Remembrance of bears past - a sonnet

You shook and shared in countless open nights

with Frappuccino-scented microphone

your tales of pulled’ pork and southern lights

and hidden canyons viewed with me alone.

I loved your gently crooked cheek.

It brought more joy than words could ever make.

I loved that from the depths I heard you speak

When I from surgeon’s slumber did awake.

Was it my form that made you turn and seek

for solace in your nether’s mirrored twin?

Was love for you too low and far too weak

To counteract my body’s hidden sin?

My bear is gone and I am all alone

I slip back to the shade where I am known.

Socrates on gay rights

In Plato’s “Euthyphro,” Socrates talks to a student, the eponymous  Euthyphro,  about the nature of holiness.    Euthyphro says that holiness is whatever the gods think is good.  Socrates  counters that by arguing (by way of questions) If the gods approve of something because it is holy, then their approval cannot be what makes it holy. Alternatively, if it is holy because the gods approve of it, then we still don't know for what reason the gods approve of it.

It is possible to paraphrase this argument in the gay-rights debate.   Anti-gays are fond of saying that homosexuality is wrong because it is against God’s will.  They point to all the Bible verses that support this point.  Were Socrates to get in on this argument, he would no doubt go all Columbo on their asses and say, “Well, obviously you know more about this than I do, but there is just one little thing I don’t quite understand.  Is homosexuality wrong SIMPLY because God says that it’s wrong or is there something inherently wrong with it that caused God to say not to do it?”

“If” Socrates would continue, ”you say that it is wrong JUST because God said it’s wrong and no other reason, then you make God out to be capricious in condemning people that did nothing wrong. On the other hand, if God said it’s wrong because there is something  independently wrong with it, you need to describe what that thing is.”

When asked this question, anti-gay activists are perplexed and try to dodge the question entirely.  Using authority as a reason to be against something is a failed argument.   The anti-gay attorneys at the recent Supreme Court hearings hit this wall.  Because of the first amendment, they were precluded from using religious reasons for why DOMA and Prop 8 were constitutional, and their attempts at finding secular rationales were laughable.  The best argument they could come up with, and the focus of their case, was that only heterosexual marriages were valid because they were the only kinds of couplings that could produce children accidentally.  WTF?

I am still waiting for some Christian to answer this question for me.  Kindly send your reasoned responses as commentary to this blog entry. (note: saying "because...because....fuck you!" is NOT a reasoned response.)