[quote]kilpaba wrote:
ZEB wrote:
You’ve most likely angered many African American members of this site with your off the cuff comparison of civil rights for blacks with homosexual marriage. There is NO comparison. I’ve schooled you on this before, but I’m happy to do it again. I’ll give you the shortened version.
Black is genetic homosexuality has never been proven to be genetic.
Lot’s of things have yet to be “proven” to be genetic, if by that you mean the exact ‘gay gene’ has not been isolated. This doesn’t mean it is not rational to assume there is a genetic component.[/quote]
Nor does it negate the fact that it is purely by nurture. Did you know that most (yes MOST) homosexual men have at least one of the following things in common:
1-Domineering mother and or a weak father figure.
2-Have been sexually molested as a child.
3-Were ostracized from peers (for one reason or another) as young children.
No one is aware of these facts because they speak directly against the politically correct/ homosexual agenda.
The fact is we DO NOT know how people become homosexual for sure. So stop being silly and simply guessing that it “could” be genetic. When it is proven to be genetic then I will agree. Until then there is ZERO comparison to black people in that regard.
[quote]2. Blacks suffered the horrific fate of being owned as slaves, homosexuals have not.
Sure homosexuals have never been owned as slaves in a systematic way, but they have been persecuted by the Nazis and murdered for their sexuality by various groups and governments for what they are. They have also routinely been denied jobs, been forbidden to serve in the armed forces, classified as insane and locked up for their sexuality. Certainly not slavery, but still some pretty heinous things.[/quote]
And many other groups have suffered as well. But please don’t compare hundreds of years of slavery and oppression of black people with homosexuals. This sounds even nuttier than your above comments that “it could be genetic.” This is bordering on a waste of my time.
[quote]
3. A homosexual can either choose to disclose that he or she is in fact a homosexual. A black person does not have that option.
And if they did? Not sure how this is a good defense at all. If people of Irish descent were banned from marrying other Irish people, would this be justified simply because they COULD claim they were Polish by virtue of similar skin color? Of course it doesn’t. Just because someone has the option of lying about who they are doesn’t give anyone the right to persecute them for what they really are.[/quote]
If a black man walked into a restaurant in Georgia in 1950 there is a good chance that the owner would not seat him. Nothing had to be said as it was obvious that the owner was discriminating because of skin color. If a homosexual walks into a restaurant he will be seated and nothing will be said as no one would know.
That I actually had to point out the above speaks more to your desire to be right than anything based on logic or reason. And if you post back with more of this nonsense I’m done. There really is no argument about the above three points. They are major differences PERIOD!
[quote]
A final point, many black leaders have taken great offense with the comparison of the two. In fact so much so that the NAACP has asked some powerful gay organizations to stop doing it!
I am sure you can agree with me here, just because the NAACP does not like having gay civil rights compared to their own civil rights doesn’t make the two substantively different from one another in actuality. The fact of the matter is that someone is being discriminated against at an institutional level for who they are.[/quote]
Do you even understand what the word “discrimination” means? And do you understand that we all LEGALLY discriminate every day? The government discriminates against me because according to them based on my age I am too old to serve in the military. I could pass the Marine basic training with flying colors but they won’t let me in.
You cannot drink until you are 21. You can’t vote until you are 18 and you can’t drive until you are 16 (in most states). And I wish they would pass a law that you couldn’t post on T Nation until you were 29.
So, just because there is discrimination none of it means that it reaches the level of SLAVERY! Maybe you need a refresher course on how badly the black man was treated. AND for such a long period of time.
It seems to me that you just want to argue for the sake of it. And I don’t think you’re doing yourself a whole lot of good.
I’ve made this point as well. Men have a higher sex drive, so it’s hardly surprising that they desire to engage in sex more frequently than women.[/quote]
You didn’t read my addendum to his post, ignoring marriage and given “atomic” sexual relationships (one penis can only occupy one vagina at a time and that counts as one sexual interaction for both partners), roughly equal numbers of men and women, and negligible numbers of homosexuals, it is impossible for men to be more actually engage than women, regardless of desire.
This is an outright and unequivocal lie. A considerable number of studies show homosexual men tend to have LOWER testosterone relative to heterosexual “controls”. So much in fact, that depression of testosterone was, at one time, believed to be the causitive agent to homosexuality and/or homosexuality associated depression. For someone who believes homosexuality to be a melange of genetic, natal, and environmental factors, you sure have incorrectly narrowed it down to this one factor.
Several broad factors lead to men being studied more frequently than homosexual women. Some are so obvious that I can’t help but think that you’re playing dumb;
1.) Social role, women have classically stayed home and raised the children. Men were America’s economic engine, thinking cap, and defense bloodline. Given the clearly greater importance of men, why would anyone study female sexuality?
2.) The physiology of sex. Lesbian women tend to have less penetrative sex (or conversely more non-penetrative sex) than the rest of us. On top of that, penetrative lesbian sexual acts have proven to be less effective conduits for STDs.
3.) This one might be obvious to those of us who are not them but have sex with them; sexual habits of women are harder to study in general. Their sexual response is less easily quantified, less physically oriented, less openly discussed, and generally more fluid.
This list is by no means definitive or exhaustive, just exemplary of the difficulties associated with studying female homosexuality.
I’ve made this point as well. Men have a higher sex drive, so it’s hardly surprising that they desire to engage in sex more frequently than women.[/quote]
You didn’t read my addendum to his post, ignoring marriage and given “atomic” sexual relationships (one penis can only occupy one vagina at a time and that counts as one sexual interaction for both partners), roughly equal numbers of men and women, and negligible numbers of homosexuals, it is impossible for men to be more actually engage than women, regardless of desire.
This is an outright and unequivocal lie. A considerable number of studies show homosexual men tend to have LOWER testosterone relative to heterosexual “controls”. So much in fact, that depression of testosterone was, at one time, believed to be the causitive agent to homosexuality and/or homosexuality associated depression. For someone who believes homosexuality to be a melange of genetic, natal, and environmental factors, you sure have incorrectly narrowed it down to this one factor.
Several broad factors lead to men being studied more frequently than homosexual women. Some are so obvious that I can’t help but think that you’re playing dumb;
1.) Social role, women have classically stayed home and raised the children. Men were America’s economic engine, thinking cap, and defense bloodline. Given the clearly greater importance of men, why would anyone study female sexuality?
2.) The physiology of sex. Lesbian women tend to have less penetrative sex (or conversely more non-penetrative sex) than the rest of us. On top of that, penetrative lesbian sexual acts have proven to be less effective conduits for STDs.
3.) This one might be obvious to those of us who are not them but have sex with them; sexual habits of women are harder to study in general. Their sexual response is less easily quantified, less physically oriented, less openly discussed, and generally more fluid.
This list is by no means definitive or exhaustive, just exemplary of the difficulties associated with studying female homosexuality.[/quote]
Do you have any recently published research (preferably metaanalytic) showing that testosterone levels are lower on average for gay men than for heterosexual men? I’m genuinely curious.
We do know there is evidence for lower testosterone levels in utero, during the embryo’s brain development.
Obviously you have other reasons for objecting to gay marriage besides this, but this is not a good one. Yes gays may be more promiscuous, but this is a matter of degrees from us heterosexuals, not a difference in kind. [/quote]
I don’t know about ZEB’s motives, but my ‘ulterior motive’ is this. Either, a.) Minimize government involvement in private social contracts (eliminate all governmentally recognized marriage). b.) Enhance marriage such that the sexual and reproductive associations become secondary or even moot (Common Law privileges for any number of people who stably cohabitates in a State or region for a given time period.)
In the latter sense, the only consideration I would give to sexuality or reproduction is a potential truncation of the waiting period to heterosexual couples (e.g. 9 mo.). Be as responsible and monogamous as they like, two homosexuals have a 0% chance of unintended reproduction, two heterosexuals have a ‘not 0%’ chance. The only other sexual or reproductive distinction I could see making is under a pretty narrow set of conditions whereby the US should find itself in a situation similar to Japan’s; where sequentially younger generations are not reproducing enough to support their parents or themselves. This is the only case where I could see a legitimate need to promote one gender preference over another.
To me, pointing at Brittney Spears (or 10% marital infidelity, or 55% divorce rate) and saying, “She got married and divorced in a weekend, why can’t homosexuals get married?” is an illogical and immoral (not in the religious sense) ‘race to the bottom’ mentality. It’s very much a break from the other civil rights movements that focused on an overwhelming socio-political debilitation (Right to Vote, Right to Own Property vs. the privilege of hospital visitation or filing a tax return jointly) of a large and beneficial portions of society who were otherwise unable to contribute fully to society because of their intrinsic and indelible link to the said debilitation. IMO, it’s more indicative of a need to eliminate or grossly overhaul a broken social institution rather than haphazardly proliferating it.
I do so because, despite your amateur armchair analysis, the health organizations have actually designed, conducted, and drawn conclusions from 35 years of research on homosexuality. And those organizations unanimously and unequivocally say YOU ARE WRONG.[/quote]
So, it’s got nothing to do with the facts, logic, interpretation of data, disproof of theory? It just boils down to your faith in institution and firm and unerring belief that I am wrong. Sounds kinda…fundamentalist.
Again, quit falsely positing ‘lucasa v. the obviously impartial rest of the world’. Your review or portrayal of the literature has a decidedly pro-American and extremely and selectively contemporary stance. Additionally, I’m not asserting corruption on the part of all of these organizations, merely that they have a job to do and predetermined objectives to achieve. I also firmly believe that having letters after your name (or a collar around your neck) doesn’t innoculate or abscond you from having to choose the lesser of two evils, or committing errors like jumping to conclusions, taking the easy way out, or succumbing to mob mentality or cargo cult science.
I hate Noam Chomsky, but the guy sometimes spouts some pretty relevant things about science and education;
It is quite possible–overwhelmingly probable, one might guess–that we will always learn more about human life and personality from novels than from scientific psychology.
Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that’s where the light is. It has no other choice.
As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise human science is at a loss.
I know tons of others similar quotes from more reputable men of science, but Noam seems to be a magnet for them.
[quote]The most important fact about ‘reparative therapy,’ also
sometimes known as ‘conversion’ therapy, is that it is based on an
understanding of homosexuality that has been rejected by all the major
health and mental health professions. The American Academy of
Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association, the American
Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the
National Association of School Psychologists, and the National
Association of Social Workers, together representing more than 477,000
health and mental health professionals, have all taken the position
that homosexuality is not a mental disorder and thus there is no
need for a ‘cure.’…[/quote]
I love it when the doctors tell the patients what they do and don’t need cures for. UHC will be heavenly.
[quote]No data demonstrate that reparative or conversion therapies are
effective, and in fact they may be harmful[/quote]
Zero data? Or data that gets arbitrarily excluded due to contextual factors (the same post below suggest at least 8 people have been converted)? IMO, these are two different answers, especially considering homosexuality starts with a lot of context.
[quote]Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while
having little or no potential for achieving changes in
orientation.[/quote]
I’m an American citizen, aren’t I predominantly free to make my own risk/value decisions? Clearly promiscuous homosexuals are free to repeatedly make that decision poorly.
[quote]Most of the emotional disturbance experienced by gay men and
lesbians around their sexual identity is not based on physiological
causes but rather is due more to a sense of alienation in an
un-accepting environment. For this reason, aversion therapy is no
longer recommended for gay men and lesbians.[/quote]
No longer recommended? As in the AMA used to recommended it despite ‘No supporting data’?
[quote]Is Sexual Orientation a Choice?
No, human beings cannot choose to be either gay or straight. Sexual
orientation emerges for most people in early adolescence without any
prior sexual experience. Although we can choose whether to act on our
feelings, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation to be a
conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed.[/quote]
So, someone can choose to live their entire life enjoying intercourse exclusively with the opposite sex and still be a homosexual? If someone spends the majority of their life (50+ yrs.) in a happy heterosexual relationship and then stops having heterosexual sex and starts engaging in homosexual sex (not converts!), they are really heterosexual? This sounds like either a.) these academics are out of touch with the practice of sexuality and even common sense and are caught up generating meaningless abstractions that have no place in real life or b.) they’re making convenient generalizations to conform to a variety of policy decisions that may have no basis in reality. You clearly have never worked around people who use the phrase ‘correct, within an order of magnitude’ in an honest and ‘meaningful’ sense.
Let me ask you this, which is more mutable, sexual orientation or a human soul? Is a human’s sexual orientation linked to their physiology or in any way directly observable (does the orientation itself have a gender)? Is orientation established and maintained through patterns of behavior or fixed prior to birth more like destiny?
[quote]No. Even though most homosexuals live successful, happy lives, some
homosexual or bisexual people may seek to change their sexual
orientation through therapy, sometimes pressured by the influence of
family members or religious groups to try and do so. The reality is
that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment
and is not changeable. [/quote]
What about homosexuals who desire to change freely of their own volition? If sexuality isn’t an illness and does not require treatment, why does GENDER conversion therapy exist at all? These people are clearly converting from hetero to homosexual and vice versa?
[quote]Social stigmatization of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people is
widespread and is a primary motivating factor in leading some people
to seek sexual orientation changes. [/quote]
Primary but far from only.
Untrue. There are a number of Christian organizations that freely and openly recognize it a lifestyle choice, not a pathology. Moreover, they believe pretty liberally in the fundamental right of the Church, laboratory, doghouse next to them to believe whatever they like pathology or not.
[quote]The increase in media campaigns, often coupled with coercive messages
from family and community members, has created an environment in which lesbians and gay men often are pressured to seek reparative or
conversion therapies, which cannot and will not change sexual
orientation.[/quote]
What media campaigns and coercive messages? Are they as widespread and well funded as the CDC’s coercive message? If anything, it seems a natural human behavior to marginalize homosexuality in general. A cursory glance at any (Christian oriented and funded) reality TV show will tell you that. Again, the only places where people don’t marginalize homosexuals are those places that where homosexuals don’t exist, regardless of national or religious identity.
[quote]No data demonstrate that reparative or conversion therapies are
effective, and in fact they may be harmful.[/b] [/quote]
Clearly people can and do convert. This statement is (or could be) akin to the stance on the dangers of abortion 60-70 yrs. ago.
[quote]In 2001, Dr. Ariel Shidlo and Dr. Michael Schroeder found that
88% of participants in reparative therapy failed to achieve a
sustained change in their sexual behavior and 3% reported changing
their orientation to heterosexual. The remainder reported either
losing all sexual drive or struggling to remain celibate. Schroeder
said many of the participants who failed felt a sense of shame. Many
had gone through reparative therapy programs over the course of many
years. Of the 8 respondents (out of a sample of 202) who reported a
change in sexual orientation, 7 were employed in paid or unpaid roles
as ‘ex-gay’ counsellors or group leaders, something which has led many
to question whether even this small ‘success’ rate is in fact
reliable.
Schroeder and Shidlo found that the large majority of respondents
reported being left in a poor mental and emotional state after the
therapy, and that rates of depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse
and suicidal feelings were roughly doubled in those who underwent
reparative therapy.[/quote]
Why don’t we ask Little Albert or Professor Zimbardo how well psychiatry worked in the (not so) early days? Hell, the majority if not all of ECT patients don’t derive any actual benefit from the ECT itself (never have!) and continue to suffer depression.
[quote]…opposes portrayals of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth and
adults as mentally ill due to their sexual orientation; and supports
the dissemination of accurate information about sexual orientation,
mental health, and appropriate interventions in order to counteract
bias that is based in ignorance or unfounded beliefs about same-gender
orientation.[/quote]
I’ve never said and will never say that they are mentally ill due to their sexual orientation. I assert that their orientation may be associated with a treatable mental or physiological illness and that treating that illness may encourage conversion (one way or the other) or even do the deed itself. Hell, something as benign as handwashing isn’t itself a mental illness but may be associated with a treatable mental illness. To pretend sexuality written in some unseeable, unreadable stone is (no offence to the Mormons) lunacy.
[quote]The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and
Responsible Sexual Behavior (2001) asserts that homosexuality is
not “a reversible lifestyle choice.”
[/quote]
Do you have any recently published research (preferably metaanalytic) showing that testosterone levels are lower on average for gay men than for heterosexual men? I’m genuinely curious.[/quote]
Trying not to be too officious, you didn’t read or misinterpretted what I said. It was, at one time, repeatably and statistically significantly determined to be lower. More recent studies tend to find no difference. Testosterone levels being widely variable and homosexuality being “fixed”, I’m surprised that you made the statement in the first place.
My understanding is that it’s not clear whether it is actually lower testosterone levels or altered (inhibited seems a in inappropriate descriptor) amniotic/embryonic response to the hormonal milieu.
[/quote]
While I agree with you on your regard to homosexuality and African Americans, I wonder about your stats on homosexuality and monogamy.
Yes I do think they are true and I figured them to be that way, what is lost is the fact that it’s men on men. If women were as sexual as men, heterosexual men would likely make as much a mockery of monogamy as homosexual men. I have to kick a ton of game, and spend quite a bit on dates to get half as many women as homosexual men have to do to get other men.
Obviously you have other reasons for objecting to gay marriage besides this, but this is not a good one. Yes gays may be more promiscuous, but this is a matter of degrees from us heterosexuals, not a difference in kind. [/quote]
I don’t know about ZEB’s motives, but my ‘ulterior motive’ is this. Either, a.) Minimize government involvement in private social contracts (eliminate all governmentally recognized marriage). b.) Enhance marriage such that the sexual and reproductive associations become secondary or even moot (Common Law privileges for any number of people who stably cohabitates in a State or region for a given time period.)
In the latter sense, the only consideration I would give to sexuality or reproduction is a potential truncation of the waiting period to heterosexual couples (e.g. 9 mo.). Be as responsible and monogamous as they like, two homosexuals have a 0% chance of unintended reproduction, two heterosexuals have a ‘not 0%’ chance. The only other sexual or reproductive distinction I could see making is under a pretty narrow set of conditions whereby the US should find itself in a situation similar to Japan’s; where sequentially younger generations are not reproducing enough to support their parents or themselves. This is the only case where I could see a legitimate need to promote one gender preference over another.
To me, pointing at Brittney Spears (or 10% marital infidelity, or 55% divorce rate) and saying, “She got married and divorced in a weekend, why can’t homosexuals get married?” is an illogical and immoral (not in the religious sense) ‘race to the bottom’ mentality. It’s very much a break from the other civil rights movements that focused on an overwhelming socio-political debilitation (Right to Vote, Right to Own Property vs. the privilege of hospital visitation or filing a tax return jointly) of a large and beneficial portions of society who were otherwise unable to contribute fully to society because of their intrinsic and indelible link to the said debilitation. IMO, it’s more indicative of a need to eliminate or grossly overhaul a broken social institution rather than haphazardly proliferating it. [/quote]
Good post. I don’t entirely agree, but appreciate how you’ve outlined your position.
Do you have any recently published research (preferably metaanalytic) showing that testosterone levels are lower on average for gay men than for heterosexual men? I’m genuinely curious.[/quote]
Trying not to be too officious, you didn’t read or misinterpretted what I said. It was, at one time, repeatably and statistically significantly determined to be lower. More recent studies tend to find no difference. Testosterone levels being widely variable and homosexuality being “fixed”, I’m surprised that you made the statement in the first place.
My understanding is that it’s not clear whether it is actually lower testosterone levels or altered (inhibited seems a in inappropriate descriptor) amniotic/embryonic response to the hormonal milieu.
[/quote]
Ok, that was my understanding as well. I was aware of early research in the 1970s that seemed to indicate lower testosterone levels for gays, but the research since then on broader, more representative populations has not confirmed this and shows similar levels of testosterone between gay and heterosexual men.
Good call on the in utero explanations; I was just aware of the theory that masculinization of the male brain through testosterone in utero happens differently for gay than heterosexual men.
On your other post, with due respect to the time you took in replying, I think it does boil down to your interpretation of the research, vs. the unanimous interpretation of the health organizations. Yes, you are correct that science can get it wrong sometimes. However, when hundreds of studies are conducted over the course of four decades, one’s confidence in the conclusions of those studies is increasingly justified.
To answer your question:
I don’t believe in a human soul, but research shows that sexual orientation isn’t mutable. Sexual behavior is certainly mutable, but orientation is not. If someone is truly gay (as opposed to bisexual), he will not be able to stop being attracted to people of the same gender. He can be disgusted with his attraction, he can repress it, and he can choose not to act on his attraction. But he can’t just turn it off, any more than a heterosexual man could stop finding women attractive. This is why even many churches and support organizations have stopped telling gays to change their orientation. They’ve realized it doesn’t happen. Instead, they tell them not to act on it.
I can’t answer your question definitively on when sexual orientation is determined. There is some research showing a genetic link, and other research like what we were just discussing shows an in utero influence. This suggests orientation is determined very early, probably before the baby is even born. But we really don’t know the answer at this point.
From a personal perspective, I can confirm that my sexual orientation was gay from the earliest stage of puberty. I remember being shocked by the realization, like…OMG, I’m actually attracted to other boys and not to girls???
I see no evidence for fate or destiny either. Determinism? In the Newtonian sense?[/quote]
Forlife it is best just to let this ride. Like most of PWI there is really no point in trying to talk to anyone because in the end you really just end up talking to yourself and getting mad as fuck at the same time. If it helps, as a married heterosexual I support your right to get married and I don’t even think you are going to destroy the souls of my children in the process!
I see no evidence for fate or destiny either. Determinism? In the Newtonian sense?[/quote]
Forlife it is best just to let this ride. Like most of PWI there is really no point in trying to talk to anyone because in the end you really just end up talking to yourself and getting mad as fuck at the same time. If it helps, as a married heterosexual I support your right to get married and I don’t even think you are going to destroy the souls of my children in the process! [/quote]
Bu then again you’ve not lived enough to have voted in more than one or two Presidential elections. When you talk about the good old days you mean the 90’s. Ha… Seriously, there’s been much damage done to our culture unknowingly, by people like you who decide that there is no line to hold and anything goes. But you wouldn’t appreciate, or even remember what it was like 20 or 30 years ago. So you are approaching this with a very narrow view point. Do you also favor polygamous and incestual marriage? Who are you to deny those people the happiness that they want? Since, in your mind, it is apparently all about certain groups happiness. trumping traditional values. Therefore, why don’t you define “the new marriage” for all of us.
I see no evidence for fate or destiny either. Determinism? In the Newtonian sense?[/quote]
Forlife it is best just to let this ride. Like most of PWI there is really no point in trying to talk to anyone because in the end you really just end up talking to yourself and getting mad as fuck at the same time. If it helps, as a married heterosexual I support your right to get married and I don’t even think you are going to destroy the souls of my children in the process! [/quote]
Thanks man, I promise to give your children a free pass when I launch my gay marriage crusade to destroy the traditional family
If women were as sexual as men, heterosexual men would likely make as much a mockery of monogamy as homosexual men.[/quote]
When talking strictly about heterosexual relationships, women ARE as sexual as men, de facto. I think you mean if single women respected the tradition and practice of marriage the way the majority of men wish they would.
If it helps, as a married heterosexual I support your right to get married and I don’t even think you are going to destroy the souls of my children in the process! [/quote]
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’
This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion. – G.K. Chesterton
When I see homosexuals protesting unequal marriage laws (I don’t consider any marriage a right.) I see an overwhelming lack of knowledge of the history, use, and institution of marriage. Instead, I see illogical ‘race to the bottom’ comparisons that is very much meant to convey marriage as a senseless monstrosity, except, even more absurdly, the motive is to erect a second or broaden an already senseless monstrosity. I look, I see people claiming ‘homosexuals aren’t equal’. They don’t seem to realize some inequality has a purpose and some is intrinsic. We discriminate against parents for not tending their children the way we BELIEVE they should all the time. We discriminate against women firefighters who can’t carry equipment up stairs or handle a hose. They don’t seem to grasp that Communism has killed some 50 million people in the quest for absolute social equality. Most exemplary, I hear ‘The Nazis persecuted homosexuals too!’. Some of the Nazis WERE homosexuals and the Nazis persecuted EVERYBODY and WTF relevance does Nazi persecution have on gay marriage? If gay marriage weren’t such a lightening rod for mutated logic AND poor moral (again, not in the religious sense) decision-making, I wouldn’t pay attention.
Personally, homosexuality is a quintessential non-issue. If you look at anyone from Alexander the Great to Alan Turing and pondered their value to society or history, if their homosexuality is near the top of the list, you’ve missed a few things. To me, in 200 years when being human no longer implies actually having a physical human body, lots of this bullshit is going to seem really narrow minded (except the soul part, that will probably be EVEN MORE relevant). If that doesn’t happen, we’re going to have a hard time not discriminating against homosexuals when we want to colonize a planet. I think, pretty clearly, my concern isn’t about forlife destroying my children’s souls.
I see no evidence for fate or destiny either. Determinism? In the Newtonian sense?[/quote]
Forlife it is best just to let this ride. Like most of PWI there is really no point in trying to talk to anyone because in the end you really just end up talking to yourself and getting mad as fuck at the same time. If it helps, as a married heterosexual I support your right to get married and I don’t even think you are going to destroy the souls of my children in the process! [/quote]
Bu then again you’ve not lived enough to have voted in more than one or two Presidential elections. When you talk about the good old days you mean the 90’s. Ha… Seriously, there’s been much damage done to our culture unknowingly, by people like you who decide that there is no line to hold and anything goes. But you wouldn’t appreciate, or even remember what it was like 20 or 30 years ago. So you are approaching this with a very narrow view point. Do you also favor polygamous and incestual marriage? Who are you to deny those people the happiness that they want? Since, in your mind, it is apparently all about certain groups happiness. trumping traditional values. Therefore, why don’t you define “the new marriage” for all of us. [/quote]
If only growing older made people more intelligent you might have a point! But what good old days are you referring to? Unless you are several hundred years old I’m not sure how qualified you are to discuss ‘the good old days’ either, unless that time period was just past what anyone younger than you could experience, but not so far back you couldn’t be an expert on it at the same time. It’s almost like I never had grandparents, or parents, or the ability to talk to anyone older than myself about their experiences and take on these issues. Or hell even read a book.
My answer to your new marriage question? Easy, get the government out of the marriage subsidy business and this problem goes away by and large, because society will dictate what marriage is or isn’t. EXACTLY how marriage arose in the first place. I don’t presume to know every acceptable permutation of marriage, but I am fine with polyandry, polygyny, monogamy, and bigamy. For certain cultures, in certain times, these made the most sense for protecting the family unit. Monogamy has won out in the west which is fine and dandy, but we didn’t need to “define” marriage governmentally to make that happen and we don’t now either.
I fully admit it is a very tricky beast and heck of a slippery slope when you have one type of marriage subsidized by tax payers but not others. Let religious institutions or other cultural institutions sort this out as they have up until the modern state started monopolizing the practice.
For all my lack of years, here is what I have plenty of experience with: loving family units and terrible family units. I come from a great home with two happily married parents who loved me and my siblings greatly. They were fair and kind, but disciplined us to make us better people.
I am also a married man with one child and another about to be born. My son isn’t grown, but I think I know a bit about what children need most in order to flourish. The short answer is love and structure. This is not something homosexual or polygamist families could not provide.
A shitty family environment is a shitty family environment, 1 mom 1 dad, 2 moms, 2 dads, whatever.
My mother had to run away with my grandmother and sister to escape their father, who beat and threatened to kill them (even shot at them once) on regular occasions. As heterosexual and religious as they come.
My sister in law works for DHR and has more than a couple of fun stories to share about bad families.
My grandfather was an orphan and I can tell you he would most assuredly have preferred two gay dad’s than no parents at all.
The point of all this? A family and marriage as a whole should be judged on the love and structure it creates for that family unit and nothing else. I don’t think we should do away with monogamy just because a lot of people fuck it up. Marriage is a great institution that should be supported and valued in society because it brings loving people together in a powerful bond. We should not support or denounce it simply because each partner has the same bits as the other.
If it helps, as a married heterosexual I support your right to get married and I don’t even think you are going to destroy the souls of my children in the process! [/quote]
In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’ To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.’
This paradox rests on the most elementary common sense. The gate or fence did not grow there. It was not set up by somnambulists who built it in their sleep. It is highly improbable that it was put there by escaped lunatics who were for some reason loose in the street. Some person had some reason for thinking it would be a good thing for somebody. And until we know what the reason was, we really cannot judge whether the reason was reasonable. It is extremely probable that we have overlooked some whole aspect of the question, if something set up by human beings like ourselves seems to be entirely meaningless and mysterious. There are reformers who get over this difficulty by assuming that all their fathers were fools; but if that be so, we can only say that folly appears to be a hereditary disease. But the truth is that nobody has any business to destroy a social institution until he has really seen it as an historical institution. If he knows how it arose, and what purposes it was supposed to serve, he may really be able to say that they were bad purposes, or that they have since become bad purposes, or that they are purposes which are no longer served. But if he simply stares at the thing as a senseless monstrosity that has somehow sprung up in his path, it is he and not the traditionalist who is suffering from an illusion. – G.K. Chesterton
When I see homosexuals protesting unequal marriage laws (I don’t consider any marriage a right.) I see an overwhelming lack of knowledge of the history, use, and institution of marriage. Instead, I see illogical ‘race to the bottom’ comparisons that is very much meant to convey marriage as a senseless monstrosity, except, even more absurdly, the motive is to erect a second or broaden an already senseless monstrosity. I look, I see people claiming ‘homosexuals aren’t equal’. They don’t seem to realize some inequality has a purpose and some is intrinsic. We discriminate against parents for not tending their children the way we BELIEVE they should all the time. We discriminate against women firefighters who can’t carry equipment up stairs or handle a hose. They don’t seem to grasp that Communism has killed some 50 million people in the quest for absolute social equality. Most exemplary, I hear ‘The Nazis persecuted homosexuals too!’. Some of the Nazis WERE homosexuals and the Nazis persecuted EVERYBODY and WTF relevance does Nazi persecution have on gay marriage? If gay marriage weren’t such a lightening rod for mutated logic AND poor moral (again, not in the religious sense) decision-making, I wouldn’t pay attention.
Personally, homosexuality is a quintessential non-issue. If you look at anyone from Alexander the Great to Alan Turing and pondered their value to society or history, if their homosexuality is near the top of the list, you’ve missed a few things. To me, in 200 years when being human no longer implies actually having a physical human body, lots of this bullshit is going to seem really narrow minded (except the soul part, that will probably be EVEN MORE relevant). If that doesn’t happen, we’re going to have a hard time not discriminating against homosexuals when we want to colonize a planet. I think, pretty clearly, my concern isn’t about forlife destroying my children’s souls.[/quote]
Listen we are on the same page when it comes to getting the government out of the marriage business. I think that is the source of the inequality everyone is so worked up over now.
Discriminating against women firefighters, women in the infantry, old men joining the service, etc. there are at least justifiable reasons for doing so: they cannot perform the required tasks. I see this analogy of discrimination thrown around a lot (ZEB most recently) and it is a very poor one. To have it be analogous or appropriate you would have to show that homosexuals are, barring outlier cases, incapable of being married effectively at least as compared to heterosexuals (who are allowed “in”). This is clearly not the case. It is also a bad analogy because it presumes marriage to be on par with a job or some task with clearly defined necessary requirements, but it is not at all.
I also agree with your final paragraph, which is why I find it interesting you oppose gay marriage in the first place. Homosexuality pretty much is a non-issue. There have been loads of great gay men and women throughout history. There have been more than plenty who weren’t. The Greeks and Romans, cradles of Western civilization, all were more or less fine with homosexuality PARTICULARLY among the elite class. If that doesn’t show us that it basically doesn’t fucking matter if you bone other men or not I am not sure what does.
So why do we really give a shit if gay people get married? If being gay does not preclude you from doing great things, being an admirable person or a society from doing great things just what exactly are we so terrified is going to happen to society if we admit gay people have a right to exist unmolested?
