Scott Alexander has just posted that anyone who objects to homosexuality must be a repressed homosexual, which is typical of what passes for rationality among the “Less Wrongâ€Â crowd.
By the same reasoning, anyone who objects to coprophagy must be a repressed coprophage, because, of course, everyone at  “Less Wrongâ€Â knows perfectly well that there can be no rational, innate, or instinctive reasons to dislike eating $#!%.
When we were all forced to call homosexuals gay, “gay†instantly became a startlingly potent curse word, and so the second verse of “deck the halls with boughs of holly†instantly disappeared from the Christmas Carol rotation, as did the Flintstones theme song. Clearly, it was not the intention of the social engineers who forced us to use the word “gay†that the second verse of “Deck the Halls†would vanish, yet somehow it did.
Forcing people to call gays married will predictably have a similar effect on the word “marriage†– people will titter when they hear the word. “Marriage†too will become a curse word and an insult, just as “Gay†instantly did.
We have thousands of years of experience with euphemisms. Â Applying a nice word to something disgusting does not make the disgusting thing nice, it makes the nice word disgusting.
Marriage won’t become an insult. It will be “marriage is gay.” That is already a slogan.
If you force people to say homos are married, doesn’t that open up a religious exemption? The Catholic Church can argue that marriage as constituted by the state is not only not sanctioned by the Church, but is even an anti-Christian institution. Catholic marriages and all related family law should be administered by the Church alone.
The Catholic Church is already corrupted. Look at the current pope. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to publicly say he is OK with gay marriage. Hell, at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to come out as gay himself!
What group do you suppose lobbied for a celibate priesthood over a millennium ago?
the purpose of the celibate priesthood was to ensure that the Church heirarchy chose priests and bishops, because it was becoming heridatary.
As predicted by Paul, the celibate priesthood led to immorality and scandal. Hence Paul’s prescription, which he himself violated, that a Bishop should be married, married to only one woman (evidently laxer rules applied to laity) a father, and a successful father, ruling his own family patriarchally. Seems to me that celibacy was power grab by the center against the periphery. What is wrong with semi hereditary Bishoprics? The church should set an example for society. Hence, needs patriarchal Bishops to exemplify good families.
“What group do you suppose lobbied for a celibate priesthood over a millennium ago?”
The jews (whose forebears invented Christianity) who didn’t want those Whites intelligent enough to desire an education so badly they’d accept celibacy to have children and raise our Folks’ IQs?
Evidence?
Are you actually suggesting that there was an organized homosexual lobby 1000 years ago?
No kidding. Why does nobody understand celibacy anymore?
Jim said above that St. Paul “predicted the celibate priesthood would lead to immorality and scandal.” No, he didn’t. St. Paul lauds celibacy as the best form of life, as did Jesus Christ and St. John the Evangelist. This has always been the tradition from the Apostles. St. Paul said that many are not able to control themselves, however, and said that if they could not do this, they should marry. “For that reason, then, let each man have his wife, and each wife her own husband,” and “For it is better to marry than to burn.” But for those who could manage it, he recommended it and lived it himself. And obviously, telling someone with gay urges, which he’s not willing to control, to get married, is not a solution to the problem.
We know from all the earliest commentators that St. Paul’s command that a bishop “be the husband of one wife,” was never understood as a command that clergy be married. As Jim himself observed, St. Paul “broke” his own precept in that case. But it was not his precept, which was why he didn’t follow it. St. John never married; neither did St. Paul. St. Paul ordained St. Timothy, also a celibate bishop. St. Igantios of Antioch, ordained by St. John, gave instructions to those who wanted to remain celibate, and was himself a celibate bishop. The early Christians did not understand the tradition, expressed also by St. Paul’s statement, to mean “you must be married.” Indeed, from the Apostolic age, the norm is celibacy; married bishops were almost always converts who had a wife left over from their pre-Christian days. They understood it to mean, “you cannot be divorced, and in fact, even if your wife dies, you must accept that as God’s will and remain celibate thereafter, if you hope to be a bishop.” In other words, no more than one wife. That is all.
It simply did not occur to St. Paul that homosexuals would get into the priesthood. This is the case for a variety of reasons – “homosexuals” as we know them now did not exist even a couple centuries ago. The cultural conditions necessary to create a “gay identity” were not present. Men with such urges rarely acted on them or identified with them. If they did, they either kept it very quiet and continued to live normally with wives, occasionally enjoying a clandestine bj in the woods with a buddy, or they became part of a morally dissolute and identifiably effeminate community that was not accepted in respectable society anywhere. The idea that such men would want to be Christians, let alone priests, was absurd. Now, granted, once the Church dominated, “everyone” was Christian; the usual argument is that gays chose to “hide” in the priesthood. This also did not occur to him, because the scrutiny for priests was generally higher in days of yore, and because there were not hordes of masons and other commie trolls deliberately entering the Church with the purpose of corrupting her life. I will admit that it has often crept into monastic life, because monastic life was generally a more attractive option in the Middle Ages, and because many boys were given to the monasteries from youth, and grew up without any choice in the matter.
But the priesthood has generally been a tough place to “hide,” for a moral degenerate looking for some sodomitical revelry. For example, when I was preparing for ordination in the Orthodox Church, it was made clear to me that anybody who had fornicated, ever, was not able to be considered for ordination. In addition to this, somebody who continued to masturbate habitually after baptism was not a candidate, and somebody who masturbated on a semi-regular basis would probably not be ordained until he showed he had mastered that character flaw. I had to spend three years living in a community with people who watched my conduct closely. Preparations in Catholicism were as strict, and stricter in some ways. Most Catholic priests were closely observed in seminary for six years or more. Not only would they not ordain practicing homosexuals, but even celibate men with the character flaws of the homosexual – immaturity, narcissism, flaking out – simply were not considered suitable candidates for the priesthood, which was considered an extremely high honor. After the leftists took over the Church, they allowed open sodomy in the seminaries, and in fact preferred such men for ordination, and rejected men who were masculine and self-controlled. Even now, though some small degree of sanity has returned to the Church, most Catholic orders and seminaries ask that those seeking ordination be celibate for only three years before ordination. Not that long ago, people who had been in the habit of fornication would be told to wait three years before receiving communion… not to wait three years before being given the power to consecrate and offer communion to the people!
Celibacy, lived well, is a lifestyle that produces intense moral excellence; the media loves to bash the Catholic Church, but it fails to point out that from the midst of all those good celibates come, in fact, far fewer cases of abuse than in Protestant churches and public institutions (especially schools), per capita. You can point to a few periods in Church history – times of moral decadence and decline – when the clergy were immoral. This is when the rest of society was just as immoral, if not far more so. The problem now, is a perfect storm of unheard-of sexual deviancy in every rung of our society, and a deliberate movement (called for by Antonio Gramschi and others) for perverts and revolutionaries to wreck the Church from the inside. But for the five centuries prior to Vatican II, the Catholic clergy generally maintained their high moral calling of celibacy with little public scandal. And the same was true for the period of time from about 1200 back to the Nicene Council. Before that, the chaotic storm of sectarian movements amongst pagans that had one foot in the Church and one foot out, led to some moral failures in the Apostolic and post-Apostolic age. In fact, now that I think about it, the three periods of clerical sexual immorality in the Church, have coincided with the periods of rebellion and disobedience to Church authority overall – the era of the first gnostic heresies, the era of the great gnostic heresy (the Protestant Revolt) and the era of the last, metastasized gnostic heresy (the logical conclusion of the Protestant Revolt in a godless form of progressive religion). Gnosticism and dissent, not celibacy, is the problem. To pretend that the present situation is the “inevitable result” of celibacy, when our Lord and His Apostles recommended it, and the Church lives it out very well most of the time (and churches with married clergy have had even worse sexual problems since the 60s), is absurd. It is also blasphemy and heresy, denying that our Lord had the wisdom necessary to dissuade men from a lifestyle that would “inevitably” produce sodomite clerics. Jesus Christ Himself recommended celibacy, and lived it. Let’s give Him a bit more credit, than to lay such a “huge mistake” at His feet.
True, but if someone was not married, they would look at him oddly and wonder why he was not married.
Paul tells us that marriage is for everyone, by which in context he means almost everyone. And, in particular, for all deacons and bishops, by which he means almost all deacons and bishops.
Really? This seems mighty strange, for Paul strikes me as someone with a shrewd and deep insight into human nature. Surely the command that clergy be married, if it does not mean that clergy be married, means that single clergy should receive extra scrutiny and suspicious scrutiny.
For three hundred years, clergy were commonly married. When the proposal for celibacy was first proposed, it was voted down on the grounds it would result in immorality, being too hard for too many people.
Paul nonetheless seems to have ranted against homosexuals with a couple of thousand years ago. They were a problem, then as now – even though they were not an active political identity as they are now. Consider for example Chaucer’s effeminate pedophile pardoner.
The homosexual identity is a product of democracy, which organizes people into interest groups, but in non democratic societies, gays in the church are still a big problem, even though homosexuals as we know them in democratic societies do not exist in absolute monarchies or theocracies, the problem is scarcely changed.
Did they? Seems to me that when the Church has troubles, its enemies will use priestly homosexuality against it, so you can bury the scandals better when all is quiet.
Chaucer implies the pardoner to be homosexual, effeminate, and a pedophile.
They recommended it as a choice for those able to abide by it. And obviously, Paul doubted most people’s ability to abide by it.
And, by and large, they don’t.
Religious exemptions are for religions the Cathedral likes, when they do things the rest of us don’t like.
You should know by now, there’s one standard for everybody: the Cathedral does what it wants, limited by how strong its more naive supporters’ stomachs are. They’ve finding with this administration that they can go pretty far, in terms of ruling by arbitrary decree and ignoring both the Constitution and their own claimed principles.
I’ve been through this !
I think you jumped the gun here, because he doesn’t say anyone who objects. Near the end of the post, he says:
“This can’t be a universal explanation for anti-gay attitudes. Something like half the US population is against gay marriage (previously much more) and probably five percent or less is gay. Closeted gay people don’t explain more than a small fraction of the anti-gay movement.”
Sophist jiu-jitsu.
Turn the tables.
Only a few can appreciate the idea that
A) anti-gay marriage positions are somehow anti-gay simpliciter
B) anti-gay attitudes are only rhetorical in origin
but,
C) many are vaguely uncomfortable with anti-gay rhetoric and can latch on to this as an explanation.
A`) A fetish for government sanction. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need anyone’s permission to form stable relationships.
B`) See OP.
C`) The post is framed as, “This is how I’m not charitable enough,” but the emotional impression is 180 degrees different. The former is a rhetorical strategy so you can make excuses when you’re called on it, the latter designed to appeal to base emotions which drive most readers. (Not noticeably less frequent among LW regulars.)
I’m not significantly against gay marriage; I’m against civil unions in general. The law should butt out of marriage entirely. That the law was let it in is the reason marriage could be legislatively destroyed with divorce regulations. If the law granteth, the law can taketh away. Sodomites should be similarly skeptical of government magnanimity in the present, given that proggies reliably betray their allies in the long run.
Err, one fewer anti in a row at C).
Government has a legitimate role in enforcing social norms such as marriage. A central purpose of marriage, for example, is to set the bounds of acceptable/desirable arrangements for providing for and raising children.
To say that government has no business involving itself in the core social arrangement made to protect and provide for children is nearly to say that government has no business involving itself in any aspect of human relations.
Societies have to define for themselves what their norms are, and once defined they have to be enforced either through social sanctions like ostracism or through law. Some are serious enough to rise to the level where they need to be enforced by law, and marriage is one of those. It’s the fundamental non-biological relationship upon which society is based.
Modern man has forgotten that his government is only slightly less his enemy than competing governments.
I’m not the only one to notice the bait-and-switch.
I don’t think marriage would have gone down if it weren’t already moribund. Men are figuring out marriage is a raw deal for them and opting out in various ways.
Here’s lastpsych:
Arguably when marriage was redefined to be about love it died. I’m not sure what’s the chicken or the egg in that case tbh.
Once you’ve defined marriage as being about love and not about raising a family and a strong society, you’ve already lost and might as well allow gay marriage.
So after outrageously and childishly insulting everyone who disagrees with him at the end of the post he qualifies it by saying not everyone who disagrees with him is like that.
That’s a pretty gay thing to do.
He doesn’t consider saying someone is gay to be an insult.
He also thinks this is the origin of this particular argument. It doesn’t mean people who use it are gay, any more than people using natural law are Catholic theologians.
Oh come on. It is pretty damn obvious that, lacking a sensible argument, he is just spitting childish abuse at his enemies.
Which is, in my experience, what passes for rationale debate at “Less Wrong”.
If they were not acting like seven year old children bullying those that their teachers authorize them to bully, they would engage the arguments their adversaries actually make, rather than making arguments that insult their adversaries.
“Oh come on. It is pretty damn obvious that, lacking a sensible argument, he is just spitting childish abuse at his enemies.”
How? I just pointed out he doesn’t consider calling some a homosexual an insult. If his is not using insults, how is this childish abuse?
“If they were not acting like seven year old children bullying those that their teachers authorize them to bully, they would engage the arguments their adversaries actually make, rather than making arguments that insult their adversaries.”
His post is all about a case where his opponents arguments are true. How can you get more engaged in a debate than that?
Obviously he does consider calling someone a homosexual an insult.
No one is in fact making the arguments he attributes to them – it is a mixture of quoting grossly out of context and flat out lying barefaced. The argument is always directly or indirectly about the state forcing people to treat “married” gays as married.
Maybe there are people who worry about the state treating “married” gays as married, but they don’t talk about that much if at all because they have far more powerful arguments.
they would engage the arguments their adversaries actually make, rather than making arguments that insult their adversaries.
Yep. This is why “steelmanning” is such an idiotic idea. Not only do you get to make your make your opponent’s argument for him, but then you get to pat yourself smugly on the back for making his case better than he himself could, before you go ahead and demolish the strawman caricature you’ve created.
The post wasn’t dedicated to demolishing an opposing argument. It was about explaining it.
So yeah, this isn’t steelmanning. But I guess you find the concept bad and want people to purely focus on weak arguments their opponents make.
Scott’s post straw manned and demonized the opposing viewpoint. It did not explain it.
Supposing that many opponents of normalizing homosexuality are indeed repressed gays, they have, and would state, valid reasons for repressing their own homosexual tendencies and encouraging their heterosexual tendencies. Which reasons are valid, regardless of whether the person is really a repressed homosexual or not.
But, according to Scott, they are just evil hateful stupid idiots.
Much like someone explaining the remarkable stupidity, evil, and hatefulness of Less Wrongers by the fact that they are coprophages and pedophiles.
But I guess you find the concept bad and want people to purely focus on weak arguments their opponents make.
I’d prefer people focus on the actual arguments their opponents make.
“Obviously he does consider calling someone a homosexual an insult.”
Why do you say that? The entire position of “gays are just like everyone else” doesn’t mesh with homosexual being an insult. It would be like communists using proletarian as an insult or republicans using capitalist as one.
“No one is in fact making the arguments he attributes to them – it is a mixture of quoting grossly out of context and flat out lying barefaced. The argument is always directly or indirectly about the state forcing people to treat “married†gays as married.”
Don’t make absolute statements- they require one disproof.
From his post
“Teaching children about homosexuality will turn them gay?”
Put that line into bing and the first hit is
http://www.tolerance.org/blog/gay-children-s-books
The first comment on that post is
“gay childrens’ books are okay, if you want your kids to grow up gay. It justs depends if you have a problem with your kids ending up in the lifestyle that many homosexuals take, and last time I check, it’s usually bad.”
(The rest of the people on that site had a problem with that, but this is an example that shows this argument does exist)
Same reason as anyone who calls Tea Party members “teabaggers” considers calling someone a homosexual an insult.
Same reason as every single mainstream piously politically correct reviewer of “300” considers calling someone a homosexual an insult. Every single one.
“Calling people names” means insulting people, because when you categorize people in a certain style, regardless of the category, it is obvious from the way, the style, the manner, in which you categorize that the category is an insult.
The frame of the essay is that he is not insulting anyone, but the style of the essay is “teabagger, teabagger, teabagger, yahh teabagger, yaah, yaaah yaaah, teabagger, yaah, yaaah, yaaaah”
Plus, of course he insultingly misrepresents his hated enemy’s arguments. The essay is just a pile of childish insults and venomous hatred, completely contradicting its purported frame. If one stupid insult, all stupid insults.
Plus, of course, everyone despises homosexuals, including homosexuals, the politically correct as much as anyone, as is proven by the reviews of “300” and word “teabagger”.
They were called teabaggers because it is an inside joke relating to their ignorance of sexual slang. It has no connotations to an individuals sexuality- the humor is in they picked a name that has inappropriate connotations.
I’m not aware of the 300 reviews; all I’ve heard is people calling it homoerotic. The move is about a bunch of extremely fit well oiled men wearing little clothing and engaging in strenuous activities. Who historically did engage in relationships with the same sex. Homoerotic seems accurate. This isn’t a bad thing (especially if you are a heterosexual women), but I can imagine why reviewers would find humor in it.
“when you categorize people in a certain style,”
And that style is?
“Plus, of course he insultingly misrepresents his hated enemy’s arguments.”
How? The post isn’t an attempt to show how homosexuality is normal, or gay marriage should be allowed, or anything like that. It is assumed that the commentators already hold those views.
The post is showing how some of the arguments made by their opponents are internally coherent and logical.
“Plus, of course, everyone despises homosexuals, including homosexuals,”
I don’t.
Tea Party has inappropriate connotations?
I don’t think so.
Intended as an insult and a put down, in exactly the same style, and by the same people, as “tea bagger”
They would only be coherent and logical if he attributed to his hateful and despicable enemies rational motives for not wanting to act on their homosexual impulses, such as a preference for health and family.
Their only motives, however, for refusing to be gay is that they are evil, hateful, stupid, and nasty.
“the humor is in they picked a name that has inappropriate connotations. ”
They didn’t, though. There’s nothing sexual about “tea party.” Someone went ahead and called them “teabaggers” as a sexual insult, and some of them didn’t understand they were being sexually insulted and accepted the label, and then yes, their ignorance of sexual slang added to the humor. The situation was not what you describe though.
“The post is showing how some of the arguments made by their opponents are internally coherent and logical.”
Sure, those arguments are internally coherent and logical, if those opponents are mind-boggling ignorant of human sexuality and pitifully sexually repressed. Still, calling your opponents ignorant and repressed then patting yourself on the back for your own charity toward them is a little repulsive.
“I don’t.”
Congratulations! You’re one of the good ones.
“Intended as an insult and a put down, in exactly the same style, and by the same people, as “tea bagger—
You think Scott hates homosexuals. Forgive me if I don’t trust your word- link?
“They would only be coherent and logical if he attributed to his hateful and despicable enemies rational motives for not wanting to act on their homosexual impulses, such as a preference for health and family. ”
Actually he doesn’t attribute any additional motives. He simply shows they mean what they say- this is charity, not steelmanning. He isn’t putting arguments into people mouths, but showing how what they say could make sense.
“Someone went ahead and called them “teabaggers†as a sexual insult,”
No, it is the verb form when you send teabags to the white house or congressmen. When you don’t know sexual slang it is really easy to walk into it.
“Sure, those arguments are internally coherent and logical, if those opponents are mind-boggling ignorant of human sexuality and pitifully sexually repressed. Still, calling your opponents ignorant and repressed then patting yourself on the back for your own charity toward them is a little repulsive.”
Scotts model has more explanatory power than the alternative. In light of that insulting doesn’t matter.
Supposing that they do indeed say that, and I would not believe Scott if he told me the sky was blue, they also say additional things, and the malicious omission of those things makes his opponents look ridiculous and evil.
Look how he summarizes my position. Do you think he is more truthful about the position of unnamed opponents who are unlikely to reply? He lies about me. He lies about what I say. He is certainly going to lie about what some mysterious repressed homosexual says. But, in the unlikely event that he truthfully represents the position of his opponents, he represents that part of their position which, taken in isolation, makes them look absurd.
Why should a closeted homosexual want homosexuals to suffer? I don’t see any explanation, just hatred and ignorance. Why does the supposed closeted homosexual want his closet enforced? Scott does not give his enemies any sensible motive.
There is an implicit step in Scott’s argument, that anyone who is not a progressive is an evil person who wants to create pain and suffering, without which his argument makes no sense.
His model is: Repressed homosexuals think that without repression, everyone would catch the gay, and this would be bad. Perhaps, very likely they do think that, but Scott needs to state their reasons for thinking that everyone catching the gay would be bad, without which the position he attributes to his hated and despised enemies makes no sense, has no explanatory power whatsoever.
Whereas, of course, the argument that hatefulness, ignorance and stupidity of Less Wrongers is due to the fact that they are pedophiles and coprophages makes perfect sense and has wonderful explanatory power (granted the initial undemonstrated premise that Less Wrongers are hateful, ignorant and stupid)
Your rationalization that the use of “teabagger” as an insult does not imply hatred of homosexuals also leads to the conclusion that Scott is deliberately insulting his opponents regardless of whether he hates homosexuals or not, and doubtless whatever rationalization you managed to come up with for the “300” reviews would also lead to the conclusion that Scott is deliberately insulting his opponents regardless of whether he hates homosexuals or not.
No, it is the verb form when you send teabags to the white house or congressmen.
How about a link for that?
“How about a link for that?”
http://teabagcongress.com/
http://teaparty.yepperee.com/2009/03/22/tea-bags-for-congress/
This combined with the protests is how the party came to national attention in the first place.
“Why should a closeted homosexual want homosexuals to suffer?”
They don’t. They think everyone else (or at least a good portion) are like them so they believe what they are dealing with is the natural human condition.
“Perhaps, very likely they do think that, but Scott needs to state their reasons for thinking that everyone catching ”
Why? Scott is trying to explain why people hold certain beliefs. He is just attempting to fill in enough so that people can understand where these arguments are coming from.
Additionally the reasons that come afterward are a lot more varied (and implicitly assumed by both proponents and detractors) so it isn’t as convenient to cover in a single post.
“Whereas, of course, the argument that hatefulness, ignorance and stupidity of Less Wrongers is due to the fact that they are pedophiles and coprophages makes perfect sense and has wonderful explanatory power ”
I’m not seeing how it exclaims anything. Examples?
“Your rationalization that the use of “teabagger†as an insult does not imply hatred of homosexuals also leads to the conclusion that Scott is deliberately insulting his opponents regardless of whether he hates homosexuals or not,”
I don’t follow. Teabagger is an insult because it is making fun of people’s ignorance. Scott isn’t making fun of people’s ignorance- he is trying to understand it.
“doubtless whatever rationalization you managed to come up with for the “300? reviews ”
Well since you haven’t provided any links or examples I’m not sure how you can come to any conclusions.
But there is a missing step there. Why does believing that all adult males are tempted by homosexuality lead to opposing normalization of homosexuality?
The missing step, clearly implied, though not quite stated, is “everyone who is not progressive is hateful, stupid, evil, and nasty”
Similarly I am trying to understand your ignorance. 🙂
Let us imagine Scott trying to understand the ignorance of homosexual activists trying to recruit sex partners in pre-pubertal children. How terribly ignorant of them 🙂
Since you seem to be mighty slow, I will explain this in terms the average retard would be able to grasp, and the average less wronger might perhaps one day hope to grasp: Explaining why people are hateful and ignorant presupposes that they are hateful and ignorant, therefore insults them.
Did you get that, or do you need a diagram featuring poop covered bananas?
I hear you complain “Jim is being insulting” – no nothing insulting about that. Given that you are ignorant hateful and stupid, there is absolutely nothing insulting about explanation that presupposes you are ignorant hateful and stupid. I am being charitable, by Scott’s definition of Charity.
http://teabagcongress.com/
http://teaparty.yepperee.com/2009/03/22/tea-bags-for-congress/
Neither of those uses teabag as a verb or teabagger as a noun.
“Neither of those uses teabag as a verb or teabagger as a noun.”
That specifically?
https://twitter.com/TeabagDC
I’m sure you can find a couple other early sources; then the media picked up on it and people realized exactly how they sounded.
“Why does believing that all adult males are tempted by homosexuality lead to opposing normalization of homosexuality? ”
That isn’t part of the argument that people submit. I’ve provided two examples and they don’t cover that step.
Scott could fill in for them, but that is steelmanning, not charity. Charity is just about making the argument comprehensible.
“Explaining why people are hateful and ignorant presupposes that they are hateful and ignorant, therefore insults them.”
I depends on the reason given. If you tell a conservative they believe something because they frame government spending in terms of how politicians can exploit it for gain, they tend not to get upset. Only when you attribute your opponents motives to non-rational reasons is it found insulting.
Scotts argument does presuppose that people making this argument are ignorant of some essential information, but it is information that is not publically communicated and not well known. I’m not sure how that is anymore insulting that any other political argument (as except for assuming your opponents are evil the default is ignorance).
<https://twitter.com/TeabagDC
OK, I concede the point. It looks like you’re right that the some people in the Tea Party movement picked up the term in ignorance before it was applied to them as a sexual insult.
Still, the joke is not simply their “ignorance.” There’s obviously a strong element of sexual insult to it. Imagine that instead of an uncommon sexual practice, “teabagging” was, say, a method of tying dry flies. Would it be such a rich joke that these naive right-wingers didn’t know about fly-tying? Ha! It sounds like they’re talking about a stereotypically boring hobby! Of course not. A big part of the fun is associating them with a disgusting, deviant act. Maybe, just maybe, you and Mr. Alexander are rationalist angels who genuinely don’t get any enjoyment from that and would have found misused fly-tying jargon just as amusing, but you’re an idiot if you think that wasn’t a big part of its appeal to most of the people using it.
Contaminated
“Still, the joke is not simply their “ignorance.†There’s obviously a strong element of sexual insult to it. ”
I don’t see why you’d think people referring to them as teabaggers mean they are implying sexual deviancy. The lefts deal is that its enemies are ignorant simpletons- pointing out your foes are using sexual slang because they are so out of touch they aren’t familiar with it slots in perfectly with the mo of highlighting your opponents idiocy.
After all, when people compared Bush to a monkey it wasn’t to accuse him of deviant sexual acts that are associated with certain animals, but to call him an idiot.
Oh come on.
Again, let us look at the “300” reviews. They are not calling “300” ignorant.
Unfortunately they gave the sequel the same name as the original. Fortunately metacritic.
I’m going to assume this is what you mean?
http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-02-27/film/man-on-man-action/
“Delicacies of dismemberment aside, 300 is notable for its outrageous sexual confusion. Here stands the Spartan king Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and his 299 buddies in nothing but leather man-panties and oiled torsos, clutching a variety of phalluses they seek to thrust in the bodies of their foes by trapping them in a small, rectum-like mountain passage called the “gates of hell(o!)” Yonder rises the Persian menace, led by the slinky, mascara’d Xerxes. When he’s not flaring his nostrils at Leonidas and demanding he kneel down before his, uh, majesty, this flamboyantly pierced crypto-transsexual lounges on chinchilla throw pillows amidst a rump-shaking orgy of disfigured lesbians.”
I’m not seeing that calling the movie gay. It appears the commentator finds it humorous the villain is painted as flamboyant and effeminate while they find homoerotic subtext with the Spartans.
Give this is a site that has “Burlesque Doc Exposed Is Better When It Shows Rather Than Tells” it may just be that they deal with this sort of thing a lot.
Do you have any clearer examples?
You don’t find your example clear enough?
You are hard to please.
Try this one:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-02-27/film/man-on-man-action/
Obviously he is calling the Spartans gay because they supported unequal freedom, whereas all right thinking people know that true freedom consists of equal slavery, as exemplified by the people of color Persians.
(Actually the difference in skin color between brownish skinned dark haired Greeks and very slightly browner Persians was realistically imperceptible, but threw the critics into a fever of outrage)
Uh, that is the one I linked in my post.
“Obviously he is calling the Spartans gay because they supported unequal freedom, ”
No, he is calling the way the movie displays the Spartans homoerotic because the way the movie displays them- nearly naked, heavily muscled and covered in sweat with the camera focusing on them.
He likes the Persians because they have an orgy scene- there isn’t any political intent behind that, he just thinks that is more interesting than the over the top macho vibe the Spartans have.
If true, irrelevant, for he is still using that as insult. His real grievance is that the movie endorses unequal freedom as freedom, and condemns equal slavery as slavery.
In any case, not true, because heavily muscled men no more makes it homoerotic than the scantily clad females with big bouncy breasts make it lesbian. You don’t find gays at the gym. Gays, in practice, tend to look gay, as is evident whenever a gay parade gets in your face.
Don’t be silly. He is not stating as a fact, stating that gays would like to see the movie. He is jeering at the movie, insulting the movie. Even if the movie was homoerotic, which is a ridiculous claim, the way he says it is intended as an insult.
Further, if the men make the movie homoerotic, do the nearly naked big breasted women, make the movie lesbian erotic?
The argument you, and he, uses, is the argument that gay men use to attack body builders as gay. The fact that they are attacking body builders shows that body builders are not gay, as is also evident whenever a gay parade gets your face, one can see that gays are not keen on manly exercises like lifting iron, but more keen on girly exercises like yoga or ballet.
The fact that this is a gay insult used against people and groups they don’t like shows that the insult is baseless. If group X actually was gay, gays would not be jeering at group X.
“He is jeering at the movie, insulting the movie.”
Most of his insults involve the tone of the movie (which he found hyper masculine and boring). He thinks the homoeroticism is funny because the Persian leader is depicted flamboyantly. Having a gay stereotype for the villain while at the same time having the heroes be very… eye candy intensive is incongruous and therefore humorous.
“Further, if the men make the movie homoerotic, do the nearly naked big breasted women, make the movie lesbian erotic?”
Yes.
“The argument you, and he, uses, is the argument that gay men use to attack body builders as gay.”
Homoerotic doesn’t mean gay. It just means sexually appealing to homosexuals. This is essentially the same category that heterosexual women use, but with less sparkly vampires.
Not his tone. He is not making a joke, he is calling people names. There is an obvious difference. It is like calling me “the duck”.
Your brain is in danger of exploding under the absurdity of your rationalizations.
If so, gays would not use it as insult against people who lift iron and people who engage in manly sports.
“Not his tone. He is not making a joke, he is calling people names. There is an obvious difference. It is like calling me “the duckâ€.”
Jokes are based on incongruity and the interposition of homophobia and homoeroticism is the a classic example. I’m not sure how you derived insults instead.
“Your brain is in danger of exploding under the absurdity of your rationalizations.”
Why? The definition of the words matches what they are supposed to describe. Do you think lesbians don’t find images of nearly naked attractive women erotic?
“If so, gays would not use it as insult against people who lift iron and people who engage in manly sports.”
Well, if the people in said sport were homophobic, gays would use it as mockery because they realize it flusters them.
But your stretched definition makes all heterosexual porn “homoerotic”, thereby depriving the word “homoerotic” of any meaning.
Since the supposed joke does not work under the natural and normal meanings of the words, not a joke – nor does it sound like a joke in the manner in which he expresses himself.
Gays have no reason to believe that people who lift iron are homophobic, but insult them as gay regardless.
The reason is pretty obvious. Gays are sexually attracted to manly men. Manly men seldom reciprocate, which pisses gays off. Sour grapes.
A long time ago I was walking down a street where gays frequently make pickups. A gay made a pass at me, which ordinarily would have angered me, but under the circumstances, a natural error, I knew I was in a bad street, so, when in Rome, I smiled and pleasantly brushed him off. He then snarled at me “Don’t flatter yourself”. That is exactly the manner in which gays call people who lift iron “gay”.
“But your stretched definition makes all heterosexual porn “homoeroticâ€, thereby depriving the word “homoerotic†of any meaning.”
How? We use plain old erotic to refer to things that are erotic to heterosexuals and it is a broad category. Why would homosexuals be any different?
“Gays have no reason to believe that people who lift iron are homophobic, but insult them as gay regardless.”
Sports in the US have traditionally been very homophobic. I don’t know about weightlifting, but football hasn’t been remotely accepting until recently.
“He then snarled at me “Don’t flatter yourselfâ€. That is exactly the manner in which gays call people who lift iron “gayâ€.”
? He was implying that being considered attractive by him is normally a complement and that you didn’t deserve it.
We don’t ordinarily call the barely dressed cover girl on the magazine homoerotic. It is a non standard use of language, so non standard as to be completely incomprehensible. You are giving people meanings that completely contradict what they are plainly saying.
“300” featured men wearing very little, and women with big boobs wearing considerably less. If that is homoerotic, then so is every other movie featuring scantily dressed people, depriving the word of all meaning.
No, no, no. Scantily dressed, well muscled, sweaty and oiled surrunded exclusively by other men who are the same way is what makes it homoerotic, not just the scantily dressed men.
I see a lot of depictions of scantily clad women surrounded exclusively by other scantily clad women, and no one thinks those depictions are homoerotic.
In any case, they are not scantily clad men surrounded exclusively other scantily clad men. The movie starts with scantily clad King Leonidas, accompanied by his hot wife dressed in tight fitting clothes.
Somehow it reminds me of this article over at ROK: http://www.returnofkings.com/31620/why-women-and-gays-should-not-be-allowed-in-male-safe-spaces
tl:dr women and gays are natural entryists.
They should have mentioned that male only spaces nowadays causes a huge gay stigma, thanks to gay propaganda. Gay propaganda implies that too much masculinity implies homosexuality, hence their logic anti-gay=closet homo. Do you have some good links about gay propaganda Jim?
I have it on good authority that Scott Alexander objects to lynching blacks.
I don’t care how many stupid people and liberals line up in a row to support it. I don’t care how offended they get. Fact is that most queers ARE exactly like the stereotypes.
I don’t think queers should be hounded or abused – but they sure as hell shouldn’t be ‘celebrated’ or tolerated. They are confused, unhappy people for the most part and pretending they are normal isn’t going to help them one bit. These people need counselling.
“By the same reasoning, anyone who objects to coprophagy must be a repressed coprophage, because, of course, everyone at “Less Wrong†knows perfectly well that there can be no rational, innate, or instinctive reasons to dislike eating $#!%.”
Ha! Truth is funnier than fiction. Sometimes.
I always had a sneaking suspicion that pedophile priests were closet homos. After thinking on it for 30 secs, it’s probably not true. The act is far too vicious, and cruel, to make a stable person accept the act as “fair” or “worthwhile”.
Either way, (and please call me out on this) no man, or group of men shall ever care for my child or children.
In jest, and camaraderie, my buds call me “gay” because I think Dan here is the greatest singer in the most genres, alive today.
Control, range, variety and power. I guess I’m a homo folks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkXYL6Q0WHI
(3:20 to the end… good stuff! doh!)
that anyone who objects to homosexuality must be a repressed homosexual
For me this is filed under “ideas that you hear routinely that I can’t fathom, not even in my wildest imaginings, where they come from.” I don’t know what else to say about it.
Agreed.
Alrenous, I feel the same way about your commentary. Usually.
And this is a problem?
Let me know when I’ve written unusually.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772014
tldr; homophobic straight men were compared to nonhomophobic straight men and the homophobic individuals exhibited more arousal when exposed to homosexual porn than the straight individuals.
(note, that is probably where the idea comes from- I think 1996 is early enough. I don’t know enough to comment if there methodology was any good)
There is a lot of PC research supposedly proving PC things – this sounds very like the research supposedly proving that black underperformance is caused by stereotype threat – i.e. racism, and the research supposedly proving that conservatives are stupid and evil.
[…] The trouble with gay marriage « Jim’s Blog […]
There’s one problem with the supposed triumph of LGBTPQI “marriage” in the U.S.A. (that “marriage” is in quotes because it’s in reality a mirage).
The illegitimacy rate is skyrocketing in the USA. Most Americans are exiting legal marriage. Isn’t it interesting that this exit happened at the same time as the LGBTPIQ and their rich modern liberal activist friends won?
There’s two things which are leading the exit. NAMs, and well normal people.
NAMs: Blacks and Amerindians are matriarchal by nature and genetics, and in an environment which rewards this behavior through welfare benefits in the USA, it’s no wonder it’s quite normal to see single motherhood there.
Normal people: Nevertheless, even white Americans and a smaller slice of Asians are abandoning legal marriage.
Since legal marriage has been sodomized and turned “gay”, both through media/academic propaganda as well as the Supreme Court liberal justice running wild, wouldn’t it be natural to expect an exit from such a corrupted “institution”?
In addition, the whole “you’re a repressed LGBTPQI” is a sort of irrational shaming loop.
If I hate a certain vegetable doesn’t it mean that I secretly long for it? No. If I’m against marijuana, does it mean that I’m a repressed drug user? No. If I’m against abortion, does it mean that I’m a repressed pro-abortionist? No. If I’m against global cooling/global warming/”climate change”, does it mean that I’m an environmentalist? No. If I’m against big multinational corporations, does that make me a corporate capitalist? No.
Makes no sense that charge. It’s almost like a sideline, to keep a person off course and off track. Like to libel them, shame them into silence, and destroy them. Like an “Rules for Radicals” Alinsky tactic.
“Scott Alexander has just posted that anyone who objects to homosexuality must be a repressed homosexual, which is typical of what passes for rationality among the “Less Wrong†crowd.”
This is the opposite of what I said (I specifically said this could not possibly explain most people’s anti-homosexuality attitudes) and I request either that Jim clarify or that readers read the blog post involved rather than trust his summation.
This can’t be a universal explanation for anti-gay attitudes. Something like half the US population is against gay marriage (previously much more) and probably five percent or less is gay. Closeted gay people don’t explain more than a small fraction of the anti-gay movement.
But it’s probably bigger than the fraction who read Thomas Aquinas.
Right. The opposite of what you said.
Go away you lying sophist and be gone.
The tone and substance of your essay directly contradicts its frame. You speak out of both sides of your mouth.
As I said on your blog:
When I explain the ignorance, stupidity, and illogic of debates on Less Wrong by the fact that most Less Wrongers are stupid gay pedophiles and coprophages, I am being charitable, according to Scott Alexander’s definition of Charity.
I still don’t think you’re making sense. I specifically said on that post, clearly as possible, “THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO THE MAJORITY OF GAY MARRIAGE OPPONENTS”, and you’re publishing a post saying that I think it applies to the majority of gay marriage opponents. If you think there’s some subtext, it’s coming from your preconceptions, not from me.
I would appreciate if you would at least add a disclaimer stating that I don’t endorse the position you’ve attributed to me.
Your analogy lacks things like “a mechanism” and “relationship to reality”, but if someone was going around saying liberals were illogical and stupid and hateful, and you came up with a theory why everything liberals said would make perfect sense and be well-intended given that they were coprophages, and it was discovered that in fact a moderate number of liberals were in fact coprophages, and you claimed that in that particular subset their beliefs were secondary to their coprophagy, then yes, that would be more charitable than continuing to say it was because they were illogical and stupid and hateful.
That is the frame of your post.
The tone of your post is “teabagger, teabagger, yaaah yah, teabagger, teabagger, teabagger, yaah yaaah yaaaah.
For your disclaimer to actually be a disclaimer, it has to acknowledge the non evil and non stupid arguments that your opponents make.
If being charitable, you should address the arguments that your opponents regularly use, that they regard as their strongest arguments, not alleged arguments that make them look evil and stupid.
When you say that the argument attributed to your opponents is not a majority argument, this can be paraphrased as “I am not trying to make sense, I am just chanting teabagger teabagger”
It is rule of discourse that an argument attributed to your opponents is in fact typical of your opponents. By addressing the argument at length, you insultingly and offensively imply that it is typical, regardless of disclaimers and frame.
To actually acknowledge that the ridiculous stupid and evil argument is atypical, you need to reference arguments that are typical “The typical person who opposes normalization of gay sex says …. but there are a minority who say …..”
Without acknowledgement of valid arguments, your disclaimer does not work. The insult remains.
If the only arguments you mention are evil and stupid, the clear implication is that all the arguments of your opponents are evil and stupid.
You need to at least briefly acknowledge the non evil and non stupid arguments put forth by the great majority of those you disagree with. That would be a disclaimer.
If you are going to focus on your adversary’s evil and crazy motivations, you need to acknowledge their upfront arguments. Even if you are going to dismiss their upfront arguments as mere cover for evil and crazy motivations, you have to at least tell us what the cover is.
Called it.
Very important: I’m unhappy to be correct. Not triumphant, not gloating. Pessimism won the contest against optimism, again.
Alexander, if you don’t want the post to come across the way Jim describes it, you have to write a very different post.
For details to nail this thing to:
I seem to recall there’s a name for this rhetorical strategy. The idea is to demonstrate rather than describe how erroneous thought works, so the reader doesn’t dismiss it as, “Could never happen to me.” In other words, I think Jim’s objection here is not valid.
The problem, then, is this:
You won’t even acknowledge you might be wrong. Accept your Ignorance. You won’t even acknowledge that the other side might be about as right as you are. The possibility doesn’t even come up.
It’s very sophisticated dogma, it may even be heading in the right direction. It’s still dogma.
The keystone of the rhetorical strategy I described is the line that says, “And I’m wrong about all this. I genuinely thought it, and I was wrong.” Without it, it exploits a backdoor in the human brain.
So are you exploiting backdoors on purpose, or by accident? Are you a liar or conditionally incompetent?
Incompetence doesn’t deserve its negative connotations; it can be cured. We have a nice A/B test, which, barring too much noise, I will be making.
(Specifically, the backdoor is emotional sympathy with the arguments. They get absorbed around the rational mind, not through it. The memory, of course, must remember the words have been said. The subconscious reviews such memories. It does not generally do its due diligence regarding context, and so on one of these reviews the subconscious, lacking an emotional barrier, will uncritically adopt the arguments as accurate.)
So you’re going to stop exploiting this backdoor, because it was an accident. Right?
Wow Alrenous, you’re very fluent in Less Wrong.
/bow
Did you just call LW sophistry, or should I be retorting that LW happens to be fluent in Alrenese?
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/17/someone-writes-an-anti-racist-faq/#comment-55723
On purpose. I see.
Thank you gentlemen. Good night.
Blame Nick Land for this one. My principles say I’m supposed to stop reading this stuff in general. I find it moreish yet unconstructive.
I conclude he was either already aware of the danger or he read my comment and I primed him. Either way Jim deserves a mea culpa.
Leftist == sophist, so it’s highly unsurprising.
That said there’s some things in the linked article that threaten my hypothesis that he’s an incurable sophist.
Scott wrote:
Trouble is that the theory you attribute to your opponents is not well intended even if your opponent is a closeted gay. It is still evil and stupid even if, perhaps especially if, your opponent is a closeted gay
For it to be well intended you would need to add to that theory rational reasons for preferring heterosexuality regardless of what actually turns one on, such as family, children, and avoiding disease, or the necessity of families for the continuation of civilization.
Which you neglected to do.
Thus, you left out of your account of your gay opponents, the same things I left out of my account of my coprophagic opponents.
That would be steelmanning which is to make the argument as strong as possible. This is charity which is to make the argument comprehensible.
Scott’s post is not charity because it creates a straw man argument and demonizes and ridicules his opponents.
A strawman requires an argument no one is using.
Scott’s example
“Teaching children about homosexuality will turn them gay?”
And behold, first hit on bing
“gay childrens’ books are okay, if you want your kids to grow up gay. It justs depends if you have a problem with your kids ending up in the lifestyle that many homosexuals take, and last time I check, it’s usually bad.”
http://www.tolerance.org/blog/gay-children-s-books
“A federal court decision approving mandatory public school instruction for children as young as kindergarten in how to be homosexual is being allowed to stand, drawing a description of “despicable†from the parent who unsuccessfully challenged his school district’s “gay†advocacy agenda.”
http://www.wnd.com/2008/10/77373/
No one is using the argument that:
Further, it is pretty obvious that most people with sexual deviations develop them as a result of unusual and often abusive sexual experience early in puberty, much as young rams raised by goats will have a sexual preference for goats and ignore sheep, exposing pre pubertal children to homosexual activity is likely to turn at least some of them homosexual, much as exposing sheep to goat sex in early puberty turns male sheep goatosexual.
It surely obvious that the effort to expose pre-pubertal children to homosexuality is an effort to recruit under age sex partners. They are not trying to explain, they are trying to turn them on. Regardless of whether repressed homosexuals believe the early exposure theory, it is perfectly obvious that homosexual activists believe the early exposure theory. Scott’s argument applies far more strongly to homosexual activists than to his hated, demonized, and despised enemies, but obviously it would be quite unthinkable for him to apply it to homosexual activists, and anyone who so applied it would likely be banned.
A substantial proportion of male homosexuals were sexed up by male homosexuals before puberty, before they had developed a sexual preference, thus one may well believe the theory you are demonizing without being a repressed homosexual. Suggesting that people believe this theory as a result of repressed homosexuality is an ad hominem attack, not charity.
““normalizing homosexuality will turn people gay and that is bad because I hate myself and hate homosexuals.“”
That isn’t Scotts argument. The first part is an argument people actually make. The second part is your interpretation of what Scott is saying. At no point in what Scott actually says does it require people to hate themselves or homosexuals. It simply requires them to believe the homosexual urge is something that everyone needs to struggle against. It isn’t exactly pleasant, but that is why we build character- so people differ pleasure to do things that are necessary for society. I’m sure homosexuals that make such an argument don’t feel bad about themselves- after all, they believe they are doing the right thing.
“It surely obvious that the effort to expose pre-pubertal children to homosexuality ”
Scott isn’t talking about homosexual porn or imagery, Scott is talking about the knowledge homosexuals exist and aren’t bogymen.
Then what is Scott’s argument? Why do these supposed closeted gays think that turning people gay is bad?
And, if they are closeted gays, why are they primarily worried about children being exposed to gay sex shortly before puberty, rather than men being exposed to gays after puberty? If they are tempted to homosexuality, the temptation would be strongest after puberty.
Scott’s evidence is not evidence that opponents of normalizing homosexuality are tempted to homosexuality. It is evidence that politically active gays are trying to recruit children as sex partners.
His account of the behavior of opponents of normalizing homosexuality makes no sense, it fails to explain anything. He is just chanting “teabagger, teabagger, yaaah, yaaah yaaah”. On the other hand, if this account was instead applied to gay activists seeking to impose their curriculum in schools, his theory would make perfect sense. Naturally gays would believe that homosexuality is tempting, and that small boys secretly want to get it on with adult male homosexuals, and just need to be given permission to do so by the school.
But anyone who applied Scott’s theory to those people for whom it actually made sense would be banned from his blog.
Gay activists most certainly are talking about, and actively presenting, not porn, but homosexual imagery in schools to pre pubertal children. Which is roughly analogous to what a sheep raised by goats gets. The sheep gets goat role models, and does what they do.
Will it work? Maybe. But whether it works or not, gay activists are the people whose life experience will lead them to believe that it will work. Whether or not what gay activists are doing turns children gay, the activists are overwhelmingly likely to believe it will turn children gay, and therefore intend it to recruit child sex partners, regardless of whether or not it works.
“Then what is Scott’s argument? Why do these supposed closeted gays think that turning people gay is bad?”
Scott is doing charity, not steelmanning. I’ll give an example:
People accuse prolifers of being hypocritical for not killing doctors. The short answer is that lots of people don’t follow the logical conclusions of their beliefs because it requires a degree of commitment they do not have. The long answer is that prolifers feel they are massively outnumbered (as a good chunk of people are against abortion… except for rape or incest, which is not prolife) which simultaneously makes it impossible for them to know who to trust (because said individuals insist they are prolife), so they try to ignore the problem as much as possible in their day to day lives because otherwise they can’t function.
Note this doesn’t require any elaboration on the reason for the motives, whether they are right or wrong or any additional content. The point of charity is to make an opponents thought process comprehensible.
But that still does not explain what the whole supposed point of Scott’s argument was to explain: To explain why people oppose normalization of homosexuality.
Of course the actual point of Scott’s argument was to call his opponents gay.
“Of course the actual point of Scott’s argument was to call his opponents gay.”
Which is a very strange argument coming from him since he is gay.
Gays like gays less than anyone.
Recall Chris Rock saying “We hate black people too”. Well Gays not only hate gay people too, they really hate gay people.
Just a blacks have better reason than anyone to know what is wrong with blacks, gays have better reason than anyone to know what is wrong with gays.
“But that still does not explain what the whole supposed point of Scott’s argument was to explain: To explain why people oppose normalization of homosexuality.”
It does. Some people oppose normalizing homosexuality because it will increase the number of homosexuals.
What Scott doesn’t do is explain why people think an increase in the number of homosexuals is a bad thing, but that is an entirely separate argument. Additionally, opposing homosexuality because it is bad is entirely comprehensible to Scott- he may think you are wrong, but the idea that the state and society should disincentive antisocial behaviors is something comprehensible.
Indeed. Of course. But what is their motivation? Why do they oppose increasing the number of homosexuals? An “explanation” that leaves that out is not an explanation, for that is the core of the issue.
We know why people don’t want more gays- they tell us that. It is comprehensible. Scott was trying to figure out why people believed these things would cause more gays, what premises they are operating on.
Remember, Scott is trying to answer this:
“Principle of Charity, remember, says you should always assume your ideological opponents’ beliefs must make sense from their perspective. If you can’t even conceive of a position you oppose being tempting to someone, you don’t understand it and are probably missing something. “
And Scott lies about why they don’t want more gays, and will censor anyone who tells us why they do not want more gays.
But if they were operating on these premises, they would not focus on gay presentations to children with unformed sexuality. So Scott’s explanation does not fit the people he misquotes, whereas it does fit those presenting gay sexuality in schools.
“But if they were operating on these premises, they would not focus on gay presentations to children with unformed sexuality.”
They aren’t. He gives the examples of 4 arguments (3 explicit, one in a quote) and only one involved children.
Scott’s representation of the arguments of those he hates is wildly inaccurate and unrepresentative – is hateful.
“Scott’s representation of the arguments of those he hates is wildly inaccurate and unrepresentative – is hateful.”
How? These are the arguments he mentions
“Allowing gay marriage would destroy straight marriage? ”
“Gay people are depraved and licentious?”
“Teaching children about homosexuality will turn them gay? ”
“Dr. Paul Cameron, founder of the anti-gay Family Research Institute, is quoted as saying: “If all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get – and that is what homosexuality seems to be – then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist… It’s pure sexuality. It’s almost like pure heroin. It’s such a rush. They are committed in almost a religious way. And they’ll take enormous risks, do anything.—
Those he lies about and hatefully demonizes do not say “allowing gay marriage”. They say that forcing people to call gays married will destroy straight marriage – and it will, the same way forcing people to call homos “gay” destroyed the old meaning of “gay”
And they are, and therefore function as reservoir of dangerous diseases. Normalizing homosexuality encourages the transmission of their diseases to normals.
Scott lies about his opponents arguments and demonizes his opponents by omitting their legitimate concern that gays are plague rats.
No one, not one person, not one person in the entire world, has ever suggested that teaching children about homosexuality will turn them gay.
Rather, exposing them to positive gay role models may well turn them gay, in the same way that sheep raised by goats become goatosexual.
“Those he lies about and hatefully demonizes do not say “allowing gay marriageâ€. They say that forcing people to call gays married will destroy straight marriage – and it will, the same way forcing people to call homos “gay†destroyed the old meaning of “gay†”
No one is forcing you to call it marriage. The legal document is a certificate of marriage, but you can call it whatever you like.
“And they are, and therefore function as reservoir of dangerous diseases. Normalizing homosexuality encourages the transmission of their diseases to normals.
Scott lies about his opponents arguments and demonizes his opponents by omitting their legitimate concern that gays are plague rats.”
That only applies to male homosexuals. Lesbians have lower rates of disease transmission, don’t they?
Of course this doesn’t make sense in the context of opposing gay marriage because marriage generally involves monagomy which cuts down substantially on the spread of STDs.
“No one, not one person, not one person in the entire world, has ever suggested that teaching children about homosexuality will turn them gay.
Rather, exposing them to positive gay role models may well turn them gay, in the same way that sheep raised by goats become goatosexual.”
That is the equivalent of raised by gay people. Why would being exposed to positive gay role models outweight the massive number of heterosexual role models?
College students are being forced. Employers are being forced. Pretty soon employers will be held responsible for forcing their employees.
And people are corresponding less concerned about lesbians, pretty much in proportion as lesbians cause fewer problems.
Heterosexuals generally alter their behavior when married. “Married” gays do not alter their behavior, continuing to sleep with hundreds of people every year. Supposing that “marriage” would alter gay behavior is as foolish as supposing that giving blacks and mestizos mortgages would alter their behavior.
“College students are being forced. Employers are being forced. Pretty soon employers will be held responsible for forcing their employees.”
They are forced to recognize it as legally a marriage. Nothing else. Well, maybe some colleges insist it is the same thing in an effort to fight bigotry.
“And people are corresponding less concerned about lesbians, pretty much in proportion as lesbians cause fewer problems.”
Why are they concerned at all if the rationale is disease?
“Heterosexuals generally alter their behavior when married. “Married†gays do not alter their behavior, continuing to sleep with hundreds of people every year. Supposing that “marriage†would alter gay behavior is as foolish as supposing that giving blacks and mestizos mortgages would alter their behavior.”
I think you are overestimating the behavior and I think you are attributing it to the wrong cause. With new technology it is becoming easy for straight people to have affairs anonymously; I suspect the number of partners for such individuals will increase as the ease of use increases until it equalizes for both groups. I doubt heterosexual men and homosexual men behave any differently when exposed to easily available sex (I’m not implying that all induldge, but similar proportions do).
If you are photographer, and you don’t want to photograph gay “marriages”, you are nonetheless forced to photograph gay “marriages” as real marriages.
If I was overestimating the behavior, you guys would have better poster boys.
So, this is an interesting prediction. I don’t think it will be that easy to ruin the word marriage. Homosexual was a new word they invented to make themselves sound like sufferers of a disease instead of corruption. Words like gay and queer weren’t really the most important words in the language, so they could be taken fairly easily.
Marriage is the word for marriage.
What word do you think we can retreat to? I expect gaymarriage to be smushed into one word, if anything.
But losing the word to express an indissoluble bond between a man and a woman with the intention of raising children is happening after the concept has already been lost to a significant degree.
It’s funny how you and everyone else keeps going on and on about Marie Curie. There exists exactly one significant female mathematician – Emmy Noether. Hilbert asked her to prove that general relativity doesn’t violate conservation of energy, and she came back with a perspective called Noether’s Theorem, relating conservation laws to Lie algebras.
But it’s all Marie Curie this and that whenever women in physics is discussed.
Whatever. If feminists want to ignore the one significant figure they should be idolizing, fine with me.
Emmy Noether is the real deal, the decisive counter example to the claim that women cannot do mathematical science. She is perhaps ignored because her discovery, being genuinely important, is not readily understandable to the average progressive.
Nonetheless, while there is at least one Emmy Noether, the presence of manufactured poster girls and affirmative actioned science bureaucrats is evidence that there is unlikely to be significantly more than one Emmy Noether.
I’ve heard something like this before. In my IP class, my quite liberal professor suggested a kind of “brand dilution” argument against gay marriage.
I think it’s a non-crazy argument, insofar as it doesn’t rely on Aristotelian metaphysical muckety-muck about the “nature” or “purpose’ of marriage. That is to say, it belongs in the conversation because it belongs in the 21st century.
With that said, I still think the argument kinda blows. There are LOTS AND LOTS of words synonymous with “gay”, so you can understand why people would switch from using “gay” to using these synonyms once “gay” became associated with homosexuality. There are no words that are even close to as synonymous with “marriage”. Secondly, does “losing a word” really matter? I mean, if we’re just asking about harms and benefits, isn’t it kinda clear that the benefits to gays of sanctioning gay marriage far exceed the harms to the rest of us of losing this word. And if we’re not talking about harms and benefits, then what the fuck are we doing?
Marriage is now officially gay.
People therefore stop getting married (Face it, everyone despises gays. Observe the Politically correct using “teabagger” as an insult, and the reviews of “300”.)
Children without fathers are prone to anti social and self destructive behavior, resulting a life expectancy several years shorter, not to mention what they do to everyone else’s life expectancy.
So everyone loses several potential years of life to violence, drug abuse, stress, and self destructive behaviors. Whites go ghetto.
Plus, of course, without progeny, men just are not motivated about the future. Leaders steal instead of lead, soldiers will not fight. Without sons, men stop caring about truth and reality.
In “matriarchal” societies, which is to say societies without fathers, men do not work, except as pimps. Taking is high status, rather than giving. Traditional marriage attached men to society and gave them reason to work, reason to support and protect women and children, reason to defend their society in war, reason to build for the distant future.
Look, obviously nobody can claim certainty when we’re speculating about large-scale social change. With that caveat, let me just say that your envisaged scenario strikes me as more improbable than most — so improbable that I can’t say I’d blame someone for failing to take it seriously, or for suspecting you of not being seriously.
But I’ll bite. First, let’s just get this out of the way — your evidence that “everyone despises gays” is absurd. Liberals use “teabagger” as an insult because they think it makes *Tea Partiers* uncomfortable, not because the liberals themselves dislike gays (not that teabagging is limited to gays, anyway). I myself have no antipathy for gays. Grew up in a purple part of the country, and the idea of disliking gays was as foreign to me as fuckin’ Know-Nothing-ism. My suspicion is that anti-gay attitudes are mostly the result of financial insecurity — guys can’t bring home the bacon, and find no dignity in their jobs, and so they turn to this anti-gay BS as a last-ditch attempt to retain their masculinity. It’s sad, really.
Second, why would people think marriage is gay just because gays can get married? Do people think dating is gay because gays can date? Do they think buying a house is gay? Generally, the inference from “gays can do X” to “people think X is gay” is shit. The burden’s on you, playboy: why is it not shit here?
Third: I’m willing to buy much of what you say about marriage. But I actually think that letting gays get married is GOOD for marriage rates. Not because of the very few people “who refuse to get married until everyone can”, but because, basically people see marriage as old, outmoded, frumpy, conservative. Letting gays get married is something that might turn that around.
I know this is just a blog post, and I know that we’re speculating about the future here, but can you point me to even one thing in the social-psych literature that lends even a smidgen of support for your claims?
Marriage rates are falling, and at least one of the justifications for giving up on marriage is “Marriage is Gay”
On your theory, you need to contrive one theory to explain the behavior of liberals denouncing the tea party, and a completely different theory to explain the behavior of same liberals denouncing “300”. They speak with the same tone of voice, the same psychology is visibly present. So, obviously, the same person despises gays when denouncing the tea party, and despises gays when denouncing “300”.
But let us suppose your theory to be correct rather than far stretched rationalization. If your theory is correct, then Scott is deliberately insulting opponents of normalizing homosexuality in exactly the same way as liberals deliberately insult tea partiers by calling them teabaggers.
Why would people suddenly stop playing the second verse of “Deck the Halls with boughs of Holly”?
That is how euphemism works. That is how it always has worked, time after time after time. You guys keep trying this, time after time, and every single time it works out the same way.
This is getting tiresome.
I already destroyed the “deck the halls” point, and you had precisely zilch to say in response. I’m not going to ram my head against the fucking wall, so end of discussion on that.
You say “on of the justifications for giving up on marriage is “Marriage is Gay””. Wow. Cryptic. What in God’s name do you mean by this. Do you mean that people avoid marriage for this reason. Which people? Evidence? Bueller?
I haven’t taken the time to read the reviews for “300”. It looked like a shit movie. Point me to one that exemplifies the phenomenon you’re talking about, and then maybe we can have a discussion.
You did not destroy it. So, not everyone goes silent on “deck the halls”. Some people, however, did go silent – radio stations, most carolers, and the Hymn Society of America (1975. The Hymn, vols. 26-27. Fort Worth, TX: Hymn Society of America. OCLC 1605454.)
That some people went silent shows that euphemism does not work – that euphemism destroys the positive qualities of the word used to euphemize, rather than bestowing those qualities on the thing euphemized, something we already knew from thousands of years of similar efforts to sell evil, madness, and filth.
Do you require little diagrams where a banana goes into the wrong hole and gets covered in poop to make it less cryptic?
Exactly so.
See for example “Marriage is Gay“
Tea bagging in a non gay context is about dominating your enemy in a humiliating way such as in halo or other online games. To call someone a teabagger in that context would indicate that they beat the shit out of people and then humiliate them.
The context where the slur tea bagger is used is entirely in the homosexual context, indicating that such people are degenerate and worthless.
This is a great point. Of course they’re using it in the homosexual context.
Losing a word, whatever that means exactly, is not much more than semantics IMHO.
What’s important is helpless kids being adopted by homosexual couples who could have been adopted by real married couples and thus given a normal upbringing. Homosexuals cannot provide critical aspects of a child’s upbringing and in fact condition the child in abnormal ways that harm their socialization. See all the articles out there by people raised by homosexual couples who talk about how they don’t “get” normal heterosexual social cues, etc.
I have empathy for people who through no choice of their own are homosexual. They should be left alone to make fulfilling lives as best they can. But they have no business raising children and if they don’t have the sense and graciousness to accept that themselves then society needs to step in an put a stop to it.
More kids need adoption than there are heterosexual couples to adopt them. You’re saying that the marginal kid is better off not being adopted than being adopted by homosexuals? I know the literature on this, and I ain’t buyin’ it.
This is untrue. There is a huge shortage of kids, and huge demand for kids. The going bribe rate is about $60 000 under the table, though as in any black market prices are highly variable, and it is possible to adopt a child for as little five or ten thousand. Every child adopted by gays for the purpose of being sexually tortured, is denied to heterosexual couples for the purpose of being loved and petted.
In the early nineteenth century there was a surplus of kids, and some got raised by brothels, which, given the surplus, was reasonable, but today, no longer reasonable.
I imagine the demand is age-sensitive though. Much demand for under 1-year. Very little demand for fractious 10 year olds.
The fractious ten year old is likely to realize that something is very wrong and protest, thus gay adopters target the more popular age groups.
Because of the ten-year-olds, there’s lots of potential adoptees for the ‘we need more adoptions’ crowd to point to. Without looking at adoption=f(age), many honest observers may even make that mistake.
Ten year olds that have not been fathered are pretty much unsalvageable. Nobody wants to live with them.
“it belongs in the conversation because it belongs in the 21st century.”
You say this like its a good thing.
Stupid question: did “Don we now our gay apparel,” really disappear from the song? I remember snickering about it as a kid, and I haven’t noticed its absence since. I’m willing to believe, I just need to see it. Got any popular performances that omit it?
OK, a few minutes of youtube browsing, and I think you’re wrong about “gay apparel,” Jim. It’s in all the top results, including some very recent ones. Ads, well-known animated characters, versions in different styles: they all include it.
On checking you tube, I find you are quite right about you tube.
But I am sure it disappeared from the radio rotation.
According to Wikipedia
I’ve heard it removed before, though I forget where.
Sounds to me like Jim is dropping qualifiers. It teh ghey isn’t censored in every performance, but the fact it is censored at all is significant. If it was censored all the time it would merely be very significant.
It’s true. People who complain about homosexuality are secretly homosexual; people who complain about rape wish to rapist or victims; people who complain about pedophilia want to molest children; people opposed to murder secretly wish to murder; etc.
It’s a well-known psychological state: people only oppose the evil within which they project on others.
Why do Leftists keep screaming “racist, sexist, fascist,†etc.: it’s project, pure and simple. All Leftists are mass murdering, totalitarian, hate-filled bigots. QED.
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The trouble with gay marriage is that it is meaningless. It is merely a way for gay couples to receive the legal privileges that are awarded to married heterosexual couples, because “it is unfair” for them not to. Marriage exists for only one reason: to contractually organize human reproduction/sexuality. This is the only reason heterosexual couples receive these benefits. It is an institution that was necessary before the invention of (easy, safe, reliable) birth control and paternity tests, but today, even heterosexual marriage is for the most part meaningless. The only reason gay marriage is possible, is because marriage has been dead as a serious institution for decades.
Speaking of logic, that would mean that ‘working’ and ‘breathing’ and ‘vacationing’ and ‘loving’ and other things that homosexual people do are certainly also going to become “disgusting” words just like ‘marriage’ ………………………………
When gays vacation, they vacation. Not a euphemism.
When gays marry, not like a man and a woman marrying. Hence a euphemism.
But since marriage is technically just a legality, EVEN for a man and a woman, who cares if two people of the same sex also go through this legal process and want to celebrate it with their family and friends? It’s also not a ‘euphamism’ if they are actually legally married. It says more about how weak and self conscious you are if you think another persons marriage affects you. (Outside of your own family members)
When man and a women get married, it is usually with the intent of staying together permanently to produce and raise children, and so that is type specimen of the world marriage. Whan a man and man get “married”, it is usually with the intent of winging together for a short time to pick up children for sexual purposes.
Inevitably the obscene meaning will overwhelm the acceptable meaning. The curse word meaning always takes over and obliterates all other meanings. This is the invariable fate of euphemism.
I’m not sure if you’re joking? Or if you really don’t (or can’t, or won’t) understand that same sex couples get married for all the same reasons hetero couples get married for. Lots of hetero couples adopt, or don’t have children, or use surrogates, or break up after being married for a brief time, or live together till death do they part. Same with same sex couples.
Your logic for expecting the word ‘marriage’ to become a curse word is pretty faulty. Ignorant people use the term ‘gay’ negatively because they think that it is a negative thing to be homosexual, but ‘marriage’ will always mean two or more people being legally united, and will never specifically mean two people of the same sex being married. Unless a word is used only to describe something specific to the group of people being prejudiced against, then it wouldn’t be turned into a curse word. (Again, working, breathing, vacationing, loving, marrying are all words that apply to same sex, AND hetero couples, and poligamists as well for that matter)
If they got married for the same reasons that hetero couples get married for, you would have better poster boys.
Marriage is for fags.
Quite so. We will have create new legal and social institutions in order to enable biological and cultural reproduction, for within my lifetime the old institutions have been so thoroughly destroyed as to be irrecoverable.
If I refuse to care, I likely to lose my job. Everyone, not just friends and relatives, is required to applaud and endorse.
If you call ‘change’ destruction, then sure, but it’s been straight people who have made marriage less of a serious commitment. Though I won’t complain about not being killed if it turns out I’m not a virgin on my wedding night, and not having a room full of people waiting around to see proof.
Starman observed:
I think my fertility posts sort of address that topic. Though more needs to be said.
I am gay myself and I’ve had similar thoughts about how “gay” became an all-purpose pejoravtive once it became a common term for homosexuals. I read once that the German word “schwul” followed a similar trajectory. It seems fairly clear that distaste for homosexuality is instinctive. As for the poop-eating example, I would say that coprophagia doesn’t seem inherently ethically objectionable to me but I haven’t researched it much and that might not have been the point you were making anyway. (I tend to go pretty far with utilitarian/libertarian reasoning, which may or may not be related to my sexual orientation. I will never know.)
I don’t think that same-sex marriage will cause a pejoration of “marriage” similar to the one that happened to “gay”. 100% of people who are gay (in the appropriate sense) are homosexuals. Whereas in all likelihood, if gay marriage is legalized, no more than a few percent of marriages will be same-sex; so the conceptual link between “marriage” and homosexuality will be a lot weaker. A possible counter is that coverage of SSM as an issue could counterbalance the real-life numerical preponderance of heterosexual marriages, but I would still bet against it happening even at low odds.