Miss California?

[Flyndaran]

Humanity is second only to bonobos in their obsession with sex.
Saying anything sexual involving humans is unnatural denies our entire history.
Honestly, saying that two chicks having sex is strange and outside of the human norm says more about the speaker's complete ignorance about sex.

[Rubystars]

I have to agree with you to an extent on this, but the simple fact is that it's not hard to see past the 'outer facade' as highly publicised by the media (sinec it sells copy), and it's pretty easy to see the vast majority of normal people with a minority sexual preference.

I think it's the really weird ones that get stuck in people's minds though. The fact that they let NAMBLA into their parades also doesn't help, especially as most gays are not pedophiles.

I said before many years back that the pride rallies were now counterproductive for that very reason. Would I want heterosexuals going around in an organised parade dressed in posing pouches and grinding against each other? No. Leave it for the porn collection where it lives.

I've seen images from these parades which are absolutely disgusting, they start doing sexual things to each other right in the middle of the street. You're right that I wouldn't want to see that from heterosexuals either though.

It all seems to come down to the buttsex for you, yes? Does that affect you in any way?

I don't care if people do it if they would just not ask the public to condone it and call it normal.

A murderer kills someone. Yup - should be against the law. Could affect more members of society, so it needs legislation and action against it.

Yes.

Addictive drugs being sold? Yup - should be against the law. Addicts suffer and the people they steal from suffer, so it needs legislation and action against it.

Depends on the drug.

Two people love each other and perform consensual acts of (generally) no lasting damage. It cannot affect you, apart from the squick factor that you're displaying. Why should that be legislated against? What effect does it have on you?

I'm not saying their "butt sex" should be illegal. I just don't want some official recognition of it as if it were a marriage situation.

[Rubystars]

This is akin to saying that heterosexuality should be considered abnormal, and that heteros shouldn't be allowed to marry, all because some of them make out and feel each other up in public.

In any group of people, you are going to find some individuals who behave badly and make the whole group look bad. There are Christians who do obnoxious things like harass people on street corners, go door to door to evangelize to people at nine o'clock on weekend mornings, and who make it a point to berate anyone who isn't a Christian, but that doesn't mean we should make it illegal for Christians to go to church or practice their religion.

Likewise, there are feminists who do excellent jobs at given feminism a bad name, but that doesn't mean that women should be paid less than men for doing the same work.

Long story short, you can't just point out a few bad apples and use them as an excuse for treating the whole group like lesser beings.

In all fairness, most gays I've actually seen in real life didn't act like the ones at the pride parades. However I have seen some really effeminate, or let's say, flamboyant gays and butch lesbians, so it's not just a stereotype.

I don't know if I told this story on CS a while back or not. A few years ago there was this very butch woman that came up to me when I worked at a grocery store, and asked me where the Manwich was. It was hard not to laugh... but I told her. I think what made it funny was that she had a really deep voice for a woman, but she was a woman.

[Rubystars]

I'll just drop in a quick bit... my 'where's the evidence' wasn't for homosexuality being a 'sickness', it was 'where's the proof it is genetic or evolutionary?'....

Sorry about that. I wasn't sure what you meant. Since we can see this type of behavior displayed in some of humanity's closest living relatives (especially bonobos), and we can observe it in human beings, then it makes sense that the common ancestral species to both exhibited this same behavior.

It could be genetic because a lot of times people say that they remember always feeling different from others, or that they always felt like the other gender.

Personally I believe that it's a mixture of genetic predisposition and environmental factors. It could lean more heavily one way than the other in different individuals though.

[Flyndaran]

...
I'm not saying their "butt sex" should be illegal. I just don't want some official recognition of it as if it were a marriage situation.

You don't think hetero couples should engage in anal sex something that not all gays do?

Really, why are you so obsessed with anal sex?

[AFPheonix]

I'll just drop in a quick bit... my 'where's the evidence' wasn't for homosexuality being a 'sickness', it was 'where's the proof it is genetic or evolutionary?'....

(I love how the topic is still on being gay, not on being human...)

article on study of genetics

social evolution/anthropology article on homosexuality

article on a book about homosexual phenotype

You are right though, one can argue all day about the nuts and bolts of it, but to do so loses sight of the fact that we're not talking about inanimate objects here. We're talking about obviously not mentally ill people who have wants and needs just like the rest of us, and all they want is to be able to do that which the majority takes for granted.

[Rapscallion]

I think it's the really weird ones that get stuck in people's minds though. The fact that they let NAMBLA into their parades also doesn't help, especially as most gays are not pedophiles.

I did a little googling on this. They don't any more. They haven't for a long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_A...ve_Association

They were being ostracised by the gay movement in the early eighties, and despite the attempts by a very small minority they were regarded as persona non-grata. You're talking about events that are nearly thirty years old - nearly a generation or so.

I don't care if people do it if they would just not ask the public to condone it and call it normal.

You don't see it as normal. I see your views as just tribalism - "Those lot are different from my lot because they do X or Y or Z, and therefore we're different. We can therefore feel superior to them, or discriminate, because they're different."

Depends on the drug.

I specified the addictive drugs quite deliberately.

I'm not saying their "butt sex" should be illegal. I just don't want some official recognition of it as if it were a marriage situation.

If your views take hold and it's not recognised, how long before it becomes an illegal act?

Again, I ask what effect gay marriage has on you? Please, enlighten us as to how your life is materially affected by two people who love each other making the commitment that a large number of heterosexuals make.

Rapscallion

[Boozy]

That is exactly why it is different, heterosexuality is normal.

You've been continually saying this, but saying something repeatedly does not make it so.

When pressed to provide a factual and reasoned argument to support your conclusions, you come back with some version of "Because that's what I and a lot of other people think." But as other people have pointed out, some of what the majority of people has believed in the past is ludicrous.

Read the links that AFP has provided. The first, especially. This is where factually supported and well-reasoned thinking will lead you.

If you can never accept homosexuality as normal, fine. But don't kid yourself in believing that your reasoning is sound. I think that the arguments you've put forth so far are incredibly weak at best.

[Rubystars]

You don't think hetero couples should engage in anal sex something that not all gays do?

Really, why are you so obsessed with anal sex?

It's other people who have been saying I'm obssessed with it, not me. I do think it's gross but I believe that any kind of sex just shouldn't happen between people of the same gender.

I did a little googling on this. They don't any more. They haven't for a long time.

The real problem here is that they were considered part of the larger movement to expand "sexual rights" at one point.Now the tactics have changed where homosexuals are trying to ask for something more modest in hopes of getting that.

It's a really common technique. Imagine a kid "Mom can I have 10 candy bars?" Mom: "No, that's too many to eat at one time" Kid: "Can I have one?" Mom: Well, ok

Another example would be someone trying to sell something and asking a very high price for it, then very deliberately allowing the customer to talk them down to a price that is reasonable but still makes the seller a profit.

These gays had these outrageous pride parades with NAMBLA in them, now they are saying "We're monogamous couples just like you and hate that stuff". By comparison, the latter seems more reasonable, more acceptable, and the gays are making legal headway.

If your views take hold and it's not recognised, how long before it becomes an illegal act?

I think by that time people will be content just to let them do what they want as long as they keep it to themselves. Why can't they be discreet about it instead of saying "we're here, we're queer, and we're in your face?"

Again, I ask what effect gay marriage has on you? Please, enlighten us as to how your life is materially affected by two people who love each other making the commitment that a large number of heterosexuals make.
Rapscallion

Since the government represents the people, if the government officially condones gay marriage, then it affects me because my tax money and my government will be encouraging something that the majority of people find to be disgusting. I'm not ok with that.

It really doesn't affect me if two people decide to get "married", unless they try to force society as a whole to recognize that as a marriage. That's what they want to do.

[Rubystars]

You've been continually saying this, but saying something repeatedly does not make it so.

When pressed to provide a factual and reasoned argument to support your conclusions, you come back with some version of "Because that's what I and a lot of other people think." But as other people have pointed out, some of what the majority of people has believed in the past is ludicrous.

Read the links that AFP has provided. The first, especially. This is where factually supported and well-reasoned thinking will lead you.

If you can never accept homosexuality as normal, fine. But don't kid yourself in believing that your reasoning is sound. I think that the arguments you've put forth so far are incredibly weak at best.

To me it's obvious that it isn't normal. If it were normal, why would people react to it so strongly? Why would there even need to be a political movement to push it on the rest of society? Gays are fighting hard to get their deviancy accepted as "normal", but if it really were normal, then they wouldn't have to insist so very hard that it is.

[Slytovhand]

Begging the Question fallacy

[Rubystars]

Begging the Question fallacy

Cute but you still aren't addressing what I brought up. If something is normal, why do people have to insist that it is? Why is it not obvious and just accepted?

[Pedersen]

Cute but you still aren't addressing what I brought up. If something is normal, why do people have to insist that it is? Why is it not obvious and just accepted?

You mean like women being just as smart as men, just as capable as men, just as able to anything that a man can do? Or do you mean like how black people are not inferior by virtue of their skin color?

Good point. I wonder why those groups had to (and, to some degree, still have to) insist on these obvious points. Even though most people agree with it today (at least, in countries with similar norms as the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK), not so long ago these groups had to tell people every day how normal that thought was.

[Rubystars]

Those are not questions of "normal" or "abnormal". The first is a question of relative ability. The second is a question of superiority vs. inferiority.

[Rapscallion]

The real problem here is that they were considered part of the larger movement to expand "sexual rights" at one point.Now the tactics have changed where homosexuals are trying to ask for something more modest in hopes of getting that.

So NAMBLA in the pride marches was a tactic? I think not. If anything, I suspect it was born of a desperation to get anyone on their side, since they were faced with so much opposition.

Do you really think that a large body of people like that has the ability to meet in secret and plan a tactic like that, mobilising so many others for so long, with one strategic aim such as that in mind? Why, that would be like someone suggesting that a right-winger wants homosexuality firmly back in the closet as the thin edge of a wedge to allow discriminating against people legally.

There is no gay group of which I am aware involved in the pride rallies these days that would have anything to do with Nambla, and it's not as a tactic.

It's a really common technique. Imagine a kid "Mom can I have 10 candy bars?" Mom: "No, that's too many to eat at one time" Kid: "Can I have one?" Mom: Well, ok

Pastor: We're going to discriminate against a minority, but you're not that minority, so that's fine. You can feel good about that.

Congregation: Great! Who next?

Yup - a really common technique. My example has as much proof behind it as your claim.

These gays had these outrageous pride parades with NAMBLA in them, now they are saying "We're monogamous couples just like you and hate that stuff". By comparison, the latter seems more reasonable, more acceptable, and the gays are making legal headway.

The problem with legal headway being made it? Oh, you disagree with it. Tab A shouldn't go into slot C. You want separate and unequal status for people, forcing them to go underground for something they cannot control.

I think by that time people will be content just to let them do what they want as long as they keep it to themselves. Why can't they be discreet about it instead of saying "we're here, we're queer, and we're in your face?"

No. No it won't. What happened with the jews? The term 'ghetto' came from an area of Venice known as 'Borghetto', an area of the place on an island where jews were confined between certain times of the day. Similar happened all over Europe. Of course, as soon as they were safely confined behind those walls, the rumours began of the jews perpetrating sorcery and abominations behind the walls, leading to popular unrest against them.

History has proven humans to be all too fallible time and again. Segregation is not the answer. Treat people as if they should be locked away and soon they will be.

Since the government represents the people, if the government officially condones gay marriage, then it affects me because my tax money and my government will be encouraging something that the majority of people find to be disgusting. I'm not ok with that.

It won't be spent promoting or encouraging anything. All it will do is accept people for what they are.

Majority of people find it disgusting? I'd love to see your source for that.

It really doesn't affect me if two people decide to get "married", unless they try to force society as a whole to recognize that as a marriage. That's what they want to do.

It certainly affects them. You die, and your husband gains some form of financial recompense. You know your husband can inherit your goods after your death - he'll be looked after to the extent of the goods you leave behind. Same goes if he dies - you inherit his goods.

A gay person in a partnership not recognised by the state? Their partner cannot benefit in the same way. As a living couple, they cannot attain the same tax breaks afforded to heterosexual couples.

I can see why they'd want the same rights as you, not a subordinate position, and most definitely not a superior position.

Rapscallion