Homosexuality corrupting children, or religion?

[Klazzt]

I recently read about Mascow's mayor claiming that gay pride parades are "Satanic" and that homosexuality corrupts children. This is nothing new. For as long as men have loved men and women have loved women, someone's religion has been there to stop them.

If you ask me, or any other liberal human rights loving person, you'll hear that homosexuality doesn't harm anyone. Honestly, what harm comes from people you don't even know loving each other?

Religion and God are humanity's most overly used excuses to condemn, harm, or kill otherwise innocent people. Everyday, you see and hear this excuse. People being killed and injured in the name of someone's religion, and others being arrested for their own beliefs. Children who are born into these religion homes are very likely to take on their parent's beliefs, for better or worse.

I've seen the evils of religion first-hand, from my experiences of growing up and living in Oklahoma, a strong southern Christian area of the United States. I was born an Atheist in a free house to spiritual parents which immedietly made me different from everyone else. Now in High School, I have death threats and free Don't Pass Go and Go Straight to Hell Tickets. My crime is for not being Christian, for not hating others, and for "being too intelligent" or "thinking too much" in their God's eye. Recently, a group of people have tried to open up a Gay-Straight Alliance at my high school. The response from the masses has been terrible. People are protesting and petitioning to have it destroyed and replaced with an Anti-Homosexual club because GSA "forces a politcal opinion" on everyone at the school. With this Anti-Homosexual club, they say that homosexuals will be put in their place and subject to hate and abuse because they deserve it for going against their God's will.

Really now. Is homosexuality so dangerous to children, or is it the religions that criminalize it for unjust reasons and make it a crime punishable by death? Too bad this God hates thinking, as it could save millions of innocent lives.

[MegaKitsune]

Homosexuals are gay.




J/K

[Wallingford]

Sad to say, even here in the so-called "Godless Northwest," support for discrimination against gays is still "rammed" home by the clergy:

Redmond pastor finds new allies in fight against gay rights

02:23 PM PST on Sunday, January 28, 2007

Associated Press

KENT, Wash. -- A Redmond pastor who has been outspoken in his opposition to homosexuality has paired up with the area's Slavic churches in his fight against gay rights.

Reverend Ken Hutcherson and Pastor Andrey Shapovalov of the Transformation Center Church joined forces last spring after a debate on gay rights between Hutcherson and King County Executive Ron Sims.

The alliance is part of Hutcherson's latest effort to overturn a state law banning discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Hutcherson hopes with help from his new allies he'll get the more than 224,000 signatures he needs for an initiative he filed last week. It seeks to repeal new rules that add sexual orientation to a state law banning discrimination based on race

[piston]

Here's a simple idea: "a kiss is just a kiss." People should do what they can to be happy in life. Can anyone force anyone else to be unhappy? Rhetorical question, of course, and one which has been asked countless times before, from ancient Greece to the present.

On to another level of analysis, if you will allow me. I never could understand why "dominant' homosexual partners could do violence to others, including their own partner, and I mean some serious predatory violence!

Another level of analysis. During my lenghty and excruciating divorce process (when I didn't want any physical contact with any human being in this whole wide world) I spent some really good intellectual time with a gay friend, at a bar, just talking classical music and thus forgetting about the opportunistic and extraordinarily unethical adversarial legal system through which I was being "processed." But to all around the two of us, conservative, liberal, apolitical and plain stupid, we had to be a couple to spend so much time together. What else could justify the coexistence of a divorcing man with a homosexual one?

Homosexuality will become truly "acceptable" when nobody ever talks about it. No emoticons....

[Opus132]

Homosexuals have earned all the rights they need, the problem is that they are now seeking for complete acceptance, which is ludicrous.

The fact of the matter, and it's something liberal hippies just won't get into their heads is that homophobia is an instinctive reaction. There's nothing 'normal' about homosexuality and to most heterosexuals it is and it will always be irritating at best and repugnant at worst. No amount of 'positive' exposure to homosexuality will convince people either wise, no spreading of myths about ancient Greece and their supposed liberal views on the issue (of which there's little concrete proof) is going to change anything.

All you can hope for is general tolerance and freedom from persecution, which is good enough as it is, can we let it be already? There are more pressing issues in world then 'gay' rights...

[Klazzt]

Homosexuals have earned all the rights they need, the problem is that they are now complete acceptance, which is ludicrous.

The fact of the matter, and it's something liberal hippies just won't get into their heads is that homophobia is an instinctive reaction. There's nothing 'normal' about homosexuality and to most heterosexuals it is and it will always be irritating at best and repugnant at worst. No amount of 'positive' exposure to homosexuality will convince people either wise, no spreading of myths about ancient Greece and their supposed liberal views on the issue (of which there's little concrete proof) is going to change anything.

All you can hope for is general tolerance and freedom from persecution, which is good enough as it is, can we let it be already? There are more pressing issues in world then 'gay' rights...

I agree with you that there are more pressing issues in the world, but I can't tolerate the hate of people just because they are different. I understand that scientifically, humans, as animals, are naturally meant to reproduce with the opposite sex. We have no other biological purpose. However, mistreating others and creating prejudice is inhumane. I never said anything about "gay rights," just the intolerance of the ignorant.

[piston]

I respect your opinion but I'll stick to the notion that what's most ludicrous is to ask people to go against their own emotions and to conform to fundamentalist biblical interpretation. In case you don't know this, all sexual orientations were accepted among Native Americans, at least in the Northeast. The "primitive" savages did not ostracize homosexuals and drive them to behave violently because they're supposedly abnormal. In case you are not noticing, I am not name-calling anybody on this forum with some absurd ideological label either. I ask, seriously, who has the proper qualifications here to call people abnormal, unnatural, primitive, or who knows what. J.C. said it best when he referred to the right to lapidate. Have you got that right? He didn't.

[Ralph]

Homophobia, like racism and anti-Semitism, is learned. It is not instinctive either in the social or biological meaning of that term. It is a form of bigotry and as with others is practiced on a broad spectrum from irrational dislike and avoidance of gays to homicidal crimes.

And there is no reason why gays any less than any other historically discriminated against cohort should settle for any degree of civil equality under the law less than full equality.

[rwetmore]

Uh-oh this topic rarely leads to friendly discussions.

[rwetmore]

Homophobia, like racism and anti-Semitism, is learned.

Are you sure?

[Opus132]

I agree with you that there are more pressing issues in the world, but I can't tolerate the hate of people just because they are different. I understand that scientifically, humans, as animals, are naturally meant to reproduce with the opposite sex. We have no other biological purpose. However, mistreating others and creating prejudice is inhumane. I never said anything about "gay rights," just the intolerance of the ignorant.

I'm sorry, but in a society that is as sheltered and as overly indulged as our own i really have an hard time taking any claim of 'inhumanity' seriously just because some people are opposed to 'gay' marriages, or what have you.

Most homosexuals in western countries have no idea what oppression really feels like. Parading around in drag isn't really going to impressive anybody and win pity or sympathy.

[Opus132]

And there is no reason why gays any less than any other historically discriminated against cohort should settle for any degree of civil equality under the law less than full equality.

What civil rights are gays being denied under the law, exactly? All i can think of is their right to marry, which isn't even a right but a privilege, considering heterosexual individuals can't have same sex marriages either...

[Ted]

Homosexuality has not hindered the steady growth of planet’s human population—In fact it might actually be nature’s way of population control—Anyway if you’re like me and like to take in the occasional Broadway show you have to give the Gay community its due
*****

[Ralph]

And there is no reason why gays any less than any other historically discriminated against cohort should settle for any degree of civil equality under the law less than full equality.

What civil rights are gays being denied under the law, exactly? All i can think of is their right to marry, which isn't even a right but a privilege, considering heterosexual individuals can't have same sex marriages either...

*****

Whether marriage is considered as a right or a privilege (and constitutional jurisprudence firmly views it as a right) tne operative concept is Eqqual Protection which gays should enjoy from the state. Of course if civil, state-sanctioned marriage was to be abolished altogether, gays and straights would be in the same position.

[keaggy220]

Religion and God are humanity's most overly used excuses to condemn, harm, or kill otherwise innocent people. Everyday, you see and hear this excuse. People being killed and injured in the name of someone's religion, and others being arrested for their own beliefs. Children who are born into these religion homes are very likely to take on their parent's beliefs, for better or worse.

Salvation Army? Red Cross? Ivy League Colleges? Many hospitals... Not a lot of harming or killing here...

Also, I'm not sure what religion, besides maybe Islam, that is criminalizing homosexuality. Of course, fundamentalists Muslims want all non-Muslims put to death gay or straight...

[burnitdown]

If you ask me, or any other liberal human rights loving person, you'll hear that homosexuality doesn't harm anyone. Honestly, what harm comes from people you don't even know loving each other?

I wouldn't want my kids seeing it at an impressionable age, because I'd like them to be normal, heterosexual kids. Did I say normal? Yes: 90% or more of us are hetero, because it allows you to breed.

Homosexuals seem to have a higher incidence of congenital defects. I like the idea of giving them a district for whatever it is that they do and hets are afraid to think about.

[Brendan]

To be a tad flippant, I wonder what gay divorce and custody disputes re adoptive children are gonna look like down the track (I was reminded recently of the old joke about marriage: "Why not just find a woman you don't like and buy her a house?"). I guess they're entitled to equivalent misery to the rest of us.

[piston]

I will assume, in the same vein as the "Nuke him!" theme, that what people are expressing here is nothing more than "steam" and should not, in any way, reflect how their voting pattern will affect the democratic institutions of our respective countries. You guys like steam, go ahead, puff it out! What I am very worried about is any kind of fundamentalist -- from the deep corners of Afghanistan to the burn it all of this continent.

[Brendan]

Political Correctness fundamentalists scare me as much as any other variety.

[piston]

Meaning that you are for politically incorrect fundamentalists?

[Brendan]

Meaning that you are for politically incorrect fundamentalists?

[anasazi]

No one should have to live with death threats. Especially in high school. But that is part of our human condition. People fear what they don't understand, and that fear becomes justified in hatred and hate crimes.

One can blame the religions. At the best, I would admit most of them are of little help in trying to teach their own 'golden rule'.

I think why a lot of us say this is a 'learned' response is because often times the children of bigoted, intolerant parents, also fall into the real category, ignorance. It seems to me that we are all born with kind of a fear of people a little different than ourselves. But it is through education that we can start to overcome it and learn how to be accepting of each other.

[Holden Fourth]

Homophobia, like racism and anti-Semitism, is learned.

Are you sure?

IMaybe homophobia is not the right word (remember a phobia is a deep seated psychological fear) but to think of it as something abnormal and somewhat disgusting is quite natural for the vast majority of heterosexuals and this is not necessarily a 'learned' experience. There is an emotive side to our sexual urges and the thought of committing the sexual acts that homosexuals perform with each other is anathema to the majority of people - myself included!

That doesn't mean that I 'fear' homosexuals. And for that reason neither do I persecute them.

Ask yourselves one simple question. As a parent, how would you feel if your son or daughter decided to 'come out of the closet'! Yes, of course you would still love them but really how would you feel.

[burnitdown]

The idea that fear or resentment of others is "learned" is not the hallmark of a deep thinker, I'm afraid. Look at it logically and a new world of wisdom opens up.

I think the same freedom that keeps homosexuals alive should allow some of us freedom from a range of things; for me, it wouldn't be homosexuality as much as Judeo-Christianity and democracy, but the same principle stands.

[RebLem]

What disturbs me most of all about sending death threats to ppl because they are gay, is that its obviously somebody's answer to the question, "What would Jesus do?"

[keaggy220]

What disturbs me most of all about sending death threats to ppl because they are gay, is that its obviously somebody's answer to the question, "What would Jesus do?"

I absolutely agree with this... Even if one does does not advocate a certain behavior it does not mean that you treat them as something other than a creation of God.

[Ralph]

To be a tad flippant, I wonder what gay divorce and custody disputes re adoptive children are gonna look like down the track (I was reminded recently of the old joke about marriage: "Why not just find a woman you don't like and buy her a house?"). I guess they're entitled to equivalent misery to the rest of us.

*****

Brendan,

The short answer is that such litigation is taking place right now in Massachusetts where homosexual marriage is a right. The same principles of law are applied as with straight unions. Ditto for Canada.

Child custody issues also have arisen and are being decided. In American law the "Best Interests of the Child Principle" is supposed to be applied and that can be done in both marital and non-marital disputes, the latter category being very, very common.

[Ralph]

Homophobia, like racism and anti-Semitism, is learned.

Are you sure?

IMaybe homophobia is not the right word (remember a phobia is a deep seated psychological fear) but to think of it as something abnormal and somewhat disgusting is quite natural for the vast majority of heterosexuals and this is not necessarily a 'learned' experience. There is an emotive side to our sexual urges and the thought of committing the sexual acts that homosexuals perform with each other is anathema to the majority of people - myself included!

That doesn't mean that I 'fear' homosexuals. And for that reason neither do I persecute them.

Ask yourselves one simple question. As a parent, how would you feel if your son or daughter decided to 'come out of the closet'! Yes, of course you would still love them but really how would you feel.

*****

"Homophobia" is a social construct, not simply a medical term so its use is, to me, accurately descriptive.

I have had and currently have quite a few gay law students - their organization, LAMBDA, is quite active - and I've met their parents and family members over time. Not surprisingly, as a New Yorker I have gay friends and meet openly gay couples socially at parties, etc. Most parents do not welcome the idea of their son or daughter being gay for the same reason that most parents have problems with interfaith marriages unless they themselves are in one (and often that doesn't matter). No parent wants to see a child encounter any obstacle to fulfillment and happiness and in OUR society being gay is still a barrier, albeit less in some places and in some ways than in others.

[miranda]

If you ask me, or any other liberal human rights loving person, you'll hear that homosexuality doesn't harm anyone. Honestly, what harm comes from people you don't even know loving each other?

I wouldn't want my kids seeing it at an impressionable age, because I'd like them to be normal, heterosexual kids. Did I say normal? Yes: 90% or more of us are hetero, because it allows you to breed.

Homosexuals seem to have a higher incidence of congenital defects. I like the idea of giving them a district for whatever it is that they do and hets are afraid to think about.

Hmm. So everyone needs to be "normal", and behave in a way that you approve of..
Not everyone who is straight is straight because they want to breed. Some of us are straight because we are attracted to members of the opposite sex, with no desire whatsoever to breed; we happen to think of sex as something other than a biological imperative. (Imagine that!) And personally, I think there are a lot of straight people breeding who have no buisness having kids in the first place. But that's another topic.
Homosexuals have a higher incidence of congenital defects? where, exactly, is your proof for this assertion? And where would you propose putting all these "districts", as you term them? (And as a matter of fact, such informal districts already exist in many major cities like San Francisco.) Should there be camps for queer people?

Plenty of straights are not at all "afraid to think about" what queer people do. Some of the finest writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading, such as David Wojnarowicz, Reinaldo Arenas, and Jean Genet, wrote sexually explicit, overtly homosexual material. They were great writers, who managed to overcome a lot of adversity and produce amazing works of art. And i know that I'm not the only straight person who has read, and been enlightened, by these writers.

I don't think the writer Paul Bowles--who was married, but had many homosexual affairs--had any congenital defects, and he was yet another fine writer. Oscar Wilde wrote some brillliant (and often very funny)material; he was an alcoholic, an addiction that is obviously not confined to homosexuals.

So please, don't think you're speaking for all straight people when you make such generalizations about straights being "afraid" to think about what gay people do, or don't do. Not all of us share your limited worldview.

And drag queens--a few of whom I've had the pleasure and privilege of being acquainted with--do parades not to elicit pity, or sympathy. They damn well don't want or need anyone's pity, or sympathy. They do it, from what they told me, because it's fun, because it's an activity that bonds their community together, and because they like to sashay down city streets. The drag queens I've met have been some of the funnier and more intelligent people I've known. I've also heard about drag queens taking in homeless runaway children, and treating them with compassion and kindness and getting into social service programs (and if a child has run away from home, you can bet they weren't getting much of anything but some form of abuse from their oh-so-normal parents.) So you don't want to watch a gay pride parade? Change the channel. Pull the blinds in your office. Get out of town for a day. The world would be a vastly boring place without some difference. Deal with it. It's not going to traumatize you for life, for chrissakes.

Gay people should have all the rights that straights have, and that includes marriage. Not civil unions--marriage. And if that makes me a "politically correct" fundamentalist, then so be it.

[Ted]

We’ve trotted (pranced) down this road so many times—and still the general theory is that 10% of the planet’s population are gay—So be it
As a parent of two males I’m glad they’re heterosexual (It’s easier that way isn’t it) but I’m certain I would love them all the same were they not

My experience is the one screaming the loudest from the “Gay Soapbox” has the biggest problem with their own sexuality—perhaps the same goes for “homophobes”

[Novitiate]

If you ask me, or any other liberal human rights loving person, you'll hear that homosexuality doesn't harm anyone. Honestly, what harm comes from people you don't even know loving each other?

I wouldn't want my kids seeing it at an impressionable age, because I'd like them to be normal, heterosexual kids. Did I say normal? Yes: 90% or more of us are hetero, because it allows you to breed.

Homosexuals seem to have a higher incidence of congenital defects. I like the idea of giving them a district for whatever it is that they do and hets are afraid to think about.

Yes, evidently, homophobia is learnt.

And ditto Miranda's queries regarding your second claim.

Why do people feel threatened by anyone else's sexuality anyway?

[Ralph]

If you ask me, or any other liberal human rights loving person, you'll hear that homosexuality doesn't harm anyone. Honestly, what harm comes from people you don't even know loving each other?

I wouldn't want my kids seeing it at an impressionable age, because I'd like them to be normal, heterosexual kids. Did I say normal? Yes: 90% or more of us are hetero, because it allows you to breed.

Homosexuals seem to have a higher incidence of congenital defects. I like the idea of giving them a district for whatever it is that they do and hets are afraid to think about.

Yes, evidently, homophobia is learnt.

And ditto Miranda's queries regarding your second claim.

Why do people feel threatened by anyone else's sexuality anyway?

*****

Often because they're unsure of their own.

[Novitiate]

Re: the 'what is natural' question.

This story's from a few months back but it still cracks me up, especially the pentecostal priest in the last paragraph

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/20 ... 775806.htm

Gay animals 'come out' in Oslo exhibition
Breaking what is taboo for some, the Oslo Natural History Museum is currently showing an exhibition on homosexuality in the animal kingdom.

Organisers say it is the first of its kind in the world.

"As homosexual people are often confronted with the argument that their way of living is against the principles of nature, we thought that ... as a scientific institution, we could at least show that this is not true," exhibition organiser Geir Soeli tells AFP.

"You can think whatever you want about homosexuals but you cannot use that argument because it is very natural, it's very common in animal kingdom," Mr Soeli adds.

From beetles to swans and creatures considered to have a more macho image, such as lions and sperm whales, homosexual behaviour has been detected in 1,500 species.

'Against Nature?'

The exhibition, entitled "Against Nature?", displays examples of this behaviour in pictures and models.

In one image, two female adult bonobo chimpanzees are having sex, oblivious to a young male who is attempting to join in.

These peaceful primates - with whom humans shares 99 per cent of their genetic make-up - use sex as a stress reliever, regardless of age and gender barriers.

Be it a one-off, occasional or seasonal, homosexual and bisexual contact in the animal kingdom serves different purposes.

Big horn sheep "need to have sex with their own fellows just to be accepted. And by being accepted they are making up very important social relations which later give them better access to females," says Mr Soeli.

Among swans and flamingos there have been cases of two females living together using sexual contact with males purely to reproduce.

"One of them might have a small affair with a male, have her eggs fertilised, and the two females bring up the young birds together just as a family," adds Mr Soeli.

It has been reported that in certain bird species males double up, allowing them to control a larger territory than a heterosexual couple, which in turn serves to attract more females.

While the images displayed at the Natural History Museum wash over passing school children, the exhibition has sparked consternation in conservative Christians.

A Lutheran priest said he hoped the organisers would "burn in hell," and a Pentecostal priest lashed out at the exhibition, saying taxpayers' money used for it would have been better spent helping the animals correct "their perversions and deviances".

-AFP

[jbuck919]

Often because they're unsure of their own.

That's a common explanation and there may be something to it, but as with many aspects of human sexuality, including why there are homosexuals in the first place when it appears (notice I say appears) to have no evolutionary advantage, there is no sound and uniformly accepted explanation even among scientists or the closest thing among those who study the mind that passes for scientists. It makes just as much sense to speculate that variations of human sexuality are not tolerated because of the ingrained and difficult to overcome assumption that "deviant" sexualities are a matter of perverse wilfullness, or because in earlier societies, societal ties crucial to mutual survival would have been threatened by behavioral non-conformity.

The historicity of it aside, the plain fact is that modern people are faced with the fact that a certain percentage of people (nobody knows exactly how great), apparently across cultures and times, are attracted primarily to members of their own sex without being different in any other way, including the ability to contribute to society, love each other, and bring up children. Since the societal need for people who contribute, love each other, and are capable of bringing up children always borders on the desperate, the situation should be (but of course is not) unproblematic).

Perhaps ten years ago my sister and I were viewing an exhibit on Freud at the Library of Congress (we always found the most interesting exhibits in the unexpected places, and ended up spending almost two hours there). There was displayed a letter written by Freud relatively early in his career (perhaps 1915). It was in response to an American woman who had written to him that she was worried that her son was a homosexual. The response was in perfect English, a remarkable thing already considering that Freud had spent at that time no significant amount of time studying English apart from books. It said, in part, "To be a homosexual is perhaps not the most desirable thing in the world, but it is a normal variation of human sexuality and you will do him more harm than good if you try to change him." That was something like 70 years before the American Psychiatric Association reached the same conclusion.

[piston]

Variations of the word "berdache," which one finds in such sources as the Jesuits Relations in North America, were found from the Middle East to North America three to four centuries ago:
http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/berdache.html

[miranda]

[

I'm sorry, but in a society that is as sheltered and as overly indulged as our own i really have an hard time taking any claim of 'inhumanity' seriously just because some people are opposed to 'gay' marriages, or what have you.

Most homosexuals in western countries have no idea what oppression really feels like. Parading around in drag isn't really going to impressive anybody and win pity or sympathy.

My discussion of drag queens above, was directed at this poster's comments.

Also, if you're not homosexual then how would you know what specifically homophobic oppression really feels like? I sat on a Seattle bus one day on my way to work, and had to listen to a bunch of hate-filled invective about homosexuals from two guys sitting near me. I told them, "If you don't like gay people, don't come to Capitol Hill", because I was sick and tired of hearing this kind of talk on a weekly basis on the bus. To make a long story short, these two guys ended up kicking my gay roommate and co-worker in the face; she sustained a concussion and had, for a long time, a scar across the bridge of her nose. I will never forget her weeping face, covered in a mask of blood. She was afraid to hold hands or kiss her girlfriend in public. She was afraid to ride the bus, for a long time afterwards. The guys ran down into the subway system; the cops told her they wopuldn't be asking for camera footage of the guys unless there haad been a murder. So, they never got caught.

This kind of crap happens all the time. The suicide rate for gay teens is higher than for straight teens. I wonder why that is? But oh no, gay people have it soooo easy here in the U.S.

[Barry]

I guess because I live and work in an environment where there are so many gay people, and have found the overwhelming majority of those I've gotten to know to be such good people, I've become very sympathetic to some gay-rights related issues.

While I agree that the custom of heterosexual marriage has served humanity well for thousands of years, I also think that the reason the tradition of marriage has been in trouble for a number of years in the west now has more to do with the way heterosexuals treat the custom than any threat from the possibility of homosexuals being given the legal right to marry (just look at the way celebrities pop in and out of marriages with each other every few months; not to mention the millions of people who live together without getting married). I saw an interesting debate on C-Span on the topic of gay marriage a while back and found myself agreeing with a gentleman who was making that argument. He also said, and again I agreed with him, that it would do more damage to the institution of marriage to allow homosexuals to have some lesser form of commitment; what it commonly referred to as civil unions, because once gays are allowed to have some legally recognized relationship that has something less than the full responsibilities of traditional marriage, heterosexuals will also start requesting such an arrangement, leading to a further deterioration to the institution. IMO, society will function best and be most stable when ALL people are encouraged to settle down with one person and deal with all of the responsibilities of marriage.

[Brendan]

Interesting that marriage is almost exclusively thought of in legalistic terms, and not those of the sacred. If religion is the opposition, why try to buy into a sacred institution except to undermine its significance?

But just silly thoughts. The lawyers have this wrapped up and a huge divorce industry to make them mega$$$. Now they can get more whilst crowing sanctimoniously!

[Ralph]

Interesting that marriage is almost exclusively thought of in legalistic terms, and not those of the sacred. If religion is the opposition, why try to buy into a sacred institution except to undermine its significance?

But just silly thoughts. The lawyers have this wrapped up and a huge divorce industry to make them mega$$$. Now they can get more whilst crowing sanctimoniously!

*****

Lawyers don't create the need for divorce - a changing population with different values does. And women often now can initiate divorce because many are economically self-sufficient.

I fully agree that too often the cost of divorce, specifically lawyers' fees, is way too high. And sometimes it's because some lawyers "churn" the case, trying to prolong it. But most don't. What keeps many divorce cases alive is the intransigence of one or both spouses, usually about money.

In the U.S. divorce mediation is becoming increasingly popular and when successful results in cheaper, quicker divorces. BUT...both spouses must be committed to a nonadversarial approach.

[Brendan]

The ease with which one can obtain a divorce and a lawyer has been quite well documented for some time, and I'd be surprised if anyone who'd lived very long didn't know of a half-a-dozen couples who were seperating amicably until the lawyers got their fangs in.

Try hiring a lawyer to save your marriage (does such a thing exist?) or get assistance finding children taken away from their fathers against court orders. Courts and cops, at least in these parts, never seem to enforce those, and when the mother is found is often unpunished. (One guy I know was told "We aren't going to look for your son despite the custody order, as he isn't a missing person. He's with his mother")

All of which is a distraction from the removal of marraige as a sacred institution, reducing it to a legal farce for scavengers to prey on and warble their sanctimony for providing such a useful service in today's society.

[Ralph]

Former Joint Chiefs chairman: Time to include gay troops

(CNN) -- Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili has had a change of heart about gays in the military.



Shalikashvili, who was the top military man when President Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy became law in 1993, wrote in a recent New York Times editorial that he was convinced by gay service members that "don't tell" can disappear.

"I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces," he wrote in the January 2 edition of the Times. "Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job."

The "don't ask" means commanders are prohibited from questioning a service member about sexual orientation while "don't tell" refers to the stipulation that gay and lesbian troops must keep their sexual orientation a secret.

President Clinton's policy brought the highly charged issue of gays in the military to the center of public discussion. At the time, Shalikashvili, supported the policy, believing that openly gay servicemen and women would hurt the military's cohesion.

With President Bush now calling for a larger military, the issue is sure to become fodder again for political and social debate. (Send us your thoughts on this issue)

Shalikashvili wrote that his position change came after meeting with gay troops, including "some with combat experience in Iraq, and an openly gay senior sailor who was serving effectively as a member of a nuclear submarine crew.

"These conversations showed me just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers."
'A political issue, not a military issue'

Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen told CNN that people should not miss the retired general's point, that the war in Iraq should be the top issue with Washington, but the discussion on gays in the military needs to resume in Congress.

"I think we have to ... take into account the full article," he said. "It was almost as if St. Augustine declaring to God, "Dear God, give me chastity, but not just yet.'"

And in the Shalikashvili piece, he said it's time to start "rethinking this policy."

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd said Shalikashvili's change of heart was a big one but that the policy is a "political issue, not a military issue."

The military doesn't consider the issue a big deal and its concern is with the conduct of its personnel, not their sexual preferences, he said. The change in the policy will reflect a change in social values, he added.

"I think society is moving on and probably Shalikashvili is moving on personally," Shepperd said.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a gay advocacy group, applauded the editorial.

"That's a courageous thing to do," said Sharon Alexander, deputy director for policy for the group.

Shalikashvili, who served in the Army for 39 years and is the only immigrant to rise to the pinnacle of military leadership, is very knowledgeable and well-respected, Shepperd said.
World war shaped childhood

Shalikashvili was born in Warsaw, Poland, in June 1936, just three years before the Nazis invaded. His father, who was born in the country of Georgia, was an officer in the Polish army until it surrendered to the Germans then joined a unit of Georgians that fought for the Nazis. Eventually his unit fought with the Waffen-SS.

John Shalikashvili and his family lived in Poland through the occupation and destruction of Warsaw. According to a Washington Post article in 1993, the family lived in a cellar after a German bomber blew up their apartment. Near the end of World War II, the family fled to Germany.

In 1952, the family immigrated to Peoria, Illinois. Shalikashvili, a teenager who spoke no English, learned the language by watching John Wayne movies. He was drafted in 1958 into the Army, where he quickly became an officer.

During the Vietnam war, Shalikashvili served as a senior district adviser to South Vietnamese forces in 1968-69. According to the Army, he won a Bronze Star for directing a search team that was attacked from two positions.

He also served in Iraq after the Gulf War, directing relief efforts for Kurds in the northeastern mountainous area of the country.

When Colin Powell stepped down as Joint Chiefs chairman, President Clinton nominated Shalikashvili, who had been one of Powell's deputies. The nomination hit a stumbling block when his father's service with the Nazis came to light, but the general won Senate approval after convincing testimony that he had not known of his father's ties until just before his confirmation hearings.

Despite suffering a massive stroke in 2004, Shalikashvili continues to speak his mind and some say the retired chairman could be the catalyst for change.

"As a former high-ranking military official, people listen to him," Shepperd said. "The lawmakers will listen to him."



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[burnitdown]

Yes, evidently, homophobia is learnt.

Sexual abuse changes sexual orientation. Is that learnt, or a case of extreme intervention?

Come on people, think!

[miranda]

So, every single homosexual person is gay because they were sexually abused? So every single homosexual person has been sexually abused? Ahh, more generalizations. Sexual abuse does not always change sexual orientation, in either gays or straights. Without going into too much personal detail, I am living proof of that, and so are many, many people that I know.

Come on, burnitdown, think!

[Holden Fourth]

Sexual orientation can be determined by a number of things. At some point in the gestation period a woman's body has to determine whether the foetus is going to be male or female. This is done by releasing various chemicals and hormones into the bloodstream (and therefore the foetus') at a specific time and in specific amounts.

These chemicals have the ability to create both male and female but generally err well onto one side or the other. It's where this 'mix' goes wrong that you end up with male bodies that have a strong feminine nervous system and vice-versa. Children born in these circumstances are already patterned to be homosexual. The extreme cases can have trans-gender surgery but most don't have this option. Anatomically they are one gender but psychologically and emotionally they are the other. This is one of the most common causes of homosexuality. I can think of four students in the school that are very definitely like this.

[jack stowaway]

Frankly, I wish many more males were homosexual.

I have never been physically threatened by a gay man. I have never had to endure 'macho' behaviour from a gay man. I have never been subject to intimidation by a gay man.

On the contrary, I have invariably found gay men to be secure in their person, friendly, open, approachable and non-violent.

Ask yourself, if you were to see a group of males approaching you on the street late at night, would you rather they were straight or gay?

I would think that culturally liberal (mostly), classical music loving posters would have lots in common with the average gay man. And remember, sexuality isn't the defining element of character. Gay males, I would hazard to guess, are at least as culturally rounded and socially aware as their straight counterparts.

[Corlyss_D]

IIf you ask me, or any other liberal human rights loving person, you'll hear that homosexuality doesn't harm anyone. Honestly, what harm comes from people you don't even know loving each other?

Ah, yes. The old "who could object to such a fulfilling emotion as love?" argument. Well, if it were the kind of love that results in a legal and emotional commitment, hardly anybody. If love is a euphemism for "unrestrained sex with anyone and anything whenever you feel like it," you must not recall the licentious bath house sex that turned AIDS into the grim reaper of the gay community.

Religion and God are humanity's most overly used excuses to condemn, harm, or kill otherwise innocent people. Everyday, you see and hear this excuse. People being killed and injured in the name of someone's religion, and others being arrested for their own beliefs. Children who are born into these religion homes are very likely to take on their parent's beliefs, for better or worse.

I was born an Atheist in a free house to spiritual parents

That's a logical impossibility. There's no such thing as a "spiritual" atheist.

[/quote] is it the religions that criminalize it for unjust reasons and make it a crime punishable by death? [/quote]

You forgot to add that most religions are just Talibans waiting to happen and give enough time, all religions will prove themselves the enemies of man.

[Klazzt]

That's a logical impossibility. There's no such thing as a "spiritual" atheist.

I never said my parents were Atheist. I was born an Atheist, thinking God and the Bible were just some fairy tales despite the fact that my dad's parents are firm Christians who took me to church in hopes of making me one of them. My parents, however, are polytheistic Buddhist and Toltec. You see, they didn't teach me to be Buddhist, Toltec, or to believe in their Gods and Goddesses; they wanted me to find my own beliefs from my own heart.

When I was four or five, I was given several books on different religions and spiritualities. I read them with my parent's help, and found my own beliefs. Atheism is simply a disbelief in a God or Gods. The word Atheist comes from the Greek word atheos, which means "without Gods." There can be spiritual Atheists, as I am. I choose not to say anything more about my beliefs; I feel that if someone needs to know, I will tell them.

[Klazzt]

Edit: This post was an error.

[Panzerfaust]

burnitdown, if sexual abuse changes orientation, does that mean that if a man raped you enough times you would start to like it and become gay?

Holden Fourth, first please sight documentation for your proposed cause of homosexuality. Second, since you seem to think that homosexuality and being transgendered are linked, explain all the masculine looking and acting gay men.

Corlyss_D, I always thought you were nicer than that post revealed, I’m disappointed. Why are you choosing to judge people on the worst example? If I wanted to find examples of “bad” behavior in heterosexuals I don’t think I would have to look far. Have you ever considered that being promiscuous is a natural reaction for people who live in a society that makes it hard to have a stable monogamous relationship?

[Corlyss_D]

in Massachusetts where homosexual marriage is a right.

But not for long . . . .

In American law the "Best Interests of the Child Principle" is supposed to be applied and that can be done in both marital and non-marital disputes, the latter category being very, very common.

Until, of course, there's political hay to be made by throwing out that notion, which stands for very little, even in non-political situations where the rights of birth parents come into conflict with those of adoptive parent. The child be damned.