Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyOctober 23rd, 2012
Dr. Robert Gagnon may have decided to ignore Jean-Fabrice Nardelli, a classical philologist at l’Université de Provence, but Nardelli is not choosing to do the same. Nardelli has revisited Gagnon’s assertions and pretentions and now has given us a second, revised edition of his monograph.
While Nardelli certainly has the scientific (and scholastic and intellectual) advantage, I think it is his logic and wordsmanship that make this an enjoyable read.
I don’t entirely agree with Nardelli on every point. For example, I think that orientation – or at least a self-awareness of attractions and one’s difference from the majority – has a strong essentialist component. But his criticisms are nevertheless presented in a way that delights and encourages thought rather than invite challenge. Here’s a sample:
Gagnon is nothing but an entrenched essentialist student of homosexuality and a believer in the framework theological-scientific of the male and female sexes who will never admit that biological sex is dependent on culture and ideology, therefore historically determined, and that his critical box of tools amounts to the following analogy : provided that the lexemes ‘red’, ‘blue’, and ‘white’ appear in a short passage which, conjecturally, could be made to yield the ideas of ‘country’ or ‘nation’, he trumpets that it must be the United States and nothing else, although France has indeed the same colours in her flag.
ROBERT GAGNON’S THE BIBLE AND HOMOSEXUAL PRACTICE
TEN YEARS AFTER: A NON-THEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT.
SECOND, REVISED EDITION
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William O'Donnell
October 24th, 2012
Timothy,
“. . .one’s difference from the majorityâ€?? I both question and like this statement. I will reword it for fun: “Am I different from the rest of these people?”
Mine and perhaps your internal rumination is probably shared by about 99.99% of the human beings on earth, from about the time each individual formed their own concrete thought and entertained that original idea until death.
As a former student of Philosophy and Biblical studies, I would like to borrow a quote from Wikipedia, which I think is good (although I may be chastised for my poor scholarship), as follows:
“According to essentialism, a member of a specific group may possess other characteristics that are neither needed to establish its membership nor preclude its membership, but that essences do not simply reflect ways of grouping objects; they also result in properties of the object, as the object can be subjugated to smaller contexts.”
This quote brilliantly describes the outrageous and boisterous gays like I who seek equality and want a world informed and the curious Log Cabin Gays (the rich gays). Where the hell is Dan Savage when you need him???
It also describes the limp-wristed, flamboyant gays versus the ‘manly’ gays. Also, it addresses the gay men who are married to women because of WHATEVER?, and the gay men who want to marry other gay men, and the gay men who just want to be single gay men.
The only essentialist element required is to be a human person without prejudice or superstition (of life or death beyond the current world), and who cares about other the other 99.99% of people who are like themselves.
“Does my mother really love me?” – even though she proves it every day.
However, There is one stipulation here, from me: I do not now care about Robert A.J. Gagnon and his bowing rubes!
Your word “essentialist” refers to the philosophy of Essentialism, am I correct?
I believe that Philosophy is a dead art. Philosophy is the parent of Theology, which I also believe to be a dead art. There are millions who will disagree, of course.
Nardelli presented fair scientific studies of scientists who are committed to truth, without the cloud of religion and superstition.
I will defend Nardelli further in that he included the work of reknown Queer Apologists, most of whom are theologians who work with historical critical methodology and hermeneutics, to make sense of a mysterious world. While I find that to be a tiresome task, it nonetheless breathes life into their being.
I have just returned from a trip to San Francisco, where I planted a blessing to the “Holiest of Holiests” (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities): The Castro. Can I get an Amen from the choir?
Gagnon works constantly at ghosts and demons that do not exist. Gagnon has abandoned all scholarly workmanship, and still presents incorrect information:
There is no ‘statistic’ about gays! Gagnon’s incorrect numbers forget the married gay men and the gay men who are culturally strong-armed into thinking other than their mind. Gagnon also touts Christianity as ‘his’ religion to answer rout the foes: Obama, Muslims and “the others” ad nauseum in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
FINALLY: Tim, the quote you presented from Nardelli’s work was quite brilliant! Many flags fly Red, White, and Blue – and some fly flags with the above three colors and just one or two others, added for additional flair.
Gagnon in his miserable, tormented, bigoted, and hateful mind, sees only Red, White, and Blue: The United States and his parochial mentality.
Thank you to Tim and Jean-Fabrice!
William O'Donnell
October 26th, 2012
Where is Robert Gagnon in all of this? His Facebook page proves that he is indeed busy:
Get the gay agenda and the straight agenda on the same page, then tell the moms and pops that their child does not matter.
He must now possess enough white trash monies to make a comfortable life.
Let us do a “matter of fact”
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