re: Why the hell can’t some of you accept a differing opinion on homosexuality?
because it’s the same thing as saying you have a differing opinion on racism.
yes, everybody is entitled to an opinion, but in this case, his seems to be be ill-informed. Homosexuality is not a defect, or a disease, anymore than the colour of your skin is. It’s the way you’re born, you don’t have a choice in the matter.
It’s a good thing he doesn’t act on his beliefs, but I don’t think that that is something that merits applause. (To do that would send out the message that it’s okay to be bigot, as long as you don’t act on it.) No, I think the fact that he doesn’t act on his beliefs should be a given, it’s not something you even contemplate not doing.
I agree, there’s no need to flame the guy, but it is hard to remain calm, cool and collected in the face of stubborn bigotry. Because that is what it is.
Given that there’s a growing movement to portray pedophilia as just another “sexual orientation,” albeit one that it is unacceptable to act upon, are we going to start seeing cries for the cessation of condemning sexual acts between adults and children in harsh language, or even at all, on the basis that it makes pedophiles feel bad about themselves or lowers their sense of self-worth?
The issue of consent is the one that deals with your silly argument, Arctite.
Heterosexual sex is legal, heterosexual rape is not. Consent is the decider between legality and illegality.
Underage sex, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is also an issue of consent. Underage people are quite widely regarded as being unable to give true consent.
Thanks for the responses, guys. I wanted to respond to the following two statements:
It seems that you would not mind private moral objections to homosexuality, so long as these are not forced upon others (through the enactment of oppressive laws and what not). This is exactly what I was trying to get at with my post; if someone is absolutely for gay rights and respecting them as human beings, isn’t that enough?
If a person had gotten past trying to enforce their own private morals on others, shouldn’t their beliefs be allowed to live? It’s true that stating your “homosexuality is immoral” views could cause shame and grief for others, but don’t many Christians believe that those who do not follow Christ are immoral? Should they not be allowed to believe this and say this, as they are generally contributing to an atmosphere of religious oppression? I mean, just about any moral belief that becomes popular can cause an atmosphere of unease and even shame. But as long as those beliefs don’t translate into unnecessary laws (those without secular justification), and as long as people are treating each other with respect, then what’s the problem?
So yes, those who try to enforce their moral beliefs on others through laws should be argued against. And those who abuse others in any way because of those beliefs should be condemned. But those that respect the rights of others to make their own moral decisions and would protect their right to live freely and happily-- why should they be attacked due to their moral disagreement? And this is not an impossible state of being for a person, since many religious people do in fact support freedom of religion, even though some worship would obviously be immoral to them (praying to animal spirits?).
That’s not my point. My point is that the “talking a certain way might make people feel bad about themselves, and therefore doing so is hateful, ignorant bigotry, those who say such things are human trash, etc.” argument is selectively applied to homosexuality. It’s obviously not the main issue, since if it were we should worry about how pedophiles might feel when we condemn sexual acts between adults and children.
Some things are hateful, ignorant bigoty, and some aren’t. It’s not selectively applied to homosexuality. See how far you get “talking a certain way” about niggers and Jews. I don’t think you’d get the same response “talking a certain way” about pedophiles.
Why not? They can’t help their feelings any more than homosexuals can help theirs. If it’s bad that condemnatory talk of homosexuality drives some homosexuals to despair, even suicide, wouldn’t you feel awful if you learned of a pedophile hanging himself because he could no longer deal with society’s condemnation of an aspect of himself he cannot change?
So if a person is born with feelings of intense longing, romantic interest, and erotic attraction to a certain class of people who would be harmed by his attempting to act on those feelings, it’s OK to call those feelings wrong until he can’t stand it any more and hangs himself?
Heck…why make anyone feel ‘shamed’ about any ‘act’ they feel ‘naturally’ inclined to do?
Heck, all State and Federal governments have committed ‘hate crimes’ against every person residing in jails and prisons.
Why should a majority of people get to decide to lock up a person when they have only hurt ONE other person?
If you are going to argue that homosexual sex is consensual and hurts no one, I’ll call you a liar.
Gee…I only personally know a little more than a half dozen homosexuals…but every one of them has a ‘story’ of early abuse to which they attribute their turning away from ‘normal’ sexual relations.
NONE of them regard themselves as having been ‘born’ that way.
So go stuff your own personal experiences and knowledge of ‘gays’ that differ from mine.
Be TOLERANT of what I know to be the truth in MY life experience, as told by the factual ‘bearers of truth.’
(*we of course KNOW that MY experience of knowledge and acquaintenship with the gay people I have encountered is a statistical anomaly.)
Yeah.
Right.
Name call all you want. Add ad hominem upon ad hominem.
Just don’t preach ‘tolerance’ when you say that even my own EXPERIENCE of what homosexuals themselves have shared with me is HOMOPHOBIC!!
My personal experience is that my orientation had nothing whatsoever to do with “early abuse”. Same for everybody else I know. The question is, will you take that into account when making further judgments of this kind? It seems like you’ve already made up your mind, based on the half-dozen you know.
That people don’t really think that because some people feel a desire to engage in certain activities, it is therefore wrong to condemn those activities or even the desires themselves as immoral. It’s just a diversion that crops up when people feel like their attempts to convince “the other side” aren’t working.
We’re talking about a particular activity, which doesn’t harm the participants.
Your attempt to generalise to any sexual activity breaks down because of the harm or potential harm caused to the particpants.
It’s not possible to apply conclusions drawn from your general case to the specific case of sex, either homosexual or heterosexual, between consenting adults.
So you’re saying that in the case of some sexual activities, it is acceptable to condemn the activities or even the mere desire to engage in them even if such condemnation may make those who experience those desires feel bad, or even drive them to despair or suicide?
Arcite, if your brain can’t comprehend the difference between homosexuals (which involves consenting adults) and pedophiles (which involves children), then you’re either being deliberately ignorant or a completely fucking moron.
That said, I don’t understand why the “homosexuals can’t help it” is trumpeted around so much as a justification for homosexuality. Who cares? As a heterosexual male, I don’t give a damn whether it’s nature or nurture, whether it’s genetic or a behavioral choice. Either way, I cannot see any moral objection to it. Not to sound like a hippie or anything, but how does two people loving each other, regardless of gender, possibly contribute to the moral degredation of society? You know what? It doesn’t.
g8rguy, Jodi, you raise a few points that are worth exploring regarding beliefs and morality. On review of my earlier post, it looks as if I could have been more clear.
What I am talking about is really two different things. Moral stances that people have, and things that people believe.
When looking at things that people believe, it should be obvious that some of these beliefs turn out to be factually wrong (the moon is made of green cheese, the earth is flat) and can be dismissed out of hand. This is the sort of opinion that I am referring to.
Morality, on the other hand, is much harder to pin down. You are correct in that the understanding of what is moral is an evolving thing. So, while I can not say that it is a fact that murdering people or torturing them if immoral in the absolute, there seems to have been some sort of a cultural critical mass that we have passed which would make practically anyone that I said this to agree with me.
But all of this is not to say that when a person is really doing the work and developing their concepts of right and wrong that they cannot apply some sort of logic to the process. Therefore, when I begin with the foundation of “hurting people is bad” and then look at the results of people believing that homosexuality is wrong (i.e. that believe predominantly hurts homosexual people), it is a pretty straight shot to the conclusion that the moral stance that homosexuality is wrong, or a sin is in fact immoral.
It would be an interesting conversation if you wanted to try to prove to me that, by in large, having a bunch of people believing this somehow neutral or benign, but that would be a pretty hard sell.
So, returning full circle to the question asked in the OP, which seems to boil down to wondering why homosexuals are comfortable with attacking the morality of others, and will not behave towards the folks that find them sinful or disgusting in the same way that they are asking to be treated, I think that we can look at several reasons.
First, the point has been made that to homosexuals this is not a matter of morality. The debate has been hijacked so that it is often talked about on these terms, but it is not so. Just as my preference for females is simply a part of who I am (and not some moral choice that I made), so is their preference for folks of the same gender.
More importantly, I think that it has become pretty clear that gays cannot wait around patiently for the mainstream to give them equality. If they want it, they are going to have to take it. This seems to be the pattern with just about every oppressed group that I can think of. Simply put, I don’t think that they can afford to be nice about this anymore
I’m not Desmostylus, but my response would be that the case of pedophiles is a significant problem. If we accept both the idea that children cannot give ‘true consent’, and the idea that pedophiles are ‘oriented’ towards children the way straight men are towards women, we have a the result of demanding that pedophiles deny their feelings, permananetly (unless we can find a way for them to express these feelings without harming people).
Of course, the argument is unrelated to homosexuality, except that some people believe both homosexuality and pedophilia to be aberrations of humanity’s proper nature. (The argument, as we know, is frequently used to expand the set of “equivalently-rated” sexual practices until it includes something the opponent cannot abide, then to throw all those equivalent practices out with it. Usually, it’s everything but heterosexual love.)
Homosexuals aren’t going to harm anyone if they engage in consensual sexual activity. So there’s no need to tell them they’re immoral and must be celibate. There’s no reasonable motivation to restrict consentual homosexual activity between adults. There are religious proscriptions against it, but I’ve never seen a reason given for them other than that they are ‘just plain bad’. Or that a deity disapproves, making them ‘just plain bad’ to those who ascribe to the deity.
Now, when people argue that one shouldn’t condemn homosexuals because it’s ‘just the way they are’, what they are saying (in my eye) is that they see homosexuality to be as normal and a part of the variation that occurs in humanity as heterosexuality, and that they see the two as equivalent. That gay people fall in love and are attracted to people, and that it’s not merely a nasty habit people do to be vulgar for fun. Accepting the idea that a man’s love for a man can be the same or similar to a man’s love for a woman is a leap for a lot of people, though.
If such a claim is correct, then religions which condemn homosexuals are judging them on their very nature, and are no better than religions which condemn red-haired people or people with creative abilities.
If such a claim is false, then homosexuality is simply a habit of people who either enjoy doing wierd things, or who have some psychological issue preventing them from engaging in ordinary hetero relations. In this case, religions which condmen homosexuals are judging them on their actions, and religions which condemn homosexuality are are merely judging the actions. Both groups of religions are equivalent to those who condemn idolatry and gambling as ‘just plain bad’ or ‘diseases of the mind’ (which can possibly be cured).
Where am I going with this? To demonstrate the inapplicability of the above comparisons to pedophilia. Let’s apply the argument again:
If pedophilic attraction has all the same characteristics I described of hetero-adult love, then it’s just the way pedophiles are and it’s a variation on humanity. Sadly, since we above made the assumption that children aren’t able to give ‘true consent’, the pedophiles can’t act on it. Condemnatory religions are equivalent to those which condemn thievery or murder for the harm they cause others, even if the comitter is beyond the ability to help himself.
If pedophilic attraction is just a pastime, or is real but can be controlled, then it’s not so bad for the pedophiles, and they can change their ways, and should, since they’d harm people if they didn’t. Condemnatory religions are equivalent to those that condemn thievery or murder for the harm they cause.
So, then:
I’ve not heard much testimony from real pedophiles (though a lot of offhand judgment from the rest of the world) on what makes ‘a pedophile’. Either way, if we accept that children cannot give ‘true consent’ (lacking as they do emotional maturity, intellectual capability, or power) then we can’t allow pedophilic acts to occur, and must find a way to deal with pedophiles: either convince them to cut it out, or if it’s a real variation on humanity as in the first case above, we have a genuine problem to solve.
I’ve heard plenty of testimony from real homosexuals that they actually do fall in love, and have seen behaviour which would, taken togehter, indicate that, yeah, they probably do.
I’m willing to grant that a man can love a man. Or a woman a woman. (Especially since I’ve seen zero explanation or evidence to the contrary). So my money’s on case one, above. The religious people who disagree with me have either not thought things through, or have thought things through and reached the same conclusions as I have but see their dogma as more important than reality, or have thought things through and reached the conclusion that homosexual feelings aren’t as real or genuine as hetero ones (which are valuable and can’t and shouldn’t be changed), or have thought things through and reached another conclusion which I haven’t imagined yet.
All of this to say that ‘cries for mercy on pedophiles’ should be heard. They either need help to adapt to their untenable situation, or need help to see how they’re harming people to change their ways for the good of others.
(Much of this argument is invalidated if children are, in fact, sexually, emotionally and intellectually mature enough to engage in real consensual relationships.)
(And for those who prefer to discuss ‘moral codes’ or ‘moralities’ in place of ‘religions’, please substitute either of those where I’ve used ‘religion’ in my post)