rastler000

Well given I have been called a murderer, evil, and a satanist, in the short time I have been posting here..... could be!

Okay, fair enough. Mine is an environment that has the kids respect the adults. Education. Fitness. Volunteerism. Stuff like that. It admittably doesn't include religion but does have a different sort of spirituality. For my part I don't care whether they outlaw gay marraige or not. I see marraige as a religious thing only anymore and do not plan on remarrying 'officially'. But I do think this "us versus them" mentality (played to the extreme by both sides) is not particularly helpful. This sense of an underlying 'hate' I get is the sort of thing which would have me want to protect my family from a group...... religious or not. It is part of what I consider raising a family in a safe environment. Have people vanadalying my stuff - with little ones around - doesn't seem all that safe. FWIW, I know a number of gay people because of family connections, and they truly think that people in your religion, and your religion in general, hate them.

So basically are saying that unless someone is LDS the rest of the world in raising their families in unhealthy environments? I am just trying to clarify here. Do most LDS believe this as well?

So if I see this issue different than you (not including the vandalizing as I do not condone that) does this mean I am not providing a healthy environment to raise my family in?

Who?

For awhile. We get what we get. I am looking forward to having the company of a lot of people who have no health care, and don't get to retire. They get to enter my world.

Think of the upside, it will take care of our outrageous deficit.

Well okay.... if this is a "I want to win the debate and you (meaning me) are bad and evil type of thing"... then I will concede. I mean I have been called a satanist, and a murderer, on this very board before, so why not. But you will have to excuse me if I pass on suggesting these values for my family. I will however mention that people consider as as horrible because we disagree with them if you do not mind. :)

Well since most of the gay folk I know are in their 30's to 50's here is what I have seen. They share a house with their significant other. They get up in the morning... shower, etc... then they go to work. After work it is shopping, work around the house, eat dinner, watch TV, maybe go to the gym and get a work out in. Stuff like that. Some of them have kids so a lot of the after work freetime revolves around the kids. On weekends it is yard work, maybe go somewhere for the weekend. A movie. A night out. A ball game. A day at the park, or beach, that sort of thing. Usually at some point during the year they will take a vacation together. It is a pretty scary lifestyle.

Basically a homosexuals choice is to it is either partner up with a significant other, and live as a married couple, finding happiness with who and what they are..... or live lonely lives without a significant other for whom they are attracted to in 'that way'. Now if you really really believe in a faith, that is against homosexuality, then I suppose you are stuck doing the celibate Priest like thing. Which means in this very 'family' oriented church, you feel (and are) truly out of place (I believe we have a thread going on just that). But most people who are SSA don't do that. When they are younger they are frustrated, depressed, often angry, and often hiding in a "closet". Why? Because there is a clear prejudice against them. They know darn well coming out as gay in the atmospheres of conservative religions is not a friendly atmosphere to say the least. As they mature they tend to find an equilibrium with being gay, move on in life, pretty much blowing off those religions of their birth, and/or religion all together. I don't blame them. I know at least a dozen SSA couples for whom this descirption fits.

Only if they had an issue with it. And the ones who seem to have the biggest issues with homosexuality are conservative religious folks, who tend to be pro-life.

Which is why I consider marraige a religious thing, and no longer plan on Marrying. Nor - given we are not particularly religious (an understatement! ;-)) - would it bother me if any of my family decided to forgo the marraige thing either.

Yet even your faith concedes there could be a component that may be genetic. We have a person on this board who is SSA and struggling partially as a result of that. Yet I have never had any sort of attraction to the same sex, and was raised in an atmosphere where is wasn't demonized or even considered bad, have a great many gay friends, a couple of gay family members. Given my luck with women if anybody should be influenced into being gay, it should be me. But it just doesn't work that way.

A lot of these same arguments were made about mixed race marraiges decades ago. Other than within specific families, and perhaps some religions, mixed marraiges are not an issue. Gay marraige is trending the same way. It is probably about a decade or so away, but it is getting there. I realize for religious purposes you consider it a problem. But some religious people consider women not in burkas a problem, so I am not swayed. FWIW, I am okay with the issue be resolved by virtue of civil unions with the same legal rights as marraige. I have mostly consigned marraige to being a 'religious thing', and have no intent on every marrying again.

The same thing could have been said about mixed race marraiges. They used to be illegal in many places as well. That changed and people mostly got over it.

I guess I must be a Satanist then..... need to make a sacrifice...... here kitty, kitty, kitty.

The political/economic system of the world is controlled by Satan. I think I'll pass on the end days type stuff. It doesn't seem particularly condusive to raising a normal productive member of society. It does seem pretty condusive to raising a scared kid who may want to hurt those "Satanists" if given the chance however. I know when I was a kid, being fit, rowdy, a bit impulsive, and some skills, I would have been all over that. Pity the poor Satanist that got in my way! Seriously, I know kids like this now.

As far as I am concerned extremely strict after the first trimester would be a good compromise.... but neither side will go for it.

Okay, lets take this a step further, lets say you vote for one of the candidates for POTUS. Neither candidate would be entirely pristine when it comes to answering the questions you posed. One candidate would clearly be less pristine. It would seem to me the only viable option you would have, in order to be safe with those questions, would be not to vote at all.

Do you think every SP in California, Arizona, and any other state, would give the exact same answer? If so, then surely you can suggest what that answer would be. Otherwise it would seem to be a "personal" thing dependent not on Gods will and opinion. Nor the Prophets will and opinion as determined by God, but instead the personal opinions of the individual SP's. Or.... God would seemly determine that no TR in this Stake... but yeah I will go with it in this Stake. Is it really that confusing?

I suspect a number of members struggle with this more realistic view of homosexuality.

More Madison..... Nothwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Gov' & Religion neither can be duly supported: Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst.. And in a Gov' of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Gov will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together; [James Madison, Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt]

I believe that is what I heard somewhere too. Of course I'd want to see solid references for a number that high.

That could work..... .... LOL, if I had a dollar for everytime some religious person has consigned me to a hot place I'd have my house and car paid off.

I am pro-choice..... when should I expect my jail sentence? Boy, with about half the people basically pro-choice to some extent..... it is going to be crowded. Where are we going to put all of us?