The Truth, the Whole Truth And. . .

[sirs]

Have you found "hate this sin, love the sinner" in the scriptures Sirs?

I have found it in my walk with God.  If I were to actually be pushing what you keep claiming, I'd be pressing you (like you are to me) why is it not part of your walk?  But unlike you, I'm not going to continually stand over you and judge your faith, as I see fit.  I think we can cease this now

[Plane]

I quit smoking in 1986, right after my father's second heart attack.

It wasn't easy, but the idea of being dead was a great motivator.

I do not think that homosexuality can be equated with a taste for turnips or an addiction to cigarettes.

The best way to think about it would be to consider what it would take to convince yourself to like men, as opposed to women.

What would I need to do to get turned on by thinking of Ricky Martin, George Clooney or some other guy?

Long term imprisonment.

[fatman]

Long term imprisonment.

Is that supposed to be funny plane?  Because it sure isn't to me.  Being equated with Nazi's, fetishists, adulterers, and now criminals is a bit grating.  I'm surprised that someone hasn't thrown in child molestors.  In the interest of remaining on good terms with the right in this forum, I'm going to cease my part in this debate, before I type something that I regret later.

But here's one last thing to keep in mind.  This is not an abstract issue to me.  Gay marriage is very unlikely to affect you directly, but it has a direct impact on my life and my future.  While you and sirs may argue abstract principles of morality, I would think that the chances are very slim that either of you would ever want to marry another man.  That's your choice and your right, but for a party that argues against government intrusiveness in the home and the bedroom, you're hypocrites.

[sirs]

Civil Unions, Fat.  Civil Unions.  Takes care of everything regarding equal rights, and is the perfect compromise.  How is it not??  and one more time, those references to other sexual activities, is NOT, repeat NOT trying to compare the sexual acts, it's dealing with the arguement of "choice vs no choice" that's so often used in trying to supposedly validate why folks have sex with the same sex.  That's all

[Plane]

Long term imprisonment.

Is that supposed to be funny plane?  Because it sure isn't to me.  Being equated with Nazi's, fetishists, adulterers, and now criminals is a bit grating.  I'm surprised that someone hasn't thrown in child molestors.  In the interest of remaining on good terms with the right in this forum, I'm going to cease my part in this debate, before I type something that I regret later.

But here's one last thing to keep in mind.  This is not an abstract issue to me.  Gay marriage is very unlikely to affect you directly, but it has a direct impact on my life and my future.  While you and sirs may argue abstract principles of morality, I would think that the chances are very slim that either of you would ever want to marry another man.  That's your choice and your right, but for a party that argues against government intrusiveness in the home and the bedroom, you're hypocrites.

You are still better than most , you may be seething , but you are exibiting self controll and measuring your response.

Kudos to you .

We might be better able to discuss this if you were less personally attached to it , but in any important question someone is actually personally attached , so if you bow out rather than scrap , count me gratefull.

Long term imprisonment does seem to produce a bit of Homosexuality in people who don't tend to it otherwise ,is this phenominon actually off limits to a discussion on whether Homosexuality can be learned?

[Plane]

Civil Unions, Fat.  Civil Unions.  Takes care of everything regarding equal rights, and is the perfect compromise.  How is it not??

Even if all benefits were exactly the same it is the diffrence between social approval and social opprobrium.

If Homosexual marrage becomes common I don't think that the Opprobrium will disappear.

[fatman]

Civil Unions, Fat.  Civil Unions.  Takes care of everything regarding equal rights, and is the perfect compromise.  How is it not??

Sure it's a great compromise sirs, and you know that I'm in agreement with it.  But the problem is that right now there are 18 states that ban civil unions.  Not gay marriage (though they ban that also), but civil unions.  It's kind of hard to make headway on a compromise when more than 1/3 of the states are totally against even the baby steps of compromise.  Then there's also the issue of getting the fed to recognize civil unions as being "marriage-like".  When 1/3 of the states are against it, I think that it has slim chances of Federal recognition.  For the record, there are 10 states that have civil union laws for it's citizens, and two that grant gay marriage (that may change with CA, by the looks of it).  I have little hope of a compromise succeeding, though I would like for it to.  It's become my position that in order to have equal rights, there needs to be recognition of a marriage right.  Otherwise it's pick and choose.  I like BT's idea the best, of removing marriage from the state and placing it within the Church, but I don't see that happening either.

With the militantcy of some on the right, is a militantcy on my part unjustified?  While I and you are willing to come to an amicable and practical compromise, there are those who are going to upset that boat.

[fatman]

Long term imprisonment.

Is that supposed to be funny plane?  Because it sure isn't to me.  Being equated with Nazi's, fetishists, adulterers, and now criminals is a bit grating.  I'm surprised that someone hasn't thrown in child molestors.  In the interest of remaining on good terms with the right in this forum, I'm going to cease my part in this debate, before I type something that I regret later.

But here's one last thing to keep in mind.  This is not an abstract issue to me.  Gay marriage is very unlikely to affect you directly, but it has a direct impact on my life and my future.  While you and sirs may argue abstract principles of morality, I would think that the chances are very slim that either of you would ever want to marry another man.  That's your choice and your right, but for a party that argues against government intrusiveness in the home and the bedroom, you're hypocrites.

You are still better than most , you may be seething , but you are exibiting self controll and measuring your response.

Kudos to you .

We might be better able to discuss this if you were less personally attached to it , but in any important question someone is actually personally attached , so if you bow out rather than scrap , count me gratefull.

Long term imprisonment does seem to produce a bit of Homosexuality in people who don't tend to it otherwise ,is this phenominon actually off limits to a discussion on whether Homosexuality can be learned?

Well I'm done seething, a cup of hot tea after a long day in a cold shop can help with that.  You are probably correct, in that I'm too close to this issue and too emotionally tied into it for me to even pretend objectivity.  I just wanted to put the brakes on (mostly on myself) before it got ugly, because when someone is strongly tied to an issue emotionally things have a tendency to get way out of hand way too quickly sometimes.  So I just wanted to post this real quick and thank you and sirs for a good debate and let you know that there aren't any hard feelings, but I need to bow out of this one in my own best interest.

As to your question about long term imprisonment, it's not off limits to discussion (what really is in this forum?), but I took it personally until I realized that I'd never talked about that here and you didn't know.  I've done volunteer work for 6 years now in prisons here in Washington State, mostly to do with organizing housing/jobs/support services for inmates to be released.  That's where I met my partner, he is an ex-con.  He's cleaned his life up and turned things around, and I'm extremely proud of him for that.  Believe it or not, a lot of guys do.  But one thing that inmates have always told me, is that prison doesn't make someone gay, it just brings it out in the people that have had the tendency but have never acted on it.  Which makes sense to me, because I've always thought that homosexuality is something probably both pre-programmed and learned, basically that someone may have a "tendency", but through environmental influences is able to repress that more or less easily, or decide not to repress it at all.  I hope that helps.

Thanks again for the debate.

[sirs]

Civil Unions, Fat.  Civil Unions.  Takes care of everything regarding equal rights, and is the perfect compromise.  How is it not??

Sure it's a great compromise sirs, and you know that I'm in agreement with it.  But the problem is that right now there are 18 states that ban civil unions.

Then, with all due respect Fat, your beef is with democracy, unless you're claiming there was some unilateral ban imposed by the acting Governor.  It's even more egregious here in CA, where the people DID speak, but a court overuled the will of the people, when this came up the last time.  The compromise is there, but trying to ram one side thru, and screw compromise isn't going to make any friends from those willing to compromise ideals that largely should never be compromised in the 1st place.

I wonder if there's a record for how many times the word compromise can appear in a sentence?

[Plane]

Thanks again for the debate.

You are welcome , and I am very impressed with your civility.


This makes me nostalgic for Gannemede , who used to confrount me on this topic for hours at a time, but didn't get abuseive.

We lost Gannimede in the flamewars of Elio , because Elio was so severe .

I wonder whatever happened to Elio ? If his real attitude was much like his internet attitude he may be on death row somewhere in Honduras, but Gannimede would be nice to have back.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It's even more egregious here in CA, where the people DID speak, but a court overuled the will of the people, when this came up the last time.  The compromise is there, but trying to ram one side thru, and screw compromise isn't going to make any friends from those willing to compromise ideals that largely should never be compromised in the 1st place.

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What sort of "ideal" is the objective of preventing people from having the exact same rights as everyone else? If heterosexual couples can marry, why should momosexual couples not be given that same right? Because some ancient books say they should be stoned? Because the mob of people want to impose their restrictions on people who are not like them?

Democracy is Majority rule combined with minority rights. The majority of Christians cannot order the minority of atheists, Jews, Muslims or whatever stoned, for example.

Since homosexuality is not illegal, this means that it is accepted by the state, so where does the state get off telling homosexuals that they are accepted with fewer rights?

[sirs]

It's even more egregious here in CA, where the people DID speak, but a court overuled the will of the people, when this came up the last time.  The compromise is there, but trying to ram one side thru, and screw compromise isn't going to make any friends from those willing to compromise ideals that largely should never be compromised in the 1st place.

==================================================================
What sort of "ideal" is the objective of preventing people from having the exact same rights as everyone else? If heterosexual couples can marry, why should momosexual couples not be given that same right?

And Civil Unions can provide precisely that.      oy

[Xavier_Onassis]

It's even more egregious here in CA, where the people DID speak, but a court overuled the will of the people, when this came up the last time.  The compromise is there, but trying to ram one side thru, and screw compromise isn't going to make any friends from those willing to compromise ideals that largely should never be compromised in the 1st place.

==================================================================
What sort of "ideal" is the objective of preventing people from having the exact same rights as everyone else? If heterosexual couples can marry, why should homosexual couples not be given that same right?

And Civil Unions can provide precisely that.      oy

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The thing is that most of the impetus against homosexuals are also against civil unions. Here in FL a bunch of antigays have an amendment that declares that civil unions and marriages of gays should be invalid in this state.

Why not just give gays the same rights, including the word marriage? How could that possibly harm anyone else?
If all marriages were actually sacred, then how is it that every state offers civil marriages with no clergy or holy people involved? Why aren't these people who are always ranting about sanctity of marriage out to remove civil marriages from the statutes?


If all you are arguing over is the use of one word, that is really dumb.

[sirs]

What sort of "ideal" is the objective of preventing people from having the exact same rights as everyone else? If heterosexual couples can marry, why should homosexual couples not be given that same right?

And Civil Unions can provide precisely that.      oy

=======================================================================
The thing is that most of the impetus against homosexuals are also against civil unions.

Which is less and less an "impetus" as more and more folks like myself, who were totally against the idea, now support it.  Try working with that, vs trying to cram 1 side down our throat, and you're likely to get those "equal rights" everyone SAYS is what they want

 

Why not just give gays the same rights, including the word marriage?

Asked and answered already.  Go with the compromise route.  Gets the "same rights" taken care of, while leaving marriage as that of a bond between a man & a woman

[Xavier_Onassis]

Asked and answered already.  Go with the compromise route.  Gets the "same rights" taken care of, while leaving marriage as that of a bond between a man & a woman


A poor answer, because there never will BE a civil union law passed. You may be the only one who sees any merit in one, anyway. There are NO STATES where a civil union guarantees the same rights as a marriage.

Stop it with the "asked and answered already", you are not God, and nearly all your answers suck.