Word: mansfield
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Among the more amusing posters displayed by the BGLSA in reaction to recent criticism of homosexuality by Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Manfield '53 was the outraged allegation that "Harvey Mansfield thinks FOUCAULT undermines civilization." With all due respect to this uncannily popular French intellectuel, please: what on earth is Michel Foucault trying to do if not to undermine civilization...
Once again, Harvard's Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Student Association has rallied to condemn the suggestion that there is any ethical consideration pertinent to the discussion of sexual behavior. And they have also made the philosophical leap that Mansfield is not only mistaken, but speaks out of "erroneous and harmful prejudice...
...Colorado amendment which Mansfield was defending denies homosexuals no civil or political rights; what it does prohibit is legislation defining gays and lesbians as a protected minority. Should the government be forced to enact employment quotas for homosexuals, prevented from considering homosexuality in adoption placements, prohibited from encouraging marriage and family life...
...those engaged in habitual same-sex activity is to interview them all does little to prove the happiness of practicing homosexuals. In polls, the vast majority of American schoolchildren report themselves to be "very good" at math, but that doesn't mean that they can add or subtract. Mansfield does not mean that because homosexual acts are shameful, all homosexuals feel ashamed (quite the opposite); he does not mean that because homosexual love is "imperfect and stunted and frustrated," all homosexuals feel unhappy...
What's truly insidious is that Mansfield chooses to talk about love, style and the value of quirkiness when the issue is civil rights. In an effort to define homosexuals as adjuncts to real society--as citizens who comment on society rather than constitute it--he reduces a question of human dignity to a triviality. It's a stylish trick but certainly not a responsible...