To me, it seems that considering it necessary to, for instance, describe sexual intercourse in explicit detail is similar to thinking it wrong to mention it at all – both ways make it into a big issue, in a way that, say, teaching children about sex in a purely scientific manner doesn’t.

Oi – careful with that dead cow, that was nearly me head. Signing off….

What a pile of manure.

I have never suggested I wanted to debate any of those things. On the contrary, I have said from the beginning that we should be staying off of that irrelevant topic. It has absolutely nothing to do with the subject under discussion. And again, I’ll reiterate that your assumptions about what I believe are wrong. The only thing I’ve communicated to you is not a desire to discuss homosexuality, but a desire that you should behave like a civilized person, not use bigoted epithets, and, if you must discuss homosexuality, discuss it with good intentions. You have demonstrated since your first post in this thread that you are not here to discuss anything in good faith, but to insult people who don’t agree with you on every single thing.

I suppose you also believe that people who believe in discussions with mutual respect and without gratuitous insults are barbarians not worth spending your time on.

Like I said above, some people just aren’t amenable to reasoned discourse. Looks like you’re one of them after all, Joe. (But I can’t say I’m really surprised.)

Let’s recap. I did not join this thread to talk about either YA SF or Orson Scott Card, neither of which really interest me. I joined the thread because it had veered into the area of anti-gay bigotry and I offered a straightforward opinion on that bigotry. That is the point on which you took issue with me, and that has been the point of our exchange. We are not taking about YA SF anymore, as you well know. You protested at my stance, you talked up the joys of reasoned discourse and rational debate. I have offered you that rational debate, and your response is to run and hide.

You’ve been called, son – and you were bluffing all along. I rest my case.

I am uninterested in entertaining you with in-dept answers to your questions about my beliefs because my beliefs about sin, God, and homosexuality continue to be irrelevant to the stated topic, and because you have already stated that you are asking as a prelude to continued insulting of me, just as, as far as I can tell, you insult everyone who disagrees with you on anything. Suffice it to say that the assumptions you have clearly held throughout this discussion about my views on sin, homosexuality, and legislation are erroneous ones.

If you are interested in my beliefs about the Young Adult label or in my beliefs about how civilized people actually behave toward each other, though, I have elaborated on both on this site already.

I am still waiting to see evidence that you are capable of disagreeing with people without insulting them. Thus far you have insulted Card because you disagree with his religious beliefs, and you have insulted me because you disagree with my views of what constitutes polite discourse. I disagree with your views on what constitutes “civilized,” incidentally, because by my definition, your behavior is a counter-example. Again, I am of the belief that civilization will progress best if people give each other credit for good intentions. Your expressed belief seems to be that people who don’t hold all of the “right” beliefs are not worth talking to, unless it is to insult them.

Or maybe not, maybe just straightforward pompous; truth is, Joe, you’ve been rather slippery about what it is that you do personally believe on the subject of homosexuality and sin.

Tell you what – I’ll do you a deal. I wouldn’t ordinarily engage on something like this, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Could be I’ve got you all wrong. Why don’t you lay out here exactly what you believe by answering these questions:

1) Do you believe in “sin”? If so, what do you understand by the term? What rational evidence can you advance to support this as a meaningful social descriptor?

2) Assuming an affirmative answer to (1) above, do you believe homosexuality to be one of these “sins”? What rational evidence can you advance to support this inclusion?

3) Assuming an affirmative answer to (2) above, what legal and social measures do you think should be taken to underline the “sinful” nature of homosexual acts?

We will then know whether or not you deserve the epithet (and believe me I intend it not as an insult but as a coldly functional and purely descriptive term, a kind of hazard warning if you like) barbarian.

For myself, I’m a lot less loose with bigoted phrases such as “barbarian,” and I find that when I treat even the views I disagree with with respect, sometimes people do come around and begin considering the possibility that the people they disagree with have come to their conclusions not because they are evil or stupid but for other reasons, and they, sometimes, begin to consider those reasons. I have seen people become more open to ideas they found challenging in this manner. I’ve seen it a lot, in fact.

But I believe that calling people barbarians, fools, or uncivilized is the antithesis of reasoned discourse and rational debate, and it pretty much closes the door to any sort of meaningful conversation. I object to it when people on either side of a debate descend into insults instead of rationalism, as I have already demonstrated in this thread. I think the world would be a better place if we would approach disagreements, and those who disagree with us, with respect for their humanity, their intelligence, and their decency.

Civilized, decent, intelligent people can come to conclusions I disagree vehemently with. If I trust that they are civilized, decent, and intelligent people, I can engage them in dialogue. I can listen respectfully and thoughtfully to why they think I am wrong, and hopefully they will return the favor. I might not change anybody’s mind on the issues we discuss, but at the very least perhaps I can demonstrate the decency of the people who agree with me, through decent behavior.

What a shame you hold your rhetoric in such low esteem, that you can explicitly state that it is not a worthwhile effort for you to go through the trouble to treat someone who disagrees with you like a civilized, rational human being. You seem like an intelligent person; I think you can do better.

You cannot “win over” or “convince” a barbarian – you just have to police them as best you can, keep an eye on them and see that they don’t cause too much damage to the fabric of civilised society. You put up with them within those bounds, and you hope that eventually they’ll go away and that their children, if they have any, will grow up to be a bit more enlightened.

Of course, it can be frustrating, this extending of tolerance to those who show no sign of grasping the concept themselves, but in the end that is how we define ourselves as civilised, that is how we demonstrate our ethical superiority to the barbarian model. It’s a tough brief, but there it is.

Sheesh.

Joe, you are under many, many misapprehensions here.

1) I’m not gay, so I have no “side” to speak of in this matter.

2) As far as I’m aware, you cannot “convert” someone to homosexuality (or from it, for that matter, despite the shrill insistence of fundamentalist bigots to the contrary).

3) This is not an “approach”, it’s a (carefully considered) opinion. I couldn’t care less whether you, Orson Scott Card or anybody else finds it palatable, any more than I care that the Ku Klux Klan are unlikely to endorse my opinions about racial equality. This is simply something that needed to be said in this conversation, and I have said it. You may make of it what you will.

Believing that homosexuality is a sin makes one a barbarian, plain and simple. Believing that homosexuality is a sin means you do not deserve nor are you fit to live in a civilised society (though said civilised society will of course have to put up with you, as it puts up with the racists, the mysogynists and all the other hate-filled ethical retards the rest of us are burdened with)