scigirl

Um, Theli, they do want to ban homosexuality - not just marriage, but they want to make the actual sex acts illegal. Look at some recent court decisions in the south - and although they did find on the side of the gay rights activists, there WERE opponents of the repealing of the sodomy laws. In other words - they supported the laws that made anal sex a criminal offense.

I'm not making any of this up, unfortunately.

lpetrich

dk:
First Christians have been the focus of government oppression from the beginning.

For not worshipping the official gods. Which ought to give pause to anyone fond of official "god" sloganeering. Or who sneers at atheism.

But guess what happened when one of the factions of Xtians got the support of the Roman Empire? It viciously persecuted the others out of existence. Consider what happened to the Gnostics and other sects.

(lots of bragging about how poor-loving the Church allegedly is...)

However, the Church became rich and corrupt over the course of its long history, which provoked many rebellions agains it. All of them were ruthlessly suppressed, with only Protestantism surviving.

Sadly the history has been lost on a modern secular public school system where secular politicians, judges, social engineers and educrats brag, “You can buy a better education America, but nowhere in the world does anyone pay more”?

What would dk do without such villains?

And I note that dk never addressed the subject of homobigotry.

Farren

I noticed that too (dk not addressing the OP). What's even stranger is that he ascribes a sweeping generalization about christians to scigirl, when her opening words say

clearly indicating her desire to be fair and not tar all christians with the same brush. Talk about a knee-jerk reaction.

Theli

I was more concerned with the word "homophobes", last time I checked phobias is a expression of fear and discomfort, not a political standpoint.
A person can be homophobic in a way that he feels greatly uncomfortable in the presence of homosexuals, but that doesn't mean that he has a political agenda.
Who excacly is "they"?
It sounds to me that you wich to take everyone holding an opposite opinion to yours about homosexuals, slapping a label on them and calling them all bigotted. So, isn't there just a degree of hypocrisy in your post?

Dr Rick

...which was just a few seconds before I made this post; here's how the American Heritage Dictionary on-line defines it:

homophobia

1. Fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men.
2. Behavior based on such a feeling.

In the current lexicon of language and US and church politics, hydrophobia still just means "an abnormal fear of water", but the term homophobia is much more complex.

A homophobe can have contempt for (and not fear of) homosexuals and still be rightly called a homophobe.

scigirl

Theli - I was aware that "homophobe" was not a good term which is why I invented "homobigot." Kind of like racist but not.
Sorry if this was not clear. I am talking specifically about the people who are currently supporting a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage (or other similar legislation). Either people who are sponsoring it (dubya, etc) or people who are actively supporting it through the media.

The whole reason I started this thread was because I read an article in the Denver post about this issue. Here's a clip:
So "they" = anyone who actively supports legislation to deny homosexuals the same rights that heterosexuals have.

Perhaps. Any time you fight an ideological battle, there is some degree of over-labeling and over-simplification. But you know what Theli - I think I'm a bit different than the homobigots that I defined earlier in the thread, because I'm ok with them getting married. As long as I don't have to buy them a rice-cooker.

scigirl

dk

To my knowledge everyone desires to be fair, yet who would say,
"I intend to show certain niggers, wops, spicks, jews..."

The statement at the most fundametnal level dehumanizes Christians as homobigots. I'm a Christian male and love gays. I have great empathy for gay men that migrate to NYC, LA and SF to live in depraved, purient, drug infested communities. I support all government programs that help gay people who suffer disproportionately from HIV/AIDS/STDs, drug addiction, depression, violence and suicide, and anything else that can be done to help these poor people. However, I oppose the Gay Rights Movement because their political agenda undermines family values and recruits young proteges into the depraved livestyle.

scigirl

Nope, I did no such thing. Many christians are supportive of the gay rights movement.

Wow who's being bigoted now?

Once again you proved my point - "these poor people." Not all gays have aids, are depressed, and do drugs.

Denying homosexuals the same rights that heterosexuals have is not the same thing as opposing the gay rights movement. I don't necessarily support the feminist movement, but I still believe that women and men deserve equal rights.

If you support legislation that would actively deny basic rights to homsexuals that heterosexuals already get, than you are acting in a bigoted fashion.

What political agenda? The one that demands that homosexuals be treated like people? Or the one that demands that homosexuals be treated like people?

scigirl

scigirl

I see absolutely no difference between my modifed quote of yours, and your original quote. And your argument about how gays are ruining society was the same exact one used by racists to deny them rights. I've read the arguments of people who oppose same-sex marriage, and the arguments of people who opposed inter-racial marriage not too long ago. They are identical. And wrong.

scigirl

scigirl

Here are some examples of arguments used to ban inter-racial marriage:

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/CCC...icked=3&item=12
Dr. James Owens, a former Dean of the American University School of Business, hypothesizes that a second civil war is imminent and suggests that Southern states secede from "the Union" in hope of creating segregated living spaces for the country's different races. In his scenario, the "silent, white majority" will become shocked into taking action by the catastrophic genetic effects of interracial marriage and by the inevitable rise of an accompanying police state.

From Justice Buchanan: "No such claim for the intermarriage of the races could be supported; by no sort of valid reasoning could it be found to be a foundation of good citizenship or a right which must be made available to all on equal terms." He could find nothing in the U.S. Constitution, he wrote, that would "prohibit the State from enacting legislation to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens, or which denies the power of the State to regulate the marriage relation so that it shall not have a mongrel breed of citizens.

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/04...alouis.htm#Only
Less than 30 years ago many in this Nation believed that allowing interracial couples to marry would seriously denigrate American society, and many State laws reflected that. There were many justifications to uphold the laws which stated that marriage between races were forbidden and criminal. Three major justifications are explained by the author which are: White supremacy, protection of White womanhood, and the prevention of mixed race offspring. The third justification was based on popular belief that children of interracial marriages were mentally and physically inferior to pure White race children.