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.
The Velvet mafia is gonna gitcha....(chuckle)
And therein is the original lie...."Hast God said?" When will people wake up and realize that their decision to selectively determine what God meant means that they have made for themselves a new god. One that looks like them. In fact, it is them. Hence, their god is too small.
This guy is of his father, the devil....so he should not wonder why his daughter follows along on the same wide path - which leads to destruction.
How exactly do you deal with issues of inheritance, medical decisions, etc.?
Well done. This is fabulous. You truly are a Libertarian.
The examination of the language of this entire issue deserved examination, and you provided such a reasoned analysis of it. All I can say is thank you for this contribution, and its a huge reason I value this forum so.
Using your new definition of "sex" I would suppose that a man who had a vasectomy or a woman who had a tubal ligation, a hysterectomy or even wasn't close enough to ovulation to result in pregnancy wouldn't be able to have sex either.
You are using your redefinition of words much as a squid uses its ink: to cloud the water and make capturing the issue much more difficult.
I think you need to respect the perspective for what it is - non-religious. In that light, this gentleman has provided you with a cogent, completely logical argument to support your cause within your own religious experience. “Marriage requires consummation,” being the operative observation of an obvious but overlooked fact.
Given the activity in question isn’t really sexual, meaning it is non-progenitive, what business does a Christian clergy of any sect or order have in blessing sexual play? There is certainly nothing Biblical that supports it, correct?
The whole QUESTION of this being MARRIAGE is out. As such, where does that put you within the perspective of church policy? Christian marriage, an institution that came from Christ Himself, is explicit in its Biblical definition.
So what would the Church like to call this, whatever it is - union, fraternity, partnership . . .
I for one BRISTLE at the term PARTNER, or PARTNERSHIP. I have a business partner, whose male, and in describing our relationship, wedding band affixed to my finger, it makes me cringe as soon as the word ‘partner’ escapes my lips. I feel like I have to further explain the context of the term.
Anyway, you ought to thank this gent in my opinion. He may not agree with your view of God and the Universe, but his observations on the language of the issue is, in my opinion, highly valuable to anyone debating it within their own church.
May God bless you richly.
Interesting perspective, but changing the definitions of sexual to only those encounters where the pairing of gametes is possible is just a bunch of linguistic gymnastics. I suppose by your definition that anyone who has had a vasectomy doesn’t have sex anymore but just exchanges bodily fluids since there are no gametes in the transmission.
The queers will straighten up once they burn my church down.
I am simply discerning truth from a lie in his statement. Forgetting the political argumentation - which is vain discussion in light of eternity anyway! And, no - I don’t thank him for this potty-mouthed tripe.
>>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. <<
I think positions like this along with claiming there are not very many homosexuals or bisexuals undercut the debate.
Claiming they don’t exist or are rare just makes to person making the argument less believable, whatever else they are saying.
He hasn’t changed the definition. If anything he’s identified how lazy others have been in applying ‘sexual’ with any activity involving genitalia that doesn’t involve elimination.
Procreation is the VERY REASON for sex. There is no other biological reason for sex, at all. As such, everything else isn’t sex, but play, assault, or domination.
The Hebrews thought Jesus was of the devil, too.
Sorry to see there are Pharisees on this board.
anniegetyourgun wrote: “I don’t thank him for this potty-mouthed tripe.”
I posted a warning that the content was sexually explicit — as it must be in any adult discussion of the issues. If you proceeded to read the content after the warning, you self-selected yourself as an adult.
gondramB quoted me: “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.” then commented: “I think positions like this along with claiming there are not very many homosexuals or bisexuals undercut the debate. Claiming they don’t exist or are rare just makes to person making the argument less believable, whatever else they are saying.”
You’re attacking a straw man. I wrote that the behavior called “homosexuality” was not a valid biological description because the human species is not apart from the rest of mammals and primates in requiring paired gametes to continue existing. I didn’t attempt to trivialize the number of people engaging in non-sexual practices which have been misdefined as sexual. Though a minority, they are politically potent in the extreme.
Mr. Schulman,
While I appreciate the logical coherence of your argument, I wish to make a suggestion to you.
Read Genesis chapter 19 carefully and compare it to the current situation. There is something about the “andromen” that exceeds a simple desire to live an “alternative lifestyle”.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019%20;&version=47;
PetroniusMaximus wrote: “Read Genesis chapter 19 carefully and compare it to the current situation. There is something about the “andromen” that exceeds a simple desire to live an ‘alternative lifestyle.’”
Since Genesis is my favorite book of the Bible, I’ve re-read it many times.
The problem Lot was having is not that the Sodomites were andromen. If that was his problem he would have offered them young males, rather than his daughter, to get them to leave the angels alone. That he offered his daughter is scriptural proof that the crime of sodomy is not same-sex pairing but rape.
However, when you demand I approve of you, when you use force to intimidate those who disagree with you, when you use the legal system by stealth to create the world you desire and erase the one that has existed for thousands of years, and do the same with the way my country has existed for two hundred thirty plus, when you use the legal system to force the reeducation of my children to embrace ideas I find abhorrent, and when your plan is to actively recruit them no matter how you lie about doing so, I have to say, "enough!" It is enough that I, by the Grace of God, tolerate these actions; will not stand down and let them overcome my culture or my country.
The very people who want me to be ever more "tolerant" are the people sending death threats to the churches who fully and legally got a majority of Californians to vote for what they saw as right. And if the shoe were on the other foot, these threatening people would be called bigots and worse.
Annie's behavior is much more readily likened to that of Jesus or one of the apostles than a Pharisee.
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