Archive for February 2013
Picking back up my series on Christian sexual identity, we have to realize that the foundational issue in conversations about “gender roles,” homosexuality, and the public place of marriage is that of definition. For the progressive gender, sexuality, and the various institutional structures supporting them are to be defined by the individual’s desire. Now, this doesn’t simply mean the surface-level choices that one makes, though it does mean that often enough, but rather those deep-seated desires which then incentivize one’s actions. I’m not sure if it is still the preferred nomenclature, but not too long ago folks used to use the term “orientation” to name this concept. A person’s “sexual orientation” was either heterosexual, homosexual, or something else, and this orientation was an important way that they were to be classified, even getting down to their fundamental identity.
This debate over orientation vs. “what’s natural” is at the heart of
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For background on the current Sabah standoff, click here.
My initial thoughts:
What the Philippines must effectively address in its claims to historic title over Sabah: the right to self-determination, which is customary and is subject of both erga omnes partes and erga omnes omnium obligations.
In his separate opinion to the Sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan (Indonesia/Malaysia) case before the ICJ in 2002, ad hoc judge Thomas Franck had this to say, in his rejection of the Philippine intervention:
“13. The independence of North Borneo was brought about as the result of the expressed wish of the majority of the people of the territory in a 1963 election. The Secretary-General of the United Nations was entrusted under the Manila Accord of 3 1 July 1963 with the task of ascertaining the wishes of the people of North Borneo, and reported that the majority of the peoples of…
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memory's sacred domain 