Piano World Home Page Forums Restricted and Archives The Coffee Room A Decision

and fathers don't make good moral guides? why not ban men from the workplace so they can stay home with their children?

I don't have a problem with the idea of one parent staying home to take care of the children. I feel that it is very beneficial. I do have a problem with the assumption that it should be the mother. In fact, my husband would be THRILLED if I told him I wanted to be the breadwinner, and he could be the homemaker. (The reason we don't do this, is that his job has greater earning potential per hours worked than what I chose as a profession. Plus, I like being the homemaker ) Just my .02 Jodi

OK, here are the flames. Read these two paragraphs (both from Jolly's post, above):

"At the other end of the spectrum we have the women of lower socio-economic means. But The Great Society creates a welfare state, and whether the consequences are intended or not, marginalizes the importance of the father in the home."

"Now, I do not really advocate banning women from the workplace. But there has to be some mechanism in this society that will allow the children the benefit of their mother's influence. Kids do not need "quality time", they need "quantity time", and they need the steadying, moral, influence of their mothers."

Whats wrong with this picture? Are you not, with your second paragraph, marginalizing the importance of the father in the home?

- with all due respect, because I really do like you, Jolly Jodi

Yeah, this threads on its way. You know, by and large, I’ve come to regard the bunch of you as about the brightest bulbs in the known universe. Thanks.

Jolly,
Your last post sounded like it was written by a lady that lives fairly close to me. You may have heard of her......Phyliss Schafly

Pique,
I'd head for the 1820's with you! Gosh, all those horses... riders and buggy horses. mmmmmmmmmm
We might not have a Grotrian. But we would have some kind of keyboard instrument, right? And don't forget singing around those campfires.

touche', jodi.

and as far as music in the West of the 1820s, i may have to go back to playing the flute. yeah, i might miss the grotrian, but think of the immense privilege of living in that time and place, and as part of the trapper society. might not even need music to soothe the savage breast.

Wow! What a negative, cynical observation! You raise a number of excellent issues to consider and then, based I assume on your own consideration of thes eissues, you reach this conclusion of such despair, obviously seeing so much bad and so little good that you would make such a declarative statement. I am truly sorry that your life experience and observations have led you to such a desparate, condemnatory view of your own society.

I cannot imagine what sort of people you have personally come in contact with that you have decided this society is rotten. Based on the people I know and my life experience, I find most to be good decent people, struggling to do what they think is right -- and they live in a society that allows them to do this. You, obviously, see things much differently and so much more negatively.

There are those, however, who would argue that if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. My question to you, then, is what are you doing about this "rotten" society or have you just thrown up your hands and decided it is too far gone and therefore have simply retrenched?

Folks, you are getting soft in your old age.


Do I marginalize the role of the Father? No I think not. But I feel that the Mother has a larger role in the shaping of a "well- rounded" child, than does the Father. Although they are both needed to achieve success.

To give a horse illustration: When comparing riding a horse to raising a child, a Mother controls by steady firm pressure with the knees, while the Father tends to jerk on the reins.

And by the way, Eldon, I kinda like Phyllis.... :p :p :p

Societies which cannot determine right from wrong, have no moral compass, believe every type of behavior is acceptable, either exist off of slavery, as the later Emperial Romans, or are slaves. Which will we become?
People who cannot control their own behavior have it controlled for them. The children in the government sponsored ghetto near me have no parental care and no moral compass. A policeman will determine their future. What a terrible thing their parents didn't love them enough to teach them.
If you love your children you will give them morality and structure and religion. If you don't, some dictator will. After all he may be able to make the trains run on time.
PC is death.

"To give a horse illustration: When comparing riding a horse to raising a child, a Mother controls by steady firm pressure with the knees, while the Father tends to jerk on the reins."

Whoa! This may be your idea of dad, but it certainly is not mine. Nor my husbands. He and I traded the colicky baby back and forth while we tried to finish our supper. He and I trade who gets up when my daughter sleep walks. He has shared equally with the child raising, specifically picking jobs that allow him to be around his children as they grow up. The kids rely on us both for support, love, and comfort. This isn't something that is only innate in a mother, fathers have it too. It's what good parenting is all about. Jodi

Thanks Jodi, your response was excellent.
BTW....Jolly, I've encountered many mothers that do indeed "jerk on the reins".

In regard to “society” vs. people we know personally, I think we have to make some distinctions. While the people we know may be “good decent people, struggling to do what they think is right,” they are probably not representative of the society writ large. I would have been more comfortable with “good decent people, struggling to do what they KNOW is right.”

There used to be moral standards. People knew what was right and wrong. People also knew what represented good taste and poor taste, notice I didn’t say “rich” taste and poor taste. We got caught up in a spiral that devalued marriage, then the family, then children, and with it everything has lost what used to be intrinsic value. Maybe it was phony but people used to respect authority from the president on down, people used to respect church leaders too, and teachers. They used to be ranked as a “profession” along with doctors and lawyers. My daughter asked me, “hey Dad, since you know so much, why don’t you become a teacher?” I responded by telling her that I wouldn’t teach in a public school ever, couldn’t put up with the BS, PC and all the other stuff that is to me indicative of the rottenness of society.

I’m cynical, sure and I think I have a right to be. I’ve lived long enough to have experienced better. 1959 was a pretty good year for American society. Everything has degenerated since then.

You suggest that I should be doing something about it. As it turns out I am. I’m involved right now, up to my eyeballs, in two efforts that are so politically incorrect that I won’t bother going into them except to say that one involves Pro-Life and the other Homeland Defense.

Here are some basic changes that I advocate to turn American society around:

A Constitutional amendment making English the ONLY official language in the US and establishing an American Academy of Language to determine what is and is not correct English. It would be mandatory for a sound curriculum in English to be established in every public school.

A Constitutional amendment creating a permanent separation between magistrates and counselors as is the case in France. I don’t care at all for their Napoleonic code which makes the accused guilty until proven innocent, but I like it that money paid for a case is strictly limited. Want to make society better? Curtail the power of lawyers who as a class have a disproportionate say in the affairs of state.

A Constitutional amendment changing the words, “cruel and unusual punishment” to “the punishment shall fit the crime.” It is high time that we take seriously the cause of crime in this country; criminals. These people have decided to do what they please to others without consideration for the consequences. I can forgive them anything, but their actions must have consequences. If you kill someone on purpose, you shall die and quickly, as Thomas Jefferson tried to have enacted. He said that if a condemned murderer couldn’t get his case appealed within 30 days he should be hanged and publicly. One of the great causes of rot in this society, besides criminality that passes for everyday ways of doing things, is “bleeding heart sentiment.” It is one thing to be soft hearted, but soft headed is never good.

To those who say that capital punishment doesn’t prevent crime I cry out loud that their argument is irrelevant. I have said so so often to district attorneys, etc. A crime has been committed, the price for justice must be paid. I am also pretty sick and tired of the “death by legal injection” method. Hang em! and do it publicly!

This may sound contradictory, but it isn’t: repeal the drug laws. Force the trade out into the open. Prohibition was a social disaster. The drug laws are just the same. Decriminalize marijuana and let all those who can be gainfully employed, whose only offense was selling this stuff, out of jail. As for the hard stuff, make it a government monopoly and a criminal offense to sell it. Make the penalties hard; life in prison. Mao wanted to end the opium trade in China. He offered clinics to users and had all the dealers he could find shot. That ended the problem. Every hard drug user, and that’s everything but marijuana and its derivative products, would have to register and the only place they could use it legally would be within a public clinic. This would allow us to keep an eye on diseases that spread through this population. In time this scourge could be diminished and eventually wiped out.

Keep abortion legal, because someone is going to need to have it done, but make it more difficult to justify; the second time someone asks for an abortion they get themselves sterilized. Since I find the whole thing highly repugnant, make it about as socially respectable as cigarette smoking is right now. There would in time be far fewer abortions, no excuses, take responsibility.

More young women should say no to sex and the entertainment industry should stop pushing it. I’ve been trying to figure out just why they’re doing it. Any ideas on why sex in this society is pushed to such a great extent would be helpful.

Homosexuals are special people. There are other classes of special people too, but none with quite the same characteristics as gay people. Their decision, for whatever reasons, makes them different in this regard from the rest of us. Many are highly artistic, highly gifted, etc. OK fine. For the record I’m not a homophobe. I just happen to find what they do disgusting and don’t particularly want it spread openly in society. What they do among themselves is none of my business or my concern. They want to have the same privileges as heterosexual couples have; shared healthcare benefits, marriage tax breaks, the ability to adopt children. But marriage is primarily a religiously sanctioned thing. I have trouble with the idea of the state being able to marry anyone. There’s supposed to be a division between church and state in this country and for any state authority to marry anyone is really stepping over the boundary. So the laws here need to be changed too. Here’s what I propose. For everyone, married or cohabitating, gay or strait, I would set up a special kind of legal entity like a business partnership with its own tax status, asset sharing rules, etc. Dissolving such an entity would be the same as a divorce. I’d make it easy to get one of these and harder to dissolve one. If you want to be “married,” you do that socially in a church, synagogue, temple or what have you. If you are married, you may apply and get a “cohabitation corporation” for want of a better name. If you are a homosexual couple, you can apply for one of these too. It would allow the sharing of any health benefits, tax breaks, etc. Gay or strait, you will pay a nominal fee to get one and a much larger fee to dissolve one. We do want to promote social stability and this would confer all the rights of marriage under the law without offending some of us by calling it “gay marriage.” I have to draw the line somewhere and I do with allowing homosexuals to rear children. Sorry folks, this is a bad idea. I don’t mind gay teachers, as long as they keep their hands off the kids, but raising them, no. And I don’t really like gays in the military either, sorry. That has to go.

The greatest evil in society is pedophilia. Since I am Catholic, I can tell you that contrary to what many would like to believe, very few priests are pedophiles, but there is a pedophile network and once a pedophile, always a pedophile, there is no cure. Homosexuals have fought for a long time to get the recognition they have now, far too much as a percentage of their numbers in my opinion. Behind it has been a pedophile agenda. It was the celibacy rule that made it attractive for pedophiles to become priests not the other way around. To be gay may be permissible, to be a pedophile is unpardonable. What to do with them? Put them in with the hardest hard core criminals, may of whom owe the root causes of their criminality to being the victims of pedophiles. They’ll know what to do with them. I know a psychiatrist in Florida, one of the very few whom I approve of, who has a belt into which she punches holes for every pedophile she succeeds in sending to prison. They plead with her, tell her they’ll be killed. She signs them away to maximum security, among the hardest of the hard. It isn’t long before she hears of their deaths.

Of all criminal types, pedophiles should be shown no mercy. They are a plague upon every society. They must be culled out and eliminated. It is probable that the pedophile network runs to the highest places and the lowest depths in society. When I was growing up, one never had to worry about one’s children. One shouldn’t have to now. This is one of the biggest changes in society, the corrupting of youth on a mass scale. And who is behind it? Pedophiles. By the way, in a previous incarnation, I was an officer in a group based in NYC called SAVE, which stood for Sexual Abuse Victims Empowered. I was involved in at least 50 cases throughout the country. We were not very effective. Our only realistic advice was to RUN. There is a wealthy and well run pedophile network. It is a terrorist network and it must be crushed!!!

One reason this society is rotten is that there is no justice. Justice is not made of a bunch of legal mush that can be mangled by any court, judge, jury or lawyer for the right price. Justice to be justice must be exact, well defined, pure and well deserved. Eliminate all the phony attempts to make an issue out of something that isn’t; there is no such thing as social justice, economic justice, racial justice, gender justice or any of that stuff. People advocating such ROT should have been laughed off the social stage long ago. But we don’t. We are PC. And the rot spreads. And you know what? Rot stinks!!! Not only that, it kills.

david,
there are many things i like about you when it comes to music and art. when it comes to your ideas of social justice, i shudder.

1959 was a great year? i think of that period of american history as a time of terrible repression. there's a good reason the sixties happened. people were being suffocated in this society. just ask my mother. she would have given anything to have had the kind of opportunities i had as a young woman as a result of that social revolution.

the thing that is most troubling about what you have written is that you seem to think you have the answers for everyone else, and you would like to dictate them from on high. it is a very intolerant attitude. if it is from this perspective that you are so cynical, then i'm really glad that society is, in your eyes, such a cesspool. at least it is a free society, and at bottom, that is what matters.

Before we crank up the melodrama on this thread I'd like to re-state one of George's statements: most people are talking about what they think about society, not what actions they have taken to change it. Asking what you have done can be a pretty humbling question. But a lot of times those actions are really very close to home. Any interest in such a tangent?

George

I agree with David, “ Our society is rotten”. I do not think that his opinion reflects negativity, I think that it is a realistic opinion.

I want to say that I believe in God. I believe that there is only one god. I believe that every human being that believes in a Spiritual Being, believes in the same god, no matter what he is called.

Man is separated from animals only by his free will, his ability to choose between what is right and wrong. Not what is right or wrong according to mans law, what is right or wrong according to Gods law. “THOU SHALL NOT”

I agree with most of what David believes in, but not everything.

I do not agree in the legalization of marijuana. WHY, why do we need a mind-enhancing drug of any kind? The old marijuana has been cultured to the point where its potency approaches that of some of the hard drugs, and this will continue, legal or illegal. I would be open to the arguments for its use in medicine, but I would hope that our scientist would be able to come up with a better solution than that. If you leave the door open an inch someone will want it open 2 inches and then 3. Legalizing marijuana is the first step in legalizing all drugs.

I do not believe in any process legal or not that promotes or legitimizes homosexuality. It is morally wrong. No one is perfect, every human has some quirk in their nature that gives them the propensity to do something that is morally wrong. The free will that separates man from animals, allows them the choice to either suppress this quirk, or to succumb to it.

I think that David's position on abortion is lot more liberal than mine. I think that no abortion should be allowed unless the mother's physical life is threatened. I think that anyone that conceives a child while using any drug or substance than could cause that child to be born with birth defects should be sterilized and imprisoned. A child is a child from the moment of conception, and to abuse it in the womb is no different than abusing or violating it after it is born.

I think that the statement “OUR SOCIETY IS ROTTEN” is not a negative statement, nor is it an act of retrenchment. I see it as a shout for everyone to open their eyes and to see what is happening around us. What is socially acceptable today was legally and morally wrong just a few years ago, and it is morally wrong today, social acceptance or not.

Religion is constantly being changed and adapted to fit our changing society, but the commandments have not changed. If you believe in a god read them and think hard about them.

lb

Well, I wish I could convince pique and others that I am not some horrible old crank for certainly I am not. My conception of freedom is a lot more liberal than most, on marijuana, which is still a softer drug than alcohol, itself a MAJOR contributor to health and social problems, on homosexuality because some people are just not going to be anything but homosexual, and many have confided in me honestly what a terrible lifestyle it is, on abortion, which is at bottom one of the worst things I can imagine. My views would be considered to the left of lb’s for instance.

We have a tradition in Western civilization, separation of religion and the state, that allows us not only freedom of thought but freedom to be skeptical, the ultimate trait of any good scientist. Where I differ from my friends on the political left, and oh yes I have them, is that I draw certain definite limits within which one can pretty much do what one pleases. I would actually tend to agree with pique’s mother concerning opportunities for women nowadays compared with 1959, but so far, with all the extra freedom, what have we as a society accomplished that in any way promotes the betterment of human consciousness? Are we better human beings individually and as a society because we have more freedom? I have serious doubts.

We could take many areas but let’s take music as an example. I play classical music, I memorize a lot of it. It takes discipline to do this. Discipline involves following instructions, orders if you will, given by the composer. Once one has followed the orders printed on the page and internalized them one is free within those parameters to interpret the music and make of it part of oneself ultimately to be shared with others. If one wants to make transcriptions, arrangements, etc. of a piece then it becomes something else. If all the music were nothing but transcriptions and arrangements it would soon loose its intrinsic qualities. Freedom to do as one pleases does not always produce the best results.

Without following instructions, doing what one is told, knowing right from wrong, not just from a legal perspective but from an interiorized moral one, one is frankly incapable of utilizing one’s freedom for any practical accomplishment of any kind. If you required surgery would you prefer a doctor who practiced based on his freedom to do as they please or one who is disciplined to know what he or she is doing? An accomplished person didn’t get that way by placing freedom above discipline. Our society has fallen away from this critical balance. PC is an obstacle to finding the truth when and where it needs to be defined in critical terms; A is not equal to or better than B, therefore B must be improved if it ever hopes to be the equal of A, not that A must be ashamed of being better than B and should therefore not excel. IF PC promotes greater freedom, explain to me why PC prefers the tacit support of criminal dictators to run countries (Cuba, China, Zimbabwe or North Korea for instance) to democratically elected leaders in a LIMITED government? There are far too many lies that are not openly questioned. It’s time for a counter-revolution and one is surely coming. Be hopeful that it does not go to the right of my reasonable perspective on freedom else I will have to find somewhere else to go myself. And there are no more empty continents left. To the moon…….

David, let me comment on each of your propositions, if I may.

Re: the lack of values. I disagree we lack values. What I see this society doing is undergoing a debate about what are our values and how are they defined. It is moving from defining values as a set of rules outlined in a Calvinistic interpretation of Christian Scripture (or a Jansenistic view, if we consider Catholicism) -- primarily the Old Testament -- to the actual values behind those rules (which are more defined in the New Testament than the Old) and also tend to be the same values that are common among almost all religious Scriptures.

This is a good thing -- but it does require people to take personal responsibility for their actions, rather than rely on some "authority" to define for them what their actions ought to be. To me, this is a necessary evolution for a society that wants to recognize the inherent dignity and freedom of each human being -- which is the most basic value that this society is coming to. It is messy work, but we are grappling mightily to figure out a way to get there.

Re: People having known what is right and wrong in the past. I disagree. People have never known what was right and wrong. They have never had to figure it out before because they simply accepted what was told to them -- now they do. Now we have a more educated people, often more so even in morality, philosophy and theology than those who would set themselves up as moral authorities. In the past, people bought in to what these authorities said was right or wrong and any disagreement with these authoritarian dictates was rooted out and suppressed with a vengance.

Now they are being faced with making this decision themselves because they have access through education based on academic freedom, the media, the Internet and many other ways to see and understand rules different from what they were told are the "true rules."

The authorities of the past have found their positions diminished because their rules were too often in conflict with the values they claimed to espouse. Thus their credibility is weakened as people have access to the information that shows the hypocrisy of many of these positions.

Re: 1959 as the year to go back to. I would not go back to any year. But I think the most important and positive time in my lifetime was the mid to late sixties -- it was the time when we began to cut the bonds of the "rule" based society and began to look at our base values and attempt to move society in that direction. It has been a long struggle and continues to be messy and difficult. We are not there yet. But we continue to move in the right direction -- and will end up in a society which is far better off than it was in 1959. But also one which will be far more open to individual expression and individual rights than 1959 was. That means that it is going to be a much harder society for people who want rules as the guideposts to live in.

Re: Your involvement in the Pro-Life movement and Homeland Defense. While this is not where I spend my time, my hat goes off to you for actually doing something rather than just whining about it. My respect for you has grown immeasurably.

Re: English as the official language. I see no need for a constitutional amendment. This is happening anyway, thanks to modern communications. I suspect that 100 years from now, English will be the primary language throughout the world. The others will be around but seen quaint throwbacks to an age when the world divided itself in meaningless ways -- such aS religion, culture, language and political boundaries. Well, maybe 200 years, but it is coming.

Re: separating magistrates from counselors. I can buy this. I agree lawyers have a disproportionate share of power in this society. The problem though is not the lawyers so much as the way law is practiced -- primarily through an adversarial system. This automatically sets up and "us versus them" mentality in society -- rather than a "we are all in this together" mentality. I am not sure what group, if any, I would place in the positions lawyers now have. I would probably not give any group this position --I would rather tear down the barriers to individual expression, move us away from thinking we need some sort of uniform way of living and move towards a unity of people for the benefit of the individual.

Re: "Punishment fits the crime" I can also agree with this. But where we might differ is that right now I see the laws are being far too stringent -- the punishment far exceeds the crime. I suspect that many people would not be real pleased to find the crime laws becoming more lax -- but this is what I think would happen if we moved to a system where the punishment fits the crime. We would not be trying 14 yo's as adults, applying the death penalty to mentally retarded individuals, the majority of prisoners in our prison system would not be drug offenders, we would have no "three strikes" laws, judicial discretion would be brought back and mercy and understanding of the circumstances that led to the crime would again be part of our system.

Re: the death penalty. To ignore the debate over whether or not the death penalty is a deterrent is to say that society should take a major stand without having a goal for it. The debate on the death penalty is a debate about goals -- what is the goal of the death penalty and does it achieve that goal -- and is this a goal we even want? In any major societal issue, I believe we need to define a common goal. The closest I have seen of a common goal when discussing the death penalty is to make society safer. Some want the goal to be punishment, but there is no common acceptance of this. If making the society safer is the most common goal we have, there are many ways to do this short of killing people for their crimes.

Re: the drug laws. I basically agree with you on your proposals. Make them legal, but controlled. We may differ in the steps to this, but not in the basic premise.

Re: abortion. I basically agree with you on this as well. As Clinton advocated it should be "legal, safe and rare."

Re: pushing sex. I do not fault the entertainment industry here. I do not see them as pushing anything, other than making a dollar for their stockholders and employees.

If there is fault to be laid, it is at the feet of our religious and moral institutions who have refused to acknowledge the changing attitudes towards sex and provide moral guidelines for those changing attitudes. Rather, they continue to want to make sex evil unless it is within a heterosexual marriage.

In a society which has obviously chosen to accept sex outside of hetersexual marriage (as many other societies have before us), it is more important to set moral guidelines dealing with the dignity of sexual expression in all forms and with the morality of commitment rather than with worrying about rules of when sex is allowed or not allowed.

I also believe we, as a society, must move past seeing sexual morality as the ultimate form of morality. It is not. There are far more important moral principles for human beings than whether or not two or more people people satisfy their lust in a particular way or within the confines of a particular narrow relationship.

I completely agree with you that the State has NO right to define or permit marriage. It is a religious act and should stay religious. The laws we have now are simply the codification of certain civil rules and regulations to protect the economic interests of those who have chosen to join their lives and property together and to protect any children that come from this union. They are intended to make sure that people do not all have to write their own contracts for such unions or to make sure that each couple does not have to "reinvent the wheel" with every committed relationship. We should recognize that this is all the marriage laws do and thus can be readily applied to any and all couples or groups who choose to join together in some formal partnership. Although I am not the one who is going to call the 700 Club or Dr. Laura to tell them this! LOL!!

I am not sure that I would argue pedophilia is the greatest crime of all. Mainly because I would take your premise and make it broader. Severe abuse of children or any of the most vulnerable in our society, including the elderly and the mentally impaired -- be it sexual, physical or pschological -- is the greatest crime of all. To prey on the weakest and to damage them so severely is the most depraved of human actions.

If we are ever able to share a bottle of wine, David, and spend many hours talking in these terms, I would feel very honored.

Bravo! All of you! This is an excellent discussion - even better than the one that got archived! I am always amazed at how I can have similar thoughts on certain issues with a particular person, and vastly different thoughts on other issues. Jodi

I decided to join this discussion not only because it interests me, but also because I wanted to see what now happens.

If people felt their children were threatened by the abortion discussion, this one is even more threatening.

We now have advocates for marriage being eliminated as a legal institution and for the society to develop a morality not only allowing sex outside of marriage, but also between members of the same gender and even in groups! People are encouraging the repeal of drug laws and the government becoming the primary "dealer". Ideas are being presented for the melding of all of the world's cpmmon religious values, with no special position being given to Christianity.

The real threat, of course, is that this is being done in civil and intelligent conversation. How does one explain to their kids that people's ideas and values are inherently evil when that person presents their views in a rational way, explains a legitimate basis for their views and is not presenting a screaming tirade? And then base it on a moral system to boot while speaking with respect for religion? The kids are not stupid and will immediately recognize that not everyone who disagrees with Mom and Dad are bad people going to heck -- so maybe Mom and Dad do not have the only acceptable view on certain topics and maybe the kids can choose among alternative moral and religious options.

So, we'll see how long this discussion is allowed to go on. And yes, I have phrased this purposely to be a dare to those who would suppress the open sharing of ideas! If you wish to disagree with me or anyone else, do it in the light, in front of everyone and explain why your views are superior to ours. It'll be good for your kids to see you espouse your own ideas and support them when challenged. Don't go into the shadows and anonymously act a second time. Have the courage of your own convictions. Your kids deserve no less from their parents.

Excuse me, but did someone say homosexuality is a choice? What have you people been smoking???

I know a number of homosexuals and let me tell you, it is NOT a choice. If you believe it to be a choice then you must have made the choice to be heterosexual. Or, to put it another way, you had the choice to be homosexual, but you decided to be heterosexual. Come on people, you are smarter than that.

Who in their right mind would CHOSE to be a member of one of the most hated minorities on the face of the earth?

Homosexuals, just like heterosexuals, have a choice to have sex or not have sex. That is the choice, that is the only choice. Any psychologist will tell you the that. Do you like brussel sprouts? If not, did you DECIDE not to like them, or do you just not like them? It's the same thing with being gay. I know I'm going to get my butt kicked for this, but this 'choice' thinking irks me.

Looking at the issue from 30,000 feet; there are 2 kinds of homosexuals in the world, just like there are 2 kinds of any other group of people in the world. There are are the "in your face" homosexuals, and the "normal" homosexuals. My best friend is gay. He is what I call a "normal" homosexual. I never knew it until years later after he swallowed a bottle of pills in an attempt to end his life because he couldn't bear who he was.

Since then, he's come to accept who he is but behaves in a very "normal" manner. I have no problem going out with him for a few beers or going fishing, camping, whatever with him. He's a guy who happens to be attracted to men. Period.

Society is very heterosexually orientated, as well it should be; most people are heterosexual. But society also tells us that homosexuality is horrible, not normal, deviant, you will burn in heck for it. Those ideas got into my friends mind and convinced him he was the scum of the earth. He tells me that feelings of worthlessness are not uncommon among gays; because of what society has taught all of us.

His story has opened my eyes and I am now much more in tune to the subtle, negative, anti-gay, messages delivered every day in so many different ways.

Trent Lott made the statement that "homosexuals are simply criminals commiting crimes against the American family" (not an exact quote, but very close). Now substitute in Jews or Blacks or Muslems for homosexuals and screams would be heard around the world. Yet Mr. Lott, and many others, get away with this kind of garbage. My friend is not "anti-family values" in any way shape or form. I don't think most homosexuals are. If anything, they'd like to have as much of a "normal" family as possible.

Getting back to the 2 kinds of homosexuals. The "in your face" gays make news. They are the ones that I wouldn't want my children seeing - the bizarre, the freaks. One might ask is "Rosie O'Donnell an in your face homosexual?" My answer is "absolutely not". She is a kind, good-hearted woman, with some strong political opinions who happens to be gay. Now that she just came out, it's news so now you will hear about it. Eventually it will die down because she doesn't flaunt it.

The topic of priests and pedophelia came up. As was stated, not all priests are pedophiles. Most are good men, stick to their vows, and help many people. The few that are pedophiles, make news. Some people are painting all priests as pedophiles. Obviously, this is not fair. The same is true of gays. Some are bizarre people, out on the fringes, but most are not. Why crucify all for the action of a few?

David said:

Let's get another thing straight folks, ask any psychologist... Pedophilia is not about having sex with children, it's about control. Just like rape is not about sex, it is also about control. It just so happens that pedophile priests have easier access to boys more than girls. Pedophiles aren't interested in the sex of the child, they are interested in the fact that it is a child. Homosexuality does not figure into it; at least not up until a child enters puberty.

Another fact you may find interesting is that among the general population, more heterosexuals (percentage based on total population) are pedophiles than are homosexuals. Of course this is hotly debated because no one really knows what percentage of the population is homosexual because people are ashamed and will not admit their sexual orientation. Why? Because of some of the opinions stated in this forum; "it's morally reprehensible".

To insinuate that homosexuals are pedophiles is ridiculous. I would have no trouble sending my son off to an overnight camping event with my friend. Or to leave him in his care. Ok, I don't have a kid, but I'm just saying it is not an issue. He would not abuse the boy, or talk to him about 'gay' things. He'd treat the kid as an innocent child and leave that kind of education up to the parent's.

I've known him for years. I know his values. Other than his sexual orientation, he is more conservative than most people on this forum. Anti-abortion, goes to church (in spite of the preaching), log-cabin Republican (gay group that supports Republicans), loves Bush, hated Clinton, the list goes on and on...

Feel free to have your opinion, but don't say it's a choice. It ain't. I didn't 'decide' to be heterosexual nor have I ever had a homosexual thought in my life - I have zippo interest. If it were a choice, then I would have thought about it and pushed it out of my mind for one reason or another.

When people say "it's a choice" but are confronted with the question: "So evidently you've thought about having a homosexual experience but have pushed it out of your mind?" They are horrified. OF COURSE THEY HAVEN'T THOUGHT ABOUT IT. But then how did they KNOW it was a choice? They don't. They are just stating an opinion that has no basis in reality.

Their opinion is based on the bible. Very similar to what the Muslims base their religion on. Some become extremists taking everything literally. So too with you 'Christians'.

How many women on this forum go to church? Those who do, how many cover your heads in church? I bet ZERO. Guess what, according to the bible you should be stoned to death. Anyone ever practice birth control? Guess what, you're going to heck. And my favorite subject, greedy CEO's. Greed, one of the seven deadly sins, according to the bible, these people are going to heck. But many of you have defended greedy CEO's to the death. Why? I have absolutely no idea because, according to your bible, the one you take so literally, IT'S A SIN.

Do homosexuals deserve rights? Yes. Do they have too many now? Absolutely not. There is no equal treatment of gays. If gays are teachers in NY state they can be fired. Tenured or not. And no, they don't have to do anything overtly gay, they just have to be found out. If the school board wants them out, they are out.

And what about those Boy Scouts? Are all men really created equal? I think not. If the Boy Scouts decided that they didn't want any blacks would the Supreme Court have ruled the same way? Of course not. The screams, again, would be heard around the world. Yet the Supreme Court said that the Boy Scouts are a private group and can exclude anyone they want to exclude.

Of course those that argue homosexuality is a choice will say that being black is not a choice. So what? Why not ban blacks from the Boy Scouts? The Supreme Court did not rule on matters of choice, they ruled on the right of a private organization to exclude.

Keep in mind, that 40 years ago, blacks were banned, held back, etc... just because they were black. And many white people thought this was right. Now we are "enlightened" (compared to 40 years ago). But when it comes to gays "oh no, we don't want any of them around here".

Remember the brown eyed/blue eyed experiment a teacher did back in the 60's? Perhaps some haven't heard of it.

A teacher decided to divide the class basically in half - brown eyed kids and blue eyed kids. For the first week the brown eyed kids were wonderful, they could do no wrong. She helped them, she told them how great they were. Meanwhile she told the blue eyed kids how stupid they were, how they were no good, how no one liked them.

Shortly the brown eyed kids got very dominant and agressive. They pushed the blue-eyed kids around. Beat them up on the playground. The blue-eyed kids cried and hated school their grades dropped. The following week it was time for the brown-eyed kids to be the dregs of society. Same thing happened in reverse. Blue-eyed kids soared, brown-eyed kids felt like garbage.

Just like they didn't have an eye-color choice, there is no gay/straight choice. You are or you aren't.

Tell me how many of those brown-eyed kids, the week when they are the special ones, would have CHOSEN to be blue-eyed and be ridiculed?

Let's get our heads out of the bible and stop taking every word literally and start treating people like people. I am really surprised at what some of you wrote in this thread.

God will decide who has been bad or good. And, according to the bible, God did say, "let he who be without sin cast the first stone".

I doubt there are any future Mother Theresa's on this forum, but many of you are throwing boulders with your judgemental attitudes.

Derick