Skip to main content

Human Nature Versus Pat Robertson & Republican Jesus

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," well I know it is not Dover, Delaware but Pat Robertson does not see it that way as long as anyone in Delaware continues to call for the acceptance of homosexuals.

Here is a man who has called Lesbians and Gay people "self-absorbed hedonists" and when we look at cultures that have embraced and allowed and openly accepted homosexuality he has said that "any society that allows gay people will not last long."

Let's see, Pat, Greek society lasted for over a thousand years and embraced homosexuality to some extent and transmitted its culture to Rome which built on it for another thousand years. And while some scholars dispute the fact that a majority of Greeks were gay, we can at least be sure their upper class were.

Homosexuality while it is not widely accepted has been part of Chinese culture for at least as long. Lesbianism longer.

Now for saying that I hope you do not call for my assassination too, Pat.

Religion and its misuse changed all this, I am not sure exactly when it occurred, but in the west, unlike the Buddhist east, it did. And while many countries no longer consider homosexuality a mental illness, many religious groups still do and even worse in the misuse of religion have abandoned its principles of tolerance and equality.

These healthy principles have been replaced with others that define what is socially acceptable in the narrowest possible sense. Gay people in this strange world view are not only unacceptable but can even be the cause of earthquakes, tornadoes and 9/11. (see Pat Robertson)

"Whereas the biblical Jesus is not known to have ever addressed the subject of homosexuality at all, let alone gay marriage, homosexuality is just about all Republican Jesus ever talks about. Indeed, in contrast to the biblical Jesus' instruction to "love thy neighbor," Republican Jesus specifically commands his flock to "Hate they neighbor, unless thou art sure he is not one of those fucking degenerate ass-bandits. To which the Lord added to the women gathered, "thou art a clam licker, go from me hence into the wilderness and find a man."

Clearly someone has been to the alter of Republican Jesus, you know the one who likes guns and big bucks and will shoot you in the face....oh, sorry that is Dick Cheney.

Specifically the one who is not to be confused with Jesus Marx. You know that hippie loving, commie bastard that the good book tries to fool you with, or the commie bastard one they promote as the Catholic Church in China. All of this, according to Pat Robertson and his minions.

But the root of the problem is that people with a different lifestyle can be intimidating, no matter how intensely two people love each other. The same stereotypes and fears were used in the past to justify the persecution of inter-racial couples and while this occurs less frequently today, it still occurs.

Everyone is xenophobic to some extent, it is simply a matter of degree. With a classical education however, I found a world that was populated with gays, Sappho and the women of the Island of Lesbos and over time realized that "nothing human can be alien to me, because I am human and from the same family as every other person."

One of the many benefits of a liberal and classical education is tolerance, and an understanding that by embracing others, we learn more about ourselves especially when they challenge our assumptions about the world.

Even if those assumptions happen to be about castrati, or lesbians or gays.

I have found that, while society may discriminate against these people for their sexual orientation, through understanding their struggles in life, their hopes their dreams and their loves, we see something of ourselves our own hopes and our own passion reflected in their stories.

Those stories do not need to come from Ancient Greece or China to do so, there are compelling stories about the gay people among us who are as comfortable with their sexuality as any mature person should be; it is people like Pat Robertson and groups like his that are not very comfortable with themselves.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...