Michael, we can barely get along civilly when we post to each other jokingly about gerbils who wear tiny diapers, and ransom demands, so I am really reluctant to even write you a serious post. But I will try just this once, and see how it goes.
First, I don't think you are among the most conservative or intolerant people at SI, by a long shot. You have said, I believe, that you support the rights of homosexuals to be scoutmasters. Is that still correct? That is not really a very conservative stance, and in fact your beliefs are a little all over the map like everyone else's.
Do you agree with Freddy that Boy Scouts should have to believe in God? Doesn't that make them a religious organization? Shouldn't some of the free public benefits and charitable contributions they get be adjusted if only Christian boys can join? When you are talking about the far left forcing "their beliefs . . . on people who do not want their children indoctrinated in such ways" would you agree that the Scouts are doing that right now?
I am particularly puzzled that you would assume that the Far Left is unanimous in supporting abortion rights. I actually think they should be a little more limited than they are, and I am sure you would consider me Far Left. Or that the Far Left and "free thinkers" are all one and the same. Really, they are not at all. And specifically, free-thinking has absolutely nothing to do with any particular belief system at all. That is why it is called FREE thinking. In fact, many libertarians are free thinkers!! You are getting a lot of stuff mixed up with socialism as well, which is a pretty defunct way of thinking even in formerly totalitarian regimes, and it seems to be more of a smear campaign than anything else when you talk about it. Or maybe you really don't understand.
In my opinion you take a bunch of subjects that you have somehow associated with each other, although they are not really related very closely, and then go ahead and make some leap of logic and start talking about spotted owls or something, which has nothing to do with the subject. I also think you really seriously believe a lot of the information on web pages you cite, but the facts are so far different that I wonder if you would still make some of the assertions that you do if you had real information that was true.
But that is all too jumbled and complex to take apart in one post. A few days ago you wrote some things that indicated you sincerely believe that homosexuality is contagious--that if acceptance of homosexual lifestyles was allowed to happen in this society, small children would be perverted and led astray. You particularly mentioned the books, as I recall, that are for young children to help them deal with having gay parents--to make them feel okay, and to also help other children understand so the children of the gay parents would not be ridiculed. I think you said the books were dirty and perverted, or something similar. Is that your belief? Out of curiosity I am going to go to the library and see what they actually say--Heather Has Two Mommies, and Daddy and His Roommate are the ones I am looking for--and see whether you are right, or I am in my belief that these books teach tolerance, which is very different from teaching children to be homosexual. When I find them we can talk again. But I think you get a lot of misinformation from Christian web pages, without doing any fact finding at all, or free thinking of your own, or trying to understand things like what really causes homosexuality. I think you would be a lot more tolerant if you had a better understanding, so this is important.
When you take your children out of the mainstream and teach them to be afraid of, or reject, different groups in the society, I think you are continuing to support hate and fear in another generation. I don't think you would do this if you had accurate information. |
