Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Friday, October 3, 2008

God is Love

I have to work now, so just a link: Arthur Silber.

My imaginary god (unlike everyone else's imaginary god) loves everyone equally. God is Jesus is God, in Christianity. Jesus did not exclude ANYONE from his love. If you hate gays you hate Jesus. If gays squick you out, so does Jesus. He is both human and God, and to hate your fellow man is to hate God. There is no excuse, ever.

And a special note for Megan McArdle: your attitude towards gay marriage would make my Jesus weep with grief and pain. Whatsoever you do to the "least" of My brothers, that you do unto Me.

ADDED: Miss Megan's explanation why gay marriage might affect her own status hetero marriage.

To which social conservatives reply that institutions have a number of complex
ways in which they fulfill their roles, and one of the very important ways in
which the institution of marriage perpetuates itself is by creating a romantic
vision of oneself in marriage that is intrinsically tied into expressing one's
masculinity or femininity in relation to a person of the opposite sex; stepping
into an explicitly gendered role. This may not be true of every single marriage,
and indeed undoubtedly it is untrue in some cases. But it is true of the
culture-wide institution. By changing the explicitly gendered nature of marriage
we might be accidentally cutting away something that turns out to be a crucial
underpinning.

To which, again, the other side replies "That's
ridiculous! I would never change my willingness to get married based on whether
or not gay people were getting married!"

Now, economists hear this sort
of argument all the time. "That's ridiculous! I would never start working fewer
hours because my taxes went up!" This ignores the fact that you may not be the
marginal case. The marginal case may be some consultant who just can't justify
sacrificing valuable leisure for a new project when he's only making 60 cents on
the dollar. The result will nonetheless be the same: less economic activity.
Similarly, you--highly educated, firmly socialised, upper middle class you--may
not be the marginal marriage candidate; it may be some high school dropout in
Tuscaloosa. That doesn't mean that the institution of marriage won't be weakened
in America just the same.


You see, if some teenage bigot in Tuscaloosa, Alabama says, "Damn, them gays are gettin' married? That's disgustin'. That settles it, Tiffany. You may be knocked up but we ain't gettin' married now!" then society will fall and Megan's potential marriage might lose some of its status as Extra Special Holy Pageantry Day of Me. So, no marriage for you! Just marriage for Megan, who deserves it because she was born straight. If you are born gay, forget it, you're not good enough. Or at least not good enough for Megan.

UPDATE: Unfortunately Megan's link no longer works. Try http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005244.html

6 comments:

Susan of Texas said...

And both think they are adored and respected! Unreal.

McArdle said that she doesn't really have anything against gay marriage as long as it doesn't harm heterosexual marriage. If it does, too bad, then it shouldn't be allowed. (Or, more accurately, she would tell gays that she has judged the matter and she has decided if they are or are not allowed to marry.)

I'll add that link, and a quote from it with Megan's explanation on why it might harm marriage. Needless to say, it's an idiotic reason.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for linking that; I think you might have posted it before, but it's hard to tell one idiotic post from Megan apart from the next. What she wrote barely made any sense, but she really has a very stupid vision of the institution of marriage.

Somebody really needs to sit her down and explain that one of the most important functions of a journalist is to write plainly and make their point abundantly clear with prosaic language. That's not to say the writing should be dumb or boring, but I think the key to Megan fooling so many people is that she writes in flowery circles that makes her appear to some as a person who knows what they are talking about, when she's actually quite dumb.

Susan of Texas said...

Yes, instead of doing her job--making economics understandable to the lay person--she uses techinical terms (usually without defining them) to make herself look smarter.

aimai said...

Jesus (and I say this advisedly) that's some utterly incoherent, stupid talk from the fake economist. Why isn't there a "free market" in marriage ideas? What's with all this "marriage stalinism" that miss libertarianism offers us as an excuse for her patently moronic ideas about what marriage is for and about?

aimai

PS. I've encountered the same stuff as I have been lurking on some christianist women's blogs. But they are upfront, really, I reduce their perspective to this:

"Jesus loves me, but he hates you." They become explicitly angry when people call them on this shit and even say that they detest the "god is love" crowd because its obvious that god isn't love, that's just an excuse people use to do what they want. God, they assure me, hates people in general and if we take the bait and hate him back? well, he gets the last word so there. Truly, these people are sick. But what is macardles' excuse? she doesn't even believe in an angry god. She's a straight up libertarian with no real religiosity in her.

aimai

Anonymous said...

Since when is it the government's job to promote stereotypical "romantic visions," anyway?

And is she really claiming that women can't "express" or experience their "femininity" except in relation to a man?

Megan McArdle, sexist twit.

Susan of Texas said...

Aimai, she has no compassion. Since we get that form our parents, I suspect that she has no compassion for herself as well; no forgiveness or sympathy, just criticism and turmoil.

Julia Gray, I believe Megan sees her feminity as a commodity, which is assigned a monetary value and carefully monitored for a rise or fall.