Posted on 02/19/2009 11:41:26 AM PST by J. Neil Schulman
Warning: This article contains sexually explicit language.
I’ve been a libertarian my entire adult life. Libertarianism, as I’ve been an apologist for it, is a philosophy promoting individual rights, civil liberties, and the freedom to have manifest destiny over one’s own life and property. I am opposed to the government telling people what they can do with their minds and bodies. I am consistent on this whether the issue is consensual intimate relations between adults, or the freedom to self-medicate and self-entertain oneself using the agricultural or pharmaceutical product of one’s choice, or the responsibility of parents to choose what their children are taught about how the human race came to be, or whether it’s regarding the decision of a woman not to carry a fetus to term in her womb.So when I have to explain to my daughter, who phone-banked in the November 2008 election against California’s Proposition 8 by which the California electorate voted to amend their Constitution restricting marriage to heterosexual couples, why I’m opposed to California courts overturning the vote she lost, it requires an explanation of my grounding principles and my firmly grasping sharp ideological nettles.
Let there be no mistake. I favor absolute equality in law for adult individuals who prize the liberty to have intimate relations with, fall in love with, and make life commitments to other individuals of their own gender. I favor laws enabling institutions to grant equity to same-sex couples in matters of habitation, inheritance, taxation, hospital visitation and fiduciary decision-making. If there are to be civil rights laws forbidding discrimination in employment, housing, and use of common facilities, and laws forbidding hate crimes, on the basis of race, color, religion, or ethnic origin, then I see no reason why gender preference is worth either less or more than these other collective categories for receiving grants of legal protection.
But none of that means I’m going to favor up-ending constitutional principles to favor a specific group’s pleadings, nor do I think a struggle for civil rights entitles one to thuggery, nor am I willing to embrace hypocrisy, the destruction of language, rewriting history, and lies just because some people have justifiable grievances.
Let’s start with the lies contained in the use of two common terms: “homosexual” and “gay.”
There is no such thing as “homo” sexuality, unless by that term you are referring to sexual relations between two members of the species homo sapiens.
Sexuality refers to the natural biological processes by which living organisms reproduce. In mammals, primates, and homo sapiens, this natural process requires gametes supplied by both males and females. Gametes supplied by two males will not cause reproduction. Gametes supplied by two females will not cause reproduction. Only gametes supplied by the copulation of males and females will cause reproduction – and you can teach whatever propaganda you like in taxpayer-funded and politically decided “sex education” curricula and no children will result from the attempts of the students to copulate otherwise.
This is not to say that everything that heterosexuals do with each other is sex, either. It isn’t. The term “oral” sex is also a misnomer, as I’m sure former President William Jefferson Clinton would be happy to inform you. Neither is “anal” sex a biologically correct term. Despite parental or church propaganda, sticking a penis in either a mouth or an anus cannot lead to pregnancy. If Juno had given her boyfriend a blowjob there would have been an entirely different movie.
Non-progenitive behavior is sex play, power play, love play, or molestation, depending on the intents and consent of the participants. But inasmuch as no reproduction can result, these are not sex acts and those engaging in them are not defined by their acts as “sexuals,” homo, hetero, or else wise.
In my 1983 novel, The Rainbow Cadenza, I invented a neologism to describe men who were physically attracted only to other men. I called them “andromen” using the Greek root for male. I’ll continue using my own term for the remainder of this screed. The term “lesbian” needs no redefinition and I’ll continue using it as well.
From the standpoint of reproductive biology, andromen and lesbians are chaste. They may cohabitate, and love each other. They may pair-bond into brotherhoods, sisterhoods, or families. But unless they find a partner of the opposite sex to mix their gametes with, they are not sexually active. Any condoms they use are solely for the purpose of preventing the spread of diseases, which not only are sexually transmitted but also non-sexually transmitted through intimate encounters that exchange bodily fluids. But these condoms are irrelevant to preventing a pregnancy, which can not result from these intimacies.
So let’s put another lie to bed. AIDS is not only a Sexually Transmitted Disease; it is also a Non-Sexually-Transmitted Disease. I would dare say that it would be hard to find a case where the HIV virus was ever transmitted through a sexual encounter in a San Francisco “gay” bath house -- unless one of the participants was a female pretending to be a male and the male partner was somehow manipulated into inserting his penis into her vagina and ejaculating therein.
Since males who are attracted only to other males are sexually abstinent, they are perfect candidates for the Roman Catholic priesthood, which requires their priests to be celibate – that is, to refrain from marriage. Likewise, lesbians – being sexually abstinent – are perfect candidates to be nuns, since their “marriage” to Christ need never be physically consummated. For some reason I’ve never been able to fathom, neither the Roman Catholic hierarchy nor the activist movements for andromen and lesbians are comfortable with this obvious lifestyle perfection.
And, in my opinion, the unwillingness of “gay” organizations to stand up for Catholic priests when they are caught engaging in non-sexual acts with other males is the sheerest hypocrisy and poltroonery.
While we’re at it, let’s dispose of the label “gay.” It’s false-to-fact propaganda. Being physically attracted only to members of one’s own sex does not make one happier than being physically attracted to members of the opposite sex. If anything, the social stigma has tended to cause a great deal of unhappiness. Being expressively flamboyant, liking Broadway show tunes, being artistically creative, and liking gourmet cooking may indeed make one gay. By those definitions I am gay. But I’m not willing to stick my penis into another man’s anus or mouth, or have another man stick his penis into mine, to complete my initiation.
I understand that scriptures deriving from the Hebrews – Jewish, Christian, and Islamic – have been interpreted as being harsh toward same-sex couplings. I’ve read the Bible and I understand why ancient nomadic tribes, being low population and economically marginal, placed a high utility on reproductive behavior -- and why their cultures reflected an understandable hostility towards gangs of thugs sneaking into their camps and molesting their men. I just don’t think God’s instructions to these ancients was specifically applicable to men who set up housekeeping in West Hollywood or the Castro.
But it’s offensive to me when a church service is invaded by something that looks like the cast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s offensive to me when an old lady holding a cross at an anti-Proposition 8 protest has the cross ripped from her hands and stomped on. I understand the long-standing provocations but this grudge match between Queers and Bible Thumpers has got to stop.
What also has to stop is the attempt by andromen and lesbians to norm social acceptance of their lifestyle preferences by pretending that marriage is a civil right they are being denied. Marriage has always required consummation and this they cannot do with each other.
Nor is it right that in their hunger for social acceptance they are willing to corrupt the judicial system such that a state’s attorney general and state judges sworn to uphold a state’s constitution – and deriving whatever legitimate authority they have from that constitution -- are demanded to ignore a polity’s majority vote to enshrine a millennial-old custom in their state’s constitution, and stage a political coup to overturn it.
My darling daughter.
You want to disestablish marriage as a legally regulated institution entirely? As a libertarian, I’m with you.
You want to amend the California constitution so that any two or more adults who want to get married – including groups of men and women in any number and mixture – may legally do so … I’ll cross the border from my home state of Nevada to help you campaign for it.
But don’t tell me that “gays” have a greater right to marriage than Mormon-offshoot polygamists. That sort of special pleading that ignores the historical discrimination against others just revolts me. If you want your daddy to line up with you to defend someone’s civil rights, then they’re going to have to respect the civil rights of everyone else and not expect more political privileges than any other homo sapiens – whether we homos arrived on this planet through the good graces of God or Charles Darwin.
# J. Neil Schulman is a libertarian writer, activist, and filmmaker.
SaintDismas wrote: “Hmmm. Maybe that’s your sign from H.S.”
I’m still waiting for her. But I’m not sure the woman who can put up with me exists.
Neil
You do not know enough scripture to argue your point effectively. Perhaps you'll find someone with the patience to put up with your hubris long enough to educate you.
Pelosi won’t call to thank you. She’ll just use you. Against all the other citizens she’d like to dominate. I suspect she’ll ignore you, realizing you don’t know what you’re doing.
Single people can lead heroically virtuous lives. I see it in our Church of the Resurrection. So can you, if that is God’s will in your’s! (To be single, that is) You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself, the right woman will come along. Have you asked the Lord to help you with this? The reason I ask is because so many people (including myself) never seem to think of this, wow, God does and will answer your prayers.
Are you seriously arguing that my wife and I, my mother, father, and our grandparents aren't a family?
No. You'll notice in that arrangement, YOU are the children which make it a family. However, I would say looking at just you and your wife that you are not a family. You are a married couple who have the potential to become a family, through bringing new life into the world. No gay "married" couple can ever have that potential.
Hope your evening was restful.
.
In order to avoid blunt-force trauma to the brain?
Judith Anne wrote:
“’Well, there goes Jeremiah 1:5.’
“You do not know enough scripture to argue your point effectively. Perhaps you’ll find someone with the patience to put up with your hubris long enough to educate you.”
Out of your own hubris you have made yourself incapable of perceiving the contradiction that if God knows someone before they’re born then human life does not initiate with, and can not be defined by, two sets of gametes forming a zygote.
The issue is not gestation of a body but when a body is capable of hosting a soul, and modernist revisionists like you who delude yourselves into thinking you’re omniscient on the interpretation of scripture don’t even know you’re taking a secular position which relies on denying the existence of the soul.
Judith Anne wrote:
“Pelosi won’t call to thank you. She’ll just use you. Against all the other citizens she’d like to dominate. I suspect she’ll ignore you, realizing you don’t know what you’re doing.”
You would be so perfect for the Taliban.
SaintDismas wrote: “Have you asked the Lord to help you with this?”
Not really. I try to limit myself to the number of miracles I ask God for every day. :-)
The last sentence just makes you another libertarian fraud and pretender. No aggression except on the weakest members of the species homo sapiens.
Pathetic.
Again, you do not know enough scripture to argue your point effectively.
And there are a lot of so-called libertarians who despise Christianity and equate Christians with the Taliban. Since you seem incapable of any meaningful discrimination, I laugh at you.
Show me the Christian who will cut off your head for converting to Islam. Show me the Christian who will throw you in jail or sentence you to death for carrying a Koran on a New York Street. Show me the Christian court that will sentence you to 40 lashes in a public square for attending a mosque.
You are a joke. Fortunately, that is no secret to the posters here.
If it is a “member” of the species homo sapiens then you’re correct. Since I hold to the original Hebrew teaching that one does not join the human race until one’s immortal soul enters the mortal body with its first intake of breath (the original meaning of the word “spirit” is “breath,” hence “inspiration” means “intake of breath,” I don’t view abortion as “aggression” any more than a hysterectomy would be. A fetus is living tissue but has no humanity until a soul enters it.
Judith Anne wrote:
“Again, you do not know enough scripture to argue your point effectively.”
You do not know enough logic to argue yours.
“And there are a lot of so-called libertarians who despise Christianity and equate Christians with the Taliban. Since you seem incapable of any meaningful discrimination, I laugh at you.”
Since I served four terms on the governing counsel of the Southern California C.S. Lewis Society, your suggestion that I despise Christianity is laughable. What is not laughable is your evil intolerance and that you have in common with the Taliban. I have no doubt that if you could burn me at the stake as a heretic you’d light the fire with demonic delight.
Whatever you are, you exhibit in this discussion none of the virtues I expect from Christians.
If the baby in the womb is not a member of the species homo sapiens, what is it? A kangaroo? Moreover, Talmud or no Talmud the baby is in fact a member of the species homo sapiens and natural rights apply to all, not just those who have decided when God ensouls us. Of course God had a slightly different opinion since He stated quite clearly that HE knew us when we were in the womb. But that's neither here nor there.
Look I have no patience for pro abortion libertarians no matter what utilitarian or religious view they use to justify the murder of human babies in the womb.
I've heard it all before. You, like so many other pro abortion libertarians, are guilty of hypocrisy at it's worst. Liberty for me and none for the weakest among us.
Congratulations.
jwalsh07 wrote:
“You’re not only pathetic, you’re a moron as well.”
Well, inasmuch as you haven’t posted a profile on Free Republic, that’s more than I know about you. The anonymity of the Internet is like too much liquor — it makes ordinarily mild and civil people loud, rude, and prone to start fights. Where’s the bouncer?
“If the baby in the womb is not a member of the species homo sapiens, what is it? A kangaroo?”
A kangaroo isn’t even a kangaroo until it emerges. Until then it is a neonate.
A butterfly isn’t a butterfly until it completes its stages as an egg, larva, and pupa.
Nobody asks why the egg crossed the road because nobody has any trouble telling the difference between a chicken and an egg.
Can you tell the difference between an acorn and an oak tree?
Only when it comes to the stages of mammalian development do certain human beings make themselves incredulous that there are obvious differences between gametes, zygotes, embryos, fetuses, and infant human beings — then get angry when someone has the ability to discern defining differences that they have made themselves blind to so they may insult and bully their neighbors who come to different conclusions.
Evidently freedom of thought plays no part in the “free republic” you want. Excuse me if I decline to join your cabal of omniscient totalitarians.
“Moreover, Talmud or no Talmud...”
Excuse me, but you don’t even know the difference between the Hebrews and the post-Diaspora Jews. The Hebrews had no Talmud.
“... the baby is in fact a member of the species homo sapiens and natural rights apply to all, not just those who have decided when God ensouls us.”
And it’s not a baby until the umbilical to the mother is severered and it breathes as an independent individual being. Until that happens it’s no more a baby than a caterpillar is a butterfly.
“Of course God had a slightly different opinion since He stated quite clearly that HE knew us when we were in the womb.”
The scriptural statement was that God knew Jeremiah even before he was in his mother’s womb — before a fleshly body has even begun to gestate for him to occupy — before biological conception.
“But that’s neither here nor there. Look I have no patience for pro abortion libertarians no matter what utilitarian or religious view they use to justify the murder of human babies in the womb.”
What statement have I made that allows you to conclude that I am in favor of abortion? I’m almost always opposed to it. But I’m not so full of myself that I would abandon my self-control to force my views on everyone else, as totalitarians like you would.
“I’ve heard it all before.”
And apparently can not learn from what you hear.
“You, like so many other pro abortion libertarians, are guilty of hypocrisy at it’s worst. Liberty for me and none for the weakest among us.”
Your view of liberty is out of Orwell — using guns and prisons to force your theological convictions on any others whose consciences guide them differently.
“Congratulations.”
I’ll take it. An insult from a Tory is the highest compliment an American can receive.
And anything I say here on FR I'd be happy to say to your face.
An unborn baby is not a member of the species homo sapiens. That is the sum total of your moronic post.
Like I said, you're pathetic and a moron.
You certainly give the governing council of the South Callifornia C. S. Lewis Society a bad name.
I looked up the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society, and did not find your anme anywhere on any of the councils, nor did I find a “governing council” link anywhere.
I did find a lot of people on the various boards and councils that weren’t located anywhere near Southern California, as well as a number of links that didn’t work but would have been pertinent to our discussion, had they. Not to mention there were a lot of links that had nothing to do with your organization.
So, it’s easy to conclude what sort of poster you are. And if it is YOU who call ME evil, I will have to consider it high praise, considering your pro-abortion stance..
Judith Anne wrote:
“I looked up the Southern California C. S. Lewis Society, and did not find your anme anywhere on any of the councils, nor did I find a “governing council” link anywhere.”
I first attended meetings of the C.S. Lewis Society of New York for five years (it met at the Anthroposphical Society offices) before moving to Southern California in 1975. Then I joined the Southern California C.S. Lewis Society when it was formed by Paul Ford (then Brother Peter, as he was living in a monastery at the time). My service to the Southern California society was in the 70’s and 80’s, before I moved back to the New York area in 1984 for about five years. I now live in Nevada. But you can find me in archived issues of The Lamppost or ask Edie Dougherty.
And only totalitarian theocrats like jwalsh07 and yourself equate a dedication to individual conscience on the philosophical question of when human rights begin with favoring abortion.
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