The fun of frustrated homophobes.

[Jon Miller]

He woudl probably disagree about being beaten.

Jon Miller

[DRoseDARs]

If Ann Coulter ever gets her hands on him, "beatings" will be the least of his worries...

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by 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!

The thing is, gay people actually know what they're talking about here, BK doesn't.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


The thing is, gay people actually know what they're talking about here, BK doesn't.

Again you aren't going to change his mind, so that make you look a little silly also.

As in drinking: Know when to say when.



ACK!

[Ben Kenobi]

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.

His preference for the celibate life over the married life?

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.

So? Even if he is a repressed gay man, that refutes your earlier point that what Paul says differs from what Christ says.

This is all ad hominem.

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

'effective founder'?



Paul would say that he is the least of all of the Apostles. As one unnaturally born.

[Ben Kenobi]

The thing is, gay people actually know what they're talking about here, BK doesn't.

Ad hominem.

[Ben Kenobi]

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.

Perhaps you should wait for my response.

[Ben Kenobi]

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

Gee. Thanks.

[Ben Kenobi]

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.

Strawman. Do I defend this position? I do not agree that even if a behaviour is immoral, that laws necessarily ought to be used to enforce such morality.

There are some cases, where this is true, that immoral behaviour ought to be curtailed through the legal system, and others where immoral behaviour ought not to be.

Sodomy falls in this category. I do not believe that sodomy restrictions ought to be enforced by the state, because such acts cannot be restricted, other than in public. To have an unenforced law, encourages the violations of other laws.

So, I suggest, rather than pulverising strawmen, that you address my points, rather than the those of the rigid hobbyhorse fundy.

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.

Now, I am saying, in this debate, as I have throughout, that whether sodomy is immoral, is irrelevent in the discussion of how these desires come about. If you wish to discuss this, this is an entirely separate issue.

In my own stance, I believe the Christian position on sodomy is more correct than other religions, because of the death and resurrection of Christ. Therefore, there is a concrete reason to elevate one religion over another, and to elevate Christianity over other religions.

What does Christ say about these desires? He affirms that the sole expression of sexuality ought to be found in marriage between a man and a woman. All other forms are violations of the principle, that the two are to become one flesh. This includes, to an equal degree, extramarital sex, and sodomy.

Given this position, and this conclusion, I again find this to be irrelevant in the debate as to whether society ought to prohibit such violations according to the law. What is relevant, is whether such behaviour according to the law can be encouraged through the law. This is the far better 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.

Interesting.

Do the gay people on this forum accept this principle? Do they agree with the fact that there are too many disadvantages to being gay?

If not, why not? And if this is so, then why should we take your word over theirs.

I am sure a gay man can regale you in the tales of his life, in the glory, and pleasure he obtains from the men that he shares his sheets. Is this not so, they find this extraordinarily pleasureable?

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.

Granted. You have several presuppositions here. Suppose I take Agathon's affirmation of the glorious diversity in sexual expression across the scope of the population. Surely, according to this principle, one could find many willing and engaging partners.

Second off, human beings are built for sex between a man and a women, not between two of the same gender.

Oh I agree wholeheartedly, but why are you siding against me, when I am the one affirming this principle? If human beings are built for this sex, this implies that it is only through conscious effort can they overcome these natural barriers.

So your own principle does not lead you to the conclusion that homosexuality is innate. Rather, they choose to act in these ways.

Third, being different is hard, and society makes people that are different outcastes. No one wants to be an outcaste.

Can one say that being gay makes you an outcast? Suppose I were to say, that being a Christian makes me very much an outcast on a socially liberal university campus. Would this lead to the conclusion that I must have been born a Christian, and that I did not choose to become one?

It is not sufficient to say that just because society discourages a behaviour, that someone does not choose to engage in this behaviour.

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.

According to whom?

I agree with you that their brains are different, just like the brains of taxi drivers are different from those of accountants. What you do has an effect on the way your brain works.

It's the same thing for drugs, they alter your brain chemistry, and create a dependency. Does this mean that someone cannot stop taking these drugs? No. Only that it is difficult for them to do so.

Society pressures people into being straight, and on top of that, being straight is way more advantageous.

That depends on what you define as 'advantageous.' Why should these pressures overcome the sheer joy of sleeping with men?

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.

Islam says it is immoral as well. As for the others, I do not know.

[Ben Kenobi]

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.

Does that mean, when you reach this process, that because your hair changes it's natural colour, you are no longer the same person you were when you were young?

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.

So, suppose I sleep with a man tomorrow. Does this make me gay, if I never sleep with another man again? What if I said I had the desire to sleep with a man, and only that one man in particular, and spurned all others. Would this mean that I am masking my desire for women, even though I claim to have a desire for a man?

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.

Really. When was this moment, if you do not remember the date or the time? Have this moment, from every moment afterwards been clear, or did the significance of such event only become clear after further reflection? I ask this because I have found this to be the truth for my own mind. Much I have known, I have seen further into, as I am older.

Suppose one were to take my principle at face value. Just because you have not seen further into the significance of this date, does not necessarily mean that such significance will not change in the future. To base your essence on something dependent on personal reflection, seems to me difficult to justify. Just because you have not, as of yet, seen any reason to change, is not sufficient to prove that you cannot change.

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.

We're in pretty deep here. This is what I refer to the term 'accidents'. Your hair colour is genetically determined. The same can be said for a predisposition to these desires. Yet both are accidents, and not pertaining to the essence.

Should be noted, there are really two arguments going on concurrently here.

First is, are these desires innate? I think we have two different ideas as to what constitutes innate. In one sense, they are, in that they can be predispositioned. However, in another sense they are not.

If one defines innate to mean that which is a part of our genes, you would be correct to say such desires are innate. However, if you were to say that such desires pertained to your essence you would not.

DNA is a marker, that serves to distinguish between persons, yet cannot wholly contain the essence, as identical twins are still two different persons. That which is essential cannot be DNA, for DNA changes over time, through aging and other effects. In order to say that the essence is what does not change, it has to be something not subject to physical decay.

[Ben Kenobi]

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

What about two consenting adults who happen to be first cousins?

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 to care for a child.

Damn bigoted? What a nuance! What is the substantive difference between claiming that one has the right to own a child, and that one has the right to care for a child?

Society does not grant this right, even to parents, that they have the right to care for their child. A child who is beaten or abused ought to be put into foster care notwithstanding any nebulous 'right' of the parents to care for their children.

Children are gifts to their parents, and ought to be treated as such. The parents are not granted the right to care for their child, so much, as the opportunity.

Obviously, it damn difficult for homosexuals to sire their own children beyond midwives(?) and sperm donors, so adoption is the main issue.

So? Just because a couple is infertile, does that mean they have the right to claim the first child off the lot?

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.

A cite would increase the substance of this argument. There are an ungodly number of families with a man and a woman who would otherwise wish to adopt a child, but can't, and give up due to all the red tape. Why should gay folks jump the queue?

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. I

I do. I see many families that have done just that, and would gladly take on more, if they were permitted to do so.

MO given that these couples are religous nutjobs, the kids are better off in the care of the State.

Well, that gets bolded.

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.

So in your opinion, it is better that a child be given to a gay couple than an evangelical christian family, because such a family is a cadre of 'religious nutjobs'.

Yet you in the same breath condemn these nutjobs for not 'stepping up the plate?'

Absolutely breathtaking.

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.

False, all I presume is that there will be those who do not want these desires. Why should you deny the right of those who do not want these desires to seek treatment? On what grounds do you infringe upon their liberty?

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

You have confirmed in the thread, that you believe gay folks ought to jump the queue. You want special treatment. You want the affirmation that comes from the respect society pays to married folks over other couples.

Why don't you admit this?

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.

So only black homosexuals can assess character? Nope. I don't see Dr. MLK agreeing with this. Surely, he claimed for himself the right to assess the character of the lukewarm cracker Christians who would not support his march.

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.

It's true. You need to define what constitutes a 'right' to marriage, in order to make your point. Which brings us right back to question 1.

[Ben Kenobi]

OK, I can accept that. But what I'm trying to say is that "sexuality" defines agape rather than eros.

No. That's not the case. Sex = eros, not agape.

I might have sex with a man, but I'd still only feel agape for a woman, and that's what makes me heterosexual.

It's a different love, and one that does not require sex. It can be found in sexual relationships, but does not directly pertain to sex.

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

Yes, I believe I can have agape love for a man, in the same way as I would a woman.

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

No, and notice, I refrain from stating either. My girlfriend may be only eros, and the gay man's boyfriend may be agape. But I am trying to say that sexuality = eros and not agape.

See how DRose tries to put sexuality in concrete terms, that fit eros much more than agape.

[Ben Kenobi]

Finally, Boris:

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.

They have not. They offer testimonies and anecdotal evidence which you rejected because it wasn't 'factual' evidence.

Make a box, and a standard that can be proven, and I can meet your claim. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time and mine.

If one man backsliding is enough to confirm your argument, then surely one man who has not ought to stand in proof of mine.

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.

That is because they also presuppose that preferences are a part of your identity. Ergo, they beg the question.

Now, if struggle meant that one changed one's identity, how would we ever learn anything? We learn because we are challenged, and because we bring along what we have learned from those challenges. Struggle does not force an identity to change.

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).

The same psychiatric professionals who refuse to treat people who do not want these desires? Again, these professionals have not always believed this to be true. Why should we accept that the professionals are any more right now, then when they believed homosexuality to be a mental disorder?

Would you have defended these same professionals who you defend now, if this is what they believed?

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

Many things about me would have been different, but I would still be me.

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.

If you had read DRose's response, he is denying that such care ought to be provided. Hardly a strawman.

Secondly, when the APA refuses to certify, and will boot out those who do publicly treat these people, then yes, you are saying that these people should not be treated, even though they desire to be treated.

You can't have your cake an eat it too. Either the APA is wrong to boot professionals out of their organisation for treating these patients, or they are right, and one should not have the right to treat these patients, which makes my argument no longer a strawman.

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 empirical evidence to support otherwise--then those who want to undertake such measures should be made aware of that.

When that same organisation also has the power to determine what research counts as 'empirical' and what does not, then you have yourself a closed loop. Whatever the APA determines to be kosher goes, regardless of any sort of 'empirical' standards.

Secondly, if you wish to apply the empirical label, in the sense that other scientific endeavours do to psychology, good luck. Most psychologists refuse to classify their field in similar terms, because they cannot meet the same standard of empiricism.

I'm quite disgusted with the drive to force gay men to be straight, but not just for the gay men's sake.

What desire to force anyone? Where have I said that a gay man who does not consent to such treatment ought to be compelled to undergo such treatment. Man, you'd think this was Guy Fawkes day.

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.

Any worse than the wife not knowing? Truth hurts. Fact of life. To protect people from the truth does far more harm than to confront the truth.

Yes, I acknowledge that treatment often hurts patients, like a lanced boil hurts.

Yet the fundies are perfectly willing to subject people like her to false marriages with homosexuals to try and prove their point.

So a marriage between a man and a woman is false, and a marriage between a man and a man is true?

And a marriage between a faithful wife becomes false when her husband philanders? The situation is analogous to the latter. Regardless of the philanderer, the marriage is still valid, until the wife chooses to dissolve the union, in response to marital infidelity. Your concept of true and false marriages does not permit any scope of forgiveness and reconciliation required for any lasting marriage.

How about a marriage wherein one partner lies about who he is and must pretend to be attracted to someone he isn't?

Did the wife know of his previous life? If so, then she has not been lied to one bit. Like marrying a known philanderer.

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.

Sure, but people's feelings change. Just because they no longer feel the same way about each other when they were first married, does not render their marriage invalid.

[Az]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


What's a strap on?

[Ben Kenobi]

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.

Define ruining someone's life. Does hurting a person, even psychologically ruin their life? If so, then I have great cause to say that the women who broke up with me have sinned in doing so.

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.

I'd rather have it be said about me, that I accepted Christianity wholeheartedly, than in any fabrication of my own desires. The reason being because I find Christianity damn difficult to accept wholeheartedly. Much easier to skitter off on your own path than to try to follow Christ.

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.

Fundamentally, in the terms of what constitutes a union of two peoples, it is different between a man and a man as it is between a man and a woman.

You conceded earlier that it was natural for a man to be with a woman. Surely this natural difference confers a fundamental difference in the two unions.

Now as for being a sin, look at what Christ says about marriage. I'll even quote it here.

Matthew 19:4-6

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

Any Christian who made his own decision on sin wouldn't think homosexuality is evil.

But would such a person be Christian? We do not decide for ourselves, what is sinful, and what is not.

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.

Who says I try to ban it? If they want to convert, I won't stop them, nor will I demand all the gays on Poly to convert.

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.

Yes, much better that we follow the path of ourselves. I'd much prefer to be a Kenobian than a Christian.

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.

If you send them to me, I'll read them and reply. However, you may not like what I have to say. I cannot promise anything.

I am joining your church over this issue, because I do not have faith in the desires of men, to set themselves above Christ.

Then you can join the ranks of the Christians who don't have a problem with homosexuality.

Why would I desire to leave Christ to follow these men?