Gahars said:
I don't get this argument either, especially when people like Sarah Palin try to justify it with statements like, "It's okay, because I actually have lesbian friends, and for them it is a choice."
Reminds me too much of people saying racist comments, and justifying it with "It's cool, though, cause I'm friends with black people."
Well, typically pointing out such things is done for political reasons as much as anything since it can be inconveinent for the opposition to be anything less than monsterous. It really kind of ruins painting someone as a racist if they do have friends of the group your defending, especially if it means a lot of the things your opposing are things they learned from experience.
To put things into perspective, let's say you decide to criticize black culture. The opposition who don't want to see it targeted will jump out there and call you a racist, on the other hand since your targeting behaviors you point out that you have black friends, who probably don't act that way, and represent a fact that serves to illustrate your point.
It's sort of like when I go off on black culture and education in the USA from time to time, and every once in a while someone asks where I get my information from, and I quote sources like Bill Cosby who has a PHD in Children's Education....
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As far as Sarah Palin goes, she's not my favorite Republican but has a lot of positive elements to her beliefs. I think she's slammed a bit too hard by the media, probably because she's involved in successful opposition to the liberal administration despite the best efforts to quash her (what she says carries a lot of weight, and has propelled people into office).
If you read my earlier messages about the cause of homosexuality, I do disagree with her about it being a choice. You can't choose how your body is going to react to chemicals. Though it can be argued that you can choose whether to have sex or not, since unlike animals we can control our biological impulses. Without hearing her speech, this might be what she meant.
That said, I think very little is going to happen in a societal sense (no matter what political victories might be won by either camp, and such victories can always be reversed), until people remove the politics and human factor from the entire equasion and address it rationally.
One of the first things that needs to happen with the issue in the US, is that we need to divide the men and women. It's not a divide and conquer "strategy" coming from someone who is anti-gay men, it's simply common sense. Men and women are biologically differant, and that includes on a chemical level and the impulses and instincts they have. Guys with problems with their sex organs don't go to see Gynacologists. Hormones and chemicals like testosterone and estrogen also play key roles in how the body works, and their levels can radically influance behavior. This is all simplistic, but should make the basic point.
Given the involvement of politics and lumping all homosexuals together, it means surveys, statistics, and research are all inherantly biased. Truthfully it's one of those things where I think people on both sides really don't want actual answers for fear of what they might be.
Also given my statements here and in other message, I want to make something clear, simply before people fire back. I suggest this kind of seperation not because I'm a straight guy who likes to watch hot girls make out. I mean heck, I watch horror movies but still think murder is wrong, so just because I enjoy watching something wouldn't mean that I'd say that makes it inherantly right. The issue is simply that as it's been put "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" the genders are differant enough that you can't use a broad brush for both of them here on this issue, anymore than you can address men and women equally on numerous other subjects. Medically and psychologically there are profound differances as I'm sure we've all seen pointed out.
