Focus on the Family Will Keep your Kid from Being Gay

How exactly do you like them, then?

Yeah, but typically they're hypersensitive about gay stuff. Like the gay TeleTubby thing. And they pretty much suspect all gay men of being closet child molestors.So yeah, I do still find it surprising that they would suggest a borderline pedophilic shower encounter as the recipe for male straightness. Do you suppose that the reason that it seems totally natural to Dobson and this other guy is because they were abused as children? Just a thought...

Okay I get that the Dobson suggestion (if it is real?) is ridiculous, and it would seem contrary to intention. First of all it is patently contrary to the Bible... there is a specific passage stating not to uncover thy father's nakedness... but second, and more importantly, how does familiarity with larger dicks at all help a kid want to have sex with women?It would seem better advice would be to (after the peg and hole banging session Dobson mentions) have the mother shower with the boy so he can see girls have holes for his peg.Hahahaha... we all have a good laugh.But then betray equal bigotry as the Xian antigay fanatics. Why on earth is showering with a younger person borderline creepy or anything close to child molestation?Oh that's right, because most people in the US aren't used to nudity and therefore it must be sexual, and sex is bad!If showering with a kid is creepy, what more for spending whole days with ones children in the nude, playing and wrestling and etc etc etc? In Europe, at least the parts I've been to, children are often nude (including in public parks), and whole areas of beaches exist for families to be nude together.This isn't to get into the pedophilia issue at all, which I know is taboo here at "openmind" central, but to address the equation of showering and acceptance of nude bodies as being inherently a sexual come on and potentially harmful.As a nudist, who has a gf whose whole family were nudists, and living in a continent filled with nudist areas, I was taken back by that equation. It truly seems as ignorant as the irrational hatred of gays. Indeed one wonders if parents are not supposed to help their children bathe when they are very young, or only with their clothes on (both parties)?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I had a feeling you were going to pop in here after I saw that comment from crash. I have mixed feelings on this.On the one hand I agree with you that there's nothing in the world wrong with a dad taking a shower with his son. For that matter, there shouldn't be anything wrong with a whole family showering together (except in most showers it might get kinda crowded). But on the other hand, given the fact that - as you mention - we in America have been conditioned to think that nudity = sex, it doesn't surprise me at all that people DO think that nudity = sex.Further, since people like Dobson are working so hard to perpetuate these backward attitudes, I hesitate to heap scorn on crash for arguing the point on what must be Dobson's own terms.

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

Not just showering; showering so that the incipently-prubescent child can see your penis. Sex with children is bad, as far as I'm aware. And I hate to tell you this, but because we have a taboo about it, nudity is sexual. Just as an exposed inner thigh is outrageously sexual in a polynesian country.Nudity doesn't have to be sexual, of course. But it is in this culture. Creeps the hell out of me. Are you telling me that I don't have the right to find certain things creepy? Congratulations on internalizing a culture where nudity is non-sexual. How is that supposed to be relevant to the conversation?

Crashfrog: How do you accidentally wear a big Elizabethan dress?ha ha

I stopped reading here.

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'Now isn't it amazing. I tell you that nobody made a simple toy like that (solar system model) and you don't believe me. Yet you gaze out into the solar System - the intricate marvelous machine that is around you - and you dare say to me that no one made that. I don't believe it'. -Sir Isaac Newton

Tal,Then why waste our time by posting to the thread? If you have a problem with that statement present some sort of argument to show that Dobson isn't a radical. That is the purpose of this board. You seem to constantly make statements with no backing argument.Tell us why we shouldn't consider Dobson radical. Or maybe you cannot.Oh and I see you still are using that spurious Newton quote. How about using something you can prove is legitimate.This message has been edited by Theodoric, 08-18-2005 08:51 AM

Well, I don't want to watch them make out, that's for sure.

quote:

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But on the other hand, given the fact that - as you mention - we in America have been conditioned to think that nudity = sex, it doesn't surprise me at all that people DO think that nudity = sex.

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No, no, berberry, the culture doesn't influence people to think that at all, and if it does, then people are stupid to be suceptible to such influence.(no need to reply, I'm just giving holmes a jab)

Yeah, sure, that's a real Newton quote.It sure does sound like something a super intelligent, arrogant nobleman from the 1700's would have written.LOL!

quote:

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Are you telling me that I don't have the right to find certain things creepy?

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Yeah.I have found that what holmes says is all about liking diversity of opinion and taste, but the subtext is often all about portraying his own opinion and taste as superior to all others.

Holmes, however mildly, called into question whether crashfrog's OP with the quote from radical cleric and renowned blithering idiot James Dobson was real. The answer is yes, it most certainly is!

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005

Congratulations for being the only one to actually understand my position, and reply with something that was a real response.You are correct that it would be accurate to point out how what he suggested conflicts with what should be his own standards, some of which would be cultural (nudity=sex=bad) and some biblical (don't uncover thy father's nakedness).However, I tend to look at it in a different way. If the guy is going to start becoming liberal about something, particularly a social issue, I'm not going to drive him back into his conservative shell by pretending those purely social conventions are right.I think its great that he's shifting enough that he's going to allow nudity (maybe one day we'll be able to see Janet's nipple on TV) even if he's still backwards on the homosexuality thing.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Yes, this is certainly part of what I believe. I really like diversity of opinion and taste. I like that there are people that have totally opposite opinions and tastes. And I really do feel that FOR ME my opinions and tastes are superior, just as others might be for them. Remember I am a subjectivist.The problem I have is ignorance and consistency. Like portraying nudity as something sexual, and sex as something intrinsically harmful. Neither of those two are just opinions, they are factually errant. The only way they can be elevated to at least the opinion level is by adding in "spiritual" issues, which Dobson can and does make.Notice I did not come on to criticize Dobson. Neither did I come on to criticize Crash's position, and neither did I come on to criticize your position. What I did come on and do is criticize the inconsistency (aka hypocrisy) of attacking Dobson on the one hand for holding archaic bigoted beliefs regarding homosexuality and then uttering archaic bigoted beliefs (factual errors in this case) about nudism to support that attack.But keep wallowing in and supporting hypocrisy, that seems to be the new standard for both left and right.Oh yeah and by the way, your other reply which made fun of me because I would say people are ridiculous for following cultural standards: HOMOSEXUALITY AND HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE IS DISLIKED BY THE MAJORITY.To attack Dobson, and support an attack on Dobson, then means you are being hypocritical by suggesting it IS ridiculous to follow societal conventions... or are you now going to argue that people should only follow the right ones?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)