From: kane@buast7.bu.edu (Hot Young Star)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,ca.politics
Subject: Re: Picking and Choosing our References
Date: 29 Aug 92 16:17:02 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
Organization: Astronomy Department, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

In article <11970@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:

>According the dictionary on my desk, "ass" comes from Old English
>"ears", akin to Greek "orrhos", Hittite "arras" and Old Iranian
>"err", for tail.  The derivation is clearly from a common root
>in Indo-European.  Perhaps you need to go look up what "cognate"
>means.

You stooge! The Greek cognate (yes, I DO know what "cognate" means!)
as you clearly have stated is "orrhos", NOT "arsen"!

Look up "arseno-" in the OED or Webster's Unabridged, and you'll see it
means "male", not "tail".

>I can't find in my office anything that immediately disproves
>your claim, but you've already demonstrated your lack of
>understanding of this subject above.

Of course I know what cognate means. I took a series of linguistics
courses at William and Mary. Philology is one of my great passions.

>As I said, there are two examples of its usage in roughly contemporary
>Greek -- hence there is uncertainty.  There may have been other
>usages as well -- and because of the loss of so many classical
>Greek manuscripts, we don't know.  Neither one of those usages found
>do much for your cause, especially in light of the clear-cut hostility
>to homosexuality in the Old Testament, a culture that powerfully
>influenced the early Church.

Boswell makes arguments that the early Church viewed itself as a liberation
from the Holy Codes of Law in the OT. Why else would Paul try to crack down
on the free-wheeling new converts to Christianity who were living around
the Mediterranean? They were supposedly living as sexual communes!

>I agree with you that the phrase "homosexual offender" which
>is used in some translations for "arsenokoitai" is ambiguous.
>Romans 1:26-27 is not at all ambiguous, and it doesn't use that
>word.

Right, it uses "malakoi", which somehow got translated as "homosexual",
when in comptemporary Greek it meant, literally, "those who are soft",
and was used figuratively to describe those with loose ("soft") morals,
like prostitutes.

>If [Bibical language can be] figurative, maybe the commandment about
>murder needs to be reinterpreted.  Maybe it only means it's wrong to
>murder people you don't like. Maybe it only means it's wrong to murder
>straight people. Maybe the Sermon on the Mount should be reinterpreted
>to support genocide?  Do you see some problems with this approach? You
>are better off to abandon it completely, rather than try to justify
>conveniently scrapping moral teachings because they get in the
>way of your immediate gratification.

No silly, don't sell yourself short. We all have brains. We can determine
which verses make sense and which don't. It makes me cringe when others
go overboard, claiming that their opposition to homosexuality is based
on the teachings of Christ. It clearly isn't, as he said nothing about
sexuality. You tell them that, and they get all hrumphy. Tell them to
use their own brain, to act responsibly and true to themselves, and they
go off on tangents about how all men are naturally evil, and that we
should never trust our own reasoning abilities. [especially if they lead
us to conclusions which contradict the teachings of other MEN who PROFESSED
to be speaking directly for God!]

Since you're obviously advocating literalism, Cramer, there is a juicy
commandment directly from God (at least Moses made that claim) that we're
supposed to kill homosexual men we catch in the act of sex. Since it's
obviously easy for you to do this, given your cache of weapons, are you
following the Lord's "commandment"?

>the culture in question utterly rejected homosexuality.

See below, viz. Judith.

BK:
>>And what do you think " [Judith] lives out the remainder of her days with
>>her maid-servants, rejecting all male suitors" implies?

>Abstinence?  It seems to be easIER for women than for men.

The thing that is EASIER for a patriarchal society to tolerate is
female homosexuality, since it was pretty much dismissed on the one
hand, as was not considered a threat to male power structure, like
male homosexuality.

>[Men kissing each other and crying] doesn't make them homosexuals, though.
>You've effectively admitted that your argument is defective on this one
[the story of David and Jonathan].

No, I'm saying that you will inevitably see what you believe to be
possible. If you don't believe that homosexuality existed in Judaic
society as was tolerated in some circumstances, you're not going to
believe that sexual passion was involved.

Besides, modern Middle Eastern men don't kiss each other out of passion
(well, at least the uptight ones don't! :)) they kiss each other out
of social ritual. The passage quoted above sounds nothing like a socially
ritual greeting.

Another interesting thing to consider is that the era in which the Judaic
prophecy arose was full of feudalism and corruption. This included
homosexual harems in the aristocratic courts. The lowest caste were the
prophets, and homosexuality got connected to the injust society which mocked
them. Just think, if you don't have the luxury of having a harem of
male sex objects, and your primary goal as a social outcast is mere survival,
protecting your family, and procreating enough to ensure your family's
future survival, you're not going to think too highly of luxuries.

The most ironic thing is, however, that the social outcasts of Biblical
days (the prophets) would probably have a good deal of sympathy for
the social outcasts of today (homosexual men and women). The corruption
which exiled the prophets of yore is similar to the socio-sexual/political
corruption which exiles decent people like us today.

>I discount the idea of homosexuality being more than just sex
>because I read soc.motss, and it's clear that at least with gay
>men, there's nothing more than animal sex involved.  (Excuse
>me, I'm insulting animals -- I've never seen an animal need 
>leather, whips, or instruments of bondage to enjoy sex.  Animals
>are also MUCH less promiscuous than soc.motss members).

You are digging your own grave, Cramer. Gratuitous swipes like that
will prove even to your sycophants that you are nothing but a pathological
liar when it comes to discussing homosexuality.

"Arse" = "Arsen"........indeed!

Brian
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kane@{buast7,astro}.bu.edu (Hot Young Star) Astronomy Dept, Boston University,
Boston, MA 02215. True personal salvation is achieved by absolute faith in
ones true self.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:42228 alt.politics.elections:11697 alt.politics.clinton:3185 alt.politics.bush:3123