What is your point here?

The point I was making to Ken is simple–he has argued that not allowing gays to marry is a violation of civil rights and when she asked him about other people who want the definition of marriage to accomodate their needs and desires, he punted.

You are parroting what he said when you say,

Each group traditionally takes care of its own. If polygamists want and are able to make a solid argument for polygamy then they are free to do this, but please don’t lay the responsibility for this in the laps of gay people who are merely arguing for their own, in the same way blacks did and do.

You sound as suspect as he does. That hurts your credibility and lacking credibility hurts all your arguments is all I’m saying.

I mean this: people who are genuinely concerned that their fellow citizens’ civil rights are being violated do not limit their activism or just their comments on a blog, to their own. If they truly believe civil rights are being violated, they don’t just argue for their own.

You don’t find it ironic and not the least bit suspect that the two of you are criticizing a law for being “discriminatory” and restrictive, yet faced with the opportunity to argue your principle for all people, you ignore them? You should be arguing for the changing of the definition of marriage by saying that anyone of legal age ought to be able to go to a lawyer and arrange a marriage with a contract.

if you really believed this was a civil rights argument, and if you really had given it serious thought, and weren’t being hypocritical, you’d be arguing for doing away with marriage as a state or federal issue as others have suggested. You’d be arguing for all marriages to be private and not in need of federal or state sanctions. They’d be personal contracts the way all other contracts are and they’d be drawn up the way all other contracts are–by legal experts and those involved, whether those involved are two straights, two gays, or multiple combos.

It’s pretty simple to attack your position .Americans of all colors and all races and all religions fough tin the civil rights movement of the 60s. Remember the white boys killed in Mississippi as just one notorious example? Ever see the mass demonstrations, the arrests? See the non-black faces? See the non-Baptists? Jewish people were very much involved in that movement. Heck, go back to the Underground railroad. Why even go into this? It’s safe to say that African Americans and other minorities might still be in the post-Civil War era w/out the aid of many others different from them.

You know that civil rights movements of all types heavily involve people who are not part of the group that is being discriminated against. You know that straights in NYC and LA are largely responsible for the advances in gay liberation. Without the work of straights on your side, you’d (not maybe you specifically, but many gays) would still be in the closet most likely.

I am sure you are grateful for their help and their collaboration in gaining your civil rights.

I am saying you have a serious credibility problem when you say you are only fighting for civil rights when you obviously are avoiding doing the same for others. It hurts your cause.

In the short term it certainly will hurt your personal cause to admit that changing and broadening the defintion of marriage will have to accomodate those who have even another definition, but in the long term, at least you will have been sincere and honest. In the long term, you have to ask yourself if you really do want to deal with the consequences of the first step in broadening the definition of marriage, because if that does happen, you will be happy, but your happiness will be short-lived (maybe, I don’t know your views on polygamy or other forms of marriage) if you find out down the road that some judge somewhere broadens the term to the point you yourself do not like it.

So, it looks and sounds really bad of you, very hypocritical, to sugget that blacks were responsible for getting their own civil rights. That would mean all citizens had no responsiblity for insuring the rights of others. Yet, that’s the very thing that angers you about married straights-they have theirs and don’t care about you.

In short-you don’t sound like someone who is serious about the issue of civil rights.

I think that in order to make your argument and remain true to what you say is your real concern-civil rights, fairness–you should argue that ” marriage” be privatized. Any other argument leaves you looking foolish in claiming concern for rights.

Sexual attractions and depression are not analogous experiences. I recognize that you believe they are or at least were for you. But in 30 years of clinical experience dealing mostly with depression and then in the last 13 years more extensively with sexual identity conflicts, I don’t see an analogy.

Not only can they be analogous experiences, but sometimes they are comorbid. We have “over-medicalized” depression and “over-socialized” homosexuality. I don’t believe either was ever meant to be a normal way of life.

Comorbidity does not make two experiences analogous in any meaningful way.

I merely observed that the two were often comorbid, not that comorbidity made them analogous. I believe homosexuality is one of the manifestations of our fallen nature and not a disorder. Depression is not always a disorder, either. It, too, is part of the fallen world. In that sense, we are all “disordered.” In seeking to medicate our useful pain away (not that it is all useful), we fail to learn what we ought to from it.

When a guy like MLK argued for civil rights, did you think he confined himself to the rights of blacks only?”

With all due respect, that was not my point, nor is that what I was trying to say. Just reread my above post to Barry! Hopefully it will make sense, although I wander at times 🙂

Male sexual attractions are much more enduring and do not alter much with mood (go back and forth between SS and OS), they don’t remit and then return. They are not debilitating on the whole, and generally they are because the person has religious objections or social stigma to contend with. Male sexual attractions have not responded to much of any kind of intervention or change in religious views. Behavioral control is possible but let’s please be clear about what that change is.

Very well said! Depression is an illness and is always deibilitating. Treatment for depression is often very effective and has strong scientific support — unlike Sexual Orientation Change Efforts. Homosexuality is not an illness and gay love is not a “pill” — even though Debbie seems concvinced that it is. Perhaps it was for her. She should not make generalizations about how others experience it.

I don’t know that any of us have to go through any “contortions” to prove you got “over same sex attractions”. The problem is, what does it mean that you got over this? There are hundreds of answers to that question.

For people with same-sex attractions, the “pill” is looking for that perfect relationship, the one that will make life worth living. The only perfect relationship in the universe is the one with Christ awaiting us. We don’t have to go turning over stones looking for it.

God is very much in the equation. Support from other people is, as well, along with a person’s self-determination. When somebody wants something as badly as they need the next breath of air, they unleash forces that are beyond their understanding.

What are you saying? That all gay people are looking for a perfect relationship that they can never find? That’s bull! I lived happily as a single person for 10 years, not looking for a relationship. Rather, the perfect, human, relationship found me. I didn’t give up my relationship with God, or Christ, when I entered into that relationship. Of course God is in the equation, for all people, just maybe not your idea of God.

They are laying low until the gay marriage battle is won, or so the founders of the Unitarian Universalists’ Polyamory movement told Bi magazine back in 2003. Meanwhile, they still have annual conventions.

Which is fine. They would, and should, have their day in court although I’m sure they would eventually whether or not gay people were part of the picture.

What are you saying? That all gay people are looking for a perfect relationship that they can never find? That’s bull! I lived happily as a single person for 10 years, not looking for a relationship. Rather, the perfect, human, relationship found me. I didn’t give up my relationship with God, or Christ, when I entered into that relationship. Of course God is in the equation, for all people, just maybe not your idea of God.

Some people successfully medicate their depression, and move beyond it, and even the need for medication. Some people find happy gay relationships. Some don’t. Not everybody is looking for their own “nirvana.”

Do you realize how insulting it is for you to speak of my “idea of God”? As if I have invented some illusion of Him? He is not “my God.” He is God, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. I am created in His image, not the other way around.

Depression is always debilitating and fluctuates episodically. For most people, it does respond to medication and/or therapy. The minority don’t get a good response and those can have negative reactions to meds or therapy. Some never remit at all, however, most do.

Male sexual attractions are much more enduring and do not alter much with mood (go back and forth between SS and OS), they don’t remit and then return. They are not debilitating on the whole, and generally they are because the person has religious objections or social stigma to contend with. Male sexual attractions have not responded to much of any kind of intervention or change in religious views. Behavioral control is possible but let’s please be clear about what that change is.

For women, context seems to matter more. Some women do experience fluctuations in attractions but do not of necessity find these fluctuations traumatic. Confusing maybe, but not necessarily bad. Women also seem more responsive on average to their deep emotional attachments. These women may change more easily. However, one may not reliably extrapolate from the experience of one woman to all other women and certainly not to men.