History made as gay couple marries in Toronto

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Status
Not open for further replies.
U2Fan101 said:
First of all - I'm not blaming aids on gays. Society, myself included, thinks that aids stems majorly from homosexuals. And in a sense, there is some truth behind that.

Blah blah. Every nation except the U.S. has the highest incidence with heterosexuals. After reading how AIDS is defined in this nation, along with who is actually "tested," I think this is a heavily skewed statistic, with a lot of otherwise healthy people being declared "HIV-positive" and "AIDS positive" without actually having it. Our bigoted nation aside, we only test "undesirables."

FYI, the fastest growing segment of AIDS diagnoses are coming from heterosexual black female Southerners.

Melon
 
U2Fan101 said:
I think it is a choice. We make our brains think something and think that is right or wrong. I choose to be straight. I chose to NOT drink or take drugs. I don't know when I decided I was a heterosexual, I just knew.

What pseudoscientific bullshit. If you literally choose back and forth from being gay or straight, you are bisexual.

Melon
 
80sU2isBest said:
And homosexuality isn't just forbidden in the Old Testament, it's also in the New.

The concept of homosexuality was created in 1874 Germany. During the Biblical times, it was a pagan temple cult ritual. Most prohibitions of "homosexuals" in the NT are really prohibitions of these temple cult practices. Unfortunately, we have no vernacular word for archaic Greco-Roman practices, and, over the past 2000 years, they have been translated all sorts of horrendously incorrect words. The present translations are no different.

The unfortunate fact is that the Bible has been used for very ethnocentric purposes from the start, from the OT to justify Judaism's hatred of its pagan neighbors to justify imperial Europe's corrupt and autocratic grip over the continent to justify the Inquisition to justify slavery to justify homophobia. In every instance, they are no different than the Pharisees, who were experts at the text, but ignorant of the Message.

Many of you here are no different than the "faithful" Pharisees, and I'm sure many of you are very happy to be in that position. It doesn't mean it is correct.

Melon
 
Last edited:
Atticus Finch said:
Dont some people choose to be Gay as well?
Genectic predispostion may be a factor as in alcolhoism sure, granted.
Some may have a predisposition, to be Gay but not born "Gay".

The idea of alcoholism being "genetic" is bullshit. Well, it is and it isn't. All addictions center from poor regulation of the neurotransmitter, dopamine. Low dopamine means you are predisposed to all sorts of habits, addictions, and obsessions. That's precisely why I have such contempt for drunkenness and cigarette smoking. Alcoholism is not passed down; a predisposition for low dopamine is.

Homosexuality is *not* in this same vein, and I know this from experience. You're talking to someone who has swung back and forth, from low to high dopamine; from low to high serotonin. I'm finally back in the center, after much struggle (and acquiring a severe contempt for the pharmaceutical industry). I can assure you that my sexuality hasn't changed.

Melon
 
Now, that being said, I do wonder why homosexuality has become the "whipping sin" of choice for "religious" people.

When men don't understand, when men hate, and when men find others who aren't like them they manipulate the word to justify their feelings. Man has used religion and scripture to justify slavery, to place women below them, call homosexuality a sin, etc. No one's ever been able to point out any scriputural basis to me on this subject, and no one on this thread has been able to tell me WHY it's wrong.
 
80sU2isBest said:
I'm not sure that gays are born gay.

It is most likely. Although inconclusive, the research points to hormonal problems in-utero.

To teach people some college-level genetics, all fetuses are originally hermaphrodites, with both male and female sexual organs. At a certain stage of development, a complex system of hormones, released by both the fetus and the mother, interact to create males and females, destroying either the male or female reproductive system, depending wholly on the presence or lack thereof of the "Y" chromosome.

However, that assumes that life is perfect, which it isn't. During this process, the fetus may have a genetic mutation (And, allow me to remind people, "mutation" in science is neither good nor bad, but neutral. Everyone has an average of eight mutations at birth.), meaning that it will not receive the hormone from the mother properly. Or the mother may not release the right hormones at the right time. In my opinion, this is the stage where are sexuality is created and fixed, but it is also a very narrow window of time. Once that window has passed, all changes are permanently fixed and any "mutations" are permanent.

But allow me to inform you of this. *Everything* in humanity is subject to mutation, no matter what kind of cell it is or what process it refers to. Now, considering this *scientific fact,* why would one's sexuality be immune? Unfortunately, due to some deep-seated human prejudices, "mutation" has turned into something automatically "bad." Well, you're going to have to get that out of your head, because "mutation" is precisely how humanity has operated from the beginning of time. If there were no such thing as mutation, we would all be identical.

It is regrettable that "variation" exists, but get over it! That's part of God's design for life. Just because someone has an "undesirable" trait, according to human standards, does that mean we tell them to stop living? Are you going to tell an intersexual (a person with both a male and female reproductive system) that he or she is a mistake and never should have been born? You don't *choose* who you are; you just make the best of who you are, and there is one thing that unites us all, no matter who or what we are: love.

For Christians or Muslims or *anyone* to deny that to *any person* is a *sin.*

As for the Bible, I think it is terribly translated. If you really want the "Word of God," then I dare tell you to start paying attention to objective, scholarly, non-religious translations of the source text (and, yes, they do exist).

Melon
 
bonosgirl84 said:
some of my personal experiences would make it very easy to answer this question.

I've heard this story, and, while I am sympathetic, would you feel better if your husband had slept with a woman?

If society was less hurtful to homosexuals, he would have been "out" from the start and you would never have been drawn into this situation. Don't blame homosexuals; blame our homophobic culture for forcing gays into such a situation. That hurts.

Melon
 
80sU2isBest said:
Slavery was most certainly not condoned in the Bible. There are two types of servanthood...a slave and a bondervant ( a free person who chose to be a servant)

Oh lookie...you have decided to look at context.

Now why can't you do the same for homosexuality? Or do your prejudices and traditional beliefs get in the way of the Truth?

Melon
 
Atticus Finch said:
This is my view as well.
There is also Romans Chapter 9 to contend with.
I think that is the New Testament and the Apostle Paul wrote it.

Romans 9 is a philosophical conundrum to be posed to the Jewish Christians of Rome. Why don't you read the whole epistle, rather than taking passages out of context?

St. Paul's epistles are consistently formed in this manner. The first part is where St. Paul writes ambiguously as to draw in his audience ("non-believers"), the middle is where he transitions to his beliefs, and the end is where he preaches his beliefs.

The point of Romans, IMO, is Romans 13.

"Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, (namely) "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law." -- Romans 13:8-10

Melon
 
nbcrusader said:
It is an ugly way to deflect attention from their own sin.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0621-01.htm

Christian Conservatives Disturbingly Slow To Assist Those They Don't Like

by Leonard Pitts Jr.

The story goes that one of the Pharisees decided to test Jesus with this question: Which commandment is the greatest?

Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."

I know what you're thinking and no, you haven't wandered into a Sunday school lesson by mistake. Not even close. What you've wandered into is a knotty moral thicket at the intersection of money, faith and AIDS.

By way of illustration, let me tell you about Mr. Stearns, who went to Washington, D.C., last week. Actually, Richard Stearns, president of the Washington state-based Christian relief group World Vision, wasn't alone. Dozens of evangelical Christian leaders traveled to Capitol Hill to lobby Congress on President Bush's plan to allocate $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean.

Contrary to what you might expect, they're for it. These conservative religious leaders really do want Congress to fund fully a program designed to fight a disease once known as the gay cancer.

Assuming you haven't fainted into your corn flakes, let us continue.

As reported in the Washington Post, these evangelical leaders acknowledge that they've come late to the fight against HIV/AIDS - an understatement, given that AIDS has been killing for nearly 25 years now. Stearns explained the tardiness by saying that in the 1980s, evangelicals saw AIDS as an affliction of drug users and gays and "had less compassion for the victims."

Deal with that one for a minute. Because they thought less of the sufferers, they cared less about the suffering. Contrast that with Jesus saying that loving your neighbor is Christianity's second greatest commandment and tell me you don't see a disconnect.

Unfortunately, we've seen that disconnect before. I'm thinking of the Christian Coalition's 1996 apology for generations of white evangelical support for segregation and opposition to civil rights.

Then as now, it was good to see conservative Christians move to where they should have been all along. Then, as now, their support was more than welcome.

But then, as now, you wondered: Why are you the last to pitch in when, by rights, you should have been the first?

Christ, after all, had compassion for tax collectors, adulterers, prostitutes, lepers. He famously walked with the disregarded, the dispossessed and the despised. But these days, many would-be Christians walk by them instead. "Love the sinner, hate the sin," they chirp.

Even if you buy that dubious formulation, it's hard to see evidence of love in their decision to ignore a deadly pandemic. Some evangelical Christians even employ God to justify their callousness, arguing that AIDS is a divine curse upon gay people. Somehow, they never get around to explaining how the "curse" managed to strike people like 13-year-old Ryan White, whose only sin was to be a hemophiliac in need of a blood transfusion.

Was God's aim that bad?

Or, as seems far more likely, is the problem simply that some of His people are distressingly small of spirit, disturbingly slow to respond to pain, disappointingly selective in their obedience to the second greatest commandment? Makes you wonder what they'll do the next time some outcast is suffering and in need.

Maybe I'm being uncharitable. It is, after all, good that the evangelical community has joined the fight against HIV/AIDS. Better late than never, they say.

But late, nevertheless.

Melon
 
melon said:
I've heard this story, and, while I am sympathetic, would you feel better if your husband had slept with a woman?

quite frankly, yes. it would be a hell of a lot easier for my daughter to deal with as well. and she is my ONLY concern. whether people like it or not, it is extremely difficult for a ten year old girl to grasp the concept that daddy's life is much different now. i have taught her nothing. i chose to let her make her own decisions regarding her father. she is clearly uncomfortable staying in a home that her father shares with his partner. would it be easier if it were another woman instead? probably. she would at least be able to tell her girlfriends about her father's new life, but in this situation, sad as it is, she has begged me never to tell her friends. tell me that that is normal. you can't. and if you don't have children, you cannot imagine how this breaks my heart.

and please, this situation is very sensitive. i am being very honest here, and putting my personal life up like this. it isn't easy for me. hell, i'm open to discussion, but please don't rip this post apart. if anyone has comments about what i've said, talk to me, don't attack me.
 
bonosgirl84 said:
quite frankly, yes. it would be a hell of a lot easier for my daughter to deal with as well. and she is my ONLY concern. whether people like it or not, it is extremely difficult for a ten year old girl to grasp the concept that daddy's life is much different now. i have taught her nothing. i chose to let her make her own decisions regarding her father. she is clearly uncomfortable staying in a home that her father shares with his partner. would it be easier if it were another woman instead? probably. she would at least be able to tell her girlfriends about her father's new life, but in this situation, sad as it is, she has begged me never to tell her friends. tell me that that is normal. you can't. and if you don't have children, you cannot imagine how this breaks my heart.

and please, this situation is very sensitive. i am being very honest here, and putting my personal life up like this. it isn't easy for me. hell, i'm open to discussion, but please don't rip this post apart. if anyone has comments about what i've said, talk to me, don't attack me.

I'm not attacking you here, but I find it upsetting from my point of view that you seemingly have a resentment towards gays--completely due to the heterosexual revulsion to it!

"I have taught her nothing." And what does that mean? Inactivity certainly does teach something; you're teaching her to be humiliated by her father, due to your lack of response to it. If you were openly more supportive, I tend to think that she would not be uncomfortable hanging around her father and his partner.

The only thing I don't see normal in here is our culture's homophobia. Cultural homophobia is standing in your way. I'm not condemning you. In fact, what you're feeling is more than common and there is actually a national organization to assist.

http://www.pflag.org/

I would strongly suggest, from someone who does care (to a degree that one can care in a fairly anonymous message board), to please read that link.

Melon
 
melon said:
"I have taught her nothing." And what does that mean? Inactivity certainly does teach something; you're teaching her to be humiliated by her father, due to your lack of response to it. If you were openly more supportive, I tend to think that she would not be uncomfortable hanging around her father and his partner.

oh really? so...making sure that we send both of them christmas presents, or the three of us spending afternoons exploring san fransisco together, and inviting her father and his partner to stay in my home for the weekend with my daughter while i went to the las vegas gathering in march wouldn't be enough?

you don't live here. you have no idea how accepting i've been. my ex husband and i have struggled through this together, and he is still family to me. still, i disapprove of his choices.

i'm through with this thread. too many assumptions are made here. i don't need an organization to help me through. i need people to stop putting words in my mouth and listen to what i'm actually saying.

people like, *shock* my gay ex husband.
 
bonosgirl84 said:


oh really? so...making sure that we send both of them christmas presents, or the three of us spending afternoons exploring san fransisco together, and inviting her father and his partner to stay in my home for the weekend with my daughter while i went to the las vegas gathering in march wouldn't be enough?

you don't live here. you have no idea how accepting i've been. my ex husband and i have struggled through this together, and he is still family to me. still, i disapprove of his choices.

i'm through with this thread. too many assumptions are made here. i don't need an organization to help me through. i need people to stop putting words in my mouth and listen to what i'm actually saying.

people like, *shock* my gay ex husband.

I'm listening to *exactly* what you're saying. Have you actually *read* what you have said?

"I'm supportive of gay people, but I'm really not."

And I am sorry if I made assumptions. Just as this thread affects you, it just as much affects me. I've been more than generous with these threads, but let's just say that ignorant stereotypes and assumptions piss me off just as much as they piss you off.

So *maybe* you'll sympathize as to why I come off as this angry minority who won't let "whitey" have his fun in these kinds of threads. No, it isn't okay. And no amount of sob stories can ever make intolerance okay. Period.

So, yes, maybe you should stop reading these threads, because I'm not going to apologize and nor am I going to start getting all touchy-feely-liberal in these threads either. It's about time that liberalism started making stands, just the same that conservatism has no problem formulating an opinion.

Melon
 
No offense to any parties involved, but this is obviously an extremely emotional issue, for a lot of reasons. I think I can safely say we've reached the end of friendly dissent here.

Abortion and gay rights are two sure stalemate-makers here in FYM. And we all know what happens when threads stalemate.

I know I'm looking forward to having this argument again in a few months, and I hope you all are too.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom