Why do ya even care?!

There is plenty of people who would answer "yes" to this question.

Myself, I think it is a bit tricky.
The point being that democracy, freedom of speech, human rights etc. are myths. They are there, as ideals, but they are not really obligatory. And they end as soon as someone comes into your house trying to rob you.

Really? Bush made his belief of America being superior to a law, and went to war.

Secondly, people have the right to vote. When they vote, they vote in accordance with their values and preferences. And if someone doesn't like the outcome of the vote, this does not mean that the vote should be repeated for so long until a favourable outcome is achieved.

I suppose that to many people, homosexuals are an eyesore, and they feel offended by the mere presence of a homosexual. So they don't like them around. So when a vote comes, they will vote thus as to get them out of their sight.

It is the same as trying to prove what rights of the whites have been violated by allowing blacks to be equal members of society -- but millions of Americans felt very violated by the mere presence of blacks.

Fact is, some people feel offended by the mere existence of homosexuals, just as some whites feel offended by the mere existence of blacks. And when the vote comes, they will vote as they see fit.

If you, for example, tell those whites they have to be tolerant to blacks, those whites will feel that they are not allowed to be what they are, that they have to be someone else. Similar when it comes to homosexuals.

The same as it has become something most normal for a woman to have an abortion. I personally know girls where the boyfriend demanded her to have an abortion -- because it is normal.

Now, I can imagine that the same would one day be expected and demanded of *me*. Would I like that? No.

In my wonderful country of Slovenia, Europe, minorities (of all kinds) are, by law, far better off than non-minority people. It is beneficient here if, for example, you are a Gypsy (have 3 kids, be unemployed, and the state pays you the same amount of money as two average pays); everybody is by law obliged to help you if you are in a wheel chair and so on.

These "minorities" have more privileges than the majority, this is what bothers me.

I never said it is a disease.

My argument is that just because something is regarded as "natural" does not mean that all should consider it desireable and alright.

(On the grand scale, what is happening to homosexuals is that, by statistics, they are a minority, and society as such, only tries to keep it that way.)

Why is it unacceptable to the "modern people" that people, no matter what race, gender, religion, nationality etc. etc. simply have their values and preferences, and that these values and preferences make up who they are?

Secondly, why is it unacceptable to the "modern people" that humans simply don't like foreigners and all those that are different, in one way or another?

The tolerance people are expected, if not demanded, to display today is artificial.

One cannot like, not even tolerate everyone and everything.

Advocating both choice and tolerance is nonsensical. Choice and tolerance are mutually exclusive.


* * *

I am not a Christian, it is not Christianity that "shapes my view".

I simply don't like homosexuals.

I could, like I explained earlier in this thread, come up with some reasons to justify my preferences. But eventually, all those reasons are arbitrary, and non-negotiable.

Just like you have no good reason for what your favourite colour is, there is no good reason as to why some have a distaste for homosexuals.

Surely, one could go into reasons for this and that, and do this for so long until one would find that there are no good arguments neither for, nor against *anything*. Even pneumnoia is good for something.

The issue has an underlying methodological problem of human cognition in general, this is why issues like homosexuality, for example, remain open.
I just hope you would see that in the end, it all comes down to arguments of power -- and the stronger one wins.

***
Face it: We are not all of the same mind. We are different.

This means, among other things, that some support homosexuals, and some don't.
The reasons for either position are eventually arbitrary.

 

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Briefly, two points:

• Consider overpopulation, as well. Homosexuals are not responsible for that, and it can affect evolution. Furthermore, gay couples who are trying to adopt can provide homes to some of the 110,000 kids without families in this country.

•Insofar as evolution is concerned, I came across this 2001 L.A. Times article on a Cal State (Long Beach) server. Click and have a read; there's enough to quote it's easier that way. Markers for homosexuality appear to develop in utero.​

 

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Raising other people's children is not reproduction -- it doesn't pass on any genes -- and isn't "overpopulation" something related to industrialization and the depopulation of the countryside, rather than procreation?

I have seen a study somewhere that proposes that homosexuality is a byproduct of high fertility -- an "evolutionary orphan". That might of course be an attempt to explain why it hasn't been phased out naturally. Of course, that they appear does not solve the problem of whether they are advantageous or disadvantagous, or "good" or "bad", to use the vernacular expression. "Inside the womb," as in sperm & ovum.

 

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Thank you for your thoughtful post, Water. In the United States, though, there are certain factors in play that help define the subject.

To reiterate, but largely for continuity:

• The Constitution and its standing Amendments are the Supreme Law of the Land in the United States. (Article VI, Section 2)
• Included in that Supreme Law of the Land is what is called the Equal Protection Clause. (Amendment XIV, Section 1)​

Strangely, those people are in many cases Christians. Let us be clear about this, though: the sanctity of marriage argument is purely a religious creation.

The assertion that one's Constitutional rights are only fulfilled when another's are violated is familiar to the political aspect of Christianity in the United States. For instance, about ten years ago, a mother protested before the school board in Salem, Oregon, complaining about a book called Demon Walk, by Robert McCammon. In addition to the title, the mother protested a character named "Demon". A point that needs to be clarified, however, is that a character named "Demon" appears in more than one McCammon story, and the name is often an assignation reflecting prejudice. In Boy's Life, it was a red-haired girl reviled by her classmates. The woman's complaint relied on the sinister implications of a fearful, Christian interpretation of what the word means. The sum of her protest was that her First Amendment rights were violated by the presence of that book in school libraries. In other words, because the book was present in the library at her child's school, her rights were somehow violated. The solution she demanded was to remove the book from the library. Thus, unless someone else was censored, she felt her rights were offended.

The same issue kicked off Oregon's gay fray, which has gone on for over a decade. The 2004 election marks the first statewide win for the anti-gay crowd; they passed a marriage measure. However, in 1992, a group called the Oregon Citizens' Alliance sponsored a ballot measure that would have compelled the state to essentially disenfranchise homosexuals. The measure was so broad that a District Attorney would have been unable to prosecute the murder of a homosexual. The medical schools would have given bad information to students. Gay police officers, and even the typing pool down at the capitol, would have been fired. And it all started over a library book. The same argument as the Christian mother: If this book, Heather Has Two Mommies, is allowed on library shelves, our First Amendment rights are violated.

The argument turns the First Amendment on its ear. The First clearly states that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or press. Yet the argument goes that unless freedom of speech and press is revoked, freedom of religion (also included in the First) is violated. To simply not read the book is apparently an unacceptable solution.

And the OCA kept trying, scoring the occasional municipal victory. Over and over, narrowly losing each time. The OCA is down right now, and possibly for the count, but a new group has stepped up to pass a measure against gay marriage in Oregon.

To give the answer, "Yes, rights are only fulfilled when someone else's are denied," is incompatible with the Supreme Law of the Land. Hence, though plenty would, they're out of luck.

I prefer calling rights a "convention", or conventional agreement. Nonetheless, you are correct that they are artificial concepts. In the United States, though, certain rights are obligatory. That's the way it works.

Additionally, rights end when someone attempts to rob you because the robber forfeits those rights by violating yours so directly.

Yeah, that's a source of contention. But that same law of the land outlines the presidency, as well. (Article II, Section 2) With congressional support, he can do what he did. That he did it dishonestly defames the presidency in general, but that's beside the point at present.

Interestingly enough, 1992 saw Colorado pass a measure similar to the one defeated in Oregon. The measure was taken to court to review its position as regards the U.S. Constitution, and was promptly eviscerated. Subsequent measures in Oregon were adjusted each time in response to the last failure, and tinkered with to avoid similar judgments against them, but none of them passed until this marriage one.

Traditionalists in Congress recently tried to push through a law that would prevent the Supreme Court from reviewing laws like the Defense of Marriage Act, or marital definitions. This is because they know the laws won't pass muster. They trample all over the Fourteenth Amendment.

Essentially, eleven states have voted to ignore the Constitution. This will not stand forever. As we consider these issues, there are lawyers hard at work sharpening the legal knives. These laws will be sliced and diced as soon as they get around to the gender argument.

The Constitutional problem facing these definition of marriage laws is that they target gender and are intended to discriminate. Those two conditions alone sit very poorly with the Fourteenth Amendment. The gender issue arises because while the churches are welcome to call marriage whatever they want, it is for the purposes of government merely a contract with certain rules attached, as well as certain recognitions.

Imagine a spouse of thirty years undergoing chemotherapy. Imagine not being allowed to visit your spouse in the hospital. Or imagine your spouse dies in a car wreck, without having signed a Will. Now imagine losing everything you two built together to her parents, who disowned her before you met her.

These things don't happen in the United States. But they do if you're not married. In Tacoma, Washington, a few years ago, a judge apologized to a gay man upon handing over his late partner's estate to the family that disowned him when he came out of the closet. You can even lose what was yours to begin with in addition to the things you and your partner built together. The judge had no choice under the law. If they were allowed to be married, this would not have happened; your spouse, being part-owner of what's yours, gets first dibs after you die unless you sign a Will or prenuptual that indicates otherwise.

When my daughter was born, the hospital screwed up and for the first year she had no birth certificate. As her mother and I are not married, I had no legal rights pertaining to the child. I could not authorize medical treatment, I could not recover her from the police if she was ever taken. Gay couples do adopt children. Some of them have children from marriages they entered with heterosexual spouses while trying to suppress their own sexuality. Without being married, these families must take many extraneous measures to cover all those issues.

Shortly after the Defense of Marriage Act was signed by President Clinton, Congress passed a tax bill that gave a deduction of up to $250,000 for home sales under certain conditions. Married people filing jointly could see that deduction double. Gay partners, not married, could not.

There are numerous legal benefits that come with the marital contract. These laws that define marriage on the basis of gender specifically discriminate in order to refuse those benefits to someone who is the wrong gender.

The result is that any homosexual seeking to attain those rights must marry someone of the opposite gender in order to get them. Things get messy at that point. Very, very messy. Suffice to say that this is not a solution, as no other place in American law requires you to participate in sexual conduct you don't like in order to attain rights.

True. I will mention--especially since I failed to do so--that the "injury" aspect arises in the case of Massachusetts, wherein people suing to overturn the law allowing gay marriage will have a difficult time showing injury.

Which is why they're voting for a law that won't hold under the Constitution.

Um ... I just don't see the parallel.

To the other, though, all the minority is asking for in the case of gay marriage is to be treated equally.

Fair enough; my bad. But you did, in making your argument, compare homosexuality to diseases.

In the past, gays have been compared to all sorts of things. The 1992 Oregon measure sought to bundle homosexuality with pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia. The problem with this comparison is that neither pedophilia, bestiality, nor necrophilia involve what the law regards as informed consent. A child, according to the law, is not capable of consenting to sexual contact until a certain age. It varies from state to state, but at one point, around 1875, or so, while religious sentiments incorporated into the law prohibited the consumption of alcohol on Sunday, well, the law set the age of consent for a girl at ten years old, and essentially allowed a man to bribe her--e.g. prostitution.

A poster recently compared gays to dogs. Another compared them to household appliances. Gay marriage, to those posters, makes as much sense as marrying a dog or an appliance. Of course, these comparisons overlooks things like species, or in the case of appliances, life, brain, &c.

Comparing gays to a disease in order to make the point that natural isn't always good is presumptuous at the outset, and demeaning to boot. Being gay, in and of itself, makes nobody sick, kills nobody, and requires no cure.

As long as they're not hurting anybody, there's no reason to challenge them.

History suggests this is wisest. Traditionally, the reasons for both prejudices you've inquired about arise from ignorance.

The conventions empowering human society are artificial. We agree on that point.

Obviously not.

I disagree. One chooses for their own life, and tolerates another's choices. As you point out with your point about robbery, those conventions break down when one person forfeits their part by attempting or causing injury to another.

One can simply choose that no, it's not worth finding out if they like gay sex. In the meantime, are you violated if you cannot choose to not tolerate another's choice to enjoy gay sex? The toleration that is expected is that people should be allowed to participate in society. Choice and tolerance are only mutually exclusive if you have the right to choose for another, and they have no choice.

Step it out, Mary,
My fine daughter.
Mary, if you can--
Step it out, Mary,
My fine daughter,
Show your legs to the wealthy man.​

I heard that song from a band called Boiled in Lead; the album notes merely tell us that it is an Irish song about arranged marriages. It is most likely a modern song, as they tend to mark traditional songs as "traditional". Nonetheless, Equal Protection in the United States would also prevent anyone from calling on that tradition to return women to general servitude in the marital arrangement.

All that and we're back to gender in this country.
____________________

Thanks as always to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University for their excellent online copy of the U.S. Constitution. See http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/index.html

 

Yes, but it is parenthood. And heterosexuals seem to have a problem with excess children. And here I don't mean more than two kids in a family. Abortion? Adoption? Good show.

Raising the next generation of a species is vital to the continuation of the species. I had thought this self-evident, but apparently I was wrong about that.

Not quite:

Reproduction is generally a necessity in achieving overpopulation.

That data might be buried in the article; it seems that first sons have the lowest rate of homosexuality, second sons slightly greater, and so on.

And genetics has nothing to do with a woman's hormones? If wishes were nickels, we'd all be rich.

As a male, my appearance is not entirely determined "Inside the womb", as you phrase it:

• A couple years ago, The Learning Channel ran a series of programs on human sexuality. One curious segment I caught involved a woman in California. She stands over six feet tall, is barren, and endured a few other personal mysteries related to her self and sexuality. Doctors couldn't figure it out until she was in college and a professor asked her if she would submit to a certain test. They took a look at her genes. She's an XY; that is, she's male. What happened? Even as an XY, sex selection is influenced by other factors in utero. There occurs at some point (I don't recall when), a hormonal interaction that triggers the development of the male sex organs. Without it, the XY fetus will develop as otherwise female, since that is the default condition of all humans.​

That a person is XY does not mean they will develop as a male.

However, if we rule out drug use, traumatic event, or other factors, we still might find that the lack of a certain hormonal event is determined by genes. Don't rule out the womb yet. Figures of speech aside, it's still a vital consideration in the question of how homosexuality develops.

 

Well, thank you for your honesty. It deserves an honest response. Neither do I.
But what has that to do with denying them rights equivalent to those of heterosexuals? Basing a legal and ethical system on what you rightly describe as arbritary preferences is pure nonsense.

The concept of the physical aspects of homosexuality are quite distasteful to me. I also dislike embroidery, rap music and short Indonesians in military uniform. So I should ask that needles be banned, Ice-T be jailed, and a highly selective purge of the Indonesian army be conducted?

The second query I posed was to ask in what way you would be harmed or your rights limited by giving equal rights to homosexuals. You do not appear to have answered that. Your position appears to be "I don't like them, so why should they have benefits? Why should they be treated equally?"
If this is indeed your position I think Tiassa has dealt appropriately with that in considerate and well-measured tones. Let me ask you a single question - what do you have against tolerance? You have half provided answers to this scattered through your posts, but if you could pull it together in a couple of sentences I would appreciate it.

 

The title of this thread reads, "why do ya care?" I ask you, Athelwulf: WHY DO YOU CARE?

Disclamier: I do not hate homoosexuals. I do not have anything against their person for their choices. Anyone who tries to tell me otherwise, as has happened in other threads is simply an arrogant piece of scum that has no business telling me my beliefs

You hide behind this blanket of "tolerance" toward homosexuals. However, you are intolerant toward divergent opinions and attitudes. Just because people don't want to believe the liberal brainwashing, that starts in grade-school, about ultra-tolerance/multi-culti ideologies, you are very quick to bring up all kinds of things to gain support in your favor.

Take a look at yourself, Athelwulf. You have started how many gay-marriage threads in the past few months? I think (this is just my opinion, which in no way makes a value judgement upon your character) that you try to solicit agreement from the liberals who hang out in the forums so that you feel better about your own deviant sexual behavior. You use the "rationalization" ego defense mechanism (by asking for liberal agreement) to convince yourself that what you do is "right" or "moral."

I ask once again, why do you care?
If I want to be against the corruption, liberisation, feminisation, homosexualization of the American society, there is nothing that can stop me.
Don't even start with the "you're oppressing me with your intolerance" BS. I agree that we are a great country because of the uniqueness of our citezens. I just don't believe in the mass homosexualization indoctrination from the left.

 

I care because the homosexual community's right to freedom of life and happiness is being attacked. Their lives are being restricted based on the way they are. I see that as wrong. I adamantly argue against what I see as wrong.

That is why I care.

Rubiks, try reading my first post again. Specifically, read this sentence: "I don't really care about whether or not ye'r personally opposed to homosexual marriage."

I know that you already know about this sentense, as you have pointed out to me IRL that you think my "overall tone" says "you must stop believing that homosexuals are diseased" (or something along the lines of that), and I have told you that this particular sentense overrides my supposed "overall tone".

Three, including this one. Four if ya count the thread about my marriage reform proposal, which merely handles gay marriage in a positive way. But why does this matter?

Where the hell do ya get that I have a "deviant" sexual behavior? Are ya saying that it is yer opinion that whoever argues in favor of homosexual marriage must be a homosexual? If ya are, then . . . Wow, yer opinion is very misjudging.

Gee . . . Ye'r misjudging opinion is showing again.

Well I'm not answering again. Reread if ya must.

Again, I say that ya should read my first post more carefully.

I spy with my little eye . . . a misjudging opinion . . . yet again.

Haha, there's more blowing-out-of-proportion on yer part.

 

I simply developed a theory based on your over-emphasis on the merits of homosexual lifestyles. I took what I knew about psychology, and put two and two together. "Deviant" because it is not the way two people were meant to go together.

Is it really a "blowing-out-of-proportion"? In Sacramento a bill was passed to require pro-homosexual tolerance education in all grade levels, including kindergarden classrooms. There was another bill which used tax-payer subsidized field trips to teach homosixual tolerance. In Seattle, tax-payer subsidized money is used for gay lobbying. They also have "Family Living and Social Health" (FLASH) in their schools, which leaves out important information about the health risks of homosexuality - and there is no "opt out" like there is in Sacramento. In other schools across the country, teachers are encouraged to teach that homosexuality is normal, and are even allowed to discuss their own homosexual experiences!
I'll go further than that. Nowadays in our "politically correct" society, having dissent for this homosexualization of society is considered a hate-crime or being homophobic. This is how you treat me, which is why I came to my earlier conclusion that you are intolerant of differing attitudes.

When this happens:
It DOES affect me (my tax money)
It IS my problem (my children's education)
I will NOT stand for it.
It is NOT a "blowing-out-of-proportion"

 

How quaint . . . Phychology told ya I'm gay . . . Or ya think it did, when in reality, I'm not. I think ya need to learn some more about phychology. I seriously doubt that it says that about me.

Isn't teaching tolerance supposed to be a good thing?

Doesn't it make ya feel good that yer tax money will go towards tolerance?

Wouldn't it be nice for yer children to learn about tolerance?

Who couldn't stand for tolerance?

Ya sure could've fooled me then.

 

"Tolerate intolerance, else you be intolerable."

Some find the acts of the Nazis repugnant, for instance. What does it matter to anyone if one is intolerant of genocidal bigotry?

Some things are factually correct, and some things are not. What does it matter to anyone if one insists on the factually correct when human stakes are in play?

What I'm wondering is what is so offensive about the idea that opinions reflecting incorrect assessments of fact--which repeated explanation of reality simply cannot cure--should not be the basis for human action or endeavor?

I disagree with Jim Crow laws, slavery, and inequality in the face of justice. What is so offensive about the notion that it is wrong to hold another in bondage, punish someone on account of ethnicity, or deny another proper justice for illegitimate reasons? Can anyone establish for me the legitimacy of the assertion that dark skin is morally, intellectually, and otherwise inferior to European-white skin and thus should be held as a lower caste in society? Please? I don't want to be "intolerant", you know.

What is so offensive about the notion that Athelwulf refuses to go forward on a factually-incorrect basis in this? What redemption is there in superstition used as a weapon against other people? "Divergent opinions and attitudes"? An identity politic held aloft as justification for the new Jim Crow? For the new inequality in the face of justice? For gender discrimination?

"Divergent opinions and attitudes" is far too broad a classification. I consider child molesters who tell us it's really love to be of a divergent opinion and attitude. And I insist that I can discriminate against them. 130 years ago, not particularly a long time in the grand scale of the human endeavor, it was not "divergent" to hold that it was okay to turn a ten year-old girl into a prostitute.° What liberty do I owe someone who wants to have sex with--I mean, "love"--my daughter in eight years, when she's ten? I mean, I don't want to be intolerant toward a divergent opinion or attitude, do I? Besides, what better way to build her work ethic by turning her into a "working girl"?

Just because people believe something that is contradictory to fact does not mean "tradition" warrants the wrong idea's continued support.

Additionally, every single person on this planet is statistically deviant. To be kind, I'll let people chime in and tell me which statistical deviation about themselves they would prefer I hold against them as reason to deny them equality in society and law.

What color are your eyes? What color is your hair? Are you male? Right there's a big one. And hey, gay men have an out. They're Auntie Tammys straight away. The only problem is that their pinks don't match.

There is indeed a rising murmur in which people are more and more often expressing that ethnic or sexual bigotry ought to be given a certain measure of respect, or that intolerance must be tolerated. It seems paradoxical, and nobody has yet unraveled that mystery for me: How are we to respect what is designed to disrespect? How can we give something what it is designed to be devoid of?

If I don't give my milk money to the bully, am I being intolerant? If the school punishes the bully for extorting from and hurting people, have they been intolerant? In the abstract, yes. When people complain about intolerance shown the deviant needs fostered by the divergent opinions and attitudes that form a bully, well, they just sound ridiculous. The same people who are so "wrongly" intolerant of the bully's violence are also the ones so "wrongly" intolerant of the factors that raise bullies. They're such horrible people, aren't they? Their intolerance is intolerable, isn't it?
____________________

Notes:

° turn a ten year-old girl into a prostitute - An historical footnote drawn from Lysander Spooner's "Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty" (1875). Refer to Chapter XIX, and Note 2:

Additionally, it should be noted that in 1900, the average age for the onset of menses was 14 (McDougall). I can't imagine the average was four whole years earlier in 1875, when Spooner wrote.​

Works Cited

Spooner, Lysander. "Vices Are Not Crimes: A Vindication Of Moral Liberty". 1875. See http://lysanderspooner.org/VicesAreNotCrimes.htm

McDougall Wellness Center. "The McDougall Newsletter". November/December, 1997. See http://www.drmcdougall.com/newsletter/nov_dec97.html
​

 

If anyone knows more -- please correct me: I watched a BBC documentary about homosexuality in the animal kingdom. In mammals, about 10% of a species' population is homosexual. So far, studies have been done on sheep; homosexual rams supposedly have the same kind of certain brain structures like females; the brain of homosexual male rams does not recognize a female as a mating partner.

I think that Christians being the most vocal when it comes to opposing homosexuals doesn't have so much to do with them being Christians in specific, but also a lot with them simply having a fix doctrinal background.

They have ready arguments, and it is no surprise they voice them. Anyone who has a set of arguments will have something to say.

Many people oppose homosexuals -- but since they don't have a doctrinal background, all they can resort to is some quasi-science of "gays are a disease" and such. They cannot really stand behind those arguments. Christians can stand behind theirs. So Christians seem more obvious in their anti-homosexual campaign.

Thank you for pointing out those events.

I find it disturbing that there are two completely opposing streams in society when it comes to issues of applying free will in practice (here as well):
On one hand, people demand to have free will, freedom, democracy and all that -- but when it comes to acting, they forget about that and wish their environemnt would be completely sterile and safe and a place where they would never have to choose.

My point was that just because some rights are posited by the state, and also defended by the state, this does not already mean that those rights will never be violated, in any way.
I am getting the impression that people seem to think, "If someone can rob me, then we are living in a lawless state where people's rights are not respected."

I know. I was just being really angry at Bush. Still am.

I agree.
While I personally don't like homosexuals, I will, if we will have a vote, probably vote for their rights.

The parallel is that things that are at some point regarded as abnormal or immoral, can, in time, slowly, become normal and moral. Those who live long enough to see both states will have a problem accepting something as moral that they have always thought immoral.

Just like we are nowadays expected to have tolerance for intolerance.

I simply don't like them, okay?

Some people certainly feel hurt by the presence of homosexuals. They may not be able to prove that injury, but they feel hurt nonetheless.

Which tells me that the problem lies deeper, and most likely has nothing to do with homosexuals, but a lot with how those people understand their own identity.

So we are told.
But I think the problem is on a much greater scale: Our tribal insitincts (as much as we still have) are being betrayed by having to consider everyone around us a potential friend or a potential enemy. I think this is confusing.

Then this points at the real problem that there is with acknowledging homosexuals: That those who are against them, what they really want is to have the right to choose for another, while they have no choice. That is, those who are against homosexuals would like to have the right to choose for homosexuals, while homosexuals should have no choice.

Meaning that homosexuals would end up quite literally having the same status as worthless things -- as in this example: "However, in 1992, a group called the Oregon Citizens' Alliance sponsored a ballot measure that would have compelled the state to essentially disenfranchise homosexuals. The measure was so broad that a District Attorney would have been unable to prosecute the murder of a homosexual."

I wonder how many of those who are against homosexuals would actually dare say this about themselves: "I am against homosexuals and I want to have the right to choose for homosexuals, while homosexuals should have no choice."


* * *

While I agree with you, the problem is two-fold: Are we trying to think the way the government does/should, or the way voters do?
The two are not the same at all; ideally they should be, but practically they aren't.

Voters can vote on a whim (what even they would consider a whim), and nobody can disqualify their vote.

This gives them the surety to vote on their immediate values and preferences without considering any counterarguments.

How is the government supposed to fight against that?

I don't feel harmed by them, and like I said before, I will probably vote for their rights.

I think tolerance nowadays means "respecting others at the cost of your own self-respect". At least this is how I experience it here. This is the kind of tolerance I do have a problem with, I don't think I need to explain further why.

And such things are exactly my problem with homosexuality, or whatever minority it is we are talking about.

Suddenly, there is so much talking about them, as if they were the majority or crucially important. I think such campaigns have just the opposite effect: they very effectively point out the said minority, and stigmatize it even more.

"Oh, you are a homosexual/black/gypsy, I must be tolerant towards you."
And then you treat them with double distance!

And it is because of such things that I think choice and tolerance are mutually exclusive.

I am not allowed to dislike homosexuals.
As if "dislike" means that I will go and kill them and consider it a good thing!

The way tolerance is taught, it tends to lead to even greater intolerance, or apathy.

There is another spin on the matter.

Person X may not like person Y, person X says it is because of Y's feature y.

Nobody cares.

But what if a big group of people, what if a whole nation of people thinks feature y is bad?

Then big troubles come.

Such opinions certainly *are* the basis for human action or endeavour.

Initially, because someone could do that same to *you*, and *you* wouldn't like that.
But if you grow big and strong, then this danger seemingly disappears, and you think you have the right to hold others as slaves.

What is really expected is apathy, neatly covered by the oh so tolerant term "tolerance".

What we are really demanded to exercise is apathy, not tolerance.

I'm sure the bully would be quick to oblige and say that you are violating his rights of being a bully.

Well, yes, this is where the fight for "human rights" lead to: complete moral relativism.

 

vslayer: That is so awesome that it got passed in New Zeeland...maybe I'll have to move there instead of Canada....

Athel....I enjoyed reading your very first post on this tread...well-written....

 

It should be said that "gay rights" are actually not a fight for equal rights, but for special rights. The problem is that they are treated like "anybody else", are under the same laws, and have the same rights -- but that these do not protect their unique demands. This is the case whenever difference has to be treated as "no difference", as in the case of race.

An (unfair) analogy could be, for example: "Necrophiliacs fight for equal rights" (this is just an illustration -- I'm not comparing their social esteem). The reason why any such an example will have to be about some unwanted group, is because our rights already make provision for wanted groups; that's what "rights" are. We don't see headlines like: "Heterosexuals fight for equal rights", because "equal" with whom? With homosexuals? Heterosexuals don't want the right to marry same-sex partners.

The issue today is that "equal" has to be redefined to include norms that once were considered "unwanted". Conservatives might call this the 'erosion of morality', but it might as well be called the 'composition of morality'. Because while we consider these things, and take pains to determine whether they represent a strengthening or weakening of the moral fibre, we are determining their morality -- we are translating something that wasn't native into our native tongue.

My problem is that outside the church, this seems to be less a debate over moral practice (of which marriage is -- supposed to be -- an institution), but over an underlying discrimination against perceived immorality. And in the popular arena, the two are confused. Do swingers fight for rights of marriage and adoption? Should they? Are swingers really inherently immoral?

"Promiscuity and degradation thrived.
Roman morals had long become impure,
but never was there so favorable an environment
for debauchery as among this filthy crowd.
Even in good surroundings people find it hard to behave well.
Here every form of immorality competed for attention,
and no chastity, modesty, or vestige of decency could survive." (Tacitus, Annals, 14:15)​

Homosexuality used to be a foreign practice all through history. Nobody ever had to look for reasons to justify heterosexuality. In Paul's time, homosexuality was associated with the unquestionably immoral Roman practices -- it was certainly considered "normal" then. But Paul wanted to foster a culture of fidelity that God could approve of, carve out of the civilized hellenic barbarianism a culture where trust and morality could be safe. Where being married meant something sure and holy for the man and the woman, and was not just a practical arrangement. My question is whether the debate over gay marriage is simply for its token social and legal recognition, or with the intention of living moral lives.

"If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance; but since nature has so decreed that we cannot live comfortably with them, nor live in any way without them, we must plan for our lasting preservation rather than for our contemporary pleasure" (Augustus, 17 BC).​

 

(Insert Title Here)

Jenyar

I find little to dispute in your post, although I do wish to note of homosexuality as a foreign practice:

Also I wanted to reiterate a point I posted a couple months ago:

_____________________

Notes:

PageWise. "Who were the Greek warrior Spartans?". 2002. See http://tx.essortment.com/greekwarriorsp_rwhv.htm

Conner, Randy P.L. "Men-Women, Gatekeepers, and Fairy Mounds." Parabola, Spring 2000.​

 

Thanks Tiassa.

There is little doubt that homosexuality was 'put to use' -- in practical/cultic/military contexts -- as a practice, almost like prostitution. It was thought a soldier would rather die fighting to protect a lover than just another soldier. And idols and gods typically represented every whim of humanity, which might have contributed to the association of homosexuality with heathen immoral practices. And the stigma might have remained, like slavery is stigmatized today, even though it also once was 'somewhat widespread'.

 

Actually, you'd be wrong. Heterosexuals have the right to marry who they love. Homosexuals don't. This turns out to be unequal. This is a fight for equality.

Off the top of my head, as far as I know, homosexuals can't serve in the military or give blood. Is this equal treatment?

 

Athelwulf, I was about to tell you that you overlooked something, but nope ... I did. I completely missed that sentence, and I don't know how.

 

Marriage was defined as the union of a man and a woman. Everybody had this right. It was not unequally applied. What is happening is that marriage has to be redefined so that men can marry men, and women can marry women. That actually means you will gain that right.

As for military service and blood transfusions -- this kind of discrimination goes deeper than sexual preference. Aside from risk-assessment issues (pensioners and prostitutes are also discriminated against, if you want to be particular), race has also only recently been taken out of the "fill in here:" section.

I don't disagree that unjustified prejudices exist, whomever they target. And the reverse is also true: can we always justify the rights we claim for ourselves? That's because equality is not something that is written in stone. In order to have any preferences, say, peace, for example, we have to examine what ensures it and what threatens it. "Nothing is right or wrong, but thinking makes it so".

 

Jenyar:
1297, from O.Fr. marier, from L. maritare "to wed, marry, give in marriage," from maritus "married man, husband," of uncertain origin, perhaps ult. from "provided with a *mari," a young woman, from PIE base *meri- "young wife," akin to *meryo- "young man" (cf. Skt. marya- "young man, suitor").

Now where precisely was it defined "as the union of a man and a woman"? Few anthropologists would argue that a strong polygynous or polyandrous bond fails as a marriage.

Marriage is a social convention that once signified the transfer of property and the formation of familial alliances. The idea of uniting "a man" with "a woman" for the purpose of bearing children is quite modern.

"Rights" do not factor into this. Marriage is hardly a right -- that being said, allowing infertile and dysgenic heterosexuals to marry while disallowing fertile and fit homosexuals is unfairly discriminatory.

However, since nobody will see the issue rationally for quite some time, we are stuck with this atrocious nonsense.

The larger issue of "who cares?" is unaddressed.
I suspect because issues of psychology are far less interesting than doctrinal ramblings about sodomy.