You clearly miss my point, Animalman, about the relentless regurgitation of the same accusations that you and others have made throughout this topic. I answer questions (and Captain Sammitch and others) and you come right back and say the same thing of "how can you justify your position, it's just ignorant of you to say that?" when I (and others) just answered.

You just come back and back and back, and offer the same objections and arguments over and over, to points already answered.

You say it's a long topic.

Well, yes it is. But if you're going to accuse me of things, then I think you have a responsibility to read what I and others have already said.


I guess the only way to clarify what I'm saying is to go through another pointlessly exhaustive point-by-point:


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posted by Animalman:
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posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

On the contrary, as I've detailed repeatedly, it changes the definition of marriage and the integrity of Christianity, if our culture permits gay marriage.



But that doesn't affect you personally. You can still consider homosexuality immoral and wrong, if you so choose. You don't have to change your views.



You don't even have to go back 26 pages, I JUST SAID in detail how that affects my ability to live as a Christian, or even as a non-religious person who objects to homosexuality on moral grounds.

Legitimizing gays legally as a minority forces me to hire gays.
It forces me to rent apartments to gays.
It prevents me from insulating myself and my family from letting a pro-gay mindset override my own cultural beliefs.

And labels any attemt to insulate myself from that lifestyle as "a hate-crime" or "discrimination".

That, once again, because you chose to ignore my previous responses, is an infringement on my right to follow my own beliefs, and does affect me personally.



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posted by Animalman:
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posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

If gays are recognized as a "legitimate" minority, then a Christian who owns a business doesn't have the right to not hire a gay person whose lifestyle they don't agree with.



Unless being gay affects the success of the business, why should they care what lifestyle an employee has? Shouldn't the person also have the right to not be discriminated against?



No. Again, I already answered this and you simply didn't like the answer, so you slightly re-phrased and repeated the same question.

No, a gay person doesn't have that right. Any more than a Christian has the right to go into a workplace or public school and evangelize to others.
If a gay person is known to be gay, then it goes without question that they are making their homosexuality an issue, and essentially, promoting their gay beliefs and lifestyle by doing so.

Christian teachers can't even say "Merry Christmas" to their students, or display a nativity scene, or put a nativity scene in front of a firehouse or other government building without a backlash of legal action. That simple benign symbolic display is considered threatening.

But gays have the right to profess their beliefs and force them on others through their own disproportionately defended freedom of expression.

Which is a formula for corruption of the mainstream.

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posted by Animalman:
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posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

And ULTIMATELY, Christian parents attempting to raise their children teaching them Biblical principles, don't have the ability to prevent public schools from teaching a contradictory values system about homosexuality, without public school teachers and the entire system undermining the core values these parents are trying to teach their children.



Inherit the Gay Wind?

I suppose when you send your children to public school(or most any school, really), you run the risk of having the teacher imprinting their own personal values on your child, even if those values contradict your own.

In my opinion, parents should present enough information to allow their children to make up their own mind about their beliefs, and support their decision as best they can. That way each child is an individual, and not merely an extension of the parent. I've seen far too many kids spouting off ideas they clearly are just reciting, as if they are their own.



That "spouting off recited ideas" could just as easily be said about the mainstream liberal/politically-correct arguments in defense of gay rights that you've just repeated.

Parents have a right to follow their beliefs and teach their beliefs to their children.
It is not the function of teachers or the state to teach a contrary pro-gay belief system to students. If Christianity, and even "Merry Christmas" is banned from public schools, how disproportionately unfair and biased is it to say it's okay to teach pro-gay/anti-Christian values?

Your argument is biased toward the liberal side. If it was gay parents, and Christian teachers were teaching an opposing view that homosexuality is immoral, you wouldn't be arguing that it's the right of the children to hear both viewpoints and decide for themselves what to believe.

Again your argument has already been answered, but you relentlessly raise the same question that's already been answered. And present a re-spin that favors the secularist/liberal mindset.

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posted by Animalman:
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posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

All that shows is the liberal/pro-gay propaganda already [described] in britney's [previously posted] words: "your influence is growing", and [the influence of gays over the last 30 years] have swayed a whole generation away from the true Biblical perspective.



That's one interpretation. Mine is that it shows that people are finally starting to open their eyes, and are beginning to see just how hypocritical our society is, preaching freedom and equality yet denying it to those that simply wish to peacefully go about their lives.



Again, that's your soapbox editorial, and taking another dig at what I clearly already answered, but you just felt a need to editorialize one last time your self-presumed intellectual superiority on the issue.

I made clear that freedom and equality existed for gays for 10 years, since "don't ask/don't tell" in the military began, and spousal benefits for gays began.

Those who "simply want to live peacefully and go about their lives" are now trying to undermine my definition of marriage( and the Bible's definition of marriage and morality), and enact laws that infringe on my ability to practice my religion, my ability to raise my children the way I want, and even make it a crime to express my beliefs about homosexuality, or otherwise insulate myself from the gay culture.

As I've already said, clearly and repeatedly.
And you don't even have to go back more than a page or two to see this question already answered.

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posted by Animalman:
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posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

And as I said, to even quote Biblical verses that say homosexuality is immoral, can ALREADY be considered a "hate crime" in Canada.



"Hate crime"? A person can be arrested or fined in Canada for reciting biblical verses suggesting homosexuality is immoral?



Once again, you'e pointlessly repeated yourself. The question has been answered.

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posted by Animalman:
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posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

It's ALSO not 40% of the public in this survey that endorses and embraces the gay lifestyle, it's 40% of people saying yeah, sure whatever, let them marry if they want to.



I never said it was the percentage of people endorsing or embracing the gay lifestyle, I said it was the percentage of people in favor of allowing gays to marry. That's "changing the definition of marriage", as you said, because such activity is currently illegal in this country.

So, my point still stands.



In your attempt to split hairs and show some kind of difference between what you said and what I said, I read what you said in the above quote like 5 times, and I still can't discern a difference.

Your point that "still stands" is indiscernable to me.

It's again just the same question I've already answered re-cycled and thrown back at me again, needlessly.

My point is that the given 40%, who probably have listened to 3 decades of politically correct pro-gay propaganda, who probably have a contempt for the silliness of gay marriage as a concept, but figure, what the hell, let gays do what they want inside their own little sub-culture, assuming it won't affect them. But they're wrong.
Gays will push for even more "freedom" which will increasingly infringe on the rights of others. Especially Christians, and others with religious beliefs to the contrary of homosexuality.


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posted by Animalman:
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posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

But again, that's assuming the survey can even be trusted to be an accurate representation of what our nation truly thinks. (As the poll says, just over 3,000 people were surveyed for their opinion, out of a U.S. population of 290 million people. And as others have said, the way questions are asked in a poll can get the kind of answers someone wants.}.



If you question this poll, then I guess I should question the one you constantly reference with your "2% of the population is gay" comments. After all, polls are just samples, estimations, educated guesses.



The 2% is a widely regarded number, confirmed by a number of studies and not one isolated poll.

Even so, my own belief is that 2% number is inflated, and much larger than the actual ratio in the public. But it's the most widely regarded number. As I said repeatedly, it's a number often quoted, and I've seen it in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (the largest Knight-Ridder owned newspaper in South Florida) and TIME magazine, among many other sources.

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posted by Animalman:
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posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:

It was at precisely this point I became aware of gays as an intolerant and downright militant political force, who intimidate their critics into silence.



You make them sound like the mafia.



Your choice of words is clearly mocking, but that doesn't change the reality I addressed in my quoted comment.

Once again, I've already responded to this question repeatedly. The gay movement has a consistent backlash to ANY criticism of gays, no matter how objective, polite or academic the criticism.
Gays have an approach I'd compare more to the Nazis (and have compared, repeatedly) in the organized way they intimidate those who publicly dissent or offer studies contradictory to the gay perspective.

And whether you call it similar to Nazis, or similar to the Mafia, it's still strong-arm tactics, and un-democratic.
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posted by Animalman:

I have a few anecdotes of my own. I remember waking up after my best friend's 13th birthday party to find "Jesus Killer" written in red paint(so as to look like blood, I'm assuming) on the side of his house. Not one of the more pleasant experiences from my childhood.

There isn't a group of people(racial, religious, etc) that doesn't have a few individuals of radically different thinking.



Yes, but again --as I said repeatedly before-- gays have a very consistent tendency toward harassment and intimidation of their critics.

We're not talking about isolated individuals, we're talking about an organized and consistent pattern. Not isolated individuals.

You could just as easily argue that all Nazi aggression was perpetrated by "individuals". But WW II was still an organized conquest of Europe, and an organized genocide by the Nazis, despite being individuals. You could just as easily point to individual Nazis who were merciful and not engaging in cruelty and genocide. But that didn't make the Nazis any less of a threat to the millions they hurt.

Gay activism isn't killing people, its threat is a bit more subtle than that. But it is still a small minority using intimidation and harrassment to impose its will on the majority, and undermine the freedoms of those who don't agree with the gay perspective.