They think they are standing up for themselves, but they already have so much power that it just comes across as whining.
Great post, Fred!

So, what is the proper response after hearing a persecuted hegemon’s “grievance”? is there a good way to illuminate the disconnect between these incompatible beliefs? Usually, I would simply use logic, but that doesn’t seem to work for these guys.

and totally OT: but please check out this site for terror/hilarity (terrlarity?): http://www.iccm-1.org (i’m linky challenged). the group purports to help churches protect their tax-status, but it’s the intro that i want everyone on the planet to see. watch it with sound! (also, there have a tab on the side for “Warrior Brides,” which i am frankly too scared to click on.)

Amen, Fred. Please keep ‘em coming.

… this use of the term persecution wouldn’t be recognizable to first-century Christians, or to 17th-century Anabaptists, or contemporary Chinese Christians or Falun Gong adherents or Tibetan Buddhists.
As a 21st-century Anabaptist raised on the wholesome bedtime stories of The Martyr’s Mirror, the idea that the use of “Happy Holidays” as a winter solstice greeting counts as persecution has always made me cringe. Much as the comparison of President Obama’s economic policies to the Townshend Acts must rankle anyone who actually knows American history. Coincidence that both comparisons are often made by the same people?

We’ve illustrated this before with the religious practice of wearing burkhas — or, more accurately, the religious practice of requiring the women one controls to wear burkhas.
These two are profoundly not synonymous. One of them is a religious choice, the other is a religious restriction. When, in France, you are not allowed to wear burkhas in public, because any dissent threatens secular hegemony — how is that different than what we’re discussing in the post? How do you not describe that as “burkha-logic” as well?
This is an otherwise great post, but it upsets me to see this casual conflation.

@Grenadine:
also, there have a tab on the side for “Warrior Brides,” which i am frankly too scared to click on
I clicked on it. I was emboldened and empowered by the intro to the ICCM site… There’s frankly not much Xena Warrior Princess stuff there. It was an ad for some conference a month ago. Conferees were supposed to get a “free Warrior Package.” Don’t ask me what the Warrior Package was supposed to contain… a sword and a burqa?

We’ve illustrated this before with the religious practice of wearing burkhas — or, more accurately, the religious practice of requiring the women one controls to wear burkhas.
These two are profoundly not synonymous. One of them is a religious choice, the other is a religious restriction.
I don’t think he was conflating the two so much as emphasizing which one he was comparing to the matter at hand. “The religious practice of wearing burkhas” is directly analogous to not doing anything “gay,” but “the religious practice of requiring the women one controls to wear burkhas” is directly analogous to insisting that no one else be gay either, because it offends your religious sensibilities.

When I read this, I knew I had to link this ownsome mini-sermon on this very topic:
“…The story of the temptations of Christ is a familiar one. After forty days and nights of fasting, the devil came to Jesus with three temptations. The first was to turn stones into bread, the second, to throw himself off the peak of the temple and have the angels catch him, the third, to have all the kingdoms of the world. We could summarize these as temptations be comfortable, to be impressive, and to be powerful. I am inclined to believe that those are also the three most common temptations of the church. Until recent years, the American church was offered each of those and gladly accepted them…”

Rats, that’s the wrong link.
this is the right one

Wenzer, I applaud your bravery. clearly you need no warrior package – and wow, i just realized a ton of sexual connotations for that phrase. Is this yet another example of the religious right being tone-deaf with their marketing (see: 2M4M, NOM, etc)? Don’t any of them try these out with test audiences?

Addendum: France banning burkhas is also burkha-logic, if they are doing so because seeing burkhas offends their secular sensibilities. There is obviously a great deal of naked power-mongering in the background of all these cases that has nothing whatsoever to do with the ostensible issues (exposed flesh, homosexuality, subversive political statements), but we’re talking about the mindset behind the front-end issues anyway.

So, what is the proper response after hearing a persecuted hegemon’s “grievance”?
The usual response to self important blowhards everywhere: mockery and laughter.

I am soooo afraid to Google “warrior package.” It’s likely to get the same kinds of results I got once, when looking for pocketbooks and wallets, Googling “small leather goods.”
On the actual topic, we can’t stress the problem of “persecuted hegemon” often enough. A large part of the reason very few people practice Christianity in Europe anymore is that for several centuries the churches WERE the state. Admittedly, cathedrals are nicer than that typical Department of Motor Vehicles, but that doesn’t change the fact that their function was the “State Office of Religious Observance and Afterlife Preparation.” Being a division of the entities that produced two world wars seriously hurt the churches position in society and now they really don’t have any position other than operating a few living history museums. Since I am a Christian, I don’t like this state of affairs, and intensely do not want it over here. The best way to reproduce the European system is for the churches to continue teaching that Jesus didn’t give a damn about the poor but was completely obsessed with how one uses the dangly bits. Ugh.

@Karen,
Maybe the way to deal with a persecuted hegemon is to point to the modern European state churches and say, “OK, fine, take your hegemony – I’ll see you in 500 years.”
Except, of course, a PH won’t get the history, or the joke.

Except, of course, a PH won’t get the history, or the joke.
This is is no small part due to the fact that American PH’s also like to point to Europe’s “Godlessness” — except they think the Godlessness part is just because Europeans are bastards, rather than anything to do with the church itself.

Addendum: France banning burkhas is also burkha-logic, if they are doing so because seeing burkhas offends their secular sensibilities.
That’s why the phrase burkha-logic worries me. Because forcing a woman to wear a burkha because you fear the sight of her exposed flesh will drive men wild with lust, and forbidding a woman to wear it because you fear the sight of her covered flesh will drive men wild with patriarchal misogyny is the same kind of logic. The phrase may not be intended to equate wearing burkhas with that kind of control, but it can come off as if it did. When someone trying to address the real problems would focus on keeping the men who harass and assault women under control in the first instance, and doing their best to make sure women had a free choice and weren’t being forced into burkhas by abusive family patriarchs in the second.

I think that this perhaps makes the term “burkha logic” useless for public discussion, but I think it suits our purposes well enough, given that it was defined in the original post. Specifically, we are referring to burkha-wearing only insofar as it is imposed on women to protect men’s Muslim sensibilities (that is, to protect their religious freedom).
For the record, I hereby decree that for the duration of this thread, “burkha logic” will be understood to mean “thinking that your personal right to avoid seeing (metaphorically or otherwise) a given aspect of existence is more important than another’s right to freely experience said aspect (subject to a case-by-case analysis of reasonableness)”.
Is this satisfactory to all?

The best way to reproduce the European system is for the churches to continue teaching that Jesus didn’t give a damn about the poor but was completely obsessed with how one uses the dangly bits. Ugh.
Oh, I dunno, the Abrahamic religions have been making pretty good money off claiming God is obsessed with people’s dangly bits for about three thousand years. I’ve never really understood that- it makes the guy seem like a cosmic perv- but it doesn’t seem to be hurting the religious establishment too badly. (Unless they decide, like the Shakers, that one shouldn’t use the dangly bits at all, but that doesn’t seem to be a risk for the Quiverfull crowd, more’s the pity.)
Evangelicals are the fastest growing Christian sect in the U.S., Muslims are the fastest growing religion on the planet, and both groups tend on average to badly overemphasize the sanctioned use of dangly bits at the expense of charity. It would be nice if this were hurting them, but the data don’t support that conclusion. Whatever drove the collapse of European piety (WWI? Marx?), I don’t think we can attribute it to the Church’s obsession with dangly bits.

The usual response to self important blowhards everywhere: mockery and laughter.
Because it’s late, and I’m tired and free associating:
What they need is to be run over by the Hypothetical School Bus.
Yes, I’m talking about Mrs. Frizzle vs. the Rats of NOM.

What they need is to be run over by the Hypothetical School Bus.
Yes, I’m talking about Mrs. Frizzle vs. the Rats of NOM.
We’re only on page 1, and already Hapax wins the thread.

Is this yet another example of the religious right being tone-deaf with their marketing (see: 2M4M, NOM, etc)?
And don’t forget teabagging. Which wasn’t the RELIGIOUS right, just the Ron Paul Revolution and the Nobama Right, but still.

but please check out this site for terror/hilarity (terrlarity?): http://www.iccm-1.org (i’m linky challenged).
That was a great intro, to bad it was used for this.
I think the French ban on burkas could be seen as a good thing, it gives muslim women places they can literally let their hair out with the excuse it’s required. Maybe that small taste of freedom will build to either them or future generations finally saying ‘no more’.

Hashmir, I think your working definition of burkha-logic sounds just fine.
And as for the actual “burkha logic”, I’ve always wondered why (fundamentalist) Islamic men don’t simply take the easier route of hiding their own eyes with a blindfold. It gets right to the source of the problem (those weak eyes), uses a lot less fabric, and doesn’t impinge on women’s right to wear whatever they damn well please. What’s that you say? That won’t work because that’s not the REAL reason women have to wear burkhas? Well, damn.

I think the French ban on burkas could be seen as a good thing, it gives muslim women places they can literally let their hair out with the excuse it’s required. Maybe that small taste of freedom will build to either them or future generations finally saying ‘no more’.
Possible, but I doubt it. Without knowing much about French Muslims, I would guess the following factors play in:
The women themselves likely reject the inability to wear their burkhas as religious expression — when people are raised in oppressive environments, they tend to internalize and embrace it, even if it is (arguably) against their own interests. Look at Concerned Women for America or any other such group. Plus, there’s always the case of women who are both Muslim and not necessarily trapped in the patriarchy, and really do just want to wear it.
The men/families might simply stop letting women out, if they would have to go “naked.” Within the gender identity construct, this would be chivalrous.
Women who do choose to go out might be seen as whorish or rejecting their faith, voluntarily going about “naked.”
Basically, you can’t force freedom by banning not-freedom. In fact, that’s one of the reasons the Iraq “liberation” was pretty much doomed to fail in making a clean, stable democracy. They didn’t ask for it, and nobody’s going to appreciate it if you give it to them anyway.

Pesterfield, I would agree with you on the benefits of “letting their hair out” except that in both cases, the women literally have no choice. They are either required to cover up, or required not to. Having two different directives depending on your physical location is not the same as freedom, nor do I think it’s empowering for the women involved. Yes, the fact that they are walking in two different worlds should encourage them to consider which one they prefer, but I think that the better option is to allows the women themselves to make the choice, not the state or the religious authorities.

The Waking Up video is excellent and informative. I just want to know why one of the Related Videos is this. (SWF, just…weird.)

I think the French ban on burkas could be seen as a good thing, it gives muslim women places they can literally let their hair out with the excuse it’s required.
It gives controlling men an excuse to restrict how much their wives and daughters go out in public. Because if they’re not legally allowed to go out while ‘decently’ dressed, it’s a ready-made excuse to demand that they stay home. Yeah, sometimes, some women will need to go out for practical reasons, and if they want to wear something other than a burkha, but aren’t allowed to, it might offer them more freedom. But it might also be an excuse for the father to keep his daughter out of school, and off any sort of official public records.
Not to mention that it would be legally compelling some people to offend against their own religious sensibilities. Not every woman in a burkha’s doing it because someone else is making her.
Maybe that small taste of freedom will build to either them or future generations finally saying ‘no more’.
I wouldn’t call it a taste of freedom. Not wearing a burkha doesn’t automatically make someone more free (not being compelled to wear one does). And “You don’t have to dress the way your husband/the local imam think the Koran requires you to; you have to dress the way the local police/the French government think Being Secular Enough requires you to!” isn’t freedom. It’s just being controlled by a different person.
And I just saw a (slightly old) documentary about Islam that included the Turkish headscarf ban, and the many female university students who left because of it. In practical terms, I don’t think having the medical student kicked out of school for practicing her interpretation of Islam is going to make her or her daughters less radical or more free.
I think bans on burkhas and headscarves tend to sweep the problem under the rug, instead of dealing with it. Basically, governments need to find a way to interact with certain Muslim communities that provides real freedom for women (as opposed to coercion in the opposite direction), and doesn’t just hide the issues involved.

Addendum:
I should probably have said “you can’t force freedom by banning non-freedom from outside“. You have to ban non-freedom to keep freedom, which is why laws that violate, say, the First Amendment are illegal — otherwise, we’d end up with a law that says you don’t have free speech, and it never comes back. But you can’t impose freedom on other people by making their form of freedom-violation illegal; if they don’t come up with it themselves, it won’t work.

re France and headscarves/burkhas etc what you end up with is female rights becoming even more restricted. You’re not allowed to wear a headscarf to the lycee? Then that means you don’t go to school.

I think the French ban on burkas could be seen as a good thing, it gives muslim women places they can literally let their hair out with the excuse it’s required. Maybe that small taste of freedom will build to either them or future generations finally saying ‘no more’.
I’m not sure that going between “Wear a burka because we tell you” to “Don’t wear a burka because we tell you” actually represents much of an improvement for the women, considering that in either case it’s about someone else’s will being imposed on them, ostensibly for their own good.
And while you argue that this is a small taste of “freedom,” the ability to freely express their religion by wearing a burkha is also a form of freedom that they are being denied under this system.
Give the women some credit… I’m sure some wear the burkha because of societal or cultural or familial or all of the above pressures, but that’s not to say that some, for whatever reason, believe that they should wear the burkha, want to wear it, and don’t feel oppressed by it. To treat them all as victims that we must “free” by enforcing laws that restrict their actions is incredibly patronizing.

I just want to know why one of the Related Videos is this.
Well that was strange. Is it cool anime youtube stuff time now? (Note: Watch in HQ, maximized, and stand back from the screen a bit.)

…The hell? As I was saying, is it cool anime stuff time now?

Basically, governments need to find a way to interact with certain Muslim communities that provides real freedom for women (as opposed to coercion in the opposite direction), and doesn’t just hide the issues involved.
And how do you do that, how do you convince someone they’re being oppressed without oppressing them yourself?

And how do you do that, how do you convince someone they’re being oppressed without oppressing them yourself?
First, don’t used force or coercion on anyone who’s not using it themselves. Use the police on a man who beats his daughter for not wearing a burkha, not the girl who goes to school in one.
Second, look for people in the community who want freedom, and do your best to connect with them about issues of cultural respectability, and what they consider to be freedom. You don’t have to anything anyone from the culture says as law, but you should be at least listening to cultural voices.
For example, there’s a group called Sisters in Islam, that organizes on behalf of Muslim women in Malaysia. They’re working on issues of Islamic feminism, and how Islam, in their eyes, can be seen as consistent with feminism and freedom. Listen to them, and you learn it’s far more productive to support their work on altering divorce law as practiced by Sharia courts than it is to try to strip them of their headscarves.
Third, having connected with different people in the culture, and having heard from a range of voices, try to keep the rules as focused on fundamental freedoms and free of cultural bias as possible. And that’s not covered by “If you’re Muslim, you’re compelled to dress in ways that you may or may not consider indecent exposure. If you’re Christian, you can’t wear ostentatiously large religious symbols.”
Obviously, it’s not simple or easy. It’s a lot of time and effort, and there will be mistakes. But it’s worth the trouble to engage and listen and try to avoid mistakes and correct them when they do happen. Principles of fundamental freedom look more convincing if they’re used to ban things because they look worryingly foreign.

I think the French ban on burkas could be seen as a good thing, it gives muslim women places they can literally let their hair out with the excuse it’s required.
I vehemently disagree with this. An acquaintance of mine (white, American, and female) is a convert to Islam. She covers her head as a symbol of her dedication to her faith. She also identifies as a feminist. These views are not inherently contradictory, and government intervention on any level would violate her rights to have these beliefs. Obviously, a young woman born to a strict and traditional Muslim family faces much different hurdles to the kind of mental freedom my friend enjoys, but your proposal for “liberating” those women would violate my friend’s freedom (and others like her) to act as she will.
Incidentally, French Muslim women could learn a lesson from her: some days she’ll just wear hoodies instead of a head scarf.

And how do you do that, how do you convince someone they’re being oppressed without oppressing them yourself?
I’m not certain that you can. You can tell them straight-up that they’re being oppressed, or subtly show them others like them not being oppressed (usually via media and entertainment), or forcibly take out their oppressors (or the oppressive construct itself). But all of these things must compete with the fact that the people you’re trying to reach live in the oppression you oppose, and have lived in it all of their lives.
If you try to just tell someone that they’re being oppressed, you are also telling them that everything they think is wrong, and that everything that is supposedly oppressing them is wrong. For the Muslim women in question, this would be tantamount to saying, “Ok, your husband, family, and community are all wrong. The things that you think are virtues are bad, and you should do things more like me, a [Westerner/Christian/atheist] who has never been a part of your culture and prays to a different/no god. You in?”
If you wait for media to show them, you still have to contend with their culture telling them that your ideas are wrong and founded on bad concepts. Who are they going to believe, the “others” or everyone and everything around them?
And if you just take out the perceived root of the problem, you get all of the resentment of telling them combined with the fact that you have taken it upon yourself to be the arbiter of justice.
The answer, I think, lies in point 2. After a while, cultural bleedover provokes free thinking — the internet is tremendous in this regard. The only problem is that you still can’t force it.
(And if this is horribly late, I’m sorry. I got distracted right before I posted this.)
(Also, almost italicized the whole thread. Whew)

Folks, try to keep in mind that the burqa is a different garment from the chador. The modern chador, as I understand, envelops the entire body but provides quite a bit of movement and air circulation; the burqa is difficult both to move and to breathe in. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a woman wearing the burqa voluntarily, but I’ve yet to hear of one.
Last I heard, the French government frowns on all forms of hijab dress. The Muslim girls I went to high school with who liked to wear their headscarves with sweatshirts and loose-fit jeans would have been sent home from a French lycee.

I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a woman wearing the burqa voluntarily, but I’ve yet to hear of one.
Eh, I think it’s largely irrelevant anyway. Most of us are probably operating under the assumption that most “liberated” women wouldn’t want to wear anything all covery-uppy, but the restriction on any kind of free speech is the real issue.

There seems to be some ambiguity in this thread about the French ban on burqas. It’s not a nationwide ban; it only applies to public schools. Now, I still think that’s silly, but it’s not as silly as banning burqas in all of France would be (which some of you seem to think is the case).
The BBC summed up various European countries’ positions on burqas back in 2006: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5414098.stm . Hopefully things haven’t changed significantly since then, because I couldn’t find anything more recent.

That’s what I get for assuming my link would be automatically URL’d.

Thank you for this article, Fred. I’ve been trying to find an explanation for the persecuted hegemon since I became aware of its existence, and this is by far the best-reasoned explanation that I have seen. (Not to mention the best term, as “persecuted hegemon” perfectly encapsulates both the belief and its contradictions.)

@ Grenadine: My first thought upon watching that intro was, “Has Paul Verhoeven found religion now?

Posted by Grenadine: and totally OT: but please check out this site for terror/hilarity (terrlarity?): http://www.iccm-1.org (…) it’s the intro that i want everyone on the planet to see. watch it with sound!
That’s the kind of over-production that one generally sees in under-budgeted-but-oh-so-pretentious sci-fi movies…and Apocalypse movies. (i.e.The Omega Code.)
Posted by hapax: “The usual response to self important blowhards everywhere: mockery and laughter.”
Because it’s late, and I’m tired and free associating:
What they need is to be run over by the Hypothetical School Bus.
Yes, I’m talking about Mrs. Frizzle vs. the Rats of NOM.
*hands hapax a cookie and a shiny new internet and sends her off to bed to the strains of “Flying Dreams Lullaby”*

@Hashmir, @ako: Thank you, I agree with both of you entirely! I both understand what Fred is trying to do — what Hashmir spelled out — and agree with ako that it needs to be further clarified for reasons of basic religious tolerance.
@Stephen: I actually do know that, but frankly, that doesn’t make it much better for me. As ako says, people who are not allowed to wear a headscarf in school do not go to school.
@the substance of this post: Yeah, I’m going to start using “persecuted hegemon” now, too.

W/r/t conservative Muslim dress in particular, and PHism in general, I frequently think of the Amish as an example: They live very visibly different lives among the “English” without too much friction. No Amishman demands that every non-Amish woman who enters his field of vision wear a bonnet and a plain dress, but presumably they’d take justifiable umbrage if the government tried to outlaw buggies.
That isn’t to say that it’s clear-cut, either – in most of the U.S. the Amish enjoy exemptions from child labor laws, and they maintain separate schools that only run through the eighth grade. Presumably people would get very uncomfortable if this were the case for conservative Muslims. As a mainstream-ish liberal, I’m certainly uncomfortable with conservative Christian homeschooling and Liberty University – and I get extremely uncomfortable when conservative Christian pharmacists start refusing to provide medications to which they object.

I think people are missing the difference between someone doing something (like, for instance, covering one’s hair) because their family says so, their society says so, or their God says so. People have done much crazier things than wearing an article of clothing because they believe that’s what God wants. They spend hours every weekend worshiping when they could be sleeping in. They fast on particular days. They don’t eat certain foods. They go through ceremonies that seem bizarre unless you understand the context. Some few drastically change their lifestyles — embracing lives of poverty or preaching, or abstaining from sex and romantic relationships.
Of course, in a societal context Muslim women wearing hijabs or burqas is more complex than that. Because it’s only required of women, it can become an excuse for sexism. But I’ve also heard of Muslim women saying they liked dressing in a modest way because it means they get to take their physical attractiveness out of the picture — it’s hard to objectify someone when you can’t see their body under a scarf and shape-concealing coat. The reasons a woman would choose to dress in a certain way are many, varied and complex, and can’t be summed up in a few simple lines assuming they’re oppressed victims and nothing else.
This is an article written on the subject, from an excellent blog about Muslim women in the media: http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2009/03/04/how-to-write-about-muslims-for-real/
(Sorry for not linking, but with all the trouble people have been having, I thought I’d just let people copy and paste.)

it’s hard to objectify someone when you can’t see their body under a scarf and shape-concealing coat.
It really isn’t, in part because that word doesn’t have an inherent sexual meaning.

As Stephen has pointed out, I’d like a cite on the “French ban burqas in public” thing, because public schools aren’t “in public”.
That said, I don’t believe banning headscarves in public schools is “secular oppression” or something like that. The secularity (?) of schools is the official reason, and they made a big deal of going “this would also forbid very visible crosses and stuff”, but I think the real reason for the ban is an unholy alliance between anti-islam sentiment and feminism.
Incidentally, French Muslim women could learn a lesson from her: some days she’ll just wear hoodies instead of a head scarf.
Has she tried that in a French school ? Does she look Mediterranean ? Because although I haven’t experienced any of this in school, around the time the debate was raging I noticed my (white, nonreligious) cousin tying her hair in some kind of headscarf (not religious, just a scarf. I think it was fashionable then), and I had to wonder whether she’d be asked to leave the school. And whether this would be different if she had brown skin.
Gah, the whole think just makes me angry. But making it about secularism seems as stupid to me whether you’re a proponent or an opponent.

The headscarves don’t strike me as a problem; we allow Sikhs, for example, to wear turbans and the like, and in the past we allowed bonnets and other headware for both men and women that one was more or less supposed to wear in polite company. I don’t particularly like it, since I love the look of women’s hair, but it’s their choice.
The burkha, on the other hand, has problems aside from the religious issue. For one thing, it’s a security risk; the burkha masks the general appearance of the person, making it harder for other people to identify them later one if, for example, a crime occurs. There have also been cases of men trying to use the burkha to disguise themselves; the “Red Mosque” radical Pakistani preacher that was just released in Pakistan was caught doing exactly that in an attempt to escape a government assault on the Red Mosque two years back.
Second, it’s a health risk. They’ve had a number of cases where women who more or less always wore the burkha outside of the house suffered from rickets and other illnesses due to Vitamin D deficiency.
Now, back to Fred’s post -
This is a good point, Fred, although I think it is more likely that it dates back to the foundation of fundamentalist Christianity in the 1920s, and exacerbated by the Cold War. Fundamentalist Christianity, was, if you remember, a reaction to the perceived onslaught of modernism, secularism, evolution, etc. They saw themselves as a persecuted minority, and that mentality has continued to exist in that particular branch of faith even as their responses have changed (they used to more or less self-segregate into their own schools and churches). The Cold War, where the US more or less defined itself as the Savior of Light, Religion, the Free Market, and All Good Things against the diabolical, church-destroying Commies, helped re-inforce that mentality. Just read “Suburban Warriors”, an excellent book about the rise of modern conservatism in Orange County, California, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

That isn’t to say that it’s clear-cut, either – in most of the U.S. the Amish enjoy exemptions from child labor laws, and they maintain separate schools that only run through the eighth grade.
Who knows how much potential might have been lost because of that. An Einstein or Bill Gates reduced to farm work.
it’s hard to objectify someone when you can’t see their body under a scarf and shape-concealing coat.
Then again it could be easier to objectify them, as they seem like an object instead of a person. Depending on the amount of covering.

Who knows how much potential might have been lost because of that. An Einstein or Bill Gates reduced to farm work.
And of course there’s the other side of the spectrum, “Who knows how much evil has been foiled because of that. A Hitler or Charles Manson reduced to farm work.”

“Then again it could be easier to objectify them, as they seem like an object instead of a person. Depending on the amount of covering.”
pesterfield, are you saying that’s *your* perception of a woman in a scarf and a shape-concealing coat? That she seems to you like an object and not a person?

When, in France, you are not allowed to wear burkhas in public, because any dissent threatens secular hegemony
Wrong. Wrong, wrongity wrong wrong wrong wrong!

Just a scarf with a visible face would certainly seem like a person.
Those full covering with just a grill in front or only eyes showing, could easily be mistaken for an object until she moved or spoke.
That’s why I said depending on covering.
Probable not expressing it well.

it might also be an excuse for the father to keep his daughter out of school, and off any sort of official public records.
I think this would also be illegal – schooling your children is compulsory in France, like most other European countries.

it might also be an excuse for the father to keep his daughter out of school, and off any sort of official public records.
I think this would also be illegal – schooling your children is compulsory in France, like most other European countries.

He could send her to an islamist school, however.

There seems to be some ambiguity in this thread about the French ban on burqas. It’s not a nationwide ban; it only applies to public schools.
Thank you; I was wondering when someone would point that out. A ban on burqas in schools is not the same thing as a ban on burqas in general; it’s about compliance with uniform regulations. Such bans aren’t specific to Muslims; in Britain, for instance, we had a case of a schoolgirl kicking up a big fuss because she wasn’t allowed to wear a Christian chastity ring. (The school would have allowed her to wear a Christian lapel badge, but a ring violated the jewellery policy. Evidently this wasn’t good enough for her. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286395,00.html)
I have mixed feelings about banning burqas in public schools, but let’s at least be accurate about it. This whole ‘no burqas in public’ thing is the same kind of half-truth that the video Fred linked to is talking about. Let’s not be those people.

What is this word “islamist”? I only began hearing it fairly recently, and the main function it seems to me to serve is turn turn Islam into an -ism. Since -isms generally have negative connotations, and aren’t something most people want to be associated with, it seems to me to be very distancing, very othering. And I’ve often seen it, as it is here, printed with a lowercase i. We capitalize the names of religions we, as a culture, count as valid (Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, but you’re much more likely to see voodoo than Voudoun). Does this lowercasing, then, detract from the legitimacy of it? Islam may have a capital, but these islamists don’t really belong to it?
So how about it, Caravelle? These are just my impressions, my feelings on it. I’ve never actually heard a definition for “islamist” — can you provide me with one? Why do you use this word instead of, say, Muslim? Or even Fundamentalist (oo, there’s that suffix again) Muslim? Really, seriously, I’d love to hear. Because I do not understand.

NOM NOM NOM
(Sorry. Had to.)

@ MadGasxtronomer
As far as I understand the actual definition of ‘Islamism’ (with or without a capital letter), it means Islam as a political movement, rather than just a religion. It’s generally used in the context of the Middle East. In the immediate post-war period, you had secular political movements such as Ba’athism (socialist economics/ pan-Arab nationalism), communism, corrupt old royal families, a few (but sadly not many) liberal democratic movements.
With the failure to achieve any sort of Arab unity, the failure of centrally-planned economies, the collapse of the Soviet Union etc., new political movements arose, focusing on religious issues. These include basing law on some variant of Sharia, making Islam the official state religion etc.
The term is used rather carelessly as a derogatory term – Saddam Hussein was described as an ‘Islamist’ by some, depsite Iraq being a Ba’athist state.

I’ve also heard of Muslim women saying they liked dressing in a modest way because it means they get to take their physical attractiveness out of the picture — it’s hard to objectify someone when you can’t see their body under a scarf and shape-concealing coat.
You might think so, but I’d refer you to The Islamist by Ed Husain. He describes how he and his friends at university in Britain found that their desire for their female co-religionists was actually increased by their donning of the veil:
If the hijab was supposed to make a woman less attractive, then it clearly had not worked. Several society members commented to me that the women looked extraordinarily feminine and more desirable in the scarf than without. I shared that sentiment, but dared not express it.
He also describes how, in veil-enforcing Saudi Arabia, he was seriously frightened somebody would kidnap and rape his wife, as sexual crimes were a serious problem there:
Segregation of the sexes, made worse by the veil, had spawned a culture of pent-up sexual frustration which expressed itself in the unhealthiest ways. Millions of young Saudis were not allowed to let their sexuality blossom naturally and, as a result, could only see the opposite gender as sex objects.
Marjane Satrapi also points out in Persepolis that it’s perfectly possible to know the shape of a woman’s body under those concealing clothes once you have your eye in – which, after a while, everybody does. So concealing clothes don’t even make it impossible to tell how attractive you are. A motivated young man can presumably get very interested in working it out.
If you’re read Ali Davis’s Porn Clerk diaries, she makes the following comment:
I think a woman in a porn movie, as a rule, is taken as a general woman rather than a specific woman. She is there to stand in for general womanness.
My speculation is that if every woman you see has her face concealed, it’s actually easier to objectify her, because you can’t see the part that expresses emotions. All you see is a body under drapes that tantalise your imagination: she stands in for general womanness. As a result, to a sexually frustrated young man, there’s a risk that every woman looks pornographic – in a specific, modesty-fetishising way, but still enough that in a culture like Saudi Arabia she’s in serious danger if she’s unprotected.
There are always exceptions, but the average heterosexual man is going to feel lustful towards women however they’re dressed. That’s what makes him a heterosexual man. If all that’s on offer is veiled women, he’ll lust after them; he might even prefer them. I think it’s worth noting that it’s a woman who made that argument; I find it hard to believe an honest man would make it. Of course, a woman’s free to dress that way if she chooses, but if she thinks it’ll keep male eyes off her, I personally think she’s being a bit unrealistic.
People are sexual, and rate each others’ attractiveness no matter how they’re dressed. Our libidos are far more adaptable than our outfits.

Thank you, Sean W.
Would that make, say, a Persecuted Hegemon a Christianist?

MadGastronomer : So how about it, Caravelle? These are just my impressions, my feelings on it. I’ve never actually heard a definition for “islamist” — can you provide me with one? Why do you use this word instead of, say, Muslim? Or even Fundamentalist (oo, there’s that suffix again) Muslim? Really, seriously, I’d love to hear. Because I do not understand.
Well, my point was precisely to make a difference between Islam and Islamic, words that pertain to the religion, and the political/religious movement that basically involves imposing Sharia law and Islam on others (or on each other, such as by forcing Islamic women to wear a headscarf instead of letting them make their own choice).
I’m pretty sure “Christianist” is used in the same way for Christians, although it’s a lot less common.
For the schools I did hesitate between “Islamic” and “Islamist”, after all both would allow headscarves. I chose the second word because it was the option that expressed the problem with banning headscarves : this could encourage the parents to send the child to a school that would brainwash them into the ideology that the people who oppose headscarves on feminist grounds are against in the first place. Whereas “Islamic” school, to me, doesn’t have such connotations. I mean, Catholic schools can be totally benign. I don’t know how Islamic schools actually work and what different kinds there are so that distinction could be totally wrong of course…

How threatened some people are by other people’s happiness.

“Since I am a Christian, I don’t like this state of affairs, and intensely do not want it over here.”
I dunno, speaking as a British atheist, I kind of like it. Not, I hasten to add, in a “ha, those Christians, the fewer of them there are the better!” sort of way. But I like variety, and the idea of there being a single dominant belief system across the whole country makes my skin crawl just slightly.
Plus, if there’s one dominant belief system that the the majority of people are members of, there’s the risk that that belief system will be socially normalised; ie, that people will come to think this belief system is “normal” and any other one is “abnormal”. And has been discussed on another thread, those can be very value-ridden words.
Social disapproval can be an immensely powerful force, and there would be a risk, when a belief system is socially normalised, of people staying in it despite discomfort with it, just because they didn’t want to be thought of as “weird”. I wouldn’t want that to happen: your belief system is one of the most important things in your life, it affects your behaviour and your feelings in so many ways, it shouldn’t be chosen as a result of social pressure.
And, again, it’s not like the Christian church in Europe is a tattered remanant. It’s a powerful group in the mainstream of society; it just happens not to be in the overwhelming majority any more.

This Wikipedia page seems to explain the word pretty well, including the controversy around it.
You might think so, but I’d refer you to The Islamist by Ed Husain. He describes how he and his friends at university in Britain found that their desire for their female co-religionists was actually increased by their donning of the veil:
The explanation I saw for that (somewhere…) is that when something is hidden you can basically imagine it as perfect, while if it’s seen you can’t. Hence people being reliably disappointed by nudist beaches. And I think there’s a kind of historical Western fantasy with the veiled Oriental dancing girl that’s definitely linked to that… I certainly remember a movie (with Viggo Mortensen riding a mustang in an Arabian horse race, can’t remember the title) where the female love interest was mysterious and alluring until she took off her veil and… hey, an ordinary woman. Bah.
That said, I don’t get that feeling with burqas, where you see nothing. But I’m pretty sure people who are around them all the time would disagree.

I think this would also be illegal – schooling your children is compulsory in France, like most other European countries.
True, but it’s not as immediately visible as a girl turning up in hijab when it’s illegal. It’s easier to get away with giving false information that keeps your daughter out of school (“She’s staying with relatives back home”, etc.) or simply keep her off public records, than it is to have her in school wearing hijab. Obviously, you can still get caught, but it’s possible to get away with keeping your kid out of school illegally, when it isn’t really possible to do that with her wearing hijab in school.

I certainly remember a movie (with Viggo Mortensen riding a mustang in an Arabian horse race, can’t remember the title)

Hidalgio?

True, but it’s not as immediately visible as a girl turning up in hijab when it’s illegal. It’s easier to get away with giving false information that keeps your daughter out of school (“She’s staying with relatives back home”, etc.) or simply keep her off public records, than it is to have her in school wearing hijab. Obviously, you can still get caught, but it’s possible to get away with keeping your kid out of school illegally, when it isn’t really possible to do that with her wearing hijab in school.

Or, there are private, Islamic schools where a veil is encouraged that they could go to…

I’ve never actually heard a definition for “islamist” — can you provide me with one? Why do you use this word instead of, say, Muslim? Or even Fundamentalist (oo, there’s that suffix again) Muslim? Really, seriously, I’d love to hear. Because I do not understand.

Islamism is an anti-Western political movement with fundamentalist and pan-Islamic undertones (which is why it’s often confused with run-of-the-mill fundamentalism).
Concerning the hijab, it originally only applied to the wives of Muhammad, who wore it as a badge of respect; this apparently went the way of “do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

The explanation I saw for that (somewhere…) is that when something is hidden you can basically imagine it as perfect, while if it’s seen you can’t. Hence people being reliably disappointed by nudist beaches.

That reminds me of a Super Bowl ad I once saw: First scene on an American beach, where two 18-to-30-year old men are ogling an attractive woman and one of them says, “You know, in Spain women don’t wear swimsuits. It’s like a law or something.” Cut to a Spanish beach, where two 18-to-30-year old men are watching in abject horror as a 40-something, 300-pound woman takes her top off and one of them says, “You know, in America women have to wear swimsuits. It’s like a law or something.”

@MadGastronomer

Would that make, say, a Persecuted Hegemon a Christianist?

Andrew Sullivan did a lot of writing during the Bush years talking about Christians vs Christianists.

The explanation I saw for that (somewhere…) is that when something is hidden you can basically imagine it as perfect, while if it’s seen you can’t.
I’d speculate as well that if you’ve seen something, your curiosity is fulfilled. Satrapi suggests you can take a pretty good guess about a concealed body, but it’s still just your own thoughts doing all the work – which is to say, if you’re curious, the concealment encourages you to obsess. I’d say this is true based on my own experience: an attractive guy with his shirt off can be difficult to keep my eyes off, but his chest doesn’t stay in my imagination as much as, say, the hint of nice pecs under a T-shirt. The shirtless guy, I know what his chest is like, but the dressed guy, I have to keep wondering. The fact that it’s semi-concealed means your mind get to thinking about it; being tantalised keeps you interested more than being satisfied.
That said, I don’t get that feeling with burqas, where you see nothing. But I’m pretty sure people who are around them all the time would disagree.

You’re probably right. I have the strong suspicion that, particularly in a country where every woman has to dress like that, you develop eyes for them. Plus there is the fact that modesty can be a fetish in its own right. I’m thinking of Mary Wollstoncraft’s dissection of Rousseau:
When he should have reasoned he became impassioned, and reflection inflamed his imagination instead of enlightening his understanding. Even his virtues also led him farther astray; for, born with a warm constitution and lively fancy, nature carried him toward the other sex with such eager fondness, that he soon became lascivious. Had he given way to these desires, the fire would have extinguished itself in a natural manner; but virtue, and a romantic kind of delicacy, made him practise self-denial; yet, when fear, delicacy, or virtue, restrained him, he debauched his imagination, and reflecting on the sensations to which fancy gave force, he traced them in the most glowing colours, and sunk them deep into his soul…
[She quotes him describing the ideal girl]: ‘Her dress is extremely modest in appearance, and yet very coquettish in fact: she does not make a display of her charms, she conceals them; but in concealing them, she knows how to affect your imagination. Every one who sees her will say, There is a modest and discreet girl; but while you are near her, your eyes and affections wander all over her person, so that you cannot withdraw them; and you would conclude, that every part of her dress, simple as it seems, was only put in its proper order to be taken to pieces by the imagination.’ Is this modesty? Is this a preparation for immortality?
I wouldn’t presume to say this was the only motivation behind burqas, or the only reaction men have towards them, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that concealing clothes can be experienced as highly provocative to the right imagination. Assuming that the provocativeness of a outfit is directly proportional to how revealing it is, and applying that rule indiscriminately to everyone, is far too simplistic.
My take is pretty much that a man looking at a woman is either going to objectify her or her isn’t, and the way she dresses will exert very little control over that, because it’s about what kind of man he is. If he respects women, he’ll try to control his eyes; if he doesn’t, then your outfit won’t change that. Nothing we do will control the thoughts and desires of others; the only thing to do is relocate responsibility for desires in the desirer.
Once you believe that your faith requires cultural dominance, and that it deserves it, then any threat to that dominance — even just the unwelcome reminder of the existence of alternative points of view — is perceived as a threat, as a kind of persecution.
I just wanted to say thanks for expressing this important thought so succinctly.

Cut to a Spanish beach, where two 18-to-30-year old men are watching in abject horror as a 40-something, 300-pound woman takes her top off and one of them says, “You know, in America women have to wear swimsuits. It’s like a law or something.”
You mean – they have to look at something they don’t like? Oh, the persecution!
That’s not a very nice joke.

In my admittedly limited experience, making women wear “modest” clothing does nothing to stop women from arranging their appearance to attract men. In hallways and at bus stops, the Muslim women I see often wear beautifully cut clothes in attractive fabrics, and sport makeup and manicure jobs that probably take over 30 minutes each morning. These “modestly dressed” women obviously take at least three times as much care every morning on looking attractive for men than I do, as a woman who wears t-shirts and pants and no makeup.

That’s not a very nice joke.

It was a beer commercial (I think), so that goes without saying.

Well, it’s a Super Bowl ad. They’re pretty much designed to appeal to…well, the kind of man who thinks that way. Ironically enough, this is generally the kind of man who *also* thinks he can wear a Speedo in public, and who couldn’t actually be more wrong under known laws of physics.

Grenadine: So, what is the proper response after hearing a persecuted hegemon’s “grievance”? is there a good way to illuminate the disconnect between these incompatible beliefs? Usually, I would simply use logic, but that doesn’t seem to work for these guys.
My philosphy prof once stated that a logical discussion about values need both sides to agree on the core values of equality and reciprocity.
Which is not given here. Any one who puts their own right to a thing about everyone elses, who would, if debated into a corner, proudly admit that their convenience is worth more than other people’s lives or freedom cannot be argued with, only about.
Of course, if you get them to admit that the problem is with *them* — they are weak and unable to look at a woman’s ankle without having thoughts that make them impure in their religion, you can suggest they wear a blindfold or take some other action to deal with their problem where it originates. (Origen comes to mind.)

You mean – they have to look at something they don’t like? Oh, the persecution!
And yet they don’t try to pass the laws in question. I think NOM could learn a thing or two from these guys.
(Hehe. “NOM.” Hee hee hee.)

Emma: When, in France, you are not allowed to wear burkhas in public, because any dissent threatens secular hegemony — how is that different than what we’re discussing in the post?
ISTR that the reason why France is insisting on a very strong separation of church and state is that they nearly or really lost their republic to the Catholic church more than once and it was widely agreed that they’d rather have a republic than a monarchy.

@ Karen:
The European system, however, gives you the amount of ingrained cultural christianity that some of the christianists in the US seem to dream of. Head of state not allowed to marry outside the state religion, a crucifix in every classroom, that sort of stuff.
However, it also leads to the paradoxical situation that (over the crucifix/classroom matter) that the atheist who wants it out argues that it’s a religious symbol, while the catholic majority party argues that it’s a traditional decorative item, like a garden gnome. (Comparision by them, not by me.)

ako: forbidding a woman to wear it because you fear the sight of her covered flesh will drive men wild with patriarchal misogyny
Usually, the case is made more on the (equally problematic) assumption that a woman needs protection from being *made* to wear a burkha by her family.

Sorry, html fail.
Is it gone?

inge @ 9:26: yes, i think that’s what i was trying to get at – does anyone has a method for getting folks to agree on the basic values of what’s under dicussion. because i find that i often wade into an argument and realize halfway through that the person i’m arguing with is using words like choice/freedom/destiny (to name a few) in a completely different way than i undertand them, often the point of 180 degreeism. please note that I don’t necessary mean this as an i’m right/you’re wrong type of thing; just that it’s very easy to misinterpret what someone is saying. So is there a polite, respectful way of opening a discussion on sticky topics without getting one’s interlocutor all defensive-like?

Cody: And of course there’s the other side of the spectrum, “Who knows how much evil has been foiled because of that. A Hitler or Charles Manson reduced to farm work.”
You need a lot less education to get people killed than you need to advance science and technology. An failed kitsch painter can get millions murdered, but without going to uni your chances of discovering a cure for cancer a pretty low.

You make an interesting (and very relevant) point with the dissonance between Belief A and Belief Not-A, but it’s even more nuanced than that and involves considerable equivocation.
There is a crucial distinction between the fact that the USA is constitutionally a secular state, with no *official* state religion, and the fact that the broad range of individual doctrines and denominations, as well as the post-denominational sects, include a majority of its citizens in one way or another, a distinction that’s usually (and often very creatively) glossed over in this discussion.
There is another crucial distinction between the fact that that “Christian” majority is in fact made up of a broad range of different (and often mutually contradictory and often contentious) belief systems and the fact that the people who hold these particular beliefs are in fact a very small (if extremely vocal) minority who are covertly or even overtly hostile to most of the beliefs held by the remaining majority, however convenient it might be to claim all of them as fellow travellers solely to persuade their opposition that resistance is futile. This is also almost always glossed over in the discussion, probably one of the most important examples of equivocation in the whole discussion, and it shouldn’t be ignored.
The people you’re talking about here have poisoned logic to the point where they actually do not see either of these distinctions, or if they do, they don’t dare admit it. They believe that as part of the “Christian majority”, of which they themselves are only a tiny fraction, they hold a position of influence over a “Christian nation”, and yet as part of that tiny minority that they consider “real Christians” and not the “lukewarm Christians” they have nothing but contempt for, they consider themselves persecuted at every turn. And they either honestly see no dissonance in that, or they recognize that admitting to perceiving it would cost them every bit of power and influence they hold in the movement, in which they have a considerable emotional and often financial investment. It would take multiple lifetimes to deconstruct that kind of dissonant mess, even if they were inclined to try.

MadGastronomer: Just speaking for myself, English capitalisation rules confuse me occasionally and let me fall back to “German for dummies”, where it says “when in doubt, don’t capitalise”.

Inge :

The European system, however, gives you the amount of ingrained cultural christianity that some of the christianists in the US seem to dream of. Head of state not allowed to marry outside the state religion, a crucifix in every classroom, that sort of stuff.

Wow, I already had a problem with Karen’s post but I forgot to answer (something to the effect of countries like Poland being strongly Christian, and not because of its association to the state, quite the opposite, and France having a strong separation of church and state long before WW2…) but really, I don’t know that you can talk about “Europe” in matters of religion and state. Unless France is the only country in Europe that doesn’t have the head of state thing, or the crucifix-in-the-classroom thing ?

So is there a polite, respectful way of opening a discussion on sticky topics without getting one’s interlocutor all defensive-like?
um, Socratic dialogue? By the time they follow your train of thought to its logical conclusion they are left with no rational basis for their own beliefs, right?
It always worked when Plato wrote it…

It always worked when Plato wrote it…

Then again, Plato tended to write morons.
Me :

Unless France is the only country in Europe that doesn’t have the head of state thing, or the crucifix-in-the-classroom thing ?

Which is not to say France doesn’t have ingrained Christianity of course. It’s just that it SO doesn’t take that form, and I’m wondering if we’re that much of an exception.

The European system, however, gives you the amount of ingrained cultural christianity that some of the christianists in the US seem to dream of. Head of state not allowed to marry outside the state religion, a crucifix in every classroom, that sort of stuff.
Er… I guess I went to school in London, Somewhereelseland then.
To be clear: at least in Britain, there’s an issue over the monarch marrying someone non-Anglican – though Camilla Parker Bowles, wife of our future king, is at least associated with Catholicism insofar as her first husband was Catholic and, according to Wikipedia, her two children were raised as such – but the monarch being ‘head of state’ is really titular. Our last Prime Minster was Catholic, and nobody really cared.
And crucifixes in the classrooms is just not the case.
There’s a degree of ‘ingrained cultural Christianity’, but it’s very much in the background unless citizens actively seek it out. Part of our ingrained culture is that Anglicanism is a carefully thrashed-out compromise, moderation being the name of the game; over the past few centuries our religious history has been at least in part trying not to go back to the days of burning people for being the wrong branch of Christianity. So while the nation is officially a Christian state, in practice the state works hard to impose that on its citizens as little as possible. That’s what Anglicanism is: a religion designed to be official but unoppressive.
I can’t speak for other countries, but the situation is much more complicated than either ‘We’re a Christian nation’ or ‘We’re a secular nation.’ You have to bear in mind that countries in Europe weren’t founded the way America was; they just evolved over time with power passing from group to group as far back as history can be tracked. As a result, we’re all liable to have some kind of Christian background because we go back to actual Constantinianism: the Roman Empire conquered a goodly proportion of us. But that’s more to do with the passage of time than to do with anything being essential to the foundation of our countries – let alone our continent, which has barely stopped fighting within itself until the past half-century. We’ve been political entities long enough to undergo tremendous changes, and many of us don’t have anything like a founding document.
Say ‘we’re a Christian country’ to most Europeans, and the instinctive response is something like, ‘Well, now we are, perhaps. But things change around here. Given enough time, who knows where we’ll be?’ Britain’s Anglican now. But it used to be Catholic, and before that it was pagan. They’re all equally part of our history. Some hardliners may reach for the ‘We’re a Christian country’ argument, but America proves that this doesn’t have to be factually true for a hardliner to use it.
The system is much more complicated than a Christianist would wish.

Grenadine: does anyone has a method for getting folks to agree on the basic values of what’s under dicussion.
Not that I know of. Only way is to be aware of the potential problem so you can decide early on if you are debating a person to convince them, or to convince the audience.
I read a book on this, but it’s not translated to English. I know that it used Voltaire as an example quite a lot.
Caravelle: Unless France is the only country in Europe that doesn’t have the head of state thing, or the crucifix-in-the-classroom thing ?
I think that France is ahead of the flock in matters of separation of church and state. I know that Bavaria most definitely isn’t. The “marrying” issue is what happens when your head of state is also head of the state church…

[in most of the U.S. the Amish enjoy exemptions from child labor laws]
I believe that nationwide there are a lot of child labor laws exceptions that specifically pertain to agriculture, and were originally designed to allow children to work on family farms. Which is why my husband could pick strawberries alongside his mother when he was only eight or nine.
I often use the Amish when attempting to convince religious folks that their personal religious objection to something is not grounds for a legal ban — “Imagine if the Amish took over and banned electricity, would you think that was right?”
[The burkha a security risk]
That strikes me as the only legitimate reason you would have to ban them. But such a ban is still problematic.
I have never seen an American woman in a burkha, although I have seen chadors in some ethnic communities.
[My take is pretty much that a man looking at a woman is either going to objectify her or her isn't, and the way she dresses will exert very little control over that]
Yes, and the kind of aggressively patriarchal society that holds women are required to dress modestly to protect the tender sensibilities of helpless males is exactly the kind of society where men are encouraged to objectify women.
Interestingly, the Wikipedia articles identify both the burkha and the chador as having originally been a mark of high social standing more than piety.

The non-reciprocal justice thing is playing itself out with the current hate crimes debate too. They literally cannot seem to comprehend how it’s not a hate crime for someone to attack a Christian for their views on homosexuals – so the gays are getting protections that they don’t, and that’s just wrong (and it’s also a direct attack on their religious freedom to hating gays, but that’s a different topic).
I think this is a major source of the persecuted hegemon – as far as the fundies are concerned their views are utterly inseparable from their religion, because they’re so absolute. Hating gays is a critical, integral, inseparable part of being Christian to them, so any attack on their right to hate gays is an attack on Christianity.
As long as you limit it to their type of Christianity, they may not actually be wrong. Religious freedom DOES have limits – polygamy is not protected religious activity, animal sacrifice is generally frowned upon, and human sacrifice is right out (even if Nicholas Cage totally deserved that whole Burning Man thing for the bad acting). I think it’s possible that we, as a society, have decided their sort of intolerant, hateful, misogynistic, domineering Christianity is beyond the acceptable limits.
I think this may actually resolve the paradox, too. Their first point (“We’re the majority!”) is simply wrong. While America may have a majority Christian population, it’s not THEIR Christianity in the majority.

What they need is to be run over by the Hypothetical School Bus.
Yes, I’m talking about Mrs. Frizzle vs. the Rats of NOM.

(does the “I’m not worthy” salaam to hapax)
I have to wonder what The Friz’s dress would look like for that particular adventure…

What the hijab would actually look like, if it really was about protecting women from sex-crazed males.

Dang, I meant burka.

In re the modesty issue, have we already talked about the Modesty Survey? I read the comments yesterday until I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I remember a Sabbath School class where one guy argued, in perfect seriousness, that gay people’s existence infringed on his right to teach his kids that being gay was wrong. I seemed to be the only one who took exception to that.

Dorothy deserves a special mention internet for that.

One thing that make “burqa” logic more appro than not is that it’s hard to see any woman wanting to walk around like a pre-schooler playing ghost. I’ve known many Muslim women who were head scarves or chadors (similar in shape to a burqa but the entire face is shown) voluntarily in western countries for religious and/or cultural reasons. However, burqas are pretty much only seen in the most repressive Muslim societies. You don’t see lots of them in more open Muslim countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.), only in countries that have a strong fundie presence, even if they are otherwise modern like the Gulf States. “Veils” are common, but not all veils are burqas. The French-North African students were mainly wearing headscarves.

1. When France passed its’ hijab/chador/any religious symbol ban in public schools, I was studying advanced constitutional law with Nadine Strossen of the ACLU. She personally told that even though she strongly believes in the separation of religion and state, she thought what the French government was doing was taking the concept to the extreme. I agreed with her and still agree with her because personally separation of religion and state should not force a religious person to violate the roles of his or her religion in a state building.
However, I do not think she completely understands why France and many other countries adopted such a strict policy of separation of religion and state than the one adopted by America/Canada. When seperating religion and state, some religions give in more easier than other religions. Separating Catholicism or Islam from the State is a lot harder than separating Protestant or Orthodox Christianity from the State. This is because when Protestant/Orthodox Christianity are state religions, they are pretty subservient to the secular authorities of the State authortities usually and will back down without much of a fight. Roman Catholicism and Islam are different because when those two religions are the State religions, the religious authorities operate independently of the state and can put up more of a fight when it comes to loosing their official permission. Islam seems to be a particularly hard religion to separate from the state becuase theoretically it is supposed to be as much as a political system as a religious system. So when you have a religion like this to separate from the state, you need to be a bit more adamant and heavy-handed.
2. From my understanding, Islamism refers to the belief that Muslim-majority countries should operate under Islam as a political system rather than just have it as a majority faith. This means that the law should be Shariah law and government officials, especially judges, should also be Islamic clerics. Non-Muslims should be legally inferior to Muslims.
3. I have problems with the concept of the Muslim world or a Muslim nation. Many of the Muslim nations like Malaysia or Indonesia have rather large non-Muslim populations and most of at least a small non-Muslim population. By calling Muslim-majority countries Muslim nations and the collective of them the Muslim world, we are giving Muslims the right to alienate the non-Muslims from the country. If I were a non-Muslim in a country that officially refered to itself as Muslim and stated so in its constitution or whatever, I’d feel alienated. The fact that many Muslims seem so hypocrytical on this issue, critizing non-Muslim majority countries for alienating Muslims but not caring about their alienation of non-Muslims, does not help the issue.

I’ve noticed this phenomenon quite often.
http://deusexeverriculum.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/dear-archbishop-of-canterbury/

Cereselle, that modesty survey is disgusting and frightening both.
For example, the comments attached to the statement “Immodest clothing is not a problem (for you) when a girl in your own family wears it” seemed pretty weird.
I was also struck by the idea that fully 75% agree that they have less respect for an immodest girl than for a modest girl. Whatever happened to having respect for all people regardless of appearance?
However, when over 95% agree with the statement “Modesty is an important quality for your wife to have” I have serious doubts about the sample population, especially as almost the same percentage feel “Character, intelligence and personality are more important than physical beauty.” Why then would modesty be important except to keep a woman from upstaging the guy she married?
What makes it still worse for me is asking teenage girls to offer up the questions, which teenage and 20-something guys got to judge and comment on. The idea of asking some boy’s opinion on what I wore as a teenager (and whether it was modest enough) is full of ick.
Of course, the “Rebelution” tour for 2009 is called “Do Hard Things” so hey, whatever, er, gets them off.

This is probably oversimplifying, but it it seems to me that the idea of separation of church and state is that they should be independent, and banning headscarves in schools and similar seems to be going more the “choose church or choose state” interpretation… (i.e. disjoint union instead of Cartesian product). (OK, that’s almost certainly oversimplifying… I just wanted to fit that last bit in. )

Usually, the case is made more on the (equally problematic) assumption that a woman needs protection from being *made* to wear a burkha by her family.
well for one thing I don’t think it’s ever been applied to actual burkas, and for another “banning burkas” in school isn’t how you go about “protecting” young girls from their tyrannically unfrench big nosed pedophilic gay muslim fathers* – for that you’d actually make all the children of france wear comic book style skin tight lycra, lest anyone impose mandatory dress codes on a child.
What doesn’t actually help is marking headscarves – a clothing style that was pretty much mandatory for women in europe up to the seventies anyway – as a religious symbol that will get women expelled from public schools for wearing them.
Because that’s what actual discrimination looks like; when public services are being withdrawn from people for doing something that doesn’t interfere in anyone else’s life, that certainly doesn’t harm anyone.
And it should go without saying that the headscarf ban isn’t a secular thing, but a nationalist thing – the problem with headscarfs is that they’re public displays of unfrenchness, like having black skin or a non-french name, and like with the NOMists the french far right finds public displays of such non-frenchness to be offensive and oppressive… to the crazy nationalist arseholes who might see a woman in a headscarf!!!!! Or who’s children might be exposed to willful headscarf wearing in school and immediately become muslims and do muslimy things!!!!!
And of course the french far right also believes that france is a christian nation – or at least considers “french” to be a synonym for “christian” – goes without saying really.
The NOM and anti-SSM thing is of course also a nationalist thing – the idea is to enforce an idealised form of americanness, which ticks off the “americanness” check list that they’ve decided exists, much as the LB books tick off the “end times” check list that L&J have decided exists.
Gays can’t be american, muslims can’t be french, and as they can’t actually have all the gays or muslims thrown into the sea (yet), they strive to at least inconvenience them and make their lives as difficult as possible, especially if the process of doing so also helps get the lay bigotry sending the far right political movement lots of money.
* of course the notion that parents get to shout at and lay down rules about what their children wear isn’t exactly controversial. But I’m sure there are many many perfectly snsible reasons why it’s automatically different when the people involved are muslim.

“I don’t know that you can talk about “Europe” in matters of religion and state. Unless France is the only country in Europe that doesn’t have the head of state thing, or the crucifix-in-the-classroom thing ?”
While talking about a (single) “European system” of church-state relations isn’t really helpful, I do happen to live in a European country where the head of state and his/her spouse must be members of the state religion (which self-describes as Lutheran Evangelical). No crosses in the classrooms, though.
Oh, and:
“Big thanks to konrad for supplying the link to this remarkably patient and sensible video”
You’re more than welcome.
(and SQUEEEE! I got a shout-out from the Slacktivist himself!)
I’m actually sort of surprised that more people hadn’t seen that video, because it’s just so excellent that I figured it’d be all over the internet before I got around to telling anybody about it.

Sniffnoy : This is probably oversimplifying, but it it seems to me that the idea of separation of church and state is that they should be independent, and banning headscarves in schools and similar seems to be going more the “choose church or choose state” interpretation… (i.e. disjoint union instead of Cartesian product). (OK, that’s almost certainly oversimplifying… I just wanted to fit that last bit in. )
I think at least some of the reasoning behind it is that wearing “obvious” signs of religious affiliation is proselytizing. Which I think is totally stupid and contributes to my belief that feminists and muslim haters joined together behind the secularity arguments to promote this, but whatever. I lost that debate.

I really liked Rebecca’s post about how, y’know, lots of female Muslims have their own opinion about the hijab. And she had a link. Y’know, of some female Muslims speaking for themselves. Because that’s something we definitely don’t hear much of.
I do like the talk about how sexual and/or general dehumanizing/objectification is going to happen to women no matter what they wear, and how modest clothing can be turned into fetish (because everything can), but Rebecca’s argument about how some Muslim women feel less objectified under the hijab and loose clothing is valid in its own right. Muslim women being objectified is one thing, them feeling like they’re being objectified is another. In a perfect world, we’d have neither. But if some woman feels like hiding her curves and her hair and even her face is protecting her from The Male Gaze or whatever, possibly because that’s her own interpretation of God’s reason for the hijab, maybe that will empower her to Not Be Intimidated and go get stuff done in the world. And a woman wearing a tiny top and mini shorts may feel the exact same way – I dress how I want, the choice empowers me because the choice is mine and I decide what I do with my life, I’m gonna go get stuff done. Objectification has many effects, but they come from both ends – the oppression of the object by the aggressor, and the victim mentality of the victim. So saying “you’re being objectified no matter what you wear” may be true, but if those being objectified can take away that feeling of helplessness through some action, that’s a big chunk of the battle. And that action, for some Muslim women, is choosing to wearing the hijab and burkha. And for other women, it’s wearing next to nothing. Everyone telling women what to do and who they are and how their looks/sexuality are constantly on public display isn’t a new form of sexism by any means. But freedom of choice, for many women, helps THEM free THEMSELVES from those oppressive, dominating feelings of the public so she can go get things done.
Also, this is assuming the woman wearing the hijab DOES think God chose it to hide her from The Male Gaze. Not every Muslim woman is thinking that way. She may also wear the hijab because:
-She wants to follow the rules of her religion, and whether or not she understands those rules is irrelevant, especially in a practice as mild as changing what you wear.
-She likes the simplicity of the hijab and burkha, since it limits the parts of herself she has to shave/paint/whatever for the public’s standard of beauty to judge.
-She wants it to be clear that she’s Muslim.
-She likes not wearing pants.
-Etc.!
Anyway, I know Muslim girls and non-Muslim girls who think wearing revealing clothing leaves them more open to sexual objectification because their body parts and hence sexuality (depending on how much the culture associates nudity with sexuality) is more on display, and I know Muslim girls and non-Muslim girls who feel like intense modesty (like covering the face) puts their sexuality more on display because it’s their LACK of showing body parts that gets fetishized. Possibly as a result, most Muslim women I know don’t choose either. They wear loose but fashionable clothes, colored hijabs, and leave their face open for a little make-up or none at all. Seriously, these are MILLIONS of Muslim women I’m talking about. Look at the less fundamental countries for examples (like Syria). And a lot of them think that’s a nice middle ground of being seen as a person and not an object who is defined by her body, beauty, and/or sex.
But regardless of how they feel, they have a right to feel it and to dress how they choose. Like non-Muslims girls do. Like men do. Etc.
(This is, of course, not taking into account the women who are forced to dress a certain way by their families/societies…which does happen, of course, and is totally not fair, but is definitely, DEFINITELY not the reason behind every hijab and burkha you see.)
Hmm…this is such a layered issue, it’s hard to do more than stratch the surface. Anyway, there’s my feeble scratching.

Konrad: I’d like to second Fred’s thanks.
I remember a Sabbath School class where one guy argued, in perfect seriousness, that gay people’s existence infringed on his right to teach his kids that being gay was wrong.
Now that’s just silly. Without gay people, who could he point to when teaching his kids? He needs those deviants.

So saying “you’re being objectified no matter what you wear” may be true, but if those being objectified can take away that feeling of helplessness through some action, that’s a big chunk of the battle. And a woman wearing a tiny top and mini shorts may feel the exact same way – I dress how I want, the choice empowers me because the choice is mine and I decide what I do with my life, I’m gonna go get stuff done.
That’s an interesting point. The way I see it, if it makes you feel confident to dress in a given way, whatever that way may be, then you go, girl. The only point I was making is if you go from that to believing that dressing in a particular way will actually stop men looking at you lustfully, you’re not being very realistic about men. (And enforcing a concealing dress code to stop men lusting is being both oppressive and unrealistic, which is the worst of both worlds.) If you dress that way because you feel happy in those clothes, that’s an altogether better reason, because, with the exception of surgical uniforms and protective gear, it’s the only good reason to wear anything.

Fred Davis: What doesn’t actually help is marking headscarves – a clothing style that was pretty much mandatory for women in europe up to the seventies anyway
You really want to modify that by region, class and occupation. But as in the previous paragraph you equated “not allowed to do X” with “have to do Y” with Y != !X, you probably don’t…
Are you making the argument that not being allowed to wear religious dress in a public school is racist? (It’s hard to determine from your post.) You will be glad to hear that there’s an initiative in Berlin campagining for making religious education a standard subject in public schools again.

I too am troubled by the French school authorities attitude to headscarves, mainly because it only burdens those who want to integrate into French society but keep a few of their own customs. The Taliban sympathizers will simply keep their daughters out of school entirely.
There are a large number of Indian and Pakistani immigrants in my neighborhood, many of whom wear the hijab. The only time it’s even noticeable is at the neighborhood pool, where the Muslim girls wear what looks like leotards and tights with T shirts and the boys wear jams and T shirts. But for their mothers’ head scarves, one would only think they are concerned about skin cancer.
Which leads me to a point about modesty: it’s always a good idea to dress in way that doesn’t distract from the purpose of the event. Don’t make your obsessions interfere with others’ enjoyment. This doesn’t just mean cover every bit of exposed skin twice, since that can in itself be distracting. Requiring the lifeguard to rescue you because you nearly drowned when the knee-length swimdress got wet and caused you to sink is probably worse than attracting attention via string bikini. Also, there are events where the entire purpose is to attract attention to yourself, such as your own wedding or a big dance. Dress appropriately.

I was also struck by the idea that fully 75% agree that they have less respect for an immodest girl than for a modest girl. Whatever happened to having respect for all people regardless of appearance?
Depends. I would respect someone more if they were modest, but I would probably see more of a gray area between “modest” and “immodest” than the people who wrote the survey.
It seems like this survey doesn’t address the problem, it just makes girls who already want to be modest feel guilty and neurotic. Girls who don’t care about being modest probably won’t care about the survey. Nevermind that giving the survey to guys equates to saying, “here’s a list of immodest things to notice about a girl. We want your opinion, but try not to think about them!”
What makes it still worse for me is asking teenage girls to offer up the questions, which teenage and 20-something guys got to judge and comment on.
Yeah, there’s something bothersome about that. Surely there are things that guys do that are “stumbling blocks” to women. Shouldn’t this “not tempting the other sex” thing go both ways? Apparently we guys aren’t responsible for what we think or what we encourage other people to think.

Oh, and kudos to Maggie. Excellent point.
Finally, if every woman on Earth had to wear burkhas, men would suddenly start having sexual feelings about anything that vaguely resembles a woman in burkha, requiring a ban on curtains and tablecloths, and finally all forms of cloth, which would then solve the problem by requiring everyone to become nudists.

And it should go without saying that the headscarf ban isn’t a secular thing, but a nationalist thing – the problem with headscarfs is that they’re public displays of unfrenchness, like having black skin or a non-french name, and like with the NOMists the french far right finds public displays of such non-frenchness to be offensive and oppressive… to the crazy nationalist arseholes who might see a woman in a headscarf!!!!! Or who’s children might be exposed to willful headscarf wearing in school and immediately become muslims and do muslimy things!!!!!
The problem is that it isn’t just far-right nationalists, it’s also Well-Meaning Liberals. I guess you could argue their own arguments have a nationalist undercurrent (not “Muslims are outsiders !” but “Islam is an oppressive religion !”) but I prefer to take people on their word for those things.
This was driven home to me while arguing over this with a left-wing friend. I was very much into “you can’t legislate what people wear !” and he ended up saying in exasperation “For Heavens’ sake Caravelle, you’re not trying to tell me wearing the veil is a feminist statement ???”.
That pretty much ended that debate, but the point is there’s a large part of the French left that feels the veil is oppressive and it’s their duty to save the poor girls from it.
Indeed if the whole argument had been framed in feminist terms I’d have liked it better. I still wouldn’t agree (the whole “they’ll just take their children to Islamist private schools” thing), but at least it wouldn’t be absurd.
inge : Are you making the argument that not being allowed to wear religious dress in a public school is racist? (It’s hard to determine from your post.)
I don’t know if he is, but I would. Because the law IIRC lets the interpretation of “obvious religious sign” up to the school, and I know some people felt anything that covers the hair could qualify as a “headscarf” for a Muslim. Which I fail to see how it doesn’t mean that brown girls will get kicked out for wearing their hair in a scarf while white and obviously non-muslim girls will get a pass.
I haven’t really followed how the policy worked out once in practice though, so I could be wrong.

The only point I was making is if you go from that to believing that dressing in a particular way will actually stop men looking at you lustfully, you’re not being very realistic about men.
Well, true…however, saying men are horny beasts who will sexualize anything isn’t very fair, either, and just like how I don’t like men (and women) telling women “what they are,” I don’t like the same thing happening to men, either. But you weren’t saying all men were thinking the same way, so I don’t mean that as a criticism of you – I’m just sayin’. In general.
And I like your focus on the world realistic. Islam encourages its followers to go get educated and use their brains, which leads many of them to find realistic ways to apply the religious rules in their respective cultures without losing the general spirit of Islam. The people who force women to wear hijabs and never leave the house else they get raped aren’t using their brains and aren’t treating women with love and respect, as Islam dictates. Being religious doesn’t give you the Idiot Pass. For some jerkwads, religion is just an excuse to try and find a warped justification for their misogeny.

I grew up in Canada in the 80′s and vividly remember the Canadian equivalent to the headscarf debate. There was a Seik who had gone through all the required training to be a mounty and yet was denied entry to the service because he would not remove his turban to wear the iconic stetson that is part of the uniform.
There was a HUGE hue and cry from all sides with people weighing in on whether it was a subversion of Canadian principles/icons or an elevation of Canada “land of the immigrant” to allow him to serve and still wear his turban.
I don’t recall how it was eventually settled (I think it went to the courts), but the upside was that he was admitted into the service and I’m sure did quite fine as a federal officer.
I heard from a friend’s father a number of years later that the whole seik community breathed a sigh of relief when it was decided in favour of religious freedoms. They had been very concerned that if the ban on serving in the RCMP was allowed, then other areas would go further using it as a rationale. As it is, it rippled for a breif while and then dissapeared, and I grew up going to school with friends who wore turbans and headscarves and pashminas (wow are they comfy!), and considered all of the above to be normal.
And while the Canadian public schools were once considered to be the “protestant” school board, set up in parallel to the “catholic” school board, any religion has long since been emptied from them* and they are considered to be wholly public nowadays.
*I was telling my baby sister the other day that I remembered saying the Lord’s Prayer in kindergarten just after singing the anthem and she was duly horrified. That was the year it was removed from the daily schedule, and 7 years younger than I she had never heard of the practice.

Like most of you, I completely disagree with the way the French gov’t is trying to force “secularism” in public schools. There are plenty of private schools where people can wear what they want…it’s just that then you have to pay for it, so there’s the obvious problem of poorer Muslim women not getting education they need and deserve. But to be fair as far as the public school “secular” laws go, they’re not just anti-hijab/headscarf. Christians aren’t supposed to wear outward signs of faith (like giant cross necklaces or something), nor are Jews, Hindus, etc. either. It’s just that well, headscarves are much more obvious, and more mandatory for Muslim women than a cross necklace or what have you.
It’s pretty obvious the headscarves were the real target, but Christian Christmas displays have had to be taken down in certain towns to comply with this “public schools must be secular” law. So some of those who were trying to push “secularism” as a way to get rid of what they didn’t want to see are getting a taste of their own medicine, and I think that’s the most likely way for that law to eventually get repealed.
It really grates on me the way they’ve equated “no religion” with “religious freedom” because it’s not. It would be like if people started advocating “no marriages” as a way to achieve “marriage equality.” Sure, technically everyone’s the same, but now we’ve all lost the right to get married, just because our relationship, be it gay or hetero, offended some people.

@Dylan: Pick up a teen handbook in the type of USian Christian bookstore that doesn’t sell anything written between AD 100 and AD 1900. Note the extensive chapter on how girls can avoid tempting boys. Notice the complete lack of any advice for boys on custody of the eyes and control of the passions. It’s part of a general tendency in this strain of Christianity to pretend that men, at least the right sort of men who show up at this type of Christian church every Sunday, never really sin. It’s always somebody else’s fault.
@Kit Whitfield: The beer ad reminds me of the exchange that persuaded me never to go to the Pennsic Wars. For the uninitiated, the Pennsic Wars are the largest annual gathering of the Society for Creative Anachronism, which is an international group of enthusiastic amateurs who focus on recreating the good parts of the European Middle Ages; that is, you’ll find the food, beer, clothing, dances, mock combat, archery, etc., etc., without the disease and religious segregation. It’s a participatory organization, which means that if you go, you have to join in; you can’t stroll around and watch as at a RenFair. Now, right at the foundation of the SCA there is a strong emphasis on the medieval ideals of chivalry and courtly love. (Good-parts version, remember.) So I’m lurking at a forum for people getting ready to go to Pennsic, which is an annual ritual something like the old Deadhead culture; last year, Pennsic was a temporary town with nine thousand inhabitants. And a certain young lord airs his grievance about last year’s campsite.
See, he’s camping at Pennsic, and this woman next to him doesn’t realize that you need to put an extra layer over your tent if you’re going to undress inside it by lamplight, and it takes a long time before somebody finds a female constable to let her know that she’s putting on a show, after which the light goes out immediately and the poor woman is not seen for some time.
Does he complain about how long it took Constab to show up? No. Does he complain about having to camp next to some clueless newbie? No. He complains because he and his buddy had settled down to enjoy the show and then they realized that the woman was not the type they found sexually appealing. How dare she? There oughta be a law.
Truly a parfit gentil knight.
Never going to Pennsic, thanks. I don’t want to meet Milord Ian Titlement.

Dylan: It seems like this survey doesn’t address the problem, it just makes girls who already want to be modest feel guilty and neurotic.
DING DING DING DING DING DING!!!!! Dylan wins.
Seriously though, one of the steps in my deprogramming from Evangelical Conservative Christianism has been to buy myself a goddamn bikini and wear it proudly.
Dylan again:Yeah, there’s something bothersome about that. Surely there are things that guys do that are “stumbling blocks” to women. Shouldn’t this “not tempting the other sex” thing go both ways? Apparently we guys aren’t responsible for what we think or what we encourage other people to think.
Yes, but we know that’s not going to happen, because sexuality among the fundies is viewed primarily (if not entirely) through the male experience. Also, there’s this myth among the Evangelicals (it might go further, but I can’t claim to speak for other groups) that women aren’t visually stimulated. At all. It’s just totally a guy thing.
But the “stumbling block” thing ought to go beyond sexuality, if these bozos actually take the Bible as seriously as they claim. I’ve actually been thinking about that the past few days. See, the driving verse behind the fetishization of modesty (eternal thanks to whoever first phrased it that way) is found in Matthew 5:27-28–“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Hence, women should take pains to protect men from their lusty, lusty lust.
But in the same sermon, just a few verses up, we find: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment [presumably for murder, judging by the context].” When I see these guys sanctifying misogyny and holding up crippling self-consciousness and codependent behavior as holy virtues, it makes me angry. Really angry. Do these guys bear any responsibility for all the murder that this passage of Scripture insists that I’ve committed in my heart? Who’s protecting me?
I’d love to create a response site to the Modesty Survey based upon this premise, but I lack the web skillz, and more importantly, the time. *sigh*

Just have to pipe up every now and then to say “got DANG what a great blog!”

I personally would argue that there’s not a damn thing wrong with sexualizing other people–as long as you’re not doing so in a bothersome way. Do I check out the ass of guys on the T? Yes. (Living near fifty-seven colleges has its Mrs. Robinson-esque upside.) Do I give a damn about those guys personally? Nope. But I’m still not going to grope them, follow them home, or otherwise interfere in their lives–and as long as they adhere to the same rules, they can think of me whatever way they choose. Checking someone out–tactfully–and becoming sexually stimulated by that is a pretty harmless pleasure.
Wear whatever you feel comfortable wearing. But if you tell me that *I* need to dress modestly because you think your own sexual urges are bad, then I’m either going to laugh at you, pity you, or both. (Or, as in the case of Asshole Roommate, start dressing even *less* modestly just to piss you off.) Either way, it’s not my problem.

Alright. I know there are SOME Christians on this blog, at least, and I’ve gotten a great deal of enjoyment out of reading it. Without getting into my life story, I would more than likely be dead if some nerdy little twerp hadn’t befriended me in 9th grade and casually invited me to his church, inadvertently sharing his friends and family with someone who, at the time, had none. So I certainly count myself among the Christians.
But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have troubles.
As a dweller in the Bible Belt, I have been thoroughly washed and dyed in the ‘the Bible is the be-all-end-all’ of my faith. As far as I can tell, the Bible is pretty straightforward about its views on male-male sex, unless I am missing something or have been misinformed. Yet we have things like this on the blog. You are Evangelicals, yet you support gay marriage. How does this work?
The question is deeply personal to me, because although I am certainly the one, I am also the other, if you catch my drift. Even though the people of my church have done wonderful things for me and literally saved my life and changed the way I view the world and people in general, there is also the small, nagging voice in the back of my head that something is irreparably wrong with me. And so every time I find my eyes drawn to one of the numerous college guys in my community who just cannot keep their shirts on, I feel like a filthy, miserable traitor heathen philistine sodomite pervert for daring to allow such things to cross my mind. My sexual orientation and my faith seem inherently incompatable, and yet here I am, and I’m really not sure what to do. How does a Christian rationalize his or her support for Gay Marriage when the Bible goes against it? And how does one reconcile the fact that he or she may very well have been born with an innate attraction to people of their own gender that is inherently wrong, with the fact that they were supposedly stitched together in the womb by a loving God who knows them better than they know themselves?

As far as I can tell, the Bible is pretty straightforward about its views on male-male sex, unless I am missing something or have been misinformed.
From what I hear it’s also pretty straightforward about eating shrimp and wearing cotton-polyester t-shirts… But I’ve also encountered a few Bible interpretations that disagreed with the ban on gay sex; things involving translator errors and such. I assume people here would be better able to point you to them than I would, though.
although I am certainly the one, I am also the other, if you catch my drift.
Ouch ! You have my sympathies… I hope you manage to work through the whole thing to your satisfaction, somehow :-/ (and as I am neither the one nor the other, I’ll REALLY butt out now… I hope the others here can help you !)

Fred Clark, you are teh awesome, wrapped in bacon, wrapped in awesome bacon. This is so well put.

It’s not unusual to encounter American evangelicals who simultaneously hold two contradictory beliefs about their faith and its relationship to the larger American culture. These beliefs are opposite and incompatible, yet both are, equally, essential to these evangelicals’ sense of identity. They are beliefs not just about the larger culture, but about who they consider themselves to be.
…
Yet while these folks may be two-faced, in a way, they’re not duplicitous — they really, sincerely believe both things. They believe that their sect has — and ought to have — hegemony in their culture. And they believe that they are “persecuted.”
Simultaneously sincerely believing two contradictory things… Isn’t that the textbook definition of “doublethink”?
However, Slack, A and Not-A together actually DO have one point of commonality that doesn’t require Doublethink:
1) IF “America is a Christian nation, the majority of which is composed of godly, Christian people…and religious minorities will just have to deal with the fact that they’re outnumbered.”
2) AND “Christians are a persecuted minority… [and] Public expressions of faith by Christians are always retaliated against…”
3) THEN the only non-Doublethink reconciliation is that America is a Christian Nation under Godless Enemy Occupation; though Christians are a majority, The Godless Society/Media/Power Elite minority is In Power and are stomping on them.
Note that the pattern of a minor aristocracy in power at loggerheads with their subjects’ culture and religion HAS occurred several times in history. Such as the middle-period Roman Empire, again echoing (and mythologizing) a period of RL Church History.
Add the current general Apocalyptic Zeitgeist (from Left Behind to Nostradamus 2012 to Global Warming), and you get a high End Times Fever. With the Obamanation of Desolation enthroned in the White House, the Great Tribulation can now begin. And RTCs can join up in a RL Tribulation Force.
(You know, this strikes me as role-playing gamers who can’t admit to it. You saw a similar dynamic in the fringier anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War types — there the game was Star Wars: The Role-playing Game (either West End D6 or WOTC D20 system) and they were LARPing Luke Skywalker, leading the Good Guy Rebel Alliance against the Evil Empire of Emperor Bushitler, Grand Moff Cheney, and Darth Ashcroft. Now things have flipped 180 and the new LARP game for a new group of gamers-in-denial is Left Behind: Eternal Forces (PC/Windows system) and the available player-character classes are Rayford Steele and Buck the GIRAT heroically resisting the Global Community of Nicky Mount Obama.)
Skim through the literature or the Web sites of religious right groups such as, for example, the Family Research Council…,
If this is the group I think it is (as in the “Letter from 2012″ didactic dystopian mailing just before the election), IMonk commented that “they did a lot of good things until fear of homosexuals drove them over the cliff with most of their constituency in the car.”

Oh, shit. Italics Off!

Diez, you are a beautiful, loyal, spiritual, creative human being; please do not tell yourself otherwise.
You may want to check out these websites:
Evangelicals Concerned
and this site that discusses specific bible passages that have been associated with being gay/lesbian.
You may also want to find a UCC or UU church near you to for more of a face-to-face conversation.
Hang out here, too; ask questions, listen thoughtfully and consider prayerfully if there is any place for condemnation of the oppressed and hurting in the teachings/life of Jesus.
It is my opinion that as a child of God you are special and holy, and nothing you can do (or anyone else for that matter) changes that unique and sacred person that you are.

And I like your focus on the world realistic. Islam encourages its followers to go get educated and use their brains, which leads many of them to find realistic ways to apply the religious rules in their respective cultures without losing the general spirit of Islam. The people who force women to wear hijabs and never leave the house else they get raped aren’t using their brains and aren’t treating women with love and respect, as Islam dictates. Being religious doesn’t give you the Idiot Pass. For some jerkwads, religion is just an excuse to try and find a warped justification for their misogeny. — Maggie
“Men of Sin” will glom onto any Cosmic-level Authority — Torah, Bible, Koran, Darwin, Freud, Marx, Nature, Science, Reason, anything — to give Cosmic-level justification to what they wanna do anyway.

Diez, we don’t really know what kinds of relationships the writers of the Bible meant when they condemned homosexuality. We can be pretty certain it wasn’t a mutually respectful lifelong commitment to each other. For one thing, straight marriage wasn’t a voluntarily contracted mutually respectful lifelong exclusive commitment: it wasn’t voluntary for women and it wasn’t respectful or exclusive for men. If two adult men had a love affair, it almost certainly meant they were cheating on their wives. There is some difference between the Old and New Testament on this point, at least in my opinion because the New was much more influenced by Greek thought and practices than the Old. In the Greek world, male relationships often involved a significant disparity in age or status. (Alexander and his lover whose name escapes me at the moment may have been close in age, but one of ‘em was The Emperor Of The Known World and the other, well, wasn’t.) Such disparities militate against that “voluntary and mutually respectful thing.” Thus, almost by definition, gay relationships in antiquity involved a violation of the command to “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God,” before anyone had to worry about whose-thing-goes-where. (Yes, I realize I have three posts up with clumsy euphemisms for sex. I grew up in East Texas in the 70′s, the child of people who grew up in the same place in the 50′s. Specific sexual language is beyond my abilities.) When St. Paul wrote that verse about how fornicators and the effeminate are excluded from the Kingdom, along with liars and thieves, this is the world he was thinking of.
Compare this to slavery. Very few RTC’s would argue in favor of slavery today, but the Bible clearly accepts the practice. About half the population of the Roman empire were slaves, and I have no doubt that the slaves weren’t all happy about their situation. (See Spartacus) It is possible, however, to see a number of differences between slavery in antiquity and the modern version. For one thing, we simply don’t need that much labor anymore. We have power generators to do things like run pumps and pipes and plumbing to carry water, so we don’t need slaves to carry buckets. More importantly, in the Roman empire urban slaves at least could earn their freedom and many did. Quite a few manumitted slaves turned around and bought slaves themselves. They often became part of the general society.
In the antebellum south, slavery was a fact of skin color. Manumitted slaves were still black, and therefore still obviously separate from the general society, and the general society never let them forget it, either. The conditions of servitude in 1860 in, say, Georgia, were much different from conditions of servitude at the time Paul wrote the Epistle to Philemon. Thus, the arguments in the Bible supporting slavery no longer applied. I think it’s possible to make this argument with respect to homosexuality as well.
This argument only works with people who don’t believe the “every single word in the Bible is factual and true for all times and places.”

From what I hear it’s also pretty straightforward about eating shrimp and wearing cotton-polyester t-shirts…
LOL. Point taken. But then, we have that whole Old Covenant-New Covenant mess to sort through in which things that were not-okay were suddenly okay… Paul mentions this issue in the New Testament, so while certain things might have been abolished with the coming of Jesus, current belief in the churches of my area hold that this is not one of them.
But I do deeply appreciate your sympathies, especially given that you don’t hold either my faith or my sexuality. I am not even exaggerating when I say it kind of makes me feel warm and fuzzy. So thank you, Caravelle.
Diez, you are a beautiful, loyal, spiritual, creative human being; please do not tell yourself otherwise.
You may want to check out these websites:
Thank you! I promise to do so as soon as I get out of class. I have a logic course to attend… just more of that infernal book-larnin’ that will be sure to lead me down the wrong path in the eyes of people like L&J. What can I say? I like to live dangerously. ;-P

Diez: I am not Christian, but I have a fair amount of respect for the religion, and most of the interpretations I respect say one or more of the following:
1) In “writing” the Bible, God was speaking through, initially, a succession of Bronze-Age men concerned with keeping the tribe going–which is why the Leviticus anti-gay stuff goes in with the prohibitions on shellfish and pork–and either he handed down the requirements that’d work best in that place and time, the Levites interpreted the message through their own cultural lens, or both.
Paul was *not* Jesus, was not having God speak through him, and had probably been exposed to male-male sex as it was practiced in Greece or Rome, where I understand that it had some pretty squicky issues re: consent and domination.
2) Translator errors and errors of context. The Bible wasn’t written in English, and things get lost–q.v. the whole “shalt not suffer a witch to live” probably actually referring to poisoners.

Or what Karen says, yeah. Particularly about the version of male-male sexuality that Paul was likely referring to: great men have their blind spots, it was a lot easier to sustain those blind spots in premodern times, and someone whose example of homosexual sex was along the lines of, say, Nero would probably not think very well of it.

I must point out that animal sacrifice is most definitely a protected religious right, although it frequently can run afoul of animal cruelty/public sanitation laws, or more often ignorant enforces of such laws.

Huh, JI, I’d like to go to Pennsic hoping to meet that guy and have it out with him. But it’s expensive and far away and I’ve heard it can get real wet.

St. Paul: I’ve often felt sorry for poor old Paul. I imagine that he had this wonderful vision of the Kingdom of God, and then woke up to “the world, it was the old world yet; I was I, my things were wet.” (A E Houseman, “A Shropshire Lad” for those who like me become obsessed with sourcing quotes.) The difference infuriated him, but he never could figure out how to get from this world to the one he now wanted. Thus, the same guy could write “there is no Jew nor Greek” and at the same time send Onesimus back to his owner and demand in Ephesians, Colossians, and I Corinthians that wives be subject to their husbands. Add to this the fact that customs surrounding marriage and sex were, well, very much NOT based in egalitarian ideas of consent, and well, you get some hard to reconcile stuff.
Also, Diez, have you considered a United Church of Christ or the Metropolitan Community Church? The latter denomination is specifically directed toward gays and lesbians. They’re in the broad tradition of evangelical Protestantism as far as church polity and worship practices, as far as I know. (I have a friend who used to teach my Presbyterian Sunday school class who’s an MCC minister now. What I know about them I know from her and the Internet.)

Unitarian Universalism is not a Christian denomination, mmmkay? There are certainly Christian UU congregations and many Christian UUs, but I don’t think most are. Mine certainly isn’t, or my Heathen self wouldn’t feel comfortable there.
Both Unitarians and Universalists have Christian roots (maybe Universalists still consider themselves Christian these days) in the US, and I can’t speak for Unitarians elsewhere in the world. But I would not recommend that a Christian looking for a welcoming place necessarily try the UUs first.
If you like hymns and Bible study and specifically mentioning God and Jesus, the United Church of Christ is a much better bet. I would for sure recommend them at the drop of a hat, though an officially Open and Affirming congregation is more likely to be super-queer-friendly than one that’s not. And you could check out Pastor Dan at streetprophets.com. Based on my experience, he’s a good example of a UCC pastor, and certainly a friendly web presence.

@ Diez: I really like the new translation of the Bible into modern English called “The Message.” If you haven’t read it, it’s really interesting and has some very interesting ideas about translating things. I think you can browse passages/the whole thing on http://www.biblegateway.com if you don’t want to get a paper copy.
I’m in the UCC and I have decided that one person who got to write a holy book doesn’t know everything there is to know about love and who should get to be married. If we imagine Paul today, maybe he would have a different view. The married (in our church only, since I live in Minnesota USA) same-sex couples I know are some of the best examples of what Christian love should be that I’ve ever met. I have a book waiting for me about feminist reinterpretations of Paul’s epistles, which I imagine puts things even more into context.

Diez, I think Paul spells out the reasoning behind allowing shrimp in Romans 13:8-10, where he says you have exactly one moral commandment to follow. So do that.

I over-generalized. Lord Ian Titlement was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. The general Bacchanalian atmosphere and the sheer number of people who appeared to regard Pennsic as just another beer bash, but with costumes, had already put me off; I don’t imagine that my small kids could wander around freely at any event, but I don’t want to have to plot our day and evening around the location of moving masses of drunk people doing bawdy performance art. But that stuff just doesn’t float the family boat, live and let live, etc. Wondering if the guy in the next tent is a jackass who regards me and mine as subhumans put there to amuse him–that kills the fun right there.

Another thing to remember about Paul’s letters is that he was writing around the time the Talmud was written – this is part of a back-and-forth correspondence between rabbis, and part of his faith tradition. Unlike the Talmud, only one side of the discussion was preserved.
Diez,
I am a Christian, and still not sure what Evangelical means. But I believe the two greatest commandments are these: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” I don’t believe being gay is a sin, I don’t believe that loving someone physically is a sin, if it is done with mutual respect and care and concern – if it is done with love. It seems to me that God would prefer people who happen to be gay to get on with feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless, and all that social justice stuff, and worry less about the way they’re born and the people they love being a sin.
(Of course, I’m straight, so it’s easy for me to say, “Don’t worry about being gay! God loves you, and not even God loves you anyway like it’s wrong to be gay or express gay love, but God just loves you, for who you are! God loves you because you are you, and the you that you are is gay, so God loves you because you are gay!” because I don’t have to deal with the daily grind add-on that being gay in the world can bring today.)

Diez, I am the other but not the one, if you see what I mean, and you have my sympathy and good wishes if that’s of any use to you! There was a post Fred did on this very thing a short while ago, I can’t remember the title but there was something about eating seafood I think. Does any more sussed Slacktivist have the link?
I’ve known Christians who were sure that being gay was a sin, and I’ve known Christians who were gay and comfortable with it. I can’t help you with the details of Scripture because that’s really not my area, but I know believing gay=sinful is not an integral part of Christianity, and if people have said this is the case then I would say, politely, that they are misguided, given it is demonstrably the case that there are committed Christians who do not believe this.
And seconding Cowboy Diva’s point; you are a fine and brave human being. You believe in a loving God who created you according to His will: be assured, then, that His will does not falter nor does it err. If God is all-loving, God loves you. If God is all-knowing and all-powerful then He knew what he was doing when he created you, and He chose to make you as you are. If you are as God made you, and God is good, then what you are is good. By virtue of the most basic tenets of Christianity, therefore, you cannot be other than good as you are, and loved by God as you are.
I hope I’m making sense here: I’m not one for logic courses myself, so it’s possible I’m not expressing myself too clearly! But really, I can’t see any reason why being happily gay and being Christian wouldn’t be compatible. Like I say, I’ve known people who were both, and comfortable with it.
On a side-note, have you seen the film Milk? It’s not about Christianity, but it’s lovely and beautiful and moving, and if you’ve been feeling bad about yourself and your desires it might help to watch something about a gay man who was, as far as I can see, a genuine bona fide hero.
Okay, one last thing: syfr speaks, with compassion and sympathy, of “the daily grind add-on that being gay in the world can bring today”. And while I wouldn’t argue with a word of that, I would like to add one thing: It *can* bring that. It doesn’t always. Sometimes, being gay means your life is harder than it would be if you were straight. Sometimes, it doesn’t. And sometimes, being gay can bring you joys that you wouldn’t have had if your sexuality had been otherwise.
We march under the rainbow banner. And a rainbow is one of the most beautiful things on this earth. But it only comes with the rainfall.
I think, reading your post, that it may be raining for you now. Please remember the rainbow, if it is.

@ms. greyduck:
I have a book waiting for me about feminist reinterpretations of Paul’s epistles, which I imagine puts things even more into context.
What book is that? Sounds interesting

Your freedom threatens my freedom to live in a world in which people like you are not free to do the sorts of things you might do with your freedom. “And I am afraid.”
Several other reality-based bloggers have noticed the same thing recently…
http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2009/04/freedom-that-word-has-been-used-lot-by.html

Usually, the case is made more on the (equally problematic) assumption that a woman needs protection from being *made* to wear a burkha by her family.
And that is exactly where I think the ban is sweeping problems under the rug. Because there are women who need protection from being made to wear a burkha. There are women who need to be protected from being made to wear hijab. Domestic violence is definitely a problem in some Muslim families (as in some non-Muslim families), and “You’re dressing like a whore!” is certainly something abusers latch on to.
However, you’re never going to work out which of the various hijab-wearing women are in those situations if you simply slap a blanket ban on, dust your hands off, and go “Problem solved!” Because it’s ignoring the distinction between women who are obeying the male head of household out of fear for their own safety, women who choose to wear it for a variety of reasons, and teenage girls getting a fairly ordinary “You’re not going out of the house looking like that, young lady! Go to your room and put on something decent!” lecture. And it doesn’t give the subset of hijab-wearers who fear for their safety any reason to trust that the authorities have their best interest in mind.

Incidentally, one of the various “Let’s explain Islam to Americans!” documentaries I’ve been watching this week for work mentioned a town in Indonesia that decided to implement a dress code for teenagers at school. It was supposed to be simple, modest, and uniform. For girls, it consisted of a long skirt, a loose white blouse, and a white head scarf (boys got long pants and a long-sleeved white shirt).
Needless to say, many of the girls didn’t like it, and had some intelligent objections to being compelled to dress in a way that many of them found uncomfortable, and the assumption that you could tell how good of a Muslim someone was by their clothing.
The parallel with France, and teenage girls being compelled to dress in ways many of them find uncomfortable (much as many American women would be uncomfortable with mandatory toplessness), and the assumption that you could tell how free a woman was by their clothing really stuck out at me.

Let me second lonespark on the subject of UUs–my UU fellowship is wonderful, supportive, loving, and comforting. But, though we are all aware (and most of us proud) of our Christian roots, we are not necessarily the best place for someone looking for a specifically or exclusively Christian spiritual home. The UCC, or even a liberal Friends group (Quaker), might be a better choice in that case. Not that the UUs would ever turn anyone who was seeking away–we are extremely welcoming and open. And some UU fellowships are more Christian than others (actually, mine is not unlike a Presbyterian church I attended for a while, at least superficially). But yeah. What lonespark said.
Diez, I also live in the Bible Belt, and I’m a lesbian. I think a god who is capable of all the things Christianity believes of god–a god capable of the joy and wonder and love of creation, and then of loving creation so much it was willing to walk among us and suffer and die as we do, for our sakes–that god can’t hate us for how we are made, or for loving each other and expressing that love with joy and wonder together. A god who loves you that much, loves you, just the way that you are. And if the church doesn’t… humans see “through a glass darkly” and don’t always get the point. Find a church that expresses that love more fully; a loving god couldn’t want you to learn to hate yourself.

Trying to get everyone here, so hold tight…
Karen: Good point with the slavery, which was definitely alive and well at the time of Paul’s writing. As for the ‘every single word in the Bible is factual and true for all times and places,’ those who have taught me do believe that it is important to know the context and the intentions behind the words, but they also believe that nothing would have been put in the Bible if it wasn’t somehow relevant or meant to tell us something. So kind of in-between taking it literally and seeing it from an academic standpoint?
It will likely be hard for me to change churches, though. Even with all of my book-larnin’, it’s hard for me to overcome the indoctrination that any church that condones homosexuality is just teaching out of ‘the abridged bible,’ only taking the passages they like and leaving out all the rest because it makes them feel bad. Of course, I also have to take into account that at my old church, I generally heard the same sermons on a yearly basis. Surely there are more than 52 verses in the Bible?
Izzy: I’ve thought a little about that myself, actually. How it can definitely be seen as ‘wrong’ if two good, strong men are too busy having sex with each other to contribute their bloodline to the continuance of your tribe when you need all the children you can get.
As for translations, there are some people who even believe the mistranslations are divinely ordained. I sincerely hope I never meet someone who believes the KJV is the only true Bible…
Ms. Greyduck: I have heard of ‘The Message!’ My youth pastor told me about it back in High School. He said it wasn’t to be taken as a Bible, but more of a concordance or commentary, and that it was very interesting to read. I think I might have a copy, as a matter of fact…
Hf: Point certainly taken. And then we have…
Syfr: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” These are definite do’s. What gives me trouble are the ‘don’t’s.’ Wow, that’s a lot of apostrophes.
Random atheist: Rest assured that you were quite logical, and I understood you perfectly. I am sad to say that I have almost reflexively deprived myself of quality gay cinema. For one thing, going to see it in this part of the country, or being caught with a copy, would certainly raise questions that I am not yet ready to answer to most of my friends and family. And the other thing… up until recently, I too had always bought into the mindset that ‘gay is wrong.’ My logic was simply that even though I possessed these urges, as long as I didn’t act on them, I was okay. I figured my lot in life was simply to be without a significant other, and that was alright with me. I am thankful merely for the opportunity to exist. It is only recently that I have begun seeing that this might not be the correct path of thought, after all. Thus, to subject myself t a movie like ‘Milk’ would be to needlessly tempt myself with a representation of a lifestyle that I was never meant to live. So no, I haven’t seen Milk. But I think I’d like to.
My logic behind everything was just as I explained: even if I felt these things, as long as I didn’t act on them, it was okay. And if the God who saved my life and gave me the very opportunity to live and enjoy it said that I shouldn’t partake in those sorts of activities, I was not compelled to argue. I subscribed to the ‘God knows best,’ mentality in that, even if it is never said why, God would not deny me this without very good reason, and that homosexuality, in the long run, would be harmful to both me and whoever I chose as my partner. I’m still not entirely sure what to think, but the Whosoever articles were very enlightening, and I’m going to browse the other website in just a sec. I really am thankful for all this help and support. From what I saw of this blog, I should have known to expect no less.

Argh, I missed alsafi. >_< Sorry about that.

*Hugs Diez*
As much as I hate to say it, reading alternate theology’s only going to help so much. I’m an atheist and I still think (at least in corner of my mind) I’ll be damned to unending torture for, among other things, my unbelief. Fundamentally, getting rid of a bad strong sense of Right and Wrong, a sense that goes beyond ethics and morals into a simple knowledge that things are either To Be Done or Not To Be Done, takes time.
Even if you become utterly convinced that the Bible isn’t anti-gay (I lack the knowledge to say, but know plenty of theologians take the view), don’t expect to be okay with same-sex attraction. Expect to feel marginally less guilty, and then to feel guilty about not feeling guilty enough. Over time, if you keep thinking and learning and experiencing, you’ll ideally become more able to deal with yourself, but it ain’t easy. Never has been, never will.
But as long as we’re suggesting alternate interpreters, why not listen to the Reform Jews?

Is Judaism capable of doing such an “about-face” on a position which has been so firmly founded in the tradition? Some have made an analogy to the tradition’s disqualification of deaf people as valid witnesses, a disqualification which was later nullified when people learned more about what it means to be deaf. This reasoning would allow us to say that, since we now have more and better knowledge about homosexuality and no longer see it either as an abomination nor as mental illness, we have reason to reevaluate the tradition’s negative posture vis-à-vis homosexuality.
I may be overstating the case, but in my experience during the last few years, it seems that many, if not most, Reform Jews seem to be willing to make no great distinction between homosexual and heterosexual relationships, although it remains an emotionally charged question on all sides and there are still many “hot” issues. As a whole, however, the Reform Movement, both the “lay people” and the rabbis have come out very strongly in favor of civil rights for gays and lesbians. You will see this reflected in the resolutions below.

http://urj.org/ask/homosexuality/index.cfm?

Thanks to everyone who explained islamism for me. I still hate the word, and wish some other one had been chosen for the movement — shariaism, maybe? — but at least now I understand it better.
Diez, you have my utter sympathy. I hope that you can find some way to make peace with yourself without having to deny either your religion or your sexuality. Please, please, consider the following ideas: The interpretation and translation of the Bible you’re been taught in your church are not the only ones available. There are other ways to understand it, other ways to read it, that are more consistent with a God who made you and loves you as you are. Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, anywhere, nor even about two men having sex, so it really can’t be as important a ban as all that.
Oh, and you keep speaking of “supporting gay marriage”. It is even possible to personally believe that God thinks gay sex is bad, but still support same-sex marriage. The US is a secular country, and we have separation of church and state here. Since some churches do support and wish to perform same-sex marriages, why should the law not give them the freedom to do so? Why should one church wish to dictate to another church what they can and cannot do, since that would mean some third church might be able to turn around and forbid the first church to do something as well? The question of the sin of homosexuality and that of the legality of same-sex marriage are two separate things. Believing something strongly does not necessarily equate to believing you have to force that belief on others.

MadGastronomer: I intended to equate support for Gay Marriage to support for homosexuality in general, but I can see how they can easily be two separate issues. The fact that I automatically assumed the one equated to the other just reveals more about my upbringing.

“Unitarian Universalism is not a Christian denomination, mmmkay?”
At the same time, UU is not NOT a Christian denomination. I (a UU Christian) was actually having this conversation with my minister the other day. What I like about our congregation (and the other UU congregation I have experience with, in an entirely different part of the country with radically different people) is that you cannot make assumptions about the other members of the congregation. At all. If I attend a Christian church, I can probably assume that most of my fellow congregants agree with me on at least the basic tenets of my faith, or they would not be at that particular church. But in a UU congregation, you cannot even assume that your fellow congregants disagree with you on the basic tenets of whichever faith you hold.
Ok, wait, though, you CAN assume that, regardless of your faith, your fellow congregant thinks it’s ok for you to have that faith, and may even be interested in talking about why you have the faith that you do. They probably won’t try to convert you to their path, but they also won’t welcome attempts to convert them to your path. I like that.
The final note, I later heard said minister explaining UU to a non-UU. We attract people who are not 100% satisfied with the faith that they hold or do not hold. Buddhists who are solidly Buddhist attend a Buddhist temple; Christians firm in their convictions attend a Christian church; Muslims who agree fully with Islam attend mosques; atheists who truly do not believe do not attend any religious services – we get the people who are dissatisfied with what they are offered elsewhere to one degree or another, who do not fit well where they thought they should be, and are looking for someplace which fits better. And I like that too.

Diez, I don’t know how much help I can be, not being a Christian.
But I’m a lesbian, I’ve got gay relatives, I have gay friends, and I’ve connected with a number of people in different gay communities in several different countries. And I haven’t seen anything about being with a member of the opposite sex that looks or feels evil to me. The only stuff I’ve seen in same-sex relationships or the gay community that seems evil is stuff that also happens in the straight community.
I don’t know much about Biblical interpretation, so I can’t help you there (although I have learned some interesting things on this blog about the story of Sodom, and why it makes sense to read it in ways other than as a condemnation of homosexuality). But I do know that, despite the picture of gay life I’ve heard some of the anti-gay crowd present, plenty of gay couples end up in happy, fulfilling, mutual long-term (or even lifelong) relationships founded on love. And it doesn’t seem to be against nature or inherently harmful.

Don’t think it’s just Protestants and Mormons who support this ridiculous “homosexuality is unbiblical” bigotry. During the 2008 election, EWTN, cable’s #1 Catholic fundamentalist channel, one of their priests commented on EWTN Live about Obama’s response to religious questions about gay marriage, etc. Apparently, someone cited Romans 1: 25-27. Obama said that he supported civil unions, but not marriage, and that the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospels was more important than “an obscure passage” in Romans. Good for Obama, although I wish he’d give gay marriage a chance (as well as have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission or a Senate Subcomittee Hearing about what the U.S. Armed Forces did at Gitmo, which was VERY much against the Gospel, and possibly Romans 1). This priest, Father Francis (?) responded, reminding us that the Golden Rule says: “Do unto others as they would do unto you.” This, he intrepreted to mean two things: (1) homosexuality amounts to consensual rape or sodomy, and (2) the Golden Rule means that we nag every gay person we know into “repenting” or going to a homosexual reprogramming group.
Thankfully, Father Francis left the network a few months later because he fell in love with a widow, to which I say–GOOD. BRAVO. Perhaps when and if he gets married, Father Francis will see that there is a whole wide, multicolored world outside the largely white, triumphalist, medievalist world of EWTN’s headquarters in Ironside, Alabama.

It should probably be pointed out at some point that from a legal point of view, the functional difference between a man having a wife and a man having a male slave, in the period and culture that most of the bible originates from, would have been… the wife would probably have been able to hit another wife’s slave and only get away with a small fine?
And that is exactly where I think the ban is sweeping problems under the rug. Because there are women who need protection from being made to wear a burkha.
Well to be fair if the worst their parents are doing to them is making them wear a burka… there’s that bit in Anansi Boys where Fat Freddy recalls that time his father convinced him that it was a common american custom to dress up as your favorite president on president’s day, and Fat Freddy spent the entire day at school dressed as lincoln. Which was a bit crueler than if he’d just been made to wear a sheet over his head for the day.
I’m missing a logical leap here; is it that being made to wear a burka by parents = other, actually shocking, kinds of behaviour on the part of the parent? In which case the problem has nothing to do with the burka, does it?
And the reason why the “protecting them from parentally mandated hijab” justification doesn’t work to well, is that what the law does is allow schools to A href=”http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article497073.ece”>expel students who follow hijab, rather than do anything that would actually protect them or help them.
Now imho, it’d make more sense to not deny these oppressed girls an education but to actually offer them support, and give them an education they could use to get away from their parents and become independent.
The expulsion element of the law very much says to me that the issue that got it made is not “is the girl oppressed?” but that the headscarf is seen as disrupting or in some way threatening to the process of education for other students by the schools.

Fred Davis, Anansi’s son in Anansi Boys was Fat Charlie, not Fat Freddie. You identify with him that much?
Diez: And, contrariwise, not everybody who is accepting of homosexuality is in favor of same-sex marriage (a term that I, as a bisexual, find both more accurate and preferable). Some support civil unions, some favor doing away with all legal marriage and substituting legally binding contracts.
Your church and the people you have met there may, indeed, have saved your life, but they have also taught you things that are not true, and things that are very much debatable, and things that are actively harmful to you. Once they were very good for you; now they are very bad for you. Perhaps it is time for you to find a new church or other group, and to save your own life?

Well to be fair if the worst their parents are doing to them is making them wear a burka… there’s that bit in Anansi Boys where Fat Freddy recalls that time his father convinced him that it was a common american custom to dress up as your favorite president on president’s day, and Fat Freddy spent the entire day at school dressed as lincoln. Which was a bit crueler than if he’d just been made to wear a sheet over his head for the day.
I’m missing a logical leap here; is it that being made to wear a burka by parents = other, actually shocking, kinds of behaviour on the part of the parent? In which case the problem has nothing to do with the burka, does it?
I think my phrasing ended up being needlessly confusing.
My point with people being made to wear a burkha was what being made to wear it means. If it means the standard “You dress how I tell you, young lady!” argument, that’s pretty standard parental behavior, which I may disagree with, but I feel no need to interfere with. I don’t find “You cover that hair!” to be fundamentally different from “That skirt needs to be longer!” or “Wipe that makeup off!”
But, as with any other issue, there’s typical parental authority and then there’s the minority who will use these things as an excuse to turn abusive. People have beaten their daughters for not being covered enough, and some of them are Muslims who claim to be doing it in the name of Islam. Men have beaten their wives over leaving a bit too much skin uncovered, and some are Muslim men who claim to be doing it in the name of Islam. Which means it’s true, as you say, that hijab and burkhas are largely a side issue, and addressing problems of domestic violence is what really needs to be done. It also means, in a fairly literal sense that there are women who need protection from being made to wear a burkha, because in certain specific circumstances, being made to wear a burkha means being beaten into submission until she complies.
I sometimes confuse people by being overly-literal. Sorry.

Some pious dignitary remarks that homosexuality is just like pedophilia or bestiality — a statement regarded within the hegemony of the sect as wholly innocent and inoffensive. Someone outside the sect will reply, accurately, that this is an offensive lie, a vicious slander. That response will be perceived, within the sect, as “religious persecution.”
We saw this from the Vatican last week. Pope Benny said some stupid and offensive remarks about condoms, and when he was called on it, the Vatican cried “religious persecution”! Exact. Same. Thing.
===============
The logic of the burkha requires that all women — every woman that every man might see — is fully sheathed so as not to assault the eyes of the faithful.
Especially bus drivers!
===============
that typical Department of Motor Vehicles
That STEREOtypical DMV. DMVs have instituted a lot of changes (including doing a lot of the paperwork on-line) that makes them much more pleasant (especailly compared with, say, getting tech help from the neighborhood Sprint store).
================
Who knows how much potential might have been lost because of that. An Einstein or Bill Gates reduced to farm work.
To be fair, the Amish have a practice called “Rumspringa”. Teenagers can go out “into the world”. They can experience it, to be in it, so that if they decide to return, it’s with the knowledge of what they’d be giving up. In this way, the Amish can interact with the “English” without a lot of “coulda shoulda woulda”.
==============
our future king
I had heard speculation (which is just gossip writ large) that Chuck might abdicate in favor of his sons…
===============
they’re public displays of unfrenchness, like having black skin
Huh? I never got the feeling that Surya Bonaly, for example, was “unFrench”.
=============
Hang out here, too; ask questions, listen thoughtfully
[Singing] Look for the hapax label…
When you are reading blog or post or comment[/singing]
=====================
There was a post Fred did on this very thing a short while ago, I can’t remember the title but there was something about eating seafood I think.
The Abominable Shellfish As with most posts, this one is great, and the comments are, as always, fun reading.

Diez,
I’m not gay, but I am an atheist… If you’ll bear with me for a minute, you might find some of my reasons for that reassuring.
One of my major problems with Christianity is the plethora of “THIS is right!” proclamations. You’re evangelical – the Catholics think you can’t get into heaven without both faith and works. Mormons think the lot of you are doomed because you don’t have the follow-ons they came up with. There are a great many versions of God out there. Everyone finds one they agree with, and they find this verse or that chapter to support their version of God.
So the question you have to ask is which God do you believe in? For me (and this is where it might get relevant for you) I question the correctness of Christianity based on my preference for logic, reason, and scientific proof. If there IS a God who created me, then he created me to question the evidence of His existence. If he’s truly the omniscient being suggested by the bible, then he created me KNOWING that I would deny his existence, and he’s planning on consigning me to an eternity of painful, burning agony for being exactly what he created me to be, and knowing I would deny him.
If you tell that story in science fiction with clones and the like, you’ve got the makings for a pretty evil supervillain. All the handwaving about “free will” doesn’t change that.
So, I refuse to believe that any God worth worshiping would do that. If the God of the fundamentalists exists and has done exactly that, then he is just as evil as a poorly-written SF villain and not worth my worship out of anything but fear.
Try looking at it that way… Christianity claims, at its core, a loving God who forgives. Does that match with a God who would create you as someone with constant drives to violate His most important decree?
Dunno if that helps any, but it’s my experience.

Ok, wait, though, you CAN assume that, regardless of your faith, your fellow congregant thinks it’s ok for you to have that faith, and may even be interested in talking about why you have the faith that you do. They probably won’t try to convert you to their path, but they also won’t welcome attempts to convert them to your path. I like that.

So Slacktivist is really more of a UU blog than a Christian blog? this certainly seems to be our philosophy.

To be fair, the Amish have a practice called “Rumspringa”. Teenagers can go out “into the world”. They can experience it, to be in it, so that if they decide to return, it’s with the knowledge of what they’d be giving up. In this way, the Amish can interact with the “English” without a lot of “coulda shoulda woulda”.

I’ve heard it’s something of a trap, though. You’re sent out into the world with no knowledge of how to interact with it, so you feel alone and friendless. And you feel like doing all the forbidden things so you probably end up miserable from overdrinking and partying so that the Amish way seems infinitely better. Not to mention that you risk being completely cut off from your family if you do leave. And that you have an eighth-grade education so you can’t get a job.

So Slacktivist is really more of a UU blog than a Christian blog? this certainly seems to be our philosophy.
More or less. I think we’re leavened a little more heavily (can one leaven heavily?) with Christians than the typical UU congregation. The other thing that Slacktivist is like is a mustard seed – no, wait, I mean an [insert fandom] convention. But, then, to some extent, many conventions, slightly re-purposed, would work as UU meetings as well.
Additionally, there are some differences between UUs and this blog. Less singing, for one. Also, fewer debates over how much ceremony is too much ceremony. Also, no coffee hour.

Additionally, there are some differences between UUs and this blog. Less singing, for one.
Guys think we can take mike up on this challenge?
I am the captain of the Pinafore

Leum, I’m pretty sure that’s too ceremonial.

And if the God who saved my life and gave me the very opportunity to live and enjoy it said that I shouldn’t partake in those sorts of activities, I was not compelled to argue.
Diez, I’m coming in very late to the discussion, and so many have said so many wise and welcoming things, that I have practically nothing to add.
But I’ve never let that stop me. And I do live in the Bible Belt, and I identify as Christian, although of the Episcopalian flavor, not Evangelical, so I’m not sure if that resonates with you. Still…
I take my cue from St. Peter — so brash, so headstrong, so passionate, so clueless, so terrified that he actually denied even knowing the Teacher he swore to die for a day earlier.
And when he had the chance to come face to face once again with the same Lord who loved him, saved his life, and gave him the opportunity to enjoy it, Jesus didn’t turn from him, punish him, scold him, or give him a list of Thou Shalt Nots.
I’m sure you know the story: (John 21)
15When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
16Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”
(And if you want to know what the risen Lord thinks when his disciples turn around and point to someone else and ask, “Yeah, but what about HIM?” finish the chapter…)
So I think that the only thing that I need to worry about hearing from God is “hapax, do you love me?” And I already know that the followup instructions don’t have anything to do with my genitalia.

I haven’t the faintest idea if anyone will ever see this, but…
It will likely be hard for me to change churches, though. Even with all of my book-larnin’, it’s hard for me to overcome the indoctrination that any church that condones homosexuality is just teaching out of ‘the abridged bible,’ only taking the passages they like and leaving out all the rest because it makes them feel bad.
In an effort to avoid retreading ground covered by others, I would offer some very simple advice: Interpret it for yourself.
You see, if you don’t believe in a holy text (or anything), you are left with one recourse. You must look around, analyze everything, see what others think, and constantly check every philosophy and every idea you find or invent against the real world and your own feelings. In the end, what you think is true is what you think is true, nothing more nor less.
But if you do believe in such a text, you must look through it, analyze it, see what others think, and constantly check every philosophy and every idea you find in it against the real world and your own feelings. It’s unavoidable. If the Bible is the Word of God, then it was still communicated to human beings before it was written. And it is still interpreted by human beings.
So you see, you can’t escape human interpretation. If you don’t interpret it yourself, then you’re just accepting some other human’s interpretation. And that’s ok. Responsibility and privilege go hand-in-hand, and in a just universe, capability joins them. If God holds you responsible for your actions, then he must grant you the privilege and capability to discern what is right.
So don’t bother changing churches, if you’re not moved to do so. But if the Bible is your starting point for the truth of things, then you are simply going to have to sit down with it and figure out what it says, because in the grand scheme of things, no one else knows that any better than you do.
(Disclaimer: I am an agnostic atheist. God may in fact hate nothing more than people trying to figure out the Bible for themselves. It may be possible to think about it for yourself, come up with the wrong thing, and be doomed to eternal torment. In the event that this should happen while following my advice, I hereby vow that I will feel like a jackass.)

@Maggie: I recall reading an article about the Hasidim in Canada, and one young woman (who had adopted some Orthodox Jewish practices, but not others) said that dressing modestly made her feel that her body was more special, both for herself and her boyfriend.
@Dylan: Of course girls have all the responsibility! Girls are the gatekeepers, don’t'cha know! Boys are the keymasters conquering knights.
@Izzy: My favourite simile for God’s Message* vs. the people writing it down is “your software is only as good as your hardware”. It certainly explains crap like four-legged insects and hares chewing cud, doesn’t it?
@Diez: I hope you don’t need me to tell you this, but for all that’s holy, don’t join an “ex-gay” ministry. Not only can a person not change their sexuality, but pretending to do so damages other people.
*presumed genuine for the sake of argument.

@Hashmir: Word. The key that separates this way of examining the Bible from the lunacy that can arise from “Sola Scriptura” is the phrase “what others think,” that is, theology. It used to be called the Queen of the Sciences and it can give your brain quite a workout. You have to begin with certain base assumptions (“God exists,” at the very least), but the way that these statements are unpacked can have enormous implications. I experienced it as something like calculus, but with angels.
I’ve let loose the teal deer before regarding the Education for Ministry course, which, despite the name, is for anybody who wants to dig into the roots of Christianity and contemplate its implications for daily life. (My fellow students included assorted Anglicans, some Lutherans, a recovering RTC, a Catholic, a Presbyterian, a Quaker, an agnostic, and several who preferred not to discuss their religion.) By the end of the course, you will have read the entire Bible, studied as much Church history as can be crammed into one year, and plunged into theology at the deep end. More details here:
http://www.sewanee.edu/EFM/index.htm

“God may in fact hate nothing more than people trying to figure out the Bible for themselves. It may be possible to think about it for yourself, come up with the wrong thing, and be doomed to eternal torment.”
I dunno, I can’t think any God worth loving and worshipping would create humans with the ability to think things through for themselves, then punish them for using that ability. Just like I can’t think any God worth loving and worshipping would create gay people, then punish them for being gay.
And I’d like to second ShifterCat’s point about the ex-gay ministries. I read an appalling paper once on the damage they can do to people. I think it was called “Youth in the Crosshairs” or something of that kind. Anyway, it was available online, so you might find it if you Google it.

The expulsion element of the law very much says to me that the issue that got it made is not “is the girl oppressed?” but that the headscarf is seen as disrupting or in some way threatening to the process of education for other students by the schools.
Yep, that’s the “proselytizing” argument.
Damn, I was starting to make my peace with the whole thing (you know, at least the segment of girls who are forced to wear headscarves but either don’t want to or don’t realize they’d prefer not to because they’ve never tried and whose parents won’t take them out of the public school system… well, they’re better off at least) but finding myself with a forumful of people who agree with me as a matter of course (surprising enough in itself) is just making me angry again.
Diez : Aw, thank you for your response

Diez: I’ve been away from the thread for a day so I’m late coming in, but I just wanted to say that you have no reason to judge yourself harshly. Everything you’ve said on this blog speaks of a warm, conscientious, decent human being; who you’re attracted to is not a choice, but those things are. Where you have a choice, you choose like a good person.
I’m an agnostic who has no problem with homosexuality, so I can’t say anything from inside your faith, but I find it hard to believe that if there were a God, He’d create you gay, direct your love in that direction and then want you to deny yourself. What is God, if not love? And if your natural tendency is to love men, I think it would be a terrible denial of love to refuse it when it’s offered.
I hope things go well for you. You’ll be in my thoughts.

Not sure who first wrote this, but :
“God may in fact hate nothing more than people trying to figure out the Bible for themselves. It may be possible to think about it for yourself, come up with the wrong thing, and be doomed to eternal torment.”
Yes, but it might also be possible that God in fact hates nothing more than green cheese, and all those who eat it are doomed to eternal torment.
If we are going to speculate wildly on the nature of God, we can speculate all sorts of horrible scenarios for damnation. But honestly, if the universe really works like that? We’re all doomed anyway. Your statement assumes two things:
1. That God is all-powerful, capricious, and cruel.
2. That we could possibly know, without a doubt, exactly what such a God wants us to do.
While I acknowledge that #1 is *possible*, I don’t believe that #2 is.
Think about it. *Everything* we think we know about God or gods is based either on our own direct revelation, or on somebody else telling us the story about their own direct revelation. There is no possible objective standard for God. There is no objective knowledge of God. Just your own experience of the divine, or somebody else’s experience, related to you.
Which leads me inevitably to this: even if there is a God in charge of the universe who is as legalistic and harsh as some people’s stories make him out to be, how can I *possibly* trust anyone else’s view of him? If I’m really completely eternally doomed if I guess wrong, then trusting someone else’s guess seems literally insane.
And… since I’m in the position of having to trust my own instincts about God either way, my instincts about God are that, if he exists at all, loves us and wants us to show love to each other. So that’s what I try to do.
If I’m guessing wrong, so what? I had no way to guess any better. And at least I didn’t spend my life *trying* to be a jerk.

mike timonin: Additionally, there are some differences between UUs and this blog. Less singing, for one.

Are you sure? We do have those Friday (not-so-)Random (not-exactly)Tens, after all.

Are you sure? We do have those Friday (not-so-)Random (not-exactly)Tens, after all.
As well as random snippets of Flanders and Swan, Tom Lehrer, plus whatever band the random denizens are high on this week.

As well as random snippets of Flanders and Swan, Tom Lehrer, plus whatever band the random denizens are high on this week.

Or whatever earworm they’re trying to exorcise by passing it on to us.

hmmm. Perhaps less collective singing then? Or less singing of hymns with alternates for “God” included? All of that is hedging though – I concede, there is much of a musical nature about the comments here.
Still no coffee hour, though.

The dichotomy resolves itself when you realize that they’re using “Christian” in two different senses.
When it suits their purpose to be inclusive, to point out the supermajority of Americans who call themselves “Christians,” then anyone professing a Christian belief is one of their fellow travelers.
However, when it suits their purpose to be oppressed, to point out the “assault” on their “values,” then “Christian” means specifically those people who share their fundamentalist beliefs, and not all those low-calorie Christians who think that maybe there’s room in the world for various beliefs, and that the core tenets of Christianity are tolerance and forgiveness.
It’s code, and the people who understand the code aren’t confused. Everyone else, well . . . the message isn’t really for them, is it?

Diez, I’d just like to say that you have a wonderful way with words, and from what little you’ve posted here, you seem a kind, intelligent, and gentle person. Someone I would be very happy to know. If you’re at all inclined to stick around here, we’d love to have you. Although you may not get much from the boobies…
Also, if it takes a long time for you to settle all this (I’m rooting for you to end up happily gay and Christian, but whatever you decide I hope that you are happy and feel you’ve acted with integrity), don’t worry. It can take a long time to figure this stuff out. (For any statistics you may be collecting, I’m a bisexual woman
of evangelical/Pentacostal/holiness extraction, mystical temperament, and mildly liturgical current practice–i.e. a queer Episcopalian. It’s taken me a dozen years to become emotionally “okay” with same-sex attraction, and I still haven’t dated any women. Other people, one hears, are a little more socially assertive than I and so actually get laid… )
Just know that MANY people have been where you are now, and while there are a number of different conclusions they have come to, those of us who believe profoundly and gladly that there is nothing God hates about being gay–in fact, that he rejoices in the variety of sexual orientations he has created–are not found only on this blog. So, not that “lots of people believe this” is the same thing as “this is right or reasonable,” but just know that pro-gay Christians are not some fringe cult who just want orgies. I mean, orgies are great if you’re into that sort of thing, but that might be more Izzy’s style than yours.
I also wanted to say that your coming in here and the responses that have been given to you have absolutely made my night. If this place is a UU congregation, then by God I may have to become a UU.

Andrew: I first noticed the phenom back in 1996. A very narrow minded Christian stated that, since Christians were a clear majority, the non-Christians (such as myself) should sit down and shut up. Within 2 minutes, he was denying that Catholics, Mormons, Anglicans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Lutherans except for Southern and Missouri Synods, American Baptists, and a host of others were “Really Christian”. I pointed out that if they weren’t Christians, then Christians weren’t a majority, and they should sit down and shut up.
But that wasn’t the only time I’d seen it.

About French schools, students are not allowed to wear religious symbols. A veil or headscarf worn by a Muslim girl is deemed to be a religious symbol but, IIRC, teachers will usually overlook Catholic students wearing inconspicuous crucifixes. I don’t know about France, but here in Britain hoodies are strongly associated with “anti-social behaviour”, and I doubt that students would be allowed to wear hoodies with the hood up in class.

The law targets religious symbols based on size; veils and headscarfs are banned from school, as are yarmulkes, but the only time crosses are banned is if they’re considered excessively large and ostentatious. Small religious symbols, such as the sort of cross most Christians are at all likely to wear around their necks, are fine. Which is definitely a disproportionate impact on Muslims, particularly Muslim girls and women.

Here’s a data point I find curious: the blog of a married parent with a doctorate who spent an entire year with her face and body covered from family, friends, and even herself, using a burkha and similar garments. In her case, though, the garments all were made of sheet latex: she is a submissive latex fetishist. (No erotic pictures, but the text is certainly NSFW.)
Perhaps the whole blog is fantasy fiction. Assuming it is not, I tried to decide what I thought of this woman’s choices… and eventually gave up the attempt and moved on. I can understand why people choose to wear various kinds of fetish clothing; but to bury one’s identity from the world for an entire year for 24-hour days is a desire that confuses me. I wouldn’t call it healthy, and yet she seems to be having fun, and it doesn’t break my leg or pick my pocket.
It messes with my head a bit, in several different ways, which probably was the author’s intent. Real, or unreal? Wise, or unwise? Submissive, or defiant? Degrading or liberating? I’m sure there is no shortage of opinions on the matter

Hmm. I’m a lot more likely to be wearing a hamsa than a cross, at least at work, for various and sundry reasons. Yet since I am neither Jewish nor Muslim, and my favorite one is rather small and discreet, would that be okay for me, but not for members of the other faiths?
What about my labrys? Is it okay for feminists to wear but not pagans?
(come to think about it — calling lonespark! — that would make PEACEFUL, religious display of the swastika verboten, but FASCIST, political displays a-ok!)

*sigh* “http://www.latexlifestyle.blogspot.com/”, since TypePad is still being random about HTML.

Hmm. I’m a lot more likely to be wearing a hamsa than a cross, at least at work, for various and sundry reasons. Yet since I am neither Jewish nor Muslim, and my favorite one is rather small and discreet, would that be okay for me, but not for members of the other faiths?
As far as I can tell, if it’s considered small and discreet, it’s acceptable, regardless of your religious views. If it’s not, it’s out. Muslim girls complaining about having to choose between their education and dressing in a way they found decent were told they could wear the Hand of Fatima as a substitute. Which isn’t exactly a solution, but people can pretend it is.

*looks up ‘labrys’*
ummm…okay…why exactly is a double-bladed axe a lesbian and/or feminist symbol? I’m hoping it goes beyond my first impression, an admittedly literal reading–”the better to chop off men’s…ummm…parts with!”

ummm…okay…why exactly is a double-bladed axe a lesbian and/or feminist symbol
So *that’s* the story with Jennie Breeden’s t-shirt! (http://devilspanties.keenspot.com/d/20011011.html)

cjmr, I’m told it goes back to Minoan Crete, supposedly a matriarchal society. Like most symbols, it’s a lot more important what it means right now to the person who displays it, than the historical authenticity of its origins.

Actually, IIRC, it’s supposed to be a Batman T-shirt. Just stylized from having been drawn so many times. But I may be wrong.

Lee Ratner:
However, I do not think she completely understands why France and many other countries adopted such a strict policy of separation of religion and state than the one adopted by America/Canada. When seperating religion and state, some religions give in more easier than other religions. Separating Catholicism or Islam from the State is a lot harder than separating Protestant or Orthodox Christianity from the State. This is because when Protestant/Orthodox Christianity are state religions, they are pretty subservient to the secular authorities of the State authortities usually and will back down without much of a fight. Roman Catholicism and Islam are different because when those two religions are the State religions, the religious authorities operate independently of the state and can put up more of a fight when it comes to loosing their official permission. Islam seems to be a particularly hard religion to separate from the state becuase theoretically it is supposed to be as much as a political system as a religious system. So when you have a religion like this to separate from the state, you need to be a bit more adamant and heavy-handed.
MASSIVE OVERSIMPLIFICATION. The most advanced fundamentalists in the midst of organizing a capitulation of the state and the installment of a Christian theocracy is arguably the US, with a coalition between extremists of the Protestant and Eastern Orthodox bents, both with rabid anti-Catholic strands. Historically, Protestant denominations have lagged behind the Catholic Church and Orthodox denominations in terms of how controlling they were over their populations, largely because so few Protestant denominations HAD states under their control (the Anglican church is the only official example that comes to mind, and that’s a clear exception because violent history forced massive compromising between various Protestant sects and Catholics).
Furthermore, the fact that you subdivide Christianity but treat Islam as monolithic is telling. Prior to the closing of Ijtihad (reinterpretation of the Qu’ran which stopped occuring under after the fall of Baghdad to the Turks), the largest division was probably between Shia (lacking state control and generally arguing against it), Sunni (having state control and generally arguing for it), and Sufic (lacking state control and nearly basing their religion around reject the state’s religious authority). As you’re probably aware, those three separate branches still exist, but the ideological revolution of the closing of Ijtihad made them less markedly distinct, at least within this domain. Now Sunni Islam and Shia Islam act almost as separate centers within the Ummah pulling followers of those specific sects to their respective spheres with Sufism dancing a merry jig around them as a pan-Islamic pseudo-religious philosophy. The major ideological strains coming out of the post-colonial/neo-colonial era have been Legalist, Fundamentalist, and Islamist, with the implications of secular-leaning dictatorships and legalism under colonial rule permitting a radical shift towards the rightwing and nationalistic extremes of Fundamentalism, ultimately developing into an even more radical outlier of Islamism, arguably a fascistic movement, and the primary group within which you are referring to all Muslims.
I hope that cleared some things up a bit.

Apropos of nothing much, my daughter attended a Catholic high school which had a handful of Muslim students. And I always found it an interesting fashion statement when they wore the hijab with their Catholic-schoolgirl-uniform plaid kilts.

Here’s a data point I find curious: the blog of a married parent with a doctorate who spent an entire year with her face and body covered from family, friends, and even herself, using a burkha and similar garments. In her case, though, the garments all were made of sheet latex: she is a submissive latex fetishist. (No erotic pictures, but the text is certainly NSFW.)
Perhaps the whole blog is fantasy fiction. Assuming it is not, I tried to decide what I thought of this woman’s choices… and eventually gave up the attempt and moved on. I can understand why people choose to wear various kinds of fetish clothing; but to bury one’s identity from the world for an entire year for 24-hour days is a desire that confuses me. I wouldn’t call it healthy, and yet she seems to be having fun, and it doesn’t break my leg or pick my pocket.
It messes with my head a bit, in several different ways, which probably was the author’s intent. Real, or unreal? Wise, or unwise? Submissive, or defiant? Degrading or liberating? I’m sure there is no shortage of opinions on the matter
While I find it hard to believe that is real, if it is real my take is that it is extremely unhealthy for a variety of practical reasons:
a) By participating in her fetish, 24/7 she has sexualized every moment of her day. Considering that there are support groups and psychiatric treatment for sexual addictions and obsession. I think its safe to assume that this is not a healthy mental state.
b) This is dangerous to her physically. There is no telling what that could do to her skin. She risks suffocation from the various hindrances to her breathing and injury from the various corsetry and restraints.
c) It is generally thought by most humans (Christians, atheists, other faiths) that it is important to leave this world a better place than you found it. 24/7 participation in this fetish kind of precludes her from having a positive influence on the world as a human. Its kind of hard to do charity work when you have on an outfit that severely limits your movement. Also while there is nothing wrong with eccentricity or individuality, no one is going to listen to the opinions of someone wearing fetish gear full time no matter how well thought out they are. She is practicing a bizarre type of hedonism.
That’s my opinion.

Both Unitarians and Universalists have Christian roots (maybe Universalists still consider themselves Christian these days) in the US, and I can’t speak for Unitarians elsewhere in the world. But I would not recommend that a Christian looking for a welcoming place necessarily try the UUs first.
From the experience of growing up in a UU Church, it was the other way around. People who went there and also identified as “Unitarian”, seemed more along the lines of liberal-er Quakers or UCC Christians. On the other hand, “Universalists” were typically Philosophical Christians if Christian at all. Then there were people who identified as neither, who usually went there for social reasons and were generally atheists.
UUs: the most complex religious community ever. Also, I don’t really recommend going there. They’re usually quite nice, but I’ve at least had some bad experiences of them turning cult-y on you, even after practically living in the church your entire life. Let’s just say RTCs aren’t the only ones that can go crazy and throw babies out with the bathwater, and leave it at that.

Sorry for the potential double post but:
But, as with any other issue, there’s typical parental authority and then there’s the minority who will use these things as an excuse to turn abusive. People have beaten their daughters for not being covered enough, and some of them are Muslims who claim to be doing it in the name of Islam. Men have beaten their wives over leaving a bit too much skin uncovered, and some are Muslim men who claim to be doing it in the name of Islam. Which means it’s true, as you say, that hijab and burkhas are largely a side issue, and addressing problems of domestic violence is what really needs to be done. It also means, in a fairly literal sense that there are women who need protection from being made to wear a burkha, because in certain specific circumstances, being made to wear a burkha means being beaten into submission until she complies.
I’m not sure if you’re making that argument, and I can understand both why you would agree or disagree with it, so please don’t be offended by the following. (I’m fairly certain you weren’t arguing it).
Nonetheless, that train of thought reminds me of the Prop 5 debate decades ago in California, which would have fired all homosexual teachers, because some could have been pedophiles (it also would have fired teachers who “supported” homosexual teachers, so it went even further into insane witch-hunt-land). I’m afraid I just can’t follow that specific logic: some members of group X are associated with an illegal/immoral practice, so we need to disbar/remove/disempower/whatever all of them. It’s a scary ideology when followed to its conclusions (which ultimately seems to be how Gitmo was justifed within sections of the right-wing, that a few Muslims committed or supported terrorist acts so we need to lock up all/many of them).
Fundamentally, it seems to skirt around the real issue, the illegal/immoral act. Instead of taking steps to prevent terrorism, lock up pedophiles, or stop sexual-related child abuse, we need to attack Muslims, gays, and hijab-wearers, regardless of how many people within those groups are involved in the specific problem, if any problem.
On some level there seems to a degree of dehumanization (or at least a lack of empathy) going on here. All Muslims are implicated in terrorism, even if not all terrorists are Muslims. All gays are associated with pedophilia, even if not all pedophiles are gay. All hijab-wearers are assumed to be under coercion or actively abused (as an earlier comment by a supporter of the ban suggested), even if not all abused children are abused in the name of Islam.
I suppose this is at least a some what faulty analogy, considering that legally at least the wearers of the various forms of hijab would be seen as victims of some one else’s illegal behavior.
On the other hand, locking random people up to stop terrorism, firing random teachers to stop pedophilia, and forbidding various hair-coverings to stop child abuse all seem to fit into the same suite of seemingly reasonable but easily proven to be totally ineffective ways of tackling the problem.
/my two cents

I’m not sure if you’re making that argument, and I can understand both why you would agree or disagree with it, so please don’t be offended by the following. (I’m fairly certain you weren’t arguing it).
Yeah, what you described isn’t what I was arguing at all (just to clarify). I was trying to explain why I’d been more literal than, in retrospect, I should have been, and made a statement that was technically true, but phrased in a way that really isn’t helpful for communication.
To go to the pedophile analogy; I don’t believe in punishing gay people as a group, because some people molest children of the same sex, and some of the child-molesters identify as gay. Nor do I believe that efforts to catch pedophiles should focus specifically on the gay community. Among other things, that would lead to ignoring straight child molestors. I do believe that child molestation should be prosecuted, and shouldn’t be ignored, tolerated, or idealized, regardless of the genders of the people involved, their sexual identity, and any claims they might make about how it’s an important part of ‘helping’ the victim ‘realize their sexual identity’. And I’m disturbed by the (rare) case of someone being so opened-minded their brains fall out on this issue, and acting like an adult woman going after a twelve-year-old girl is anything other than sexual abuse.
(For what it’s worth, I’m a lesbian.)
Similarly, I don’t support punishing Muslims as a group, assuming that Muslim men abuse their families, assuming people who wear the hijab are coerced, banning the hijab, treating the hijab as a sign of abuse, or making efforts to prevent domestic violence entirely or disproportionately focused on Muslims. I don’t think Muslims are collectively guilty, and I do know that Christians, Jews, Atheists, and people of all or no religious background engage in domestic violence. I support treating instances of domestic where “She was going to go out without a hijab!” is the abuser’s excuse like a standard instance of domestic violence, and not treating religion as an excuse. Which means that the specific (and, I’m fairly sure, small) subset of hijab-wearers who get beaten into it should get protection, the same as anyone else being abused. And I’m overly-literal to the point where it sometimes gets in the way of communication.
(For what it’s worth, I’m not a Muslim.)
And if that’s not clear, I’m afraid I’m going to have to bow out of this conversation. Because reasonable-sounding people seem to be finding things in my words that I don’t intend, so something is obviously going wrong.

to bury one’s identity from the world for an entire year for 24-hour days is a desire that confuses me
Perhaps she feels that she is expressing a part of her identity, not suppressing it.
It is generally thought by most humans (Christians, atheists, other faiths) that it is important to leave this world a better place than you found it. 24/7 participation in this fetish kind of precludes her from having a positive influence on the world as a human. Its kind of hard to do charity work when you have on an outfit that severely limits your movement. Also while there is nothing wrong with eccentricity or individuality, no one is going to listen to the opinions of someone wearing fetish gear full time no matter how well thought out they are.
Your argument is that she shouldn’t wear what she likes because other people might think her not worth listening to? Surely if she’s not heard, it’s the prejudices of the listener that are at fault, not the speaker’s unconventional appearance.
If she’s in a teaching position, then her mastery of the subject matter should be her most important quality. If she writes journal articles, most of the readers won’t have a clue what she looks like. And if she’s a SAHM, at least her kids will be tolerant of fetish culture. And knowledgeable of tailoring of non-standard clothing fabrics.
It’s quite easy to give money to charities without going to work for them, and even that’s more than most people do.
Presumably she is making herself happy by engaging in this activity, and that’s more joy in the world than there was before. She’s not hurting anyone by getting her jollies.
Plus, she’s probably contributing significantly to the patching skills of the local rubber specialist, and singlehandedly keeping the talcum powder and latex polish industry in business. And she’d save a lot of water, not having to wash her clothes. (Latex can only be cleaned by wiping with a slightly damp sponge.) I love a bit of latex clothing myself, but damn, does it take maintenance.
As for skin disease, latex is fine as long as you’re not allergic. It can chafe, but so can anything. Plus, burkas are traditionally a loose garment.

I think Caraville has a pretty good point with the “well meaning liberals” and the all religious symbols but we are really freaked out about the hijab ban in France. Many non-Western nations have norms and values that many people in the West, especially people of liberal/leftist bents but also people with rightest bents, find at very least worrisome if not vile and disgusting.* The treatment of women in many, but not all, Muslim-majority countries is one of these things. Many of us do not like it when we hear about a girl being flogged for flirting with a boy, who is often flogged to. We view the laws requiring women to at least whear a hijab if not a burkha or chador as controlling and authoritarian and think that the choice should belong to the girls or the women themselves.
We do not like the above and often feel powerless to do anything about it. Most of us know that we can not use force, both direct (ex. Iraq) and indirect (ex. sanctions and diplomatic isolation) to get these nations to conform to our norms and values. We also know that the use of force only stregethens the forces of tradition in the Muslim world. Yet we also feel that engagement gets us know were because the authorities do not let in alternative voice in. So we dispair and wonder what we can do. This is why things like the hijab ban came about in France. This is something we can do and we feel that we are liberating Muslim girls and women because of this even if it is heavy handed.
*The things we do not like are not limited to the Muslim world. We find a lot to criticize with how Hindu traditionalists treat couples celebrating Valentine’s Day or drinking beer in bars and other modern activities to. However, the Muslim world atrocities tend to get more press coverage and be more strident.

Lee Ratner: Many of us do not like it when we hear about a girl being flogged for flirting with a boy, who is often flogged to.
Speaking only for myself, I don’t “like” hearing about people — girls or boys — being flogged for flirting (or vandalism, or voting, or driving, etc.) out of outraged “cultural norms” but because, y’know, people being flogged.
No, I don’t think invading and dropping bombs on a country that does this will help. But let’s not equate disapproval of beating and torture with the banning of headscarves, mmkay?

I’m not really equating banning hijabs with disapproving torture but I admit that sloopy writing might not make that clear. What I’m trying to say is that lots of people outside the Muslim world, especially in the First World, feel frustrated at their perceived inability to do anything about the human rights violations that occur in the Muslim world or elsewhere. To overcome these feelings of an inability to do anything they latch onto things like banning headscarves as a way to help, at least in their perspective, Muslim women living in the First World. This makes them feel slightly better about themselves, that they have at least done something.

To overcome these feelings of an inability to do anything they latch onto things like banning headscarves as a way to help, at least in their perspective, Muslim women living in the First World.
Oh, I see. Yes, I understand the impulse. Except that such responses probably make things WORSE for women in the majority-Muslim countries, since it is all-too-easy to point to the French law as “proof” that “Western culture is anti-Islam”, which reinforces the Islamist agenda.

You are right with the response making matters worse or at least not helping. I really do not know what to do about the situation in Muslim-majority countries. Most of them have terrible governments, with the exception of Turkey and maybe Malaysia, Indonesia, Tunisia, and even Iran being somewhat okay. Jordan and Morrocco seem okay but they are basically enlightened dictatorships. The Islamists are often the only credible opposition to what are at best ineffective but well-meaning governments to horrid dictatorships at worse. The Islamists are horrible in their own way with their harsh violations of human rights and virulent anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and flagrant sexism. I really do not know what can be done about it. The best solution seems to let the Islamists win and make their populace tire of Islam while having some sort of containment so they do not commit any terrorist acts outside of their countries.

I apologize if I’m adding something redundant:
Though it’s small, there is a counterexample to the assertion that no one has ever been penalized in any way merely for saying the wrong thing about homosexuality. See the section on the Canadian HRC below, and Levant’s criticisms of it based on the difference between how he was treated and how Boissoin was treated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Levant#Human_Rights_complaint

Oh, wow. This discussion has been trucking right along while I spent the entire week slowly reading the discussion on Stoppage Time. Again, thanks to you guys for your support and your kind words. I like this place, and I believe I will stick around. I am not terribly knowledgeable on any subjects that actually matter, but I will be happy to learn and contribute to the discussion when I can. If I can.

@Diez-

And so every time I find my eyes drawn to one of the numerous college guys in my community who just cannot keep their shirts on, I feel like a filthy, miserable traitor heathen philistine sodomite pervert for daring to allow such things to cross my mind. My sexual orientation and my faith seem inherently incompatable, and yet here I am, and I’m really not sure what to do. How does a Christian rationalize his or her support for Gay Marriage when the Bible goes against it?

Ya know, this is one of those posts that makes me want to get down on my knees and thank God for making me asexual. It is so much easier to follow the teachings of my faith regarding sexual morals when I just don’t really have much in the way of a sex drive. I don’t have to worry about being tempted by a really hot guy (I do have somewhat of a hetero leaning, I enjoy looking at attractive men, but I don’t get the blood flow to the nether regions).
Oh, and you might want to check out 1 Samuel. There is a pretty strong implication that the not-yet-King David had a homosexual relationship with Saul’s son Jonathan. No, really. I remember reading a verse which I am to lazy to look up and quote at the moment to the effect that David’s love for Jonathan was better than the love of women. I kinda freaked out when I read that.
@Karen-

(Alexander and his lover whose name escapes me at the moment may have been close in age, but one of ‘em was The Emperor Of The Known World and the other, well, wasn’t.)
Um, that would be Hephaesteon.

Just checking to see if I’ve accidentally permablockquoted the thread.

I write stories for people which star them as characters. They’re kind of a form of therapy, and kind of a personalized gift. Sometimes I do this for free, and sometimes I am commissioned for money.
I have written stories for people who are homosexual, but I have avoided portraying their partners or depicting their romantic relationships. I do this because I feel very uncomfortable writing about or pondering such things, because I don’t feel that they’re right. I also feel uncomfortable referring to their monogamous, committed relationships as being marriages, because I don’t really feel that they are.
I bear them no ill will, and am rather on good terms with them. >.> They’re good people, and I like spending time with them. But I don’t like the idea of having to call their relationships marriages, and I don’t like the idea of their being allowed to adopt children; or more precisely, of people not being able to decide not to do business with them, even adoption agencies, because of anti-discrimination laws.
I’m well aware that all of the same things could be said by a kind person in the 1940′s, who simply was not comfortable with the idea of inter-race marriages … and I’m personally autistic, so I know what it’s like to see something as good and worthy of being celebrated when everyone around you thinks that it’s strange, or an inconvenience, or something to be fought and railed against. But I’m honestly having a hard time seeing homosexuality as something that ought to be celebrated like other forms of diversity. Even if pursued and made into a lifestyle, isn’t it basically like being sterile?
I feel like everyone around me is celebrating these people’s newfound impulses towards the death of their own species, and is berating me for being honest about the fact that it makes me uncomfortable. >.> And I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t all maybe confused.

I should have mentioned that I was concerned about anti-discrimination laws being applied to my writing business. Maybe that wasn’t clear. >.>
I know, I know, I’m making a big deal out of nothing. It’ll never happen; those incidents were overblown; something did happen, but it wasn’t as bad as people make it out to be.
But if it really is a metter of discrimination and equality at work here, then if I want to deny them the services that I extend to people in opposite-gender couples, where is my leg to stand on? I myself wouldn’t see it as just, even if I found it distasteful.
Except that I don’t see it that way. I see it as a matter of “any sexual congress outside of traditional marriage is wrong,” and “calling committed monogamous same-gender relationships ‘marriages’ is a perversion of the term and a crime against nature and God.” I don’t feel right expressing views that I feel are wrong in my stories, and I sympathize with anyone else who is now or will later be forced to do something they feel is wrong.
I just hope we can all find some way to respect each other while we are airing our differences. >.>

Jared, hi. I’ve got an autistic brother, so I know where you’re coming from with that. And I’m not at all trying to condem or attack you here.
But when you say that “calling committed monogamous same-gender relationships ‘marriages’ is a perversion of the term and a crime against nature”, I find that painful. I’m a lesbian myself, and although I’m not in a relationship right now, I’ve been in love with a woman so much that I wanted to marry her. To me, that desire was a pure, loving devotion. And for you to say that the thing I was wishing for was “a perversion and a crime against nature” – that’s very hurtful for me.
While I can understand your feelings for people who may be made to carry out actions that they feel are wrong, and while I feel sympathy for that situation myself, I also feel sympathy for gay people who feel they are being discriminated against. If, for example, a doctor refuses to give artificial insemination to a lesbian couple because he/she believes lesbianism is wrong, then the lesbian couple concerned will feel that the doctor is telling them that their feelings for each other are wrong, that their love for each other is wrong. That’s a very upsetting thing to hear from someone, especially when it’s someone you’ve gone to as a professional, hoping they would help you.
With regard to the sterility issue: as I’ve implied above, artificial insemination is possible. Adoption is also possible, and if children who would otherwise not have a loving home, will now have one, then what is wrong with that? I know that some people believe children brought up by gay couples will become gay, but I was brought up by a straight couple, and I’m not straight!
Being gay is not “an impulse towards the death of our own species”. It’s a form of love, and a celebration of the wonderful diversity there is in the world. I hope you can come to feel that too, some day, I really do.

*But when you say that “calling committed monogamous same-gender relationships ‘marriages’ is a perversion of the term and a crime against nature”, I find that painful.*
I’d like to second Random Atheist there. Again, I’m not saying anything against you personally, as I’m sure you’re a good person … but I find it painful to hear too. And I’m heterosexual.
But to me, marriage is about love. Just that, and I believe very strongly that it’s every bit as valid to love someone of your own sex as it is to love someone of the opposite sex. I believe it’s an important part of nature that we have homosexual relationships as well as heterosexual ones – there are gay people in every culture, and animals have same-sex relationships too. It seems to me that the capacity to love within your own gender is part of us, and as such, should be honoured along with all the other good elements of human nature – because love is always good.
And I have homosexual friends who are dear to me, and it makes me sad and angry that when they fall in love, they don’t have the same rights I do. Their relationships, I believe, are just as precious as mine, and that they don’t have the right to have their love recognised as such upsets me.
I’m getting married later this month, in fact, so marriage is very much on my mind right now. And in the UK, where I live, same-sex couples can only have civil partnerships. During the ceremony, which will be secular, the registrar will have to state that marriage is ‘between one man and one woman’ – even though my fiance and I don’t believe this should be the case. I actually asked the registrar if he could leave that out, and he said sorry, but he couldn’t. So during the ceremony, my beloved and I will have to stand by and silently endorse a law that hurts our friends – including one of our bridesmaids and several guests. That, to me, perverts the whole purpose of marriage, which is love and community.
Not just love between two people, but among family and friends as well. Marriages are conducted in public, and for a reason: they indicate to the community that you are together, they unite your families and friends, they bind the community closer together. Denying marriage to the gay members of that community splits the community apart, saying ‘Your relationships are less valid than theirs.’ That, to me, is the real perversion of marriage: taking something that should be about love and community and filling it with discrimination and division.
If a gay friend of mine gets married, that changes nothing about my marriage: that will be between my husband and me. But if they can’t, my joy in being married myself is shadowed by sadness that my friend can’t have what I have. It all makes me very sad.

Kit, thank you, that was beautiful!

Jared,
While I echo Random and Kit’s responses to your post, I want to address the underlying assumptions in your own posts.
Without getting into the god issue, what about homosexuality is a “crime against nature”? Is nature an entity that can be harmed or wronged? That might imply that procreation is the highest good in and of itself.
And how exactly would gay marriage be an “impulse toward the death of our species”? That implies that gay marriage will influence straights around the world to become gay and not procreate. It further implies that everyone has a responsibility to the species to procreate.
What is your basis for saying that “any sexual congress outside of traditional marriage is wrong”? I’m not necessarily advocating the opposite, I simply want to understand your reasoning.

Here’s another way of phrasing the question – how would you explain to someone from Mars why you feel homosexuality is wrong?

Kit, thank you, that was beautiful!
Just following your lead…

I also feel uncomfortable referring to their monogamous, committed relationships as being marriages, because I don’t really feel that they are.

Out of curiosity, why don’t you feel that they are? They’re loving relationships and they can adopt/use artificial insemination to have children, same as any other couple.
What, then, is the difference?

I bear them no ill will, and am rather on good terms with them. >.> They’re good people, and I like spending time with them. But I don’t like the idea of having to call their relationships marriages, and I don’t like the idea of their being allowed to adopt children; or more precisely, of people not being able to decide not to do business with them, even adoption agencies, because of anti-discrimination laws.

I’m reminded of a news story I heard a while back. A gay couple (in Florida, I believe) was part of a foster home setup, and had been given two kids four years ago. The parents of these kids had neglected and abused them (the four-year-old brother was the only one who fed/changed/etc. his baby brother) and were developmentally stunted as a result.
The agency predicted that it would take half-a-dozen years, at best, to get them back to average development levels when they took them away from their parents and gave them to this couple.
In a couple of years the older one was ahead of the rest of his class at school and the younger one was developing perfectly normally.
Recently they had to go to court to defend their right to raise these kids when (gah, I’ve forgotten exactly what it was. It was either someone in the agency or a third-party religious group. I’m afraid it’s been too long for me to remember exactly) argued that they’d clearly be better off with their original family than with these “filthy gays.”
I don’t recall if they won or not, I think they didn’t, but that’s immaterial.
This gay couple did an immeasurably better job raising these kids than their straight, biological parents did.

I’m well aware that all of the same things could be said by a kind person in the 1940′s, who simply was not comfortable with the idea of inter-race marriages … and I’m personally autistic, so I know what it’s like to see something as good and worthy of being celebrated when everyone around you thinks that it’s strange, or an inconvenience, or something to be fought and railed against. But I’m honestly having a hard time seeing homosexuality as something that ought to be celebrated like other forms of diversity. Even if pursued and made into a lifestyle, isn’t it basically like being sterile?

Should sterile people be banned from getting married, then? Are sterile people incapable of raising children? Do they not deserve tax breaks, hospital visit rights, etc?

I feel like everyone around me is celebrating these people’s newfound impulses towards the death of their own species, and is berating me for being honest about the fact that it makes me uncomfortable. >.> And I can’t help but wonder if we aren’t all maybe confused.

I rather doubt that a planet with a population of 7 billion and rising fast is going to end up lifeless due to homosexuality.
Working in the coal-mining industry is doing more to end the human race than gay marriage is, but no one beats coal miners to death for their career choice.

Except that I don’t see it that way. I see it as a matter of “any sexual congress outside of traditional marriage is wrong,” and “calling committed monogamous same-gender relationships ‘marriages’ is a perversion of the term and a crime against nature and God.” I don’t feel right expressing views that I feel are wrong in my stories, and I sympathize with anyone else who is now or will later be forced to do something they feel is wrong.

Why is “any sexual congress outside of traditional marriage” wrong? Who does it hurt? Me? I’m ambivalent. If I had a girlfriend I’d want to wait until I was sure that this was a very serious relationship before having sex, but I don’t know that I’d wait until marriage.
And, out of curiosity, who do you think will be forced to do something they don’t want to do?
Churches? They don’t have to preform any marriage they don’t want to.
Adoption Agencies? Should they not be there to do what’s best for the children in their care, not to pander to their own prejudices?
Doctors? “To keep the good of the patient as the highest priority.”, They should be concerned solely with the health of their patients, not their orientation.

I just hope we can all find some way to respect each other while we are airing our differences. >.>

It’s rather difficult to air ones differences if the other side sees what you’re doing as a “crime against nature and God.”
You’re asking for people to respect your social boundaries and yourself, but you seem unwilling to do that to others.

“a crime against nature and God”
And how does any of us know what God considers a crime? Sure, the holy book of the Christians says God does… except, actually, it’s a bit unclear and contradictory on the subject. As well, the proof asserting that book is God’s Word is precisely as convincing as a proof that God’s true intentions can be found in Dianetics or Illuminatus!
And, of course, there are and have been lots of other Gods and gods worshipped on this planet. Many of them are alleged to be perfectly happy with homosexuality. Wouldn’t it be something if God was saying to hirself, “I gave them all these different forms of love to show them how much I care for them! Why do they feel they must ignore so many of My gifts?”
Here’s a picture: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090508.html. There are thousands of galaxies in that picture. Any of those galaxies might have one, a dozen, or hundreds of species like us… we’ll never know. But one who can look at that picture, and then tell me that the Creator of all that wonder is passionately concerned about micro-managing our genitals, is guilty of sheer hubris… and I think the Bible did have a specific thing or two to say about that.

You’re asking for people to respect your social boundaries and yourself, but you seem unwilling to do that to others.
I hope Jared doesn’t mind me saying this, but I don’t get that impression. He says he’s autistic, which means that other people’s boundaries aren’t going to be immediately obvious to him, but I think he’s doing his best to speak respectfully. I notice that he himself put ‘crime against God’ and his other more controversial statements in quotation marks, for instance, which looks to me like an attempt to indicate these are just his personal feelings rather than a diktat he’s trying to impose on us. I don’t agree with his opinion, and putting something in quotation marks doesn’t necessarily make it less hurtful, but I took ‘I just hope we can all find some way to respect each other while we are airing our differences’ as an attempt to indicate good will. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.

Fair enough.
Also, re-reading my post it comes off as more confrontational than I intended. If you read it in a calm, questioning voice (think LeVar Burton on Reading Rainbow. ) then it’s closer to what I had intended.

Jared: I also feel uncomfortable referring to their monogamous, committed relationships as being marriages, because I don’t really feel that they are.
GDwarf: What, then, is the difference?
If I may speculate for a moment, it seems to me that the difference is whether you believe that men and women are more alike than they are different, or more different than they are alike. If you take that second view, then a relationship between two men or two women can never be exactly the same thing as a relationship between a woman and a man.

“If you take that second view, then a relationship between two men or two women can never be exactly the same thing as a relationship between a woman and a man.”
True, in fact, but with the corollary that any randomly-chosen relationship between a woman and a man won’t be the same thing as another randomly-chosen relationship between a woman and a man.
I have two friends married to one another. Both are sex-positive; one is a straight female and one is a gay male. They show every sign of being remarkably happy with one another; far from being a sham marriage, they are each devoted. I haven’t yet found a tasteful way to ask them how they handle their sexualities (I suspect that, whatever the answer, conservatives wouldn’t like it much.)
I cherish their friendship not only because I value them as people, but because they have built something that works for them that I don’t understand. That’s wonderful! (Literally.)

“any randomly-chosen relationship between a woman and a man won’t be the same thing as another randomly-chosen relationship between a woman and a man.”
That makes sense to me. I think one of the reasons why the lack of gay marriage rights bothers me is that my gay friends have been nothing but supportive of my relationship with the man I’m marrying: welcoming him and getting to know him when he first came into my life, supporting us as a couple, celebrating with us when we got engaged, helping us plan the marriage. Far from endangering our relationship as the religious panickers would seem to believe, they’ve been right alongside us, just as our straight friends have, because this isn’t about sexual orientation, it’s about people, and our gay friends are nice people, part of our community, and as such, have made it easier for us to be together, because that’s what happens in healthy communities. They’ve acted exactly as you’d expect straight people to act, if they were nice. There’s nothing different about our gay friends.
The only difference is in who they fall in love with – but that doesn’t seem such a big difference to me. I mean, I’m in love with Gareth rather than Mary, but I’m also in love with Gareth rather than Jim. I love my fiance instead of loving a woman, but also instead of loving any other man. The idea that marriage has to be opposite-sex makes me feel rather insulted, because both of us picked each other out of the whole of humanity, not just on the basis of gender.
And my fiance has some things in common with the men I don’t love romantically, but he has things in common with the women I don’t love romantically as well. He shares a gender with his best man, but he shares a sense of humour with my bridesmaid; in some ways, he’s more like her than like him, and vice versa. Having seen the two of them falling about laughing at each others’ jokes, it’s very hard to see why a half-chromosome here or there should make such a difference. What we have in common is that we’re all people. Men and women have so much in common with each other that it seems a frivolous distinction when it comes to marriage.

Kit: “Men and women have so much in common with each other that it seems a frivolous distinction when it comes to marriage.”
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You look at Gareth and Jim and Mary and see unique individual humans for whom their gender is just one characteristic among all the others that make them who they are. Some people apparently look at Gareth and Jim, and then at Kit and Mary, and see two different kinds of beings. And a relationship between two individuals of Type A is not the same thing as a relationship between one of Type A and one of Type B.
It’s a viewpoint which puts a lot a faith in inherent distinctions between “male” and “female”, as categories, beyond anything that can be attributed to culture, nurture, education, or environment. From this perspective, “marriage” isn’t a social construct or a legal contract or even a religious sacrament, although it may be expressed through those things; it’s more like a natural phenomenon, something independent of varying cultural definitions.
I hasten to add that this is not my perspective; I just think it’s one way of understanding the position that same-sex relationships may be loving, committed, nurturant, enduring, exclusive, but still Not The Same As Marriage.

I actually asked the registrar if he could leave that out, and he said sorry, but he couldn’t. So during the ceremony, my beloved and I will have to stand by and silently endorse a law that hurts our friends – including one of our bridesmaids and several guests.
He has to say it, but do you have to hear it? When he gets to that part, can you have the entire audience sing (even if it’s “La La La La La” or equivalent) as loudly as possible? He’ll have fulfilled his duty, but you (and your guests) won’t be subjected to something you find abhorent. (Since he seems sympathetic, I’d discuss it with him before hand. He may have an idea or two, as well.)
—————-
Speaking of weddings, when I finally marry my knucklehead pooky sweetie, we’re going to sing Peter Gabriel’s “Book of Love” to each other before exchanging rings:
The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It’s full of charts and facts and figures and instructions for dancing
But I
I love it when you read to me
And you
You can read me anything
The book of love has music in it
In fact that’s where music comes from
Some of it’s just transcendental
Some of it’s just really dumb
But I
I love it when you sing to me
And you
You can sing me anything
The book of love is long and boring
And written very long ago
It’s full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes
And things we’re all too young to know
But I
I love you when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
And I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
And I
I love you when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
You ought to give me wedding rings
Here’s a cool video with the lyrics translated into Spanish.

While I agree with most of this well-argued piece, I have to protest the way that references to the burkha are used. While it may be true that the argument about burkha logic represents institutionalization of the burkha, of the social, legal, educational and religious types, we cannot use such a well-reasoned argument to demonstrate total ignorance of other cultures. Some women CHOOSE to where the burkha. We can argue about what that choice means when the alternative is social ostracization, threats, and possible loss of freedom or life. But if we read relevant texts on the burkha we learn that some types of veiling permit women in Islam to not be objectified by a man’s view. That a woman can choose to wear something and not be a sexual object. As a woman in the United States, I am subjected to being sexually objectified every day, every hour, at almost every interaction, with men and women alike. It is simply the way we have learned to think of, conceive of women. It’s usually not intentional, often barely even a conscious choice. So in the veil there is some appeal, some advantage. Would I choose to wear a burkha? It would be culturally appropriative of me to do so, and in the states I would be objectified in a totally different way if I did. But if we are going to talk of burkha-logic, let us speak of institutional burkha-logic, and the point will carry

I have a long-term, stable, heterosexual marriage. But I’m infertile, and I’ve known that for some time. We recently adopted an older child from the foster care system, but I will never have biological children.
A lot of the arguments against gay marriage are also arguments against my marriage, at least since we’ve known about my infertility. Yet no one tries to annul my marriage–and why should they? It works. Me and my husband and child are better off for its existence, and no one is worse off.
I feel I owe it to myself, as an infertile woman, to stomp hard on any argument that fertility is the measure by which anyone’s marriage should be judged. Infertile marriages are still valid, loving partnerships of human beings. It’s common to add “and can still raise children” here, but even marriages which will never raise children are, in my eyes, utterly valid. My stepfather remarried at an age where he won’t have children, biological or otherwise; but his marriage is loving and stable and a great thing for him and his family.