President Obama has finally come out of the closet. He's always supported gay marriage--you can't be doctrinaire leftist without doing so, but now its all out in the open.
The President had no choice. There's too much gay money out there waiting to be scooped up. Obama’s bald-faced misdirection saying he didn’t want this to be a big campaign issue reveals that he does want it to be.
He sure as hell can't win reelection talking about his economic accomplishments, although progressives are suddenly pro-war now that the commander in Chief is also a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has killed more people than fellow laureate Yassir Arafat.
It’s all political. This is red meat designed to energize his demoralized base and amp up his anemic fundraising. Foreign money and other shady contributions will not put him over the $1 billion mark; he’s got to amp it up here in the US.
I see “gay marriage” as a two-part issue involving both fundamental natural rights and societal norms that include religion. Natural rights are non-negotiable, societal norms are not, although they cannot be easily reshaped by force. Progressives love wielding the hammer, but religious people are fighting back to defend traditional institutions, and that doesn't make them anti-gay bigots, Revrund Phred Phlapp's God Hates Fags church aside.
Societal Norms
Societal norms are changing. America has not yet fully embraced the idea of gay marriage, although the majority tipping point appears to have been reached. 70% of 17-35 year olds support same sex marriage, while only 39% of those 55 and older do, so opposition is literally dying out and gay marriage will be mainstreamed in another generation or two.
Protect the Sanctity of Marriage? Too Late!
The institution of marriage has fallen upon hard times, with out-of-wedlock births at 41% in 2009. Is it any wonder? Heterosexuals have done more damage to the institution of marriage than gay people ever could. How sacred is marriage when it can be dissolved so easily and so often? Adultery, spouse abuse and child abuse, and our world-leading divorce rate all make a mockery of the concept of marriage as a sacred institution. I believe holy matrimony is sacred, but we heterosexuals in America no longer treat it as such. Many marriages are nothing more than Kardashianesque slapped-together shams, and Christians don't stand up and protest those "marriages," so we can cut the crap about “protecting the sanctity of marriage.”
My only objection to gay marriage is definitional. Marriage has always meant one thing, and conferring the term upon a homosexual union abominates a millennia-old tradition. All legal partnerships, regardless of genders involved, should be just that: A legal partnership. Only a church should be able to declare someone husband and wife. I realize this is a losing battle (especially given the hetero-induced damage I’ve already detailed), so we need to pick other ground to fight on. Homosexuality will be mainstreamed. Get over it.
Natural Rights
In natural law, human being have rights, whether they be man, woman or some in-between sausage and coconuts combo. We all have a fundamental right to partner with whomever we can convince to shack up with us. At the same time, we must equally respect the right of any given church to choose which relationships they recognize, sanction and celebrate.
The state grants a marriage license, the church confers Holy Matrimony. There is nothing in the constitution prohibiting gay marriage, nor should there be. That same constitution also protects the rights of churches and individuals to hold and exercise their fundamental moral beliefs. As long as everyone recognizes the rights of all, we can maintain a harmonious balance.
Straight Americans have shown themselves to be remarkably libertarian on the issue of gay unions, which is admirable. Will gay activists maintain the same magnanimity when it comes to religious freedom?
221 comments:
1 – 200 of 221 Newer› Newest»The institution of marriage has constantly evolved. In earlier times it was merely an institution to manage the transfer of property. Commoners weren't even allowed to marry in some countries.
The statement by the fringe right that marriage has always meant one thing is asinine and indicative of the general ignorance we find on the right.
It's time that we admit that the Catholic church is so opposed to gay marriae because it's the first step toward married priests.
... and allowing gays to marry is not going to cause any more harm to the institution than heterosexuals have already caused.
“He's always supported gay marriage”
No he hasn’t. He’s been quite inconsistent on this matter.
I had expected you to attack him on that for lack of conviction.
“and allowing gays to marry is not going to cause any more harm to the institution than heterosexuals have already caused.”
Good point.
And why shouldn’t gay people have the same right to get taken to the cleaners by a voracious ex?
“Will gay activists maintain the same magnanimity when it comes to religious freedom?”
Freedom to do what? To get married ? Sure
To believe in the invisible man in the sky? Sure
Freedom to not pay taxes? Hmm… I’m not gay but I’m not so keen on that one.
Magpie, he has always believed in gay marriage even though he has changed his public position on it. Anyone that believes otherwise is a fool. He couldn't have gotten elected 4 years ago openly supporting gay marriage, hence the inconsistency. Just 3 years ago the majority was still against it.
I also agree that constitutionally there is nothing in there that would prevent states from legalizing it, much to the chagrin of most social conservatives. They give themselves away on the issue when they talk about a constitutional amendment. An amendment wouldn't be needed if it was already not allowed.
I am against gay marriage on religious grounds. I am also a realist. A constitutional amendment will not happen and gay marriage will be the law of the land in my lifetime or shortly thereafter.
The statement by the fringe right that marriage has always meant one thing is asinine
No it's not. Your statement is asinine, unless you provide some examples other than irrelevant property issues?
Magpie: We all have the natural freedom to partner with who we want, and churches have the freedom marry (or not) who they want based on their doctrines. That's my point, but thanks for the morning snark (or late night I guess, for you ;)
I used to have a horse like Obama, all it did was eat grass, and crap in one spot, til even it could not stand the stench of its' own fertilizer.
If I recall correctly, when gay rights came along, gays were agitating for civil unions and basically stated that they'd never ask for the legalization of gay marriage. Maybe I don't recall correctly?
I agree with you, Silverfiddle, that Obama's recent announcement is mostly about searching for funds for his election campaign. Okay, he may well get more funding from the LGBT community. But votes? My guess is that most in the LGBT community voted for him in 2008 and would have been voting for him in 2012, anyway -- particularly over Romney, who is a Mormon.
Ducky's here said, "... and allowing gays to marry is not going to cause any more harm to the institution than heterosexuals have already caused."
I can't recall the last time Ducky & I were so much on the same page.
Yes, Rob, it is rare to see Ducky echoing something I've written.
Once gay marriage becomeslbecomes the law of the land we will still have people against it based on religious beliefs. Christians and Muslims alike.
This does not a Bigot make.
SF I think a more fitting picture would be Chaz Buono and Rosie O'Donnell
Inevitable or not, the loss of social norms will lead to no good end. What is a society without social norms? Mush!
CoF: We're already there...
First, I want to commend SilverFiddle for this
THE MOST BRILLIANT LINE HE HAS WRITTEN TO DATE:
" ... [P]rogressives are suddenly pro-war now that the Commander-in-Chief is also a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has killed more people than fellow laureate Yassir Arafat."
Stand up and give three cheers for that.
~ FreeThinke
"I see “gay marriage” as a two-part issue involving both fundamental natural rights and societal norms that include religion ..."
Yes. Unfortunately, "Societal Norms" aka "Tradition" have had a long history of excluding and persecuting "elements" commonly perceived as incongruent or inharmonious with long-held superstition, accepted notions of "propriety" and commonly held values.
Most people are just not comfortable with anything seen as markedly "different" in any of a dozen realms. Being too smart, too learned, too articulate, too curious, too inquisitive, having an unusual talent that sets you apart, a passionate love for a subject most people ignore, etc. is apt to earn you hostility, rejection, and even persecution
Also, people always seem to be on the hunt for a good excuse to vent the tremendous store of free-floating hostility that seems to be built in to our benighted race.
"The fault ... is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
~ FreeThinke
"Your statement is asinine, unless you provide some examples other than irrelevant property issues"
Polygamy? Arranged marriage? Child brides?
If they're all one thing, the thing it is must be awfully vague.
"Progressives love wielding the hammer, but religious people are fighting back to defend traditional institutions, and that doesn't make them anti-gay bigots ..."
Virtually all people who identify themselves as "Bible-believing Christians" are, perforce, anti-homosexual bigots. The Bible says that members of the same sex making love is "an abomination," therefore it must be so. PERIOD!
End of discussion.
The Bible also sternly advises us "not to be guided by "your own understanding."
Surely anyone capable of thought could understand why these peremptory opinions of ancient tribal elders forcefully presented as "The Word of God" have set in motion centuries upon centuries of anxiety, terror, tribulation and violent persecution.
In my never humble opinion the admittedly hideous "Gay Subculture" (Oh yes it is, indeed hideous, Virginia!) is in many ways a Rorshach Image -- a mocking REFLECTION -- of the ugliness and stupidity that have kept people with a different sexual orientation from living free and fulfilled lives.
The constant threat of ostracism -- the fear of being ridiculed, beaten and publicly humiliated -- the ever-present possibility of being blackmailed -- the constant threat even of grotesque torture and execution in an arena-- or on a Cross -- in primitive, barbaric societies is surely more-than-enough to distort and cripple anyone's chances of 'adjusting" to "societal norms" that give them no place whatsoever in the society in question.
'Tradition" has a LOT to answer for. Unfortunately, modern Gay Activism -- which like everything else the left latches onto had nothing to do with "Gay Rights" is not the proper means by which "Tradition" should be tried and found guilty.
Gay Activism, by its outrageous, pugnacious, quasi-barbaric approach to "reform," could only result in so offending "Tradition" that "Tradition" is bound to react by setting any genuine promotion of understanding and acceptance back hundreds -- possibly-thousands -- of years.
~ FreeThinke
FT: For all you mentioned and more, that is why I am for partnerships, and acceptance, which does not mean approval.
The libertarian in me say a person can set his pants on fire if he wishes, although I would not approve of that either.
Jez: I could be wrong, but according to what I've read, any society in history codifying homosexual partnerships as marriage would be a very rare occurrence. Yes, many societies in the past quietly accepted it, or even openly (how could they not? Homosexuality has always been a fact of life), but calling it marriage would be unprecedented.
Jez: Here is a good article representing where religious/cultural conservatives are coming from.
Just to orient you, Presbyterians are not fire-breathing evangelical. They are as a grout generally liberal, with some churches having gay pastors and performing gay marriages, others not.
Also, in my admittedly biased opinion, this is how serious Christian conservatives discuss this issue. There's not much in there for the left to stereotype. It's a complex issue.
Cultural Argument Against Gay Marriage
" ... 70% of 17-35 year olds support same sex marriage ..."
Regrettable, because they have reached that position as the result of heaps of guanoganda dumped on them by a politically-corrupt educational system and the relentless assault by the popular culture on common sense, high-mindedness and decency.
Had they reached this position through insight, increased understanding and true sensitivity to the plight of others, it would be praiseworthy. Instead it's the inherently flawed product of cynical manipulation by those determined to become our masters.
An extremely complicated issue, because of the hypocrisy involved on the part of activists, and the genuine ignorance and sometimes viciously aggressive tactics of anti-homosexual bigots.
~ FreeThinke
I personally believe that the impromptu timing of the President's recent "coming out" party was due largely because Maryland has a huge African American community, and the issue of authorizing gay marriage will be on the ballot in Maryland this November. Up until recently, African Americans have overwhelmingly disapproved of gay marriage and have been highly skeptical oft it representing a struggle for "equality".... but the president does carry a LOT of influence in the community.
In other words, he's making it a "progressive 2-fer". He gets big donations for his pown campaign AND there's a better chance that it passes in the Maryland general election challenge
btw - in the interest of full disclosure, I signed the petition that will PUT the issue on the state ballot.
I see no reason to offer tax subsidies for homosexual behaviour. But then, public health and disease vectors seem to matter for little any more...
I was going to post on this, glad you took up the torch.
No matter how much liberals or Obama supporters want to deny it, Obama has always been a supporter of gay marriage. He's never been shy about his opinion on it. Look at how he and his administration wanted to overturn DOMA.
And Hollywood ate it up and did exactly what Obama wanted them to do, open up their wallets. Sheep.
Marriage is sacred, because God designed it that way. However, there are times when it is absolutely necessary to end a marriage, which you already mentioned, abuse, infidelity, etc.
But if those aren't the cases, then a couple needs to work on that relationship. Christians should feel obligated to protect this sacred union that our Heavenly Father ordained. The sleeping giant must awaken.
"Inevitable or not, the loss of social norms will lead to no good end. What is a society without social norms? Mush!
5/11/12 9:27 AM
Silverfiddle said...
CoF: We're already there..."
I would guess that having 3,4, or 5heterosexual marriages (Gingrich and Limbaugh come to mind) and a high divorce rate among heterosexual marriages (Liberal Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country, BTW, is what, as SF rightly stated, destroyed the institution of marriage.
But wasn't there a report out recently that said the divorce rate is slowing down compared with what it was in the '70s and '80s. OTOH, fewer couples are bothering to marry. Maybe that's why the divorce rate is diminishing?
As SF knows, I'm happy with what the president said the other day.
And for those couples who want a church marriage, there are various sects in the religious community that will accommodate that.
It's all so civilized now; I'm just ver clempt.
Leticia and all,
About ten percent of Americans are simply not religious. That's a large number, and growing. And if you look at the statistics over time, when the "sleeping giant" of religiosity is riled, the numbers of non-religious only grow.
It is not what FT thinks - that somehow the liberal state has inculcated anti-religious values on the young - but that when the religious right acts it most always acts against something people want, like more liberty, or evolutionary changes in the culture. Religion, being a naturally divisive and tribal pursuit, always creates an equal and opposite reaction to it's action. Hence, the contemporary revival among the religious right has imbued in our current generation a natural and understandable reflex against it.
When Osama Bin Laden used God to attack the United States, and then GW Bush used God to begin yet another long and pointless war against a philosophy, many people reacted by turning away from God. It seemed to them that the common factor in all this bloodshed, stupidity, hatred, and mayhem, was the belief in God. Hence, the current generation is less religious than the last.
And therefore, as the overwhelming majority of anti-gay marriage positions are on religious grounds, it is no surprise that the current generation is less inclined to accept those positions.
This is Human Nature 101.
JMJ
Anyone can get on the bandwagon of gay marriage and say that both gay and heterosexual marriage are one in the same, blah, blah, blah… But there is one thing one couple can do, and one couple can't. Reproduce of their own flesh & blood within the relationship.
The only real thing the church is against, within the gay union, comes from the word of god. Be Fruitful and multiply.
It's never "what FT thinks," Jersey, it's always what FT knows. ;-)
FT has eyes. FT has ears. FT has a mind. FT uses all three. FT also has many years of experience that have contributed heavily to the formation of FT's worldview.
In addition FT has the ability to draw parallels and make allusions.
FT's opinions are his own, but they are based on experience not prejudice.
~ FT
"But there is one thing one couple can do, and one couple can't. Reproduce of their own flesh & blood within the relationship.
The only real thing the church is against, within the gay union, comes from the word of god. Be Fruitful and multiply."
Not quite accurate. A lesbian couple can have one of the partners' ova, and a male gay couple could use the sperm of one of the partners to be used with a surrogate femaile willing to carry the pregnancy.
Both of these methods are used in heterosexual couples who have infertility problems.
It the paramount goal in marriage is to be fruitful and multiply, then what are we to think about marriages that can't have children and do not seek medical help to overcome that obstacle, or marriages where both partners agree not to have children? Are those marriages not valid in the eyes of a god?
Having children is a component of marriage, but not the only one.
So in those cases stated above, both LGBT and hetero marriages are the same if one partner cannot contribute his or her DNA to the pregnancy.
FT,
You used the word guanoganda.
I'm going to have to remember that word! Useful!
Thersites,
Interesting observation about Maryland and that upcoming vote in November. I think that you have a valid point.
Thanks, AoW.
I hate to burst all your bubbles but European (Western) marriage has been a social compact for far longer than a religious or state one. Until the mid-16th century all that was required was the 'verbum', the promise. It did not require a priest, nor did it even require witnesses. The verbum in the present tense created a marriage, the verbum in future tense, a betrothal.
Although marriages were often conducted or recorded in the local parish church, it was not required.
Even in cases where the family or families objected, all couples had to do was say the verbum, and manage to consecrate it before anyone could interfere and it was fait accompli.
The question then becomes why (legally) we need church or state involvement at all today? And here in Colorado today, you don't, at least for heterosexual marriage.
Sure, marriage, or the concept has been around for thousands of years. The rules were never uniform or even consistent for more than a century or two.
Cheers!
Finn: That's the way it is in most of Latin America, too. When government gives no bennies for being married and you don't care for the church's blessing, it becomes a de facto 'verbum' as you describe.
"then GW Bush used God to begin yet another long and pointless war against a philosophy"...
Forgive me, but what the hell are you talking about?
Okay then, back to marriage and gay marriage from a Libertarian's point of view.
The state's interest in marriage extends no further than the social contract. The state can recognize the marriage (and it should recognize any and all, so long as the parties enter into the contract voluntarily), solely for the purpose of recording the contract and it's terms, and only for the purpose of future contract disputes or dissolution.
Marriage and Matrimony (or whatever terms you prefer) should be distinct and separate. There should be a voluntary civil registration of marriage (the contract), and a separate marriage ceremony if so desired.
I see four forms:
Marriage Ceremony/Civil Registration
Marriage Ceremony/No Civil Registration
No Ceremony/Civil Registration
No Ceremony/No Civil Registration
Civil Registration would entitle the contract to civil dissolution.
No more, No less.
Everyone is entitled to civil registration.
Ceremonies are at the discretion of the persons and parties involved. Meaning you can have your own ceremony, or have one conducted by a person or organization that agrees to conduct it.
Anyone of the age of majority can enter into a contract with anyone else of the age of majority. Honestly, the sex of the parties to a contract is and should be irrelevant under the law.
That means:
Man-Woman
Man-Man
Woman-Woman-Woman
Man-Woman-Woman-Woman-Man
Whatever... it's none of the states business, or anyone elses for that matter.
conservativesonfire is right..'mush'...as if things are getting better for our families in the States since "anything goes" became the norm? Ya, right.
My gay friends aren't for gay marriage...they honor marriage between a man and a woman and think society works better that way. THey think this is all a gimmick and laugh at the high amount of gay divorces.
Yes "get over it"..it's here...sad, but true.
Now we have to figure out how gay married couples can move to another state and still be married. Insane to have it legal in one state and then you move and your marriage isn't recognized.
SOmeone got an up side to THAT?
Leticia said: "Marriage is sacred, because God designed it that way."
Really? Got proof of that?
FT,
I wasn't slighting you.
I simply think you are wrong on a certain point.
I do not believe the tolerance of homosexuality in American society is born of some "liberal" agenda at play in our schools.
I think it is a result of erstwhile unrelated flaws in conservative Christian thought; like the GWOT, and the Drug War; things the young find stupid and pointless.
I simply disagree with your position there.
JMJ
Liberalmann said...
Leticia said: "Marriage is sacred, because God designed it that way."
Really? Got proof of that?"
Got proof He didn't? Got a link?
Matthew 19:6
Matthew 19:6
"Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
What the hell does that have to do with this? Unless, of course, you're making some satanic argument?
JMJ
"Will gay activists maintain the same magnanimity when it comes to religious freedom?"
Certainly not, BECAUSE Gay Activism, as I never tire of saying, isn't ABOUT homosexuality, anymore than "Civil Rights" was about elevating the status of Negroes and other minorities, or Feminazis are about helping Women, etc., etc., etc.
ALL the "Liberation" movements are REALLY about the ultimate destruction of Christianity, Capitalism, and Tradition while supplanting our once free, prosperous and independent nation, and replacing it with a Marxist Dictatorship.
The ultimate aim of those behind all these "movements" is to establish World Government.
NONE of these "issues" should be regarded as separate and distinct from any of the others. They are ALL branches of the same tree, tentacles on the same squid, spokes on the same umbrella, organs in same monster's body, etc.
An ORGANIC and ruthlessly determined effort to upend and destroy the Establishment and replace it with a New World Order has been underway for more than a hundred years.
Our discussions about meaningless specifics like gay Marriage -- a particularly smelly red herring, if ever there was one -- are exercises in futility.
It's impossible to win a way if you don't know who -- and what -- you're fighting.
Matthew Arnold's "ignorant armies that clash by night" continue to thrust and parry till Doomsday.
~ FreeThinke
Oh, Jersey, all that Matthew stuff REALLY means is that when two people pair off and decide they want to spend their lives together and share life's burdens and blessing under one roof, instead of two, no one outside the household they establish has the right to interfere in the way they choose to live their lives -- as a COUPLE.
That's what it means to me, and I'm pretty sure that's what it means. Period.
All the legalistic guanoganda we've attached to it over millennia is the invention of authoritarian personalities and would-be dictators. We call them "Control Freaks" today.
~ FreeThinke
You're a lunatic, FT. No one I know thinks that way. No one. And among those that do imagine they could, I've seen just as many righties as lefties, at the very least.
JMJ
Actions speak louder than thoughts, Jersey.
As always it's by their fruits -- i.e. the results they achieve -- that we know who and what they really are.
But then I'm not really sure what you were referring to in your last comment.
The remarks about World Government?
~ FreeThinke
Or my understanding of St. Matthew?
Oh, and by the way
Gay is not here to stay
Some have always been that way
Since the dawn of time
When we rose from the slime
And no matter how much fear and dread
With serried ranks of martyred dead
The tyrants put in play
Or petty fears and superstitions
Threaten with suspicions
A couples' sex positions
No one has rights to say
Who one ought to lay.
~ FreeThinke
First of all, I'm taking the word gay back. So use fag. It used to be a perfectly good word.Meaning happy. Doris Day would concur.
Now, us crusty old farts ain't never gonna change. Never gonna happen. What the liberal fag agenda has done is to perpetuate their deviant lifestyle in the media and entertainment for so long that the up and coming teens are now accepting it as normal. Well it ain't. If it was their generation would die out in one generation. Teens coming into puberty are normally a messed up wreck anyway. How many are now going to "experiment" with homosexuality?
A generation ago this would have been unthinkable. Now you have the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES okaying it. Sorry for yelling.
And if you actually worship a higher deity, with actual family strengthening values, then you're labeled an intolerant basher.
I don't care what anybody does in privacy. That's their business. That would be the Libertarian way. Just don't flaunt it on everybody else. I can't seem to recall heterosexuals busting up Boston's St. Paddy's day parade because they want to prance around in PVC thongs.
The problem I think is everyone wants to be liked and everyone wants approval. Worse, they think they have a right to it.
Christian or Gay if you believe in your heart you are right, what matter is it what others think?
If your beliefs are so weak that they cannot stand before examples in opposition, perhaps you need to reexamine them.
Rather than give the state the power to define marriage as between a man and a woman, or the power to force a church to perform same-sex marriages. Wouldn't we be better off to simply take the power away from the state?
If a homosexual couple wishes to marry what right has the state or any of you to say no? If a fundamentalist church wishes to exclude homosexuals, what right has the state or any of you to dictate otherwise? If two people wish to declare themselves a couple, live together, share property, and dictate its distribution after their death... why is the state even involved?
It's not a Gay Issue and it's not a Religious Issue... it is entirely a Government Issue. The state cannot discriminate unless we grant it the power to do so.
What is the choice? Give the state the power to discriminate against gays? Or give the state the power to discriminate against religions?
I say get the state out of it completely.
Cheers!
Okay. Here's what pisses me off.
Back in 1984, my best friend (a woman) and I went to Hawaii for a vacation. Neither of us is gay; we are lifelong friends.
Because we were traveling together and sharing a room in the hotels on the Hawaiian Islands, all the hotel personnel ASSUMED that my friend and I were lesbians. In fact, they were shocked that we were not. That assumption was made on the part of just about everyone we encountered in Hawaii. Why should that have been the case?
-----------
We don't know the impact on children of the gay family unit. The only personal case that I know of involves a boy who was brought up by two mommies. He weighs over 300 pounds. Connection to his upbringing?
If I had been traveling with a man, would the hotel personnel have assumed that I was a whore?
But, but, Mitt Romeny cut the hair off of a Gay Gut's head 50 years ago?
Let's no forget that!
And at the same time that Obama decided to support gay marriage!
Wow, how things work when you get Desperate!
Wow, the obesity epidemic is caused by Lesbian parents.
Way to go, AOW. Publish that research.
Please shoot me now.
@Fintann - the power to force a church to perform same-sex marriages
--------
Nice misdirection. Go to your room.
Duck,
Don't be an ass.
I never said anything about "research."
@Z - My gay friends aren't for gay marriage...
---------
Who cares? Why do you assume that fringe right Protestants have standing to determine rights in America?
Now why don't you and Leticia remember that this is not a fundamentalist nation. We are secular.
@Freethinker - Virtually all people who identify themselves as "Bible-believing Christians" are, perforce, anti-homosexual bigots. The Bible says that members of the same sex making love is "an abomination," therefore it must be so. PERIOD!
---------
Leviticus says a lot of insanity. Why are the tribal rules of a bunch of nomads binding?
DIALOGUE - PART ONE
FINN: The problem I think is everyone wants to be liked and everyone wants approval. Worse, they think they have a right to it.
FT: I agree with your first sentence. It’s a rare person, indeed, who does not want to be accepted by others and appreciated for his good qualities. When you say, “Worse, they think they have a right to it,” however, it indicates that you think the average person’s desire for approbation is “bad.” I don’t believe you meant that, but it is what you said.
When it comes to ”rights,” I believe everyone has a right to be treated with courtesy and respect, unless they are caught red handed committing an atrocity. Standards of politeness and common decency cannot be legislated, but it would help immeasurably if they were maintained.
It may sound naive or “simplistic,” but all we need to do to make that happen is follow The Golden Rule.
FINN: Christian or Gay if you believe in your heart you are right, what matter is it what others think?
FT: It matters a great deal when others make assumptions based on ignorance, fear, superstition or prejudice, and feel justified in doing everything they can to make life miserable for people they feel they don’t like -- or ought not to like -- for whatever reason.
And again I take exception to your syntax. When you say “Christian or Gay” it indicates that you think the two are mutually exclusive. Is that what you believe?
(CONTINUED)
DIALOGUE - PART TWO
FINN: If your beliefs are so weak that they cannot stand before examples in opposition, perhaps you need to reexamine them.
FT: I’m not sure what your exact meaning might be here. Would you care to clarify? If by any chance you believe everyone’s fondest hopes, dreams and heartfelt longings ought to be subjected to rigorous, official scrutiny and be able to withstand public scorn and withering cross examination before they may be deemed acceptable, I heartily disagree.
No one should ever be given the authority to question how anyone thinks or feels, UNLESS they have criminal intentions or show a determination to subvert and destroy the Establishment either by violent insurrection, or a deliberate campaign to poison people’s minds against prevailing standards of truth and decency.
FINN: Rather than give the state the power to define marriage as between a man and a woman, or the power to force a church to perform same-sex marriages. Wouldn't we be better off to simply take the power away from the state?
FT: Here, I couldn’t agree with you more.
FINN: If a homosexual couple wishes to marry what right has the state or any of you to say no? If a fundamentalist church wishes to exclude homosexuals, what right has the state or any of you to dictate otherwise? If two people wish to declare themselves a couple, live together, share property, and dictate its distribution after their death... why is the state even involved?
FT: Very well stated, and again, you’ll get no argument from me here.
FINN: It's not a Gay Issue and it's not a Religious Issue... it is entirely a Government Issue. The state cannot discriminate unless we grant it the power to do so.
FT: The state exists -- or should exist -- to protect us from criminals and from any and all forms of attack against our sovereignty or territorial integrity. We should be able discriminate fiercely and decisively against enemies that arise within our own ranks. In a sane society the stinking red herring of homosexual marriage -- or any form of private behavior between consenting adults -- could never qualify as that powerful an enemy.
For good or for ill the state should have no power to legislate for or against matters of taste, style, or behavior, unless the overt expression of those things impinge on the rights of others to enjoy their lives as they see fit.
FINN: What is the choice? Give the state the power to discriminate against gays? Or give the state the power to discriminate against religions? ... I say get the state out of it completely.
FT: I would agree with you completely again, if it were not for the issue of “religion.” I, personally, refuse to define or accept anyone else’s definition of ISLAM as a “religion.” ISLAM is NOT a RELIGION. It is a SUBVERSION, an INCURSION an INVASION, a CORRUPTION and a PERVERSION of every principle on which this country was founded, and as such it -- and all the other “enemies within” should be vigorously discriminated against. I said VIGOROUSLY not VIOLENTLY.
The idea that homosexuality per se -- a natural human phenomenon that has appeared in every culture at all levels and among members of every “faith,” since time immemorial -- should be classified as injurious to society is arrant nonsense.
The political objectives behind the Gay Liberation Movement, however, are a other thing altogether.
Satan makes use of anything and everything within reach to work his deceitful wiles. Satan, however, is not in sex, but in all the vile, psychologically maiming superstitions that grew up around sex.
~ FreeThinke
Shaw "Not quite accurate. A lesbian couple can have one of the partners' ova, and a male gay couple could use the sperm of one of the partners to be used with a surrogate femaile willing to carry the pregnancy."
My statement was "Reproduce of their own flesh & blood WITHIN the relationship." It's a natural impossibility because men and women are not naturally made to carry the egg (men), or fertilize the egg with the sperm(women).
"then what are we to think about marriages that can't have children"
We think it's a 'natural' physical flaw that occurred during the partners' own development.
AOW,
Thanks for the nod on GUANOGANDA. I coined it the other day as a fun alternative to a common vulgarity. Don't you think it sounds so much more refined than saying BAT SHIT, which is exactly what guanoganda means? ;-)
As for you and your friend being taken for a pair of lesbians, I would hope you'd see the irony -- and the humor -- in it! Had I been in your position on that cruise, I might have been tempted to play it to the hilt just for laughs.
Nevertheless, I understand your annoyance with the blithe acceptance today of what-was-once-considered Shameful Perversion as The New Normal.
You can chalk that up to the "Vast Left Wing Conspiracy" among Urinalists, EducRats, Hollyweird, the Pop Mucous Industry all of whom are working feverishly day and night -- whether consciously or not -- to Unseat the Establishment and replace it with the New World Order.
~ FreeThinke
Mark, I hate to break it to you, but there are thousands upon thousands of perfectly "normal" men and women who marry, and deliberately choose NOT to have children for reasons that are no proper concern of yours or mine.
The days of seeing Woman's primary role as that of Brood Mare are over and die with, thank God.
The days of regarding sex as a "necessary evil" to be engaged in for the sole purpose of "perpetuating the race" are over and done with also -- except possibly in the Mediaeval Mentality that Pervades the World of Islam.
No longer are respectable young women advised by their longsuffering mothers to "Lie back, spread your legs, close your eyes, grit your teeth and think of England."
HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH! HALLELUJAH!
Not EVERYTHING about modernity is rotten, thank God.
~ FreeThinke
OK we get it Romney is a Bully and And Barry the Beast is an Angel!
CaliforniaGirl, your remark is spectacularly irrelevant to everything said in and about this article.
Why did you make it?
Just curious ...
~ FreeThinke
Ducky!? Who said my gay friends are Protestant believers? That's a great one! FAR from it. They're just very decent people.
Yes, Ducky, we have become, finally, a secular nation. And what a sad world we've become along with that.
THankfully, there are still just enough Christian values built upon by the FOunding Fathers that all is not lost...yet.
But, don't worry...we're sinking into a quagmire of people who think two women or one man being pregnant is natural ... where strong values that support healthy reproductive lives and healthy marriages are demeaned and mocked.
Good job! I hope you're not too surprised in twenty years...
That decent homosexual people could consider themselves friends of any evangelical, "Bible-Believing" Christian is a mark of the extraordinary wisdom, graciousness, tolerance and broad-mindedness of the homosexuals involved.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of falsehoods against you for Truth's sake -- for Love's sake -- for Intelligence's sake -- for Principle's sake -- for Spirit's sake, for Life's sake -- for Beauty's sake -- for GOD'S sake!
~ FreeThinke
One can't help wondering if anyone would have much of anything to say at all, if it weren't for the incessant heckling and badgering visited upon the conservative blogosphere by the likes of Canardo?
The Love-Hate Phenomenon is exceedingly strong in venues of his sort.
~ FreeThike
"Canardo..." Now that's a good one! Two neologisms is one week!
"@Fintann - the power to force a church to perform same-sex marriages...Nice misdirection. Go to your room"
Ducky, I am making a point... not describing reality. It is the logical outcome of your obsession with positive rights.
It's telling that that is the quote you chose to focus on instead of:
"If a homosexual couple wishes to marry what right has the state or any of you to say no?"
The eyes of the state (and business) should be blind to gender, as it should be blind to race.
If a couple want's to marry, their gender should be irrelevant to the state, if a married couple wants 'family' insurance, gender should be irrelevant to the business as well (outside of actuarial risk: two men have zero risk of ovarian cancer).
The legitimate answer is to eliminate any advantage/disadvantage between government and citizen regardless of marital status. A married man should have exactly the same relationship with the state as a single man. Two men married to each other should have the same relationship to the state as a man and a woman married to each other.
That said, a married homosexual couple does not have any right to attend services or acquire membership at any private or religious organization.
Nor do they have a right to force a fundamentalist Christian couple that run a bed and breakfast to give them a room for the night. Perhaps the distinction should be drawn between publically and privately held corporations or businesses. You'll acknowledge there is a difference between Hilton Hotels and Joe & Betty Sue's Bed and Breakfast?
I believe the Bed and Breakfast scenario capture what FT means when he says "Gay Activisim isn't about Homosexuality" (Please correct me if I am wrong FT).
It's the in-your-face you have to accept me for what I am whether you like it or not approach. That should be true of the state, but for private individuals or organizations the answer is:
"No, I don't".
Are we now at the point where you believe the government can tell me I have to accept gays into my private club? Isn't the logical extension of that, that I also have to accept white supremacists in my private club also? Or Anti-Muslims? Where do you draw the line?
Or do we give the state the power to pick and choose which groups it elects to support or not? Although regretably I think we may already be there.
Cheers!
FT:
No, I don't think the desire for approbation is bad, I think the idea of government enforced approbation is ridiculous.
Perhaps I should have said 'Worse, they think they have a positive right to it'.
I agree with you that everyone should be treated with courtesy and respect, but courtesy and respect does not equate to approval.
I don't believe Christian and Gay are mutually exclusive any more than I believe Christian and Adulturer are mutually exclusive, and we certainly have plenty of those.
It just seems that the two camps falling out in opposition here are Christian and Gay. Kind of sad, too. Regretably I think the last argument for many fundamentalists when reason and logic fail is simply to revert to the nearest handy biblical quote that supports their position.
Of course we all know that the bible hasn't urged us to go out and pull the mote from our brother's eye, nor has it called upon us to judge. Points usually conveniently overlooked.
As far as weakness of belief in the face of opposition goes I would never call for "official scrutiny", I call for internal scrutity. Why are your beliefs threatened by others who don't share them? I would guess one would either be guilty or doubtful.
I say it is a government issue because the parties on both sides wish to resort to the use of state violence or threat of it to enforce their own viewpoint. For inherently the only real power the state has is sanctioned violence.
I won't argue with you over whether or not Islam is a religion or not. I will say that if the state has power that you are concerned will be subverted by Islam, perhaps the state should not have that power at all.
Cheers!
FT,
In 1984, when my best friend and I visited Hawaii, nothing like The New Normal was in play to any extent. Well, maybe in San Francisco, but certainly not in Northern Virginia, where I live, nor in Austin, Texas, where my friend was living at that time.
DEFINITIONS of MARRIAGE from NUMEROUS DICTIONARIES that MAY or MAY NOT PROVE USEFUL to the DISCUSSION:
The legal union of a man and woman as husband and wife.
The state of being married; wedlock.
A common-law marriage.
A union between two persons having the customary but usually not the legal force of marriage: a same-sex marriage.
A wedding.
A close union: "the most successful marriage of beauty and blood in mainstream comics" (Lloyd Rose).
Games The combination of the king and queen of the same suit, as in pinochle.
The state or relationship of being husband and wife
the legal union or contract made by a man and woman to live as husband and wife
(as modifier) ⇒ “marriage license,” a “marriage certificate ”
the religious or legal ceremony formalizing this union; wedding
a close or intimate union, relationship, etc ⇒ “a marriage of ideas ”
in certain card games, such as bezique, pinochle the king and queen of the same suit
the relationship between two people who are husband and wifea long and happy marriage
a close union between two things
the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage
the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock
the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage
an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities
an intimate or close union i.e. the marriage of painting and poetry the religious and/or legal process through which people become husband and wife, husband and husband or wife and wife, or the state of being married.
The act of marrying, or the state of being married; legal union of a man and a woman for life, as husband and wife; wedlock; matrimony.
The marriage vow or contract. [Obs.] Chaucer.
A feast made on the occasion of a marriage.
The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son.
Any intimate or close union. Marriage brokerage. (a) The business of bringing about marriages. (b) The payment made or demanded for the procurement of a marriage. -- Marriage favors, knots of white ribbons, or bunches of white flowers, worn at weddings. -- Marriage settlement (Law), a settlement of property in view, and in consideration, of marriage. Syn. -- matrimony; wedlock;
wedding; nuptials. -- Marriage, Matrimony, Wedlock. Marriage is properly the act which unites the two parties, and matrimony the state into which they enter. Marriage is, however, often used for the state as well as the act. Wedlock is the old Anglo-Saxon term for matrimony.
The act of uniting a man and woman for life; wedlock; the legal union of a man and woman for life. Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engage to live together in mutual affection and fidelity, till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, for promoting domestic felicity,and for securing the maintenance and education of children.
Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. Heb.13.
A feast made on the occasion of a marriage.
The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king, who made a marriage for his son. Matt.22.
In a scriptural sense, the union between Christ and his church by the covenant of grace. Rev.19.
So far all sources cited neglected to mention that MARRIAGE can -- in the Antiques Trade -- mean uniting parts of two different pieces of furniture -- both old, and apparently compatible in wood, style and proportion -- by using cabinet-making, and finishng skills to help pass off the "married" pieces as one authentic "original."
~ FreeThinke
Thanks for the clarification, Finntann. I was pretty certain of what you meant, but felt I had to chide you a bit about matters of syntax that really did obscure your intention.
We are on the same page about all of this. I even agree with you about undesirability of State Power able to discriminate against such threatening elements as Islam, BUT, as you know, I greatly fear being taken over by tyrannical elements who have no respect for the spirit and intent of our Constitution, but have no compunctions whatsoever about using it cynically to further their own ultimately unconstitutional ends.
If a majority of "the people" were somehow persuaded to support replacing our Constitution with Sharia -- or the Communist Manifesto -- the Moonbat Credo -- the Bylaws of the Headhunter's Association in Mombassa -- or any of a thousand other hideous alternatives to what our Founders established, I think you might agree that it would not be bode well for the nation's future, am I right?
The paradox I keep mentioning is always with us. How can we stay true to the Constitution when an urgent need arises to protect it from those determined to destroy it from within?
It's a bitch of a problem, I know, but one well worth discussing without lapsing into insult, character assassination, and other forms verbal and intellectual abuse, one would think.
Best regards,
~ FreeThninke
AOW, we shall have to chat about your Hawaiian Adventure in a more suitable venue one of these days.
I too would fund it irritating to have anyone -- especially anyone in a SERVICE industry! -- to blithely ASSUME anything about me and act accordingly with no facts in evidence to support the supposition.
What is the old saw about ASSUME?
It makes an ASS of YOU and ME!
Yes, indeed!
~ FT
"If a majority of "the people" were somehow persuaded to support replacing our Constitution with Sharia"
Which is why we were established as a republic as opposed to a true democracy, and why that republic had strict boundaries and limitations on power. But we seem oh so ready to throw away those boundaries and limits either in favor of 'pure' democracy or the overmothering nanny state.
The founding fathers knew well that democracy could be tyrannical. They also knew first hand that Christianity could be tyrannical as well.
A simple if slightly long question, why are you more concerned with replacing the constitution with sharia than with canon law?
Are there not far more many Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglicans about than Muslims? Would not implementation of canon law more democratically probable than the implementation of sharia?
And if your argument is that Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglicans would not do that, what in God's name would make you think they would stand aside and allow the implementation of sharia?
To me, either seems highly improbable, although if forced to choose I would say we are at greater risk of a Christian theocracy than a Muslim one.
Cheers!
The state needs the power to discourage public health risks. And many "aberrant" sexual practices have long been "discriminated" against by "Holy Books" since man learned how to write precisely FOR this reason.
The day that they invent an AIDS vaccine AND I don't have to pay new taxes so as to treat every Tom Brown, Dick, and brown dick with free health care is the day I'll begin to support "gay" relations. But not a minute before.
A few unmentionable "facts":
Risky Sexual Behavior on the Rise Among Homosexuals. Despite two decades of intensive efforts to educate homosexuals against the dangers of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and other stds, the incidence of unsafe sexual practices that often result in various diseases is on the rise.
· According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 1994 to 1997 the proportion of homosexuals reporting having had anal sex increased from 57.6 percent to 61.2 percent, while the percentage of those reporting "always" using condoms declined from 69.6 percent to 60 percent.
· The CDC reported that during the same period the proportion of men reporting having multiple sex partners and unprotected anal sex increased from 23.6 percent to 33.3 percent. The largest increase in this category (from 22 percent to 33.3 percent) was reported by homosexuals twenty-five years old or younger.
Homosexuals Failing to Disclose Their HIV Status to Sex Partners
· A study presented July 13, 2000 at the XIII International aids Conference in Durban, South Africa disclosed that a significant number of homosexual and bisexual men with hiv "continue to engage in unprotected sex with people who have no idea they could be contracting HIV." Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco found that thirty-six percent of homosexuals engaging in unprotected oral, anal, or vaginal sex failed to disclose that they were HIV positive to casual sex partners.[5]
· A CDC report revealed that, in 1997, 45 percent of homosexuals reporting having had unprotected anal intercourse during the previous six months did not know the HIV serostatus of all their sex partners. Even more alarming, among those who reported having had unprotected anal intercourse and multiple partners, 68 percent did not know the HIV serostatus of their partners.
Can you imagine what they'd write about Obama if they didn't love him twice as much as they hate us?
The disease risks associated with human reproductive functions in a society are NECESSARY risks that heterosexual marriage was designed to minimize. The disease risks associated with homosexual non-reproductive sexual practices are wholly unnecessary and should be banned outright.
It's time that Lawrence v. Texas be overturned.
FT "That decent homosexual people could consider themselves friends of any evangelical, "Bible-Believing" Christian is a mark of the extraordinary wisdom, graciousness, tolerance and broad-mindedness of the homosexuals involved."
And, one could say it shows extraordinary graciousness on the part of an evangelical "Bible believing" (not sure what the difference is there?) Christian, but I'd never say that because it'd be so amazingly condescending, wouldn't it.
Although by your reasoning, would not homosexual marriage reduce those risks as well among its target population?
If heterosexual marriage reduces the risk of STDs among heterosexuals, it stands to reason homosexual marriage would reduce the risk of STDs among homosexuals.
However, I don't think you meant to go there. But I do think if you were to be honest, what you really advocate making illegal is any sex outside of marriage or for any reason other than procreation inside marriage... but we all know how far you would get with that argument.
Hell... why don't you go whole hawg and make it illegal to have sex for any reason other than procreation! Isn't that the ultimate end game for you? Isn't that what you are saying? Any sex other than for procreation just isn't worth the associated risks? Your quote should read:
"The disease risks associated with non-reproductive sexual practices are wholly unnecessary and should be banned outright"
We could even go back to branding the scarlet letter A on heterosexual adulturers... just so everyone knows the risk? No?
And FT thinks he needs to worry about Muslims! You just proved my point... thank you.
Seinfeld had the Soup Nazi...right here before our very eyes we have the Sex Nazi...
NO SEX FOR YOU!!!
Although by your reasoning, would not homosexual marriage reduce those risks as well among its target population?
Indeed they would... among homosexuals, but you would then open the door to allowing heterosexual sodomy, and place the 98% at GREATER risk of STDs.
Best ban sodomy, outright. You can't ban heterosexual sex, unless you want to remove humankind from the face of the earth.
I've got no problem banning all sex except for purposes of procreation... in fact, that was actually the case around the world a hundred years ago. Masturbation was taboo, as well.
As Thomas Malthus remarked in his Essay on the principle of population:
As the general consequence of vice is misery, and as this consequence is the precise reason why an action is termed vicious, it may appear that the term misery alone would be here sufficient, and that it is superfluous to use both. But the rejection of the term vice would introduce a considerable confusion into our language and ideas. We want it particularly to distinguish those actions, the general tendency of which is to produce misery, and which are therefore prohibited by the commands of the Creator, and the precepts of the moralist, although, in their immediate or individual effects, they may produce perhaps exactly the contrary. The gratification of all our passions in its immediate effect is happiness, not misery; and, in individual instances, even the remote consequences (at least in this life) may possibly come under the same denomination. There may have been some irregular connexions with women, which have added to the happiness of both parties, and have injured no one. These individual actions, therefore, cannot come under the head of misery. But they are still evidently vicious, because an action is so denominated, which violates an express precept, founded upon its general tendency to produce misery, whatever may be its individual effect; and no person can doubt the general tendency of an illicit intercourse between the sexes, to injure the happiness of society.
ps - As for proving your "religious" point, I'm no Christian. Mine is the purely "scientific" perspective. :)
What reason and science giveth (birth control/abortion), reason and science can also taketh away. ;)
This is a state issue and let the state's determine the right's of civil unions between gay couples.
Politically: The only reason President Obama did this is because he is under pressure and positioning himself to try to save votes. He needs to make up for the independent and democratic voters that have left or thinking about not voting for himself and the non-return voter. Republicans are more consistant voters then democrats. President Obama is scared!!!
RedneckRon
@Speedy G "Mine is the purely "scientific" perspective."
And so was Joseph Mengele's
My point, since I need to explain it to you, is that statist totalitarian autocrats come in all shapes and colors, they need not be Muslim, or even religious.
May I suggest, since you are so concerned about the risk and transmital of STDs that you try celibacy... and if you wish offspring they can all be produced in vitro. I'm sure modern science can even harvest your gametes without introducing any sensation at all, so you won't have to worry about masturbation, however noble the purpose.
NO SEX FOR YOU!!!
FT "there are thousands upon thousands of perfectly "normal" men and women who marry, and deliberately choose NOT to have children for reasons that are no proper concern of yours or mine."
I never made the claim to the contrary. Shaw did. I choose to focus on my statement that "naturally" Gays/Lesbians cannot reproduce from their own flesh and blood as a couple, but Shaw and you seem to want to focus on whether a 'man and woman' in their marriage choose not to reproduce, or can't.
Mengele was indeed, a man of SCIENCE, Sr. Tann.
Perhapt now you understand why gays demand "universal health care". Male homosexuals live on average twenty years less than comparable heterosexuals...
So you can either pay me now, with LAWS prohibiting sodomy, or pay me later, with increased TAXES for treating exponentially increasing STD and disease transmission risks. For it was SCIENCE that gave you your new found "rights" and "options".
And I don't think "celibacy" is the answer. Licensing sex, in a society that discourages NO risky behaviours, isn't going to do anything except reduce the tax base to pay for ever rising health care costs. Would you grant celibates a tax break? If not, you will likely have no practicing celibates.... only lots and lots of additional sodomites.
ROFLMAO...
Let's take this to it's logical conclusion Speedy.
By your logic and "science", should we not also ban Kissing? Holding Hands? Handshakes? or god forbid TOUCHING?
They serve no scientific or procreative purpose and only introduce disease transmission vectors.
Should we not thus pass a law mandating that everyone, male or female, wear a burka (or at least a surgical mask)? And thus reduce yet again another transmission vector (coughing, sneezing, and spitting).
I'm guessing far more lives would be saved by all of us wearing surgical masks all the time than by banning sodomy.
Hell... plastic biohazard suits can be the American Zhongshan! Although I'm sure we'll have brighter colors like red and yellow and blue.
Should everyone be mandated by laws to shave their heads and wax their coochies... thus eliminating the transmission vector for lice.
While we're at it why stop at sodomy (which seems to be an obsession of yours)and other sexual deviances, lets ban smoking, alcohol, trans-fats, saturated fats, salt...
And what pray tell is your vision of punishment for sodomites?
This is the society in which you wish to live?
You paint the picture of a pretty bleak dystopia, no?
Oh and for the record, I'm not asking you to pay for anything.
If you want to sodomize your boyfriend while smoking crack, that's your business.
The rest of us should not be obligated to pay for the consequences.
Isn't FREEDOM wonderful?
My Goodness, Gracious and also Me!
The GUANOGANDA is flying around here so thick and fast now that it threatens to bury us alive.
MERCY ON US! And things were getting so nice and civilized there for a while. Should have known it couldn't last Yuman Naytshuh being what it is.
Anyway, Finntann said:
FINN:"... if your argument is that Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglicans would not [mimic the barbaric tyranny inherent in Sharia], what in God's name would make you think they would stand aside and allow the implementation of Sharia?"
FT: That would assume the Christian Churches would have such a lock on political power they'd be able to squelch any "competition" from Islam or other "faiths" and "belief systems" incompatible with Western Society. In general The Christian Movement has become so enfeebled and so corrupted by The Social Gospel there is no danger of it ever doing anything other than role over and play dead for whatever Tyrant Du Jour comes in the Name of Egalitarianism.
Since we have already become a Secularist Society hostile to Christianity and well on our way to destroying any and all opportunity for ambitious, able, persistent individuals to achieve financial independence, the chance of turning over control to any force deliberately bent on destruction of prior norms is the greatest risk we face.
WE ARE DOING THIS TO OURSELVES in the names of "Fairness," "Equality," and "Social Justice."
FINN:"To me, either seems highly improbable, although if forced to choose I would say we are at greater risk of a Christian theocracy than a Muslim one."
FT: I agree with you there. I think you have misunderstood me since our sparring began months ago. My objection is not just to ISLAM but to ANY and ALL the many guises of TOTALITARIANISM.
I've been saying for many years that our Chief Enemy is Unbridled Lust for for Power and Control no matter WHOSE banner it parades under -- even our OWN.
We're really very much in agreement, Finntann.
Our problem lies in trying to find a civilized way to deal effectively with encroaching despotism. From what I can see there doesn't seem to be any nice, neat Constitutional way to balk would-be tyrants and stop them dead in their tracks before they can do their worst.
~ FreeThinke
FT, the neat Constitutional way to balk would-be tyrants and stop them dead in their tracks before they can do their worst is to limit the power of the state as our founders intended.
When you tolerate the restriction of liberties for Muslims you make easier the restriction of liberties for Christians.
I for one am unwilling to sacrifice liberty for safety, for I know the end result is I shall have neither.
Electronic message monitoring, GPS trackers in cars, UAVs flying overhead, TSA patdowns in the airports... Welcome to the land of the free, home of the indifferent.
Cheers!
@Z -- And, one could say it shows extraordinary graciousness on the part of an evangelical "Bible believing" (not sure what the difference is there?) Christian, but I'd never say that because it'd be so amazingly condescending, wouldn't it.
------------
Ah, isn't that sweet. The Ladies Who Lunch think they have some kind of standing to validate homosexuals.
Pompous doesn't describe it as well as delusional.
News flash, z, fundamentalist Calvinists are a minority.
FT, thanks for the response,
"Actions speak louder than thoughts, Jersey.
As always it's by their fruits -- i.e. the results they achieve -- that we know who and what they really are.
But then I'm not really sure what you were referring to in your last comment.
The remarks about World Government?
~ FreeThinke
Or my understanding of St. Matthew?"
Matthew???
No.
It's about a realistic understanding of the powers that be in modern society.
All you libertarians, objectivists, liberals, conservatives, Republican and Democratic, Christian Right, atheist/agnostic, bla bla bla, voters, you have to understand that there we now have a sort of Holy Roman Church running the world and it is unregulated capitalism, and it is without recourse. We humans need to rein in the international trade. Make it open and FAIR.
JMJ
While you guys are discussing the ins and outs of gay unions and yet to include divorces. Why did Obama did the about face? Feel the the political fear in the Air from Obama administration!!! They are covering up what is important. You guys are sound like secular idiots!!!
Redneck Ron
Ducky, I keep begging you to READ and then comment. You just might want to read WHY I wrote that...it was pretty obvious...you just didn't get it.
Yes, it was condescending and pompous as it gets, insulting to gays, etc... and not at all my feelings...but it sure was his.
Again, READING helps.
What's with you and Calvinists? I don't even know one. Why're you constantly so threatened by them?
I kind of like your Ladies Who Lunch moniker for me...I just wish I had TIME FOR LUNCH.
Silverfiddle, fairly reasonable article. It acknowledges the non-family related benefits of marriage but, in a disguised non-sequitor, declares homosexual couples ineligible for them because those benefits, while rich, are not the primary purpose of marriage.
Anyway, procreation is an insignificant fraction of the job of child raising. If gay couples can adopt, would the primary purpose of marriage apply to them too?
Redneck Ron,
Why did Obama did the about face? Feel the the political fear in the Air from Obama administration!!!
He is looking for votes because he know that he's lost a lot of those 2008 votes.
By your logic and "science", should we not also ban Kissing? Holding Hands? Handshakes? or god forbid TOUCHING?
That depends. Is the other person infectious? If so, then ban those behaviours. Leprosy... expelled. AIDS patients... expelled. Got it, yet? If the risks are LOW, then there's no need to ban... but if HIGH, BAN AWAY! And AIDS is a serious and deadly disease... risk of heterosexual transmission 1,000 times LESS than homosexualsex.
What used to be common sense is now metwith ridicule and indignation... which goes to show that the coming Idiocracy isalmost inevitable.
AIDS cases in the USA, held incheck ONLY by the following expenditures, over $16 billion in 2008 alone. Sounds like a lot of money to spend just so gays can have the freedom to spread deadly diseases.
The American government donates a substantial amount of money for the HIV and AIDS epidemic. In his State of the Union address in January 2003, President Bush announced the creation of PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a commitment to significantly increase US spending on HIV and AIDS initiatives around the world.6 Planned to run for five years, PEPFAR intended to direct US$15 billion to places where it is most needed. PEPFAR was renewed in July 2008 with the intention of spending US$48 billion from 2009 to 2013 on programmes to tackle HIV and AIDS as well as tuberculosis and malaria....
Wow. They could probably prevent all those diseases if they didn't have to waste so much money researching an entirely avoidable disease... AIDS.
33.4 million testaments to gay stupidity....
Sodomy is risky and dangerous. Legalized sodomy is irresponsible and reckless... just like our president.
Speedy: "risk of heterosexual transmission 1,000 times LESS than homosexualsex."
Here's where you're demonstrably full of Shit... receptive anal sex IS more risky than receptive vaginal sex, but by a factor of less than 20. And the monogamous practitioner of sodomy is at bassically zero risk. As to your wider point, I assume that you are satirically attacking the culture of health & safety rather than seriously outlawing non-procreative sex. Am I right?
Jez: I am voicing an old school Burkean Conservative appeal to tradition, nothing more.
I am for all legal rights, just don't call it marriage. As I said, it is a definitional argument grounded in tradition, nothing more.
Well, an awful lot of asses sure came out to bray on this one, didn't they?
Should we call that "Rising to the Bait?"
As Cary Grant exclaimed after being confronted with a particularly outrageous set of lies in North by Northwest -- one of Hitchcock's most entertaining movies -- "WHAT a PERFORMANCE!!!"
~ FreeThinke
Lest somehow you could manage
In every bed to be
There could be no advantage
To banning sodomy.
~ FT
Far above please notice
A subtle accusation
Perceiving “condescension.”
Well, now you may note this:
When freed from all pretension
The intent was condemnation.
~ FreeThinke
it'a 1,000. Read The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS by Michael Fumento.
No advantage, FT? I'd say that the Jews have reaped 2,000 years of "advantage". Just look at their IQs. ;)
Its nearly impossible to become infected with AIDS through penile-vaginal contact. Heterosexual AIDS mythologizing was the Left's trial run for global warming.
I kind of like your Ladies Who Lunch moniker for me...I just wish I had TIME FOR LUNCH.
-----
You a Sondheim fan, too?
The Calvinist comes from your belief in the elect, primarily the belief that America is exceptional.
So while not strictly true it does allude not to your belief that you are superior but your belief that God feels you re superior.
Once gay marriage is forced upon everyone, polygamy and all that will come back too. liberals will only have themselves to blame when that happens.
A Primly Moral Pose
A primly moral pose can serve to mask
Bilious temperament and vile conceit ––
In fact the urge to cripple and defeat
The one once loved now harshly brought to task.
Counterfeit religion acts the fiend,
Hobbling Affection’s natural course
Overcoming love with fake remorse.
No bliss survives when righteously demeaned.
What makes a creepy, sickening sense of shame
Haunt happiness as though ‘twere harlotry ––
Even husband’s needs belong with varletry?
Evil righteousness kills Passion’s flame.
Let him whose pious poison mars affection
Suffer much resistance and and rejection.
~ FreeThinke - 1/27/12
Thersites, I only skimmed your link: does it support the 1000 times increased transmission risk claim? I couldn't find anything. I notice that just naively counting cases from its table [Distribution of AIDS cases in the United States] suggests a factor of less than 20, as I said earlier.
This naive case-counting estimate could over-estimate risk of heterosexual transmission because of mis-reports from patients bashful about their homosexual activity, but on the other hand it could be an under-estimate because, in cases of infection through heterosexual contact, high-risk partners would be over-represented compared to the average heterosexual's partners.
In general its focus seems to be epidemiology, not in measuring the efficiency of a particular infection route. ie baked into that 1000 figure (probably -- I haven't found the source of it yet) is the low incidence of HIV among heterosexuals. Obviously your mileage may vary on that depending what circles you move in (country, drug usage, general health and STDs etc.).
Thersites, I only skimmed your link: does it support the 1000 times increased transmission risk claim? I couldn't find anything.
How about point 1 from the link, does THAT support the claim?
1. Unless one has a regular sexual relationship with someone who is HIV-positive, it is virtually impossible to become infected with HIV by heterosexual intercourse
Michael Fumento's book, "The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS" is not available, to my knowledge, on-line. You can try buying it, though.
btw - Most "official" AIDS reports list "heterosexual sexual contact" as a high-risk transmission source. What they fail to tell you is that the "heterosexual contact" in question is largely... sodomy. But then, hey, if I wanted to "raise the public's perceived awareness" of white criminality, I might include Hispanics in the "White" Crime perpetrator categories, and exclude them from the "victim categories... oh, wait, isn't THAT what the FBI Crime Reports reflect?
"How about point 1 from the link, does THAT support the claim?"
Depends what "virtually impossible" means, precisely... Numbers please.
"Michael Fumento's book ... is not available, to my knowledge, on-line. You can try buying it, though."
Well I might check a library, but I certainly won't buy it. Have you read it?
Does anyone repeating the "1000 times" claim know where it comes from??
It comes from studies cited in Fumento's book based upon heterosexual couples in which one partner was HIV positive, and the other not.
My less than 20 estimate comes from similar data* (Laynaert, Downs & de Vincenzi 1998; Varghese et al. 2002; European study group on heterosexual transmission of HIV 1992) -- I have the advantage of data published after Fumento's book.
* via wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV#Transmission
"...polygamy and all that will come back too. liberals will only have themselves to blame..."
You never know, snarf, it might just be the hyper-conservative judeo-christians who spear-head the polygamy.
By the way, I don't expect to disagree with Fumento, who seems right up my street; I expect that speedy misread the statistic. The overall transmission rate from male to female is about 1/1000, not 1000th of the homosexual transmission rate; I suspect conflation.
I have the advantage of data published after Fumento's book..
How is having data supplied by gay advocate researchers after they started cooking the books an advantage?
FJ, do you think fumento considers the stats available today better or worse than what he had in the 80s?
Lets gather some "modern" data and see how it has "evolved", shall we? (Table 1):
http://www.benthamscience.com/chivr/sample/chivr1-1/Baeten.pdf
Conclusion:
You can cook the books to whatever number you want to show Female to male (vaginal) ranges from 0.0001 to a high of 0.082 whereas receptive anal ranges everywhere from a low of 0.005 to a high of 0.183.
So comparing the low:low values the anal answer is 50x as dangerous... the high:high ratio's 2x as dangerous and given the low:high of 1,830x as dangerous.
...but then when you look at the studies as to correlates of increased infectionous (Table 2), almost all of the heterosexual studies note that "anal intercourse" was a biasing factor in the "heterosexual" infection rates. And almost every receptive anal study shows a 2 order of magnitude difference in the values inherent in the numbers (translating into a minimum 1:100 increased risk ratio)
FJ, do you think fumento considers the stats available today better or worse than what he had in the 80s?
I think Fumento would "consider the source" of his data... much as climate scientists should "consider the source" of climate data gathered.
No AIDS researcher ever became "grant poor" by underestimating the risks of heteroseaxual AIDS... which has ALWAYS been Fumento's point. And does ANTONE actually believe that the dangers of heterosexual AIDS wwren't used to justify the expenditures greater than those spent on cancer research, devoted to discovering a cure for a largely homosexual disease.
Haven't looked at speedy's numbers yet, but for a start why not compare receptive vaginal to receptive anal, or penetrative with penatrative? (because you want the biggest contrast).
FJ feel free to consider my sources, I've been kind enough to cite them for just that purpose.
Compare away. The data's in the link posted.
And Fumento's point is that many sources are unreliable. There is a vested scientific and political interest that benefits from distorting the data to indicate a higher hetero risk than is actually the case.
Speedy: mostly political interest, isn't it? Mostly the gay activists who don't want to be singled out; mostly the religious conservatives who want to bless their traditional sexual morals with health messages; mostly the grant bodies & politicians who want to capture the zeitgeist and fund what the people are most worried about; and most of all, the journalists who know that nothing sells their advert pamphlets like a big scary headline on the front cover: what could be scarier than vast swathes of middle class heterosexuals succombing to AIDS?
For all these people, AIDS seemed perfect. Mishandling it ticked a lot of boxes for a lot of groups, it would be a mistake to blame the scientists exclusively.
"You can cook the books to whatever number you want..."
Is this your defense of the 1000 times less risk claim? Was that cooked too, in your opinion?
According to the WHO, in 2007 about 15 and a half million women (out of 31 million) had AIDS, worldwide. However that happened, they sure didn't get it by having gay sex with a man.
...but chances are, the unaffordability of birth control can lead many to practice "other" forms of birth control (aka - sodomy). In the US, 3/4 of the cases are male...but there has yet to be reported a single confirmedcase of female to female AIDS transmission. Funny how our "Puritan" culturecontinues to protect us, isn't it?
but then, you're trying to overturn our Puritan culture, aren't you? It turns out that its' a pretty good means forkeeping the vast majority population disease-free.
Am I trying to overturn your puritan culture? I didn't know! (although I am against you licensing sex even within marriage).
I don't know what you're saying. It looks like you're pointing to modern birth control and lesbian sex as explanations for less female HIV infection in America; is this what you mean by "puritan"?
Meanwhile, I don't have any evidence that African women have more or less anal sex than American or European women. Do you?
If there weren't any cultural differences, wouldn't the US numbers be similar to South Africa? Or are. you saying that African women are genetically inferior to American???
I'm saying that w/o readily available and inexpensive birth control, some African women might do things that those with access might not resort to. I once heard that French women resorted to oral sex to avert being red by invading armies. I found those reports "credible", don't you?
erratum - raped for red, above.
It never ceases to astound me how so many intelligent, probably well-meaning people have a positive genius for misinterpreting and misunderstanding one another.
The appetite for conflict it seems one can't appease.
Obsession with minutiae leads to seeing only trees.
The beneficent totality evoked within the wood
Is marred, obscured and neutralized with far too much "You should."
~ FT
Sodomy is demonstrably unhygenic, FT. Since when is encouraging common sense precautions "too much, you should"? lol! I'm not calling for the full Leviticus. Just the parts that save lives.
It's all plausible: a genetic predisposition to the virus, different patterns of sex, different patterns of drug use, different standards of medical hygiene; all worthy hypotheses, but I have evidence for none. Plausibility by itself is not convincing.
All sex is unhygienic, that's why you only do it with trusted parties.
Not sure leviticus says anything about heterosexual anal sex. Don't be falsely modest, your anti-sex campaign isn't biblical, many of the ideas are your own.
(if i'm getting confused between you and speedy, sorry)
If gay couples were not being denied rights Hetro couples have, their would not be an issue.
Why is the government involved in marriage at all? Libertarians should support government staying out of ALL unions of people.
BALDERDASH!
Marriage is a Public Health program. THAT is "why" the government has inserted itself into the conversation. It's "one means" of discouraging the spread of highly contagious diseases, short of outlawing those desease spreading practices. And the best thing about it... it's "voluntary"... and those who sign up, get much deserved "tax breaks" with which to deal with the consequences of those actions... raising children.
Libertarians should support government staying out of ALL unions of people.
You mean like... corporations and private clubs? ;)
All sex is unhygienic, that's why you only do it with trusted parties.
And AIDS has proven to be 1,000x MORE un-hygenic. ;)
As of the end of 2005, approximately 550,000 deaths among people with AIDS have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control.
In 2003, AIDS was the fifth leading cause of death in the United States among people aged 25 to 44, behind unintentional injuries, cancer, heart disease and suicide
(if i'm getting confused between you and speedy, sorry)
...and don't be... we're one and the same person.
all worthy hypotheses, but I have evidence for none.
You wouldn't/couldn't get funding for ANY hypotheses that proports to prove an Un-PC hypothesis.
Funding to prove gays are just like everyone else move to the TOP of every funding list.
...those that refute are DENIED!
FJ: "Marriage is a Public Health program."
And they say romance is dead.
If that were true, then the state must enforce restrictions against adultery and pre-marital sex. The fact that it doesn't indicates that the state no longer, or never did, use marriage as a public health tool. Which is fair enough IMO; even without that marriage remains an important and useful institution that the state is correct to recognise.
speedy:
"And AIDS has proven to be 1,000x MORE un-hygenic. ;)"
A meaningless statement. I begin to understand that you don't mind.
"You wouldn't/couldn't get funding for ANY hypotheses that proports to prove an Un-PC hypothesis."
Oh, tosh. Which of the hypotheses do you consider to be non-PC, and therefore not funded? Whichever one you pick, I bet you an icecream I can find a paper that got funding to investigate it.
Pedophilia as it relates to homosexuality... unfunded unless it is structured to dispute linkage.
The funders of the vast majority of the social sciences seek to vindicate conclusions already arrived at.
ie - Racial differences in IQ.. there's plenty of evidence supporting an unbridgeable "achievement gap", but none that will proclaim a genetic link. To do so assures that the researchers will be ostracisized.
A meaningless statement.
..only if you put your fingers in your ears and continue to scream, " NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH..."
@"Marriage is a Public Health program. THAT is "why" the government has inserted itself into the conversation."
Considering that the state involved itself in marriage at a time when it thought disease was carried by ill humours on the air, I think your argument there falls flat on its face.
Unless your desired end-state is running around buggering strangers risk free... I fail to see what your concern is. The solution to your problem is very libertarian in nature: You are free not to engage in any sex that you consider high risk. Problem for you solved.
From a public health perspective, I'm not sure that the public health costs of AIDS are greater than the public health costs of a bacon and egg breakfast, double cheeseburger lunch along with a six pack of diet (insert your favorite) soda over the course of the day, a few beers and a steak for dinner.
Do you propose regulating everything but frigging bran muffins?
The cause and solution to most problems facing society today lie in the choices we make on a daily basis. Heart Disease, Diabetes, Obesity... and I could go on and on.
I ask again: How much power and control are you willing to cede to the state?
Speedy:
It is meaningless. What does it mean for a disease to be unhygienic? A disease cannot possess the property of hygiene. By what measure is something n times more unhygienic than something else? Hygiene is a qualitative property, not quantitative.
Possibly you mean to say that gay sex is more unhygienic, or (better) that sodomy is more unhygienic, although in neither case has the factor of 1000 been justified.
When I made that bet, I intended you to pick an hypothesis from those we'd suggested to each other above to explain the difference in HIV infection patterns in Africa. Nevertheless, I submit for your consideration the following papers:
1) "Assessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences among 'racial' and 'ethnic' groups" by Mountain & Risch, Nature Genetics 2004, discusses in-group and between-group variations, and makes recommendations about how to make more & better such comparisons in the future;
2) "Sexual Attraction to Others: A Comparison of Two Models of Alloerotic Responding in Men" by Blanchard et al., Archives of Sexual Behaviour 2012, wherein the erotic response of males of different sexualities (gender and age) is measured and compared. If there were a correlation between responses to men and boys, it would show up there.
I'll let you read them before I tell you what flavours (you owe me 2 now, right?) of ice cream I want.
Finntann:
Those involved in public health (and individuals trying to make rational health choices) need to be able to compare the magnitude of different risk factors such as those you mention here. That's why the 1000 times more risky claim is important to verify. I'm sure Free Thinke is tutting at me for focusing on so shoddy a detail as a mere number when there's so much to agree with (yes, anal sex is more dangerous, and yes, AIDS research is/was over-funded compared to other diseases), but it's actually of massive importance. Also, it tells us a lot about Speedy's integrity that he continues to quote it (albeit in a garbled, meaningless variation) even after admitting that he finds the data to be so wildly inconclusive that he may as well have picked a number at random.
Considering that the state involved itself in marriage at a time when it thought disease was carried by ill humours on the air, I think your argument there falls flat on its face.
Wow, the Romans built aquaducts to bring clean water to their city, two thousand plus years ago, as the Tibre was largely a cesspool... and they built it at a time when disease was suspected to be carried by ill humnours... how do you 'splain it?
The colon, uncase you hadn't realized, is much like the Tiber. Everything that enters the body must eventually "flow through it". The urethra, on the other hand, has all its effluents filtered before reaching its' exit.
They say that if you ever injure yourself in the desert, you can use urine to "sanitize" the wounds. Arabs go the extent of drinkining camel urine, for its' beneficial health effects.
It must have something to do with "ill humours" in the wind...
You are free not to engage in any sex that you consider high risk.
Somehow I think that people with lower IQs might not come to the same decisions that I might. But then, why should I care if the Bailey Savings & Loan goes under and old man Potter takes it over?
btw - They say that at Andersonville prison, the water became very contaminated because the captured soldiers were free to defecate wherever they pleased...
13,000 Union soldiers died in a tribute to "libertarian" anti-authoritarian values. That's quite a tribute.
...but then again, statistics weren't invented until the mid-nineteenth century... so the concept of "correlation" and "casusation" must have been COMPLETELY unknown
...and I mispoke. Sodomy is 1,000 more unhygenic. The two are linked as one in my mind (AIDS:sodomy).
I intended you to pick an hypothesis from those we'd suggested to each other above to explain the difference in HIV infection patterns in Africa.
I gave you MY hypothesis. Has it been funded? No. q.e.d. Would a study of African women to determine the prevalence of the practice of sodomy in those diagnosed with AIDS ever be considered for grant funding? The answer is, "no", as the authorities would NOT appreciate the answer... they "like" the idea that AIDS doesn't discriminate as to actual sexual practices and thereby can conflate vaginal and anal sex. AND, getting the women to ADMIT to the practice might also prove "quite the challenge" as well. It's NOT something "good Moslems/Christians" DO.
ps - Homosexuality is a mental disease.
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=heterosexual+sodomy+africa&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=
My God, it's full of ice creams!
If there were a correlation between responses to men and boys, it would show up there.
There was and it did. Didn't you see the graphs? Straights measured a preference for girls, and homo's, boys. They also expressed distinct non-preferences for alternate orientations.
Yet fully 1/3 of all victims of child molestors are boys. Surely 1/3 of the adult population of the USA isn't homosexual???
I have seen studies showing that over 33% of Catholic priests are gay, though....
Hmmmmmm. I wonder if there's a correlation....
Speedy:
Glad you enjoyed it. I'll have a raspberry ripple, please.
And I don't know what graph you're reading, but the one I'm looking at shows the homosexual teleiophiles responding slightly less to boys than they to women. To put that in perspective, the heterosexual teleiophiles show a lot more response to girls than they do to men.
I'm reading this one. You understand what teleiophilia is, right?
...bad link above. It's a preference for ADULT/MATURE individuals.
Yes, thank you. Your hypothesis is that homosexual teleiophiles would also have some response to boys, correct? My counter to that is that you'd have more luck arguing that teleiophile heterosexuals were interested in pre-pubescent girls.
Anyway, are you satisfied that the academic community is less encumbered by PC than you at first thought?
lol! Less encumbered... are you on drugs?
Homosexual teleophiles DID have a response to boys. Do you haveahard time interpretting graphs or something?
...what they didn't like was little girls.
btw - loved the African AIDS link... Assuming each female only has one discordant sexual partner, we estimate that the 3-monthly risk of HIV acquisition for females who only engage in VI is 0.2% but the risk increases by 7.5-times, to 1.5%, if they also engage in AI, with 89% of their risk attributable to AI. Although only 10% of heterosexual women engage in AI, we estimate that 45% of the total female population incidence of HIV occurs among these women.
Of course, if 10 % more of African women surveyed had lied about taking it up the bum... to say 20% instead of 10%... AIDS acquired through AI could beresponsible for nearly 100% of the epidemic.
I guess it just goes to show, if you need to do science, don't do it in a country run by PC homo loving liberal elites. Do it in a 3 rd world country with actual open mindedness towards finding solutions.
Don't dispair, Jez. I'm sure that the homo doctors at WHO will be successful in burying any successful, but unPCresults....
@Jez. I don't dispute the need for public health officials to be able to compare the magnitude of different risk factors... I dispute their authority to do anything with those figures after you get them.
Thersites, or perhaps Homer would be more appropriate, as in Simpson.
I am not disputing any of your statistics, I am stating simply and honestly that they are completely and utterly IRRELEVANT.
The state does not have the right to interfere in the personal choices of its citizens, and before you go off on socialized medicine, it doesn't have that right either.
What two consenting adults do is none of the states business... if you want to play russian roulette (literally), the state has no right to stop you.
Given our back and forth on another post regarding Romney/Johnson... I am beginning to think you are simply being contrary. You might stand a chance criminalizing sodomy under Romney, you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting Johnson to go along with it.
Next thing you'll be wanting to regulate is the consumption of soda after that idiot in New Zealand died from drinking 10 liters of it a day.
You can't legislate common sense, and I don't want to live in any state that tries. Want to shower with your hairdryer? Have at it, overall it improves the species. People have a right to be stupid!
Cheers!
I've been gathering evidence for an hypothesis of my own: speedy's an idiot who can't even keep track of what he's supposed to be arguing for. Here he simultaneously argues that sodomy is 1000 times higher risk, but also that the data cannot support any number, so choose whichever one you want; also he claims non pc papers can't get published, while drawing various non pc conclusions from published papers (sometimes misinterpreting them to do so). I don't know how anyone could cram more error into such a small space. Kudos, I guess, if that's what you're going for.
Oh, you also fouled up your %age calculation, unless you think 65% is "almost 100%", which I grant you it is, if you round to the nearest 100%.
Don't think I missed your bait and switch from gays to sodomy, by the way.
Go back to fumento's book, assuming you ever read more than the sensationalist title); from what I've read (not his book) he targets iv drug use as a major transmission route. So you're out on a limb trying to pin the whole thing on a single type of sex act.
IV drug users, illicit ones...are already against the law, notwithstandind liberal attempts at decriminalizing THAT, too.
Too much liberty can be a. REAL health problem. BUt so long as millions die for the cause... I guess I shouldn't complain. Individuals DO have a right to be stupid... but I'm afraid that public officials, DON'T! :)
...anf for the record, Jez, twice 45% is 90%, not 65%.
Right answer, wrong calculation. What if you double ai uptake again to 40%? Lol.
Do you believe that only 10% of African women engage in AI? You must not watch much hetero porn.
And THAT is where the REAL danger from AIDS lies. And that is where the "culture" plays a tremendous part in shielding the general population from similar deadly and/or debilitating diseases. There were no "cures" for STD's like syphllis in the nineteenth century. Victorian "puritanism" was the only protection from disease that the population had.
Just ask tyhe victims of the Tuskegee syphillis experiments.
...and the 10% came from a "survey" of African women. If you surveyed the male population, what percent do YOU believe would admit to engaging in homosexual relations, the REAL number? Gays don't choose to stay "in the closet" for NO reasons. And they can't do it w/o LYING on surveys.
The same holds true for women engaging in "culturally discouraged" sexual activities.
The fact of drugs illegality does not remove them from consideration as a transmission vector, as you want to do. Shoddy logic, but it's only a figleaf for your homophobia I guess.
The argument was about recriminalizing sodomy, which I favor. I think I said previously tha we need to reverse Lawence v. Texas.
ANd personally, if gays want to commit suicide, I say knock yourselves out. My argument goes to discouraging heterosexual sodomy... the REAL danger to society, and I'd sacrifice the so-called "rights" of the 2% of the country that are gay in a heartbeat to achieve THAT goal.
@"I'd sacrifice the so-called "rights" of the 2%"
What about the rights of heterosexuals?
This is why we were set up as a Republic instead of a Democracy, so people like you can't vote other peoples rights away.
Just another nanny statist... which explains why you don't want me voting for Romney, since your political style vis a vis state power parallels Obamas exactly.
The population of bisexuals
Is very very thick
Their numbers are so great
At them you could not shake your dick.
~ FreeThinke
No one of us could e'er be sure
Our friends might not be queer.
Your wife might be -- or husband --
Or sons and daughters dear.
The smart one never tell you
They just quietly get laid,
And no ranting e'er shall stop them
Regardless how you've prayed.
~ FT
I know, and the justification for your recriminalization stance is your estimate of the infection risk of anal sex, which you foul up in various ways (unsourced & otherwise disputed 1000 times claim; non-mathematical handling of percentages; ignoring the role of needle sharing).
One last word of advice: porn is not real life. Hope this helps.
Finntann: I'm in favour of eg mandatory innoculation programs, which have already demonstrated their worth, much of which is derived from herd immunity. The benefit overwhelms liberal tendencies I have towards individual choice.
In the interest of public health, the state does many things that infringeupon the rights of individuals. They segregate and quarantine the afflicted, so as to prevent the spread of disease. Even a plumber just can't hook his pipes up to a public water system any old way he may freely wish to choose. There are proper ways which follow regulations, and improper ways that are illegal.
So stop trying to hook up fresh water pipes to the sewer system, jez et al. If you keep trying, I'll have to arrest you. ;)
Andby the way, theState must be Promethian, never Epimethian in exercising its authority to regulate. Thats why treating AIDS victims does not fall within their purview, whilst outlawing certain preventative practices, is.
In other words, sodomy was illegal before there was an AIDS epidemic. This just goes to show the foresight of the elder regulators, and the stupidity of modern ones.
btw- Its what marks thedifference between LIBERTY and FREEDOM. With LIBERTY we must ALL observe the same LIMITS. (agreed toin advance) to our FREEDOMS. So long as we observe these LIMITS, we are FREE todo as we choose. BUT. when these freedoms endanger the liberties of all, they must be proscribed.
The proscriptions against sodomy were never aimed at punishing homosexuals. Quite the opposite.
Speedy, very good but first address the obvious issues with your assessment of the health impact of sodomy.
ignoring the role of needle sharing
Access to needles is already restricted. You have no problem with that. But denying people access to other people's poop chutes is a problem for you? Amazing.
I'd say that there was a large and definitely OBVIOUS impact of sodomy upon health. The life expectancy of male homosexuals being but one example:
20 Years shorter...
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