Antiquitopia

In a recent article in the Atlantic , Noah Berlatsky attempts a comparison between modern discussions of gay marriage and the 19th Century marriage experiments, mentioning Mormons and Shakers but focusing on John Humphrey Noyes's Oneida Community (which, the article omits, is the origin of Oneida silverware, though originally the company made animal traps). As  Jillian Keenan  reiterated last week at  Slate , gay marriage opponents often assert that allowing same-sex marriages will lead us to polygamy and other perversions. It's an odd rhetorical move, inasmuch as, in terms of chronology, the slippery slope from gay marriage to polygamy appears to run in the wrong direction. The major American experiment with multiple wives in one marriage, occurred, after all, in the 19th century with the early Mormon Church. To talk about polygamy, then, doesn't raise the specter of a dystopic future. It points instead to the past. And it also underlines the extent to which marriage ...

From the NYTimes : November 12, 2009 Mormon Support of Gay Rights Statute Draws Praise By KIRK JOHNSON The Mormon church has been a target of vituperation by some gay-rights groups because of its active opposition to same-sex marriage. But on Wednesday, the church was being praised by gay rights activists in Salt Lake City, citadel of the Mormon world, for its open support of a local ordinance banning discrimination against gay men and lesbians in housing and employment. The ordinance, which passed unanimously Tuesday night, made Salt Lake the first city in Utah to offer such protections. While the measure probably had majority backing on the seven-member City Council anyway, the church’s support was seen by gay activists as a thunderclap that would resonate across the state and in the overwhelmingly Mormon legislature, where even subtle shifts in church positions on social issues can swing votes and sentiments. .... In its statement backing the ordinance, the Church of Jesus Christ of...

Huh? Penguins? In China? From Weird News at About.com: Who says China isn't a bastion for Civil Liberties? At least their gay penguins can marry. Two besotted male birds at China's Polarland wildlife park have just waddled down the isle to icy nuptial bliss. And, of course, both partners wore tuxedoes. But like any marriage, behind the live music, revelry and sumptuous servings of herring, there lurked adversity. I'm not just talking about cold feet. Both grooms are, after all, South Pole natives. As Britain's Sun reported, zookeepers once tried to isolate the gay lovebirds because they were stealing heterosexual couples' eggs for their own nest. Finally, officials let them to care for eggs rejected by other mothers. The gays are now considered the zoo's best penguin parents. As a newlywed myself, I say to them, "L'Chaim!" I call on gay zoo animals of the world to take the plunge. You don't need an opposable thumb to tie this kind of knot! .....

The NYTimes has an interesting article on the battle between Church and State in Spain. Spain famously has been a major Catholic stronghold for the past few centuries or so, but now the Vatican is hoping just to maintain a foothold. January 6, 2009 For Vatican, Spain Is a Key Front in Church-State Battle By RACHEL DONADIO VALLADOLID, Spain — The Macías Picavea primary school hardly looks like the seat of revolution. But this unassuming brick building in a sleepy industrial town has become a battleground in an intensifying war between church and state in Spain. In an unprecedented decision here, a judge ruled in November that the public school must remove the crucifixes from classroom walls, saying they violated the “nonconfessional” nature of the Spanish state. Although the Roman Catholic Church was not named in the suit, it criticized the ruling as an “unjust” attack on a historical and cultural symbol — and a sign of the Spanish state’s increasingly militant secularism. If the judg...

Ok...so I thought that Rick Warren's analogy between gay marriage and brother-sister marriage was bizarre. I also thought his analogy between homosexuality and pedophilia ridiculous--unless he is stuck in Periclean Athens. But the award for the strangest homosexuality analogy goes to Pope Benedict XVI: VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction. "(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration. "The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less." The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality "a d...

Some people were worried when Obama and McCain appeared at Saddleback Church for their first public meeting on the same stage months ago during the Presidential campaign...it seemed then mostly due to separation of church and state issues. Now people are upset that Warren is offering a prayer at Obama's inauguration...not because of separation of church and state issues (there is ALWAYS a prayer at these events), but because of Warren's positions on abortion and same-sex marriage. While I personally differ with Warren on these issues also, there are a few things to make clear. Warren is NOT like Dobson or other evangelical leaders. He does not incite divisiveness in the way they do, although he's made some rather crude analogies vis-a-vis gay marriage lately. He does try to create coalitions with people who differ with him on many issues: thus he has been effective working on issues of poverty and HIV/AIDS with people who oppose him on other social issues. Although h...

As my students just learned, the Bible does not support what are often touted as "family values" by conservatives...those same conservatives who look to the Bible to support their claims. What are the family values of the Bible? Largely polygamy, or as my academic advisor, Alan Segal, says, "One man, and as many women as he can pay for." What about Jesus? He changed a lot of things, right? Well, at least in the Bible we have, he was single. Moreover, he said he came to cause internal divisions between families: setting father against children, and vice versa, husband against wife, etc. In fact, Jesus was a single man in his early thirties (most likely) who called similar men in their prime to leave their wives and join him. Paul was also single. And, well, Paul suggested marriage only for those who could not contain their lust. Newsweek , in fact, picks up much of what I am saying here: Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at thei...

USA Today released that they did a poll to figure out what groups voted for Proposition 8, the proposition to ban gay marriage in California. And guess what they found out? They discovered that the primary determinants were economic status and religious affiliation. REALLY?!? Religious views played a part in people's stance on gay marriage? I think everyone assumed that some religious reasons stood behind the constitutional ban that, therefore, ironically puts an interesting twist on the "wall of separation" between Church and State. I quote: The ban drew its strongest support from both evangelical Christians and voters who didn't attend college, according to results released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California. Education, religious tendencies, and economic status seem to be the strongest factors then. Age and race, interestingly, did not play a statistically significant role. But, when breaking down religious affiliation: 85% of evangelica...

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die So, with a guest appearance by Jesus, who says spread love and not hate, and Neil Patrick Harris noting the money to be made of gay marriage (and gay divorce), here is a musical plea to repeal Proposition 8.