Box Turtle Bulletin

I think it also implies that there is no such thing as gay women.

Unless they’re saying they’re proud of their macho gay men AND that their butch lesbians are butcher than straight women, but I doubt that’s the point here.

Timothy Kincaid

Becky,

I’m pretty sure that GOProud hasn’t any women as members. I’m not entirely sure that they have any men as members other than the three or so spokespeople.

Jon

The bullsh!t attitude embodied by that slogan is the same thinking that led that guy to kill his 17-month old son because he acted like a girl.

Just as the people most obsessed with hating gay people are often the people most likely to secretly be gay, guys who are obsessed with the value of masculinity over feminity are the most terrified that they are not masculine enough.

Jason D

One of the more liberating things about being gay is not having to worry about my masculinity.

Think about it.

Straight guys(well a lot of them) seem to be OBSESSED with proving how manly they are. Their entire self-worth is decided by the opinions of other men around them. It’s an odd juxtaposition, really…masculinity, often characterized by strength and self-reliance is still…somehow…inexplicably…in the hands of other men to judge. Seeking the approval of other men seems counter to the whole point.

As a gay man, my masculinity is questioned, judged, and or dismissed on a routine basis. Regardless of what I say or do. And often the deck is stacked against me. The dismissal especially lead me to think “who the hell are these random men, and why should I care what they think of me?”. So I stopped caring.

I pity straight men, waking up every morning with the scale set back to “not manly” and having to prove it all over again.

Richard Rush

Doesn’t GOProud exhibit a form of Stockholm Syndrome?

Burr

I don’t get what these guys are trying to accomplish that they couldn’t achieve by being the typical closeted gay Republican.

They’re just real life trolls.

Chris

GOProud makes Log Cabin Republicans look moderate.

TampaZeke

I said made this comment on Towleroad this morning but it closely resembles what you’ve said here so I’ll repeat it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that GOProud is simply the political action wing of GayPatriot.org.

Strangely their ONLY political action seems to be trying desperately to piss off gays and liberals.

I think their proclaiming “our gays are more macho that their straights” says a WHOLE LOT about their motivation. They are racked with shame because they are gay men with deeply ingrained beliefs that gays are weak and pitiful and unmanly and subjugated to straights so they’re doing everything they can think of to make themselves feel more manly, more powerful, less victimized and the best way they feel they can do that is to be, or appear to be, anti-gay, anti-feminine, anti-liberal, compassionless, boorish, rude and everything that Spike TV tells them that REAL men are.

Yet even after doing all of these things to convince themselves and those they admire most that they are REAL men and worthy to be in the “in” crowd they THEMSELVES, AND the people they admire most, whose love, approval and respect they so desperately seek, still think of them as faggots.

Very sad really.

The best thing we can do, for them, for us and for the gay community is to ignore them.

TampaZeke

Jason D, I agree entirely.

I’ve always said that straight men work harder at “looking and acting ‘straight'” than ANY gay man does. Straight men are forever checking and double checking their speech, their body positioning, how they sit, what they say, what they wear, etc. And it seems to me, from observation, that MOST of what men do for women isn’t done to make the woman happy but is done to impress other men. Men treat their girlfriends/wives very differently when other men are around. This behavior is increased exponentially in closeted gay men, especially in their interactions with women.

Jonathan

For the record, that’s a quote from Ann Coulter, which is why it’s on the poster for homocon. It was the only thing she’s ever said about gay people that wasn’t completely insulting…

Mark F.

In fairness to GOP Proud (and I’m not defending them), I have to say that many Democratic gay groups seem more interested in attacking the EVIL CONSERVATIVES and shilling for their party and Obama than promoting gay rights. And the “non-partisan” HRC is really a left-wing Democratic party front which seems to think abortion has something to do with gay rights and oddly, doesn’t even use the word gay in their name.

Uki

Be careful Tim, you’re falling into the same trap of ‘generalization’. You’re objectivity is being questioned with this article.

Gay people who worship masculinity and think that they are better than the less masculine gay men, are not just from GoProud. They’re everywhere. Even those who are liberals. I have even seen gay men who are feminine but worship masculine men and think that the other queens are just not ‘real’ men. It’s weird, but it’s true.

And just like you, I don’t like guys who judge men based on their masculinity as well. But you should have asses those people individually, not as a group. Unless, of course, that GoProud is a group made by people who have similar thoughts.

Pintick

What we’re seeing is a cultural shift among gay people. More and more gay men are growing up in mainstream culture and don’t want to join gay culture.

What does that have to do with crazy GOProud? Not much, but it’s the direction that Timothy chose to take it, because it’s a HUGE issue to anyone who supports separatist gay culture (which is dying). What we’re going to see is more and more antagonism from separatist gay culture enthusiasts because this issue is very emotional.

TampaZeke

Pintik, you think GOProud is mainstream, assimilated and NOT separatist?

I think being separatist is one of their MAIN reasons for existence. They relish being separatist AS gays AND FROM gays.

I used to be an LCR myself and one common thread that I found in most other LCRs was their enjoyment of being oddballs in the Republican Party AND the Gay community. Being separatist was a HUGE motivator for many of them.

TampaZeke

Oh, and for the record, I’m a married man raising a teenage son. I’m active in my church, my PTA, my neighborhood association and I’m a little league baseball coach. I’m hardly a spokesperson for “separatist gay culture”. Nor am I deluded enough to think that GOProud represents gay assimilation into mainstream culture.

customartist

GOProud, Log Cabins, Coulter, and I could name a few more, who may ome on the national scene either promoting Gay issues or involving themselves otherwise, who take Gay money then turn right around and run for Conservative positions, campaign, or consort with the GOP otherwise, well, that is a misuse of Gay money. The GOP will never help gays, never, period.

NOTHING is more politically important than our rights, nothing.

Louis Britt

All this talk about rights is nonsense. If the affirmation of something is undermining the foundation of civilization, which is that people are raised by mothers and fathers, and furthermore, undermines the well-being of the very people who are inclined toward a behavior for which the human body is ill-suited, then giving rights to people because of such behavior is harmful to everyone. Marriage, moreover, is only a right in the superficial sense that people beyond a certain age can enter into it. It’s a privilege, a system of benefits, to sustain the foundation of civilization.

Burr

How does 3% of people being legally protected and able to care for each other and their children “undermine the foundation of civilization?” Your premise is utterly retarded at face value. Just because you say it is so does not make it so. Even if it did damage, it’d be absolutely minuscule compared to the damage heterosexuals are doing to this foundation of civilization to begin with.

Fact of the matter is, people will make babies and raise them together as father and mother even without some government telling them they have to and giving them special recognition for it. We progressed through most of human history without it (and through the beginning of American history, where marriage as a government institution did not really exist until the Civil War era), and most of human history also did not have the one mother, one father paradigm.

Kristie

Tim, if you think that believing in limited government that doesn’t try to micromanage people’s lives or in people taking responsibility for themselves and their own choices without expecting everyone to look at them as a victim is gays “working against their own best interests” than I can see why you don’t like GOProud. Personally, I think government need to get out of the business of being everyone’s babysitter & that is good for gay & straight people. That’s the difference between GOProud & groups like HRC. So many left-leaning gay groups claim to be about supporting the rights of gay Americans, but time & time again, they sell out gay citizens by supporting Democratic legislation that often times, impacts the gay community negatively. They give democratic politians a pass when they don’t support gay marriage, civil unions, gay adoption or when they actually vote for legislation that bans gay marriage or limits gay rights. At least GOProud doesn’t hide the fact that they are a conservative organization.They are honest about what side their political bread is buttered on. The same cannot be said of many gay rights groups that claim to be in it only for the rights of gays when in reality they are only in it for the democrats.

As for the quote on the poster, that is something Anne Coulter said which, clearly is meant as a slight to liberal men (as being unmacho and wimpy)and not as an insult to conservative gay men. And, I’d agree with her. It takes a lot more guts to be an out-conservative in the gay community than it does to just parrot the latest democratic talking points & go along with the crowd.

a mcewen

Kristie, honestly admitting that u align yourself with entities should never garner respect, only pity in my book. And to me, it’s not about left or right but success for the entire community. How does this group ensure that?

a mcewen

Correction – I mean to say anti-gay entities.

cowboy

I see. So, Kristie, itâ€™s good to be contrary just to be contrary?

We may not like how slowly the Democrats have worked for our rights but itâ€™s damn sure better than the Republican platform. Itâ€™s not a matter of â€œselling outâ€. And Iâ€™m not sure you should pat the Republicanâ€™s backs when they have steadfastly been against gay rights. But, thatâ€™s what GOProud is doing.

Just as Blacks know better to join the KKK or move to Northern Idaho, we must be wary of whom we try to placate. They are actually our enemy.

Burr

Kristie I have distaste for Democrats on the whole, but if you think the Republicans believe in limited government and don’t try to micromanage people’s lives you are seriously kidding yourself. Both of the big parties are absolute failures from that perspective.

I agree there is too much buddying and asskissing with the Democrats, but the solution is not to do the same with the Republicans.

Louis Britt

Burr, the answer is that the relatively new support for sexual behavior outside of male-female marriage has already been undermining civilization for several decades now and is the root cause of EVERY social problem. All the economic and other factors combined don’t come near this in significance.

Tommy

If the Democrats, on the whole, are not our friends (and they consistently act in ways to show they aren’t), then the Republicans, again on the whole, are our enemies. The Democrats are at least apathetic to us, the Republicans are actively hostile. If gay groups give Democratic politicians a “pass” on certain issues it is almost invariably because their Republican opponents are much, much worse.

Burr

Oh really? Then why is teen pregnancy down? Why is sexual assault down? Why is violence down? All of these measures are down since gays started getting equal rights.

The states with the highest divorce rates? In the bible belt. The states with the highest teen pregnancy? In the bible belt. Everywhere that gays are treated poorly, the way that you prefer, is having all of the social problems you say you have an issue with. Massachusetts the first state with gay marriage has the lowest divorce rate in the nation.

Seems like you should be advocating the exact opposite.

Tommy

Really, Louis? Please explain how the mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina is rooted in sexual behavior outside of male/female marriage. I want specific examples.

Louis Britt

It’s silly to connect teen pregnancy and Hurricane Katrina with gay rights. The point is that the sexual revolution, of which gay rights is a part, began four decades ago, and the progress of that exactly coincides with the quadrupling of violent crime and incarceration. Over 80% of prisoners lack the kind of love, authority, and discipline that fathers have always given.

Tommy

Really Louis, so you admit you were being “silly” when you said, “sexual behavior outside of male-female marriage has already been undermining civilization for several decades now and is the root cause of EVERY social problem.” Because I will agree with you, that statement is uncommonly silly.

As is claiming that the current incarceration problem has anything to with the sexual revolution. You know what happened four decades ago, and is actually the reason for our current incarceration problem? The Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Gee, which is more likely to result in violent crime: blackmarket sale of illegal drugs or pubic sale of condoms? You decide.

Christopher Eberz

Louis, your comment about the “affirmation of something [which] is undermining the foundation of civilization,” or more specifically the reasoning behind it, is simply bad reasoning. Civil marriage for same-sex couples doesn’t undermine traditional marriage. To think that it does, you would have to be operating under the notion that homosexuality is some sort of meme, or trend, and thinking further that same-sex marriage somehow competes with heterosexual marriage or aims to replace it.

Gay and lesbian people exist with or without access to civil marriage, as do their relationships and their families.

Not that I want to go and commit fallacy of ignorance, so if there’s some actual mechanism through which my right to marry another man undermines either your marriage, any hypothetical heterosexual marriage, the future of heterosexual marriage, etc, then please do explain it.

I’m not going to even bother acknowledging your reduction of homosexual relationships to a “behavior for which the human body is ill-suited,” which seems like nothing more than the all-too-common obsession with anal sex and what some people (both gay and straight) decide to do in the privacy of their own bedroom.

Louis Britt

People do ALL KINDS of things in private, which has nothing to do as to whether they’re safe.

Take a look at the sexual revolution article in the gay encyclopedia (glbtq.com) that spells out very well how homsexuality is the same as all the deviations from the standard of faithful male-female marriage, which urgently needs to be promoted aggressively again to the exclusion of ALL the alternatives.

People on this blog talk as if they never had a father or a mother, or at least a normal one, because then it would be obvious that you can’t simply double up on the one gender and come out with the same experience growing up. You don’t need studies for things that are just obvious logic and common observation.

Christopher Eberz

Frankly Louis, “obvious logic and common observation” sounds like another way of saying “common sense,” which in my experience is just a term people want to use to avoid critical thought and would rather just bluntly assert what is either traditional or long-believed true.

Again, you talk about heterosexual marriage being “promoted [to] the exclusion of ALL the alternatives” as if the type of relationship or marriage I seek out is completely removed from my sexual orientation.

Let me break it down for you: gay people will seek out same-sex relationships; straight people will seek out opposite-sex relationships. How’s that for common sense?

TampaZeke

After the Bush administration with its record breaking deficits (even BEFORE it collapsed the economy requiring greater deficit to save us from depression), and the Patriot Act, and the nation building in Iraq it is astonishing to me that ANYONE could make the argument, with a straight face, that the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility, personal freedom, respect for our military and small/limited government that stays out of people’s personal lives.

Please Kristie, explain to us all, how you reconcile in your mind your Republican/Conservative ideals with the Bush administration, at least SIX years of which governed with a Republican House AND Senate. The wars were declared with proven lies under 100% Republican rule as were the Patriot Act, the attempt to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment and the unprecedented and out of control spending. I could go on and on but I don’t think it’s necessary.

Tommy

Louise, please explain how any two people have the same experience growing up. I know a set of identical triplets all three of whom had different experiences growing up.

I had a mother and a father who were quite normal. And nothing about that experience was the result of the gender of my parents, rather it was their distinctive personalities.

Priya Lynn

Christopher said “Louis, your comment about the â€œaffirmation of something [which] is undermining the foundation of civilization,â€ or more specifically the reasoning behind it, is simply bad reasoning.”.

Louis uses the type of reasoning that I typically see out of people who’ve had too much to drink.

Rika

Apparently we do need to study things that are apparent “common” sense.

Things like “how was the world formed” and “where did we come from”. Not to mention the many secrets locked within our own brains.

Those who usually argue the “common sense argument” and poo-poo scientific studies usually are doing so from the platform of a bible – which is, as we know, common, yet nonsensical.

Louis Britt

What I said was common observation. I’ve had decades of experience — as a son, as a father, as a neighbor, as a teacher, on and on, and my experience isn’t particularly unusual — well, except for one part of it, which is that I ran an after-school program for inner-city kids for a few years. They kept on coming back voluntarily even though I’m not a fun-and-games guy and the reason is very simple: I look and talk and care like a father and these kids crave that. Our prisons are bursting for lack of the masculine parental influence, while there’s this great myth going around that gender is just anatomy. No, we have to do all this the right way — no sex outside of male-female marriage — because we’re already courting catastrophe. And that’s not rhetoric, it’s reality.

Rika

It’s reality based on what? Your Dr. Laura based “common-sense” studies?

I find it awfully strange how many of the people in prison are from a economically depressed upbringing, where their influences and hero’s were the 16 year olds with a pregnant girlfriend and a bag of drugs for sale in their back pocket. It has nothing to do with having a “father” in the picture.

If this was the case, you’d see more middle and upperclass children from broken homes in the adult incarceration system.

Your “common sense” isn’t as sensible as you like to think it is.

Christopher Eberz

Again, I see the claim that “sex outside of male-female marriage” is at the root of all our ills, and I see you making the leap from being a successful father and after-school program coordinator to the conclusion that being male and masculine are required for raising healthy well-balanced children.

Both are unsupported and seem more like your opinion than anything else. Until you can support these claims with either some explanation and reasoning, or evidence, then it really is nothing more than rhetoric.

Burr

So the failure of heterosexual men to stay married and raise their children properly is all the gays and lesbians fault, even though they aren’t creating these unwanted, neglected children. Even though they are the ones adopting the kids that heterosexuals callously throw away. Riiiight.

Burr

Heterosexuals are at fault for heterosexuals’ problems. Scapegoating is what enables you heterosexuals to continue to fail to address your shortcomings. Stop looking at us. Start looking in the mirror.

Louis Britt

My assertions are not unsupported. The connection between crime and unemployment, for instance, has always been very weak. Often crime goes down in fact when the economy gets worse (eg, compare the 20s with the 30s). But the connection with fatherlessness is extremely strong. People just need that influence, with some exceptions. Same with mothers. If that bond with a mother isn’t established and maintained, it’s hard for a child to establish bonds with others and it becomes a lot easier to become an offender, Now, I did blame gays for the failures of homosexuals at all. I’m blaming the whole society for the change in values that has brought about the collapse of standards and,l for one thing, the eightfold increase in unwed motherhood in 45 years.

Rika

If your assertions are true, why can’t you answer the question: Why are more people form economically depressed backgrounds in jail, and why aren’t more middle and upperclass people, raised in broken homes, in jail?

If your assertions were true, you would see an equal number of people from all walks of life incarcerated.

Instead, the one common ground these inmates share isn’t being fatherless, or without a male influence, but rather their economic histories.

This is why science doesn’t leave these so called “common sense” issues unstudied. Because there is usually no basis in these assumption.

And yes, you’re argument is an assumption.

Burr

If anything it’s the abolition of gay marriage that devalues marriage for heterosexuals. I know many heterosexuals who look at gays and see them as an example of why you don’t have to get married and it causes them to take their own relationships less seriously. If gay marriage were commonplace and even an expectation much like it is for heterosexuals then there would be increased value of marriage in society at large.

Priya Lynn

Louis said “My assertions are not unsupported.”.

LOl, they most certainly are unsupported – you just pulled them out of your butt, you have no evidence whatsoever to support them. Decades of research has consistently shown that children of same sex couples do just as well, if not better than children of opposite sex couples. There’s a reason why virtually every prison inmate has been raised by heterosexuals and virtually none by gay parents.

Itâ€™s a privilege, a system of benefits, to sustain the foundation of civilization.

Oh no, the mysterious C word! The fun is always figuring out what anti-marriage people mean by it, if anything. As best as I can figure out it’s “life the way I’m used to it and like it, i.e. 90% white people mostly claiming to be Christian and heterosexual and English speaking and full of male privilege, with rather little of an actual moral code in practice.” IOW, the people of those large stretches of America that educated Europeans view as religion-touting barbarians.

Itâ€™s silly to connect teen pregnancy and Hurricane Katrina with gay rights. The point is that the sexual revolution, of which gay rights is a part, began four decades ago, and the progress of that exactly coincides with the quadrupling of violent crime and incarceration. Over 80% of prisoners lack the kind of love, authority, and discipline that fathers have always given.

Oh no, coincidence being mistaken for causation. The actual cause was/is the accumulated social damage of segregation and other suppression of blacks, poor whites, and women. After a system of suppression is removed, there’s a time of joy. But this doesn’t last long. The newly freed are always very damaged people who’ve had to absorb all sorts of abuses and costs and soon all kinds of horrors emerge. Basically, all that has been done to them has to be reversed and atoned for.

These are deferred costs that exploiter classes have to pay as price of their exploitation. Which they always hate paying because in they end they make a loss on the overall transaction. Which is morally necessary.

People on this blog talk as if they never had a father or a mother, or at least a normal one, because then it would be obvious that you canâ€™t simply double up on the one gender and come out with the same experience growing up. You donâ€™t need studies for things that are just obvious logic and common observation.

In college I learned that “it is obvious that…” means “I can’t justify it and it’s probably wrong, but I’ll bullshit that it’s true because need it to be true for purposes of not losing this argument.” Yours is a perfect example.

Louis Britt

In the inner city, where the rate of fatherlessness has risen from 22% to 82% since the early sixties, over 90% of the kids without fathers have run-ins with the law, compared with just 10% of the kids WITH fathers. The rates of social dysfunction are the same among all the races when it comes to fatherlessness. They are at much higher risk of failure. Many studies report that fatherless kids are three times more likely to be expelled, to fail a grade or be sexually abused, than those from intact homes, are five times as apt to be poor and are 11 times more likely to be violent in school. Fatherless children are at high risk of drug and alcohol abuse. Three-fourths of those in chemical abuse centers are fatherless, as are 63 percent of youth suicides, 85 percent of youths in prison and 90 percent of runaway children. You absolutely cannot airbrush out the influence of gender in parenting without creating a social experiment that is more harmful than 100 hurricane Katrinas.

Emily K

So then according to Louis’s logic, a kid with TWO fathers will be DOUBLY good.

Priya Lynn

Louis, the shortfalls you note regarding “fatherlessness” are not the result of the lack of a male gender in raising a child, they are the result of the lack of two parents providing the amount of love and resources that a single parent can’t. Once again, decades of research have shown children of same sex parents do just as well, if not better than children of heterosexuals. Its irrelevant how many stats you bring out (which you’ve likely made up anyway) comparing two parent families to single parent families, those stats don’t apply to children of same sex couples.

Rika

Now lets look at those statistics with economic depression and I’m sure you will see higher numbers.

Please provide a link to those “many studies” you cite. I’m willing to bed you can trace them back to such Christian organizations, such as Focus on the Family.

I’ll be waiting for your references.

Burr

So how do gays produce these fatherless children, considering they don’t typically produce children to begin with?

This is YOUR fault. Not ours.

Priya Lynn

Rika, its a certainty that the “many studies” Louis refers to compare heteroseuxal two-parent families to single parent families and none of them compare two-parent heterosexual families to two parent same sex families. Bigots like Louis rely on that lie to pretend they have “many studies” that say heterosexual parents are better than same sex parents – the research resoundingly shows otherwise.

Louis Britt

Religion doesn’t have to enter into this.
It’s apparent that relationships with both sexes early in life make it easier for a child to relate to both sexes later in life and also children progress through some stages that require more from a mother and others that require more from a father.

By the way, the prison system has quintupled over four decades while the overall economic trend has been steadily upward. The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population, a lot more than any of the poor countries. Family breakdown has been the key.

Rika

Apparent to whom? Which study supports this? I’m asking you to name such a study, and we can base the truth factor on who the study is by and what, if any peer reviews have to say.

This is why your “common sense” science fails at every turn. It’s not based on anything except bigotry.

And single families have nothing to do with the prison system quintupling. That has to do with laws, such as 3 strikes, and the extreme sentences given to first time drug offenders.

And Priya, yes I know that Louis is trying to compare apples and oranges and compartmentalize everything, because this is where he feels safest.

It’s clear to everyone, except Louis that he’s not relying on any reliable studies.

And yes, Louis, where there is bigotry based hate, you can usually follow a path straight to a church door – so it’s not true that “religion doesn’t have to enter into this”. You’re right, it doesn’t “have to”, yet it always seem to be the foundation in which your hatred and ignorance is founded upon.

Priya Lynn

Oh come on Louis, this is all about religion for you, you can’t BS us, we’ve heard it all before.

You have now knowledge or experience with gay parenting and far from being apparent that relationships with both sexes make it easier for a child to relate to both sexes, decades of research and hundreds of studies show that children of same sex parents do just as well on every measure as parents of opposite sex parents. You’re making up theories about what you’d like to be true have no bearing on reality whatsoever.

As far as the prison system goes, the reason why the number of inmates has gone up is the absurd war on drugs resulting in the imprisonment of huge numbers of non-violent offenders. Violent crime and property crimes have actually been declining in recent decades just as the economic trends have been improving. Stop making up statisitics Louis, no one here is buying your BS.

Priya Lynn

People like Louis are largely motivated by their own sexual hangups – they are uncomfortable with sex, particularly with male sexual activity so they seek to minimize all sexual activity and advance absurd ideas to justify their desire to suppress it, ideas like if you prevent gays and lesbians from having sex it’ll lower the crime rate and that if you prevent heterosexuals from having sex outside of marriage no marriages will break up.

a mcewen

When people talk the studies that show the superiority of a mother/father household, I always want to ask how many of those studies included same sex households.

Louis Britt

Violent crime is up fourfold, as recall from a book called the American Paradox, which is basically making this point I’ve been making about rising incomes and rising rates of social dysfunction. All about religion for me? It’s all about mothers and fathers for me! Children are in a state of distress in general and it’s all about this culture lionizing all the celebrities and TV or movie characters and other people not worth anyone’s attention running around having sex without commitment. Think of your own mother when you were little and now think of one of your father’s friends and ask yourself if one of those guys would have made for an adequate substitute! I’m amazed that anyone has to cite studies of any kind for this. They exist but it reminds me of the kind of study in which 500 cases are observed to prove that in all two-story house, the second story is higher than the first story. Let’s wake up to what should be as plain as the nose on your face.

Priya Lynn

You aren’t believable Louis, you’re just making statistics up. Violent crime isn’t up, its down. The prisons are overflowing because of the vast numbers of non-violent drug offenders, and the polititicians seeking votes by toughening sentences which studies show results in more instances of offenders repeating and more people in prison for longer.

Of course its all about religion for you, and your sexual hangups – that’s why you’re focused on gay sex and are making absurd statments like preventing gays from having sex will lower the crime rate and preventing heterosexuals from having sex outside of marriage will prevent divorce.

Spare me your fantasies about “ideal” heterosexual parents. I’d have jumped at the chance to trade my heteorsexual parents for same sex parents, parents who chose to have children rather than having them without forthought for the difficulties involved in raising kids. I’d have been thrilled to have same sex parents studies show are sometimes the best parents. Of all the things that determine the quality of a couples parenting abilities, their gender makeup certainly isn’t one of them. You’re an idiot if you believe that.

Burr

Graph of violent crime from the Bureau of Justice Statistics

Violent crime is up fourfold

False

Louis Britt

I just looked at a source that said there were 288,000 violent crimes in 1960 versus 1.38 million in ’08.

Rika

Thanks for that, Louis. You just admitted to pulling your facts from a book that was written by a man who identifies himself as a “Religious Psychologist”.

Thank you for confirming that “religion doesn’t need to play a part in this” – yet does.

Now, please show us your current statistical study that proves that violent crime is up.

Rika

In case you haven’t noticed, it’s not ’08. It’s ’10.

Please show us current statistical proof that violent crime is on the rise.

Priya Lynn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

Enough of your BS Louis:
“While the crime rate had risen sharply in the late 1960s and early 1970s, bringing it to a constant all-time high during much of the 1980s, it has declined steeply since 1993.”

DECLINED STEEPLY SINCE 1993 LOUIS. That’s just when same sex marriage started to enter American discourse. By your own logic the acceptance of same sex love has reduced the crime rate.

God, you’re such a BS’er.

Burr

Also fatherlessness is most pronounced in the most homophobic sections of society (blacks, poor religious whites, etc.), the very places you’d expect to be most immune according to your theory.

Louis Britt

Well, I admit to just popping onto the Internet a few minutes ago about this; I got my numbers from the disaster center dot com, whatever that is. It has the figures for all the years in all the categories of crime. In any case, if this is going to turn around — in whatever sector of society — it means a revolution of values that urgently has to take place. As one observer of the fatherhood scene put in as part of his book on the subject (and I don’t know or care whether he’s a religious dude):

“Fathers promote childrenâ€™s acceptance of the real world by emotionally taking them to the mountain, teaching them to climb, showing them the world, and, over time, showing them the way through and around it.”

You can say valid things about the distinctive contribution of mothers too. Somoe of this we can’t articulate. I can even articulate why I need sunshine, but I know I do and I don’t need anyone to articulate that.

By the way, rates of depression are also way up despite the rising long-term economic trends, and this also has a lot to do with family breakdown which in turn is largely because of the disintegration of sexual ethics.

Timothy (TRiG)

Louis, have you heard of the Magdalene laundries? Look them up. And take it from an guy living in a country where were only beginning to come to terms with our oppressive history: a society in thrall to conservative sexual ethics is not a nice place: all the nastiness is just swept under the rug, where it seethes.

TRiG.

grantdale

Priya, Burr… you know the funniest aspect of watching an ignoramus like Louis reference an author they haven’t actually read?

This is the view of David G. Myers himself, and it’s completely the opposite to the leap that Louis has made.

Because marriage is healthy, same-sex marriage will be healthier than its less permanent alternatives. Moreover, a consistent mandate for monogamy has the potential to let the steam out of the alternatives-to-marriage movement. If implemented as part of a pro-marriage initiative, inviting gay couples to say “I do” may actually help reverse the growing tendency for straight couples to say “We don’t.” And that would be a result that all of us marriage supporters would celebrate.

Myers is also the co-author of “What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage”.

I’m no fan of Myers, overall, btw. His obvious desire to promote his faith too often restricts his analysis of broader social trends, and it’s too often woefully U.S. centric.

Adam

“the foundation of civilization, which is that people are raised by mothers and fathers”

[citation needed]

“behavior for which the human body is ill-suited”

What does this mean? What behaviour?

“giving rights to people because of such behavior is harmful to everyone”

[citation needed]

“Burr, the answer is that the relatively new support for sexual behavior outside of male-female marriage has already been undermining civilization for several decades now and is the root cause of EVERY social problem.”

[citation needed]

“All the economic and other factors combined donâ€™t come near this in significance.”

[citation needed]

LB, you make a lot of assertions of fact. Do you happen to have evidence for any of them?

Tommy

I brought this point up before Louis but you didn’t address it.

In 1970, exactly forty years ago, congress passed the Controlled Substances Act outlawing, among other things, marijuana.

What social ill can be traced more simply and obviously (as well as historically) to the sexual revolution than the creation of the illegal drugs black market?

Lucrece

Wow, a bunch of excitable morons got trolled so hard by Louis…

Don’t feed trolls. I know your life may get boring at times, and arguing with a troll might seem like a reasonable use of free time. It isn’t.

Adrian

@Lucrece

Actually, I benefit from reading the arguments posted by the people you’ve designated as “a bunch of excitable morons.” They help widen my perspective and add to my pool of references. And when I say references, they provide pointers to certain knowledge that may be factual.

Thank you, “a bunch of excitable intellectuals.” It’s good to know that rational people still manage to outnumber idiots on the web.

a mcewen

Thinking that responding to lies is “beneath” you is a mindset that has gotten the lgbt community into trouble.

Burr

It’s more for the benefit of lurkers than the person being argued with.

Jason D

“You donâ€™t need studies for things that are just obvious logic and common observation.”

If there’s any validity to “obvious logic” and “common observation” then the studies, the science will prove them.

Curiously they do not.

Studies have shown that kids do better with a mother and father compared ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY to single-parent(usually single mother) homes.

Studies of gay parenting? They show the kids are no better, no worse. A recent long term study showed the kids of lesbian couples are doing better than their peers. More studies are needed, but what we have so far doesn’t say anything negative about gay parenting.

And NEWSFLASH. Nowhere on the marriage license is there a place for the kids. Nowhere in the ceremony does the official say “and have lots of babies”. The marriage is about the two individuals. It is not about kids. Saying marriage is exclusively about raising kids is like saying we have hands soley for the purpose of masturbating. Parenting is about the kids. Not all those who marry will become parents. Not all those who have kids will get married.

It was obvious logic and common observation that the sun revolved around the earth, but scientific iquiry revealed that the sun is not moving around the earth, contrary to “obvious logic” and common observation”.

People spouting “obvious logic” and “common sense” arguments should, if they had an integrity, invite and welcome scientific research –If their observations are true, science will back it up. But too often, people like Louis cite “obvious logic” and “common sense” because they KNOW science won’t back them up. They know that all their “obvious logic” is merely biased opinions.

Priya Lynn

Don’t feed the Lucrece troll.

Ben in Oakland

How will preventing me from being legally married provide even one child (not mine) with a father?

*crickets*

Priya Lynn

Ben, that fact highlights the absurdity of the “children have a right to a father and mother” rhetoric.

Emily K

Lucrece has a point, and I share her sentiments. This thread is about GOProud, not about the benefits of parenthood for children in one form or another. He effectively hijacked it and the choir is probably wasting their energy on him.

Emily K

apologies, Lucrece, if I incorrectly guessed your gender. I shoudl have said “their.”

Burr

Well it doesn’t give GOProud attention, so mission accomplished!

Lucrece

It’s fine, Emily, the gender of an online poster isn’t really that important. Especially when choosing an ambiguous name like mine.

You did guess correctly my gender and my point.

Everyone gets an urge to rant on a blog, particularly on comment threads that get lost to tangential discussion. Doesn’t mean we can try to get the discussion back on topic.

Namely, the less attention GOProud gets, the sooner they’ll disperse out of the radar. When blogs with large readership like BTB, Towleroad, AfterElton, Bilerico, and JMG comment on this publicity stunt, GOProud profits greatly, and their mission is accomplished.

GOProud thrives off fabricated outrage since it does not possess anything of substance. Let it suffocate in its vacuum.

jeff

WOW, just when I start thinking I’m smarter than others, I read comments posted here. A lot of you have brought up some REALLY good points that I never considered before.

LOL – I especially loved it where you all nailed “Louis” for presenting his phoney studies.

Priya Lynn

Right Jeff. Its important not to abandon the stage and let the bigots spew their lies unopposed – that’s why Prop 8 was lost.

Timothy Kincaid

Kristie,

I think you’re confused. I’m the conservative writer here.

Lucrece,

Yes, and that was the point of my commentary. GOProud exists solely to direct attention to themselves.

Louis,

David Boeis said it best to Tony Perkins this morning when Perkins tried to make the same claims about “studies.” You can say anything in debate, but in a court of law, under oath, with cross-examination, there was no evidence that opposite-sex couples raise better children than same-sex couples. He told Perkins, “That’s just MADE UP. That’s just JUNK SCIENCE.”

Louis Britt

It’s apparent that relationships with both sexes early in life make it easier for a child to relate to both sexes later in life and also children progress through some stages that require more from a mother and others that require more from a father.

What we have to do is generate a resurgence of appreciation for fathers and mothers and the unique, distinctive, powerful contributions they make to the upbringing of every human being, except of course for those who have to overcome the handicap of missing one or both of them. The biggest myth in this whole debate is that society is just as well off giving social and economic support to arrangements in which, for instance, a father is deliberately, intentionally absent in the life of a child. How many criminals, run-aways, drug addicts, and unwed mothers will it take for society to wake up to the fact that it makes a huge difference that we support father-mother families only and that we reverse all the social approval that is now be lavished on couples who aren’t married but living together, adulterers hanging out with desperate housewives, and couples of the same sex?

Piper

Louis, I’m sorry, as a liberal living in the bible belt I’m used to the kind of rhetoric you are using. But I’m getting fed up with your strain of it. You aren’t just attacking gay relationships, you attack people who adopt, or use surrogate mothers to have children.

Usually I don’t comment much, but I’m getting tired of this. I have no problem with thought out opposition to the points BTB puts out, but yours don’t come across in this way. If you want ANYONE here to take you seriously you need to drop the general assumptions, and point out the proof of your statements.

BTW, you last post talked about how horrible children turn out when they don’t have both a mother and a father. There has been some research into this issue, and your assumption has not been supported.
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2010/06/07/23300

Priya Lynn

Louis your bald assertions have nothing to do with reality. The research has consistently shown that children of same sex parents do just as well, if not better than the children of heterosexuals. The studies you refer to which compare heterosexual parents to single parent families say nothing whatsoever about the abilities of same sex parents who, as I pointed out, are at least as good at parenting as heterosexual couples

Louis Britt

Where is the logic in such studies? Either a mother has distinctive value or she doesn’t!

Have you ever thought about why it is that the vast majority of criminals never really had a father growing up? The same is true with every other form of antisocial behavior too. It’s because fathers have a particular way of loving children that is different from mothers. Contrary to trendy opinion, masquerading as progressive, men and women are different. You can’t create a father by adding another mother. That’s not a situation that should be supported by the kind of economic and other benefits that define the institution of marriage. In fact, the social breakdown we’re experiencing today calls for an increase in the economic and social support that will increase the number of children brought up by faithful fathers and mothers and a strict avoidance of the dilution of such benefits and the waste of scarce economic resources occasioned by gay marrige.

I take it you’re divorced, Louis, and it has upset you that your wife was deemed the better parent. Or maybe you never got to the married part.

Priya Lynn

Louis, you know nothing about social science, you have no training, you’re not familiar with the literature, in fact you dismiss science out of hand to substitute your superstitions. The vast majority of criminals were raised by heterosexuals, not by same sex parents. Such criminals don’t suffer from the lack of a certain gender’s presence, the suffer from the lack of two parents and the shortage of love and resources that entails. Decades of research and hundreds of studies have shown that children of same sex parents do just as well, if not better than the children of opposite sex parents. Your bigotry in no way provides any evidence to the contrary.

At most a few percent of marriages will be same sex marriages so its foolish to think that will present any burden on economic resources, in fact it will be the exact opposite – by encouraging single people to live together as couples they’ll support each other and conserve resources that would be duplicated by two singles having seperate households. There will be further savings because some singles that would normally be supported by the state will instead be supported by their spouses. Equal marriage is a win-win situation and you’re shooting yourself in the foot trying to discourage it. But of course for you this was never about economics, resources, or what’s best for society, its about religious bigotry and your discomfort with men as sexual beings and your desire to minimize all the sexual activity that makes you so uncomfortable.

Priya Lynn

http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/parenting.aspx

Louis, your opinion coming from a position of ignorance and bias carries no weight whatsoever.

The APA sums up the research over the last several decades thusly:

“In summary, there is no evidence to suggest that lesbian women or gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of lesbian women or gay men is compromised relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents. Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by lesbian and gay parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children’s psychosocial growth.

Jason D

“Itâ€™s apparent that relationships with both sexes early in life make it easier for a child to relate to both sexes later in life and also children progress through some stages that require more from a mother and others that require more from a father.”

Sorry, the value of a parent has nothing to do with what’s between their legs.

All these claims you make are outmoded stereotypes, and nothing more. Today’s parents don’t even live up to the rigid roles you have lined up for them.

“The biggest myth in this whole debate is that society is just as well off giving social and economic support to arrangements in which, for instance, a father is deliberately, intentionally absent in the life of a child. ”

As opposed to leaving them in orphanage where they will have NO family whatsoever? That’s better? Really? Because this isn’t a choice between gay parents and straight parents, it’s a choice between gay parents and NO PARENTS AT ALL. Gays aren’t displacing straight couples, they’re picking up the slack. There are NOT enough homes for all the kids in our adoption and foster care system.

Or, while you may think we’re bring children into the world through surrogacy to deny them a mother or father — your side wants to deny them AN EXISTENCE ALTOGETHER.

Timothy Kincaid

OK, guys.

We’ve tolerated the off-topic soap-box ranting enough.

Let’s get this back to GOProud

Eric in Oakland

It is interesting to me that both the original article about GoProud and the subsequent rants by Louis Britt show how significant gender roles and gender stereotypes are to this debate. We sometimes forget this when so many homophobes focus on sex acts as talking points. However, I think the insecurities about being perceived as insufficienty masculine or feminine more directly drive much of the bigotry and discomfort with gay people. It also explains why the transgender community experiences even more prejudice and hatred.

Pintick

Bummer that we had to put up with some gay-basher in “loving Christian” clothing for so long. We really need more incisive questions to demoralize those liars more efficiently.

GOProud? Yes, crazy. I mean that in the “Mentally unstable as to be a danger to themselves and to others” sort of way, not in the “Everyone’s a little bit crazy” sort of way.

I thought the interesting story here was Timothy’s extreme discomfort with their “macho” comment. He became defensive.

TampaZeke, I’m sorry you had such a bad experience with the LCR. If you want to talk about that, then I really won’t have much to say. But if you want to talk about the points I brought up, then I’m eager to discuss them with you.

Ben in Oakland

Louis, you’re saying that a woman makes a lousy father, a man makes a lousy mother.

Two words: Susan smith.

I got news for you. A lot of fathers make lousy fathers. A lot of mothers make lousy mothers.

Ben Mathis

His entire premise is based on the faulty assumption that the US’s prison population is full of criminals. The US locks up more people than any other country by percentage because the private prison industry and “war on drugs” is very profitable to the wealthy of the US, and serves to further the scare mongering culture that keeps so many Americans in check.

The US doesn’t have any more or less criminals than equivalent economic countries, they just lock people up for far easier reasons and for longer.

Jason D

“I thought the interesting story here was Timothyâ€™s extreme discomfort with their â€œmachoâ€ comment. He became defensive.”

Riiiight, as if crowing about how macho you are is NOT defensive or insecure.

Donny D.

I have to disagree with those who say that GOProud is just an attention-getting game that will fold when no one pays them any mind. I think you will find them much more persistent then that, and much less focused on what YOU think of them than you’d like to believe.

Right now, I see them building something new: a partisan organization that will be part of a web of individuals and organizations (mostly blogs for now) that will form Fox News watching, talk radio listening lesbians and gay men into a coherent and capable part of the Republican conservative propaganda and political action machine.

For instance, if you follow gaypatriot.org, after a while you might be surprised at how closely they stick to whatever the GOP conservative propaganda machine is saying, so close that it’s eerie (as in discomfiting and ominous).

Part of why these gay Republican conservatives are trying to get attention is to attract like-minded people to their organized presences. In part it’s because they’re lonely, and feel they need friends in the face of the majority of LGBT people who are dislike their politics, often intensely. But in part because they are building something that’s new.

Sure, we’ve always had LGBT conservatives, but they are different than they used to be. Pre-1992 Republican Convention conservative gay men were often aggressively out front about their gayness when around straight conservatives, and were likely to support what the rest of us supported, protection against hate crimes of all sorts and protection against discrimination. Back then, it was only the gay libertarians who were against these things.

Log Cabin-ers, as much as the rest of us criticized them, often made a point of refusing to support a GOP candidate who was anti-gay.

But the Republican party has changed, as has grassroots Republican conservatism. GOP conservatives feel the need to be much more unified and “with” the GOP conservative message. There used to be a tolerance of differences within Republican conservatism that is becoming increasingly rare. And the Republican Party since its ’92 convention and the ascendancy of Newt Gingrich has become more explicitly socially conservative, and more explicitly anti-gay.

It’s driven many of us away, and has caused many more of us who support it to do so conditionally, only at certain times or at arms length.

What’s left are a much smaller number of “true believers” in Goldwaterite/Reaganite conservatism. And they’re different as people from the old gay conservatives. The lesbians are now often bitter about their treatment by other LGBT people, especially by other lesbians, though still very strongly out front about their lesbianism. Many of the gay men, however, seem not to be, to the point of being almost embarrassed about their gayness. These conclusions are based on some years of personal experience with this type of lesbian and gay male conservative, which was increasingly unpleasant as time went on and finally intolerable after the election of Obama. You can see a lot of the same kinds of things on gaypatriot.org, especially in the comment sections.

My expectation is that these gay Republican conservatives will eventually be used as a strategic resource against liberals and Democrats and against LGBT unity, and that their relatively small numbers will be used capably by the GOP conservative machine as a martial artist uses a small amount of force to much greater effect. (There IS a possibility, though a much smaller one, that they will actually have some (limited) successes someday in blunting GOP homophobia.)

They ARE trying to cause consternation among the rest of us so it would be smart to withhold our more outre displays of disapproval, but it might also be wise to keep an eye on these new gay conservatives and maybe even learn something about them. Their psychology is alien to most of us. What you don’t understand CAN hurt you.

Pintick

Jason D wrote:

“Riiiight, as if crowing about how macho you are is NOT defensive or insecure.”

Does it offend you when gay men express disapproval of effeminacy — something that is happening more and more frequently? How do you cope with it?

Emily K

Pintick, stop projecting.

Priya Lynn

“Does it offend you when gay men express disapproval of effeminacy”.

Yes, it does. You have no right to disaprove of people who are harming no one.

Jason D

“Does it offend you when gay men express disapproval of effeminacy”

No, it just shows their ignorance. Misogyny among homosexuals isn’t offensive as much as it is sad.

” â€” something that is happening more and more frequently? How do you cope with it?”

Perhaps it is happening more and more frequently in your neck of the woods, but in mine, not so much. See, I’m in my 30’s and the men I run into(both straight AND gay) have matured enough that femininity is neither shocking nor disturbing to them. At most it’s boring.

As Emily put it, you are projecting, which if I recall from previous threads –it’s one of your favorite things to do.

Pintick

Jason D wrote:

“As Emily put it, you are projecting, which if I recall from previous threads â€“itâ€™s one of your favorite things to do.”

I would be projecting if I denied it, which I don’t. Effeminacy in gay men is harmful to gay acceptance, particularly as it is expressed (is it okay for a gay person to “rub it in someone’s face” if they don’t like it?). In fact, one of the primary reasons for effeminacy in gay men is to coerce gay men into a “separate but equal” culture. I think you’re ignorant for disagreeing with that. In fact, it makes me feel sad to see how blithely you treat gay culture, as if it’s something that is, at worst, benign.

Do you oppose gay integration and gay acceptance? If you do, that would really make us enemies, wouldn’t it?

Jason D

“Do you oppose gay integration and gay acceptance? If you do, that would really make us enemies, wouldnâ€™t it?”

Pin, you need to review our conversations from previous threads. I’m not a gay seperatist. I’m not even sure they exist as in 10 years of being Out I have yet to meet one. It’s certainly possible.

In fact, one of the primary reasons for effeminacy in gay men is to coerce gay men into a â€œseparate but equalâ€ culture. I think youâ€™re ignorant for disagreeing with that.

I’m ignorant for disagreeing with a theory you came up with out of whole cloth, which has no rationality, factuality, or data supporting it?
This is YOUR theory, that you periodically show up and try to peddle, which the commentors on this blog have rejected before and will again.

Let’s just review real quick…
Pin, your idea of a gay seperatist is anyone who participates in gay culture, lives in a gay neighborhood for any reason, and marches in pride parades. Yet no one who fits this discription would agree with you, or support seperate but equal in any fashion. You apparently now include feminine men, something you seem to view as a choice rather than a personality trait.

We’ve been through this before, I don’t buy it, and most people don’t buy it either.

Pintick

Jason wrote:

“Iâ€™m ignorant for disagreeing with a theory you came up with out of whole cloth, which has no rationality, factuality, or data supporting it?”

It may sound weird to you, but that’s only because you’re so sheltered and haven’t paid attention to what “queer” people say. The whole reason why gay people WANT gay people to embrace being “queer” is to promote counter-culture as a good thing for gay people. They want gay people to be different, they want gay people to be other, and they thing that mainstream culture sucks. Furthermore, they regard any gay man who disagrees with that as an Uncle Tom. I’m happy you haven’t met any of these assholes, but just because you haven’t met them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Lots of Christians have never met an abortion clinic bomber.

Go watch the movie “Gay Sex in the 70s”.

“Pin, your idea of a gay seperatist is anyone who participates in gay culture, lives in a gay neighborhood for any reason, and marches in pride parades.”

I agree on the first and the third points, but not the second. After all, straight people live in gay neighborhoods. But on the other points, yes, the whole purpose behind gay culture and “pride” parades (they are parades by, for, and of gay culture, not gay people) is to promote the notion that gay people should be separate from straight culture, that marching in the street with a rainbow jockstrap, lipstick, and huge wings is the essence of “being gay”. I think that idea sucks, and you think it’s awesome. We really do represent two very different cultures, don’t we?

“Yet no one who fits this discription would agree with you, or support seperate but equal in any fashion.”

How do you know? Did you interview all of them? Obviously they don’t want to integrate if they live in a gay ghetto. They could live anywhere, but they chose to live there where they would be around as few straight people as possible. How’s that for fostering integration and acceptance of gay people? “Straight people suck! Let’s all move to a gay island.” Isn’t that the exact same thing the gay bashers want to do to us? Funny how theirs and your motives coincide.

“You apparently now include feminine men, something you seem to view as a choice rather than a personality trait.”

Of course it’s a choice. Just talk to any fruity gay man and you’ll eventually hear them talk about “rubbing it in people’s faces”, which is also a choice. Yes, please talk about how some people are “naturally feminine” with me, given that “femininity” differs from culture to culture and is a therefore a learned behavior.

“Weâ€™ve been through this before, I donâ€™t buy it, and most people donâ€™t buy it either.”

How do you know? Did you interview all of them?

The point is, I don’t care if you don’t agree with me. Gay men who don’t like gay culture deserve to have a voice too, and they deserve to have a voice that doesn’t talk with a affected lisp, particularly when it’s spoken by someone else and without their consent. Gay culture is destructive, and gay people deserve better than that. Perhaps you think that gay people deserve to be “queer” and deserve to live second-class lives outside of the mainstream. You probably think that gay culture and being gay are the exact same thing. Lots of gays suffer from that delusion. You’re wrong. Gay people who are coming out, take a first look at gay culture and do NOT like what they see, deserve to know that being gay doesn’t have to mean being part of gay culture.

If your lifestyle depends on a steady stream of chicken into your gay ghetto, then I understand why you would hate my message.

Timothy Kincaid

Pintuck,

Why do I get the impression that you don’t know very many gay people. Your wild stereotypes are so far from reality that it is just laughable.

I agree that “gay men who donâ€™t like gay culture deserve to have a voice too”, but why must it babble lunatic things?

Burr