Author: Julia

struggling with homoerotic desires

This kind of thing continues to piss me off.

Given the discussion over my comments about the actions of the United Methodist Church I think I should add this disclaimer: I absolutely believe that the Catholic church has the right to make any decision they want about anyone joining the clergy, taking communion, stepping foot on their property, etc.

That said — man, I wish they wouldn’t.

As I understand it, celibacy is already a requirement of the Catholic priesthood. I would think that means that no one who “practices homosexuality” should be a priest, but no one who practices heterosexuality should be either.

Beyond the clear implication that gays are more likely to be pedophiles (which is, in my mind, the most objectionable piece of this), is the church saying that homoerotic desires are somehow, by nature, harder to control? That homosexuality is somehow fundamental to one’s being? If it is that fundamental to one’s being, does that mean, perhaps, that it is a preference one is born with? And if it is something one is born with, could that make it part of “God’s Plan”?

Note: I’ve received a few emails/comments pointing out that my logic in this post is flawed. I addressed it in one comment, but I wanted to include it in the post as well. I wasn’t trying to construct a serious intellectual argument here. Rather, I was responding to one of the arguments I’ve heard for churches trying to get gays to adopt straight lifestyles, which is that homosexuality is a choice rather than innate preference. The argument I’ve heard goes that it can’t be innate, because God wouldn’t make someone gay. What the Catholic church seems to be saying is that “gayness” is innate, but if we’re using the logic that other religious groups have applied, then if it is innate, it’s gotta be endowed by God. I should have been more explicit about what I was getting at. (updated 12/7/2005, 16:59)

I’m a winner, baby!

At approximately 6:45 this evening I checked my word count and — lo and behold I was at 50,014 words! So I did some quick wrapping up (the story’s so disjointed it’s not even funny), went to a meeting, and came home and verified it. NaNoWriMo.org verified my final word count at 50,312.

Congrats to Ross, who finished just a few minutes later (but got to validate first!).

NaNoveling

Anyone notice the massive jump in wordcount today? That’s right, I jumped from 21K+ words to go to just under 10K words to go. Some of it was written at home over Thanksgiving, but I wrote over 8,000 words today.

I just had to brag.

whew

That sigh of relief comes with the onset of Thanksgiving Break. I am very thankful.

I haven’t quite unwound enough to have anything interesting to say, but I just wanted to say hi. Hi.

the right way to admit you were wrong

I applaud the espoused sentiment behind this column by John Edwards in today’s Washington Post. He writes:

It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002. I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn’t make a mistake — the men and women of our armed forces and their families — have performed heroically and paid a dear price.

I think this is the right direction to go with the rhetoric — focusing on “We made a mistake, how can we recover from it?” rather than “Who tricked us into this?” It’s also a good alternative to the administration’s stance, which appears to be, “There was no mistake and everything’s dandy. Quick — look over there.”

Edwards proposes a three-fold plan that includes reducing our military presence in Iraq, implementing a “more effective training program for Iraqi forces,” and pursuing “a serious diplomatic process that brings the world into this effort.” I think these are good ideas — although I don’t know about reducing our military presence before replacing troops with competent Iraqi forces — but can they actually be implemented? I mean, they sound like the same ideas that have been there all along, which makes me think either the administration hasn’t even tried, or implementation is impossible. Or, I suppose, that the current leadership isn’t competent but someone else could do it.

It seems to me that the broad ideas are covered — although, as I mentioned, it is good to hear a Dem accepting responsibility for a mistake and at least saying that he wants to move on to focus on a solution — but specifics are, as always, lacking. What does a more effective training program look like? How can we convince other countries to get involved?

I certainly don’t have any ideas, and it’s probably naive of me to ask a politician to offer any real solutions, but all of this — the blame game, the acceptance of responsibility, the statement of broad objectives without steps for how to achieve them — still won’t help.

the french dream

I’ve been meaning to post about the whole “France is burning” thing for a while now, but felt like I could write ten pages on it because, well, I did write ten pages on it (okay, seven), and I wanted to collect my thoughts a little better. But it has finally occurred to me that I am not going to be doing that anytime soon, so instead I’m just posting the paper. I wrote it in the spring for a Comparative Politics class and haven’t cleaned it up, so it’s slightly out of date and probably needs to be edited. But if I wait to fix it, it’ll never get uploaded.

So here it is:

Islam in France: Balancing Laïcité with Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood