Stop comparing blacks to gays (ethic, lawyer, Alabama, crime)
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Gay is not a choice. I knew I was gay at 10 years old, and no matter how hard I fought it the next 10 years, I couldn't change that fact. I recently asked my parents when they first suspected I might be gay. My mom's answer was when I was 5 or 6 (and no, they were not okay with it for a long time).
Gay is not a lifestyle. Ignorance is a lifestyle.
Please don't devolve into making silly comments like the one above. The company you keep, and how you keep it, is part of your lifestyle. Period.
Please don't devolve into making silly comments like the one above. The company you keep, and how you keep it, is part of your lifestyle. Period.
I must be straight then. 90%+ of my friends are straight. I spend my days reading, arguing with friends over drinks and dinner, traveling, skiiing as much as I can during the winter, hiking, biking, rafting, hunting, skydiving, etc etc etc. That's my lifestyle.
Why do you want to define my "lifestyle" based on the fact that when I have sex with someone it's a man? It's something I spend less than like 1/10th of 1% of my life doing.
28 Constitutions specifically define marriage as between a man and a woman. It does not say "gay people can't marry", it doesn't say "any attempts by gay people to solemnize their unions are unlawful and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law".
Oh please. Are we playing semantic games now? By saying only heterosexuals can marry, these laws are saying exactly "gay people can't marry." Arguing otherwise if horribly dishonest.
If a law said "only white people can sit in the front of a bus" would you, seriously, tell me "the law doesn't say black people can't sit in the front of the bus"?
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Originally Posted by cnt
Another lie. Lawrence v. Texas struck down sodomy statutes, most of which applied to both homosexual and heterosexual encounters. And I could've sworn it was around nine, but I could be wrong.
How is it a lie to say these states made it illegal for homosexuals to have homosexual sex?????????? They did just that. It was 14 (Idaho, Utah, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, Michigan, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia), not 9. Of those 14 states, 4 applied the law only to same sex sodomy. However, most had disporportional punishment along the lines of hetro sodomy was a small fine, homo sodomy was punishable by up to 5 or 10 years in prison.
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Originally Posted by cnt
They're actually not allowed to blithely ask you about your orientation. You're not allowed to be forthcoming about it, but because you don't tell anyone, does that make you not gay? No.
Horrible, dishonest policy. If another soilder were to ask about my family or my girlfriend I'd want to be able to not lie and answer the question honestly.
I think that this is a very good discussion so far....
I want to jump into this debate and argue about whether being gay is something that you were born with....
Personally I feel that it is not something you are born with and it is generally based on how you were raised and your lifestyle growing up.
I just cannot see how you were already born with a sexual perference....
Let me give a few examples. Pedophiles or men who are attracted to very young boys and girls. What if they say, "hey I can't help it, i was born this way?". Should they be given rights too? Society would say that Pedophiles were not born attracted to young boys, it was there sick choice....right? And that is a sexual perference is it not? So how is being gay any different?
Another example on how your lifestyle or how you were brought up dictates a lot in your sexual perference Geographically!
What part of the world you were born and raised in generally dictates whom you are more sexually attracted too. Am I right? I've never seen a Chinese person born and raised in China more attracted to an American. Or even Americans (for example) who grow up abroad, they are more attracted to the type of people they grew around. I believe that an American boy born and raised in Japan will more likely be attracted to Japanese women than American women.
With that said and many other examples out there, I cannot see how people can believe that you were born gay....
I think that this is a very good discussion so far....
I want to jump into this debate and argue about whether being gay is something that you were born with....
Personally I feel that it is not something you are born with and it is generally based on how you were raised and your lifestyle growing up.
I just cannot see how you were already born with a sexual perference....
Let me give a few examples. Pedophiles or men who are attracted to very young boys and girls. What if they say, "hey I can't help it, i was born this way?". Should they be given rights too? Society would say that Pedophiles were not born attracted to young boys, it was there sick choice....right? And that is a sexual perference is it not? So how is being gay any different?
Another example on how your lifestyle or how you were brought up dictates a lot in your sexual perference Geographically!
What part of the world you were born and raised in generally dictates whom you are more sexually attracted too. Am I right? I've never seen a Chinese person more attracted to an American. Or even Americans (for example) who grow up abroad, they are more attracted to the type of people they grew around. I believe that an American boy grown and raised in Japan will more likely be attracted to Japanese women than American women.
With that said and many other examples out there, I cannot see how people can believe that you were born gay....
If you go back an read the previous pages, you'll see all these points have been addressed a few times.
Actually, I think the crime is gay sex, not just calling yourself gay. Not that I think they're big fans of it, but yeah. And I'd agree that that's bad, but the other poster was acting like that doesn't put gays in the same boat as everybody else, when it does. If you're going to mention "being murdered for thousands of years" as an exclusive premise, do make sure that couldn't apply to other groups of people.
It's a bit hard to separate the two. Kind of like saying, "it's OK to be attracted to a white woman if you're black, it's the sex with white women that's the crime." <---- see how that works?
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Originally Posted by cnt
I know blacks aren't the only ones who have been enslaved. But I don't speak of slavery as an exclusive premise to blacks. I, unlike many of you, have some perspective.
Yes. Your perspective is "Oh no you didn't just compare yourself to black people." Not much in that perspective to help figure out where you're coming from.
In my experience, those blacks most unwilling to give gay rights the "civil rights" label are those who maintain homophobic/bigoted tendencies and need some crutch to rest on because of the glaring moral inconsistency and cognitive dissonance that comes from screaming for equality on one hand, while working against it in other contexts besides race.
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Originally Posted by cnt
I don't even understand what you're saying here. If people must make parallels (though I don't see why beyond selfish intent), at least be able to connect all the dots. Generalizing the premise and ignoring distinctive characteristics of one or both subjects just looks silly and it offends people.
Selfishness to make parallels? No. FIghts against Miscegenation laws are highly analogous to gay civil rights fights of today, and help the ignorant better understand arguments in terms they are familiar with. Unfortunately, when you run into someone I describe above (with the moral crutch), they cloak their own ignorance, prejudice, and bigotry in fake moral outrage.
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Originally Posted by cnt
With non-discrimination laws, blacks, once again, had actual laws that made it legal to discriminate against them. Jim Crow laws, the Black Codes, the Grandfather Clause -- all codified at one point. The Civil Rights Act and the Voters Right Act and affirmative action were all meant to offset those policies once they were overturned. While gays have faced discrimination, they can't actually point to anti-gay laws that were codified, because they weren't. This country has had a lot of decency laws that applied to everyone that we've found to be in violation of privacy laws, to some extent, but the whole idea that being gay has ever in and of itself been illegal is false. Non-discrimination laws meant to protect orientation isn't a reaction to previous legislation facilitating it.
Your premise fails. If the subject is the "minority status" in and of itself, there has never been a law outlawing being black. Like "decency" laws, however, Jim Crow regulated BEHAVIOR and ACTIONS. Can't drink out of a waterfountain used by whites, can't go to a school used by whites, can't serve in the military with whites, etc.
On the same coin, morality laws against homosexuality regulate BEHAVIOR and ACTIONS. Can't have sex with someone of the same sex, can't get married to someone of the same sex, can't teach elementary school (proposed in CA in the 70s) or serve in the military.
It not only USED to be legal to discriminate against gays, it still is to this day legal to discriminate against gays. You're running on fumes and anger from the 50s and 60s whilst enjoying protections not afforded to homosexuals today, and indeed, BLOCKING their legitimate efforts to obtain same. Selfishness indeed!
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Originally Posted by cnt
I doubt they have "fought for equality and rights for EVERYONE" in context. I'm not saying none of them have ever, but as a community, they have been about themselves. Not blacks, Asians, or Latinos.
Gays as a community have been on the cusp of progressive social issues since they got the courage to BE a community.
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Originally Posted by cnt
A lot of them go on the DL because they have girlfriends and wives but desire sex with other men. And we might not be big fans of it, but that doesn't mean we go out of our way to discriminate against them. Blacks don't have enough power and influence in any context to do that. Whites on the other hand..
No, sorry, the black community is INFAMOUSLY anti-gay. You have enough power and influence to effect the lives of the black individuals who happen to be gay in your community, and you're a part of the heterosexual community, which has no color qualifiers.
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Originally Posted by cnt
It's offensive and divisive because the black community -- especially those of us old enough to still remember what the 50s and 60s were like -- find it disrespectful to compare so haphazardly the struggles of a group who largely don't care anything about our struggles only to the extent that they can ride our coat tails and siphon off credibility. And regardless if we want our "worst treated minority" status or not, we'd have it. Ignorant parallels don't change history. It just distorts it for a lot of other people who don't know it.
Seems to me, again, that some people are just concerned about a shifting spotlight and loss of relevancy in the world. Seems to me that some people are still fighting the 60s in their heads, and don't know how to let go. Seems to me that the only ignorant ones are those who can't see the parallels. Throughout the black fight for equality, much progress was made comparing the plight of slaves with that of the enslaved Jews of the Bible in Egypt becaue it resonated with Christian folk. Something tells me the Jewish community did not make such an ignorant fuss back then about "ignorant parallels" being used by blacks to further their own causes.
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Originally Posted by cnt
..and it's wrong in the same. And I'd say comparisons to pedophilia are actually closer than race, but I'd be offensive if I made those, wouldn't I?
Well, you COULD try to make that parallel if you wanted. If nothing else it gives us a glimpse into the intelligence level we're working with here..... or lack thereof.
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Originally Posted by cnt
Uh, aside from religious conservatives, who says either one of those things on a secular basis? No one. And gay is the new black? You're dumb as hell.
Try to keep up. I understand you may have gone to a segregated school that was not afforded the same amount of resources as a white school "back in the day of the struggle," but you've had plenty of decades to catch up.
Religious conservative viewpoints make up the bulk of opposition against anything having to do with gay equality. Back during the times of slavery, and into Jim Crow and miscegenation, religious points of view from the Tower of Babel to passages on slavery were used to justify those same discriminatory laws and beliefs.
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Originally Posted by cnt
I think most people know that. I also think when people ask about contributions to society, they're talking about what point is there in legalizing gay marriage, and they, like me, are in the dark to all this grand support from the gay community in helping other communities fight for equality.
Again, gay groups have often been on the forefront of progressive politics. They empathize with minority status, even if you don't reciprocate.
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Originally Posted by cnt
I don't blame them. Judging by the gays I've seen and heard in the past few years and their general disregard for the struggles of anyone else but their own, I probably wouldn't want to live around them, either.
Oh? Do you have some examples to share?
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Originally Posted by cnt
OK, fine. And I have no intentions on "going to bat" for gay causes, or supporting anything "gay" that is even remotely connected to GLAAAD, HRC, Lamda Legal, or the ACLU.
Something tells me you never had any intention on doing so anyway, so no loss.
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Originally Posted by cnt
Whatever. It's people like you that create bigots and homophobes. Not religion.
And its people like you that create racists and perpetuate stereotypes.
I think that this is a very good discussion so far....
I want to jump into this debate and argue about whether being gay is something that you were born with....
Personally I feel that it is not something you are born with and it is generally based on how you were raised and your lifestyle growing up.
I just cannot see how you were already born with a sexual perference....
Born with, not necessarily. I think people have a very naive understanding of biology and genetics. Very, very few things are 100% genetic, or 100% determined by the time you are born. Even skin color is not 100% genetically determined (I'm talking shades here, not black vs white). Your environment after birth affects gene expression related to skin tone.
All research points to a genetic predisposition towards various sexualities. This is the case for most human characteristics. Not all people who have "cancer genes" will get cancer. Not all people who have the genes responsible for type 1 diabetes will get diabetes. Not all people with "angry genes" will end up with an angry personality. Not all people with the "gay genes" will end up being gay. Some combination of environmental factor - hormones, some psychological even, exposure to a chemical - triggers the expression. Identical twin studies into issues like this are very interesting (although even identical twins do not have identical DNA - something most people don't recognize). If one identical twin has type 1 diabetes, the other twin usually has it too, but not always. When one identical twin is gay, the other twin is often gay (between 40-50% of the time depending on the study), but not always.
All this says to me is one has no choice in whether he is gay or straight or bisexual. It might not be 100% genetic, but it is 100% biological. It also tells me that there is no set time frame on when sexual orientation is determined.
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Originally Posted by y2flyy
Let me give a few examples. Pedophiles or men who are attracted to very young boys and girls. What if they say, "hey I can't help it, i was born this way?". Should they be given rights too? Society would say that Pedophiles were not born attracted to young boys, it was there sick choice....right? And that is a sexual perference is it not? So how is being gay any different?
Biology doesn't have morals or ethics. I also believe pedophilia is biologically determined - who would choose that??? That in no way means it is moral, or ethical, or should be tolerated in civil society. We have the gifts of reason, analysis and evaluation. In my evaluation, homosexuality is moral and ethic and good. Pedophilia is immoral, unethical, and bad.
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