Focus on the Family Will Keep your Kid from Being Gay

No, they're not. Dobson's vision of the American government is not one that has a basis in American tradition.His views are radically different from our established government; thus, he is a radical. The Supreme Court is not a legislature, so this is obviously not the case. Who said that he didn't? Honestly, Tal, you're getting all worked up about things we're not even saying. Let Dobson say what he likes. Who said he couldn't? No. But because he advocates radical views, and because he's a religious figure, does make him so. You've yet to successfully challenge these key points.

Didn't you read? A shower specifically for the purpose of the display of genitals.But, oh, right. It's not child molestation if it's not the only thing you're doing. It's not kiddie rape when you (insert disgusting sex act here) the kid so long as you wash him behind the ears afterwards. For many acts, yes, this is true.For some, it is not. Is the purposeful act of displaying an adult's genitals to a child such an act? I don't know. As a child I saw both my parents' genitals and I don't feel that constituted molestation. Dobson's suggestion doesn't even mention sexual gratification. He doesn't, apparently, even consider that it would be possible for a dad to want to display his penis for sexual gratification, despite the fact that he's normally so hyper-sensitive to sexual "deviancy".That's the surprising thing of Dobson's newsletter. Apparently we agree that there's a context where the display of a penis to a child is a sexual act of molestation. Dobson doesn't seem to think so, or else he would have mentioned it. Or actually not mentioned it - he wouldn't have said anything about the showers at all. Maybe you should consider the fact that your posts are long and difficult to understand before you start accusing me of strawmen. Here's a hint - if your post is longer than one entire computer screen top-to-bottom then we're not going to read all of it. And I do mean none of us.Oh, and point me to the "no harm in child sex" thread you were talking about. I hadn't planned to take part, and I know it's somewhat dead right now, but I'm gathering resources to take you on in it. I'll get caught up and try to post my input this weekend.

I don't recall that being my position. After all, it's possible to engage in vaguely sexual acts - like purposefully displaying your genitals to a child in the shower - that probably aren't all that traumatic to a child. My apologies. Now that I've read (and posted to) the thread in question, I see that that's not what it's about at all. I used a bit of shorthand and in doing so misrepresented the point of your OP.

For the most part, I don't have to. Holmes posts irrelevancies, he heads off on tangents, he refutes positions that no one involved in the thread has advocated, and he takes three paragraphs to say what could be said in one.Holmes mostly posts filler, garbage. The meat of his posts is often few and far between. And I'm certainly not the only person here who has commented on the length and lack of clarity of Holmes postings. Take me seriously, or don't. I know for a fact that Holmes isn't reading all of my posts, but apparently he's not willing to admit it.

Actually, this isn't true. This is generally termed the "myth of homosexual affluence."

Homosexual parents raising their children. As well, the equal protection granted by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Irrelevant, since that's never been a requirement for marriage. Sometimes they do, in fact. Many states recognize common-law marriage. No, they can't. For instance one single person cannot marry. You have to have two people to get married.Marriage is a right that we extend to couples, not individuals. The laws as formulated discriminate against certain couples for no relevant reason.

Leaving aside the fact that we're way, way off-topic at this point, I don't think it's inappropriate to examine the state's interest in performing marriages and blessing them with special privledges.The state is interested in marriage because it helps parents raise their children. Well, gay couples are often parents raising children. Thus the state has a legitimate interest, and incentive, to bless gay marriages. In addition it has a duty to do so under the Fourteenth Amendment.

I was a Boy Scout (and still am an Eagle Scout) and there's nothing in the Scout codes or laws that prevents a gay scoutmaster. There's a pledge to be "morally pure", but being gay isn't immoral, and the Boy Scouts of America are not Biblical literalists, nor a Christian organization.

What's funny is, you're against "changing the definition of marriage", but your definition changes with every new post.Culture has already redefined marriage as a union between loving, consenting peers. It's time for the government to catch up with that. But the interest is there, because gay couples are producing children by various means, and they have a right to expect the same level of help in raising them that hetero couples can recieve.It's absolutely ludicrous of you to close your eyes and pretend that gay people can't be parents. If gay couples are raising kids then the state interest is there. Unless you believe that children raised by homosexuals don't deserve the same protection? My arguments are pedantic, now? Look, you're the one who's more concerned about definitions of words than the welfare of children. If you had no refutation to my arguments it would have simply been better had you not posted.

No, they don't. Look, I'm telling you. I was a Boy Scout. I held leadership positions. There was nothing in any rule, formal or informal, about "no gay scoutmasters."Some parents had a hissy-fit about a gay scout leader, their troop and council leaders sided with the parents over the individual, and the courts upheld their right to do so. You can pretty much kick anybody out of Scouts for any reason, it's a private organization and you can eliminate whatever members you want if you can get everybody else to go along.There's no rule about not having gay scoutmasters. I mean, you can have gay scouts, why couldn't you have a gay scoutmaster? But they don't, though. BSA is not a theological organization. They don't make statements about what is sin and what is not. And that's fair enough. But I'd just as soon you stopped impugning the noble organization of Boy Scouts with these erroneous charges that the BSA codes prohibit gay scoutmasters. It simply isn't true.

You heard wrong. Look, Randman, there's no rule, except for age, about who can be a Scout and who cannot. Heck you can even have Boy Scouts who are girls. I've met many.This isn't some government organization, Rand. How could they enforce a rule like that? Most places you can walk into a hardware store and buy a Scout uniform, your troop and council badges, and a handful of merit badges. They don't check your scout card or something. It's a bunch of parents hanging out with their kids, and they don't throw out a kid on the suspicion he might be gay. Like any organization your local community might not want you there, but that could be for any reason. There's no rule against gay people in scouts. Well, let me see. I made it all the way to Eagle. How about you?

The ol' definition change-up again, I see. Now marriage isn't about parents raising children, it's about Biblical morality having primacy in our society.Why can't you stick with one definition of marriage, Rand? No. They're looking to the government for the thousands of family-positive benefits that marriage, and only marriage, bestows.These people have families, Rand. They're raising children. Why do you consider their children so worthless that you won't help them raise them?

That's actually false. It isn't legally possible to have non-marriage civil unions with all the benefits of marriage.The only way to get all the public benefits of marriage is to be married. Civil unions may bestow most, but they cannot bestow all.

Why would gay couples raising children want to denigrate social conservatives? No, it doesn't. At the Federal level alone there's over a thousand benefits that apply only to married couples.