More insults. You know I wouldn’t care if somebody came up with a reasoned argument why I should be composted as long as he was polite I’d be polite. What is wrong with you people.
Well I think strawman means setting up a version of the other person’s argument which is not what was meant when you should know better and then burning it. That’s what you do with strawmen isn’t it.
You’re right I don’t argue much online (I’m beginning to learn why, my friends warned me) and my tech skills are poor.
OK Musicguy . Here goes, but please try to remember that this is beside the point.
When he was young I would teach him all the meanings of perverse. I would point out that nearly everyone has several perverse behaviors and some people have biologically perverse characteristics. By the time he expressed a sexual preference I’d expect him to be able to think for himself and I wouldn’t try to convert him or give my view of his activities unless asked, or if they were immediately harmful. Homosexuality is not immediately harmful so I’d not say anything about it. I would try to instill good morals as I understand them but in my view homosexuality is not a moral question.
You haven’t made reasoned arguments, you’ve grabbed a dictionary and tried to force words together to build an enfeebled defense that the only point of marriage is to have kids (which is unmitigated bullshit), and ergo gays should be discriminated against.
Let us hope you never have children. You are one organism who definitely could get by fine without spreading yourself around.
Not to jump on the bandwagon, but I pretty much see this discussion, as more of an attempt to baffle with BS. Instead of attempting to redefine words, the purpose of life, the purpose of marriage, etc. - Why not give some valid reasons for homosexual marriages being detrimental to society? Valid as in, something that can be backed up with a cite or two. I admit I haven’t been on the fence about this issue, but for me to seriously consider the reasons you’ve given as valid Uncle Toby you might want to try introducing some evidence as opposed to personal opinions.
I guess I should add that I have read your posts thoroughly and this is not a strawman.
It’d be great for the environment; with the sheer carrying capacity for bodily waste he’s displayed so far, it’d be a major windfall for farmers everywhere.
You know none of you are ever going to get this so I’m just going to hand it to you. The underling point I have been trying to make all along and in the other thread where I posted this is:
This argument cuts both ways.
To put it briefly; if homosexuals are excluded from marriage on the grounds that they cannot reproduce then equal protection requires that everything extraneous to the protection of children in marriage (the state’s only legitimate interest) must be exorcised from the marriage laws or homosexuals must be allowed to marry. If faced with this choice most people I know would choose the latter.
That’s all.
No big deal, just the condensation of several conversation I’ve had (where I took your end of the argument and I must say I was both more rational and more polite). I took an adversarial stance because I wanted to see if any of you would come up with this or could knock holes in the argument. Perhaps it was overly confrontational but I don’t think anything I said comes close to excusing the behavior of some of you.
(puts on Richard Nixon mask) Well you don’t have Uncle Toby to kick around anymore.
And I learned a lot, if you are some of the most intelligent, enlightened people on the planet, I now have a much better idea what’s wrong with it.
Of course, Uncle Toby, you do notice that part of living includes a significant portion of populations that do not reproduce. Or do you only “observe” what supports the conclusions you want to “induce”?
If, as you say, marriage = procreation, then I put it to you that siblings should be allowed to marry. After all, they are capable of producing healthy children, so why wouldn’t they?
This is what we’ve been saying. Reread every thread on this topic and you’ll see time and again we’ve made the arguement that “marriage = procreation” is invalid.
But I really do appreciate you admitting you’re trolling. Hopefully an admin will be around to put an end to your life under the bridge.
But Tobster, NO ONE IS ARGUING that the justification for marriage is procreation, that’s nonsense that you concocted, so why are you acting like that’s the commonly-accepted reason for marriage? It’s not, and it’s certainly not the legal reason that governments sanction marriage.
I’ve given this further thought and I reject your claim to trolling. I think you’ve stated your genuine opinion and when you got your ass handed back to you, you’ve tried the “but I was only try to get a rise out of ya” defense.
I couldn’t help noticing this near the beginning while scanning the posts:
Whoah, wait a second, so those are biological perversities? Not only am I bisexual, but I have tourette syndrome. As for dwarfism, I haven’t been diagnosed with any specific type, but I must have a growth hormone deficiency because I’m 4’9." And I don’t have sickle-cell anemia. I am not a biological perversity, I just have a few physical and neurological quirks. As for the whole homosexuality thing, if it’s biological (I don’t know of any other non-heteros in my family), then it can’t be classified as a disorder. How is homosexuality harmful? Is it wrong simply because many people believe it is? Am I a freak because I’m a diminutive lesbian with tourette syndrome? And if you think I’m a biological perversity, what are you going to do about it?
There’s my mini-rant. Now I can read the rest of the posts after getting that out of my system.
wipes a tear from eye, catches breath and climbs off the floor That’s freakin’ comedy gold*. That should be your signature.
[sub]*I hope you take that the right way. I found your response hilarious, not the facts of your situation. Being a short lesbian with tourette syndrom is, of course, morally neutral.[/sub]
O.K, I think I get the point you are trying to argue.
If this was to be the case, then marriage as we know it wouldn’t exist and would be transformed into a set of laws for child protection. I’m not sure of the laws where you live, so could you tell me what is left once you take out all the non-child extraneous stuff from the marriage laws that you are advocating ? What is in the marriage laws where you are that is solely for the protection of children ?
I’m a gay guy. A single gay guy. A great-looking single gay guy.
Okay. A single gay guy.
I’m also all over the place on the radical vs. accomodationist “debate” in gay circles re: “which tactic is best, and so’s yer old man”!
Unc Toby’s views are…interesting. I have great respect for anyone so intellectually consistent as to maintain that entry into a marriage contract without a realistic commitment to reproduction is perverse. Even the use of the word “perverse” is daring these days. No matter what yer Funk’n Wagnalls may say, it will ALWAYS be taken as a term of personal denigration. (Note that some of the definitions make reference to obstinacy, peevishness, etc. Furthermore, it’s a little naive to disregard the tie of the word to Freud and his theory of “perversions,” which are things tied in the public mind to really bad, dangerous people. The real definition of a word is not what a book says, but what people think of when you use it.)
Be that as it may, Unc is not the enemy. His is a highly intellectualized theory which, I would guess, has little influence in his own daily life, much less the lives of those around him. I can envision him sitting down to play checkers with Harvey Fierstein when all hissy-fit energies have been expiated.
Gay acceptance has almost nothing to do with either personal philosophy or church doctrine. If someone’s nervous system is pumping adrenaline, they’re going to find a specious excuse for what’s happening to them. What we have to do is say: “Please deal with your feelings on your own time, not mine. The ‘debate’ is over. Get used to it.”
And instead of debating whether we “deserve” certain “rights,” perhaps we ought to say: “This is your lucky day. You don’t have to approve my getting (what I insist on calling) married to another man. You just have to recognize the attendant legal concommittants. Because, bro, we have the power to insist on it.”
By the way…I agree with Unc that the state should get out of the marriage business. Let the state recognize whatever civil unions two people wish to get involved in, and let those two have whatever ceremonies they wish.
What do you think of this concept of broadening the instution of marriage to include not only gays, but any group of people living together or that have a close relationship with one another?
Why not get rid of marraige all together? The nature of family and what is family has changed, perhaps we need to do away with this old concept of marraige?
We need laws that help us deal with how we live. Since there are a signficant number of people that find marriage as it is enshrined in law who find this useful, we should not throw out the concept. However since a significant number of people would be well served if the marriage laws were extended to cover their situation, why not extend them? How am I or any one else harmed by the law regognizing two men as spouses, if they choose to live as spouses? If anything it helps me because it makes the world a little better defined. We have ready sets of rules for dealing with the issues of people sharing their life, why not use those rules?
What is more, I think that extending this arrangement to beyond just two people makes sense. Why not allow multiple people to pledge to share their lives in sickness and in health?
If you are afraid of specific abuses, make laws against said abuses, but don’t deny others rights for no other reason than you find their choices icky.
I believe that getting rid of those ‘gay-pride’ marches would go a long way towards normalizing the image of gay people in America. Straight people do not generally (ever, that I know of) hold ‘straight pride’ events.
Seeing thousands of freakishly dressed overtly sexual people dancing around does not exactly foster a sense of acceptance among most straight folk. Don’t forget, if you want ‘acceptance’, your target market is the middle 80%, not either extreme (one of which accepts you, and one of which rejects you, regardless)
And yes, I realize that said gay people have every right to dress and dance accordingly, but doing so in public is not a particularily wise PR, IMHO.
So you would advocate closing all singles bars? Not a bad idea, but to me a bit extreme in taking away people’s rights to gather.
And yeah, I know you were speaking of gays and pride parades, but it’s been my test of an argument that it works if you turn it around – and “freakishly dressed overtly sexual people dancing around” is a once-a-year occurrence for gay people here and a nearly-nightly occurrence for straight people, at least around Jillian’s and The Warehouse.
To answer the OP: Take it. Be gay, go armed, and fear no gay-bashers.
(Enjoys a fantasy involving gobear, an AK, and gay bashers armed with baseball bats a la Snow Crash, but more painful)
Seriously, come out, stay out, and make people get past the eew factor. The cool thing about this board is that it’s incredibly easy to disprove the lame-ass theory that all homos are perverts: just point them over to the happy 7. But, if people believe this and vocalize it, and people stay closeted in response in response, then the other people have no counterexample.
I genuinely believed that all Christians were either hypocrites, delusional, or nuts, until this board. Then I met Polycarp. Now, I have as much fun ripping into the ‘religion is a disease’ crowd as I did ripping into the religious when I was one of them.
