dailyherald wrote:

There is something I don't understand about polygamy: Why we as a nation don't allow it to be practiced legally.I am not a participant and have been married to the same woman for 28 years but I just don't get why we are such a double-standard nation.

Read more...


I am going to add my two bits on this string that seems to bounce back in forth between the topic of Gays and Polygamy.

First I feel it is important to let it be known that these two issues have very little to do with me in any capacity other than having a few wonderful friends that happen to be Gay Women and Men couples and presently I have no polygamist acquaintances or friends.

My direct ancestors and or forefathers and mothers lived and maintained a Matriarchal society in which polygamy was an excepted practice and a way that enabled our culture to survive. However, this practice was administered by the women, not the men.

As for homosexuals, I have been told that the Chumash American Native people of the California Santa Barbara region, honor homosexual people as some of their most powerful medicine people. The reason for this belief, that was given to me, anyone that survived an incident that would alter ones basic procreation tendencies, must be honored for the courage it would take to continue this earthly journey.

I share these thoughts not to promote or detract from these life styles.

gopherus wrote:


This is one big problem with the practice of religion in my opinion (not necessarily religion in theory). Morality and immorality are defined in clear terms. People are then free to attach whatever level of importance they wish to each immoral behavior. This leaves many options: 1) they can take part in the immoral behavior because it is "only somewhat immoral" (e.g. lying, being selfish, beating your wife etc...), 2) they can choose not to take part but allow others to do so at their own risk (e.g. drinking, profanity use, risk = Hell etc...), 3) they can speak out against the immoral behavior (e.g. drinking, profanity, rock and roll), or 4) they can seek to legislate the behavior. I'm sure there are many more options, but one that is problematic is the one that happens with issues such as homosexuality. In cases like these people often choose to take on God's role as judge, jury, and executioner. They allow immorality to bring out hate (apparently never having seen the Star Wars movies they don't know that this leads to the dark side). They demonize. Then, like fefifofob they fabricate arguments in order to pretend that they are motivated by logic because they know that they have slid away from the teachings that have originally defined the immoral behavior for them. There is often no one to to call them on it because others have traveled the same path because their leaders have facilitated it. Those bold enough to question the direction being taken are trampled. The flock has transformed to a pack and forsaken their shepherd.
One the bright side, the pack usually wears itself out and the flock comes home leaving the judgment to the shepherd, as they know is right.


As always, Gopherus, I love your words!

polygamy less harmful than homosexuality? what are you people smokin? polygamy these young kids marry old geezers and have to sleep with them and they are wife 29 . they intermarry and have lots of kids and the husband can't afford all thses kids so us the taxpayers end up paying for all procreation...ooh puhleaze... i am not for homosexuality either.. thats just as disgusting .. but marrying 13 year old girls to a 50 year old dirty old man is just wrong wrong and wrong.. i just don't understand how a mother who raised a beautiful baby girl could give her away to a dirty old man at the age of 13 or 15. these girls don't have a chance to be young or  have a choice.. it's sad and my heart breaks for these young girls who know no different. i would never let my baby girls marry and old man with 15 kids and 4 other wives.  very sad.

gopherus wrote:

notalawyer wrote:


I'm saying gays are immoral.

That's the problem! You're saying "gays are immoral" simply because they are gay.

It really has nothing to do with some of them being promiscuous. You've stated as much in your own words.

You freely admitted that, as far as you're concerned, lesbians get lumped in with gay men, even though they apparently exhibit much less promiscuity than men.

You won't answer a simple question about how same-sex marriage would lead to an increase in promiscuous behavior. Why? Because you can't! It is asinine to think that promoting fidelity and monogamy through marriage would increase promiscuous behavior among gay people.

gopherus' conclusion that you have more of a problem with homosexuality than you do with promiscuity is absolutely correct.

Your own words can only lead me to conclude that you advocate discriminating against people simply because they are gay. You can try to justify it in your mind any way you wish. It won't change the fact that you really are nothing but a bigot.


This is one big problem with the practice of religion in my opinion (not necessarily religion in theory). Morality and immorality are defined in clear terms. People are then free to attach whatever level of importance they wish to each immoral behavior. This leaves many options: 1) they can take part in the immoral behavior because it is "only somewhat immoral" (e.g. lying, being selfish, beating your wife etc...), 2) they can choose not to take part but allow others to do so at their own risk (e.g. drinking, profanity use, risk = Hell etc...), 3) they can speak out against the immoral behavior (e.g. drinking, profanity, rock and roll), or 4) they can seek to legislate the behavior. I'm sure there are many more options, but one that is problematic is the one that happens with issues such as homosexuality. In cases like these people often choose to take on God's role as judge, jury, and executioner. They allow immorality to bring out hate (apparently never having seen the Star Wars movies they don't know that this leads to the dark side). They demonize. Then, like fefifofob they fabricate arguments in order to pretend that they are motivated by logic because they know that they have slid away from the teachings that have originally defined the immoral behavior for them. There is often no one to to call them on it because others have traveled the same path because their leaders have facilitated it. Those bold enough to question the direction being taken are trampled. The flock has transformed to a pack and forsaken their shepherd.
One the bright side, the pack usually wears itself out and the flock comes home leaving the judgment to the shepherd, as they know is right.


I'm not using the religious definition of morality. They seem to just tell people what's not moral and leave it at that. I believe there has to be some rationale behind it or else it doesn't hold water.

I don't hate gays and I don't pretend to take on God's role as judge, jury and executioner. I simply look at the evidence and decide if something is a net positive or a net negative for the people involved, other people and society in general. Surprisingly enough, I have found a very close correlation between people acting selfishly and immorality.

You can say I'm fabricating arguments all you want. This does not make it true. I have yet to hear any valid arguments from those with the opposite view so I can definitely say that they are not fabricating arguments. They really don't have any arguments besides 'it's a right' and as far as I can see there's absolutely no evidence to back that up. For some reason, every time I ask for something to back up what they are saying, someone takes a single sentence out of my entire context and then starts making assumptions about what I believe from that single sentence.

Here's another argument. I'm almost positive all you are going to do is get all huffed up because I'm making a comparison between someone else and your 'favored group', but here goes.

I think it can be argued that Americans have a 'right' to own guns. It's like written directly into the constitution.

"...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Now, there are a lot of people arguing that that little comma in there means that people can't own guns, but at least there's some basis for calling gun ownership a 'right.' There are some people who can't own guns. Felons and people dishonorably discharged from the military for instance. These people don't have the 'right' to own guns. Now, right here's the point where you stand up and proclaim that I'm comparing gays to felons. That's not the point. I'm comparing the application of rights between two different groups of people.

You haven't even made an argument that same sex marriage is a right. All you've done is state that you think this is true. When I ask why you think it's true, the subject is dropped. When I ask for some evidence that gays are pure, honest, virtuous and upstanding members of society, the subject gets changed. Why would this be?

Here's another piece of evidence that same sex marriage causes increased infidelity. In one of the scandinavian countries which has legalized same sex marriage, illegitimate births have been increasing by 2 percent per year since it was legalized. It's now 20% greater than it was. Is it 'proof?' No, it's just evidence. Maybe it was because of global warming and the link between illegitimacy and same sex marriage is meaningless.

Now it's time to remove half of my post and only comment on the parts you don't want everyone to ignore or else pull one sentence out of context and get righteously indignant about it.

fefifofob wrote:

tfarrell wrote:

Do you make a habit of opposing people's rights before coming up with a reason for doing so?


Yes, I believe the evidence of my eyes and ears. Once it becomes important, I ensure that my thoughts, feelings and opinions have a good basis in reality. It looks to me like this is a lot more than most people do.


You know, I didn't really expect an answer to that question, it was actually rhetorical. Even less would I have imagined that you'd answer "yes". I am truly stunned.

tfarrell wrote:

I am asking for nothing. I am demanding that this nation give me the equal protection of the law that is my birthright as an American, by allowing me to marry the person of my choice, my mutual consent, like everybody else can.


It's not a right. The supreme courts of severals states have already agreed with the constitutionality of the laws banning same sex marriage.

The supreme courts of several states have already agreed that it's constitutionally forbidden to give special rights to heterosexual couples only while denying them to gay and lesbian couples. One said that required gay marriage, two others said that gay marriage would be an acceptable solution to resolving the existing violation of our rights.

Do you plan to hold a battle of the state supreme courts?

Doing exactly what you want is not a right.

Go read the constitution. You can do anything you want until the right to do that thing is revoked by due process of law. And then that law can be fought in court.

tfarrell wrote:

Next, over the years I have seen homosexual behavior with my own two eyes, I have noticed that it has a lot of earmarks of an addiction. There seems to be a lot of obsessive compulsive behavior and addictive priorities in the persuit of sex.

I find that to be equally true of straight people, if not more so.

There's some, but it doesn't seem greater. I am a proponent of doing something to fix this problem rather than adding to it. If you care to offer a shred of proof, feel free.

Proof of which part, that straight people obsessively pursue sex? Go talk to any male teenager. Or any male college student, and a lot of the female ones. I would think anyone would have observed this by now. That straight people pursue it more obsessively? That'd be impossible to prove one way or another. I would suggest however that you consider that straight people can do so directly, easily, because our society is set up in a manner that allows men and women to meet easily, while gay people have more obstacles, which causes us to need to be a bit more blunt about what we want in order to find it, and also, since we already have to violate society's biggest taboo in the first place just to admit we're gay, we have a lot less reason to feel inhibited about being a bit more specific.

tfarrell wrote:
Frankly, I've seen far worse sexual behaviors from straight people than I've ever seen from gay people. I saw a straight couple, fully nude, having wild sex on the lawn of a church in full view of a high-rise apartment block. And she was a screamer, so believe me, everyone noticed. I saw a woman performing oral sex on a man on a subway car in front of 50 or so horrified onlookers. I've never seen gay people do anything approaching that.

Again, fix the problems that exist rather than using them for an excuse to create more.

Straight people having sex in public strikes me as a problem. Gay people getting married doesn't seem like any sort of problem to me, so your argument doesn't hold water for me.

tfarrell wrote:

You're seriously claiming that personal ads, no matter how explicit the text, are more sexual than nude photos that were deliberately taken as pornography? Are you out of your mind?

Yes, I am seriously claiming that.

You read it here first folks... I had to see him say it to believe it...

If you can't post an ad looking for a friend without a nude photo or explaining what kind of sex you are interested in, then that tells me that all they are interested in is the sex. Not commitment, not responsibility, not trust, just sex. It's the whole point I'm trying to make here if you didn't understand that.

So, people look for differing stuff in personal ads. Some look for sex. If someone is looking for sex, well, I would think it would be expected that they might have sexual content. If you search a personals site that tracks what you're looking for and you don't choose to tell it you're only looking for relationship ads, well, you get what you asked for. Looking for sex is legal in our society. If you don't like it, I'm afraid that's just too bad.

Some people go looking for relationships, and all they want to talk about is the relationship, and that's just fine. Good for them, I'm sure they're more likely to get your approval.

Some people go looking for relationships and they want sex too. That's pretty normal. Most people want sex in their relationships. Among straight people, people know... hmm, how to put this delicately? I'll use a metaphor I think you'll guess at... People know which of the two involved straight people wears the pants to the bedroom and which wears the skirt. For a gay male couple, you don't know whether a given guy wears the pants or wears the kilt or has a more diverse wardrobe. If two guys who both strongly prefer to wear the pants try to get together, they're going to have some disagreement in the bedroom. If two guys who both strongly prefer to wear the kilt try to get together, they're going to be rather bored in the bedroom. (I've had one of these problems a few times, I'm not going to tell you which.) So, just saying what you like in that regard up front saves a lot of time going on dates with guys who later turn out to be incompatible in the bedroom.

tfarrell wrote:
Hey, I've got a personal on match.com. It's not a straight dating site. It's just a dating site. (And I used to have one on gay.com, but I took it down.)

Well, that narrows it down a bit. Aren't you the one who is tired of the dishonesty and those only interested in sex? If so, then you should be agreeing with everything I say here.

I am not interested right now in men who are only interested in sex; nevertheless, I respect their right to want and look for that. It just doesn't happen to be what I want or need in my life in the moment.

tfarrell wrote:

Have you ever heard of a 'gay bar?' Why do you think they exist? Gays tend to socialize with others who will accept their lifestyle. They tend to avoid people who are critical of their choices.

Uh... are you stupid? Gay bars exist so gay people can have a place where they know they're safe to socialize, and where single gay people can meet other single gay people and express interest in them and know that the person they're trying to chat up isn't some bigot who will beat the crap out of them. We're not so concerned about avoiding people "critical of our choices" as we are about avoiding people with guns and knives.


I did a search for the phrase 'hate crime' on this site. I got a Jewish hate crime, a 2 religious hate crimes, a disabled hate crime, 3 racial hate crimes, a change to hate crime law... OK, here's a gay hate crime article, but it happened in Massachusetts. Here's an arson that could possibly be hate crime, but they don't say who hates who. Another religious hate crime, An article about hate crime legislation undermining the 2nd amendment, more about the proposed hate crime bill. And I've made it to January 1st 2006. Eight months and zero hate crimes against homosexuals in Utah county.

I was able to find hate crime statistics as of a few years ago, but utah county didn't report its statistics for three quarters of the year I found, so it's impossible to tell whether utah county isn't having hate crimes or whether they're just not reporting them. Counties of the state of Utah reported 59 hate crimes that year overall. Actually, that seems very good; New Jersey, that bastion of liberalism, reported 769. California reported 1,393. I would have to do more digging to normalize this against population, however, so I don't know how meaningful the totals are. Regardless, most states actually have plenty of hate crimes, so we gay people still have plenty of reason to stick together and look after each other.

fefifofob wrote:

I used match.com & gay.com because they were the most popular in the google searches I did and they didn't contain the total filth I found elsewhere.

That doesn't alter the fact that you're comparing apples and oranges, or that match.com is not a straight-only dating site.

OK, they have a difference. One has both hetero and homosexuals and one is just gays. Maybe the difference is because of that.

As I pointed out, the comparison is invalid because their content policies differ. Of course match.com will have ads without sexual content: they censor sexual content.

I haven't seen a hetero only site that compares to gay.com or any of the more graphic gay dating sites either. Maybe they exist. Show me.

I privately sent you a list of six.

All you've been doing so far is dismissing my point that they are different with the argument that they are different.

I think that's perfectly valid. Your argument is meaningless as long as the comparison you gave purportedly to prove it is meaningless.

Either show me a gay only site that doesn't revolve around sex or show me a straight only site that does revolve around sex.

I sent you six of the latter. I'm a bit tired and can't think of any gay only personals sites besides gay.com at the moment. (I think gay.com used to allow straight personals too, I'm annoyed to see they don't any more.) Most personals sites don't exclude heterosexuals. However, I'll address this a little more below...

Are you in favor of bisexual marriage?

I know several very nice bisexual couples. One is married, another is planning to be. The married couple happen to be a man and a woman, with two beautiful kids, and if you met them casually you'd probably think they're the very vision of heterosexual respectability, and would be surprised to learn that they were personally denounced on the floor of the US senate as being the very model of everythign that is wrong and immoral in America today. (They're very proud of it.)

I understand that there are some who not only are the vision of respectability, but really are respectable. However, what I am saying is that the majority of gays are not. Wasn't it you who was saying that one example doesn't mean anything?

Actually you asked me about my thoughts about bisexuals marrying, and I answered.

People who are proud of being denounced on the floor of the Senate might not be the best argument for evoking a picture of responsibility.

Being denounced as immoral by Jesse Helms is a badge of honor. Especially since it's so nutty... he denounced them as immoral for saying they're bisexual, which they are, but they're actually married in a heterosexual relationship. What, exactly, is the sense of denouncing them for that?

I'm not going to post any of those web addresses here. I'm sure if you wanted to put one ounce of effort into it, you could find dozens of examples like what I found.

Sure. And I could make sure every one of those examples is of heterosexuals. But what's the point? If people want to exhibit poor sexual morality, that's not illegal. Heterosexuals do it, but they're allowed to marry. Thus, it's not a valid legal reason to deny marriage to gay couples.

A valid legal reason for denying marriage to gay couples is that it is illegal in most states. I'm not sure I can get more valid and legal than that.

You're trying to change the subject again. I pointed out that the web sites you consider to be immoral don't constitute adequate legal ground for banning marriage. Are you going to try to argue with that, or just change the subject?

I have no idea how much effort it would take to refute my example because I didn't find any, none, zero, zip, zilch, nada which I would be willing to show to my 9 year old daughter.

Either you didn't look very hard or your daughter is overly sheltered. I've seen many, many gay personal ads that are innocent to the point of being tedious.

Show me... Please... Not just a select set you pick out, but a web site or a magazine or some other grouping that screams out 'homosexuals as a group are interested in more than sex.' I can't find anything. Maybe with your connections, you can shed some light on this.

Try chemistry.com . There are lots of gay men looking for relationships there.

Actually, I pointed out the problem with your sample size, and I pointed out the complete lack of validity of comparing gay.com to match.com because of their differing editorial policies (which you're still dodging instead of addressing), and I pointed out that match.com is not a heterosexual-only dating site anyway (which you're also still dodging instead of addressing). But you don't want to actually deal with these facts, you just want to spew out some vitriol that tries to distract everyone by accusing me of not having said anything.

There's some validity in the comparison. One site has both hetero and homosexuals and one has only gays. One has much more of a focus on relationships and what involved in making a good one and one has much more of an emphasis on sex. Maybe it doesn't show exactly what you want, but there is some tiny bit of information to be gleaned from that. Maybe that tiny bit of information is wrong, but you have not given on shred of evidence to the contrary.

The point is that it doesn't show what you want. The only information I can glean from it is that you don't know how to compare gay people to straight people, because you picked sites with vastly different editoral policies and treated them as equivalent.

The point isn't that you have seen a gay personal ad. I believe you when you say you have seen a lot of them. What I don't believe is that there an entire segment of a communication medium that I missed which shows that what the majority of gays is interested in is stable, responsible relationships. If your vast experience gives you some insight I am not aware of, please share it.

As I suggested above, try chemistry.com, where there are plenty of gay men looking for relationships.

I'm saying gays are immoral. I have yet to see a web site or magazine where most people were looking for someone of the opposite sex and they had to expose themselves and/or almost exclusively talk about the sexual aspect of a relationship.

I sent you a list of six.

I have yet to see a magazine or web site where most people were looking for someone of the same sex (or either sex) where they didn't expose themselves and/or almost exclusively talk about the sexual aspect of a relationship.

I named one. You could also look at the gay personals on match.com or yahoo.com.

Yahoo also used to have PLENTY of straight guys looking for sex in its personals, but they seem to have banned that category of personals and revised their whole system quite a bit.

2) Show me how same sex marriage can be a right and illegal in most places.

For all citizens to be treated equally under the law regardless of race has been a right since the constitution was written, but it wasn't until the late 1960's that the many, many, many laws which violated this right were struck from the books by the supreme court.