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Originally Posted by willravel
It was common belief that purity in national blood-line kept the empire strong (sound kinda familiar?)
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How the hell does one Godwin a thread about Romans?
You're laying it on awfully thick here, but you're making my point anyways. Several cultures (though certainly not all) have a perception that queer sex is "unnatural" and they enforce that through taboo and social pressure.
This, by the way, doesn't mean anything about the intrinsic value of orientation, etc. I'm perfectly comfortable recognizing the roots to homophobia, since it's all social construction anyways. I recognize these taboos as descriptive of what others have done, and not prescriptive for me. I say this because it sounds like you're trying to make a sales pitch here...i don't have a stake in the motivations for the roman census. It's fueled by insider/outsider fears, and greater social mobility (as recognized by greater rates of free women marrying ex-slaves, for instance.)
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though they may have sounded like pure stoic rhetoric
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This is the equivalent of saying "is not." I could say "is too!" but that's not going to change anything. I don't think the parallels are coincidental at all. And I'm joined in that assesment by a great number of Pauline scholars. So i guess we agree to disagree.
After this point...nothing you say changes my argument. The point of the matter is that "Monotheism" as a broad category is necessary but not sufficient for understanding the origins of homophobia in modern society.