Destiny's Child
I commend Vanessa Carlton for being open and honest about her sexuality
and her own sexual orientation. However, I don't see it as a reason to be
"proud," any more than we heterosexuals have reason to be "proud" of our own
sexual orientation.
If it can be proven that sexual orientation is genetically determined, than
being proud of one's sexual orientation is kind of like being proud being
white, or blond-haired, or blue-eyed.
The converse, of course, is that it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of
sexual orientation, as it is with regard to race or gender. (And that means
sexual-orientation-selective abortions are just as wrong as sex-selective
abortions.)
This is true theologically as well. In his 1983 essay, "Do Bad Things Happen
to Good People?" (in response to a book by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
addressing the "problem of evil"), contemporary Hindu spiritual master
Ravinda-svarupa dasa (Dr. William Deadwyler) explains:
"...our destiny is shaped by karma. In the Bhagavad-gita (8.3) Krishna
succinctly defines karma as 'actions pertaining to the development of
material bodies.' This means that there are actions we do now that determine
our future material bodies...All such acts sentence us to future births in
the material world, there to reap what we have sown...
"Bad karma brings us suffering and misfortune, such as birth in a degraded
family, poverty, chronic disease, legal problems, or physical ugliness.
Exceptionally bad karma will take us into animal bodies or down to lower
planets of (temporary) hellish torment.
"The law of karma is as strict, relentless, and impartial as the grosser
natural laws of motion and gravity. And, like them, it applies to us whether
we know about it or not.
"For example, if I eat the flesh of animals even though I can live as well
without it, my bad karma will force me to be born as an animal and to be
slaughtered myself.
"Or if I arrange to have a child killed in the womb, I simultaneously
arrange for myself to be killed in the same way...
"So when you and I were born we inherited, along with our blue eyes or our
black hair, the consequences of our past good & bad deeds (from previous
lives). We have a long history, and the happiness and distress our lives
will bring is set. We are indeed children of destiny, hostages to fortune,
but it is a destiny we created for ourselves, a fortune self-made. And in
this life we are continuing to create our future.
"But of all this Kushner is unaware, and he can make no sense of his
suffering..."
Having said all that...
Beautiful as she is, Vanessa Carlton is a "one-hit wonder." Her song, "A
Thousand Miles," was all over the radio in 2002. A music reviewer described
her vocals on that song as "pouty," and that was part of the charm! In a
Playboy interview from around that time, she described herself as a
small-breasted woman. I know she dated Stephen Jenkins of Third Eye Blind,
which I think was also a "one-hit wonder" band.
The Third Eye Blind song "Semi-Charmed Private Life" from 1996 contains a
passing reference to oral sex... which makes me wonder what kind of
relationship Vanessa Carlton and Stephen Jenkins enjoyed! I was surprised to
learn she dated John Mayer as well--and I'm surprised John Mayer didn't brag
about it at length, in the course of his own Playboy interview!
Vanessa Carlton released a song, "Nolita Fairy Tale," years ago, which I
felt was better than "A Thousand Miles," but it hardly received any airplay.
Again, she's really a "one-hit wonder."
That's *her* destiny.
Go on to: Differing Schools of
Philosophy
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