dk

lisarea: You're making a lot of sweeping pronouncements without backing them up at all.
For one, pedophiles and homosexuals are completely different things. If you don't have a dictionary available at home, you can look these terms up at:
dk: I never implied otherwise. I simply said that women rarely commit rape or pedophilia. These are crimes men commit. There are so few incidences that the Justice Department and other crime reporting agencies don’t track women offenders for rape or pedophilia. As for onelook.com, I don’t give sources associated with Right Wing ultra conservative groups, please don’t quote gospel form homosexual activists organizations. There’s plenty of data available from the CDC, NIH, and prestigious Universities. If you want to quote a source from an ultra right wing source that cool.

lisarea: http://www.onelook.com
This will allow you to compare and contrast the two terms. While you're at it, look up heterosexuality as well.
Once you've done this, please come back and explain the relationships among these three terms.
dk: Pedophilia describes a person with a sexual attraction to prepubescent children, and technically considered sexual disorder, not a crime. The vast overwhelming majority of pedophiles and rapists are male, and rarely female. These facts run against the grain of classical psychological theories about “sexual orientation”. There are other anomalies psychological theories tend to ignore because they don’t fit. The low incidence rates of female rapists and pedophiles tend to be broadly ignored by researchers, misrepresented in the media and strangely absent of any medical and/or academic comment. This is important because it indicates a bias offensive to scientific objectivity. I don’t like it, I assume you don’t like it, but I’m not going to ignore it to make myself comfortable in the herd mentality.

dk: There are a lot of people that don’t want their sons and daughters or students socialized by gay activists period, and much less so in public schools. Parents don’t want their kids to be gay, they don’t want the gay lifestyle normalized by the media, and they really don’t want their kids to grow up to be homosexuals, bisexuals or lesbians.
lisarea: I do not want my sons, daughters, or students socialized by those with a hateful, ignorant agenda.
I am a parent, and the only reason I would have wanted my child not to be gay is because I wouldn't have wanted him to have to deal with mean spirited, intolerant people.
dk: We are in agreement. And I would add, I also find bias shrouded in scientific trappings a rationalization. I hope if any of your sons become gay they live a happy life, but if they practice anal sex with their sugar daddy mentors at the gay community center they’d be better off playing Russian roulette.

lisarea: I absolutely DO want the gay 'lifestyle' normalized by the media. I absolutely do NOT want my child socialized by people with hateful and intolerant agendas.
Being exposed to homosexuality does not turn you gay. (For some reason, I think it is probably necessary to explain that when I say 'exposed to homosexuality,' I'm not talking about child rape or pornography, just normal, non-sexual socialization.)
dk: As a parent you have every right to socialize your kid as you see fit, but doesn’t justify the covert indoctrination of kids whose parents don’t share your values. If you want to be respected, then its a two way street.

lisarea: Being exposed to all different types of people turns you understanding, tolerant, and compassionate.
dk: The HIV/AIDs epidemic is over 20 years old, and I don’t understand how it is possible that kids suffer such disproportionately high rates of infection. Adolescents: Leading Edge of the Epidemic :

lisarea

dk, the fundamental problem with all of your arguments thus far is that they're backwards.

You reached a conclusion, based on fear, dogma, and/or some kind of emotional reaction, and are now going backwards, seeking out anything you can find to support that conclusion, and ignoring anything that refutes it. You are simply not approaching the issue critically.

That might be an effective tool for preaching to choirs, but it's not going to get you very far, overall, with an audience that is not already convinced of your conclusion.

If you are, in fact, serious (and I'm not entirely convinced that you are), you might do well to honestly look at the issues at hand objectively, and approach the issues as questions rather than as pre-ordained answers.

If you are either not willing or not able to do that, I'm afraid you'll continue to be frustrated in your efforts to convince others.

What does any of this have to do with homosexuality?

Throughout your posts, you have continually equated homosexuality with pedophilia. Whether you have done so overtly or not is irrelevant. You persist in telling this strange story about 'sugar daddies' having anal sex with children in community centers, for example. Are you actually arguing that, despite the fact that the topic at hand is homosexual marriage, this is just a non sequitur or a typo that's popping up time and time again?

But onelook isn't just A homosexual activists organization. it's THE homosexual activists organization.

Either that, or it's a site that allows you to search multiple dictionaries in a single query. I forget which.

Again, how do the differences in crime rates between men and women relate to homosexuality in any way at all?

I'm going to leave your argument about the supposed dearth of research into why men commit more crimes than women alone. I don't see its relevance, and based on your posts so far, I expect you'd ignore anything that didn't support that anyway.

Your argument is a little incoherent, so I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make. I'm aware that pedophilia is classified as a disorder, and that it is only in practice that it is a crime. But what does this have to do with anything at all?

Pedophilia is not uniquely a subset of homosexuality or heterosexuality. It is a discrete pathology.

Look up studies that have been done in the area. Here are a couple searches you can do, from the homosexual activist search engine Google:

Jenny, 1994. (Less than 1% of child molesters in the study were homosexual.)

Groth & Birnbaum, 1978. (Of 175 child molesters surveyed, none were gay.)

That's disgusting.

What is the point of these continuing references to 'sugar daddies' at community centers? If you are not in fact trying to equate homosexuality with pedophilia, what exactly are you doing?

And do you often tell parents that you hope, if their daughters 'become straight,' they don't engage in anal sex with THEIR sugar daddies at the Heterosexual Community Centers?

If I said that to you, would it sufficiently illustrate how wildly inappropriate and thoroughly repulsive comments like that are?

So many of your arguments are almost too easy to shoot down.

Who ever brought up the idea of indoctrinating children into homosexuality? You're making another leap here--implying that the government recognizing monogamous homosexual unions would somehow require the public schools to teach "How to Be Gay" classes.

The government recognizes only heterosexual marriages. By your apparent reasoning, we can assume this implies covert indoctrination into heterosexuality in the public schools. Do you think that is acceptable?

I addressed some of the factors you might want to consider in a previous post.

dk

dk: I appreciate your comments, and have had difficulty finding the time to fashion a response. Thanks for reminding me.

1. lisarea: I shouldn't even need to point this out, but I will: Pointing out the infidelities of homosexuals makes a very weak argument as well.
   dk: The statistics I posted point out incongruities within “gay rights” propaganda.
2. lisarea:You're relying very strongly on statistics here, but you're not examining those statistics.
   dk: You need to be specific.
3. lisarea:Let's assume that it's correct that the incidence of HIV/AIDS among young gay people is disproportionately high.
   dk: It’s not an assumption, but a fact. In a sample of young MSMs (ages 15-22) in six urban counties, between 5 and 9 % were found to be infected with HIV — with a significantly higher percentage of African American youth and Latino youth being infected than white youth (CDC (1), 1999). Adolescents: Leading Edge of the Epidemic, ibid.
4. lisarea:The obvious question, then, is "Why?"
   dk: Yeh, that’s a very good question. To bad nobody asked 20 years ago. The incidence of HIV infection isn’t even tracked with respect to date of exposure. Why Not? New Serotonin test give some indication of when teenagers probably got infected, but most individuals don’t get reported until they break out with full blown AIDs. This is a life and death disease that requires immediate treatment, especially in youngsters! Its absolutely nuts. You explain it, I can’t!!!!

lisarea: Let's throw out some factors that might affect those numbers:
dk: Good idea Lisa. For 20 years we’ve had the tools to diagnose the disease, and for 10 years the means to treat the disease, yet 20 years later we still allow teenagers to go undiagnosed, untreated and spread the disease. In my mind there’s no conceivable rational explanation, except negligence and corruption at the highest levels.

1. lisarea: HIV is more readily transmitted via anal sex than via vaginal. Does that, in itself, make anal sex wrong? Does the fact that being black put one at greater risk for sickle cell anemia make it wrong to be black? How, exactly, would recognizing monogamous homosexual relationships by allowing gay people to marry exacerbate the HIV/AIDS problem? I can't imagine how recognizing monogamous gay marriage is going to infect children with diseases.
   dk: Actually most cases of HIV are spread by incidence of MSM exposure. The most affected group are hemophiliacs whose life expectancy has dropped from 62 years to 39. The CDC and NIH warned as far back as 1996 that HAART treatments reduced deaths cause by AIDs, but not the incidence of HIV. The CDC says... adolescents reported to have HIV are 43% male, and 57% female. There are three big problems,
   a) most male HIV cases go unreported until AIDs breaks out
   b) girls often get tested when they get pregnant, boys don’t
   c) MSM boys at the highest risk, are least likely to get tested regularly
   d) the average incubation time for AIDs is 10 years. (See HIV Infection in Adolescents http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/)
   Another CDC Fact sheet inexplicably contradicts , “Approximately 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year in the United States, about 70 percent among men and 30 percent among women. Of these newly infected people, half are younger than 25 years of age.(3,4)” The discrepancy between the two reports defies reason. How can the same agency publish such divergent facts? There’s some shit in the game. You explain it, I can’t.
2. lisarea: Homosexual teenagers, due to a social atmosphere that shuns and demonizes them, have a very rough time at it. Adolescence is a very difficult time for even the best adjusted children. On top of all the inherent difficulties of adolescence, homosexual teenagers have to deal with being ostracized and marginalized because of their orientation as well. This is not an innate problem with homosexuality. This is an innate problem with intolerance and with a hostile and judgmental society. Because of these things, homosexual children are often shunned by their families, their peers, and their communities. This leaves them in some very frightening situations. They become depressed, anxious, and confused. Many are kicked out of their homes and left to fend for themselves. Some do drugs. Some have promiscuous and unprotected sex, some even become prostitutes. Disturbingly and disproportionately large numbers of them commit suicide. In this environment, and faced with these realities, is it really any surprise that disproportionate numbers of them contract HIV/AIDS?
   dk: Your explanation assumes a “don’t blame the victim” mentality, while its clear young homosexuals live suicidal, drug clouded depressed and tragic lives its increasingly unclear whether the cause of their misery stems from gay culture, domestic violence, broken homes, absentee fathers, social diseases or homophobia. From the 1960s suicide rates of young teens and adults(especially boys) have been unacceptably high, and I just had a 22 year old heterosexual nephew kill himself. The data is incomplete, politically charged, ambiguously associated and largely ignored. The epidemic in teen suicide goes back 40 years, and progresses unabated by modern medicine. We got a problem folks, and our so called objective scientific theories aren’t progressing to a solution. The # of effective therapies have been a no show for decades, every proposed solutions has been riddled with side affects, marginal results, and more dead kids. In my opinion we have entered into a comfort zone, while the epidemic rages unchecked.

lisarea: Note that these problems don't magically disappear at the onset of adulthood, either. Homosexual adults experience discrimination, too, in jobs, in housing, in religion, and even just in the grocery store.
dk: You need to put up some statistics, all the homosexuals I know are educated, literate people. I know we have a general problem with chronic illness, hospice and health care, but gays and lesbians have more support groups per capita than any other sub group. The hard evidence suggests that many gay communities mistook HAART treatments for a cure, and decided to take the gloves off. Its very tragic, in retrospect more money and resources should have gone into a vaccine, instead of long term treatment but that’s not what the gay community wanted. Its not enough just to open your mouth and scream at the world, help me, help me, help me. We need more people committed to help themselves by respecting the freedom of others.

dk: Gay marriage would change the fundamental structure of the nuclear family. Government has a vital interest in the family unit because parents raise children. The nuclear family over the last 40 years has become increasingly dysfunctional, broken and amputated to the chagrin of children. Legalizing gay or lesbian marriage institutionalizes homosexuality. An institutional change that would bring gay culture into public schools.
lisarea: Do you have evidence to show this decline in the moral structure of the nuclear family? Yes, you'll likely find higher divorce rates now, but there are many discounted factors involved in these numbers as well:
dk: Technically I can’t prove the suns going to rise tomorrow, but I’m still committed to the fact the sun will rise tomorrow. It isn’t a question of proof, but life and death, of me and you, our kids, our progeny and civilization. It appears to me you’ve committed yourself and to a reckless course, and don’t give a damn about anyone else. To rationalize gay and lesbian marriage on the bases of heterosexual infidelity makes no sense. We need to help one another, even inspire one another, to keep our commitment to family, even when the commitment appears unfair. Does a homosexual have a right to deprive a child of a father or a mother? What can a diverse culture faithfully commit too, if not the freedom of children and the sanctity of the nuclear family?

1. lisarea: Incest between children and fathers, not so very long ago, was considered normal in many segments of society. It was a common, but unwritten, rule that when a farm wife died, her oldest daughter would assume her mother's responsibilities. All of them. For better or worse--and I'd argue some of both--we live in a more open society now, with all of its dirty laundry implications. The simple fact that such crimes are reported more in the news now can be at least in part attributed to both the media's willingness to report it, and in people's willingness to talk about it.
   dk: Again you justify one wrong by committing another. The nuclear family to varying degrees throughout the history of Western Civilization to some degree has been corrupt. Murder, incest, violence, envy, cruelty, oppression, infidelity, adultery, and betrayal have been part of all human family, and the nuclear family from time immortal, but you still can’t justify lesbian marriage with fatherly incest. It is despicable to deprive one child of their father, because another father committed incest.
2. lisarea: Child pornography was legal, so the lack of a 'paper trail' of arrests and convictions isn't evidence that it wasn't happening.
   dk: Its despicable to suggest we socialize all children with gay culture, because heterosexuals pornographers don’ t leave a paper trail. The content of gay culture is overwhelmingly pornographic. Note, I’m not saying lesbian culture is pornographic, in fact pornagraphers market erotica to men as Lesbian Culture. To make the connection for yourself, go do an Internet search on “Gay Art”, “Lesbian Art”, “Child Art”, “Celtic Art”, “African American Art”, “Native American Art”....
3. lisarea: Like incest, domestic violence is a much more public issue now. It's reported more, it's prosecuted more, and it's talked about more. Domestic violence itself is not at all a new problem. It's just that it hasn't always been thought of as a problem.
   dk: I don’t agree, but it seems a little off topic. The nuclear family to varying degrees has always been dysfunction, because mothers, fathers and children are all flawed. Still the nuclear family has been universally accepted as the basic unit of Western and Eastern Civilization.

lisarea: Is the divorce rate higher now than it was forty years ago? Sure. Why? See above for at least a partial explanation. The simple fact that marriages were less likely to end in divorce forty years ago is no evidence that the nuclear family was a healthy and well-functioning unit. Divorce was simply not an option for many. Women didn't have the earning power to strike out on their own. Both socially and economically, single mothers were at a great disadvantage, even if they did realize that their marriages were endangering themselves and their children.
dk: Single mother households are vulnerable because they are amputated. If mom gets sick, laid off there’s no backstop. Divorce leaves a single mother with all the expenses of the household and about 60% of the income, if she’s lucky. Obviously divorce doesn’t cure dysfunctional families, but make them poorer, often impoverished. It should be no surprise that broken and amputated families are more vulnerable, less stable and more dysfunctional than the nuclear family. Its silly to suggest single motherhood or divorced families are a solution for the dysfunctional nuclear family. At minimum children need their mother and father, and husbands and wives need to honor their marriage vows. It is irrational to suggest government sacrifice children to solve gay and lesbian problems when the nuclear family and public education are broadly recognized to be in crisis.

dk: First I didn’t mention pedophilia, and like rapists, its rare for women to be pedophiles. I wish you and your family the best life has to offer, but this isn’t about you or your family. Where’s the father of your kids? Whether it makes you comfortable or not your children have a father, and need their father even if you don’t anymore. Heaven forbid, but if something happens to a Lesbian mom, or a Lesbian mom and her co-parent break up, custody gets thrown into the courts with all kinds of gut wrenching new implications. Broken and amputated homes are a big deal when the custody of children are involved, gay and lesbian marriage just makes the whole mess more complicated unfair, painful and tragic.
lisarea: How is this at all different from a step-family situation, though? A child of an absentee father and a remarried mother would be in exactly the same situation if his mother died, with the exception that his mother's new husband might have a slightly better chance of getting custody than his natural, absentee father. Would you argue that a child is better placed with his natural parent, even if that parent abandoned him, than with a caring stepparent who raised him, regardless of the sex of that parent?
dk: The step family situation is bad, tragic, and irreconcilable. Step siblings, half siblings, step fathers, step mothers multiply the opportunities for dysfunction by each member of the respective broken families. It is idiotic to rationalize gay and lesbian marriages on the basis of dysfunctional possibilities broken families present. That’s like curing a broken leg with a amputation followed by a limb transplant.

lisarea:I am a good person. I am a good mother. My son goes to public schools. I absolutely do want him exposed to all different types of people in all different types of healthy relationships. I would have loved it if he were able to grow up in a society where he knew that, if he was gay, he could grow up normal, healthy, happy, and accepted in society. Your narrowminded, irrational views don't give you or anyone else the right to mess with my family, or with anyone else's.
People who truly care about their children care about them no matter what they are. Parents of homosexual children should want the same thing. The only trick is, you don't know when your child is born whether he's straight or gay. As such, good parents should raise their children to know that, whatever the case may be, they are not subhuman, immoral, evil, or defective because of it.
In fact, I would argue strongly that to raise your child in an atmosphere of intolerance such as that you suggest shows not just poor parenting, but a serious and fundamental moral depravity. Why anyone would encourage an atmosphere of intolerance and hatred that may well end up hurting or even killing their own child is beyond me.
dk: Now look who’s judgmental. I can’t be a good parent unless I raise my children like you. I’m immoral if I disagree with you. I’m a hater for expressing and supporting my opinions. I’ve got news.. Anybody so demented they justifies themselves with infidelity, adultery, incest, and broken marital vows... to force feed children with “all sex is all good” bullshit... is an egotistical moral moron. Today, many people are so indoctrinated with psycholinguistic voodoo they lack the common sense of a 6 year old.

Jinto

Dk, are you even listening to yourself?

Good idea Lisa. For 20 years we’ve had the tools to diagnose the disease, and for 10 years the means to treat the disease, yet 20 years later we still allow teenagers to go undiagnosed, untreated and spread the disease. In my mind there’s no conceivable rational explanation, except negligence and corruption at the highest levels.

There is so a concieveable rational explanation: it's called "abstinence-only sex education." Notice that in countries where this thing doesn't exist (read: anyplace in europe), the problems you cite don't exist to anywhere near the same degree as they do in america. So unless your highest levels are defined as the idiots who allow right-wing religous fundamentalists to remain in power, I would suggest that there is something seriously wrong with your analysis.

Actually most cases of HIV are spread by incidence of MSM exposure. The most affected group are hemophiliacs whose life expectancy has dropped from 62 years to 39. The CDC and NIH warned as far back as 1996 that HAART treatments reduced deaths cause by AIDs, but not the incidence of HIV. The CDC says... adolescents reported to have HIV are 43% male, and 57% female

Which has precisely what to do with the issue? Your argument is that promisuity and premarital sex lead to STD transmission and social problems. Since you're obviously such a fan of monogamy, then why do you favor preventing homosexuals from entering into monogamous relationships?

Your explanation assumes a “don’t blame the victim” mentality, while its clear young homosexuals live suicidal, drug clouded depressed and tragic lives its increasingly unclear whether the cause of their misery stems from gay culture, domestic violence, broken homes, absentee fathers, social diseases or homophobia. From the 1960s suicide rates of young teens and adults(especially boys) have been unacceptably high, and I just had a 22 year old heterosexual nephew kill himself. The data is incomplete, politically charged, ambiguously associated and largely ignored. The epidemic in teen suicide goes back 40 years, and progresses unabated by modern medicine. We got a problem folks, and our so called objective scientific theories aren’t progressing to a solution. The # of effective therapies have been a no show for decades, every proposed solutions has been riddled with side affects, marginal results, and more dead kids. In my opinion we have entered into a comfort zone, while the epidemic rages unchecked

I think I speak for everyone here when I say: GET REAL. You have just admitted that teen suicide rates are unacceptably high, and yet you do not favor removing the hatred and bigotry that are one of the main causes of teen suicide. The one solution that retty much every bit of research supports is the one that you still haven't tried before crying that it doesn't work. Please.

You need to put up some statistics, all the homosexuals I know are educated, literate people. I know we have a general problem with chronic illness, hospice and health care, but gays and lesbians have more support groups per capita than any other sub group. The hard evidence suggests that many gay communities mistook HAART treatments for a cure, and decided to take the gloves off. Its very tragic, in retrospect more money and resources should have gone into a vaccine, instead of long term treatment but that’s not what the gay community wanted. Its not enough just to open your mouth and scream at the world, help me, help me, help me. We need more people committed to help themselves by respecting the freedom of others.

Thank you, I'm glad you realize this. Now stop screaming "save me from the big, bad, homosexual" and go help yourself by respecting the freedom of others.

Technically I can’t prove the suns going to rise tomorrow, but I’m still committed to the fact the sun will rise tomorrow. It isn’t a question of proof, but life and death, of me and you, our kids, our progeny and civilization. It appears to me you’ve committed yourself and to a reckless course, and don’t give a damn about anyone else. To rationalize gay and lesbian marriage on the bases of heterosexual infidelity makes no sense. We need to help one another, even inspire one another, to keep our commitment to family, even when the commitment appears unfair. Does a homosexual have a right to deprive a child of a father or a mother? What can a diverse culture faithfully commit too, if not the freedom of children and the sanctity of the nuclear family?

No one is rationalizing gay marriage on the grounds of others infidelity. What we are doing is coutering your attempt to say that "some homosexuals are unfaithful, therefore no homosexuals should marry." You need to understand this before you go barginf off making untrue statements, because with your behavior, you could easily be construed as lying.

But what I especially take issue with here is this line: "Does a homosexual have a right to deprive a child of a father or a mother?" News flash for you: homosexuals are giving children fathers and mothers, fathers and mothers that they would not have while sitting around waiting for adoption. Do you really want to take away from thousands of children loving, committed parents simply because they happen to be of the same sex? Do you want to deprive these children of their right to be loved? Don't you have any respect at all for family?

Again you justify one wrong by committing another. The nuclear family to varying degrees throughout the history of Western Civilization to some degree has been corrupt. Murder, incest, violence, envy, cruelty, oppression, infidelity, adultery, and betrayal have been part of all human family, and the nuclear family from time immortal, but you still can’t justify lesbian marriage with fatherly incest. It is despicable to deprive one child of their father, because another father committed incest.

Again, you make the claim that homosexuals are responsible for creating some great wrong in society, lisarea shows that the wrong already existed and homosexuals had nothing to do with it, and then you throw out this strawman of her trying to justify one wrong with another. Will you face the facts: YOU HAVE YET TO ESTABLISH THAT HOMOSEXUALITY IS IN ANY WAY WRONG. Further, what the hell is this "depriving a child of their father" bullshit? Lesbian parents give a child who would otherwise float around in our foster care system with no one whatsoever two loving mothers, and you call that deprivation? That's like saying because I gave you a sports car I'm stealing from you because I didn't give you an SUV. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Its despicable to suggest we socialize all children with gay culture, because heterosexuals pornographers don’ t leave a paper trail. The content of gay culture is overwhelmingly pornographic. Note, I’m not saying lesbian culture is pornographic, in fact pornagraphers market erotica to men as Lesbian Culture. To make the connection for yourself, go do an Internet search on “Gay Art”, “Lesbian Art”, “Child Art”, “Celtic Art”, “African American Art”, “Native American Art”....

Again, you have yet to establish the existence, let alone a definition, of "gay culture." And just what the hell is with your inability to seperate child porn from homosexuality? Are you suggesting that heterosexual child pron doesn't exist? That all child molesters are gay? That you know damn well that the evidence doesn't support either of these assertations and you're feigning stupidity so you don't have to back up your rediculous assumption?

I don’t agree, but it seems a little off topic. The nuclear family to varying degrees has always been dysfunction, because mothers, fathers and children are all flawed. Still the nuclear family has been universally accepted as the basic unit of Western and Eastern Civilization.

Actually, the nuclear family is a relatively recent invention: most older cultures prefer the extended family.

Single mother households are vulnerable because they are amputated. If mom gets sick, laid off there’s no backstop. Divorce leaves a single mother with all the expenses of the household and about 60% of the income, if she’s lucky. Obviously divorce doesn’t cure dysfunctional families, but make them poorer, often impoverished. It should be no surprise that broken and amputated families are more vulnerable, less stable and more dysfunctional than the nuclear family. Its silly to suggest single motherhood or divorced families are a solution for the dysfunctional nuclear family. At minimum children need their mother and father, and husbands and wives need to honor their marriage vows. It is irrational to suggest government sacrifice children to solve gay and lesbian problems when the nuclear family and public education are broadly recognized to be in crisis.

Single mother households are nonetheless better than a "traditional" household where the father is a bloody drunkard who likes to beast his wife and children for no good reason. But, what you have distinctly failed to establish is that higher numbers of divorces are primarily or even partially attributable to a more liberal sexual attitude.

The step family situation is bad, tragic, and irreconcilable. Step siblings, half siblings, step fathers, step mothers multiply the opportunities for dysfunction by each member of the respective broken families. It is idiotic to rationalize gay and lesbian marriages on the basis of dysfunctional possibilities broken families present. That’s like curing a broken leg with a amputation followed by a limb transplant

Ah. So somehow gay marriage is so horrible because the couple could break up, or one of the parents could die, as opposed to heterosexual marriage where the risks are exactly the same. Give me a fucking break.

Or... did you mean to suggest that supporting heterosexual marriage because homosexual marriages sometimes fall apart is like curing a broken leg with an amputation followed by a limb transplant?

Now look who’s judgmental. I can’t be a good parent unless I raise my children like you. I’m immoral if I disagree with you. I’m a hater for expressing and supporting my opinions. I’ve got news.. Anybody so demented they justifies themselves with infidelity, adultery, incest, and broken marital vows... to force feed children with “all sex is all good” bullshit... is an egotistical moral moron. Today, many people are so indoctrinated with psycholinguistic voodoo they lack the common sense of a 6 year old.

I'll be sure to remember that analogy when describing the religous right. You know, sublimation is a much better way of releasing your anger than projection.

And for god's sake, stop calling the kettle black.

Philosoft

Quoth dk:
Does a homosexual have a right to deprive a child of a father or a mother?

What does this mean? Does it mean that "real" homosexuals are converting those that would otherwise be heterosexual? Are the converted now "real" homosexuals also, or are they just brainwashed by the real "real" homosexuals? Either way, it's a pretty stupid idea. It's not vampirism, you know.

Also dk, you seem pretty adamant that divorce is anathema to the idealized nuclear family, and that homosexuality is somehow related. I would direct your attention to statistics regarding divorces before and after states enacted no-fault divorce statutes. IIRC, divorce rates practically doubled overnight. People get divorced because they're not happy. I don't see how sodomy laws are going to change that.

lisarea

You're taking this out of context. I am not trying to excuse what you seem to think of as 'gay culture' with the vagaries of heterosexuals. This is in direct response to your lament that the nuclear family, of father, mother, and children, is crumbling.

The fact is, many of them needed to crumble.

And the reason that you find pornography when you search for 'gay art' is, to me, pretty obvious. See, there isn't a 'gay' bit on the internet. It doesn't sort art created by homosexuals and art created by heterosexuals. Homosexuals are human beings, with many different traits. Homosexuality, oddly enough, is a sexual trait, as is heterosexuality. When you search for art based on a sexual trait, said art is likely to contain sexual content, so a search on 'gay art' isn't going to come up with Michelangelo--at least not in the first few pages. Besides, it's the internet you're searching. I was once looking for a picture of copper pair wiring on an image search. So I searched on 'copper pair' and got porn. Does that mean telco is perverted? Nope. There's just a lot of porn on the internet, and you have to adjust your search terms accordingly.

Wow. I give up. You are either incapable or unwilling to understand the arguments I've made, because that is not even close.

Sr. Zonules

DK: Does a hetero couple have the right to deprive a child of 2 mothers or 2 fathers?

Also, if you're gonna bring the children into this, I wonder: what are the percentages (at least in america, but others are good, too) as far as the child's preference vs. the parent's preference?

also DK: DEFINE DEVIANT
It seems that all of your arguements are based upon the fact that gays/lesbians are somehow deviant, because they have sex with the same sex. 2 things: 1.) One can only be deviant if there is a 'norm' or a law that specifically states what the 'norm' should be. (Why should I be labeled as a deviant if I like to eat tomatoes, when the consumption of tomatoes is illegal? (try also to replace 'tomatoes' with alchohol)) 2.) Do you think that opression of people leads them to do things they would otherwise not do? (I kind of think it does... A good story for this was a female student my mother was teaching shaved her head because her mother told her that it would "embarrass me and my friends" and that the girl will be punished if she did anything that didn't look good (which is HIGHLY subjective and a terrible thing to say). )

dk

Jinto, are you even listening to yourself?
Jinto:
There is so a conceivable rational explanation: it's called "abstinence-only sex education." Notice that in countries where this thing doesn't exist (read: anyplace in europe), the problems you cite don't exist to anywhere near the same degree as they do in america. So unless your highest levels are defined as the idiots who allow right-wing religious fundamentalists to remain in power, I would suggest that there is something seriously wrong with your analysis.
dk:
For over three decades SIECUS, and Planned Parenthood have had a government monopoly on public schools sex education programs. Their theme from day 1 has been put a condom on it for safe sex, that from day 1 has been painfully ineffective Abstinence base programs have been around for 5 years, and have shown some promise, and spurred parental involvement if nothing else. From the 2002 Federal Budget for SIECUS and Planned Parenthood received 1.1 $Billion, and abstinence based programs about 102 million, about 10% of PPP. I don’t think abstinence based programs are a silver bullet, and their successes may be ancillary, due more to the threat of MDR microbes than substance.
I have no idea about the identity of the right-wing religious fundamentalists, except it sounds like a derivation of Hillary’s right wing conspiracy theory. I recognize many people when threatened argue irrationally with emotion laden stereotypes, I’m no exception to the rule, though I do try for what its worth.

Jinto:
Actually most cases of HIV are spread by incidence of MSM exposure. The most affected group are hemophiliacs whose life expectancy has dropped from 62 years to 39. The CDC and NIH warned as far back as 1996 that HAART treatments reduced deaths cause by AIDs, but not the incidence of HIV. The CDC says... adolescents reported to have HIV are 43% male, and 57% female
Which has precisely what to do with the issue?
dk:
I have 2 points,
1) gays might benefit from thinking a little bit less about themselves and a little more about their responsibility for what others suffer.
2) that the CDC data being incomplete can be skewed (you cut my next sentence) and I went on to quote the CDC saying 40,000 new cases of HIV are reported annually, and 70% are male and 30% female, and 50% new HIV incidence are in kids <25 years of age.

Jinto:
Since you're obviously such a fan of monogamy, then why do you favor preventing homosexuals from entering into monogamous relationships?
dk:
Personally I think if the gay community sincerely wants to promote a monogamous lifestyle, then they need to clean up gay culture to overcome the promiscuous and pornographic values it promulgates within the gay community. I think that’s a wonderfully constructive idea. What’s the gay leadership say about cleaning up the cultural values it promulgates?
dk: I have no idea why people put such great faith in psychological therapies and theories that decade after decade fail to deliver tangible results. I’ve concluded people delude themselves with psychobabble to rationalize infidelities and mitigate guilt.
dk: Excellent, it appears we agree that gays need to clean up their culture, and allow health official to do their job. As a society we can set aside our petty differences to deal with the larger picture. The strategic direction should be to effectively track, document, isolate, root out and halt the spread of HIV/AIDs. More resources need to be dedicated to finding a vaccination. We can see from the new SARS epidemic what’s possible, but his has nothing to do with gay and lesbian marriage.
dk: First I haven’t said homosexuals are promiscuous, but that gay culture is laden with promiscuous and pornographic values. Second, it is a rationalization to justify gay marriage with heterosexual infidelities. Third, I’ve ad nausium tried to confine my remarks to gay culture, not gay individuals, lesbian culture, or lesbians. Fourth, you personally need to reflect upon “why” you find this discussion so threatening. Its a discussion, not a witch hunt.

dk comment: Forgive the list format, I wanted to address the questions directly

1. Jinto: But what I especially take issue with here is this line: "Does a homosexual have a right to deprive a child of a father or a mother?": News flash for you: homosexuals are giving children fathers and mothers, fathers and mothers that they would not have while sitting around waiting for adoption. Do you really want to take away from thousands of children loving, committed parents simply because they happen to be of the same sex?
   dk: First, nobody knows how many homosexuals are raising children. Census data indicates the vast majority may be lesbians that changed teams in mid-life, then perjure themselves in family court to take custody of their children from the father, then when mom and her mom’s co-parent split up children are torn between biological and foster parents in a spiteful guilt ridden custody game destructive to everyone, but especially to the children. Second, this isn’t only a homosexual issue, many single aging career oriented women chose sperm donors, surrogate mothers, in-vitro fertilization in a desperate attempt to beat their biological clock, or the ravages of PID. Third, the issue of fraternal, paternal and maternal rights/obligations directly effects the laws (stare decisis) of millions/ thousands of people/families with unforeseeable consequences. Today judges assign custody for .>1/3 of the children in the US, so gay marriage has broad and far reaching legal ramifications. Fourth, the problem with adoption isn’t gays and lesbians, but the cost, endless red tape, bureaucrats and special interest groups that have turned the system into a nightmare. Fifth, the gay and lesbian marriage proponents are doing an end run through the courts with blatant disregard for the freedoms of others. Sixth, it is not at all clear to me whether gays are concerned with children, or see marriage as a vehicle to use the law as weapon to wield power over children.
2. Jinto: Do you want to deprive these children of their right to be loved?
   dk: Mothers and Fathers secure the futures of children by ordering their lives with love for their children in marriage. Gays and Lesbians live tragically sterile lives, so I understand why they want marriage and children. Tragically the nature of their relationships disorders the institution of marriage by severing a child’s maternal or paternal bonds. Gays given their promiscuous and pornographic culture, and their predisposition to confuse love with a dose of MDR microbes have got serious health problems and culture issues. Lesbians are a more complicated circumstance. There are a number of possibilities. 1) they got pregnant out of wedlock by accident, disrespecting both the institution of marriage, themselves and the child. 2) They had children in a marriage, then violated the fidelity of their marriage to change teams, disrespecting the institution of marriage, their husband and their children. 3) they took it upon themselves to find a sperm donor to intentionally deprive the child of their father. 4) they adopt, and this has several scenarios I’m not going to detail, except to reiterate the problem with adoption isn’t gays and lesbian marriage.
3. Jinto: Don't you have any respect at all for family?
   dk: I have great respect for human sexuality, marriage, family and children. But, as I’ve detailed, gay and lesbian marriage confuse family values with an act of infidelity that violates the family. I do understand stuff happens in life and everybody can only do their best given the circumstances, but to institutionalize infidelity for the sake of gay and lesbian marriages fundamentally violates the family.

dk: No I don’t think gays cause or invent social injustices, deadly MDR microbes, pornography, promiscuity, infidelity, or other wrongs that afflict people with unbearable suffering. But gays do rationalize all of the above in a futile attempt to blame others for the vices consummate with gay culture. By rationalizing the many vices gays make charity impossible, and in this sense I’m reaching out to be charitable. I’ve addressed the father issue above, kids need a mother and a father. Gay and lesbian marriage isn’t a cure for dysfunctional and broken families but a rationalization for performing an amputation on families.
dk: The definition of culture is available in any dictionary, if you still have questions about “gay” then do a goggle search on “’gay culture’ NYC”. The first entry took me to an article, the first two paragraphs follows..

Quote:

Two recent articles highlighted the growing societal reaction to the shocking excesses of homosexuals and “gay” culture. Camille Paglia, noted feminist scion and author, wrote in her column for the online magazine, Salon, recently that those who favor secular society and are concerned about the growth of concern by Christians and the rest of the society to the acceptance of gay culture need some serious self-examination.

. If you’re really interested go to gay bar, theatre, art show etc... Wherever you go, the dominant themes of gay culture will promote values laden with promiscuity and pornographic landscapes. My other observation was the unbelievable #s of Universities URL post pro-homosexual literature. Here’s one from .ABCNEWS.com : New Museum Celebrates NYC as Sex Capital : . Openly gay culture. ... brand-new museum, located at Fifth Avenue and 27th Street in Manhattan, is set to open Saturday with its inaugural exhibit, "NYC Sex: How ... abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/ museumofsex020930.html - 48k - Apr 3, 2003 - Cached - Similar pages. Now if you can come back with some entries that indicate gay culture promotes chastity, fidelity, and monogamy I’d love to read it, but that’s not gonna happen.
dk: That’s relatively unrelated to Western and Eastern Civilization.
dk: Don’t keep making me hit you ad nausium with this stick. Its none sense to rationalize gay and lesbian marriage on the basis of vices of fathers and mothers. You can’t fix drunkards, wife beaters, and child abusers with gay marriage. Its obvious our society has become hostile to the nuclear family. If the nuclear family were functional then gays and lesbians wouldn’t be a problem. Root cause is the ticket, not blame and shame rationalizations. .
dk: Gay and lesbian marriage is bad idea because it further erodes the fidelity of the nuclear family by severing the bonds between children, mothers and fathers. Children need their mothers and fathers, and husbands and wives need to order their lives with love for their children, and each other.

Jinto:
Or... did you mean to suggest that supporting heterosexual marriage because homosexual marriages sometimes fall apart is like curing a broken leg with an amputation followed by a limb transplant?
dk:
That’s an analogy to explain why gay and lesbian marriage is an inappropriate treatment of dysfunctional and broken families. You might have another argument I don’t know about, but the arguments you’ve offered so far are mere rationalizations. I’ve presented several scenarios where gay and lesbian marriages further aggravate and inflame an already tragic situation with laws legislated from the courts.
dk: touché

dk

lisarea:
You're taking this out of context. I am not trying to excuse what you seem to think of as 'gay culture' with the vagaries of heterosexuals. This is in direct response to your lament that the nuclear family, of father, mother, and children, is crumbling.
dk: I accept you at your word, and apologize for the frustration I’ve caused. I don’t know about the family crumbling, though I did use the humpty dumpy analogy. What I meant to emphasize was that the constitutional courts can’t fix all our problems, but they can certainly make them worse. One shoe doesn’t fit all in may cases. I personally have a problem with social legislation from the bench, and support the principle of subsidiarity more in line with a strict constitutional interpretation.

lisarea:
The fact is, many of them needed to crumble.
dk: Let me give you an example of unintended consequences, a story about a dysfunctional family. I have a friend, Sean, I used to work with, who was a good father and husband, genuinely nice person, an atheist as if that matters. He had a good job, nice home, great wife and two beautiful kids. His 5 year old boy was mentally slow, mildly retarded and a nice kid that was the apple of his father’s life. The kid starts having grand mal seizures, it tore Sean up. His doctor gives him some anti-depressants. They helped him perk up, but after 3 weeks he started getting terrible headaches and couldn’t sleep. He changed medications and doses several times, and still couldn’t sleep. When he stopped taking the pills got terrible headaches. The guy was walking around like a zombie at work, and literally couldn’t do his job. Cutbacks come down the pike and he gets canned. He’s very angry now, he had worked for the company for 15 years and had gotten exemplary performance reviews. He goes off his medicine, refuses severance pay and sues the company with a lawyer that gouges him. At home, alone, he starts drinking. His wife blames him. He can’t make the house payment and suddenly his whole world has been turned upside down. One day his wife is yelling at him and he strikes out at his wife of 8 years and hits her once, and in that one second he became a felon. She calls the cops, now he’s in jail and his family is in the system, penniless, homeless and impoverished. She goes on welfare, moves into public housing, they get divorced. Another case of wife saved from the terror of domestic violence. That’s not what happened, that’s not what anybody intended to happen, not Sean, his wife, the social workers, the repo man, the doctors, the social workers, the courts, or the government. It was a family that just got caught up in the system and destroyed, unintentionally. Everybody can rationalize the tragedy of a broken home, but gay marriage isn’t going to solve the problem. I agree there are families that need to be broken up, but it is not necessarily true that all families that break up are better off. In today’s world I believe more often than not breaking a family up only compounds the dysfunction, or in a diseased sense the doctor breaks off the leg to treat a badly a wounded knee, and only serves to compound the dysfunction.

lisarea: And the reason that you find pornography when you search for 'gay art' is, to me, pretty obvious. See, there isn't a 'gay' bit on the internet. It doesn't sort art created by homosexuals and art created by heterosexuals. Homosexuals are human beings, with many different traits. Homosexuality, oddly enough, is a sexual trait, as is heterosexuality. When you search for art based on a sexual trait, said art is likely to contain sexual content, so a search on 'gay art' isn't going to come up with Michelangelo--at least not in the first few pages. Besides, it's the internet you're searching. I was once looking for a picture of copper pair wiring on an image search. So I searched on 'copper pair' and got porn. Does that mean telco is perverted? Nope. There's just a lot of porn on the internet, and you have to adjust your search terms accordingly.
dk: Well I searched for “Gay Culture” and got a bunch of Universities URLs and books, then searched for ““Gay Culture” NYC” and got links that were genuine examples of “gay culture”. I have never said nor implied that homosexuals were non, sub, super or normal human beings. I said the gays I know are well educated and literate. I’ll add homosexuals are human beings with individual traits that they developed throughout the course of their life. It would be presumptive of me to say anything else about a human being without knowing them. This simply doesn’t factor into by opinion of gay culture, or gay and lesbian marriage.
This is a discussion board were people explore divergent opinion with arguments, counter arguments and responses. I’ve met your arguments, and presented mine. For some reason you appear to feel turning a discussion into a hate contest validates your opinion. I’m pointing out that divergent opinions don’t reduce people to haters, its bigotry that reduces people that argue into haters.

Dr Rick

The overwhelming majority of HIV infections to this day were/are transmitted by heterosexual sex. The quotes from the NIH and CDC you pasted refer to the United States; the demographics worldwide are much different.

No one goes out and handcounts every infected person in the US; these figures are based upon assumptions about disease spread, behaviours, past history and population samplings. Difference in the way these are performed and differing assumptions result in different statistics.

Rick