[Peace-discuss] Re: petition period has begun for next year's D and R primaries

[John W.]

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 12:39 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:

So if "measures that would tend to contain and extinguish homosexuality
> rather
> than encourage it" are proposed, presumably as laws, they should be
> considered
> publicly and debated.  We should do the same regarding, e.g., drug-taking,
> war-mongering, or capitalist acts among consenting adults -- all three of
> which
> I would generally oppose but not want to ban as crimes.


These issues have been considered publicly and debated ad infinitum and ad
nauseam.  It is, in fact, these "lifestyle" issues - homosexuality,
abortion, gun ownership, to name three - that arouse such intense passions
in the polity and siphon off energy from discussion of more critical and
universal issues such as war, the economy, and health care.  They are wedge
issues, divisive issues upon which there will never be anything like
agreement, and which politicians and the corporations that own them exploit
to divide and conquer.




> John W. wrote:
>
>
>> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 12:06 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu<mailto:
>> galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
>>
>> Amongst those for whom identity politics have replaced class politics --
>> i.e., diversity (politics as etiquette) is all the more tenaciously
>> insisted
>> upon as a substitute for economic equality as a real political goal --
>> voicing such opinions about homosexuality becomes a "hate crime," the
>> worst delict in the liberal decalogue.
>>
>> American society today seems to have a Victorian prudishness about the
>> actual
>>  consideration of sexual morality, which is quite different from
>> relegating
>> the matter to the rather minor importance it deserves.
>>
>> But as a political matter we attribute far too much importance to it,
>> ignoring e.g. the wisdom of Gore Vidal from long ago,
>>
>> "Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than
>> there
>> is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives
>> describing
>>  sexual acts, not people ... The reason no one has yet been able to come
>> up
>> with a good word to describe the homosexualist (sometimes known as gay,
>> fag,
>> queer, etc.) is because he does not exist. The human race is divided into
>> male and female. Many human beings enjoy sexual relations with their own
>> sex,
>>  many don't; many respond to both. This plurality is the fact of our
>> nature
>> and not worth fretting about."  --"Sex Is Politics" (1979)
>>
>>
>>
>> Except that Wayne, and others like him, do not believe that sexual
>> plurality
>> is a "fact of our nature".  Wayne  believes - as I once did - that
>> homosexuality is a human choice and an abomination to God, and further
>> that
>> society should "contain and extinguish" homosexuality or homosexual acts,
>> as
>> he states below.  With Wayne it's not a private matter between consenting
>> adults and their God.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>>
>>
>> It's not clear to me what sort of standards for etiquette and language
>> exist for blogs and the internet.
>>
>> Certainly the FCC ban on Carlin's "7 Words" doesnt apply, and one probably
>> can't write for the Rolling Stone or Wonkette without being well-versed in
>> punctuating ones remarks with a profusion of explicit calumnious metaphoric.
>>
>> What bothers me most is the hypocrisy implicit in calling the expressed
>> admonitions of a group "homophobic", "wacko", and "hate-mongering".   Some
>> of
>>  the so-called left liberals are the most likely to engage in intensely
>> disparaging and often obscene remarks about those who oppose their
>> immorality.  Isn't it "hate-mongering" to call someone a "hate-monger"?
>> Isn't
>> it Wack to call someone a wacko?
>>
>> If I lived in Ms. Pulido's district, I would be likely to vote for her,
>> knowing that she understands the dangers of homosexuality and is therefore
>> more likely to favour measures that would tend to contain and extinguish
>> homosexuality rather than encourage it.
>>
>> I would guess that those who engage in homosexual behaviour and those who
>> actively condone and promote homosexual behaviour would have a similar
>> response to any opposition to their ideas regardless of what descriptive
>> colloquialism is employed.
>>
>
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