14AR19-30

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Apologia Report 19:30 (1,213)

September 10, 2014

Subject: Fascism in the gay and "trans" rights movement

In this issue:

ATHEISM - cafeteria-style faith for the secular soul

HOMOSEXUALITY - charting the trajectory of fascism in the gay and "trans" rights movement

MORMONISM - "Correlation" and discontent

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ATHEISM

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, by Sam Harris [1] -- Publishers Weekly (Aug '14, #2) tells us "Harris draws from personal contemplative practice and a growing body of scientific research to argue that the self, the feeling that there is an "I" residing in one's head, is both an illusion and the primary cause of human suffering. [Oh the irony contained in that second insight! - RP] Through meditation, this illusion can be extinguished, resulting in a deep sense of personal well-being regardless of circumstances, and also in compassionate and ethical behaviors toward others. The reality of such self-transcendence has been hitched to unwarranted claims about the nature of the universe by persons of faith and denied outright by most atheists and skeptics. The great value and novelty of this book is that Harris, in a simple but rigorous style, takes the middle way between these pseudoscientific and pseudo-spiritual assertions, cogently maintaining that while such contemplative insights provide no evidence for metaphysical claims, they are available, and seeing them for ourselves leads to a profoundly more salubrious life."

The publisher promo reads in part: "For the millions of Americans who want spirituality without religion, Sam Harris's new book is a guide to meditation as a rational spiritual practice informed by neuroscience and psychology. ... 'Waking Up' is for the 30 percent of Americans who follow no religion, but who suspect that Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Rumi, and the other saints and sages of history could not have all been epileptics, schizophrenics, or frauds. Throughout the book, Harris argues that there are important truths to be found in the experiences of such contemplatives - and, therefore, that there is more to understanding reality than science and secular culture generally allow. 'Waking Up' is part seeker's memoir and part exploration of the scientific underpinnings of spirituality. No other book marries contemplative wisdom and modern science in this way, and no author other than Sam Harris - a scientist, philosopher, and famous skeptic - could write it." And, we would add, no hubris could be so obvious. Just the latest step in the progression of spirituality without religion moving toward self-deification without virtue?

HOMOSEXUALITY

"When Heterosexuality Is Outlawed" by Mark Judge -- observes that "There is a dose of fascism in the gay and trans rights movement," and goes on to describe its threat as "the manipulation of language, and a conscience-eradicating resentment that calls for large-scale coercion.

"In his recent book Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior is Changing Everything [2], Robert Reilly [Senior Advisor for Information Strategy (2002-2006) for the US Secretary of Defense, director of the Voice of America (2001-2002) and Special Assistant to the President (1983-1985)] argues that the drive towards totalitarianism is strong in movements and lifestyles that suffer 'the rebuke of conscience.' That is, the more your conscience tells you that what you are doing - and doing over and over again, making it a vice - is wrong, the greater lengths you have to go to to rationalize that behavior."

Reilly explains: "The power of rationalization drives the culture war, gives it its particularly revolutionary character, and makes its advocates indefatigable. It may draw its energy from desperation, but it is all the more powerful for that. Since failed rationalization means self-recrimination, it must be avoided at all costs. This is why the rationalization is animated by such a lively sense of self-righteousness and outrage...This necessarily becomes a group effort. For them to succeed in this, everyone must accede to the rationalization.... Since the necessity for self-justification requires the complicity of the whole culture, holdouts cannot be tolerated, because they are potential rebukes."

Judge adds: "This also accounts for the corruption of language that is part of the gay marriage revolution. Whereas during the civil rights revolution Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders relentlessly kept circling back to the actual, precise meaning of America's creed and the letter of the Declaration of Independence, modern gay marriage advocates are evasive about words and their meaning. Traditional marriage scholar Ryan Anderson <www.ow.ly/Bje3Y> has found it difficult to get judges, politicians, journalists, and even people standing in front of him to answer the simple question: What is marriage? To answer the question would be to risk a rebuke from the rational mind, and that can't be allowed to happen. So judges, politicians, professors, activists, and journalists push ahead to redefine something that they deny has a definition to begin with." Real Clear Religion, Aug 18 '14, <www.ow.ly/BbeIa>

MORMONISM

"Banishing Dissent" by Kristine Haglund, editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought -- the excommunication of Mormon activist Kate Kelly <www.ow.ly/Bjeer> over her efforts to get the LDS leadership to allow the ordination of women to the Mormon priesthood has led the media to raise all sorts of interesting concerns. One observer describes LDS excommunication as an act that "cancels the saving power of the sacraments." In Kelly's case that means "when she dies, she cannot receive the exaltation reserved (according to Mormon theology) for Mormons who have been baptized and married by proper authority."

Haglund also notes "the case of Fawn McKay Brodie, a niece of president of the church David McKay, who was excommunicated in 1946 for publishing a biography [3] of church founder Joseph Smith that concluded he was a fraud. ...

"In the 1960s, the Mormon practice of racial discrimination in priesthood ordination and temple rites became a matter of controversy, both within and outside the church. In 1966, a group of graduate students at Stanford University founded Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the journal I now edit, which explored the priesthood and temple restrictions among other topics chosen to 'bring ... faith into dialogue with the larger stream of world religious thought.' The journal was controversial from the beginning but early editors of Dialogue were able to engage in direct and productive conversations with at least some of the highest authorities, and no official sanctions were imposed on the authors or editors."

In the late 20th century, "the LDS Church implemented a set of ideas that came to be known as 'Correlation.' Correlation borrowed organizational principles from both progressive social movements and mid-century American corporate practices to streamline and systematize Church teachings and publications. ... Many credit Correlation with facilitating the remarkable growth of the LDS Church from under 2 million members, concentrated almost entirely (90 percent) in Utah and the Western U.S. in 1950, to around 8 million members in 1990, with fewer than half of those members in Utah and the Western U.S. ...

"Correlation inculcated the notion that disagreement was undesirable (at best), and that doctrinal pronouncements emanating from church leaders in Salt Lake represented an official and unitary position that believers ought to accept as a matter of course. ...

"There is still no mechanism for communicating from the periphery to the center.... With no system for allowing support or reinforcement from outside the center, the spokes extending from the hub become weaker the farther one moves from the lived experience and perceptions of the men working to administer an ever-growing church from its less and less geographically and demographically relevant center. When confrontations occur at the edges where Mormonism reaches into unfamiliar ideological and cultural territory, thin doctrinal agreement can be pulled beyond the breaking point. The resulting fractures send shards and debris flying, and the resulting mess is called 'apostasy.' Fixing the blame for apostasy on individual members may temporarily reassure those who are working to maintain stability, but it does nothing to reinforce the structure or tend to the wounds of those who are pierced when its pieces splinter." Religion and Politics, Jun 25 '14, <www.ow.ly/Bbhw3>

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, by Sam Harris (Simon & Schuster, 2014, hardcover, 256 pages) <www.ow.ly/Bctal>

2 - Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything, by Robert Reilly (Ignatius, 2014, hardcover, 250 pages) <www.ow.ly/BbevS>

3 - No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, by Fawn McKay Brodie (Vintage, 2nd ed., rev. and enl., 1995, paperback, 576 pages) <www.ow.ly/BbhYh>

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