The aggressive promotion of homosexuality;

That isn't true.

- - - Updated - - -

A society afflicted with homophobia, has a distorted view of reality.

 

So what?! They don't charge more for marriage licenses for those with higher libidos; nor do they stamp whores (male/female) as being unworthy of legal marriage.

So what if gays SEEM (due to lack of actual proof that they are) more "promiscuous"? That surely doesn't mean that any of their basic rights should be 'truncated'.

 

I have nothing against marriage (have been married for 42 years to the same man), but I do agree that either marriage should be taken completely out of the government business (no more "special advantages for ANY married people), or it should be and EQUAL RIGHT for ALL couples to get those advantages.

One or the other. And I'm perfectly fine giving up my "special advantages" as a married heterosexual.

 

I agree.

I agree.

Have you ever heard of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence? Have you ever been to the annual Hunky Jesus Easter Services in Mission Dolores Park? Would you like me to give you a link? A picture is worth ten thousand words.

Frankly I find lesbians and trannies to be standup people not given to the weird needy crap coming from so many gay men. I have no problem with the gay sex act. But I detest weird needy flamboyant crap. It makes me unfriendly. And this is coming from someone who has marched in the SC Gay Pride Parade.

OK.

The Emperor Hadrian was gay. The historian Edward Gibbon considered him one of the Five Good Emperors.

Come out to SC and I'll call you anything you want.

I know.

People like me are having our world transformed by people like you. The better approach would have been incrementalism. Instead your side has chosen a figurative form of civil war. Push all you want, but do so at your peril. Those who see their world disappearing will not go gently into that good night.

 

Well I do not think the tax advantages should be taken out of marriage, but I believe that government should not dictate whether two consenting adults are allowed to marry, and the government must give those advantages to all marriages.

 

It seems we're not that far from agreeing on several points. .including the 'flamboyance" of some gay people which is a turn off for me too!
I have been lucky to go to Social Work school with a couple of very lovely, actually beautiful lesbians (one was and probably still is, a professor, the other a student) whom most men would have drooled over! I guess they're called "lipstick lesbian" in Silicon Valley at least!
I have also met lesbians who looked (that's not their fault), but also acted (and that is a choice) like wrestlers. . . beard and all! And obviously they had a "grudge" and a chip to carry against just about everyone. Yes. . .that is also a turn off!

I wonder what year you were at the SC gay parade! I did that too, in (May or June I believe) 1996.

I know I've heard the name. . .but I don't remember, or I never knew what it is all about. Yes, I'd like a link.. . but I think I can kind of "guess" what it's about!

And you know I would give ANYTHING to be back in Santa Cruz! I miss my friends and the ocean... Beaches on the East Coast are NOTHING like the West Coast! I miss the weather, and all the bakeries!

I might even walk in the SC gay parade again if I could be back there. . .IF they would have me that is!
Do you know the pastor at "Inner Light Ministery?" I used to go to hear her when they were still meeting downtown Santa Cruz! But now they have a new Church (for the last 5 or 6 years I guess).

Now. . .that woman (and her partner) are what I call "role model" for a lesbian couple!

 

What sort of reponse is 'so what'?

I merely pointed out a fact.

 

I have no real qualms about lesbians. It's a slice of the gay community that disgusts me.

You asked for the link...here it is...it isn't work safe:

http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/04/2...s-at-shocking-easter-service/?singlepage=true

We march the first weekend in June every year. Come on out. SC's parade is a week or two before the parade in SF so many decent San Franciscans come down for the parade. The parade in SC is really family friendly and not really flamboyant.

I'm an atheist. If I were to return to Jesus it would be as a Roman Catholic. I was baptised and raised RC. But the word on the street here is that the Inner Light Ministry is a good place with good people.

 

Refresh my memory... what fact was that? (Did you prove it was a fact or just say that it was?)

 

You need to try it one day (Inner Light ministry, I mean. . .not anything else! LOL!).
I believe the new Church is in Aptos (almost opposite from Cabrillo College. Deborah Johnson is the pastor, and she is very inspirational. Obviously there is a lot of spirituality in her sermon, but there is also common sense and just plain good sense. What I like the best is that she seems to respect her audience, instead of talking down to them. Her wife is the music director. They make a great team.

By the way, I was raised Roman Catholic also. Went to Catholic school for 12 years, even to Catholic boarding school for 3 years. I have a lot of respect for Jesuites. I just cannot buy into man made dogmas anymore, but I do have respect for the lowest echelons of the Catholic Church, those nuns and priests who are in the front line, who KNOW what it's like to work with real people.

Thank you for the link (NOT! I could have done without it! LOL!)

 

The purposes of marriage have changed since its inception. This is a bit tricky because it's, as you pointed out, it's an ancient concept but a concept which is known across most, if not all, cultures and its purposes are/were multiple. But it isn't set in stone, it is socially defined, it is a legal construct as well as, in some cultures a religious sacrament. To get to the point, it affords committed couples some very practical benefits, such as the benefits that accrue to the surviving widow or widower of a deceased person killed in government service, for example. Since one of the purposes of marriage then is available to persons committed to one another (survivor benefits) but only if those two persons are married to one another, then why should homosexual couples (of either gender) be denied what is available without question to heterosexual couples? It isn't fair, it's not just.

 

It is set in stone, because, if you are a Christian or a Muslim, the very idea of two people of the same sex marrying is an abomination.

Or even merely having sexual relations, but the bottom line is, like it or not, it is written it stone(sic), by way of their holy books. It is made 100% clear. That would matter, I might suggest, to the 3billion Christians and Muslims. Are their rights, customs, constructs, to be trumped, just so that a tiny, tiny minority can lay claim to that which has never ever involved two people of the same sex? I don't think so. 'Socially defined' you may well say, but then that opens up a real can of worms, right? I mean, unless you have some solid building blocks, and do not contaminate them, it follows that your 'socially defined' outlook, would lead to almost anything being 'progress', as long as a tiny minority could organise, and shout loudly enough for it? And everyone else must bow their heads and like this or be deemed what.. 'hateful'?

How about if in ten years, the ilk of Tatchell now want to take it a step further, and foist the 'equality' of sex with kids?

 

Remember when I said you were paleoconservative? Yeah, this is a good example.

As much disdain as you have for the American rightwing on foreign policy, you'd fit right in on some of the social issues.

 

True, but completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. We do not make civil laws in this country based upon religious tenants, in fact we are constitutionally forbidden from doing so. The question at hand is not whether or not christian or muslim organizations will recognize same sex marriages as being legitimate, personally I couldn't care less what they think. The question is whether or not our secular government is going to do so, and given the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment, I don't think they really have a choice. They must.

 

Do you think that ALL Christians and Muslims believe that? (Think again.)

 

Correct.

Right. If we did, we'd have to deny a LOT of divorces and go after a LOT of people who already have them.

Same here.

That is correct.

 

Jack is a scholar and a gentleman. We should treat him that way.

 

The US do not have their own foreign policy, but let us not get into that.

As to that term, since I am really not one for terms, I had to look it up.

I have only briefly read what it means, so far, but it appears to suggest someone that wishes to protect and uphold certain core values and traditions, right?

I don't see anything esp wrong in that, many of those cores values are what a people need, when you have only hedonism, you end up with society going v badly wrong, for everyone.

- - - Updated - - -

The US do not have their own foreign policy, but let us not get into that.

As to that term, since I am really not one for terms, I had to look it up.

I have only briefly read what it means, so far, but it appears to suggest someone that wishes to protect and uphold certain core values and traditions, right?

I don't see anything esp wrong in that, many of those cores values are what a people need, when you have only hedonism, you end up with society going v badly wrong, for everyone.

 

They logically cannot and should not. If they have an issue with that, they have an issue with their own holy books.

You cannot merely dismiss the thoughts and feelings of billions of people.

I would technically not be permitted to do lots and lots of things, but I am okay with that.

- - - Updated - - -

No they don't, but then their problem is with their own god in that case.

 

Peter Gary Tatchell (born 25 January 1952) is an Australian-born British political campaigner best known for his work with LGBT social movements (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender).

In 1996 Tatchell led an OutRage! campaign to reduce the age of consent to 14.

In a 1997 letter to The Guardian, Tatchell defended an academic book about 'boy-love', calling the work "courageous" before writing:

Several of my friends – gay and straight, male and female – had sex with adults from the ages of nine to 13. None feel they were abused. All say it was their conscious choice and gave them great joy. While it may be impossible to condone paedophilia, it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Tatchell

 

Yes I can. In fact, I do so on a daily basis. I couldn't care less what some sheepherder in the stone age has to say about spirituality. Any connection to what they thought and real spirituality that they got right is merely coincidence, kind of like how a broken clock is right twice a day. And we are constitutionally forbidden from having laws that exist for no other purpose than because somebodies gawd said so.

 

People are human; religion affects us one way or the other and in-between.

I would not impose my religious beliefs upon others; but if the want what I have, it's there for them.

 

I agree. Normalization is a perfectly normal desire to reconstruct societal norms. Furthermore, unlike race, which is socially constructed, sexuality is not. Therefore, it is even more urgent that normalization of homosexuality occur in order to conform society to the current scientific understanding of sexuality.

 

You have a monopoly on spirituality now?

 

You can dismiss people's religion, but not necessarily the goals and actions they pursue as a result. Once someone steps on the rights or well-being of another due to their 'religion' (or intolerance of the same), then we have a problem that either cannot or should not be ignored or "dismissed".