Lead:
Also noted:
Category: 9th Commandment Watch
Slacktivist Compares Apostle to Mafioso!
Millions of you have been jamming my comment boxes with inquiries about the wellbeing of Fred Clark, the Slacktivist, who appeared to have some kind of melt-down Friday.
I’m sorry to report that by Saturday evening, my good friend Fred was doubling down on his mendacious railing.
Okay, I made up the part about millions jamming my comment boxes. And the part about Fred being my good friend. I just follow him because about a third of the time he says interesting and defensible things that challenge me a little or a lot. The other 2/3 is mostly cryptic allusions to something the choir he’s preaching to, or a demographic younger than me, understands. I don’t think he follows me.
In admitting that I made stuff up, I’ve admitted infinitely much more error than Fred has admitted, for Fred has, like a politician caught in flagrante delicto, reinvented what he said and doubled down on the reinvention as if it were the original. The only thing he’s admitted is anger, but is at pains to demonstrate how very righteous that anger was and is.
A white evangelical Christian celebrity got up in public and spouted hateful racist bullshit. That celebrity, further, claimed that this hateful racist bullshit was based on Jesus and the Bible, and that it represented the views of all white evangelical Christians everywhere.
There could be one — and only one — appropriate response.
And white evangelical Christians struggled, and failed, to give that response.
Instead of denouncing the hateful racist bullshit, white evangelicals rose to defend the celebrity’s right to spout hateful racist bullshit without being criticized. And his right to be televised while doing so.
(Emphasis added)
Yeah, so, some third-tier bearded TV personality proclaimed white supremacy, compared gay people to terrorists who practice bestiality, and reduced all women to “a vagina.”
And that got me angry. Not because this sad old man said such things — that wasn’t a surprise, so his bile itself wasn’t that upsetting. What got me angry was that Christians raced to defend this man and to identify with him and with his message.
(Emphasis added)
He’s added “reduced all women to ‘a vagina’,” which is a little exaggerated, but “partially true” in Snopes terms.
And he’s added “compared gay people to terrorists who practice bestiality.” The charge that someone “compared” one controversial thing to a second odious thing is, of course, a standard tool (“equivocation” is the name) of demagogues because it sounds damning, whereas the reality may be less indefensible. But Fred makes this one easy: this one’s a lie. The article’s only reference to terrorists has nothing to do with bestiality, and even the “comparison” of homosexuality with bestiality is a mere inclusion of both in a list of sins, as shown below.
“Spouting hateful racist bullshit,” the original exaggeration, now is an outright lie: “proclaimed white supremacy.” Pants on freakin’ fire, Fred.
He still cites not one example of Christians defending any of this, but this time I have no doubt that he could, if he wanted, find someone who defended Phil Robertson comparing homosexual practice to bestiality, if they could be conned into thinking Phil said it. On the vaginas and happy pre-civil-rights blacks, I doubt that Phil has many defenders rushing to identify with him, but maybe Fred will point some out.
As for “defending this man,” what are we supposed to do, Fred? “Exclude him from the blessed community”? Yeah, Fred uses that trope:
Here’s all you need to know about Robertson’s misuse of the Bible: He quoted Paul to defend excluding people from the blessed community.
Yes, the Apostle Paul. Not some other Paul. Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus. The star of the second half of the book of Acts. The guy who wrote a bunch of letters that we’ve included in the New Testament.
Have you ever read Acts? Have you ever read those letters?
If you have, then you’re one up on Phil Robertson, because there’s no way you could read Acts and read Paul’s letters and then still somehow decide that Paul has got your back when you’re trying to exclude people.
Quoting Paul to defend exclusion is like quoting Tony Soprano to defend pacifism. Maybe you can find something Tony said that you can pluck out of context to make it sound like it might support that. And then you can ignore everything else Tony ever said or did and just elevate that one isolated phrase, repeating it over and over until you’ve convinced yourself that it means the opposite of everything Tony Soprano represents.
First question: Did Robertson really defend excluding anyone (or “compare” homosexuality to bestiality in any meaningful sense)? Are you referring to this, Fred?:
[GQ question:] What, in your mind, is sinful?
[Robertson Answer:] Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.
…
We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”
(Boldface added to highlight the points at which Fred’s flights of fierce fantasy glance off an isolated word or two.) I’ve squinted real hard, Fred, and I don’t quite see that Phil’s trying to exclude anyone.
Second question: have you, Fred, ever read I Corinthians 5? It’s a short, pointed chapter. Paul seems to me to be telling the Church at Corinth to “exclude from the blessed community”:
- a man who fornicated with his step-mother
- fornicators generally
- covetous
- idolaters
- drunkards
- extortioners
- Oops. Sorry Fred. “Railers,” too. Don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out.
There’s more that could be said about that list, but I think the chapter makes it a bit facile for Fred to, er, “compare the Apostle Paul to Tony Soprano.”
See what I mean about how dishonest an equivocal “compare to” can be?
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Sunday, 12/15/13
Impacting Indiana for 33 years!
Advance America, in a Sunday bulletin insert offered to churches, lays out what its leaders see as dangers ahead:
» Authorities jailing pastors for preaching against homosexuality.
» Cross-dressing men violating women’s privacy in their restrooms.
» Government forcing business owners to cater to same-sex weddings.
» Schools teaching children that gay marriage is normal.
The flier, put out this fall, argues that the items are “Just Four Dangers of Same-Sex Marriage” that could be on the horizon if Indiana fails to safeguard its traditional marriage definition, which already is contained in state law.
(Indianapolis Star story reprinted 12/13 by the Journal & Courier on page C1)
The flyer was quickly dismissed by “experts.” I’m an expert of sorts, and in the context of the article (“dangers of same-sex marriage”), I’d say the fourth is almost certain to happen in Indiana if Indiana recognizes same-sex marriage, even if there’s no legislative mandate to do it.
The others really are, in varying degrees, either (a) plausible but not consequences of recognizing same-sex marriage or (b) outright implausible in the United States.
Bear in mind that the defeat of HJR-6 does not mean that Hoosiers favor same-sex marriage or that SSM will become law. I likely would vote against it, with mixed feelings, because the second sentence is so vague that it feels like deliberate sabotage of the Resolution by false friends. (This isn’t an accusation of anyone. I don’t know who dreamed up that second sentence, or what they had in mind.)
A statutory prohibition already exists. The way litigation on homosexuality-related laws progress these days, things like the Advance America bulletin insert likely will end up marked as Trial Exhibits in any lawsuit alleging that Hoosiers only approved HJR-6 because they’re bigots with a “bare desire to harm” gays (not to mention that we’re ugly and our mothers dress us funny). That kind of evidence weighs heavily with Justice Kennedy, and he’ll be sure to accuse us of bad stuff in his 5-4 opinion for the majority.
But how about the specific “dangers ahead”?
- “Authorities jailing pastors for preaching against homosexuality.” “Jail,” implies crime. Eric Miller of Advance America, a lawyer, knows this. Free Speech remain pretty secure, though the made-up right to sexual expression, free from any stigma, is ascendant. I’d not bet against jail in 50 years, nor would I bet against extreme social and media hostility toward anti-homosexuality preaching in very short order. And there will be preachers so obsessively fixated on this particular sin that they’ll deserve to be held suspect. But jail? I call “bullshit” on this one.
- “Cross-dressing men violating women’s privacy in their restrooms.” Not a consequence of same-sex marriage. There are apparently true stories about “gender identity” mismatches with biological sex, and of a school being forced to allow a boy who identifies as a girl to use the girl’s restroom. Weird marks of cultural insanity, to be sure, and of the sort of insanity that would also think same-sex marriage reasonable. But whoever came up with this “danger” was just free associating about the outlandish things sexually troubled people do, not reasoning about consequences of SSM.
- “Government forcing business owners to cater to same-sex weddings.” This is a big topic. Lots of stories about this sort of thing from states that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Indiana has no such law. New Mexico
bans SSMadheres to a traditional definition of marriage but does have such an anti-discrimination law, and a New Mexico photographer is on her way to SCOTUS appealing her hefty fine for declining to photograph a “commitment ceremony” that couldn’t be a “marriage” precisely because of the state’s non-recognition of SSM. Some Indiana cities and counties, moreover, have banned (maybe more accurate to say “subjected to free-floating flak from do-gooders on Human Relations Commissions if someone complains”) “discrimination based on sexual orientation.” I think it’s highly likely that caterers, photographer, bakeries and the like will be subjected to petty harassment of Human Relations Commissions in some localities if Indiana recognizes same-sex marriage, but those ordinances are relatively toothless.
Of course, it’s hard to imagine Indiana recognizing same-sex marriage without previously or concurrently banning discrimination based on sexual orientation statewide. Bear that in mind as you look at my precis on some of these three items.
Advance America, despite its Christian pretenses, appears guilty of transgressing the 9th Commandment which, even Protestant Reformers agreed, includes reckless gossip.
But what do you expect from a group whose website boasts that it’s “Celebrating 33 Years of Impacting Indiana!”? What say we give Indiana a high colonic, to thoroughly rinse out 33 years of accumulated Advance America toxins, and call it a day?
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Friday Full House, 11/22/13
Thursday, 11/14/13
Not polite society and rated (PG-13)
Well this is embarrassing.
I thought the Todd Akins gaff about “legitimate rape” was an embarrassment largely because it acknowledged the occasional making of false accusations. One isn’t supposed to acknowledge the sometime mendacity of certified victims of patriarchy. All men are rotten bastards, period. “It takes incredible courage for a woman to come forward and report a rape.” And children always tell the truth about molestations, too; they’re not at all suggestible in the hands of experts.
The truth, though, could be far worse than political incorrectness. The basis of the claim that women rarely become pregnant by rape (because that’s traumatic and disrupts ovulation) is plausibly alleged by Emily Bazelon to be experiments by a Nazi doctor. The “experiments,” by the way, didn’t actually involve rape. They involved mock executions – a presursor of waterboarding, and may have been misinterpreted to boot:
Stieve published 230 anatomical papers. With the data he gathered pre-execution, as well as the tissues and organs he harvested and studied, he could chart the effect of an impending execution on ovulation. Stieve found that women living with a looming death sentence ovulated less predictably and sometimes experienced what he called “shock bleedings.” In a book published after the war, Stieve included an illustration of the left ovary of a 22-year-old woman, noting that she “had not menstruated for 157 days due to nervous agitation.”
Stieve drew two conclusions that continue to be cited (for the most part, uncritically). He figured out that the rhythm method doesn’t effectively prevent pregnancy. (He got the physiological details wrong but the conclusion right.) And he discovered that chronic stress—awaiting execution—affects the female reproductive system.
…
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists warned that saying rape victims rarely get pregnant was “medically inaccurate, offensive, and dangerous.” But the anti-abortion doctor Jack Willke, former head of the National Right to Life Committee, insisted otherwise. “This goes back 30 and 40 years,”he told the Los Angeles Times in the midst of the Akin furor. “When a woman is assaulted and raped, there’s a tremendous amount of emotional upset within her body.” Willke has written that “one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant” is “physical trauma.”
Medical people who promulgated the theory in the pro-life cause have even more egg on the face than do I.
I’ve often said “I’ve never argued [this or that discreditable theory]” on various topics. Mea culpa, mea culpa! I have argued that pregnancy rarely results from forcible rape. But there are mitigating factors (since this isn’t a real Confessional, I can whine about mitigating factors).
The issue was highly politicized, and I was in one of the two camps, distrustful of the other with more than a little justification, since “they” tactically focused on “the hard cases” and argued out of both sides of their mouths. Remember “rape is a crime of violence, not of passion”? Citing that, I usually, if not invariably, accompanied the “trauma-disrupted ovulation” claim with the related claim that forcible rapists, bent more on humiliation of the victim than sexual satisfaction, typically don’t linger long enough to ejaculate. I haven’t heard that one refuted yet. But confirmation bias was there, too, and I did buy the “trauma-disrupted ovulation” argument at least a little.
Oh: the Friends of Feticide aren’t the only ones to argue out of both sides of their mouths. We pro-lifers focused and continue to focus on what ought to be easy cases: partial-birth abortion and sex-selection abortion, for instance. “Not only,” saith the fictive pro-lifer, “is pregnancy from rape vanishingly rare, but we have a Speaker’s Bureau full of beautiful and accomplished young women who were conceive by rape, for whose mothers we should all be ever-so-grateful for doing the right thing, bringing them to full term to brighten the world by their beautiful, accomplished countenances. Did we mention that they’re beautiful? And accomplished. And pious?”
Still, I’d be much obliged if someone could prove that it’s Bazelon, not Jack Willkie, who conned me. I’d appreciate a morally pristine and medically reliable source for my former talking point. (Chirrup. Chirrup. Chirrup.)
But until then, my default position now is that if a rapist ejaculates, however common or uncommon that is, pregnancy is as common as from any other “unprotected” sexual act.
Comments on the merits welcome. Comments suggesting that I’m a bastard aren’t – as aren’t suggestions that I be beatified for admitting, with mitigators, that I was wrong.
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“The remarks made in this essay do not represent scholarly research. They are intended as topical stimulations for conversation among intelligent and informed people.” (Gerhart Niemeyer)
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 