Prop 8: A Fork in the Road For Modern Latter Day Saints II

[_Darth J]

As you pointed out yourself, but I will make even more explicit, the motives, philosophical underpinnings, and fundamental ideas that bring citizens into the public square are immaterial. Whether one opposes homosexual marriage for religious, philosophical, psychological or purely emotional reasons is beside the point. The public square is open to all who wish to persuade others to adopt their views and pass laws representing them.

Whether, in other words, I think homosexuality is a sin or whether I am a Freudian who thinks it is a psychopathology, doesn't matter. You have singled out the anti-homosexual marriage position as suspect because of core religious motives, while exempting the ideological and personal motives of pro-homosexual supporters because they are secular, as if, in a free society, motive determines the legitimacy of one's participation in the political life of one's society, rather than the persuasive power of one's ideas subjected to deliberative democratic processes.

You have, in other words, moved away from a free, open society where all ideas may compete in the arena of ideas, to a status based society in which whether one is religious taints one's participation in the public square by definition.

This allows the pro-homosexual marriage side to win all arguments and legislative battles by default, of course - so long as they are public battles.

By a show of hands, who thinks that Droopy understands the Rational Basis test?

[_Joseph]

Naturally dorpy you take into account Hannibal and also do not listen to music written or performed by homosexuals so you don't 'encourage' them, right?

Why is all you check out pretty much within your lifetime? A whole history of man is available with information going back a few thousand years. Don't ignore it. While you are on it, why do you get so worked up over what others are doing?

[_Daniel2]

Though he certainly wasn't the first to articulate the concept, Steven Covey has been quoted as saying:

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are--or, as we are conditioned to see it."

I'd wager we all exemplify this principle in one way or another (I'm sure I do...).

As someone who I believe is obviously a closeted man who is struggling to overcome any and all of his own attractions to members of his own gender, Droopy also operates according to the principle, above (to Droopy's credit, he's never attempted to publically--or privately, so far as I'm aware--deny that).

It appears that no amount of the reams of scientific data will convince him that sexual orientation (whether we're straight, bisexual, or gay) is biologically based and fixed by birth--in fact, his need to vehemently self-deny his own attractions appears to manifest itself as a fierce denial of any of the mountain of evidence that supports that reality.

However, given we all "see the world as we are, not as it really is," we really can't blame Droopy for a condition that is likely familiar to each of us.

I support Droop's desire to see the world through his own paradigm, and exercise his freedom of choice as he wishes, with the full authorization, permission, and recognition of our shared government, upon the principles of equal representation and protection as outlined in our Constitution. I find it sad that he cannot extend the same courtesy to those of us who disagree--but I'm not going to loose sleep over it. History will progress... And the philosophies he promotes will fade into the annals of historical human misunderstanding (just as other outdated and eventually dis-proved theories always are, i.e. concepts such as the earth being flat, or at the center of the universe, or faulty understandings about the transmissions or cures of diseases, etc).

Darin

[_Droopy]

1. There is a “right” to homosexual marriage in the constitution (assuming also an implied right to marry qua marriage for heterosexuals) that is being denied by opponents of homosexual marriage.

Droopy, can you find a basis in the text of the United States Constitution as to why the government cannot pass a law forbidding people to have children?

How about a right to actually raise the children you do have, as opposed to, say, the government taking your children away to raise them in government institutions? Can you find that right for me in the Constitution?

What about the government passing a law that says that the defendant has the burden of proving himself or herself innocent if accused of a crime? Are you able to find anything prohibiting that in the Constitution anywhere?

Or let's just make it simpler. Can you find me somewhere in the Constitution that explicitly guarantees an individual citizen the right to vote?

Not all rights are explicitly stated in the text of the Constitution; many are implied by the fundamental rights that are, and are logically and conceptually extrapolated from the meaning of the text as given. Other rights, such as the burden of proof being upon the accuser, have devolved upon our legal system from English common law, from which aspects of the Constitution itself were made with those traditions in mind.

In each case, however, a legal tradition or rule found to be harmonious with the Constitution, or derivable from it, has been part of a coherent conceptual framework within which an implied right or liberty is seen to be a conceptual or logical extension of a preexisting right or liberty of a similar kind, or of a similar nature.

Hence, the accuser being responsible for proving his accusation fits cleaning within the larger framework of the Constitution's immunization of citizens from capricious and biased acts and burdens placed upon someone accused or suspected of a crime.

Homosexual marriage, however, is a contradiction in terms - a conceptual self negation at the very center of the human condition - and therefore is not simply a further expansion of already existing rights from a preexisting legal sphere to another similar sphere, but an attempt at the fusion of two utterly antithetical meanings and criteria of human sexuality.

Hence, Darth's argument will not do; it will not do to "extend" the "right" to marry to homosexuals in the same way the right to vote, or the right to access to all the normative legal protections of the Constitutions (including the right not to be enslaved by others) was extended to blacks.

The unalienable rights that come to us from the Creator come to us because we exist as human beings. From this, denying them to some because of skin color, or ethnicity, is seen as a withholding of a natural endowment, and hence, extending it is extending nothing beyond a conceptually unified body of rights that was broken and fragmented.

A right that cannot, however, be conceptually and intelligibly combined with a behavior or manner of life that, by its very definition, negates and consumes the right extended, does not concern the Constitution, but the society as a whole, and if that society decides to rewrite the Constitution in its own image to make this, that, and whatever a "right", it may do so, but it need not pretend, with Darth, to any concern for the Constitution.

True, the Constitution speaks of no right to marriage, as I've pointed out many times. Also true is that not all rights are mentioned directly in the Constitution, to which the 10th amendment speaks.

But also true is any assertion that the Founders themselves wrote the Constitution with the possibility of something such as homosexual marriage in mind stretches credulity to the end of its tinsel strength.

If homosexuals want to redefine the core concepts and meaning of family, gender and the purpose of human sexuality, then let them do so through deliberative, democratic institutions - legislatures, and through initiative and referendum.

Homosexuals have turned to the courts for the same reasons so many on the Left have turned there over the last forty years: they have not found success, to anywhere near the degree they would have liked, in the open, democratic arena of ideas in which their ideas come under the discipline of representative institutions and accountable public servants.

[_Yoda]

(Moderator Note) Droopy...There are NO personal attacks allowed in the Celestial Forum. I split out your comments here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&p=373608#p373608

Splitting threads is a pain the behind....and having to split threads from a poster who knows better is ridiculous. This is your one and only warning. Next time you post a personal attack in one of your threads in Celestial, I'm moving the whole thread out. Understood?

[_Darth J]

Not all rights are explicitly stated in the text of the Constitution; many are implied by the fundamental rights that are, and are logically and conceptually extrapolated from the meaning of the text as given. Other rights, such as the burden of proof being upon the accuser, have devolved upon our legal system from English common law, from which aspects of the Constitution itself were made with those traditions in mind.

In each case, however, a legal tradition or rule found to be harmonious with the Constitution, or derivable from it, has been part of a coherent conceptual framework within which an implied right or liberty is seen to be a conceptual or logical extension of a preexisting right or liberty of a similar kind, or of a similar nature.

Hence, the accuser being responsible for proving his accusation fits cleaning within the larger framework of the Constitution's immunization of citizens from capricious and biased acts and burdens placed upon someone accused or suspected of a crime.

In other words, your "whether there is a right to marriage qua marriage" rambling is completely meaningless.

Homosexual marriage, however, is a contradiction in terms - a conceptual self negation at the very center of the human condition - and therefore is not simply a further expansion of already existing rights from a preexisting legal sphere to another similar sphere, but an attempt at the fusion of two utterly antithetical meanings and criteria of human sexuality.

Hence, Darth's argument will not do; it will not do to "extend" the "right" to marry to homosexuals in the same way the right to vote, or the right to access to all the normative legal protections of the Constitutions (including the right not to be enslaved by others) was extended to blacks.

Once again, Droopy, find me any statute from any jurisdiction anywhere in the United States that requires either having children, or the ability to have children, in order to be married. Marriage is a legal relationship, and you keep wanting to talk about marriage as defined by your religious views, not the legal definition. So good job on making the case why, as Yahoo Bot has said on the board, the government should get out of the marriage business and let marriage just be a religious sacrament.

The unalienable rights that come to us from the Creator come to us because we exist as human beings. From this, denying them to some because of skin color, or ethnicity, is seen as a withholding of a natural endowment, and hence, extending it is extending nothing beyond a conceptually unified body of rights that was broken and fragmented.

You're right. Someone who believes that man is endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights would never deny those natural rights to people because of skin color or ethnicity.

Just like Thomas Jefferson.

A right that cannot, however, be conceptually and intelligibly combined with a behavior or manner of life that, by its very definition, negates and consumes the right extended, does not concern the Constitution, but the society as a whole, and if that society decides to rewrite the Constitution in its own image to make this, that, and whatever a "right", it may do so, but it need not pretend, with Darth, to any concern for the Constitution.

One time I said to bcspace that what he wrote meant so much less than nothing that it ripped apart the space-time continuum. You have now surpassed him with your above statement.

True, the Constitution speaks of no right to marriage, as I've pointed out many times. Also true is that not all rights are mentioned directly in the Constitution, to which the 10th amendment speaks.

But also true is any assertion that the Founders themselves wrote the Constitution with the possibility of something such as homosexual marriage in mind stretches credulity to the end of its tinsel strength.

The Founders did not write the Constitution with interracial marriage in mind, either, what with black people being chattel at the time. You feel free to explain why we're forever bound to 18th century social values, however.

Speaking of Thomas Jefferson, as I did above, would you agree that at least the author of the Declaration of Independence had sex slaves in mind when he sowed the seeds (no pun intended) of this great new experiment in democracy?

And you still haven't explained how the Bill of Rights applies to the States. Are you ready to do that yet?

If homosexuals want to redefine the core concepts and meaning of family, gender and the purpose of human sexuality, then let them do so through deliberative, democratic institutions - legislatures, and through initiative and referendum.

Again, Droopy, find me any law in any jurisdiction of the United States that requires having children and/or the ability to have children as a condition of marriage. Show me the law where these "core concepts of family, gender, and the purpose of human sexuality" are codified.

If reactionary talk radio audiences want to define marriage in terms of their religious views (not that the majority of said audience would concede that you, as a Mormon, are a Christian), then let them do so in church, not through positive law that is subject to the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause.

Homosexuals have turned to the courts for the same reasons so many on the Left have turned there over the last forty years: they have not found success, to anywhere near the degree they would have liked, in the open, democratic arena of ideas in which their ideas come under the discipline of representative institutions and accountable public servants.

I understand where you're coming from. Cleon Skousen disciples don't like Article III of the Constitution. Funny how the Framers set up all these checks and balances between the different branches of government. They must have been part of the liberal counterculture.

And along with coloring this whole thing as a Leftist issue, feel free to explain why a conservative lawyer represented the plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. I keep asking you to explain it, and you never do.

Since you wanted this scholarly debate and you opened the door on this issue:

The New Jersey legislature passed a non-discrimination law. That law arose from the open, democratic arena of ideas in which their ideas came under the discipline of representative institutions and accountable public servants. Under that law, the Boy Scouts of America were forbidden from discriminating against homosexuals being scoutmasters.

Using your reasoning (such as it is) above, explain why Boy Scouts of America v. Dale was not judicial activism overturning representative institutions and accountable public servants.

You know Droopy, the only thing you've proven in all these threads you start or get involved in about same-sex marriage is:

1. You are incapable of discussing this without personal attacks because you are insecure.

2. While you constantly refer to your religious opinions about marriage, those opinions and personal value judgments are not part of the legal definition of marriage anywhere in the United States.

3. Statutes, including those passed by public referendum, are law, not religion.

4. In the United States, laws that violate the Constitution are void.

5. Whether there is a fundamental right to marry implied in the Constitution (an issue resolved affirmatively a long time ago) is unnecessary to the same sex marriage question. Once a State defines a legal relationship (this is the 10th Amendment), the State cannot deny equal protection of its own laws to other citizens (this is the 14th Amendment).

6. Since none of the "core concepts of family, gender, and the purpose of human sexuality" to which you allude are part of the legal definition of marriage, there must be some rational basis for denying homosexuals the state-defined right to marry.

7. Neither the defendants in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, nor you, nor the LDS Church, nor any other opponents of same-sex marriage, have been able to come up with a rational basis for denying the legal status of marriage to homosexuals that does not come down to religious belief about marriage.

8. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government, state or federal, from making religious doctrine into law. This means that relying on religious beliefs to deny homosexuals the right to marry as the states have defined the legal relationship of marriage is not a rational basis.

9. If a law is unconstitutional, it does not matter whether the majority of voters approved it, or whether democratically-elected representatives approved it. That is not how the Framers set up the checks and balances between the branches of government. Paradoxically, and yet truly, you cannot rely on democracy alone to maintain the rights on which democracy is based.

For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers." And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments; that as all the effects of such a union must ensue from a dependence of the former on the latter, notwithstanding a nominal and apparent separation; that as, from the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office, this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution, and, in a great measure, as the citadel of the public justice and the public security.

The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex post facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.

Some perplexity respecting the rights of the courts to pronounce legislative acts void, because contrary to the Constitution, has arisen from an imagination that the doctrine would imply a superiority of the judiciary to the legislative power. It is urged that the authority which can declare the acts of another void, must necessarily be superior to the one whose acts may be declared void. As this doctrine is of great importance in all the American constitutions, a brief discussion of the ground on which it rests cannot be unacceptable.

There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this, would be to affirm, that the deputy is greater than his principal; that the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people themselves; that men acting by virtue of powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.

The Federalist, #78

You are incapable of refuting points 2-9. If you were, you would rely on something other than a continual return to religious homilies about what you believe the nature and purpose of marriage is. What you really want is for the Constitution to enshrine your personal value judgments.

Feel free to prove me wrong about the latter by using your exact same reasoning to explain how Boy Scouts of America v. Dale was judicial activism that overturned the democratic will of the people of New Jersey.

[_Droopy]

As someone who I believe is obviously a closeted man who is struggling to overcome any and all of his own attractions to members of his own gender, Droopy also operates according to the principle, above (to Droopy's credit, he's never attempted to publically--or privately, so far as I'm aware--deny that).

Ahh, so are you and semi-logo in cahoots on this? I reported him to the mods at the MADboard when he came forward with this same accusation (a classic of the homosexual lobby and intelligentsia when cornered by their own inability to actually rationally defend their position on this issue) and he was given a few days off. I'd do there now here, as well, were this place to have similar standards.

As it does not, I'll just say that I consider this a near libelous assertion as well as the mark of the grossest form of intellectual cowardice to use it in lieu of serious argument. You should be ashamed of yourself at this point Darin, because you've retreated to the last refuge of a pro-homosexual scoundrel.

It appears that no amount of the reams of scientific data will convince him that sexual orientation (whether we're straight, bisexual, or gay) is biologically based and fixed by birth--in fact,

As there is not a shred of scientific evidence anywhere in the brain sciences that homosexuality as a syndrome, is biologically based and fixed by birth, these mythical reams of scientific data have yet to be born, and hopefully, they will not be fixed at birth, but open to serious analysis and honest inquiry.

his need to vehemently self-deny his own attractions appears to manifest itself as a fierce denial of any of the mountain of evidence that supports that reality.

In point of fact, this is a leftover of the sexual revolution ideology of the late sixties/early seventies era, in which anyone who vehemently held to a dissenting worldview regarding human sexuality (chastity, marital fidelity etc.) was accused of being a sexually repressed neurotic in denial regarding his own wish to be rampantly promiscuous and secretly wishing to join the revels of the sexually liberated.

Its a facile game of amateur Freudian psychoanalysis used to mask the intellectual vacuity of a position bereft of rational or moral justification on its own.

However, given we all "see the world as we are, not as it really is," we really can't blame Droopy for a condition that is likely familiar to each of us.

How honorable and kind of you.

I support Droop's desire to see the world through his own paradigm, and exercise his freedom of choice as he wishes, with the full authorization, permission, and recognition of our shared government, upon the principles of equal representation and protection as outlined in our Constitution. I find it sad that he cannot extend the same courtesy to those of us who disagree--but I'm not going to loose sleep over it.

There is no equal protection under the law for homosexual marriage, since there is no way to fuse the concept of homosexuality and marriage so as to achieve an intellectually coherent phenomena to be protected. Marriage is the basis of civilized society. Homosexuality is sexual coupling and emotional attachment - and nothing more.

Further, as pointed out ad infinitum, marriage itself is not a protected right under the federal constitution, but a core feature of civilized society that the constitution protects only in the sense that it really has nothing to say about it at all, leaving such fundamental traditions, customs and social bonding/stabilizing mechanisms to the people to carry on in pursuit of ordered liberty.

If a clear majority want to legitimize homosexual marriage, and de-privilege heterosexual marriage and heterosexuality per se, the constitutional structure of our society allows us to do that, but not through the courts. We have accountable legislatures who's fundamental purpose is to make law, and if we wish to go in this direction, collectively speaking, we can. The consequences, however, cannot be legislated, but only experienced.

As with pre-marital sex, adultery, or other forms of sexual perversion, homosexuality, and especially since it discovered the sword of activist politics, is a near feral transgressive rejection of the boundaries of the law of chastity and antithetical to the fundamental requirements of a morally literate society, as well as to the core purpose of gender in both a mortal and eternal sense.

History will progress...

So "history" has a trajectory and teleology, is that correct?

And the philosophies he promotes will fade into the annals of historical human misunderstanding...

The wicked will be "burned as stubble", being left neither root nor branch.

There is no misunderstanding regarding the glorified sexual fetish of homoeroticism that is "same sex attraction".

[_Droopy]

Hi Droopy.

Just to simplify, my entire post above can be skimmed over and we can move forward if you wouldn't mind answering this question -

If procreation (fertility) is not required, then what role do sexual relations play in a marriage?

As a physical, emotional, and psychological symbol of the bonding and fusion of the two, male and female, into one.

Sexual relations are the most intimate form of the symbolic expression of that unity.

[_Darth J]

There is no equal protection under the law for homosexual marriage, since there is no way to fuse the concept of homosexuality and marriage so as to achieve an intellectually coherent phenomena to be protected. Marriage is the basis of civilized society. Homosexuality is sexual coupling and emotional attachment - and nothing more.

Droopy, in what jurisdiction of the United States might I find your religious sermons about marriage codified as the legal definition of marriage?

And if "marriage is the basis of civilized society," then why, as cited above, does Utah allow first cousins to enter a legally valid marriage specifically because they cannot have children?

Further, as pointed out ad infinitum, marriage itself is not a protected right under the federal constitution, but a core feature of civilized society that the constitution protects only in the sense that it really has nothing to say about it at all, leaving such fundamental traditions, customs and social bonding/stabilizing mechanisms to the people to carry on in pursuit of ordered liberty.

....thus proving the obvious: that you are making this up as you go. What you said here contradicts what you said above about rights implied by the Constitution. It is long-settled law that the right to marry is implicitly protected by the federal Constitution. "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).

If a clear majority want to legitimize homosexual marriage, and de-privilege heterosexual marriage and heterosexuality per se, the constitutional structure of our society allows us to do that, but not through the courts. We have accountable legislatures who's fundamental purpose is to make law, and if we wish to go in this direction, collectively speaking, we can.

And the fundamental purpose of the judiciary is to interpret the law and to declare as void any law that violates the Constitution. This is exactly the system of checks and balances the Framers had in mind, as explained in the section from The Federalist Papers above. It would save a lot of bandwidth if you would just admit what is obvious to anyone reading your posts, that being that you don't really believe in the Constitution or the rule of law. You believe in simplistic populist diatribes to make your personal value judgments and religious beliefs into law.

The consequences, however, cannot be legislated, but only experienced.

And that was brought out in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Opponents of same-sex marriage cannot demonstrate that there is going to be some harmful effect to heterosexual marriage or society in general.

As with pre-marital sex, adultery, or other forms of sexual perversion, homosexuality, and especially since it discovered the sword of activist politics, is a near feral transgressive rejection of the boundaries of the law of chastity and antithetical to the fundamental requirements of a morally literate society, as well as to the core purpose of gender in both a mortal and eternal sense.

.........

The wicked will be "burned as stubble", being left neither root nor branch.

There is no misunderstanding regarding the glorified sexual fetish of homoeroticism that is "same sex attraction".

And speaking of root, here is the root of where you are coming from. What passes for argument from you is nothing more than your religious dogma and personal value judgments. The title of your thread suggests that you want to discuss the legal definition of marriage, but you don't, and never have.

All of your rants and uninformed pontificating about constitutional law are based entirely on your religious dogma and value judgments. The analogy of same-sex marriage to the civil rights movement is strongest in this area, because constitutionally impermissible (as a basis for positive law) religious dogma was the ultimate basis for democratically-elected legislatures forbidding interracial marriages. Here is what the Virginia trial court judge concluded in Loving v. Virginia:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

In substance, this statement is no different from everything you have to say about same-sex marriage.

Please, Droopy, stop starting these threads implying that you want to talk about law, when what you really want is affirmation that the Constitution enshrines your value judgments.

[_Daniel2]

Ahh, so are you and semi-logo in cahoots on this? I reported him to the mods at the MADboard when he came forward with this same accusation (a classic of the homosexual lobby and intelligentsia when cornered by their own inability to actually rationally defend their position on this issue) and he was given a few days off. I'd do there now here, as well, were this place to have similar standards.

My feeling that you are probably a closeted gay man, Droop, has a long history predating Semlogo’s recent implication of that idea over on MAD. I would have a hard time believing that it comes as any surprise to you, given the fact that you and I have discussed the issue before. My belief that you may be gay has little to do with any notion that my ideas refuting your beliefs about gay marriage are indefensible, though it appears you are attempting to frame the discussion as if that is the only remaining leg that my views have to stand on.

In fact, quite the opposite is true—as Darth J and others have pointed out, I don’t believe your assertions of victory are illustrative of the flaws in your arguments. One should not mistake my belief in your same-sex attraction as an inability on my part to refute them.

Rather, in the context of previous discussions on the matter, I have asked you, point blank, if you have or have ever “struggled with same-sex attraction,” and you have continued to ignore and deflect the question in literally every instance that specific query is posed to you. As I said, previously—I give you a lot of credit for having a sense of integrity enough to at least have avoided denying what appears to me to be the case.

(Incidentally, I would presume that any reply you may offer to this post will likely continue to avoid directly answering the issue of the question).

I do not press the issue over at MAD because it’s clear that moderators over view the insinuation that any poster could be gay as a personal attack of some kind—a reality which is supported by their censure of Semlogo after his candid answer to your question. Ironically, you seem to be aware of the protected status of such interchanges over there, and apparently (in your post, to me, here), lament what you to be a gross violation of decorum in being called out on the possibility of being a closeted gay man. And yet it was you who‘s questions knowingly goaded Semlogo into bluntly stating what was clearly his opinion about your sexuality—and your responses in that same thread continued to attempt to lure me into stating the same—despite the blatant fact that the Mods had already clearly threatened me with banishment if I continued to pursue that tangential thread (and which ultimately led to your own banishment in that same thread over on MAD).

Yet here, you bemoan the fact that you cannot appeal to moderators to take similar action against someone who has the apparent audacity to give voice to what already appears to be the case to more than one of us. I commend the moderators of Mormon Discussions—a place that attempts to avoid obvious censures of non-inflammatory opinion.

See, Droop… I don’t see anything “libelous” or “cowardly” about calling truth as one sees it--even when supposing that someone else may be a gay man. I don't view being gay as anything perjorative or bad. And when a gay man is self-loathing, I see a great need to be sympathetic, even if resolute in my views.

Identifying a sense of self-loathing in you, however, does help explain your vehement need to cling to the likes of NARTH’s snake-oil quack-science when it comes to attempting to explain homosexuality in a matter that conforms with the religious views of it’s promoters.

No… despite what you may perceive to be ill will from me, to be recognized as a self-loathing gay man is not a call to hate or antagonize. Rather, it is, in my view, a reason for understanding and a greater call for compassion. Further, it helps illuminate why you are so vociferous in your need to deny that which is so clear to those of us who have no need to deny the science of the biology of sexual orientation (either because we are straight, or because we’ve come to terms with the fact that we are, in fact, simply gay).

It’s absurd to me that I am going to the length of writing a response that is this ridiculously long to try to give context to my previous post—and I have doubts it will do much good in how you perceive my intent—but I figured it is worth saying, whether or not it falls on deaf ears.

As it does not, I'll just say that I consider this a near libelous assertion as well as the mark of the grossest form of intellectual cowardice to use it in lieu of serious argument. You should be ashamed of yourself at this point Darin, because you've retreated to the last refuge of a pro-homosexual scoundrel.

I can understand how someone who has an intense fear of being publically identified as gay would try to project and re-instill a great sense of shame and fear into someone who no longer feels such. Unfortunately for you, I do not feel those feelings with regards to in recognizing and naming sexual orientation in either myself, or others.

As I said, previously, please don’t mistake my belief in your homosexuality as some sort of evidence that the arguments I make as an admission of defeat, on my part, or that the views I and other pro-gay-marriage equality advocates have no validity in the face of your denial of their substantive reality. Rather, given your world-view, I simply recognize your apparent “SSA,” coupled with your religious beliefs on the matter, as two combustibly-motivating reasons that prevent you from accepting the science of sexual orientation.

As there is not a shred of scientific evidence anywhere in the brain sciences that homosexuality as a syndrome, is biologically based and fixed by birth, these mythical reams of scientific data have yet to be born, and hopefully, they will not be fixed at birth, but open to serious analysis and honest inquiry.

Denial. It ain’t just a river in Egypt.

With one dismissive wave of your had, you unsuccessfully seek to invalidate the views of every major medical and psychiatric professional organization’s research on the matter, choosing, instead, to heed the staggeringly dwarfed views of NARTH and its miniscule proponents. Which is, of course, your right.

In point of fact, this is a leftover of the sexual revolution ideology of the late sixties/early seventies era, in which anyone who vehemently held to a dissenting worldview regarding human sexuality (chastity, marital fidelity etc.) was accused of being a sexually repressed neurotic in denial regarding his own wish to be rampantly promiscuous and secretly wishing to join the revels of the sexually liberated.

Its a facile game of amateur Freudian psychoanalysis used to mask the intellectual vacuity of a position bereft of rational or moral justification on its own.

It’s ironic that you ascribe to me any attempt to proscribe pro-Freudian psycho-sexual theories, given that, in reality, I abandoned support of them once I began to accept what modern science has said about the scientific data demonstrating the physiological roots of sexual orientation.

No… self-loathing is not limited to the realm of pro-Freudian psycho-sexual theories (which have long since been disproved).

How honorable and kind of you.

I appreciate the recognition of my intentions.

There is no equal protection under the law for homosexual marriage, since there is no way to fuse the concept of homosexuality and marriage so as to achieve an intellectually coherent phenomena to be protected. Marriage is the basis of civilized society. Homosexuality is sexual coupling and emotional attachment - and nothing more.

Further, as pointed out ad infinitum, marriage itself is not a protected right under the federal constitution, but a core feature of civilized society that the constitution protects only in the sense that it really has nothing to say about it at all, leaving such fundamental traditions, customs and social bonding/stabilizing mechanisms to the people to carry on in pursuit of ordered liberty.

If a clear majority want to legitimize homosexual marriage, and de-privilege heterosexual marriage and heterosexuality per se, the constitutional structure of our society allows us to do that, but not through the courts. We have accountable legislatures who's fundamental purpose is to make law, and if we wish to go in this direction, collectively speaking, we can. The consequences, however, cannot be legislated, but only experienced.

As with pre-marital sex, adultery, or other forms of sexual perversion, homosexuality, and especially since it discovered the sword of activist politics, is a near feral transgressive rejection of the boundaries of the law of chastity and antithetical to the fundamental requirements of a morally literate society, as well as to the core purpose of gender in both a mortal and eternal sense.

I disagree with you. However, I’ve learned of the futility of arguments that essentially-boil down to:

“Nu-uh!”

“A—huh!”

“Nu-uhh!!”

“A-huh!!”

“Nu-huhhh!!!”

“A-huhhh!!!”

So "history" has a trajectory and teleology, is that correct?

Yes--history certainly has proven to continue to banish dogmatic misunderstandings and unsubstantiated superstition with the ongoing advent of scientific progress.

The wicked will be "burned as stubble", being left neither root nor branch.

Time will tell. ;)

There is no misunderstanding regarding the glorified sexual fetish of homoeroticism that is "same sex attraction".

Given the wide macroscopic divide of belief on the matter (clearly observable, on a microscopic level between you and I), “misunderstanding” exists about ‘same-sex attraction’ somewhere… As I said, I believe the passage of time and the ongoing historical accumulation of scientific knowledge will support my view. You believe time will exonerate your believe that the wicked shall “burn as stubble.” Time will prove one of us right.

In the meantime, thank god for places like Mormon Discussions that allows us to discuss the matter without calling in a mod to censure any who has the audacity to speak their mind about each others’ motivations, regardless of disagreement or offense that is taken (especially when none was implied).

Best,
Darin