BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 May 09 - 05:20 PM

It's interesting to note that those who are not, themselves, in a committed relationship seem to be under the impression that couples who are, are constantly going at it like hyperactive rabbits. [I believe this stems from their own rich fantasy lives.]

The same-sex couple whom I have known the longest, and who have been together the longest—somewhat over thirty years (despite the fact that society and the law does not recognize their commitment to each other)—are as stable and monogamous as any heterosexual couple I am aware of. They each have their own professions and activities, but like any married couple, they do most things together, including taking a yearly extended vacation to England (where one of them is invited year after year to come and give lectures on theater arts—stage and costume design).

They are as devoted to each other as any heterosexual couple could ever be. And interesting enough—for those whose primary focus seems to be on the more prurient aspects of interpersonal relationships—one of the fellows mentioned to Barbara (he and Barbara were old friends, having known each other since high school) that he and his partner had been quite active sexually at first, but they have not had intimate relations for years. They are together, not for the sex, but because they love each other.

The same holds true for the same-sex couple who often join us for holiday celebrations.

For those who don't know, there is more to love that just having sex.

You might have that made into a sampler and hang it on your wall as a reminder.

People make a lot of assumptions based on their own vivid imaginations, and then, on that basis, want to dictate to others how they should or should not live.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:45 PM

That's all you have left, eh, Ake? Insults?

Your problem is that you don't have any rational responses to my perfectly reasonable questions. And yes, I did read your "answer" to Ebbie and fully understood that you are trying to say and I reject it. The basis of my rejection is knowing something about the "life styles" of the same sex couples that I am acquainted with.

I don't know whether you are married or not, but the fact is that whenever a relationship becomes a bit rocky, it is very often the public commitment and the public acknowledgement thereof that keeps a couple together and prompts them to work out their difficulties. And this holds true for committed same-sex couples as well as heterosexual couples.

Your arguments are based on ignorance of the subject, not to mention a very large dollop of prejudice.

Homosexuality does not cause AIDS, as you seem to be trying to claim.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:44 PM

You guys are acting even denser than you could possibly be.

There is nothing in the issue about "approving AIDS" or establishing MMS as normal or healthy.

When you bring sexual practice into it, you are twisting the issue. The issue is simple: exclusionary laws? Or equality under the law?

There are a lot of other sexual practices that are harmful and, according to the straitest mind, perverse. Chains, leather, whips, oxygen deprivation, acrobatic practices without safety nets, to name just a few. None of these are attractive to me, but if you are going to start legislating for Sexual Safety for Everyone, you are opening a can of worms that goes way beyond STD and homosexuality.

Meanwhile the core issue --equality or exclusion--continues to be ignored and bludgeoned into the corner by all this irrelevant armwaving. I think it is somewhat sickening to see such a desperate scramble to defend the indefensible.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:34 PM

Amos: "Would you feel better if marriage was denied any couple who did anything other than missionary-position? Would you feel this was a "benefit to society"?

Now we are getting to the real meat of their agenda....???
Jeez, , and Don's(rolls eyes)
And yes, I misstated about who was in the senate, and congress. Thanks for reminding me...they're both corrupt because of their ilk!

Feinstien represents the San Fransisco district..(relevant to Joe's question...oh yea-a-ahh)

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:21 PM

Amos ..the issue of Aids is everybody's business,and until we have a proper public inquiry to determine why so many homosexuals conract the disease, we have no right to promote the practice as normal or healthy.

Incestuous couples are deprived of rights and criminalised for their sexual behaviour which is deemed abnormal and unhealthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:13 PM

Don Firth....Did you not read and comprehend my answer to Ebbie?
You have run out of ideas and are simply being obstructive.

The alternative is that you are an idiot "If Aids is a "Homosexual disease"why is it not just homosexuals who get aids".....Tut Tut Don, I DON'T think you are an idiot, no matter how many idiotic questions you pose.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:11 PM

Ake:

The dangers of MMS are many, and AIDS is only one of them.

Clearly not a choice I would make.

Why, though, do you think it is all right to legislate against a group of adult humans because of their sexual practices?

Would you feel better if marriage was denied any couple who did anything other than missionary-position? Would you feel this was a "benefit to society"?

The issue is not sexual practices. No-one here is endorsing a lifestyle except for the life-style of legal equality without prejudice or bias.

How someone gets their rocks of is nobody's business but their own and you keep dragging it into this dialogue as though it were a legal issue.

Equal rights under the law IS a legal issue.

Viva la difference.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 May 09 - 03:45 PM

Nancy Pelosi is a Congressional Representative from California, and is currently Speaker of the House. Dianne Feinstein is one of two Senators from California.

Civics lesson (since you seem to have slept through civics classes in high school):   these two ladies are in the National Congress and National Senate. They are not currently involved in the legislature of the State of California.

How are they relevant to the current discussion about laws regarding same-sex marriage in California?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 May 09 - 03:21 PM

If you'd read, and comprehend, Joe Offer asked why the people in California would have surprisingly voted for the ban. I was offering an explanation to his question. Since Pelosi and Feinstein are the quack 'liberal' senators from California, who have had their way in screwing the state up, and since they are part of the control of NOT representing the people, but rather their own agendas, it seemed like an appropriate answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: gnu
Date: 16 May 09 - 02:54 PM

Yo... just stopping by for my usual delusion....

TIA.... "Yap, yap, yap. Seven posts later, and still flapping away without establishing that credibility."

Seven? Hahahahahaaaaaaa... hehehehee. I seem to check in at rather appropriate moments....

See you again sometime. Play nice. Well, some of you, IF you can.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 May 09 - 02:49 PM

And just for the hell of it, can someone tell me what Pelosi and Feinstein have to do with this discussion?

Other than a feeble attempt to change the subject, hoping that we "idiotic liberals" are actually so idiotic that we'll rise to the bait?

. . . delusional. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: TIA
Date: 16 May 09 - 02:27 PM

Yap, yap, yap.

Seven posts later, and still flapping away without establishing that credibility.

Hint: I only join in when *you* invoke my name in your immature snipes.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 May 09 - 02:15 PM

"How come the same people who are opposed to gun ownership, second amendment rights, because 'guns are dangerous'..are in denial about AIDS, which is far more fatal?"

Two small problems there, GfS. First, your assumption that it's all the same people. You are doing the "liberals are idiots" thing again. Pigeon-hole thinking. And the second problem:    since when is possibly exposing oneself to AIDS more "fatal" than a bullet between the eyes? There are people infected with HIV who have been alive for years because they can keep the virus in check with drugs. I don't know of any palliatives for having one's brains splattered all over the street.

And a question for Ake:    I have no quarrel with the statistics from the CDC. I do have questions about your interpretation of them.

If AIDS is a "homosexual disease," then why is it that homosexuals are not the only people to get it? And if you are so concerned about the spread of AIDS, why, then, are you so opposed to attempting to confine it by discouraging promiscuity and encouraging stable relationships?

Answer me that, please.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 May 09 - 01:13 PM

Dangerous to whom, ake? As I said, don't indulge in it.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 May 09 - 01:09 PM

Here Here!!..or is it Hear Hear?

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 16 May 09 - 12:41 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 16 May 09 - 12:32 PM

Ebbie I fear you have "lost the plot."

The legality of "marriage" whether homosexual or heterosexual, is no guide to the promiscuity of the "marriage" partners.
I know people who live together, unmarried, and are completely monogamous, I also know of others who have been married for many years yet attend "swingers" parties.

The danger appears to be male to male penetrative sex, whether done in a monogamous relationship or a promiscuous one.
I have always suspected that homosexual "marriage" was a device to attempt to normalise the practice in much the same way as the word "gay" has been used to deflect public disgust with the homosexual act.

I have absolutely no belief that a piece of paper granting marriage "rights" to homosexuals will cause them to become,as a group, less promiscuous.
From the statistics, promiscuity goes with the lifestyle

Let us begin to be honest, The homosexual lifestyle is dangerous, as dangerous as drug or alcohol abuse and very much more dangerous than other unusual sexual behaviour such as incest....so why not scream for the rights of incestuous couples or drug addicts?

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 May 09 - 12:10 PM

Ebbie, If you had been following the news, about Pelosi, water boarding and the CIA, you wouldn't be asking that question. Pelosi lied about her knowledge of the water boarding issue, and is presently in hot water over it. Feinstein lobbied for moneys to fund her husband's business, and got it, of selling foreclosed homes..its on the news.   
California has slipped immensely due to their 'leadership' in their state senate... and as far as your 'doubts'...well they're only your doubts...so what? You haven't missed a lick as far as coming on here to smear me, and to contradict anything I say, or to try and discredit me. You and TIA would make a great couple, regardless of your genders!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 May 09 - 11:12 AM

"All I am doing is pointing out the serious health risks associated with homosexuality,and most importantly of all,the madness of denial and the pretense that homosexuality is just another lifestyle, safe, healthy and a suitable environment in which to bring up young children.

"The more people who become informed on the hiv statistics, the more chance there is of affecting a change in homosexual behaviour.

"As I have said from the start of this thread, "rights" should be conditional on the behaviour of any sector of society, and the effect of these "rights" on all other sectors." ake

If you fear the "serious health risks associated with homosexuality" just don't do it. It is difficult for me to believe that your concern is for homosexuals' shortened lives. The sooner they die, the better off they'll be. Right?


"Incidentally, you, who are so worried about the health issue, are opposing the very measure best calculated to save lives, by promoting long lasting, stable,and healthy relationships."
Don T

I too would like to hear your answer to that.

"How come all the ballyhoo over water boarding, and torture,... then we have to watch Pelosi on the news? What's the difference?...matter of fact, you can add all the lame, contrived excuses about the blessings, and wonderful benefits of living a sexually dysfunctional lifestyle, and inundating us with it? "
GfS

You know, Guest from Sanity, I no longer believe that you are a licensed counselor or psychiatric worker of any kind. Far more likely, in my opinion, is that you have been/are in therapy yourself and have picked up a smattering of terms. (I would send you a PM to this effect but guests can't receive that courtesy.)

Incidentally, if it weren't for our laws that protect our rights to say anything we please about public figures, you'd be in deep doo doo. You say: "Pelosi, the crazy bat that she is, and Feinstein, crooked politician that she and her husband are, are finally getting exposed, co-incidentally at this same time."

Please document your libel.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 May 09 - 10:28 AM

To answer Joe Offer's great question, (which also steers the thread back to the main topic), California has been under Democratic, liberal 'representative' state government for a long time. The passed prop. 187, which cut off funding for benefits for illegal immigrants, only to have it over turned by their 'representatives', and other things that they directly spoke out either, for or against..only to have it overturned as well. They keep getting taxed beyond belief, by slick shysters who get around the taxing laws, by using the terms like 'surcharge' 'user fees' so on and so forth...so that the actual voice of the people can't even be heard any more. Also, they have the entertainment industry there, which promotes all sorts of 'ills' for 'entertainment' value, as well...making the homosexual question, far more promoted, than proportional to the actual practice, or acceptance. So, where it would be a 'shock' that the ban was passed, the actual will of the people got heard finally...and resoundingly. Now the highly vocal minority political activists, are whining with a deafening roar. Pelosi, the crazy bat that she is, and Feinstein, crooked politician that she and her husband are, are finally getting exposed, co-incidentally at this same time. If California could free itself from the shoddy, crooked non-representative government that it has, this might not be such a hot topic. Frankly, I'm proud that the people have tried to stand up, once again, and tell the politicians, and the entertainment industry, whose state this really is..and to take their hype, and shove it!

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 May 09 - 09:36 AM

Ake jogged loose an interesting question..might as well ask it here....
How come the same people who are opposed to gun ownership, second amendment rights, because 'guns are dangerous'..are in denial about AIDS, which is far more fatal? One, requires safe behavior to avoid getting it..and the other requires safe behavior, once you have one. Maybe behavior needs to be looked at, eh?

Another 'jogged loose' question, How come all the ballyhoo over water boarding, and torture,... then we have to watch Pelosi on the news? What's the difference?...matter of fact, you can add all the lame, contrived excuses about the blessings, and wonderful benefits of living a sexually dysfunctional lifestyle, and inundating us with it?

Amos, To answer your puerile question, for the umpteenth time, Homosexual 'marriage' is not a civil right based on race, color, creed or religion. What is it based on??..let's do it that way. Equality?? of what??? Doing whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want? Well, a lot of things fall under that category, and a lot of stupid, most illegal, and other dangerous activities fall into that category!!..Hey, if its so great, and Obama is your hero, and idol..why isn't he for it..and has stated his opposition toward it? (You keep dodging that one)

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 May 09 - 05:28 AM

""All I am doing is pointing out the serious health risks associated with homosexuality,and most importantly of all,the madness of denial and the pretense that homosexuality is just another lifestyle, safe, healthy and a suitable environment in which to bring up young children.""

Not quite all you are doing Ake. In addition, you are seeking to deprive a section of the community of the protections afforded, as of right, to heterosexuals, by marital status. Incidentally, you, who are so worried about the health issue, are opposing the very measure best calculated to save lives, by promoting long lasting, stable,and healthy relationships.

The thrust of my "ridiculous question", ignoring the ironic references to obviously impossible remedies, was, as you well know an invitation to you to offer some sensible basis for your assumption that refusing to allow same sex marriage would somehow have a positive effect on the health risks, and save lives.

You claim to answer questions honestly, to the best of your ability, and that, I have found to be true, WHEN YOU DO ANSWER THEM.

This one you have ignored. Any chance of one of those honest answers.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 16 May 09 - 03:19 AM

Don, Icant solve a problem of this magnitude.

It will take the combined skills of all the agencies, medical, scientific, psychiatric, even the people who construct our moral codes

You post ridiclous questions about banning homosexuals, heterosexuals and sex.....I take it that those questions are supposed to be a form of satire, as it would be impossible to "ban" any of the catagories you mention.

All I am doing is pointing out the serious health risks associated with homosexuality,and most importantly of all,the madness of denial and the pretense that homosexuality is just another lifestyle, safe, healthy and a suitable environment in which to bring up young children.
The more people who become informed on the hiv statistics, the more chance there is of affecting a change in homosexual behaviour.

As I have said from the start of this thread, "rights" should be conditional on the behaviour of any sector of society, and the effect of these "rights" on all other sectors.

In conclusion Don, I cannot underestand your very aggressive tone, to one who has tried to answer honestly every question which you have posed. I have nothing resonal to gain from my stance here, a stance which seems to have alienated many whom I presumed to be friends....However I always try to give my honest opinion, to be anything other than honest on a forum like this is a complete waste of everyone's time.....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 16 May 09 - 03:03 AM

The data from the CDC is compelling. These guys should be forced to settle down and marry one partner.


If I ran things, you betcha.

Ake's excellent statistics, however, have absolutely no bearing on whether the legal status of marriage should be granted on an inclusionary or an exclusionary basis. From the point of view of that question, it is a very loud red herring, pardon the mixed metaphor.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 16 May 09 - 01:18 AM

Don T. Re-read your post to Ake....its so twisted around, its a pretzel.
Ake posts stats from the CDC..and then accused of fabricating???? Now that is a spin to beat all spins! You must have studied under Pelosi.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 May 09 - 11:00 PM

Equal protection under the law. I can't see why this is so complicated.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 15 May 09 - 08:16 PM

""So, come on Ake. You want to be the great protector, and save a few million lives. Right, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, AND WHY?

1. Ban homosexuals? Been tried before! Didn't work!
2. Ban Heterosexuals? BETTER! You would save many more millions that way. NAAAAH! Wouldn't work either, theres too many of 'em.
3. Ban sex altogether? BEST SO FAR! Would save all those lives, but you would need an awful lot more cops.

NO! OF COURSE NOT! Failing any SENSIBLE response, you would advocate discriminating against gays, such that they enjoy NONE of the marital and concommitant financial rights that you youself enjoy.

Tell me my friend, what is YOUR carefully researched best estimate of the number of lives that will be saved by this remarkable example of lateral thinking?

Don T.




NO ANSWER, AKE? It's a question that destroys your claims, if you answer it honestly. Why is it that YOUR side feel that ignoring the facts will make your case stronger?

GfS uses the same tactic, and it is ineffective. All it proves is that neither of you HAS A CREDIBLE ANSWER. I expect that level of ignorance from GfS, but I always thought YOU capable of rational thought, rather than blind prejudice. Was I TOTALLY wrong about you?



Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 May 09 - 06:57 PM

Ake, I'm not going to type it out again just for your benefit. I suggest you find my post at 14 May 09 - 04:34 p.m. and actually read it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 May 09 - 06:44 PM

". . . deliberately distort and misrepresent. . . ."

Coming from you, Ake, that's a laugh! It's your distorted interpretation of the statistics that's the problem. You can make a pie-chart mean damned near anything you want it to.

Those are not the only statistics I checked.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 15 May 09 - 05:47 PM

Don Firth...Guest has suggested that a lot of what you write is "inaccurate", I would go further and say that you deliberately distort and misrepresent; and what you present is in the interests of no one save your own precious ego.
You deny the obvious link between HIV and homosexuality,helping to ensure that no serious medical study is undertaken, and welcoming a destructive and disasterous(to homosexuals)lifestyle, into mainstream society.

Some time ago you linked to a website, when I quoted the infection and mortality figures given on that website, you lied and accused me of fabricating the figures

Here they are in full, if you still deny a serious and deadly link, then you are incapable of meaningful debate
HIV STATISTICS

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 May 09 - 08:43 PM

GfS, it sure looked like an attempt at counseling to me. It was certaily trying to offer me advice on how to reconcile myself with my son, which was totally unnecessary because there was no animosity at all between us. His mother had explained our situation, and being very bright young man, he understood. And as I said, you went ahead and offered all kinds of advice without having a clue as to the real situation. Your behavior verged on the kind of thing a freshman student of Psych might try to come up with.

And I am not as you would like to think I am:   if I feel that I need the services of a psychologist or psychiatrist--or if someone who knows me well seriously suggests that I do--then I know who to go to and I would go without reluctance. I know the value of psychiatry and psychology and undoubtedly know more about it than you obviously think I do. And I know a charlatan when I encounter one.

If my "thingy" on what you said was inaccurate, then--let me offer you a bit of unsolicited advice:   I have worked as a writer and an editor, so I have no problem understanding the written word when it's written by someone who knows nouns and verbs from pints and quarts. You might try to learn how to write coherently and strive to say what you actually mean instead of trying to be cutely subtle about it so you can slip in your little digs.

And no, it's not all about ME. Nor is it all about YOU!

Try sticking to the subject of the thread for a change.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 May 09 - 08:38 PM

I've lived in California since 1971, except for a military-required exile from Sept 1971-Nov 1973. I've always thought of California as a progressive state. It seems like San Francisco has forever been the World Capital of Homosexuality. That being the case, it seems strange to me that the voters of California have outlawed homosexual marriage.
Wikipedia tells me that homosexual marriage is allowed in Connecticut, Iowa, Maine (soon), Massachusetts, New Hampshire (soon), and Vermont (soon); and recognized in Israel, New Yor, and Washington (DC). It's also allowed in Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden. How can it be that California, of all places, does not allow same-sex marriage?

I just can't figure it out.

Of course, we don't allow taxation to pay for state expenditures, either. That's why we're on the verge of both fiscal and moral bankruptcy. Somehow, we got ourselves in a spot where our state is ruled by talk radio listeners.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 09 - 08:20 PM

If all you can do is invalidate others' views, you a pretty thin gruel as a helper.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 May 09 - 08:00 PM

"I suggest that the law, being an ass, is not qualified to dictate the nature of gender based on plumbing."
Umm, what do you judge it on??.....a fantasy of the mind?

Don, Never offered to counsel you online, in an open forum...that could, and would be done privately...but judging by your response, you seem to think, anyone who thinks they need to see a psychologist, or psychiatrist, oughta' have their head examined!

Oh, and your thingy on what you 'thought' I said, was inaccurate, as well....but you do that a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 May 09 - 06:12 PM

""The only valuable post, following mine, coming your that side was from 'Smedley',""

According to WHOSE criteria?

YOUR credibility as a judge of value has been seriously DE-VALUED by your good self and your interminable rants about HOW homosexuals are made, and how YOU would like to see them re-adjusted.

There was another expert in human rehabilitation some years back. You two would have got on like a house on fire. He KNEW how to rehabilitate homosexuals all right. His name was Mengele.

The subject of this discussion is about HOW homosexuals are TREATED by the LEGAL establishment, and the keyword is EQUALITY.

---------------------------------------------------------------

""Well Smedley of course when the disease is transmitted to the heterosexual population we are bound to see many more cases in the heterosexual sector.""


Same old same old, and just as scientifically baseless as all the comment from these two.

HIV takes ten years plus to develop into full blown AIDS, but it is FAR from consistent in its progress, and the first that doctors knew of it was when patients with AIDS turned up with compromised immune systems. The medics then worked backward to discover that "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome" was caused by a virus infection they named HIV.

So, although the first cases discovered happened to be among the gay community, there is NO scientific justification for assuming that it transferred from gays to heteros, rather than vice versa. The truth is that, despite what you DESPERATELY want to believe, NOBODY actually knows for sure.

So, come on Ake. You want to be the great protector, and save a few million lives. Right, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, AND WHY?

1. Ban homosexuals? Been tried before! Didn't work!
2. Ban Heterosexuals? BETTER! You would save many more millions that way. NAAAAH! Wouldn't work either, theres too many of 'em.
3. Ban sex altogether? BEST SO FAR! Would save all those lives, but you would need an awful lot more cops.

NO! OF COURSE NOT! Failing any SENSIBLE response, you would advocate discriminating against gays, such that they enjoy NONE of the marital and concommitant financial rights that you youself enjoy.

Tell me my friend, what is YOUR carefully researched best estimate of the number of lives that will be saved by this remarkable example of lateral thinking?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 May 09 - 04:34 PM

The most commonly accepted theory for the origin of AIDS is that of the 'hunter'. In this scenario, SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) was transferred to humans as a result of chimps being killed and eaten or their blood getting into cuts or wounds on the hunter. Normally the hunter's body would have fought off SIV, but on a few occasions it adapted itself within its new human host and become HIV-1. The fact that there were several different early strains of HIV, each with a slightly different genetic make-up (the most common of which was HIV-1 group M), would support this theory: every time it passed from a chimpanzee to a man, it would have developed in a slightly different way within his body, and thus produced a slightly different strain.

####

Four of the earliest known instances of HIV infection are as follows:

1. A plasma sample taken in 1959 from an adult male living in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
2. A lymph node sample taken in 1960 from an adult female, also from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
3. HIV found in tissue samples from an American teenager who died in St. Louis in 1969.
4. HIV found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor who died around 1976.

A 1998 analysis of the plasma sample from 1959 suggested that HIV-1 was introduced into humans around the 1940s or the early 1950s.

####

It is likely that we will never know who the first person was to be infected with HIV, or exactly how it spread from that initial person. Scientists investigating the possibilities often become very attached to their individual 'pet' theories and insist that theirs is the only true answer, but the spread of AIDS could quite conceivably have been induced by a combination of many different events. Whether through injections, travel, wars, colonial practices or genetic engineering, the realities of the 20th Century have undoubtedly had a major role to play. Nevertheless, perhaps a more pressing concern for scientists today should not be how the AIDS epidemic originated, but how those it affects can be treated, how the further spread of HIV can be prevented and how the world can change to ensure a similar pandemic never occurs again.

####

IF, indeed, homosexual men are the primary vector in the transmission of HIV (the truth of which is controversial at best), it would seem that one major step that would reduce the spread of the virus would be to discourage promiscuity and promote stable relationships by encouraging the passage of same-sex marriage bills.

####

Side question:

The first outbreak (of Ebola hemorrhagic fever) took place on August 26, 1976, in Yambuku, a town in the north of what was then called Zaïre. The first recorded case was Mabalo Lokela, a 44-year-old schoolteacher returning from a trip around the north of the state.

Why, then, is Ebola hemorrhagic fever not refered to as "the schoolteacher's disease?"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 09 - 03:46 PM

Not at all. I am expert in the use of the back-handed super-dense bullet point.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 May 09 - 03:02 PM

You must be planning to type for several days at a single stretch, Amos...

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 09 - 03:00 PM

Well, if my interpretation of what you say is inaccurate, you must not have been stating it very clearly. Can you offer a few unconvoluted sentences describing your view of the etiology of homosexuality? I can. And mine will include all the evidential work done to date.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 May 09 - 02:56 PM

GfS, you are a very arrogant and egotistical person.

Frankly, your posts are so convoluted that I find I can't divine what the hell it is that you are trying to imply about me. Are you still rattling on about my allegedly being guilt-ridden over the fact that my son was raised by another man? Well, first of all, I had no choice in the matter. And second, there is nothing to be guilty about. My son thoroughly understands the situation, and he and I have an excellent relationship (apparently a lot better than your relationship with your father). You simply don't know what you are talking about.

Or is it that you are trying to imply that because, often during holidays, one of my wife's and my dinner guests happens to be homosexual, this indicates that I might be homosexual myself? Sorry, Charlie, ain't now, never have been. He and his partner are both invited, along with about eight or ten other people we know who either live alone or do not have relatives living nearby with whom to celebrate such things as Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Frankly, I can't figure out just what the hell you're talking about.

You, sir or madam as the case may be, are going all around Robin Hood's barn in an effort to mask the fact that your veiled implications about my psychological well-being are little more than a convoluted form of the argumentum ad hominem.

Besides, when you offered me "counselling"—unasked for—in open forum—which, in and of itself may be a breach of ethics, if you are, indeed, a licensed counsellor—you operated on the basis of the kind of stereotyped case studies one might find in a Psychology 101 textbook or something one might hear from a radio call-in shrink, and your scenario bore no relationship whatsoever to anything in my real life.

You are quite a piece of work!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: TIA
Date: 14 May 09 - 01:50 PM

Can't do it, can you?

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 09 - 01:16 PM

I suggest that the law, being an ass, is not qualified to dictate the nature of gender based on plumbing. Your refusal to examine the other vectors, because of your predilection for psychobabblogical explanations, does not change the experimental results. Why you think the psyche should be defined by genitalia quite escapes me, though. How do you feel about your father's cigarbox?



A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 May 09 - 01:07 PM

Just to refresh, the topic revolves around civil rights, being granted based on our constitutional rights. Race creed and color, is not the same as acquired behavior. Genetics, it is not.
Another thing, why is President Obama opposed to it? Hillary Clinton has changed her stance, as well. Why is that? Look at the venom being poured out to Prejean (Miss California runner up) just for giving her opinion? Who is the hostility toward, and from?
TIA. Scroll back and find just one constructive comment from yourself. You come off like a miniature silver poodle yapping at the ankles of grown ups, with your immature snipes.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 May 09 - 12:12 PM

Ah, yes, and further to that, Amos, there is the very comparable silliness of anchoring the legal rights of couple-hood to species. My friend Chongo Chimp, for instance, cannot legally marry his lady friend Renata Carson in the state of Ohio...or anywhere in the USA, because he's a chimpanzee and she's a human being! Can you imagine the heartbreak that has caused to both of them? Can you? Furthermore, they have faced gross discrimination and public harassment merely for declaring their love for one another. Truly, we have a long, long way to go before real social justice and equality is established in this world.

As I've said before, I'm in favor of ANY pair of adult beings who freely indicate their mutual desire to marry one another (only and if such mutual consent can be confirmed by impartial witnesses) to have the right to get legally married to one another...regardless of gender, creed, color, nationality or species.

So there. Think you're "liberal", dontcha? Think again, buster. ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Amos
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:40 AM

Here's an interesting discussion in the NEw York Times about the silliness of anchoring the legal rights of couple-hood to gender. Well worth reading.

"Similar rulings have left couples in similar situations in Florida, Ohio and Texas. A 1999 ruling in San Antonio, in Littleton v. Prange, determined that marriage could be only between people with different chromosomes. The result, of course, was that lesbian couples in that jurisdiction were then allowed to wed as long as one member of the couple had a Y chromosome, which is the case with both transgendered male-to-females and people born with conditions like androgen insensitivity syndrome. This ruling made Texas, paradoxically, one of the first states in which gay marriage was legal.

A lawyer for the transgendered plaintiff in the Littleton case noted the absurdity of the country's gender laws as they pertain to marriage: "Taking this situation to its logical conclusion, Mrs. Littleton, while in San Antonio, Tex., is a male and has a void marriage; as she travels to Houston, Tex., and enters federal property, she is female and a widow; upon traveling to Kentucky she is female and a widow; but, upon entering Ohio, she is once again male and prohibited from marriage; entering Connecticut, she is again female and may marry; if her travel takes her north to Vermont, she is male and may marry a female; if instead she travels south to New Jersey, she may marry a male.""...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/opinion/12boylan.html?em

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: TIA
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:52 AM

Don't forget to search TIA and Guest, TIA...the cookie comes and goes.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:04 AM

The piehole is flapping all right.
Now the assignment includes posting a link to this quote:

"..Not reading any more of this..."

Good Luck.

Remember, the credibility is on the line.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 May 09 - 04:22 AM

(Forgot to sign in, again)

TIA:"You really can't live without me can you."
"For the record.
I have never pretended to be anything other than exactly what I am."
"..Not reading any more of this..."
Oka-a-ay?? How about deluded?

Amos: "I GOT that you feel all homosexuality is a deep emotional aberration born from abuse or neglect. I don't think that is uniformly the case"
I know you THINK THAT.....so what? Not how I look at it at all!

Don: "
Wrong, Ake. It first showed up in Africa among hunters who were trying to supply the market for what is known as "bush meat." The meat of monkeys. AIDS, like the Ebola virus, first showed up among African primates, and was then transmitted to humans, probably via bites."

Wrong! First showed up at Fort Kendrick, in a bio-lab.(Actually, that might be a 'news flash' to both you, and, Ake...but at least his concerns are far more real, and less personal).

(Don)"GfS, you are assuming that all of this is an entirely new thought to we "pea-brained liberals" and we have never considered the question before. That is where you are dead wrong."

Again, (and you are getting renown for it now, you are misquoting me, and changing the context. I was, as you know, was referring to those who resort to the name calling, and labeling of those who disagree with you as 'pea brains' which they are!....co-incidentally, they are those driven by a liberal agenda, over facts.

(Don, again)"I can readily understand why a person with a close blood-relative who is homosexual might just be a little upset at the recent scientific evidence that homosexuality could be genetically predetermined."

Afraid to mention that 'fine young man' who comes to dinner, and who he is?? I was being polite, and that last long post was partially meant for you. I know you overcame some difficult realizations, to be accepting, and I would expect that you may have chosen that path, as the most pragmatic to heal old wounds, and to draw closer, for 'mutual acceptance', as perhaps a way to make up for past regrets and damage,..so you copped a lesser plea, a compromise, which I understand. I also understand why you are so vehemently confronting this issue, rather than owning up to the fact that your life has been so much about YOU, that this is the best amends you can offer. I think you may have had a clue, when I alluded to this in earlier posts, but oh well, I guess the last longer post of mine hit a little too close to home...Did it ever occur to you, that because I broached that subject, where I did, and as sensitively that I did, that maybe, just maybe...I was being more of a friend than you even thought??
After all, who else could speak to you there?..not stick salt in your wounds, and be open to talk about it like you never have had before?? But, you still think its all about you, and can't admit or see it, and say 'I'm needing'?
So you twist(phrases) and turn(meanings around), hide(avoid replying to facts, you wish not to address), duck(dodging directness) and weave( lies, things that you say others said that they didn't even come close to meaning), and attack(posted assaults, calling names and trying to discredit) those who understand that your efforts for reconciliation, was short stepping.
Yeah, quite a guy!..and yet, you could be exchanging real dialogues with those who, just may have real insights, and are not fooled by your tactics...and who could actually help you, and your family.
Genetics?? No, try terror stricken, of facing some accountability, then moving onto being able to be a real role model to him, instead of a coward who is afraid. So you turn around on here, and vent the anger you have toward yourself, because of the frustration of knowing that. I would be glad to be of service to you..free.
Hearts only break..that will not bend!
You are only fooling yourself, if you think you portray anything else.
Scroll back....then ask yourself, 'How long did GfS know?' Why was GfS being polite, after all the crap I threw?' Instead of, 'How can I nail him/her now?' What?..Are you afraid that just because someone can see inside you, that I am going to dislike and disapprove of you, who I see?..as opposed to offering something to you? Are you going to stay defensive, because of your sense of guilt and failure? Hey, Maybe I'm on your side...just not the side that you put up, but more on the side of who you really are, inside.
Wanna' talk?..I'm here...I might even surprise you.
Now that's two longer posts, with compassion toward you, and your situation. Attack me?..or get down and get real?
Again, hearts only break, that do not bend.
Regards,
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST
Date: 14 May 09 - 04:21 AM

TIA:"You really can't live without me can you."
"For the record.
I have never pretended to be anything other than exactly what I am."
"..Not reading any more of this..."
Oka-a-ay?? How about deluded?

Amos: "I GOT that you feel all homosexuality is a deep emotional aberration born from abuse or neglect. I don't think that is uniformly the case"
I know you THINK THAT.....so what? Not how I look at it at all!

Don: "
Wrong, Ake. It first showed up in Africa among hunters who were trying to supply the market for what is known as "bush meat." The meat of monkeys. AIDS, like the Ebola virus, first showed up among African primates, and was then transmitted to humans, probably via bites."

Wrong! First showed up at Fort Kendrick, in a bio-lab.(Actually, that might be a 'news flash' to both you, and, Ake...but at least his concerns are far more real, and less personal).

(Don)"GfS, you are assuming that all of this is an entirely new thought to we "pea-brained liberals" and we have never considered the question before. That is where you are dead wrong."

Again, (and you are getting renown for it now, you are misquoting me, and changing the context. I was, as you know, was referring to those who resort to the name calling, and labeling of those who disagree with you as 'pea brains' which they are!....co-incidentally, they are those driven by a liberal agenda, over facts.

(Don, again)"I can readily understand why a person with a close blood-relative who is homosexual might just be a little upset at the recent scientific evidence that homosexuality could be genetically predetermined."

Afraid to mention that 'fine young man' who comes to dinner, and who he is?? I was being polite, and that last long post was partially meant for you. I know you overcame some difficult realizations, to be accepting, and I would expect that you may have chosen that path, as the most pragmatic to heal old wounds, and to draw closer, for 'mutual acceptance', as perhaps a way to make up for past regrets and damage,..so you copped a lesser plea, a compromise, which I understand. I also understand why you are so vehemently confronting this issue, rather than owning up to the fact that your life has been so much about YOU, that this is the best amends you can offer. I think you may have had a clue, when I alluded to this in earlier posts, but oh well, I guess the last longer post of mine hit a little too close to home...Did it ever occur to you, that because I broached that subject, where I did, and as sensitively that I did, that maybe, just maybe...I was being more of a friend than you even thought??
After all, who else could speak to you there?..not stick salt in your wounds, and be open to talk about it like you never have had before?? But, you still think its all about you, and can't admit or see it, and say 'I'm needing'?
So you twist(phrases) and turn(meanings around), hide(avoid replying to facts, you wish not to address), duck(dodging directness) and weave( lies, things that you say others said that they didn't even come close to meaning), and attack(posted assaults, calling names and trying to discredit) those who understand that your efforts for reconciliation, was short stepping.
Yeah, quite a guy!..and yet, you could be exchanging real dialogues with those who, just may have real insights, and are not fooled by your tactics...and who could actually help you, and your family.
Genetics?? No, try terror stricken, of facing some accountability, then moving onto being able to be a real role model to him, instead of a coward who is afraid. So you turn around on here, and vent the anger you have toward yourself, because of the frustration of knowing that. I would be glad to be of service to you..free.
Hearts only break..that will not bend!
You are only fooling yourself, if you think you portray anything else.
Scroll back....then ask yourself, 'How long did GfS know?' Why was GfS being polite, after all the crap I threw?' Instead of, 'How can I nail him/her now?' What?..Are you afraid that just because someone can see inside you, that I am going to dislike and disapprove of you, who I see?..as opposed to offering something to you? Are you going to stay defensive, because of your sense of guilt and failure? Hey, Maybe I'm on your side...just not the side that you put up, but more on the side of who you really are, inside.
Wanna' talk?..I'm here...I might even surprise you.
Now that's two longer posts, with compassion toward you, and your situation. Attack me?..or get down and get real?
Again, hearts only break, that do not bend.
Regards,
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 May 09 - 07:43 PM

". . . it is still a fact that human aids always shows up first among homosexuals."

Wrong, Ake. It first showed up in Africa among hunters who were trying to supply the market for what is known as "bush meat." The meat of monkeys. AIDS, like the Ebola virus, first showed up among African primates, and was then transmitted to humans, probably via bites.

The first appearance of AIDS in the United States WAS among homosexuals. And that's how it got—erroneously—labeled a "homosexual disease." It is no more a "homosexual disease" that tuberculosis is (tuberculosis first showed up in cows).

I know, Ake, I know. . . .   Facts are such a pain in the ass!

Don Firth