This is not about the ten commandments monument in Alabama.

It’s a response to Eugene Volokh’s post about religious freedom and homosexuals. The main thrust of his argument is this:

… [T]oday, the general view, again, seemingly shared by a broad range of people, including many devout, conservative Christians, is that toleration is the more just approach. And, in particular, this means that

1. People’s failure to obey religious laws — even three of the Ten Commandments — is not by itself reason enough to punish them, or deny them equal access to government benefits.
   
2. The risk that others will follow this bad example is also not reason enough to punish the violators of religious laws (here, the Hindus), even if we sincerely believe that following the example will lead to eternal damnation.
   
3. Some religious laws, including some of the Ten Commandments, are matters to be enforced not by man but by God.
   

So my question, as many of you might well have guessed, is: Why shouldn’t devout conservative Christians apply the same principles to homosexuals that many of them would to Hindus?

The three commandments Prof. Volokh refers to as being broken by Hindus are worshiping other gods, creating images of their gods, and not observing the Sabbath.

There are two types of commandments in the ten commandments. The first four deal with man’s relationship to God, and the last six deal with man’s relationship to other people. (Beyond the ten commandments, other Biblical commandments can be generally assigned to one category or the other.)

All three of the commandments chosen by Prof. Volokh for his hypothetical involve the first type of commandment, those dealing with a person’s relationship with God.

The general idea of religious freedom is that a person’s relationship to God is a matter between him and God. Thus, the violation of those three commandments by Hindus is in an area that most Americans feel is part of the zone of religious freedom.

However, if Hindus did not believe in the commandments against stealing or murder, we would not consider that a matter of religious freedom that cannot be interfered with by the state.

Homosexual conduct is not a matter between a person and God, so it does not fall into the category of things we would generally consider to be religious freedom. It might be sexual freedom or personal freedom or whatever other type of freedom you might want to call it, but it is not religious freedom.

Therefore, as Christian conservative who believes in religious freedom (as I do), I see no inconsistency between supporting a Hindu’s right to worship his gods, and opposing the creation of a right to same-sex marriage.

UPDATE: Prof. Volokh responds via e-mail:

Hmm — that seems to me to beg the question: Why do you say that the prohibition on homosexual sex is a matter between man and man, and not between man and God? If the two men consent, why should other men enforce this prohibition, as opposed to leaving it to God to judge?

Aside from the obvious fact that, pretty much by definition, homosexual sex is a matter between man and man?

Perhaps I need to clearly demonstrate the distinction I made between the two types of commandments. (And if there isn’t really an easy distinction, it certainly is odd that Prof. Volokh chose three out of four of one type and zero out of six of the other type for his hypothetical Hindus to break.)

Type I Commandents
1. No other gods.
2. No graven images.
3. No taking the Lord’s name in vain.
4. Keep the Sabbath day holy.

Type II Commandments
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. No killing.
7. No stealing.
8. No lying.
9. No adultery.
10. No coveting.

Every Type I commandment involves one person and God. Every Type II commandment involves more than one person. As I see it, there’s a pretty clear line between the types, and since homosexual activity involves more than one person it would be Type II.

The point I am making is that a person’s beliefs about God and the proper way to worship God are what we tend to think of as protected by religious freedom. Other aspects of social interaction may be protected by other freedoms and rights, but they are not generally considered part of religious freedom. Therefore, it is not inconsistent for a supporter of religious freedom to oppose something which is not a religious freedom.

(Note: This entry was originally published on my now-defunct political blog, Attilathepundit.com.)

Assignment for my creative writing class.

“It is a bit of a fixer-upper, as you can see.” The real estate agent pushed aside some of the creeping vines that intertwined with the curls of the wrought-iron gate so that he could unlock the padlock that chained it shut.

“Who let it get like this?” asked Maureen, frowning at the unkempt yard beyond the gate.

Read More »

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Apparently some scientists have come up with a formula which is supposed to tell (with 80% accuracy) whether a passage of fiction was written by a male or a female. Someone then created a web page to run the analysis on any text that you cut and paste into a form.

I ran it on several of my stories and chapters from my novel, and all but two came back as female. So it’s not perfect, obviously.

I also tested the first chapter of several works of literature that are available online, and found the following:

Little Women: Female
Pride and Prejudice: Female
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Male
Jane Eyre: Female
Tarzan of the Apes: Male
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Female (Incorrect)
Last of the Mohicans: Male
Robinson Crusoe: Female (Incorrect)
Great Expectations: Female (Incorrect)
The Scarlett Pimpernel: Male (Incorrect)

My cousin Scott and I went to see the movie S.W.A.T. last night, but the ticket guy told us the theater was almost full and we’d probably end up on the front row. So, instead we bought tickets for The Medallion.

It was fun, but not really that great. A few good Jackie Chan action sequences, and some pretty funny scenes here and there.

SPOILER BELOW. Highlight the missing text to read it.

Jackie Chan does the worst impression of a dead body I’ve ever seen. His character is supposed to be dead, but you can see his eyelashes flutter, his eyes move under his eyelids, and his adam’s apple wiggles around. Let me make this clear: his character is not pretending to be dead, his character really is dead. It was hard to keep myself from laughing, though.

My short story “In Memory” was rejected by Analog. But the rejection letter from the editor, Stanley Schmidt, did include the following: “I rather like your style of writing and suggest you try us again.”

I can’t believe that’s a standard sentence they include in all their rejection letters, so I’m going to take that as a positive.

According to this story, theaters are going to be allowed to show The Fellowship of the Ring at 3pm, The Two Towers at 7pm, and then the first showing of The Return of the King at 11pm.

I went to midnight showings of the first two, and was planning to see a midnight showing of the third. But this would be fantastic.

Well, this is not just a bid for traffic, but I’m going to take issue with one of Instapundit‘s trademark Indeeds.

He’s commenting on a Lowell Phillips column that points out:

A cement truck laden with explosives plows into the Baghdad headquarters of the United Nations and, presto-chango, there are “terrorists” in Iraq. That’s right, not “guerrillas,” not “resistance fighters,” but “terrorists.”

But the whole point in using the label “terrorist” for someone who intentionally attacks a civilian target is to indicate that such attacks are illegitimate. We want to stop the targeting of civilians.

But if we label anyone who attacks our military forces a “terrorist,” then it blurs the distinction.

Of course, it would be better if all attacks against U.S. and U.N targets ceased. But there’s a difference between attacking military targets and attacking civilian targets. If we want to keep that line clear, then we need to acknowledge that attacks against our military forces are more legitimate than attacks against civilian targets.

Therefore: Attacks against civilian targets are done by terrorists. Attacks against military targets are done by guerrillas.

(Note: This entry was originally published on my now-defunct political blog, Attilathepundit.com.)

I’m glad the military is starting to do this. The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan was built with the clear understanding that there will be better technology coming along, and makes it easy to upgrade.

Several of the things are fairly simple, like having tubes for network wiring that have extra space for future expansion without having to tear out the walls.

The most interesting bit was this:

The Navy has no idea what the must-have tech will be in 2028, when the Reagan reports for its midlife makeover. Designers made the island with 20 extra feet and empty loft space above each floor for bolting in future stuff – whatever it may be.

Read all about in in this article at Wired.

(Note: This entry was originally published on my now-defunct political blog, Attilathepundit.com.)

Saying that someone is “to the right of Attila the Hun” is a figurative way of saying someone is extremely right-wing.

Well, I’m not that extreme, so I figure that puts me neither to the left nor the right of Attila.

I also wanted:
1. a name that would be fairly easy to remember, and
2. a name that had not yet been taken as a domain, and
2. something that did not yet show up in Google as being used by someone else.

Plus, I can’t resist a pun.

(Note: This entry was originally published on my now-defunct political blog, Attilathepundit.com. It’s kind of irrelevant now, because I decided that maintaining a separate blog for my political stuff was too much of a hassle. I’ve kept this entry for historical purposes.)

Made a little more progress on chapter 12 of my novel today. Having my writers’ group meeting forced me to work on it, and I’m starting to get the feel of the novel back.