Among the many untruths constantly regurgitated by the Christofascists is the claim that marriage has throughout recorded history been one man and one woman. The Old Testament its self shows that this claim is a lie since polygamy, not monogamy was the norm and marriage might better be described one man and numerous women at a time. A parallel lie is that homosexuality is unnatural and that no nation has survived that ever accepted homosexuality. This story line comes most often from upstart pastors and/or first or second generation of professional Christians ironically from a nation a mere 236 years in existence. For comparison, ancient Rome existed for nearly three times this time span and in Russia the Romanov family alone ruled for more than 300 years.Sadly, the truth never seems to be a high ideal with conservative Christians who rewrite history to fit their fascist like agenda (hence my use of the term Christoifascists). In reality, outside of possibly ancient Israel which wanted to mark itself as different from all other cultures, same sex relations have been accepted universally among disparate groups ranging from the classical Greeks and Romans, the ancient Persian Empire, to Native American tribes to the Far East, including China. Indeed, it is only where Christianity - in many ways a repackaged version of the ancient Mythras beliefs mixed with a large dose of extremism from the Old Testament's Leviticus thanks largely to St. Paul - and its Abrahamic cousin, Islam, have gone that same sex relations have come to be condemned.
Thus it is interesting that increasingly - outside of backward and ignorant areas such as equatorial Africa, where extremist versions of Christianity are flourishing with the help of American Christofascists - many older cultures are belatedly discovering that anti-gay rhetoric and Christianity based puritanism are the imported customs and mores. A case in point is China, which is undergoing a sexual revolution. A new book, Behind the Red Door : Sex in China, looks at this phenomen. Here are highlights from a review in the Los Angeles Review of Books:
But the book’s greatest strength is in carving out a distinctive story for China — and showing that analogies to the Western 1960s sexual revolution are misleading. The Chinese are not so much shedding the mantle of history, Burger illustrates, as they are rediscovering their country’s past. And that past includes a sexual openness that puts the West to shame.
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Beginning as early as the 400s BCE, Daoist sex manuals instructed men, in minute detail, how to prolong ejaculation while bringing a woman to multiple orgasms.
That nonjudgmental attitude extended to homosexuality as well. In the Daoist view, sex between men was not so much morally wrong as pointless, as it did not facilitate the accumulation of precious qi. Sex between women, meanwhile, was implicitly condoned. Roughly half of the emperors of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 AD) kept young male lovers — a fact we know because imperial scribes dutifully recorded their affairs in works like Biographies of the Emperors’ Male Favorites. Such tolerance prevailed up through the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), when artists produced sex scrolls depicting intercourse between men.
To be sure, Chinese history was not without spells of prudishness. Eras in which the Confucian emphasis on hierarchy and control trumped the Daoist interest in nature were generally not great for sexual freedom. A reactionary swing in the early Ming dynasty brought with it the burning of erotic novels and woodblocks. And yet, Burger shows, the pendulum most often rested on sexual openness. Once the conservative spell had passed, the erotic literature industry again flourished.
It was only in the second half of the 19th century, as Western values seeped into China following the Opium Wars, that puritanism became more entrenched. . . . . Mao took this notion to a new level after 1949, stamping out prostitution and mandating an androgynous, sexless style of dress, even as he himself maintained stables of mistresses.
The irony is that by the time Deng Xiaoping initiated the economic reforms that would usher in sexual openness, licentiousness had been rebranded as Western “spiritual pollution.” The initial government line on HIV was that it had been brought to China by foreigners. Ditto homosexuality; for years, official lore held that China had no gay or lesbian people. So much for Biographies of the Emperors’ Male Favorites.
As Chinese embrace their rediscovered sexual freedom, the notion that carnality is a foreign import is an increasingly difficult sell. Beginning in 1993, the government allowed the establishment of sex stores, provided they maintained an ostensibly medical focus. Employees at Adam and Eve, the first establishment in Beijing, wore white lab coats and counseled customers on cures for erectile dysfunction. Today, China is reportedly home to 200,000 sex stores, and dried deer penis and other traditional medicines have been supplemented by lifelike sex dolls and French maid costumes.
But as an explanation of the dueling forces within Chinese society, Behind the Red Door is spot-on. Among the book’s more delicious details is the list of seven categories of sex worker devised by Chinese police in the 1990s. . . . . And yet the list also suggests a certain innocence — a pragmatic approach to sex in a culture where it has been intermittently criminalized but not indelibly branded as immoral, a culture that will never have the same tortured relationship to contraception, or gay sex, or sexual fantasy that we do in the United States.
Things are down to the absolute 11th deadline and Congressional Republicans still are refusing to cut any kind of deal. They would simply prefer to severely harm the country, possibly send the nation's economy back into recession, and throw millions of unemployed workers to the wolves rather than stand up to their lunatic base and face the potential of a primary challenge by some knuckle dragging moron such as Todd Akin or Richard Mourdoch favored by the Christofascists and Tea Party. A piece in the Washington Post sums this phenomenon up well. Here's the important quote:
With Illinois joining the states that will be taking up marriage equality in that state's upcoming coming legislative session, Barack Obama has climbed off the face and is advocating for passage of marriage equality. One can already hear the sputtering and envision the spittle flying around the Christofascists who are increasingly seeing a rejection of their effort to force their foul, fear and hate filled religious beliefs. Truth be told, America will not reach its constitutional promises of equality and religious freedom until the power and special privileges of the Christian Right are destroyed. Rather than foster love and equality, the main stock in trade of these Christofascists is hatred and division and an increasingly shrill effort to retain white conservative Christian privilege. The Washington Blade looks at Obama's endorsement of marriage equality in Illinois. Here are excerpts:
One cannot help but wonder what the rest of the world thinks of the political games being played in Congress principally by Republicans and to a lesser extent by Congressional Democrats. The stock markets are swinging as hope of a deal grows and then diminishes. It's not the way that the world's only true super power should be governed. The New York Times reports that a deal may be shaping up. I will believe it when I see it because I truly think today's GOP is insane enough to push the country into crisis. Here are article highlights on what may be in the deal, if it is struck:
It is interesting to see a conservative like Jon Huntsman repeatedly slam the lunacy of today's GOP. I personally believe that had Huntsman been the GOP nominee instead of Romney, the election results might have differed..Huntsman is correct that the party has become too extreme and unwilling to accept objective reality not to mention simple math. The problem is now that the GOP base has become so insane that the GOP nomination process makes it nearly impossible for a non-extremist - or someone unwilling to prostitute them-self to the extremists - to secure the nomination. It is also noteworthy that Huntsman indicated that states should be allowed to enact gay marriage laws - something anathema to the GOP's Christofascist elements. Here are excerpts from an article in the Daily Telegraph:
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I never cease to find it ironic that among the loudest voices calling for unlimited access to guns in America are the far conservatives who time and time again equate to conservative Christians. People who, if they took the Gospel message seriously, would eschew violence and the guns that are so intertwined with violence in America. Instead they demonstrate a level of hatred of others, extremism and paranoia that in and of themselves suggest that just maybe these folks ought not to have ready access to guns. Common sense ought to suggest that assault style weapons do not belong freely accessible to anyone who wants them. What is likewise disturbing is the refusal of conservatives in particular to ever learn from the successful policies of other nations. A piece in the Washington Post puts the problem of gun violence in perspective and reveals how simple it would be to reduce the gun related carnage in this country if only politicians had a shred of courage. Here are excerpts:
No one whines more about America's supposed decline than Republicans. Yet the GOP prostitutes itself shamelessly to the Christianists who seek to dumb down America's public school system so as to avoid anything that demonstrates that their ignorant belief in Bible inerrancy is simply not in accord with scientific fact and modern knowledge. Nothing personifies this more than the Christianist push to have creationism taught in our public schools as if it were a legitimate area of science. Closely aligned to this effort is the push to rewrite American history to (i) make the false claim that America was founded as a "Christian nation" and (ii) excise inconvenient events and individuals from the nation's history. If anyone is contributing to America's decline it is the Christianists themselves through their deliberate embrace of ignorance. Thus, it is refreshing that the Orleans Parish schools in Louisiana - not exactly one of the nation's most enlightened states - have banned the teaching of creationism and the revisionist history so loved by the far right. Here are highlights from Raw Story on this development:
I have noted before how the United States - the self-advertised "land of liberty" and home of religious freedom - is increasingly looking like a theocratic Islamic state as it continues to bow to the religious bigotry of far right Christians who comprise a Christian Taliban even as other modern nations move toward marriage equality. The Brazilian State of Sao Paulo has amended its laws to allow for same sex marriage and marriage visas will be issued to foreigners seeking to marry in Sao Paulo (pictured above), the largest city in South America. Meanwhile in America we see bigoted asses like Justice Antonin Scalia who spout anti-gay animus as a badge of distinction. The world is marching forward even as the Christofascists seek to drag America back to the Middle Ages. Here are highlights from Brazilian Law Blog:
Showing herself again to be an amazing LGBT ally - and nightmare to the Christofascists - Lady Gaga has announced that as part of her upcoming concert tour across the United States she will be engaged in a "Born Brave Bus Tour" that seeks to combat homophobia and anti-gay bullying. The effort will also contain an educational component for LGBT youth and young adults. Here are highlights via Towleroad:
The list of major corporations and/or their affiliated charitable foundations that are walking away from the Boy Scouts of America because of the organization's anti-gay policies continues to grow. The latest addition to the list is the Merck Foundation which announced in a letter that it was suspending all funding to the Boy Scouts until the ban on gay scouts and scout leaders is lifted. I find it amazing how the leadership of the Scouts would rather see funding evaporate and boys deprived of opportunities rather than let go of the institution's anti-gay bigotry. Huffington Post looks at this development. Here are highlights:
While it ought to be obvious to anyone sentient why the GOP lost the presidency, lost rather than gained seats in the U. S. Senate, and saw its majority in the House of Representatives shrink, the Republican National Committee is launching an official autopsy on the 2012 election. God forbid that they have a clue that hate, bigotry, racism, pandering to religious extremists, and engaging in a reverse Robin Hood social policy are not the easiest things to sell nowadays in light of the nation's rapidly changing demographics. On the other hand, perhaps an official investigation may cause a few in the GOP outside of the lunatic Christianist/Tea Party base to grasp that the party needs a major overhaul on its positions and that Christofascists and anti-immigrant extremists should not be allowed to draft the party platform. An article in Politico looks at this effort to discover what ought to be obvious. Here are excerpts: