Steve King: "I don’t expect to meet [gays] should I make it to heaven."

[pbrower2a]

Homosexuals, like all people, are certainly capable of going to Heaven if they repent and accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Unrepentant sinners don't go to Heaven; and thus, an unrepentant homosexual will indeed go to Hell, just like how an unrepentant adulterer or unrepentant fornicator (to name two examples) will go to Hell.

I have used the threat of Hell. On a Nazi. I also told him that he wouldn't like Heaven anyway -- too many Jews for his liking.

By the way -- what is so damnable about homosexuality itself?

[pbrower2a]

In case anyone wonders why I am for gay and lesbian rights, the creep depicted in the video makes my point. A warning: the perpetrator uses some dreadful language and, worse, a kick to the groin.   

Law and order is the first of all human rights, without which the others are cant. The perp made the mistake of showing off his infantile morality at DFW Airport, a place teeming with police. Cops win, gay-basher likely gets a stiff prison term instead of a stiff drink.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/24/1339028/-Watch-good-Samaritans-tackle-violent-gay-basher-at-Dallas-airport#comments

[pbrower2a]

In case anyone wonders why I am for gay and lesbian rights, the creep depicted in the video makes my point. A warning: the perpetrator uses some dreadful language and, worse, a kick to the groin.   

Law and order is the first of all human rights, without which the others are cant. The perp made the mistake of showing off his infantile morality at DFW Airport, a place teeming with police. Cops win, gay-basher likely gets a stiff prison term instead of a stiff drink.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/24/1339028/-Watch-good-Samaritans-tackle-violent-gay-basher-at-Dallas-airport#comments

The dregs of our society are irrelevant, not stars to determine political orientation. If you focus on the exceptional occurrences, you'll never see the real problems.

The government pits the traditional heterosexual marriage demographics against the single alternative-relationship or homosexual demographics. Gays are just the single people who are tired of being discriminated against. The rest of the single world has been taught that there is something wrong with them, and they generally accept the socio-economic punishment handed down by the government.

Gay rights and SSM are the most small-minded solutions I can possibly imagine to our current problems.

"Dregs" draw plenty of attention from local DAs in criminal prosecutions. People have been executed in Texas for gay-bashing that results in murder.

The problem is that the perpetrator thought his victim "gay" -- it is that he believed it acceptable to attack a gay man. The homophobic smears and hostile profanity alone would have been "disorderly conduct".

I have been threatened with gay-bashing. Sure, I could explain how I know that I am not gay, but I doubt that that would convince an angry bigot. All in all, formal acceptance of gay rights makes anti-homosexual crime less likely. 

... There is now no convincing argument that same-sex marriage threatens "traditional marriage". If anything it expands "traditional marriage". Some people just can't relate sexually to the other gender but can to their own. I don't have to understand homosexuality -- but I understand homophobia all too well and find it appalling.

[pbrower2a]

Imagine a culture where children are often betrothed, and they are married by the time they reach sexual maturity, and society expects them to use their sexuality, in a manner that is exclusively useful to their spouse, and indirectly beneficial for society as a whole. Do you think there is any room for homosexual behavior? Do you think the people who created this system are inherently bigoted?

Bigoted, no. Backward, definitely. That was the norm until early-modern times, and it served to promote conformity within the community, preserve the identity of religious minorities,  and solidify the rigid class structure. It is now backward in the sense that writing with a quill pen is backward.

As for homosexual behavior -- it was typically done on the sly. Can you imagine what a miserable marriage that would have been? What for? Tradition? What was a delight for many was drudgery for the homosexual.

Sure, tradition was everything.  But we don't let tradition dictate our lives, do we, today?

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We are no longer responsible to those ancient people. We can neither harm them nor do good. Marriage between people fourteen years old, once something 'natural', is now unconscionable.  We have enough people as it is, and we have no need for a population explosion.  As for the 'wisdom' of ancient peasants -- they accepted much that we now find abominable, like slavery and a death penalty that encompassed such offenses a witchcraft.

I suggest that you ask the experts on what the Old Testament says. The real experts. The Jews. They do not kill witches. They do not kill children for talking back. They do not tolerate slavery. On the whole they get good results for their lives.  

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Except for adultery, all of those are abominable and often illegal today on the grounds that such are cruel, exploitative, or destructive. You contradict yourself by on the one hand admiring the ancients for their sexual wisdom and on the other hand excoriating their sexual depravity. Some of the behavior of ancient Hebrew kings is now unthinkable -- like having harems. I respect the Old Testament for showing the consequences (tragedy for the victims and at times self-destruction of the perpetrators)... and those are valid warnings to us today. I have never had any use for sex with children, but the secular explanation from Sigmund Freud -- that children find sex unwelcome and painful -- is good enough for me. The repugnance that most of us have against rape is now that is violates the right a female who does not or cannot consent (a feminist approach) -- in contrast to the violation of a man's possession of sexual rights to a wife. The feminist approach is a stronger judgment against rape.

As for adultery -- it hurts children by gutting their certainty about the trustworthiness of their parents. Adultery depends upon lies and deceit that hurt children.        

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Even if one thinks homosexuality something less than ideal, one cannot see it evil in the sense that murder, robbery, rape, perversion of justice, the making of fraudulent oaths, denying rest to employees, and abandonment of the elderly are gross affronts against the morality that underpins a wholesome society. Know well: no part of the Bible says anything that specifically prohibits the use or dealing in narcotics... or driving drunk. So far as I can tell, homosexuality is an indelible part of the character of people. At least it is not sociopathy or even narcissism.

Did you see the video to which I linked? I saw no Christian morality in the foul-mouthed, violent brute who attacked an alleged gay. I am sure that if you are a Christian that you would never testify to the 'wrongness' of homosexuality with a kick to the groin. Taking down the violent brute who had shown a willingness to inflict severe and pointless pain looks like Christian behavior. Violent hatred against homosexuals does not match the command of Jesus to love thy neighbor as if oneself.

[pbrower2a]

Marriage equality affects everyone. The United States hasn't been living up to the Equal Protection Clause of the  Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. So, it may not personally interest you; but, then again, the LGBT community isn't interesting in waiting for you to become possibly supportive. So, giving LGBT persons their due equal rights for legal marriage, as experienced by heterosexual persons, is the solution to that particular issue. Other "current problems" are just more topics. This one does not take a back seat, at this time in our history, because you emotionally want to deflect its importance by telling us that you have more pressing concerns. That's not how this country, or any other country, operates. The issues come up, maybe they even get solved, whenever they do.

If you're using Equal Protection to have a pointless argument about the correct definition of marriage, you're wasting our time. If you compare the legal privileges of a married individual to those of an unmarried individual, you will find evidence of inequality, regardless of sexual orientation. The socioeconomic discrimination between married and unmarried individuals is the source of our problems.

For many decades, the government has been content to ignore Equal Protection as it pertains to marriage, but as women have entered the workforce, inequality has become more acute. We are actively subsidizing a lifestyle decision, which carries inherent socioeconomic benefits to the individuals who partake.

The SSM debate is just the canary in the coal mine.

Human rights are not counter to each other. They do not imply an exclusive choice as it is for middle-income budgets with respect to buying a Ford or Chevrolet automobile. One might be able to buy one, but buying one precludes buying the other. There is no limiting budget for human rights. The civil rights struggle for Southern blacks was not contrary to the right to union representation, to environmental protection, to the rights of the handicapped, or to women's rights.  If it is simply a matter of a right offending a special interest or a personal sensibility with no other merit, then tough.

Personal license may be a different matter, as when "gun rights" imply a severe compromise of the assumption that we have a right to safety from gun violence.

 

[pbrower2a]

Human rights are not counter to each other. They do not imply an exclusive choice as it is for middle-income budgets with respect to buying a Ford or Chevrolet automobile. One might be able to buy one, but buying one precludes buying the other. There is no limiting budget for human rights. The civil rights struggle for Southern blacks was not contrary to the right to union representation, to environmental protection, to the rights of the handicapped, or to women's rights.  If it is simply a matter of a right offending a special interest or a personal sensibility with no other merit, then tough.

Personal license may be a different matter, as when "gun rights" imply a severe compromise of the assumption that we have a right to safety from gun violence.

Political capital is like a budget. You cannot buy everything, and if you spend/invest your capital in the wrong places, you end up fixing nothing and spreading misery.

It is not a budget. One difference between FDR and Obama is that FDR started with more political capital than did Obama, who started with more than did Carter.

Political capital is unlike financial assets in that one cannot accumulate more by letting it sit as if a deposit in a savings account. Of course, like any intangible asset it can be squandered. If you own a copyright and refuse to publish, then the copyright simply wastes.

Simple fact: even before President Obama was elected the Right was greasing the skids for him. He rushed as much of his agenda as he could with the expectation that the Right would turn on him. He achieved in two years what most Presidents have achieved in four or more.   

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Wrong: it is contempt for anything different. Antipathy to homosexuals relates to ethnic and religious bigotry, having much the same psychological dynamics.

The GOP is now a coalition of people who believe either that they have a right to everything other than the bare survival of those that they tolerate and to people who have rejected the Enlightenment altogether. In other countries that has been the typical basis of fascist movements.