Tuesday, May 17, 2005

how now brown cow?

a commenter is puzzled why i keep finding articles like the one about hager.
the answer is not just one thing.

one, i have a sick sense of humor. the fact that a guy who writes a book for women called 'as jesus loved women' (or something like that) and then it seems he paid his own wife for back door action, divorces her after accusing her of being crazy and seems to be guilty of marital rape - well, i think that's funny. it appeals to that gen X snark bone in my body. it's funny in that sick, shake your head, ain't life a crap kind of way. the kind of funny that makes you wish a big flaming comet would hurtle toward earth and put us all out of our obvious misery.

two, i appreciate cognitive dissonance, especially when it applies to our recent culture of 'i'm holier than thou.' there is a major slip in our culture when a man like hager is appointed to a high office making decisions that affect women's lives and our reproductive autonomy. is this my own personal bugaboo? you betcha. there's a slip when a man like that wears a public mask over a gross, sad private face and our culture, our politicians, our media, our other citizens won't say, 'you know, that's incongruent.'

three, i find patriarchal oppression of women sad - and deserving of scorn. i think it's sad that this woman realized she made a mistake when she first married this bag of nuts and, because of religious convention, decided to stay with him; i think it's sad that her inability to be autonomous sentenced her to marital rape (yes, it does exist); it's sad that she stayed in that situation, was even unfaithful to him, because she had no money of her own, no independence, no escape route.

it's an object lesson.

and, four. i find it hilarious that, apparently, the white house can't seem to run a basic background check on anybody. bolton's a swinger, hager's a bugger, and rent boys sit with the press corps. hilarious.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you think it's stupidity, or just plain arrogance? The Hager story is absolutely appalling. If that's how Jesus loved women, keep him away from me. For goodness sake, the whole message of the gospels is about protection and consideration for those who are powerless, not getting your jollies out of forcing them to stay that way.
By the way, I'm not a prude about what consenting adults do together. It's the element of force and/or coercion that troubles and angers me.

LutheranChik said...

I think it's pure arrogance.

I think we're living in imperial Rome...or, as one of my friends corrected me when I noted this on another forum, Rome during the death throes of the Republic.

Delia Christina said...

most of us know that hager's ideas have no relation whatsoever to jesus.

i'm thinking about the people who defend guys like hager (or santorum or frist or delay or any other sanctimonious freak) who turn this into being about christianity.

i swear i don't hate christianity or church or God. i hate how pharisetical we've become. this hager - yuck. i admit how frail i am, how i struggle with anger, sex, how i've done things most church people would puke at - how i fail constantly at being who i should be. but i get called unspiritual.

this guy? he pushes all his ugliness to the bottom, hides it with sanctimonious bullshit and gets to be the face of christ. (not that it's all about me.)