Nice post. It is a beautiful thing to see that society is coming around to reasonable thinking on this "issue". I've put issue in quotes because it really shouldn't be an issue at all.

It shouldn't be an "issue" to treat fellow humans properly. I certainly never chose to be straight. Show me a pussy and I'll get a boner. It just happens.

My gay nephew is a fantastic human being. If there ever was an argument for nature over nurture, it's him. He emerged from the womb "fabulous". It was very funny when he came out as being gay when he was seventeen or so. Funny because he expected a lot of repercussions, drama, and perhaps negative reactions. What he got was, "Yeah, no shit. We could've told you that. We love you. You're perfect."

One very encouraging development is that the current generation gets it. When my nephew came out, I had a phone conversation with my brother (my gay nephew's father). He didn't have any problem with his son being gay and, as mentioned above, saw it coming. He did, however, express some regret that his son never dated a young woman and felt like he came out at too early an age, having never experienced the joy of loving a woman. I thought that was a reasonable argument and agreed with my brother. I related the conversation to my own son who is straight and was around nineteen at the time. He didn't have to give it any thought at all. He said, "Well, Dad, would you have taken a dick for a spin before deciding that you weren't gay?"

Our children are a lot smarter than us. Progress is a good thing.

I chose to be straight towards the end of college. It most certainly was a choice

Nope, couldn't find the strength to watch the video. I hate cluckers.

So indulge a blog visitor... What's "The Question Gay People Get Asked"? Who asks that question (other than the cartoon enemies this little artifact was composed to befuddle)? Is there a question for straights, too?

And, I mean, if someone has to watch a pompous video to experience the full emotional manipulation of the (teenage) rhetorical point, how much better is this video as a tool of persuasion than is the "question" under discussion?

See what am getting at?

Is anyone else annoyed by rhetorical questions?

Some people certainly choose to be gay. I know a few. One is a relative in her 60's now. She was married for over 30 years, had kids, etc. After her husband died of a stroke she started going to a support group where she met another woman who'd also lost her husband. They started spending a lit of time together and eventually moved in as a couple and have been together for around 10 years now. They both say they made the choice to be gay, that it just felt right while one also says she'd never been attracted to or had feelings for a woman prior to this. I also had a coworker who was opposite. He was in a 15-year relationship with a man. They separated and he ended up marrying a woman and having a family. I doubt people are just "denying their true feelings" by going or being straight yet somehow it's not considered so when a straight person goes gay.

If you chose to be straight or gay, you're actually bisexual.

Great comment whistleDick. :thumbs up:

Nicolek, we would need to hear more about your college days, in detail, before we can form an opinion on your case. Talk slowly and clearly please.

Crid, it's exactly what you were trying to avoid. You didn't miss anything.

I have to admit that I don't "get" same-sex attraction. I'm a Kinsey zero and I can't get my mind wrapped around that. But that's the beauty of living in a free society -- I don't have to understand it. All I have to do is tolerate it. That part's easy. Somebody else's being gay does me no harm, so it's not something I need to lay awake at night worrying about.

"Is anyone else annoyed by rhetorical questions?"

I see what you did there... aren't you clever!

Meanwhile...

I don't think gays and straights will ever truly be at peace with each other. Any more than blacks and whites are. There will always be somebody stirring the pot. The key is the word Cousin Dave mentioned - Tolerance.

All I have to do is tolerate it. That part's easy. Somebody else's being gay does me no harm, so it's not something I need to lay awake at night worrying about.

That would be an argument against police raids on certain sorts of commercial establishments and against dismissal of civil servants whose sexual deviance came to be known by their superiors. These things have not been an issue for forty-odd years. All contemporary controversies re homosexuality have concerned hire bars present for cause, allocations of public trust restricted for cause, exercises of freedom of contract and association, and grants of public recognition.

In a free and sensibly governed society, 95% of the gay lobby's agenda would be tossed in the ash-can.

Hmmm. Maybe tolerance is not the key. Maybe it's the problem.

Tolerating somebody would seem to say.. we disagree, we dislike, we are better than. But we tolerate them to keep the peace.

Perhaps we must actually learn to like/love each other before we can truly be at peace. Maybe tolerance is not enough.

Nah. Never mind. That's silly. I blame Oprah. I saw an episode of her show last week in the waiting room of my dentist and I think I might have received subliminal messages of some sort.

Nicolek, we would need to hear more about your college days, in detail, before we can form an opinion on your case. Talk slowly and clearly please.

And ofcourse pictures, preferably naked

Funny you should mention all those things.

Yep, those were crazy days and then I chose to settle down.

Maybe tolerance is not enough.

I prefer indifference

You guys/girls crack me up. Good stuff.

Maybe there's a bit of truth to the phrase "Everybody is gay".

One simple example. All men and women masturbate. So, it could be said, technically, that all men enjoy playing with d*ck - all women love p*ssy.

Extremely warped, perhaps, but not untrue.

Yeah. Uh huh. Let that sink in for a minute. Lol.

Now let me add this >> Any straight man that says he has no attraction to male genitalia is a liar. Because every man loves his own penis. We clean it. We groom it. We play with it. We take it out for exercise. Our penis is our oldest, dearest friend.

If we could, we, men, each and every one of us, would build a shrine to our penis. It would contain little trophies and awards that our penis had earned over the years. Some guys have given their penis a name. Some of us have not named it, but that's OK too. We all love the penis. Our penis.

Only when the penis is on another man, do we find it unattractive, weird or wrong.

:)

Tim, good stuff! And I agree. But as far as women are concerned, I don't think we'd go so far as to build a shrine to our pussy. While some of us do play with ours, and of course most, if not all of us, groom them, I haven't named mine, nor do I know of another woman who has named hers, so there's that.

Also, trophies? Not so much, unless you count penii as trophies. Then, well, I won't go there.

Suffice to say, I've more than one.

o.O

Hmmm. Maybe tolerance is not the key. Maybe it's the problem.

Tolerating somebody would seem to say.. we disagree, we dislike, we are better than. But we tolerate them to keep the peace.

Perhaps we must actually learn to like/love each other before we can truly be at peace. Maybe tolerance is not enough.

Posted by: Tim at April 8, 2014 7:41 AM
_________________________________

Well said.

The trouble with the verb "tolerate" is that it's usually(?) used to mean "to put up with something very unpleasant or just plain horrible."

Who wants to be "tolerated"?

Of course, the trouble with, say, the word "acceptance" is that it implies having to acknowledge the people your siblings or children choose to marry - whether the marriages are gay, interracial, interfaith, etc. But it may be the best alternative we have.

BTW, Flynne, some say that church steeples are a moderation of ancient idols of phallus worship. Haven't checked Snopes yet.

Tolerating somebody would seem to say.. we disagree, we dislike, we are better than. But we tolerate them to keep the peace.

Perhaps we must actually learn to like/love each other before we can truly be at peace. Maybe tolerance is not enough.

Not enough for people who want applause but why should the rest of us take an interest? The trouble is, when it isn't enough, the lot of you are given to legal harassment of people who are not forthcoming with 'affirmation'.

Maybe we've crossed the line w/Mozilla's stance.

Instead of allowing his work ethics to rule and emphasize the difference between personal and private, the company basically agreed that it was the gay way or the highway.

So at this point discussion is no longer possible. I can 'turn the other cheek' but since it's going to be slapped as well, there's no point except to cut to the chase and say very nicely (since it doesn't matter what they or I think) - 'wtf is to you?'.

I accept, a person... in fact I am commanded to love them, and the only time I violate that, is if they are trying to do me harm...

But that doesn't mean I have to love their actions, what they think, or anything else.

Here's where luj's indifference comes in. I don't care who you like or love in your personal life.

It's YOUR life, not mine. Likewise, I expect you to stay out of my life.

the problem occurs when you come to me and say "YOU MUST ACCEPT MY LIFESTYLE CHOICES!!111!!"

Accept? NO. Not care about? Yes.

That means I don't want the government involved EITHER. Set a few guidelines to keep people from hurting each other, and then GTFO.

Inside the penis shrine lay a golden book and within that book...

wait... is it gone?

Is the moment gone?

lol ;)

September 13, 1974.

Next question ??? (Evil grin)

Instead of allowing his work ethics to rule and emphasize the difference between personal and private, the company basically agreed that it was the gay way or the highway.

That's a different question because it does not incorporate state coercion (not that the people protesting Eich mind coercion). What the Eich business indicates is we have entered a pathological realm wherein human associations of various sorts all map to a single cultural-political dispensation. It has not quite got to the silliness of Austria ca. 1955, when you had Socialist bird-watching clubs and Social-Christian ones. It is also less comical, as the characteristics of anti-discrimination law effectively allow discretion to undertake such mapping to one side of the dispute and not the other. So, you have Eich ejected from his job for participating in a common-and-garden campaign (which was right on the substantive and procedural merits, btw) but you have local florists and bakers subject to civil action and boycotts for just going about their business.

"That's a different question because it does not incorporate state coercion"

Of course the people who did in Eich are big believers in state coercion. And we don't know that there wasn't an implied or expressed threat of such coercion, e.g., EEOC going over Mozilla's employment records with a fine-tooth comb (regulators can always find violations if they are sufficiently motivated).

Lots of gays recognize that and they are alarmed, and rightly so. Once the salamander is loose, he cares not what he sets fire to.

> In a free and sensibly governed
> society, 95% of...

As Commander Technocrat leads the young, eager away team into the Shuttlecraft Bay, he knows their single-file march through the the spaceship's slender passageways has given him one last opportunity, unobserved, to reach down and settle his nutsack squarely on center of his Futurist Jumpsuit. (A cameltoe of indeterminate gender is least likely to intimidate his callow charges; today, of all days, he must dress neither to the right nor to the left.)

As they stride into the cavernous room, his cheerful voice echoes confidently against the enormous Bay doors aft of the landing platform: "Once we know how to statistic, then we'll really able to authority!," he says, kicking the ion pod of the Shuttlecraft with his well-polished boot.

In the corner of his eye, he sees the curly-haired cadet, the newest in the squadron, take a short and sharp breath as he he speaks, her firm breasts straining the taught-but-yielding fabric of her own zippered uniform, as if swelling with admiration. As he deftly connects the reactor conduit to the impulse thrusters to begin the fueling sequence, he silently anticipates a great, great semester of instruction for the Academy.

At this point those that disagree are not afforded the "right to disagree" as the issue has been defined (not sure by whom) as a "civil rights" issue.

The point has been made. In business and politics always pick the 'winning side at that moment' because that's all that counts.

I like the part where the interviewer assumes the interviewee is a bigoted asshole who needs to be enlightened.

No doubt the afterparty was fabulous.

As soon as I knew what boys were; in other words, I didn't.

In my college years, I tried it both ways, and made my choice accordingly. Of course that's not really a "choice to be straight" any more than one chooses not to like spinach. It was merely discovery of tastes that were already there.

> Of course that's not really a "choice to
> be straight" any more than one chooses
> not to like spinach.

☑

Yes. Good metaphor. And not only that....

Y'know, pop culture's fascination with homosexuality —all the movies, all the political stuff, all the weepy melodrama, all the militant whinydom— has done precisely nothing to make it more interesting to me on a personal level. Having long-since identified my own enthusiasms (which were elsewhere), there were no insights about attachment or eroticism or warmth or brains or even courage (!) to come from all the prattle. And the pop chatter has been roaring since before I was in high school, just few years after Stonewall.

But people have been thinking & writing about the tribulations of romantic love for a very, very long time... Heterosexuality, the world champ from the ancients through the death of our species, has already mined every theme for which chatterers have promised novelty through homosexuality. Every theme. Let's list just a few:

   Forbidden feelings vs. social approval
   Courage vs. cowardice
   Explicit expression vs. reticence
   Outlandishness vs. prudery
   Eros vs. Pragma (vs. etc. etc. etc.)
   Duty vs. indulgence
   Power dynamics vs. temperance
   Cruelty vs. tenderness

   And on and on....

Consideration of love has already promised a lifetime of complexity, clarity, mystery, excitement and even boredom. (Paglia, bless her heart, understands this: Her own patterns demanded courage and sacrifice, but her study lead her to recognize heterosexuality's supremacy in human affairs. My bookshelf is much richer for her mix of brass-knuckle daring and thoughtful humility.) So why are some, including many who steadfastly and convincingly claim to be straight, so fascinated with teh gay, and certain that the rest of us should be, as well?

I don't think they're more sophisticated... It would be essentially unprecedented for interpersonal worldliness to simply appear in so many hearts. It's far more likely that they're naive, and seeking the comfort of a crowd in that naivete. Being stunted in your development doesn't mean you want to be isolated; It makes you grateful for TV comedians (and others) who talk about it in terms (and tones of confusion) you find familiar.

But for those of us who are settled, whatever our preference, there's not a lot of charm to the fascination with homosexuality. Especially at this point in American history— We've already DONE the liberation thing, and done it recently. We've done it with women, who aren't even a minority. We've done it with blacks and the rest of the epidermal rainbow, we've done it with the disabled, we've done it with the sickly. We've even done it with the mentally retarded... Sincerely and lovingly.

Why does anyone give a fuck whether homosexuality is chosen or given by the hand of a capricious creator?

Why would you make movies about your opinions, or those of others, or the 'confrontations' between 'partisans'? Those dustups are for underdeveloped souls; the question, while nearly universal for at least twenty seconds of life, is indisputably mundane.

Who gives a fuck?

Not me.

And if you were a rapper they would most certainly call you HeavyCrid. ;)

Twenny pounds.

35, tops.


Also, when you read the words "far more likely" above, think of this.

"We've already DONE the liberation thing, and done it recently. We've done it with women, who aren't even a minority. We've done it with blacks and the rest of the epidermal rainbow, we've done it with the disabled, we've done it with the sickly. We've even done it with the mentally retarded... Sincerely and lovingly."

Yep. And without exception, every single one of those devolved into a rent-seeking special interest group, sometimes within a decade. And we see the same thing happening here again. That's what has so many people up in arms. That is why, no matter what anyone tells you, Prop 8 passed. Yes, there are some people who oppose gay marriage on moral grounds. We can debate the moral correctness of that stance, but doing so would miss the point. Among the Prop 8 supporters, the moralists were far outnumbered by the people who saw it as a chance to shove the camel's nose back out of the tent. Without them, Prop 8 goes down in flames. That's the thing that nobody wants to admit or address.

"Yep. And without exception, every single one of those devolved into a rent-seeking special interest group, sometimes within a decade."

Every single social crusade has always devolved into a rent seeking special interest group.

When you line up your interests with one side or the other of the political divide,you force people to pick a side, either joining your crusade or opposing you.

I have a few gay friends who used to be, not in favor of gay marriage. Now, none of them will voice that opinion because it has become a political football.

They have become as closeted about their political opinions, as a New York Jew who votes republican

Aligning themselves automatically with the fascist wing of the democratic party will prove to be a big mistake for both the gay lobby, and ultimately the democratic party.

My brother is gay. I am quite certain he was born that way, just as I am certain his gay friends and significant others I have met were born that way.

I don't want my kids to be gay.

I guess that makes me a h8r.