THE NEWS
The independent .co.uk (Monday 12th September 2011) reports that the leaders of all three main political parties in Britain are to throw their support behind a new international gay rights group trying to combat homophobic discrimination in the commonwealth.
Top UK music stars Elton John and George Micheal have been invited to attend the official launch in the House of Commons of Kaleidoscope, which aims to get 19th century British colonial anti gay laws revoked in the commonwealth and beyond using business and political pressure.
REFLECTION
George Micheal could be a little bit of a surprise, not after his recent embarrassing acts to the gays but one thing is for sure, that when Elton John says something, we are sure all the worlds leaders will instantly fall into line.Ah, the nearly all encompassing wisdom and power and immediate influence of celebrity. Remember the likes of Oprah who amongst others that included Jay z, Alicia Keys, George Clooney helped Obama improve his ratings by declaring their support for him shortly before the 200 triumph?
THE CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS, IN RESPECT TO POPULATION, FAMILY, AND DIFFERENCE IN SEXUAL ORIENTATION.
In 2002, Osama bin laden wrote in his "Letter to America": "You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools, calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that that you support the liberation."
As this quote indicates, what al Qaeda is fighting for is a traditonal understanding of the family. This is not a minor part of their program: it is at its heart. The traditonal family is built around some clearly defined principles. First the home is the domain of the woman and life outside the house is the purview of the man. Second, sexuality is something confined to the family and home, and extramarital, etrafamilty sexuaity is unacceptable. women who move outside the home invite extramarital sexuality just by being there. third, women have as their primary risks reproduction and nurturing of the next generation. Therefore, intense controls on women are necessary to maintain the integrity of the family and of society. In an interesting way it is all about women, and bin Laden's letter drives this home. What he hates about America, and the western world, is that it promotes a completely different view of women and the family.
Al Qaeda's view is not unique to Osama bin Laden or Islam. The lengths to which that group is prepared to go may be unique, but the issue of women and the family defines most major religions too. Traditional Catholicism, fundamentalist Protestantism, Orthodox Judaism, and the various branches of Buddhism all take very similar positions. All of these religions are being split internally as are all societies. In the United States for example where there are "cultural wars," the battlefield is the family and its definition. all societies are being torn between traditionalists and those who are attempting to redefine the family, women, and sexuality.
This conflict is going to intensify but lets face it, events show that they are fighting a defensive and ultimately losing battle.Why? The reason is this. That over the past 100 yeras the very fabric of human life - and particularly the life of women- has been transformed, and with it the structure of the family. What has already, and is still happening, in Europe,the United States, and Japan is spreading to the rest of the world. The issues will as a matter of course rip societies apart, but in the end, the transformation of the family can not be stopped.
This is not to say that transformation is inherently a good idea or a bad one. instead, this trend is unstoppable because the demographic realities of the world are being transformed with the single most demographic change in the world being the dramatic decline everywhere in birthrates. Women are having fewer and fewer children everywhere. The effect of this is that the population explosion of the past is coming to an end but also that women are spending much less time bearing and nurturing children, even as their life expectancy has soared.
It is also worth noting that traditional distinctions between men and women are collapsing. As women live longer and have fewer children, they no longer are forced by circumstance into the traditional roles they had to maintain prior to urbanization and industrialization. Nor is family the critical economic instrument it once was. Divorce is no longer economically catastrophic, and premarital sex is inevitable. Homosexuality-and civil unions without reproduction- also become unextraordinary. Ask yourself, if sentiment (love) is the basis of marriage, then why indeed is gay marriage not as valid as heterosexual marriage? If marriage is decoupled from reproduction, then gay marriage logically follows. all these changes are derived from the the radical shifts in life patterns that are part of the end of the population explosion.
It is no accident, therefore, that traditionalists within all religious groups-Catholics, Jews, Muslims and others- have focused on returning to traditional patterns of reproduction. they all argue for and may have large families. maintaining traditional roles for women in the this context makes sense, as do traditional expectations of early marriage, chastity, and the permanence of marriage. the key is having more children, which is a traditionalist principle. Everything else follows.
The issue is not only cropping up in advanced industrial societies. One of the foundations of anti western-ism is the argument that it breeds immorality, that it celebrates immodesty among women and destroys the family. If you read the speeches of Osama the theme is repeated continually. the world is changing and, he argues like many others, we are moving away from patterns of behavior that have traditionally been garded as moral. they want to stop this process.
All these issues have become a global battleground as well as an internal political maelstrom in most advanced industrial countries. On the one side there is a structured set of political forces that have their roots in existing religious organizations. On the other side, there is less a political force than an overwhelming pattern of behavior that is indifferent to the political consequences of the actions that are being taken. This pattern of behavior is driven by demographic necessity. Certainly there are movements defending various aspects of this "evolution," like gay rights, but the transformation is not being planned. it is simply happening.
THE CATCH-22 SITUATION/QUESTION. WHAT IS IN THE FUTURE FOR ALL OF US? AND CONCLUSION
The way forward should be characterized by how we define our decency as human beings. What do I mean? We are decent enough when we, basically, for example, men accept that women are an integral part of our society who have not worked themselves hard to deserve a daily battering and being used as mere sexual objects, and that women too will not simply understand men and characterize them as chauvinistic but the strong, smart and passionate gentlemen that they are both married to or relate with.
It will, as a matter of necessity, be up to us for the same decency to be portrayed, regardless of our various sexual orientations, accepting that there is another class of people that have opted otherwise. this is because our nature as human beings should not require us to be in control of one another actions but rather first human, which would include being "compassionate" to our brothers and sisters, and secondly, being, which would would demand of us the art of acceptance and coexistence with them.
NOTE.
I hold strong christian values considering that i am born and bred in a traditionalist roman catholic family and the closest i have been to becoming gay are the scenes i see daily in movies, music videos, pictures in social networking sites etc. this is a posting simply meant to open up our minds about the changing world that we live in, and of course open public debate.
a blog characterized by social criticism and commentary.
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Hello, this is my very first post to this blog of mine.I will be posting text that is basically from off the cuff(as i have loved to call it) conversations with my colleagues but of national, and international interest, collections of articles from yester years, poems, and a whole lot of funny, and intersting materail for your reading please. Do follow, and invite your family and friends to do the same. Thank you so much.
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