Catholic Support of Gay Marriage?

[Yaatee]

Ends don't justify the means.  Neither do subjective feelings.

One wouldn't   think so.

[Socrates]

so 20th century historians think Stalin was a great guy? Must have missed that.

In the '30s, and '40s, many American left-wing intellectuals and journalists were strong defenders of Stalin.

[Ice_nine]

It was probably the mustache. He looked like a real friendly guy.

[truthfinder]

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" - or so I'm told. 

Anyways, there certainly has been some historical problems with the representation of Soviet Russia and Stalin.  Of course, the bane of historians is what documentation is actually made available.  Considering the Soviet archives had been closed for a long time, and under strict regulations, its no wonder that there were problems.  I think Marxist history in the 1970s and 1980s didn't help, but I also think that pretty quickly there was a dissociation from the communist leaders and the theories themselves. But I've certainly never been taught that Stalin was a "great guy". 

[Era Might]

The United States of America now regards these marriages, if legally performed according to the laws in which the marriage is performed--as legal.  Period.

I assume this was directed at me? (quotes didn't work)

Who cares if the USA regards as legal? That doesn't make it right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust. I discussed in another thread the stupid paragraph from the Supreme Court make a whole bunch of philosophical assertions about love, metaphysics, and the afterlife, and the eternally stupid phrase that homosexuals do not want to be "condemned to live in loneliness" (as if marriage was ever a solution to loneliness, especially in the USA where you can get married and divorced at will).

Even if I believed in homosexual relationships, that doesn't mean I have to support the stupid philosophy behind this whole decision. But that's what politics is about, dumbing down life enough to keep things on an even keel.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" - or so I'm told. 

Anyways, there certainly has been some historical problems with the representation of Soviet Russia and Stalin.  Of course, the bane of historians is what documentation is actually made available.  Considering the Soviet archives had been closed for a long time, and under strict regulations, its no wonder that there were problems.  I think Marxist history in the 1970s and 1980s didn't help, but I also think that pretty quickly there was a dissociation from the communist leaders and the theories themselves. But I've certainly never been taught that Stalin was a "great guy". 

I'm actually reading a biography of Stalin, a new one if you're interested, by Stephen Kotkin, though it's more focused on the context of Stalin's life rather than the person (at least this first volume, later on he will presumably focus more on Stalin individually). If you want a more personally focused biography check out "Young Stalin" by Simon Sebag Montefiore.

Stalin was a fascinating man. The Russian Revolution represented a new hope for humanity...people living in the times didn't have the hindsight of the 20th century. spent decades living in the revolutionary underground...he was committed, and it was only after years as an underground revolutionary, which included years in Tsarist imprisonment in Siberia and working behind the scenes in the Bolshevik regime, only then he really came to power. He's a great study in committment to a cause...a life doesn't happen overnight, and Stalin took a long time to become Stalin. (Stalinism came long after the Revolution, he did not define the revolution).

[Catlick]

I think Marxist history in the 1970s and 1980s didn't help, but I also think that pretty quickly there was a dissociation from the communist leaders and the theories themselves. But I've certainly never been taught that Stalin was a "great guy". 

O really? Think of Eric Hobsbawm. Well-respected figure, widely read among undergraduate history students (he authored worthless but politically correct books on modern European history), considered outdated but still an important voice among social-economic historians. This guy was considered by many historians as one of the profession's greatest to live in the late 20th century. And... he was a constant supporter of boot-in-the-neck Communism, still justifying Stalin's genocides in the 2000s. 

Just to illustrate how intensely political much of the historical writing is, also when it comes to the Inquisition.

[truthfinder]

Maybe I've just had a very different type of history education, but I've never read Hobsbawm, and while there were certainly sympathetic professors to communist organization within Canada in the 1920s and 1930s, there was still never a praise of Stalin or the communist regime in Russia. (Then again, my program wasn't the strongest in European history at the time; although, I could show you how to perform a turn-of-the-millennium Roman love spell).  There was some fawning over regimes in South America but still with the acknowledgement of evils committed and subterfuge employed.