Tuesday, July 25, 2006
I've been enjoying the book Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick, and have found much of general intellectual interest. I was going to share some of those things with you (like the fact that the Pilgrims' food economy was moribund until such time as they stopped collective farming and were each given their own piece of land to work and own, whereupon productivity took off), but I just can't resist relating this selection:
...As the number of towns grew, the character of the colony inevitably began to change, and from Governor Bradford's perspective, it was not for the good. The influx of newcomers made it increasingly difficult to ensure the colony's moral purity. Even worse than the cases of premarital sex and adultery were, according to Bradford, those of "sodomy and buggery." In 1642, seventeen-year-old Thomas Granger, a servant to "an honest man of Duxbury," was convicted of having sexual relations with "a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves and a turkey." Taking their lead from Leviticus, Bradford and his fellow magistrates executed Granger on September 8, 1642, but not until the boy had witnessed the killing of his animal paramours, which were all buried in a pit...
Poor bugger.
My how times have changed in Massachusetts. Today he'd be forced to marry the menagerie.
I just wonder how they compiled the list. Did the turkey file a police report?
Do you actually believe two adults making a decision you obviously do not agree with is somehow the same as having sex with a turkey? Or that "forcing" people to marry is a step down from Puritan decisions to execute gay people instead? If so, exactly how is this view different from the puritan government of Iran?
And on a not unrelated note: Those Puritan fathers were radically intolerant of religious minorities too.
Finally, I am opposed to turkey-sex.
(I actually sprayed my computer as I typed that last sentence. So I guess your joke got through after all!)
I am not 100% sure you are serious, but I will be happy to clarify my position.
I don't have any problem with gay relationships and support civil marriage with all the rights and responsibilities therein. Yet that doesn't mean I don't have concerns about going too fast and ignoring the history of Western Civilization that has well more than favored the union of one man and one woman and which has served us so well for so long for reasons which may not be superficially obvious but seem imbedded in our culture. Therefore, while I recognize that society should recognize a shift that has happened organically, I do not scorn as some sort of Nazi the people who oppose it. They have a point worth listening to, and I'm concerned by the Massachusetts Courts trying to say that just calling it a "Civil Union" isn't enough -- it has to be "marriage" and completely equivalent in all respects to male-female unions. I also accept that there is a logical slippery-slope that could very well lead to recognition of multi-spousal relationships or even the inter-species variety (hey, whatever makes ya feel good...).
The best explanation of my feeling in this regard is the essay by Jane Galt I linked to in . It's really excellent.
I'm certainly not advocating the intolerance (or bizarro-actions) of the Puritans! I'm scorning it (and hopefully enough centuries have passed that we can have a bit of fun at poor young Granger's expense without appearing callous). Yet, yes, I also feel the modern Leftist "Puritans" who also seem to know what the perfect society should look like and are willing to use the courts to enforce it on everyone are deserving of some scorn, or at least some mockery, too.
An interesting side note: Another thing from the book that I thought was interesting was the fact that the Plymouth founders did not perform a religious marriage ceremony, it was purely a civil matter. Then again, they "knew," without having to have it spelled out for them, what marriage was, and what is was for -- as did John Adams, who wrote the Massachusetts Constitution. They were also much more in tune with the complex and delicate interplay of the functions of society that we today greatly take for granted and tinker with far too easily.
Finally, I do not believe you should oppose turkey-sex out of hand -- you simply have to buy the turkey dinner first.