Senate Homosexuality: the Thread

JKF, I think you're an attention seeker. And Homophobic.

 

Is there anyway I can show you your wrong in your judgement? What is your proof of me being a attention seeker? Me deleting my posts? I did that because I realized that by some people they could be viewed as homophobic as you viewed them. I can see why because it's used as an excuse by many people that they know "a lot of gay people" which is their excuse of saying something homophobic.

An add on to the attention seeking part. The definition of an Attention Seeker is someone who seeks attention to make themselves feel good. In no way is me being called a homophobe make me feel good about myself.

Mods if you want I can continue this in a PM instead of this thread.

 

does anyone know what countries are close to legalizing gay marriage?

 

Dark blue is where it's legal now
Dark green is it's recognized when performed in other areas
Gold is the government plans to legalize soon
Light blue is civil unions/domestic partnerships
Very light blue is "unregistered cohabitation"
Light tan is government is to legalize civil unions/domestic partnerships

 

It's come a long way in such a short time! It will be intresting to see this map in comparison to one in 2027

 

Why is Australia divided? They are one, single country, no???

 

So's Mexico. And so was the United States before the Supreme Court ruling. It comes from having a federal system.

 

I have not stated that homosexuality is "excluded" from natural law. My question is, "Is homosexuality against natural law?"
First we should define our terms.
Natural law is as in the quote.
Homosexuality: a person's attraction to the same gender.
Homosexual act: Homosexual sex

I want to know the truth. Hopefully we can arrive at the truth if you answer my questions, as you probably know more about the topic than I do. I will mostly ask you yes or no questions with the simplest wording as possible, but I may also ask you "why" your answer is yes or no. I would hope for us to answer this first question, "Is the homosexual act good?"

I will restate my previous question from my previous post.

Might a man steal because of an impulse?

 

There is no such thing as "natural law." It's an invented concept. Everything that exists is natural, ultimately. Whether something is natural or not wouldn't mean if it's good, even if you use a stricter version of "natural" (which would be arbitrary).

Same-sex acts have been recorded throughout the animal kingdom too, by the way (as well as throughout human history, in every culture). Hundreds or thousands (or even more) of examples. Nonhuman animals have sex for pleasure. Straight humans have sex for pleasure. People who are naturally infertile have sex for pleasure, and get married.

Gay people can still have kids, whether from a previous opposite-sex relationship or through surrogacy. Plus there's adoption. Even without kids, there's studies that show having gay relatives is good for families because it means more adults paying attention to the next generation. And there's some hypothesis that genes that cause women to have more kids, when passed to men, influence them to be gay, for one example.

But this "natural law" stuff is garbage. There is no natural law, unless you're talking about the laws of physics or something similar. As for "stealing" being an impulse (what a terrible, offensive, poorly-thought-out example)... many good things are impulses too. Having a natural inclination to something doesn't make it automatically bad (or good). Nobody is harmed by two consenting people having sex, it simply doesn't impact you, end of story.

 

Todd the Jedi
This is why I wanted to continue this conversation in a PM.

I'm hardly playing a game. I am in the discussion, just instead of giving my opinion first I am asking for the truth. I will offer my opinion though, if a post suits a response. I am not yet making equivalence with criminal acts, stealing is (if we can agree that it exists) against natural law and I had a point which I would have come to if Todd had answered my question.

Sorry I don't have time to answer all of you post but I will address two thing (and the rest later).
I didn't say that stealing is and impulse, I asked if the reason one might steal is because of an impulse. A better way to phrase it might be, "Might an impulse cause a man to choose to steal?"
I agree, not all impulses are bad (or good).

Just because something happens does not make it good. Anger happens in animals and in humans. Is anger good?

 

That's how I view it. I as a straight person would not want to imagine two men or women having sex, but if it makes them happy why take that away from them? If they love that person wether it be a male or female who is to say they should love someone that they can never truly love? I once knew someone who was gay and married a women and had several great kids, but he never truly loved his wife and just tried to hide it. When he finally left her for a Guy he was much more happy. Being happy is a basic human right and everyone deserves it. Wether it fits with someone's opinion

 

I never said just because something happens that makes it good. I actually exactly said the opposite, as you also acknowledged.
(Also, comparing being gay with getting angry or the urge to steal aren't the best examples to use. Here's some advice: use more neutral examples, or positive examples with negative examples.)
As for where you might be going with this argument... I think I already pre-empted most of your potential points with my post, so please take my points into account before posting your argument. But I agree with the others, you should get on and post your position and rationale. I hope you can respond to the rest of my post later.
(Also, as a heads up, I think you're probably the only person here who believes in "natural law" as I think you would define it, so it's best to use a different argument. Or at least phrase it as "objective morality" as long as you accept no one agrees on all the details of what the objective morality is, if it exists, and not everyone here will even agree on that. And specifically the "it's not natural" argument... one, yes it is natural, unless you use a really artificial arbitrary definition that's not natural at all... two, something being natural doesn't make it good or bad).

 

Is everyone going to overlook the fact that Hyrum is rambling about some kind of natural law while talking on the internet. Posting from an electronic device. Presumably from inside a man-made abode.

Last time I checked none of these things grow on trees.

 

I apologize for giving the impression that I would not accept questions from anyone else. That is just absured. Of course I would welcome questions that are asked of me. I wanted to outline the way in which I would be conducting my half of the discussion.
If I state my opinion and then you state yours and we both disagree with eachother then we are both none the wiser. If people were to answer my questions with the truth (and if I answer questions of me with the truth) then were I the harm in answering with the truth? I am going to have to remain stuborn on this. The worst you could do is ban me and I would be better off for it.

Regardless of what you have infered abou the point of view I have, I have not stated which side of the arguement I'm on. And regardless of what I have infered about your point of view, I have not seen yours stated either.
You seem to be ignoring the very real possiblity that I may be just as wrong as you are. What is the harm in answering my questions if you answer them with the truth? The truth will be the truth wether I agree with it or not.

I haven't compared being gay with the act of steal or being angry. I highlighted the fallacy in the logic that "it happens, it is not against natural law" by presenting things that we can agree are against natural law (if we can agree that it exsists) and apllying the same logic: anger happens, stealing happens, it is not agianst natural law. We know the latter to be false, so the same logic can not be used for the homosexual act (becuase the logic would have to be true in all cases). Instead, another arguement must be used to prove that the homosexual act is not against natural law. Such an arguement might very well exsist. This is what I would like to know.

As for natural law not exsisting, this is most certainly false. Natural law is how we as humans know how to treat other humans with dignity without being taught or having to use reason (although the application of reason can only validate what we know from natural law). Our coscience is our preception of natural law, which can sometimes fade but the truth that we must treat each other with dignity remains despite what we are informed by our conscience.

If there is no natural law, then should we still treat each other with dignity? If so, who or what defines dignity?

 

You can treat people with dignity with or without natural law. I treat anyone I come across with dignity wether I disagree with them or not. I will honor another's opinion because it's just that an opinion. Doesn't mean I will not argue with them though.

What your saying when you say "Natural law" is just logic

It's logical to treat all humans with dignity unless they otherwise show that they are not deserving of such.

 

Jedi Knight Fett -- the easy answer is evolution doesn't have intent and doesn't have goals-- its just a thing that happens. so basically stuff that doesn't result in reproduction isn't precluded from cropping up repeatedly, even if it's something that's heritable. and heritable traits don't even necessarily need direct reproduction to get passed on-- it's possible for example that the straight siblings of gay person carry whatever genes it is that're involved in the activation of homosexual behavior themselves. also i suspect environmental & epigenetic factors probably play a pretty big part in gay & trans stuff, so like its possible you have genes that are only activated under certain conditions but are otherwise dormant or whatever.

tl;dr the how is complicated but it's not at all surprising bc evolution doesn't actually have direction or intent

 

Please state your position, and your rationale behind it.

There is no "natural law." There are such things as empathy and reason. You don't need "natural law" to explain that. You can be a Christian and not believe in this "natural law" garbage too.

And read my arguments in my previous post. I'll paste them again here, which even people who believe in your very artificial and poorly-constructed version of "natural law" (which is neither a law, nor natural, nor is there any proof it exists) cannot ignore
... since you say you would "like to know" if any arguments exist. They do, I posted them, you ignored them, and now you're pretending you aren't aware of any.

(And please stop using these strawman anger/stealing metaphors. It seems like you want someone to argue them, so you can defeat that argument. I'm not. Respond to the arguments I'm actually making)

 

Then state your position and let's start that way. Everyone else here is willing to do so. Discussions of homosexuality have been happening in the senate since before I joined 15 years ago. The threads have been so long that they have been stopped and restarted at least 3 different times that I recall. Those that have been participating here over the years have seen many, many tactics from people trying to play "gotcha" (on both sides). We recognize the patterns. Your insistence of secrecy is very similar to those we already know.

You say you're just trying to establish truths. What I see is you trying to trick people into agreeing with your truths (complete with specific nuances determined by yourself) so that you can come back later and say something like, "HA! But you said this earlier so I've already proved you wrong." You're challenging everyone to think around the corners of some hidden argument you're waiting to unleash. It's dishonest and unfair in open discussion. Its also problematic because you're conflating two completely different things (stealing and homosexuality).

Here, I'll start:
Homosexuality is not wrong. There is nothing unnatural about it. Gay marriage doesn't hurt anyone.

EDIT: Ghost beat me to it!

 

thank you for the answer! I just find science intresting and wanted to know.