Many of the responses to Joe Pope's comment on the Queer Conference were
quite incivil even as they chastised him for his opinions. Why is
incivility permitted in this case and not in others?
Several responses proposed an exegesis of certain passages from the Bible
that would be favorable to homosexual activity. Fine, except that they
were proposed as having achieved a consensus among scholars that they do
not enjoy among scholars. Presenting advocacy scholarship as
dispassionate scholarship is not scholarly. Some would argue that all
scholarship is politicized. Fine, but then let's not claim some kind of
consensus and authority for what is still highly controversial and
contentious.
What I do not understand is why everyone jumped on Joe Pope for
expressing his opinion when each person who jumped on him was also
expressing an opinion. He was criticized for hegemonic homophobia merely
by the assertion of an equally hegemonic homophilia. At least his
original statement was expressed in civil language, which cannot be said
for responses like "Grow up" or wordplays on his surname.
In short, many of the responses to Joe Pope were very childish.
Dennis Martin
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