age, ageism, maturity...

[chrisd]

+1

However, I would like to disagree on one point. The essence of true Christianity (as opposed to what most Christians seem to really believe), is that one views one's "righteousness to be as filthy rags" to quote the bible. In other words, the true Christian viewpoint is one of our personal unworthiness, which helps to not breed pride and to engender humility and meekness. From the Christian viewpoint, a Christian is only acceptable to God, because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
So, in this way, we mostly agree. The same bible enjoins us to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" and yet gives us the confidence that "My sheep no my voice and will follow me". I think you can see that a Christian viewpoint is not fraught with contradiction, but filled with guidance to continually seek God's help to become a better person, and become a better "servant to all". The Christian who does little to nothing to become a better person, for lack of a better term here, is experiencing very little of the blessings that God has to offer, and really living in defeat to their own faults, prejudices, and bad choices.

This mixture of self-deprecating views on the one hand and love on the other hand does not strike me as possibly being the most effective way to have a spiritual life. What about a belief that people can actually know themselves as powerful and be filled with divine love at the same time? If it were possible to hold such a belief, would it not be a lot more satisfying?

[Lord Pein]

My response was rather simple, we were getting ready for bed, so I acknowledged his choice, told him I loved him, and went back to bed.

Now you have got me wondering, when did you chose to only be attracted to women?

[gawdzilla]

the lifestyle is a choice the option isn't

[INW]

We had a huge discussion about this at school.

We found out that a persons hormones and sexual preferences are created somewhere in the uterus before birth.

Fun Fact: Everyone starts out as a female and male parts form around 9 weeks.

[Lord Pein]

Liz, elaborate?

I can't say as a father, that I was exactly thrilled for my son to come out.

Why weren't you thrilled? From my experience, gays tend to get MORE women than strait guys.

[sinewav]

Liz, elaborate?

I'm going to take a chance an elaborate for her. I think she means that homosexuals have no choice in their sexual orientation, but they do have some degree of choice on how they carry about and what cultural elements they embrace. If a gay person found a gay-lifestyle problematic they could choose a very unsatisfying asexual lifestyle instead (might be slightly less painful for some?). So there is a small element of choice, not in the orientation but the expression - though I think it's terrible to have to make that choice at all. Damn those who rebuke homosexuality.

I can't say as a father, that I was exactly thrilled for my son to come out.

Why weren't you thrilled? From my experience, gays tend to get MORE women than strait guys.

True dat. And they rarely get a girl knocked-up either. It looks like a total win if you ask me. As long as your son stays away from ignorant people who would look down on him because of something he can't control (including his family) he should do OK in the world.

[compguygene]

My response was rather simple, we were getting ready for bed, so I acknowledged his choice, told him I loved him, and went back to bed.

Now you have got me wondering, when did you chose to only be attracted to women?

Good question! Nobody has ever asked me that before. To me, that just shows me how insightful you truly can be, Lord Pein. I also do actually have an answer. I was self-aware enough to notice that age of 16, I was attracted to men, occasionally. In fact, to be completely honest, although I am not fully aware of it, I would assume that that happens to this day. Of course, I think that these labels "Homosexual" and "Heterosexual" are inaccurate at best. Psychologists provide an interesting analysis of the problem. If you create a scale, with 1 being purely "Heterosexual" and 10 being purely "Homosexual", they say that most people fall in the range of a 4 to a 6. Very, very low percentages of people would rate as a 1 or a 10. Given that, and my own self-awareness, I would say that the labels are the first mistake. I would say that I, since I became fully aware of my own feelings, have actively chosen to only go with the attraction for females. But, I am not so naive to say that I could never "play for the other team" so to speak.

[Lord Pein]

I would say that I, since I became fully aware of my own feelings, have actively chosen to only go with the attraction for females..

This is why I asked that question. Not sure if you share the same opinion as Liz; but if you meant "choice" as in he chose to be gay (assuming that's what he came out as), your thoughts are wrong.

^ Hope that made sense, let me know if it didn't.

If you are choosing to only "go with" your attraction for females, you are still bisexual.

[Clutch]

"play for the other team" so to speak.

You don't happen to watch Seinfeld do you

[compguygene]

I would say that I, since I became fully aware of my own feelings, have actively chosen to only go with the attraction for females..

This is why I asked that question. Not sure if you share the same opinion as Liz; but if you meant "choice" as in he chose to be gay (assuming that's what he came out as), your thoughts are wrong.

^ Hope that made sense, let me know if it didn't.

If you are choosing to only "go with" your attraction for females, you are still bisexual.

By those definitions, 90% of us, self included, are bi-sexual. As stated before, we really need to get beyond labels in this kind of conversation. To define my feelings, and those of my son better, I will explain. I do find the idea of being in a male-male sexual relationship to be repulsive. My son finds the idea of being in a male-female sexual relationship repulsive. However, that in no way means that I am never attracted to a man, or my son is never attracted to a woman. I think if we are going to have a serious conversation about this, we need to, as we seem to be, acknowledge that something like human sexuality is just a bit more complicated than the box some stupid label would put us in.
Perhaps with this further explanation you can see that I do have a bit more sophisticated understanding of human sexuality than the primitive views of your average "Conservative Christian", which is yet another label that people like to put on me.

[Lord Pein]

I don't care about labels. My point is that sexuality is not a choice.

[Phytotron]

Sexual orientation is no more a "choice" or "lifestyle" than gender, skin color, height, or eye color. Choice only enters in when it comes to behaviour related to sexuality. Positions (er, no pun intended) on sexual behaviour should apply equally to all sexual orientations—and genders.

Those who espouse the slogan "condemn the sin, love the sinner" as it relates to homosexuality betray a gross misunderstanding of the above. People who use that credo think they're being loving, charitable, tolerant. They're not. Besides the obvious patronizing, condescending tone of it, what the objects of that line hear is, "You say homosexuality is a sin, but I am inherently gay. It is who I am. It can't be changed. Therefore, I must be inherently, irreparably sinful." Some are able to dismiss that for its absurdity, but unfortunately, some, especially the young and those who are raised in religiously conservative communities—and this goes for both GLBT's as well as their persecutors—often are not, with terrible results.

It's very easy to condemn the act and not the person.

Interesting to see this point made on these forums...

Thing is, you would, I presume, like to interpret that as, "I can do whatever I want and get away with it, so long as I say/believe I'm a good person!" That's faulty reasoning. I also put this to Lucifer on the principle: First time someone makes a "mistake" for not knowing any better, fine. After that, they're supposed to know better (where it involves avoidable behaviour, as opposed to clumsiness or something, obviously) and should increasingly be held responsible for their infractions.

I'm curious about the logical extensions of your position. If someone exhibits an objectionable behaviour repeatedly and deliberately, at what point do you cease absolving them of it?

[Lord Pein]

Sexual orientation is no more a "choice" or "lifestyle" than gender, skin color, height, or eye color. Choice only enters in when it comes to behaviour related to sexuality. Positions (er, no pun intended) on sexual behaviour should apply equally to all sexual orientations—and genders.

Those who espouse the slogan "condemn the sin, love the sinner" as it relates to homosexuality betray a gross misunderstanding of the above. People who use that credo think they're being loving, charitable, tolerant. They're not. Besides the obvious patronizing, condescending tone of it, what the objects of that line hear is, "You say homosexuality is a sin, but I am inherently gay. It is who I am. It can't be changed. Therefore, I must be inherently, irreparably sinful." Some are able to dismiss that for its absurdity, but unfortunately, some, especially the young and those who are raised in religiously conservative communities—and this goes for both GLBT's as well as their persecutors—often are not, with terrible results.

+1

[chrisd]

I do not believe the "we could all have been bisexual" talk that one sometimes hears. Let us look at a poll that was held at another forum that I sometimes vist. Here: http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/soci ... i-gay.html

The poll asks about both behavior and attraction but I think the distribution would be more or less the same when it would have been asked about just attraction.

Another matter is that for women it is different. It is estimated that there are about half as many lesbian women as there are gay men.

Personally, if I had had 50% attraction to both sexes, I think I would have gone with the heterosexual part of me. Seems easier. However, in actual fact, I would estimate the heterosexual part of me to be less than 2%. In such a case there is no choice.

Also, I can't say I like the word "gay lifestyle" very much. A lifestyle can be partying, monogamous, polyamorous, dating, non-sexual and so on. This distinction is much more important to understand a persons lifestyle than what their sexual nature is.

[chrisd]

Damn those who rebuke homosexuality.

Let us not damn them!!!!!!!!! Damning them would not be nice!!!!!!!!! Let us love them instead and thereby show that hate is not the solution!!!!!!!!!!!!!