02-06-2005, 11:49 AM | #1 | |||||||
Co-President of Entmoot
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[edit]
I see now that I'm credited for starting this thread. Any Entmoot history buffs out there should note that TinuvielChild was the original thread starter, and it had over 300 pages (IIRC). [/edit] I'm reading that interview with Dobson RÃ*an. It seems his Spongebob Squarepants comments were taken out of context - I get the impression he didn't like the cartoon characters being in the pro-gay video, not that he actually thought the characters were subtextually gay or something. Which begs the question, why is their presence a problem? I think it's the pro-gay video and its potential success that he really doesn't like. Quote:
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Tolerance and diversity are not just buzzwords, gah! Well, I suppose they have been used as buzzwords, but they are not meaningless jargon or just something to say to sound cool. They have deeper meaning than just "look at me, I'm tolerant." Though they have been used that way by some, it isn't fair to dismiss them out of hand as buzzwords. Quote:
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All three definitions are from Wikipedia.org Follow the links for their complete definitions. Tolerance Diversity Buzzword One final comment. This interview didn't really touch on the (apparently) major issues of the pro-gay video and what Dobson thinks about it.
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Last edited by Nurvingiel : 03-10-2005 at 08:30 AM. |
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02-06-2005, 12:50 PM | #2 |
Elven Warrior
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I am a gay man. Out of the closet.
I had not seen this thread before. I have read some, but not all of the posts. No, being gay is not a choice. I don't know if it is inborn, or if it is set by age two or whatever, but in my case the gender to which I was attracted was clearly defined at puberty. Girls just never interested me. Being gay was such a shameful thing in italy at that time, that when I reached puberty I did not realize immediately that being attracted to men = being gay. It took me a few years Last edited by The Wizard from Milan : 02-06-2005 at 12:56 PM. |
02-06-2005, 01:51 PM | #3 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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always good to hear from those who actually know first hand
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02-06-2005, 02:23 PM | #4 | |
Quasi Evil
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02-06-2005, 02:32 PM | #5 | |
Honourary Elitist Inklette
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I know what you mean by taking a while to clue in that you were gay...happened to me, too. It was weird when it finally all made some kind of sense....I thought to myself, "Oh, so that's how it is. I think I understand now." And then I proceeded to try to run away...heh heh....didn't work. |
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02-06-2005, 02:35 PM | #6 | |
Honourary Elitist Inklette
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02-06-2005, 02:54 PM | #7 |
Domesticated Swing Babe
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I suppose if you're bisexual.... there's a choice, but if you are gay or straight....you are just doing what comes NATURAL! Just because something might be different...doesn't mean it's not natural!
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02-06-2005, 06:25 PM | #8 | |||
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02-07-2005, 12:02 AM | #9 |
Elf Lord
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Is so a choice.
And while we are at it, it is the choice of <2% of teenagers in America in surveys of sexual activity. See the report on teen sex in TIME, last week. Course, I think you should all be careful at all times if electing sexual activity.
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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 |
02-07-2005, 02:34 AM | #10 | |
Elven Warrior
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One can always choose celibacy. One can also try to have sex with people of the other sex regardless of the orientation (for females it is actually easier than for males). In as far as the percentages I am tired to discuss them. I think the best survey (from a methodological point of view) is the one by Laumann et al "The Social Organization of Sexuality", University of Chicago Press. But who cares about the number? What if it were 0.002%? Does that mean that one can tramp on the rights of part of the population just because it is a minority? |
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02-07-2005, 02:43 AM | #11 |
avocatus diaboli
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*grumbles* And thus you have a plain example of the suppression of the minority by the majority. Democracy is not perfect.
inked, where exactly is the choice? It seems to me that love, no matter what orientation you are, is not something you can control (not that I'd know one way or the other, I suppose ). It's either there, or it isn't.
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02-07-2005, 02:51 AM | #12 |
Elf Lord
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As Albus Dumbledore observed to Harry Potter, our choices are what make us who we are!
The importance of percentages is two-fold: 1) perspective (the allegations made by Kinsey and through my medical school training of 10% of the population are grossly erroneous in regards to the homosexually active population) and social impact (if costs of medical care for sexual activity-related disease, for example, are calculated, the proportion for MSM rises dramatically if there are 2 or 10 percentage points as the basis), and 2) to offset the illusion that vast numbers of persons are in fact represented by Will & Grace or similar Disney-esque portrayals of homosexual lifestyle(s) where the portrayal of populations seems disproportionaltely large due to urban concentration. What rights are trampled, in your estimation? A short list will do. I must warn you though that the mere designation of an activity does not entail its being a right IMHO. But let's have that list and procede.
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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 |
02-07-2005, 03:06 AM | #13 | |
Elf Lord
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storge - love of familia eros - passionate love of object philia - friendship agape - disinterested love Elemmire, I have no understanding of your allegation of suppression of the rights of someone *grumbles*, so make it plain. Unless you mean that it is patently unfair that there are only <2% of people who are >12 years and <20 years who admit to being gay? That reality is neither fair nor not. It is. And of course democracy is not perfect! It is better than any of the alternatives (check out your 20th century history for evidence). But the democracy can spring from political reality: humanity is not so good as to allow absolute power to any, but spread it among all, OR, it can spring from the actualization of suppression of natural superiority ("I'm as good as you" becomes "You can not be better than me"). The real problem arises when the political fiction becomes the social norm. You do not act it out in real life, nor can anyone, on every level. You do not desire equality in your sanitation engineer and your physician in education or cleanliness. They may either vote or not as they choose and for whom they choose. SEE the difference? Political equality is NOT social parity on every level.
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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 |
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02-07-2005, 07:59 AM | #14 |
Domesticated Swing Babe
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You can't please everyone guys....I would just ignore someone who tells me they know more about why I do what I do than I myself do.....
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02-07-2005, 11:55 AM | #15 |
Elven Warrior
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inked,
before I start making lists, I think it would be great if you make the list of alternatives that a gay (LGBTQ) person has. I had started in my answer above. 1. follow his/her sexual orienatation 2. celibacy 3. attempt (with varying degrees of success) to have sex with people of the other gender (something that is not quite as satisfactory for gay people as heterosexuals, i would call it right down distastful to me) As far as relationships the choices are: 1. same-sex relationship 2. celibacy 3. different-sex relatioship, in my opinion different-sex relationship for gay people has a tiny hope of success (and is based on those idealized non-sexual love) and a possibility for being downright hell, not just for the gay partner but for the heterosexual partner too. Although it is true that choices make us what we are to a certain extent, it is also true that the set from which we have to choose makes us what we are to a certain extent. Although I could choose to train to become a F1 pilot, I just don't have the right frame for that, so I would likely remain a third class pilot. |
02-07-2005, 11:56 AM | #16 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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and, as we discussed before, some choices are so greatly intwined with upbringing that to call them a "choice", as if you could simply change your mind, is grossly misleading
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02-07-2005, 01:24 PM | #17 | |
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02-07-2005, 02:13 PM | #18 |
Honourary Elitist Inklette
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Just to refute the "straight until proven gay" theory, it does NOT require sexual activity to know or determine your sexual orientation. Which is where studies get bogged down. All the numbers I've seen for percentages of gay or straight people, have assesed sexual orientation based on recent sexual activity. And that is highly falliable. Personal assesment of your own sexuality is a better course, I believe, because sexuality is such a subjective idea. Not to say that that isn't falliable...but if you don't know your own sexuality, then no one can decide for you.
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02-07-2005, 04:50 PM | #19 |
Elf Lord
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TWFM,
Your list pretty much covers the options for sexually active people of either homo- or hetero-orientation: same-sex. other-sex, celibacy. Note that this is an equal opportunity state of affairs. Equal rights for any orientation in this regard. The question then becomes what basis for choosing does one take. If we follow brownjenkins logic upbringing (nurture) is dominant. If we seek deterministic models (nature) we have no scientific data to support the allegations of determinism. That pretty much devolves the decision to the self. The self then orders its priorities (if it is able to do so and not released from choice by an iron determinism) according to its personally selected moral or ethical basis. Since the latter are entirely personal in origin, the self can do no error (per brownjenkins). So then the self must decide if expression of sexuality is necessary. If the self determines that it is not, voile, celibacy. If expression is imperative, the choices of autoeroticism versus partnered experience opens. Since the self is making its own determinations based on its own moral or ethical system, I can progress no further. The self decides. On the other hand, if we take morality as a given, the self will decide within the framework of the given. The choices remain the same but the reasons for their choices do not. The reasons then become actualization of the good inherent in morality (maximization of self-potential, respect for others, maximization of others, etc) even in its restrictions, or the rejection of the restrictions purporting to be for the good of the self and others in favor of the self (self-gratification trumps others or even that which may be best for the self). If the person deciding has a moral framework from a religious perspective, the reasons for choices will be perhaps better informed in some of these benefits and consequences. And some will choose obedience within those guidelines, and others to disobey. So we have chastity before marriage, fidelity in marriage, and abstinence as options in the Western moral tradition. (If you happen to have been a devotee of Astarte, the list would be different.) Within that Western moral tradition, marriage is reserved to male and female, and same-sex sexual expressions are repudiated. That leaves the homo-erotically inclined with the choice of abstinence or disobedience to the moral tradition. To continue brownjenkins nurture argument means that no one can disobey the social moral tradition because it is so nurtured in and because it is the majority viewpoint, so I don't think you'll get much help there. If the society has determined the morality and you disobey, the society will set the punishments (even if the self persists in stating its own morality contrary to the society). Looks like you have exhausted the possibilities in your response, except for the issues of marriage between sexes and chastity and abstinence, which I have elaborated.
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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 : 02-07-2005 at 04:52 PM. |
02-07-2005, 04:59 PM | #20 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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