My response to a strawpoll08 freeper

[rep the dems]

I'm not sure if he's actually a freeper, but he makes my blood boil like one.

The original post was:

Ben, I do not think that it is wise to define discrimation in such broad brush strokes.
We may as well say, "We should let murderers kill. Because it would be wrong to judge them for their actions."
How about we judge homosexuals on the merit of the act of homosexuality?

I know people who are gay. I treat them with the same fairness and respect that I do others. That doesn't mean I have to approve of or condone their lifestyle.

We can not just say we should make everything thing legal just because someone somewhere is doing it. Why don't we make sex with animals legal? There are people who do it.

I'll bet that as soon as gay marriage is legalized, the liberals will start to scream that beastiality or pedophillia should be legal. Don't think it is too far fetched.

What we are talking about is not discrimination but discerment between right and wrong.
What is right and wrong is not relative. It is concrete and universal.


Marriage was originally a vow to God, affirming a bond that nature intended for the procreation of the species.
When you embrace marriage between same sex couples, you destroy, not only the foundation of this country, but the foundation of civilization itself.
It is a fact that every past civization that embraced homosexuality soon vanished.


And my response:

Being against gay marriage is being discriminatory whether you wish to think of it as such or not. Right and wrong is not concrete and universal at all. There is practically nothing in the world that everyone agrees is wrong, because people have different beliefs about what is and is not wrong. That is why people debate this issue as well as others like abortion and stem cell research. As I recall the last story about pedophilia I heard regarded a certain Republican congressman. And as I recall it was Republicans who covered up for him. All those priests who have molested children? I don't think they consider themselves liberals. So don't start assuming that because we think that consenting adults of the same sex should be able to marry then it means that we're going to allow people to molest children. It's bullshit, and you know it. And other people are starting to realize it too.


There was probably more I could have said, but if I spent too much time thinking about it I would probably calm down and the response wouldn't have been as passionate. Anyway hope everyone enjoys it!

[Phredicles]

1. "every past civization that embraced homosexuality soon vanished"?

News to the Romans, who kept going a good two to four hundred years after their homoerotic heyday. And turned much more puritanical first.

Besides, it's also a fact that every civilization that DIDN'T "embrace homosexuality" eventually vanished, too.

[ceile]

2. ugh.

"When you embrace marriage between same sex couples, you destroy, not only the foundation of this country, but the foundation of civilization itself."

This is the kind of crap that just makes me shake my head and wonder how people like this are allowed to breed. But at the same time it is an argument made by someone who can't see past their own small, insignificant world, that I just keep walking and don't engage them in debate.

[BOSSHOG]

3. It won't be homosexuals

who will call for the legalization of beastiality and pedophilia; it will be the practicers thereof. And the ruination of our country won't be because of homosexuals it will be due to "conservatives" who think they know the difference between right and wrong and what is concrete and universal. Good thing for stawpoll08 that ignorance, bigotry and hatred aren't illegal in this country, the land of the free.

[jilln]

4. This idiot needs a good lesson on nonconsensual vs. consensual

Animals or children? Nonconsensual.

Why can't rightwing nutjobs distinguish? They also have trouble with public/private. Maybe what they need is a special version of Sesame Street just for them. Imagine:

Grover runs to the camera with a naked, squealing duck. The announcer says "Nonconsensual."

Grover runs to the camera with another adult muppet who is very into him. The announcer says, "Consensual."

This is how I learned the difference between "near" and "far".

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Wonder if he would care if I disapproved of his and don't condone his lifestyle?

Why do they think their opinions and view point is the only one?

[baby_mouse]

6. The main problem with these people is that they've already decided what's right and wrong.

Most educated people understand that the difference between right and wrong is a complex problem which has taxed philosophers and religous figures for centuries. To simply go for whatever seems easiest or most comfortable is the resort of the poorly educated or the intellectually lazy.

You will not reach this person. He or she is happier and more comfortable with a version of morality that they don't have to think about, the idea that there is a universe external to their comfort zone that has its own value is distasteful to them. They will reject your arguments, but not because the arguments are flawed or don't accurately represent reality, only because they are distasteful.