Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Huckabee: The Mark.

Huckabee on homosexuality (Source):

"Let's understand what sin means -- sin means missing the mark. Missing the mark can mean missing the mark in any area. We've all missed the mark. ... How we miss the mark is less important than we all miss the mark. The mark is that we have marriage -- men and women, they marry, they create children, and they train their replacements and you have a future generation then that creates their replacements and trains them. That's the mark. If we didn't have that as the ideal, we wouldn't have a civilization that was able to perpetuate."

I stare at this and no words come. Then I realize the problem: Pleasure. That's what is missing from this quote. Pleasure, love, desire, admiration, respect, companionship, attraction, beauty, honesty, love, love, love.

It's not there.

Huckabee has dismissed homosexuality as an option by removing humanity from the human race. Relationships do not exist for pleasure, for companionship, for love. There is no human element in it, no life. Huckabee reduced human social interractions to a mechanical, cold, lifeless march towards the continuation of the species. No respect. No love. No passion.

Reproduction.
Continuation.
Babies.

It's inauthentic. It is a lie. It is incorrect. It's not just theologically problematic, existentially problematic, or logically problematic. It is actually problematic.

"The mark is that we have marriage -- men and women, they marry, they create children, and they train their replacements and you have a future generation then that creates their replacements and trains them. That's the mark."

Human beings are cattle, machines, inanimate lifeless beings who exist to reproduce and spawn new lifeless, inanimate beings forever marching towards no particular end other than continuation.

Ignore the theology, the hate, the illogical grasping at straws. Ignore all of the problems which result from this view and grasp the view itself: Huckabee does not acknowledge passion. Huckabee does not acknowledge love.

Christ had passion. Christ loved.
Homosexuals have passion. Homosexuals love.
Human beings have passion. Human beings love.

What is Huckabee?

15 comments:

Andrew said...

Wow. J that was good rant.
im impressed. I think you hit the mark.

MA17 said...

Indeed.

Also, setting "the mark" at being that people produce children, and "sin" as not hitting "the mark", then is celibacy a sin?

If it is, then not only is Huckabee contradicting the priesthood, but he's condemning asceticism with the same mouth that he's implicitly advocating it. (We shouldn't be sinners. Not making babies is a sin. Ascetics don't make babies, ascetics are sinners, we shouldn't be ascetics. Ascetics also eschew pleasures of the flesh, which we should remember to do, so we should be ascetics...)

Furthermore, (I can't remember if this is Biblical canon or not, so I'll hedge and say that this is "Christian wisdom") Christian wisdom advises against marriage for those who are not already married. Married people should be married, but those who aren't should avoid it if they can.

Caleb said...

I think Paul wrote that somewhere.


Also, I do believe that this is the finest rant to be posted hitherto.

_J_ said...

1 Corinthians 7: 25-40)

Here is the gist:

32But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord:

33But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.

34There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

_J_ said...

1) "sin means missing the mark."

2) "The mark is that we have marriage -- men and women, they marry, they create children, and they train their replacements and you have a future generation then that creates their replacements and trains them."

Ergo:
Celibacy is a sin.

Caleb said...

Matthew 19:8-12 is relevant as well:

8Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."

10The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."

11 Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."

_J_ said...

It's amazing what one finds in that book if one takes the time to read it.

Maybe Huckabee will read it one day.

_J_ said...

"If we didn't have that as the ideal, we wouldn't have a civilization that was able to perpetuate."

This still bothers me.

First, men and women do not have to be married to reproduce. Let's trash that notion right now.

Second, if homosexuals are sinning by failing to marry in a manner which leads to babies then what of, you know, everyone else who fails to make babies? Does Huckabee hate me and my lack of a girlfriend? Does Huckabee hate Catholic Priests? Does Huckabee hate Jesus?

Of all the things that make no sense in his argument the biggest is this "obligation to make babies" that seems to be not only baseless but completely contrary to what Jesus and Paul said.

Roscoe said...

... J hits married couples?

Not that I doubt it... I just assumed there'd be charges filed...

I mean.. if anyone does things serially, it's J, and once there's a history of serial Battery, federal usually steps in....

_J_ said...

mmm...cereal.

Kylebrown said...

I would like to mention that the human species in the current era is having absolutely no problem perpetuating the species.

The scary thing is that Huckabee's logic follows that of natural selection, something he very obviously does not believe in. Outside of the marriage part anyways.

Lady Enide said...

Hmm. This is difficult. While I agree with Huckabee's position of homosexuality = sin, his argument for thinking thus is undeniably flawed.

He should've just stuck with, "God said don't do that. But hey, if you don't want to listen to God, that's not my problem." Actually, why don't CC politicians *ever* say anything like that?

Caleb said...

After one says something like that, one cannot argue against gay marriage.

_J_ said...

I'll agree with lady enid. If Huckabee had said "Leviticus" then at least he would have kept his reasoning Biblically based and not wandered off into the realm of crazy Huckabee logic.

Though, I would have asked why that part of Leviticus is still applicable while 95% of Leviticus is not applicable.

But at least then we're in a theological discussion rather than a discussion of retarded Huckabee logic.

Jess said...

This line of things reminds me why I miss you all!
Quite moving good sir J and more ammunition to add to why despite the fact I thought I might like Huckabee...I infact do not.