Thursday, December 25, 2008

David Benkof Is Back

David Benkof's "Gays Defend Marriage" site is back again. He took the site down in mid-July 2008, citing disagreements with some of the rhetoric behind Prop 8. But he is back blogging again; most of his old stuff is still available. He sent me an email since I had been one of his fans of his bold, clear thinking in the past. And I still am.

David is a Jewish man who identifies as a bi-sexual, however he believes that gay sex is an abomination before God. So he has chosen celibacy for himself. As for everyone else, he is not afraid to tell them what he believes that God thinks about homosexual activity, especially gay male sexual relations. This obviously puts him at odds with many of the religious liberals of the world and probably all of the in-your-face gay activist community. Ironically, he is the type of person who will do the most good for the cause of gays by setting an example of boldness and unselfishness that unbigoted heterosexuals will be forced to respect.

As an introduction to David's philosophy and viewpoints on many gay issues, I recommend reading Selfless Agenda first. I can't agree with everything he writes, but I agree with a lot of it. Plus he's an incredible communicator and is always challenging. After you've digested that, time to tackle Phantom Past. It's very interesting, especially since it's the kind of stuff you never hear in the popular media. Here's an excerpt:

Clearly, all the research taken as a whole suggests that being gay or straight arises out of our specific social context, rather than being etched into our DNA. Of course, given the scant popular awareness about this situation, the idea that gays haven’t always existed can be completely unsettling. Many gays and lesbians have experienced their sexual orientations as unchosen and unchangeable, and therefore they are skeptical - and even hostile - toward anything that implies being gay isn’t part of human nature. And even lots of nongay people and organizations have built outlooks about homosexuality around a belief that the gay minority occurs naturally.

For example, the American Psychological Association (APA) argued in its Supreme Court brief in the landmark 2003 sodomy case of Lawrence v. Texas that “the sexual orientation known as homosexuality - which is based on an enduring pattern of sexual or romantic attraction exclusively or primarily to others of one’s own sex - is a normal variant of human sexual expression.”

Since the specific sexual orientation described is a recent, culturally driven phenomenon, it cannot be a “normal variant of human sexual expression.” Had the APA argued that homosexual orientation “appears to arise involuntarily among some people in our society,” it would have been closer to the mark. There were good, legitimate reasons (such as privacy) to oppose anti-sodomy laws. The supposed natural occurrence of homosexual orientation in the human species, however, was not one of them.

You really need to read the entire piece in which his scholarship on his topic is stunning. I include the excerpt so you can see how Benkof is not in sync with the standard P.C. mantra of "they're born that way", an assertion which he shows is not backed up by any anthropological or historical evidence. His last sentence asserts something I agree with fully: "It's a whole new conversation, one that’s touchy and hard to predict but long overdue."

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The White Peoples Is Finely Gettin' It

Check this sh*t out, dog....



Yo, ho, ho, bro... Bush gives Santa Dog the "fist bump".

Last Minute Gift Idea

I reduced the price on the my old band's MP3 CDs, so consider a last-minute download-able gift for a fan of early-nineties alternative.

[Cross-posted]

A Web Guilty Pleasure

Sometimes I go over here for a laugh, and I got one today.

John Darnielle. Musician (Mountain Goats). Indie-god. NPR heart-throb. Funny lyricist. Three sure things in life: Death, taxes and a Prius in Darnielle's driveway.

I don't know why it so funny to me. Most likely because it's simply so dang polticially incorrect. It's got to be post-post-post-modern ― at least three posts in there. I mean, OK, many lesbians seem to start looking like men at some point (viz. the Indigo Girls two years ago, esp. Amy Ray the brunette. Remember when they were cute?)

But I can't figure out why half of these guys fit into his category. Andrew Lloyd Webber, for example, merely looks like an old guy to me. When I first look at his picks, the common feature seemed to be hair in some kind of style, but then I saw he picked William Ayers who doesn't fit that criteria. The more I look, the more it seems to me like this guy thinks everyone out there except a G.I Joe action figure bears a resemblance to an aging lesbian, which leads me to believe that the guy has a fixation or mania about the the whole concept. Even so, it is a funny site.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Deal Hudson Proposes a Grass Roots Infusion

It's about a third of the way down the page here. I think he's right. Excerpt:

It was the flawed "Faithful Citizenship" document, coupled with some unwise public remarks by Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, that brought the bishops into play during the 2008 election. These circumstances are very unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. Catholics will be making a mistake if they assume that the 80+ Catholic bishops who spoke out to defend Church teaching this year will continue to do so in future elections.

There are a few good pieces in this series. Bill Donohue's and Frank Keating's for example. We get the usual blah, blah from Amy Welborn and Mark P. Shea, and we are treated to the immense stupidity of Mark Stricherz here. So what can I say? Have at it. It be wha' it be.