The civilized ones are the people who are behind getting gay marriage introduced in Scotland.
The uncivilized ones are recognizable by their funny robes and their attachment to an old cult leader in Rome.
Maybe the civilized ones will shoo the uncivilized ones out of the country some time? It would be a sensible move.
Step one would be the news media’s not covering the old fart’s every move and utterance. You should have to work to find out what he thinks about gay marriage in other countries.
Let’s be fair: it’s not just the Roman Catholic church that’s in opposition here. The far larger (but little more influential) Church of Scotland also opposed it, as did various Muslim organisations.
Still, great news.
(When I say the CoS is “far larger” I mean in Scotland, of course.)
As a straight, married Canadian I cannot say this enough:
Gay marriage has absolutely no effect on your life unless you (1) are gay or (2) know and care for someone who is gay. In addition, the people in (1) and (2) need to want to get married. Otherwise, days go by where I don’t even think about gays getting married. Or straight folks getting married, for that matter.
In the immortal words of Stephen Colbert, it’s almost like their happiness doesn’t detract from my happiness.
The UK parliament is trying to get this brought in in England and Wales too (devolution makes things complicated here). It’s one of the few good things this bunch of gits is pushing for.
I hope it happens soon. Full, proper marriage equality and full, proper citizenship (i.e. access to all the rights a nation has to offer) cannot happen fast enough.
Louis
The CoS is just the CoE with funny accents and kilts, right? And the CoE are just Catholics who like to get divorced and are too lazy to pretend that the cracker is Jesus, right.
So they’re basically the same thing, but in plaid.
Scotland is different. Devolution is just step one. What’s slowing down Westminster is the backwardness of Westminster.
No. The CoS is traditionally Calvinist – lower than even low church CoE. They are very, very different. That said there’s a pretty big split now between traditional Calvinists and right-on, airy-fairy, we-don’t-really-believe-in-this-stuff-but-isn’t-it-a-pleasant-Sunday-for-deepities agnosticism.
Ewan, #7,
Oh I agree entirely! Westminster is positively…yes, well, I am trying to think of a suitable adjective now, let’s just say it’s not the most rapid collection of souls and leave it there.
Louis
GAAAH! Fucking Calvin. The worst of the worst fundagelicals here in the US are the more Calvinist ones (eg, Phred Felps).
I hate that Calvin guy so much.
To celebrate Civilization in NY:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/what-has-happened-since-new-york-state-legalized-g
How is catering to a group of mentally ill people (homosexuals) civilized? Homosexuality from an evolutionary biology standpoint is obviously a severe mental defect that interferes with one of the basic tenets of life, the desire to reproduce.
Hopefully the underlying biological cause will be discovered so that this disease could one day be cured. Probably too late for those that have already reached puberty, but given time we may be able to finally eradicate this terrible disease.
Of course the Catholic Church is absurdly and offensively wrong on the subject of gay marriage, but given Scotland’s history of sectarian violence I would probably stop short of saying “kick the papists out of Scotland” in any context.
Did you… did you just pull a No True Scotsman about Scotland?
Very well said. The CoS also has its cross to bear on this (harr!) and it’s not fair to discriminate.
Well, it’s a good start, but we should not amend the equality act to allow religious groups to refuse to conduct same-sex marriages. We will only be truly equal once they are FORCED to offer their services to all, against their precious bigoted doctrines if necessary. Like shopkeepers and employers and all the other service providers are thanks to our 2007 Sexual Orientation (Goods and Services) Equality Provisions and the 2006 Equality Act.
Homophobia has no place in any part of our society. It must be stamped out, not given safe spaces to fester. Religions must be forced to change, just as other parts of our culture have been. There is nothing special about religion – it wasn’t handed down from on high, we made it up ourselves. And we can jolly well unmake it too. Millennia-old doctrines of hate and exclusion gain no special pass from their venerability. They must go.
Puling bigoted religious sensibilities are not special and deserve scorn, not protection. Equality is special, and must be universal and complete. It will not be complete until religion is no longer a legally valid defence against discriminatory behaviour.
John Knox will be turning in his grave – or would be if they hadn’t already put a car park over it.
So, tyrannical, homosexuality is a disease. Please present your peer-reviewed research for this claim. Otherwise, fuck off.
tyrannical, why don’t you take a nice nap on a bed of decaying porcupines? It’ll get you in the right mood to continue spouting your hatred of other people.
tyrannical (#12):
Appeal to Nature fallacy combined with a category error. Life has no tenets. It has no values, no goals, no purposes. It’s a process – it just happens. Also, same-sex sexual activity is not uncommon in the animal kingdom – like nearly everything else in nature, variation is the rule.
Terrible disease? What harm does it actually do to actual people, as opposed to your imaginary “tenets of life”?
Really, you’re no different from any religious bigot. The only difference is that you try and base your claims on evolutionary biology, but unfortunately you seem as ignorant of that subject as any creationist.
On the other hand, if your post was a deliberate poe, then well played.
The Catholic Church in Scotland is heavily contaminated with the same type of theological practices that hold, and held sway, in Ireland. It is led by Bigots and has a docile laity who are priest-ridden and submissive. Only solution is to go ahead and ignore it. It would burn people alive if it could -if you think I joke read the letters in the Press written by its ‘faithful’-nauseating.
Tyrannical,
Impressive trolling attempt. Your flame bait is not fresh however. Bad troll, you get a B- for effort, I can tell you’re keen, but an F for actual trollery. Back to troll academy, with you. Scurry, scurry.
Louis
Ointment (#13):
This is exactly right. And I say that as a Scot raised in an anti-Catholic household.
Ian Walker
Life does have tenets: growth, metabolism, reproduction, and adaptability to an environment. Safe sex sexual preference is akin to developing a taste for non-edible food.
Yes, homosexuality as well as other diseases such as cancer do occur in many different living organisms. That doesn’t make it normal or any less of a defect. Arguably it is a more severe defect in non-human organisms do to our social groups.
Hormonal balances or what ever else is the cause for sexual tendencies is a delicate game where different phenomena are expressed to differentiate the sexual tastes of the two sexes. It’s hardly surprising that can go wrong just like any other life function.
Tyrannical –
I note you are using your fingers for typing bigoted, homophobic screeds on the internet, rather than rooting around for grubs, banging rocks against one another or building a shelter out of leaves. You must be appalled at how far you have deviated from the “tenets of life” – your venting of cyber-bile achieves absolutely nothing by way of growth, reproduction or metabolism, and is positively maladaptive in this particular environment!
Perhaps one day you will discover a cure for this terrible disease with which you find yourself afflicted. Maybe by paying increased attention to your banging of rocks together.
Tyrannical: a tenet is a belief, opinion, doctrine (read the dictionary). I hold a belief that you are an ignorant prick and that if you are not trolling you are suffering from a brain that has gone seriously wrong.
Citation to the peer reviewed scientific/medical literature needed or you are nothing but a homophobic liar and bullshitter. Time to put up or shut the fuck up….
Hey, what do you have against safe sex?! That’s a way to prevent diseases, you know, since you love using the word disease so much.
And second, that analogy is really really stupid. But then again ,so is everything else you have written.
You are lying. You are not even making shit up, so that I could call you imaginative. You are just repeating same old shit others have tried peddling, for which you have absolutely no evidence.
You are just a pathetic little hater.
I could have used the term intrinsic instead of tenet, but the definition of “life” is a bit vague and sometimes opinionated so I wanted to use a term implying less of an absolute.
And all these hurtful little comments I see attacking the speaker instead of the speech, did you pick up those tricks from arguing with theists? What next, will you tell me I have committed blasphemy and am going to hell for it?
Tyrannical – don’t go disputing bridge-crossing rights with billy-goats: the form book is against your kind. Ditto exposing yourself to direct sunlight.
tyrannical (#24):
[Rolls eyes] OK, so you don’t know what the word “tenet” means. From Webster’s Online:
tenet (noun): a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true; especially one held in common by members of an organization, movement, or profession
Like I said, appeal to nature combined with a category mistake.
Except a taste for inedible food impairs the functioning and well-being of the organism. Same-sex sexual activity will do no more than reduce the probability of its successfully reproducing. And if the organism in question (human or otherwise) doesn’t care about that, why the fuck should anyone else?
@tyrannical
25 July 2012 at 12:06 pm
Arguably it is not a debilitating “defect”, and it only affects 3-5% of any given population. So I rather doubt that eliminating homosexuality is a worthwhile goal much less committing the resources to doing so. We may discover specific genetic relationships but, there appears to be evidence that that is not the whole story either.
Even so, I would be reluctant to interfering on a genetic level, given that homosexuality appears to present itself in other animal populations again within the 3-5% range. One implication is that eliminating this “defect” could have detrimental effects to the population as a whole.
More sensible in my mind to make societal adjustments to accommodate people who present this “defect”, given that so many of them also appear to also exhibit some very desirable characteristics. I am thinking about people like Alan Turing and Oscar Wilde for example.
In the end, I would rather not risk eliminating potiential homosexuals from our gene pool, I strongly suspect there will be no net benefit, and even worse a detrimental one.
Thanks to the wonders of modern science, homosexuals can reproduce without engaging in heterosexual sex, if they so desire. And if they don’t desire, who cares?
tyrannical @ 12;
Psychologists have not considered homosexuality to be a mental illness since the ’70s. Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion, or is it just freeform bigotry?
As observed by franko @ 26, a tenet is a belief, not an emergent property. Talking about ‘tenets of life’ therefore necessarily implies that the evolutuinary process itself has conscious agency – a contention that is wholly unsupported by evidence and frankly a clear oxymoron. Thus, your claim that homosexuality is a ‘clear mental defect’ falls at the first (very low) hurdle.
It is not currently clear whether homosexuality is primarily the product of genetic of environmental or other developmental factors (or some combination if all of the above), but what is clear is that it is not a ‘disease’ in the sense you mean – it does no inherent harm to those who are homosexual, nor does it damage society at large in any way. The existence of homosexuals does not harm cis/het people such as myself (or, I assume, yourself) at all, nor does it impact on our happiness in any heterosexual relationships. I struggle to see why you consider homosexuality to be problematic, except as a knee-jerk discriminatory response born of unexamined bigotry.
—————————————————————-
@ 24;
Again, you are misusing the term ‘tenet’ here. You are also ignoring the social bonding function of sexuality in relation to your non-edible food scenario, not too mention that there are species that eat non-metabolisable materials for good survival based reasons, as can be seen in the case of macaws and parrots.
Cancer is caused by a mutation leading to a cell abnormality with clear delterious effects on health and survival. You have failed to demonstrate that homosexuality is in any way comparable.
You assume that the fact that a portion of our species express homosexual orientation is somehow eviudence of something going ‘wrong’ without demosntrating that homosexuality is harmful to either group or individual survival. Again, where is your evidence for this extraordinary claim?
I would also point out that you seem to present homosexuality/heterosexuality as a simple binary, when it has long been recognised that the reality of sexual orientation is far more complex. As long ago as 1948, the Kinsey Scale already aknowledged five gradations, and the understanding of the complexities of human sexual orientation have developed substantially since then.
Frankly, tyrannical, you have no leg to stand on – your arguments are not simply unsupported by evidence, but actively fly in the face of what is known. If you are arguing in good faith, you will recognise that fact. If you are simply a homophobic troll, then kindly collect your crown of decaying porcupines and leave, preferably without leaving backside-marks on our nice, sniny door on your way out…
By that standard, so is the desire for any non-reproductive sex. Do you also believe that enjoying oral sex is a “mental defect”? Should we seek a cure for contraceptive use?
And why do you assume only evolutionarily adaptive behaviours are desirable? You’re posting pseudonymously on a blog, and that’s not going to improve the likelihood of you successfully producing offspring. Is that also a “mental defect”?
(Yes, I’m taking the post seriously. Three strikes and all that.)
Tyrannical, I haven’t had such a good laugh since yesterday afternoon when I found that on Amazon you can get a box of a thousand communion wafers, used, for ten bucks.
Louis gave you a B- for effort because he thinks you’re smart. However, you remind me of something that happened when I was in first grade. I said something brilliant, so the teacher gave me a shiny gold star. The kid next to me also wanted a gold star, so he said the same thing. For some odd reason that he could not comprehend, she did not give him a gold star.
I was going to down-grade that to a D because you cribbed your troll from somewhere else. Dressing it up to look like respectable science is like dressing up a lie to make it look like an opinion. Try to come up with something original next time. The problem is that you came back and whined about all the mean things people said to you, so you get a D-.
Look, kid, if you deliberately step on an ant nest, then you must not complain when ants bite you.
Speaking as one of the diseased, I can assure you that our disease in no way removes the “desire” to reproduce. Homosexuals may wish to reproduce as much as anyone else – it’s just a tad more complicated.
Andrew69
It is certainly debilitating to an individual for reproduction effectiveness, but at these low levels thankfully not threatening to the species. I suspect that homosexuality may have multiple causes and it might not be so simple to deal with. But on the other hand certain unethical East German Olympic hormone treatments of women athletes may indicate that it may be changed.
But the solution for a sexual deviance as with any deviance is not for the majority to be forced to accept a change in social standards.
tyrannical (#29):
Which substituted for “tenets” doesn’t make any sense. What the hell does “the intrinsics of life” mean? It’s an adjective, not a noun.
But changing the terminology doesn’t absolve you of your failure in basic reasoning. You’re appealing to the alleged unnaturalness of homosexuality in order to paint it as something undesirable, and the “unnaturalness” seems to lie in the fact that same-sex sexual activity is not directed towards reproduction. Well, in that case, all non-reproductive sexual activity, irrespective of the genders of the participants, is “unnatural”, and should be eliminated. Ditto for any behaviours which reduce the probability of passing on one’s genes. Are you also against contraception and abortion? If not, why not?
Incidentally, are workers in eusocial insect species defective? They don’t reproduce, so by your lights they must be.
But the big question is: how do you get from the neutral observation of “not geared towards fulfilling a particular biological activity” to the hysterical value judgement of “terrible disease that needs to be eradicated”? Can you not see how vast the logical gap between these two statements is, and how you have done nothing to fill it?
Possibly because of what the speech reveals about the speaker? So far, not much that’s edifying.
That’s kind of funny, given that your “argument” against homosexuality isn’t that different from that of the Catholic Church, since it’s apparently based on a version of Natural Law Theory (i.e., read one’s own prejudices into nature, claim that what one thereby deems to be natural constitutes our purpose, decry anything that is not oriented towards that purpose).
No. I can just about imagine PZ wielding the banhammer if he’s feeling unusually cranky, but I suspect he’s more likely to leave you to be devoured by the Horde. I’ll be back tomorrow to see what’s left.
Wow, an actual totalitarian. We don’t get many of those, at least not ones who are willing to come out and state it. I guess the ‘nym was something of a clue.
tyrannical (#38):
Ah, so the pseudo-biology was just a smokescreen, and you’re really just a standard RWA bigot.
Pooshon
Oh, well then you have my polite compassionate sympathy. It is “complicated” because through natural selection humans have developed behavioral patterns not conducive with your behavior. Also fortunately for the good of the species, homosexuality is negatively selected against.
There are of course socially negative heterosexual practices such as rape, pedophilia, infidelity, or promiscuity.
Snoof
I’m afraid you must have quoted the wrong person, I think you meant cartomancer as forcing people to think or behave someway is the definition of totalitarianism. I merely seek to enlighten people against the social ills of tolerance.
cartomancer
obvious troll is obvious
(Since the other asshole troll is getting bites, I figure I’ll take on this one. It actually wouldn’t surprise me to find out that they’re the same person — they both argue about “forcing/being forced”. Trolling == trolling.)
You seem to be unclear on the concept of “freedom of conscience”. The whole point of the state recognizing marriage is to separate it from the concept of marriage as a religious sacrament.
I’m pretty sure that while Scotland does not have a constitution mandating the separation of church and state, the principle that such separation is generally a good idea is understood and recognized there.
Churches should not be forced to offer their services to anyone at all — their club, their rules. But that of course does not mean that their bigotry should not be recognized and called out — and I’m certainly in favor of calling out that bigotry.
IIRC Tyrannical is a troll from the sciblogs.
BTW, how do you (Tyrannical) feel about the existanceof asexuals? I am quite sure i exist without harming anyone.
> Also fortunately for the good of the species, homosexuality is negatively selected against.
Have you considered that male homosexuality is the result of natural variation and selective pressures to make men get along with one another? No, of course not. You argue a priori that homosexuality is bad.
> There are of course socially negative heterosexual practices such as rape, pedophilia, infidelity, or promiscuity.
And these have what, exactly, to do with your subject, other than to serve as a childish attempt at guilt by association?
None of your supposedly scientific arguments will survive long here … I notice that you have failed to answer the rebuttals in any meaningful way. Your pronouncements have no basis in reality. My own observations show me that you’re wrong in your post-hoc assumptions and your preordained conclusions.
Let’s do a test of reasonableness: is it conceivable that a line of reasoning exists, along with evidence to support it, that would change your mind about homosexuality? Or are you so certain of your beliefs in this matter that no amount of evidence or logic will change your mind?
Fixed that for you.
This is the point where I’d want to Godwin the fuck out of this thread.
@tyrannical
25 July 2012 at 1:28 pm
I would posit that there are other much more harmful social standards that need to be changed. Ones that have a devastating societal wide impact, and some of those are fairly recent to boot.
Given the above, I would argue that suppressing this “sexual deviance” is actually much more harmful than allowing it.
I fail to see how this “sexual deviance”, when allowed to present itself naturally is harmful actually. I can give some “real life in my community” examples where it does not do any harm at all.
Yes I do understand that you believe that the majority are being “forced to accept a change in social standards”, my question is where is the harm?
Can you give some examples where suppressing homosexual expression has shown to be a benefit to society?
Please cite your peer reviewed literature showing that homosexuals are more likely to commit rapes than heterosexuals. Please cite your peer reviewed literature showing that homosexuals are more likely to be pedophiles, and/or act on those urges, than heterosexuals. Same for infidelity or promiscuity.
Please notice, no insults involved. Just asking you to back up your opinions.
Rawnaeris
Sciblogs? Never heard of it. Just go to http://www.rationalskepticism.org and ask a mod who and what I am.
As for asexuals, it is also a defect of course. Though their protests are much less annoying.
Ah, so RatSkep is where I saw you. I knew i recognized your ‘nym.
Eh, you are a known troll and windbag. Fuck off so we can get back to cheering on the decent folk in Scotland.
Or, don’t ask a mod, and judge what you are by your behavior.
You’re an asshole! And a troll!
trolling for lulz is boring troll.
Fixed.
“How dare you insult me for expressing my bigotry!!”
Uhhhhhh…. citations, please.
Those two words do not mean what you think they mean. There is nothing “polite” or “compassionate” about imputing a disorder to people who are healthy.
“One of these things is not like the others…”
Social equality is only for people who don’t annoy you. Got Rationalia.org account?
Yes, your comments are indeed hurtful.
No. But I will tell you that you have spewed some hateful shit on this thread and may well end up getting banned.
Who the fuck cares about “reproduction effectiveness” anyway? It’s not like the world doesn’t have enough people on it already.
BTW, I’m a heterosexual cis-woman who has no interest whatsoever in reproducing. Am I ill, too? Do I need to be “cured”?
Oh what fun to learn that I’m only half a mental defective, what with being bisexual and all :) Does this mean it’s the left half or the right half of my brain that’s fucked up?
Fuckwitical – you really, really, really need to get off the computer and get back to doing your 3rd grade homework before your mommy gets mad at you. You have yet to make a single factually accurate statement, thus demonstrating how ineffective education has been for you.
Maybe if you tried picking up a science book for a change and put down that stupid book of ancient Near Eastern mythology you might learn something useful.
Ogvorbis, I think you misread. The homophobic troll is not claiming homosexuals are more likely to do those things, it is listing examples of stuff heterosexuals do which it also disapproves of.
tyrannical is not making arguments from ancient Near Eastern mythology. tyrannical is making arguments from the naturalistic fallacy, with bits of false equivalence, and a few other fallacies mixed in for good measure.
Because fallacies are totally and .
Sorry. You are correct. Not totally with it today.
Welcome news indeed! Evidence of how much Scotland has changed for the better, at least as far as genuflecting to religious idiocy is concerned, over the past few decades. And thanks to tyrannical for reminding us that there are plenty of fuckwitted bigots who rely on their own misunderstanding of evolutionary biology to support their bigoted fuckwittery. I notice xe has not answered the point about non-reproductive heterosexual activities.
Owlmirror, #45:
Except by the church, yeah.
what make it worth while to try to set tyrannical
straight. He can say anything–anything at all. he is not constrained by the rules of logic or reason or any rules. so he can not be proved wrong except to folks that go with the rules.
tyrannical always wins in this situation because he directs the conversation.
Is it really worth the detour? I want to hear more about Cos etc. but that wont happen if commenters continue to follow tyrannical.
And follow him you MUST because he sets the rules.
RE: Comment 45 –
The issue of marriage as religious sacrament or legal contract is not at issue. That’s not my point. I was discussing marriage as service provision to the public. Thanks to the UK’s enlightened Equality Act that I mentioned (brought in to make us satisfy EU equality law), and especially the 2007 Sexual Orientation regulations, a provider of services to the public is not allowed to discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation (or gender, race, disability status etc.). So the florist who supplies the flowers for the wedding cannot refuse to do so if it is a same-sex wedding, and if they do they have committed a civil offense and can be sued for damages. Likewise with the photographer and the car hire people and the venue hire people for the reception, and the catering and the cake maker and so on. A civil registrar is also legally required not to discriminate. None of these people have “freedom of conscience” under British or EU law where homophobic discrimination is concerned, and nor should they – equality in society is far more important than an individual’s freedom to put their bigotry into practise, and where equality is not freely facilitated it is the role of the state to step in and compel it.
And nor should churches have that freedom either. If a secular service provider is bound by equality laws, there is no reason to allow a religious provider of the same services to be exempt from them. The churches and the government both know that the law would require this, which is why the one has petitioned for and the other cravenly capitulated to it, and promised to amend the Equality Act. Because a church is NOT a private club, it’s a public service provider, a tax-exempt charity, a small business and (in the case of the CofE and CofS) an institution of state. The equality laws do not apply to a group of friends meeting at each other’s houses for a shared hobby, but they very much do apply to what churches do. Why else would they squeal for an exemption in the first place?
Also, there is another double-standard here. There is no exemption from the Equality Act for a church that disagrees with conducting mixed-race marriages, or marrying disabled people, or anyone else. Nobody would even dream of asking for or granting such a thing. A church IS currently compelled to marry such people, and again rightly so. Were this exemption to go ahead then we would be in a situation where all forms of bigoted discrimination are prohibited, with the sole exception of religious homophobia. Secular homophobia is out of bounds, religious misogyny or racism is off the table, but religious homophobia is not merely an acceptable prejudice – it’s a prejudice that is considered so important and special it must be protected by law.
This is not something that can be borne with equanimity. This is not something a civilized nation does.
I love being a statistician.
This is where I get to whip Tyrannical, who claims Science and Reason, who has a degree from His Big Brain with a minor in Google U. However, he is ignorant of things like Data Analysis and actual Statistics, a necessary evil in Data Analysis for most people (and, hey, P-Zed, how about a post about how numbers are necessary in science, and incredibly misunderstood?)
Tyrannical does something I like to call Argument ad Meanium. Which is, the mean (average) is the Absolute Good and variance (aka standard deviation squared) is either absent, utterly misunderstood, or in his case, an Absolute Evil. Incomplete metaphor, but a good one: if you think of a universe as being a huge computer with millions of wires connecting needed components, and outliers being a mere handful of these connections, would you really want to go in there and grab a handful of these outlier components and just yank them out? How about 3-5% of these components? You have NO idea what you are doing to the system, or how it is going to change it. Tyrannical’s call to solve the “debilitating disease” of homosexuality is doing exactly that. In other words, it’s a healthy and necessary variation of a highly complex system. Go take a course in statistics, you ignorant fuck.
Second point: I don’t want your fucking compassion, Tyr. I have a 20-year relationship with a woman (like me) I adore with all my heart and soul. All I want to do is take care of her, me, and our family. When does your argument ad psycho-evo trump our right to the pursuit of happiness? At our level, it makes zero sense. I have as much right to fall in love and marry that person I’ve fallen in love with as anyone else on this planet.
Why should the civilized ones shoo away the uncivilized ones – what would they do for laughs then? Besides, it’s a challenge to educate the uncivilized. I’m looking forward to Caledonia’s political independence; I wish the newspapers would give more details such as how this affects the Act of Union. I hope to see England surrounded by Republics – they can keep their monarchs.
It doesn’t. The UK Government plans to introduce similar laws for England and Wales, and in fact the Scottish Government is discussing with the UK Government how the laws can be introduced at the same time.
@cartomancer,
Tolerance and acceptance would resolve a lot of issues, but for it to work it has to be mutual.
If the priest who is coming to tea tomorrow, assumes that everyone is tolerant of him being a homosexual, it is also entirely fair for me to expect him, and everyone else for that matter, to be tolerant of my being an Atheist.
In a like manner, it is also reasonable for him to assume that I am tolerant of him being religious enough to become a priest, and for his congregation to not care that he has a live-in partner. Certainly my invitation to tea which he accepted, has nothing to do with anything other than I enjoy our discussions.
Fortunately, I do live in a society where not only is this possible, it is also a reality. For most of my country barring some exception, acceptance is the norm, both in urban and rural areas. In Canada, the last poll that I am aware of, 70% of the population indicated that they accept homosexuality.
Tolerance and acceptance works best in my opinion. It is the mark of a civil society.
Oh, I’m all for tolerance and acceptance. I’d like to see a lot more of it everywhere, and fortunately there is already a lot of it about. But not everyone is tolerant and accepting, and not everyone will come to being tolerant and accepting without a push in the right direction. I firmly believe that by making powerful statements to the effect that bigoted discrimination is entirely unacceptable, in whatever sphere and for whatever reason, we Foster a culture of tolerance and acceptance. And law and public policy are just the place to make them.
“you’re allowed to put your homophobic bigotry into practise, but only because you’re religious” does not seem much of a statement of tolerance and acceptance to me.
When one wishes to use the naturalistic fallacy, one should at least make an effort to get the naturalism right, unlike poor, stupid tyrannical (stupidity, incidentally, being a mental defect far more detrimental to survival than homosexuality ever could be).
Point of fact, in the many, many species wherein homosexual activity is observed, not once in any of them has it ever been shown that such activity was detrimental to that individual’s reproductive success. Indeed, in most cases, it benefited that individual’s overall fitness in one way or another.
And human history amply demonstrates as well, that at least for the majority of the time, homosexuals who wanted children did not have much trouble at all in getting them.
Why? Because the rate limiting step in reproduction both from humans and for most other living things is NOT the frequency of mating with a fertile mate, which is the only thing directly affected by homosexual inclinations.
@cartomancer
25 July 2012 at 6:00 pm
However, if the majority of a population are tolerant, my supposition is that institutions like the Church will have no choice but eventually to follow.
Now, the Catholics and most of the other Christian sects have yet to follow the example set by say, the United Church in Canada, but given time they will be “forced” to if they wish to remain relevant.
Laws that prevent discrimination are a step in the right direction, but I would prefer persuasion over being coerced. Mind you, this may be one of those chicken and egg situation, so I can not say I am firmly on one side over the other.
With that said, I certainly do not see groups like for example, the Roman Catholics willing to reform any time soon, no matter what carrots and sticks are deployed.
Amphiox, in any case the existence of social insects (and at least one mammal species) with a sterile worker caste shows that an individual not reproducing does not mean a species will go extinct. After all, from an evolutions perspective, there is no difference between an individual who does not reproduce because they are gay or because they are sterile.
Good news from New Zealand today: a gay marriage private member’s bill has been pulled from the ballot. It will be a conscience vote (so not along party lines), and I think the numbers are there for it to pass. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10822370
Would that it were so.
Religious makeup of Scotland
1. Church of Scotland aka the Kirk – Presbyterian, Calvinist (but generally not extreme since those tend to split off [google ‘wee frees’]). About 42% of the population
2. Non-religious about 27% of the population. This probably explains why Humanist wedding ceremonies are the second most popular non-registry office ceremonies (and registry office weddings the most popular).
3. Catholic Church – around 16%
…
4. The Scottish Episcopal Church (part of the Anglican Communion so the equivalent of the Church of England in Scotland), Around 1% of the population. This church has had some prominent members (or former members) of the hierarchy (e.g., Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow and Richard Holloway former head of the church]) come out in support of at least civil same-sex marriage though they are overall opposed.
cartomancer, I have a question about the new Scottish law. Would this protection for churches to not marry a couple against their wishes permit, say, a hypothetical Metropolitan Community Church to refuse to marry a straight couple on account of their heterosexuality?
tyrannical, let’s see how far your naturalism argument goes. Others have mentioned bees, whose workers are sterile. But let’s look at higher animals. In wolf packs, for example, only the dominant male and female reproduce. The rest contribute to the well-being of the pack buy hunting and helping raise the pups. Do you still stand by your argument that all members of a species must sexually reproduce?
Interesting paper here which tends to support my supposition about the genetics involved in homosexuality, and why it may not be wise to attempt to eliminate it.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/07/25/congratulations-to-the-civilized-scots/
Genetic factors predisposing to homosexuality may increase
mating success in heterosexuals☆
damn, jackiecowie #74 beat me to it.
Excellent that a gay marriage bill is before the New Zealand parliament and it looks like it will quite possibly make it through into law.
Tyrannical, you are just not worth the effort. As someone who you would class as “diseased” and “defective” I lead a fulfilled and productive life.
By assuming the reproduction is the only way we can contribute to life, you reduce us to the level of animals. Human beings are capable of so much more.
As an example Alan Turing, another “diseased” homosexual made more of a change to modern life than many others who reproduce like rabbits, particularly those who educate their offspring to be intolerant and bigoted.
Is it possible that tyrannical is the Pope’s online persona?
Indeed. It would be nice if it could happen by the time I’d be looking at marrying (assuming I want to, of course), because I like thinking of myself as deserving the same rights as everyone else here.
Failing that, I’ll just get married in Scotland.
England and Wales are likely to introduce same-sex marriage at the same time as Scotland, or soon after.
True, although Scotland has been more definitive about doing it, so I’d think that even if MPs for England and Wales failed to get it through, Scotland would go ahead with it.
(It seems that I spend far too much time figuring out contingencies for bad/worse/worst-case scenarios. I think this might be a side effect of being both a closeted queer and a closeted atheist with really rather Christian parents.)
I think there will no problem getting same-sex marriage legislation through the Commons, even if the majority of Tory MPs vote against it. There would be enough Tory MPs in favour, along with Lib-Dems and Labour MPs (nearly all of whom will vote in favour) for it to pass. The problem might come in the Lords, although the make-up of the Lords has changed since civil partnership legislation was debated there. A fair few of the bigots in that debate either lost their seat when most hereditaries were kicked out, or are dead.
tyrannical (#43):
Behavioural patterns like reinforcing in-group cohesiveness by labelling minorities and other out-groups as “defective”, you mean?
Is it? Do you have evidence of this? The fact that homosexuals are a minority in the population doesn’t actually support this. It could equally be the case that a more or less constant proportion of homosexual individuals is preserved in the population by means of balancing selection. Which is what you’d expect if something like the kin selection explanation of homosexuality was true, or if (as suggested by AndrewV69 at #78) the same genes that predispose towards homosexuality also confer reproductive advantages in other contexts.
Also, who gives a shit about the “good of the species”? A species is just a population of individuals, and the only relevant “good” is what is good for the individual members.
mikee (#80):
tyrannical and Ratzinger may share a tendency towards ill-considered, stupid and bigoted public pronouncements, but sadly they’re not alone.
FFS, Link fail. Anyone interested in reading the paper may find it here:
http://www2.psy.uq.edu.au/~zietsch/Zietsch_et_al_2008_Evolution_of_homosexuality.pdf
Ick. AndrewV69, proud slimepitter and MRA, with in.malafide in his email address? No. Just no. Fuck off.