On Mon, 2 Dec 1996, Dennis D. Martin wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
Dear listmembers,
I would just like to advise everyone on list that the above message comes
from someone who on other lists (i.e. Latin-L) does indeed practice
advocacy in his scholorship. I think everyone should know this before
accepting the above post at face value. For those of you who are not
familiar with Latin_L and its problems, as of late the list has been
inundated with messages from christian fundamentalists and other members
of the extreme-right. I've heard that other lists are having problems
along these lines and wonder out loud whether or not this is part of a
concerted campaign to disrupt these lists. Although I dislike censorship
of any sort, if indeed this is happening, I suggest we pull the plug on
these people.
Michael F. Hynes
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