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[Durin]

You are making assertions you cannot back.

a behavior that actually has an intrinsic harm -- that of being inherently noisome to a significant majority

Does anybody else see a problem here?

Then go ahead and back the claim that there is no intrinsic offense to many people regarding the idea of homosexual relations.

Or possibly stop making snippy remarks out of context about things that have taken hours to define and hash through? Is that something anyone here might be willing to do? Do you think you just have some sort of civil right to insult people's beliefs and religions publicly perhaps? Is that why absolutely no one here will support the Catholic church's right to deny a sacrament to people the faith demands not receive the sacrament?

[Durin]

While refusing to acknowledge the obvious difference between handedness and sexuality, and very specifically choosing not to answer the question directly.

I did answer it directly: I don't know the exact causes for variation in sexual orientation. That is my answer to your question. It is a direct answer. I do not know exactly why homosexuality is less common than heterosexuality. As far as why people seem to intentionally avoid it, I attribute that to negative social attitudes toward homosexuality; people avoid that which is stigmatized.

In addition to this very direct answer, I also stated reasoning why you can't assume that an inherent repulsion toward homosexuality is the reason why so many people avoid it or aren't homosexual.

I know what you did and I know why you did it, and that is why I do not have a lot of concern for your opinion. You clearly are not interested in addressing the hard questions. It is easier for you to demonize those with whom you disagree, make cutesy little snippy remarks, and then posture.

I did address the "hard question", and I"m not trying to demonize you.

If homosexuality is a behavior that can be chosen, as prison behavior, past cultures, and pretty much all the REAL evidence apart from a handful of opinion polls given for and by pro-gay activist researchers indicates

I already explained why a culture or situation influencing sexual orientation does not necessitate that sexual orientation is a choice. Things can influence a person's cognition, preferences, and behavior in ways that are not under their direct control. "Situation X causes Individual Y to develop a preference for Behavior Z" does not imply "Situation X causes Individual Y to choose to enjoy Behavior Z".

then what you are doing is pushing a behavior that actually has an intrinsic harm -- that of being inherently noisome to a significant majority

How is bothering the majority "intrinsic harm"? At one point, interracial marriage was bothersome to the majority of people in the US. Does that mean interracial marriage had "intrinsic harm"? The fact that it depends on what the majority thinks means it clearly isn't intrinsic at all!

How did it GET stigmatized?

Did God come down out of heaven and stigmatize it?

I have shown several examples from several different cultures where it somehow repeatedly gets stigmatized. How is that, do you suppose? "I don't know" is not a particularly heartening argument for forcing the normalization of a behavior that has collected a lot of stigma all over the world for millenia.

The answers to all your questions are tucked away in the answer to that question, and yet you studiously avoid it. And yet you assert your view is the correct one.

[Lysabild]

I am not the one denying anything, nor do I misunderstand. You are making assertions you cannot back.

Then why do you keep connecting them, when they are totally different things?

They can be totally separate, or they can be related. You are demanding that they be permanently separated, but I do not agree that that is necessarily the case. Completely separating them is necessary for your viewpoint that it is a civil rights issue. Making it a civil rights issue is the path toward creating a permanent schism between the church and state that eventually leads to the state destroying all churches and substituting medical mandates for freedom of conscience.

Okay, do you guys read this? Because by now I'm honestly speechless.

Yeah that's it, I'm done, this is just mind blowing.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I find myself agreeing we Lysabild, for once. We can't really do anything here.

[Durin]

I am not the one denying anything, nor do I misunderstand. You are making assertions you cannot back.

Then why do you keep connecting them, when they are totally different things?

They can be totally separate, or they can be related. You are demanding that they be permanently separated, but I do not agree that that is necessarily the case. Completely separating them is necessary for your viewpoint that it is a civil rights issue. Making it a civil rights issue is the path toward creating a permanent schism between the church and state that eventually leads to the state destroying all churches and substituting medical mandates for freedom of conscience.

Okay, do you guys read this? Because by now I'm honestly speechless.

Yeah that's it, I'm done, this is just mind blowing.

You're mind blown that I can see how you look at it but don't agree, and that anyone would require of you any proof that the two are totally unconnected in any way?

You can't imagine how the issues could be connected at all?

Well, then by all means, be amazed and wonder greatly at the mystery of it all.

[G-Flex]

How did it GET stigmatized?

Did God come down out of heaven and stigmatize it?

I have shown several examples from several different cultures where it somehow repeatedly gets stigmatized. How is that, do you suppose? "I don't know" is not a particularly heartening argument for forcing the normalization of a behavior that has collected a lot of stigma all over the world for millenia.

The answers to all your questions are tucked away in the answer to that question, and yet you studiously avoid it. And yet you assert your view is the correct one.

You could pretend this post is about racism and it would be equally valid. Think about that for a second.

Turns out humans are pretty good at stigmatizing/getting intolerant over similar issues time and time again. Interesting how that happens. Finding similar intolerances throughout many different cultures does not validate those intolerances.



Oh, and I didn't respond to this earlier:

I'm waving between reporting for homophobia and hate-speech or letting G-Flex carry the torch, because I do not have the tolerance for discussing with someone not even reading the posts before repeating his hateful circular speech.

I actually already did report this, a while back. Just for the record.

[Durin]

I find myself agreeing we Lysabild, for once. We can't really do anything here.

Frankly, you are quite clearly TRYING not to achieve anything here. It is obvious that all opposition has been harried and insulted out of the discussion. None of you have much of anything to say other than repeated name calling and affected emotionalism.

There is a difference between being insulted and merely taking offense. I have yet to say a single thing personal to any of you. In return the vast majority of you have chosen to make this personal toward me. This post is just one more in a series of meaningless little jabs that convey absolutely nothing other than a lockstep attachment to a cause without rational basis.

[Lysabild]

Oh, and I didn't respond to this earlier:

I'm waving between reporting for homophobia and hate-speech or letting G-Flex carry the torch, because I do not have the tolerance for discussing with someone not even reading the posts before repeating his hateful circular speech.

I actually already did report this, a while back. Just for the record.

Yeah, I was trying to be nice, but my line is crossed by now, I'm just going to ignore this thread till Toady comes by or we get a new subject.

[Durin]

How did it GET stigmatized?

Did God come down out of heaven and stigmatize it?

I have shown several examples from several different cultures where it somehow repeatedly gets stigmatized. How is that, do you suppose? "I don't know" is not a particularly heartening argument for forcing the normalization of a behavior that has collected a lot of stigma all over the world for millenia.

The answers to all your questions are tucked away in the answer to that question, and yet you studiously avoid it. And yet you assert your view is the correct one.

You could pretend this post is about racism and it would be equally valid. Think about that for a second.

Turns out humans are pretty good at stigmatizing/getting intolerant over similar issues time and time again. Interesting how that happens. Finding similar intolerances throughout many different cultures does not validate those intolerances.



Oh, and I didn't respond to this earlier:

I'm waving between reporting for homophobia and hate-speech or letting G-Flex carry the torch, because I do not have the tolerance for discussing with someone not even reading the posts before repeating his hateful circular speech.

I actually already did report this, a while back. Just for the record.

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.

[Truean]

Oh, and I didn't respond to this earlier:

I'm waving between reporting for homophobia and hate-speech or letting G-Flex carry the torch, because I do not have the tolerance for discussing with someone not even reading the posts before repeating his hateful circular speech.

I actually already did report this, a while back. Just for the record.

Yeah, I was trying to be nice, but my line is crossed by now, I'm just going to ignore this thread till Toady comes by or we get a new subject.

[sigh] It was a nice thread while it lasted. I hope I'm wrong, I really do.

[Descan]

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.

[Frumple]

Visiting a partner in a hospital is something of a pet peeve of mine where this subject is concerned. I have no idea why hospitals do this sort of thing, but my personal experience with hospitals is that they tend to be staffed by harried, pushy people with a certain sense of entitlement when it comes to enforcing their rules. That particular issue is one that I have a lot of sympathy for, but it does not excuse the wholesale demonization of Christians I saw in this thread earlier.

Well, to help you understand the why of the hospitals are doing that, in a lot of places in the states it's strictly illegal -- and this is at least in part because of anti-homosexual litigation (The latest anti-homosexual marriage law in Florida, ferex, prevented heterosexual couples who were not married or in civil union from visiting their partner in the hospital.). Family and only family can visit a hospitalized individual without some significant hoop jumping (when it's allowed at all) and going around that can have significant legal ramifications.

And, to reiterate, what you saw wasn't a wholesale demonization of Christians -- it was targeted dislike for a particular portion of them that exhibites a particular form of prejudice.

Again, to be very specific, what we are talking about here is an openly gay woman demanding to partake of a religious sacrament that she did not qualify for under the tenets of the religion.

Heh, I think you could well agree that both yourself and others have taken the matter being discussed beyond that specific issue.

The Bishop over the church involved said that the priest should not have publicly condemned her, and even that was not accepted by people posting about the issue here.

Mm... you've read the clarification on that point. The reason it incensed people here is because of how the church stated it. Saying the equivalent of "We're sorry he got caught doing it" doesn't garner much sympathy.

So bottom line, churches have to do whatever any non-Christian demands of them or risk being characterized as bigoted. I think perhaps in this case some folks outside the church are the ones being belligerent, demanding, and self righteous here.

You're blatantly overstating things here, though; Christian churches don't have to do "whatever any non-Christian demands of them," but they certainly can't expect to not be censured when what they're doing is seen as inappropriately discriminatory (i.e. bigoted). That religious practice doesn't exempt said practice from moral scrutiny is something we can both agree on easily, I hope.

How did it GET stigmatized?

Did God come down out of heaven and stigmatize it?

I have shown several examples from several different cultures where it somehow repeatedly gets stigmatized. How is that, do you suppose? "I don't know" is not a particularly heartening argument for forcing the normalization of a behavior that has collected a lot of stigma all over the world for millenia.

Last point; here, though -- as been noted, racism and xenophobia have also repeatedly caused the stigmatization of individuals throughout history. Repeated stigmatization isn't sufficient support for discrimination.

[Blargityblarg]

You are making assertions you cannot back.

a behavior that actually has an intrinsic harm -- that of being inherently noisome to a significant majority

Does anybody else see a problem here?

Then go ahead and back the claim that there is no intrinsic offense to many people regarding the idea of homosexual relations.

Or possibly stop making snippy remarks out of context about things that have taken hours to define and hash through? Is that something anyone here might be willing to do? Do you think you just have some sort of civil right to insult people's beliefs and religions publicly perhaps? Is that why absolutely no one here will support the Catholic church's right to deny a sacrament to people the faith demands not receive the sacrament?

I'm not the one making a baseless and frankly offensive* assertion here, mate; the burden of proof is on the one who claims something is so; similarly, I'm going to have to ask for some evidence, any evidence whatsoever that I am publicly insulting your religion and beliefs? For instance, I believe that the priest had the right to deny the girl Communion; I also believe that the invocation of that right was a petty 'fuck you' meant to imply that she wasn't worthy of grieving her mother the way her mother would have wanted.

_{*Not just because of the bigotry, but the arrogance of making people's minds up for them. I am not disgusted by homosexuality, and would assume (but not assert) that neither are the vast majority of people, particularly not in an automatic, instinctive fashion.}

fake edit: Okay, so seeing what's been posted while I was writing this, I've been convinced that you have little to no grip on reality and that arguing with you is really just a waste of keystrokes. I hope that you grow out of trolling/ realise how incredibly blind your current views on homosexuality are (delete as appropriate) and become a reasonable human being in the future.

[Nadaka]

If homosexuality was a choice or kink or perversion of nature, it would not be able to manifest in non humans. And it does.

[Descan]

I would assert it. And I did!

I have the numbers! I posted them, even!