(no subject)

[ink_splotch]

Once I pass'd through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, tradition,
Yet now of all that city I remember only a man I casually met there who detained me for love of me,
Day by day and night by night we were together - all else has long been forgotten by me,
I remember I saw only that man who passionately clung to me,
Again we wander, we love, we separate again,
Again he holds me by the hand, I must not go,
I see him close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.
Walt Whitman, "Once I pass'd through a populous city"
I find it amusing that many people consider Walt Whitman to be the Patriotic poet of America, when at least a third of his poetry refers to what my Danish book from the sixties calls deviant sexuality.

----

I love Miss Manners and Dear Abby. They're advice columnists in the US, and some of the sanest, most sensible people you'll ever have the honour of receiving advice from.

On homosexuality:

Dear Abby: [We're upset because a gay couple has just moved in across the street.] How can we improve the quality of the neighbourhood?

You could move.

- from Dear Abby

Dear Miss Manners: What should I say when I am introduced to a homosexual "couple"?
Gentle Reader: "How do you do?" "How do you do?"
Miss Manners (Judith Martin), Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior


Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not.
Miss Manners (Judith Martin), Miss Manners Rescues Civilization

See why I adore these ladies' advice?

Christianity and homosexuality:

The ongoing psychopathic hatred of same-sexuality has made the United States the laughingstock of the civilized world. In most of the First World, monotheism is weak. Where it is weak or nonexistent, private sexual behavior has nothing to do at all with those not involved, much less the law. At least when the Emperor Justinian, a Christian monotheist, decided to outlaw sodomy, he had to come up with a good practical reason, which he did. It is well known, Justinian declared, that buggery is a principal cause of earthquakes, and so must be prohibited. But our monotheists, always eager to hate, still quote Leviticus, as if that loony text had anything useful to say about anything except, perhaps, the inadvisability of eating shellfish in the Jerusalem area.
Gore Vidal, (The Great Unmentionable) Monotheism and its Discontents, essay

According to the Gospels, Jesus did not devote any serious time or effort denouncing either "abortion" or "homosexuality" though he did devote serious time and effort denouncing the "rich" along with self-righteous religious hypocrites. Maybe today's Religious Right could learn a few things about "prioritizing" from Jesus?
E.T.B.

King James' favorite male lovers were the Earl of Somerset and the Duke of Buckingham.
Ben Edward Akerly, The X-rated Bible
Funny thing about this quote is that I own the King James Study Bible; one of it's contributors? Jerry Falwell. Oh, the irony.

It's always Leviticus. "Thou shalt not lie with man as with woman." Well, I don't.
Maggie Cassella

The church says we should get down on our knees and repent! Well, excuse me, but didn't being on my knees cause most of my sins?
Bob Smith

Random quotes:

If all lesbians suddenly turned purple today, society would be surprised at the number of purple people in high places.
Sidney Abbott & Barbara Love, Sappho was a right-on woman, 1972

Of course we let lesbians and gays march in our St. Patrick's Day
Parade. What would Ireland be without its fairies?"
City council member of Dublin

Oh! I want to put my arms arms around you, I ache to hold you close. Your ring is a great comfort. I look at it and think she does love me or I wouldn't be wearing it!
Eleanor Roosevelt, in a letter to Lorena Hickok, March 7, 1933
Oh, Eleanor, how I do adore you and your family!

"There is object proof that homosexuality is more interesting than heterosexuality. It's that one knows a considerable number of heterosexuals who would wish to become homosexuals, whereas one knows very few homosexuals who would really like to become heterosexuals."
Michel Foucault, quoted in Aldrich, Robert and Wotherspoon, Gary (Eds.) (2001). Who's Who in Contemporary Gay & Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day. New York: Routledge.

"Homosexuality was invented by a straight world dealing with its own bisexuality."
Kate Millett, Flying

"Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness."
Sigmund Freud, letter to an American mother's plea to cure her son's homosexuality, 1935

*The very general occurrence of the homosexual in ancient Greece, and its wide occurrence today in some cultures in which such activity is not taboo suggests that the capacity of an individual to respond erotically to any sort of stimulus, whether it is provided by another person of the same or opposite sex, is basic in the species."
Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948)

"What do you mean, you 'don't believe in homosexuality?' It's not like the Easter Bunny; your belief isn't necessary."
Lea DeLaria
I love this quote, because it's true. What, like I'm going away because you don't approve of me? Hell no.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that homosexuality "is a lifestyle I don't agree with." This is a trope you hear from the religious right a good deal... but it is a very odd thing to say. No one speaking rationally says, "I don't agree with the Pacific Ocean" or "I don't agree with the Grand Canyon."
Paul Varnell

"Wherever it has been established that it is shameful to be involved with sexual relationships with men, that is due to evil on the part of the rulers, and to cowardice on the part of the governed."
Plato
Ah, Plato. Wouldn't be a proper list without him.

I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

Some people move in lesbian circles. I move in bisexual dodecahedrons.
Anonymous, posted on the Internet
Which possibly wins my vote as strangest, yet funniest quote.


They drew a circle that shut him out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took him in.
Anonymous
I love this. So, so pretty and inspiring.

This redneck came up to me and said, "What do you want me to call you? Queer? Fag? Homo?"
I said, "You can call me... Paul Jacek."
Paul Jacek

For death, or life, or toil,
To thee myself I join;
I take thy hand in mine,
With thee I would grow old.
From an ancient Chinese male-male wedding ceremony (!)
Does anyone have any information on this type of thing? Is it a documented occurance?


Years and years I have fear'd the shame
And the cruel speech of the world.
But over our heads in the darkness now
Is the banner of love unfurl'd,
(Lean closer, cling to me, kiss my lips,
Our love can despise the world.)
Gabriel Gillet



God, I love Wikiquote.

Comments

[lattara.livejournal.com]

omg. My love of you grows by leaps every day. I *love* Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that homosexuality "is a lifestyle I don't agree with." This is a trope you hear from the religious right a good deal... but it is a very odd thing to say. No one speaking rationally says, "I don't agree with the Pacific Ocean" or "I don't agree with the Grand Canyon."
Paul Varnell

It's just so true!

This post is going in my memories.