"It is not normal" - So what? Why should anything that is outside the average be forbidden? If you want to forbid something, you need to prove that it is harmful.
"It is bad for children to grow up in a same-sex family" - We accept single-parent families. It won't harm if a kid has two loving mothers instead of one.
"It is against God's wishes" - God has been a bit careless, and has left His words open to many interpretations. Hard to say which one is correct.
"It is against nature" - You can't base your morals on things that happen in nature. Cannibalism, rape and infanticide are also natural, and even logically justifiable.
"The purpose of marriage is to have children and raise them" - Same-sex couples can also have children (or adopt them). Besides, women who are past their reproductive age are still allowed to marry, and divorce is not mandatory if a couple is infertile.
The only real reason that I can see is that you, as a conservative, do not like things to change too fast. Conservatives fear that fast change will damage the fabric of society, and lead to catastrophe. And same-sex marriage is so far outside "normal" (or what you have been brought up to see as normal) that you do not like it, instinctively.
If it is harmful to teach heterosexually-oriented kids that homosexuality is acceptable, then it is also harmful to teach homosexually-oriented children that heterosexuality is the only option.
BTW, if you think that kids can be made to doubt their orientation by "propaganda":
Wsinda you make some astute points but for the record, I am not against gay people having the same rights as straight couples. they already have that in CA.
I am conservative, obviously, and I do worry that the attitudes and values of heavily populated yet isolated pockets (such as San Francisco) which I consider to be wrong and possibly damaging will be forced upon the traditional communities of CA.
I don't feel too strongly about religious references, I would rather base my argument on traditional values of the majority of CA voters (as of 2000, we'll see if they hold now)
I am worried that there will be teachers in CA who will try to influence their students into feeling a particular way about homosexuality. I see it everyday in my school. We only watch liberal documentaries; We were forced to attend a anti-global warming rally; The school gives money to the gay-straight alliance to hold events but not to the Young Republicans, who have the same number of members; Teachers discourage students from applying to conservative colleges, yet heap praise upon less prestigious liberal arts colleges; We only have liberal speakers visit the school, so I was denied for trying to schedule a local conservative to speak to our class, etc.
Because of the left-leaning tendencies of CA teachers, I worry that some students who ask the teacher about conflicting feelings they are having will be convinced that they are gay when that may not be the case. I'm not sure that would happen in any of your schools, but it is a valid concern in regards to the schools I have attended in California.
Becky you mention that the term "gay agenda" confuses you. In CA, the pro-gay groups have been criticized for essentially hijacking the black civil rights movement, which has already been taken over by feminist groups. The end result is preferential treatment of those groups. minorities say, "we have been oppressed for hundreds of years, we deserve to have preferential treatment in the workplace" Women have said, "We slaved in the kitchen for centuries, there should be quotas defining the minimum number of women in executive positions" How long before, in the course of civil rights activism do gay people say, "we were repressed for decades, we deserve equal representation in schools and the military despite the fact that we are a minority group smaller than any other in the state." (not that I have any problem with gays in the military, that is just an example of special treatment)
How exactly is this going to be accomplished - gay thought police busting in on homes and forcing kids to read Amistead Maupin's "Tales Of The City"?
Even if your claims of being "forced" to watch "liberal" documentaries and attend global warming rallies (is the trouble our environment is in is some kooky hippy hoax - wtf?) and your other paranoid-sounding claims of leftiness hold up to scrutiny, NOONE is forcing you to believe anything or think a certain way. Perhaps if you quit reading World Net Daily you'd realise you have the right to disagree with your teachers and voice your opinion and noone is going to take that away from you - not the Democrats, not your teachers, not the entire population of the Castro district. A "No" vote on Prop 8 will not be the start of some lefty/gay/hippie slippery slope to Democrat-led fascism. Seriously, get a grip - in the last 8 years your beloved conservatives have done more to harm the rights of the US population than any president in the preceding 230+ years (PATRIOT Act, Gitmo, constant illegal surveillance to name but a handful)! But as usual, the American right is trying its level best to scare the absolute crap out of everyone in an attempt to make them vote Republican.
Hell, when you've destroyed the economy, abandoned critical infrastructure, dissolved pretty much all international goodwill, allowed millions of jobs to be outsourced overseas and made your country both an international pariah & a laughing stock (no mean feat - heckuva job, Bushie/Palin) and then chosen some halfwit anti-science, anti-FACT You-betcha Barbie as your Vice Presidential nominee, I guess all you can do is ramp up the paranoia and scare up some votes. "The terrorists/gays/liberals/black supremacists are coming! Only if you vote Republican will you be saved!" Humbug.
By the way, the phrase "liberal arts" does NOT mean politically liberal, like the whole college is one big year-long naked gay Woodstock. "Liberal arts" is just a collective term meaning areas of social & natural sciences, fine arts, literature, languages, history, philosophy and the humanities, as opposed to something like a law, med or business school. That is, generally, their focus is less on occupational & professional skills and more on intellectual skills. I see the term "liberal arts" frequently used, through ignorance more than anything, as disparaging or even insulting. "Liberal" does not necessarily mean left-wing, in the context of liberal arts it simply means "broad". It's apolitical. I'm sure there are plenty of conservatives studying the humanities, physics, biology, history, French. Well, maybe not French ...
But hey, it's California. Of course, given CA's reputation, you'd expect teachers there to encourage a broader intellectual education to school-leavers before encouraging them to hit business school straight after graduation. But still, noone says you have to agree with them. They're not the freaking Thought Police and you can do what you want! Enough with the paranoid hysteria from the GOP. The Democrats aren't going to force you to get gay-married, listen to Hendrix, wear rainbow kaftans and go to Brown to study "Life-Drawing & Recruiting 1st Graders To The Gay Army 101". You wanna go to Harvard, go to freakin Harvard. Or Jerry Falwell's laughable Liberty "University" if that floats your Ark ...
I think that it is better to teach using actions rather then words. Instead of learning about sex, 16yr old and above students should actually practice it in school. You would just pick whether you wanted to have sex with someone of the same gender or not. Anyway, it burns calories.
That is very true. If anything, it would be facist to vote for this propsition as it would give the government more control.
That's probably true. There is little difference between conservatives and liberals anyway in terms of which is more "communist" or socialist. They both are equally socialist, and wish to increase the control that the government has. Just in different areas.
So, when the sunscreen lotion bottle says "apply liberally", it doesn't mean rub it on the back of a liberal?
Well, no-one can lose any right unless the constitution is amended. I believe that schools should provide an optional sexual education program in which they can include anything they want to teach, as long as all the materials to be used in the class are shown to the parents who would then sign a form to allow their child to participate. That's how it currently works in many schools.
Anyway, just as there is no law stopping you from instilling your values into your children, there is no law that says that the schools cannot teach your children about homosexuals.
its not me I'm worried about hank. I am old enough to make my own decisions. Young children are not.
Don't try to change this discussion into a bush-bashing session. Thats not what we're talking about. I'd like to keep this narrow and specific to homosexuality in california. Your words are a lot harsher than any i have used in this discussion. That, and going off topic to bash my political views makes you look very angry indeed.
I realize that liberal arts doesn't mean politically liberal but of course they lean left. In terms of the discussion we're having though, thats neither here nor there.
You need to calm down and stay on topic. All in all, you spent more time talking about why you hate me and one sentence i used to partially prove a point than responding to what I was really saying.
and when they grow up a few years later they would realize they ain't gay, it's just how teenager works. Loads of girls in girl only schools over here think they are tomboys at 15 but very soon most of them realize they ain't.
you can't alter sexual orientation by education, if they declare anything other than their true orientation its because they are confused, and it's always better to know more about something if that is the case, plus it won't ruin your life if you had such confusion in your early years.
It seems very odd to me that kids in USA will simply change their sexual orientation just because of some convincing......just doesn't make good sense to me, and why some teachers will want to convince their pupil is gay is beyond me.
Lol, JJ72, you really hit the nail on the head there.
Teaching children about homosexuality will not make them homosexuals. If anything it will give them more understanding, and hopefully, will be more tolerant than most of the people are today.
Sex, as a subject of discussion, is quite confusing anyway for most teenagers, having started masturbating and having dreams of sleeping with that guy/girl they fancy, all these questions. Discovery, in one word. Discovering about their sexual preferences, what they like, what they have fetishes for, all those kinds of things.
Obviously that's natural, being told about homosexuality will not mean that that guy would suddenly want to sleep with this guy.
Shit, if you thought that was a worked-up bash, you're greener that I thought you were. I don't hate you (paranoid much?) or conservatives (how can I hate you? I don't know you from a bar o' yellow soap). My post was a general blurgh, a disagreement with the sentiments you expressed. If you took it personally, whatever...but it aint about you.
But I need to "calm down"? Don't condescend to me, if you please. You need to "calm down" and give people some bloody credit. People will always be free to teach their children what they feel is right and Prop 8, yes or no, won't change that. But any point of view which views homosexuality as some sort of threat to something-or-other isn't a point of view I can't possibly respect, because it simply isn't based on the facts. Jeez, noone's going to be giving "gay lessons" or whatever the hell these lackwit BAWW-heads are afraid of.
Aside: it might be useful bear in mind a lot of the Yes on Prop 8 funding isn't even coming from Californians, it's from well-funded, mostly religious groups from out of state who subscribe to exactly the same kind of paranoid & ridiculous "slippery slope to gaydom and repression of heteros" point of view that I outlined. You really want out of state theocrat fundamentalists affecting your political process or do you want democracy in California to be respected, whatever the result?
Trouble is, these Prop 8'ers are fighting a losing battle and delaying the inevitable. Even if Prop 8 is passed, any prohibitions on gay marriage will be fought again and they'll just be defeated. It might not happen straight away, or even in CA, but it'll just keep happening and keep happening until it's recognised as the retarded waste of time & lost cause that it is. But then I guess the wackos will find something else they want to ban, like Harry Potter (again) or Isaac Asimov books or cotton candy (pink turns kids into GAYS!1).
Instead of directing their effort and money toward issues that actually have an impact on peoples' lives, these (mostly) bible-thumping clowns are trying to repeal a law that simply recognises that gay people are people with the same rights as any citizen - nothing more. Gay marriage isn't about special treatment, it's about EQUAL treatment. That's what this issue is about. Civil rights, liberty & justice for all. If a gay person has to pay tax, obey the law and work for a living and can have their vote counted, why the hell shouldn't they be able to get married and have spousal rights like their neighbours? All this other paranoid bullshit, whipped up by the far right, is red herring after red herring and simply clouds the issue. As we've seen right here.
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TL;DR version: I get passionate about this because I have friends in exactly the situation that's on the table. We were all born with the same rights under the law. However, as soon as they realised they were gay, a big chunk of their rights simply vanished and they immediately got treated like second-class citizens or perverts or people out to "convert" other peoples' children. That's the issue - the fact that you can be born with the same rights as your brother but have them taken from you because of who you love (and nothing else) is not fair, it's not just and it's not right. Prop 8 is discriminatory, bigoted, ignorant, paranoid, anti-human, anti-civil rights and I hope it gets squashed.
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@ wheel4hummer: "apply liberally" means that you rub lotion on while quoting George Carlin stand-up routines or watching Stephen Colbert.
Homosexual couples in California DO have the same rights as regular spouses! Its just called something else. I've already said that all couples should be domestic partners and get married within the church.
the only reason people support prop 8 including myself is because the "slippery slope" already exists! In Massachusetts they are teaching kindergartners about homosexuality. I'm worried about kindergartners being taught any form of sexuality. These changes to the state curriculum happened within a few years of gay marriage being legalized in that state. Before that change in the state constitution, no child below 13 was taught sexuality in school. In one of my earlier rebuttals to Becky, I explained why children that young should not be subject to that kind of education at a time when they are most impressionable.
I don't think it is bigoted to want your child to go through their pre-pubescent years without learning homosexuality in school. You're taking it too far, I don't think gay people want to convert children. I just don't see how it is vital to teach pre-pubescent children about homosexuality when they don't have any sexuality at all yet.
I know it's a little off-topic now, but I was just bored/curious: if you read the bible and interpreted it in a pretty straight-forward manner, wouldn't you consider it to contain at least a couple anti-homosexual bits? Personally, I haven't been able to find anything to the contrary...
Maybe it would be more logical to be against the bible than to be for it and consider it to say nothing against homosexuality?
I think the most oft-quoted bits in a religious opposition to homosexuality are Leviticus 18:22 (Jews, Christians), and First Corinthians 6:9 (Christians).
Well, my point is that you can blame them for believing what's in the book, but you can't really blame them for thinking homosexuality is bad if they do.
That website has the original Hebrew/Greek if you want to delve deeper into the meanings of words. I'd be interested in hearing another interpretation/viewpoint of the biblical position on homosexuality. I hear context is pretty relevant.
That is called education. You might be thankful for that
As many gay children that were told that they were ill for liking people of the same sex. If you're straight you'll not end sleeping with a person of your sex because your teacher told you that you're in fact gay, that doesn't make sense at all
So is the problem with gay marriage or the current school curriculum?
Wouldn't this be sorted out by simply changing the way they teach sex education in Massachusetts schools a little bit? I don't see why you need to take away gay peoples' rights to make that happen, or even how the two are related.
Y'know Mike I think if you just focused a bit more you'd be a reasonably bearable right-winger. You don't need to embrace vast tranches of conservative belief just to make your voice heard on one tiny issue.
Edit: And as the other respondents above have already said; nobody was ever convinced they were gay because they had an open-minded sex education teacher. That's pretty funny!
Surely this is a confession that you are arguing for the wrong cause. Why not raise a hand up to the teaching of sexual education in pre-pubescent youngsters?
Why are you not trying to get legislation raised to make sexual education something that is taught to teenagers? Rather than trying to strip people of their basic human rights because it "might lead to something that's already happening" - which seems to be the basis of your argument as you've presented it.
You know what, I think Hurricane Katrina happened afterwards too, gosh that was one evil law wasn't it! Why not direct your vehement energies toward a cause you do believe in, or failing that, admit the real reasons why you are arguing for this cause?
I've read all the scripture quoted by the anti-gay lobby, and a lot of the anti-gay lobby are being really tenuous in their interpretations to make it sound anti-gay, or to deliberately interpret something as anti-gay, when really it isnt. If there is any passage that confuses you please feel free to ask and we'll discuss it.
Regarding the two you raised. Firstly, Leviticus is a holliness code for priests, it outlaws a lot of strange things, like all the clothes you are wearing which are made with non-coshur materials, playing football, and sadly for gay-priests it says the clergy is not for them. Leviticus does not apply to parishoners.
The Corinthians thing I may need to come back to you on, I overslept and I should be working (shhhh) and i'm not in the right mind to read the bible now and refresh myself (I know, I just tried). I'll respond to that one later.
Do they teach the kids about anal sex and darkrooms? Or do they tell stories like "boy meets boy and they love each other deeply?"
Then you probably also object to the part where Cinderella marries the Prince.
I think it is. When my kids were in kindergarten, they noticed that some kids have two moms. If your child brings up the subject, you can say that some people are built that way, and that it's OK. If you don't then your kid may be struggling with its feelings as it grows up, even to the point of depression and suicide. Or, like in the old days, the kid could deny its feelings, marry someone and live unhappily ever after.
Hank, much as I am against Proposition 8 and I can see why you're passionate about this: I think it helps if you try to understand how the other side thinks, instead of demonizing them.
Jonathan Haidt has done some interesting research on what separates conservatives from liberals, in terms of morality. Quoting from this article:
Going OT...
OK, now define "conservative estimate", if you dare.
In a secluded parallel context, I agree - kids should be kids and enjoy being kids. But this includes all of the usual adult crap that revolves around politics, sex, religion and their combinations.
I do find it pretty ridiculous though that we've brought our society, through pious fear and hide-it-under-the-rug puritanism mostly, to a point that we need to use a faceless mechanism like an educational system - which traditionally, but not practically, values bare facts, rationalism and logic - to teach things that should, and for most do, come naturally and are in the end but a personal issue.
Using the term "acceptance" or "tolerance" in relation to such private matters shows that such subjects as sexuality and religion have indeed been filtered though a sterile and inhumane establishment. As much as I hate allegories or metaphors: if the nucleus is so stupidly based on post-industrial revolution values it is only logical that any orbiting particles which attempt to alter the balance of the whole system will have their origins, for sake of compatibility, in the very same material.
Futile is what I'd call any attempt to patch a rotting collective of fake and hypocritical social values.
