http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/dont-ask-dont-tell-revisited/20070228124709990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001The first seriously wounded soldier in Iraq has come out of the closet and is trying to eliminate the “Don’t Ask Don’t tell” policy in the armed forces.As I have said before, Gay Rights is not a stand-alone issue. It is part of the Separation of Church and State. The only reason to be afraid of / against gays in any way is religious in nature. It is therefore wrong to discriminate against them, and all people need to stand by their rights.DADT would have been fine if it were a stepping stone, but it wasn’t designed to be so, and that’s why I never supported it as a political endpoint.This soldier is being heroic — again.
Spanders
“Is it me, or is this blog getting rather formulaic? Dave posts an article, a few atheists post, phreedm comments, a discussion repeats itself from 3 or 6 months ago and on and on it goes.”
It’s not you. The formula is clear. Avoid interaction with Phreedy and the cycle will be broken.
I think that it would be GREAT if there were a discussion board of some sort on the American Atheists site. That way, all these recurring discussions– gay marriage, abortion, etc. etc. could just stay IN the original threads, and nobody would feel the need to re-hash them in irrelevant discussions just because previous discussions fell too many posts behind.
And to Phreedm: I don’t think that gays are necessarily fighting to have their ‘marriages’ recognized by the catholic church or anything. I think the big fight now is for them to have the same legal rights as married couples, whatever you want to call that union.
There are plenty of gay and le5bian couples who have participated in unsanctioned marriages or ‘commitment ceremonies’ and don’t feel the personal need to have their marriage recognized by any major institutions, but who would still like to enjoy the same rights as married couples.
I don’t care what you want to call it, as long as I get to visit my sick husband/wife in the hospital, file joint taxes, and the rest of it.
What:
Eek! Good call. I’ll remember that for the future.
Sorry, all, if I’ve fed a troll…
What: Avoiding interaction with you know who sounds like a great idea. That individual comes off like a skipping record.
Spanders,
My brother is visiting and we drove by the Flying Saucer bar in downtown Raleigh today after eating dinner at 42nd Street Oyster Bar. I remember you mentioning that you hang out in there a lot on weekends so I told him about you. Later we drove by the Unitarian church and your name came up again. Hope your ears weren’t itching today…
What: I didn’t know you and I argued did you?
D(Whatever): joke? 16? Those two items bring me more in mind of you and your apparent IQ
hominid
“What: I didn’t know you and I argued did you?”
I just let that one go. Not that I am not up to a good argument though. Maybe some other time.
No, it is taken out of context in all…it has nothing to do with this discussion…but nice try anyway…
You should study the bible…there are parts… you don’t understand…try again…
What: You are so right and I didn’t come to this sight to seek divisions. I’m letting it go also.
Comment from: Friday Pirate
Of course the drive is to have churches recognize and perform the cerimonies…
no church should be forced to admit gays or perform gay weddings.that said i don’t think most gays want that but i’m not gay so i can’t say for certain.my uneducated guess is that not much would change if gays got what they are asking for.they are already living together having sex,raising kids.maybe if we make it illegal for anyone under 18 to have sex or marry, people will calm down some on this.
phreedum “Of course the drive is to have churches recognize and perform the cerimonies…”
No it isn’t and you know it. Gay people are fighting for secular government recognised marriage rights only. Churches have the freedom already to deny a religious marriage ceremony to whoever they please. The catholic church won’t marry divorced people, some baptist churches wont marry 1nterracial couples, muslim mosques won’t marry a muslin to a non muslim, etc. Marriage in the USA is a secular institution which requires no religious recognition in order to be valid.
Paranoid, much?
The nice thing about the separation of church and state is that it goes both ways. The church doesn’t have to recognize civil unions if they don’t want to. Just as the state would not have to accept a church marriage, say, if they didn’t have the right paperwork.
I haven’t heard anyone suggest that we force churches to marry gays. That would be in clear violation of the separation of church and state.
Alexatheist: Actually if I were contemplating the thought of having a gay marriage I wouldn’t want my happy day to take place in an unhappy hostile environment that had been forced to conduct such a union. A civil service conducted by a person just doing their job and who didn’t care one way or the other would be preferred by me. I agree with your statement “secular government recognised marriage rights only” In fact I don’t have a problem with calling the ceremony a civil union provided it would be treated as a traditional marriage when it came down to basic expectations, rights, and legalities.
Sometimes, I think HOMINID (the chimp) and WHAT are the same child.
“What: I didn’t know you and I argued did you?”
Who said you two argued? Grow up. You picked a beef with me.
I know many people that would perform the marriage of people of the same sex with love and kindness. hominid has the wrong contacts or a persecution problem if it does not feel it can have a marriage in a non hostile environment. It (hominid) also has ALL the rights that anyone else of SOUND MIND has. There is ?Its? problem.
What: As I said earlier I didn’t come to this sight to find divisions and am letting it go.
We really need a memorial for gay military service persons. Maybe once the marriage argument is over.
septos:
and one for straights
and one for xtians
and one for atheists
and one for muslims
and one for hindus
and one for american indians
and one for african americans
and one for asian americans
and one for …
where does it end?
Yes for gay rights!
Yes to civil unions!
Stand united or stand divided.
If we stand divided, we will fail.
Ever hear of “you can’t have your cake and eat it too”?
Gays should have the same rights as everyone else but do they deserve special recognition because they are gay? Everyone and everygroup has been discrimiated against or had an injustice done to them at one point or another.
septos: That sounds like a winner. I’m sure there are many gays who have made already or who are even as we speak making the ultimate sacrifice. Some if not all no doubt are doing it or have done so in the name of freedom. I hope there is no argument against honoring gay military service persons for sacrificing their lives. I favor such a memorial.
The war memorials , all of them , are for a special group called heterosexual. This looks like special recognitian to me.
I have visited all of them and I have never seen ANY that said that they were for heterosexuals.
The cheap way to fix this is remove “You know what”.
There MUST be something the military could do to make the GLBT soldier feel welcome and usefull beyond “You know what”
DeepDiver,
I too served 4 years in the Navy and never had a problem with gays. When I got out I ended up having a roommate that was in the Navy and gay. He was cool and his friends that were gay always respected my heterosexuality. I never had some obnoxious gay guy not understand the words ” I am not gay.”
septos:
Help me out here, missing what “You know what” is.
TXatheist:
I have known many gays and have only had problems with one, before this blog that is. I had a very good friend that was gay, and it was extremely depressing when he died of AIDS. We all miss him. He NEVER shoved his sexuality in your face and he was loved and respected, even with everyone knowing he was gay. Except by a few xtians that is.
The one we had an issue with, kept making suggestive sexual comments to me, such as … well, don’t want to go there.
speaking of homosexuality. How come such a surprisingly high number of those in the homosexual community have been at some point abused or molested?
This is not to say they deserve it or God did it to them. More like, does the one have any merit as leading to the other? abuse leading to a greater predisposition to homosexuality
won2have
Being abused leaves one with a greater chance of also being an abuser. It has nothing to do with the predisposition of one’s sexual preferences.
Sorry about that. It’s “Don’t ask,Don’t tell. You were really into that marriage debate.
karen, I don’t really agree that you would have a greater chance of being an abuser if you were abused. I had a father that would whip us on a regular schedule cause it was time. I have a kid and I think I spanked her bottom 2 or 3 times, (a single smack) when she was 2 to 4 years old. It hurt me more I am sure. I found it easy to remember how much I resented my father hit us. Our child is extremely well behaved and polite and does extremely well in school.
I broke the chain and it was no challenge.
DeepDiver
Congratulations on breaking the chain.
I did so myself, regarding sexual abuse.
But I have been in therapy for 13 years and studied this quite a bit and have found that people who abuse were abused themselves. That’s why they call it a chain.
Yes. Some people break the chains. Some with more ease than others. More people continue the chain because they think of it as normal activity, or they just don’t know there are other options.
Like religion, it takes rational thought to break free from, and for many there is overiding emotional control.
deepdiver, correct me if I’m wrong here, but didn’t you say earlier that you think it’s a stronger family model with a male and female role model and you had parents that had different strengths? Now you’re saying your father whipped you because it was time. Can you understand why I have trouble with your rhetoric about gay marriage? If you had a choice, would you rather be the child of two women (or men) who loved and nurtured or with a traditional man/woman setting where your father whipped you arbitrarily? I know what my answer would be.
spanders:
Yep, I did say that. But for that, there were many other positives that he provided. I resented the physical abuse, but that was his problem, overflowing to us. We totally resented it. One day he totally lost it nearly beat me to death. That was the last time. I think he finally realized what was happening to him and he woke up. That was the last time he touched us in anger. But there are many things he did that was on the other side of the coin. He would take us deep woods camping many times each year. He was the assistant scout master and helped me through to get my Eagle. He helped me through some rough times and was always their for support.
I will never forget the last time he touched us in anger. The look on his face was of absolute shock at what he had done. I knew he was ashamed, and it took a while to forgive him, but I did.
He also taught me to stand up and fight for what I believed in. Not to backdown.
Can 2 men or 2 women be good parents. Of course, but there are things my father gave me (besides the ass wooping) that my mother could not, and vice versa.
In some cases, and I think I said this before, same sex parents may be better than the traditional parents, but it depends on the situation. Me, in this case, even with our problems, I prefered mine.
spanders:
for the record, once again, I have always been for the Civil Union between gays.
As an atheist who falls into the category we’re discussing…I think I can lend a little to the discussion.
There are times when I’ll walk into a gay bar and I’m thoroughly pissed off. Why? Because when I was heavy into my activism for gay rights I found few gay people did anything about it. I ran a organization that connected women in the community. If I mentioned free beer, people came in droves but mention a political action group and people didn’t even respond. Go around a gay community where there are young people in these red states and ask all of them if they vote. Most of them say “what’s the point?” I found myself in a very silent minority and it’s very infuriating. No one would get involved and everyone stayed silent for fear of retaliation. I can’t say I blame them because I know how that is. It’s a case of do you speak up and risk losing your job and home or do you stay silent and send letters from your arm-chair? It seemed like most of the time they were more content with getting drunk and picking up people than they were about politicians creating laws to say that you couldn’t breed using sperm donors unless you had a license. (Among countless others)
Another thing I’ve noticed is that many still consider themselves Christians. (I find it ironic that many are still unsure about leaving behind a faith that condones their death.) How do you get a Christian to fight the source of the hatred that’s directed at them when they’re subscribing to the beliefs and just picking out what they want to?
Frankly, I realized that ending the hatred should not be about being on the defense all of the time but rather maintaining a concrete stance on the offense and the ONLY way to do that is to start at the source of the problem: Religion. Let me tell you, it gets damned tiring fighting the same stupid people every year about the same damned things. Without their religion poking it’s head into our lives this kind of discrimination would not occur and there are countless examples in history of what wouldn’t have happened had religion not played a force in it.
Hell, if people even knew that marriage licenses in the US didn’t even start until the 1920’s and they originally started to make sure that blacks and whites couldn’t marry maybe more people would understand that the licenses weren’t “religious” documents. In fact, preachers are coming out now saying that this shouldn’t be an issue because religions were initially against the whole idea of the government taking over a “religious” institution’s title in the first place. Everyone who wants one should get a license but if you want to call it marriage, do it in a damned church. Few people know this history, though.
I have to agree that it shouldn’t have taken this poor guy losing his limbs to say enough is enough but it certainly does make his plea easier to empathize with. How can you turn a guy away who lost his limbs and nearly his life fighting for your freedom?
And as far as gay atheist organizations I think that most organizations appeal to gay people with half a brain to understand the fiction. I know that at all gay events I attend have had atheist organizations represented at them. And seeing how so many gay organizations end up fighting amongst themselves like catty little school girls (at least from what I’ve seen in my state), it’s probably better to have atheist organizations with gay people in them than gay organizations with gay atheists.
We should focus and pool our resources, not split off like various religious sects do.
But that’s just my 2 cents.
Lynette1977:
Got me curious and look what I found. Why do xtians get married?
http://www.mercyseat.net/BROCHURES/marriagelicense.htm
“1. The definition of a “license” demands that we not obtain one to marry. Black?s Law Dictionary defines “license” as, “The permission by competent authority to do an act which without such permission, would be illegal.” We need to ask ourselves- why should it be illegal to marry without the State?s permission? More importantly, why should we need the State?s permission to participate in something which God instituted (Gen. 2:18-24)? We should not need the State?s permission to marry nor should we grovel before state officials to seek it. What if you apply and the State says “no”? You must understand that the authority to license implies the power to prohibit. A license by definition “confers a right” to do something. The State cannot grant the right to marry. It is a God-given right.”
Further, I thought marriage licenses existed for along time. Not sure where that was coming from, so I looked it up and found this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_license
I know what you mean about seeming to be the only one that is sometimes fighting for a cause.
Lynette 1977: Thank-you for your post. “How do you get a Christian to fight the source of the hatred that’s directed at them when they’re subscribing to the beliefs and just picking out what they want to?” How true! I’ve found as a gay individual that all too often you are singled out for the “wrath of God” if you dare attempt to speak out against abuse. Accusers and those who would demean through intimidation turn what should be a gay rights crusade into a petty and individual targeted witch hunt. In essence, erase the hate is not popular at least on a universal scale. I personally have even had it suggested that my elevator didn’t go to the top. But to set the record straight, my elevator has not only gone where I wanted to go but has seen me get off where, with whom, and however often that I so wished. “Let me tell you, it gets damned tiring fighting the same stupid people every year about the same damned things” That remark should be written in stone! It’s also damned tiring being attacked on all fronts and levels on a regular basis by people who don’t know you (or anything about you) for the sake of hiding their own ridiculous inadequacies, phobias, hate, and histories of abuse.
I found this discussion interesting, but unnecessary. All former (like me) and current soldiers have known all along that gays have been welcome in the military. Moreover, they can choose from many exciting career fields in the Navy, Air Force and especially the Marine Corps.
Sorry, I couldn?t stop myself from interjecting some inter-service ribbing:)
unforgiven: Consider yourself forgiven. How could I be familiar with that sort of inter-service ribbing when I was never in that kind of service? Perhaps I need forgiveness too for having so much to say about a field I was never in. I guess my attitude stems from the old saying “We are everywhere” which never bothered me and which I thought was how it should be (alonside all other people and minorities) If someone was uncomfortable with me checking them out I would at least try and be discreet regardless of the setting we were in. Also, I think respect for ourselves and others is important but something that we have to learn and relearn as we go through life. I think you and everyone else on this thread and elsewhere has as much right to express themselves as anyone. If we can forgive, can we begin to heal and as friends?
In the 4th post in this string ,Karen felt “Don’t ask dont tell” is to welcome the enlistment of the gay haters. This looks very true. I guess by this behavior the current administration would welcome gay marriage as long as the participants did not tell anyone they were gay.
septos: The current administration would welcome Adolph Hitler.
hominid: Sometimes this stuff builds up to where I have to disconnect and chill out. Then come back after a recharge. Be carefull with the adolf thing, you know how people react to people coming back from the dead.
septos: I hear you and agree. Guess I wanted to forget der fuhrer (sp?) too since I had even forgotten how to spell the dead heads name.