CalvinDude.com

This time in Iowa.

Of course we have nothing but the same playbook being used here. The argument is:

In his ruling, Hanson said the state law allowing marriage only between a man and a woman violates the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection.

Never mind that a law allowing marriage only between a man and a woman discriminates against polygamists, which under the same “logic” would “violate the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection” of those who would take pluaral wives. The fact is that in changing the definition of marriage from what it has historically been, marriage becomes meaningless.

And that is the ultimate reason for this ruling.

Bravery used to mean someone did something courageous. Now, apparently, it just means you got beaten up.

I used to get beaten up all the time at school. Man, I must have been so brave….

I saw this article from our local paper. It’s about a conference entitled Out of the Shadows Into the Light. Basically, it’s a bunch of people who want to “dialogue” about homosexuality and Christianity.

But there’s a problem:

“There are rules. There is no ‘fixing.’ There is no trying to change people’s minds. We’re just there to listen to each other.”

HUH?!

There’s no “trying to change people’s minds”?

What’s.

The.

POINT?

Why even bother having this conference if you don’t want to influence people to your position? Basically, these organizers have set up the event in such a way that people show up and say: “This is my opinion.”

So what? If you’re not going to try to convince me of your opinion, keep it to yourself. I could care less about what you think, especially if you’re not even willing to defend it!

I’m starting a semi-regular “feature” type thing (for as long as I like it, subject to change, blah blah blah) about taking back words.  I don’t mean by this that I’m going to “take back” something I’ve said as if I didn’t mean it :-)  Instead, what this means is that we are going to look at some words that have been hijacked and forced into different meanings from what they originally had.  In virtually every instance, it’s to make something that otherwise would be unappealing to the general public more palatable.  In short, hijacking the term is useful for the hijacker because he can then paint a picture using false assumptions, thus allowing him to skirt the actual philosophical issues that are in debate.

The first word that I’ve chosen to examine is the word tolerance.  Tolerance is a word that used to mean the fair-minded look at another person’s views that disagreed with your own.  To use a trivial example: John says, “I like the color blue so I’m going to pain the fence blue.”  Bill, his next door neighbor, says, “I despise the color Blue, but I will tolerate your painting the fence blue because I know you like it.”

But this is not how the term is used today.  Today, what happens is this: John says, “I like the color blue.”  Bill says, “I despise the color Blue and if you paint your fence blue, I’ll sue you.”  John says, “But it’s my fence!”  Bill responds: “You’re intolerant of my dislike for the color blue!”

As I said, it’s an admittedly trivial example.  Where this most often comes into play is when conservatives deal with pomos (that is, Post Moderns).  To take a specific instance, homosexuality:

Conservative: I think homosexuality is wrong.

Pomo: You’re an intolerant bigot.

Conservative: I haven’t even said you couldn’t practice your homosexuality!

Pomo: It doesn’t matter.  You disagreed with my position, so you’re intolerant.

At this point, the conversation is over.  The very fact that one group disagrees with the other is seen as evidence of intolerance, when in fact, tolerance cannot occur without disagreement!  Remember, tolerance begins with a reasoned response to something that people disagree on.  You cannot tolerate something you agree with!  If you agree, it’s hardly tolerating it!

But if we press it further, the Pomo is just as intolerant as he claims the Conservative is.  After all, using that same definition, we could re-write this as:

Pomo: I think that homosexuality is right.

Conservative: You’re intolerant of my position that it’s wrong!

Used in this manner, however, we can see the utter absurdity of the misuse of the term!  After all, the redefinition of the term only works one way.  It only works when the Pomo is leveling the charge against the Conservative.

In short, the word tolerance now means little more than being “lock step with the politicaly correct vision of the world.”  The term “intolerance” is now used merely as a conversation-stopper.  Stripped of its actual meaning, it can now only function as a bat to beat over the head of any who would disagree with the establishment.  Thus demonstrating, once again, the utter intolerance of those who claim the banner of tolerance.

Apparently, here’s the study that says 52% of identical twins are gay.  In fact, let me quote you the whole thing here:

 

A genetic study of male sexual orientation

J. M. Bailey and R. C. Pillard
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill 60208.

Homosexual male probands with monozygotic cotwins, dizygotic cotwins, or adoptive brothers were recruited using homophile publications. Sexual orientation of relatives was assessed either by asking relatives directly, or when this was impossible, asking the probands. Of the relatives whose sexual orientation could be rated, 52% (29/56) of monozygotic cotwins, 22% (12/54) of dizygotic cotwins, and 11% (6/57) of adoptive brothers were homosexual. Heritabilities were substantial under a wide range of assumptions about the population base rate of homosexuality and ascertainment bias. However, the rate of homosexuality among nontwin biological siblings, as reported by probands, 9.2% (13/142), was significantly lower than would be predicted by a simple genetic hypothesis and other published reports. A proband’s self-reported history of childhood gender non-conformity did not predict homosexuality in relatives in any of the three subsamples. Thus, childhood gender nonconformity does not appear to be an indicator of genetic loading for homosexuality. Cotwins from concordant monozygotic pairs were very similar for childhood gender nonconformity.

Interesting stuff.  Did you notice how the 52% was derrived?  That’s right, from a pool of a whopping 56 people.  That means each person counts for 1.8% of the percentage total!  So if such a great number as 5 people lied in saying their identical twin was gay too, there would be only 42.9% gay correlation.

And this study wasn’t exactly a random sampling either.  Instead, it was a sampling of people who were reading “homophile publications.”  Nor was this study exactly unbiased either, but instead relied on “a wide range of assumptions about the population base rate of homosexuality and ascertainment bias.”

Naturally, the study doesn’t show us how they define “homosexual” either.

Perhaps all of the above are good indications as to why this study, conducted back in 1991, isn’t that big of a deal after all….

Someone has commented on my blog entry about the Born Different website.  I was originally just going to respond in the comments, but then I figured that there was enough in it for me to post a new blog entry for the response.  Here’s the comment:

1. process6132 Says:
   July 7th, 2006 at 9:06 am 

   It seems ignorant to compare behavior that maliciously injures other people with innoculous behavior between 2 consenting adults. I think the point of the website is that if people are born gay is it right to discriminate against them. How is that different from discriminating against people for any other genetic factor. Just because some people don’t like the idea of same sex couples doesn’t make it OK to relegate them to second class citizens.

1) “It seems ignorant…”  This is a catchphrase used to silence debate before it begins.  “You disagree with me?  Oh, well, that seems ignorant….”  These are code words used by the PC world to not have to deal with the substance of an issue.

2) “It seems ignorant to compare behavior that maliciously injures other people with innoculous behavior between 2 consenting adults.”  I would argue that homosexual behavior is hardly “innoculous behavior” although it is (generally) consensual behavior.  But your sentence demonstrates you have missed the entire point of my original blog post.  The point is that the morality of an issue is not dependent upon whether a person is “born that way.”  The sociopath proves this point.  He does not get a free pass on his behavior simply because he is “born that way.”  Thus, my argument is not comparing homosexuals to sociopaths; it is demonstrating that morality is independent of the aspects of a person’s birth.

3)  “I think the point of the website is that if people are born gay is it right to discriminate against them.”  These are more code words from the PC community.  Where have I advocated anything remotely near “discrimination” against homosexuals?  For that matter, how do you define “discrimination”?  if discrimination = disagreement (the typical PC response) then of course I discriminate, but that’s a complete bastardization of the term.  On the other hand, if discriminate = making a decision regarding something, then everyone discriminates all the time.  I discriminate against McDonalds when I decide to eat at Subway.  I discriminate against Jane when I ask out Jill.  Not all discrimination is a bad thing–in fact, it is necessary when making any decision.

4) “How is that different from discriminating against people for any other genetic factor.”  Again, the term “discrimination” is not defined.  We’re supposed to assume the worst.  But I have not advocated anything like the PC “discrimination” that homosexuals assume simply because I disagree with them on a moral issue.

In point of fact, my “discrimination” against homosexuals (i.e. I think homosexuality is immoral) is not based on how the homosexual was born whatsoever.  It’s based on the fact that homosexual behavior is immoral.  My “discrimination” is on the behavior, not the person.  Just as I don’t discriminate against people who have “anti-social tendancies” and yet I condemn them when they murder someone else, I don’t discriminate against those who are attracted to members of the same sex but I do say that they are immoral for actually engaging in the sexual relations.

But let us turn the tables for a bit.  Is it not discriminatory for you to judge my morality on this issue?  Discrimination is a two-way street here.  If I disagree with you and that automatically makes me “discriminate” against you, then your disagreement with me makes you automatically “discriminate” against me too.

5)  “because some people don’t like the idea of same sex couples doesn’t make it OK to relegate them to second class citizens.”  Again, I’ve never stated that homosexuals are “second class citizens.”  They are immoral–but so is everyone else.  I don’t view liars as second class citizens, I don’t view adulterers as second class citizens, I don’t even view murderers as second class citizens.  I view them all as human beings who have committed evil acts.  Just because “everyone does it” doesn’t make it suddenly moral to do evil.  And pointing out that an action is evil does not equate to a judgement that said person does not deserve the same human rights as everyone else.

I read the following on the Born Different website:

if one twin is born gay, there is a higher chance (52%) that the other will be gay as well.

since identical twins share DNA, this tells us that genetics plays a part in sexual orientation

that means some people are born gay.

The first thing I ask when I see the above is this: “if one twin is born gay, there is a higher chance…than what?”  This is a comparison without giving a comparison.  Does it mean that of sets of identical twins where at least one person is a homosexual that 52% of these people are both homosexual while 48% of them are not?  This is how I would probably take the statement.

If that’s the case, then if one person is gay it’s a 50/50 shot as to whether the other would be gay.

50/50 when they have identical DNA is not exactly proof that DNA plays any role.  In fact, the 48% that aren’t both gay sort of disprove that notion that genetics plays that big of a role in it.

Furthermore, identical twins are (amazingly enough) virtually always in identical environments.  The only way that the above study could possibly have any scientific validity for the conclusion (that people are born gay), the identical twins that are surveyed must be identical twins separated at birth.

Since there are very few of them, even fewer of which have at least one person as a homosexual, there is no statistical certainty of that conclusion.

Downtown where I live, there are a bunch of banners that show a puppy saying “Moo.”  That’s all that’s on the banners.  No explanation.

But yesterday I saw a billboard with a dog saying “Moo” and it provided a link to the website Born Different.  As you might guess from the name and the banners, it’s a pro-gay website.

I think the illustration actually does more harm to the gay community than good.  Sure, they use a cutsy puppy dog and all he does is say “Moo” instead of barking.  It’s supposed to make you think, “Aww, the cute puppy.  It would be so mean to not accept it just because it moos.”

But, of course, no dog naturally moos.  It’s a totally ficticious illustration with no bearing in reality.  Thus, it fits perfectly with what the homosexual agenda actually is.

It’s a mask designed to disguise reality so that you accept the unnatural on the basis of its “cuteness” instead of on the objective nature of reality.

The website Born Different seeks to demonstrate that gay people are just born differently from everyone else.  They didn’t “choose” to be gay.

But of course whether someone chooses to be gay or not has no bearing on the morality of the situation.  In fact, let us look at another issue people are “born with”: the sociopath.

The American Psychiatric Association’s The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV-R defines anti-social personality disorder (aka: sociopathism), as three of more of: “(1) failure to conform to social norms; (2) deceitfulness, manipulativeness; (3) impulsivity, failure to plan ahead; (4) irritability, aggressiveness; (5) reckless disregard for the safety of self or others; (6) consistent irresponsibility; (7) lack of remorse after hurting, mistreating or stealing from another.”

According to The Sociopath Next Door by Dr. Martha Stout (who cited the above as part of how she determined her numbers), 4% of the population is a sociopath.  This compares to the claimed 3% of the population being homosexual (according to Born Different).  These people are “born that way” and therefore their behavior ought to be “normalized” if we take the logic of Born Different seriously.  We ought not criticize the sociopath who rapes a woman and kills her and her family before being discharged from the Army for “anti-social personality disorder” for his actions.  He couldn’t help his anti-social personality any more than a gay person can help his “gay-ness.”  Therefore, under the same logic, both should be treated identically: welcomed without condemnation.

But this illustration doesn’t go over as well as a cute dog saying “moo” despite the fact that it’s a much more realistic illustration.

And since I’ve now written this entry, I am officially a hate-mongerer.  Go figure.

Man, the more things happen in this world, the more things seem like Public Transit.  But to answer the question…no, I’m not a prophet.  It’s just impossible to actually caricaturize liberals.  There will always be SOMEONE who fits the description.

Wow.

It’s not very often that something happens to me that actually leaves me floundering for words, but all I can say is…wow.  And not in a good, positive sense of the word, but more of the shock and dismay sense.

Last night, as I rode the bus home from work, I had to endure a conversation between a 17-year-old girl and her two friends.  Actually, to be completely fair, the entire bus had to endure this conversation.

How to characterize it.  Well, let me put it this way.  I’ve been around a lot of guys in locker rooms and have heard the typical “locker room banter” that goes on there.  Compared to what this girl said, the most perverse of the locker room talk might as well have been a Sunday sermon.

In a ride that lasted barely twenty minutes, I found out the following information about this girl.  First, she has had sexual relations with 22 people (of which 6 were men and 16 women) and she planned on hooking up with another person within the week.  She ran away from home when she was fifteen and gave birth to a child.  She really, really likes her drugs and went on for quite some time about her “gravity bong.”  And, finally, she likes to beat up other women (although the term she used wasn’t “women”) and, according to what she said, she’s left several women “for dead.”

Now I’m certainly sure that not everything she said was true, but she went into enough details to assure everyone that there was at least a grain of truth to every single one of her claims.  And as I sat there on the bus, a Scripture suddenly popped into my mind (although I couldn’t remember the reference at the time and had to look it up).

It was Jeremiah 6:15.

Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?  No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush.

Here was a girl who wasn’t even a legal adult yet who didn’t know how to blush.  She engaged in behavior that was so perverse even people who engage in similar behavior find it an extreme.  And there in public she flaunted everything.  Yes, the metaphors about the prostitution of Israel from Isaiah and Jerermiah certainly make more sense now.

Naturally, my first reaction was a visceral one.  I felt like someone had opened up a cess pool right next to me and was splashing around in the sewage.  I felt disgusted by this girl.  But as I walked the distance from the bus stop to my house, I started to think about it more and realized that for all the depravity that was on display then, there was a deeper lesson for our culture.

This woman really was ashamed of what she has done.  It’s probably not at a conscious level, but deep inside she really did feel shame for it.  And to cover up the fact that she felt shame she had to pretend that she didn’t feel shame at all.  She had to pretend that what she was doing didn’t affect her in the slightest, that it was “normal” for her to engage in such behavior.  And to delude herself into thinking that, she did that which would be most effective: she boasted about her sinfulness in public.  After all, boasting in public means you don’t care about your sins, and if you don’t care about your sins then the shame of them doesn’t hurt so much….right?

But of course that doesn’t solve the problem.  Sex and drugs and beating up other people are only a temporary outlet for her to drown out the pain of her shame.  For a short time, it does work.  She doesn’t feel so bad because she can focus on the pleasure she gets from those experiences.  But then reality crashes back in.

So she repeats the behavior and she feels a little better, but there’s a catch.  See, now she doesn’t feel as good as she did the first time.  Perhaps it’s because she knows that reality will come back, that what she is doing isn’t fixing the problem but only delaying it slightly.  The high doesn’t last as long, so she has to do it more and more often.

Until finally she’s at the point where none of the behavior works.  She is left despising herself, which isn’t what she wants, so she pretends that it’s all good.  She forces herself to believe that what she’s doing isn’t bad.  She justifies her decisions by holding onto her false presuppositions as long as she can.

But always the truth is there in the back of her mind.  The problem isn’t fixed by what she does, because the problem is her.  When the highs from her behavior wear off, she is still left with being her…only now she has even added shame for her poor attempts.

My feelings toward this girl changed from outright disgust to more of a feeling of sadness.  Our culture is, on the whole, just a different version of this girl.  We glorify sex, drugs, and violence on TV, in the movies, in video games.  Where, then, is this girl supposed to turn?  The entire world promises her only that which she is already engaged in, and she knows deep inside that that just doesn’t work.  The proof is in the fact that she had to defile herself in public to pretend that it doesn’t hurt so bad.

Our culture is defiling itself in public for the same reasons that this girl was.  And the same underlying despair is always going to be present.  Until the root of the problem is addressed, there can be no cure.  There will only be travel from one fix to the next, with the dreaded knowledge that all it accomplishes is a slight delaying of the inevitable.