Choice or Genetics?

For the same reason that there are so many gay people living lives of dishonesty in fraudulent heterosexual marriages. Both they and their partners deserve more out of life.

Also, you make the rather common mistake of confusing genetic with biological.

Next.

Jack,

When people have said that being gay is not a choice, you have responded by suggesting that if it isn't a choice, it is a condition, or an illness, which ought to be cured.

but you prefer to believe that being gay is a choice. Does that mean that, in opposing gay marriage, you would rather argue that society should discourage people from exercising free will?

So much twisted logic.

I suspect that the search for a gay gene has ended. I have not read recently that anyone is still proposing this as an explanation. From the begining this was always an attempt to tie sexual preference to civil rights language. i.e. "born this way."

Since the party line of the gay community is being happy with who you are, I don't see any point to searching for "causes."

Anyone who believes that marriage automatically confers happiness must not know many married people. Lots of marriages end in really nasty divorces. Hint: They started getting nasty during the marriage. Many other marriages persist in what you call a "sham marriage" because of the other benefits of harmonious co-habitation (all of which gays can already participate in except the public acclamation and confirmation of your status as anything more than a room-mate, co-owner, business partner).

Yes. Society should absolutely discourage people from exercising free will. That is the whole point of our system of laws today. Some people's free will is manifestly harmful to other people and property (rape, murder, arson, etc). Other people's free will is just disruptive (traffic regulation, public nudity, etc). And a further set of laws administratively binds our free will (e.g. tax laws prevent my free will to not pay taxes).

I will agree with your unstated premise that society should not oppose those expressions of free will that do no harm. I certainly place homosexual activity between consenting adults in that category.

But I don't see this ammendment as restricting gay rights but as preventing the homosexual lobby from using the power of the state to force me to give full non-judgemental acceptance of your choices.

David:

What reason would that be? Are homosexuals just more prone to commit crimes and to be frauds? I seriously doubt that.

you don't have to give full non-judgemental acceptance of anyone's choices. my cousin married a douche bag.

I never understand this, "gay marriage infringes on our civil rights" argument I hear from conservatives. no one is saying that you need to accept or approve anything, only that you ought to butt out, as it were

and nice dismissal of the free will thing. "we have some laws, so why not this one?" why not indeed? anything goes, as long as it advances the conservative agenda, right?

good luck with your continued non-acceptance of things tomorrow.

I first thought that Jack was claiming homosexuals were more likely to be criminals.

But then I realised he was just asking why so many heterosexuals have so little problem chosing to have homosexual relationships in prison.

I think that was an point I made earlier, that for men sex is sex, and if you can just get over the disgust of being touched by another man (like for example if the man is pretending to be a woman and you don't know it's a man) sex is just sex.

If there was a "homosexual gene", which caused some pheremonic "attraction" to people specifically based on their sex, then heterosexual men would never be attracted to transvestites.

Charles:

Obviously, male sexual attraction is very visual. Just ask Hugh Hefner. He doctored the photographs, but I don't think he ever scented the paper.

Puffy:

There are several prohibitions on marriage in Virgina. Prohibited marriages include marriage between close relatives, marriage between members of the same sex, and the marriage of someone already married. All but the last are biblically based.

Should there be no such restrictions?

you're right jack. we should base our legal system on the bible. after all, this is a christian nation, and people should have to adhere to christian cultural norms.

I hope that in the future a more careful reading of the bible will reveal additional restrictions. We shouldn't marry outside of our religion or regional culture (I think it's in kings)

and while we're at it, I could use some slaves. Can we PLEASE find a good bible passage to justify that?

hell. here's a list of things we COULD be justifying with biblical passages, if it weren't for all the damned bleeding heart liberals:
http://tinyurl.com/u6m9d

I say let's kill 'em all! because WWJD? We need a legal system based on a stricter reading of the bible. or we could just use sharia.

Jack- Where are you getting the "so many homosexuals in prison" statistics please? Or was that just what you noticed first hand when you were there?

"Anyone who believes that marriage automatically confers happiness must not know many married people. Lots of marriages end in really nasty divorces. Hint: They started getting nasty during the marriage." --Roci

Amen.

Ah, Puffy, "sarcasm is the last refuge of a defeated wit."

Kevin, start here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_rape, and follow the bibliography links.

Jack- "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name." is all I'm getting when I click your link. And you should know that there is a huge difference. . . HUGE freakin' difference between homosexuality and rape.

But i don't think even you are taking yourself seriously with this one so I'm not going to waste any more time on it.

Kevin:

That is odd. I copied the URL from my browser. Sorry about that.

The point is that the rapists are CHOOSING homosexual behavior.

My last point, really, is that the rapists are choosing rape. It's completely different, dear friend.

No, it isn't. All they can get are other guys or Thumbelina and her four sisters. So the "Go Greek."

I had a friend in high school who could never get a girl to go out with him, so he went gay. He chose that.

...no one is saying that you need to accept or approve anything, only that you ought to butt out, as it were

Odd that the people telling me to "butt out" are the sames ones presenting cases to the courts to overturn established laws in 50 states. Odd that they lose in every legislative attempt to advance this agenda. And odd that they, having previously lost such cases in lower courts, continue to bring the same arguments to higher courts until they find one that agrees.

I would be perfectly happy with butting out and going back to the way things used to be.

Would you?

Gay expert Jack says: "I had a friend in high school who could never get a girl to go out with him, so he went gay."

Then why aren't you gay, Jack?

Because girls are softer and smell better.

roci, i wasn't talking about anyone's agenda or legislative games, I was talking about how you're all up in other people's business.

I wasn't being sarcastic, Jack
;)

(but how about, "responding to a post with a quote about a literary device is a cop out")