This week in deep throat

"Was Deep Throat a Lutheran?", asks Functional Ambivalent.

There are rumors that Deep Throat is in ill health, and that the Washington Post has prepared an obit that reveals the person's role in history.

Now, being a political person with an inch-deep knowledge of politics and no hint of human empathy, I think right away: Who's sick?

Well, the Pope is sick, but I don't recall him working in proximity to Nixon, and even if he had I have a hard time picturing him lurking around parking ramps to meet with Woodward. 

Which leaves Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is sick, yes, but is also -- much more importantly -- a Lutheran.

I'm a Lutheran, and the idea that Rehnquist might be Deep Throat excites me because it would be the first time a Lutheran has made history since...well, since Luther himself.

Update:

More famous Lutherans, courtesy of BF of Tempusmuseumtero, including David Hasselhoff, Bruce Willis, Steve Jobs and, John Woo.

For that matter....

Fontana Labs wonders whether Catherine Mackinnon denounced throat rape at a recent NYC screening of Inside Deep Throat:

Elvis Mitchell looked on helplessly as MacKinnon did her thing, claiming that the film we had just watched was promoting the acceptance of rape.  At one point, however, her righteous zeal became unhinged when she claimed that it was not possible to do deep throat safely, that it was a dangerous act  that could only be done under hypnosis. "What's so funny?" she snapped as the audience rippled with mirth. Todd Graff's hand shot up - "I can do it," he said, and the room echoed with a chorus of gay men going "me too!"  (Gigi Grazer - wife of Brian - later told Graff to stop bragging and that she could do it better than him and had the rocks on her fingers to prove it. Touché).  But La McKinnon was not to be discouraged; she claimed that emergency rooms were filled with women victims of throat rape, not to mention the ones who hadnt even made it that far and had died in the act.

Judith Regan chimed in preposterously, maintaining that her Jenna Jameson autobiography, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, really was "a cautionary tale" rather than just an afterthought of a subtitle.  She argued that all sex workers are victims of sexual abuse.  Frontliner Peter Boyer went on on about rape porn and tried to raise a quorum on fisting.

Which left the task of defending Deep Throat and the porn world by extension to Alan Dershowitz [sic], who pointed out that to say porn promoted rape was akin to saying that rap promoted. . .   But then Elvis Mitchell leapt to his feet, as if about to throw a Springer-like punch, and put us all out of our misery by ending the panel abruptly.

Comments

[JD Rhoades]

Best. Title. Ever.

[BF]

Yes...Renquist...thyroid cancer...thyroid gland in throat...deep throat...yes, it's all coming together

[John Emerson]

The mathematicians Cantor and Goedel were Lutherans, as was Nietzsche. So there.

[BF]

Here is a comprehensive list of famous Lutherans:

http://www.faithlutherangroton.org/famous.html

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I'm a half-Lutheran. It's like being half-elf in Dungeons and Dragons, only without any powers.

[Decnavda]

Okay, the only thing I know about Lutheran theology is that it is a Christian denomination. But even with that little knowledge, I would have to assume that, however you may have been raised, becoming famous for declaring the death of God would have to get you eliminated from being considered a Lutheran.

Well, while writing this I remembered about the existence of Unitarians, but still...

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

But even with that little knowledge, I would have to assume that, however you may have been raised, becoming famous for declaring the death of God would have to get you eliminated from being considered a Lutheran.

Decnavda, you've got a point.

Here's the half-Lutheran back story: My paternal grandmother considers herself a Lutheran to this day, but she was never confirmed in the Lutheran church because she refused to swear off dancing. It was a stupid rule, she thought, and far more of a sin to make a promise she didn't intend to keep. She married a Lutheran and tried to raise her kids in the church. In keeping with the family tradition, my father refused to be confirmed because none of the theology made sense to him. He became a secular humanist and moved to Berkeley, where he married a secular Jew.

According to the parental units my brother and I were raised as "Happy Humanists"--with plenty ecumenical instruction about religion. Some people tell me that I'm obsessed with religion, unlike many theists. I have serious academic interests in apologetics and comparative theology, despite my atheism.

So, maybe that's why I don't have any Lutheran Powers... (grin)

[Tom Renbarger]

"I'm a half-Lutheran. It's like being half-elf in Dungeons and Dragons, only without any powers."

Aww, I always thought it was half-Asian = half-elf. This is a devastating piece of news for this half-Asian and lapsed Methodist.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

But y'all have powers, right?

[John Emerson]

The Lutheran stain cannot be washed out by an act of the will. Nietzsche tried. He also tried to have a sense of humor and be friviolous, and he failed in that too.

Nice guy, though.

Swedenborg, the thoroughly loony mystic, sexologist, and mineralogist, was also a Lutheran. Like the Catholic Church, you're born into it and can't leave except by excommunication, which is very rare since there's no Lutheran Pope.

Kurt Goedel was also more than somewhat loony, and his wife was a very tacky person who collected those lawn dwarf thingies.

[John Emerson]

At the age of 14 I told my Sunday School teacher that I was an atheist. I got special attention after that, but I didn't stop being a Lutheran. (The special attention was not unfriendly).

My sect was allowed to dance. Lindsay's family must have been Wisconsin or Lutheran synod. Or else out in the Swedish boonies somewhere.

[John Emerson]

"Wisconsin or Missouri synod".

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

John guessed right. My Lutheran roots are in the Scandinavian boonies of Alberta. http://www.camrose.com>Camrose, mostly.

[Tom Renbarger]

"But y'all have powers, right?"

Yes, the awesome powers of half-Asianity, which allow one to be extra good at half-assing things, I think. I never bothered to check.

[niucons]

At the age of 14 I told my Sunday School teacher that I was an atheist. I got special attention after that, but I didn't stop being a Lutheran. (The special attention was not unfriendly).

Linsay, I was going to call you out on this earlier, but declaring yourself a Lutheran Canadian Jew Atheist all at the same time is a bit much.

I know John Emerson's called you out with his quote, but it applies to most of us in the blogosphere.

[Dan]

I'm a half-Lutheran. It's like being half-elf in Dungeons and Dragons, only without any powers.

That's okay; half-elves don't have any powers, either.

[Paul Gowder]

Rehnquist as deep throat? That's really interesting... Rehnquist was already on the Supreme Court by then, he was appointed in 1971. A Supreme Court justice getting involved in politics that heavily would be inappropriate, but, more interestingly, would certainly require him to recuse himself from U.S. v. Nixon (the tapes case)... which he did.

[John Emerson]

Garrison Keehler is not a Lutheran, but he plays one on the radio.

Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle. Hm.

Ziegfeld of Ziegfeld Follies (vaudeville) was a Lutheran, believe it or not.

[pragmatic_realist]

How can a philosophy blog forget Emmanuel Kant?

[pragmatic_realist]

Not to mention Hegel, and, because of his father's conversion, Karl Marx.

[Josh Narins]

MacKinnon sounds naive, but also there are "gagging" fetishists, where forced oral sex is the focal point.

Deep Throat was Fred Fielding.