No, because Abbie has a right to be heard just like you have a right to be heard.
I am not seeing much reasoning and logic in some of these posts (some have a great deal of reasoning and good discussion). I see alot of name calling and anger because someone is doing something that some don’t agree with. “I don’t agree with you so you are wrong and I am going to call you names and be hateful…whah, whah, whah” I feel the Original post was narrow minded because of this reason.
In American universities, speech codes have gotten so out of control that saying “I don’t agree with homosexuality because of my belief that the Bible says the acts typically associated with homosexuality are wrong in the following verses (or whatever reason like science, etc)” can constitute hate speech. That does not mean that one hates homosexuals. I don’t agree with the homosexual lifestyle BUT I also don’t agree they should be silenced, beat up in allies, called names, etc. Everyone has a right to live the life that they choose to live.
The university I went to (didn’t graduate from there, went to another university and graduated) went one step beyond what is said in the above paragraph. You really did have to accept homosexuality to not get into a good amount of trouble. I mean this was the defining issue. I chose the trouble because I won’t accept something that I don’t want to accept. After being called into an office for no real reason (I was told that there had been an issue with another student and they needed to see me. FTR, there was no other student and no issue) and being screamed at, called names, etc for 2 hours and suffering from acute stress for about three months after, I left that school. Went and graduated somewhere else.
Narrowmindedness can run both ways. Sorry for the small hijack. Proceed with your name calling and hate mongering everyone. I am getting the hell out of the pit and go back to where intellectualism prevails (for the most part )
Oh, and I do realize that there are going to be some who are not going to actually read this post before they lash out at me as a “homophobe” or whatever. Whatever.
Gah! That’s what I meant. The ROTC bans are probably still in effect, though I should think institutions (such as Harvard…ROTC was part of the whole Summers controversy, though Harvard kind of weasels by sending their students to MIT, and defraying some of MITs costs for ROTC) which have continued to ban ROTC from campus could run afoul of of the Solomon Amendment.
Oh my fucking god. The “right to be heard” does not encompass the right to be listened to. Abbie is a fucking idiot and the stupid fucking swamp that’s resulted from his idiotic posts is fucking idiotic.
Cite?
That you would use the phrase “homosexual lifestyle” demonstrates that you’re every bit as clueless as Abbie.
Can you be a bit more specific? Maybe show documentation of the policy?
Got any documentation besides your vague claims? Something tells me that the story would be dramatically different from a different perspective, if it really happened at all.
Preemptive woe is me is pathetic and cowardly, as is dropping a turd bomb and running away.
It sure does seem that the label “hate group” is thrown around pretty easily. Hasn’t it ever occurred to anyone that people get really upset about such accusations because they don’t hate?
It’s so trendy right now to assume a Christian is automatically a bigot. I find it hypocritical to make such assumptions.
Christianity opposes homosexual sex, but it also opposes heterosexual sex. In fact, the whole point of marriage is so that people can give in to sexual temptations in a sin-free way (which is why we can avoid sin and still continue the species). So, when people have sex outside of marriage, it is a lack of respect for marriage. The gay or straight of it, in that regard, is irrelevant. People talk about the “sanctity of marriage,” well that’s been long gone years before gay marriage became an issue. There is no “sanctity” left to preserve.
For the record, yes I’m a Christian, and I find discrimination against gays to be ludicrous. I’m amazed that it we have come this far in the world and still feel the need to regulate who can get married.
I have noticed that it is often safer to remain closeted in my Christianity if I don’t want to be publicly mocked. The three big hates I see in the US today are anti-minority, anti-gay, and anti-Christian. Probably in that order. But I don’t like the widening of the gap that’s going on.
Some sects of Christianity oppose homosexual sex. Others do not. Might want to narrow down that brush a bit.
See, the thing is, it’s not “Christianity” that gets hated. It’s the idiots who label themselves “Christians” who then go on to claim that Christians, who control the Presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, 50 out of 50 state legislatures and thousands of local governments, are persecuted and powerless. It’s bullshit, and the idiots who pretend like they’re being persecuted in the United States for being Christians give all of you a bad name.
Imagine how an atheist feels. It is often safer to remain closeted in his Atheism if he wants to be promoted at work. It is often safer to remain closeted in his Atheism if he doesn’t want to be mocked. It is often safer…if he wants to be treated fairly in business dealings. And imagine when he wants to run for office and represent his friends and neighbors in the legislature. Can he declare his Atheism and get elected?
If we’d all keep our kooky religious and non-religious beliefs private, as they should be, we’d all get along better.
Folks, calm down. Abbie’s factually incorrect but has said numerous times that s/he supports our civil rights regardless of whether or not it’s a choice, which is a good position.
I think we can skip the foul language while we try to educate him/her.
I was going to say something much like this. Abbie’s heart is in entirely the right place and it’s counter-productive to start roaring at him because he’s not toeing the line on the possible genetic root of homosexuality. That’s already a topic of debate all over the place; why bring it in here to argue against someone who’s not even friggin’ homophobic??
It actually seems (to me) that Abbie was saying (in a very roundabout way) that homophobia is closer to religious intolerance than it is to racism, largely because of a widespread belief that homosexuality, like religion, is/can be a choice. Abbie ALSO seems to be saying that because of that, this Intensely Christian Broad is even more hypocritical than a racist because she a) thinks homosexuality is a choice and b) condemns it but c) thinks other people are REQUIRED to support d) her religious CHOICE.
There was actually a thread recently in GD where it was asked if America can trust atheists. I wouldn’t ever claim that the level of discrimination agains atheists is the same as that towards gay people, or that atheists are the target of atheist-bashing violence, but the idea is generally true. It is, in a lot of places, better to keep the fact that I am an atheist quiet than to let folks know about it. I have faced scorn and been ostracized in the community for being an atheist, and can in some small way relate to being discriminated against and poorly treated for something about myself that I cannot change.
That anyone would have to ask if America can trust atheists is sad to me, and so is the phrase ‘homosexual lifestyle.’ There’s no gene that made me an atheist, but I didn’t choose to be one either. There’s no gene that made one of my best friends gay, but he didn’t choose to be either. Quite the contrary. I tried to be a believer to fit in, and he tried to be straight to fit in. Neither of us can change these things about ourselves, and nobody should be slamming us because of who we are.
I don’t know where I’m going with this, except that I know people don’t choose to be gay or choose to be straight, and I don’t need a ‘gay gene’ to tell me that. We’re all just people, dammit.
“The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” - Marcus Aurelius
If you have a right to respect, that means other people don’t have a right to their own opinions. - Thomas Sowell
In free countries, every man is entitled to express his opinions and every other man is entitled not to listen. -G. Norman Collie
Just what is this “lifestyle” you speak of? I for one hold a regular job, pay taxes, have a mortgage, don’t barhop or sleep around, don’t drink myself into a stupor (except on New Years Eve), don’t do drugs, or any of that other “lifestyle” stuff. As for the live and let live part, that I agree with. Too bad some people don’t see it that way.
I wonder what pissed them off so bad. What was this other issue? Who started the ruckus to begin with? Here’s the thing. You don’t have to 'accept" anything. You don’t have to beat people over the head with your lack of accepting either. Just keep to your own business and leave others to theirs.
Where? When? Nobody is persecuting the Christians. The anger you see is directed at only the most vile, manipulative, hypocritical and disgusting ones - what I call the extreme far religious right - the Falwells, Robertsons, Dobbs, Dobsons, reconstructionists, dominionists, end timers etc - the fanatics who want to force their heretical misbeliefs on the whole country and sweep away all other beliefs and denominations in favor of their own. There is no war on Christmas, no war on the Easter bunny, no war on christians. But that has been exhaustively covered already in countless other threads.
I find it very difficult to separate a person who believes I should not have the same rights as everyone else from a person who hates me. I’m sorry, but them’s the facts.
You know, I don’t assume a Christian is automatically a bigot. I assume a Christian who wants me to shut up and be less involved in my community and my world is a bigot, but I’d assume the same thing about an atheist, an agnostic, or a Buddhist. Since I live in a nation where Christian denominations are the majority, I run into more of the former than the latter.
I have to worry every time I put up a picture of one of my friends that someone is going to assume that my relationship with them is sexual, and that therefore I am “flaunting” my sexuality. And yet, it’s not seen as “flaunting” one’s sexuality to have a picture of one’s opposite-sex partner and/or biological children on one’s desk. Similarly, I would be wary of putting a symbol of my religious beliefs on or around my desk, because that has the potential to be seen as “pushing” my non-Christian beliefs, but someone having a cross or a plaque with a Bible verse at their desk is seen as normal.
Then you and I have no arguement, and I wish you peace and a prosperous life. Which I would even if we did have an arguement, just for the record.
So to sum up my take on this issue, as a Christian I find it immoral to have sex outside of marriage. I know and accept that others don’t share that perspective. I believe homosexuals should have the right to marry (and that, obviously, the same wait-for-marriage rule applies). Some Christians would disagree with me, but I hope that their perspective doesn’t become the widely accepted “Christian perspective.” I think the whole point of marriage is to keep sex between you and your spouse, once that lifelong commitment has been solidified in The Vow. The whole idea of “love is patient” comes into play here. If two people of any combination of genders meet, court, fall in love, decide to grow old together, and have some kind of legal/ceremonial lifelong bond that suits their personal beliefs, it falls under the chronology that makes sense to me and is a beautiful thing. But I worry that people may label me a bigot if I say that gay sex is immoral without having explained that it’s only because I apply the same rules to heterosexual sex. It’s one of the reasons I support gay marriage. To let them be able to have the freedom to commit to lifelong monogamous relationship with a spouse that gives marriage its “sanctity” to begin with. That, and just the freedom aspect. Not allowing two people to marry is the same as not allowing them to vote.
I wish I could fit that paragraph onto a bumper sticker. Run on sentences and all.
My dilemma, when I look at this thread, is what I would do if a Christian group I belonged to decided to launch an aggressive campaign against homosexual groups? I would like to think the group would be forced to discontinue those activites, but the rest of their functions would be permitted. I hate to think Christian organizations would have to close down entirely because of this issue.
Religious affliation is a choice. Therefore, the young lady mentioned in the OP has no more reason to expect tolerance than do the gay people she disdains.
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