Liam

You'd be surprised how easily it is to brainwash people. If someone, for example, has low selfesteem (not saying it is your case, do not assume that) was violated when he/she was young, was treated poorly all his/her life, a person like that seems ripe for brainwashing into anything. (no, I'm not saying homosexuality specifically, but that brainwashing is quite prevelant in our society) I will confess, it does bother me to think of people who are so self-loathing that they willingly submit to organizations that want to shame them, harrass them, and threaten them with eternal damnation unless they reject their very essence as God designed them to be. Yes, I fervently reject the notion of orientation reassignment and the entire "ex gay" movement. Why? Because I know people who went into this movement to satisfy deeply religious parents or who did this in an attempt to receive eternal salvation. All I can say is that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are probably treated with more kindness than someone who goes through one of these ex-gay ministries. Why do I say an "ex-gay" is lying to himself? I'll ask you this: (I am assuming you are straight) can you become gay? Seriously. Can you consciously decide that you will ever only look at men in a sexual way and love it? That you can never look at a woman in a sexual way again and be fine with that decision? That you will never walk past the issues of Penthouse or Playboy and be tempted to look at this month's centerfold? That you can flip a switch in your brain and convince yourself that you could never sleep with another woman ever again and actually be happy with the decision that you made? Anyone (well, most people) can assume certain sexual roles. We can perform certain acts and we can sometimes enjoy them or we can mostly suffer through them, but it does not undo our inner nature, our very being. Someone who is gay, truly gay, cannot become truly straight. Ever. I am not even going to address your comments about someone's becoming gay because of a perverted uncle or your comments about certain black people. You're on your own there.

Do you uphold this same standard for people who were "straight" and who suddenly decide they'd rather be with men? You mean to say that you wouldn't suspect he was never truly straight to begin with?

I'm not laughing. I mean, I am laughing b/c I do think it's funny that someone on "Peoples' Court" would pretend to be gay for some reason. (I *do* have a sense of humor about things, you know!) I think some people can experiment with certain kinds of sex and decide it's not for them. Those are not the people I am labeling "gay". If I was so strict in my labeling, I couldn't rightly object if someone called me straight. After all, I was married to a woman for eight years. The people I am calling gay are men and women who are attracted to their own gender. I think bisexuality can exist and I think someone can go from being bi (experimenting with his or her own kind) and settling down with someone of the opposite gender and being happy. But those people are not "gay" and never were. "Gay" is someone who is primarily attracted to his or her own gender. It is as much a part of his being as a straight man's sole attraction to women. I remain unapologetic for my position that these people can change no more than a straight man can suddenly decide he is no longer attracted to Angelina Jolie and that Brad Pitt is his fantasy.

If this really happened, tell me the name of the Rx he was put on. I'll call my ex, who is a doctor, and ask him what he thinks of the drug and to tell me about it. Just tell me the name of the drug.

That's utter BS. No Rx can make someone chnage from gay to straight. Don't you think the Christian Coalition would have put this substance into our water like fluoride years ago????

What was probably more the case was that they finally found an environment where they could let their own "inner divas" come out. *LOL I can assure you, no dance teacher can suddenly make otherwise straight-acting men into a bunch of nellies.

It is absolutely worse to finance long term than it is to tax and spend in a single fiscal cycle. Bush's fiscal policy will wreak havoc on generations to come. The worst that could be said of "tax and spend" democrats was that they lacked the fiscal discipline to keep things under control while they were spending the money. When you've got the national credit card down on the bar, however, you're not thinking of the day when Visa mails the statement, so the sky's the limit.

Can I be more clear than by saying that abosuletly NO ONE can change his or her orientation? So, yes, I say there is no such thing as ex-gay. Absolutely not at all. Anyone who claims to be ex-gay is lying to himself/herself. Ask yourself this -- if heterosexuality was suddenly out of vogue, and bear with me here... even to the point where there were criminal sanctions imposed on those who tried to engage in sexual activities with members of the opposite sex... and lets further assume that you could suffer the situation and engage in physical relations with someone of the same gender, would that make you any less straight than you are now? Would you *truly* be able to turn off what you were in your earlier life to be what society expected of you? That's what these so-called "ex gays" are doing. They are compromising who thye are to live the life that society deems to be a "moral" amd "wholesome". But they are in denial. ALL homosexuals are locked into their sexuality. As are ALL heterosexuals. All the prayer in the world has about as much as chance as turning a gay man straight as would turn a straight man gay. What I am saying is not at all based on what I feel, but on what I know from experience, both my own and that of my friends. Personally, I find it insulting that you can even dare to speak on this issue at all. I was married. I have children. I tried to live the straight life. I have many friends who also tried to live a straight life. The people who claim to have left that "lifestyle" behind are full of sh*t. "Ex gays" are still the people they were born to be, only they have made a deal with the devil to put aside their true feelings and deny who they are all in a lame effort to gain social acceptance. Mark my words, they'll be "gay" again some day. I will wager any amount of money. Any day. Any time. Anywhere. You name the price, you name the conditions. I will bet you and I will win. Hands down. No question. No doubt. They can no more become straight than a straight person can be become gay. A leopard cannot change its spots. It can pretend it's no longer a leopard but it cannot change what it truly is.

There is no such condition as "ex Gay". It is not a choice. It is not a mutable condition. Someone cannot change his or her orientation through therapy, prayer or psychology/drug treatment. That's why you will frequently see stories about leaders of "ex gay" ministries being found in gay bars or trolling online for gay hookups six months after their "successful conversion". Please. The only thing someone can change is his activity. I suspect that the "ex Gays" you know have just modified their external actions to conform to a hetero lifestyle but that deep down they are deeply unhappy at denying their true nature. I should know, I did it for years and am 100 times happier to be openly gay and honest with myself as to who I really am.

The US does not have hate speech legislation that is the equivalent of what you live under in Canada, so the only option left is to consider whether or not this letter incites another to perpetrate a criminal act. Anyone with half a brain cell can see that this more like Swift's "A Modest Proposal" (although admittedly not nearly as good) than an actual plea to kill people. Get a grip. This isn't a real letter to any terrorist.

I hope you similarly conclude that Jack Abramoff speaks on behalf of the GOP when the pictures of him and Bush eventually get published.

Let me guess... Mindonfire = Louis Farrakhan

The Michael Savage incident was but one of hundreds if not thousands of terrible statements made and actions taken by right wingers which display hate, intolerance, and ignorance. But I'll play along and compare it to each example of left-wing "hate" you've cited: Assaulting female conservative speakers with pies -- I think that happened to one female speaker, Ann Coulter, not speakers as you said. Yes, I think it is worse to wish AIDS upon someone than to throw (and miss) a whipped cream pie at a radical agitator. AIDS is a terrible disease and I can tell you that, as a gay man, it is something that killed off almost an entire generation of older gay men through the 80's and 90's. It is a disease that people are still terrified of and a disease that millions of men and women around the world, both gay and straight, confront on a daily basis. It lays waste to entire villages in Africa, it causes thousands of people to commit suicide each year, it bankrupts people, it leaves children orphans, it afflicts newborns. If anything, Coulter probably relishes each time someone tries to throw a pie at her. It increases her visibility and makes her more the darling of her fan base. I mean, that Ann Coulter must really be laying into them liberals if they throw pies at her. Please. Directing so much ill-will on a single, innocent caller, is infintely worse than increasing Ann Coulter's popularity among her fans. Throwing Oreo cookies at black Republicans -- again, this is alleged to have only happened to one Republican, not to multiple Republicans. And there is serious doubt that it even happened. I've read multiple news articles about this from a variety of news organizations and it appears that the incident did not occur as you believe (if it even happened at all; statements I've read from some in attendance said they never saw the alleged "hail of Oreos"). I've read everything from a "hail of Oreos" from the crowd, to a single Oreo rolling onto the stage, to students tossing Oreos (from snack-sized bags) among themselves as Steele spoke, to Steele's stepping on a leftover Oreo as he existed the stage. Since this incident didn't really happen as you think, I'd have to say wishing a terrible, wasting disease on an innocent caller is infinitely worse. Head of DNC... -- I don't like that he said he hated Republicans -- and don't think for a minute that he meant anyone outside the power structure of the GOP within the Beltway, and even that would be a bit of hyperbole. I am sure Howard Dean has some close friends and colleagues who are Republicans. But to hate what the GOP stands for is a perfectly acceptable thing to say. I hate a lot of things the GOP stands for. I hate a lot of things the Christian Coalition stands for. I even hate some of the things the Democrats stand for. It doesn't make me a hate-filled person. And it is not even close to wishing a terminal disease on someone. Air America skits... -- okay, it's called comedy. I mean, it might not be all that entertaining and I am sure it was lame, but I can probably dig up a half dozen similar incidents... wait, I just remembered one... extended family members of mine were big GOP donors in the Clinton years. What was one of the trinkets they got from the GOP? Lapel buttons with the statement, "Where's Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him?" on them. I disliked the sentiment, but I shrugged it off. Even the anti-Clinton assassination stuff (or in your example, bad skits on Air America) was not worse than wishing death on a real private citizen. "Liberals" penning letters... -- okay, never heard of this. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it something that can be taken seriously? No. Clearly it was written for the domestic/US audience. It neither promotes terrorism against any group of persons nor encourages real terrorist activity. If anything, it seems like a total plant: some GOP supporter to start up some outrageous letter writing campaign that you know a few fringe tin foil-hat whack jobs will jump on. It would be simiar to having some crafty liberal start a petition among right wingers to burn abortion clinics or kill abortion doctors. the publication of such a drive only serves to taint everyone in the class of liberals or right wingers or whomever. But even if legit, is this minor minor letter writing campaign hateful? I don't think so. Like I said, it's stupid and ineffectual. Is wishing death on a real, live person worse? I think so. By a mile.

Yes, another voice of right wing reason... Monty, what did you say elsewhere about liberal hate being worse?? http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-0...ost-fired_x.htm

To answer the question the title of this thread poses, No, he is not a tax and spend Democrat. The worst thing you can say about someone who taxes and spends is that he taxes enough to pay the bills. Bush is worse. He's a credit card Republican who will end up leaving a mountain of debt for the young to pay off.

I agree and disagree. I do not think Rush Limbaugh has any influence over, say, the decisionmaking of the career bureaucrats at the State Department, but I am positive he has influence over voters who elect the Congressmen and Senators whose committees oversee the decisionmaking of those career bureaucrats at the State Department. Just look at the Terry Schiavo case. Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Scarborough, etc. were foaming at the mouth over the issue and got their listeners all riled up and, sure enough, every bootlicking GOP politician lined up to invade the privacy of the Schiavo family home.

Where? When? Do you mean this?: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/12/iraq.weapons.ap/index.html

I disagree -- I think what has changed is our perception of intellectualism. JFK was most certainly an intellectual and he was a pretty good leader. (It's often said that the last time it was cool to be smart was during the JFK years.) FDR, likewise, was an intellectual, and he was perhaps the rgeatest leader in US history after Lincoln. I'd even say that Bush I was kind of an intellectual. Not the best leader, but certainly a better leader and a better man than his homespun offspring. Nowadays, we equate intellectualism with effetism -- it's just not cool to be an intellectual "weenie/wimp" -- meanwhile the two are mutually exclusive traits. Ward Churchill... okay, you've got me. I am a Democrat, but I've never heard of the guy. I had to google him to find out. Honestly, this guy is a crackpot and has absolutely no impact on the Democratic party. He's the left wing equivalent of Rev. Fred Phelps. A firebrand, a hater, someone whose politics might put him at one end of the spectrum, but certainly not someone who speaks for Democrats.

Correction: Baldwin thinks he speaks for those of us who don't like the current administration, but he's a horse's @ss. And the conservative media types keep putting him out there as the ordained spokesman for anyone slightly to the left of the hard right. It is a common tactic: find the easy person to pillory and set him or her up as the opposition's mouthpiece. When you easily shoot him down, it appears to eviscerate the arguments that oppose your own position.

After catching up on the Plame thread I saw this one. I hate to be repetitive, but it does bear repeating that editorials are not the same as objective news reporting. Just because an editorial or opinion piece makes a claim, it does not make it true. During the war, the Wall Street Journal was overflowing with editorials about all of Iraq's WMDs and how we were on the verge of finding the stockpiles of smallpox, anthrax, nerve agents, etc. Did all those lines and lines of editorializing reflect the truth?

Ouch! That's gotta hurt when even the liberal WaPo sides with Bush. Another leftist meme is seen swirling down the toilet. Editorial columns are opinion, they are not fact. I could write an editorial about how you're a handsome devil, but it wouldn't make it true.

If you look close enough, this is not a news report, it is an opinion piece and, as such, does not need to be accurate. One quote from Nascar's communications group sounds solid, but pick it apart and you can see it's meaningless: <<Ramsey Poston, NASCAR's managing director of corporate communications, said Wednesday that no instances of unrest were reported. "No one bothered them," Poston said.>> How would Poston know that no one bothered them? Did he follow them around? Did he eavesdrop on every whisper, did he hear every comment made in the crowd of thousands and thousands of race fans? NBC isn't going to let the Muslim men report incidents of verbal abuse to Nascar security -- why leak the content of your expose? I'm not saying Nascar fans are racists or bigots, and I'm not saying that these Muslim men experienced anything negative, but I'm just pointing out that you cannot rely on the word of a paid Nascar spokesman writing an opinion piece and think that it's accurate news reporting.

I'm an Amreican who is *not at all* a fan of Bush's, but I don't see a legal problem here for a couple of reasons. (I have problems with this leak issue, but I don't think there is a *legal* problem here.) First, Bush has the power to declassify information and could make the argument that by releasing Libby to talk about the issue, Bush merely took an indirect path to declassifying information. Second, was the decision to release the information (what Libby revealed was the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq -- *not* Plame's identity) a political decision? Did Bush have Libby reveal this information for political reasons or for actual wartime policy purposes (to explain a certain policy decision -- as opposed to shoring up support for the policy decision, Bush personally, and/or the GOP)? I think if Bush wanted to declassify the information, he should not have been so surreptitious about it. It comes across as sneaky, underhanded, and unnecessarily clandestine. So it looks ethically suspect and quite possibly is. What is more damning, though, is that by taking this path, Bush and Cheney appear to be saying one thing in public (intolerance for leakers) while doing something entirely different behind closed doors (leaking). And it shows that Bush is just another shifty politician when the media shows clips of his saying he wants to find our who in his administration is leaking things to the press. I suppose, like OJ's search for the real killer, Bush was looking for the real leaker?

For all the talk about gay marriage's cheapening hetero marriage, you've done it all on your own by completely reducing the marital relationship to nothing more than a romp in a tent. Don't be offended then if someone assumes your marriage is only about getting off and has absolutely nothing to do with companionship, love, family or commitment.

Unfortunately for your side of this argument, Betsy, it is the state, not the churches, who issue marriage licenses. Churches always could and will always be allowed to determine who meets the standards of their sacraments, but where the state has taken upon itself to begin issuing licenses, it *must* treat its citizens fairly and equally. There was an interesting exchange that circulated via email down here in the US this past week regarding gay marriage. I don't know if it made its way up to Canada: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/raskin.asp