Matt Walsh:
It may be a matter of some interest to you that the American left is now openly declaring its intention to shutdown your church and outlaw your religious expression entirely. If you’ve been paying attention, you won’t be terribly shocked by this revelation. They plan to come after the churches. That’s what they’ve always wanted, and now they intend to do it.
The hysterical reaction to Georgia’s religious liberty bill can be interpreted no other way. Gov. Nathan Deal has now decided — just one day after Easter, no less — to veto the bill because the outrage was so severe, and because he has the resiliency and backbone of a dead slug melting in the sun. In his statement explaining his decision, Deal insisted that religious liberty doesn’t include the right to “discriminate against anyone.” He took a steadfast and courageous posture, declaring that he refuses to be intimidated by “insults and threats” from pastors, nuns, and his local baptist church. On the other hand, for gay groups and large progressive corporations, he will fall to his knees in trembling submission and polish their boots after they finish kicking him repeatedly in the ribs.
On a day when we hear reports of a Catholic priest being literally crucified by Islamic State because he refused to abandon his faith, perhaps we might hope Christians in this country could at least withstand mean insults and online petitions. But we’ve learned not to expect anything — not even one minuscule, microscopic shred of bravery — from Christians like Deal. They will surrender every time, without fail.
And that’s not to downplay the pressure he faced. It was substantial, though not enough to justify his shameful capitulation. Hollywood was leading the charge, with heavy hitters like Disney, Time Warner, Starz, The Weinstein Company, AMC, Viacom, Marvel, CBS, MGM, NBC and other companies threatening to boycott if the bill passed.
The NFL got into the action, promising to bar Atlanta from hosting the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the league hopes to expand into China in the near future, where it’sillegal for gays to be depicted on television, much less get married in real life. But I suppose you can’t ask for moral consistency from a league that employs Greg Hardy.
Many other massive corporations like Coca-Cola and Apple came out swinging against the bill, and every major sports team in the area – the Braves, the Hawks, the Falcons — condemned it in no uncertain terms.
Naturally, all of the radical gay groups like the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD shouted from the rooftops about the apocalyptic repercussions of allowing the First Amendment to continue existing in Georgia.
Virtually everyone was against this thing. And they weren’t just against it – they hated it. They wanted to kill it with fire and then raise it from the dead so they could kill it again. All of the most powerful leftist forces in the country despised the Georgia bill with an ungodly passion. It was dehumanizing. It was an indignity of historic proportions. It was accursed. It was anathema.
So, you’re wondering, what exactly was it?
If you didn’t know any better, judging by the universal conniption fit it provoked, you’d think the bill must have mandated that all homosexuals be drowned in the sea or deported to Mozambique. If that were the case, I’d understand why it worked dozens of billion dollar companies into such a fantastic tizzy. But, contrary to reports, that’s not what the bill was designed to do. Not exactly, anyway.
In reality, the bill that the left called “horrific” and “heinous,” would have primarily accomplished the following:
-Protect a pastor from being forced to perform a gay wedding against his will.
-Protect religious organizations from being forced to host gay weddings against their will.
-Protect religious organizations from being forced to hire someone who opposes their fundamental tenets, beliefs, and goals.
There you go. That’s all, folks. That was the whole bill, or at least the relevant portion. And it was narrower than that, in fact, because it provided loopholes and escape hatches where a court could still potentially punish an organization for “discriminating,” even if they fell into one of the above categories.
Again, this is the bill that brought upon the wrath of every liberal in the country and resulted in threats of boycotts and other punishments from many major corporations. This. This bill.
This bill, which was so narrow, so toothless, so unremarkable that I could have easily made an argument for opposing it on the grounds that it inadvertently restricted religious liberty. After all, the legislation did not protect the religious rights of private companies and private individuals. It reserved religious protections only to pastors, churches, and other specifically religious groups. Yes, protecting them would be better than protecting nobody, but the unintended consequence is a precedent where only expressly religious entities can enjoy First Amendment protections. Obviously, that’s not what the Framers of the Bill of Rights had in mind.
In any case, that’s all academic now. The important fact is that liberals opposed granting basic religious protections to religious organizations. It wasn’t all that long ago — like, I don’t know, six months — when leftists were still insisting that only religious organizations should have religious rights. Remember, when the country debated the Indiana law or any of the various cases involving bakers and photographers and so on, liberals said over and over again that if the companies in question were conspicuously and officially “religious,” they wouldn’t have a problem with gays being “discriminated against” on religious grounds.
Many of us tried to point out, first of all, the First Amendment applies to everyone, and second of all, this would put us on a slippery slope. Soon, we warned, leftists would come after the churches and the pastors, too. Liberals said we were being ridiculous and paranoid.
And now here we are.
So, which part of this bill was everyone so upset about?
Do they think the government should force a priest to officiate a lesbian wedding at gun point?
Or do they think the government should be able to pry open the doors of a Baptist church and invite a couple of gays to hold their reception in the basement regardless of what the congregation thinks?
Or do they think a private Christian school should be shutdown if it refuses to hire a religion teacher who actively and loudly opposes the very beliefs and doctrines she’s being hired to instill in her students?
Which is it? All of it? These companies — the NFL, Disney, CBS, Apple, etc — must be advocating for one or all of those scenarios. They are repulsed at the notion that religious liberty would exist anywhere in the country, including inside churches and private Christian schools. They believe that a gay man’s basic human rights are being trampled and destroyed if he does not have the power to force his local Methodist preacher into indentured servitude. As I said, there is no other way to interpret the protests. If one objects to a bill, it must be assumed that one objects to the specific content of the bill. Therefore, liberals specifically object to churches, pastors, and religious groups being granted religious liberty. And if they cannot have religious liberty, who can?
There is no coherent Constitutional argument you could make against a bill that protects the right of a religious group to be a religious group. In no universe would it make sense to claim that a man has a right to use the facilities of, or be employed by, an organization whose fundamental tenets he actively opposes and defies. Leftists are smart enough to know this, but they find the Christian faith so abhorrent that they believe an exception must be made. That’s what really lies at the root of these controversies: their hatred for Christianity.
There is no question that a church, Christian school, pastor, etc has the Constitutional right to the free exercise of religion; and there is no question that exercising religion means abiding by the moral doctrines of your religion; and there is no question that a moral doctrine by its very nature excludes and discriminates against activities it deems immoral; and so there is no question that the free exercise of religion does absolutely guarantee “the right to discriminate.” Again, this is obvious and anyone who is not an imbecile can see it. But the left does not care. They simply hate Christianity and want it censored, dismantled, and expelled from the country.
The people who opposed this bill opposed, without a doubt, the very essence of the First Amendment. They just do not believe certain religions, in their current forms, should be given safe harbor anywhere within our borders. They could pretend otherwise back when they were “only” trying to strip rights from private, secular companies, but now that they’re passionately opposing the rights of religious groups to abide by their religions, the charade is over. They’re out of the fascist closet now — although they were never convincingly in it to begin with.
@George Wells:
I don’t know how to be more clear in describing the difference. If a homosexual needs a physician to provide a life saving intervention, denial by the physician to provide said treatment SOLELY because the the patient is homosexual is just as reprehensible as denying the the same life saving intervention to SOLELY because a patient is black, or a known philanderer, or an alcoholic, or whatever. The act of performing the life saving act is not causing the physician to violate his religious beliefs, and does not mean the physician is condoning the behavior of the patient with which the physician disagrees.
In the case of a baker, denying a customer a cake SOLELY because the individual is homosexual is just as stupid and discriminatory as denying selling a cake to someone based on skin color, or because the customer is an alcoholic, or a philanderer. But when someone requests the baker make a cake specifically as a wedding cake for a homosexual marriage, making that cake means the Christian baker is now a willing participant in something that his religious faith says is prohibited as sinful, because the baker is now force to CONDONE what his faith clearly says is against his faith. THAT is the issue. That is the same problem I alluded to above regarding a Christian printer who is asked to print up pornography, or a treatise that is blasphemous against Christian beliefs. To print such items would be a violation of the Christian printer’s faith, and a blatant violation of the constitutional right to freely express one’s religion. It isn’t splitting hairs, it is a very simple differentiation of rights. Forcing someone to act in a manner that is against ones religious faith is wrong under our constitution.
What you are calling for is for the government to deny the religious right for the baker to say, “I cannot participate in supporting that which my faith says is sinful, which makes me a party to the sin.” It is exactly the same concept as forcing a Christian OB to perform abortions in violation of his religious beliefs, or to make Christian taxpayers fund abortions.
Honestly, I don’t know how much more clear I can be. But as the left cannot ever tolerate dissent, it must twist and obfuscate to try to deny the validity of any opposing view.
@retire05 #50:
The Government doesn’t require proof when you answer any of the following questions:
What is your race?
What is your gender?
What is your religion?
What is you age?
What is your political party affiliation?
What is your telephone number?
Even back when the U.S. Military USED to ask potential recruits what their sexual orientation was, they didn’t ask for proof. “Self-declaration” has always been accepted as sufficient. Your suggestion that the courts might for some reason have an interest in being supplied “proof” to the answers obtained in response to such questions ignores the fact that the courts DON’T DO THAT.
@Pete #51:
That presumes that the government (or YOU) knows what the physician’s religious beliefs ARE, and has the capacity to judge for itself (or YOURSELF) whether or not the proposed service violates those beliefs. Do you really want to give the government that power?
What if the physician believes otherwise? What if he BELIEVES that providing health services to a homosexual violates his religious objection to homosexuality? Does the government have the right to second-guess that physician’s beliefs? Does the government have the latitude to accept the physicians declaration of religious objection without the proof that Retire05 seems to believe should be required in such cases?
No, I’m doing nothing of the sort. I told you before, I support religious freedom. I’m just attempting to find a workable set of criteria to delineate where the term can be effectively used to protect the religious objector and where it cannot, and I don’t THINK that simply letting someone CLAIM to be religiously offended is in and of itself a sufficient justification to deprive someone else of THEIR equal rights. The term “equal rights” means that EVERYONE’S rights matter, not just religious peoples’, and not just homosexuals’.
And why are you STILL persisting with this “leftist demand” crap? I’m trying to find some legal clarity, and until that surfaces, I withhold the judgmental nonsense. Frankly, I’m astonished that you can’t do the same.
@George Wells:
Provable either visually or with DNA
Provable with a simple medical exam or DNA.
Provable with a baptism certificate, church records that record membership, and any number of ways
Provable with a birth certificate, passport, driver’s license in states that require proof of date of birth before such license is issued, et al
Proof to be determined in states that require voter affiliation when registering to vote or by previous voting record
Proof can be ascertained by phone books, telephone bills, contact phone number on other legal documents where it is required.
Now, how do you prove you’re gay beyond your mere claim you are in a court of law? You can’t.
@George Wells:
And I said that where?
I see you continue to put words in people’s mouths that they never spoke to further your gay strawman argument.
If a patient is requiring life saving emergency treatment, and the patient is comatose, how does a physician determine that patient is gay? There is no way to prove you’re gay. None.
And stop with the black/gay comparisons. One can prove they’re black, Hispanic, Native American, etc.. You cannot prove, scientifically, you’re gay.
@Pete: 9
I don’t think anyone claims that transgenderism is ‘normal’. It is in the same class as lesbians, gays, bi polar, pedophiles, serial murderers, etc. It is commonly accepted that these are brain defects at birth. Their brains have serious wiring defects. So we can say that people are ‘born that way’ but not that it is normal unless 1-3% of the population would be considered ‘normal’. While some of these conditions ‘might’ be treatable with medicine, it is unlikely that science can change the facts. A transgender is going to remain a ‘transgender’ regardless of their outward appearance. All public facilities should now be divided by 3 and labeled as Men, Women, Other. A 100% woman is entitled to be treated as a 100% woman the same as a 100% transgender is entitled to be treated as a 100% transgender, not as a ‘something else’.
@retire05:
George has said that being gay is a birth defect of wiring in the brain, so a brain wiring diagram may be sufficient to prove it. .
@Redteam:
So what? Is George now the go-to expert on brains? The only thing George is an expert in is trying to make excuses for his personal choices.
@retire05:
I don’t believe I have referred to anyone as an expert on brains. I believe my statement, if: ” being gay is a birth defect of wiring in the brain, so a brain wiring diagram may be sufficient to prove it. .” note I said ” may be sufficient”, not that it is definite.
@George Wells:
George, I have tried to be civil in this little debate with you, so drop the high dudgeon, please.
You are throwing out ridiculous hypotheticals as you twist around for no apparent purpose other than to avoid having to admit that Christians have a right not to be forced to violate their religious beliefs. How many physicians have you known in your life, George, that you keep insisting some bizarre scenario where a bunch of physicians – or even one- would refuse to treat a patient because of religious beliefs that condemn homosexuality as sinful? Taking that concept to it’s obvious end result, your imaginary physician would refuse to treat philanderers, murderers, enemy combatants, rapists, drug abusers, etc.
I am absolutely certain that I know personally (and engage in topical discussions) significantly more physicians than you do. What you keep suggesting – in what becomes ever more clearly an attempt at distracting from the main question on first amendment rights – regarding physician behavior is not happening. If it was, it would be getting neon-flashing, screaming news coverage of these instances of homophobic bigotry, and media lawyer whores like Gloria Allred and John Edwards would be slamming out huge civil lawsuits.
Rather than continuing your circular argument regarding “what if a physician has a religious belief that….” why don’t you provide the tenet of whichever religious group that actually exists which says providing care for homosexuals is sinful?
Christianity is pretty clear – though pardon my paraphrasing:
“Hate the sin, but love the sinner.”
“He who is without sin should throw the first stone”
And the words of Christ that the left always glosses over….
“Has no one condemned thee, woman? Neither shall I condemn thee. Now GO AND SIN NO MORE”
It isn’t “crap” describing the typical leftist virtue-posturing you are using throughout this post prentending you are looking for legal clarity, rather than twisting to avoid acknowledging people have the right under the Constitution not to be forced to participate in acts their religion designates as sinful. You don’t have to believe that homosexuality is a sin. You don’t have to believe that Christ is the Saviour. I do not have the right to force you to go to Mass. Yet you keep pushing the meme that gays have the right to use the fist of government to force Christians to participate in homosexual union ceremonies, even against their wills.
Additionally ironic is your questioning me as to whether or not I want to give government the power to determine the validity of individual religious philosophy, when you know full well that the homosexual lobby has most certainly demanded that government coerce Christians to participate in homogomy ceremonies.
@Redteam:
Have to disagree with you, Redteam.
There has been no conclusive evidence regarding brain structural differences or specific chemical imbalances that cause homosexual tendencies. Yes, it is a theory, but nothing has been proven.
I don’t understand the reasoning for adding a made up 3rd gender restroom. What is one going into the restroom to do? There are male and female external genitalia, each with a gender-specific manner of releasing bodily waste. There is no 3rd type of genitalia so no need for a separate bathroom for someone confused about what type of genitalia he or she has.
It is a sign of cultural insanity and decay that this topic is even considered worth pondering.
@retire05 #54:
First of all, nobody is EVER required to prove that point, so YOUR question is moot. Even preforming fellatio would not establish irrefutable evidence of sexual orientation. It would only prove that the claimant was WILLING to perform such an act in public – an illegal act in most jurisdictions. So-called “gay-for-pay” people are not legitimately homosexual, since in most cases they prefer heterosexual liaisons.
And per your “examples,” a baptism proves what religious denomination you were BORN into, not what beliefs you personally subscribe to. Neither is a church affiliation required for a person to have, hold and practice a religious belief. It merely demonstrates that the person prefers to SHARE his or her beliefs with other people – not a necessary condition of religious faith.
Your obsession with proof of personal information is confusing. Where is PROOF of a telephone number ever required?
@George Wells:
more than one job in my lifetime required that I have a telephone and therefore a telephone number.
@Pete: unlike you, I don’t disagree with you.
While it may only be theory, there has to be some reason that approximately 1-3 % of people born in the world are screwed up at birth, such as gays, pedophiles, transgenders, serial killers, etc. As to whether it is brain ‘wiring’ or chemical imbalance or other reasons, whatever, it’s there. My personal belief on homosexuality is that some people are born that way and some are that way by choice. When a baby boy ‘acts’ like a girl from the day it’s born and never becomes a ‘boy’ then I don’t believe it is a choice. I think he was ‘born that way’. Not all gays are that way, but many are. I think ‘real’ Trannies are born that way. Jenner is likely not really a tranny, just a screwed up dude. Chastity Bono, probably genuine.
I wasn’t referring to a ‘made up 3rd gender’, I was referring to those that do not claim to be the gender that their genitalia clearly indicates they are. So a person with a penis does not get to go into a restroom with only real women. So if they have a penis and want to not go to a restroom with other people with a penis then they get to go to the ‘other’ restroom, not the ‘female’ restroom.
Back to the earlier statement, while some of these defects are choice, what about serial killers, bi polar, pedophiles, and others? There have to be a reason these people exist. Why are some real men feminine while others are very masculine, has to be body wiring or chemical makeup? you think a ‘very masculine’ man is that way because of a ‘choice’ while a feminine one ‘chooses’ to be that way? You think bald men are bald because they ‘choose’ to be, or is it perhaps a chemical imbalance? I think there is a scale from 100% female to 100% male and I think there are people on every number in between those two extremes. but probably 95% are in the ‘normal’ range.
@George Wells:
where did you pull that out of? I was baptized when I was 26 years old and it had zero to do with the denomination I was ‘born into’. I was baptized in a church that I joined by choice based only on my beliefs. Your claim is ridiculous.
@Pete #60:
This is getting old.
Having repeatedly asserted the legitimacy of the argument for religious freedom, I am having difficulty understanding your insistence that I am demanding the end of that right.
My questions should suggest to you that I am conflicted over the very fact that you have already acknowledge: that there ARE conflicts between different constitutionally protected rights. That fact isn’t new news. The SCOTUS’ work is almost exclusively dedicated to finding fair resolutions to just such disputes over conflicting rights. Exactly that sort of rights-conflict is playing out right now in the dispute between persons of faith who see their religious freedom under attack by the LGBT community and their supporters who believe that the discrimination that religious freedom tolerates and/or allows infringes upon the civil rights of LGBT persons.
I haven’t taken a position in this battle. I’m not intellectually sophisticated enough to appreciate which side has the stronger argument, nor savvy enough to predict which one will win. That DOESN’T mean that I’m not curious enough to ask questions pertinent to the issue. I truly DON’T know how to fairly balance the rights of the parties that have standing in this dispute. From my perspective, the HYPOTHETICAL examples I have suggested were meant to provide the easiest possible route to an answer. I did NOT mean to imply that any LGBT person has ever been turned away by a physician for ANY reason, although I suspect that it has happened, (a suspicion is not evidence) and I hoped that you could understand this.
I am truly sorry that you have misconstrued my questions. I’ve been asking them of YOU, as opposed to the other posters here, because I respect your intellect and appreciate your willingness to answer me at thoughtful length. I’ve not meant to insult you at all. When you seemed to miss the gist of my questions, I’ve attempted to clarify them, but you now appear to be tiring of our exchanges. I’m sorry for that. I’ve been trying to learn from you, not argue WITH you. I’m not qualified to do that, a fact of which you have generously reminded me. Know that I’ve enjoyed our conversations immensely. I won’t bother you further.
@Redteam #65:
I was baptized at the age of approximately six weeks. At the time, my family claimed to be Lutheran. As a pre-pubescent child, I was LABELED a Presbyterian. Once I became intellectually self-aware, I realized that I was a practicing agnostic. Regarding the question of faith, what does my 6-week baptism have to do with it?
@George Wells: George, I can understand your statements just above, but I would like to make the point that religious freedom is protected in the original US Constitution, sexual freedom is not. A physician does not have the ‘right’ to turn away a LBGT because of their sexuality, but no one has to know the sexuality of a patient. It is not likely tattooed upon the body of most persons.
But whilst a person has a right to buy any cake that a bakery has for sale, the buyer does not have the right to have a baker make a ‘special’ cake just for the buyer. If a buyer does not like the choice of cakes for sale at a bakery, the customer is free to go to a different bakery. The customer is not required to buy from the baker that does not have what he wants. I can not expect a favorable result if I go into Walmart and go to the cookies and snack aisle and demand that they sell me a Little Debbie’s cupcakes for Queers if they do not have them on display on that aisle. I expect that they will sell me what they ‘have for sale’. While I think of it, I don’t think I’ve gone into a Walmart and seen a LBGT section of goods. Have you? Wonder why that hasn’t been demanded of them?
So, I’m guessing that if the question is, one right is guaranteed in the constitution and one is not, that the one that is guaranteed will prevail. I don’t think anyone has a right to have their right take precedent over someone else’s right just because they demand it.
@George Wells: I’ve not made a study of different meanings of Baptism according to which church is performing the practice. I’m a Baptist and in the Baptist church, after you accept Christ as your personal savior then you are baptized by total immersion in water. But it is important that you be old enough to make the decision that Christ is your savior. Apparently some churches, including the Lutheran do it only as an attempt to make you remain a member of that church for life and it has nothing to do with personal commitment or salvation. I have no problem with any of the church’s teachings or beliefs, that’s their ‘right’. So while your general statement that “a baptism proves what religious denomination you were BORN into, not what beliefs you personally subscribe to. ” applies in some cases it is not true in many cases or churches.
@Redteam #68:
Where is that written?
I’m not asking that question to be argumentative.
I honestly don’t know that the basis is for you or Pete to be making that statement.
IF a physician has a religious objection to treating homosexuals (I’m not saying that a single one DOES, but I can’t prove that none exist, and neither can Pete) doesn’t the constitution’s protection of religious freedom also protect such a physician? The Hippocratic oath doesn’t carry the force of civil law, doesn’t say anything about limits of religious freedom, and doesn’t address homosexuality. So I have no reason to take your or Pete’s assurances for granted. The statement that “a physician does not have the ‘right’ to turn away a LBGT because of their sexuality” and a buck won’t buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
@Redteam #69:
I’ve been invited to at LEAST 50 baptisms over the course of my lifetime – all for infants. Never once for an adult, or even a teenager. I’ve seen video footage of the “total immersion” ritual that you describe, so I don’t dispute that it happens, and in that context, evidence of such a public baptism DOES offer EVIDENCE of a willful acceptance of a particular faith, but not actual PROOF of belief. (I knew a guy in the Navy who agreed to such a baptism because it was the only way his sweetheart would have him. He was “whipped,” so-to-speak.)
But that wasn’t the point. The point was that this sort of think just doesn’t matter in a court of law. You NEVER have to prove that you’re a Presbyterian, OR that you’re gay. You might get asked if you’re one or the other, but whatever your answer is, it is either accepted on your word, or it is not. Showing that I have a subscription to National Geographic doesn’t PROVE that I’m an environmentalist any more than a subscription to a Communist periodical in my name would prove that I’m a communist. Religious faith, sexual orientation, and political party preference are all states of mind that are inscrutable to the government, and you and Retire05 should be thankful for that. I know that I am.
@George Wells:
George, I’m sure it’s not written because it doesn’t need to be. If a person (sexuality unknown) presents itself at an emergency room for treatment, I’m sure the question: Are you a LGBT? is not a question that requires an answer. If it is a situation where any physician would be ‘required’ to render treatment, then that would be the case. Since “I’m gay” is not likely tattooed across his forehead, then the treatment would be because the physician would render it under the same conditions as it would be required to be rendered to anyone. I don’t think ‘religious freedom’ is an issue because the physician has no way to know the sexuality of the patient. He’s a doctor there to treat a patient that appears to be treated. Sexual orientation is ‘not an issue’. (no little Debbie’s on the shelf)
How strange. I’m older than you and I have never, not even once, been ‘invited’ to any baptism. Have you ever seen any movie about Jesus? He was baptized, as an adult, by full immersion by John the Baptist. I would say the intent is that this shows a dedication to the faith. I would say that the infant baptism shows a ceremony to make someone ‘feel good’.
I’m not sure you believe ‘both sides’ of that argument. If that were so, then the government couldn’t rule that a baker had to bake a cake for a queer, because there would be no queer. Right?
@Redteam #72:
Your #1 above essentially professes EITHER that LGBT people HAVE a right to medical service in spite of a physician’s religious objection to treat them, OR that the physician DOESN’T HAVE the right to refuse to treat LGBT people on religious freedom grounds.
It doesn’t matter HOW such a physician might discover the person’s sexual orientation. The LGBT person doesn’t LOSE his or her civil rights by stating that he or she is gay, and while improbable, such a declaration is not an impossibility.
Perhaps at this point I should remind you that since about 1980, one of the questions that has been asked of people giving blood has been “Are you Homosexual, or have you ever had sexual relations with another person of the same sex?” The question was intended to keep HIV out of the nation’s blood supply. The question was ALSO often asked of persons seeking emergency care, until physicians figured out that it was safer to simply assume that EVERYONE was a potential HIV (or other STD pathogen) carrier and that they should protect themselves from contact with ANY patient’s blood FOR THAT REASON. The question isn’t just a figment of my imagination.
What on Earth do you mean that it doesn’t NEED to be written? ALL rights that mean ANYTHING have to be written into the Law. How else can they be addressed? If an UNWRITTEN right is wrongfully refused, what grounds does a plaintiff have to take his or her complaint to court for redress if that right is denied, save by referring to the written rule that was allegedly broken?
A right that is unwritten is meaningless nonsense.
@George Wells:
George, let’s say you go to a family reunion and there is a group of 6 adult men standing alone having a discussion and you arrive there and go over to that group. Everyone immediately (in my observations of life) say hi, hello, shake your hand, slap you on the back, ask you how are you, etc. Where is it written that they ‘have to do that’? Some things people do are very meaningful, but it is not ‘written down’.
If you arrive unconscious to an emergency room in an ambulance, how does the doctor know you are gay? I’m not talking about does he ‘think’ you might be gay, how does he know absolutely that you are gay? Suppose that gay guy arrived in that ambulance unconscious but he had a sign hung around his neck that said: I am gay and I absolutely refuse treatment by any non gay doctor, does the doctor ‘have’ to treat him? What if the doctor is gay but is in the closet?
@Redteam #64:
I take it that you didn’t understand what I said about needing to reference either a statute or a binding legal precedence when you or your lawyer presents a claim in a court of law. It isn’t sufficient to say that the right you are claiming doesn’t have to be written. Any and every legal right is rooted in either the Constitution or its amendments, or in the Bill of Rights, or in the body of local, state and federal laws, ALL OF WHICH ARE WRITTEN.
The examples of casual interactions you offer – back-slapping and such – are not examples of civil rights. They are examples of rules of social etiquette that are not binding, regardless of whether they are written or not, or how strictly they may be adhered to in your particular social circle.
And your point about an unconscious patient is irrelevant. What if he happened to have tattooed on his forehead “I’m Queer”? Would such a tattoo void his civil rights? Of course not. The question of HOW a person’s sexual orientation might or might not be discovered, or what the CHANCES of such a discovery might be DO NOT ALTER THAT PERSON’S CIVIL RIGHTS!
Either you know this to be true, and you are intentionally arguing for the sake of being irritable, or else you are tragically ignorant, in which case I have neither the time nor the patience to educate you. I have enjoyed SOME of our conversations, but now you are becoming tiresome. If you persist in being deliberately silly, you’ll get no further conversation from me.
@George Wells:
George, you clearly do not have an understanding of laws in the USA. You are born with inalienable rights. That means you are born with a right to ‘everything’. However, in 1776 a Constitution was written to try to limit some rights. However if the Constitution does not limit a right, then you have that right. Again with the caveat that something else might ‘limit’ that right such as a State, County or City law. If a mosquito bites you, you have the right to kill it as there is no Federal, State, County or city that limits that right. That right does not have to be in writing.
You need to clarify that. Does the facility where he has presented himself belong to a religious organization with a published religious policy of not treating homosexuals? Then they wouldn’t have to treat him. That persons ‘civil rights’ do not trump somone else’s religious rights.
I certainly disagree with that. You don’t think the right to peaceful assembly is a ‘civil right’? I believe that is even a Constitutionally guaranteed civil right.
Nor the ability.
Let me get this straight: you are under the impression that if a ‘right’ is not in writing, that it doesn’t exist? What about this:” US Constitution Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
This kinda seems to say specifically that It “WILL NOT BE PUT INTO WRITING’ doesn’t it?
@Redteam #76:
There you go. Was that so hard?
Just for the record, your answer (quoted above) disagrees with Pete’s assertion that no such religious freedom right exists for doctors treating cases of critical care. At least you took a position, finally, even if it was wrong.
But it’s too little, too late, buried as it is under your usual mountain of nonsense.
I’ve wasted my time with you. I give up.
@George Wells: So you’re a quitter?
problem is Pete is partially right and partially wrong.
If a doctor is working in an emergency room of a public hospital and it is not operated as a religious organization, then he is right. But if a doctor is working as an emergency room doctor in a religious facility with a stated position that they will not treat homosexuals, then they would not be required to treat a homosexual. That’s no different than if that same hospital had a stated position that they would ot accept Ebola virus cases. Then they would not be required to do so.
There would likely be several more instances, but if an emergency room physician felt that the treatment of a particular patient would put his life personally in jeopady, he could rightfully refuse to work on that patient.
Is ‘giving up’ a hereditary trait, or is it something you’ve worked to develop?
@Redteam:
I certainly understand the general thrust of your position. There are two points I would bring up for consideration.
First, the idea that someone is “born” gay – though a popular theory – seems to me an attempt to make excuses for why some people suffer from homosexual tendencies. I am not disagreeing with the possibility that some people MAY be genetically predisposed to developing homosexual attraction, just as some people may be predisposed genetically to develop alcoholism, or diabetes, or male-pattern baldness. But being genetically predisposed does not automatically mean one will develop a particular trait.
Second, if you hold the idea that some people are born with homosexual attraction, then how do you explain why some men develop affinities for large breasted women, while some men develop prefences for well-rounded female bottoms, while others develop the tendency of becoming aroused by female shoes? Do you believe men are simply “born” with such attractions? Or do you believe they LEARN to be aroused by these specific triggers?
Sexual arousal is exceptionally powerful for most people, a biological drive surpassed only by the drive to breathe and to eat. Pavlov’s operant conditioning experiments demonstrated quite conclusively how easy it is to manipulate subjects using biological drives. Furthermore, any objective understanding of Darwin’s evolutionary theories, by definition, define homosexuality as a biological “dead end” since there is no passing of genetic traits to descendents when homosexual acts cannot result in progeny. The same situation exists with transexualism/gender dysphoria.
The sad fact of the matter is that expressing such opinions results in the immediate branding of oneself
as a “bigot”.
@Pete #79:
Do you think heterosexuality is a learned trait?
I happen to think it’s not.
I think that the instinctive imperative to procreate is quite powerful, yet a significant number of prepubescent children develop very early signs of gender inversion, and in a number of those cases no rational explanation associated with learned behavior can be found. These cases provide the principle rationale for suggesting that not every case of behavioral deviance is identically caused by voluntary choice. And if SOME of those cases are NOT caused by choice, then what?
The biological significance of the Darwinian “dead end” that is homosexuality would have a more profound importance if humanity was in danger of extinction, but it is not. Just like gender proportions are observed to shift in some species when they become over-populated, homosexuality in humans could conceivably represent a similar built-in population pressure-relief mechanism. That the proportion of homosexuality in the human population hasn’t changed appreciably over the span of time in which such numbers have been reliably kept – in spite of a dramatic range of different social acceptance to it – might suggest that the security of the human gene pool hasn’t changed significantly over the same period, and that the population pressure hasn’t yet reached a trigger-point.
I suggest that you should NOT brand yourself a bigot.
You demonstrate a rational consideration of the information you have been provided. There is no reason that the skills you bring to bear in the evaluation of such information should be any more suspect than anyone else’s. It is statistically impossible for any of us to be either right or wrong 100% of the time.
The only significant flaw in your logic that I find is your apparent belief that the question of homosexuality must be more or less exclusively a matter of EITHER nature OR nurture, as if both influences cannot play a role in at least SOME cases. The example of diabetes is a perfect demonstration of this possibility. Some people have auto-immune suppression of their insulin at birth, while others develop that response at age 50. Of the latter, some cases are clearly the consequence of sugar/carbohydrate abuse and are observed in morbidly obese patients, while other cases are observed in skinny, chronically undernourished patients who never in their lives developed either a taste for or a habit of consuming sugars and/or carbohydrates. To categorically infer that all cases of auto-immune-presenting diabetes (as opposed to pancreatic morbidity-related diabetes) must necessarily derive from the same causal mechanism is bluntly wrong, and the similar, one-size-fits-all explanation of homosexuality is correspondingly wrong for the same reason.
At this point, you’re only a bigot if you don’t care.
@George Wells:
George, Just because we disagree, and at times become exasperated with each other during our exchanges, does NOT mean hatred exists, or that I am bothered by the exchanges. Would it really surprise you to know that my two wives and my kids have disagreements with me? Do you think I hated them for disagreeing with me?
You, Redteam, or whomever else may consider me naive for what I am about to say, but I will say it nonetheless. I absolutely, 110%, till-my-dying-breath, believe in the Hippocratic Oath. Hippocrates was not a Christian – Jesus had a few hundred years before being born when Hippocrates was laying out the foundation for modern medicine. The physician sees the human condition in all forms, and is called upon to provide care without judgement or derision. Do some physicians fail to meet that standard? Absolutely. Does that mean we should not always strive to provide medical succor to our fellow man, even when we may disagree or disapprove of the manner in which the patient chooses to live? Absolutely NOT!
You and I disagree on where to draw the line, George. I disagree with the concept of homogamy, and my view lost at the SCOTUS. Homosexuals now have the ability to get married, and I have no ability to stop such marriages from happening. All I have is the ability to NOT participate in a wedding that according to my beliefs sanctions sin. If you agree that I have that right, then we have no further issue.
@Redteam:
Redteam, I am not aware of any hospital, religious or not, that has a policy stating that will not treat homosexuals. Unless Westboro Baptist has a hospital, I honestly cannot fathom any religious hospital that would refuse to treat someone because of their sexual preference.
@Pete #81:
I have never questioned your right to not participate in something that you “believe sanctions sin.” And I have repeatedly stressed that I support religious freedom protections such as are now frequently being re-legislated as the “Right” feels increasingly threatened by the progress being made in the arena of gay rights… and in reaction to the unwise pressure to extend those victories by gay-rights activists. And I haven’t said that you are a “hater,” have I?
I HAVE, indeed, been exasperated at times by your preference to continue to use insulting terminology in company that you know is hurt by it, a habit my mother taught me was a sign of very poor manners.
I have also been rather dumbfounded by your disinterest in acknowledging – much less addressing – the points I have carefully made in an effort to divine the rational basis for your opinions. If, as is my suspicion, your opinions are nothing more informed than spiritual beliefs, you should be honest enough to say as much and foreclose on any efforts to rebut them. Otherwise, in the interest of genuine conversation, it would be nice if you would occasionally actually answer a question posed to you instead of just repeating previously stated categorical judgments.
You’re a doctor, but you cannot compare diabetes to homosexuality because you can’t get past the moral issue raised by the latter?
You’re spending a bit of time at it, so I have to assume that you LIKE to write, but you don’t seem to actually want to communicate. Why is that? If you THINK that what you are returning to me are answers to my questions, I would suggest that there is a point beyond which obtuse answers become non-answers, and you have gone beyond that point. I would like to continue our conversations, but if you don’t want to, please just say so.
@George Wells:
Fair enough, George, and an exceptionally invigorating counterpoint. The limitations of texting/email debates such as this remain an annoying problem.
Of course there is a component of both genetic predisposition AND environmental manipulation that leads to homosexual urges.
But just as the existence of diabetes, or cystic fibrosis, or bipolar disorder, or any other medical anomaly that afflicts individuals is not “normal” within the human condition and is thus treated within the capabilities of human medicine, so too should the abnormality of homosexuality, or gender dysphoria/autogynephilia, or any other anomaly of sexual desire be viewed- as it was prior to the 1973 APA meeting in San Francisco, with the hijacking of the conference and the changes made in the DSM II-R that removed homosexuality from the category of mental illness – Rather than enabling the disharmonious behavioral condition, it should be viewed as abnormal, and treated with the same dignity and compassion that alcoholism, drug addiction, or other medical affliction is treated. Under current cultural (read “PC”) ideology, such opinion as I expressed above is considered “bigotry”, and is attacked as nothing more than small-minded, archaic hatred.
The fact that there is no biological nor scientific basis for ‘normalcy’ of homosexuality, at the species level nor down to the cellular level, is ignored by the politically correct in favor of a misguided sense of compassionate tolerance towards the inversion of reality. Understand, I in no way support the persecution of those afflicted with homosexual tendencies. But I do not believe I am helping such individuals by encouraging them to engage in harmful behaviors, anymore than I would be “helping” an alcoholic by encouraging them to only drink light beer, or in telling a smoker they were ok to only smoke low tar cigarettes.
I am well aware that what I have written is considered horrific by the majority of those in medicine these days. But I cannot call truth that which I do not believe is truthful, just because it makes me unpopular to speak truth. That is as stupid as an overweight, balding, middle-aged man thinking his unseemly belly pannus is going to be attractive to a 20 year old female, especially if he chooses to wear a thong.
@George Wells:
Ok, George, let’s get down to the crux of the matter.
What “insulting” term am I using? If you are referring to my use of the term “homogamy”, may I ask how, exactly, that is an insulting term? Is “homosexual” an insulting term that can no longer be used to differentiate from “heterosexual”? Why, exactly, is the term “homogamy” offensive to you?
To your second point, what rational points have you made trying to ascertain my foundational beliefs with regard to my opposition to homosexual unions? This little debate of ours started as a discussion over our disagreement regarding where to draw the line between the 1st Amendment right to free expression of religion vs the new 14th Amendment-based right SCOTUS produced for homosexuals to marry other homosexuals. We have gone back and forth, thus far having ascertained that I believe Christians have a right not to be forced to participate in gay wedding ceremonies, while you keep insisting that there is no current way to resolve the difference of opinion. You also keep insulting me, while accusing me of insulting you, and now you seem to be saying that my position arguing for religious freedom is invalid because my opinion is based on religious belief.
George, why do you even care what my opinion of.your homosexual marriage is? Am I stopping you from being with your partner? Am I busting down your door and having you and your partner taken to jail? Am I interfering in ANY way with what you and your partner do in your daily lives? Am I forcing you to go to Mass, repent of your sins, or engage in any behavior at all? Hardly…all I am doing is stating that I and other individuals have the right to freely practice our religion, and not to be coerced into participating in acts which I believe are sinful. You then write you agree with that statement, then claim I am being inconsistent because I am not answering your questions.
Which questions, Greg?
@Pete: 79
Pete, I have believed all my life that people were homosexual because they chose to be. But I’m 75 years old now and over the last few years and listening to people such as George Wells and observing some people that I have been able to observe since their birth, has convinced me that some people are born gay and some are gay because they choose to be. I have a nephew that is about 21 years of age, and there is not a chance that he was born straight. Not a chance. He has never done one masculine action in his entire life. As I stated earlier, on the scale of 100% female to 100% male, there is someone on each spot along the way, with about 90% or so in the ‘normal’ category. Of those things you mention, why do some men have excessive body hair and some have none? Why are some people serial killers? They surely are not likely to ‘choose’ to be that way. Or pedophiles, or bipolar?
I suspect that each of these have a spot along that line. If a study were done, I’ll bet that one trait or the other would be closer to ‘female’ and one closer to ‘male’. I wouldn’t care to guess which, but i’ve always loved nice butts. I know that male pattern baldness is hereditary, but is also affected by hormones. Whether the defect is in brain wiring or chemistry or a combination of things, I believe there are reasons beyond some capabilities to deal with them.
It seems to be reasonable to assume that if a person ‘chooses’ his sexuality that he would have to make a choice to be heterosexual, rather than it being ‘born’ into him. I think that strongly supports that ‘normal’ brain wiring would result in straight or heterosexuality, whereas ‘abnormal’ brain wiring could result in something else.
@Pete: 82 I don’t know of any hospital that would be that way either, but there are many religious hospitals in the country and I don’t know all their rules. For example I’m sure most of them would not allow physicians to perform abortions there.
@Pete: 85 I basically agree with almost everything in 85. I do not believe anyone should have to participate in any homosexual activity. I do not think a church should have to host or perform a homosexual wedding. I think it is perfectly legitimate for Christians to have the freedom to not recognize or participate in any homosexual activity.
The only way for this issue to go away is to make a marriage a federal event and allow churches to perform whatever religious ceremony they choose or refuse what they choose. No state that passes a law prohibiting a gay wedding should be allowed to participate in penalizing an official for not issuing a state wedding license. They should only be issued by the federal gov.
As regards the diabetic issue. If everyone is born the same, then there wouldn’t be two scenarios, as you described them. they would all be born with the same insulin deficiency and it would all be treated the same. That would be the same as everyone being born the same, sexually. I was born 100% male in my opinion and have remained that way all my life and have never even considered anything else.
@Pete #85:
Do you press Black people to explain why they find the term “nigger” offensive? Is it necessary to know why Icelanders are slandered by the term “Mojack,” or is awareness of the insult sufficient to prevent the use of an insulting term?
Gay activists insult heterosexuals by calling them “breeders.” While a technically correct term in most cases (just like “sodomist” is in most cases technically applicable to homosexual males) the use of such terms in polite conversation serves no useful purpose. There can be found no Christian compassion or grace in the utterance of insults for the sake of technical correctness. Neither is there a legitimate place for political correctness in the scientific literature. But you are Pete, and I am George, and we are having a man-to-man conversation, not publishing research results. Being nice here won’t hurt you OR your arguments.
To try to answer your question directly rather than employ the Socratic method, I’d offer that your term “homogamy” hasn’t yet achieved a wide enough usage for a sense of its full-frontal definition to reach a useful consensus. For the limited number of people who might currently be using the term, there is no reliable contextual reference to suggest what they mean when they use it. That alone should preclude its use save for experimental purposes. But once you discover that its continued use is insulting, for whatever reason, the decision to continue to use it suggests a purpose other than accuracy. You are better than that.
(I have to save this one for the next post, but I’ll get to it. I’ve run out of time.)
That would be a rather contradictory inference on my part, considering that I have avowed support of religious freedom provisions, now wouldn’t it? I have attacked religious belief ONLY where it is used as a surrogate for scientifically verifiable fact or the formal logic of argument. In the latter, it constitutes the logical fallacy of the appeal to authority, while in the former, the only verifiable aspect of belief is that it is something that a person HAS, and that only upon personal declaration. It is both more accurate and more effective to point to the constitutional justification for protecting religious freedom, as this basis is not in dispute and short-circuits the temptation to question its legitimacy.
I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think of MY marriage. You are correct that your opinion on the matter doesn’t impact ME in any way. But this semi-private conversation we are having happens to be on a public forum, and I feel compelled to rebut you when you make statements in the public arena that I believe are incorrect. Not politically incorrect, but scientifically. That’s why I asked you if you LEARNED heterosexuality. Because I wanted to find out if you found a symmetry in both sexual orientations. If you did not (which is what I anticipate), I was interested in your reason for such an asymmetry. It is apparent from your statements that you consider homosexuality an “affliction,” but you haven’t suggested much of a cause other than personal choice, and that seems inconsistent with the evidence both I and Redteam have offered. And since you’ve been promoting the “nurture” theory of homosexuality with little wiggle-room, I think it is fair to ask how exclusive your theory really is.
Do you really need me to list them?
A couple from from #80:
And from #53:
Your discussion of the Hippocratic Oath did not address the legal aspects of this question, which is the REAL issue I have. I can take a violation of the Law to court, but I cannot argue the details of a physician’s respect for the oath he took when he earned the privilege to practice medicine.
If there is a civil right to medical treatment, where is it expressed in the law? And if such expression isn’t to be found, what makes that civil right compelling or enforceable, and why is it different from the rest of the civil rights that ARE expressed in the law?
@Pete #85 post script:
OK:
I believe that my remark that prompted this question was:
You will recall that it was my suggestion that your opinions were principally informed by your spiritual beliefs and that you should acknowledge as much instead of offering them as settled science (to generously paraphrase.)
You having said as much by virtue of repeatedly directing the discussion of your opposition to homosexual unions to your religious beliefs, something you’ve done often enough to cause the scientific reasons you’ve offered to be discounted as a diversionary tactic.
You having offered the explanation that homosexual behavior is inherently harmful without explaining how a societal embrace of monogamous commitment (a very GOOD alternative to promiscuity, you’d have to agree) vis a vis marriage is somehow any more damaging to homosexuals than it is to heterosexuals. Neither do the benefits of matrimony need to be reiterated, regardless of type.
This line of inquiry is not irrational. I was, as you put it, “trying to ascertain (your) foundational beliefs with regard to (your) opposition to homosexual unions” because the answer would speak to the basis for laws and courts decisions that address the constitutional conflict presented by the religious freedom debate. Your words as written:
I didn’t actually insist that there isn’t a way to resolve the difference. The SCOTUS will ultimately settle this dispute, just as it settled the question of same-sex marriage (though the resolution is likely to be more complicated than the marriage decision) and while the decision won’t change anyone’s BELIEF, it WILL answer and SETTLE the legal question. It was the legal question I was exploring, not your right to believe what you will.
THAT question is already resolved.
One last, almost irrelevant question. You stated:
This statement was certainly statistically correct a hundred years ago, but since then, the incidence of diabetes in the population has exploded, what, a hundred-fold? A thousand-fold? How high does the incidence of a trait have to get before it can be considered “normal”? Is there any reason to believe that the incidence of diabetes will plateau at some point BELOW where it will become the rule rather than the exception? As the term “normal” is a statistical expression of the incidence of a particular trait in a population, what happens when that trait becomes statistically normal?
I think that you can see where this line of questioning is headed. At the hypothetical point that 51% of the population is homosexual (something not necessarily impossible, as rationally suggested by the point I raised about gender proportions in over-populating species that you neglected to answer) doesn’t homosexuality BECOME “normal”?
I’m not holding my breath for it to happen, but it IS worth noting that there is mischief buried in the obsession over “normalcy.” It is because so much bigotry has been camouflaged by discrimination justified in the name of “normalcy” that the term has become politically incorrect. I would counsel you not to add fuel to that debate.
@George Wells: Homogamy? I had to look that one up. Never heard it before. It will never get to be in common usage because it doesn’t appear to mean anything. While ‘nigger’ is an intentionally derogatory term, I see nothing in homogamy that is derogatory, in my opinion. I have also never heard of hetero’s being referred to as ‘breeders’, is that supposed to be derogatory? Wouldn’t mean anything to me. I see where people say the term ‘crackers’ is derogatory to white people. I grew up in Georgia and everyone there was a proud Georgia Cracker, still am. Certainly not ‘derogatory’. All in the eye of the beholder.
My problem with gay marriage is, where does it end? If marriage has always meant a man and a woman are paired together and now it no longer means that, where is the end point? If you really wanted to marry your dog, why can’t you? If you wanted to declare your automobile as being your marriage partner, why not? Is it okay for you to marry your mother? If not, why not? If who or what you marry is determined by what you perceive your ‘rights’ to be, why is there a limit to what you can demand your right to be? Society has to have some laws (if any kind of order is to be maintained)
I’m not trying to be derogatory in stating this, but I don’t believe it to be an ‘affliction’. My personal belief is that homosexuality is likely a combination of defective brain wiring and chemical imbalance. (birth defects). If that is fact, then I still see no need to ‘normalize’ it by allowing aberrations in society to accommodate these defects, any more so than allowing pedophiles to practice their aberrations or allowing serial killers to practice theirs. Some of these defects are a little more amenable to being allowed to ‘participate’ in society as, for example, bipolar. Is ‘allowing’ open homosexuality harmful to society? Ask those 10 year old boys that have been indoctrinated by their local homo if it was harmful? Two adult men or women living together as mates, not likely to be harmful to anyone.
@Redteam #91:
“‘breeders’, is that supposed to be derogatory?”
That’s the idea. It demeans the human act of child-rearing to the level of animal husbandry. I think that fits the definition of “derogatory.”
Pete’s preference to use the term “homogamy” in the place of same-sex marriage similarly demeans the bond between same-sex couples to the same clinical terminology that describes the mating tendencies of animals. Marriage is simply an analogous term that applies to human beings, and Pete presumes to dehumanize homosexuals and insults them in the process.
“My problem with gay marriage is, where does it end?”
The same question could have been asked about heterosexual marriage, but that wouldn’t have been a reason to deny straight people the right to marry. Each potential paring category must be and IS evaluated on its OWN merits, not on something different. I DO find it curious that YOUR marriage is somehow damaged by who someone ELSE marries. YOUR marriage mustn’t mean much to you in the first place, or else it mustn’t be very secure…
“why is there a limit to what you can demand your right to be?”
Poorly worded question. I believe that you already KNOW that any citizen has the right to DEMAND whatever he wants to demand – a right protected by constitutional guarantees of free speech. What you CAN’T expect is that your every “demand” will be granted. But why am I telling you this. You already know it. Clean up your grammer.
“homosexuality as an “affliction,”
I was commenting on the term Pete used, not my own.
Your theory about homosexuality is largely uninformed and irrelevant.
“Is ‘allowing’ open homosexuality harmful to society? Ask those 10 year old boys that have been indoctrinated by their local homo if it was harmful?”
Wrong question again.
“Is allowing open heterosexuality harmful to society? Ask those 10 year old girls who were raped by their uncle.”
See the similarity?
It isn’t open homosexuality or open heterosexuality that commits those crimes, and it isn’t homosexuality or heterosexuality that needs to be punished for them. It is the perpetrators of those crimes who need to be brought to justice.
WOW!
Post #92 leaves a stunned pack in silence!
Failure to rebut equals surrender.
I accept yours.
@George Wells: 92 didn’t expect you to reply, as you said you weren’t replying, but:
I asked that because, as I said, I’ve never heard it used in the manner you state and it doesn’t appear to mean anything significant. Not sure why having children is derogatory.
doesn’t matter what his preference is. The word is not in common usage and will never be because it doesn’t sound evil and most have no clue what it means. Even after looking it up on Dictionary dot com, it’s still not clear to me what it means. Make what you like of it, no one will care.
could have? but it wasn’t. it was clear that a marriage was an event originally to pair a man and woman to propagate the earth. How many species is a two male or two female coupling normal in nature? One thing for sure, they don’t propagate.
And I said that where? I’ve been married almost 56 years to the same little lady and neither of us have ever had an affair and we have many children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, none of which you will ever have. But if you don’t care, I sure don’t. You can’t demean my marriage, only me or my wife can do that. You don’t have a marriage to demean, so even you can’t demean what you don’t have.
Not poorly worded at all, said exactly what I intended. Just because you have a right to demand whatever you wish, doesn’t mean the demand has to be satisfied by anyone other than yourself. As you well know because you said the same thing:
grammer? is that supposed to be ‘grammar’? I doubt that you regularly communicate with anyone that regularly uses grammar as well as I do. But, I’m not a fanatic about it. I will say that you usually do very well at it also. I’m not going to get into a grammar grading contest with you or anyone, this is the internet, after all.
I find that rather humorous as I’ve formed most of my recent thoughts about the reasons for homosexuality from things you have written. You have said regularly that you believe it is primarily due to a defect in brain wiring. That is very plausible and I see no reason to disagree with you on that. I think it is also likely due to a chemical imbalance. The wiring problem probably can’t be corrected, the chemical one, if it exists, might be correctable. I don’t care either way.
Wrong comparison, that would not be homosexuality, but more likely pedophilia, very closely related to homosexuality.
Uh, no. One is man-boy, homosexual other is man-girl, heterosexual = normal except for serious age difference.
You were the one that said you were not going to respond to me, I just got the email that showed you had responded.
@Redteam #94:
I already explained why “Breeders” and “Homogamy” are insulting terms. An insulting term doesn’t have to be in wide use – and it doesn’t have to make a lick of sense – for it to be insulting to use. I Black child doesn’t have to understand the etymology of the term “nigger” to appreciate the spirit in which it is used and to distinguish which usages of the word are intended to be insulting. It has nothing to do with what some dictionary says or doesn’t say about it.
No, RIGHT comparison.
The rape of a 10-year-old boy is no more or less a crime than the rape of a 10-year-old girl. Neither rape is tolerable or justifiable. Neither rape is an excuse to persecute an entire class of people. EACH rape is a reason to PROSECUTE the rapist. How stupid do you have to be to argue with this?
IDIOT!
@George Wells:
Well, you attempted to do that, but weren’t successful because just because you ‘think’ a term is insulting doesn’t make it so. Only to you. Neither of those words are now in general use and I predict will never be because nothing in either is suggestive of anything derogatory to a normal average person.
I disagree that that term is derogatory to a black person. They are the people that use it most. Most people, in my opinion, rarely use terms about themselves that they consider to be an insult. The feeling of insult is selective and therefore, meaningless.
Whoops, your bad. You didn’t use that comparison as relates to criminality. You said: “Is allowing open heterosexuality harmful to society? Ask those 10 year old girls who were raped by their uncle.” While I think they are equal in criminality, one is a homosexual act, one is not. So not only would the boy have to deal with being raped, he has to deal with it being a homosexual. While the girl is raped, at least the sexual act is the one normally done between a male and female. I’m not claiming either is good. but one is certainly worse than the other.
Your boyfriend cut you off again?