Enlightened Albania to Legalized Gay Marriage!

[3113]

Who woulda thunk?

Tirana, Albania) Albania’s governing Democrats have proposed a law allowing same-sex civil weddings in the small, predominantly Muslim country. An announcement on the government Web site Thursday said the bill “may spark debate” but was needed to stop discrimination against gay couples. Current law only recognizes heterosexual marriages.

Prime Minister Sali Berisha said the move followed requests from rights groups. His Democrats, who control 74 of parliament’s 140 seats, are expected to easily pass the law. The former Communist Balkan state, which joined NATO in April, has applied to be considered for joining the European Union. Albania is mostly Muslim with large Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic minorities. Practicing religion was banned during the 1944-1990 Communist regime.

But then, I've always thought that Dr. Doom was a much more enlightened ruler than most other kings of small Eastern European countries.

http://www.freewebs.com/lordkonradchaos/DrDoom_Head.jpg

He's not the ruler of Albania? Are you sure?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Albania????

Oh, shoot. Can you imagine the Al Qaeda reaction?

 

[elfin_odalisque]

You miss the point, really. Tirana, the capital, is a beautiful place in transition where the mosques are mute, the miniskirts make New York look puritan and the Jack Daniels flows freely - a bit anarchic really. Also, one of the few good legacies of the communist yoke - here and elsewhere in Eastern Europe - is the complete separation between state and church.

No-one expects the Christian or Muslim mosques/churches in Albania to support the legal change, but it doesn't matter. Like a lot of European countries (I exclude Italy and Ireland) secularism in constitutional issues is important in Albania. They don't have 'in God I trust' on the back of their leks.

We need some new words. 'Marriage' and 'wedding' have been long hijacked by the religions, and 'civil partnership' is, be fair, pretty uninspiring. Couldn't we have - a bit like the college 'Commencement' - something like 'Commitment', all legal and annullable (does 'divorce' work here?).

Here in the US we conflate religion and state to the point of ridicule. Laws on same sex unions are rejected at the same time we stop the kids in junior school having a Christmas concert and malls can't play religious songs.

On balance, I think Albania, despite its problems, is a tad more in the real world.

 

[Liar]

Not really that shocked. It's a poor, but fairly progressive country. This has in parts to do with the demographics. The fact that there is not one dominating church but several with significant numbers means that government and politics are kept fairly secular.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

You miss the point, really. Tirana, the capital, is a beautiful place in transition where the mosques are mute, the miniskirts make New York look puritan and the Jack Daniels flows freely - a bit anarchic really. Also, one of the few good legacies of the communist yoke - here and elsewhere in Eastern Europe - is the complete separation between state and church.

No-one expects the Christian or Muslim mosques/churches in Albania to support the legal change, but it doesn't matter. Like a lot of European countries (I exclude Italy and Ireland) secularism in constitutional issues is important in Albania. They don't have 'in God I trust' on the back of their leks.

We need some new words. 'Marriage' and 'wedding' have been long hijacked by the religions, and 'civil partnership' is, be fair, pretty uninspiring. Couldn't we have - a bit like the college 'Commencement' - something like 'Commitment', all legal and annullable (does 'divorce' work here?).

Here in the US we conflate religion and state to the point of ridicule. Laws on same sex unions are rejected at the same time we stop the kids in junior school having a Christmas concert and malls can't play religious songs.

On balance, I think Albania, despite its problems, is a tad more in the real world.

On the contrary, religions created marriage as a sacrament.

 

[Liar]

He's not the ruler of Albania? Are you sure?

They don't need no fictional rulers, they have the king with the most awesome name ever.

Kneel before Zog!

 

[elfin_odalisque]

On the contrary, religions created marriage as a sacrament.

No they didn't. You misunderstand functionalism. Legal union was supported by religions to appease the ruling classes need for clear property and inheritance rights - just as non heterosexual couples now need the legal right to be next-of-kin to 'seal the deal' of their relationship.

Religions piggybacked a civil need, which I support, to promote their brand.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

They don't need no fictional rulers, they have the king with the most awesome name ever.

Kneel before Zog!

And he writes here too. we are so blessed.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No they didn't. You misunderstand functionalism. Legal union was supported by religions to appease the ruling classes need for clear property and inheritance rights - just as non heterosexual couples now need the legal right to be next-of-kin to 'seal the deal' of their relationship.

Religions piggybacked a civil need, which I support, to promote their brand.

You need to go check your facts. Be sure to check the part about the King enforcing the church's canons. You have the cart before the horse.

 

[Recidiva]

Go Albania, hope it passes

Unfortunately the still-living women who were forced by tribal law to live as a man as "sworn virgins" if they wanted to have any sort of head of household authority might feel a bit betrayed.

Maybe they'll be able to be girls again soon.

 

[rgraham666]

Yeah, Doom doesn't care what you do so longs as it doesn't interfere with his plans and you jump when he says, "Jump!"

 

[elfin_odalisque]

You need to go check your facts. Be sure to check the part about the King enforcing the church's canons. You have the cart before the horse.

No, you have. Long before there were western kings the doctrine of property rights affected religions. The churches just took on the views of the powerful. The canons just followed the aristocratic polemic of the ruling classes. This is not a take against God (whoever she is) just a rant against the spinmeisters who sucked up to the rich.

 

[slyc_willie]

Cool. The first of many, hopefully.

(Doom rules Latvia, but I figure you knew that. The geek in me just couldn't let it go )

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Those who wish to can sort out where the divine right of kings came from, if kings existed before religion did. You may discover that the first kings were priests and such.

 

[Liar]

(Doom rules Latvia, but I figure you knew that. The geek in me just couldn't let it go )

The geek in you is wrong.

Doom rules Latveria. Fictional country between Hungary and Serbia.

 

[lloyd_5]

You need to go check your facts. Be sure to check the part about the King enforcing the church's canons. You have the cart before the horse.

No, you are totally wrong, it goes back to the wedding in Canaan. As a person who takes things as told, you have never studied the birth of christian religion. It is just a copy of pagan theology with a nod toward the status quo of the families with property. The concept of marriage as a sacrament was laughable two thousand years ago. Get down from your ivory tower.

 

[slyc_willie]

The geek in you is wrong.

Doom rules Latveria. Fictional country between Hungary and Serbia.

I thought there was an error there. Heh. Haven't read comics since the 80s.

 

[trysail]

No, you have. Long before there were western kings the doctrine of property rights affected religions. The churches just took on the views of the powerful. The canons just followed the aristocratic polemic of the ruling classes. This is not a take against God (whoever she is) just a rant against the spinmeisters who sucked up to the rich.

"As often as we read of armies plundering, we find small bands of adventurers trying to carve out a new home somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. The title they most coveted, if we can trust Homer, was 'sacker of cities.' In the Homeric epics, and still in Aeschylus, it was a leader's greatest claim to glory. Agamemnon, Achilles, Nestor ('in my youth I was one') and even Athena herself bear the title of 'sacker of cities' in Homer.

We should not overdo the search for 'modern' motives for this. In the Iliad the sacker of cities does not destroy to increase his political power, to combat inflation, to open up trade routes to the Black Sea or to the tin mines of Europe; he does not destroy to appropriate the mackerel and tunny harvests. He says he sacks cities to get booty, treasures, horses, cattle, gold, silver, fine armor and weapons- and women. We must not forget the women (after all, the legend insists that the seizure of a woman was the cause of the Trojan War). Time and again Homer tells of the fight for 'the city and its women.' When Achilles tells Odysseus of the twenty-three cities he has sacked he mentions only 'treasure and women' as his gain. This is what makes him proud, and gives him fame after his death. And the more beautiful the women, the better.

.... Such then were the goals of 'heroic' kingship. If economic necessity can partly explain such attacks- to replenish the slave labor in the 'state industries-' nevertheless it was doubtless still true that the greater the booty captured, the larger quantities of gold and silver, the finer the horses and the more beautiful the women, the greater the honour due to the conquerer."

- Michael Wood
In Search of The Trojan War
Oxford (U.K.), 1985


Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.



_____________________________________________

"For both the Acheans and Vikings, piracy was an honorable profession in the practice of which a young man acquired the advantages of a liberal education."

-Stuart Gilbert
James Joyce's Ulysses


___________________


"In providing for the administration of the affairs of Britain, the Plantagenets followed the simple 'hungry falcon' theories laid down long before Henry's guidance by Matilda Empress— to place relatively obscure men in seats of responsibility where their ambitions, their dependence upon bounty, and their gratitude, in various combinations, could be expected to keep them vigilant and honest.

He was a 'hungry falcon' with a fanatical zeal for his king and such pride of office as only a parvenu could feel."

-Amy Kelly
Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950.




_______________________

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1385/1477226566_42f5b9bb01_o.gif

 

[voluptuary_manque]

No, you are totally wrong, it goes back to the wedding in Canaan. As a person who takes things as told, you have never studied the birth of christian religion. It is just a copy of pagan theology with a nod toward the status quo of the families with property. The concept of marriage as a sacrament was laughable two thousand years ago. Get down from your ivory tower.

That is correct. As a student of church history I can tell you that the concept of 'sacramental' marriage is nothing more than a construct of the Renaissance Vatican. Anyone who carefully studies Scripture, rather than just listening to what is pronounced from pulpit, knows that there are but two Sacraments, baptism and holy communion. All the others were tacked on by the vatican to pay for St. Peters. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, whenever a priest administered a sacrament, he was paid and forwarded a goodly portion to the bishop who forwarded a portion of that to Rome. When the popes needed more money, they increased the number of sacraments. Look it up. It was one of the defining reasons for the Reformation. Read Luther.

 

[3113]

Doom rules Latvia, but I figure you knew that. The geek in me just couldn't let it go

The geek in you is wrong. Doom rules Latveria. Fictional country between Hungary and Serbia.

Ah, to live in a Kingdom of Geeks. It shall be named Latalbanvia and we shall be ruled by the awesome Dr. Zog!

Kneel before Zog!

Indeed! I am now going to put on the traditional Lat-Albanvia peasant costume and gather flowers to offer our great and benevolent king as he passes by on his way to the palace.

[can we keep the Latverian flag? It's really cool. We could change the "D" to a "Z" for Zog...]

http://bp3.blogger.com/_TEoH2Eg8LgA/R8ZlF8ZUn_I/AAAAAAAAAfw/udZGWtmscWw/s320/latveria.jpg

 

[Boxlicker101]

Who woulda thunk?


But then, I've always thought that Dr. Doom was a much more enlightened ruler than most other kings of small Eastern European countries.

http://www.freewebs.com/lordkonradchaos/DrDoom_Head.jpg

He's not the ruler of Albania? Are you sure?

You're probably right about Doom. He has his faults, but they are not as bad as those of most kings. At one time, he was overthrown, and the leader of ther rebels set himself as king. He was so bad that the citizens overthrew him in turn and reinstated Doom.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No, you are totally wrong, it goes back to the wedding in Canaan. As a person who takes things as told, you have never studied the birth of christian religion. It is just a copy of pagan theology with a nod toward the status quo of the families with property. The concept of marriage as a sacrament was laughable two thousand years ago. Get down from your ivory tower.

LLOYD

People were married long before Jesus came along. I mean, if you want to quote Scripture, which King was it who married Adam & Eve? Both the Romans and Greeks believed they descended from gods and the gods existed before kings. This is pretty much the same scenario in every culture. God comes first.

 

[Boxlicker101]

LLOYD

People were married long before Jesus came along. I mean, if you want to quote Scripture, which King was it who married Adam & Eve? Both the Romans and Greeks believed they descended from gods and the gods existed before kings. This is pretty much the same scenario in every culture. God comes first.

Kings and emperors and the upper crust got married, but that was to protect family fortunes and for other financial gain. Did ordinary people bother to get married or did they just start living together and producing children?

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Kings and emperors and the upper crust got married, but that was to protect family fortunes and for other financial gain. Did ordinary people bother to get married or did they just start living together and producing children?

In most cultures, right up until the vatican got greedy, poor people got married by just telling everyone else that they were. The usual response, I imagine, was, 'Well, if you must!'

Wealthy people, according to John Boswell, got married to protect family fortunes, just as you state, and also to get a leg up on life. Back then, it wasn't like you could just put on your best Saville Row suit and got get a job with a big law firm or something. There was only manual labor (something that the rich believed happened to other people) or land ownership. No industry to speak of, and trade was not particularly respectable. Unless you could lead an army out and conquer people, you needed family money.