questions for heterosexuals
I really liked this post:
1. What do you think is the cause of your heterosexuality?
2. When did you first realise you might be heterosexual
3. Have you told your parents? What did they think of it?
4. Are there others like you in your family?
5. Don’t you think your heterosexuality might be a phase you are going though?
6. Are you afraid of your own sex?
7. Is it not possible that what you need is a really good gay lover?
Go to steve’s place for the rest of the list.
June 23rd, 2004 at 7:43 am
Hi Nigel
i am still reading along, but got a bit worked up by a couple of posts and choose not to go that way.
So, if I understand what you are saying correctly, you only use the word homosexual, becasue its more ostracising? I realise you might not put it that way, but that seems to be the essence.
Havign said that I’ve thought a number of times that if I were invovled in the abortion debate from the ‘pro-choice’ side, the first thing I would do would be to activly work to change the terms themselves. I absolutley agree that language is important - but I want to use it to build up, not ostracise.
June 23rd, 2004 at 1:20 pm
Hi Steve… ummm I haven’t said anything about using the words homosexual or gay.
I don’t have much to sy on the matter except I guess I’d say ‘homsexual’ is best when making a distiction between ‘homo’ and ‘hetro’.
And (this has already been said) technically gay specifically refers to men and lesbian to women … unless writing a newspaper headline when needing to use the shortest number of letters where gay could substitute for homosexual men and women, or even a whole gay, lesbian and transgender community.
June 23rd, 2004 at 6:31 pm
Sorry nigel - wrong person. I was responding to Bryan and got confused.
Sorry
Steve
June 23rd, 2004 at 10:59 pm
Steve,
I am the one who’s discussing the terminology. It’s clever that you turn my argument around to say that it’s more “ostracising,” when I said no such thing. I said that I use homosexual because it’s more technically correct. As Nigel points out, “Gay” is even confused terminology when talking about male and female homosexuals.
As a term, “gay” has no real meaning. I could as soon call them “moribund,” or “lugubrious,” or “red.” There’s nothing to the word to recommend it except self-selection.
Compare that to, say, self-identification among blacks. African-American at least has some sort of meaning apart from that assigned to it by a group of people. It stands on its own. As does homosexual and heterosexual (and bi-sexual or transgender) for that matter.
So I don’t use it because it’s more “ostracising,” but because it’s more accurate.
Should I sacrifice accuracy because some may find it more ostracising? I don’t think so. I would say the same if you were discussing terminology among Christians.
June 24th, 2004 at 12:00 am
Perhaps I’ve misunderstood then Bryan - sorry! You said:
“The use of the term “gay” was a very important victory in the homosexual rights movement’s designs to assimilate their practices into society”
and this
“it was a purposeful linguistic slight by homosexual activists to shift the terminology of their struggle away from a clinical, descriptive term, to a non-clinical, squishy, affirmative term.”
I read you refusing to use the term for these reasons as not wanting to accept a more confortable term that integrated gay people more with society. I’m not trying to be clever - it’s the conclusion I drew from that.
It seems like you’re saying it’s a term devised to spin the idea of being homosexual - and as such you want no part of it. I can see the pro-choice/pro-life thing quite clearly, but I can’t see it about the word gay, unless you’re simply not happy using a word which is more ‘friendly’ than homo-sexual.
Hope you recognise that I wouldn’t deliberatly misunderstand or mis-represent.
Steve
June 24th, 2004 at 1:43 am
I don’t think you deliberately misunderstand. But I do think it’s a subtle difference between manipulating the language and being honest about terminology.
Whether it’s more ostracizing or not is irrelevant to the fact that the term has no meaning. It is fluff and air, even moreso than pro-choice/pro-life. At least those terms have some sort of tie-in to the concepts being argued. “Gay” is just a gloss, like “bright,” a more recent term that is being bandied about for athiests.
I’m not happy using a word which has no meaning and is solely adopted because it spins the lifestyle in a more positive manner. I could give examples of other lifestyle choices that could be spun in a similar way, but then I’d here the relentless countering about non-analogous argument.
Anyway, I think I’ve explained my reasoning sufficiently. Now we’re getting into motivation, an area that might never be resolved.
I should state that I think it’s important to show Christian love to all people. And whatever disagreement I have about using the term “gay” does not mean that I would be throwing the term out indiscriminately in conversation. I don’t do that with African-American or disabled, or whatever other identifier I use when talking about broad social concerns.
June 24th, 2004 at 2:07 am
When I see Christians repenting of killing the innocent, I’ll believe that they are sincere. The 11,000 innocent civilians dead in Iraq would be but one example.
When I see Christians repenting of usury, and the captialist system that depends on this sin, I’ll accept that their priniciples are biblically based.
When I see Christians repenting of the sins of the racism and sexism that go on in the Church, I’ll be willing to listen a bit closer.
But as of now, those who want to condemn another because of 7 bible verses are clearly responding to their personal bias; nothing more and nothing less, as far as I am concerned.
June 24th, 2004 at 3:31 am
Seems to me I remember something about “let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
What I call a stone, someone else calls “love”. Go figger.
June 24th, 2004 at 5:06 am
Ah, Jake, way to prove the old saying incorrect. Apparently, two wrongs DO make a right. (/sarcasm)
incredibly broad sweep there, as well. Perhaps, Jake, you could point us to the person who should do this repenting for all christianity? The pope? Billy Graham?
Somehow, I don’t think any repenting will stand to the internal level of reprobation and holier-than-thou false piety that you adopt through your comment.
June 24th, 2004 at 6:55 am
No claim of holiness…actually just the opposite…it takes a hypocrite to spot a hypocrite.
11,000 Iraqi civilians dead…10,000 die each day from hunger, and what do we do? Argue about sex.
June 24th, 2004 at 1:36 pm
You’re still here, Jake.
BTW, over 1 million iraqis dead under the previous regime. Iraqis running their own government now. 1.3 million aborted in the U.S. every year. 1 in five suffer from clinical depression.
How many people die of hunger every year in Zimbabwe, Jake? or Liberia? How many are held as political prisoners in Cuba? How many are silenced in China after Tiananmen square anniversary? How many starve in North Korea because of a communist dictator? How many die every day in Africa because of AIDS, more specifically, because people have SEX with multiple partners, often raping women and young girls and spreading the disease to other families.
Yes, it’s a pitiful world, Jake. I’m surprised you can summon the energy to keep on living.
June 24th, 2004 at 3:06 pm
Ouch, Bryan. Was the last sentence necessary?
June 25th, 2004 at 3:06 pm
Bryan, I am not quite sure how other people behaving in an immoral way justifies our behaving in the same way. Surely they have won if they have reduced us to a similar level of barbarity to the level that they indulge in.
The challenge for all people is to do good inspite of the evil in the world, not to do less evil than other people.
It may be harder to achieve a free and safe Iraq without torturing and murdering innocent Iraqis but that is the only morally justifiable way that it can be achieved.
Your comment also raises the question as to why America chose to liberate Iraq over Zimbabwe, Liberia, North Korea or China. I think we all know the anwser to that one.