Gays, Thelemites, Mormons and Government
Every Brother is expected to use all his influence with persons in a superior station of life (so called) to induce them to join the Order. Royal personages, ministers of State, high officials in the Diplomatic, Naval, Military, and Civil Services are particularly to be sought after, for it is intended ultimately that the temporal power of the State be brought into the Law, and led into freedom and prosperity by the application of its principles.
-- Liber CI 10th house of duties.
Fight! Fight like gentlemen, without malice, because fighting is the best game in the world, and love the second best! Don't slander your enemy, as the newspapers would have you do; just kill him, and then bury him with honour. Don't keep crying 'Foul' like a fifth-rate pugilist. Don't boast! Don't squeal! If you're down, get up and hit him again! Fights of that sort make fast friends.
-- New Comment on AL III, 59
A while back, mendaxveritas wrote This Article about the conflicts set up by using a law which could easily be turned against Thelemites to undo an enemy. Recently, many Thelemites I know have been upset at the Mormon church's involvement in passing Prop 8, and pushing for an investigation into their most likely illegal level of contributions to the cause.
The thing is, while I believe what they did clearly violates at least the spirit of existing law, I believe that law really needs to be torn down. If we are to bring governments into alignment with our own concepts, do we want to stop others by bringing the tools which can work against us to bear against them, and strengthening those tools through use?
The gay community as a whole seems very conflicted. They want to have democracy, but when democracy doesn't want them, they can not rise up against it, because their own ideals are egalitarian, and can not deny the mob rule which would suppress them. This confusion keeps popping up everywhere people who are still in service to the god of the group over the individual is doing something the mob will not accept. Still, every single step for gay rights has been through the judges, and not through the polls. Eventually the polls will follow, but only after aristocratic sanction of the supreme court and politicians has told them that their old beliefs are not valid anymore, and to adopt the new acceptance of everything. With the gays at least though, there are some concrete goals, even if they are just mediocrity and acceptance as part of the mob. What are the goals of the OTO and of Thelemites as a whole? Do we want the government to lead and protect us, or do we want to lead the government?
Gays do not have the courage to say to the Mormon Church, we will rise up and fight you directly, as Men would fight, but rather, we run to the courts, seeking for someone else to rein in those who would crush us, despite the damage it will do to us. If we claim no inner structure, no manliness about ourselves, than this behavior is completely understandable. It is the recourse of every child to run to their parents. If we as Thelemites do the same thing, we have lost our way.
We can stand up as men and make our own case, fighting for our own rights, and responsibilities. We must accept that the world is not with us but against us, and it is on US to change this if we Will, and not to run to some outside sanction to tell us that what we are doing is ok.
-- James
-- Liber CI 10th house of duties.
Fight! Fight like gentlemen, without malice, because fighting is the best game in the world, and love the second best! Don't slander your enemy, as the newspapers would have you do; just kill him, and then bury him with honour. Don't keep crying 'Foul' like a fifth-rate pugilist. Don't boast! Don't squeal! If you're down, get up and hit him again! Fights of that sort make fast friends.
-- New Comment on AL III, 59
A while back, mendaxveritas wrote This Article about the conflicts set up by using a law which could easily be turned against Thelemites to undo an enemy. Recently, many Thelemites I know have been upset at the Mormon church's involvement in passing Prop 8, and pushing for an investigation into their most likely illegal level of contributions to the cause.
The thing is, while I believe what they did clearly violates at least the spirit of existing law, I believe that law really needs to be torn down. If we are to bring governments into alignment with our own concepts, do we want to stop others by bringing the tools which can work against us to bear against them, and strengthening those tools through use?
The gay community as a whole seems very conflicted. They want to have democracy, but when democracy doesn't want them, they can not rise up against it, because their own ideals are egalitarian, and can not deny the mob rule which would suppress them. This confusion keeps popping up everywhere people who are still in service to the god of the group over the individual is doing something the mob will not accept. Still, every single step for gay rights has been through the judges, and not through the polls. Eventually the polls will follow, but only after aristocratic sanction of the supreme court and politicians has told them that their old beliefs are not valid anymore, and to adopt the new acceptance of everything. With the gays at least though, there are some concrete goals, even if they are just mediocrity and acceptance as part of the mob. What are the goals of the OTO and of Thelemites as a whole? Do we want the government to lead and protect us, or do we want to lead the government?
Gays do not have the courage to say to the Mormon Church, we will rise up and fight you directly, as Men would fight, but rather, we run to the courts, seeking for someone else to rein in those who would crush us, despite the damage it will do to us. If we claim no inner structure, no manliness about ourselves, than this behavior is completely understandable. It is the recourse of every child to run to their parents. If we as Thelemites do the same thing, we have lost our way.
We can stand up as men and make our own case, fighting for our own rights, and responsibilities. We must accept that the world is not with us but against us, and it is on US to change this if we Will, and not to run to some outside sanction to tell us that what we are doing is ok.
-- James