Posted on 06/01/2003 9:39:23 PM PDT by scripter
The Gift Takes A Hard Look at Contemporary Gay Culture, Where HIV is Sexy and Prevention is Passé
On-screen, four men sit in a semicircle as part of their support group. They've allowed filmmaker Louise Hogarth and her camera crew in to observe them for her documentary The Gift. All the men are over 40, gay, and HIV+. They're not together merely to talk about living with HIV, but about living with cardiac conditions secondary to HIV medications. And when they talk about the image of HIV+ men in their San Francisco community, they wonder why it doesn't look like them.
Hogarth's camera captures posters, which show strapping young men in stylish clothes (when they're wearing any) flashing wide, white smiles, as the support-group members look at them.
"All these guys look healthy," one says.
"That one is making me hard right now," another jokes.
They're not being insensitive or cynical, merely saying out loud something that has been percolating through gay communities for years now: The current prevention strategy for HIV and AIDS portrays infection as being a relatively benign condition, manageable with medication. And in the ads the men regard, being HIV+ looks sexy.
"You never see any advertisements or anything that make it look bad--[they] glamorize HIV," Hogarth says from her office in Los Angeles. Since The Gift debuted this past February at the Berlin Film Festival and opened this month in London, she's been maintaining a steady stream of interviews as she prepares to screen it in the United States. "It's like if you have a family situation, and you have one kid who's sick and all the attention is devoted to him. And you have another child in the family who doesn't get any attention, he's always shunted off to the side. An HIV-negative man would never stand up in a room and say, 'I've been HIV-negative for 10 years.' That would be very insensitive. All the services go to HIV-positive men.
"And nobody dies from HIV anymore because that wouldn't be a positive image," Hogarth continues. "Whenever there's a death, it's never HIV. Forty-, 45-year-old gay men die of heart attacks or liver failure or diabetes or opportunistic infections or side effects from a minor surgery--that's all the result of HIV or HIV medications, and it's never mentioned. If HIV doesn't kill you, I believe that the drugs will."
Handling HIV with mittens crops up in even so-called progressive media. During the opening prologue to a recent episode of Six Feet Under--the HBO series created by the openly gay writer Alan Ball that has been commended for its well-rounded portrayal of gay relationships--a fortysomething character named Robert passes away in the company of friends and loved ones. When his male partner approaches the series' central Fisher family's funeral home, he informs them that Robert didn't die from AIDS, but cardiomyopathy. "His heart was too big," he says, using the cardiac abnormality to characterize the kind of man his partner was in his life--even though anybody familiar with HIV and AIDS knows that the condition can be caused by HIV infection or by superinfections resulting from the sequelae of HIV drug therapies.
"Herb Ritts' death was reported by gay media as pneumonia," Hogarth says. "That's a result of HIV, but [they] never mention HIV. That's incredible.
"It's not like cigarette smoking, where people look sick and are dying," she continues. "You can drive down a street in West Hollywood and see a billboard that says, 40,000 deaths this year from smoking. But you'd never see a billboard saying anything about deaths from HIV."
This reluctance to talk about HIV and the rising HIV infection rates in this country (according to a Centers for Disease Control announcement this past February, infection among homosexual men rose 14 percent from 1999 through 2001) are exactly the situations that Hogarth hopes her documentary addresses and starts to change. She says she's lost many friends over the years to HIV/AIDS, and she'd like to see AIDS organizations stop portraying HIV/AIDS as a chronic, manageable illness.
But she's afraid that this message is going to be overshadowed by her movie's primary subject: the sub-subculture of men (called "bug chasers") who actively seek out HIV+ men ("gift givers") with whom to have unprotected sex ("barebacking") in hopes of seroconverting (turning from HIV- to HIV+).
For two and a half years, Hogarth talked to men in California gay communities who hold barebacking parties, visited Web sites where bug-chasers go in search of gift-givers, and talked candidly with men who purposely sought infection. She contrasts these interviews--with HIV+ young men who have yet to become symptomatic or had to endure the debilitating side effects of years of medication--with men who have been living with HIV for years, examining how each of them conceptualize and talk about the condition.
Just as Cindy Patton's landmark 1990 book Inventing AIDS was as much a theory book about how medical "knowledge" is constructed socially and politically, The Gift is a movie about how social group attitudes influence public policy. Its main concern isn't bringing scandalous bug-chasing out into the open, but to examine how the current culture could result in the chilling irony of calling HIV "the gift" in the first place.
"I would like, hopefully, for the people in charge of prevention to realize that their strategies were developed for short-term," she says. "And they were very effective for the short-term, but now we have a long-term health crisis and we need to rethink the strategies and not just put our heads in the sand and attack the messenger, which is what they did with the Rolling Stone guy. They really went on the attack."
She's referring to the Feb. 6 issue of Rolling Stone, in which writer Gregory A. Freeman's "In Search of Death" article appeared, which presented interviews with men who had sought out HIV infection--including one young man Hogarth also interviewed, Doug Hitzel. The article was a tad salacious, but only because the subject--gay men trying to get infected--seemed so unheard of.
The story caused a flurry of activity once it appeared. The Drudge Report turned its contested statistics--i.e., that 25 percent of new infections are caused by bug-chasing--into a headline banner, and everybody from Newsweek to conservative queer writer Andrew Sullivan labeled Freeman and Rolling Stone sensationalistic.
It's understandable why. Public discussion of HIV/AIDS has been drastically reduced since its politically sexy heyday in the late 1980s. Now, even though AIDS/HIV prevention and management hasn't changed that much since the advent of safe-sex campaigns and AZT drug cocktails, the topic has drifted out of the view of straight media, while gay media toe a party line established almost 20 years ago.
No wonder the media freaked out about the Rolling Stone story; it wasn't what everybody was already comfortable with. Conservative straight media find bug-chasing morally reprehensible, gay media think it portrays a bad image, and liberal straight media feel it might sound mean to attack HIV+ men.
The ire the article drew was misplaced, though. While that 25 percent stat has been vehemently and thoroughly disproved (most contend that the rate due to bug-chasing is much lower), what has thus far been lost in almost all the coverage so far has been that number's greater significance. Whatever the rate of new infections caused by gay men seeking seroconversion, it still means that an overwhelming number of sexually transmitted new infections among gay males is caused by--as Dan Savage pointed out in his Feb. 20 Savage Love column--"gay male stupidity, recklessness, naiveté, and bad luck."
And unlike new HIV/AIDS drug therapies, which take millions of dollars and years of research to develop, stupidity, recklessness, and naiveté can be corrected right now. All it takes is for people to start talking about HIV/AIDS risks again.
"And that's the whole intent, especially for gay men, because they don't discuss it at all," Hogarth says. "The HIV rates in this country are way up. It's way up in the black community. It's a waiting avalanche that's waiting to come down. A lot of people don't test anymore, so you need for them to get sick [for the infection to be discovered], which takes about 10 years. And that's not the truth. We have to start telling the truth. And that would be the best thing that could come of [the documentary]--that people would start talking again and become aware of the risk."
You very well may be right and if so I have no problem with it. My personal bias is based on what I've read, so if you have a source to support your statements I'd like to see it. From what I've previously seen coming from you, you don't appear interested in facts so I tend to doubt whatever you say without a reference...
I apologize if by labeling the link in #14 as "Source" I confused you. I can see how that's very misleading.
From Remedy's link: "more is spent per patient on AIDS than on any other disease, though it does not even currently rank among the top 15 causes of death in the United States." And that's the statement I'm familiar with. Had I read Remedy's post first I would have seen the correction myself.
While your correction is appreciated, you desperately try to ignore facts in other areas. Perhaps your personal bias is inhibiting you from considering all the facts in context.
I don't see why you feel a need to "get the truth out" here. With the exception of a few FR-"gay thread" regulars, (madg comes to mind) most FReepers are against homosexuality. So you're preaching to the choir, from a moral standpoint.
Is your intent with these threads to get people motivated to make homosexuality illegal? With all due respect, I cannot imagine a more futile goal! I've asked these questions on other "gay" threads and I'll ask them again: Do you think we should make homosexuality illegal? If so, how can we enforce this law? Are you, scripter or you Remedy going to volunteer for the first "anti-gay task force"? If you do envision some kind of special "sex-police", how do you think they should enforce these laws? Should people's homes be bugged (with video cameras) to make sure they're having the "right kind" of sex?
I hope you can see where I'm going with this, and don't react negatively to my criticism. I hope you take it to heart. Obviously you two have abilities that could be used elsewhere, to further the conservative agenda where we need it most, AND, where it has the most resonable chance of success! (anti-smoking laws come to mind....fight those on the grounds of personal property....or perhaps income taxes....fight those on the grounds that they're simply against the desires of the founding fathers!) Or, maybe take these kind of threads to the DUmmies, where these kinds of messages NEED to be heard (about homosexuality being a dirty lifestyle). I can see no value in taking that message here though.
The moral argument is already WON here (on FR), for the most part. If your intention is to push to make it illegal, then that is merely an excercise in futility, not to mention foolishness.
And Remedy, I don't want to see any more posts on the "statistics" of the diseases that homosexuality spreads, you don't have to convince me its a dirty lifestyle.....but the entire argument that you seem to want to push is, "Homosexuality spreads disease to people at large, and that's why it should be outlawed!" So then I would ask, "Then you not only want to outlaw homosexuality, but also any HETERO-sexual contact OUTSIDE of marriage, DON'T you? Isn't that the logical direction and conclusion to your argument of 'it's for the public good', scripter and Remedy?"
I believe it is, and hopefully this demonstrates the foolishness of such a goal. Quit wasting your talents on this; it's an impossible goal to reach, if only because it relies on a slope that's entirely too slipery.
Do you think we should make homosexuality illegal? If so, how can we enforce this law? Are you, scripter or you Remedy going to volunteer for the first "anti-gay task force"? If you do envision some kind of special "sex-police", how do you think they should enforce these laws? Should people's homes be bugged (with video cameras) to make sure they're having the "right kind" of sex?
1. Analysis of the Question
1.1 This question concerns ethics, the study and practice of right and wrong behavior and motivations. The question essentially asserts that individuals should be allowed by civil law or by convention (even if civil law disallows) to do and say what they wish without sanction or disapproval. The one condition here is that individuals’ actions or words not have "unintended consequences" for others who are not consenting parties to the action or words.
1.2 When the question refers to "conduct," it means both actions and words, since words are treated as equivalent to actions in law in certain instances. Nevertheless, most readers would likely take the question to refer primarily to actions.
1.3 The question advocates in the form of an assertion, the ethical positions of both hedonism (or Naturalism) and relativism. Hedonism (technically egoistic hedonism) is defined as the seeking of pleasure for the benefit of the seeking individual alone. Sometimes it is also called Utilitarianism, but this is only a modern label for a similar idea (Utilitarians do go beyond individual ethics). Relativism takes several forms.
Sometimes it means that what is "good" or "bad" for one is not for another. It is also a denial that there is some objective standard of ethics. Thus, one is free to choose whatever makes him or her "feel" more pleasure or less pain, apart from others’ perceived well-being. In short, the individual seeks pleasure as his or her highest goal (or less pain) and does so without belief in transcendent ethical norm. The question asserts that both the former and the latter are good.
1.4 But the question does not posit an unlimited hedonism. It stops short by adding a qualification that this hedonism and relativism are good to the point at which pain (cost in economic terms) will be inflicted on someone else or other people. This represents a modified form of hedonism, which has been a topic for discussion for ethics since hedonism was first written about in ancient times (to note, hedonism is a distinctively Greek ethical idea in its origin; it has no basis in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament literature).
1.5 This assertion is also sometimes made by those on the "conservative" side of the spectrum. Those who call themselves "libertarians" and are consistent, advocate an essentially hedonistic position with respect to ethics, though not completely relativistic. Libertarians are in general "economic conservatives" and "social liberals." That is, they favor very little or no government intervention in any area of life, even the moral or ethical realm, so long as there are no negative external effects. Thus the question here may also apply to that specific movement’s system of thought, even though at first glance it might seem to apply only to those we would label as "liberals."
1.6 We should note that this question reflects a common popular conception among many people that what they do "privately" will in fact have no effect on others who are not directly involved in the action. In fact, many speak of purely private activities in which no other person is involved except the hedonist. Private actions are commonly believed to have no "external" effects to speak of. Whether this conception has a basis in reality remains to be seen below.
Even so, we must still consider that, if God exists and if He is the God of the Christian Bible, is it still possible to say that "no one" is in any way "affected" by a hedonist act? It will be possible at least to speak of a God who has established a standard of law, the violation of which would offend against that law regardless of whether any human person was affected. In other words, will an external, objective standard negate hedonism/utilitarianism?
1.7 Finally, the problem of "subjective guilt" must be raised here, even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the question. Implied by the question is that a supposedly private act can and even ought to be done without fear of guilt as a result (so the egoistic hedonist would say). Evidence however suggests that guilt very often follows even the most private actions. We will address this issue in greater detail below. ***
3. Conclusions
3.1 To posit a relative ethical or moral standard is self-refuting, for to make such an absolute statement is to adopt an absolute as an ethical standard.
3.2 It is not true that ethical and moral standards are in any way relative if one adopts Scripture as his or her source of ethics and morality. It should be added that every person does have a moral and ethical standard at any rate, and in many instances individuals will extend their own standard to others, even while professing to be relativistic in approach.
3.3 The ultimate source of ethics and morality, the standard which is external to the individual, is objective, and is absolute, is the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, properly interpreted (objectively) and properly applied to individual cases.
3.4 As one writer has put it, "It is not possible to separate off any ‘private’ or ‘personal’ aspect of an individual’s life which does not involve relationships with other people and hence falls outside the basic principles" of Biblical ethics (Marshall, "Personal Ethics" in Baker’s Dictionary of Christian Ethics, p. 505). The point is that one’s actions will inevitably affect others and so there can, in reality, be no situation where ethical decisions of a single individual could be ignored as irrelevant (and thus relative).
3.5 Moreover, even if, theoretically, an individual’s acts affected no one else—if they were so private that no other person was involved, even indirectly—they are still "open to God" and represent a violation of God’s absolute standards (see Marshall, Ibid.).
3.6 In summary then, it is not legitimate as a Christian, to speak of relative ethics, for the several reasons elaborated above. Nevertheless, some may object in any event, asserting that they simply cannot agree to such a supposedly rigid system of ethics and morality. But such an objection cannot be made on logical grounds unless one rejects outright the veracity of the Scriptures (a position a Christian could not take even if he or she questioned some aspects of the Bible). Otherwise, the objection would be on irrational grounds, the objector wishing to excuse or justify his behavior and to be freed from external constraints to pursue his or her perceived summum bonum. And Remedy, I don't want to see any more posts on the "statistics" of the diseases that homosexuality spreads, you don't have to convince me its a dirty lifestyle.....but the entire argument that you seem to want to push is, "Homosexuality spreads disease to people at large, and that's why it should be outlawed!" So then I would ask, "Then you not only want to outlaw homosexuality, but also any HETERO-sexual contact OUTSIDE of marriage, DON'T you? Isn't that the logical direction and conclusion to your argument of 'it's for the public good', scripter and Remedy?"
Texas Phys.Resource Council, Christian Med. & Dental Association, Catholic Med.Association Sodomy is an efficient method of transmitting STDs. And regardless of the reason, same-sex sodomy is far more effective in spreading STDs than opposite-sex sodomy. Multiple studies have estimated that 40 percent or more of men who practice anal sex acquire STDs. In fact, same-sex sodomy has resulted in the transformation of diseases previously transmitted only through fecally contaminated food and water into sexually caused diseases primarily among those who practice same-sex sodomy.
SODOMY: Brief Of The States Of Alabama, South Carolina, And Utah (S.C.O.T.U.S.& Sodomy)
In keeping with the historical analysis described above, this Court has primarily limited its recognition of non-textual fundamental rights in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to "personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education." 27 In 1997, this Court cataloged the list as follows:
In a long line of cases, we have held that, in addition to the specific freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, the "liberty" specifically protected by the Due Process Clause includes the rights to marry, LOVING V. VIRGINIA , 388 U.S. 1 (1967); to have children, SKINNER V. OKLAHOMA EX REL. WILLIAMSON , 316 U.S. 535 (1942); to direct the education and upbringing of one's children, MEYER V. NEBRASKA , 262 U.S. 390 (1923); PIERCE V. SOCIETY OF SISTERS , 268 U.S. 510 (1925); to marital privacy, GRISWOLD V. CONNECTICUT , 381 U.S. 479 (1965); to use contraception, IBID. ; EISENSTADT V. BAIRD , 405 U.S. 438 (1972); to bodily integrity, ROCHIN V. CALIFORNIA , 342 U.S. 165 (1952); and to abortion, [ PLANNED PARENTHOOD V. CASEY , 505 U.S. 833 (1992)]. 28
"The entire fabric of the Constitution and the purposes that clearly underlie its specific guarantees demonstrate that the rights to marital privacy and to marry and raise a family are of similar order and magnitude as the fundamental rights specifically protected." 29
The fundamental role of marriage and family in our society has been recognized on many occasions by the Court. In ZABLOCKI V. REDHAIL , 30 the Court invalidated a Wisconsin statute requiring certain persons to obtain a court order before marrying:
[T]he right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals. Long ago in MAYNARD V. HILL , 125 U.S. 190 (1888), the Court characterized marriage as "the most important relation in life," ID. , at 205, and as "the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress," ID. , at 211. In MEYER V. NEBRASKA , 262 U.S. 390 (1923), the Court recognized that the right "to marry, establish a home, and bring up children" is a central part of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause, ID. , at 399, and in SKINNER V. OKLAHOMA EX REL. WILLIAMSON , 316 U.S. 535 (1942), marriage was described as "fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race," 316 U.S. at 541. 31
The Court went on to conclude that the right to marry is one of the "matters of family life" protected by the right of privacy implicit in the Due Process Clause. 32 In MOORE V. CITY OF EAST CLEVELAND , the Court also dwelt on the historical role of marriage and the family in American society: "Our decisions establish that the Constitution protects the sanctity of the family precisely because the institution of the family is deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." 33
This Court has never recognized a fundamental right to engage in sexual activity outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage, let alone to engage in homosexual sodomy. Such a right would be antithetical to the "traditional relation of the family" that is "as old and as fundamental as our entire civilization." 34 Even the amorphous "right to privacy" recognized in GRISWOLD and expanded upon in ROE V. WADE was never intended to include a right to have sex with whomever and however one pleased. In ROE V. WADE , this Court stated that the Due Process Clause does not include "an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases." 35 Twenty-five years later, in WASHINGTON V. GLUCKSBERG , this Court again rejected the proposition that "all important, intimate, and personal decisions" are protected by the Due Process Clause. 36
In his POE V. ULLMAN 37 dissent, which foreshadowed the recognition of the marital right of privacy in GRISWOLD V. CONNECTICUT , Justice Harlan said that homosexual activity, even when "concealed in the home," was a proper matter of state concern and could be forbidden by the States:
Yet the very inclusion of the category of morality among state concerns indicates that society is not limited in its objects only to the physical well-being of the community, but has traditionally concerned itself with the moral soundness of its people as well. Indeed to attempt a line between public behavior and that which is purely consensual or solitary would be to withdraw from community concern a range of subjects with which every society in civilized time has found it necessary to deal. The laws regarding marriage which provide both when the sexual powers may be used and the legal and societal context in which children are born and brought up, as well as laws forbidding adultery, fornication, and homosexual practices which express the negative of the proposition, confining sexuality to lawful marriage, form a pattern so deeply pressed into the substance of our social life that any Constitutional doctrine must be built upon that basis. 38
SODOMY : CENTER FOR THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF THE CONSTITUTION (LAWRENCE v. TEXAS SODOMY BRIEF)
THE HISTORIC AUTHORITY OF THE STATES TO CRIMINALIZE SODOMY IS WELL-SETTLED
The historical evidence clearly shows that state legislatures have always possessed a broad authority to outlaw private, consensual sex, and that they also prohibited same-sex sodomy specifically since the earliest days of American history. Enactment of the Bill of Rights in 1791 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 did not alter that state legislative authority.
This Court has frequently looked to the Constitution's "text, history and precedent" to determine its meaning. ELDRED V. ASHCROFT , ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 769, 777 (2003). As this Court recently reiterated in ELDRED V. ASHCROFT , "a page of history is worth a volume of logic." ID ., quoting NEW YORK TRUST COMPANY V. EISNER , 256 U.S. 345, 349 (1921); SEE ALSO U.S. TERM LIMITS, INC. V. THORNTON , 514 U.S. 779, 790 (1995) ("Against this historical background, we viewed the Convention debates as manifesting the Framers' intent that the qualifications in the Constitution be fixed and exclusive.").
It is a settled constitutional principle within our federal republic that states possess general police powers. Inherent within these powers lies the duty to regulate the "health, safety, and morals" of their members. BARNES V. GLEN THEATER , 501 U.S. 560, 569 (1991) (referencing public indecency statutes which were designed to protect morals and public order). States have used this police power to promote marriage and direct the sexual activities of their citizens into marriage by criminalizing a wide variety of nonmarital sex acts, such as polygamy, rape, fornication, adultery, prostitution and incest. While crimes such as rape and incest are not consensual, adultery, prostitution, polygamy and fornication are private acts between consenting adults that have been regulated throughout our nation's history. As we shall demonstrate, states have possessed and properly exercised the authority to regulate deviate sexual conduct including sodomy at all relevant times in our nation's history.
SODOMY : Legislators,State of Texas, Lawrence v. Texas, No. 02-102
In evaluating whether § 21.06 is rational, the Court should consider that the provision is one part of a larger network of laws designed to further the legitimate State interest of promoting traditional marriage of one man and one woman.
The laws regarding marriage which provide both when the sexual powers may be used and the legal and societal context in which children are born and brought up, as well as laws forbidding adultery, fornication and homosexual practices which express the negative of the proposition, confining sexuality to lawful marriage, form a pattern so deeply pressed into the substance of our social life that any Constitutional doctrine in this area must build upon that basis.
Poe , 367 U.S. at 546 (Harlan, J., dissenting). The connection between § 21.06 and marriage is undeniable. The same legislature which changed the Texas sodomy law in 1973 to its current form, at the same time changed Texas' marriage law to explicitly specify, for the first time, that marriage in Texas may only be between "a man and a woman." T EX . F AM . C ODE § 2.001 (Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 1596, ch. 577, § 1). Even in teaching sexual education, Texas law emphasizes that sex should be within marriage and other conduct, such as homosexual sex, is discouraged. Sex education materials must "emphasize sexual abstinence before marriage and fidelity in marriage as the expected standard" and must discourage "homosexual conduct" and note that it violates § 21.06. T EX . H EALTH & S AFETY C ODE § 85.007.
The moral argument is already WON here (on FR), for the most part. If your intention is to push to make it illegal, then that is merely an excercise in futility, not to mention foolishness.
SODOMY : Homosexual Agenda Unrelated to Civil Rights Movement, Conservative Blacks Insist
SODOMY:Why Is the Church Silent... Again?
The Gay Embrace Homosexuality: It's the issue mainliners want to talk about and not talk about, depending on who does the talking and their agenda. It's old news that "gay" activists in the mainline churches have pressed their agenda and clamored for dialogue about ordinations and blessing homosexual "unions." Having earlier secured access to baptism and Holy Communion for practicing homosexuals (largely because few churches have upheld traditional restrictions), the gay lobby long ago moved on to the sacraments of ordination and marriage. (But don't expect them to embrace more sacraments: They won't anytime soon be clamoring for more time in the confessional or for access to vows of celibacy.)
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 US 186 (1986) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy.
BURGER, C.J., Concurring Opinion Decisions of individuals relating to homosexual conduct have been subject to state intervention throughout the history of Western civilization. Condemnation of those practices is firmly rooted in Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards. Homosexual sodomy was a capital crime under Roman law.... During the English Reformation, when powers of the ecclesiastical courts were transferred to the King's Courts, the first English statute criminalizing sodomy was passed.... Blackstone described "the infamous crime against nature" as an offense of "deeper malignity" than rape, a heinous act "the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature," and "a crime not fit to be named." W. Blackstone, Commentaries . The common law of England, including its prohibition of sodomy, became the received law of Georgia and the other Colonies. In 1816, the Georgia Legislature passed the statute at issue here, and that statute has been continuously in force in one form or another since that time. To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching.
Thomas Jefferson on Sodomy Sect. XIV. Whosoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or sodomy* with a man or woman, shall be punished; if a man, by castration, a woman, by boring through the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch in diameter at the least. Peterson, Merrill D. "Crimes and Punishments" Thomas Jefferson: Writings Public Papers (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1984) pp. 355, 356.
Hundreds rally for '10 Commandments judge' Moore wrote a separate concurring opinion, repudiating homosexuality on religious grounds, calling it "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature's God."
it relies on a slope that's entirely too slipery.
Hi ho, hi ho, - down that slope we go.
SODOMY : A.P.A. Debates Pedophilia, Gender-Identity Disorder, Sexual Sadism
I don't agree we're preaching to the choir, especially when considering any lurkers. Also, practically every month my homosexual agenda ping list grows as folks want to stay on top of the issue.
I wouldn't be on these threads if we didn't have GLSEN and other groups pushing the gay agenda in schools and if gays kept to themselves. We don't have fat groups going to schools telling kids to over eat nor tobacco companies handing out free cigarettes in the schools, telling kids to try it or that there's nothing wrong with it.
I grew up in Santa Cruz, California and have a lifetime of personal experiences with gays who just don't understand the phrase "I'm not interested." A lifetime of gay men grabbing my butt on the job, and some of them losing their jobs for it, some of the them losing their jobs for a lot less, some of them encouraged by the employer to continue doing whatever they wanted. While a teenager I was offered gifts in the form of watches, cars, whatever I wanted. All I had to do was be a butty to a gay man. Some offered money and practically begged just to "see it" after offering a BJ, which I of course turned down.
Gay men prey on kids yet the major media outlets do what they can to ignore this fact. I know this from personal experience and from what I read. And what I've seen from many on FR, they don't seem to care and that I find troubling.
The homosexual agenda exists. I encourage you to read After the Ball, How America will Conquer it's Fear & Hatred of Gays in the 90s. Or you can read an accurate summary of the book here. I can scan in any pages you request from the orginal for clarification and context.
This conservative has libertarian leanings on just about everything but social responsibility. As far as legal issues go, I'm not interested, but I'm very interested in protecting my kids.
Before I forget, I don't think it's a slippery slope to "normalize" homosexuality as we've recently seen some are now trying to "normalize" pedophilia. Once you start normalizing something based on a behavior you're opening it up to anything.
I try to be objective in everything despite what some might have you believe. Please believe me when I say I would rather spend my time doing things other than spending my short life on issues that shouldn't be issues. I hope that helps and doesn't come across as negative - I just don't see any need to stop what I'm doing, although changing my methods has been under consideration for a couple of months.
We'll just have to agree to disagree about the value of pointing out the pitfalls of homosexuality in toto. I just don't see any value in that, especially since there really isn't any way to stop it.
But you make a good point about the lurkers.
In changing my methods I hope to project more compassion and less heat. Not an easy task considering what I'm up against and the obfuscation I get from some folks! I try to remember this whenever I post. Thanks for your posts.
explain to me the actual "mechanics" of how you intend to enforce such laws?
Contact one of the 14 States that have sodomy laws.
Wow, Scripter. That sounds EXACTLY like what happens to me! Well, except for the gay part. The men who hit on me are straight, and many can't take no for an answer.
It's amazing, the boldness and perversion of heterosexuals, isn't it?
I don't believe any of the states that still have sodomy laws regularly enforce these laws.
I assume therefore from your statement that you're happy just having the laws on the books, with little or no enforcement. Thus, you just want to see similar laws on the books in all the states simply to make a moral statement, as I suggested earlier, and not that you really believe such laws will have a practical impact on the prevention of the homosexual lifestyle.
Thanks, that's what I thought.
I don't believe any of the states that still have sodomy laws regularly enforce these laws.
Homosexuals Demand Legalization of Sex With Strangers in Public Parks
State's Sodomy Law Puts Lesbian's Judgeship In Jeopardy According to Adams, Virginia has invoked its sodomy law in recent years only to prevent homosexuals from adopting children and to discriminate against homosexuals involved in child custody battles. This illustrates precisely why Sodomy Laws are necessary. 101 posted on 01/22/2003 5:48 PM CST by traditionalist
Hundreds rally for '10 Commandments judge' "They have objected to my behavior as a judge because I reference the moral foundation of the law when we talked about sodomy, when we talked about adultery, when we talked about separation of church and state. I go back to the legal history that we have here in Alabama, our court case precedents, and the foundations of law to show that these things comport with the Scriptures from which we get our moral foundation."
Gay rights organizations in Alabama and Washington, including Equality Begins at Home of Central Alabama, are calling for Moore's resignation, accusing him of using "right-wing rhetoric and far right religious dogma to justify homophobia and execution of homosexuals."
The effort is in response to the Alabama high court's unanimous decision to reject a lesbian mother's child custody petition. Moore wrote a separate concurring opinion, repudiating homosexuality on religious grounds, calling it "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature's God."
Lawrence v. Texas, 41 SW.3d 349 (2001)
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 US 186 (1986)
After being charged with violating the Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy by committing that act with another adult male in the bedroom of his home, respondent Hardwick (respondent) brought suit in Federal District Court, challenging the constitutionality of the statute insofar as it criminalized consensual sodomy. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the Georgia statute violated respondent's fundamental rights.
Held: The Georgia statute is constitutional. Pp. 190-196 .
(a) The Constitution does not confer a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy. None of the fundamental rights announced in this Court's prior cases involving family relationships, marriage, or procreation bear any resemblance to the right asserted in this case. And any claim that those cases stand for the proposition that any kind of private sexual conduct between consenting adults is constitutionally insulated from state proscription is unsupportable. Pp. 190-191 .
(b) Against a background in which many States have criminalized sodomy and still do, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious. Pp. 191-194 .
(c) There should be great resistance to expand the reach of the Due Process Clauses to cover new fundamental rights. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily would take upon itself further authority to govern the country without constitutional authority. The claimed right in this case falls far short of overcoming this resistance. Pp. 194-195 .
(d) The fact that homosexual conduct occurs in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 , distinguished. Pp. 195-196 .
(e) Sodomy laws should not be invalidated on the asserted basis that majority belief that sodomy is immoral is an inadequate rationale to support the laws. P. 196 .
SODOMY : An Open Letter to David Horowitz
I would urge you to read some of these comments, which have been published by the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Their comments are available in "The Innate-Immutable Argument Finds No Basis in Science: In Their Own Words: Gay Activists Speak About Science, Morality, Philosophy".
In addition, Exodus International, a national group of ex-homosexuals, has produced a good deal of material on the causes and cures of homosexuality. I would encourage you to access the Exodus International web site for details: Exodus International.
Traditional Values Coalition has published a number of Homosexual Urban Legends that explain various faulty information and assumptions presented by homosexual activists. I would encourage you to read these: Homosexual Urban Legends.
Second, homosexual activists are not content to be tolerant of Christians and other faith groups or of our beliefs about homosexuality as a sin and a sexual perversion. Homosexual groups like HRC are determined to silence any opposition to the homosexual agenda. They are working aggressively to impose restrictions on our freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religion—in public, private, and religious organizations. These efforts are typically carried out by imposing speech codes in schools and by passing "hate crime" laws that punish speech and religious expression.
Homosexuals are intolerant of anyone who opposes their agenda. And what is this agenda? It has been spelled out repeatedly throughout the past thirty years.
For example, at the 1993 homosexual March on Washington, homosexual activists issued a detailed list of their demands and goals. Among those demands was the lowering of the age of sexual consent so that homosexuals can gain legal access to children; the abolition of any laws prohibiting sexual behavior between "consenting adults" (legalizing prostitution and sodomy); and the passage of laws prohibiting so-called "discrimination" against drag queens, transsexuals, or cross-dressers in public employment. The March on Washington demands are available here: 1993 March on Washington Demands.
In 1987, two homosexual activists outlined how they would "overhaul straight America" in an article published by Guide magazine. These strategists created a marketing strategy designed to vilify their opponents and to portray themselves as "victims" in a media blitz that has gone on for years. You will learn a great deal about the homosexual agenda by reading this article: "The Overhauling of Straight America."
As a former Communist, you are undoubtedly aware of the Marxist background of Harry Hay, who is considered the father of the modern-day homosexual "rights" movement. Hay formed the Mattachine Society and based it upon the Communist cell principle and revolutionary activism.
You are also undoubtedly aware of Leslie Feinberg, a radical Marxist and male-to-female transgender who is an editor with the Worker’s World Party. Feinberg is fueling both transgender activism (blurring the distinctions between male and female) as well as being a major influence in the anti-war efforts by ANSWER and other anti-American groups. Feinberg and others view homosexuality and transgenderism as "sexual liberation" from all social norms.
The Human Rights Campaign is now partnering with GenderPac, a transgender group based in Washington, DC. HRC has also sponsored a "Two Spirit" event with transgender groups. At this conference, sexually confused girls were shown how to have their breasts removed so they could become "men."
This is where the homosexual movement is headed—and this is why Traditional Values Coalition is so opposed to the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism in our society. These sexually confused individuals need counseling, not societal approval or "tolerance."
It is my hope that you will carefully read the resources I’ve mentioned to you in this letter and that you will take a principled stand against the spread of sexual confusion in our nation. Our children deserve to be protected from the purveyors of sexual perversion and dysfunction. We do them a disservice by "tolerating" those who wish to prey upon our children and who wish to stifle free speech and religion.
I don't believe any of the states that still have sodomy laws regularly enforce these laws.
I don't believe any of the states that still have sodomy laws HAVE ANY SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON THE PRACTICE OF HOMOSEXUALITY.
Sorry I didn't make that point clearer, earlier.
There two means of internal restraint:
Paul wrote in Romans 2:15 that gentiles who know nothing of Moses or Christ may nonetheless show by their deeds "that the requirements of the Law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them." J. Budziszewski, who teaches in the Departments of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas, and whose work frequently appears in First Things and other journals, explains that this law is what philosophers call the "natural law." It is the bedrock moral understanding that we can't not know, however hard we try to evade that knowledge, because our consciences bear witness to it.
When our consciences accuse us, and we are unwilling to repent, all we can do is to smother our knowledge with rationalizations and recruit others to vice. As Paul said in Roman 1:32, "Although [depraved people] know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." Just as misery loves company, sin craves social approval.
Means of breaking the self-governing internal restraint:
An appeal to natural law/common senses may persuade many to maintain self-control. Appealing to precepts of Biblical Christianity may persuade many Christians to maintain internal restraint.
The law/State gov't serves as the external and final restraint to protect society from those who have lost self-control.
The immoral/ amoral, the most likely to break state law, are the most in need of external law.
Amazon.com: Books: Legislating Morality: Is It Wise? Is It Legal ...
All Laws Legislate Morality
Whose Morality Should We Legislate?
America’s moral decline is no secret. An alarming number of moral and cultural problems have exploded in our country since 1960—a period when the standards of morality expressed in our laws and customs have been relaxed, abandoned, or judicially overruled.
Conventional wisdom says laws cannot stem moral decline. Anyone who raises the prospect of legislation on the hot topics of our day—abortion, family issues, gay rights, euthanasia—encounters a host of objections:
"As long as I don’t hurt anyone the government should leave me alone."
"No one should force their morals on anyone else."
"You can’t make people be good."
"Legislating morality violates the separation of church and state."
Legislating Morality advocates a moral base for America without sacrificing religious and cultural diversity, debunking the myth that "morality can’t be legislated" and amply demonstrating how liberals, moderates, and conservatives alike exploit law to promote good and curtail evil. This book boldly challenges prevailing thinking—about right and wrong and about our nation’s moral future. Reviewer: A reader from Peachtree City, Georgia
Those who have insisted that morality can not and should not be written into the laws of nations, that, "you can't legislate morality", have had their argument thoroughly debunked by Geisler and Turek. This seminal work will no doubt become the standard for all those who argue that absolute moral laws are the logical and necessary outworking of any social order which hopes to maintain justice and equity as its most cherished value.
With airtight reasoning, the authors have shredded the popular myth that says, in effect, that all laws are neutral with respect to moral content. Any arguments to the contrary invariably wind up to be circular and cannot avoid resulting in a purley subjective, relativistic position.
I strongly commend this book to anyone who is serious about trying to make sense out of contempory culture's bent toward emasculating the essence of legislative action and substituting in its place utopian schemes based on the fatal conceit of homo mensura
GOV : Federalism And Religious Liberty: Were Church And State Meant To Be Separate?
The Inseparability Of Law And Morality, The Constitution, Natural Law And The Rule Of Law
[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion....Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. (Source: John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1854), Vol. IX, p. 229, October 11, 1798.)
Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, [and] which denounces against the wicked eternal misery, and [which] insured to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments. (Source: Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907), p. 475. In a letter from Charles Carroll to James McHenry of November 4, 1800.)
[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. Source: Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks, editor (Boston: Tappan, Whittemore and Mason, 1840), Vol. X, p. 297, April 17, 1787.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of man and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?
And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric? (Source: George Washington, Address of George Washington, President of the United States . . . Preparatory to His Declination (Baltimore: George and Henry S. Keatinge), pp. 22-23. In his Farewell Address to the United States in 1796.)
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