One of my few mo friends left on FB is, wait for it, anti gay! I have lost patience with this person and am ready to hit her with links and rock solid logic. Anything you guys have to offer I am ready to lay onto her. Here is the thread (the last post pissed me off the worst.):


HER:

AHHHH< sorry I am coming to this 'discussion' so late, but I would LOVE to add my point of view. Before Prop 8 was passed in Callifornia I was apapthetic to the whole gay marriage debate at all. True my religious beliefs have shaped my attitude regarding the life style but I have always been a live and let live kind of person. If I had lived in California, I doubt that I would have supported the pettition at all. What you do on your time is your business, as long as you are not trying to indoctrinate my kids, that's my job. But after, especially when I saw Whoopi Goldberg leading a protest outside the Holy Temple in Manhattan (cool temple by the way, was given a tour by Steve Young's parents...cool) was my ire raised so I did my research. I found out that there were already laws on the books in California that gave gay couples ALL the RIGHTS and RESPONSIBILITIES of straight married couples. I read and read and read. California being the liberal bastian that it is had done a good job of making sure that their gay citzens were afforded ALL the RIGHTS and (I loved this part) RESPNSIBILITIES of marriage. They went over inheritance, children and visitiing rights right there in the law. So what was the fight about??? The WORD 'Marriage'? Could it be? I read an article about how maybe, given a Saul type decision, we should all abandon the word marriage for all people!! Interesting, I thought and it means absollutely nothing to me. No label was put on my union was going to change its significance to me, so why it is so important to others, remember, in California it is NOT about RIGHTS and RESPONSIBILITIES!! I don't care about indoctrination in the school sysytem really, heck it already happens here in PA and least with safe sex, despite the fact that I teach abstinece before marriage in the home. I have enough confidence in the ability to teach correct priniciples in the home, and with the power of the Holy Spirit, have my children have the ability to discern truth from untruth. So what is it that bothered me so, what what what.
It was the "intentional" consequences. The fight for equal rights for the homosexual community is a zero-sum game. In order for one side, the homosexual community, to "win", the other side, Christians, have to lose. Families are being refused the right to foster children based on their Christian beliefs. Catholic Charities shut down in Massachusettes becasue they will not adopt out to gay parents, and how long before churches are ordered to perform gay marriages on the basis of fair and equal treatment? The more accepted the homosexual lifestyle becomes, through litigation, the more in danger, those of us who disagree with the lifestyle ae, the more we stand to lose. Our belief, and a common sense one at that, that said lifestyle is unnatural and immoral will become a crime and punishable by some 'hate thought' legislation. It is more important to me how you treat me than what you think about me, and I would never, although I disagree with your choices, treat you badly, unless of course you were trying to mess with one of my kids, then the gloes come off, just ask my neighbor!



ME:
So what, in your mind, is this dreaded 'homosexual lifestyle'. The fact is, homosexuality is inborn and by simply making the very human choice to have a romantic and committed relationship to the person of their choice they are some how living a 'wicked' lifestyle and somehow that costs religion something? How does that even follow? Would you say that about Hermaphrodites? Who should they 'marry'? Most religions have a very narrow (and somewhat medieval) view of human sexuality which is not and has never been an either/or, black/white situation. Religion has had quite the hayday in this country and gotten very comfortable strong arming the 'free' citizens of this country into abiding by its idea of morality. If an organisation is a tax exempt charity then it has certain obligations that go with that status. Churches that want to 'play favorites' should lose their status and even be shut down if they use that status to enforce their own misplaced ideologies. I be the CC helped non-catholics and single parents with adoptions, but no gay couples? What would you think of a 'charitable' tax exempt org not allowing interracial couples to adopt? What, exactly, do christians lose by letting 2 (unrelated) consenting adults have the title of marriage?
As far as churches being forced to marry gays: In many parts of Europe, people have to have a civil wedding before going to the religious ceremony of their choice. In the countries where gay marriage has been legal I haven't seen any case where a particular church was forced to marry someone they didn't want too. So riddle me this: In a country where church and state are (supposed to be) separate, is marriage a secular institution, or a religious institution? Can you have a secular wedding and not a religious one (even with a religious wedding, you still have to get a licences from the state, but no equivalent permission from a religion)? If it is a primarily secular institution then there is no legal reasons to exclude gays from marriage, and religion HAS NOTHING TO LOSE. Christians need to get it thru their thick skulls that they do NOT own this country, it is NOT a christian nation, and their own twisted idea of right and wrong means squat when it comes to SECULAR institutions.
I just remembered this: Did you know that the school systems in which abstinence only education is taught that the rate of abortion and STDS is more than twice than in schools where safe sex and BC is taught? Abstinence only ed has been an abysmal failure in the few places daffy enough to try and implement it. Anyone who thinks that just telling kids to not have sex and then giving them nothing further in the way of 'but if you decide to, here is the FYI' is deluding themselves. I personally would like my kids to finish their HS education before becoming sexually active (b/c honestly, my adult kids sex life is none of my damn business, including if they want to wait for marriage or not. Personally, I haven't seen what advantage there is to being a virgin on ones wedding night, while I have seen many cases where it was a distinct disadvantage.) BUT, given that the human mind and body have been primed over millions of years to have sex and reproduce, I am realistic that the 'no sex before marriage' doesn't happen in 9 out of 10 people (mormons included) and want my kids to understand everything about how to keep safe AND enjoy all that nature has given them when their time is right. Religions obsession with peoples sex lives is controlling and barbaric and causes most of the aberrations that get innocent people hurt by putting shame, secrecy, and self-loathing into something that should be beautiful and empowering. There is an interesting study (I'll send you the link when I find it) showing a clear and disturbing correlation between countries with high religiosity (Abrahamic religions who have the most severe religious taboos on sex) and rates of sexual violence and child sex crimes. The more religiously repressive the countries/cultures were, the higher the rates of sexual crimes against women and children, violent crime in general, human trafficking, child porn, etc. The Catholic Church's scandal, and the issues that have gone on in the Boy Scouts are not the exception, but the rule. And as far as the Catholic church goes, any religion that tells its followers in an AIDS ravished country that the use of condoms will endanger their immortal soul is not only evil, but malevolent and I would not shed a tear if every one of their 'charities' around the world were shut down as I doubt any amount of good they could/have ever do/done could offset all the blood and lost innocence on their hands.

Her:
Surprise, surprise surprise, your statistics and my statistics about abstinence only education differ! How could that be? And quite personally I am not interested in debating the right or wrongness of the homosexual lifestyle, nothing I can say will ever convince you that I am right, and vice versa, But I will say this, there is NO evidence, NONE that states that homosexuality is inborn, in fact until the late 80's it was classified in the DSM as a mental disoder and only removed by great pressure from the homosexual lobby. One of the leading psychologists of the time has gone on record as saying that he believes it was a mistake to have removed it at all. So, if you are in fact 'born that way' which I doubt, then it is a biological disorder that, for all we know, may be treatable. My point is that the batle is a zero-sum game. Those of us who have a disagreement, whether based on religion or pure biology, will be looked at as, and are already looked at as bigots for our difference of opnion. It doesn't matter how decent we are to people of any belief or opnion, the homosexual debate is like the borg, resistance is futile, assimilate(accept us as equal) or die(be forever outcast in society as bigots). NOT that I care what any one thinks about me, the problem comes when, as I said before, big brother starts to pass hate thought legislation, and don't bother telling me it wont happen!!

...I find it really interesting when Mormons and Christians whine and bitch and play the victim, then in the same sentence say, "I don't care what anyone thinks of me!" Well, yes you do or obviously you wouldn't feel the need to defend your position.

Mormons have been playing the "assimilate or die" and the "we are the victims my frieeeend" card since the mid 19th century.

I love that she says "It doesn't matter how decent we are to people of any belief or opinion, the homosexual debate is like the borg..." blah blah blah. The fact is, MOST OF YOU ARE ANYTHING *BUT* DECENT. I've received a bigger influx of hate from Mormon people than from any other group. Treat us decently? Really? Explain to me, then, why your church supported legislature to curtail gay and lesbian marriage rights in California, then LIED ABOUT IT when they were called on their shit.

Ooh ooh!! AND she talks about big brother passing hate through legislation?!??! Is she talking about hate toward Mormons and Christians? GOD I hope so because if that's the case, she's too dumb to even argue with.

"Hate thought legislation." Bwahahaha!

Hey, isn't god In there already policing her thoughts? That must be why such a notion even crosses her mind. Alternatively, perhaps she only insists she thinks this way because it's the kind of thoughts she thinks god wants her to have.

Sorry, I got nothing useful for you, but that hate thought legislation really hit my funny bone. The only one with thought legislation of any kind is the version of god she got from church.


Make her show her statistics too! They'll be from "pro-family" sites only. If you can find some scientific articles on population statistics that have no opinions expressed whatsoever, I think that's your best bet.
But I don't think there's any way to change her mind. :( She's got kids, and she's hell bent on indoctrinating them her way, she admitted it.

I sure wish the "It gets better" campaign had been around when I was young.

You're not going to change her mind, because she doesn't want it changed.

It's not about changing her mind, but if all I get is for her to end up sputtering and bearing testimony, that would be a satisfying conclusion for me. That, and just having some stats and a concrete logical argument so that all who read my page will see what a shallow and ill-conceived argument she has and what a nasty little person she and her fellow mormons are. I also want to have my stance fleshed out for future debates that may help impact the world for better.
So I guess this is where I make a public stand, and I don't want to come out unable to answer a challenge.
Maybe noble, maybe petty, but it means something to me.

Not worth the time. Unfriend her.

She is using flawed logic to maintain her point, so using good logic and good reasoning skills is not going to work.

My approach would be to try to make her stance a violation of god's will. Taking a statement like "Catholic Charities shut down in Massachusettes becasue they will not adopt out to gay parents," the reply would be "So, are you saying Catholic Charities shut down because they will not minister to ALL god's children? Didn't Jesus minster to EVERYONE? Why are you going against what Jesus wants?"

It doesn't matter how many facts or logic you use with this person- She is not going to change her mind simply because she believes god is on her side and that makes her right no matter what.

As my BF says, "If you're yelling at an idiot, make sure he or she is not doing the same thing."

A leading psychologist that I totally made up has gone on record as saying that belief in a ghost that talks to you and makes all your decisions and dictates your underwear choices is a mental disorder! There's NO evidence that it's biological at all. And if there turns out to be a "Mormon Gene" then for all we know it could be a biological condition that is TREATABLE. Now, I'm not one for hate or bigotry. If you want to follow the teachings of a convicted fraud who married 14-year-old girls then that's your business. I just don't understand why you have to drag all the rest of us into it by showing up on our doorsteps with your Mormon propaganda.

What if I want to take my children on a walk through Times Square? I'm working hard to indoctrinate them to be just like me and incapable of experiencing free thought or joy. What do I tell them when they see those, "I'm a Mormon" ads plastered everywhere. Whether or not I want to teach my children about Mormonism is up to me, and your "Mormon Agenda" is shoving the issue into my home and forcing me to have discussions with my children that I wanted to wait to have until they were much older.

"See sweetie, sometimes a man and a woman find that they can tolerate each other and that they're nearing 21 and don't want to be spinsters, so they give a big invisible guy in the clouds 10% of all their money and 40% of all their free time so that some randomly selected old dude can give them a magical card that lets them enter into a special temple. Once inside the temple the man and the woman will put on ridiculous outfits and chant nonsense syllables while raising their arms at specific angles and bowing their heads. Then they'll have a two minute ceremony which insures they'll be stuck with each other for the rest of eternity, even after they die. After that they have around a dozen kids, none of whom get the amount of attention or affection that a child deserves because not only are there 12 kids to split the parents' time between, but the parents also spend so much time doing free janitorial work and crafting pioneer women out of Mrs Buttersworth bottles that they'd barely have time to neglect ONE child. And that's what those people in the posters are talking about."

LIKE!

You'll never get through to her, but she really should see Buelahland's post. It is at the very least a left hook from out of the blue. And since logic and actual facts don't work...well, you never know if this little gem might crack the armor and open the dialogue in a different way.

It's written by Morris Thurston, who's a professor of law at BYU.

http://www.mormonlawyers.com/2008/10/byu-law-professor-morris-thurstons.html

+1 ltzpapaloti! I love that statement your bf made. It makes perfect sense!

I chant it any time I find myself getting into a heated arguement. It doesn't matter if I'm right or not- There are too many fools not worth the energy it takes to debate.

Well, unless I'm feeling particularly jazzy. :)

Homesexuality was removed from the DSM as a mental disoder in the early 70's (1972 I believe). It was removed because psychological disorders need to be identifiable by patterning dirived from testing. No patterns could be found among all the tests that were available to destinguish gays from straight short of asking about sexual preferences. Regarding "great pressure from the homosexual lobby," there were reguests from gays inside and outside the APA which determines the content of the DSM, but the decision to remove homosexuality as a disorder was the result of research and those who felt that homosexuality was a disorder were as involved with the research as those who didn't. I did understand from soemthing I read (but I could be mistaken in this comment) that Frued recognized that gay people were functioning and contributing members of society. There are a couple good articles that were once available on the internet, but I don't have them readily available and don't have time now to look for them. The APA (American Psychological Association) would probably be a good place to start looking.

As for "there is NO evidence, NONE that states that homosexuality is inborn" this statement is essentially true, but NEARLY ALL the research into the causes of homosexuality - twins research, birth order research, olfactory hormonal response research, animal research, etc, etc, etc - points to or indicate the strong probablility that homosexuality have an organic or physiological cause. (I shy away from saying it has a genetic cause because I believe it is more liekly an epigenetic phenomenon). We need to understand that for science to say in definitive fact that one thing causes another they need to be able to trace and explain each step of the process along the way. They need to be able to reproduce the effect by controlling the process and research what happens at every stage. This is a very high standard to fulfill and for science to "merely indicate" or to "suggest" causation is more than what it means in the general usage. It is certainly soemthing that is more reliable than a Mormon testimony of the Mormon Gospel.

Onto "then it is a biological disorder that, for all we know, may be treatable." Well, well, well! Bigotry is far more easily treated than many "biological disorder". Biology give us such differences as color blindness, but Mormons haven't decided that those who aren't able to dicern certain colors need "biological treatment." Left handedness is most likely biological and we KNOW very well how harmful it was to try to change naturally left-handed kids into right-handed ones. And for what purpose??? In order to TREAT homosexuality as a biological disorder, science would need to be able to explain how it develops (which would prove it to be biological) and then , yes, they may be able to devise "treatments." Until then, we have lots of gay individuals living and contributing to society in all the same ways straight people do. Your friend may even know some of them, and not even know it. Then there is the issue if homosexuality is a pathology or not even requiring "treatment." I personally think it is no one's business who sleeps with whom so long as no one is being forced or decieved. We have 6+ billion people on this planet earth and that is WITH gays anong our ranks all along. So what if a few men and women don't reproduce. Plenty of adult heterosexuals choose not to reproduce, but they are not prevented from participating in society because of this choice.

Addressing: "the batle [sic] is a zero-sum game." Don't tell that to gay couples denied the rights and responsibilities marriage affords. It is a BIG gain to them. And just what do the religious folks opposed to gay marriage lose??? I have yert to hear any clear answer to this question, and I believe the California courts are still waiting as well.

In response to: "Those of us who have a disagreement ... will be looked at as, and are already looked at as bigots for our difference of opnion." All I can think to say is "WHEN THE SHOW FITS ..." I'm sure the KKK and Aryan nation don't think of themselves as racial bigots either.

And to: "It doesn't matter how decent we are to people of any belief or opnion, the homosexual debate is like the borg, resistance is futile, assimilate(accept us as equal) or die(be forever outcast in society as bigots)." You may, in fact, be very decent people in other ways. This DOES NOT, however, give you a pass on being homophobic. Members of the Klan may be very helpful to their pure white brothers and sisters. They may contribute with great compassion and decency to the betterment of their white schools, their white hospitals, and their white charities. They are still racists. Period! We are what we are.

Ok, I've gone on (and on and on) long enough. I hope that gives you a little ammunition.

Is that there is still a great deal of misinformation - much of it disgusting - concerning gays out there on the internet and produced from orgainzations like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association. They have produced their own "facts" from "research" (much of it discredited by peer review) they or those they've hired have produced. Having been discredited by the APA does not stop them from repeating their "facts" endlessly even after the falacies in the research is brought to their attention.

Don't debate 'her' anymore because she doesn't want to listen to anything about anything. She doesn't want to be told what will and won't happen to her thoughts. Instead she wants to tell other people what will and won't happen with their thoughts.

She's the one claiming big brother and thought legislation.

What I'd do is just link to where homosexuality is mostly inborn.

Then I'd make a statement about how the studies show that they are great parents.

Then at the end I'd link to where the Westborough Baptists are still allowed to protest homosexuality and all of their signs.

And just let her know that she can continue to disagree with "gays" and be very vocal about it. She can even picket their "lifestyle" and tell them that god hates them.

However, if she wants to be vocal in her disagreement, she can't whine when someone calls her a bigot.

Mormons do the same thing when they are criticized. They always throw the "bigot" card.

Fair is fair.

"And just let her know that she can continue to disagree with "gays" and be very vocal about it. She can even picket their "lifestyle" and tell them that god hates them.

However, if she wants to be vocal in her disagreement, she can't whine when someone calls her a bigot."

Send me an email at prettyinpain5@gmail.com and I will send you a link to my IRL FB page.

Someone with such archaic thinking wouldn't be a friend of mine. She's a modern-day cavewoman.

Ask her if her sexuality is a choice or were attractions out of her hand?

Then ask her why would someone choose to live a certain way that would be nothing but hardship?

Debating your misinformed friend will clarify your own thinking on the issues, and will give you valuable practice is explaining your point of view.

Even if your misinformed friend does not change his/her mind, you will have gained simply by engaging in the effort to present the facts, and to present a more tolerant viewpoint.

One of the recognizable mantras your friend repeats is that there is no proof that being gay is inborn. Repetition of short, easy to remember, slogans is a technique for propaganda and not for meaningful conversation.

Also, repetition does not create truth. The claim that therapy or other treatments can cure the gay, that people choose to be gay, etc. may repeated hundreds of thousands of times on the internet and never come one iota closer to being true.

The abject failure, and the proven danger of cure-the-gay therapy is one plank in the argument for homosexuality as a natural part of the spectrum of sexuality.

"Debating your misinformed friend will clarify your own thinking on the issues, and will give you valuable practice is explaining your point of view.

Even if your misinformed friend does not change his/her mind, you will have gained simply by engaging in the effort to present the facts, and to present a more tolerant viewpoint."

The point of a formal debate (imo) is not to change the opponents view. The point is 2 fold: Influence the opinions of the audience, and hone the debaters own skill at crafting and presenting a logical, eloquent, and well reasoned argument.

That is why I am continuing on with this, and seeking info/back up from those who may have vital points that I have simply overlooked or not considered.

I appreciate ppl taking the time to help me with this. I will happily pay it forward someday! :-)

to spell your moniker. As we've seen so many times even just in the last few days that it is like talking to a wall (I was that wall once, so I do get it).

BUT link some of those "shock aversion therapy" at BYU links. Someone posts those links every now and then and then ask her, "For a religion who says they have the truth, why would they resort to this?"

That was something that I never could get past--in all the years that I was trying to come to terms with mormonism and gays--IF YOU HAVE THE TRUTH and your leaders talk with God and receive direct revelation, what the hell are they doing using porn and shock therapy on GENITALS at BYU for? Not only does the mormon church not have answers for gays, they have the WRONG ANSWERS. Shock therapy just speaks to the fact they don't have a clue about gays.

Perhaps you should ask her how forcing a gay man to marry a woman or a lesbian to marry a man instead of the one they love sanctifies the institution of marriage since the people involved would be living, simply put, a LIE.

My first reaction was to just ignore her, she's too closed-minded. Then I read beulahland's post. I would definitely say that, then ignore her.