First Darwin and then Homos? Never!

[Ben Kenobi]

Behaviour (and thus its cause in psychology) has everything to do with human rights, since rights have their origin in the effect upon other people by a single persons behaviour, and if that effect is "undesireable" the majority declares it a non-right.

No, I'm sorry. Human rights stem from unchangeable qualities, not from those that change. One cannot change one's race. Sexual preference is no more a human right, than to deny one access to Vanilla ice cream would also be a violation of your human rights.

I'm not a consultant but I think that many of my friends would not keep their medical conditions from me. Again, long story, won't go into it here.

Fair enough. I rather like the fact that your case is based on personal testimony, suffering from the limitations provoked by such a case.

Inconsistent bans . It's easier to defend a ban on hard drugs for example because the harmful effects are so acute.

You don't consider death from AIDS to be particularly acute?

I don't consider homosexual sex to be anywhere near as harmful as that, indeed, I think it less harmful than smoking cannabis which is heading in the direction of legality.

I don't. If you smoke pot, according to the pot activists, you will not die. The same cannot be said for homosexuals.

My knowledge of genetics is limited I cannot comment much, except to say that my argument there was in the case of a gene or gene sequence being found that controlled sexual preference.

Go talk to starchild. Genes do not determine behaviour.

Kant would fall to pieces because on one hand you have the idea that "I engage in anal sex, thus everyone should" (a nice thought admittedly but alas not the case) vs the idea that "No-one should have anal sex"
which clearly isn't good for those that do enjoy it.

Why not? I've shown that such behaviour is risky. It would be right for one to say, no one ought to engage in anal sex.

Nonetheless, Kant is very much in error there as he famously does not account for the individual and sometimes conflicting needs, and thus logical necessities of a particularly subjective situation/individual.

So in other words, he is just too darned consistent. Sounds like my kinda guy.

His view tends to phenomenology imo, which is good as an "advice" but not applicable nor a general logical principle. I'm more analytical so critiquing me with Kant is not going to work.

Homosexuality is not universaliseable, so you are left with the puzzle, under Kant, of how one could declare the actions moral.

Slowing rates of transmission lessens your risk per sexual encounter as seems to be demonstrated here.

Won't work if people increase exposure, same problem with condoms.

Oh I do concur there, I can't argue that homosexual men are more at risk than heterosexual men, but firstly that it is not merely heterosexual men that engage in anal sex, and secondly that that which is harmful is not a sufficient condition to consider undesireable.

Agreed. The two in combination of promiscuity and anal sex form a potent cocktail for contracting HIV.

I think for all intents and purposes we can address the anal sex issue here, then go into other areas. I just don't want people to think that maligning 50% of homosexuals in this debate and we are calling the other 50% representative.

I had a hard enough time hammering out the first point before delving into more complicated issues.

Stemming it is exactly what it does!

Again, not what we see. What about HPV infection rates that are endemic?

I posted a response to the abstinence thread though if you want to continue that particular debate, please PM me since I can't be arsed on the forums

PM your response and I will be happy to address your points.

Then you support my point. Homosexual couples should be allowed civil unions and contractually speaking that is the same as marriage. If they decide to call it marriage themselves, then they are legitimate in doing so. Presumably that can be specified in their vows.

Hardly. I insist that discrimination cannot be effected on issues such as lifestyle choice. If one admits that homosexuality is a choice, as you have, then one is left with the stark response, that one can properly discriminate against particular choices.

No-one's forcing men to engage in anal sex, nor preventing them from sleeping with women or abstaining, it is their choice. I would argue against placing barriers to homosexuality.

Marriage is an endorsement. You are trapping people who are not happy with their current lifestyle into thinking that marriage will make everything better.

[Ben Kenobi]

Isn't it harder for a guy who doesn't "play the back nine" to catch HIV from a woman?

That sounds much better coming from Mr. T than from Hasselhoff.

I'm afraid I don't have a clue what you mean.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Like what?

No, the two issues are seperate. Still, one cannot ignore the disparity in rates of HIV transmission, in forming a compelling interest in society to resolve the problem. So far, all we see are treatment options, but nothing on the preventation side, of an entirely preventable disease.

while there is a disparity in rates... you seem to ignore the fact that this is a heterosexual problems as well... Using your logic, nobody should ever have sex or get married. And then you say things like entirely preventable disease... The only way that it is entirely preventable is to abstain from sex or only have sex with a partner who has never had sex with anybody else (this ignores problems like blood transfusions and other ways that body fluids could be transfered) That applies to people whether they are heterosexual or homosexual... so to use it as an argument against one and not the other is not only not logical, but discriminitory.

How about, society has a vested interest in marriage between one man and one woman, as society accrues many benefits from this form of marriage.

One more time since you never address this point and usually disappear from the thread after it's made...

Your "benefits" to society consist only of two points that you have made often in the past...

First... stable relationships are good society.
Well guess what... what's good for heterosexuals is good for homosexuals as well... so again, you are just being discriminatory. There is a value to society by allowing them the same emotional benefits and a stable relationship.

Second... you will raise the typical children argument again, while ignoring the fact that heterosexual couples who can't or won't have children can not provide this bennefit to society either... but you aren't calling for them to not be allowed to be married. You will say something silly that there is no way to enforce that... but you can. You can strip peoples marriages from them if they pass child rearing age without having children... I'm sure that would go over big with the death to us part crowd...

So even though heterosexuals fall into the same class as homosexuals in terms of not having kids (adoption is a seperate issue) you have no problem with one but you do with the other. Again... basic bigotary and discrimination on your part... because you have supplied no real reason against besides the fact that you don't approve.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ming:

I have to go.

I'm all tuckered out today.

Using your logic, nobody should ever have sex or get married.

No, I don't say that anywhere. Can you find such a statement? Even if we discussed what I believe should happen, it would be that one should marry or else total abstinence.

so to use it as an argument against one and not the other is not only not logical, but discriminitory.

Agreed. Thank you for forcing me to fill a hole in my argument.

There is a value to society by allowing them the same emotional benefits and a stable relationship.

And they need marriage to accomplish a stable relationship?

while ignoring the fact that heterosexual couples who can't or won't have children can not provide this bennefit to society either

Numerous routes to travel.

On average, society benefits from marriage between one man and one woman, wrt procreation. While there are exceptions, this is far from the norm.

The same is not true for homosexual marraige, since in no case will the union bear children.

[Ming]

Again... you rest your case on children, while ignoring the fact that marriage is a union of two people, and children "might" be the outcome... but in no way dictates why people get married in the first place. It is about commitment... period.

You can continue to hide behind aids, bennifits to society, and children... but none of these hold any weight.

Aids is a problem for everybody...
Everybody can bennifit from a stable relationship that marriage provides...
Homosexual couples NEED and deserve the same legal rights and protections that heterosexuals can have...
People do get married with no intention of having children, and Gay couples could adopt...

None of your arguments are logical... and are all discriminatory... and all because you disapprove, and for no good reason.

Be honest and admit that it's all about your religion... because your arguments are transperant to everybody here...

[Kuciwalker]

And they need marriage to accomplish a stable relationship?

And straight people need marriage to accomplish a stable relationship?

It seems BK is arguing that gays are superior to straight people

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kucinich


The difference between AIDS and HIV isn't all that important - certainly not enough to make his argument false (it's wrong for other reasons ). Since in virtually all cases someone with HIV develops AIDS, and since people generally (yes, mistakenly, but that's not the point) use AIDS as synonymous with HIV, I think it's forgivable.

My dear Kucinich- should you ever be faced with the responsibility of caring for someone who has progressed from being H.I.V. positive, to having full blown A.I.D.S. , then please feel free to lecture me on the difference between H.I.V. and A.I.D.S. and whether or not it is important, clinically or 'colloquially'.

I am all too familiar with the difference and the consequences of the difference- which is why on every occasion someone like Obi Gyn uses their bigoted reductionist propaganda, I will correct their language, at length and in detail, if necessary.

My argument does not rest on the sole basis of his wilfully misnaming H.I.V. A.I.D.S. , nor on his propagation of such misinformation ; rather, he seems unable (or more likely, unwilling) to understand that saying :

HOMOSEXUALITY = easier transmission of H.I.V. , is about as intelligent as saying:

HETEROSEXUALITY = easier transmission of syphilis, or ;

FAMILIES = easier transmission of Huntington’s Chorea.

Although frankly I’m beginning to think:

RELIGION= easier transmission of ignorance

is looking like a surefire winner.

He adheres to the tenets of a fundamentalist Christian sect- I’m sure such simplistic sloganeering worked well in the 17th century, but I like living in the 21st century, where the rule of law isn’t based on the often contradictory inspiration of nomadic xenophobic goatherders.

He fails to understand a blindingly obvious point- that in order to transmit H.I.V. during sex, one needs to engage in either dangerous sexual practices, or unprotected penetrative sex, and to have been exposed to the virus.

If you are gay and have not been exposed to the virus and have sex with another gay man who has not been exposed to the virus, you will not develop antibodies to H.I.V., you will not develop A.I.D.S. , and you will not transmit H. I.V. . You will still be gay, of course.

You will not transmit the virus more or less easily than a heterosexual couple who have not been exposed- which fact should be plain to anyone without an axe to grind.

Frankly, anything he says on sex and sexuality should be regarded with suspicion from the outset- he has a clear agenda, he admits to considering homosexuality a ‘sin’, which as far as I know has no legal basis in common law, nor a clinical medical definition, but is itself probably a good indicator of his bias when it comes to presenting statistics as to who has anal sex and how frequently.

I'd like to see the sources for his statistics, and see what information he has on the use of heterosexual anal intercourse as a contraceptive measure in Catholic countries such as Brazil, for instance.

But his information or its origin isn't the point- the way he endlessly recycles misinformation and bigotry is.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
No, I'm sorry. Human rights stem from unchangeable qualities, not from those that change. One cannot change one's race. Sexual preference is no more a human right, than to deny one access to Vanilla ice cream would also be a violation of your human rights.

Everyday there are people die and babies are born. People grow old and they take on different values. Some people may even have operations to change their gender.

Since there's no unchangable qualities, are you saying that there are no human rights, natural or otherwise?

[Whaleboy]

No, I'm sorry. Human rights stem from unchangeable qualities, not from those that change. One cannot change one's race. Sexual preference is no more a human right, than to deny one access to Vanilla ice cream would also be a violation of your human rights

Human rights are most certainly not based upon unchanging ideas, since they are perceptual! You say sexual preference is arbitrary, but can you change yours? Ask any gay person and they will in most cases tell you they cannot and will not change theirs. Attempts in the 1960's to do so, including locking a man inside a room with homosexual pornography, and then drugging him to be sick for three days, fails miserably. Nonetheless, there is a right to individual disposition in this case as well, to use your analogy, choosing the flavour of ice cream. The issue of sexual preference has a hell of a lot more gravitas for the individual than does ice cream though, which makes it for most a more important right.

Were your argument to hold, we could not sign away any of our rights since they are unchanging, thus such things as contracts and capitalism would fall to pieces. You commie!!

Fair enough. I rather like the fact that your case is based on personal testimony, suffering from the limitations provoked by such a case.

True, but enough to show that your argument is not necessarily true, whereas it needed to be.

You don't consider death from AIDS to be particularly acute?

With proper treatment (and the not unreasonable prospect of a cute in my lifetime), no I do not. Not as acute as a heroin misuse death.

I don't. If you smoke pot, according to the pot activists, you will not die. The same cannot be said for homosexuals.

. Ok at this point I have to point out an unworkable ridiculum in your statement. I smoke pot about once a week, and have anal sex, both heterosexual and homosexual, passive and active in the latter case. I am far more likely to die of smoking-related illness. Furthermore, one should make a point of checking the sexual health of all ones partners where possible. It simple isn't a strong enough link to show that statistically I am likely to contract HIV/AIDS, especially so with proper precautions, and that furthermore, that is sufficient reason to impede me from having anal sex.

Go talk to starchild. Genes do not determine behaviour.

Like I said, genetics is not my foreplay. That was an "if" statement, that is to say, if given situation were true, given argument would also apply.

Why not? I've shown that such behaviour is risky. It would be right for one to say, no one ought to engage in anal sex.

Crossing a road is risky. Attempts to show triviality in that respect fall to pieces when you consider individual subjectivity and that issue that each individual is best placed to determine their own course of action, provided it does not directly, actively and arbitrarily impede another. Anal sex does not fall into that category.

So in other words, he is just too darned consistent. Sounds like my kinda guy.

No, the issue is that working on that maxim, it is inconsistent for each circumstance. Kant intended the idea to be more political than ethical, hence the difference between moral philosophy and ethical philosophy imo.

Deontological systems completely ignore consequentialism here, and since we are dealing with a consequentialist argument, Kant is something of a fallacy in this case, you may find a utilitarian argument to be stronger, both for and against your position.

Won't work if people increase exposure, same problem with condoms.

Anal sex won't increase exponentially if we remove the barriers, since the major remaining barrier to homosexuals is marriage. I thikn at the moment in the UK if you are gay, you can act as such, and certainly we are becoming increasingly liberal there .

Agreed. The two in combination of promiscuity and anal sex form a potent cocktail for contracting HIV.

I wouldn't use your loaded language. It increases the risk which is tempered by use of condoms and knowledge of your partners sexual health, which is most likely the case in long term relationships thus removing the issues of HIV/AIDS from the marriage question. It is by far too insufficient to justify an objective impedence in this matter, since it seems to me a simple factor for indiviudal consideration in deciding to engage in anal sex.

I had a hard enough time hammering out the first point before delving into more complicated issues.

Well if we want to talk about the wider issues relevant to this thread, we need to include lesbians at some point. If you are just talking about anal sex then that is fine but not representative. It's now my view that we should widen this debate into the wider issues, so the small issue of STI's is irrelevant now compared to the sociology.

Hardly. I insist that discrimination cannot be effected on issues such as lifestyle choice. If one admits that homosexuality is a choice, as you have, then one is left with the stark response, that one can properly discriminate against particular choices.

For a good reason, which thus far you lack. You seem to be falling back on health risks and impact upon society to gay marriage. Both seem to be misrepresented imo.

Marriage is an endorsement. You are trapping people who are not happy with their current lifestyle into thinking that marriage will make everything better.

That's an argument against marriage in general, not gay marriage, since there is no distinction in your logic here between homo and hetero marriage. I counter that point by pointing out that the beholder is best placed to decide rather than society.

Unless you are Borg...

...are you???

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
No, I'm sorry. Human rights stem from unchangeable qualities, not from those that change. One cannot change one's race. Sexual preference is no more a human right, than to deny one access to Vanilla ice cream would also be a violation of your human rights.

And, as has been pointed out time and again, sexual orientation is NOT changeable. You yourself have admitted as such in th discussion of "reparative therapy" by acknowledging the sexual desires are not driven away, just suppressed. So this argument is dead in the water. The overwhelming consensus from medical and psychiatriatic professionals is against you here, and you'll have to admit that you're relying on religious prejudice here, not objective fact.

[Boris Godunov]

You guys are arguing with a wall. BK has presented these arguments time and again, and they've been rebutted time and again. So then he returns and repeats them in the hopes that different folks won't have seen them already. There's a fine line between having convictions and being stone deaf to the point intellectual dishonesty.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
sexual orientation is NOT changeable.

Prove it.

[Gibsie]

It probably is possible for a very small number of people. However, for the vast majority of us, it is not. If you think it is, then tell us upon what you base this? I'm not demanding proof, but if you could, for example, whack off to some gay porn and then come back and tell us how easy that was for you then you'll have a bit more credibility.

[Rogan Josh]

Well, there are a lot of bi people out there who clearly can like men one day and women the next. So they are a counter-example to any proof.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Well, there are a lot of bi people out there who clearly can like men one day and women the next.

I was under the impression that bi people were attracted to both men and women, and didn't flip-flop in their preferences as you say they do.