I have been looking into several things of late, some of which may develop into a post. For now, I’ll just a few spots (not sure if they are high or low, maybe just strange).
-According to Unificationist websites, Barack Obama has been friendly with Sun Myung Moon front groups, the American Clergy Leadership Conference and True Family Values since before Obama became a Senator. One highly placed Moon follower and official related that Obama’s wife may be involved in Unificationism in some way. See this page for more on that topic.
-Speaking of Unificationism, Richard Cohen’s interview on Universal Peace Television (MoonTV) appears on the Unificationist YouTube account of Kevin Pickard (UPDATE: Scrubbed within 30 minutes of the post, see below). Also, Cohen has been active on YouTube of late with account IHF2008. Looks like he is putting the archives up for view with past appearances on O’Reilly Factor, Paula Zahn, Larry King and local news. I wonder if we will see his appearances on Jimmie Kimmel, the Daily Show and the 2006 Paula Zahn Show?
-We had an English translation of Luca Era Gay here, if not first, pretty close to it. Now, You can listen to it on YouTube. It is kind of catchy…
-Did you know that nuclear explosions might rock the US by March? If you are a follower of Ronald Weinland, you are getting ready for the end times. He claims to be one of two end time prophets with the Kingdom coming in by 2012. If you are interested in how religiously-based mind control groups operate, you can read a bit on this discussion blog for those who are believers in Weinland and those who are on the fence.
That is an odd lineup…
UPDATE: In what is the quickest scrub job I can recall, the Cohen video has already been taken down from Kevin Pickard’s YouTube page. Here is a screen capture of the page and the video from a couple of days ago. I suspect next will be the same interview on Universal Peace Television.
Category: Religion and sexuality
Luca was gay: The lyrics in English
I posted in December, 2008 about the controversy in Italy regarding an ex-gay song to be sung in the Italian music festival, Sanremo by Italian artist, Povia. Up to now, the lyrics to the song not known. We now have them here.
Thanks to a translation by Emiliano Lambiase, I can now post the lyrics to Luca Era Gay (Luca Was Gay), the song sparking all the fuss.
INTRO:
Luca was gay and now he’s together with her, Luca speaks from his heart, Luca says I’m another man.
1st VERSE:
Luca says: Before telling you about my sexual change, I want to clarify that if I believe in God I can’t recognise myself in human thought which is divided on this matter, I haven’t gone to psychologists, psychiatrists, priests nor scientists.
I’ve gone into my past, delved into it and found out a lot about myself.
My mother had too much love for me, her love turned into full obsession with her convictions, her attentions wouldn’t let me breathe.
My father used to take no decisions and I could never talk with him, he was away at work all day, but I had the feeling that wasn’t the truth, that’s why Mum asked for divorce, I was 12 and didn’t
really understand my father, he said ‘that’s the right solution’ and started to drink after sometime.
Mum always spoke badly of Dad to me and used to say ‘never get married, for God’s sake.
She was sick jealous of my girlfriends and my identity was growing confused.
Chorus:
Luca was gay and now he’s together with her, Luca speaks from his heart, Luca says I’m another man
Luca was gay and now he’s together with her, Luca speaks from his heart, Luca says I’m another man.
2nd VERSE:
I’m another man now, but at that time I was looking for answers, I was ashamed so looked for my answers in hiding, some used to say ‘it’s natural.’
I studied Freud and he didn’t think the same, then high school finished but I didn’t know what happiness was, a big man made my heart shake and that’s when I knew I was a homosexual.
I had no inhibitions with him, he courted me and I thought that was love, yes with him I could feel myself, but then it became like a competition on who made the best sex.
I felt guilty, sooner or later they’ll catch him, but if evidence disappears he’ll be acquitted.
I was looking for who my father was in men, and I used to go with men not to betray my mother.
2nd Chorus:
Luca was gay and now he’s together with her, Luca speaks from his heart. Luca says I’m another man.
Luca was gay and now he’s together with her, Luca speaks from his heart, Luca says I’m another man.
SPECIAL:
Luca says: For 4 years I’d been with a man through love and deceptions, we often betrayed each other.
I was still looking for my truth, that big eternal love, then I met her at a party, among a lot of people, she had nothing to do with it all, she listened to me, undressed me, understood me. I only remember that I missed her the day after.
This is my story, only my story, no illness, no recovery.
Dear Dad, I’ve forgiven you even though you’ve never come back here.
Mum, I often think of you and I love you, and sometimes still see your reflection.
But now I’ve become a father and I’m in love with the only woman I’ve ever loved.
Final Chorus:
Luca was gay and now he’s together with her, Luca speaks from his heart, Luca says I’m another man.
Luca was gay and now he’s together with her, Luca speaks from his heart, Luca says I’m another man.
That is a long song, or at least it seems like it would be from the length of the story involved. Has a little reparative therapy feel to it with the parents involved but it also says, “no illness, no recovery” which is not consistent with that framework.
Luca Era Gay might be considered in the a Because of You genre.
UPDATE: This blogger has what he claims is a more accurate translation.
Peter Ould wonders if Luca was gay after all…
Love is an Orientation: Andrew Marin
Andrew Marin’s of the Marin Foundation promotes his new book Love is an Orientation in this video.
I have not seen the book but I am very hopeful to get a copy soon. I feel very positive about what Andrew describes about his work and look forward to reading more.
If not ex-gay, then what?
Former Q-Syndicate owner, David Benkof writes a provocative column in today’s Jerusalem Post – If not ex-gay, then what?
He writes:
For years, I have been a critic of the ‘ex-gay’ movement, particularly its Jewish manifestation. Many advocates of ‘reorientation therapy’ appear to exaggerate ex-gay transformation rates, and so far the non-gay leaders of the Jewish ex-gay movement have been utterly unable to produce success stories who are willing to be interviewed. Alarmingly, Jewish ex-gay organizers sometimes lead Jewish strugglers perilously close to Christian ideas at odds with Judaism.
Well, I have a suggestion. Instead of gay or ex-gay, those of us who have stopped thinking of ourselves primarily as same-sexers can emphasize the fact that, whether we’re celibate or in opposite-sex relationships, we’re ‘Deliberately Living Traditionally.’ The handy acronym Delta corresponds to a Greek letter representing change; it can be a rival to the use of the letter Lambda to represent all things gay. Delta can serve as a new identity and community for people who are making or have made that tough transition. (Perhaps the Hebrew version will be known as ‘Dalets.’)
He does not promote change but a different perspective and set of choices. How does this sound?
Prairie Voles, early stress and sexual behavior
Not going to start where the title suggests. First, I want to highlight another quote from the Carol Tavris article Mind Games. David Blakeslee noted this in a comment recently and it is an appropriate beginning for this post:
The scientific method is designed to help investigators overcome the most entrenched human cognitive habit: the confirmation bias, the tendency to notice and remember evidence that confirms our beliefs or decisions, and to ignore, dismiss, or forget evidence that is discrepant. That’s why we are all inclined to stick to a hypothesis we believe in. Science is one way of forcing us, kicking and screaming if necessary, to modify our views.
Live by the sword…
It is no secret that I believe research does not support a reparative drive formulation as a general theory for same-sex attraction. On the other hand, I need to practice what I preach about confirmation bias so I am looking for any evidence that could support the notion. As a consequence, I am reviewing the literature in the area of hormones, early brain organization, attachment and sexual behavior. A 2003 article by C. Sue Carter, using prairie voles as a model, reported the following:
Another example of the consequences of perinatal exposure to stress hormones comes from work with prairie voles; in this species, corticosterone treatment during the perinatal period altered both social and reproductive behaviors. In female prairie voles, postnatal treatment with corticosterone was associated with an increased preference for unfamiliar partners versus siblings, lower levels of alloparenting and increased masculinization of sexual behavior (indexed by mounting behavior in females). A more stressful early life, including possibly the absence of the father, also inhibited alloparenting in female prairie voles from a population captured in Illinois [92–94]. In nature, a lack of preference familiar animals or unwillingess to engage in alloparenting behavior might be associated with less tendency to remain with the natal family, further undermining communal breeding and monogamous social systems [20].
Note that stress hormones introduced around the time of birth effected adult parenting and sexual behavior, including same-sex behavior in females. This is the kind of evidence one would need to make a link between high levels of stress and later sexual behavior. There is nothing here that provides direct support for the developmental scheme of reparative drive theory. However, the notion that attachment stress might act to organize the developing brain structures involved in sexual behavior is plausible. Several lines of research suggest that hormones at critical periods may impact sexual behavior. However, what human experiences would lead to comparable hormone changes is not at all clear. We know that many people experience neglect, abuse, disappointment, etc., during early development and demonstrate no same-sex sexual interest. Individual genetics may play a role as may cognitive mediation and the individual experiences which shape self awareness.
One thing is clear. Whatever shapes sexual attraction leads to clear brain responses out of the awareness of the person. What is in awareness is most often experienced as intrinsic. As opposed to prairie voles, however, what we do is mediated by cognitive and social concerns that often are of greater importance than impulse.