Gay Rights, why is it even an issue?

[zinc]

Let me just preface this (before people ask) and say that yes, I am gay, and yes...I am in favor of literally everything gay rights (ie: equal rights)

I'm just curious, we're in the 21st century, so why is this even an issue? I have dual-citizenship so I do spend the majority of my time debating in the US (we're a lot more accepting in Canada) but I still can't, to this day fathom how issues like gay marriage or gay adoption can be "hot" topics.

The majority (if not all) of the opponents are almost exclusively religious, it's even more comical to hear them say things like "we're just trying to protect a definition!" - ironic when you come to understand the origins of marriage and how it's changed thousands of times in thousands of cultures.

So, is it just me or what?

Edited July 21, 2009 by zinc

[lily]

You're forgetting about the slippery slope.

I'm religious and I'm all for "gay rights". I was shocked when Cali voted for Prop 8, although some people seem to think it wasn't about SSMs so much as something else that was in there. I forget.

[Smallc]

I don't really know why it's an issue. I think it's simply that some people believe it to be wrong, and that's about it.

[Datastream]

The dual tragedies of homosexual and abortion legislation have taken their toll both in Canada and throughout the western world. The western world is dieing, period. As prospective parents view the moral abyss that surrounds them they are choosing in ever larger numbers to neither marry nor parent. Our populations and economies are sustained solely by immigration and senseless speculative gambling in the guise of investment. Both the religious and the non religious can clearly see that our cultures are rapidly becoming extinct. If Canada has a future it is not in the hands of those born here. Canada is now the rightful possession of those immigrant peoples that are displacing our diminishing population.

[Smallc]

[lily]

The dual tragedies of homosexual and abortion legislation have taken their toll both in Canada and throughout the western world. The western world is dieing, period. As prospective parents view the moral abyss that surrounds them they are choosing in ever larger numbers to neither marry nor parent. Our populations and economies are sustained solely by immigration and senseless speculative gambling in the guise of investment. Both the religious and the non religious can clearly see that our cultures are rapidly becoming extinct. If Canada has a future it is not in the hands of those born here. Canada is now the rightful possession of those immigrant peoples that are displacing our diminishing population.

oh no!

oh wait.... my grandparents weren't born here.

whew, crisis averted.

Edited July 21, 2009 by lily

[zinc]

The dual tragedies of homosexual and abortion legislation have taken their toll both in Canada and throughout the western world. The western world is dieing, period. As prospective parents view the moral abyss that surrounds them they are choosing in ever larger numbers to neither marry nor parent. Our populations and economies are sustained solely by immigration and senseless speculative gambling in the guise of investment. Both the religious and the non religious can clearly see that our cultures are rapidly becoming extinct. If Canada has a future it is not in the hands of those born here. Canada is now the rightful possession of those immigrant peoples that are displacing our diminishing population.

What are you talking about? How does homosexual or abortion have any relation in terms of immigration and people's choice to not marry? What are your suggestions?

I don't like people who whine and demagogue who then offer no solution...

[lily]

psssst.... he wants us to have more babies. But only if we're the "right" sort of people.

[Datastream]

What are you talking about? How does homosexual or abortion have any relation in terms of immigration and people's choice to not marry? What are your suggestions?

I don't like people who whine and demagogue who then offer no solution...

I try to like everybody, even militant gay rights activists that ensure that threads like this one are aleays on top of forum discussion boards. I know that upon every medium of political expression there is a cadre of gay thought police. their duty is to identify every new voice as either gay sympathiser or homophobic. As a newbie on this board I thought I'd save the gay thought police from the anxiety of wondering. Now I don't have to worry about incessant emails from gay activists trying to determine whether I am friend or foe. Now I know that everything I post will be scrutinised by the gay thought police. Now I know that I have an assured audience. Even a hostile audience is better than none at all.

If Canada does have any promise in its future that promise lies heavily within the gay community. They are the largest , most powerful and best financed political lobby in the country. On average , gay people have more energy, more money , more talent and more time to apply to combatting social ills than straight people. Hopefully , as I pursue my quests upon this forum I will be able to convince some of them to spend less of their resources upon their selfserving ideology and more upon the common good.

[Argus]

Let me just preface this (before people ask) and say that yes, I am gay, and yes...I am in favor of literally everything gay rights (ie: equal rights)

I'm just curious, we're in the 21st century, so why is this even an issue? I have dual-citizenship so I do spend the majority of my time debating in the US (we're a lot more accepting in Canada) but I still can't, to this day fathom how issues like gay marriage or gay adoption can be "hot" topics.

The majority (if not all) of the opponents are almost exclusively religious, it's even more comical to hear them say things like "we're just trying to protect a definition!" - ironic when you come to understand the origins of marriage and how it's changed thousands of times in thousands of cultures.

So, is it just me or what?

Gay rights is a pseudonym for a political agenda which is more about propagandizing a cultural lifestyle of free sex with multiple partners than actual "rights". There are no "rights" that gay people in Canada don't already have. They continue to demand 'respect' as if this were something people can be forced to grant them, even while, as a community, they flout the cultural norms which the greater community has established.

To me, the activists seem to be a very spoiled, very left wing, very self-absorbed group of mostly middle-class whiners desperately trying to wallow in the notions of victimhood. They're self-righteous, narcisistic and shrill.

[lily]

Cultural lifestyle of free sex with multiple partners?

[eyeball]

I'm just curious, we're in the 21st century, so why is this even an issue? I have dual-citizenship so I do spend the majority of my time debating in the US (we're a lot more accepting in Canada) but I still can't, to this day fathom how issues like gay marriage or gay adoption can be "hot" topics.

A big part of the hoopla is obviously being generated/stoked by right wing political and religous leaders who are playing to their bases of support. I can't help but wonder how many other aligned interests benefit from not having as much public attention focused on what should be hot topics like environmental degradation, war and economic sustainability.

[eyeball]

Gay rights is a pseudonym for a political agenda which is more about propagandizing a cultural lifestyle of free sex with multiple partners than actual "rights". There are no "rights" that gay people in Canada don't already have. They continue to demand 'respect' as if this were something people can be forced to grant them, even while, as a community, they flout the cultural norms which the greater community has established.

To me, the activists seem to be a very spoiled, very left wing, very self-absorbed group of mostly middle-class whiners desperately trying to wallow in the notions of victimhood. They're self-righteous, narcisistic and shrill.

..."they flout the cultural norms which the greater community has established"

In and of themselves, your so-called cultural norms are really nothing less than a propagandized lifestyle that is being shoved in everyone's faces by a very spoiled, very right wing, very self-absorbed group of mostly moralistic-class whiners desperately trying to wallow in the notions of victimhood. They're self-righteous, narcisistic and shrill.

[madmax]

To me, the activists seem to be a very spoiled, very leftright wing, very self-absorbed group of mostly middle-class whiners desperately trying to wallow in the notions of victimhood. They're self-righteous, narcisistic and shrill.

LOL... Change the word left wing to right wing, and change the topic from Gay Activist to Conservative activist, and interchange all the bolded type.

Regardless, there seems to be enough Conservative Gays, Liberal Gays, BQ and NDP gays to go around.

I bet you think they are running around having free sex across party lines....

[Dave_ON]

Gay rights is a pseudonym for a political agenda which is more about propagandizing a cultural lifestyle of free sex with multiple partners than actual "rights". There are no "rights" that gay people in Canada don't already have. They continue to demand 'respect' as if this were something people can be forced to grant them, even while, as a community, they flout the cultural norms which the greater community has established.

To me, the activists seem to be a very spoiled, very left wing, very self-absorbed group of mostly middle-class whiners desperately trying to wallow in the notions of victimhood. They're self-righteous, narcisistic and shrill.

So many fallacious implications so little time. The amount of erroneous assumptions contained in the above is absolutely staggering yet not at all surprising as they are entirely too common in our society today.

First of all I want to address my absolute favorite quote from here which is conveniently located at the beginning of the post.

“propagandizing a cultural lifestyle of free sex with multiple partners.”

The free really caught my eye. I’m certain you weren’t implying that gay people are the sole proprietors of promiscuity. This would be a ridiculously unfounded and terribly difficult statement to make. Promiscuity is a tendency of males in general regardless of orientation it’s part of our biological makeup. Why do you think Harem’s were, and still are in some cases, such a common place matter in Eastern cultures?

With 38% of marriages in Canada ending in divorce can you guess what one of the leading causes is? Cheating on your spouse or as you so eloquently put it free (usually) sex with multiple partners.

As for cultural norms, I think you’d be hard pressed to prove that the views held by generally cantankerous, 50 something curmudgeons to be the “cultural norm”. Turn on a TV, watch a movie, listen to some music, you’ll see many straight people going against the “cultural norm”. Assuming of course that by cultural norm you mean a monogamous straight marriage. Many people choose not to get married, but live together, even raise kids together while not married. I think you’ll find the cultural norm is not at all what you think it is.

As noted by others you can certainly substitute gay activist for social conservative. Both are political extremes. I think that if you put down that brush that you’re trying to paint us all with you might discover that we’re all quite different. I have gay friends of every political stripe, just like I have straight friends of the same.

I’d love to write more but unfortunately my cultural lifestyle of having free sex with multiple partners keeps me far too busy to do so.

[g_bambino]

I'm just curious, we're in the 21st century, so why is this even an issue? I still can't, to this day fathom how issues like gay marriage or gay adoption can be "hot" topics.

I found myself sharing the opinion of a recent National Post editorial that said the era of gay pride is coming to an end; as increasing numbers of people become accustomed to the reality of human nature, society will soon truly not regard sexual orientation as something deserving of attention; it will merely just be, like hair colour or toes. I had already about a year or so ago read Bert Archer's "The End of Gay (and the Death of Heterosexuality)", which pretty much paralleled the editorial, simultaneously documenting the author's own mental journey from straight to curious to bi to gay and then to the realization that humans cannot be categorized by sexual labels, while also researching evidence of human sexual behaviour that supported his conclusion. That was that in a not to distant future, after we'd all got over the hangover from Victorian repressions and became more accepting of the variants of human sexuality, the lines between "gay" and "straight" will have blurred to the point of indistinction and the terms would be considered outdated relics of identity politics.

I think "gay rights" is such a hot topic now because we are presently in a tumultuous time where the cultural zeitgeist is in the midst of a massive shift towards that end which the Post and Archer (amongst others) envision; not only are religiously rooted cultural norms becoming increasingly irrelevant, but so too is the Gay Community itself, and in their death pangs, followers of both dogmas are now making increasing amounts of noise, each trying to out-shout the other. And, of course, the media loves a good fight. Over time, though, I think both sides will battle each other to the point of insignificance, and what are today issues of the "hot" kind will become those of the "non" variety.

_[copyedited]

Edited July 21, 2009 by g_bambino

[zinc]

If Canada does have any promise in its future that promise lies heavily within the gay community. They are the largest , most powerful and best financed political lobby in the country. On average , gay people have more energy, more money , more talent and more time to apply to combatting social ills than straight people. Hopefully , as I pursue my quests upon this forum I will be able to convince some of them to spend less of their resources upon their selfserving ideology and more upon the common good.

So what you're doing is proposing gay people stop fighting for equal rights here and perhaps fight for something like, say, helping the homeless? It's kind of ironic isn't it? The snowball effect...know what I mean? The reason I fight for EQUAL rights is because if you let one thing go unnoticed (gay marriage for instance) then it becomes the banning of gay adoption and inevitably leading to the Anita Bryan times when gay employee's had to sacrifice their positions. By stopping the ball of bigotry early on it'll never escalate to that position...

Perhaps those worried about what Bob & Fred or Janice & Stephanie are doing next door they should spend their time and effort into establishing a charity that actually benefits society, as opposed to fighting with people that effect them in no way, shape, or form...

Gay rights is a pseudonym for a political agenda which is more about propagandizing a cultural lifestyle of free sex with multiple partners than actual "rights". There are no "rights" that gay people in Canada don't already have. They continue to demand 'respect' as if this were something people can be forced to grant them, even while, as a community, they flout the cultural norms which the greater community has established.

To me, the activists seem to be a very spoiled, very left wing, very self-absorbed group of mostly middle-class whiners desperately trying to wallow in the notions of victimhood. They're self-righteous, narcisistic and shrill.

Ah ha!

So you see everyone, it's no longer about achieving equal rights, all those evil activists like myself want to propose things like polyamory (because, you know, having a manage a trois is illegal, right?) and we DEMAND TO BE TREATED EQUAL, how dare we! I wonder what group XYZ would say if they were prevented from doing things like marrying, replacing XYZ with Christians, Jews, Blacks, etc....after all they'd be whining....right?

I think "gay rights" is such a hot topic now because we are presently in a tumultuous time where the cultural zeitgeist is in the midst of a massive shift towards that end which the Post and Archer (amongst others) envision; not only are religiously rooted cultural norms becoming increasingly irrelevant, but so too is the Gay Community itself, and in their death pangs, followers of both dogmas are now making increasing amounts of noise, each trying to out-shout the other. And, of course, the media loves a good fight. Over time, though, I think both sides will battle each other to the point of insignificance, and what are today issues of the "hot" kind will become those of the "non" variety.

_[copyedited]

Could you tell me what is exactly "dogmatic" about the gay rights side? Just curious....

Also, would you call the civil rights movement dogmatic on the same terms?

Edited July 21, 2009 by zinc

[Argus]

LOL... Change the word left wing to right wing, and change the topic from Gay Activist to Conservative activist, and interchange all the bolded type.

Yeah, doesn't work that way, though. What exactly is a "conservative activist" anyway? I don't think I've ever seen one.

What I see is a self-indulgent group of whiners wallowing in the notion they are victims even with zero evidence to support it, constantly harranguing society for respect, and launching multiple lawsuits over the flimisiest of pretexts on everything from being insulted by a comedien they heckle to being denied a position as an alter boy in a catholic church.

[Argus]

So many fallacious implications so little time. The amount of erroneous assumptions contained in the above is absolutely staggering yet not at all surprising as they are entirely too common in our society today.

First of all I want to address my absolute favorite quote from here which is conveniently located at the beginning of the post.

“propagandizing a cultural lifestyle of free sex with multiple partners.”

Wilt Chamberlain aside, you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of heterosexual people in Canada who could claim more than say, twenty sexual partners.

You'd not be hard-pressed to find Gay men who've had that many sexual partners this year, hell, this month, if not this week, if not today.

[lily]

Wilt Chamberlain aside, you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of heterosexual people in Canada who could claim more than say, twenty sexual partners.

You'd not be hard-pressed to find Gay men who've had that many sexual partners this year, hell, this month, if not this week, if not today.

I disagree with your first statement, but agree with your second... although I'm guessing you didn't mean it that way.

[M.Dancer]

Wilt Chamberlain aside, you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of heterosexual people in Canada who could claim more than say, twenty sexual partners.

Surely you jest.

[zinc]

What I see is a self-indulgent group of whiners wallowing in the notion they are victims even with zero evidence to support it, constantly harranguing society for respect, and launching multiple lawsuits over the flimisiest of pretexts on everything from being insulted by a comedien they heckle to being denied a position as an alter boy in a catholic church.

Are you talking about homosexuals or the whiny Christian conservatives? I find it hilarious that you call it "whining" - what would happen if the idiots on the right were prevented from marrying....just consider the consequences from preventing Catholics or Christians in general from adopting, or marrying, or whatever...

What do you think would happen? Would you be one of the so-called whiners fighting for your rights? It's one thing to call another group whiners, it's another to see completely beyond your own stupidity

Wilt Chamberlain aside, you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of heterosexual people in Canada who could claim more than say, twenty sexual partners.

You'd not be hard-pressed to find Gay men who've had that many sexual partners this year, hell, this month, if not this week, if not today.

Oh definitely! All those clubs occupied on Friday & Saturday nights have nothing but celibate chase religious folks right?

And regarding your second statement, what is your source? I operate on logic and evidence, have any? Hopefully you didn't pull this from where I think you did...

[lily]

And regarding your second statement, what is your source? I operate on logic and evidence, have any? Hopefully you didn't pull this from where I think you did...

I read "source" as "score".

I'm interested in either.

Argus? What's your official count?

[Dog]

Homosexuality is deviant behavior exibited by less then 2 % of the Canadian population http://www42.statcan.ca/smr08/smr08_118-eng.htm . Biological errors or mistakes of nature best describe homosexuality since there is no "gay gene ".

[lily]

I'm left handed. I"m a deviant too.