Same Sex Marriages?

[Stocky]

What happened to this world Kevin?, why is everyone pro everything? these PC pin heads think they can tell me how to think and that I am a bigot? I try to live my life morally, I do not cheat on my wife, I work, I provide for my family, I pay taxes, I do not shag men, I go to parent teacher meetings, I donate to the community, I sponsor school kids, I pray before I go to bed and I dare say I have lived a fuller life than these "politically correct morons". MEN ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WITH WOMEN AND WOMEN ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WITH MEN

Accept it, you've outlived your time, the world has evolved and it's time for dinosaurs such as yourselves to get in the casket and shut the lid

[Tornado]

What happened to this world Kevin?, why is everyone pro everything? these PC pin heads think they can tell me how to think and that I am a bigot? I try to live my life morally, I do not cheat on my wife, I work, I provide for my family, I pay taxes, I do not shag men, I go to parent teacher meetings, I donate to the community, I sponsor school kids, I pray before I go to bed and I dare say I have lived a fuller life than these "politically correct morons". MEN ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WITH WOMEN AND WOMEN ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WITH MEN

Accept it, you've outlived your time, the world has evolved and it's time for dinosaurs such as yourselves to get in the casket and shut the lid

stocky if you want to join in, try and put together more than two lines. You have been trolling me and Ive let you go, come up with something by yourself and see if you have an argument. Has the Forum been taken over by gay pride?

The world has evolved? really? has it really developed into something better than it was 20 years ago? Look through crime figures, family break up percentages, useless wars, diseases and all of the other lovely things that are happening - the reason is pin heads like you and your mates here voting for everything that sounds PC......... Stocky if your looking for your brain, maybe your mate is using it for your type of evolution - sicko!

[meemiathai]

MR Tornado,

Could you PLEASE TRY to understand,

Asking a gay person to like or to shag a woman is probably the same as to ask YOU to like or to shag a man. Try thinking about it.

They are born like that. They did not choose it. Is it a sin?

What can they do? Can you shag a man???? If not, why force them?

Don't get me wrong. I am not gay. I don't even like men touching my shoulders.

[Stocky]

stocky if you want to join in, try and put together more than two lines. You have been trolling me and Ive let you go, come up with something by yourself and see if you have an argument. Has the Forum been taken over by gay pride?

The world has evolved? really? has it really developed into something better than it was 20 years ago? Look through crime figures, family break up percentages, useless wars, diseases and all of the other lovely things that are happening  - the reason is pin heads like you and your mates here voting for everything that sounds PC......... Stocky if your looking for your brain, maybe your mate is using it for your type of evolution - sicko!

Struth, are you going to blame all the worlds ills on homosexuals?

There are no halcyon days, just hazy edited memories.

Your memories of yore are flawed and fallacious, there was no CNN and tabloid press then, no Internet forums, you didn't realise your neighbour was a wife beater and child abuser, and his wife certainly wasn't about to seek a divorce. As my grandmother used to say "we suffered in silence"!

Live and let live. What harm does the marriage of a gay couple do to you?

[Family Values]

yes, even more heterosexual men -- are dying every year from AIDS than so-called "fudge-packers".

You just made that up!!!

Some facts

"For non drug using heterosexuals in the U.S. it is clear after more than 10 years of data and despite what the religious right scaremongers want you to believe for their sexual agenda of repression, that the AIDS issue is more of an excuse than a factual issue. While convenient as an excuse, the panic is based on misinformation.

AIDS is a very serious disease -- for homosexuals, drug users, and receptive partners in anal sex from an AIDS-infected partner. The likelihood of AIDS transmission in normal vaginal intercourse when avoiding partners that are bisexual or drug users, is so remote, that you are probably more likely to be struck by lighting or be killed in a car accident on your way to a swing club. Once you make it to the swing club your much safer than in the car.

AIDS is a very weak virus and must be spread by blood-to-blood or semen-to-blood contact. Anal intercourse is the only likely way of transmission in heterosexual relations, although transfer from a male to a female can occur vaginally. Of course, first the male must be an AIDS carrier so women should be selective to be confident that the man is not bisexual or a drug user. The transfer of AIDS from a woman to a man is very rare since the penis would have to be either infected with an open sore or tissue torn by extreme roughness in intercourse. Heterosexual men are acting as a block to the spreading of AIDS which is why the CDC estimate of future AIDS cases has plummeted from 25 million to about 1 million.

The CDC points out "a disproportionate number of persons with AIDS who acquired HIV infection through heterosexual contact are black or Hispanic; monitoring HIV prevalence and AIDS incidence in different racial/ethnic populations can assist in developing culturally and linguistically appropriate HIV-prevention methods."

The CDC also points out that those at highest risk for heterosexual HIV infection are those who have STDs or using drugs.

Remember, in order to be at risk for AIDS, you must first find someone who is HIV+ before you have any risk at all. With the data showing such low risk from heterosexual men, and if, within men, your partner is Asian or Non-Hispanic White and does not have STDs nor is using drugs, you can see that the likelihood of your partner being a risk to you is very remote.

But let's assume you are very unlucky and your partner is HIV+. Next look at the low transmission rate even between those HIV infected and their sexual partners. You usually need long-term repeated sexual exposure with the HIV infected partner to have any significant risk. Again, this does not mean it can't happen to you. But you need to look at relative risks compared to other risks you take every day. A woman should stop driving her car long before she should be concerned about heterosexual, non-anal sex with a man who is not bisexual or a drug user. For a heterosexual man, of course, there is virtually no risk.

AIDS Message Targeting Wrong Group

AIDS message targets group with least risk says there is no sign that AIDS has spread to any extent into the mainstream of American life....where most experts agree the risk of AIDS falls somewhere between low and infinitesimal."

[PvtDick]

The following quote from the NIH (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/womenhiv.htm):

Worldwide, more than 90 percent of all adolescent and adult HIV infections have resulted from heterosexual intercourse.

If God unleashed HIV in order to kill homosexuals, he certainly f*cked up big time. Besides, what group could possibly have a LOWER incidence of HIV infection than lesbians? Nuns, maybe?

[Family Values]

EH?

So how does this prove MORE straight MEN have aids than gay men?

[Family Values]

Just had a read of that link

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/womenhiv.htm

It's all about how women are at risk doesn't mention hetrosexual men at all.

So is that the best bit of proof you could come up with that more straight men have AIDS than gays?

[PvtDick]

If 90% of HIV infections result from heterosexual sex, that leaves only 10% (or 4 million people, based on the NIH's worldwide estimate of 40 million adult sufferers) who have gotten the disease from all other factors combined: homosexual sex, IV drug use, blood transfusions. I'm talking about world figures here, not US figures.

Men and women account equally for about 50% of all new infections. That means about 20 million men are affected worldwide.

Even if each and every one of the 4 million HIV sufferers who did not become infected through heterosexual sex was a gay man, you are still talking only 1 in 5 of infected men. Of course, we know it is less than that because lots and lots of those 4 million were infected by non sex-related means.

Besides, what on earth does HIV have to do with gay marriage, anyway?

[Family Values]

You don't work for the AIDS lobby by any chance do you?

This is the the of type of scaremongering they have been doing for years so they can keep getting their $$$$$.

Rule 1 Always emphasise the number of HIV cases by the MILLIONS rather than the % as 20 million sounds a really high number but out of a world population of 6000 million it's only 0.33% meaning 99.67% don't have it, that wont do as we might lose our $$$$ to cancer or heart disease which kill people by the BILLIONS.

BTW More people will die in just the next 3 months from non AIDS diseases than have EVER died from AIDS.

[ProThaiExpat]

Opposition to same-sex marriage is usually the most vorciferous when it is advanced by religionists who have advanced their point of view under the banner of "family values". There is nothing more pro-family values that same-sex marriage. Broadening the definition of "family" from an unrealistic "ozzie and harriet" model to one that includes childless couples, single parents, adopted parents and same-sex couples can only rationally be considered "pro-family" Why don't they get it?

When discussing the issue with a rational person, the religious right, fundamentalists or "family value" bannerists usually end up "slinging mud", as there are no rational arguments against same-sex marriage. The final arguement from such opponents is almost always something like "Thats just the way I feel", "I don't care what you say, I am right", "It just isn't right", "Its just not natural" or a response which is a personal attack on the advancer of the rational arguement.

Since "faith" based philosophies, by defintion, are not rational, expect nothing more than irrantionality from those, who from childhood, have been indoctrinated in a "faith". Remember Hitler's plea to give him the children at a young age and he would make them "his" for life.

I have known many highly intelligent and rational people who display total irrationality when it comes to their "faith". It is like a "blind spot", their programming from childhood just overcomes their reason. If they waiver, they have their weekly fix from the pupit to re-inforce their "faith".

When one of them begins to allow their reason to prevail, they are attacked for "straying from the faith", "going to the devil" etc. How absurd is the notion that when one becomes more rational, he is "straying from his faith"?

Since "faith, by definition, is a personal belief unsupported by fact, it is the opposite of reason. Trying to have a rational discussion with an irrational person is the height of absudity. Why do we do it?

[20yearsinthai]

Opposition to same-sex marriage is usually the most vorciferous when it is advanced by religionists who have advanced their point of view under the banner of "family values". There is nothing more pro-family values that same-sex marriage. Broadening the definition of "family" from an unrealistic "ozzie and harriet" model to one that includes childless couples, single parents, adopted parents and same-sex couples can only rationally be considered "pro-family" Why don't they get it?

When discussing the issue with a rational person, the religious right, fundamentalists or "family value" bannerists usually end up "slinging mud", as there are no rational arguments against same-sex marriage. The final arguement from such opponents is almost always something like "Thats just the way I feel", "I don't care what you say, I am right", "It just isn't right", "Its just not natural" or a response which is a personal attack on the advancer of the rational arguement.

Since "faith" based philosophies, by defintion, are not rational, expect nothing more than irrantionality from those, who from childhood, have been indoctrinated in a "faith". Remember Hitler's plea to give him the children at a young age and he would make them "his" for life.

I have known many highly intelligent and rational people who display total irrationality when it comes to their "faith". It is like a "blind spot", their programming from childhood just overcomes their reason. If they waiver, they have their weekly fix from the pupit to re-inforce their "faith".

When one of them begins to allow their reason to prevail, they are attacked for "straying from the faith", "going to the devil" etc. How absurd is the notion that when one becomes more rational, he is "straying from his faith"?

Since "faith, by definition, is a personal belief unsupported by fact, it is the opposite of reason. Trying to have a rational discussion with an irrational person is the height of absudity. Why do we do it?

What is your rational for supporting same sex marriages? Is it based strictly on the law and equal rights?

Do you think that same sex marriages are good and healty for society?

[ProThaiExpat]

20yearsinthai: An emphatic yes to both questions.

The civil rights of all citizens to be treated equally is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution in the "equal protection" clause.

As far as society is concerned, it is my view that the more citizens that share equal rights, including marriage rights, the more stable society will be. Including same-sex couples under the laws of marriage will only make them more responsible to each other and to society. Same-sex couples certainly can't do any worse than heterosexual couples have done with their 50% divorce rate.

As I have stated in an eary post, I was very much against interracial marriage when it was not legal. I have come to regret that view. There is no rational reason why mixed racial couples should not have the right to marry each other and the U.S. Supreme Court has so declared, just as same-sex couples likewise have the right under the constitution and someday in the future the U.S. Supreme Court will so declare, hopefully in less than the 17 years it took them to act after the first state court ruled that laws forbidding interrracial marriage were unconstituonal.

[PvtDick]

You don't work for the AIDS lobby by any chance do you?

This is the the of type of scaremongering they have been doing for years so they can keep getting their $$$$$.

Rule 1 Always emphasise the number of HIV cases by the MILLIONS rather than the % as 20 million sounds a really high number but out of a world population of 6000 million it's only 0.33% meaning 99.67% don't have it, that wont do as we might lose our $$$$ to cancer or heart disease which kill people by the BILLIONS.

BTW More people will die in just the next 3 months from non AIDS diseases than have EVER died from AIDS.

No, I don't work for any AIDS lobby! What's wrong with you?

If you don't like numbers in the millions, then I'll give you percentages:

Less than 20% of male adult infections worldwide result from homosexual contact.

My figures are from the NIH. Not scare-mongering, bare facts. What more do you want?

But a better question, what does HIV/AIDS have to do with gay marriage? Are you trying to suggest that the existence of AIDS is "proof" that God abhors gays? I hope not, because the existence of AIDS would be better "proof" that God abhors women, children, and heterosexual men -- since that is the group that makes up over 90% of deaths.

[wolf5370]

Remember Hitler's plea to give him the children at a young age and he would make them "his" for life.

I think he stole it from the Jesuits "Give me a boy 'til he's seven, and I'll show you the man".

I think if God was going to pick a target to persecute, He (She?) would aim a little higher (lower?) than a couple who's crime is to love each other. How about people who commit genocide, start wars, ethnic cleansing, child murderers, rapists, torturers, and on and on. There's enough sickos out there that DO harm their communities and society.

I do think AIDS gets too much air time though. Far more people die from malaria each year, but just not that often in the west. Outside of DDT and Quinine (pre-WW2), how much further have we come on that front. Hardly moved. Why, "not my problem mate" attitude from the west.

Not quite sure Billions die from cancer either. Maybe tens of millions (maybe hundreds, but I doubt it). Still thionk malaria is a bigger killer worldwide.

I am sure there are far more important things top be using high court and government discussion time than this issue. Just stamp it and move on. It makes no difference.

I give Tornado this, PC has gone bonkers. Too many things you can't say or do because it isn't "PC" - and mostly that means illegal too. It has gone overboard. I can understand that these laws were brought in to protyect right of individuals. If you offer a job, you must offer it based on the suitability of the candidate without taking colour, creed, religion, sex or orientation in to account. Fine. However, firstly if its my comopany, I might need a (let reverse it from the norm) black woman for a post because that's a sector I'm trying to move into (retail for example). I can not legally advertise for a Black Woman in many western countries. In the UK, many job applications (clubs too) have a tick box to select your sex and race etc. Thsi is so they can show that they have the correct ratio to the authorities. Thus, if they are down on white females, then the black guy may be passed over for a white female to make up the numbers. Etc.

This is eithet down to badly (vague) written laws, idiot politicians being allowed to run away and pin-ammendments and extensions etc, or bad interpretation by the courts. Therefore, the danger is that allowing gays to marry may end up with allowing them to adopt (at least on ratio with hetrosexual couples) or forcing schools to teach it alongside tradiutional family values, even religions being dis-allowed from talking aout against it in their sermons (is that so bad?).

That, however, I believe it not the reason to ban it, just reason to tie up the legalease to protect against run-away laws.

PS: I think the word "Gay" was forced on the homosexuals in the 40's and 50's in Britain. It was a joke - "What a gay day" - made by drag-queens on stage. In the UK it was illegal to be homosexual until the 50's I think (anyone confirm this?). They were called "Gay Gentlemen" as thety tried to look demure and 50's femanine in frilly dresses, over-done make-up and stubble!

It became an insult in the 60/70's and was adopted by the Homosexuals in the UK by the end of the 70's.

Why do I know this? 'cos I had to do it as part of my Sociology class in the 80's as school. I failed by the way (only 'U' I ever got - 'U' = 'F' in the States - means Ungraded, i.e. so bad they won't even mark it ).

[sbk]

Tornado; well here's exactly how it started.

Some Dude got aids somewhere,posed to be Africa from what I hear,and he worked in the stewards dept. on a cruise ship,then came to the USA and gave it to another queer,then they started passing it around thru their perverted ways and since most of them are ashamed of their immoral practices they shoot dope to kinda take their minds off of the perversion, and sharing needles with other dope heads that have enough self respect to shun the queer ways but still passed it on to other dopers.

Now AIDS was doing what it was invented by the supreme being to do, But he didn't take into consideration the switch hitters,,well so these AC/DC fellas started to give it to hookers and their own wives after being out in the lower class areas of towns and becoming infected, Well by the time it was out of the HIV stage and into AIDS,a lot of people had it,and then women was giving it to their kids at birth,and spreading it thru being ignorant of prevention and body fluids.

The queers,dopers, switch hitters and drunk punters is keeping it moving. But it started with a queer booger bandit.

And thats the truth.

PS. but I don't call folks "niggers","Darkies",or "malettos", but I'm the BIGOT.

And most Thais that I know still do not approve of queers,they pass remarks and snicker in their hand and make remarks when ever one is seen,,they might not raise as much ###### as we do but they do not approve or really accept them,just like most folks anywhere,they know they are inevitable,but wouldn't want their kid to be one.

From the UCSF Center for HIV info: UCSF Link

The Origin of AIDS

 

On the Trail of an Epidemic: Searching for the Origin of AIDS

Aaron Plant, Associate Producer, HIV InSite

June 24, 1998

Since AIDS was discovered in 1983, researchers have made significant progress in their understanding of the disease. Two distinct types of HIV have been identified thus far. HIV-1, which has several subtypes, is responsible for the world-wide epidemic. HIV-2, the less virulent of the two viruses, is confined mostly to West Africa, but has recently begun to spread to some countries in Asia. HIV-1 and HIV-2 are thought to have a common ancestor and new evidence suggests that the viruses diverged sometime before the 1940s. (1) Despite the considerable knowledge researchers have gained so far, a definite source for the HIV virus continues to elude them.

Where did HIV come from?

At this time, most evidence suggests that AIDS has its roots in Africa. In the early 1980s, Robert Gallo speculated that HIV crossed species to humans from an African green monkey. Although this idea has since been discredited, it is still widely believed that HIV came into the human population from one or more non-human primate species.

Certain simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) are closely related to HIV. (2) HIV-2, for instance, has an almost exact counterpart in a virus of the sooty mangabey, a type of African monkey. (3) Western Africa, the habitat of the sooty mangabey, is also the area where the vast majority of HIV-2 cases are located. HIV-2's connection to the sooty-mangabey is probably the most compelling evidence for animal to man transfer of HIV.

A likely source of HIV-1 has been more difficult to pin down. The closest simian virus to HIV-1 discovered to date exists in certain chimpanzees. (4) Because this virus is relatively rare among chimpanzees, it has been hypothesized that they may have contracted it from another primate species. New SIVs continue to be discovered, so a closer relative to HIV-1 may some day be found.

Zoonosis

ChimpanzeeScientists have long recognized the ability of certain viruses and other diseases to pass from animals to humans. This process is referred to as zoonosis. Once an animal disease has infected people, it may then be passed from human to human. The Ebola virus, (5) and the Marburg filovirus (6) are two diseases among many which were introduced into humans from animals through zoonotic transfer. Although it has not been proven that HIV came from primates, an SIV has been known to infect humans. (7)

Various means have been suggested through which HIV might have passed from other primates to humans. One theory is that the virus could have been transferred to humans while sooty mangabeys or chimpanzees were butchered for food or kept as pets. The most controversial theories contend that medical science played a role in introducing HIV into the human population. These hypotheses are so contentious because, if proven, the HIV epidemic would have begun as a result of human scientific error. Such a finding would be "incredibly damaging to the image of medicine and medical research," (8) to say the least.

The most well-known of the human error theories is that polio vaccines, which were given to many Africans in the 1950s, could have been contaminated with HIV. The vaccines were prepared using monkey kidneys. Although HIV has not been found in any of the vaccine batches which have been tested thus far, polio vaccines have been found to be contaminated with various other pathogens. One of these, Simian Virus 40 (SV40), infected millions of Americans, although it does not seem to be harmful to humans. (9) The World Health Organization has publicly refuted the arguments of scientists who suggest that the vaccines could have been the channel through which the virus crossed species. Despite this, the controversy continues. A recent letter in The Lancet hypothesized that polio vaccine stocks could have been contaminated by retroviruses. (10)

The idea that HIV came into the human population through zoonotic transfer has enormous implications for xenotransplantation (the transfer or grafting of tissue from an animal of one species into an individual of another). If it is proven that zoonosis is the source of HIV, it would lend incredible weight to arguments against xenotransplantation as well as the use of animal organs to produce vaccines.

There has also been speculation as to what caused HIV to spread so rapidly in Africa in the 1970s. The tremendous social changes that took place in Africa after the end of colonialism may also have had a significant impact. A recent Nature article suggests that large-scale urbanization, greater access to transportation, and an increase in sexual freedom, for instance, could have allowed AIDS to expand from an isolated, rural disease to an urban epidemic. The article also speculates that large-scale vaccination campaigns, perhaps with the multiple use of non-sterilized needles, could have been the culprit. (1)

Although nobody has been able to pinpoint an exact source of HIV, scientists have traced several confirmed cases prior to 1981, the year when AIDS was recognized as a disease.

Earliest known AIDS cases

In 1983 a group of British researchers published a letter in The Lancet about a sailor from Manchester who died of AIDS-like symptoms in 1959. (11) Although his tissue tested positive for HIV, the result has since been called into question. (12)

In 1988, The Lancet reported that HIV was found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor along with his wife and daughter, all of whom died of AIDS-like causes circa 1976. The father had sailed to African ports and had contracted sexually transmitted diseases at least twice. Tissues samples from the family were tested and all three were found to have been infected by a strain of HIV-1 that is common to West Africa. (13)

In the United States, the oldest suspected case of AIDS dates back to 1969. In that year, an African -American teenager from St. Louis died of AIDS-like symptoms. HIV or a closely related virus was found in tissue samples from the young man that had been frozen at the time of his death. This case indicates that HIV was present in the United States before the 1970s. (14)

The earliest and most compelling evidence of HIV infection is that of an adult male who lived in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. David Ho and Dr. Tuofu Zhu of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City and Andre Nahmias of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia recently succeeded in isolating the virus from a plasma sample taken from the man in 1959. Researchers believe that the ancestor of this strain may date to the 1940s or 50s and was introduced into humans a decade or more earlier. (1)

Try again Tornado. Next time, check your facts first.

Besides, what the heck does HIV/AIDS have to do with legalized same sex unions?

[Guest endure]

Remember Hitler's plea to give him the children at a young age and he would make them "his" for life.

I think he stole it from the Jesuits "Give me a boy 'til he's seven, and I'll show you the man".

I think if God was going to pick a target to persecute, He (She?) would aim a little higher (lower?) than a couple who's crime is to love each other. How about people who commit genocide, start wars, ethnic cleansing, child murderers, rapists, torturers, and on and on. There's enough sickos out there that DO harm their communities and society.

I do think AIDS gets too much air time though. Far more people die from malaria each year, but just not that often in the west. Outside of DDT and Quinine (pre-WW2), how much further have we come on that front. Hardly moved. Why, "not my problem mate" attitude from the west.

Not quite sure Billions die from cancer either. Maybe tens of millions (maybe hundreds, but I doubt it). Still thionk malaria is a bigger killer worldwide.

I am sure there are far more important things top be using high court and government discussion time than this issue. Just stamp it and move on. It makes no difference.

I give Tornado this, PC has gone bonkers. Too many things you can't say or do because it isn't "PC" - and mostly that means illegal too. It has gone overboard. I can understand that these laws were brought in to protyect right of individuals. If you offer a job, you must offer it based on the suitability of the candidate without taking colour, creed, religion, sex or orientation in to account. Fine. However, firstly if its my comopany, I might need a (let reverse it from the norm) black woman for a post because that's a sector I'm trying to move into (retail for example). I can not legally advertise for a Black Woman in many western countries. In the UK, many job applications (clubs too) have a tick box to select your sex and race etc. Thsi is so they can show that they have the correct ratio to the authorities. Thus, if they are down on white females, then the black guy may be passed over for a white female to make up the numbers. Etc.

This is eithet down to badly (vague) written laws, idiot politicians being allowed to run away and pin-ammendments and extensions etc, or bad interpretation by the courts. Therefore, the danger is that allowing gays to marry may end up with allowing them to adopt (at least on ratio with hetrosexual couples) or forcing schools to teach it alongside tradiutional family values, even religions being dis-allowed from talking aout against it in their sermons (is that so bad?).

That, however, I believe it not the reason to ban it, just reason to tie up the legalease to protect against run-away laws.

PS: I think the word "Gay" was forced on the homosexuals in the 40's and 50's in Britain. It was a joke - "What a gay day" - made by drag-queens on stage. In the UK it was illegal to be homosexual until the 50's I think (anyone confirm this?). They were called "Gay Gentlemen" as thety tried to look demure and 50's femanine in frilly dresses, over-done make-up and stubble!

It became an insult in the 60/70's and was adopted by the Homosexuals in the UK by the end of the 70's.

Why do I know this? 'cos I had to do it as part of my Sociology class in the 80's as school. I failed by the way (only 'U' I ever got - 'U' = 'F' in the States - means Ungraded, i.e. so bad they won't even mark it ).

A couple of points. Gays already ARE allowed to adopt in the UK but only singly. Thus if a gay couple have lived together for 20 years ONE of them is allowed to adopt a child while the other has no legal standing at all.

It was the 1967 Sexual Offences Act which decriminalised homosexual behaviour in the UK insofar as it allowed two males over the age of 21 o have sex in private. It took another 23 years before the age of consent for gay and straight people was made equal.

[bodypaul]

It was illegal in the UK to have consensual anal intercourse with a woman up until April 1995 (even your wife). But the ####### were allowed to as long as it was consentual and no more than 2 people were involved!! (And I think over 21)

So everyone who did it to the wife / girlfriend in UK commited an act that had a maximum sentence of " Life Imprisonment" Believe it or not!!?

Please check!!

Edited August 3, 2004 by ChrisP

[PvtDick]

Would it be too much to ask to refrain from the use of such childish perjoratives as "shit shovellers", "bum bandits", and the like? Moderators?

[ChrisP]

I just read all 12 pages... and moderated... only Bodypaul's posts were necessary.

I think the rest of you were remarkably tolerant of each other.. for a very thorough HOT topic discussion.

Thanks! It's what Thaivisa Forum is for...

ChrisP

Edited August 3, 2004 by ChrisP

[PvtDick]

Thank you, Chris.

[20yearsinthai]

20yearsinthai: An emphatic yes to both questions.

The civil rights of all citizens to be treated equally is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution in the "equal protection" clause.

As far as society is concerned, it is my view that the more citizens that share equal rights, including marriage rights, the more stable society will be. Including same-sex couples under the laws of marriage will only make them more responsible to each other and to society. Same-sex couples certainly can't do any worse than heterosexual couples have done with their 50% divorce rate.

As I have stated in an eary post, I was very much against interracial marriage when it was not legal. I have come to regret that view. There is no rational reason why mixed racial couples should not have the right to marry each other and the U.S. Supreme Court has so declared, just as same-sex couples likewise have the right under the constitution and someday in the future the U.S. Supreme Court will so declare, hopefully in less than the 17 years it took them to act after the first state court ruled that laws forbidding interrracial marriage were unconstituonal.

Prothaiexpat

I certainly respect your views.

I'm surprised to hear that you once opposed inter-racial marriage. What was your reason?

To me comparing inter-racial marriage to same sex marriage is like comparing apples to oranges.

The proponents of same-sex marriage are assuming that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality in the first place.

What was it? More than 80 species of animals practised homosexuality? That makes it OK? Thats out of how many thousands different species of animals?

Or was it Oprah who provided the scientific evidence of the homosexuality gene??

[PvtDick]

I know the question wasn't directed at me, but in my opinion homosexuality is not OK because other animals do it, or because Oprah said it is OK, or because there is a gene.

It's OK because consenting adult humans want to do it, and I do not believe that other adult humans have a right to impose their own moral standards on anyone else, as long as there is no negative impact on others -- and I cannot think of any way in which two men or two women having sex and/or a relationship impacts on anyone other than themselves.

The only possible opposition I can come up is one based on religion. And guess what -- we're all different religions. Some of us pick and choose from one or more religions. Others of us choose to be agnostic or atheist. That is the beauty of free societies.

For the marriage question, if homosexuality is OK, then it stands to reason that two men or two women should have equal right to publicly affirm their love and legalize their relationship as a marriage in the same way that a man and woman can.

I mean, think about it...some stupid, silly <deleted> like Britney Spears can go out and get drunk in Vegas, and end up legally married at the end of the night -- ony to giggle and say it was a joke and get divorced the next day.

Yet two men or two women who have been devoted to each other for years can only be seen as "friends" in the eye of the law.

One of the far-right's major problems with gays is that they are supposedly promiscuous. Yet here are people who want to get married and have monagamous, devoted family units. You'd think that would be right up their tree.

[ProThaiExpat]

20yearsthai: I was opposed to interracial marriage as were 80 percent of all people in the U.S. at the time it was illegal. Probably because it was a cultural bias. I had not known or associated with any blacks at the time and having spent my formative years in Japan, grew up with the British colonial mentality that one"just doesn't go native". Likewise, at the time, Japanese women who married gaijin were usually prostitutes and if not, were banished by their families if they crossed the line.

In an earlier post, I went on at length regarding civil rights, beginning with women's civil rights, black's civil rights, mixed racial marriage rights and now same-sex marriage rights. If you have further doubts that same-sex marriage is a civil right, I will be happy to forward to you the opinion of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts that spells it out far better than I can.

The allusion to the number of species of animals that practice homosexuality was merely an effort to rebut the old saw that homosexuality "just isn't natural". Why anyone would "want" to be homosexual by choice and suffer the harrasment and prejudice heaped upon them by the tyranny of the majority is beyond me.

From you post, I cannot but conclude that you feel there is something "wrong" with being homosexual. Please let us know why it is wrong. Hopefully, your reasons are not "faith based" or that the mechanics of it are "unnatural", as there is no reasoning with irrationality.

Ignorance and lack of education are the hand maidens of bigotry, so my only purpose in advancing same-sex marriage issues is to hopefully illuminate the civil rights involved and advance the acceptance of an alternative sexual activity that has been with us since the beginning of time. Homosexuality was first condemned by the jews in Palestine just before the time of Jesus, most probably due to their need to expand their population. That condemnation only received wider acceptance when the Roman Empire was christianized.

[ponder]

We should look at the legalities of the union of left-handed and right-handed people. I have a friend whose left-handed mother married a right-handed man. My friend punches with his left hand and kicks with his right foot.

Such terrible things can befall those who stray from the path of normality

[JemJem]

I have things to say to two people :

Tornado, your attempt to bring in the issue of HIV/AIDS to this discussion is pathetic at best. We are discussing gay/lesbian MARRIAGES here.

As for your anti-PC remarks...well, is it nice to be offending people with nasty terms/words, in the name of freedom of expression ??!!

KevinN, you keep saying or implying that you are not a bigot but most people here can easily see that you are one. Unless you or a moderator has now edited/deleted some of your past posts, people can look back to former pages of this thread and see what sort of expressions you had used to refer homosexuals. Shame on you !

Jem

[ChrisP]

Jem..

Already dealt with....

Please take note everyone, offensive words and bigoted posts will not be tolerated here. It's VERY possible to have a heated discussion without becoming intolerant or personal.

It happens all the time in the civilized world.

ChrisP

Edited August 5, 2004 by ChrisP

[ProThaiExpat]

For those interested in this topic, Oregon's Surpeme Court has expedited review of the their court of initial jurisdicton, thus bypassing the intermediate court.

Washington State's Supreme Court is viewed as doing the same thing very soon and there is a case pending in the lowest court in Massachusetts attempting to get the 1913 law banning out of state couples from getting marriage licenses declared unconstitutional as being contrary to the Goodridge case.

[Ijustwannateach]

I have mixed feelings about gay marriage- it'd be another good set of rights for us to have, but just wait until we all start having to deal with gay divorce!!! I'm not ready to pay gay alimony!

[ProThaiExpat]

Ijustwannateach: So glad you agree that gays should have the same civil rights as heterosexuals.

As far as alimony is concerned, it is only payable if one of the partners has not worked during the relationship and cannot go to work afterwards for some reason. A short re-adjustment payment is usually all that is required.

What is more costly, is division of community property in community property states.

A pre-nuptial agreement is alsmost a must, when there is a large discrepency of assets between the marring parties.

I certainly intend to have one if I marry again, my ex-wife took me for everything, lying on the witness stand and left me with just two nickles to rub together.

The classic horror story regarding divorce in film is "The War of Roses" staring Danny DeVito and Bette Midler.