Godless Chinese Eat their young

[/ dave /]

Kevin Robert Dean wrote:

> Eating Fetuses: The lurid Christian fantasy of godless Chinese eating
> "unborn children."
> 
> "If [capital punishment] isn't enough to turn one's stomach, consider this:
> According to World... human fetuses have begun to appear on menus of Chinese
> restaurants as a delicacy and health tonic."

Many, many years ago I wrote a letter to the editor of local rag City
Pages - it may even have been during the tenure of listmember Steve
Perry as editor - which was printed in response to an article relating
to the repressive antics of right-wing Christian anti-choicers at local
clinics. I alleged that these "strictly by the book" reactionaries would
be more than willing to stir-fry aborted fetuses for dinner if the Good
Book suggested it was somehow apropos (stir-frying was all the rage at
the time...).

For this I was subjected to a small flurry of recorded insults on my
answering machine, and I'll admit the lack of nuance in the way I
phrased my assertion probably meant I deserved at least a few of the
responses I got. Though I still stand by the kernal of truth at the
heart of my argument, I don't think I'd articulate it quite the same way
today. And a few of my closest associates (note I didn't say friends, in
an effort to be consistent with my argument earlier today that "friend"
and "enemy" represent overly reductive rhetorical binaries...) are
Christians of various stripes, who have in their various ways taught me
a great deal about using a scalpel rather than a machete in endeavoring
to fillet my targets.

But the point I wanted to make was that I had no idea I was either a)
highlighting an already-existing tradition (and in notably ironic
fashion) or b) hatching a conspiracy, since this was many years before
the 1995 article quoted. In any case, as a vegetarian of long standing,
I've never been able to see much difference between Jeffrey Dahmer and
Chef Paul Prudhomme - it all seems like pretty much the same raw
material, so to speak...

--

/  dave  /