Thursday, August 30, 2007

[gays] time to get this in perspective

I was on Oscar's side in his dispute with the Marquess of Queensberry because of the latter's unintellectual boorishness.

Mine is a minor blog in the scheme of things, a mere blip on the radar and it's going to become even more marginal after this post.

Principles are the last resort of a rogue, sometimes more important to people than justice, decency and common sense. Occasionally though, principles force their way into one's consciousness and that dreaded position looms up before one - taking a stand.

I must now take a stand, which of course can only lead to my being swept off my little perch. So be it.

This blogger stated yesterday that he hadn't thought much about gays per se, except in oblique references to the gay mafia. My dealings with such people has been friendly and I count gays among friends. I don't know whether there are degrees of "gayness" and whether one is a bit that way or wholly so.

I do know that as a child, I was molested by family friends who were men and not just once. I never told about it because I was ashamed. I also know it affects people in different ways and am well aware of the vampire principle - that one can become one.

I hope I haven't done that but I certainly react with horror if a man even attempts to pat my shoulder or do a standard European embrace. I know I have to go through with it but it's nauseating to me to touch or be touched by another man and I hope I haven't over-compensated with women. As for girls - there used to be an inbuilt societal mechanism which protected them and long live this mechanism, I say.

By the way, that's precisely what is now being broken down by the corrosive moral degeneracy being pushed so hard by my implacable enemy in schools, film, music, upbringing and so on today. Girls of twelve no longer have any protection, are out roaming around freely and I'm wondering where the hell the parents are - are they living in zombie land or pretending it's not happening? Do they think that conferring such freedom on their daughters is leading the daughter to self-discipline?

I have news - things are happening with daughters and my source is big girls who now look back and tell.

Back to gays. This particular "thing" is not normal. Normal is being brought up with an emerging sexuality in cotton wool, well protected by two older generations of caring family, where teachers accept their responsibility to teach right from wrong and then after a hell of a lot of flirting and petting, partners are chosen and they marry. [Yes, I know - the railway cuttings blooming with wildflowers, the bobby on his beat and all well with the world.]

Yet this has been the pattern of interpersonal realtions in the majority of societies over time except for Caligula type aberrances and it protects children and keeps society sane. To point to societies which have gone soft and descended into this, such as ours now but to seize on it as historical justification is utter tosh and cynically ignores that socieites go through stages, just as ours is doing now.

I am dead against "gay bashing" or in fact "anyone bashing" and reject utterly being lumped in with the boors, the bourgeoisie and the intolerant by shrill overreaction to the tone of this article. I'm especially against intolerance of gays, if the participants are adult, so let me spell out what this blog is actually dead against:

1. the calling of aberrant behaviour an equal alternative and introducing the erroneous term "orientation" into the discussion;

2. the calling of this drive "moving on", as in "I'd hoped we'd moved on from this", when what it really means is "descending to oblivion";

2. the gay mafia driving the legislative process outlawing anyone who would call a spade a spade;

3. the hijacking of language, such as the word "spade" and rendering it unusable. I deliberately used the term now in its historic idiomatic sense and will continue to do so. I'll use "gay" to mean lighthearted, frivolous, happy; I'll use "rainbow" to mean that thing you see in the sky.

Monty Python, who had an answer for just about everything and pricked [another of those words] the bubble of pomposity and folly, summed up the whole Thought Police mindset in the stoning scene in Brian. "Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah!" called out the unrepentant. Labelling the mindset of the religious elite and mob "Christian" shows either a very shaky or a deeply cynical grasp of theological history and a desire to lay the blame for human excess onto what is, after all, a quite pure set of criteria for living together.

Where does this leave gays? It leaves them with their partners, unharrassed, living the life they want and continuing to enrich the cultural and social history of nations and contributing to understanding and intellect, as opposed to boorishness and priggishness. It leaves the vast majority to get on with their own normal lives. The two meet at parties and are friends. Many readers of this blog who are gay are more than welcome because I don't judge you on your gayness but on your intelligence level.

But to call gayness or "bi-ness" normal and to try to drive public policy and get in to schools and spread this dangerous twaddle; to outlaw anyone who tries to oppose it and to lead campaigns of vilification against them - this is purely and simply wrong and as such, I simply won't be intimidated.

Now what are they going to do - press for my incarceration or something worse to punish me for having the temerity to speak sanity, thereby revealing their true selves? Are they going to ostracize me by never visiting my blog again and trying to prevent others doing so? In this increasingly convoluted society of today - I'd bet that's exactly what some would like to do.

However, to end on a positive note, I also hope there'd be those who would take it in the spirit in which it was given - a plea for sanity to return to our society before it's too late.

Graham Chapman - great example of the very long list of gay people who have enriched our cultural heritage

23 comments:

  1. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

    There is a risk that you're linking all forms of non-heterosexual behaviour, which I wholeheartedly repudiate. I'm very sorry - genuinely sorry - if you were molested as a child, but that does not mean - not for a moment - that there is any link between your abusers and homosexuals or between abusers in general and homosexuals.

    As to normal... what is normal? If something is normal, why shouldn't people do what isn't 'normal'? I would add that heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.

    As to the inbuilt societal mechanism that protected girls... well, fill in the usual stuff about patriarchy, gender stereotypes, etc, etc

    I'm afraid that your post comes across as 'I don't like homosexuals'. I don't care. Tbh, this is not your greatest post. It's rambling and, I'm afraid, at times incoherent.

    xD.

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  2. Sorry to take a contrary position, Dave but I printed this out this morning and ran it past my friend also a professor]with English in the Nabokov league.

    He said what I'd thought that this was one of the clearest and most lucid posts I've ever written. He asked if he could use it in his own work.

    What he liked was that it was not anti-gay but anti-gay mafia and spelt the distinction out quite clearly. I'm glad that came across and that if he could see it, then a native speaker of English would see it even better.

    The criticism so far seems very much that of someone who doesn't like the message, more than the way it was put. Naturally this article will be unpopular and will lose me many readers - the gay and feminist mafias are enormously powerful and I'm attacking them head-on.

    But to interpret it as anti-gay is to misread the words.

    "As to normal... what is normal?"

    This is precisely what was discussed an hour ago. There has to be some sort of societal agreement on that and thank goodness, for the west, there is - the Judaeo-Christian ethic as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount.

    That prescribes normalcy in clear, unambiguous terms. No "well things have mved on from that" or "that was for another time, another place".

    It is as fresh today as when it was delivered. Even attempt to follow that and all else falls into place.

    My professor friend also said, in summing up, that it is not the persons or their lifestyles, it is the imposing on society of their views which is so nauseating and he should know, coming from the Soviet Union.

    This is what the gay and feminist mafia are doing and this is what I address. Any attempt to broaden my criticism is your prerogative but it is not what I said.

    So "I'm afraid your post comes across as" has no meaning in this context. My post cn only come across as what was clearly spelt out.

    Sorry if that offends.

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  3. James to take on your critique of Dave's points a bit.

    Firstly lets deal with the idea of feminist and gay mafias taking over the world- to be honest I've been in a UK university now for several years and I really don't see this at all around me. I see some misguided efforts to redeem past abuses- I see many efforts which I approve of but I don't see a huge conspiracy and I need evidence before I see one.

    So far as I see it most of the advances in this area have been made in terms of making the law equally apply to all. Lets take one issue marriage- that is not the imposition by homosexuals on everyone else of anything, its the extension of a right in law to homosexuals. Much of the feminist movement's recent changes in law over the last fifty years have been in the same equalising direction- the UK only twenty years ago changed its law to forbid rape from happening in marriage- surely a neccessary law change if there ever was one. Women are now allowed into universities in the same way as men are- until 1988 Cambridge still had an all male college- now all the colleges admit both sexes and that's great. I'm not a great fan of positive discrimination but I can understand the logic behind it- my personal view is that it sometimes can be the wrong way to acheive the right end which is parity between the sexes.

    Secondly James on the issue of words. I too use gay to mean happy- that's what it used to mean and is a perfectly good meaning of the word. But I understand why some words have fallen out of use- they are impolite. In reality political correctness is about ultimately being polite- some people think that politeness should be leglislated I don't agree but that's because in general I don't agree with leglislating things like that not because of any objection to a gay or feminist mafia.

    As to normalcy defined through the sermon on the mount. The Sermon on the Mount makes no reference to sexuality- indeed so far as I am aware neither does Christ. Paul does, and so does the Old Testament but only marginal ones. There is a lot of discussion anyway about whether the ancients understood sexuality in the same way that we do. Anyway can you establish for any reason apart from God said so that homosexuality is wrong- if you can't is your moral compass just a matter of agreeing with God because he is powerful. That is a vast theological issue but its one we have to get into if your argument boils down to the bible.

    You see ultimately I can't see any reason James that homosexuality is the inferior option to heterosexuality. If two people want to live together but happen to be of the same sex and desire each other, why aren't they exactly the same as two people who are of different sexes who desire to live together, what exactly is the difference- same love, same charity, same compassion to each other, etc etc etc.

    You have used the word normal. There is no question that homosexual behaviour is natural- most animals that have sexes (actually a small minority) exhibit it in some form or another. Heterosexuality is the sexual profession of the majority of us but then the majority prefer reading the Sun to reading Edward Gibbon- not sure that means I'm wrong to read Gibbon.

    You say you aren't arguing about homosexuality, but then you say its immoral. You say there is a gay mafia out there working at some nefarious project- what exactly are they doing- I am heterosexual and feel no threat from anyone. You say there is a feminist mafia- again what are they up to- again being a male I feel no threat.

    I'm afraid despite your Professor, I really don't understand what you are getting at here.

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  4. Btw can I add my voice to those regretting your sexual abuse- that must have been terrible- I hope you have dealt with it. But again I'm not sure that you have established that there is any link between homosexuality and paedophilia and definitely it is true that most homosexuals are not paedophiles.

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  5. James, I am unaware of any law that says friends must agree 100% of the time. As a friend, it grieves me deeply to hear that you were abused as a child, and to learn some of the effects it has had on you. It seems to me that it must have taken great courage for you to reveal this.

    Anything else I might have to add on the other aspects of this post are trivial in comparison.

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  6. "The Sermon on the Mount makes no reference to sexuality"

    Chapter 5 sets the model for relationships, which as you know, merely built on what was already there in Judaic tradition.

    "I don't see a huge conspiracy and I need evidence before I see one."

    Start with Californian legislation in the past year. It is everywhere in the choice of texts in schools of higher learning, in the humanistic treatment of philosophy and social science and the exclusion of Christian.

    The point that you don't see it means only that you don't wish to look at this - if it wasn't there, people would not be up in arms about it as they are and as I've quoted them. There is very clear bias of a particularly pernicious nature. I didn't see it when I was actually there because I was sprouting this stuff myself and thereby passing with high grades.

    So no, of course you don't see it.

    "So far as I see it most of the advances in this area have been made in terms of making the law equally apply to all."

    Incarceration of any who would speak out against homosexuality being forced on society as an equally valid alternative to normal relations is an advance? And incarceration IS the penalty because it's been forced onto the statutes. Whether it is rule by the feminists, gays, balcks, Muslims, children, American Inuit or whoever, it is no advance when the tail wags the dog.

    This is not advance or moving forward - this is societal descent such as all soft societies go through before the end. Do you think, overall, Britain is in good shape?

    "I can't see any reason James that homosexuality is the inferior option to heterosexuality."

    For the simple reason it is not an option - you're tied up in the language of your own artificial construct. This whole thing of "option" is a construct meant to pave the way for a deviant version of sexuality to become equally valid.

    It is Stan in Life of Brian saying he wants to have a baby. But you can't have a baby, Stan, where's the foetus going to gestate? Don't oppress me! The girl says - well let's fight for Stans' RIGHT to have a baby.

    Homosexuality is what some people do and they should be left alone to do it with no emotive language used to oppress them. But to say it is in any way "normal" or a valid choice is historic bunkum.

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  7. Well, I disagree with your learned friend. No offence taken, and I hope none given.

    You talk about having been molested as a child and then talk about homosexuality. Now, I know post hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy, but I'm entitled to ask why you feel the need to link those two, quite seperate, ideas.

    On to the 'inbuilt societal protection mechanism'. I question why it should be different for girls and boys. In practice, I would say that such a separation at a young age leads to the sexist attitudes we see in later life, whether it be gender pay gaps or the idea that women should stay in the home.

    I don't know where you're based geographically, but in the UK at the moment there is a lot of debate about teenagers' behaviour. Certainly, there are problems with parenting, opportunities and some of the popular media. However, to make a link between that and homosexuality seems somewhat odd, if for no other reason that posts like this mean that homosexuals often go out of their way to be upstanding members of the community.

    Where (and sorry if I missed it, but I'm at work) do you talk about the gay mafia in your post? Am I missing something? What is the evidence for a gay mafia?

    "There has to be some sort of societal agreement on that and thank goodness, for the west, there is - the Judaeo-Christian ethic as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount."

    Why does there have to be some sort of societal agreement, and what does it have to be on? Are you arguing for a Grotian grundnorm, or merely saying that it's better if people accept the rules of the game and, if they don't, try to change the rules within the existing rules?

    As the the Sermon on the Mount being a basis of a Judaeo-Christian ethic: what, in verse eight of Matt 5, does 'pure in heart' mean? If verse 18 means that the Jewish law will not have anything taken away from it until the second coming, why isn't eating shellfish banned?

    I don't know how this relates to atheists. I am increasingly becoming atheist, having once been quite religious (Church of England/Episcopalian). I wonder if my thoughts are locked into a Judaeo-Christian morality, having had that viewpoint engrained on me?

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  8. "Homosexuality is what some people do and they should be left alone to do it with no emotive language used to oppress them. But to say it is in any way "normal" or a valid choice is historic bunkum."

    There is no such thing as normal. Normal does not exist. Even if there is a default or normal position, why does that make it anything other than common? I am not normal - I wear hats, my beard is a different colour and I have a short neck.

    What the hell is a 'valid choice'? Does it mean 'one you approve of' or 'one you don't object to too much'?

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  9. "It is Stan in Life of Brian saying he wants to have a baby. But you can't have a baby, Stan, where's the foetus going to gestate? Don't oppress me! The girl says - well let's fight for Stans' RIGHT to have a baby."

    At some point, some clever scientist will invent the artificial womb, and we will have debates about things not being natural and we will have to fight for Stan's right to have a baby.

    The point being made in Monty Python's Life of Brian (well, one of many) was that the left went on about things that were tactically stupid. The principle is correct, although the timing - circa 30AD - was lousy.

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  10. "Start with Californian legislation in the past year. It is everywhere in the choice of texts in schools of higher learning, in the humanistic treatment of philosophy and social science and the exclusion of Christian.

    The point that you don't see it means only that you don't wish to look at this - if it wasn't there, people would not be up in arms about it as they are and as I've quoted them. There is very clear bias of a particularly pernicious nature. I didn't see it when I was actually there because I was sprouting this stuff myself and thereby passing with high grades.

    So no, of course you don't see it."

    Links, please. I'd like to take a read.

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  11. "Chapter 5 sets the model for relationships, which as you know, merely built on what was already there in Judaic tradition."

    Rubbish.

    I'm using the NIV located at http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205:1-7:27;&version=31; for this comment.

    Matt 5 1-12: the Beatitudes
    Nothing about relationships; lots about generally being nice to people

    Matt 5 13-16: Salt and light
    Once you're wholly bad, you can't recover goodness and you should show your goodness to the world. Nothing about relationships

    Matt 5 17-20: Jesus says that he's not there to destroy the Jewish law. Nothing about relationships.

    Matt 5 21-26: The mens rea is tantamout to the actus reus. This is specifically different to English law, where the mens rea is a necessary but not sufficient condition for premeditation. Nothing about relationships.

    Matt 5 27-32: Same argument, but applied to sex instead of murder.

    Matt 5 33-37: You shouldn't even implictly lie by swearing by something you cannot affect. Nothing about relationships.

    Matt 5 38 ad fin: Eye for an eye/turn the other cheek. Nothing about relationships. Love your enemies. Nothing about relationships.

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  12. James you and I are not going to get on on this. I don't see that objecting when someone calls you inferior is oppressive.

    For the record as I said above I wouldn't leglislate but that is what has happened- and I would remind you for centuries there was leglislation on the books to stop people insulting Christianity in tersm of the blasphemy leglislation. One might say that those wanting to reinstate the blasphemy laws were a Christian mafia.

    As to the Stan comparison the point was that Stan couldn't have a baby and no ammount of saying that he could could make him have one. People can be homosexual- indeed many are so the example is invalid- it is an option and some people pursue it or do you deny that people are homosexual.

    And I repeat- what is immoral about it. It happens (pregnant men don't at the moment) and why should it not happen beyond the fact that your God has said it should not.

    I get the sense this argument ultimately is coming down into a contest between entrenched positions and that neither of us is learning very much. As a last point, as Ian said the most important thing probably to be said is how sorry I am for the abuse you suffered as a child- I really am- and could you take that away as the lasting impression of these comments. Friends can disagree and this is one area where you and I are opposed- but more important I hope is the vote of sympathy.

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  13. Dave, if you want the specific reference, it is Matthew 5:27,28; 31,32. In four lines is the whole basis of normal relations. Why use 50 lines when 4 will do?

    Being a little less religious about it, here is Dale O'Leary's take:

    Dale O'Leary, in The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality, p. 24:

    The "family" in all ages and in all corners of the globe can be defined as a man and a woman bonded together through a socially approved covenant of marriage to regulate sexuality, to bear, raise, and protect children, to provide mutual care and protection, to create a small home economy, and to maintain continuity between the generations, those going before and those coming after.

    It is out of the reciprocal, naturally recreated relations of the family that the broader communities—such as tribes, villages, peoples, and nations—grow.

    F.L. Morton & Rainer Knopff, in The Charter Revolution & The Court Party (p.75), state:

    Contemporary (or second wave) feminism has aptly been described as "Marxism without economics", since feminists replace class with gender as the key social construct. Of course, what society constructs can be deconstructed. This is the feminist project: to abolish gender difference by transforming its institutional source — the patriarchal family.

    Certain streams of the Gay Rights movement have taken this analysis one step further. The problem is not just sexism but heterosexism, and the solution is to dismantle not just the patriarchal family but the heterosexual family as such.

    This is the process which is going down and anger has no place in it. It is a clinically clear agenda recognized by rightist thinkers and written on by them.

    Links, please. I'd like to take a read.

    One to start with:

    http://www.city-journal.org/html/
    eon2007-02-09hm.html

    ... commented on here:

    http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/

    Just one tiny instance of the whole thing which I have 78 references to in a post last year.

    A comment was made on that post:

    The very fact that rabid feminists (like any other rabid political type group) believe they know what's better for us and want to manage our lives, should make any educated person cringe.

    This is fairly and squarely what I'm zeroing in on - not gays per se, s I've been saying over and over.

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  14. James,

    I think you are selectively interpreting Matthew. I went through all of the Sermon on the Mount because that's where you said it was.

    As I said in an earlier post, Jesus was talking about mens rea (guilty mind) being tantamount to actus reus (guilty act). That is directly at odds with UK and, I believe, US law. All Jesus was saying in the parts you mention is that if you contract to something - marriage - for life, then you cannot get out of it. The merits of that are another debate, but it sets out a rule for a type of contract between a man and a woman. At no time does it say that you can't have a similar relationship between two men or between two women.

    You refer to it as "the whole basis of normal relations".

    Both Tiberius Gracchus and I have challenged you on normal; is there any such thing and, if there is, why does it matter. You have no provided a response.

    If it is the "whole basis", were all relations prior to Jesus saying it abnormal, or is it referring to some ideal form of a relationship? That does soudns distinctly neo-Platonic.

    The works you have cited are from a particular position. They do not represent everyone on that wing of the argument. I could say that you fall into the category of "less pro gay rights than me" and, by the same logic, say that you advocate, say, stripping gays of the vote. Not everyone on my side of the argument is a Marxist.

    "The "family" in all ages and in all corners of the globe can be defined as a man and a woman bonded together through a socially approved covenant of marriage to regulate sexuality, to bear, raise, and protect children, to provide mutual care and protection, to create a small home economy, and to maintain continuity between the generations, those going before and those coming after."

    It can be defined as that; it can also be defined as a melon. That is an assertion based on prejudice not an argument based on fact. It also assumes that sexuality requires regulating, that families are a teleological good and that social approval is required for the above.

    "It is out of the reciprocal, naturally recreated relations of the family that the broader communities—such as tribes, villages, peoples, and nations—grow."

    One of the definitions of a nation that I like is an imagined community - you don't know everyone within a group that you mutually define yourselves as members of. It is also an automatic community, such that you cannot opt out of it; by extension, other forms of association are not natural.

    You also have to justify - still - why natural is good or not natural is bad.

    "The very fact that rabid feminists (like any other rabid political type group) believe they know what's better for us and want to manage our lives, should make any educated person cringe."

    That could be rewritten as

    "The very fact that rabid traditionalists (like any other rabid political type group) believe they know what's better for us and want to manage our lives, should make any educated person cringe."

    The article you link to from the conservative quarterly, City Journal, is talking about one person. It conflates 'one successful woman [Faust]' with 'women are successful'.

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  15. And why are you conflating feminism and gay equality?

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  16. Dave, I'll address only the last one because we are clearly not going to agree and I value your friendship more highly than my stance on issues.

    And why are you conflating feminism and gay equality?

    This is loaded and I've pointed out four times already why. Equality with what? Gay-ness is a branch off the main trunk of a tree. It can't exist on its own, any more than extreme feminism can.

    The procreative trunk is a tyrant, it is inconvenient, we can rail against it but it exists. It's not an issue even until it tries to BE the trunk or dictate to the trunk what to do.

    This last is my only angle and I've tried to steer a course only with this in sight.

    I'd like to see legislation and the judicial process get right out of sexual relations and confine itself to any crime of any nature against any human of whatever hue.

    Seriously, this is all I have left in the tank to say.

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  17. James,
    I think it is extremely brave to talk of such abuse. I , for one, believe that abuse must be brought out into the open, for that is often when it ends. Sorry to hear of your experiences. I think under the circumstances you are very tolerant indeed. While I do tend to agree with James that gayness, in terms of the norm is a little off center, like James, I am tolerant of others lifestyles, as long as it doesn't harm or offend anyone.
    Any man who molests a male child IS gay, although not all gays are child molesters and probably more molesters are hetro.
    James, NEVER stop speaking out on what you believe in, whether popular or not, -it's what I love about you!
    Very good post- I agree, one of your best( which did not include me , of course) :)

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  18. I, too, think you have been very courageous to write about having been molested as a child and I am so sorry this happened to you.
    I have worries with your definition of "normal" because I am not sure that it is something that can be defined.
    There is a theory that there are now less marriageable men around because of the acceptance of gay relationships in the west: what does that tell us? That in the past gay men married women and had gay affairs. There has been hypocrisy in every society over this: Queen Victoria believing that homosexuality existed among men but that such a thing was impossible among women; many Taliban are known to be gay; and of course homosexuality is rife in certain institutions where it is not possible to have relationships with members of the opposite sex, this last telling us that we all need an outlet for desire. I was once in love with a gay man and it was one of the most painful experiences of my life. But observing the world he lived in made me conclude that none of us is totally heterosexual: it's a matter of degree and who you meet.
    Now, the issue here is whether gay couples are to be tolerated or whether they are to have exactly the same rights as other sorts of couples: a gay couple whom I know in the UK are trying to adopt. I can see that they would want to as both work in the community and see terrible things. They must think that they would make better parents than many heterosexual couples that they deal with and I'm sure they want to give their love to a child in the best possible way. The liberal in me wants to say"good luck to them" but I think back to something my Dad [the most tolerant of men and way ahead of his time on most issues] said about adoption and it was this: "If you adopt a child it is not for you, to cement or mend your relationship. It is for that child. And a child who is up for adoption, however young, has already suffered great trauma. You HAVE to bear that in mind. You have no right to knowingly bring further trauma into its life." And he said that 50 years ago. There are some things we cannot sacrifce on the altar of political correctness and I think this may be one of them.

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  19. No lengthy diatribes, just a few words. Abuse of children is utterly inexcusable and condemnable. We should sorrow that this exists and berate ourselves that it exists in such quantities.

    Entirely separately, sexuality seems to me to have no truck with normalcy - it just IS. Between consenting adults that are not causing themselves physical harm (ie no-one else has to mop up the consequences), I cannot see how the varying sexualities can be described as abhorrent. Therefore insisting that there is only one type of sexuality that can be honoured with the impossibility of "normal" (considering what are the thankfully open range of partnerships on view in a tolerant society,) seems to me to be twaddle, and educating folks in this way will inevitably lead to dangerous prejudice and its vile consequences.
    And none of this will stop me reading this blog. Why would it?

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  20. Although there was no direct sexual abuse in my childhood home, there was extreme violence, emotional neglect and gross infidelity. All these early year violations have very significant impacts on my day to day life even now.

    Part of my issue is the unwillingness of the parties to apologise or even acknowledge what happened.

    I am sorry this happened to you James and I know how difficult it is to confront it far more so in a public forum.

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  21. James - you don't mention whether the family friends were single or married, but if they were single and assumed or known to be gay,
    I wonder if this has led to your somehow equating paedophilia with homosexuality? It's not clear if your intention is to do that here, only that it is possible to read it in that way as you have placed the childhood abuse within the context of your attitude towards homosexuality.

    Most sexual assaults against children are committed by heterosexual men who have access to
    their own children, grand-children,nieces,nephews,cousins, to the children of friends, or those they come into contact with through work or voluntary activities. The majority of abusers are sly opportunists who often go undetected due to their being in 'respectable' heterosexual adult relationships - many of them
    have no preference as to the gender of their victims, abusing any available child. Obviously some homosexuals are paedophiles, but it's no more likely to be typical of the homosexual than of the heterosexual.

    That you are now physically revulsed by presumably any male physical contact makes me wonder if your abusers were in fact heterosexual, this added confusion leaving you forever wary of physical contact with any male?

    Whatever the circumstances, I hope the pathetic b******* got a good kicking at some stage in their lives. No, I don't, actually - chemical castration would have been more civilised and useful.

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  22. James,
    Ladies, Gentlemen,
    this post and the following discussion made ... a difference!
    Chapeau!

    ReplyDelete

Comments need a moniker of your choosing before or after ... no moniker, not posted, sorry.