06-27-2006, 02:07 PM | #621 | |
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
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Quote:
The fact is some do. Thats what we are talking about here. Not that some dont.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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07-12-2006, 07:58 AM | #622 |
Domesticated Swing Babe
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Reality
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Heh!
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Happy Atheist Go Democrats! |
07-12-2006, 03:01 PM | #623 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: sikeston, MO, usa, earth, sol
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The Boston Globe says "put up or be put out!" or something to that effect. Gotta love the equal application of the law, dontcha?! (Did I get the accent right?)
Gays at Globe told to marry or lose benefits By Jesse Noyes Saturday, July 8, 2006 - Updated: 11:09 AM EST Memo to Boston Globe gay and lesbian Guild employees: Get married or lose your domestic partner benefits. Globe staffers have been told that health and dental benefits for gay employees’ domestic partners are being discontinued. Gay couples who want to keep their benefits must marry by Jan. 1. A memo sent to the Globe’s Boston Newspaper Guild members, and obtained by the Herald, states that Massachusetts gay Guild employees can extend their benefits to their partners only if they marry. “An employee who currently covers a same-sex domestic partner as a dependent will have to marry his or her partner by Jan. 1 for the employee benefits coverage to continue at the employee rates,” the memo states. The policy change at the Globe, which devotes extensive coverage to gay issues, opens a new can of worms in the Bay State as employers rethink their domestic partner benefits in the wake of the legalization of gay marriage in 2004. Benefits for domestic partners were originally offered to gay employees because they couldn’t legally marry, said Ilene Robinson Sunshine, a lawyer at Sullivan & Worcester. Now that gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts companies that offer benefits to gay employees’ partners risk hearing cries of discrimination from unmarried straight couples. Such concerns played a role in the policy change at the Globe, said Steve Behenna, the newspaper’s compensation and benefits director. The Globe does not extend benefits to live-in partners of its heterosexual employees. Like many companies, it offered benefits to partners of gay employees because marriage was not an option for them. Now that gay marriage is an option in Massachusetts, Behenna said the paper could be more susceptible to claims of discrimination.Paul Holtzman, an attorney specializing in employment law at Krokidas & Bluestein, said you can expect more local companies to change their policies. “There is a trend towards doing what the Globe did,” he said. “A number of employers have taken the position that now that same-sex marriage is an option there is no longer a need to offer domestic partner benefits.” As companies drop domestic partner benefits, gays who work in Boston but live in another state could be left in the lurch since they can’t legally marry, said Kevin Batt, an attorney who has handled gay marriage litigation. Domestic partner benefits will continue for Globe employees who live in states where gay marriage is not recognized, Behenna said. http://news.bostonherald.com/localRe...83&format=text
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 Last edited by inked : 07-12-2006 at 03:02 PM. |
07-12-2006, 05:34 PM | #624 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Mar 2005
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Quote:
heh!! *blows Kiss!* Last edited by Butterbeer : 07-12-2006 at 05:35 PM. |
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07-13-2006, 03:09 AM | #625 |
Word Santa Claus
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Chicago, IL
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That's exactly what SHOULD happen. Good for the Globe.
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Sufficient to have stood, yet free to fall. |
07-17-2006, 12:49 AM | #626 |
Elf Lord
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SALT LAKE CITY: No scientific basis for 'born gay' theory
By David Clarke Pruden The Salt Lake Tribune 7/8/2006 Although the simple "born gay" theory has faded from the science scene, activists continue to misrepresent scientific findings. When you assert that individuals are born gay and cannot change, people naturally jump to the conclusion that same-sex marriage is the only rational choice for same-sex attracted individuals. However, the innate-immutable theory of homosexuality has no basis in science. The simplistic biological theory has been dismissed by all of the researchers whose studies have been cited to support the notion that homosexuality is so deeply compelled by biology that it cannot change. Let's examine the words of just one of those often incorrectly cited as providing evidence for a "gay gene." Simon LeVay notes, "It is important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality was genetic, or find a cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men were born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work." A new research study by a University of Illinois team, which has screened the entire human genome, reported that there is no one gay gene. Writing in the journal Human Genetics, lead researcher Dr. Brian Mustanski noted that environmental factors were also likely to be involved. Of the innate-immutable argument, Dr. Richard C. Friedman and Dr. Jennifer Downey, noted, "At clinical conferences one often hears . . . that homosexual orientation is fixed and unmodifiable. Neither assertion is true . . . The assertion that homosexuality is genetic is so reductionistic that it must be dismissed out of hand as a general principle of psychology." And the fluidity of homosexual attractions is well-established. Dr. Ellen Schecter of the Fielding Institute studied women who had self-identified as lesbian for more than 10 years and who after age 30 were now in intimate relationships with men lasting a year or longer. Even more prominent was the research by Robert Spitzer, the very psychiatrist who led the charge to remove homosexuality from the psychiatric manual. His study of 200 gay men and lesbian women who had undergone re-orientation therapy concluded: 44 percent of the women and 66 percent of the men had arrived at what he called "good heterosexual functioning" and 89 percent of the men and 95 percent of the women reported that they were bothered slightly or not at all by unwanted homosexual feelings. Mainstream gay-affirming publications like The Advocate are changing their terminology to embrace the concept of fluid sexual attractions. Matt Foreman, of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, summarizes what the gay movement has done. "We as a movement can take pride that we opened the door for young people to be much more fluid about sexuality, gender, gender roles, orientation and sexual behavior than any other generation in history. That's what the gay movement has contributed to society, and that's a tremendously good thing." But is it? If the innate-immutable theory of homosexuality has no basis in science then why do so many activists still insist that individuals are born gay and cannot change? LeVay provided the answer. He notes " . . . people who think that gays and lesbians are born that way are more likely to support gay rights." This is not to say that anyone chooses homosexual attractions nor do most of us choose many of the other challenges we face in life, but we do choose how we respond. ---David Clarke Pruden is the executive director of Evergreen International, a nonprofit Latter-Day Saint organization that provides resources and educational services for same-sex attracted members.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
07-17-2006, 09:36 AM | #627 |
Marshal of the Eastmark
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Portland, OR
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your point?
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07-17-2006, 10:12 AM | #628 |
An enigma in a conundrum
Join Date: Oct 1999
Posts: 6,476
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I think that article says that you aren't born gay, you become gay. IMO, we all change biologically as we age, perhaps it is something which is affected by BOTH nature and nurture as well as societal influences.
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Vizzini: "HE DIDN'T FALL?! INCONCEIVABLE!!" Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." |
07-17-2006, 11:02 AM | #629 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: In me taters
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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What did they expect? A big pink section of DNA?
The article tells us little except that the anti-gay movement is very concerned with disproving the "gay gene" theory, which nobody believes anyway. This is a good example of how they hope to influence the debate by redefining the terms of the discussion. Clearly, any genetic component in being gay poses a big problem to them, as many of them believe that man was made in the image of his creator etc etc. |
07-17-2006, 11:06 AM | #630 |
Marshal of the Eastmark
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Portland, OR
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Am I any less queer if I choose it?
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07-17-2006, 11:07 AM | #631 |
An enigma in a conundrum
Join Date: Oct 1999
Posts: 6,476
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Wouldn't it be easier if they could blame it all on that fairy that is currently flying around in the car commercial.
Pink, DNA--great line.
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Vizzini: "HE DIDN'T FALL?! INCONCEIVABLE!!" Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." |
07-17-2006, 12:22 PM | #632 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: In me taters
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Agreed, even though I haven't seen the commercial of which you speak; however, it might help us to pay a bit more attention to the issue of equality.
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07-17-2006, 12:43 PM | #633 |
Marshal of the Eastmark
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 1,412
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Of course, the inconsistent illogic is simply this:
With my left hand I will demand that only biology can determine behavior. With my right hand I will insist on behavior that elevates man above the animals by supression of biological urges. What?!?!?! Which is it? Can't they see that these two ideas are opposites? Of course they can. They just want to select whichever premise supports their argument today. So if you say that all the other great apes have a diversity of sexual behaviors, they tell you that homo sapiens is above the other animals because we control our reproduction by choice. But if you say that people have a right to choose how and when and where they use their reproductive apparati, they say that biological necessity is the only acceptable basis for sex. In short, they choose whichever argument suits them on that occasion. |
07-17-2006, 05:52 PM | #634 |
Domesticated Swing Babe
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Reality
Posts: 5,340
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"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What did they expect? A big pink section of DNA?
The article tells us little except that the anti-gay movement is very concerned with disproving the "gay gene" theory, which nobody believes anyway. This is a good example of how they hope to influence the debate by redefining the terms of the discussion. Clearly, any genetic component in being gay poses a big problem to them, as many of them believe that man was made in the image of his creator etc etc." Excellent post Gaffer! And I like the way these were your OWN words ....not just another lazy cut and paste job. Of course there is a genetic componet to being gay....A BIG, FAT, HAIRY one!
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Happy Atheist Go Democrats! Last edited by Lizra : 07-17-2006 at 06:11 PM. |
07-18-2006, 04:52 AM | #635 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: In me taters
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* hugs Liz *
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07-18-2006, 06:07 AM | #636 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Mar 2005
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sounds good ... *hugs Liz too*
top notch gaffer! yes ... Inked old chum ...less paste and more pink flowery DNA wall paper please! |
07-18-2006, 07:08 AM | #637 |
Domesticated Swing Babe
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Reality
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Thanks for the hugs gentlemen .....GREAT way to start off my morning....heh!
(Naughty Liz! I am now thinking of Emeril's line...."Let's kick it up a notch"! )
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Happy Atheist Go Democrats! |
07-18-2006, 09:11 AM | #638 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Sep 2003
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* breaks out the swarfega *
Wait a minute, isn't it the middle of the night with you, or are you just an early riser, so to speak? |
07-18-2006, 03:35 PM | #639 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Mar 2005
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anytime is good for some hugging bud! ...
the gals' just tuned in! |
07-18-2006, 04:56 PM | #640 | |
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
Posts: 4,634
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Quote:
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Last edited by Insidious Rex : 07-18-2006 at 05:03 PM. |
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