(via Kevin Drum) California is lumbering towards equity for same-sex couples:

Businesses that provide discounts, special services or other privileges to married couples must extend the same rights and benefits to same-sex couples registered as state domestic partners, the California Supreme Court decided 6-0 on Monday.

The ruling was based on a case involving a lesbian couple’s use of country club facilities. Spouses were allowed to play for free, as well as “the live-in girlfriends and boyfriends, and grandchildren, of heterosexual members from the extra fees, while denying the same benefits to same-sex couples.” It seems pretty clear that the club didn’t have a leg to stand on, given those kinds of standards, since the only pragmatic reason they could give was “that extending membership benefits to unrelated friends might lead to overuse of the facilities and discourage the friends from purchasing their own memberships.”

Because, you know, I’d be totally willing to enter into a domestic partnership with someone solely for the perks of free golf at their country club.

But in any case, hooray for California, and let’s hope the marriage thing goes through as well.

Scientology annoys the hell out of me, as do all cults, but it was pretty disheartening to hear that Beck is also a Scientologist. My anger stems from personal anecdotal evidence from an ex-church member who is my friend’s stepdad. Having just watched a play about the People’s Temple, I wonder if such a play could be made about those Dianetics nutcases. They’re too smart to have a terrible tragedy like Jonestown, but enough stories put together, and it could be an interesting night of theater.

“HIP HOP ROTS YOUR BRAIN”

An ad by the Committee of Responsible and Attentive Parents.

The question is, how many people realize that it’s a joke?

Riffing on my last post and thinking back on some events… why is it that some people cannot keep their religion to themselves? And why is it the recently converted who are the most pushy about it?
Continue reading →

David V. over at Left2Right has some thoughts on the term “homophobe.” He points out that

One problem with the term is that it can imply that the anti-homosexual is himself a repressed homosexual, thus implicitly branding him with his own iron, so to speak. The stigma of being a homophobe then incorporates the stigma of being a homosexual, the very stigma the term is supposedly meant to combat. I don’t see how we can combat a stigma by covertly applying it.

His main complaint is that it’s a psychological term, and that we should draw analogies to how the terms “anti-semitic” and “racist” are bandied about. He derails at the end though:

Just as opposition to affirmative action is not in itself racism, and opposition to Zionism is not in itself anti-semitism, so the belief that homosexuality is a sin is not in itself a prejudice against homosexuals. It’s a moral opinion, motivated by prejudice in some people but held by others in good faith.

The major difference in opposition to Zionism or affirmative action and the belief that homosexuality is a sin is that the opposition in the former cases does not attempt to demean a group of people. If I am an anti-Zionist, that doesn’t mean I am judging Jews as a people to be inferior or flawed in some way. If I think homosexuality is a sin, then I view all the GBLT people around me as sinners. I have made a value judgment on those people.

Now suppose my opposition to Zionism is on moral grounds. Does that mean I have to suppose Zionists are immoral? Not necessarily. I know many vegetarians who are so on moral grounds, and they don’t go thinking I’m immoral. But “sin” is a different concept from morality. If I think homosexuality is a sin, I have one of two choices. I can just say “it’s a sin, and therefore not for me,” or I can say “it’s a sin, and therefore Sin is a sinner, and is going to burn in hell, along with all those with whom he associates.” Which do you think is more common?

This is not to say that using the word “homophobe” is appropriate. The psychological connotations are imprecise enough that it should probably be abandoned. Even though it is an opinion held for reasons of personal morality, “it’s a sin” anti-homosexual attitude should not be viewed as equivalent to opposition to affirmative action or Zionism.

It’s interesting to me that the Illiad is really about a few different gods having a fight and then using humans as their pawns. The Trojan War is a relgious war in that sense, but it’s not a religious war in the sense that the Greeks worship the true gods and the Trojans false ones. I wonder if this dynamic of “my deities are stronger than your deities” was a common one in non Judeo-Christian-Muslim cultures. The religions of the book share, in the construction of their monotheism, a fundamental rejection of the validity of other faiths. The idols of others are false idols to false Gods, not weaker ones. In this sense they are fundamentally intolerant religions, at least if you accept the basic axioms.

Lest I get flamed, I want to point out that I’m not claiming that Jews/Christians/Muslims are fundamentally intolerant, nor that they are the only people with intolerant views. It’s just that the rhetoric in this country of Dobson-esque figures makes the GOP out to be Gods Own Party and others as not only wrong, but evil to boot.

My friend Sin is getting shown up by his own character in The Sims. Apparently the computer can learn a lot about you:

Normally, you have to get a Sim to flirt with another one for any sort of hanky-panky to take place, but mine? Well, he just moved straight in for the kill, no bones about it. I didn’t tell him to do ANYTHING…he just decided to go for the Mediterranean sausage all on his own.

I’m so gay that I’ve made a COMPUTER CHARACTER GAY WITHOUT EVEN TRYING.

Poor, poor guy. The screenshots are pretty hot though.