I'd heard of Alan Turing a lot but I had no idea that so much more existed. He was definitely a genius of the highest degree, and what a shame that he was treated so horribly during his lifetime. He might have contributed so much more to history, technology, but instead was driven to an uneasy and early end.
shareThe way he was treated by those he saved is horrendous.He took 2 years off the war. his honesty was his downfall.
sharei was really humbled by this man's greatness and appalled by his suffering. then i had a thought... just as he honoured his friend christopher morcom by applying himself and dedicating his work to him, we should honour alan by becoming far more aware of the suffering of our misunderstood/ostracised brothers in sisters.
i came up with a logical solution to convince so-called conservatives of the right for gay marriage. regardless of whether they are bigoted or homophobic, there exists a very utilitarian reason to legalise their marriage and end institutional discrimination at the very least.
we as a society, cannot afford to lose the contributions of an entire segment of society. alan's tragedy is but a sad, sad example. how many other people suffer today in such indignity? could they not rise to immense heights if their burdens were lifted? how many have had to disappear beneath the weight of this crushing repression?
if by legalising gay marriage, we can save just one alan turing... is it not worth casting aside our differences?
i understand that individual conservatives, given their own belief systems and whatnot, would likely not be personally convinced. but it could give them pause to think about the institutional oppression that needs to be cast out.
now i can't wait to watch cumberbatch's dramatic take on alan's life... it is going to be gut-wrenching.
Sadly, there isn't much that logic can do in the face of rabid, entrenched ideology. There are absolutely no logical reasons for hating an entire group of people based on a trait that not only doesn't touch your life personally, but causes no harm to anyone. You see this most clearly in the assertion that allowing gays to marry is an attack on marriage as an institution and even on the value of an individual couple's marriage. When people assert this and are then pressed by the logical next question-How does the marriage of two people you don't know in any way effect your marriage or change what it means in your life-they cannot name a single way that their own marriage is changed or diminished. Of course they can't because it's such an absurd claim to begin with! I find that this is usually where the slippery slope argument comes in. But what about incest? Polygamy? Bestiality? Marrying your sofa???
You are right, though...family values style conservatives should be able to recognize gay marriage as the same stabilizing force that heterosexual marriage is but they just can't. It's like how those who are most opposed to abortion should also be the most supportive of making birth control readily available to everyone but aren't. The baseless ideology trumps logic every time. It really is too bad.
I was very moved by this documentary, and I think Benedict Cumberbatch is amazing in "The Imitation Game." I was very disappointed by the negative reviews of Codebreaker on IMDb. I guess they just didn't get how wrong it was to chemically castrate him. And people complain that there's no science - they say that about the movie too. I think it's enough science - any more and it would go over everyone's heads and they wouldn't like it. It's not a book that just lists facts.
I don't understand passing judgment on any group. I have a close friend who is a saved Christian, and she was asked by someone else what she continued a sin. She said, oh, I guess stealing, murder. Her friend said, well, because I'm gay. My friend said, "Christian means to follow Christ. He didn't pass judgment on anyone, and I don't either." It seems obvious but a lot of people think it's okay to point fingers and decide certain people are bad.
I don't understand the negative reviews on IMDB either. I've seen Codebreaker several times and always learn something new every time I watch it. I always wondered how the new film, Imitation Game, came up with the title. Then I noticed that in one of Turing's papers, Computing Machinery and Intelligance, the first paragraph was titled I. The Imitation Game.
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