not been primarily characterized by humor. It has been, at the core, disparagement, obloquy and derision. Or worse.
I'm as bad as anyone in that regard, and I admit it for purposes of the argument. Hectoring Ann off the point is petulant, annoying and counterproductive. She deserves far more respect than that regardless of what you may think of her post.
- Krumhorn
She deserves far more respect than that regardless of what you may think of her post.
Our hostess certainly deserves more respect, but her poorly thought out arguments on this topic do not.
http://boingboing.net/features/northkorea/?traitor=Ann+Althouse
The term "homophobe" is overused. If you see someone running down the street yelling "the gays are coming, the gays are coming", then you have a homophobe. When you have someone refuse to accept the gay agenda, that is not a homophobe (phobe=fear), you have someone taking a moral or even naturalistic stance. Homosexuality is an evolutionary dead end for the individual, and it is considered morally wrong by many. I had a lesbian friend in college, even met her gf. But am I a homophobe for not wanting a military with gay men and militant lesbians throughout? Or for wanting my kids to learn normal, healthy relationships in life and school?
But some people really are afraid of gay people. They feel threatened by gay sex. Shouting Thomas is continually modeling that neurosis here in the comments, embarrassing himself.
MMmmm. Only if they're really bad at decorating.
I think most people are just bored with all the drama.
OK. You're gay. No body cares.Now quit whining and go do something.
The point of the Rat Pack joke — “How do you make a fruit cordial?”/ “Be nice to him.” — wasn't that it's funny.
And there's nothing malicious about it. Unlike the savage 'jokes' which today's leftists routinely apply to conservatives. But then, that's OK, isn't it. ALL conservatives deserve it, don't they.
But am I a homophobe for not wanting a military with gay men and militant lesbians throughout?
DON'T buy into that label. It's deliberately rigged against you for the political advantage of its inventors, who have also enjoyed the unearned advantage of their patented labels 'racist', 'sexist', 'misogynist', etc etc etc.
The advantage comes from society's mindless yielding to definitions which are unrational, and by the PC rules today applying, can be bent to mean exactly what the labeler wants them to mean, with no higher authority to appeal to.
So don't ever take seriously the question, are you a homophobe (or whatever). If you do, you're already the loser.
"I don't censor those comments for a number of reasons"
Is this your version of "If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance?"
To quote a great man, "You Lie!"
Libertarians are pro gay rights
As long as no one in word, thought, or deed is bullied, coerced, or compelled to speak, act, or think in favor of homosexual rights, and have freedom of speech and association; something not now possible. Until then, we Libertarians are opposed to gay fascists who use the power of the state to compel obedience to their morality.
I am a breeder.
Libertarians are opposed to fascists - gay, straight, bisexual, and asexual.
Watch your back, Morrissey!
“How do you make a fruit cordial?”/ “Be nice to him.”
How dumb am I? I thought the joke was actually about fruit.
(Disclosure: Didn't read the Steyn article)
How dumb am I? I thought the joke was actually about fruit.
More probably an age thing - at the time that the original joke was made, gay males were routinely referred to as "fruits". Been quite awhile though since I heard that terminology used. Steyn is of course using the old joke to show that anti-gay terminology was mainstream 40-50 years ago, being uttered with no consequence by the biggest entertainers of the day (Hope, Sinatra, etc).
"No other party in Germany came near to attracting so many shady characters. As we have seen, a conglomeration of pimps, murderers, homosexuals, alcoholics and blackmailers flocked to the party as if to a natural haven. Hitler did not care, as long as they were useful to him....."
Does no one remember the night of the long knives?
Steyn titled the chapter in one of his books, "The Fags" and proceeded to denigrate the accomplishments of openly gay people in theater. Mark Steyn is anti-gay and opposes anything that takes away his "right" to be anti-gay.
Mark Steyn is anti-gay and opposes anything that takes away his "right" to be anti-gay.
Why the scare quotes? Doesn't freedom of sppeech and association mean that he does have a right to be anti-gay?
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