Those Boos
Allow me to stop talking about monetary policy for a minute, to second Andrew Sullivan’s anger (if that makes any sense) about the booing of the gay soldier in the debate last night.
The shocking silence on the stage – the fact that no one challenged this outrage – also tells me that this kind of slur is not regarded as a big deal. When it came to it, even Santorum couldn’t sanction firing all those servicemembers who are now proudly out. But that’s because he was forced to focus not on his own Thomist abstractions, but on an actual person. Throughout Republican debates, gays are discussed as if we are never in the audience, never actually part of the society, never fully part of families, never worthy of even a scintilla of respect. When you boo a servicemember solely because he’s gay, you are saying he is beneath contempt, that nothing he does or has done can counterweigh the vileness of his sexual orientation.
Back when it mattered in 2002-03, Andrew Sullivan, hopped up on prescription testosterone, was perhaps the loudest journalistic banger of the gong for sending the U.S. military off to pointless war in Iraq. Andrew continues to want to use the military to act out the various psychodramas in his head.
— Steve Sailer · Sep 23, 06:50 PM · #
Obama should put Andrew in charge of the re-education camps for all those Marines who aren’t appropriately sensitive enough to gays. What higher national priority is there?
— Steve Sailer · Sep 23, 07:14 PM · #
If Andrew had a consistent record of just wanting to use the military as a social engineering institution to promote his own personal interests, fine. If they are not going to need to be warriors, then let them waste all their time on the coming gay sensitivity training sessions that will take up a huge amount of the military’s focus over the next decade. But Sullivan has a giant track record of responsibility for putting American soldiers in harm’s way, where they still are.
— Steve Sailer · Sep 23, 08:41 PM · #
Compassion fatigue strikes again.
Sullivan is such a doof. The way he whines, you’d think his side didn’t win.
“Thomist abstractions” wins the “??????????” of the day award.
— Matt · Sep 23, 10:29 PM · #
Great comments Steve (and I say that as someone who, even without prescription testosterone and the benefit of hindsight, thinks the War in Iraq made sense — but I’m incurably hawkish when it comes to foreign policy).
Anyway, back to Noah’s anger (and Sully’s) — I know this viewpoint isn’t politically popular and it doesn’t necessarily poll well — but those of us who believe in traditional sexuality believe that homosexuals who are open about their perverted sexuality don’t deserve celebration, period. It would be akin to celebrating the thief who saves someone life during the getaway in a car-crash; yes, we should be happy he did it, but he is still a thief. We want him to repent of his criminal ways for good. Likewise, if you are gay and proud of your immoral sex drive, then there is nothing to celebrate — we don’t want you to be proud of who you are, period, full stop. On the other hand, if you are gay and struggle against your gay desires and honestly try and live a chaste life (or a straight life) then we can and should welcome you into society, our families, and the armed forces.
Sully rejects traditional morality, which is fine, and he also at the same time has the general population with him when it comes to the American people’s goofy (and intellectually fuzzy and confused) love of “tolerance”. So he freaks out when those of us who won’t play along, especially when a member of the media elite asks a loaded question like that. Noah is right — sometimes society gets worse before it gets better. One day we’ll re-establish traditional marriage in law and make sodomy a crime again. Then it will get better.
— Fake Herzog · Sep 23, 10:38 PM · #
Noah:
There is some question as to what they were booing, the soldier or his question. Seems like a good question to ask, don’t you think, andrew, er, Noah?
— jd · Sep 23, 11:58 PM · #
Low priority moral concern: not booing him for being gay.
High priority moral concern: getting him the fuck out of Iraq.
— Freddie · Sep 24, 02:46 AM · #
No. Why would that be a “good question to ask”? People who wish to assert their nuanced and fine-grained disapproval should select a better tool than booing a soldier.
— Chet · Sep 24, 03:45 AM · #
It’s “media elite” to be able to post on YouTube? And how is not booing a soldier “playing along”? Could you show me the scripture where Jesus asks people to be toolbags to everyone who doesn’t live in a very narrow and specific way?
What will get better, and in what way? Please be specific.
— Chet · Sep 24, 03:48 AM · #
Cop a clue – the audience member wasn’t ‘booing’ a gay Marine, he was objecting to the reversal of DADT!
Integrating open gays is going to be very difficult. Two friends already emailed this week and they’re dropping their papers in response. Way to destroy the Army guys!
— Jean · Sep 24, 02:57 PM · #
Re: One day we’ll re-establish traditional marriage in law and make sodomy a crime again. Then it will get better.
What concrete or abstract societal goods do you think would be served by making homosexual sex a crime?
I can see arguments for and against gay marriage- though I support gay marriage, under the conditions of early 21st century America, I can see other social circumstances in which I would oppose it. I can’t really see any good arguments for making gay sex a crime.
— Hector_St_Clare · Sep 24, 03:19 PM · #
Re: I say that as someone who, even without prescription testosterone and the benefit of hindsight, thinks the War in Iraq made sense — but I’m incurably hawkish when it comes to foreign policy).
Your moral perspective is rather odd indeed, if you think that gay sex is more clearly immoral than pursuing an aggressive, unjustified war at the cost of (at minimum) half a million lives.
— Hector_St_Clare · Sep 24, 03:21 PM · #
You can convince a guy to go fight and die for a pointless and mismanaged war, but asking him to be nice to gays is some impossible step?
Some of you are just contrarian for the sake of it. Marines will do what they are told. Period. (figures that the counter example in this thread are some army bozos). If what they are told to do is accept gay comrades, then so be it. Implementation isn’t a big deal.
— Console · Sep 24, 05:06 PM · #
Chet,
It’s always a pleasure to argue with you. I’m not sure it is right to say that Jesus wants us to “live in a very narrow and specific way”, but he certainly wants us to live lives free of sin and we know he especially frowns on those of us who encourage sin among children: “It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.” [Luke 17:2] So “toolbag” might not be the right word, but as this quote from Luke attests, Jesus really, really frowns on certain sinful actions.
Now, to answer both you and Hector, it is obvious to anyone who isn’t confused by leftist ideology that Biblical sexuality does not include the moral approval of homosex. Therefore, society should create laws that conform to Biblical moral truths if individuals in that society will be guided by laws that point them to moral truths (and if those laws support fully humane and flourishing lives rooted in communities with healthy families). Again, it is obvious that Christ and Biblical morality condemn homosex and would applaud laws that punish individuals who engage in such immoral sexual acts in the same way that Christ and Biblical morality condemn adultery. Also obviously, you would want practical concerns to weigh in the implementation and execution of those laws (i.e. not many people would be prosecuted) but the law is a teacher and we don’t want to confuse kids or lead them into sin by telling them that certain forms of sex are O.K. when they are not.
And for the record, I obviously disagree with the description of the Iraq War as “aggressive” and “unjustified”, although I’m fully aware a good case can be made for both.
— Fake Herzog · Sep 24, 07:36 PM · #
Re: Again, it is obvious that Christ and Biblical morality condemn homosex
It’s fairly clear that they condemn unnatural sex (which, traditionally, was considered to include contraception as well). It’s also fairly clear that homosexuality was traditionally taken (by the orthodox church, probably by Paul, and maybe Jude) to be unnatural, and was condemned on that basis. If they were wrong about it being unnatural, however, did it occur to you they might have been wrong about it being a sin? As our understanding of what’s natural evolves, it makes sense that sometimes what we thought were sins, might not be.
I think we’ve been over this already, but I’m not aware of anywhere- not in the Gospels, not in the Agrapha, not in the Apocrypha, not in the Apocalypse of John, and not in any of the visions various people have purportedly had of Jesus, in which he says anything about homosexuality, one way or the other. His comments about divorce, one quotation in the Gospel of Matthew about the lust of the eyes, and a short conversation with St. Photina at the well in the Gospel of John are the extent of what we know he said specifically about sex (though he made plenty of general condemnations of sexual immorality). I don’t see much to do with gay sex in any of those passages.
— Hector_St_Clare · Sep 24, 07:58 PM · #
Little understanding of the military is shown in Sailer’s apparent wacky belief that the next decade will involve a lot of new gay sensitivity training and that that constitutes an objection to DADT repeal. As is often the case with Sailer, it’s such an obviously. goofily wrong objection that it is hard to view it as honest.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Sep 24, 11:13 PM · #
“If they were wrong about it being unnatural, however, did it occur to you they might have been wrong about it being a sin?”
Hector, Hector, Hector,
Have you studied any natural law theology or philosophy? If not, you should do so as you will learn a lot about how the Church thinks about these matters (hint: “natural” is not equivalent to “happens in nature” when it comes to the natural law).
Anyway, we have been round and round on this before and I’m really a piker compared to Robert Gagnon, whose website and writing on the subject of Biblical sexuality taught me more than I’ve typically read even from Catholic writers. Any possible objection you can think of when it comes to the Bible and how you might want to twist it to make it fit modern liberal notions of how to lead a happy sex life are pretty much demolished by Professor Gagnon, so just spend some time there and learn from the master.
— Fake Herzog · Sep 25, 01:43 AM · #
“it is obvious to anyone who isn’t confused by leftist ideology that Biblical sexuality does not include the moral approval of homosex.”
It’s clear that the Bible condemns pagan hedonism, which at that time certainly included homosexual acts. It’s not at all clear the Bible condemns what we now know as homosexuality. After all, it’s not even perfectly clear what the Bible’s view is on killing people, given that right after Moses brings down the 10 Comandments from Mt. Sinai, he slaughters a bunch of golden calf worshippers.
Mike
— MBunge · Sep 25, 03:38 PM · #
I feel like we covered this, and that you abandoned the last discussion when it emerged that you could not support this Biblically. Regardless, I’m much less interested in how you choose to distort the Bible – it’s just a book, after all – and much more interested in your contention that “it will get better” when we reinstate criminal sanctions against completely consensual sex acts between adults.
That’s what you said: “then it will get better.” And I asked you, precisely what will get better? For some reason, you did not deign to answer that very pertinent question. Could you please do so now? And remember, I asked you to be specific.
— Chet · Sep 26, 04:36 AM · #
“I feel like we covered this, and that you abandoned the last discussion when it emerged that you could not support this Biblically.”
There is plenty of support and for the sixth or seventh time, please read through some of Professor Gagnon’s articles for the details:
http://www.robgagnon.net/
(for example, this recent article is a good place to start: http://www.robgagnon.net/articles/homosexChristianPostRespToJefferson.pdf)
“That’s what you said: “then it will get better.” And I asked you, precisely_what_will get better?”
Well, I suspect that you’ll have small decreases in sexual experimentation by young people as well as small increases in the number of young people who seek help for their homosexual desires. This may, in turn, help increase marriage rates by a very, very small percentage. But in the abcence of other laws that encourage and promote marriage, it probably won’t have much of an effect. Instead, the most positive benefit is that traditional Christian groups will be able to preach against sexual immorality without legal sanction and instead, the law will now re-inforce what they preach so their authority will be enhanced. This is better for society because society needs moral individuals and more religion (at least the Christian variety) will give us a more moral society.
— Fake Herzog · Sep 26, 05:43 PM · #
“Instead, the most positive benefit is that traditional Christian groups will be able to preach against sexual immorality”
Uh, traditional Christian groups still have plenty of opportunities to preach against sexual immorality and choose not to. Or what do you think the then-unmarried Rush Limbaugh was doing taking Viagra on a trip to the Dominican Republic in 2006?
Mike
— MBunge · Sep 26, 05:52 PM · #
“This is better for society because society needs moral individuals and more religion (at least the Christian variety) will give us a more moral society.”
I don’t know what they call this in natural law theology but morality for the sake of morality is a tautology in my circles.
— Console · Sep 26, 06:53 PM · #
Oh I get it. You’re doing your best ross douthat impersonation
— Console · Sep 26, 06:54 PM · #
Professor Gagnon isn’t able to support it Biblically, either.
But what will get better, specifically?
Traditional Christian groups are currently able to preach against “sexual immorality” without legal sanction. What will get better? Do you understand the question?
But what will get better? Pretend that you’re talking to someone who, like most Americans, is not a Christian and doesn’t care whether the law reflects traditional Christian morality. Indeed, I would prefer it not to, unless there’s some secular benefit to me. So what is going to be better when the authority of Christian morality is “enhanced”? What actually improves as a result of doing this? Please be specific.
— Chet · Sep 26, 08:46 PM · #
“Oh I get it. You’re doing your best ross douthat impersonation”
If I could be half the writer Ross is, I would consider my blog career a success.
Chet,
You seem to have some reading comprehension issues — the fact that you dismiss Gagnon’s arguments suggest you didn’t bother to read him or you don’t understand the Bible.
I also suggested specific ways in which specific social measures would improve; obviously you reject my measures of improvement. This is fine, but don’t say I didn’t answer your question — you just reject my premises and how I define the words “improve” or maybe “better”. So we are arguing about values.
P.S. Most Americans are Christians whether you like it or not. Of course, their beliefs in various traditional tenents of Christianity is shakey, but they are self-identified Christians nevertheless.
P.P.S. Everyone should get ready for this upcoming PBS series, you’ll learn a thing or two:
http://www.wordonfire.org/WoF-Blog/WoF-Blog/September-2011/Broadcast-Dates-and-Times-for-CATHOLICISM-on-t-%281%29.aspx
Father Barron is a priest here in Chicago so I’m always excited when a local boy does good ;-)
— Fake Herzog · Sep 26, 10:01 PM · #
Like I said, I’m not very interested in covering the same old ground about the ways you and Gagnon distort the plain meaning of the Bible. I’m much more interested in your notion that things will be better when we go back to forcing gay men and women into the legal and social closet.
Not in any message you’ve posted to this thread. There’s actually not a single “social measure” in your post. Are you unclear as to the meaning of the word “specific”? Because what you continue to post are generalities.
Like I said, I’d like you to elucidate your claim that things will be better. What things, and better in what way? Like I’ve asked you already, please be specific. Please note that “the law will now re-inforce what they preach so their authority will be enhanced”, for instance, is not in any way specific nor constitutes something being better. A “social measure” that might improve, for instance, might be something like “I anticipate that with gay men and women once again subject to oppressive legal censure, net GDP will rise by 7% and violent crime in the inner city should fall by 8%.” That’s a specific claim about a social measure. I’d like you to be that specific, please.
If you continue to be confused as to what the question is, I can try to explain it again.
— Chet · Sep 26, 10:30 PM · #
Chet, let’s stop dancing around the issue when we have a perfectly good example of how the morality espoused by “Fake Herzog” has the potential to make things much worse. In 1936, a brilliant young (gay) mathemetician named Alan Turing laid the mathematical foundations of the modern digital computer with a paper on the nature of a mathematical object called the universal Turing machine.
During the war, Turing used his talents to break the German enigma code, developing a series of increasingly sophisticated decryption systems. His work in breaking German naval codes certainly shortened the war; without it, the Kriegsmarine could conceivably have broken the convoy system and starved Britain into submission.
After the war, the discovery of Turing’s homosexuality by the British police effectively put an end to his work; he ended his life humiliated, excluded from the field his work had established, and subjected to medical experimentation in an attempt to “cure” him.
Based on his contributions before the war, we can make a guess at the cost of Alan Turing’s persecution and death, in ideas he never got to publish and insights he never got to have, as well as his leadership and vision. The cost to the British economy alone comes to billions or even trillions of pounds. Certainly we know that if we want this civilization to survive, we cannot recklessly waste the talents of another Alan Turing. That, above all, explains why the leaders of American industry will not endorse the program put forward by “Fake Herzog”. And that, in turn, explains why a so-called “marriage amendment” to the US constitution will probably never happen, and why any program that requires the re-criminalization the expressions of same-gender love faces impossible hurdles.
But if “Fake Herzog” wants to waste his time…
— John Spragge · Sep 28, 02:55 PM · #
I agree completely. But I’ve been talking to people about this for a decade, now, and its invariably the case that the opponents of gay rights base their arguments largely on two propositions: that God doesn’t like it, and it’s icky.
Fake Herzog is doing something new, at least, which is to assert that gay rights are bad because there is a substantial and wide-ranging secular, social benefit to sweeping oppression and legal persecution of gays. I’d like him to express the best possible version of that argument before I address it. Is that a waste of our time? Could be, but I’m asking Herzog the questions I am because I genuinely want to know.
— Chet · Sep 28, 04:48 PM · #
Anyway, do you think that an America populated by over 50% minorities, specifically black and Hispanic minorities would have given us the internet/web/blogs for you to both be posting your nonsense here? Quick, name all the wonderful contributions (besides food) that Hispanics have made to American culture? Heck, name all the wonderful contributions to world culture from all of Latin America? [Off the top of my head I would say Octavio Paz, Mario Vargas Llosa, the economist Hernando de Soto, and maybe Shakira — just kidding about her).
Hispanic out-of-wedlock births are over 50% (you already know blacks are over 70%). Hispanic gangs and violence are a growing problem and educational achievement, just as for blacks, significantly lags whites. Do you think this heralds exciting new vistas for an ennobling American culture?
— Fake Herzog · Sep 28, 05:44 PM · #
That’s some fascinating racism, Herzog, but I don’t see how it relates to my question, which was
Please recall that we were speaking of gays, not Hispanics. I’m not at all sure where that racist ejaculation came from. Are you feeling ok?
— Chet · Sep 28, 07:47 PM · #
Chet,
That’s just my stalker again linking to an old quote of mine that I posted here on the subject of immigration (in context there is nothing racist about my comment) — the giveaway is the link he always includes when you click on my name. I have to admit, I like the guy (girl?) as the links are always funny.
Anyway, I’m done answering your questions as I don’t think you or John are serious about understanding my position as you continue to mis-characterize it (I never said “there is a substantial and wide-ranging secular, social benefit to sweeping oppression and legal persecution of gays”) and quite frankly, I question your basic intellectual integrity if you continue to argue that Professor Gagnon doesn’t support his position on Biblical sexual morality.
— Fake Herzog · Sep 28, 07:56 PM · #
With all due respect, Herzog, I’ve not misrepresented your position. Here’s what you said:
And here’s what I asked you:
That’s been the subject under discussion throughout. Please note that you didn’t say “things will get better for Catholic priests, who will have the force of law behind their moral authority”, or even “things will get better for Catholics in general, who won’t feel that the law undermines their theology”. You said things will get better. For everyone.
Well, most people aren’t Catholic clergy or even Catholics. So it’s fair to conclude that when you say “better”, you mean in a wide-ranging, secular way, since things getting better for a small number of Catholics doesn’t really imply that “things will get better.” And you most certainly did refer to a sweeping oppression and legal persecution of gays: One day we’ll re-establish traditional marriage in law and make sodomy a crime again. I’m asking you – why should we do that? What’s the benefit for me?
Please note that I’ve not made any reference to your reading comprehension or intellectual integrity, yet this is the second or third time you’ve attempted to impugn mine. What’s going on with you?
— Chet · Sep 28, 08:04 PM · #
Pseudo-Cicero dealt with Fake Herzog back in the first century BC:
Item vitiosum est pro argumento sumere, quod in disquisitione positum est
“Again, it is a fault to advance as proof what has been put in question.”
De Ratione Dicendi ad C. Herennium liber II
— Pithlord · Sep 28, 10:38 PM · #
I read the article “Fake Herzog” linked to. In it, Professor Gagnon claims the Bible has as a dominant theme the integrity of discrete gender categories and the complementarity that entails. In other words, men have to conform to male gender norms, as women must conform to female gender norms, precisely so they will complement one another. The problem arises when Dr. Gagnon claims Jesus endorses this view by saying nothing that contradicts it. This ignores Matthew 19.12, in which Jesus refers to eunuchs “who have been so from birth” and also to “eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Whatever you assume Jesus meant by “eunuchs” here, He quite clearly sees a context for gender identities with much more context that the simple picture of manly men complementing womanly women which leaves no room for variations such as Gays and Lesbians. He also contradicts the traditional Jewish opposition to castration. Whatever we take from this baffling passage in the Gospel, creation clearly does not demarcate the genders with the kind of clarity Professor Gagnon asserts: witness the presence of naturally intersexed individuals. What creation includes, Jesus pretty clearly acknowledges. To claim He implicitly endorsed, by silence on the subject, a negative view of Gays and Lesbians based on a polar view of gender identity seems to ignore some pretty important evidence.
— John Spragge · Sep 29, 05:35 PM · #