James Peron: Are the Gays Destroying Scandinavia?
This refutes Turtle's assertion that gay marriage has destroyed traditional marriage in Scandinavia. It's the most recent info I found, though Slate said the same thing [with marriage statistics] 10 years ago.
A link from the Gay Wing of the Huffington Post? Really? That which purports to refute my statement is cherry-picked statistics massaged for a purpose. The stats which show marriage is actually up due to same-sex partnerships, not the marriage of traditional couples. More than 50 percent of heterosexual couples with children in Scandinavian countries are not married, compared to more than 80 percent prior to same-sex partnerships. There is no stigma at all for unmarried couples families, however, so it's no big deal. Why is it no big deal? Because marriage no longer has any meaning like it used to. How do I know that? Because Scandinavians themselves have said so.
As for the Boy Scouts, pedophiles are not generally homosexual, and vice versa. Restricting leadership to hetero men does nothing to prevent sexual abuse of little boys - keeping 'celibate' priests away would do a lot more. And men [like Jerry Sandusky] who show a little too much interest in boys, even if those men have wives and children.
What in the world does Jerry Sandusky and pedophilia have to do with the Boy Scouts of America? I mean, other than
nothing, of course. The Boy Scouts of America have never restricted homosexuals from leadership positions in order to "prevent sexual abuse of little boys." Sheesh, good grief, and OMG. The Boy Scouts of America is at its core a religious organization founded on certain religious principles. It is a private organization with its own set of morals, and homosexuals, particularly those in leadership positions, go directly against the Scout Oath (also knows as the Scout Promise), and against the Scout Law. They cannot take the Scout Oath, make the Scout Promise, without lying, and they cannot abide by Scout Law. So they enter Scouting on a lie. Scout Law and the Scout Oath are things Boy Scouts take very seriously, because the entire Scouting program, and how they live their lives, are based on those things they swear to uphold. That's the very mission of Scouting.
The Mission Statement of the Boy Scouts of America
The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.
The Scout Oath
On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.
Scout Law
A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly,
courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty,
brave, clean, and reverent.
A homosexual, or anyone else who takes the Oath and knows they can't or won't live by it, is neither trustworthy, obedient, brave nor reverent. Jerry Sandusky and child molesting is wholly irrelevant to all of this.
Employees who are fired for expressing their views have not lost their freedom of speech, and you know it.
Yes, I know it. But that's not what I said. I said long-term employees of companies have lost their jobs by speaking out against gay marriage. That's true. What is also true is, the ones who were fired didn't lose their freedom of speech, it's the ones who are afraid to speak their minds out of fear of losing their jobs who have lost their freedom of speech.
I think you're wrong about the "backlash", too, because an awful lot of people are discovering [now that gays don't feel compelled to hide it anymore] that gay people are their loved ones, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and they're just like heterosexual people.
Some angels, some devils, most somewhere in between. Just like the rest of us.
How warm and fuzzy, but it's not reality. Every major (and many minor) societal change in history has been accompanied with a backlash. Looking at solely the issue of gays, there have been many times throughout history in various societies where gays no longer felt compelled to hide it anymore, and they came out in force. Then, the backlash resulted in the lid on homosexuality being clamped down hard. Time and time again. There is no reason to think this one time will be different.
In addition, for more than 5500 years of recorded history marriage has meant one thing, the same thing through all of time, and now, suddenly for some unknown immediate dire reason, it's a veritable crisis I tell you, society must be changed. Well, why? Why now? Why is it so important that now, right now, today, that 5500 years of society must be changed? The answer is, because a handful of selfish little children want it really, really badly. There is no other compelling reason to do so. Every argument for the change is an emotional one, not one of which even attempts to improve or sustain society, because they have no reason to think it will. Oh, the claims are made that it will improve society, but whenever you get down to the details the reasons are all the same emotional reasons that do not have any basis in improving society.
Society is ever evolving, no different than Darwin's evolution, and what works best for society stays around, while what doesn't work is discarded in favor of what works. The strong survive and the weak perish, be they animal species or societies. It's not like incorporating homosexuals into society hasn't been tried before. It has. Homosexuals are quick to point them out to you as shining examples of how great it can be. Yet those societies are no longer relevant, if they even exist at all, and homosexuals aren't so quick to point that out. It's never worked in the past, and it won't work this time. There will be a backlash. There always is. Always.
