Rick Santorum - Page 7

I'll still blame the red wine...

EDIT: Eh. Saved response for another thread.

You read all that from my post? It looks like I'm not the only one with a comprehension problem. Where the hell did I bash incest and polygamy?

This is the quote I had responded to:

"Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family."

I had objected to Santorum's implication that a family that practices sodomy, polygamy or adultery (including a lifelong gay commitment) cannot be a stable, healthy family.

And Santorum's original statement clearly implied that all of these things were bad, and for this reason, the Supreme Court should not approve any privacy laws which would undermine laws banning, specifically, sodomy. This is why his statement was so harmful to the acceptance of healthy gay relationships. A celibate gay relationship, which he apparently "supports", is greatly likely to be unhealthy, just as a celibate hetero relationship would be.

So you're bashing me because of something you read in my statement of two paragraphs saying nothing about how I feel about polygamy or incest, but you're defending Rick Santorum? You're either lying or confused about your support for "tolerance".

In his defense, I have to say I don't think he's lying. He's been misleading before, but usually with a '' to let everyone know.

My hero.

Sniff...sniff...

Here is what I was responding to, it seems quite clear to me.


As I mentioned in my post, you said polygamy and incest are not natural traits. Well perhaps they are not in Western culture, but they are in other cultures.

What Bunge was eluding to, and what I have mentioned to Shawn is that some people here go around with high and mighty attitudes, (please feel free to consider yourself one of them) for simply drawing their circles of tolerance a little wider than someone else.

I sometimes use a smiley when I do it, but I will simply turn their argument on them (because saying you tolerate more really isn't a way to prove you are wrong or right on a matter) and proclaim to tolerate more than they do, which makes them the small minded, bigot. On this issue, I don't have to use a smiley because my tolerance on this issue IS wider than yours. I basically don't like society criminalizing sex and destroying people's (though usually men's) lives over it. I stated or at least broached the subject earlier in this thread regarding adult sex between say a father and daughter, mother and son or any combination thereof. I wouldn't criminalize those acts and from your own post it is clear you would.

In your post you proclaimed that homosexuality was natural and that polygamy and incest are not. This is an ignorant view. Polygamy occurs throughout world history. I mentioned that it even occurs in the Bible. Likewise there are cultures where what we consider to be incest is commonly practiced. There are cultures where a child's first partner is commonly their parents because they do not come from a Western or monotheistic background.

So in your claiming of being "tolerant" and proclaiming others "bigoted" you show your own cultural limitations and also intolerance.

What is funny to me is that folks like you would declare that Santorum, or pretty much anyone are "bigoted" or "ignorant," while demonstrating that trait yourself.

History of Incest

Now I have a nice little question/challenge for you. Find for me a society that has not legislated sexual relations. I already know what I ask is impossible. Every society does it, even primative ones. Perhaps their definitions of right and wrong don't gel with what some of or modern conventions hold, but every society does regulate sexual relations usually as a means of wealth accumulation, and insuring child birth.

Nick

I haven't read the post in question, but there certainly is a difference between homosexuality and polygamy and incest.

Polygamy and incest are culturally-specific behaviours. Homosexuality is not. It crosses all cultures. So a predisposition to homosexuality has nothing to do with your culture at all.

Polygamy and incest are acceptable behaviours in some cultures, but cultures are made by people over many generations. Homosexuality on the other hand doesn't care where or when or to whom you were born.

You can't be born a polygamist or an incest, er, ist.

Which is why gay Jamaicans get such a hard time and gay Muslims get disowned. You can be born into the most fundamentally homophobic culture, brought up exactly like your battyman-hating siblings, and STILL be gay.

It is, therefore, not a choice you have. It is different in its nature to polygamy and incest. It is wrong to even compare the two on the same terms.

To put it another way still, you can be born into a society that says incest and polygamy are OK, move abroad and embrace another culture, and then say "these things are wrong."

They are cultural. Homosexuality is not. It is not a choice.

A culture can have a tolerance for homosexuals but that doesn't mean that that's a 'gay' culture, only a tolerant one.

"Mum: I think I want two wives."
"Oh, son, it's all my fault!"
"No, no! It's not! It's just... the way I am. I've tried so hard... but I am what I am."
"Your dad's going to be heartbroken."

dagnabbit, pressed 'reply' instead of 'edit'.

i would argue that at least in the case of incest, that crosses all cultures as well. it's just taboo like homosexuality is in many cultures. polygamy is a little tougher, that might be culture specific.

i know i shouldn't bother posting this without the article on hand, but i believe there is at least 1 culture that has been found with zero homosexuality in it. i'll have to dig out my old coursework to find it though. now if i can just remember what class it was from......

crap. i hate that.

Hassan is a polygamist!

I knew it!

If I may Hassan?

I hereby call you on that.

Let's hear about this please.

No, no, no, Harald, be my guest. I, too, would be eager to hear about the culture that proves that homosexuality is an exclusively social construct.

How do the Gay Polygamists feel about this???

Man, they must be doubly pissed!

(Hassan)



Wow.

Three incestual gay polygamy convictions in california could get you a bazillion years in prison!

Hey fellers, look at this "babe."



Ain't she SOMETHING? Eh? Fellers?




I'd be the filling in a sandwhich between her and another attractive "babe" like her!

I wonder if she has a friend?

just give me a few days, i'll have to try and dig it up. it was either my Human Sexuality course or a random Human Psychology course. i can't remember which one.

i will look though, i promise. if i haven't gotten back to you in the next day or two, PM me to remind me. my mind is like swiss cheese lately, i keep forgetting to do stuff. (see the thread in DH about getting a PDA)

as for proving anything, it doesn't. anthropologists just found a culture where there were no homosexual adults. some unusual rituals regarding fertility as a man and felatio IIRC. i'll look it up and try to post the entire thing.

although it could just be socialization strong enough to counteract homosexual feelings.

Thank you al, you said what I was going to type. Incest and polygamy are just as "in the closet" as homosexuality is/was in most instances.

It isn't as if you could say "Hey I love my cousin" and people would okay and be tolerant of it.

Also if you broaden your definition of polygamy a bit, I would argue that we have quite a bit of it. It is just serialized because of the nature of our law.

So a man or woman will have multiple wives or husbands (I forgot the specific name for that) but just not at the same time. If you have had 3 or more wives or husbands, I would still pretty much consider you a polygamist who has had to act within the cultural confines.

Nick

Maybe so, but they're still fundamentally different things.

Homosexuals are attracted to people of their own sex and that's the way they're born. People who find their siblings sexually attractive simply have issues.

You take a homosexual person from his or her parents and siblings and take them to another country as a baby. They will grow up finding people of their own sex attractive.

There is no analogue for people who might possibly grow into someone who wants to commit incest. Take that child from their parents and siblings to another country and they won't find all the people they meet unattractive because they're not a relation. And if they were to meet one of their siblings accidentally, without knowing that they were related, they wouldn't be able to recognise the fact and then magically want to have sex with them.

Do you see? The comparison's so stupid. It's a dumb comparison. It's just... stupid.

Your comparision is invalid because you are saying one party will still have what they find attractive when moved and the other will not.

To make your comparision valid you would have to move the homosexual to a country where there is no one of the same gender.

Besides you are also making it too black and white. Just because someone finds their cousin attractive, maybe even has sex with him/her and then moves on to someone else doesn't invalidate the fact that they without societal pressure found their own family attractive.

Look throughout greek literature and also royal blood lines and you find tons of.... incestual relations. If we consider that in many instances these "pillars" were models for society at large, it leads to some interesting conclusions.

Within the homosexual community, there are men and women who were at one time married to the other gender. There are those who were homosexual and claim to be "cured" and now heterosexual. There are those who thought they were homosexual and now declare themselves bisexual.

It isn't so cut and dried. Even if these things are "natural" some people spend quite a long time sorting out who it is they love.

The fact that someone can't have their one true love (say it were a cousin) doesn't usually cause someone to live a solitary, chaste life. Most people move on and get by with whomever is around.(I know that sounds harsh but that is what the studies show) I say this because studies show that most people (say 80%) fall in love with someone that lives within (hazy memory) I believe it was 2 miles of their home typically. It is someone they see at the market, at church, at school, or around the neighborhood.

So your conclusion is invalid because in one instance the party has no alternatives but to go have sex with someone who is outside of who they love (not family) and in the other instance the party still has plenty of people of similar persuasion to love.

One a personal pet theory note, I do think that there is a chemical aspect to love, pheromones. I believe that when you meet someone with whom your pheromones click you get that zing that makes up the initial exciting stages of love with the flirting, excitement just to touch hands etc.

I will say that I do believe that this pheromone connectivity is much less likely to occur among family members and there may even be a natural pheromone UNCONNECTIVITY that lends us to naturally not seeing family members in a sexual fashion. That being said, much like homosexuality is not the norm statistically when compared to heterosexuality, I do believe that there is a statistically small percent of the population that are not pheromonally adverse to their family members. So I do believe it quite natural.

Likewise I do not mistake this pheromone induced love/high to be the true essense of love, though I do believe it creates the lust that can lead to a deeper relationship that comes with committment, trust and time.

I even believe that this pheromone compatibility can occur with people you are not married to after you are married. This is, I believe, the main cause for adultery and other such issues because people feel that the chemical zing and think it must be love again. Likewise I do feel that repeated exposure the same chemicals (your partner) leads to the sexual boredom so often spoken of with monogomous marriage.

Anyways a bit of an aside, but as you can see I do believe that both polygamy and also incest have natural underpinnings just as you believe homosexuality does. So I guess you are the one with the "issues."

Nick

I'll address the rest of your post after the Announcement. In the meantime:


This is very irritating, mostly because it makes no sense.

It's really annoying. If you can't resist an unnecessary dig, at least make sure your logic checks out.

Make sense. Don't be annoying.

Makes no sense to YOU. Please make sure you finish that sentence.

My logic checks out perfectly. I states that much like how most people are naturally adverse to same sex relations, most people are adverse to family relations. I even gave a reason, chemical pheromones cause an aversion to family members.

I then stated that just as homosexuality is present naturally in a small percentage of the population, so too is a small segment of the population not chemically adverse to their own family members. It isn't as if I suggesting something impossible. If you are boy who naturally finds women attractive your sister is a woman, and if you don't have a chemical inhibiter, then you would physiologically see her as any other woman. There is nothing inconsistant about that.

The dig was because I find it humerous about how you claim to be tolerant yet have obvious issues with certain sex acts involving consenting adults. You said they had issues and I just gave it back to you.

Nick

Let 'em have at it, sick as it may be.

I wouldn't call it misleading. I prefer to call it opening the curtain a little.

On both sides of politics there are words, phrases and speeches given that the middle ground would find terrifying if they were in the mainstream. One of the most humorous things on this board for me is watching Shawn post things of this nature as "gotchas" thinking the other side doesn't do it. I think he honestly believes that the DNC, FAIR, and other groups don't send out daily press releases with talking points. I think he believes that if he were to show up at a rally for Hillary Clinton, there won't be a box of hand painted signs and printed signs outside the rally just waiting for him to pick one up. Youth is nice in that way sometimes.

Often a political position will be partially spoken but also intentionally partially obscured because they know it is unpalatable to the mainstream. Do I honestly doubt the GWB is going to nominate pro-life judges to the Supreme Court? Of course I don't but when asked on the issue he obscures it.

Likewise do I doubt that any Democratic candidate is going to put a pro-choice judge in the Supreme Court. I mean sure they are but they will do just as GWB does most of the time. A few on both sides will speak their clear views but most will say, "well I'm not going to use a litmus test, I'm going to look at the whole person and their judicial history," yadda yadda yadda.

Often I will probe a view with limits to expose an argument. The easiest example of this is to ask someone when affirmative action will end. Most won't admit they are for quotas until we have statistical represenation, but there really isn't another answer for when it should end but to say those things. Me, I don't like the mushy middle and will use my smileys, and get people to state their full position.

Nick

P.S. Bunge, don't go giving away all my secrets darn it and BTW no one is intolerant anymore according to BRussell, we are just all genetically programmed with the views we have, so it's just nature.

Nonsense argument, easily demolished.

Your theory that pheremones keep family members apart has no scientific basis in fact. It's your theory, it's nonsense, and don't present it as fact. Off the top of my head:


-Siblings have met as strangers and started relationships.

-Gay men and women buy gay porn mags and find them exciting. I don't believe gay porn has scratch-and-sniff pheremone sachets so those that buy them can get off.


You also say that homosexuality is a choice. This from a man who has gay people in his family. GO AND TALK TO THEM AND ASK THEM.

Go on. Ask them if they can change.

And gay people are not "cured." It's not a disease. It's another way of being a sexual human being. I don't understand it any more than you do, but it's not an "issue."

Sex is sex. If you and your sister fancy each other and you want to sleep with each other in the face of societal opprobium and general revulsion? Good luck to you, I guess. FANCYING YOUR SISTER DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE PREPROGRAMMED TO FIND ONLY YOUR IMMEDIATE FAMILY ATTRACTIVE.

Just use your brain, Nick, damn.

To put it politely I have no idea what you are talking about. Pheromone repulsion to prevent incest is not an idea I made up in my head. It is a fully realized scientific theory with much more backing than even the theory that homosexuality is genetic. Do a Google search on pheromones and human behavior and there is plenty out there to read.

The scientific basis for it is that incestual breeding allows for basically asexual type reproduction and doesn't insure genetic diversity. Thus nature would have an interest in insuring that you find people who are more biologically different DNA-wise from yourself more attractive.

Likewise I did not say gay men were attracted to other gay men because of pheromones, but that could be true. I haven't read any research in that area. However your example using magazines is again a false analogy. It isn't as if heterosexual people have to sniff pheromones in addition to looking at pictures to become aroused sexually. I really don't get your point.

As for your "gay" credentials of having a "member in the family," I have both a gay aunt and uncle on my mothers side. Likewise I studied music for my degree (the arts have a disportionate number of homosexuals) and lived in Long Beach for 10 years, which is almost as gay percentage-wise as San Francisco. Again none of this really matters because I am not claiming some authority from experience, but rather from science. As for asking them if they can change, I never have asked them because I never sought to change them. I was happy with them just as they were.

As for gays being "cured" I never claimed that they could be cured, only that some homosexuals have claimed that they were cured. I did not seek to cure them, nor anything else of that nature.

The research I have read involving homosexual genes and heridity however involved identical twins recruited through ads in gay advocacy magazines. I do consider recruitment through these magazines to be a bit of a bias in the sample however even then the coefficient of both twins being gay was .4.

I do believe some are born gay, however I do believe that others just choose the lifestyle. I have meet people and known from early on myself (I'm not gay, but do have a pretty accurate gay-dar) that they would be gay. I'm talking from like 6-7 years old on.

Likewise I have met people who have changed dramatically over the course of their life and it would appear orientation was a change they choose to make. I have not read any science that contradicts these two views.

Lastly you read my posting on incest entirely backwards. I did not say that pheromones would make a person find ONLY their family attractive. Rather I said the lack of pheromone inhibitor would cause them to view their family as no different than the rest of the population. Thus if they were a 17 year old boy, they would view, say their 16 year old sister just like they would any other female.

It would be like being color blind. How can you be repelled if you have no chemical, biological aspect repelling you? I never said they would exclusively want to date their family, much more the opposite.

Nick

FLAME BAIT

Here's what SpinSanity had to say about it. As anyone could guess the focused on the outright lies of the media including the NYTs. Big surprise.

Misrepresentations in the Santorum debate (4/25)

By Ben Fritz

The recent furor over comments by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) about homosexuality and anti-sodomy laws has been fueled in part by misrepresentations of what he said by some journalists and critics.

In an interview with the Associated Press taped on April 7, Santorum said this with reference to the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling on the constitutionality of Texas's anti-sodomy law:

Santorum is clearly stating his opposition to constitutional protection for what he calls "homosexual acts" earlier in the interview. In mentioning polygamy, bigamy, incest, and adultery, however, he did not state that they are morally equivalent to homosexual acts. Instead, he made the legal argument that if the Supreme Court overturns Texas's sodomy laws prohibiting anal and oral sex amongst homosexuals, those other acts would have to be legalized by the same principle of a constitutional right to privacy.

Unfortunately, several media outlets have misrepresented Santorum's quote to imply that the senator explicitly compared homosexuality to polygamy, incest and adultery. The problem can be found in several reports such as the lead of an Associated Press article: "Gay-rights groups, fuming over Sen. Rick Santorum's comparison of homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery, yesterday urged Republican leaders to consider removing the Pennsylvania lawmaker from the GOP Senate leadership." Maureen Dowd made the same allegation in her New York Times op-ed column, stating, "Rick Santorum, the obnoxious Pennsylvania senator who is No. 3 in the G.O.P., equated homosexuality with incest, bigamy and polygamy." A Washington Post piece also stated that, "The leading Democratic presidential contenders and congressional leaders condemned [Santorum] for comparing gay sex to incest, bigamy and polygamy in an interview published Monday by the Associated Press."

Some critics were more fair, picking on actual controversial comparisons that Santorum did make. Later in the interview, for instance, he makes an apparent comparison of homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality: " In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing."

Critics have every right to object to Santorum's beliefs and to his legal arguments. But they are obligated to accurately depict the substantive points he made in a real legal debate about how far the constitutional right to privacy would extend if the Supreme Court overturns Texas's anti-sodomy law.

Correction (4/26): This piece has been corrected to make clear that Texas's sodomy law, like those in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, applies only to homosexuals. It previously incorrectly indicated that the law applied to all people, but "essentially outlawed homosexual sex." Thanks to a watchful reader for pointing out this error.

I'm not flaming you Shawn, I assure you that it wouldn't be so subtle if I decided to do so.

I'm calling you what you are which is what I would say is a "true believer." This isn't a bad thing, it is just less likely when you get older.

Like when you go to the Hillary Clinton Rally and grab your sign, that is cool and all. When you want five minutes of her time and they ask for your info so they can send you mailers advertising $1500 a plate fund raising dinners, well that just takes some of the shine off the process. Likewise when you realize you likely won't be able to get your five minutes until you go to that dinner, well.... there ya go.

I am of course talking about the main, national political figures. You could get anybody at the state government level to show up at just about anything. They are fairly easy to reach. I went to high school with my local assemblymen and we played on the same football team. I can still get him on the phone fairly easily. Our national congressional rep is Mary Bono but she has like 4 offices so good luck.

Tell me Shawn, if I don't know you in this regard what is your understanding on these matters. You made it quite clear that you think organizations like FAIR, don't actually have an agenda. I mean sure the have a link on their site called Activism, but hey that doesn't mean anything. Likewise you mention that the politicians you admire couldn't be part of any grand party scheme. Do you honestly think they don't sit there are find a way to spin the same bulleted talking points that everyone else in the party receives?

You know I happen to work during the hours when Rush Limbaugh is on but every once in a while when I am off work on a holiday I will tune to my normal radio station where they are playing some sort of best of show of his. I can't take him in large doses because he is a bit too aggrandizing for me, but he will do a bit I always seem to catch. (or maybe they just repeat it alot, I honestly wouldn't know) He will play the Democratic folks literally repeating the same word or talking point over and over on different days, different shows, but all hammering the same point. The last one I heard was before the 2000 election and had to do with "gravitas" with regard to Dick Cheney. He must have had 30+ people all using that talking point phrase.

Do I not believe that the Republicans do this? Of course I do. I know they do because I went to the 1996 Republican Convention and saw the talking point sheets myself. I also saw how hugely out of whack the size of the media is compared with the actual process of politics. (There were 3 media people there for each delegate)

So keep believing at your age, it is a good thing. Go volunteer and make some phone calls. Maybe you could even run the campaign for someone who has no chance of being elected like I got to do. Then spend some time with that girlfriend and get some sun.8)

Nick

As far as I know there's no-one gay in my family. I was talking about you.

Regardless, I showed how incest has a natural foundation and how percentage-wise it is comparable to homosexuality. Also you now understand that pheromones are not something I made up, but a valid scientific theory.

Nick

No. You didn't.


Totally irrelevant. The comparison is still foolish. Comparing a cultural behaviour to a natural predisposition. Stupid.



I've never heard or read a single thing about pheremones and incest and I can't find anything relevant on the web either. I'm going to the British Library today and I'll have a look through back-issues of Nature and Nature Genetics to see if pheremones are, as I suspect, junk science of the ESP / telekenisis kind or if you aren't actually talking out of your arse.

The latter is by far the most probable. In the meantime, you're welcome to post a link from any reputable on-line science journal to back up your claim that siblings are put off each other by pheremones.

I can quite confidently say you're talking bullshit.

edit: just found some stuff on the web about pheromones and incest. It's been researched. But I STILL kind find anything about people who are lacking pheromone sensitivity being prone to incest.

So you're still talking bullshit.

Bull
shit.

You have some weird 'moral' axe to grind and its more important to you than tolerance or reason. And then you have the nerve to accuse others of having "issues."

Why go to the library when you can do it online.

pheromone gene

Some more

Just the brief not access to the full article

Another

Hormones can affect brain development, even in adults

Neuroimaging - Summary article can be ordered or found in libary


Nose knows

A student page that references a few dozen articles to look up


Odor and incest

Father-daughter and menstration

I doubt you will credit all these and will likely find a way to dismiss everything that doesn't match your biases, but oh well I tried. I assure you as I said from the beginning that the science behind pheromones is better than the science behind homosexuality. That doesn't mean I am bashing homosexuality, I am saying that you are showing a bias if you would dismiss one, but not the other.

Nick

As a sociologist its in my genes to deny anything but the enviroment as a determine for what you are.

BUT

Why is this such a strong matter? What does it really change if its in our genes, enviroment, choice or coinsidenes? For me it has nothing to do with the question of homosexuality being wrong or right.

The argument doesn´t change for that reason: There is nothing wrong with being homosexual because like being straight it doesn´t hurt anyone. To discuss what "causes" homosexuality is to let the argument slide. Then you say "Homosexuality is not wrong becuase it isn´t a choice" even if you don´t want to say it.

Always keep your arguments clear and to the point of you view.

(yeah my ability to express myself is very reduced these days. But I think you all get the point)

As far as anyone has been able to prove, humans don't even have pheromones. So I'm not sure what to say about all those links.