Lissener, again.

LISSENER: “I called them STUPID, I didn’t call them DUMB!”

Semantic weaseling on par with The Ryan, in my opinion.

Not sure I get you.

Whatever, guys. My man, in a purely platonic sense of course, knows more about movies than you guys will ever know!

Fucking yes, Jodi. Fucking YES.

Oh, and lissener?

Why the HELL are you dragging me into this thing? I never called you a one-trick pony. I called you a wart on the butt of the SDMB.
And I did it at LJ, which you’re not supposed to be dragging over here, you stupid asswipe. Although you already made yourself perfectly clear when you e-mailed me to tell me off.

Grow a thicker skin, you fucking dipshit.

I have a better idea, why don’t you provide a cite for your claim that people defend ‘homophobes’, since that is what Jodi thought was crap. It should be easy since

As always, thank you gobear for your kind thoughts. I in no way meant any offense with the adultery comparison…I am not saying adultery and homosexuality are similiar.

Basically, I was trying to explain that to me even IF it is a sin it is no worse than any other sin that I have to live with on a daily basis. I committed adultery a while back and I know how wrong I was and I have to deal with the consequences but that doesn’t mean I think I’m less of a Christian or that I somehow have no hope because I made a mistake.

I am now married to the person I was involved with so some would say I am “living in sin” on a daily basis. My point earlier was that if I’m sitting in church Sunday morning next to a gay couple that IF their relationship is a sin it is no more so than mine.

I still think I’m coming across poorly and not expressing myself well.

If that’s the case I apologize; I had a memory that you had called me a one-trick pony in one of the other threads. I had no intention of bringing anything else into it.

Spoofe, I was sincerely hoping for a response.

Perhaps this is a hijack, and if so I apoligize.

lissener, suppose I think it may be a choice. This could be because I’m not gay and haven’t given it a lot of thought, or because I was raised that way, or it’s just my opinion. Now, suppose I don’t give a flying fuck what choice you make. Am I homophobe?

If a tree falls in the forest . . . ?

Not sure I would bother to distinguish with that little interactionor information.

If you had given it enough thought to decide it was a choice, then if we interacted or discussed it, I would only call you a homophobe if you held on to that conclusion despite discussion. If you declined to discuss, it wouldn’t come up, because I don’t usually start these exchanges IRL.

So on the face of it, I wouldn’t call you anything, in your exact scenario; you’d be under my radar.

Isn’t that just a nicer way to say that if one disagrees with you (about the causation of homosexuality) they are a de facto a homophobe. Fuck, you’re stupid.

I ask this because I think this is where a lot of people are.

I don’t know anything about your personal life, so I’m going to make a few assumptions in order to make a point.

My mother is an alcoholic. Because she is, I haven’t talked to her in almost 13 years. Do you know what this is like? I’m going to assume that you don’t. So I can also assume you wouldn’t give this situation a whole lot of thought.

I’m not gay. Therefore I don’t give it a whole lot of thought. Granted, I’ve thought a lot more about it since joining SDMB and participating in the discussions herein. But I still don’t worry about it a whole lot, since it really doesn’t affect me.

Since I don’t think about it much, I’m not going to think about the what “causes” it either. Be it genetics, a choice, or something else entirely.

So, maybe in my personal thoughts, I come to the conclusion that it’s probably a choice. There are many reasons why I might come to this conclusion. Even still, I don’t really care. I make the assumption that if I don’t try to tell you what to do, you’ll leave my sex life alone as well. Since I don’t care what “choice” you make, does that make me homophobic?

I still say it only makes you homophobic if you’ve been exposed to enough information that help you understand that it is NOT in fact a choice. If you’ve really never given it any thought, or discussed it, or considered it, or read any of these threads, then it’s simple ignorance.

But if you have, then it would be disrespectful of those of us who tell you, from the horses’ mouths; if you reject what we tell you about ourselves in favor of your own ill-considered, uneducated assumptions, then I would probably make my own assumption: that you’re making your assumption based on an emotional response, and giving your own “ick” factor, for example, greater weight than the information that’s available to you from the sources I mentioned above.

IRL, my reaction to that disrespectful, willful ignorance would be simply to turn away and exclude you. Here, if you’re interested in discussing it, I’d feel obliged to a certain extent to engage you. BUt I would drop that as soon as I felt you were not discussing in good faith.

All highly hypothetical.

Another perspective: when the status quo is wrong–as the status quo that discriminates against homosexuals–doing nothing is not enough. Not that I demand everyone march in the streets, but I probably, personally, wouldn’t be that much interested in carrying on a relationship or friendship with someone who was so apathetic. “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

In other words, I would see your hypothetical position as neutral-to-disrespectful, so I probably wouldn’t spare you much energy.

Lissener, I know that I’m apparently using invisible type in this thread, gauged by your response thus far, but why not waste a few more keystrokes?

Isn’t it possible for anyone to disagree with you on this topic without being a homophone? Or perhaps even just be neutral without you claiming that they’re helping evil triumph?

Talk about high expectations. Can’t you accept that people who treat you like everyone else are probably ok?

here we have, I believe, the crux of the problem/issue.

lissener’s position seems to be (and obviously if I’m misstating it, please correct), that being gay is not a choice. (I happen to believe this to be true as well, FWIW). However, he also seems to believe, from this statement that anyone who does not believe that homosexuality is not a choice is, in his eyes, a homophobe.

Therefore, anyone who disagrees with what lissener believes to be a fact, is, by his definition, a homophobe.

which lets others point out that mere disagreement w/lissener is sufficient, in his eyes, to be called homophobic.

Where I stand on the issue (I know all are just hovering in anticipation), is that both actions and thoughts can be homophobic in nature - that some one who believes that gays are inherently “less” (in whatever way) than ‘others’ is I would think, a homophobe.

Some one who acts in such a way (by active discrimination etc) is probably a homophobe.

where I part ways w/lissener is that I’m not convinced that some one who merely believes that homosexuality is in some fashion, some way a choice must be homophobic.

Why must it be necessary for the element of choice to not be present in order for a person to still treat homosexuals as equals?

(parenthetically, the reverse is also true in my eyes - in that a person who believes that homosexuality is not a choice can still be homophobic in both actions and beliefs. Obviously, for example, one’s racial background is matter of birth, and there is certainly no shortage of folks who still believed that just by accident of birth some humans were less than others)

Is it possible for someone to disagree that the earth is round without being an idiot?

What’s with this fetishistic word “disagree”?

If you consider homosexuals to be lesser persons, then you are a homophobe. IF THEREFORE, you DISAGREE with me that homosexuals are as fully human and moral as everyone else, THEN YOU ARE A HOMOPHOBE. So yes, if you disagree with me on this topic–that homosexuals are every bit as human and moral as heterosexual–then you are a homophobe. But it’s not, as you keep trying to insist, because you DISAGREE WITH ME that you are a homophobe, it’s because you disagree with THE TRUTH. It’s got nothing to do with me.

Does somebody who DISAGREES that I’m every bit as human as they are DESERVE MY RESPECT? Please explain how.

I always assume so, until they say something to prove otherwise.

but cannot a person who believes homosexuality is a choice still in fact believe that homosexuals are equal to anyone else, deserve the same rights etc, while another person who believes that homosexuality is not a choice, can still believe that they are lesser human beings?

Seems to me to be true, yet by the post of yours I quoted, the position of “is it a choice” or not is also used by you as a measuring stick of homophobic qualities

The choice issue is something of a red herring, in that it’s a small part of the issue. But all of these threads eventually get stuck on it.

Let me see if I can restate it in such a way as to make myself clearer.

Being gay was not a choice for me. I fought it tooth and nail and suicide attempts until I was almost 30.

I have never, ever, EVER met a gay person–who identified as gay, and not just slutty–who CHOSE to live a “gay lifestyle.”

If you ask a person if their stomach hurts, and they say yes, will you look for third-party corroboration?

If pretty nearly 100% of any gay person will explicitly tell you that it was NEVER a choice, and in fact most of them struggled painfully against their true nature in adoloscence, and later; if pretty nearly 100% of all hetero-identified people tell you that they never had to CHOOSE to be attracted to the opposite sex; then the overwhelming conclusion is this: IT IS AN ABSOLUTE UNDENIABLE FACT THAT ONE’S BASIC SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS NOT. A. CHOICE. We still don’t know exactly HOW it develops–genes, environment, etc., all probably play some part–but we can start with the FACT that, except for the inevitable rare exception to EVERY rule (and I personally have never met such an exception) IT. IS. NOT. A. CHOICE.

How do we know? WE ASKED EVERYBODY. EVERYFUCKINGBODY.

So if someone comes along and insists on denying that, then I have no choice but to wonder what drives such irrational dismissal of reality, in order to preserve their own prejudices?

Basically, if you insist that it IS a choice, then you are calling me a liar. Not only that, you are calling EVERYBODY WHO’S EVER BEEN ASKED ABOUT IT a liar.

THis is irrational, in general, and offensively disrespectful, personally. So, unless someone can offer a better reason for someone to be so aggressively and disrespectfully ignorant than homophobia, yeah, I’ll pretty generally equate stubborn “it’s a choice”-ers with homophobes.

well, then, you’ve just admited that merely disagreeing with you (on this issue) is proof in your eyes of homophobia.

I agree with you in that I do not believe that it’s a choice.

However, as I pointed out, it seems to me absolutely clear that some one could easily believe that it isn’t a choice, yet be homophobic and just as easily to believe that some one else may believe that it’s a choice, yet still feel that homosexuals are equal, deserve the same level of rights as any other human.

For me I would think that the belief that homosexuals are equal and deserve to be treated as such would be the criteria of ‘is this person a homophobe’ or not.

If they treat you as equals, work/vote for laws to end discrimination, why on earth would you give a shit if they believe in their hearts that you chose to be gay?