If We'd Only Recognize The Things That Make for Peace

I think I've seen enough of me and others to know that we often harp loudest about that with which we struggle most. I mean I was raised in a pretty aggressive and violent environment. I was in a lot of fights and often didn't think twice about hurting others. In many ways, violence was the primary language and often a ready solution throughout my upbringing. So I understand that what I see as a spiritual commitment to nonviolence can be attributed to some reactionary motive. Fine, it may be I'm a big peace baby because I'm struggling to overcome my own violent tendencies.

So it's no surprise to me when someone who makes gross efforts to monitor and control the sexual behaviors of others that they are finally outed as doing things that make all their preaching a punchline.

And so I wonder, is that what's going on with THE GAY? I mean think of all the teachings, all the dos and do not dos, all the commands, and moral assumptions that could make up Christian sexual ethics but don't. Think of every potential resource in the Bible and the broad field of possibility in what we call Church History that is left alone because we say it has no bearing on us. Think of all that is passed over, ignored, rationalized and explained away in one way or another. And THE GAY, a concept I don't see in the texts that make up the Bible, remains. What's going on here?

I'm reluctant to universally apply my experience (or reduce to Freudian silliness what I see as a deep commitment), but is this of the same reactive substance as my nonviolence? Are you building walls to keep yourself safe?

I remember reading Robert Gagnon's The Bible and Homosexual Practice and uncharitably saying to myself, "Good Lord, this guy is a closet case." I can charitably say the book's imprecision, imbalance, and, general dependence on what we now call truthiness seem the result of some kind of blinding rage or panic. It's horribly clear that he has decided that homoeroticism and what we broadly call homosexuality is "inherently" awful (whatever inherently does to qualify awful) and so grasps at anything that may fit the bill. But are incest, rape, anal penetration, "uncovering nakedness", consensual intercourse, etc... homosexual practices? Are they homosexual practices any more than they are heterosexual practices? Does either phrase mean anything outside of a sense of the phrase as dehumanizing euphemism?

Really. Help me out here. I guess I'm a Kinseyan 0 so don't find the protection all that necessary. But others of you? Is same-sex attraction more prevalent among men than I can realize? Did I miss out on some haunting but seminal rites of male passage by not joining a fraternity, and now you all are making up for it? Do the belittling jokes and comments about women suggest you prefer the company of men in a deeper way than I first thought? (And I focus on men here because "man" is the status that has currency for these negotiations.)

Or is there something else? Is this confusion and frustration evidence of a larger confusion- a confusion about who and what we might be for? Does y/our need to read Leviticus 18.22 (for example) as having anything to do with homosexuality demonstrate y/our loyalty to an illegitimate power?

You've probably read my allusions to the idea that something like "enhanced interrogation" can only make sense if you're willing to accept and be determined by certain things- things that make a claim on you, things that hold you, things that blind you. That "thing" makes us slaves. Sometimes happy house slaves, but we are slaves nonetheless, and we take whatever mark or brand is necessary to get along and do business with that master. How does homosexuality make sense to us? How does heterosexuality? What has us bound for that to work?

Drag. If only there was something that freed us...

Oh hey! Wait a minute.

Look, your king comes riding on a donkey. Triumphant, but humble on a donkey...

Oh wait no...

I guess that doesn't have anything to do with this.

Thanks, Billy.

Below The Bible Belt

The only things as scenically regular through the South as kudzu, Cracker Barrels, and vasectomy reversal ads are porn superstores. These aren't hidden on back roads or disguised with innocuous names like Upland's The Toy Box. Right smack on I-40, with "ADULT SUPERSTORE" signs doing their best to [insert penetrative violation alluding verb here] the sky, porn store after porn store makes sure the denizens of Real 'merika have all the porn they need.

Someone's keeping those places in business.

I used to wonder if those people knew about the internet. Turns out they do.

The god-haterz at Harvard (abetted by the god-haterz at New Scientist magazine) discovered a correlation between lots of church-going, fag-hating, AIDS-thanking, and on-line porn-buying.

We all know correlation is nothing more than correlation and who knows what they're using the "adult" material for. Perhaps it's for enhancing perfectly licit marital relations. Is that possible, or do TRADITIONAL VALUES preclude that? Somebody help me out here, I am apparently far removed from the world of TRADITIONAL VALUES.

According to the article, they do give it a rest on Sunday. That's quaint. Almost Kinkadesque.

Now...?

I just can't stay away.

I tried. Oh how I tried, but nothing could fill the void. Religion, family, booze? Nothing could fill the blog-shaped hole in my heart...

So here my netlog waited. Reliable. Unwavering. Good and faithful little diary. Of course I couldn't leave you forever.

And you, dear, little lambs. Was I gone too long? Had I left you wondering if there was something you had done to keep me away? You might've, but I'm so gracious I won't bring it up now. Let's just savor the sweetness of this reunion and get to what matters, no?

And what matters? You do.

I have something for you. Well, maybe not all of you- those of you for whom my harping about nonsense like torture and war seemed like... harping- I want to share something that will wipe the scales from your eyes.

For some of you it may now seem natural to oppose the occupation of Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan. CIA kidnappings are newly awful to you. Torture is suddenly torture. It is no longer un-American to challenge and question US policy.

Good?

Maybe your conversion is a bit like showing up at AA meetings to get dates*, but who knows where the wind may blow?

For others though, some vestigial principle stands in the way. After securing your salvation with secret prisons all over the globe, torture, and the sacrificial murders of Afghan taxi drivers you're too committed to your dhimmitude. Perhaps, you've surrendered so much of your soul to make sense of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation", "extraordinary rendition", and "detainee", you're unsure how to proceed in a world where those are nonsense.

I am here for you. Actually, this is here for you:

"The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes."

In case you missed it "the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality". That means sticking things in people's butts.

No I know you're one not likely to make sharp distinctions about homosexual practices. In fact, you're probably someone for whom the phrase "homosexual practices" means something and as such distinctions aren't a part of the calculus. The upshot is this probably counts as gay.

There you go. You can augment your commitment to torture with the fear of the love that dare not speak its name. Never mind that it's not love- it's probably gay enough for you.

Now, with news that the Obama administration is maintaining Bush administration practices and that Binyam Mohammed was tortured in Guantanamo as recently as a month ago you can shake the dust from your outrage (out of practice outrage is still outrage, little lamb) and put it to use.

Apply sexual assault and violence and I'm sure whatever truth or sense of decency has been hindering you will magically melt away.

You're welcome.

* See? I could have written "laid". I am so kind to your delicate sensibilities.

Someday You'll Thank Me For All This Scary Love

We like to say our thoughts on sex, or more accurately our rules regulating sexual behaviors, are rooted squarely and surely in scripture. I think, as Christians of a certain type anyway, we like to say that about everything, but these days, sex especially.

I don't happen to think Christianity is about regulating behaviors, but let's say for a moment it is, and let's then say that the Bible is the source for those regulations.

We know what to do and not do based on what the Bible says (not what we say the Bible says), and there are things that the Bible says we ought to do or not do and those things are tied to whether one gets to be a Christian and from that whether one gets to go to heaven. This is important to remember.

It's easy to make those opposed to THE GAY into a God Hates Fags caricature. Of course it's made all that much easier because of a tendency to see the complexities of desire and attraction as an absurd simplification called gay or straight, but let's resist the tendency to both caricaturizations. Could that be any less clear? Point being, it's easy to forget that those who imagine there is some thing called GAY and oppose it however it is manifest may do so out of a sincere desire to offer what is best for the one who is gay.

If I supremely care for the condition of your soul- read "I don't want you to go to hell", then I would want to make sure you are not being or doing something that may send you to hell. Forget for a moment that that set up depends on a way of knowing the world at odds with a Gospel narrative, but if I say being and doing gay, whatever that may be, is something that will send you to hell, then the idea of putting up barriers around the possibility of gayness makes sense. Good sense.

It's not hate, at least not the kind of hate that rolls up to campus with a Confederate Nazi flag (seriously- what was up with that guy?). It's a kind of love- a kind of distorted, crazy, self-serving love, but a try at love. That's something, no? And to my more delicate readers I apologize for putting the words but and love so close together.

So it's not hate, not always anyway. But being a distorted, crazy, self-serving love doesn't make it good. Maybe sympathetic, to a degree, maybe understandable, but not good. It is something that ought to be exposed to light, overcome, and redeemed, at least if one buys into being a Christian.

Monster Machine and I Were Briefly Discussing Whether Slipknot Was More Motorhead or The Misfits for Its Attachment to a Certain Comic Teen Aesthetic. What say You?
Sister I'm a Poet- Morrisey
We Are 138- The Misfits
Cosmopolitan- Nine Black Alps
No New Tale to Tell- Love and Rockets
Mr. Hurricane- Beast (If Jamiroquai and The White Stripes had a baby, it would cry like this)
Brazil- Pink Martini
Cut Your Hair- Pavement
Think- Aretha Franklin
Suzie- Boy Kill Boy

When Students Do It It's Called Cheating

Did you know that Augustine's thoughts on sexuality were nuts? No? That's okay, a lot of people don't know what Augustine wrote about matters of sex. Even a lot of Christians, who assume certain things about the history of their tradition don't know what Augustine wrote about matters of sex. That's not a big deal, why should they know?

I mean I could think of good reasons to know what Augustine wrote- actual good theological reasons to be familiar with his writings. Even though he said stuff like an erection "rises up against the soul's decision in disorderly and ugly movements," and that men and women cannot have sex without lust (therefore sin) entering the picture, stuff that just doesn't make sense, his work as a testimony of the transformative power of God in a person's actual existence is amazing. The submission of his intellect to the Word (not word) of God is humbling and inspiring. His intense personal struggle to conform his life to what he understood as a divine measure is beyond... Well it's just beyond.

His disregard for women and sex is a problem but whatever, he was a 4th century Western man, give him a break.

You know what doesn't deserve a break? Our misappropriating his work. How dare we take what he said and use it as an ideological club? Who do we think we are? I mean pretending we can universally apply his historically localized and specific thoughts, that's absurd.

Ah- I'm just kidding, that's what his work is for. I mean what else would we do with it? And so it's perfect that we don't familiarize ourselves with what he actually wrote. It's easier to misapply what was never said in the first place.

It's easier to misapply what was never said in the first place... ?

I just blew my mind man.

Of course it doesn't really make sense to take some 4th century North African Latin dude's thoughts and pretend that they exist as a matter of fact or universal application. I mean that would be like finding the rules to Hungry Hungry Hippos and imagining you could use them to understand and play some other game you came across.

It doesn't make sense but let's do it anyway. And again, when we do it, let's not do it in a well-informed manner. Let's try to be mostly ignorant of what he, and others, let's include others too, let's be mostly ignorant of what they all said and wrote, but pretend it's all part of some cohesive whole, so that when we try to craft some statement about this or that, we can invoke their names, and since their real old, it'll carry their weight.

Maybe.

During my Recording process I suggested that our Faith & Practice's counsel on the issue of sexuality left a lot to be desired. It is generally unclear and buys into some categories and concepts that I think we ought not buy into if we are the people we like to say we are- namely the church.

I still think it is problematic, but at least, it was our statement. I mean, as unclear as it is, one can make the case that it came from our Yearly Meeting, so even if it is unclear and mistaken- it is our lack of clarity and mistake to own. I'm only being a little silly with that last bit. It really is a good thing to make your own mistakes.

But, now we might as well be a subsidiary of the Family Research Council or Exodus International. I mean, judging by the information that keeps finding its way to my inbox and the Gay Panic I've seen, I'd put money on the next F&P counsel on sexuality ('cos I'm sure we'll insist it be there) being a copy and paste job from some Focus on the Family pamphlets.

Is there a "World of At Leasts" part of this? No, or it's hard to see it right now if there is. I mean, I've recently had people try to toss Augustine in my face as a demonstration of the church's consistent teaching on the Dos and Do Not Dos of sex, and I've been told Exodus International is a ministerial resource we ought to use... like it's all one big pile of proof or authority.

I guess I'd just like us to be faithful enough to make our own mistakes.

Or Sometimes Pretending To Be Prepared
Myxomatosis- Radiohead
Gigantic- Pixies
Army of Me- Bjork
All I Ever Wanted- POE Soundtrack
La Danza De Los Viejitos- Mariachi Folklorico
Pure Denizen of the Citizens Band- Frank Black
La Costilla Michoacana- Mariachi Nuevo de Mexico
Won't Get Fooled Again- The Who
Mean Mr. Mustard- The Beatles
This Is The New Shit- Marilyn Manson