Here are two comments that I submitted at MgS's blog but which she has censored (more on this in the next post):
1. Good consequences do not justify evil actions.
2. Does the rapist, in fact, will to procreate? You’re a ‘gender theorist’; isn’t rape all about power?
3. Later, you say that H.H. The Pope
(I take it that a double equals sign signifies ‘identically equal to’). So are you accusing the Holy Father of saying that sex is identical with love or identical with procreation? Despite my attempts to help you in that post on refusing Holy Communion, you appear to have made no improvement in getting your premises straight.
P.S. Why did you censor my second comment at your original post on this topic? (This time you can’t accuse me rehashing things that I’ve already said, since in the previous comment you told me I hadn’t said them!)
***
“Oh lovely - from this, one might conclude that rape is acceptable behaviour - after all the rapist is merely trying to procreate.”You appear to have lost completely the use of logic. I wish you a speedy recovery, and offer the following observations that might be helpful:
1. Good consequences do not justify evil actions.
2. Does the rapist, in fact, will to procreate? You’re a ‘gender theorist’; isn’t rape all about power?
3. Later, you say that H.H. The Pope
“makes the horrendous mistake of assuming that sex == love”
(I take it that a double equals sign signifies ‘identically equal to’). So are you accusing the Holy Father of saying that sex is identical with love or identical with procreation? Despite my attempts to help you in that post on refusing Holy Communion, you appear to have made no improvement in getting your premises straight.
“We should also consider that sex does not necessarily result in pregnancy …”Mmm, yes, so easy to forget.
“If it were purely procreative, then one would expect that the probability of conception as a result of sexual intercourse would be a lot higher.”Pure assertion. “Probabilities happen, get over it”, as someone once said. If every or almost every occasion of sexual intercourse resulted in conception then over-population alarmism might actually make sense.
“The Pope said behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations is "a destruction of God's work."”If you deny that the various kinds of sexual misbehaviour are destructive for their participants then you are at odds not only with Catholic teaching but also with information available from the various pro-sodomite health advisory organisations. In Australia we have one that laughingly calls itself the A.I.D.S. Council of New South Wales (ACON); spend fifteen minutes browsing its website (http://www.acon.org.au) and disabuse yourself of the notion that sodomy is merely a harmless substitute for sexual intercourse.
“So, as I have repeatedly pointed out in the past, what about intersex individuals?”What about them? It’s pretty hard to deny that maleness and femaleness are essential at the level of the humans species; we can’t reproduce asexually, after all. That doesn’t mean that any given individual can’t suffer from hormonal or anatomical defects, though.
“Anyone with any real experience in an adult relationship will have long ago realized that love is quite apart from any sexual relations involved.”Do you seriously mean to imply that the Holy Father thinks that sex is the only way of showing love in a relationship?
“"The Vatican has already reinforced its anti-gay reputation by strongly opposing a UN declaration calling for an end to discrimination against gays”But there is just discrimination and unjust discrimination; banning a practice that accounts for something like 90% of new H.I.V. infections and 88% of new syphilis infections (figures from ACON, Annual Report 2006-07) seems pretty reasonable. (And these figure come after twenty years of the failed ‘safe sex’/‘harm minimisation’ philosophy). In any case, legal prohibitions on sodomy are completely non-discriminatory, since they apply to sodomites regardless of whether they are hetero- or homosexual and to catamites regardless of whether they male or female.
“this latest Papal outburst is clear evidence of an obsession about homosexuality which is tantamount to paranoia."”How ironic; given that His Holiness made no reference to homosexuality, but, rather, challenged gender identity theory (is it even a theory? Judging from the hysterical reactions I would infer not), who is the one with the obsession?
“Now then, given that this Pope has repeatedly shown himself to be overtly hostile towards GLBT people, is it any surprise that when he says something that can be interpreted as hostile, it is seen as such?”So criticising G.L.B.T. doctrine implies hostility to G.L.B.T.s as individuals. I take it, then, that your critiques of Catholic doctrine imply hostility to Catholics as individuals? (Go on, surprise me, say yes!)
P.S. Why did you censor my second comment at your original post on this topic? (This time you can’t accuse me rehashing things that I’ve already said, since in the previous comment you told me I hadn’t said them!)
[Comment blocked from http://crystalgaze2.blogspot.com/2008/12/when-denial-goes-wrong-very-wrong.html]
1. The fusion of the outer walls of the two cells
2. The fusion of the respective cell nuclei
(This controversy isn’t of great relevance to the abortion debate though, since there is only about twenty-four hours between the two, and obviously expecting mothers only find out well after twenty-four hours)
A couple of questions MgS, which, of course, you are under no obligation to answer:
1. Does the unborn baby begin to enjoy the right to life at any point during his or her gestation?
2. If not, how long after his or her birth does he or she begin to enjoy the right to life?
(I suspect that you’ll refuse to answer these questions on the basis that you ‘don’t frame the matter that way’ or some other evasion. By all means, then, let me know how you would frame it.)
***
“Of course, the forced-birther crowd keep trying to treat the fetus as distinct from the woman who is carrying it …”Not just the ‘forced-birthers’. You study or work in, or at least have access to, a university, don’t you? Go to the library and consult a couple of up-to-date embryology textbooks. There you will find that the foetus, once conceived, is a unique (=> distinct) organism. The only controversy is over the definition of conception; the two main alternatives appear to be
1. The fusion of the outer walls of the two cells
2. The fusion of the respective cell nuclei
(This controversy isn’t of great relevance to the abortion debate though, since there is only about twenty-four hours between the two, and obviously expecting mothers only find out well after twenty-four hours)
“and in doing so [the “forced-birthers”] would remove from the woman the right to control her own destiny the moment she becomes pregnant.”No, MgS, and you ought to know it. It’s a question of balancing the rights of the woman carrying and the rights of the man or woman being carried.
“To these people, women are little more than an Axlotl Tank - an unthinking, unaware female that solely exists to gestate.”???????????? Forced-birthers; axlotl tanks; we must be really behind with the pro-abortion (go on Véronique, take the bait) terminology in Australia, because they’re new to me. Our ‘narratives’ must need a good updating here.
A couple of questions MgS, which, of course, you are under no obligation to answer:
1. Does the unborn baby begin to enjoy the right to life at any point during his or her gestation?
2. If not, how long after his or her birth does he or she begin to enjoy the right to life?
(I suspect that you’ll refuse to answer these questions on the basis that you ‘don’t frame the matter that way’ or some other evasion. By all means, then, let me know how you would frame it.)
[Comment blocked from http://crystalgaze2.blogspot.com/2008/12/base-squirmeth.html]
Reginaldvs Cantvar
2.I.2009 A.D.
3 comments:
Collected ramblings of a deranged mind. Much of what's in this blog will be political, speculative and generally annoying.
At least the blog lives up to its description!
On the topic of legal prohibitions on sodomy. One of the standard assault cases studied at law school when I was there was the English case of Regina v Brown. Basically, it involved some very intense homosexual sado-masochism. I won't describe what it involved, but it was a whole lot more than the ol' consensual fraternity initiation paddling.
Anyway, the idiots who were doing this stuff made videos of their conduct, and somehow, it found its way into the hands of the constabulary.
The case (at least at Court of Appeal/House of Lords level) stands for the proposition that one cannot consent to the infliction of more than "merely transitory" pain and injuries.
Outside of wierd factual scenarios like this (perhaps not so wierd with the advent of the internet), the problem with sodomy laws is that they are generally merely declaratory of the State's disgust. Assuming that both the active and receptive parties in an act of consensual sodomy (forced penetration is rape and is a different matter entirely) are equally guilty of an offence, sodomy will either never be prosecuted, or could only be prosecuted on the evidence of one equally guilty of the offence. A blackmailer's charter, as it were. There seems to me to be, in the ordinary run of cases, no earthly reason to give a whole lot of disgruntled sodomites immunity, and hence free reign to prosecute their former partners for an act of which they are equally guilty. People being what they are, it has the potential to turn the state into the instrument of private revenge by angry queens.
Alternatively, sodomy becomes just one more thing that doctors must mandatorily report to the authorities; I would have some reluctance about prosecuting someone who presents to a doctor seeking medical treatment, although sometimes, that is what we do when the treatment concerned is, say the removal of a policeman's bullet. But bullets are generally non-contageous. Perhaps there are alternatives, such as exempting from prosecution the penitent sodomite who appears to in good faith seek to adopt a chaste lifestyle, gets counselling, joins that Catholic group for same sex atracted folks struggling to maintain chastity, whatever.
Ultimately, I guess I don't know what works best from a practical perspective. I read somewhere that Australia's HIV transmission rates amongst male/male sodomites, bad as they are, are significantly better than in the US. The world factbook gives adult HIV rates for the US at 0.6% (2003), whereas the comparable rate for Australia is 0.1%, the UK is 0.2%
Clearly we are doing something better than comparable countries, insofar as HIV policy is concerned.
Just some random, and rambling thoughts....
There is also a real irony in "punishing" a sodomite by sending him or her into an environment where "situational" (by which I mean, ordinary folks satisfy their lust as and when they can) sodomy is rife.
You know the old line about "not dropping the soap" in the showers in gaol. Actually, a now-deposed Magistrate here got his 15 minutes of fame by suggesting, by way of final warning, to a young adult repeat petty offender that "a pretty youg buck like you wouldn't last 15 minutes hitting the showers at Yatala [local maximum-security big house - where even remandees get sent on occasion] on a cold winter's night".
I always considered it unbecoming of the judicial office to make a veiled threat of sodomy as a warning against further criminality. Veiled threats of sodomy are the preserve of police and correctional officers.
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