ThreadBare said:

Isn't it the concept of marriage and not the definition that we are talking about? Do straight people go into this union because of the definition or the concept? Isn't the concept of marriage the joining together of 2 people? Isn't the concept of marriage to allow 2 people to express their commitment to each other in front of their peers and before God? The concept of marriage will not change and therefore it is totally irrelevant whether or not the definition is changed to encompass all people. Straight people, and religious fundamentalists in particular, are acting like spoiled brats about this...*insert whiny voice here* "This is our thing and you can't have it"



Well I think this represents about 10% of the church, if that. I grew up in a born again Christian family and can tell you from first hand experience that Christians aren't very loving about it. I didn't have to face getting kicked out of my house but I know many people who have, usually from Christian or religious families.



When I said gay marriages would strengthen the social fabric, I was referring to the potential for promiscuity in our community to decrease. Isn't that a moral value? If we felt our unions were legitimate, it might create a stronger bond for many people. Not saying that we can't have a strong bond without it but I'm sure it would strengthen the character of many who chose to do it.

And what makes a marriage any less "moral" if I'm able to do it too? What moral code is going to break down becaause I can gather with MY friends and family to enjoy this rite? What would change by legalizing gay marriage? Nothing except that I could do what straight society has been able to do for millenium. Like I said, P-R-O-P-A-G-A-N-D-A

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Go 'head Supa

So many 'straight' married, moral, Christian men have knocked on my door looking for sex that it makes me sick to hear them say how morally 'wrong' gay marriage is. Get my dick out of your mouth before you start talking about morals.

I think the key issue is that the government has exactly no business sanctifying, or not sanctifying, our personal relationships at all, and especially based upon religious values.

Marriage should confer no social benefits, and should be kept inside the church as a Judeo-Christian (or whatever religion you prefer) ritual.

Until that happens, all people should have the right to make their families be whatever they want them to be. We should be able to marry any consenting adult, or multiple consenting adults, and receive all accompanying social benefits.

Marriage is a stupid idea, but queers should have an equal right to do stupid things.

ThreadBare said:

And while we're at it...Until such time as there is no such thing as divorce or extramarital affairs (don't say these issues don't affect Christians because we all know they do) then leave this shit at the door cuz that's just what this whole "decline of morality: argument is

Pooptoast edit
[This message was edited Mon Jun 23 15:16:24 PDT 2003 by SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy]

tackam said:

Could not have said it better

tackam said:

WOW.
SPOT ON.
THE END.

Buddy, we just disagree. You see no difference between romantic love between "straights" and gays, and I believe the homosexual lifestyle is based on sin and, as such, isn't something to celebrate through marriage. I'm not saying gay men and women can't love their partners. But, given that sinful origin, it's hard to see how it should be honored in holy matrimony.

My comments about gays being treated with love by their families were rooted in some friends' experiences. I know how cruel and bigoted folks can be in espousing biblical principles. I don't think the wrongness of the delivery, however, disqualifies those biblical principles.

I could easily call your beliefs, as well as those used to defend the pursuit of gay marriages, "propaganda" -- just because I disagree with them. But I won't, out of respect for you and empathy for your experiences. Just know that -- though I might hold similar positions as those who have attacked you in the past -- I'm not out to get you, dude. Chill a bit.

I'm far more interested in the legalization of gay divorce, just because it would give me a state-sanctioned reason to be bitter and vindictive.

ThreadBare said:

We don't just disagree. Your beliefs are used by the religious right in this country to deny me and my brothers and sisters the same privelege and legal rights that are enjoyed by the vast majority of the society in which we live.

And "holy" matrimony is shat on every single damn day by heterosexuals who cheat and get divorced. It's already a corrupt institution without our participation so stop holding it up as an absolute virtue that holds together the moral fabric of society.



But it displays perfectly the so called righteous believers' inability to love like their savior. That's a biblical principle too. Jesus railed against the pious and self-righteous with 1000% more venom than he did the sinners whom he chose to shine his love on.



Glad to hear that you personally aren't out to get me(us) but there are millions out there who are...

ThreadBare said:

Sorry to hear that you've accepted this nonsense as your opinion. I don't mean to attack you, but this is absolute crap.

Why not give the GAYS at least the EQUIVALENT of what straights share as a marriage?

What are you REALLY afraid will happen?

Do you think that straight people will all of a sudden stop marrying and having children?





It really just makes no sense any way you look at it.

What if they don't do it in a church?

Why can't they just be married by a judge like lots of straight folks do?

People have made a joke of "the holy sanctity of marriage" from the get go.

Yes, some actually do make out to be great PARTNERS.

Isn't that what it's really about?

A TEAM?

Why does it matter if it's a guy and a guy or whatever?

The "idea" that the model family is sweet and all but utter rubbish.

jthad1129 said:

THIS is what I'm lookin for.

So in reality you want a good business partner. Someone to share 1/2.

Isn't that what marriage is anyway?

a business?

I'm sorry but all that "we want our gay love to be recognized" is just a bunch of crap!!!

Marriage is a business like any other government recognized group.

It's just very well disguised.



When you look at it by the points you have made, I totally understand why gays want to marry.



good points there.

pimpdoutt said:

And the legal aspects are the only reason I would advocate legalizing gay marriage. I already have the capacity to be committed and express my love to my partner without a piece of paper telling me it's OK to do so.

ThreadBare said:

well, Buddy
Just take the religious part out of it completely. Give me a justice of the peace (not a minister), and a hilltop, (no church), a piece of paper that says there is a union between two people and a ring as a symbol or their undying love for each other.

Please take your 'lifestyle, sin, holy matrimony' or whatever biblical terms you want to through in, and stroke them all over you and your sweetie's ceremony. Yes, we do disagree but I don't really care if you disagree with my lifestyle i just want the legal union. Call me whatever you wish after I have the certificate. But never deny me a place at the front of the bus just because YOU think what I am doing is sinful. God made me in HIS image, and he doesn't do shotty work. He will be my judge

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Yes, its a business. What's his is mine and what's mine is mine.

jthad1129 said:

EXACTLY! We live in a nation where equal rights are one of the building blocks to our greatness. A nation in which there are many ideals and cultures, coming together to enjoy American citizenship. It's not OK for the state to deny your rights as a religious person based on secular bias just as it is not right for the state to deny my rights based on religious bias. This is not equality!

Hypocrisy anyone?

Equality edit...
[This message was edited Mon Jun 23 16:52:50 PDT 2003 by SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy]

(In best Richard Burton voice-over):
"...Suddenly, the room fell silent, and nothing stirred but for a leaf that blew upon a gentle wind coursing through..."

Good Question :ZZZ:

i think a better question would be..why does anyone want to get married...why is it fine for straight people and not for gay people??

violett said:

that's not the question...


the question is:

Why do GAY people want to get married?

Why be preoccupied with what straight people do?

pimpdoutt said:

It's not being pre-occupied with straight people.
It has to do with EQUAL rights.
Gay couples should be allowed to adopt.
Have the same benefits.
Be recognised by law and government.

But then again; not all gay people are the same and can be categorised.

Not every gay couple wants to get married.
The ones that do have many reasons. Most of them posted above.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Yes...definitely hypocritical...

You guys make a valid points...

SEE PEOPLE >>> These are the things you need to be saying to those like me who question you!

All that "Well, straights can do it so why can't I" will get you nowhere.

You need to be able to defend yourselves with logic and fact.

That's the only way you're going to get to where you want to be.

Take the emotion out of it and think like jthad and supa are doing.

Why are so many incapable people allowed to have children without being able to offer them a steady and safe childhood?

Just another question.

jthad1129 said:

Exactly.
Do it any way you wanna
Surrounded by all your loved ones.
Or just like I did. Looking the one I love din the eyes and tell him that it would be forever.






Too bad that forever never lasts, now does it?

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

EXACTLY!

Throughout this thread, I've tried (in vain, by the looks of the immature responses and backslapping that's followed) to emphasize a distinction between someone having biblical & personal opposition to gay lifestyles, and someone who out-and-out hates them. And, in every post, I've been respectful. No "f*** you's" or sarcasm, as are found in some responses to my posts.

I'm sure people, when they see someone cite the Bible for such positions, probably have flashbacks to instances where some bigot used the Bible to spew vitriol and say something about burning in hell. Like I said before, I empathize.

At any rate, as hard as it is for some of you to believe, not every Christian who disagrees with your lifestyle is part of "the religious right." Nor is such a Christian automatically intolerant and unfriendly. (Yes, the "some of my best friends..." adage applies here for me.)

What seems lost on some of you is that we certainly have the right to explain our positions' origins without being subjected to insults, disrespect, malice or profanity. Maybe I expected too much, given the significance of this topic for many of you.

I'm just unable to see how responding as many of you have does honor to your cause or yourselves.

ThreadBare said:

I welcome your feedback.

My question for you is, step outside of the "religious factors" as I have asked the GAYS to step outside of their "emotional factors".

State your opinion as YOUR voice.

What do you believe is wrong with granting gays their right to having a legal bond as straights do.

I apologize if I seemed to bash you for your input.


I'm lookin for people to say "WELL, I BELIEVE..." whatever it may be

thanx thread

How can one 'disagree' with someone BEING gay? That's like someone 'disagreeing' with you being black.

There is physiological evidence that suggests that gay people are born gay...

In August of 1991, a San Francisco neuroanatomist, Simon LeVay, published an article in the respected journal Science. It reported his finding that a localized cluster (a "nucleus") of cells in the brains of "homosexual" men was twice as large by volume on autopsy as in "heterosexual" men.{2} "Homosexual" and "heterosexual" are in quotations here because in this particular study the definitions of each were extremely imprecise, nor was there any way of verifying sexual orientation, as the subjects were dead.

But this was not the first such discovery. One year before a group reported in Brain Research that they had found a similar difference in both volume and number of cells in a different brain nucleus.{3} The media did not report this first study because Brain Research, unlike Science, is read only by neuroscientists. And in contrast to journalists, the neuroscientists themselves genuinely understood the research and its limitations, and saw no reason to make grand pronouncements.

More recently, yet another difference in another part of the brain was reported, also in a prestigious publication, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America. This study claimed that a difference between male homosexuals and heterosexuals was found in the anterior commissure, a structure that divides the left and right halves of the brain. The authors found that the anterior commissure was larger in women and homosexual men than in heterosexual men. This was a group statistical difference, however: the size of the anterior commissure in 27 of the 30 homosexual men actually fell within the range of sizes found among the 30 heterosexual men. As did LeVay, these authors used brain samples obtained preponderantly from men who died of AIDS, introducing another uncontrolled variable into their work.{4}

http://www.narth.com/docs...earch.html

There is more and more research being done on this.

"Gay Sheep" Study
Offers Intriguing Prenatal Hormonal Link
By Linda Ames Nicolosi
Nov. 7, 2002 -- A study announced November 4th by a research team at Oregon Health Sciences University has investigated the brain structures of a group of rams that mate only with other rams.

Working at the US Department of Agriculture's Sheep Experiment Station in Idaho, the study's lead researcher, Dr. Charles Roselli, observed that some rams only mount other rams, not ewes. They don't actually pair-bond with these other rams like normal rams do with ewes. However, their sexual attraction is strictly same-sex.

Intrigued by this anomaly, the scientists dissected the "gay" rams' brains and found that their hypothalamus was female-like in size. Roselli believes that abnormal prenatal hormonal exposure of these rams' brains may have caused them to develop in a sex-atypical manner.

"We are not trying to explain human sexuality by this study," Dr. Roselli cautioned. "Whether this is a big component of what contributes in humans, it's still debatable."

This "gay sheep" study follows another recent study on frogs which suggests that prenatal hormonal abnormalities can distort the normal growth of tadpoles by feminizing them if they are exposed to certain environmental toxins during early development. Atrazine, a common weedkiller, was implicated in that study as the apparent cause of feminized or hermaphroditic adult frogs (frogs with both male and female sex organs).

Human sexuality is known to be much more complex that animal sexuality: humans pair-bond and develop a romantic sensibility, rather than simply responding on a physiological level to mating calls and sex odors. Their psychological bonding experiences--most critically, with same-sex parents and peers--then solidify their gender identity and sexual orientation.

But even though our sexual identity is more than a strictly biological phenomenon, studies such as these do provide an intriguing window into the mystery of what may "open the door" into homosexuality for at least some men and women--as psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover says--while that same door remains relatively closed to other people.

Further information on this study is reported at
http://msnbc.com/news/830...sp?pne=msn




They're in love. They're gay. They're penguins... And they're not alone.
By Cristina Cardoze

Wendell and Cass, two penguins at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island, Brooklyn, live in a soap opera world of seduction and intrigue. Among the 22 male and 10 female African black-footed penguins in the aquarium's exhibit, tales of love, lust and betrayal are the norm. These birds mate for life. But given the disproportionate male-female ratio at the aquarium, some of the females flirt profusely and dump their partners for single males with better nests.

Wendell and Cass, however, take no part in these cunning schemes. They have been completely devoted to each other for the last eight years. In fact, neither one of them has ever been with anyone else, says their keeper, Stephanie Mitchell.

But the partnership of Wendell and Cass adds drama in another way. They're both male. That is to say, they're gay penguins.

This is not unusual. "There are a lot of animals that have same-sex relations, it's just that people don't know about it," Mitchell said. "I mean, Joe Schmoe on the street is not someone who's read all sorts of biology books."

One particular book is helpful in this case. Bruce Bagemihl's "Biological Exuberance," published in 1999, documents homosexual behavior in more than 450 animal species. The list includes grizzly bears, gorillas, flamingos, owls and even several species of salmon.

"The world is, indeed, teeming with homosexual, bisexual and transgendered creatures of every stripe and feather," Bagemihl writes in the first page of his book. "From the Southeastern Blueberry Bee of the United States to more than 130 different bird species worldwide, the 'birds and the bees,' literally, are queer."

In New York, it's the penguins.

At the Central Park Zoo, Silo and Roy, two male Chinstrap penguins, have been in an exclusive relationship for four years. Last mating season, they even fostered an egg together.

"They got all excited when we gave them the egg," said Rob Gramzay, senior keeper for polar birds at the zoo. He took the egg from a young, inexperienced couple that hatched an extra and gave it to Silo and Roy. "And they did a really great job of taking care of the chick and feeding it."

Of the 53 penguins in the Central Park Zoo, Silo and Roy are not the only ones that are gay. In 1997, the park had four pairs of homosexual penguins. In an effort to increase breeding, zookeepers tried to separate them by force. They failed, said Gramzay.

Only one of the eight bonded with a female. The rest went back to same-sex relationships, not necessarily with the same partner. Silo and Roy, long-time homosexuals, got together (or pair-bonded, in official penguin lingo) after that failed experiment.

At the New York Aquarium, no one suspected Wendell and Cass were gay when they first bonded. Penguins don't have external sex organs, so visually there's no surefire way to tell whether they are male or female. But over time, people began to wonder.

In all the years they had been together, neither Wendell nor Cass laid an egg. This was unusual because the keepers knew they copulated regularly. They had often seen Wendell submit to Cass, the more dominating of the two. But one day, a keeper saw Wendell on top.

When penguins have sex, the female lies on her belly and the male climbs on top with his feet and puts his rump around her rump. Then their cloacas (sexual organs) meet, and the sperm is transferred into the female. It's called the cloacal kiss.

Wendell and Cass were clearly kissing both ways. So in 1999, the aquarium did a blood test to determine their gender. It proved they were both male.

Today, they are one of the best couples at the aquarium. "Sometimes they lie on the rocks together," Mitchell said. "They're one of the few couples that like to hang out together outside their nest."

Wendell and Cass have a highly coveted nest. During mating season, several other penguins have tried to steal it. Cass, a fierce fighter, kept them at bay. (Wendell, on the other hand, is "afraid of his own shadow," said Mitchell.)

The appeal of their nest is the location: high up, close to the water and the feeding station. Rumors that they keep the neatest nest at the aquarium because they're gay are not true.

"These are penguins," said Mitchell. "They poop in their nest. Nobody's got a clean nest."


http://www.jrn.columbia.e...10/591.asp

pimpdoutt said:

Well, I believe... what I've already posted.

applekisses said:

people that are not gay will just never fully comprehend that gays are born that way.

some people may be more accepting and understanding of it

but they'll never know what it's like.

thanx for the story about the penguins. interesting stuff