[quote]ZEB wrote:
This is obviously caused by promiscuity.
[/quote]
Marriage reduces promiscuity. I’ve shown you statistics that syphilis is lower among married gay couples.
If you really cared about reducing disease, you would encourage gays to get married rather than fighting it tooth and nail.
[quote]forlife wrote:
ZEB wrote:
There is no amount of “religion” that can make a real homosexual male become aroused with a female.
How about actually addressing what I said, instead of putting words in my mouth?
I didn’t say religion makes gay men become attracted to women. I said religious beliefs can make gay men act contrary to their natural attraction for men, by having sex with women.[/quote]
Yes, I fully understood what you said and to that I say BULL!
I made a special point just for you. But, knowing our past I knew that I’d have to repeat it at least oh, maybe 4 times.
Here you go for round two:
Religion also states that men should not have sex before marriage. It also states that men should not cheat on their wives. But, alas, they do. Now what do you make of that? They follow their hormones over the Church over Mom and Dad’s advice and sometimes even over good common sense. Go figure.
There is no amount of pressure from religion (especially during this era) that will make a homosexual man have sex with a woman. In fact, it is preposterous on it’s face and deep down in that little argumentative head of yours I think you know this, heck everyone else does. Men have sex with women or another man because it feels good.
87% of Gay men have sex with women because it feels good. They would not be able to be aroused otherwise. Is all this making sense stuff just too much for you to handle?
[quote]forlife wrote:
ZEB wrote:
This is obviously caused by promiscuity.
Marriage reduces promiscuity. I’ve shown you statistics that syphilis is lower among married gay couples.
If you really cared about reducing disease, you would encourage gays to get married rather than fighting it tooth and nail.[/quote]
As I told you three years ago before we had actual proof, gay men don’t want to marry!
Don’t make me post the statistics from Spain, Sweden, UK, Australia, the Netherlands and every single country and state where gay marriage or civil unions are accepted.
What else can one say about this topic?
You may be in a committed relationship and that’s great, but according to every fact available throughout the world gay men are a promiscuous bunch. How does that ever change? Gay marriage certainly has not change it.
Let’s be frank forlife, the male is usually (not always) the pursuer relative to a sexual conquest. If you have two amorous gay men there is no one to say no. Hence, there is more gay sex percentage wise compared to the straight population. This leads them (which has now been proven conclusively) to want to stay single, and it also drives up the sexual diseases such as HIV, STD’s etc.
I’m not attacking them for it, I’m merely pointing out facts.
…research suggests that after the first wave of samesex marriages subsided in Holland, the main reason why samesex marriages waned were children. It’s still not allowed to adopt to gay couples, married or not. Concieving children, especially for gay men obviously, is rather tricky. So it’s not that they don’t want to get married, but because children and marriage are intertwined in people’s consciousness somehow, it lessens the desire to marry…
[quote]ZEB wrote:
Religion also states that men should not have sex before marriage. It also states that men should not cheat on their wives. But, alas, they do. Now what do you make of that? [/quote]
So just because some people don’t have the willpower to live consistently with their religious beliefs, you think the same is true for all people?
I’m only commenting on this particular point because it’s fresh air in a stale debate that is never going to go anywhere with you, given how intimately familiar you are with homosexuality and all.
[quote]forlife wrote:
ZEB wrote:
Religion also states that men should not have sex before marriage. It also states that men should not cheat on their wives. But, alas, they do. Now what do you make of that?
So just because some people don’t have the willpower to live consistently with their religious beliefs, you think the same is true for all people?[/quote]
Forlife, I think people are people, gay, straight, young old, female or male. That means try as we may we all fail at some point in our lives at something. Some fail at being faithful to their spouse’s, another person may fail at keeping their diet in tact. Some people will lie when the truth would do as well. Still others fail at rising early and making a good living. What can I say? It’s the human condition. All we can do is try to be understanding, love unconditionally and never give up trying to be better than we are. With that said it doesn’t mean that you throw away your values. Going along to get along is not the answer.
There’s that forlife sarcasm again. I am indeed familiar with the facts regarding homosexuality. You however are intimately familiar with the lifestyle of homosexuality. We are never going to agree on this topic and I fully understand why and I think you do too.
But, I do wish you the best and I hope you truly believe that.
Of course people are human, and can fall short of their values. That’s not the point.
You’re suggesting that gays would never try to hide or act contrary to their sexual orientation, due to the religious belief that being gay is wrong.
Even you must realize how ridiculous that is. Seriously.
Solution: Quarantine people infected with HIV. If I’m not mistaken, HIV is one of the only deadly viruses in history who’s victims have not been quarantined from the general uninfected population.
[quote]Jason.Kanzler wrote:
Solution: Quarantine people infected with HIV. If I’m not mistaken, HIV is one of the only deadly viruses in history who’s victims have not been quarantined from the general uninfected population.[/quote]
And there is a reason for that.
Can you guess what it is?
[quote]forlife wrote:
Of course people are human, and can fall short of their values. That’s not the point.
You’re suggesting that gays would never try to hide or act contrary to their sexual orientation, due to the religious belief that being gay is wrong.
Even you must realize how ridiculous that is. Seriously.[/quote]
I think that gay and straight alike one tends to graviate to what is desirous sooner rather than later.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
I think that gay and straight alike one tends to graviate to what is desirous sooner rather than later.
[/quote]
Meaning what?
Religion and culture help define “what is desirous”. Sometimes they conflict with “what is desirous”. What people want and need doesn’t always align with their religious beliefs or cultural values.
Look, I’m going to make one final attempt with you on this. I’ll ask you to just sit there and listen. Don’t reach for the keyboard, don’t stretch for your statistics, just listen.
I’ve known that I was attracted to guys since puberty. I was never attracted to girls. When I walked into a room, my attention was naturally drawn to the guys, not to the girls. I never chose this, it was simply the way things were.
The only time I ever kissed a girl in high school/college was once, on stage, as the lead in South Pacific. I had a “girlfriend” all through high school that I went to the dances with, etc. but we were just friends. She was a pretty girl, but there was zero physical chemistry between us. We only held hands one time, and I didn’t enjoy it.
All of this time, I was a devout believer in my religion (LDS/Mormon). I went on a 2 year full time mission to Australia. I held several positions of significant leadership responsibility. I dedicated literally thousands of hours, and gave tens of thousands of dollars to my church. I deeply believed that I belonged to “Christ’s true church”, and was 100% committed to living according to that belief.
As a teen, I learned that my church considered homosexuality to be an abomination. I considered my natural attraction to guys my “cross to bear” in life. I believed that the only way to live with God again was to marry a woman and have children. I made up my mind that I would do everything possible to align my life with what my church told me was the path of happiness.
I went to a psychologist as a college student to help me learn to change my natural orientation, or if not that, at least to repress it. In the ensuing years, I valiantly fought every thought that came my way when I saw a cute guy. In the process, I became withdrawn and had significant anxiety issues. The natural joy and passion I had for life in high school was slowly eroded away.
In my late 20s, I dutifully looked for a woman to marry. When I found a woman that turned out to be a good friend, someone that I truly cared about as a person, we discussed the possibility of marriage. I felt she had the right to know everything, so I shared my past with her, but also told her that I deeply believed the LDS church was true and was committed to living according to its principles, despite my sexual orientation. After thinking about it, she decided that she was ok with that and we decided to get married.
Fast forward 9 years. There was little emotional intimacy and no romance, but we were able to at least have sex as a married couple. I genuinely cared about her as a friend and human being. All 9 years that we were married, I stayed faithful to my marriage covenants and did not cheat on her. The attraction that I had for guys never subsided or went away. If anything, it was like a pressure cooker that continued to build steam over time. As a result of the constant denial of my sexual orientation, I found myself falling in a downward emotional spiral, despite my best attempts to make our marriage work.
I did extensive research on the LDS church, and found that it was not what I had always believed it to be. I learned that Joseph Smith was a fraud. I realized that I was tragically mistaken all those years, despite my deep conviction that God had spoken to my heart and confirmed through the Holy Ghost that the church was true. This realization led to a broader spiritual search, where I sincerely evaluated every principle and value that I had held to that point, including the idea that homosexuality would send me to hell.
I learned that homosexuality was not going to send me to hell. In fact, I had been in hell all that time, due to constantly fighting and denying who I was.
Still, I was open to the idea of staying married. I didn’t want my wife or two children to be hurt. Consistent with our open communication throughout our marriage, I shared all of this with my wife and we spent a year going to counseling, educating ourselves on homosexuality, and weighing our options. In the end, we both decided that divorce was the right answer for us.
I continue to be on good terms with my ex-wife, and have stayed close to my children. I am living with integrity, and am at peace and happy in my life. I have found a partner that I love on all levels, and hope my ex-wife is able to do the same.
This is personal information, but I’m sharing it with you in the hope that it will help you understand the reality of what it is like being gay, and having religious beliefs that contradict your natural orientation.
I’m not looking for your approval or judgment. I just want to dig past the stereotypes for once, and show you something real.