David Kinnaman has seen the handwriting on the wall: "As these new generations begin to make up a larger share of the public, homosexuals will gain greater rights and protections-and widespread acceptance-in our culture."
Kinnaman is not happy about this. Kinnaman, who heads the Barna Group, which conducts survey research on and about evangelical Christians, is the author of Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity...and Why It Matters (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007).
Kinnaman focuses on young people 16-29, particularly those he calls "outsiders"-atheists, agnostics, adherents of other religions and the "unchurched." Those now make up 40 percent of young people, he reports. Just a decade ago Christianity had an overwhelmingly positive image among the young, including outsiders, he says. But no longer.
"Our most recent data show that young outsiders have lost much of their respect for the Christian faith." They hold several negative images of Christianity: it is judgmental (87 percent agreed), too involved in politics (75 percent), hypocritical (85 percent), and out of touch (72 percent).
But the predominant negative perception is that Christianity is "antihomosexual." Fully 91 percent of "outsiders" say Christianity is anti-gay. Remarkably, 80 percent of young churchgoers agree:
"In our research, the perception that Christians are 'against' gays and lesbians-not only objecting to their lifestyle"-i.e., sex-"but also harboring irrational fear and unmerited scorn toward them-has reached critical mass. The gay issue has become the 'big one,' the negative image most likely to be intertwined with Christianity's reputation." In short, "A new generation of adults ... now accepts homosexuality as a legitimate way of life."
Kinnaman's book is meant to warn Christians that their political influence on the issue of homosexuality will ebb and that they need to undertake a "kinder, gentler" approach to gays such as getting to know them, engaging them in conversation, showing compassion, and talking about Jesus instead of initially taking a moralistic approach.
I am not sure that "compassion" is what gays expect these days. Acceptance is what most expect. But given the reiterated condemnations of "the homosexual lifestyle" (i.e., sex) by Kinnaman and his commentators in the book, evangelical Christians cannot offer that. It is their bottom line, their obsession.
But the Jesus of the gospels said nothing to condemn homosexuality. So the Christians eventually have to stop talking about Jesus and talk about "the Bible" (including the Old Testament), or even a rather amorphous (and manipulable) "biblical perspective." Bait and switch.
So the Christians have nothing to offer gays by way of sexual relating. Kinnaman asks, as if uncertain, "Is it still true that homosexuals have deep sexual needs, just like the rest of us?" But all they offer is celibacy. As one commentator writes, "What if we could provide intimate Christ-centered community and accountability for him or her in that pursuit? We believe that community is the answer to everyone feeling loved and human." Somehow it just doesn't seem the same.
Kinnaman moves inconspicuously from inoffensive "first statements" to more offensive "repetitions." He first says Christians oppose "church-sanctioned weddings for same-sex couples," which is part of their freedom in a civil society. But later referring to legislators, he says it is important to affirm that "marriage is between one man and one woman." So he thinks that not only churches should bar gay marriage but the state as well, a very different matter.
And Kinnaman refuses to engage the strongest gay arguments. For instance, asserting that a child needs a mother and a father, he opposes gay adoption. But-putting aside the research on same-sex parenting-there are many children in foster care and innumerable orphans worldwide with no parents at all. Are they better off with no parents or with two loving gay parents? Kinnaman refuses to reply.
Perhaps the most offensive Christian claim is that, as one commentator says, "There is not a special judgment for homosexuals (nor) ... a special righteousness for heterosexuals." Or as a pastor Kinnaman quotes puts it, "The struggle of gays in being attracted to the same sex is not different than my struggle in being attracted to the opposite sex."
What effrontery! All Christians know that loving heterosexual sex within marriage is perfectly legitimate and has a "righteousness" according to their God (Gen. 1:28). The unnamed pastor's attraction to his wife-a member of the opposite sex-has a legitimate mode of sexual expression, so the desire ("temptation") can be acted on. But his doctrine allows nothing for gays. Ultimately, one has to doubt these people's honesty or their intelligence.
105 Comments for “Christian, Maybe. Compassionate, Hardly.”
posted by Marc on
Persons like Kinnaman are undoubtedly preferrable over figures such as Paul Cameron, James Dobson, Peter LaBarbera, and the whole bunch of conservative Christians… However, what is the value and substance of compassion if it is shown only to prevent image damage and loss of political influence?
posted by Jim O\'Brien on
‘But his doctrine allows nothing for gays.’ Paul has been taking on the Christians for more then 20 years, always on the attack. I wish he had the same courage to write about the Muslim threat to the homosexual community.
posted by Greg Capaldini on
As a gay Christian, I have stopped striving for acceptance as a gay man among Christians and as a Christian among gays and lesbians, both being equally un-guaranteed. I likely will be viewed as an individual here on earth and judged as an individual in the hereafter, not as a representative of a social demographic. So I can spend my effort either attaining acceptance in the various circles I inhabit or getting done the work I’m equipped, privileged and obligated to do, and I’d rather stress the latter. The issue of whether or not Christianity as a whole veers toward or away from accepting me becomes rather secondary.
posted by Jimbo on
Excellent article! More & more Christians are seeing the trend coming down the pike & are making adjustments accordingly. When you’ve demonized a group of people beyond recognition for so long, it naturally dissipates as people talk with us & get to know us as people first. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak. We now have to keep radical Islam at bay & not allow it to bloom like over in Europe. If they get fired up over cartoons, imagine what they have in store for the gay community.
posted by Ashpenaz on
People like Kinnaman are preferable over people like Dan Savage or Rosie O’Donnell or Michelangelo Signorile who are just as nasty about Christians as James Dobson is about gays.
I think that the mainline churches, UCC, United Methodist, Episcopal, ELCA, etc., are doing the work of creating a place at the table for gays. I also like the writing of Jim Wallis, Brian McClaren, and Tony Campolo who all seem on the verge of gay acceptance.
Maybe gays who want acceptance should work for it by accepting other marginalized people. Maybe we should stand up for undocumented workers and Muslims (the modern day Samaritans)–are you listening, Bruce Bawer?
posted by Bobby on
“Maybe gays who want acceptance should work for it by accepting other marginalized people. Maybe we should stand up for undocumented workers and Muslims (the modern day Samaritans)–are you listening, Bruce Bawer?”
—That’s ridiculous, we’re not illegal aliens that broke the law coming to this country. We’re not muslims that call for a fatwa every time something offends us. We should stand up for free speech, the second amendment, capitalism, and all the things that make life is a free society great.
We shouldn’t just embrace liberal causes under the false perception that liberals support us.
posted by Ashpenaz on
For many years, sodomy was a crime and we were breaking the law. Was the law fair to us? Should the law have been changed? Maybe the laws about undocumented workers are also unfair and should be changed. Hmmm?
And speaking of fatwas, don’t even get me started on the Gay Mafia. We issue our own fatwas all the time.
When Ted Haggard finally comes out and acknowledges his homosexuality, will the gay community greet him with: (choose one)
A. Warm compassion–“We know how hard this process has been for you. We also know your Christian values are important to you, so here are some resources to help you find the lifelong, sexually exclusive relationship which is in keeping with your values. Thanks for showing us how a gay Christian man can make a lot of mistakes and still find a way to sexual happiness and wholeness in keeping with a deep, sincere faith.”
or
B. Mocking censure: “Woo, hoo! How does it feel now, Mr. Christian hypocrite? Bet you feel pretty stupid, huh? Well, get ready to be the butt of millions of gay jokes–and we do mean butt. Go get him, Kathie and Rosie!”
I am a lot like Ted Haggard. I recognize how difficult it is to combine faith and homosexuality, and I recognize in myself all the mistakes he’s made. If you want Christians to show you compassion, maybe you should start by showing us compassion, even when we’re being hypocrites.
posted by Randi Schimnosky on
Ashpenaz, Christians started making war on gays, its up to Christians to start showing conmpassion first. Gays own nothing to christians who attacked gays first.
posted by Kary on
Compassion? Who wants their compassion? Christians are completely hungup on gay people, and I’ll never know why. And they talk about the “temptation” or the “lust” all the time. All I can figure is they’re just a bunch of pathetic closet queens. Who gives a crap what they think?
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
James: “I am a lot like Ted Haggard.”
We all know that James, you can stop repeating yourself now.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
Ashpenaz, a person who is unaccounted for in our country…and by the millions are forgiven MANY other laws that are also broken exponentially because of our government losing the motivation to curtail the tide.
Gays and lesbians transcend all cultures of the world.
But many members of government are very willing to accomodate illegal aliens far above gay citizens. Who can and do vote and who have donated millions to politicians who have responded with the back of their hands.
It’s a separate issue.
I have personally confronted many Christians with the second commandment of Christ. And that is to love their neighbor as themselves. Explaining that EMPATHY, not religious control and influence create civility and peacable nations and communities. So WHAT if there are non Christian believers among us? Or non believers. And Christians DO have a lot to answer to. The power and influence didn’t get that way over so many places because of benevolence and charity and rememberance of the two commandments of Christ. There is a lot of brutality in Christian history. And most religions of the world have always repressed and violated women and homosexuals.
Gays and lesbians (or anyone else for that matter) don’t need middle men like Kinnaman anyway, is really the point. People can and do find their way without arrogant people deciding for them who speaks for God.
Mores the point, because of Christian influence, the heterosexual public doesn’t like to be challenged by gay people. Won’t believe gay people’s own experience. Expects gay people to never form romantic bonds or have sex, never marry or raise children, nor work in high levels of any profession where heterosexuals have to compete or work.
Which is pretty much expecting grown gay folks to behave and respond to Christian, if not heterosexuals…like children.
It’s always a mistake to expect adults to behave like children.
Historically, women and blacks have gotten this expectation and treatment from the dominant culture. Some for which the dominant culture regretted.
This is another example of such creeping stupidity and morbid hypocrisy.
We are a nation of adults, and the breach isn’t that of gay folks, but of those who give away their stupidity and bigotry by not respecting other adults as capable of their own self determination. With or without being Christian.
posted by Ashpenaz on
How do you not see that your attitude towards Christians is exactly the same as my uninformed and prejudiced (purportedly) attitude towards the gay community?
posted by Randi Schimnosky on
Ashpenaz, many Christians have made it a goal of their’s to oppress gays. Few if any gays have made it a goal of their’s to oppress Christians. There’s no comparing the behavior of the two groups
posted by Jim C. on
The “love the sinner, hate the sin” philosophy never works. How could they love someone they don’t respect, and hold in contempt? I used to be an evangelical Christian, and I was baptized by Ted Haggard himself. It took me a long time to come out, and my life is great now. I now look back on my struggle in the closet, and I can’t believe the mental and emotional gymnastics that were required. Christians just don’t get it. Do they really, in their heart of hearts, believe we choose to be gay? Absolutely not. The suspension of common sense and intellect that this requires is breathtaking. And to get on a high horse that “gays need to accept Christians??” Why don’t we just have a huge group hug and sing Kumbaya. Last I checked, Christians have all their rights. And if Ted Haggard does come out, he could redeem himself by being honest, and creating a ministry to reach out to the GBLT community. Maybe there will be some snarky remarks from some in the community, but the majority would respect him for it.
posted by Ashpenaz on
Uh, what would call the attitude towards ME in the majority of these posts if not oppressive? My experience of the gay community is that they are constantly oppressing Christians and trying to convert them to a life without morals, faith, or values.
Ted Haggard and I represent a kind of gay man with a different story and a different journey and a different set of values than the gay community. Why is his set of mistakes somehow less forgiveable than, say, Mark Foley or Elton John? What is he going to find when he comes out–the same warm welcome I’m getting here?
When you say “Christians” do you mean the Canadian Anglican Church, the United Church of Christ, the MCC, the Unitarians, the United Methodists, or the Episcopal Church? Why is your use of the word “Christian” any less bigoted and ill-informed than my use of the words “gay community?”
posted by KamatariSeta on
You think posts on a website forum are oppression?
posted by Randi Schimnosky on
How has any one tried to oppress you on this forum Ashpenaz? Anyone tried to deny you the right to seek out the relationship you desire? Anyone tried to change your sexual orientation? Anyone threatened you with eternal damnation?
posted by Ashpenaz on
If you would back away from your disdain for me for a moment, you might look at the point I’m trying to make: There are many gay men with strong religious faith who do not feel comfortable in the gay mainstream. There are many sincere Christian gays who would like to come out, but have no place to come out. Some of those, because of their negative experiences with the gay community, choose reparative therapy–like me and Ted Haggard. When that fails, there is no place else to go, since our values and our beliefs are either ignored or openly under assault in the gay mainstream.
My best hope, and Ted’s, is to meet someone outside of the gay mainstream who shares my faith and values. I am trying to increase this possibility by being in a welcoming church. But my life would be simpler if the gay mainstream would realize that not everyone wants a condo in Miami Beach. I think that the gay community would benefit and grow if it more openly welcomed Christians, Muslims, and other people of faith, and offered resources aligned to traditional values to aid in the coming out process.
posted by Jim C. on
Ashpenaz,
You’re way to hung up on the “gay mainstream”. Just go to the beat of your own drum. I go to Metropolitan Community Church, where I’m involved to some extent. I also volunteer at a food bank for people with AIDS. I don’t do this because I’m some kind of martyr or saint, but because by putting myself in these situations, I open myself up to meeting good people. I met my partner of two years there too. Gays have been so marginalized, of course there is going to be disfunction. There is a lot of self-hating behavior, and alot of spiritual rejection. I admit, I get a little frustrated sometimes with what I see, but then I just try to be true to my self, and the rest just follows.
posted by Ashpenaz on
I am a member of a welcoming Episcopal church, and I am working to get involved with the sanctuary movement for undocumented workers since Nebraska is full of Hispanic meat-packers who are being abandoned by Swift and ConAgra and the other corporations that lured them here. I think that immigration is just as much a gay issue as AIDS–meaning, neither one is a gay issue. But I hope my concern for other marginialized groups might lead to a greater compassion for my particular marginalized group.
If you really want to help abandoned, rejected sick people, you might want to go on my daily visit to my mother’s rest home. Overseeing my mother’s care is very time-consuming considering all the fights with insurance, doctors, administration, Medicaid, etc. I feel sorry for all the elderly who see the rest home as a place to dump their parents off and wave goodbye. Of course, dying of lonely old age isn’t as romantic as AIDS–so no one wears ribbons for the old.
There’s also a tri-faith group here in NE which is trying to build bridges between Jews, Muslims, and Christians. I thought I’d try that too. Again, not gay, but maybe I can find support for my issues by showing my concern about other peoples’ issues. Maybe if more gays volunteered to help undocumented workers, visited the unattractive elderly, and gave support to persecuted Muslims instead of staying in the gay ghetto we’d build more support when we want people to vote for our issues.
posted by Randi Schimmnosky on
Ashpenaz said “If you would back away from your disdain for me for a moment, you might look at the point I’m trying to make”.
I don’t have disdain for you Ashpenaz, I have disdain for your constant denegrating of innocent gays and blaming innocent gays for everything that you feel is wrong in your life. If you’d stop with the misplaced and blanket attacks on the gay community you’d have better luck finding friends and a relationship. And as far as “dying of old age not being as romantic as AIDS”, no one other than apparently you thinks AIDS is remotely romantic.
posted by Randi Schimnosky on
Ashpenaz I should add that there are plenty of gay christians. If you just look for them I’m sure you’d have no trouble finding those who’d welcome you and your spirituality.
posted by Karen on
Seen that therapist yet, Ashpenaz?
At the beginning, I thought you were going to actually contribute to this discussion without turning it into your pity party. Nooope. Oh well.
posted by Ashpenaz on
I’m not sure where you’re getting unhappiness from. I’m as happy as anyone else. I like my job, my apartment, my friends, my church, Lost–all sorts of things. You assume that I can’t be happy without other gays in my life. Well, please don’t worry. My life is SO much happier without gays. Honestly. You can’t even IMAGINE how well my life is going without any gays. Dear Lord, you simply don’t understand that sometimes I literally skip down the street hummng a little tune because I don’t know any gays.
You simply can’t grasp that someone could hate, loathe, despise the mainstream gay community and still, somehow, be happy. Please. There is NO self-pity in my anger. I admit, there is some blame for the gays who really added nothing to my life but obstacles, but once I realized those people were idiots and I cleaned them out of my life, I’m pretty much over the resentment.
I post here because I want to believe, against all evidence, that there are mature, prudent, self-controlled, responsible, loyal gays out there somewhere. Apparently, those are qualities which you can’t even find on the most conservative gay blog in the universe. Strangely, my life is still happy. The fact that all of you don’t want to be part of my life makes me skip the faster and hum the louder.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Anyone who’s hung up on loathing, hating, and despising others has a serious impediment to their happiness. Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself your happy more so than us.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Its pretty ironic James that on one hand you claim to want to believe “that there are mature, prudent, self-controlled, responsible, loyal gays out there” and then a few sentences later claim that you’re happy that none of those gays want to be a part of your life. Makes your claims to be happy seem just a little doubtful.
posted by ReganDuCasse on
It’s really very easy Ashpenaz. I’ll tell you the MAJOR differences.
1. History is what it is. I didn’t make it up. It’s true what I say about religious responses to women and homosexuals (not just Christians) because these are the groups in all humanity who ARE the most repressed and violated and are hard pressed to fight back because they hold no higher offices within the religious communities worldwide. It’s not an egalitarian attitude they hold because of the belief in the inferiority of women and men and women who are not rigidly behaving as male or female.
2. Don’t take this so personally. It’s not about YOU, it’s about the collective of members of many religious communities who DON’T have any respect for NATURE and the fluidity of gender that ACTUALLY exists. Those unsophisticates who wrote the Bible got freaked out by such fluidity and tried to control people in ways that aren’t natural, and anathema to individuals.
There is a BIG difference between rationalizing an opinion and justifying actions.
Very often religious communities DONT differentiate between these.
3. Other cultures who understood realistically that homosexuality or transgenderism existed were ultimately colonialized by Christianity or Islam, and those who revered homosexuals and the transgendered were punished for doing so, and gay people were brutalized to keep others in control. It’s not natural for people to respond to homosexuals in such a way. It’s a LEARNED response, and STILL there is NO justification for it.
Case in point: the comparisons or analogies that many Christians make to homosexuality, murder and theft and adultery.
An individual doesn’t have to be TAUGHT how to respond to being violated and betrayed. And in fact they ARE by the actions of violence and betrayal.
Homosexuality, is a condition that is there whether or not an individual is actually having sex or not. And again, some Christians don’t differentiate between that and calls to discriminate against gay people anyway.
And also with regards to what is destructive and dangerous, again some Christians (like the Pope) are given to flights of patent exaggeration. Such as the Pope saying that gay people adopting and caring for children is doing a violence to them.
THAT is outrageous and inflammatory!
Lastly, the civility and patience in which collectively gay people have responded to such statements is underappreciated. Language matters, Ashpenaz. Inflammatory and outright editorializing language on gay lives HAS led to serious breaches of privacy, safety and common decency.
So, because gay people lack the power to fully influence even their own lives as individuals in this country cannot compare and compete with what Christians have done to gay people throughout ALL of history.
It’s only the last three decades in which visibility has changed and much of the general public is so anxious and fearful that some communities can’t differentiate articulating accurately about gay people with ‘promotion’ of homosexuality.
Language matters. And where the discussions of gay people are concerned, language, logic and rationale are SO distorted and mangled…they are unrecognizable in ordinary discourse.
Stereotyping is BOUNTIFUL in that language and gay people certainly are not at fault for THAT.
Nor can gay people be held responsible for homophobia. But they ARE.
That’s as bad as holding blacks accountable for racism.
Christians in many places do owe explanations for mangling language, bearing false witness and imposing so much influence on everything that gay school children, or those just SUSPECTED of being gay, can’t attend school or live with their own families without being constantly bombarded with the message that they are illegitimate, dangerous or foul on everything.
Enough Christians, however good, have stood by and let it happen.
And when a gay CHILD, loses all hope enough to kill themselves because of the constant bullying from their entire community…well…enough Christians too are too cowardly to admit that it’s their potent influence that indeed contribute and they have no other solutions to keep it from EVER happening.
A gay child wouldn’t do that if your way were what you think it is.
No other children would be so brutal if they weren’t taught to be so.
And virtually exlcusively against gay people.
posted by JS on
This may piss people off, but while it’s great to get acceptance (or at least non-agression) from people of faith, we as homosexuals and lesbians need to be able to meet them halfway. By that, I mean some of us need to not go out of our way to do inflammatory things in their faces. If you don’t want someone from a religious group in your face saying “God hates fags”, then you need to not do things like have ads where muscled shirtless leather daddies are re-enacting The Last Supper. Some in our community don’t get that–they scream “free expression”. Free expression is not a permit to do things you know will set your adversaries off. I’m not saying suck up–I’m saying don’t be schmucks.
posted by Bobby on
“For many years, sodomy was a crime and we were breaking the law. Was the law fair to us? Should the law have been changed? Maybe the laws about undocumented workers are also unfair and should be changed. Hmmm?”
—What about laws that make it illegal to be a prostitute, laws that make it illegal to smoke in your own car, laws that make it illegal to own a gun that works in Washington DC? There’s lots of issues I care about, but I separate gay issues from non-gay issues. And please don’t call them undocumented workers, that’s the politically correct term for illegal aliens. I happen to know a lot of legal aliens, including one that spent $7000 in legal fees to get a greencard, or ones who have American fathers but because they’re older than 18, they’re still waiting to get their papers. When liberals reward lawbreakers and oppress law-abbiders they do a disservice to all.
“And speaking of fatwas, don’t even get me started on the Gay Mafia. We issue our own fatwas all the time.”
—Tell that to Salman Rushdie, the fatwa against him has kept him in hiding for years. There used to be a time he had to change residences everyday. I’m sure he’d much rather deal with a gay fatwa. What would that entail? A haircut? A make-over? Mailing him a Barbara Streissand film?
“When Ted Haggard finally comes out and acknowledges his homosexuality, will the gay community greet him with: (choose one)”
—The gay community will celebrate his announcement, embrace him as one of their own, use him in advertising to prove that nothing can cure homosexuality because homosexuality isn’t a disease you can cure. The gay community loves celebrities, and they love mea culpas even more.
“If you want Christians to show you compassion, maybe you should start by showing us compassion, even when we’re being hypocrites.”
—I don’t show compassion for hypocrites, I have a lot more respect for an honest homophobe than a dishonest hypocrite. I don’t like lies or liars.
What I want from Christians is this:
1. Don’t mess with my entertaintment. I want to play Grand Theft Auto, watch gay porn, enjoy violent television and read horror novels. Don’t pass laws agaisnt those things, and that includes Hillary Clinton who’s no fan of violent video games. I respect your right not to watch those things, I respect your right to have Christian TV Stations and radio shows where you can say whatever you want.
2. Let schools have gay straight student alliances. I don’t care if you have christian groups, prayers by the pole, virginity clubs, you do whatever you want, but if I’m a teenager, I want to get together with my own kind without having to fight the schoolboard.
3. Don’t fire me for being gay. I won’t force you to attend sensitivity training, I won’t tell you I’m gay unless you ask, I’m not even gonna discuss my sex life, but if I feel like going on craiglist men looking for men section, that is my right. I have a right to meet men and date them. Just like you have a right to do the same with the opposite sex.
As long as Christians live by those rules, I have no problem with Christians. In fact, I generally don’t have any problems with Christians because I let them do their thing, and they let me do my thing.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Bobby said “I won’t tell you I’m gay unless you ask”.
Bobby, don’t you want the freedom to discuss the day you spent with your boyfriend just as a heterosexual might? Don’t you want the freedom to hold his hand in public, or call him sweety without worrrying about whether or not someone realizes you have a romantic relationship with a man? Heterosexuals don’t hide their sexuality, why should you feel an obligation to hide yours?
posted by KamatariSeta on
“” If you don’t want someone from a religious group in your face saying “God hates fags”, then you need to not do things like have ads where muscled shirtless leather daddies are re-enacting The Last Supper.””
What you fail to realize is that many of them are going to act this way towards us REGARDLESS of what we do or how we act.
posted by Bobby on
“Bobby, don’t you want the freedom to discuss the day you spent with your boyfriend just as a heterosexual might?”
—Sure, but only with people I feel comfortable with. There are jobs where people go out to lunch together and pretty soon you know everything about them, and deep friendships are made. And there are jobs where people barely get to know you.
“Don’t you want the freedom to hold his hand in public, or call him sweety without worrrying about whether or not someone realizes you have a romantic relationship with a man?”
— We already have that freedom. Others are free to disaprove as well. Frankly, I don’t like people disaproving of me in public. So if I feel like holding hands with a man, I do it in a gay area or at home. Remember Queer As Folk? We’re not all Emmett. Some of us are straight-acting, whatever that means.
“Heterosexuals don’t hide their sexuality, why should you feel an obligation to hide yours?”
—It’s not really an obligation, is more like a choice. I don’t really hide my sexuality, At my last job, I had a clique of 4 people that knew I was gay. We talked about that and everything else. Then slowly those 4 people left the company, and I was left with a bunch of other people that I never got really close to. However, I still did my men looking for men section in craiglist, I still visited this site during work hours, I still went to advocate.com. So did I really hide my sexuality? Not really, anyone who had poked his head over my cubicle might have caught me seeing my sexuality.
posted by Ashpenaz on
I was so proud of Bobby until the last paragraph. Really–Craigslist? Advocate? You might as well put on your I Heart Mika T-shirt and your Gwen Stefani wig. This is what I mean by the monolithic gay community. Bobby probably thinks he’s outside of the gay world, yet he’s just in some less visible part of the Borg.
Why not step out the gay ghetto all together? Why not just do ordinary things and meet ordinary people? Why must gays think they are too special to be around everyone else?
People here feel EXACTLY the same way about Christians as I feel about gays. EXACTLY. Read the posts and change the words. It’s fun.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Ashpenaz said “Why must gays think they are too special to be around everyone else?”.
Ashpenaz gays are around everyone else. With 90% or more of the population being straight they couldn’t avoid straight people if they wanted to – stop being so deluded about the gay community.
The implication of what you’re saying is that gays should avoid the gay community. If they did that, they’d all be alone like you. Most gays don’t want that, they’re not into wallowing in their own self-pity.
posted by Karen on
“People here feel EXACTLY the same way about Christians as I feel about gays. EXACTLY.”
Sooo… people here are Christians who, nevertheless, believe there is nothing worthwhile to be found inside churches, the Bible, or anything else associated with a normal Christian life? That only a tiny, invisible fraction of their fellow Christians are nice people with normal values like responsibility and faithfulness?
People here believe that Christian marriages are fundamentally different and incompatible with the idea of egalitarian, sex-neutral civil marriages, and thus should be singled out for exclusion from said institution?
Wow, James. You really ARE delusional if you’re finding that in the above comments. Get help, I think you’re hallucinating now.
The idea that Christianity has done so much damage to gays is a matter of historical record. Your idea that gays have done so much damage to Christianity is a mixture of delusion, stretched definitions, and double standards. Therein lies the difference.
posted by Jimbo on
Look here Ashpenaz, or James, or whatever the hell your name is: get some therapy pronto! My God! Are you trying to piss off as many people as possible? Jeez Louise! And a couple of other things: the Unitarian church is NOT a Christian church. Secondly: you say you are happy with your apartment. Boy, I just knew it. Throwing your money away on rent when you could build equity via home ownership. In my book, only losers rent.
posted by Karen on
And James asks for a “list of approved therapists” in 5… 4… 3…
posted by Bobby on
“I was so proud of Bobby until the last paragraph. Really–Craigslist? Advocate? You might as well put on your I Heart Mika T-shirt and your Gwen Stefani wig.”
—Ashpenaz, I follow the same standards heterosexuals follow when it comes to online dating, I even helped a former boss set up his match.com account. It’s true that heterosexual women don’t put pictures of their vaginas online, which is why when I click on craiglist, I try to keep the web browser window very small in case there’s a naked pic. If I’m ever caught, I’ll just say “sorry, sometimes dudes put naked pictures of themselves.” And then we’ll have a conversation about gay dating and hopefully, that will be that.
“Why not step out the gay ghetto all together? Why not just do ordinary things and meet ordinary people?”
—Who says gays don’t do that? I don’t work in the gay getto, I go to plenty of ordinary places.
“Why must gays think they are too special to be around everyone else?”
—Most gays are around everyone else, but sometimes it’s good to be with your own kind. Think about it, now there’s a website for democrats who want to date democrats. People like being with their own kind. It’s just like high school, you find your clique and stick to it. Hopefully you can have lots of cliques and get along with lots of different people. But in the end, you are with the people who accept you.
“People here feel EXACTLY the same way about Christians as I feel about gays. EXACTLY. Read the posts and change the words. It’s fun.”
—Because Christians are seen as the enemy, the opposition, the people that want to convert you, that want you to change, that oppose every gay rights law, including the ones that make sense. I don’t use the term homophobe because they find that word offensive, I use the term “anti-gay” because that’s what is really about.
They have this narrow-minded view that heterosexuality is what works for everyone. That is what God intended. I always love telling them, “would you like an ex-gay to marry one of your kids.” That gives them pause, when I said that, they’re not so convinced by the “gays can change” argument.
Look at the Boy Scouts issue, an organization dominated by Christians, look at how hard they’ve fought to keep gays off scouting. You know, I don’t think I’ll ever volunteer to work with kids. Why do I need some asshole assuming I’m a pedophile because I want to help kids? Who needs that aggravation?
It’s just like gays in the military. Sure, I support the troops, but would I want to hide my sexuality while straight troop members read Playboys and talk about their girlfriends?
Because unlike my former job, in the military you do get to know people, you’re spending 24 hours a day with them. They’re gonna see you naked when you take a shower. They’re gonna ask you if you have a girlfriend, if you have a wife, they’re gonna want to go to bars with you, to see you hit on women. What am I gonna tell them? That I only sleep with women when I pay them to do that?
So yes Ashpenaz, gays are different, gays are special. It doesn’t matter if you read Ann Coulter, if you watch The O’reilly Factor everyday, or god forbid, if you actually like sports. You’re not one of them.
Look at what J. Edgar Hoover had to do to protect himself. Conservatives still admire him, but back then, he had to know everyone else’s secrets to keep everyone else from exposing him.
That’s what it means to be gay. You have to be stronger than everyone else and be willing to put up with whatever shit they give you, and maybe overcome it.
posted by AKN on
Ashpenaz –
I can understand why you might feel ostracized by the hostility to Christians (and other people of historically gay-rejecting faiths) that many LGBT people bear, and I don’t mean to add to that impression. I would, though, ask you to reconsider your assertion that LGBT people “oppress” people of faith by retaliating against faith-based attacks on our personal liberties. While I agree that some of the rhetoric gay rights activists use against Christians is narrow-minded and unnecessarily combative, I very much doubt that anyone has ever used physical violence against Christians in the name of gay rights (in the way Christian beliefs have sometimes been invoked as a defense of violence against LGBT people). I — and most other reasonable LGBT people, I am sure — would never want to infringe on your right to practice the faith of your choice; we simply wish that the most actively anti-gay people of faith would, in turn, not wish death upon us simply for expressing our alternative type of love.
I also must object to your characterization of the ‘gay mainstream’ or ‘gay ghetto’ as some singular group of immodest, promiscuous, decadent and morally-bereft degenerates, hell-bent on highlighting our ‘difference’ from everyone else. Gay ghettos were not designed as an isolationist way to demonstrate the superiority of gays, as you seem to think. Much like ethnic ghettos in the early 20th century, they came about as a haven of safety and support for a marginalized people who faced terrible and sometimes deadly hostility from larger society. Is it wrong to foster solidarity among such a community? Is it wrong to celebrate a history of perservering through decades of opression by having a pride parade?
It often seems from your comments that you are pitting all of Christianity against all of gay-dom, decrying everything you see wrong with the latter without ever admitting the faults of the former. You ask us to have a nuanced view of Christianity, endlessly citing the numerous denominations that have recently borne a more welcoming attitude towards LGBT people (which, believe me, I am extremely glad to hear), and yet you refuse to acknowledge that, aside from your lonely self, gay men can be anything other than slutty, undignified party boys. There is just as broad a spectrum of personality and background among out and proud gay people as there is among the general population — so much so that the ‘gay community’ you greatly deplore is no longer resembling a ‘community’ at all — and I think it is entirely unfair to lump all of us into one single object of disdain simply because you find the most unabashed and outspoken behavior of some gay people distasteful.
I rarely ever comment on websites, and I certainly never planned to do so here, but I was very strongly moved to respond to your comments because I, too, hope for civil discourse and some measure of reconciliation between these two unfortunately polarized populations, and I believe you are slipping away from that goal and further into your own isolationist mindset. Don’t give up on other gays, and we (some of us, anyway) won’t give up on you.
posted by Stella on
Jusy to explain, http://needing-fathers.blogspot.com
points up the emotional problems from donating egg/sperm from the child’s point of view.
posted by Ashpenaz on
In other words, you want me to undergo “reparative” therapy. Is there some kind of NARTH for Gays that I need to call who can help me change my orientation toward the gay community?
I’m glad some people are writing long, well-thought out posts. I am impressed, and I am encouraged to find there are those who have thought out the issues I present and can give well-balanced answers. It gives me a sense of the sort of community I’m looking for. Yes, I would be happier with some stronger connections with other gays–but I’m not going to do that at the expense of my basic values. I see that there are those who might just feel the same way.
I don’t think I am the only one with my set of concerns. I hope I am showing you don’t to buy into the gay mainstream in order to be gay.
P.S. About my apartment–I went through a difficult decision process involving an intense cost/benefits analysis and decided to rent instead of buy. I decided that it made just as much sense to rent and invest as it was to have a mortgage and have all my money go down that hole. I think the current mortgage crisis has shown the relative wisdom of my choice. My investments are doing fine. Good luck with your foreclosure.
posted by The Gay Species on
Romans 1:20ff. is quite explicit in identifying same-sex unnatural lusts as the prototypical sin of idolatry, worshiping the creature rather than the creator. Of the Decalogue, the first and greatest sin is idolatry, worshiping any deity but Yahweh and not obeying his 613 mizvots. Anyone whose mind is on the flesh is hostile to god, Saint Paul echoes repeatedly, and Jude insists human flesh defiles the fabrics humans wear. Paul approves of marriage only if celibacy is impossible, since marriage is better than perishing.
The Books of Divine Revelation, the Traditions of Judeo-Christo-Islam all condemn same-sex homoeroticism for the same “intrinsic disorder” of worshiping creature rather than creator.
How does a person of faith escape such pronouncements without total relativism, casuistry, and diabolical dishonesty, and denial of the received Word of God? If the Word lies, why accept any of it; if it tells the truth, one cannot except the indictment without promoting a lie. That’s not a false dilemma, its the consistent claim of J-C-I for millennia, and wishing it otherwise will not make it so.
Insisting on one’s “own insights” as superior to all others, including the authors god supposedly inspired, really smack of hubris, and pride goes before the fall.
The desire to deny the obvious, the develop all sorts of casuistry, and pick-and-choose the beliefs “if it fits” one’s temperament, but reject the ones that cause a problem, illustrates the ability of the Stockholm Syndrome, the illusion of fantastical exceptions for oneself, and the willingness to defy the gods and odds, but for what?
To bet that such a deity exists? That such a deity despises his creature? That such a deity becomes finite from infinite, temporal from eternal, stable rather than wrathful, jealous, and vindictive, altruistic rather than sadistic, and performs miracles that violate his natural order, sanctioning the killing of others, the sacrifice of children and other human sacrifices, and requires obedience to irrational commands and demands, and justifies stoning to death rebellious sons, so that one can bet on the improbability of an afterlife, the higher improbability of being among the 144,000 of the predestinely elect, to THEN enjoy an eternal wedding banquet of man and females for eternity in a venue no one has a clue exists?
The question is not religion as “unChristian,’ but implausible, irrational, ascetic, self-abnegation, and wearing “put on” Christ, who know one has met, let alone knows how to put on the armor and breatplate of a superstition far exceeding all Homeric, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Roman myths, to endure this “veil of tears” for some future promised land, kingdom, utopia, provided one denies his humanity and embraces vice for virtue, seems so incredibly implausible and absurd that only desperation, self-hate, self-loathing, insecurity, and inhumanity could embrace as life-denying.
But then, Christ brought the sword, not peace, a division of his lemming sheep from free-thinking goats, the apotheosis of children without question or doubts, and shepherds so hypocritical, power hungry, greedy, indulgent, obscene, immoral, and insensitive to find anything “redeeming” from its scheme — other than denial of humanity, denial of reality, denial of the plausible, denial of classical values for religious vice, that only the most discontent, disenfranchised, alienated, and covetous of “overthrowing the strong to elevate the weak” in one messianic promise after another from Moses, Isaiah, Yeshua, Paul, Marx, Freud, Boff, as hope to invert the natural world order for the mythical perfectability of human organisms in a perfect society of comeuppance, has to be the biggest fraud ever perpetuated.
The Prophets for Profits are not as gullible to their nonsense as the aspirants. Their very weakness of the flesh, use of prostitutes and hustlers, use of illicit drugs to assuage their emotional pain is evidence of their being human, but also of sin against this deity, and the worst part of this scheme is that THEY place themselves equal to, or superior, to the gods in pronouncing judgment, the consummate sin of idolatry (Rom 2).
But “consistency” nor “reason” nor “plausibility” registers with these individuals. If they are reborn in the spirit of Jesus, their sins are wiped clean, their souls saved, their pocketbooks broke, their interests in “this” world obviated, but like the Reverend Jerry Falwell die alone without angels lifting his hefty body into the heavens. For heaven’s sake, where in the world are these “heavens” and “hells,” that are the gamble of surrendering humanity to voices crying “wolf” in the wilderness. After their marble thrones in which to shit and pontificate, wearing the current fashion, and blaming all adversity on the “proto-sinner” who loves his/her own sex only inveighs divine wrath by the same Abrahamic Tribes that believe these things from dreamers.
The Angel Gabriel, announced to the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit “overshadowed” her, and her fornication becomes the god-man that saves prostitutes, charlatans, and wizards, by his rabbinical rebellion. They put his idolatry, blasphemy, and rebellious to the test: Stoning his flesh, hanging him on a tree, and then buried before sundown — lest god get really upset (Dt 21:18ff).
Meanwhile, “pollution” and “impurities” of the human organism are defiled unless they engage in an obsessive-compulsive purifications for being contaminated and contaminating the Tribes. Ultimately, such rituals don’t matter, unless the deity “elected” your tribe to be His Tribe. Only progeny that issue from Jewish women by men “branded” by male genital mutilations, are the saved. What? Yahweh is disgusted by foreskin?
posted by Bobby on
Circumsition is not “male genital mutilation.” It’s been proven that circumcised men are less likely to suffer from penile cancer. In biblical times, water wasn’t widely available, so keeping a circumcized penis clean was a lot easier than cleaning an uncut penis. The bible also has commandments about washing your hands before eating. Clearly whoever wrote the bible knew what he was talking about.
Romans 1:20 refers to a time when it was common for a man to hire boy prostitutes, 12 to 15 that’s probably what St. Paul was opposing. Pederasty and pedophilia where common in roman and greek societies.
The old testament also has the story of David and Jonathan, in which David tells Jonathan that his love is superior to the love of women. So there’s a strong likelyhood that King David was bisexual.
So in the end, you can take the bible anyway you like. People pick and choose what to follow. For example, Jesus told his apostles to carry swords, yet many left-wing pastors only focus on that verse about dying by the sword. The bible allows capital punishment for lots of crimes, yet you got catholic priests trying to save the lives of criminals that deserve to die. So I don’t care what some religious fanatic tells me. I pick and choose, just like them.
posted by The Gay Species on
One has to admire “Bobby.” S/he takes the literal statements to mean whatever S/HE WANTS the literal to mean. Even I am not that arrogant. Despite protestations, circumcision IS male genital mutilation, but then S/HE probably does not care if the clitoris is removed in the same way. S/HE probably does not know the difference, any more than Huckabee, who BELIEVES HIV is spread contagiously from toilet seats. No wonder FACTS are irrelevant in Amerika.
But Bush as president, despite Bobby’s dreaming, is a FACT, and HIV is not spread by toilet seats, despite Bobby’s arbitrary choices to the contrary. But Bobby is HER/HIS own authority, establishes HER/HIS own facts, and we wonder why people MAKE IT UP as they choose?
But the DREAMERS and ILLUSIONISTS are an uniquely Amerikan phenomenon. It’s called “relativism.” There are no facts, no values, no right and wrong actions — other that what the Ego-God decides.
Bobby’s Ego-God is hardly unknown. The sad thing is that they are all too common, all too untutored, and all too ignorant. But as Ego-Gods no one will convince THEM. Like all gods, THEY KNOW better than everyone else, even scientists.
posted by Zeke on
Bobby, Last year there were a total of SEVEN recorded deaths attributed to penile cancer and, though the circumcision status of those who died is not recorded, it’s likely that most of the seven were circumcised. That and other bogus ?statistics? and ?studies? have been used to justify a procedure that has become an American tradition. Interestingly enough the same studies are done in Europe and they NEVER come back with the results supporting the procedure the way the American studies do. More interesting still is not one single country in Europe has a higher incidence of ANY of the diseases (AIDS, gonorrhea, herpes, penile cancer, etc.) that circumcision is supposed to prevent despite the fact that the procedure is routine here and rare there.
Unnecessarily cutting a healthy part of a person’s genitals off without anesthesia and without their consent IS genital mutilation. Just because you live in a country, society and culture that has taught you to believe bogus things that virtually no one in ANY other western country (including many countries with HIGHER standards of health and medicine than the U.S.) believes, doesn’t make it so. If a person wants their foreskin cut off by all means they should have the right. In fact they should have the right to have their whole wang lopped off but that should be a decision that the person makes for himself.
Now, back to the topic at hand.
I consider myself a devout and proud Christian. I?m gay. I am married to and monogamous with the man of my dreams (16 years) and we have raised our 13 year old son from birth. I and my family are very active in our local United Church of Christ. We?re there every time the doors are open. We are also very active in school, social and civic activities of our local community. I coach little league baseball and my husband coaches soccer. Our friends tell us that we out straight the straights but we prefer to think that we are just two gay guys who never believed it when straight AND gay people told us that being gay meant we had to either give up our dreams of family and faith OR give up our nature. We?re both stubborn and simply refused to let anyone, straight or gay, Christian or not, define us, or our lives, for us.
I say all of that to say this. As much as it might seem that I would completely relate to Ashpenaz, I can?t relate AT ALL. I have never experienced the oppression as a Christian that Ashpenaz writes so much about. I do hear a lot of hurt and frustration coming from gay people in response to the treatment that they’ve received from the Church. I find this particularly true of gay people who were faithful and active in church only to be rejected and scorned after coming out to their truth. I don’t take offense at these expressions of pain and frustration. How could I? The Church deserves to be on the receiving end of this righteous indignation. It should be challenged, taken to task and yes, even cursed for the harm it has caused in the name of God and Christ.
As a Christian, I believe it?s the Christians (by the specific command of the Christ Himself) who have the responsibility to go the extra mile to reach out, ask forgiveness and begin to heal the wounds. So far they (we) seem entirely focused on causing more hurt and more harm and crying that we are the victims of the very people we?ve victimized. I don?t find that to be Christ-like at all.
Ashpenaz, you seem to be so frustrated that no one “gets” what you’re saying and that everyone is attacking and oppressing you. I have to say, I can’t understand where you?re coming from at all even though my life seems to mirror what you feel is the ideal. I really try to understand the source of you frustration and anger and to be compassionate but I just can’t relate to your indignation over all things gay or your Christian victim mantra.
Is it at all possible that maybe you should open your mind to the possibility that there are gay people of faith out here who don’t need to live in a self-righteous bubble in order to protect themselves from some perceived evils of gayness? It just seems to me that you have a very unhealthy understanding of and outlook on both what it means to be gay and what it means to be a Christian. I know you say you’re happy but I don’t think it’s possible for a person with as much inner turmoil as you exhibit to be really happy. I honestly hope and pray that you come to some peace in your heart, mind and soul and that through that peace you open your eyes to life’s possibilities.
I would suggest that you reach out to gay people who share your deep faith but refrain from the ?us versus them? mentality that assumes that ?gay? and ?Christian? are mutually exclusive and adversarial communities. You can never find peace within yourself as a gay Christian if you can?t fathom peace between the gay community and the Christian community in the world.
posted by Karen on
I very rarely give up on people but I just want to warn you guys about trying to have a long and reasonable conversation with Ash. He’s not interested in listening, only ranting. He will ignore your points, change the subject, and keep on ranting. He needs professional help but paranoidly believes that would be “reeducation” and next thing you know he’ll be swinging 3 ft foam dildos in the parade.
posted by Patrick on
Why is it that when some people fervently believe in ghosts or when they follow commanding ?voices in their head?, these people are treated as delusional, crazy or even psychotic? These people are given medical treatment and brain-chemical balancing drugs in order to manage their mental illnesses. Yet when people profess the most intense beliefs in certain other things no one has ever really seen, such as demons, Allah, God, angels, heaven, hell and so on, these people are treated with the greatest of reverence and social respect and even made into leaders and wise gurus who become rich from the donations of their faithful followers!
What is the difference here? The fantasies and delusions are equally foolish whether it?s the belief and obedience to a psychotic voice in the head or an imaginary deity residing in some magical place no one can see. Religious beliefs should be placed in the same class as mental sickness or any other serious psychological disorder that degrades the quality of life and the individuals? ability to deal with reality.
One of the fundamental (but understandable) flaws with modern psychology is its assumption that sanity is defined using the mental character of the majority as a benchmark. But this standard isn?t really objective, it?s subjective and merely based on a relational comparison that is used incorrectly to define an aberrant standard for mental health. Just because many people believe in something that doesn?t make it valid, and just because a lie is repeated a billion times that doesn?t make it any more truthful than it was to begin with.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
In response to Zeke, there are these examples.
Religious beliefs should be placed in the same class as mental sickness or any other serious psychological disorder that degrades the quality of life and the individuals? ability to deal with reality.
Or this:
All I can figure is they’re just a bunch of pathetic closet queens. Who gives a crap what they think?
Or this:
Richard, any philosophy that says humans are secondary to an imaginary character is facist.
Or this:
Typical Northdallass, blame Pickton and take no responsibility whatsoever for the role and motivation his bible and Christians played in commanding and justifying these murders.
Your bible commands that unmarried sex partners be murdered, Pickton was merely following what your “good” bible commanded. Your bible sets the example over and over again of your “god” murdering the innoncent for the wrongs of the guilty, its no surprise that Picton would use it to justify murder of prostitutes. Picton most certainly didn’t pervert the idea of what the bible is all about, he epitomized it – unjust torture and murder of innocent people. Stop making excuses for that bible of yours Northdallass, do what’s right and condemn the evil book that motivated and justified these murders, genocide, and all manner of injustice. Stop making excuses for the evil that Christians like you distribute and promote. Accept responsibility for a change.
Now of course, Zeke, these are things that are being said about Christians, which includes the people with whom you worship every Sunday.
And your response?
The Church deserves to be on the receiving end of this righteous indignation. It should be challenged, taken to task and yes, even cursed for the harm it has caused in the name of God and Christ.
Now, go to church and tell all your friends there that they deserve every bit of this vitriol hurled at them by gays and lesbians, and that they should just shut up and take it because it’s all their fault for being such awful and unaccepting people who, because of their mental illness, support a facist ideology that promotes mass murder, torture, and evil.
The reason I suspect Ashpenaz takes so much more sh*t than you do, Zeke, is because he refuses to say that to his fellow parishoners or hold them to blame for everything bad that ever happens to a gay person, and as such, that doesn’t make him very popular among other gays and lesbians in the first place. Worse, he calls gays and lesbians out on their behavior, which is a cardinal sin in the Church of Gay.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Whine all you want Northdallass, gays aren’t unified putting out and standing behind books calling for the death of Christians, but Christians are putting out a book calling for the death of gays, its pretty clear who the wrongdoers are and it isn’t gays.
posted by Priya Lynn on
And I might add that far from my comments being vitriol (I am formerly Randi Schimnosky), they are an accurate criticism of the evil of your bible. The murder of innocents is evil and your bible is rife with that. Instead of acknowledging this wrong you make excuses and whine about people pointing out the lack of ethics demonstrated in what you laughably call the “good” book.
posted by Ashpenaz on
You accuse the Bible of murdering innocents–when I say that a large segment of the gay subculture was involved with older men picking up young, confused men off the street, or in rest rooms, or in rest areas which led to many deaths by suicide, drugs, or STDs, you say it never happened, or that the gay community didn’t know about it. I would believe your concern for the death of the innocent if you truly wanted to address the horrible evil of that part of the gay world, or gay underworld. I am grateful that many of those young men turned to the Church where they at least lived long enough to make adult choices.
posted by Bobby on
Bobby is a man, and no religion prescribes female circumsition, that is a cultural thing, not a religious one.
As for your statement against circumsition, circumsition has existed for thousands of years. It is embraced by both jews and arabs, and much of the west, and it is backed by science:
“On 28 March 2007 the World Health Organization and UNAIDS issued a statement endorsing circumcision in prevention of the spread of HIV [644]. This stated ?the efficacy of male circumcision in reducing female to male HIV transmission has now been proven beyond reasonable doubt. This is an important landmark in the history of HIV prevention?. It went on to recommend circumcision for men and boys. Infant circumcision was also advocated because it is ?less complicated and risky?.”
http://www.circinfo.net/hiv_the_aids_virus.html
“The foreskin contains sensory nerve receptors as are prevalent over the rest of the penis.
There is no scientific evidence that the extra complement of these in uncircumcised men leads to greater sexual pleasure. In fact, some uncircumcised men have been known to complain that their penis is too sensitive, leading to pain, and seek circumcision to relieve this. Diminishing sensitivity is in fact desired by many men and women in order to prolong the sex act by preventing premature ejaculation [86].
http://www.circinfo.net/circumcision_sensitivity_sensation_sexual_function.html
The benefits of circumcision include:
? Decrease in physical problems involving a tight foreskin [408].
? Lower incidence of inflammation of the head of the penis [162, 168, 172].
? Reduced urinary tract infections.
? Fewer problems with erections, especially at puberty.
? Decrease in certain sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as HIV, HPV, chlamydia, syphilis in men and their partner(s).
? Almost complete elimination of invasive penile cancer.
? Decrease in urological problems generally.
http://www.circinfo.net/health-benefits-and-reviews.html
It’s funny that gays, the people who are support to celebrate freedom and hate having other people tell them what to do, would tell other people what to do. Typical liberal hypocrisy.
posted by Bobby on
Bobby is a man. As for the benefits of circumsition, there are many:
? Decrease in physical problems involving a tight foreskin [408].
? Lower incidence of inflammation of the head of the penis [162, 168, 172].
? Reduced urinary tract infections.
? Fewer problems with erections, especially at puberty.
? Decrease in certain sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as HIV, HPV, chlamydia, syphilis in men and their partner(s).
? Almost complete elimination of invasive penile cancer.
? Decrease in urological problems generally.
http://www.circinfo.net/health-benefits-and-reviews.html
And for all you anti-freedom people out there, perhaps you forget that parents have the legal right to authorize surgical procedures in the best interests of their children.
posted by Les GS on
Few more stats from http://www.cirp.org/library/statistics/bollinger2004
In the USA:
For every 100,000 infant circumcisions, they may prevent:
0 to 5.3 deaths from testis cancer
0 to 1 deaths from penile cancer
For every 100,000 of infant circumcisions:
1000 cases of “subsequent circumcision complications,” including:
18 infant deaths
I’m a parent, and I left it to my sons to decide, as adults, whether the potential health benefits of circumcision, given their particular sex lives, was worth the risks of this surgery, and the reduction of their sexual sensitivity.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
So again, Priya, you are saying that all the people in Zeke’s congregation and denomination, since they are Christians, are promoting an “evil book” and calling for the death of all gays.
And it appears Zeke agrees with you.
The Church deserves to be on the receiving end of this righteous indignation. It should be challenged, taken to task and yes, even cursed for the harm it has caused in the name of God and Christ.
It’s funny how AKN, Zeke, and others always try to argue that “all gays aren’t like that”, but fall strangely silent, or even rationalize, statements like yours about all Christians.
Perhaps if they want to be perceived as different, they should act differently.
posted by Ashpenaz on
Read this article and then answer the question–who has killed more people lately, Christianity or the mainstream gay community?
http://pageoneq.com/news/2008/Antigay_pundits_pleased_at_admission_that_AIDS_is_a_gay_d_0215.html
posted by Priya Lynn on
Northdallass, the problem is your bible, it says :
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
There’s nothing in the gay community’s criticism of religion that remotely aproaches that kind of evil.
The very foundation of your religion is evil. The torture and murder of the innoncent Jesus for the wrongs of others. We know instinctively that its wrong to punish people for things they didn’t do. We know instinctively that one person can’t take responsibility for the wrongs of others and yet this abomination is what you base the very foundation of your religion upon.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Ashpenaz, the gay community didn’t kill any of the people you refer to, AIDS did. The rejection and marginalization of gay people by the religious community is exactly what leads to shame based reckless behaviors that cause AIDS. Once again, the blaim falls on your religious community.
posted by Jimbo on
Hey Ashpenaz, I didn’t mean REPARATIVE therapy. Quit stuffing words in my mouth. Dammit, you are one humungous pain in the hind quarters. I mean therapy, as in get your effin life together therapy. Others may respect you, but I sure as hell don’t. Didn’t it ever cross your pea-sized mind that maybe, just maybe, you can’t find a steady is because they don’t choose to get involved with a simpering, woe-is-me basketcase? There are most likely loads of fellows who would like to hook up with you, but the bettin’s good they stay away because they see the neuroses of a sick, pathetic mam. You have more issues than a Times Square newsstand.
As far as that smarmy remark about foreclosure: my house is paid for, thanks.
posted by Ashpenaz on
In order to undergo reparative therapy, I have to believe there is something wrong with me. In order to undergo the therapy you suggest, I have to believe something is wrong with me. I don’t think there is anything wrong with me. I’m not going to do anything for shame-based reasons anymore. Also, as per my above post, I’m not sure why you think anything I say is “woe is me.” I’m still here skipping and humming because there are no gays in my life. I hope, based on some of the more thoughtful posts here, to meet rational, adult gays, but we won’t be meeting at the house you inherited.
Gays having unprotected sex with multiple partners have killed more people than Christians.
Older gays taking advantage of young, confused gays have killed more people and caused more suicides than Christians.
It’s better to be a fundamentalist and grow to adulthood than be an out ‘n proud gay and die from the abuse and indifference of a callous, shallow subculture.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Ashpenaz, your contradictory claims show you to be lying. You claim to be happy and skpping that there are no gays in your life, yet constantly lamenting that you don’t have that special someone to share a long term monogamous relationship with. This kind of schizophrenia doesn’t make anyone happy. Its one thing to lie to us, but please stop lying to yourself. You’re never going to find that special someone as long as you keep blindly and indiscriminately condemning all gays.
posted by Pat on
Older gays taking advantage of young, confused gays have killed more people and caused more suicides than Christians.
Umm. Yeah. Maybe in some alternate upside down universe.
It’s better to be a fundamentalist and grow to adulthood than be an out ‘n proud gay and die from the abuse and indifference of a callous, shallow subculture.
I guess, since being alive is better. Hmmm. Are gays where you are from that awful?
posted by Ashpenaz on
I’m not sure why people on this board are so unwilling to look at that segment of the gay community which consists of older men praying on confused youth–and then taking responsibility for the consequences. You pretend it doesn’t exist or that it isn’t abusive or that nobody has died of drugs, suicides, or STDs. And you want me to get therapy because I hold the gay community accountable.
Have you ever seen Suddenly Last Summer, you know, the gay classic where Katherine Hepburn is trying to force Elizabeth Taylor to have a lobotomy because Kate can’t handle the truth Liz is telling her? Well, it’s not just a movie to get ideas for costumes, girlfriend, it’s about the way you treat anyone who won’t be quiet about the corrosive, deadly parts of the rainbow.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Umm. Yeah. Maybe in some alternate upside down universe.
My, how quickly they forget.
Barlow believes a combination of ignorance and emptiness led to his seroconversion. ?At that time I was the dumbest thing walking ? I thought I was invincible and could do whatever and not get ill,? said Barlow, who was 15 and dating a 35-year-old man. ?I thought I was in this relationship with this man who loved me, why do we need to wear condoms??
But of course, LGBT people have a ready excuse; it’s not our fault we can’t control ourselves, it’s all because of religious people.
The rejection and marginalization of gay people by the religious community is exactly what leads to shame based reckless behaviors that cause AIDS.
Of course, that would be believable, given the number of LGBT people who engage in promiscuous and reckless sex and spreading HIV and the fact that STD rates are skyrocketing, even in places with gay marriage. But unfortunately, there are those of us out here who do not engage in such, and that makes it far more obvious that it is a choice of the LGBT individual to have promiscuous sex and spread HIV.
And again, Priya, you flatter us with a post that demonstrates the emptiness of statements like Zeke’s and AKN about antireligious rhetoric being put out by LGBT people — because they have nothing to say about yours. Indeed, as Zeke’s statements demonstrate, they fully support and endorse what you are saying.
The Church deserves to be on the receiving end of this righteous indignation. It should be challenged, taken to task and yes, even cursed for the harm it has caused in the name of God and Christ.
posted by Marc on
“Barlow believes a combination… blablabla.”
Get your head out your ass. An anecdote isn’t evidence of shit, and given that Barlow was quoted in the article, we can assume he didn’t kill himself over his HIV or his improper relationship with an older man. The article you quoted doesn’t even reference suicide.
Show us statistics proving the reason gay men and lesbians kill themselves is to be blamed on other LGBT people, and has nothing to do whatsoever with having to endure hostility and persecution, sometimes even from their own families.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1970973/posts
Oh, see, a gay teenager was shot in the head after having endured bullying from other boys at school. And the Jesus freaks at the FreeRepublic thread are calling the now dead gay kid a “sick freak” and saying the fact that he used to dress women’s clothing contitutes a “daily parade of his sexuality through the use of clothing, make up and so forth”, which “is, in fact, harrassment”, which finally led his poor murderer “to the point he felt it necessary to defend himself with a firearm.”
Screw you and all those who say bigotry has nothing to do with the inner misery some of us are subjected to.
See also the case of Kenneth Cummings Jr. (http://www.republicoft.com/2007/10/15/the-lgbt-hate-crimes-project-kenneth-cummings-jr/), a gay man who was killed because his murderer was supposedly doing God’s work.
Does this mean gays are killing themselves massively, or being killed by Christians, only or primarily because of religious bigotry? No, but your cherry-picked anecdotes don’t prove anything too, and you shouldn’t arrogantly act as if they do in order to bash gays in general and to have a rhetorical weapon against your opponents.
“But of course, LGBT people have a ready excuse; it’s not our fault we can’t control ourselves, it’s all because of religious people.”
Typical: arguing against a strawman.
“Of course, that would be believable, given the number of LGBT people who engage in promiscuous and reckless sex and spreading HIV and the fact that STD rates are skyrocketing, even in places with gay marriage”
Oh yes, it is indeed surprising that gays are not 100% married when two or three years ago a law allowing them to get married was approved! Lol! Heterosexuals have centuries of family tradition, and more than enough role models of committed couples to look up for. When you and some social conservatives, such as the retarded Stanley Kurtz, question gay marriage on the grounds that gays are not marrying in huge numbers after some few years of being allowed to, I can only laugh, but not without a hint of despise. I believe that were you heterosexual, you’d be joining the conservative monkeys at that thread in their hateful attempts to justify the murder of a gay kid.
“The Church deserves to be on the receiving end of this righteous indignation. It should be challenged, taken to task and yes, even cursed for the harm it has caused in the name of God and Christ.”
Why are the above statements bigotry? Its original author has shown quotes from the Bible which depicts the treatment men like you, ND30, would be subjected to. Modern churches mostly refrain from repeating those words for fear of a public reaction, but they haven’t refrained from demonizing us and, as the FR thread proves, minimizing wrong-doings against us.
posted by Pat on
My, how quickly they forget.
Barlow believes a combination of ignorance and emptiness led to his seroconversion. ?At that time I was the dumbest thing walking ? I thought I was invincible and could do whatever and not get ill,? said Barlow, who was 15 and dating a 35-year-old man. ?I thought I was in this relationship with this man who loved me, why do we need to wear condoms??
NDT, you have to do better than that. No, I didn’t forget that there are examples of gay predators. And if you reread my post, I don’t believe I said there were NO instances in which a gay person caused another to commit suicide (even though your example does not indicate suicide didn’t result from the predator’s despicable behavior). And I didn’t say that when a gay person commits suicide because of a gay predator, it was because of religious people. Many (not all, repeat, not all) of them cause enough pain to other gay teens, so I don’t have to blame them for additional wrongs.
But unfortunately, there are those of us out here who do not engage in such…
Yep, I belong to the “us” as well. But I consider it far from unfortunate, thank you.
“The Church deserves to be on the receiving end of this righteous indignation. It should be challenged, taken to task and yes, even cursed for the harm it has caused in the name of God and Christ.”
Why are the above statements bigotry? Its original author has shown quotes from the Bible which depicts the treatment men like you, ND30, would be subjected to.
I don’t believe the statement is bigotry, but I disagree with it. I don’t blame the Church for the wrongs. I blame the extreme individuals who use the Bible or whatever to justify their bigotry against homosexuals or whomever else they feel like spewing their hate and injustice against. I know far too many Christians, gay and straight, who are upstanding people, and recognize the wrongs of some people in Christianity. For every “Christian” clown like Dobson, LaBarbera, Robertson, Phelps, etc., there are thousands of Christians who are good and moral people. Just as I am not going to blame every Christian for the evil of some Christians, I am not going to blame every gay person for the evil of some gay persons.
Yes, the Bible has God ordered people dead for mindboggling reasons and all that garbage. But remember, these are persons who wrote what God ordered these things. Whether or not people believe that the words in the Bible are literally God’s or not is irrelevant. We have a long tradition of laws that murder is wrong and punishable, period. Anyone who wants to use the Bible, Koran, or other text to murder is responsible, not the text they quoted from.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Northdallass said “And again, Priya, you flatter us with a post that demonstrates the emptiness of statements like Zeke’s and AKN about antireligious rhetoric being put out by LGBT people — because they have nothing to say about yours.”
Zeke and AKN don’t use their religion as an excuse to bash gays whereas you do. Unlike you they acknowledge the wrongs anti-gay christians have committed against gays. Pointing out the wrongs of Christians against gays isn’t rhetoric, its just the facts. We’ve seen the foundation of your bible’s attitude towards gays and it is this:
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
There’s no forgiving that kind of evil attitude towards those that have harmed no one and you like the evil person you are defend that bible and refuse to call for such evil to be removed from it because you are virulently hateful of those who harm no one.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Ah yes, Marc.
An anecdote isn’t evidence of shit
And then you turn right around and quote one to prove your point.
What’s really funny is that there are as many people on that FreeRepublic post you cited saying that, no matter what, killing another person isn’t justified — for example:
How exactly was this self defense?
Deadly force as an option against ‘he makes me uncomfortable dressing the way he does’ is a load of cowpies.
Or:
Call me a “degenerate” if you want but this kid is a sick psychopath. I hope he spends the rest of his short, miserable life behind bars. He took a gun to school and put a bullet into the back of another kid’s head.
Contrast that with your willingness to claim that Kevin Barlow’s story is “shit” and that it didn’t really happen and doesn’t prove anything.
Typical: arguing against a strawman.
I repeat the quote in question:
The rejection and marginalization of gay people by the religious community is exactly what leads to shame based reckless behaviors that cause AIDS.
That makes it clear that the religious community and ONLY the religious community is to blame for gay promiscuity and behaviors that spread HIV. It does not in any way state that gays are at all accountable or capable of controlling themselves sexually.
Oh yes, it is indeed surprising that gays are not 100% married when two or three years ago a law allowing them to get married was approved!
What difference would that make?
After all, if LGBT culture supported monogamy, fidelity, and lifetime commitment, marriage would be a logical step, wouldn’t it? I can’t imagine that these gay couples who sob about how awful their life is without marriage and how they can’t bear to go on another minute would not all instantly rush down and get married.
What is more likely is that which was exemplified by the enormous number of domestic partnerships that were being dissolved in California in 2004 right before our state law making them equivalent to marriage took place. Seems that the same gays and lesbians who whined constantly about how their lives were worthless without marriage didn’t want to accept the same rules as married people have.
Heterosexuals have centuries of family tradition, and more than enough role models of committed couples to look up for.
And so do gays — those same committed couples.
But we can see why that doesn’t happen; gays and lesbians, as I just pointed out, don’t want to follow that model. They don’t want to have the responsibilities and keep the commitments that those same heterosexual couples have to follow.
posted by Bobby on
“I’m not sure why people on this board are so unwilling to look at that segment of the gay community which consists of older men praying on confused youth–and then taking responsibility for the consequences.”
—#1, it’s a very small segment not worth discussing, although they should be punished severely. #2. An 18 year old is old enough to vote and join the military. #3. There are young people who lie about their age.
“You pretend it doesn’t exist or that it isn’t abusive or that nobody has died of drugs, suicides, or STDs. And you want me to get therapy because I hold the gay community accountable.”
—So what? In the straight community there are unwanted pregnancies, people not willing to use condoms, wife beatings, suicides, drugs, and all kinds of horrible things. Maybe you need to stop expecting so much from either community. Maybe you should thank God you’re gay. I don’t know about you, but women never really did like me, they certainly don’t hit on me, and sex with them has always been weird. If I wasn’t gay, I’d be screwed for life.
posted by Jimbo on
Ashpenaz, it’s like talking to a wall with you. I’ve decided not to waste any more time talking to a schizo.
Incidentally, I didn’t inherit my house. I bought it in 1988 & the mortgage was paid off in 2006.
posted by Priya Lynn on
I said “The rejection and marginalization of gay people by the religious community is exactly what leads to shame based reckless behaviors that cause AIDS.”
Northdallass replied “That makes it clear that the religious community and ONLY the religious community is to blame for gay promiscuity and behaviors that spread HIV. It does not in any way state that gays are at all accountable or capable of controlling themselves sexually.”.
Once again Northdallass claims someone’s made an absolute statement when they haven’t. You’re a liar. If you had any integrity you’d take responsibility for your promotion of a bible that calls for gay people to be put to death. You won’t do it because you don’t care about right and wrong, you whine about people pointing out such evils and do nothing to renounce it.
posted by Pat on
After all, if LGBT culture supported monogamy, fidelity, and lifetime commitment, marriage would be a logical step, wouldn’t it? I can’t imagine that these gay couples who sob about how awful their life is without marriage and how they can’t bear to go on another minute would not all instantly rush down and get married.
Whoa! Take it easy there. Wanting justice and equality is not the same as having an awful life
for not being able to marry.
And so do gays — those same committed couples.
But we can see why that doesn’t happen; gays and lesbians, as I just pointed out, don’t want to follow that model. They don’t want to have the responsibilities and keep the commitments that those same heterosexual couples have to follow.
I just don’t think it’s fair to compare the models of commitment between gay and straight persons at this point. There is still no tradition of same sex marriage, or anything mainstream in the gay community. Heck, it’s only four years that anti-sodomy laws were found to be unconstitutional. We’ve given straight people thousands of years to see how they would fare. Let’s give gay people at least a generation or so, and let’s see.
posted by Ashpenaz on
Well, Jimbo, you must not get the chance very often to talk to people who think they are just as smart as you are. It must bug you that I trust my own reason and experience over yours. You calling me a schizo is the same as Kate calling Liz a schizo in the above-mentioned Suddenly Last Summer. Perhaps you want everyone to have a lobotomy so we can remove that part of our brains that doesn’t see the world the same way you do.
Right now, I’m into Matt Hughes. Outside of the physical attractiveness, he’s a Christian man with strong values. I bring him up because I have never met a gay man with similar values, but I know lots of straight men like Matt Hughes–men of faith, devoted to their families, responsible, accountable, mature. He’s the kind of man I’d like to meet and build a life with. But there are no gay men like that–unless his equally attractive brother turns out to be gay.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Pointing out the wrongs of Christians against gays isn’t rhetoric, its just the facts.
That’s not what you’re doing, Priya.
The very foundation of your religion is evil. The torture and murder of the innoncent Jesus for the wrongs of others. We know instinctively that its wrong to punish people for things they didn’t do. We know instinctively that one person can’t take responsibility for the wrongs of others and yet this abomination is what you base the very foundation of your religion upon.
Or, as I cited here:
Richard, any philosophy that says humans are secondary to an imaginary character is facist.
Or this:
Typical Northdallass, blame Pickton and take no responsibility whatsoever for the role and motivation his bible and Christians played in commanding and justifying these murders.
Your bible commands that unmarried sex partners be murdered, Pickton was merely following what your “good” bible commanded. Your bible sets the example over and over again of your “god” murdering the innoncent for the wrongs of the guilty, its no surprise that Picton would use it to justify murder of prostitutes. Picton most certainly didn’t pervert the idea of what the bible is all about, he epitomized it – unjust torture and murder of innocent people. Stop making excuses for that bible of yours Northdallass, do what’s right and condemn the evil book that motivated and justified these murders, genocide, and all manner of injustice. Stop making excuses for the evil that Christians like you distribute and promote. Accept responsibility for a change.
And an favorite:
The bible you claim to worship and follow clearly sanctifies polygamy and incest. Any Christian attempts to deny that they support such things are clearly lies given their unbridled support and promotion of it as the unblemished word of god.
So, in short, you call Jesus’s sacrifice of Himself for us an “abomination”, you claim that the Bible is completely “evil”, you claim that all Christians support the murder and torture of innocent people, you claim all Christians support polygamy and incest, and you claim that any who state they don’t are lying.
And until other LGBT people say you’re wrong, Christians, in my opinion, should take your words at face value as what LGBT people truly believe.
And finally:
Once again Northdallass claims someone’s made an absolute statement when they haven’t.
I quote again:
The rejection and marginalization of gay people by the religious community is exactly what leads to shame based reckless behaviors that cause AIDS.
Your statement is clearly absolute. Nowhere in it do you assign any responsibility whatsoever to gays and lesbians for their sexual choices. Nowhere in it do you mention any other cause. You say that religious people are EXACTLY to blame for gay promiscuity and spreading HIV.
That leaves two possibilities; either all gays are promiscuous spreaders of HIV, or gays and lesbians CHOOSE to have promiscuous sex and spread HIV — which makes hash of your theory.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
I just don’t think it’s fair to compare the models of commitment between gay and straight persons at this point.
Why not?
After all, the claim is that gays should have the same thing as straights RIGHT NOW because there’s NO differences and they are absolutely comparable.
Right now, you’ve got LGBT people bailing OUT of relationships because they DON’T want to have to follow the same rules as married couples. That should be a paramount sign that marriage and gay culture and commitment are quite incompatible. Hence, I see no problem with society waiting to grant marriage until gay culture catches up.
posted by Pat on
After all, the claim is that gays should have the same thing as straights RIGHT NOW because there’s NO differences and they are absolutely comparable.
Although I don’t believe most gay persons believe that, I’ll speak for myself. I do believe that gay people should have equality as soon as possible, because I believe it is fair and just. I also believe that marriage equality is beneficial (in the long run) to society and gay couples. I don’t believe that gay couples are ABSOLUTELY comparable to straight couples. Heck, I don’t believe any two couples are ABSOLUTELY comparable.
Right now, you’ve got LGBT people bailing OUT of relationships because they DON’T want to have to follow the same rules as married couples. That should be a paramount sign that marriage and gay culture and commitment are quite incompatible. Hence, I see no problem with society waiting to grant marriage until gay culture catches up.
I’ll grant you the first sentence. But keep in mind that almost half of current straight married couples bail out of their marriages. We see plenty of the celebrity marriages that end up in divorce after a couple of years or less, and Las Vegas marriages that last all of 24 hours or less. Yet no one is suggesting that we get rid of marriage for straight persons. Among other reasons, it is because there are plenty of straight couples that are willing and do want to follow the rules. And I’ll grant you that some straight couples can and do follow the rules even if they do NOT marry. Heck, we all know gay couples who do as well.
I’ll also grant that more gay couples than straight couples today don’t follow the rules. One reason is that most straight children grow up with at least some expectation of getting married. And unfortunately, so are still too many gay children. The problem is that that expectation is they marry someone of the opposite sex.
Now let’s look at most gay people today when they were children. If and when they told their parents that they were gay, how many were responded with something like, “That’s great! You can still find someone you love and share a full-life commitment with that special someone.” For most of us, instead it was either 1) some level of acceptance or tolerance for the lucky of us, 2) denial from parents, and still the expectation of marriage to the opposite sex, 3) a wish that their gay child was a drug addict instead, 4) being berated at, have things thrown at, taken to “reparative” “therapy,” and/or thrown out of the house, 5) some other non pleasant thing that I can’t imagine someone else went through.
Now keep in mind, NDT, I am not claiming anything ABSOLUTE here. Despite unpleasantries as children, there are examples of gay (and straight) couples that are monogamous. So of course, it is possible to buck the odds. And we know that there are examples of straight children, who grow up with parents being an excellent model of monogamy, yet the children are still promiscuous and/or commit adultery with their string of multiple spouses.
I am not stating that gay people should NOT be responsible and excuse their promiscuity on the lack of gay marriage. I am not stating that marriage equality is a cure all, and that gay promiscuity will decrease and monogamy will increase to the levels that straight people have. I am saying that it is no surprise that the levels of sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility is as high as it is. And I do attribute PART of that to the fact that as children, there did not exist many models of monogamous gay couples, and certainly NO examples of married gay couples. And in too many cases, gay children were, on at least some level, abused for being gay by their parents and peers.
You’re expecting ALL persons to grow up, be monogamous, and not be promiscuous, no matter what the circumstances of their childhood. That’s fine. But the reality is we know that is NOT nearly enough. How do we know this? Because we see that when straight children do not grow up with models of monogamy, a much higher percentage grow up themselves being sexually irresponsible. Further, responsible parents don’t say, “You know what, let’s raise our (straight) children to be ashamed of their sexuality, and let’s emotionally and perhaps physically abuse them because of it, and see if they still grow up and be sexually responsible. That way we can see if our children our worthy of marriage.” Instead, the responsible parents try to raise the children to be sexually responsible and not impose some sick test of worthiness. And you’ll find a much higher percentage are monogamous and enter good marriages.
So because of current circumstances, no wonder why it appears, in general, that gay culture and commitment are quite incompatible. I don’t believe that society should wait until gay culture “catches up.” In fact, no matter what happens, I don’t believe gay culture will ever fully catch up. I do maintain that marriage equality is fair and just. I do believe that marriage equality will benefit gay culture and all of society much in the long run. And I do believe that many gay couples are ready for marriage, if they want it.
We should NOT expect that a comparable percentage of gay people will instantly get married. In fact, I do NOT want to see that happen. There are gay persons who are not ready for marriage. I have no illusions that the instant marriage equality happens, it will change that. And, of course, there are gay couples that also should not marry. Should be no surprise, in light of the fact that most straight relationships do not end up in marriage either.
posted by Pat on
And until other LGBT people say you’re wrong, Christians, in my opinion, should take your words at face value as what LGBT people truly believe.
NDT, I strongly disagree with your statement. For what it’s worth, I disagree with Priya Lynn’s statement. But whether or not I state so, it is simply her opinion. An opinion of one LGBT person, and perhaps shared by others. This should, in no way, be interpreted to be the opinion of other LGBT persons, whether or not they say so. I do not comment on every single statement that you or others make. And you or anyone else should not construe every instance of silence to mean that I agree with it.
I do not hold all Christians responsible for the likes of immoral “Christians” (such as Dobson, Phelps, LaBarbera, etc.). And I don’t hold all Christians responsible even if they don’t comment on these individuals. And I don’t hold Christians responsible if they don’t speak out against the wrongs that happen in the Bible, and assume that they are evil if they don’t speak out against it.
posted by Ashpenaz on
So, where am I going to meet a man with the same sense of his masculinity, the same traditional values, and the same dedication to his marriage and family as Matt Hughes?
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
James: “So, where am I going to meet a man with the same sense of his masculinity, the same traditional values, and the same dedication to his marriage and family as Matt Hughes?”
You have no interest in meeting such a person, your repeated diatribes on this site have shown this to be true. Go back to your X-gay therapy and find a nice dyke to make miserable before you join your mom in the rest-home.
posted by Bobby on
“So, where am I going to meet a man with the same sense of his masculinity, the same traditional values, and the same dedication to his marriage and family as Matt Hughes?”
—You just did. Nice to meet you, I have the same values you have. However, I doubt I’m your type. You probably prefer lean men. But don’t give up hope, just keep placing those ads on craiglist, eventually somebody will like you and you’ll get a date.
posted by Ashpenaz on
Actually, I’m placing my bets on Yahoo Personals. Craigslist seems a bit creepy to me. I keep hoping for Matt Hughes’ brother or Paula Deen’s unmarried son to post on Yahoo.
posted by Priya Lynn on
I told Northdallass “Pointing out the wrongs of Christians against gays isn’t rhetoric, its just the facts.
Northdallass replied “That’s not what you’re doing, Priya.”.
Of course it is you fool. Your bible commands that unmarried sex partners be killed, your bible commands that gays be killed, your bible commands that those of other faiths be killed. Your bible sanctifies polygamy and incest. Your bible documents your god torturing and killing innocent people, the very foundation of your religion is the evil act of the torture and murder of the innocent Jesus for the wrongs of others – everyone knows its immoral to punish one person for what someone else has done. Those things are evil and your bible is rife with it, your bible is evil, that’s just the facts.
I said “The rejection and marginalization of gay people by the religious community is exactly what leads to shame based reckless behaviors that cause AIDS.”
Northdallass replied”Your statement is clearly absolute. Nowhere in it do you assign any responsibility whatsoever to gays and lesbians for their sexual choices. Nowhere in it do you mention any other cause. You say that religious people are EXACTLY to blame for gay promiscuity and spreading HIV.”.
Typical lies on your part. Nowhere did I say only the religious community is to blame for gays who or promiscuous or that gays are in no way accountable or able to control themselves as you claimed – you made that up, you lied, those are not my words.
Northdallass said “Right now, you’ve got LGBT people bailing OUT of relationships because they DON’T want to have to follow the same rules as married couples.”.
They aren’t married you idiot. When they’re married then you can suggest that they follow the same rules as married couples.
Northdallass said “That should be a paramount sign that marriage and gay culture and commitment are quite incompatible. Hence, I see no problem with society waiting to grant marriage until gay culture catches up.”
Nonsense. There is no requirement that other races meet “committment quotas” before they are allowed to marry and their shouldn’t be for gays either. Blacks have more problematic relationships than whites and we don’t use that as an excuse to deny them the right to marry (any more). We don’t deny murderers or rapists the right to marry so don’t give us this BS that there’s some sort of morality test before people are allowed to do so, because there isn’t. If societies going to let everyone else marry without qualifications it can’t morally deny the same right to gays.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Pat said “Now keep in mind, NDT, I am not claiming anything ABSOLUTE here.”.
LOL, Pat, I applaud your patience and optimism. But little doubt Northdallas will take something you’ve said, say, “in other words”, “in short you’re saying”, “what you mean is” and then claim you’ve said something absolute twisted beyond all recognition as to what you actually did say. Similar as to when he consistently claims that one person’s opinion, such as mine, represents all LGBTs.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
I do not hold all Christians responsible for the likes of immoral “Christians” (such as Dobson, Phelps, LaBarbera, etc.). And I don’t hold all Christians responsible even if they don’t comment on these individuals. And I don’t hold Christians responsible if they don’t speak out against the wrongs that happen in the Bible, and assume that they are evil if they don’t speak out against it..
Unfortunately, Pat, the LGBT Priya Lynn does, as I cited above.
Priya Lynn has made it clear that silence equals complicity and agreement by her statements. Until gays and lesbians publicly repudiate her statements and make it clear that she is wrong, gays and lesbians should be judged by the standard she has established.
The same with this statement:
Of course it is you fool. Your bible commands that unmarried sex partners be killed, your bible commands that gays be killed, your bible commands that those of other faiths be killed. Your bible sanctifies polygamy and incest. Your bible documents your god torturing and killing innocent people, the very foundation of your religion is the evil act of the torture and murder of the innocent Jesus for the wrongs of others – everyone knows its immoral to punish one person for what someone else has done. Those things are evil and your bible is rife with it, your bible is evil, that’s just the facts.
Again, according to the standards that Priya Lynn has set up, if you do not directly repudiate and condemn this statement, you support it. Either publicly repudiate her statements and state that she is wrong, or be held as complicit and agreeing with them.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Next up:
Typical lies on your part. Nowhere did I say only the religious community is to blame for gays who or promiscuous or that gays are in no way accountable or able to control themselves as you claimed – you made that up, you lied, those are not my words.
Again, the quote:
The rejection and marginalization of gay people by the religious community is exactly what leads to shame based reckless behaviors that cause AIDS.
Your statement is clearly absolute. Nowhere in it do you assign any responsibility whatsoever to gays and lesbians for their sexual choices. Nowhere in it do you mention any other cause. You say that religious people are EXACTLY to blame for gay promiscuity and spreading HIV.
That leaves two possibilities; either all gays are promiscuous spreaders of HIV, or gays and lesbians CHOOSE to have promiscuous sex and spread HIV — which makes hash of your theory and your attempt to blame all problems on religious people.
Now, either admit that gay people choose to have promiscuous sex and spread HIV, or go back to trying to blame it all on religious people.
posted by Pat on
Priya Lynn has made it clear that silence equals complicity and agreement by her statements. Until gays and lesbians publicly repudiate her statements and make it clear that she is wrong, gays and lesbians should be judged by the standard she has established.
In case you’re serious, NDT…I don’t think so.
Besides, for all I know, she is imposing this standard on you, because she believes you imposed this standard.
But whatever the case, if anyone here tells me that I have to publicly repudiate the Bible, since otherwise my silence means I condone naughty things, my response will be along the lines, “I don’t think so.”
By the way, even if you are correct about Priya Lynn’s standards on other posters here, you do realize that I am under no obligation to follow them. I’ve got my own standards here, and I think they’re pretty damn good.
posted by Karen on
“That leaves two possibilities; either all gays are promiscuous spreaders of HIV, or gays and lesbians CHOOSE to have promiscuous sex and spread HIV”
This is the most ridiculous kind of false dilemma.
And I would like to point out that lesbians have by FAR the lowest rate of HIV infection: gay men, straight women, straight men, lesbians. If you’re going to blame gays for HIV without acknowledging how religious oppression has been a contributing factor, at least leave the women out of it.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Northdallass said “Your statement is clearly absolute. Nowhere in it do you assign any responsibility whatsoever to gays and lesbians for their sexual choices. Nowhere in it do you mention any other cause. You say that religious people are EXACTLY to blame for gay promiscuity and spreading HIV.”.
No, it is not absolute. Nowhere in it did I say that gays and lesbians have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for there sexual choices, nowhere in it did I say that there is no other cause for sexual promiscuity. If you read it that way you are wrong, that is not what I’m saying and I’m telling you that clearly now. Stop lying and claiming I said something I didn’t. It is a fact, the rejection and marginalization of gay people by the religious community is exactly what leads to shame based reckless behaviors that cause AIDS which is not to say it is the only thing that causes AIDS.
And now that Pat has come out and said that he doesn’t agree with me about the bible he’s put the lie to your statement that LGBTs fully endorse and support what I’m saying. Now repent of your sin and state that you lied about that and that you will be a better person in the future and never falsely assert again that all LGBTs fully support and endorse what I say.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And now that Pat has come out and said that he doesn’t agree with me about the bible he’s put the lie to your statement that LGBTs fully endorse and support what I’m saying.
Obviously Pat is not telling the truth.
The reason why is very simple; you would never be so hypocritical as to fail to attack someone who refuses to repudiate and condemn the Bible; after all, that would mean that that person, as you put it, supports a book that motivated and justified these murders, genocide, and all manner of injustice”. You would order them to “stop making excuses for the evil that Christians….distribute and promote” and to “accept responsibility for a change”.
So either Pat is lying…..or you have been exposed as a complete hypocrite.
Stop lying and claiming I said something I didn’t.
Which is why, I suppose, you’re suddenly rewriting the blanket statement you made, instead of just sticking with it. 🙂
posted by Priya Lynn on
Pat doesn’t use his religion as an excuse to attack innocent gays. His religion as he conceives it isn’t damaging to others – yours is and that’s why you are deserving of condemnation.
I told Northdallass “Stop lying and claiming I said something I didn’t.”
Northdallass replied “Which is why, I suppose, you’re suddenly rewriting the blanket statement you made, instead of just sticking with it.”.
I didn’t rewrite it, I included exactly as I originally stated. As you continue to willfully misconstrue it I added clarification as to the fact that I am not stating the absolutes you falsely claim I am. You claim to have misunderstood me, I’ve clarified that I’m not saying gays and lesbians have no responsibility whatsoever for their sexual choices and I’m not saying there is no other cause of promiscuity, you now have no excuse to be falsely claiming that I did. I repeat, the rejection and marginalization of gay people by the religious community is exactly what leads to shame based reckless behaviors that cause AIDS – that’s all I’m saying.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
Pat doesn’t use his religion as an excuse to attack innocent gays.
And that, amusingly enough, makes up for the fact that he supports a book that, as you shrieked:
Your bible sanctifies polygamy and incest. Your bible documents your god torturing and killing innocent people, the very foundation of your religion is the evil act of the torture and murder of the innocent Jesus for the wrongs of others – everyone knows its immoral to punish one person for what someone else has done. Those things are evil and your bible is rife with it, your bible is evil, that’s just the facts.
Or a religion that:
The very foundation of your religion is evil. The torture and murder of the innoncent Jesus for the wrongs of others. We know instinctively that its wrong to punish people for things they didn’t do. We know instinctively that one person can’t take responsibility for the wrongs of others and yet this abomination is what you base the very foundation of your religion upon.
This is not surprising; after all, it mirrors that row over polygamy, where you were adamantly against it and condemning anyone who in any way supported it until you were shown the LGBT Karen’s support for it.
In short, Priya, you’re a hypocrite. 🙂
As you continue to willfully misconstrue it I added clarification as to the fact that I am not stating the absolutes you falsely claim I am.
“Added clarification” — or, in simpler terms, rewrote it.
And then, this is howlingly hilarious:
I’ve clarified that I’m not saying gays and lesbians have no responsibility whatsoever for their sexual choices
You’re not saying that gays and lesbians are responsible for their sexual choices. You’re trying to twist and spin to avoid that as much as you possibly can, because it makes hash out of your attempt to blame AIDS and gay promiscuity on religious people.
posted by Priya Lynn on
Yes, Northdallass, given that Pat doesn’t use his religion as an excuse to attack innocent gays he’s several steps up from you on the morality ladder.
And we’ve seen where you stand on polygamy, when I condemned polygamy, incestuous and pedophillic marriage you screamed “all of your statements are discriminatory. It should not be automatically assumed that children are incapable of consent; that’s age discrimination. It should not be automatically assumed that being related to someone prevents you from giving informed consent; that’s discrimination on the basis of lineage or family. It should not be automatically assumed that all multiple marriages are exploitive; that’s discrimination based on assumptions about private lifestyle decisions…your attitude that people should not be allowed to marry their preferred sexual partner or partners is unconstitutional”.
Now you’re whining that that is okay because Karen supported polygamy too. You’re “like the immature teenage girl who argues that she should be allowed to do something because “everyone else” is doing it.”.
Northdallass said “You’re not saying that gays and lesbians are responsible for their sexual choices. You’re trying to twist and spin to avoid that as much as you possibly can, because it makes hash out of your attempt to blame AIDS and gay promiscuity on religious people.”.
Gays and lesbians have some responsibility for their sexual choices as do the Christians who’s rejection and marginlization of gays leads to shame based behaviors that causes AIDS. Gays and lesbians accept their responsiblities, but unlike them you accept no responsibility for your rejection and marginalization of gays and the harm that causes. You are the one causing harm and refusing to take any reponsibility for it.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And again, Priya, you demonstrate your hypocrisy; something is wrong unless it’s an LGBT person you like doing it, and then you support and endorse it.
Hence your last statement, which is completely contradictory; you claim “gays and lesbians take responsibility”, but then you blame Christians for gay promiscuity and spreading disease.
What that makes obvious is that all a gay person who has sex with a fifteen-year-old child and gives him HIV needs to do is claim religion caused him to do it, and then Priya will come shriek how right he is and how innocent he is.
After all, you shriek how right polygamy is and refuse to condemn Karen for endorsing it as you do others. You shriek how right Pat is and refuse to condemn him for refusing to condemn the Bible as you demand of others.
Why should society respect or care about LGBTs like you when your hypocrisy is so obvious?
posted by Priya Lynn on
No hypocrisy Northdallass, you use your religion as an excuse to lie, demonize and attack innocent gays and that is why you are evil and they are not. And to highlight just how frequently you lie you did it yet again in your last ponst when you said “you shriek how right polygamy is”.
I never said any such thing, you’re a liar. It is you who defended polygamy when I opposed it, you who defended incest and pedophila:
“”all of your statements are discriminatory. It should not be automatically assumed that children are incapable of consent; that’s age discrimination. It should not be automatically assumed that being related to someone prevents you from giving informed consent; that’s discrimination on the basis of lineage or family. It should not be automatically assumed that all multiple marriages are exploitive; that’s discrimination based on assumptions about private lifestyle decisions…your attitude that people should not be allowed to marry their preferred sexual partner or partners is unconstitutional”.
And again your only excuse for doing this is that “others are doing it too”. You’re “like the immature teenage girl who argues that she should be allowed to do something because “everyone else” is doing it.”.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
No hypocrisy Northdallass, you use your religion as an excuse to lie, demonize and attack innocent gays and that is why you are evil and they are not.
Let’s see an example of “innocent gays” like Priya supports.
A homosexual foster couple were left free to sexually abuse vulnerable boys in their care because social workers feared being accused of discrimination if they investigated complaints, an inquiry concluded yesterday.
Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey were one of the first homosexual couples in the country to be officially approved as foster parents.
They looked after 18 children in only 15 months.
In reality, they were paedophiles, who repeatedly abused the children in their care.
Even when the mother of two of the children reported her suspicions to the council, officials accepted the men’s explanations and did nothing.
Instead of banning children from staying with Faunch and Wathey, they sent youngsters with more serious problems to them. Between them, the couple abused four boys aged between eight and 14.
In a scathing report published yesterday, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council was condemned for treating the men as “trophy carers”.
The children’s charity Kidscape said those in charge of overseeing the safety of children in the care of Faunch and Wathey had allowed political correctness to override common sense.
The report, following an independent review of the case, said: “One manager described the couple as ‘trophy carers’ which led to ‘slack arrangements’ over placement.
“Another said that by virtue of their sexuality they had a ‘badge’ which made things less questionable.
“The sexual orientation of the men was a significant cause of people not ‘thinking the unthinkable’.
“It was clear that a number of staff were afraid of being thought homophobic.
“The fear of being discriminatory led them to fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive.”
The report also accused the council of failing to carry out proper assessments before and after the children were placed with Faunch and Wathey.
“Issues arose in the first longer-term placement of two children, including potential indicators of child sexual abuse, which were inadequately investigated, understood or acted upon,” it said.
“More children were then placed with Faunch and Wathey, some successfully, some with concerns which were again inadequately investigated, understood or acted upon.
“The practice of some social workers in this case was deficient.”
The report’s authors, led by former Surrey social services chief Brian Parrott, said they could not be sure that Faunch and Wathey were “predatory paedophiles” who became foster carers in order to have access to children.
They added: “Our criticisms are much more of those in middle management whose job it was to piece together what was really happening, to ask the right questions and to be critical and probing.”
Wathey, 42, was jailed for five years in June last year after being convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a child and one offence of causing a child to watch sexual activity.
Faunch, 33, received a six-year jail sentence after he was found guilty of five charges of engaging in sexual activity with a child and two of taking indecent photographs of a child.
The couple, who lived together in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, were approved as foster carers by the council in August 2003.
Their victims included a 14-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism,who had a mental age of seven and was forced by Wathey to watch gay pornography.
Another youngster with a “very troubled background” was only in their care for a few weeks before being abused by Faunch.
But social workers had been aware of “inappropriate” behaviour long before then.
Just eight months after they started as professional foster carers a mother of eight-year-old twins, who couldn’t cope with raising them on her own, voiced concerns about them with social services.
While visiting the twins, the 34-yearold single mother was shown a picture taken by Faunch showing one of the boys going to the lavatory during a visit to Butlin’s holiday camp in Skegness and discovered a similar snap had been taken of the other twin.
A social worker took the photograph and promised a full investigation.
But the court heard that not only did social services staff lose the photo, they decided against contacting police after accepting Faunch’s explanation that he was trying to embarrass the boys into shutting the lavatory door.
Police later discovered that, days after the photos were taken, Faunch recorded an indecent video of the twins taking a shower. They began abusing the boys three months later.
Undetected, the offences continued over an 11-month period, Leeds Crown Court was told last year.
Police were called in to investigate the couple only after one of the abused boys told a woman he had been touched by one of the men.
Faunch abused all four boys and Wathey targeted one of them.
Judge Sally Cahill, QC, said neither had shown “empathy, remorse or any responsibility for their actions”.
Yesterday’s report said that the fostering panel which approved Faunch and Wathey accepted without hesitation their request to look after only boys on the basis that they didn’t feel equipped to look after girls.
The report made 41 recommendations for overhauling the council’s fostering process.
Last night, Michelle Elliott, a director of Kidscape, said: “Common sense went out of the window when they allowed political correctness to take over in this case.”
This happened because people were cowed by shrieking bullies like Priya who claim all gay people are “innocent” and that anyone who criticizes a gay person in any way, shape, or form is “evil” and “homophobic”.
posted by Priya Lynn on
And I might add no one is a bigger hypocrite than you. You claim to be a christian and yet you lie all the time and break one of the 10 commandments that you claim to follow.
posted by Priya Lynn on
And you lie yet again. I don’t support all those people and contrary to your lie I never claimed all gays are innocent. You’re a lying hypocrite.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
LOL….nope, I criticized those gays and Priya shrieked that I was “demonizing” people who were “innocent”.
Besides, as Priya claims, it’s not those gays’ fault; “religious people” are at fault for gays’ sexual behaviors.
posted by Jared on
It’s pretty clear that ND30 NEVER met a homophobe that he didn’t like or a gay person (to the left of Roy Cohn) that he did.
posted by Zeke on
Bobby, try to find a European study that backs any of those claims up. Also, try to go to a European website and do one of your anti-foreskin rants and see what kind of reception you get from the men there. See how many of them have all of the terrible problems that you claim is so common. Ask them how unhappy their uncircumcised penises have made them. Ask how many of them wish they were circumcised and how many would like to be. Then get back to me.
NorthDallasThirty, check out this website (of actual comments made by Christian fundamentists) and get back to me about how it is the Christians who are always the innocent victims of verbal assaults. Pay particular attention to the comments made by these good Christians, on good Christian websites, about people of other faiths, homosexuals and atheists.
As for going back to my church and telling them what I’ve said here, I already have and they agree with me. I am a member of the United Church of Christ which isn’t affraid to admit when we as a congregation and as a faith have erred, oppressed, hurt people unnecessarily or acted in a way that was not Christ-like.
I know that such things are anathema to you but we don’t view taking responsibility for past mistakes and taking responsibility for our words and actions as a sign of weakness or as something to be ashamed of.
Are you really arguing that the church has nothing to be ashamed of in its history? Do you really think that they have done nothing wrong in their dealings with gay people? Do you really believe that gay people’s anger with and fear of the church has NO justification?
I’m pretty sure that most gay people’s animosity toward the church is defensive rather than offensive; more in response to the church’s homophobia than spontaneous disdain.
After reading you posts over the years it seems pretty clear that Jared just may be right. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these discussions that you didn’t strongly take the side of whoever or whatever was accused of insulting/attacking/assaulting a (non-Republican) gay person or gay people in general.
I suspect, truth be known, you don’t really give a damned about spirituality, Christianity or religion of any kind. You’re attraction to Christianity, just like your seeming attraction to all things right-wing and/or homophobic is due to its antipathy for gay people and anything related to anything considered “gay culture” rather than any belief in a God or a God given moral/ethical code. If fundamentalists and Republicans became supportive of gay people tomorrow you would lose interest in them both before the sun came up the next morning.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
As for going back to my church and telling them what I’ve said here, I already have and they agree with me.
You might want to read again what I actually asked you to do, Zeke.
Now, go to church and tell all your friends there that they deserve every bit of this vitriol hurled at them by gays and lesbians, and that they should just shut up and take it because it’s all their fault for being such awful and unaccepting people who, because of their mental illness, support a facist(sic) ideology that promotes mass murder, torture, and evil.
And I cited quotes from gays and lesbians that supported exactly that.
Since you want to blame all Christians based on the website you didn’t even cite correctly, I see no reason why you can’t be held accountable based on the statements of your fellow liberal gays and lesbians.
I’m pretty sure that most gay people’s animosity toward the church is defensive rather than offensive; more in response to the church’s homophobia than spontaneous disdain.
Ah yes, “homophobia”.
Where have I seen gays and lesbians using that as a weapon before?
A homosexual foster couple were left free to sexually abuse vulnerable boys in their care because social workers feared being accused of discrimination if they investigated complaints, an inquiry concluded yesterday.
Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey were one of the first homosexual couples in the country to be officially approved as foster parents.
They looked after 18 children in only 15 months.
In reality, they were paedophiles, who repeatedly abused the children in their care.
Even when the mother of two of the children reported her suspicions to the council, officials accepted the men’s explanations and did nothing.
Instead of banning children from staying with Faunch and Wathey, they sent youngsters with more serious problems to them. Between them, the couple abused four boys aged between eight and 14.
In a scathing report published yesterday, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council was condemned for treating the men as “trophy carers”.
The children’s charity Kidscape said those in charge of overseeing the safety of children in the care of Faunch and Wathey had allowed political correctness to override common sense.
The report, following an independent review of the case, said: “One manager described the couple as ‘trophy carers’ which led to ‘slack arrangements’ over placement.
“Another said that by virtue of their sexuality they had a ‘badge’ which made things less questionable.
“The sexual orientation of the men was a significant cause of people not ‘thinking the unthinkable’.
“It was clear that a number of staff were afraid of being thought homophobic.
“The fear of being discriminatory led them to fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive.”
Or this situation:
Some of the most unlikely attendees of Sunday’s kinky leather fetish festival were under four feet tall.
Two-year-olds Zola and Veronica Kruschel waddled through Folsom Street Fair amidst strangers in fishnets and leather crotch pouches, semi and fully nude men.
The twin girls who were also dressed for the event wore identical lace blouses, floral bonnets and black leather collars purchased from a pet store.
Fathers Gary Beuschel and John Kruse watched over them closely. They were proud to show the twins off…..
Father of two, John Kruse said it is an educational experience for children. He said there were conservative parents against having kids at the event.
“Those are the same close-minded people who think we shouldn’t have children to begin with,” he said.
So you see, Zeke, according to gays and lesbians, it’s “homophobic” to investigate gays for child molestation. It’s “close-minded” to say that people should not dress children in slave gear and take them to a sex fair. Furthermore, according to gays and lesbians, religious people are all “mentally sick”, “fascist”, since they put humanity as secondary to a “imaginary character”, and claim that Christianity is an “abomination”, that Jesus’s sacrifics of Himself for us is proof that it is “evil”, that the Bible is an “evil” book, that Christians all support murder, torture, polygamy, and incest, and those that don’t are lying.
Do you think that’s justified, Zeke?
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
As for the remainder:
Are you really arguing that the church has nothing to be ashamed of in its history?
Of course not. My entire denomination exists because of a massive screwup on the part of the Catholic Church. Jesus Himself said there were always going to be tares in among the wheat.
Do you really think that they have done nothing wrong in their dealings with gay people?
Of course not. I’ve had first-hand experience on that one. But again, tares; are you tossing out the rest of the wheat because you find one?
Do you really believe that gay people’s anger with and fear of the church has NO justification?
Let’s see; you go to church without a problem, I go to church without a problem, Ash goes to church without a problem.
What exactly am I supposed to be angry and fearful over?
Now, let’s reverse the questions. Do you think the gay community and gay people have nothing to be ashamed of in their entire history? Do you really think that gay people have done nothing wrong in their dealings with religious people? Do you really believe that the attitude of many religious people towards gay people has no justification?
Because right now, what I’m seeing is this; you claim you go to church with no problems, but you fully endorse, support and justify the screaming fits of gays and lesbians who claim your fellow congregants are “mentally ill”, who claim they’re “fascist”, and who claim that they worship an “evil god” whose “evil book” endorses and supports torture, murder, polygamy, and incest — and that any of your fellow congregants who claim otherwise are lying.
Were they telling the truth, you’d have been burned at the stake several years ago. But for some reason, you can’t criticize these people, even though your own experience demonstrates that they’re flat-out lying; instead, you have to make up and spin excuses for them because they’re LGBT.
Where you and I differ is this; you are far more willing to justify attacks by your fellow gays and lesbians upon your fellow Christians, who you claim are supportive of you, than I ever will be. I have no problem telling religious people off when the need arises, but I am not going to automatically assume someone else is always right and justified because of their sexual orientation.
posted by Frank C on
I cannot understand the standpoint of evangelical Christianity. The mainline denominations have much greater strides with a alot of grace allowing gay and lesbians into their congregations. Let’s be real here—everyone that lives on this Earth is a sinner. Everybody that is involved or uninvolved with the Church is a sinner. Evangelicals (some, not all) like to make such distinctions as to attack gays–I never hear them attack unmarried heterosexuals living together, children out of wedlock, heterosexual premarital sex etc, etc. If they do attack the aforementioned activities—they do it fairly quietly and not with the virulence placed upon homosexuals. Allowing gays and lesbians into the Churches is what the truthful, loving Christianity and Jesus and God are all about. Jesus sat with prostitutes, tax collectors and Samaritans–that is what being Christian is all about and Jesus was Jewish no less!!! Gays and lesbians should go to Church—remember it’s all about worshipping God and not worrying about evangelicals ( and others) and what they think—who cares what they think!! They are not the Final Judge and Jury!!!!
posted by Frank C on
Interesting website with alot of different viewpoints!
To Ash–I do not deny that there are problems within the gay community that you suggest–drugs, older men etc. But it seems like you are taking a narrow view. Why does the US have the highest rates of children out-of-wedlock? Biologically, not a gay issue. You say that older men prey on younger men—do not older men prey on young girls—prostitutes, call girls etc.–they are seeking younger women. Globally, HIV/AIDS is dominantly heterosexually transmitted—-especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America. There was even a newspaper article in India—many did not believe that HIV/AIDS was homosexually transmitted because it is so rampant amoung heterosexuals–married and unmarried. Drug use—are there not heterosexuals that are addicted to drugs? Look at the reality TV programs devoted to it. You make great comments but you need to look overall rather than narrowly.
To NorthDallas— Again you make valid points but agian, you are viewing narrowly. The example you cited is good–both the gay couple and the social work agency are liable and should be jailed, fired, etc. But, you only cited one example. I can cite many, many cases that heterosexual couples abused children–in my state, the police arrested and jailed a Pentecostal minister for sexually abusing two little girls. Having worked part-time in a social work agency–I have seen it firsthand–I have had to pull kids out of homes for abuse, drugs, etc—all by heterosexual couples and singles. This is not to deny or condone what the gay couple did–this is to make a more balanced and look OVERALL at things rather than take a narrow view.
Thank you
posted by Lauren Dolly on
I’d just like to make note that their are 3 abominations against Homosexuals in The Bible, but there are over 300 abominations against Heterosexuals. I’ve asked many Christians to prove to me that The Bible says homosexuality is wrong. All of their examples were in the Old Testament. I’d simply tell them that I could not take the laws and rules in the Old Testament too seriously because The Bible also says in Deuteronomy 23:1 “Any man who’s penis is cut off or whose testicals are crushed, may not enter The Assembly of the Lord.” That would normally leave them without too much of an answer.
-Lauren, Age 18, Pennsylvania.