Monday, November 15, 2010
Fiting the Antigay Crazies Again. AOL hilited today a story about a Protestant minister of a large church near Atlanta who came out as gay to try to help fite gay suicide. Hundreds and hundreds of Bible-thumping loons attacked gay people in comments after that story, so I replied to a bunch of them. In case you'd like some ideas as to the kinds of argumentation you might use to answer other crazies, you might like to read thru my argumentation, below. It comprises 93 comments, and about 4,500 words.
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There is no God. Morality has nothing to do with sexual orientation, but with how you treat the people you are attracted to.
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So no one at all should be allowed to marry publicly, nor refer to a "wife" or "husband". No one believes you actually believe that.
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Tho there is no God, at least your conception of a loving God is Christian, unlike the JEWISH, Old Testament God of Wrath. What kind of monster would worship a monster God?
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Now, now. Washing people's feet to show humility isn't a foot fetish. Washing one's own feet is standard practice in Islam before entering a mosque, so there is an element of cleanliness before (nonexistent) God to Jesus's act. You are, however, quite right that most of the good stuff in the Bible's "rewrite" -- which OVERTHREW Judaism -- is in the New Testament.
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I have never heard Steve Jobs say he is gay. Nor, certainly, that he is God. What are you talking about?
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It's infuriating that the work we did over 40 years ago didn't change much of anything as regards shame and cowardice on the part of gay men. I'm the man who in 1970 offered the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used, and it was my hope that even where people couldn't have "Gay Power" (the original thought), they might at least have self-acceptance and pride. But kids are still too ashamed to come to terms with their reality or stand up for themselves. If they did stand up for themselves, some of these gay kids could beat the crap out of would-be bullies.
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There is no God, no Harry Potter, no Heaven, no Hell. Get your head out of delusion and deal with the real world. You might like it, if you could let go of your fears and hatreds.
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How many people have considered that homosexuality might be Nature's mechanism for fiting overpopulation, the one most basic cause to all of the world's worst problems?
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There is no God; and a gay man, far from being a sinner, is following Jesus's Golden Rule as closely as anyone can: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
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If you are gay and open in Conyers, then you have a point. If you are NOT gay in Conyers, you don't know what you are talking about.
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Homosexuality is fully as normal as heterosexuality. There is no God. You cannot prove anythng you say in LOGIC, only superstition. And gay men don't want visuals of STRAIGHT sex. There's an expression in this country that you might have heard, but plainly don't believe in: "Mind your own business." There's another way you don't believe in: "Live and let live." You don't insult my sexuality, and I won't call you any of the unpleasant sexual names WE have for straight men. As for that "abomination" quote, it is from the OLD Testament -- Judaism. If you aren't a Jew, why would you heed it? The book from which that quote is taken also mandates ANIMAL SACRIFICE and Jewish dietary laws. If you don't perform animal sacrifice or obey Jewish dietary laws, you are a HYPOCRITE in citing to Leviticus.
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You know what is in Pastor Swilley's mind, do you? Do you own a crystal ball? Or did you ask your Magic 8-Ball? As regards teen suicide, there are MANY organizations devoted to suicide prevention, but GAY kids are not likely to call them and pour out their heart to presumed heterosexuals. And YES, Pastor Swilley's stance, along with those of other people who have only recently come out for getting gay kids past a temporary crisis, surely WILL save some kid's life. It will also open some people's closed little minds, when "one of us" turns out to be "one of THEM" too.
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More appalling, people pretend that the Jews' (Old Testament) God of Wrath IS the New Testament's God of Love. You CANNOT reconcile the Old and New Testaments; Christians should BURN the Old Testament, or regard it as literature, not God's word.
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In that there IS NO GOD, it is not necessary to prove that John whatever that is (it is not in standard Biblical citation form) or Leviticus or the Koran or anything else is not the word of a nonexistent critter. Prove that chupacabra sucks the blood of goats.
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I suppose you never heard of LAWS. The nonexistence of God does not mean the nonexistence of right and wrong. People establish morality by teachings and LAWS. And go ahead and take other people's property if you want. We will then take you and throw you into prison, flog you, or kill you -- by MAN'S laws.
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Gay men have children all the time, thru in vitro fertilization (witness Ricky Martin). The main biological function of homosexuality is to LIMIT population, something this planet desperately needs. All children conceived by gay men thru in vitro fertilization are WANTED, which, alas, is far more than can be said for children conceived as an accidental byproduct of heterosexual lust.
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Homosexuality is not a sin, but precisely follows Jesus' Golden Rule.
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Anyone who believes Revelation and selectively quotes from Leviticus (the overwhelming preponderance of which they violate every single day of their lives) is someone to be completely ignored by sensible people. If all you have to 'prove' the 'abomination' of homosexuality is a few lines from 2,000- or 3,000-year-old FICTION, you have no case whatsoever.
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God isn't. Not anything. Does not exist. Morality depends on humanity, not divinity.
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Believe your idiotic Bible if you wish, but don't force it on others. We reject your interpretation, and many of us completely reject the Bible, Torah, Koran, and every other work of poetry or fiction that pretends to speak for a nonexistent "God".
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You are mixing and matching things that have nothing to do with each other, such as killing and having sex. If you really cannot see the difference, you need professional help. No one says that "All truth is relative", only that many things are relative. No one, for instance, makes excuses for murder. And no one says "There is no personal responsibility for anything" -- except you, who are intent on creating straw men you can knock down. Nobody buys your line of "reasoning".
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There is no God, and if you have to heed fiction from more than 2,000 years ago to know how to behave in the world of today, you are irrational. So stop talking about a nonexistent God. You cannot prove the existence of any such critter, and sensible people know He is a figment of some control freaks' imagination to scare the stupid.
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A man who takes marriage vows voluntarily forswears other women. So adultery is a violation of a promise, and thus immoral for THAT, not for the sex. That is not at all comparable to homosexuality. You would forbid gay men to have sex with ANY other man, not just anyone he has not sworn faithfulness to. Nice try, but there is no God, Jesus was not God, just a generally very nice man who told us some good things like "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" and "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." Think about that last one, and you will understand that homosexuality PRECISELY follows that imperative.
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The only sin in mutally consensual sex is something like selfishness or sadism. When Jesus said "Do unto others...", he meant that as much sexually as any other way.
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So say you. What if I say the only right sexuality is between men? To me, I'm right and you're wrong.
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ddan, there is no God, no afterlife, no Last Judgment. The exact same thing happens to people at death as to cats, dogs, insects, or amebas. They just cease to live.
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Ken..., you are quite right that sin is a religious conception. Morality speaks of rights and wrongs, not sins. And morality is based on reason.
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Not everyone has the strength to stand against society and believe in the rightness of his desires. Not everyone has the good sense to say, "I'm a good person, and I wouldn't want this if it were immoral. But I DO want sex with men, so that cannot be wrong." I agree that gay men should NEVER drag women into their confusions. Elton John did it, when he was pretending to be that mythical creature, a "bisexual", and was terribly sorry afterward for having hurt his wife. If you don't want women, don't pretend to. Be a man -- with men -- and stand up for yourself, always.
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Sorry, cholly, but AIDS has nothing to do with sex, or it would be in every single nook and cranny of society. Actually, AIDS in the West is a DRUG INJURY, which is why it remains tightly confined, 30 years on, within minorities soaked in drugs. In Africa, it is a recasting of the same old things that have been killing poor people in that part of the world for thousands of years: www.virusmyth.com.
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But you think that gay men want to hear about YOUR sexual orientation, YOUR husband (or wife)? Until and unless you hide your sexual orientation and keep your sexual relationships a closely guarded secret, don't tell gay men that they cannot speak of their lives and loves as openly as you do.
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Heterosexuals have sex EVERYWHERE -- indoors, outdoors; in theaters, in parks; in men's rooms at concerts, in women's rooms at sporting events. Stop pretending that all those baby-mommas and baby-daddies producing children from loving, respectful, exclusive relationships in deep privacy.
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Before you preach at people, PROVE the existence of God. You can't do that, because in fact there IS NO GOD. And why the Bible? Which part, Jewish (Old Testament) or Christian? How about the Apocrypha? How about the dozens of Gospels that didn't make the final cut? How about the Koran, or Scientology's basic works? It's all nonsense written by control freaks.
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Jews should not be telling Christians how to live. And if you quote Leviticus, you are acting like a Jew, not a Christian. Do you also obey the Jewish dietary laws, advocate universal circumcision, and practice animal sacrifice, all of which are mandated by that Leviticus ONE of whose condemnations you love to cite? No? Then you are a hypocrite, and nobody pays attention to hypocrites.
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The basic difference [between Bible-thumpers and the people repudiating such crap], which makes ALL the difference in the world, is that we don't tell YOU how to live.
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I think the Ten Commandments -- which are JEWISH, not Christian -- are not and must not be in any courthouse in this country. But you are quite right that none of those Ten refers to homosexuality.
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The end times will be when the sun novas, and that is not expected for millions of years. There are no Saints, and, alas, the fine man Jesus died a very long time ago. Nobody comes back. Nobody. So do justice now, according to the Golden Rule. If you don't know what that is, look it up, and understand that it PRECISELY describes homosexuality.
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Judging: Matthew 7:1. Stone, John 8:9. Now kindly stop denying the authenticity of those Biblical imperatives.
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There is no God, and the Bible contradicts itself, starting in the first few pages: Adam and Eve are the only people on Earth, but their son Cain marries a woman from Nod!
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tgerardb, stop making up gay harassment of you poor, oppressed heterosexuals.
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There is no God, so your interpretation of what God says is of no importance. I also don't think Brits ("behaviour") should intrude into discussions of American issues. Mind your own business. NO one chooses to be gay just to tick people off. Stop making up nonsense. I skipped the middle of your longwinded but empty post. But your assertion early on that the Greeks were antihomosexual is WILDLY wrong.
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tgerardb, to the extent the Roman Empire fell at all (we speak a language filled with Latin words, our Capitol is plainly a Roman building, and the dominant religion of the West is Christianity, which was the state religion of the Roman Empire), it did so as did a whole bunch of other civilizations farther east, because of a chain reaction resulting from the irruption of violent nomads in East Central Asia who pushed outward and caused other 'barbarians' to run away from the rampaging savages, into the Roman Empire for safety. The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_roman_empire does not contain the word "homosexuality", because it played NO role in the decline/transformation of the Roman Empire.
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You equate attack and defense. Bible-thumpers attack homosexuals; gay men merely fite back. Not the same.
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Kindly point out ONE THING JESUS SAID in condemnation of homosexuality. Don't quote "Saint Paul", who started life as Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted early Christians 'even unto death' until his guilt caused a religious conversion. Quote JESUS. You can't. Jesus is supposed to be Christ, so if CHRIST said nothing to condemn homosexuality, then one can indeed be both a Christian and a homosexual. I do not accept your right to read Jesus's mind, and speak for him on a topic he did not address, and put an antihomosexual animus in his mouth.
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forcollegenow, if you believe that Adam and Eve were the only people at the beginning of the world, then you OF NECESSITY believe that their children had sex with each other and/or their parents, so the entire human race is the product of INCEST. People who believe in the godliness of incest are in no position to condemn homosexuality.
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In order to understand righteousness as against sin, kindly examine, and think about, Jesus's admonition, "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." That expressly and exactly APPROVES of homosexuality.
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If all pj512 has to justify his antihomosexual attitude is the pretense that his God disapproves, he has NOTHING. There IS NO GOD, but there are many conceptions of God that DO approve of homosexuality.
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The man was weak, "Superdad", and couldn't stand up to the bigots and bullies himself, but finally found his courage when he heard of other people committing suicide because of bullying. Yes, condemn his earlier cowardice, but praise his courage now. One must, however, wonder how many gay kids did commit suicide before he "came out" who might have held on past that awful crisis if he had been forthright, in his megachurch, long ago.
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So you wish his children dead, for never having been born, right? Very Christian. You are right that he should not have TRICKED some naive woman into marrying him, but the article says plainly, "He said his wife of 21 years, Debye, had known before they were married, but loved him anyway." We might agree that that was an odd and probably unwise choice, but it WAS her choice.
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Superdad, there are LOTS of heterosexual marriages of convenience. Some people just give up on finding love, but they commit to someone in the hope that they can have the benefits of marriage, and maybe they'll grow to love. If not, there's always the sex, or the money, or the job with the father-in-law. I trust you are fully as judgmental of those people.
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Ken... Perhaps Randy did choose to be straight, rejecting his actual, homosexual nature. A lot of the most adamant antigay militants are suppressed, self-hating homos.
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bowmakerkt, for a person whose empty-minded antihomosexualism derives from the Old Testament, it's a little odd for you to be talking about bacon. Let us review: there is no God, there is no Last Judgment, there is no Hell. Now, get a life, while you still can. And try to mind you own business. It will make your life easier, and that of everyone else near you.
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Kindly read the story before commenting. He told his kids before he made his announcement, and they backed his decision. So now it's OK to bully not just gays but also straights who have a gay relative?
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Anyone who believes in the silly fable of Adam and Eve -- which would mean that the human race arose from INCEST -- is too foolish to be reasoned with.
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I take it that "Your Highness" refers to drug use. Homosexuality is exactly as much an "affliction" as is heterosexuality. No, I take that back. Homosexuality is wonderful. We can have sex without worrying about knocking anybody up. Any children we have are conceived deliberately. We're not the ones destroying this planet.
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preciouslogic is precious short of logic. If God could just always have existed, then the Universe could just always have existed. Or are you saying that God created Himself? How would nothing create something? -- much less everything?
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bdvs143, you do not speak for God, nor for what any Biblical passage does and does not mean. You are not the Pope -- are you? Protestants tell us we should read the Bible, so they apparently believe that what the Bible says is what it means. But I guess you are the supreme authority on what the Bible means, because you assert with absolute certitude that you know what it means, while anyone who disagrees does not. It doesn't mater, however. You cannot quote any passage of the Bible as authority for anything, any more than anyone can quote a passage of any Harry Potter novel and use it as authority for something.
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How can someone like bdvs143 quote Christian scripture and say that God killed someone?
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Bible-thumpers like those who insist that homosexuality is a "sin" cannot find anything BUT quotations to "God" to justify their baseless assertions. Since there is no God, they have absolutely no basis for their assertions, so all sensible people IGNORE them.
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Jesus was over 30 years old and unmarried, in a society that required marriage. Think about it.
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There is no God, so stop quoting nonsense. You cannot produce a SINGLE logical reason for why homosexuality is "wrong", so just keep your superstitious nonsense to yourself.
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Asserting there IS a God does not make it true.
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Do NOT mistake Paul for Jesus. Paul was an antisexual lunatice who started life as a Jew and persecuted Christians 'even unto death'. Jesus was NOT antisexual, and also not antiHOMOsexual.
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Revelations is meaningless lunacy and has NOTHING to do with anything Jesus said. But everything Jesus said was just the word of an ordinary human being anyway.
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You cannot quote Jesus saying ANYthing about homosexuality -- not anti, no pro. But what Jesus said is just what one man said. You can agree or disagree without any penalty. He has been dead for almost 2,000 years.
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bowmakerkt has apparently never seen a tomcat grab another tom by the scruff of the neck and try to mate with him, nor male cats or dogs sleeping with each other, cleaning each other, etc. The anti-science crowd doesn't want these things studied, but some brave souls have studied homosexuality in the animal kingdom and found it very common.
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Robert, gay people do NOT "thrust their will and lifestyle" upon ANYONE, much less everybody else. You have it exactly backwards. You also do not know how many gay people there are. Nobody does, and as long as people are bullied into hiding their homosexuality, nobody will. The SAME rights are not "extra rights". In Sweden, being black is an "aberration"; in China, being blond is an "aberration". Why should we teach "everyone else's children" that being black or bond is natural? You wouldn't know the truth if it slapped you in the face.
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Kindly quote chapter and verse of where Jesus condemned homosexuality. You cannot DO that, because Jesus NEVER DID condemn homosexuality. Until you CAN quote Jesus against homosexuality, stop taking Jesus's name in vain.
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There is no God, and that "abomination" crap is from Leviticus, which prescribes animal sacrifice, circumcision, and Jewish dietary laws. So unless you adhere to EVERY SINGLE ONE of the over 600 prohibitions in Judaism, you should just shut up about the only one you pay any attention to.
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Adam and Eve supposedly were the only two people on Earth, but billions of people descended from them. How could that be unless their children had sex with each other? If incest is all right with you, what's your problem with homosexuality? And as for population, the world is being destroyed by OVERpopulation. Homosexuality is a natural brake on overpopulation. Embrace it as the blessing it could be, if legalized everywhere on this hugely overcrowded planet.
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wilhoover, Jesus was not antisexual. You have been sold a bill of goods by crazy people who hate the human body. Wake up, be yourself, enjoy the pleasures of the flesh in respectful, gentle, loving activities with men, and let the happiness that homosexual sex gives you fill your life and inspire you to generous activity for others.
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Everything Robert says is not only false, but the OPPOSITE of truth. The only way civilization has ever arisen is thru the actions of what would today be called "Liberals". The Conservatives always defended the institutions of the past, no matter how vicious or wrong they were, such as slavery, treating women and children as chattel property, and on and on. Jesus was a Liberal, who fought for the little guy.
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Who does? I'm homosexual, and I have NEVER called ANYBODY a "butt buddy". You are a clumsy propagandist, aren't you?
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Of course there are gay rabbis and imams. Islam was more tolerant of homosexuality during the West's Middle Ages than was Christendom, but Islam has been largely taken over by its most regressive preachers, as modern U.S. Christianity is under assault by its most regressive preachers. As Islam modernizes, it too will see more enlitened behavior. As for Judaism, there are gay synagogs or gay congregations that meet, with the approval of the predominantly straight congregation that rents them space.
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I'm glad jenjen shows her hatred of the Catholic Church, so we can all see what kind of 'mentality' we are dealing with here. Now she has got herself VERY seriously outnumbered, in taking on a BILLION Catholics, not just the gay population of the United States.
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Leviticus is JEWISH. Christians do not casually disregard the requirements of Judaism. They DEFY them. You then cite to Saul of Tarsus, a man who KILLED early Christians before a crisis of conscience made him convert, whereupon he changed his name to Paul. Find us, the religious and/or cultural critics of the United States ONE quote from JESUS that condemns homosexuality. You can't do it, because Jesus, who was supposed himself to BE God, did NOT, ever, condemn homosexuality.
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Oops. "Critics" should have read "Christians". My criticizing the stance of the Radical Right's misrepresentation of Christianity as Judaism got in the way of my intended statement.
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Homosexuality is barely ever mentioned in media; heterosexuality permeates everything in media. Something has made you hypersensitive. Hm. Hint: It's not outside yourself.
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Lonnie apparently thinks that the living world is divided in thirds, animals, plants, and people. No, human beings are part of the Animal Kingdom in science. But science doesn't mean anything to her. It's just the stuff that made it possible for her to post her silly remarks on the Internet. It has no real meaning.
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Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other, or there would be no human race -- if you believe the Adam and Eve fable. If you do NOT accept that Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other, then you accept that Adam and Eve were NOT the only people at the beginning of the world. Everything you say is subverted by your Adam-and-Eve crap.
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Ah, there it is: the compulsory anti-Obama remarks from the Radical Right. Absolutely NO topic is so far afield that some Radical Rightists cannot bring it around to Barack Obama.
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The only choice he made was to come out publicly.
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yonkaddi, there was a series of gay suicides within a few weeks, including one prompted by a grotesque incident involving a Rutgers University student, and the enormous attention that SERIES of prominent suicides pushed this guy's conscience. Better late than never.
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Yes, of course people choose their orientation, as they choose their race, their place of birth, and their family's socioeconomic status. That is a very Hindu way of thinking. But no, not everyone is bullied mercilessly, tho everyone may be teased from time to time. And not everybody's sex life is streamed on the Internet without permission, which so humiliated a closeted gay college student that he jumped off the George Washington Bridge.
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Kindly cite to ONE condemnaton of homosexuality issued by JESUS. Exact quote, and chapter and verse, please.
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There is no God, and you cannot find any legitimate ground in reality to condemn homosexuality. As for its being a psychological disorder, the American Psychiatric Association says it is NOT a disorder, but you of course know better than the APA.
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Ah, I see. Sex is worse than murder. Of couse it is.
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Those do NOT relate to anything JESUS said. You are quoting Saul of Tarsus ("St. Paul"), NOT Jesus. Stop LYING. Both of those books state very plainly that what follows are the words of PAUL, not Jesus. Paul never even MET Jesus. He never heard a word Jesus said. In fact, he persecuted Christians 'even unto death'. And THAT is your source, not Jesus.
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We are not talking of a choice of actions but of NATURE. He was born homosexual, just as he was born white. There is no issue of a person "choosing to be white". And people cannot choose to "act on being white".
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Actually, reproduction no longer requires sexual activity between the people whose genetic material forms a new life, and in fact we would all be better off if the ONLY children conceived required a carefully considered CHOICE by the parents. This planet is being destroyed by overpopulation, that is, by heterosexuality.
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So you chose to be heterosexual, and could simply change that choice any time you wanted, right?
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The nonreligious people here hate the immorality of intolerance, but do not hate the person -- unless they never give up on thumping their Bible instead of thinking, so continue to justify their intolerance.
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Alas, it is not in the slitest true that the younger generation doesn't care about homosexuality. "That's so gay!" is just one example of the ongoing intolerance and stereotyping that younger people inflict on gay people they don't even realize are in their presence. Teenagers would not be killing themselves if their peers were tolerant. It would be nice if young people were openminded, and anyone could date anyone, of either gender, without being condemned, but we're NOT there yet.
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I suppose you believe the science of the first century too.
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The Bible is nonsense. You are entitled to believe nonsense if you wish, but not to condemn people who refuse that idiocy. Keep your religion to yourself. Gay people don't want to hear it.
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There is no God. Morality has nothing to do with sexual orientation, but with how you treat the people you are attracted to.
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So no one at all should be allowed to marry publicly, nor refer to a "wife" or "husband". No one believes you actually believe that.
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Tho there is no God, at least your conception of a loving God is Christian, unlike the JEWISH, Old Testament God of Wrath. What kind of monster would worship a monster God?
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Now, now. Washing people's feet to show humility isn't a foot fetish. Washing one's own feet is standard practice in Islam before entering a mosque, so there is an element of cleanliness before (nonexistent) God to Jesus's act. You are, however, quite right that most of the good stuff in the Bible's "rewrite" -- which OVERTHREW Judaism -- is in the New Testament.
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I have never heard Steve Jobs say he is gay. Nor, certainly, that he is God. What are you talking about?
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It's infuriating that the work we did over 40 years ago didn't change much of anything as regards shame and cowardice on the part of gay men. I'm the man who in 1970 offered the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used, and it was my hope that even where people couldn't have "Gay Power" (the original thought), they might at least have self-acceptance and pride. But kids are still too ashamed to come to terms with their reality or stand up for themselves. If they did stand up for themselves, some of these gay kids could beat the crap out of would-be bullies.
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There is no God, no Harry Potter, no Heaven, no Hell. Get your head out of delusion and deal with the real world. You might like it, if you could let go of your fears and hatreds.
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How many people have considered that homosexuality might be Nature's mechanism for fiting overpopulation, the one most basic cause to all of the world's worst problems?
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There is no God; and a gay man, far from being a sinner, is following Jesus's Golden Rule as closely as anyone can: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
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If you are gay and open in Conyers, then you have a point. If you are NOT gay in Conyers, you don't know what you are talking about.
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Homosexuality is fully as normal as heterosexuality. There is no God. You cannot prove anythng you say in LOGIC, only superstition. And gay men don't want visuals of STRAIGHT sex. There's an expression in this country that you might have heard, but plainly don't believe in: "Mind your own business." There's another way you don't believe in: "Live and let live." You don't insult my sexuality, and I won't call you any of the unpleasant sexual names WE have for straight men. As for that "abomination" quote, it is from the OLD Testament -- Judaism. If you aren't a Jew, why would you heed it? The book from which that quote is taken also mandates ANIMAL SACRIFICE and Jewish dietary laws. If you don't perform animal sacrifice or obey Jewish dietary laws, you are a HYPOCRITE in citing to Leviticus.
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You know what is in Pastor Swilley's mind, do you? Do you own a crystal ball? Or did you ask your Magic 8-Ball? As regards teen suicide, there are MANY organizations devoted to suicide prevention, but GAY kids are not likely to call them and pour out their heart to presumed heterosexuals. And YES, Pastor Swilley's stance, along with those of other people who have only recently come out for getting gay kids past a temporary crisis, surely WILL save some kid's life. It will also open some people's closed little minds, when "one of us" turns out to be "one of THEM" too.
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More appalling, people pretend that the Jews' (Old Testament) God of Wrath IS the New Testament's God of Love. You CANNOT reconcile the Old and New Testaments; Christians should BURN the Old Testament, or regard it as literature, not God's word.
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In that there IS NO GOD, it is not necessary to prove that John whatever that is (it is not in standard Biblical citation form) or Leviticus or the Koran or anything else is not the word of a nonexistent critter. Prove that chupacabra sucks the blood of goats.
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I suppose you never heard of LAWS. The nonexistence of God does not mean the nonexistence of right and wrong. People establish morality by teachings and LAWS. And go ahead and take other people's property if you want. We will then take you and throw you into prison, flog you, or kill you -- by MAN'S laws.
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Gay men have children all the time, thru in vitro fertilization (witness Ricky Martin). The main biological function of homosexuality is to LIMIT population, something this planet desperately needs. All children conceived by gay men thru in vitro fertilization are WANTED, which, alas, is far more than can be said for children conceived as an accidental byproduct of heterosexual lust.
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Homosexuality is not a sin, but precisely follows Jesus' Golden Rule.
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Anyone who believes Revelation and selectively quotes from Leviticus (the overwhelming preponderance of which they violate every single day of their lives) is someone to be completely ignored by sensible people. If all you have to 'prove' the 'abomination' of homosexuality is a few lines from 2,000- or 3,000-year-old FICTION, you have no case whatsoever.
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God isn't. Not anything. Does not exist. Morality depends on humanity, not divinity.
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Believe your idiotic Bible if you wish, but don't force it on others. We reject your interpretation, and many of us completely reject the Bible, Torah, Koran, and every other work of poetry or fiction that pretends to speak for a nonexistent "God".
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You are mixing and matching things that have nothing to do with each other, such as killing and having sex. If you really cannot see the difference, you need professional help. No one says that "All truth is relative", only that many things are relative. No one, for instance, makes excuses for murder. And no one says "There is no personal responsibility for anything" -- except you, who are intent on creating straw men you can knock down. Nobody buys your line of "reasoning".
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There is no God, and if you have to heed fiction from more than 2,000 years ago to know how to behave in the world of today, you are irrational. So stop talking about a nonexistent God. You cannot prove the existence of any such critter, and sensible people know He is a figment of some control freaks' imagination to scare the stupid.
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A man who takes marriage vows voluntarily forswears other women. So adultery is a violation of a promise, and thus immoral for THAT, not for the sex. That is not at all comparable to homosexuality. You would forbid gay men to have sex with ANY other man, not just anyone he has not sworn faithfulness to. Nice try, but there is no God, Jesus was not God, just a generally very nice man who told us some good things like "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" and "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." Think about that last one, and you will understand that homosexuality PRECISELY follows that imperative.
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The only sin in mutally consensual sex is something like selfishness or sadism. When Jesus said "Do unto others...", he meant that as much sexually as any other way.
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So say you. What if I say the only right sexuality is between men? To me, I'm right and you're wrong.
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ddan, there is no God, no afterlife, no Last Judgment. The exact same thing happens to people at death as to cats, dogs, insects, or amebas. They just cease to live.
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Ken..., you are quite right that sin is a religious conception. Morality speaks of rights and wrongs, not sins. And morality is based on reason.
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Not everyone has the strength to stand against society and believe in the rightness of his desires. Not everyone has the good sense to say, "I'm a good person, and I wouldn't want this if it were immoral. But I DO want sex with men, so that cannot be wrong." I agree that gay men should NEVER drag women into their confusions. Elton John did it, when he was pretending to be that mythical creature, a "bisexual", and was terribly sorry afterward for having hurt his wife. If you don't want women, don't pretend to. Be a man -- with men -- and stand up for yourself, always.
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Sorry, cholly, but AIDS has nothing to do with sex, or it would be in every single nook and cranny of society. Actually, AIDS in the West is a DRUG INJURY, which is why it remains tightly confined, 30 years on, within minorities soaked in drugs. In Africa, it is a recasting of the same old things that have been killing poor people in that part of the world for thousands of years: www.virusmyth.com.
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But you think that gay men want to hear about YOUR sexual orientation, YOUR husband (or wife)? Until and unless you hide your sexual orientation and keep your sexual relationships a closely guarded secret, don't tell gay men that they cannot speak of their lives and loves as openly as you do.
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Heterosexuals have sex EVERYWHERE -- indoors, outdoors; in theaters, in parks; in men's rooms at concerts, in women's rooms at sporting events. Stop pretending that all those baby-mommas and baby-daddies producing children from loving, respectful, exclusive relationships in deep privacy.
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Before you preach at people, PROVE the existence of God. You can't do that, because in fact there IS NO GOD. And why the Bible? Which part, Jewish (Old Testament) or Christian? How about the Apocrypha? How about the dozens of Gospels that didn't make the final cut? How about the Koran, or Scientology's basic works? It's all nonsense written by control freaks.
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Jews should not be telling Christians how to live. And if you quote Leviticus, you are acting like a Jew, not a Christian. Do you also obey the Jewish dietary laws, advocate universal circumcision, and practice animal sacrifice, all of which are mandated by that Leviticus ONE of whose condemnations you love to cite? No? Then you are a hypocrite, and nobody pays attention to hypocrites.
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The basic difference [between Bible-thumpers and the people repudiating such crap], which makes ALL the difference in the world, is that we don't tell YOU how to live.
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I think the Ten Commandments -- which are JEWISH, not Christian -- are not and must not be in any courthouse in this country. But you are quite right that none of those Ten refers to homosexuality.
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The end times will be when the sun novas, and that is not expected for millions of years. There are no Saints, and, alas, the fine man Jesus died a very long time ago. Nobody comes back. Nobody. So do justice now, according to the Golden Rule. If you don't know what that is, look it up, and understand that it PRECISELY describes homosexuality.
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Judging: Matthew 7:1. Stone, John 8:9. Now kindly stop denying the authenticity of those Biblical imperatives.
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There is no God, and the Bible contradicts itself, starting in the first few pages: Adam and Eve are the only people on Earth, but their son Cain marries a woman from Nod!
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tgerardb, stop making up gay harassment of you poor, oppressed heterosexuals.
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There is no God, so your interpretation of what God says is of no importance. I also don't think Brits ("behaviour") should intrude into discussions of American issues. Mind your own business. NO one chooses to be gay just to tick people off. Stop making up nonsense. I skipped the middle of your longwinded but empty post. But your assertion early on that the Greeks were antihomosexual is WILDLY wrong.
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tgerardb, to the extent the Roman Empire fell at all (we speak a language filled with Latin words, our Capitol is plainly a Roman building, and the dominant religion of the West is Christianity, which was the state religion of the Roman Empire), it did so as did a whole bunch of other civilizations farther east, because of a chain reaction resulting from the irruption of violent nomads in East Central Asia who pushed outward and caused other 'barbarians' to run away from the rampaging savages, into the Roman Empire for safety. The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_roman_empire does not contain the word "homosexuality", because it played NO role in the decline/transformation of the Roman Empire.
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You equate attack and defense. Bible-thumpers attack homosexuals; gay men merely fite back. Not the same.
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Kindly point out ONE THING JESUS SAID in condemnation of homosexuality. Don't quote "Saint Paul", who started life as Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted early Christians 'even unto death' until his guilt caused a religious conversion. Quote JESUS. You can't. Jesus is supposed to be Christ, so if CHRIST said nothing to condemn homosexuality, then one can indeed be both a Christian and a homosexual. I do not accept your right to read Jesus's mind, and speak for him on a topic he did not address, and put an antihomosexual animus in his mouth.
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forcollegenow, if you believe that Adam and Eve were the only people at the beginning of the world, then you OF NECESSITY believe that their children had sex with each other and/or their parents, so the entire human race is the product of INCEST. People who believe in the godliness of incest are in no position to condemn homosexuality.
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In order to understand righteousness as against sin, kindly examine, and think about, Jesus's admonition, "As you would have others do to you, so too do to them." That expressly and exactly APPROVES of homosexuality.
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If all pj512 has to justify his antihomosexual attitude is the pretense that his God disapproves, he has NOTHING. There IS NO GOD, but there are many conceptions of God that DO approve of homosexuality.
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The man was weak, "Superdad", and couldn't stand up to the bigots and bullies himself, but finally found his courage when he heard of other people committing suicide because of bullying. Yes, condemn his earlier cowardice, but praise his courage now. One must, however, wonder how many gay kids did commit suicide before he "came out" who might have held on past that awful crisis if he had been forthright, in his megachurch, long ago.
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So you wish his children dead, for never having been born, right? Very Christian. You are right that he should not have TRICKED some naive woman into marrying him, but the article says plainly, "He said his wife of 21 years, Debye, had known before they were married, but loved him anyway." We might agree that that was an odd and probably unwise choice, but it WAS her choice.
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Superdad, there are LOTS of heterosexual marriages of convenience. Some people just give up on finding love, but they commit to someone in the hope that they can have the benefits of marriage, and maybe they'll grow to love. If not, there's always the sex, or the money, or the job with the father-in-law. I trust you are fully as judgmental of those people.
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Ken... Perhaps Randy did choose to be straight, rejecting his actual, homosexual nature. A lot of the most adamant antigay militants are suppressed, self-hating homos.
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bowmakerkt, for a person whose empty-minded antihomosexualism derives from the Old Testament, it's a little odd for you to be talking about bacon. Let us review: there is no God, there is no Last Judgment, there is no Hell. Now, get a life, while you still can. And try to mind you own business. It will make your life easier, and that of everyone else near you.
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Kindly read the story before commenting. He told his kids before he made his announcement, and they backed his decision. So now it's OK to bully not just gays but also straights who have a gay relative?
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Anyone who believes in the silly fable of Adam and Eve -- which would mean that the human race arose from INCEST -- is too foolish to be reasoned with.
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I take it that "Your Highness" refers to drug use. Homosexuality is exactly as much an "affliction" as is heterosexuality. No, I take that back. Homosexuality is wonderful. We can have sex without worrying about knocking anybody up. Any children we have are conceived deliberately. We're not the ones destroying this planet.
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preciouslogic is precious short of logic. If God could just always have existed, then the Universe could just always have existed. Or are you saying that God created Himself? How would nothing create something? -- much less everything?
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bdvs143, you do not speak for God, nor for what any Biblical passage does and does not mean. You are not the Pope -- are you? Protestants tell us we should read the Bible, so they apparently believe that what the Bible says is what it means. But I guess you are the supreme authority on what the Bible means, because you assert with absolute certitude that you know what it means, while anyone who disagrees does not. It doesn't mater, however. You cannot quote any passage of the Bible as authority for anything, any more than anyone can quote a passage of any Harry Potter novel and use it as authority for something.
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How can someone like bdvs143 quote Christian scripture and say that God killed someone?
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Bible-thumpers like those who insist that homosexuality is a "sin" cannot find anything BUT quotations to "God" to justify their baseless assertions. Since there is no God, they have absolutely no basis for their assertions, so all sensible people IGNORE them.
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Jesus was over 30 years old and unmarried, in a society that required marriage. Think about it.
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There is no God, so stop quoting nonsense. You cannot produce a SINGLE logical reason for why homosexuality is "wrong", so just keep your superstitious nonsense to yourself.
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Asserting there IS a God does not make it true.
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Do NOT mistake Paul for Jesus. Paul was an antisexual lunatice who started life as a Jew and persecuted Christians 'even unto death'. Jesus was NOT antisexual, and also not antiHOMOsexual.
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Revelations is meaningless lunacy and has NOTHING to do with anything Jesus said. But everything Jesus said was just the word of an ordinary human being anyway.
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You cannot quote Jesus saying ANYthing about homosexuality -- not anti, no pro. But what Jesus said is just what one man said. You can agree or disagree without any penalty. He has been dead for almost 2,000 years.
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bowmakerkt has apparently never seen a tomcat grab another tom by the scruff of the neck and try to mate with him, nor male cats or dogs sleeping with each other, cleaning each other, etc. The anti-science crowd doesn't want these things studied, but some brave souls have studied homosexuality in the animal kingdom and found it very common.
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Robert, gay people do NOT "thrust their will and lifestyle" upon ANYONE, much less everybody else. You have it exactly backwards. You also do not know how many gay people there are. Nobody does, and as long as people are bullied into hiding their homosexuality, nobody will. The SAME rights are not "extra rights". In Sweden, being black is an "aberration"; in China, being blond is an "aberration". Why should we teach "everyone else's children" that being black or bond is natural? You wouldn't know the truth if it slapped you in the face.
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Kindly quote chapter and verse of where Jesus condemned homosexuality. You cannot DO that, because Jesus NEVER DID condemn homosexuality. Until you CAN quote Jesus against homosexuality, stop taking Jesus's name in vain.
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There is no God, and that "abomination" crap is from Leviticus, which prescribes animal sacrifice, circumcision, and Jewish dietary laws. So unless you adhere to EVERY SINGLE ONE of the over 600 prohibitions in Judaism, you should just shut up about the only one you pay any attention to.
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Adam and Eve supposedly were the only two people on Earth, but billions of people descended from them. How could that be unless their children had sex with each other? If incest is all right with you, what's your problem with homosexuality? And as for population, the world is being destroyed by OVERpopulation. Homosexuality is a natural brake on overpopulation. Embrace it as the blessing it could be, if legalized everywhere on this hugely overcrowded planet.
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wilhoover, Jesus was not antisexual. You have been sold a bill of goods by crazy people who hate the human body. Wake up, be yourself, enjoy the pleasures of the flesh in respectful, gentle, loving activities with men, and let the happiness that homosexual sex gives you fill your life and inspire you to generous activity for others.
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Everything Robert says is not only false, but the OPPOSITE of truth. The only way civilization has ever arisen is thru the actions of what would today be called "Liberals". The Conservatives always defended the institutions of the past, no matter how vicious or wrong they were, such as slavery, treating women and children as chattel property, and on and on. Jesus was a Liberal, who fought for the little guy.
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Who does? I'm homosexual, and I have NEVER called ANYBODY a "butt buddy". You are a clumsy propagandist, aren't you?
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Of course there are gay rabbis and imams. Islam was more tolerant of homosexuality during the West's Middle Ages than was Christendom, but Islam has been largely taken over by its most regressive preachers, as modern U.S. Christianity is under assault by its most regressive preachers. As Islam modernizes, it too will see more enlitened behavior. As for Judaism, there are gay synagogs or gay congregations that meet, with the approval of the predominantly straight congregation that rents them space.
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I'm glad jenjen shows her hatred of the Catholic Church, so we can all see what kind of 'mentality' we are dealing with here. Now she has got herself VERY seriously outnumbered, in taking on a BILLION Catholics, not just the gay population of the United States.
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Leviticus is JEWISH. Christians do not casually disregard the requirements of Judaism. They DEFY them. You then cite to Saul of Tarsus, a man who KILLED early Christians before a crisis of conscience made him convert, whereupon he changed his name to Paul. Find us, the religious and/or cultural critics of the United States ONE quote from JESUS that condemns homosexuality. You can't do it, because Jesus, who was supposed himself to BE God, did NOT, ever, condemn homosexuality.
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Oops. "Critics" should have read "Christians". My criticizing the stance of the Radical Right's misrepresentation of Christianity as Judaism got in the way of my intended statement.
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Homosexuality is barely ever mentioned in media; heterosexuality permeates everything in media. Something has made you hypersensitive. Hm. Hint: It's not outside yourself.
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Lonnie apparently thinks that the living world is divided in thirds, animals, plants, and people. No, human beings are part of the Animal Kingdom in science. But science doesn't mean anything to her. It's just the stuff that made it possible for her to post her silly remarks on the Internet. It has no real meaning.
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Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other, or there would be no human race -- if you believe the Adam and Eve fable. If you do NOT accept that Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other, then you accept that Adam and Eve were NOT the only people at the beginning of the world. Everything you say is subverted by your Adam-and-Eve crap.
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Ah, there it is: the compulsory anti-Obama remarks from the Radical Right. Absolutely NO topic is so far afield that some Radical Rightists cannot bring it around to Barack Obama.
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The only choice he made was to come out publicly.
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yonkaddi, there was a series of gay suicides within a few weeks, including one prompted by a grotesque incident involving a Rutgers University student, and the enormous attention that SERIES of prominent suicides pushed this guy's conscience. Better late than never.
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Yes, of course people choose their orientation, as they choose their race, their place of birth, and their family's socioeconomic status. That is a very Hindu way of thinking. But no, not everyone is bullied mercilessly, tho everyone may be teased from time to time. And not everybody's sex life is streamed on the Internet without permission, which so humiliated a closeted gay college student that he jumped off the George Washington Bridge.
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Kindly cite to ONE condemnaton of homosexuality issued by JESUS. Exact quote, and chapter and verse, please.
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There is no God, and you cannot find any legitimate ground in reality to condemn homosexuality. As for its being a psychological disorder, the American Psychiatric Association says it is NOT a disorder, but you of course know better than the APA.
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Ah, I see. Sex is worse than murder. Of couse it is.
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Those do NOT relate to anything JESUS said. You are quoting Saul of Tarsus ("St. Paul"), NOT Jesus. Stop LYING. Both of those books state very plainly that what follows are the words of PAUL, not Jesus. Paul never even MET Jesus. He never heard a word Jesus said. In fact, he persecuted Christians 'even unto death'. And THAT is your source, not Jesus.
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We are not talking of a choice of actions but of NATURE. He was born homosexual, just as he was born white. There is no issue of a person "choosing to be white". And people cannot choose to "act on being white".
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Actually, reproduction no longer requires sexual activity between the people whose genetic material forms a new life, and in fact we would all be better off if the ONLY children conceived required a carefully considered CHOICE by the parents. This planet is being destroyed by overpopulation, that is, by heterosexuality.
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So you chose to be heterosexual, and could simply change that choice any time you wanted, right?
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The nonreligious people here hate the immorality of intolerance, but do not hate the person -- unless they never give up on thumping their Bible instead of thinking, so continue to justify their intolerance.
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Alas, it is not in the slitest true that the younger generation doesn't care about homosexuality. "That's so gay!" is just one example of the ongoing intolerance and stereotyping that younger people inflict on gay people they don't even realize are in their presence. Teenagers would not be killing themselves if their peers were tolerant. It would be nice if young people were openminded, and anyone could date anyone, of either gender, without being condemned, but we're NOT there yet.
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I suppose you believe the science of the first century too.
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The Bible is nonsense. You are entitled to believe nonsense if you wish, but not to condemn people who refuse that idiocy. Keep your religion to yourself. Gay people don't want to hear it.
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Bizarrely, I was reproached by AOL Terms of Service for one thing I said:Date: 2010-11-15 21:09:48.0I replied:
Nov 15, 2010 8:59 PM EST SN: mrgaypride Topic: Torn by Bullying Suicides, Mega-Church Pastor Says He\'s Gay Comment: Ken... Perhaps Randy did choose to be straight, rejecting his actual, homosexual nature. A lot of the most adamant antigay militants are suppressed, self-hating homos.
Our Terms of Service agreement, which was presented during the sign up process, allows AOL to be informative, entertaining and, above all, fun for all of our Members. Please be advised that further violations may result in closure of your AOLaccount(s).
NOTHING I said violated any terms of service. I pointed out that self-hatred is a common part of the dynamic of antigay propaganda. If it is "homos" you object to, I as a gay man can use that term. It is a short form, not a pejorative as I use it. Seriously, you are complaining about that, when people are telling everyone that gay men are going to hell, and that's all right with you? Please.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Comments about DADT. AOL hilited a news story today about the Supreme Court not interfering in the natural course of the Log Cabin Republicans' lawsuit against the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) law. Following the story were some 300 comments when I decided to read them and reply as seemed necessary or appropriate. Here, now, are my 82 substantive comments. I also made a number of comments such as "Stay on topic", because the Radical Right always tries to hijack comments areas and redirect them to attacks on Obama, and other irrelevancies. Be warned. The text below comprises over 3,500 words.
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Unhappily, it is not true that you have to say something. Other people can report you, and then the military DOES ask, or decides from its own investigation that you are gay, then discharges you.
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Bill Clinton was notorious for half-measures. He was a very bad President, who compromised principles endlessly.
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Fine, then urge the President to withdraw the appeal. Posting comments here does nothing toward moving the President or DOJ to do that.
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You're a bigot, pure and simple. But at least you are ALLOWED to be a bigot, openly.
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I have no desire whatsoever to be thought straight. Would a straight person be alrite with being thought gay?
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Stop the antihomosexual stereotyping. Gay men in the military are not effeminate, but all-men. And MOST gay men are all-male.
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To answer num6fan's points, yes, if someone has a legally recognized relationship, they are entitled to the same benefits as anyone else. As to the part of the query, "Will heterosexuals be able to also have same sex dependants?", it doesn't seem to make much sense, but yes, a heterosexual soldier is entitled to claim his sons as dependents.
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And if they had fought back and kicked the crap out of their attackers? That is the REAL fear: that gay men trained to defend the Nation will as well defend themselves.
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Why don't you take that attitude toward comments areas? Keep your opinions to yourself. Would you like that to be the law?
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Not all Republicans are antigay/antilesbian bigots. Dick Cheney's dauter is a lesbian, and he will not enlist in your crusade. The Log Cabin Republicans, whose lawsuit is at issue, are GAY REPUBLICANS. Did you notice the absence of antigay ballot measures this election? The Republicans know that antigay bigotry is no longer a winning issue for them.
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Everyone's sexual orientation (not preference) is known or assumed. If heterosexuals were forbidden to talk about their girlfriends -- or prostitutes -- how many straight men would serve in the military?
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Simpleminded bigots have always found ways to 'justify' their simpleminded bigotry. Women can't meet realistic standards, but they are accepted into the military, where they create HUGE problems of cohesion and make our task of winning over the people of conservative countries almost IMPOSSIBLE.
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Straight soldiers BRAG about their sexual activities in the military, so your imperative "Just keep your mouth shut and do your job" and your assertion that "No one cares what you do in private" are both patently false. Heterosexual soldiers would be OFFENDED if they were told to keep their sexual orientation secret on pain of discharge.
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Bin Laden is not a myth, just a corpse. He has almost surely "bin" dead for at least three years.
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Yet we are all supposed to bow down to the military and pretend that they are "defending our freedoms".
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Yes, [in appealing a ruling that struck down DADT] Obama is no JFK.
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Why would men -- and women, who do NOT belong in the military -- leave the military in large numbers? Most of them are there because they can't find work in the real world, and want the benefits they will get after they leave the service.
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But having WOMEN in the same proximity is not a problem? B.s. Women cause enormous problems in the military, and make it impossible for us to win over the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, because Afghan men AND WOMEN don't want women pointing guns at them. So they fite us because they refuse the Radical Feminism the U.S. military apparently wishes to impose upon them. The only good thing about DADT, if it is effective, is that only straight people, many of them macho, antigay losers who are good only as cannon fodder, get killed in the military.
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Siding WITH a policy you disapprove, and actually APPEALING a decision that supposedly went your way was INSANE. The Obama Administration could simply have accepted the first court ruling, and NOT appealed, and the law would have been voided. It is thus not possible to believe that Obama is sincere in his pretense of wanting DADT to end. Compare racial segregation. Would Obama have appealed a court ruling that racial segregation in the military was unconstitutional?
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num6fan, the military has SUBVERTED its mission by firing much-needed translators and bilingual intelligence officers because they are gay. So the deaths of U.S. soldiers -- straight soldiers -- that gay intelligence agents could have prevented are the doing of antigay bigots. They are getting their own people killed in order to discriminate against gays.
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I'm sure you were equally comfortable with a racially segregated military, and would say then too, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
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Had Obama simply accepted the first court ruling, he could have done that [acted like Harry Truman in ending segregation in the military]. But he appealed it! So now he can't ignore the law, because the appellate court found the law constitutional. Obama's behavior is incomprehensible unless he really is an antigay bigot himself.
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There have been very distinguished military leaders who were homosexual, including Richard the Lionheart and Frederick the Great in relatively modern times, and Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great in the ancient world. How would their countries have fared if they had been thrown out of their militaries or royal families?
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Straights like to pretend gay men are weak and homosexual sex is disgusting, and YET they are afraid of us -- or of their own desires.
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There is no such thing as being "visually groped". You are turning non-touch into molestation, by magic. Stop the nonsense.
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icefishin1 is just making things up. Identical rights are "special" rights. Gay boyfriends "out" their ex and that's the way "98%" of gay men in the military are booted. The other 2% -- don't you just love the specificity of these made-up "statistics"? -- "out" themselves to get out of the military that they joined as VOLUNTEERS.
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It is impossible to understand Obama sometimes.
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So bigotry is okay, but fiting bigotry is wrong. Now I see. Perhaps we don't need a military, since it's okay to let other people take our rights away.
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cruisedoc, the only thing that keeps recruitment down is the endless war that the neocons want.
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cruisedoc, apply your same standard to straight people in the military. NEVER mention anything that indicates your sexuality. Never brag about your heterosexual exploits, or mention your girlfriend. Keep it to yourself. I'm sure you'd be fine with that. Right.
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Ignorant nonsense, weng. The toughest army of ancient Greece, that of Sparta, was very homosexual. The greatest generals of the ancient Western world were Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, who were both reported to have sex with men.
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Phony issue. Nobody is talking about "open gay acts" any more than heterosexual orgies in the barracks. You have no legitimate argument, so create a straw man to knock down.
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Unless cruisedoc lives in total isolation (as would be appropriate, given his hateful attitudes), he DOES know people who are gay. They just don't "flaunt" it.
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Drivel, pure and simple nonsense. HIV does NOTHING, which is why the great preponderance of people diagnosed with it live years and years and years without getting AIDS -- which is a DRUG injury, which explains why it never enters the general population, after 30 years!
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And if you feel uncomfortable showering with a black man, blacks should be banned from the military too, right? Yes, it's all about YOU.
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tjburkee is just making things up. Homosexuals are NOT sick -- but we are tired of the crap that bigots keep pulling out of the clear blue sky. As for sharing a barracks, are you afraid of being raped by those nelly little faggots, you great big strong straight man? Or are you afraid that you would be tempted to have sex with men if there were no penalty for it?
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You misinterpreted the article. The Supreme Court chose not to INTERVENE at this stage. They did NOT rule on the constitutionality of the law. Nor is any court authorized by the Constitution to void a law duly passed in accord with the provisions of the Constitution. If the Framers had intended the Supreme Court to have a role in legislation, they would have written an express provision to that effect -- AND provided an override procedure, as they did with the Presidential veto.
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Another falsification of reality. No one is advocating that people have sex -- hetero- or homosexual -- in front of your children. Cut the crap.
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So there is no freedom of speech in the Constitution? Perhaps you should READ the Constitution someday.
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Tony is being completely dishonest. Straight people make a great show of their sexuality every day, in every conceivable place. People indignant about such showing off have invented the expression, "Get a room", for good reason.
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bobvadc, does this sound familiar? "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech". It's in a little-known provision called the FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS. Plainly "don't ask, don't TELL" is an explicit violation of the First Amendment.
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And millions and millions of Americans think heterosexuality is disgusting. But you people don't keep it to yourself, do you, but talk about it all the time.
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Tod's extreme sexual insecurities are showing.
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Cut the crap. You know, we all know, that absent an indication of some sort to the contrary, every single person on Earth is PRESUMED heterosexual. The Courts and the Legislature should let the military operate outside the laws and Constitution? That is a statement fit for a Latin American dictatorship, not the United States.
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And I'm very certain there has never been heterosexual sex in any military barracks, ship, or other facility. But how did all those pregnant military women get knocked up?
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Other militaries can handle gay men in the same barracks with straight, but Americans are too stupid, sexually insecure, and brutal to behave in civilized fashion? You have a very low opinion of American military, I see.
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Actually, the military has long been very different from society in many things, including earlier desegregation than much of society and the acceptance of Radical Feminism. Whether that is a social experiment, progress, regression, or whatever depends upon your point of view.
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thermalsurface's stance is disgraceful interference with other people's lives. Of course he takes the dishonest stance that many straight bigots do, that they only want to 'save us from ourselves', not control our lives. If we asserted that we have the right to tell them how to live, they'd be perfectly content to accept our lecturing them too, right?
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Being considered for Government employment on the basis of one's qualifications, not race, sex, orientation, or other irrelevancy IS a civil right. If gay people are not entitled to seek Government employment, we should just stop paying taxes. We don't need to pay taxes to hire everybody BUT us.
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Equal rights to fite the Nation's enemies abroad is an "agenda", is it? Why is it OK for you to push YOUR, antihomosexual, agenda? but it's wrong for gay people to demand equality?
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Bob pretends to know how many homosexuals there are, but he is just making things up. The Census doesn't ask about sexual orientation, so where does he get his information? Oh, I know, he just pulls it out of ... the clear blue sky. Gay men are plainly a lot more than 2% of the population, since every year on the same day, hundreds of thousands of gay men show up at Gay Pride events in several cities scattered across the Nation, but only a tiny proportion of ANY population is activist. 10% is a more likely figure. But people's rights do not depend on their statistical numbers, only on their personhood. As for what is good for the military, that is for the Government, of which all military are employees, to decide. We don't have rule by the military in this country -- yet.
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I'm very tired of fascistic comments by the likes of "Mr. Wonderful", saying that the military is rightly independent of society and not subject to its laws. No, MW, the military does not rule; it TAKES orders from civilians, it does not issue orders to them.
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So civil rights are properly the concern only of the minorities, right? Never mind that the majority had to pass laws to protect minorities. By your reasoning, that wasn't important enuf to the majority to legislate. No, justice is everybody's business.
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As far as gay men are concerned, heterosexuality is sick and disgusting sexual behavior. Mind your own business and stay out of our lives. We don't tell you how to live, so don't presume to tell us how to live. "Live and let live" is the proper motto for a Nation that values personal freedom.
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The Supreme Court did NOT decide the issue, so your meanspirited rejoicing is at best premature.
***
And of course we are supposed to believe everything you say, without proof of any kind, nor even a last name we could look for info about online. But you may have a point: let everyone killed in the military be straight. You're in favor of straight people being the only ones dying, right?
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People do not willingly get themselves discharged with a homosexual record that can follow them throughout their life. And we know that you do NOT care about protecting homosexuals. Cut the crap.
***
Heterosexuals have made their sexual behavior the subject of EVERYTHING in society. It is all over TV, in films, and in public, and "reproductive rights" are HETERO, SEXUAL rights. If Government were to try to tell straight people that they have no right to talk about their sexual orientation or activities, would you be content with that? No, you would not. But YOU would make THAT a HUGE political issue.
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You can't keep your opinions to yourself, but other people should keep their fundamental essence to themselves.
***
So if a white soldier doesn't want black soldiers around, that should control, right? I don't give a d...arn what individual soldiers want. They don't write the laws, and they don't give orders to society. Their job is to do their duty and obey the constitution. You don't like other soldiers? Tuf.
***
Yeah, only YOU have rights. You are an enemy of the world, and wholly un-American.
***
Clearly you do not understand how biology works. If six people do NOT reproduce but four people DO, and they have several children each, the population increases, not decreases. There are many biological traits that are passed along and pop up in every generation, whether they are further passed along or not by those individuals. Blond hair, for instance, is recessive, such that if both parents have that gene, one of four of their children, on average, will have blond hair. If only one parent has the gene, none of their children has blond hair. That does not make blondness nonhereditable. It just makes it a minority condition, like hereditary homosexuality.
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The real problem is that a lot of straight men are afraid they will have sex with men unless they are held in check by laws or taboos. They're afraid not of gay men but of themselves.
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What is at issue is NOT a private organization but the Government to which we all pay taxes and under which -- or over which -- we are all supposed to have equal rights. Pls do not falsify the issue.
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"White people do not venture into black people's world. So why do black people want to venture into theirs? Why go where you are not wanted?" And as for "real men", gay men ARE real men. Indeed, they are MORE men than the fearful straight people posting to this area. Straight men are scared of gay men; gay men are not afraid of straight men. We even like some of them, but stick to our own men.
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icefishin1, the military isn't a women's aerobics class. It is a Government JOB, even CAREER.
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As the man who first put forward the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used, I can tell you that it was and remains a necessary antidote to the endless attempts of bigots to make gay people ashamed. No one should have been suspended for wearing "Straight Pride" teeshirts. Everyone is entitled to be proud of who and what they are at essence, tho some of their acts may warrant condemnation, such as attacking other people's rights. The idea that heterosexuals are the VICTIMS in this society is INSANE and/or just plain dishonest. Heterosexuals in the military aren't silenced about their sexual orientation. Heterosexuals aren't forbidden to marry, or have any of the rights, such as filing a joint tax return, of marriage. Cut the crap.
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The problem with the super-rich is that "their" money is NOT "hard earned". And it's not money unless it has our name on it, "United States of America". The could never have achieved ANYTHING without the work that the poor and middle class did to create everything they benefit from. And many of those people who did the real work of society are gay or lesbian.
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zamaster2 has this crazy bugaboo that gay men are all rapists, and cannot find anyone to have sex with of their own age. Actually, gay men find LOTS of sex with willing partners -- which makes a lot of straight men jealous. We don't have to wait for three (expensive) dates or spend money on a prostitute. We can hook up with a willing partner very, very easily. We don't need to attack the unwilling. And straight men are so weak that they couldn't dissuade someone from attacking them? You poor weak straight people. I feel so sorry for you, being raped by gay men every day.
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Discriminatory provisions of agreements are void as a matter of law. An illegal agreement is NOT a contract. And we are not talking about private companies but GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT. You are twice wrong.
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Soldiers are forbidden to obey ILLEGAL orders, and depriving people of their First Amendment rights is illegal.
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STOP repeating posts. As to Kagan, she has NEVER publicly stated she is a lesbian, so how would you know her orientation? Do straight people have to recuse themselves from issues involving heterosexuality, such as abortion of children conceived thru heterosexual sex?
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Sexual orientation is fundamental to a person's identity and humanity. Are you suggesting that soldiers must be monks or like Catholic priests, forbidden even to think about sex? That makes no sense.
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If itchy is calling me a socialist, he doesn't know what he's talking about. I, like most Americans, understand that we have long had a MIXED economy, not "socialist", not laissez-faire capitalist. Liberals are the people who CREATED the United States and did everything that has made this a civilized society. The Confederacy was TREASON, and anyone proud of it is proud of treason. I call such a person a "traitor".
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Kindly put replies to posts AT the relevant post, so we can see what your are supposedly addressing. You are falsifying the issue in DADT. It is not about gay men sexually harassing poor, helpless straight men. Your insistence that gay men "need help" is absurd and insulting. Your extreme stance that any "expression of sexual tendencies" creates a "hostile work environment" is entirely wrong in a couple of ways. First, it would tell straight men in the military that they cannot talk about their girlfriend or wife, much less their sexual conquests. Second, much of the military is not just a workplace but a LIVING ENVIRONMENT. Military people have rights, not all the rights of civilians -- for instance, they can't defy their boss -- but they do have fundamental human rights, such as freedom of speech.
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itchy, do you REALLY think the smoke inside "your" bars STAYS inside your bars forever, and never gets out into the general atmosphere, in high concentrations nearby and somewhat more attenuated form as it spreads out? Air pollution of many types is worsened by smokers, who have NO right to pollute other people's air. But you don't grant other people any rights.
***
So you concede that straight men in the military DO talk about their sexuality, but now pretend to be indignant about it. No one believes that. Not even gay men mind straight men talking about their wife or girlfriend, as long as they keep it clean. But gay men are not allowed to talk about their boyfriend or civil-union partner. World of difference.
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I do not waste time on worrying about a nonexistent God. I deal with realities.
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Yes, gay people are at the root of all the problems of the world. Yeah, right.
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[And finally, my adamant replies to the nonsense of the Radical Right brought forth the charge that I was "bullying" them! So these are the last comments I posted.]
How, pray, am I "bullying" anybody? I tell people to stay on-topic. That is supposed to be REQUIRED by AOL Anytime anyone dares to answer the Radical Rightists in comments areas, they are "bullying"?
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It only seems to you that I'm bullying, because I am demolishing the nonsense of the Radical Right here. And I am very proud to be homosexual, but since I'm 65 years old, I don't do nearly as much "practicing" as I'd like. Besides, I don't need any practice. I know what I'm doing.
*
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Bill Clinton was notorious for half-measures. He was a very bad President, who compromised principles endlessly.
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Fine, then urge the President to withdraw the appeal. Posting comments here does nothing toward moving the President or DOJ to do that.
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You're a bigot, pure and simple. But at least you are ALLOWED to be a bigot, openly.
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I have no desire whatsoever to be thought straight. Would a straight person be alrite with being thought gay?
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Stop the antihomosexual stereotyping. Gay men in the military are not effeminate, but all-men. And MOST gay men are all-male.
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To answer num6fan's points, yes, if someone has a legally recognized relationship, they are entitled to the same benefits as anyone else. As to the part of the query, "Will heterosexuals be able to also have same sex dependants?", it doesn't seem to make much sense, but yes, a heterosexual soldier is entitled to claim his sons as dependents.
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And if they had fought back and kicked the crap out of their attackers? That is the REAL fear: that gay men trained to defend the Nation will as well defend themselves.
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Why don't you take that attitude toward comments areas? Keep your opinions to yourself. Would you like that to be the law?
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Not all Republicans are antigay/antilesbian bigots. Dick Cheney's dauter is a lesbian, and he will not enlist in your crusade. The Log Cabin Republicans, whose lawsuit is at issue, are GAY REPUBLICANS. Did you notice the absence of antigay ballot measures this election? The Republicans know that antigay bigotry is no longer a winning issue for them.
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Everyone's sexual orientation (not preference) is known or assumed. If heterosexuals were forbidden to talk about their girlfriends -- or prostitutes -- how many straight men would serve in the military?
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Simpleminded bigots have always found ways to 'justify' their simpleminded bigotry. Women can't meet realistic standards, but they are accepted into the military, where they create HUGE problems of cohesion and make our task of winning over the people of conservative countries almost IMPOSSIBLE.
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Straight soldiers BRAG about their sexual activities in the military, so your imperative "Just keep your mouth shut and do your job" and your assertion that "No one cares what you do in private" are both patently false. Heterosexual soldiers would be OFFENDED if they were told to keep their sexual orientation secret on pain of discharge.
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Bin Laden is not a myth, just a corpse. He has almost surely "bin" dead for at least three years.
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Yet we are all supposed to bow down to the military and pretend that they are "defending our freedoms".
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Yes, [in appealing a ruling that struck down DADT] Obama is no JFK.
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Why would men -- and women, who do NOT belong in the military -- leave the military in large numbers? Most of them are there because they can't find work in the real world, and want the benefits they will get after they leave the service.
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But having WOMEN in the same proximity is not a problem? B.s. Women cause enormous problems in the military, and make it impossible for us to win over the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, because Afghan men AND WOMEN don't want women pointing guns at them. So they fite us because they refuse the Radical Feminism the U.S. military apparently wishes to impose upon them. The only good thing about DADT, if it is effective, is that only straight people, many of them macho, antigay losers who are good only as cannon fodder, get killed in the military.
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Siding WITH a policy you disapprove, and actually APPEALING a decision that supposedly went your way was INSANE. The Obama Administration could simply have accepted the first court ruling, and NOT appealed, and the law would have been voided. It is thus not possible to believe that Obama is sincere in his pretense of wanting DADT to end. Compare racial segregation. Would Obama have appealed a court ruling that racial segregation in the military was unconstitutional?
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num6fan, the military has SUBVERTED its mission by firing much-needed translators and bilingual intelligence officers because they are gay. So the deaths of U.S. soldiers -- straight soldiers -- that gay intelligence agents could have prevented are the doing of antigay bigots. They are getting their own people killed in order to discriminate against gays.
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I'm sure you were equally comfortable with a racially segregated military, and would say then too, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
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Had Obama simply accepted the first court ruling, he could have done that [acted like Harry Truman in ending segregation in the military]. But he appealed it! So now he can't ignore the law, because the appellate court found the law constitutional. Obama's behavior is incomprehensible unless he really is an antigay bigot himself.
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There have been very distinguished military leaders who were homosexual, including Richard the Lionheart and Frederick the Great in relatively modern times, and Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great in the ancient world. How would their countries have fared if they had been thrown out of their militaries or royal families?
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Straights like to pretend gay men are weak and homosexual sex is disgusting, and YET they are afraid of us -- or of their own desires.
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There is no such thing as being "visually groped". You are turning non-touch into molestation, by magic. Stop the nonsense.
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icefishin1 is just making things up. Identical rights are "special" rights. Gay boyfriends "out" their ex and that's the way "98%" of gay men in the military are booted. The other 2% -- don't you just love the specificity of these made-up "statistics"? -- "out" themselves to get out of the military that they joined as VOLUNTEERS.
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It is impossible to understand Obama sometimes.
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So bigotry is okay, but fiting bigotry is wrong. Now I see. Perhaps we don't need a military, since it's okay to let other people take our rights away.
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cruisedoc, the only thing that keeps recruitment down is the endless war that the neocons want.
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cruisedoc, apply your same standard to straight people in the military. NEVER mention anything that indicates your sexuality. Never brag about your heterosexual exploits, or mention your girlfriend. Keep it to yourself. I'm sure you'd be fine with that. Right.
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Ignorant nonsense, weng. The toughest army of ancient Greece, that of Sparta, was very homosexual. The greatest generals of the ancient Western world were Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, who were both reported to have sex with men.
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Phony issue. Nobody is talking about "open gay acts" any more than heterosexual orgies in the barracks. You have no legitimate argument, so create a straw man to knock down.
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Unless cruisedoc lives in total isolation (as would be appropriate, given his hateful attitudes), he DOES know people who are gay. They just don't "flaunt" it.
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Drivel, pure and simple nonsense. HIV does NOTHING, which is why the great preponderance of people diagnosed with it live years and years and years without getting AIDS -- which is a DRUG injury, which explains why it never enters the general population, after 30 years!
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And if you feel uncomfortable showering with a black man, blacks should be banned from the military too, right? Yes, it's all about YOU.
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tjburkee is just making things up. Homosexuals are NOT sick -- but we are tired of the crap that bigots keep pulling out of the clear blue sky. As for sharing a barracks, are you afraid of being raped by those nelly little faggots, you great big strong straight man? Or are you afraid that you would be tempted to have sex with men if there were no penalty for it?
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You misinterpreted the article. The Supreme Court chose not to INTERVENE at this stage. They did NOT rule on the constitutionality of the law. Nor is any court authorized by the Constitution to void a law duly passed in accord with the provisions of the Constitution. If the Framers had intended the Supreme Court to have a role in legislation, they would have written an express provision to that effect -- AND provided an override procedure, as they did with the Presidential veto.
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Another falsification of reality. No one is advocating that people have sex -- hetero- or homosexual -- in front of your children. Cut the crap.
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So there is no freedom of speech in the Constitution? Perhaps you should READ the Constitution someday.
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Tony is being completely dishonest. Straight people make a great show of their sexuality every day, in every conceivable place. People indignant about such showing off have invented the expression, "Get a room", for good reason.
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bobvadc, does this sound familiar? "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech". It's in a little-known provision called the FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS. Plainly "don't ask, don't TELL" is an explicit violation of the First Amendment.
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And millions and millions of Americans think heterosexuality is disgusting. But you people don't keep it to yourself, do you, but talk about it all the time.
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Tod's extreme sexual insecurities are showing.
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Cut the crap. You know, we all know, that absent an indication of some sort to the contrary, every single person on Earth is PRESUMED heterosexual. The Courts and the Legislature should let the military operate outside the laws and Constitution? That is a statement fit for a Latin American dictatorship, not the United States.
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And I'm very certain there has never been heterosexual sex in any military barracks, ship, or other facility. But how did all those pregnant military women get knocked up?
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Other militaries can handle gay men in the same barracks with straight, but Americans are too stupid, sexually insecure, and brutal to behave in civilized fashion? You have a very low opinion of American military, I see.
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Actually, the military has long been very different from society in many things, including earlier desegregation than much of society and the acceptance of Radical Feminism. Whether that is a social experiment, progress, regression, or whatever depends upon your point of view.
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thermalsurface's stance is disgraceful interference with other people's lives. Of course he takes the dishonest stance that many straight bigots do, that they only want to 'save us from ourselves', not control our lives. If we asserted that we have the right to tell them how to live, they'd be perfectly content to accept our lecturing them too, right?
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Being considered for Government employment on the basis of one's qualifications, not race, sex, orientation, or other irrelevancy IS a civil right. If gay people are not entitled to seek Government employment, we should just stop paying taxes. We don't need to pay taxes to hire everybody BUT us.
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Equal rights to fite the Nation's enemies abroad is an "agenda", is it? Why is it OK for you to push YOUR, antihomosexual, agenda? but it's wrong for gay people to demand equality?
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Bob pretends to know how many homosexuals there are, but he is just making things up. The Census doesn't ask about sexual orientation, so where does he get his information? Oh, I know, he just pulls it out of ... the clear blue sky. Gay men are plainly a lot more than 2% of the population, since every year on the same day, hundreds of thousands of gay men show up at Gay Pride events in several cities scattered across the Nation, but only a tiny proportion of ANY population is activist. 10% is a more likely figure. But people's rights do not depend on their statistical numbers, only on their personhood. As for what is good for the military, that is for the Government, of which all military are employees, to decide. We don't have rule by the military in this country -- yet.
***
I'm very tired of fascistic comments by the likes of "Mr. Wonderful", saying that the military is rightly independent of society and not subject to its laws. No, MW, the military does not rule; it TAKES orders from civilians, it does not issue orders to them.
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So civil rights are properly the concern only of the minorities, right? Never mind that the majority had to pass laws to protect minorities. By your reasoning, that wasn't important enuf to the majority to legislate. No, justice is everybody's business.
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As far as gay men are concerned, heterosexuality is sick and disgusting sexual behavior. Mind your own business and stay out of our lives. We don't tell you how to live, so don't presume to tell us how to live. "Live and let live" is the proper motto for a Nation that values personal freedom.
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The Supreme Court did NOT decide the issue, so your meanspirited rejoicing is at best premature.
***
And of course we are supposed to believe everything you say, without proof of any kind, nor even a last name we could look for info about online. But you may have a point: let everyone killed in the military be straight. You're in favor of straight people being the only ones dying, right?
***
People do not willingly get themselves discharged with a homosexual record that can follow them throughout their life. And we know that you do NOT care about protecting homosexuals. Cut the crap.
***
Heterosexuals have made their sexual behavior the subject of EVERYTHING in society. It is all over TV, in films, and in public, and "reproductive rights" are HETERO, SEXUAL rights. If Government were to try to tell straight people that they have no right to talk about their sexual orientation or activities, would you be content with that? No, you would not. But YOU would make THAT a HUGE political issue.
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You can't keep your opinions to yourself, but other people should keep their fundamental essence to themselves.
***
So if a white soldier doesn't want black soldiers around, that should control, right? I don't give a d...arn what individual soldiers want. They don't write the laws, and they don't give orders to society. Their job is to do their duty and obey the constitution. You don't like other soldiers? Tuf.
***
Yeah, only YOU have rights. You are an enemy of the world, and wholly un-American.
***
Clearly you do not understand how biology works. If six people do NOT reproduce but four people DO, and they have several children each, the population increases, not decreases. There are many biological traits that are passed along and pop up in every generation, whether they are further passed along or not by those individuals. Blond hair, for instance, is recessive, such that if both parents have that gene, one of four of their children, on average, will have blond hair. If only one parent has the gene, none of their children has blond hair. That does not make blondness nonhereditable. It just makes it a minority condition, like hereditary homosexuality.
***
The real problem is that a lot of straight men are afraid they will have sex with men unless they are held in check by laws or taboos. They're afraid not of gay men but of themselves.
***
What is at issue is NOT a private organization but the Government to which we all pay taxes and under which -- or over which -- we are all supposed to have equal rights. Pls do not falsify the issue.
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"White people do not venture into black people's world. So why do black people want to venture into theirs? Why go where you are not wanted?" And as for "real men", gay men ARE real men. Indeed, they are MORE men than the fearful straight people posting to this area. Straight men are scared of gay men; gay men are not afraid of straight men. We even like some of them, but stick to our own men.
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icefishin1, the military isn't a women's aerobics class. It is a Government JOB, even CAREER.
***
As the man who first put forward the term "Gay Pride" as it is now used, I can tell you that it was and remains a necessary antidote to the endless attempts of bigots to make gay people ashamed. No one should have been suspended for wearing "Straight Pride" teeshirts. Everyone is entitled to be proud of who and what they are at essence, tho some of their acts may warrant condemnation, such as attacking other people's rights. The idea that heterosexuals are the VICTIMS in this society is INSANE and/or just plain dishonest. Heterosexuals in the military aren't silenced about their sexual orientation. Heterosexuals aren't forbidden to marry, or have any of the rights, such as filing a joint tax return, of marriage. Cut the crap.
***
The problem with the super-rich is that "their" money is NOT "hard earned". And it's not money unless it has our name on it, "United States of America". The could never have achieved ANYTHING without the work that the poor and middle class did to create everything they benefit from. And many of those people who did the real work of society are gay or lesbian.
***
zamaster2 has this crazy bugaboo that gay men are all rapists, and cannot find anyone to have sex with of their own age. Actually, gay men find LOTS of sex with willing partners -- which makes a lot of straight men jealous. We don't have to wait for three (expensive) dates or spend money on a prostitute. We can hook up with a willing partner very, very easily. We don't need to attack the unwilling. And straight men are so weak that they couldn't dissuade someone from attacking them? You poor weak straight people. I feel so sorry for you, being raped by gay men every day.
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Discriminatory provisions of agreements are void as a matter of law. An illegal agreement is NOT a contract. And we are not talking about private companies but GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT. You are twice wrong.
***
Soldiers are forbidden to obey ILLEGAL orders, and depriving people of their First Amendment rights is illegal.
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STOP repeating posts. As to Kagan, she has NEVER publicly stated she is a lesbian, so how would you know her orientation? Do straight people have to recuse themselves from issues involving heterosexuality, such as abortion of children conceived thru heterosexual sex?
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Sexual orientation is fundamental to a person's identity and humanity. Are you suggesting that soldiers must be monks or like Catholic priests, forbidden even to think about sex? That makes no sense.
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If itchy is calling me a socialist, he doesn't know what he's talking about. I, like most Americans, understand that we have long had a MIXED economy, not "socialist", not laissez-faire capitalist. Liberals are the people who CREATED the United States and did everything that has made this a civilized society. The Confederacy was TREASON, and anyone proud of it is proud of treason. I call such a person a "traitor".
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Kindly put replies to posts AT the relevant post, so we can see what your are supposedly addressing. You are falsifying the issue in DADT. It is not about gay men sexually harassing poor, helpless straight men. Your insistence that gay men "need help" is absurd and insulting. Your extreme stance that any "expression of sexual tendencies" creates a "hostile work environment" is entirely wrong in a couple of ways. First, it would tell straight men in the military that they cannot talk about their girlfriend or wife, much less their sexual conquests. Second, much of the military is not just a workplace but a LIVING ENVIRONMENT. Military people have rights, not all the rights of civilians -- for instance, they can't defy their boss -- but they do have fundamental human rights, such as freedom of speech.
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itchy, do you REALLY think the smoke inside "your" bars STAYS inside your bars forever, and never gets out into the general atmosphere, in high concentrations nearby and somewhat more attenuated form as it spreads out? Air pollution of many types is worsened by smokers, who have NO right to pollute other people's air. But you don't grant other people any rights.
***
So you concede that straight men in the military DO talk about their sexuality, but now pretend to be indignant about it. No one believes that. Not even gay men mind straight men talking about their wife or girlfriend, as long as they keep it clean. But gay men are not allowed to talk about their boyfriend or civil-union partner. World of difference.
***
I do not waste time on worrying about a nonexistent God. I deal with realities.
***
Yes, gay people are at the root of all the problems of the world. Yeah, right.
***
[And finally, my adamant replies to the nonsense of the Radical Right brought forth the charge that I was "bullying" them! So these are the last comments I posted.]
How, pray, am I "bullying" anybody? I tell people to stay on-topic. That is supposed to be REQUIRED by AOL Anytime anyone dares to answer the Radical Rightists in comments areas, they are "bullying"?
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It only seems to you that I'm bullying, because I am demolishing the nonsense of the Radical Right here. And I am very proud to be homosexual, but since I'm 65 years old, I don't do nearly as much "practicing" as I'd like. Besides, I don't need any practice. I know what I'm doing.
