Public Discourse
by Ryan T. Anderson
July 03, 2009
Recently, the editor of Public Discourse sat down with Robert P. George to discuss the state of the marriage debate. While supporters of same-sex “marriage” claim that history is on their side, it turns out that supporters of traditional marriage have more reasons for hope than they may realize.
120 Comments
I just read Mr. George’s article and there are a number of factual errors, so be forewarned if you plan to read it.
First, he says that same-sex marriage supporters are trying to validate homosexual sex with same-sex marriage. But the US Supreme Court has already decriminalized sex between consenting adults, and sodomy by either same-sex or opposite-sex couples is completely legal. Those of us who support SSM want same-sex couples to have exactly the same legal rights and obligations that opposite-sex couples do. There’s no hidden agenda. Just equal application of state law.
Second, the old saw that it’s “activist liberal judges” in state courts deciding in favor of same-sex marriage has been long discarded by those informed on the issue. Both California and Iowa supreme courts are dominated by Republican appointees. Both courts have relied on the force of Equal Protection clauses to strike down discriminatory marriage statutes in those states. To suggest that proponents of same-sex marriage are using some “back door” strategy in turning to the courts is dishonest: where else does one goes in challenging an unconstitutional law? Basic American law, folks.
Third, supporters of same-sex marriage are not evil, sinister people. We’re people from all walks of life, all faiths, creeds and political ideals. What unites us is a commitment to fairness, dedication to the rule of law and courage to face social change. It is also very common for SSM supporters to know a gay person personally, either as a family member, neighbor or work colleague. That takes the fear out of the equation. Also we are generally unwilling to impose our faith beliefs on others.
Fourth, to suggest that we supporters of SSM are bullies or trying to intimidate those who oppose SSM demonstrates the weakness of the anti-SSM crowd. They thought it would be easy to subdue same-sex marriage, and it hasn’t been. Americans are vocal about countering vocal expressions of bigotry and we will continue to be so, hopefully.
Just because a judge has been appointed by a Republican doesn't mean they won't become liberal judicial activists once on the bench. Just look at some republican-appointed Supreme Court Justices: Blackmun, Stevens, Souter, etc. These people have used liberal judicial philosophy to magically find the right to an abortion in the consitution. They took what should be at best an open legislative question and imposed their policy preference upon the entire country. Now state supreme courts are doign the same thing with "gay marriage". As a voter in Iowa, I am outraged that the state Supreme Court mangled the state constitution to fundamentally alter the meaning of marriage in our state, disregarding the will of the people and the rightful power of the legislature.
There is a proper place for judicial review, but it is misused when judges continually warp the meaning of the constitution to justify new invented "rights" that no one had ever conceived before. That is more judicial tyranny than anything else. The people of california had to alter their state constitution to hold their judges in check. It seems that the people of Iowa will now have to do the same thing.
As Professor George pointed out, intimidation tactics generally do not work, because most of us do not like being intimidated. However, what gay bullies have managed to accomplish is that people who were previously not bothered by the gay lifestyle, are becoming turned off gays. Number one, they have chosen the wrong target. Traditional marriage is something most people feel very passionately about. Number two, they are using intimidation and dishonesty in their campaign. They smear and try to hurt people who disagree with them. They lie about the support they are getting to make people feel the battle for marriage is futile. They make up ficticious legal claims that this is about civil rights. They cater to religious prejudice and bigotry by falsely claiming that their opposition is solely the Christian right. This is ugly, this is dirty, this is un-American.
Wow, wow. How self-righteous some of us are.
George's arguments honestly made me laught out loud. He said it's all about sex but never substantiated this comment. Why would same-sex couples want marriage if it were all about sex? The United States Supreme Court has already held that it is unconsitutional to make criminilize same-sex sexual activity. If that was all they were interested in, then why didn't they just stop after that? That ship has sailed...
Kevin,
You're right in saying there is no hidden agenda in the SSM campaign. Every day, it becomes clearer and clearer that SSM is not so much about "marriage equality" as it is about the legitimization of homosexuality.
As to point #2, although judges "informed" on the matter, may have voted against "discrimination," as you put it, you cannot argue that some judges have "ruled from the bench." Many more will probably do so as they are weak-kneed or lack the moral temerity to stand against the tide.
Point #3 and #4 I will address collectively. Whereby, as a whole the SSM crowd may not be evil and sinister, there is a faction within the group that seems bent on disparaging anyone that dissents. Look at the backblash against Prop 8 supporters after the election. There wasn't just "verbal" assaults but outright bullying and intimidation. Property damage was reported as well to businesses and churches.
All in all, then, SSM isn't about "rights, equality, or fairness," as it is about the subjugation of society as a whole and the world at large to a lifestyle that is bent on its own destruction.
Kevin's response is the purest nonsense.
George is absolutely right that the homosexual "marriage" movement is the most contemporary effort of the homosexual activist community to normalize their sexual practices. Whether unnatural sexual acts have been decriminalized or not is one thing; it is another to normalize them, to remove stigma from them and turn them into something that cannot be differentiated from normative sexual behavior. The homosexual lobby behind the "marriage" movement wants to destroy the cultural fabric that continues to find some sexual acts and behavior deviant and undesirable.
Kevin's second point is equally mendacious.
To suggest that a turn to the courts is merely the logical effort to correct "unconstitutional law" is either disingenuous or ignorant. There is no unconstitutional law here. The law of the land, and every Supreme Court decision, upholds the definition of marriage as it is defined in the DOMA. Only the actions of a few activist judges here and there have made this an issue of contention. If Kevin and his friends were actually concerned about the democratic values that the Constitution rests on, they would not be so terrified of turning this issue over to the will of the people instead of selectively choosing this or that judge, depending on his/her friendliness to their agenda, to present their complaints to.
I don't know if homosexual activists are evil and sinister. I do know that very, very many of them are intolerant and self-righteous and convinced that their point of view (although it is a minority point of view) must be the only one permissible in our society. If you want evidence of the venom and hatred in some of them, just consult the nearest homosexual activist blog or website, where anyone who dares to disagree with anything they say is immediately characterized as a homophobic bigot or worse.
Kevin, claimed that there are factual errors in Mr. George's interview, but Kevin failed to back-up his complaint.
His comment is not benign.
Instead of waging expensive legal battles to legitimize (and thereby promote) homosexuality, gay activists should turn their attention (and FUNDS) to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Have we forgotten that homosexual activity was the original cause of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and that today, decades later, homosexual activity is still the main contributor to that epidemic in the U.S.?
No, Susan, you misunderstand. Homosexuals want the REST of us to fund the HIV research and drug treatments they need. This will free them up to demonstrate for homosexual marriage, the freedom to fornicate in public at gay pride parades, and other important homosexual issues. WE non-homosexuals are responsible for the fact that THEY are dying in huge numbers of a disease directly linked to their practice of unsafe, promiscuous, anal sex. C'mon, get with it!
Jeff,
I am afraid you are absolutely right. WE are supposed to pay for the AIDS/HIV research and treatments, while gay activists devote hundreds of millions of dollars to their much more romantic aspirations and endeavors.
I think NOM (perhaps with help from the U.S. Health Department ...???) should launch another campaign, calling on gays to "GIVE MONEY TO FIGHT AIDS, NOT MARRIAGE." Although mentioning HIV or AIDS may be considered too taboo ...
Incidentally, I would love to find out approximately how much money gay activist groups have spent to date on the "gay marriage" project. I am quite sure the number is exorbitant.
Susan,
You are right, I'm sure--the amount they've raised ans spent on their various marriage efforts around the country has to be huge.
Here's another way WE'LL get left with the bill that isn't much talked about b/c it's too politically incorrect. If they get marriage rights, or even legal partnership rights, then it's safe to say that some amount of homosexual men with AIDS who are currently uninsured will find a way to convince their insured homosexual friends to marry or partner with them and thereby get insurance money to treat his condition.
The two of them don't even have to disrupt their normal love lives--just get the paperwork done and keep hitting the bars and bathhouses as usual. Meanwhile, insurance rates go up as more people with expensive drug and treatment programs, related to a disease that they directly brought on themselves through their behavior, start draining funds and the insurance companies charge the rest of us more.
All officials are TERRIFIED of saying anything about AIDS that doesn't pass the bar of the homosexual lobby.
This is why, during the entirety of the 80s and 90s, all the health officials were spreading the lie that AIDS was an equal opportunity disease, when the statistics were and are that homosexual men and IV drug users were the vast majority of new cases every year.
So we spent tons of govt. money 'educating' young middle-class heterosexuals about the dangers of a disease they were highly unlikely to ever have any contact with, and also failed to bring home the danger completely to the endangered populations.
Even today, there are homosexuals out there who do not know the actual risks in their communities b/c they have 'learned' about AIDS through this deceitful, politically correct agenda. And this was brought about by the activities of the radical homosexual activists who screamed their heads off whenever an official actually told the truth about who was at risk.
Jeff,
This is all very true. I have always wondered why the information you get abroad relating to the HIV/AIDS realities is so much different than what you read or hear in the mainstream U.S. media.
The reason is that everything that is reported here first has to be approved by the homosexual lobby.
How is this ever going to change?
LOL, and "we" gay people are forced to pay for schools, healthcare, welfare, social security, programs, etc for all the silly underage straight girls who get knocked up on prom night.
And maybe we should force the straight people who are concerned with protecting children and "marriage" to spend their money aiding children in third world countries and safe sex education programs in the US to lower the number of unwanted/underage pregnancies.
Susan and Jeff, I totally agree with you two. Excuse me but the last time I checked, homosexual sex is responsible for the explosion of HIV and AIDS and yet, as far as I can tell, neither the CDC, The World Health Orgzanization or any of the local public health departments have issued an alert and they are supposed to be the guardians of public health. As far as I am concerned, God said that it was an abomination for men to lay with men and that should be the end of it. And I am heartlily sick and tired of politicians, journalists and gay advocacy groups acting like us New Yorkers are "behind the times" and "living in the dark ages" because we don't have gay marriage yet. Thank God for an organization like NOM which is willing to take up the cross and fight this issue. There are some fights that only the people of God can fight and this is one of them. I personally have contacted all the health organizations and asked why they have not issued any health alerts regarding same sex marriage and I advise you all to do the same. Once they do that, gay marriage is a dead issue.
I think it is pretty obvious what is going on. If you can get same sex marriage passed, then teachers will be required to teach tolerance for it in the schools. Now, we all know that children tend to bond with their own sex at an early age. Up until about the age of 12-13, boys only want to be around their boy friends and the same for girls. If the idea is put into their head that they can marry their same sex friend when they grown up, then the seeds of homosexuality will take root. So then, how are babies going to be born? Clones? Test Tubes? Artificial Insemination? I hardly think this is what God had in mind when He said go forth and multiply.
This is why, during the entirety of the 80s and 90s, all the health officials were spreading the lie that AIDS was an equal opportunity disease, when the statistics were and are that homosexual men and IV drug users were the vast majority of new cases every year.
Jeff, you are right on the money. I remember on Donohue years ago, they had doctors from Bellevue hospital who were the first to see cases of AIDS. At that time, I believe there were about 300,000 cases. They had a graph chart showing who had it. Homosexual sex accounted for practically all of the cases. Heterosexuals, IV drug users, hemophiliacs and women accounted for next to nothing, yet the media would have you think that it's not a primarily a disease spread through homosexual sex.
We've never neutered marriage in our national culture before, granting a new tool to a highly organized and effective activist coalition that had demonstrated a history of taking a mile when given an inch. We have no reason to believe that this coalition will stop with neutering marriage. Based on what this coalition has done before, the successes of the true civil rights movement that this coalition has modeled their campaign after and attempted to hijack, and the fascist organizations that participate in their rallies - we'll have to fight these things with our hands tied behind our backs if we allow marriage to be neutered.
Neutering marriage would be one of the biggest social shifts in human history, changing the basic unit of society. It will effectively eliminate the heteronormative orientation of culture, replacing marriage with a counterfeit, discounting the distinctions between the sexes, devaluing both masculinity and femininity.
This isn't about Adam and Steve being able to exchange vows on the beach in front of their family and friends. This is about the rest of us not being able to have our say that the kind of union that produces children and provides them with both a mother and a father is uniquely beneficial to society and is the ideal. The activists are trying to prevent us from even having a word that distinguishes this relationship from others. It is time we stopped allowing ourselves to be politically, socially, and legally bullied by a tiny minority with a seemingly pathological need for affirmation from everyone else, and their demand that we reorder all of society in an attempt to make them feel more comfortable, regardless of how it makes the rest of us feel.
http://opine-editorials.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-is-harm-of-neutering-marriage.html
The slippery slope is absolutely true, and the radical homosexual activists themselves acknowledge it when they are just talking among themselves. If you want some evidence (and please spread this far and wide), check out these folks: http://www.beyondmarriage.org/full_statement.html. They make it clear--homosexual 'marriage' is just the next step toward destroying marriage altogether, destroying the 'bourgeois family' and ultimately creating a society made only for isolated adults and viciously hostile to children. These people hate themselves, at root, and, like a lot of psychologically sick folks, misdirect that self-hatred outward toward others they see as their victimizers. And how have we victimized them? Well, you see, we refuse to go along with them when they say up is down.
Tell you what, Johnny, how about you folks (all 2-3% of you in the population) take care of yourselves, fund your own AIDS research and treatment, pay for all your healthcare for the STDs you contract so frequently, and the other 97% of the American population will take care of us. We'd be quite happy with that.
Bottom line: you sure as hell need US a lot more than we need you.
Another group that advocates for homosexual marriage because they see it for what it in fact is: the next step toward the dismantling of the family altogether, and the destruction of the single institution that is most effective at protecting and nurturing children: http://unmarriedamerica.org/.
These folks are absolutely clear that they are thrilled by the rise in single motherhood, which all studies show is the single greatest contributor to child poverty, lowered school achievement, lowered psychological well-being, etc.
One can scarcely overemphasize the magnitude of the social change these people want. Some of them, it is true, may simply be ignorant and may not understand how devastating the effects of what they desire will be; others know it very well, and actually desire to bring it about.
Keep those urls for the next time someone on our side who doesn't fully understand what's going on says "oh, I don't really see how homosexual marriage will affect me." It is the next huge step in turning America's children out to fend for themselves.
“All in all, then, SSM isn’t about “rights, equality, or fairness,” as it is about the subjugation of society as a whole and the world at large to a lifestyle that is bent on its own destruction.”
Utter nonsense. Subjugation of society? How? By whom? Who’s tyrannizing whom on this issue?!? Heterosexuals have the right to marry the consenting adult of their choice. How is extending that right to homosexuals a threat to society?
“George is absolutely right that the homosexual “marriage” movement is the most contemporary effort of the homosexual activist community to normalize their sexual practices.”
Wrong. The Supreme Court already gave homosexuality the thumbs up in 2003, by decriminalizing it. All medical societies consider homosexuality normal, gays serve in the military (even if they can’t talk about their sexuality, as straight people can), history is filled with highly accomplished gay men and women. Homosexuality is legally normal, psychologically normal, morally normal. Only among some religious people is it not normal.
“The homosexual lobby behind the “marriage” movement wants to destroy the cultural fabric that continues to find some sexual acts and behavior deviant and undesirable.”
That’s probably true. Because until fairly recently, “normal” has been defined as “that which is practiced by the majority.” I don’t think it’s part of America’s “cultural fabric” to find homosexuality undesirable; it’s more a part of the heterosexual fabric, supplemented by religious condemnation.
“If Kevin and his friends were actually concerned about the democratic values that the Constitution rests on, they would not be so terrified of turning this issue over to the will of the people instead of selectively choosing this or that judge, depending on his/her friendliness to their agenda, to present their complaints to.”
Kevin and his friends don’t believe that Equal Protection guarantees in the US and states constitutions should be ignored by a homophobic majority. The will of people would have us still holding slaves. Sometimes, a moral nation must do the right thing, rather than obey the “will of the people.” The people in a representative democracy elect legislators to make their laws. Let’s let our elected officials do the jobs we elected them to do.
“I do know that very, very many of them are intolerant and self-righteous and convinced that their point of view (although it is a minority point of view) must be the only one permissible in our society.”
Sometimes it’s hard to be polite when a homophobic majority wants to deny you the right to marry the person you fell in love with, unconstitutionally and for reasons of hate. If heterosexuals were talking about eliminating EVERYONE’S right to marry, it would be different. But heterosexuals insist on the right to marry the person of their choice; they just don’t want homosexuals to have the same right.
“Kevin, claimed that there are factual errors in Mr. George’s interview, but Kevin failed to back-up his complaint.”
I enumerated them. Four main errors. You can count, right?
“I think it is pretty obvious what is going on. If you can get same sex marriage passed, then teachers will be required to teach tolerance for it in the schools. Now, we all know that children tend to bond with their own sex at an early age. Up until about the age of 12-13, boys only want to be around their boy friends and the same for girls. If the idea is put into their head that they can marry their same sex friend when they grow up, then the seeds of homosexuality will take root.”
This entry wins the nutty award. Do you really think human sexuality is influenced by whatever marriage opportunities are available later on, as adults? The “seeds of [homo]sexuality” take root pretty early in life, possibly even by five years of age. Ironically, it’s the ignorance about human sexuality among our many citizens that is forcing schools to teach human sexuality.
Heterosexuals and homosexuals have precisely the same right to marry. Does Kevin think people who want to drive on the left (in the US) are having their rights denied?
Marriage is defined as it is--the complement of male and female. Homosexuals aren't denied access to this right; they have it. They want to change the definition. That's an entirely different matter.
Note that Kevin (like almost every other homosexual I've ever heard talk about this--it's like autopilot for them) wants to link the homosexual struggle to totally change the definition of the institution of marriage to the efforts of blacks in the 1960s to be fully admitted to American society. This is beyond absurd; it is dishonest and deeply dismissive of blacks and what they faced prior to the Civil Rights movement's successes. Frankly, I find it one of the most disgusting rhetorical moves I've ever encountered.
Homosexuals aren't being prevented from attending equal schools; they aren't being crushed into poverty by being blocked from certain occupational paths; they aren't being prevented from voting or running for office; they aren't even being prevented from carrying out the sordid activities they desire to carry out in the privacy of their homes.
What they are being prevented from doing is changing the definition of basic institutions that affect everyone else in the society. Sorry, not the same thing as what blacks were doing. Not the same thing at all.
For the black Civil Rights movement to be in any way comparable to the homosexual effort to redefine marriage, blacks would have had to have been endeavoring to change the definition of voting. Something along the lines of "we see how you white people vote and we want to do something else and call it voting too." Of course they were not up to anything so stupid and malicious. They were simply asking to be admitted to the practices whites were already enjoying, and without redefining them.
After a couple days absence, Kevin, you come back with a vengeance. All the more goes to my point of subjugating the masses. No matter who, what, where, when, why, or how, the SSM campaign will not take no for an answer. Interestingly enough, the very same Constitution that gets used to justify SSM is the same one that, only until recently, SS couples were happy to live by.
Kevin shows he knows little or nothing about political process and change. According to him, we would still have slavery unless some wise judges had decided to outlaw it because they knew it was the "right thing" to do.
But why did slavery actually fall? It fell because the conscience of the country changed. Masses of people, black and white, mobilized against it, made moral arguments to their fellows, and finally took up arms to prevent some of those fellows from continuing the practice.
The fact that mere political and/or judicial decree was not sufficient to make the thing die is evident in the additional century it took after the Civil War to finally begin to fully bring blacks into equality. Why did it take another 100 years? Because the moral conscience of the people had to change, and this is a long and arduous process.
Homosexuals know, deep down, that what they are trying to do is not about justice or equality and that it is not something that the whole society can ever be brought to see as they do. They know, deep down, that it is really about their own narcissism, their brokenness, and their inability to accept the moral order of the society in which they live. They know the only way they can get this done is to have it imposed from above precisely because it is NOTHING like slavery that they face.
Many, many people profited in an evil manner from slavery, and it therefore took a long time, but eventually it became clear to the whole society that human beings should not own other human beings. That's an example of a primordial moral truth. Homosexual marriage isn't even on the same moral page as this. A bunch of broken people want the rest of society to institutionalize their brokenness in the very core fabric of the society. In a hundred years, it won't happen. Oh, it might get imposed by political or judicial fiat, but the moral hearts of much of the society will never accept it, because they have only to look to see its fallacy.
The institution responsible for the creation and nurturance of the next generation, opened up to 'couples' who BY DEFINITION cannot reproduce? Moral insanity.
I might add: the fact that the existing law of the land made slavery legal did not stop masses of people from opposing it and eventually overthrowing it.
Laws must respond to the will of the people.
The homosexuals fail fundamentally to understand this. They think THEIR desires, argued by the right lawyer, become divine law unapproachable by the people, whatever the other 97% of society thinks.
Sorry, Kevin, it doesn't work that way. For when the lawyers, judges, and politicians get too convinced of their independence from the society itself, we have plenty of ways of reminding them to whom they must answer.
Homosexuality is psychologically normal
As a matter of fact, no it is not. Up until the 70's, doctors who studied the homosexual lifestyle defined homosexuality as a "deviant, psycho-sexual disorder". Gay advocates launched a hate campaign against the American Psychiatric Association to intimidate them into deleting the diagnosis and they succeeded. They even had a task force that studied homosexuals for 2 years and they came to the same conclusion but now most people are unaware of this nowadays. As the doctors said, it gives a false picture to the world to portray homosexual as normal behavior. Now mind you, these were doctors with years of clinical observations on the gay lifestyle and many had devoted their entire practices to it but yet the gay community were able to get this swept under the rug and that is a dangerous precedent.
“Heterosexuals and homosexuals have precisely the same right to marry. Does Kevin think people who want to drive on the left (in the US) are having their rights denied?”
Not true. Heterosexuals have the right to marry the consenting adult of their choice. Homosexuals do not. Getting everyone to drive on the right side of the road serves a purpose: avoiding accidents. Prohibiting same-sex marriage serves no purpose other than to satisfy the prejudices of the majority. Like we used to do with blacks.
“…the homosexual struggle to totally change the definition of the institution of marriage.
Huh? No, same-sex marriage supporters want to see our nation’s laws applied equally. We’re talking about who gets to participate in marriage. The rights and obligations of marriage remain exactly the same. When women got the right to vote, it didn’t change the definition of voting, just who got to participate. Get it now?
The gay civil rights struggle is very much like the black civil rights struggle: a minority is tyrannized by a majority, expected to bear society’s burdens (taxes, military service, recognize all the laws, etc.) while being denied Equal Protection of the laws, including the basic human right to marry. Gays are harassed and beat up in schools, kicked out of housing, fired from jobs, for being gay. Yes, very civil to the suffering endured by black citizens.
“…the SSM campaign will not take no for an answer”
Well, six states so far have said “Yes!” so something must be working. But why should any group denied the right to marry take No for an answer? Would you? Marrying the mate of your choice is a fundamental right in this country; the US Supreme Court has confirmed this. It’s a right you insist on for yourself, but happily deny to others. Why?
“Laws must respond to the will of the people. The homosexuals fail fundamentally to understand this. They think THEIR desires, argued by the right lawyer, become divine law unapproachable by the people, whatever the other 97% of society thinks.”
Such silliness. We’re a nation of laws, not men. Therefore, constitutionality trumps the prejudices of citizens. When the US Supreme Court struck down state statutes prohibiting inter-racial marriage, I assure you it went against the will of the people in the South. But the law required change. But one example of upholding the Constitution against the will of the people.
Gay advocates launched a hate campaign against the AMA? Yikes, do you people ever tire of perpetuating myths? No, medical professionals asked the AMA to substantiate considering homosexuality an ailment, and it couldn’t. You can’t call something a disorder if there’s no associated pathology, and no reason for treatment. So the AMA stopped calling homosexuality a disorder. Many medical professionals recognize that social ill treatment of homosexuals, rejection by their families, physical and psychological abuse do take their toll on homosexuals, leading to some disordered behaviors, like depression and suicide. But these behaviors result from social abuse, often at the hands of Christians, not from being a homosexual.
Kevin is the typical homosexual radical--nothing but lies and lack of knowledge portraying itself as informed. He thinks laws (at least the ones he prefers) descend from the skies. Who wrote the Constitution, Kevin? People. People who knew they damn well better take into consideration the morality and culture of the people it was supposed to apply to.
Adams once said the Constitution is a document only effective for a moral, God-fearing people. Wise judges and politicians understand this. Only fools dare oppose the will of the people in the name of some invented and partisan definition of right.
Kevin doesn't know anything about the facts of his own condition that hasn't been produced and vetted by the radical homosexual lobby, which has spent the last 3 or 4 decades lying about the realities of homosexuality and its consequences. He is like every other radical homosexual activist I have met, online or in real life. They just repeat the same lies they have been told by their leaders, over and over again, in the face of all opposing facts.
I highly recommend what I consider the one best source on homosexuality: Jeffrey Satinover's _Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth_. It gives the truth about all the lies Kevin has tried to parade here (e.g., homosexuality is not a disorder), in clear and scientific language. The radical homosexuals will often claim that the only arguments against them are religious. Not so. Satinover was a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Yale and Harvard, as well as a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His book looks at the facts and cuts through the homosexual lobby's lies.
Those lies have become so pervasive that they infect the entire academic apparatus these days. Some of this is because homosexuals have practiced a strategy of "boring from within"--i.e., seeking positions inside the cultural core of American society in order to change things from there. So there are many, many more homosexuals in academia than in the rest of the society, and from inside the academy they spread their ideology under the false aegis of 'research' ('research' which is always carefully designed to produce just the results they want). Every academic knows, even if s/he disagrees with the homosexual lobby, s/he must not disagree with its agenda or s/he will quickly be looking for another job. Satinover's is a brave voice looking at reality and describing it without fear of reprisal from the homosexual thought police.
I particularly recommend his chapter "Is Homosexuality Desirable? Brute Facts". This clearly describes what sane people in fact either knew already or long suspected--the homosexual lifestyle is in fact dangerous to homosexuals and to others in the society. Homosexuals have vastly more sexual partners than heterosexuals (increasing their risks of STDs) and male homosexuals engage in sexual activities which are uniquely risky and unhealthy (and which the vast majority of heterosexuals do not practice). Homosexuals also have a vastly higher suicide rate than heterosexuals, and that rate has NOT decreased over the past 3 decades as liberalization on homosexuality has taken place, i.e., the central motivation for homosexual suicides cannot be 'oppression' from the larger society, because they continue to kill themselves in roughly the same percentages as they did when American society was more opposed to homosexuality--it is something about the condition itself that makes its sufferers more prone to self-annihilation.
Satinover accurately compares homosexuality to alcoholism: two conditions, rooted in distorted desires with a genesis that has both social and probably genetic components, that when freely practiced result almost inevitably in disease and psychological harm to the actor. Yet we recognize alcoholism as a disorder and try to treat it; we don't celebrate alcoholics and try to normalize alcoholism (by, say, teaching young children that alcoholism is just as desirable as not being alcoholic). For purely political reasons, we treat homosexuality differently, but we should not.
Read the book, if you haven't. A great weapon against the prevarications of the Kevins of our society.
Kevin is so blinded by his condition and ideology that he cannot see the "purpose" in defining marriage as it is defined, even though it is right before his eyes. Have you noticed, Kevin, that however you and your homosexual friends try, you cannot through your acts produce new life? Marriage is the institution humans created for the protection of the new life created by the natural union of male and female.
It wasn't created so that people could enjoy tax breaks (although that too is something that stems from its original purpose), and it wasn't created so that people could get a deviant activity more accepted by the rest of society, and it wasn't created so that people could be in hospital rooms with their sick partners--although you'd think those were the central justifications for marriage if you listened to the homosexual radicals.
The sad fact for you and your kind, which is so obvious that only the willfully ignorant could fail to see it, is that two men BY DEFINITION cannot produce the result which is the sole justification for marriage's protected status.
(Let me preempt what I know will be Kevin's first response, as it is the directive sent down by the homosexual leadership from whom he takes his orders as a response to what I just said--the fact that some heterosexual couples, for reasons of infertility, cannot have children or choose not to for whatever reasons does nothing to change the purpose of the institution and its grounds for protection. These are exceptions to the rule based on individual factors that cannot reasonably be excluded--i.e., it would be prohibitively expensive if we had to ascertain before any marriage whether or not the couple could and wanted to reproduce. With homosexuals, we are not dealing with such an individual exception--the exception is categorical. This is not like comparing a dog with four legs and a dog with three legs, which is roughly the procreative vs. the procreatively incapable heterosexual couple. This is comparing a dog and a fish. Different species altogether.)
The “people” didn’t write the Constitution; they asked their most competent citizens to do it.
Repeating the same lies? What lies? What have I posted that’s a lie? There’s not a medical professional without an agenda who thinks that there’s something disordered or pathological about homosexuality. It’s not an ailment, just because you don’t care for it, or an ancient religious text appears to say that it’s bad.
“Homosexuals have vastly more sexual partners than heterosexuals (increasing their risks of STDs) and male homosexuals engage in sexual activities which are uniquely risky and unhealthy (and which the vast majority of heterosexuals do not practice).”
Well, if they’re encouraged to take a life partner, through marriage, perhaps their promiscuity with subside. It’s unhealthy for a heterosexual marriage to permit legal adultery and easy divorce, yet society happily permits these things. Why? Why are heterosexuals perfectly free to engage in self-sabotaging behaviors, like adultery, free of social judgment and any legal prohibitions, while homosexuals are mercilessly judged for their own poor choices, or prevented from creating the long-lasting relationships that might alleviate those poor choices?
So long as society institutionalizes hatred of homosexuals, by permitting them to lose their jobs and homes based on homophobia, by not permitting them to legal sanctify their love relationships, by the mere existence of hate-based websites like this one, why wouldn’t homosexuals have higher rates of alcoholism and depression, even suicide? You can’t persistently pick on a small minority and then expect them to be well behaved.
Comparing alcoholism and homosexuality is an abomination. One is a disease; the other a normal sexual orientation.
My condition, Jeff, is that of widowed heterosexual middle-aged man. No, marriage is not required for procreation: lots of children are born out of wedlock. Yes, homosexuals reproduce: lots of same-sex couples are raising children brought into this world using the egg or sperm of one of the persons in the couple, just like heterosexual couples.
Lucky for me, I can think for myself. I don’t take “instructions” from anybody on this issue. Any thinking person can see what’s right and what’s wrong on this issue. I stand for the US Constitution, love of country, my sense of fair play, and a lack of fear of change. I’m not afraid to let others live their lives as they see fit, so long as it doesn’t negatively impact my life. I applaud other citizens who want the laws in this country obeyed, who fight for justice and civil rights for all Americans.
Virtually everything you have written is a lie. You crow about "think[ing] for yourself" and you do nothing but parrot the fabrications of your ideological masters, the radical homosexuals and their allies in the media and elsewhere.
I'm not wasting any more time trying to deal with every lie you spew. Two of them in the latest batch you posted are clear enough to indicate how easily you mouth foolishness:
1) "Marriage is not required for procreation; lots of children are born out of wedlock." Actually, perhaps the first true thing you've written, but a monstrosity in the way you wield it. For you believe this is a good thing, or at least an inevitability we can and should do nothing to stop, when all the evidence shows that children in families with their married biological parents do better on every indicator than children in other situations. So you, like most of the others on your side, essentially say "Children? Really, who cares about them? Let's look out only for the interests of narcissistic adults, and let the children fend for themselves." Doesn't harm YOU personally, huh, Kevin, so who cares about anyone else? Typical narcissistic, individualist worldview that dominates the mass media and the popular culture. But you think for yourself, huh, Kevin? Just like all the others who share your vapid, selfish worldview.
2) "Homosexuals reproduce." How does one even begin with an individual who believes this obvious fallacy? Tell you what, Kevin, let's put two homosexual men or two homosexual women in a room together, then wait around and see how many babies emerge. My money is on zero. How much are you willing to put on the wager?
Homosexuals are able to bear children only because they go OUTSIDE the couple relationship in order to invoke the only mechanism that produces new life: heterosexuality. So no child "produced" by a homosexual couple is of that couple. It is perhaps derived in part from the genetic material of ONE member of the couple, and in part from genetic material from ELSEWHERE.
The capacity to produce LIFE is not for homosexuals, you see. That is what heterosexuals do, and that is the blindingly apparent difference between the two that you refuse to see.
"I can think for myself," indeed. You sound just like every other uninformed ideologue on the homosexual radical lobby's side, invoking terms that you don't understand ("justice" "civil rights"), making references to history you never learned (the African-American civil rights movement), and saying patently absurd things like "homosexuals reproduce."
You should read Satinover's book. Educate yourself, poor man.
Can you read, Kevin? Did you not see where I already contradicted your claim about the poor homosexuals being victimized into suicide by the rest of us?
Their suicide rates have not measurably decreased since the 1950s, although thanks to people like you the society is much friendlier to them than it was then. Why aren't their suicide rates diminishing, given the change in the level of acceptance of their lifestyle that you have pointed out?
The truth is hard to swallow, isn't it, Kevin? The truth is that, just as alcoholics continue to contract the diseases and psychological maladies they contract whether society 'accepts' them or not, homosexuals continue to suffer from their brokenness, whether the rest of the society tries to pretend they're not really broken or not. Broken is broken; an objective fact that cannot be imagined away by political correctness.
The truth is that REAL compassion for homosexuality would show itself in a desire to treat their horrible condition, to help them to heal. Indeed, many of them, in their deepest and most intimate selves, KNOW they are broken and want to heal. But then they look around them and they see the radical homosexual activists screeching about how wonderful it is to be broken and hounding everyone who opposes their narcissism into silence, and the poor suffering slink back into their sickness.
The truth is that people like YOU, Kevin, bear some responsibility in every homosexual AIDS death, every homosexual suicide, every homosexual who suffers from his brokenness.
Show me one example of a homosexual who has lost a job or a home because of his homosexuality (and could prove it), Kevin. Just one. JUST ONE.
Another lie.
Tell me another thing, Kevin--if homosexual marriage happens, then will homosexuals stop sodomizing one another? The medical evidence is clear that this activity is harmful--homosexuals (and heterosexuals who systematically engage in it) have much higher rates of anal cancer and other serious disorders related to using parts of their bodies in ways they were built for.
If the answer is no, then how precisely is preventing them from marrying causing the risks and dangers they face as a result of their behaviors? After all, according to you, all their problems are a direct result of "homophobia," that jack-of-all-trades of the radicals which they believe explains everything (and in reality explains nothing).
Should be "ways they were NOT built for" in last post.
Gay advocates launched a hate campaign against the AMA? Yikes, do you people ever tire of perpetuating myths? No, medical professionals asked the AMA to substantiate considering homosexuality an ailment, and it couldn’t. You can’t call something a disorder if there’s no associated pathology, and no reason for treatment. So the AMA stopped calling homosexuality a disorder. Many medical professionals recognize that social ill treatment of homosexuals, rejection by their families, physical and psychological abuse do take their toll on homosexuals, leading to some disordered behaviors, like depression and suicide. But these behaviors result from social abuse, often at the hands of Christians, not from being a homosexual.
This is not a myth and as a matter of fact is well documented for those interested. At least 3 of the doctors who were there at the time have written books about and they all tell the same story. Many of them had homosexual men as patients and they observed deviant behavior. The myth is the one that the gay community is trying to perpetuate. They have everyone shaking in their boots afraid to oppose them but I declare before God that I am not afraid and neither are thousands of New Yorkers who are standing and will continue to stand against gay marriage.
Hey, Kevin, it'd have been easier just to say you had no reasonable responses to anything I wrote. Save some space for somebody with something useful to say. 'Cause as they say, you got nothin'.
I already preempted your tired response of "but...but...but...some infertile heterosexual couples use artificial insemination too!" and, like a good homosexual radical activist, you went ahead and roboted it out anyway. Too hard to think up new arguments, huh, Kev? So even when the phrase you've learned from your "Homosexual Radical Activism 101 Playbook" has already been debunked, you just vacantly blurt it out anyway. But it doesn't work, Kev, as I already explained. Four-legged dogs, three-legged dogs, and fish. You DO recognize the differences, don't you?
Why don't you crawl over to one of the homosexual radical sites and you can all chant lies to one another until you all believe them? You've shown us what you have in the way of argument, and it ain't much.
Still waiting for one example of a homosexual fired or kicked out of a home for being gay. You might give us an example of "society acquiescing" to the beating of a homosexual too, although first you'll have to actually define what "society acquiescing" means b/c that phrase is absolutely vacuous.
I'll keep waiting. I predict I'll be waiting a long time b/c you'll ignore my request again and again. Because you got nothin' more than the stock cliches and catch phrases you learned from ACT-UP or some other such nutjob group.
Keving,
Indeed six states have been duped and "legalized" SSM. That doesn't make it right and by default the will of the people of those states. In fact, Maine voters have made their voice heard and, barring any setback, will have a ballot initiative on the table by November of this year. As I understand it, Iowa voters are looking to do the same thing.
In response to your repeated attempt to legitimize SSM and therefore homosexuality, I have some questions for you. What is normative about homosexuality? What societal benefit is there to homosexuality? How will the world be a better place if SS couples are allowed to "marry." The fact of the matter is, if marriage isn't for everyone, then how does that make it permissible for SS couples?
Nicholas:
Let me ask you: what isn’t normal about homosexuality? It may not be for you personally but that doesn’t make it abnormal.
Same-sex marriage doesn’t legitimize homosexuality. Homosexuality is already considered legitimate by most Americans, all medical professionals without an agenda, and the US Supreme Court, which decriminalized sex acts between any consenting adults in 2005 (even wife-swapping heterosexuals!). There is no legal or psychological stigma associated with homosexuality, and only a small percentage of Americans believe that homosexuality is bad or wrong, or that homosexuals shouldn’t be allowed to form loving committed couples. Homosexuals serve in the military, hold important positions in business, government and academia, raise children, pay taxes, shop, own homes, etc. Just like you and me. They just have different sexual preferences.
What legal same-sex marriage does is provide the same legal rights and obligations to a same-sex couple as are currently enjoyed by opposite-sex couples. Same-sex marriage doesn’t “devalue” opposite-sex marriage, and even if it did, it couldn’t begin to cause the damage to marriage that all the adultery and divorce heterosexuals in America engage in cause.
Same-sex marriage also provides a more secure parenting environment for the children of same-sex couples. Married couples stay together longer than unmarried couples. Society benefits when childrens’ parents stay together in one household: it’s better for the kids, who go on to lead more stable lives. Kids deserve to have married parents!
Society doesn’t benefit by having either heterosexuals or homosexuals, any more than society benefits from having right-handed or left-handed people. But so long as adults form loving, committed relationships, either same-sex or opposite-sex, it makes no sense to offer marriage rights to one kind of couple, and not to the other. Plus it’s unconstitutional.
Still waiting, Kevin.
"Society doesn't benefit by having heterosexuals"
Right, so long as you don't count "ensuring continued existence of the human race through reproduction" as a benefit.
If there'd been no heterosexuals in the human race, well, we wouldn't be around having this conversation, would we?
If on the other hand there'd never been a single homosexual in the history of the human race, well, about the only thing that'd be different is that there wouldn't be a bunch of shrill, fact-free ideologues writing blogs today in support of two confused men pretending to be mates.
And you want to see heterosexuality and homosexuality as right and left handedness?
I am growing sad, Kevin, as I realize how truly deluded you are.
Kevin,
If SSM isn't about the legitimization of homosexuality, then why all the pushback from OSMers that understand it as such and equate the two? Are we all "uninformed" as to what SSM is all about? Hardly! Also, if homosexuality is already accepted, why am I (and many others) standing against it? You presume too much of the inevitability of SSM (homosexuality)
Unfortunately, I can't say I am surprise that you would bring out the moral relativism argument for SSM (homosexuality). What, is there no absolute truth, no right and wrong any more? If not (I would argue there is), then we as a people (all of humanity) are far worse off than I imagined.
Lastly, I was beginning to wonder when you would bring up adultery and divorce as being more a threat to marriage than SSM. Once again, I will ask, how so? Are Adultery and Divorce just waiting to happen as soon as a OS couple get married? Are there not signs and symptoms that precipitate either eventuality? In other words, was adultery and divorce "created" in order to make marriage more difficult, or are they the result of a hard-heart and poor judgement? Also, since you obviously feel so strongly about adultery and divorce, what are you doing to stop them from being so prevalent? Instead of foisting responsibilty entirely on OSM couples, why not take the "cause" up on your own? Or is that not your "cross" to bear?
It si not unnatural to be gay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior
God will never make millions of "mistakes" creating gay people all around. Stop being affraid.
Jeff:
Homosexuals are perfectly capable of reproducing. Many of them do. How has this important fact escaped you in this lengthy discussion? The human species doesn’t rely on sexual preference to ensure survival, it relies on fertility. Homosexuals are as fertile as heterosexuals. If the human species depended on homosexuals for procreation, I’m sure they would be only too happy to take time out of their busy schedules to have sex with, or provide eggs or sperm to, an opposite sex person in order to create a pregnancy.
Nicholas,
That’s a great question: why do people oppose SSM given the general acceptance of homosexuality and homosexual couples in our society? It’s a non sequitor, isn’t it?
“What, is there no absolute truth, no right and wrong any more?”
Morality is a personal matter. I think it’s immoral to deny any loving committed couples and their children the security of marriage. You don’t. From a behavior standpoint, my moral compass draws that line at behavior that creates a victim. No victim, no foul. There’s no victim if two people of the same sex form a couple. No one is hurt. It’s therefore not much of a stretch to afford them the equal opportunity of marriage.
From a legal standpoint, the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution requires equal application of the laws. That’s an absolute I refuse to waver on.
I bring up adultery and divorce because they are biblically prohibited (and SSM opponents often use the Bible to condemn homosexuality and SSM) and apart from that, actually damage the institution of marriage. Same-sex marriage doesn’t. Adultery is a main reason for a marriage breakup. Obviously divorce is the “nuclear option,” decimating a marriage by definition. With the divorce rate so high, many people reason that they won’t get married “because I’ll just end up getting divorced.” With divorce so rampant, people take marriage less seriously: “I’ll just get a divorce if it doesn’t work out.” Well, if there’s an easy out, then how much work does one put into it to make it work? The threshold for working at a marriage is lowered. It’s no big deal to get a divorce in our society.
Same-sex marriage makes marriage look more desirable: even gay couples want to marry! It also reduces the divorce rate, as homosexuals will be more likely to marry a same-sex partner instead of the less desirable (to them) opposite sex partner, to get the lifelong commitment and companionship only marriage provides.
Maggie Gallagher has a great article that describes all the benefits of marriage. Nothing she cites wouldn’t apply equally to same-sex couples although she probably wrote the article with opposite-sex couples in mind.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_4_why_marriage_is.html
And still waiting, Kevin. Don't worry, I won't let you forget.
"Morality is a personal matter"
And then you run into someone whose "personal morality" dictates that they can punch in the face anyone whose ideas differ from theirs. You have no response to them when they say "It's what I consider right, it's just my personal morality, you see."
If you say "But wait, morality is based on no victims!" he can just say "Maybe in YOUR morality. Not in mine. I'm a relativist, just like you, except I'm a little smarter than you and I have seen where all this logically ends up."
And not only do you get punched in the face, you perhaps begin to realize what a childish philosophical position you have adhered to.
What part of “no victim, no foul” did you not understand? Punching someone in the face creates a victim, the guy with the damaged face.
Actually it takes a certain amount of maturity to accept that the world is filled with people who have different ideas about what’s right and wrong, and to let each person choose his own path. You appear to lack that maturity.
Morality is PERSONAL, Kevin. YOU SAID IT, not me. It's personal. That means "no victim, no foul" is a PERSONAL rule. You might like it, but there's no ground, by your own logic, to make it apply necessarily to others. What happened to "letting each person choose his own path"?
This is something about relativism most junior-high school students can be made to understand pretty quickly. Homosexual activists are frequently not quite up to that intellectual level, so the logic often escapes them entirely, and forever.
Relativism means all judgments are relative to the judge and cannot be universal or absolute. Kevin wants homosexuals to be allowed to marrry. He doesn't say what he thinks about adult homosexuals marrying 10 year old children. Perhaps he opposes that, perhaps not. But if he does, by the logic of his relativism, he can only oppose it on personal grounds. There are no broader principles to appeal to under relativism.
So, in a Kevin-run society, how would one prevent adult homosexuals from marrying ten year olds? One could not. One would merely have to go "Well, it's wrong for me, according to my principles for judging such things, but apparently not for them, so..."
When he invokes the 14th Amendment as an "absolute," he does not seem to understand that, if morality is a purely personal matter, THERE CAN BE NO ABSOLUTES, at least not absolutes that descend from universal principle. They can exist only as naked power, as in the case of the guy who wants to punch people like Kevin in the face b/c that is his view of moral correctness. Either there must be absolute principles of right that transcend the personal, or the only basis for order is who's stronger.
As I said, this is something most teens can understand with a little explanation. The contradiction is glaring enough that they figure it out pretty quickly. Perhaps Kevin is 12 years old, in which case we can forgive his density. But if he's an adult, he clearly hasn't thought very long or very hard about the implications of his glib relativism, and this is why he does not see the gigantic hole in the bottom of his boat. The boat sinks, however, whether Kevin sees the hole or not.
For someone with such a facile, childish worldview to talk about the "maturity" of others is really beyond comical.
Kevin, don't you see? The viewpoints of Jeff and others are morally and legally justified.
They are simply basing their opinions on the legal precedent set by Thomas v. Fatso, which dictates that discrimination is legal when the discriminating party feels disgusted or confused.
Or perhaps they are referring to the election of 1920, in which men voted to change the definition of voting eligibility (male, literate, (unofficially) white) and let women vote.
(we should also note the slippery slope that Americans soon tumbled down; 4 years later terrier-friendly voting booths were installed across the nation as dogs participated in the 1924 election)
Also, we should check out Jeff's recommended book. Reading is knowledge, after all. I'd love for those peer reviewed studies to show me how broken and socially misled I am.
...Right after I read this book on how wormwood leaves cure cancer, HIV, and the common cold. This book uses facts and cuts through the lies!
Look, I don't know what problems you have with homosexuals. The day a homosexual walks up to you, slamming his or her foot into your reproductive organs rendering you sterile is the day that I will empathize with your rage. But until then, keep on practicing your first amendment rights, and I'll keep on lovin' chicks.
Oh, look, someone with even less in the way of an argument than Kevin.
Will wonders never cease?
Kevin,
General acceptance of homosexuality? Again, if that is the case, then game over. However, the fact that this is not the case is why I pushback (as do others). Perhaps you're confused with the general attitude displayed by some people-if it doesn't affect me then no big deal. The problem is, SSM (homosexuality) does affect everyone by saying it is okay to be who you "are" regardless of the outcome or consequences.
So again, I ask, is there no absolutes, no right or wrong in this world? If not, then life has no meaning or purpose. There must be more to life than the here and now lest all the "believers" have done so in vain.
As to your thoughts on adultery and divorce; once again you make it sound as if the twain evils are knocking on the door of OSM couples as soon as they marry. Precipatory events have to occur for either eventuality Otherwise, it is a moot point as neither change what marriage is at the core (union of husband and wife, male and female). Also, you presume that SSM is a cure-all for the ills that have plagued OSM. It is not as already divorce cases are being reported from SSM couples.
GayofGod,
I find it rather amusing when examples from the animal kingdom are used as justification for homosexuality. Are we as humans not "higher" up then they? Has civilization, all this while, been built from the ground up by something else? Are we not still atop the food chain?
You're right in saying that God would never make millions of "mistakes." In fact, God is incapable of doing anything contrary to His nature or His Word. So to suggest that God "created" you this way, I have to ask, when did you realize this understanding? At what age did you become "actualized?"
Leah,
No confusion or disgust here on my part. I understand quite well what is at stake here. The very "soul" of the nation. So go ahead and continue . Just understand that it won't be without resistance.
Jeff:
Morality is personal. That’s why we have laws, because some people can find anything morally proper. Christians think it’s moral to deny children the benefits of having married parents, if those parents are a same-sex couple, all while proclaiming the benefits of marriage for the children of opposite-sex couples. So you see, morality is relative: marital benefits for children depend on the gender composition of their parents!
Marrying children? No, Kevin, it’s already established that children are not permitted to enter into a legal contract, which marriage is. Try to add something useful to the discussion, ok?
Ultimately there are no absolutes, Jeff. Circumstances vary and no two circumstances are alike. I know that makes you uncomfortable. But that’s the way life is. For example, Jesus Christ told his followers not to get divorced. But many Christians do get divorced. How could that be? Isn’t it an absolute? Well, one would think. But Christians are very relative in their religious practice: they really want other people to be strictly observant but give themselves a lot of leeway to fall off the wagon. How convenient.
Enjoy calling me names. I take it as a sign that your silly point of view is imploding.
Nicholas:
“So again, I ask, is there no absolutes, no right or wrong in this world?”
No, there are no absolutes. There isn’t a rule in the world that doesn’t have an exception, under the right circumstances. Why the concern about absolutes anyway? How does it effect same-sex marriage?
I think you have a religion-based view of marriage, since you said that it is between one man and one woman. That’s great for you, but what about non-believers? Must they be forced to practice your religion? That doesn’t seem fair, especially when people of faith aren’t very good about following their own religion (that’s why I like to cite adultery and divorce: it shows how far from their faith so many Christians are).
“I find it rather amusing when examples from the animal kingdom are used as justification for homosexuality.”
I’m glad you’re amused. But you’re amused for the wrong reason. Many people point out homosexuality in the animal kingdom to demonstrate that homosexuality is perfectly natural, not to justify it. Homosexuality needs no justification: it just is. Homosexuality isn’t bad just because you don’t like it, any more than tomatoes are bad because I don’t like the taste of them.
The most pitiful character on the political scene today is the leftist heterosexual American male (LHAM). The LHAM is told by all those he interacts with that he would be an ignorant, uncaring bigot if he did not support homosexual marriage and so he adopts this position unquestioningly and repeats the required mantra whenever necessary. He never thinks deeply about the issue or recognizes that the homosexual marriage movement is part of the lesbian war on men, a step necessary to declare lesbian relationships equal to heterosexual relationships, which will be followed by a step declaring lesbian relationships to be superior, as they do not involve all the burdens of heterosexuality, including putting up with male violence, insensitivity, lack of understanding, and lack of common perspectives, needs, and desires or problems with unwanted or unexpected pregnancies.
LHAMs already have difficulty finding heterosexual partners, but that situation is certain to become radically worse in the coming years. And LHAMs will be stuck with their leftist friends and associates, repeating the mantra that homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality, as they watch their girlfriends become bisexual and lesbian and they live out their sad, pathetic lives in solitude and despair. They are unwittingly sealing their own fates as they are cleverly being played by the lesbians, and they will never recognize it until it is far too late.
When the LHAMs finally to realize what fools they have been, they may try to rationalize it as a necessary sacrifice for leftist solidarity, but actually their submissive acceptance of gay marriage only serves to weaken their cause by inevitably fanning the flames of the gender wars by further emboldening and strengthening the lesbian cause with its anti-male messages. Some with understand this and the cognitive dissonance will wear on them, compounding their misery and threatening their sanity, but most will never allow themselves to consider such a possibility, no matter how much evidence is presented to them.
Sounds like John is venting because he hasn't found a wife yet.
"Morality is personal. That's why we have laws."
And tell us, please do, where do the laws come from, if not from some moral principles? What can possibly justify them, if all morality is merely personal? We're all eager to hear your 12 year old response to these questions I'm sure you've never considered before.
Next year (what'll you be in, 7th grade?), ask your teacher about logic and pay close attention to what s/he says. It's a valuable subject for people who want to avoid sounding like complete morons when they talk about political philosophy in public places.
John has your kind exactly right. Cultural Quislings. Too dull to understand that you are the useful idiots of the cultural revolution to destroy the family and established gender roles.
The public face of this revolution mouths phrases they don't understand like 'equality' and 'civil rights.' But the reality of their accomplishments can be seen on the reality TV shows or in any mall or public school around the country: boys and girls totally confused about their gender identities and sexuality, boys pretending to be girls and girls pretending to be boys, everyone behaving like whores and whoremongers at early ages, 10 year old girls dressing like streetwalkers and acting accordingly, teens hooked on drugs and having random sexual hookups, with attendant problems regarding disease.
That's the retarded moral relativism of the Kevins of the country at work.
And I'm still waiting for your list of all the homosexuals being fired or thrown out of their homes for being homosexual. I mean, if you don't provide it soon, I think everyone is going to start presuming you're just a pathetic liar, and we wouldn't want that, would we?
Sounds like Perry might be as clueless as Kevin.
Jeff:
You’re worrying needlessly if you think I’m worried about what people think of me. Approval from others is more a conservative mindset; I’m a flaming liberal.
Besides, this isn’t the only hate-based website I do truth squading at, and believe it or not, same-sex marriage isn’t the only topic I truth squad on. I understand quite well the mentality of people who need to hate others to feel good about themselves. I’ve studied the psychology of “us v. them” mentalities, and why some people need to have an enemy to feel whole.
You’ll be waiting a long time for a list of names of gay people who lost their jobs or their homes because of their sexuality. I don’t know any personally, and wouldn’t name anyone if I did. But I have reviewed FBI statistics on hate crimes and given the mentality of people like you, and your capacity for hate, it is completely believable that gays have lost their jobs and homes at the hands of pea-brained bigots like you. Before I started visiting this website, and a few other homophobic websites, I might have been skeptical about such claims. I am skeptical no longer.
Truth squading!!!
HA HA HA HA! That is the most hilarious thing I've ever heard in my life.
Really, thanks for that. Best belly laugh in a long time. Go back to your bong for another hit and give us some more funny lines, you joker.
I kinda figured you wouldn't have anything to back up your claims about all the poor homosexuals getting fired and made homeless by the evil monstrous 'bigots.' OK if I start calling you Kevin the Pathetic Liar from now on, Kevin the Pathetic Liar?
John:
If you’ve been able to maintain your status as an uncaring bigot, what makes you think I wouldn’t be able to, if I were a bigot?
“He never thinks deeply about the issue”
I’ve thought long and hard on this one. I have a gay brother, with a partner of 15 years. I have lesbian neighbors, raising two boys. They’re a hardworking, decent family, and so far as I know, everyone in the neighborhood likes them. You think that I couldn’t have thought deeply about the issue because I don’t hold your hateful point of view. Maybe because I know gay people, and see how much they’re like me, it makes it harder to treat them as sub-humans. Maybe that’s the difference, since presumably you and I have access to the same information about homosexuals and same-sex marriage.
I had no difficulty finding a mate: I joyfully married by college sweetheart. She’s no longer with us but my life is rich with memories. My current lady friend is also widowed, and we’re in the process of learning what our relationship will be.
I don’t think you can call me “submissive” on this issue: I’m pretty persistent in posting to homophobic websites the truth about same-sex marriage. I don’t expect to change minds but I mostly want people who frequent these awful websites to be exposed to an opposing point of view, rather than just validate their hate-based point of view.
"I mostly want people who frequent these awful websites to be exposed to an opposing point of view"
An opposing point of view based in a complete rejection of logic or facts and an embrace of juvenile emotionalism.
Jeff:
You can call me whatever names you want. That puts me in kinship with Jesus Christ, who was also mocked in his time by small-minded hateful people.
It also helps my cause, showing the calibre of homophobes. Thanks for the help!
I'll answer for Kevin..many many military officiers have been fired and removed from their jobs for being gay. There. Question answered.
Ps I'm extremely grateful that there are straight allies
like Kevin out there. Secondly, I hope Jeff lives to see the day (and myself as well) that marriage equality happens in the US..
Fired because they were homosexual? No, sorry, you don't understand what you're talking about.
They were fired because they were unable to follow the policies of the organization they work for. This organization tells them UP FRONT that it has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. If they are too stupid or too ideologically gung-ho to follow the policy, then they are expelled, and with perfect legitimacy. Employees who can't follow company rules deserve to be shown the door.
The military doesn't fire people for being homosexual, and the proof is that there are plenty of homosexuals working in the military right now. Difference between them and the idiots who lose their jobs is the former are smart enough to follow the policy and keep their personal business to themselves. Self-righteous, self-absorbed homosexuals who cannot avoid broadcasting their private lives to the whole world (and Lord knows there are more than a few of THESE guys out there) do not fare so well. Too bad for them. A few such lessons and maybe they'll learn that the rest of the world just isn't as interested in their lifestyle as they are.
"Fighting evil" "Truth squading" and now "kinship with Jesus Christ"
Sounds like somebody has some mental health issues revolving around extreme narcissism and delusions of grandeur.
When do you fly into outer space to stop the comet from hitting earth, Kevin?
You are a laugh riot.
My personal favorite Jeff quote: The truth is that people like YOU, Kevin, bear some responsibility in every homosexual AIDS death, every homosexual suicide, every homosexual who suffers from his brokenness.
And yet to quote a study of new HIV aids infections globally from Avert AIDS (2007). "Globally, around 11% of HIV infections are among babies who acquire the virus from their mothers; 10% result from injecting drug use; 5-10% are due to sex between men; and 5-10% occur in healthcare settings. Sex between men and women accounts for the remaining proportion – around two thirds of new infections."
looks like YOU and "your people" are just as responsible Jeff. Sometimes helps to see the bigger picture
Perry, do you really think anyone who has a mind can take you seriously when you say ridiculous things like that? Your 'thought' is as devoid of logic as Kevin's.
I noted that Kevin, who wants to encourage more homosexuality, which in the US is responsible for the great majority of new AIDS cases every year, is thereby de facto complicit with the disease's trajectory here.
You then cite some bogus global AIDS statistics from some advocacy group and want to think that my position on homosexual marriage in the US has some bearing on that? What possible effect could my desire to keep marriage intact in the US have on AIDS policy in Africa? Are you actually stupid enough to think that heterosexuals in Africa get AIDS because they are being encouraged by their fellows to marry and remain faithful to their partners, which is what NOM advocates in the US? Or perhaps you think that African heterosexuals get AIDS by some magical process b/c they oppose homosexual marriage? Or perhaps I am incorrect in guessing you are THINKING anything at all.
Another troll who can only serve as a mechanism for the production of derisive laughter.
Nope, my "thought" and point were not as grand and elaborate as that. Was just pointing out that you and your kind (heterosexuals) are responsible for HIV infections and deaths as well. Simple as that
it amuses me that you call Kevin self centered and then you yourself only think of the US and neglect the whole world out there..if you really did care, I'd bet you'd be spending all that money you spend on NOM instead helping orphans in Africa. But I'm mistaken , you probably live in Utah, work at Walmart and can't see past your own front porch
Jeff:
I neither want to encourage nor discourage homosexuality. I don’t think it’s possible to do either. Homosexuality is an involuntary sexual orientation, formed, probably, by some combination of nature and nurture. Or maybe just nature. Doesn’t matter. But you can’t encourage or discourage it, at least not yet. You can’t encourage or discourage heterosexuality either by the way.
Just to add some much-needed precision to the AIDS discussion, homosexuality itself doesn’t spread HIV or AIDS; unsafe sex practices do. In fact, I think I read that lesbian women have the lowest incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, less than straight women or men even. So let’s be careful of stating falsehoods.
Do you read so poorly that you think I was accusing Kevin, who has already said he is a HETEROSEXUAL, of contributing to AIDS through his actual sexual acts? His political position with respect to the people who are doing most of the AIDS spreading here in the US is what is contributing to that. By advocating for accepting their destructive behavior instead of helping them get treatment, he is enabling their self-destruction.
The only way your inane point would not be inane is if it somehow demonstrated that my political position on homosexual marriage in the US was enabling heterosexual AIDS in Africa. Any person with basic knowledge of how logic works (i.e., I'm not talking about you or Kevin, who have already demonstrated that you don't have such knowledge) can look at the claim you're trying to make and see how absurd it is:
JK opposes homosexual marriage in the US, therefore he is complicit in heterosexual AIDS in the rest of the world.
Most 5 year olds can figure out how stupid that sounds. But the geniuses who are "truth squading" against the "forces of evil"? Not so much.
I hope you're not working in any position that involves anything more intellectually challenging or important than scooping popcorn or washing dishes.
Kevin now wants to present himself as an expert on the genesis of sexual orientation. He knows "you can't encourage or discourage" a particular sexual orientation. How he knows that, he doesn't tell us. It would be an interesting detail for the rest of us to know, especially since many, if not most of the actual experts on the topic would not make such a bold claim.
All the existing evidence (I do not count as "evidence" the research-free claims of the homosexual lobby in its shrill declarations that "it's genetic!") shows that, at minimum, a large component of homosexual orientation is not biological. It is influenced by familial experience (homosexuals as a population are MUCH more likely to have been sexually abused as children than non-homosexuals) and it is influenced by the larger social context (a culture that celebrates the brokenness of homosexuality can expect to have more homosexuals than a culture that sees it as something to be compassionately treated, but not simply accepted as inevitable).
There are many, many examples of former homosexuals getting treatment, both religious and secular, and leaving behind the brokenness of homosexuality. READ SATINOVER'S BOOK--he plainly and in detail presents the evidence for all this. (I say that not for Kevin or Perry, because I doubt they read anything that isn't in lockstep with their distorted worldview, but for those sympathetic to NOM's cause--the book will arm you for battle against the Kevins and the Perrys of the world).
And regarding my point about homosexuality being a cause of AIDS in the US, that is absolutely correct. Homosexual males, as a routine part of their 'couplings,' engage in a particular practice that has been determined in the research to have a very, very great propensity for the transmission of HIV (much greater than heterosexual intercourse). While some small minority of heterosexuals at least occasionally engage in this same physical practice, the average male homosexual does so much more regularly, and with many more partners. Hence, it is the particularly homosexual expression of sexual intimacy (a dangerous practice + very high numbers of partners) that causes the astronomically high AIDS rate among homosexual males.
You like to throw aroun the word brokeness a lot but fail to explain how homosexuality is broken. Just cause it's not a majority it's broken?
We live in a world where people are in charge of their own bodies and are free to do with them whatever they want to do, get tattoos, smoke, drink, have sex...two consenting adults are thereby free to do whatever they want and it's not really anybodys business what they are doing. Consent being the key word when it involves more than one person. Who put you in charge, Jeff, of fixing people who don't feel they are broken?
Homosexual animals, indeed:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/07/16/bush.gay.penguins.kron
How much do you want to bet that the "homosexual penguins" resulted from a shortage of female penguins? Leave it to the *San Francisco* zoo to engineer such a thing.
Way to go, Harry Penguin! Don't accept brokenness! We can all be whole.
Broken, Perry, as in damaged. As in distorted from the proper position or trajectory. Deformed.
When a bone breaks in the arm, if it is not mended properly, it can regrow improperly and make it impossible to perform the functions that an arm normally performs.
Metaphorically, we have a society with a significant number of broken arms, and instead of trying to mend them, some (you and Kevin) run around cheering about how great it is that so many people have arms that no longer work correctly.
Absolutely no evidence that legalizing homosexual marriage will make them less promiscuous. None.
In fact, the evidence we do have is that, when homosexual marriage does appear somewhere, only very small percentages of homosexuals even bother. They prefer to continue hitting the baths and the bars.
And there is little doubt that even those who 'marry' see no particular reason to be faithful, as their culture simply doesn't support this norm.
Your masters know the game's intent better than you do, Kevin. Their game is to destroy marriage, not make homosexuals less promiscuous.
I still don't quite understand, Jeff..if homosexuals are not "working properly" then what is our purpose in life. To reproduce? Homosexuals can do that quite easily with a friend or the wonders of science. To be parents? Homosexuals can do that as well. To love? They do that too...
So tell me what the purpose of human kind is then? And where you found this crucial instruction manual please
Kevin thinks that homosexuals just pop up everywhere, with no predictive factors in the environment.
Do you want to know how to ensure your children are not sexually broken, Kevin?
First, don't sexually abuse them. The absence of sexual abuse alone greatly reduces the chances they would become so sexually stunted as to move toward homosexuality. In all studies, homosexuals show a greater incidence of sexual abuse as children than non-homosexuals.
Second, allow the children to live with their married biological parents--a childhood apart from biological parents is another factor that influences sexual brokenness.
Third, show the children positive male and female roles and a positive and complementary male and female relationship every day. Children who see broken adults regularly (especially when those broken adults are not even recognized as broken by others in the family) are more likely to themselves become sexually broken.
Children who become sexually broken have always had some kind of physical or psychological abuse (e.g., disturbed mothers who baby sons too much b/c they actually desire daughters, thereby frequently turning their sons into de facto daughters). I guarantee you, if I have all the facts of any homosexual's family and social history, I can demonstrate where his or her brokenness came from.
Kevin,
Absolutes are the basis for what we know as right and wrong. Otherwise we are left to our own devices subject to no one. Obviously, what is happening in the world and has been for a long time. So absolutes are necessary to maintain order in the world and not chaos. Do you think God didn't understand this when He made us male and female and institutionalized marriage from the get go? I am sure God knew that all people wouldn't "believe" yet He still decreed marriage from the outset as only between a man and a woman. I am sure you will wittle this down to moral relativism as it suits you to do so. Go ahead. Doesn't change the fact of what is as establish by God.
To your point that homosexuality doesn't need justification because it "just is;" I would think you would be able to come up with something better than the "because I said so" argument. So then, let me ask you again, what purpose does homosexuality serve? What societal benefit is there to homosexuality? Or why is the world predominantly heterosexual? I know you have spoken ad nauseum about there being no distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality, yet, to your own admission claim to be a "widowed heterosexual male." Why claim heterosexuality then if it makes no difference?
Lastly, as to why so many Christians don't "practice what they preach," I would suggest that, even after a person becomes a Christian, it is not like the capacity to "sin" has suddenly disappeared. The difference is that their relationship to God is in process. Christians no longer "want" to satisfy their own fleshly desires. Instead they seek after "God's own heart." They want what He wants and not what the world dictates. Doesn't happen overnight.
Nicholas, what is the societal benefit of being heterosexual?
Oh, Jeff. You laid out three talking points - sorry, facts - about how to prevent children from being homosexual (most likely from the good doctor's book, who is now pursuing a career in physics, I believe).
Let's all just admit it: we don't know what causes sexual orientation. There is no causal relationship between any of the factors you stated and homosexuality. At the very least, an unscrupulous researcher can try to prove a correlation. But there is a correlation between ice cream consumption and drowning, and any rational, hungry human being knows that ice cream doesn't cause drowning.
Furthermore, you continually toss around the precise and scientific word, "broken." You need to define what you consider "sexually whole" first (and I have an inkling that entire populations of the world will not meet your discerning opinion).
For example, a geneticist can only define a recessive trait once they have determined the dominant. One can not discern the difference between an expensive vase and a knockoff by the collection of fragments on the floor; they must have prior knowledge of the "unbroken" vase.
But that's assuming that your term "broken" stands up to scrutiny, and coming from a lesbian that was not abused, raised by my married mom and dad in a stable home, I don't think your viewpoint of homosexuals could fight its way out of a paper bag.
So please, Jeff, go out and meet some gays, and following the scientific method, form your own ideas rather than reiterating those of a man who claimed all gays have a 40 year lifespan by perusing the obituaries.
What absolutes did you have in mind?
Marriage preceded Christianity and Judaism. Your God didn’t invent marriage, people of faith took it and declared it “sacred.” And that was to make a woman the property of a man. And ensure that the oldest son inherited stuff. Clearly Christians have abandoned the biblical nature of marriage, as women are no longer the property of their husbands, adultery and divorce are practiced freely, brothers of deceased men no longer have to sleep with their sisters-in-law, etc. Only when it comes to same-sex marriage does biblical fidelity kick in. And it’s a great mystery to me.
What purpose does heterosexuality serve? In a world where humans are perfectly aware of how to make a baby, why does anyone need an instinct to be attracted to an opposite-sex partner? Humans have outlived the usefulness of sexual orientation as a purpose, whether homosexual or heterosexual. Animals live by instincts; humans don’t. Sexuality and sexual desire today are about pleasure, since most sex is performed as an act of pleasure, not an act of procreation.
Society isn’t served by heterosexuality or homosexuality. Neither orientation benefits society, any more than righthandedness and lefthandedness do. Homosexuality doesn’t need justification, any more than left-handedness needs justification. Both just are. Both are minor variations of a theme.
I identified myself as a heterosexual because I am. If we must use labels, that’s the one that most applies for me. Sexual identity is probably important to the individual, but to society? Not so much.
I believe laws do serve society. And they should be followed. Especially the US Constitution, which requires that all US laws be applied equally to all citizens. Currently, 44 states still discriminate against homosexuals in awarding marriage licenses. This is wrong and unconstitutional. And should be greatly offensive to all Americans.
Perry,
The societal benefit of being heterosexual is first and foremost the recognition of God as Creator. No way to get around that we are male and female and goes straight to God's original and intended purpose in Creation. God is not mocked on this although we as humans do a bang up job of trying. Secondarily, in recognition of God as Creator we submit ourselves as male and female to His rule in our lives. Thirdly, as male and female, husband and wife, companionship and caretakers for each other and all of Creation. Fourthly, as male and female, husband and wife, procreation. Funny word, isn't it? Need I say more?
Now back to your post in #86. You asked Jeff several questions about who, what, where, when, why and how of humanity and where to find the answers to those questions. If I may interject here and ask you a couple of questions. Do you not find meaning in life other than in your homosexuality? If so, why? I'll even admit that there must be more to this life than blogging all the day and night. And there is. If you haven't picked up on what I am trying to say, there is a reoccuring theme in my posts. Essentially, we are here for God's goodpleasure and to bring glory, honor, and praise to His Name. I hope I am not censored for saying so, but if I am, I got the Word out before it is stricken from the record.
Kevin,
My God did invent marriage as recorded in the Book of Genesis. It was not hijacked by Christians and Jews as you suggest. It was established by God the Creator from the very beginning as the union of male and female, husband and wife. Why is this too much to comprehend?
In this discussion, the absolute of being male and female. The ordination by God of marriage as being only between a man and a woman. Need more?
Leah,
If I may ask, when did you realize you were a lesbian? Did it just "happen?" Did, one day, you all of a sudden become self-aware? And if not, how did you discover your lesbianism otherwise? Please be honest as I am truly trying to understand and be compassionate contrary to what others may think or say.
Kevin, not only can I count, I can read.
You did not enumerate factual errors. You listed four items and failed to back-up your accusation that Mr. George had made factual errors.
Please try to accurately restate what was actually said -- and which you insist are factually in error. If you can't then your advisory at the top is bogus.
Maybe you are incompetent or maybe you misread or maybe you are just another gay identity politics hack. Those are the charitable options, I think.l
Your subsequent comments strongly suggest that you understand your errors and THAT points to your previous remarks being non-benign.
Nicholas,
Yes I am fortunate to have been a woman that didn't hide or try to suppress my homosexuality. Around the time of puberty, which I think is when all children start feeling genuine sexual attractions, I was attracted to females.
Now I believe your question is really a matter of semantics. I never "realized" my homosexuality. I have always been romantically, physically and emotionally attracted to women, and I don't feel this trifecta of attraction for men, ever. (doubtless heterosexuals feel the same; everyone's had a bromance or girl crush but that's totally different territory)
The only thing I realized about my sexuality was that there was a definition for it...so I suppose I realized I was what we define as a lesbian when I was 14.
Thanks for asking that question. While we may not agree on every issue, I think we can agree that knowledge is first step towards finding common ground.
In that vein, I'd like to flip your question around to you, in regard to your sexuality. Honestly, since heterosexuality is usually assumed, I've never heard any pubescent stories about hetero attractions. Anyone who wants to share, do tell!
Leah, the point is that Kevin misrepresented (as benign) his false accusations against what Mr. George actually said in the interview.
Ironically, Kevin's own comments illustrate that it is he who has made factual errors andn is ill-informed.
It is he who is indeed seeking to impose his leap of faith in identity politics.
That is not how one shows dedication to the rule of law; nor is it how one respects the constitution; but it does contradict the phoney pose in favor of fairness and tolerance; indeed, it exemplifies cowardace, not courage, because Kevin has consistently runaway from the actual disagreement and runaway from what is actually said.
That is because Kevin wishes to make the discusson about Kevin rather than about what Mr. George said; Kevin seeks to make this about SSM (by which he means gayness) rather than about the meaning of marriage itself. He has even presented himself as "straight" as if that gives his reiteration of the SSM campaign's rhetoric some additional credibility. Marriage is nto about gayness -- and Kevin concedes this when he denies it. He knows that if it was about gayness then his remarks are empty. But his denial is undid by his own emphasis in his remarks in previous discussion and even here in his subsequent remarks.
His accusations against Mr. George, and then endlessly against those with whom SSMers disagree, reveals more about Kevin than about the views of Mr. George; more about SSM than about marriage.
Chairm,
I don't think I'm qualified to make any judgments on Kevin's character, especially when viewed through the muddy waters of the internet.
I would also refrain from putting Kevin's sexuality in quotes. Having never met Kevin, I must put faith in his declaration of heterosexuality, which doesn't seem farfetched. There are many straight advocates of SSM.
Leah,
Sorry, it has taken me so long to get back to you. Late Saturday night, I saw that you had responded to my questions (Thank You!), but due to the lateness of the hour and needing to get some sleep before getting up to go to church, I didn't post immediately. Also, Sunday, being a day of rest, I adhere to a self-imposed restriction on the Internet, blogging, and the such like so as to keep the day in perspective. I will answer back, just not directly to the questions I posed to you. I do have some follow-up questions as well. Again, thank you for your honesty. I do appreciate it.
Now, to answer as best I can what you posed in your blog. In your post (mysteriously missing) you mentioned that it was during your pubescent years (roughly 14) that you was able to identify yourself as a lesbian. Again, let me ask, how did you come to this understanding? What precipitated this conclusion? As for myself, although I may have not known the term, but my sexuality was a given or understood. Sure, not until my teen years did I become "self-aware," but as far as I understood sexuality, it wasn't something wholly distinct from me being a male. This is where our divergent views become apparent. Sexuality isn't something that gets separated at birth. If anything, as I was born a male so shall I always be. My sexuality, therefore, is based on me being a man/male as God created me and emanates from God's original design intent for His creation of humanity-as male and female, husband and wife. I hope that makes sense.
If I may now ask some follow-up questions. You do not necessarily need to post them in the blog (for fear of censorship or reprisal), as much as just giving you food for thought.
You had stated in previous posts that you had a "stable" home environment. Define stable. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is wholly unified and 10 is diametrically incompatible, how would you rate your home life? Mine was an 8 before I was adopted (parents alcoholics; mom still is) and went down to a 4-3 after being adopted (aunt and uncle adopted me and two older brothers). Secondly, you also stated that you have never had any "feelings" toward a man. Where does your dad fit into this statement? Forgive me, if my questions are borderline. I am not trying to psychoanalyze you or anyone else for that matter (especially since I have no training). I am just throwing out breadcrumbs.
Leah,
Your comment did not address the substance of my comment about someone showing up here to hurl false accusations.
The waters of the internet may be muddy in terms of the content of off-line character, but not so much in terms of the content of on-line comments.
Kevin's comments have continued to exemplify the nature of the SSM campaign and its argumentation. Whether or not his off-line character is sterling, his on-line behavior is all-too typical of SSMers on and off the internet.
In an attempt to spin Mr. George's interview, Kevin jumped-in to pick a rhetorical fight. As he did so he claimed that SSMers are not bullies blah-blah-blah. To wit: They and their cause is benign. But when he was directly challenged, he ran away, even though he claimed that his support of SSM was courageous.
You thought it instructive to tell me what I meant to say. I said non-benign. You chose to misrepresent that I meant malignant. That is par for the course for the SSM campaign.
I would ask that you read Mr. George's interview (which is the topic of the blogpost we are discussing) and compare with Kevin's attempted spin. Surely a modestly competent reader is qualified to judge the content of accusations and to judge the behavior of the accuser.
Kevin wanted to make this about his accusations rather than about what Mr. George actually said. So we can indulge him a little.
* * *
I did not put someone's sexuality in quotes; I put a slang term of gay identity politics in between quotation marks. When SSMers use these terms they betray the central theme of the SSM campaign -- contrary to something Kevin said in his accusations and, ironically, also contrary to Kevin's own defense of SSM.
When an SSMer shows up to hurl accusations, and fails to back-up his own words, and when another SSMer announces neutrality on that sort of behavior, no one should be fooled.
Kevin,
Your remarks about marriage not not pro-marriage. Pro-SSM, sure, but that is a form of nonmarriage.
The SSM campaign and its argumentation amounts to the unjustified demand that marriage recognition be replaced by recognition of some other thing. Sadly, SSMers have failed to distinguish that replacement from the wide range of nonmarital relationship types and kinds of living arrangements. They can't because SSM is indistinguishable.
So SSMers, like you Kevin, argue that marriage means less and less; so it might as well instantly become as meaningless as SSM already is.
(Note: I refer to the societal significance of the SSM idea rather than to the personalized meaning of private relationships or arrangements of individuals. Marriage is a foundational social institution while, in contrast, SSM is a marginal practice on the edges of the homosexual population.)
That is tragic since SSM is a legitimate type of nonmarriage arrangement that can be treated equally -- on par with other nonmarriage arrangements in which families experience certain vulnerabilities due to the lack of sex integration and the lack of responsible procreation. Protection equality is easily more viable and sustainable than this unjustified merger of nonmarriage with marital status -- which is a special status. Such a merger makes for a very hollow substitution and a demotion of marriage.
SSM = Specious Substitution for Marriage.
To repeat:
Kevin, claimed that there are factual errors in Mr. George’s interview, but Kevin failed to back-up his complaint.
Odd that now he has added cheap rhetoric about "affinity to the truth".
* * *
To Kevin:
You now have the opportunity to withdraw all or some of the items that you listed in your accusation that Mr. George made "a number of factual errors".
If you want to defend your comment -- the one at the top of this discussion -- then, sayso and do so.
You are still reading and indeed you have very recently commented here so if you do not respond, then, readers can take that as your concession by omission that you cannot or will not defend your accusation.
And that would stand against your pose of having greater affinity for the truth and for dealing with the actual content of your disagreement with Mr. George and with marriage defenders in general.
On the other hand, if you withdraw the charge then you will gain some credibility for acknowledging that rhetoric excess was an immediate emotinal reaction but not an sustainable response to that interview.
* * *
To other readers and commenters,
If SSMers i.e. SSM[support]ers insist that their disagreement with marriage defenders is dependant upon feelings about what is true, then, they ought to stop talking like the facts, reason, the rule of law, and so forth are the source of their viewpoint. If the source is actually sentiment rather than something else, then, okay, let's discuss that honestly.
It is time to stop attacking marriage, I think, and start promoting what you actually mean by SSM. And you should be prepared to examine your assumption that SSM and marriage are one and the same thing. I say this because SSM argumentation comes with certain hard rules that SSMers use all the time when attacking marriage but abandon when being challenged to explain SSM itself.
Shift your emphasis from gay identity politics to the societal significance, if any, of the SSM idea. If it is not about same-sex sexual attraction/ behavior/ romance -- if it is not about sex, then, what is it really about? Please try to explain without disparaging the core meaning of the social institution of marriage.
Thanks.
Apologies for typos:
On the other hand, if you withdraw the charge, then, you will gain some credibility for acknowledging that rhetorical excess was an immediate emotional reaction to that interview but not a sustainable response.
Nicolas,
Thanks for responding. Hopefully this comment doesn't also go "mysteriously missing."
In regards to your questions, I never "realized" that I was attracted to women. I just was.
If I could use an analogy… Imagine that every human is like a car. In your view of sexuality, everyone is of the same make and model, and any deviations had to be realized or chosen, like a new muffler or spoiler.
In my view, everyone is a different type of car, each one functions the same way and gets from point A to B, but no car is aware that it is different from the rest.
Furthermore, I think we differ in our concepts of gender and sexuality. Maybe it's just the feminist in me, but I don't think that just because I am female I have to act or feel a certain way.
On to your next questions. No family is perfect, so I'd say my home is a 3. Also, my relationship with my dad isn't the best, but this is probably because we both have "big personalities."
As I told my parents when I came out, my sexuality has nothing to do with them. They're the farthest thing from my mind when I'm with a woman
Chairm
SSM is not about sex. Gays, like straights, have sex with or without the mantle of marriage over our heads.
Marriage is no longer a considered the only legitimate sexual relationship two people can have. It is, however, the only relationship that is gives people legal benefits. Under the 14th amendment, these legal benefits can not be given to one group of people and not another.
The OSM campaign seems to have fixation on sex. They seem concerned with "legitimizing" homosexual behavior and being forced to accept that gays exist.
We SSMers grow weary because we've heard these arguments before. Here's an example:
"So on this acceptance topic: I am supposed to accept that some people choose to have ________ relationships. That is fine with me, do what you want.
However, I choose to think it is not something I would expose myself to. The PD is a public news media, just like TV. Why does this have to be shoved down my throat?
Why isn't everyone else supposed to accept my opinion on the matter? I am not supposed to do, say or show pictures of things that offend you, but why can you say, do, and show pictures of things that offend me?
Can someone please come up with an intelligent answer?"
- John
Fill in the blank in the quote above with one of the options below. Only one answer is correct.
A. Interracial
B. Homosexual
C. Open
Can you guess the correct answer?
Leah,
Thank you for your honesty. It is very much appreciated.
Your right, though. Our views of gender and sexuality are vastly different. Therein lies the conundrum. Is everything in life dependent on how we as humans see "reality?" If that be the case, then who ulitmately decides what "reality" is then? Or do we decide individually what that means? Let me ask this last question another way. Has God, after creating us male and female, left us up to our own devices? Has God, like Elvis, left the building (Creation) to stand on its own and fend for itself?
In your analogy of sexuality, are you saying that you were born homosexual and didn't understand it until later? What happened that indicated to you that you were homosexual at birth? See, if we are male and female at birth, how does that change later on as we grow older? Are we not still male and female throughout our lifetime? So back to your analogy, then, although the vehicle doesn't "realize" what has happened to it with the addition of accessories, the "owner" still had to make a conscious choice to accesorize the vehicle?
Nicholas, I have to say it is very refreshing to see a person on this website who is willing to actually discuss the situation at hand with an open mind, instead of being so incredibly stuck in their ways that their responses and point of view come off as incredibly cold and robotic (re: Chairm).
I definitely believe, and would think a lot of people would agree with me, that one thing that is not so easily agreeable on is the intent or purpose of humanity. A lot of people tend to bring up that there are two sexes: male and female. And then from there justify marriage as a result of that. As if the entire purpose of the human race is exactly that: The unity of male and female for the purpose of procreation. I rather like Leah's car metaphor because it is definitely how I view life. How incredibly boring would life be if we were all the same make and model? If there was no differention. Consider me rebellious, but I do not believe our life's goal is to procreate. And I, along with many others, would easily argue that the world is over populated enough as it is. And I, along with many others, would agree that no one else (whether it be a book, a person, or a spirit) can tell you what the purpose of yourlife should be. Everyone's life journey is different (no matter how you get from the beginning to the end...point a to point b). Some people's paths are bumpier than others, but I agree for the most part that everyone wants to go somewhere with their life. People want to be successful, people want to love, and people want to be loved. Regardless if that is with a man or woman. If no one is getting harmed in the way, if everything is consensual, then shouldn't everyone be allowed to take their path how they want it? Or how its laid out for them. I firmly believe that not everyone should follow the same path, and sadly, society seems to dictate such a stern, defined path for life: good grades, college, well-paying 9 to 5 job, husband/wife, white picket fence,daughter, son, cat, dog, white picket fence. Why not, instead, live life a little more simply? Why not just love (regardless of gender), be loved, and make the world a better place however YOU can...whether that involves religion, being a parent, inventing a cure for cancer or whatever. Consider my views incredibly hippy-ish if you will, but I just think, if given the opportunity, I could cast a vote or donate money to a cause that was costing so many of my friends and neighbors (good, upright, and honest people) their complete and total happiness.
sorry, typo, should say COULDN'T cast a vote or donate...
Perry,
Although I understand what you said, I am not here to placate anyone. I am, however, trying to be reasonable and sensitive to the discussion, yet stay true to my convictions.
As to the rest of your post, I do have some questions. With one Maker/Creator (God) and two models, male and female, is that not enough differentiation for you? Are you saying then that being homosexual entails something altogether different than being male or female? Is being homosexual, then, an amalgam of the two genders? If that is true, why so few copies and who was the original?
Finally, from what you said, each and every one of us has to find our "own way." What is our guiding "light" if left on our own to find the "right" path that leads to happiness? If it is different for everyone, then how is it that many people end up on the same path?
Nicholas,
Once again thanks for responding.
To answer your questions, I'm an atheist, so I can't offer much insight on God's plans. For whatever reason, we're here, we're queer.
Yes, I believe I was born gay. I'm not pointing to a genetic basis but rather to a hormonal one. (I'm a bio major so bear with me). Here's the abstract from Williams et al 2000 study:
nimal models have indicated that androgenic steroids acting before birth might influence the sexual orientation of adult humans. Here we examine the androgen-sensitive pattern of finger lengths1, and find evidence that homosexual women are exposed to more prenatal androgen than heterosexual women are; also, men with more than one older brother, who are more likely than first-born males to be homosexual in adulthood, are exposed to more prenatal androgen than eldest sons. Prenatal androgens may therefore influence adult human sexual orientation in both sexes, and a mother's body appears to 'remember' previously carried sons, altering the fetal development of subsequent sons and increasing the likelihood of homosexuality in adulthood.
I did a smaller scale study in high school with pals and found that the lesbian identified females had a longer ring finger. My own finger ratio is 97 when the usual for females is 1 to 1 or 100.
Does this make me, or any other homosexual any less male or female? I don't think so. I'm still biologically and mentally female. Homosexuality and transgender/transsexuality are not one and the same.
So going back to analogy (using the Williams et al theory), the vehicle does not realize it is different but it functions just like all the other vehicles. The "owner," which I would call the mother but you may believe is God, doesn't make a conscious decision to release certain hormones in the womb.
Oh, and going back to your first question, we may never know what reality is. To paraphrase astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, when we rely on our senses we are really relying on opinion. Our five senses and our thoughts are controlled by genetic predisposition (for example liking cilantro or being pitch perfect).
Leah,
Why did you refer to "gays" and "straights" if you believe that SSM is not about sex?
You pointed to "legal benefits" but marriage is not one and the same as "legal benefits".
You did demonstrate that you see this SSM issue as centrally about identity politics: "these legal benefits can not be given to one group of people and not another."
The Constitution does not provide group rights. It provides, as does the fundamental concept of liberty itself, individualized rights. Yet here you are emphasizing group identity politics.
If SSM is not about sex, contrary to the various pro-SSM court opinions (both those in the majority and those in the minority in SSM cases), and is only about "legal benefits", then, please respond to the question:
"If it [the societal significance, if any, of the SSM idea] is not about same-sex sexual attraction/ behavior/ romance — if it is not about sex, then, what is it really about? Please try to explain without disparaging the core meaning of the social institution of marriage."
Afterall, in California the state's legal benefits were available to one-sexed arrangements that registered with the government. But apparently that was not what the SSM campaign was really about.
The core meaning of marriage as a social institution (i.e. its societal signficance) is: provision for 1) sex integration, 2) responsible procreation, and 3) recognition of these combined as a coherent whole.
What is the core meaning of the type of relationship you have in mind when you refer to SSM? Is is sexless? Is it not definitively sexual?
If none of that is essential, and it appears to be so in terms of the lack of legal requirements making it essential, then, you will have great difficulty accounting for the pro-SSM complaint's emphasis on sexual orientation. And you would not distinguish SSM from the rest of the nonmarital category of arrangements and relationships.
Read Mr. George's interview where he discussed this very thing.
There are really two different discussions that come up with the SSM issue.
The first is about what marriage actually is. For SSMers, marriage means less and less. That, I think, is because SSM itself means so little in a societal sense. So SSMers seek to make marriage indistinguishable from SSM and thus destroy the recognition of what makes marriage, marriage.
The debate about this question is about the justification (or rather the lack of justification) for such an attack on a foundational social institution of civil society. SSMers generally come up very short on this question.
The other question is about human sexuality. This is the forte of most SSMers whose argumentation is highly dependant on identity politics of the gaycentric variety. The SSM goal is to provoke a reaction from marriage defenders such that this question overshadows the marriage question.
Well, when the SSM campaign is confronted frankly about this second question, SSMers tend to try to squirm away from it and to pretend that it is the defenders of marriage who emphasize sexual orientation. The two questions are not the same thing. But SSMers seek to impose a cultural change through legal change -- and the change they seek is on this second question. Marriage is just a political vehicle, in terms of gay identity politics. SSMers cannot even define SSM much less define marriage. They can't say what makes SSM, SSM, just as they fall short on the question about what makes marriage, marriage. But their forte surely is all things homosexual.
And since their politics is defintively based on The Group identity, and since the marriage question is viewed through the lense of identity politics, the SSM campaign fears a national campaign, such as the one that NOM has now engaged, that deals with both questions forthrightly.
If SSM is not about sex, then, it is about nothing.
It is, however, about identity politics, and the SSM campaign seeks to impose supremacy on that basis.
So, Leah, in terms of your remark to John, the SSMer has far more in common with the people who imposed racialist identity politics in the anti-miscegenation system. That may make you feel uncomfortable. You seek to use marriage, not to enter marriage, and you do so in the name of group identity.
Marriage is open to men and women alike. The marriage law has never had eligibility based on sexual orientation -- nor ineligibility. It is only through the prism of gay identity politics that someone might percieve (wrongly) that marriage excludes on that basis.
What is really at stake is the question about marriage. SSMers choose to turn this into a question about homosexuality. Well, the racialists had used marriage to turn the first question into a question about dividing humankind into subspecies based on false notions of race identity. That was repudiated long ago. SSMers have not found a better argument to overcome that repudiation.
Perry, it is ironic that you call me robotic while you identify so strongly with the machine metaphor.
You want to talk about love? Well, as I said earlier: "If the source is actually sentiment rather than something else, then, okay, let’s discuss that honestly."
By the way, marriage is not about your private purpose. It is about the core purposes. This does not fit SSM. Indeed, love or no love, SSM is antithetical to what marriage actually means. While love certainly can and usually does enter into one's personal experience of marriage, it is not the purpose of the social institution of marriage to validate the private sentiments of this or that person. Marriage is not a purely private thing. It means much more than what you have described. Far more. But it is this extra baggage that you would have society throw overboard.
If SSM is defined by same-sex sexual love, rather than some other type of same-sex love, then please elaborate.
If it is defined by a sex-neutral love, for instance, then, the current lines drawn around the core of marriage would become unsustainable if SSM was merged with marital status. You'd destroy the essentials -- at least in the marriage law -- that provide the basis for the lines drawn against some married people (but not all married people), against some related people (but not all related people), against some underqaged people (but not all underaged people), that is to say -- against some consenting adults but not all consenting adults.
What is the love requirement going to look like -- or is that not really what SSM is about, at law?
By the way, the discussion about differentiation ought to be considered in light of the interview of Mr. George.
Sex differentiation is a fact -- according to SSM argumentation's own emphasis on sexual orientation.
It is an undisputed fact that marriage defenders acknowledge.
The unity of the sexes is of great societal significance. As is provison for responsible procreation.
Can the same really be said of government validation of sexualized one-sexed arrangements? If so, then, what is the societal significance?
And please explain how it rises to the height that would require society to discard the core of marriage so as to equate the social institution of marriage with the highly abstract government vehicle of SSM.
If SSM has merit then it ought to stand on its own two feet rather than be foisted onto the back of marriage for a free ride.
As Mr. George noted, SSMers need to question their assumptions. Question the assumption that SSM is the same as marriage. It is distinguishable from marriage in the most obvious ways. And sex differentiation is more than a huge clue.
Just state what makes SSM, SSM. If it is not homosexuality, then, it must be something else, right? And whatever that is, it cannot be the denial of sex differentation which is an undisputed fact on both sides of the SSM issue.
If you don't think that the societal significance of SSM is the validation of homosexuality, then, you need to stop comparing "gays" and "straights" and just plainly state the significance of SSM on its own merits -- its own independant claim to high societal regard.
Leah,
Thank you for being so forthright. As usual, I do have more questions about your post.
You being a biology major and me having been a theology major, no doubt we are going to see things accordingly. Going back to your example, though, if homones may be a predictor of homosexuality, does that mean they are a dictator too? Also, the study says that these androgenic steroids "might" influence adult orientation. That is a rather non-commital answer to whether homosexuality is innate. Furthermore, why does this process take so long to come about-not until adulthood? Why not before then?
Now to your statement, "For whatever reason, were here, were queer." That brings up a whole host of questions, but I will leave it at just two. What is the purpose of your homosexuality? Is it just so you can have companionship, someone to "love," or does it serve a "greater good?"
As to the vehicle analogy, by "owner" I didn't mean God (although He does own all of creation). Owner is the person (male or female) that accessorizes vehicle (themselves, in this instance). You are the owner of yourself, right? Then, do you not make a conscious decision to accessorize yourself as you see fit that goes beyond chemical composition, hormones, and perhaps even DNA (genetics)? In other words, are we not more than the sum of our parts?
Finally, the comment about reality as paraphrased by you of the noted astrophysicist, Neil Degrasse Tyson, if reality (based on our senses) is little more than opionion, then how do we know anything as real? What qualifies as real or how do you quanitfy it then?
While the importance of Family is important, same sex marriage does not impose that, but actually cherishes the idea that families are supposed to love each other and be there for each other no matter what life decision they choose.
Plus, lets face it, isnt the institution of marriage just another way that religion is still hopelessly bound to government, even though we have freedom of religion? Its rather archaic that we need the government and gods permission to Love - and not just love, we need permission to be able to have the person we love choose when to take us off of life support, or even see us in the hospital, or have rights to taking our own children to and from school.
I am a female getting ready to marry a man. I have known a few gay people, and they are no different than anyone else.
Actually, most of the gay people I have talked to express that one of the most important issues to them is being able to marry because if their lover dies the decisions, Will, Power of Attorney, etc still goes to their next of kin since the government doesnt actually recognize their rights to their lover.
Giving people more rights does not take away from yours.
Also, I saw a comment up there about the backlash people have gotten for voting against Prop 8. I have 2 points to this:
Religious rioters - Its never ok for ANYONE to act this way, but when people feel very strongly about something they tend to over react. Mothers of Sons that died in Iraq have been bombarded by religious protesters at the funerals of their dead sons just because they fought in the war.
California taking it away in the first place - California gave them their right to marriage in the first place. TONS of couples signed up and succeeded or were still in line when they all of a sudden revoked their licenses and didnt return the fee they had to pay for it. Indian Givers?
Anyways - I just wanted to put my piece in. In conclusion - our laws and values are incredibly out dated. You might as well be defending segregation, or denying equal rights among men and women. This is The united states of America, and everyone should be free to live the way that makes them happy, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.
Melody, if you truly read the comments on this site, you would know that the concerns raised are not just about "love", there are real ramifications to ssm that need to be considered. Your two cents barely scratches the surface of the arguments.
Melody, you are misinformed about wills and so forth. You need to rechecked the facts rather than rely on SSM propaganda.
Whether or not a person is "gay" is irrelevant to the man-woman criterion of marriage law. Sexual orientation is not the basis for eligibility nor for ineligibility. So please recheck the facts on that score as well.
I think that just because you claim to be 'straight' does not add nor does it detract from your comment. So please stop posing as if it makes your case for you.
Thanks.
I'm on Prof. George's side on this but I have a quibble about the benefits aspect of it. Even if he's right that homosexuals aren't as interested in the benefits as they say they are, the benefits are at the heart of this as the sign of support that society gives, and it's social approval that really has been the driver of all the sexual pathologies that has engulfed us, including casual divorce, out-of-control use of pornography, and many other forms of sex that don't related to male-female marriage. With the tragic consequences of widespread family breakdown, it's time for society to commit to a resurgence of support for the idea that as many people as possible should have the benefit of a mother and a father.
Marriage is not a right; it's a privilege...just like driving...read the Constitution. And it is absolutely defined as between a man and a woman. period. The gay community has rights to live as they please - but the argument is they want more..always more...live & let live but don't cram your beliefs down my throat & call me a bigot if I don't agree w your ideology and beliefs. Tired of being dictated to about what I can and can't think.
I think that a very important part of Liberty is the protection of the family unit, and Marriage between a man and a woman is critical to that structure.
Defending marriage as between a man and a woman, and in no way taking away rights from gay people, let them live how they wish, is also critical to Liberty.
What I do not want to do is look back one day and wonder how the teachings of my neighbors became mandatory for my family and kids.