I am interested to know the ones of which you speak. MTV has gays kissing on prime-time, and it is one of the most watched shows. That NBC show, Will and Grace (I think), is one of the most popular shows, and it routinely shows gays in positions of sexual suggesting (and I've only seen it twice). What practices are you talking about? I just cannot see it, in our culture; in the Southern culture, yes, since you say that it is fundamentalist. Yet, in the States as a whole, I am having difficulty seeing his point, and now yours, as you offer no examples for me to judge.

Regards,

Fan

I left out examples mostly because EM's overly-sensitive school monitoring bit will prevent him from reading my main message, so here are some examples.

Adultry is still very much a no-no in the US, but it is more acceptable in Europe, where in many parts there's been a centuries-long tradition of having open secrets regarding lovers and mistresses.

You mention the gay bit, but while it's more tolerant than before, when you go from say a 1 to a 2 on a scale of 10 in acceptiveness, is it really acceptable? Many would just point out the legal discrimination that gays face in all 50 states as an example that undermines your comment.

Other issues would include adoption (extremely picky, and often based on "moral" issues), custody in divorce hearings (even if that isn't directly religious, there are undertones there on the "roles" of a family), the disparity in pay between males and females working the same type of job, not to mention lower-than-average wages per education for professions traditionally dominated by women (education, nursing being two main examples), and so on. While these might not appear to be religious at first glance, someone who has had a background in religious and cultural practices (like Chomsky and to a lesser degree, someone like myself) would see traces of older traditions and laws that were based directly upon religious teachings, whether it was the New Testament, the Torah, the Qu'ran, or another religious text. Since the US still seems to be more affected by those traditions than most of its associates in the world, I can see Chomsky's position, even if I don't agree with it completely.


Dylanfanatic

Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie

OF Blog of the Fallen