About those anti-aviatoin newsgroups

Homophobe *should* be applied to those who do not wish to associate with
homosexuals - why else would one make a blanket rejection of such an
otherwise diverse group of people as being unworthy of association, based
solely on their sexual behavior, except because of a deep-seated fear or
hatred for that behavior? And I have never heard anyone ever advocate extra
rights for gays, only for those rights and protections that will shield them
from the negative effects of other's prejudicial reactions to them. You may
not personally wish to have a black person as the scoutmaster of the local
scout troop, your opposition based solely on his race, but the law prevents
that irrational prejudice from impacting on the selection of the
scoutmaster. Homosexuals are only asking for (and rightfully deserve) the
same legal protections against the consequences of similar irrational
prejudices against their sexuality.


"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"Gary L. Drescher" wrote in message
news:FjM%a.167464$Ho3.19211@sccrnsc03...
"C J Campbell" wrote in
What a ludicrous accusation. Please cite a single documented instance
anywhere of an activist using the term "homophobe" to describe "anyone
who
is not a homosexual" (as opposed to describing those with an explicitly
anti-gay agenda--that is, an agenda that denies gay people a variety of
rights that are taken for granted by straight people).

You better extend it to people that do not wish to associate with
homosexuals, as well as anyone not willing to grant that EXTRA rights, as
well as other ambiguous terms that fall in when persuasion runs into
coercion.

The right to marry and thus extend spousal benefits that heterosexual
married couples enjoy such as survivor's pension coverage, employer provided
health insurance coverage, etc, to their partners, for starters. Sheesh,
one could spend all day listing all the ways heterosexuals and homosexuals
are treated differently based solely on their sexuality. The law cannot
force someone to like someone else, but it can insure you act publicly as if
you did in those areas that affect society as a whole.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

"Homophobe" may well be overused, but I'm not clear on how else one
would
describe anyone who is so afraid of someone else's sexual preference
that
they see a need to explicitly deny that person the same rights they
themselves enjoy.


What right is denied to homosexuals?

"Steve House" wrote in message
...

The right to marry and thus extend spousal benefits that heterosexual
married couples enjoy such as survivor's pension coverage, employer
provided
health insurance coverage, etc, to their partners, for starters.


Homosexuals are not denied that right.

"Steve House" wrote in message
...

Really?


Yes, really.



Go down to your local county clerk's office and apply for a
marriage license to someone of your own gender.


Marriage involves persons of the opposite sex. Homosexuals are free to
marry persons of the opposite sex just as heterosexuals are. Homosexuals
are not denied any rights in this matter, nor in any other matter I can
think of.

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
| "Robert Perkins" wrote in message
| ...
| Heartfelt religious conviction.
|
| Last I checked, separation of church and state was still the theoretical
| policy in the US. I don't find religious conviction to be a valid
| motivation for lawmaking and in any case, the religiously convicted fall
| smack in the "homophobe" camp. It's exactly this kind of imposition of
one
| person's morality on someone else, this intolerance of someone who's
| different, that is so objectionable.
|

Well, right. For example, if someone derives sexual pleasure from rape,
torture and murder, who are we to judge? Once you are born a thief, perhaps
you cannot help yourself. Are not laws against theft therefore unjust? Why
is it right to discriminate against thieves? Or Republicans? :-)

Peter, can you show even one law on the books that does not attempt to
impose one person's morality on another?

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 00:34:24 -0700, "Peter Duniho"
wrote:

Last I checked, separation of church and state was still the theoretical
policy in the US.

Separation of Church and State is not constitutional language. It's
popular theoretical policy today, but it has also become shorthand for
promoting the effective primacy of State over Church, which no
constructionist favors.

That's the thing many of these people fear, that the growing influence
of secular humanism in the U.S. will obviate their points of view. And
that's not a form of "homophobia" nearly as much as it is a form of
anti-federalism.

I don't find religious conviction to be a valid
motivation for lawmaking

Placing you in one minority group, albiet a particularly well-placed
one, these days. Honest religious conviction informs even your
opinions, Peter; even if you just don't *call* it religious
conviction, the worship of human reason is still based on a couple of
unprovables. Piety doesn't have to be directed at judaeo-christian
deity to be piety.

and in any case, the religiously convicted fall
smack in the "homophobe" camp.

And that's the demagoguery. Do the Scientologists or the Unitarians
fall into this "homophobe" camp? In any case, I and many like me were
pleased to permit behavior and keep company with people of all stripes
and preferences wherever they intersected with ours. But agitating for
political change so quickly is not a good idea. You gloss that with
your next paragraph:

Ahh...the old "change is bad" philosophy.

No, it's not "the old 'change is bad' philosophy", which is another
bit of demagoguery anyway, a reiteration of the "what are you afraid
of?" challenge, reducing it to being equivalent to "homophobe".
"Change is bad" is not a philosophy.

It's markedly more accruate to say that the *position* (not the
philosophy), is more like "rapid agitative change is disruptive to an
ordered society," which is true.

Easy divorce was one such change in the institution of marriage that
many people now feel was a bad move, citing single moms, deadbeat
dads, latchkey kids, double households, and other such evidence as
proof of the mistake. Now, people are calling for yet another change
in the institution with similar preparation and reasoning.

If we're gonna make such a change, we must, in my opinion, think
through all the ramifications of it, and carefully implement it in
stages, checking our work all the way. We haven't done that, in my
opinion. All we've done so far in the last 30 years is toss epithets
calling each other sub-human.

I've yet to hear of anyone
supporting these "no gay marriage" bills for whom that's their reason.
Please, show me someone whose reasoning is based on that.

You've responded to one.

More
interestingly, show me a single person involved in pushing for these bills
(i.e. not just someone saying "yeah, it's a good idea...I'd vote for it")
whose reasoning is based on that.

Members of my extended family, in connection with California Prop 22,
canvassed their own neighborhoods with flyers. I wrote to state
representatives and state senators expressing this line of reasoning.
Is Bill Clinton a "homophobe"? He signed the "Defense of Marriage Act"
into law.

Rob

Really, I had no intention of starting a heated discussion on homosexual
rights with my original post. This thread confirms some things for me,
though:

There is no one who is so intolerant as someone who professes to hate
intolerance. The Boy Scouts is a private organization devoted to the
interests of straight young males. So what? Those who cannot stand the
existence of such an organization genuinely deserve the appellation of
"heterophobes." It is hypocritical to assert that the Scouts are attempting
to impose their morality on others. They are doing no such thing. In fact,
the critics are attempting to impose their morality on the Scouts, which I
think is just wrong.

My personal feelings about the matter is that any private organization
should be able to discriminate against any group that it wishes for any
reason. This is the only way to achieve and maintain any kind of healthy
cultural and political diversity. Here is where modern liberalism has
failed. Instead of celebrating diversity, as it claims, modern liberalism
seems solely interested in an Orwellian, politically correct monoculture
where the only value is "tolerance" -- which has been given a new and
twisted definition meaning only "tolerant of the party line."

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

Here is where modern liberalism has failed.


Modern liberalism has failed EVERYWHERE.

You just made the point I was illustrating - to arbitrarily define that
"marriage" can only be between persons of opposite gender may be traditional
but it is an anachronism based solely on an aversion to homosexuality. It
presupposes that homosexual love is somehow of lesser moral quality than
heterosexual love. People should be free to marry any person who wishes to
marry them back, regardless of their respective genders, and have the legal
entity of a marriage of two same gender persons be indistinguishable in any
manner from that of two opposite gender persons. That is not to say that
religious organizations shouldn't be able to define marriage and those
eligible to do so within the context of their congregations and rituals as
they wish - I was married in the Catholic church and my wife and I had to
conform to certain requirements that were not part of the civil requirements
for marriage and that is at it should be. But the *civil* authority should
treat same-sex and opposite-sex couples exactly alike in every respect,
including the terminology that is used to refer to the union.


"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
et...

"Steve House" wrote in message
...

Really?


Yes, really.



Go down to your local county clerk's office and apply for a
marriage license to someone of your own gender.


Marriage involves persons of the opposite sex. Homosexuals are free to
marry persons of the opposite sex just as heterosexuals are. Homosexuals
are not denied any rights in this matter, nor in any other matter I can
think of.

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 07:16:17 -0700, "C J Campbell"
wrote in Message-Id:
:

Well, right. For example, if someone derives sexual pleasure from rape,
torture and murder, who are we to judge? Once you are born a thief, perhaps
you cannot help yourself. Are not laws against theft therefore unjust?


You are comparing acts which deprive an individual of his rights to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, with consensual love,
that doesn't infringe on anyone. I know you're more astute than that.


--

Irrational beliefs ultimately lead to irrational acts.
-- Larry Dighera,