Prop 8?

Christianity? I agree.

Cycloptichorn

Children should be protected from any kind of sex until they are old enough to handle it which is also a debate that hasn't been resolved. I don't believe there needs to be the same biological explanation to revealing homosexuality to young students -- any kind of variation of sex is pretty much out in the open as soon as they learn how to use a computer, probably even before that in the schoolyard, depending on the demographic I would suspect. I'm sure there are couples who have been indiscreet enough to let down the guard and children have walked in when sex was in progress. It happened to me at 12 years old -- did my parents explain about sex because of that? Nope, it went undiscussed. So what's the point? Is Christianity suppose to be so nieve, it prefers that all sex should remain in the closet? So nieve, it doesn't want to admit that young children have already experimented? The sex drive is, especially for males, as powerful as thirst or hunger.

Nature was good at the the evolution of the sex drive.

Some cultures - even royalties of the past (almost all cultures) - got/get married much earlier because their lifespans are much shorter.

I think too many in the church would prefer that we were all amoebas and self-procreated, then they wouldn't have to address the taboo subject and there would be no homosexuality.

An ongoing Facebook poll, now over 100,000.00 votes is favoring same-sex marriage 78% yes, 22% no.

The word artifical doesn't mean anything here though. Artificial or not it is a part of reality. I could have well cited one of many many many Catholic families doing it the old way and having families of 9+ kids.


We're not talking about eugenics though. This is not about a evolutionary consequence but rather a product. You're right about more educated people having fewer babies, but don't forget, we've changed the enviroment. What is exceptional is still is going to be what thrives.

Look at things like schooling. People used to get by just fine with highschool degrees. No my friend proclaims his B.A. is the new highschool diploma. I imagine in a future, the nessisary education level to excell will be a master and then a doctorate.

You've supported my point. There are people promoting the human race the old way: Lots of babies. There are lots of people promoting the human race in a more modern context: Making contributions to the shared knowledge of mankind. Since we can alter our enviroment to us, I think the later of the two is more fit, and will thrive.

T
K
O

From British Council, the past shame of homophobia (and inherent stupidity):

Cryptology
by Paul Millard

Dbo zpv sfbe uijt? Ju’t b tfdsfu dpef! If you don’t understand that, it is because I wrote it in a secret code. It isn’t a very complicated code. I just changed every letter for the one following it in the alphabet. So, ‘b’ is ‘c’, ‘c’ is ‘d’ and so on. Fbtz!


Secret codes are not a new idea. They are almost as old as writing itself. We know that the Ancient Egyptians and Greeks used them, as did the Arabs of a thousand years ago. They were especially important in war. Commanders didn’t want the enemy to capture their messages and understand their plans, so they wrote them in code. Of course, the enemy did want to understand the messages, so they would try to find the code, or ‘break’ it.

The Enigma code
As a result, codes became more and more complicated. One of the most famous is the Enigma code, invented by the Germans and used in the Second World War. People believed that it was impossible to break, because it was so clever. The amazing thing about Enigma was that it was always changing. In one message, the letter ‘e’ could be ‘f’, but in another message it could be ‘z’. So, there were millions of possibilities in every coded message.

The first people to attempt to break the code were the Polish, who were concerned about Hitler’s rise to power. A group of mathematicians worked on the Enigma problem. They found out a lot about how it worked, but they couldn’t understand it. When Hitler attacked in 1939, the Poles told the British everything that they knew about the code.

Atlantic danger
Most of the British code-breakers thought that Enigma was unbreakable. They were especially concerned about the Enigma variations used by the German navy. The submarines sent by Hitler to attack ships in the Atlantic were probably the greatest danger faced by the British and American allies in the war. Britain needed food and other essentials from outside, and the Americans needed to send soldiers and supplies safely across the ocean. Without breaking the code, there was little chance of defeating the submarines. Without control of the Atlantic, there was little chance of victory.

Alan Turing, code-breaker
Almost alone, one man began to work on the problem. He was a brilliant young mathematician called Alan Turing. He believed that he could break the code with advanced logic and statistics. However, he needed to make a machine that could do a very large number of calculations very quickly. By improving on the machines that the Poles had made, he built a machine called the ‘Bombe’.

It worked. He broke the Enigma code. The British and Americans could read the messages that were sent to and from Hitler’s submarines. Slowly, the allies won the Battle of the Atlantic. They had freedom to move at sea and could send their armies to liberate Western Europe from Hitler and the Nazis. In 1943, they went to Italy and in 1944 they successfully landed in France. This was the landing shown in the film, ‘Saving Private Ryan’. Without Turing and his code-breaking, the history of Europe and the world could have been very different.

From code-breaking to computer-building
Turing continued working with machines and electronics and in 1944 he talked about ‘building a brain’. Turing had an idea for an electronic ‘universal machine’ that could do any logical task. Soon after the war, he went to work at Manchester University and in 1948 the ‘Manchester Baby’ was born. It was Turing’s second great invention and the world’s first digital computer. When he sent a message from his computer to a telex machine, Alan Turing wrote the first e-mail in history.

So, what happened next in the life of this highly talented man? His great achievements in code-breaking and computing happened in his twenties and thirties. He was still a young man - in the same year that his computer worked for the first time, he nearly ran in the Olympic Games for Britain. We know that he had many ideas to develop in digital computing, quantum physics, biology and philosophy. Sadly, he wasn’t able to work fully on these ideas. Turing’s personal life became more and more problematic.

A genius under attack
Alan Turing was a homosexual. Nowadays, this is legal and widely accepted in Britain and most other Western countries. Fifty years ago, it was a very different story, and people were sent to prison for homosexual acts. Turing had to stop doing code-breaking work for the British government because his homosexuality was a ‘security risk’. This hurt and angered him, especially as it hadn’t been a problem in the war years. Increasingly, Turing refused to hide his homosexuality, believing that there was nothing wrong with him. Perhaps he felt that he deserved individual freedom, having done so much for freedom in the world.

Finally, he was arrested by the police and in March 1952 he was found guilty at a criminal trial. He wasn’t sent to prison " instead he was injected with the female hormone, oestrogen, in an attempt to stop his homosexual behaviour.

A tragic end
Two years later, Alan Turing was dead. He killed himself by eating an apple containing the poison, cyanide. The apple - the symbol of the physics of Newton, of forbidden love, of knowledge itself - became the symbol of tragic death.

For many years, Turing was a forgotten hero. Now, more than fifty years after his death, more and more people are learning of his work in war and in peace. The BBC made a television programme about him. Some years ago, a statue designed by Glyn Hughes was put up in a small park in Manchester. It is of Turing, sitting on a park bench, with an apple in his hand. The money for the statue mostly came from individual people who wanted to remember him. No money came from the British government or any major computer company, despite the great work that Turing had done for them.

It is a wonderful memorial, but perhaps a greater memorial is that you are reading this now because of Turing’s computing work, and that I could write it in a democratic country in Western Europe.

I understood that the Enigma code was broken when a machine was captured from a German submarine. But I have no evidence for that. I read about it somewhere.

Maybe it is a story invented to take away credit from Mr Turing.

But suicide--well. There were regular boats to Australia.

PS- referring to an earlier post I deny having said that homosexuals "need therapy". I know that aidan didn't actually say that I had said that but she left the impression that I had.

From Turing.com:

In fact, the Enigma had to be broken afresh over and over again. The hardware in the picture is not the whole story, and capturing it did not allow Enigma messages to be read. The German use of the Enigma depended on systems for setting the keys for each message transmitted, and it was these key-systems that had to be broken. There were many such systems, often changing, and the hardware was changed as well from time to time. The brilliant pre-war work by Polish mathematicians enabled them to read Enigma messages on the simplest key-systems. The information they gave to Britain and France in 1939 may have been crucial, but it was not sufficient for the continuation and extension of Enigma breaking over the next six years. New ideas were essential.

In 1939-40 Alan Turing and another Cambridge mathematician, Gordon Welchman, designed a new machine, the British Bombe. The basic property of the Bombe was that it could break any Enigma-enciphered message, provided that the hardware of the Enigma was known and that a plain-text 'crib' of about 20 letters could be guessed accurately.

End of quote

He was incarcerated, had his passport revoked, and numerous other persecutions including the injections which also made him ill -- he was not quite enough of a genius to figure out how to get on a boat to Australia. The laptop I'm using right now is due to Turing who is often credited as the father of the computer. I used the first portable mechanical computer in the early 60's which I purchased for the company I worked for as the controller.

Well-okay. I salute his memory.

But I hope responses from others desist from retailing the exploits of heterosexuals.

I hardly think the case is of much relevance to the thread.

Neither do I think fraught declarations of "love" are either.

One of hundreds of historical examples of the persecution of homosexuals doesn't have any bearing on Proposition 8. Right.

I think it does. I think it's very sad that he couldn't live and work in the country that was his home and that he'd helped save.

Spendius- where do you think the rights of homosexuals should end?
Do you agree people who are gay should not be imprisoned for being gay?
Do you agree that people who are gay should be able to work in any/all professions?
Do you agree that people who are gay should be able to live wherever they want to live?
If you believe those things (and I won't assume you do), but if you do, the second part of my question is: why is it then such a stretch to believe that people who are gay should be able to care for each other in a committed relationship that is formally recognized as being as real and viable as anyone else's?
If you don't believe that those things should be true, I guess I have a better understanding of why you may not believe that people who are gay should have the right to marry.

But if you don't believe in discrimination, but do wish to preserve a setting for the moral values you express and wish to see upheld- can you see that some moral imperatives may need to supercede others in certain instances?
In other words, would you rather have a world where people who love each other are made to feel castigated and isolated and lonely because they're the same gender, but you've been able to hold onto the specific definition and rigid 'sanctity' of what you consider to be 'marriage' or would you rather have a world where maybe your own particular idea of marriage has stretched and all people are allowed to live in love?
I just don't see how that could be wrong, myself.
I think the more hatred, isolation, castigation and loneliness we banish - the better.

Spendius said:

Yeah, sorry about that . I should have added the word 'if' as in 'how is that different than 'if' Spendius and Genovese had said... blah, blah, blah...because I don't think either of you did say that.

There have been a large number of persecuted people in the history of the world. I don't know that homosexuals have any particular right to claim any special favours in that regard.

Who's asked for "special favors?"

Exactly

Damn it, was hoping someone would bite. Sigh....

Haha, whoops, sorry to spoil the fun!

Cycloptichorn

Wherever they can get them to end.



Yes-if the population agree they shouldn't. As our's does. I presume societies which did persecute homosexuals (males--I've not heard of persecuting females) felt they were threatened by them. I'm not a fan of thinking past societies were stupid. I think that is an error. I would expect Darwinians to think it an error too.



If they wish. It's up to the public. There might be a market niche for male homosexual can-can dancing. If there is they should go for it.



No. The question is ridiculous.

I don't really understand the rest of your post except the dilute apology at the end.

As I have previously said on here I don't give a flying **** if people start marrying hedgehogs. It's no skin off my nose.

I can't understand why homosexuals want to marry. Marriage is one long obstacle course of trial and tribulation. Nobody who wishes to be free to do what they want would ever dream of getting "hitched". Isn't "hitched" when a stupid animal which you have ridden into town gets tied to a rail while you go in a saloon for a drink and has to stand there patiently and be ready to carry you back to your shack. A wife is a device you screw on the bed and it does the housework.

Does the catcher want to be called a "wife"? If you have a "marriage" then you have a husband and a wife. If you have "partners" you have a business relationship.

How much language do you wish to reinvent. How many euphemisms do you want to use?

I don't buy the "love" argument. It is too easily asserted.

I must state uniquivocally that homosexuals have a right to pursue their "life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness" just as the rest of us do. The USA is a great country which has set up the pursuit of happiness as the prime desideratum.
But, I do hope that the gay lobby will not be hypocritical.

We have a great diversity in this country. We have a large collection of people, cultures and styles of living and every American should be able to pursue their own 'HAPPINESS".

I would hope that the homosexual lobby would not show any hypocracy.

l. Why cant a man have more than one wife? Certainly, a man with the proper resources can support more than one wife. This custom is practiced in large parts of the world. Why are we so retrograde?

2. Why can't a woman have more than one husband? A beautiful woman might find her pursuit of happiness has been achieved when she is married to several men( and has all of the legal rights of a wife)

3. Why are there laws against beastiality? Only those who have never loved an animal do not know of the pure love that results when there is carnal intercourse between the lover and the loved.

4. Why are there laws against sex with young boys or girls? Many people do not feel really fulfilled or FREE if they cannot follow the dictates of NAMBLA. There is plenty of precedent for this--Ancient Greece and the Arabic Countries allowed such expression

and

5.) And here, I draw the line although I would not bar the people who really need to express their love). What about Necrophilia? I realize that it is a practice that would be limited to only a few in our nation, but we must be true to our principles. Freedom for all in the sexual arena.

Anything else is hypocracy and/or Fascism!

I'm gonna frame that one! I've never heard that one before and that's just too ...I don't know - let's just say-I don't think you're really that far off the mark in a lot of relationships.
(And he's not mysoginistic in saying that and I'm not mysoginistic in laughing - it's reality sometimes).


Agreed. But just because you and I feel that way doesn't mean everyone does and people who wish to get married should have the equal opportunity to limit their freedoms if they so choose.


Yes, fear. I'm sure that's at the bottom of a lot of discrimination, persecution and genocide. Fear is often masked as rage and when the balance of power is skewed in favor of the fearful- that's when fear becomes dangerous for whoever's feared.


Why?

My apology was not dilute - it was sincere. The rest of my post has to do with what Christ mandated people who would call themselves Christians in the world should be and do. I don't think it's good Christian practice to discriminate and look at people with scorn,causing them difficulty and harm (unless they're cruel- then you SHOULD!).
And I know there are other 'instructions'. But I think the mandate to love your neighbor and do unto others as you'd have done unto you- supercedes anything and everything else he said- even that stuff about upholding the law that everyone likes to trot out to show how stupid Christians are for reading the Bible.


In the end, if it were just language- I'd agree. But to some people it's not. It's about acceptance of who and what they are.
And this speaks to Genovese's post on the self-hate that's endemic in the gay population.
It's complicated. Some people hate themselves instinctively, because they are different. I should think it'd be a very difficult thing - to be gay. But what do you do if you are?
And I don't think a kind and just society heaps more disapproval through law and legislation deepening the pit of despair that knowing they are different, throws some people into. What possible good can that do our society?


Maybe they didn't understand the role to be played by homosexuals in Darwin's model. Maybe homosexuals are a built in method of population control.


What is easily asserted? Love? By gay people who are fighting the ******* laws of the land to have their feelings recognized. You call that easy?

Maybe it's hard for you to imagine two men loving each other. Maybe that's the problem.
But on the flipside - imagine that they really do. Put yourself in the role of someone who really loves another person and everyone is telling you that you shouldn't or can't, and they'll make your life a living hell if you do...what are you gonna do?

I would hope you wouldn't have to stay in the closet your entire life. I think that'd be the saddest thing in the world.

I must state uniquivocally that homosexuals have a right to pursue their "life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness" just as the rest of us do. The USA is a great country which has set up the pursuit of happiness as the prime desideratum.
But, I do hope that the gay lobby will not be hypocritical.

We have a great diversity in this country. We have a large collection of people, cultures and styles of living and every American should be able to pursue their own 'HAPPINESS".

I would hope that the homosexual lobby would not show any hypocracy.

l. Why cant a man have more than one wife? Certainly, a man with the proper resources can support more than one wife. This custom is practiced in large parts of the world. Why are we so retrograde?

2. Why can't a woman have more than one husband? A beautiful woman might find her pursuit of happiness has been achieved when she is married to several men( and has all of the legal rights of a wife)

3. Why are there laws against beastiality? Only those who have never loved an animal do not know of the pure love that results when there is carnal intercourse between the lover and the loved.

4. Why are there laws against sex with young boys or girls? Many people do not feel really fulfilled or FREE if they cannot follow the dictates of NAMBLA. There is plenty of precedent for this--Ancient Greece and the Arabic Countries allowed such expression

and

5.) And here, I draw the line although I would not bar the people who really need to express their love). What about Necrophilia? I realize that it is a practice that would be limited to only a few in our nation, but we must be true to our principles. Freedom for all in the sexual arena.

Anything else is hypocracy and/or Fascism