Friv said:
... which of course is what keeps things nasty and an ongoing battle, since a whole heck of a lot of people, close to 50% of the population in the US, and probably like 90% of the population globally (given that the second and third world which vastly outnumber the first world are hardly hotbeds of tolerance on this subject) disagree with you.
The extremity to which this stance is taken, and mirrored on other issues (ie the other side is entirely wrong and their position is utterly, indefensibly wrong) is a big part of why the country is such a mess right now, and why a lot of sociologists are predicting a civil war, not so much over gay rights, though that will be one of several related issues. With presidential elections being run by single digits and a lot of people on both sides rallying on the big issues and seeing the other side as basically being the devil, it's inevitable that at some point a seemingly major victory by one side or the other is going to lead to the other inevitably striking to "take back the country".
That said, on this paticular issue there are three major positions.
On the right wing side of things you have those who believe being homosexual should be illegal. This can be for a lot of differant reasons which I won't go into specifically, but they amount to moralistic arguements, defenses of traditional "family values" and social structure, and the continued enforcement of early "common laws" (as they applied to the US) which form the foundation of society. Up until fairly recently laws against buggery, homosexuality, and other things were actually on the books, and this side is pretty much for enforcing the law and maintaining a way of life that has existed up until the last couple of centuries, whether anyone agrees or disagrees with it.
On the left wing side of things you have those (like you) who believe in the complete and total acceptance of homosexuals, feeling there is nothing wrong with it on any level, and anything negative presented is by definition going to be a lie or propaganda presented by the other side.
In the middle you have people like me who are hated by both sides, who basically encourage compromise. That is to say that being homosexual shouldn't be illegal, but it should be registered and controlled at least for the short term. You have arguements on both sides about issues like whether gay men are more pre-disposed to attacking children, with both sides of things claiming to have debunked the other side as liars. Something that catches law enforcement and things like Code Adam training in an odd position of having to seperate practice and profiling from politically correct realities, and ignore patterns, and similar things, while fights over how powerful groups like NAMBLA are rage left and right. My basic arguement for intents and purposes tends to come down to registering gay men at least, prohibiting them from various areas they are not likely to want to go anyway, and then tracking and observing. In the long run if it turns out the left wing is right, and there are no issues over a period of time, so be it, and you can remove the
limits after a generation or two of observation, if the opposite is uncovered you have the option to implement more hardcore laws.
I'm not going to argue the point other than to say the middle ground is comparitively rare. To a left winger I'm evil because I'm not for total and unconditional acceptance. To a right winger on the subject I'm evil because I'm pretty much letting homosexuals do whatever they want with each other (I don't care what consenting adults do on their own time) and any pretensions of limitations are pointless, especially if your talking about long term data gathering and tracking that might not see any immediate effect if it ever does (which to a serious right winger just seems like an excuse to pacify some of them while letting the behavior go on).
As a result I'm hardly pro-gay, but I'm not anti-gay either. I'm not going to argue the point here, just making a statement about the way things break down as far as "sides" go.
That said, when it comes to someone's writing their political affiliation has nothing to do with anything, if they aren't talking on that paticular subject. I can appreciate tales told by people from positions I seriously do not
agree with. I also do not believe that we should have say scrapped the entire space program because Werner Von Braun
was pretty much the worst kind of person, going by what the Nazis did (who were anti-gay, anti-jewish, anti-gypsy, and pretty much anti- anyone not meeting their genetic ideal), I can respect his contributions to technology and Aeronautics without liking him, or approving with him trying to launch god knows how many V2s on civilians even after he pretty
much knew the war was over and it was pointless.
My point is that sure, to you OSC might be another Von Braun, but you can appreciate his work without agreeing with him as a person.
