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| Author |
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| 25 new of 150 responses total. |
keesan
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response 64 of 150:
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Jul 25 18:53 UTC 2003 |
Normal is a statistical term. You can define it as what 90% of people do,
or 98%. If 98%, homosexuality is normal. 'Wrong' is what someone in one
group wants someone in another group to stop doing, not necessarily for any
good reason other than that they are doing something differently from the
first group and the first group wants to feel superior. For the record, Bruce
was, despite being our token conservative, very accepting of his daughter when
she reversed his ideal order of marriage and childbirth.
Sometimes there are things which most people agree are wrong because they hurt
other people, such as murder and theft. Extramarital sex can spread disease
but the chances can be kept pretty low, so maybe it is 1% wrong.
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mynxcat
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response 65 of 150:
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Jul 25 19:04 UTC 2003 |
Yes, but would Bruce accept it if his son turned out to be gay?
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tod
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response 66 of 150:
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Jul 25 19:08 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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spectrum
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response 67 of 150:
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Jul 25 19:15 UTC 2003 |
bru is the "token conservative"? I thought there was a 50/50 ratio.
That would promote a better exchange of ideas. I am a conservative also.
I take it that I'm a minority here? Does that mean that I should not feel free
to express my ideals? I hope not. I think both groups can benifit from
healthy debate. Do you dislike bru because he doesn't agree with you on every
issue? I am new here and I'm just wondering
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mynxcat
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response 68 of 150:
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Jul 25 19:25 UTC 2003 |
No, there are other reasons for disliking bru ;)
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rcurl
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response 69 of 150:
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Jul 25 19:38 UTC 2003 |
Re #62: "Nature", if by that you mean evolution, has evolved a system of
bisexual reproduction. The has absolutly no implications concerning
anything we do with the results of evolution. There are no "laws of
nature" with any relevance to our behavior, apart from natural
consequences of our actions (separating the objective meaning of "laws of
nature" from the subjective); there are only facts of nature. Since
evolution has led to organisms that engage not only in heterosexual
relations but also homosexual relations, they are equally natural.
The idea of "laws of nature" is bizzarre. How are they laid down, and by
what? All there are are facts of nature. The facts of nature do not
mitigate against homosexual behavior, or it couldn't occur. The concept of
"law" in regard to behavior is totally cultural and subjective.
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bru
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response 70 of 150:
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Jul 25 22:31 UTC 2003 |
It doesn't matter how you wish to lay out the law.
If God exists, he has stated that such behavior is immoral and wrong.
If you follow nature, people have evolved into a society where most people,
95% follow heterosexual relationships.
My position is that it is wrong because it does not provide a stabe, healthy
relationship. Now, is it unhealthy because society ostracizes them, or are
they ostracized because the activity is unhealthy?
Which came first, the homosexual or the...
Now, my personal belief is that people who indulge in homosexuality are weak
of will. As all sinners are.
The robber is to weak to resist stealing what he wants.
The murderer is to weak to resist the taking of life.
The sexual deviant is to weak to resist the temptation of his choice.
It is indeed a character flaw, a weakness. A giving in to temptation if you
will. We all have them. I have character flaws. I am a sinner. I admit
it. But I am not going to tell you what my sins are, nor would I expect
society to accept my sins if you knew them.
Nor would I get up and yell my sins to the world. It ain't your business.
But if I were to stand up and say, "I have lusted after 17 year old twins,
and thus sinned in my heart." I would expect that part of society that finds
that particular attitude appaling to stand up and say so, and urge me to
repent and find some way to avoid that temptation.
And that is why I tell those who have confessed their particular perversion,
sin, or violation that I believe it to be wrong.
I do not deny them the right to vote.
I do not deny them the right to own property.
I do not deny them the right to free association.
I do not deny them the right to a job of their choosing.
But I will tell them they are wrong. Just as I would any other violator.
Will you deny me that right?
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scott
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response 71 of 150:
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Jul 25 22:31 UTC 2003 |
Are you saying you're tempted to perform homosexual acts, Bruce?
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tod
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response 72 of 150:
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Jul 25 22:37 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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michaela
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response 73 of 150:
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Jul 25 23:58 UTC 2003 |
Bru - two people of the same sex cannot have a stable, healthy relationship?
Says WHO?
To flip your own small-minded coin, look at the divorce rate. 50% does not
bode well for the heterosexual camp. Now you tell ME that heterosexuals have
a more "stable, healthy" relationship.
I'm not going to deny you your right to tell people that YOU have issues with
what they do in THEIR bedroom, but I'm sure as hell not going to sit back and
not take offense to it.
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mynxcat
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response 74 of 150:
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Jul 26 00:01 UTC 2003 |
Re 70> Wow! You're a brave one to put your narrow-minded, self-righteous views
out in public, and probably delusional to expect people to think you the
better for it.
That must have been the worst drivel I've ever heard.
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tod
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response 75 of 150:
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Jul 26 00:08 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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twenex
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response 76 of 150:
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Jul 26 00:13 UTC 2003 |
Re those posters trying to say that homosexuality violates the laws of nature:
the two of my dogs that are male shag each other regularly, expecially when
the female is horny. You don't hear many dogs arguing about whether
butt-fucking should be made illegal.
BTW. They never try it on w/ their mother. I'd say that probably gives a clue
as to the "laws of nature" re sex.
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janc
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response 77 of 150:
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Jul 26 01:37 UTC 2003 |
If it was against nature, it wouldn't exist. Nature judges an organism by
how effectively it transmits it's genes, and what fails vanishes. You'd think
homosexuality would be strongly selected against, but you'd be wrong. A
strictly homosexual individual might be much less likely to have children,
but bisexuals are hardly at any reproductive disadvantage at all. You only
have to have sex with someone of the opposite sex once to have a baby. Humans
of all orientations have non-reproductive sex. Lots. All that extra sexual
energy has an evolutionary use too -- it helps cement alliances between
adult humans, and such alliances can help people raise children more
effectively. Homosexual alliances do that every bit as well as hetrosexual
ones.
All human societies include members who don't reproduce. Some of them might
be counted as losers in the evolutionary sweepstakes, but many are not. If
they contribute in a positive way to the survival of their relations, then
they are still increasing the chances that people with their genes will
survive. This means of preserving your genes is as much available to gays
as to straights.
Some people speculate that having a percentage of gays in a society
is beneficial to a society because, not being overly concerned with taking
care of their own kids, they put more of their effort into the general
welfare of the community. I agree that it is useful for the gene pool
to throw off a good percentage of altruists, but I doubt that this has
very much to do with gays. I expect that over the length of human history,
gays have been hardly less likely than straights to have children.
In any case, people are still being born with gay impulses, because nature
finds it useful, or at least not particularly harmful.
I'm not prepared to defend entirely basing morality on evolutionary theory
(though you can take the concept pretty far), so I'd not take this as
evidence that homosexuality is OK, but I certainly think that the claim that
homosexuality is "against nature" is completely absurd, being derived from
a completely obsolete and silly concept of what nature is.
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tod
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response 78 of 150:
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Jul 26 03:11 UTC 2003 |
This response has been erased.
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sabre
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response 79 of 150:
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Jul 26 11:31 UTC 2003 |
RE#77
We haven't given nature enough time to deal with this behavior. What if
everybody was gay? Would our existence continue? How would we reproduce?
There is one fact I would like to point you in the direction of.
Do a "google" on the "y" chromosone DNA decay. It's interesting stuff.
I don't have time to post it here because scott just pulled my shorts down
in item#118. I have a long post to write there.
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novomit
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response 80 of 150:
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Jul 26 14:40 UTC 2003 |
The idea of homosexuality being "against nature" t me seems to indicate some
sort of intelligence on the part of nature or at least a faith in nature that
I do not subscribe to. If nature was perfect, why be they Siamese Twins?
Nature is nearly as fucked up as mankind.
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oval
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response 81 of 150:
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Jul 26 14:50 UTC 2003 |
bru reminds me of that guy next door's father in 'American Beauty'.
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novomit
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response 82 of 150:
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Jul 26 14:53 UTC 2003 |
Not having a telly, I canna comment.
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keesan
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response 83 of 150:
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Jul 26 17:57 UTC 2003 |
My two exceptionally nice neighbors are teaching their daughter to call them
two different words for mama. As far as I can tell, they have a really stable
relationship. On my block and within two houses around the corner the
relationships are as follows:
1. Young couple has baby, husband leaves.
2. Couple has two kids, waits ten years, one more kid, husband leaves.
3. Young couple without kids splits up.
4. COuple with two teenagers splits up. Daughter and father stay in the
house.
5. Couple in their thirties who have known each other 8 years marries and
has two kids. When the older kid is 6, husband announces he has been in love
with another women since before the second child was conceived, and moves out
(after draggin wife through several years of pointless therapy first to prove
something, she has no idea what).
6. Couple in thirties and forties splits up after 18 years of marriage.
We also have one widow, and one happily remarried couple (retired) such that
the husband's son and his ex-wife come bringing the granddaughter to visit.
Around the corner is a very stable male couple.
Next to my apartment is a male couple who have been there since before 1985.
My upstairs neighbor remained friends with her first girlfriend after they
decided they could not live together, and eventually bought a house with her
second girlfriend and her daughter.
There is probably a stable homosexual homeowner couple on nearly every block
in my neighborhood. They stay around a lot longer than the average couple.
Unspecified 'couple' = heterosexual.
On the street where I am building there is also an unmarried couple who seem
very happy together taking apart their house. And one 'normal' couple in
their forties with two young kids plus a new young couple who moved in and
have two kids.
Judging from a very small statistical group, homosexuals keep their houses
up especially nicely and do a lot of gardening. I forgot the two women across
the street with the big community vegetable garden to whom we gave our
pressure canner. They give us tomato plants. They have been together 20
years or so living all over the country, sometimes with relatives.
I think Bruce's problem is that all of his neighbors and co-workers are
heterosexual so he can only go on prejudices instead of personal experience.
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rcurl
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response 84 of 150:
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Jul 26 18:36 UTC 2003 |
Re #79: it is the very essence of evolution that adaptive mutations *tend*
to be accumulated, but that in no ways rules out the continued existence
of non-adaptive features. Evolution is of species, not individuals, so
their evolution will always have a large number of non-adaptive features
present at low levels. In fact, those non-adaptive genes function as
reservoirs of variety that may in fact provide an adaptive feature when
circumstances change.
Homosexual love is non-adaptive from the standpoint of reproduction, but
causes no species non-adaptiveness, since there are enough reproducing
individuals that the nonreproducing ones do not have any affect.
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janc
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response 85 of 150:
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Jul 26 19:33 UTC 2003 |
Re #79: What do you mean we haven't given nature time enough to deal with
this behavior? Do you think homosexuality is new? Or even confined to
humans?
What if everyone was gay? Yes that would be a problem (assuming you mean
so strongly gay that they never are willing to have sex with the opposite
gender). It would be a much bigger problem if everyone was male. (At least
if everyone was gay they could still have babies by artificial insemination.)
So is maleness "against nature" too? At least if everyone was gay they could
still have babies by artificial insemination.
Frankly, if more people have non-reproductive sex, that can only be good for
the world. There is not a baby shortage in the world today. The fact that
gay sex cannot result in a baby is an argument for it, not against it. When
gay people have babies it is rarely by accident. Rather as a result of a
deep desire to have a child and quite a lot of effort to get one. I'd expect
that statistically children raised by such people would do rather well. I
bet the abortion rate (percent of pregnancies ending in abortoin) among gays
is lower than the general population too.
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jaklumen
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response 86 of 150:
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Jul 26 22:52 UTC 2003 |
Bruce, you are acting like a putz. I am so sick of this 'liberal vs.
conservative' shit that I am about to puke on a loop. I mean, I
swear, you insist on polarizing certain issues to make centrists and
moderates appear invisible or irrelevant. Now, I'd kindly ask that
you get some consideration, or SHUT THE FUCK UP. Geez. You really
like stirring the pot or what?
To further the point-- so twenex says he's bi. Why does that have to
be such a big freaking problem for you? I think we've established
over and over you don't condone or support that sort of lifestyle.
But tell me this: why do so-called champions of good worry their sorry
little heads making sure everyone else knows what they see as the
difference between right and wrong rather than making peaceable
relations with their neighbors and avoiding discontent? "Contention
is of the devil," Jesus said-- but I note that's not in the scriptures
you read. Take it at face value anyway and measure it by the Golden
Rule. You think the ends justify the means?
I can speak on this. I can relate to him. Myself, I just found it
wasn't working for me, so I sought out change-- which I do believe is
possible. But I'm not going to bash folks over the head,
saying, "You're queer, so you're evil, and you must change!" If he's
happy, I say leave him alone. You can accept him without accepting
his decision. If he's unhappy and it doesn't work for him, then maybe
he'll find a way out. But spare the lecture.
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polytarp
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response 87 of 150:
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Jul 27 01:01 UTC 2003 |
You're the biggest biggot of them all, jaklumen.
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bru
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response 88 of 150:
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Jul 27 02:45 UTC 2003 |
"I do not deny them the right to vote.
I do not deny them the right to own property.
I do not deny them the right to free association.
I do not deny them the right to a job of their choosing."
show me my discrimination. Go ahead. Look at the above statements and show
my how I discriminate against them.
Problem is people, you are just so quick to jump on the bandwagon and scream;
"Look at the bigot. Look at the bigot!" that you do not realize that I am
middle of the road.
"SURPRISE!"
What? you don't believe me? How do I prove it? Intorduce you to my gay
freinds? (I have had gay freinds.) I know. You don't believe it.
Am I to condescending to the gay people in the forum for you to believe it?
Well, you apparently think you are better than me, is it okay if I think I
am better than you?
I believe diversity is a good thing, but not when you rub someones face in
it. You insult me siggesting I have a fear of gays that is obviously hiding
my true gayness. Problem is, gays don't scare me.
So just go ahead and call me an old stick in the mud. Wait! Does that
suggest gayness? Nah!
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