What if, at least for some of the believers, these assumptions do not apply?

The new TLC show “Sister Wives” is a fabulous conformation of the radical power of particularity within university.  Sister Wives is about a polygamous step-family with four wives, one husband and sixteen children in total. The wives are able to embrace polygamy as a “faith” practice as they explain on the NBC interview, while maintaining openness to alternatives for their children, and thus for us all. On the show, the language embraced by the sister wives is “lifestyle.”

There is magic in members of the Fundamentalist Mormon Church calling their faith based choices a “lifestyle.”  A lifestyle is optional and personal, the opposite of forced religious practice, the opposite of conventional thinking on fundamentalism.

This show, amongst many things is a coming out party in ways large and small and I never miss a good coming out party. When Christina, the stay home wife, goes to the hospital to have her sixth baby, the family is exuberant.  The other babies in this family were all born at home, because the family feared the treatment they would receive at the hospital.  Here they tell the doctor right away. The doctor, a young woman, replies “I have never done a delivery with a polygamist before – I have a lot of polygamist ancestors.” This is exactly what an awkward guest would say at a coming out party, a version of the classic “I have a gay cousin.”

After the birth, the entire family stomps to the hospital. Janelle, the working wife, says while the audience watches her hold the new baby, Truely, “I guess all the children are sort of like my children, it is like me expecting another child without the work.” In relation to Christina’s baby, she has the subject position of a “man.” She gets a baby without the “work.” Does she mean the work of childbirth, or does she mean the daily grind of taking care of a baby? If she means the second, the meaning, is enhanced, because as a mother who works long hours, arguably she is not the primary caretaker of her biological children either.  In a previous segment the wives mention that the children think of Jenella as the fun mom – she is the one who takes them to the movies and lets them eat ice cream for dinner. This role is also traditionally occupied by the father (in a soft patriarchy), who is the fun parent and not the disciplinarian.  Plural marriage is indeed providing Jenella with an “alternative lifestyle,” to the one enjoyed by man-woman couples, where the woman serves as the primary caretaker. Janelle is my favorite.  If was a polygamist, I would be her.

Stay home wife, Christine is my second favorite.  As a little girl she dreamed of being a third wife!  She wanted the other wives and not the husband. As a young woman she only wanted to date married men.   Is her platonic love for women hiding queerness stirring beneath the surface?

I don’t know.

I cannot imagine living with other women or men so intimately, raising their babies, sharing their meals and not wanting to share their beds; but that is me and my predilections.  The women in this show are asking us to see them as making a credible choice for the love  of God, for the love of each other, for the love of their children, perhaps even for the love of Kody, their surfer-haired husband.  In return they are giving us a paradigm for universalist religion that is rich and deep, dripping with tolerance (if not welcoming) of the other, while living a life saturated with meaning that comes from the practice of faith every moment of your day and not just on insert-your-day-of-rest-here.

Sadly the same cannot be said for Kody who says the following, when Meri, the baron wife (also the radical one), asks him to acknowledge her feelings of  jealousy, by considering how it might feel if she took a another lover.  Kody says “it is not something I am comfortable imaging. The vulgarity of you with another man sickens me.  It is against man and nature.”  Here I was, about to ask him to sign my legalize group marriage petition!  (I harbor the hope that the sister wives would sign it)

I am not sure what to do with this absolutely unmovable double standard – besides to point out that Meri was willing to move it, even if just a millimeter, by requiring him to imagine a different (aka egalitarian) world.  Meri (perhaps radical because she is baron), is also the radical one – not only does she question the double standard, but she also questions “where the lines in who we can love,” when discussing her relationship to the other children.  Like Janelle, Meri is also living a deeper sort of alternative lifestyle. She wanted to have eight children, and she got 16, and birthed only one of them.

In The Advocate, Thomas Beattie, a pregnant transgendered man who is legally married to a woman, wrote an article about his experience. The legal status of his relationship, indicates that society (vis a vi the law) accepts what they are doing as legitimate, by granting them the rights and privileges of a male-female couple. It seems, that “we” are willing to accept this “male pregnancy.” The “pregnant man” will be on Oprah tomorrow (4/3/08)– it doesn’t get more benign than daytime television. This apparently “subversive” story turned into a feel-good feature. Why?

The answer, is likely to be same as for another enigma. I personally never understood why the law allows sex-changes but not gay marriage. Looking at the media reaction to the transgendered men described above, a possible answer surfaces. The desire to be “normal” is given much weight. For instance, in his Advocate Article, Beattie wrote that his wife, did not tell her family that her husband is a transman. He describes the way people saw them and as a normal couple. Desiring to appear “normal” seems to be the ticket to equality under the law, or at least a certain degree of social acceptance. (Another example of this might be the attitude towards fat people who want to lose weight, and those who do not. The moral scorn towards a fat person eating a donut is palatable)

The outcome of privileging normalcy is a society, and thus a legal system that rewards individuals who appear within the normative spectrum. This gives rise to the weird fact that it is illegal for two women to marry each other, and thus “appear” different. However, if one of them for reasons entirely her own desires to take on the male gender, and have a “legal” sex change, then once the couple looks normal, they can be legally married.

This is not a critic of people who choose to have a sex change, but of legal system that rewards normative appearance, and thus presumably the normative desires that are believed to be behind that appearance.

Because of this legal trend, I wonder if Thomas Beati, now that he is a pregnant, and thus no longer “appears” normal at least temporarily, will experience problems with the law, or will the nine month deviation be forgiven, since the baby goes back to a nuclear family?

In Iraq, it seems that while gay men and lesbian women are prosecuted by the official authourity, transsexuals can legally switch their gender through surgery, and even get a government interest free loans to help pay for the surgery.

The blatant, visible injustice of this transformed Iran into a country with the highest percentage of gender reassignment surgery outside of Thailand.

While the level of injustice is certainly different, both in the US and in Iran, the legal system is set up in order to encourage gay men and lesbian women to have sex change surgeries. This sacrifice is one I can easily imagine people making. What is more important to be the right gender or love the right person/have the right sexual orientation? If I was put in a position to make that decision, I would have no problem changing my gender.

Hell, if I for some reason I had to spend my life in Iran, perhaps I would have a sex change, just so I could live as man in Iranian society.

The bottom line of this rant is simple: It is ridiculously unfair to create a legal system that privileges people having expensive and painful surgeries as a means of upholding the normative.

I applaud Beattie, and all the other transmen who are claiming their right to give birth to their own children, and thus undermining the logic (a sex change can be used a means of achieving normalcy) behind the injustice of legalizing sex change, while prohibiting gay marriage.

Quick recap of Sodom: Story appears both in Muslem tradition and in the Hebrew Bible. Catch up on your Sodom facts on Wikapedia.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah

Its been understood traditionally as God destroying a city of (you guessed it), folks engaging in SODOMY, because boy on boy action is such a terrible terrible sin! Even though you ask me, its is clear from the Hebrew Bible, that whats going on in Sodom is not alternative family structures and loving relationships (did that exist anywhere in the ancient world ???) but specific kind of prohibited rape.

Lot has a bunch of angels over for dinner, and the people of the city come to Lot’s door and say, “where [are] the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.” (Gen 19:5).

They ask, the for the angels, so they can gang- bang them, and Lot our good man, who God saves from the fire and brimstone, replies, “I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as [is] good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof Gen 19: 8).” Aka, don’t take the dudes, instead rape my daughters. In other words, its ok to penetrate women against their will, because, hell they are property anyway, but do that to dudes and your fry. This seems to be the moral of Sodom. (Look you got to start somewhere, they started with banning boy-boy rape)

Oh, and the best part, is that the area of Sodom and bunch of other “bad” cities would become uninhabitable desert for all time – hence the dead sea as Sodom fits the bill just right.

So, how about it – lets have the pride parade in Sodom next year – transform the history of the dead, salty earth into one of human love and egalitarian co-existence, no matter who is doing the penetrating (as long as its consenting adults). It is time to take back Sodom for several reasons, the best three I could think of are below. Post your reasons in comments.

Tommorow, I’m leaving Israel – and my last words from the holy land are indeed – “Take back Sodom” A fitting last thought to a rather strange and random summer.

1. God doesn’t get to just destroy cities – its time someone sent The Word up there. \

2. It could a beautiful location for a night rave in the desert.

3. Somewhere overtime, what seams like the literal meaning of the Hebrew bible got interpreted away – even back then the story was about the ethics of consent vs. no consent sex , versus who was doing the fucking. Thus, would it not be perfect restoration of damaged earth to make Sodom a celebration/location of consensual sexuality in all its many forms.

Pride Parade!  At one point the policeman actually told me not to go and tried to block me. I was shocked – I asked him if I’m allowed to go, and he said don’t go. I told him that I have the right to go and I will go, and he let me through. Other friends had similar confrontations with the police that tried to discourage people from going to the Parade.

I cannot figure out what that is all about. The police had a really good excuse to cancel the parade all together because the fire department was on strike for over six days, but they did not. Over half of the active police force were at the parade (8000 police for 2000 marchers, plus military) God, you do that math – for every marcher there were four police officers. Five Thousand marchers were expected. What happened?  Did the potential marchers get scared? Is the community to small to get 5000 to show up and argue with the police that are actually on their side?

Also, there were few observes, very little touching, absolutely no music, and the after party was canceled.  It is hard to be festive with this amount of young men and women with guns all around. Even when the military state is on your side, it is still a military state. (not to underestimate the important of it being on your side.)  

Despite the situation, still the parade was an event to behold. My favorite the “Fuck Gender: Say No to Family Values” poster.  The quite progression down David Hamelach was full of hope. Perhaps the first few marchers are always doing so under the watchful eye of the police. After all, racial integration in the states occurred with the help of the National Guard.

However, I wonder if there might be some other way of dealing with the difficult situation.  Perhaps the police could be more helpful, instead of scaring people away from the parade by literary telling them not to go because there will be violence. At the same time, violence was a real threat, an Ultra-Orthodox Man with a bomb was stopped and 24 others were arrested throughout the day. However, is the role of the police to breed fear in an already guarded population?

I wonder if a few details could take the edge of the military state? However, who can you expect the police to be courteous if even the waiters at local restaurants are not? Israel is not a “costumer service” society.  Most adults come of age in the army, and thus bring that culture back with them into civilian life. Perhaps that is why both the police officer and the waitress are standoffish?  Or is it the other way around? 

Grumble as I might about the rude police, the bottom line of the Parade is clear, The majority (however, ungracefully) put stood against the increasingly powerful, and absolutely terrifying version of Judaism. There is nothing authentic, sweet or quant about this sort of religion.  Perhaps this can be the profound lesson of the parade, for those who encounter the outreach activities of this particular group. Their life may seem inspired, beautiful, spiritual, and filled with meaning, and often this is all true – however the price you has to pay is blind hatred of your queer friend, queer child, your queer neighbor and perhaps your queer self.  Meaning should not cost your soul.

It took me an entire adolescence of being a “bal teshuva” before I came to this conclusion. This

summer, I came to Israel to say good-bye to Orthodox Judaism, the Parade certainly helped in that processes.

For main stream covarage of the Parade check out Jpost and Haartz (the facts in my article mainly comes from Jpost article, but the Haartz peace is every uplifting.) 

  http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1182409606778&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873728.html