Support for same sex marriage grows... ever stronger

[Ben Kenobi]

You speak of tolerance, but you only tolerate because you have to. If it were still politically acceptable to take a more authoritarian stance, I have no doubt at all that you would. A few decades ago you'd have been defending sodomy laws.

Scalia's batting a 1000 right now.

I haven't decided what to believe. Right now, I'm a fan of Thomas' jurisprudence on the issue that it's not enforceable, and only enforceable laws should be on the books.

Scalia made all kinds of dire predictions, every one of them right.

[Ben Kenobi]

Not going to touch the rest of your tripe, but seriously? Le Roman de la Rose? Gigantic, long-winded allegory plainly describing a young man's attempt to get it on with a little girl? Hugely popular work in the middle ages? Inspired a knock-down, drag-out fight between Christine de Pizan and its supporters for alleged lewdness? Not ringing a bell?

How about Chretien's Lancelot? "The Art of Courtly Love?" It's not a matter of "interpreting" anything. The earliest texts quite explicitly say that Love is an institution of extramarital sex in which a man subordinates himself to the "lordship" of a woman so he can get past her garter. Andreas spells it out in a bloody catechism.

Like anything it can be taken to excess. What about Dulcinea in Don Quixote? Malory? Chaucer?

I won't argue it is blameless, and I agree with you about the adultery part, but it's not central to the concept and the ideal of courtly love, or the process prior to marriage. It's a far cry from what we see today. If I have to look and compare it to modern culture, who would I say has the better view?

[Krill]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?t=186027&page=3

[Alinestra Covelia]

In 2002 or 2003, the federal government in United States finally outlawed the stupid sodomy laws.

They did? I thought the only public repudiation was the Supreme Court's strike-down of the Texas anti-sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas. (It's an awesome opinion, too. Read Scalia's dissent, wherein he equates sodomy with incest, rape, bestiality, and that most vile of crimes - masturbation! ) As far as I know, US Congress could pass a law tomorrow that says homosexuals can't have sex and it would stand until such time as the SCOTUS got together to debate it.

[MrFun]

They did? I thought the only public repudiation was the Supreme Court's strike-down of the Texas anti-sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas. (It's an awesome opinion, too. Read Scalia's dissent, wherein he equates sodomy with incest, rape, bestiality, and that most vile of crimes - masturbation! ) As far as I know, US Congress could pass a law tomorrow that says homosexuals can't have sex and it would stand until such time as the SCOTUS got together to debate it.

The U.S. Supreme Court clearly invalidated such sodomy laws for all fifty states.

Repeal of Unjust Law

[Ben Kenobi]

Read Scalia's dissent, wherein he equates sodomy with incest, rape, bestiality, and that most vile of crimes - masturbation! )

Scalia's got an interesting dissent, the broken windows theory, arguing that we can avoid moral breakdown by passing laws that are representative of morality. He's arguing that laws don't simply reflect, they shape morality.

It's basically the counter to a liberal's argument.

[Elok]

Like anything it can be taken to excess. What about Dulcinea in Don Quixote? Malory? Chaucer?

I won't argue it is blameless, and I agree with you about the adultery part, but it's not central to the concept and the ideal of courtly love, or the process prior to marriage. It's a far cry from what we see today. If I have to look and compare it to modern culture, who would I say has the better view?

Don Quixote is meant to be a parody of chivalry; guess you missed that part. In Malory, you might notice that Lancelot's screwing around ruins everything. Haven't read much Chaucer, but I understand his version of Troilus and Cressida is the same as Shakespeare's as far as "love" is concerned: she pledges undying love, then ditches him for Diomedes as soon as she leaves Troy. Troilus whines a while and then dies of melancholy. And, according to the "Testament of Cressid," Diomedes later leaves her and she becomes a prostitute of some sort. Yay for love!

Adultery is not central to the concept of love now. But it, or at least extramarital sex, was central from the beginning, and our concept of love was selectively developed from it. The idea that a man would marry his love would have struck everyone as absurd prior to 1500 or so. Even Dante's version just had him gawking over Beatrice from afar and writing poems that sound like emo crap in translation (and it was still "adulterous," as she was married to somebody else). Your idea of "the medieval conception" is a gloss-over bearing minimal semblance to reality, and in fact is at least as rooted in modern notions of love.

[Alinestra Covelia]

The U.S. Supreme Court clearly invalidated such sodomy laws for all fifty states.

Repeal of Unjust Law

Okay, cool, we're on the same page. When you said "Federal government" I immediately thought "US Congress - wait, they haven't done that yet!" but if we're both thinking SCOTUS then that's fully on point.

[MrFun]

On another note, some Americans are exporting violent homophobia to other countries where gays and lesbians have already long been oppressed.

In Uganda recently, members of Extreme Prophetic Ministry, International Healing Foundation, and Exodus International helped organize conferences in that country to instruct Ugandan teachers and clergy on how to root out people suspected of being gay, and how to pressure gays to "change" their sexual orientation.

Gay and lesbian Ugandans are living in almost daily fear for their very lives as a result, and Ugandan religious leaders representing Church of Uganda, the Catholic Church, and the Muslim Supreme Council are actively calling for acts of violence against gays and lesbians in the name of "morality."

[Elok]

Sorry, MrFun, but if you can't get people to stand up for you over here, you sure as hell won't get any support for gays in Africa. You might get a very strongly worded UN resolution urging them to go back to killing each other for other, equally wrong reasons, but that's it.

[MrFun]

Did I mention that you're being obtuse? I think I did.

[Elok]

Well, you were wrong the first time: a president can only push so many changes at once without prompting a backlash, and Obama has a lot of changes more important than gay marriage on his plate. And it's the simple truth, however sad or cynical it may sound, that nobody--with the exception of Angelina Jolie--really cares about Africa. Hitler had to sort of hide his genocide; African leaders don't even bother, because all we do is mumble toothless protests.

[MrFun]

You cannot say that NO ONE cares about what is happening in some of the countries in Africa though. There are activist organizations out there specifically for the purpose of raising awareness of the atrocities happening there.

I think some people wrote letters to Martin Luther King Jr. while he was in jail, saying that he should be more "patient" and that people were not "ready" for the changes he was demanding. That politicians could face serious backlash if they agreed to King's insistence on civil rights protection. So it is with the current civil rights struggle of gays and lesbians - there is no time like the present to make our case and to defend our dignity against bigots.

[Ben Kenobi]

Don Quixote is meant to be a parody of chivalry

In the sense that things aren't what they seem. He's not ridiculing the nature of courtly love, but merely the object, in the sense that it's only for nobles and noblemen. He's all about elevating the common to the uncommon.

[Ben Kenobi]

You cannot say that NO ONE cares about what is happening in some of the countries in Africa though. There are activist organizations out there specifically for the purpose of raising awareness of the atrocities happening there.

Uganda is one of the few success stories.

You want 'atrocities', why not talk about South Africa, or Zimbabwe wrt to the AIDS crisis? I see they have a ton of condoms and a huge AIDS infection rate. Yeah, I can see how promoting homosexuality is going to decrease their problems.