Well, you guys DO get a bit testiy with people who differ with you over the validity of finding Constituitonal protections without requiring that the be found in the text. 
Note the smiley, please; I’m really not interested in having that debate migrate over here.
OK, OK, I’m intolerant of stupidity. But not homosexuality, dammit!
(Note to the living constitutionalists out there: I keed, I keed…)
Are you suggesting that only a study I personally conduct has any validity? I can’t rely on a peer-reviewed, academic study?
Ah, yes…name calling and insults. The last refuge of the frustrated and ineffectual!
And once again, it sounds as if you haven’t read my posts very thoroughly.
Well, that statement would have been all the better for actually providing one 
That said, I wouldn’t be exactly surprised if they were. The following makes it clear that you mean ‘having more sex’ not ‘wanting more sex’ which isn’t exactly my definition of promiscuity, but it’s what was in Bricker’s post:
Stereotype, and personal experience, suggests that a larger proportion of men would like some pretty no-commital sex. If so, then it’d obviously be unsurprising that this proportion of men would get more, if they’re trying to sleep with other men, than that same proportion of straight men. Not certain by any means, but unsurprising.
Does anyone have any statistics? I imagine it’s very difficult to find statistics about, since the only way I can think of is to ask people who they’ve slept with, which is notoriously unreliable…
Irony alery! Irony alert! I dutifully went to go take the quiz, only to find that there were no little checkboxes for people who don’t identify as straight. Heterosexist much?
You’re perch up on that high-horse is not looking very steady when you only respond to the one guy flinging insults, and not the several others making reasoned arguments. And the fact that Diogenes is abrasive doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
“Frustrated and ineffectual”, indeed.
I have at least one study to reference, but can’t find it on-line, and it dates from 1988. I’m looking for something more recent, under the theory that there was a sea change around that time with regard to homosexual behavior in light of the AIDS crisis.
Still, both experience and common observation suggest, as you say, that men, gay or straight, have a certain tendency towards no-strings sex, and that men seeking it from other like-minded men are more likely to be rewarded than men seeking it from women. As a general rule. I would be surprised to hear someone voice serious disagreement with this as a general principle. I recall, in fact, on this very board one of the gay posters made an off-handed comment about tricking with a line like, “And what gay man hasn’t at least once or twice?”
In any event, the POINT of my comment was not the truth or falsity of that observation, but rather the utter irrelevance of it, even if true. It remains unclear to me what possible inference we could draw from concluding that a particular individual was promiscuous.
Oh, please!!! I have virtually written a book during this thread responding to everyone (or at least a goodly portion of them) concerning my thoughts on these issues. How many times am I supposed to explain the same things. Also, if you would have bothered to read some of my more recent posts, you would have seen that I said I would be offline until this evening, thus another reason for my lack of response.
I have held my tongue with Diogenes despite his vitriolic outbursts that have been going on almost since this thread started. Perhaps the high horse you percieve is just my attempt to avoid getting down in muck with him and saying something like “Bite me!,” which would be the likely result otherwise.
[QUOTE=Ferrous]
“And the fact that Diogenes is abrasive doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
And, knowing my own mind, thoughts and philosophies in regard to the discussion at hand, and in consideration of the things he has said to me and motives he has ascribed to me, I can tell you that he is wrong in almost everything he says, at least in regard to me.
I don’t believe I’m the one on the high horse.
Yes, you’ve been very verbose in your statement of your position. However, you haven’t addressed any of the challenges to it issued here; you simply restate your position time and again, and get offended when people get offended, while leaving tons of reasonable questions unanswered.
As the Bush administration is finding out, repeating something, no matter how many times you do it, doesn’t make it true.
Again, I have to disagree. I have stated my positions and explained in great detail what I mean by what I say and the reasoning behind it. I clearly have not simply been making statements over and over without responding to reasonable questions on the part of others.
What you really mean is that I have not overtly stated my position on, for lack of a better term, “gay rights.” It appears that this is the cause of great frustration on the part of many of the posters here…they don’t know whether to cream me or to support me and it’s driving some of them nuts.
As I have said ad nauseum, the OP is the dishonest use of the word “homophobe” and not my personal stance on the gay rights movement.
Additionally, I have no doubt whatsoever that if I were to come out saying I oppose “gay rights” I will be lambasted as a bigot, and if I were to come out saying I’m fully in favor of “gay rights” I will lambasted for not towing the party line. Either way, I get hammered, and the OP is not addressed.
Your posts, despite your protests to the contrary, have been notably lacking on specifics. You defend unspecified “undecided, apapthetic, etc.” persons against vague supposed attacks from unidentified persons. You claim that “Hollywood” makes numerous unjustified accusations of homophobia, yet you can’t or won’t give any examples. You’ve also been strangely silent on the “lifestyle” issue since it’s been pointed out how meaningless that term is.
Stop accusing people of not reading your posts. I did read your posts. When I saw your first post since you returned this evening, I deliberately waited for a half an hour to respond as I did, just to see if you planned to continue responding to others. You didn’t, so I said my piece. But hey, maybe I jumped the gun, and you were just about to start answering the others. If so, I apologize, and you may now proceed.
Okay, but you’re also avoiding the substance of his arguments. It is possible to respond to vitriol with sweet reason.
Starving Artist, could you give me an example of the misuse of the word “homophobe”? Thank you.
I am deeply tired of the debate over interpretation of the Constitution in that other thread, but I do have a couple of questions for those who think it terribly unfair to be called homophobic for their views on jurisprudence.
Was it inappropriate, a few decades past, to call those defending “states’ rights” in the face of federal civil rights legislation and various SCOTUS decisions racist?
Is there any moral distinction to be made between denying civil rights to blacks versus denying civil rights to gays?
Yes, yes, I know, Dewey, equal protection on grounds of race is enshrined in the 14th Amendment, etc, etc. I will not dispute your views on that matter in this thread. However, think seriously about the two questions I’ve asked. I think if you’re at all honest with yourself, you’ll agree that while your views may not strictly entail homophobia, they are nonetheless sufficient to engender suspicion in that regard, and it’s inevitable that some more hot-blooded folks will jump to the conclusion. If you are going to defend as vehemently as you do the views on jurisprudence which you hold, you should be expecting that response, and not surprised by it, even if that response isn’t ultimately justified.
You haven’t explained shit. All you’ve done is cry about the alleged misuse of the word “homophobe” without explaining how it’s been misused. Your semantic objection is horeshit and it’s been explained to you that its horseshit.
Don’t flatter yourself. Your OP has no substance on its own. there’s nothing to debate there. You don’t have to literally be afraid of homosexuals to be a “homophobe,” ok? If you harbor attitudes that people ofa a homosexual orientation are morally inferior to you or that they don’t deserve the same civil rights as you then you are a homophobe. If you don’t like the word homophobe then substitute “straight supremacist” or “heterosexist” Or “sexualist” or just plain old “bigot.” “Asshole” works just fine as well.
You have yet to illustrate a misuse of the word.
Because you would, in fact. be a bigot.
What “party line?” What aspect of gay rights do you think you’d be attacked for not supporting?
The OP has been addressed plenty. it just doesn’t have any substance.
You don’t have a point. You don’t have a point of view. You’re just being provocative for its own sake.
I don’t get this.
a) Starving Artist asks a reasonable question about the use of a term that seems to him to be often inappropriately applied.
b) People are not answering that question, instead asking Starving Artist what his position is on a much larger issue.
c) Starving Artist repeatedly implies that his personal stance on that issue is irrelevant to his OP, he just would like his actual OP addressed.
d) Starving Artist is insulted for ‘avoiding the issue’ when that ‘issue’ is not relevant to his OP. His OP is a different issue on whether or not a particular term is bandied about too freely and therefore is at risk of interfering with truths.
Seems to me he’s just asking a question - can’t anybody talk about that instead of all this other stuff?
His question is a stupid one and it’s been answered already multiple times. What do you think has not been addressed?
I would argue that, by virtue of this being in the Pit, he was less asking a question and more complaining about a certain mindset.
What mindset would that be? He’s blugeoning a strawman. His thesis is that people who are “neutral” on gay rights are branded as “homophobic” by gay activists yet he has presented no evidence or support that such is actually the case. he’s creating victims and oppressors who don’t exist.