Again the argument goes both ways….
Thanks Martin for giving yet another example showing that the minority indeed actually has more power to press issues then the majority. If the majority is against something they are raciest or non tolerant, but if a majority is for something it has to be accepted only becuase it is from a minority opinion. Why is it wrong for the voice of many to express their ideas and acceptable for the voice of the few to express theirs?

“Does anyone see the irony in the fact that heterosexuals are being asked to be tolerant of homosexual views, yet homosexuals are not tolerant of heterosexual views?”

I see no one hear advocating that heterosexuals be denied the right to form marriage relationships.

Heterosexual rights are in no way curtailed by the equal treatment of LGBT people under the law.

Consitituions protect the rights of minorities via the courts, precisely because minority rights should never be subjected to the tyranny of the majority.

I will leave you with a quote from one of your great Presidents:

“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” Thomas Jefferson

Dripping with irony: Gays are to be tolerant of views that would have us shipped off to remote islands, stoned, ignored, or seen as inferior.

Oh, won’t someone think of the irony.

the point is mute and no longer has any value?

BTW, it’s “the point is moot, not mute. Sheesh.

Sorry, I fed the troll, but I’ve got a little sand up in my squeegem today.

April 4th, 2008 | LINK
I do not understand how Mr. Stanton can both “understand” the accepted differences in definition between sex and gender used by much of the professional community but not “accept” it. The claim is very obvious.
This is easy one can understand the theory behind a debate and reject it as being relevant. Look at any political debate. Many people understand where their opponent is coming from and reject its premise. The harder things to understand is are those who are for SS marriage acceptant of the arguments against it. The argument goes both ways my friend> I cannot believe the debate about interracial marriage was brought up. When was the last time anyone used that… the point is mute and no longer has any value? Lol that was cute. For mr. Popsicle stand- go read any parenting book and it will discuss the many different roles of mother and father, or males and females. The data can be found at your local barns and noble.
I also think it’s great that those for those for SS marriage admit that
“While there aren’t exactly huge numbers of such studies, they do exist, and generally do not suggest that “harm” occurs to the children with respect to the normal measures of socialization.” Proving that they do not get the same relational socialization in SS marriages as in Heterosexual marriages. Thanks “GROG” you make and excellent point. If you would have admitted that in the beginning it would have saved Stanton a lot of time.
Again with Gender, using the definitions that many have cited and quoted there are millions of genders and therefore both arguments from Stanton and Chapman are mute. To quote the office, “lose, lose, lose” no one resolves the conflict.

Thanks SOC 101

to our precious and patient wives […] you help us make sense of life, giving it fullness, perspective, meaning and the sweet mystery of otherness.

Save that thought.

Now onto Glenn Stanton from the above post:

Chapman then goes on to carefully explain to me that it is a mistake to assume that “all biological males are gendered masculine and all biological females are gendered feminine.” I know what the sentence means, but I don’t know what it means in practice.

Broken down:

it is a mistake to assume that “all biological males are gendered masculine and all biological females are gendered feminine.”

I know what the sentence means, but I don’t know what it means in practice.

I think you do, I just don’t think it fits your worldview enough to entertain it as fact.

Continued:

I think this new understanding of “gender” is a cultural construct, which I will explain in just a bit.
[…]
Given this definition, I would posit that there are some 6.5 billion different genders, because to be honest, we all understand and express our sex in different ways.
[…]
This is my problem with this new use of the term “gender.” That it is used as a way to imply that male and female are no longer adequate terms to describe sex-based human experience.

More specifically, male is no longer adequate. Because after all, if male can no longer define the capacity of female, what is male?
—
So you feel that psychic/psychological gender, is a social construct? Fair enough, but let’s be real about what that means. It means that ultimately, homosexuality itself (same-sex attraction) is a social construct.

So be it, but consider this. If the souls of all gay men were somehow magically implanted into female bodies, you would solidly regard them as heterosexual females, and as such, would consider their love for their husbands to be genuine.

Don’t get me wrong though, I get the fact that if you KNEW that this was the case, you would then consider their love to be corrupt, and any resultant children of that “love,” to be literal spawn of the devil.

(I conflate nothing!)

Marriage on Trial Page 175:

Satan accelerates his attack on God [...] by challenging God’s very image

But if our love is true, then it can only be of God. And you know at least this much about love. Our love, or at least the claim of our “love” as being actual love, is an insult to what you have with your wife, isn’t it? Otherwise, why would you be making such an adamant attempt to distinguish between “your love,” and “our love.”

(Or in Focus on the Family code-speak, “your counterfeit marriage” vs “my marriage.”)

Indeed, one of the opening salvos of your book expresses this sentiment. Page 24:

Shouldn’t two people who love each other be allowed to commit themselves to one another?

Yes, but we don’t always call it marriage. Parents commit to themselves to their children, but they aren’t married. Friends love and commit themselves to each other, but they aren’t married. Coworkers, athletes and soldiers can even love each other and enjoy great commitment, but we don’t call it marriage.

Marriage is about a whole lot more than love and commitment.

Except we’re not talking about all those other kinds of love and commitment Mr. Stanton.

Disagree or not, we’re talking specifically, precisely, and only, about that special “otherness” kind of love that you and your wife share–VIA DIRECT COMMUNION WITH GOD.

So what I take from that paragraph, is that you believe that gay relationships are to be regarded as nothing more than committed ‘friends with benefits.’

Again, so be it. But then the question becomes, why not just say so? Why not just say that you feel that we are either just simply confused, or screwed up in some way that can’t adequately be explained. Why resort to, among other things, Melissa Fryrear’s quite pointed definition of this homosexual-confusion of “otherness?” Page 182:

And so at it’s core homosexuality, and lesbianism in particular, is about filling emotional, relational needs, that core need of wanting to connect with another girl but then, when entering into puberty, all of those feelings and emotions became sexualized.

I take it then that if SSA is the sexualization of non-sexual needs, to then see the sharing of these inappropriately-sexualized needs as “true love,” must be proof of how screwed up we truly are.

Again, so be it. But again still, why not just say so? Or why not at the very very least, not resort to gratuitous slander? Page 65:

monogamy in male homosexual relationships is difficult to sustain, even in long-term relationships. 10

#10 being the citation of The Male Couple and the Dutch Study.

If you feel our love is that ubiquitously fake Mr. Stanton, and our relationships so predicated on delusion, why the need to seek out such spuriousness, and in fact, downright intentional dishonesty to make your point?

Why would this not be inexcusable to you, as a Christian AND as a human being?
—

it is a mistake to assume that “all biological males are gendered masculine and all biological females are gendered feminine.”

I know what the sentence means, but I don’t know what it means in practice.

To be flip, congratulations, you’re a cisgendered heterosexual male.

To be serious though, if this new “understanding of gender” were truly a cultural construct—and the very result of the sexualization of need—then we would see a majority of bisexuality, in measurable proportion to that need.

Furthermore, such a correlation between sexualized-need and bisexuality should be even more apparent in the historical record – given the virtual ubiquitousness of familial HELLS it has taken us to get to this technological point.

But you’ve covered all your bases. Not only are needs “sexualized,” or fixed at a certain point, but attempting to unfix them, can never cause harm, P 153:

So people who say such therapy is harmful are wrong?

Yes, quite wrong. As mentioned earlier, gay activist organizations claim that reorientation therapy is harmful to homosexuals. They warn it offers “false hope” and leads to depression and suicide.

Hear that Peterson and Christine? You can shut it all down now. No such thing as ex-gay harm. Glenn Stanton and Bill Maier say so. They wrote a book that says so. A book that was intended to never ever go out of print.
—
Here’s the point Glenn, disagree as we may, and we do, you know very well that we’re talking about the same form of “otherness” love that you share with your wife.

Again:

to our precious and patient wives […] you help us make sense of life, giving it fullness, perspective, meaning and the sweet mystery of otherness.

If the “otherness” of which you speak, is represented by the “makes sense of life, giving it fullness, perspective, [and] meaning,” then to that extent, gay men are inherently female, and gay women are inherently male.

If that’s the kind of concept that it takes for you to wrap your mind around the understanding that WE believe we can tell the difference between the love we have for our parents and children, or between friends, coworkers, athletes, soldiers, etc., vs the full-on love intensity of communing with life the universe and everything-that we feel with our partners, then by all means, use it to help further solidify your own concept of the integrity our delusion. And then at some point, hopefully, please find the courage to call us idiots to our faces.

By framing the issue as being about marriage, and then putting the word marriage in quotes, as in gay “marriage,” or by saying ‘counterfeit marriage,’ you not only say, but are also able to avoid saying outright, that our love is fake, and that we are all just to stupid to realize it, but your conscience can then also tell you that this is acceptable ethical behavior.

Any confusion at issue here revolves not around any so-called “cultural construct” of same-sex attraction or gender identity, but around how you can think of your objectively-sinful behavior as being Christian in nature.

You gotta love the technique here. Concede the point out of one side of your mouth and then out of the other call it “deeply mistaken”.

Do you really believe that I think there are ways that all men and ways all women act? That is ridiculous. But equally ludicrous is the idea that it is silly-talk to speak of essentially-male or essentially-female qualities, even across cultures.

No…I don’t think that all men and all women act in certain ways. However…yes I do.

Anyway, Sargon Bighorn put it best I think. It doesn’t matter what FoF or Mr. Stanton THINK about gay people and same sex families or even if such thoughts are backed up by traditional thinking on relationships and sexuality. The facts of the matter are, gay individuals are tax paying citizens. Marriage is a civil insitution under the law that provides many protections that allow families to flourish and grow. Denying one group of people to enter into civil marriage contracts with other citizens is a breach of the constitution of the United States. Passing state constitutional bans against recognizing civil marriages performed in other states (or the loose definition of ANY unions that simulate marriage) is in direct violation of the constitution of the United States.

This is also is NOT a state issue, as so many politicians who are so cowardly that they can’t stand up for all the citizens they represent, would have you believe. The United States is ONE country. Gay people reside in each state in that country and therefore leaving such a minority civil rights issue up to the popular vote dictated by the majority of the citizens in each state, is tantamount to making certain states a sort of prison for gay people — where their equal rights stop at the border.