After seeing a New Yorker cover of Bert and Ernie of Sesame Street watching the Supreme Court decision, Protein Wisdom suddenly grasps the real gay/liberal agenda (not a direct link, but you can click through): By presenting same-sex friendship as Obviously Gay, liberals can “Target same-sex friends and start whisper campaigns about their ‘real’ behavior. If the targets protest, call them homophobic bigots for thinking there is anything wrong with being gay lovers.”
I’ve read this several times and I still can’t see how exactly this would advance any sort of gay agenda. Of course, people do make sweeping assumptions at times about who’s gay or straight, but that’s just human error not part of a plan. And homophobes are just as likely to start a “whisper campaign” if they think someone isn’t conforming to gender norms.
The blog also quotes a commenter saying “The Left wants us God-botherers discredited and humiliated and as silent as the tomb. Pushing SSM is about the niftiest way to do that.” Because, of course, we couldn’t possibly believe that same-sex marriage is a good thing. There has to be some sinister agenda, and of course it’s to crush the poor, oppressed Christians. Because what could be more unfair than having people—gasp—criticize them? Bad enough that in the fantasy world anti-gay activists dwell in, gay protesters already treat Christians as brutally as the South treated civil rights marchers.
•Meanwhile, we have Rand Paul and anti-gay activist Bryan Fischer claiming that the next step is, surprise!, bestiality, polygamy and incest. I’m beginning to think this bull is just a variation of the old right-wing Christian cliche that if you’re not Christian, obviously you have no moral center. You can’t be moral (something Slacktivist discusses here). So it can’t possibly be that you think “gay people have the right to marry but raping a child is bad”—if you reject Christian morality (or more specifically, the morality of right-wing, anti-gay Christians), you must reject any sexual standards whatsoever.
•If you’re a government worker or contractor and you have money troubles, frustrations with work, frustrations with home life, the White House wants your co-workers to report you. The brochure for this new policy (which is an attempt to crack down on leakers not only in Defense or Homeland Security but FDA, FHA, Peace Corps …) it is better to report “overzealously” than not at all. In other words, if you’re not sure your co-worker is guilty, report him just in case.
As Digby points out at the second link, this is really creepy. The scope of potential problem behaviors is huge, and this is the same attitude that got so many people fired during the McCarthy era: better to blacklist someone than be accused of hiring a Communist.
•For years, Phyliss Schafly told women that feminism was bad, equal rights were bad, and their job was to stay home and have babies … all the while building a personal career as a political activist (it’s the Caitlin Flanagan cognitive dissonance again). She’s still in the game and here she discusses how nobody got government aid during the Great Depression; nobody goes hungry in the United States; fathers should be the providers; we shouldn’t let in so many immigrants because they don’t vote Republican and they pop out too many illegitimate babies. Oh, and there are no laws against same-sex marriage, so what the gay agenda is really demanding is that people accept gay marriage even though it’s morally wrong.
It is depressing that someone so full of shit, ignorance and bigotry has any standing at all.
•Slacktivist points out that choosing the middle ground doesn’t make you right. As I’ve observed before, the assumption that the two poles in women’s rights debates are “Women should have equality” and “men should rule” does not prove that “women should have some rights but not full equality” is the default sensible position.
Monthly Archives: June 2013
My god, liberals are even corrupting Bert and Ernie!
Filed under Politics
A Richard Matheson film festival!
Vincent Price is THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964) when a virus reduces the rest of humanity to shambling vampires; alone in a city of the undead he spends his days staking the vamps and stockpiling garlic and mirrors (“They can’t bear their own reflection.”), the nights holed up in his house as they try to attack. This is a virtual one-man show for Price for much of the running time and he makes the most of it; well worth catching. “Building any new society is never charming, nor pleasant.”
THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973) starts slow, but soon becomes gripping as Christian medium Pamela Franklin, skeptic parapsychologist Clive Revill (“It’s just mindless energy.”), wife Gayle Hunnicut and psychic survivor Roddy McDowell investigate “the Everest of haunted house” only to discover the resident ghost’s psychic and physical attacks may be more than they can handle. Excellent, though the explanation for the ghost’s fury is very much in the Cinema of Isolation mode (listing the man’s alcoholism as further proof of his monstrous ways is also a little odd). “There’s is not one single thing in the Bible, not one phenomenon, that is not seen today!”
DUEL (1971) started out as a TV screenplay but when Matheson couldn’t get anyone to greenlight it, he turned it into a story (his last short story—he said it took the theme of Man vs. Overwhelming Odds so far he didn’t see the point in writing more), then turned back into this TV movie (Steven Spielberg’s first film credit after several TV shows). Dennis Weaver plays a businessman driving cross-country to an appointment only to engage in a game of who’ll-pass-who with a trucker—only the trucker takes Weaver passing him very personally and does his best to force him into a fatal crash. It’s to Matheson and Spielberg’s credit that they could take such a slight premise, stretch it to full length and not leave anything lagging; Weaver also gets credit for his excellent performance in what, like Last Man on Earth, is largely a one-man show. A period piece now (pay phones, gas station attendants who fill ‘er up, the push-button radio) but well worth watching; it would double bill well with Jaws (the driver being the landbound equivalent of a killer shark) or the Death Car portion of Grindhouse. “All of a sudden everything you thought you knew is hanging from strings.”
(While I didn’t watch the Trilogy of Terror anthology), based on Matheson’s short stories, I highly recommend it, if only for the third story, which turns up on a lot of “movie moments that most scared me” lists).
Moving on from Matheson, SAVED (2004) stars Jena Malone as a devout Christian teen whose unplanned pregnancy (the result of trying to cure her boyfriend’s gayness) turns her friends and teachers from loyal and supporting into judgmental creeps. I’d thought this would be right up my alley, but it doesn’t work for me at all; I think the problem is that under the Christian overlay, it’s a stock high school comedy about the outcasts winning over the cool kids. With Macauley Culkin as a paraplegic, Mandy Moore as the Alpha Christian and Mary-Louise Parker as Malone’s Mom. “Lord God, I know I’m not supposed to ask for specifics.”
Filed under Movies
Books
THE BATTLE OF BLAIR MOUNTAIN: The Story of America’s Largest Labor Uprising by Robert Shogan tells the nonfiction side of the struggle John Sayles dramatized in Matewan, a grimly familiar account of mine owners doing everything legal and illegal to crush the union movement in West Virginia, including murder, eviction, and enlisting legal and political power on their side. This was made simpler in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution and the Palmer raids, as everyone was wildly terrified of the threat of Red Subversion, so claims the union had a sinister agenda seemed all too pluasible. As drama, this would be rather inconclusive (realizing the odds against them are overwhelming, the militants just peter out—which may explain the downbeat end of Matewan), but certainly absorbing as history.
CATCHING FIRE is, of course Book 2 of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy as Katniss discovers her defiance of the Capitol has made President Snow very, very, very unhappy and become the spark for increasing levels of civil disobedience. It’s therefore not that startling when the rules change and she and Peeta get dragged back in for a new round of Games. A solid follow-up, though I’m curious if Collins can pull off a hat trick (once open rebellion breaks out, I assume it’ll be less fresh than the more restricted maneuvering here).
THE LOST CITY OF Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann, chronicles the interrelated stories of Percy Fawcett, a British explorer who disappeared in the Amazon seeking El Dorado (or more accurately the city he believed the source of the myth), the countless expeditions who followed him (many coming to very bad ends) and Grann’s own decision to journey up the Amazon and see if he could learn Fawcett’s fate. I was a little wary Grann would turn this into the excuse for a travelogue (I hate books that use the nominal topic mostly as an excuse for travel stories) but he keeps his own experiences carefully tied to the subject of his story. His conclusion is that Fawcett and his son did indeed die mid-journey, though the cause may never be known—and that Fawcett wasn’t far off in believing the Amazon could support a true civilization. Grann does an excellent job portraying the inhospitability of the Amazonian rain forest (it’s understandable why a lost city there seemed so incredible to Europeans), and the excitement of mapping the world back in the days when Fawcett was exploring. Very good.
Graphic Novels
BATMAN: Ego is a collection of stories by Darwyn Cooke in which Bruce Wayne battles his own inner self, Selina recruits allies for a big crime caper and Batman hunts down the murderers who left a young boy crying beside his parents (based on a 1970s story, Night of the Stalker). The latter is the best; Selina’s story is a bit too much a straight crime thriller (as I’ve mentioned before, crime comics usually don’t work for me) and the first story is wildly pretentious.
Jeff Lemire’s TALES FROM THE FARM isn’t my cup of tea either, but it has a definite charm to it as a young orphan spends an uneasy year with his uncle, while bonding with an eccentric hockey-player who shares the kid’s fondness for comics. Pleasant enough, though I’m not sure what to make of the ending.
ALL-STAR SUPERMAN vol. 2 wraps up Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s series as a dying Superman visits the Bizarro world, encounters ancient Kryptonian astronauts and tries to convince Luthor to reform (“You always said you’d produce wonders if you weren’t fighting me.”). As Mark Waid says in the introduction, this capture the idea of Superman as an inspirational figure very well—a fine follow-up to the first collection
THE ASTOUNDING WOLF-MAN Vol 3, by Robert Kirkman and Jason Howard has the struggling super-hero framed and convicted for his wife’s murder, which leaves him fending off cons who hate super-heroes, getting dragooned into a break-out and learning the treacherous vampire Zechariah has turned the Wolf-Man’s daughter against him. Like the first volume, this isn’t a must-read for me, but it is fun (though the brief crossover with Image’s Invincible comic left me rather confused).
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW? by Brian Fies kicks off with the young hero and his father visiting the 1939 World’s Fair and marveling at the technological breakthroughs in the world ahead, then follows them decade by decade into the 1970s (Fies admits he keeps his protagonist young by the same convention by which Robin stayed in his teens so long) as our social and technological dreams change. A very good look at how our visions of the future have changed along with our technology, though the upbeat reassurances of how awesome the future will be felt more canned than convincing.
EARTH 2: The Gathering by James Robinson and Nicola Scott launches the DC Reboot’s version of the Justice Society (now back on Earth 2, separate from the main DC Earth): the invasion that brings the JLA together on “Earth 1” leads on this Earth to the death of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Now it’s five years later and a new generation of heroes emerges, but Earth 2 is much less friendly to its champions (Green Lantern—gay here—Flash, Hawkwoman, Atom) than Earth 1. Further removed from the old JSA than the reboot JLA is from its predecessors, but one of the better Reboot books; the costumes are a poor substitute for the originals though.
WORLD’S FINEST: The Lost Daughters of Earth 2 by Paul Levitz and George Perez reveals Supergirl and Robin (also female) survived the death of their parents but got dimension-warped to Earth 1 (where they operate as Power Girl and Huntress). This leaves them the triple challenge of building new lives, continuing to fight crime and trying to find a way back to Earth 2. Another good one (cover art by George Perez, all rights with current holder)
UNWRITTEN: The Wound by Mike Carey and Peter Gross follows up on Pullman’s scheme to destroy Leviathan in War of Words: with Leviathan gone, our ability to deal with fiction is fading, new cults are springing up trying to explain it and Tommy and Savoy are doing their best to staunch the wound. Savoy, however, is increasingly bothered by the idea he’s just a supporting character with Tommy pulling his strings … Not their best, but effectively shifts gears after the previous book’s apocalypse. The explanation for Didg’s resistance to story didn’t work for me at all, though.
I exceeded my limits, but did it do any good?
Or was it one of those weeks life just smashes me down despite my best efforts?
(Cover by Mike Sekowsky and Murphy Anderson, all rights with current holder. Source for all the covers I post is Mike’s Amazing World of DC Comics).
So as I mentioned last week, I decided to shoot for the Demand Media 125 articles-approved-a-month bonus. I started the week needing 28 more; to give myself some extra leeway against system glitches, rewrites and other problems, I batted out 10 on Monday, 10 on Tuesday and eight on Wednesday. Then five extra on Thursday, just in case one of those others falls through (and one did. Normally I’d go ahead and redo it, but the rewrite to fix my mistakes would be very complicated, and I’m wiped, so I may let it slide).
Unfortunately, it may be futile. There was indeed a glitch on the copy-editing side of things, so the process of approving my articles (and anyone else’s) has slowed to a crawl. I may make the quota; then again, I may not.
Given the month’s other bonuses, I’ll still come out ahead by doing so many this month, and I’ll make up the lost fiction time in July. But not getting the extra money after the stress of getting the articles in (and believe me, doing 10 in a day is a lot of pressure to put on myself) would be ultra-frustrating.
I have been making it up to myself by goofing off starting yesterday afternoon; the only work I’ve tackled is one or two Demand rewrites (less tricky than the one I’m thinking of passing up). The weekend should be similarly light.
Feels good.
And it is good to prove to myself that despite the relatively laid-back approach I have to my work (I work hard, but without a deadline, I’m rarely compelled to Get Shit Done ASAP), I can crack the whip on myself when the need is there.
Filed under Nonfiction, Personal, Writing
Man of Steel Movie of Kleenex II (spoilers!)
As I said in Part One, Superman killing Zod is the climax of the film, the end of the long battle against the Kryptonians attempt to remake Earth into New Krypton. And it doesn’t work.
Part of that is personal. Superman’s commitment to not killing is part of what makes him distinctive. It’s an example of the moral choices that make him super (as I noted in Part One). Though as this is only “movie Superman” I’m less bothered by it.
And you can certainly argue whether Superman could have found an alternative (I suspect this is one reason there’s no kryptonite in the movie—it would make it easier to take Zod down), or whether he was morally justified. But dramatically it still doesn’t work.
As others have pointed out, if you’re going to set up killing Zod as this big, traumatic moment, an act of desperation, you need to start out establishing that Superman has a code against killing. Or that his top priority is protecting life. And they don’t. Sure, we show him saving lives a lot in the early part of the film, and that’s cool, but during the big fight scenes, all he does is fight. There’s no attempt to say, rescue people caught in the crashing buildings or to shift the fight away from Metropolis to somewhere less populated (in many ways, it’s like they worked Superman into the template for a big summer alien-invasion movie). This doesn’t have to get in the way of the action: it’s a standard super-villain tactic to throw bystanders into peril, then clobber the hero while he has to save her (Faora gloats about Superman’s morality being a weakness but doesn’t really exploit it). There’s no indication that for this Superman, as opposed to the comics version, life is a priority.
Second, there’s no payoff. The creators have said they want this moment to explain why Superman doesn’t kill (apparently he can’t just believe it’s wrong) but a wail of despair doesn’t really establish that. As David Grossman points out in the book On Killing, lots of soldiers are shaken up when they have to kill someone. The response isn’t to swear off, it’s to rationalize what they did and how they were justified.
Superman could have said something to Gen. Swanwick in the aftermath, about how he’s not going to kill someone—he’ll find another way, even if it kills him. Swanwick could have asked whether Superman intends to kill again. But no, it’s never followed up on.
(Likewise, Clark showing his powers to the other kids never does pay off, except in that mean-spirited scene with Pa I talked about earlier).
It’s supposed to be the payoff for the whole film, and it fails miserably. Elliott Maggin’s Miracle Monday (novel from the early 1980s) did much better with the issue: it establishes early on that Superman doesn’t kill and shows what he’s willing to sacrifice to avoid taking an innocent life (which Zod, of course, wasn’t). Even John Byrne’s 1980s story where Superman kills Zod worked better: the decision was more traumatic and Superman had a hard time dealing with his actions.
Last, but not least:
•What is the point in Superman becoming Clark Kent, journalist? As the military already knows he’s Clark Kent, how exactly is this going to foll them (which he asserts it will). Lois knowing, on the other hand, I’m fine with, but the idea this is a “secret” identity is ridiculous here.
•Enough with retelling Superman’s origin. In recent years we’ve seen it retold in the Superman animated series, Lois and Clark, Smallville and now here, plus comics retellings in Earth One, Secret Origin and Birthright. I doubt anyone in the audience doesn’t already know who Superman is, and there’s lots of other stories to tell. So tell them.
Man of Steel, Movie of Kleenex? (lots of spoilers. Be warned)
There is a lot to like in the new Superman film, MAN OF STEEL, but I don’t think there’s enough.
The best thing is the casting. I think Henry Cavill makes an excellent, thoroughly believable Superman, and Amy Adams is outstanding as Lois (Laurence Fishbourne and Christopher Melloni in supporting roles are also very good). The F/X are terrific and make the super-battles great to watch. Superman’s joy the first time he flies is one of the few upbeat moments in the film. Russell Crowe redeems his awful performance in Les Mis with a good turn as Jor-El.
Now, the bad:
•Back when Superman Returns was in development limbo, Kevin Smith (who was considered as screenwriter at one point) said some people at Warner Brothers were convinced that since the Batman movies were dark, gritty and successful, Superman should be dark and gritty too. Here, they’ve got their wish; as my friend Ross says, Batman Begins was more of a laugh-riot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they avoided the camp of the first Chris Reeves movie, but Superman doesn’t work for me as dark (or with the emphasis on Superman showing humanity the way to be better than we are).
The scenes with Kevin Costner as Pa Kent embody this. In one flashback, Pa rips into Clark for revealing his powers to save a busload of his classmates. Clark asks if he should have let them die and Pa’s response is well, maybe he should have. Because keeping the secret is the only way to protect himself.
No way. I could see Pa lecturing Clark (e.g., “You have to find a way to help them in secret.”) but actually telling Clark to let a kid die (I’ve read several arguments he’s not saying that but yes, he is)? And then there’s the scene where Pa chooses to die in a tornado rather than risk exposing Clark’s secret with a rescue. I can’t see Clark accepting this (though Mark Waid, a devout Super-fan, liked it). And it feels very much like they wanted to give Clark an “Uncle Ben” moment.
(For the record, the comics Clark tackled situations like this and found ways not to expose himself. Cover art by Nick Cardy, all rights with copyright holder).
•Superman-as-messiah. The movie recycles Jor-El’s line about how for all our faults, Kal-El can be a shining example for all of us, leading us into the light, and now I know why that bugs me. It takes Superman’s nobility for granted, as if merely being Kryptonian or superhuman made him great by default.
In reality, being superhuman reduces his effectiveness as an inspiration: he doesn’t have to consider personal safety when pulling people out of a burning building, stopping gunfire, etc. What makes him special is how he uses his power. That he never turns tyrant or lets his power corrupt. That he does the right thing. That he constantly works to help people, whether it’s stopping an invasion or stopping a car crash. Which leads us into the next point—
•The killing. The climax of the movie is when Zod tries using his heat vision on innocent bystanders. Realizing Zod will keep killing as long as he’s alive, Superman breaks his neck with a wail of pain at committing even justifiable homicide. Dramatically speaking, it doesn’t work.
Details in Part Two, following immediately.
RIP, Richard Matheson
(meant to put this up yesterday, but it was a busy day)
Richard Matheson’s work is much better known in the mainstream than most genre writers of his era (he began work in the 1950, and his peak years ran through the early 1970s—though his last novel Other Kingdoms, came out in 2011). Due to his long career in movies and TV, there are lots of people who’d recognize his stories, even if they don’t know his name.
•I am Legend, filmed three times: Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price; Omega Man with Charlton Heston; I am Legend with Will Smith (stick with the Price version).
•What Dreams May Come and The Box, two movies based on his short stories (the latter film has almost nothing to do with the source tale, “Button, Button”)
•The Night Stalker, a TV movie based on the unpublished Jeff Rice novel, The Kolchak Papers.
•The Stephen Spielberg movie Duel, based on another Matheson short story.
•Multiple Twilight Zone episodes, including Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.
•The Incredible Shrinking Man, based on Matheson’s novel of the same name (I love spiders but the spider in the book absolutely terrified me).
What makes Matheson’s work stand out is that he’s a master at putting supernatural/fantasy/SF elements into a real-world setting. And not just a decayed old town like Dunwich or Arkham but big cities and quiet suburbs. He certainly wasn’t unique in this (though it was less common back when he was writing than it is now) but he’s very good at it.
Take The Night Stalker. Here we have a vampire film set not merely in the present day but in Las Vegas’ garish world of casinos and neon (this was a much more dramatic idea before contemporary vampire fiction became so much more common). Or I Am Legend, which does the best job I’ve ever seen of presenting a pseudoscience rationale for vampires. Or the simple, terrifying threat of a road-rage filled sociopath driving his truck at you in Duel. Though Matheson could work just as easily in conventional horror settings, such as the psychics staying overnight in a haunted house in The Legend of Hell House.
He was a talented guy. I’m glad his work will be sticking around.
Voting rights? So 20th century
Good news for Republicans, the Supreme Court has overturned part of the Voting Rights Act. Apparently the requirement states or counties with a history of vote-blocking preclear new restrictions or regulations on voting is now moot unless Congress passes a new law (which Scott Lemieux notes at the link will be pretty much impossible). Part of the rationale is that we no longer see the same patterns of discrimination as in the 1960s, the law is dead. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg compares this to throwing away your umbrella while walking in the rain because you’re not getting wet.
Which sounds about right. It’s easy to forget that when I was born it was routine for Southern counties and states (and plenty of places outside the South) to rig the game so that blacks simply couldn’t get to vote. As Digby points out, a lot of prominent conservatives applauded. The link quotes National Review’s William F. Buckley asserting “It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.” And so, as black Americans are clearly sub-civilized, the white race is justified in ruling. The quoted article also appears to endorse (though in carefully vague terms) the idea of a jury letting off a white guy for killing or otherwise mistreating blacks (while insisting this was a bad thing).
Given the current right-wing loathing of women’s suffrage and the frequent calls from right-wing politicians to stop college students from voting, I’m sure we’ll see plenty of unpleasant fallout from this decision. Given the Republican white Christian male base is not going to be able to win the White House for them after 2016 (according to estimates I’ve read), they’ve got nothing to lose.
In another decision, the Court ruled that if someone at your workplace harasses you and has authority over you, but can’t actually fire you, he’s not a supervisor. That means any racist/sexist treatment isn’t covered by the Civil Rights Act. Even if someone is in a position to deny you overtime, force you to work in freezing temperature or make your job performance review contingent on sex, that doesn’t make him a supervisor for the purposes of the act. Which I’d agree with Lemieux (and Ginsburg again) is bullshit.
Lemieux also fires back at Clarence Thomas’ dissent in one case that argues any law that takes race into account, even one designed to assist blacks in gaining equality, is unconstitutional.
In other matters:
•Rick Perlstein argues the Democratic Party has always had its right wing, so it’s not surprising the party doesn’t just line up behind liberal policies.
•In between discussions of the NSA and other issues, rightwing bloggers and pundits revert to freaking out about immigration, welfare and gay marriage.
•The FBI proudly reports that it’s investigated 150 shootings by FBI agents and cleared the agency every time.
•Various leaders on the religious right insist they will not “stand by” if the Supreme Court overturns the Defense of Marriage Act. But as Slacktivist asks, what can they do? David Badash wonders if they’re planning to shift to outright violence. The document, reprinted at the second link, recycles the usual bull about how every marriage even before Christianity looked just like the 1950s.
Filed under Politics
The narrow margin
When I read The Purity Myth last week, I was struck by how narrow the road to virtue is for the anti-sex conservatives Jessica Valenti writes about.
This isn’t news, not really. Reading blogs such as Slacktivist and Defeating the Dragons has made me conscious that the good Christian world is a very small place surrounded (at least in the imagination with a wild, hostile anti-God universe. And Robert Altemeyer points out in The Authoritarians that one of the traits of authoritarian personalities is a fear that if people step outside the lines even slightly, if any piece of the social jigsaw is disturbed (gay marriage, for instance), everything falls apart.
Which is pretty much the mindset Valenti writes about. She concludes conservative efforts to promote chastity or fight porn are ineffective (as statistics prove—abstinence-only education doesn’t have much effect on teen sex), partly because everything outside the walls is obscene. Jokes on Friends about having a porn stash are just as ghastly, godless and soul-destroying as child porn. Girls gone wild and having consensual sex on Spring Break is just as horrifying, if not more so, than sex slavery (Valenti also concludes that sex slavery and prostitution draw less attention because so many of the women involved are non-white). If girls get the HPV vaccine, they can go wild and have endless orgies, which would apparently be worse than the risk of cancer (as Lawyers Guns and Money once put it, it’s not that they want their kids to get cancer, but the risk is preferable to implying that premarital sex is ever acceptable, even for adults). And, of course, the conviction that if gay marriage is okay, there’s no moral ground for stopping pedophilia.
It’s the same logic that sees gay marriage as not about love but defying established norms. It can’t possibly be about two people wanting to be together, it has to be about rejecting the law of God and (conservative Republican fundamentalist) man—and if you reject that, obviously you can’t object to man-on-boy (or dog) sex.
if you don’t make distinctions, if everything is equally evil, it’s hard to fight effectively against the real evil (and as Valenti notes, damn hard when your concept of evil includes women getting out of a subordinate place). If teen sex with birth control is just as horrible as rape, then rape isn’t any worse or more immoral. As Elizabeth Smart said, she was taught that if you had sex, you were as worthless as a chewed piece of gum; what was the point in trying to escape when she was worthless?
The war on women isn’t just about the law, it’s about attitudes like that.
Filed under Politics, Undead sexist cliches
