Nonsense. The meaning of words evolves over time with culture. You can not care about culture appropriateness, but you do yourself a disservice to not bother being aware of the cultural meaning of words. So now you know. When you call gay people sodomites you are being homophobic, and no that doesn't mean you literally fear them.

A false dichotomy. I am not objecting to the content of your beliefs being offensive. Don't get me wrong, they are - the bible's passages on homosexuals are disgusting and a stain on the religion. But it is not unreasonable for a YEC pastor to espouse these disgusting beliefs, and this kind of religion forum should expect and embrace that. That is, I'm not pushing back at what you think is "true". I'm pushing back at your choice of presentation, whether you choose to present your homophobic beliefs with archaic homophobic language.

You might consider this a point just about strategy. You have a choice to additionally layer on offense when you speak, but this is unlikely to help you be persuasive at spreading whatever message it is you wish to spread.

You've said "PC" a few times. You are confused. Not calling gay people sodomites is standard across US culture. This isn't like a a PC debate over whether "African-American" or "black" is appropriate that conservatives will dismiss as being PC. It is like how the n-word is agreed to be unused by whites across the culture.

What does YEC have to do with affirming the Bible's (and Christianity's -
and pretty much every other religion/society in history) stance that homosexuality is immoral?

Am I really supposed to believe that people think a hydrophobic compound is a chemical that is literally afraid of water? Add to this that the term "Sodomite" is, even in the Bible, a pejorative.

Do we really have to have this discussion in such an entirely dishonest manner?

Well yeah, "sodomite" is a pejorative term. I assume that this is intentional on the part of lagtight, who I am guessing believes that "sodomy" is immoral.

I'll also agree with Aaron that "homophobe" now typically just refers to someone who is prejudiced against homosexuals, but it did originally have a connection to having a fear or phobia of homosexuals or of being gay. I think this fear of homosexuality is still seen in how many conservatives treated legalizing same-sex marriage as a kind of social infection that would lead to changes in heterosexual marriages as well.

If he wants to use a pejorative for homosexuals then I'll take that challenge head on. What I hate is being led a merry dance while someone pretends that they're innocently using an archaic word and don't get the fuss.

I can handle a conversation about morality with people thirty years behind the times. There can't be any kind of an honest conversation when it starts with this drivel.

Is a person who feels revulsion to homosexual activities but at the same time is a champion of their rights a homophobic?

On a second note I should mention to the youngsters here that Negro was not just neutral but was positive back in the day. African American and black were considered mild insults.

Morality evolves over time?

Maybe, maybe not. The term "homosexual activities" is way too broad, as is the scope of their rights, to give an answer. If you don't want to know the ins and outs of people's bedroom activities then fine. If you physically vomit when you see two guys holding hands then there's something pathological there.

In the sense that our understanding of it clearly changes over time, yes. Morality in the sense of prevailing values and behaviours evolves. And also in the sense that the landscape of human interaction changes over time and new technologies call for new ethical considerations, it evolves. If you want to appeal to some objective standard that never changes, then okay, that could be a constant.

Well, I happen to think that John Doe is a nice guy.

And by nice guy I mean "stupid traitor".

Since the term 'sodomite' applies to anyone who engages in anal or oral sex, not just homosexuals, but to people of any sexual orientation, and can actually cover any 'sexual sin' (and there are plenty of heterosexual Christians doing it, I'm quite certain)... I'm not even sure what the issue is.

Considering it to be an insult is to be making an assumption I think.

And how is 'anal sex' being defined?

http://lesswrong.com/lw/np/disputing_definitions/

That was so much noise.

Given the posts of yours I read when I lurk here, this post is a surprise. If we'd asked, like in the LessWrong link I just posted, prior to this emerging, whether people thought there was a large cultural connotation of religious homophobia attached to the word "Sodomite", nobody would be dancing this merry jig.

wp

Challenge everything! And I always try to agree definitions actually.... haven't you got a crappy football team to go and watch?

Well that's my point. I'm not disagreeing with some narrow definition of "sodomite" or "sodomy" that says "homosexual" or "engages in anal sex" or anything else. I'm objecting to the notion that anyone who speaks English as a first language can pretend not to know all the other baggage the word carries.

I'll use my favourite example, which was given to me in a discussion about Plato a long time ago. Take the word "Thatcherite". Any non-Brit coming across the word could look it up and find some definition like "Pertaining to the politics of Margaret Thatcher", and no one would particularly disagree with that definition. Now consider, as an Englishman, whether this entirely agreeable definition carries any weight if you call someone a Thatcherite in a Northern ex-mining community pub and if it means something different again during a Bullingdon Boys' dinner. The word carries with it far more social implications than a simple definition and it takes an unbelievable level of naivety to pretend you're unaware of it.

That's how I feel about "Sodomite". Give it all the agreeable definitions you want, but I'm not playing along when someone pretends to be surprised that they got moderated for it on a politics sub-forum.

Edit: And it's QPR at home this evening, until then you can see how busy my work schedule is today. Also, your understanding of the name "Bladesman" demonstrates my point far better than any other example I could give. Other interpretations have been a knife fanatic, and a reference to MegaMan.

We've engaged in the past, I know you're a blades fan, and the connotations of 'sodomite' are not lost on me (but thanks for deciding that I'm not intelligent/informed enough to either understand the connonations nor understand that the word even has connotations without your quite condescending thatcherite example...), I'm simply challenging the 'religious' use of the word, their apparent ownership of it and pointing out that they are also sodomites, which is awesome because you can't do that with 'nxxxxr'...

Next time a homosexual is referred to as a sodomite by a theist, they can return the favour and most of the time will be bang on the money.

So, who's missing the point here?

If someone refuses to accept that words change meaning and connotations over time, they would also have to accept that language becomes dangerously close to useless.

Which is very nice.

There are an incredible amount of words that have shifted dramatically in meaning and connotation. Arguing that some word "didn't mean that before" is just bad.

If I say that "Dave seems nice", it's daft to argue that I'm calling Dave stupid.

For the record, I believe that sodomites should have the same rights as everyone else. I believe that I have the right to express my disapproval of their sexual activities, while acknowledging that they have the right to engage in whatever sexual conduct they want to with consensual partner(s).

edit: And the sodomites have the right to call me a homophobe, or call me a hatemonger, and can flip me off while doing so if they want to.

Why not just use a word that isn't lazed with a history of religious persecution and murder, followed by a very long era of legal persecution and imprisonment. Then you could all co-exist in a civilized manner instead.

And actually I find the entire "I'm free to say whatever I want and mean whatever I want with a word" really tiresome.

It's easy to be an a*****e and step on people's toes. Pissing people off, especially if they are different from you, is about the easiest social interaction there is. Yes, language debates can go to far and become a bit of a parody at times, but if we start ignoring basic human standards of decency, politeness and civility - that there might be an upside to try and be respectful both in behavior and language - we might as well just close down this entire social experiment we call civilization, because it's useless.

Ironic, again, that whilst I'm arguing for changing how the word is used, you feel the need to point out that the meaning has changed.

Let me know when you catch up.

I haven't read your posts in this thread, nor have I replied to them.

Well, except this one.

"Sodomy" and "sodomite" are descriptive terms, and not pejorative terms. I think that maybe sodomites find those two words offensive for the same reason that persons who abuse alcohol find the word "drunkard" offensive. What do you think?

You're literally quoting this term out of a text that calls sodomy "detestable" and calls for death penalty for those who engage in it. That leaves the realm of descriptive well behind and you're into the normative.

So no, in that context it isn't like calling an alcoholic a drunkard. It's more like calling people who enjoy a glass of wine worthless dogs that should be dragged into the street and beaten to death slowly.

In our modern era when most of us don't live in cultures that engage in stoning, the term sodomy brings back a time only a few decades ago when homosexuality was seen as both insane and criminally punishable, and could lead to imprisonment or forceful incarceration and having daily electroshock treatments.

Perhaps those days were better than the biblical times, all things considered. Still, refusal to understand why term can be offensive shows a clear lack of empathy.

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