Indiana's governor signs bill allowing businesses to reject gay customers

[Starlight]

Besides, you changed up the goal post, yet again. From 'gay marriage' to 'homosexuality' in general.

You brought up the death penalty for gay sex. Sparko brought up gay marriage. Hamster brought up general punishment for being gay in India. Cerealman brought up Africa.

I've responded to each of you on each topic you've raised. I've never changed the topic here. Whereas you seem to keep personally shifting what you are arguing for from one post to the next, and apparently cannot even remember what you were arguing for in the previous post, as we can see from your easily-disproven claims that you hadn't talked about the death penalty for gay sex. Stop trying to project your failings onto me and stop accusing me of doing the things you yourself are doing.

I know you're very stupid and full of pride...
Keep digging Starlight because anything is better than admitting you're wrong, right?
What is amusing is watching Starlight change up the goal post...
Getting Starlight to admit he's wrong though is pointless though. He is incapable of admitting to error and prefers to double up on being wrong than just admit to his stupid mistakes.

The projection is incredible.

I've already admitted I was factually wrong about no non-Jewish/Christian/Muslim culture in history ever having a death penalty for gay sex, because the source I was relying on for that information was older than the very recent research which found that the Mongols at one point in their history did in fact have the death penalty for gay sex. I've got no problem admitting I'm wrong when it happens. But it doesn't often happen, because I actually base my views on evidence and facts rather than saying things simply because I like the sound of them. eg like Sparko does when he announces that there's been no same-sex marriage in the world for thousands of years, despite the fact that he knows this is false from previous discussions.

[lilpixieofterror]

You brought up the death penalty for gay sex. Sparko brought up gay marriage. Hamster brought up general punishment for being gay in India. Cerealman brought up Africa.

You said, you dumb twit:

The arrogance is breathtaking. You're assuming that Christians have some sort of right to define for everybody else what marriage is, when marriage is something that non-Christian people around the world have been doing for thousands of years.

I've certainly seen plenty of Christians try to take your proposed approach. It results in a lot of eye-rolling in their general direction.

You didn't mention Muslums or Jews, in your post. So you changed up the goal post from just blaming Christians of 'redefining marriage' to blaming Christians, Muslims, and Jews without ever admitting you were wrong. I know you're incapable of admitting to error, but if you don't admit to this error... I'm going to call you a bald false liar because you clearly only mentioned Christians and didn't mention Jews or Muslims until AFTER it was pointed out you were wrong. Try again idiot or do you just want to keep proving you're incapable of admitting to error and just want to dig your hole deeper?

I've responded to each of you on each topic you've raised. I've never changed the topic here. Whereas you seem to keep personally shifting what you are arguing for from one post to the next, and apparently cannot even remember what you were arguing for in the previous post, as we can see from your easily-disproven claims that you hadn't talked about the death penalty for gay sex. Stop trying to project your failings onto me and stop accusing me of doing the things you yourself are doing.

Wrong again twit here is what YOU SAID:

The arrogance is breathtaking. You're assuming that Christians have some sort of right to define for everybody else what marriage is, when marriage is something that non-Christian people around the world have been doing for thousands of years.

I've certainly seen plenty of Christians try to take your proposed approach. It results in a lot of eye-rolling in their general direction.

No mention of Jews or Muslims, until I mentioned and than you doubled up on your incompetence and suddently changed up the goal post to something else because you're incapable of admitting to error.

The projection is incredible.

I've already admitted I was factually wrong about no non-Jewish/Christian/Muslim culture in history ever having a death penalty for gay sex, because the source I was relying on for that information was older than the very recent research which found that the Mongols at one point in their history did in fact have the death penalty for gay sex. I've got no problem admitting I'm wrong when it happens. But it doesn't often happen, because I actually base my views on evidence and facts rather than saying things simply because I like the sound of them. eg like Sparko does when he announces that there's been no same-sex marriage in the world for thousands of years, despite the fact that he knows this is false from previous discussions.

Wrong again YOU SAID:

The arrogance is breathtaking. You're assuming that Christians have some sort of right to define for everybody else what marriage is, when marriage is something that non-Christian people around the world have been doing for thousands of years.

I've certainly seen plenty of Christians try to take your proposed approach. It results in a lot of eye-rolling in their general direction.

No mention of Jews or Muslims, until I brought it up and you changed up the goal post. The only projecting going on is YOU. Go ahead, admit you're wrong already or would that require actually admitting you don't know everything?

BTW Twit, you only can find a hand full of examples. One was a Roman emperor, who did it because he was the emperor and not because it was accepted by Rome as a whole (you also ignored the part where Nero castrated a boy). Your other example was an example of a much older man, having sexual relations with a much younger boy. Are these really the examples you want to use to 'prove' your point? You just don't think before you open your fat mouth, do you? By and far, the accepted marriage practice, across the world, has been between men and women and not men and men or women and women. Sexual practices, sure, but sexual practice and marriage are two different things.

[Jedidiah]

your argument, such as it is, is your interpretation of the biblical view of homosexuality. The undeniable fact is that many deluded christians disagree with your interpretation.

fify

[Jesse]

In your own country there was same-sex marriage traditionally practiced among the native peoples prior to European colonization.

I don't know why you continue to torture historical facts in order to push your agenda. You only do a disservice to a cultures customs you have very little knowledge of. Being a berdache was a specific role in Native American culture. It was someone who was looked on to have more than one sexual nature. It was not considered "same-sex marriage" to ancient Natives because the female "nature" of the berdache was marrying the man. A berdache's role to the tribe was to help out (mostly female) tribe members with work duties. Men of the tribe became berdache's through visions in order to be chosen as helpers. Some where allowed to marry and others weren't, depending on the rules and functions of the tribe and depending on what type of berdache they became. Don't you find it interesting how two berdache's were not allowed to have relationships with each other?

Berdache natures came in all flavores. Some where homosexual, bi-sexual, asexual, etc. To claim they were homosexuals that married is to miss the entire point of their function. I will ask you again to please stop forcing your modern definitions on ancient cultures.

[Starlight]

lilpixieofterror, I will be ignoring further posts from you. Unfortunately this site seems to have a bug that you can't be added to ignore lists. Be assured however that won't stop me from manually ignoring your posts.

Being a berdache was a specific role in Native American culture.

There was no monolithic Native American culture with one specific view of berdaches. In talking about berdaches it's important to realize we're generalizing about commonalities and varieties of practices among over 130 different tribes.

It was not considered "same-sex marriage" to ancient Natives because the female "nature" of the berdache was marrying the man.

Seems like you're splitting hairs with that one. It is quite clear that these societies typically allowed a person born with a male anatomy to marry another person born with a male anatomy, and allowed a person born with a female anatomy to marry another person born with a female anatomy. It is also quite clear that when the English arrived they took one look at it and basically said "Homosexuality! Same-sex marriage! Eww!"

Don't you find it interesting how two berdache's were not allowed to have relationships with each other?

Not overly, especially since the evidence for that being true doesn't seem to be overly abundant as far as I can tell.

Berdache natures came in all flavors. Some where homosexual, bi-sexual, asexual, etc. To claim they were homosexuals that married is to miss the entire point of their function.

Sure. I didn't claim they were all homosexuals that married. The custom and practice did however facilitate marriages occurring in their societies between two people with male genitalia and between two people with female genitalia. I didn't say they were all gay or that they all married or anything like that.

[Sam]

lilpixieofterror, I will be ignoring further posts from you. Unfortunately this site seems to have a bug that you can't be added to ignore lists. Be assured however that won't stop me from manually ignoring your posts.

A feature, not a bug, for better or worse. Can't put moderators on the ignore list.

[Jesse]

There was no monolithic Native American culture with one specific view of berdaches. In talking about berdaches it's important to realize we're generalizing about commonalities and varieties of practices among over 130 different tribes.

I thought I had already mentioned that.

Seems like you're splitting hairs with that one. It is quite clear that these societies typically allowed a person born with a male anatomy to marry another person born with a male anatomy, and allowed a person born with a female anatomy to marry another person born with a female anatomy. It is also quite clear that when the English arrived they took one look at it and basically said "Homosexuality! Same-sex marriage! Eww!"

To the ancients, this is not hair splitting. These roles were strictly defined within their culture. Again, this is showing the problem you have with understanding passive and non-passive masculine roles in ancient cultures. I'm sure you know why two non-passive males were not allowed to have relationships right? The berdaches roles were no different here. Yes, I suppose if you want to ignore the function of the relationship entirely and just say "Hey, two dudes are in a tribal contract with each other, they are married!" then I guess? But let's be real specific about this okay? One thing, we do not know the extent of this tribal obligation as it relates to the males that are already married and have children (a male didn't take a berdache unless he already was married and had a family line). Secondly, we are not sure of the sexual nature of these relationships because the data is scarce. I fail to see how this supports a case for same-sex or homosexual marriages.

Not overly, especially since the evidence for that being true doesn't seem to be overly abundant as far as I can tell.

See above.

Sure. I didn't claim they were all homosexuals that married. The custom and practice did however facilitate marriages occurring in their societies between two people with male genitalia and between two people with female genitalia. I didn't say they were all gay or that they all married or anything like that.

Again, I can't see how this could be a "marriage" as it's defined. Since what we know of them, it doesn't exactly fit.

[pancreasman]

A feature, not a bug, for better or worse. Can't put moderators on the ignore list.

Which is a bit of a shame really. I'd like to ignore some moderator's ordinary posts too. Of course, when acting as a moderator they cannot be ignored. I wonder if there's some nifty code that could do this?

[Sam]

Which is a bit of a shame really. I'd like to ignore some moderator's ordinary posts too. Of course, when acting as a moderator they cannot be ignored. I wonder if there's some nifty code that could do this?

If I were a programmer (which I'm not in any way, shape or form), I'd just put in a "mod code" that overrides all Ignore lists — it wouldn't work for non-mods and would have to be switched on in a given post.

Not sure vBulletin has anything like that. Que sera sera, right?

[JonathanL]

Pro-tip: Use the mouse-wheel to scroll past any posts you want to ignore. Works like a charm, and no unnecessary code has to be written.

[Tassman]

fify

The undeniable fact is that many Christians who disagree with your interpretation re homosexuality consider it is you who is "deluded". But your accusation that they are the "deluded" ones merely highlights that there is no way to resolve conflicts when absolute beliefs are mutually exclusive. The only possible solution is to demand conformity to your view. Your opponents of course do the same, which explains the inevitability of (sometimes murderous) religious conflicts.

Forgive me if I have misunderstood Joel's position. I have not read this thread, but only the last few posts. In Joel's most recent post I did not get the impression that he was claiming the right of his denomination to define marriage for an entire, diverse, multicultural nation. I thought he was just claiming the right to define marriage for one's own denomination. They have an opinion on marriage and marriage law, but they are only defining it for themselves if I understood him correctly. Yes?

I think Joel was speaking for Conservative Christians in general, primarily the Evangelicals, and they have not been hesitant in demanding the right to discriminate against homosexuals on the basis of what they consider marriage to be. That's what the whole kerfuffle is all about.

I haven't heard "deluded" so much as "hateful" coming from leftists on the gay marriage issue. Lots of the "debate" offered up seems to be done as a pretense, and as a result tends toward pretentiousness and the type of arguments that have absolutely no analogue outside of the particular debate.

<snip>

[Epoetker]

The undeniable fact is that many Christians who disagree with your interpretation re homosexuality consider it is you who is "deluded". But your accusation that they are the "deluded" ones merely highlights that there is no way to resolve conflicts when absolute beliefs are mutually exclusive. The only possible solution is to demand conformity to your view. Your opponents of course do the same, which explains the inevitability of (sometimes murderous) religious conflicts.

I haven't heard "deluded" so much as "hateful" coming from leftists on the gay marriage issue. Lots of the "debate" offered up seems to be done as a pretense, and as a result tends toward pretentiousness and the type of arguments that have absolutely no analogue outside of the particular debate. Let me clear this up for you:

Team blue knows that Christians are hateful homophobes, and so it goes to bat for the right of homosexuals to sue them over wedding cakes. The Right, with its characteristic acumen, mistakes this bushwhack for a principled stand. “Ah!” they say, “But if you support the right of a gay man to force a Christian to make a cake then you must support the right of the KKK to force a black baker to make a cake!” The average liberal couldn’t imagine a more irrelevant rejoinder. They aren’t making any such proposition at all. In their calculus, Christians (of the Not-fans-of-Pope-Francis type at least) are the bad guys and thus their interests are hateful and invalid and must be opposed. The KKK are bad guys and thus their actions are hateful and invalid and must be opposed. You attack bad guys. You don’t attack good guys. Whence the confusion?

Starlight, with her categorizing of everything into Negative and Positive legal actions, has actually come the closest to rationalizing this attitude.

[Starlight]

There was no monolithic Native American culture with one specific view of berdaches. In talking about berdaches it's important to realize we're generalizing about commonalities and varieties of practices among over 130 different tribes.

I thought I had already mentioned that.

Not really, and you seem continually determined to ignore this fact by making assertions about the practice that are really specific and are only attested in some very few of the tribes and were definitely not followed by many of the other tribes.

There's not a single sentence in your post that I agree with or think is accurate or think adds to the discussion. I've learnt from previous discussions with you that when it comes to anthropology you really have no clue, and just spout complete nonsense. While I could work through your post responding with a little eye-roll emoticon beside every single sentence (as I did in a previous draft of this post), I don't really think that would get us anywhere. I learned last time that there was no talking sense to you about same-sex marriages in the Roman Empire, and it's obvious already you're not going to make any more sense on this topic.

There is abundant historical evidence that in dozens and dozens of Native American tribes, marriages occurred between people who were born as the same sex. Your convoluted efforts to rationalize that to yourself in order for it not to 'really' be same-sex marriage are amusing.

[Tassman]

Seems to me that is exactly what the homosexual crowd is doing. Telling us we need to change what Marriage is, despite it being between a man and a woman for thousands of years. Christians are not trying to change what marriage is, we are trying to keep it the way it traditionally has been.

Some Christians are and some Christians are not. The latter are attempting to make marriage inclusive so as to encompass homosexuals who, until recently have been discriminated against in this area. Others, such as you, are demanding the "right" to discriminate against them on the basis of your religion.

Starlight, with her categorizing of everything into Negative and Positive legal actions, has actually come the closest to rationalizing this attitude.

BTW: Starlight lists himself as male; I suggest you cease referring to him as female, you've been in trouble about this sort of nonsense before.

[Jesse]

Not really, and you seem continually determined to ignore this fact by making assertions about the practice that are really specific and are only attested in some very few of the tribes and were definitely not followed by many of the other tribes.

There's not a single sentence in your post that I agree with or think is accurate or think adds to the discussion. I've learnt from previous discussions with you that when it comes to anthropology you really have no clue, and just spout complete nonsense. While I could work through your post responding with a little eye-roll emoticon beside every single sentence (as I did in a previous draft of this post), I don't really think that would get us anywhere. I learned last time that there was no talking sense to you about same-sex marriages in the Roman Empire, and it's obvious already you're not going to make any more sense on this topic.

There is abundant historical evidence that in dozens and dozens of Native American tribes, marriages occurred between people who were born as the same sex. Your convoluted efforts to rationalize that to yourself in order for it not to 'really' be same-sex marriage are amusing.

You could have saved everyone a lot of time by not bringing up berdaches to the discussion, and proving once again you have no idea how ancient cultures operate (as you proved with the ANE and Greco-Roman discussion). Maybe if you stop misrepresenting ancient cultures and customs, I won't have to keep correcting you. Believe me, it gets tiresome on my end too.