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Showing posts with the label Hannah Arendt

Gay Marriage & Totalitarianism

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We have discussed gay marriage in terms of theology and morality.  Now let us consider it in political terms.   What kind of government is it that takes to Image via Wikipedia  itself the power and the authority to make such a radical change in the institution of marriage ?   George Weigel makes the connection between gay marriage and totalitarianism: As analysts running the gamut from Hannah Arendt to Leszek Kolakowski understood, modern totalitarian systems were, at bottom, attempts to remake reality by redefining reality and remaking human beings in the process. Coercive state power was essential to this process, because reality doesn’t yield easily to remaking, and neither do people. In the lands Communism tried to remake, the human instinct for justice — justice that is rooted in reality rather than ephemeral opinion — was too strong to change the way tastemakers change fashions in the arts. Men and women had to be coerced into accepting, however sullenly, the Communist New

Crying Homophobia or bigot

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Image via Wikipedia No Homophobia  - ...crying “ homophobia ” is a cheap calumny , a crypto- totalitarian bully’s smear that impresses no serious person…the net effect of the pressures now being mounted by the Times and others — a redefinition of “ marriage ” that puts Christian communities and their pastors outside the boundaries of the law for purposes of marriage — will be to reduce state-recognized “marriage” to a sad joke.  As analysts running the gamut from Hannah Arendt to Leszek Kolakowski understood, modern totalitarian systems were, at bottom, attempts to remake reality by redefining reality and remaking human beings in the process.  Coercive state power was essential to this process, because reality doesn’t yield easily to remaking, and neither do people. Related articles Gay marriage & totalitarianism (geneveith.com) No Homophobia (nationalreview.com) How to Confront Prejudice, Racism, Sexism and Homophobia (socyberty.com) On Traditional Marriage: Whe

Homosexuality is individual preferences above all morals

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Image via Wikipedia As a political issue, the debates over homosexual rights represent a serious conceptual and moral issue.  By making sexual identity a public matter, the  gay /lesbian/ bisexual/transgender movement fulfills  Hannah Arendt 's prophesy (in her book,  The Human Condition ) that traditionally private matters will become socialized in modernity.  On a deeper level, the prohomosexual lobby, which seeks equal legal rights to nonheterosexual marriage s and an end to all  discrimination  on sexual orientation and activities grounds, reflects  James Davison Hunter 's " progressive " mindset (in his book  Culture Wars ), which places personal individual preference above all objective and traditional moral standards and sees ethics as historically and personally relative.  This is contrasted, by Hunter, with the more  conservative  "orthodox" perspective that rejects homosexuality on traditional moral, religious, and  natural-law  grounds. In con