Uh oh. I hear a black helicopter. :lol:

cut for brevity

Interesting, but yet, flawed argument. Its not unfounded at all. The Texas case that threw out sodomy laws led to the intensity in the homosexual redefinition of marriage debate. However, when conservatives made the claim that the case would lead to HROM, people such as yourself declared it to be a "totally unfounded assertion of asinine proportions containing no logic, whatsoever". And yet, here we are.

Perhaps its your youth, but to not recognize that issues like this affects other future issues is naive. I'll put it this way: If the govt legitimizes the HROM, how could they possibly deny the sex education to students from the homosexual perspective? Its not that much of a leap.

Our government 'advocates' for many abominations listed in the bible.

Eating food that blood in it, like hamburger "shall be cut off" (Leviticus 17:14);
Eating fruit before a tree's fifth harvest.
Tattoos.
Shaving your sideburns.
Harvesting all the fruit in your fields (you leave some for the poor).

I'm betting everyone here seeing Homosexuality as a sin have committed or condoned every sin listed above.

It's amazing how some cherry pick the sins they want out of that book and ignore the rest.

Perhaps you should actually read the thread before knee jerking a post to it. Not a single relgious argument has been referenced by those oppossed to the homosexual redefinition of marriage.

Possibly not specifically referenced, (I haven't read every single post in the thread), but that is the bedrock reason behind the opposition to it.
Lots of code gets spoken, but 'traditional meaning of marriage' is a reference to the religious aspect of it.
There is NOTHING behind the opposition to gay marriage and even civil unions, save an opinion that it's a sin and that our government shouldn't be advocating it.
If you just think two penises are 'icky' and not that it will tear apart the very fabric of reality, you wouldn't have a problem with two consenting adults entering into a relationships with benefits.

Just because you aren't a 'strong' christian, doesn't mean it's value system isn't one of your building blocks.

:lol: :lol:

Wow, this is a heck of a thread! My contribution is a quote from a comedian MC-ing the Mexican wrestling show I attended last night:

"If you're against gay sex, then you should support gay marriage. That's the *only* thing that will stop gay sex..." Bwahahaha!

Good point. Guess I'm just used to the slopes that either have no backing evidence (other than "it's logically plausible") or rely on shaky studies with questionable statistical conclusions. coughnetherlandscough.

Even in the case of a valid slippery slope, though, you still have to weigh that risk against the benefits of taking that risk. Not to mention, in this case, explain why the bottom of the slope is a bad place to be.

Well, and when it's shameless fearmongering (i.e. the bottom of the slope is "Next you'll have people marrying goats!"), the whole thing goes out the window as a logically valid argument.

Wow ... just, wow to certain responses on this thread.

I remember a discussion on these boards awhile back about the term fearmongering. Depending on how it's defined, I'm not sure that fearmongering is always logically invalid, or even always a bad thing to do. At any rate, I don't think it's sufficient merely to label such an absurd argument 'fearmongering' and then walk away from it.

I'm still waiting for an explanation as to why this is a bad thing, though i won't hold my breath.

Because the govt shouldnt be encouraging homosexual activity

wow. that's totally insane. Bunch of perverts running things. :eek:

The statement "You have no choice over whom you fall in love with" is a staple of the homosexual community's arguments for legalizing gay marriage. The simple fact is that two homosexuals falling in "Love" is no different than two family members falling in romantic love or man/woman falling in love with two different people of the opposite sex. It's absurd to reason that the "Love" which two homosexuals feel for each others is stronger and/or more real than the love anyone else can feel. Find a practicing polygynyst and ask him if he "Loves" his wives; Now find a practicing polyandrist and ask her if she "Loves" her husbands; Lasly, find an two people in a consenting incestral results and ask them if they "Love" each other. I'd be willing to bet any amount of money that they all feel an amount of uncontrollable "Love" for their partner(s). The only reason many things are outlawed is because society considers them taboo; Not because there's any good reason to do so.

The politically powerless in this case (Homosexuals) aren't treated unjustly. There are a slew of laws aimed specifically created to protect homosexual's rights. People seem unable to realize that simply because homosexuals aren't allowed to mary doesn't mean they are being treated unjustly. In the United States, different social groups are allowed certain privileges which other groups are not.

Yeah, you're right because learning about an activity automatically encourages someone to engage in that activity. Wait, do you have any idea how ridiculous that notion is?

The preferred committed relationship form that the vast majority of homosexuals would prefer, same-sex marriage/union, is treated differently under the law than different-sex marriage/union. For what appears to be no good reason. (At least no good reason that stands up to scrutiny, from what I've seen.)

It's possible that you could define 'just' so that this falls outside the realm of 'unjust', but it's unfair at the very least, and needlessly so.

Filth, I agree with you in general, but don't you think NCB's pamphlet was a bit too explicit? I don't consider the parents objecting to it unreasonable. Shouldn't individual parents of public school students have some control over indecency standards of the school?

You are a TFP 'junkie'.
Your presence here encourages homosexual activity. Or do you ignore that we have a 'Titty Board' where half the threads are lesbian in nature. A Full Monty that has fabric-of-reality-tearing gay sex. Off the Wayside that is virtually no holds barred. And the Links and Requests board where many are encouraged to view or request gay and lesbian content.

Why then, are you here?
You support this board by either adding your own content, such as your posts in this thread, or by giving money to help it run.

You, NCB are encouraging homosexual activity here. For SHAME.

Yeah, the pamphlet was a bit gaudy, but i doubt that's the kind of thing upon which a sex education curriculum will be based.

Parents never have ultimate control over what their children are exposed to. A parent's role should ultimately be to help the child interpret what s/he is exposed or equip the child to deal with the things the child is exposed to.

TADA!...*trumpets blaring* *WAIVING HANDS!!!*

SOMEBODY mark this date on the calendar!!!!!

Ustwo and I have actually agreed on a point in a thread!!! OMG!!!
:lol: :lol: :lol:

( I hope you got the humour in that Ustwo! ):thumbsup:

I was with him until this. Of course you don't think its important, you're not being harmed by it. I'm sure that the country had far more serious issues to deal with during the Civil Rights Movement, and I'm sure people said it was a non-issue, or that the problem didn't exist. But I also am willing to wager that those people weren't black.

To a gay person, this could easily be the most important political issue they've ever known. Fundamental civil rights wouldn't be important to you, if they were being infringed on?

It's admittedly easy to ignore the plight of other individuals if we dismiss everything that doesn't directly effect us. And we certainly can't be expected to fight other people's battles. But that doesn't mean we can't recognize that their problem is important and serious to them.

Hmm, I read Ustwo's comment as meaning that this is really a non-issue, so in effect let it go and focus on more "issue-full" things.

Or so it would seem, if NCB's statements about it were true. But they're not. If you read the whole thread, what he implied about it has been completely ripped apart. That document was made for gay young adults. They weren't "given to MA schoolchildren". There's no support whatsoever for NCB's statement that they were "complete with homosexual bar pick up joints".

there are so many aspects of this thread that i find baffling it is hard to know where to start.


among the positions outlined in opposition to the nj decision, infiniteloser's is maybe the best summary one--but it seems based entirely on a notion that the american legal system is static--so that if at one point socially or politically marginal groups were not taken into account in the formulation of law, that's the end of the matter. and if the american legal system were static--or closer to static---were it, say, a civil law tradition and not a common law tradition--he'd in principle be right (though in practice he wouldnt be because even in civil law traditions, judges (though officially functionaries charged with the rigid application of the law) have considerable interpretive latitude in applying it).

but the american system is set up to be adaptable to changing political situations, and one way that change is brought about is through the mobilization of social groups, the elaboration of arguments and/or claims, the dissemination of those arguments/claims, debates about them, actions geared around that debate--the context within which law operates is historical, that is it shifts, like it or not--and so categorizations that were at one point reflective of a particular historical situation change--not in lock step, usually at a lag, but nonetheless--and so at this point any claim concerning the legal marginality of the gay population is effectively moot and has been for quite a number of years--so in essence the entire logic of infinite loser's positions is outmoded, invalidated by changing circumstances.

the claims that he has made concerning "mainstream culture" dont really mean much of anything, frankly. there are people who agree with his position--most of whom are on the right politically--and there are many who do not. there is no single phenomenon called "mainstream culture"--there are multiple discourses, multiple groups--always has been---and there are political claims generated by particular groups that they represent the interests of a segment of the population much larger than they are themselves--this is what we call political argument. and for a time these claims might hold----but over time their hold tends to dissolve...witness what is happening to the american right at the moment. the social-historical--the world--"reality"--changes. you might not like that, infiniteloser, but you cannot stop it--you can try to influence it, as can anyone else--but it's ridiculous to attempt to use some transcendent logical framework to try to "disprove" change.

in the initial post you made to this thread, il, you grouped homosexuality incest and bestiality together and for a while tried to argue that there was some logical consistency between them---well any such consistency is a function of the higher-order category you use to group them, and that means then that such logic as there is is circular--you advance three distinct categories as if there is a family resemblance between them--well the only resemblance between them is the notion of "sin" that circulates in conservative churches prompted in significant measure these days by far right political groups like the christian coalition which produces videos that anyone can watch that make essentially the argument you are making. typically, these videos try to evade the logical problems that you walk straight into by recourse to articles of faith, which for believers function like natural law. and perhaps or the demographic that finds these crackpot videos compelling, it is natural law--but that erases the simple fact of the matter, which is that the version of christianity endorsed by the american far right is particular to itself, and no matter how much the protestant far right hates this fact, they speak to and for themselves and no-one else.

your arguments are embedded in such a context, presuppose such a context--and you seem unable to see that.

so you call for referenda, assuming (with a kind of political motivation particular to the american far right) that the judiciary is somehow dominated by folk who do not share the assumptions of your fictional "mainstream culture" which really means the culture you imagine to exist out there made up of folk who share your assumptions. you call for referenda because you assume this imagined community would react as you do to changes in the purview of marriage as a legal institution.

i agree that referenda would be good, but i also think that your position would loose in many areas of the country, and i would personally appplaud each and every loss.


=======
as for the amazing display of ( empty ) that ncb has spattered across this thread, i dont really feel any particular need to say much...to do so would be to take it seriously--and i see no reason to take it seriously--so i am going to take my dog for a walk instead.

NCB, i think that this is right up your alley.
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6201/kansastz4.gif

Because apparently you can't teach someone about something without encouraging them to do it.

Wrong. The article does indeed state that the material was on full display and open for consumption to middle grades students who were also attending the fair. Also, I posted the accompanying homosexual bars section on page 2.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Please READ what I wrote. "On display" is different from what you claimed. You claimed it was "given out". But look on the bright side! You now have the opportunity to pull a GWB and claim you never said "given out".

You also still haven't acknowledged that it wasn't meant for middle schoolers and wasn't the product of some liberal "convert our children to gay" initiative, as you claimed it was. It was designed for young adults. Please, I dare you: make some argument about how this sort of information wouldn't be damn good for gay young adults to have. It was accidentally, briefly, included in a table of materials on display at an event where there were some middle schoolers.

Unless you can prove to me that a middle schooler took it (and there's "no evidence" that such a thing happened), then this is a non-issue. Except, of course, inasmuch as it points to your desperation to find anything to discredit the gay rights movement. (Where I come from, such rabid homophobia generally is understood to be the result of very deep repression of homosexuality. Just FYI. :lol: )

I missed that the first time. My bad. But again: in the context of a handout for young adults, I don't see the problem.

Uh huh. And KKK members must be secretly black.

Edit: To address your comparison better...I'll bet you that most if not all members of the KKK suffer from depression, low self esteem, and some serious social disfunction. The racism and anti-social behavior is symptomatic of deep seeded problems that would take years to shrink, but they are seeded in problems none the less.


Homophobic male heterosexuals showed more arousal to homosexual images than did nonhomophobic heterosexuals.

Adams, H. E., L. W. Wright Jr. and B. A. Lohr, 1996. Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal? Journal of Abnormal Psychology 105(3): 440-445.

If your point is that repressed homosexuality is a possible explanation for homophobia, I agree. But I'm sick of people treating this generalization as though it were an absolute rule. Secret self-loathing is just one possible source.

And even if it were an absolute rule, it wouldn't have any bearing on the quality (or lack thereof) of their arguments. At best, it's useless and antagonistic. At worst, it starts resembling the bigotry of the person it's thrown at. E.g.: Ooh, you just implied not so subtly that he's gay. Nice slam.

It was a joke. I grant that it was in poor taste. But do note the :lol: emoticon. Let's not turn a throwaway one-liner into a threadjack, okay?

Look, what some homosexual does in the bedroom is their biz. Marriage, however, is asking for federal benefits. The idea behind these benefits is the advancement of a stable family situation. While this is certainly no guarantee in a normal relationship, it's a possibility. A homosexual relationship can not reproduce, ever. It is not naturally intended that they do so. You are asking the federal government to basically fork over dollars for a sexual proclivity. Homosexuals are not a race. It's like declaring special rights to S&M practitioners. Shack up, cool. As others have said, however, tax dollars should not go to fund a non-productive sexual orientation.

Reproduction is not the purpose behind a stable family relationship. Given that the population of our little blue ball is exploding in an exponentious relationship (see Gromlich Effect, Matt Lauer for more information) - I'd rather think that stable relationships that can't make babies might be a preferential situation. At least in an increased proportion of said stable relationships, receiving the same treatment under the law that people with polarized genitalia receive. What's the big deal?

Yes it is, its all about reproduction. The population of the western world is NOT exploding, its in fact shrinking unless they allow immigration in great numbers. I always find people not having kids and using this exploding population argument as the best secondary reason in the world, they have the real reason they don't want kids, and then the 'oh the worlds population is exploding' myth to sound good about it.


Gay marriage is something of a farce, but if they want to play house I don’t' really care. They can walk around talking about their wife/husband and if that makes them feel accepted, great. Its such a small issue to deal with, and its not like the government handed me a check when I got married. I got a minor tax credit but if my wife and I both had high paying jobs I'd have had a worse tax situation.

You're wrong. Reproduction isn't a corequisite of marriage, regardless of birth rates.

Sounds like your marriage is something of a farce, if all you're doing is playing house. At least your understanding of the benefits that come with marriage is a farce.


I can't wait to see what kind of contrived excuse you'll pull out once this one is properly exposed.

Ustwo, I'm not entirely following what you're saying here - somehow I get the feeling you posted this in a hurry - but if I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that claims of increasing population are a secondary rationalization for support of lifestyles that do not further reproduction. I feel pretty confident that the world's population, taken in whole, is in fact increasing and will continue to do so, barring disease, war, famine - you know, the four horses and all that. Yep, I know we're being out-fucked by the rest of the world - but gay mariage might very likely result in increased adoption rates. Gay people already are in the "not making babies" region, and I don' t see how not letting them get married is going to significantly make them start magically making babies.

My point is that encouraging reproduction isn't the sole purpose of marriage-related benefits. I am under the impression that many of these benefits are practical in nature - such as making medical decisions, or filing joint tax claims, etc. This has been discussed across the boards, and even in other places, to the extent that I don't see much point in belaboring the point. I think the entire question of equating marital status and the rights therein to the question of encouraging reproduction to be a secondary rationalization. At the end of the day, I agree that this shouldn't be a big deal - I just don't see why that defaults to denying gay people the right to marriage. Particularly if the estimates of fraction of our population is something like 5-10%, who cares?

What part of it is factually incorrect?

Then should we deny federal benefits to the hundreds of thousands of heterosexual couples who do not have children?

I imagine what it will boil down to is that you will be asked to provide a rational basis for the latest argument you have offered. You will then ignore these requests for elaboration and simply move on to a different argument.

No, because they still have the ability to reproduce.

Anywho, why don't we make a compromise? Let's legalize gay marriage but grant them only the non-child producing benefits. Seem fair?

Aaggghhh!!! I keep getting dragged in :)

Um, even the sterile one, the ones past menopause, the ones with vasectomies and hysterectomies, and so forth? It's been argued before, I can pretty much promise that you can't find a straightforward manner in which to defend reproduction and syncronicity with the broad band of heterosexual marriages, but I've never been a man to try and stop someone from trying.

And what would those be? If you're going where I think you're going, I think that could set a precedent that heterosexual couples who adopt lose whichever rights you associated with child production too. Because they didn't actually produce any children, and such. This would be a rhetorical position, as those rights would likely be given back in a legal case after the homosexual right to marriage was recognized / granted. Of course, I personally suspect this entire exchange is almost a rhetorical argument at this point. It's pretty much going to happen - its just a matter of time.

Its the whole point of marriage, and how the rules are set up. Its to have a family not a fuckbuddy who lives with you.


I have a kid, and will be having another one in the near future, I'm not playing house, I have a family, you know the thing that keeps society going generation to generation.

It is? I thought the point of marriage was to have a union of two people recognised by the relevant state/religion. Let's ban marriages for money, old people, couples who adopt and celebrities who don't want kids!

Seriously, that argument is utterly wrong. It might be what you think marriage should be, but has no basis in reality.

That is one of the benefits, I agree. There are families headed by homosexual couples, mostly lesbians with a smaller number of gay males. However these were formed--adoption or artificial insemination--they do already exist. Wouldn't it make sense to promote the stability of these families in the same way we promote stable heterosexual families?

Gilda

It would likely be easier to accept your opinions as being motivated by "the good of the country", as you claim, if you didn't speak with such contempt for them.

With only 1.5-2% of females exclusively homosexual, and 3-4% of males, what precisely is your concern? Your concern is that some of the 2% of women in the entire US population or 4% of the men might want to have their union recognized in a civil process?

So you're saying that your tax dollars are ok to pay for the chance that the other 98% of straight women and 96% of straight men want to marry, but that last 2% and 4% are out of the realm of reasonable? Right now, there are 147.8 million women in the US, and only 62.9 million of them married- that's 42.5% of all women in the US. Using the approximation of 2% of all women to be homosexual, that's a mere 2,956,000 women of the 147.8 million total. Let's assume, since there are no numbers to support it, that your nightmare has reached its peak, and a full 50% of all homosexual women want to get married. This is, of course, way more than the only 42.5% of straight women who are currently married, by percentage. That's 1,478,000 married lesbians, or 739,000 couples.

A same-sex union would, at most, only ever result in the same "tax burden" as a hetero couple with no kids, and not more. To put this into perspective, you're adamently denying equal rights and "your tax dollars" to 739,000 female couples, when 44% of ALL women of childbearing age are childless. This makes your tax argument complete and utter bunk.

Unless, of course, you're looking to deny tax dollars to hetero couples who don't procreate? Or maybe you'd like to take tax aid away from even the single women who aren't making babies?

"Your tax dollars" are going towards schools for all the heteros' spawn, it's going towards healthcare aid for those who (intentionally or not) have children and can't afford them, it goes to subsidize public housing for a lot of them, it goes to subsidizing college educations for children, it goes to publicly available and free family planning centers teaching soon-to-be parents how to cope with the new addition and how to best prepare, among a littany of other things that your tax dollars go to pay for all the hetero spawn.

Oh, and by the way- gay women don't hand in their eggs when they go gay. Plenty of lesbian women are planning on, or have had, children. I'm sure there are many gay male couples who would like to adopt- but the issue of that is another thread by itself, i'm just talking about your very important "taxes only for the procreating" dollars.

So can I get government aid right now, even though i'm not married, because it's possible for me to get married? Specious. Specious and grasping at straws.

See above. Lesbians can easily reproduce- in fact, they can reproduce twice as fast as your precious, "normal", hetero couples can, because they have two women. Gay men can also raise children, and there are more than enough unwanted children to go around to anyone with the income stability to take them. Again, we're arguing over your taxes, leave the "gay couples raising kids" stuff out of this thread.

All heteros have to do is "shack up", and they already get their union recognized by the government- there's no difference. And forget your argument about "it's possible they could reproduce", because it's bunk and malarky, and you know it.

If I get married tomorrow and sign a piece of paper saying I will NEVER have children, I still get all my tax breaks and whatnot, and STILL pay ALL the taxes everyone else who IS having kids pay- so I'm not adding to the tax burden by having kids, but i'm still adding to the pool of taxes everyone else pays anyway.

So basically, even if you're right about same-sex couples not being able to have kids (which you're wrong about), you've caught yourself in a huge fallacy of logic- they pay all the same taxes you do, but aren't using nearly at all the same resources as you. They're helping you out by paying taxes on services they'll NEVER use. So what are you trying to convince us of, exactly? because your reasons don't stand up to even passive scrutiny.

So again, you propose removing all tax aid to those hetero couples who don't have kids? Because there are a lot of them. And again, the "hetero couples having children is a possibility" argument is nonsense.

Why not compromise and have a civil union? Seems like a good idea. Homosexual couples can get all the benefits etc of a marriage and opponents don't have to share the same term (word) with them. This is a practical, pragmatic solution to me. Everyone comes out a winner. As long as you get the same privileges what difference does the name make?

Also, is there an issue with gay adoption or are gays allowed to adopt freely? This seems like a natural "marriage" to me. Letting gay couples adopt, early and often. Way too many positives and very little negatives (as far as I can tell). Kill two birds with one stone.

As a conservative-moderate, I think homosexual unions are a great reinforcement of family values in terms of a familial unit. It's almost "antigay" (the stereotype that is). Stable, presumably well-incomed gay couples have the means and wherewithal to raise a family and make a positive contribution to society AND simultaneously reduce the orphan population (potentially) and help relieve the child social welfare system a bit. The more kids out of foster home and orphanages or as wards of the state, and into loving, stable families the better.

I'm not seeing the negative here, what am I missing?

Because its not about rights for many, its about being accepted as 'normal'.

huh?

it is about a social group being able to avail themselves of the legal protections and advantages of the legal institution of marriage. it is about equal protection.

i was thinking earlier that saying marriage is about reproduction is like saying clouds are about precipitation.
so any cloud that does not issue forth would be a lesser cloud.
it's not wrong that clouds are linked to precipitation, but it is absurd to say that clouds are about that.

Marriage isnt required to have a family. People have kids out of wedlock all the time and there are single people adopting children these days.

So to some people Pan and I shouldnt get married because the doctor says I cant have kids? :lol: We are gonna do it anyway. Marriage is more than "kids".

So what, hospitals are set up for treating the sick but some sick people treat themselves at home.

Marriage is about having children. If some people get married and don't have kids, thats fine but it doesn't change the reason for it.

I don't care if gays want to get married in the least if it will shut them up. I personally don't think it will, the next on the agenda will be teaching the gay lifestyle in schools as normal as that is what this is really all about. If it was just rights of a spouse, then everyone would be happy with civil unions and not care if the term 'marriage' was involved.

I will respectfully agree to disagree with you.

One hand one you say that marriage isn't solely about providing a stable environment in which to raise children. That's fine. Yet when I propose the idea of removing all child-rearing benefits from gay marriage, you then have a problem with it because it would leave very few-- If any-- Benefits left untouched. How does that work?

Not all gay marriages are childless. It's simple enough - what part are you having trouble with?

That's one purpose, but its also a way to rebuild a support system which should come closer to providing unconditional love - once your parents are starting to get old enough to die. Two people (or as far as I'm concerned, more) can easily decide to settle down so that they have someone to count on. With no expections of having kids.

I personally favor a civil union....for everyone. For heterosexuals and homosexuals, let the state have a contract which grants a civil union. The happy couple can then go out and find their flavor of church or secular society that can provide an official marriage. No discrimination, no "separate but equal" / implied secondary status, everyone wins. How many heterosexual people would be willing to have a civil union instead of a marriage license?

IL - my point is that regardless of what rights you attach to child production, there are a slew of heterosexual couples who would also have to forfeit these rights. If heterosexual couples who adopt do not lose these rights, then all couples will have these rights because all couples can adopt.

Why are you attempting to redefine marriage? Everyone knows it's about the consolidation of property and political power.

I have a suspicion that you aren't actually in any kind of position to tell anyone what marriage is about. You don't get to tell other people what marriage is about just because you're married.

Being gay is normal, and the "gay lifestyle" is nothing more than a scary story conservatives tell each other to keep each other awake at night.

If it were so normal, than why is everyone reasearching and looking for a cause? You only look for causes for things that are out of whack, not normal.

And yes, this is one of the big issues: normalizing homosexuality via our public school system. Do you not find it reasonable that if the govt recognizes homosexuality as legitimate as hetherosexuality, then the sex education curriculums must follow?

This word "everyone"... I do not think it means what you think it means.

I know of some politically-motivated (and religiously-funded) "researchers" who are interested in causes and "cures" regarding homosexuality. I also know of some legit brain scientists who have discovered correlations between brain structures and homosexuality. Not a particularly big slice of "everyone".

The question presupposes a right-wing slippery-slope bogeyman called "liberals want to convert our children to gay".

What's the problem if, in the context of a complete sex-ed curriculum, children are taught a respect for and understanding of non-majority forms of sexual expression? Do you have any idea the amount of grief it would save gay young people to have even one lesson mention that some people are attracted to people of their own gender, and that's okay? I'd rather live in a world where children are taught to be accepting and inclusive.

Clearly the talking points have shifted... now it seems the issue is that homosexuality is going to be taught in school and that it will be rendered, "normal".

To both issues I say, "so?'

It is normal and I could care less if it is discussed in a public school. It's a fact of life that homosexuals exist. Why not discuss and normalize it? Perhaps we can undo some of the damage done by those who feel the opposite is true (and who are clearly wrong).

And here lies the rub. Why should the govt be involved in promoting normalcy of homosexuality and why should the public schools trump the values of families who thik homosexuality is a vile and deviant behavior?

Sure, but then lets be honest about it.

Teach it for what it is, a birth defect. Its normal the same way dwarfism or trisomy 21 is 'normal'. Its a mistake of genetics or pre-natal developement, I think both, but reguardless its not a "lifestyle" its people who through no fault of their own were born with part of them not working properly.

Like being left handed is a birth defect? Like being a red head with freckles is a birth defect? I really don't think the word "defect" is apt. The world is overpopulated, how do we know that this isn't a natural reaction to overpopulation?

NCB, as far I understand it, this statement is categorically false. Weather patterns are undeniably normal. It rains, it shines, tornados form, and so do hurricanes. There are entire University Departments dedicated to why and how weather patterns occur. Such The University of Illinois Department of Atmospheric Science. Corrosion is a completely natural process, and yet there are entire societies dedicated to studying and understanding it, such as NACE. Homosexuality is completely normal, in the sense that it occurs naturally. It exists. It may not be "normal" in the sense of adhering to the average behavior, but that doesn't make it some twisted perversion of reality, any more than having red hair or being left-handed.

As far as indoctrination of our youth into homosexuality via sex education, I just don't really buy it. As I remember sex ed, the teachers were uncomfortable, the students were uncomfortable, and there were no seminars on sexual technique or practices. I was pretty close with most of my teachers, and from playing various sports I knew all the coaches. In our schools, it was usually the gym coaches who ended up teaching sex ed as a part of physical education. Despite the fact that I had demonstrably heterosexual gym coaches all the way through high school, I never had one of them teach me how to give oral sex to my girlfriend, or suggest that missionary style wasn't the way to go. No bondage discussion, no role playing, no "Superman takes on WonderWoman with the Lasso of Truth Session" discussions. I don't doubt some of these guys tied their wives up and played Erik the Red pillages the coast of Iceland, but somehow they never got around to sharing these secrets with me. Now you're seriously telling me that one of these guys, if required to mention that you aren't a complete freakjob if you have homosexual leanings in highschool, or that its not a huge deal and there's no reason to beat each other up over it, etc - that my old soccer coach would have been trying to secretly get me juggle eggsacks in my cheeks? I really just don't think so. I don't really recall any direct discussion of actual sexual practices, beyond how to avoid disease and if you get a lump on your nut, you should probably have a doctor take a look at it.

This whole thing is just a distraction from the primary issue raised in these threads, which is that there is no solid rational reason to deny homosexuals the right to settle down into the house with the picket fence, dog and a cat with 1-1/2 kids.

edit: shit will, can you just get out of my mind for second :) post-jinx.

Could you imagine how boring life would be if everyone were "normal". What IS "normal" anyway?

Agree with it or not it is done. All you negative Nancys are gonna have to life with homosexuality, its not going away. Stop fighting and start with the group hugs. :D

(Nancy was the first name that came to mind and is not meant to offend anyone who may have that name here on TFP)

Why should the government be involved in promoting normalcy of heterosexuality and why should the public schools trump the values of families who think heterosexuality is a vile and deviant behavior?

I'd like to point out, once again, that homosexuality is a state, not a behavior.

IMHO the schools shouldn't do either. But face it, how many homes these days have parents that will take the time to do it themselves?

I know, and i feel for you and the holocaust deniers and the pi = 3'ers, and the creationists, whose perspectives are also trumped by the public school's teaching policies.

You still can't explain why teaching kids about homosexuality in school is a bad thing, aside from the fact that it will somehow "normalize" homosexuality. If you're afraid of the broad acceptance of homosexuality, just do what the racists did when segregation happened; use your influence as a parent to convince your children that it's great to be a bigot, that people who aren't like you aren't your equals, and that there's some sort of vast liberal conspiracy to allow homosexuals to not hate themselves.

Ok, i see. Being gay is like being retarded. I seem to remember you mentioning this in your "Let the retards get married if it will shut them up" thread. How do you feel about the normalization of the retard lifestyle in the public schools?

Recent episode of Friday Night Lights: A teenage boy has been paralyzed in a football game and is recovering in the hospital. Another guy in a wheelchair (the same obnoxious jerk from the movie Murderball) calls him "gay". He follows this up with, "Oh, come on. I didn't mean it like that. I meant gay as in retarded." He's quickly shot up to my second least favorite character on the show, just behind the obsessed "backer".

Homosexuality is a normal variant of human sexuality. It is neither abnormal nor deviant. It causes no harm to others and no harm to the homosexual.

Wait... Around 7 - 8% of the total population is gay, correct? By standards of human variation, this percentage is EXTREMELY low. In fact, some genetic mutations and birth defects which are considered 'abnormal' have a higher occurance than homosexuality does. Whether or not it causes harm to the individual or even others is irrelevent.

A weird definition of the word 'normal', you have.

So, is being left handed normal? Some estimates put left-handedness in between 10 and 30%.

The word deviant is funny, because all it really means is that someone or something doesn't share a specific characteristic with the majority of people/things. By this definition, marriages that don't end in divorce are deviant. Evangelical christians are deviant. Jesus was a deviant. With enough examination of all the things that are deviant, only the most stubborn person wouldn't admit that the details of the specific characteristic in question are much more important than whether the characteristic qualifies as deviant.

The word natural is similar, since really, everything that happens is natural. My computer is completely natural, so are buttfucking and apple pie.

You could go the other way, though, and say that anything that follows the fits withing the framework of evolutionary success is natural, everything else is deviant. That's great, but those who like this idea generally aren't experts in evolutionary theory and don't see that just because something appears on a very superficial level to hinder one's ability to pass on genes, doesn't mean it doesn't serve an evolutionary purpose, or that many things that make a species successful in the short term can often lead to massive amounts of species-specific death in the long run. Reproductive success isn't the only factor in the success of a species, in fact, in some instances, reproducing too much could theoretically cause the downfall of a species.

All these different ways of condemning homosexuality by comparing it to nature of the majority fall flat, because there is an endless supply of things that are just as "deviant" and just as "unnatural" as homosexuality that the proponents of the arguments could seemingly care less about.

Less than 10% of the population has red hair. It's obviouslt a birth defect, too, and we shouldn't let them get married.

So you mean that less than 10% of the total population has red hair and the other 90%+ has, say, blonde hair? As we all know, this isn't true. The other 90%+ of people who don't have red hair have either black, brown or blonde hair (I'm sure there's a color I'm missing). Let's try this with human sexuality. You can either be heterosexual, homosexual or asexual. 90%+ of humans are heterosexual, less than 10% of humans are homosexual and very few, if any, are asexual.

If one state (In this case, heterosexuality in humans) occupies more than 90% of the sample size for the human population, it's safe to assume that it's the norm.

Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, beastial, asexual.

Brown, sandy, blonde, red, black.

That's 5 and 5. Look how well that works.

Bottom line, don't be a bigot. Homosexuality obviously isn't a defect, as it is obviously functional at reducing overpopulation. Suggesting homosexuality is a birth defect is like saying that being pro choice is a birth defect. The topic has, is, and always will be political, based on religous impositions on the political arena. To pretend that it's biological is to ignore biology. To aknowledge it's essentially a religous argument is to admit that you're imposing your version of Jesus on another person who isn't hurting you, so thus ends the argument.

I mean that it is healthy and natural, and thus lacks some of the additional connotations that the word "abnormal" usually carries. "Normal" can be a statistical descriptor or it can carry with it, as it generally does in common usage, especially as it applies to sexuality, moral, ethical, or psychological connotations. In my experience, it's often accompanied by an implication or outright statement that the behavior is sick, clearly adding a psychological or moral component. None of those extra connotations are accurate descriptors.

If you mean "normal" solely as a statistical descriptor without any relationship to moral or ethical standards, using it solely as a mathematical descriptor, then yes, homosexuality is statistically uncommon. By that definition many more things that don't ordinarily get that label are not normal, but aren't labeled as such. In the United States, being Jewish or Native American is about as common or less common than being homosexual. Is being Jewish abnormal? Residents of Wyoming make up 0.6% of the US population. Is being a resident of Wyoming abnormal?

In terms of world population, Americans are about 4.5%. That's in the same neighborhood as the rate of homosexuality. Is being an American abnormal?

The problem with the "homosexuality isn't normal because it's uncommon" reasoning is that that's a line of reasoning that gets applied only when someone disapproves of the behavior or a moral or ethical connotation is added. This is why "abnormal" in psychological terms and "deviant" in sociological terms carry with them the additional criterion of dysfunction, or as I put it, harm. Psychologically, a behavior is "abnormal" only if it is statistically uncommon and causes harm to the person exhibiting it or to others. Collecting comic books is statistically uncommon, but not abnormal. Sociologically, a behavior is "deviant" if it is statistically uncommon and it violates the norms of a culture, subculture, or group or represents a failure to act within the norms of the culture. In religious doctrine, those terms usually imply that the behavior is a violation of the specific doctrine of the organization making the judgment.

Homosexuality fails the test on all those grounds save for religious purposes.

This makes the use of "normal" and "abnormal" loaded words. Defending the labeling of homosexuality as "abnormal" on a purely statistical basis fails because there is in that usage a connotation of moral, ethical, or psychological dysfunction. Homosexuality isn't dysfunctional in any of those ways, so using deviant or abnormal when you don't mean to imply that there is some dysfunction inherent to the condition is at best deceptive.

But for the sake of clarification, because we're operating from different definitions of the word, I'll rephrase: Homosexuality is a healthy, natural variant of human sexuality.

Is it statistically uncommon? Sure. It's also a healthy variant of human sexuality that causes neither the individual nor others in the society harm, nor does it impair in any way a person's being able to function according to other societal norms.

Then every member of the Sambia tribe of New Guinea is defective? Because every male in the tribe lives as a homosexual for several years.

Americans and Europeans are more "defective" than say, Arabs or Chinese, because there is a higher incidence of homosexuality here than in those lands?

Still, notice how 90%+ of all humans fall into the category of 'heterosexual' while there is no such disparity in your comparisons to hair color? If the overwhelming majority of a sample population can be grouped into one category, then we state that this is the natural tendency of that group.

The notion that homosexuality is useful at reducing overpopulation is more plausible than the assumption there is as "Gay gene", as there have been studies done on mice and monkey's which prove that they exhibit homosexual tendencies only when they begin to run out of space to effectively live. Assuming that it is a recessive trait, basic evolution would state that homosexuality should have killed itself off by now, as it's not advantageous to procreation. Of course, this would beg the question as to why China and India don't have rather large homosexual movements since they are the two most overpopulated regions of the world. The notion that there is a "Gay gene" in humans is absurd as, by the basic principles biology/evolution, it would either have to be a recessive trait or have nothing to do with genes at all.

Who mentioned anything about a Judeo-Christian belief?

Well I can make another comparison, but the comparions seem to distract from the discussion. Moving on...
It may not be a recessive trait. It may be that homosexuals are less likely to reproduce than heterosexuals, combined with the 7% of the population thing. A gene that creates the tendancy for homosexulaity might be the same as a gene that makes someone more or less likely to be proned to addiction or proned to likeing big or small boobs...it's a tendency, but it isn't always the rule. I have addiction going back on both sides of my family for generations. I'm not addicted to anything. My brother isn't addicted to anyhing. We could have been, but it's dependant on so many environmental and other genetic factors. I imagine that homosexulaity is dependantfirst on the "gay gene", then other genes, then the environment. Isn't it possible that the environment is what activates homosexulaity, just like the environment can tweak and change heterosexuality?

For example: what if as populations rise, the tendency towards equality rises as the elite and rare smartest people come to liberal power. As equality rises, latent homosexuals that normally just try to live life as heterosexuals are free to live life as a homosexual. I don't know how likely it is, but it does explain the homosexual tendency as a gene.
More like Abrahamic belief, but it's the idea that homosexuality is wrong that comes from that line of morality. Where does that morality come from? Abrahamic religons: Judism, Christianity, and Islam. That morality is a lot older than genetics.

I think that we all need to educate ourselves and make an effort to always remind ourselves that everyone else is also struggling to maintain their self esteem. That is a foundation of awareness of equality, tolerance, and mutual respect, IMO.

Lets handle this one at a time. This one I have time for.

They are not homosexuals, but taught to have male-male sex if it’s the same tribe I'm thinking of. They learn it as boys but still dream of when they are allowed to have sex with women. Its not the same as being a homosexual in the true sense.

Yes in terms of this condition. Many conditions are more common in one race than another. Due to the nature of arab culture I'd be willing to bet their incidence of homosexuality is higher than reported, I don't know the Chinese rate off hand but lets take it at face value. I'd be MORE surprised if there was no difference in races.

I see homosexuality as a birth 'defect' because it directly interferes with reproduction. Genetics doesn't care about what kind of person you are, if your genes die out and die out due to something in their makeup, it’s a defect.

This is a purely dispassionate scientific assessment of the condition. The next logical argument would be to ask if healthy heterosexual couples who do not have children are 'defective' and the answer depends on the reason they don't have children. If there is a genetic tendency not have children then it would qualify as a birth defect. They were born that way, and it’s a dead end for the line. Now my guess is that it is a psychological thing and a conscious decision. Its still a dead end but the same genes under a different social environment could have had 12 kids happily. The same can't be same for homosexuals who I think would be gay under any circumstance since its genetically linked.

Either one accepts the genetic component to homosexuality and if you have an understanding of genetics you can see where this would be a defect (there is an argument I can think of that would make it a possible benefit but I'll see if someone else comes up with that one, its weak but worth mentioning) or homosexuality is somehow psychological and therefore can be cured or prevented in children. That was the thought up until the late 70's and guess how well that worked?

Genes don't exist in a vacuum, though, and your interpretation of what does and doesn't allow genes to survive is overly simple. Plenty of gay people have children, and being gay isn't an insurmountable barrier to having children.

People should be more interested in keeping their own lives straight than trying to run everyone elses. While they are at it some people should concentrate on keeping up their fantasy worlds.

If it's genetic, then it's a condition until it's proven to be detrimental or a negative in some real way. If it is found to be a shortcoming, fault, or imperfection, then it becomes a defect. Until that imperfection is proven, and it has not been so far, this has been and will remain a condition.

If it's environmental, why cure it? I mean that's like curing someone from enjoying musical theater or for preferring blondes. Who cares? It's clearly not harmful. It doesn't actually harm in any way the people around them (despite what some may say). As stated before, it can even be helpful as it combats overpopulation!

Getting back to gay marriage, I couldn't be happier. It's about time we show these people the respect set fourth by legal precedent. In Lawrence v Texas, 2003, the Supreme Court considered sodomy laws regarding homosexuals. You see, Texas thought it would be funny, between beers and wife beating, to say that sodomy is illegal between homosexuals but legal between heterosexuals. In a 5 to 4 vote, the Supreme Court overruled Texas' ruling in Bowers v Hardwick and ruled that the state "lacked a legitimate interest in regulating the private sexual conduct of consenting adults." I'm sure you've all heard of the Equal Protection Clause. Scalia threw a fit, of course, but the decision stands.

Let's put it this way: Any trait which would prevent a species from reproducing is lost over time and, as we all know, homosexuals rarely ever have children. Anything which would inhibit any given organism from reproducing is considered unwanted/a defect. Thefore, the notion that homosexuality is genetic in humans is-- For lack of a better word-- Preposterous.

If you don't agree, then take it up with basic Darwinism.

What a depressingly black-and-white world the gay-suppression proponents live in. Of course, it's a lot simpler when you don't have to worry about things like gray areas and nuance...

Either a person IS gay or IS not (never mind that all the research on the subject shows that people's sexuality falls somewhere on a spectrum). Gay people DON'T procreate (never mind that many of them do). Marriage IS for procreation (never mind how many marriages don't produce children or how many children don't come from married parents). It's all about absolutes, because that requires no thinking or self-examination.

There's a complex, messy, interesting world out here just waiting to be lived in. I find it sad that some people's rigid, fixed and absolute view of the world prevents them from inhabiting reality. I mean--how do you deal with somebody who says, in a nutshell, "My opinion is absolute truth", when their opinion is different from yours and isn't supported by anything that appears rational? Shrug your shoulders? That's about what I've come to.

My personal philosophy is to be skeptical of absolutes. Things are usually more complicated than can be summed up in a neat verbal equation.

Some of the writings from Ancient Greece explain how homosexuality was a normal part of a man's life. That suggests that homosexuality isn't something new, so you're probably wrong. As a matter of fact, as animals become more social as they evolve, it is observed that homosexuality becomes more prevenalt. It has been documented consistantly from anything from penguins (March of the Penguins 2: Queen of the Nile), bison, sheep, dogs, cats, dolphins, and pigs, so you're completly wrong. Preposterous, indeed.

Jerks would have been removed from the gene pool hundreds of thousands of years ago if your simplistic description of darwinism was true.

Holy Crap. So now we're down to trying to determine whether or not being gay is genetically disfavored, based on the assumption that there is an overpowering gay gene? There's lots of things that don't have any use in reproduction. I have two of them. They are called my nipples. I like 'em just fine, but they'll never excrete the sweet sweet milk of paternal sustanence to any child I begot upon some unluckly lady. Shrill, tawdry crazy shrew she would have to be let me do all my begotting and whatnot. Why do I have nipples? Why damn it? Hold on, Ustwo's going to explain something about lack of differentiation in early child development whilst we lie in the womb. Ok, my tonsils have nothing to do with reproduction. Neither does my knee cap.
One also has to wonder if the formation of stable family units produces situations such that successful survival of any offspring born in the larger family unit are increased. Thus, as not all members of a homosexual household are likely to be homosexual, the safety and support offered by the formation of the stable family unit favors the survival of any child produced. As ratbastid directly just pointed out, it's not a cut and dry situation.

Holy sweet what-the-hell on a slinky. Whether or not someone regards homosexuality as some sort of genetically recessive trait disfavorable to the active direct production of children is not the issue with gay marriage.

Hold on, who was it that sang the following?

I could wile away the hours
Conferrin' with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain
And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain

There is so much talk on whether homosexuality is a birth defect and whether homosexuality is unfit in an evolutionary sense and that marriage is for procreation and so on that I can't quote just one post to focus on. So allow me to give a general reply.


First off, to whether homosexuality is a defect that will result in the dying out of homosexuality in humans: do homosexuals have homosexual parents? Sometimes, I'm sure, but oftentimes they have straight parents. What could this possibly mean?

As to whether homosexuality is contrary to the propagation of the species and therefore will die out: fine, but until they do (which could take millions of years, considering how slow evolution works) are they not protected by the same constitution by which every other American is protected?

If a man and a woman marry and it turns out that one of them is infertile, can the state then void their marriage, since they aren't going to procreate? And isn't infertility contrary to the propagation of the species? Should we make fertility tests a requirement for marriage?

I'm not sure just how thought out some of the "logical" anti-gay marriage arguments are.

Erm... When did I say that homosexuality was a new concept?

Did you not read any of my responses thus far? I said this once before, but I'll say it again. I believe it's been a few years, but scientists conducting an experiment to see when, and if, homosexuality occurs in a population. They first did it with mice and then with monkeys. It was observed that homosexuality occurs only when space became an issue; When a portion of the population died off, then they went back to being heterosexual.

Homosexuality in humans doesn't just occur in situations of overpopulization nor is a particularly effective means of population control in humans, either. The difference between humans and animals is that, unlike animals which are driven by mear instinct, humans are able to rationalize and can thusly make choices. If homosexuality were genetic, then it would only manifest itself when it's needed and at the times it's needed, much like in animals. Of course, it doesn't.

What are you talking about? Women are attracted to jerks like a fly to rotten meat.

Oh! And it's not a simplistic form of Darwinism. It's the cold, hard truth.

I think his point was that if it were strongly predispositioned to be phased out through evolution, it could have easily already happened. I don't know about the timescale involved, that whole course of analysis is far too simplified in the first place...but that was sort of will's point, I think.


That's just girls...women are attracted to jerks with lots of $$$ :)

Regardless, I think this thread's just about busted. I'll second a congrats to the peoples up in Jersey. I guess we'll see how this one plays out.

Let's put it this way: It's not that simple. We don't live in the woods any more. The only thing preventing most homosexuals from reproducing is the fact that many of them don't want to have children. Human have found numerous ways around untold "defects". It's called adaptation, and there are a great many things that you probably consider genetic flaws that are mostly irrelevant because we've figured out ways around them.

Now, i'm not saying homosexuality is genetic, just that you claiming that if it was it would have been bred out of us by now is wrong.

cool people in NJ with the same genetalia can share medical insurance. happy for you. please sit down.

do homosexual ladies go to man prison? Because if not, that's hot.

I can't do basic Darwinism anymore, but I can do advanced evolutionary biology.

Many negative traits do stick around for quite a long time. Homosexuality may be a negative trait to reproduction, but its obviously around and as homosexuals have been considered perverts for much of history in many cultures, I'd find it odd that so many people would pick to be a pervert. So far no evidence exists for it being anything else than genetic or VERY early in development. You can teach someone to be bisexual, you can't teach them to be gay. This btw is a mistake many seem to be making here. Greek/Roman homosexuality as so freely talked about was really bisexuality, and there is a WORLD of difference between the two in genetic terms. Greek/Roman homosexuals would not have been considered normal in their tastes.

There is apparently a fragile period in human development where sexuality is imprinted on the brain. Some genetic combinations seem to be susceptible for errors at this time. Its negative to survival but so are a lot of traits. As long as enough do survive into the next generation it continues. There may be unknown benefits as well to that genetic combination, much like the sickle cell trait in Africans. It may be that the traits which favor reproduction outweigh the impact of having a non-reproducing possibility.

Likewise I doubt there will be one ‘gay gene’ an in fact its due to multiple genes. Many traits are not the Mendelian genetics you get taught in 5th grade, but are in fact field effects where multiple genes overlap.

Know what else is interesting? I had a roommate back in school who was studying classic Greek and Roman literature. Not only was it really insulting for a man to take it in the can...but it turns out that men of character fucked each other behind the knees. That's right - apparently they wedged that sucker behind a bent knee and went at it. They were notoriously pederasts, but they typically had wives. And to tie it all together (like a good rug), they kept those wives for reproductive purposes.

Maybe this sucker's not busted yet afterall.

I think this is where you're going off the rails. Leaving aside the vast numbers of groups around the world - both currently and historically - who have practised on a wide scale and condoned same sex behaviour and orientation (such as the Sambia or ancient Greeks), the "birth defect" argument assumes that homosexuality is caused by genetics. We have no idea that this is the case. Upbringing may be the predominant role, exposure to various hormones at certain stages of development might do it, or there may be a "gay" gene. You're focusing on only one potential cause, without considering the other strong possibilites, which is hardly a very scientific or dispassionate way of looking at things as you claim to do.

A spinoff on Mr. Highthiefs fabulous point.

What if enjoying Chocolate is a "birth defect". What if we are all supposed to like Vanilla?

Hope this put some things into perspective for some people. :)

Oh, yeah? How does that happen?

Adoption, invitro, my aunt had a child with a husband before admitting she was a lesbian. :D

Well, let's see. I know one gay man who's been in a very stable relationship for about 20 years. 15 years ago or so they decided they wanted a child, so he and a close female friend did artificial insemination and had one. He's a great kid too--one of the most well-adjusted children I've ever met. And, in case you're wondering if he caught gay from his two daddies, he has a lovely girlfriend. So, anecdotally at least, so much for both nature and nurture.

A lesbian couple I know is doing artificial insemination right now. They've done a couple rounds of it with no luck yet, but they're still trying.

My fifth grade teacher, who I'm still in touch with, had two kids with her husband before divorcing him and coming out. She's in a wonderful relationship, which her kids support wholeheartedly. Both of them are married to people of the opposite sex.

Then there's adoption cases--and there are PLENTY of those.

This happens A LOT. Way more than you might think if you didn't actually know any gay people.

But its not a child born from the two of them.
Thanks for proving my point. For some normal couples, they have to go through exceptional measure sto have a child, and some of the time, it will still be a child between them. For homosexual couples, it is an absolute requirement that they jump through hoops to "have" a child, and ALL of the time, it is not a child born between the two of them.

And oh, btw, I thought that homosexuality was a natural reaction to overpopulation? Why are homosexuals "having" children to begin with if nature intended them not to "have" children?

Be sure to lock when you leave

I think I'm for Neopolitan myself!

Mmm, ice cream ...

:)