I’d join a book thread on Fun Home that was more about the book.
“I am not certain Pizzagirl’s summary, which LOUKYDAD quotes, is quite accurate as a description of Fun Home. Fun Home does not gloss over the difficulties and the dangers of coming out for people in the author’s generation and certainly for people in her father’s generation. From the perspective of today, sure, maybe we can say that there could have been a Hollywood kiss happy ending for Bechdel’s father had he been willing to be himself openly, but from within the story (and from within the times) the choice was between the horrible distortions of living a lie and the very scary realities of telling the truth.”
I see your point, and keep in mind that I’m not fully through the whole thing yet (there are parts I want to go back and re-read - it’s very thoughtful, and very well done, IMO). I don’t mean to imply that Bechdel’s father, if he had been willing to live openly as gay in those times, would have had a Hollywood-kiss ending at that particular point in time … I think I was making a more general statement about the Bechdel-fathers of this world, that in a world where people were free to make those choices there would be less personal unhappiness.
"I haven’t seen a clear answer from anyone about why a fundamentalist Christian view of gay marriage would be any more relevant to US law than a fundamentalist Jewish view of bacon or a fundamentalist Muslim view of hair-covering.
Thank you. I’ve asked a version of that several times, and not gotten an answer.
Even if the Bible (written in English, of course! 
) featured the phrase “This is God speaking. Gay sex is wrong, ok? Don’t do it. Got it?” repeated 1000 times, I still am not following why that is relevant to US law.
With regard to the book, I am not at all sure the author views her father as a parenting failure.
At the end, she discusses Joyce, the publication of Ulysses, Joyce’s children (one mad, one an alcoholic) and then writes:
*But I suppose this is consistent with the book’s theme that spiritual, not consubstantial paternity is the important thing.
Is it so unusual for the two things to coincide?
What if Icarus hadn’t hurtled into the sea? What if he’d inherited his father’s inventive bent? What might he have wrought?
He did hurtle into the sea of course.
But in the tricky reverse narration that impels our entwined stories, he was there to catch me when I leapt."
“Thank you. I’ve asked a version of that several times, and not gotten an answer.”
When legal questions are decided, no one ever suggests let’s just open up the bible and find the answer. Who ever said that? All anyone said is that it can be a source, even a primary source, for those who accept it as truth or otherwise believe it has something relevant to say, that informs our opinions on what we understand marriage to be. No one has ever said more than that. It certainly doesn’t have to be the only source anyone is ever restricted to look to. For that matter, it isn’t the only direction from which one could make an argument for marriage to be restricted to one man and one woman. Procreation and the recognition of society of the need to provide the best for children has often been seen as a reason for bestowing certain recognition to the institution of marriage. Often called the responsible procreation argument. Custom is a source of law BTW, and we have ages and ages of it, with homosexuality and marriage both existing without any notion the two should be conjoined.
“With regard to the book, I am not at all sure the author views her father as a parenting failure.”
Mr. Bechdel was a pedophile. She doesn’t leave much doubt about that. The repression hypothesis buys him zero sympathy from me on the matter. I find no connection between repression and preying on children. It is disturbing to me how much that is glossed over in all of the praise for the book and its themes. It feels as if we are subtly prioritizing something else over protecting children.
The book is a poignant snapshot of a particular time and place. Going forward it will become a look into a past which no longer exists.
I certainly can’t speak to being lgbtq, but can speak to parenting an lgbtq child. Children need role models. Lgbtq childlren need lgbtq role models. Lgbtq parents provide a modeling straight parents can’t. That is a good thing for children, regardless of orientation or identification. Children need to see families of all sorts, so they can imagine what possibilities are open to them and so they don’t feel marginalized. In How to be Gay, David Halperin describes the need of some lgbtq individuals to subvert heteronormative culture into something they can claim as their own. (I think. this is such a difficult book for me)
In the book, the father has very few choices. He does the best he can. Like all parents, he is only human. I am sure if I were lgbtq, I could have parented my lgbtq child much better, but I did the best I could.
http://www.amazon.com/How-To-Gay-David-Halperin/dp/0674283996
I don’t think it’s about not protecting kids. Or prioritizing open sexuality over kids.
I would be surprised if anyone found pedophilia acceptable or sympathetic. Certainly, no one in my 20 person book club thought that pedophilia was “ok” because he was closeted or repressed etc. We all were clear that pedophilia is a different animal. You can be straight and a pedophile or gay and a pedophile. But, what, our group did agree on is that people are complex. Good and bad. Or maybe, as here, sometimes understandable and sometimes terrible. You can have parents who are raging drunks–yes, that effects their parenting but doesn’t mean that they never offer anything of value to their children. The priests, of course, are obvious. People are multi-dimensional, which in many ways makes it harder to determine how you feel about them—especially if they are your parent.
“For that matter, it isn’t the only direction from which one could make an argument for marriage to be restricted to one man and one woman. Procreation and the recognition of society of the need to provide the best for children has often been seen as a reason for bestowing certain recognition to the institution of marriage.”
Except we don’t prohibit Widow Betty and Widower Joe who met at the old age home and are clearly past procreation age from getting married. We also don’t prohibit people who are infertile for other reasons or who simply don’t want children.
We also don’t prohibit “bad matches” from getting married, nor do we prohibit (let’s say) spouses who are more than 10 years apart from getting married even if it could be proven with data that such pairings are worse for children than spouses who are closer together in age.
Why is that? Because we value freedom and we value consenting adults being able to conduct their own lives as they see fit without undue interference from the government. It’s a very conservative idea.
And let’s face it - I find it hard to believe you would be in favor of gay marriage if all gays were to pledge that they wouldn’t raise children. You object to Joe-and-Bob regardless of whether Joe-and-Bob are raising Joe’s daughter or adopting a child who otherwise wouldn’t have a home.
@alh I happen to adore Halperin on both an academic and personal level. And I still find How To Be Gay a very difficult and maybe not altogether still relevant work especially for young LGBTQ+ people.
Far more accesible for newer people into the field are the works of Gayle Rubin. She has a wonderful essay called Thinking Sex that lays out the history of modern sexuality and why it’s critical that we understand and acknowledge that sexuality is a constructed concept that constantly changes.
Thank you, romani. His notorious class was 15 years ago. And now he is dated. I just love that concept and will read your recommendation.
"Mr. Bechdel was a pedophile. She doesn’t leave much doubt about that. The repression hypothesis buys him zero sympathy from me on the matter. "
I doubt anyone on here sympathizes or thinks pedophilia is acceptable. Why would you think that?
And, @alh, it is absolutely mindboggling how far we’ve come in those 15 years! You should hear some of the courses he, Rubin, and others teach at U of M now :). (Not to mention many other Queer/Sexuality studies profs around the US.)
Which is why I’m so dumbfounded that something as benign as this book on a RECOMMENDED reading list caused a stir. I mean, I know I live in a bubble but I didn’t think it was THAT thick of a bubble.
- Does this Duke student have the right to choose what books he reads, whether required or recommended?
I think so, as that is the mark of a truly free person - to decide what to open one’s mind to, and what to insert into that said mind.
- Does this Duke student have the right to object to reading a book that portrays sexual behavior, particularly in this case as it depicts it pornographically (according to the definition of pornography, not the personal standards of people who no longer recognize pornography anymore)?
Of course he has the right to object (see #1.) He is only getting grief from some in society because they do not believe he has the right to reject a book that portrays homosexual sex in a graphic way, since homosexuality is the new, trendiest god out there these days and it must be worshipped without objection. If he were rejecting a book depicting heterosexual sex in a graphic way, this thread would have ended 31 pages ago. Since he is publicly rejecting this particular book, they reason (and I use that word very lightly) that he must be a homophobe. Side note: if he is willing to reject a homosexual-themed book publicly, knowing the kind of backlash he might endure, does that indicate that he is phobic about anything? In this day and age, I find it very brave, especially for a young college freshman. Calling him a homophobe is just a way of stuffing toilet paper into his mouth and wrapping duct tape around for good measure. I find that kind of response to be cowardly and phobic.
- Should this Duke student, or any student, or any person, for that matter, be willing to suffer for taking a personal stand?
Yes, absolutely. If this book had been required reading, and this young man my son, I would have advised him to follow his conscience, and deal with the consequences with his head held high (which would probably have been taking an F for an unsubmitted assignment - so what - there are worse consequences in the world than failing grades - for example, compromising one’s strongly held values in order to avoid conflict.)
- Finally, I beg of those in here attempting to discuss the Bible to just stop it. I will never spend anymore time considering the book in question (I should be flogged for spending 20 minutes reading through this thread), but I am more offended by the ignorance demonstrated in this thread about the Bible and “conservative Christians.” That offends me more than the reported content of this memoir about yet another very dysfunctional family.
Curious…what definition of pornography are you using?
“Finally, I beg of those in here attempting to discuss the Bible to just stop it.”
Heck, at least I’m talking about a book I’ve read!
“I doubt anyone on here sympathizes or thinks pedophilia is acceptable. Why would you think that?”
What a hilarious question to have to answer after all the wasted time trying to explain that despite the fact that polygamy is in the Bible, God gave no endorsement to polygamy.
Oh let me see? The author’s total lack of outrage or sympathy or thought of protection for any of her father’s victims. Her eulogizing of him as a heroic Daedalus. Your attempt to reduce him to just a tortured soul, as if that somehow that makes him any less of a monster. alh’s proclamation that he was a success as a parent. Just doing the best he could, a man with few choices, reduced to seducing young boys I guess. Tempemom’s complicated figure. Romani’s mention of Gayle Rubin. Spend some time digging into her writings on the subject if you like. Some real fascinating stuff I assure you.
Can we stay on topic???
@chesterton, what is your objection to other people discussing the bible? It does not seem sensible to me.
@chesterton - I’m also not crazy about your co-opting of “phobic” to mean something like “afraid of censure”. The English word “homophobic” means biased against GLBTQ. It can no more be broken into its roots than “antisemitism” could, for example, “Oh but Bin Laden was a ‘semite’ so he couldn’t be an antisemite”.
It strikes me that some people are so afraid of losing their unearned privilege, that even reading something that makes them think about other perspectives seems overwhelmingly threatening. What’s the big worry?
(An aside to PG regarding the bus Christmas songs - I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m not sure you’re right, in the sense that it’s important for Christmas-celebrators not to assume that their culture is universal, or to feel threatened if others are not participating. I can see a valid reason for that person to have felt marginalized in the related story.)
When gay people are still fighting to have their SCOTUS rights enforced vs. backwater bigots (e.g. in the news daily), it’s either disingenuous or clueless to speak of a culture where homosexuality is “the new god”. It’s not new or trendy to defend people’s rights to their own existence/privacy. The new thing is that it’s not socially ok to be a jerk about other people’s existence/privacy, even if you’re in the majority. And that’s frankly an excellent development.
No one thinks it’s “flaunting” or “worshipping a new god” when I mention or love or hold hands with my opposite-sex husband. It will be a fine day when the same courtesy is extended to my same-sex-married compatriots.