Something I wished to share….

[12voltyV2.0]

As usual--I am sure that we will have those who will not like this at all and will bitch about it---but I thought it interesting and something worth sharing---it does have something in it that makes a point about sexual activity that I have been trying to make--that just because one engages in certain sexual activity--does not paint one as being "that way."

The bigger point is one I have said before--that it should not really matter if being "gay" is the way we are born or its simply a lifestyle choice--as an adult in what is supposed to be a country dedicated to the notion of personal freedoms and liberty, then one should be able to chose to be "gay" or not, as long as the activity is done with other of age, consenting adults.

I know why it was that leaders in the "gay movement" had to make such a strong argument that being gay was "the way someone is made," back in the early days of "the fight." They had to argue that being gay was a natural occurrence and not some sort of mental or moral deficiency.

I really wished that a movement would start with those who have the credentials and such in Constitutional Law to make the case that there should be no restriction of rights because someone either naturally is or "choses" to be "gay."


http://egbertowillies.com/2014/01/12/gay-straight-choice/

I know that it's a bit more problematic to deal with the "moral" side of the discussion about homosexuality---because for those who feel that its bad from most religious aspects--they are such absolutists that there probably is no middle ground and no coming of any sort of accommodation. The best thing that we have to argue--is that we are a nation and world of laws---law that comes from the work of humans and not from some supernatural being that sits up on a golden throne "somewhere up there."

[Long Duck Dong]

I know that when we are pushing for same sex marriage in NZ ( I was actually supporting marriage without limits ) one of the things that I noticed with the moral aspect of the opponents is that for a lot of them, it actually had bugger all to do with what people were doing right or wrong...

for a lot of the opponents, their arguments rested more on their own personal experiences and the things that made them happy and for a lot of them, marriage was not one of them .... most of the opposition was more about sexual interaction ( gay sex was unnatural ) childbirth ( the joy of being a parent ) fear of being the same ( you remove the sexuality, we are all the same ) same sex marriage would lead to the downfall of society ( marriage in NZ was on the decline already, something that scared a lot of opponents ) and so on

a lot of the churchs and religious groups that did not stand against same sex marriage or supported it, put aside their beliefs in favour of the we all are the same, we should be treated the same, stance.....

so very lil of the actual opposition was about being gay and having the right to marriage, that was just the thing they were opposing....

I tend to look at it as the * us vs them * thinking that is more common than people may realise.... the opposite sex vs the same sex, the race vs race, the poor vs the rich.... even the bisexual vs the world... and the * wrong * people in the world need to be used as a tool for hiding our own insecurities, faults, fears and how its not us that are not perfect......
The trouble is that *attacking * a persons belief ( read that as questioning the belief, asking questions, asking why they do not practise what they preach ) is more likely to set people off than anything else rather than actually attacking a persons beliefs ( calling them hate groups etc ) as they will take it as our fear of them and their beliefs because the truth scares us.....

we talk about how we speak with our votes, but as one politician told us, the vote is not as scary to a politician as losing the support of their fellow politicians because without that support, laws would not get passed and the backroom deals would stop, the secret hand shakes etc and that could directly affect a politician more than the vote if the vote was normally for their party.....

so I tend to believe that its easier to say that its a politicians job to support their people, than it can be to realise how what that politician may end up facing in their lives as a result of that vote.....and I am not saying that as a way of justifying votes that do not support a equal way of life for people.... but more as a way of saying that there may be more to the reason why people are opposed to gays having rights than their moral stance..... a lot of the politicians that voted and supported equal marriage in NZ, were safe and secure in their jobs and social standing, the rest backed their party or used their beliefs as a way of justifying their AYE vote.....the gay politicians openly supported it as a good move for all NZers to have the right to love whom they loved and the right to marry them, the 9 bisexual politicians ( all closeted ) voted against equal rights marriage ( they all called gay marriage )

the actual law that was changed was the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_New_Zealand)

[dafydd]

Peter Tatchell, a human rights activist who works out of the UK, wrote a brilliant opinion piece in 1998 about how calls for the gay gene to be discovered and subsequent the insistence of homosexuality as solely a genetic trait undermined gay emancipation. He said that in siding with the nature over nurture debate, gays awere likely (in their insistence that they had no choice to be gay or bisexual) to promote a negative association with their homosexuality as it assumed that they wouldn't have chosen to be gay at it not been for their genes. i.e if they could CHOOSE their sexuality they wouldn't be like this.

Heres a quote from it (bold emphasis mine):

"The corollary of the 'born gay' idea is the suggestion that no one can be 'made gay'. This defensive argument was used by some gay leaders during the 1988 campaign against Section 28, which bans the "promotion" of homosexuality by local councils, and again during the lobbying of parliament for the equalisation of the age of consent in 1994.


Supporters of Section 28, and opponents of an equal age of consent, justified their stance with the claim that people need to be protected against 'pressure' and 'seduction' into the homosexual lifestyle.


Gay spokespeople responded by arguing that it's impossible to 'make' someone gay, and that a same-sex experience at an early age cannot 'persuade' a heterosexual person to become homosexual.


At one level, they are right. Sexual orientation appears to become fixed in the first few years of life. For most of us it is very difficult, if not impossible, to subsequently change our sexual orientation.


What certainly can change as people grow older is their ability to accept and express formerly repressed queer desires. A person who is ostensibly heterosexual might, in their mid-30s, become aware of a previously unrecognised same-sex attraction that had been dormant and unconscious since childhood. Society's positive affirmation of homosexuality might help such a person discover and explore those latent, hidden feelings.


The homophobes are thus, paradoxically, closer to the truth than many gay activists. Removing the social opprobrium and penalties from queer relationships, and celebrating gay love and lust, would allow more people to come to terms with presently inhibited homo-erotic desires. In this sense, it is perfectly feasible to 'promote' lesbian and gay sexuality and 'make' someone queer. Individuals who have a homosexual component in their character, but are inhibited by repression or guilt, definitely can be encouraged to acknowledge their same-sex attraction and act upon it.


Were future generations to grow up in a gay-positive, homo-friendly culture, it's likely that many more people would have same-sex relationships, if not for all of their lives, at least for significant periods. With the boom in queer sex, the social basis of homophobia would be radically undermined.


In this state of greater sexual freedom, where homosexuality becomes commonplace and ceases to be disparaged or victimised, gayness would no longer have to be defended and affirmed. Gay identity (and its straight counterpart) would thus, at last, be redundant. Hurrah!"


Gene Genie by Peter Tatchell.

http://www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/gay_gene/gene_genie.htm

i think his work is fantastic and the book "Anti-Gay" edited by Mark Simpson in which he wrote in 1998 changed my life and emotional and political outlook on LGBT rights.

[tenni]

I think that you raise a couple of issues.

The issue as to whether your sexuality is from genetic birth is one. The other is a lifestyle. There has developed a gay lifestyle sometimes stereotypical gay lifestyle..decorator etc. The lifestyle creates a certain attitude about how other issues are looked at etc. imo. The lifestyle goes beyond same sex activity. If a guy projects certain perceptions about how the GLBT community does this or that it turns me off. I see that as a gay lifestyle. I have no interest in the trappings of same sex people who use the label gay as in gay lifestyle.

The more relevant issue to this website is a discussion not on straight vs gay (image in the link) but why bisexuality was not shown in the photo? Bi Invisiblity.

The debate going on in the US about sexuality as far as gay and straight is concerned is resolved to a greater extent in Canada due to our Charter of Rights & Freedoms section 15. The man who oversaw the charter, Pierre Trudeau was stating years before the Charter that government/society has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. This set up the opening to looking at things differently that our southern cousins.

Morally, the government society has no right to impose values that are based on religion, creed, sex, physical ability, ethnicity and a few more factors that influence morality. Trudeau’s believe did not really stick initially. When I look back at it some forty years ago, I see its impact. His Charter has within it equality on several issues beyond sexuality but definitely sexuality. Although the sexuality question of same sex marriage seems resolved other aspects about equality are raising their head as far as religion and equality. Religion versus individual rights of women is still bubbling.

[jem_is_bi]

Religion versus all sorts of stuff is more than bubbling in much of the world.