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[Jim Allman <jim AT ibang.com>]

On Apr 18, 2005, at 11:09 PM, Lee Haslup wrote:
> > Interesting. Can I assume by this that you would have supported 
> > misogyny
> > laws forty years ago? Weren't mixed-race marriages considered 
> > "lifestyle
> > outside of the [societal] idea of marriage" in many parts of the 
> > country,
> > including this?
> It is interesting, and a fair question.  Since I appeal to the general 
> sense of society it is fair to ask about things were society was 
> simply wrong.  I am tempted to point out that the more common term for 
> misogyny was "mixed race marriage" which indicates that, while many 
> people didn't like it it was none the lest considered marriage.

A small nit-pick: I think the word you're after is 'miscegeny', or more 
properly 'miscegenation.'

By the way, I read the original essay that Lee pointed to, and while 
interesting, it seems fairly off-topic to me. She has a lot to say 
against the social costs of illegitimacy and child abandonment, but 
virtually no criticism of stable homosexual parents.

I have trouble accepting many of her arguments--that marriage is a 
"natural" condition even in the absence of a social context; that a 
"traditional" family is a flexible, stable society in miniature; that 
making something legal (e.g., homosexual marriage) removes all stigma 
or social approbation, etc.

But my biggest problem is that she seems to allow only two 
possibilities: stable, hetero families supported by law and custom, or 
mindless shagging among virtual strangers. "Random sexual encounters, 
dissolved at will, are not socially responsible when children are 
involved." Come on, does anyone really disagree with this?

  =jimA=

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Jim Allman
Interrobang Digital Media
http://www.ibang.com/
(919) 649-5760