Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Tue, 14 Apr 1992 15:25:00 EST
From:         "Peter J. Schledorn" <UNCPJS@UNC.BITNET>
Subject: Re: Response on Homosexuality - LONG POST

Well, many others have ably responded to most of Jay's post, but I
feel the need to do a little mopping up :-).


> I do not se many movies, but my experience about hollywood is exactly
> opposite.  My wife watches several TV shows faithfully, and I
> wonder if there is a good guy who is NOT homosexual.  On shows like
> LA Law, Murphy Brown, Designing Women, Northern Exposure, Life Goes
> On, and just about every other drama and sitcom, society is force-fed a
> plethora of homosexuals who are the good guys.  I cannot think
> of a homosexual bad guy on TV.

Well, I can't claim to have made an exhaustive study, but I know of only
two REGULAR characters on TV who are homosexual or bisexual--one on LA
Law and one on Roseanne (the Martin Mull character, a semi-regular).
The rest are characters who drift in for an episode or two and then
disappear.  Doesn't seem like strong representation to me.  Somehow,
I've managed to miss this army of gay good guys.  Most of the gays I
see are trotted in as plot devices and have a strong taste of cardboard.

...
> Furthermore, the distinction between "healty" homosexual and a pervert
> "pediphile" homosexual is a narrow one for many people.  Sexual
> abberance is easy to lump together.  This is one reason why,
> in my mind, I combine homosexuality, beastiality, and necrophelia.
> The last two do not involve consenting adults, but that distinction
> means little to my moral beliefs.  (and the members of this list spent
> a week trying to decide if a corpse can or needs to consent  :)   )

As long as you accept that your moral beliefs are not grounded in
rationality.  Therefore, any positions you take that are based on those
beliefs are also not grounded in rationality.  That doesn't necessarily
mean that they are irrational--there could be good reasons to take
positions that you come to by way of emotional rather than rational
processes.  But in this case enough other posters have pointed out that
your positions are not only irrational, but hurtful to others as well.

> >        Jeffery Dahmer is a bit extreme, don't you think. If you think
> >he's a typical gay male, then there is no point in discussion. You've
> >made up your mind.
>
> I am not making this argument.  I charge that you and others are.

And you charge wrong.  You have a bizarre blind spot about this point.
More below.

...
> The second component of a marrage is the legal benefits.  These are
> purely a matter of planning.  If two people have enough forethouht
> and commitment to get married (and here I eschew the notion that
> homosexual "marrages" are transitory, flighty things) then it is wholly
> irresponsibile for them to not make the legal arrangements between each
> other.
>
> When I hear of a homosexual couple who are "caught" in a problem like
> a will, access in a hospital, etc, I always have the same question:
> Why didn't they take care of it before the tragedy?

Bull.  Others have pointed out that no contract between two people can
compel third parties to behave toward them in a certain way.  But that
is exactly what marriage does.  It is not just a contract between two
people, but between individuals and society as well.

> The marrage-related rights that are legal in nature are wholly conferable
> in every state by a simple contract between the two.  Given the seriousness
> of marrage, I have little sympathy for people who consider it too
> bothersome to arrange the legal details.

How quick you are to belittle others.  Sad.

> The societal rights are where we disagree most.  I could build all kinds of
> complicated arguments, comparing married couples with single parents
> and the benefits given both, talking about poligamy, and lots of other
> tricks.  The simple fact is that I don't think that society should legitimise
> homosexuality and that these benefits would do so.

All this talk about conferring legitimacy is irrelevant.  What same-sex
marriages would do is acknowledge the existence of relationships that
are already here.  To prohibit them IS an establishment of religion, no
question.  There is no practical reason for government to behave any
differently toward homosexual couples who want to enter into a lifelong
relationship.  Sadly, there is so much religious prejudice in our world
that I doubt whether a court would rule correctly.

> Our tax code is designed to elicit certain behavior.  A family unit is
> a good thing.  Tax code that encourages family units is good.

Name a relevant difference, to the society at large, between a childless
heterosexual couple and a childless homosexual couple.  You can't.
Nobody can.  Yet one is given all sorts of benefits and the existence
of the other isn't even acknowledged.

BTW, the fact that childless couples are not deprived of the benefits
of marriage is proof that it is not primarily an institution to
encourage procreation, so don't trot out that tired argument.

> The United Staes, as a whole, is not ready for a society where there is
> no distinction between homosexual marages and hertosexual marages.
> Furthermore, such a society is an infringement of *MY* rights.

BULLSHIT!  You have no right to tell someone else that they cannot
exist.  You have every right to exclude homosexuals from your home and
from your circle of friends.  You can even remove yourself from their
presence in public.  But you can't tell them not to exercise their
rights because you're in the vicinity.  You can't tell them to remove
themselves from the society because their mere existence offends your
sensibilities or exercises your irrational prejudices.  Your rights
don't extend that far.

Flame on:

Few things tick me off more than this stupid, immature and self-
centered concept of "rights" that apply to the speaker but to nobody
else in the world.  Every hateful cause has proclaimed its "right" to
be free of those it hates, through discrimination, through segregation,
or even through extermination.  In every case the other is hated just
because it exists, no matter what specious reasons are advanced to
justify the hatred (there have been no end of them, and they are also
endlessly recycled from one group to another).  One thing that some
people can never seem to realize is that the mere existence of others
is not an assault on themselves, and that real toleration involves the
extending of all the rights you own to everyone else.  Otherwise, no
matter how old you become, your moral state never grows out of infancy.

Flame off.

...
> You want me to accept you and your rights.  I do.  But, can't you accept
> me and my rights?   One of my rights is to not participate in a system
> that supports things I find religously objectionable.  If my tax dollars
> are used to encourage, or legitimise homosexuality, you tax me for a
> purpose I find objectionable.  If you make me hire homosexuals, you remove
> my right to association.

In other words, you want the law to reflect your beliefs, even when they
are harmful to others.  Sorry.  Another person's right to be outweighs
your "right" to be free of them, outside the confines of your own home.

> I know that these arguments have been used before, as a basis for
> continuing Seperate but Equal, for example.  The court and society
> rejected them.  I find their application here to be different.  Why?
> Substitute "adultry" for "homosexual" in your demands.  Should I be
> taxed to encourage or legitimse adulters?  Should I be forced
> to hire them?
>
> Can you give me a reason why there is a difference between homosexuals
> and adulters that is important.  Don't make a moral argument, as I suspect
> we have different moral structuers.  Besides, morality should not be a basis
> for law.

Can you see the contradiction yet?

...
> I guess my answer to your request is to stay in the areas where
> homosexuality is openly accepted.  If you were to travel to my

They call those places ghettos.

...
> Well, thanks for crawling inside my head and discovering what I was
> thinking.  The point I did make is that Dahmer is a homosexual, and
> the nonsense about the movie was tantamount to saying that Dahmer
> represented homosexuals.

Wrong.  It was no such thing.  It was an accusation of slander.  It
was an objection to stereotyping.  Or are your complaints about the
stereotyping of Southerners tantamount to saying that all Southerners
are ignorant racists?  You can't have it both ways.

It amazes me that you can be so impervious to this simple point.

...
> >Since I'm now out of irony mode, I'll just observe how neatly Jay
> >distorts a complaint about a slander into a reinforcement of that
> >slander.
>
> Facts = Slander?
>
> Peter, do you not think I mean what I say?

Actually, I think you don't know what you say.

> The homosexuals who complain about this movie are the ones slandering.
> The rest is your opinion, provided without explanation.

Here is a fact.  The fact that Dahmer killed boys instead of girls is
totally irrelevant to the enormity of his crimes.  It is also totally
irrelevant to the morality, behavior and rights of the millions of
homosexual citizens of this nation.  All your cute little post showed
is that some people will go to ridiculous lengths to find some kind
of justification for their prejudices.  And that some money-mad moguls
in Hollywood don't have any compunction about pandering to those
prejudices if it makes them a buck.

Not a pretty sight.

...
> >Really, sometimes I wonder how those of you on the net with anti-gay ideas
> >imagine me.  I would love to know.
>
> Let me again remind you that I am not anti-gay.  I am against the
> homosexual lifestyle.

I'm not anti-Catholic.  I'm just against people going to Catholic
masses and making confessions and saying rosaries and all the other
things that constitute the Catholic lifestyle.  And I certainly think
we shouldn't legitimize it by giving Catholic churches the same tax
exemptions that go to Protestant churches.  There are places in the
world where Catholics are accepted, and they can go there and be fully
welcome.  But it's an infringement of my rights to make me associate
with them, or hire them, or recognize Catholic weddings as legally
binding.

I hope that wasn't too subtle for you :-).

Best,
Peter

> Jay Steven Sultan                 Internet: sult@quads.uchicago.edu
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU