Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Pride Month? Seriously?
I don’t understand it. This level of sheer corporate pageantry doesn’t even happen for Black History Month. The US is not a country that undertakes mass PR campaigns celebrating abstract identity groups for an entire month. This seems a bit much for epater la bourgeoisie (the emotional need of certain rich people to constantly shock the sensibilities of the middle class). What is going on?
As a bisexual, I’m expected to think of myself as part of this weird amorphous “LGBT” thing, a category that includes a fantastic number of freaks and weirdos and people I want nothing to do with. Sexual orientation is not the same thing as identity. Seeing sign after sign proclaiming “Pride Month” in every store I go to is surreal. What’s the point?
This almost strikes me as a religious phenomenon. Aside from hardcore pro-binary trans people, most sexual identities are 100% socially constructed. That’s true for queer people, the non-binary, lesbians, and those gay men who have a “sexual identity” (many do not). So is Pride Month just a weird upper-class sexual cult? I don’t know.
Published in General
Thank God you don’t have the power to do that.
But you can see why people like me, or people who think I’m okay, would find it difficult to trust you or to vote for the people you might support?
Not really a guarantee, no.
I think the Obergefell v Hodges ruling was based on the Kennedy principle: whatever Anthony Kennedy was thinking on that particular day became the result, the constitution be damned.
However, in terms of overturning the decision, I am skeptical that it will happen because unless some Governor or Attorney General decides to deny a homosexual couple a marriage license, it’s hard to see how a case could ever reach the federal courts. But one never knows.
If so, @Full Size Tabby, that would still constitute a basis in biology. I’m not trying to be difficult, I’m just saying that when it comes to “nature” vs. “nurture” the former doesn’t jsut mean “genetic.”
For instance, back in the 1960s, some pregnant women in England and a smaller number in the U.S. were given thalydomide to combat morning sickness. The molecules of the drug crossed the placenta and caused severe malformations of the limbs of the developing fetus. The baby’s handicaps were “nurture” in the sense that they were due to an external rather than intrinsic element, but the effects were nonetheless biological…and permanent.
The same thing can happen after a baby is born. I have been diagnosed with PTSD thanks to a prolonged experience of sexual abuse when I was a kid. I manage it, but the alteration to the way my brain manages stress is “biological” in the sense that the structures—the cells—of my brain have been changed and are not simply going to change back.
If homosexuality as a phenomenon isn’t genetic (though there is evidence that it is strongly affected by genes) and “merely” a matter of uterine environment or whatever happened to a kid when he or she was growing up…so what?
We could even agree that homosexuality is a disorder (not merely a difference) akin to, say, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder. And again…so what? Bipolar disorder is hard to treat and —so far, at least—impossible to cure. Bipolar is also very painful and unpleasant for those who are afflicted by it: If a gay man–@Zafar, say— does not find life as a gay man miserable, and indeed, enjoys his or her life, why would it be worth the investment and effort required to “cure” him? It’s not as if we as a society don’t have other priorities when it comes to human variability and eccentricity. Given the choice, I’d rather cure the pansexuals and demigenderered furries, and let Zafar get on with his life. (Zafar, if you tell me you ARE a demigendered furry…we’re going to have to talk.)
I once did a paper in seminary that asked, quite seriously, whether my religiosity (unique in my family of origin, by the way) might not be a neurological disorder?
For unreleated reasons, I had a CT scan when I was 18 years old that revealed a “lesion” (a white dot) and guess where it was? Smack dab in the middle of my temporal lobe, in the place identified by neurologists as the “God module,” that is, the part of the brain that “lights up” during a spiritual or religious experience. Perhaps I am the only religious person in my family because I fell out of bed and banged my head too hard as a kid?
Shall we cure it? Or just kind of go-with-it? (Hint: I chose door number two, and got ordained).
I’m not trying to be difficult, just pointing out that these things are a whole lot more complicated both ontologically and practically than they might seem.
It was a dumb decision. I’ll admit that!
My wife’s nephew has twin boys. These twin boys are fraternal twins. They are now 7 years old. One of them seems like your average 7 year old boy. The other likes to play with dolls, likes to dance and seems very feminine.
I wouldn’t be too surprised if the second boy ends up “coming out” as homosexual while in high school.
I agree. And I am actually fine with both legal abortion and gay marriage.
What I am not in favor of is the bizarre and unsupported ‘reasoning’ that the SCOTUS employed to force upon all states the new preferences of some states.
In short, the SCOTUS is supposed to be about the Constitution, not making other states be ‘cool’.
It wouldn’t be, unless he wants to be cured and is willing to pay for his own treatment, in which case it ought to be perfectly legal to provide such treatment. Yet increasing we are seeing bans on such therapy.
But the activists are trying to impose disordered thinking onto the kid as he or she is growing up. Treating homosexuality as “normal” is to a somewhat lesser extent imposing disordered thinking onto children. I oppose intentionally imposing disordered thinking onto children.
Knowing what you now know, if the legal argument were taking place once again today (say, being revisited in SCOTUS) would you still make it?
None whatsoever. However, the issue is that it is not allowed to stop there. No one cared in the past if that happened. No one cares now. The difference is that we are forced to accept it as normal and “celebrate” it as a good thing. It is neither.
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible always seemed stupid to me. How could there be a culture where homosexuality and other perversions were so popular and rampant? I no longer wonder. I no longer consider it a silly fable. Like much of the stories in the Bible, I think there is appreciable history behind the tale. Of course, turning people into salt pillars needs a bit more explanation . . .
There certainly does seem to be repeatable and repeated instances of cultures going completely haywire. If the Bible story is some kind of guide, it would appear to also be a harbinger of doom to that society.
I’m not sure what lessons 21st century America should take from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, to be honest. Lot supposedly had sex with his daughters. That, in a sense, seems more repulsive to me than homosexual sex. But I suppose there are multiple interpretations available.
I just read that courts in Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand are becoming more open to giving same-sex couples legal recognition. I think Taiwan was the first Asian country to grant same-sex marriage. But maybe more Asian countries are going to follow.
JY and I just shared Father’s Day dinner with a married couple – both male and obvi gay. Oddly, they are both twins. In that they each have a twin brother who happens to be straight.
None of us are smart enough to understand why we love the people we love. Hell … I’m 63 and look at the people I love with nothing but confusion. And I’m their mother – I literally witnessed their birth.
Literally and physically.
The problem now is that there’s no room for confusion. Parents aren’t looking at their kid, shrugging their shoulders, and thinking, what the hell? Don’t get this one. This will be interesting. (Been there. Done that. News flash : they’re nuts but doing fine )
Instead the feminine boy is really a girl ? And the tom boy is really a boy ?
Seriously?
The bottom line is that we’re not smart enough. And there’s nothing wrong with a shrug of the shoulders and a “what the hell”.
The more it is presented as normal or as today good and desirable the more likely children will be enticed into thinking that is what they should do.
Yes, they learn to give a dollar to a homeless tranny. By putting it in his thong, clapping, and telling him to dance for you.
But what harm comes to people who engage in homosexual sex? Anything?
Agree. Especially since such bans are being extended to the transgendered. I don’t really get why this isn’t a First Amendment issue?
There is a paradox here—as in all important questions. People did once care—sometimes quite a lot—if a woman formed an intimate relationship with another woman, or (God knows) a man a man. If choosing historical moment (place/time) to which one might return, and call it good, what moment would that be?
Feeling romantically attracted to a person of the opposite sex is abnormal in the sense that only a minority of people seem to feel these attractions. So, the question isn’t so much whether homosexuality is abnormal, it’s more a question of whether it is harmful when people who feel attracted to people of the opposite sex go forward and engage in actual romantic homosexual relationships.
Two adults of the same sex being in a romantic relationship are not harming each other or anyone else. It is this realization on the part of a large majority of people that has resulted in the mainstreaming of homosexuality. If there is no harm in homosexuality, why criminalize it or stigmatize it?
Why indeed?
The problem isn’t really with homosexuality—as I say, I think @HenryRacette is right about this. The phenomenon itself—a man falling in love with/being sexually attracted to another man, or woman/woman—is both genuine and, in itself, essentially benign. It has been managed in a variety of ways throughout history, sometimes being met with angry or even violent condemnation, sometimes tolerated or even, in some sense, recognized and “affirmed.” (I’ve read ancient Greek novels, published around the same time as the New Testament, that mention homosexual attraction quite casually and without obvious alarm, for instance).
It has even been suggested that the reason homosexuality has not been Darwin’d out of the human gene pool is that a gay man, somewhat less likely to reproduce (though not incapable of doing so) may contribute sufficient resources to his nieces and nephews to make the difference between surviving and not-surviving. The same, by the way, has been suggested when the matter of female menopause is raised: The grandchildren of an older woman benefit so much from the additional resources that she provides that it makes more evolutionary sense for her to stop making new babies, and offer those extra magongo nuts to the cause of maintaining the existing ones.
We don’t have to believe that evolutionary biologists are right about homosexuality (or menopause or anything else, for that matter) to grasp that both homosexuality and menopause are sufficiently common, even “normal” phenomena as to warrant interest and investigation, whether this is understood and codified in the discipline of biology or of history, sociology, psychiatry, religion, politics or law. There was a time—within my lifetime!—when all sorts of human behaviors were considered fair game for such inquiry.
What is different now isn’t just the wild proliferation of “identities” claimed, or even the demand for tolerance: It’s the angry denunciation of ordinary human curiosity about what are fairly obviously curious, that is, odd phenomena.
The cruelty of persuading large numbers of people not merely that their weird little kinks are okay—most of them probably are harmless enough—but that these kinks are the essential elements of identity or even the single element, the head of the pin on which an entire, complex human being must dance.
Rectal tearing. Incontinence. Infections.
These are not constants and can be avoided with caution.
You asked.
Using people for purposes other than that for which they were designed is usually harmful.
I understand that someone who believes human beings are nothing more than sacks of chemicals with no moral responsibility will likely not agree.
There’s a huge difference between criminalizing and what we have now.
Regardless of whether human beings are “nothing more than sacks of chemicals” or not, human beings do have moral responsibility in my book. But that moral responsibility does not necessarily entail consensual adults avoiding sex.
And to this sack of chemicals, it most especially does.
Then you can remain celibate if you wish. But you shouldn’t expect others to join you in your celibacy.
I don’t care what others do. And I don’t care what you or others think. What I don’t like is being forced to “celebrate” perversion.
It’s almost like the guys who don’t think praising G-d or speaking of allegiance to the flag are appropriate things to ask of children nevertheless imagine that there are certain things that must be praised and allied to.
As it happens, I am fine with removing prayer (which can end up pretty divisive) and pledging allegiance to the flag (which is a strange thing to ask of minors). I would appreciate, though, more uniformity in not requiring uniformity in students.
As you indicated, when it comes to God, different people/communities have different views on the nature of God, not to mention whether God exists at all. If a Baptist found out that his child was being forced to pray in the direction of Mecca to Allah and recite verses from the Quran, he would have reason to object.
I’ll go back to the twin boys of my wife’s nephew. One of them seems normal. The other seems very feminine. My guess is that the feminine boy will be a homosexual adult.
So, the question for my nephew and his wife (the boy’s parents) is whether they will try to convince their son to “convert” to heterosexuality. As I see it, that’s a fools errand. It would be like asking someone to “convert” from being 5 feet 4 inches tall to being 6 feet 2 inches tall. Sure, you can say that being 6 feet 2 inches tall is “better.” It’s just not a realistic option for those of us who aren’t 6 feet 2 inches tall.