Conservative group says gay activists 'mull terrorism'

RHill wrote:

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So, are gay activist even now mulling terrorism in some hidden (but comfortable) lair ... no doubt. Will reasonable arguments or discourse alter you away from your evil deeds ... don't think so.

Evil deeds? I think your tin-foil hat needs an adjustment.

There's plenty of reason to doubt such ridiculous ideas.

Inquisitarian wrote:

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Because I dared to disagree with you and call you out on your BS?
Hmmm...you're the one using both all caps and an exclamation point - I think that makes you the shrill one.

Can you say frustrated closet queen?

Rick in Kansas wrote:

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What you don't seem to realize is that your so-called instruction manual has been used to instruct people to do all sorts of things which are no longer acceptable. In this country alone it has been used as an instruction manual for slavery, the killing of "witches", the oppression of racial and religious minorities, the oppression of women, the oppression and forced conversion of Native Americans and that's just the short list of bad acts committed because the Bible tells us so. While you are free to believe that the Bible is instructing you to deny the civil rights of people who are Lesbian and Gay, you need to grasp the reality that your interpretation is far from universal, nor has it ever been. You may be in the "mainstream" at the moment, but the tide is working against you and before you know it, you will find yourself listed among those who believed that the Bible justified slavery, the killing of witches and so forth, with history wondering what in the heck was wrong with you...

Only time will tell.

DustyShadow wrote:

Only time will tell.

It already is, you're just refusing to listen to reason...

Pretend I'm a scientist trying to figure y'all out ... I've seen where your "condition" is not a behavior, life style or choice ... how then do you properly describe it?? Is it a compulsion or affliction? A genetic pre-disposition?? Please illuminate me ...

Rick in Kansas wrote:

<quoted text>It already is, you're just refusing to listen to reason...

Oh? Did time stop and nobody sent me a memo about it?

DustyShadow wrote:

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Oh? Did time stop and nobody sent me a memo about it?

Only for you dear, only for you...

RHill wrote:

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You are right, I am immoral ... along with ignorant, stupid, a hater, a bigot, a liar ... I believe the strongest invective I've used in any of my posts is "buttercup" blah blah blah blah blah

Your intent is very clearly to insult and demean, but like in most things you can't even do that openly and honestly, you hide behind language. You can't even be honest when you're insulting someone, so why should I trust your morals in anything else?

BTW, nice try at deflecting, you only proved my point about you having questionable morals.

RHill wrote:

Pretend I'm a scientist trying to figure y'all out ... I've seen where your "condition" is not a behavior, life style or choice ... how then do you properly describe it?? Is it a compulsion or affliction? A genetic pre-disposition?? Please illuminate me ...

To whom is this addressed?

Rick in Kansas wrote:

<quoted text>Only for you dear, only for you...

LOL, sorry to disprove your fantasy, Rick in Kansas. Time marches on for me. BTW, what do you think of being censored on that other Topix site?

DustyShadow wrote:

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LOL, sorry to disprove your fantasy, Rick in Kansas. Time marches on for me. BTW, what do you think of being censored on that other Topix site?

The only fantasy on exhibit here has been your own, both here and on the other thread. By the way, you were wrong there too...

DustyShadow wrote:

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To whom is this addressed?

To the homosexual folk who are so inclined to answer ...

RHill wrote:

Pretend I'm a scientist trying to figure y'all out ... I've seen where your "condition" is not a behavior, life style or choice ... how then do you properly describe it?? Is it a compulsion or affliction? A genetic pre-disposition?? Please illuminate me ...

It is a natural and normal psychological, emotional and sexual attraction to members of our own sex, that most of us are well aware of from a very early age, even if we don't understand it ourselves. We live in such a heteronormative society, that for most non-heterosexual children their first understanding of themselves is that of being "different" from most if not all of their peers and since not being heterosexual in our society is all too often frowned upon, that "difference" is usually experienced negatively. Since heterosexuality is considered to be the default position, non-heterosexual youngsters are always indoctrinated into how to be heterosexual which unfortunately leaves them exploring how to be homosexual or bisexual on their own dependent on how much information they have any real access to and how good it really is. Human sexuality, as opposed to sexual orientation, is known to be developmental in nature and since the development of a homosexual sexuality is discouraged at best and rejected at worst, its development is far more of a trial and error process than that of heterosexuals who usually have fairly clear guidelines and relatively positive role models to base their development on. For Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual youth, what should be seen as normal and natural is all too often seen as an anathema, treated by people like you as something to be ashamed of, or "cured". Instead of allowing young people to develop as whatever the combination of genetics and biology that led them to be same sex attracted in the first place wanted them to be, our society fights against it tooth and nail in a complete denial of their reality. We don't really know what or how many different combinations of genetics and biology create some of us gay and more of us to one degree or another bisexual, but we do know what doesn't cause it. It is not now, nor ever was a choice, it is not a form of mental illness or sickness of the soul, while sexual behavior and how we live with our orientation is learned. the orientation itself is not, it isn't the result of overprotective mothers. absent fathers or vice versa and no we weren't recruited, we already were enrolled in the few, the proud the queer even before we understood it ourselves. Does that help your understanding any?

To: Rick in Kansas
Re: Above Post

Well, actually it does. Thank you.

To: Rick in Kansas
Re: Above Posts

I've read and re-read your response several times noting references to "very early age", "youngsters", "youth", "developmental", "young people", "children", etc. implying that homosexuality is somehow pre-destined for certain individuals. I would have thought that, external of environmental influences, children should be more or less "gender neutral" until puberty and the hormonal onslaught begins. In other words, the answer to the old question of "nature vrs nurture" remains ambiguous. Certainly, the effect of exposing children to various behaviors from role models cannot be neglected or under-estimated. Concerns about influencing children based upon what they see on television and ultimately, our neighborhoods remains well founded. Hollywood and the media apparently intend to permeate our society with "gay" sitcoms and movies. I find nothing particularly comedic about these issues. Meanwhile, the emasculation of the "straight" American Male continues unabated. Women and more often children are being shown as being the only "savvy" or "grown up" members of their households, as if someone wants to make them less the victim and more informed participants in what society rightly calls exploitation. The silent/"moral" majority are naturally frightened at these portents of the destruction of this great society.

RHill wrote:

To: Rick in Kansas
Re: Above Posts
I've read and re-read your response several times noting references to "very early age", "youngsters", "youth", "developmental", "young people", "children", etc. implying that homosexuality is somehow pre-destined for certain individuals. I would have thought that, external of environmental influences, children should be more or less "gender neutral" until puberty and the hormonal onslaught begins. In other words, the answer to the old question of "nature vrs nurture" remains ambiguous. Certainly, the effect of exposing children to various behaviors from role models cannot be neglected or under-estimated. Concerns about influencing children based upon what they see on television and ultimately, our neighborhoods remains well founded. Hollywood and the media apparently intend to permeate our society with "gay" sitcoms and movies. I find nothing particularly comedic about these issues. Meanwhile, the emasculation of the "straight" American Male continues unabated. Women and more often children are being shown as being the only "savvy" or "grown up" members of their households, as if someone wants to make them less the victim and more informed participants in what society rightly calls exploitation. The silent/"moral" majority are naturally frightened at these portents of the destruction of this great society.

Where have you been for the last few hundred years? Your views on sexuality became obsolete around 1850. Freud, wrong as he was on many topics, did realize that children have sexual feelings.

How can you explain that when I saw naked boys and men for the first time, at age five, I was attracted to them?

RHill wrote:

To: Rick in Kansas
Re: Above Posts
I've read and re-read your response several times noting references to "very early age", "youngsters", "youth", "developmental", "young people", "children", etc. implying that homosexuality is somehow pre-destined for certain individuals. I would have thought that, external of environmental influences, children should be more or less "gender neutral" until puberty and the hormonal onslaught begins.

Not so - you're still thinking of this in purely sexual terms. The experience of most men identifying as gay is that of experiencing same-sex attraction well before that attraction expands to sexual interest with the onset of puberty. Children are not a blank slate. Behavior can be instinctual or learned, but same-sex orientation is not. While it remains unclear for now exactly what drives orientation, it is clear that it manifests well before puberty and is not something that develops due to external influences. How a person learns to deal with their orientation is separate from the orientation itself, as Rick pointed out. A child can have the best role models for heterosexuality existing and still end up being homosexually oriented. It is possible to overestimate the influence of "exposing children to various behaviors from role models", and our opponents often do so, purposely ignoring our experience and any unbiased scientific research that doesn't support their preformed prejudices, or manipulating and extrapolating from that research to produce "findings" that aren't really logical or well-founded, but instead conformed to their prejudices and even rejected by the scientists who produced the original research.

I'm not going to make the assertion that someone is "born gay" - the science that would inform our understanding is still incomplete. The fact that a specific cause for same-sex orientation can't yet be directly proved shouldn't be misinterpreted as somehow magically proving some other asserted cause, like environmental influences. There's more credible science for arguing homosexuality as inborn than there is for arguing environmental causes, but not enough to say "homosexuality is caused by 'X'".

Those who would assert that we should err on the side of caution concerning same-sex orientation usually mean we should err on the side of their own prejudice.

RHill wrote:

The silent/"moral" majority are naturally frightened at these portents of the destruction of this great society.

Fear kills reason. People who are seeing "portents of the destruction of this 'great society'" are 1) likely rhapsodizing over something that never really existed in the first place, and 2) illustrating that they're easily led by conspiracy theorists and fearmongers.

Should we be concerned about the way our society evolves? Certainly, but that doesn't excuse giving into irrational fears and using them to unduly restrict others' liberties.

JohnInToronto wrote:

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Where have you been for the last few hundred years? Your views on sexuality became obsolete around 1850. Freud, wrong as he was on many topics, did realize that children have sexual feelings.
How can you explain that when I saw naked boys and men for the first time, at age five, I was attracted to them?

I'm afraid that I am at a loss to explain that. However, being a child once does give me some "authority" in this matter. Before puberty I was somewhat frightened and repulsed by girls and boys were only thought of as companions, never sexual objects. After puberty, I was strongly attracted to females and my male friends became partners (and sometimes rivals) in the "hunt". This was at a time, I remember, that Barbara Eden's exposed navel caused quite a stir, female Star Trek outfits were being censured and the "dirtiest" publication I could get my hands on was the Sears Catalog's bra and panty section. Please now convince me that it is somehow "better" in the direction we are heading.

RHill wrote:

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It would be very difficult to "get to know" each of the millions of gay people before passing judgment ... I simply do not have the time or the inclination.

Utterly missing the point. What we're saying is that it's ridiculous to pass judgment on an entire group of people, period. You aren't being asked to "get to know" every gay person in existence. You're being asked to consider people as individuals, rather than lumping them into a group for the very purpose of ignoring their individuality.

Allow me to with a hypothetical situation: Let's say someone has never seen a dog before, the details of why they haven't are unimportant to this scenario. Then they encounter one for the first time - a small white terrier.

While it might be natural for a person lacking any other point of reference to form their ideas about all dogs based on that one encounter, I hope we can agree they'd be quite mistaken to assume that all or even most dogs are small, white and have the characteristics otherwise associated with the group designated as terriers.

Or let's take a more common, real-world mistake that people make: being afraid of dogs of an entire breed, based on a bad experience with one dog that may have been abused or just not well-trained.

Either way, the mistake in logic is the same: Taking what is known about the particular (in these examples a small white terrier or poorly managed dog), and attempting to apply that to the larger group as a whole (in this case, all dogs).

It's natural for people to form judgments based on their limited experiences, but that doesn't mean they always form logically supported or correct conclusions from them - especially when they come into each subsequent encounter with that learned bias, expecting it to be reinforced and therefore prejudging the situation. It skews our perception of reality. Sometimes it serves us well - there could be no real learning without building on our past experiences. But when we build them on a bad foundation due to a lack of information, acceptance of misinformation, or base prejudices, we fail.

This is precisely what is happening to people of same-sex orientation. People are using their limited anecdotal experience - and worse, accepting at face value the biased accounts and flawed reasoning of others with like-minded prejudices, to build legal restrictions that interfere with our lives.

Inquisitarian wrote:

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Fear kills reason. People who are seeing "portents of the destruction of this 'great society'" are 1) likely rhapsodizing over something that never really existed in the first place, and 2) illustrating that they're easily led by conspiracy theorists and fearmongers.
Should we be concerned about the way our society evolves? Certainly, but that doesn't excuse giving into irrational fears and using them to unduly restrict others' liberties.

Well, I believe that our country, flawed though it may be, is the end result of thousands of years of social evolution and experimentation by human beings and is unquestionably a "great society", possibly the first and perhaps the last. Certainly one under assault and very worthy of our protection and consideration. Conspiracy theorists and fear mongers may be the only ones of us who truly understand the situation. Ego-centric people who pursue personal gratification at the expense of others are the one's rhapsodically fiddlin' while Rome burns.