Sexgenderchurchgod

[dreamer_easy]

I keep chucking things in the unsorted links dump, but then adding comments, which probably means they belong in an actual posting, eg:

The case against legalising same-sex marriage

A useful summary. It becomes ever clearer that the issue, at base, is not sexuality but gender.

Speaking of which, I don't understand this case at all. Why would any boxer suspected of taking steroids be allowed to go ahead and fight? (I suspect that, as so often with the press, there's a ton of context missing.)

Moreover:

It's out with the old as Christian values fall away

An interesting argument: if care of the elderly is a Judaeo-Christian thing, and Australians are becoming both older and less Christian, what will this mean for older Australians in the future? I do think one of the best aspects of Christianity are its radical egalitarian teachings; and as a Pagan I entirely grasp the value that the concept of sacredness confers, whether on individual human beings or nature as a whole - a value which, obviously, only spirituality can bestow.

Nonetheless, I don't entirely buy John Dickson's argument. The widow and the orphan are such conspicuous concerns for non-Abrahamic ancient societies such as the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians. And the UDHR (in particular, Article 25) already provides the non-religious "solid intellectual ground" for care of the elderly. Frustratingly, I know too little about Ancient Greece or Rome to assess Dickson's characterisation of their treatment of the aged.

None of which is getting the filing sorted out.

ETA: Despite which, here, have some more related links:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/using-birth-control-will-cut-deaths-study-finds-20120710-21tuq.html Y'think?

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/beliefs-must-be-tempered-by-facts-20120617-20i3t.html - "But we now know, or have increasingly strong reasons to believe, that people are born gay or lesbian. Far from this being unnatural for them, it is an example of God's creative handiwork."

http://www.smh.com.au/world/us-teen-pregnancy-rate-falls-to-lowest-level-in-decades-20120411-1ws5t.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/19/myths-about-rape-conviction-rates

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/05/us-sexual-humiliation-political-control

Comments

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

Completely unrelated ... did you purposely change the layout of your LJ, or is LJ changing layouts?

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

It was me. Got tired to trying to read dark purple text on a black background! =___=

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

I like it, but at first I thought I was in the wrong 'room' so to speak.

You showed up in a dream I had last night, kinda. I was trying to you and Gail Simone to meet each other, my rational being "You'll like each other- you both have red hair and write stuff."

But neither of you would leave your cars.

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

What a fool I was! (Heck, I don't even have a car!)

[hnpcc]

I find it a bit rich that the right-wing Catholic lobby in particular is only now coming out with "oh, children have a right to know their genetic origins" after literally decades of forced and secret adoptions.

I do think there are possible issues with genetic identity arising from a lot of situations these days - surrogacy, donor egg/sperm, combinations of those, adoption etc - but I also think that these are things that can be discussed openly. They're also things that are by no means unique to same sex marriage, and yet here they are being discussed solely in that context. While I'm in agreement that the legislation and the discussion is behind the technology I don't see that as a reason to delay one group of people the same rights as those in the broader society - more as a reason to have a society-wide discussion.

As someone else pointed out, a lot of the arguments against same sex marriage are equally arguments against divorce, which no one is seriously discussing, not even the right-wing fundamentalists. Probably because they know they've completely lost that particular debate.

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

Frank Brennan, a progressive Catholic quoted in the article, at least presents a nuanced argument. But he doesn't succeed in explaining why civil unions won't have unintended consequences for children, but same-sex marriages might do. And what parthenogenesis has to do with it I honestly have no idea.