I've already seen this, and if you see the transcript, she isn't the intolerant retard she's being made out to be. She has some valid points, she just doesn't know how to express them very well.

http://www.plumbbobblog.com/?p=231

This is a good explanation of what is actually being talked about here.

I wouldn't call her an intolerant retard, and until this post I'd never heard of her. The post you cite wonders whether dialogue has become impossible on this issue, which I don't think it has.

However, consider what she said,

"Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it's the death knell of this country. I honestly think it's the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam — which I think is a big threat, OK? Cause what's happening now is they are going after, in schools, two-year olds...And this stuff is deadly, and it's spreading, and it will destroy our young people, it will destroy this nation."

The first statement is historically wrong, so the second statement does not flow from it. As to the contention that homosexuality is worse than Islam because it's "deadly" and spreading to two-year olds is based on the argumentative suppositions that homosexuality consists solely of dangerous sexual practices, and is contagious.

I could be wrong, but I don't think a person who argues that way is particularly interested in dialogue.

Well, if you look at homosexual behavior as the sharp end of the moral destruction spear, then it makes some sense. The "sexual revolution" has done tremendous damage to the social structures of this society, and the people who wish to mainstream their own pet perversions haven't slowed down their efforts to dilute the moral fabric we have left.

Let's face it, homosexuality is a perversion. You can argue about whether it's a harmless perversion, or whether those who practice it have a biological imperative to indulge in it, but it is a perversion nonetheless. To people focused on preserving the traditional social values we have inherited, the mainstreaming of more and more behaviors that have traditionally been taboo is a very troubling sign of degradation.

From a millenial point of view, the dissolution of morality is an indicator of the end times. I personally am not interested much in eschatology, but many Christians are, and they take such suppositions very seriously.

Anyway, I happen to believe that people can have good and even rational reasons to oppose the elevation of taboo behaviors to normalcy. Many of these people would be happy to engage in discussion of this subject, but, as you can see, if you are too blunt, or too fervent, or inarticulate, then there certainly won't be anyone opening that discussion.

For what it's worth, I disapprove of homosexual behavior myself, but I don't care if people engage in it. More people than you think actually love the sinner, and hate the sin.

Thanks for pointing to my blog, Chris.

It turns out, in actual point of fact, that the video takes Rep. Kerns pretty badly out of context. She was talking to an Oklahoma Republican party meeting, and she was discussing the activism of Gay Rights groups that were specifically targeting Republican legislators for political defeat in various parts of the country. This explains the comments about gays "taking over" city councils, a comment that simply sounds like breathless hyperbole out of context. Kerns says the video actually moves her words around from the original tape to make them sound more rabid than they were in context, so we might not even be hearing what she said.

All in all, a pretty shabby job by Gay Rights activists, who, though I doubt they're the greatest threat this country has ever faced, have generally shown themselves to be a shameless and virtueless bunch, given to a level of mean-spiritedness that exceeds even the norm for American politics, which is bad enough already.

Well, hell, I don't want anyone to be required to be subjected to Radical Queer Theorists.

But that's because of my antipathy to Radical Queer Theory, rather than the sexuality of those who are RQTheorists. I have no problem with homosexuals who aren't Radical Queer Theorists teaching.

Or, for that matter, RQTheorists teaching RQTheory to volunteer students who wish to learn it.

Chris: What's a "perversion", exactly?

If only "modes of sexual fulfillment generally regarded as unusual" (to paraphrase the most apt Dictionary.com definition), it has no moral weight at all; unusual does not mean wrong.

If you mean something else, there's the slight problem of justification and support.

Sigivald asks, somewhat disingenuously,

What's a "perversion", exactly?

I think he was expecting that there's no intellectually valid answer to the question. I'm sorry to inform him that he's incorrect.

A "perversion" is a compulsive sexual disorder, a pathological behavior pattern defined by its symptoms. The pattern looks like this:

- sexual desires deviated from the norm;
- a statistically valid pattern of compulsivity associated with the deviated desire, evidenced by unusual promiscuity;
- a statistically valid pattern of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and suicides, coupled with a large percentage of those who engage in the practice who don't want to or feel they are abnormal;
- negative health effects arising from the pattern of behavior, that ought to but do not deter the practitioners from the behaviors, making the behavior appear self-destructive;
- a pattern of denial that aggressively asserts there's nothing wrong with the behavior, that the practitioner could quit at any time, or alternatively that there's no point in quitting because it's impossible.

There's nothing particularly unusual about this pattern. Doctors see it all the time, related to all sorts of abnormal sexual behaviors. Human beings are sexually polymorphous -- given the right psychological pressures, they can be made to be aroused by nearly anything. Shoes; infants; dogs; horses; hats; the outdoors; you name it, somebody's turned on by it. "Members of the same sex," while clearly abnormal, is one of the more common deviations; and yes, all the other symptoms of a compulsive sexual disorder apply, in general, to those who practice homosexuality.

This is one of the reasons why it was so destructive when the APA decided to alter the definition of "homosexuality" in DSM III to stop referring to it as a compulsive sexual disorder, and why, culturally speaking, it's an error to simply accept homosexuality as normal. By symptoms, homosexuality clearly is a compulsive sexual disorder; the decision to change the definition was political, not medical. Redefining to fit the aggressive denial of this group -- actually, of a politically active subset of this group that probably does not represent the majority -- consigns sufferers of a curable disorder to depression, illness, and an early death.

There. Does that answer your question?

I always appreciate a comment from yogibarrister, too. This discussion should hit him right between the statutes. Yogi?

Thanks, Bob. Your elucidations are much better than mine, which is why I linked to you (I just discovered you a few days ago).

Simple explanation of perversion; Man is designed with two sexes, and their sexual interaction is the conduit for reproduction. A byproduct of this interaction is sexual pleasure. Since Man is expressly configured for two disparate sexes interacting (which is obvious if you examine the plumbing), any deviation from that norm is a perversion.

So... all people who are drawn romantically to the same sex are compulsive, depressed, have negative health effects, and could quit at any time? I'm sorry, but that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Homosexuality is not a compulsive sexual disorder. Perhaps you see it that way because you've been reading Paul Cameron's (discredited) research, which is not methodologically valid.

Half of the world's population is romantically attracted to men... yet if I am, too, that makes me a pervert? That doesn't make any sense.

And by the way, I take issue with your lumping of attractions to "shoes, infants, dogs, horses, hats, the outdoors..." with my attraction to men (which, again, half the population of the world shares). I love someone who loves me back. I care about, and for, someone who does the same for me. If to you that seems the same as wanting to get it on with a shoe, then I'm afraid it's your conception of sexuality that is perverted.