The Divine Institution of Marriage

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

As much as SU's appeal to Mussolini was over the top, the desire to turn control of one's decisions over to another, "to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us" (Foucault, 1983, p. xiii) is fascist. It is also, I think, Oedipal.

All of a sudden, homosexuality's relationship to the Oedipal makes sense.

It wasn't over the top. Intense longing and nostalgia for the past, a sense of self steeped in a highly mythologized past, a chauvenistic sense that only those sharing a common heritage are elect in some sense, a welcoming of authoritarianism as a means to achieving a highly idealized society in conformance with the ultra conservative vision, a sacrificing even of offspring to maintenance of the greater authority (of course, since one's whole sense of self derives from the greater authority), are all hallmarks of fascism.

This is why "Islamofascism" is a very precise epithet. I have no doubt that if America were a Mormon theocracy the September Six would have been shot and buried in a common grave and we'd all be risking our lives and liberty right now. Fascism is really the oldest, and most enduring form of authoritarianism. You are seeing a re-emergence of it right now in Russia. Tragically, Solghenytzin turned out not to be a lover of liberty but a fascist (fascism and communism get along like cats and dogs, which makes a lot of sense, but that's a subject for another day). Fascism is what is holding China together right now, and its dark impulses are now being stirred by the pagentry of the Chinese Olympics.

It isn't a coincidence that the LDS Conference Center looks like it was designed by Alber Speer.

See Downfall for a popular primer on the allure and effects of fascim. If Mormonism suffered its Gotterdamerung I'm sure many would choose to be immolated with the greater authority.