Sex In The Public Square - LGBTQ - Comments

Thanks and Apologies

Lou FCD — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 04:36:17 -0700

As Michael has said, thank you for correcting me. It was a stupid mistake, and one which I will endeavor to not repeat.

And thank you Michael, for addressing it in my absence.

Apology

Michael — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 06:09:11 -0700

Thank you Emily, for pointing that out. Please accept our apologies for the oversight. We have now corrected the original text.

Hi. Thanks for posting

queen emily — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:03:55 -0700

Hi. Thanks for posting about this. As you rightly point out, much of the violence against trans women is against trans sex workers, overwhelmingly trans women of colour.

Oh, and just a small note about trans names and pronouns. It's not generally appropriate to refer to the pre-transition name. So, just Ebony Whitaker when referring to her. And though, her sister did use the pronoun "he" in her quote, in your commentary immediately after, "she" would have been better. The media does it all the time, but it contravenes APA reporting rules as well as common courtesy.

Cheers.

"Compassionate condemnation"

Elizabeth — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:20:57 -0700

While I was with family in Canada I had a chance to read a conservative Christian publication (the name of which is escaping me right now) and it drew an interesting distinction between what I'd call compassionate condemnation and hatred. The author of the article was arguing that real Christians can do as the aphorism says and "love the sinner but hate the sin." The author believed that a real Christian would love his gay son, or brother, or neighbor, and would work hard at showing him love not by accepting him but by trying to draw him back to the Church through openness and "forgiveness" while never letting go of the fact that the behavior of same sex sexual activity is sinful. The author was careful to point out how different this is from the hateful actions or words of those like the Rev. Simons quoted above. Yet I compassionate condemnation is still condemnation, and whether loving in its motivation or not still results in the same rejection of those who would accept their full sexuality.

Holy. Crap.

JanieBelle — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:55:08 -0700

What do you even say to that movie?

I am without words and aghast.

What a great/horrific find!

Elizabeth — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 18:42:04 -0700

What a great find! Did that come from archive.org? It was so important to be reminded that not so long ago homosexuality was framed as an illness "Not visible like smallpox" ... ! Can you imagine!

And of course today I got an email from about the nomination of Dr. James Holsinger to be Surgeon General. Holsinger in the early 90s produced a report, reputedly an analysis of medicaland academic studies to that point, finding that homosexuality was pathological and dangerous, likely to lead to illness or death.

How far have we come? Quite far by some measures. Some now say that "civil unions are the floor in the same-sex marriage debate," though while that's porgress it feels a bit hollow to me. And at the same time we're considering for AG a person whose research in the 90s -- 2 decades after the APA demedicalized homosexuality -- finds it to be a pathology that leads to illness or death.