[nittiley]

Originally Posted by Ent

If I don't get back? Where am I supposed to have gone to?

. you know, there should be a laughing emoticon on tsg. the big grinny just doesn't suit in some places; i wanted a little chuckling thing there..

hmmm.. places ent would be --> studying, perhaps (unless your exams were over)? shall i be a bit of a stinker & say church , unless they only keep you once a week. some here go twice a week or more, & it's not uncommon. that's referring to services, not all the other activities.

ok, enough speculating with a rhetorical question anyway! let's see what else you have in the human unalienable rights department..

Changing someone's mind on something like this would involve changes to their core worldview.

seriously? it's not possible for you to keep all of the other ideology, but slide open a window for alternative forms of marriage? hypothetically it seems possible (not likely, but possible).

Given how pervasive marriage is, it would probably involve major changes to that worldview. So no, I'm not really surprised either.

complete, utter agreement about the bolded!!

I do think the democratic argument is stronger than you allow it to be. By way of reference, the counter petition c4em launched at around the same time drew around fifty thousand signatures, less than 10% of the number saying no to the change.
I know that you believe that a large chunk of that half million have no business sticking their nose in the issue to begin with.

well, the bolded part is for what consenting people choose to do. yes, very firmly nobody business as long as it's harmless & not hurting either party.

we all have a say what goes on in society as far as the laws goes, & for what we want our society to be. this particular subject falls under what the group consensus should be for just & fair conditions.

I do accept that true democracy isn't just majority rule, and must include protection for minorities.

i'll exhale now. just kidding -- you've clarified a few other things before where i didn't think you would leave some of the helpless completely unguarded!

Nevertheless, small groups of people will try to get changes passed that exclusively benefit them (and hence are "no-one else's business", even if they do actually affect the other groups). That doesn't mean that they always deserve them nor should always be granted those changes.

here is where it starts with the disagreeing.. if you view marriage for homosexuals as an exclusive benefit, then of course, why should someone get special privileges simply because they fancy an alternative?! i look at this as heterosexual marriage getting the exclusive privileges that should be shared among everyone in a fair manner. which we aren't doing!!

i know this is the part where you define marriage within certain parameters. marriage (which i do agree your definition is the historical, traditional definition) is not being shared or extended to anyone except the original participants. my agreement obviously stops immediately after the point where marriage-must-stay-locked-in-tradition part, of course.

There's half a million petition signatories in the UK alone and after a very short time who say this is a situation where the small group, no matter how much they scream "discrimiation" or "bigotry", mustn't be allowed to just redefine things to suit them.

to many people it is exactly that. for myself, that's the entire issue at hand! just because i'm the way i am, i can (hypothetically) go marry anyone i want to that's willing. i could, technically, throw a bunch of men in a room, tell them i'm casting a lottery & whomever's name i draw will be my husband! i could get away with something of that nature simply on a whim.

compare that to what a gay person has to endure. they get zip, nada, nothing. nothing! how is that even remotely fair? one person can do something to point of capriciousness if they're in daft mood. the other is completely outside society without any options whatsoever.

i would say if there is ever a reason for insult, this would be it. even if they're madly in love, have been with their partner longer than most heterosexual marriages, gay people can't ever (depending on the geographical location) get married! this is where i think you have to imagine being in situation like that to the best of your ability. it takes me a fraction of a second to be howling about the unfairness of it all.. & if it isn't, at it's core, bias about doing the nasty, then what else is it?

so many people can't even deal with overt mention of reproductive parts without having a wobbler & a half. the follwing is better skimmed, but it discusses what i've been thinking for a while now & does apply to gay marriage in a roundabout way.

They suspect — and with some cause — that tricking sexuality out in a lab coat is a way of detaching it from the moral control of the family and the community. I don't know whether those people are more numerous now than they used to be. But they're clearly better organized and more audible. And they're increasingly wielding the conversational gavel, sometimes literally.

Not that we're at the point of sweeping all those delicate topics back under a Victorian rug. But it's striking how many people in the media and public life have become more circumspect in the way they talk about sex. This isn't just about George Carlin's seven words anymore.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/25/155706...-public-places

i'll be woefully off topic here again.. but hushing up perfectly normal human activities in the above instance is what leads to pregnant teenagers & aforementioned diseases from another post. i'm not advocating constantly focus on it, or being a pig about it (i can be called a complete pig for saying anything about the subject!) but my point, which i did have somewhere, was that telling gay people they shouldn't be married seems part of this entire devolving trend in society that is also reflected in our language.

i realise you can't be in the office dropping the f-bomb obviously, as it's a place of business & would affect that environment. & oh, i realise you can't say it here! but there should be plenty of available areas where you can spout off whatever words you wish without it being considered the equivalent of verbal homicide.

lack of discussion early on is likely another reason why it's 2012 & most homosexuals marriages haven't been accepted.

anyway ! it seems like society should really be pulling for progress everywhere. if something doesn't work, then scrap it; that's what science does. i'm almost positive i mentioned this to you before.. why not have a trial run for gay people? actually observe & see? you'd have to give it a decent amount of time, which would be.. i'm not certain.. but how about a decade? chart the effect on traditional marriage, excluding all the other messy, intertwined factors:

Now, according to the Office for National Statistics, marriages are at the lowest rate ever
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...-rates-uk-data

so marriage rates are declining all on their own.
sort of (next article)

The full answer for the delay and decline of marriage would touch on birth control technology (which extends courtships by reducing the cost of waiting to get married), liberal divorce laws (which creates "churn" in the labor market by increasing divorces and new marriages), and even washing/drying machines (which both eliminate the need for men to marry lower-earning women to do housework and also free up women to work and study).

One important lesson from Stevenson and Wolfers is that, as much as it feels like things are changing very rapidly, a longer view on marriage trends reveals a more boring picture. If you pull back the lens, not to the 1960s but to the 1860s, the marriage rate and the divorce rate stick stubbornly to long-term trend lines.

Marriages-per-thousand people are declining, but slowly, after spiking in the 1940s.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...merica/252640/

you were right about divorce, i noted. btw, i still say it's necessary many times !

I can't agree with that. If I did encounter a compelling reason to change my view on a topic, I'd change it.

if you did change it, would you be the recipient of backlash from: your parents, your social circle, your school, etc.? you would obviously have backlash from your church, so i'm counting that one in without question.

It would simply be dishonest to do otherwise.

honesty carries a steep price many times. no wonder there is an expression 'white lies,' -- & i wasn't exclusively referring to white lies in the previous thought. just like if i had yelled at the beach that time, "what is everyone doing divvy themselves up like this? & leaving the gay people stuck in the least choice area away from the boardwalks -- this is ridiculous!" someone would likely call paramedics ..

Besides which, I have a knack for taking the middle ground anyway.

there seems to be the most truth in that area, in regards to plenty of situations. i suppose that's what makes this, & any, issue so difficult.. more grey area than can be easily sorted. yet, you have to make decisions when you vote or support something, so it has to be figured out to some degree to where you can arrive at an opinion..

I'm always pointing out the inconsistencies and vulnerabilities in the arguments by the people whose conclusions I agree with. From their perspective, I'd just be coming at it from a slightly different angle.

you would do well as a solicitor or barrister maybe, among other things! in fact, no matter what your vocation, it's good to have the ability to ferret those things out

[Ent]

Originally Posted by nittiley

. you know, there should be a laughing emoticon on tsg. the big grinny just doesn't suit in some places; i wanted a little chuckling thing there..

hmmm.. places ent would be --> studying, perhaps (unless your exams were over)? shall i be a bit of a stinker & say church , unless they only keep you once a week. some here go twice a week or more, & it's not uncommon. that's referring to services, not all the other activities.

My exams are now over, so I'm in the long and terrifying wait for the results. That's why my sig's back to normal. And while I'm at church fairly frequently, I now have far too much free time for that to take all of it out.
Incidentally, one or two of the members on TSG actually link to their own animated emotions, but you can't really have a laughing static face.

seriously? it's not possible for you to keep all of the other ideology, but slide open a window for alternative forms of marriage? hypothetically it seems possible (not likely, but possible).

It depends how you wanted to change someone's mind. Sometimes it's possible to convince them that your view is actually consistent with the ideology they had already. For example if someone's position on this matter were based purely on Biblical innerancy, and you present evidence that the original greek manuscripts actually don't forbid what the English translations forbid, they may change their mind on just that topic. However, that not being the case, you'd need to change their underlying philosophy, and that would definitely change their perspective on everything else.

well, the bolded part is for what consenting people choose to do. yes, very firmly nobody business as long as it's harmless & not hurting either party.

I don't like the word "either". It suggest there's only two concerned parties, which isn't true.

here is where it starts with the disagreeing.. if you view marriage for homosexuals as an exclusive benefit, then of course, why should someone get special privileges simply because they fancy an alternative?! i look at this as heterosexual marriage getting the exclusive privileges that should be shared among everyone in a fair manner. which we aren't doing!!

What I'm saying is that the proposed redefinition only benefits homosexuals (well, and politicians), but that doesn't mean that they're the only ones who have any say in whether it gets the go-ahead.

to many people it is exactly that. for myself, that's the entire issue at hand! just because i'm the way i am, i can (hypothetically) go marry anyone i want to that's willing. i could, technically, throw a bunch of men in a room, tell them i'm casting a lottery & whomever's name i draw will be my husband! i could get away with something of that nature simply on a whim.

That's very presumptuous! What if they don't want to? :P I see what you're saying though.

compare that to what a gay person has to endure. they get zip, nada, nothing. nothing! how is that even remotely fair? one person can do something to point of capriciousness if they're in daft mood. the other is completely outside society without any options whatsoever.

They're not without any options whatsoever. They could, technically, marry a woman. They could decide to be celibate. They could (I don't like the morality of it, but it's a possibility) just go sleeping around. What they can't do is redefine marriage.

anyway ! it seems like society should really be pulling for progress everywhere. if something doesn't work, then scrap it; that's what science does. i'm almost positive i mentioned this to you before.. why not have a trial run for gay people? actually observe & see? you'd have to give it a decent amount of time, which would be.. i'm not certain.. but how about a decade? chart the effect on traditional marriage, excluding all the other messy, intertwined factors:

1: It's too strongly charged politically. Science doesn't do well with politicized topics; there's too much pressure to find specific results irrespective of the truth.
2: It's impossible to "exclude all the other messy factors."
3: You can't close it. If you accept the redefinition, you suddenly have however many married homosexual couples. 10 years later if it had had unexpected (or anticipated) negative consequences, what are you going to do with them? What about all the people who complain that they missed the window?
4: You just shouldn't be experimenting with marriage like that.

Besides, change doesn't necessarily mean progress.

if you did change it, would you be the recipient of backlash from: your parents, your social circle, your school, etc.? you would obviously have backlash from your church, so i'm counting that one in without question.

I'd be fine. I wouldn't let anyone have a significant effect on me to begin with if they'd be willing to ignore their own logic and conscience.

honesty carries a steep price many times. no wonder there is an expression 'white lies,' -- & i wasn't exclusively referring to white lies in the previous thought. just like if i had yelled at the beach that time, "what is everyone doing divvy themselves up like this? & leaving the gay people stuck in the least choice area away from the boardwalks -- this is ridiculous!" someone would likely call paramedics ..

That's also true. I suppose that's why tact is such an important lesson, if a harder one for some of us to learn than others.

you would do well as a solicitor or barrister maybe, among other things! in fact, no matter what your vocation, it's good to have the ability to ferret those things out

Try "programmer". I'm not actually on this site for the debates.
I did consider law for a short while (in common with everything but opera and rugby), but it really couldn't compare with my already deep passion for the virtuverse. Besides which, I know maybe two people I'd be willing to defend unconditionally, and even then I wouldn't lie for them. Which makes for a poor lawyer.

[nittiley]

Originally Posted by Ent

My exams are now over, so I'm in the long and terrifying wait for the results.

all best!!
i would add don't worry, but it's similar to saying, "don't breathe."

That's why my sig's back to normal. And while I'm at church fairly frequently, I now have far too much free time for that to take all of it out.

do you want to give them my list of suggestions for improvements, alterations, & how it will increase membership by doing so?
(don't! that list wouldn't go over well at all, of course..)

Incidentally, one or two of the members on TSG actually link to their own animated emotions, but you can't really have a laughing static face.

everything must be static on tsg? maybe i should make that a statement.. for debate threads re. positions on issues!!

It depends how you wanted to change someone's mind. Sometimes it's possible to convince them that your view is actually consistent with the ideology they had already.

very well then. we'll start with you . & i've started this one before.. you don't support bullying.. can i add ostracizing to that also? plus unfairness.

ent is against --> bullying, ostracizing, & unfairness. i want to add "except when it involves homosexuals, then ostracizing them from marriage & being unfair about who can marry (because it's against the definition of traditional marriage) is perfectly acceptable to ent.

for bullying, you're in the clear!!

For example if someone's position on this matter were based purely on Biblical innerancy,

off topic or wrong thread (what else? ) but heard about this book: 'did jesus exist? the historical argument for jesus of nazareth," by bart d. ehrman. apparently mr. ehrman regularly upsets several religious factions, so be forewarned.

and you present evidence that the original greek manuscripts actually don't forbid what the English translations forbid, they may change their mind on just that topic. However, that not being the case, you'd need to change their underlying philosophy, and that would definitely change their perspective on everything else.

why does that sound like camel's nose (even if it isn't)? i'll have to use you again for a convenient example. let's say you let the door open to allow gay marriage, but didn't change anything else. how can that not be possible? or take me. let's say i decide that gay marriage will convert traditional marriage into an institution devoid of meaning, so i turn against allowing gay marriage. yet i still believe it's a fine idea of homosexuals to have families, adopt children, etc.

I don't like the word "either". It suggest there's only two concerned parties, which isn't true.

it would take me even longer to edit for spots such as this one. i already need an edit button that doesn't expire for a year as it is!! anyway, just omit the word either please.

What I'm saying is that the proposed redefinition only benefits homosexuals (well, and politicians), but that doesn't mean that they're the only ones who have any say in whether it gets the go-ahead.

how to resolve it when they own the issue then? assuming you would agree they own the issue, because they're the ones that want to have the option to get married just like everyone else can.

That's very presumptuous! What if they don't want to? :P I see what you're saying though.

i made certain i put the word *willing* in there ! however.. if they didn't want to, the room must have an escape hatch ! & the ones who left would be issued t-shirts that said, "did i ever lose out!"
if i keep going with this, i'm going to get too silly..

They're not without any options whatsoever. They could, technically, marry a woman. They could decide to be celibate. They could (I don't like the morality of it, but it's a possibility) just go sleeping around. What they can't do is redefine marriage.

you're saying they have options, which they do, but they're unfit options. this is the same as my observations @ seaside. there they were, a small cluster in between actual beach sites, & a lengthy hike away from the boardwalk. everything social that goes on is going on @ or near the boardwalk.. not to forget food, refreshments, trolleys, bands, etc.

so they have an inferior spot, and for marriage, you are giving them lousy & inferior spots too. let's take #1, marrying a woman. thanks, ent! ! that's exactly what every woman wants.. a gay man to marry her . now you're killing the fun for 2 people!! you have 1 person living a lie (the gay man), & 1 being used (the woman) in order for the gay man to look presentable for a select group in society.

i think that alleged option can be crossed off the list. quickly.

your #2) decide to be celebate.
bloody heck -- what is this?! now look, just because your church says it's only permissible when you're legally & religiously wed, it does not mean you have to spread this kind of misery around to others. isn't life difficult enough, or what exactly is going on that someone sees fit to remove this from peoples' lives?

this was like (i'm not implying your church did this) thingamagig (spelling?) being forced to get rid of his music. banning music is just as ridiculous!

anyway, regardless of the origin & the edict, "make everyone else miserable" should not be considered an option for anyone. speaking of life's difficulties, gay people already had too much of that -- remember how they get decapitated (or used to) in middle eastern countries? picture that when you're chasing some girl (in a reverse world), "oh wait, i'd better make sure no one sees me, or i could have my head removed from my neck!" this seems so preposterous to me, that i almost can't believe it's been done. almost. it's humans we're talking about here..

1: It's too strongly charged politically. Science doesn't do well with politicized topics; there's too much pressure to find specific results irrespective of the truth.

how about we disallow it from being in the realm of politicians? a great start for a nigh impossible task.. however, there are petitions for everything else, so why not petitions for politicians to not be allowed to use abortion, gay marriage, in their campaigns? if everyone, on both sides, refused to vote for a candidate that did so, those topics would be swiftly removed from the arena & put where they belong.

yet a (basically) 2 party system like the states (u.k.'s appears to have more parties) wants to keep everyone divided, bickering, & distracted. much easier to manage the masses that way too.

2: It's impossible to "exclude all the other messy factors."

true, but that has never stopped science (mid-range grinny needed here, but will use this one i'm stuck with )

3: You can't close it. If you accept the redefinition, you suddenly have however many married homosexual couples.

it's a temporary re-definition, for the sake of experimentation though.

10 years later if it had had unexpected (or anticipated) negative consequences, what are you going to do with them? What about all the people who complain that they missed the window?

this is jungle-thick with problems & moral dilemmas. i would hope the benefits would outweigh any negative consequences, & if not, then note that prominently for future consideration.

let's say we had x amount of traditional marriage couples that somehow had their marriage wrecked by a gay couple. while i fail to see how this would actually happen, i'll pretend it did. perhaps there could be some attempt to compensate the couples (a divorce, gratis). i know it's wouldn't replace what was actually lost, but it would be something at least.

as far as missing the window, i'm presuming you mean the experiment would result in disaster, & there would be gay couples that couldn't get married after the experiment ended. all i can think of is something akin to the above.. an attempt at consolation.

4: You just shouldn't be experimenting with marriage like that.

well, i don't see you coming up with any solutions other than "no." what else is there to do if you won't accommodate another group's rights? it still seems having places for people where they fit is better. couldn't it suffice for everyone to proudly say, "we have a traditional marriage," with the innuendo being that it's superior? and homosexual people saying, "we have gay marriage," with the innuendo being society has finally advanced to the inclusive, unbiased, & therefore improved version? everyone could believe theirs is best. all the fuss is eliminated that way!

Besides, change doesn't necessarily mean progress.

no, it doesn't always mean progress. a hefty bit of change is though: computers & other technology (ex. environmentally friendly autos), advances in medicine, education, et al.

I'd be fine. I wouldn't let anyone have a significant effect on me to begin with if they'd be willing to ignore their own logic and conscience.

it's not that simple though. your conscience says gay people are against holiness, correct? mine says they aren't hurting themselves, or you, or your marriage when that happens.

That's also true. I suppose that's why tact is such an important lesson, if a harder one for some of us to learn than others.

you're forgetting all the entertainment value in the absence of tact!
seriously though, yes, tact is vital in most situations.. (tell me!)

Try "programmer".

you'll do very well there!

I'm not actually on this site for the debates.

it's common knowledge i can't debate, & you're not on the site for debate, but somehow this debate has trundled along!
perhaps all the actual debaters have left ! (kidding ) they probably need a fresh debate.

I did consider law for a short while (in common with everything but opera and rugby), but it really couldn't compare with my already deep passion for the virtuverse.

what is this?

Besides which, I know maybe two people I'd be willing to defend unconditionally, and even then I wouldn't lie for them. Which makes for a poor lawyer.

i know a lawyer that had to defend a child molester once..against strong evidence the molester did it. that case couldn't be discussed for obvious reasons. i can't fathom being in one's chosen profession in a situation like that -- you would have to quit the case (if you could), or walk off a cliff or something! i'm glad i'm not a lawyer, although many of them help people and do extremely honourable work !

[Ent]

Originally Posted by nittiley

do you want to give them my list of suggestions for improvements, alterations, & how it will increase membership by doing so?
(don't! that list wouldn't go over well at all, of course..)

Go ahead if you feel like it, but probably keep such a discourse to PMs. We're already pretty far from the main topic.

everything must be static on tsg? maybe i should make that a statement.. for debate threads re. positions on issues!!

No, but the emoticons chosen happen to be static ones. I actually think there's a lot of sense in that, having been on forums where you do literally get yellow heads rolling on the floor laughing.

very well then. we'll start with you . & i've started this one before.. you don't support bullying.. can i add ostracizing to that also? plus unfairness.

ent is against --> bullying, ostracizing, & unfairness. i want to add "except when it involves homosexuals, then ostracizing them from marriage & being unfair about who can marry (because it's against the definition of traditional marriage) is perfectly acceptable to ent.

for bullying, you're in the clear!!

"Ostracizing" is more banishing people from a social circle, which isn't what's being discussed here. If a homosexual man were a friend, neighbour, teacher, shopkeeper, etc, they'd be treated just like any other man. I wouldn't be ostracizing him. If you want to say "excluding", then I'd acknowledge I exclude such people from some things. One example I mentioned earlier is the blood donation controversy. I don't believe it's appropriate to endanger someone else because your lifestyle puts you at a high risk of contracting STDs including HIV, so I'd fully support excluding homosexual males from giving blood (screening helps but can be ineffective, especially when someone has recently been infected). Of course, I wouldn't exclude them from receiving blood if they were injured and needed a transfusion, which I think is the more important overall. Excluding someone from doing something needn't be cruel or bullying, nor need it be based on prejudice or disdain. There are often very valid reasons for saying that X is not appropriate for some people.

why does that sound like camel's nose (even if it isn't)? i'll have to use you again for a convenient example. let's say you let the door open to allow gay marriage, but didn't change anything else. how can that not be possible? or take me. let's say i decide that gay marriage will convert traditional marriage into an institution devoid of meaning, so i turn against allowing gay marriage. yet i still believe it's a fine idea of homosexuals to have families, adopt children, etc.

It's not that only changing one thing is theoretically impossible (though in practice it is). It's that changing someone's mind on one only one issue is impossible. There are certain presuppositions under every position which would have to change to change someone's mind. They tend to be shared across a number of different issues. So for example, if you were to change my mind about abortion, you'd have to start by changing my position on taking someone's life, which in turn would alter how I viewed things like capital punishment, Euthanasia, and even my response to things like Global warming.

how to resolve it when they own the issue then? assuming you would agree they own the issue, because they're the ones that want to have the option to get married just like everyone else can.

That sounds strange to me. Why do they own the issue by virtue of demanding something? If anyone "owns" an issue, precedence should surely be given to the ones already involved. My view remains that no-one "owns" any issues, and when you focus exclusively on any one person's 'rights' as though they're the final authority, you tend to get a messy result.

you're saying they have options, which they do, but they're unfit options. this is the same as my observations @ seaside. there they were, a small cluster in between actual beach sites, & a lengthy hike away from the boardwalk. everything social that goes on is going on @ or near the boardwalk.. not to forget food, refreshments, trolleys, bands, etc.

Unfit in what way? They're the same options that everyone else has. To steal your analogy, we have a bunch of people who could join in with the normal beach activities but wouldn't enjoy it. I can certainly relate to that. Last time my family took me on holiday to the beach, I stayed in the lodge writing Mastermind. Note what I didn't do: I didn't go insisting that beach activities be changed or even extended to fit my tastes.

this was like (i'm not implying your church did this) thingamagig (spelling?) being forced to get rid of his music. banning music is just as ridiculous!

Some people really don't think through things before they make prohibitions. Some songs are certainly not wholesome (full of violence for example), but broad brush bans against whole genre's of music are unwarranted. Incidentally, I quite like this (Ironically, a song).

anyway, regardless of the origin & the edict, "make everyone else miserable" should not be considered an option for anyone. speaking of life's difficulties, gay people already had too much of that -- remember how they get decapitated (or used to) in middle eastern countries? picture that when you're chasing some girl (in a reverse world), "oh wait, i'd better make sure no one sees me, or i could have my head removed from my neck!" this seems so preposterous to me, that i almost can't believe it's been done. almost. it's humans we're talking about here..

Oh, I'm sure it is done, and not only in reverse world. Of course, I'm not advocating decapitating homosexuals. I'm just saying leave marriage as it is.

true, but that has never stopped science (mid-range grinny needed here, but will use this one i'm stuck with )

The problem is that "science" is not some independent entity. It's a field of work done by human scientists, and they are easily distracted by their own ideals and tempted to force the facts to fit.

no, it doesn't always mean progress. a hefty bit of change is though: computers & other technology (ex. environmentally friendly autos), advances in medicine, education, et al.

You know, you shoot yourself in the foot with that example. It's progress only insomuch as it's undoing earlier damage; pinching an economist's "defensive spending" term I'll call that defensive innovation. Then you can have changes such as the invention of the machine gun, changes such as the persistent breakdown of family values, changes such as the dilution of degrees and other qualifications, and all sorts of similar changes that aren't progress at all.

it's not that simple though. your conscience says gay people are against holiness, correct? mine says they aren't hurting themselves, or you, or your marriage when that happens.

No, you misunderstand me. My statement wasn't about homosexual marriage at all. It's that most of my acquaintances and friends wouldn't have the influence over me to actually harm me without my consent, and the few exceptions are people I genuinely know and trust. Those exceptions are the ones who live by a code of conscientious logic, and they certainly wouldn't ostracise me for following such a code.

what is this?

That was my contraction of "virtual universe". I suppose I should have added an apostrophe or two.

[nittiley]

Originally Posted by Ent

Go ahead if you feel like it, but probably keep such a discourse to PMs. We're already pretty far from the main topic.

alright then.. but, given how basically the entire planet is interconnected in some way (yes?), offshoots from the main topic are part of it.
that said, i realise there is a title to this thread.. to reference it, & then see nothing directly related would create some confusion .

No, but the emoticons chosen happen to be static ones. I actually think there's a lot of sense in that, having been on forums where you do literally get yellow heads rolling on the floor laughing.

this may not be where you want it to go, but, yes, that big grinny needs to roll @ times!

"Ostracizing" is more banishing people from a social circle, which isn't what's being discussed here.

using the example from seaside observations, how was that group of homosexuals not ostracized? it's likely no one banished them there, however, what is likely, is that they didn't feel comfortable anywhere else due to how society treats them. a bullying analogy would be, say, avoiding the commons because you know someone who constantly belittles you would be there.

If a homosexual man were a friend, neighbour, teacher, shopkeeper, etc, they'd be treated just like any other man.

perhaps for you, but this can't be entirely possible otherwise, or there wouldn't be that expression about gay people being in or out of a closet. that time (years ago) when i accompanied my former (homosexual) bosses to a gay bar, many of the men there were married. i couldn't talk extensively with all of them, given the loud music & all, but i talked enough. my overall impression was that this was their 'secret world,' where they could be themselves outside of the judging & condemning eyes of the rest of the world.

they were so kind, & didn't seem to mind my questions. one invited me to dance with him; i did & it was fun ! i believe my employers wanted me to realize something about their world. i was 1 of 3 people aware of their leanings & all of us kept it a secret -- what does that tell you about acceptance in society? it certainly doesn't appear that attitudes have changed all that much either..

I wouldn't be ostracizing him. If you want to say "excluding", then I'd acknowledge I exclude such people from some things. One example I mentioned earlier is the blood donation controversy. I don't believe it's appropriate to endanger someone else because your lifestyle puts you at a high risk of contracting STDs including HIV, so I'd fully support excluding homosexual males from giving blood (screening helps but can be ineffective, especially when someone has recently been infected). Of course, I wouldn't exclude them from receiving blood if they were injured and needed a transfusion, which I think is the more important overall.

i worked in medical environments before,
so brace yourself..

2004 paper:

Detection of HIV-1 and HCV Infections
among Antibody-Negative Blood Donors
by Nucleic Acid–Amplification Testing

Among 37,164,054 units screened, 12 were confirmed to be positive for HIV-1 RNA —
or 1 in 3.1 million donations — only 2 of which were detected by HIV-1 p24 antigen
testing.

http://www.aebt.org/web/investigacio...mer'04.pdf

hiv ceased being a homosexual disease a long time past. this article is from 06/20/12:

HIV infection rate skyrockets among some D.C. women
http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...KrV_story.html

or

However, more recent examination of the issues reveal that older persons are increasingly being affected by HIV/AIDS directly (personally)
http://cas.umkc.edu/casww/hivaids.htm

&

Infection rates are growing rapidly among older Americans
http://www.cbs.com/cbs_cares/topics/

this folds back into everything being intertwined to some degree. you can exclude blood donations from the people you think (i want to insert "in a biased manner" here!) are more likely to have a disease (especially given it 1st surfaced in their population).

edit: it would take a psychic (although there are none! ) to have known “do so” referred to applying bias in an area aside from blood donations - where the deadly miscalculation meant contracting hiv. i didn’t mean you would find yourself in that position at all, but was thinking of other people who may act on assumptions that only gay people transmit hiv & everyone else is disease free.

do so, & you can wind up making a major miscalculation. & a deadly one..

Excluding someone from doing something needn't be cruel or bullying, nor need it be based on prejudice or disdain. There are often very valid reasons for saying that X is not appropriate for some people.

i agree. my point was about when it is that way though. we all like being among our own kind, & that's all well & good. yet, at some point, a very fuzzy line is crossed & then you're in the exclusionary ("you're unfit to mingle in our company!") realm.

It's not that only changing one thing is theoretically impossible (though in practice it is). It's that changing someone's mind on one only one issue is impossible. There are certain presuppositions under every position which would have to change to change someone's mind. They tend to be shared across a number of different issues. So for example, if you were to change my mind about abortion, you'd have to start by changing my position on taking someone's life, which in turn would alter how I viewed things like capital punishment, Euthanasia, and even my response to things like Global warming.

didn't we start on where life was defined as life instead? i remember that because, as a general tenet, i believe all life is sacred. yet we have many forms of it, in a world where all of it isn't going to survive --> many times out of necessity for the population to thrive (in an overall sense), or for the earth to be able to sustain life.

That sounds strange to me. Why do they own the issue by virtue of demanding something?

i say they own the issue because they're gay. you can't deny the inherent ownership of an issue under those circumstances.
good grief, they're *demanding* so little, comparatively speaking!! we were discussing privileges earlier.. & i thought of something this morning.

peek at these privileges; a range of acceptable behaviour that’s allowed in one group, yet not the other:

i mentioned trophy wives before.. there used to be terms to describe other relationships with age differences of over ~10 years. if the gap was generational, the relationship was called may – december.

aren’t those generous terms? may-december is almost cute.. little spring flowers beside glistening snow. aah . trophy wife speaks for itself.. an award. if the age difference was on the extreme side, “cradle robber” was the description, but still minus any real or severe societal sanction; they could still marry.

women get another pass here as well, at least nowadays. they’re described as cougars when they’re in the upper end of the age bracket. cougar sounds a bit predatory, yet a sleek feline roaming around doesn’t exactly fall into the realm of negative connotation either.

what if we take any of the above situations & apply them to homosexuals? what are the first prejudice words that would pop into someone’s brain? child molesters, perhaps? society seems completely unwilling to give them any quarter beyond that.
i don’t have any proof (& doubt there is a poll somewhere, although who knows?), but it seems almost guaranteed that label would be slapped on them in a heartbeat. i highly doubt they would get the wink, nudges, & slaps on the back in a congratulatory fashion the way it goes about with the majority.

people would be shrieking how immoral they were, don’t you think? at best, it would be considered scandalous, & enormous disapproval would be the prevailing attitude.

once again, i conclude --> bias.

If anyone "owns" an issue, precedence should surely be given to the ones already involved.

well, this certainly muddles everything now!!

i suppose it begs a question. why should we be given precedence? yes, it involves/affects us, but we can't be given precedence simply because we're the majority if we're striving for parity. if fairness is out of the equation, then i could agree with that statement. but it isn't, so i can't..

it's doubtful it can be consider fair to say heterosexuals "started" marriage, because surely there were homosexuals around when the practice was initially begun. and they were excluded from the process then, or else we would have some kind of evidence today, & not this controversy instead. note: i didn't research other cultures, so the previous may not apply in those instances .

My view remains that no-one "owns" any issues, and when you focus exclusively on any one person's 'rights' as though they're the final authority, you tend to get a messy result.

my brain is folding inward!! :S if no one owns the marriage issue, then you or i don't own it either.. no? which would mean we don't have any right to define marriage to begin with! <shriek!! >
someone has to own it; all have to have some say in it if they're affected.

Unfit in what way? They're the same options that everyone else has. To steal your analogy, we have a bunch of people who could join in with the normal beach activities but wouldn't enjoy it. I can certainly relate to that. Last time my family took me on holiday to the beach, I stayed in the lodge writing Mastermind. Note what I didn't do: I didn't go insisting that beach activities be changed or even extended to fit my tastes.

i'm fairly certain gay people don't choose partners in the manner of choosing a flavour of ice cream (i'll apply 'taste' literally .) it seems more on the order of they don't want any ice cream because they're lactose intolerant. this is vastly different than a man preferring a blonde, brunette, or redhead. he may definitely wish he could grab the blonde, but, in a pinch, the brunette will do. with homosexuals, it's the ice cream analogy, not the hair colour one.

ot: you didn't leave the lodge once to swim in on a wave ?! initially you can get scoured on the sand (awful), sometimes stung by jellyfish, & mustn't forget sharks. if you go out far enough, you get away from the packed, crunch of humans close to the shore, & can sail in on the big waves. no surf or boogie board required either.. try it sometime; it's exhilarating!! mastermind will be waiting for you

Some people really don't think through things before they make prohibitions. Some songs are certainly not wholesome (full of violence for example), but broad brush bans against whole genre's of music are unwarranted. Incidentally, I quite like this (Ironically, a song).

i enjoyed the twist in the lyrics! clever . here's a talented christian artist http://www.mikefarrismusic.com/. salvation in lights.. excellent. i'm not sure what mr. farris would think about his cd snuggled beside judas priest or some of my other music

Oh, I'm sure it is done, and not only in reverse world. Of course, I'm not advocating decapitating homosexuals. I'm just saying leave marriage as it is.

if you do, i still say you must accommodate them somehow. they're here, they're your human brethren, & you'll potentially (or may already have) saved the lives of some of them with your anti-abortion efforts..

Estimates of the occurrence of same-sex behavior range from 2 to 10 percent of the population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality

as i mentioned before, it seems (opinion only) as if you have an extra duty since you ensured they survived. i don't know what percentage of the population to take from glancing over what wiki said? (it's complicated, naturally..) yet safe to say, there is some % of the population.

The problem is that "science" is not some independent entity. It's a field of work done by human scientists, and they are easily distracted by their own ideals and tempted to force the facts to fit.

the scientific method, while not perfect, eliminates many problems (not ego, not garnering research monies, et al.). the basic premise of discarding something that reveals itself to be flawed or erroneous is a great one though.

You know, you shoot yourself in the foot with that example.

my specialty

It's progress only insomuch as it's undoing earlier damage; pinching an economist's "defensive spending" term I'll call that defensive innovation.

seeing as no one is going to permit the eradication of motorized transportation any time soon, undoing earlier damage is a positive step in a better direction!

Then you can have changes such as the invention of the machine gun,

complete accord here. we can't be defenseless, yet the arms race mentality is such a waste of effort in many areas. something else could be invented, or a cure for cancer could found instead.

changes such as the persistent breakdown of family values, changes such as the dilution of degrees and other qualifications, and all sorts of similar changes that aren't progress at all.

this is the fear again. i'll relay the basic argument (joy!) i had with my sister once regarding children & that same seaside area.
sister: we can't go there anymore! what about the children?
me: what about them?
sister: what if they see 2 men kissing? (her children are male)
me: what if they do?
sister: what would you tell them?
me: umm.. they're in love. (i eliminated lust, as that wouldn't have gone over well @ all).
sister: but that's wrong! i'm not exposing them to it!
me: well, then, lock them in the hotel or put blindfolds on them if you take them out!

joyful sibling squabble accelerated thereafter (which you're spared . )

while i can't predict w/ 100% accuracy that my nephews wouldn't be influenced in some way if i'd had my druthers that day, since i later walked the shoreline -- it turns out my sister was wrong about that particular beach having gay people (seeing as the gay people were in between 2 beaches instead).

where is the breakdown of family? i say the family squabble, not what beach we went to, nor my nephews potentially spying 2 men or 2 women hugging each other (or as my sibling insisted, kissing).

now, extend this to a family of humankind.. i see the same thing again. the breakdown of 'family' is that there isn't some level of acceptance & fair treatment extended.

No, you misunderstand me. My statement wasn't about homosexual marriage at all. It's that most of my acquaintances and friends wouldn't have the influence over me to actually harm me without my consent, and the few exceptions are people I genuinely know and trust. Those exceptions are the ones who live by a code of conscientious logic, and they certainly wouldn't ostracise me for following such a code

.

glad you explained that! it sounds wise

That was my contraction of "virtual universe". I suppose I should have added an apostrophe or two.

doesn't tsg count as one already?

[Ent]

Originally Posted by nittiley

this may not be where you want it to go, but, yes, that big grinny needs to roll @ times!

Absolutely not! Why would it want to do that?

using the example from seaside observations, how was that group of homosexuals not ostracized? it's likely no one banished them there, however, what is likely, is that they didn't feel comfortable anywhere else due to how society treats them. a bullying analogy would be, say, avoiding the commons because you know someone who constantly belittles you would be there.

But I'm not doing that, nor would I condone that. I acknowledge that it has happened in the past and probably does still happen; I don't say it's right. I consider any forms of bullying to be very hurtful, and exclusion is perhaps the worst (especially among the younger members of the population.)

i worked in medical environments before,
so brace yourself..
Medical stats

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/arc...9/aug/09082609

An official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the CDC's estimate Monday that in the United States AIDS is fifty times more prevalent among men who have sex with men ('MSM') than the rest of the population.

53% of the estimated 56,300 new HIV cases in 2006 were in homosexual men

Of course, that doesn't state that a homosexual man will necessarily have the disease, nor that a heterosexual one can't. It does mean that a homosexual man is at a statistically significantly higher risk of having the disease, which means that they pose a significantly greater threat of infecting someone else.

i say they own the issue because they're gay. you can't deny the inherent ownership of an issue under those circumstances.

Why not say that those who are married own the issue of marriage? Like I said before, no one person or group "owns" it in the sense of having their preferences take automatic precedence over all others. When you assert that one person's rights rule supreme, you tend to get problems.

my brain is folding inward!! :S if no one owns the marriage issue, then you or i don't own it either.. no? which we mean we don't have any right to define marriage to begin with! <shriek!! >
someone has to own it; all have to have some say in it if they're affected.

Yes, they have some say in it, but not a majority stake as it were.

i'm fairly certain gay people don't choose partners in the manner of choosing a flavour of ice cream (i'll apply 'taste' literally .) it seems more on the order of they don't want any ice cream because they're lactose intolerant. this is vastly different than a man preferring a blonde, brunette, or redhead. he may definitely wish he could grab the blonde, but, in a pinch, the brunette will do. with homosexuals, it's the ice cream analogy, not the hair colour one.

If any man chooses a bride on the basis of her hair colour alone, he is an idiot. In my opinion of course.

ot: you didn't leave the lodge once to swim in on a wave ?! initially you can get scoured on the sand (awful), sometimes stung by jellyfish, & mustn't forget sharks. if you go out far enough, you get away from the packed, crunch of humans close to the shore, & can sail in on the big waves. no surf or boogie board required either.. try it sometime; it's exhilarating!! mastermind will be waiting for you

I went out to the beach once or twice. I didn't enjoy it. Not nearly as much as writing a computer game.

if you do, i still say you must accommodate them somehow. they're here, they're your human brethren, & you'll potentially (or may already have) saved the lives of some of them with your anti-abortion efforts..

Oh, I'd fight to save their lives in any situation. Anti-abortion is just the start of that fight because it's just the start of a life. But that's a different issue.

seeing as no one is going permit the eradication of motorized transportation any time soon, undoing earlier damage is a positive step in a better direction!

Yes, but in doing so it only reminds people of the step (arguably) in the wrong direction that earlier "progress" had...

where is the breakdown of family? i say the family squabble, not what beach we went to, nor my nephews potentially spying 2 men or 2 women hugging each other (or as my sibling insisted, kissing).

Actually, I was referring to the general trend toward a breakdown in family values, with some shockingly high percentage of marriages ending in divorce, an ongoing decline in how children treat their parents, etc. Not necessarily the result of homosexuality, just the change.

doesn't tsg count as one already?

OF course it does. That's why I'm here.

[buffoon]

Originally Posted by Ent

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/arc...9/aug/09082609



Of course, that doesn't state that a homosexual man will necessarily have the disease, nor that a heterosexual one can't. It does mean that a homosexual man is at a statistically significantly higher risk of having the disease, which means that they pose a significantly greater threat of infecting someone else.

Not to get involved in this "all over the place" discussion, but both cited source and derived conclusion are of the annoying type that serves debate not at all.

I see a tendency to be discriminatory thru disreputable figures and I've seen it ever since AIDS (as it was first called) hit the news. And that discrimination by disreputable reporting ("it gets mainly gays and that's their punishment") was wrong from the start but kept being repeated even when it was finally clear that hetero sex was the main form of virus transport.

Lifesite is the self created mouthpiece of the Canadian "Campaign Life Coalition", a virulent opponent of abortion and same sex marriage. Nothing wrong with that but as a consequence hardly serving as an objective source that supplies objective figures. Or, to be less diplomatic, the figures provided stink.

The statement bolded above is, as a consequence, total rubbish. You, being familiar with parts of the African continent and its peoples, need only look there to see that HIV is an overall human issue with the majority affected being heteros.

The underlying insinuation is the assumed greater promiscuity of gays that always keeps getting repeated and, also always, never with reputable substantiation.

You have quite adequate debating skills to serve your position without having to resort to such antics and it'll serve your integrity more if you desist.

[Ent]

Originally Posted by buffoon

The statement bolded above is, as a consequence, total rubbish. You, being familiar with parts of the African continent and its peoples, need only look there to see that HIV is an overall human issue with the majority affected being heteros.

The underlying insinuation is the assumed greater promiscuity of gays that always keeps getting repeated and, also always, never with reputable substantiation.

You have quite adequate debating skills to serve your position without having to resort to such antics and it'll serve your integrity more if you desist.

I'm not resorting to any antics at all. I picked the first site which came up in Google, which probably wasn't wise, but the point itself stands. In the "developed world" a homosexual is significantly more likely than a hetrosexual to have AIDS and certain other diseases. If you want a better source, I offer for your contemplation this one:
http://www.blood.co.uk/can-i-give-bl...nt-give-blood/

You should not give blood for 12 months after sex with:
* A man (if you’re a male). Men who have had anal or oral sex with another man (with or without a condom) are deferred from blood donation for 12 months. For more information click here.
* A man who has had sex with another man (if you're a female).
...
Anyone of any race who has been sexually active in parts of the world where AIDS/HIV is very common.

It's also worth while noting that anyone who's been sexually active in places with high AIDS proliferation, including but not limited to parts of Africa, is also asked to abstain from or postpone giving blood. The risk is simply too great.

You clearly know, based only on your statement, that populations in different places aren't equivalent in terms of the number of infections. Is it too much to think that there may be different trends in who is infected too? And given that anal sex is biologically more likely to spread HIV, you don't need the homosexual community to be more promiscuous for their risk of infection to be higher.

Incidentally if my motivation were mere homophobia or some other devious tactic, I'd also object to Lesbians donating Blood. I don't; their risk of infection is legitimately significantly lower.

[buffoon]

Originally Posted by Ent

I'm not resorting to any antics at all. I picked the first site which came up in Google, which probably wasn't wise, but the point itself stands. In the "developed world" a homosexual is significantly more likely than a hetrosexual to have AIDS and certain other diseases. If you want a better source, I offer for your contemplation this one:
http://www.blood.co.uk/can-i-give-bl...nt-give-blood/

So we're moving from higher promiscuity in gay men (that was a previous statement of yours) to higher likelihood of HIV infection?

The site you offer provides no substantiation (empirical figures) but merely a recommendation.

It's also worth while noting that anyone who's been sexually active in places with high AIDS proliferation, including but not limited to parts of Africa, is also asked to abstain from or postpone giving blood. The risk is simply too great.

That's not under dispute and certainly not by me.

You clearly know, based only on your statement, 1. that populations in different places aren't equivalent in terms of the number of infections. 2. Is it too much to think that there may be different trends in who is infected too? 3. And given that anal sex is biologically more likely to spread HIV, you don't need the homosexual community to be more promiscuous for their risk of infection to be higher.

1.and 2. (inserted by me in bold) miss my point. Which is to state that landing a particular group (gay men in this case and in Western society) with the stigma of a higher infection rate reflecting their supposed disreputable behavior, at the same time supplying no respectable figures, works towards discrimination, like it or not. Wrt 3. it may serve your education to know that anal sex is not limited to gays (men).

The "illness" was in fact originally termed GRID (gay related immune deficiency) until some decent research (not limited to California where the first term was arrived at) followed, by which half the number of discovered infected turned out NOT to be homosexual males.

Incidentally if my motivation were mere homophobia or some other devious tactic, I'd also object to Lesbians donating Blood. I don't; their risk of infection is legitimately significantly lower.

We've been around the promiscuity circus before and I'm really too tired to find you related post and link to it. If you're now happy to abandon that stance of weeks or months ago, I'll be just as happy.

It's simply that your statement leading to all this:

It does mean that a homosexual man is at a statistically significantly higher risk of having the disease, which means that they pose a significantly greater threat of infecting someone else.

in its distraction from the real issue constitutes bovine manure. What DOES pose a significantly greater threat of either getting infected and/or infecting someone else is unprotected sex.

And THAT, in the interest of sanitary education, needs to be stressed far more, disagreement of societal, political or religious nature being totally irrelevant if not indeed criminally misleading.

[Ent]

Buffoon, you're seriously missing the point. It was a single example, in its own context, of a case where legitimate scientific research (accepted by the UK's NHS blood donation service no less) shows that there is a genuine difference in the level of risk between homosexuals and heterosexuals which in turn justifies treating the two groups differently. The point being that different treatment of two groups is not necessarily prejudice, intolerance, etc.

Everything else you're accusing me of in that statement, be it underhand insinuations of greater promiscuity or a belief that only homosexuals contract HIV, is from your imagination.

[nittiley]

back for the above tomorrow, but forgot something very, v. important!!!

ot, although it would be remiss in the extreme not to mention undertow. please direct this wherever need be, but -->

Rip currents are a source of danger for people in ocean and lake surf. They can be extremely dangerous, dragging swimmers away from the beach. Death by drowning comes following exhaustion while fighting the river or ocean current.

A swimmer caught in a rip current should not attempt to swim back to shore directly against the rip. This risks exhaustion and drowning. A rip does not pull a swimmer under water; it carries the swimmer away from the shore in a narrow channel of water. The rip is like a treadmill which the swimmer needs to step off.

The swimmer should remain calm and swim parallel to the shore until he or she is outside of the current. Then, locations to aim for are places where waves are breaking. In these areas, floating objects are generally transported towards the shore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_current

[buffoon]

Originally Posted by Ent

Buffoon, you're seriously missing the point. It was a single example, in its own context, of a case where legitimate scientific research (accepted by the UK's NHS blood donation service no less) shows that there is a genuine difference in the level of risk between homosexuals and heterosexuals which in turn justifies treating the two groups differently. The point being that different treatment of two groups is not necessarily prejudice, intolerance, etc.

Everything else you're accusing me of in that statement, be it underhand insinuations of greater promiscuity or a belief that only homosexuals contract HIV, is from your imagination.

I don't care to debate who is missing whose point, the main concern is that I've made MINE with regard to discriminatory insinuations.

As I pointed out earlier I currently don't have the time to link to earlier posts, luckily for quite a few on here

And, BTW, the NHS is not the ultimate research institute, it simply works on the lowest common denominator, i.e. (here) recommendation on least possible risk incurrence. Doesn't mean it actually checked the research or indeed conducted its own.

But that's fine, anyone with the minimum of common sense would work along that basis where absolute verification is not the primary raison d' être.

[Ent]

Originally Posted by buffoon

I don't care to debate who is missing whose point, the main concern is that I've made MINE with regard to discriminatory insinuations.

But there are no such insinuations!

And, BTW, the NHS is not the ultimate research institute, it simply works on the lowest common denominator, i.e. (here) recommendation on least possible risk incurrence. Doesn't mean it actually checked the research or indeed conducted its own.

No, but it does seem fair to suppose that they're acting out of public health concerns, and that the biggest Government agency isn't just basing its policy on prejudice.

But that's fine, anyone with the minimum of common sense would work along that basis where absolute verification is not the primary raison d' être.

Exactly. Common sense, not discrimination.

[nittiley]

Originally Posted by Ent

Absolutely not! Why would it want to do that?

for the same reasons yours did at the bottom!

i'm trying to make mine bounce (above) for debate warm-up exercises

But I'm not doing that, nor would I condone that. I acknowledge that it has happened in the past and probably does still happen; I don't say it's right. I consider any forms of bullying to be very hurtful, and exclusion is perhaps the worst (especially among the younger members of the population.)

i understand you're not doing that.. my overarching point is even though you're 1 person (who wouldn't treat anyone in an ill-mannered way) aren't you part of a group(/s?) with a discriminatory attitude? by that i don't mean open hostility, more on the order of deeming it wrong for homosexuals to be themselves.

"guilt by association" is unwarranted, but hasn't a judgement been passed against gays that they're wrong in their behaviour?

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/arc...9/aug/09082609



Of course, that doesn't state that a homosexual man will necessarily have the disease, nor that a heterosexual one can't. It does mean that a homosexual man is at a statistically significantly higher risk of having the disease, which means that they pose a significantly greater threat of infecting someone else.

since buffoon went over this already, i'll just add that you may as well throw out the window any notion that opportunistic diseases aren't going to make the rounds. & it was already mentioned how people can get fairly creative..or there wouldn't have been books like the kama sutra out !

Why not say that those who are married own the issue of marriage? Like I said before, no one person or group "owns" it in the sense of having their preferences take automatic precedence over all others. When you assert that one person's rights rule supreme, you tend to get problems.

because you're leaving other couples out of the equation, chunks of the population that should have a say so in regards to marriage because they may wish to do so someday.

if married people are the only ones who define marriage, then isn't that giving them supreme rights? it seems as if it should be up to society as a whole, & inclusive of all factions of society - which includes gay people. even if 5% of the population is gay, or 1% for that matter..

Yes, they have some say in it, but not a majority stake as it were.

majority rule is fine in certain circumstances, but we're dealing with human happiness here. look how much we need friends, family, & partners. by restricting marriage, you're telling one segment of society: you can friends, you can have family, but you can't marry your partner. sorry! we happen to think you're not deserving of it because you aren't attracted to what we're attracted to.

how is this not prejudice? (tradition aside)

If any man chooses a bride on the basis of her hair colour alone, he is an idiot. In my opinion of course.

i wasn't referring to marriage at that point, & should have made it clear . no one is going to get the stage of marriage without attraction, even if there are various elements that factor into attraction.. whomever you marry, you're going to be looking at for the rest of your days, so i would hope she would be appealing!

I went out to the beach once or twice. I didn't enjoy it. Not nearly as much as writing a computer game.

then i won't worry about you getting pulled into an undertow!

Oh, I'd fight to save their lives in any situation. Anti-abortion is just the start of that fight because it's just the start of a life. But that's a different issue.

that's what makes me believe you're not really a biased person, but follow this anti-gay-marriage because of the tradition & the other factors you listed previously..

Yes, but in doing so it only reminds people of the step (arguably) in the wrong direction that earlier "progress" had...

that's true. at one point early on, there wasn't an excess of pollution when automobiles were first made. they actually weren't a problem then! it depends on what point in time you wish to look at, no?

Actually, I was referring to the general trend toward a breakdown in family values, with some shockingly high percentage of marriages ending in divorce, an ongoing decline in how children treat their parents, etc. Not necessarily the result of homosexuality, just the change.

there are some quotes from plato &/or socrates circulating before where the summation was that society was going to hell in handbasket, so to speak. i used to share your concerns (not for some of the specifics, like marriage!), but i realised, overall, there are enough caring people out to there to make up for the troublesome ones.

Geoffrey Pearson argues that society is in the habit of succumbing to moral panics about the youth of the day, while looking back to a "golden age" of respect and discipline.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7732203.stm

is it so awful if people don't stay married their entire lives? i didn't marry my boyfriend i lived with for many years, & we're still good friends. quite frankly, it would actually look like a red mark in the books if i had married..right? then i'd be divorced!
if there is a god around, it's difficult for me to conceptualise god fretting or being angry that i wasn't married then. it seems as if all god would care about was how much love was in the relationship & where it wasn't.

from a practical point.. imagine the money spent for a wedding, the expectations of family members (& their subsequent dismay telling their friends about a divorce). & for the love of it all, money for a divorce! all that was avoided.

i'm not saying no one should ever get married because weddings are costly & the pressure is on to stay together. my point is that, just like gay people, my former bf & i didn't harm anyone with our cohabitation. nor did we wreck anyone else's marriage.. his best mate went through an ugly divorce, although that was due to their issues & incompatibility, & not the fact that my bf & i didn't wed.

OF course it does. That's why I'm here.

i'm jealous of your rolling grinny!!

what does it say on your robot avatar? there should be a thread "explain your avatar" !

[Ent]

Originally Posted by nittiley

for the same reasons yours did at the bottom!

i'm trying to make mine bounce (above) for debate warm-up exercises

Enjoy.

i understand you're not doing that.. my overarching point is even though you're 1 person (who wouldn't treat anyone in an ill-mannered way) aren't you part of a group(/s?) with a discriminatory attitude? by that i don't mean open hostility, more on the order of deeming it wrong for homosexuals to be themselves.

Insomuch as you're part of the human race, you're part of a group which is and always has been discriminatory in the norm. Of course, that says nothing about your own behaviour, and nothing about the validity of the argument.

"guilt by association" is unwarranted, but hasn't a judgement been passed against gays that they're wrong in their behaviour?

Yes, it has. A judgement that someone's behaviour is wrong is perfectly acceptable. It's when you make a judgement that someone is inherently evil or unfit to be part of a society that you get problems.

since buffoon went over this already, i'll just add that you may as well throw out the window any notion that opportunistic diseases aren't going to make the rounds. & it was already mentioned how people can get fairly creative..or there wouldn't have been books like the kama sutra out !

I've never said that AIDS doesn't affect hetrosexuals. I merely stated that a male homosexual is, statistically speaking, far more likely to have the disease than a heterosexual. Your links didn't contradict this; they merely said that an increasing number of old people (including, in your third link, homosexuals) are also getting it.

if married people are the only ones who define marriage, then isn't that giving them supreme rights? it seems as if it should be up to society as a whole, & inclusive of all factions of society - which includes gay people. even if 5% of the population is gay, or 1% for that matter..

I'm not saying that they should be the only ones who define marriage. I'm pointing out that they should at least have a say in the matter, in contrast to your statement that homosexuals "own" the issue.

you can friends, you can have family, but you can't marry your partner.
sorry! we happen to think you're not deserving of it because you aren't attracted to what we're attracted to.

how is this not prejudice? (tradition aside)

I agree with the first statement.
I do not agree with the second statement. It's not a question of "deserving"; indeed no-one "deserves" to marry because that implies the right to marry is based on how you act. It's just a question of what marriage is. To refer back to your earlier analogy, lactose intolerant people cannot eat ice cream. It's not that anyone is telling them that they can't eat it. It's just that icecream, being what it is, contains lactose. They can't just say "let's redefine 'ice cream' to include things that we can eat". That would mean getting rid of the whole milk component, and they'd just have "ice". (well, egg and cold sugar, but you get the point.)

that's what makes me believe you're not really a biased person, but follow this anti-gay-marriage because of the tradition & the other factors you listed previously..

Of course. But what is wrong with those factors?

if there is a god around, it's difficult for me to conceptualise god fretting or being angry that i wasn't married then. it seems as if all god would care about was how much love was in the relationship & where it wasn't.

Perhaps it would be better to believe God on what he says he cares about, instead of saying what you imagine he'd care about.