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Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by Crito on Thursday April 03, 2014 @10:53PM (#7528900)
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but I'll bite anyway: What rational reason do you have for desiring the criminalization of any sort of sexual activity between two consenting adults, in the privacy of their own home?
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by wtbob on Friday April 04, 2014 @12:51AM (#7529378)
Prop 8 didn't criminalise any behaviour.

What rational reason do you have for misrepresenting the positions of others, publicly and when Wikipedia is mere clicks away?

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by wtbob on Friday April 04, 2014 @01:37PM (#7532982)
Argh, I was wrong. Thought this was in the context of Prop 8.

FWIW I don't think sexual activity where all parties who are capable of consent five it should be criminalised, no matter how weird it might be or how much I personally dislike it.

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by wpietri on Friday April 04, 2014 @12:18PM (#7532409)
The post he is responding to explicitly says "I don't even believe homosexual behavior should be legal", so he's not misrepresenting anything.
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by wtbob on Friday April 04, 2014 @01:35PM (#7532971)
Doh, you're right. Editing my comment.
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by voicereasonish on Friday April 04, 2014 @04:20AM (#7529990)
Incest?
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by pbhjpbhj on Friday April 04, 2014 @09:52AM (#7531361)
That's a reason to deny people the right to procreate with near family members but that doesn't prevent any sexual actions (because for example abortifacients could be used).
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by hippoman on Friday April 04, 2014 @12:08AM (#7529230)
You should be more direct in your support for incestuous sex and bestiality. Those people are more seriously hurt by bigots since they have a much weaker voice. If you only support popularly-acceptable sexual activity, then you shouldn't misuse the emphasized "any".
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by Crito on Friday April 04, 2014 @12:21AM (#7529278)
I'm confused, do you think that "consenting adults" refers to animals? What are you trying to tell us about yourself?

I honestly don't give a fuck if consenting adult family members decide to fuck. It is not my business what they voluntarily do with each other. How and why could/would it possibly be any of my business?

In other news, this is yet another great example of "refurbished arguments against interracial marriage". What I am not seeing in your comment is any rational reason why somebody should want to criminalize homosexual relationships. Do you have any?

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by hippoman on Friday April 04, 2014 @01:05AM (#7529418)
I agree with you. I just think we shouldn't judge people for their sexual activities no matter how perverted they might seem to us. Instead we should consider if they're harmful to others. Insulting people for having sexual activity with animals is the exact same bigotry as insulting people for homosexual activity. By the way sex with close relatives is still illegal in most of the western world. I know it's a wrong law but almost everyone implicitly supports it.
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by eropple on Friday April 04, 2014 @02:28AM (#7529664)
No, it's not at all the same. Animals cannot consent. Nor can children.

(I think polyamorous relationships should definitely be recognized by the government, though.)

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by hippoman on Friday April 04, 2014 @06:38AM (#7530412)
We can kill, enslave, and psychologically torture them as well as rape them to make them pregnant (farmers and breeders do this routinely) and most people are OK with that. The real reason people don't like the sex part is because it's seen as disgusting, perverted and weird, not because of consent. Very similar to the real reason people don't like gays, not because they aren't good at having babies.
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by clintonb11 on Friday April 04, 2014 @02:07PM (#7533200)
When people honestly see how animals are treated, they are disgusted as well. Those industries go to great lengths to keep their operations private.

Consent is a real issue, and should be part of the equation. Certainly with Children, but with animals as well.

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by cookiecaper on Thursday April 03, 2014 @11:06PM (#7528946)
Homosexual behavior doesn't only occur in the privacy of a home, and if kept truly private, it'd be impossible to arrest anyone for engaging in the activity. I'm more concerned about public homosexual behavior and the message that tolerance of this behavior broadcasts, which is that a) we no longer understand or value the pre-eminent importance of the male-female sexual partnership, which is the only way children can be conceived and the preferred way for children to be raised, providing in the child's upbringing proper balance of inherent masculine and feminine traits that cannot be sufficiently replicated by same-sex parentage, and b) that we tolerate incursions that threaten the establishment of that sexual partnership as the fundamental unit of social cohesion or that indicate alternative sexual behaviors are acceptable.

This is my rationale. Perhaps you don't agree that male-female sexual union is ideal or important. Perhaps you don't think society needs to prioritize or promote opposite-sex unions. That doesn't make my rationale invalid, it doesn't mean I hate everyone (or anyone in particular), and it doesn't mean I'm a bigot. It just means we don't agree. I would suggest that some people no longer recognize male-female sexuality as preferential despite biological imperatives that mandate this as a necessity for continued national, cultural, and indeed basic human survival, indicates that, to a large extent, our society is already extremely ill and probably terminal. The mere fact that homosexual marriage can be a controversial issue shows that.

If anyone doubts that acceptance of homosexuality destroys the place of heterosexual marriage and child-bearing, just look at the discussions that occur now which would've been considered plainly ridiculous by societies more in touch with reality (like ourselves, 50 years ago). The fact that persons can propose with a straight face that marriage be done away altogether is a literal fulfillment of the prediction that gay marriage destroys and impacts marriage as a whole (of which straight marriage is the only acceptable form).

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by Crito on Friday April 04, 2014 @12:05AM (#7529219)
If there is anything this world does not currently have a problem with, it is forgetting how to pop out more babies.

How does permitting people who are homosexual to express their relationship publicly in any way prevent men and women from fucking each other?

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by cookiecaper on Friday April 04, 2014 @01:57AM (#7529570)
It's not about stopping the instinct to fuck, that obviously is not going to happen. It's about breaking down the structures and the constraints that give order to those instincts, and result in domestic and national peace, stability, and strength. The exact problem is that people see it as you've described and have discarded the importance of the structures that are in place to make civilized life possible.

A prominent husband-wife historian team once wrote of the lessons of history: "Sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred constraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group."

Our society has set itself for full-scale consumption. We have donned the gasoline-drenched firecracker suit and are currently descending into the lava. I honestly do not believe we will make it more than 1 or 2 more generations without complete social collapse, and I think acceptance of homosexuality and furthermore government endorsement and reward of homosexuality via grant of marriage are tokens of this extremely broken social consciousness. If you look back through the 20th century you can trace the disintegration step by step, and now we're just a smidgen short of ripe. I fully anticipate that ripening to occur, and modern Western society to drop off the tree and into the flames.

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by Crito on Friday April 04, 2014 @03:10PM (#7533629)
You're just spewing "fire and brimestone" shit. How exactly is permitting homosexuals to be in relationships with each other damaging in any way your ability to have a heterosexual relationship?
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by cookiecaper on Friday April 04, 2014 @11:00PM (#7535798)
I never claimed that permitting homosexuals to be in relationships damages my ability to have a heterosexual relationship, so I'm not sure why you're asking me that. It seems that you failed to read or process my posts and have fallen back to a stock pro-gay marriage defense that has no relevance to the comments I left. The existence or legal standing of homosexual relationships does not affect my personal heterosexual relationships. It's about the aggregate effect on the institution of marriage and the structures of society, not about any direct effect on my personal relationship with my wife.
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by whatevsbro on Friday April 04, 2014 @02:51AM (#7529740)
> I honestly do not believe we will make it more than 1 or 2 more generations without complete social collapse

Our economic house of cards will be crashing down within ten years. You should probably worry about that first.

Besides, over- or under-population being a problem is related to the economy too. It's all about having enough resources and jobs for everyone, right? The best possible thing any government can do for an economy is to keep its hands off of it and let people produce and accumulate wealth.

Then there's the US police state, which probably won't take long to complete. That's another much more pressing concern than whatever might happen with regard to the population.

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by oberto on Friday April 04, 2014 @04:39AM (#7530048)
many societies are facing this right now, see Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, places with quickly declining populations. Meanwhile, other countries are rapidly growing. In the world of geopolitics, is having a rapidly declining population and seeing your stake at the table fade away, a good one? The countries popping out the most babies have traditional views regarding the role of marriage in building a society. And no, the 0.0001% of children born from artificial insemination does not nudge the needle enough.
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by vidarh on Friday April 04, 2014 @04:07PM (#7533987)
The countries "popping out the most babies" first and foremost have poverty, lack of education, and high infant mortality in common.

Perhaps we should shut down our education systems, health systems and welfare, and tax anyone outside the "1 percent" into poverty in the name of procreation.

(just in case, this being the internet and all: that's sarcasm)

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by Crito on Friday April 04, 2014 @03:12PM (#7533640)
Tolerance of homosexuality has absolutely fuck-all to do with birthrates in those countries.

Seriously, what is your thesis here? What do you think is happening? "Oh honey, I just saw two gay men in the park. Let's never have children." ?

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by deciplex on Friday April 04, 2014 @12:02AM (#7529203)
Why do I care if my position on marriage promotes or discourages the creation of new humans? I guess you haven't noticed, but we have enough.

What is the ideal balance of masculine and feminine traits in a person's upbringing, how did you deduce this ideal balance, and how does a heterosexual union achieve this balance? Can you point out why a homosexual union does not achieve this balance? Shall we also ban divorce?

Since when is sexual partnership the fundamental unit of social cohesion? I thought it was mostly hunter-gatherer units, which in prehistoric days would have been same-sex groups for both the hunting and the gathering. The analogue in modern man would be the people we work with, I guess, which admittedly is mixed gender - but generally not sexual. Furthermore, I suggest that intolerance of different sexual preferences threatens social cohesion a lot more than the preferences themselves.

Consider that you might actually be a reprehensible bigot after all. I'm not saying this as a judgement of you personally, or to shame you or call you out or whatever, but rather as a motivation for a bit more introspection and maybe some personal growth. I hope it works out.

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by cookiecaper on Friday April 04, 2014 @02:17AM (#7529634)
>Why do I care if my position on marriage promotes or discourages the creation of new humans? I guess you haven't noticed, but we have enough.

I disagree that we have enough, and some first-world nations are now starting to become aware that they've decimated themselves and that their national identity is now in real danger of extinction, not because of massive war or famine, but because they simply chose not to have children anymore. In my mind, things must be severely broken to make this condition possible.

>What is the ideal balance of masculine and feminine traits in a person's upbringing

The masculinity and femininity contributed by one full-time parent from each sex.

>how did you deduce this ideal balance

Nature has deduced it for you, and every respectable shred of data in existence supports and admits that children fare better in loving homes with both biological parents. This is instinctively understood by persons not fully brainwashed.

>how does a heterosexual union achieve this balance

The sexuality of the union is heterogeneous, which is to say, there is a male and a female. This provides 1 masculine figure and 1 feminine figure as the major lodestars in a child's life, and their interplay teaches the child how to interact with his peers of both sexes.

>Can you point out why a homosexual union does not achieve this balance?

The sexuality of the union is homogeneous, which is to say, there are two parents of the same sex. This provides lodestars of only one sex, and their interplay cannot as effectively teach children to interact with peers of both sexes because there is no sexual dimorphism among the parents.

>Shall we also ban divorce?

We should not outright ban divorce, but I believe we should make it much stricter, and I believe the proliferation of no-fault divorce and the devaluation of family court is another milestone on the now nearly-complete road to social collapse. Divorces should be much, much more difficult to get, and much rarer. The current rate of divorce devalues the marital institution as a whole, which is not to say that the acceptance of homosexual marriage doesn't devalue it further.

>Since when is sexual partnership the fundamental unit of social cohesion

Since always. Hunter-gatherers were not civilized or socialized at the level which is meant when people talk about human civilization.

>Furthermore, I suggest that intolerance of different sexual preferences threatens social cohesion a lot more than the preferences themselves.

I disagree. Acceptance of sexual deviance is a threat to the cohesion of a group on many levels. I do not accept the narrative that those impulses are uncontrollable and that it's unkind to suggest discipline, just as I don't accept that narrative as applied to other anti-social behaviors, like theft, that are considered negative. Society must invoke the discipline necessary for its survival where the individual fails to do so.

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by vidarh on Friday April 04, 2014 @04:21PM (#7534065)
> In my mind, things must be severely broken to make this condition possible.

As we've learned: This happens when a nation becomes wealthy, educated, and have sufficient health services and welfare systems. If you want high birth rates: Plunge us into poverty, take away education, and shut down health services. Good luck getting support for that political platform.

Despite the declining birth rates, though, the UN estimates that while the world population will eventually decline for a while, this is expected to be a relatively short lasting stage, while the "bulge" we're creating now through ridiculous growth-levels ages and starts to die off, then all the projections is for renewed, but slower, more sustainable growth.

> Nature has deduced it for you, and every respectable shred of data in existence supports and admits that children fare better in loving homes with both biological parents. This is instinctively understood by persons not fully brainwashed.

Where is this evidence?

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by prutschman on Friday April 04, 2014 @04:15PM (#7534032)
> The masculinity and femininity contributed by one full-time parent from each sex.

Despite the many social pressures brought to bear, people do not universally exhibit the gender roles and behaviors expected of them in their particular cultures.

What of, for example, butch women or effeminate men in heterosexual parenting relationships? I know gay and lesbian couples who have a substantially more "balanced" mixture of masculine and feminine characteristics than did my own, heterosexual parents.

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by deciplex on Sunday April 06, 2014 @11:44PM (#7544524)
>Nature has deduced it for you, and every respectable shred of data in existence supports and admits that children fare better in loving homes with both biological parents. This is instinctively understood by persons not fully brainwashed.

Nature has also produced a sub-population of homosexual individuals. You haven't established that heterosexuals are 'natural' while homosexuals are 'unnatural', so your argument here falls flat.

In fact, the preponderance of evidence suggests that children raised with the involvement of their entire extended family fare the best. The old saying 'it takes a village to raise a child' turns out to be very grounded in reality. It's the so-called 'nuclear family' that turns out to be pretty unnatural. In light of that, whether some portion of unions within that extended tribal unit are homosexual or not seems pretty irrelevant, even assuming your a priori postulate about 'gender balance' turns out to be true. Which it probably isn't, since human populations in a tribal state, i.e. the state we have evolved to live in, tend to have larger female populations in the first place, as men are over-represented in deaths from hunting and inter-tribal conflict.

>Acceptance of sexual deviance is a threat to the cohesion of a group on many levels.

You're begging the question here. The only way homosexuality could threaten social cohesion is if enough of the population considered it deviant enough to make taboo. Since the very point we're arguing is whether that is, and should be, the case, you've failed to make any coherent point here at all. Sorry about that.

Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by krstck on Thursday April 03, 2014 @11:42PM (#7529102)
I've got news for you pal: science has made it possible to conceive without a "male-female sexual partnership" for a while now.
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by cookiecaper on Friday April 04, 2014 @01:51AM (#7529549)
Not really. You still need a male-female sexual partnership. Science just cobbles it together after the fact.
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by welly on Friday April 04, 2014 @07:35AM (#7530591)
Be that as it may, homosexual couples are still becoming parents. Who cares (aside from yourself) and how does it matter what process was used for that to occur?
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by Aloha on Friday April 04, 2014 @04:21AM (#7529992)
No-Fault divorce has done more to harm heterosexual marriage than gay marriage ever will.
Re:Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO by devindotcom on Friday April 04, 2014 @12:08AM (#7529228)
World's most articulate caveman