Lybrel: A GM contradiction?

By Johnny D. Symon

On returning from my travels earlier this week, my wife conveyed the belated news that a friend called José ended his life several weeks previously, during a local Spanish carnival. José worked as a male nurse and was always busy helping other folks out. He spent several nights each week playing flamenco guitar in a local bar. For several years he tried to persuade us to come over and hear him play, but we never found the time. He took his own life by hanging himself in the comfort of his own home. I'd like to say that José at least lived up to and experienced his Warhol fifteen minutes of fame but he never did, not even after he died, and I guess the silence throughout the town over José's departure was probably due to the fact that he was a homosexual who lived with his male partner.

My wife spoke to a friend about the situation who remarked that hanging is a common thing throughout Andalusia. In fact I personally knew an old Spanish lady several years ago who tried to hang herself but was caught just in time, and another homosexual successfully hung himself several years ago in the same town. My wife and I discussed the possible motive or motives behind José's final idea, and we reached the conclusion that his love of kids and a desire to have his own may have been the root cause of his sad departure. He really did want kids of his own, and I mean his own, but when two males live together, adoption is the only means to fulfill that ambition.

I called José a friend earlier on, but really he was just another acquaintance. We only knew each other by the occasional crossing of paths in the local neighborhood or on a train, or some street in La Linea or Algeciras. In fact I guess it must be over a year since I last saw him, and I remember taking careful note of his general demeanor. I knew the man was going down hill. He drank too much and smoked too much. He was mighty unhappy. "That's all she wrote" was how he chose to bow out of living in the fast lane. I'm sure that if his ambition to have kids of his own seed had been realized, José would still be around today. But this ambition requires a bit of coproduction from a member of the opposite sex, therefore he was caught betwixt two or to put it a simpler way, between a rock and a hard place. He couldn't decide between staying with his male partner or making a beeline to a feline, therefore his end was nigh and the local Catholic town digested the news in silence.

We all know that when a tree falls in a lonely wood it still makes a sound, whereas in a Catholic Spanish town José fell and no sound could be heard, and truth be known, even I had no intention of writing about José's sad and sorry end until I read the news about America's latest pharmaceutical discovery of a pill that ends female menstruation. It's big news in Spain, as it is all over the rest of Europe.

I got to wondering how this discovery would be regarded by ecological pressure groups and the rest, would they be in favor of "genetically modifying" women, or against it? And if they were for it, would they now be willing to drop their opposition to "genetically modified" crops? Well I guess we all know the answer already: They're against any form of genetic modification if it involves the maintenance of life, but for genetic tweaking if it prevents it. I foresee the not too distant future where there will be a suite of designer drugs acting as mom's little helper to break down the norms of a Biblically ordained society, where a José of the future might well anticipate a child of his own DNA without the help of a female. Likewise, some women with alternate lifestyles could bear a child that was not man-made.

I guess that we're living in an age of contradiction. Ecological pressure groups put pressure on some things and leave others be. They seem to have a pact of silence when throughout planet earth people get genetically modified from one sex to the other, while on the other hand they squawk and squeal against modified crops and grain. It's kinda strange for an old-fangled red-neck boy like myself to grasp, you know, the contradiction thing? because my libertarian side leaves everyone else free to make their own decisions and their own mistakes. I never once criticized José for his life-style, because I know that everyone knows right from wrong, and we're all personally responsible for our own life's walk, or in the case of some, a life's squawk. Therefore as I tap out my latest verbal meanderings I begin to form yet another possibility for the future, and I'm sure that nano-tech could make it a reality ...

How would our most prominent ecological mouthpieces view a drug that genetically modified the human mind in such a way as to remove faith? to prevent someone from perceiving things of the spirit, and also to destroy an individual's belief in God? Would this be seen as the chemical fulfillment of that world-famous decomposer's song "Imagine"? With a drug like this, the ecological's non-chemical ecumenical society would quickly become pro. Imagine, they would say, what the world would be like if Islam dropped Islam, and Christians Christianity. Jews forgot they were Jews and began to believe that they were in fact Palestinians ... peace would blossom throughout the world and all our troubles would be over. This drug, they would say, is genetic modification that we can't argue with. Before too long it might be made compulsory, but only for that person's good of course.

This indeed is a possible future grim scenario, but I, as always, will not lose any sleep over it. I rest easy in the knowledge that there's no form of gene drug, past, present, or future, that could remove God or His promises for the future. I have no objection to the establishment of new drugs, and I'd never deny someone their right to take those things, but I see it as fair warning for the future, and yet another camel's nose under the tent possibility.

Have a great week folks. Here's to life and the future.

© Johnny D. Symon