Nellie McKay
Homophobia is a Socially Constructed Sin
What I mainly want to urge at the moment is that homophobia is a socially constructed sin, one that is built into us as part of our socialization. Part of what makes human beings socially ‘challenged’ is our limited imagination. We feel that we can mount and manage only a limited number of social roles. We are schooled to fill a selection of these from earliest childhood. In how many ways did the powers that be, the adults in charge of us send the message: we will be allowed a share of the common good, if and only if we are perceived to pull our oar. Societies reasonably feel that they have a desperate interest in institutionalizing ‘the means of reproduction’. In Jewish law, commandments orbit around the desideratum of maximizing reproductive potential to secure the perpetuation of Jewish tribes. Bestiality and male homosexual intercourse waste valuable seed. Rape and adultery undermine the common good by stealing fields in which other tribal males are entitled to sow.
“Shaking the Foundations: LGBT Bishops and Blessings in the Fullness of Time,” a paper delivered by the Rev. Canon Marilyn McCord Adams at the Chicago Consultation, Seabury-Western Seminary, December 5, 2007.
There hasn’t been a lot of gay bashing in this year’s campaign, but I imagine once the primaries are over there will be more of it. And with all of the talk about the Christian right and which, uh, candidate they prefer, it’s nice to be reminded of other, less rigid, Christianities. Adams offers a cogent, even moving defense of tolerance. Perfect on a cold, snowy Monday morning. Thumbs up for the Daily Episcopalian blog.
a legacy of languages, poems, histories
We own a legacy of languages, poems, histories, and it is not one that will ever be exhausted. It is there, always.
We have a bequest of stories, tales from the old storytellers, some of whose names we know, but some not. The storytellers go back and back, to a clearing in the forest where a great fire burns, and the old shamans dance and sing, for our heritage of stories began in fire, magic, the spirit world. And that is where it is held, today.
Ask any modern storyteller, and they will say there is always a moment when they are touched with fire, with what we like to call inspiration and this goes back and back to the beginning of our race, fire, ice and the great winds that shaped us and our world.
Nobel Lecture, Dorris Lessing, December 7, 2007
I can’t overstate the influence Dorris Lessing has had on how I see the world. There were days, even weeks, at several points in my life when I was simply possessed by her language and ideas. There was the Golden Notebook, of course, but also the Four Gated City. There are the series of science fiction novels, Canopus in Argos: Archives, then the Diary of Jane Somers,and The Good Terrorist. I didn’t read half of the dozens of things she wrote, I could never keep up. She is always years ahead of all of us.
What is the Story of Stuff?
From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
by The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard
It often feels a little bit like a well done geography film, but that may just be because it is not pitched to my demographic. In any case, it’s an effective way to speak ‘consumer to consumer’ about the production processes of U.S. capitalism. I particularly like the way the site and video is organized around the ‘material economy’: Extraction, Production, Distribution, Consumption, and Disposal.
The problem, as always, is that consumption cannot fix consumption. You can counter capitalist marketing with green marketing but the effect is necessarily limited. In the end, you have to reconsider property. If your cell phone ends up in the dump, pouring toxic chemicals into the soil and then eventually the water, that’s not your problem, it’s everyone’s problem. There’s nothing private in that sort of property.
The limits of the approach are clearest when it comes to the list of organizations included on both the resources page and the “Another Way” call to action. The resources list is remarkable mostly becuase it’s easy to forget how many advocate groups exist. It’s an interesting exercise, too, to group them according to the ‘material economy.’ model. Groups working to protect the Amazon are under extraction, for example; groups working on foods issues under consumption.
What’s missing, of course, is a direct critical challenge to assumptions about property. A different idea of property, for example, might demand cradle to grave responsibility for certain particularly hazardous products. A car, for example, is full of all sorts of materials that should never be allowed in the dump. There are also no unions on the list, and no challenge to the work day, which is, after all, the very heart of the consumer economy.