It seems painfully simplistic sometimes to merely point out that, the more educated people are, the more likely they are to support marriage equality, and likewise, that a large part of the reason the Religious Right is still able to inflict their brand of hatred on the democratic process is that they prey on the fears of and outright lie to less educated voters, but sometimes it needs to be pointed out. This map, comparing the votes of North Carolinians on Amendment One with the percentage of college educated voters in each county, says it all quite nicely [click to embiggen, of course]:
James you are a liar and a bigot. How many failed ideas for changing a person’s orientation do we have to go through before you accept that it’s not possible? If you feel that being gay is not inborn, than prove it. Be gay.
It’s so convenient for you to find a few quacks who still value their own prejudices over being good doctors, but that doesn’t change the fact that legitimate medical organizations are unanimous in that it is not a pathology. If they really cared about science and their jobs they would know that with all other variables removed, gay and straight people are impossible to distinguish psychologically. But that doesn’t leave you with an excuse for you hatred so you try to pass it off as just “bullying” so you can look like the victim. That excuse won’t fly on people who’s children are literally being bulllied to death because of people like you.
Your claim about the California “ex-gay therapy” bill is a bald-faced lie. It is not outlawing it verbatim. It’s only banned completely in the case of minors. Adults are just given a statement about how useless the “therapy” they’re seeking is so they can give informed consent. Your claim that no one is ever forced into “ex-gay therapy” is another bald-faced lie. Minors have been forced into it constantly over the years. The Mormon church runs modern concentration camps for that explicite purpose. Adults face extensive pressure from their families, friends, and churches to “change”. The threat of being shunned like that is a powerful motivator.
Your claim that you have seen violence against anti-gay bigots such as yourself at the hands of gay people is another bald-faced lie. Gay people are subject to hate crimes at a much higher rate than any other American demographic; usually perpetrated by bigots like you. You bigots have never been able to provide a proven case of violence against you. Every attempt to do so eventually finds the so-called “victim” was making things up. You are commiting the violence, not recieving it.
You obviously know nothing about evolution or psychology if you think there’s no place for gay people in them. For the question of evolution, look up pleiotrophy. For psychology, look up the actual reasons we were declared to not actually be mentally ill by every reputable mental health organization on the planet. And by that I mean not your lie-filled narrative about how we “intimidated” people.
We know more about the history of marriage than you ever will. We know about the history of polygamy. We know about the institutions origins in misogyny and property exchange. We know about times in history when gay people were included in the institution. We also know that this country promises religious freedom and equal protection under the law for all. Not just bigots like you who think you deserve special treatment. In this country we have the seperation of church and state, so your religious beliefs do not give you the right to dictate the law to others. That is all your religion matters in this issue.
You honestly don’t see how it’s bigoted to compare what people do with consenting adults in the privacy of their own bedrooms with rape and murder is bigotted? Outlawing something that causes a quantifiable harm is not “legislating morality”. It is nothing like your desire to outlaw things that have no affect on you. You can’t argue your position on its own merits so you resort to slippery slope arguments. The bible got the question of slavery, the easiest moral question we ever faced, wrong. Being in the bible does not automatically make something true.
We are not accusing christianity as a whole of being bigoted. Just the denomination you use to justify your bigotry. You are not accepting of gay people. You expect us to change what we are to suit your bigotry. If we don’t you condemn us to hell simply for existing. That is not acceptence under any definition of the word. You clearly do not believe that everyone sins, since you feel the need to single out our alleged “sin” to legally discriminate against us. The fact that you do nothing of the sort to anything else you arbitrarilly label “sin” is the light on the lie. Your assertion that being gay is something we need to be saved from is bigoted at its core. We have nothing to confess because we have not hurt anyone.
You are not the victim James. You are the aggressor. You set out to designate us as legal inferiors. You equate us with rapists and murderers. You condemn us to hell for being what we are. You bully our children to death. You psychologically and sometimes physically torture us to change what we are. You are the reason our children make up forty percent of America’s homeless youth. You are the reason we are subject to hate crimes (real ones that involve acts of violence) more frequently than any other demographic. And you justify all of this by hiding behind religion, lies, and cherry picking. You don’t fool us. You are a bigot who desires to hurt us. Nothing more. You are facing just retaliation for the harms you have caused us.
If you don’t like being called a bigot than too bad. I don’t like having to fear for my life every time I walk out my front door. I don’t like having to pay thousands of extra dollars in taxes. I don’t like being kept from my husband’s sick bed. I don’t like having to fear for my job for something that has no affect on my ability to work. I don’t like being accused of harming my children. I don’t like having to fear everything I own will be taken away by disapproving in-laws when I’m already mourning the love of my life. It is your insastance that you be allowed to keep doing these things that make you a bigot. If you don’t like it than too bad. If the sheet fits, wear it.
James, don’t pretend your fundamentalist sub branch of of the faith speaks for all Christians. I am Presbyterian, and like the Lutherans, Episcopalians and United Church of Christ, all of these ancient denominations now see that being in a loving gay relationship is not in of itself sinful.
Look to the best churches with the best education and best standards…not the lowly inferior versions such as your own, and you will find yourself closer to God, your neighbors, and without the painful bigotry you have to carry and bear. I wish you well with it…
you have a lot of learning to do.
If you are a Presbyterian, you need to re enroll in your theology classes…you are embarassing yourself, and the church, which has made its understandings of this very well known in Presbytery votes, at the GA’s, AI’s and the positions of the vast and overwhelming number of professors of Biblical studies at our Seminaries.
You seem not just badly informed and badly educated about gay issues…but about the Presbyterian Church, which, like the other denominations listed, have mosted past 1) slavery support 2) the mistaken belief that women are inferior 3) the mistaken belief that GLBT people are inherently sinful just for being GLBT.
I said you have some learning to do….it seems I REALLY underestimated how much ! :)
More proof that your religion is just an excuse for your bigotry James. And another example for why we don’t use religion to write laws. And more evidence of the pathological lack of empathy that charactarizes bigots like you. Your bigotry and the things it causes you to do to us are more painful than the things I would wish on my worst enemy. If you are so oblivious to the pain you cause others than that is your failing, not your victims’.
You either need your own lesson in theology or you’re just lying again. Jesus said nothing about homosexuality.
moved past (not mosted…whatever that means…sneezed while typing :)
James said “First and foremost, the very foundation of the homosexual movement’s argument is based on the belief that homosexuality is an inborn trait.”.
It most certainly is not. It doesn’t matter whether or not its an inborn trait, no one has a right to deprive gays of equal rights because of a harmless characteristic. Religion is a choice but we don’t allow people to discriminate based on religion just because its a choice.
James said “Contrary to what the LGBT community might say, no one is forced into counseling for the correction of homosexual behavior, they chose to go.”.
That is a lie. Google Zach Stark. Children are often forced into this sourt of “counselling” by their parents.
James said “I contacted several friends in the counselor community to get a read on the contemporary undercurrent concerning the nature of homosexuality as either normal behavioral variant or an abnormality. As I suspected, many believe that homosexuality is a psychological condition with sexual-behavioral manifestations, while others do not. This means there is still no consensus among providers.”.
That is also a lie and it doesn’t get much more absurd for you to claim an informal survey of your acquaintences is a satisfactory substitute for the research backed positions of professional secular organizations Every major medical and mental health organization agrees that gayness is a normal healthy variant of human sexuality. The concensus for this is overwhelming.
James said “In fact, I believe that homosexuality is as much a belief system as it is a psych-social condition. Take for example the lack of scientific evidence to support the belief that one is born homosexual. Despite evidence to the contrary, members of the LGBT community hold rigidly to the belief.”.
That’s nonsensical. Gayness is merely the state of being same sex attracted. Whether or not one believes people are born this way has no bearing on the existence of this trait.
James said “The last thing I will say, I promise is that liberals do something what I like to call “creeping incrementalism”. Liberals erode something like the constitution or morals a limitless bit so that most people don’t notice until it becomes the norm.”.
Nonsense. Liberals advocate for justice based on the concepts of harm and equality. The ultimate goal of a just, fair and healthy society is to maximize the benefits and minimize the problems for all in an equal fashion. This requires marriage equality. Your societal goal is to maintain your superiority over others to maximize your own benefit to the expense of people you don’t like.
James said “Yet, without question, the LGBT community wants to label all belief systems counter to it as “hate groups,” ensuring that its dogmatic viewpoint dominates over all others. I ask the simple question, is this intellectual freedom?”.
All belief systems which seek to punish harmless traits or deny people equality because of those traits are necessarily hate groups. There is nothing dogmatic about that, it is simply indisputable fact.
James said “Even a brief study of marriage as a cultural expression proves that it has been exclusively a heterosexual activity across cultures and throughout the history of humankind.”.
That you would even make such an absurd statement is proof of your extreme lack of knowledge and bias. The fact that you made a brief “study” of marriage is the reason you’ve overlooked the truth. Humans have been around for 200,000 years and the vast majority of that history is unrecorded so from that perspective alone you are obviously in no position to make a statement about the nature of marriage across all cultures and throughout history. Further disproving your ignorant statement is that there have been same sex marriages conducted at various points throughout history and in various cultures, you quite simply are ignorant.
James said “the heterosexual community has a greater right to an exclusive claim to marriage.”.
That once again is absurd. Everyone has an equal claim to rights, all people have the same claim to marriage, no one group has an exclusive claim to it. The foundational principle of democracy and western society is the equality of all individuals, this mandates gays have the same access to marriage as heterosexuals.
James said As I try to make sense of his argument, at the very least, the homosexual community refuses to even acknowledge the long history and caretaking of marriage…We Americans have a strong history of this kind of usurpation, as do some other cultures. Take for example the American domination of the Native American culture.”.
Once again, your ignorance would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. Native american communities had special places of honour for same sex attracted and transgendered individuals with men who lived as women (berdache) sometimes marrying other men. That you would use the example of native american culture to support your bigotry is profoundly ironic.
James said “My question for your friend is, if the US provides so much freedom, why do you need to take marriage away from heterosexuals as their unique institution.”.
If you have so much freedom why do you seek to deny others the same freedom and rights you have?
James said “Why can’t heterosexuals keep marriage as their own institution?”.
Because gays deserve the same rights heterosexuals have and there is no rational argument to deny them that. There is never a moral justification for some keeping rights denied to others.
James said “Why won’t you use your freedom to create your own institution?”.
Because as history has shown, seperate but equal is not equal and there is no substitute for marriage. Anti-gay bigots insist that gays be denied anything “substantially similar to marriage” and even when seperate but equal institutions have been attempted its been proven that they are not equal and gays in such unions are regularly denied the rights extended to married heterosexuals.
James said “Does your claim to individual rights have any real legitimacy over the rights of a group with millennial consistency and history?”.
No one is asking for rights over the rights of heterosexuals, it is YOU who is demanding rights over the rights of gays. Gays just want the same rights heterosexuals have. Gays want equality, you demand superiority.
James said “From the empirical evidence available through solid science, the texts match the view that homosexuality is a behavior outside the biological, psycho-spiritual, and behavioral norms of culture. In this case, Christian scripture is congruent with a secular, unbiased scientific view that homosexuality stands outside the norm of human behavior.”.
That quite simply is a lie. Gayness has existed in every society throughout all of recorded history. All major medical and mental health organizations agree gayness is a normal healthy variant of human sexuality. Just as being left handed is a minority feature but normal so is gayness.
James said “Another thing I would like to say is that both you and Rainbow Phoenix have talked about legislating morality into our culture. Do you not agree that it is immoral to murder someone or to rape someone and the list goes on? If so, don’t we legislate these morals by saying in our laws that it is illegal to do so and we hold people accountable? Do we change our laws because people may feel a different way? Again, I take you back to one of my previous posts when I asked the question about where do we draw the line? When do we stop changing laws based on “feelings”? Did you know that the bible also says that it is wrong to murder? Bible=Truth”.
First, the bible is loaded with errors, contradictions and atrocities by the christian god. The bible most certainly does not equal truth. Secondly, that’s the problem with your morality, it is arbitrary as is evidenced by your absurd and immoral equation of gayness and murder. We hold people accountable and base our laws on the concept of harm. Gayness is harmless and is thus moral whereas murder, theft and the like harm others and are by definition immoral. “Feelings” has nothing to do with it.
James said “Lastly, I would be remiss not to defend my faith. Christianity does not discriminate and is accepting of everyone. We are not bigots or any of the other vial names that Rainbow Phoenix likes to spout off.”.
LOL – Christianity is loaded with discrimination, it is based on discrimination. The first commandment denies religious freedom to all, the bible singles out Jews as the chosen ones. The bible is full of xenophobia and discrimination and even calls for the execution of those who try to convert christians to other religions.
James said “I don’t hate you nor do I condone crimes against you.”.
It is clear from your fierce determination to deny gays the same rights you have that you do indeed hate gays. You are afraid to grant gays the same rights you have because to do so would deprive you of your undeserved sense of superiority.
James said “I have gay friends but I still don’t agree with their behavior and they know that.”.
You don’t have any gay friends, you just know some gays who aren’t rude to you despite your bigotry. Like the fool you are, you mistake politeness for friendship.
James said “I just think you should use your energy to come up with your own sacred institution that’s all.”.
Screw you. If its such a good idea then you come up with your own seperate but equal institution and leave marriage to gays. You’d never do that because you know anything other than marriage is inferior and that would never be good enough for you. Only a fool would expect gays to feel any differently.
I’d like to revisit one of James statements because it nicely sums up his ignorance, bias, and stupidity:
“Even a brief study of marriage as a cultural expression proves that it has been exclusively a heterosexual activity across cultures and throughout the history of humankind.”.
As any slightly intelligent person should know about any field, a “brief” study of it is almost certainly going to miss less common features and give the false impression that the most common feature is the only one. For example, if one did a “brief” study of birds a person as foolish as James would say “A brief study of birds proves all birds can fly” or if one did a “brief” study of people in Saskatchewan a person as foolish as James would say “A brief study of people in Saskatchewan proves all people there are white.”.
Obviously if one is looking for less common features a “brief” study of anything proves nothing.
Since James said he was done commenting (and then continued), I have put him on temporary moderation. Is this conversation worth continuing, or are we beating dead horses? People appear to be shouting past each other.
Thank you all for your comments. I wish you all well. I honestly have enjoyed the conversation. Mr. Air hart, I am done. I was hoping for Bob to have commented. Take care and good luck to you all.
Could anyone really have thought that anyone here thought fondly of James? Including Bob?