From: bruceg@access.digex.com (Bruce Garrett)
Subject: Re: Measure 9 in PBS and CBS
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 18:00:25 GMT

   nelshou1@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu (Roger Shouse) rants on and on:

 >> > It seems to me you are saying that societies have a blanket right to 
 >> > regulate whatever and whomever they please for any reason at all
 >> > however irrational or ignorant or destructive to that society's fabric.
 >> > Correct me if I'm wrong...then tell me where you find the basis of the
 >> > right of societies to regulate the behavior of citizens if it isn't in
 >> > someones personal prejudices or whims?

 > It's not a blanket right, it's the result of political and cultural
 > negotiation.

        Ok...  A blanket right of the majority then...

 > It may be the result of personal prejudice to some extent, but it also
 > has to do with discouraging practices that are deemed harmful to the
 > society or to the culture.

        "Deemed"?   How?  You mean...by honestly looking at how people
actually behave?

 > Americans are tolerant.  They simply do not accept the proposition that
 > there is no moral difference between gay and straight behavior.

        Americans?   Roger...I'm an American.  I reckon most of the
homosexuals in this conference are Americans.  Our parents are Americans.  Our
families are Americans.  Forget that did you...?

 > People believe that their kids will live happier lives and that society
 > will function better if homosexuality is not encouraged.

        In other words, a workable, stable and just society can be spun from
"belief", regardless of whether or not the belief in question has any basis in
fact.  Particularly so if the belief is a strong one, or one that is commonly
held.  Right.  Tell it to the Germans of the 1930s.  Tell it to the
descendants of Lenin's dream.  Belief can do for us, what honesty won't:
enable our fantasies.

        " Believe that my kids will live happier lives and that society will
function better if Negros are kept out of our schools."

        "I Believe that my kids will live happier lives and that society will
function better if the Jew is kept out of society."

        "I Believe that my kids will live happier lives and that society will
function better if Women are kept in their place."

        I Believe...I Believe...I Believe...I Believe...I Believe...

        I believe we've picked this bird down to the bone.  I've asked you
repeatedly to defend your positions with anything like a reason and all a get
from you are platitudes about how people have a right to act on their beliefs. 
I'll concede majorities have a right to behave like morons if you'll concede
they don't have a right to evade the consequences of their choices.  If people
choose to shred the fabric of their society on the basis of mere belief, they
can't complain when people stop working together that it hurts when pieces of
the social structure fall on their heads.  The human identity isn't a
blackboard that anyone can scribble their will on.  There Are right answers
and wrong answers to the questions at hand, but you'll never find them by
taking refuge from reality in "belief".

 > In your dreams.

        If you think that homosexuals are ever going to consent to living
invisibly on the fringes of society where "tolerant" people like you can
forget we ever existed and thugs can prey on us while all you "decent" people
look the other way then you're the one who is dreaming.
 
 
-Bruce Garrett

Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality