Parental discretion advised…
…anal sex was akin to “shoving a straw up your nose to drink.”…
Hmm…
Hey, the professor may have a point—not that I know anything about that. But you know what really, really surprises me? It’s that shoving a straw up your nose to drink is illegal in Singapore.
7 comments:
I find it interesting that the dean frames this as an issue of academic freedom. Is it? Are there any western academics debating gay rights? When I think of opposition to gay rights in North America, I think of Fox News' menagerie of demagogues, who don't qualify for academic freedom. I'm curious now if there are any cogent non-biblical arguments on that side, or if Thio Li-ann offers more of the same rhetoric (the straw comment makes me think the latter, but maybe that's a straw-man, ba-dum-bum).
Whew...for a minute there, I thought the blog had been hacked by a Russia-based porn site.
Michael:
Should an anti-gay rights but otherwise qualified lawyer be banned from teaching at a school where a vast majority of student favor gay rights? In my view, no. Should gay students be forbidden to campaign against an anti-gay professor? Again, no. I think that’s what the dean is talking about.
I think Dr. Thio should have stuck to her guns. But would a professor from a Western nation have crumpled like that? I don’t think so. As for “cogent non-biblical arguments,” the thing about social mores is that they do not really make sense individually and in isolation but collectively promote social cohesion. In that sense, heterosexuality is no different from a dress code.
David H.:
...if that pulls in more eyeballs…
Okumura-san, I propose a thought experiment in which we take this story, replace "sex between men" with "sex between Japanese people", and imagine that Thio comes from a country where anti-Japanese sentiment is the norm (so that this can be construed as a social more). Would she be any less qualified? Would you have the same reaction?
the thing about social mores is that they do not really make sense individually and in isolation
I'm not saying that I want an absolute justification. I want a constitutional one - she's a member of a Parliament after all. If she actually is justifying her support for a law with nonsense like what was quoted in the NYT article then I'd think twice about taking a course taught by her - i.e. I'd question whether or not she is "otherwise qualified". But I'm sure that it's not that simple, hence my curiosity.
In fact, I thought that you were more or less asking the same thing, obliquely - does this drinking straw comment make any more sense in context?
Michael:
I merely said that she should have stuck to her guns, not that I necessarily agreed with her views. Now I do agree that a private institution of learning that expresses its intent to enforce a discrete set of values on its faculty and student body—the Jim Jones University comes to mind—is free to do so and take measures to that effect. Is NYU such a place?
However, her use, as a Singaporean, of the straw up her nose as a metaphor for gay sex, suggests that she actually may lack the basic mental faculties required of a legal scholar. That was the point of my original post. Of course the fact that I thought this unselfconscious act of irony exquisitely funny should shed some light on my position with regard to gay and lesbian sex. Since I hate to explain my jokes, I’ll leave this matter at that.
I'm not saying that I want an absolute justification.
I believe that the only scripture-free, logically consistent position for a continued ban on gay marriage is to also illegalize marriages with one or more infertile spouses. (I think the Old Testament justifies polygamy from a similar point of view.) However, We humans are irrational beings on whose shoulders history happens to weigh heavily. So, if there are people who for reasons believe strongly, if usually very selectively, in the scripture that is the Old Testament—which is not an unreasonable state of mind for a very large proportion of Christian Americans—I can feel their pain, in the Clintonian sense. Ultimately, it is what is commonly accepted, and not what makes sense to me, that will determine the rules of the game. A good reason for those law school students to accept that Singaporean professor if you ask me. (But then, there’s the straw/nose metaphor…)
Does that answer your question?
Does that answer your question?
Yes, and we're essentially saying the same things. (I know that this was mostly about humour, it's a recurring problem for me that some aspect of a joke intrigues me intellectually and I forget to laugh.)
I merely said that she should have stuck to her guns, not that I necessarily agreed with her views. Now I do agree that a private institution of learning that expresses its intent to enforce a discrete set of values on its faculty and student body—the Jim Jones University comes to mind—is free to do so and take measures to that effect. Is NYU such a place?
I didn't mean to imply that I think you're homophobic. When you wrote "Should an anti-gay rights but otherwise qualified lawyer be banned from teaching at a school where a vast majority of student favor gay rights?" I found that moderately persuasive. But then I did my thought experiment, replacing "gay" with "black". In that imaginary scenario it's clear that nobody would have mentioned academic freedom or vigorous, civil debate, and the university would have disowned her before she had a chance to back down. And I would agree with that. I also looked at some stories of allegedly racist professors being fired, and found that the reasons offered for their dismissal are, as a rule, just as applicable to bigots of any kind.
So when I asked you whether or not you would react the same way in the racist version, it wasn't rhetorical. Personally, I find one option morally offensive and the other one intellectually offensive. I'm trying to resolve that tension.
Personally, I find one option morally offensive and the other one intellectually offensive. I'm trying to resolve that tension.
Michael, I think that is part of the human condition. I do not think that the two can be definitively resolved. Perhaps the best that one can do is to ask the question Does it hurt certain people materially, or just their feelings? and pass judgment accordingly.
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