[Vertigo1]

Originally posted by Bobboau
I have never gotten a satisfactory responce to the question; why do you give a damn what other people do with each other?

you know, I live virtualy within sight of St.Louis MO, all the local media is MO, I didn't hear one damned thing about this before it happened, I'm sort of wondering if it was sneaked in, but the southern 1/3rd of MO is some of the hardest cord of the Bible belt, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Because they're uptight puritans that think that everyone should think as they do, and try to force their beliefs onto others?

Now lets think back for a second.  What group during WW2 thought the same way?  What group had beliefs so fanatical in their beliefs that they enslaved jews and made their lives a living hell?

[redmenace]

Originally posted by Kazan
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/04/samesex.marriage.ap/index.html

****ing bigots!

Just because they don't agree with you makes them bigots? Whatever. The poeple of Missouri think that marriage is a privilage, not a right. They think that there should not be gay marriage. OH WELL. But again starting out a conversation with "****ing bigots" isn't the best way to start sensible  mature, debate/conversation.

I could start threads with a link and say

****ing abortionists
or
****ing evolutionist
or
****ing socialists
or
****ing Europeans

I would not do this. This doesn't set a good tone.

Let gays have a civil union. and a piece of paper. let them change their last names. But the issue involved is the legal repurcussions of being declared married. the main one in my mind would be adoption. Also even the extreme liberal NEA has admitted that theiris not conclusive evidence as to a "gay gene." Phychologists have also hinted that it is far more expereience than anything. But that little bit has little bearing on this argument.

[karajorma]

No conclusive evidence doesn't mean no evidence.

Consider the fact that studies have shown that indentical twins are more likely to both be gay than non-identical twins and you've got something rather strange going on if there isn't a gay gene.

[Kazan]

redmenace: denying someone their rights based upon something the were born is the definition of bigotry


Tin Can: Excuse me for having every cultural anthropologist in the country backing my ass up

[vyper]

[q]Excuse me for having every cultural anthropologist in the country backing my ass up[/q]

I bet they are

But seriously, how does homosexuality help our society evolve or progress? (I'm asking for a genuine justification for effectively encouraging it, as we would be by legalising gay marriage)

[Kazan]

vyper: legalizing gay marriage is not "encouraging it", since people are born that way 99.99999999999% of the time, people being it has nothing to do with it being encouraged or not.. why do you htink it regularily has occured throughout the history of our species even in the most repressive cultures.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by vyper
[q]Excuse me for having every cultural anthropologist in the country backing my ass up[/q]

I bet they are

But seriously, how does homosexuality help our society evolve or progress? (I'm asking for a genuine justification for effectively encouraging it, as we would be by legalising gay marriage)

ask the converse - how does it hinder society?

And, of course, encouraging tolerance is always a good thing.....look at what happened to Alan turing, the bloke that helped both invent the computer and also helped win WW2 through his contribution to codebreaking (Colossus) at Bletchly park.

[vyper]

Still ain't heard an answer lads.

[Flipside]

Well, Gays went and fought for liberation, the same as straight people, are we saying they are a 'lesser species' that does not deserve the same rights as us 'superior species'?

A massive amount of cultural, scientific and philosophical advancement has been bought about by the thinking of gays, for a long long time, homosexuality was the only voice that even accepted there was a feminine point of view.

What amazes me is that people expect gays to do their jobs, pay their taxes, fight in Iraq or Vietnam or WWII, and yet still America feel it can violate the rights that they worked, fought and died for along with everyone else.

[Ford Prefect]

I think what we really ought to do is abolish the legal concept of marriage, and make the civil union the only form of state-recognized union. If religious institutions really can't deal with homosexuality, then they have the right to deny marriage to gay people, but the secular government should be a seperate and final authority.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Ford Prefect
I think what we really ought to do is abolish the legal concept of marriage, and make the civil union the only form of state-recognized union. If religious institutions really can't deal with homosexuality, then they have the right to deny marriage to gay people, but the secular government should be a seperate and final authority.

That's pretty much exactly what i think.

 Of course, isn't there already a situation where any form of religious marriage has to be backed up with formal registration?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by vyper
Still ain't heard an answer lads.

You need to ask a sensible question first.

How did allowing black and white people to marry each other help our society evolve or progress?

Answer that one. There's your answer.

[Kazan]

burned by karajorma

[redmenace]

Originally posted by Kazan
redmenace: denying someone their rights based upon something the were born is the definition of bigotry

First I do recognize the cultural contributions gays and bisexuals have made. The Gay Pride Alliance has drilled that in pretty well at GMU. But, the real cornerstone of the debate is the question of are they born with it or is it enviroment and experience. To defute the twins argument, I would like to say that if these twins are together their entire live they will have similiar experiences. The same with reguar siblings. I have a premise in my arguments that gays are not born that way. Kazan, with all do respect, and others is that is an inborn trait and there for bigotry and against all that the american constitution stands for. Also, Kazan you said something about understanding the constitution as it was written. I don't mean to be snide, but out of curiosity I though you were a believer in a living breathing document?

[Genryu]

Well, I'm not sure that I can give an exemple about that, kara, but in the same way, can you prove that it didn't help society evolve and progress ?
And it helped the developement of at least one thing in our society : tolerance, which should be more practiced by the devot christian who are opposed to too much thing to count

[Stealth]

still curious where your "social anthropologists" are on this one Kazan.  i did a little research, and here's some of the links i came up with:

http://www.biblebelievers.com/Cameron4.html
Gay activists regularly claim that they were "born that way" and thus cannot change their desires or stop their activities. Yet there are numerous documented cases in which homosexuals have changed

http://www.ewm.org/archives/000008.html
With ever increasing frequency the media confronts us with reports of new scientific research that suggests some men and women may be born gay. The gay community is enthusiastic about the possibility, arguing that if a person is born with a homosexual psychological orientation, it must be natural. If it is natural, it must be good. If it is good, it should be accepted and celebrated in homosexual relationships. Radical revision of socially accepted sexual practices and relationships, as well as a redefinition of the family, is the inevitable result.

http://www.russpickett.com/basic/homborn.htm
 Two prominent "homosexual" psychiatrists, examining the evidence of their own lives as well as those of others, came to different conclusions in this long-running debate. The first of these, Sigmund Freud, saw his homosexual urges as pathological. Through self-analysis, he overcame them and eventually rejoiced in the "greater independence that results from having overcome my homosexuality."

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=\Culture\archive\200310\CUL20031029a.html
"There are two broad views about the origins of homosexuality - one being related to environmental factors and one being primarily related to genetic factors," said Throckmorton. "The truth is, the science on the subject is so unclear that we can't really say with certainty that we know what the role of any of those factors are."

http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/Human%20Nature%20S%201999/are_some_people_born_gay.htm
biological explanation is good news for homosexuals and their advocates.

http://www.spirit-walkers.org/faqs.html
No one is “born gay” any
more than one is born with the natural tendency to like or dislike a certain food. It’s a learned behavior that’s
caused by many different circumstances with different people

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/rossuk/faqgays.htm
Most people only discover their sexual orientation in their teens. There is no proof that it is genetic.

http://www.expage.com/whythink
[Gays] Are not born genetically but rather it's very complex and many many factors play a role in influcing the person's thinking.

it seems to lean either way, but i honestly don't see the striking evidence that your thousands of "social anthropologists" seem to present...  to me it seems this whole "born gay" theory (that's all it is, a theory) is pretty recent, and seems to have been dug up so they can say that they're "naturally" gay, and they can't help it, and so because of that it's natural... doesn't seem to be all the evidence and studies that you claim.

[Stealth]

And it helped the developement of at least one thing in our society : tolerance, which should be more practiced by the devot christian who are opposed to too much thing to count

but for a Christian that doesn't make sense.  a Christian doesn't tolerate what the Bible says is wrong.  a Christian wouldn't tolerate a rapist, a murderer, etc.

[Flipside]

Man's been bisexual for centuries though.

It's funny how the reaction is almost solely directed at men getting married though, if it had just been lesbians, I wonder how outraged American society would be? But then, lesbians are more fun to watch, aren't they?

Homosexuality is just an expression of preference, ancient Greek society saw women as something to carry babies, and that men had the bodies that were to be admired, that was why Olympic sports took place in the nude, it was a pron show.

It's been far from uncommon throughout the years, and if you want an example from the Animal kingdom, check out 'Bonobo' monkeys, I won't provide a link, feel free to google yourself

So 'Born Gay' is not really relevant, when you are a teenager, you decide what you want, some men decide they prefer other men to women, it's society that forces them into a little 'gay' subgroup which means they have to have Gay Rights, else people would forget they had any. It's not a brain disease or a mental disorder it's something that has occured in this, and other species for millenium. It is society that points at them and says 'They are Gay, they are less than us', not because they are Gay, not really, it's because they are different they represent something alien to most males.

If this is how we cope with the alien in our own society, how the hell can we claim to be ready to reach for the stars?

[Ford Prefect]

It depends on what you mean by "change." Throughout history, homosexuals have always had to live heterosexual lifestyles to avoid persecution. Take the example I already mentioned: Cole Porter. He was quite gay, but he was married to a woman, and they genuinely loved each other. Only one little problem: Throughout the marriage, Cole had sexual affairs, and they were all with men.

Sexuality is a very complex thing-- more complex than most people realize. Someone who is gay can still have feelings for someone of the opposite sex, but it doesn't change the fact that the person is gay. It's almost meaningless to categorize sexual orientation the way we do.

[jdjtcagle]

Originally posted by Stealth


but for a Christian that doesn't make sense.  a Christian doesn't tolerate what the Bible says is wrong.  a Christian wouldn't tolerate a rapist, a murderer, etc.

Oh, please stop it...

If you actually read the bible, it says not to judge people for yourself. But, let God do that later...

Now, no more discussion about christians here