@BigD

Quote:

You are deluded if you think the intention was ever to petition every single adult in the UK.

If that is the case, why are you touting your bigotry on an obscure computer fans network?

Quote:

there are more people that disagree with its stance than agree with it

Taking into account the numbers of infants, itinerants, and illegal immigrants, there are an estimated 65 million people in the UK. This means that for every one name on your petition there are 162 people who do not feel inclined to sign, despite the efforts of certain sections of the press to stir up the righteous indignation of the self righteous. The fact that I have not signed the opposing petition does not mean that I support your assault on the rights of a minority group. Unlike some, I do not feel threatened by the prospect of other people being able to do something that I have done all of my life.

_________________
When in trouble, fear or doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

@SpaceDruid

Quote:

Incidentally, your petition website has been up since 10 Nov 2011

The C4M campaign launched on 20th February 2012, get your facts right! The C4EM team knew a Government consultation was due but all they have shown is that there is no appetite for a law change and a general apathy in the homosexual community.

As you have noticed; there is no desire for debate on this issue within the national media especially the liberal thinking BBC and Guardian/Independent newspapers. Indeed, as far as these news sources are concerned there is no debate, this is a done deal. The BBC refused to cover the issue until Cardinal O'Brien spoke out and the journalists thought that they could put anti-religious spin on the story instead of taking an unbiased stance by covering the general unrest in the country about the un-democratic consultation the Government was formulating! The man on the street does care about the destruction of marriage, but people are concerned about the over use of the terms 'bigot' and 'homophobe' which have no place in this debate. You would have to coin a new phrase such as 'marriage raper' or 'institution slasher' to get the same sort of venomous sentiment that the pro-redefinition crowd use!!! It is not a crime to be pro-marriage and it is not homophobic to have this stance. It is deeply unsettling that if anyone in our society takes a stance that isn't condoned by 'Stonewall' the liberal thought police attempt to villainise them.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Quote:

Quote: Incidentally, your petition website has been up since 10 Nov 2011 The C4M campaign launched on 20th February 2012, get your facts right!

From the whois info...

Domain name:
c4m.org.uk

Relevant dates:
Registered on: 10-Nov-2011
Renewal date: 10-Nov-2013
Last updated: 10-Nov-2011

My facts are right.

And you are right, there has been a campaign. That's why I said "organised protest" That's something religious groups do quite often. It happened when "Life Of Brian" was first released, it happened when "Jerry Springer: The Opera" was opened and it's happening right now with Gay marriage.

And just like on every other previous occasion, it does not reflect the public mood.

_________________
"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

Google Translate

@BigD

Quote:

The man on the street does care about the destruction of marriage,

It is true that people care about marriage, and would resist any attempt to destroy it. So where is your evidence that extending the joys of marriage to a minority group will harm my marriage. You keep repeating this lie in the hope that you can fool enough people into signing this bigots charter, and when you do not get your own way you resort to uppercase shouting about a non existent majority that you claim to represent.

Quote:

but people are concerned about the over use of the terms 'bigot' and 'homophobe' which have no place in this debate.

so you are of the opinion that these terms have no place in this debate?
If you dislike being referred to by these terms, may I most humbly suggest that you refrain from acting in a manner that befits the title.
As was once explained to me
"If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."

_________________
When in trouble, fear or doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

@Nimrod

It's not of course the first time fringe groups claim to speak to for the majority of people. Of note recently was the "One Million Moms" campaign in the USA about J.C. Penney hiring a lesbian celeb as spokesperson only managing to get 40,000 members to join it's facebook page.

_________________
"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

Google Translate

@SpaceDruid

Quote:

It's not of course the first time fringe groups claim to speak to for the majority of people.

Where is your proof that C4M DOESN'T speak for the majority! Is it just that the majority of the UK just don't agree with you and can't bring yourself to accept that your liberal views are not taking a hold with the general public despite the BBC and liberal press trying to give biased coverage or none at all?

The growing petition against your position stands at 412,495 and counting. Where are your stats, where is your proof, where is your consensus? The proposed marriage redefinition is not the African-American Civil Rights Movement, it is not the Suffragette Movement and it most definitely is not the campaign William Wilberforce led to abolish slavery. It is simply a few hot blooded liberals with a poisonous idea that homosexuals are a gender of themselves and deserve rights that should be reserved for married heterosexual couples, who if blessed with children raise them in the best and most stable relationship possible, offering both male and female role models and hence they should be rewarded in society for their commitment to each other. Two men or two women living together can gain most tax and inheritance advantages through Civil Partnerships, but why not extend this system to sisters, brothers, aunts, best mates to get the same benefits homosexuals do at present. Homosexuals should not be put on a pedestal above these over groups and they should definitely not be compared to married heterosexual couples just because a minority of people think they constitute a GENDER and that people should be 'out and proud' and remoulding society!!!

Most homosexuals I know hate marriage and I can only guess this is an attempt to subvert it at its core. At least Christopher Biggins has the common decency to say, “I'm very anti-marriages, because I think that is for heterosexual couples...”.

A friend from school introduced me to his homosexual pal from university who had no qualms about marrying a foreign girl on his course just so that she could stay in the country. While this is an extreme example it shows the wide disdain and lack of respect a lot of homosexuals and liberals hold the institution of marriage.This 'redefinition' is purely about destroying marriage and has nothing to do with 'real world' numbers of homosexuals actually wanting to commit to a life together in any way that mirrors 'marriage'. This is politics at its worst! Listen to the people Mr Cameron.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Quote:

Where is your proof that C4M DOESN'T speak for the majority!

How many times do we have to say this? My proof that C4M doesn't speak for the majority is the fact it doesn't contain millions of signatures. You need more than 50 percent of the voting public to claim a majority. Right now 412,495 votes isn't even the majority of people that claimed to be regular church goers in the last Census.

Everything you posted after this confirms you neither understand what Gay means, or tolerate it in any way shape or form.

"Definition of BIGOT
: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance"

Various edits were made to my origional reply because on reflection there was no way to answer the rest of your post without me being excessively rude. Suffice to say that you have no understanding of what Gay people are outside of the cartoon version you have in your distorted imagination. Bearing this in mind, it is pointless continuing this conversation with you as you do not understand the subject matter and to continue further will only subject you to further ridicule.

Last edited by SpaceDruid on 11-Apr-2012 at 03:56 AM.
Last edited by SpaceDruid on 11-Apr-2012 at 03:33 AM.
Last edited by SpaceDruid on 11-Apr-2012 at 03:06 AM.
Last edited by SpaceDruid on 11-Apr-2012 at 02:47 AM.

_________________
"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

Google Translate

@SpaceDruid

Quote:

Everything you posted after this confirms you neither understand what Gay means, or tolerate it in any way shape or form.

My point was that the homosexuals I've encountered in my life have subverted and devalued marriage at every opportunity probably because most them had an absent father in their household growing up and may have some bitterness remaining towards those of us blessed with a active and participating father. Why then should they also be allowed to redefine and ultimately destroy marriage because THEY'VE CHOSEN to go down a different course which doesn't entitle them to get married!!! Marriage is open to them if they decide to marry someone of the opposite sex as some of the ex-homosexual community do! Otherwise they have Civil Partnerships, that's not inequality that's common sense!

You have no proof that there is any ground swell of support for your position. You continue your naive rhetoric about the petition not being large enough even though I have pointed out to you that this one of the biggest petitions of the past 5 years and the most popular petition didn't quite get to 2 million people. You will never get to a point where 50 million adults will A; keep up with current affairs to be aware of the issue or B; take time out of their schedule to sign it!!! Why is that so hard to grasp? I ask again why do you think YOU speak for the majority?

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

/Facepalm

_________________
"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

Google Translate

@BigD

I originally had a detailed response prepared that took your last post, dismantled it, and presented you as the bigoted, ignorant boor you have clearly demonstrated yourself to be.

However, I realised that won't be necessary, as you've done that all by yourself.

AndyC

@BigD

Quote:

My point was that the homosexuals I've encountered in my life have subverted and devalued marriage at every opportunity probably because most them had an absent father in their household growing up

Do you realize you just blamed the victim of a devalued marriage for being the one to devalue the marriage?

Quote:

Marriage is open to them if they decide to marry someone of the opposite sex as some of the ex-homosexual community do!

To me it looks like YOU are the one devaluing marriage. Why do you think so little of it to encourage someone that is gay to lie to the world by claiming they love and are commited to someone they aren't?

Quote:

I ask again why do you think YOU speak for the majority?

You are the one citing an easily defrauded poll as proof positive of majority support. As well you are the one with promoting tyranny of the majority to minimize if not eliminate minority rights.

@BrianK

Quote:

someone that is gay to lie to the world by claiming they love and are commited to someone they aren't?

The point is that homosexuality is NOT a gender. People change! I have a friend who tried a lesbian relationship, guess what her father walked out when she was young, aged 10! No positive male role model can start relationship problems, identity issues etc. Plenty of people aren't satisfied with the homosexual lifestyle and seek help to deal with the feelings. Assuming everyone is 'out and proud' is a naive assumption. The people from the ex-homosexual community I mentioned are people that marry someone from the opposite sex because they no longer have homosexual feelings and are attracted to people of the opposite sex through counselling and therapy (totally optional and their choice).

New study reveals homosexuals can change orientation

Quote:

The longitudinal study followed 61 subjects for between six and seven years and found that 23 percent of them reported successful conversion to heterosexual orientation and function and another 30 percent reported stable behavioral chastity with a significant dis-identification with gay orientation. Twenty percent of the subjects had given up and embraced a gay identity.

This does happen whatever your prejudices. In this way people who wish to change can change! Therefore, homosexuality is not a gender and hence homosexual relationships are not comparable to marriage!

The very fact that 'Gay Pride' events are required to maintain the charade that homosexuality defines a person's identity should give you a clue as to how hard people have to try to convince themselves that they are happy and proud of their relationships. In reality the relationships are more often than not abusive, unloving and short term. Another guy I knew had his wage taken off him by his boyfriend immediately on pay day every month no questions asked and suffered emotional bullying in order to keep him in the relationship and this wasn't even a Civil Partnership. He was confused about homosexuality and was actually convicted that it might not be the best course for his life by an episode of South Park! No one else pointed out to him that it might not be the best lifestyle for him and instead a lot of his work colleagues enjoyed having a gay friend and played up to it, despite how unhappy he was underneath it all. It's the homosexual lobby that perpetuates the falsehood that homosexuality mirrors heterosexual marriage. The reality on the street is a lot different.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Quote:

Where are your stats, where is your proof, where is your consensus?

The figure for the number of people signing your petition come from here, and the figures for UK population come from here. Using simple mathematics I can work out that less than one percent of the total population of the UK have signed this petition. Less than one percent is not a majority. It doesn't matter how vociferous and vituperative your minority is it is still not a majority

Quote:

It is simply a few hot blooded liberals with a poisonous idea that homosexuals are a gender of themselves and deserve rights that should be reserved for married heterosexual couples

So you have a hatred of liberal ideals, and believe that rights should be reserved for certain sections of society, and denied to others. How long will it be before you deny these people not only the right to marry, but also the right to live? Do you really consider the idea that people have rights to be poisonous? If that is an example of christian charity, then thank god I'm an atheist.

Quote:

Homosexuals should not be put on a pedestal above these over groups

Giving somebody equal rights to the rights that I enjoy does not constitute putting them on a pedestal. the clue is in the word equal. Why are you so terrified of the concept that somebody who is different from you can still be your equal.

Quote:

A friend from school introduced me to his homosexual pal from university who ....

So you met a dishonest person. Was it really the first dishonest person that you ever met in your entire life? I have met christians who considered it not only their right, but often their duty to act in the most self centred and bigoted way imaginable. Does that mean that I would be justified in trying to outlaw religion, or deny rights to a religious group? Of course it doesn't.

Quote:

This 'redefinition' is purely about destroying marriage

You keep making this dishonest claim, but have yet to explain how letting "Adam and Steve" get together in matrimonial harmony impinges in any way on the stability of my marriage.

_________________
When in trouble, fear or doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

@BigD

Quote:

The point is that homosexuality is NOT a gender

No one said it was. The problem here is you are trying to say homosexuals have the same rights as heterosexuals they simply need to be heterosexual. The problem is sexuality is a spectrum. Some people lean more towards heterosexual, some homosexual and some in the middle, aka bisexual.

Quote:

Plenty of people aren't satisfied with the homosexual lifestyle and seek help to deal with the feelings

And that's perfectly ok. What is not okay is you assuming every homosexual needs to seek this help to deal with their feelings. You say homosexuality is NOT a gender. It's not an illness either!

No one is forcing gays to get married if they're not happy with the arrangement. Likewise I wouldn't force my child to get married to someone of the opposite sex they're not happy with. Instead those unhappy people need to figure out why they're unhappy and resolve those issues. But, for those people who are gay and are happy with their selection in a partner they should have the same legal rights and same rights to express their selection as the other 90+%.

Quote:

New study reveals homosexuals can change orientation

Wow talk about a useless sample size. 61 people mean all gays can change their ways? I'd agree that research might be useful but I hardly consider 61 people in 1 study hardly enough evidence to establish anything with any certainity.

Quote:

This does happen whatever your prejudices

My predjudices is that people have the right to determine their own happiness. If he wants to be gay, or ex-gay, or straight, or ex-straight it just doesn't matter. My prejudice is that they are an individuals and should have the right to love another human and create a family in whatever manner best suits their happiness. And that the right to establish happiness is a right only to that individual which no external body, eg government, or mobocracy (aka tyranny of the majority is ok excuse) has a right to define.

Quote:

In reality the relationships are more often than not abusive, unloving and short term

The relationship is whatever those people choose to make it. For some personal experience I know quite a few gay couples that have lived with the same partner for 1/2 to 3/4 of their lives. I also know quite a few straight marriages that have dissolved in less time. Britney Spears marriage is a shining example of how little some straights think of marriage. So don't go on about blaming gays. It's not gays it's people and their individual choices which lead to the downfall of the marriage.

Quote:

Another guy I knew had his wage taken off him by his boyfriend immediately on pay day every month no questions asked and suffered emotional bullying in order to keep him in the relationship and this wasn't even a Civil Partnership

Perhaps you're lucky to not know any women abused by a man in straight relationship? 22% of women in the US are physically abused by an opposite sex spouse. As a matter of fact in the US male intimate partners are the largest group of murders of women.

Economic, physical, emotional, sexual and other abuses is NOT exclusive to gay relationships. It exists in straight relationships too. Preventing gay marriage doesn't ensure abusive relationships aren't allowed to marry. Turns out you're enabling straight abusive relationships to marry and gay non-abusive relationships to not marry. Wow you must really hate gays to promote wife beating over gay marriage in such a manner.

Quote:

The reality on the street is a lot different.

Your reality seems to be colored by ignoring the exact same problems exist within hetero relationships too.

Last edited by BrianK on 12-Apr-2012 at 05:06 AM.

@Thread

Wow!! Has anyone seen this news? Boris Johnson (not the Advertising Standards Agency) has banned an advert which is a response to Stonewall's bus advertising campaign because he said the adverts were "clearly offensive" and added that he was "not prepared to have that suggestion driven around London on our buses". And yet Stonewall can get away with their propaganda! What a balanced fair and tolerant society we live in! The truth that some homosexuals change to become heterosexual obviously counts for nothing! Oh well, if Boris wants to side track his campaign to get re-elected like David Cameron then I suppose both the Oxford Bullingdon Club boys will out on their ear soon enough! It's a done deal that being sued isn't going to help his re-election chances.

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@Thread

I don't even understand the sentiment of the Stonewall campaign? Just because people choose to live a homosexual lifestyle doesn't mean they are automatically entitled to get married which is an institution for heterosexual couples!

_________________
"Art challenges technology. Technology inspires the art."
John Lasseter, Co-Founder of Pixar Animation Studios

@BigD

Quote:

Just because people choose to live a homosexual lifestyle doesn't mean they are automatically entitled to get married which is an institution for heterosexual couples!

And which was argued at one time was an institution for whites only. And which was argued at at time was an institution that doesn't allow for mixing the races. And it was an institution that 6 year olds worked in the coal mines. And it was an institution that women only worked in the house. And it was an institution that women couldn't be self sufficent and required a man to help keep her. .... And society got better!

@BigD

Quote:

The truth that some homosexuals change to become heterosexual obviously counts for nothing!

And what proportion of homosexuals submit to the coersion of proselytising bigots. Less than 1% which is about the same as the proportion of the poulation who have signed your petition and are miraculously converted in your mind to "the majority"

Your dwindlind band of holier than thou zealots are being sidelined more and more as time goes by, and hopefully one day a group of psychotherapists will be able to place an advert on the side of a bus offering a cure for intolerant bullying religious evangelism.

_________________
When in trouble, fear or doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

@BigD

So you'd be OK if I put up posters on a bus saying religion is a disease that can be cured?

_________________
"Anyone with a modicum of reasonableness may realize that it is like comparing the ride in the world to descend the stairs to catch the milk in the house."

Google Translate

@BigD

When will you come to terms with the fact that sexuality is not a choice! It's hard-coded into your very nature.

Homosexuality is not a lifestyle either, although I admit that there are certain connotations attached to the gay "scene". But it is generalising to suggest that all homosexuals conform to a specific lifestyle.

You can suppress your sexuality (Catholic priests are forced to do this every day) - you can even try to conform to a different sexuality, but this is far from healthy.

I find it horrifying that people struggling with their sexuality are encouraged to abandon their natural predispositions in favour of some kind of "ideal" put about by some coalition of christian zealots.

I also find it deeply satisfying that these same zealots are being systematically disempowered through progressive policy making and legislation.

I long for the day when religious organisations hold no sway whatsoever over policy making. Fortunately, that day is probably not long in the coming...

AndyC