For the record, she's claimed to put probably half of 'her kids' on ignore.

I do appreciate her humbleness. You see, while she sees herself as a mother, everyone else is a child. And she is the mother who never has to listen to her children (especially when they show how she's continually wrong) because-
You see... no one else has the experience or knowledge that splenda does. She is the smartest, most learned person on the forum so she has no need to listen to anyone else. All her children are supposed to just listen to her, absorb her fountain of uncontested knowledge or... like any good mom, she'll just ignore her kids.

Hey, at least she doesn't torture them with fire, so she's already one up on her "loving" God.

EDIT

Of course, Splendour doesn't have the option of incinerating us when we step out line...so maybe she would

You couldn't resist peeking could you

Read some experts on child rearing.

When your kids show bad behaviors you cut them off from the source of attention. Either by holding them til they stop acting out or by placing them in a room by themselves.

I always surreptiously peek....no telling what they're getting up to behind your back.

super glad you informed us she was fat and black, that really helps me understand your point

See, how can I let myself miss little gems like this? I really gotta stop skimming splendour's (longer) posts.

While you might not care (or at least you might say you don't care), I bet you'd get a touch more respect if you didn't use the Ignore option at all, and just dealt with (or ignored without software) the posts that bother you.

As for the maternal comments (OT: my guess is you are not a mother, but that's neither here nor there), I expect RGT is dominated with 30 to 40-somethings, well past the age at which children realise that their parents are not always right.

Now I'm getting confused - to me, sexual identity is based off sexual orientation. A straight man that has homosexual sex is acting contrary to his sexual identity. You seem to be saying something different? (I think this topic is highly susceptible to equivocacy problems since some of these terms are unclear).


By coincidence, I watched part of a couple of relevant documentaries on Netflix last night (One Nation Under God and This Is What Love In Action Looks Like). The theme from both was the dangers and inadequacies of trying to influence behaviour without regard to the underlying desires and attractions. Numerous examples of failed "ex-gays" were given, including two men that used to lecture on one of these Exodus-type workshops that fell in love with each other and subsequently had to tell their wives and children all about it.

A couple of points: first of all, the author is NOT gay in the sense that he is only attracted to men. He does say that he was not attracted to women...until he met one that he became attracted to! That he has so far only met one woman that he is attracted to is simply anecdotal. While I am not a fan of correcting people in how they define themselves, his man is bisexual by definition (as an aside, I think there is an idea that everyone is bisexual to varying degrees, and most people simply find themselves at one end of the scale).

Secondly, I don't know how gay Christians view themselves, and that was really my point. It's possibly you have some specific insight that I don't have, but it just sounded like you were the one doing some mind-reading, and I offered an alternative. In practice, there are likely going to be gay Christians that practice celibacy for either of the reasons we each gave. There are also gay Christians that are not celibate and have no problems combining their faith with their sexual identity.


Finally, the question of why a gay community exists in contrast to a straight community; obviously a persecuted minority is more likely to band together to represent itself and provide a home for it's constituents, but since this is a very obvious reason, I would have to think you are suggesting there must be some additional reason for its existence? Beyond that, I'm a bit lost on the direction of this topic (even though it is an important one in general).

There are usually three ways this is considered. There is sexual behaviour which is obvious. There is sexual orientation which is the attractions one has. And there is sexual identity which is how the individuals perceives themself and, some of the time, how they share that identity with the world. Often all three are aligned. Usually the last two are aligned. But sometimes one can have a different sexual identity than their sexual orientation.

Nonetheless, the distinction is not all that important but "sexual orientation" is the more commonly used expression of the two.

edit: I just checked wiki and there is a very short entry on sexual identity (compared to a very long one on sexual orientation) which seems to confirm my comment about common usage, but in this short entry there is some stats of people who report same sex attractions but do not identify as gay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_identity

First of all, I don't accept that God took the human race anywhere. Secondly, if God made people in whole form, he could have just as easily made them without all the moral shortcomings and inability to understand.

Thirdly, my statement was about present day people using an arcane book to justify their hatred against homosexuality. The non-discriminatory framework we have in our legal system is superior to the system those religious people are using; superior both in morality and in protecting human rights.

A lot of research in every single field is flawed. I'm a research chemist and read literature papers frequently with errors, fabrications, missing data or other various issues. As I pointed out to you, simply stating a person has a bias is not grounds for disregarding their work. There's been a ton of research since Kinsey. He is no longer the authority on the subject.

I don't know what you believe about homosexuality or even what you're arguing about it. I'm simply stating you can't dismiss otherwise valid work because of some perceived bias.

Before acting on what? What difference for anyone does it make what the research says if a man is attracted to another man and wants to spend their life together?

The average person is relatively unaffected and largely unaware of sexual behavior research. There is significant, demonstrable damage from people trying to force homosexuals to be straight.

Nothing I've said in this entire thread has invoked a single thing a scientist has said or concluded about sexual behavior. I've made moral and legal arguments that laws against gay marriage and previous laws against homosexual acts were wrong.

This is completely irrelevant. Sex and love can be decoupled.

I put it in there for the sake of getting off the point. I don't think you're going to agree with me on this point. You went as far as to make the analogy

Same-sex attaction : Homosexual behavior :: Chopsticks : Asians

There's basically no reasonable conversation to be had.

I disagree. The idea of sexual orientation existed well before the gay community existed. The idea of sexual identity did not. You had people talking about homosexuality (sexual orientation) in the late 1900s (and Kinsey as well around 1950). But there was no "gay community" during that span of time.

I have to admit to only skimming the following article, but it seems to lay out basically what I'm saying:

http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GE...HIV/SEXOR4.HTM

(Start reading at "The Rebirth of the Homosexual in the Modern Gay Movement")

Phrases like the bolded below are indicative of the point I'm making.

It is the embrace of this which has led to the concept of "sexual identity." And this what galvanizes the modern gay community.

You often use many words to say very little. An adjustment to your posting style will likely result in more interesting and meaningful conversation. You come off as always in a rant, and I'm already at the stage of skimming most of what you write as a result of this.

Sure. But when you take that and the following together:

You are really calling into question *ANYONE* defining themselves as being gay. You can reject his self-definition, and that's fine. It doesn't bother me at all. But I'll continue to take his self-definition as being meaningful and accurate.

There's no "mind-reading" involved when gay Christians say that they're both gay and that they think God does not approve of homosexual acts. This is how they characterize their beliefs and I'm merely passing along their claims.

When you say "represent itself" it's probably because you're thinking of some sort of political stance or something like that. But they don't just band together to make a "representative stand" -- the reason they galvanize is over an issue. "We" want "this." Who are the "we"? What is the "this"? These are the questions that I'm addressing.

My position is that the sexual revolution provided space for the gay community to say (basically) "what we do is central to who we are" and the "what we do" is not attraction (that is, not "how I feel is central to who I am"). The "this" that they wanted was social legitimacy for who they are (which is tied to what they do).

Meh. I actually think there's just a lot of wandering in circles. Even coming to an agreement about a sociological interpretation of this isn't going to lead to much of anything, as far as I can tell.

I don't think this is right and I don't quite get how it's justified. I think it's more "how I feel is central to who I am," and "how I feel tends to come out in what I do." We want validation/social legitimacy for both how we feel and what we do.