what makes you gay???

Soccer.

Soccer makes you gay.

 

There is a difference between being looked down on and being denied equal rights.

People with Tats might be looked down on, but they can still marry the person they love. Once married they can be listed as spouse and covered under an employer's health insurance. They can adopt children.

I remember Bush once said he was in favor people having the same rights not special rights. Well gay people don't have the same rights.

In addition they are not only looked down upon, like some people with tatts, they are alos beaten, and sometimes killed.

I'm straight, and happily married, but I'm very dedicated to equal rights for everyone including homosexuals.

 

one . . . Liking small women vs large women IS A CHOICE
ARE YOU SAYING THAT IS GENETIC?

and YES . . INFERTILITY *IS* unnatural
UNNATURAL - not as nature intended.
I don't think Genetic Diseases are natural.
As Nature intended. Just because something
in genetic does not make it natural IMO

Rocket RIver

 

His point would be that they do have the same right to marry someone of the opposite sex.

And many employers do offer benefits to same-sex partners these days, and in most jurisdictions, being homosexual does not preclude them adopting children.

I'm pretty sure non-homosexuals are sometimes beaten and killed, too. And as far as I know, the killers, when caught, are prosecuted regardless of the sexual orientation of the victim. Not sure what that has to do with equal rights.

 

So, if we passed a law saying you could only marry women over 350 lbs, that'd be OK? I mean, everyone has the equal right to marry a 350+ woman.

How many non-homosexuals are killed because they are non-homosexual?

 

I didn't say it was right. I was saying what his point would be.

What difference does it make? If a person is killed for whatever reason, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Making the crime worse or carry a harsher penalty because of the victim's sexual orientation really is making special rules.

It's horrible that there are people who would assault or kill someone based on sexual orientation, and I think every one of those people should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But the law shouldn't create a special class for those types of crimes. Murdering someone because they're homosexual, to me, isn't any worse as a crime than murdering someone for any other reason. The victim is just as dead, and the crime should be prosecuted the same.

 

Did you even read the whole thread mrpaige?

No one's discussing hate crimes. Some are questioning why someone would choose to be gay when there's a chance you'd be discriminated against. Someone responded that people with piercings and tattoos are discriminated against as well, and they choose that, so you can see why homosexuals would do it too.

 

No one is proposing a law that says only homosexuals are protected from hate crimes. Everyone has a sexual orientation thus everyone is protected so what special class is created? And not all hate crimes are murders.

In 1991, 10 high school kids from the Woodlands beat up and killed a gay man in Montrose. Six of the ten participants in the murder went to prison, and two more were later sent there for parole violations. All but one has since been released. The last one is currently up for parole after serving 9 years in a 15 year sentence.

If these guys had killed a cop or a little girl or an old widow in the same manner they had killed this gay man, they would all be lethally injected and 6 feet under by now.

 

Yeah. I read the thread, and I responded to the post just prior to mine about equal rights which also included the statement about how gays are sometimes beaten and/or killed because they are gay.

I asked what that had to do with equal rights, and you made a response asking how many non-homosexuals are killed because they are non-homosexuals, which was a response to my question as to what that has to do with equal rights.

He made all these points about how gays aren't equal and included the murder point in that. I wanted to know what that had to do with anything, and you made an answer. In the general flow of his post to my post to yours, the obvious and natural response would be to ask about hate crimes.

Why did you make the point about gays being murdered just because they are gay if not to make a point about the lack of equal rights the post I was responding to mentioned?

If it didn't have anything to do with that then why'd you respond at all? The thread was pushed toward non-equal rights in regard to murder, I merely responded to where the thread was going. I might well ask if you had read the posts in question.

 

And in the late '90s, a couple of football jocks ran down and killed a punk with a funny haircut and tattoos in a parking lot in Amarillo, Texas. A jury convicted the driver of a lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced him to probation.

And in Fort Worth in the late '90s, a jury sentenced a man who had murdered his estranged wife to probation after convicting him of a lesser charge of manslaughter. The man remains free.

Also in Fort Worth, a White Supremicist was sentenced to probation for his part in the murder of an African-American in Tarrant County.

We can all find instances where the justice system didn't live up to what would seem right. Again, what difference does it make. Is that Montrose beating worse than the Dustin Camp case in Amarillo? Or the Chris Brodsky case in Fort Worth? Or any other murder cases the nation has seen? All the people I mentioned should've gotten longer sentences, but did not.

 

Then we just disagree on where the thread was going.

I took this:

to be a general response to the comparison of those with tattoos to homosexuals that was made earlier. I didn't get anything out of it regarding how those who kill homosexuals because they are homosexual should be dealt with.

 

And in the late '90s, a couple of football jocks ran down and killed a punk with a funny haircut and tattoos in a parking lot in Amarillo, Texas. A jury convicted the driver of a lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced him to probation.

And in Fort Worth in the late '90s, a jury sentenced a man who had murdered his estranged wife to probation after convicting him of a lesser charge of manslaughter. The man remains free.

Also in Fort Worth, a White Supremicist was sentenced to probation for his part in the murder of an African-American in Tarrant County.

We can all find instances where the justice system didn't live up to what would seem right. Again, what difference does it make. Is that Montrose beating worse than the Dustin Camp case in Amarillo? Or the Chris Brodsky case in Fort Worth? Or any other murder cases the nation has seen? All the people I mentioned should've gotten longer sentences, but did not. In a perfect world, they would have. But they didn't.

Do we actually want to have laws that say Dustin Camp isn't as bad of a criminal as these kids in Montrose because all Camp did was run over a white, heterosexual person's head? We do have such laws, and I would argue that's going beyond equal rights because it means the homosexual person in Montrose should be more protected than the white, heterosexual punk in Amarillo.

 

Of course people are discussing hate crimes. Yes, murder is illegal under all circumstances and should be prosecuted. But we do have special penalties for hate crimes that are race-based. The reason is that, to the credit of this country's ideological evolution, as a society we now find it especially repugnant to kill someone because of the color of their skin. Used to be totally socially acceptable to lynch someone because of their skin color. It's not anymore. You can count on the fact that that will eventually extend to sexual orientation. In fact the Matthew Sheppard case went a long way toward making this happen.

This equal rights vs. special rights thing is one of the more amazing smoke screens of our time. mrpaige illustrates the cynicism of this argument perfectly. Yes, everyone has the right to marry the opposite sex. But everyone does not have the right to marry the person they love. Only heteros have that right.

Name one case where someone was killed for being a heterosexual. Name one case where someone was fired from their job or kicked out of the military for being heterosexual.

We have one set of rules for straights and one for gays and they are not equal. The cynical argument called "special rights" is that everyone has the same rights if they'll just agree to be straight.

Those of you who crusade against true equal rights for homosexuals are the direct ideological descendants of segregationists. I don't blame you for it. You were just raised that way. Homosexuality seems foreign, strange and wrong to you. I understand that. That's a result of your conditioning, just like people used to be raised to disdain people whose skin was a different color than their own. This will change.

The advances in this arena have been remarkable in the last twenty years. When I was a child, my parents (who both identify themselves as Republicans) were both intolerant of homosexuality, made jokes about gays, etc. They both support equal rights for gays now and jokes about gays now seem as distasteful to them as racial jokes. The trend is good.

Even those of you who argue the conservative side here no longer think it's okay to call gays 'faggots.' So even the far right side of this argument is evolving. Isabel said a few pages back that she didn't think both sides could come to agreement on this issue. I happily disagree with her there. The two sides of this argument get closer with each passing year, as people learn more about each other, feel less threatened by unfamiliar lifestyles and learn to live and let live.

 

Then we do because after mentioning all the ways he wants homosexuals to have equal rights, he mentions the beatings and murders. To me, that looks like parts of the same point as there was nothing really there to separate it from the rest of the point about equal rights.

Which is why I asked and made my point.

 

So if you admit the justice system is flawed then what is wrong with more laws to make it difficult for these criminals to escape their appropriate punishment?

 

Outstanding post Batman.

 

mrpaige,

I find all of these crimes to be awful and I think it's awful that any of the people who perpetrated them are free. With the possible exception of the white supremacist though, these are not cases of a stranger finding another stranger and killing them because they didn't like their race or lifestyle. (I don't know whether the white supremacist knew his victim.) In the case of the punk rocker who was run over, this was during a gang-style altercation between rival groups. I think that guy should have gone away for life, but the difference is that the punk rocker was part of a group of people behaving in an antagonistic manner toward another group of people. The guy in Montrose was walking down the street minding his own business and was killed only because he was gay. The punk rocker was not killed only because of his tattoos.

But we already have hate crimes on the books. So the question is this: Do you really think it's worse that James Byrd died for being black than it is that Matthew Sheppard died for being gay?

 

Well, here in Texas, it already does apply to sexual orientation. But it's still wrong. It's wrong when it applies to sexual orientation and it's wrong when it applies to race or ethnicity or sex. It is a special right. It's a special protection offered to a specific class of people. Those crimes are repugnant, but we already have laws that deal with punishment for crimes that doesn't involved creating special classes of victims.

To me, killing someone because they looked at you wrong is no less repugnant than killing someone because of their race, sex, sexual orientation, religion or whatever.

Don't make that my point. I was elucidating the internal consistency within the position, not endorsing it. I don't want to be associated with it, personally, because said view does not jibe with my own.

Personally, I say let 'em get married if they want to. Don't see any reason why not.

 

Because these laws only allow for extra safeguards for some people, not all. I believe in equality. You will never convince me that the life Dustin Camp took is less valuable than the life these Montrose kids took and deserves more protection.