Well, I think that the primary thing that keeps people returning again and again to contentious threads is the same basic impulse that keeps people returning the ping pong ball when they see it coming across the net at them, Don.

They just have to. ;-) They can't resist allowing their "opponent" to score an unanswered point, so they react (WHACK!) and the ball sails across the net...and their opponent experiences the same instinctive reaction and (WHACK!)...oh, there it goes back the other way.

It's as simple as that. The only thing that will make someone finally give up and NOT return the ball is if they get so angry that they just quit playing and walk away in a huff. That does sometimes happen.

As to whether GfS has some kind of special hangup about gays...possibly...but I wouldn't necessarily assume so. I think GfS is simply, like any other person, caught up in attempting to defend his or her viewpoint, once it has been expressed.

One thing I do know, however...Riginslinger is utterly prejudiced against "religion" (according to his definition of religion) and he DOES have a hangup about it, so much so that it actually becomes kind of funny. ;-D I could call that "bigotry" on Rig's part, but I don't. I just call it a hangup, that's all. Rig has so many other excellent points as a human being...why should I define him solely on the basis of his attitude toward religion?

Likewise, I think GfS has many excellent points as a human being, so why define him/her/it strictly on the basis of some stated beliefs about homosexuality?   That is not the whole story of who GfS is.

I am prejudiced against some things too. Rap music, for instance, and the Republican Party, and the (present) American World Empire. That is not the whole story of who I am either. It's some aspects of who I am, and people may like them or not, but it's not the summation of who or what I am.