From: karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
Subject: Re: BofA and UW can now support discrimination against blacks and Jews
Summary: Yada yada yada
Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Chicago, IL
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 17:34:11 GMT

In article <BuD7uv.Kp0@ddsw1.mcs.com> arf@ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) writes:
> 
> Article 2609 (11 more) in chi.general:
> Newsgroups: alt.discrimination,chi.general,alt.atheism,alt.politics.
> +           homosexuality
> From: karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
> Subject: Re: BofA and UW can now support discrimination against blacks and
> +        Jews
> 
> >I don't believe that homosexuals are (nor have been) asking 
> for anything more than equal protection under the law.
> 
> They already have it.  No new laws are required to protect 
> them.

But the existing laws need to be enforced, which they are not.

> >  NOWHERE have I seen them campaigning for "special" 
> privileges.
> 
> Adopting children is a privilege granted to married couples.  
> To allow homosexual couples the privilege would be "special" 
> and require rewriting laws to accommodate them.

Adopting children is not limited to married couples.  Single parents have
been able to adopt children in the past.

Besides, why should the state be in involved in this at all?

> >I see them attempting to prevent their civil rights from 
> being denied and abridged due to their sexual preference.
> 
> I know of no constitutional rights that homosexuals are 
> denied.

Except the right to equal protection under the law.

> >However, I do support >equal< protection under the law of 
> the land.
> 
> Pray tell, how are homosexuals denied equal protection under 
> the law?

By housing and employment discrimination, to name two right off the top 
of my head.  I could go on, but its not worth enumerating the violations.

> >Your suspicions have not been shown to be correct.  
> 
> My suspicions have never been disproven either.

Truth by blatent assertion?  

> >Everything I have read on this subject say that about 10% 
> of those children will consider themselves "homosexual", 
> which is darn close to the general population. 
> 
> I have never read anything on the subject.  That could 
> either be a result of my ignorance or a dearth of material 
> to be read because the results would not be PC and hence 
> unpublished.

The former.  I have seen articles in the mainstream press addressing this
very subject over the past several years.

> >If you want to refute this then lets see evidence.
> 
> I have none.  Simply common sense and experience with 
> parental influence on many other orientations.

So you wish to set societal restrictions on consenting adults, and their
offspring, based on your "common sense"?  Normally you need a compelling
state interest to interfere - or is it different on this issue?

> >Incorrect.  The group that brought us AIDS was the black 
> African man and woman, where this virus has been identified 
> dating back to the 1950s at least.
> 
> "The black African and and woman" are not a group.  The 
> homosexual community turned that incident into an epidemic.

Incorrect.  A >small part< of the homosexual community, namely gay men who
practiced promiscuous intercourse, turned it into an epidemic >among their 
subclass of the population<.  Again, Lesbian women have the >lowest< 
incidence of HIV infection among all sexual orientation groups -- including
heterosexuals!

IV drug abusers turned it into an epidemic among their subclass in the
population as well.  However, the casual marijuana user (who is also a drug
user), the tobacco smoker, or the beer drinker (all drug users) had nothing 
to do with the epidemic among drug users.

Understand the differences yet?  Sexual preference has >nothing< to do with
the proliferation of HIV.  One particular sexual practice, which is, by the 
way, >also< common among heterosexual persons, does.

It was amusing to see the "study" done recently which "showed" that 
prostitutes in an African nation weren't protected against HIV by the use of
contraceptive sponges -- ignorning the fact that those prostitutes main
"revenue" source was anal intercource!  Yes, a contraceptive sponge is 
going to do a lot to stop this vector of infection (NOT)!

It is revolting to see the "heterosexual contact" column of the CDC
statistics without having them list the persons who engaged in this
particular high-risk practice.  Heterosexuals have sex in more than one way,
you know.  Many of them practice that same "high risk" behavior that was the
primary vector for HIV transmission (I say "was" because that "primary vector"
is now IV drug use). 

> >  Further, the majority of the >planet's< AIDS victims are 
> >heterosexuals<; it is only in the US that we have the 
> >anomaly of gays being a more significant vector.
> 
> When I said "brought us", I was referring to us in the US 
> and our epidemic.

Our "epidemic" is caused by two behaviors -- the practice of a particular
sex act and the use of IV drugs in an unsanitary environment.  It has
>nothing< to do with gay men, gay women, sexual orientation or anything
else.

> Who started it and who has the most is no longer the issue.  
> It is an epidemic and nothing is being done to halt it 
> because of political pressure brought on by the homosexual 
> community in this country.  It has nothing to do with 
> discrimination, it has to do with special privileges again.  

Nonsense.  Plenty is being done to stop it.  What would you like Jack,
mandatory testing of all persons and those being found positive taken out 
and shot?   That would certainly stop it, wouldn't it?  Until the next IV
drug user shared a needle with someone else who wasn't caught by the
dragnet, and the cycle would repeat all over again.

> >Further, it is impossible to state >with certainty< your 
> >(or anyone else's) HIV status at any given moment.
> 
> There is a high degree of certainty that those who test 
> positive have it.  If everyone were tested, we would have 
> the key to controlling it.  Homosexuals have fought testing 
> from time zero.  They have created the only virus with civil 
> rights of its own.  It has nothing to do with 
> discrimination, it has to do with political pressure.

Incorrect.  There is a >high< incidence of false negatives compared to the
percentage of persons who are actually infected from a random population
sample.  Elementary statistics will tell you that this particular situation
does not lend itself to good results in random testing; you miss more
positives than you should, and you also identify many positives who aren't
(resulting an in enormous cost in confirmation tests for no real reason).

BTW, Hepatitis B is a disease that >is< easy to catch.  It is transmissible
by airborne particulate, and is extremely deadly.  It is frequently
transmitted by sexual contact.  Many people who catch it will die from 
liver damage directly, or from liver cancer later.  The damage it does will
almost certainly shorten a person's life if it doesn't kill them outright.
Should we test all humans for this disease and shoot the positive ones too?
This epidemic is of much greater harm than HIV at the moment.

> >Jack, >every one of us< is a potential AIDS victim.
> 
> That is precisely why I have chosen to be a recluse.  I 
> reduce the chances of contacting someone with it.

If you keep your pants zipped up and don't use IV drugs, your risk of
contracting HIV is less than that of being killed by lightning strike.  It
is far less than your risk of being killed in an automobile accident.

> But the risk diminishes with the time since those events.  
> But I do not see what this has to do with avoiding exposure 
> to known carriers.

> >The risk of catching HIV, >providing< you do not
> engage in high-risk behavior, is less than the risk of 
> getting run over by a car when you cross the street.
> 
> Yes but, when I cross the street, I don't walk into oncoming 
> cars.  I AVOID them.  It is an option I can exercise and so 
> is avoiding contact with AIDS carriers.  Unfortunately, the 
> homosexual community has made it just about impossible to 
> know who the carriers are.

But when you cross the street you can't avoid the lunatic who runs you down
anyway, red light notwithstanding.  The risk of this happening, and you
dying, is greater than HIV transmission.  So why not ban cars?

> I never said it did.  But as I am more likely to get hit by 
> a moving car, I am more likely to get AIDS from a carrier 
> and statistically.......
> 
> >It is a proven fact that it is next to impossible to catch 
> HIV in any other fashion, crazed lunatics on the "Family 
> Channel" and the "700 Club" notwithstanding.  
> 
> I do not know what they are proposing but I think the insect 
> vector, which fits your only method, has been swept under 
> the rug.  It has not been properly studied and all reports I 
> have seen are statistical extrapolations from anecdotal 
> information.   Very poor science.

IF there was a valid insect vector we would all be dead right now.  We
aren't.  There is no evidence to support that AIDS can be transmitted in 
this fashion.

> BTW, what does this have to do with blacks and Jews?

Not a whole lot really.

What I see here is a person who is pushing an agenda of singling out a part
of the population based on sexual preference, using as justification a
disease which doesn't relate to the practices of a majority of those who 
are a part of that population group.  In other words, someone who is
grasping at straws to justify a hatred of a particular group of people.

By your own basis of judgement here Lesbians should be on the top of your
"preferred" parent list for adopting children.  They have the lowest ability
and incidence in the transmission of the HIV virus.

Now, does your distaste of the homosexual lifestyle extend to Lesbians as
well?  And if it does not, since they aren't implicated in the spread of
this disease, let's also excuse those gay men who don't engage in high-risk
behavior (which is the vast majority).

I suspect, however, that your distaste has nothing to do with real concerns
(HIV transmission) but is a >morals< call instead.  And here we will just
have to agree to disagree.

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
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