[Links]
[links] Link salad tries to proposition 8, gets slapped a lot
A Continental Shift and Its Implications — “Polar Wander” is a new one for me. And interesting…
Robots as Art: The Serene Beauty of LumiBots
Britain Believes No Milk From Clones Was Sold — Wow. What a headline. Oh, the imagery… (And I have to ask, why is animal cloning considered “potentially dangerous and cruel”?)
How Press Censorship Hid the Shocking Truth About Nagasaki A-Bomb 65 Years Ago
More on Proposition 8 — (Thanks to lt260.)
Insincere bigotry — Many of the conservative Baptists among whom I grew up believe that dancing is a sin. I have never heard any of them suggest that weddings are invalid if there is dancing at the reception. Nor did any of them argue that professional dancers ought to be relegated to second-class citizenship — forbidden to marry, to adopt children, to serve openly in the military. They didn’t argue such things because it wouldn’t have made sense. The leap from “dancing is a sin” to “dancers are subhuman and should not have rights” is illogical and it’s bad theology by their own standards. The belief in a religious prohibition against homosexuality can be exploited by demagogues to produce and nurture bigotry among those who are prone to bigotry, but that religious prohibition is not, in itself, the cause or the source of that bigotry.
The Unreasonableness of the Reasonable Arguments Against Gay Marriage — You can clothe it in all the rhetoric and theology you want, but opposition to gay marriage is still arrant bigotry at its heart. Where is the harm? In court, with months to prepare, the alleged harm created by gay marriage could not be demonstrated by opponents.
?otD: How many times have you been married?
8/14/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1.5 hours (revisions and WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 (solid)
This morning’s weigh-in: 242.2
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy)
Currently (re)reading: Defender by C.J. Cherryh
Posted: 5:50 am Sat August 14 2010 |
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You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
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Cora
August 14th, 2010 at 4:55 pmFrankly, religious objections to dancing are even more incomprehensible to me than religious objections to same sex marriage. I believe that all commonly raised objections to same sex marriage are variations on “I think gays are icky” and “My religion thinks gays are icky”, which is no acceptable reason for banning anything.
But dancing? What on Earth is wrong with dancing? Dancing is a universal expression of joy and as far as I recall mentioned in the Bible at several points and not as a prohibition. Not that I pretend to understand the hang-ups of fundamentalist US Christians anyway, but this objection to dancing is utterly incomprehensible to me.
Regarding the Nagasaki link, it is very sad that even after 65 years the victors of WWII (mainly the US and Britain, the Russians are a bit more nuanced) are still unwilling to accept that some things they did in the WWII were wrong, even though it might not have seemed that way at the time. Dropping two atomic bombs on Japan was wrong. Firebombing cities full of civilians with no military targets was wrong (and it still was wrong in Vietnam and is wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan). Dropping toys boobytrapped to explode upon handling was wrong. Torpedoing refugee ships was wrong. Low-flying fighter planes firing at seven-year-old boys (one of whom was my father) was wrong. It doesn’t even need an apology, just an acknowledgement that some things are wrong, even if the underlying cause is right. Instead you get plenty of jerks like those commenting at the Huffington Post link.
Question of the day: Never been married and never will, since I am strictly opposed to marriage as an outdated patriarchical institution. But since we seem to be stuck with the institution for the time being, why not let the gays and lesbians join in, if they want to.