Jeana over at MySexProfessor writes an incisive post about why it is more important that we know about the religious lives of public figures than their sex lives — albeit the article is built on the words of one of my hate figures, Richard Dawkins. It isn’t that I disagree with the sentiments behind much of what Dawkins says (I don’t), but the bigoted and intransigent way in which he says it — he is just as fundamentalist as any of the religious believers against whom he rails.
As so often others have said what I think so much better than I can, so here are a couple of seminal extracts.
[O]ur society has so many hang-ups about sex that we’re practically responsible for creating an environment in which any sexual expression could potentially be deviant […] even fairly innocuous acts (which one could argue, taking pictures of one’s genitals counts as) are made out to be of huge significance because so many people are hung up on the idea that ANY sexual expression outside the norm is automatically inappropriate or gross or bad.
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Dawkins asserts that it does matter what a public figure’s religious beliefs are, since those beliefs, far more than their sexual acts, may determine how they pursue public policy. He gives these examples: “[…] George Bush has publicly boasted that God told him to invade Iraq […] To push to an extreme, who would deny Congress’s right to ask whether a candidate for Secretary of Health is a Christian Scientist or a Jehovah’s Witness? Or take a Christian sect that fervently desires the Second Coming of Christ, and believes the key Revelation prophecies cannot be fulfilled without a Middle East Armageddon. Would you wish the nuclear button to be made available to a follower of such a creed?” This is scary stuff.
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[W]e must grant people the dignity of privately pursuing things that oppose the sexual mainstream.** Just because a politician likes unconventional sex doesn’t mean they’re going to try to force it on everyone through legislation. Unfortunately […] politicians have done much to make anything that deviates from heterosexual monogamous reproductive sex a crime.
** And not just the sexual mainstream. People must have the right to deviate from and oppose mainstream thought and opinion on anything. For that is how opinions are changed, new ideas formed and progress made. But this doesn’t give anyone the right to force or attempt to force (violently or otherwise) their opinions on others.
Japan. I find Japan a fascinating country. I’d really love to see all those Buddhist, Taoist and Shinto temples; Kanamara Matsuri, the annual Shinto fertility “Festival of the Phallus”; the koi carp farms; the unspoilt mountainous country; zen gardens; Mount Fuji; and the bullet train. What a photographic experience it would be. We have friends in Japan, so we should be able to do this easily; and as our friends are in topical Okinawa islands we’d get some great music and wonderful beaches too. But I won’t go to Japan on principle because of their intransigent stance on whaling. And I don’t much relish a 12-14 hour flight. 
Iceland. Land of glaciers, volcanoes, geysers and geothermal hot water. The country looks frighteningly beautiful; Earth in the raw; new land still very much being built by plate tectonics. Visiting should be easily achievable (there are endless package tours) and a wonderful photographic experience, but again it’s a land I won’t visit because of the whaling issue.
Norway. Like Kate I’d love to see the Aurora Borealis. The midnight sun. The fjords. And to go to Hell. (Yes, there really is a place called Hell). And Noreen has friend who lives on a tiny island off the south coast. Again it should be easily achievable. But again it is off-limits for me because of the whaling. (Why is it that my top three picks are all off-limits because of whaling? It really wasn’t designed that way!) Although we could achieve a lot of that by visiting (friends in) Sweden; which we might yet manage — at least do keep talking about going to Sweden!
Tibet. It must be one of the poorest countries on Earth, but it’s hard to find out because it has been assimilated into China. But it’s a land of rugged mountains, high plateaus and curiously interesting Buddhist monasteries. But it is another place I’m unlikely ever to visit: it is so hard to get to and I won’t go on principle because of the way China has occupied it and largely destroyed the culture and the people. Again it would be just such a wonderful photographic experience. One really should have done this when young and fit.
The Amazon. I’d love to see the Amazonian fishes and parrots (not to mention Jaguars) in the wild. And for once I have no moral objections to going there other than tourism beginning to impact the environment, although nowhere nearly on the scale of Africa. Again I can’t help feeling this is travel one should have done when young and fit.
