Home Friday Afternoon Roundup - Politicians and Principles
Home Friday Afternoon Roundup - Politicians and Principles

Friday Afternoon Roundup - Politicians and Principles






A CONSERVATISM OF PRINCIPLES

Robert Spencer has written an article, "Why I am not a conservative" after his CPAC mistreatment. I appreciate his feelings, but I think it's a mistake to define conservatism in terms of personalities.

Conservatism cannot be defined by Romney or Norquist, or for that matter by any politician.

Floridians have seen Marco Rubio pivot on immigration and Rick Scott on ObamaCare. The crusading politician of yesterday easily becomes the sellout of tomorrow.

I have been sometimes criticized for "attacking" Republicans who are the saviors of the moment. I don't do that. What I do is hold them to conservative principles, rather than jumping on the momentary bandwagon.

I have written positive things about Chris Christie and negative things about him, long before Republicans had begun bashing him. I have done that for most politicians, because I believe that politicians are politicians. No politician trumps principle. Only people as a group can.

Conservatism isn't the latest dodge of the moment. It's not amnesty, gay marriage, anti-war or any of the other gems that show up on some conservative sites every day. It's not the latest clever plan to win. It's why we should win. 

Conservatism is not defined by CPAC. It's defined by you. You either see yourself as a conservative or you don't. And I would encourage Robert Spencer to reject CPAC's pandering to Islamists on conservative terms.

When Progressives and Internationalists hijack what being Conservative means, they are attacking an idea by trying to displace it and replace it with something else. And they cannot be allowed to get away with it.

I support Robert Spencer on a number of grounds, and one of them is that the Internationalists should not be able to hijack Conservatism to promote Islamism.

I think Allen West, whose credentials on Islamism are solid, said it best at CPAC.  "There’s no shortage of people telling us what Conservatism cannot accomplish. What we can’t do, how we cannot connect, how we must change our values to fit the times.

Well Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to tell you that that truly is a bunch of malarkey. Last time I checked a bended knee is not and nor shall it ever be a conservative tradition."





LIBERALISM'S WORK IS FINALLY DONE

Soda-Obessed Mayor of Illiterate City to Convene Climate Change Summit in World’s Rape Capital

“What Happens If We Have a Lesbian Queen in a Same-Sex Marriage?” House of Lords Asks

Muslim Baron Kills Man While Driving and Texting, Blames Jewish Conspiracy for 16 Day Jail Term

The International Pan Islamic Communist Party of Proletarian Islam combines Islam, Communism and Pan-Africanism

“White Privilege Conference” Proposes Government Guaranteed Jobs and Reparations

Gore Al Jazeera Sale Idea Came From Consultant Who Brought ChiCom Propaganda Channel to America

United States Government Now an Actual Subsidiary of Teachers Unions





HUSSEIN OF JERUSALEM

Barack Obama met with several controversial anti-Israel Arab groups ahead of his visit to the Jewish state on March 20.

The groups included MPAC and ADC, both of whom put forward proposals in support of Hamas.

Obama reportedly said, "he wanted to see what kind of concessions the Israelis are willing to make and push them in that direction, that’s why he wants to give the speech to the Israeli people,”

But Obama warned that the speech to the Israeli public might not have what the Arab participants in the meeting were looking for. “But he implored us to give them a pass on this one,” the source said.

Obama also expressed his frustrations with the lack of progress on the negotiations.

‘The only people more frustrated than me,’ Obama said, were the ‘Palestinians living in West Bank and Gaza – it’s a legitimate frustration,’” the source quoted Obama as saying.

And that "big speech", he wants a pass from Muslims on, will not be given in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, but in a conference center.

 In 2008, Bush visited Israel and addressed the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Clinton addressed the Knesset in 1994. Even Carter did it in 1979.

Obama addressed the British Parliament on his visit. He also found the time to address the Parliament of Ghana,  the Indian Parliament and the Australian Parliament…

So why is Obama dumping the Knesset for a giant auditorium?

Obama’s Cairo speech was given at Cairo University. Carter had addressed the Egyptian Parliament. Obama could have done it too, but giving a speech away from parliament showed disapproval of the Egyptian government and a ploy to suggest to the opposition that he would support their revolution.

Instead Obama is bringing in student “representatives” from Israeli universities, a group that skews to the left. Tellingly, Ariel University, one of the country’s more conservative institutions, has been barred from sending a representative.

Related:  How Small is Israel? So Small You Can Run it in 9 Days





POOR ED

Replacing the nearly 60-year-old Schultz will be the 34-year-old Chris Hayes. Hayes is everything that Schultz isn’t. Hayes is a New Yorker. Schultz has spent much of his life in red states. Hayes looks like one of the left’s perpetual college students. Schultz looks like he’s sleeping off a weekend bender.

Hayes, like Ezra Klein, another contender for the job, perfectly matches MSNBC’s young urban liberal demo. Schultz was meant to appeal to a more rural working class sensibility, that the last election told Obama Inc and its media affiliates that they don’t have to care about anymore.

 MSNBC Dumps Ed Schultz for Younger Man





AND MARRIAGE FOR ALL...

Aside from all the usual speeches, CPAC predictably became Ground Zero in the Meghan McCainization of the Conservative movement.

Aside from the Amnesty pitches, we are now being subjected to another round of dishonest arguments on gay marriage.

Republicans made a fundamental tactical error by accepting civil unions as an alternative solution because it legitimized a false construct. And now we're taking the next step. There are lectures on marriage as a "conservatizing" institution.

Very well. Let's say that it isn't. Isn't polygamous marriage also a "conservating" institution? It certainly has much more claim on that title than two men marrying in a Unitarian church does. If we're going to expand the definition of marriage beyond the natural borders of the family to alternative variations, why stop at gay marriage?

There is no rational answer to that and there can be no rational answer to it. Only attacks and excuses.

Marriage is not a universal institution. To universalize its specificity is to make it meaningless. If marriage is not based around the natural family, then it isn't based around anything at all. In Shiite Islam, prostitution was legalized by calling it temporary marriage. If temporary marriage is also a conservating institution, then we can follow Iran's lead and legalizing prostitution, as some libertarians would like to do, and make Las Vegas a very conservative place.

Senator Rob Portman's son announced he's gay and the senator announced that "I believe all of our sons and daughters ought to have the same opportunity to experience the joy and stability of marriage.”

And that is a reminder why we make decisions based on laws and values, not based on, "What happens if your daughter gets raped and wants an abortion" questions. People lose their objectivity when it starts being personal. Big Fur Hat at IownTheWorld points out that politicians are supposed to represent their voters, not their families, but we live in the imperial era of the ego.

Senator Portman's son will never experience the joy and stability of marriage because of a decision that he made and because of the senator's support for that decision. And that is the larger issue here. Tearing down social institutions in the name of tolerance and hedonism does not bring stability or even make people happier. America is a much less happy country since the 70s. All that love, tolerance and acceptable has not brought stability. It hasn't even brought joy.

Finally Twitchy, a site with the color scheme of a Mexican Tiki bar that looks like Twitter threw up, launched a vicious attack on Cliff Kincaid of AIM for his article attacking the idea of the gay conservative. 

I disagree with Cliff Kincaid, but the Twitchy piece reminds me of why I always disliked the site and never linked to it. It manages to embody the thoughtless stupidity and venom of the left in the culture wars. Twitchy kills the thinking process in any debate and skips straight to the shouting. It's an attempt to create an artificial Twitter mob by collecting Tweets on a single page.

I can't see a difference between a leftist attack on Kincaid and Twitchy's attack on Kincaid, except that Twitchy adds "conservative" in between the condemnations of Kincaid as an intolerant bigot. The Twitchy attack should serve as a wake up call that when the lines begin to blur on issues like gay marriage, then the Meghan McCain conservatives become indistinguishable from the left in their tactics.

Bryan Fischer asks what happened to Twitchy? The same thing that happened to Hot Air. Why it happened would be the interesting question.

Cliff Kincaid is right and he's wrong. There can be gay conservatives, just as there are adulterous conservatives, and we've seen plenty of those. The problem is that the left projects personal behavior onto identity politics. And there is a major difference between being gay and conservative and insisting that  homosexual identity is legitimately conservative.

That difference is where we run into problems with Mark Sanford. No one is perfect. And while our leaders should embody virtues, it's unrealistic to expect the same of the rank and file activist. An adulterous conservative is a problem for his family. A conservative who insists that adultery is a conservative value, is a problem for the conservative movement.

That isn't an issue at the moment, but as personal behavior becomes identity politics, the lines blur. And then you have to accept adultery to accept the adulterer. You have to give up your own values to become tolerant. And that is a formula for the death of conservatism.

There can be gay conservatives, but not a conservatism that accepts homosexuality as the equivalent of heterosexuality.

Repeat the process enough times and you wind up with a movement that stands for some kind of fiscal conservatism, but is on the left in every other regard. And if we're going to go that route, then wasn't Meghan McCain right and shouldn't Huntsman have been our 2012 nominee?




THE CHOICE POLICE

Inspired by the dramatic improvements in New Yorkers' health and well-being after he banned smoking and junk food, as well as large sodas, salt, trans fats, Styrofoam food containers, and loud earbuds, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that the NYPD is organizing a Food Felonies Unit (FFU) to further combat the proliferation of food crimes.

Nicknamed "Double-F-U," the newly-formed unit is expected to be involved largely with restaurant menu supervision in its crime-prevention function, while also conducting sting operations on food service providers who break local ordinances.

"They've already retrained several canine units to detect trans-fats in foods, which will save on lab costs," said O'Brien. "But they'll still have to use old-fashioned officer-led searches because the dogs can't smell the difference between 16oz. bottles and the illegal sizes."

...still satire from the People's Cube, but life will probably imitate it soon enough.




WHAT IS RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ANYWAY?

Kentucky’s state legislature has overwhelmingly passed religious freedom legislation acknowledging that citizens have the right to live according to the precepts of their faith.

The Fourteenth Amendment is the guarantor of civil rights at the state level, but a “gay rights” group in Louisville, in urging Governor Steve Beshear to veto the legislation, is claiming that religious freedom is not a civil right.

“If this bill is adopted people can hide behind religious freedoms and discriminate in anyway they feel. They could say based on my religion I don’t think I should serve people based on interracial marriage. I don’t believe I should serve people because they are of a different religion,” he says. “People can hide behind it in anyway, and it just makes it more difficult for the human rights agencies to pursue equality in our state.”

...from Lia Graas' Catholic Bandita

There are a number of interrelated questions here, but the most obvious one that we're coming up against in the gay rights debate is whether religious freedom trumps the various civil rights desegregation efforts that work to enforce non-discrimination laws. And we are now getting into the area, with the mandate, of whether the government can force you to violate your religion.

We are moving beyond religious practice and into freedom of conscience territory.




THE PEOPLE OF BENGHAZI

Again this is a clear effort to drive Christians out of Benghazi.

What is even more troubling is that seen from this angle, the Benghazi September 11 attack was part of a larger effort to drive non-Muslims out of Benghazi.

Obama justified his Libyan War by claiming that he was defending the people of Benghazi. Did he mean all the people of Benghazi… or just the Muslims?

Ethnic Cleansing of Christians from Benghazi Continues




AND THINK OF SOCIALISM...

In 1946, after even much of the American left had broken with the Soviet Union, Walter Duranty used The Nation’s pages to describe Stalin’s latest purge as “a general cleaning out of the cobwebs and mess which accumulate in any house when its occupants are so deeply preoccupied with something else that they have no time to keep it in order.”

In 1936, as the Great Purge was underway and the Moscow Trials were getting started, the leftist magazine had declared that “[t]here can be no doubt that dictatorship in Russia is dying and that a new democracy is slowly being born.”

When the Soviet Union began to gobble up Eastern Europe a second time, Kirchwey said that America should accept the fall of Europe into darkness. “Peace and prosperity will be more than secure in America if we accept the process of revolution in Europe and the East instead of subsidizing resistance to it.”

 "The Nation" of Traitors




The Atheist Conservative blog differs from me on libertarianism, but agrees with me on Rand Paul's anti-war pitch.

Not just to end the Afghan war (which should have been ended eleven or so years ago), but to end war as such. Absurd. And Rand Paul thinks that if America does not go to war, there will be no (international) wars.  That belief is naive to an extreme.

And Paul’s statement that America’s going to war in Afghanistan “authorized a worldwide war” is totally false. Islam is at war with the rest of the world doctrinally. The attack by al-Qaeda on America on 9/11/2001 was an act of aggressive, not defensive war, and it was in pursuit of religous ends.



ATTACK CHOPPER PARENTING

Bloomberg framed the soda ban as a moral obligation.

“I’m trying to do what’s right,” he said. “I’m trying to defend my children, and you, and do what’s right.”

Bloomberg’s two daughters, Georgina and Emma, are 30 and 34, respectively. Emma has been married since she was 26. If they can’t stop drinking soda on their own, perhaps their father should butt out

Bloomberg Claims He Only Banned Soda to Protect his 30-Year-Old Daughters

Addendum from Steve Chavez

PICTURE THIS: I'm walking down a New York street with a 24oz cup. Two cops, who are across the street, blow their whistles, stop traffic, and run across the street screaming, "Stop that man... Big Gulp! Stop that man with the Big Gulp!' New York residents, still jumpy, tackle me down. The cops, with one foot on my neck, and the other cop with his knee on my back, grab my arms to handcuff me. I scream in pain and squirm. "Hogtie him!" Three cops cars show up and they throw me into one of them.

As the cops gather TESTIMONY FROM WITNESSES, as well as an investigator taking pictures of my Big Gulp, another detective, with gloves, empties a 16oz bottle of water into it. "BUST HIM CAPTAIN! OVER 16!" They come to me and say, "Sir you are arrested for unlawful possession of cup larger than 16 ounces." He reads me my Miranda Rights but I could barely hear him over several people on the same street screaming "Buy your COKE here. White crystal COKE here! Obama approved coke here!" Another screams, "CRACK here. Dime bags here!" "Meth here!" "Ounces of fresh Hawaiian CHOOM here. Obama gives it a ten!" "Legal scrips here. Pain-killers, UPPERS AND DOWNERS here!"



 OTHERWISE SANE LEFTIST UNEXPECTEDLY HATES ISRAEL, OWN DNA

Gabrielle Silverman (“my treesitter name is millipede”) sat in court for Monday morning’s hearing. She was the first treesitter forcibly extracted from the branches last Tuesday.



 WHEN THE PEACE FAILS...

UN Peacekeepers Flee Syria, Seek Sancturary in Israel




WE'RE OFF TO LIVE UNDER THE WIZARD

Dorothy arrives in a town in OZeroand with the odd name of Detroit because her house was swept up in the tornado of the subprime mortgage collapse, and deposited unceremoniously on the Wicked Witch of the Gay/Lesbian Fiscal Magicians Alliance, Barmy Cranks. Grateful Munchkins remove his ruby slippers and present them to Dorothy. The sparkling slippers have no magical powers; they are just nice-looking fashion accessories.

Dorothy is not sure she wants to remain in OZeroland, and asks the Munchkins how she can get home. She is told by the Munchkin spokesman, Karney the Geek, that she will need to ask the Wizard in the capitol, Emerald City. "Just follow the Paper Money Trail...I mean Paper Money Road," says Carney the Geek as he adjusts his ill-fitting glasses on his nose, "and you can't miss it."

The Wizard is an elective office. He has been voted Wizard repeatedly by his electorate of Munchkins, the chief residents of Emerald City. The Munchkins vote for him early and often every Election Day, because otherwise they will be rounded up by the Winkies to be carried off by the flying monkeys and dropped into the Tidewater and washed out to sea. The Munchkins know where their bread is buttered – what little bread and butter are covered by their ration cards – so they vote for the Wizard and hold mass Wizard Appreciation Days to show their undying loyalty. Many Munchkins have actually died of that loyalty, but there is a "gentlemunchkin's agreement" to never discuss such things. It's not good for morale.  

Edward Cline at Rule of Reason reimagines a reimagined Oz





FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE BLOGGERS

Blazing Cat Fur is in Canada where saying that rotten organizations "need to be purged, or burnt to the ground" nets you a visit from the men in blue.

"We received a knock at our door a little after 8 a.m.," said Lemaire. "Two detectives from Toronto Police Services identified themselves and asked if they could come in to discuss a matter."

Enter Det.-Consts. Irene Liska and Sergiy Lobanets, from 32 Division.

They presented "a photocopy of my post about the TDSB teaching children that the Black Panthers were a harmless social justice organization link" and specifically the "OISE and the TDSB need to be purged, or burnt to the ground" stinger.

It was almost laughable. He thought everybody would understand it was meant figuratively and obviously not literally.

"It was nothing but a rhetorical flourish. It's the language of blogging," said Lemaire.

Comments

  1. The comments on conservatism seem spot-on. We can't win by becoming more like the Democrats. Romney tried it and lost. Anyone who supports SSM, military capitulation, limitless debt, etc. voted Democrat. No votes were gained by a sheepish and apologetic "Liberalism Lite." The people who disagree with the Democrats but maybe aren't loyal enough to the Republicans probably just stayed home.

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  2. Pharaoh O comes to Israel just behind the locust and the slaves are careful not to offend or criticize the Destroyer,especially on matters that relate to Israel's survival in a sea of Islamic bloodshed that has only increased under America's Imperial meddling.
    Israel always honors her destroyers as with President Bush's great accomplishment of elections in Gaza and the US creation of Hamastan, Gaza.The nation that traded it's sovereignty for lies of peace smiles with delusional abandon as they await more misery and destruction at the hands of their Washington peace pimps who always deliver everything but peace.
    It's always more demands on the naive Jewish slaves who easily capitulate every time for lies of peace.
    The problem is with Israel's weak,spineless,faith challenged,servile slaves who serve Pharaoh Obama as if he were Israel's God and who are incapable of making any firm demands from their false god which the people,government and media fawn over with such perverse idolatry.
    The fearful,servile,little coward Netanyahu is afraid to make any demand like; Do not come to Israel without Jonathan Pollard,STAY HOME !

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  3. "All that love, tolerance and acceptable has not brought stability. It hasn't even brought joy."

    "Acceptable?"

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  4. "When the Soviet Union began to gobble up Eastern Europe a second time, Kirchwey said that America should accept the fall of Europe into darkness.'Peace and prosperity will be more than secure in America if we accept the process of revolution in Europe and the East instead of subsidizing resistance to it.'”

    Let's "reimagine" that bit of post-war "wisdom":

    "When the Muslim Brotherhood began to gobble up the Mideast and Africa, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel and John Kerry and John Brennan said that America should accept the fall of Israel into darkness.'Peace and prosperity will be more than secure in America if we accept the process of revolution in the Mideast and Africa instead of subsidizing resistance to it,' they said in a joint statement to the new refugees from the new Holocaust. In an announcement following the statement, President Obama signed an executive order to create a special Jewish refugee committee that will oversee the influx of Jews escaping the chaos in the Mideast, and appointed Louis Farrakhan as its head.”

    Given the behavior of the administration vis-à-vis Israel, that's not too farfetched a scenario.

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  5. Spencer meant well but expressed himself inartfully. As a result he has done disservice to his own cause. He is also genuinely confused. When conservatives hear that he thinks Mitt Romney is a conservative they make fun of Spencer for being clueless. Spencer should stick to fighting jihad instead of opining about things he doesn't understand. But what can you do, even Mitt Romney himself at some point thought he was "severely' conservative, or at least said so.

    Besides being confused about conservatism in general, Spencer also makes a strange mistake. Just because Norquist is a traitorous jihadist doesn't mean that he is a bad fiscal conservative. Spencer who is a highly valuable and brave individual has revealed himself to be simple-minded, which is unfortunate. That's why I like this blog: Daniel isn't simple minded, but instead the opposite, whatever that's called.

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  6. Anonymous16/3/13

    Daniel, I agree with 99% of the things you write on here, but being gay is not a choice, any more than being straight is. Have you actually spoken to any gay people about that? Have any gay people told you they chose to be gay?

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  7. The gradschoolification of America reaches CPAC. Various reaches of the conservative beltway media are worrying about even talking about illegal immigration and affirmative action now, and Life issues have become taboo: maybe next year the conservative movement can rent a meeting room at Santa Cruz' History of Consciousness Department and save all that walking.

    It's terrifying that the narratives of the Left have been so dumbly embraced.

    I feel like shaking these folks and saying: no matter how much you twist yourselves into conformity to their politics (politics, not ethics, not views), they still need you for an enemy, so enemy you will be. But the denouement of this game will be bloodier than we know.

    Reminds me of the time the N.O.W. held a conference at a hotel where I was working. They sent us a memo telling the freight dogs that they could not swear, use gendered language, or wear deodorant when the N.O.W. was in the building. These men wouldn't have sworn at a hotel guest under any other circumstances, but could you blame them for bathing in Brut and whispering potty jokes to each other as the ladies ostentatiously and deliberately made out in broad daylight on Peachtree Street in view of the docks?

    You can never be politically correct enough. Probable not even after death. A movement that asks hard-laboring men to avoid deodorant in Atlanta in August so as not to offend the sensibilities of middle-aged women giving each other hickeys on streetcorners is neither sane nor likely to ignore any aspect of your lifestyle after the revolution.


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  8. Anonymous: In Greenfield's defense, I say that homosexuality is a state of mind, basically neurotic, from which homosexuals simply don't "feel" like escaping or "feel" like correcting because they've been taught that reality is optional. Homosexuality is a state of mind which denies the gender of the person who claims he is homosexual because his genes are mismatched, or his cranium is "differently" mapped, or he suffered a childhood trauma, or whatever other pseudo-scientific or rationalistic argument can be dredged up by him or her or a psychoanalyst or a sociologist and passed for "reasoned" argument. Homosexuality is a self-cultivated internal pathology which revolts against a person's gender, that is, against the fact that he or she was born of one or the other gender, and not a third gender, or a gender that is somehow fixed between the two, but for which there is no evidence. In short, homosexuality is a bogus brand, as bogus as anthropological-caused climate change. The only individuals who might have an excuse for being homosexual are hermaphrodites, who are genetic anomalies, but then they can't really be called homosexuals, but multisexuals. And I haven't read much about the various gay/lesbian organizations championing the "rights" of hermaphrodites.

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  9. Anonymous18/3/13

    Sounds to me like you're the one insisting "reality is optional," sir. Rather than simply accepting the fact that there are humans out there that are genuinely attracted to members of the same sex, you've created an elaborate explanation that has no basis in science or fact but allows you to justify discrimination against homosexuals. Let's see a link to a single scientific study that backs up what you are saying.

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  10. Anonymous19/3/13

    There is a big difference in having same sex attraction (a conditioned emotional response) and calling oneself a separate gender or name because of one's feelings. Same sex attraction is a symptom, and does not change a person's cellular biology. Even surgery and hormones can't make you anything but male or female or a mutilated confused human being imitating the opposite sex. 'Gay' and all the other alphabetic names are part of a political, social activist agenda campaign to normalize and promote the abnormal and unhealthy lifestyles. The feelings are real...but it is a choice and a bad one to act on them as the CDC, police and coroner statistics, science research, medicine have consistently shown.

    Samuel

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  11. Anonymous19/3/13

    Ref: Lifestyles of persons engaging in same or bi-sexual activity, there are *multiple studies*, statistics that reinforce the warnings in Scripture and that stand as evidence against these dangerous lifestyles. Besides having the highest incidence of ST infections and incurable diseases, there is a dramatic increase of violence, injuries, murders and suicides as well as addictions and psychological problems in this population.
    2013 CDC report.
    Paper Citing Multiple longterm studies.

    Any honest person can see the factual evidence is overwhelming.

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  12. Anonymous19/3/13

    @Samuel, so you agree that someone who is attracted to a person of the same gender did not make a choice to be attracted to that person?

    @Isaiah, where are the studies of people "choosing" to be attracted to people of the same gender? Maybe the "dramatic increase of violence, injuries, murders and suicides as well as addictions and psychological problems" is because of the kind of bigotry and intolerance towards the gay lifestyle displayed on this blog. Just look at what happened to Matthew Shepard.

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  13. Not all choices are consciously made. Many are the product of nurture.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous19/3/13

    Daniel, let's say you're right that "nurture" causes children to be gay. That STILL wouldn't make being gay a "choice" on the part of that child. You don't get to choose the way you are raised.

    When you wrote above "Senator Portman's son will never experience the joy and stability of marriage because of a decision that he made," exactly what decision are you referring to? The decision to be born into a house that "nurtures" children into being gay? I'm honestly confused.

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  15. It's still a choice, much like alcoholism is a choice. It's not always conscious or easy to control, but it can be controlled. It's not an immutable aspect of human nature.

    I have no idea why Senator Portman's son made the choices he did, but he can unmake them. That is what makes human beings special. We can change how we act.

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  16. Anonymous20/3/13

    What exactly is a choice? Being born into a house that "nurtures" you into being gay? Engaging in homosexual behavior?

    Don't be so coy, Daniel. Say what you mean. Exactly what "choices" did Senator Portman's son make? It sounds like you are admitting that he didn't have a choice to be attracted to men, but he made the choice to admit he was and act on those attractions. Is that correct?

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  17. He wasn't anything except what he chose to be. Nurture might predispose us to be smokers, it doesn't mean that we have to smoke. It may predispose us to be bullies, it doesn't mean that we have to act that way.

    There are a constellation of human behaviors that we move among like voyagers. We can choose our trajectory and our destination.

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  18. Anonymous20/3/13

    He was attracted to men, according to you because of the way he was "nurtured." He did not make a choice to be attracted to men and not women. You're right, the choice he made was to accept that attraction and embrace it, rather than repress it and live a lie.

    I will ask you again, when you wrote, "Senator Portman's son will never experience the joy and stability of marriage because of a decision that he made," what decision were you referring to? The decision not to repress his homosexuality? Why should he be denied marriage to someone he loves and is attracted to because he isn't attracted to women? Because it's "unnatural"? That's what people were calling interracial marriage 100 years ago.

    ReplyDelete

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