Transgender in India

Since it's not covered in the western press, GetReligion blog has a summary of the transvestite/eunuch caste in India.

According to the leading study on India’s transgendered community, With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India by Gayatri Reddy, hijras are:

phenotypic men who wear female clothing, and ideally renounce sexual desire and practice by undergoing a sacrificial emasculation — that is, the excision of the penis and testicles — dedicated to the goddess Bedhraj Mata. Subsequently they are believed to be endowed with the power to confer children on newlyweds or newborn children.

Hijras do not occupy the same place in Indian culture as the transgendered do in America. First hijras are almost exclusively male to female. Second they have a quasi-religious cultural roll in Hindu society and have been present, though on the fringes of that society, for thousands of years.
Can we also assume that gender identity in America is equal to gender identity in India? In her monograph Reddy notes that by the 3rd Century (AD or CE) the view that there were three genders was being debated in Buddhist, Brahmanical and Jain thought. For Brahmans sexual identity was founded upon the presence or absence of certain primary sexual characteristics. For Buddhists it was controlled by procreation with the impotent consigned to the third sex. But the Jains argued that biology was only one marker of sexual identity. One’s psychological gender was as important as one’s physiological gender in establishing sexual identity.
And, what is the role of Islam in all of this. Hijra is an Urdu word and Indian popular culture associates hijras with those parts of India where Muslim influence is strongest.
And, how can we understand the court’s decision’s recognizing a third sex yet upholding criminal penalties for homosexuality? I am no scholar of Indian law, but could the quasi-religious understanding of the hijras be at work? 

the GR article stresses this is a cultural discussion, not one of morality or law.

dissing Confucian values

there is a small kerfuffle about a Catholic sister who gave a talk on sexuality and got dissed by the gay mafia for saying "controversial things".

However, since there is no transcript of her talk, the accusations are heresay...the only one I can find that makes sense is that she implied that gay men often come from homes without fathers (an idea that goes back to Freud and also Kinsey: The idea is that one might be "born" with a tendency to be gay, but that much of it is developmental: associated with a weak father figure in one's life. )

How gauche: To actually point such things out.

So did she get ambushed by the gay mafia among the kids?

the fact that a school with less than 500 students from first to 12th grade (and the talk was only to high school students) ended up with 1000 "parents" at a meeting suggests that a lot of outside agitators were there.

But appanrantly the press is taking the "kids" side. So we may never know what really happened. I doubt any reporter will dare to see how this spread via the "five minute hate" facebook etc. social media.

I am familiar with this thanks to a "friend" who would accidentally post these on my facebook. Some of them were so hate filled and full of logical errors that I couldn't hold my tongue.

I don't know if she unfriended me or not: Mainly because I rarely go on facebook anymore.

So why did I say "confucian" values? because the nun involved is Asian American, with a european name...looks Korean American, but I don't know for sure since her bio isn't on line.

And I wrote about the destruction of the family of confucian values on BNN

playing the victim card:

Father L has a blogpost that links playing the victim card, emotionalism, and the triumph of feelings over logical thinking as part of the modern world's denial of objective truth.

One of the most disturbing things about this behavior is its lack of reasonableness. The entire thing is motivated and driven by high emotion–either the tears, sadness and weakness of supposed victimhood or the rage, fury and righteous anger of the campaigner. These people cannot be reasoned with and it is a mistake to try. The reason they cannot be reasoned with is because they left the equipment for logical reasoning a long time ago when they abandoned the idea of objective truth.
If there is no objective truth, then there is no such thing as logical reasoning. It is impossible to believe that one can use logic to discus or discover truth if you do not believe there is such a thing as truth. All that is left therefore is stark utilitarianism–doing a thing or making a decision based on the usefulness of the possible consequences–or raw emotion and sentimentality.
When raw emotion replaces reason be prepared for totalitarianism because in such a condition of chaos, brute force will remain the only power that is able to maintain a semblance of social order.

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related item: Putin is placing himself as the opponant of the debauched west.

And if you think this won't resonate with Africans and Asian countries being bullied by Obama to change their laws on gay rights you are mistaken.

OK. We in the Philippines have obeyed our American masters and will now give out intimidate women free contraceptives in our clinics (while ignoring the one third who deliver without trained midwives because the midwives either charge too much or the free government midwives expect a gift).

Ah, but will Obama stop China from stealing our traditional fishing grounds? I doubt it.

and then there is Syria: Obama didn't support the insurgency, so now the insurgents are being wiped out and taken over by the really bad Alqada types...

the sacredness of Christ

Catholics believe that the bread and wine change into Christ at the Mass.

But since Vatican II, this awe filled reality has been discarded and a "we are happy little christians" ideas have replaced it.

Which is why I don't feel as guilty missing mass in the heat of the "taginit" here: I get about two minutes of prayer and union with Jesus at mass, but have to sit bored for the rest of the time in church (I ignore that I am supposed to stand...if I did, I'd faint).

Father Z has an example of why "sister pastors" too often are the newfangled church, which ignores the holiness of God or even the possibility that God exists.

Yes...these types drive out the good sisters and often the laypeople.

I remember arguing with one sister who "bragged" she never went to confession and didn't think most people needed to. Well, I don't go here: I have no idea when they hold confession is the reason. But I did point out to sister that confession was needed by those who had committed sins. She laughed at this, implying that few people committed sins and needed it.

Sigh.

Well, we're not that bad yet, and we do have an adoration chapel to pray when they lock up the church.

Yet I wonder if they started to stress the holiness of God they might not be losing their members to the aggressive evangelicals, who often sspread a "jack chick" idea of evil catholicism.

Sigh.

Lord of the world

This article says the Pope was inspired by Lord of the world.

A very interesting "end times" book that can be found in Librivox.

tell that to manny

losing one's honor

There is a quote in Man for All Seasons, where a corrupt official laments his "lost honor" and is told by a more cynical politician that on the contrary, he lost it long before but he just noticed it.

I say the same to Andrew Sullivan, whose cluelessness led to his bizarre theories that Sarah Palin had adopted and raised her grandchild to avoid scandal (which is not a crime, but a "mitzvah"), even when the laws of biology made it impossible.

via Instapundit:

THE PITCHFORKS AREN’T A TOOL. THE PITCHFORKS ARE AN END IN THEMSELVES. Gay Marriage Supporter Abhors Mozilla’s Decision to Fire Eich.

This is no more than political correctness gone berserk. It is totalitarianism flying under the banner of marriage equality....

And to give you an idea how dangerous this is, for those who don’t already know, the names of those who donated to Proposition 8 were leaked by the IRS in 2012 to the same-sex marriage supporting Human Rights Campaign who then posted those returns, for a time, on their website. Human rights, but apparently not for Brendan Eich.

he just noticed?  I guess he doesn't watch boxing, where Manny Pacquiao lost a fight that most people watching it said he won, after a reporter ambushed him with a question from left field about gay marriage that had nothing to do with the fight. It was almost as if the powers that be noticed he had become a Christian (how good a Christian? Well, he gave up girlfriends and cockfighting)

Only Boxing Insider said what most of his fans said: He won. Of course, BI said "he deserved to lose" for being non PC.
WTF? So it's okay if the judges were dishonest, but hey, no one is bothering to investigate the judges are they?

Another problem that Sullivan fails to notice is that the advocates are doing a rush job and pushing it through via the courts:

The weird part of all this is that gay marriage is virtually a fait accompli in our culture. Leading politicians in both parties either back it or say that it should be decided by the states. 

Note that part about "fiat": Yes. It was mainly decided by the courts, starting with a court case in Massachusetts, and then the public has been sold it with non stop advocacy by the press. And the latest Supreme court decision will be used to push it in every other state, since the unelected Lords in Black have decided if you think a marriage where the couple hits the bath houses and has anonymous sex on weekends is legal and opposing it is prejudice.

But it is being touted as a way to normalize fidelity in the male gay community, but as an issue where if you criticize promiscuity you are evil.

Ironically lesbians often are faithful: But many women are radical feminists who abhore men and follow the line that men and women are the same and marriage should be abolished.

Nor was the implications ever discussed.

I suspect, like "no fault divorce", it will have long term effects on society that we will rue in a generation, if the US still exists.

I wonder how many foreign countries in Asia and Africa and the Middle East will prefer a strong, moral (if tyrannical