Gay Pride Parade makes it to Jerusalem

Having a gay pride march in Jerusalem is not only disrespectful, but selfish.

Who would guess that the gay pride crowd would engage in narcism?

Why do the always have to be so damn perky. I guess pink will do that to you.

the disintegration of society. May god help us.

CK is cryptic. What does he mean?

Hey, “eternal covenant” means “no demise.” I mean, if you believe in the Torah, then it is intellectually inconsistent to believe that a few guys in thongs marching in a parade will lead the destruction of the Jewish people.

As far as the present day, I would be a lot more worried about the people who blow up buses and launch rockets than our fellow Jews who were born attracted to members of their own gender. When was the last time a gay Israeli blew up a disco, you know?

Ahh, but what do I know? Clearly, if I studied more Torah, I would understand that G-d wants me to kill gays.

Who needs to go to Jerusalem? I can see this stuff everyday in Hollywood.

Alright, just to weigh in on this halachic debate. Are gay people inately evil needing punishment… Well no, acting upon those feeling in the from of two males having sexual relations with each other, that’s clearly wrong, other homosexual sexual encounters, probably wrong, Having Homosexual feelings and tendancies, that’s just the yetzer hara, you don’t get punnished for having one, your just supposed to try your best to fight it. Therefore, Gay pride parade in Jerusalem, yes there is something wrong about it, for a group of people who argue that we need to learn to respect them and their opinions, to be sensitive to their perspectives, they don’t seem to show the same respect to the overwelmingly religious Jerusalem. It’s a bit of a double standerd. Now, about the guy stabing, yeah, that’s also a deffenet wrong. Now, the last I checked, even Pinchas who was praised for his Zelotness, knew that in order to act that way (IE taking maters into his own hands, he had to catch them during the act, now unless those people who were stabed were activly engaged in anal sex, then he had no right to do what he did by any stretch, and that is assuming he knew kol ha torah kulo such that he could qualify to be a zelot in the first place. Baring a Pinchas, there is a legal process that’s supposed to happen biblicly, I dought this happend either. Anyway, point is, right on Laya, way to point out the truth in this one, the parade isn’t right, but neither is the response. It was deffenetly a Chilel Hashem on both sides. When are we going to learn that the only way to have Achdut/Unity and serve Hashem the way he wants us to, is to learn to love every jew, Ahavat Yisrael, it’s not that hard. Remeber, the Bal HaTanya I think puts it best, you can hate a persons actions, vehimently, without any room for understanding or forgivness, but you can not hate a person, not a single jew, the love has to be Blind. That’s the only way that we can help bring people back, like hillel did, to love everyone as ourselves.

Laya – that was some real cute creative thinking with the rainbow. lol

KOL HAKOVOD
to the hero of the Jewish people who attacked the evil enemies of Hashem.
You are like the great Pinchas in the Torah who stood up for Hashems honor. BRAVO

Heshy… now you’ve crossed the line.

To encourage violence against any Jew is both a Chilul, but to encourage violence against a particular identifiable group is also illegal in some places (and I’m proud to say that my home, Canada – who is celebrating it’s birthday now – is one of them).

Heshy, there are worse thing facing this world than to gay guys in love.

I am a past president of an Israeli Action Club on my campus, a graduate of a Jewish High School, executive member of the Hillel here, deeply involved in building the Jewish community and I’m gay. And proud of it. I don’t hide it, and if anyone’s got a problem with it they can go suck a lemon (oh the PC phrases we use for the internet).

Jerusalem isn’t just the Holy City, it’s also the capital city, and as such every citizen of Israel has the right to celebrate their identities there – not just bigoted religious people.

I’m done now. I don’t need to defend myself against your virolent hatered, but if you ever threaten me with violence to my face, you should beware of what it’ll look like when a faygale like me kicks your butt with 3 years of krav maga training.

BeGe’avah
Tom C

I won’t be the first to say that what endagers the Israel/Jews more than Arabs massacring us is our collective abandonning of the Torah. Please don’t see me as ‘holier than thou’. I’m not perfect, but I’m trying hard to learn more and get better.

So my answer is: yes, ‘gay pride’ parades in Jerusalem do more harm to us than Islamic Jihad.

Hurricanes and fried gator on you? Sweet…but maybe this time we should try to get something you can eat too But Muffti totally agrees, especially w/r/t the Rambam.

The normalcy of homosexuality is still an open issue. It is definitely against the cultural and religious norms of modern day Israel.

The marchers can stick banners and daisies wherever they want, but this is not just a “celebration” – it is an act of political agression.

We have seen this PC trope before. A minority imposes its outlandish opinion by (a) declaring themselves “victims” (cue the sacred-sounding organ music) and then (b) heavy-handedly accusing The Rest of Us – you know, the majority – of being “intolerant”.

Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. Israeli gays have marched repeatedly in Tel Aviv with little problem. The decision to move the march to Jerusalem – like the decision to hold international gay rallies in Rome and Jerusalem – are acts of political aggression. They are attempts to impose a minority opinion on a majority that disagrees. They are totally INtolerant assaults on existing “communities” with little care for those communities’ beliefs or social fabric.

It’s telling that the march went ahead with the connivance of the Supreme Court – a body well-known to Israelis as an instrument of leftist cultural imposition.

The stabbing is unfortunate, but understandable. When a community and its values are assaulted, the community fights back.

They were not marching through Mea Sharim, they were marching through downtown, right past treif restaurants and clubs that are open on Shabbat. Would you say that if someone went in and stabbed the club owner or the chef or butcher? would that also be “understandable” behavior by a “community whose values were assaulted”?

It’s not a “political affront” any more so than any other political rally in Israel… welcome to Israel. It’s better than blocking roads to prevent disengament because people can choose not to go to the parade but they still need to get to work.

Welcome to democracy. Everyone who’s saying that there should be no Pride parades in Israel because it offends the sensabilities of the orthodox Jews should be prepared. I expect never to see you at the Israel Day parade or Walkathons. Your displays of radical politics are an affront to a larger group (the Arab/Muslim communities are larger than yours).

So no more free speach or expression for your beliefs.

Do you see how absurd you’re being. For Israel to be a democracy people MUST have the right to protest and celebrate visibly and equally. Otherwise welcome to Iran.

The middle, as usual, picks things up by the tail end:

- So you don’t agree with the disengagement protesters?
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The disengagement protesters have taken to the streets in non-violent protest AFTER months in which their views – which are the views of the majority of Jewish Israelis – were shut out of the media and their protest rallies were disallowed.

That is, the center-right’s freedoms of speech and assembly have been consistently abrogated – by precisely the same leftist clique that treated the mayor of Jerusalem like an uppity nigger.

There have been no attacks on police, no saboteurs. The equivalent of the gay march would be something like a march through Chan Yunis or Ramallah – it hasn’t happened.

Just non-violence civil disobedience – coming after a long period in which DEMOCRATIC avenues of free speech were shut down.

more muddled middling:
Democracies exist so that minorities can express themselves. Majorities control the agenda, but minorities are protected. That’s the entire point.
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This is a very apt description of the workings of a healthy democracy. This is NOT the current situation in Israel.

In Israel, an ultra-secular, leftist minority is imposing its agenda on the majority. This minority has long controlled most of Israel’s economy, which is only gradually changing – and they still control Israel’s media, academia, and judiciary.

From this position they have totally countermanded the public mandate to stop unilateral withdrawals, and are imposing their plan – which was soundly rejected by an overwhelming “majority” at the polls.

The protest of the disengagement protesters is equivalent to Israel’s Boston Tea Party.

The imposition of the gay rights parade on the “uneducated peons” is just the last in a string of heavy handed, undemocratic attempts to “re-educate the masses” from on high.

I do not endorse the stabbing, or ANY violence.

But none of those who are so concerned with human rights has told me what recourse the majority has in such a situation.

None of you high, free thinkers has explained the Court’s gratuitously vindictive actions against the mayor of Jerusalem.

You know, middle, in America the right to bear arms is directly related to these other rights… precisely to allow the public to rise up against such minority tyranny. It would be awful if that happens here, but it’s important to understand the back story, to understand that this cultural struggle has been building for some time to this breaking point.

It’s really, REALLY important for American Jews to get straight who are the defenders of democracy in Israel, and who are its enemies.

BIG HINT – the bolsheviks who have set themselves up as the watchdogs of “progressive humanism” have shown by their actions that they haven’t a truly democratic or “tolerant” bone in their bodies.

BIG HINT #2 – the people that are being portrayed as fanatics are anything but.

The gays forced an issue – and launched a salvo in a larger, ongoing cultural war – by moving the parade to Jerusalem. It was a no-lose situation: if they march unmolested, they can claim victory and get adulatory press coverage from their allies in the media. If they are opposed, their Big Brothers in the High Court can impose their will on the peasants. And if the peasants actually dare to fight back – they can get more worshipful press as “victims”, even though they instigated an act of cultural agression.

It’s really, REALLY important to understand how this victimology rap works – and to understand just who are the “victims” of “oppression” here in Israel.

I moved to Israel precisely to build a Jewish identity not based on victimhood.

And I have noted that it is the assimilated Jewish world that is pouring its money into Holocaust memorials rather than (dare I say it) Jewish Education – and this embrace of victimhood is directly related to (a) their basically enervated, nostalgic view of Judaism, and (b) their adoption of left-liberal ideas that all can be explained thru gender/race/class analysis, which implicitly posits that one side is The Victim.

In contrast, a Jew who take Judaism, The Religion, seriously has many more positive hooks on which to hang their Jewish identity.

You wrote:
last time I checked being gay was not, in and of itself a “value”, but a sexual orientation.
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This is disingenuous.
The normalcy of the gay orientation, and its causes, are still very much open to debate. And the recognition of gays and gay unions as equal and normal is still open to debate. These debates are most definitely and specifically moral debates.

The arguments and judgements that the gays seek to avoid by wrapping themselves in the mantle of victimhood are most definitely “value” judgements.

Michael: thanks for rounding out the conversation by giving an example of the other major technique used by gays to avoid reasoned discussion of their pathological promiscuity: ridicule.

It works very well on the young and weak who are (a) ignorant and (b) desperately concerned to mouth the popular opinions.

Neither of which applies to me.

More victimology politics…

Laya, my attitude to homosexuals is much more nuanced than that, as evidenced by my previous (long) posts here on the subject.

The assertions that I am gripped by blind hate, and view gays as less than human, is basically putting words in my mouth – and is, again, an emotional argument swamping reasoned analysis and discussion.

My compassion for homosexuals is the same compassion that thinking people have for drunks, drug addicts, or bulimics. Would your definition of “respect for all humanity” mean leaving these people to their self-destructive sinkholes?

There is evidence of a genetic compenent to alchoholsm. Schizophrenia and depression are clearly genetically influenced. Would it then be “compassionate” to declare these afflictions ‘normal’ – and leave the sufferers to their own devices?

Straights attend gay pride marches – and you can almost see them glow with self-righteous glory. How sophisticated and multi-culti we are! For younger folks, there is the added frisson of trashing received values.

But what is it really like to be the kind of person who – in sequined g-string – pantomimes sex on top of a truck?

What kind of life does that person go home to?

The answer – from the gay community’s own data – is that most homosexuals live unsatisfying lives of compulsive promiscuity.

It’s also clear – when we turn away from arguments based on emotional blackmail or the peer pressure of “everybody knows” – that most gays are suffering mental distress, as evidenced by rates of depression and substance abuse that are 4-5 times the rate in the general population.

At this point the Victimology organ-grinders start their whining refrain about how these pathologies are a response to “prejudice”.

Sorry – it is now a full generation after liberation, and gayness is not just tolerated, it is celebrated. Yet the pathological behavior yet remains.

Laya – you are free to assert that none of this is your business.

I am an adult and so I know that these behaviors DO impact the society at large.

And I am a Jew – and so I believe that people feeling homosexual attractions are every bit as bound as I am to behave morally – Is that dehumanizing, or just inconvenient?

My compassion for them is the same pragmatic, adult compassion that I feel for others caught in compulsive, self-destructive behavior.

You haven’t yet explained how your laissez-faire attitude to human sexuality jibes with Judaism’s take on sexual morality. Good luck explaining how the Jewish G-d’s moral program stops at the door of your bedroom – or anyone else’s.

Laya, your post sounds grand – which is apt, since it’s largely grandstanding.

You are largely swatting at a straw man of your own making. Read my posts carefully: there has been no blanket, bible-thumping denial of the humanity of those suffering from homosexual attractions.

Again – you’re striking all the most popular poses, but not addressing what I’ve been saying.

Now let’s munch on some weightless, melt-in-your-mouth cotton candy:

You keep talking about Morality. I think we agree that everyone, straight or gay is obliged to act in a moral way. What does that mean to you, and why, by virtue of sexual orientation do you assume that Gays are not moral? Do they by their nature cheat in the market place? Do they steal? Murder? Lie compulsively? Stab people they don’t agree with?

- – - – - – - – - – - – -
uhhh, there’s this book called the Torah, that is the source of, like, most Jews’ ideas of what constitutes moral behavior. Have you heard of it?

That code – unlike man-made, Western codes which were primarily developed to preserve individual liberty – casts morality in terms of living one’s entire life in G-d’s presence, including the most intimate family and communal aspects of life. They alll are part of a Jew’s notion of “morality”.

…are you, like, SURE you haven’t heard about this before? Cause, like, it’s been sorta the BASIS for Western society’s ideas of morality for, like, a long time. I mean, like, a really long time. Ya know?

And, I mean-I-respect-your-opinion-and-all, but the whole let’s-peel-off-sexual-behavior-and-not-subject-it-to-notions-of-morality thing is, well, fairly recent and not very Jewish. And, like, it also hasn’t been very good at delivering on its promises of human freedom and fulfillment -just like, in general? Ya know?

Am I going to fast for you – you know, with the concept that sexual behavior is within the scope of moral judgement? Like, um, pedophilia and adultery?

I know you’re all, like, modern and progressive and all, but – you remember adultery, don’t you?

You want some time to chew that over – you know, that there are moral aspects to sexual behavior?

…. Laya, kindly point out where I indicated that gay people are evil sub-humans that poison wells. Do you REALLY think that is the basis for my discussion of morality? Can you see what a straw man argument you flung up?

Promiscuity vs. Committment is also a moral issue. It also is a valid issue from the purely secular perspective, since it impacts the stability and shape of the community. Which leads us to:

Yes, some gays live a promiscuous lifestyle. I’ve got news for you, so do some straight people.
And by the way, do you happen to have any sources for your statistics.
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I posted them previously, but to summarize:

70-80 percent of heteros – including the most decadent sex-n-the-city types – will eventually wind up spending most of their adult years in committed relationships that last at least 5 years. The most voracious hetero “player” will have at most 10-12 sexual partners over their adult lives.

In contrast, 80-90 percent of homosexuals will spend most of THEIR adult lives in a pattern of compulsive promiscuity. Specifically this means:

- Upwards of 70 sexual partners, on average, in the 30 years between 20 and 50.

- An inability to maintain relationships beyond the 18-24 month mark.

- as age creeps up, a “fallback” to “committed” relationships that still largely accommodate the partner’s need for other sexual outlets.

The most well-known sources for these statistics are large-scale studies conducted by the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the Health Departments of cities with large gay populations.

The data on the high rates of depression and substance abuse come from many studies sponsored by various health agencies – most recently and notably, a survey by the Dutch ministry of Health found the number of gays afflicted with depression and substance abuse barely dipped with the legalization of gay unions, and only a small fraction of gay couples have actually taken advantage of the law.

This pattern repeats in Scandinavia and other places.

Let’s end with a bit of irony, shall we?

I also refuse to define people based solely on their sexuality and assume that that encompasses all of who they are, what they believe and how they live their lives.
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… yet that is just what the gay rights movement does by elevating sexuality to an all-encompassing marker of identity.

And again – you are attacking an attitude that I never expressed.

Could you please address what I DID write about – specifically, how your laissez-faire, suddenly mystified approach to “morality” jibes with the Jewish tradition you so eloquently defend against cherry-picking conservative Jews like TM?

Here’s how it’s gone:

I’m a Victim!
- and when that doesn’t convince:
You’re a Brute for disagreeing with me!
- and if that doesn’t shut them up:
You’re rude and UNPOPULAR for disagreeing with what “everybody knows”
- and if THAT doesn’t cow them:
Blah blah blah MORALITY – some of my BEST FRIENDS are gay, and I once saw an Orthodox Jew tilt a pinball machine – so there!

… but it still doesn’t work.
Paradoxically, the most damning evidence of gay pathology comes from the way gays have used the tolerance already extended to them…

Gays ‘liberated’ themselves at the same time that cohabitation outside marriage went mainstream. Yet they (compulsively!) pursued another structure for their community. Where are the committed gay couples just dying for a marriage license? The gay community’s own statistics show that they don’t exist in any significant numbers.

Yes, that choice and those behaviors ARE subject to moral review. At least for those of us who are Jewish.

Laya – I think you need to give your Jewish fusion cocktail a few more shakes. You’re trying to combine things that don’t mix.

Interesting piece on today’s New York Times op-ed page about the death of marriage. I do not agree with her conclusions but it is a very interesting piece and I may read her book.

There is no middle ground, unfortunately. One side is going to win. It may not be a sweet day when they do, either. They are doing very well.

Ben David makes an easier target than I do.

We must all long for better days and better ways.

Nobody is cross at a fellow Jew here, not in a mean way.

Just because you don’t have to be ashamed of an affliction, does not mean you should elect to be proud of it, however. You have to just cope somehow. This shouldn’t happen to anybody.

Proud of what?

A mountain of corpses three time higher than the one at Hiroshima?

I’m Proud of myself and of who I am and what I have to contribute. I’m proud that I have the inner strength to stand up to the hatred and taunting and have the strength to be who I am.

I am proud of that both as a Jew having lived openly as a Jew in a large uinversity with almost no Jewish population as well as having lived as a gay man in society today which hates me so much.

Pride isn’t about the excesses that you see… those are not about contempt for society but rather stem from a pride in having come to terms with who we are and what we stand for.

On the topic of AIDS I’d like you to consider what you’re saying. First off, AIDS is not a gay disease and never was. Yes, it is transfered most readily by anal sex – but that is a behaviour and not an orientation. By calling it a gay disease you trivialize the deaths of millions in Africa.

On the topic of celebrating “a mountain of corpses”: almost every Pride week includes memorials to the victims of AIDS. Your analogy is just like asking what Jews are proud of at the Walkathons/Parades we throw – the mountain of corpses from the Shoah. (No I’m not actually comparing them, but it illustrates the flaw in Jewish Mother’s logic).

And yes Jewish Mother, I love you too.

No behavior of the Jews caused the Shoah, so your analogy breaks down immediately. The murderous AIDS resulted from a behavior. At first their was no knowledge of what was going on. Can you say that now? No.

AIDS is not a gay disease. It is an infidelity disease. Yet, it has killed many millions of gay men, in the US. Well? Does that sound like an around-the-block line at the Monogamy Office of Marriage? No, it does not.

It was enough to march in Tel Aviv. Marching in Jerusalem is indeed an act of aggression. There is no live-and-let-live in that.

A sacrifice is being asked of you, a soldierly sacrifice, a very expensive sacrifice. Unfortunately it needs to be made. But, being a soldier was the first thing that was claimed! Long, long before marriage. Yes, that is tragic. Maybe something can be done to help.

It is so important not to kid one’s self.

aggressive parading??

i’m (not terribly) sorry, but they won the right to march and so they did. whether they do it in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem, there is still the fact that they were given the right to have a parade.

Yes…there is an agenda and there is much more visibility by doing it in the holy city than elsewhere, but there is no “act of aggression”. Those marching are not making any statement about the right of Israel to exist; and while you may believe that their actions are leading to “the disintegration of society” or the demise of the jewish people, they believe that they are making a statement about their right to live their lives as they see fit within the laws of the state of Israel.

All the major articles on the Narth website quote, critique, and relate to articles published in the accepted, mainstream journals of mental health, academic journals of “gay studies”, etc.

TomC has rounded out our sample of evasive debating techniques used by gay activists with his facile dismissal of those whose clearly describe the scientific basis for their opposition to the normalization of homosexuality.

He goes on to repeat the canard that anyone who disagrees with the pro-gay line is a fundamentalist who wishes to upend democracy.

Sorry Tommaleh – just now in Israel, most Israelis are starting to see quite clearly (as American voters already have) that it is liberals lodged in the media, judiciary, and academia who are cutting across the rules of democracy to impose their vision on The Rest of Us.

Laya – have you got an answer for me?

How does this Jewlicously hip stance of tolerance jibe with the Torah’s moral teachings – about sexuality’s moral dimension, and specifically about homosexuality?

You should come work where I do….

I don’t want to argue the perceived morality or immorality of homosexuality, because it’s been done to death. The statistics I’ve been reading differ from other stats I’ve read, it’s five in the morning here, I don’t have the strength to do that argument today.

I want to point something out that even I, little shiksa from the American South, know about Judaism — the idea that any commandment can be broken if the purpose is saving a human life. Human life is precious because only G-d can make it, and so it is always holy to save a life, even if you have to do work on Shabbat to do it, or some other violation of the law. (I can’t think of a case in which eating a cheeseburger would lead directly to the salvation of a human life, but I wish I did; it’d be funnier.)

Instead, a crazy man went into a crowd of “sinners”, as he saw it, to take life in the name of Judaism, a faith that honors and values life. Because the “sinners”, were, apparently, “in his face” as we say, because of their choice to gather and announce that they were, by his lights, committing a sin. Or “destroying the Jewish community” as someone has already put it in the comments thread. I’ve been to a lot of pride marches and gay bars, and never once have I seen “Destroy the Jewish people” listed on anyone’s to-do list. I promise. It’s not even on my gay Jewish boss’ to-do list; I should know, I have to make it out for him. If it shows up, in the interest of saving life, I promise I will let y’all know. (And the FBI.)

It disgusts me, as it always does, to see life taken in the name of G-d when G-d is the only one who can make life. It’s totally backward and antilogical.Where I live, the Jewish community leaders are some of the lone voices of peace and tolerance amid a bunch of intolerant and theocracy-minded Baptists. When there is injustice here the rabbis come out against it, and so a story like this somehow hurts me more than when the people I expect to do it (Westboro and the Phelps family are the big-press instigators in the US, and they’re so crazy they’ve been disfellowshipped by every Christian church in their state) are the ones behind the violence. I honestly don’t know enough about the political situation in Israel w/r/t this issue to say whether the march should have been held where it was, I don’t know the significance. But it’s…a march in public space. If you don’t like it — go inside, the way I do when the Southern Baptist Convention is in town and decides to take to the streets to try and save a million souls in a weekend. Sure, I miss out on downtown for a day or two. It’ll still be there, G-d willing, and my blood pressure will stay at acceptable levels for those two days. Or you can hand out pamphlets as someone suggested. Heck, go to shul and daaven until the Pride March is over; you’ll get more out of it than standing and fuming, and it’s your own yetzer hara, not anyone elses’, for which you have to answer, so that’s the perfect time to work on it, I would think. Don’t wade up in a crowd with a knife and decide you’re the hand of G-d in rooting out evil as you see it.

Not to Godwin it up, or to tell anyone that they must accept people as they are if how they are is contrary to a particular faith just because of a shared history of institutionalized violence against the two, but have people forgotten so quickly that Hitler and his regime were trying to root out the gays and lesbians (and suspicion, not proof, was all that was required…much like the Christians with a grandparent who may or may not have been Jewish who found their rights and then their existence falling out from under them) right along with the Jewish people as a whole? In neither case was the destruction successful, G-d be thanked…but before any veneer of righteousness can be put on an action like stabbing gay people for being gay — because that’s the real issue here — as it was by a commenter or two, facts like those should be remembered. I know GLBT-organized Holocaust remembrance events usually include remembrance for all victims, not just the gays and lesbians. People who have died together at the hands of evil men in the not-too-distant past perhaps ought to be able to find the middle ground, to say “Hey, we totally don’t think you’re right with G-d, and we want you to know that, but that’s between you and G-d in the meantime, so…”. Tolerance is not the same as acceptance, or even respect. I tolerate a lot of things I neither accept nor respect, because I live in a democracy and it’s my price for others tolerating some of the stuff I get up to.

G-d made us all; we don’t have the right to take life from each other, and it’s horrible when it happens no matter what the temporal rationalizing. Period. Now it’s way past my bedtime and I must stop getting myself upset or I will never sleep.

Ben David – I may love ya, but don’t patronize me please.

If you want specifics (I haven’t done this much sourcing since university) then I’d encourage you to look at the APA’s website on Homosexuality: apa.org/pubinf...

NARTH is in fact far from the mainstream psychological community. It’s research is considered flawed because of the use of biased samples (instead of random selection), inconsistant operationalization of varriables (the way they measure things don’t jive with what their trying to measure), and it’s not uncommon to hear of leaders of the “ex-gay” movement being caught “reverting back to homosexuality”.

Ben David, if you’re going to argue they psychology of Homosexuality you’re going to loose. A major in Psychology and minor in Sexuality, Marriage, and the Family put me in a different league. Does that mean that I’m for sure right? Maybe not, but it means that I may have the resources to take on that area more fully than you (PsychINFO access, etc.)

Of course gay people are not responsible for the existence of the AIDS virus. Their culture is responsible for its SPREAD over such a huge population.

Ben David we once had a whole discussion on this where I explained without goiunbg into psycoloical studies how just by pure logic you can easily see that being a Homo cannot be inborn.

Where is a link to that?

Indeed you are of course right.

Laya and mufti are completely wrong. The Torah grants no respect or pity for those who willfully violate the Torah.

Laya the word ‘morality’ is a word made by people to mean whatever they personally like. Its OK by you to act as aHomo so its ‘moral’ but pediophelia you don’t ‘feel’ is right so to you its ‘immoral’

I haven’t seen the world ‘moral’ or its equivalent in the Torah. Since you study at a Jewish higher level institute in Israel maybe you can show me where it is mentioned.

I have said before I support ANYTHING to stop these abominations.

Look, everybody doesn’t want to live the same. But the religious Jews don’t get too many areas to have it their way. The gays should respect their privacy and stay out of their way. IN THE SAME WAY they would not want a bunch of wigged or blue-haired ladies to invade their space, their neighborhoods, their clubs. They have a right to privacy too. But people should respect each other, and not get confrontational. A gay march in Jerusalem is confrontational by definition. Why do you need the whole world? Isn’t that imperialism?

Damaged, ragged family life is very, very different from totally dead family life.

“Desirable” did not mean “desirable as a friend for Laya” it meant religiously or cosmically desirable to, say G-d.

Aha! I KNEW that was the basis of your thinking. That ended ok. I lived through it, by the way.

The gulf is vastly wider this time.

Lay off my little Laya. Have you passed screening?

Gotcha!

Yes, Michael. People are too influenced. People are very, very influencable.

Michael, there is not one little thing wrong with you.

Human potential is big. There are whole societies that are very gay-accepting and ‘everybody’ more or less is in the game, some a little, some more, according to taste. These are not wonderful places for women. I don’t want to get specific. Some are in the past and a real big one is in today’s present. I do not mean the US.

I do not think innocence is weird or yucky even on a man.

Maybe you can see Laya. Watch out. She is smart.

why not get specific?

thanks for the clarification.

i think if you did plunk yourself down on that barstool both you and they might have a pretty good time.

It is NOT incestuous. If someone feels like your brother and in actual fact is not, they might be another kind of family member. Not your grandfather either.

Gotta go kids. See you later.

Umm, JMom, most gay bars have a straight population who are not discouraged or made to feel unwelcome. If you want to come and bring five of your friends to the Chute or the Connection next weekend, I don’t think anyone will turn you aside. And you’re a mom, so technically you are a breeder…why is that offensive to you, if you take such pride in having sons? I don’t like the term either, but it’s nicer than you accusing gay people of being made that way by or being the perpetrators of pedophilia. The stereotypical “profile” of a molester is a religious (not any particular religion), straight white man, usually married. There is no statistical correlation between early childhood abuse and adult sexual orientation. This is not PC coverup, this is the facts.

No one checks your SO at the door of the gay bar, promise-cakes, and only a very few, if any, would “not want you there”. It usually, however, has the best DJs, less fights, and a crowd that proceeds out in an orderly fashion. No one is “after” your boys, no one is trying to make them into gays. Most gays don’t accept the concept that gays can be “made”, anyway…

As for your assertion that homosexuals spread AIDS across the globe, that’s so breathtakingly wrong as to be hateful. Read a Centers for Disease Control report on it, or a World AIDS Commission report. (Or do you still prefer to call it GRID?) There are a million or more children in Africa who will die before they are old enough to know what “sex” is, and it’s not “the gays” who did that.

So, in other words, no, your arguments don’t wash, you’re blaming a disease that kills indiscriminately on a single group, and mind your own knitting.

I was actually hoping to go to sleep eventually but you keep keeping me up parceq… sorry too difficult.
Anyways I just cant agree with your comment of superiority of gay bars over non-gay bars. I guess you either havent been to enough number of good non-gay bars or ve seen only nice gay bars.
And I guess you dont have children because you clearily dont know what you talking about having sons, bob dole.

…You know what? On the other hand I also dont know how it feels to have a son from a gay marriage.

I said above it was not a gay disease. It is an infidelity disease.

Even if every single gay person in the world only wanted to marry, I would still say, march in el Aviv if you want to, but Jerusalem is about something else. Do to others as you would be done by.

I am not a damn breeder. I am a mother.

Happy Breeder’s Day. Say that to your mother next Spring, and I think you will taste the rolling pin, upside your head.

On the topic of the word Breeder I’ll trade you.
You never call me a Fagot, Fairy, Queen, or any other derogatory term and I’ll return the favour.

The reason the word “breeder” is in use the way it is results from a need to respond to the virulantly hateful comments that we experience regularly. While two wrongs don’t make a right we know that reciprication is a common human tendancy.

Just like if someone calls me a Kike I’ll at least be tempted respond in kind.

It was a real pleasure. Thank you again laya!
Now I gotta run to a wedding of two kikkes and they of a opposite sex. I know, so boring!
Mazal tov anyway!

Fine. Yes. But I appreciate your honesty about the hostility coming in the direction of the breeders.

The usual schtick is ” we mean no harm we just want to be part of the community in a nice way.” I only wish there were a way for that to be true.

Alas alas there is not. Only in myth not in reality.

They do not come in peace, they come in war, and may the best man win.

Nobody wants to know that. Sigh.

Tom Morrissey said some interesting things in post # 34 that should be thought about.

That is why the result is not mild amusement.

This is a struggle between two incompatible thought-systems. Why is that so hard to fathom?

Are you hiding behind them because they have guts, and you, also, don’t want to commit? But you don’t have the guts to flaunt it the way they do? But their defiance of your parents’ values secretly pleases you?

Oooooh, I shouldn’t have said that.

OK that’s rough. But you know I am on your side so please give me pass. Sorry for the pain.

Fellas, sometimes you just have to decide you won’t play ball on Yom Kippur. Without saying other people can’t. But it’s not fine with you. Why? Well, because you are a child of the Torah, that’s why.

Never asked you to hate anybody.

Just to distance yourself from what is not your world.

The Torah doesn’t say, “THOU SHALT drink water on a hot day!!!,” because you would anyway. You get thirsty.

And, it doesn’t say “THOU SHALT NEVER, EVER, bang your head on the wall!!!,” because you wouldn’t anyway. It would hurt.

What the Torah tells people not to do, some of them, at least sometimes, will want to do. Or why would it bother to say, don’t do that?

Now, you can call it “G-d’s commandment for the good of His people” or, if you want, you can call it “the collective hard-earned human experience of many generations, seeing what works and what is bad for the community”. Either way, that prohibition is in there for a reason. If this was just an OK fun thing, or worked fine and had no bad consequences, why would there be a prohibition against it?

Our ancestors didn’t know about molecules and atoms, and they may have thought the world was flat, but none of that applies to this issue. They were as intelligent as we are. They could observe how life is lived as well as we can. They didn’t need degrees in sociology or psychology, which hadn’t been invented yet.

Yes, it is hard to separate out respect for individual people, from distance from, and regret for, what they are doing or feeling.

Not everyone can win this one, in spite of what you say.

I do not have a conspiracy theory. Except, wait, maybe I do. An awful lot of money, and very great PR skills, have been invested in changing attitudes about this issue, and these efforts have worked spectacularly well. I have got to admire that. The success is amazing.

Social changes are subtle. They have to be observed over a time. I don’t know how old you are. You may still be on your first “social era” so to speak.

And, you are still speaking from a position of safety. You have nothing to lose.

Anybody who says, I don’t have to listen to the people of the past, because they did not know about molecules and atoms, and they thought the world was flat, which it isn’t, and because they knew no sociology or psychology, by no fault of their own, because these things had not yet been invented, is NOT a child of the Torah.

Now, were the people of the past, whose collective voice is in the Torah, (or G-d’s voice, depending on how you feel about this)

idiots or not???

Or do you want to cherry-pick? Some parts are kinda cool but not others?

There is no nice way out of this. I wish there were.

All I want to say is, JMom, I straight up (pun intended) said I didn’t like the word “breeder”, but that it was probably less hateful than your comments about pedophilia, since in its most literal sense it could be construed as a term for people who have children. (The gay community didn’t make up that term, the ZeroPop crowd did.)

I don’t use that word, because I don’t use hateful words if I can avoid it. My mama taught me not to. And, thanks much, I couldn’t use that term to my mother even if I would, because she adopted me and went through years and years of crap in order to get me in the first place instead of, excuse, “breeding”, because she couldn’t. So step off.

Read critically before you jump to criticize. (And at least around here, it’s considered in the worst taste to talk trash about people’s mamas.)

And Nashville has nice, clean, upscale gay bars, booty-dancin’ clubs, and dive bars. If and when I go out to a club, which is rarely, it’s always a gay club. They’re the places around here where you never have to worry about a flap of any kind…no junkies in the parking lot, no one getting stabbed on the dance floor. Can’t speak for anyone else’s city or their experience, and never tried. (The fact that there are only three or four such bars in operation may have something to do with the upscale-ness, in fairness.)

I have the doctor in the morning, must to bed.

Well, well, you’ve all been busy, if not productive.

When I left this thread last night, we had already disentagled arguments based on victimology and the tautology of PC tolerance. We had already established that the stabbing was indefensible, and that gays “should be respected as people”. We had starting moving on to more substantial issues: the evidence of gay pathology, and the problems in trying to square a pro-gay outlook with Judaism’s moral dictates.

But the pro-gay boosters know that these are dangerous areas in which they cannot win, so overnight michael and others have been busy shifting the argument to irrelevant discussions of how “tolerant” gay bars are, and parcequifaut recycled the emotion-laden horror at the stabbing that was already dealt with.

Desperately avoiding factual discussion.

TomC:
If you want specifics (I haven’t done this much sourcing since university) then I’d encourage you to look at the APA’s website on Homosexuality: apa.org/pubinf...
- – - – - – - – -
This page, like other position papers – and like the original de-classification of homosexuality – was the result of a pitched battle within the APA. It in no way represents a unanimous opinion.

In fact, the doctor who spearheaded the removal of homosexuality from the Diagnostic Manual recently conducted a study to test the claims for reparative therapy – and concluded that it is effective for patients who desire it. This of course made him a pariah in liberal circles, but his study was published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The APA itself has recently published papers indicating the acceptability and efficacy of therapy for gay-to-straight transision when the patient wants it.

You’d know all this if you read the Narth website, instead of dismissing them high-handedly.

more Tom:
NARTH is in fact far from the mainstream psychological community. It’s research is considered flawed because of the use of biased samples (instead of random selection), inconsistant operationalization of varriables (the way they measure things don’t jive with what their trying to measure), and it’s not uncommon to hear of leaders of the “ex-gay” movement being caught “reverting back to homosexuality”.
- – - – - – - – -
Narth does not conduct its own research. It reviews the research appearing in peer-reviewed journals.

If you really are a professional in this field, you will no doubt be aware of the equally sloppy pro-gay research that is conducted. The most egregious was the study by gay professors that set out to prove that there were lare numbers of faithful gay couples. When the data didn’t bear that out, they redefined “fidelity” to make the data fit the rhetoric.

Regarding “reversion” to homosexuality: the diagnostic model parallels that for other addictive/compulsive behaviors. So: when the recovered patient is under stress, the old behavior pattern presents itself. We often see alchoholics, drug users, and people with eating disorders whorequire several courses of treatment to overcome their addiction, or that “fall off the wagon” – but we don’t conclude that this means they are being “untrue” to their “alchoholic self”. This is false rhetoric.

Again: the professional who spearheaded the normalization of homosexuality is now convinced – after scientific study – that people can change their sexual identity.

It is also most interesting to see – in the general gay literature – that the notion of “fluid sexuality” is embraced when it’s convenient or bolsters arguments for sexual license, but in discussions of homosexual pathology it is rigidly insisted the sexual orientation is fixed.

michael wrote:
Um, no, I like committed relationships. As do, believe it or not, a number of gay people. And (this will really blow your mind) straight people sometimes (SOMETIMES!) are sexually promiscuous and (get ready for a shocker!) this is not a modern development.
- – - – - – - – -
We went through this about 80-90 posts back in this thread.
1) What is the “number” of gay people who favor committed relationships? Studies conducted by the GMHC and other pro-gay organizations indicate that only about 5-10 percent of out-n-proud gays live in committed relationships – and even in those few “partnerships” promiscuity is tacitly accepted.

This confirmed by data from the European countries that have created legal union/marriage options for gays. A generation after liberation, only 5-10 percent of homosexuals take advantage of these rights and actually marry.

All this is taking place in a Western world in which tens of millions of heteros (if not more) have legitimized long-term partnerships without wedlock, and developed legal structures to allow for shared property and other issues. In other words: nothing has prevented the gay community – if it wished to – from developing into a primarily monogomous, faithful community if gays wanted to.

The evidence is that they want – or are compelled to seek out – promiscuity.

These are facts. It is not “chauvinistic” or “hateful” to bring up these facts in a discussion of the normalization of homosexuality – certainly not in a Jewish discussion of this topic.

more michael:
The reason it’s “so hard to fathom” is because gayness and straightness are not incompatible thought systems. They’re not thought systems. They’re sexual preferences. If our entire thought process was based on what kind of sex we liked more, we’d be in a lot of trouble, wouldn’t we?
- – - – - – - – - – -
…and one could say that’s the trouble with modern sex-saturated society. But then that would lead to the obvious observation that the gay identity – based entirely on sexual preference – and the gay lifestyle – the bleeding edge of erotic obsession – aren’t very valid or healthy.
Oops.

Let’s try it this way (which is basically the way of Freud and every other major psychological theorist):

Homosexual attraction is a symption of underlying mental distress.

This explains several things:
It explains the high percentage of homosexuals who report childhood sexual abuse (Laya – there’s your link to pedophilia) or dysfunctional childhood households.

Around 70 percent of gays surveyed were abused as children, compared with less that 20 percent of the general male population. And 60-80 percent of homosexual men reported childhood homes that fit into several patterns of dysfunction: distant or abusive father and/or emotionally entangling mother.

Again, these numbers are from large-scale studies by GMHC and other pro-gay researchers.

It also explains the persistence of compulsive, self-destructive behaviors long after the battle for legal and cultural acceptance has been one: the underlying mental distress remains.

I have posted previous on this and other threads about the evidence for this coming out of impeccably professional and pro-gay sources like the Dutch Ministry of Health.

It ALSO explains how the most effective reparative therapies work. The most effective therapies address and resolve the underlying issues of abuse/lack of male identification. When these issues are resolved the homosexual attraction is greatly reduced in force.

It also explains why many young men who have gay “crushes” in their teen years naturally outgrow this transient phase – as they grow into adult competence, they integrate a healthy male identity, and the teenage fears/sense of otherness that led to idolizing another guy subside.

So: the argument that homosexuality is pathological has a solid theory, is backed up by evidence of the sufferers’ histories, and is further confirmed by the success of therapies based on the theory.

The arguments from the other side? Victimology whining such as:

I believe gay people aren’t any different from anybody else and shouldn’t be treated as potentially destructive pariahs.
- – - – - – - – - –
This is not the subject of debate.

Throughout this thread I have reiterated my respect for gays as people, and Jewish gays as Jews. Why do the pro-gay posters keep looping back to the same straw-man of intolerance?

I conclude that the pro-gay argument is cotton-candy spun from the acrid sweetness of forced victimology and one-sided PC “tolerance”.

Matters of morality and public policy must be decided based on something more solid – like the facts.

Middleman: Habemus Papem, baby. My rulings ignored? Sounds like my colleague in Rome.
And, hell, I’ve always figured I’m infalliable.

I’ll looking into villa rentals in Avingnon. In the meantime– drum roll, please– my first encyclical’s in the works.

Lesbianism gets the big thumbs-up! (As well as certain kinds of three-ways.)

Note to papal Self: credit breakthrough Torah analysis of laya in footnote.

Further note to Self: was the Last Supper a pot luck organized by Mary Magdelene?

Middle, also sprach il Papa, yes, indeed. jesus was preparing for the Passover, as the New Testament accounts make clear. You’ll be happy to know that I make that point to my high school kids in religious ed.

(And Middle, please– could we refrain from French– at least for today?)

muffti:

Promiscuous gay people swear up and down that all they want is to find their dream lover and settle down. There’s no reason not to believe them.

Compulsively undercutting your own desires/not being emotionally mature enough to maintain adult relationships – that is the basis for the assessment of pathology.

This fits the theoretical model: the homosexual attraction results from feeling distanced from/inadequate in the role of one’s biological sex, for any number of reasons. The attraction is a sexualization of the perceived gap between the self and others of one’s sex.

This results in compulsive promiscuity – because in gay liasons, each partner is basically consuming the masculinity of the other, or reinforcing their masculinity (some slightly different scenarios in lesbian relationships, but similar overall). But the gap, the sense of inadequacy is never filled – can really never be filled from outside the self.

Paradoxically, as soon as gay couples begin to get to know each other as people, the relationships start to fall apart (the 18 month mark). This is because once the partner is seen as an imperfect human – which is where a mature, adult relationship would begin! – they can no longer function as an icon of masculinity.

The result is an adulthood burnt up in a sequence of adolescent infatuations.

It also explains the large amount of playacting and dressup in the gay world – especially using extreme icons of femininity (drag) and masculinity (musclemen/biker imagery).

The theory was never disproved – just shouted down. And it explains a lot of what is seen in the gay world.

Regarding twins – identical twins share genetic material. If a trait is identical in both twins (like eye color) it’s likely that it’s a purely genetic trait. Low levels of correlation between the twins indicate other factors besides genetics.

The gay propaganda misquotes the twin studies to imply that gayness is “inherited” like eye color. In fact the data proves just the opposite. Compare these results (from the Minnesota survey, the largest twin study to track homosexuality):

When one twin has blue eyes, the other has blue eyes 99.9 percent of the time. Purely genetic.

When one twin has diabetes, the other has diabetes 80 percent of the time (I think it was around there, in the 80s). Genetics plus environment – eating habits, exercise, etc.

When one twin was divorced, the other was divorced 60 percent of the time. Obviously this is mostly environmental and volitional (there is a spouse involved, and other behaviors).

When one twin is gay, the other is gay 55 percent of the time.

So – what has been proved? We are already solidly in the realm of phenomena that are not strictly determined by genetics. The 55 percent sounds impressive when quoted in isolation – but in context, it proves just the opposite of what the gay propagandists claim.

It’s likely that factors in the family environment are the primary cause of gayness.

“The two women who are left behind when two guys set up house can just set up house themselves. No problem.”

The men learned to cook and decorate – they discovered they could do without us women. BUT….. they still needed us for that ONE little thing. THAT personal, physical thing. Ya know. Digging each other that way was not allowed. But not any more.

Now they don’t need us for anything at all.

“So what! We can cope. We will just turn the other way and it will be a brave new world, no problem.”

But, it doesn’t work that way for most of us women, and it just might, for a lot more of the men. Our tolerance of them is much greater than their tolerance of us. When you are older I will explain why.

“No men? Who cares. There is always bowling and adoption.”

As many a strong woman is now discovering, the men still get the final say. Re marriage, they get to ask. It has to be worth their while.

We toss our heads defiantly until someone tries to hurt us, or we get a little softer, a little maternal, around our middle or late thirties.

In this brave new rainbow-friendly world, the joke will be on us women. It is already. The other shoe is just dangling in the air.

And everybody, everybody, is just sitting around grinning. It’s like the lefties who can’t figure out how to be Zionists.

Pooor things. “our hands are tied” one said to me.

Oh blah. If you can’t stick up for yourself…..

muffti:
Sure; we can all agree that the phenomenon isn’t strictly genetic. It doesn’t follow that there is no genetic basis for the phenomenon, right?
- – - – - – - – - –
Gay propaganda asserts that homosexuality is strictly genetic as part of a claim that “gays don’t choose to be gay” and therefore they shouldn’t be discriminated against.

The genetic argument is also part of the claim that gayness is “natural” – which is then sloppily extended to unbased claims that gayness is normal or harmless.

I really don’t care whether homosexuality is strictly genetic or not – Judaism and Western morality (and most other cultures) still pass judgement on genetically influenced traits (anger is bad, intelligence is good, schizophrenia is tragic in New York but may make you a respected witch doctor in other places). People are still held responsible for these traits, and their negative consequences, and unfortunate bearers of these traits are expected/helped to work to change them.

The big non-sequitir is how gay activists get from “It’s genetic” to “it’s normal” – and on to “you’re a brute for not accepting this”.

This trick is pulled off using victimology doubletalk – the underlying message here is “being gay is SO tragic that NOBODY would choose this – so please pity us, and don’t make our burden any greater.”

Astoundingly, this emotional claim coexists with loud assertions that homosexuality it normal! Which is it – is being gay a tragic fate, or so normal it should be no big deal in our culture?

Ask a gay activist to stick to one claim for the duration of a conversation, and most of them can’t – they hop back and forth between self-dramatizing victimhood and out-n-proud assertions of normalcy.

Amazingly, people fall for this.

muffti:
But there seems to be a great deal to rule out before we can settle on the model you are proposing.
- – - – - – - – -
I am not proposing it – I am reporting it.
These are the mainstream psychological/developmental theories, constructed by the major lights of modern therapy.

They were never disproved, just shouted down. And they DO explain a lot of what is going on.

Don’t confuse media volume with scientific bona fides. This is not a “new theory”. It is the original mainstream science (as scientific as psychology can be).

The burden of proof lies with the innovators. So far their claims about homosexuality (like their claims about the impact of widespread divorce) have not been borne out by the facts. Those countries that extended marriage rights to gays have not seen a shift in behavior – so the pity-me claim that society’s oppression was to blame is shown to be false.

Something else is causing widespread promiscuity among people who seem very sincere about their desire to find true love.

People are free to choose promiscuity as their lifestyle – but they can’t expect the rest of us to call it marriage. That means something else in our society, and we’re not brutes for insisting on that distinction, or for placing promiscuity beneath committment in our society’s scale of values.

The burden of proof is on the innovators.

First Im going to post a few quick comments on earlier commnet ( since I have’t been at this post for a while.

After that Im going to address Mufti on his question to Ben-David.

Laya,

Im sorry I didn’t answer you before (comment 12) I didn’t see the post for a while.

“destroyed becasue of Sinat Chinam, remember?”
-Laya do you know why they said that? Its becasue the Jews then did not worship idols or do those terrible things in the times of the second temple. But they had sinat chinam and in faft let the romans in to their cities becasue of the sin’ah. Not what you are saying.

laya wrong again…

“Luckily we are not kararites and our court system and our halacha always made it mandatory that complete undeniable proof of knowledge and intent was found before any punishment was doled out, otherwise, we’d probably all be dead by now. Compassion is built into our system.”
–when things get out of hand the above is dispensed with.
Maybe if you would study Sanhedrin you would know that if somebody did an act three times but the court technically couldn’t kill them –they would starve them.

JM,

I like your posts but I don’t think that in the past people thought that the earth was flat. Maybe in the middle dark ages in Europe – bu tin antiquity I don’t believe so.
If anybody can find me sources on this I would appreciate it.

YM,
For your info lesbianism is not OK. Its not like being Homo – and there is no death penalty but it is wrong as stated in the Talmud.

Heshy I support you against Tom C.

ck,

Yes and no.
Yes – only the Sanhedrin could administer capital punishment and yes it was very rare.

But no in that it is assuming that there aren’t extreme circumstances.
For example, there was a time when robberies were out of hand and the sanhedrin said that if not for those who bought stolen good the robbers would not rob. So they punished them very severely.

You probably know of the war with the tribe of Binyamin over the ‘concubine in Givah.’ This was in the times of the Shoftim. In that case Binyamin defended the murderers and a war was declared. Certainly not only the murderer was killed in that war.

I know that I don’t have to tell you the story of Pinhas where clearly there was no time for a court to do anything…

In Tractate Sanhedrin it talks about how they would deal with somebody violated a negative precept on purpose three times. All these are examples of extenuating circumstances.

In Bava Kama there is an intersting argument as to whether a person need go to a court to get back what is his- ie if, for example, someone stole my bike and its in his house. Can I break into his house and take it back or must I go to court? All agree that if I might not get it back later that I can take the law into my own hands. Where do they argue? When its not in danger of being gone for good. One says go to court and you’ll eventually get it back and one says that you can take the law into your own hands since you know its your and you don’t have to go through the bother of going to court. You know what? We rule like the one one who says you don’t have to bother going to court. (If you want I can get you the exact page tommorro-just tell me if you want the source.)

One thing is for sure though- the strictness of having good witnesses is to make sure the person is really guilty- not to show compassion for the wicked who we know did it by making red tape like in America where murderers walk free on technicalities.

Schmo –
You are misrepresenting the mainstream Jewish opinion, and denigrating Judaism in the process.

The point of the Pinchas story is that he received ABSOLUTELY NO SANCTION for his zealotry from Moses or Aaron. This is made clear in the Midrashic interpretation, in which he specifically confronts them, and they remain mum.

He also accepted upon himself the possibility that he would be killed. So too, the unbalanced fellow who stabbed the gay marchers should not be spared the full measure of the law. This summer, we all happen to be very well-informed here in Israel about civil disobedience and the price that one must be willing to pay for it.

In addition, the overwhemlming trend of our tradition is to SEVERELY LIMIT capital punishment, even by the Sanhedrin, which is commanded to search for loopholes.

The idea that stabbing another person is somehow equal to stealing back a bicycle – are you crazy? I think you know as well as I that any Rav would dismiss that train of thought out of hand.

What do you mean by “socially harmful”?

Can I drink myself to brain death as long as I don’t get in a car and run over some innocent person – what’s the phrase, oh yes: in the privacy of my own home?

Is that OK – like in Europe where they “respect” drug adddicts’ uh, lifestyle choices, but are careful to hand out clean needles so there is no “social harm” as people destroy themselves?

Is that what you mean – no collateral damage, so go ahead and kill yourself?

Ben-David are you kidding me?

you say that Pinchas “received ABSOLUTELY NO SANCTION”?? because Moses remeained mum when confronted by Pinchus?

I apologize but you are misinterpreting what happened.

Pinchas came to Moses when Moses was frozen during the ordeal (the same rabbis you misquote say that he was mum because he forgot at that moment what to do – they give us a reason that he forgot- it was a minor punishment for something) -so Pinchus came and said do you see what is happening? Didn’t you teach us that the zealous should strike? Moses then was reminded and he told Pinchus “let the bearer of the letter read its contents” ie you are right do it and save Israel.

Don’t you see that Pinchus stopped the plague that began at that time- and he was granted the covenent of peace forever?

Any Rabbi will dismiss it out of hand?! I don’t know who your Rabbi is but here is the Rambam:

יב,ד כל הבועל גויה, בין דרך חתנות בין דרך זנות–אם בעלה בפרהסיה, והוא שיבעול לעיני עשרה מישראל או יתר–אם פגעו בו קנאין והרגוהו, הרי אלו משובחין וזריזין; ודבר זה הלכה למשה מסיניי הוא, וראיה לדבר זה מעשה פינחס בזמרי.

now if you want more quotes from other sources like the Torah or Talmud -ask. I am holding back here since I don’t want to offend your sensibilities with the truth too much, since I see you are feeling uncomfortable, unless you really want it.

Here is one Rabbi on the web:
torah.org/adva...

Bottom line: Pinchus is a hero and he saved countless lives – not the opposite.

So too I believe is the case with what is happening in Israel.

“My gratitude for interesting responses, Joe Schmo. Let’s have a look. Babies have desires invovling sucking and they know that these can only be satisfied by external objects.”

–the baby doesn’t know anything. Even when the eyes are still closed the baby involuntarily sucks at the air.
In either case how can you compare knowing that and trying to get something to satisfy an internal desire with knowing ‘what’ will satisfy it?

i. your link here didn’t work.
ii. your link here didn’t work either.

-In either case are you implying that a baby ‘genetically’ recognizes their mother’s voice? You can’t be serious.
If the mother had a voice-change surgery then the baby wouldn’t recognize it?!

Isn’t it obvious to you that even if a baby does recognize a mothers voice from the womb (for which link didn’t work) its because it heard it for 9 months?!

Regarding stability across environments

-listen:
in every society you have a percentage child molesters
In every society you have a percentage who do stuff with animals
In every society you have a percentage adulterers
…That is simply because there is an internal desire and if a person hangs around any class of people and lets the mind wander eventually an association will build… and if you have friends who have that association and you hang around them eventually you might also build that association.

…and all that is learned. It is a mistake to connect ‘stability across environments’ with nature.

quote: “and the ‘learned side’ has no plausible story as to how it was ‘learned’. It clearly isn’t taught…”

–thats not true. My last paragraph explains how its taught.

if you were to let an individual grow up alone in a forest the person might end up being arroused by a tree.

If you have guys who hang out with each other and not girls. If they hang out long enough and if their internal desire is strong and they don’t stop their minds from wandering and they talk about it to each other because they have no compunctions they will eventually become aroused at the thought of the other. It is self-taught over time.

In fact that is the nature of this desire. The more you think about the desire in relation to an object the more and quicker the thought of that object arouses you.

Now you have the theory and in fact the truth as I see it about this whole topic.

Mufti,

1. Out of curiosity where do you get your 10-15% statistic? I don’t believe that for a second.

I know countless people. I don’t know ANYONE in my extended family or friends who has this ‘tendency.’
There are, I am sure, more adulterers and more child molesters in ANY (accross the board) given society than homosexuals- the only difference is that you don’t have a child molester parade or a push to have it recognized.

Please, some ‘real’ statistics- because if my casual experience is any indication those numbers are wrong.

2. My story is not only plausible but it is the reason, I am sure.

quote: “Otherwise, if we want straight kids, we should immediately pull boys out of all male boarding schools since your theory predicts that they will all be gay.”

-not at all. My ‘theory’ does not predict that.

If a person ‘thinks’ about this desire a lot – which is common in today’s society- Its all around you- just take a look at some of the recent posts.
Then the fact is that SUCH A PERSON

(cut off again)

Then the fact is that SUCH A PERSON
a. if they hang around kids all day will possibly be a molester
b. if they hang around women and they will possibly do adultery
c. if they hang with men they will possibly get into it with them

Of course, if the other person also agrees it will only be reinforced. Now the molester is one-sided but in the case of a guy who hits up a ‘friendship’ its all the more reinforced.

Don’t forget the point that it applies to people who think about their internal desire and don’t try to divert their attention away at all
- they are the risk factors.

So the idea is to control thought patterns.

3. “but do it semi unconsciously. Does that make it any less genetic …Why is knowledge the relevant factor? The main point seems to be that you have urges that can be gratified in only a range of ways and not others. Whether or not you know what will gratify them doesn’t seem to matter. But maybe you can say a bit more why it does.”

–No there is no semi-concious by the baby- if you were to give the baby a bottle with milk from day one it would be the same to the baby as the mother’s breast.
Try it.

“urges that can be gratified in only a range of ways and not others.”
-Listen buddy, what exactly is the female guy of this act doing for the male? Is there something in the body that is providing pleasure? Do you think the actual pleasure is dependant on if its a guy girl or any object? You are a smart guy- Of course not.
Its all in the mind.

Why do you ignore the main simple logic. Even if I were to have no reason I know of one thing you could know and take to the bank:
Something like this where
a. the claimed object of desire is only known through sight and
b. nothing from the body of the first person actually gives any sensory pleasure to the other person.
- simply makes no sense to think is genetic.

You want to ask ‘how do you explain its prevalence?- OK fair question we can think about it – its another question but that doesn’t contradict the fact that it is not genetic.

In either case I hope that I have clarified that question above.