10 | April | 2012 | Existential Ennui

Tags

gay rights, GOP, Humor, life in the meadow, poverty, religion, science, social justice, Ted Haggard

This isn’t exactly new news. In fact it was alluded to in Max Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah. But a new study confirms the old, and well, frankly, confirms what we secretly always suspected.

The study done a research team from three universities shows that those who are most vocal in their denunciation of gay folks and their having normal rights, are, yeah, you guessed it, more like to be repressed homosexuals themselves.

They are most likely to have attraction for those of their own sex, especially where such feelings were severely restricted by authoritarian parents. Gays remind them of what they can’t bear to admit about themselves, as it were.

Our thanks to Juanita Jean for the heads up. And some whacked out group in Maine who is fighting against marriage equality, urges its members to refer to same-sex marriage as “sodomy based marriage.” Why some are so ugly I do not know. But then we do know don’t we?

I hit the top of some search engine the other day, and posted visits of like nearly 1,000 on Saturday. It was a post from a year ago on Good Friday. No idea why it peaked any interest. The Internet is just plain weird.

Here in the meadow, things are plugging along. I have pretty much finished with the packing of all but the necessities needed for the next few weeks. I’m fairly generous since I’ve already found I needed that jar of unopened olives that I’d already packed. The POD is ordered and will be here on Monday next. We are starting to look for a car to buy. We have a long list of little things to do, mostly calls to make and short visits like to the bank (things get complicated with you have direct deposit, and with my SS starting in June). But I’m starting to see that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel now.

A couple of weeks ago, Chris Hayes’ UP had a really great discussion about faith and science. Dawkins was on as well as Steve Pinker, both atheists, or agnostics as even Dawkins admits to. Susan Jacoby rounded out that side, with Robert Wright bringing up the more, I would say, nuanced side. Stanley Fish, in the NYTimes, Opinionator, has a really interesting two-part article discussing the issues, here and here. He makes a very thoughtful argument that, while it changes nothing in the determination of scientific reality versus religion, he sets the discussion on a more rational (I think) base.

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this, and rather doubt it is accurate, but I nearly fell off my chair in laughter when I saw it.

It came from the Constant Weader.

It’s an interesting thought experiment.

Now some of you will spend more time in reverie on that possibility of the physical experience, and will miss the fine political statement.

And most of you who do will be men.

Women just have a finer sense of morality and decorum.

But then, I’m not telling you anything new there am I?

Rick Warren never was a middle of the roader. He’s a thinly disguised righty, who harbors the usual right-wing belief system that supports all the Ryanesque harshness as Americanism at it’s best. This is what he said to Jake Tapper a few days ago:

Well certainly the Bible says we are to care about the poor….But there’s a fundamental question on the meaning of “fairness.” Does fairness mean everybody makes the same amount of money? Or does fairness mean everybody gets the opportunity to make the same amount of money? I do not believe in wealth redistribution, I believe in wealth creation.

The only way to get people out of poverty is J-O-B-S. Create jobs. To create wealth, not to subsidize wealth. When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You— you rob them of dignity.

Sounds fairly tame? No. Not at all. First of all, Jesus never suggested that there were limits to “caring for the poor“. And what is fairness? Nobody on the left is suggesting that everyone “make the same amount of money”. We recognize that some are more ambitious, more talented, and more delay gratification in order to educate themselves to the level that will put them in a higher wage bracket.

What does fair opportunity mean? Arguably we have always had that, although the journey may be very arduous for some, extremely so, but there have always been rich people who bucked all the odds and succeeded. And frankly this is what Warren means. And most people can’t achieve under these circumstances. Fairness to us means that everybody pays their fair share without resort to fancy accounting practices that effectively reduce one’s taxes to zero, all the while that the average person is paying a painful amount.

While jobs are everyone’s goal, and frankly I cannot fathom a man who believes that receiving government assistance amounts to being “subsidized wealth”. Show me the wealth in SS benefits and we can talk.

Warren and the Right in general attempt to place the onus of poverty on the impoverished and to help the middle class feel victimized and threatened by efforts to redress the injustice. And they use the Bible to make the middle class the traditional poor that Jesus talked about.

How many times can we remind everyone that Projectionism is at work here.