Where do you think the people who join the military come from? Most of the military believe in gun ownership. You can throw out anything ya want... But your idea sounds like your afraid that kids will die and in life death happens... we should not "baby" prof life, that would mean no one really lives. Still individuals not society are the ones who have children and individuals must still want to have BIOLOGICAL children for this way of life and species to survive.

Basicly I want to preserve the right for people to be disappionted that their children are gay. People should be allowed to want THEIR genes to be passed on. Sorry but the way the opposition makes it sound this view should be history and maybe even criminal.
I don t think that is "bad" to be gay its just "bad" for having biological children.

You are right we should arm the kids. They will be better able to fight terrorism and an oppressive government that way. I am not against gun ownership btw. You kind of assumed that, I was just making the point that it does not protect us from the government. Where I live it is not strange to see a 13 year old boy with a rifle going hunting with his family. I personally don't care either, its their family. But at the same time there are children who get their dads pistol and shoot their cousin in the face with it because they are too young to really understand life and death and their parents were careless one day with a pistol.



You are right but it is society who pays for the children in oprhanages who's biological parents were either incapable or unwilling to take care of them. It is society who therefore has to raise them and if someone wants to take them off the taxpayers hands and they will provide for them without abusing them I am all for it regardless of what they do behind locked doors.



I don't think anyone's feelings should ever be criminal and you are free to be dissapointed in whatever you like. But I do not think given the choice between a gay couple and an orphanage the choice is clearly orphanage. There are plenty of kids out there who need parents. You are really trying to cloud the original issue here. The issue was whether gays should be allowed to adopt. You pretty much said no. I am still waiting for a good reason for that opinion and I don't think you have provided one. The other issue was gun ownership and retaining the second amendment. I am for gun ownership dystopic is not. So on that point I agree with you but not for the reasons you provide. It does not protect us from the government and it does not make us any nicer to people. All a gun is going to do for you is allow you to go hunting or shoot someone who is trying to rob or hurt you or yours. Or on the other hand a gun just might end your life for you too. If you really want to make the world a more polite place and the government to fear the people instead of the people fear the government give us all rpg's.

P.S another reason I am AGAINST making gun ownership illegal is because we already have more guns in this country than we do people and if you make guns illegal all you have really done is boost the black market sales of them. I do think it should be illegal to own a fully automatic assault rifle for the simple reason that someone could take out an entire police station in 20 mins.

He was an ex KGB commander.I don't want to go into that but just so you know.
As for Bush and Jong IL they are more a threat to their own country.

opps



But they would HAVE to attack the rebels. It is much easier to take away rights from an unarmed population since you don t have to worry about them fighting back.



I kinda agree here but I don t think there should be an EQUAL standard here. There is a waiting list for kids to a certain age. Kids are fostered to gays and I think those kids should be allowed to be adopted. I did have a caveat in my original statement.



nope, now you have assumed. I did have in the original statment, " and those who would have no one else." I can even see myself asking some of the gay people I know to take care of my kids, which I also said should be alowed.



yes you can die from your own guns maybe we even have a better chance of dying from our own weapons then others but we should not lose the right to bare arm cause of it. I prefer those consiquences vs the ones that unarmed people get. Nor do I think you need RPG or Assualt riffles to get the benifits of being armed. A willingness to fight is more important than having a good chance of winning.

okay, first, biological kids. gay couples have biological children. only about 15% of gay men, uh, sire their own kids, but over 85% of lesbian couples have at least one parent with a genetic connection to their child. also among lesbian women, it's not uncommon (among couples who can afford it) for one woman to provide the egg and the other woman to carry the child; whether or not you consider surrogate mothering a 'biological connection' is another issue, but i don't think you'll convince anyone that a biological surrogate who wants to raise the child she's carrying won't feel the deepest of connections. in fact, i think you'll have trouble convincing many adopting parents that their connection to their child is any less strong than that of a biological parent.

also, we're rapidly approaching the point where we can swap the genetic material in an egg with material from an X sperm, which would mean two genetic fathers.

now, on to a parent's right to be disappointed their child is gay. first, i don't think anyone's capable of taking away your right to feel what you do.

secondly, from what i understand the relatively infrequent gay parents who have gay kids are also disappointed. for starters, it's not easy being gay. even if a lot of the explicit and institutional forms of homophobia are starting to go away (with the glaring exception of gays in the military, of which there are indeed many), even if that all went away, you're still encountered with constant steretyping (including from other gays). also, i think gay parents don't want to perpetuate the myth that "being gay is something you learn", etc.

it seems like you want laws that reflect your cultural sensibilites. you don't want people to look down on you (or someone like you) for being disappointed they had a gay child. i think "being PC" has gone way overboard in the U.S., and usually masks deeper prejudices behind a mask of 80s-style, "i'm okay, you're okay" rhetoric. you can't change what you feel, you can only chance what you do. if you or anyone feels disappointed at having a gay child, i wouldn't condemn you for that. i'd condemn you for trying to turn your child straight, kicking them out, or in any way mistreating them for being who they are. but your feeling are what they are. i think if you can show parental love to a gay child despite your initial disappointment, it's a very high testement to your character.

finally, i wish i hasn't mentioned gun control. my opinion is that your average joe shouldn't be allowed to own a gun, but it's a topic that doesn't even interest me all that much, so i'll leave the discussion to others.

My mistake.

Agreed.But if I had an RPG in my closet and so did everyone else I bet crime rates would drop significantly, except of course arson and murder, they might rise since I could just blow the hell out of anyone anytime. On the up side construction worker pay would rise.

I didnt say take away kids or make laws that they can t sire kids. But I don t think they should get as you say EQUAL say in which kids they adopt. Right now they foster kids and thats great but there is a waiting list for certain kids, like most babies.



Nor did I say that.



My father is adopted, and my Grand parents on my mom s side are really my great aunt and uncle I feel that they are all my grand parents.



ohh something that will be cost prohibitive! Thats cool as long as I don t have to pay for it!



Yeah there's alot of myths out there against gays. But there is also myths for gays... like gay men are better at emotional stuff then straight men, or the ones that make old cultures look like that they considered gays EQUAL to those that reproduced. Even ancient Greek cultures which had homosexuality (though I d argue that it was really bi-sexuality) as part of their society they still were supposed to take on a woman. If you can tell me of culture that gave its homosexuals real equal rights I d love to read about it.



Yes, and you want laws that reflect YOURS.  

well okay, what restrictions or differences would you want in place? i certainly don't mean to seem like i'm falsely accusing your of any particular belief, i guess i'm just still having trouble understanding your reasoning for adoption restrictions. from what i can tell, it sounds like you are saying: gays should be allowed to adopt orphans and foster children, but when it comes to adopoting newborns they should have to wait at the back of the line behind straight couples. is that about right?



point taken  



i don't think it's totally a myth. i don't think there's anything genetic about gays that makes us better with emotional stuff. and most gay men i know are horrible at deal with their own emotions. i think the myth really means that gays are "better" (more comfortable) at communicating emotionally. i think there are plenty of straight men who are too, but i think in general the cultural construction of masculinity discourages men from "getting all gushy."



yes gay politics preach "equality" left and right, but what we're really fighting for is coequal rights, but i don't think "equality" will ever be possible without having a society like the one in Equiulibrium. whether or not the Greeks "really" had bisexuality is an interesting question in light of the Kinsey scale theory (that everyone's at least a little bi). what the Greeks had wasn't equality at all, but freedome of sexual expression. we've had that in practice since the 60s or so, and probably to a great extent much earlier - but most states still have incredibly vague sodomy laws that in different cases have been used to prosecute adults who've engaged in scadalous but consentual sexual acts on private property.

as far as parenting is concerned, the only thing that stops a single gay parent from adopting is that single parents generally have much lower priority to adopt newborns. is that correct? and if so, even if you've said already, can you explain for me again why? i'm not trying to be argumentative; i'm genuinely curious and want to understand.

Its not total fiction but it is a total myth. Its possible that someone who has to figure out and accept that he/she is not "normal" has to figure out their own emotions and can help others do it to. But that does not mean a gay person goes throw a process like that.



But where does this end at? Is it like Fedrick Douglas's "Do nothing for us."? I never read Equilibrium is that society like the one in a Brave New World minus everyone but the Alpha's?



I think that there is such a thing as a truely gay and truely straight person but I believe that under special conditions a large majority of people will play with a same sex partner.



No not really, males were supposed to take on a wife, so a guy who wasn t into women would be have been either forced into having sex with a woman or being ostracized. Also you would have either been ostracized (if your lucky) or beaten up by the older boys for not giving them sex.
Then we can talk about the citizens of Athens who trained boys in the sexual arts at the tender age of 8. Even the vast majority of homosexuals here would consider that wrong. But thats cause of our cultural taboos.



The law in my county is that you have to be in missionary, I think its a law that is no longer enforced.



Technically that is true, but it is also a cultural law even if we won t admit it to ourselves.

Most of my liberal friends who support your view tell me (I paraphrase here), "I would rather live in tolerant world and let us die out the live in a brutal one."

I would rather live in a somewhat brutal world than one which could be dying out.

The Industrialized world is already not maintaining its population we have to adopt other people to do that. While adoption is nice someone still has to breed.

We don t know what the cultural changes you want will do to our society in the long run.

I have to say that even having someone bring up sexual practices in an internet forum is depressing, to me. I'm sure it's all for the benefit of discussion (cough) but my personal experiences with any discussions about sexual practices is -> it's sometimes just a come-on ... a form of phishing, and IMHO it has no place in any serious discussion. I'm sure the "crocidile tears" will flow freely if I refuse to jump in the water, but I'm not impressed.

I believe that sexual practices are minor, very minor, in comparison to what I beleive are the great challenges of our time, which are how to combat ignorance, poverty, superstition, fanaticism, dishonesty, bigotry, repression, and exploitation (by any means). I envision a world where I can go into a coffee-shop where gay people working there don't give me dirty, hateful looks and spit in my coffee while they make it because their sixth-sense tells them I'm not gonna be part of their crowd. Religious people, especially "christians" (look at me, I'm Christ!) do it too. So do a lot of other groups. It's abysmally ignorant to let the minor, immediate "gratifications" get in the way of Human progress, IMHO. That's a prime example of the kind of ignorance that needs to be cured.

When I don't see bigotry pouring out of someone, or the group they associate with, then I might consider beleiving they have a mind and thoughts worth listening to, but till then, it's all "a load of crap!"   

Rush Limbaugh. I listen to him all the time and I am convinced that he is really dangerous. He has so much spin coming out of his mouth I wonder if his head is going to explode from the centrifugal force. I really like it when the 3times divorced guy talks about the sanctity of marriage. A LOT of people believe the hype and spinsters like him IMHO willingly polute the minds of the public for political ends and know they are doing it.

Thats cool but to let you know I am not the one who brought it up. It was brought up here WWW Link in post #383. My comment in #393 wasnt meant to say that it was "good" to pass laws like that but to say that it works for what it was intended to do.

Dystopic then brought the subject here to talk about his views on marriage. All I have done is to say I disagree.

it's actually a fairly recent movie, and yes it's a like Brave New World, but with really good gun fights.



i still don't really understand this obsession with making sure there are people to breed. it seems to me it's never been a problem to get people to have sex, and until recently there weren't many appealing ways to prevent pregnancy while still having (heterosexual) sex -- and the ones we do have aren't totally desirable for everyone involved.

i think you're also in error about the need to breed (not the sex drive, but needing to ensure survival of a society or species). i mean, obviously people still need to breed or we'll go extinct, and i don't want that. in 12th grade i spent a lot of time studying sustainable development, and one thing i learned is that this planet can probably only sustain a population of about 1 billion indefinately. we really should be reducing our numbers, not maintaining them. birth rates in developed countries are below replacement level (meaning less than one child per adult is born), but in many countries this is made up by immigration - which is the case in the U.S. unless you want to boil 'the need to breed' down to an issue of race, the U.S. isn't in danger of running out of people.

maybe you're worried that populations in other countries are exploding and you don't want to see the U.S. vastly out-manned in some potential future war. well, i can understand that. but nations rise and fall; they always have, they always will, and the United States will one day fall as well. but the planet can only be ruined once while we're here.



this introduction is very rude. for starters, we're not really talking about sexual practices, we're talking about marriage laws, which boil down to issues of civil liberty and legal (co)equality. if that observation you made is what your personal experiences lead you to believe, all i can say is you should stop wasting your time on AOL and other general public chats designed to herd the sheeple. you've judged us and the seriousness of our conversation based on your personal experiences, and not that you'll necessarily care, but i think it's rude.

intresting I may try to see it.


While the species will survive its also good for INDIVIDUALS to want THEIR genes past on.

Nor is it really race more culture, I want the culture to survive and your culture will fall if you just bring in numbers through adoption. There were several Christian groups during the 1800's that died out because the believed this world was too cruel to bring into the world. No conversion rate can sustain a population without MAJOR changes to the culture. If you change anything too fast it can fail.

That billion number is also questionable, only educated guesses can be made in that field. Anyways that can change there is no guarrenty that any number of people will survive in any number. Real populations change they don t stay static.



Yes being out manned is one of my problems especially when I hear my enemies talking about out breeding us openly. Yes nations rise and fall, yes most likely so will the U.S.A but why should I help hasten its fall? You maybe a Internationalist but I am not. These enemies will not just take away my freedoms Dystopic but yours as well us pagans and gays are both allowed to be killed with out much ado in that culture. Mayhaps its would be best for us to take this country warts and all then fall to this enemy. Its not like we aren t changing anyways Dystopic I think you just want to hasten it a bit too fast.

One of the mortal wounds of the Western Roman Empire was immigration problems. The Vandals were legal immigrants into Northern Spain. The problem the Roman had with them is they were never ROMANIZED. Its really hard to to Aculturalize so many people. If this problem killed a nation before why cant it kill again?


d'oh I have had to edit this 3 times!

Bush is a megalomaniac that has totally lost touch with his power and his accountability.

He is by his actions a truly scary man.

Vice president Cheney, acting like he's above the law, now Bush letting another of his sycophants free of lawful justice This is a regime that considers itself not only unaccountable but above the constitutional laws of the USA.

If you don't think that Bush is a man out of control, at least consider the harm his actions have for the USA worldwide.

Marcus

yes, but how does that relate to whether or not gay couples should be allowed to adopt? this seems to suggest that keeping the laws as they are will encourage gay people to have their own biological children. whether or not gay couples can adopt children as easily as straight couples can --- i can't see how it has any bearing on the reproduction rates whatsoever. can you propose a causal mechanism?



well of course. but if you don't change something fast enough when the times they are a-changin', it can also fail.



increasing our population is only going to straign our economy, which in turn would make it easier for these enemies to "take us over."

plus, you're talking about occupying half a continent occupied by what's effectively a militia of 350 million pretty well armed people. how exactly are these invading armies going to get here? when they talk about out-breeding, their talking about wearing us down to the point that we can't afford to maintain our overseas holdings. among other things, they're talking about using their children as weapons, it's sick, and i can't help but think about the part "my" country has played in driving these people to such extremes of depravity.

it's not even about internationalism really, and i'm not out to hasten the fall of the U.S. believe it or not, i do love this country: that's why i'm so critical of it. but worrying about another country outbreeding us... the "enemies" you're referring to are extremists are much as anything. i'm not saying they aren't dangerous. and it indeed is possible they might someday gain truly popular support somewhere such to motivate a country's industry towards large-scale industrial war. it's happened before more than once. maybe instead of digging our trenches early, we should be focusing on keeping the deperate legions of foreign peoples from turning into a fanatical armies of potential enemies. just a thought.



ah, so you're telling me i should support your laws because second-class citizenship is so much better than outright murder? that dog won't hunt, mon senior.



you're getting at yet another issue. our founding fathers had the insight to see that democracy in America functioned because the population was fairly homogeneous and especially because they were almost all Christian. that society has long since passed, and if you ask me we might already be living in the fall of the empire. but Americanizing the entire world, where we do our business (which is the whole point of an empire) is impossible, let alone Americanizing all of our immigrants and existing populations. but Americanization modeled on the WASP isn't the only option. even if the Vandals had been the only "barbarians" at Rome's gate, they wouldn't have been the only reason Rome fell. it takes two sides to create a conflict, and Rome also fell because its civic culture was too rigid and self-centric to integrate the diverse peoples its empire engulfed. it's economy was in shambles because it tried to grasp too much too quickly, and its elites had turned their attention from civic engineering and statecraft to decadence. if we're the next Rome, we're repeating history beautifully!

also... i find it increadibly interesting that these two topics, gay rights and U.S. foreign policy, are tied together in your perspective.

I d say that Bush is just a dreamer who believes in a democracy that has no problems.
Also Megalomaniacs when in power tend to have their pictures EVERYWHERE, and those who appose them disappear. MM your still here, you can talk all you want about him and he will even defend your right to do so. So no he isn t a megalomaniac.



The constitutional laws are always up for debate, all of us get to challenge them even the President (who ever that maybe), which means it can be changed. Libby was also just commuted so he has to pay a fine. What about Burger he did a whole lot more and NOTHING? I think this was more like the Clinton Impeachment... A waste of taxpayer money.



Oh I do... But I see it differently than you. When I was a kid I had a whole bunch of kids try to take me out of my sleeping bag cause I prefer to sleep in my underwear. When I got my clothes on I jumped on one kid's leg. Mistakes may have been made on my part but even if I could have prevented it another way I would rather be the dangerous Pariah than everybodies "female dog".

You may want perfect Marcus but I don t care for it.

Also in world war II the allies discovered that the Germans were moving "heavy water" from norway to Germany and they decided to take it out at all costs. "Innocent" people died that day and it was all for not cause they had bad intell, it wasnt for an atom bomb just a civilian project with not much war benifit. I say, "opps, oh well thats war".

If your unwilling to fight war I suggest you stop disagreeing with anybody! (and no Marcus I dont think you should do this)

you said it, not i.

I think you misunderstand the nature of megalomania. it doesn't have to be despotic.



Now is this in the constitution, that it can be debated. i think not




I guess yould have shot them?




I am convinced,

Let's all wage war.
I think it's needed to just kill and force ourselves on others.
If you disagree then I want to kill.

I want to kill everyone, KILL KILL KILL.
I'm your kind of nutter.

KILL KILL KILL.

More like

I hate war and it's advocates, so.

MORON MORON MORON.

Brain dead MORON.

Marcus.

ahh but you have said he is despotic which is it?



Have you ever read the constitution? The amendments are NEW laws put into it. These laws are debated tested and retested we have even repealed an amendment with another.
ahh but your not an American are you?



yes if I felt it was called for!



yeah YOU like debate don t you Marcus, or is it all just FEELINGS with you?

What right does any being have to take another beings life? Oh that right its the ablity to do so. What do you do to survive man? Even if your a vegetarian you still have to kill something to live. All things have as much right to life as we humans. We just as you say force ourselves on other things. Its us humans who make the laws right?

So my question is why do you hate yourself so? You talk peace but you look for fights! hehe

I don't
I pity people that think they need to take life.
I especially pity people that expect others to give or take life at the point of a gun

I hate war and anyone who want's it

My response was ironic.

KILL KILL KILL, MORON MORON MORON

Marcus

So how do you live if you don t take life? Even plants are alive they have life. Are you some kind of god who doesn t need to eat? Do you breath? Cause your killing if you do. Like I asked before do you like debate or is it all FEELINGS with you.

Where do you draw the line? What gives you your moral reasoning that killing people is wrong? I say when it doesn t benefit me and right now I think it doesn t benefit me normally but I do think that it could in the right situation.

Anyways I prefer to kill with my bare hands. Strangling a wild turkey is quite fun!

If you hate war why do you look for fights? Saying MORON, MORON, MORON repeatedly make it look like your calling me one. Mayhaps you just hate other peoples wars but love your own.

Ok lest think we need to live. food chain and life. do plants have feelings, eeeeeeern, NO. are you mental?






More the question, why do you think that killing people is correct.
if only you werent a moron,



like i said, Im a killer I will slay you now.
You are a "moron moron moron"

Please fight me more. victory was so easy.

Marcus

We don t need to live we want to. Eating and breathing are only needed if you want to live. I don t know if plants have feelings. But they are alive. But what gives you the RIGHT to take their life? Have you even asked yourself this?



If its me or them I want to live how is that not the correct course of action in the right situation? If you wont kill a human to live that your right, but I am going to.

I agree, we don't need food, were all ethereal beings, leaves what are they, i know animal food. I'm an animal too. I will live on bollox like you, please teach me. before I starve, i need cows cut into chunks and cooked with plants and gravy to live.

don't forget onions and cow slices. with chips.




I hope the FBI aren't watching. trust me. you are now a suspect. someone will grass you for this.

Like I said, I always beat Morons.

Marcus