Gryphmon's Grumbles

A blank page

The challenge; to fill the blank page.

Order

Design

Tension

Composition

Balance

Light

Harmony

-S.Sondheim

Together facing the new totalitarianism

This was published in the same Denmark paper that published the cartoons.

Hat tip to: Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Manifesto:

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

And Gryphmon Too!

Marriage is the gift of the one-flesh made whole: II A dailogue with Catholic.org

Catholic Online this morning published an editorial by Matt Abbott titled: Homosexuality, "Ex-Gay" Ministries, Chastity.

On a whim, I sent my essay from yesterday on Same-Sex Marriage and the One Flesh made whole that I did yesterday for GayPatriot's post.  To my surprise I got a response back. Below is both that reply and my answer to it. And I might as well link to North Dallas Thirty, since we seem to all be on more or less the same subject with different discussions going. Besides, I'm a link-whore and proud of it!

The Blood of Eden: Marriage is the gift of the one-flesh made whole

GayPatriotWest is calling for discussion on what a marriage means.  I thought I would contribute by republishing an entry that I made awhile back on a Christian site I often visit/troll around at called The Evangelical Outpost. The Coyote/Trickster in me like go there and push holes into their egos and sanctity. Of course, sometimes the reverse happens.

The fundamental topic at hand was the spiritual/theological reasons why there could be no such thing as gay marriage.  Of course, I thought, if only I write and explain to them how it all works they will understand  and be more accepting.  Oops. Not Quite.

But still I think my argument is valid.  There really is a spiritual/theological justification for gay marriage that is not just based on civil liberties, but rather Natural Law.  And I will note, that while the Evangelicals ridiculed my post, they never actually addressed or bothered to disprove any of the arguments in it.

So we will start off with a little pop music.... ;-)

Pope lashes out at democracy

New Pope Launches anti-gay salvo.

(Vatican City) Less than a week after becoming Pope, Benedict XVI has lashed out at Spain following the passage of a same-sex marriage bill in Parliament.

Spain's lower house on Thursday approved legislation to legalize gay marriage. It is expected to gain approval in the upper chamber and become law next month.

The Pope, speaking through Cardinal Alfonso Lopes Trujill, head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, said Roman Catholics  should be prepared to lose their jobs rather than co-operate with the law.

Trujill, in an interview with Corriere della Sera newspaper said Spaniards in all walks of life - especially government officials - are duty bound by Catholicism to oppose accepting same-sex couples.

"We cannot impose the iniquitous on people," he told the paper.

Nope, However, the people may impose "iniquitous" on themselves through their elected representatives in government anytime they want to.  It's called Democracy stupid.

I wonder if this has more to do the the Spanish governments initiative to cut funding for the Catholic Church. In Spain it receives over half it's yearly income directly from taxpayers coffers.

Whats the difference between the elevation of Ratzinger to Pope Benedict and Gene Robinson to Bishop Robinson?

Update II 

Joe at Evangelical Outpost puts asks a similar question.

Update: 04/21/2005

As a foot note, there is an interesting editorial in the LA Times today that may have relevance on the subject.  It's written by Charles E. Curran, a Catholic Theologian who was censured by Ratzinger.

A quote:

But it doesn't have to be that way. History shows that the Catholic Church has changed its moral teachings over the years on a number of issues (without admitting its previous position had been wrong). A very sorry page in Catholic history, for example, is the fact that for over 1,800 years the popes and the church did not condemn slavery. And until the 17th century, popes, in the strongest terms, condemned loans with interest as violating God's law.
Full article here.

Over at Bill Hobs site, he says:

Eternal truth is eternal truth. If Pope Benedict XVI stands up for it, and stays committed to it, the world will be better off. The last thing the world needs is a post-modern pope who believes the church should change its teaching based on public opinion polls.

One of his commenter's, Terry says;

I don't remember, did any of our media elite do public opinion polls when the Episcopal Church appointed an openly homosexual and adulterous man a bishop? Maybe they did and I don't recall, but I doubt it.

Yes, they did, but this started me thinking:

Whats the difference between the elevation of Pope Benedict and Bishop Robinson?

Why is the elevation of Ratzinger accepted without question by religious conservatives while Robinson's elevation is almost universally condemned? (Not to mention the man himself?)

• Both Churches held a conclave.
• Both Churches prayed for God's guidance in making their decision. 
• Both Churches voted. 

And then both Churches elevated a priest to a higher office that they felt he was worthy of and called to, in their eyes and in the eyes of God. 

I remember a short time after the vote on Robinson, one of the priests at the conference was being interviewed by a Fox commentator. O' Reilly I think. 

Anyway, what the priest said was that they had  prayed for the Lord's guidance and that he had faith that God did not fail them.  You could tell that the priest actually believed this by his manner and by the look in his eyes. He was a man of faith in the truest sense of the word.

The Fox host just gave a quick snort of derision. Then he realized that it might not look too good for him to openly mock a priest on national TV, so he quickly closed the segment. And people complain about the treatment of religion by the "liberal" media.

Why do so many Christians believe that God had a hand in choosing the Pope while failing to believe that he also had a hand in choosing Robinson? Why is one decision considered sanctified and the other is not?  Is God so weak  or choosy that he only guides Catholics in the selection of their leaders? Why do they have such little faith in God?

You might tell me that it's because of Leviticus...yada, yada, yada.... Basically that the voting Bishops in Robinson's case acted so out of the norm from the Bible that it was heresy. But I just can't buy that as a good excuse.

Not because of Leviticus specifically, but because Christian religions, when making changes to themselves over the centuries, have often gone way beyond simply elevating a fellow sinner  to Bishop.

There was the initial divorce of Christianity from Judaism for example.  Celibacy for priests was another big change in the Christian doctrine since priests could still get married for about the first 1000 years of the Churches history. The ordination of women. The shift from polygamy to monogamy.  All these things were momentous changes in Christianity that it still managed to survive.

Some might tell me that the core beliefs of Christianity have been the same for quite awhile, but exactly how did that happen? 

A bunch of Bishops got together in a place called Nicea,  and asked God for guidance in making their decisions. Then voted and argued until they came to agreement on what would define Christianity.  Sound familiar?  If trusting the ability of God to guide our decisions when we ask for his guidance, worked back then, why doesn't it work now?

What's also interesting is  that homosexuality has been brought up so frequently in reference to both Robinson's and Ratzingers situations.  Maybe the question of how Christians should deal with gay and lesbian people will be one of the defining moral challenges to Christianity of this age. 

But then again, maybe it's the same one they have been presented all along. How do you treat the stranger at your door?  It's easy to love someone when you have been taught that they are worthy of it. But what about when someone truly is, by everything that you believe in, an abomination in the sight of God?  If presented with the Devil, do you grant him mercy?

I must say that so far I'm not impressed by the way Christians have answered the knock of the stranger at their door. So I don't think it's a very pretty city on the hill that they have built so far.  But since they have locked me out of it I guess the question is moot. It might be a good thing. There was that other place that wasn't very hospitable to strangers and look what happened to them. Sodom and Gomorrah I think it was called. I think they mine salt there now.

Its probably not politically correct for me to say that the overall actions and motivations demonstrated by Christians as they deal with gay and lesbian people are guided more by human prejudice, rather than divine revelation or mercy. However, that doesn't mean it isn't true.

The fact is I think, that most Christians would act in revulsion toward gay and lesbian people whether they had ever read Leviticus or even opened the Bible in the first place. Prejudice toward gay and lesbian people has been woven into them so tightly that they mistake it as instinct.  A sort of "natural law". But such deep felt feelings can be deceptive. In truth they have simply adopted the local, transient values of the culture they have found themselves in. It's not really about the Bible or eternal truth. It's still just about needing an "other" to project your own failings on.

In a hundred years, I wonder how Christianity will view the careers of both Robinson and Pope Benedict. Who will have had the biggest impact?  Or maybe it will be neither.  Maybe God is the right answer to that question.

I still have hope that it is.

Faith.

Ratzinger must have been made fun of a lot as a kid with a name like that

Andrew Sullivan is certainly being castigated for his negative opinion of Ratzinger, the new Pope. Citizen Smash has a good roundup of posts. But Professor Bainbridge actually calls him an ass.   But since Bainbridge is both a lawyer, (yuck) and a proffessor at (double-yuck) UCLA, I don't see where he's earned any moral superiority marks.

I was actually slumming over at XLRQ's blog.   and I'd  meant to just point out to him an article on the "Gay Panic" defense that he once challenged me on. (Whether it existed.)  But then I started reading some of the nasty comments about Sullivan.

Really, while granted that Sullivan is a drama queen, having read his posts over the years, I do judge him as someone who does care deeply about his faith. Sullivan may simply be having a childhood flashback.  Of course, Ratzinger and myself go way back as well....

All Pope, All the Time

I'm going to go to hell for this, but I think it's really creepy how they are showing the Popes body 24/7 on CNN & Fox etc. 

I've even been keeping the TV turned off because every single time I turn it off there is the Pope again, and sure enough, he's still dead. Where is Dr. McCoy when you need him?  Oh yeah, he is dead too.

The Blood of Eden

Blood of Eden

I caught sight of my reflection
I caught it in the window
I saw the darkness in my heart
I saw the signs of my undoing
They had been there from the start
And the darkness still has work to do
The knotted chord's untying
The heated and the holy
Oh they're sitting there on high
So secure with everything they're buying

In the blood of Eden lie the woman and the man
With the man in the woman and the woman in the man
In the blood of Eden lie the woman and the man
We wanted the union, oh the union of the woman, the woman and the man...

.... -Peter Gabriel

Joe over at The Evangelical Outpost, in a discussion on marriage comments on the "one-flesh union"

While we shouldn’t attempt to reduce it to it’s component parts, we also cannot ignore the physical dimensions of sex, especially sexual differentiation. Men and woman are different in both their physical and emotional makeup. Evangelicals believe that these gender differences are complementary and designed by God to lead to fulfillment and happiness within the union.

As a gay man, I agree with the above.  Where we differ is that I don't think many Christians understand and accept the true nature of male and female Complementarity.  Men and Women are different, but they are also the same. The  concept of the one-flesh union as described is not the whole story, not even for heterosexuals.

It is indeed about the union of the man and the woman. But humans are more complex, and frankly more beautiful than this and it should be taken into consideration.

Sometimes the Bible is stupid

On the Evangelical Outpost, Joe profiles, oddly enough an evangelist named Francis Schaeffer.

Francis's son Frank Schaeffer, is one of my favorite authors. He describes his upbringing as "strict Calvinist", although he later converted to Greek Orthodoxy.