SF throws down the gauntlet to Cali

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Ned
Extending policies intended to support traditional families to essentially everyone defeats the policy.

However, I think we could be creative in how we subsidize families. As I said in an earlier post, we could provide a very large child tax deduction or credit for the natural parents filing a joint tax return.

Agreed about the very large child tax deduction... provided that it wouldn't preclude gays from gaining right to married filing separately or jointly...

You did, however, quote me out of context. I was quoting you in the context of home-ownership vs. rental tax benefits.

I don't see why home ownership should carry any particular benefit, or need to be encouraged. Its another separate, pure opinion argument that can't be "solved".

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ned
Boris, I am generally in favor of legalization provided it is done in a manner that does not prejudice in any way our right to pass laws favoring traditional families.

Why should the kids of a gay couple be legally discriminated against as opposed to a straight couple?

If it's indeed about the kids, the sexual orientation and gender of the parents shouldn't matter two whits as far as the law is concerned, since all the evidence indicates two gay parents will raise kids just as normal and healthy as two straight parents.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ned
Don't be so sure that religious women would not abort homosexual fetuses. My wife is religious and generally against abortion. She would consider abortion when the fetus is deformed, mentally retarded or when it has a genetic disease. But when I came to homosexuality, my wife was uncertain. She was leaning the direction of aborting the fetus.

Rather surprising. I'd ask your wife what is the religious justification for ensuring one has a "perfect" child.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Ned


Well, to the extent the tax laws are written to subsidize marriage between a man a woman, they do so because we want to encourage raising kids in families. Providing the same tax breaks to homosexuals is wrong because it would encourage the exact opposite of what we intend to encourage.

For example, we now subsidize home ownership by allowing people to deduct interest. If we were to now allow rent to be deducted, we would kill the effective preference for home ownership.

How would it encourage anything? Gays that can't get married now aren't thinking to themselves "Hmmm...I really want those tax benefits, so I'll pretend I'm not gay, get married to someone of the opposite sex and have kids". Not to mention what a wonderfully stable home that would be, having a spouse contanstantly repressing their sexuality for a tax break.

Or are you echoing Ben in assuming that if you give these tax breaks to homosexuals, there will be a mass exodus away from heterosexual marriages and childrearing for reasons that utterly defy any form of logic?

Your home ownership scenario would only be analogous if you were to grant the same benefits to non-married people (regardless of sexual preferrence). Allowing gays to get married takes nothing away in regards to incentives to get married and have a family.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Your home ownership scenario would only be analogous if you were to grant the same benefits to non-married people (regardless of sexual preferrence). Allowing gays to get married takes nothing away in regards to incentives to get married and have a family.

Not only that, the percentage of gay marriages occuring as opposed to heterosexual marriages will be miniscule enough that it won't have any noticeable effect.

I still don't see why extending benefits to more couples is a bad thing. BK kept using the vague term "dilute," but this is nonsensical jargon, as far as I can see. What is being "diluted?" Is there only a set pool of resources that is allocated to married couples, and the more couples there are, the smaller the piece of the pie they get? Of course not.

[Ben Kenobi]

when you do five second copy and paste jobs.

from my files, Fez.

That's why I left the citations.

[Ben Kenobi]

Giancarlo, Ben.. and everybody else. As I posted in the other thread... the personal insults will stop, or you will get restricted. If you can't discuss this issue without calling people stupid, idiots, or other insults, don't bother to post... because if you do... you will get restricted.

Enough of this crap!

Thanks Ming.

[Ben Kenobi]

Got to go.

Have a busy day today.

Won't be back till late tonight. then I shall reply to the rest.

[optimus2861]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Again, false analogy, in the comparison between race, which cannot be chosen, and sexual preferences, which can.

So when did you choose to be straight? When did you sit down, think over whether you should be gay or straight, weigh the consequences of each, and decide, "From this moment on, I shall be attracted to women!" And how did you tell your body to honour this decision in its involuntary responses to sexual stimuli -- do you consciously have to make yourself acheive an erection when you look at a naked woman? Would you have that same reaction when you look at a naked man? Could you make yourself have that reaction with a man, could you make yourself look forward to it? Make your heart race with anticipation, make your palms sweat, your pupils dilate?

Why doesn't everyone who thinks that sexual orientation is a choice weigh in on that question? Tell us all about The Day You Made Your Choice. I'm sure everyone has wonderful stories to tell about it. We must all have different factors that went into our decisions to be attracted to the genders that we chose. I'd be fascinated to hear them.

If only because I didn't make any choice to be straight, and I think the assertion that it somehow is a choice to be utter rotgut. Further, to use that argument as any sort of justification for denying gays their rights under the law is even worse, and a symptom of ignorance, bigotry, or both.

[Boris Godunov]

Bk is also inconsistent here. At times he says that gays should be surpressing their urges, which implies the preference isn't a choice, but just something they should overcome. Then he goes and says it is a choice. Seems like his notions change for the convenience of his arguments.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Bk is also inconsistent here. At times he says that gays should be surpressing their urges, which implies the preference isn't a choice, but just something they should overcome. Then he goes and says it is a choice. Seems like his notions change for the convenience of his arguments.

Bennie is inconsistent, period.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

You were the first to mention anal intercourse in the thread molly, so perhaps I am not the one so fixated.


Again, you speculate that these are my positions. A great amount of speculation based on sparse evidence.


What do I mean by the gay lifestyle? I would argue, a propensity for promiscuity, lack of stable relationships, and a the concamitant psychological and physical problems associated with the above behaviors.

All of these, can be found in greater proportion among homosexuals than heterosexuals.

Faux disingenuity, Obi Gyn. In your diatribes against marriage for gays and lesbians, you hardly ever include lesbians in your thinking, or your posts.

Are lesbians more promiscuous than heterosexual males? Or does that not compute, because the daughters of Bilitis are lesser vessels than the sons of Adam, so any data compiled on lesbians isn't really worth considering?

I may have been the first to actually mention explicitly the thinking behind your posts, but perhaps that's because I prefer to call a spade a f@cking shovel. I mean, you hedge your posts with nonsense such as 'gay marriages can't be fruitful'- hello? This isn't Cotton Mather's colony, we're talking the 21st Century blues here.

I don't speculate on your positions, every time you post in a 'gay marriage' thread, or 'gays and lesbians adopting' thread, your thinking is apparent for us all to see- the fact that you can't see what is in plain sight is more revealing about you and your mind's inner workings (and perhaps your capacity for self-deception, such as the notion that your interminable 'why can't two male heterosexuals get married to each other' schtick, or the 'why can't I get married to my grandmother?' routine present anything new or relevant each time they're regurgitated).

As has been pointed out, not simply by the gay males, the logic behind these arguments is flawed, and each time you resurrect them, it doesn't make the logic any less flawed.

Now I understand where you're coming from with your studies secreted away to 'prove' just how bad the 'gay lifestyle' is, but let's imagine that the shoe is on the other foot, and a gay sociologist decides to study that strange dimension, the twilight world of the heterosexual, what would they find?

Well, using kenobist logic, they'd discover that, shock, horror, wife beating takes place in heterosexual marriages!

That until the 19th Century, a wife was her husband's property, and had no property rights of her own!

That until the 20th Century, it was seriously believed that rape could not take place in marriage!

That an unequal divsion of labour was commonplace, with females earning less for the same work that men did, that mostly females bore the brunt of childrearing duties, that males hardly saw their offspring for long periods of time during a working week, that sex was on sale in major cities for the benefit of single and married heterosexual males, with little evidence that such a service was provided for heterosexual females, and so on and so on.

Then of course there are the institutionalized dens of promiscuity called singles' bars, catering to (allegedly) single heterosexuals where the possibility of casual promiscuous sex is the point of a social encounter, that many large towns and cities (and smaller ones too) had 'lovers' lanes' where open air heterosexual sex could and did take place!

That major cities such as Hamburg, Amsterdam, London, New York and Melbourne and Nairobi had 'red light' districts where a variety of anonymous sexual encounters could be had by heterosexuals (single or married) for a sum of money.

That heterosexual divorce is on the increase across the industrialized world.

That networks of heterosexual child abusers exist internationally, preying on children.

That events such as Brazil's Carnival in Rio, the Notting Hill Carnival in London, and Mardi Gras in New Orleans see open displays of public lewdness by heterosexuals, with skimpily dressed heterosexual females flaunting their bodies and their sexuality, and with public sexual encounters taking place over a course of several days, with little regard for the consequences of unprotected sex.

That the numbers of teenage school age mothers are increasing.

And so on, and so on....

Of course what you leave out of your posts is any attempt to place the problems that gay men and lesbians face in any kind of cultural or societal context, but of course that might just prove detrimental to your notions of an inherently bad 'gay lifestyle'.

It is my experience that males, either heterosexual or gay, can be and sometimes are promiscuous, which has more to do with the physical nature of the human male's sexual response and equipment, and perhaps the genetic hardwiring for male behaviour- 'eats roots and leaves' is the Aussie joke about male sexual behaviour (root= Aussie slang for f@ck).

A lesbian joke that seems to me to sum up the disparity between the two worlds is

'What's 24 hours of lesbian sex?'

'Foreplay.'

[Ben Kenobi]

At times he says that gays should be surpressing their urges, which implies the preference isn't a choice, but just something they should overcome. Then he goes and says it is a choice. Seems like his notions change for the convenience of his arguments.

Boris:

The desires are not the choice. The decision to act on them is. One can suppress these desires.

No inconsistency there. I do believe you define sexual orientation, not just in the urges, but in the actions as well?

[Ben Kenobi]

So when did you choose to be straight? When did you sit down, think over whether you should be gay or straight, weigh the consequences of each, and decide, "From this moment on, I shall be attracted to women!"

I have yet to make that decision, to act on my desires, in such a way, as to sleep with a woman. So, yes, it is a conscious decision to act on my desires.

Do you consciously have to make yourself acheive an erection when you look at a naked woman?

No. Would I be gay if I had to?

Could you make yourself have that reaction with a man, could you make yourself look forward to it? Make your heart race with anticipation, make your palms sweat, your pupils dilate?

Could I force myself to? Sure.

Again, I offer the same critique of you, as I do Boris. One can control ones urges. I do not fault a man for his urges, but rather, for his actions, for the conscious decision that he makes to act on them.

Further, to use that argument as any sort of justification for denying gays their rights under the law is even worse, and a symptom of ignorance, bigotry, or both.

What rights are denied to them?

[Ben Kenobi]

Faux disingenuity, Obi Gyn. In your diatribes against marriage for gays and lesbians, you hardly ever include lesbians in your thinking, or your posts.

You would not want to be able to read my mind. Don't presume you do.

Are lesbians more promiscuous than heterosexual males? Or does that not compute, because the daughters of Bilitis are lesser vessels than the sons of Adam, so any data compiled on lesbians isn't really worth considering?

Do I say that anywhere? No. I do not seperate the one from the other. If you do, then you get into some really interesting questions.

One point you could make is that homosexuality is not the same for lesbians, as it is for gay men. That the two are psychologically and physically different from each other. Just because they are different, does not make the situation better for either.

I may have been the first to actually mention explicitly the thinking behind your posts,

Again, you presume to know what you cannot. So don't try.

we're talking the 21st Century blues here.

So, you believe in progress, unending, perpetual progress? I don't. Sorry. Nothing new under the sun.

Now I understand where you're coming from with your studies secreted away to 'prove' just how bad the 'gay lifestyle' is,

I can anticipate arguments, and I prefer to be prepared when one makes the call for sources. Nothing more to it. When I looked for articles, the other day, I found others that would also be useful, so I saved them.

Well, using kenobist logic, they'd discover that, shock, horror, wife beating takes place in heterosexual marriages!

Nor do I deny that some marriages are bad.

That until the 19th Century, a wife was her husband's property, and had no property rights of her own!

So? Do I believe this?

That until the 20th Century, it was seriously believed that rape could not take place in marriage!

Nor do I believe this.

That an unequal divsion of labour was commonplace, with females earning less for the same work that men did, that mostly females bore the brunt of childrearing duties, that males hardly saw their offspring for long periods of time during a working week, that sex was on sale in major cities for the benefit of single and married heterosexual males, with little evidence that such a service was provided for heterosexual females, and so on and so on.

So how does this disprove the ideal? That marriage, can and does work? That there have always been happy marriages is the other coin that there have always been ones that are not so good. But the former outweigh the latter.

Then of course there are the institutionalized dens of promiscuity called singles' bars, catering to (allegedly) single heterosexuals where the possibility of casual promiscuous sex is the point of a social encounter, that many large towns and cities (and smaller ones too) had 'lovers' lanes' where open air heterosexual sex could and did take place!

Yeah, that's why I wait, eh? I lambaste the one, and not the other. Both are wrong, and I have said that before. Wait until marriage, and then enjoy each other.

That major cities such as Hamburg, Amsterdam, London, New York and Melbourne and Nairobi had 'red light' districts where a variety of anonymous sexual encounters could be had by heterosexuals (single or married) for a sum of money.

Again, I would say that some do these kinds of things, but they are a smaller proportion than among homosexuals.

That heterosexual divorce is on the increase across the industrialized world.

Funny, eh? Everytime I make an analogy with divorce, it is not proper, yet you constantly bring up this fact. Yes, there are broken marriages, but fewer than among homosexuals.

That networks of heterosexual child abusers exist internationally, preying on children.

Do you really want to go down this road, Molly? Comparing the proportions?

That events such as Brazil's Carnival in Rio, the Notting Hill Carnival in London, and Mardi Gras in New Orleans see open displays of public lewdness by heterosexuals, with skimpily dressed heterosexual females flaunting their bodies and their sexuality, and with public sexual encounters taking place over a course of several days, with little regard for the consequences of unprotected sex.

So can one say that such actions are the majority of heterosexuals?

That the numbers of teenage school age mothers are increasing.

Where? They are declining.

Of course what you leave out of your posts is any attempt to place the problems that gay men and lesbians face in any kind of cultural or societal context, but of course that might just prove detrimental to your notions of an inherently bad 'gay lifestyle'.

How does the outside oppression explain and justify battering among homosexual couples?

It is my experience that males, either heterosexual or gay, can be and sometimes are promiscuous,

Ignores my argument, on the proportion being different between the two. Quite different.