The fun of frustrated homophobes.

[johncmcleod]

The fundies' main points seem to be that homosexuality is immoral, we should use laws to enforce this, and homosexuality is a choice and people can convert.

I disagree with the fundies on the first point. They cite a document that says homosexuality is immoral, but when it all comes down to it, every religion has their own beliefs that conflict with each other at times, so their is no point in elevating some over another.

The second part is what really gets me. Morals and laws are two different things. You might believe that homosexuality is immoral, and therefore laws should reflect this, yet another person down the street might not believe this. Should they be forced to live by your morals? Lying is immoral, but we don't make laws against it. Allowing gay marriage won't restrict any of your rights or make your life worse, but banning it will restrict their rights and make their life worse.

If I was a Christian, I would say to myself, "Homosexuality is immoral, and I think gays will be punished in the afterlife, but that is their choice. I'm going to worry about my life and my sins more than other people. If they want to sin, let them legally sin, as long as they aren't hurting other people. Because laws are meant to protect people from each other, not enforce moral beliefs. It is their right to make their own choice."

As far as homosexuality being a choice, that's utter rubbish. If it was, nobody would be gay. There are just too many disadvantages to being gay. First off, there are hardly any gay people, so by being gay, you've got a way smaller population to try and find someone you love in. Second off, human beings are built for sex between a man and a women, not between two of the same gender. Therefore, heterosexual sex would be much better. Third, being different is hard, and society makes people that are different outcastes. No one wants to be an outcaste. Fourth, it is scientifically proven that the brain of a gay functions differently and it is an inherited trait. And finally, how could someone decide to be gay, after society brainwashes them to be straight? It just wouldn't happen.

Society pressures people into being straight, and on top of that, being straight is way more advantageous. With these conditions, we wouldn't have 10% of the population being gay. Gay people spend their life trying to be straight, and it just doesn't work out.

And BTW, can anyone get me cite some of the other religions' holy texts on homosexuality? I'm curious, because as far as I know of, Judaism (and later its reform movement, Christianity) is the only religion to say it is immoral.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


What's a strap on?

When you come across them, ask Mariah because Ann doesn't need one. She'll be au natural...

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


I've dyed my hair myself. I used to love red hair, and it looks good on me.

Doesn't change who I am, to change the colour of my hair. The same is with your sexuality. It may change, but who you are does not.

All you're doing is masking the color. Your hair is still (whatever your hair color is) regardless what you do, even bleaching because the follicles in the scalp are still pumping out hair of your natural color. The only thing that'll change your natural color is gene therapy more advanced than what we currently have or time as your body starts the failing process. My dating some girl, marrying her, having kids by her, growing old with her, and being buried next to her could never change the fact that I'm gay as my being gay wasn't a choice. I only chose to mask it in that scenario, like you do your hair color. There may be other homosexuals who chose to be as such, but for me, I remember the exact moment (not date or time-on-the-clock, just the memory and approximate month) that my first urges hit and they were uncontestably homosexual in nature. I've never once had remotely similar urges for the opposite sex.

Perhaps a little clarification is in order. I equate "urges" with the baser motivations of our psyche. They aren't something you conjure up with your conscious mind; they're more like instincts. The instinct to mate and reproduce is present in almost everyone (more so in some than others) and for whatever reason that instinct gets its wires crossed and turn from a typical heterosexual orientation to an atypical homosexual orientation. Perhaps it's a genetic flaw* (*may be the wrong word for it) that forms in the fertilized egg's DNA or was already present and became activated, perhaps it developes from a chemical imbalance that messes with the hormones or perhaps activates a genetic tendancy towards homosexuality, perhaps it's a conscious choice for an open-minded person. In my case, it wasn't a conscious choice by any stretch of the imagination.

My natural hair color, my natural eye color, my natural skin color, and my sexual orientation are all "part of me." Now, are they part of my "identity" or rather, how I choose to identify myself or label myself? Not necessarily, but I can't wish any of them away, I can only mask their presence.

[DRoseDARs]

This is missing the stuff you were quoting. Ce la vie.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

That's the point I am trying to get across. This is the perceptive point made by the article in the opening post, that most gay people claim their sexuality is a fundamental part of themself.

You want to hear something radical? There is a way to split the former part of your statement apart from the latter half, while remaining logically consistent.

Here's how.

First of all, we start with the preposition, that the love one has for God, for your girlfriend is different from your sexuality. Now, this isn't a Christian notion, it predates the Christians, and goes back to the Greeks. This is the point that Whaleboy hit on earlier, with his question, of what do I consider an essential part of who one is.

Suppose we term such love, agape, or self-sacrificial love. This is different from eros, or sexual love.

I say then, that one can live without eros, that eros is not an essential part of who one is. Agape, we cannot live without.

Okay. Many points.

1. Everyone is entitled to marry. This does not mean that one is entitled to marry whomever one wants to marry. There are restrictions placed on this by the state, even with a man and a woman who consent. Is it discrimination to bar any two particular people from marrying?

It is when it's two consenting same-sex adults who are denied for no other reason than they are homosexual.

2. Children ought to have a loving home. No one is entitled to have a child. To claim that gay people are entitled to a child, is to assert a right, that no one has. No one has a right to a child, they have the privilege of adopting, should the situation offer the child what the child needs. Even the child, cannot demand a loving home from the state. Why should gay people demand a child?

Good lord, this is bigoted. No one is claiming the right to a child as if it were some piece of property. They are claiming the right care for a child. Obviously, it damn difficult for homosexuals to sire their own children beyond midwives(?) and sperm donors, so adoption is the main issue. There's an ungodly number of children being raised by the State who are otherwise being denied loving homes because *horrors* the adoptive couple is homosexual. Funny, I don't see many of the fanatical Christians stepping up to the plate, adopting these kids, and giving them a potentially loving home. IMO, given that these couples are religous nutjobs, the kids are better off in the care of the State. But to turn around and deny others the chance to give these kids a better environment than the underfunded, understaffed State can is unbelievably selfish and cruel to homosexual couples and, more importanly, the children.

3. I agree. Everyone has a right, in Canada, to the security of the person. Preferences are irrelevant to this right, and do not confer this right, nor take it away.

4. I also agree. However, those who wish to overcome their desires, ought also be permitted to do so. Their freedom, is as valuable as your own, and rests upon the same grounds. If you restrict people from freely choosing to overcome these desires, then what stops people from stopping you from expressing these desires?

Again, this assumes that homosexuality is a conscious choice for ALL homosexuals. That simply isn't the case. I can bleach my hair blonde and then stop if told to do so, but I can't stop being gay. I can only "act" straight.

5. Do I question their sincerity, when I eschew eros, and affirm agape?

But to say that one ought to recieve benefits, because one is black, because one is Christian, is that not opening the door to persecution?

*Sigh*
Homosexuals aren't asking for special privileges, they're asking for equal rights.

Tell me, did MLK think they should be proud of their blackness? Or proud of their character?

MLK has been dead for many years, no one can ask him what he thought. Try asking living, breathing people instead ... like, say black homosexuals. Insight from both worlds.

It is already irrelevant. A gay man can get married to any woman willing to marry him.

Much too pointless to respond to THIS assinine statement you repeat EVERY F*CKING TIME we have on of these threads, despite getting it smacked down everytime like clockwork.

[Agathon]

I don't know. Paul comes pretty early into the Christian church.

And he is the classic case of a repressed homosexual.

I hate to say this, Ben, but anyone familiar with ancient civilizations who reads Paul's letters can pretty much tell straight off the bat that he was a homosexual having difficulty with his own sexual orientation.

Hence the raving at gay people and the antipathy towards heterosexual sex. I can think of at least one other example of this that every Apolytoner should be familiar with.

It's pretty funny really, the effective founder of modern Christian morality was just seeking to suppress his own inclinations towards wild man love.

[Mercator]

What DRoseDARs said.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
First of all, we start with the preposition, that the love one has for God, for your girlfriend is different from your sexuality.

Huh? That presupposition alone already disproves what I said, doesn't it? That's easy.

I say then, that one can live without eros, that eros is not an essential part of who one is. Agape, we cannot live without.

OK, I can accept that. But what I'm trying to say is that "sexuality" defines agape rather than eros. I might have sex with a man, but I'd still only feel agape for a woman, and that's what makes me heterosexual.
Heck, maybe that's the difference between homosexuals who think their homosexuality is a choice and those who don't think it's a choice.

Do you honestly believe that you could love (i.e. agape) a man the same way you love a woman? I sure don't.

5. Do I question their sincerity, when I eschew eros, and affirm agape?

If you think your love for your girlfriend is agape, yet you think a homosexual's love for his boyfriend is eros, then yes.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

1. Essence is that which cannot be changed of a person, without changing their identity as well.

2. People have changed their sexual preferences.

3. Of the people who changed their preferences, all retained their identity.

C: Ergo, sexual preference is not part of a person's essence, and can be changed.

Yet you've not offered a shred of evidence for these assertions. Just because you'd like this to be true does not mean that is the case.

No one has ever been shown to have changed their sexual preference--even the ex-gay movement has acknowledged that, as I've shown you countless times before. Their sexual urges remain, they merely teach themselves to repress them. Not very successfully, either, as the case of John Paulk nicely shows.

Regardless, this still doesn't prove your point. If one has to go through the struggle of suppressing one's sexual orientation, wouldn't you say that even that struggle would have a profound effect on one's identity? Of course it does. As any psychiatric professional will tell you, experiences like that have a profound impact on who we are as people. Hence, they are a part of our identity.

The bottom line is that your attempts to remove sexual orientation from personal identity is a load of horse poop that has no support from people who actually know what they're talking about (like medical and psychiatric professionals).

Had you turned out gay, do you honestly think you'd be the same person you are today?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
4. I also agree. However, those who wish to overcome their desires, ought also be permitted to do so. Their freedom, is as valuable as your own, and rests upon the same grounds. If you restrict people from freely choosing to overcome these desires, then what stops people from stopping you from expressing these desires?

Blatant strawman. Nobody has said people should be prohibited from trying to change their desires, should they wish to try. If a heterosexual desperately wants to be gay, he's welcome to try all the therapy he wants, if he can find a psychologist who'll treat him.

But when the vast majority of the medical and mental health experts in the world all agree that changing sexual orientation is not possible--and there is not a shred of empiric evidence to support otherwise--then those who want to undertake such measures should be made aware of that.

I'm quite disgusted with the drive to force gay men to be straight, but not just for the gay men's sake. While the psychological damage of reparative therapy is well-known, what people frequently fail to consider is the hurt it will inflict on future significant others. Imagine the anguish John Paulk's wife underwent when the newspapers--ones in which she had posed with him as a loyal, loving wife--were splashing the story of his being caught in a gay bar chatting up the boys.

Yet the fundies are perfectly willing to subject people like her to false marriages with homosexuals to try and prove their point. And they claim gay marriages are somehow bad for society! How about a marriage wherein one partner lies about who he is and must pretend to be attracted to someone he isn't? Doesn't a spouse deserve a marriage where her spouse thinks and feels about her they same way she does for him? The cruelty of these sham marriages is beyond the pale.

[johncmcleod]

Even if you could convert some gay person to heterosexuality, the process would just be completely pyschologically damaging, and I bet would ruin that person's life. Now which would be more of a sin - homosexuality, as some ancient, culturally-biased document says, or ruining someone's life. Pick one.

The thing about Christianity that annows me is the same thing that annoyed Emerson. The Christians don't think for themselves. They base their lives and thoughts around a document that was made two millenia ago, and worship a God that last appeared two millenia ago. God is here and now, why look towards the past? "The sun still shines today." But more importantly, all of their view from sin has to come from this one document. They won't think for themselves.

For example, their doesn't seem to be any apparent reason for homosexuality to be a sin. It doesn't hurt other people, and fundamentally, it is no different than heterosexuality. Any Christian who made his own decision on sin wouldn't think homosexuality is evil. Maybe they might think it isn't as good as heterosexuality, but they wouldn't be going around trying to ban it and trying to get homosexuals to convert. That is more of a sin (though I don't believe in morals or sin, I think they are systemizing and oversimplifying something that is way to complex) IMO, and in the opinion of anyone who thinks for themselves. But Christians don't. They don't trust their own knowledge, reasoning, or intuition, they throw all of that out and just look at the Bible for truth. And it has had some debilitating effects. The Bible is a great document, but because of when it was written and cultural biases, it is a little backward and sometimes wrong, such as issues of homosexuality, slavery, etc.

BK, I think it is time you read Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays, especially "Self-Reliance", which will tell you thinking for oneself instead of using the Bible to do it for you is good. And though his other essays don't have to do with what we are talking about, I think you should read them, too, I'd be curious as to what your opinion on them would be. Especially "The Over-Soul" and "Nature", more specifically the first chapter, which is called Nature.

I have to say it, Ben, you have been completely PWNED by the team of DRoseDARs, Mercator, and Boris Godunov. It is now time for you to have a metanoia (Greek for change of mind or change of heart, it is the word in the Bible that is used when Jesus says repent) and realize you are wrong. Then you can join the ranks of the Christians who don't have a problem with homosexuality.

[Agathon]

For all Ben's animus towards homosexuality, I don't think he harbours any inclinations that way himself.

But, the most vociferous critics often do.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Yet you've not offered a shred of evidence for these assertions. Just because you'd like this to be true does not mean that is the case.

No one has ever been shown to have changed their sexual preference--even the ex-gay movement has acknowledged that, as I've shown you countless times before. Their sexual urges remain, they merely teach themselves to repress them. Not very successfully, either, as the case of John Paulk nicely shows.

Regardless, this still doesn't prove your point. If one has to go through the struggle of suppressing one's sexual orientation, wouldn't you say that even that struggle would have a profound effect on one's identity? Of course it does. As any psychiatric professional will tell you, experiences like that have a profound impact on who we are as people. Hence, they are a part of our identity.

The bottom line is that your attempts to remove sexual orientation from personal identity is a load of horse poop that has no support from people who actually know what they're talking about (like medical and psychiatric professionals).

Had you turned out gay, do you honestly think you'd be the same person you are today?

Hey, Bennie -- I was going to reply to your reply to a post of mine, but Boris did a better job in this instance, than I would have.

[Jaguar]

Boris can phrase things better than you because he is a Blue State Gay, and you are but a lowly Red State Gay.

[Tuberski]

This is 100 posts of:

"Being gay is a choice".

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is"

You'd think you guys would realize that you aren't going to convince the other, so why bother?

ACK!

[Flip McWho]

So, I'm not the only one that thinks this is a thread of BK making an argument, the pro-gay troopers raping it?

And to echo:

so why bother?

[johncmcleod]

I say that BK should be forced to capitulate and admit he is wrong. If you always get beaten in an argument about something, it is time to re-examine your position.