Ban Dante!

A UN-affiliated group has recommended that Dante’s Divine Comedy be removed from schools around the world for being homophobic, islamophobic, and numerous other things they disapprove of.

The classic work should be removed from school curricula, according to Gherush 92, a human rights organisation which acts as a consultant to UN bodies on racism and discrimination. Dante’s epic is “offensive and discriminatory” and has no place in a modern classroom, said Valentina Sereni, the group’s president.
 

“We do not advocate censorship or the burning of books, but we would like it acknowledged, clearly and unambiguously, that in the Divine Comedy there is racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic content. Art cannot be above criticism,” Miss Sereni said.

There’s that classic formulation: “We do not advocate censorship or the burning of books, but …”

A happy note:

    Franco Grillini, the head of Gaynet, a gay rights’ organisation, said the suggestion that Dante’s writings should be prohibited marked “an excess of political correctness”.

A Contract for Sex

I can picture it: “”Uh, babe, we need to sign this contract, and then we’ll take a selfie holding the contract, OK? Yeah, I know you’re naked, so what? It’s the law. Babe, why are you putting your clothes back on? Leaving? Why?”

 A “yes means yes” advocacy group, the Affirmative Consent Project, is instructing college students to take a picture with a contract before they have sex with each other just to make absolutely sure both parties are officially consenting. In fact, the group has been distributing contracts to schools nationwide as part of its Consent Conscious Kit, according to an article in the Washington Examiner. If no camera is available, students are encouraged to fill out the form on the back of the contract which states, “On this date [fill in the blank], we agree to have consensual sex with one another” followed by a space for students’ printed names and signatures.

What, no space for the witnesses’ signatures?

The kit does contain breath mints and a condom, though.

A World Cup Kiss Goes Viral

After winning a major sports event, it is not uncommon for a player to run to the stands to embrace a family member, spouse or child. That's what Abby Wambach, one of the most popular players on Team USA did Sunday. Wambach's spouse is female, and the gesture gathered some comments on blogs. Here's a screen shot of a representative sampling from a popular conservative blog, Gateway Pundit.

Mexico's Supreme Court Has Effectively Legalized Same-Sex Marriage

Another country, one we may not have expected, has (effectively) legalized same-sex marriage.

In ruling after ruling, the court has said that state laws restricting marriage to heterosexuals are discriminatory. Though the decisions have been made to little public fanfare, they have had the effect of legalizing gay marriage inMexico without enshrining it in law. 

Several other countries in Latin America have done the same as Mexico. This may run contrary to our perceptions about highly-Catholic populations and macho cultures.

… the Mexican court’s rulings have added the country to a slowly growing list of Latin American nations permitting same-sex unions.  

Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil already allow same-sex marriage. Chile plans to recognize same-sex civil unions this year; Ecuador approved civil unions in April; and Colombia grants same-sex couples many of the same rights extended to heterosexual married couples.

Pew Says Support for Gay Marriage Is at a Record High

Unless you: a) have been living under a rock, or b) are a social conservative in deep, deep denial –
you will not find that headline a surprise. What is surprising is the degree of support that exists for gay marriage and (as many have pointed out before me) the incredible swiftness of the change.

As the accompanying graphs show, in only ten years, we've gone from a seventeen point margin against to an eighteen point margin for – a thirty-five point swing. And while there continues to be a huge difference in opinions by party affiliation, the trend line for Republicans is as the same as for Democrats and Independents.

Many more graphs and demographic breakdowns at the Pew site.

Study re Changing Minds on Gay Marriage Retracted

You may have heard about this – the story has been around for a couple weeks, and I’ve been meaning to mention it.

In what can only be described as a remarkable and swift series of events, one of the authors of a much-ballyhooed Science paper claiming that short conversations could change people’s minds on same-sex marriage is retracting it following revelations that the data were faked by his co-author. 

[3:45 p.m. Eastern, 5/28/15: Please see an update on this story; the study has been retracted.] 

Donald Green, of Columbia, and Michael LaCour, a graduate student at UCLA, published the paper, “When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality,” in December 2014. The study received widespread media attention, including from This American Life, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post,  The Los Angeles Times, Science Friday, Vox, and HuffingtonPost, as LaCour’s site notes.

Beyond the subject matter, the story on how the fakery was uncovered is interesting.

Ireland Votes for Gay Marriage

Ireland voted yesterday on whether to legalize gay marriage. The results were announced today, and ‘Yes’ won by a landslide.

Irish voters backed legalizing gay marriage by a landslide, according to electoral figures announced Saturday — a stunning result that illustrates the rapid social change taking place in this traditionally Catholic nation. 

Figures from Friday’s referendum announced at Dublin Castle showed that 62.1 percent of Irish voters said “yes.” Outside, watching the results announcement live in the castle’s cobblestoned courtyard, thousands of gay rights activists cheered, hugged and cried. 

The unexpectedly strong percentage of approval surprised both sides. Analysts and campaigners credited the “yes” side with adeptly using social media to mobilize first-time young voters and for a series of searing personal stories from Irish gay people to convince voters to back equal marriage rights. 

Ireland is the first country to approve gay marriage in a popular national vote. Nineteen other countries have legalized the practice.

To anyone who grew up in the fifties and sixties, when the idea even of legal divorce was unthinkable for Ireland, so strong was the hold of the Catholic church, this is absolutely stunning. Divorce was not, in fact legalized there until the nineties.

When things start changing, it seems that the changes often come amazingly fast.

Girls Are Evil

That is not just my opinion, it is a fact, and has been proven mathematically.

If you deny it, you are a science-denier. Or, at least a math-denier, which is pretty much the same thing, I think.

Firefox Commits Suicide by Intolerance

Just about a year ago, Mozilla, the parent of Firefox, gave in to a band of vigilantes and fired their CEO for having made a political contribution several years previous to a ballot initiative against gay marriage in California. After that happened, several church-related groups called for a boycott of Firefox.

In the last 12 months, Firefox's user share -- an estimate of the portion of all those who reach the Internet via a desktop browser -- has plummeted by 34%.  

I support equal rights for gays including gay marriage. I do not, however, support getting people fired because they hold views opposing mine. If Mozilla goes belly-up because of this, it will be something they had coming.

Let’s Discuss ‘Experts’

I was reading an item today that was put forth as a woman’s perspective on relationships between older men and younger women. Upon reading it, however, it turned out to be mostly quotes from a man – so much for the ‘woman’s perspective’. And, though the man is cited as an authority, he’s not identified beyond his name – Hugo Schwyzer.

I wondered if readers were expected to recognize the name, because I certainly didn’t. Curious, I asked Google who the heck Hugo Schwyzer is. The results are interesting, because they tell us the sort of person that the media and the academic community puts forth as an expert.

Hugo Schwyzer, Wikipedia tells us, is a gender studies professor (no kidding, and he even admits it) at Pasadena City College. In addition, his writing often appears in such publications as Salon and he has a column running regularly in The Atlantic.

Professor Schwyzer advises us that older men should not be involved with younger women, but it turns out that he has a history of sex with his own female students. While he claims that such behavior is in his past, the fact is that just a few months ago he had a sexting/phone relationship with a woman eighteen years younger than himself.

… in January 2013, Schwyzer, then 45, had a brief but torrid texting, telephonic and online fling with a 27 year old woman named Christina Parreira, also known [in] “sex worker activism’ circles as Christina Page — and in webcam/amateur porn circles as Gabriela “Ela” Stone. According to Parreira, Schwyzer acknowledged that revelation of their fling would be “career-killing” for him — Hugo has called older men who are “into” younger women – such as men in their 40s being attracted to and pursuing women in their 20s – dirty old men and “creeps.” 

In addition, though presenting himself (and being presented by the media) as an expert on male/female relationships, he has been divorced three times thus far, and admits to having multiple affairs during his current (fourth) marriage, which he now describes as ‘over’. Of course, many people have had multiple marriages, but most of them don't pretend to be experts on gender relationships.

Oh, and he attempted to murder a former girlfriend in a murder/suicide fifteen years ago.

But this is the guy who the media and academe think should be given a platform to lecture us on male/female relationships.

Concerning his suicide attempt last week: Despite the fact that he is a world-class hypocrite, a poseur, and pretty much an all-around jerk – he still is a human being, and therefore I wish him no evil. I sincerely hope he gets the help he needs to get his life and his thinking in order. I also hope that in the process he acquires a bit of humility and refrains in the future from giving advice that he is so clearly not qualified to give.