Why the hell can't some of you accept a differing opinion on homosexuality?

[Windwalker]

*Originally posted by Binarydrone *

---

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.**

But aren’t many (or maybe even most) adherents to a lot of religions as ingrained in their faith as a gay person is to their gayness? At this point I don’t think it really matters whether it came from genetics or social upbringing; to some people, religion X is a fundamental part of who they are, just as to gay people, being gay is fundamental to their identity. I have heard in Catholic mass (before I quit) that worshipping false idols is a sin; if that is the case, then all sorts of people would be immoral sinners by implication, such as Bhuddists or Native Americans who pray to animal spirits. To call them immoral for this is on the same level is essentially critiquing a vital part of their identity, just as the case with homosexuals. So, if you want to say that defining homosexuality as immoral is wrong and that it should never happen, then shouldn’t folks stop declaring that other religions are immoral, that people who worship false gods are sinners? It is a judgment on who they are, one that may make them feel estranged from their community if the bulk of said community subscribes to the judgmental religion and are not afraid to state their beliefs. Yet we tend to let this type of thing pass… So should we not let this pass? If not, where is the line drawn on what people are allowed to say? Should it be based on whether or not the issue in question could be modified after birth (in which case religion is fair game for morality-based attacks, but race isn’t)? However, wouldn’t this dividing line hinge fundamentally on how much of homosexuality is determined pre-natally? I’m not really sure if I would like this distinction, as some people really have no choice in what religion they’re brought up in and feel is a part of their identity. Allowing morality-based judgments based on religion (religion X is immoral and sinful) but not homosexuality just reeks of unfair. So again, where is the line drawn?

*Originally posted by Binarydrone *

---

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 **

Oh I definitely think gay rights supporters should be loud and proud, no question. But attacking those with deeply ingrained moral beliefs does not seem to me the best way to approach it. Appealing to people’s sense of justice (as regarding civil rights) and the notion of separation of church morality and state morality seems to me like it should be a better way to get laws passed, as it is not based on confrontation but rather equality before the law. As for better treatment in society, I believe that can only come from lots of interaction between “straight supremecists” and homosexuals, the demonstration of humanity between humans. Some folks will never be won over and will be hateful to the day they die, but you’ll catch more flies with honey and all that…

[wolfstu]

Originally posted by Laurie *
**
If you are going to argue that homosexual sex is consensual and hurts no one, I’ll call you a liar.*

I, like gybefan, would like you to show me how this is true. I happen to know some people who quite enjoy sexual activity of many kinds with people of the same gender. They’ll be surprised to find out that they were being hurt by it all this time.

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.

I’m sorry to hear that they were abused.

**
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.
**

Stuff it? ‘Gays’ in quote-marks? You mean, I don’t know any real gays? Only you do? Geez, I must not be gay after all. Clearly I was just a pretend gay. Even wierder how I was a pretend gay pretending to be a real straight guy all those years until I came out. Tell me, how do you tell the real gays from the fake ones? Is it the handshake? Or their choice of hand soap? Probably the soap.

Glad to know, either way, that you’re the only one whose ‘personal experience’ counts, and how your personal experience defines the fundamental truths of the universe which cannot be argued against.

Can you teach me your secret to knowing the real gays from the ‘gays’? I could really use such certain knowledge, since all the cute guys I get interested in turn out to be straight.

Be TOLERANT of what I know to be the truth in MY life experience, as told by the factual 'bearers of truth.'

You KNOW nothing more than that some people who identify as gay had abusive experiences which they associate with their subsequent sexual life.

You CLAIM TO KNOW that this means that homosexual sex cannot be consentual, and you CLAIM TO KNOW that it necessarily hurts some one.

In both of these, you are incorrect. I’m a male, and there is another male that I would very eagerly kiss right back if he were here right now and kissed me. And I’d be glad to do a little more.

Further, i have had sexual contact with a male. And it didn’t hurt.

Ergo, you are incorrect. Homosexual intimacy can be both consensual and unhurtful. Prove me wrong, or retract your insufficiently-informed and potentially biased generalization.

Oh, wait. There’s more:

**(*we of course KNOW that MY experience of knowledge and acquaintenship with the gay people I have encountered is a statistical anomaly.)

Yeah.
Right.
**

I don’t know. Seeing as all of the homosexuals I’ve met quite like being gay, aside from the treatment they get from certain striaght people, I’d say at least one of us needs a larger sample. Oh, but there’s an expert on the boards on the topic… why don’t you Ask The Gay Guy? Maybe he can answer this difficult question for us. After all, there is a certain fallacy in thinking that one’s own perception of the world accounts for all the possibilities, no matter who you are. That’s why I come to the boards, you know. To learn what I can from others, since I recognize that my experience in all matters is limited. Why are you here? To fill the rest of us ignorants in on the real deal?

**Name call all you want. Add ad hominem upon ad hominem. **

I don’t need to call you names. I can call your ideas names, though, and it might help: Let’s try “overgeneralisation from limited data” and “Easy to have reached given the limited data available, but untenable given additional data now provided”.

I do expect, however, that you may very well reject this new data I’ve brought to you, seeing as you’re the only one who knows gays, and the rest of us are just ‘gays’.

**Just don’t preach ‘tolerance’ when you say that even my own EXPERIENCE of what homosexuals themselves have shared with me is HOMOPHOBIC!! **

Well, I haven’t called you homophobic because of what limited experience you’ve had with homosexuals, or even becasue of the logically fallacious generalization you made from having insufficient data.

I’d definitely call you “misunderstanding of homosexuality”, at least, based on your comments. But hopefully I’ve cleared things up.

Unless, of course, you’ve got some tremendous revelation that will make your assertion here true:

If you are going to argue that homosexual sex is consensual and hurts no one, I’ll call you a liar.

[Helen_s_Eidolon]

It is just shocking to me that so many people in such an enlightened place still believe and argue against homosexuality. I’m a very priviledged person because the circles in which I move, my friends and my family and my school, are all very accepting.

I’m not a master debater and I have nothing to contribute to the argument, and I don’t think an empassioned plea would be appropriate here, so all I’m going to say to everyone is: examine your beliefs. Think about your actions. I can’t imagine you’ll be in the same place afterwards.

[Binarydrone]

Windwalker, to be sure your post brings up some important issues. When you posit that a person’s religious faith is as ingrained as a person’s homosexuality, and therefore not a matter of choice, I guess that I do not have anything to say to that because I am not gay and not religious and so do not have the context to compare the two.

I will state that the analogy that you draw between a particular religion condemning homosexuality and condemning another religion is interesting. That said, I think that a fundamental difference has to do with the ability of the two groups in question to defend themselves. While I agree that both acts are immoral, there is a matter of scale involved that is important to keep in mind.

Moreover, when I look at the two groups that seem to be in irreconcilable conflict, I see one group of folks that simply want to love the way that they are build to love and be treated equally, and another group that has an agenda to suppress them. I really do not have enough moral relativism in me to not see the religious group as inherently less moral.

As for the “drawing more flies with honey” argument, as well as the notion that more would be accomplished by opening a dialogue, I guess that I will be inclined to disagree to some extent.

For every Martin Luther King, there will be a Malcolm X. To play out this line of thinking a bit more, I think that we are past the stage of asking nicely, and rapidly reaching the taking what we need phase.

[_possum_stalker]

I’m not a master debater and I have nothing to contribute to the argument

God knows this hasn’t stopped folks like Laurie, who is confusing homosexuality with criminal pedophilia. Good show, old bean!

[matt_mcl]

Originally posted by Laurie
If you are going to argue that homosexual sex is consensual and hurts no one, I’ll call you a liar.

AAAAAGH! POLICE!!! I’ve been raped! 500 times! Over the course of six years!

(That musta been some Rohypnol they gave me.)

[Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas]

These kinds of threads are infuriating because no one is maintaining a clear distinction between homosexuality and homosexual behavior. Some people are arguing about homosexuality to someone who’s thinking of homosexual behavior, and everything gets all confused. Of course, most of the gay posters here are of the “screw disapproval, I want to do whatever makes me happy” mindset, and the conservative posters are admirably dedicated to their faith, so the idea of progress in this thread might be ludicrous anyway.

Anyway…

Disapproving of mere homosexuality is essentially bigotry like anti-Semitism and racism because it is against a person’s unchangable traits. And indeed, I’d say that most people who have a problem with homosexual activity would not advocate treating people differently based on their unchangable nature. Many churches welcome homosexuals because their orientation itself is NOT a problem. The only exceptions are people like Phelps, and we know they’re a minority. The sticky point is engaging in homosexual sex, as it is a conscious choice. It is in no way bigotry to disapprove of it, though it is a specific moral standpoint which is seen from a different angle by others.

I think this thread would be a whole lot more productive if people would maintain a clear distinction between one’s unchangable innate self (unreproachable) and their conscious choices (which can be legitimately disapproved of).

UnuMondo

[Doomtrain]

*Originally posted by matt_mcl *
**(That musta been some Rohypnol they gave me.) **

It was Gaypnol.

[MrVisible]

*Originally posted by UnuMondo *
These kinds of threads are infuriating because no one is maintaining a clear distinction between homosexuality and homosexual behavior.

No, they’re infuriating because no matter how many times we argue each point, the straight supremacist loonies keep popping back up and reiterating points we’ve addressed hundreds of times before. It’s like a possessed game of Whack-a-Mole.

[wolfstu]

*Originally posted by UnuMondo *
**These kinds of threads are infuriating because no one is maintaining a clear distinction between homosexuality and homosexual behavior. Some people are arguing about homosexuality to someone who’s thinking of homosexual behavior, and everything gets all confused. **

This is one of the problems. But (in this thread or out) some anti-gay argumentors don’t see a distinction, and some are condemning the desire to have gay sex as sinful. (Sometimes analogising it to ‘coveting thy neighbor’s wife’ to show why it’s wrong.) And gay people might reply that they can’t help but desire intimacy with people of their gender, that being the whole thing that distinguishes them from straights.

Of course, most of the gay posters here are of the “screw disapproval, I want to do whatever makes me happy” mindset, and the conservative posters are admirably dedicated to their faith, so the idea of progress in this thread might be ludicrous anyway.

Actually, you may find that many of the gays aren’t just bucking authority because the sin is fun. Instead, they’re doing it because they’ve thought long and hard about it and discovered that they can’t find anything at all wrong with having sex, except an unjustified “It’s just wrong!”.

You’re right, these threads do get to be tedious, with all the anger and misunderstanding and stubbornness and more that MrVisible alludes to. But then, misunderstanding of homosexuality and promulgation of unsupported beliefs about it is among the primary reasons the subject keeps coming up.

[matt_mcl]

The sticky point is engaging in homosexual sex, as it is a conscious choice. It is in no way bigotry to disapprove of it, though it is a specific moral standpoint which is seen from a different angle by others.

I get it. Kind of like how you could believe that being a Jew was okay, but going to synagogue wasn’t. After all, lots of Jews don’t go to synagogue. So you could hold that moral value without being an anti-Semite.

Except not. :rolleyes:

[Apos]

Disapproving of mere homosexuality is essentially bigotry like anti-Semitism and racism because it is against a person’s unchangable traits.

Again, why is it wrong to disapprove of unchangeable traits? What does the choice of someone who does an act have to do with something being wrong to do or not?

[Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas]

*Originally posted by matt_mcl *
**I get it. Kind of like how you could believe that being a Jew was okay, but going to synagogue wasn’t. After all, lots of Jews don’t go to synagogue. So you could hold that moral value without being an anti-Semite.

Except not. :rolleyes: **

Except you’re misunderstanding my point. :rolleyes:

I was calling it bigotry to discriminate against Jews because of their ancestry. Just like with racism, Jews cannot help that they have Jewish ancestry, yet some people (who are hung up on the idea of Jews belonging to a specific race) will judge them on innate characteristics.

But they can help that they practice the religion of Judaism. For people who have different religious beliefs than Jews, going to synagogue is obviously a validly condamnable activity, just as for Christian’s Sunday churchgoing will be abhorrent to anyone who doesn’t follow Christianity. Condamning a person because of Jewish (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc. etc.) ancestry is certainly bigotry, but disapproving of their religious beliefs (which are consciously chosen) is a perfectly valid moral standpoint. After all, morality is essentially the exclusion of a number of behaviours with the exception of a few which remain permissible.

UnuMondo

[Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas]

*Originally posted by Apos *
**Again, why is it wrong to disapprove of unchangeable traits? What does the choice of someone who does an act have to do with something being wrong to do or not? **

Because in the moral framework of some who disapprove of homosexuality, the orientation itself causes no harm, and thus being disapproving of the unchangeable trait of homosexuality is unnecessary. Within this system, only the act causes harm.

UnuMondo

[matt_mcl]

*Originally posted by UnuMondo *
**But they can help that they practice the religion of Judaism. For people who have different religious beliefs than Jews, going to synagogue is obviously a validly condamnable activity, just as for Christian’s Sunday churchgoing will be abhorrent to anyone who doesn’t follow Christianity. **

Oh… my… god.

Write your own punchline, folks.

[Eve]

*Originally posted by UnuMondo *
**For people who have different religious beliefs than Jews, going to synagogue is obviously a validly condamnable activity, just as for Christian’s Sunday churchgoing will be abhorrent to anyone who doesn’t follow Christianity. **

. . . Except not. I don’t follow Christianity or Judaism or Islam, and I find those who do go to religious services . . . Well, baffling. But I certainly don’t condemn them for their “chosen behavior.” If it makes them happy and they don’t try to convert me or make me live according to their religious laws, then whatever works for them is jake with me.

Which is what I find baffling about anti-gay prejudice. How would Matt having a happy relationship with his legally married husband impact me for good or bad? Are they going to run riot after the weding and steal my VCR?

[Guinastasia]

Why do people even CARE so bloody much? I mean, even IF it is a sin, then won’t that person have to answer to God? And it doesn’t affect you, so why do you CARE?

Let THEM worry about it, and mind your own business!

AAAAHHH!!!

-I have much better things to worry about than who is gay and who is straight and who is bi.

[Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas]

*Originally posted by matt_mcl *
**Oh… my… god.

Write your own punchline, folks. **

What, you don’t agree? So you think that most Christians, for example, are totally positive about Muslims keeping to their own religion? Wrong, if people believe their own religion is the one true faith, then ergo it a Bad Thing to follow another religion. As a conservative Christian, I disapprove of people following anything but Christianity. They have the right to do so, but that doesn’t mean I smile on the activity.

UnuMondo

[Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas]

*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
**Why do people even CARE so bloody much? I mean, even IF it is a sin, then won’t that person have to answer to God? And it doesn’t affect you, so why do you CARE?

Let THEM worry about it, and mind your own business!

AAAAHHH!!!

-I have much better things to worry about than who is gay and who is straight and who is bi. **

Well, why are you still following the thread?

Seriously, in “real life” (outside of the SDMB) almost no one has ever heard me talk about the morality of homosexuality. I don’t notice the issue much, in fact I have a hard time feeling any outrage one way or the other these days. But on a message board which spends a lot of time debating, why not participate a thread on it? Debating is a game to while away the hours, I don’t really “care so bloody much” outside it.

UnuMondo

[Laurie]

WOLFSTU -

Just read your post directed at mine.

So what you yourself experience and what other gays have reported to you is somehow more valid than what other gays have reported to me?

Please offer conclusive research to ‘prove’ scientifically that my ‘sample’ is more of a statistical anomaly than yours.

Wait…I’ll save you the trouble. You can’t.

Neither you nor the person who runs his ‘ask the gay guy’ threads can ever hope to claim that they have THE TRUTH about ALL or even MOST gays. You can’t possible claim to know the personal stories of them all…or even most.

And hey matt_incl - if you’ve had 500 partners in the last six years or whatever, I guess you must be like the homosexuals I know: they really have no intention of EVER practicing monogamy and only advocate for gay marriage as part of a whole political movement, the bottom line of which is to get society as a whole to accept homosexual sex. (They, in fact, snicker about using marriage, and the ‘warm fuzzy’ it engenders in the minds of people, to bring acceptance of ALL queer sexual behavior.)

Go ahead and call them liars.

Guess their honesty doesn’t impress you at all.

Since I am heterosexual, I have no other way to really learn about homosexuals except asking questions and being close enough to have long dialogs - which are both frank and intense.

By the way - none of the homosexuals I am close to consider me a homophobe.

Nor a fuckwad.

Nor an idiot.

Nor any of the other intolerant and derogatory terms you use to describe those who THINK differently than you do.