Family Values Still Threaten GOP

[Wolf DeVoon]

The law was designed to serve morality

I'll make you a deal. Somewhere on this board there is a way to block morons. I will endeavor to find it.

[william.scherk]

The law was designed to serve morality

I'll make you a deal. Somewhere on this board there is a way to block morons. I will endeavor to find it.

You can find the tool by clicking your name in the upper right of your forum window, and the link below should work for you too. I shall consult the Supreme Being about doing the same thing.

• Manage Ignore Prefs

[PDS]

The law was designed to serve morality

I'll make you a deal. Somewhere on this board there is a way to block morons. I will endeavor to find it.

You can find the tool by clicking your name in the upper right of your forum window, and the link below should work for you too. I shall consult the Supreme Being about doing the same thing.

• Manage Ignore Prefs

I owe you one, Bill. Thanks.

[Brant Gaede]

Many people confuse morality and legal rights.

The law was designed to serve morality which is greater than itself. And as more and more people become immoral, there needs to be more and more laws to restrict their immorality for the protection of society...

...but what happens when society itself becomes immoral?

"All bets are off."

Greg

Uh, try fewer and fewer laws. The idea that laws are necessarily beneficent is intellectual and cultural hog-swill.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Send me 2 50 bucks and I won't quote him.

--Brant
blackmail, extortion (I take PayPal)--call me "ruthless"

[moralist]

Many people confuse morality and legal rights.

The law was designed to serve morality which is greater than itself. And as more and more people become immoral, there needs to be more and more laws to restrict their immorality for the protection of society...

...but what happens when society itself becomes immoral?

"All bets are off."

Greg

Uh, try fewer and fewer laws. The idea that laws are necessarily beneficent is intellectual and cultural hog-swill.

--Brant

I agree about more laws not necessarily being more beneficial for a nation...even though they have little effect on my own personal life, and I'm pretty much free to do just about anything I want.

The amount of laws necessary to govern people's behavior is directly proportional to the failure of people to govern their own behavior. The US government is granted the sanction to punish people by their own failure to govern themselves. And so it does with great abandon... which perfectly matches peoples' dereliction of duty in properly ordering their own lives.

Even these guys knew that they designed the American system of government for decent people:

"Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt."

--Sam Adams

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

--Ben Franklin

"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains."

--Patrick Henry

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

--John Adams

There. Now you don't need to take my word for it.

Greg

[moralist]

The law was designed to serve morality

I'll make you a deal. Somewhere on this board there is a way to block morons. I will endeavor to find it.

You can find the tool by clicking your name in the upper right of your forum window, and the link below should work for you too. I shall consult the Supreme Being about doing the same thing.

• Manage Ignore Prefs

That's actually an excellent idea, William...

It will protect you from becoming emotionally offended from reading words with which you do not agree and yet will still allow you the freedom to discuss anything else with anyone else.

Greg

[Ed Hudgins]

To Wolf DeVoon and perhaps a few others, I recently produced a book, The Republican Party’s Civil War: Will Freedom Win? It was referenced in my family values piece and recently offered as a free Kindle download, advertised on another thread. I believe you can see it free on some Kindle loan plan.

In the book, I document the decline of the religious right as a portion of the voting population and the growth in importance of other groups not sympathetic in to the GOP. I review the pros and cons of the Libertarian Party. I make a direct appeal to social conservatives. And I offer tips on how to seize the moral high ground.

I won’t simply re-post my book here but rely on those who want to speak from knowledge rather out of their butts to review my data and discussion.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Thank you for the suggestion. I always speak out of my butt.

[Brant Gaede]

Greg, sans reason you are a tautology with your thoughts and ideas chasing themselves around in a circle. This is completely antithetical to what goes on on OL and to why I am here.

--Brant

thanks and adios

[Brant Gaede]

Thank you for the suggestion. I always speak out of my butt.

I thought you confined that to Greg.

--Brant

live and learn

[moralist]

Thank you for the suggestion. I always speak out of my butt.

I thought you confined that to Greg.

--Brant

live and learn

That is the one quality all of us share...

...subjectivity.

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

Thank you for the suggestion. I always speak out of my butt.

I thought you confined that to Greg.

--Brant

live and learn

I was being polite.

Ed reminds me of Tibor Machan. When Machan found himself losing a debate on my patio, he thundered: "I've written 20 books!"

That was 15 years ago and he's since written another 20 books, so Tibor Machan is obviously twice as right now.

Ed posted an article at the top of this thread. Pointing to a book does not make the article different.

[Brant Gaede]

I never read any of Tibor's books. I found them over-priced, like they were college textbooks that way. I've avoided a lot--not all--of Thomas Szaz's books for the same reason. Szaz was brilliant in a logically deductive way. That was Rand's strength, too. Both suffered from lack of any touch with rigorous empiricism. Believe it or not, Szaz equated depression with feeling "sad," as if that were the whole ball of wax.

Rand was more sophisticated about blowing off people than Machan, who won't post anywhere anyone takes a serious issue with him. I never had any contact or dealings with him. People like that--Rand, Machan, Peikoff--can't function in a posting, Internet environment of give and take. Harry Binswanger has simply isolated himself on his own, special, private list so it's no wonder his infrequent public representations are frequently embarassing. Nothing matches up with Peikoff on the O'Reilly show, though, when the host with good reason compared him to "Dr. Strangelove." Since Peikoff is much, much smarter than O'Reilly, it points out the danger of giving philosophical dogmatism its head.

--Brant

what went on with Rand in the 1960s, especially, seems to be of the order of crowding out any possible head to head competition: she only accepted psychology because she thought it inferior to philosophy: she was the philosopher and Nathaniel was the psychologist and thus one big step below her (including in their personal, sexual relationship) even though he was authorized to speak for her on any subject; the libertarians were run out of town, so to say and the conservatives all but sneered at, with the liberals treated best

[moralist]

It is in this context that Ed Hudgins proposes to kick Evangelical Christians out of the Republican Party, as if their moral objection to abortion and gay marriage was fatal to our future "safety and happiness." In reality, nothing can be done to reverse the slide to tyranny at this stage of our history. A majority of voters are deaf to reason.

If there is to be any hope for the Republican party it has to learn how to become an inclusive coalition of disparate groups willing to set aside lesser dogmatic issues to unite for the sake of a greater good. Ideological purity is political suicide.

Look how the left has been able to unite the wide variety of government dependent failures and every kind of indecent profane perverted immoral group you could possibly imagine under their banner. And it has all of them mobilized in the same direction. That is one key to their political success. The other is all of their bets have been placed on the demise of American values in our society...

...and so far they're winning.

Greg

[PDS]

Praise be!

The ignore function works!!

[Brant Gaede]

Which party do you think they vote for, dear?

I understand that people sometimes vote in a way that you don't agree with.

But you didn't answer the question. Is it acceptable to disenfranchise someone because they might vote for policies that violate the individual rights of others?

EDIT: And don't call me "dear".

Not speaking for Wolf and his supposed and possible condescension, but if you put up an avatar of a doll-faced child that might explain some of it. I mean, you aren't ten years old but the avatar belies it.

Of course addressing a child this way is problematic too, but the child is addressed on the level of a child's level of comprehension just as a baby gets baby-talked to for essentially the same reason: his learning--but you seem to be here only to teach and that would seem to be the deep heart of how others react to you for they get, albeit implicitly, that they have nothing for you except as terminuses for your thoughts and knowledge as opposed to any natural give and take.

--Brant

I do the same thing quite often, but manage to slip it in with more sophistication taking advantage of the fact it's common, so we ("The Most") tend to dress it up quite well

[moralist]

Not speaking for Wolf and his supposed and possible condescension, but if you put up an avatar of a doll-faced child that might explain some of it. I mean, you aren't ten years old but the avatar belies it.

Role playing is a common internet practice because of online anonymity. Even gender cannot be taken for granted. In the upside down backwards morality of the virtual gaming world, deceit is regarded as a virtue.

Greg

[anthony]

Not speaking for Wolf and his supposed and possible condescension, but if you put up an avatar of a doll-faced child that might explain some of it. I mean, you aren't ten years old but the avatar belies it.

Role playing is a common internet practice because of online anonymity. Even gender cannot be taken for granted. In the upside down backwards morality of the virtual gaming world, deceit is regarded as a virtue.

Greg

True, Greg. As the one place it might be advantageous to be dishonest-but for the extreme short-term. I wonder how one can continue to distinguish online from 'real' life after a while, and when the dishonesty spills over into one's life.

[moralist]

Not speaking for Wolf and his supposed and possible condescension, but if you put up an avatar of a doll-faced child that might explain some of it. I mean, you aren't ten years old but the avatar belies it.

Role playing is a common internet practice because of online anonymity. Even gender cannot be taken for granted. In the upside down backwards morality of the virtual gaming world, deceit is regarded as a virtue.

Greg

True, Greg. As the one place it might be advantageous to be dishonest-but for the extreme short-term. I wonder how one can continue to distinguish online from 'real' life after a while, and when the dishonesty spills over into one's life.

I believe that deceit is a lot more prevalent on the internet because, being a virtual world, consequences are diminished. A person can surface with one fake identity, disappear, and reappear using another entirely different fake identity.

Spill over is an appropriate description. If someone employs deceit on the internet, they would also be a liar in the real world.

Greg

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Why would anybody want to pay $10 a year of tax in order to be able to vote when the most they can get from the government is about $10 before losing the right to vote?

While we're on the subject, I'd like to expound a little further on the beauty of my idea: Only people that pay in at least as much as they get from the government shall be allowed to vote.

Let's say that the productive members of society got fed up with paying taxes to people that were loafing around and abolished all of the welfare programs including Social Security. Then, since none of those people would be receiving anything from the government in the way of handouts, suddenly they would be able to vote. So, there would be an incentive to give moochers at least a little in order to prevent them from gaining political power.

Once the moochers got the right to vote, they could vote themselves large benefits, but if they did, they would once again lose the right to vote. So, there would be a built in incentive for them to vote for only modest benefits for themselves. If they did enough work, they could potentially keep the right to vote. And, at any rate, they would know that they would be at the mercy of the productive people once they could no longer vote.

Of course, there are other incentives for productive people to maintain programs like Social Security. After all, they will retire some day and may want a minimum guaranteed income in their later years. However, they would be less likely to greedily vote themselves large benefits because they would know that they wouldn't be able to vote to keep them later and would be at the mercy of the producers once they retired.

The result would not be to eliminate all government aid for the poor, but to keep the amount manageable. The same would be true of pensions.

Government handouts would become more like charity. A person cannot go to a charity and demand a certain benefit. It is up to the charity to determine how much to grant him. The same would be true under my voting scheme.

Darrell

I don't think I was being as clear as I thought.

If you can't get more from the government than what you pay in, then why bother having a government at all? If this rule could actually be implemented, then participating in politics would be as stupid as buying a $10 bill for $20.

[Darrell Hougen]

Darrell reacts to my suggestion that if his theory is correct (homosexuality is clearly a conscious choice), then all things being equal he should be able to find evidence in the world to support his theory. He disputes this on several grounds.

I didn't dispute the notion that there is evidence in the world for choice. There is plenty of evidence in the world for choice. I disputed the claim that there would necessarily be a lot of scientific studies supporting (or contradicting) choice.

I note again that in attempting to prove one's assumptions it is necessary to devise a test or series of tests that challenge the assumptions. One seeks to falsify the hypothesis.

So, I have to ask Darrell -- what would tend to falsify your theory to your own satisfaction?

I alluded to what I would consider a satisfactory evidence for choice or the lack thereof, but allow me to be more specific. If a twin study were to show a high level of concordance between the behaviors or appropriately recorded feelings of identical twins raised in the same home, then I would accept that I was probably wrong.

Allow me to elaborate. There are basically five populations that one could test, (1) identical twins raised in the same home, (2) identical twins raised in different homes (i.e., separated at birth), (3) non-identical siblings raised in the same home, (4) non-identical siblings raised apart, and (5) people in the general population.

If sexual orientation were genetic, one would expect groups (1) and (2) to both demonstrate a high level of concordance. That is, whenever one sibling was found to be homosexual, the other would also. One could devise a Neyman-Pearson confidence interval for the null hypothesis that sexual orientation is genetic versus the alternative hypothesis that it is not genetic. One would expect the null hypothesis to be confirmed at the 95% level, if not the 99% level.

Similarly, if sexual orientation were environmental, one would expect groups (1) and (3) to both demonstrate a high level of concordance.

If sexual orientation were a combination of genetic and environmental factors, one would expect group (1) to demonstrate a high level of concordance. Groups (2) and (3) would demonstrate lower levels of concordance.

Groups (4) and (5) are required for the derivation of Neyman-Pearson confidence intervals. For example, if 10% of people in the general population spend at least 3 years of their lives pursuing exculsively homosexual relationships, then if we randomly select persons "A" and "B", since those selections are indendent, if "A" is gay (according to our definition), the probability of "B" being gay would still be 10%, because the sexual orientation of "A" would not influence the sexual orientation of "B". That kind of knowledge must be figured into the derivation of the confidence intervals.

Of course, one could also test the hypothesis that homosexuality is purely a matter of choice. That is something that I have never claimed, but one could, nevertheless, test that hypothesis. So, one could create confidence intervals for the distributions of people from groups (1) through (4) and test to see whether they are any more likely to be concordant than people drawn at random from the general population. If they are, then one should be able to reject the null hypothesis, which in this case is the claim that homosexuality is purely a matter of choice at the 95% confidence level, assuming sufficient data are available.

I am aware of some of the empirical evidence.

[...]

The problem with looking for evidence of choice is that most scientists begin their studies with a preconceived notion that there is only nature and nurture, that humans have no capacity to make choices.

[...]

But, if that is the starting point of a scientific study, how is the scientist ever going to find evidence for choice?

I have to unpack your assumptions, first of all. I do not dispute a generalization that "humans have capacity to make choices." I just do not see support for your notion that homosexuality is the product of conscious choice in each individual. In any case the generalization is so broad as to be meaningless. The very question is not whether human beings make conscious choices, but whether human beings -- all of them -- make a conscious choice to be heterosexual or homosexual (or bisexual). If one puts it in a form that can be tested or verified or supported by research, we get "Is homosexuality generally a matter of conscious choice?"

Evasion of conscious choice is also a conscious choice. It is the choice to unfocus one's mind when a matter of critical importance must be examined.

It is not obvious that "most scientists begin their studies with a preconceived notion that there is only nature and nurture" on the subject of homosexuality. It makes no sense to bifurcate using terms that you do not yourself use. You use 'choice' not nurture, and so the corollary pole in the continuum would be 'non-choice' not 'nature.'

Yes, the opposite of choice is non-choice. But, non-choice can be divided into two parts, nature and nurture, or genetics and environmental factors, if you like.

But let's remember where you are starting from.

If -- as you assert, Darrell -- each individual makes a conscious choice to be homosexual -- how would you know if your contention is wrong? There must be some evidence, counter-evidence, that would overturn your theory. I ask, what would that be? I would also like to know at what time in development you think that homosexuals are pre-homosexual, meaning at what age does any sort of sexuality choice first emerge? Your theory is opaque on these details so far.

Choice begins to emerge as childhood play, but becomes important as sexual urges begin to emerge. As a child playing "house" a person may imagine the kind of life he or she wishes to lead, the role that he or she will play, and may think about or discuss such things as the number of children he or she wishes to have. However, it is when the urge to date someone of the opposite sex or the urge to kiss one's best same-sex friend or to tell that person that you love them that the need to make choices becomes a pressing issue.

Another door to answering your question about conscious choice is to ask homosexuals and lesbians themselves about choice. You might argue that I myself did in the past make a conscious choice to be homosexual. Same with Reidy. You might ask of the bisexual OLer, Brant the same, and also ask the one or two others here who have noted their homosexuality.

I think you would agree that if your theory is correct, and that it applies to all sexual beings, then it would logically apply to me, Reidy, Brant, Stephen B. If it turns out that none of us gays/bisexuals reports a conscious choice to be non-heterosexual, how would you adjust your theory accordingly? I imagine you might say that each of us is misremembering -- in hindsight -- or that each of us is lying or misrepresenting our actual development, or even that you know the hearts and minds of others much better than they do!

That question could be extended as a research question: how many gays and lesbians report a 'conscious choice' of their sexuality? How many heterosexuals report a 'conscious choice' of their sexuality?

Unfortunately, I don't think that this would be a very accurate method of getting to the facts. For one, I don't think that most people really understand the issue of choice. What is choice? I also think that homosexuals tend to be very evasive about this issue. Not all. Some are happy with their choice and willing to defend it as the right choice for them. I don't know whether it is because many gays aren't happy with their lives or because they fear social condemnation or both, but in my opinion, this whole notion that homosexuality is not a choice was concocted to avoid having to confront the correctness of that choice, either introspectively or when dealing with others.

Now, another thing that stands out in your discussion is how you adopted the theory of Greg's. He is straightforward: Child Sexual Abuse is the Foundation of homosexuality.

I never adopted Greg's theory.

This theory is in opposition to yours, no? Which makes me wonder why you wrote this:

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say it is the foundation, but it does seem to play a large role. In a recent interview, Camile Paglia talked about homosexuality and mentioned her observation that most male homosexuals come from messed up families. A relative of mine announced that he was gay a couple of years after his father died and a friend of my son announced that he was gay a few years after his parents divorced.

You say that Child Sexual Abuse of boys and girls seems to play a large role in the development of homosexuality. What I don't understand is how you keep both balls in the air. Your variable is conscious choice, Greg's is child sexual abuse. If Greg's theory is "largely true" then it upsets your own theory, no?

As for the rest of the paragraph, 'messed up families' does not mean child sexual abuse, nor does a father's death constitute child sexual abuse, nor does a divorce indicate child sexual abuse.

The second part of the paragraph isn't related to the first part. Sorry, if that was confusing. I should have said, "in addition, ..."

[... ]

In any case, I still entertain your theory, and am willing to test it against my own life-course. Given what you believe are causative (now an unwieldy amalgam of child sexual abuse, troubled families, divorce, death of loved ones, unspecified trauma), could anything I tell you about my own sexual development change your theory?

I'm always willing to listen, but I wouldn't expect you to talk about your personal experiences in a public forum.

Besides, in today's political climate, any scientist that entertains the notion that homosexuals have choices is likely to be branded a bigot and a homophobe.

Well, this strikes me as special pleading. You have claimed not that homosexuals have choices, but that a conscious choice resulted in each/most homosexual's adult orientation. You haven't presented any hard evidence to support the claim. The special pleading suggests that you will cannot find evidence in support of your theory in any of the vast literature, because the scientific enterprise is corrupt. Again the cart leads your horse.

I presented twin studies.

Look at the politics surrounding global warming funding and publication of unpopular results. The results is that there might or might not be a significant amount of scientific literature on sexual choice. You can't say it must exist. That's a non-sequitur.

I can say it must exist in the people you are talking about, Darrell! If you theory is correct, then I made a conscious choice of sexuality. In other words, your theory predicts that gay people will report "choice" and never "non-choice." Why not test your prediction? Are you afraid of being wrong on this issue? I would hate to think that an Objectivish person would not put his own notions to a rational test.

My theory doesn't predict what gay people will report.

[...]

So, it becomes an appeal to common sense. If identical twins don't behave identically, then homosexuality is not merely genetic.

You are misstating the research. There is no 100% concordance between identical twins/identical sexual orientation. That does not mean there is no genetic contribution to homosexuality. As for "merely genetic" -- no one is arguing so far that homosexuality is due only to genes.

I never claimed that their was "no genetic contribution to homosexuality." I only claimed that choice is also involved.

[...]

Greg is trying to attribute homosexual behavior to environmental factors. However, we've seen counter examples for his theory. So, if it's not genetic and it's not environmental, what does that leave?

Bullshit, Darrell, seriously. Greg does not posit some fluffy 'environmental factors,' he clearly states Child Sexual Abuse as the foundation of homosexuality.

Now, about 'genetic' -- you don't seem willing to explore beyond a simplistic model. Some genetic contributions to homosexuality have been discovered, although as you point out, particular genes are not 100% determinative. If you insist upon your own terminology of choice/non-choice, and also if you use the unhelpful nature/nurture distinction, there is much you have not noted or accounted for.

Look at it this way: genes are considered only part of what comes under the rubric natural/non-choice. Your theory still needs to account for other plausible non-choice processes. Maybe the extended theory would account for heritability by saying there is none, account for epigenetic factors (they are meaningless), it may account for anti-natal hormone effects (irrelevant), and it may account for other areas of study (politically-tainted). The male-brain/female brain/homosexual brain (formed by choice). Etcetera.

You might even account for early 'indicators' of future homosexuality in children, the so-called gender-nonconforming behaviour. I would expect you to assert that young Timmy femme-job and young Trixie butchgirl's non-conforming behaviour is not a predictor of adult homosexuality.

My claim is not that environmental factors have no predictive value. My claim is that all genetic and environmental factors, taken together, still are insufficient to absolutely predict sexual orientation. Such factors influence the choices that people make, but they do not make the choices.

One of the ways humans survive is by imitating other humans. If a person sees another person doing something, the natural question is, should I be doing the same thing? Well, if I can't subject the actions of the other person to any sort of internal criticism because that would make me a bigot and a homophobe, then how am I supposed to determine whether or not I should be imitating that person?

This is just garble. Imitation of what, sexual feeling? A person sees another person experiencing sexual feelings? How does the first person peer into the mind of the other person and accurately describe their sexual feelings?

Let's say you are the first person, Person A. You want to survive. Right. You see by occult means person B doing something interior to themselves (having homosexual thoughts and desires). You then subject yourself to a natural question: "should I also have homosexual thoughts and desires?"

Then you want to subject B to internal criticism, whatever the heck that means. There is Person A having homosexual desire (maybe expressing it to you in stark behavioural terms, like rubbing your crotch or saying, "I'll give you a blowjob, Darrell. I'd really really like to. I am attracted to you"). Or maybe you observe B having sexual intercourse with person C. Whatever, you have Person B's thoughts or behaviours revealed to you.

If I read your scenario correctly, after this kind of assay or initial assessment you then would subject the homosexual behaviour/thought to some murky thing called "internal criticism."

How would this work in the real world?

I'm glad you asked, because that gets us into a discussion of what emotions really are. Human emotions are the feelings that accompany a person's conscious thought processes. Everything that a person thinks, everything that he imagines, every concept that he forms or considers generates an internal emotional response. An emotion is a response to an evaluation of the contents of consciousness. Is the thing that I'm imagining good for me or not? Is it a pressing matter? Is it clear and comprehensible or is it confusing? Does it satisfy certain needs? Does it involve risk? All such considerations and many more color our emotional responses.

Emotions must be distinguished from urges or whims which may pop up suddenly without conscious effort. Urges or whims are like pre-emotions; unexamined feelings. In this context, there is a difference between the urge to do something and the desire to do something. A desire, being an emotion, represents the final decision that a person makes before acting. A person always acts on his desire and never contrary to it. However, he may act contrary to his urges. I realize this is not standard usage, but it makes discussions of emotions clearer.

For example, consider a person who has an urge to eat ethylene glycol (anti-freeze). Supposedly, it is sweet tasting, so it would be natural to have an urge to eat it. However, after considering the fact that ethylene glycol is poisoness, the urge goes away and a rational person has no desire to eat it. The same cannot be said for a dog. A dog lacks a human's conceptual mechanism and so will act on its urge to eat the sweet tasting poison and die.

The example demonstrates the difference between an urge and a desire and also shows that a desire is the result of a conscious, conceptual thought process, and is not merely a response to a stimulus.

Many such examples exist demonstrating the conceptual nature of human emotional responses as related to many different emotions and I may share more of them in the future as I have time.

[...]

Should I just leave it up to my feelings? Is reason banned from the domain of sexual orientation or sexual choices? To me, that sounds like a prescription for personal disaster.

I would suggest that you long ago left it up to your feelings. You felt a strong attraction to the female. Your object choices of fantasy were based on the female form. Breasts were exciting, as was the curve of a woman's haunches, her feminine face, etcetera.

I would think you might apply reason after the fact. Since you didn't and don't feel any attraction to males at puberty or any time beyond, then there was no conscious choice necessary.

Of course, I would change what I have said above if you actually had ambivalent sexual feelings, attraction to both genders, and you have struggled with your choice in terms of sexual behaviour (indulging your bisexuality would destroy your marriage, etc).

Maybe I read you entirely wrong, but the only way your argument makes sense is if you struggled with bisexual orientation and decided that you would never let your homosexual feeling, urges, desires become actual homosexual behaviour. You may be somewhere in the middle of the Kinsey scale. You noted to Jonathan that most homosexuals have had at least one sexual encounter with the opposite sex, thus it would be wrong to think that anyone would be repulsed by the idea of same-sex encounters in the straight population.

Are you maybe reading too much from your own particular life choices, Darrell? If you as a young teen or young man consciously weighed the options and rejected expressing your male/male sexual attraction, choosing a future happy monogamous straight marriage to channel your urges over a disastrous gay life -- then how would your bisexual orientation unexpressed speak to homosexuals and lesbians?

All in all, you seem to be telling me something about myself that isn't true.

For me, it wasn't so much a struggle as a question mark that required an answer.

Darrell

[Wolf DeVoon]

Homosexuality has been relentlessly pitched for 50 years in film and literature. Big surprise, now it's the default sexuality.

The Leather Boys (1964)
The Producers (1968)
The Killing of Sister George (1968)
The Gay Deceivers (1969)
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Staircase (1969)
Entertaining Mr Sloane (1970)
Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Something For Everyone (1970)
The Boys In The Band (1970)
Pink Narcissus (1971)
Some of My Best Friends Are (1971)
Cabaret (1972)
Deliverance (1972)
Pink Flamingos (1972)
A Very Natural Thing (1974)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Norman, Is That You? (1976)
The Ritz (1976)
Sebastiane (1976)
Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn (1977 - TV movie)
Desperate Living (1977)
Word Is Out (1977)
La Cage aux Folles (1978)
Gay USA (1978)
Cruising (1980)
La Cage aux Folles II (1980)
Zorro, The Gay Blade (1981)
Forty Deuce (1982)
Victor Victoria (1982)
Another Country (1984)
Before Stonewall (1984)
La Cage aux Folles 3 (1984)
The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
Buddies (1985)
An Early Frost (1985)
Kiss of The Spider Woman (1985)
As Is (1986 - TV)
Mala Noche (1986)
Parting Glances (1986)
Law of Desire (1987)
Three Bewildered People in the Night (1987)
Maurice (1987)
Prick Up Your Ears (1987)
Withnail and I (1987)
'68 (1988)
The Everlasting Secret Family (1988)
The Fruit Machine (1988)
Fun Down There (1988)
Liberace: Behind the Music (1988)
Looking for Langston (1988)
Torch Song Trilogy (1988)
Coming Out (1989)
Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989 - TV)
Longtime Companion (1989)
The Long Weekend O' Despair (1989)
Tongues Untied (1989)
The Garden (1990)
Resident Alien (1990)
Rock Hudson (1990)

and blah blah blah ... it gets worse, obviously

[moralist]

Darrell, thanks for being so clear when others try to argue with you over my view as if you also held it. When you're already giving such a good account of your own view, I'm glad you aren't allowing them to cloud the issue by conflating our two views.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

How many movies have been made in the last 50 years? 20,000?

WTF?

--Brant

this thread revels in various levels or types of ignorance maintaintained by some layers of thought and knowledge generalized as a stupid mess