Ben Edward Akerley
Killing Gays Will Not Achieve the Desired Solution
A gay man traveling in any Moslem nation immediately discovers how widespread and readily available gay sex is.
In their homoerotic milieu where rigid segregation of the sexes is the norm, women wear veils. All brides are still expected to be virgins on their wedding night. Sex-hungry young Muslims easily can rationalize that indulging in gay sex is merely practicing for marriage.
In their homoerotic milieu where rigid segregation of the sexes is the norm, women wear veils. All brides are still expected to be virgins on their wedding night. Sex-hungry young Muslims easily can rationalize that indulging in gay sex is merely practicing for marriage.
A Riddle for the Holiday: Religion and Gay Liberation Are...
The answer to our headline is a resounding No! Religion is the antithesis of liberation.
The root of the word religion is the Latin word religare, which means to bind. Whatever binds also inhibits, handicaps, restricts and stultifies.
Therefore, gays who consider that they have liberated themselves but still cling tenaciously to any creed are required in that process to base their belief on mere faith, which the New Testament defines as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
The root of the word religion is the Latin word religare, which means to bind. Whatever binds also inhibits, handicaps, restricts and stultifies.
Therefore, gays who consider that they have liberated themselves but still cling tenaciously to any creed are required in that process to base their belief on mere faith, which the New Testament defines as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
What Happens When Evangelicals Practice Hate
America's premier homophobe and gay basher, the Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS, has established a new website: godhatessweden.com as an addition to his long-established epicenter of anti-gay vitriol: godhatesfags.com.
The origin of this latest diatribe by the rabid gay-baiter provides us with a truly frightening and incisive look inside the tortured mind of a fundamentalist the depth of whose hatred seems to have no bounds.
Five Years Ago
This episode all began in 2002 when the Swedish Parliament enacted the Act on Persecution of Minority Groups, and it included references to sexual orientation in a list of groups protected against persecution in the form of threats and expressions of disdain.
Isnt It Pathetic Monkey Trials Still Are in Fashion Today?
Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion and the Battle for Americas Soul, by Edward Humes (HarperCollins Publishers). 1/07. 380 pages. $25.95.
In July of 1925, the Baltimore Sun assigned its crack reporter H.L.Mencken to cover the trial in Dayton, TN, of John T. Scopes, the young science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of state law.
Mencken quickly realized that he had arrived in a pocket of belief in the Bible as the literal word of God coupled with the strong but fallacious suspicion that evolution held we humans are descended from the apes.
Sex: Another Reason Americans Need To Be Vigilant
Americas War on Sex: The Attack on Law, Lust, and Liberty, by Marty Klein, Ph.D. Praeger, 8/06, ( ISBN 0-275-98785-X) . $29.95.
Adding to his already impressive roster of works on human sexuality, renowned author, sex educator and therapist Marty Klein has surpassed all previous efforts with this incisive exploration of the sexual battleground that our country has become. He shows us how most effectively to combat sexual ignorance with Sexual Intelligence, the very title of his electronic newsletter. Every war involves two opposing factions. The battle lines here clearly demarcated into erotophobes vs. erotophiles. This descriptive dichotomy parallels other historical bifurcations like madonnas vs. whores and the sex-positive slogan from the 1960s, Make Love, Not War.
Ahem, We May Need You-Know-Whos Help
Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (W.W. Norton, 4/06), 242 pp., $23.95.
This tome delivers enough of a jolting wake-up call to arouse even the most complacent citizen about the gradual erosion of the wall of separation between church and state. With a breezy, lucid, journalistic style, Michelle Goldberg, a secular Jew, has performed a yeoman's job of expertly explicating how the dominion theology of the religious right leads inexorably to theonomy, or government according to Biblical law. She chillingly points out that with religious conservatives already in control of two branches of the federal government, only the courts presently remain beyond their reach. Without aggressive vigilance on the part of everyone else, Ms. Goldberg warns, they may soon capture the judicial system as well.
Homosexuality, argues the author, is the new abortion. She makes it abundantly clear that Dubya would not presently occupy the White House were it not for the brilliantly orchestrated exploitation of homophobia by Karl Rove in all the key states prior to the 2004 election. Abstinence-only sex education, anti-choice legislation and FDA restrictions on availability of the morning-after-pill comprise the very effective war chest of religious fundamentalists against reproductive freedom. Ms. Goldberg ardently emphasizes the often-overlooked and always deliberately obfuscated fact that divorcing birth control from abortion is impossible since anti-choice forces considersome forms of contraception to be abortifacients.
Age Is a Moving Target for Protecting Children
If the Mark Foley page sex scandal has done nothing else, it has brought to the forefront how arbitrary, capricious and inconsistent our age of consent laws are. And we in the USA have no monopoly on this distressing quandary. In the mother country not too many years ago, the age of consent was 16 for straights and 21 for gays. After intense gay lobbying and with generous help from celebs like Vanessa Redgrave marching proudly with her protest placard in front of the Houses of Parliament, the Brits finally relented. They lowered the age to 18 for gays. Arguing quite persuasively that the new amendment was still unfair, discriminatory and both insulting and offensive to gays by implying they were less mature and responsible than straights, lobbyists finally succeeded in acquiring a uniform age of 16 for everyone in the U.K.
Depends on Your State of Presence
But back here in Alice in Wonderland, we still have the bewildering range of 14 to 18, depending on what state you are in. For an up-to-date list for all 50 states and D.C., log on to the website ageofconsent.com. It gives the current age of consent for all other countries of the world as well. Alfred Kinsey recommended 16 as a realistic age of consent since kids can quit school, enter the workforce and even become emancipated minors. And most of our states consider 16 a sufficiently responsible age.
