Anti-homosexual movement in Uganda

[bujin]

I'm personally not at all interested in the privacy of other people. As long as there is no gay couple next to me, putting their tongues into the mouth of each other, I don't care. If it happens on TV I have the choice to switch the program. If it happens next to me, I feel somehow annoyed. The same applies to heterosexual couples doing so by the way.

So it's more the open displays of affection that annoys you rather than the sexuality of the people involved?

I must admit that if I see gay people being affectionate in public I have a conditioned response to feel uncomfortable, but I know that the uncomfortable feeling is irrational.

While I personally don't hate homosexuality deeply, but it is disgusting to me (when I think about it or if I'd have to watch it), I consider myself being an agnostic. I've never heard of Leviticus and never read the bible by the way.

Why would you have to watch it or think about it though?

And I was careful to say that the hatred almost always comes from religion. Of course that's not always the case, but most of the time it is - like when you hear of hotel owners not allowing gay couples to stay there, or adoption agencies which will not allow gay couples to adopt - two examples from recent history in the UK - because the person with the problem is a committed Christian.

 

[Urwumpe]

or adoption agencies which will not allow gay couples to adopt

I have to say that I don't see a right for gay couples to adopt children. I know gay couples with children, and I can't say that they have problems, but I think that adoption is another matter as artificial insemination or having children from another relation.

 

[Star Voyager]

Are you sure homosexuality is a choice?

They weren't homosexual before, that's for sure. But that's just what I've seen in my family.

 

[Urwumpe]

They weren't homosexual before, that's for sure. But that's just what I've seen in my family.

You had been asexual before.

Also you have to include conventions and traditions into the equation: Nobody is ever born gay. The society expects you to be straight.

 

[AirSimming]

So it's more the open displays of affection that annoys you rather than the sexuality of the people involved?

Yes. And it's the same for heterosexual couples in certain cases. See below...

I must admit that if I see gay people being affectionate in public I have a conditioned response to feel uncomfortable, but I know that the uncomfortable feeling is irrational.

I'm not sure if it is irrational or acquired. When I was rather young, maybe 8 years old, a school friend wanted to "try something". It immediately was disgusting to me and I was really shocked that somebody even wanted to try something with the same gender. I even didn't know the term homosexuality and I was not aware that something like this exists. But I was disgusted already by the idea. So regardless of what scientists think they have found out, to me it seems that this is a genetical thing. I can't help it, and I don't need/want to help it.

Why would you have to watch it or think about it though?

I mean situations in which you have to watch people almost eating up each other while kissing. For example, if it happens in the bus just in front of me, I'm actually forced to watch it and partly even "hear" it. I don't like it. This is the case for both, heterosexual and homosexual couples. But I'm actually happy that at least a wide majority of homosexual couples won't do this publically anyway.

And I was careful to say that the hatred almost always comes from religion. Of course that's not always the case, but most of the time it is - like when you hear of hotel owners not allowing gay couples to stay there, or adoption agencies which will not allow gay couples to adopt - two examples from recent history in the UK - because the person with the problem is a committed Christian.

The adoption thing is arguable in my point of view. In my "world", children should be reared by a mom and a dad. And I don't only mean the roles, I mean mom and a dad in a biologically sense.

 

[Juanelm]

The behavior is natural and not a choice. But regardless of it's origin, gays deserve equal rights and should be equal under law. EVERYONE should be, regardless of their skin color, nationality, origin, sex and sexual orientation, disabilities or anything else you can think of.

I think I can understand their point of view if try to put myself in their shoes. Imagine you think that homosexuality is a choice, and it's wrong. If the behavior is a choice (btw I don't think it is), then homosexuality does not fall in the same category as skin color, nationality, origin, sex, etc. If someone thinks that homosexuality is wrong, and it is a choice, then it falls more into the category of illegal drug user or something like that (doing something wrong by choice). Should there be laws to stop people that use dangerous drugs in the privacy of their own homes?

But of course the view that homosexuality is wrong is not based on facts, like the the case of illegal drugs. And the view that homosexuality is a choice is not true.

 

[bujin]

The adoption thing is arguable in my point of view. In my "world", children should be reared by a mom and a dad. And I don't only mean the roles, I mean mom and a dad in a biologically sense.

But why is that? Is it because convention dictates that parents should be one male and one female? Yes, there's a social stigma attached to having two "parents" (non-biologically speaking, of course) of the same gender, but that is surely just a reflection of an immature society.

Is there any evidence to say that a child in a family that has same-gender parents is really worse off than one with one mother and one father? (Genuine question, btw. I don't know the answer!)

 

[Cerebus]

Yes, you are misinterpreting because Portia De Rossi is openly gay (she's Ellen De Generes' partner) and nobody in their right mind could hate her.

Besides, I couldn't not jump at the chance of putting a wallpaper size pic of Portia on the forum.

AFAIK, homosexual men do not hate women as a rule. Some do, and some homosexual women hate men. Some heterosexual men hate gay men and some heterosexual women hate lesbians. Bigotry happens to be, alas, universal.

Yeah I knew I was missing some basic, ( google accessible ), information there, which is what left me wondering where I had missed the point, and I applaud your decision to post the pic, very community minded of you