Slander in Politics

Wessexman said:

As In said this is all question begging. Who says it is bigotry?

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Because they said so, damn it. :roll:

Wake said:

Because they said so, damn it. :roll:

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LOL Wake!

Wake said:

"Homophobe" implies irrational fear/contempt/hatred for homosexuals. Christians who view homosexuality as a sin have none of those ill feeling towards homosexuals.

:shrug:

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You don't have to wish all homosexuals would die to be a homophobe. Just like you don't have to want to kill all spiders to be arachnophobic. It's about wishing a certain "thing" would keep out of your life. You wish it didn't exist, or at least that you wouldn't have to witness its existence. You can't be tolerant or respectful of it when it does appear.

A lot of homophobes have good intentions. But they do, at the end of the day, have an irrational fear/contempt for homosexuality.

Usually, if I call someone a homophobe, it's because they already have insulted my morals, or worse, insulted my right to be treated equal to anyone else.

Wessexman said:

As I said this is all question begging. Who says it is bigotry?

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If persecuting a demographic group because they are different than you, and trying to deny them equal rights, isn't bigotry then what the hell would be? Obviously that's bigotry...

teamosil said:

If persecuting a demographic group because they are different than you, and trying to deny them equal rights, isn't bigotry then what the hell would be? Obviously that's bigotry...

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This is yet more question begging. Bank robbers and pedophiles are different to me, I do not mind persecuting them. You are simply assuming, without arguing, the homosexuality is completely moral and legitimate and it deserves what you call 'equal rights'. You may or may not be right, but you have to argue for it and not keep assuming it.

Wessexman said:

This is yet more question begging. Bank robbers and pedophiles are different to me, I do not mind persecuting them. You are simply assuming, without arguing, the homosexuality is completely moral and legitimate and it deserves what you call 'equal rights'. You may or may not be right, but you have to argue for it and not keep assuming it.

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Bank robbers and pedophiles hurt other people. Try another example maybe?

teamosil said:

Bank robbers and pedophiles hurt other people. Try another example maybe?

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Or try to argue for your position. Why is directly hurting other people the standard of what is moral and valid?

Have you ever considered busking? You have developed a real flair for begging. Every post is more assumptions and question begging.

And please respond to my original point, I'm not one to get away with such games;

You are simply assuming, without arguing, the homosexuality is completely moral and legitimate and it deserves what you call 'equal rights'. You may or may not be right, but you have to argue for it and not keep assuming it.

Wessexman said:

Or try to argue for your position. Why is directly hurting other people the standard of what is moral and valid?

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You seem to just be lacking some very basic understandings about rights, homosexuality and how our society is set up and whatnot.

For starters, if you do something that doesn't hurt anybody else, it is generally outside of the realm of things the law can reach. You can see how absurd it is by putting yourself in the other person's shoes. Imagine, for example, that 51% of people felt that you and your wife or someone you want to marry were not a good match, so they forbade you from marrying. Would that seem reasonable to you? Of course not. For obvious reasons- they wouldn't be any better off by you not getting married. It has no effect on them at all. But you would be worse off because you couldn't marry the person you loved. A net loss for society. Same deal with this. If you succeed in preventing gay people from marrying the people they love, you gain nothing whatsoever, but they lose the ability to marry the person they love. A net loss for society. That seems pretty obvious and basic, so I don't mean to be patronizing, but it seems like you're missing some of the basics, so I want to cover all the ground.

Secondly, gay people don't choose to be gay any more than straight people choose to be straight. People are attracted to who they are attracted to, not who they wish they were attracted to. In fact, there are many gay people who want desperately to be straight. Kids who commit suicide when they realize they are gay because they are so upset by it. Adults who live entire sham marriages trying to force themselves to be straight over decades that never manage it. All you are doing when you persecute gay people is attacking a demographic group that never did anything wrong. Even a gay person who never has sex with somebody else of their same sex is brutally harmed by your attacks and there is nothing they can do to evade them. They just end up tortured, self hating, miserable messes. And for what? Just so you can go around feeling superior about yourself?

Wake said:

"Homophobe" implies irrational fear/contempt/hatred for homosexuals. Christians who view homosexuality as a sin have none of those ill feeling towards homosexuals.

:shrug:

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You sound like a lot of Muslims who dispute the violent teachings in the Quran.

How about.... King James Version of the bible that says... “If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.”

You know how many Christians use this verse to justify their violent beliefs toward homosexuals?

That verse doesn't say...Love the Sinner, but hate the Sin...

Teamosil, actually my entire point has been trying to get you to argue your position rather than simply keep assuming it and begging the question. You are half-way there, you give some arguments in favour the validity and morality of homosexuality. You do start with a lot of spiel about what rights are which is largely still question begging. You still have a lot of work to do before you get over the urge to just post your own views as if they were gospel and without even seemingly recognising you were just begging the question. But you are moving in the right direction, it is good to see.

All the stuff about rights, what marriage is and its effects on society requires a good deal more argument and less unexamined assumptions though.

Wessexman said:

Teamosil, actually my entire point has been trying to get you to argue your position rather than simply keep assuming it and begging the question. You are half-way there, you give some arguments in favour the validity and morality of homosexuality. You do start with a lot of spiel about what rights are which is largely still question begging. You still have a lot of work to do before you get over the urge to just post you own views as if they were gospel and without even seemingly recognising you were just begging the question. But you are moving in the right direction, it is good to see.

All the stuff about rights, what marriage is and its effects on society requires a good deal more argument and less unexamined assumptions though.

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Why do homosexuals need to validate their morality anymore than heterosexuals?

If you aren't having a relationship with another man...then what's concern? There's no proof that homosexual behaviors negatively impact heterosexuals.

There's a reason for incorporating the terms "homo" and "hetero" with the suffix sexuality. Homo= same ....hetero different...

But yet...there's no link to homo behaviors that damage hetero communities. I'd say it's the opposite. Or at least thats my observation as a heterosexual man.

Wessexman said:

You are half-way there, you give some arguments in favour the validity and morality of homosexuality.

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You just fundamentally are going off in the wrong direction on this whole inquiry. I'm not arguing that homosexuality is "moral". That has nothing to do with anything whether one particular moral system approves or it or doesn't. The point is that it isn't any of your business what other people do in their personal lives so long as it doesn't effect you, so it doesn't matter one iota whether you think it is moral or not.

Removable Mind said:

Why do homosexuals need to validate their morality anymore than heterosexuals?

If you aren't having a relationship with another man...then what's concern? There's no proof that homosexual behaviors negatively impact heterosexuals.

There's a reason for incorporating the terms "homo" and "hetero" with the suffix sexuality. Homo= same ....hetero different...

But yet...there's no link to homo behaviors that damage hetero communities. I'd say it's the opposite. Or at least thats my observation as a heterosexual man.

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The point is that Teamosil was making claims like Christians, who believe homosexuality is a sin, are bigots without ever arguing his position or backing up his assumptions. I'm not about to have an in depth argument about the matter, I was just trying to get him to stop making massive, unexamined and unsupported assumptions.

teamosil said:

You just fundamentally are going off in the wrong direction on this whole inquiry. I'm not arguing that homosexuality is "moral". That has nothing to do with anything whether one particular moral system approves or it or doesn't. The point is that it isn't any of your business what other people do in their personal lives so long as it doesn't effect you, so it doesn't matter one iota whether you think it is moral or not.

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Who says it isn't your business. The problem with you Teamosil is you can't seem to stop making claims which require support, support you don't give them.

You may be right it no one else's business, but you have to argue it. Otherwise why can't I just say the opposite back to you with just as much back up, or lack thereof.

Wessexman said:

The point is that Teamosil was making claims like Christians, who believe homosexuality is a sin, are bigots without ever arguing his position or backing up his assumptions. I'm not about to have an in depth argument about the matter, I was just trying to get him to stop making massive, unexamined and unsupported assumptions.

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WHAT THE Hell you talking about Wessexman?

Read the following and repeat your point above. You must be reading somebody elses post...

TEAMOSIl said:

You just fundamentally are going off in the wrong direction on this whole inquiry. I'm not arguing that homosexuality is "moral". That has nothing to do with anything whether one particular moral system approves or it or doesn't. The point is that it isn't any of your business what other people do in their personal lives so long as it doesn't effect you, so it doesn't matter one iota whether you think it is moral or not.

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Excuse me...but that's far from you're claim above...way far off.

Wessexman said:

Who says it isn't your business. The problem with you Teamosil is you can't seem to stop making claims which require support, support you don't give them.

You may be right it no one else's business, but you have to argue it. Otherwise why can't I just say the opposite back to you with just as much back up, or lack thereof.

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I did support my position. You haven't come up with a counter argument. Again:

There are two parties in this question- you, who thinks gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry, and gay people who want to marry the people they love. If you succeed in prohibiting them from getting married, you are not any better off. You aren't affected in any way. But they are worse off- they no longer can marry the person they love. So you hurt them and didn't even get anything out of it yourself. That is, obviously, a bad trade, right?

Removable Mind said:

WHAT THE Hell you talking about Wessexman?

Read the following and repeat your point above. You must be reading somebody elses post...



Excuse me...but that's far from you're claim above...way far off.

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Or just perhaps I'm talking about an entire discussion that has gone on for many pages now.

But that post does beg questions, it begs the question of whether it is none of our business what people do in their personal lives. I'm not saying this is wrong or right, simply it has to be argued.

lizzie said:

Sure, anyone can oppose it, but it doesn't mean that one's use of the accusation of bigotry is a legitimate complaint.

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That's fine.

teamosil said:

I did support my position. You haven't come up with a counter argument. Again:

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You supported it with more question begging. You supported your unproved assumption that such Christians are bigots with the unproved assumption it is not their business what homosexuals do.

There are two parties in this question- you, who thinks gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry, and gay people who want to marry the people they love. If you succeed in prohibiting them from getting married, you are not any better off. You aren't affected in any way. But they are worse off- they no longer can marry the person they love. So you hurt them and didn't even get anything out of it yourself. That is, obviously, a bad trade, right?

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This is closer to an argument. It is very brief and needs a lot of its points exploring much further however. For instance you are simply asserting they'd not be worse off and ignoring the social meanings and place of marriage. You would have to address these before your argument was even slightly useable, but you are getting there. You aren't quite just making the most completely unsupported assumptions any more.

Wessexman said:

You supported it with more question begging. You supported your unproved assumption that such Christians are bigots with the unproved assumption it is not their business what homosexuals do.

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I'm not really sure what you're looking for. There isn't such a thing as like objective evidence and proofs of answers to moral questions. Morality is just subjective preferences people have. The closest we can do is to explain to somebody why what they are doing is hurting other people and hope that their morals tell them that hurting people is wrong.

Wessexman said:

This is closer to an argument. It is very brief and needs a lot of its points exploring much further however. For instance you are simply asserting they'd not be worse off and ignoring the social meanings and place of marriage. You would have to address these before your argument was even slightly useable, but you are getting there. You aren't quite just making the most completely unsupported assumptions any more.

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Of course it hurts somebody to be forced to live a life unable to marry the person they love and stigmatized and insulted... You can't really deny that....

So go ahead, what's your response?

teamosil said:

I'm not really sure what you're looking for. There isn't such a thing as like objective evidence and proofs of answers to moral questions. Morality is just subjective preferences people have. The closest we can do is to explain to somebody why what they are doing is hurting other people and hope that their morals tell them that hurting people is wrong.

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Perhaps, but you cannot simply say such and such is wrong and not give any support to this and when you finally do give support to it you cannot simply give a similar sort of assertion, like it is wrong because people should mind their own business.

When we argue we all have to make certain assumptions, otherwise we'd never finish laying out our argument, but you were only really relying on question begging and assumptions. You would make one quick assertion and when you finally got around to backing it up you'd do so with an almost equally brief and controversial assertion. This is not an acceptable way to prove your point. If I did, if I said homosexuality is wrong and then backed it up by saying it is unnatural, you'd be up in arms.

Of course it hurts somebody to be forced to live a life unable to marry the person they love and stigmatized and insulted... You can't really deny that....

So go ahead, what's your response?

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My response would be you are making a lot of assumptions about the nature of marriage and about what is right or wrong in this instance that need further argument and explanation. I'm not actually going to argue the issue with you, I've simply been trying to get you to stop relying so heavily on assumptions and unexamined and unproven assertions.

Wessexman said:

Perhaps, but you cannot simply say such and such is wrong and not give any support to this and when you finally do give support to it you cannot simply give a similar sort of assertion, like it is wrong because people should mind their own business.

When we argue we all have to make certain assumptions, otherwise we'd never finish laying out our argument, but you were only really relying on question begging and assumptions. You would make one quick assertion and when you finally got around to backing it up you'd do so with an almost equally brief and controversial assertion. This is not an acceptable way to prove your point. If I did, if I said homosexuality is wrong and then backed it up by saying it is unnatural, you'd be up in arms.

My response would be you are making a lot of assumptions about the nature of marriage and about what is right or wrong in this instance that need further argument and explanation. I'm not actually going to argue the issue with you, I've simply been trying to get you to stop relying so heavily on assumptions and unexamined and unproven assertions.

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Any moral argument is just built on assumptions. You at some point made the assumption that a particular god exists and that he dictated certain things to you. Somebody else made the assumption that what is important is treating your fellow man kindly. There are many assumptions people can make that start their moral sensibility rolling. You can't have a moral argument that doesn't go back to an unsupported assumption, there is no such thing.

Like I said, all you can do is show somebody how their behavior is cruel- how it hurts somebody else, and sometimes even worse, that it doesn't even benefit them. Then you can hope that they have what I would consider enough moral decency to know that cruelty is bad. If they don't, there isn't really anything you can do about it. I think I've taken you that far. Where you go from there is up to you.

Regardless of what conclusions you reach on the topic personally though, understand that if you opt to engage in cruel behavior, people will treat you accordingly.

No. We have to make some assumptions to argue, but not of the sort you are making. You make assumptions such as Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin are bigots. You then back this up, eventually, with assumptions like they are bigots because they should mind their own business. If this was acceptable then I could at least match you by saying homosexuality is a sin and wrong, and then finally that it is a sin and wrong because it is unnatural or God says so. Your arguments are so much reliant on unexamined and unproved assumptions that they are, generally, really of this order. This is not acceptable in debate, even though certain assumptions are.

Wessexman said:

You make assumptions such as Christians who believe homosexuality is a sin are bigots.

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No, I emphatically never said that. In fact I have explicitly said that that was not the case many times. As I keep saying, Christians (or anybody else) are totally free to believe whatever they want. But when they start persecuting people for being different than them, then yes obviously they are bigots at that point.

Wessexman said:

I could at least match you by saying homosexuality is a sin and wrong, and then finally that it is a sin and wrong because it is unnatural or God says so.

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Again, that would still be totally irrelevant to the discussion. The question isn't "is homosexuality wrong?", the question is "do you have the right to persecute others because you believe the demographic group they are a member of are 'sinners'?"

teamosil said:

No, I emphatically never said that. In fact I have explicitly said that that was not the case many times. As I keep saying, Christians (or anybody else) are totally free to believe whatever they want. But when they start persecuting people for being different than them, then yes obviously they are bigots at that point.

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Your back up for that is just it is none of their business. Which is question begging and manifestly unacceptable.

Again, that would still be totally irrelevant to the discussion. The question isn't "is homosexuality wrong?", the question is "do you have the right to persecute others because you believe the demographic group they are a member of are 'sinners'?"

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And your argument on this have been little more than question begging on a huge scale.