Rue

"What came first, the Palestinian rockets, or the Israeli helicopters?" For you to even ask the question shows your comments have no credibility. As usual you twist everything around to your hatred of Israel defending itself or existing. Its tiresome. The original post discussed China and Human Rights and the UN Record. Why is it being used by you once again to Israel bash? Here is the point Argus and I regret the post went off on this tangent, there is a huge, collosal amount of hippocracy and double standards when it comes to discussing human rights and we all know why. It is a fact, China is the world's worst abuser of human rights. My favourite was yesterday when it jailed someone for life for setting up a porn site on the inter-net, and I wish to be clear and state it was a soft porn site NOT a child porn site or one with violence. The fact is MILLIONS each year are given unfair trials and used as cheap slave prison labour in China and the world is silent just as it is over Darfur, etc. The UN is selective about Human Rights precisely because the majority of its members openly violate them but are quick to point the finger at others. Everyone is silent on China because like Jean Chretien who went running like a pathetic sniveling groveling lacky with his patronage friends in toe, that is what people do. They snivel and grovel. Look at Tony Blair in Libya. When it comes to the almighty dollar its amazing how fast people get on their knees and suck and blow at the same time. I will say this. The NDP and Liberals made a point of accusing Harper of being a right wing lackie of George Bush. He clearly states a policy completely different then the US policy on China, states openly China is a human rights violator and the same LIberals and NDP who are so quick to lecture the US and everyone else about human rights abuses ARE SILENT. The NDP has zero credibility. It was quick to shit on Canadian troops in Afghanistan and say this is not the way to defend human rights and that Canada is just a U.S. lackie but when it comes to China? The Silence is deafening. Harper does something principled and where are these human rights defenders? All they can say is oh no, you have to use a different approach. Yah where have I heard that lecture before. Be nice with abusers. Pity them. Use a gentle approach. Approach them with your hands wedged up your butt and with saliva drooling out of your mouth. Never raise your voice. Whisper your concern. I mean come now. We are Canadians, we can't say things directly-we need to soft pedal and appease. This appeasement is why thousands died in Rwanda and Burundi and is why so many Kurds died in Iraq, and how terrorist organizations through-out the third world have killed their fellow third worlders but no one has said a thing about it. It is why Iran and Libya lecture the world on human rights. I think Harper has showed some bawls. I think it is hilarious to see the NDP and Liberals sputter and hum and haw over China. It is a joke. And this is coming from someone who is not a Conservative by any means-just willing to be fair and say-Harper has done some innovative things. I personally think his looking Duceppe and the Liberals in the eyes and calling their bluff on this absolutely idiotic semantic debatre over Quebec nationhood was hilarious. You wanna be a nation-yah what-ever- that's nice. By being direct and using few words, they all now mut shaddup or risk the obvious. I loved watching Duceppe try spin his way out like all the other hippocrates who select which human rights violations to harp on and which ones to ignore. I will say this though. I do find Louise Arbour's comments the last day or so about the Palestinian conflict for the FIRST TIME, the first neutral words I have heard on the conflict. She did try hard to be balanced in her comments which is a distinct change. However, I am disgusted with the UN and think it is morally bankrupt and I only have one word to see why I feel that way and it is DARFUR.

"So heads I win, tails you lose, eh? How about the possible correlation between suicide bombing and targeted killings by Israel?" This is silly. You are saying the suicide bombings only come about because Israel attacks. How much more silly can you get. Civilians die because Israel does NOT initiate attacks it responds to them, and when responding kills civilians. You know full well that while Hamas deliberately shoots at Israeli civilians and then deliberately hides behind Palestinian civilians putting them in harm's way, Israel does not initiate attacks against civilians, does niot use suicide bombers to attack civilians, and in fact has been telephoning and sending pamphlets warning civilians of its responses. Your comments are absurd in that they attempt to suggest the country defending itself against the initiated terrorist attacks, is the one initiating the problem. Give it up. Even Hamas' leaders have been quoted laughing at Westerners like you who try defend them using such "logic". They ridicule people like you for being so easily manipulated. Unlike you Hamas doesn't even believe your kind of arguement. They are quite clear in their manifestoes and speeches they are deliberately killing their people to push their cause. Funny they can admit what they are doing but you need to engage in this kind of blaming the victim arguement. "Palestinian militant groups appear to have adopted a routine policy of responding to civilian massacres and especially assassinations with suicide bombings." You are again completely wrong. Absolutely wrong, They are not responding to civilian massacres they are escalating the conflict. They deliberately assure civilians are killed, and then use that as a pretense to further incite and prolong and hatchet up the attacks. It is very very simple. Don't shoot rockets at Israel-don't send in suicide bombers, and you will ber hear from Israel. "This fact explains why Ariel Sharon's escalation of military assaults on Palestinian civilian areas and his aggressive employment of extrajudicial assassinations of key militant leaders over the past few years have amplified the organisational triggers for suicide bombings, leading to the upsurge in suicide attacks. " There you go again trying to twist and distort and blame the victim. Your comments are baseless and clearly assume Hamas is right to shoot missles and send in suicide bombers, but Israel had and has no right to defend itself. As a result your one sided analysis has zero credibility. Israel did not escalate anything. I challenge you to provide the statistics to show Israel initiated anything as opposed to responded to attacks, "Israel could easily refrain from actions that kill Palestinian civilians and could suspend the assassination campaign of militants. " This in a nutshell is exactly the kind of statement that shows just how one sided and bias you are. How can you tell a tiny country that has had so many die from constant terrorist attacks that it is easy to ignore missiles and suicide boombers. Are you not embarassed when you make such comments? Do you realize how sheltered and ridiculous it makes you sound? You going to play the same game as Higgly-that Palestinians engage in terror because they are victims, but when Israelis try defend themselves against terrorism they are oppressors? If you knew anything about the mentality of terrorists and the reality of the size and space of where the attacks were happening-if you understood the psychological and physical impact a missile attack has even if it does not kill anyone-if you saw someone die from a terrorist attack, you wouldn't say such knee-jerk simplistic things. Clearly these are the words of someone who lectures about how easy it is because you have never had to feal afraid or be shot at or constantly wondering when the next attack comes. Each time you make a comment like that, I can not take what you say seriously. "Moreover, Israel could offer a political vision attractive enough to enable Palestinians to mobilise the growing opposition to suicide bombings within Palestinian society around peace negotiations with Israel, thereby marginalising militant organisations and depriving them of the crucial support they depend upon to gain recruits and conduct their operations." This without a doubt has to be the most bizarre thing you have stated to date. What exactly do you mean by "political vision attractive enough to enable". It is easy for you to once again play the name game and say, it is up to Israel, its Israel's fault, but when you point the finger at Israel, as you did again, do you even know what you mean? Is this "political vision" you talk about real or is it just you shooting off because you know full well you haven't a clue what political vision it is. Come on. Tell us all. Since you are lecturing Israel-let us in on it-explain this vision. For those of us who do not engage in such deliberate rhetoric that has no substance we know this-Israel time and time again has created and set up economic associations with Palestinians. You do not know this because you have never been there and talk like an expert about things you have no clue about. Israel did create business support groups, social agencies, community liaisons, health exchanges, decentralized municipal government. There were many non profit organizations providing peaceful alternatives to terror. For you to lecture about it now is hilarious. Not only did Israel meet its 50% of the moral equation bv reaching out, but all these initiatives one by one were destroyed by Hamas. In your world of pretend make believe as to Israel and lecturing it, you have no clue what the PLO and Hamas actually did. The PLO first gutted these initiatives and stole all the money leaving their citizens destitute. When Hamas took over it threatened anyone with death who cooperates with Israel.So please before you lecture Israel on its moral duties read and find out what actually happened when Israel did try. "Interesting that when the Palestinians meet violence with violence, they are terrorists. When they adopt passive resistance techniques, they are dupes and pawns of Hamas. " Are you this unaware of what terrorism is that you make such statements? If Palestinian women, and for that matter all Palestinians engaged in genuine passive resistance they would not shoot missiles into Israel or send in suicide bombers. Your comment is ridiculous,. The portion of behaviour where Palestinian civilians cloak terrorists is not passive resistance as long as it is attached to an act of violence and you know it. Think about what you write for heavens sake. You are equating being used as a shield to protect someone who just finished shooting a missile as passive!! How is that passive? Let me spell this out to yoou loud and clear. Using humans as shields in the heat of battle to hide behind after you shoot is NOT passive resistance and for you to say it is and equate it to what Muhatma Ghandi or Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela did is absolutely pathetic. You think it is commendable and noble to hide behind civilians? Come clean, because you have just done one hell of a number trying to say serving as shields to protect terrorists is passive resistance. "Again: heads I win, tails you lose. In your view, Hamas seems to weild a tremendous amount of power and influence ove rteh psyches of the average Palestinian, a view I think severely overstates their influence." Again when a group like Hamas can incite its civilians to shield terrorists and risk their lives doing so, it obviously has great influence or do you think being willing to die comes about lightly? "What's the alternative for them right now? Is there any reason to believe Israel will change its policy vis a vis the Palestinian question if every terorist attack stopped tomorrow?" Listen to the question and then ask yourself-what gives you the right to suggest if there was no terror Israel would not respond. Where do you get off even hinting Israel would continue attacking Palestinians if there were no more terrorist actions? Where do you get off? Were you in Israel when Palestinians and Israelis peacefully co-existed when there was no terrorism? No. If you had lived during that time period, you would not ask such questions. No one, Palestinian or Israeli who has suffered through this b.s., for one second believes terrorism is the solution not even Hamas or Hezbollah. The alternative to peacefully co-exist in a nation has always been there. Ask yourself why you keep trying to blame Israel for the fact that the Palestinian community has not chosen it. Why is it you constantly blame Israel and never, not once, ask youself about who are the Palestinian leaders, and what are their visions and what have they done for their people. Until you do, people like me can not take what you say seriously because all you are doing is playing the blame game and scape-goating Israel for many questions and issues that must be created and formulated by Palestinians not Israelis.

That is the best you can do. Call it a propaganda apperatus and then respond with emotional opinions that are not based on any facts? If you want to debate Higgly, then go on out, take the numbers presented above, and prove they are wrong with other statistics. To simply respond with name calling is ridiculous. You clearly have reverted now into responding simply with unsubstantiated opinions as opposed to facts. For your information the study above as much as you would like to disaparage it and name call it, worked with statistics verified by neutral sources, i.e., Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and The Red Cross. The numbers don't like Higgly no matter how much you want to engage in name calling. For you to make the comment that Israel has engaged in murderous and barbaric repression I guess is the kind of comment you now have to throw out since you have no statistics, no facts, nothing objective to base your emotional name calling. For you to make such comments shows where this debate is heading and I will not engage you further or respond to such emotional name calling. Its pointless. I will discuss historic facts and statistics with anyone who cares. If you want to engage in name calling, you will not do it with me. It is precisely your kind of answers that only promulgate hatred and do nothing to assist constructively in understanding this is not a ne sided issue. I also want to go on record and state I do not believe for one moment you have been to Israel, the West Bank or Gaza. I do not believe you because no one I have known who have been to any of these places engages in the kind of language you do - not even Palestinians who hate Israel. They actually use far different words and phrases in their responses based on information and a kind of psychological anger you will never understand but seem to think you do.

"What exactly is Israel conceding? This is a country that started with diddly squat and ended up with 90% of someone else's territory." The above statement is in fact completely untrue. Ayone who looks at the map of "Palestine" and what percentage of it was seized for Trans-Jordan, and is willing to accept historical fact as opposed to trying to re-write it would not make such a preposterous statement. "And let's be be real here for a moment US interests in the area were very minimal in the 40's, 50's and did not really start supporting Israel with limited miltary equipment until the 60's and 70's." This again is absolutely untrue. The U.S. from day 1 was a major player in the creation of the State of Israel and long before the 1940's. Anyone who knows anything about Middle East History would also know the major role the U.S. played in ending the Suez Canal crisis, its huge disagreement with both France and Britain over the Middle East in the 50's-90's and its cold war with Russia played through the Middle East regimes during the 50's through 90's. Again a silly thing to say. "In the 40s, Israel was sucking up to the Brits. In the 50s, it was the French. Israel has always relied on the gullibility of strangers. A real Blanche Dubois among nations..." Now this is an example of someone who is simply making up things. Again this is a pure fabrication and it shows the person who wrote it has no credibility. Then again this is the same writer who when called out on for making fabrications that Israel stole land to start Israel, then switched the topic in his response to me and presented an article on land in the West Bank, something completely different then what we were speaking about. To describe Israel sucking up to Britain and France is so ignorant it is not even funny. Israel had very strained relations with Britain precisely because of how it became independent and the fact that Britain clearly sided with the Arab Regimes particularly those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Jordan. Britain made no attempt to hide its neutrality when it seized most of Palestine for Trans Jordan and its role in inciting Arab nationalism as a tool to defeat Turkey in World War One is well known and documented. Britain's anti-Israeli foreign policy for most of the 40's to recent years is well documented. As for France, for anyone to say Israel sucked up to France in the 50's is a complete laughing stock. DeGaulle in fact was an open and well known anti-semite. What did happen was that for one brief period, Britain and France conspired with Israel to have a dispute with Nasser. Nasser had seized the Suez Canal and nationalized it and was going to charge Britain and France tarrifs. While this was happening, Nasser was openly encouraging war against Israel and openly backing terrorist attacks against Israel and calling for its destruction and Israel's borders on the Sinai side were being infiltrated by Fedayeen. Israel's agenda was clear, slap Nasser and discourage his rhetoric. Britain and France got together with Israel and used Israel as a pawn to start a dispute to then justify Britain and France parachuting troops in to seize the canal. To say Israel sucked up to France or Britain is idiotic and completely ignores what really happened, that the three countries had a common foe. The same United States, led by General Eisenhower put an end to the Suez Canal crisis by guaranteeing Israel's right to use waterways shut down by Nasser which were at the time Israel's only way to get supplies to survive. It was in fact the U.S.'s intervention that prevented the Soviets from coming in on the side of the Egyptians and perhaps causing a full blown war. "Yeah right. You have a web site,. Who cares?" Well considering you complain to the moderators everytime you feel anyone is rude to you, show some courtesy back. You may also want to ask yourself when you make these emotional statements about Israel being Blanche Dubois, you may want to look at the history of anti-semitism in France, its record during World War Two, and how the French courted Israel not the other way around, then in the early 60's turned on Israel and made it clear it would side with the Arab nations NOT out of principle but because it felt since the Arab countries had oil, that is who they should side with. This is spelled out in their foreign policy documents. The French never hid this. More to the point how could anyone possibly say Israel sucked up to France in the 50's. Anyone who knows anything about Middle East history, knows that France's colonial sphere of influence never included Israel but included Morrocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and of course Lebanon. Its very strong role in Lebanon always prevented it from being an Israeli ally and Israel would never have sucked up to either Britain or France. France was committed to its pro-Arab foreign policy and Britain was deeply committed to Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. "you also forget to mention of the support that some of the middle east countries were getting from mother Russia." This is the only thing you have stated that is accurate. Russia in fact was the principal backer of Egypt, Syria and Iraq in the 60's. The U.S. countered with Turkey, Israel and Iran support. Britain never got involved but always supported Jordan. France openly supported the Arab regimes along with Russia. "Russia was the second nation to recognize Isray-el in the UN in 1948. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to bring that up." Seems to me I already made that point. Russia was technically not the second but was one of 5 that came to support Israel right after the U.S. Russia in fact was the FIRST country to recognize Israel de jure as opposed to de facto. Guatemala recognized Israel the same time Russia did. " What makes you think I am laying it at the feet of one nation? I am just telling it like I see it. If you are honest, you will do the same." I take the opinion of a Canadian soldier who has served as a peacekeeper very seriously so much so that I think you should as well. Army Guy is to be respected for his service and we all know is not saying anything profound when he says a conflict is not one-sided. In fact when and if there is a conflict resolution process that is implemented, it will be precisely people like Army Guy who may be called upon to go back by the UN as consultants. Army Guy hear me loud and clear. Israelis have every kind of opinion there is-but on one thing you can count on-they absolutely respected and will always respect the role the Canadian Armed Forces played in the Middle East as peacekeepers. So do the Beduin Arabs and Arab Israelis. Having travelled and knowing Beduins, Arab-Israelis and Jewish-Israelis they all said the same thing about Canada's armed forces-they were professional, impeccably well behaved, absolutely neutral and everyone trusted them. Interestingly the same was not said of French troops by either side.

To properly understand the selectivity that goes on when we discuss Palestinian and Israeli deaths in the conflict I think it is obvious as long as anyone person dies on either side, its unacceptable and morally Hamas or terrorism can not be justified in their terrorist actions by arguing more Palestinians die then Israelis. This is absurd for the very reason that the same Palestinians who die from Israeli retaliation die because of the same Hamas who have put them in the position of death and/or danger in the first place. Hamas is an accomplice before and after the fact to the death of any Palestinian who dies in an Israeli retaliatory action. That said let us look at the selectivity and proaganda use of the death tolls The International Policy Institute For Counter-Terrorism carefully analyzed the actual numbers of people who have died and here are their findings which I have summarized-and if you feel their numbers are not accurate keep in mind these are numbers independent third party organizations such as the Red Cross have verified; -approximately 1450 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the "al-Aqsa Intifada", compared to more than 525 Israelis -the above numbers ae misleading because Palestinians have lumped combatants in with noncombatants ir innocent civilians as well as Palestinian "collaborators" the PLO and Hamas murdered by their own compatriots -when the 1,450 figure was analyzed in detail, it was then found that there were in fact 568 Palestinian noncombatant deaths, while Palestinians killed more than 420 Israeli noncombatants -50% of the Palestinians killed were actively involved in fighting and this does NOT include stone-throwers or "unknowns" -Palestinians were in fact directly responsible for the deaths of at least 185 of their own number - or 1 of 8 Palestinians killed -of the Israeli dead, almost 80% were noncombatants -Israelis account for only about 25% of the total "Intifada" fatalities, but in fact represent 40 percent of the noncombatant victims -when broken down by gender; -women and girls account for 30% of all Israelis killed in the conflict, and 40%percent of Israeli noncombatants killed by Palestinians. - in regards to Palestinian fatalities, 95% of the fatalities have been male -fewer than 8 percent of Palestinians killed by Israel have been female -while more Palestinians than Israelis have been killed overall, Israeli female fatalities far outnumber Palestinian female fatalities -the ratio is 152 Israeli females compared to 61 Palestinian females - a ratio of 2.5 to 1 -if the comparison is restricted to noncombatant Israeli females killed by Palestinians and noncombatant Palestinian females killed by Israel, the difference is 42 Palestinians compared to 150 Israelis, a ratio of more than 3.5 to 1 -when breakdown by age; -Israeli combatant fatalities are concentrated in a narrow age rang (due to deaths of soldiers in a uniformed army) -Israeli noncombatants fatalities, in contrast, display a near-random age distribution which is as a result of these fatalities coming about from random attacjks of civilian targets -in reverse Palestinian fatalities have a different pattern of age dustribution; -Palestinian combatant fatalities, are also concentrated in a narrow age range, BUT Palestinian noncombatant fatalities show an age distribution heavily concentrated among teenagers and young adults -when comparing "mature" noncombatant Israelis killed by Palestinians to "mature" Palestinian noncombatants killed by Israel, the Israeli death toll far exceeds the Palestinian and the Palestinians have killed at least 154 noncombatant Israelis aged 40 and over, while Israelis have killed 69 Palestinian noncombatants in the same age bracket -this ratio is more than 2:1 -in regards to children and teenaged noncombatants killed in the conflict, the number of young children (under the age of 8-9 years old) is comparatively small (although more young Israeli children were killed as a proportion of total fatalities) the no. of Palestinian children killed begins to increase at about 10 years of age, and jumps up dramatically between the ages of 12 and 14, but, the increase consists entirely of boys - the number of Palestinian girls killed shows no age-trend, and is very low for all ages -young Israelis killed by Palestinians show a different profile; both boys AND girls show an increase starting at age 14 (perhaps a year earlier for boys), and just as many teenaged girls were killed as teenaged boys -with Palestinian noncombatants killed by Israel, few female fatalities appear to be randomly distributed by age while the male fatalities, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly young (although, as noted above, relatively few are below the age of ten) -in fact 66% of all Palestinian noncombatants killed by Israel were boys and men between the ages of 13 and 30 -on the other hand Israeli noncombatants killed by Palestinians show a much closer balance between the sexes - as mentioned above, 3 of 8 were women and girl and slightly more girls than boys were killed below the age of 20 -the ratio is nearly one-to-one for those aged 60 and over -in contrast to the high percentage of male Palestinian noncombatants between 13 and 30 years of age, only 27 percent of Israeli noncombatants killed by Palestinians were males from 13 to 30 years old -the statistics show that Israeli noncombatants over the last 21 months have been killed essentially at random, as Palestinian terrorists have chosen to attack whichever civilian targets were accessible -Palestinian fatalities, however, have been strongly concentrated within a particular population segment - teenaged boys and young men -population segments like women or older people are not military targets; thus their higher prevalence among Israeli fatalities is an indication of the degree to which Palestinian terrorists have killed Israelis simply for the "crime" of being Israeli -in contrast, Palestinian noncombatant fatalities have been overwhelmingly young (but over the age of 11) and male -so in fact this pattern of Palestinian deaths completely contradicts PLO and Hamas and Al Jazeera accusations that Israel has "indiscriminately targeted women and children." -the statistics indicate the vast majority of the Palestinians killed did not die as the result of random Israeli attacks on inhabited areas, or on mixed-sex crowds -in fact the statistics verify that Palestinian men and boys engaged in behavior that brings them into conflict with Israeli armed forces and then death -the highly specific pattern of Palestinian noncombatant fatalities suggests that many of these deaths have resulted from an active Palestinian indoctrination campaign glorifying "martyrdom" - effectively encouraging boys and young men to confront Israeli forces and risk death even when there was no real likelihood of causing material harm to Israelis What is extremely disturbing are recent developments which seem to suggest Hamas has caught on that Israel is being selective in shooting back and so now have upped the ante by bring in women to surround Hamas missile sites-this is a deliberate attempt to get Palestinian women killed to create a political propaganda back-lash and Israel has to smarten up and not respond and walk into this provocation in my opinion My point is, it is absolutely misleading to suggest Israel hasno moral right to defend itself because less Israelis die not just for moral reasons, but because when one actually breaks down the number they can see Israel is not involved in indiscriminate mass muder in response as Hamas would depict it. It may be undesireable for Israel to shoot civilians in response, but it is certainly more dispicable and more repulsive that Hamas has deliberately used its civilians as propganda tools and uses their deaths or injuries as a proganda tool to pit opinion against Israel. I think what we are going to see now is a change of tactic by the IDF now that Hamas is openly using women and children as shields. What their new tactics will be I do not know but one obvious tool is setting up walls to avoid contact in its entirety. Another may be midnight raids and strategic assassinations of Hamas leaders. Of course if Hamas was neutralized once and for all, it would make the whole issue a moot point. The question is who has the balls do call Hamas for what they are. It certainly looks like Lebanese are not afraid to call Hezbollah out as terrorists. Will Palestinians do the same or continue to allow themselves to be killed and used as pawns for Hamas?

I'd say there was something wrong if we kept up a constant reign of terror, murder and destruction in response to a few deaths. Israel has a history of this kind of over-reaction going back to the days following the 1948 war. Its approach has always been that lots of killing will discourage further attacks. All it has done is just get everybody hopping mad. The point is that Israeli life is taken to be precious while Palestinian lives are treated as disposable. You also keep bringing in the Arabs. Why don't we just stick to the Palestinians? One could just as easily broaden the argument to all Americans and Russians since so many Israelis come from there. Higgly the arguement has been made by the PLO and Hamas not Israel that more Palestinians have died then Israelis in the conflict and therefore since more Palestinians die then Israelis, Israel should not defend itself. Let's be fair. It has been a propaganda tool for years. When Israel shoots back it is depicted as evil and then it is thrown in their face that since more Palestinians die in counter-attacks, they are evil. No Israeli has ever made the arguement Israelis are more precious then Palestinians. In fact you should read the Israeli journals, and newspapers before you make such generalizations.

If Arbour had anti-semitic tendencies, we would have heard about them from B'Nai Brith et al when she was appointed a Canadian Supreme Court justice. The woman didn't just suddenly become an anti-semite over-night. This tactic from the pro-Israel lobby is getting pretty old. It is a moot point today Higgly. what is clear is she has made some very neutral balanced comments in the last day or so. It is a distinct change from her previous comments. She is now sounding exactly like the kind of person I would expect from her-someone trying to state things neutrally. Clearly someone in the UN handling her is doing a good job. Here comments actually have been quite constructive in the last day or so. I personally have never believed she is an anti-semite but I believe in the past she failed to conduct herself in a neutral manner on the issue of the conflict. I do not myself call people anti-semites simply for being anti-Israeli. Where I get my cud to chewing is when there is a lack of differentiation between Israel and Jews in general and negative attributes and comments are made of Jews under the pretense its debate about Israel. Arbour certainly has never done that. My annoyance was at past comments she made which were from a purely legal perspective just not appropriate for her to say. I think the concerns many of us had were not just concerns from Israelis or pro-Israelis or Jews but many jurists. She has certainly redeemed herself this last day or so and made a solid effort to show her neutrality. Not my cup of tea but I respect what she has done.

Leafless I do not have a problem understanding why you want a Christian society based on what your cconcept of Christianity is and how you do not want the state and your version of Christianity seperated. That I understand. What I do not understand is when you call gays vicious or suggest they are mentally ill or intellectually impaired in your debate. Gays do not need me to defend them against fundamentalist religious types. However it is important they understand and are defended by straights when you or anyone else starts making negative generalizations based on concepts that are just not true. In fairness to you, it is not only Christian fundamentalists that think like you do about Gays, it is fundamentalists from many religions including mine, Islam, Sikhism. Hinduism, etc. and I do not single out just your religious arguements but all religious arguements that agree with yours from ANY religion. If you want to debate laws and making society Christian that is one thing- but making disparaging negative comments about gays accusing them of being intellectually imaired, pedophiles or mentally ill is what I am calling you on. I apologize for before if you thought I was insulting you. I was being sarcastic as I did not really think you were that uptight about gays until I read more of your stuff. It actually shocks me that you hold some of the views you do in this day and age. I do not mean that as an insult. As for your version of Christianity, I personally think it has done great harm to aboriginals, jews, women, children, on and on. I think you should seriously understand that many Christians do not follow your beliefs and this does not make them anti-Christian because they support gay rights. I wonder Leafless if you really want us to go back to Leviticus and start stoning people. Where does your retroactivity end? If we do not agree on anything else, understand this-I respect your right to your beliefs for the eaxct same reason I respect gay peoples' rights to be who they are. I also hope if nothing else, you please understand gays are not pedophiles, have not tried to impose anything on you, and I can assure you will not be inviting you to their weddings. I have telephoned Elton John and told him to stay away from Canada for you. (he is the other Queen of England)

I'll mock who I want, when I want, thanks. If religious types feel their personal beliefs entitle them to pass judgement on others' lifestyles, then I am free to judge them in return. If there is an award for the funniest response this year then I nominate your pee hoo hah response. I enjoyed a good laugh over that and thank you. Like many posters I enjoy a good debate but sometimes I get too caught up and forget there aint nuthing like a dry sarcastic response to lighten us all up. Better then prune juice.

I went back Ghost and read the e-mail you were referring to. If your read my posts I did not call anyone anti-semitic although I do not like and I find it odious to inter-change the use of the word Jew and Jewish when we are describing pro-Israel lobbies the same reason we don't single out people's religions when they are in other lobby groups unless its a lobby group advocating Christian religious concepts, etc. That is the point I was and am still making. As well, if you do want to suggest Jews are involved in a world conspiracy to run it and use Israel as a tool to control the world then yes I for one would say that is anti-semitic and bull. Do I deny there is a pro-Israeli lobby and many of its members are Jewish, of course not. The point I am making is that the way Jews have been depicted involving themselves in world conspiracies can and should be called on and critcized. I wish to make clear not for one second was I questioning Gerry personally as he is far from a bigot and when I was responding to one of his posts I sounded like I was referring to him when I was only speaking about the issue, not to Gerry directly but it sounded like I was going at Gerry. I trust this responds to you.

I apologize if I ignored you. Please tell me what I skipped over. For heaven's sake if there is one thing I do not do, its avoid responding!!!LOL.

I never said you did, dude. I was talking about jbg. Google cache. I know you weren't talking about AIPAC, but I don't think any discussion of the Jewish/Israel loby can omit a mention of it. No problem. Is it signifigant what religion jbg is? And between you and me Blackdog and Gerry I know what you are getting at, what I am getting at is I don't like lobby groups labelled as "Jewish" when what we really mean is pro-Israeli. I am sure you get my point. I do not think for a moment Gerry was being deliberately unfair. It is just a point I am making.

I am not even sure why I bother to respond to Leafless but he made 3 comments that just beg for a response. 1. Firstly he originally raised homo-sexuality as being an anomoly. When I pointed out it happens in all animal life forms, he responded by stating that animals are in effect animals and humans are humans. This does not make any sense. It was Leafless who said it was aberated behaviour not me, and when he is shown it is common in many life forms he then switches the topic to say humans have more grey matter. That was not the issue, claiming it was an anomoly was, and his saying humans are allegedly "smarter" then animals does not address the issue in any way. More to the point it does not adress the point I made that homo-sexuality is a natural phenomena found in all life forms that reproduce. More to the point, humans are the only life form on the planet that kill for the sake of killing so for Leafless to twist the subject and try change it and suggest if all life forms exhibit homo-sexuality it is because they are stupider then humans is ludicrous. 2.Leafless referred to a U.S. policy defining homo-sexuality as an illness or disability. Well if we are to discuss this topic intelligently it then must be disclosed that this policy has been rejected and has been clearly repudiated and the American Medical Association and American Psychological Association definitions of homo-sexuality and the DVSM classification is what is used. More to the point the Uniform Code of Conduct does NOT allow nor does it state gays will not be recruited or allowed to enlist or discharged simply because they ae gay. What the Uniform Code clearly does is to state sexual conduct and not just homo-sexual conduct but conduct by BOTH gays and straights sexual in nature is forbidden and that includes oral sex and sodomy. It is again ludicrous to compare the internal opersational considerations of the US military army with our society. For starters the U.S. military is not a democracy and has never claimed to be a democracy for obvious reasons. It is a military institution. Someone should explain to Leafless we are not a military institution that has to forbid sex for obvious reasons. More to the point what Leafless skips over is of that the 17 Nation military forces only 4 actually ban gays from service and in 1993, the U.S. implemented a policy called " Don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" when it comes to homo-sexuality. The U.S. Army and every other military operation obviously can not have its troops screwing each other and that has nothing to do with whether they are gay or not. Also for your curiousity even the Israeli Army does not ban gays. 3. Leafless made the comment that gays are mentally defficient and more mentally defficient then straughts. This is again preposterous to the point where I ask, did he say this to deliberately bait gays or is this just again one of his unsubstantiated prejudices. There is not one piece of data that could suggest or does suggest that gays are impaired intellectually because they are gay as opposed to straight. Sexual preference has nothing to do with intelligence quotients or capacity and this is no different then some person saying blacks are stupider then whites, etc. Its bigotry based on sheer ignorance. Gays are not defficient intellectually because they are gay. Now the original attempt to refer to homo-sexuals as being more likely to commit pedophilia then hetero-sexuals just so we are all clear originates with Steve Baldwin, Executive Director of the Council for National Policy in an arricle he wrote called Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement, in the Regent University Law Review. This article is an opinion and has not one shred of substantiated objective data to prove this. The Council for National Policy is a Christian fundamentalist group that seeks to return the United States to fundamental Christian rule. Here is a direct quote from it; "Today, America is in trouble because we have departed from the original premise, the original design, the original contract. It does not have to be this way. We can return to Godly, Biblically based constitutional government. Instead of determining what kind of cultural messages are emitted by the National Endowment for the Arts, we can and should remove every single penny from its coffers. Instead of waging rear-guard actions against special legal protections and privileges for practitioners of buggery, we can terminate billions of dollars in federal subsidies which are given to militant homosexuals that they may propagandize for and implement their agenda for evangelization and recruitment in the name of AIDS education." Just so you know the Council for National Policy boasts among its supporters the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and my good and close friend Jerry Falwell who of course stated that 9-11 was caused as punishment by God against the U.S. because of gay people having sex. One last thing. When I find myself engaged in debate with someone who generalizes that gays are mentally defficient or compares Canadian Society to the US Military as if they are the same and can be equated as the same environment I ask myself what is going on? That said, from my perspective as someone who has worked in the legal system with people who hate gays I will say this. It has been my personal experience that when people get to the point where they really hate gays, to me what I am seeing is someone who feels threatened by gays. When we hear the arguement that if you let gay people get married they take away rights from straight people who marry what you are really hearing in my opinion is a clinical behavioural phenomena called irrational fear. It makes no logical sense that if gays marry, that takes away rights from straights. It does not. The arguement that when you grant someone a right it necessarily comes at another group's expense is not based on reasoning or logic but is simply an emotional response not based on anything real or logical. Think about it. How do two gay people being married take away the right of two straight people to marry? This phenomena of jumping to the emotional arguement that if you give someone a right, it takes away your own is a classic form of insecurity that comes when someone feels a lack of control or threat. So what about this lack of control? From a purely psycho-analytical point of view, we know people who fear change and loss of control or difference, fear this because they feel it is a threat to their own self. Why is such a threat. I would argue at the pith and substance of fear of homo-sexuality or being afraid of gays are two primal instinctual phenomena. One is an unresolved inner ego formation problem-i.e., if a person feels healthy about their own ego or self-esteem and who they are, seeing gay behaviour would not trigger off anxiety or threaten them-at least it shouldn't. In a normal, healthy human, if there is such a thing, they obviously will have a sexual preference, and find the sexual lifestyle they no not find themselves attracted to simply that-something unattactive-but it should not lead to such a strong reaction that it leads them to hate. Even in repulsive situations such as with pedophiles and rapists, (sexual violence and power imbalances) it is important we understand that pedophiles and rapists are people who engage in violence and power imbalances-they are not consenting adults and so are strong reaction is more understandable as they are engaging in crimes against society. Gays, consenting adults of the same sex are not commiting any crimes against society nor are they engaging in violence. If they are involved in an abusive relationship then we react to it the same way we would an abusive straight relationship. The point is in a healthy world, we should not be afraid of people or sexuality and be able to openly discuss it without resorting to comments that generalize in a negative way or generate a physical response of violence. That said I believe as do many psycho-analysts and behaviouralists that people who genuinely fear homo-sexuals may simply be expressing a primative, primal fear of being raped. Human beings are apes. In our society, as is the case with all apes and for that matter pack animals whether they be dogs or cats, the male establishes dominance over other males and females by size and prowess. It is probable humans, especially men are afraid of gays because it generates a fear of being dominated by another male or mounted. That may sound strange but it is not meant to be. We are quick to discuss sex using intellectual words but in reality simply animals with basic primative reactions.

I don't believe I said it was to the "detriment" of the U.S. You need to take more care with your accusations against other posters. The interests of Israel are not by definition contrary to American interests. The fact is though that there is an Israel lobby active in Washington. To claim otherwise is just willful ignorance. You stated and I quote; "There is a very powerful Jewish lobby in Canada and the USA which leverages it's power for political reasons." I have called you out on your use of the word "powerful" . You now seem to be suggesting all you have done is state there is a Jewish lobby. That is not what I responded to. No one is arguing there is a pro-Israel lobby and at no time have I denied that, What I am calling you on is the use of the word "powerful" and then referring to the lobby as being Jewish, as if all Jews are involved in it. Do you describe the National Rifle Association as Christian because most of its members are? That is my point. Do you single out the NRA for being powerful? No. That is my point. You seem however to think it is ok to select out the pro-Israeli lobby and suggest it is "Jewish" and is "powerful", that conjures up precisely the kind of references I am questioning. Stop lumping all Jews into a political category and bringing up their ethnicity or religion when you refer to the pro-Israel lobby. That is what I am saying/asking/getting annoyed about. When I read the use of the term "powerful" in relation to "leverages its power for political reasons" I read into that you were suggesting the "Jewish" lobby was engaging in activities contrary to and therefore to the detriment of the United States and Canada. If I am wrong on inferring that I apologize. However, to me it lent to the impression you were suggesting suggesting "Jews" as opposed to people, are involved in a lobby that engages in something different then any other lobby group otherwise you wouldn't have selectively singled it out. What I am saying is when Jews support Israel, it is singled out selectively but when any other ethnic group supports a cause, it is not and that is a double standard and it flows from the age old notion that Jews are conspiring against the world. The lobby that supports Israel's right to exist and supports its interests also consists of Christians and many other non Jews and my point is, is no more powerful or successful then any other lobby group and do what they do lawfully and above board and to single it out is b.s. My other point was, for there to be the kind of trade there is between Israel and the U.S., it requires the military-industrial complex lobby of the U.S. to exist and prevail as the most powerful lobby group. When you look at the amount of funding and size of lobby groups, the pro-Israeli lobby groups are far from the biggest-the military industrial complex is followed by the NRA, tobbacco lobby, and in fact China,Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, if we are talking about successfully influential foreign policy lobbyists. As well, when we are talking about lobby groups in Canada, it is a fact the B'Nai Brith, or Canada Israel Commitee (which is what I actually referred to Black Dog) are no more influential or powerful then any other lobby group. That is the point I was making.

What, you've not heard of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). What about the (Jewish) poster above who was basically boasting about the existence of such a lobby? At no time Blackdog have I ever referred to let alone boasted about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. You are completely wrong but I won't go running to the moderator with my noise out of joint, just laugh.

Rue, I note the name calling at the end of your post and I have reported it. This is in violation of the zero tolerance protocol now in effect. The fact is, Rue, there are many Palestinian refugees who held valid titles to their land and homes at the time they were driven out by Jewish forces in 1948. Those titles were written both by the Turks and by the British - in a number of cases by both. The British accepted Ottoman titles as valid in re-registering land in land transfers, as well as in cases where people came to them to have the land re-registered. Many Palestinian Arabs came from families who had worked the land for generations. It was specifically to invalidate these titles that Israel passed the abandonment laws of 1950 - note that this was about half the 3 year period you state the Ottomans were supposed to have used. The fact that Israel felt the need to pass these laws is in itself proof that Palestinian Arabs who had been driven from their land held valid titles that were an obstacle to Israel's plans and that Israel felt a need to use some form of bureaucratic hocus-pocus to deal with ther issue. This, by the way, is illegal under international law. Even those Palestinian Arabs who did not leave their homes and land were in danger of having their land taken from them by Israel's bureacratic thuggery. Many had their land taken by force to make way for settlements built to house Jewish immigrants. Many under the pretext that the land was needed for 'security' reasons, only to see the land used to build settlements. Often, such as in the Shelta land case, unscrupulous Israeli land developers simply re-registered the land in their own names in spite of the fact that Palestinian Arabs holding legal title were living on the land. While there was some buying of land by Zionists, this never totalled more than 10% of all the land in the Palestinian mandate. Finally Rue, you are right when you say that I do not read all of your posts. This is because in general I find that.... they tend to be excessively long-winded they tend to repeat the same point over and over - often more than once within the same post they are filled with contradictions they wander all over the place and rarely stick to the topic at hand I am looking forward to a moderator response to your violation of the zero tolerance protocol. You again have repeated things that are fabricated or simply not true. The Israeli government, nor any Israelis ever took land forcefully from Palestinian Arabs prior to the war. That is a fact and for you to suggest Israelis physically forced land from Palestinians is nonsense. You also have completely ignored the points I made as to the registry and have repeated a myth that Jews forcefully took property away from Palestinians. They did not. They in fact purchased it and the resulting displacement of Palestinians came about from a war instigated by the Arab League. If you want to try ignore history and keep repeating the same misrepresentations go ahead.

Sorry, I dozed off at yet another tiresome and inapplicable appeasement reference. If they want any kind of peace: yes. Blackdog I say this with utmost respect, I always wonder with people who advocate sitting down to dialogue with terrorists-really understand just what it is they are saying. Do you? Blakdog the point is we all agree there must be dialogue-but it is in my opinion very naive of you to think you can sit and dialogue with a terrorist until they first say-I will recognize your right to exist and not shoot at you. What you are suggesting is that a reasonable person would sit down with someone who says I am going to kill you as soon as I get a chance. That makes no sense. In fact it is absurd. More to the point a sovereign state hasa moral responsibility to protect its citizens from terror. This is why it first has to put down conditions stating for it to be able to dialogue with a group, that group must be legal and not breaking any laws or be actively engaged in crime or terror. It is up to Hamas and Hezbollah and every other terrorist group to put down their guns and missiles before they can expect anyone to dialogue with them. I doubt very much a person who came into your home and murdered your family, and then demanded they be allowed to kill you-would be someone we would expect you to sit down with and talk to as long as he keeps holding his gun and demands he be allowed to kill you while he points the gun at you. Dialogue can only come about when people first state they will not engage in terrorism and that is precisely what the IRA did to be able to sit and dialogue-they made a very real effort to distance themselves from the terror they once engaged in. Hamas and Hezbollah have made it clear they are not interested in dialogue. That is precisely why Mr. Abbas can not reign them in and precisely why Hezbollah allies with the Syrian intelligence to kill peaceful politicians or why Hamas kills as many Palestinians if not more then it does Israelis. Do you see Hamas attempting to sit down with Mme. Arbour and tell her they will obey the law? Don't hold your breath.

I am a conservative who fully supports gay rights, that there should be tolerance,a live and let live attitude. I do however have one question. Civil Unions sure, but why the insistence on marriage, which according to Christian Theology is a union between a man and a woman? Homosexuality is a sin according to the Bible.Does anybody who opposes homosexual behaviour automatically become a bigot because they believe the Bible? This is what makes defending homosexuality a bad joke. There is no conclusive evidence what causes homosexuality. Until there is it is fair ball to consider homosexuality whatever you wish, including being plain immoral or as a mental disorder without the aspect of being tagged a bigot. Legalizing homosexuality and SSM all could be a terrible mistake with no one to blame but government who was to foolish to wait until the cause of homosexuality is firmly established. You again miss the point. Homo-sexuality occurs in every animal life form and that in itself would suggest it is not an anomoly but a common form of behaviour in all life forms-most likely as a built in way to assure population control. More to the point if you opened your mind and read you would realize there is ample conclusive evidence to indicate that homo-sexuality can be biological or genetically inherited and based and/or it can be learned from the environment but that learned homo-sexuality is clearly different in characteristic and features and how it is manifested. There is a reason the American Medical Association and every other medical association and psychological professional association does not describe homo-sexuality as a mental illness or abnormality anymore. There is a reason why when autopsies have been performed on lesbians they found distinct brain structural differences when compared to straight women and that their brain structure was identical in formation to male brains. If you want to be a dinosaur and stick your head in the sand be my guest and yes you are a bigot when you encourage or incite people to believe being gay is "vicious". That is most certainly hate mongering and you should be called on it. If you want to go around calling gays immoral no one can stop you but as I said if you want to judge other people, you yourself also have to be willing to be judged for your own actions and since you seem to trying to defend your right to call gays immoral then they have the perfect right to call you the same for even saying that. Also if you look at the legislation you are talking about it does not "legalize" hetero or homo sexuality. What it has said is you can't define laws and make exceptions only for hetero-sexuals precisely because neither being gay or straight should be considered illegal or legal. The days of defining homo-sexuality as illegal in the criminal code have long been over in case you haven't noticed. You are again confusing the concept of homo-sexuality being a crime listed in the criminal code with human rights principals enshrined in the Charter of Rights that don't define things as legal or illegal, simplu guarantee equal or consistent treatment of the application of law.

I don't mean any of the following to be a personal attack and I hope that my calmness comes across. It is not meant to be bitter or an angry rant: Why marriage and not civil unions? I can't speak for Canada, but here in the US, the Supreme Court decided in Brown v. Board of Ed. that separate is not equal. Having two different statuses (stati?) is inherently unequal. Marriage as a Christian sacrament is defined as the union of one man and one woman in the eyes of the Lord. (Other religions, Islam for example, allow for different marital structures such as bigamy, so even the Christian definition of marriage as one man-one woman is not universal.) Being gay myself, knowing many people who led the marriage equality fight here in Massachusetts, and reading a lot of gay media, I have never seen nor heard one single gay person even whisper about wanting to force churches and religious institutions to honor gay marriages. Your church is safe. Your faith is safe. We know we're not welcome and we have no interest in crashing your party. Marriage as a secular institution is what gay people seek. The state issues licenses for marriages. In the US, the state has an obligation to treat all its citizens equally unless the state can argue a compelling state interest in acting in a discriminatory manner. There is no compelling state interest in banning gays from getting a civil permit to be married. Gay marriage does not threaten the family unit -- but even if it did, the onus is on the state to prove in a court of law that preserving one man-one woman marriage is a compelling state interest and that gay marriage would destroy it. The reality is that states cannot prove it because it is not provable. Therefore, gay couples should be issued marriage licenses as freely and as equally as the state gives them to straight couples. About bigotry, no, being against gay marriage doesn't automatically make you a bigot. But since opposition to gay marriage almost always boils down to one's dislike of gay people, revulsion, or misinformation about some "gay agenda" to kidnap and convert your children, you have to understand why most gay people automatically call their opponents bigots. The fact is that most of the people who oppose gay marriage do so based on certain bigoted impulses. If you can think of a purely non-bigoted reason why the state ought to discriminate and/or treat people differently, I'd love to hear it. Religious belief doesn't count as an argument, since we're talking wholly about the issuance of a civil (i.e., secular) marriage license. About the sin aspect... I would never tell you what your religious faith should be, but I would encourage you to at least be consistent. Either the entire Bible is the word of God or none of it is. I am one of those people who is frequently called a Cafeteria Catholic because I don't live my life 100% according to Catholic doctrine. Well, how about most Christians? Most are awfully selective about which parts of they Bible they choose to follow and which parts feed their outrage. Either apply your religious beliefs as the basis for every aspect of civil life, or apply none of it. If you believe that gay marriage is a sin, then you also ought to be against gambling, being disrespectful of one's parents, touching the flesh of a dead pig, and being covetous of your neighbor's goods and wife and you ought to be equally engaged in the battle to outlaw such Biblical proscriptions. If you want to legislate according to the contents of the Bible, fine, be against gay marriage. But don't be surprised when someone leads the charge to shut down Las Vegas, or to burn all those Pamela Anderson posters, or execute people who work on Sunday -- for all are sins (gambling, lust, not honoring the Sabbath) explicitly proscribed in the Bible. Will you be as equally acquiescent to their legal/Biblical wishes as you ask the rest of us to be with regard to yours? But you raise an interesting point: sin. It may be a sin to be actively engaged in a gay relationship, but isn't it also a sin to be unfair to your fellow man? All I ask is that the state give me the freedom to sin in the privacy of my home and in the privacy of my personal relationships. Opponents to gay marriage seek to enshrine a different sin (inequality) into the law of the land. I find what you said susinct and to the point and precisely the point.

Higgly you know full well there is a moral issue involved here and you can not justify what Hamas does and remain silent simply because less Israelis die then Palestinians. No Israeli has to die. That is not germaine to the issue. The moment you launch a missile into Israel whether someone actually dies or not makes it an issue. A country has a moral obligation to protect its citizens from missile attacks whether one dies or many die and you know that. As for Louise Arbour she is in my opinion openly bias against Israel and has demonstrated it in her condemnation of Israeli counter-firing but being completely silent on what Hamas does. That makes her a hippocrate of the worst kind. I most certainly concede your point that the National Post has an anti-Israel bias but the Globe and Mail and Star are clearly anti-Israel and the Sun is usually pro-Israel although it makes a point of airing ERic Margolis's anti-Israel anti-West arguements so I am not sure what relevance that is. What I am talking about is the world press and in particular the wire services and in particular Reuters and AP who most newspapers use since they do not rely on first hand reporting. The wire services have been deliberately selective to the point of making it a joke and making me ask how do people really believe Zionists manipulate the news let alone Hollywood or the banks.

Once again under the pretense of discussing same sex marriage and whether it should be recognized in law, we have seen a sub-text come out that has nothing to do with a faith based or religious moral arguement but a misrepresentation of gays as people and by that I specifically mean the arguement and statements that gays are more likely to be pedophiles and that gay marriages endanger children. First off let me state I have a Master's in Applied Psychology and am a lawyer who has worked twenty years with children and adults who have been sexually molested, raped, abused in families and institutions of all kinds. My work has consisted of being a civil litigation mediator, insurance claims investigator of sexual abuse crimes and crisis counselor(volunteer). So please understand I do not come to this subject likely. What I and most people who have worked in the social services and legal systems know is that the term pedophile if it is correctly used, describes a psycho-social disorder characteristic of an adult who has a sexual preference for prepubsecent children. This adult would NOT be attracted to either gender sexually, if they were an adult. So to refer to a pedophile as a gay pedophile or a straight pedophile is quite frankly not correct, Pedophiles simply molest or have an attraction to children. The gender is not material to their actions -it is whether they gain access to children. Many pedophiles do not act out their urges and spend many years on the inter-net or with magazines. Why some cross the line and go on to molest children as opposed to remaining passive and keeping it in the closest as an unacted out fetish we do not know other then to say accessability seems to be the key. Some pedophiles seem to be far more predatory then others. There is a lot we do not know about pedophiles. There are many theories as to whether particular hormonal and chemical imabalances add or subtract from the condition and there are numerous theories on children that are molested who go on to be child molesters themselves. What we have seen in the last while is an attempt by people who argue against same sex marriage to suggest gays are pedophiles or have a higher tendency to be pedophiles and some how gay marriages will encourage pedophilia. To start with, the statistics on same sex spouses who have children have categorically shown that same sex spouses' children do not become gay because their parents are and by watching them it influences them to become gay. If anything what it has shown is gay parents are more likely to encourage their children to be straight not gay or straight, if that is what their children are. There are conflicting reports as to the corelation between pedophilia and homo-sexuality. For example, a report by Holmes and Slap in the 1998 Journal of the American Medical Association reported that adolsecent boys molested by adults were 7 times more likely to identify themselves as bi-sexual or gay. a 1994 study by Jenny, Roesler and Poyer found that 98% of men who abused children self-identified themselves as hetero-sexual. One article fromt he Nebraska Medical Journal made a finding that gays were 8 to 12 times more likely to molest children however that study now is under question as to how it was determined the pedophiles studied were determined as gay as opposed to simply being pedophiles. A study by Freund and Watson in the 192 Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy indicated gays were 3 x more likely to have sex with children. Those reports that do indicate gays are more likely to have sex with children which are often quoted by fundamentalist religious groups opposed to same sex marriage are not the majority of articles or studies on the subject. Again the major problem with sayingh pedophiles are gay because they molest children of the same sex is that this is incorrect terminology since for the pedophile to also be gay he would also have to be having regular sexual relationships with adults of the same sex. What studies do clearly show is that pedophiles will not and do not have sex adults of either gender once they are adult so to call them gay or straight is absurd. There psycho-sexual disorder is neither gay nor straight. There is absolutely no literature or studies that prove consenting adults of the same gender encourage or engage in pedophilia or make it possible. In fact since it is estimated gays are about 3% of the population-it means the law of average alone would tell you that the vast majority of pedophiles come from the remaining 97% and that is why most pedophiles when asked identify themselves as straight. What we do know from working with pedophiles is that they are neither straight nor gay. The key is their attraction to children and they may have preferences for one gender or the other but usually a child molester if given accessability to a child molests-they don't get hung up on the gender. Now think about it logically. How do two adults who want to be married and live a momogamous relationship in any way contribute to this psycho-sexual disorder? It makes no sense. There is no causal connection between the two phenomena. I think where the confusion comes from is that when someone decides that gays are vicious or immoral or evil, it then is not much of a leap of faith to then try find something to justify they are in fact evil. Christians used to say Jews were evil because they killed Christ and were condemned until they attoned for their sins. With gays, it seems to be able to justify the condemnation instead of accusing them of killing Christ they are protrayed as child molesters. It is a process where people are de-humanized or demonized and given negative attributes to justify hating them. The vast majority of leaders in gay communities and their associations are stronly opposed to sex with children and most community centres dealing with molested children have some very talented crisis counselors some of whom are gay and do not molest children simply because they are gay. There is a stereotype that because gays are more likely to be sympathetic to sex outside marriage that they promote free sex and therefore any kind of sex. This is absolute b.s. What we do know is that pedophiles tend to come from environments where they were themselves molested by adults or come from environments where they were traumatized or humiliated and at a certain stage in their psychological, emotional and sexual development they become arrested, or frozen or stuck, and do not move on. A classic pedophile is someone like Michael Jackson. They do not indentify sexually with adults of either gender and when given the ability usually remain quite asexual and child-like even as adults. The kind of vicious sexual predators like John Wayne Gacy would have killed and molested children of either gender. Some predators also kill and rape the elderly or small women, or certain kinds of people-predators who use sex to molest can be pedophile or other variations where they use sex as a violent expression of power. What we also know is that homo-sexuality that arises in institutions such as prisons or churches, comes about when sex is repressed. If you take away normal healthy ways to express sex, the repessed sexual drive comes out in an alternative manner. In prisons this means men rape or have sex with other men, but still consider themselves straight and when they leave prison revert back to being straight not gay. Clergymen who engage in same sex molestation do so not because of gender preference but simply because of accessability, so for example in the Catholic Church, it would be easier for a Priest to be alone with boys then girls. What we have seen with clergy who become child molesters is that they have deep psycho-sexual issues and often go into the church in an attempt to use the church as an agent to repress their urges. The longer they stay in these churches, the more likely the sex drive is expressed through aberated behaviour and often what we have seen is child molestation of same sex children simply because children have been segregated by sex making one gender more accessible. What we also know is that any institution or group or gang can serve as an agent to not just repress sexuality but make it more likely to be twisted and come out indirectly through deviant forms of expression. It is ironic but the same conservative religions that preach the kind of sexual morality that defines sex as dirty and evil and in need of control are the same kind of religions precisely because of that kind of cognitive process, to that unintentionally fuel or incite pedophilia, and other sexual deviancy by depicting sex as dirty and to be repressed. I urge anyone for themselves to go on the internet and educate themselves that pedophilia is not homo-sexuality and to equate the two as being one in the same is just not true. I would also state from my perspective-repressing sexual urges only leads to problems. As well using sex as a tool to express violence of any kind, or in a relationship where there is a power imbalance, is a problem. The key is whether there is a power imbalance and/or violence. We know any sex that is violent or abuses power whether it is straight or gay is problematic. Straught or gay sex when done without violence or power imbalance, and that is between CONSENTING adults was not of concern to me in the years I worked with sexual molesters or predators precisely because it hurts no one and breaks no laws. Morality I find absurd considering most of the men that I encountered who were arrested for prostitution or beating their wives or molesting their children almost always claimed to be good religious moral people. If you don't believe me ask any cop or rape crisis counselor or social worker.

I am going to be very serious now. I appreciate my tonque in cheek responses were not appreciated. It is one thing to say you are against same sex marriage on religious grounds. That I would agree stated in such a context does not necessarily mean anything more then a religious disagreement based on faith. Most gays I know can undestand why some people feel it is against their religion to condone same sex marriages. That is not the issue. I think for me, and maybe it is just me when I see someone equate being gay with "viciousness" its more then just them stating a moral disagreement, now its hatred. It was the decision to repeat the phrase "viciousness" and call it wise I consider hate mongering. Look I respect any fundamentalist or conservative Christian's beliefs. I respect those of conservative Muslims and Jews and Sikhs Hindus as well. I completely disagree with all of them when they claim homosexuality is something immoral. Is that a faith arguement. Maybe. It turns into hate monegring though when we go past faith and use disparaging remarks. Now I was probably wrong to be tonque in cheek but when you buly gays you should be prepared to take the heat. That said, I will not direct any further comments directly to Leafless but I will say this and I will come back with some neutral data on it. I am dead serious when I say when people raise sexuality as an issue but do it in a way that promotes anger or hatred or name calling against someone because of their sexual lifestyle, it does call for us asking - why the hatred? As I said before, its one thing to condemn pedophiles or rapists. These are people who use violence, and power imbalances to abuse and control people. However two consenting gay adults hurt no one and to say they have not the same rights as any other humans to me is not a faith issue anymore-we are not just talking about what should be done inside a church, we are talking about public laws -so its not a faith issue anymore, its a human rights issue and the last time I looked gays under the Charter of Rights, have equal rights to straights. Now if you want to talk about gays without referring to them as vicious or anomalies, I will be glad to do the same. I do find it hippocritical of my fellow Jews, and Christians and Muslims and Sikhs and Hindus and anyone else who thinks their religion defines gays as evil or people who need codemnation. To use any faith to justify or intellectualize discrimination and condemnation is b.s.-that is of course my opinion.

Where are all the nations that condemn Israel for human rights violations when it comes to dealing with China? That I would like to know. During the last several days Stephen Harper raised human rights issues within China on the international stage and all the same countries that condemn Israel for its human rights violations where were they? For that matter where are the Liberals, NDP and Block Quebecois on this issue? These are the same parties that criticize Harper for being pro-US and right wing but when he actually does something unique and clearly different then US foreign policy and that is to call China out on human rights violations, where is Jack Layton or Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae, etc.? As for this two-faced hippocracy why should I not be suprised. Hamas fires rockets into Israel and the European Union is completely silent. Israel fires back and kills civilians, and that and only that is singled out and condemned. Just yesterday Hamas fired 8 rockets into Israel, specifically into Sderot. Last week someone died from these missiles in Sderot and yesterday someone was seriously injured. That we hear no one condemning. But we do hear about Palestinian civilians killed or injured when Israel fires back. I am the first to be fair and criticize Israel and say they need to engage in alternative methods to defend themselves to avoid unecessary civilian casualties. Why is it no one but no one who criticizes Israel, also will be fair and state what Hamas is doing is the cause of this problem and until Hamas is condemned and stopped from firing rockets, this will not end and more Palestinian civilians will be placed in harms way and die? How is it Hamas finds it so easy to shoot and then use humans as shields? How has this come about so that now Hamas feels empowered into using Palestinian civilians as shields, it has now turned this into a deliberate tactic and it shoots missiles then surrounds the missile site with civilians? Why is no one condemning Hamas for this cynical manipulation of civilians? Why is it the press does not indicate that Israel has in fact been telephoning Palestinian civilians and warning them they would be shooting back? Why is it the press is silent when Mohammed Baroud, one of the proponents of shooting missiles into Israel deliberately uses civilian homes to shoot his missiles. What kind of man shoots missiles and then hides behind civilians? You think it is heroic and principled to shoot missiles at civilians, and then hide behind your own civilians? What manner of behaviour is this? Is it any wonder Hamas feels they can get away with it when the press will only criticize Israel when they shoot back but remain silent when Hamas uses civilians as shields? Each time the press and the world remains silent against such behaviour they empower Hamas to continue using humans as shields and unless the world is as loud in condemning Hamas for using civilians as shields and for shooting at civilians-their silence will simply fuel more of these attacks. What sickens me is Mosques and Palestinian t.v. and radio now openly encourage people to be used as shields to hide and protect Hamas after missile atacks. What kind of absolute hippocracy is this? Islam forbids the harming of children, women, the elderly, and civilians and yet Mosques and their religious leaders are not only openly calling on Hamas to kill Israeli civilians but now preach to women, children and the elderly that they should use themselves as pawns. Interestingly Mr. Abbas refuses to condemn Hamas. So we are down to this now-civilians embolded by the double standard of the Westernm world and fueled by its bias, now openly screaming for the destruction of Israel because the West is too gutless to condemn Hamas just as they have remained silent with China and so many other nations and groups that engage in terror and human rights violations. Meanwhile in Lebanon, more and more Lebanese are slowly coming out and criticizing Hezbollah and its tactics and demanding a return to democracy and an end to militias and terrorist groups. The question is will Palestinians ever find the courage to tell Hamas that there is another way other then violence and screaming out hatred and the destruction of the State of Israel. What will it take to get the majority of Palestinians who are not being manipulated in this manner to come out and codemn their own people when they do this?

How is that insulting? I think being gay and showing one's balls to others is wonderful. I am not the one connotating being gay with something bad. Stop imposing your anti-gay concepts on me. I just love Christians with no sense of humour! Imagine Adam being Leafless. Is it so hard for you to laugh at flapping testacles or is this subject so frightful that all we can do is talk about sex in simplistic terms such as bad and good and dirty and evil. Sexuality is not frightening and need not be.

Well Rue, I dont know. If a pastor in a million is discovered to be homosexual I dont think it means that all people who believe homosexuality is sin because the they believe the Bible says it is sin are secretly gay. Do you believe this genuinely? Also, the thing is whether you agree with Leafless calling homosexuality abnormal or not, you were out of line. This is how you dealt with it. Rather than arguing in favor of your own point, you called Leafless a closet homosexual. It seems you were using homosexuality as an insult, although you claim to be on their side. Now you could claim that you were using homosexuality as an insult simply because it would be an insult to Leafless, and not the really believe it is an insult. But I think you ruled out this possibility with this comment: "but you probably would have had a gay panic attack over that expression too." No I did not use the word or term homo-sexual in a negative way. You are assuming to say someone has repressed their homo-sexual urges means homo-sexuality is wrong and insulting. What I am simply stating is someone who expresses hatred for gays, indeed is not dealing with their own unresolved feelings as to homo-sexuality. In fact it was I called a homo-sexual, and I take it as a complement. What I am talking about is that repressing sexual feelings leads to this kind of behaviour. It is not meant as an insult. You can take it that way but I think repressed sexual conflicts within an individual's psyche are at the root of many expressed opinions expressed using religion or politics as the pretext. As for any Pastor who calls on his flock to discriminate against Gays and use the Bible to preach about gays in a negative way and to pass moral judgement on them- I say without hesitation, that this Pastor and anyone else who uses religion in this way, makes their own sexual lifestyle fair game and if youc an't understand that, maybe you should try read the same Bible these pastors are using to try selectively impose moral judgement against only some and not others.