Why Is It a "News" Magazine Again?

Looks like some skirts were ruffled at Newsweek over people actually taking its idiotic writer to task for her egregious hit piece.

So, the editor, Jon Meacham, who did a shitty job editing comes out to defend his work. And, in a fashion reminiscent of a high school drama queen, he defends the turd-bucket he helped release by telling his writer's critics to go fuck themselves.

No matter what one thinks about gay rights—for, against or somewhere in between —this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism. Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt—it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition.

There it is, the liberal version of an f-word (emphasis was mine). If he thinks this, then this liberal Episcopalian douche knows absolutely nothing about "the great Judeo-Christian tradition". Because that tradition tended to take the Bible quite seriously, and will not dismiss arguments made out of it so flippantly. Also, the other half of the Judeo-Christian framework, what the Church calls "Tradition", would not bode well for the arguments made by his half-wit writer either.

But, this guy Meacham is supposedly a genius. So, if its not stupidity, then it must be some form of deliberate deceit. If malice is what drove that monstrous piece of misinformation, then Meacham is much worse than his writer, who reeks of ignorance.

Briefly put, the Judeo-Christian religious case for supporting gay marriage begins with the recognition that sexual orientation is not a choice—a matter of behavior—but is as intrinsic to a person's makeup as skin color.

That line of thinking never was, and never will be, "Judeo-Christian". If it is the premise for a religious case, that religion is not Christianity or Judaism (maybe secular humanism? I heard that crap's a religion now, according to Harvard). Because, neither Judaism nor Christianity assumes that sin is intrinsic to a person's make-up. A corruption of the human nature maybe, but not something intrinsic like skin color. We may not have had a choice in our particular sins, but our sins are not what define us. You want to make a Christian case for same-sex marriage, you begin by explaining why we have to legitimize a corruption of our natures instead of transcending it. Good luck with that.

The analogy with race is apt, for Christians in particular long cited scriptural authority to justify and perpetuate slavery with the same certitude that some now use to point to certain passages in the Bible to condemn homosexuality and to deny the sacrament of marriage to homosexuals.

No, the analogy to race is NOT apt. First off, let's get the evil of slavery out of the way. Within the Christian tradition few Christians outside of the Southern Baptists ever used Scripture to defend slavery. And even then, you'd have to discount the great Christian thinkers who railed against it, using Scripture and Tradition no less, from Wilberforce to De Las Casas. The Christian thinkers who went against slavery far outnumber those who defended it. If we're talking numbers, the Christian thinkers who defended slavery are in the same position as these "Christian thinkers" who would defend same-sex marriage.

As for race itself, the defense of the marital arrangement stretches all the way back to antiquity. Even the boy-loving Athenians dared not tamper with it. The people who use the striking down of racist marriage laws as a comparative situation forget that racist marriage laws were a post-American Civil War phenomenon, and they do not exist anywhere else. (Laws against marrying outside caste or tribe, yes, but not specifically race.) Striking down racist marriage laws falls within the tradition of the marital arrangement. Striking down the arrangement itself is not.

The NEWSWEEK Poll confirms what other surveys have also found: that there is a decided generational difference on the issue, with younger people supporting gay marriage at a higher rate than older Americans. One era's accepted reality often becomes the next era's clear wrong. So it was with segregation, and so it will be, I suspect, with the sacrament of marriage.

The same thing can be said for abortion and euthanasia laws. Same thing can also be said for Nazi Germany, where it was the old guard that tried, unsuccessfully, to block Hitler's rise and his policies. Colonel von Stauffenberg and his old Catholic family fell within that old guard. So, the generational argument is bullshit.

Religious conservatives will say that the liberal media are once again seeking to impose their values (or their "agenda," a favorite term to describe the views of those who disagree with you) on a God-fearing nation. Let the letters and e-mails come. History and demographics are on the side of those who favor inclusion over exclusion.

Oh, brother. If this guy even bothered to read actual demographic studies beyond the piss-poor polls Newsweek puts out, he'll discover that the religious "fundamentalists" he is so afraid of reproduce at a much faster rate. The demographics that voted Prop. 8 in place were blacks and Hispanics. Hispanics are the fastest-expanding population in the US. Among the whites, the liberals are reproducing at a much slower rate. Having babies gets in the way of saving the trees, you know. They get in the way of dismantling traditional marriage too.

Oh, and fuck you too, Jon Meacham. You can take your rag and shove it up your orifice. Time Magazine may be just as liberal, but I've never seen it go out of its way to be this fucking stupid.