Posted on 02/22/2002 6:17:19 AM PST by ArGee
Q: Why should society be involved in personal issues such as (marriage, drug use, homosexual sex, etc.)?
A:People exist in society not by convenience but because people are social by nature. We do not exist well in a vacuum. Part of the function of our society is to maintain norms of interaction that will allow us to survive. We call these norms our culture. Historically, cultures must be based on concrete fundamental truths. They can't be based on the whims of the moment or they will fall apart. In fact, historically, those cultures that have lasted the longest were based on concrete fundamental truths and they fell only when the societies stopped enforcing those rules. To date, only one culture in all of human history has been able to reconstruct itself after it fell, and that was because it returned to those concrete fundamental truths and cherished them until it could regain its land. I'm talking about Jewish culture and Israel.
America was founded on concrete fundamental truths. France was not. Both governments had similar ideals, but America had a culture to sustain those ideals and the government has been working here for over 250 years. You can't say the same for France because their culture is not based on concrete fundamental truths. If America lets those truths go, we will go the way of France, which is headed for the same fate as Babylon or Ninevah or Rome or any other ancient culture.
Q: Why should society care what individuals do?
A: If decent human beings don't stand up and fight for our foundational culture, our republic will be lost, because as moral values are tossed aside, the government will be there to regulate the behavior produced by those loss of morals. A climate of immorality only gives the government an opportunity to expand.
Q: Social and/or legal discouragement of homosexuality won't reduce the occurance of SAD
A: If the practice of homosexuality is shunned people would be more eager to overcome the defects in their lives than succumb to them. SAD is curable, you just have to want to be normal again. Unfortunately in today's society we support these SADs in their sickness giving them no motivation to be cured.
Society is essentially enabling the deviants to live a comfortable life as a deviant instead of encouraging them to seek a cure.
Q: If gays were allowed to marry like normal people then the negatives (promiscuity, disease, domestic violence) associated with existing gay (male) lifestyle would decrease.
A: A 'monogomous' SAD couple were responsible for the rape and torture of Jesse Dirkhising. The incidence of monogomy in the SAD culture is extrememly small. What makes you think that a piece of paper will cause people to be monogomous when they spend all their time now being promiscuous? The only thing that will stop SAD promiscuity is SADs getting healed.
Q: Why should evidence that one can discourage welfare dependence by making welfare unavailable tell us anything about whether we can discourage homosexuality by keeping marriage unavailable?
A: They are both behaviors. Make the results of the behavior unpleasant and the behavior will eventually go away. The problem now is that SADs are coddled rather than forced to face their perversion and it's results. Therefore they choose to remain in the SAD lifestyle instead of seeking a cure.
NOTE: This isn't just a SAD issue. This applies to all sexual deviancy.
Q: Why would allowing 'gay' marriage mean allowing other perversions to marry? Leaving aside that marriages to dogs or dead people or children cannot be consensual, and are therefore not comparable to the mutual commitment of two adult humans (of the same or different sexes), why can't we just say "yes" to one and "no" to the others?
A: The union of two men or two women is not comparable to the union of one man to one woman as the SAD union has no potential to produce children (which as we all know are the future of our society). So right now our laws do say "yes" to one and "no" to the other. We say yes to beneficial marriages (those that have the potential to produce new members of society) and no to detrimental marriages (those that have no potential to produce). Rather than start down the slippery slope of allowing all perversions to marry lets just say no to all of them.
(Note that inability to have children due to impotence etc in a normal couple is usually not known until after the marriage. The institution must support the potential to have children which ONLY male-female *normal* marriages provide)
Q: Comparing 'gay' marriage to bestial (pedophilial, necrophilial etc) marriage is not a valid comparison.
A: If we break the definition to include one detrimental type of union we will eventually have to break it to allow all of them. Look at how the pedophiles are lobbying the APA to be delisted as a disease (or they may already have been) they are about 15-20 years behind the SADs. History shows us that compromise on our core values always results in the death of those values.
After all pedophilial marriage is not comparable to beastial marriage because its two humans involved. And bestial marriage is not comparable to necrophilial marriage becasue two living things are involved. Etc ad nauseum. There will always be a reason why the next favorite perversion is somehow better than the second next favorite perversion. Let's just sidestep the whole thing and disallow all the perversions (which is what our laws do now)
Q: But I also think that gays can only be more likely to behave in manner more supportive of good social order if society treats them as if it expects such responsible behavior.
A: You are correct. The practice of homosexual sex is not now, nor will it ever be, 'responsible behavior'. Therefore we must expect, and make that expectation known, that the SADs seek a cure to their behavior.
Q: Shutting gays out of "respectable" society and its institutions only encourages rebellious and self-destructive behavior.
A: The problem is that SADs are not shut out of respectable society. You can't fire someone just because they are a pervert. You can't kick them out of rental property you own, you can't socially penalize them in any way. If we did, we'd have less SADs. The practice of homosexual sex is not now, nor will it ever be, "responsible behavior"
Q: Homosexuality is genetic. Therefore it's ok
A: No study has ever found a 'gay' gene. In fact studies using identical twins have shown that there is no genetic component to SAD.
For the sake of argument however, lets assume that a 'gay' gene is found. SAD then falls into the area of other genetic diseases like alcoholism. Just because an alcoholic is genetically predisposed to the disease should society excuse his self-damaging behavior and let him drink as much as he wants? NO! Society demands that he control his behavior and stay sober in order to be a member of respectable society. Drunks aren't welcome in most places including most places of business.
Likewise, if SAD is genetic, the SADs should be shut out of respectable society until they control their behavior. This includes shutting them out of any place where children or respectable people will be. Socially repugnant behavior is socially repugnent whether it is genetic or not.
Q: Can you prove that homosexual behavior is harmful?
A: To individuals? The medical evidence is overwhelming. To society? The only way to "prove" such a thing is to design an experiment where there are two groups of societies where the only distinguishing feature is that one allows homosexual behavior and the other doesn't. Then we have to watch and see what happens. Even if we could do such a thing, wouldn't it be a tad unethical to try?
A more telling question is, can you prove that homosexual behavior is not harmful to a society. Remember we started with a society that didn't permit homosexual behavior and was doing well. In all of history, homosexual behavior has been shunned, or the society did not stand. While that does not constitute proof, it does stand as evidence. We have a standard that works. Now you want to tinker with that standard. The risk to our children is great if homosexual behavior is inded harmful. Why should we let you tinker? Give me something concrete that says you aren't doing any harm before I let you experiment with my society. The burden of proof is on you, not me.
Q: Why do you focus on homosexuality? Aren't adultery and fornication just as much an abomination to God? Those are heterosexual sins. Why don't you pay any attention to them?
A: Christians don't just focus on SAD. But in the public policy arena the adulterers and fornicators are happy to keep the issue private. When such issues become public Christians do respond, as when Gary Hart had to withdraw from his presidential bid, or when Bill Clinton was impeached. We even respond to our own, as when Jimmy Swaggart was caught with a prostitute, or when Gary Bauer was meeting with a female junior staffer behind closed doors for long periods of time. Homosexual Activists are the ones who force Christians to address SAD as a public policy issue. If they had been happy to keep their sexual deviancy a private issue, Christians would be happy to be focusing on other things.
But while all sin is sin from the moral perspective, there is a progression from less destructive to more destructive from the social and personal perspective. There is also a progression from soft heart (like King David) to hard heart (like Pharoah). Adultery and fornication are wrong and destructive. And they are more wrong and destructive than greed and gluttony, which are more wrong and destructive than white lies. Picture a slippery slope on the way to a completely hardened heart. Some sins are closer to the soft hart, other sins are closer to the hard heart. The Bible, especially Romans 1, makes it clear that SAD is the final step. Romans tells us that "God gave them up..." God doesn't give up easily. SADs are very nearly completely hardened. Ex-gays will tell you how hard it is to come out of that lifestyle. They will also tell you how important it is.
War is peace.
Ignorance is strength.
I neither endorse the Bible nor otherwise. It is far above my ability to add or detract. I believe that it tells the truth. But if I did not believe that, it would not make the Bible any less true.
And you have suggested that homosexuality among consenting adults is the moral equivalent of murder.
The Bible has outright said that. I happen to believe it is true in this regard also.
Do you want to stand by that position?
Absolutely.
Consenting adult homosexuals are morally worse than murderers?
Do you honestly believe that?
Of course.
No.[I am not familiar with "Mac the Knife."]
Oh, the shark, dear
Has big teeth, babe,
And he shines them pearly white.
Just a knife, dear
Has Mac Heath, babe
And he keeps it out of sight.
(Forgive all the "dear"s and "babe"s. It's a jazz tune.)
By the way, as I've told you more than once before, if it were just an issue of the private behavior of consenting adults, we might not be having a conversation at all. But part of the disease of SADs is they have to spread it. My objection, from the perspective of this forum, is the public policy issues the SADs insist on raising precisely because they have no interest in keeping the issue private.
Shalom.
Amen.
Matthew 20:26-28 (ESV)
It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, [27] and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, [28] even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
There is no higher ruler, who came to serve man. True, He is not man's servant. But He set the standard. All true rulers serve those over whom they rule.
Perhaps we have twisted the concept of ruling. Of course, we have twisted just about everything else.
Shalom.
She said a break. But I could imagine the break becoming permanent. She did not specifically say one way or the other.
Shalom.
Interesting.
You have said from the beginning of the conversation, that consenting adult homosexuals were the moral equivalent of murderers.
I took this to mean that it was the moral nature of the behavior you objected to, and not whether such individuals practiced their behavior privately.
Are you now saying that you have no objection to consenting adult homosexuals, so long as they practice their sexuality privately?
Or are these people still the moral equivalent of murderers and deserving of death, even though they practice their sexuality privately?
I ask again.... who do you consider "the perverts"?
An interesting question.
Perhaps we should look to a similar model in the pursuit of illegal drug use on the part of state.
In that case, a neighbor having a suspicion of drug activity might file an anonymous complaint, whereupon agents of the state arrive to kick down the door and look for evidence to corroborate the suspicion.
That (a third party complaint, and subsequent violation of privacy on the part of state) is the traditional means of prosecuting victimless crimes (otherwise known as vices).
Bring on the crotch sniffing dogs...
You have advocated the imprisonment of consenting adults for the "crime" of homosexuality.
Perhaps you hadn't considered how this would happen.
Then your true objection is to public sexuality, and not homosexuality?
If so, then why not just say so, and advaocate a position which discourages public sexuality (whether hetero or homo)?
Or could it be that this is a convenient excuse?
The other thing is that our current government has allowed them to spread their perverted ideas advocating participation in their activities in our public schools and institutions. This should not be allowed any more than their public actions should be allowed.
And here again, it seems that your beef is more with the dissemination of ideas you disapprove of in public schools (and being forced to pay for it no less) than it is with consenting adult homosexuality.
Public schools are used to spread all manner of ideas I'm sure you disapprove of. Evolution, sexual education, leftist indoctrination, etc...
But instead of rightfully condemning the inherently socialist and immoral institution of public schools, you instead use their existence as yet another reason to continue your persecution of homosexuals.
Yes, I have. I stand by that.
I took this to mean that it was the moral nature of the behavior you objected to, and not whether such individuals practiced their behavior privately.
Well, that was a bit of a strawman. They won't do that. It isn't any more in their nature than it is in mine. I love my wife and am proud to have her as my wife. I'm not going to keep our relationship private. I don't expect SADs to do that either. And that's where the destructive behavior to society kicks in.
Or are these people still the moral equivalent of murderers and deserving of death, even though they practice their sexuality privately?
Watch the "deserving of death" bit. If you accuse me of advocating either the abuse of SADs or a judicial system that makes it a capital crime, I'm going to call you out on it. I expressly said that the Bible mandated that approach for the theocracy of Israel. I also explicitly said that nobody is calling for the U.S. to become a theocracy. I will stand by the statement that SAD is the moral equivalent of murder. Did you understand the lyrics from "Mac the Knife"?
Shalom.
Well, perhaps it is a semantic issue. Jesus ruled and still rules over all that there is. But there are good rulers and bad rulers. David was a good one. Rehoboam was a bad one. Davad served his people (although not faultlessly). Rehoboam served himself.
Shalom.
That would be a valid statement and needs to be said. Many of the disorders that SADs display are also displayed by straights, and should be dealt with in the same way.
That said, when was the last time you saw a straight pride parade that was not rated 'G'?
You can't always disconnect what a man does in private with what he does in public. It's a character (sin) issue. That was the whole problem with President Bubba.
Shalom.
You are also correct that I abhor socialist schools no matter what they are teaching in regard to social issues. Their mission to produce good little socialist workers for the state is detestable. The fact that they promote tolerance of all manor of perversion and criminal activity is also repulsive.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease and so, since the sodomites squeak loudest that just makes it appear that they are persecuted more. In fact they point the gun to their own heads and then squeal like pigs when when it happens. It would be very difficult to persecute those we know nothing about. The fact that they are such a loud noise draws the fire of their critics of which I am one. Heterosexuals do have a little more leeway given to them since their union is blessed by God. This is why some subtle displays of affection are tolerated in public. Holding hands and kissing are examples. Homosexuals on the other hand have no such blessing attached to their relationship. They cannot marry nor should they have public displays of affection.
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