Mr. Quigley, I must commend you. Your article in regard to Sex Power God (hence referred to as SPG) represents nothing short of a tour de force of homophobia, hypocrisy, fallacy and hysteria. Throughout your screed you carelessly and gleefully compare consensual acts between adults to, among many other things, infanticide and Islamic fundamentalist fascism. The latter comparison is hilariously ironic for reasons that will be fleshed out later. While the ways in which SPG was publicized around Brown campus were disagreeable, your condemnation goes much further than that, and disgustingly so.

Central to your frothing rant is a vitriolic indictment against the presupposed immorality of homosexuality, glued together by a fallacious slippery slope argument that implies that the tolerance of homosexuality will cause Western civilization to be overrun by Islamic fascists. Your condemnation is all the more amusing given that an overwhelming body of research—that ultimate expression of the “logical reasoning” that you purport to defend—demonstrates that homosexuality is not a voluntary characteristic. However, since you bring up the topic of Islamic fundamentalist fascism so eagerly, it should be painfully obvious that what separates our society from those that give rise to mujahideen, and thus gives Western liberalism its strength, is the tolerance of “deviant” modes of behavior, so long as these behaviors occur in private and result in no outside harm. After all, SPG itself takes place in a closed building that one must make a conscious choice to enter, not outside on the Main Green as you would prefer to imply. Indeed, Salman Rushdie, a figure whom you must admit is well versed in opposing Islamic fascism, has called pornography a “standard-bearer for freedom, even civilization” due to its role as the only alternative to the strict moralistic orthodoxy that exists in many Islamic societies. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, another such figure, has repeatedly criticized the lack of sexual freedom for homosexuals in conservative Islamic societies and has produced a sequel to her famous short film “Submission” to this effect. Furthermore, your rhetoric in opposition to SPG mirrors that of Islamic fascist writers such as Sayyid Qutb, who wrote in 1949 that jazz music “is created… to satisfy their love of music and to whet their sexual desires,” and who constantly railed against the relatively loose sexual morals of American culture, such as allowing men and women to interact. Your use of the specter of Islamic fascism to justify your moralistic opposition to homosexuality and what you deem to be “deviant” is a stultifying exercise in hypocrisy.

In your article, you also cite a Rhode Island law that bans the advertisement of profit-oriented “lewd” material without acknowledging that the law you cite goes largely unenforced even by the proper authorities. The Providence Phoenix and its many advertisements for “escorts” and a strip club’s clearly profit-oriented Friday breakfast special entitled “Legs ‘n Eggs” can attest to this fact. This is the case because Providence law enforcement realizes that there are things far more harmful to society than a few revealing pictures. I agree that the SPG advertising campaign was over the line in terms of infringing on the rights of others, and also that most of the naked people in these advertisements really shouldn’t have been. Being introverted and somewhat religious, I would not take part in spectacles such as SPG myself. However, I refuse to use this opposition as a basis for the spewing of homophobia and the advocacy of rigid moralistic orthodoxy. After all, the presence of rigid moralistic orthodoxy precludes the existence of the American freedom that you vociferously claim to defend.

Sincerely,
Hunter Fast ‘12

Furthermore, the fact that the “pro-life,” or more accurately, the anti-abortion movement has associated with it such “lone wolves” that act on the inflammatory rhetoric speaks to the contradiction contained in the leadership structure of the movement. While there are sincere individuals who oppose abortion, capital punishment, war, etc. (i.e. there are those who are philosophically consistent), the larger anti-abortion advocacy groups, in their unwillingness to condemn Tiller’s murder in a full and genuine way, demonstrate their shallow subservience to the Republican line as opposed to their legitimacy as an organized movement. Case in point, Randall Terry, the founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, refused to condemn the murder in anything more than a halfhearted way, stating that, rather than regret that his “pro-life” movement was directly responsible for a murder of its own, he was “more concerned that the Obama administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions.” What are these actions, exactly? The gunning down of doctors? The bombing of abortion clinics? Acts of domestic terrorism, like in that DHS memo? Terry’s lack of specificity expatiates in volumes over his discomfort in engaging the “pro-life” movement’s particular violent streak in any honest way. Furthermore, it demonstrates the fact that some within said movement will resort to acts of violent coercion because the means to political coercion on the issue have been largely taken away from them with Obama’s election. This was also touched on in the DHS memo.

In demonstrating its willingness to tolerate acts of terrorism on the part of extremists, the organized anti-abortion movement also demonstrates its unwillingness to follow Obama’s characteristically sane message of cooperation to reduce the number of abortions through genuinely compassionate—rather than violently coercive—means. This once again calls into question the legitimacy of groups like Operation Rescue as facets of an honest and well-meaning movement. Once again, while there are those who genuinely oppose abortion on deeply moral rather than shallow political grounds, the observed reactions of anti-abortion advocacy organizations has shown that their motivation is based more on the latter. The reactions show that, rather than act as a facet of an honest and well-meaning campaign to prevent abortion, Operation Rescue and the like act first and foremost as a facet of a strictly conservative, staunchly anti-Obama Republican line. They show that they are concerned less with preventing abortion and more with retaining the political relevance of their divisive message in an age of increasing sanity and reason.

Ostensibly, the dismantling of the settlements is necessary for a peace plan to go to its conclusion (i.e. the creation of a Palestinian state), but the withdrawal of the settlers is politically and materially infeasible. This demonstrates the assumption that the settlements are inherently destructive to the future Palestinian state, and this is an assumption that is demonstrably false. The settlements are capable of acting as a much needed economic engine in the new Palestinian state, dampening the shocks that often accompany such radical changes in the political situation. Thus, what comes out of this is a fairly simple proposal: transfer sovereignty without dismantling the settlements. This would be part of the creation of a common labor market between Israel and the new Palestinian state wherein citizens of one state would be free to work in and to live in certain zones of the other. These zones would be designed for mutual economic development and would enhance the interdependence of Israel and Palestine. Thus, the settlers would remain Israeli citizens, but would pay taxes to the Palestinian government. Such an arrangement would do much to repair the economic damage that has been done in the occupation of the West Bank, and would do much to lower rampant unemployment in the Palestinian territories. The present unemployment rate in the Palestinian territories is 24%, slightly greater than that of South Africa and almost four times that of Israel. To destroy the settlements would be to destroy a source of economic activity and of potential revenue for the new Palestinian government. More importantly, the rampant unemployment is a factor in the radicalization of the Palestinian populace, and is therefore itself a large roadblock in the peace process. The presence of stable industry within the Palestinian state, along with the fall of the barrier wall and the ability of Palestinians to work in Israel, would do much to promote further stability of the peace plan.

Obviously, this plan would have to account for the potential for gaming the system by both sides and for other factors. The plan would have to assert that the property rights of the settlers cannot be interfered with for fifty or a hundred years, similarly to the British transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. However, control over issuance of building permits would also be transferred to the Palestinian government, meaning that the expansion rate of the settlements would be determined by and would serve the interests of the Palestinian state. The security barrier would have to be removed, or at least realigned with the Green Line, in order to facilitate movement of labor and resources. Case in point, the Palestinian border city of Qalqilyah is currently fully encircled by the wall, which has led to high unemployment in the city and a radicalization of politics in the area. Thus the city has become an electoral stronghold for Hamas. Many other factors would have to be taken into account based on this proposal, obviously far too many to be exhaustively covered in this context.