Sometimes kids say it best...

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Quote:The sad part is that kids are going to have to suffer depression, gender confusion, increased risk of drug use and suicide and other maladies in order to prove to folks like you what is obvious and a matter of common sense oh, the fags started all that. Now it all makes sense

Quote:The sad part is that kids are going to have to suffer depression, gender confusion, increased risk of drug use and suicide and other maladies in order to prove to folks like you what is obvious and a matter of common sense And where is your evidence, Thor? All you are doing is speculating the worse as yet another scare tactic.And you wanna talk about suicide? Do you have any idea how many young teenagers commit suicide because of their sexuality simply because people like you wish to continue to view their sexuality as deviant?  Quote: Gay teens have significantly higher rates of both attempts and thoughts of suicide. In his study on gay teen suicide, Patrick Healy concluded that gay teens are "five times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers"(2001). As reported in "Lesbian News", "these youth account for 35% of the American population and 15% of all suicide deaths"(Ocamb 2001). Of the 4,000 students who were surveyed in 1997, 40 percent out of the 10 percent of high school students who attempted suicide were gay. For many gay teens their everyday existence can cause severe psychological damage. When they are at school they are taunted and harassed, and at home if they are not "out" they have the constant fear of "what would my parents say if they new I was gay?" Both of these situations can cause considerable stress on a teen, especially since they have to go through the other stressful problems that all their peers go through. The school environment can be a very unsafe and scary place for an "out" gay teen. Many times they are beaten-up and called names like "fag" "queer" and "dyke". In a survey done last year by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) on 496 gay adolescents "69 percent of gay students reported having been targets of verbal, physical or sexual harassment in school, and that 42 percent said they had been physically assaulted."(Portner 2000)5 times more likely! Is it worth what YOU subject these kids to over something they have no control over? If people like you would stop tormenting kids about sexuality, we'd have far less suicides.But yes, lets not teach our kids tolerance and anti-bullying. I mean, after all all they are doing is weeding out the Gay people. Right , Thor?

Also, you wanna talk about depression? Its people like you that cause the depression. People like you that have absolutely no tolerance that cause depression. Half of these kids who suffer depression wouldn't be going through it, if it were people who wish to degrade people for their sexuality; something they have no control over.I know what its like to suffer depression as a teenager. Even as an adult I sometimes struggle with it. Though I might not suffer everyday, I have my moments. Just this morning I was in a good mood, having a good day than a patient called wanting a school excuse from a child that was seen a month ago. I told her we leave that to the parents responsibility and she would need to come and pick up an excuse. She said she understood that, called me a Faggot than hung up the phone. I got called a Faggot for doing my job. Now I am having a bad day, and sadly yes I let an ignorant lady make me feel depressed. But again, who needs tolerance... right Thor?

Originally Posted By: NtroducingMyself

Also, you wanna talk about depression? Its people like you that cause the depression. People like you that have absolutely no tolerance that cause depression. Half of these kids who suffer depression wouldn't be going through it, if it were people who wish to degrade people for their sexuality; something they have no control over.

What kids raised in that situation have no control over is the fact that their "parents" are abnormal. They are different from the vast majority of other kids in this way...and being normal is strongly in the forefront of the mind of every child growing up. Just look at the questions on this board...the word "normal", as in "is this normal?", appears all the time. It's bad enough that we have so many single-parent families where one of two role-models is absent. But to introduce kids into a situation, INTENTIONALLY, where one role-model (gender-wise) is absent, AND the ones present are not normal, is completely irresponsible. Talk about causing confusion! And whether or not you consider homosexuality abnormal or not, the kids will ALWAYS view it as abnormal because most other kids do not have such "parents". And there is no line of thinking, no spin you can put to it, that is going to change those facts. You think that being able to get married and raise kids is somehow going to validate things and cause homosexuality to become more accepted...but using children to achieve your intended goals is irresponsible and disgusting.

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I know what its like to suffer depression as a teenager. Even as an adult I sometimes struggle with it. Though I might not suffer everyday, I have my moments. Just this morning I was in a good mood, having a good day than a patient called wanting a school excuse from a child that was seen a month ago. I told her we leave that to the parents responsibility and she would need to come and pick up an excuse. She said she understood that, called me a Faggot than hung up the phone. I got called a Faggot for doing my job. Now I am having a bad day, and sadly yes I let an ignorant lady make me feel depressed.

Whether you choose to believe it or not, I feel sorry you had to go through/are going through that. It was uncalled for and you did not deserve ANY kind of derogatory response for just doing your job. Unfortunately, we live in a world of ever-increasing complexity, which brings with it ever-increasing frustration...and people are going to blame who's ever there at the moment, their fault or not.

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But again, who needs tolerance... right Thor?

Read my above response again. It has nothing to do with "tolerance".

Well Thor, we can go around and around in circles but I don't really see the point. We know where we stand and neither of us are going to change each others minds. Actually my point of debating these topics was never to actually change you rmind, but perhaps to get you to see the topic on the other side of the field, but seems regardless what I do and say you'll never seem to grasp the discrimination and lack of equality the GLBT community goes through.

Originally Posted By: NtroducingMyselfWell Thor, we can go around and around in circles but I don't really see the point. We know where we stand and neither of us are going to change each others minds. Actually my point of debating these topics was never to actually change you rmind, but perhaps to get you to see the topic on the other side of the field, but seems regardless what I do and say you'll never seem to grasp the discrimination and lack of equality the GLBT community goes through. One of the lessons that your generation has largely lost is that in order to maintain a free society we must all be willing to make sacrifices to keep it that way. When we are unwilling to do this, society begins to degrade. When we become more concerned with what we believe to be "our rights" than we are about the stability of our society and our freedom as a whole, they are both set to be lost.We all suffer for one reason or another. ALL of us. The issue is what we choose to do about it.

Degradation is subjective to the perceptions of the individual. What you may call degrading some may call liberating. What you may call a responsible society some may call an oppressive society. What you may see as the work of salvation to some may see as an impediment to personal belief. There is noting that says your view or their view is correct.

Society is a work in progress ever evolving and ever changing. The only stagnate societies are the dead societies.

Retarding the growth and change of society out of distaste and disdain for difference is the most effective way to create schism and radicalism. Hegemony is fleeting it never lasts.

Originally Posted By: OldFolks

Degradation is subjective to the perceptions of the individual. What you may call degrading some may call liberating. What you may call a responsible society some may call an oppressive society. What you may see as the work of salvation to some may see as an impediment to personal belief. There is noting that says your view or their view is correct.

Society is a work in progress ever evolving and ever changing. The only stagnate societies are the dead societies.

Retarding the growth and change of society out of distaste and disdain for difference is the most effective way to create schism and radicalism. Hegemony is fleeting it never lasts.

You miss the point. It has never been about what's better...it's about what works, as opposed to what does not. Your liberal, utopian view of how society might be does not work, nor will it ever work given the nature of human beings as they are today. However, you cannot accept this fact as a reality, and so will continue to try to impose your ideas about the way you think things should be on a society that, largely, knows better. And there's the rub. Maybe in 10,000 years the human race will be ready, but today we are not. And your attemtps to force YOUR way onto our society is tearing it apart and driving it back instead of moving it forward. You and those like you are unwilling to make the sacrifice of having to wait so that future generations might enjoy a token of what you describe society should be like. But you and those like you, in your arrogance, do not understand. You're far too focussed on your selves and your personal desires to see the bigger picture. None of you understands the concept of willing individual sacrifice...and this is the biggest difference between a liberal and a conservative; and, ironically, between an athiest and a Christian.

No... your wrong. Go spend some time studying real factual history and sociology and stay away from contrived sound-bites and you just might discover what the pursuit of enlightenment has to offer.

Originally Posted By: OldFolksNo... your wrong. Go spend some time studying real factual history and sociology and stay away from contrived sound-bites and you just might discover what the pursuit of enlightenment has to offer. LOL! I would LOVE to hear your definition for "enlighenment", and a description of just how far you've gone in your quest for it.

Secure, standing in the confines of the dark it's something you would refuse to see.

Originally Posted By: OldFolksSecure, standing in the confines of the dark it's something you would refuse to see. Try me.

I can offer you nothing you are the one who has to go out learn for yourself.

Originally Posted By: OldFolksI can offer you nothing you are the one who has to go out learn for yourself. So you have this philosophy about "enlightenment" (whatever that means to you) and yet you cannot tell anybody anything about it? Sounds like a sham to me.

I've tried and tried to expand your narrow view of the world and have failed miserably. In that I have realized knowledge is not mine to give but something that must be sought by the individual. You must seek to understand and only then can you emerge from the darkness of fear and bewilderment. The journey is yours.

Originally Posted By: OldFolksI've tried and tried to expand your narrow view of the world and have failed miserably. In that I have realized knowledge is not mine to give but something that must be sought by the individual. You must seek to understand and only then can you emerge from the darkness of fear and bewilderment. The journey is yours. Since you don't want to speak clearly about it, for whatever reason, how about just a definition of "enlightenment" as you used it in an earlier post?

My definitions are of no value. Go and learn for yourself. You must open your own mind to understanding.

Originally Posted By: OldFolksMy definitions are of no value. Go and learn for yourself. You must open your own mind to understanding. Where there are no mutual definitions there can be no mutual understanding. Without mutual understanding there can be no communication. So if your definitions are of no value, neither are your posts that use words you cannot (or will not) define. I'll stick with my own form of "enlightenment"...otherwise known as the truth.

Thor, I think you might have missed the point. Regardless what anyone tells you, you will not believe it or listen to it, there for you need to figure it out on your own. Why should we bother anymore trying to explain things to you or try to get you to understand when no matter what we say you won't believe it or even take it into consideration? It becomes moot.

There are few mutual definitions and few mutual understanding beyond the most basic of our primal nature. This is why meaningful communication is so bereft of apparent success.

Your failure to seek understanding is your ignominy in the face of enlightenment.