A MERRY WIFE FOR WINDSOR
Jerry Harkins
At long last it has been announced that Charley will make Camilla an honest woman. The happy couple will be married in a civil ceremony in April and she will henceforth and at long last be a Lady—actually Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cornwall. She may never be Queen but, when (and, of course, if) HRH Charley becomes King, she will be styled Prince’s Consort (or some such).[1] The Queen is said to be delighted (don’t ask me how you can tell) and the Archbishop of Canterbury has sent along his blessing with almost undetectable reservations. Said he, "I am pleased that Prince Charles and Mrs. Camilla Parker Bowles have decided to take this important step." The reservation is in his use of the title Mrs. Parker Bowles. Which is to say they’ll no longer be living in sin. He will bless the happy couple after the wedding in a private prayer service.
The Prince and his once and future consort have indeed been living in sin for many years. It is one of the enduring mysteries of our time what they see in each other but love is blind and lovers are said to be unable to see which might explain a lot. They do have some things in common: both love a rollicking good laugh and both have pretty knees. As it turns out, they have quite a lot more in common. It seems Camilla’s great grandmother, Alice Kepple, was the last mistress of Charley’s great-great-grandfather, the flamboyant royal pervert, Edward VII. His Majesty had at least fifteen other mistresses including Sarah Bernhardt, Lily Langtree and the redoubtable Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston, and no slouch herself in the matter of extramarital affairs.
The mating rituals of British royalty have always been esoteric, involving such practices as incest [2], regicide [3], spousal abuse [4] and, of course, adultery. Quite right I say. It provides endless distraction to the commoners which helps them ignore the lousy weather. Still, one has to wonder why any adult with a modicum of intelligence would care about the marriage of a 56-year old man and a 57-year old woman. They will tell you that Charley is heir to the throne but they cannot for the life of them answer the next obvious question. So what? Since when has a scandalous sex life debarred somebody from the British throne? Look at the kings after whom Charley was named—the two other Charley’s, the six Georges and the eight Henrys. Of course there is also Arthur, the mythical cuckold who wound up sleeping with his mother or his sister or a fairy—take your pick.
I bow to no man in my appreciation of good gossip but this is old news. It was sordid ten years ago but now it’s merely leftovers. It was great fun when Charley was making an ass of himself on his cell phone. It was high melodrama when Diana’s brother was berating him and his family at the funeral. But by this time, all you can really say is that it’s so fifteen minutes ago. I know the Brits have a higher tolerance for boredom than most people which is why their newspapers are such amazing scandal sheets. (I even know why this is so but that’s another story.) It may be that royal watching is thought of as a patriotic duty, unpleasant but a necessary part of the stiff upper lip. It might also serve as a reminder that no matter how depressing things get in one’s life, they can be made worse by picking up the daily dispatches from the castle. Be that as it may, it is instructive to imagine the discussions held by serious men and women about the great issues surrounding the forthcoming marriage. What, for example, should HRH wear? A military uniform perhaps? He is, after all, Colonel-in-Chief of the 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles. In the circumstance, however, we might want to avoid too explicit a reference to his great great grandfather. Yes, and the resplendent uniform might serve to remind people of his first wedding. Maybe, then, white tie and tails (with decorations) or morning suit depending on the time of day. [5] Seems a bit much for a visit to City Hall. Perhaps, then, Bermuda shorts to show off those knees. Brigadier Andrew Henry Parker Bowles who, for King and country, was happy to divest himself of Lady Camilla, will no doubt attend the private prayer service. You will recognize him by the big smile on his face.
The only one not smiling will be the Queen. Until now, every last one of her subjects has been praying she would live forever so they would not have to put up with King Charles III. Now a lot of them will be thinking about how much fun it would be to have Charlie and Camilla on the throne.
Notes
1. Subsequent events have brought this into question. Somebody with a really weird aristo title claims that, “…of course she will be the queen.” It’s never happened that the spouse of a king has not been a queen but neither Dear Bertie nor the current “prince consort” were styled “king.” Jay Leno interviewed the sitting Queen and asked her, “If Camilla is not to be Queen, what title do you have in mind for her?” The Queen answered, “Best in Show.”
2. Until very recently, it was practically required that a member of the royal family marry another royal. Today virtually all European royals, real and pretenders, are related through Queen Victoria and Dear Bertie. [Full disclosure: the writer is not related to Victoria but he is the Pretender to the throne of Donegal.]
3. Edward II was murdered at the instigation of his mother and her paramour in 1327 because she thought her son was gay. He died when they inserted a white hot iron rod up the royal rectum, a method known to have a high degree of success. They replaced him with his son, Edward III, who immediately imprisoned his grandmother and beheaded her lover. Henry II, the greatest of English kings, gained the throne by assassinating his brother, William II. Henry VI was deposed by his cousin Edward IV and then murdered in the Tower of London. Edward V, a teenager, was deposed by his uncle Richard III who immediately murdered him. Bloody Mary became queen by rebelling against the reigning nine-day-wonder queen, Lady Jane Grey, and having her beheaded.
4. The aforementioned Henry II imprisoned his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, for 14 years because she was smarter than he was. George I, the first of the Hanovers who still rule England, had his wife who was also his first cousin, Sophia Dorothea, imprisoned for life on a trumped up charge of infidelity. He did this so he could live a dissolute life with a harem of mistresses and prostitutes. Of course for sheer spousal abuse, one would be hard pressed to exceed the creative solutions of Henry VIII.
5. Additional Subsequent Event: Charlie did indeed choose a morning suit, albeit one with black piping edging the lapels and tails long enough for evening wear. Camilla wore white with a smashing white on white brocade coat and a sort of feathery confection where a hat would ordinarily go. She never looked better, God bless her. And, seriously, God save the Queen.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Thursday, May 18, 2006
INVASION OF THE QUEERS
Jerry Harkins
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.
—Senate Joint Resolution 40, 2004
I would argue that the future of our country hangs in the balance because the future of marriage hangs in the balance.
— Rick Santorum (R., Pa.), The New York Times, July 14, 2004
Six senior clerics gathered recently in Jerusalem in an attempt to keep the queers from staging their World Pride Festival there. All tried to disguise themselves by wearing funny costumes, especially one guy wearing what looked for all the world like a dirty Ku Klux Klan hood. One attendee, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, put this “spiritual rape of the Holy City” succinctly. He said, "This is not the homo land, this is the Holy Land." His mother always thought he had a gift for language.
In case you hadn’t noticed, organized religion does not like gays. Right now, its displeasure is concentrated on the “issue” of gay marriage which drives it representatives up the proverbial banana tree. The argument of the Know Nothings comes down to this: if you let the nose of gay marriage into the tent of middle class morality, you will destroy the institution for the rest of us. Since marriage is the basic unit of society, our country’s future will be compromised or worse (think Sodom and Gomorrah). Senator Santorum is not the only person who purports to believe this, not by a long shot. Nor is his fanciful notion that the future of the United States hangs in the balance the most absurd statement of that belief. Speaking of a newly passed state law allowing same sex marriage, Assemblyman Ray Haynes of California said, “We are throwing the dice and taking a huge gamble, and we are gambling with the lives [of] future generations not yet born.” In the eighth grade a nun told Mr. Haynes that, if he masturbated, hair would grow on the palms of his hand. He was so scared, it stunted his intellectual growth which is why he can talk about future generations not yet born.
But the honorable Santorum is a United States senator, a member of the “world’s greatest deliberative body” and this idea is a contender for the stupidest public policy position ever taken. It is also the most bigoted such position since the downfall of Jim Crow and, finally, it is symptomatic of the psychosexual paranoia that characterizes the religious right. But stupidity, bigotry and sexual perversion are beyond the scope of this essay. My concern here is at once simpler and more formal. I want to know precisely how gay marriage threatens straight marriage. What exactly is Senator Santorum worried about? Precisely how will the United States of America be destroyed if we fail to adopt a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage?
Some things do threaten marriage. No fault divorce is high on the list. Adultery is right up there in the top ten. The Internet makes the cut because it facilitates meeting and flirting online which leads to adultery and divorce. Even children threaten marriage by giving couples a whole new list of things to argue about and a whole new set of financial pressures. Do we need a constitutional amendment banning divorce, adultery, the Internet and children? Do any of these evils threaten the viability of the nation? Or is it that Republicans think our citizens must not be exposed to the attractions of gay marriage lest they all be tempted to abandon their pedestrian heterosexual attachments? Do gays have more fun? Is gay contagious? Or is Mr. Santorum’s fear more basic? Maybe he really is worried that God will strike the United States with fire and brimstone.
Could be. These people have rich fantasy lives but, in this case, I suspect we are dealing with just another tiresome example of a majority fearing a minority and trying to suppress it. For obvious reasons, the Yahoos haven’t thought the issue through to anything like a persuasive answer. It is a simple assertion meant to scare you, especially if you trust the likes of Pat Robertson and Rick Santorum. Between the defective major premise that “gay marriage is evil” and the nonsensical conclusion that “gay marriage will destroy America” is a huge chasm with no logical bridge to span it. It isn’t a case of the undistributed middle. There is no middle. There is instead a theological bridge which amounts to nothing more than, “I was chatting with God the other day and he said so.”
As always, the elect feel compelled to justify their discrimination on religious grounds. Before the Civil War, Southern Christians developed a biblical justification for slavery based on the Noah story. You may recall that one day Noah’s son Ham came upon his father sleeping off a hangover in the nude. When the old man got up, he was so chagrinned he immediately condemned Canaan, one of Ham’s sons and his own grandson, to a life of slavery. Okay, this is a crazy story but the slaveholders concluded that their slaves were descendents of Canaan and that their dark skin was the “mark of Cannan.” The logic behind this conclusion is elusive except for the fact that it was the logic of the powerful. Today, a very similar mental quirk informs the case for a ban on gay marriage.
It is true that the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is hard on gays, calling for their summary execution. I haven’t heard any Southern Baptists going quite that far, but I wouldn’t be surprised insofar as they believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. But I digress. Let’s accept, for the sake of argument, that the God of the Christians—that is, the God of love—hates gay men or, at least, the things gay men do. They are, therefore, on their way to hell, so why does anyone care whether or not the state lets them get married? Mr. Santorum should ask next time he speaks to Jesus.
Bubba, I tell you this: if you take your sexual morality from the Bible, it’s hard to see how anyone can avoid the gates of hell. If national survival depends on the Bible, then we need an amendment banning a long list of things from fornication to in vitro fertilization. We need to add an S&M clause to the Eighth Amendment to allow the whipping of male and female slaves although not to death. I know Senator Santorum is not much of an historian but his law is going to need fierce teeth if it is to avoid the fate of the Eighteenth Amendment. I mean Prohibition was the greatest public policy failure of all time. Maybe we’ll have to revert to stoning the bastards to death. While we’re at it, we should probably outlaw remarriage after divorce. With the provision that, if you’re already remarried, the new marriage does not have to be recognized in Texas.
There is a significant element of hypocrisy in all this. The church says it is in the business of saving souls or a least the souls of the straight. But there is a 14-year old girl, Shay Clark, who has been expelled from the Ontario Christian School in California. Was she getting bad grades, disrupting classes, cheating on exams or committing rampant plagiarism? No, her crime was having lesbian parents. Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship." Do you think Mr. Stob thinks it would be okay if only one of Shay’s parents were a lesbian? (Or, for that matter, if only one were married?) Do you think he’s ever heard of Jesus Christ? I mean the part about suffering the little children to come to me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of heaven? I can’t find anyplace where the Bible says eternal damnation awaits those whose parents are gay. I may be wrong so you better ask Pat Robertson or Lennie Stob. If the latter’s letter to Shay’s mother is any evidence, he is a moron in addition to being a hypocrite so he may not know either.
You don’t have to write me outraged emails. I know this is all one big reductio ad absurdum. But so is the logic of the gay marriage amendment, based as it is on the fallacy that gay marriage threatens straight marriage. Now I admit that I’m a little queasy about the word marriage itself which has its roots in Greek and Sanskrit words suggesting boy and girl. I also think that marriage is a sacred institution which means to me that the government of the United States has no business messing with it. Both Church and State have legitimate interests in sexual relationships but they are not the same interests and they don’t even overlap much. I would be happier if all couples, straight and gay, would first register with the secular authorities as, say, domestic partners, thereby gaining all the rights and responsibilities the law now imparts to married people. Those wishing a church wedding would then be free to get one from any church willing to provide it. With or without the semantic nuance, this is the way it is done in Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Great Britain.
And it would pretty much solve the problem except for the boogie man argument claiming that the logic of gay marriage would apply equally to plural marriage and incestuous marriage. It might. Today it is generally thought that there is a legitimate public health reason for the state to prohibit both. Different jurisdictions ban marriages between persons of different degrees of consanguinity in order to reduce the probability that persons who carry identical genetic faults will produce offspring with the same fault. With the advent of genetic screening, this is less of a problem than it used to be although most societies still do not permit the kind of incestuous relationship Lot had with his daughters or Pope Alexander VI had with his daughter Lucretia Borgia. As to plural marriage, many societies have practiced it and many still do, notably societies in the reddest of states, Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Texas. We in the United States forbid it, not because it violates any biblical precept (the Bible smiles on plural marriage), but because we think it constitutes abuse of women and children. It may but it is nowhere near as abusive as alcohol as a cause of family discord. I guess I come down against plural marriage but it falls well within the pale of my live-and-let-live philosophy of life.
My guess is the sexually repressed religious right hates to see anybody having a good time in bed. So they issue their fatwas commanding everybody to cease and desist. Don’t ask me for a reason. Just follow orders because I give them. It is, in short, the last argument to which fools and kings resort.
What is marriage other than a contract witnessed and sanctioned by some representative of the community? It is a remnant of Babylonian and Jewish property law (“…to have and to hold”). Our ancestors demanded ownership rights so that a man could be reasonably certain his wife’s children were his also. This has evolved into society’s mechanism for promoting and regulating procreation, objectives now abandoned even by China. But the state does have a legitimate interest in children and in encouraging parents to fulfill parental responsibilities. As a last resort, the state must protect children against crazy or abusive parents, assure that they have access to a decent education, insist on minimal school attendance, and see to it that the interests of minors are represented in divorce and other legal proceedings. It has arguable interests in broader areas of child welfare: health, nutrition and labor are generally thought to be among these. Finally, the state has the right and obligation to oversee the disposition of assets when there is a dispute among heirs.
The church, on the other hand, may or may not take an interest in any of these matters but such interests have no force of law. The church’s unquestioned and exclusive area of interest is the spiritual welfare of its own adherents. If a church believes that the use of condoms is inconsistent with that welfare, it may preach against their use. It can excommunicate members who dissent from its teachings, but it may not incarcerate them or burn them at the stake (except possibly in Texas).
Inevitably there will arise points at which church and state interests intersect and possibly conflict with each other. May, for example, Jehovah’s Witnesses insist that their children not be forced to salute the flag or recite the Pledge? Generally, they may. But a parent living in the Fourth Circuit probably cannot object to the phrase “under God” because mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance is a patriotic not a religious activity. May Christian Scientists withhold conventional medical therapy from their seriously ill children? As a general rule, no. May Quakers refuse to serve in the military? Yes with the proviso that they perform alternative service. May members of a Native American church use a controlled psychoactive substance in religious rituals? Sure, but the state of California cannot allow seriously ill patients to use marijuana to relieve pain. Could the late Timothy Leary start a church to promote the use of LSD? Of course not. These intersections are always interesting and often revealing as to the social contract. Witness, for example, the efforts of the State of Connecticut to prohibit the use of contraceptives by couples, straight or gay, married or not. The 1879 law was almost never enforced and was challenged whenever it was. It was, however, consistently upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States until 1965. Then, in Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479) the Court finally dealt with the basic conflict between individual liberty and the right of the community to enforce majority standards of morality. All recognized that the Connecticut law was what Justice Stewart (in dissent) called, “an uncommonly silly law.” Justice Felix Frankfurter, wrote the majority opinion which has been a red flag for conservatives ever since. In it, he found—some say he invented—a fundamental right to marital privacy in these words:
We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights—older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects.
Frankfurter was obviously not thinking of gay marriage but his logic just as obviously does not exclude it. Indeed over the four succeeding decades, the coverage of his logic broadened significantly. Most recently, the Supreme Court struck down Texas’ anti-sodomy law. In doing so, Justice Kennedy said, “Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct” (Lawrence v. Texas, 000 U.S. 02-102, 2003). Justice Scalia dissented on a variety of substantive and procedural grounds and was joined by Justice Thomas who, citing Griswold, added this thought:
I write separately to note that the law before the Court today "is ... uncommonly silly. If I were a member of the Texas Legislature, I would vote to repeal it. Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources."
Progress comes slowly and is never without occasional backsliding. But it would be blind to deny that gay rights have come a long way since the Stonewall revolt of 1969. It is reasonable to project that anti-discrimination laws will increasingly be applied to gays and lesbians and, one way or another, will become normative nationally. They already serve in the military and the ministry albeit under widely different conditions. They teach in the public schools without a hint of the fear and animosity they encountered as recently as 1960. They are featured in popular television programs, on the stage and in films of all kinds. They are still subject to a degree of witch hunting as, for example, when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blamed gays for the wrath of God which led to 9/11. (Again, it is a strange God who employs the slaughter of the innocents to make a point.) But Falwell, Robertson and their ilk are widely seen as fruitcakes and has-beens (except in Texas).
Given all this, can gay marriage be far behind? The 2004 elections would seem to say just that. Eleven states (Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon and Utah) had anti gay marriage amendments on their ballots and all passed by wide margins. In the four Southern states, the amendments received at least three-quarters of the votes. Even in Oregon and Michigan the ban got 59 percent. But there is another bit of social psychology at work here. It used to be said that certain counties in Texas would remain dry as long as the voters were sober enough to stagger to the polls. Gay marriage may be similar. A solid majority of the American electorate vehemently opposes the idea on moral grounds. But live-and-let-live is also a prominent feature of our social contract. I would argue that recent history has brought the tipping point within reach. For example, on two consecutive days, a trial judge in Arkansas struck down a law barring gay couples from being foster parents and the Supreme Court of Montana ruled that Montana universities must offer health insurance to the partners of gay employees. Subsequently, the California legislature revised its family law to sanction same sex marriage although it was widely expected that Governor Schwarzenegger would veto it. In Massachusetts, though, a court decision requiring equality for gay couples led to a fierce fight and the initial approval of a constitutional amendment by the legislature banning gay marriage. A year later, however, the legislature changed its mind and voted 157-39 to reject the amendment. The Republican minority leader who co-sponsored the amendment now voted against it. “Today, gay marriage is the law of the land” he said, and it would be wrong now to take action, “…against our friends and neighbors who today are currently enjoying the benefits of marriage.” A Democrat who also changed his mind said, “When I looked in the eyes of the children living with these couples, I decided that I don’t feel at this time that same-sex marriage has hurt the commonwealth in any way. In fact I would say that in my view it has had a good effect for the children in these families.” These changes of heart were heavily influenced by their constituents of course but it is now certain that more and more single sex couples will join the 6,600 couples who have already been married in Massachusetts.
As we continue to evolve in these and other ways toward a more freedom-embracing society, each incremental step will strengthen us, our families and our country. Either that or our faith in the vision of the founders that everyone has a God-given right to the pursuit of happiness is a sham.
As they say, “We’re queer, we’re here. Get used to it.”
Jerry Harkins
Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.
—Senate Joint Resolution 40, 2004
I would argue that the future of our country hangs in the balance because the future of marriage hangs in the balance.
— Rick Santorum (R., Pa.), The New York Times, July 14, 2004
Six senior clerics gathered recently in Jerusalem in an attempt to keep the queers from staging their World Pride Festival there. All tried to disguise themselves by wearing funny costumes, especially one guy wearing what looked for all the world like a dirty Ku Klux Klan hood. One attendee, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, put this “spiritual rape of the Holy City” succinctly. He said, "This is not the homo land, this is the Holy Land." His mother always thought he had a gift for language.
In case you hadn’t noticed, organized religion does not like gays. Right now, its displeasure is concentrated on the “issue” of gay marriage which drives it representatives up the proverbial banana tree. The argument of the Know Nothings comes down to this: if you let the nose of gay marriage into the tent of middle class morality, you will destroy the institution for the rest of us. Since marriage is the basic unit of society, our country’s future will be compromised or worse (think Sodom and Gomorrah). Senator Santorum is not the only person who purports to believe this, not by a long shot. Nor is his fanciful notion that the future of the United States hangs in the balance the most absurd statement of that belief. Speaking of a newly passed state law allowing same sex marriage, Assemblyman Ray Haynes of California said, “We are throwing the dice and taking a huge gamble, and we are gambling with the lives [of] future generations not yet born.” In the eighth grade a nun told Mr. Haynes that, if he masturbated, hair would grow on the palms of his hand. He was so scared, it stunted his intellectual growth which is why he can talk about future generations not yet born.
But the honorable Santorum is a United States senator, a member of the “world’s greatest deliberative body” and this idea is a contender for the stupidest public policy position ever taken. It is also the most bigoted such position since the downfall of Jim Crow and, finally, it is symptomatic of the psychosexual paranoia that characterizes the religious right. But stupidity, bigotry and sexual perversion are beyond the scope of this essay. My concern here is at once simpler and more formal. I want to know precisely how gay marriage threatens straight marriage. What exactly is Senator Santorum worried about? Precisely how will the United States of America be destroyed if we fail to adopt a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage?
Some things do threaten marriage. No fault divorce is high on the list. Adultery is right up there in the top ten. The Internet makes the cut because it facilitates meeting and flirting online which leads to adultery and divorce. Even children threaten marriage by giving couples a whole new list of things to argue about and a whole new set of financial pressures. Do we need a constitutional amendment banning divorce, adultery, the Internet and children? Do any of these evils threaten the viability of the nation? Or is it that Republicans think our citizens must not be exposed to the attractions of gay marriage lest they all be tempted to abandon their pedestrian heterosexual attachments? Do gays have more fun? Is gay contagious? Or is Mr. Santorum’s fear more basic? Maybe he really is worried that God will strike the United States with fire and brimstone.
Could be. These people have rich fantasy lives but, in this case, I suspect we are dealing with just another tiresome example of a majority fearing a minority and trying to suppress it. For obvious reasons, the Yahoos haven’t thought the issue through to anything like a persuasive answer. It is a simple assertion meant to scare you, especially if you trust the likes of Pat Robertson and Rick Santorum. Between the defective major premise that “gay marriage is evil” and the nonsensical conclusion that “gay marriage will destroy America” is a huge chasm with no logical bridge to span it. It isn’t a case of the undistributed middle. There is no middle. There is instead a theological bridge which amounts to nothing more than, “I was chatting with God the other day and he said so.”
As always, the elect feel compelled to justify their discrimination on religious grounds. Before the Civil War, Southern Christians developed a biblical justification for slavery based on the Noah story. You may recall that one day Noah’s son Ham came upon his father sleeping off a hangover in the nude. When the old man got up, he was so chagrinned he immediately condemned Canaan, one of Ham’s sons and his own grandson, to a life of slavery. Okay, this is a crazy story but the slaveholders concluded that their slaves were descendents of Canaan and that their dark skin was the “mark of Cannan.” The logic behind this conclusion is elusive except for the fact that it was the logic of the powerful. Today, a very similar mental quirk informs the case for a ban on gay marriage.
It is true that the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is hard on gays, calling for their summary execution. I haven’t heard any Southern Baptists going quite that far, but I wouldn’t be surprised insofar as they believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God. But I digress. Let’s accept, for the sake of argument, that the God of the Christians—that is, the God of love—hates gay men or, at least, the things gay men do. They are, therefore, on their way to hell, so why does anyone care whether or not the state lets them get married? Mr. Santorum should ask next time he speaks to Jesus.
Bubba, I tell you this: if you take your sexual morality from the Bible, it’s hard to see how anyone can avoid the gates of hell. If national survival depends on the Bible, then we need an amendment banning a long list of things from fornication to in vitro fertilization. We need to add an S&M clause to the Eighth Amendment to allow the whipping of male and female slaves although not to death. I know Senator Santorum is not much of an historian but his law is going to need fierce teeth if it is to avoid the fate of the Eighteenth Amendment. I mean Prohibition was the greatest public policy failure of all time. Maybe we’ll have to revert to stoning the bastards to death. While we’re at it, we should probably outlaw remarriage after divorce. With the provision that, if you’re already remarried, the new marriage does not have to be recognized in Texas.
There is a significant element of hypocrisy in all this. The church says it is in the business of saving souls or a least the souls of the straight. But there is a 14-year old girl, Shay Clark, who has been expelled from the Ontario Christian School in California. Was she getting bad grades, disrupting classes, cheating on exams or committing rampant plagiarism? No, her crime was having lesbian parents. Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship." Do you think Mr. Stob thinks it would be okay if only one of Shay’s parents were a lesbian? (Or, for that matter, if only one were married?) Do you think he’s ever heard of Jesus Christ? I mean the part about suffering the little children to come to me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of heaven? I can’t find anyplace where the Bible says eternal damnation awaits those whose parents are gay. I may be wrong so you better ask Pat Robertson or Lennie Stob. If the latter’s letter to Shay’s mother is any evidence, he is a moron in addition to being a hypocrite so he may not know either.
You don’t have to write me outraged emails. I know this is all one big reductio ad absurdum. But so is the logic of the gay marriage amendment, based as it is on the fallacy that gay marriage threatens straight marriage. Now I admit that I’m a little queasy about the word marriage itself which has its roots in Greek and Sanskrit words suggesting boy and girl. I also think that marriage is a sacred institution which means to me that the government of the United States has no business messing with it. Both Church and State have legitimate interests in sexual relationships but they are not the same interests and they don’t even overlap much. I would be happier if all couples, straight and gay, would first register with the secular authorities as, say, domestic partners, thereby gaining all the rights and responsibilities the law now imparts to married people. Those wishing a church wedding would then be free to get one from any church willing to provide it. With or without the semantic nuance, this is the way it is done in Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Great Britain.
And it would pretty much solve the problem except for the boogie man argument claiming that the logic of gay marriage would apply equally to plural marriage and incestuous marriage. It might. Today it is generally thought that there is a legitimate public health reason for the state to prohibit both. Different jurisdictions ban marriages between persons of different degrees of consanguinity in order to reduce the probability that persons who carry identical genetic faults will produce offspring with the same fault. With the advent of genetic screening, this is less of a problem than it used to be although most societies still do not permit the kind of incestuous relationship Lot had with his daughters or Pope Alexander VI had with his daughter Lucretia Borgia. As to plural marriage, many societies have practiced it and many still do, notably societies in the reddest of states, Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Texas. We in the United States forbid it, not because it violates any biblical precept (the Bible smiles on plural marriage), but because we think it constitutes abuse of women and children. It may but it is nowhere near as abusive as alcohol as a cause of family discord. I guess I come down against plural marriage but it falls well within the pale of my live-and-let-live philosophy of life.
My guess is the sexually repressed religious right hates to see anybody having a good time in bed. So they issue their fatwas commanding everybody to cease and desist. Don’t ask me for a reason. Just follow orders because I give them. It is, in short, the last argument to which fools and kings resort.
What is marriage other than a contract witnessed and sanctioned by some representative of the community? It is a remnant of Babylonian and Jewish property law (“…to have and to hold”). Our ancestors demanded ownership rights so that a man could be reasonably certain his wife’s children were his also. This has evolved into society’s mechanism for promoting and regulating procreation, objectives now abandoned even by China. But the state does have a legitimate interest in children and in encouraging parents to fulfill parental responsibilities. As a last resort, the state must protect children against crazy or abusive parents, assure that they have access to a decent education, insist on minimal school attendance, and see to it that the interests of minors are represented in divorce and other legal proceedings. It has arguable interests in broader areas of child welfare: health, nutrition and labor are generally thought to be among these. Finally, the state has the right and obligation to oversee the disposition of assets when there is a dispute among heirs.
The church, on the other hand, may or may not take an interest in any of these matters but such interests have no force of law. The church’s unquestioned and exclusive area of interest is the spiritual welfare of its own adherents. If a church believes that the use of condoms is inconsistent with that welfare, it may preach against their use. It can excommunicate members who dissent from its teachings, but it may not incarcerate them or burn them at the stake (except possibly in Texas).
Inevitably there will arise points at which church and state interests intersect and possibly conflict with each other. May, for example, Jehovah’s Witnesses insist that their children not be forced to salute the flag or recite the Pledge? Generally, they may. But a parent living in the Fourth Circuit probably cannot object to the phrase “under God” because mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance is a patriotic not a religious activity. May Christian Scientists withhold conventional medical therapy from their seriously ill children? As a general rule, no. May Quakers refuse to serve in the military? Yes with the proviso that they perform alternative service. May members of a Native American church use a controlled psychoactive substance in religious rituals? Sure, but the state of California cannot allow seriously ill patients to use marijuana to relieve pain. Could the late Timothy Leary start a church to promote the use of LSD? Of course not. These intersections are always interesting and often revealing as to the social contract. Witness, for example, the efforts of the State of Connecticut to prohibit the use of contraceptives by couples, straight or gay, married or not. The 1879 law was almost never enforced and was challenged whenever it was. It was, however, consistently upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States until 1965. Then, in Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479) the Court finally dealt with the basic conflict between individual liberty and the right of the community to enforce majority standards of morality. All recognized that the Connecticut law was what Justice Stewart (in dissent) called, “an uncommonly silly law.” Justice Felix Frankfurter, wrote the majority opinion which has been a red flag for conservatives ever since. In it, he found—some say he invented—a fundamental right to marital privacy in these words:
We deal with a right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights—older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects.
Frankfurter was obviously not thinking of gay marriage but his logic just as obviously does not exclude it. Indeed over the four succeeding decades, the coverage of his logic broadened significantly. Most recently, the Supreme Court struck down Texas’ anti-sodomy law. In doing so, Justice Kennedy said, “Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct” (Lawrence v. Texas, 000 U.S. 02-102, 2003). Justice Scalia dissented on a variety of substantive and procedural grounds and was joined by Justice Thomas who, citing Griswold, added this thought:
I write separately to note that the law before the Court today "is ... uncommonly silly. If I were a member of the Texas Legislature, I would vote to repeal it. Punishing someone for expressing his sexual preference through noncommercial consensual conduct with another adult does not appear to be a worthy way to expend valuable law enforcement resources."
Progress comes slowly and is never without occasional backsliding. But it would be blind to deny that gay rights have come a long way since the Stonewall revolt of 1969. It is reasonable to project that anti-discrimination laws will increasingly be applied to gays and lesbians and, one way or another, will become normative nationally. They already serve in the military and the ministry albeit under widely different conditions. They teach in the public schools without a hint of the fear and animosity they encountered as recently as 1960. They are featured in popular television programs, on the stage and in films of all kinds. They are still subject to a degree of witch hunting as, for example, when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blamed gays for the wrath of God which led to 9/11. (Again, it is a strange God who employs the slaughter of the innocents to make a point.) But Falwell, Robertson and their ilk are widely seen as fruitcakes and has-beens (except in Texas).
Given all this, can gay marriage be far behind? The 2004 elections would seem to say just that. Eleven states (Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon and Utah) had anti gay marriage amendments on their ballots and all passed by wide margins. In the four Southern states, the amendments received at least three-quarters of the votes. Even in Oregon and Michigan the ban got 59 percent. But there is another bit of social psychology at work here. It used to be said that certain counties in Texas would remain dry as long as the voters were sober enough to stagger to the polls. Gay marriage may be similar. A solid majority of the American electorate vehemently opposes the idea on moral grounds. But live-and-let-live is also a prominent feature of our social contract. I would argue that recent history has brought the tipping point within reach. For example, on two consecutive days, a trial judge in Arkansas struck down a law barring gay couples from being foster parents and the Supreme Court of Montana ruled that Montana universities must offer health insurance to the partners of gay employees. Subsequently, the California legislature revised its family law to sanction same sex marriage although it was widely expected that Governor Schwarzenegger would veto it. In Massachusetts, though, a court decision requiring equality for gay couples led to a fierce fight and the initial approval of a constitutional amendment by the legislature banning gay marriage. A year later, however, the legislature changed its mind and voted 157-39 to reject the amendment. The Republican minority leader who co-sponsored the amendment now voted against it. “Today, gay marriage is the law of the land” he said, and it would be wrong now to take action, “…against our friends and neighbors who today are currently enjoying the benefits of marriage.” A Democrat who also changed his mind said, “When I looked in the eyes of the children living with these couples, I decided that I don’t feel at this time that same-sex marriage has hurt the commonwealth in any way. In fact I would say that in my view it has had a good effect for the children in these families.” These changes of heart were heavily influenced by their constituents of course but it is now certain that more and more single sex couples will join the 6,600 couples who have already been married in Massachusetts.
As we continue to evolve in these and other ways toward a more freedom-embracing society, each incremental step will strengthen us, our families and our country. Either that or our faith in the vision of the founders that everyone has a God-given right to the pursuit of happiness is a sham.
As they say, “We’re queer, we’re here. Get used to it.”
O DANNY BOY
Jerry Harkins
Paddy, we hardly knew ye.
The day we have long dreaded has come. Daniel Patrick Moynihan has left the building and gone home to God at the age of 76. They say it was complications from appendix surgery. Is that right, lad? Your fucking appendix? You died because of some remnant organ we inherited from nematodes? An organ that does nothing and never did do anything we could figure out? A lousy joke, boy-o. You’re sure now it wasn’t the liver? Ah, Danny, it’s been so long we have been worrying about your obituary and about what we might say by way of eulogy. One never wants to mislead the reader but at the same time it is culturally necessary to recognize your genius and greatness of spirit.
Just know, my friend, that I have already established the International Committee for the Canonization of Pat Moynihan. I’m thinking of asking Al d’Amato to serve as Honorary Chair in tribute to all the years you gave the voters reason to think one intelligent senator was enough. March 26 will make a fine feast day. No one else of importance died on that date except Beethoven and Walt Whitman, the former a Protestant and the latter…well, the less said the better.
There’s so much to do this will have to be shorter than I would like. There’s the Ladies Auxiliary of the Oswego Volunteer Fire Department that will be wanting to erect a monument. They’ve been threatening to put up a Rococo fountain spouting cheap gin instead of water. Then there is the traditional Irish wake to arrange—without the guest of honor of course in respect of Liz’s feelings. I must say, Paddy, it disappointed me to learn of your desire to be laid to rest in Arlington. They offered the crypt under the altar at St. Patrick’s but Liz said you’d be uncomfortable so close to that son of a bitch Spellman. But Arlington? Ah, well, “Let your spirit rest where the heroes are, your memory shine like the morning star.” Joyce Kilmer, of course, another Irish hero. And we need to look after Liz. A marvelous woman but the Brennans, you know, were always more lace curtain than their lessers including, no disrespect meant, the Moynihans of County Kerry. So if this eulogy must be brief, it’s not because we love you any the less but because there are so many loose ends.
At a time like this it comforts me to recall Robert Browning’s line, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp / Else what’s a heaven for?” Daniel Patrick Moynihan never got things perfectly right but he came closer than anyone else and had great fun doing so. Do you recall his struggle to find just the right word to express revulsion toward Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes? Trying to stave off impeachment by the red meat radicals, he said in September of ’98 that it was important to face “…the profound moral consequences that will arise not just from what has happened but from what might happen if we do not proceed with the measure of moral compass.” By “the measure of moral compass” I think he meant the jawbone of an ass in lieu of impeachment, and who was better qualified to wield said jawbone? Later, he simplified it to deplorable and reprehensible, but both of these were seen as too wimpy. Senator Hatch contributed the idea that Mr. Clinton needed to worry about, “…leaving an eensy-weensy, itsy-bitsy better legacy than he has so far.” Paddy however knew that history smiles on more muscular language. He really wanted to go for degenerate or pervert but they didn’t make the cut because they might have appeared self-referential. After all, Paddy had been the only solon who dared defend his old drinking buddy, Bob Packwood, who stood accused of advanced swordsmanship. He rejected The Times’ low rent because of its racist undertones, and bum cut too close to the quick. Too bad because it’s a really short word that would not have challenged the average Republican.
Throughout, Paddy was only trying to do his part but, as so often in a colorful career, he found himself in bed with uncouth ignoramuses promoting agendas that would make Ted Kaczynski blanch. People for example who were calling on Janet Reno to expand Ken Starr’s mandate to include the scandal over Tinky Winky Teletubby’s sexual orientation. Pat discovered that being the only good apple in a barrel of slime was not a viable career choice.
He never did find the right word but it was important to make the effort because Paddy’s words carried gravitas. He alone was not a hypocrite. He was not an adulterer. He was not a liar. He was not stupid. One could ignore the demented obsession of The New York Times’ all-the-scandal-all-the time journalism which was perfectly explained by Toni Morrison as a reaction to the nation’s first black president. Unlike the denizens of the Sulzberger Mafia, Pat knew that the President’s sins were trivial and that all the fuss was nothing more important than right wing politics. Unlike Grand Inquisitor Henry Hyde, he knew that the impeachment marked the nadir of American history. Since no one with any brains would believe the drivel being pushed by the Times and the Ayatollah of Illinoiah, someone with credibility had to stand up for the ten commandments and then move on. The task was hopeless of course which is all the more reason to admire Pat for taking it on.
His was a glorious life marred only by a single tragic flaw in the manner of Odysseus or Achilles. In his case, the flaw was hubris. The poor bastard came to believe the mirror on the wall when it told him he was the smartest of them all. This faith in the objectivity of mirrors is one of the most charming conceits of Irish intellectuals and, in his case, the mirror was not lying. But pride is invariably fatal to a politician because it makes such an easy target for the Yahoos. Poor Paddy! His name will live forever but, like Roger Maris’s, it will always have an asterisk appended.
Jerry Harkins
Paddy, we hardly knew ye.
The day we have long dreaded has come. Daniel Patrick Moynihan has left the building and gone home to God at the age of 76. They say it was complications from appendix surgery. Is that right, lad? Your fucking appendix? You died because of some remnant organ we inherited from nematodes? An organ that does nothing and never did do anything we could figure out? A lousy joke, boy-o. You’re sure now it wasn’t the liver? Ah, Danny, it’s been so long we have been worrying about your obituary and about what we might say by way of eulogy. One never wants to mislead the reader but at the same time it is culturally necessary to recognize your genius and greatness of spirit.
Just know, my friend, that I have already established the International Committee for the Canonization of Pat Moynihan. I’m thinking of asking Al d’Amato to serve as Honorary Chair in tribute to all the years you gave the voters reason to think one intelligent senator was enough. March 26 will make a fine feast day. No one else of importance died on that date except Beethoven and Walt Whitman, the former a Protestant and the latter…well, the less said the better.
There’s so much to do this will have to be shorter than I would like. There’s the Ladies Auxiliary of the Oswego Volunteer Fire Department that will be wanting to erect a monument. They’ve been threatening to put up a Rococo fountain spouting cheap gin instead of water. Then there is the traditional Irish wake to arrange—without the guest of honor of course in respect of Liz’s feelings. I must say, Paddy, it disappointed me to learn of your desire to be laid to rest in Arlington. They offered the crypt under the altar at St. Patrick’s but Liz said you’d be uncomfortable so close to that son of a bitch Spellman. But Arlington? Ah, well, “Let your spirit rest where the heroes are, your memory shine like the morning star.” Joyce Kilmer, of course, another Irish hero. And we need to look after Liz. A marvelous woman but the Brennans, you know, were always more lace curtain than their lessers including, no disrespect meant, the Moynihans of County Kerry. So if this eulogy must be brief, it’s not because we love you any the less but because there are so many loose ends.
At a time like this it comforts me to recall Robert Browning’s line, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp / Else what’s a heaven for?” Daniel Patrick Moynihan never got things perfectly right but he came closer than anyone else and had great fun doing so. Do you recall his struggle to find just the right word to express revulsion toward Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes? Trying to stave off impeachment by the red meat radicals, he said in September of ’98 that it was important to face “…the profound moral consequences that will arise not just from what has happened but from what might happen if we do not proceed with the measure of moral compass.” By “the measure of moral compass” I think he meant the jawbone of an ass in lieu of impeachment, and who was better qualified to wield said jawbone? Later, he simplified it to deplorable and reprehensible, but both of these were seen as too wimpy. Senator Hatch contributed the idea that Mr. Clinton needed to worry about, “…leaving an eensy-weensy, itsy-bitsy better legacy than he has so far.” Paddy however knew that history smiles on more muscular language. He really wanted to go for degenerate or pervert but they didn’t make the cut because they might have appeared self-referential. After all, Paddy had been the only solon who dared defend his old drinking buddy, Bob Packwood, who stood accused of advanced swordsmanship. He rejected The Times’ low rent because of its racist undertones, and bum cut too close to the quick. Too bad because it’s a really short word that would not have challenged the average Republican.
Throughout, Paddy was only trying to do his part but, as so often in a colorful career, he found himself in bed with uncouth ignoramuses promoting agendas that would make Ted Kaczynski blanch. People for example who were calling on Janet Reno to expand Ken Starr’s mandate to include the scandal over Tinky Winky Teletubby’s sexual orientation. Pat discovered that being the only good apple in a barrel of slime was not a viable career choice.
He never did find the right word but it was important to make the effort because Paddy’s words carried gravitas. He alone was not a hypocrite. He was not an adulterer. He was not a liar. He was not stupid. One could ignore the demented obsession of The New York Times’ all-the-scandal-all-the time journalism which was perfectly explained by Toni Morrison as a reaction to the nation’s first black president. Unlike the denizens of the Sulzberger Mafia, Pat knew that the President’s sins were trivial and that all the fuss was nothing more important than right wing politics. Unlike Grand Inquisitor Henry Hyde, he knew that the impeachment marked the nadir of American history. Since no one with any brains would believe the drivel being pushed by the Times and the Ayatollah of Illinoiah, someone with credibility had to stand up for the ten commandments and then move on. The task was hopeless of course which is all the more reason to admire Pat for taking it on.
His was a glorious life marred only by a single tragic flaw in the manner of Odysseus or Achilles. In his case, the flaw was hubris. The poor bastard came to believe the mirror on the wall when it told him he was the smartest of them all. This faith in the objectivity of mirrors is one of the most charming conceits of Irish intellectuals and, in his case, the mirror was not lying. But pride is invariably fatal to a politician because it makes such an easy target for the Yahoos. Poor Paddy! His name will live forever but, like Roger Maris’s, it will always have an asterisk appended.
THE IRISH CONCESSION
Jerry Harkins
It is not nearly well enough known that bestiality is only a venial sin. The theological basis for this classification of the offence — if offence it be at all — has to do, I understand, with the fact that dumb animals don’t have souls to be sullied, neither, then, are they capable of giving, and are equally incapable of withholding, informed consent to the commission of the act. So feel free with a frolicky ferret.
—Eammon McCann
Mr. McCann is an Irish journalist who writes frequently about religion but, about this, he is only partially correct. Exodus 22:19 states explicitly, “Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.” Leviticus 18 lays down the law in numbing detail with regard to this abomination as well as to incest and homosexuality. And Leviticus 20:15-16 says that anyone, man or woman, who commits such an abomination shall be put to death and their blood shall be on themselves. The official Catechism of the Catholic Church defines lust, the third deadly sin, as “…disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.” It goes on to say, “The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose.” This is derived more or less from Aquinas who classifies bestiality as “unnatural vice [which] flouts nature by transgressing its basic principles of sexuality [and] is in this matter the gravest of sins.”
Which is precisely where McCann goes wrong. His entire focus is on the beast who he assumes cannot sin because she (or, I suppose, he) lacks a soul. This, of course, is wholly irrelevant to the culpability of the human actor and is, moreover, entirely too narrow a view of sin. Some acts, of course, are sinful in themselves (mallum per se) but the vast majority of “offenses against the will of God” are sins because of their effects. The effect of bestiality is carnal pleasure absent the possibility of procreation. It is this effect that is seriously opposed to the will of God for reasons that are not as clear as they might be but that need not concern good Christians.
McCann fell into heresy, I suspect, because the Church has long made a singular exception known as The Irish Concession. In Ireland, bestiality is only a venial sin. Here’s how it came about. Toward the end of his life, St. Patrick withdrew to the wilderness — the mountain known today as Croagh Patrick in County Mayo — to fast and pray during the forty days of Lent. While he was there, he negotiated with God a charter of special blessings for the Irish. Among these was the proposal that for them, alone and for all time, bestiality should be defined as a virtue. At first, God was furious but Patrick reasoned with him by pointing out that all other nations were allowed the form of birth control known as Vatican Roulette. Unfortunately, this method requires a degree of mathematical sophistication and record keeping skill entirely at odds with Irish culture. God quickly saw both the logic and justice of the argument and agreed to permit bestiality among the Irish as a “natural” form of birth control. He would not go so far as to call it a virtue, but he was willing to reduce it to a venial sin. Patrick, who had bigger fish to fry, capitulated and so it has been ever since.
The Concession, agreed to in haste by both parties, raises a number of interesting questions for moral theologians. Since these are not dealt with elsewhere, I will attempt here to provide definitive guidance for confessors and other concerned professionals.
Question: Does The Concession apply to Irish men and women who may have acquired the mathematical and record keeping abilities needed for the rhythm method? I reply: Yes, absolutely. In fact, at the famous meeting between Patrick and God, an angel asked this very question and the two principals broke into an unseemly fit of laughter at the thought of an Irishman who could count. Therefore, no exception was made and it is now too late to change the rules. Practically, however, the devil does not lose much by this. The few Irish persons who have mastered the art of counting are almost all Protestants who are doomed to hell anyway.
Question: Is The Concession strictly limited to those of Irish blood? I reply: No. The Concession was granted not because its beneficiaries were Irish but because they could not count to 28. Thus, like the Pauline Privilege which is not restricted to men named Paul (or women named Pauline), The Irish Concession applies with equal force to all those who, for cultural reasons, cannot count. For example, it applies to some Italians and other aboriginals. However, unlike the case of Irish mathematicians and accountants, it does not apply to Italians who can count. (Moral theology is a subtle discipline and you just better get used to it.)
Question: Is it licit to use a condom while engaged in bestiality? I reply: No. It is never licit to use artificial means of birth control, even to prevent a sexually transmitted disease. If, however, one wishes to use a condom for purely sanitary reasons, there will be no objection as long as a pinprick is made in the tip. The virtue of prudence suggests that the pinprick be made before the condom is donned.
Question: Is it lawful to look at dirty pictures while having intercourse with a sheep? I reply: There is no objection as long as they are dirty pictures of sheep.
Question: Does The Concession apply to intercourse between a male person and a ram, or a female person and a ewe? I reply: No. Homosexuality is a separate abomination and is not included in The Concession.
Question: How about heterosexual perversions such as French kissing? I reply: As is the case with sexual intercourse between humans, practices engaged in by way of foreplay are generally acceptable, while those performed for their own sake are not.
Question: Does The Concession apply to members of the clergy? I reply: Yes because it is a lesser evil than all the alternatives. As St. Paul taught, it is better to bugger than to burn.
Question: When a person and a sheep have a sexual relationship, are public displays of affection permissible? I reply: Yes, as long as the relationship is well established within the community and is based on mutual affection and respect.
Question: Given a person/sheep relationship of mutual affection and respect, may that relationship be solemnized in the church? I reply: No. Obviously there can be no sacerdotal recognition of the relationship as long as the person’s spouse is living, and there can be no sexual relationship to recognize once the spouse is dead (but see below). If, however, a widower or widow and a sheep are prepared to undertake the rigors of a companionate (i.e., sexless) relationship, then there would be no objection to the blessing of the couple on the steps of the church or in the rectory.
Question: If a sheep showed itself unwilling to have sex with a person, would it be considered rape if the person forced the issue? I reply: The question has never come up. There has never been an instance of a sheep refusing sex to an Irishman. Sheep are occasionally reluctant to have sex with members of the Italian clergy which is why God created goats.
Question: Goats? Does The Concession apply to species other than sheep? I reply: Liberal theologians believe the rule applies to any species not specifically listed as unclean in Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14. Under this interpretation, a frolicky ferret would make a permissible partner as would a goat. In practice, ducks are often used by persons too poor to own a sheep. Our sources are unanimous, however, in condemning the use of pigs. By tradition, pigs are regarded as unclean and are, therefore, exported to England. What the English do with them is unknown.
Question: Does The Concession apply to single, widowed or divorced persons? I reply: First, there is no such thing as divorce. As to single persons, of course not. Sex involving a person who is not married is always seriously sinful. (Nor would it be permissible for a single person to “marry” a sheep except in Massachusetts.) In the case of a widow or widower, The Concession remains in effect through the period of mourning.
Question: Is the moral stature of pedophilia in England similar to that of bestiality in Ireland? I reply: No. The similarities often adduced by Anglican apologists — cultural prevalence and natural contraceptive effectiveness — are superficial in the absence of clear evidence of divine acquiescence. Jesus’ remark, “Suffer the little children to come unto me…” (Matt. 19:14, et al) was made in an entirely different context as the Protestants would know if they had the true apostolic succession.
Question: Is it licit for a person having a sexual relationship with a sheep to eat lamb? I reply: It depends on how you define the word “eat.”
Question: What is meant by the phrase, “Lamb of God?” I reply: That’s enough questions for today.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
THE TRUTH IS NOT IN HIM
Jerry Harkins
We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. —1 JOHN 2:3-6
Dear Christian Fundamentalist,
Well, you did it. You elected George W. Bush and, I am sure you will agree, you are responsible for him. You had your reasons: he appeared to be one of your own, he talked a pretty good game about the sanctity of life and family values, his policies and promises were resonant with your misgivings about the welfare state including social security, Medicaid, and Affirmative Action, and he had a deep distrust of science which you and he associate with materialism and even atheism. So you bought him, he’s yours, and now I think you must have a little case of buyer’s remorse. Things weren’t going well under Clinton and now you’re not much better off after five years of your own man. There’s a lot to worry about.
It’s okay if you’re not ready to admit all this out loud. Just today, I heard the father of a soldier in Iraq tell Mr. Bush, “I thank God you’re the President.” I think he was being sincere and what’s more I think his son probably agrees with him. But you saw what happened when he nominated Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court. Many of you and most of your leaders abandoned him. You see what’s happening in Congress as his fellow conservative Republicans try to evade the toxic waste dump the White House has become. They’re like rats deserting a leaking ship which is precisely what I would do in the same circumstances. Did you notice they nearly blew the Alito nomination? I can’t think of a single Supreme Court confirmation vote that was closer (not counting those the nominee lost). The professional Republicans are not happy campers at the moment and I can’t think you are either. I don’t know which question is scarier. Could we have been wrong about him? Or, exactly where did we go wrong? But really if you’re not at least worried about it you might want to check for a pulse. The government is going to hell and it’s very largely your fault.
It was an easy mistake to make. Religion has always given you hope and a measure of assurance. You look to the third chapter of John about the importance of faith and the necessity of being “born again” and you note the President of the United States says he too is born again. You expect him to give God a central role in our nation’s affairs. Nations need God’s protection as much as you do, so you want our country to be like you imagine it used to be, back when there was less fear, less uncertainty and less confusion. That, in a nutshell, is why you voted for George W. Bush and, for better or worse, history will hold him to your account. Given the embarrassing failures of the second term, I’d like to offer this consideration of your relationship with the President.
I know it is not a matter of blind hero worship on your part. You are aware, in varying degrees, of Mr. Bush’s shortcomings. You can’t help but notice the shifty eyes, the sneer and the strut. You must shiver at the memory of the schoolyard bully. You know, I hope, he lies a lot. About things like weapons of mass destruction and global warming and social security. In your heart, you know he was a draft dodger and you were queasy about his slandering the military service of John Kerry. But you don’t care too much about such things because you agree with what he says are his objectives even if his tactics are less than ideal. Ever since Barry Goldwater told you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, you have had to soften your views about the end and the means. So you find yourself defending him not because you are enthusiastic about him personally but because any attack on him seems to be an attack on you and your values.
What would Jesus do? How, you must wonder, does Mr. Bush stand with the Lord? You can’t know, of course, but you can wonder.
You can see the Iraqis are having a hard time trying to learn how to live with each other. The draft constitution that the President promotes unashamedly enshrines Sharia as an “important” source of law and relegates women to something it calls its “transitional” section. You know in your hearts this is not the democracy for which we have spent so much blood and money. Yeah, I know women’s rights are not a high priority item with you. Wives be subject to your husbands. Barefoot and pregnant, that’s the ticket. If I told you what I think of St. Paul, you’d be scandalized, so I’ll spare you. But, please, whatever you think, Sharia is not democracy. Shedding blood for it is something you and I would leave to the Muslims. Mr. Bush says all that young American blood is being invested in freedom. But you’ve known all along you can’t force freedom on a people at the end of a gun. You tried to ignore it. You gathered around the flag and thought, “My country, right or wrong.” But what did you think when he came out of his hiding place in Crawford long enough to call the draft constitution an “amazing event” that protects women and religious freedom, and dismisses its obvious shortcomings with the throwaway line, “We had a little trouble with our own conventions writing a constitution?” Do you think he simply doesn’t understand the history or is this just another of his cheap throw-away lies?
Or take the matter of torture. Mr. Bush and his cronies want to torture suspected members of Al Qaeda. Senator McCain, a man who knows something about torture, says this is immoral, un-American and ineffective. But Mr. Bush wants an exception to the McCain anti-torture amendment so the CIA can torture suspects as long as the torture is, “…consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties to which the United States is a party.” How can torture be consistent with the Eighth Amendment? Here it is in its entirety: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” How can an administration that preaches strict constitutional interpretation out of one side of its mouth, advocate torture out of the other side? By lying, my friends. By lying. By saying often enough and loud enough that torture is perfectly consistent with the words, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Like you, I have no brief for Osama and would be happy to strangle him. But I’d be damned before I’d say doing so is consistent with the Constitution. If nothing else, it’s a matter of self-respect.
He says he’s sending John Bolton to reform the UN which, I agree, needs some serious reforming. But when Mr. Bush says “reform” he’s lying. Again. His goal is not to reform the UN but to destroy it or, lacking complete destruction, at least to get the US out of it. Maybe he’s right. In recent decades, the UN has been good only for solving small problems that are not controversial. But I hate it that Mr. Bush says “reform” when he means “destroy.” I hate it that he says “privatize” social security when he means kill it. Conservatives have always found it difficult to kill entitlement programs. So decades ago you decided the best strategy would be to campaign against “big government” and attack not the programs but their funding. It’s called “starving the beast.” That has become the fundamental strategy of the Bush administration. But do you like it that the Big Lie has become the fundamental tactic? I hate it when the government’s reason for promoting No Child Left Behind is to sugar coat a $15 billion cut in education funding. I hate it when he calls his proposal to open up more land to the timber industry the Healthy Forests Initiative. Or when he allows the power industry to add 80 million tons of mercury to the air every year and calls it Clean Skies. Or when he says, “You’re doing a great job, Brownie.” The biggest lie of all and, by far, the most serious is the idea that the Iraq fiasco is part of the war on terrorism. In the beginning, it was a simple lie. There was no connection between the Islamic terrorists and the secular government of Iraq. The idea that Saddam was supporting Al Qaeda was merely a fabrication meant to shore up the weak case for waging preemptive war. But as things went from bad to worse, it turned into the Orwellian Lie. The administration has turned Iraq into the best thing that ever happened to the terrorists—a breeding ground, a training camp, and a recruitment incentive all over the Muslim world.
Did you remember George Orwell’s 1984 which set out to show that “…political chaos is connected with the decay of the language?” Big Brother was given to saying things like “War is peace” and “Love is hate.” The government was divided into four ministries: The Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with the art of the big lie, the Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war, the Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order, and the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs. It’s one of the few books George Bush ever took to heart. Or maybe Karl Rove read the Cliff Notes.
Admit it: you fear that you can’t trust him to do even what he says he will do for you. You hope he’ll keep his promise about faith based initiatives. What you’ve gotten after four and a half years is a small White House bureaucracy and a fancy brochure. You’ve been trying to get him to pay more attention to North Korea where Christianity is considered treason. So far, he’s been more attentive to the sensibilities of the Dear Loony Tune in Pyongyang than to the plight of your (and his) co-religionists. When the Afghanis (his Afghanis) threatened to behead a Muslim who converted to Christianity, his response was, “Tsk, tsk. That’s not nice.” You liked his ban on stem cell research even if it was a Pyrrhic victory. Are you secretly rooting for the atheist scientists to develop a work-around before it’s too late for you? I wouldn’t blame you. Are there any among you who would reject a cure for Alzheimer’s that was derived from embryonic stem cell research?
You know, too, that he isn’t terribly bright. You know how he got into and out of Yale, Harvard and the Texas National Guard. But you also know that you wouldn’t stare a gift horse in the mouth either if you were a fun loving drunk whose daddy was a big shot. Sometimes you think he must be hallucinating. It bothers you to think maybe his huge tax cuts are meant only to make the rich richer. It bothers some of you to see him turning a $236 billion surplus into a $333 billion deficit overnight, in part because of those same tax cuts. If you’re a fiscal conservative, you must be really uncomfortable about his succession of huge budget deficits. Most of all, the evidence of your own eyes tells you that the war on terrorism isn’t going so well. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and some 2,400 American lives. For this we have toppled Saddam but have not caught up with Osama bin Laden or Al Qaida or Mullah Omar of the Taliban. We have not brought peace to Iraq or democracy to the Middle East. We have not affected the ability of the so-called insurgents to kill our soldiers and Iraqi civilians pretty much at will. You (and the generals) know we can’t win unless we seal the Syrian and Iranian borders to prevent the infiltration of Jordanian, Egyptian and Saudi jihadists. And even Mr. Bush knows we no longer have the military resources to do that. You’re doing a great job, Rummy. Next December 19, we will have been at war in Iraq longer than we were in World War II. In dollars, it’s already cost us ten times as much. That’s 67% of World War II’s cost in constant dollars. Wow! And all this in pursuit of a neocon theory of warfare—Shock and Awe—that should have been trashed before the Mission Accomplished fiasco, another Big Lie.
My friends, George W. Bush is a big price to pay even for goals as close to your hearts as reversing Roe v. Wade and eliminating evolution from the curriculum. Judge Roberts is a fine man but one selected more for his confirmability than his dedication to conservative causes. He’s no Judge Bork, Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. As to Sam Alito, time will tell. You are decent people who love your families and your country. You take Jesus seriously. “Love the Lord your God…Love your neighbor as yourself.” Once you felt beleaguered. It seemed that people like me were always looking down on you. George Wallace called us “pointy-headed intellectuals.” But now you have the upper hand. This is your moment. If you think we screwed up our moment, please learn from our mistakes and don’t screw up yours. Do not let yourselves be bamboozled by a chronic liar. Remember, he’s your responsibility. The cold eye of history is on you.
Personally, of course, I think George W. Bush is a serious threat to world peace, democracy, fiscal solvency, civil and human rights and the environment. I think he’s got you hoodwinked. Maybe he does believe in God but more likely he’s just another politician pandering to a base. John’s description of the hypocrite cited above fits George W. Bush perfectly. I know you don’t agree. I know you prefer him to Bill Clinton who was a great President but a public sinner. I will never understand that. Who in the world thinks we’ve been better off under Mr. Bush? Not our European allies. Not our Asian competitors. In fact, no one I can think of except you. I think, my friends, you hope that, as questionable as he is, Mr. Bush will at least set the stage for a true conservative next time. I’m not too worried about that because I believe the next conservative President will be a rational human being, maybe even a Democrat. In other words, I don’t think anyone like Sam Brownback or Rick Santorum can get elected. Your team is already spending millions to prevent Hillary Clinton from retrieving the keys to the White House. I like that because I think you’re wasting your money like you wasted it on her husband’s impeachment. All you got for that investment was your own humiliation in the eyes of the whole world. Okay, you and I see the world differently. But, my friends, we also have a lot in common. And we’re both holding our breaths. Good luck to both of us.
DERIDING DERRIDA
Jerry Harkins
Jacques Derrida who died recently at 74 invented deconstructionism, an academic vogue that had a long run but then mercifully faded from all but the most dicky niches of our culture including the Yale English Department. His friend Mark C. Taylor wrote a nice op-ed euloogy under the title “What Derrida Really Meant.” Of course, there is a delicious bit of academic irony in the title because what Derrida really meant was that nothing means anything. The problem, it seems, is that the only reality is the text but every text inherently contradicts itself. It was all a big joke, a literary hoax, but many academicians didn’t get it for several decades. As Derrida himself said, “Needless to say, one more time, deconstruction, if there is such a thing, takes place as the experience of the impossible.” It probably sounds better in French but that is precisely what deconstruction is, if it exists. It is simply not possible to know what an author meant when he or she created a text such as “See Spot, see Spot run” because one cannot understand text and context simultaneously. Derrida thought this was a Good Thing. It frees Spot to take his or her rightful place in the entire panoply of impossibility instead of eternally running across a single page in search of some Platonic hydrant. It opens up an infinite Wonderland of interpretations all of which are equally invalid but the process is democratic. In the name of said process, the academic community set out to “destroy the illusion that the signifier has any fixed relation to the signified” and they damn near succeeded.
After demolishing the critics of this nonsense by the simple expedient of calling them names (“people addicted to sound bites and overnight polls”), Professor Taylor goes on to show how almost nobody really understood the master. He manages this without the slightest hint of satiric intent. The legion of the ignorant includes not only the aforementioned critics, but also many of his “most influential followers” who used the theory to propound pernicious ideas that were the very opposite of what Derrida was trying to teach. In other words, maybe it’s not so democratic after all. Taylor has the priestly gnosis but most deconstructionistas are fools, knaves or both. Jesus Christ had a similar problem. The only difference is you can’t name any of Derrida’s influential followers except, possibly, Jacques Chirac who thinks of the master as one of the seminal figures in the intellectual life of our times. I hope that clarifies your impression of M. Chirac.
French philosophy, though, is like French fashion. Succeeding generations of fetishists strut and fret their fifteen minutes upon the stage but nobody actually wears that stuff. Nor is it meant to be worn. It is sufficient to be seen in the front row at the show. This anoints you with the wisdom to say or write such foolish things as, “Orange is the new black.” Orange isn’t black, you know, but then again, according to the deconstructionists, neither is black. Which is a relief because no one knows what the hell is going on, least of all the couturiers who are barely articulate enough to sound better than they parse.
Derrida grew up under the influence of existentialism which is philosophy’s confirmation of the political nihilism of Nineteenth Century Russia. You have to be really depressed to be an existentialist. Its major themes are dread, alienation, instability and, my personal favorite, the "nullity of existential possibilities." One of the pioneers of this school was a German who taught in Switzerland. His name was Martin Heidegger but that’s not important because no one ever understood a single sentence he wrote. Unfortunately, he also wrote bad but revealing poetry such as these lines:
Today I am.
Unlike the rocks and trees
I exist.
Horses have nothing on me
Poor old Rene Descartes, another French philosophe, had claimed, “I think, therefore I am.” Which is where Heidegger got the idea that rocks and trees are not but horses are—at least for the moment. I mean, if thinking confers existence on Descartes, who, truth be told, was a horse’s ass, why not on the whole horse? Another servant of nihilism was Albert Camus who once, at the end of a long night, said, “I call the existential attitude philosophical suicide. How else to start from the world’s lack of meaning and end up by finding a meaning and a depth to it?” I think he’s trying to say either that meaning is self-destructive or that he is. Enter Derrida whom I like to think of as the hula hoop of philosophy, born from the marriage of despair and ignorance. Hundreds of thousands—millions maybe—of students have now wasted copious amounts of their parents’ assets in the pursuit of what is admitted to be meaningless and boring.
Derrida was not actually an existentialist. He was something worse, a phenomenologist. As a young man in Algiers, he had been attracted to the work of Edmund Husserl who is often credited as the father of phenomenonology which he defined as, “…the formal structures of phenomena or of both actual and possible material essences that are given through a suspension of the natural attitude in pure acts of intuition.” Husserl was not an existentialist either, but a psychologist before there was such a discipline. However, he was succeeded by Martin Heidegger, the poet we have already met whose incomprehensibility bows to no man and does homage to Husserl.
Philosophy would be fine if it weren’t for the philosophers and French philosophy would be fine if it weren’t for the French. Except, of course, for Voltaire who was a heretic and Rousseau who was a Swiss heretic. You might say the same thing about German, English and American philosophers (if there were any; John Dewey doesn’t count). But only the French could produce a philosopher king like Maximilien Marie Isidore de Robespierre who ruled by the dictum, “Terror without virtue is powerless.” This is another of those aphorisms that should not be translated from the French. It is, nonetheless, the dictum at the heart of deconstructionism although as Taylor says, many of Derrida’s followers read him ass backwards. It comes out, “Virtue without terror is powerless.” Although it means nothing either way, it became the governing principle of the Modern Language Association for twenty years or more. Some years ago, there was a panel at the MLA convention called “Cultural Narratives of the Stock Exchange.” It was a hilarious discussion but not one of the panelists or audience members betrayed any sense of amusement. That couldn’t happen today because the scholars have replaced Derrida as gospel with Dragons and Dungeons 3.5 which makes their meetings a lot less boring without making them any more meaningful or relevant.
The great philosopher Lee Hayes once said, “Things ain’t what they used to be and, what’s more, they probably never were.” I have long asked myself two questions. First, was philosophy any better when it was being practiced by Greek stoics? And, second, why do I care about any of this? The answer to the first question is obvious. It is but a short step from Plato’s cave to Derrida’s black hole, albeit a step that took the philosophers the better part of 2,500 years to negotiate. The answer to the second question should be equally obvious. Caring about such things is why they pay me the big bucks.
WELCOME TO JERRY’S FOLLIES
Welcome to the Follies. You have happened upon what is essentially a scrap book of my favorite scholarly and topical essays, some previously published in four private collections:
• The Crackpot Papers, 1993
• Right Again, JP!, 1997
• How Do You Do It, JP?, 1999
And, of course, There You Go Again, JP, 2002. There is also some more recent work currently being collected as Don’t You Have A Sense Of Humor Anymore, JP?
For many years, I have been interested in church history and how Jesus' gospel of love got mangled by the professional Christians. Even I recognize that some of my criticism is harsh and those sensitive about religion might be well advised to skip those.
A lot of this stuff is what used to be called political satire although I admit it sometimes slips over the line into sarcasm and cynicism. For example, do I really think Henry Hyde was the Ayatollah of Illinoiah? Well, yes. But I probably should not have said so because it might be offensive to my Iranian friends. I am, however, not responsible for the way I feel. Why did I so dislike Honorable Hyde? Is it merely because he was stupid and hypocritical, or is it because he so often played the clown? And why the soft spot for the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Great Gasbag of American public life? I have no idea.
The long form essay has been slowly dying since the middle of the seventeenth century. You still see them in magazines like Harper's and The Atlantic which are published for the two or three people who have time to read them. Otherwise their only function is to grace the coffee tables of upscale doctors' waiting rooms.
God how I miss Bill Clinton, the only public figure ever expected to tell the truth about his extramarital sex life.
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