Re: [OT] The record industry, RIAA and US law

["Michael M." <mcubed@slashmail.org>]

On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 20:21 -0400, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote:
> On Thu, May 17, 2007 at 04:25:26PM -0700, Michael M. wrote:
> > 
> > Given the current status of gay marriage in the U.S., we plainly do not
> > have an unambiguous right to the pursuit of happiness -- not when the
> > President, playing to the typically bigoted and intolerant Christian
> > base of the Republican Party, has proposed a Constitutional amendment
> > restricting marriage to opposite-sex partners, in the same way that the
> > majority of states once restricted marriage to members of the same race,
> > also because of Christian prejudices.  ("Almighty God created the races
> > white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and he placed them on separate
> > continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there
> > would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the
> > races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix." -- from the
> > ruling upholding Virginia's anti-miscegenation law, which the Supreme
> > Court overturned.)
> > 
> A few points:
> 
>  - There is no *scripture* that can be used in support of preventing
>    interracial marriage.  The words of the judge that you quoted are
>    certainly *not* the words of God.


That doesn't seem to matter to the Christian right, who regularly used
religious justifications about what, in their view, God intended the
natural order of things to be to justify segregation, and slavery before
that.  Most of the most vehement opponents of gay marriage on the
Christian right were also opponents of interracial marriage and
proponents of segregation -- from Strom Thurmond through the recently
deceased Jerry Falwell.  This is hardly a coincidence; it represents a
way of looking at the world, an ideology that is inherently monotheist,
whether grounded in scripture or not.  What there is or isn't scriptural
justification for doesn't matter to these people; they can bend and
twist their religion to suit any preconceived prejudice they please.

Given that Jesus Christ, supposedly this great moral teacher, never
explicitly condemned the practice of slavery, and the Bible is rife with
it, this is pretty easy.


>  - There *is* scripture that clearly illustrates that God hates
>    homosexual relationships:
> 
>      "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of
>      them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to
>      death; their blood shall be upon them." Leviticus 20:13


I don't believe Leviticus is the law of the land, else we would also be
putting to death children who curse their parents and stoning people who
wear cotton/poly blend fabrics.  I find it odd that Christians who use
Leviticus to condemn homosexuality seem to have no problems shaving,
eating pork or doing other things prohibited in Leviticus.  So you're
saying you agree that homosexuals should be put to death, but a man who
sleeps with a slave woman acquired for another man should be punished
less severely because she was a slave, as it says in Leviticus?  How
many of your own (female, of course) slaves have you slept with?

What?  No slaves?  How unchristian of you!

Actually, that's the least of what I find odd about Christianity and
many of it's adherents.  But it doesn't really matter, because I think
people ought to be free to believe whatever nonsense they want -- the
Earth is 6,000 years old; people can rise from the dead; werewolves;
vampires; a great magic man in the sky (or wherever heaven is supposed
to be) who knows all, sees all, and is responsible for everything; the
Flying Spaghetti Monster.  It's no skin off my nose.  I'm sick of having
those beliefs shoved down my throat, however, and sick of those beliefs
being used to deny others their own personal pursuit of happiness.

When I was a child, I remember my mother (who was, at the time,
something of a racist) tsk-tsking at the sight of an interracial couple
walking by with their quite young children as we waited for my dad in a
parking lot.  She made some comment to the effect of "I don't care what
they do with each other, but it's so unfair to the children."  Even at
age 8 or so, I knew there was some flaw in her "logic," though I really
couldn't define what it was.  But I remember looking at the kids, one of
whom was an infant and the other maybe 2 or 3, and thinking, "they look
okay to me."

The other day, I saw this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gm9mq3ORpX4

Same arguments; same bullshit; same Christian ugliness and lies.  Though
at least my mom was never *that* inarticulate.

Then there's this:
http://www.dailypressandargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070510/NEWS01/705100316/1002

Which is a good illustration of how this Christian bigotry affects
everyone else.  I will certainly think of this boy the next time
Christians claim to care about the health and fate of children, when
they have no compunction about trying to take an autistic child's health
care benefits -- the exact same benefits the child would get if his
parents were a heterosexual married couple.


>  - Why the virtiol against Bush?  What about the amendent proposed by
>    Steny Hoyer (a *Democrat*) two years ago that would repeal the
>    two-term limit for serving as president?  Clearly he wants another
>    term of George W. Bush administration.  BTW, Bush did not propose the
>    amendment.  Someone in congress did.  Bush gave his endorsement.


I could give you a long list of proposals by members of both parties I
was not/am not in favor of.  That would be somewhat wide-ranging and not
necessarily directly related to any person's pursuit of happiness.  I
could also put together a list of objectionable laws signed by President
Clinton, at least some of which seem to be supported by his wife in her
campaign.  Again, beside the point.  I'm not terribly partisan; I've at
times been registered Republican, then Democrat, now Independent,
because both parties basically suck these days, at least in a lot of
places.  All politics is local, but the President is supposed to be the
President for the whole country, not only for those who share his
religious beliefs.  He's not supposed to support or endorse
discrimination against any particular group of people.  We've had plenty
of Christian presidents who've lived up to that standard; Bush has not.


>  - What about how three of the seven times that amendments were proposed
>    that would invalidate Roe V. Wade and make abortion illegal it was
>    propsed by Democrats?  Were *they* pandering to "typically bigoted
>    and intolerant Christian base" of the Democratic party?


What do you think?


-- 
Michael M. ++ Portland, OR ++ USA
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions
of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to
dream." --S. Jackson