Tag Archives: Religion

GAY=SIN video by Matthew Brown

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GAY = SIN from Matthew Brown on Vimeo.
Matthew Brown has made a video which he shares on Vimeo, looking at how some people are so thoroughly opposed to the ‘gay lifestyle’ – which I interpret simply as opposition to the fact that gay people exist – that they feel compelled to share their distain for others in a as public a forum as is possible. He overlays critical audio over images captured of friends sharing special times together. The sounds so awfully contrast with the clement, benign and thoroughly gregarious nature of the images portrayed – pictures that could not be further from the audio that accompanies them. The result is artistic and thought provoking, as well as not just a little bit beautiful.
Check out the video link for an High Definition version which, through its clarity, renders the images yet more poignant and meaningfull.

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Moral Outrage? It’s there, and it’s justified.

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Reading an opinion piece in Wednesday’s WSJ: Our Selective Moral Outrage - Why does Israel face more opprobrium than Russia?‘. I am continually disappointed with Israel’s wartime violence and lack of cultural nous, (displayed in the  UN report reporting on Israeli solders making Palestinian children before them as human shields Haaretz: IDF troops used 11-year-old boy as human shield in Gaza), that I tend to react negatively when those in the US based media try to explain away or shame away critics. I’d be very interested to hear from those who think I’m wrong.

Why greater censure; because Israel has higher relative wealth than Russia and in other contexts acts in an intelligent and rational way. How can we explain away Israel’s bad behaviour as though it doesn’t have other options? Melanie Phillips in The Spectator writes today of the west’s ‘pathological obsession’ with Israel, ‘Selective Moral Outrage‘. The thing is, when we discussing a state that is financially propped up by the US, one should hold them to a higher standard. It’s delusional and insulting to claim that all opposition to the actions Israel takes militarily is anti-semitic, as Bret Stephens implies: ‘As for the Chechens, too bad for their cause that no Jew will ever likely become president of Russia’.  Russia is no Israel and visa versa. This but what about argument just doesn’t hold water. As Johann Hari recently wrote in his article in The Independent – ‘How to spot a lame, lame argument‘: There is one particular type of bad argument that has always existed, but it has now spread like tar over the world-wide web, and is seeping into the pubs, coffee shops and opinion columns everywhere. It is known as ‘what-aboutery’ – and there was a particularly ripe example of it in response to one of my articles last week.

As a rhetorical trick, it is simple. Anyone can do it, and we are all tempted sometimes. When you have lost an argument – when you can’t justify your case, and it is crumbling in your hands – you snap back: “But what about x?” You then raise a totally different subject, and try to get everybody to focus on it – hoping it will distract attention from your own deflated case.

Can we back away from the distraction of comparing Israel/Palestine to everywhere else in the world and concentrate on fixing what is clearly going wrong with that conflict itself. Middle-Eastern peace won’t come because one day everyone realises what Russia does in Chechnya is worse, but rather when all sides are honest about they can, could and should do to end conflict and bring about a harmonious life for all. I still think this is possible, though the mindset and honesty from all parties required is some ways off.

Plus, basing an article on numbers of hits from a Google search is elementary-school level journalism.

Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal – Our Selective Moral Outrage – Why does Israel face more opprobrium than Russia?

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Being Atheist by Christopher Hitchens

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Jonathan Miller, who’s now kind of the new chairman of the International Secular Society or the British Humanist Association, one of the two, in England. He said to me the other day, he doesn’t like the word atheist because he doesn’t think there should be a special word for it, if you don’t have a word for saying you don’t believe in the Tooth Fairy.

A Different Argument: Interview with Christopher Hitchens in The Seattle Weekly

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Wayne Besen: Eradicate gays, eradicate christians

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‘Phelps’, taken by Ron’s Log.

Wayne Besen, on his blog, discusses the the idea of a Southern Baptist leader Rev Albert Mohler Jr that one day, were a genetic propensity to homosexuality ever discovered, he would condone the use of anti-gay treatments to correct these traits. The idea is interesting because it comes from a man who is clearly in a position of power in his community. He’s riding high and there are few natural predators. There’s no need to watch your back, right? But what if he did have to? What if he were to consider his stated view but from the position of a Christian who is unpopular. You go to Turkey, go to China, go to Indonesia and perhaps the idea that eradicating gays might not be quite as powerful. Why? Not that these men and women who criticise everyone else’s lifestyles would have had a change of had, not that their hatred would have diminished, but in the light of threats to their own eradication and extermination perhaps they would have less haste in persecuting others. Besen says:

Before you dismiss this question as hypothetical or academic, consider that research into the origins of spirituality is a robust field of inquiry. There are currently about a dozen studies that show shared personality traits among religious people, suggesting a genetic or biological basis. …In Mohler’s world, conservative Christians are a majority and considered a paragon of virtue. However, the late singer John Lennon is not the only person who has “imagined” a world without religion and its Inquisitions and suicide bombers. Indeed, there are prominent scholars and writers who consider religion to be little more than a psychological defect – much like the Southern Baptists now consider homosexuality.

While the right in America is strong they think of their worldview as omnipotent and supreme. But their lack of humility and their absolute faith, which often equals a disregard of and lack of respect for the views of others could be a threat to themselves. Who is to say that in some future time, our increasingly laïque and secular societies will not view religion as a greater threat to humanity than ‘alternative’ sexualities? Gays don’t start wars because other people aren’t gay, we just want to be left alone. But those crazy christians are just bringing fire onto themselves. By pushing to continually persecute gays, legislating against us, protesting against us, hating against us, praying against us, shooting, stabbing and killing us, they will eventually undermine their own position of what is for now strength. Love thy neighbor flys out the window when those neighbors are both guys. Maybe they should rethink that?

Wayne Besen: Mohler’s Slippery Slope

formerly.. Just how gay is the right?

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