The other day, while waiting for a YouTube video to load, I was subjected to this video.  In it, David Jaffe introduces himself as an “alleged psychopath.”  I don’t know whether others have called him that, or if he’s adopted the name himself in an effort to seem edgy.  What I do know is that Jaffe curses a lot in the ad, all of which is bleeped-out.  I also know that he set up a machine gun and is letting people on the internet fire it at a truck, made to look like one from his game.

I don’t know what else Jaffe’s done, but I’ve seen a bit of footage from his game, and “psychopath” isn’t something that came to mind.  In the review I watched of the latest “Twisted Metal,”  I was shown a couple of cutscenes depicting “Sweet Tooth,” the game’s protagonist, in action.  In one, he is shown walking away from a young woman’s corpse, presumably killed by him, and referring to the body as “just more trash on the side of the road,” a scene juxtaposed against a light oldie love song.  The cognitive dissonance of such a scene might seem jarring, if similar settings hadn’t been used by “Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth,” “Fallout: New Vegas,” “Fallout 3,” and “Bioshock,” to name a few.

Another cutscene featured in the review showed “Sweet Tooth” grinning maniacally in the window of an old house as a young woman flees the building.  We are treated to his inner monologue, in which he states “She needs to be gutted.  Then, I’ll shove her in my ice box, and we’ll be together forever!”  Oh, and did I mention that “Sweet Tooth” dresses like a clown and drives an ice cream truck (That transforms into a flying robot)?

All this stuff: the gun, the gratuitous swearing that is inexplicably censored, the “scary clown” protagonist, the stock serial-killer writing, the gleeful destruction, doesn’t say “psychopath” to me.  It says “fourteen-year-old only child with ADHD.”  All the components might seem twisted and disturbing on their own, but, put together, they come off as being an idea of twisted and disturbing that a couple of junior high kids came up with at a sleepover after drinking a bunch of Mountain Dew and seeing a trailer for “Scream __: The Screamening.”

The concept of a cliché clown serial-killer driving around in an ice cream truck and spouting stock lines from a straight to DVD slasher flick might be workable for a twisted and/or disturbing game if the player were, say, forced to play as “Sweet Tooth” as he stalks his victims, tortures them, and eventually kills them.  That’s not what you do in “Twisted Metal,” though.  In “Twisted Metal,” you drive around in your truck, shooting at other stereotypically “disturbing” characters, each with their own tricked out death-mobiles.  There are ludicrous weapons, ludicrous explosions, ludicrous everything.  That’s not twisted, that’s not disturbing, that’s not even scary.  That’s just silly, by the numbers, and juvenile.

When I think of games that are demented or disturbing, I think of things like “Amnesia: The Dark Descent,” and its expansion, “Amnesia: Justine.”  In “Amnesia: The Dark Descent,” you take on the identity of Daniel, a man being hunted by a vengeful spirit referred to as “The Shadow.”  As the title suggests, you have amnesia, although you find out fairly early on that it is self-induced.  Over the course of the game, you uncover letters and diary entries you’ve written, which gradually reveal the backstory of the game.

There are lots of frightening moments in the game, to be sure.  Often, I found myself hiding behind a stack of boxes, hoping the monsters patrolling the game’s environment wouldn’t find and kill me.  Other times, I would be sprinting down nearly pitch-black corridors, too afraid of my pursuers to stop and figure out where I was going.  That alone would have made the game darker and more frightening than the explosive, juvenile gore-fest of “Twisted Metal.”  “Amnesia: The Dark Descent” really gets disturbing, though, when your character starts hearing the cries and pleas of now dead prisoners of the castle he is navigating.  You are made to hear mothers begging their children to climb into dark, earthen tunnels in order to escape.  You hear men begging for mercy, repeatedly crying out that they are innocent, before you hear them die.

SPOILER WARNING

Where “Amnesia: The Dark Descent” truly descends into twisted territory, though, is when you discover why exactly people were being tortured to death in the same castle that you’re running around in:  You’ve been torturing them to death.  It is revealed about two thirds into the game that, in order to keep “the Shadow” at bay, Daniel has been ritually sacrificing innocent people.  You also learn that, in order for the rituals to work, the people you killed had to suffer before they died.  A lot.  At one point, you have a flashback in which you are forced to relive one of your many murders.  Toward the end of the game, you are forced to search the torture chambers that Daniel had been using to torment his victims before killing them.  Each room has a plot significant maguffin in it, which you need in order to progress, but you can only get said maguffins after hearing yourself torture an innocent person.

The expansion, “Amnesia: Justine,” has a similarly horrifying progression.  You start off in a cell in a dungeon.  In one corner, you see a phonograph, which will explain that you are part of a psychological experiment.  There are three major puzzles in (the rather brief) “Amnesia: Justine.”  In each one, you are presented a choice:  You can either escape the room easily, killing an innocent person to do so, or you can put yourself in danger to save them.  It’s not unlike “Saw,” except in that it isn’t something you watch, but something you actually experience (also, it doesn’t overstay its welcome or start to rely on cheap shock value).

In some parts of the game, you are able to take your time.  In others, however, you have to cope with a monster, either avoiding it, outsmarting it, outrunning it, or hiding from it.  The catch in “Amnesia: Justine,” though, is that the “monsters” aren’t supernatural creatures summoned to guard a castle.  They’re people that have been captured, tortured, brainwashed, and mutilated, their arms being replaced with blades, and bell-collars affixed to their necks with spikes.  Both the monsters and the prisoners are worried about someone named Justine (just like in “The Dark Descent,” it turns out that the player character is the one behind all the horrors you experience), who has kidnapped them to use as pawns in her experiments on her own temporarily wiped psyche.

“Amnesia: Justine” has the same disturbing twist as its full-length counterpart, but with the added component of choice.  Do you try to rectify your mistakes and risk death, or do you try to shut out the pleas of your prisoners in order to save your own skin?  Both of the “Amnesia” games are terrifying and will keep you on the edge of your seat.  When you finish, you will be horrified with yourself for a moment, before remembering that you haven’t actually been torturing anyone to death.  They are disturbing and horrifying, both when they have you running through filthy dungeons caked with innocent blood, and when they have you hiding in a wardrobe in a posh bedroom, hoping that the monsters that have been hunting you won’t hear your character’s half-mad whimpering.

Why have I gone on this tangent?  Is it just because I love fawning over “Amnesia”?  No.  I brought up the “Amnesia” games to use them as a case study of how to really do fear, twisted, disturbing, and psychopathic.  The essence of horror is in pacing and atmosphere.  To truly create a demented experience, you must make the player feel like they are a part of what’s going on, while it’s going on, either as the terrified victim, the twisted perpetrator, or some tragic hybrid of the two.  Forcing yourself, under a temporarily assumed identity, to torture someone to death is twisted.  Blowing up cars as a cartoonish serial-killer clown and sitting by and watching that clown mumble generic slasher one-liners is not twisted, it’s just silly, and David Jaffe’s insistence on calling it “Twisted Metal” and introducing himself as an “alleged psychopath” make it seem juvenile.

Stewart opens the column by lamenting that it was difficult for him to manage public relations for the Interfraternity Council, in light of increasing public hostility toward it.  You’ll forgive me, I think, if I fail to feel much sympathy for him.  Doing damage control for the antics of our local fraternities is no doubt a daunting task, but I see little worth in it.

The first justification Stewart raises for the continued existence of the Greek system is that it produces men and women of “quality.”  He goes on to reference on Dr. Bernard Franklin, who notes that many politicians and successful entrepreneurs have been Greek affiliated.  So nearly half of the presidents of the United States have been in fraternities.  So over forty percent of US Senators have been in fraternities.  Representatives, Supreme Court Justices, powerful executives.  All have strong Greek representation, it seems.  The flaw in Stewart’s argument here, though, is that correlation does not indicate causation.  The sorts of people who want to climb to the upper echelons of hierarchies, such as politicians and Forbes 500 executives, are likely drawn to the Greek system because of the status it offers in campus society.  Frankly, it’s rather insulting and arrogant of Franklin, and by extension Stewart, to suggest that the Greek system, rather than personal ambition or aptitude, deserves the credit for the success of such individuals.

Acknowledging that our society and culture have changed over the last few decades, Stewart goes on to write about contemporary Greek affiliates.  Again, he references Franklin, who notes the alcohol abuse, macho posturing, academic failings, and other “misplaced and out of balance values” (sexual assault, for example) commonly associated with the Greek system.  He assures us that, while some Greek stereotypes contain “partial truths,” we should not take them to be even mostly true, and certainly not on our campus.  Toward the end of his column, Stewart reasserts that the stereotypes of the Greek system are mostly false.

This surety perplexed me, because he doesn’t really do much to disprove these allegations.  In fact, he substantiates them, first plainly pointing out that the ludicrous abundance of alcohol in Greek houses has caused a great deal of corresponding maladies that have warranted hospitalization.  He further indicates that while most of the alcohol consumption that led to these problems came from Greek organizations, those same organizations seem to be dangerously lax about calling for help when people are receiving alcohol poisoning by their hands.

Next, Stewart brings up the incident on January twelfth, in which upwards of twenty drunk young women harassed an Hispanic student.  The ensuing uproar led to many editorials in school paper, all chiding the NU community for not being quite welcoming enough to minorities.  The obnoxious and thoughtless actions of individuals like these is why we cannot have a nice, peaceful campus discourse, but must instead endure the endless lamentation of would-be muckrakers jumping at the opportunity to pen the next nice sounding but utterly ineffectual and content-free complaints about their favorite buzzwords.

Stewart produces a sickening “No True Scotsman” fallacy, writing that he hesitates to call them “sorority women,” in an attempt to isolate them from the system as a whole, thus protecting his cronies from criticism.  I will certainly agree with Stewart that no sorority, for Stewart writes that these women were surely members of sororities, would hold racist sentiments of any sort as core values of their organization.  However, I do not think that this is because of some grand moral fiber inherent to the Greek system and its values.  Rather, it is more that the sociopolitical climate will no longer tolerate such sentiment to be codified.

Somehow, though, Stewart manages to insult us all by writing that “Based on the principles of Greek organizations, it should be the Greeks who are leading the conversation.”  Why on earth should Greeks be leading the discussion of racial interaction on campus?  The Caucus Against Racial Prejudice on Campus was conducted as such an event should be conducted:  by the students who have grievances.  Are we to push the actual victims of racism to the sidelines so that a bunch of fratboys can show off just how post-racial they are?

After asserting that his brethren should be stepping over the professionals and the victimized in order to prove themselves to be the bestest of all of us, Stewart alleges that the alcohol abuse and racism associated with the Greek system “are isolated incidents,” admonishing that “we should target these individuals, but it does not suffice to target the entire community.”  Here, we come to the section we’ve all been waiting for, the section in which Stewart justifies the continued existence of the Greek system by outlining all the great and wonderful things it, and it alone, can bring to campus.

In this, though, Stewart fails miserably, and almost to a comical degree.  We are assured that “Greeks are leaders in all sorts of student groups that promote social justice and advance character on campus.”  This argument is often used when justifying the Greek system.  Critics are promised that it musters a great deal of charity, and that its failings should thus be overlooked.  This, however, is a smokescreen.  Much like the Marines’ “Toys for Tots” program, Greek charity is but an accessory to their main mission, a distracting publicity stunt to get as many pictures as possible taken that show members smiling with happy children and needy groups.

Shortly after this smokescreen, Stewart asserts that “Greek chapters develop the leadership skills of their members.” He immediately adds, though, that the Greek organizations only actually have this effect if “the members are eager and willing to learn.”  This suggests, then, that the leadership qualities drawn from the Greek system are incidental, and that the leaders it produces would simply learn to lead elsewhere, were fraternities unavailable.

At the second to last (rather short) paragraph of his column, Stewart claims that “The benefits of being in a Greek organization are numerous.”  After making such a bold declaration, he offers a spectacularly disappointing substantiation.  Noting that DU has the (incredibly vague and amorphous) mission of “building better men,” Stewart merely provides anecdotal evidence that it actually succeeds, remarking that he is “a better man because of DU.”  No statistics.  Not even a very good story.  Just a single, unsupported statement that he is, by unidentified criteria, a “better man.”

In the end, we are left with more vague, anecdotal evidence for the success and importance of the Greek system.  Stewart, apparently, has gained leadership experience from being in a fraternity.  Likewise, he seems to have gained, as he puts it, “a greater sense of self and focused goals for [his] post-college career.”  Then, almost like a punch line, he writes “That is why the Greek system is still relevant.”

I don’t know that the relevance of the Greek system has been in question.  A system that enables widespread alcohol abuse to the point of potential death on and around our campus is indisputably relevant.  The question that is being raised with increasing frequency is why we should put up with this system any longer.  Not a single one of the vague benefits Stewart attributes to the Greek system are in any way exclusive to it.  If we want to foster leadership on campus, why do we need to foster it in all these isolated little cells?  The only defense that the Greek system can raise to justify why it should go on existing, instead of being replaced by a co-ed, inclusive organization is a feeble appeal to tradition.

First off, a bit of context:  In the Middle Ages (and still today, actually, but not nearly as often), people sometimes went on pilgrimages to shrines of various saints.  There’s been a lot of academic discourse about these pilgrimages.  Some people argue that they were just a bunch of ignorant and superstitious fools, hoping that the bones of saints would magically cure them.  Others argue that pilgrimages were actually journeys of self-discovery and community building.  Regardless of what people think about pilgrimages, one of the common things you’d see in the Middle Ages were “pilgrim badges”:  little tokens from shrines, taken as keepsakes, souvenirs, and badges of honor.  Here’s an example:

A pilgrim badge depicting the head of St. Thomas of Canterbury

      That said, there were all sorts of other badges out there, too.  Now, for your enjoyment, dear readers, take a trip with me into the seedier side of history as we examine sexually explicit parody pilgrim badges.  The first three will be images of originals, with pictures of modern reproductions set along side.  The fourth image will just be an assortment of other reproduction badges.

A phallus with legs, running someplace. For some reason, it's got a little man with a wheelbarrow on it.

An anthropomorphised vulva, this time riding a horse, wearing a crown, and shooting a crossbow

An anthropomorphised vulva, dressed up like a pilgrim (as indicated by the staff, hat, rosary, and pattens). My professor referred to it as "The Pussy Pilgrim."

1. A winged phallus 2. Three phalluses (phalli?) carrying a crowned vulva on a bower. Possibly a parody of pilgrims honoring Mary. 3. Just a dangling phallus pendant 4. A boat of phalluses 5. Do I need to explain this one? 6. A couple having sex 7. A naked, squatting man and woman, respectively 9. A crowned, winged vulva 10. Another winged phallus

You can actually buy these, and pretty cheaply, too. Here, here, and here.  Anyway, that was my brief flight of fancy before continuing my screed against whiny teenage alcoholics.

Today, the Keg had its liquor license revoked.  You can read an article about it here, if you like.  There’s been some opposition to this action, of course.  You can’t hinder the flow of booze to underage drinkers without raising a ruckus from my alleged peers.  All the opposition, though, is flimsy as all hell.

One argument against the revocation of the liquor license is that it won’t stop underage drinking, a pathetic argument that somehow made it into the school newspaper.  When I heard this presented as an argument against taking action against the Keg, I wanted bang my head against the wall.  Of course revoking the Keg’s liquor license isn’t going to end all underage drinking.  Nobody thinks it’s going to end underage drinking.  What it will end is underage drinking at the Keg.  As you can read in the article I linked to (the one that was just news, not the editorial), the Keg has had well over one hundred alcohol related citations since 2005.  The Keg’s lousy reputation doesn’t stem from a few isolated incidents that have been blown out of proportion, it comes from a systematic failure to follow the laws that have been put in place for the betterment of the community.

Yes, NU undergrads are still going to drink at house parties and at frats.  That’s problematic, too, but not nearly so easily solved.  This isn’t going to fix the problem, but it does remove one of the major contributors to it.  What Tisdahl has effectively done is remove a tumor.  It hasn’t cured the cancer, but it has helped.  To say that we shouldn’t revoke the Keg’s liquor license just because it won’t solve the problem of underage drinking in one stroke would effectively cripple any attempt to combat underage drinking, because there’s no single action we can take to put a stop to it.  It’s all part of a process, and this is a damn good start.

Another argument I’ve heard is that if the Keg can’t sell alcohol, then it can’t support itself.  I’ll respond with a loud and resounding “so what?”  Some say this is a problem because then Migon, the owner, won’t be able to support his family.  I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but “I make good money off of it,” is not, nor has it ever been, an accepted excuse for repeatedly breaking the law.  If we withhold punishment whenever a criminal was profiting off their crimes, then we might as well throw out our legal system altogether.

Others claim that that’s a problem because it’s indicative of Tisdahl being “anti-business!”  Oh noes!  I’m not sure where these wannabe Libertarians learned about Capitalism, but here’s a quick lesson.  There is an open market.  In that market, people come to sell products, either that they have made or provide, or that they have acquired from someone else and are now selling for a profit.  Those that sell superior products and have superior business models will prosper, whereas those who have inferior business models and sell inferior products will go bankrupt and will have to start over from square one.  Since we don’t live in an entirely laissez faire society, we have certain rules to ensure that businesses can’t make products that are so bad that they are actively hurting consumers.  Some shortsighted folks claim that regulations hurt businesses, but I disagree.  Ensuring that you can’t make a product so shitty that it hurts your consumers ensures that you’ll have a client base a year from now.

The purpose of this little foray into Capitalist theory was to point out that Mayor Tisdahl has not “attacked business” by taking away the Keg’s liquor privileges.  Rather, in revoking the license, Tisdahl is showing that Migon cannot be trusted to play the Capitalism game with the big boys.  Maybe if he had provided a decent product (that is, a bar that doesn’t repel people who have other options), he wouldn’t have had to rely on the illegal patronage of suburban high school students and underage university students.  As it stands now, he might still be able to pull out of his downward spiral by serving good food and providing a nice atmosphere.  I doubt he can contend with Prairie Moon, Bar Louie, and Tommy Nevin’s, though.  So, all you would be Libertarians who claim that this is unfairly destroying business, think again.  He played the game, he lost, and he spent years cheating to try to stay afloat.

Those of you who have been reading this blog since I started will likely recall that I actually suggested this in one of my first posts (well, actually, I said the Keg should just be closed, but this works too).  The reasons for that still apply, I think, and I stand by them.  If students can’t get their mass quantities of booze south of downtown Evanston, then they won’t stumble through half of Evanston to get back to their dorms.  People have been whining that, since this is a “college town,” underage drinking at bars is par for the course and should be accepted.  While I would say Evanston is far from a college town (seriously, I’ve been to college towns.  This is not a college town.), I disagree with the statement regardless of Evanston’s status.  When you have a university, then yes, there are going to be lots of students drinking.  That said, I hardly think that that’s an excuse, so much as a warning that law enforcement is going to have to make more arrests and be on the offensive.

The last, and probably most pathetic and insulting, argument I’ll mention is that some people claim the Keg as a “rite of passage” for NU students.  I’ve never gone to the Keg (my opinions on it are formed based on the effects I’ve seen it have on others, testimonials, etc.).  Does that make me less of an NU student?  I hardly think so.  I’m an active member of SHAPE and Secular Student Alliance.  I take 300 level courses.  I attend lectures given by visiting professors and other speakers.  Hell, if you want to talk about things more exclusive to Northwestern, I’ve guarded the Rock, I’ve gone to Burger King at three in the morning, I’ve done the “Primal Scream” (or yell, or shout, or roar.  Accounts seem to differ…).  Setting aside that going to the nearby dive bar isn’t an indicator of whether or not you’re a student at Northwestern, do any of you really want it to be?  We’re consistently ranked as one of the best schools in the country.  We have some gorgeous architecture.  We have professors at the tops of their fields.  Get some class, and don’t try to make getting wasted at a shady bar the identifying characteristic of this great institution.

So, that is why I have no sympathy or pity in regards to the fate of the Keg.  It’s a shady bar that owes its existence to its status as the supplier of booze to underage customers.  From the standpoint of a resident of Evanston, I want it gone because it cranks out loud, drunken miscreants.  From the standpoint of a student of Northwestern University, I want it gone because its continued existence enables the behavior that besmirches the great name of my school.  From the standpoint of a Capitalist, I want it gone because it tried to cheat the system and put the consumer base in danger.  There was no excuse for the way it was operating, and every reason to strike it down.

On purely ideological grounds, I’m inclined to agree with feminists on this one.  In the past, I’ve paid exclusively on some of my dates, and on others, my date has paid for herself (although I offered to pay).  I have an idea that will effectively solve this “who pays?!?!” conundrum.  That, however, is not what I’m writing about right now.  Maybe later, but not right now.

What’s annoying me is the misuse of the word “chivalry.”  Here’s the thing:  Chivalry has got bugger-all to do with dating.  Come with me, on an adventure through history and etymology.

Our journey starts in Latin, as is contractually required in any discussion of European history.  We begin with the Latin word “caballarius,” which translates to “horseman” or “rider.”  This word was later adapted by the French into “chevalier,” which means “knight.” (Fun Fact: This is also where we get the word “cavalier”)  Chivalry itself doesn’t show up in English until a little later still, in approximately 1292, when they converted “chevalier” into “chevalerie,” effectively translated to “knighthood.” (Note:  There’s been lots of historical exchange between England and France)  If you roll this word around your mouth for a bit, you’ll find that it is indeed the word “chivalry,” just spelled funny.  Which is fine, considering spelling wasn’t standardized until fairly recently.

So, chivalry just means “knighthood.”  Surely, though, you might be thinking that the term still applies to dating, as a paradigm in which men act as knights in shining armor, and women act as helpless damsels.  Hardly.  The Code of Chivalry, the rules by which knights were expected to (though often didn’t) comport themselves, doesn’t say anywhere that men have to hold doors for women, or that women can’t take care of themselves.  Here is the Code of Chivalry, as it appears in “Song of Roland” (an historical song set in the Carolingian empire, and contemporary with the Crusades):

• To fear God and maintain His Church
• To serve the liege lord in valour and faith
• To protect the weak and defenceless
• To give succour to widows and orphans
• To refrain from the wanton giving of offence
• To live by honour and for glory
• To despise pecuniary reward
• To fight for the welfare of all
• To obey those placed in authority
• To guard the honour of fellow knights
• To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit
• To keep faith
• At all times to speak the truth
• To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun
• To respect the honour of women
• Never to refuse a challenge from an equal
• Never to turn the back upon a foe

This is not a dating handbook (those existed back then, actually!  But they didn’t say much about holding doors or treating women as dainty).  This is a set of rules for gentleman soldiers.  Note that it enforces the chain of command (“To serve the liege lord in valour and faith,” “To obey those placed in authority”), encourages unit cohesion (“To refrain from the wanton giving of offence,” “To fight for the welfare of all,” “To guard the honour of fellow knights”), maintains a fighting force that will remain loyal to more than just their paycheck (“To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun,” “To live by honour and for glory,” “Never to refuse a challenge from an equal”), keeps troops alive and in good spirits (“Never to turn the back upon a foe,” “To keep faith,” “To fear God and maintain His Church”), and otherwise requires that knights not act like dicks during war (“To eschew unfairness, meanness and deceit,” “To protect the weak and defenceless,” “To give succour to widows and orphans,” “At all times to speak the truth,” “To respect the honour of women”).

Only three of these orders can even be argued to apply to the treatment of women (“To respect the honour of women,” “To protect the weak and defenceless,” “To give succour to widows and orphans”).  Let’s tackle the most obvious one first, that being the command to “respect the honour of women.”  To a modern reader, this comes off as a fairly obvious order to be good to women.  Think, though, back to anything “old-timey” you’ve read.  Put simply, “respecting the honour” of women doesn’t mean treating your girlfriend like a pretty, pretty princess.  It means not raping people.

The other two, “To protect the weak and defenceless,” and “To give succour to widows and orphans,” really don’t have much to do with romance or the treatment of women specifically, either putting them on pedestals or being condescending.  Rather, these are orders to leave noncombatants alone, and to protect refugees.  Men are fair game in war (except clergy).  They’re the people who might come back to kill you later, if you leave them alive.  Women and children, though, are given a pass for two reasons.  First of all, killing them makes you look like a tool.  Why the hell were you not out killing enemy soldiers?  Secondly, peasant women have little to no tactical value.  Again, why the hell are you not out killing the people that are armed?!

So, is chivalry dead?  Yeah, it probably is.  But not because somebody’s boyfriend didn’t carry her books for her, or hold the door for her, or otherwise treat her as well as she wants (Note: “Proven Kilty” endorses holding doors for, carrying books for, and being nice to people.  Not because they have vaginas, but because it’s a good thing to do).  No, Chivalry is dead because war and society have changed.  We fight battles with armies of citizen soldiers.  We honor people not for their valor on the battlefield, but for…  Well, for really stupid shit.  But that’s a post for another time.  Point is, chivalry wasn’t killed by the big bad feminists, because the thing that feminism has fought against isn’t chivalry, it’s sexism (and it had to go, by the way).

On my end, New York’s decision makes all kinds of sense.  On ideological grounds, it is not the government’s job to facilitate religious worship.  The FRC and their ilk make the argument that denying religious organizations the use of public schools is denying them their right to worship, but this is hardly the case.  All of the members of these churches are free to attend any church they please, and continue worshipping their god as much as they like.  The only difference between worshipping in a public school and worshipping in a storefront church is that worshipping at Our Holy Savior Of Used To Be A Shady Cell Phone Store doesn’t involve government resources being utilized to give you a space to convulse.

On financial grounds, pause and ponder.  We’re in a recession.  Everywhere you turn, you hear people shouting about balancing the budget, alleviating the debt, and cutting the costs.  In such a financial climate, one of the most obvious first round picks for cost cutting should definitely be religious organizations that meet in government buildings.  New York City has over one hundred physical mosques, over seven hundred physical synagogues , and about two thousand physical churches, to say nothing of congregations that meet in houses, rented spaces, and other venues.  With this saturation of religious buildings already in operation throughout the city, there’s no reason that the New York City should be “renting out” space for your church/synagogue/mosque/orgy pit.  If a congregation simply must stay independent, and cannot possibly merge with another, then they should look for like-minded congregations and negotiate a time share or something.

Of course, no discussion of religious institutions in America would be complete without assertions that churches (as well as synagogues, which were hastily added to the narrative when conservative Christians decided that anti-Semitism was more inconvenient than condescendingly treating Jews as proto-Christians who just need to be “perfected”) play an integral part in the social structure of the nation.  In the “alert” on their website, the FRC claims that, “churches and other voluntary associations have been the hallmark and backbone of our society, fostering networks of support and civic engagement. We should be encouraging not evicting these congregations.”  There’s a little bit of truth to this claim, I suppose.  Throughout history, religious buildings have been meeting places within their communities.  Similarly, religious institutions have been known to dish out some of the money they collect from their congregations to aid members of those congregations.  Hell, when people lived in more agrarian societies, long before the internet, cell phones, or really any sort of phones, churches (and synagogues, mosques, sundry temples, and aforementioned orgy pits) served to give folks a place to conduct business.  All that said, I highly doubt that your wee sect is capable of “fostering networks of support and civic engagement” if it has to rent space

In earlier coverage of this story, the FRC notes that major churches, such as the Saddleback Church, had their beginnings in public schools.  Surprising as this may be to the FRC, there’s not a whole lot of demand for more bigass churches, especially not in a place like New York City, where space is so limited.  Arguing that New York City should keep renting out space to religious organizations because some massive religious organizations started out that way is circular at best and hilariously flawed at worst.  From the most favorable perspective, such an argument only indicates a chain of events, that being that some small churches in rented rooms will grow into big churches, without any indication of why such a thing should be desirable.  To me, who sees Saddleback Church and others like it as antagonistic and harmful to society, this is like saying “You shouldn’t treat tumors, because they might develop into cancer if you leave them alone!”

That’s why I think that New York City is perfectly justified in cutting off these homeless little churches.  For one thing, New York City has neither interest in nor need for more damn churches.  For another, even if they did want more churches, they’ve got more pressing things to do with their employees and facilities than provide space for these homeless little churches (and synagogues, mosques, sundry temples, orgy pits, etc.).  Third, the sorts of religious organizations that are going to utilize such a handout of a lease are going to be crippled and useless, incapable of providing any of the benefits that religious institutions are ever even alleged to have.

You’ll notice that, in the “harms of same-sex marriage” asserted by the FRC, they talk a good deal about polygamy, pedophilia, and bestiality.  No doubt you all are familiar with this dance:  If we say that gay people can get married, then people are going to want to marry a bunch of people, and if we allow that, then people are going to want to have sex with children, and if we allow that, then they’re going to want to have sex with animals.  Blah, blah, blah.  We had the same problem when an old military rule forbidding “sodomy” was made null and void so that military policy would be more in line with the repeal of DADT.  The same rule had a portion that forbade bestiality, and some social conservatives are now arguing that this means our troops will suddenly be screwing dogs, cats, and cows! (They forget, of course, that it’s illegal to do that in the USA anyway…)

It is here that we see the insulting peculiarity in the FRC’s (and permutations thereof) reasoning, and that is the assumption that the only thing preventing people from doing these things is the law (which apparently is based on some sort of “Judeo-Christian values,” despite the bible being okay with rape, murder, and, indeed, polygamy).  We’re told that now that there’s not a law stopping them (actually, there is, but I digress), American soldiers are going to have sex with goats!  We’re told that if there’s marriage equality, then the eventual outcome is that there are going to be people having sex with babies in the street!

The thing is, there aren’t really a lot of people who want to have sex with children or other animals.  Of those that do, there aren’t a whole lot that are being held back by the law.  Even if it did somehow become legal to have sex with children, it would be unlikely that it would become at all common.  Children involved in sex would need to give enthusiastic consent, which is the same standard by which we differentiate adult, heterosexual sex from rape.  The same thing goes for bestiality:  Even if it were legal, you’d be hard pressed to find an animal who wants to have sex with a human.  Similarly, while polygamy is currently illegal, the situations in which someone gets in legal trouble for having multiple wives is rarely when they’re just sitting around with a poly-family.  Rather, polygamists tend to get into trouble when they’re marrying coerced twelve year olds, which is a horse of a different color.

All this talk about laws and consent, though, is kind of beside the point I’m trying to make.  The point I’m trying to make is that there’s not really a demand amongst the public at large for a right to have sex with children and animals.  At no point have I, or anyone I know, said “I tell ya what:  If it weren’t for the law, I would go to town on that guinea pig over there.”  That social conservatives think that rampant bestiality and pedophilia are likely outcomes of marriage equality makes me wonder what exactly they’re thinking about.  Is the only thing stopping them from having sex with children and dogs the law?  Given sex scandals in various churches, such as Catholic priests molesting young boys, and Ted Haggard regularly seeing a gay escort, maybe the issue we should be concerned about here isn’t so much what us “deviants” want, but what social conservatives want.

1.      “Taxpayers, consumers, and businesses would be forced to subsidize homosexual relationships”

Sprigg assures us that marriage equality would mean a sudden influx of married couples demanding benefits, such as social security, insurance, etc. from the government and their employers.  The horror!  This is bad, Sprigg suggests, for two reasons.  For one thing, this would mean that (gasp) we would be forced to give the same benefits opposite-couples enjoy to (shudder) gay couples!  Oh, no!  I suppose the FRC is making a pretty safe assumption that most of their readers are already going to be under the impression that homosexuality is bad by default, and must therefore be opposed, but one group’s opposition to something doesn’t mean that it should be barred from having benefits attached.  I don’t much care for marriages that are presided over by Pentecostal ministers, but I don’t demand they be banned so that those couples don’t receive government and employee benefits.

The other reason Sprigg claims that same-sex couples mustn’t be allowed to claim benefits is that it would be too costly.  That doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, though, because that’s not so much an argument against marriage equality than it is an argument against marriage in general.  It’s true that same-sex couples, if married, would claim benefits, but so will opposite-sex couples, and, quite frankly, there are a lot more opposite-sex couples out there.  If same-sex marriages would be too great a burden on employers and the government, then opposite-sex marriage are definitely too great a burden.  Until a moratorium is called on all marriage, this argument comes off as moot.

2.      “Schools would teach that homosexual relationships are identical to heterosexual ones.”

This is the point at which Sprigg cranks up the alarmism.  The reader is told that children as young as five are going to learn about homosexuality!  The horror!  Of course, the actual text of the pamphlet undermines this assumption, detailing a kindergartener’s experience in which he was given a book that “features same-sex couples.”  So, all kindergarteners are going to learn, it seems, is that same-sex couples exist.  Not exactly “scrub my eyes with lye soap” material.

We are also told, however, that students in sex-ed classes are going to be taught about homosexual acts!  The pamphlet describes a lesbian sex-ed teacher for the eighth grade who has incorporated descriptions of lesbian sex into her curriculum.  It’s like a damn bacchanal up in here!  Upon consideration, though, this doesn’t really come off as that frightening.  Starting in the fourth grade, I had to take sex-ed classes, mostly as units in religion class (I went to Catholic school from preschool up through eighth grade), and then as a brief unit in health class in high school.  In these classes, I was told how straight people have sex.  Penis in vagina, how arousal works, blahblahblah.  So, that gave me a basic idea of what was coming for me, and I filled in the rest with further research (and by “further research,” I mean reading erotica).  Given the statistics, there are bound to be LGBT students in every class in public schools, and I’d say they’re just as entitled to a basic understanding of how they will one day experience intimacy as I was.

3.      “Freedom of conscience and religious liberty would be threatened.”

This is a pretty stock argument, and is one of the first on the field from opponents of marriage equality.  Apparently, religious organizations could lose their special privileges if they don’t want to recognize marriages and other unions that the government does recognize.  Now, in a world in which you can get away with criminal neglect of a child by claiming that you didn’t seek medical help for them because you had opted for faith healing, I’m skeptical of these claims that religious organizations are going to be systematically destroyed if same-sex marriages are recognized (I’m not that lucky).

Sprigg makes reference to religious schools, noting that, “in some cases they may allow students who are not believers to attend and even have staff who are not adherents of their religion.”  This is where they slip up.  In allowing non-adherents, these institutions surrender their claim to religious sovereignty.  They are no longer organizations by and for their own religion, but businesses that serve the entire community.  If you let in one sort of heathen, you can’t discriminate against other kinds.

Similarly, religious individuals working at secular businesses and institutions don’t get a free pass to go on crusade.  Yes, they are given freedom to practice their religion themselves, but that does not mean that they can deny service detailed in their job description to clients just because their personal faith disagrees.  A parallel would be a pagan doctor refusing to treat a police officer who was severely wounded in a shootout, citing his belief that the officer’s soul was needed by Odin in Valhalla to fight against the Jotnar.  He’s welcome to think that, but he can’t selectively put his job on hold.

4.      “Fewer people would marry.”

Here, the FRC points out that, where there is marriage equality, a majority of cohabiting same-sex couples are not married, as opposed to the majority of their opposite-sex counterparts that are married.  Sprigg claims that this is because many same-sex couples “reject” marriage, but I’m not so sure that’s the issue, so much as they just don’t have as much pressure to.  It’s true that many same-sex couples did not get married as soon as it was legal to do so, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have the option.  Perhaps they didn’t feel they needed the benefits at the precise moment same-sex marriage was legalized, maybe they were waiting in solidarity with people in other states who weren’t yet enjoying the same rights.  Maybe they didn’t want to get married for the wrong reasons.

It is worth noting that same-sex couples aren’t subject to quite as much societal pressure to marry.  Opposite-sex couples are bombarded with messages from television, movies, books, family, friends, religious organizations, and employers that suggest to them that marriage is the ultimate goal of relationships.  After being together for a long time, it is simply expected that opposite-sex couples will get married, because that’s what you do.  Same-sex couples have never been subject to these societal pressures, and are thus probably not as eager to jump headfirst into marriage.

This, it would seem, is what strikes fear into Peter Sprigg’s heart.  If same-sex couples are allowed to marry and don’t all immediately marry, he argues, then maybe opposite-sex couples will start to view marriage as an option, rather than a necessary outcome of relationships.  This is the point at which Sprigg loses me.  If opposite-sex couples don’t feel that they have to get married, then they won’t get married, he says.  To me, this comes off as just an example of ever changing societal norms, nothing to really get worked up over.  Sprigg, however, assumes that everyone reading this pamphlet thinks marriage is important in and of itself.  If it is, in fact, important, then people will continue to do it regardless of whether they have the option not.

5.      “Fewer people would remain monogamous and sexually faithful.”

In this section, Sprigg states that same-sex couples aren’t strictly monogamous as often as opposite-sex couples.  He goes on to claim that if same-sex couples are allowed to marry and be non-monogamous, then married opposite-sex couples will be non-monogamous.  I take issue with his argument here for a few reasons.

First of all, I don’t think I agree with Sprigg’s assertion that opposite-sex couples will necessarily start to be non-monogamous at much higher rates.  I have no desire to be non-monogamous, even though I am well aware that non-monogamous couples, both same-sex and opposite-sex, exist.  This is a common thread I’ve noticed in conservative Christian arguments.  They seem to be under the impression that everyone is just itching to go out and screw everybody, and are only barely held at bay by the constraints of marriage.  People who want to sleep with lots of people are going to sleep with lots of people, and people who want to sleep with one person are going to sleep with one person.

My second objection is to Sprigg’s assertion that non-monogamy is inherently bad.  Cheating, I would agree, is bad, but not because it involves having sex with multiple people, but rather because it is a breach of trust.  If all parties involved are alright with non-monogamy, then so be it.  Be safe, and enjoy.  Once again, it’s an example of fundies assuming that everyone shares their values.

6.      “Fewer people would remain married for a lifetime.”

Here, Sprigg points out that many same-sex relationships don’t last as long as opposite-sex relationships, on average.  According to Sprigg, if same-sex couples are given equal rights but do not stay together as long as opposite-sex couples, then opposite-sex couples will start to stay together for shorter periods of time.  So, more or less a recap of the previous argument, that being “If gay people can marry, then straight people will act like gay people, which is bad, because I said so.”

7.      “Fewer children would be raised by a married mother and father.”

This is another favorite of marriage equality opponents.  They claim that children must be raised by a married, heterosexual couple, because those children perform better than children who are not raised my married, heterosexual couples.  While technically true, it is a fallacy in this context.  The reason that children being raised by married, heterosexual parents appear to perform better, on average, is that they’re not just being compared to the adopted children of same-sex couples, but to the children of unwed teen mothers, broken households, and single parents who cannot spend enough time raising children because they must work to feed those children.

Toward the end of this section, we are treated to another of Sprigg’s delightful little exercises in circular logic.  Citing a study of the adopted children of lesbian couples, he announces that:”

• Children of lesbians are less likely to conform to traditional gender norms.
•  Children of lesbians are more likely to engage in homosexual behavior.
• Daughters of lesbians are ‘more sexually adventurous and less chaste.’”

At this point, I shrugged and said “so what?”  So what if people don’t adhere to some gender binary checklist?  So what if people are more open to their sexual attractions?  So what if women enjoy sex?  Notice that Sprigg doesn’t seem to be worried about young men not being chaste, just young women.  Taken alongside his apparent shock at the notion that people might not conform to antiquated gender roles, it would seem that Sprigg is worried about the possibility not only of marriage equality, but even gender equality.

8.      “More children would grow up fatherless.”

This section is essentially just a restatement of the previous point, except that it specifically deals with children growing up without fathers.  Although Sprigg claims after each assertion that it has been “controlled for other factors,” he is still pitting children born to responsible, married heterosexuals against children born to irresponsible teens, children born to childish adults, unplanned and unwanted children, and children raised in foster care, not just children raised by responsible, committed same-sex couples.

Additionally, his assertions that the children of same-sex couples are more prone to substance abuse, academic struggles, and social problems, ring hollow.  For one thing, many children up for adoption are not there by the choice of their biological parents, but rather because they were taken due to their biological parents’ ineptitude.  Among the babies who were simply given up for financial reasons are crack babies, babies with learning disabilities, children with trauma, and children with behavioral problems.  So, while many children of lesbians are the fruits of artificial insemination, a great many children of same-sex couples are indeed adopted, and of these adopted children, many are taken from the pool of children with some sort of handicap, be it from birth or early life.

Also, consider the dark irony of the allegations that Sprigg is raising.  He, who says that the very acceptance of same-sex couples is toxic to society, who thinks that homosexuality is a disease to be purged and ostracized, sneers as he points out that children raised by same-sex couples are subject to greater struggles.  Of course they are, in a world in which Sprigg and his ilk do their best to saturate culture with messages calling the parents of these children abominations and deviants.

9.      “Birth rates would fall.”

Sprigg points to a correlation between marriage equality and low birth rate, as though that were a bad thing.  He himself goes on to acknowledge that societies that embrace contraception are on the road to embracing marriage equality, although he seems to be unhappy about that.  Asserting that heterosexual marriage is given cultural prominence because it encourages procreation, Sprigg warns that marriage equality, and the resulting influx of married couples who can’t have children except through the use of adoption or artificial insemination, will discourage people from having children just because.

I would think that we, as a society, in a time of overpopulation, would want to encourage responsibility in regards to birth rate.  Surely, it would be better to have children after consideration and preparation, rather than as trophies.  To Sprigg, though, I suppose a “quiver full” of children would be preferable to a select few.  Toward the end of this section, Sprigg references a demographics report which claims that declining birth rates will undermine the “traditional model of the working young paying for the retired old.”  It would seem, then, that Sprigg would have us deny rights to a class of people out of fear that treating them as equals would result in responsible procreation, which he fears because it would undermine an antiquated tradition of needless elder worship.

10.  “Demands for legalization of polygamy would grow.”

Take a shot, the homophobes have brought up the polygamy argument.  Take a few more, because they manage to tack on the usual warnings about pedophilia and incest, too.  It’s pretty standard fare, really, and comes off as almost token.  Blah, blah, gays, blah, blah, slippery slope, blah, blah, polygamy.  The actual argument is fairly shaky, though, as it always has been.  Sprigg and his friends labor under the impression that their ideal of marriage, a weird little “Uncanny Valley” version of the 1950s, is the only safe one, and that any other sort of marriage will inherently lead to anarchy.

They argue that if marriage is no longer strictly one man and one woman, then anything goes.  This is a rather fallacious argument, though, as the argument is not over whether special rights should be given to same-sex couples, but whether they are entitled to rights that already exist.  Two people can already get married, there’s no debate over that.  The trouble is that social conservatives tend to want to limit the two people that can get married to only opposite-sex couples.  All marriage equality advocates want is for any two consenting adults to be able to marry one another.  It would still be a couples’ thing.

While Sprigg uses a generous application of scare quotes when writing about the polyamory “movement” (apparently it’s a movement now, according to Sprigg), poly-people aren’t really any sort of threat, anyway.  Even if marriage equality for same-sex couples would lead to polygamy, that’s not a problem, in and of itself.  See argument five, in which Sprigg pretty much makes the same argument, that being that people won’t be monogamous if same-sex couples are allowed to marry.  What I said there applies here, too:  There isn’t a whole lot of call for non-monogamy.  Yes, folks like Dan Savage do routinely  advocate for open relationships, but there’s a big difference between the relatively common open relationship, in which members of a couple will sometimes sleep with other people, and polygamy, in which one takes on multiple spouses.  Polygamy is off with pedophilia and bestiality, in this instance, not because they are in any way morally equivalent (a happy poly-family is well and good, whereas there are no real world ways to harmlessly pull off pedophilia and bestiality), but rather because there just aren’t enough proponents to make it

Keep in mind, the reason I object to the use of “gay” and all permutations thereof is not just that the use of the term as a synonym for “bad” is insulting to the LGBTQA community.  Hardly.  Using the term “gay” (from here on out, I’m going to stop adding “and all permutations thereof,” because that’s just clunky…) as an insult is troublesome because, quite frankly, I don’t see anything wrong with being gay.  “Gay” and “bad” aren’t the same thing at all.  In using “gay” as a slur, one is implying that being gay is inherently bad and shameful.  Which it’s not.

What’s more, even if I weren’t annoyed and angered by the homophobic implications of the use of “gay” as an insult, it’s become such a watered down insult that it’s useless.  “That’s gay.”  “This is gay.”  “You’re gay.”  “Those clothes are gay.”  Gay, gay, gay.  Everything, it would seem, can be said to be “gay.”  Thus, “gay” is set apart from other slurs, all of which have set connotations, and arguable reasons to be taken as insults.

For example, the word “retarded.”  Retarded, of course, is a somewhat antiquated term for mentally or developmentally handicapped persons, and really shouldn’t be used to refer to them, as it is, indeed, derogatory.  However, it’s not quite the same as using “gay” as an insult.  Why?  Because it means something insulting.  If I were to say, “You’re being retarded,” I would not be saying “You are acting in a manner that is nonspecifically bad.”  Rather, I would be saying “You are acting in a manner that suggests your brain does not function properly.”  Clearly, it is not morally reprehensible to have a mental or developmental disability, but it is an effective insult to hyperbolically liken someone to a person who does not have full mental capability.

Saying “You’re gay,” can be taken to either mean “I disapprove of you for undisclosed reasons,” which is so vague as to make it ineffective, or “You are homosexual,” which doesn’t make sense.  All being homosexual means is that a person is sexually attracted to persons of the same sex, which isn’t good or bad.  It just is.  Additionally, it stands out from “retarded” and other such insults by being utterly irrelevant.  Saying “That’s so gay,” is like saying “That’s so orange.”  Assigning a sexual orientation does not imply anything else about a person or thing, unless one is under the delusion that some magical sky-daddy is up in a fuss over homosexuality, in which case one would first have to convince that person that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality prior getting them to drop the “gay” insult.

While I’ve used insults on this blog that refer to a group, none of them are the same as “gay.”  True, there is something of a gay subculture, and I do use the term “LGBTQA community,” but these are incidental.  The only thing that really defines “gay” is that it means “homosexual,” and that is something devoid of moral connotation, implication of worth, or relevance outside of a specifically sexual context.  On the other hand, saying someone is a “savage” (the exact term I used was “filthy troglodyte savage”) is to say that that person is stupid, unrefined, uncultured, superstitious, brutal, and ignorant, not just that they have a culture unlike mine.  Similarly, saying someone is a “fundie” (a slang, derogatory term derived from “fundamentalist”) isn’t just saying that someone has religious belief, but that they are dogmatic and foolish in their religious belief, coming off as oafish and comically out of touch with reality.

So please, let us no longer accept “gay” as an insult. Not only does it imply that there is something wrong with homosexuality (which there isn’t), it’s also lazy and vague. Don’t call someone or something gay unless you are saying that that person or thing is happy or is sexually attracted to members of its sex, because that’s what the damn word means.  The English language is a very versatile and effective thing, and I cannot bear to see it neglected in favor of the repetitive and infantile use of a nonsensical slur.  I firmly believe that there are good reasons to insult people, but I think that insults should be wielded like swords, not blunt instruments.

“Who is Natalie Johnson?” you might ask.  Clearly she’s somebody important, if she can just up and decide whether or not transgendered people exist or not.  Yes, no doubt she is a renowned psychologist, or neurobiologist.  Maybe she’s a social worker who is applying her long history working with the LGBTQA community in an analysis of the trans subset.  Oh, no, wait.  She’s just somebody who used to work at Macy’s.

Johnson was recently fired from Macy’s after trying to prevent a young woman from trying on clothes in the women’s changing room.  As it turns out, Macy’s as a company has no problem with trans people, and lets folks change in the fitting rooms that correspond with their gender identity, so this wasn’t a Rosa Parks’s bus driver scenario, in which an employee is taking the flak for enforcing an unfair company policy.  Rather, Johnson is just a bigoted person enforcing her own ludicrous “morality” on the job.

As is tradition when a scared fundie faces actual consequences for forgetting that this is the United States in the twenty first century CE, and not the Negev desert circa 500 BCE, Johnson is crying religious intolerance, claiming that it violates her “Christian beliefs” to let women who weren’t born with vaginas try on women’s clothing in the damn women’s fitting rooms.  Well, tough.  That’s Macy’s policy, and that’s government policy.

What “Christian” beliefs are being violated by Macy’s requiring its employees to not be dicks?  The article on Jezebel.com (http://jezebel.com/5866187/employee-fired-for-harassing-transgender-customer-accuses-macys-of-religious-discrimination, which goes into more detail about the specific events) notes that the verse Deuteronomy 22:5 reads, “A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this.” So that’s the theological justification for trans-phobia, apparently:  An obscure rule in an obscure book. In her interview on the matter (http://www.ksat.com/news/Macy-s-employee-fired-after-violating-company-s-LGBT-policy/-/478452/4896064/-/133oi6u/-/), Johnson is seen wearing pants.  She undermines the silly little rule on which she based this whole damn debacle (I’m being slightly facetious, I suppose.  I highly doubt that Johnson has even read the damn Gospels, let alone Deuteronomy)!

Also, just to put it in context for you, the commandment immediately preceding the ban on women in men’s clothing and men in women’s clothing is just an order to help your brother with his donkeys and oxen in the event they fall over, and it’s immediately followed by a commandment ordering us all to raise any baby birds we happen to find while we’re out and about.  Keep in mind, this is the same Book of Deuteronomy that notoriously sanctions the stoning of women who are not virgins on their wedding nights (Deuteronomy 22:20-21), the stoning of women who don’t scream when having sex with anyone other than their betrothed (Deuteronomy 22:23-24), and the forced marriage of un-betrothed women to their rapists/whoever they happen to sleep with (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).  So, Miss Johnson, your trans-phobia is not only detestable in and of itself, but also hypocritical.  Unless you help your brother with his livestock, take care of every damn robin’s egg you come across, stone any woman who has had sex out of wedlock, and are married to the first (AND ONLY) man you ever had sex with, you can just suck it.