The infamous writing on the wall at Auchsvitz serves as a reminder:

“At first they came for the communists but I did not speak up.I was not a communist. Then they came for trade union leaders. I did not speak up. I was not in a union. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak up. I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and it was too late to speak.”

I could care less about a gay life style. I am celibate and find sex to be an indulgeance between emotionally crippled males and narcisstic females. I am repulsed by its entire culture including marriage. However, anyone stepping on their rights is preparing to step on me. As far as I am concerned, we are all locked up in Guantamano Bay.

What we are likey going to see is a repeat to what happened to Germany in the 1930s. Scientists will start leaving the country to resettle in an atmosphere that let’s them breathe and where they will likely invent a new weapon system that will be able to defend them against the United States..

Right now the United States is chasing many away even without the war and political repression. Scientists may be paid higher in the United States but those scientists have little free time. My niece earned her Phd in microbiology at Edinburgh and has chosen to live where scientists are offered less money but more free time..In Greece. She likes the idea of having the free time her Uncle Bob (me) had at the Post Office with 6 weeks vacation each year. Her pay is about what mine was($45,000)..and so is her free time.

Will Sean be getting the urge to move some day?

So everything that at some time was considered disgusting will in the future come to be regarded as normal?

No!
But there is no Western country except the US that persecutes its citizens like this.

So does Sean look forward to the happy day when paedophiles will be regarded by the enlightened as victims of oppression?

And when did you stop beating Shari Lewis, Lambchop?

What’s depressing is the possibility that they won’t be so considered. The past six years have seen us moving in the wrong direction, and if this trend isn’t reversed then when the next century rolls around we may instead be reading our state sanctioned texts on the evils of the old system of checks and balances, shaking our heads at the inefficiency of a government that allowed for personal freedoms, and praying fervently during the mandatory church service that we will be safe from the wicked sorcerers who once tried to corrupt innocent children by teaching that the Earth is not the center of the Universe.

Thats what we will remember when we look back and how history will view the present era.

I used to wonder, what is it that we are doing now that will seem most embarassingly backward a hundred years from today?

Our treatment of animals and foreigners.

The US is very peculiar when compared with pretty much every other “First World” country. Much of it appears to be due to the strength of cultish or fundmentalist religions in the US. While there is work being done on why I don’t have the expertise to explain it.

This has influenced the politics of the US to a great degree (is there a politician in the US that could get elected if they stated openly that they were atheist?). I am amazed by the dichotomies that come about as a result of this. A country founded on principles of justice and liberty for all can’t seem to consider gay (or black or native or whatever) part of the all. There is no sense to it, it does not threaten marriage (except for people that can’t think for themselves), it does not mean the end of the world. The US is also the predominant place on this planet for scientific research yet at least 40% of the population claim that Homo was created in the last 10,000 years. This ranks 34th in the world, just ahead of Turkey.

Unfortunataely this strangeness results in serious problems like tying US aid to the receipient having an abstinence focus on birth control which means that the US won’t supply condoms to to Africa so AIDS just keeps on getting more firmly entrenched. Now it means finding common ground with murderers and human rights violators just so those pesky queers don’t get any rights.

Your list of objections to equal rights for all people has led me to ask a few questions:

(1) You seem quite concerned that kids raised by queer couples will have “inappropriate” gender modeling, despite the lack of any scientific evidence for this. Are you equally worried about the gender modeling of kids raised by only one heterosexual parent? Would you advocate that the state “limit” the rights of those parents? Somehow I doubt it.

(2) How do you place “logical constraints” on heterosexual family units? Homosexuality and polygamy are orthogonal axes.

(3) So basically we can’t have equal rights for all members of society because the paperwork would be too difficult? Are you serious?