BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 03:38 PM

Once again, for the umpteenth time in the duration of this thread, Ake abandons all science and rational thought by reasserting the medieval belief of "spontaneous generation:    the idea the living creatures, such as insects, mice and rats, and miscellaneous other vermin (and as Ake seems to be postulating, viruses) are generated spontaneously under unsanitary conditions, without any kind of living forebears, such as parent organisms.

News Flash, Ake!!!!   Louis Pasteur conducted a number of rigorous experiments back in the mid-1800s that refuted this belief once and for!

The HIV/AIDS virus was essentially confined to African monkeys, and was transmitted to humans during the illegal poaching of primates for the "bush meat" trade. The virus is found in blood and other bodily fluids and is transmitted by this vector.

Not by homosexual activity per se.

One of the two people has to be infected already for the other to become infected by the virus. If there is no virus there to begin with, all the sexual activity of any sort between the two people in question will not create the virus.

This is basic epidemiology!!

Get it?

Reread this at least twenty times a day for as long as it takes for it to finally sink in.

(Of course Amos might have it right. Some horny Scotsman who happened to be in Africa, lovesick for his favorite flock of ewes [especially the one with the long eyelashes], turning to an infected monkey for solace. But the other monkeys observing this, wound up laughing among themselves and chattering, "Good grief! Of all the cutie-pies in the pack, he picked Ugly Myrtle!!")

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Amos
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 04:12 PM

LOL, Don!!

Chongo was probably on the scene at the time...


A

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 04:47 PM

So, has anyone gotten in the last word yet? ;-) Did I miss anything vital and unforgettable in the last few months? No? Okay, then. I'll check back in 2011. (Maybe sooner if I get really desperate for entertainment.)

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 05:35 PM

"""The horrendous health statistics will never be improved while people in general see homosexuality as "just another lifestyle" and young men will continue to die in their thousands.""

Now who is putting words into other peoples' mouths?

There are just two on this forum who see homosexuality as "just another lifestyle".

The rest of us recognise that gay is not what they choose to be. It is what they ARE, like it or not, and no amount of twisting words, or pseudo scientific claptrap from you and Goofus will change that.

Given that fact, homosexuality is here to stay, and denying the right to marry is counterproductive in reducing the incidence of HIV/AIDS, as well as discriminatory on grounds of sexual orientation.

In pursuing that line of argument you are stepping almighty close to the legal definition of homophobic hate crime.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 06:25 PM

I dont know what causes hiv/ aids.

What I do know for a fact(because CDC says so) is that male homosexuals are 44times more likely to contract aids than heterosexuals...and the rate of infection is rising every year(homosexuals are the only demographic to show this ), among heterosexuals and even introvenus drug abusers, the rates of infection are falling.

If these rates of infection were to show in heterosexuals men or women there would be nationwide panic and a medical inquiry instigated immediatly.

Why is there no inquiry into homosexual infection rates as demanded by the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian centre in 2006? How many have died since then?

The reason that there has been no inquiry, is that gay equality issues have become a "liberal" cause celebre.....and as the great Bill Shankly used to say, "liberalism" is not a matter of life or death....its much more important than that" (irony).

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: mousethief
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 07:11 PM

I dont know what causes hiv/ aids.

HIV causes AIDS. HIV is a virus that attacks the human immune system. AIDS is a syndrome of secondary diseases that are able to attack the body because the immune system is weakened. At one time I could list all the diseases in the definition but alas that was 20 years ago and my brain isn't what it used to be. In fact I can't even remember what it used to be. Anyway you should learn at least the basics about this epidemic before you start spouting off about it.

There is no "investigation" into the numbers of AIDS cases in MSM because we already know why, what causes it, and what can be done about it. What more do you want to investigate?

Homosexuality is not a lifestyle, no matter how many times you say that. If you say it again (and I know you will), that still won't make it true. Profligate sex with multiple short-term partners is a lifestyle, and one that greatly increases one's risk of contracting HIV (and many other sexually transmitted diseases).

And what lifestyle reduces risk of spread of the HIV? Why, monogamy! What a surprise, eh? Because "homosexuality" is not a lifestyle, and "monogamy" is! Amazing what logic and a dictionary can do for a person. I feel so edumacated.

Most large cities in the US (actually I'd wager all large cities and most medium-sized cities and population centers) have health initiatives already in place to reduce the cases of AIDS in MSM. (Well to be precise, lower the incidence. You can't do much about the prevalence at this time.) Some work better than others and none are 100% effective (as your statistics show). There are, however, many people both in and out of the gay community who are working like hornets to slow the spread of HIV. If you think they could do better, why not lend them a hand? I'm sure they could use your help, and that you could do a service, although small as but one person in a sea of people, to the cause. Here's your chance to put your money where your mouth is. Go for it!

Impugning gay people's civil rights isn't going to reduce the epidemic. Really. Unless you lock them all up in a concentration camp and let them slowly die out (or kill them, I suppose). What will reduce the epidemic is education, safe sex procedures, and hopefully someday a vaccine. Inflaming public hatred and oppression of gays isn't going to help at all. At all. Really.

None of this of course will sink through. Nothing ever does. I might as well talk with a brick wall. Still I am nothing if not hopeful.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 08:49 PM

You know, Ake, I've been all through the CDC's web site, and I can't find your 44% figure anywhere!

Are you sure you didn't just pull that figure out of your . . . ear?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Aug 10 - 09:49 PM

He gets it from places like this one, Don:

One of Several Places

I didn't check the CDC site for the stat.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 03:00 AM

Do you people bother to read the thread at all, or are you simply focused on branding all opposition "homophobic?

I have linked to the CDC figures for June 2010 three times just above, even printing them out specially for those who dont know which button to press.

Typical that this important information is not widely broadcast...one has to go looking for it.....If this information was carried out to the general public, I believe the process of normalisation would be perceived quite differently.

And you think the media dont have an agenda?.....aye right!!

Final time children! CDC AIDS FIGURES 2010

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 10:38 AM

OK. What do you propose be done about it? Are you on the front lines spreading the word and reminding young males to use proper protection against HIV?

Incidentally, do you have friends who are homosexual? Do you have friends that are HIV positive?

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 06:20 PM

Without wishing to be objectionable Ebbie, I feel you have no right to ask these sorts of personal questions in a discussion like this.
If I decide to give out personal information,I shall do it voluntarily.
You would also be unwise to draw any conclusions from that response.

Homosexual behaviour has existed for millenea, it would be nonesensical to be "anti homosexual"

"liberalism" dictates that homos and heteros should be treated with absolute equality regardless of the fact that thousands of homosexuals are dying annually from a disease that nobody appears to fully understand....this mindset in defence of a political ideology is beneath contempt.

If the rate of infection amongst homosexuals continues to rise, while the rates in all other demographics are falling, I feel we have no alternative other than to instigate compusory testing of high risk groups with isolation, treatment and education made available....along the lines of the Cuban model.

People must be given the facts about homosexuality and Aids(isn't it disgraceful that these CDC figures were never published in the national press or national tv)

Only when people are made aware that something is badly wrong, can a start be made on tackling that wrong.
Perhaps the most distressing part of the CDC figures was the discovery that 80% of 18- 24 year olds who tested positive, did not know that they had been infected.
If compulsory testing is not brought in very soon, these young people will become a time bomb in the homosexual community.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 06:49 PM

"If the rate of infection amongst homosexuals continues to rise, while the rates in all other demographics are falling, I feel we have no alternative other than to instigate compusory testing of high risk groups with isolation, treatment and education made available....along the lines of the Cuban model.People must be given the facts about homosexuality and Aids..."

I agree with that statement. But when it comes down to it, we cannot force feed the information to every gay male We can - and should - make the information available, but we cannot force them to assimilate the information. As the CDC says, it is the young men who are engaging in the least protected risky behaviors- that is very much like a young male that drives too fast - in all likelihood he will have more accidents than the older driver, but he likely will not slow down until he is older. Youth has its own behaviors.

"isolating" them opens up a tremendous can of worms. What are you actually suggesting?   

"...(isn't it disgraceful that these CDC figures were never published in the national press or national tv)"

I don't know that they were not published in 'the national press or national tv". Do you? Surely you don't keep up with everything that is published in the American press? I am sure that I rarely see a news item from Scotland.

I'm going to post a separate item about homosexuality in Cuba. I find it hard to believe that you agree with their position.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 06:55 PM

Is this what you think the rest of the world should do? If so, I congratulate you.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/172.html

"In 1986, the Cuban government went through a rectification process (dubbed "a return to Che") in which it assessed the impact of the social and economic model of the Soviet Union in Cuba. The Cuban leadership made a conscious effort to combat and turn away from what they saw as mistakes the Soviet Union had committed in stifling democracy.

"Since 1986, the Cuban state has consciously tried to counter homophobia. Ian Lumsden, in his book Machos, maricones and gays, says there is "little evidence to support the contention that the persecution of homosexuals remains a matter of state policy".
In 1993, a sex education workshop was held in Cuba on homosexuality. Cuban physician Celestino Alverez explained that all laws regarding homosexuality had been repealed and that homophobia was a question of "prejudice, not persecution".

"In 1993, Fresas y Chocolate (Strawberries and Chocolate), a film criticising Cubans' intolerance of homosexuality, was produced by the government-run Cuban film industry (which can only afford to produce three or four films a year). In 1995, Cuban drag queens led the annual May Day procession, joined by two queer delegations from the US, one from the New York Center for Cuban Studies and the other from the Bay Area Queers for Cuba.

"The US activists joined with members of Cuba's Action Group for the Liberation of Sexual Choice and Expression to carry a 10-metre piece of the rainbow flag from the June 1994 Stonewall celebration in New York. They were cheered by Cubans who lined the streets.
The improvement in Cubans' attitudes to homosexuality are documented in the 1995 film Gay Cuba, which combines interviews with gay men and lesbians, government officials and average citizens, with musical performances and gay pride parades. The interviews which form the core of the film show that the changes in government policy and the opening of channels for the discussion and celebration of different sexualities have allowed gay Cubans today to lead much more open lives."

Earlier:

"During the 1980s, Cuba was also criticised for quarantining people with HIV. After much public discussion in Cuba, the incarceration law was lifted in 1993 and HIV patients enjoy free health care and housing, and full wages if they're able to do some work. In contrast to capitalist countries where most people with HIV struggle to afford decent medication, all HIV patients have always received free, high quality medical care in Cuba."

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 08:00 PM

The article you cite by Ellis, is simply a rant against "homophobia"
irrelevant to this discussion. The article was written in 1999 and the Aids and Hiv figure have worsened considerably since then.

I was referring to the period in which Fidel Castro introduced compulsory testing, compulsory treatment in sanatoria and sexual education, without these preliminaries, the relaxation of the rules we see today in Cuba could never have come about.

I note that since the partial liberalisation Aids figures have started to rise yearly.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Aug 10 - 08:33 PM

"I was referring to the period in which Fidel Castro introduced compulsory testing, compulsory treatment in sanatoria and sexual education,"

Perhaps you should specify that you like Cuba's attitude toward the homosexual/HIV problem pre 1993. It appears you are not keeping up.

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 11:51 AM

changing American attitudes (NY Times)

"A CNN poll this month found that a narrow majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage — the first poll to find majority support. Other poll results did not go that far, but still, on average, showed that support for gay marriage had risen to 45 percent or more (with the rest either opposed or undecided).

"That's a big change from 1996, when Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act. At that time, only 25 percent of Americans said that gay and lesbian couples should have the right to marry, according to an average of national polls."

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 11:55 AM

Should have added this final paragraph:

"This trend will continue. Nationally, a majority of people under age 30 support same-sex marriage. And this is not because of overwhelming majorities found in more liberal states that skew the national picture: our research shows that a majority of young people in almost every state support it. As new voters come of age, and as their older counterparts exit the voting pool, it's likely that support will increase, pushing more states over the halfway mark."

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Aug 10 - 04:22 PM

"While CDC estimates that MSM account for just 4 percent of the U.S. male population aged 13 and older, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the U.S. is more than 44 times that of other men (range: 522–989 per 100,000 MSM vs. 12 per 100,000 other men."

Okay, Ake, fair enough. Pretty deeply buried, and I combed through an immense amount of material on the CDC web site without finding that. How much time did you spend?

Two points:   first of all, early on you kept implying that 44% of homosexual men have HIV/AIDS, which is patently untrue. As I said way up-thread when you posted that "data," the way you were phrasing it was as if you were saying something like "Of all victims of prostate cancer, 100% of them are men." Well . . . yeah! Doesn't tell you much, unless you include the fact that only men have prostates. So that statistic, the way you were expressing it, is meaningless.

Second point:   as has been said many times by many people on this thread—and which you keep blowing off—is that this rate of transmission is a product of promiscuity, not homosexuality per se. The option of allowing gay men (and Lesbian women) to form stable, monogamous relationships, i.e. same-sex marriage, with all the legal rights, privileges, and advantages that heterosexual married couples enjoy, could change those statistics dramatically. The many advantages would ipso facto provide an incentive to same-sex oriented folks to form such stable relationships. There is really no difference between gay men cruising the bath-houses and gay bars and heterosexual men cruising the singles bars. It's not a "gay" thing, it's a male thing.

You keep insisting that gay men don't want to form stable relationships like marriage. If this were true, then how do you account for the fact that during the brief time that the law allowing same-sex marriage in Californian was in effect, before an out-of-state religious organization carpet-bagged their way into California and put forth and financed Proposition 8, some 18,000 same-sex marriages took place in California. That's 36,000 individuals who opted for the stability and legal advantages of marriage.

So who is the villain here? Those who would encourage stable relationships, such as the "liberal cabal" that you seem to despise so much (including a very large percentage of same-sex oriented folks themselves)? Or the interfering religious and "family values" groups, and others who feel they have the right to cram their ideas of morality down other peoples' throats?

Unfortunately, Ake, that includes people such as yourself.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 03:07 AM

Just got back from a major gig, so I've been away, for a week or so. Not going to go into this much, other than I read that some clown thought one could change a law of the land, and culture, with 'anecdotal evidence'...Sheesh, is that ignorance first class!!!!!

Second, its a good thing a lot of you aren't Judges. Your biases completely shroud the objectivity of the rule of law, and its intent.

That's all, folks.
To argue that, in depth, is to point out the shallowness, of one's thoughts.(if you could call them, that!)

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: akenaton
Date: 23 Aug 10 - 03:20 AM

Don... I have never said, or implied that 44% of male homosexuals have AIDS.....How could anyone know that? One would have to test the who homosexual community.
The CDC figure extrapolate the incidence of the disease from various samples, the rates of infection are shown on the fact sheet.

My remarks concerning low uptake of homosexual marriage were based on the scandanavian study which I linked to.

After the legalisation, there was a rush of mainly female "marriages", this soon fell away and the take up rate is described as "disappointingly low".
The study also found that a large portion of these "marriages" were for tax, insurance, or benefit purposes.
In general terms, it was found that homosexual "marriage" lasted a much shorter period than hetero marriage.

Throughout this thread, I have been citing "male homosexuality", in which high rates of promiscuity appear to be indemic.

There appears to be no physical health problems attached to lesbian "marriage".

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Aug 10 - 12:17 PM

Oh, they were even in the shurb's white house offices! FROM HERE:

A FORMER head of the Republican Party says he wants to become an advocate for same-sex marriage, after coming out as gay.

Ken Mehlman, a former campaign manager for George W. Bush, acknowledged yesterday that he could have resisted more strongly anti-gay policies pursued by the Bush administration if he had come out earlier.

But the former director of White House political affairs and chairman of the Republican National Committee said it had taken him 43 years to "get comfortable with this part of my life".

Subject: RE: BS: Californians Oppose 'Prop 8' Gay Marriage Ban
From: Amos
Date: 28 Feb 11 - 10:44 AM

Two mothers are better than one, study shows.