proposition 8

"we are selfish, base animals crawling across the earth, but 'cos we've got brains, if we try really hard, we can usually aspire to something that is less than pure evil"

--dr greg house, student of the human condition

i'm not terribly confused as to why many christians dislike the concept of gay marriage. conservative christians hate sex because they hate pleasure because they hate life. the primary difference between the present and the past is that modern conservatives lack the decency and clarity of mind to say what they actually think. compare the hollow, boring life-affirmation of someone like billy graham with the genuine asceticism of someone like st. eucherius. i'm not particularly inclined toward asceticism, but i admire someone who is genuinely committed to what they believe. i have less admiration for people that try to project their neurotic fixations onto the secular world, and act as if what they're doing is completely natural and understandable.

sexual neurosis in christianity dates back to st. paul, and has been reinforced by practically every christian theologian and philosopher up to the present day. i rarely encounter a christian who is more "pro-sex" than the most ambivalent, mild-mannered agnostic, or heard a christian say that sex might in and of itself be a good thing without a string of bizarre and depressing qualifications.

then again, what should one expect from a group of people who feel that the only way to create a positive life experience is to imagine that they are participating in a torturous and perverse narrative involving atavistic guilt, a capricious and spiteful deity who obviously holds much of his creation in paternalistic contempt, genocide, and an all-too-familiar tale of a god-man performing magic tricks for credulous peasants, getting killed and being reborn.

so what do i get out of calling a large swathe of the american population deluded and neurotic? to be totally honest, it makes me feel better about myself, but if i was to throw together an ad hoc reason that is slightly less narcissistic and self-serving, i would say that i think it informs part of the debate surrounding gay marriage as it is being deliberated in the great state of california, which in turn informs how the debate might be carried out in the nation as a whole.

the initial knee-jerk response among many individuals was that the decision to overturn proposition 8 contravened the "will of the people" in the state, and as such, was illegal/immoral. now, i'm going to go out on a limb and say that the "will of the people" is rarely a force for good. this is informed by my own admittedly pessimistic view of human nature. additionally, i think it is borne out by human history. the desire among people to oppress what is different emerges so frequently in any society that i suspect it might be an inherent property of consciousness. and this case is no different.

with that being said, i'm glad the "will of the people" was overturned, and i'm glad that our society is not beholden to whatever more than 50% of people can convince themselves is right or true.

we are not left without a conundrum. if the "will of the people" is not to be trusted as a reliable moral guide, where should we look? this is ostensibly a democracy. i don't have a good answer to this. i'll let you know if i think of something.

+mc