The anti-gay marriage movement IS homophobic

I didn't acccuse anyone of being anything, or call anyone any names, try comprehending what I say.

I am not going to try to pyscho-analyze individual posters here, all I know is that most who oppose gay marriages have their own sexual issues. You don't have to be Sigmund Freud or Alfred Kinsey to know that.

same sex marriage
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I don't know where you got that from but it really doesn't matter.

Would a recovering alcoholic be justified in not wanting a bar in his neighborhood? Or in wanting to keep his town dry? Same thing for a gambler who wanted to keep gambling illegal. If a bad tempered person avoids conflict is that wrong? If we get upset at the driver who pulls out in front of us, are we justified if we give into the temptation to commit violence? All these feelings are rightfully repressed. Why do you say homosexual desires are different?

And if a person opposes same-sex marriage because he may have homosexual desires why would that be wrong?
There are a lot of EX-Gays. Don't they have a right to shape their community in the same way that a recovering alcoholic may want to keep his town dry?

I'm sorry Chrissee, but I just gotta ask. Can you provide some type of data to back up your statement? You have now made this statement at least a couple of times as though it is fact, yet you give nothing to support it and thus far nobody here has called you on it. This may be your OPINION, but fact??? Sorry, but I need more than your say-so to believe it.

Of course, you have changed slightly what you are claiming, so maybe you are backing off because you know you have nothing but wishful thinking to support what you are saying. First, you claimed those who oppose gay marriage do so because of repressed homosexual feelings. Now you claim we just have "sexual issues". Gosh, I guess that could be anything from impotence to not getting sex often enough. Which I guess could include everyone, even those who support gay marriages. So maybe I can agree after all on the new version of your claim.

Chrissee

These guys are correct in that we can't make the claim that homophobia is a consequence of repressed homosexual desire. There's no way of knowing that. And to say that everyone has their own sexual issues is true, but it doesn't help our argument because it is far too general and tells us nothing about cause.

CoastalRat you can probably debate with to some profit. But I wouldn't recommend any time spent with dadothree.

I'll agree that an attempt to smear the whole group of your opponents is different from attacking them individually. However, you should concede that, to them, the difference isn't worth much. It appears to me that you are petulantly trying to have it both ways.

The passage of time and accumulation of knowledge and understanding has not been kind to the status of either Freud or Kinsey in such matters.

george said:

george
Please attend most carefully. I understand you are trying to communicate and discover the bridges betwen your position and mine, assuming two men of good intent will discover such, given enough time and clarification. I like you too, but this is my last try here.

1) I did not say, nor do I think, theological goals are suspect (by which we would mean automatically or necessarily).
2) I did not say republican goals are suspect, automatically or necessarily.
3) Your sentence, "the goals of organizations" implies that all the goals of some organization or individual would be equally justifiable/unjustified. Who would make such a claim?
4) I am not even talking, primarily, about 'goals'.

So right off the bat, you are about five states south of home.

In my last post, why did I bring up the element of Republican affiliation when describing the predonderance of sites and individuals here who hold against equality in marriage for gays? How might I make the case (or even conclude) that this point is relevant? Let me quote Grover Norquist...

He's right. And he knows whereof he speaks, as he is one of the key individuals who have established the new conservative press and he is arguably THE key individual in organizing, linking and co-ordinating its SINGULARITY OF MESSAGE, which is what he means by 'self-consciously part of the team'. So, if Bush pushes for Iraq...the conservative press sings that tune. If campaign strategists decide that gay marriage will be a profitable wedge-issue, the fax machines will be going, the emails will be sent out to huge media mailing lists, and folks will be brought in for Grover's Tuesday meetings in Washington to co-ordinate.

Now, there's absolutely nothing I can do if you think this is a mis-portrayal. I doubt there is anyone on this board who has studied this aspect of the modern conservative media more than I. I managed, for example, to find a partial but substantial transcript of one of Grover's meetings. I can pull down site after site after site that carries the identical talking point.

NOW THAT DOESN'T MEAN EVERYTHING (OR EVEN MOST OF WHAT) REPUBLICAN-AFFILIATED VOICES IN THE MEDIA SAY IS WRONG. IT DOES MEAN THAT THE SINGULARITY OF VOICE/OPINION IS A PURPOSEFUL CONSTRUCT. And that has a real consequence for how we ought to understand opinions on Townhall and Fox news regarding the gay marriage issue. When everyone agrees to wear a blue shirt, we don't really know any longer what color they actually, as individuals, prefer. We can predict they'll wear blue. That's it.

You, and likely thomas, will immediately argue that the reality isn't so solid or monolithic. And you'll be precisely as correct as if you were to claim that not all the cars coming down the highway will pass point A, because some will turn off. But you won't go play football on the highway.

Why did I bring up theology? Because if it were not for the church-affiliated groups, this anti-gay marriage movement would surely lose the preponderance of its active membership and impetus. And if you aren't taking the few moments necessary to research the groups involved, federally and state, to challenge or verify my claim, then let me know and I won't bother talking much with you any longer.

Further, these groups are, with few exceptions, part of the single-message machine mentioned above. Not irrelevant.

Further, and this is a fundamental point you aren't, I think, having trouble with...the moral arguments arising from theology on the subject of homosexuality have no epistemological basis other than authority. They are moral opinions or preferences merely. Dadothree wouldn't agree. For him, scripture (his faith's interpretation of it) is truth in bold letters. Many folks in the anti-gay marriage movement are of his sort, and many others, though belonging to some organized or disorganized faith community, are not like him, and still others will have no faith (in the present sense of that word) at all.

So, if moral preferences are opinion only, where does that get us? It might get us to a rule of thumb that the only or the best way to consider what moral rules ought to be in place can only arise from the majoritarian consensus, whatever that might be.

But you aren't going to agree with that in some cases. You won't agree that slavery was morally ok, even if the majority once held it to be morally ok. You won't agree that drawing and quartering was a morally defensible state punishment. You won't agree that hacking off a thief's hands is a morally defensible punishment, though in certain times and places, it would gain majority approval.

Why wouldn't you approve in these cases? Because majority opinion is insufficient in determining moral questions.

What else is there in the mix, then, that you are turning to? Your compassion is part of it. And then, there are your principles. And your principles, george, steer you in the direction of equality and liberty and mercy. Those principles are informed by your nation's founders and by all those upon whose shoulders they rode, from pre-greek on up through the Christian period, through the happy dismantling of the notion people were property, through the Magna Carta, etc.

Let's imagine that Rumsfeld makes a public statement saying that the US has decided that all forms and degrees of torture of captured suspects in the Middle East shall now be considered necessary for the defence of the US. You'd argue against such a policy. You would because it would violate principles held by your country but which are, in this case, clearly contradictory to this new policy. Your principles would trump. Your political position, if actively promoted, would not make you a traitor though some would say you were.

If the present Pope were to pass, and if his replacement were to issue a decree that all priests accused of abuse were now to be immediately flown to the Vatican for protection, you'd argue against this. Your principles would trump Papal authority.

If that Pope sought to increase the likelihood that his vision of right/wrong and ideal society might be furthered by co-ordinating with other church groups in North America, and if that co-ordination was achieved and made functional and active, you'd begin to protest against this new social creature, this new amalgam of theological authority and politics and law. Would this make you an anti-Christian bigot, george?

That's it.

Grover Norquist is an economist, not a theologian or a journalist. Besides, there's no need to obtain "partial transcripts" of any of his "meetings" - I know the guy and you can come over anywhere he speaks to listen to him.

This conflation of 5 impossible things might usefully stay with the Red Queen where it originated, Blatham, few others will believe them!

Gosh Blatham, thank you. And here I thought y'all just looked at me as another low-down dirty rotten conservative republican Christian. :wink:

Norquist is an economist like Michael Moore is a film-maker. Both sentences can be true, and both can be a lie. Depends who claims it, and why.

Well I can because I have seen it first hand. I also have several friends who are pyschologists who verify this is true. (Not in every case mind you.) Sheer logic tells me that there is no rational reason for a guy in Kansas to worry about the personal life of two guys in San Francsico.

Bigotry takes many forms. This is one.

How, exactly?

Cycloptichorn

Well then Chrissee, I guess we are at an impasse. You will have to agree then with the statement that homosexuality is a choice. Why? Well, I have a couple of friends who were once gay, and have since become heterosexual. Oh, and there are some psychologists I have read who agree with this.

So, I have now proved to you that being gay is a choice. Right? Of course I have not. Opinions among psychologists are about a dime a dozen. And as far as your experiences go, there are others who run with a different crowd whose experiences are totally different.

Using your "experiences" to make a claim does not make it fact. Sorry if you cannot see this. So please, if you are going to make the ridiculous claim that many of those who oppose gay marriages do so because they are repressing homosexual tendencies, know that most of us here with opposing views on gay marriage will dismiss your arguments out of hand simply because of statements like that.

Well, CR, for some of us women, homosexuality may be a choice especially when most of the men are either active or repressed homosexuals.

My experiences are, indeed, facts. In FACT, my own personal observations are the ONLY things I know for a FACT are FACTS.

CR, you, of course, can choose not to answer this but have you ever had any homosexual feelings?

Who cares if anyone agrees with me? I am a unique individual who has experience in these matters far greater than the average poster on this or any other forum....welll...maybe not any other forum... So even though my views are in the minority, it is because women with my background are in the minority.

I have often admired homosexual men for one thing more than any other... They have no need to put up with crap from women.

Many times, as I put up with crap from various women, I have thought to myself "If I was gay, I wouldn't be standing here at this boutique waiting for her to try on so many clothes that do not fit and giving her BS answers about her appearance..."

No, you'd be standing there wondering how they would look on you.

Perhaps that is a result of your choice of people, or the effect you have on them.

It simply is not true that ".. most men are either active or repressed homosexuals."

We need a new song. Like the Monty Python "Spam" song. Except about trolls.

Clarification: This is not directed at any repressed homosexuals in this thread. (Or you, either, Prince).

Stereotyping homosexuals? That doesn't seem like you...

I am not surprised, and I take your word that this is so. I just don't think it follows that "the anti-gay marriage movement is homophobic". In my opinion, you are merely observing the predictable fact that the individuals and organizations most active in any campaign tend to be the zealots, and this is no exception. Using the logic you used in this thread, I could easily defend the thesis that "the environmentalist movement is a doomsday cult". From the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth to Independence Day and its enthusiastic reception amon environmentalists, I could cite a cornucopia of evidence for this proposition. Nevertheless, it would be unfair of me to draw this conclusion about the broader environmentalist movement -- just as unfair as your conclusions about the broad spectrum of gay marriage opponents.


You made a confident pronouncement of what my opinion is like, I asked you to back it up with a citation, and you couldn't provide it. I can see why you find that dull of me. But I cannot see that it was snide of me to make the request. This only seemed sensible and obvious to me.