The excuse of "Homosexuals don't reproduce," fails to realise that a homosexual man can still donate to a sperm bank, or even just have sex with a woman (Not sure why a woman would carry a homosexual man's child but weirder things have happened). So that point's completely moot, a homosexual man can still reproduce, and homosexual women as well (Hell, they can both have kids), just because most don't doesn't mean they can't.
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Great point Zero. When my sister was dating another woman, they were planning on having kids. In fact, her girlfriend asked if I would be the donor. (Which I said no to) If anything, homosexuality with kids could be considered beneficial to humanity because right now a problem that is plauging the world is over-population, not under-population.
kinda the most important post in this thread
I doubt homosexuality is a choice of "should I, or should I not", but that it comes down to what the brain wants and what the brain will get. You can be called a liar if you lied, but you can't be labeled homosexual if you had a gay thought. When I said that it had to do with what the brain wanted, I meant that sexuality has to do with what you are attracted to and what makes you feel good, which anything that does make one feel happy is what their brain is going to want to have. Then again, maybe it is genetic. If you are predisposed to be homosexual, then why is it that homosexuals are deemed as imperfect people?
I would say that being homosexual has nothing to do with a choice because if you are attracted to something then you will seek out that something and if it isn't the opposite sex then so be it! If people continue to "put it on the same basket as being a liar" then homosexuals will never have equal rights and people like Deck Night will continue to be ignorant =/
Christians willingly create these convoluted justifications all the time, but the Bible is an inconsistent, shoddy bit of piecework, and whatever views it has on homosexuality are exceedingly superfluous, making your sweeping pronouncements worthless. It is incredible how you can pride yourself on being so smart when you can say something like this so seriously.
Humans are the only beings capable of even theoretically surviving a planetary death. The hive mind and vermin, though resilient, can make no such claim unless enough of them freeload inside a space ship. About the only thing that will be guaranteed to kill humanity is universal heat death, at which point even insects and rats do not survive.
"Hate speech" is a euphemism for: "speech with which I disagree, but cannot disprove. Thus you are a bigot!"
Every single show that deals with sexual issues invariably ends up asking sexual partners "do you always use protection?," and the response is usually a hesistant sigh and a "well... not always." Truth is only capable of harming lies, and lies that do a disservice to the health and well-being of others deserve to be harmed. Is would be bigotry on my part if I were to assign higher intelligence or some other positive special characteristic to homosexuals as a whole, just on the basis they prefer to sleep with people of the same gender.
I do not particularly care what people who self-identify as gay do. Sodomy laws and their like are just further encroachments of the nanny state on the individual. There is a massive difference, however, between banning a negative activity and advising against it. The latter is the responsible compromise that protects liberty while acknowledging security.
Statistically speaking, yes.
If gays want to identify as a group, then I don't see the fallacy in using statistics grouped by sexual orientation. After all, no one here seems to have a problem with grouping much larger, much more diverse populations into one entirely malevolent sum.
Do you actually have an argument Gay Dolphin, or is hit and run "you're an ignorant bigot" the best you can muster? I tire of the kiddie pool mentality of arguing that your opponent is ignorant because their conclusion is different. I need not assault your character to rebuff your arguments, I merely expect the same courtesy in return.
Before anyone tries to use my counter to Kenshin as an assault on his character, do remember his entire post was dedicated primarily to insulting me and then casting a caricature of me based not in any objective analysis, but of his own stereotype of what teacher told him a "homophobe" was.
Prove it is biased please. Don't just say "your source is biased therefore I will contribute nothing to this thread," provide some reasoning for your conclusion. Do they not teach critical thinking anymore?ungulateman said:
What a simplistic world you live in. Jaguars have been falling for the same traps for ages. Their entire method of survival relies on individual brute strength. Only in the most rudimentary sense do they "learn" from their ancestors. Unlike humans they cannot connect two vastly different ideas from two vastly different cultures and combine them into a third unique, better idea. The entirety of human history is available to humanity for it to build and expand upon, allowing geometric or even exponential periods of technological growth. Jaguars have at best the experiences they can gather from the environment. If there are a lot of Jaguar carcasses caught in poacher traps, they avoid that area. Jaguars have no sense of ancestry in any case, that is a human concept and only applicable because we can actually pass down what our grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. did. Abstract language is the Holy Grail of evolutionary advantages.
See CaptKirby engage in religious bigotry against Christians despite an utter lack of God, the Bible, or anything remotely religious in Tangerine's post, backed up by nothing but his old saw arguments against a Biblical consistency that no one but CaptKirby has even brought up.CaptKirby said:
Who says I had to derive my opinion off of the Bible? Even if I did, who says that I accept it blindly, and even then, why are it's views "superfluous"? What does that even have to do with my statement? Why is the Bible even relevant to this?
Just like you aren't labeled a liar for thinking "maybe i should lie"
Who even implied this? The point is they shouldn't be.
Err, you missed the point - "put it on the same basket as being a liar" is like saying they're like everyone else - we're all filthy liars afterall :)
Are you a filthy homosexual, Tangerine? Your analogy is fallacious.
Deck Knight, from what I have read of your posts, your chief argument against homosexuality is the health risk. Disregarding all other arguments for the moment: A lot of enjoyable activities in life carry inherent risks, and generally what people do is weigh the risk against the reward to decide on whether they wish to participate in the activity. My question to you is: do you advise avoiding all activities that carry risks but are also enjoyable, for instance playing sports or eating chinese food etc?
it's not a fact til it happens :P. Otherwise I agree completely!
So your measurement of success in a species is dependant on numbers? Hell, most of the common species in the Formicidae (ants) outnumber people. If your criteria is being cosmopolitan, lets talk about Rattus or Corvus. Hell, even Equus, Canus or Felus will have members that are as cosmopolitan in range as people.
It's a little bit rich that someone as conservative and religious as yourself proudly talks about standing on the shoulders of giants, when people like you are one of the main reasons technological advancement is slowed or halted (see: stem cell research).
Because there is no other possible grounds for the view you were espousing, stop pretending! I know from the past that this is very likely your only grounds as well. What grounds are there for homosexuality to be any worse than straightness without some arbitrary divine moral in place? None. Period. Ever. That is why I brought God into it, duh.
Anyway, "God" is supposedly a god of perfect love. If this is so, then him punishing people for "pure" love of some sort, a couple as virtually sin free as any straight couple, which there certainly will be, then it makes "God" quite hypocritical, invented arbitrary rules or not (although I do not believe, if he exists and parts of the Bible are somehow divine, that "God" made this rule; it must be man inserted, since man would be bigoted like this where "God" would not be.).
If you want my blunt opinion on this, it is of my opinion that people have responsibility to society. Just because "it is my nature" or "other animals do it", or anything like that, does not free you from such responsibilities. This is an ideal that I believe in - you're not a human being unless you can overcome natural tendencies and work towards society. Homosexuality, Lying, anything like that, they're just obstacles. Of course, homosexuality is irrelevant now since we have a large enough population to sustain ourselves so I could careless about it regardless of what the Bible says since it's not my place to condemn people because they're "sinners" - that's God's business.
My views come from my ideals. It has little to do with the Bible - and even if it did - I see no reason to condemn other people or to tell other people that it's wrong because simply that's their choice and that's that. That's where my "flawed" analogy comes off from - of course it's a bad analogy if no one else thinks the same way :)
The chief difference is in the matter of degree and the purpose and method for normalization of the activity.
As statistical studies bear out,[this is a study of Sexual Abuse of Boys. The most relevant points are the prevalence of male perpetrators(p.3), the self-identified heterosexuality of the perpetrators(p.3), and the effects of this abuse on gender roles later in life (p.5)] possible causes and activity engaged in based on broad-scale studies of homosexual behavior is that it trends to an overall negative health effect for those who engage in it.
Because homosexuality is by its nature a social interaction, it always affects at least two people, and its health consequences have broad negative effects. We're talking aggregates here, so we can assume that no one practices what they "should" do 100% of the time, and in fact often practice methods to reduce the risks associated with the activity imperfectly.
Thus far this makes it not much different than junk food or other bad habits. The difference is that while we can freely talk about the dangers posed by trans fats, poor diet, and lethargy, being honest and open about the health dangers of this activity is liable to get your mental health questioned.
No one attempts to normalize junk food, excessive/obsessive exercise, alcoholism, or any other activity. No one in other words finds these predispositions towards an extreme behavior taboo to confront. Contrast with homosexuality: You get called an ignorant bible-thumping hick for not praising it, let alone suggesting it might not be healthy; then people start calling you insane, literally. Moreover, unlike all these other negative activities, no one is trying to get the government to approve obsessive-compulsive behavior, crash dieting, and purposeful obesity as perfectly equal, healthy alternatives to the more prevalent and generally healthier mainstream activity.
I'm not one of those "there ought to be a law" types. Activities with negative health effects should not be banned, but neither should they be raised on a pedestal. People should not be insulted and villianized for not lending their unequivocal support for them. People should not be sued for failing to cater to the professed "needs" of the pushy minority engaging in their personally favored activity.
I also don't want to be your nanny, but I won't let anyone insult me from some sense of moral superiority either. I don't care if you're vegetarian and your cat winds up with a protein deficiency because you never gave it meat, just don't call me a murderer complicit in the rape of Great Gaia. I don't care if you're a Roid Raging Gym Rat, just don't call me a scrawny half pint because the iron I pump is insufficient for your tastes. Nor do I particularly care if you're homosexual, just don't insinuate I'm a bigot and, possibly worse, fear you because of an activity you engage in I'd rather not know about in the first place.
Why aren't we the dominant species on Earth when we can theoretically render a planet inhospitable and not be on physically on said planet?
As an 18th century male I have both dominion over and stewardship over women and Africans. This is the same sort of objection brought against Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women by Thomas Taylor; if we give rights to women, what is next? rights for 'brutes'? It fails for the obvious reasons. We have dominion through force and coercion; that does not provide any ethical justification.Deck Knight said:
And for someone who so vehemently defends the 'rights of the unborn', I do wonder where you get off basing this dominion on humanity's intellectual capacities. Infants and the mentally disabled are likewise incapable of 'pondering their status in relation to other creatures'; am I innately superior to them? Kanzi is more intelligent than many small children. The relevant question, as Jeremy Bentham pointed out over 2 centuries ago, is not whether animals can think but whether they can suffer.
It is not reproductively pointless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swans#Sexuality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonobo#Sexual_social_behavior
To take two examples almost at random.
I suppose the 'health risk' justifies lesbianism, then, as they are less prone to venereal disease than straights and gay males. Besides, 'homosexuality' is not synonymous with 'homosexual sex'. Anal sex is a riskier sexual behaviour than vaginal sex, regardless of one's orientation.
Lying is not analogous to homosexuality; there is no genetic compulsion to lie, and lying does not involve mutual consent. Besides, lying can be morally justified in certain situations. The famous criticism of Kant's categorical imperative is an example of this: What if a would-be murderer asked you the location of his target? Furthermore, lying is an act, homosexuality is an orientation. One cannot 'choose' to feel sexual urges for members of the same sex; one can, however, choose to lie.Tangerine said:
No, 'hate speech' is a speech act that manifests prejudice towards individuals based on physical or mental distinctions. If one says 'Jewishness is a social cancer', it is hate speech. You have made similar statements in the past about homosexuality.Deck Knight said:
Listen Deck Knight, I think that you're missing something important. STDs are NOT exclusive to homosexuals. In fact, they are a common problem among hetersexuals too. By your argument, all sex is harmful. So, what do you propose we do in order to stop the "normalization" of sex? Should we ban programs like Sex In the City that promote such behavior, or should we increase the morally based "The only safe sex is no sex" taught in schools?
If anything, a man like you who is convinced that STDs are primarily propagated in homosexual communities should be happy! I mean hell, it's solving your problem, which by the way is not actually homosexuality, but unsafe sex.
Regarding your argument on normalization, have you ever watched TV? Adds constantly portray good-looking, young, popular people doing unhealthy activies in order to sell a product. That is normalization.
EDIT: Luduan, I just read your post. Wow dude. Great argument. I'm saving that and using it next time I have to debate homosexuality.
If anything, a man like you who is convinced that STDs are primarily propagated in homosexual communities should be happy! I mean hell, it's solving your problem, which by the way is not actually homosexuality, but unsafe sex.
Regarding your argument on normalization, have you ever watched TV? Adds constantly portray good-looking, young, popular people doing unhealthy activies in order to sell a product. That is normalization.
EDIT: Luduan, I just read your post. Wow dude. Great argument. I'm saving that and using it next time I have to debate homosexuality.
Everything you have linked to is related to male homosexuality. What about female homosexuality? Is it okay? Can we get a clear answer on this? This is something you seem to elude constantly.
What's funny here is that the post that you responded to did not actually mention junk food. It mentioned sports and chinese food. Way to elude the fucking point, champ - you seem to have a knack for this. Anyway, see, there is no problem about being honest and open about the health dangers of homosexuality, just like there is no problem about being honest and open about the health dangers of professional sports. That doesn't mean anyone should be discouraged from partaking in homosexual activity and/or sports if it is something that they enjoy. Furthermore, in both situations, there are obvious means of reducing the risks tremendously via appropriate protection and people are strongly encouraged to use them. When done properly, neither homosexuality nor sports are particularly dangerous and to the people who practise them consider that the risk is not nearly significant enough to warrant not doing what they enjoy.
The difference with junk food, alcohol, etc. is, first, that the health risks are a lot higher and inherent to the activity: if one could "protect" oneself from the adverse effects of junk food with some magical pill, why would junk food be a bad habit? Instead of advising not to eat junk food, people would advise taking the aforementioned pill when one does. Second, obviously, few people if any actually want to be junk food addicts or alcoholics. They know it's a bad habit, there's no problem in telling them what they already know.
Also, a case can be made that heterosexual intercourse is significantly more risky than a lack of intercourse. Furthermore, given modern techniques, it is perfectly possible to reproduce without actually having intercourse, so there is no argument from necessity to be made. So following your logic, sex in general should be actively advised against.
At least for the arguments you presented in this post, solid counter-arguments could be found in the posts before yours. Technically there is hardly any need to ever respond to you because that would imply always repeating what was said before. I mean, look. Just look at the drivel we have to bear with, Deck Knight. You argue that homosexuality is unhealthy based on examples of male homosexuality, ignoring this post pointing out that it is unprotected sex that is dangerous and also that female homosexuality bears less risks than heterosexuality. The answer is already there. Right there. On page one. As far as I can see, you have not even made the slightest effort to address it. Why do we even bother talking to you when you blatantly ignore the best points against your arguments, forcing us to repeat ad infinitum the same shit that you happily discard when you respond? And then there's that other point where you give a nice tirade comparing homosexuality to the consumption of junk food to complain that you can't condemn them as if they were the same. Nevermind that the original point mentioned sports, an activity which is not seen in a negative light yet bears very real risks. That was the point. But like you always do, you ignored the point.
Of course you are a bigot, Deck Knight. Only bigots can lack reading comprehension to such a spectacular extent.
You're saying that more and more homosexuals are popping up because of the pressures to be heterosexual in today's society? Last time I checked, in general, people who are normal would never choose to be different just to be labelled as different. Who in their right mind would want to stick out in the crowd when they know the crowd wouldn't like that they stick out? In other words, isn't it better to blend in and not be hated over being an individual and to be hated? People don't look to be seen as different, that's why everybody wants to be thin and people want to be muscular in order to not be seen as "ugly" or "weird" by those who look "better". You're idea doesn't make any sense other than maybe the homosexuals chose to be homosexual wanted to be looked at as different, which I doubt is the case.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/vegetarians-live-longer.php
Vegetarians have a proven longer life expectancy. Therefore, eating meat is unhealthy.
That is basically your argument, Deck Knight. Perhaps you are the one who lacks critical thinking, because you can't even understand the concept of "correlation does not equal causation". There are more ways to explain the correlation between homosexuality and AIDS than "male penis entering male butt spreads AIDS". Having unprotected gay sex could be the cause instead of just "gay sex". Or it could be the fact that gays are more likely to hook up with multiple partners over their lifetime than heterosexuals.
you misunderstood me i think
idiots like to use anti-gay talking points about rates of promiscuity and stds and the like among sexual minorities (especially working class gay/bi men), while ignoring how the individual circumstances that lead to these overall trends result from the abject failures of heteronormative society
Po-Mo bullshit standard: It's society's fault.
Cause homosexuals don't have free will or anything like that.
Whenever I post I get a steady stream of insults by a large number of bandwagoning trolls. I really don't think the side of this argument supported by political correctness has room to talk about the drivel they put up with.Brain said:
Unprotected sex and gay sex are heavily connected to each other. Pleasure is often the ultimate goal and condoms can numb some of the feeling, and since they know they won't have an 18-20 year penalty, why bother, they ask themselves? Normalizing homosexuality would lead to an increase in this behavior. On a broad scale protection is not used, thus the massively higher rate of STD's and AIDS in gay and bisexual men in Canada.
Sports does bear risks, but it encompasses a variety of physical activities each with different risks. Rugby is infinitely more risky than Tennis, for example. Homosexuality only encompasses sexual acts, at least if it is expected to be acted on instead of thought about. If you're a fan of Rugby you aren't really engaged in Rugby and its hazards, are you?
To be honest, Lesbianism bores me far too much and I haven't really bothered to google the associated negative effects of it and get a concrete study. No one who supports it will do any of the lifting, so it's basically a one man show here. I have to be every little schoolboy's personal researcher because they can't be assed to check into anything. Even if they question and then bring up their findings, they will be insulted and intimidated. There is no quarter for anyone who wants to oppose homosexuality and doesn't want ad hominem attacks in return.
Big Bad Brain needs to of course, continue to insult me. Nice ad hominem - champ. Reading comprehension and bigotry are not even remotely correlated, except of course when the topic is Homosexuality. There poor reading comprehension is causal to bigotry, of course. What drivel.
Ultimately I realize I'm flailing in the wind here. Society is going towards a death spiral where all things that bring prosperity and morality to a society will be "deconstructed" by postmodernists with an axe to grind. Health risk is hardly a good moral argument at all, but no longer can we oppose anything just because it is immoral at its foundation. Instead we have to justify why something is immoral based on its effects, and defend traditional morality despite its track record of historical success.
Obama just passed an executive order giving benefits to federal employees in same sex relationships. Why exactly, do two gay men with no dependents need to get spousal benefits from the federal government that were previously awarded only to married couples that either already have or could reasonably expect to have dependents? It treats two entirely different things as the same based on the lowest common denominator: a consenting adult relationship. It continually lowers the standard until hardly any standard exists at all. It's insidious to it's core and yet people seem to think it is an advancement for society. Treating categorically different things the same is ludicrous.
Unfortunately arguing on these grounds always leads back to a discussion of rights, and the definition of rights amongst today's youth (Smogon's fanbase) lacks entirely the fact they come with responsibilities and exist for the specific purpose of prohibiting encroachments on liberty, not establishing a reward structure for political interest groups.
The path of destruction caused by homonormative thought has great depth and great breadth, ranging from fractured families, a poorer understanding of the function and purpose of rights, perverts infiltrating schools and indoctrinating schoolchildren to believe life is a cornucopia of equally valid sexual choices, justification for impregnating any woman who wants a child or enabling any unspecified two people from adopting, and in general coarsening the public discourse with an entirely invented new "fear" and accusations of bigotry.
And to what end? So that people no longer view the nuclear family, the most successful model in history, as the most practical, viable choice for raising a family. The gold standard which should be aspired to. All of this stems back from the same ideological roots, and I'd much rather have that discussion that the myopic one of "yes Virginia, homosexuality has health risks."
So, cohabiting couples couldn't expect to have children?
I've got a better idea. Let's fertility test both partners, then if they're not capable of breeding, we won't give them benefits! Except, you wouldn't do that, because you'd throw a fit about the Big Bad Evil Government interfering in God-fearing American citizens lives.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_change
Getting back on topic, it seems several species of animal can change gender naturally, for example if there is a shortage of one gender within a population. Does that make these animals homosexual when they are doing what comes natural?
ok, that is REALLY fucking cool, if i can be a little offtopic here
ahhahahaha I destroyed your arguments with one sentence so of course you sidestep and let loose another gush of rhetorical diarrhea. To start with, no, "homosexuals don't have free will or anything like that" because "free will" in your sense of the word doesn't exist - even if it did it would be irrelevant to the matter at hand.
But let's ignore that for a moment because I want you to concentrate on something. Think about the obstacles facing sexual minorities in a society where 'deviant behaviour' is punishable by law and despised by the public. Seeing as you're an americocentric cretin with the historical awareness of a goldfish I understand this is a tall order for you, but I want you to try.
Think about how certain things like being forced into an underground sexual subculture, being unable to reveal personal sexuality, having no knowledge of relevant safe-sex practices, etc. might lead to certain other things like, say, reckless sexual behaviour.
Now think about the parallels to and aspects of this situation which are present in any society. Think long and hard about that part. and dont you dare evade the issue this time
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