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General discussion

Replying to Del's "Why Not" Thread

Nov 26, 2003 11:29AM PST

Since I was gone for a while and just recently returned, I've been catching up on reading the posts. Because my reply is too long for a reply to go through and rather than break it up into three or four separate replies, I cheated and brought in my thoughts as a new thread. Hope I don't tick anybody off because I'm not adding to the original thread.

James Dennison: It's something that's immoral just like homosexuality, but in America it has become tolerated even though it leads to passage of diseases, destruction of marriages, rending of children from one or the other parent.
Me: Sexually transmitted diseases have been around for hundreds of years and passed along via heterosexual activity. This is not exclusive to homosexuals. As medical research expanded, cures for most of them have been discovered and there will one day also be a cure for AIDS which is also transmitted widely by means other than homosexuality. Safe sex for all preferences is the only 'cure' for all STD's...and even then a normal delivery by an infected mother could pass it along through the birth canal fluids, just as a drug addiction is passed along via mother and a child in the womb. Destruction of marriages has been also going around for centuries. Kings would divorce or kill their wives if she didn't give him an heir or he got bored with her....women were nothing more than property to be done away with at a whim. Homosexuality had nothing to do with it....and the churches widely approved of dumping the wife.

Edward O'Daniel: The casual acceptance of adultry has led to numerous problems, not the least of which was acceptance of Billy Clinton's behavior and conduct while discussing military matters on the phone while engrossed in other activies.

Me: Again....acceptance of adulterous behavior when it's the man committing adultery has been around for centuries, with church approval. Women who committed adultery were divorced, shamed publicly, or killed. For the most part, the men were in charge of countries, including military matters and it didn't necessarily mean that they weren't able to multitask....some were even labeled as heroes over the history years.

Edward O'Daniel: It will cause ever more children to be brought up with warped ideas of what is natural and correct behavior.
Me: Kind of along the same lines that the 'moral majority' were hollering about regarding rock n roll and mixed marriages (religions and/or races)?

Mary Kay: Every organization, no matter how large or small has to have rules or you have utter chaos. True rules change over time for good reason.
Me: The homosexual community has been in utter chaos because of intolerance by 'straights'. Now that the tolerance level has been raised for the most part over mixed marriages and laws changed allowing blacks to have the same ability/quality of life that whites have enjoyed, have any of the horror stories that were thrown around by intolerants brought down our country (or the world)? Fear is our own worst enemy. Where there once were lynchings, there are now gay-bashings.

Evie: Any man or woman is free to marry if they want. They don't get to redefine an institution to fit their own definition.
Me: Tell that to the men and women whose parents (even in the USA) are still forcing pre-arranged marriages for them.

Evie: Why shouldn't a man marry a man? Because that's not what marriage is. If a man wants to be with a man, live with a man, commit legally to a man, be my guest!
Me: Contradictory statements here. Marriage is as much a state of mind as it is a piece of paper. How can a man commit legally to another man without marriage? The same way a man can commit legally to a woman without marriage. Names a beneficiary on the insurance policy, purchases a house in both names, gets credit cards for both, gives his name to their children....and can walk away at any time by buying out her half of the house (or signing a quit deed to her, or jointly selling and splitting the money), changing the beneficiary, canceling the cards, and paying child support. (The reverse can also be said for a woman who walks away so this isn't a man vs woman bashing statement by me) If marriage is a state of mind issue, then a 'heart' commitment is the basis of a true marriage and a man/man or woman/woman commitment IS a marriage. What is needed regarding a 'legal' marriage is recognition by the governments in order to have health benefits, deductions on the income tax returns, and social security benefits for both under the current basis used.

Evie: I see no reason to validate and promote (and it IS promotion at this point) a deviant lifestyle.
Me: Considering that drunks kill more people that AIDS, prohibition should be brought back and bars should be banned because they promote a deviant lifestyle.....which is widely acceptable and valid to the world.

Evie: I just don't see any major benefit to society in allowing gays to redefine the institution of marriage that largely supercedes national borders. The focus should be on removing marriage promotion/penalty provisions in the law (e.g. tax code) so that gays, like straights, are not treated any differently under the law.
Me: How are they redefining the institution of marriage if what they want is to be treated legally no differently under the law as straights who are married, including having the certificate that states they are married?

jonah: check in your dictionary married, marriage, conubial, wedded, wedlock, nuptial, conjugal...
Me: Two people who are married to each other, a close and intimate union, the act of marrying, nuptial ceremony, married couple, union (all from WordWeb)...your words of connubial and conjugal support both types of union as far as I can tell.

Glenda: I am asking you why we should pass a law that is morally repugnant to most communities??
Me: For the same reason that passing laws giving equal rights to blacks in the sixties to go to decent schools with whites, eat at the same restaurants, use the same bathrooms, giving women their freedom to not be chattle for their husbands and to vote, giving blacks the right to be free and not slaves, giving female children protection from genetal mutilation have all been a good thing. And yet blacks' and women's rights were morally repugnant to the majority of communities for far too long, too. If a sexually oriented law change takes place, people who are morally repugnant currently (straights) will not all of a sudden become 'perverted' just because the law has changed. They will go on with their lives just as they do now....the only change will be that there is a law change allowing gays the same rights as the straights. The morally repugnant community are acting out of fear just as they did during the discrimination law changes in the 60's.....a gay person with rights is not going to affect their lives any more after the change than they did before the change when they had none.

Glenda: What good comes from sin Dan?
Me: Many religions don't allow smoking, drinking, various types of music, etc. Should laws be made to prevent everything that all religions frown upon? The church not so long ago allowed killing of people by burning them at the stake for 'being different'....murder and torture are sins by most religious standards, and yet were practiced everyday and still are in many countries.

Evie: I've already stated that if government got out of some other aspects of our lives -- e.g. a marriage neutral tax code, and privatized health care and social security -- there is no need to even have this discussion!
Me: There also wouldn't be any need for 'straight' marriages.

Evie: why except for selfish reasons would anyone want to deprive a kid a chance to at least begin without the deck stacked against him? ... They had problems before with the contentious marriage. But they were at least social with my husband and myself and others at social events. Now they stay to themselves. Never have friends over. I doubt parents of their friends want them exposed to that environment, and that is the right of those parents if they feel that lifestyle is wrong. No amount of laws will force or convince parents to think this is a good lifestyle that they want their kids to be exposed to. So, those boys suffer
Me: The same was said in the 60's when mixed racial marriages were being introduced on a wider scale than just Sammy Davis Jr and his wife....and society adjusted to accepting the children by realizing that children are children are children. The only reason for children to suffer is because close-minded adults decide that the 'parents' of those children are to be ostracized for living differently than what they 'should' according to an unspoken moral code. Children accept change alot easier and it's the next generation that we have to thank for that acceptance. I would prefer that my children kept company with children of homosexual parents rather than straight drug addicts.
James: People CHOOSE to engage in sex. They also CHOOSE whom to engage in sex with. Yes, it's a CHOICE.
Me: Many people also choose masturbation....and that's also considered a sin in some religions. Is there a law against it? Should there be in order to appease the 'moral' society? Nobody CHOOSES to be homosexual, James, no more than they CHOOSE to be straight. Straights CHOOSE to remain single and masturbate for sexual gratification or CHOOSE to remain single and sleep around in order to never commit to the opposite sex or CHOOSE to be a happily married person on the surface and is a pedophile predator or CHOOSES to get married and commits adultery or CHOOSES to get married and actually is happy with that relationship and remains faithful. How do some of the CHOICES straights make make them BETTER choices? We've been down this road before.
Roger: Natural and/or adopted children raised in a gay marriage household will probably at the least face heckling at school. So now they're all to be homeschooled? grow up without natural group activity with other kids because the other parents don't want their kids exposed to what they feel deviant?And if the gays gather together into little subcommunities (not unlike some immigrants have) are we going to hear about the problem of prejudice against them from their neighbors?
Me: Fat kids, pimply kids, geeks, bi-racial kids, nerds....ALL kids get heckled in school and they don't end up with homeschooling. There is a pecking order in school and children learn it quickly...if they don't belong to a clique, they feel like an outsider. They are the last (if at all) to be chosen for sides in a game. If adults are predisposed to be judgmental against a sector of society, that is what gets taught to their kids, and it doesn't matter if the parents are gay or straight, black or white, Catholic or Muslim. When the children get past the garbage and see other kids as just kids, they are fine. How many times have we as adults seen situations where the adults are 'standing up' for their kids after the kids have had a fight, just to find out in the middle of their duking it out in the street that the kids are sitting together on the curb watching the adults make fools out of themselves? Kids get over 'stuff' alot faster if left alone to their own thinking things through.
Roger: Do you think that allowing homosexuals a full marriage in the eyes of the law and language would increase their fidelity? increase the lenght of their relationships? why?
Me: Has it done so for heterosexual marriages? Why not?
Kiddpeat: I imagine children will be among the first casualties. Those raised by a homosexual couple will be missing either a Dad or a Mom both of whom are badly needed. They will have a poor concept of who they are because one of their biological parents will have chosen to abandon them. They'll probably have a tough time with peers who look askance at their 'family', and they'll be sought like trophies to crown the political triumphs of their 'parents'.
Me: Why assume that the 'missing' biological parent wouldn't still be a part of the child's life? Many homosexuals come out of the closet years after they have already had their own children 'naturally'. The others either use artificial insemenation from a sperm bank (lots of straight single and married go this route to have children also) or they adopt as either a single homosexual or as a couple (and many straights, single and married also go this route). I don't believe that the peers will be an issue because kids just don't worry that much about what parents you have or don't have....only other parents do. I don't believe that any parent out there looks at their kids as trophies although there are lots of straights in the divorced category who use them as weapons.
Edward O'Daniel: You think a set of homosexual "parents" would be likely to impart good moral values to children when their very lifestyle is immoral?
Me: A loving set of parents, whether same sex or not, will impart good moral values, compared to an abusive set of heterosexual parents who yell, scream, swear, drink, do drugs, and beat the hell out of each other in front of said children. The same-sex lifestyle is only immoral to the intolerant and judgmental.
Edward O'Daniel: The steady increase in unwed mothers and divorces has followed right along with the steady decrease in moral values and any sense of personal responsibility.
Divorce and unwed mothers have also been more able to follow the decline in moral values because the liberal agenda for deviant acceptance subsidises the behavior.
Me: Actually the steady increase of unwed mothers and divorces came about because women no longer see themselves as chattel and owned by their husbands....they leave abusive marriages now in droves rather than stay because they have nowhere to go and no help to get out with. Many women are choosing to have children without benefit of husbands because they CAN now and not be frowned upon by MOST of the world. Teenage girls who have sex and get pregnant 'by accident' more often than not are girls with low self-esteem and think having sex is a way to hang on to a boyfriend because the girls have been told that by said boyfriend...."if you love me, yada yada yada"....and it was happening nearly as often fifty years ago as it is today, but those girls were shipped off and gave their babies up or had secret abortions and it was not a subject of discussion as readily as today. The liberal agenda you speak of (welfare) has more stringent rules today and a timeline that requires you cannot be on welfare longer than two years. Bill Clinton passed that law during his term of office.

TONI

Discussion is locked

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LOL! Toni:))
Nov 26, 2003 11:59AM PST

I disagree with your arguments and stand by what I said, However Lady ya done good with your answers! Some good arguments just not what I believeHappy

Glenda

P.S.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy the day! Love You! Happy

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Re:Replying to Del's
Nov 26, 2003 12:40PM PST

Good counterpoints in general.

While generally it worked well, I'm not sure some of the statements along the way sound quite the same when taken out of the sequence they were in.

No claims that are being twisted, just an observance.

roger

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PS, I think that was Dan's, not Del's post starting the discussion.
Nov 26, 2003 12:43PM PST

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I apologize....It was Dan's original thread
Nov 26, 2003 9:05PM PST

After reading through 174 posts and copy/paste to wordpad the ones I wanted to comment on, I was at it most of the day yesterday and had my typical brain-fade kick in at the end. Thanks for correcting me.

TONI

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I cried, but I'll get over it. ;-)
Dec 1, 2003 2:45AM PST

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Re:PS, I think that was Dan's, not Del's post starting the discussion.
Dec 1, 2003 2:54AM PST

Thanks Roger,

You would/will never find me discussing subjects like
this....it's like religion and taxes in Texas...there is
no end or answer acceptable to everyone...anytime.

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EXCELLENT. Well done, Toni. :-))
Nov 26, 2003 1:31PM PST

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Re:Toni , glad to see you back and sorry for your loss . .I can't
Nov 26, 2003 9:34PM PST

anything to your comments though.

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NT - Great post! Thanks!
Dec 1, 2003 2:46AM PST

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