How To Fight Back Against Anti-Gay Bigotry-For Eternity

[6_bleen_7]

Orson Scott Card has dashed off yet another bigoted screen against gay marriage, the sheer idiocy of which has been thoroughly derided elsewhere (zarq links to several rejoinders). What strikes me as particularly nonsensical, in light of his contributions to literature, is Card's heavy reliance on reproductive biology to bolster his argument. Hang on

Comments

[n3m3sis42]

Ugh, it was so horrible I couldn't finish reading it. It makes me sad that I actually read and enjoyed several of his books when I was a teen. Boooooooo.

I wonder if it's really true that it's illegal to kneel and pray in front of an abortion clinic. Because that actually does sound like a violation of free speech. Maybe I will research that. Not that it will even begin to mitigate the crappity crapness of that article. (Yes, "crappity crapness". I am an intellectual.)

I really hate it when people act as though gay marriage infringes on THEIR rights. I have a gay friend who has been with his partner longer than I've been with Mike. As far as I know, they are as monogamous as anyone else, and they're both probably nicer people than I am. The two of them have to do some ridiculous financial gymnastics with their taxes every year because they own a home together and the law does not recognize their union. They drove 8 jillion miles to come to our wedding and watch us do a bunch of things that the law says they can't do. Occasionally, they come to our house and eat and drink using dishes we got as wedding gifts, something else I guess they will never get to experience.

WHOSE rights are being infringed upon?

I like your Gay Marriage For The Dead proposal. But was Malcolm X really a Mormon?

[6_bleen_7]

Exactly. I've known many gay couples. Hell, I went to Oberlin, where the Gay & Lesbian Union was the strongest student organization on campus. And in my experiences gay couples are no different from regular folks. In fact, gay unions seem to be more stable than heterosexual ones, perhaps because mutual comfort in the face of societal disapproval tends to strengthen the emotional bond.

I didn't know it was illegal to pray in front of an abortion clinic. I believe there are laws against physically assaulting someone on their way into an abortion clinic; if anyone has been arrested merely for praying, I would guess that the person had been a member of a crowd, some of whom were attaching patients or staff.

Most of the people on the list aren't Mormons. But the Church is infamous for baptizing by proxy non-Mormons who are deceased (including thousands of Holocaust victims), against their surviving relatives' express wishes (the Wikipedia article has a section on that, a ways down). I picked Malcolm X because I couldn't recall the name of the most famous Black Panther. I don't have anything particular against Malcolm X (or Richard Simmons, for that matter), but he seemed a fitting reward for Jesse Helms's "good works" on this planet.

[6_bleen_7]

Interesting-I didn't know that. I was a kid when Church President Spencer W. Kimball had his famous "revelation" that allowed non-white males into the priesthood. If it took God 160 years to come around on that issue, you can imagine how long it will take him to let women in. (Yet the Church grudgingly allows women to go on missions.)

[chillyrodent]

Some of these pairings (especially of rabids to "innocent" mates) reminds me of that old joke - "don't step on a duck!"

They stepped on a duck.

[6_bleen_7]

Sorry, I don't quite get it. It sounds funny but I'm not sure why

[chillyrodent]

The gist of it is that heaven is loaded with ducks, and the penalty for stepping on one is to be chained in eternity with the ugliest mate in heaven. Our protagonist is then paired with a beautiful woman, who ... had stepped on a duck.

Uh, yeah. High hat.

[6_bleen_7]

Ah, I see, heh-heh. I've heard variations on that theme, but never involving ducks. Yes, everyone in those example marriages is likely to feel they're being punished for something.