Moralism

Martha Coakley, failed Senatorial candidate and Attorney General of Massachusetts, darling of pseudo-Liberals, has once again shown her true colors as a moralist. Her response to the overly hyped suicide of a psychopathic medical student in jail, pending trial for murdering a prostitute, whom he contacted on Craig's List, is to shut down the adult services on Craig's List, a largely free Web site for consumer-consumer and consumer-provider transactions.

Why attack Craig's List? Well, Ms. Coakley may just be simplistically moralistic. A Carry Nation figure, railing against sex for sale. Or, Ms. Coakley may also be responding to pressure from wealthy commercial interests who resent the power of Craig's List and other on-line vendors, now significantly cutting into their sales in a depressed consumer economy. Pure speculation on my part.

Ms. Coakley, while ostensibly supporting LGBT marriage rights, has been clear in representing herself as a conservative moralist in the case of Craig's List. Under her supervision, Craig's List has been pressured to compromise user confidentiality in order to cooperate with the (morality) police on their site. This may have been part of her poor showing in her battle with Scott Brown, a former nude pin-up himself, in the contest for Ted Kennedy's seat. One assumes she thinks gay sex is alright after marriage...only after marriage...just like the other kind.

Rather than proposing a law to legalize prostitution and afford protections to sex workers, which would make them less likely objects of violence and criminal exploitation, Ms. Coakley prefers to assault the freedom of on-line communication, which is, coincidentally, how non-prostitutes often hook up for sex these days. It appears to me that Ms. Coakley is more anti-sex than anti-adult-services. If she succeeds at shutting down the adult services on Craig's List, she may well go after the sexual hook up sections of Craig's List as well, since they do not promote sex in the confines of a marriage, sanctified by God and Government.

The schizoid nature of sexuality in the current American culture is obvious. Alcoholism, meth addiction and HIV/STD transmissions flourish as young people get inebriated to have promiscuous sex behind the scenes, while acting out the public lives of born-again Christians or Shariah Muslims for conformist approval. As someone who believes in the fundamental worth of healthy living to achieve personal peace and mindfulness, I support those laws and social programs which promote a healthy, responsible and active sexuality for adults of any sexual proclivity.

A New Puritanism is not the way. Open discussion of sexuality in schools, combined with thorough sex education, is the way. Perhaps Ms. Coakley could get to work with Governor Patrick and the Massachusetts State Legislature on compulsory sex education in all the Massachusetts schools, public and private, including Catholic schools. Decriminalizing prostitution would eliminate the power of pimps and organized criminals over poor, vulnerable men and women. Cutting off their access to Craig's List will not help these men and women. It punishes them for the crime a privileged male predator committed against one of their own.

Funerals

I attended the Catholic funeral mass for a dear relation yesterday. In the midst of his address to the assembled mourners in the deteriorating, ornate church, the officiating priest put in an obvious plug for the Catholic ritualization of burial. To paraphrase, he said, "We need the incense. We need the altar. We need the flowers. We need the music. We need the prayers.....We come here to be fed."

While I respect and understand the decision of the survivors in this case to have this ritual, I personally could not relate to this advertisement. In fact, I would have felt better if we had all convened and talked... honestly talked...about our lives, the life of the deceased, and what we feel about our own inevitable deaths. I feel that this is what we need as mortal human beings, anticipators and survivors of The Great Common Loss, Death. I believe this process would be healing medicine for the alienation and anxiety many of us feel in today's world.

The Catholic service speaks repeatedly of an afterlife, superior to the life lived. What does this say about the Catholic perspective on the life lived, the only life we have as conscious human beings? Is this a message of support? Is this a message of love? Is this a message of understanding and valuing of a life lived peacefully and lovingly? I say it is not. I also say it belies a basic deficit in Catholic charity, imprisoned in tarnished, antique dogma.

I do not mean this as an attack on Catholicism, despite Catholicism's unrelenting attacks on my integrity and moral equality as a sexually active gay man. Catholicism is not the only religion which has capitalized on unenlightened death rituals to propagate its existence. I simply wish to suggest to anyone who reads this entry that you do not have to grieve through rituals which do not support the wonder of life as it is. You can choose to mourn your losses differently. You can plan your own funeral or memorial service while you are alive to suit how you would like to honor the life you are creating in each moment now. I recommend doing this.

Embracing mortality often entails letting go of delusions of immortality, which are fostered by religions for their own purposes. I say, "Come and be fed by our commonality and mutual love as mortal brothers and sisters who will all die and can choose to live in peace in this moment. Let's work together as long as we are alive to build a wonderful world for those who come after us. Let's take joy in recognizing that better world as our memorial."

Appreciation

An open letter of appreciation:

Herr Ratzinger,

Danke. I wanted to convey my heartfelt appreciation to you. Your expressions of homophobic venom and actions of covert enabling of sexual exploitation of minors by your religious brethren has helped my gay/lesbian brothers and sisters, present and future, a great deal.

By banning gay men from the priesthood, you have spared them from a tortured life of self-hatred and schizoid behavior. By banning women from the priesthood, you have encouraged Catholic lesbians, who feel religiously motivated, to look elsewhere. By horrifying the most reactionary Catholics with your hypocrisy, you have dealt a potential death blow to an institution which would darken and pollute the lives of families with gay/lesbian children into the future.

And, if you yourself might have some sexual secrets of your own to share or confess, I would encourage you to get them off your conscience now. It could not be a better time. You could not do much more harm to your institution. And, you will feel much better.

Yours in the light of day,

Paul Creeden