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[Blargityblarg]

Yeah, I meant 'assert without actual evidence'.

[Durin]

Since no one has posted any numbers, I'm stepping up, along with my personal thoughts at the end. Source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx

62% of those polled said "Should be legal" to "Do you think gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?", with 33% saying not, 5 no opinion. That was from a few months ago.

"Do you think marriages between same-sex couples should or should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages?" got an even split, 48% for yay and nay, 4 no opinion. Same date.

After that one, there is a comparison trend, to account for bias in the marriage question, since the question was preceded by one about rights. In this question, the question was asked on it's own. And in fact, -more- people said "Yes" to marriage, compared to it's equivalent dates, around May 2005. "Dual Question" got 37% yes on august, 2005. Single Question got 39% yes on may, 2005. Not significant, but worth noting since there is no real difference.

The rest of the article is interesting in it's own right. But I posted this because your main point has been that the "vast majority" of people dislike homosexuality? That's disproven outright. People who dislike homosexuality (NOT people who want less homosexual rights, just people who dislike it in general!) are in the minority. Not a LARGE minority, but it exists none-the-less.

What I have been pointing out is that the stigma seems to come from people having an intrinsic revulsion to PARTICIPATING.

Please, please at the very least pay enough attention to what I am saying to know what to talk about. I think in recent years the majority of Americans are supportive of gay marriage too, for the first time. There has been a massive swing in opinion polls on this issue, but I think what you are going to find it that these opinions are based on the promulgation of the theory that there is no choice, and that when people find out just how much politics has influenced this supposedly scientific concept, there will be a backlash.

Still, I was raised with gays around and taught very explicitly to be a kind and decent person to all other people. Americans in general often are live and let live kinds of folks. What I do not like is that this issue increasingly is discussed in terms of Christian bigotry and the holes in the logic behind actively promoting homosexuality are suppressed in a very dishonest manner.

[G-Flex]

Racism can be a pretty handy thing if a specific race is trying to enslave you, such as the Romans conquering and enslaving those around them. But where racism becomes bigotry is when people judge an individual purely by color to the exclusion of other, more rational measures.

Racism has causes and cures. If you want to "cure" homophobia, start by understanding where it comes from and stop demonizing people for not leaping up and down to agree with you on every aspect of this issue.

Er... my problem isn't that you're trying to tell me where homophobia comes from. My problem is that you're calling homosexuality (the target of homophobia) a bad thing in itself.

[Toady One]

I don't know if the earlier semantic discussions and incidents like this latest one were common in this thread before, but the tone is worse now and most of my active reports are from different arguments here over the last few days.  I think having an active OP helps in a thread of this nature.  It is no longer chill and relaxed.  I haven't read through everything yet, since there's a lot to read, but if the thread died as a result of active trolling, it's up to people not to respond.  If you want to argue with people you are also reporting, I can't salvage the thread.

If anybody is up to the task of keeping the thread somewhat calm, that person can remake it.  Ultimate it's not going to work without some control of the temper of discussion, because it is trying to place many forum threads into one forum thread, and problem spots can't be separated that way.  As an example, the election megathread has troubles at times and is fairly wide-ranging, but Aqizzar has kept it under control.  This should not be construed as a criticism of Vector, who departed for legitimate reasons.  I just think it needs somebody with at least nominal control for it to remain afloat for long.