Someone I know said one of the toughest things about growing up gay in a rural, conservative area was never, ever having any idea of what it meant to be gay, that not only was no one out in his community, but there were no representatives in the media that were positive. I hadn't thought if it that way, that whenever you'd be watching TV, or reading a magazine or book, you would never see a couple that was representative of how you felt. I can only imagine how this is still going on today in those sorts of areas, it must lead, as the study suggests, to such feelings of isolation.
(we were discussing this after noticing the TD Bank ads in Vancouver that feature same-sex couples in their mortgage ads.)
Please keep hitting people with the facts, Dan, especially when you're showing there's a light at the end of the tunnel. But people have to be willing to open their eyes first.
If you actually read the link, more than Mr. Savages blind prejudice comes to light.
20% of gay kids tried suicide, which is truly tragic. When we stopped recognizing homosexuality as a mental illness and stopped being able to treat it, we also subjected these children to other mental health risks. It's as though the medical community stopped treating cancer, then began wondering why addiction to painkillers was on the rise in those with cancer.
This study is only in Oregon. When you read the study itself at the link they make no attempt to control for other socio-economic issues that might raise suicide rates. When questioned the study author got it backwards. "Environments that are good for heterosexual youth are also good for homosexual youth" would have been accurate. His phrasing merely shows his biases.
Keep spinning it Dan. Your pathetic attempts to defend your deviance only display that deviance more vividly.
aw dang -- I was just about to say "what, nobody's written in describing homosexuality as a mental illness?" But in the few minutes it took to read the article, that was remedied. Whew!
Actually, the real tragedy, Seattleblues, is that you know so much more than the scientific communities in every developed nation, and they choose to ignore your rather frothy, voluminous font of knowledge.
Seattleblues fidgeted on the couch. "I mean, I'm really, REALLY sick. I just can't stop taking it up the... well, you know. I caught the Gay, and it's messing with my head! I tried one of those places meant to fix this problem, but ended up sleeping with half the patients instead. What am I going to do?"
"I'm calling the police," Venomslash told his wife.
"Why?" she asked. "The camcorder still has some memory left."
My problem here is that the study itself feels flawed in its scope, leading to flaws in the conclusions. In this case, it leads to falling for the correlation = causation fallacy. I wonder if that further investigation as to what factors are the same/different between the areas might lead to things like there also being a correlation with suicide prevention resource availability, counseling services in general, etc.
Pining? I haven't used that word since I went courting for Mrs. Seattleblues a decade ago. (Sadly for her it must have worked, or as she describes it she took pity on someone who thought it might work. Or who uses the word courting.)
But yes, I do think that recognizing disease as such gives you a sporting chance at helping your patient, while enabling them in their mental illness wouldn't seem to work quite as well. It's as though those who counselled alchoholics told them to embrace the gift of dispsomania or those with paranoid delusions were told that in fact the mayor was camping on your lawn with a shotgun. It may be good therapy in some obscure way us haf edicated redneck good ol boys don't understand. But I don't understand it.
Isn't that adorable? Little Blah is working on his 2nd grade fiction assignment again! Now, make sure you stay safe online, and always call your mommy if someone asks you questions that make you feel weird, okay little Blah?
I say what I did before, or what the poster at 12 said rather more succinctly. Taking one phenomona out of context and assigning it too much weight isn't scienctific. Or at least it's the same kind of science tame researchers for tobacco companies used to declare cigarrettes safe.
Wha? Living in areas where the social norms are predicated on impossible and often contradictory messages from collected writings from thousands of years ago that have little relevance to contemporary American culture and are therefore impossible for the overwhelming majority of people to live up to is correlated with a higher incidence of depression and suicide? Next up, Science™ finds a link between obesity and poverty!
Sorry. You write rather less like one of the fairer sex than a combination of Dennis the Menace and a penthouse letter. I just assumed one who wallowed in vulgarity was male, and about 12 years old.
My wife had a cat at one time that would bring us dismembered birds and rodents and leave them neatly on her pillow. The cat thought very highly of his gifts. She didn't quite as much.
Don't know why that came to mind....Early senility I guess.
@11: Blah, I love your writing. Your stories make me laugh and laugh.
The rest of you who live in the Seattle area,(sorry Canuck, and Kim) a reminder: UNOFFICIAL SLOG HAPPY IS TOMORROW,
6PM TUESDAY APRIL 19TH AT THE ROANOKE PARK PLACE TAVERN
2409 10th Ave E
206-324-5882
I have reserved the back room, and Slogger Mr. Harriman will be bringing cupcakes.
Please pass on this information today in whatever threads you visit.
Seattleblues, as Slog Happy is traditionally considered neutral ground, if you dare to grace us with your presence, I give my word that I will refrain from spiking your drink with antifreeze.
But just this once.
All married men know at some level how much more civilized their lives are as husbands. Breakfast isn't cold pizza and stale beer. Laundry isn't done when the piles of clothes on the floor become un-navigable. Pictures and things magically appear on walls, and family and friends get birthday cards and calls. How women think they get equal value out of this arrangement I can't imagine, but I'm grateful that they do at any rate. Hence, the fairer sex.
What you or Savage or Mr. Mehlman do in the privacy of your homes is entirely your business, just as what happens in mine is entirely my business. It's when you want the tiny minority of gays to set policy for everyone else that I get cranky. You chose your lifestyle, and seem to enjoy it. Congratulations. Now accept the costs of that lifestlyle like an adult.
Oh Lissa, my jealousy knows no bounds...please promise me you'll have a drink with an umbrella for me, and that you'll tell an elephant joke, and then I'll feel like I was almost there... :(
I think the general problem with conservative areas that proves problematic for gay and straight kids is that so few alternatives are presented -- which is as problematic for the girl who wants a career instead of being barefoot and pregnant as it is for the boy who wants to kiss other boys. If you don't fit the narrow roles prescribed for you on the basis of your sex, class, and color, then you're just not going to see a whole lot of options unless you can get the hell out of there and into a friendlier place.
"Conservatives are bad for children and other living things:"
Dan, your fellow thirty-four-going-on-forty-six year olds will appreciate that. Who didn't have that poster hanging in their room along with some form of Peter Max-esque grooviness?
Deviance, from the root deviate: to wander off track.
Positive Deviance: an approach to behavioral and social change based on the observation that in a community, there are people whose uncommon but successful behaviors or strategies enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers.
The PD approach enables the community or organization to seek and discover sustainable solutions to a given problem because the demonstrably successful uncommon behaviors are already practiced in that community within the constraints and challenges of the current situation.
@SB, You hold yourself to a low standard and insult all men if you think we need wives to feed us properly or do our laundry. That's some gender essentialist bullshit.
@36: Indeed! If it were not for my gentlemen friends, all of whom through out my dating career have cooked, I would have starved to death. As a matter of fact, at one point, when between beaux, I got down to 104 pounds because dinner, as far as I'm concerned, is a plate of melted cheddar cheese.
@ 36 - The funny thing about SB is that he proudly proclaims - as if they were universally agreed notions - the very things that he should be throughly ashamed of, since they've been debunked a long, long time ago... probably even before his time. He has yet to figure out the difference between "conservative" and "retrograde".
Thanks @37, I didn't see that earlier and will have to go back and take a look at that site. I copied from Wiki, I thought it was relevant to this post.
"The study relied on teens' self-reporting suicide attempts within the previous year. Roughly 20 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had made an attempt..."
A self-reported suicide "attempt" is a free painless way for a 'gay' kid to buy some attention in a society that glorifies victimhood.
Gee, I guess the AP reporter (not journalist) didn't check out the Springfield area which seems to contradict his "theory." Definately not a 'high Republican' area.
This sounds like a hack job survey and is a great example of Fudd's Law: If you push anything hard enough, it WILL fall over."
With Easter coming I feel in a festive and helpful mood so-
"The funny thing about liberals is that they proudly proclaim - as if they were universally agreed notions - the very things that they should be throughly ashamed of..."
The study is interesting and I definitely think the data for gay kids seems plausible-- but I wonder why the authors didn't control for median income? Democrats tend to be richer than republicans, and I would imagine that opportunities/good socioeconomic status would have a major positive impact on high school-aged kids-- hence providing a buffer against depression. I just have trouble imagining why social liberalness itself would have a positive impact on a straight kid (though the answer is obvious in the case of gay kids).
If a wall is framed incorrectly, risking the structural integrity of a building, I have 3 options.
I can go forward with the error intact. This risks the building.
I can go forward with the error intact and engineer around the poor framing. This is expensive compared to the original correct framing, and may risk the utility of the space.
Or I can tear the framing out and re-establish it as it should have been. You would call that last option retrograde. I call it common sense.
In my view the advocates of your point of view have framed things incorrectly and risk our social structure. The best solution is to go back to the correct framing.
Lissa, this fine site has all of my favourites, and more. When you tell them, you should already be quite tipsy, and your eyeliner should be a bit smudged... http://homepage.tinet.ie/~cronews/elep/e…
@52: So apparently, societal acceptance of homosex is wrong, and in order to fix it, we need to go back to the days in which gays were killed if they were caught.
Or are you not willing to say that? If so, then how much should we tolerate gays? If it's that we've instituted any societal acceptance of them, shouldn't we get rid of all that?
If a wall was constructed incorrectly, risking the structural integrity of the building, it will noticeable effects. What has societal acceptance of gays done so far? Can you point to any aspect of society that has been negatively impacted by allowing people to be openly gay without fear of being beated or lynched?
I think SB is Loveschild. Gotta have the token troll on LBGTetc issues. Otherwise we might get the impression that minority sexualities are normal, and we should mind our own business...can't have that.
Bugger off SB.
@ 52 - The only error here is that you were ever given access to a computer. Can we go back and change that? Please?
The "social structure" you think is under threat has been destroyed in the 50's/60's. For good reasons. Wishing it still exists and can be preserved, as you do, only shows us how out of touch with reality you are.
So please tell us, when exactly did you CHOOSE the lifestyle of a backwards moron? My guess is you were born this way.
@ 56, SB is much more coherent than LC ever was, and much more able to keep his cool.
@ 52, you got it backwards. We're fixing the social structure, as evidenced by the lowered suicide rates among those who are raised in loving, accepting communities.
@50, 52: Come to Slog Happy Seattleblues and put your money where your mouth is. Remember! As a Liberal, I will keep my word that no harm will come to you. No antifreeze, no ground glass, no sudden shove into traffic. Come, coward, and face those whom denigrate so freely from the safety of anonymity. I dare ya.
When life in your region sucks dead donkey dick, everyone votes Republican.
Why? When they're the ones doing their level best to screw the underclass? And they're not at all afraid to say so?
Who knows. But *that* much has been proven already, that these people willfully vote against their own best interests. Maybe it's something in the coal dust/mercury/cadmium they're breathing from the pollution coming out of the sole industry keeping the region alive.
Or maybe, after voting Republican, they all go out and try to kill themselves. That might be a good explanation too.
Thank you, Lissa, for drinking in my stead, and also for the most awesomest of titles! Next sloghappy, if there's more warning, I will send you a Canadian care package...
Well I guess the ideological sorting our parties have done is a good thing for sociologists.
Just a few decades ago, Democrat-% would be a very poor estimate of how liberal an area was. These days I can't complain, only a handful of exceptions like W. Virginia where things are just confusing.
First, this may be difficult for a liberal to understand, but I wasnt' 'given' a computer. I made money, bought one and paid the bill to an internet service provider. I know, earning stuff rather than co-opting it from some more industrious neighbor doesn't fit within the liberal notions, but there you have it.
Those reasons would be....?
Because it's better for kids to be raised by divorced parents? No. That simply isn't true, so it can't be it.
Because a high incidence of STD's and teen pregnancies caused by promiscuity (hetero or homosexual) is better for society or the individuals who suffer from them? Nah, that can't be it, unless you have a very peculiar notion of 'better.'
I know. It must be because unconstitutionally expending vast federal sums enabling poor personal choices is so much better than a culture made of responsible and capable adults... Nope. That can't be it either.
The notion that you're making things better is certainly your perception, and I respect your right to it. As elections and public demand establish it, we'll see with whom our fellow citizens agree.
I even respect the right of a thing like Savage to attempt destruction of my country from within. Partly, this is because I know my fellow countrymen mostly see him as a jester and a fool and know how to value his opinions. Mainly this is because his right to expression, no matter how corrosive, is exactly what I can expect for my rights. Silencing even the vile sets the precedent for silencing anyone else.
I listed the corrosive social effects, and not just from homosexuality but from liberal social beliefs generally, in 67.
Nor have I advocated violence or discrimation against gays. I write only and consistently that gays have the rights any of us has, and no more. We don't set marital policy for instance on the basis of a tiny minority wanting to twist the term for their convenience. We don't set public policy on taxes or inheritance to make the choices a person makes with regard to their romantic lives easier to bear.
But I have not once said that gays should be physically unsafe or subject to discrimination in housing, employment or public accomodation.
While not averse to looking someone in the eye and contesting their opinions, my first few weeks back in the states generally mean 70 hour work weeks to catch up from my absence.
Sorry, can't make it. If meeting my obligations to clients and employees makes me a coward, so be it. But have fun anyway, and enjoy the elephant jokes (some of which were very funny, Canuck.)
um..@69 (Seattleblues) What DO you set your marital policies on? because if it's religion then that is WHACK!!! since whatever else it is, marriage is the recognition by the state law of the relationship of two adults. And currently these policies ARE being affected by the MINORITY opinion of loonies who actually do want exclusive access to what should be universal rights!!
@ 69 and @ 52 Furthermore, glib sideways criticism isn't evidence of sanity, or conservatism, it's just empty chatter. "I even respect a thing like..." Respect comes from shared pain, not from words, not from a code book, ideas like "rights" came about because a few people realised "hey there are somethings in life that people should not be obstructed from striving for, because their absence causes needless pain." It starts there.
The recognition of pain and the offer of hope is mind ragingly powerful- but the catch is that if it feeds your self doubt, it's false hope. You can criticise people without feeding their doubt in their right to exist.
The ugly side of christianity if the ugly-side of all organised mass belief. Blind predjudice that HAS to demand that you submit to it because it needs you to believe in it for it to have any power over you, and that means it has to convince you out of trusting yourself in order to accept some of the cruel whims it has.
I don't refer to Savage as a thing because he's gay. In his own view that's his misfortune, not his fault (though this view is of course mistaken.) I do so because in seeking unbridled gratification of whatever animal urge strikes him, he renounces his humanity. That control is one of the things which distinguish us from beasts.
Were he a drunk enthusiastically evangelizing on the benefits of being a drunk I'd do the same thing.
Again? I don't refer to my faith beliefs in justifying public policy. Ever. I'm entirely unashamed of being a devout Christian, but my faith choice imposes no obligation on my fellow citizens, nor should it.
The only exception is where a majority share a set of values, based on religion or education or whatever, and vote accordingly and within constitutional boundaries. That's the nature of democracy.
Universal rights are what happen innately. 'We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal.' So why should someone who chose their status assume that levies obligations on others? Are they more equal as citizens than I somehow, that their choices are exempt from consequence and mine aren't?
I have no quarrel with anyone for choosing to be gay. I only quarrel with an assumption that this somehow imposes on those who didn't make that choice the consequences of it. If I had chosen to remain single I could not also have obtained the benefits of marraige, and society as a whole wouldn't owe these benefits to me. When someone chooses to act on a desire for others of the same sex they can't also be married, or leave property to their significant other, or the other benefits marriage confers. They chose, and must accept the costs and benefits (if there are any) of that choice.
Nor are gays or lesbians prohibited marriage. They simply can't marry someone of the same sex. Nor can I. Et voila, marriage equality.
@45, castration would work better than either abstinence or monogamy to prevent STDs. Death works well too. But, the harm would be worse than the disease -- most STDs are easily treatable or curable.
For those who don't want to be castrated, dead, abstinent or monogamous, luckily there are other ways to reduce the risks of acquiring or transmitting STDs to reasonable levels.
"Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical. The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage. (Only half of mainline Protestants, and a quarter of Jews, say that they believe in abstinence.) [...] But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen."
"Of all variables, the age at marriage may be the pivotal difference between red and blue families. The five states with the lowest median age at marriage are Utah, Oklahoma, Idaho, Arkansas, and Kentucky, all red states, while those with the highest are all blue: Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The red-state model puts couples at greater risk for divorce; women who marry before their mid-twenties are significantly more likely to divorce than those who marry later. And younger couples are more likely to be contending with two of the biggest stressors on a marriage: financial struggles and the birth of a baby before, or soon after, the wedding."
"Evangelicals are very good at articulating their sexual ideals, but they have little practical advice for their young followers. Social liberals, meanwhile, are not very good at articulating values on marriage and teen sexuality—indeed, they may feel that it’s unseemly or judgmental to do so. But in fact the new middle-class morality is squarely pro-family. Maybe these choices weren’t originally about values—maybe they were about maximizing education and careers—yet the result is a more stable family system."
So, if its liberal values that have led to issues of teen pregnancy, STIs and divorce, why do those things seem so much more common among conservatives? Or, is it that those pernicious liberal values have somehow sneaked their way into conservative households? Of course, if you believed that, it would mean you didn't put much stock into notions of personal morality or familial relationships...
@79: Tomorrow’s gathering is an Unofficial Slog Happy. There will be a real one in May, at which Stranger Staff Members will be in attendance. Perhaps even ( if his busy, busy schedule allows) your bête noir Dan Savage. Surely, Seattleblues, by then you will have caught up with your heavy work load! Come, face the man himself. Examine his marriage license, and, expert in Canadian law, if not geography, that you must surely be, declare it illegal. Tell Dan that he is a deviant and that his son is, in your irrefutable opinion, the “unluckiest boy in the world”. You are clad in the shining armor of your conviction are you not? The majority share your set of values, do they not? What could you possibly fear?
Come. Come to Slog Happy in May. And come correct.
SB, if he exists, which i doubt, will never attend slog happy. ever. he is a coward who would rather snipe from the safety of his computer than actually debate his opinions in person. that is, if he exists. he's nothing but a pack of cards.
Oh clashfan, most excellent elephant jokes! You would have fit in very well at pub nights at Colby College, which were attended Monday through Saturday, September to May.
"What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?"
@69: "I listed the corrosive social effects, and not just from homosexuality but from liberal social beliefs generally, in 67."
Izzat so?
Apparently we liberals cause divorce, encourage the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, and somehow hurt the nation by advocating for equal rights for gay people.
Okay, divorce. I'd say it's better for a doomed marriage to end quickly and cleanly for the two involved than for it to drag on for years and years of constant fighting. I'm the product of now divorced parents (they split in my pre-teens), and I feel more comfortable around them now that they're not cooped up together, constantly arguing. In fact, by tearing down the old walls of oppressive social norms and encouraging people to get to know prospective mates first, liberal policies actually PREVENT divorces and loveless marriages.
Conservatives generally advocate abstinence-only sex education, while liberals favor comprehensive sex education. I'll give you three guesses to determine which has proven more effective at preventing babby formed and STD transmission, and the first two guesses don't count. Since people are GOING to want to have sex, unless we force everyone to repress their sexual desires (pretty damn unethical, if you ask me), liberal attitudes in that regard are actually beneficial to society.
Finally, the issue of gay rights. You do realize, I'm sure, that since gays compose perhaps 5% of the population, the amount of money spent letting them file taxes jointly will be minuscule compared to that spent on similar programs for heterosexual couples. Gay people should not be forced to pay higher taxes than straight people, don't you agree? Their hard-earned tax dollars would be going to support straight marriage, an institution in which they have no interest. If you would favor, rather than letting gay couples claim tax benefits, abolishing the system of tax incentives for married couples, you would be removing encouragement for people to marry and thus weakening the institution of marriage, which conservatives and liberals alike agree is a key building block of society.
If you think I'm wrong, please don't hesitate to explain to me exactly how. Feel free to use big words if you think it'll make your argument sound smarter.
Venomlash, you wrote to Seattleblues:
"If you think I'm wrong, please don't hesitate to explain to me exactly how. Feel free to use big words if you think it'll make your argument sound smarter. "
Seattleblues@52: "In my view the advocates of your point of view have framed things incorrectly and risk our social structure." (Emphasis mine.)
You should have stopped here since this is the basis for all your arguments: that your view, whatever it may be, trumps all facts. You go on to make some broad statements citing nothing but your opinion and then claim that you "listed the corrosive social effects, and not just from homosexuality but from liberal social beliefs generally".
Seattleblues, learn to distinguish fact from opinion. If you're going to list "corrosive social effects" cite some actual examples and some data to back up your claims. You've been caught lying too many times for "Take my word for it" to be a valid argument.
I tried to post last night, but became too upset. Can I ask people to take it from me that the time of "treatment" for "mental illness" was not some Golden Age over which to rhapsodize? Such "treatment" has done considerably greater harm than good; I have firsthand experience, but would rather not provide chapter and verse unless someone else does so on the contrary side.
Seattleblues: "were he a drunk enthusiastically evangelizing on the benefits of being a drunk I'd do the same thing."
I put it to you that you wouldn't, and in fact don't. How many emails have you sent to sites that glorify Shane MacGowan or Oliver Reed? Or to pro-anorexia forums (yes, there are such things)?
If you don't do the same for alchoholism or anorexia, then it isn't a response to self-destructive behaviour as such. Rather, it's a response to Dan's column in particular.
You seem to think that your arguments are sound and everyone reading them is choosing not to understand them - be that as it may, you must have noticed, by now, that your views aren't convincing anyone.
You presumably don't believe that you're doing good work by posting here. Therefore your posting here is 'play' rather than 'work' - it's for your benefit rather than for its audience.
This isn't a long-winded way of suggesting that you're a 'closet case'. However, I am suggesting something more broad: that you're here for the same reason the rest of us are. You have an interest in the contents of Dan's column, just like me and just like the rest of us.
Someone who posts all the time on a 'pictures of cute kittens' forum is interested in cute kittens, even when their every post is about their revulsion for and disinterest in cute kittens. Perhaps especially when they emphasise how much of a tough guy they are.
PS What do your fellow conservatives say about the number of times you post on Dan's blog? Do they know that you post many times a day, every day or almost every day, and do they know that it's Dan's blog in particular?
Hey Seattleblues, I can't say I agree with you on everything, but I do think you're right to point out the problems in this study. Turning a blind eye to flaws in research that supports one's own position is the basis of bad science and thus is not going to help anyone in the long run.
You seem like an intelligent person and I really appreciate your willingness to talk to people on the opposite side of the fence (me, for one), so I would like to take this opportunity to ask you: Do you really think homosexuality is wrong, and if so, why? I'm serious, I actually want to know.
Scary TM @94, sorry, didn't check back in yesterday...I graduated in 1987. I took Spanish for two years with Barbara Nelson, she was amazing. Who is your friend? (Wow, I loved that school.)
Javier Gonzales. he started teaching at Colby in 1985. he now runs their Spanish program in Salamanca. i went to visit him in 1986 and liked Waterville, especially the "Maine Home for Little Wanderers". how quaint.
Oh, I don't know him, Scary. I can't believe I might have run into you in Waterville in 1986, small world! Yeah, that Maine Home name is pretty funny...
(we were discussing this after noticing the TD Bank ads in Vancouver that feature same-sex couples in their mortgage ads.)
20% of gay kids tried suicide, which is truly tragic. When we stopped recognizing homosexuality as a mental illness and stopped being able to treat it, we also subjected these children to other mental health risks. It's as though the medical community stopped treating cancer, then began wondering why addiction to painkillers was on the rise in those with cancer.
This study is only in Oregon. When you read the study itself at the link they make no attempt to control for other socio-economic issues that might raise suicide rates. When questioned the study author got it backwards. "Environments that are good for heterosexual youth are also good for homosexual youth" would have been accurate. His phrasing merely shows his biases.
Keep spinning it Dan. Your pathetic attempts to defend your deviance only display that deviance more vividly.
"I'm calling the police," Venomslash told his wife.
"Why?" she asked. "The camcorder still has some memory left."
Pining? I haven't used that word since I went courting for Mrs. Seattleblues a decade ago. (Sadly for her it must have worked, or as she describes it she took pity on someone who thought it might work. Or who uses the word courting.)
But yes, I do think that recognizing disease as such gives you a sporting chance at helping your patient, while enabling them in their mental illness wouldn't seem to work quite as well. It's as though those who counselled alchoholics told them to embrace the gift of dispsomania or those with paranoid delusions were told that in fact the mayor was camping on your lawn with a shotgun. It may be good therapy in some obscure way us haf edicated redneck good ol boys don't understand. But I don't understand it.
Now where's Venomslash with my next piece of the internet?
Leaving the childish insults aside-
I say what I did before, or what the poster at 12 said rather more succinctly. Taking one phenomona out of context and assigning it too much weight isn't scienctific. Or at least it's the same kind of science tame researchers for tobacco companies used to declare cigarrettes safe.
If only SB had enough brains to get it and STFU already.
Sorry. You write rather less like one of the fairer sex than a combination of Dennis the Menace and a penthouse letter. I just assumed one who wallowed in vulgarity was male, and about 12 years old.
Dude, it's OK. There's no shame in masturbating furiously to poorly written pseudoporn featuring yourself. Consider these my gift to you. <3
Umm. Gee. Thanks.
My wife had a cat at one time that would bring us dismembered birds and rodents and leave them neatly on her pillow. The cat thought very highly of his gifts. She didn't quite as much.
Don't know why that came to mind....Early senility I guess.
Hee hee... straight...
The rest of you who live in the Seattle area,(sorry Canuck, and Kim) a reminder:
UNOFFICIAL SLOG HAPPY IS TOMORROW,
6PM TUESDAY APRIL 19TH AT THE ROANOKE PARK PLACE TAVERN
2409 10th Ave E
206-324-5882
I have reserved the back room, and Slogger Mr. Harriman will be bringing cupcakes.
Please pass on this information today in whatever threads you visit.
Seattleblues, as Slog Happy is traditionally considered neutral ground, if you dare to grace us with your presence, I give my word that I will refrain from spiking your drink with antifreeze.
But just this once.
Neither, thanks for your concern though.
All married men know at some level how much more civilized their lives are as husbands. Breakfast isn't cold pizza and stale beer. Laundry isn't done when the piles of clothes on the floor become un-navigable. Pictures and things magically appear on walls, and family and friends get birthday cards and calls. How women think they get equal value out of this arrangement I can't imagine, but I'm grateful that they do at any rate. Hence, the fairer sex.
What you or Savage or Mr. Mehlman do in the privacy of your homes is entirely your business, just as what happens in mine is entirely my business. It's when you want the tiny minority of gays to set policy for everyone else that I get cranky. You chose your lifestyle, and seem to enjoy it. Congratulations. Now accept the costs of that lifestlyle like an adult.
Mrs. SB bit her lip uncertainly. "Um, this strap on thing was weird enough, but do I REALLY have to tape my breasts dow--"
"LOWER YOUR VOICE! YOU SOUND TOO FEMALE!"
Dan, your fellow thirty-four-going-on-forty-six year olds will appreciate that. Who didn't have that poster hanging in their room along with some form of Peter Max-esque grooviness?
>one phenomena
Seattleblues cannot into English.
@26:
http://cdn3.knowyourmeme.com/i/000/072/5…
Positive Deviance: an approach to behavioral and social change based on the observation that in a community, there are people whose uncommon but successful behaviors or strategies enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers.
The PD approach enables the community or organization to seek and discover sustainable solutions to a given problem because the demonstrably successful uncommon behaviors are already practiced in that community within the constraints and challenges of the current situation.
For the record.
scientific communities tell us that abstinence and monogamy are the best ways to avoid STDs.
you on board?...
A self-reported suicide "attempt" is a free painless way for a 'gay' kid to buy some attention in a society that glorifies victimhood.
Don't be such a credulous pussy, Danny.....
This sounds like a hack job survey and is a great example of Fudd's Law: If you push anything hard enough, it WILL fall over."
With Easter coming I feel in a festive and helpful mood so-
"The funny thing about liberals is that they proudly proclaim - as if they were universally agreed notions - the very things that they should be throughly ashamed of..."
You're welcome.
If a wall is framed incorrectly, risking the structural integrity of a building, I have 3 options.
I can go forward with the error intact. This risks the building.
I can go forward with the error intact and engineer around the poor framing. This is expensive compared to the original correct framing, and may risk the utility of the space.
Or I can tear the framing out and re-establish it as it should have been. You would call that last option retrograde. I call it common sense.
In my view the advocates of your point of view have framed things incorrectly and risk our social structure. The best solution is to go back to the correct framing.
bigot; aka 'anyone who disagrees with me. WHAAA!'
bold is not a substitute for lack of facts or debating skills...
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~cronews/elep/e…
Or are you not willing to say that? If so, then how much should we tolerate gays? If it's that we've instituted any societal acceptance of them, shouldn't we get rid of all that?
If a wall was constructed incorrectly, risking the structural integrity of the building, it will noticeable effects. What has societal acceptance of gays done so far? Can you point to any aspect of society that has been negatively impacted by allowing people to be openly gay without fear of being beated or lynched?
Bugger off SB.
The "social structure" you think is under threat has been destroyed in the 50's/60's. For good reasons. Wishing it still exists and can be preserved, as you do, only shows us how out of touch with reality you are.
So please tell us, when exactly did you CHOOSE the lifestyle of a backwards moron? My guess is you were born this way.
@ 52, you got it backwards. We're fixing the social structure, as evidenced by the lowered suicide rates among those who are raised in loving, accepting communities.
And I'd have a visual reference to expand into Seattleblues gay porn COMICS! :D
A Youtube clip we made for a class project to real DOMA :) Entitled "Let There Be Love"
When life in your region sucks dead donkey dick, everyone votes Republican.
Why? When they're the ones doing their level best to screw the underclass? And they're not at all afraid to say so?
Who knows. But *that* much has been proven already, that these people willfully vote against their own best interests. Maybe it's something in the coal dust/mercury/cadmium they're breathing from the pollution coming out of the sole industry keeping the region alive.
Or maybe, after voting Republican, they all go out and try to kill themselves. That might be a good explanation too.
Just a few decades ago, Democrat-% would be a very poor estimate of how liberal an area was. These days I can't complain, only a handful of exceptions like W. Virginia where things are just confusing.
First, this may be difficult for a liberal to understand, but I wasnt' 'given' a computer. I made money, bought one and paid the bill to an internet service provider. I know, earning stuff rather than co-opting it from some more industrious neighbor doesn't fit within the liberal notions, but there you have it.
Those reasons would be....?
Because it's better for kids to be raised by divorced parents? No. That simply isn't true, so it can't be it.
Because a high incidence of STD's and teen pregnancies caused by promiscuity (hetero or homosexual) is better for society or the individuals who suffer from them? Nah, that can't be it, unless you have a very peculiar notion of 'better.'
I know. It must be because unconstitutionally expending vast federal sums enabling poor personal choices is so much better than a culture made of responsible and capable adults... Nope. That can't be it either.
Sorry, what was your point again?
The notion that you're making things better is certainly your perception, and I respect your right to it. As elections and public demand establish it, we'll see with whom our fellow citizens agree.
I even respect the right of a thing like Savage to attempt destruction of my country from within. Partly, this is because I know my fellow countrymen mostly see him as a jester and a fool and know how to value his opinions. Mainly this is because his right to expression, no matter how corrosive, is exactly what I can expect for my rights. Silencing even the vile sets the precedent for silencing anyone else.
I listed the corrosive social effects, and not just from homosexuality but from liberal social beliefs generally, in 67.
Nor have I advocated violence or discrimation against gays. I write only and consistently that gays have the rights any of us has, and no more. We don't set marital policy for instance on the basis of a tiny minority wanting to twist the term for their convenience. We don't set public policy on taxes or inheritance to make the choices a person makes with regard to their romantic lives easier to bear.
But I have not once said that gays should be physically unsafe or subject to discrimination in housing, employment or public accomodation.
While not averse to looking someone in the eye and contesting their opinions, my first few weeks back in the states generally mean 70 hour work weeks to catch up from my absence.
Sorry, can't make it. If meeting my obligations to clients and employees makes me a coward, so be it. But have fun anyway, and enjoy the elephant jokes (some of which were very funny, Canuck.)
The recognition of pain and the offer of hope is mind ragingly powerful- but the catch is that if it feeds your self doubt, it's false hope. You can criticise people without feeding their doubt in their right to exist.
The ugly side of christianity if the ugly-side of all organised mass belief. Blind predjudice that HAS to demand that you submit to it because it needs you to believe in it for it to have any power over you, and that means it has to convince you out of trusting yourself in order to accept some of the cruel whims it has.
(Q) How can you tell when an elephant has been in your refrigerator? (A) Footprints in the butter.
(Q) How do you hide an elephant in a strawberry patch? (A) Paint his toenails red!
(How'm I doin', Canuck?)
I don't refer to Savage as a thing because he's gay. In his own view that's his misfortune, not his fault (though this view is of course mistaken.) I do so because in seeking unbridled gratification of whatever animal urge strikes him, he renounces his humanity. That control is one of the things which distinguish us from beasts.
Were he a drunk enthusiastically evangelizing on the benefits of being a drunk I'd do the same thing.
Again? I don't refer to my faith beliefs in justifying public policy. Ever. I'm entirely unashamed of being a devout Christian, but my faith choice imposes no obligation on my fellow citizens, nor should it.
The only exception is where a majority share a set of values, based on religion or education or whatever, and vote accordingly and within constitutional boundaries. That's the nature of democracy.
Universal rights are what happen innately. 'We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal.' So why should someone who chose their status assume that levies obligations on others? Are they more equal as citizens than I somehow, that their choices are exempt from consequence and mine aren't?
I have no quarrel with anyone for choosing to be gay. I only quarrel with an assumption that this somehow imposes on those who didn't make that choice the consequences of it. If I had chosen to remain single I could not also have obtained the benefits of marraige, and society as a whole wouldn't owe these benefits to me. When someone chooses to act on a desire for others of the same sex they can't also be married, or leave property to their significant other, or the other benefits marriage confers. They chose, and must accept the costs and benefits (if there are any) of that choice.
Nor are gays or lesbians prohibited marriage. They simply can't marry someone of the same sex. Nor can I. Et voila, marriage equality.
For those who don't want to be castrated, dead, abstinent or monogamous, luckily there are other ways to reduce the risks of acquiring or transmitting STDs to reasonable levels.
Q: Where do elephants with skincare problems go?
A: Pachydermatologists.
SeattleBlues pouted. "Please?"
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/…
Some excerpts:
"Regnerus argues that religion is a good indicator of attitudes toward sex, but a poor one of sexual behavior, and that this gap is especially wide among teen-agers who identify themselves as evangelical. The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage. (Only half of mainline Protestants, and a quarter of Jews, say that they believe in abstinence.) [...] But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen."
"Of all variables, the age at marriage may be the pivotal difference between red and blue families. The five states with the lowest median age at marriage are Utah, Oklahoma, Idaho, Arkansas, and Kentucky, all red states, while those with the highest are all blue: Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey. The red-state model puts couples at greater risk for divorce; women who marry before their mid-twenties are significantly more likely to divorce than those who marry later. And younger couples are more likely to be contending with two of the biggest stressors on a marriage: financial struggles and the birth of a baby before, or soon after, the wedding."
"Evangelicals are very good at articulating their sexual ideals, but they have little practical advice for their young followers. Social liberals, meanwhile, are not very good at articulating values on marriage and teen sexuality—indeed, they may feel that it’s unseemly or judgmental to do so. But in fact the new middle-class morality is squarely pro-family. Maybe these choices weren’t originally about values—maybe they were about maximizing education and careers—yet the result is a more stable family system."
So, if its liberal values that have led to issues of teen pregnancy, STIs and divorce, why do those things seem so much more common among conservatives? Or, is it that those pernicious liberal values have somehow sneaked their way into conservative households? Of course, if you believed that, it would mean you didn't put much stock into notions of personal morality or familial relationships...
Come. Come to Slog Happy in May. And come correct.
"What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill?"
"Look! Here come the elephants!"
Izzat so?
Apparently we liberals cause divorce, encourage the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, and somehow hurt the nation by advocating for equal rights for gay people.
Okay, divorce. I'd say it's better for a doomed marriage to end quickly and cleanly for the two involved than for it to drag on for years and years of constant fighting. I'm the product of now divorced parents (they split in my pre-teens), and I feel more comfortable around them now that they're not cooped up together, constantly arguing. In fact, by tearing down the old walls of oppressive social norms and encouraging people to get to know prospective mates first, liberal policies actually PREVENT divorces and loveless marriages.
Conservatives generally advocate abstinence-only sex education, while liberals favor comprehensive sex education. I'll give you three guesses to determine which has proven more effective at preventing babby formed and STD transmission, and the first two guesses don't count. Since people are GOING to want to have sex, unless we force everyone to repress their sexual desires (pretty damn unethical, if you ask me), liberal attitudes in that regard are actually beneficial to society.
Finally, the issue of gay rights. You do realize, I'm sure, that since gays compose perhaps 5% of the population, the amount of money spent letting them file taxes jointly will be minuscule compared to that spent on similar programs for heterosexual couples. Gay people should not be forced to pay higher taxes than straight people, don't you agree? Their hard-earned tax dollars would be going to support straight marriage, an institution in which they have no interest. If you would favor, rather than letting gay couples claim tax benefits, abolishing the system of tax incentives for married couples, you would be removing encouragement for people to marry and thus weakening the institution of marriage, which conservatives and liberals alike agree is a key building block of society.
If you think I'm wrong, please don't hesitate to explain to me exactly how. Feel free to use big words if you think it'll make your argument sound smarter.
"If you think I'm wrong, please don't hesitate to explain to me exactly how. Feel free to use big words if you think it'll make your argument sound smarter. "
Trust me. He will, and it won't.
You should have stopped here since this is the basis for all your arguments: that your view, whatever it may be, trumps all facts. You go on to make some broad statements citing nothing but your opinion and then claim that you "listed the corrosive social effects, and not just from homosexuality but from liberal social beliefs generally".
Seattleblues, learn to distinguish fact from opinion. If you're going to list "corrosive social effects" cite some actual examples and some data to back up your claims. You've been caught lying too many times for "Take my word for it" to be a valid argument.
I put it to you that you wouldn't, and in fact don't. How many emails have you sent to sites that glorify Shane MacGowan or Oliver Reed? Or to pro-anorexia forums (yes, there are such things)?
If you don't do the same for alchoholism or anorexia, then it isn't a response to self-destructive behaviour as such. Rather, it's a response to Dan's column in particular.
You seem to think that your arguments are sound and everyone reading them is choosing not to understand them - be that as it may, you must have noticed, by now, that your views aren't convincing anyone.
You presumably don't believe that you're doing good work by posting here. Therefore your posting here is 'play' rather than 'work' - it's for your benefit rather than for its audience.
This isn't a long-winded way of suggesting that you're a 'closet case'. However, I am suggesting something more broad: that you're here for the same reason the rest of us are. You have an interest in the contents of Dan's column, just like me and just like the rest of us.
Someone who posts all the time on a 'pictures of cute kittens' forum is interested in cute kittens, even when their every post is about their revulsion for and disinterest in cute kittens. Perhaps especially when they emphasise how much of a tough guy they are.
You seem like an intelligent person and I really appreciate your willingness to talk to people on the opposite side of the fence (me, for one), so I would like to take this opportunity to ask you: Do you really think homosexuality is wrong, and if so, why? I'm serious, I actually want to know.