Answered Questions Re: Miss California

[Rubystars]

I take these debates seriously so I don't want to leave anything seeming like it was ignored. Therefore this is where I will attempt to answer the questions that I accidentally missed or misunderstood before.

I also want to take this chance to apologize for seeming arrogant at one point in the other thread. I was just getting a little irritated at that time.

They are posts 338, 345, 350, 356, 359, 360, 369, and 372 in the "Miss California?" thread.

The following posts will be my responses to each one.

[Rubystars]

338

Finally. A straight answer. So, your opinion, which isn't even held by every member of your group, should be used to not only decide morality for the country, but restrict the rights of humans by writ of law.

If by deciding morality for the country you mean basing law on Judeo-Christian moral values, then yes I think that's how it should be. If by restricting the rights of humans by writ of law you mean denying gays and lesbians the right to marry, then yes I think gay marriage should be banned.

If you're talking about other rights too, then yes I think certain things should be banned on a moral basis. Some already are.

And not a single person has said "you are not allowed to have your opinion."

People do seem to have a problem with my advocating for my opinion however. I also think homosexuals have the right to their opinion and the democratic right to fight for their opinion to be the one that wins out.

Now that we have that out of the way, here's the thing: laws aren't supposed to be legislating morality, they're supposed to be used to prevent actions which are demonstrably detrimental to society.

The problem here is that I think there is a certain level of overlap between what harms society and what's considered immoral from a religious basis. For example stealing harms society, and is also considered to be immoral. I don't think there should be a religious government, but a secular government that doesn't go out of its way to condone immoral behavior.

So, do you have any ability to show that your position is correct, ie "Gay marriage will have a negative effect on the people this country"? Because that's the only standard by which laws are meant to be created, to deter behaviour which impinges on the right or lives of others.

I think that there will be many repercussions from it, but most of those would probably only bother my fellow conservatives. Of course gay marriage leads to more widespread gay adoption, and the teaching of homosexuality as normal in public schools. These are things that many conservatives find to be unacceptable. They don't want their children exposed to that stuff in school or to worry if they have a child up for adoption that it might go to a homosexual couple.

So, if you are unable to demonstrably prove that, why should your morals be imposed on society? Just to make you more comfortable? Just to defend your personal definition of a word?

It's not my personal definition of the word. Many people, including Miss California, see it the same way I do. As I've tried to say before, I don't think it's the conservatives who are trying to impose their morals on society. These morals were already the norm before the gays started to agitate and demonstrate. It is the gay movement which seeks to enforce its own morals on the rest of society by forcing us to acknowledge them as legitimate rather than abnormal.

Honestly, speaking from your brain, not your heart, please justify the imposition of a moral code not widely accepted, through the use of law.

I think that my position is widely accepted, at least where I live, so I don't see how this applies to gay marriage.

Use logic and reasoning, evidence if possible. Something more than "marriage is defined as between a man and a woman." Because definitions change. Last generation's conservatives are this generation's liberals.

I believe that homosexuality causes general moral decay, simply by the fact that it's something immoral that's openly flaunted now instead of being discreet like it was in the past. Now parents have to try to explain to their children why that man is giggling and swinging a purse around, when parents didn't have that particular challenge a few decades ago quite so often. I think this is unfortunate.

[Rubystars]

345

I would like to point you to my above post which seems to have been posted while you were still writing yours.

I remember now. I think I was ignoring your posts because I didn't want to talk to someone who called me a nasty name. You did apologize later for it so I will respond to you now.
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Statistically anal sex is far more frequent among Heterosexuals due to the loss of stigma around the act and increased education. Also throw into the pot that there's more options out there than anal sex for gay men, and I believe your argument is thin at best.

I think anal sex happens more often between straight people because there are just a heck of a lot more straights than gays.

Furthermore, we aren't talking about the government issuing statements saying that it's O.K. to be gay, because many already have, because it's true. We are talking about extending a basic and necessary right to a group of people who have been deprived of it.

My point is that if the government extends the right for gays to marry, then it might as well be saying "gay is OK".

P.S. Any type of sex carries risk, and every type of sex is perfectly safe if properly executed, with a few exceptions such as oxygen deprivation which are based on mortal danger.

I can't imagine why someone would be sexually aroused by not being able to breathe! Anyway to answer your point, yes all kinds of sex carry risk, but I do think that anal sex is riskier than vaginal sex.
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That said, we all think of our opinions being correct, but aren't arrogant enough to believe that our opinions are the right opinions for our entire society. Furthermore, it's arrogant to think of yourself as correct when you admit that you have no proof of anything.

My point, even though stated a little too strongly and bluntly, was that we all think our opinions are correct. I fight for my opinion to prevail because I think it's right, and you fight for yours because you think yours is right.

I guess if it's not a basic right for people to marry the people they love, it's not necessary to have marriage at all. If it is, it's dictated by the constitution and our society that everyone is extended that right.

Marriage is for men and women, not for men and men or women and women.

If there is a basic right to marry, I think it would only apply to couples with opposite genders.

Maybe the government should get out of marriage altogether. That would help to solve some of these problems.

It's also unethical in the extreme to legislate against something you have no proof is a threat. If I were to create a billion-strong religion that believed aliens will smite us if we kiss someone somewhere other than the mouth, should that be made into legislation so as to protect us? of course not, there's no threat until proven otherwise. Furthermore, any system which does not extend equal rights is broken in this society and government.

The real threat as I see it is how society will change as homosexuality becomes more acceptable. When it moves from the fringes into the mainstream, then society itself will be less moral.

I would also like to see something other than the 'but they can still marry women' argument. It's irrelevant because we aren't talking about the right to marry women, we're talking about the right to marry the person we want to marry regardless of gender, race, religion, etc. It used to be that blacks couldn't marry whites, which prevented people who love each other from marrying. How is that any different, Ruby?

I don't think a marriage to someone of the same sex is valid. A marriage like that woud be a marriage in name only, even if you have a slip of paper from the government. Men and women complement one another but homosexual relations are like trying to put two like poles of magnets together. It just doesn't work the same way.

Marriages where the man and woman are of different races can be called a marriage because it involved a man and a woman. That's what's different about it.

[Rubystars]

I'll do more a bit later.

[Greenday]

I agree about the marriage thing. The government should have nothing to do with marriages. There should be ZERO benefits from the government for getting married.

The only thing I REALLY want to know, is what is immoral about being gay? What part of being gay is so immoral that people feel the need to keep other people down?

[Cat]

The only thing I REALLY want to know, is what is immoral about being gay? What part of being gay is so immoral that people feel the need to keep other people down?

Fear of the unknown.

[Rubystars]

350

I had written this:

"Originally Posted by Rubystars
I believe that sinful behavior brings judgment upon a society. No, I'm not expecting "fire and brimstone" to reign down, but I do think that society will suffer in the long run if we openly embrace things like homosexuality as being normal and acceptable. This view is based in my religious background. "

To which Wingates Hellsing replied:

I'm very sorry, but if you could please PROVE IT. As broom said, LALA IM RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG doesn't count as debate. No evidence? no validity

Well the Romans aren't around anymore. What I would consider harmful to society you probably wouldn't though. I consider homosexuality being accepted as normal as being harmful in its own right. However much of the damage may be yet to occur, so I guess you'll find my argument to be invalid, because it's hard to prove something that hasn't happened yet.

[the_std]

However much of the damage may be yet to occur, so I guess you'll find my argument to be invalid, because it's hard to prove something that hasn't happened yet.

That is a very valid reason to consider it invalid. If you cannot prove that something is harmful, there should be no law against it. Period. How is that even a debatable point?

[Rubystars]

356

so in answer to an assertion that christ never said anything about homosexuality, you give us paul's epistle to the corinthians? sorry, doesn't fly. these are paul's words, not christ's.

I already answered this in post 358. However let me try again as my answer apparently wasn't satisfactory.

Try Mark 10:6 to Mark 10:9

Jesus says marriage is between a male and a female.

[Rubystars]

359

AGAIN, you are avoiding the question. Why are you quoting PAUL when we said that CHRIST never talked about homosexuality?

I thought Paul's words were relevant too because they are accepted as Scripture by Christians.

[Rubystars]

360

Which decade? Looks like in 2005, the rate is nearly back to the 50s....

Any decade prior to the 1960s.

[Rubystars]

369

you mean like there isn't a majority of indigenous peoples here?

If by "here" you mean the Western hemisphere, yes.

besides, there hasn't been a majority of indigenous europeans in thousands of years. the last vestiges of the true indigenous europeans (the euskarans) can only be found in a small area bordering france and spain. everyone else came later, beginning with the indo-european migration out of the indian subcontinent and the middle east beginning in approximately 4000 bc.

I answered this part in post 370. There are Caucasian people in India, the Middle East, and North Africa, but the peoples of Europe I still consider to be indigenous to Europe because that's where they developed into distinct peoples such as French, German, Irish, etc.

[Rubystars]

372

nevermind that they came from the middle east and indian subcontinent and pushed out the truly indigenous people, the proto-vasconic people (of whom the euskarans are the last surviving group).

It depends on how far you want to go back in time. Before then, the earliest European modern humans drove the Neanderthals to extinction. They were human too, just cold adapted.

since you seem fond of defining things, let me define indigenous for you: the people who originally settled the area. modern europeans may be native, but certainly not indigenous.

You could say the same thing for "Native Americans", because there were successive waves of people there too.

and once again, you sidestepped a question. what about indigenous americans? you don't seem so sad about them being overwhelmed by immigrants.

That's over and done with. Would you like me to revive the dead? There were some very sad things that happened in that situation, but now there's nothing that can be done about that at this point.

[Rubystars]

I agree about the marriage thing. The government should have nothing to do with marriages. There should be ZERO benefits from the government for getting married.

I think it might be in society's interest to promote stable, heterosexual marriages. However I'd rather have the government just give up acknowledging marriage altogether if it means including gay marriage.

The only thing I REALLY want to know, is what is immoral about being gay? What part of being gay is so immoral that people feel the need to keep other people down?

I don't want to keep other people down. I just don't want the government to officiall acknowledge gay marriage as something legitimate.

Gay marriage is immoral in my belief because that's what my faith teaches me.

[Rubystars]

Did I miss anything?