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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: GLBT is a facade
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The great irony here is that I'm yet to discover any basis for heterosexuals feeling that marriage is 'under attack' other than an irrational perception that I'm NOT like you
That's all that matters anymore, though. You are "other." It's all that has mattered in US politics for the past two years. It's what drives this right-wing loonery.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
...In the UK, within my parents' lifetime, we have gone from male homosexuality being a criminal offence - and not an obsolete one on the statute books, but one actually enforced - to recognising gay relationships as similar to marriage. There has been an absolutely staggering change in the feelings and thoughts of the majority straight population. There's still a way to go for full acceptance and equality, of course, but to suggest that all that's changed is the law, and not attitudes as well, is absurd.
I think you're conflating two different attitudes here. One is biological, the other is a social more. Social mores can change, especially these days because of legislation. Society isn't necessarily enhanced by the compromises, however. We all notice the distancing of people from each other over perceived differences. In our day we have far greater differences than societies dealt with in the past: and mainly because of this shift toward the equal rights movement(s). Yes, we are made "equal under the law". But we also retain our prejudices that are visceral, biological mandates on our natural feelings. Nothing is more clearly defined in this area than sexuality. You think that just because human reason has sided with "live and let live", i.e. equal rights for homosexuals, that the visceral disgust of the biological imperative is somehow weakened in most heterosexuals? Look at your own sexuality for the answer to that one.
quote:
... I don't believe that even if the population is 99% straight, it is inevitable that gay marriage will be thought of as second class.
Why is "equal under the law" deemed inevitably "second class" if you can't have the word "marriage" in the legalese? This is not rational. Neither is assuming that if and when you get your way, this will affect heterosexuality such that most of "us" will be accepting your lifestyle without batting an eye.
(again for clarification: my use of "us" and "you" refers to the general classes of hetero and homosexuals, regardless of the post I am responding to)
quote:
I do not think it is too much for the average person's levels of empathy to imagine that a gay person's feelings for their partner are pretty much the same as a straight person's.
If feelings and empathy were all that is involved I'd agree with you. But we are talking about real people with deep-seated biological points of view overlaid on religion and their perception of sexual ethics, etc. What you are not pessimistic about seems to be an inexplicable overturning of our entire evolutionary structure in the main.
quote:
You can't determine "our" feelings about "you" through rewriting any laws or bringing about new ones.... quote:
In fact, you can. Laws can make a difference to behaviour and opinion. They can't require a change of attitude, of course, but they certainly can be an influence. Are you going to suggest that (for example) liberalising divorce or abortion laws NEVER results in greater public acceptance of divorce or abortion?
Only a portion of society as a whole; never the main part that once held a point of view that is essentially centered on a biological imperative.
For instance, racial prejudice is never going to entirely vanish or even significantly diminish any further as long as sexual attraction is involved: simply because some races are repugnant in appearance, which transforms into a racial rejection. A mature, compassionate person will train himself to behave justly toward all human beings; but that is a learned response demanded by a society that promotes justice for all. Divorce and abortion are not biologically mandated; sexuality is. That's why comparing this "marriage for all" issue to that kind of societal change wrought by changes in the laws is comparing disparate issues.
quote:
But in any case, that's not the point. I support gay marriage because I am part of your "We, the People" whose feelings have changed already.
I support "equality under the law". As noted by others, a significant portion of the GLBTQ community are satisfied with their unions being equally recognized by the "black-letter-law" (what a useful term!). So you are advocating more than many of the people you are supporting do.
quote:
Earlier generations saw homosexuality as an immoral, degenerate, and disgusting practice - even when (in a triumph of decency and good sense) they were deciding that it shouldn't actually be criminal. I don't. For me, it's just different. There are issues raised about it if one happens to belong to certain religions, but no issue about it at all in secular morality. It's uncommon (compared to being straight), but uncontroversial.
Hardly uncontroversial while an enormous religious prohibition yet exists. I agree that the uniting of two people under some kind of "domestic partnership" is a secular business. The word "marriage" is tied in the religious world view to "before God", and "holy matrimony", etc. So-called liberal off-shoots of various religions which now permit same-sex "marriages" have the right to perform whatever ceremony they choose: but unless the secular law recognizes such they are of no effect. Even when recognized, the secular legalese usually recognizes such as "civil unions" not "marriages", regardless of the religious nomenclature voiced in the ceremony. So you can't expect this to simplify itself and disappear.
quote:
So I don't want marriage as "our" straight symbol. I don't see straights as an "us" to be defined against a homosexual "you".
This term I have never used: I find it very odd, that "straight" is even acceptable to the GLBTQs; it implies that "they" are not straight, which means, what? Crooked? Confused? QUESTIONING?
quote:
If a gay couple wants to get married (even if the law calls it a civil partnership), I'm as pleased for them as for a straight couple.
I won't claim that I am as pleased, not by a stretch. But I am more satisfied by that concept than pushing them into the dark and denying their existence. Couples in love should be free to live together like everyone else.
quote:
I approve of marriage. I want there to be more loving, committed, married couples. It strengthens my own marriage, if I live in a society where getting married is "the done thing" and marriage generally is esteemed. With marriage these days increasingly seen as optional, and divorce rates high, it would seem nuts to me, as a supporter of marriage, to want to exclude from marriage a group of people who are positively eager to marry and to honour the very institution which I want to encourage.
Sentimentally I agree totally. Pragmatically, biologically, I can't see weird sexuality without being creeped out by it. I am not in a minority here; everyone is creeped out by some manifestations of sexuality (I say "everyone" in the sense that we are talking about normal people and not perverts that ought to be locked up or executed). And the religious aspects I already referred to, alone, will mandate definitions upon words that are inescapable. You've already alienated religious conservatives by the countless millions with your liberal view. The sentiment is laudable. And I share the sentiments about couples in love being free to share that without "under the law" meaning "with prejudice". But the historical, traditional, RELIGIOUS meaning of "marriage" is NOT secular in the least.
The division remains if that word gets co-opted; in the view of those I have described, "marriage" the word cannot be shared with homosexuality....
Posts: 3499 | Registered: Jan 2007
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
quote:
Why is "equal under the law" deemed inevitably "second class" if you can't have the word "marriage" in the legalese?
Because it is a legal principle that "seperate but equal is inherently unequal". Remember that phrase?
quote:
For instance, racial prejudice is never going to entirely vanish or even significantly diminish any further as long as sexual attraction is involved: simply because some races are repugnant in appearance, which transforms into a racial rejection.
WTF???????? ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
...
None of that has any relevance to the point you are trying make. They might be reasons for you to think that gay couples are deluded, immoral, insane, unpopular, or whatever. But where is the logical connection between that and using the law to prevent them calling themselves married if they want to?
In fact I don't think of homosexuals in those ways at all. I've already (in the OP, even) pointed out that "immoral" applies equally to everyone. It has a limited definition where sexuality is considered: betrayal of "the other" by sexual infidelity; or of the self by sexual promiscuity. I judge INDIVIDUALS to be insane, unpopular, deluded, whatever: I never brand groups of people.
GLBTQs can call their commitment to each other whatever pleases them. The battle is over the secular control of the legalese. That matters to religious people primarily in this case; but "ethical" people without a religious "gene" in their bodies also dislike "marriage" being altered into what it has never meant.
quote:
And you still haven't explained why you keep on using words like "stealing" or "stolen". Plenty of people have tried to ask what you mean by it, but no answer.
What is stolen? What did you used to have that you no longer have? What has been taken away from you? If nothing has, how can anything have been stolen?
I guess you don't emote with the popular antipathy regarding "words have meaning". Perhaps you don't care if "the Mother tongue" gets altered beyond repair or not. Liberalism creates all manner of new definitions "just because". But some, a few like "marriage", really ought to be saved; to connect us to our past as much as possible. Or perhaps you don't care about that either. In the future where "marriage" means any old domestic partnership, kids in school will not have a clue that once-upon-a-time homosexuals couldn't even admit their sexuality publicly, and "married" ones were unthinkable, unheard of. If "marriage" remains defined as "man and woman", then the historical truth remains as well. I think that is important. So co-opting, "stealing", is what is advocated for by the more radical GLBTQs. It seems simple enough....
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Well Merlin, now we're getting somewhere because you're frankly relating this to religious belief.
I don't believe that the Bible says anything against homosexuality in general, only against particular practices.
I can happily agree to disagree with you on that, because it's purely a matter of belief. But let us at least be open about it if religious belief is the ground for the argument.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
I am no longer going to participate in this thread.
Being reminded each morning that I'm thought of as some kind of sick freak who needs to be handled at arm's length, lest I ruin everything, is having a noticeable effect on my mental health.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
But we also retain our prejudices that are visceral, biological mandates on our natural feelings. Nothing is more clearly defined in this area than sexuality. You think that just because human reason has sided with "live and let live", i.e. equal rights for homosexuals, that the visceral disgust of the biological imperative is somehow weakened in most heterosexuals? Look at your own sexuality for the answer to that one.
Your prejudice, this "disgust" you feel *is* the result of a social more, and nothing more. Having grown up on a farm I know there is nothing biologically disgusting about homosexual relations - they're extremely common among animals. I know I certainly don't feel it as a dyed in the wool hetero either...I have no interest in sex w/ a man, but there's nothing repulsive about such.
It's purely social, and is rapidly changing.
Feel free to not keep up, but don't try to legislate the small-minded details of your disgust on the rest of people.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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PataLeBon
Shipmate
# 5452
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
quote:
For instance, racial prejudice is never going to entirely vanish or even significantly diminish any further as long as sexual attraction is involved: simply because some races are repugnant in appearance, which transforms into a racial rejection.
WTF????????
I second that.
I married (and I mean to stay with them forever and ever) someone of a different race. I don't remember anyone saying that because we are different races that it was wonderful that we didn't see each other as being repugnant.
I do remember the talks about different cultures, but not looks....
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That's between you and your god. Oh, wait a minute. You are your god. That's a problem. - Jack O'Neill (Stargate SG1)
Posts: 1907 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2004
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
But we also retain our prejudices that are visceral, biological mandates on our natural feelings. Nothing is more clearly defined in this area than sexuality. You think that just because human reason has sided with "live and let live", i.e. equal rights for homosexuals, that the visceral disgust of the biological imperative is somehow weakened in most heterosexuals? Look at your own sexuality for the answer to that one.
Your prejudice, this "disgust" you feel *is* the result of a social more, and nothing more. Having grown up on a farm I know there is nothing biologically disgusting about homosexual relations - they're extremely common among animals. I know I certainly don't feel it as a dyed in the wool hetero either...I have no interest in sex w/ a man, but there's nothing repulsive about such.
It's purely social, and is rapidly changing.
Feel free to not keep up, but don't try to legislate the small-minded details of your disgust on the rest of people.
And contrariwise I've no interest in having sex with a woman, but I don't wander around in a state of permanent repulsion direct against all the straight people around me. Why, some of my best friends are straight, some of them even married. (gosh) If I can accept being surrounded by people unlike me in this particular biological characteristic perfectly happily, I don't see why it can't work the other way around.
Oh, and I'll add another 'WTF?' to the comment about race. Any particular groups you find particularly repellent, or do you just not like anybody if they look 'diff'runt'?
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Flinging wide the gates...
Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
For instance, racial prejudice is never going to entirely vanish or even significantly diminish any further as long as sexual attraction is involved: simply because some races are repugnant in appearance,
Sorry, but I'm having the teensiest bit of trouble unpacking this. Would you mind explaining how someone can be sexually attracted to an individual of another race while simultaneously finding that individual repugnant on the basis of racial differences (assuming the existence of these outside of various fevered imaginations)?
On second thought, no. Don't explain. I'm probably much better off not knowing.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
(again for clarification: my use of "us" and "you" refers to the general classes of hetero and homosexuals, regardless of the post I am responding to)
I just thought it was worth highlighting this as I found it quite revealing.
quote:
But we are talking about real people with deep-seated biological points of view overlaid on religion and their perception of sexual ethics, etc. What you are not pessimistic about seems to be an inexplicable overturning of our entire evolutionary structure in the main.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, could you please provide some evidence for your assertion that dislike/disgust/whatever of homosexuality is a biological, evolved trait and not cultural?
quote:
The word "marriage" is tied in the religious world view to "before God", and "holy matrimony", etc. So-called liberal off-shoots of various religions which now permit same-sex "marriages" have the right to perform whatever ceremony they choose: but unless the secular law recognizes such they are of no effect. Even when recognized, the secular legalese usually recognizes such as "civil unions" not "marriages", regardless of the religious nomenclature voiced in the ceremony. So you can't expect this to simplify itself and disappear.
Possibly, but "the religious world view" is not universal. In this country, couples who have a civil ceremony conducted by a registrar (where anything religious was until recently explicitly forbidden) are just as "married" as those who were married in church. Personally, I think of "married" as a legal term rather than a religious one. I am not sure if this is a pond difference or more of a personal one.
BTW I third Nicolemrw's post. Almost exactly my reaction.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well Merlin, now we're getting somewhere because you're frankly relating this to religious belief.
I don't believe that the Bible says anything against homosexuality in general, only against particular practices.
I can happily agree to disagree with you on that, because it's purely a matter of belief. But let us at least be open about it if religious belief is the ground for the argument.
It may be a matter of degree, but pretty much every religious person believes in sexual purity and fidelity. And since 90 to 99% are heterosexual it follows that THEIR interpretation of the Bible is going to be hard against ALL homosexuality; just like they are hard against fornication and adultery (or molesting children - the closest the Bible comes to directly addressing this is Jesus' condemnation in Matthew 18:6).
Objection to asserted bigotry because it is religiously based is one of the oldest tactics of the Neo-Liberals. Nothing is more simple than to dismiss the objector as being a homophobe.
But religious objection is a freedom of expression in the USofA too. Last I heard, new religious minority interpretations of the Bible (or Quran for that matter) do not possess more weight than the vast majority interpretations.
I happen to not base my objections about the assault on the word "marriage" on religious reasons. I'm acknowledging the reality here: religious belief is shared far more than disagreed upon....
Posts: 3499 | Registered: Jan 2007
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I am no longer going to participate in this thread.
Being reminded each morning that I'm thought of as some kind of sick freak who needs to be handled at arm's length, lest I ruin everything, is having a noticeable effect on my mental health.
I am truly sorry if you feel this way. Just because I expect "you" to keep your sexuality discretely hidden from public demonstration/view isn't me telling you that "you" are freaks. I don't want to know anything about ANY of my neighbors' sexuality, period.
Just because you are in an extreme minority position, because your sexuality isn't shared by the vast majority of society, is reason enough to feel weird or like a visitor to a strange world. But as long as the aliens who inhabit this strange world are willing to ignore your weirdness and grant you equal rights under the law, your stay here should be bearable?
Don't piss off the natives. "When in Rome", etc., that's good advice for any group of people who find themselves surrounded by a prevailing culture.
But if you agitate to force change upon the world to suit your views, expect an enormous reaction....
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
...
It's purely social, and is rapidly changing.
Feel free to not keep up, but don't try to legislate the small-minded details of your disgust on the rest of people.
What a response! How am I "legislating" anything? The majority have the right to retain the meaning of the words that are the official language. The MINORITY do not have that right. That's called democracy.
I assert that the changes are just about done. Only minor fluctuations are going to occur from this point on.
Your farmyard experiences notwithstanding, until recent times the vast majority of people were farmers; yet we have this strongly embeded, heterosexual religious view. You dismiss the biological mandate of our very evolution, and ascribe it to merely a "learned" social more. Sexuality is far more biological than it is some inculcated social response to PC behavior! Otherwise we'd see a lot more people keen on the "animal" behavior that you admit watching as you grew up....
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PataLeBon:
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
quote:
For instance, racial prejudice is never going to entirely vanish or even significantly diminish any further as long as sexual attraction is involved: simply because some races are repugnant in appearance, which transforms into a racial rejection.
WTF????????
I second that.
I married (and I mean to stay with them forever and ever) someone of a different race. I don't remember anyone saying that because we are different races that it was wonderful that we didn't see each other as being repugnant.
I do remember the talks about different cultures, but not looks....
I point out an obvious, broadly-shared fact within our shared society: and by pointing it out I become it? How does that figure?
Personally I find women of all races gorgeous when they are, and plain or unattractive when they are not gorgeous; it is an individual thing and has nothing to do with "race" (which, if you have been reading what I say, you'll recall that I dismiss as a fallacy: there is no "race", only homo sapiens adapted to climatic, geographical differences). I can also look at men and determine for myself whether or not they are handsome; or if I were a woman if I would find them attractive, etc. This has nothing at all to do with what a huge segment of the human race does when looking upon "races" other than their own.
We live in the aftermath of the racial segregationists, after all. And just as many heterosexuals have merely fallen silent on the matter of "gay marriage", many, many racially prejudiced silent people remain in our midst and always will....
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
...
quote:
But we are talking about real people with deep-seated biological points of view overlaid on religion and their perception of sexual ethics, etc. What you are not pessimistic about seems to be an inexplicable overturning of our entire evolutionary structure in the main.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, could you please provide some evidence for your assertion that dislike/disgust/whatever of homosexuality is a biological, evolved trait and not cultural?
Arguably, the evidence and overwhelming accepted belief is what I said. If you dispute that, it is up to YOU to provide "evidence for your assertion" that homosexuality IN HUMANS (the only sapient species in the universe that we know of) is merely a learned, inculcated, societal response to sexuality. As the evidence supports heterosexuality as natural and imperative, it follows that homosexuality is otherwise: it may go through fluctuations of increase and decrease in the population because of population density changes and other factors: and this may be natural and evolutionary too: but a visceral attraction of the vast majority toward the opposite gender is surely mandated by evolution to provide for survival of the species. To assert otherwise, as you are apparently doing here, requires evidence.
Or am I detecting the forbidden subject: a hidden agenda (desire) to "convert" many heterosexuals into becoming at least bisexuals?
quote:
..."the religious world view" is not universal. In this country, couples who have a civil ceremony conducted by a registrar (where anything religious was until recently explicitly forbidden) are just as "married" as those who were married in church. Personally, I think of "married" as a legal term rather than a religious one. I am not sure if this is a pond difference or more of a personal one.
...
Someone pointed out that NZ and UK "marriage" definitions do not match up; "civil union" definitions do, and are recognized in both countries. So the legalese you assume exists as "married" for the "civil ceremony" probably doesn't exist. It seems that even in enlightened Britain, the old ingrained religious mores hold sway in the legalese....
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
Ack! I missed the edit slit (hardly long enough to be called a "window"):
If you dispute that, it is up to YOU to provide "evidence for your assertion" that heterosexuality IN HUMANS (the only sapient species in the universe that we know of) is merely a learned, inculcated, societal response to sexuality.
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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
I point out an obvious, broadly-shared fact within our shared society: and by pointing it out I become it? How does that figure?
Because the statement "some races are repugnant in appearance" is not an obvious, broadly-shared fact?
I'm just guessing here.
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"He was wrong in the long run, but then, who isn't?" - Tony Judt
Posts: 6917 | From: pob dydd Iau, am hanner dydd | Registered: Apr 2001
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
It may be a matter of degree, but pretty much every religious person believes in sexual purity and fidelity. And since 90 to 99% are heterosexual it follows that THEIR interpretation of the Bible is going to be hard against ALL homosexuality
Utter bullshit. Just like everything else you've typed in this thread.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Ack! I missed the edit slit (hardly long enough to be called a "window"):
If you dispute that, it is up to YOU to provide "evidence for your assertion" that heterosexuality IN HUMANS (the only sapient species in the universe that we know of) is merely a learned, inculcated, societal response to sexuality.
I was not arguing that homosexuality is learned but that an extremely negative reaction to it is. If that is not what you were saying, I apologise for misunderstanding you again.
I will get back to you on the civil marriage issue when I have done the research.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
..."the religious world view" is not universal. In this country, couples who have a civil ceremony conducted by a registrar (where anything religious was until recently explicitly forbidden) are just as "married" as those who were married in church. Personally, I think of "married" as a legal term rather than a religious one. I am not sure if this is a pond difference or more of a personal one.
Someone pointed out that NZ and UK "marriage" definitions do not match up; "civil union" definitions do, and are recognized in both countries. So the legalese you assume exists as "married" for the "civil ceremony" probably doesn't exist. It seems that even in enlightened Britain, the old ingrained religious mores hold sway in the legalese....
I have not found a copy of the relevant legislation yet, but
this page suggests that, as far as the govt is concerned, the civil ceremony is a marriage and, therefore, I assume that those who have gone through such a ceremony are married.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
This looks like pretty good legalese to me.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
Wrong way round Merlin - marriage definitions match up, civil union definitions don't.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Merlin-
You've repeatedly referred to marriage as a religious institution, complaining that it's being take over by secular civil law--that's just contrary to history. Marriage is, in its origins, a social convention that has been imbued with sacramental meaning by the Judeo-Christian tradition, but it's not a religious matter for most cultures in human history (even in Christian society it didn't require clergy until the end of the middle ages)--it's mainly been about mundane matters like property and inheritance (and male control of female reproductive capacity). Marriage is whatever a given society decides to make it--it has no intrinsic essence--anthropologists used to claim that marriage was one of those "cultural universals," but the only way to define it as universal is to broaden the definition so much as to empty it of all real meaning. This society is in the process of defining it as a union of two people in a loving sexual relationship, and that's pretty irreversible by now, though it'll be another generation before it's so taken for granted that no one even questions it any more (look at the survey statistics). Get over it--if you don't, your children will.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
Merlin, just because you've been carefully taught to hate and fear those different from you doesn't mean that the rest of us have. I'm hetero. I find the notion of finding a man's private parts sexy to be confusing. This doesn't mean that I think homosexuality should be banned. Far from it; the more men chasing each other rather than in loveless marriages, the more unpartnered women... (Being serious I simply wouldn't wish a fake marriage on anyone). And most straight men I know that aren't in the closet think the same way. The homophobes who want homosexuality banned aren't amongst the 90% in my experience - they are either among the subset of the 10% that are so far in the closet they can see Narnia or those who get off on hatred.
And there's nothing preventing gay people following purity and fidelity rules, same as everyone else. Just because I find it unattractive - I also find bottle blondes with breast implants very unattractive. Doesn't mean I'll stand in their way. Now, as a straight man, stop projecting your homophobia on me. It's because I'm straight that I have very little emotional reaction to such things - but I do have a reaction when someone wants to hurt my friends or deny them happiness (as you do).
Which is it, Merlin? Are you in the closet and that's why this touches you deeply? Or have you had the lesson that you should hate and fear drummed in your dear little ear? (Based on your equally racist views, I'm going to say the latter - believe it or not, not everyone finds the same things attractive that you do.)
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by dyfrig:
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
I point out an obvious, broadly-shared fact within our shared society: and by pointing it out I become it? How does that figure?
Because the statement "some races are repugnant in appearance" is not an obvious, broadly-shared fact?
I'm just guessing here.
The confusion is that I am OBSERVING human behavior. Do you claim to be one of the minority who do NOT find ANY physical types (what "we" erroneously call "race") repulsive?...
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
Merlin-
You've repeatedly referred to marriage as a religious institution, complaining that it's being take over by secular civil law--that's just contrary to history. Marriage is, in its origins, a social convention that has been imbued with sacramental meaning by the Judeo-Christian tradition, but it's not a religious matter for most cultures in human history (even in Christian society it didn't require clergy until the end of the middle ages)--it's mainly been about mundane matters like property and inheritance (and male control of female reproductive capacity).
We agree on this. I was pointing out how a MAJORITY of people view "marriage" in Western culture, particularly the USofA, as that is my personal concern. Pointing this perception out in no way revises history: it only shows that prevailing social mores are what lie behind the feelings of resistance to any change to the meaning of the word "marriage". The religious see "God" behind the institution: the irreligious, yet hardwired heterosexual, see the historical definition - "man and woman" - and resent that being lost, eroded, destroyed.
quote:
Marriage is whatever a given society decides to make it--it has no intrinsic essence--
Of course. But being hasty, impatient and pushy about your desired changes to the language are running face-on into a wall of resistance.
Obviously, if hypothetically you could get everyone into a forum to discuss and follow up with a vote: and you convinced the vast majority of people to go for it, you could redefine "marriage" to mean whatever "we the people" choose it to mean. But that's not only a fantasy hypothesis, it is impossible.
quote:
anthropologists used to claim that marriage was one of those "cultural universals," but the only way to define it as universal is to broaden the definition so much as to empty it of all real meaning.
How so? I am sure that anthropology is only speaking to the evolutionary consistency of heterosexual union assuring survival. That is ONE kind of marriage only. And that is proven factually; 1 to 10% of a population don't assure anything about the future survival or extinction of a species.
quote:
This society is in the process of defining it as a union of two people in a loving sexual relationship, and that's pretty irreversible by now, though it'll be another generation before it's so taken for granted that no one even questions it any more (look at the survey statistics). Get over it--if you don't, your children will.
Not so. THIS society is wrangling over what a legally recognized UNION even means. "Domestic partnership" is devoid of sexual connotations. But unfortunately, the USofA hardly knows that Tasmania exists so isn't taking a lesson.
"You" cannot switch back and forth between saying, "sex has nothing to do with it", and "defining [marriage] as a union of two people in a loving sexual relationship". This just points out the lack of unity on what the GLBTQ community actually wants: just as some want "marriage" in the legalese, and some are satisfied with equal rights under the law, with "civil union" or any other legalese description.
I agree that this will be resolved in some future generation. Mine will be long gone.
I don't have anything to "get over"; other than hating to see the language co-opted by an extreme minority group. From my gut I support majorities getting to have their way in such matters as definitions in their laws being worded to their satisfaction. The way this issue is going, a "new suspect class" minority group is being created on an utterly flimsy excuse (sexual attraction); and that advocacy group is insisting that their definition of "marriage" trumps the majority's definition. That pisses me off....
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
I guess I'm part of that "minority" too. I happen to think that most people are, in which case it's hardly a minority.
I do not find people of any race repulsive.
I find bigotry repulsive. I find racism repulsive. I find homophobia repulsive.
Somehow I don't think this is a minority viewpoint.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Merlin, just because you've been carefully taught to hate and fear those different from you
Oh, please! I was never taught to hate any people, only certain physical behaviors as "sinful". And I have long since abandoned any "God said so" causes behind my personal beliefs. But I won't lie to myself about my instinctive, biological imperatives. Everyone else has theirs too. It annoys me to talk with so many people who claim that their minds are somehow separate from their biology.
quote:
I'm hetero. I find the notion of finding a man's private parts sexy to be confusing.
Oh, please, again! It is a fact that MOST men are fascinated by their own junk, and make comparisons all the time to other men. Don't bother to protest or I will think less of you as an honest person.
quote:
This doesn't mean that I think homosexuality should be banned. Far from it; the more men chasing each other rather than in loveless marriages, the more unpartnered women... (Being serious I simply wouldn't wish a fake marriage on anyone).
I never said homosexuality should be banned either. I never have. It has existed throughout history. I used to be concerned about sexual immorality as a scourge undermining our strength as a society: I used to angst that immorality was increasing as "the end times" drew near: so that caused me to look upon homosexuals who indulged their urges as little better than duped minions of the devil. I awoke to the reality that the world is on the contrary IMPROVING generally, with a few "hot spots" of unrest and languishing inequality. The West is concerned to upgrade everyone to a good living standard and opened opportunities to education and equality with "us". That cannot fit the apocalyptic image of a "fallen world" hastening to the fiery destruction of the wicked: there is no rapidly hastening "separation of the righteous and the wicked" as I was raised to believe.
quote:
...
And there's nothing preventing gay people following purity and fidelity rules, same as everyone else.
Well, sure. That's what my OP proposed: equal and fair treatment based on the SAME "laws" of sexual morality. Not religious ones, to be sure: but social laws of equality will only work if everyone defines what fidelity means without any gender considerations whatsoever.
quote:
Just because I find it unattractive - I also find bottle blondes with breast implants very unattractive.
Ooo, Pamela Anderson. Mmmm. I like 'em all, women I mean.
quote:
Doesn't mean I'll stand in their way. Now, as a straight man, stop projecting your homophobia on me.
I will not stop "projecting" whatever it is that you want to call it. That's your problem not mine. No matter how many times I say it in how many ways, some people just can't read for context. They don't recognize truth in the written word. I don't possess a homophobic bone in my body.
quote:
It's because I'm straight that I have very little emotional reaction to such things - but I do have a reaction when someone wants to hurt my friends or deny them happiness (as you do).
Consider this a challenge, since you keep underscoring this assertion of homophobia in me: find ONE contextual comment of mine where I have advocated hurting homosexuals or denying them happiness.
quote:
Which is it, Merlin? Are you in the closet and that's why this touches you deeply? Or have you had the lesson that you should hate and fear drummed in your dear little ear? (Based on your equally racist views, I'm going to say the latter - believe it or not, not everyone finds the same things attractive that you do.)
Ah, the "racist card", yet again. Did you bother reading through this thread?
The last c. three pages have been almost exclusively a debate on the (un)wisdom of fighting to change the word "marriage" in the legalese to mean something it has never meant before. I said that this "fight" matters to me: both because I like to preserve the definition of ancient words/concepts, and I can't resist a lost cause: they draw me in when they are right. The rightness and wrongness of homosexuality is not what this discussion is about. Get up to speed.
I don't discuss my sexuality with anyone I'm not sexually involved with....
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
I guess I'm part of that "minority" too. I happen to think that most people are, in which case it's hardly a minority.
I do not find people of any race repulsive.
I find bigotry repulsive. I find racism repulsive. I find homophobia repulsive.
Somehow I don't think this is a minority viewpoint.
It would interesting (possibly upsetting) to be able to tell how many of us are devoid of these prejudices. As human beings are essentially unchanged throughout recorded history, I am pessimistic that MOST of our species have suddenly gotten enlightenment and are all in love with our new-found touchy-feely affections for each other and our differences.
One of the most "Liberal" states in the USofA is California. Nearly 80% of the voter bloc turned out and voted FOR Prop 8. That says something to me quite contrary to your wishful thinking here....
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
Wrong way round Merlin - marriage definitions match up, civil union definitions don't.
Thanks for pointing that out.
What I said is true: "Marriage" (even though "civil union" is open to homosexuals) is a protected word of historic and religious meaning in both the UK and NZ....
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
Ack! again. I said: One of the most "Liberal" states in the USofA is California. Nearly 80% of the voter bloc turned out and voted FOR Prop 8. I meant, of course, that 80% voted and over 50% were in favor (there, I corrected myself)....
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Merlin, considering the historical rates of innter-racial breeding that have gone on any place where two racial groups overlap, I think to claim that there-s any biological feeling of "other races being repugnant" is demonstratably pure, unadulterated BULLSHIT!!!!!
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
I guess I'm part of that "minority" too. I happen to think that most people are, in which case it's hardly a minority.
I do not find people of any race repulsive.
I find bigotry repulsive. I find racism repulsive. I find homophobia repulsive.
Somehow I don't think this is a minority viewpoint.
It would interesting (possibly upsetting) to be able to tell how many of us are devoid of these prejudices. As human beings are essentially unchanged throughout recorded history, I am pessimistic that MOST of our species have suddenly gotten enlightenment and are all in love with our new-found touchy-feely affections for each other and our differences.
One of the most "Liberal" states in the USofA is California. Nearly 80% of the voter bloc turned out and voted FOR Prop 8. That says something to me quite contrary to your wishful thinking here....
Unchanged possibly, but not unenlightened or uneducated. When was the Gospel expressed? Didn't that initiate a very special basis for people to change the way they behave?
Or do you suggest that a spiritual change cannot influence the way people relate to one another? What we are may not change but our behaviour can.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
Merlin, considering the historical rates of innter-racial breeding that have gone on any place where two racial groups overlap, I think to claim that there-s any biological feeling of "other races being repugnant" is demonstratably pure, unadulterated BULLSHIT!!!!!
As Sioni posted right after you: we can learn, or unlearn our biologically-mandated feelings enough to behave better.
I think that you over-state the inter-racial breeding. If it occurred as much as you assert, by now the world would largely look alike. "We" have been "overlapping" for quite a few centuries. Just look at Africa: arguably to most Euros a Black African is a Black African: but to the Africans they are enormously different: their "racial" prejudices are very clear and run very deep.
Rwanda: Hutu v. Tutsi: genotypically you have short and tall, wide nose and narrow nose, more "African looking" and more "European looking". The Hutu are indigenous and more numerous; the Tutsi formerly migrated in. Today they still view each other as distinct and separate. In the Rwandan genocide, the formerly ruling (preferred class) Tutsi were murdered by the hundreds of thousands: the Hutu deliberately targeted Tutsi by their "look", thus assuring thousands of "Hutu" died by mistake: because genetically they are one people: there has been inter-breeding/marriage the whole time, but only in the minority: just as you'd expect, and find, here in the USofA. "Race" tends to remain apart for the vast majority, who are not interested in marrying one of "them".
If your racial-interbreeding assertion was at all accurate, the two genotypes in Rwanda would have blended into a more composite visual type centuries ago.
Bringing this back on-topic: heterosexuals and homosexuals are even more divided in their feelings for the opposite gender, than racial discrimination is. A small percentage of GLBTQs can "swing both ways"; most "true" homosexuals do not "swing" but stay with their same-sex attraction. Heterosexuals by definition never "swing" to the same gender. This is purely a biologically mandated thing.
"You" denounce all heterosexual assertions that your sexual preferences are a choice: or even more, that you have just as much right to marry a member of the opposite sex as anyone else, etc. And rightly so: since to marry someone of the opposite gender would be like lying to yourself: there is no way on God's green Earth that "you" will ever feel a flicker of sexual attraction for someone of the opposite gender. Similarly, when another person looks different in a biologically unattractive way, there is no way that "we" are going to summon the interest/gumption to engage in sex with them.
To accuse someone of "racism" or "bigotry" because they find someone sexually unattractive, is as unreasonable as it is for heterosexuals to assert that homosexuals have a choice in their sexuality....
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Hutu v. Tutsi: genotypically you have short and tall, wide nose and narrow nose, more "African looking" and more "European looking".The Hutu are indigenous and more numerous; the Tutsi formerly migrated in. Today they still view each other as distinct and separate.
Almost none of that is true.
The difference is one of class, or maybe caste, nothing racial or genetic at all. Mixed marriages are common and unexceptional, and until recenrly people often moved from one group to the other. They don't even have different accents - in that they are more like each other than Protestant and Catholic Irish are. Or working-class and upper-class English or French. No-one calls that a "racial" difference.
Have you ever actually met a Tutsi or Hutu? Do you know any? Where do you get your opinions on their appearance?
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
...
And you still haven't explained why you keep on using words like "stealing" or "stolen". Plenty of people have tried to ask what you mean by it, but no answer.
What is stolen? What did you used to have that you no longer have? What has been taken away from you? If nothing has, how can anything have been stolen?
I guess you don't emote with the popular antipathy regarding "words have meaning". Perhaps you don't care if "the Mother tongue" gets altered beyond repair or not. Liberalism creates all manner of new definitions "just because".
Words have meaning. Stealing means taking away somethignfrom someone so they don't have it any more. What has been taken away from you that you don't have any more?
Right-wingers seem to love redefining perfectly good English words to try to twist language to fit their ideology!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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infinite_monkey
Shipmate
# 11333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
Rwanda: Hutu v. Tutsi: genotypically you have short and tall, wide nose and narrow nose...
PHENOTYPICALLY (ie you actually need pretty much the opposite of the word you chose, as your gross oversimplification is about outward appearance rather then genetic underpinnings), and Ken's points still disprove the conclusions being drawn from this questionable statement.
quote:
there has been inter-breeding/marriage the whole time, but only in the minority: just as you'd expect, and find, here in the USofA. "Race" tends to remain apart for the vast majority, who are not interested in marrying one of "them".
Tell that to my nephew, his parents, or any number of his biracial peers. Interracial marriage and childbearing has had a tremendous uptick in the States in recent years: statistics gleaned by demographers at the University of Michigan indicate that in 2008,5% of those under 10 were identified as bi- or multi-racial ( a fivefold increase over what's reported by people over 64.) You can say all you want about how this is still a minority, but it seems like yet another seachange you're positioning yourself against.
quote:
Bringing this back on-topic: heterosexuals and homosexuals are even more divided in their feelings for the opposite gender, than racial discrimination is. A small percentage of GLBTQs can "swing both ways"; most "true" homosexuals do not "swing" but stay with their same-sex attraction. Heterosexuals by definition never "swing" to the same gender. This is purely a biologically mandated thing.
Um, no. About a quarter of the people who self- identified as straight on a major US dating website also self-identified as having had a same-sex sexual encounter at least once.
The most recent Kinsey Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior noted that "While about 7% of adult women and 8% of men identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, the proportion of individuals in the U.S. who have had same-gender sexual interactions at some point in their lives is higher."
You're entitled, sir, to your own opinion. But you don't get to have your own set of facts.
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His light was lifted just above the Law,
And now we have to live with what we did with what we saw.
--Dar Williams, And a God Descended
Obligatory Blog Flog: www.otherteacher.wordpress.com
Posts: 1423 | From: left coast united states | Registered: Apr 2006
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
Merlin's mistake (well, one of hundreds) is to assume that it is biology that has dictated social mores. And that it is biology that dictates morality (best as I can infer from what he keeps spewing here, talking about how it's not from religion, and it's demonstrably not from reason).
He also infers that since his generation finds things problematic that all generations every-when and every-where will do so. Hogwash, as the numbers in the post above mine about multi-racial kids show. As numbers showing the rapidly increasing plasticity of sexuality show (more so women than men, but it appears to be increasing in men as well).
The younger generations just don't care. Get over your little crusade about words that we want to use. We don't give a fuck if you think we're stealing the word "marriage." At worst, we'll steal it once your "kind" has died out.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
To accuse someone of "racism" or "bigotry" because they find someone sexually unattractive, is as unreasonable as it is for heterosexuals to assert that homosexuals have a choice in their sexuality....
You didn't say "Find someone sexually unattractive" up above -- you used the word "repulsive."
As a straight woman I don't find other women sexually attractive. But I can admire another woman's appearance (perhaps with a tinge of envy!) and am not repulsed by her.
Calling members of another race "repulsive" is racism, no matter how you try to much to back-pedal.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
... we can learn, or unlearn our biologically-mandated feelings enough to behave better. ...
Merlin,
Please can you provide some evidence that these feelings are "biologically-mandated"?
Joanna
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
So, Merlin, as a male I am biologically mandated to have as much sex as possible with as many people as possible while my sister is biologically mandated to hold on to one male to bring up her children?
I am surprised that those who advocate 'natural law' haven't mandated this as Christian sexual morality. (Or have I been missing out?)
One thing I noticed is that heterosexual men tend to get off scot free when it comes to sexual morality. I remember my Catholic friend in college who said that if his daughter slept with an older man, he would be furious. But if his son slept with an older woman, in honesty, he would feel a tinge of pride.
Part of the problem with traditional sexual ethics is while in theory, both sexes should abstain from fornication according to classical Christian morality, in reality, in many instances it was the woman who was expected to be morally pure. Men of course couldn't help themselves. The most disturbing and IMHO blatantly criminal result of this understanding is the notion held, even by a few today, that a woman who was sexually assaulted and wearing provocative clothing was somehow "asking for it."
Feminist and queer criticism highlights the hypocrisy of this sexual ethic. This hypocrisy promotes male heterosexual supremacy at the expense of both women and homosexuals. Gay men in particular, are seen as violating this sexual ethic by in heterosexist eyes "choosing to be women." As well, the objectification of the male form discomforts the heterosexist because it highlights the acceptability in western art and culture of objectifying the female form.
A Christian sexual ethic rooted not in patriarchal heterosexism, should IMHO be rooted in a humble acceptance of the role of desire for both men and women. All people are sexual beings and desire intimacy in its many forms: spiritual, emotional, and physical. And yet this desire does demand responsibility. Not responsibility in the sense that everyone must live according to a rigid, written code of thou shalt and thou shalt nots. But responsibility, in the Christian fashion, to the command to love tenderly and attentively. As Christians, Our Lord teaches us to treat each other as fellow brothers and sisters, not objects that we can use and abuse.
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
A Christian sexual ethic rooted not in patriarchal heterosexism, should IMHO be rooted in a humble acceptance of the role of desire for both men and women. All people are sexual beings and desire intimacy in its many forms: spiritual, emotional, and physical. And yet this desire does demand responsibility. Not responsibility in the sense that everyone must live according to a rigid, written code of thou shalt and thou shalt nots. But responsibility, in the Christian fashion, to the command to love tenderly and attentively. As Christians, Our Lord teaches us to treat each other as fellow brothers and sisters, not objects that we can use and abuse.
Amen
This is the best word on the subject I've heard for a very long time.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Where are we commanded to love tenderly?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Where are we commanded to love tenderly?
By Elvis?
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
...
Have you ever actually met a Tutsi or Hutu? Do you know any?
Nope. It was an example of how people view each other: racially different for the most part.
quote:
Where do you get your opinions on their appearance?
From the Internet, of course. Google "Hutu Tutsi" and you come up with plenty of theories on where the Tutsi originated from; including a fair amount of apparent historic revisionism going on.
Oh, and my mom told me about a book as she was reading it; the author is a Tutsi woman survivor. So far I haven't run into any evidence that the Hutu and Tutsi have viewed each other as distinctly different from each other.
Another anecdote from way back that I learned, is an Afar or Ethiopian legend about how they came to be: it involved a comparison to lighter skinned Sudanese, et al. N. Africans (closer to Europe, obviously), who the gods took out of the oven too soon so they were under-cooked; the various sooty black types, who the gods left in the oven too long and they got burnt: and finally themselves: taken out of the oven just right, a nice medium, rich color.
And recall that these various Africans preyed upon each other to supply the European slave trade.
quote:
Words have meaning. Stealing means taking away somethignfrom someone so they don't have it any more. What has been taken away from you that you don't have any more?
Right-wingers seem to love redefining perfectly good English words to try to twist language to fit their ideology!
If the MAJORITY no longer possess the power to define the legalese they way that they choose, they have had that power and right stolen by a minority agenda....
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
Merlin's mistake (well, one of hundreds) is to assume that it is biology that has dictated social mores. And that it is biology that dictates morality (best as I can infer from what he keeps spewing here, talking about how it's not from religion, and it's demonstrably not from reason).
Your powers of inference are weak, then: as I never said squat about what dictates morality beyond the majority saying so. And as the vast majority is heterosexual both in inclination and practice, the biological link cannot be tossed.
Besides, if you toss out the biologically mandated sexual attraction angle, where then is "your" argument: that you are helplessly gripped by your sexual attractions, i.e. you have no choice in the matter? If social mores and morality can be created because we choose to - biology be damned - then surely "you" do have a choice in whether or not to be sexually immoral or not. But no, you CHOOSE instead to demand the right to dictate to the majority what sexual morality even means.
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He also infers that since his generation finds things problematic that all generations every-when and every-where will do so. Hogwash, as the numbers in the post above mine about multi-racial kids show. As numbers showing the rapidly increasing plasticity of sexuality show (more so women than men, but it appears to be increasing in men as well).
The younger generations just don't care. Get over your little crusade about words that we want to use. We don't give a fuck if you think we're stealing the word "marriage." At worst, we'll steal it once your "kind" has died out.
And yes sir, here we have it. Out of the closet in full battle regalia: the "you're a bigot and homophobe" champion has just shown his true colors: in fact bigotry is nearly always demonstrated first and most clearly by the first accuser.
The posts above yours show nothing to disprove what I said: the racial intermarriage trends remain in the extreme minority. And "25%" of heterosexuals have had an encounter (intercourse, even) with same-sex partner(s). That is real proof that self-identifying heterosexuals one-quarter of the time decide to swing and be bisexual instead. (my mistake was in using the superlative "never")
Unlike "you", I don't expect any of this hardwired, socially mandated tradition to die out at all, much less by the time my generation is gone. But, time will tell....
Posts: 3499 | Registered: Jan 2007
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
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Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
To accuse someone of "racism" or "bigotry" because they find someone sexually unattractive, is as unreasonable as it is for heterosexuals to assert that homosexuals have a choice in their sexuality....
You didn't say "Find someone sexually unattractive" up above -- you used the word "repulsive."
Well excuse me: nobody who's repulsive is sexually attractive. And I find very few people repulsive. YMMV, especially if you have a racism problem. Many people do.
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As a straight woman I don't find other women sexually attractive. But I can admire another woman's appearance (perhaps with a tinge of envy!) and am not repulsed by her.
Indeed. Women seem to admit, in the main, that their gender is beautiful especially compared to men. I happen to agree: to the extent, actually, that I find women's physical attraction toward men mystifying.
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Calling members of another race "repulsive" is racism, no matter how you try to much to back-pedal.
Again, I observe the phenomenon: and here, again, you accuse my observation of racism in human beings as evidence that I am a racist!
Here's another one: the GOP took many political offices into their control in the recent US election. But by saying that I have observed this fact I am not a Republican. I am a RINO (because the stupid party won't let you vote for any of their candidates without GOP membership)....
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MerlintheMad
Shipmate
# 12279
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Posted
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Originally posted by JoannaP:
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Originally posted by MerlintheMad:
... we can learn, or unlearn our biologically-mandated feelings enough to behave better. ...
Merlin,
Please can you provide some evidence that these feelings are "biologically-mandated"?
Joanna
If they are not biological, how does the GLBTQ get away with claiming: "I do not have a choice in who/what I find myself sexually attracted to"?...
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
There's a statistic I read recently (I can't remember the source, and I tried to track it down without success--but why should I hold myself to more stringent standards of evidence than initiator of this thread?) that many people (in the 20-40% range, IIRC) who identify as straight, and who have never had a same-sex encounter, admit they find the idea of same-sex encounters appealing, at least in the abstract. The numbers are higher for women than for men, but even so... I'll even admit that I'm one of them. Everything that gay people do is something I've done or had done to me, and I wouldn't ask a woman I loved to do something I found intrinsically disgusting. So sorry--the inherent biological disgust reaction theory doesn't wash. Not that it would justify legal discrimination if it did.
I don't even claim that sexual orientation is biologically determined (there are probably biological factors, but I believe there are many pathways to sexual orientation, and we are nowhere near understanding them). I just believe that people have a fundamental right to make their own choices about emotional and sexual relationships, and that we as a society have an obligation to support families, however they are formed.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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