Sunday, December 30, 2012
On the Dignity of Humankind
So far as we know, we are the only things in the universe lamenting over how small and insignificant we are.
The most distant object ever observed, a galaxy 13.3 billion light years from earth
Friday, December 28, 2012
Gay Marriage in 1975 and Now
Richard Adams demanded and got a license for his marriage to Tony Sullivan in Boulder, Colorado in 1975. When the State of Colorado refused to recognize their marriage, they sued. So far as I know, they were the first to take legal action to establish their right to marry. Richard Adams died December 17th at the age of 65 after 43 years of marriage to Tony.
Richard Adams, right, with Tony Sullivan, center, and their attorney David M. Brown in 1975
I've written about same sex marriage before, most extensively here.
We forget that not so long ago, the very idea of gay marriage was unthinkably freakish. I think that the reason we have it anywhere at all is because the gay/lesbian rank and file wanted it and demanded it. Gay politicos were very reluctant to waste political capital on something that seemed so impossible when there were more urgent matters or more attainable goals out there like ending employment and housing discrimination and enacting hate crime laws. Gay intellectuals scoffed at the very idea of marriage. Why would any self-respecting Queer want to have anything to do with so patriarchal and proprietary an institution as marriage?
And yet, people really wanted it, and in big numbers. As I remember, everyone was taken by surprise when crowds of couples turned out and lined up around the block when San Francisco briefly married gay/lesbian couples, and when Massachusetts began same sex marriage. I notice that the people who pushed hardest for marriage were older couples who had been together for years, and even decades. In some ways, they had the most to lose if marriage initiatives failed. They had households with inheritance issues to think about, and medical issues to think about like access to loved ones, treatment decisions, and care-giving; things most younger people don't have to think about (at least not yet). A problem faced by a lot of same sex couples, young and old, is hostile families determined to screw the partner if something happens to one of the couple.
Pointless rutting is great when you are young (I certainly enjoyed it, even when I was not so young anymore), but like youth itself, it can't last forever, and most of us would like someplace to go home to when it's over. No one (not even Andrew Sullivan) wants the gay version of the Victorian Domestic Ideal with the regal Patriarch lording it over offspring minions together with the virtuously subservient "Angel of the Household" (who must paradoxically play the role of Tower of Strength when catastrophe strikes the family).
We are all trying to find better ways to live with each other and to make happiness together. We forget that people marrying because they love each other in large numbers is a very recent and very modern innovation going only as far back as the late 18th century. The historical record reveals that, far from being constant and unchanging, marriage is a very mutable institution. The institution changes as people adapt to and take advantage of changing circumstances and expectations of life. Many choose to be alone, but no one chooses to be lonely.
I've written about same sex marriage before, most extensively here.
We forget that not so long ago, the very idea of gay marriage was unthinkably freakish. I think that the reason we have it anywhere at all is because the gay/lesbian rank and file wanted it and demanded it. Gay politicos were very reluctant to waste political capital on something that seemed so impossible when there were more urgent matters or more attainable goals out there like ending employment and housing discrimination and enacting hate crime laws. Gay intellectuals scoffed at the very idea of marriage. Why would any self-respecting Queer want to have anything to do with so patriarchal and proprietary an institution as marriage?
And yet, people really wanted it, and in big numbers. As I remember, everyone was taken by surprise when crowds of couples turned out and lined up around the block when San Francisco briefly married gay/lesbian couples, and when Massachusetts began same sex marriage. I notice that the people who pushed hardest for marriage were older couples who had been together for years, and even decades. In some ways, they had the most to lose if marriage initiatives failed. They had households with inheritance issues to think about, and medical issues to think about like access to loved ones, treatment decisions, and care-giving; things most younger people don't have to think about (at least not yet). A problem faced by a lot of same sex couples, young and old, is hostile families determined to screw the partner if something happens to one of the couple.
Pointless rutting is great when you are young (I certainly enjoyed it, even when I was not so young anymore), but like youth itself, it can't last forever, and most of us would like someplace to go home to when it's over. No one (not even Andrew Sullivan) wants the gay version of the Victorian Domestic Ideal with the regal Patriarch lording it over offspring minions together with the virtuously subservient "Angel of the Household" (who must paradoxically play the role of Tower of Strength when catastrophe strikes the family).
We are all trying to find better ways to live with each other and to make happiness together. We forget that people marrying because they love each other in large numbers is a very recent and very modern innovation going only as far back as the late 18th century. The historical record reveals that, far from being constant and unchanging, marriage is a very mutable institution. The institution changes as people adapt to and take advantage of changing circumstances and expectations of life. Many choose to be alone, but no one chooses to be lonely.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Christmas 2012
There is a special sadness and poignancy to Christmas this year. In this country, the recent massacre of small school children in Connecticut casts a very dark shadow over one of the two most important feast days in the Christian religious calendar; Christmas when every child is the Christ Child.
We cannot help but remember those children, the 20 who died so horribly, together with 6 of their teachers and staff. I'm puzzled as to why the first victim of the shooting rampage, Nancy Lanza, the murderer's mother, is not included in the tally of victims. Perhaps it is in our nature to always second guess parents of the infamous, but all the accounts from witnesses describe a loving and conscientious mother.
As our favorite atheist, IT points out on her blog, if we Christians really believe what we claim about God's love being infinite and all powerful, then we would include Adam Lanza in our prayers for the dead. We don't know what drove him to do this horrible thing. We may never know. There might not even be a "why." But whatever the case, we proclaim that nothing can separate us from God's love, not even crime and evil. Why should we be so stingy with something that God gives out so prodigally?
May this horrible event make us mindful this Christmas of the millions of children in this country and around the world who know violence, exploitation, neglect, and scorn as daily companions.
God, according to our Gospels, did not come into this world in any glorious theophany as irresistible destiny. Who knows if there is anything literally true about the Gospel birth narratives (not much I would guess). But the accounts of His birth tell us just what kind of messiah this was to be. He was definitely not the radiant all-powerful champion on a fiery horse riding out of the sky who will set everything right that we all expect and we all want.
The Son of God was born in scandal and destitution, on the run with a price on His head, in a small country under foreign occupation. God entered the world as a helpless infant who needed to be fed, kept warm, and cleaned just like all infants. Our disappointment says more about us than about Him.
As I do every year, I post my 2 favorite Christmas hymns:
A Blessed Christmas, a Happy Holiday, and Best Wishes for a Happy, Peaceful, and Prosperous New Year to all of my readers.
The Portinari Altarpiece, painted by Hugo Van Der Goes around 1475 for an agent of the Medici banking interests in Bruges, Tommaso Portinari who appears in the left panel; Van Der Goes was a monk in a monastery near Brussels, and is recorded to have suffered severe and even suicidal depression in the course of his life. The painting arrived in Florence in 1483, about the time that Van Der Goes died. It was installed over the altar of the church of San Egidio. The painting created a sensation and was widely praised and imitated by late 15th century Florentine painters.
What is so striking about this painting is that The Virgin Mary, the angels, the shepherds, and even the Portinari family with their patron saints, stand together in the same circle as equals before the newborn Christ.
We cannot help but remember those children, the 20 who died so horribly, together with 6 of their teachers and staff. I'm puzzled as to why the first victim of the shooting rampage, Nancy Lanza, the murderer's mother, is not included in the tally of victims. Perhaps it is in our nature to always second guess parents of the infamous, but all the accounts from witnesses describe a loving and conscientious mother.
As our favorite atheist, IT points out on her blog, if we Christians really believe what we claim about God's love being infinite and all powerful, then we would include Adam Lanza in our prayers for the dead. We don't know what drove him to do this horrible thing. We may never know. There might not even be a "why." But whatever the case, we proclaim that nothing can separate us from God's love, not even crime and evil. Why should we be so stingy with something that God gives out so prodigally?
May this horrible event make us mindful this Christmas of the millions of children in this country and around the world who know violence, exploitation, neglect, and scorn as daily companions.
God, according to our Gospels, did not come into this world in any glorious theophany as irresistible destiny. Who knows if there is anything literally true about the Gospel birth narratives (not much I would guess). But the accounts of His birth tell us just what kind of messiah this was to be. He was definitely not the radiant all-powerful champion on a fiery horse riding out of the sky who will set everything right that we all expect and we all want.
The Son of God was born in scandal and destitution, on the run with a price on His head, in a small country under foreign occupation. God entered the world as a helpless infant who needed to be fed, kept warm, and cleaned just like all infants. Our disappointment says more about us than about Him.
As I do every year, I post my 2 favorite Christmas hymns:
A Blessed Christmas, a Happy Holiday, and Best Wishes for a Happy, Peaceful, and Prosperous New Year to all of my readers.
What is so striking about this painting is that The Virgin Mary, the angels, the shepherds, and even the Portinari family with their patron saints, stand together in the same circle as equals before the newborn Christ.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
Mutual Assured Destruction for Everyone
... That is basically what the NRA proposed today, and is the position of all those on the far right who believe that Liberty comes through the barrel of a gun.
The armaments industry laughs at us all the way to the bank.
There is only one true guarantee of Liberty, and that is the rule of Law. As Montesquieu said, "Outside the Law is Tyranny."
The power of the Law is our consent to live by it, and once that is gone, then all the firepower on earth cannot bring it back. Without the Law is Hobbes' life in the "state of nature:" the "war of all against all" in a world where life is "nasty, brutish, and short," and hardly worth the bother of living.
So, who's the real "conservative" here? Me or Wayne LaPierre who would have me pack a pistol every time I taught class? Which one of us really values order over chaos?
This is the seldom seen East Pediment of the Supreme Court Building in Washington DC. The East Pediment sculpture was designed by Hermon A. MacNeil, a sculptor working with the architect, Cass Gilbert. It expands upon the inscription on the entablature beneath; "Justice The Guardian of Liberty" composed by Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes in 1932. In the center is Solon of Athens flanked on the right by Moses and on the left by Confucius. On the left are allegories of criminal law and enforcement. On the right are allegories of civil law with mercy and prudence.
The armaments industry laughs at us all the way to the bank.
There is only one true guarantee of Liberty, and that is the rule of Law. As Montesquieu said, "Outside the Law is Tyranny."
The power of the Law is our consent to live by it, and once that is gone, then all the firepower on earth cannot bring it back. Without the Law is Hobbes' life in the "state of nature:" the "war of all against all" in a world where life is "nasty, brutish, and short," and hardly worth the bother of living.
So, who's the real "conservative" here? Me or Wayne LaPierre who would have me pack a pistol every time I taught class? Which one of us really values order over chaos?
Thursday, December 20, 2012
The Penultimate Day
"Don't they know, it's the end of the world..."
Some are saying that the Mayan calendar says that the world ends tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Mayans themselves are still making plans.
Millenialism is a funny thing.
EXTRA:
And you know that you're going to hear this all day tomorrow:
Some are saying that the Mayan calendar says that the world ends tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Mayans themselves are still making plans.
Millenialism is a funny thing.
EXTRA:
And you know that you're going to hear this all day tomorrow:
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