Homosexuality and Same-Sex Marriage

[Suffix]

Also, I've read Koopaslaya's post and I've typed up a rebuttal that I'll probably post sometime tomorrow. Everyone owes it to him to read his post whether you agree with him or not because he worked [darn] hard on it.

I replied to it! But sadly, I got the last post on the page before the theology came back.

[Sapphira]

My views have slowly shifted over time, as well. (Though I still stand by most (if not all) of what I said in the latter post I linked; I think it had an over all good message. However, the former post I linked makes me cringe.)

I think it's safe to say Turtlekid and CrossEyed inherently disagree and are not going to convince the other to change their standpoint.

I read Koopaslaya's post, and even responded. I commend him for the detail, time, and effort he put into it. I didn't directly address the flaws I found in his argument because I felt others had already adequately pointed them out. I'm still awaiting a response from him regarding my questions.

Re: CrossEyed's post on asexuality and marriage: Thanks for your insight! I'm inclined to agree with everything you said regarding the matter. Though, I'm sure some people may not be so open-minded about it, unfortunately.

(you guys get the coolest abbreviated name)

Haha, yes! XD

This is my first post in this thread-- a topic that I cared little about, and thus did not express an opinion.

Actually, that's not true. ;P  Thanks for your response, though.

Re: Sabbath
Technically—TECHNICALLY—the day of the Sabbath never changed; it was always the seventh day of the week (specifically what we would call Friday evening to Saturday evening). I never recall that being changed anywhere in scripture, and all reasoning I've seen as to why it was changed to Sunday seems rather weak and arbitrary to me.
If one were to interpret scripture literally, technically Christians would be getting it wrong. If one were to take a more open approach to the matter, and look at the underlying intent and message of the command ("spirit of the law")—spend a day devoted to God and free from work—one could reason that the day of the week doesn't actually matter. (Really we should be devoting more than just a day to God, but you get the idea.) But if you want to take interpretation literally and to the letter of the law, we kind of fail there.

But this is getting off topic, so...

Is it just me, or does sexual not look like a word anymore?

I was thinking that too. What's funny is I used to censor that word. (Actually, it's taken a lot of intentional effort not to censor typing it because I'm naturally inclined to avoid saying that word. I figured I needed to get over it if I wanted to be taken seriously.) Hooray for idiosyncrasies!

[Lizard Dude]

Markio and LD, you both absolutely SICKEN me. [...] I detest the world we live in, and it's people like you who think it's okay to compromise morals who help add to what is wrong with it.

[Sapphira]

Troll much?

[Weegee]

Who's trolling what now?

[PaperLuigi]

trolling, wats that

[Lizard Dude]

Not trolling, but teasing. Ribbing. I post with a smile, not a frown. It's heartening to look at the old threads and see how people have changed in only a few years. The same is happening on the grander scale. That's why bigots like Koopaslaya will eventually lose.

[Weegee]

How do you know we-- err, they, aren't merely infiltrating your ranks?

[Sapphira]

It was kind of hard to tell your intent just by you quoting me and responding with an image. Revised response: >:P

I don't recall Koopaslaya posting anything bigoted in this thread. Someone else, maybe...

[PaperLuigi]

Koopaslaya does not believe that gay couples are entitled to the same benefits afforded to straight couples. His argument, in Lizard Dude's mind, is based on an arbitrary technicality (gays can't pop out a kid). Bigots think other people are inferior without a well-founded reason; hence, Koopaslaya is a bigot.

In Koopaslaya's defense, he doesn't think his position is unfounded, but his proposal, for whatever reason, only denies benefits to gay couples; it does not deny benefits to infertile straight couples and straight couples who don't want to be parents. I should also like to point out that marriage as it's defined today primarily acts as a legal recognition of two people agreeing to pool their resources and doesn't have anything to do with making babies (he said that quite a bit in his "mature" post). We have plenty of unmarried people doing that already, thank you. Although I'm not opposed to granting benefits to couples with children, I also recognize, as does the government, that an individual has a right to a legal say in matters concerning their partner regardless of whether they're parents. Why are gays barred from the same opportunity? Sorry to say this, but I agree with Lizard Dude.

Not because I don't want to agree with LD, mind you, but because bigot is a very harsh term.

[Markio]

I was wondering if the all-caps "sicken" post would ever come up.  It stayed with me for quite awhile after that.  Although I'm impressed with my 14-year-old self's posts on that page: snooty, yes, but somewhat consistent with how I currently see the issue.  And to think I was gay the whole time! 9_9

[Sapphira]

Allow me to apologize for my remarks (and tone?) from the aforementioned post; my 17-year-old self was rather harsh, naive and closed-minded. And maybe bigoted? I don't think I ever intended to emotionally scar anyone, if I did. I'm sorry.

To be fair, I did try to clarify my response. But that still doesn't really excuse my choice of words.

[Suffix]

Well, I'm pretty sure I managed to keep quiet here about this matter until quite recently, but even I have changed my opinion over the years to some extent. My 14-year-old self was once spontaneously interrogated by one of my larger, more sports-inclined peers concerning my opinions on homosexuality in general. This is what I said: "I think it's abnormal and I will have nothing to do with it." Harsh words, although there were a lot of things pressuring me into a very unsympathetic position. I still flinch when I think of the response to my intentionally unemotional answer, "All right! Ian's cool."

[Markio]

It's in the past!  We were young and reckless!  We've all matured and have posted newer, updated reflections on how we think about these things.  I said I "didn't like homosexuals" in that old thread, which is the most groan-inducing case of dramatic irony I have ever witnessed on the internet.

The way I see it, our previous comments are excused when we say something different in the future.  Kind of like how Mr. Darcy is such a romantic figure despite his role at the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, or how all my posts now invoke this image since I've come out:

Also, I probably enjoyed being grouped together with Lizard Dude in Sapphira's chastisement...

[CrossEyed7]

The way I see it, our previous comments are excused when we say something different in the future.