FUSsa-talk Mailing List: Fwd: [Hidisc] Reasonable suggestion?

[Robert Tapp (tappx001]

[in response to Phil Regal's forward]

This Uganda situation stirs up memories of a great book from the 30s by a 
German psychiatrist. Wilhelm Reich, as a onetime Freudian, argued that human 
freedom depended upon sexual integrity -- and that this was why the Nazis so 
opposed it. As an anti-Nazi, he had urged the opposing Communist Party to help 
free young people emotionally by encouraging pre-marital sexuality. Instead, he 
was expelled for that advocacy. He then coined the phrase <Red Fascism> to 
describe the ways totalitarianisms of right and left both agreed that 
ideological loyalty required the control of sexuality. 

        Reich, Wilhelm, and Wolfe, Theodore P. 1946. The mass psychology of 
fascism.3d, rev. and enl. ed. New York: Orgone institute press.

Religions have known this for a long time. Christians, as they Platonized, 
treated sexuality as a hyper-sinful and base emotion, and insisted that 
celibacy represented a higher spirituality. Even today, non-procreative 
sexuality is seen as sinful by many Christian groups leading to rejection or 
uneasiness regarding contraception. Obviously this also forbids same-sex 
relations. By inducing such heavy guilts about our sexuality, religions 
increase their powers. Only there can <forgiveness> be found.

Humanist ethicists have started from a more empirical view of the range of our 
sexualities and their potentials for pleasure quite apart from procreative 
pursuits. Concepts of responsibility and respect and maturity  take on much 
broader meanings in any modern humanist morality.

Bob

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Philip Regal <regal001 [at] tc.umn.edu>
> Date: January 5, 2010 9:35:16 AM EST
> To: Humanist Institute Discussion List <hidisc [at] humanistinstitute.org>
> Subject: [Hidisc] Reasonable suggestion?
> 
> Plato wrote that sexual relations between men are banned in countries where 
> there is tyranny. 
> 
> He aired the idea that free relationships that are not part of the structures 
> that tyrants can control are threats to the system of authority that they 
> require. 
> 
> The situation in Uganda may fit this model, but it may also fit the scapegoat 
> "functional" model. As in medieval times and Hitler Germany Jews and gays 
> were exploited as scapegoats to take attention off other problems and inspire 
> fear and conformity. Certainly there is this "functional" potential in 
> Uganda. 
> 
> Psychologically: Scapegoats also encourage people to shift their emotions to 
> the splinter in their neighbor's eye and feel self-righteous even though they 
> know that they themselves are flawed.
> 
> In addition if you check the guy who arranged the visits of the evangelicals 
> he seems to me to have an entrepreneurial background. Raising fears and 
> hatreds has very large "functional" fund-raising implications for the 
> activists. An old story.
> 
> The situation in Uganda is really shameful by any humanistic or theological 
> standards, but beyond that it is an opportunity to understand the 
> "functional" dynamics that have been put into play. It is worth following 
> this story.
> 
> Phil
> 
> January 5, 2010
> EDITORIAL
> Hate Begets Hate
> 
> Uganda’s government, which has a shameful record of discrimination against 
> gay men and lesbians, is now considering legislation that would impose the 
> death sentence for homosexual behavior. The United States and others need to 
> make clear to the Ugandan government that such barbarism is intolerable and 
> will make it an international pariah.
> 
> Corruption and repression — including violence against women and children and 
> abuse of prisoners — are rife in Uganda. According to The Times’s Jeffrey 
> Gettleman, officially sanctioned homophobia is particularly acute. Gay 
> Ugandans are tormented with beatings, blackmail, death threats and what has 
> been described as “correctional rape.”
> 
> The government’s venom is chilling: “Homosexuals can forget about human 
> rights,” James Nsaba Buturo, who holds the cynically titled position of 
> minister of ethics and integrity, said recently.
> 
> What makes this even worse is that three American evangelical Christians, 
> whose teachings about “curing” gays and lesbians have been widely discredited 
> in the United States, helped feed this hatred. Scott Lively, Caleb Lee 
> Brundidge and Don Schmierer gave a series of talks in Uganda last March to 
> thousands of police officers, teachers and politicians in which, according to 
> participants and audio recordings, they claimed that gays and lesbians are a 
> threat to Bible-based family values.
> 
> Now the three Americans are saying they had no intention of provoking the 
> anger that, just one month later, led to the introduction of the 
> Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. You can’t preach hate and not accept 
> responsibility for the way that hate is manifested.
> 
> We don’t have much hope that they will atone for their acts. But right now 
> the American government, and others, should make clear to Uganda that if this 
> legislation becomes law, it will lose millions of dollars in foreign aid and 
> be shunned globally.
> 
> 
> Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company 
> 
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