A Greek Lesson in Democracy

Greece is the oft-lauded birthplace of democracy and perhaps it is fitting that this small and fiercely idiosyncratic European country may be about to give the world a lesson in it.

It would be true to say, as John Redwood has pointed out, that the entry of Greece into the Euro a decade and a half ago was sheer hubris and folly. That hubris has been shown up for what it was since 2010. During this time, Greece has been subjected to so-called ‘austerity’ measures that have brought the country to its knees and have, five years later, not produced any improvement and indeed very much the opposite. In some areas, unemployment has risen to 60% and Greece’s banks are now closed.

In the last few weeks and months, we have seen a troika of New Imerialists – Christine Lagarde of the IMF, Jean-Claude Juncker, Pesident of the European Commission and Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor, openly bully and strong-arm the democratically elected Prime Minister of a sovereign nation, Alexis Tsipras. It has been an absolute disgrace and an affront to democratic principles. We saw heavy-handed and insensitive ‘diplomacy’, that was clearly intended to undermine Tsipras and to coerce him into capitulating to yet more horror and misery. The result was that Tsipras did the one thing the New Imperialists hate the most — he decided to ask his own people what he should do. He actually dared ask for a democratic mandate. What impudence!

That is the one thing the New Imperialists insist must never happen. The European Project, the euro zone and the world’s financial system operate through deals being done that are not given a mandate by popular vote, which then can never be undone — or so they would like to think. The very concept of a referendum is anathema to them: political solutions are for the senior members of the diplomatic cabal to impose on the people.

They can never come out and openly say that they regard democracy as an inconvenience to be subverted and steamrollered whenever it suits them. But we are all supposed to play along with the blatant pretence that they think democracy has value. The lies, deceit, and sheer contempt, of the New Imperialists, are manifest in their tactics with Tsipras: they intended to browbeat him into ignoring the will of the people who had elected him. Instead he threw it back in their faces and turned the matter over to that people.

And in so doing, Alexis Tsipras has shown himself to be that rarest of the rare: an honest politician who respects his mandate. He has shown exactly what his opponents, the bullies who would compromise him, do not have: integrity.

The vote, a referendum on the terms under which their misery will be prolonged, how much more shame and suffering Greeks must endure, will be held on Sunday. How will they vote?

Had Greece had an independent currency, it would have devalued in 2010. This would have stimulated inward investment and exports. Greece is not a major exporting nation but it is still a significant part of the economy. However, Greece relies heavily on tourism, which always benefits from a low currency.

At the same time, its central bank would have minimised interest rates to stimulate growth and reduce the cost of debt servicing. It would have had to accept a reduction in its national credit rating, but the corollary would have been that it would simply have written off a significant amount of the debt that it ‘owes’. The government, risking a small amount of inflation, would have printed more money — exactly as the UK did. It may even have issued new bonds — in drachmas, not euros.

There is no reason why Greece should not have been successful if it had been able to do this. Instead, it has been nailed to the cross of a failed neo-liberal economic model. The ‘emergency bail-out’ money, paid since 2010, did not go to Greece, but to foreign banks demanding their viggerish. In other words, yet again, taxpayers’ money in other European nations is being spent to keep their own profligate and dysfunctional banks operating, while calling it a ‘bail-out’ to a Greek economy that is only in the mess it is because of those very lenders’ slavish adherence to a discredited ideology.

There is no doubt which way Greeks should vote on Sunday; they should vote ‘No’ to the ridiculous demands for further ‘austerity’.

This will give Greece a unique opportunity that it must grasp: to free itself from the straitjacket of the euro and once again manage an economy in its own interests, not those of Europe’s paymaster, Germany.

Greece should reintroduce the drachma as soon as it can get the presses rolling. It should establish a favourable exchange rate against the Euro; this will mean that savers will not lose out in the exchange but at the same time, that the economy will be attractive to investors.

It should default, as Iceland did, on all debt. If it agrees to honour any at all, this should be on condition of a five year renewable repayment holiday, during which time, no interest will accrue. Further it should insist that any such debt will be repaid, ultimately, in drachmas, not euros. If creditors refuse to accept these terms, Greece should consider itself under no obligation to repay them.

It should immediately make overtures to China, which has immense reserves of capital ready to invest and will do so. Russia has no money, so no matter how politically attractive that avenue might be to Tsipras, it is doomed to failure. But opening upGreek investment markets fully to China is a real possibility. After all, the British, themselves not burdened with the euro, are doing exactly that.

Yet underlying all this is a simple fact: Greece accounts for 2% of the euro zone economy. Europe could easily — so easily that no-one would even notice — just write off the Greek debt and return it to a zero balance.

It won’t for political reasons. The power players in the euro zone do not care about Greece in itself; they worry about the message they might send to Italy, Spain, Portugal and to a lesser extent Ireland, should they appear ‘soft’ on Greece. A Greek exit from the euro would be a gnat-bite; were Italy, Spain and Portugal to follow suit, it would provoke an existential crisis for the euro and perhaps an end to the European Project as it is now understood.

At the same time Euopean leaders are viscerally opposed to the idea of countries outside the euro zone being able to trade freely with it while setting their own interest rates and fiscal policy — which is exactly what Greece, and should they also decide to grow a backbone, Italy, Spain and Portugal would become. It’s a Domino Theory that has teeth.

This is also an ideological conflict. Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, is a radical Leftist and the established authorities on Europe have drifted so far to the right, to satisfy Germany, as to be totally hostile to everything he stands for — like equality, justice, social inclusion and fairness. They want to see him humiliated, and they want, through that, to humiliate the Greek people, so that they will toe the neo-liberal economic line; even though that line has been a failure across Europe.

Forcing Greece to suffer unnecessary ‘austerity’, to a level that would get Merkel booted out of office were she to try it at home, is as nothing to the New Imperialists. Above all else, on their agenda, is that the other peoples of Europe do not discover ‘austerity’ for the sham that it is, a means of taking money directly from the poorest and weakest and giving it to the richest and strongest.

At every turn the essential, governing principle of democracy has been, is being and will be corroded and debased by the neo-liberal economic system until it is destroyed. That principle is simple: it is that ‘sovereignty resides with the people’. This is the foundation of modern democracy, and it is under threat from every side; from unelected supra-national organisations like the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and even the United Nations; from a network of quangos and appointees at both supra-national and sub-national level, and by trade agreements that allow corporations to sue populations for making decisions that affect only the territories they are sovereign over.

We have gone so far in allowing the democracy that is perhaps our most precious asset to be stripped from us that it will now take catharsis to turn the tide, to begin to reclaim some of that which is rightfully ours.

Greece stands on the cusp, the tipping point of the balance. Which way will the people vote? We don’t know. The Greeks have steadfastly endured a horror of ‘austerity’ that has come close to destroying their country and has ruined the lives of millions. Perhaps they will, like a drowning man, clutch in shame at the straw offered by the New Imperialists — submit to yet more horror and abuse and we will let some scraps from our table fall your way, if we think you’ve been good enough.

But perhaps they will not. Perhaps they will remember that it is to them that we owe democracy itself and will vote down the troika’s vicious proposition, which can only lead to more suffering and, in fact, only a delay of a year or so in Greece’s inevitable departure from the euro. Perhaps the spark of defiance that they have showed so often before will kindle again.

Perhaps they will show that democracy is a precious thing, not to be sold for a pittance. That sovereignty is all we have and if we let it go, then we condemn ourselves to perpetual slavery, to the dominion of the New Imperialists.

The voters in the Greek referendum should consider very carefully on Sunday. They have the choice to re-establish the rule of democracy in their own country instead of being dictated to  by people who are either unelected or whom they did not elect. Yes it will be difficult for a while should they leave the euro, but they will survive and their country will be stronger for it.

More than that, they will not only be voting for themselves, but for the rule of democracy, and to relight the candle of hope for the rest of the world. If they do so, they will be owed a huge debt of gratitude by everyone else on the planet.

Rod Fleming on Google+

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Toilets aren’t just a storm in a urinal

Trans man Michael C. Hughes, who has been taking selfies in the toilets he is obliged to use

Clearly everyone should use the toilet they feel most comfortable in. That should be a given. No-one needs to know what’s in anyone else’s pants when they go to relieve themselves. Yet in the United States today, this has become a hotly contested issue, alongside that of marriage equality. While it now looks as if the latter will soon be resolved, the toilet issue has become more prominent as the forces of intolerance shift their focus.

This issue has been seized on by social conservatives, egged on by the religious right, in order to further their campaign of hate and discrimination against anyone who is not one of them. At root, it is a non-issue. There is no reason why all public toilets should not be unisex (or unigender, perhaps). And even if it might be argued that there is a case for gendered toilets, trans women are women and trans men are men. The problem is non-existent except as a tool for the most viciously conservative voices in society to promulgate hatred against those they think weak enough to attack.

In the USA, this issue has reached histrionic proportions unseen anywhere else. Why? In Germany, most toilets are gender-neutral already and elsewhere, most people are too decent to cause a fuss about something so personal. So what has caused it to become so prominent in the US?

To answer this, we have to look back to the unresolved issues of the American Civil War, which the nation has never brought itself to confront. This cathartic, catastrophic war, that famously divided families and set ‘brother against brother’ (and we presume, sister against sister) was fought over the issue of whether a black person could legally be a US citizen, and so fall under the protection of the Constitution — which would have meant the end of slavery, upon which the economy of the South was based.

In other words, the Civil War was fought to determine whether all humans were equal under the Constitution, or not. And this principle was positively, irrevocably established when the Confederate forces disparately surrendered in 1865.

The principle of equality, while initially established in response to the condition of African slaves in America, was extended, by implication, to everyone else. All ‘races’ were therefore equal — although it took over 100 years for the native Americans to be recognised. Women must, by definition, also be equal. A hundred and some years after the end of the Civil War, gay men and women, quite rightly, insisted that the right to equality under the Constitution, established by the Confederate surrender, applied to them too. Each and every one of these was vehemently opposed, and always by the same social conservatives, to the point that today it is hard to believe that it was the Republican Party that put an end to slavery, prosecuted and won the war against the South and established the principle in the first place.

Now, 150 years after the end of formal hostilities, the focus has shifted to trans people. All the debates over ‘restrooms’, toilets, changing facilities, call them what you will, in the USA, are part of the same campaign: to ensure that equality is not extended to this group, as it has been to all the others.

The reason is simple: if one is determined to think of oneself as superior to others, one must have people who are inferior. But the Constitution, rightly, wonderfully and proudly says that you can’t have that. The war may have been fought, by the South, to ensure the inferiority of black people and preserve ‘white supremacy’ but that was lost a long time ago and, despite the vicious and ongoing rearguard action that only last week claimed nine people’s lives in Charleston, the right knows, while it ‘nurses its wrath to keep it warm’, that this battle is lost.

The same is true of women’s equality, a battle, though still ongoing, which the right knows it will have to concede. Over the last fifty years the battleground has been over gay equality. Today, transgender equality is the conservative right’s next line in the sand; its next attempt to find a group in society that it might condemn to inferiority. Just as with blacks and gays and with women, who, after all, are actually a majority, its tactics are the same: lies, discrimination, suppression, violence and the manipulation of the legal system.

All because, in order to exist at all, the American social conservatives must have someone they can not only feel superior to, but against whom they can legally, if not legitimately, discriminate. After all, what is the point of ‘white supremacy’ unless there is someone whites can lord it over? And that is why this ridiculous toilets issue has moved centre-stage: the white conservative right is running out of people to feel superior to.

Make no mistake, the same people who are behind transphobic discrimination in the use of toilet facilities are the exact same people whose ideas are responsible for the killing of Gwen Araujo and, in this year alone, 15 reported murders of trans women, countless killings and beatings of gay people, ongoing violence and discrimination against ‘racial’ minorities and ultimately, the deaths of 9 people last week.

They are the same people who have insisted on flying a Confederate flag over the State House in Alabama for FIFTY YEARS. People whose goal in life is to insult others and why? So they can say, ‘See? We didn’t really lose after all. We’re still superior. That war changed nothing.’ It is this defiance, this denial of the truth, that gives them their identity.

That defiance is expressed in discrimination, violence and killing. From the Ku Klux Klan to the ‘Moral Majority’ (which was neither) to today’s ‘Male Rights Activists’ and the racist, transphobic and homophobic religious right, these are all the same people. They deny science, they deny the Holocaust, they deny evolution, they deny climate change, they even deny that the US, in an era when it was great, put men on the moon. What’s the denial of human rights after that? And all that denial is rooted in the primary denial of one simple, incontestable, historically demonstrable fact: the Confederacy and all it stood for, LOST. You deny one fact, you can deny them all. They’ve been doing it for a hundred and fifty years now.

Toilets are just the latest absurd non-issue they have seized on in order to promote hatred, division and discrimination. And this horrible litany, that regularly leads to violence and death, is being preached in churches all over the United States, but particularly in the South.

Don’t take my word for it: do the research and you’ll find an unbroken trail of hatred leading right back to Gettysburg and beyond, from the pulpits of ‘Southern Baptist’ preachers. And what is the root cause of that hatred? THEY LOST. These people are nothing more than sore losers with money and guns.

There is a sure way to cure this and America has to grasp the nettle. End the tax-free privileges of ALL religious organisations, now. That will fix it. These people will melt away like the snows of yesteryear.

 

#WeJustNeedToPee

Rod Fleming on Google+

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Marriage Equality and the Decline of Religiosity

In western Europe, the Americas and elsewhere, a revolution has taken place over the last few years.

Go back 200 years and we in the West were hanging gay men; a hundred years ago, more or less, we locked up Oscar Wilde for being gay and fifty years ago one of the greatest geniuses, ever, to have been born in the United Kingdom, Alan Turing, was forced to undergo chemical castration and driven to suicide, just for being gay.

Yet today, we celebrate gayness. When a State solemnises a marriage, it gives validation to that marriage, and the couple undertaking it, in the name of every citizen of that State. It is saying, ‘We the people approve of and celebrate your love, and we wish you both the greatest of happiness.’ It places all the authority and approval of the State on that marriage, in our names.

So we have, in fifty years or less, gone from persecuting and imprisoning or mutilating gays, to absolutely supporting them.

What does this tell us?

The principal agent in the suppression of non-heteronormative sexual orientation or gender identity was and remains, the organised Abrahamic religions. We see, in parts of the world where these still hold real power, that they ruthlessly suppress gays and transgenders wherever they can, calling for, and all too frequently enacting, even judicial murder, just for the ‘crime’ of not loving in accordance with their texts.

Let’s make no mistake, they would still be doing exactly the same thing in our more enlightened jurisdictions if they could. Even Pope Francis had to pretend to soften towards gays and transgenders, in order to make the public face of the Catholic Church more appealing — even though that was quickly shown to be no more than PR spin, and the Church is as transphobic, homophobic and for that matter misogynistic as it ever was.

So by definition, the increasing acceptance of the rights of gay and transgender people is an inverse measure of the level of authority over society that these religions maintain.

This is useful because, particularly in the case of the United States, we are used to thinking that religion wields much greater power. I have written elsewhere that ’45% of Americans are retards’ and in the context of that article, this is true. To deny evolution is to be wilfully, egregiously stupid. It is to actively prefer ignorance to knowledge.

Until the early 1980s America was following a trajectory of secularisation that broadly paralleled that of Europe and the developed world generally. There was declining faith and an increasingly open society. However, in that decade, Jerry Falwell, a religious snake-oil salesman exploiting the tax loophole that allows so many like him to get rich, led, from the foetid and dark recesses of conservative America, a phenomenon called the ‘Moral Majority’.

Well, it was neither a majority nor moral; but what are a few lies in the name of Christianity? Doesn’t Justin Martyr, the first Christian apologist, recommend it?

Despite not being a majority, this bubble of pure reaction managed to set the United States back by decades. From being, without question, the world’s absolute leader in the sciences, America is now one of the also-rans. The large Hadron Collider at Cern is where it is due to the success of Falwell and his supporters. The list of scientific programmes that have been deferred, underfunded or scrapped because of the influence of these throwbacks is tragically long. And from being the world leader in pollution control and environmental protection, the United States became a pariah, actively doing all it can to prevent such progress.

It beggars belief, today, that it was the Republican Party that ended slavery in the US, not the Democratic. Then, Republicans were the voice of progress. We cannot say that Falwell did not harm us all. So knowing the extent to which religiosity remains an important issue in American society is important for all of us.

When you live in a secular state, religion is something you think about very little. Most people are practical atheists. They don’t go to church and they don’t pray. If asked if they believe in God, they might shrug, or they might be ambivalent. The fact is they don’t think about it enough to have an opinion, which is pretty much the definition of an atheist.

Yet if asked what religion they are, most will answer that it is the religion they were brought up in — even if they haven’t been to church in decades. There are practical atheists who will still categorise themselves as belonging to a religion simply because they don’t think about it enough to have another opinion. This falsely skews the numbers and that makes it difficult to use the results of surveys to determine how secular a society is.

Charlatans and cheats like Falwell and his followers exploited this problem to make it look as if the majority of Americans were religiously deluded. In a society so rigidly conformist, nobody wants to rock the boat, especially over something they haven’t thought about in years.

The famous ’45%’ probably falls under the same category. American education is in a dreadful state, with publicly-funded schools regularly being caught teaching ‘creationism’, as has been seen this week in Louisiana. At the same time, most private schools in America are religious in nature. All of these routinely decry evolution and science. If you’re brought up in a system like that, it’s easy to say you don’t believe in evolution.

Even if that were true, however, and 45% of Americans really don’t believe in something that can be conclusively demonstrated even to an idiot, 45% is not a majority. 45% of Scots voted for Independence last year, yet Scotland remains a colonial outpost of the British State. Why? Because 45% is NOT a majority. And this figure, for America, has remained roughly the same for over thirty years. So, because there is a powerful correlation between religiosity and science-denial, all the time Falwell was claiming his ‘majority’ he was lying.

Because of these problems, the extent of religiosity in the United States (and elsewhere) has always been overstated. That is why marriage equality is such a useful indicator.

 

To a religious person,  marriage equality is anathema. If you are of the Abrahamic religions you must be against it. Yet we see now that sizeable majorities in the US and elsewhere are in favour of marriage equality.

This means that far more people must non-religious than are saying so. The increasing number of ‘nones’ — much heralded by well-known atheists like Lawrence Krauss and Richard Dawkins — must still be an underestimate.

In his book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M Pirsig talked about splitting factors. These, when used properly, like a surgeon’s scalpel, could divide a problem in two and thus resolve it. Marriage equality is a case in point. Although there are others, for example abortion rights, that might also serve, these involve other ethical questions; after all, while more is made of it than should be, an organism’s life must be ended.

There is absolutely no such ethical consideration about marriage equality. It is an expression of love. No organism is harmed. Nothing dies and nobody gets hurt. The only thing that is transgressed is ‘scriptural morality’. One may agree with it because one believes that people have the right to live and love as they will, so long as no harm is caused to others; but to disagree with it requires that one decides that marriage is not about love but is instead a contract between a man and a woman expressly and solely for the purpose of procreation, which must always conform to the rules of patriarchal religions.

The question therefore obliges the responder to decide which is more important: the demands and proclamations of religion, or the rights of the individual. One either agrees that religion should control how people live and love, or that people have the freedom to love as they will, and more than that, with official sanction in our names.

Every person who comes down in favour of marriage equality is saying that whether or not they do personally consider themselves to be of religion, or believe in a god, they consider the rights of the individual to be more important.

That is the definition of secularism and with any luck, in the near future the US Supreme Court will make it clear, by endorsing marriage equality and striking down objections to it on Constitutional grounds, that the United States is indeed a secular democracy, and that the lies and deception of the Falwell era are finally rejected.

We look forward to welcoming this nation back into the modern world, a world that needs it. It will be a moment to be profoundly savoured.

Rod Fleming on Google+

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Transgender – Is there really an increase?

Following on the significant increase in media exposure that transgender has enjoyed in recent weeks, is this phenomenon actually becoming more common?

Phuket, Thailand. Midnight: Bangla Road is packed with tourists. They’re mostly Westerners and Russians, but many Asians and a smattering of Indians. There seems a disproportionate number of unattached males. The music is very loud, and throbbing.

Outside the bars, on elevated stages, Thai girls are dancing provocatively. They’re tall, fantastically beautiful, and seductive. They look, and move, like supermodels, but with better bodies. Then you realise: there are other Thai women here too, but they’re short, cute and pretty, not at all statuesque or magnificent. Alongside Thailand’s famous trans women, they are all but invisible, like candles next to a searchlight. It’s easy to see who has the attention of the gathered men.

On stage, one girl rolls her dress down to her hips so that her naked breasts and torso – she sports a delicate dragon tattoo on her back – are shown off, as she wriggles to the thrumming techno. Her body is as flawless as a Greek goddess’ and her dance mesmerising as a Siren’s: you just can’t help but watch and smile at her exquisite insouciance. Her own grin is wide and genuine: she is no miserable sex-slave; this girl loves performing and is basking in the rapt attention of her audience.

Most of the girls here have already had Genital Reconstruction Surgery; they are as proud of their bodies as teenagers with a new car, and as enthusiastic about displaying them. Everywhere, the dancing kathoey engage the watching men; they call out to them, beckon with their hands, seduce with a flick of their luxuriant hair or a flash of dark eyes. Breasts, buttocks and even more are flaunted, always with an outrageous gesture of false modesty: bashful these girls are not.

Fifty and hundred-baht notes are flying onto the stages like confetti, and the more explicit the dancer the more she earns. A girl slips onto an empty bar stool beside a middle-aged Western man. As she does so she daintily rucks her dress up round her waist. Like many of the girls, and discovering this has not required guesswork, she’s wearing no knickers. A moment later the man turns, smiles at her, looks down, and smiles even more. Business is about to be done.

This is the popular view of kathoey, as trans women are known in Thailand.  As so often the case, however, this view is distorted, for the coyote dancers and bar girls are only a small fraction of the total. Nor are they by any means dominant even here, for there are far more natal women selling sex and titillation. Pattaya, for example, has an estimated 10,000 sex workers, of whom only 5% or so are kathoey.

Prostitution has very little stigma in Thailand, and a successful one can make £3000 or more a month, much more than a teacher or an office worker. Although prostitution is illegal, it is an entrenched part of Thai culture, and the main market is indigenous. Recent studies suggest that 75% or more of Thai men employ prostitutes. Visits are given as birthday presents, business sweeteners, even by wives to their husbands when they themselves are pregnant. The business is not the result of ‘sex tourism’, although that represents a lucrative addition to it.

Thai trans women do not become so in order to work in the sex trade. However, some are attracted to the job, partly because, like all Thai, they are expected to help support their families, partly because their hormones, breast implants and other surgery are expensive, and partly because of the pleasure they get from affirmation: one proof that they are beautiful women is that men will pay to be with them.

Dancer at Alcazar, Pattaya. Pic: Rod Fleming

However, far greater numbers of trans women work in offices, banks, shops, salons, restaurants. They are models, showgirls, actresses, entertainers, even air-hostesses. Many are teachers; I know of one who is the ‘headman’ of her village. Others run businesses of all sorts, some with turnovers running into the tens of millions – of dollars, not baht. Many have degree-level education or higher.

Though the numbers may appear high, Thailand is not a transgender paradise.

Successful Thai singer Bell Nuntita, who is trans

Discrimination is widespread, and families may reject them, unless they can send money home. Although proposed changes to the Constitution that might help have been reported in the Media, at present it remains impossible for a Thai to legally change gender. Since the production of an identity card is mandatory in many everyday transactions, having the wrong gender markers causes much distress and actual hardship to trans people. Many other petty and unnecessary obstacles confront them and complicate their lives.

However, any kathoey will say the same: ‘I was born this way.’ It is not a matter of choice. Often they began dressing as girls long before puberty, usually in secret, but not always.

Many Thai schools now have three toilets: male, female and kathoey. There is even a kathoey university. Being kathoey is no more a lifestyle decision than being transgender anywhere else: they just live in a society where they will, at least, not be ostracised, beaten or even killed for openly being what they are.   There remains some debate about why transgender occurs, despite the fact that it has a recorded history spanning some 6000 years, to the Eanna Temple of Inanna in Uruk in Sumer. In Rome, amongst the devotees of the Phrygian goddess Cybele, who was imported after the Punic Wars, ecstatic young males called ‘galli’ would ritually self-castrate and then enter the service of the goddess.

This practice is maintained, today, by the transgender hijra of India and Pakistan. There is even evidence of the phenomenon in Palaeolithic burials. Whatever the cause, it has long been part of human culture.

Following the most recent editions to the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual and the positions of equivalents in France and the UK, transgender is no longer considered a mental disorder, but a normal part of human variation. Neurologists point to research that shows how the brains of trans women and natal women are similar in an area called the amygdala, which develops very early; but why these changes occur remains uncertain, although it may be due to abnormalities in the delivery of hormones to the developing foetus.

On the other hand, the reason may be genetic. A genetic cause would not only explain, in a way that no other hypothesis can, why both homosexual behaviour and transgender identities appear to be similarly prevalent in all human populations, at about the same rate, throughout history.

However, the suggestion that either homosexuality or transgender might have this cause has long been objected to by social conservatives who argue that any non-hetero sexual behaviour or transgender identity orientation must be a reproductive cul-de-sac because it does not lead directly to reproductive sex.

This completely ignored the inconvenient fact that same-sex behaviours have been observed in over 400 different species of other animals. These observations voided most of the social conservatives’ arguments but were unexplained. This was finally resolved in 2014 when researchers at the University of Portsmouth, led by Dr Diana Fleischman, established that same-sex bonding had indeed proved to be an evolutionary asset.

The team found that sex was not exclusively, in the populations studied, used for reproduction, but instead for a gamut of other functions that included reinforcing the bonds that held the group together and assisting the survival of the young. These helped the survival of the whole group, which in humans and the other species observed, is made up of closely-related individuals. Better group survival confers an advantage for the individuals within the group and explains why these phenomena have a genetic cause. The ‘evolutionary cul-de-sac’ argument was finally, definitively, torpedoed.

 

Complex or simple though the underlying stimulus may be, transgender is very easy to treat. You give the patient the gender and body she or he needs, and that’s it. Many trans folk don’t even require sex reassignment, just hormones and cosmetic work.

So why is it often so hard for them to get help from their doctors that they self-medicate with drugs bought on the Internet? There lies the rub: the difficulty is not in making life better for the individuals, but in accepting them at all.

What all trans people want is to be treated with respect as the gender they feel themselves to be. Thailand’s Buddhist culture provides that. Kathoey are thought to have been adulterers in a previous life. Since reincarnation happens to everyone, and treating kathoey unfairly might impact on one’s own status in the next life, people are usually polite to them. No one wants to come back as a slug, after all. And in a culture that believes in an infinite number of reincarnations, everyone has both once been, and will be, themselves transgender. Kathoey are living reminders that karma can be tough.

Why is there such prejudice against trans people elsewhere? Don’t we encourage our children to ‘be all they can be’? If a person born a boy feels more than anything else that she is a girl, what’s the big deal?

There are many threads to the answer. In the first place, transgender challenges the patriarchy at its roots. In our culture, to be a man is the highest status: so when someone says, ‘Yes, physically I could be a man, but I am a woman’, that person offends it.

Female to male transgenders, on the other hand, are stepping on territory that, to our status-obsessed male, is rightly his, and which he has been conditioned to defend. That is why Brandon Teena was killed. This particular hatred is inverted by some feminists, who castigate trans women, saying they ‘colonise’ women’s bodies. This is just mimicking the patriarchy – ‘That is our territory, and we will defend it.’ Claptrap: we have the right to do as we will with our own bodies, without asking the by-your-leave of others.

Then again, non-operative trans women, those who elect to retain their birth genitalia, undermine masculinity itself. They show that having a penis is not unique to males; some women have them too. All at once, the most potent symbol of the patriarchy is reduced to being an ordinary body part like a leg or an arm. There is nothing special or uniquely masculine about having one – and so there is nothing special about being a man.

Transgender also challenges conventional notions of sexuality. The popularity of transgender pornography on the Internet proves that many men are attracted to trans women; but at the same time, society still insists that a man who has sex with someone born male has thrown away all his status. He’s gay, that’s it, end of: you know how it is…sleep with one little ladyboy…he’ll never be able to show his face down the pub or the golf-club again. The patriarchy will close ranks; now he’s ‘playing for the other team’.

So men are on the horns of a dilemma, attracted to trans women, yet tortured by the horrible angst that says penis, past or present, means they are other men, and for a man to desire sex with one is the greatest taboo of the patriarchal hegemony. This dilemma, often exacerbated by alcohol, can be lethal for trans women. Men, who’ve been pawing them all night, suddenly realise what they’re doing and can’t handle it; in order to redress the offence to their masculine status, they beat the girl up, or worse.

Sometimes, men go further, have sexual relations with a trans woman, and only turn violent when they realise they are about to be discovered by their peers. They may attack the woman to prove how ‘manly’ they really are: as the subsequent trial proved, this is why and how Gwen Araujo died the horrible death she did. But Gwen’s tragedy is not unique or even unusual; trans women die at the hands of male attackers with shocking frequency, as we see only this week.

As well as this, ‘gender-bending’ upsets how we relate to others. We are conditioned to see gender as a male/female binary. When someone appears to be one thing but is, or might once have been, another, or is in between, we become confused. It’s as if they’re trying to trick us; but they’re not, they’re just being who they are.   None of this, however, is the fault of trans people: it’s our own social conditioning that’s to blame. Indeed, they are the victims of great injustice; yet so few of us are prepared to recognise that.

Brandon Teena, Gwen Araujo and more recently Filipina Jennifer Laude, Mercedes Williamson and many others were not alone in having their young lives ended by vicious, intolerant men. In Brazil, over a hundred trans women were murdered in 2012, and beatings and killings take place everywhere, all the time. Nearly all the victims were in their teens or early twenties, who had a right to be allowed to live out their lives – a right that society did nothing to defend.

This year, a shocking uptick in killings of trans women in the USA is causing great concern; it is almost as if the more progress trans people make towards acceptance, the more determined the transphobic extremists are to silence them.

While the killers and beaters themselves are most culpable, every one of us, in not speaking out and acting against the transphobia that spurs them on, is accessory both before and after the fact. Our sin may be of omission, but this blood is still on our hands.

The media often carries articles mocking prominent men for dalliances with trans women. Mainstream ‘entertainment’ has a nasty track record of insulting trans people for a cheap laugh. Most distressingly, in the comments sections of news reports on the murders of trans people, for example Jennifer Laude, a horrible undercurrent of hate is prevalent. Trans people, it says, are dishonest and trying to trick others, and their deaths are their own fault. This is a blatant victim-blaming that would not be tolerated under any other circumstances.

Any time the subject of transgender comes up, people express distaste or worse, not to mention the overt disapproval of a grim hegemony of social conservatives from pulpit to politics.

All of this leads directly to transphobic violence by a technique called ‘othering’. Trans people are not like us, it says, and so it’s all right to mock, slander or beat them. This intimidates not only trans people, but the rest of us too. Any man, or woman, who dares to defend them also risks mockery, abuse and violence. The inference is obvious, and ever the threat of cowards and bullies: stand up for those we despise and we will turn on you next. The patriarchy always isolates its intended victims before going for the kill.

Attitudes towards homosexuality have come a long way, over the last thirty years, in Western Europe, although it would be foolish to suggest that all prejudice has been eradicated. Governments have had to legalise ‘same-sex’ marriage and put in place laws against discrimination against gays in the workplace and elsewhere. However we must not forget that in large parts of the world, atrocious levels of discrimination and violence, often sanctioned by church and state, are levelled at people solely for the crime of loving each other.

This better treatment of gays within more enlightened cultures has not led to an explosion in numbers. Alfred Kinsey, sixty years ago, long before the liberalisation of anti-gay legislation, found that 8% of American men had been ‘exclusively homosexual for at least three years’, and research published in 1995 found a range between 6-10%. At least nine other peer-reviewed studies concur.

Removing the judicial sanctions did not lead to a substantial increase in actual prevalence, because there is a base rate, which appears constant. All that changes is how open people are about their orientation.

There is a big difference between homosexual individuals, of either gender, and transgenders; it is far easier for gay men and women to blend in. This is not because trans people are necessarily easy to spot, but because by definition, their lives must change. The families of many gay people might never know, but it’s hard to keep a gender transition so well hidden.

Because of this, trans people may either attempt to hide or suppress their natures, or break all ties with their pasts and disappear, to live in so-called ‘deep stealth’. If they feel rejected or discriminated against, they are more likely to do so. This causes problems with estimating their numbers, and allowed some to suggest the prevalence was very low.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA), on the basis of a small study in Germany in the 1960s, for decades insisted that the prevalence for male to female transgender was around 1:30,000, and this figure was widely accepted. Then, in the late 1990s, Emeritus Professor Lynn Conway of the University of Michigan, herself a trans woman, became frustrated at the lack of any proper statistical study, and did one herself.

She used a very robust method, which divided the adult male population of the US by the actual numbers of Sex Reassignment Surgeries (SRS) that had been carried out. This gave a prevalence of 1:2500, over an order of magnitude higher! Furthermore, this only counted male-to-female transgenders who had already undergone SRS. It did not include those who were awaiting surgery, and more fundamentally, those who had no intention of ever having it. Nor did it consider those who had gone abroad for surgery, to places like Thailand.

Conway herself estimated that taking all other factors into account would raise the overall prevalence, including non-operative and pre-operative trans women, to 1:200, again a factor of ten. Other groups in the USA have slightly higher estimates; all are at least 1% but none more than 5%.

In Thailand, the majority of trans women do not seek SRS; the sensual sirens of Bangla Road represent only a small fraction of the total. Many have no choice, since the surgery is so expensive. Others simply do not feel that they need to go further.

 

There are around twenty Thai clinics offering SRS procedures, which can be found through a web search. Those that publish figures suggest they carry out 150 to 200 surgeries per annum each, but perhaps half of these are on non-Thais. That would suggest that over the last twenty years, around 40,000 of the Thai transgender population have had the surgery. Although it is immensely difficult to find accurate figures, most estimates suggest that 1-2% of the Thai adult male population is transgender.

Multiplying the estimate of completed SRS surgeries by Conway’s factor of ten supports this. Conway’s finding is statistically robust, and the truth is all over Thailand; far from being vanishingly small, the numbers of trans people are high enough to be obvious, when they feel secure enough to be themselves.

So, if we treat trans people better, we should expect to see more. But, like gay men and women, they won’t over-run the place. The statistical estimates and the evidence from Thailand above strongly suggest that transgender prevalence will stabilise around 1-2%, given similar social tolerance. That’s far less than some, more visible minorities.

Other than seeing slightly larger numbers of tall, glamorous women and small, fine-boned men, nothing will change; the sky will not fall on us for treating other people with decency and compassion. Speaking out against transphobia whenever and wherever it arises will cost us absolutely nothing more than the loss of some absurd prejudices, and perhaps a fair-weather friend or two. Shining the light of public disapproval into the dark places where transphobic hatred festers would do our souls good, too. We could take credit for protecting vulnerable people, and we wouldn’t have to go to war or drop bombs on anyone to do it. We’d just have to call time on the transphobic bullies, as we have already begun to do on racists and homophobes.

We should applaud the good things that trans people bring, in forcing us to be more accepting of difference, in showing that personal resolution and fortitude are keys that can open any door, in the undemanding tolerance, resilience and good humour in the face of adversity that so many exhibit themselves, and in having the courage to walk a difficult and lonely path.

 

Rod Fleming on Google+

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Why Antisemitism is the Root Cause of the Palestinian Problem – Jim Ashby, guest poster

Political correctitude has evolved into an intolerant, totalitarian, supremacist ideology. One that shouts down dissent and resorts to ad hominems like ‘racist’, ‘bigot’, ‘misogynist’, and ‘Islamophobe’, to derail debate and elicit knee-jerk support. In many ways, left-wing apologists bear a striking resemblance to apologists for Islamism. Just as Islamists have intimidated far too many people, media outlets, and governments into squelching dissent, so has the politically correct left. Just as Islamists believe their ideology to be superior and sacrosanct, so does the politically correct left. Just as everybody must respect Allah, the Quran and Muhammad, so must everybody respect politically correct ideals: if you don’t, you’ll feel the wrath of adherents.

Don’t get me wrong . . . I like liberal ideals like minority rights; gay rights; women’s liberation; inclusion; affirmative action; and support for the poor, disadvantaged, and downtrodden; etc. These values have made our country strong, prosperous, and free. The problem is not our values: it’s how we apply them to domestic and foreign policy.

We need to take all considerations into account when making policy. Our values are fine: it’s their application that sucks. Do we stand behind our liberal ideals or not? It appears to me that our track record says we don’t. It’s geopolitics, not our values, that govern our support for causes and countries around the world. We embrace Saudi Arabia while it spends billions to spread a poisonous version of Islam around the world. Yet we treat the democratic country of Taiwan like a hot potato where China is concerned.

And Israel? Well, it’s a very special case. Robert Bernstein, founder of Human Rights Watch, says that antisemitism is “deeply ingrained and institutionalized” in “Arab nations in modern times.” That’s an understatement. Arab antisemitism is an Islamic tradition institutionalized in sharia law, by dhimma. On Muslim soil, Jews are dhimmi, subjugated and, by law, inferior to Muslims. For Jews, dhimma is antisemitism on steroids. Dhimma laws were dropped over a century ago, due to pressure from the West, but still rears its ugly head from time to time: like with ISIS. Remnants of dhimma (neo-dhimmitude) still persist in Iran. On the bright side, Saudi Arabia has no problem with dhimmis . . . but only because Islam is the only religion they allow. The legacy of dhimma is very much alive in the form of ‘deeply ingrained and institutionalized’ Arab antisemitism.

The Jewish nationalist movement, Zionism, began in the late 19th century as a response to widespread persecution, particularly in Europe. Jews, after nearly two millennia of diaspora, began immigrating to Palestine (Ottoman Syria). They bought land and settled it with the dream of an eventual homeland. There were no problems reported between them and local Arabs until after the First World War, when support for a Jewish homeland was building in the West.

The Palestinian nationalist movement emerged, after WWI, in 1920, under the hard-line leadership of Haj Amin al-Husseini, who immediately targeted the Jewish settlers and all they represent, as anathema to the Palestinian nationalist cause. He sparked many riots against the Jews in Jerusalem and Jaffa. Later, in 1929, a series of anti-Jewish riots led to massive Jewish casualties in Hebron and Safed, and the evacuation of Jews from Hebron and Gaza.

Does anybody seriously believe settlers would have been attacked if they were Arabs? No . . . they were attacked because they were Jews. Ironically, all that hateful violence against the Jews proved to be the downfall of the Palestinian Arabs because it prompted the establishment of Jewish protection leagues, such as Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang – which morphed into paramilitary organizations that successfully defended Israel against invasion, by five Arab countries, in the first Arab-Israeli War of 1948. They got what they deserved.

The 1948 war need never have happened if only the Arabs had accept just one of the many British and U.N proposals to grant the Jews territory (no matter how small) in the British/U.N. protectorate of Mandatory Palestine. The Jews agreed to every proposal but the Arabs rejected them all, outright, without consideration. Why? Because there was no way in hell that (Muslim) Arabs would allow Jews to stand free, strong and proud on Muslim soil. Pure, dhimma-inspired, antisemitism. Period.

When I think of the history of the Palestinian Problem, I wonder how I would react to being surrounded by much larger enemies who hate my very existence. How well would I handle the myriad and incessant assaults? Of course, no matter how hard I might try, the ever-present danger and lack of security would lead me to an embattled mindset. I would have difficulty staying objective and making the wisest available decisions.

Israel is an island of democracy in a sea of despots and terrorists driven by Jew hatred. I admit that the occupied territories is a woeful mess. But I’m not surprised . . . how could it be otherwise? It seems to me that Israel has done remarkably well so far, despite the mess. The situation is so bad that Israel might have no choice but to expand their borders for their own security — certainly a terrible prospect.

But this situation should not exist in the first place. If Israel had been allowed to continue buying and settling land, they would have legally owned their country outright when the U.N. finally granted them the tiny 10% piece of the protectorate territory of Mandatory Palestine. The Palestinian Arabs got 90% of the territory, including Jordan but that wasn’t good enough for them. No sir! It wasn’t so much that they wanted 100% . . . it was really all about the Jews having 0%.

The hostility has always been and continues to be from the Arabs. I don’t like all of Israel’s decisions but I can’t really blame them when they make bad ones. Israel is a sovereign nation with the right to exist unmolested. But with the reality on the ground in the region, Israel may never be secure . . . and certainly can never trust their Arab neighbors until they establish a long record of peaceful and tolerant coexistence. And, really, how likely is that?

Liberal support for Palestine (and against Israel) is misguided. Remember those liberal ideals? Why do liberals support a terrorist regime against a democracy? Why do they overlook the regime’s treatment of their own people? It’s really very sad. Liberal ideals have become tainted by the extremism of political correctitude.

Jim Ashby

 

NOTE: This guest post expresses the author’s opinions, which may not necessarily precisely align with my own (although in this case they do.)

Rod Fleming on Google+

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Guest Posts

I am starting a new feature on the site for guest posters. These will be people whose writing I have found stimulating, well researched and enjoyable. If you’d like to be considered, please contact me using the form below.

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French Onion Soup! my hilarious collection of stories about a mad Scotsman living in France with his family, is on Countdown Promo all this week on Amazon.com. So that’s 99 cents till Sunday for US readers.

Even better, this is a new version of the ebook with typographical changes to make it easier to read and give it a nice clean look.

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Southern Baptism

Interesting to see how much of the US is actually predominantly Catholic

A couple of yeas ago I wrote an article called ‘Why Americans Go to Church‘. At the time I was making a rather tongue-in-cheek observation about the amorality of American culture across all of its expressions. Since then I have expanded my reading into this phenomenon.

I think two events spurred me to do this. The first happened a long time ago; it was when US President Bill Clinton denied ‘having sex’ with Monica Lewitt, and was later caught in the lie. Clinton, I read then, was a ‘Southern Baptist’. In this cult only penetration counts as sex, apparently. While I thought it was serious ‘economy with the truth’, I did not dig into it deeply.

More recently, I had an online exchange with someone who insisted that Catholics ‘were not Christians’ and that they had come along ‘later’ and perverted the true meaning of the word. This person exhibited all the lack of education, and absence of any desire to gain some, that is typical of American Baptists.

Being a European, of course, I had no direct experience of Southern Baptism or any of the other so called ‘Evangelical’ cults until about five years ago, and even then it seemed relatively harmless. They were just a bunch of crackpot fringe-dwellers, somewhat like the Moonies or the Baha’i. Still, I was beginning to see pattern, as I read the writings of Baptist seminarians and ‘thinkers’. Was there any substance to this cult at all, or was it just anything anyone wanted it to be? Was it, indeed, actually dangerous?

Clearly, Baptists suffer from confusion, which devolves to two fundamental errors. The first is that Catholicism is not the first Christian church, and even that Catholics are not Christians. Well, Christianity as we know it was invented by the Apostle Paul, who wrote over half the books contained in the New Testament. The term ‘catholic’, meaning ‘universal’ is first recorded in the writing of Ignatius of Antioch, a follower of the Pauline church, in 110ce.

Admittedly, the church itself did not acquire its full political structure until it became the official religion of the Roman Empire three centuries later, yet even at this early date it exhibited the hallmarks of Roman organisation, being strictly pyramidal with defined levels of authority. It was modelled on the Roman military and bureaucratic structure from the start, probably because Paul had been a member of the Roman bureaucracy himself. The direct connection between the modern Roman Catholic Church and the inception of Christianity is well documented and quite irrefutable.

It is very likely that the eventual triumph of Catholic Christianity over the many competitor cults was a direct result of this organisational structure. There had been other versions of Christianity, but these were swept aside or suppressed. This does leave open the faint possibility that the Baptist claim–to be linked to an earlier form of Christianity–might have some grain of truth, but this stands no scrutiny.

We know a little about other early cults. The first, so-called ‘Adoptionist’ Christians did not, for example, believe that Jesus was born the son of Jahweh, but that he was adopted as such at the time of his baptism, something which, coincidentally, supports the suggestion that the Biblical Jesus may be based, at least in part, on a real man. A similar effect can be seen today in India, where Mahatma Ghandi is not only revered as a great leader of people, but worshipped as divine in his own right. There have been other similar cases, too. Could this be the source of the Baptists’ confusion?

Well, no, because Baptists insist that Jesus was born the son of God from the Virgin Mary, and completely reject the Adoptionist position. This appears to be because they are confused about the chronology of the New Testament texts and believe, erroneously, that the Gospels are the earliest writings; but they are not, the Pauline texts – which do not mention the ‘historical Jesus’ even once – are.

This has spurred many specious attempts to date the Gospels, or some forerunner text, to the early part of the first century. This is wrong; there is no plausible evidence that they were written before the second century, and the existence of a mythical original ‘source document’ remains unproven. The desperate attempt to conjure it into existence is a function of the necessity, on the part of this group, to show that the Gospels actually pre-date the Pauline texts. They don’t.

Furthermore, Baptists believe that ‘salvation’ comes from ‘faith in Jesus’ and not from Baptism itself, which is effectively just a rite of initiation. If they were actually closet Adoptionists, this would not be the case. In fact, across a range of theological issues, Baptists happily accept the Roman Catholic line and only differ on a small number, which are admittedly very important.

While many Baptists try to suggest that their church somehow originated prior to the development of the Catholic one, there is absolutely no evidence to support this. But it doesn’t end there. Baptist ‘theologians’ routinely trot out sects from before the Reformation and claim them as prior versions of themselves, when even cursory examination shows how false this it. Baptists are obsessed with the idea that they are not Protestants, because as Americans they seek to distance themselves from the Protestant Church of England, which they claim persecuted them.

None of this is true. Baptism is indeed one of the Protestant cults that was born out of the Reformation, which itself was a socio-political event consequential to the Renaissance. It features, like many Protestant sects, an intense focus on the literal word of the Bible, which, for Baptists substitutes for history, or indeed, any other form of knowledge. There is no connection between the historical early churches and modern Baptism or any other Protestant sect and instead, they are all derivatives of Catholicism.

Baptists reject what they see as the interposition of the Catholic command structure and bureaucracy, along with much doctrine that is part of Catholic dogma but not mentioned in the Bible.

But this, too, is skewed. Baptists believe in the idea of a triple-god or Trinity, which is a central tenet of Catholicism. The only verse in the Bible that directly alludes to this is Matthew 28:19: ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost’. Yet this is ambivalent and could as easily be interpreted as three different entities; it is only the assumption, required by the monotheistic underpinning of Christianity, that God is indivisible, that makes them appear as one–and which obliges the Baptists, along with everyone else, to adopt the Catholic interpretation, because it was the first.

Even more damning is the apparent failure to comprehend that the very Bible Baptists use was written and codified by the Catholic Church itself. In other words, they are disputing the Catholic understanding of its own core text, while wholeheartedly accepting as true elements of Catholic dogma that do not appear in the Bible.

It’s as absurd as arguing with Tolkien over the meaning of ‘The Lord of the Rings’. And in the final irony, even the version of the Bible they insist is the literal ‘word of God,’ was not written by a Baptist, but by a Protestant Scottish king, James VI, some fifteen centuries after the alleged death of Jesus. It seems remarkable, in the light of this, that they can still claim that their cult predated Catholicism; but Baptism, with no moral sanctions intrinsic to it, is very accommodating of untruthers.

The moral vacuum at the heart of Baptism comes from its approach to Salvation. To a Christian, this means that after death one is raised to Heaven to spend eternity with God. The Catholic version of this owes much to Egypt, where the doctrine of ‘judgement’ after death was very important. Briefly, only those who had lived their lives according to the religious rules enter paradise and those who did not, have to endure an eternity of suffering.

Catholic Christianity develops this into different levels of transgressions–’mortal’ and ‘venial’ sins. Venial sins may be atoned for by a spending a period in ‘Purgatory’ after death, while mortal sins must be confessed to and penance done in life. The only forgiveness for such sins comes through the church itself, via the Confessional.

This affirms an intrinsic morality. To behave outside the moral constraints of the church means eternal damnation, and to behave within, eternal ecstasy. Transgress slightly and you get a spiritual slap on the wrist. Thus Catholicism embodies the notion that morality devolves to obedience to its rules. This made it very attractive to the Romans, who sought to manage a whole Empire through it.

Most Protestant sects, while disputing the authority of the Papacy and the organised nature of the Catholic Church, and insisting that each believer must communicate directly with God, rather than through the intermediary of the church, still inherit the idea of judgement, and that sins on earth will be punished after death. This means that they too, embody a moral imperative.

Baptists, however, believe Salvation comes directly from an entirely personal ‘faith in Christ’ and not through the church, the Eucharist, ‘good works’, observation of morality or anything else. Faith alone allows the believer direct access to Heaven, no matter how he or she behaves.

Baptism insists instead that persons who ‘accept Christ’ are not only ‘saved’ but are ‘born again’ as better people who have no desire to act immorally, and therefore do not. Furthermore, since each individual believer is responsible for his or her own peace with God, no external sanction is available. This means that as long as Baptists profess their faith, they may do as they will.

Baptists who murder, for example, doctors who carry out abortions, believe they may do so without fear of eternal damnation, because their slick and convenient cult does not require them to consider the moral implications of their actions. The sixth Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill’, is irrelevant to them since ‘faith in Jesus’ immediately absolves breaking it, alongside any of the other Commandments. On a lesser note, this moral vacuum explains why Baptists are apparently happy to tell blatant lies, both in matters of religion and politics; witness a succession of residents of the White House.

Since the only moral imperative is belief in Christ, and that alone is enough to forgive any sin, no matter how serious, and allow the believer access to an eternity of bliss, Southern Baptism is by definition completely amoral. No earthly act will be either punished or rewarded, so Baptism is perfect for those whose only purpose is the furtherance of their own ends, by any means, yet who seek religious sanction. This makes it a very good fit to an utterly ruthless, amoral, materialistic culture, based on an Imperialist land-grab and devoted only to the maximisation of profit.

Contemporary Southern Baptism is a uniquely American cultural phenomenon which derives from the establishment of the United States as a post-colonial Imperial power. The suggestion by its apologists that it is an ancient church is completely untrue. It evolved in the 20th century, particularly in the tele-evangelist ‘ministry’ of Billy Graham and his fellow travellers. Its real roots are in the events surrounding the American Civil War, and its contemporary expression is a phenomenon of the age of mass communication; it is the Fox News of religion. Just as Rome adopted Catholicism and used it to rule the world in the past, so Baptists hope that America will adopt their religion and use it to rule the world in the future.

We should do well to remember this in our dealings with American Baptists. It explains a great deal, from the deliberate lies of tobacco companies, the secret murders and torture carried out by the CIA, Big Oil’s wilful manipulation of the truth about Global Warming, down to Bill Clinton’s grubby little lie about Monica. Where the only moral imperative is ‘to be seen to believe’ then anything goes, from selling snake oil to political assassination, mass murder, and the deliberate destruction of the planet for pecuniary gain.

So although I wrote my blog piece about why Americans go to church as a tongue-in-cheek parody, it turns out to be completely true. For far too many Americans, religion is indeed simply a convenient, catch-all justification for the complete denial of moral responsibility.

Rod Fleming on Google+

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Caitlyn Jenner, you rock!

For those who don’t know, Caitlyn Jenner used to be Bruce Jenner, former multi-talented Olympic athlete and media celebrity. Today, Bruce is gone. There is no Bruce. Instead there is Caitlyn, a beautiful, glamorous and poised woman. Thanks to the enlightened writers and editors at Vanity Fair as well as photographer Annie Liebowicz, Caitlyn’s image, and with it her message of hope, is encircling the world.

In the last few weeks, since news first broke of it, I have read a lot from trans activists, especially in the States, saying that Jenner’s transition is irrelevant to them; that she is an inappropriate model, being white, famous and wealthy, while transpeople in the States are disproportionally of colour, unknown and desperately poor.

They ask how Jenner can relate to their life experience, of violence, discrimination, poverty and all too often, early death.

Yes I hear this argument and I sympathise with it, but remember, there is commonality and Jenner’s experience is relevant. She will give countless young, and for that matter older people, the confidence they need to throw off the shackles of patriarchal repression and be who they really are. That has to be worth praising.

Because of Caitlyn, some of the bigots will think twice. And because of her, some parents, lost in a sea of confusion at what is happening to their children, will realise that being trans is just fine, it’s quite all right — and so help them to support their children as they should.

So today let us all — transpeople, their allies and those of us who are in love with a transperson and try so hard to see inside their lives, to fight for them, to hold them up when an ignorant and cruel society does so much to harm them — it’s a day for all of us to shout out loud ‘You Rock, Caitlyn!’ Let the cry rise to the sky, let it lift the rafters and let it shatter forever the horrific patriarchal hegemony that so hates all LGBT expressions.

The war to stop the slaughter of transpeople, their beatings, the routine abuses, goes on. It will be a long uphill struggle that will outlive me, I fear. But today we can celebrate and raise our hearts because of one woman’s courage, determination and dignity. So what if she’s rich and famous and white? In a way that must have made her decision to be true to herself that much tougher. She takes nothing away from the experience of being non-white or poor; she just lights a candle of hope and love in a dark and dangerous world.

What Caitlyn Jenner proves is that transgender transcends race, class, wealth, education and privilege. Her moment of glory should bring all of us together, all over the world.

Nobody knows what will happen next but to me it feels as if a wall has been torn down and at last, at last, fresh air and sunlight can come in to touch us all. So let’s lift up our faces to the warmth and breathe in. Let’s put our differences aside for just today and let’s unite, all of us, transpeople, trans allies and translovers and shout, ‘Thank you, Caitlyn Jenner, you rock’.

Whatever happens, nothing will ever be quite the same again.

#CaitlynJenner

Rod Fleming on Google+

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