tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006149227755828619.post4028267498607985455..comments2024-02-28T07:39:18.803+00:00Comments on Clay Testament: Anderson Cooper: Ex-Journalist Turns Gay Pit BullEric Maderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10612913626447216776noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006149227755828619.post-13289316382571092242016-07-07T17:33:07.677+01:002016-07-07T17:33:07.677+01:00Frharry, if one believes that heteronormativity is...Frharry, if one believes that heteronormativity is the best thing not just for the species (obviously) but also for the individual (sometimes not so obvious), AND that homosexuality is at best merely a deeply seated false belief, then is it discrimination or love to help a friend move from a state of life denigrating discrimination (which the gay community practices relentlessly) to life affirming heternormativity?<br /><br />I say it is charity that informs our actions. Over and over, it is the gay community, including fellow travelers, who have proven themselves to be life denigrating, who hate the very heteronormativity that gave them life.Theodore M. Seeberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13315945417122366201noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006149227755828619.post-29703187161811620282016-07-07T16:58:22.455+01:002016-07-07T16:58:22.455+01:00Sorry, Eric, you really do miss the boat here. Whi...Sorry, Eric, you really do miss the boat here. While it certainly is possible for one to care about LBGTQ people and still wish to discriminate against them, the quality of that care is inherently suspect in such cases. To say one cares for the other but only so long as one's own privilege is protected reveals one's ultimate concern not in the welfare of the other but in one's own self-interest. Einstein observed that it was impossible to simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. In the current case, it is impossible to unconditionally love one's neighbor as oneself and continue to practice life denigrating discrimination against them. <br /><br />BTW, what makes the Cooper interview seem so one-sided is that our attorney general has a long history of being unsteady on her feet in public. Indeed, some of us who are members of the bar here wonder how she ever got to be an attorney. That doesn't make Anderson a bully. It just sadly reveals the low standards for public service Florida voters have acquiesced to.frharryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17765076740795402119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006149227755828619.post-7323421263726093242016-06-25T00:30:56.885+01:002016-06-25T00:30:56.885+01:00I was for civil unions too, but not as a blanket s...I was for civil unions too, but not as a blanket state replacement for what the state recognized as marriage. I supported the initiative offered by Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis—a status different from marriage available to any two people committed to living together. Of course the practical argument against this route was that given American legal precedent no "separate but equal" institutions would stand. Myself I believed that could have been solved by not making marriage and civil unions equal. As they were not, in essence, equal. Marriage should have been granted certain further protections and rights than civil unions held, though the latter would have covered things like visitation rights, etc. <br /><br />Now I recognize, given where the culture is, that Anderson and Girgis' compromise never would have held. In any case your approach, getting government out of the business of marriage altogether, is certainly preferable to what we have today. <br /><br />The whole debate is now water under the bridge. I suspect the bridge itself isn't going to stand long either. <br /><br />Thanks for dropping by, Theodore. It seems you saw the writing on the wall earlier that I did.Eric Maderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10612913626447216776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5006149227755828619.post-34833407033977823372016-06-23T21:47:13.128+01:002016-06-23T21:47:13.128+01:00In 2004, I flip-flopped from being the liberal of ...In 2004, I flip-flopped from being the liberal of my youth, to the conservative of my middle age.<br /><br />The cause? I was for civil unions for heterosexuals. Still am. Let's have a separation of Government and Marriage, and then, all the problems with modernist definitions of sexual orientation go away. As a bonus, elderly brothers and sisters don't have to commit incest to get the benefits of living together. Or elderly brothers. Or Catholic priests. And we can easily widen a civil union to be "two or more consenting adults" merging their households.<br /><br />Of course, in 2004, three out of five county commissioners in an urban country in Oregon, where I live, decided that wasn't good enough, and I was a bigot to even propose it.<br /><br />Since then I've gotten a lot more conservative. As a Catholic, Pope Francis really challenges me, because I see the world having way too much of the wrong type of mercy and not nearly enough justice. I don't think he sees the contradiction between granting mercy to greedy capitalists who practice serial adultery, and using the sacraments to make a better world for the poor (especially since poverty for women after divorce is almost as predictable as a wet lawn after a thunderstorm).<br /><br />So yes, though I only came across your blog because you use the same language about Hillary that I do about Hillary and Trump (I will not be bullied into voting for an East Coast Big Business Genocidal Maniac Liberal- and that goes for Hillary too...), I think perhaps we have the seeds of one day propelling either the American Solidarity Party or the Constitution Party to Big Two status- and it starts with realizing the current Big Two are really the Big One. That started for me, BTW, with W Bush as such a disappointment- 6 years of a Republican majority legislature and no Personhood for the Unborn. Kind of like Obama and his promise to close Gitmo.<br /><br />I may be more cynical than you are though. Every President in my lifetime has been morally worse than the one before. And considering I was born under the sign of Nixon, that's saying quite a lot. Thus I have NEVER voted major party. And never will.Theodore M. Seeberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13315945417122366201noreply@blogger.com