Focus on the Family Will Keep your Kid from Being Gay

berberry:

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We're no different than anyone else; all of us are different and all of us are the same.

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I grew up dirt poor in a large Midwestern family. Jim, born a few days before me into the large dirt poor family across the alley, was my best friend from the age of 4. We did everything together: I loved him more, I think, than one can love a brother.We were both precocious, both naturally athletic: he was a bit faster, I was a bit stronger. He was half Cherokee, half Welsh; I was half Sicilian, with quarters of Welsh and German and, perhaps, according to the dramatic effects of the summer sun and some old family portraits, a whiff of Africa.We played Indians together, never cowboys; we played with the black kids from the ghetto that started the next block over, the only "white" kids in our neighborhood that would. We both adored our mothers and multiple older sisters; we both survived brutal fathers.At 12, I discovered girls and was booted from the Scout troop after skipping the meeting to neck with the Scoutmaster's daughter--a meeting that ended a bit early for my convenience.Not long after that peccadillo, we sat in the woods and talked. Jim told me he had no idea how to go about kissing a girl and didn't want to; in fact, he felt like it would be a lot more fun to kiss a guy...and that he had sometimes felt that way about me, but it looked like I probably didn't feel that way about him."No," I said, "I'm sorry, but I don't" And I was truly sorry. We both thought for the first time we had found something we couldn't share. But, as the years went by, we discovered that we were wrong: I became no less straight, he became no less gay, but we learned we both felt the same way about this incredible voyage of discovery into passion and intimacy, and we learned that the comedies and tragedies of our respective romances were cut from the same human cloth.In my teens I felt a great resentment about my origins, about growing up "poor and disadvantaged." But one day I realized my great good fortune: life had conspired to immunize me against many bigotries--race, gender, sexual preference--not to mention more than a few political illusions. I wouldn't trade that, or that day in the woods with Jim, for all the silver spoons in the world.Tonight you reminded me of both those days, berberry--the day Jim came out to me and the day I recognized the blessing--and I thank you for it.

My favorite bit was the mysterious advice about showing your boy how to pound square pegs in square holes.Doesn't seem like teaching that the shape of the peg should match the hole rules much of anything out.This message has been edited by Omnivorous, 08-18-2005 07:57 PM

Tal:

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The results of hundreds of scientific studies and years of sociological research is undisputable. There's a mountain of evidence demonstrating the rewards to society as well as to individual families of marriage. Marriage uniquely provides to men and women a level of health, happiness and financial security that cannot be replicated by any other human relationship, including same-sex unions or live-in boyfriends. It is the building block of society that the minority is attempting to force down the majority's throat.

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Hi, Tal.Meaning is not a zero sum game. The meaning of your life and relationships does not change the meaning of mine, or vice versa. The notion that it is otherwise leads to pogroms and crusades.And I am skeptical of the mountain of evidence you conjure. If a correlation is, in fact, demonstrated between marriage and good health and happiness, it may as likely be that the healthy and happy are more likely to attract a mate, while the sickly and miserable go begging.Neither you nor your preacher has presented any convincing argument that gay marriage has any deleterious effect on heterosexual marriage. True, you both find it offense: so what? "the minority is attempting to force down the majority's throat"--Sigmund, Tal; Tal, Sigmund My wife and I are full partners. Some marriages are dominated by a male husband, some by a female wife; some marriages are a sham, characterized by pretense and adultery: has the meaning of your marriage taken a hit from that? Do wife beaters cheapen and demean the meaning of traditional marriages everywhere? I can hardly wait for the campaign against domestic violence to emerge with the same fury as the religious right's indignation at the notion of gay marriage.Marriage has taken many forms around the world and through time: which one is the sacred building block? The arranged marriages of our Indo-European ancestors? Women as chattel? Polygyny? Polyandry? Is it better with or without dowry? Is it only a building block of society if it happens in a church? Are we secularists truly married?If there is a true relationship building block to society, it is friendship, not marriage. Even among contemporary, so-called traditional marriages, as many fail in acrimony and divorce as succeed in the long term.If marriage is a building block in our own society, and if conservatives believe it is, why do we pay a tax penalty for it? Why haven't the Republicans, champions of traditional marriage, removed that tax penalty? Why haven't they done away with the Alternative Minimum Tax, passed to insure the wealthy pay at least some taxes, but now hitting the middle class almost exclusively, particularly dual-income married folk? Bush has charged a commission to consider that and other issues--with the caveat that any lost revenue has to made up elsewhere in the commission's recommendations--do you recall that requirement applying to tax cuts for the wealthy? It seems that the benison of matrimony is more celebrated in the breech than the observance.Finally, if their is a salutary effect to health and happiness from being married, why should that benison be denied to same sex couples?I don't like marriages where the husband fancies himself lord of both the manor and his timid little wifey: it is a waste of humanity, a distortion of healthy relations. But I don't try to stop them from occurring--I just don't hang with them.If you don't like gay marriage, Tal, don't marry a gay.

randman:

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The implication is that if you think homosexuality is wrong, you cannot be tolerant of homosexuals, and that's totally wrong. Adultery and fornication are sins too, and preached as sinful just as much, but adulterers and fornicators are tolerated, but not by telling them it's OK.

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Really? Preached as just as sinful?You mean Dobson, Inc. have been rolling out jesus-this-disgusts-me whoopee jamboree sessions about adultery and fornication, too, and the mainstream media have been ignoring them? That's just wrong, imo.So your church, randman, like most conservative Christian churches, is full of both fornicators and adulterers, gays and lesbians, joined hand-in-hand in worship, and the pastor stands by the door and greets each in turn: "Bob, you know being adulterously blown by your secretary Barbara at lunch-time is sinful and damanble, right?" And the other parishioners hallelujah chorus, "Yeah, Bob! Stop getting head from Barbara, okay? We love you, and you're always welcome here, but you have to change your ways!"Then Andy. Pastor--"Andy, you know blowing Stevie in your long-term faithful relationship is sinful and damnable, right?" Hallelujah chorus: "Yeah, Andy! Stop blowing Stevie, okay? We love you, and you're always welcome here, but you have to change your ways!"Sure. The stench of hypocrisy that keeps wafting out of fundie churches is a leftie conspiracy, a commie stink bomb planted under the cross.Well, as long as the left practices "no codified and systematic discrimination" (was lynching codified and systematic?) against fundies, they have no grounds of complaint, in your opinion.

randman:

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Actually, Dobson and company talk MORE about the destructiveness of adultery, divorce, abuse, godly principles for raising kids and having a good marriage, tons of marital advice, and even talk of premarital sex, and things like pornography more than they do about homosexuality. His show is Focus on the Family and generally talks of family issues from an evangelical perspective.

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Gosh, that's great! What are his public policy and legislative iniatives concerning adultery and fornication?

randman:

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Omni, Dobson is not primarily a political activist. maybe you did not realize that.

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I am aware that Dobson is demanding that political candidates agree or face his corporation's wrath. He has set foot into the political/policy sphere, seeking to see his religious views writ large into law, elections, and appointments. He spent a great deal of time, effort, and money developing a power base, and now he seeks to cash it in for political clout. Perhaps you did not realize that? It is a well-trod path for American zealots; in the end, they usually self-immolate, but first they do great damage.I don't care if he tells his followers that red is blue and up is down, but I care a great deal about his efforts to impose his views on others.

Guess it all depends on what the definition of primarily is.From your initial response, one would think he is just tending his flock. When I point out that he is doing much more than that, rather than amend your characterization, you suggest I am hypocritical.The point is that he is politically active for the purpose of imposing his religious views on others. There is a great deal wrong with that.True, those who agree with me are politically active for the purpose of preventing Dobson and his ilk from imposing their religious views on others. No one who is in agreement with me seeks to prevent others from the free practice of their beliefs, nor to force on them actions that violate their beliefs. The only thing Dobson could ever claim I would attempt to impose on him is the tolerance to which we all have a natural right.Certainly, Dobson has a Constitutional right to advocate (almost) anything he pleases, using whatever appeals to bigotry and hatefulness that resonate with his supporters.I have a Constitutional right to decry what he is doing. You first say he is not doing what I said he is doing, and then accuse me of a double-standard for insisting that he is. That is not honest speech.I am not trying to shut him up, I am trying to insure he is clearly heard.

Incisive. Nope. I think the kids should be able to sing anything they want: would you mind if she sang raunchy burlesque or a call to prayers? Nope. I think religious art is cool. I think we should have Christian displays, Islamic displays, Jewish displays, Hindu displays, shaman displays, Jain displays, etc. But if any religious displays are banned, all should be banned. Would a Wicca or Satanist display be okay with you? Don't smoke anything. Who's doing the demonizing here? Nope, not me: you should indeed have looked. But why bother with verifying facts when you think you have a lock on truth? Don't have a clue what you're talking about. Would the Terminator do a thing like that? My earliest crowd was an integrated Boy Scout troop in the late 50s/early 60s, because our Scoutmaster was a brave man of conscience--do you think Dobson would rock that kind of boat for justice? I don't.We were turned away from regional Jamborees because of the brothers. We had to gather together to walk to the church en masse for meetings because the 'good Christian' kids--if not their parents-- would otherwise beat up the brothers. We had gay scouts. I learned real lessons of tolerance and the real face of bigotry and hatred in those days: it looked sanctimonious and self-righteous. Like Dobson.No one can demand to be Scoutmaster if the kids and parents don't trust and support them--doesn't work. If someone tried to force an unwanted Scoutmaster on a troop, that was mistaken and morally wrong. On the other hand, if a popular and successful Scoutmaster was outed and chased off for that reason alone, that was mistaken and morally wrong.I reached Life Scout (one step shy of Eagle), God and Country, and a ton of merit badge I keep in the same box as my Army medals.There are people who agree with me on some things and not on others; that is true of everyone.I condemn Dobson based on his actions and statements on the record: he and his corporation seek to impose their religious views on others--that is a matter of record, which is why you made no serious effort to refute the assertion.Instead, you smear me with strawman guilt by ssociation.Very Dobsonian of you.

Ah, randman, you can't even gloat accurately. Nice Christian sentiments, though. And another famous randman numberless numerical claim.