Greetings.
Religion update: Who says there can’t be cooperation between different religions? Incredibly, clergy of three orthodox religions have come together to condemn something. This something is an “international gay pride parade” which organizers want to hold in Jerusalem over the objections of the residents, who largely disapprove. The only religious group approving of this parade is the heretical and dishonestly-named “Conservative/Masorti Judaism”, which is not conservative, not traditional (masorti), and outside the historical boundaries of Judaism. The whole idea of said parade, even ignoring the religious (or anti-religious) aspects, strikes me as bizarre. Often one hears the (false) claim that sexual orientation is purely outside of one’s control. If true, it makes little sense to take any pride in being homosexual, since such people have done nothing to have such an orientation. Said orientation also does not make anyone a better person in any meaningful way and is thus nothing to take pride in. Making as much sense would be “straight pride”, which (unsurprisingly) I have heard nothing of.
Today’s weird thing (proper) is a gallery of “transparent desktops”. Enjoy.
Aaron
6 comments:
Get a grip, Nails. Let me point out the following:
1) Israel is the most tolerant country in the region. In Israel the religious conservatives (not Consservative/Masorti Jews) just complain about gay people but otherwise largely leave them alone; as I recall, in some other countries nearby they imprison and sometimes execute them. Would you be expecting them to hold it in Mecca?
2) Somewhere between 1 and 10% of all people are gay, the exact figure depending on who has done the poll and what exactly the definition of being gay is. (Kinsey's sample, which was biased towards being white and middle- and upper-class had something like 32% of all men reporting at least one homosexual experience.) There are already a lot of gay people wandering around the Middle East, inside and outside of Jerusalem. If they are already there and you don't flip out, what do you care if they put on some rainbow t-shirts, carry a few signs, and remind the residents who their neighbors are?
3) Many minority groups use "pride" as a counter to having lots of people treat them badly. Big deal if they talk about "gay pride." Many people who are attracted to other members of the same sex or have done things with them which go beyond casual contact have also done noteworthy or important things. (Need I remind you that Alan Turing, who was involved in early computer-related work, was gay? Without him, there might even be this blog.) If one is going to take pride in things one's group has done (whether or not membership is voluntary), gay pride is certainly better than a number of other prides.
4) Big deal over interfaith cooperation in condemning a few tens of thousands of gay people wandering around Jerusalem openly identifying themselves as such. Even if you consider it to be wrong from a religious perspective, the fact remains that, beyond offending the religious conservatives, they are not doing anything particularly harmful to anyone, any more than straight people are. (Please save the nonsense about gay people spreading disease or sexually abusing children. Unprotected heterosexual contact can also spread disease and men who sexually abuse children are more often straight than gay in their adult relationships.) Congratulations to them all for attacking a trivial issue. When the religious leaders of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam put aside their differences and join together to do something about hunger, poverty, pollution, violence, prejudice, inadequate health care, homelessness, or some issue which seriously affects people, I will be impressed. In the mean time, they should all be ashamed for themselves. Congratulations to the Masorti for being more open-minded, even if they chose a bad name for the movement.
5) Who you are sexually attracted to is not voluntary; it is not a meaningful choice, any more than whether or not you like the taste of broccoli, and it is not easy to change.
They're here, they're queer, they're staying, and after a lot of other groups have made a fuss about being mistreated and gotten some recognition, they're not likely to simply stay quiet and take it. Get used to it.
General) Barry, the issue at hand isn’t pride in the sense of self-esteem; it’s pride in the sense of arrogance and haughtiness. They’re not asking for sympathy or understanding or tolerance. They’re not asking for equality before the law or in the workplace. If they were holding this parade in Mecca, where there would be a risk to life and limb, that would be something more akin to a civil protest. But in Jerusalem, where they are relatively safe, deliberately holding the parade among people who are opposed to homosexuality is an insult. If the organizers were promoting tolerance or sympathy, they would be apologizing for causing so much unintentional offense. Instead, they are now more determined than ever to hold the parade in Jerusalem.. This puts it in the category of lehakh‘is (“to cause anger”), which is the worst form of any transgression. Mistreatment by heterosexuals is not a valid excuse for this.
Relevant definition of “gay” here: One who engages in homosexual acts. Having an attraction to members of the same sex, while not desirable, (at least in Judaism) is not a sin. Everyone feels the temptation sooner or later to do something wrong. Only following through with a sinful thought or desire is an actual transgression.
3) I am aware that Turing was a homosexual yet made valuable contributions to computer science (e.g., the theory of Turing machines), despite being treated shabbily by the US government. However, as far as I know he was never “in your face” about his sexual orientation, and it would be presumptuous for the parade organizers to invoke his name. After all, if there were a bunch of offensive people publicizing “straight pride” in a predominantly homosexual area for the sake of publicity and being annoying, would you want them invoking your name? I can pretty much guarantee that anyone of any sexual orientation who does great and wonderful things will not be participating in that parade with those riffraff; they’ll be too busy doing great and wonderful things and making a real difference rather than making noise.
4) You take what you can get for cooperation between religions in Israel, considering the tensions over there. The fact that Jews, Christians, and Muslims are talking to each other, let alone publicly agreeing on something, is downright miraculous. I pray that they do start working together on other issues, such as fighting poverty, too.
And, no, I am not opposed to homosexuality due to it spreading disease; any form of sexual intercourse executed stupidly can do that. I am not making any claim that homosexuals are more likely to abuse children than heterosexuals, because I have not seen any data verifying or debunking such a claim. What you and the “Conservative/Masorti” movement fail to understand is one of the central rules of all orthodox religions: if your god tells you to jump, you jump. You can argue over all the parameters of jumping, but in the end, you will jump. Ever since the Torah was given, homosexual acts have been unambiguously prohibited in Judaism without any dissenting opinions. Therefore, to an Orthodox Jew homosexual acts are clearly prohibited. There is no “fear” or even “hatred” involved. I feel a lot of sympathy for people burdened by feelings they do not want and can understand why people might give in to temptation in private. But what the parade organizers are doing is in a radically different category; publicly and unabashedly embracing prohibited behavior, sympathy for them is nearly impossible. The nearest I can manage is the unflattering “Who are these insensitive and immature idiots?”
5) Weren’t you the one who told me that there were psychologists who help (willing) homosexuals change their sexual orientation? It may not be an easy change to make, but can it be a harder change to make than others people do manage to make? E.g., people do manage to free themselves of drug addictions, despite the difficulty.
And, as noted above, it is not that they’re queer or here that is the issue. It’s the pride (negative sense), pure and simple, and the offensiveness of pride is something that is less likely to change than sexual orientation. (Get used to that!) Such pride is not desirable in any group. For comparison, I find downright contemptible Jews who assume that simply because they are Jewish that they are better than non-Jews, and I do not care to associate with them. If such people are intolerable in private, try to imagine how much worse they would be celebrating this conceit en masse in the streets. The people organizing the real parade show no sign of being any better.
1) If you don't like them in your face, stop making a fuss and ignore them. Attention is one of those motivators which keeps cropping up in people with behavioral disorders. Some people will do anything for attention, including provoking people to get a rise out of them. Good or bad, intentional or unintentional, that is not the issue. If you don't like the in-your-face crowd, ignore them and you cut off the motivation for pulling such stunts.
2) I dare you to start a movement to get all these religious leaders in Israel to stop wasting their time with this issue and to come together to do something worthwhile. Go draft a letter to these people to this effect.
3) I never claimed you thought that gay people were particularly prone to spreading diseases or molesting children. However, these are common myths in some circles which some readers of this blog might have posted as objections.
4) I am aware that the Torah prohibits specifically "lying with a man in the manner of a woman." Given the lack of technical language, there is some ambiguity as to the boundaries of what this prohibits. Taken literally, this is physically impossible without some pretty radical surgery on the part of one of the participants. (I doubt this was what was meant.) This passage might even be interpreted as indicating that women should always be sexually aggressive and be on top during intercourse. (I doubt this is the case, but you never know.) There are a variety of acts classified as gay sex and may or may not fit the category of "lying with a man in the manner of a woman." Condemning all homosexual acts on the basis of this is overkill, especially given the looseness with which certain laws are interpreted (e.g., that of killing disobedient children). Furthermore, this law provides no basis for condemnation of lesbians, which also draw the ire of many Orthodox people. (I don't get the basis for that beyond the fact that some people find it gross.) I understand you are supposed to do what God says, but it does not help that sometimes God is ambiguous and sometimes people make prohibitions God does not.
5)You can (at least in principle) alter sexual orientation, though as I recall the results of treatment are somewhat mixed. Wanting to change simply translates into cooperating with treatment; many people want to change but have spectacular treatment failures. (My suspicion is that the focus has been on the arousal part without enough attention being given to the rest of the behaviors that go with that. Some early forms of aversion therapy for alcoholism failed for probably similar reasons.) I am certain that if the relevant factors are understood well enough, more effective treatments could be devised. Of course, if you are going to tell one nice chunk of the population that they feel attracted to someone under the wrong circumstances, why not the rest of us? If we can alter who we are attracted to, perhaps we should change straight men to be attracted to a wider range of body types than big-breasted walking sticks with button noses. Think of the potential benefits of that implemented en masse!
1 & 2) The idea of an ignoring protest has some appeal. Finding the right person to send the idea to is the major challenge.
3) No one made mythological claims, so there’s point in bringing such nonsense up.
4) We discussed this last night, and your claim the language is “ambiguous” is a deliberate evasion (especially since your knowledge of Hebrew is currently basic), and you show no hint of awareness that homosexual acts also fall under the category of “the ways of the Amorites”, e.g., they were part of Canaanite pagan rites and are thus outright prohibited on that alone. You have also completely ignored my point that Jewish tradition is unanimous on the point that homosexual acts are universally prohibited. On this basis, you are wasting your time arguing with me that maybe some homosexual acts are not prohibited. Since you have no source to support your claim, period, not one passage from the Hebrew Bible, Ecclesiasticus, the Midhrashim, the Mishnah, the Barayetha’, the Tosefta’, the Talmudh Yerushalmi, the Talmudh Bavli, the commentaries of the Savora’im, Ge’onim, Ri’shonim, or ’Aẖaronim, or the halakhic codes, you have given me zero reason to believe your claim even resembles a valid opinion in Jewish law.
5) Indeed, I am all for people voluntarily adjusting their attractions so that they are, as you would put it, functional. A good deal of it seems to me to be learned from the types of people that are held in general to be beautiful and promoted as being beautiful. Any ideas on how to get Hollywood to promote intelligent women who don’t look anorexic as being beautiful?
1) Tell them all to stop whining like babies over this and ignore them. All they will do otherwise is at best waste their breath and at worst make things much worse, including by making themselves look like intolerant bigots.
2) I sense a further oddball conversation if we tread further into Jewish law. However, even if you do have a point there, what relevance does it have to this situation? Why is this the issue where people get all flippy over? You don't see Jews and Muslims banding together to keep people from eating pork (which was banned without any ambiguity). Can you not see a giant display of hatred outside the Jerusalem McDonald's to have them remove the McRib sandwich from the menu? And how about people being beaten to death because they were secretly eating BLTs and pork rinds? What is it about this issue that makes people think they can act like matawain?
3) To alter the behavior of Hollywood from the outside, distribute your patronage accordingly. That means avoid anything with any association with walking sticks like Lara Flynn Boyle and spend your money on products associated with more voluptuous figures such as Queen Latifah.
There are occasional controversies in Israel over food displays. The difference is that McDonald’s strategy is to advertise to people who will buy their products. As such, it makes little sense for anyone marketing food in Israel to target observant Jews as clients unless they sell something they’ll eat and advertise in a way that is culturally and religiously inoffensive. Advertisements that fail to meet these requirements meet with protest and even boycott. The “gay pride parade” people aren’t marketing; their goal is to offend. Hence the outrage. And since I came up with the idea of an ignoring protest, why are you continuing to bug me about it?
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