PS: An intact hetero family means nothing if it's not filled with love. MUAH! Come back soon!

@schmutzie – and thank you you’re a gem and I appreciate you sharing the post with your community!

Short and sweet, this is all such BULLSHIT. Love is Love, it is a gift no matter who you find it with. And a child raised in a home with love will be a healthy happy child regardless of whether his/her parents are M/F F/F or M/M! The whole thing is just bullshit….that’s my two cents.

My son, the activist:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=9780854&l=be75772c7c&id=624050493

I just signed up to volunteer with gay pride Houston. they told me I was one of about 5 straight chicks wanting to hang with them. Sad.

Thanks for stopping by, Wade. Your viewpoint and substantiation is appreciated.

I am well aware of the work of openly Gay Anthropologist, Will Roscoe, on the Native American homosexual male tribes members who were believed to be natural-born shamans as a result (like almost every ancient culture in fact, for they revered us!), as well as the fact that they were highly regarded and deeply sought after by other men has spouses. It was, I believe (as with almost every culture) that the Christian missionaries and post-Colonial America subjected the native peoples and had a devastating impact upon their reverence for the Queer. (Incidentally, there was a new–never-before-seen tribe discovered in the Amazon a few years ago; the country mandated a very strict law prohibiting westerners/ modern South Americans/ and especially missionaries from corrupting their indigenous culture. ‘Course, guess what happened? The Evangelical Christians pitched a *FIT* and attempted to get a legal exemption based on religious grounds to “mission” to these “primitives”. Their recourse failed–and it is worth noting that the Missionary is the BANE of the Anthropologist at destroying native cultures! And, they are absolutely unapologetic for that CRIME!) In Roscoe’s most recent book–”Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love”–he details the Asiatic shamanic tribes people known as the Chuckchi (or Chuckchee), whose homosexual shamans are known in our tongue as “soft men” and, like the Native American pre-Colonial cultures (for NA’s have come to despise homosexuality, *now*) these specific shamans were believed to be naturally-born shamans and were deeply sought after by other men as a spouse! “Marriage is the union of a man and a woman” my foot! You, Pugno (and NOM, and whomever else) apparently have an obvious distaste for the historical record other than your Bible (which this Witch finds more than a little offensive)!

There is also evidence amid my Celtic ancestors from a Greek historian who walked among them in Gaul (ancient France and western Germany) that they seem to have preferred homosexual relationships, or thought it was considered offensive to refuse the offer of Queer bed-hopping. But, love and sex in antiquity was far more of an open category than the puritanical vision that Mr. Pugno pines for (indeed, it is even so in modern-day Europe where they don’t have the hang-ups that we insularized Americans do)! Even the medieval Irish Brehon laws suggest that two males could legally marry within that Celtic context. There is also the late openly Gay historian of Harvard, Prof. John Boswell, who has shown throughout his work that the medieval Catholic Church has, albeit rarely, solemnized over the marriage between two men; and that the word “Gay” in reference to a class/ minority of homosexuals can be traced clear back to the medieval or Renaissance periods. Although, I have heard a rumor about the later fall-out of Prof. Boswell’s work (unless I’m confusing him for some other historian), who received special permission from the Vatican to use its archives for his research based upon his reputation as a BRILLIANT scholar and Prof. of History at Harvard. However, again as I have *heard*, after Prof. Boswell’s materials on the antiquity of homosexuality as a community and our tolerance up until the 14th. Century when we were culturally vilified (even burned as heretics and Witches during the latter Inquisition!), those original source materials which he translated and cited within his texts from the Vatican immediately vanished from the archives!

Prof. Boswell also commented upon the fact that we live in a society with religiously-imposed heterosexuality (which, obviously, can be psychologically scarring for Gay kids!).

According to the Defense’s own witness, Dr. Nathenson, the American Anthropological Association supports Gay marriage on culturally relevant grounds. So, I went snooping and found this wonderfully-written policy statement by the AAA (which ol Mags Gallagher would probably find some anti-Christian fault with): http://www.aaanet.org/issues/policy-advocacy/Statement-on-Marriage-and-the-Family.cfm . There’s also this fascinating article by one Adrian Brune, who cites the AAA’s position, called “Anthropologists Debunk ‘Traditional Marriage’ Claim” (don’t be put off by the website; it’s mission is actually to end the harm caused by religious-based bigotry!): http://www.faithinamerica.info/traditionalMarriage.php . I, for one, am so frakking *tired* to watching NOM, Republicans and Conservatives flooding the air-waves (and fallaciously-biased e-mails)–MISREPRESENTING the historical and ethnographic record–and state that “marriage has always been one man and one woman for thousands and thousands of years”! That’s offensive, and an out-right LIE! How do you reconcile the testimony of Dr. Young (another religious Prop 8 witness) who testified in her deposition, under oath in the US of A that, “Just because something is a ‘norm’, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s an appropriate ‘norm’. It has to then be reassessed within the contemporary context to *see* if there are good reasons *why* that ‘norm’ should remain.” So much for “Traditional marriage”, ‘eh?

Hmmm…I’m surprised that Mags hasn’t, yet, tried to state that there never were any culturally sanctioned marriages between two men or two women forever and always, in every culture on the entire planet! That presumes that one thinks that Maggie is making a researched opinion; but I, and many other historians and scholars know better! I just wish that the general public were being made aware of these FACTS from Anthropological and little-known historical sources as I have briefly outlined above. *sigh*

This beautiful work by scholars is so moving and powerful for me as a Gay man, because it shows that, despite many modern Christians (who like to claim that we did not HAVE a history until the 1970s!), we do, in fact, have an ancient and POWERFUL pedigree!

Anyone interested in reading more about our ancient pedigree (which I recommend) should pick up a copy of the following books:

* Cassell’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit (a BRILLIANT starter!)
* Queer Spirits: A Gay Men’s Myth Book, ed. and comp. by Will Roscoe
* Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds, by Judy Grahn
* Blossom of Bone: Reclaiming the Connection Between Homoeroticism and the Sacred, by Randy P. Conner
* Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture, by Arthur Evans
* Men, Homosexuality, and the Gods, by Ronald Long
* The Zuni Man-Woman, by Will Roscoe
* Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same-Sex Love, by Will Roscoe
* Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe
* Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century

NB: Prof. Boswell says “Christian Era” in his sub-title; however, academia has been making headway in respect for others’ religions by abstaining from the use of “BC” (Before Christ) and AD (Latin abrev. for “After the Year of Our Lord”), and instead have been using BCE (Before Common Era”) and CE (Common Era) though other non-Christian motivated abbreviations have also been used by scholars in recent years.