Word: moral
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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While I admire the candor of Noah D. Oppenheim '00 (Column, Apr. 3) regarding his moral issues with "Gaypril" (and his bold decision to print slang variants of "clitoris" in an article decrying the "downright obscene"), I must disagree with his loaded assessment that "[queers] may need to accept that the biological footing of heterosexuality...cannot be overcome...
Excluding a few bright lights of free thought in Western history, the racial and gender exclusivity of European societies has been guarded for centuries behind a bastion of "moral" reasoning. One need only look at our notion of miscegenation, for example, to see how such concepts as racial intermarriage were considered radically immoral aberrations of depraved individuals, or, for a more proximate example, the hate-laced editorials in the very pages of the Harvard Crimson against the granting of lending privileges to Radcliffe students wishing to use Lamont Library just a few decades...
When Oppenheim writes that "the acceptance of racial and gender difference may have been possible...only because such inclusions did not involve revision of our basic moral principles," it is the nadir of an article whose unspoken agenda is to insist that homosexuality is fundamentally immoral...
...Oppenheim remains unconvinced of the oppressive weight of "cultural" questions, he might ask himself why many queers who are comfortable with the "moral" aspects of their sexuality choose to remain closeted. While it is true that Harvard is often admirably queer-friendly, especially on level of Faculty and House masters, it has failed the queer community many times. The reassignment of first-year roommates at the request of a student who could not live with a homosexual is one example that has surfaced in the past years...
...Hajj, with the entire community coming out to pray together and to greet one another for the festival. The Eid prayers feature the largest congregations of the year and are a manifestation of the unity of believers. A common faith is an affirmative tie that engenders a moral community transcendent over ethnic, racial and economic differences. At Eid prayers is Boston one sees Arabs, South Asians, African-Americans, East Asians, Caucasian-Americans and Muslims from other ethnic backgrounds praying side by side and embracing one another. Both the Hajj and the Eid foster a sense of community based on common...