Santorum to kids of gay parents: You'd be better off with a dad in jail

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Clearly Santorum's a good guy:

He's the closest thing to a communitarian running.

I'm a communitarian, and I don't support Santorum.

^
realisticidealist is being highly naive on this.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't want to live on this planet anymore if people really believe that social darwinist, biologically deterministic, hippy-dippy "we're all just animals" f-cking bullsh-t.

Just find out what makes you happy without hurting others, and don't worry about the rest of society. Never ever forget: We're not all on this together.

Right, we're not on it together, because we're in it together.

You just might be the worst poster on this entire site. If you don't like bis, gays, and lesbians, please just come out and say it and stop doing this "Well I don't like it, but everyone hates gays" bullsh**t.

I have no problems whatsoever with homosexuals and I am not disclosing my personal sexual orientation on here, so you really have no idea whether or not I am even a homosexual. I thought it was self-evident that many other people have problems with homosexuals, exemplified by yet another anti-homosexual comment by Rick Santorum, so I tried giving an explanation as to why this is the case. I may very well be wrong.

People who have no problems with homosexuals usually don't use the clinical term 'homosexual' exclusively. The one exception I know is a professor of mine who's from Germany and still has a thick-ish accent.

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You do realize that if it was really a similar issue then the victims of segregation would most presumably be the first to rally to the cause, right?
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Are you at all familiar with the history of the...fraught relationship between the Civil Rights movement and the women's movement? It started with Frederick Douglass screwing over the Seneca Falls ladies and went from there. In both directions, actually.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Obviously a typo, but you're either young or delusional if you think we're all in this together. That's not how the world really works.

I know it was a typo. I was just having some fun with your absurd old cynicism. If it's not how the world works then it's not us who are wrong, it's the world.

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All right, whatever.

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Because black culture in this country isn't currently amenable to LGBT issues. I really don't know why it needs to be complicated more than that.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Desmond Tutu. Barbara Jordan. Willie Brown. Off the top of my head.

John Lewis does NOT oppose gay marriage. He has consistently voted in favor of LGBT causes in Congress since at least 2004.

I'm also not sure that this is an issue of such overweening importance to black people as you seem to think it is.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What else are they going to do, vote Republican?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What else are they going to do, vote Republican?

DING! winner!

Not vote at all would be the obvious answer.

Uh-huh. Can you give us any indication as to why they would do this on these particular grounds?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Seriously, I think this thread exacerbated my panic attack.

I'm sorry to hear that. You all right?

Well, it's over now. Time to go about my evening.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Seriously, I think this thread exacerbated my panic attack.

I'm sorry to hear that. You all right?

Well, it's over now. Time to go about my evening.

I wasn't rolling around on the floor or anything.  But I was feeling like...well...my sig.  Now I just feel like I'm going to develop a stomach ulcer by the time I'm 30 and die by the time I'm 40.  And overall I have a feeling of malaise.

I know that feel.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Living in a society which has gone pretty far in tolerance I can say that it obviously isn't generally true that homosexuals can't be accepted in society. Sweden decriminalized homosexuality at about the same time as the US but today has gay marriage and being bigoted against gays is certainly more controversial than being gay.

FWIW, I think the same is mostly true here in the US, except in rural areas.  I'd consider Santorum's views to be a rather extreme outlier, the more common concern that conservative heteros have is that gay marriage would somehow "spoil" hetero marriage, particularly when viewed through a religious prism.

It's true even in some rural areas. There's a book called Another Country that's a very good survey of LGBT communities in the countryside, and while the penetration of acceptance into rural America is spotty and taking a long time, it's definitely present. Politico is right about one thing, which is that there are several urban areas, most of them but not all of them predominantly minority, that are more anti-gay than significant parts of the American hinterland by now.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Politico made it clear the prejudice he is describing is not his own view and he does have a point... most people my age and even my kids age especially her ein the South are very disturbed by homosexuality. Pointing out a prejudice does not make someone themselves prejudiced

You're in your late sixties, right? May I ask how old your kids are?

I think it's fair to be talking more about people your grandkids' age (if you have any), since they're the people who are undergoing the most shift and ending up with something like 70-75% acceptance of homosexuality and support for gay marriage.

I'm not as familiar with the South as you (obviously, since you live there), but I do have some familiarity with the greater Birmingham, Alabama area and from what I've seen the worst most people in their teens and twenties get these days is somewhat squeamish, and there are actually some settings--not many yet, to be sure, but some, and relatively easy to find if one tries--in the rural South, places like that one R+25 Congressional district or whatever the number is, where it's possible to be openly gay, which nobody would have expected even ten years ago.