It's almost like the antigay (traditional) marriage crowd has run out of vaguely logical arguments and debunked science, and have been forced to choose between two courses of action: really weird arguments or yelling FAG! at the top of their lungs.
From Euripides we have Some Guy in a 3,000 Year Old Poem Said Stuff:
I was reading Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath's book Who Killed Homer? and found this gem. Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey encounters a young woman, Nausicaa, on the beach. In speaking with her, he gives a speech about the values of married life:
Nothing is better, he suggests, than when a husband and wife share a house and their hearts, "a great pain to their enemies [the ill-minded ones] and a joy to their friends [the well-minded ones], and they themselves are highly esteemed" (p. 191).I haven't read the Oddysey in a while, but how many times did Oddyseus cheat on his wife? I can think of Calypso and Circe right off the top of my head. Beyond that, marriage among the ancient Greeks had about as much to do with modern US marriage as a firefly has to do with nuclear power.
From PomegranateApple we get Marriage Fills Chairs (and we wouldn't want empty chairs, now would we?):
My friends always laugh when they walk into the house where I live. There are so many chairs. (You can’t see the rest of the room. There are more chairs.) Way more chairs than we need in the house. I mean, it’s funny.
It normal to me, because growing up, whenever I visited my grandparents’ house: they were never enough chairs.
Ummmm . . . marriage doesn't fill chairs, people do. I guess gay people can't get a roomful of people together to fill up chairs?
The every amusing Opine Editorials gives us a title and a link. When Young Men Are Scarce, They're More Likely to Play the Field Than to Propose. In other news, if the only ice cream available is vanilla, I'll take vanilla. If there are 31 flavors available, I'll probably pick something else.
The good here is that these arguments make for amusing reading. The bad is, soon they'll be left with nothing but yelling FAG!
Not only did Odysseus cheat nonstop during his trip. His wife was expected to remain chaste the whole time. This really is the world that some fundies want. :P
ReplyDeleteNot only that, but his wife (whose name I can't remember at the moment for some reason) was kind of regarded as a bit of a ho because she had suitors. Not that she was doing anything with them, but they showed up and wouldn't leave. And that was her fault for some reason.
ReplyDeleteNot only remain chaste, but remain chaste while surrounded by hot young men and thinking her husband is dead. Poor woman.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I remember that. For some reason, it was her fault the men wouldn't leave. but not odysseus' fault for leaving in the first place.
ReplyDeleteOdysseus was following Agamemnon's orders to go to war against Troy, that is why he left (Iliad anyone?). So not his fault, technically. Sleeping with every woman he crossed, his fault, although 2 were Goddesses (the two you named).
ReplyDeleteHis wife's name was Penelope.
and even her SON blamed her. Penelope was *stuck* because everyone was claiming Odyseuss was DEAD. and if he was DEAD, and her son (telmantes? something like that)was not an adult, legally SOME man had to show up and take ownership of Odyseuss' STUFF. because *SHE* was not legally allowed to own it, and her SON was not old enough to legally own it.
ReplyDeletePenelope was, basically, SCREWED by the LAW.
and Odyseuss was noted, as you all have said, for his infedelity - not *JUST* Circe and Calypso, but slave women, and i have read literary critisms that state he probably also raped slave *men*, and that he almost definately had a romantic relationship with one of the other "heros" - one of the Ajax i think, AND he went to war with Menelaus and Agamemnon, and had tried to to marry Helen himself - after he was already married to Penelope!
erm. sorry. Greek myths are sorta a thing for me :)
Gawd, the posts you cite to are so bizarre.
ReplyDeleteI mean, wow, it's SO interesting to look at people's socks and a bunch of empty chairs.
Also, do you ever notice that the vast majority of On Lawn's posts are links to various studies without any commentary of his own? I wonder if he thinks it all just speaks for itself as to how it's relevant to the same-sex marriage debate and that it wins the case for him. Lazy much?