What complex issue?
People love each other. News at 11.
It’s just not that big a deal!
Missed edit wondow-
It’s like that quote from Gold Meir: when told that violence against women was a problem, her (male) advisers wanted to put a curfew on women to keep them safe. Her reply? It’s men committing the crimes- put the curfew on them.
If you that are concerned about your kids seeing men/men or women/women kiss, keep your kids at home. But leave the people who are doing absolutely nothing wrong alone.
I totally get the difference between thinking something SHOULD be easy to tell your kids, and something ACTUALLY being easy to tell your kids. I got my kid two books because I just couldn’t do it all myself. But “some boys like boys and some girls like girls”? I’ve answered harder questions about the phases of the moon.
Frankly, I’m not comfortable with PDA at all. I think straight people kissing in public is inappropriate - a chaste kiss at the end of a wedding ceremony is about it. And I certainly don’t want to be exposed to teenagers sucking each others faces off - a common enough occurance. And, of course, we have a growing population of Indian Americans who find PDA highly inappropriate. So how about we don’t treat it as a homo/heterosexual issue at all and just ban kissing in public.
Better yet, let’s make all physical contact in public illegal. No hand-holding. No hugging. Hell, let’s make eye contact illegal! Bundle women up in robes so the sight of an ankle doesn’t inflame men (and women who are inclined that way.) If a particular subculture has a problem with the way we do things here, they can bloody well go back where they came from, be it the subcontinent or 1950.
“I doubt that was really the first gay kiss in the Navy, if you know what I mean!” wink wink
Hey, they’re sailors. They’ve been on a ship for the last umpteen weeks while scraping everything that doesn’t move and looking at lots of water in their spare time. Let 'em have a kiss!
Excellent post! Ask the mods first, but please post the the number for the The Clue Phone™ as soon as you have it working!
“1950s values,” in this context at least, are disgusting, small minded and go against the spirit of the founders of America. In the 1950s, it was illegal for a black person and a white person to marry one another in several states. People who were in favor of keeping those laws on the books are identical in every way to people who are against same sex marriage now. Identical.
Your children, if they know about your views, will likely keep that fact about you to themselves when they are adults. They will do that because it they will be ashamed of you and rightly so. How dare you suggest that the brave people who serve in our military shouldn’t show affection for the person that they love so that they won’t offend backwards thinking bigots.
While I’m definitely happy for any positive movement for anybody’s rights, I can’t help but think what you’re saying. Mostly because my Facebook feed was full of guys posting about how “hot!!!” it was.
It’s been tried.
I guess I’m off in left field. I draw the line at a different point. You might frown against other “more unorthodox” (for lack of a better term) behaviors (polygamy, incest, lower age of consent, whatever), but I’m sure most would draw the line somewhere, beyond which you’d “prefer those behaviors not be made publicly”. Its not like I said they’d need to be outlawed. Just not public or ostentatious. So we’ll have to agree to disagree.
But I can’t help feeling there is a difference between us. Except perhaps for Una, I feel like my sharing a viewpoint which someone thinks might be discriminatory triggers scorn, moral superiority, and attacks from many of you, whereas I can understand your viewpoint and don’t think less of you. So even if my social perspective is more conservative - or even outdated - as many of you think, I feel like I’m the one who is more tolerant of differing views.
Did you actually put homosexuality and incest on the same continuum of “orthodoxy” where some will draw the line?
So, you think you’re being tolerant by understanding that we don’t find homosexuality at all wrong, and we’re being intolerant because we think you’re a bigot.
Okay then, good to know.
Seriously though- the clue phone is ringing- you might want to get that?
That’s Buchanans opinion in another thread involving gays. Just something to be aware of when discussing these issues with him/her.
No, no, right field. Or maybe it’s just the back of the field.
But what about what** Dangerosa** implied, that the only truly fair way of dealing with that would be to keep ALL such displays of affection, BOTH gay AND straight, out of public view? After all, I’m all for maintaining the social expectation that any actual sex (or even intense groping) happen in private, whatever the orientation of the parties. But come on, a hug and a kiss on the dockside? What the heck’s so ostentatious about that?
You see, we DO see a difference of nature, not of degree, between a consenting relationship between two competent adults, and the sorts of family-disrupting and exploitative behaviors you place in your list in that post. It’s not the same continuum.
I foresee a spike in recruitment 
Might be discriminatory? Are you serious. You are proposing different rules for same sex couple than for opposite sex couples. This is, by definition, discriminatory. It’s unacceptable and un-American.
I don’t agree to that!
But seriously, for a moment.
Being more tolerant of differing views isn’t necessarily a positive trait. While I wouldn’t ask for their rights to be taken away, I don’t have any particular tolerance or respect for white supremacists, for example. Perhaps someone else’s view is otherwise and they don’t find racist perspectives distasteful at all – would this be a positive trait, in your mind? Sorry, but you don’t get points for this sort of “tolerance”. Ultimately you’re not very tolerant of our viewpoints, now are you, calling them attacks and finding them objectionable? It’s just meaningless hair-splitting. We just disagree on this issue.
The point is, you seem to think that it’s a reasonable expectation to ask homosexual couples to hide away, and to maintain a different standard of decorum than heterosexual couples. You seem to believe that this is a completely fair request and that they should have anticipated doing so in advance, out of this same sense of decorum. The rest of us are pointing out to you that no, it is not reasonable to ask this. It is considered offensive to expect people to have to act as if there is something wrong or uncomfortable about having a sex-same relationship, and that a kiss – not excessive PDA, but a kiss that would elicit nothing but positive responses if between a man and a woman – should somehow be inappropriate because of children being present.
If you want to believe, and to teach your children, that homosexuality is wrong – that is up to you. You’re certainly welcome to tell them, too, in accordance with “1950s values”, that women should stay at home when they’re married and don’t belong in the workplace. If you ask me, though, to hide from your kids the fact that I am gainfully employed, and instead just keep it discreet as if I’m doing something wrong, I’m going to say no and not be sorry. Your values, your problem.