Originally Posted by martinguerre

If the SC legalized slavery, would you recognize that? I should think not. There are higher authorities than the law. I would be prepared to accept the force of the law if i chose to break it, but i would not always recognize it to be correct. Anything less than that, IMO, is unthinking obedience. Unless you can concieve of the idea of resisting an unjust law, i think that you have surrendered your moral reasoning to the state.

Rdr4evr: I think it is hard for us to concieve of what it would be like to live in a state that wanted you dead for such a simple thing. If being who you are made you a target of state violence, then i would have to argue that your very idea of survivial would be completely disrupted. if you look to the memoirs of surviviors of other extreme persecutions, they often report that it is in keeping themselves "human" so to speak, to consistantly identify with that that makes them feel alive and good is all that kept them going. this is of course speculation, but i suspect that for a queer person in Iran, the choice of being closeted is much more attractive in that it may allow the person to live, but that it is pyschologically even more costly.

analog. once again, we find ourselves in disagreement. but i'd ask you to attend to what i said a little more carefully. i didn't say that what happened here was close, or a hop skip and a jump away. it is the end of a process, the possible terminus of exclusionist thought. violent exclusion of queer persons in the US is recent history. state violence has been legitimated in living memory. this is not categorically a different matter, and i've described it in very intentional terms. you seem to think that i'm processing everything you say in a unflattering light, but i have to say i'm growing convinced that you're reading everything i say through a lens of "queer militant extremist." What i said was not half as radical as you represent it to be...

in response to your comments to Gilda, i do not believe i am bound to respect a system that provides for the murder of innocents. We call them human rights abuses. We condemn them. When goverments torture and kill people, we call that a problem. Hell, we even invaded a country over this quite recently. Why do you respect systems that kill innocent people? Do you not value those lives? Do you believe in tolerating *everything* without judgement simply because it is the status quo? Do human rights violations in general not concern you?

alansmithee has once again used a classic canard of bringing up pedophilia in relation to queer issues. i seriously wonder why that arguement holds any water anymore, but it's continued use seems to indicate that it has some effect. truly despicable rhetoric that conceals who the real victims are in oppressing queer communities.