California Proposition 8

[Chip]

Judges are notorious for doing what they want to with little regard for things like the Constitution,

Yes, I'm sure both sides in this matter fear that.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a judicial system where the jurists practiced consistent rational objective appeal to reason and common sense.

Maybe then we could trust them.

shoot, even the Supreme Court ignored it when they made the Dred Scott ruling that reduced black people to less than human.

Yes, amazing what criminal acts even so-called "impartial" judges can be compelled to perform under political pressure from powerful groups.

Fetuses aren't human, maybe Andy will win and the Court will rule that gays aren't human either. Whoopee!

I could be wrong, but that sounded sarcastic.

God, you just gotta love Christians.

Maybe ... but you obviously don't.

Oh ... that was also sarcasm, wasn't it.

Still ... with regard to the topic ... I continually read where you seem to see that all the Proposition 8 supporters are Christians who think they own marriage.

I'm wondering if you see the transferrable concept that most any member in most any club will understandably be miffed if the qualification rules for membership are suddenly revised to where the club has become somewhat meaningless.

Though I can probably understand your etiology regarding your apparent miffiness with Christians, maybe even empathize with you (I'm not a Christian or of any religious belief), I wonder if your issue with Christians might be blurring your vision, not with regard to the spearheading effort of Christians who organized to pass Proposition 8, but with regard to why so many of all religious and non-religious persuasions voted for the passage of Proposition 8.

 

[top gun]

How does that make your comment of any value? Would it make a difference if 50 other people brought it up? How does that change the effects of it? Or the long term dangers? Or anything? It doesn't. Just like your post doesn't have a point. Moving on.

Andy what the heck you talking about now. You said you never said anything about anal sex and I pointed you to your post where you said "sticking a tube up someone's ass". All I did was point it out. Come on. You have this problem about saying something and then being embarrassed by it... then saying... well what does that mean anyway when somebody responds to it.

If ya don't want to talk about it don't bring it up.

This entire section does not deal with the fact that you judge people based on their income. That is prejudice, and it's arrogant. I'm calling it like I see it.

If that were the case then it would be prejudice & arrogant for Labron James to point out what he knows about basketball to me because I played college ball. COME ON! No one is judging you on your income. I'm disputing that you have the knowledge and life experience to make the sweeping claims that you do.

And besides that... talk about the pot trying to call the kettle black. Your whole posting life seems to revolve around prejudice & judging (in fact I brought that up). You hide behind some religious facade while you attack gay people and anyone else that does not walk lockstep within your very narrow ideology.

Another straw-man. I hope someday you see you are shallow and arrogant, and prejudice. That doesn't change the lack of point to your posts.

This was totally on point to your side loving to bash gays... while often actually being gay!

Well I hope you someday understand that you are homophobic. The fact that some people flip flop around in their sexual preference means nothing in regard to those who do not. Some people never really were gay... and some people were bi-sexual all along.

I could as easily post for days (and have) the studies that show no harm in sexual preference. I've actually posted a lot on studies showing conclusively no negative impact on children (as a father & a coach effects on children are especially important to me).

And I know you have a religious angle but so ya know I'm not buying (and nobody else should either) that you can pray your way straight. I know when Conservatives like Ted Haggard get caught having crystal meth sex with gay prostitutes that's the preferred treatment... but it's silly!

Then just today another one of your brethren had his appeal denied and in the news TODAY!

Florida State Rep. Bob Allen, co-chair of the John McCain campaign in Florida, was arrested in July for soliciting an undercover police officer for oral sex (Allen wanted to pay the officer $20 to do it to him). Allen had sponsored 6 sex crime bills this year, some of which dealt with indecent exposure and soliciting sex.

How I feel is irrelevant. How you act on this forum, and likely in person, is of more concern. You should change your ways before your pride causes you to fall.

I care about how you feel. I think you are very conflicted. I spend a little time with you now & then trying to just get you to lighten up a tad and quit being so negative and on attack at anything not just exactly like yourself.

Diversity is not a bad thing my friend. Live & let live a little.

I'm always amused that someone thinks I'm always wrong when I make reference to data and research, when they themselves never do.

Your "data & research" is often from ultra Right wing nut sources. But still you are entitled to present it... and others are free to point out their disagreement. Believe me every single post I read (not just yours but everyone's) I first look for something to agree with.

I'd much rather agree than disagree.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

I could be wrong, but that sounded sarcastic.

Maybe a little.

Maybe ... but you obviously don't.
Oh ... that was also sarcasm, wasn't it.

No, no, I love Christians, it's their behavior I despise. "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is what THEY call it.

Still ... with regard to the topic ... I continually read where you seem to see that all the Proposition 8 supporters are Christians who think they own marriage.

I'm wondering if you see the transferrable concept that most any member in most any club will understandably be miffed if the qualification rules for membership are suddenly revised to where the club has become somewhat meaningless.

Yeah, like when they let black people join Country Clubs--there goes the neighborhood. You may not know this, but marriage is not a club, it's a legal contract between two people and the government. It was placed into law by the huge Christian majority who wished to have their particular religious ceremony be law of the land. Now they are hoist on their own petard because those filthy commies who wrote the Constitution put in a bit about equal protection under the law--which means the law has to apply equally to everybody (of course they didn't mean it, and women, blacks, landless people, and Native Americans were not covered). Now we have laws protecting some of those people left out of the law, but not all of them, homosexual and transsexual people are still 2nd class citizens according to the law.

Though I can probably understand your etiology regarding your apparent miffiness with Christians, maybe even empathize with you (I'm not a Christian or of any religious belief), I wonder if your issue with Christians might be blurring your vision, not with regard to the spearheading effort of Christians who organized to pass Proposition 8, but with regard to why so many of all religious and non-religious persuasions voted for the passage of Proposition 8.

I've been involved in the ongoing debate over gay marriage for quite a few years now and I have yet to run across any (may I emphasize that?) ANY group opposing gay marriage that is not religiously based. Do you know of one? And in this country that means that almost all the opposition comes from self-identified Christians. In the Legislative hearings held in Oregon EVERY SINGLE PERSON who testified against the civil unions bill and the anti-discrimination bill was one kind of a Christian or another. Can you name one single atheist group or scientific group that opposed gay marriage? The National Science Council? NASA? Anybody? I haven't been able to and so far on discussion sites no one has been able to bring one to the fore. This is a religious issue, bigotry based on religious dogma.

Miffness: the feeling you get when you life partner of four and a half decades is injured in a car accident and dies in the hospital without you ever having the chance to see them because you cannot prove that you're "family".

 

[Chip]

This is a religious issue, bigotry based on religious dogma.

It could also simply be a family issue.

People who go to church find a family focus at their church not really found to that degree elsewhere socially.

We who don't go to church may forget that and just see from afar the religious connection, forgetting that maybe the focus on the family, family being the mom and dad who brings their children to church, may be more the reason those who go to church support Prop 8.

Thus those who aren't religious and don't go to church may still support Prop 8 because of their non-church oriented family focus through the generations.

I just think there's more going on here than religion.

The California voter breakdown I read seems to support that it's not all about religion, and more about how married people from all belief and non-belief persuasions traditionally view family and marriage.

Miffness: the feeling you get when you life partner of four and a half decades is injured in a car accident and dies in the hospital without you ever having the chance to see them because you cannot prove that you're "family".

Yes, again, had government and corporate bias not treated non-marital domestic partnerships as less than marital domestic partnerships, we'd not now be in the Prop 8 situation.

It is simply wrong to discriminate on the basis of different types of domestic partnerships.

Regardless of how Prop 8 turns out in California, everyone needs to support the elimination of biased discrimination by domestic partnership type throughout America.

 

[Sihouette]

Not if they are born bisexual, as many people are. Don't fall into the black and white pigeon-holing of sexual orientation, because it's not supported by any science in this century~ Mare

Sexuality is behavioral. It is impressed in adolescence, or earlier. Homosexuals have had their natural drives skewed by one of a couple things:

1. Inappropriate sexual approach by a member of the same gender at a critical age (childhood, pre-adolescence or adolescence)
2. An intense dislike of the opposite gender, generated by intensely negative experiences early in life, to such an extent that the thought of inimacy with the opposite gender is out of the question. Like when a child is abused, physically or psychologically by a parent of the opposite gender.

I still have not heard from folks about the "Twinkie" phenomenon. Why are gays interested in impressionable youngsters? If youngsters can be swayed to be gay, then they weren't born that way. If I see two identical twins of which one is gay and one isn't, which I have, then the 'gay gene' theory is dead in the water.. The "bisexual gene" argument is hogwash and reaching.

Animal behavioralists know that there is a critical age to mold sexual preference. That's why then they can be trained to mount dummies for AI. The usual guidelines are at the onset of puberty for ideal dummy training.

Boars that are 7-8 months of age and have been exposed to some sexual activity by running in groups with other males are ideal for training to collect off a dummy (age of sexual maturity may differ with breed and genetics.)
Source: http://www.swinegenetics.com/ai_catalog/ai_training.html

It would follow that young men, ideal for "Twinkie" harvesting would be running with other young males and seeing some sexual activity.. "Perfect" age for influencing or molding preference for achieving orgasm...

 

[Chip]

Sexuality is behavioral. It is impressed in adolescence. Homosexuals have had their natural drives skewed by one of a couple things:

1. Inappropriate sexual approach by a member of the same gender at a critical age (childhood, pre-adolescence or adolescence)
2. An intense dislike of the opposite gender, generated by intensely negative experiences early in life, to such an extent that the thought of inimacy with the opposite gender is out of the question. Like when a child is abused, physically or psychologically by a parent of the opposite gender.

True, though these situations may cause deviant behavior, when it comes to the percentage of homosexuals, these two things you list account for a very, very small percentage of homosexuals.

Those who are so damaged and either view their offenders with polarized idealization or contempt can experience therapeutic recovery from their damage and its associated extreme behavior, but only if that part of their brain that reflects heterosexuality is so shaped and sized.

If that part of their brain that reflects sexual orientation isn't shaped and sized like a heterosexual's, if it is shaped and sized more like that found consistently in the vast majority of homosexuals, a shaping and sizing that occurs only during the first four years of post-natal life from a complexity of family-of-origin dynamics far beyond that which you present here, there isn't any "counseling" that can undo that brain development, and the homosexual will remain a homosexual, and for life, as far as the present state of health care exists today.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

It could also simply be a family issue.

People who go to church find a family focus at their church not really found to that degree elsewhere socially.

We who don't go to church may forget that and just see from afar the religious connection, forgetting that maybe the focus on the family, family being the mom and dad who brings their children to church, may be more the reason those who go to church support Prop 8.

Thus those who aren't religious and don't go to church may still support Prop 8 because of their non-church oriented family focus through the generations.

I just think there's more going on here than religion.

You sort of make my point for me with your comments about religion and family. Where does the wider, non-church going public get their opinions about gay marriage? Is there ANYTHING that you know of, anything from any authoratative source suggesting that gay people are in any way a threat so that they should be denied equal rights? There isn't anything like that of which I am aware. Whether you are currently a church-going person or not, you were raised in this culture which is traditionally overtly antagonistic towards gay people and that affects you in church or out.

I'm perfectly willing to believe that something besides religion is at work here, but I can't find it. It's good to note that in John Boswell's book THE MARRIAGE OF LIKENESS: Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe that homosexuality was not condemned and was in fact accepted--including gay marriages blessed by God and the church--for about the first 14 centuries of Christianity. The overt homophobia found in the US is not widely found in Europe, so where did it come from? No one seems to know, but it seems to be tied back to religious people that came here. The indigenous peoples in the Americas didn't hate and persecute gay or trans-people, it wasn't until the white people came here that there was problem.

If non-church going people have a problem with gays, why? Can you find any group that isn't using religion as the basis for their opprobrium? Sihouette has tried to make a case without religion, but she has nothing on which to base it outside of a couple of anecdotes. Her "logic" is soundly refuted by genuine scientific research and a LOT of it too. The kind of logic Sihouette uses is the same kind that was levelled at black people when denying them equality, against people with certain shapes of heads through the use of phrenology, against interracial marriage because it was as "crime against nature", this isn't science or logic.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Sexuality is behavioral. It is impressed in adolescence, or earlier. Homosexuals have had their natural drives skewed by one of a couple things:

1. Inappropriate sexual approach by a member of the same gender at a critical age (childhood, pre-adolescence or adolescence)
2. An intense dislike of the opposite gender, generated by intensely negative experiences early in life, to such an extent that the thought of inimacy with the opposite gender is out of the question. Like when a child is abused, physically or psychologically by a parent of the opposite gender.

I still have not heard from folks about the "Twinkie" phenomenon. Why are gays interested in impressionable youngsters? If youngsters can be swayed to be gay, then they weren't born that way. If I see two identical twins of which one is gay and one isn't, which I have, then the 'gay gene' theory is dead in the water.. The "bisexual gene" argument is hogwash and reaching.

Animal behavioralists know that there is a critical age to mold sexual preference. That's why then they can be trained to mount dummies for AI. The usual guidelines are at the onset of puberty for ideal dummy training.

It would follow that young men, ideal for "Twinkie" harvesting would be running with other young males and seeing some sexual activity.. "Perfect" age for influencing or molding preference for achieving orgasm...

"never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.": Joseph Goebbels

 

[Sihouette]

True, though these situations may cause deviant behavior, when it comes to the percentage of homosexuals, these two things you list account for a very, very small percentage of homosexuals~ Chip

Do you mean, a very, very small percentage of homosexuals who will admit they've been molested or have undergone regressive therapy to ferret out that they're acting out against the opposite gender that once abused them in other ways?

That I will agree to...


Then when you factor in that many victims of molestation have blacked-out memory of the abuse...then you really get into some mired statistics..

Things are not as cut and dried as "homosexuals are genetically predisposed.". I say genetic predisposition, if it exists at all, occurs in the vast minority of cases of homosexuality. It's wishful thinking to try to justify compulsive behavior as a result of a childhood trauma as "genetic".

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Then when you factor in that many victims of molestation have blacked-out memory of the abuse...then you really get into some mired statistics..

If they have blacked out memory, then how do you know what happened to them? How could you possibly have stats on that? If so, why don't you post them and the source for them please.

Things are not as cut and dried as "homosexuals are genetically predisposed.". I say genetic predisposition, if it exists at all, occurs in the vast minority of cases of homosexuality. It's wishful thinking to try to justify compulsive behavior as a result of a childhood trauma as "genetic".

I don't believe that homosexual behavior has been proven to be "compulsive". Or heterosexual behavior either, for that matter. Have you a source to cite?

 

[Sihouette]

Mare, I'm calling you out. If you're asking for my sources, I'm asking for yours.

Please provide them for your stance. If you cannot, then anything here is fair game..

Let me put it another way, you and I are walking the viewers through two opposing standpoints and letting what rings true, ring true. If your stance rings truer, I don't have a problem with that. Do you have a problem if my stance rings truer?

You are obviously pro gay-marriage. I am obviously anti. We are stating our cases and people reading here can research our points and see if they make sense. I'm comfortable with that.

 

[Unite Our Nation]

Mare,
I don't know what the people of centuries ago thought about gays...but I know the bible states that God condemned Sodom and Gomorrah because of the sinfulness of that behavior.

Why do you label people who don't want the word "marriage" to encompass gays as homophobe?

I don't see the majority of people as wanting to take away an "rights" from gays. Polls that I have read show that the problem is the word "marriage", not the legality of a formed union. Being gay is an ACTION, hence a choice.

 

[Chip]

Being gay is an ACTION, hence a choice.

How could "being" anything be an "action"???

A state of being is merely that, and no action occurs or is required with the verb "to be".

Being gay is a condition, a condition that is not chosen.

Being straight is a condition, a condition that is also not chosen.

One's sexual preference is not a choice, it is a motivation from condition.

To punish people in any way for a behavior that is motivated by their condition, a behavior that is not criminal, is dubious, and such punishment is likely motivated by the punisher's fear-based bias.

That being said, as long as the long-standing, time-honored, cross-cultural traditional definition of marriage is "between a man and a woman as husband and wife", it is not a punishment to exclude gays and lesbians from marriage because they simply don't qualify with respect to definitive propriety.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Mare, I'm calling you out. If you're asking for my sources, I'm asking for yours.

Please provide them for your stance. If you cannot, then anything here is fair game..

Let me put it another way, you and I are walking the viewers through two opposing standpoints and letting what rings true, ring true. If your stance rings truer, I don't have a problem with that. Do you have a problem if my stance rings truer?

You are obviously pro gay-marriage. I am obviously anti. We are stating our cases and people reading here can research our points and see if they make sense. I'm comfortable with that.

I have given two separate sources over and over again on discussion sites, both are in layman language and can lead to more sophisticated sources if one so desires. Here is the quote from my post #10 on this thread:

A good source for some modern scientific information about the development of the brain and sexual orientation can be found in THE FEMALE BRAIN by Louanne Brizendine. Another source is Dr. Cynthia Chappell's A BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION FOR HUMAN SEXUAL ORIENTATION which can be viewed on the net at: http://www.pflaghouston.org/news/headline.htm

Dr. Brizendine's book cites more than 1000 peer reviewed articles in support of her presentation as well as her lifetime of work on the subject.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Mare,
I don't know what the people of centuries ago thought about gays...but I know the bible states that God condemned Sodom and Gomorrah because of the sinfulness of that behavior.

Why do you label people who don't want the word "marriage" to encompass gays as homophobe?

I don't see the majority of people as wanting to take away an "rights" from gays. Polls that I have read show that the problem is the word "marriage", not the legality of a formed union. Being gay is an ACTION, hence a choice.

If you will read the whole thread you will find that I have devoted a considerable amount of time answering those very questions.

Two points of interest: For the first 14 centuries the Christian church married and blessed gay people because the translation we have today is incorrect; and, being homosexual is just as innate as being heterosexual, both are hardwired into the brain before birth. Sihouette has been postulating other things but there is no scientific research in this century to support her. Read or watch the sources I have given, read the thread and then if you have questions I will try to answer them.