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oh dear
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HGiles: I don't loathe people who are in homosexual relationships. I think they are making a bad decision. This is the part you aren't getting. I can disagree with what someone is doing, and still respect them as a human being. You are not extending me the same level of courtesy. Instead, you are being insulting and mocking me. Not being able to follow through on your own stated belief that people should be tolerant is hypocritical.

Unless you mean your last paragraph to say that you don't consider people who disagree with you to be deserving of the same level of courtesy as people who do agree with you. If so, you're kind of proving my original point that there are liberals can be just as bigoted and discriminatory as some conservatives.
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AlCapowned: First of all, sexuality is not a decision. If it were, nobody would choose to be gay because nobody would want to be treated differently. When you assume that homosexuals have control over something that nobody else can control (because nobody woke up one morning and decided to be straight, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar), you aren't really respecting them as human beings (unless you're saying it's a superpower or something).
Just because you say you do doesn't make it so. Your condemnation of homosexual relationships is like condemning interracial relationships; like everyone else, interracial couples don't choose their sexuality, but they do choose to have sex, and that's no different from homosexual couples. Why is it okay for one couple to have sex, while it's a "bad choice" for another to do the same?

Secondly, intolerance of intolerance is not as bad as "standard" intolerance. Saying that they are equal is like saying it's just as bad to hate a racist as it is for a racist to hate people based on race, and that's stupid.

To me, "tolerance" is crap that should be replaced with acceptance and/or understanding. It doesn't have any positive implications for whatever is being tolerated when used in any other context - tolerance to pain, tolerance to cold, tolerance to heat, and the list goes on.
You're missing a major part of my point. I disapprove of people's actions, not the people themselves. For the umpteenth time, if sleeping with someone is not a choice that is a problem which takes priority over any questions of orientation. Since you don't know me IRL I agree that you can't judge my behavior there, but that's a universal problem with online interactions. Although I have to say that it's actually not as hard as you think to be friends with someone that you disagree with sometimes. Most friendships have disagreements.

My standards for which couples I think are appropriate are based in my religion and morals. You probably aren't going to agree with them, but that doesn't change the fact that I have what I consider valid reasons for my stance. Just like you have what you consider valid reasons for your stance, even though I would probably consider those reasons specious and missing several important points, based on your example. Vive la difference.

Being impolite and oppressive is being impolite and oppressive, regardless of the target of the oppression. Tyranny of a minority is tyranny of a minority, regardless of which minority it is.

I can see what you're getting at with replacing 'tolerance' with 'understanding' or 'acceptance'. It's a tricky issue and maybe changing the word choice would help. 'Understanding' seems like it might be the best choice, I think.
Post edited February 15, 2014 by HGiles
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Leroux: ...
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HiPhish: Normal = working as intended.

Sex is for reproduction, non-hetero sex does not reproduce, therefore non-hetero sex is not normal. We can apply it to anything else really: eyes are for seeing, so blindness is an anomaly. There is nothing inherently good or bad about having anomalies, everyone has some anomalies, some have more than others. I'm not going to pretend that something not being as it was designed by nature is not an anomaly just because it might hurt someone's precious feelings. I'm just pointing out the obvious here.

nature has built us in a certain way for practical purposes. Why do you think most men turned on by fake lesbians but turned off by real lesbians and gay men? It's normal to feel that way and anyone who says otherwise is lying.
You do realize that certain creatures in nature are actually created "gay". There are tons of examples of homosexual relationships in mammals and other animals. And we are animals. Like it or not.
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AlCapowned: First of all, sexuality is not a decision. If it were, nobody would choose to be gay because nobody would want to be treated differently. When you assume that homosexuals have control over something that nobody else can control (because nobody woke up one morning and decided to be straight, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar), you aren't really respecting them as human beings (unless you're saying it's a superpower or something).
Just because you say you do doesn't make it so. Your condemnation of homosexual relationships is like condemning interracial relationships; like everyone else, interracial couples don't choose their sexuality, but they do choose to have sex, and that's no different from homosexual couples. Why is it okay for one couple to have sex, while it's a "bad choice" for another to do the same?

Secondly, intolerance of intolerance is not as bad as "standard" intolerance. Saying that they are equal is like saying it's just as bad to hate a racist as it is for a racist to hate people based on race, and that's stupid.

To me, "tolerance" is crap that should be replaced with acceptance and/or understanding. It doesn't have any positive implications for whatever is being tolerated when used in any other context - tolerance to pain, tolerance to cold, tolerance to heat, and the list goes on.
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HGiles: You're missing a major part of my point. I disapprove of people's actions, not the people themselves. For the umpteenth time, if sleeping with someone is not a choice that is a problem which takes priority over any questions of orientation. Since you don't know me IRL I agree that you can't judge my behavior there, but that's a universal problem with online interactions. Although I have to say that it's actually not as hard as you think to be friends with someone that you disagree with sometimes. Most friendships have disagreements.

The Kinsey scale strongly suggests that most people are bisexual, which is born out by centuries of historical data. Which again, strongly supports the theory that people do have some control over who they are attracted to, in addition to the fairly absolute (outside of abusive circumstances) control they have over who they have sex with.

My standards for which couples I think are appropriate are based in my religion. You probably aren't going to agree with them, but that doesn't change the fact that I have what I consider valid reasons for my stance. Just like you have what you consider valid reasons for your stance, even though I would probably consider that reasoning specious and missing several important points, based on your example. Vive la difference.

Being impolite and oppressive is being impolite and oppressive, regardless of the target of the oppression. Tyranny of a minority is tyranny of a minority, regardless of which minority it is.

I can see what you're getting at with replacing 'tolerance' with 'understanding' or 'acceptance'. It's a tricky issue and maybe changing the word choice would help. 'Understanding' seems like it might be the best choice, I think.
And i choose not to accept your religion. Am I wrong in that? If you can be intolerant, then so can I :)
Post edited February 15, 2014 by itchy01ca01
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Leroux: ...
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HiPhish: Normal = working as intended.

Sex is for reproduction, non-hetero sex does not reproduce, therefore non-hetero sex is not normal. We can apply it to anything else really: eyes are for seeing, so blindness is an anomaly. There is nothing inherently good or bad about having anomalies, everyone has some anomalies, some have more than others. I'm not going to pretend that something not being as it was designed by nature is not an anomaly just because it might hurt someone's precious feelings. I'm just pointing out the obvious here.

nature has built us in a certain way for practical purposes. Why do you think most men turned on by fake lesbians but turned off by real lesbians and gay men? It's normal to feel that way and anyone who says otherwise is lying.
It amuses me to see statements like "sex is solely for procreation." Sex is also for pleasure and for strengthening social bonds between two or more people. Sex is as necessary as words in regards to the framework of civilization. You can see this in nature, for instance dogs and wolves utilize humping as a dominance tactic in order to sort out who is below whom on the social ladder. Many species also engage in sex even when their partner is not in anyway fertile and thus they are not doing it for procreation, but simply for the act. Many species are also not in anyway discriminatory in their choice of partner's gender or even species (goats, monkeys, dogs, etc). So indeed, homosexual sex is "working as intended" and so is "normal" according to your equation.

None of which has to do with the topic of personal gender, but there you go.
Post edited February 15, 2014 by Melhelix
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HGiles: Being impolite and oppressive is being impolite and oppressive, regardless of the target of the oppression.
It's bigotophobia, pure and simple. Bigots are the new Jews.
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Telika: This is a bit vague.

Sometimes, in some contexts, you need a descriptive term.

Plus, "default" is a bit normative (like, saying "normal"). Seriously it shocks you so much that some technical terms pop up to shorten long descriptive sentences into one unambiguous concept ?
A roughly 95% majority needing a special term so you know people are referring to the 95% is just kind of dumb. I get the point behind it, to make "trans" less of a small minority or sound less abnormal, but it's going too far. It's like if we came up with a term for people that never lost a limb in an accident, or for people who use their TVs to watch TV shows.
Maybe gender is kind of a useless term nowadays. We should probably be using the term sex and orientation to discuss these things. For a long time I used gender in strict reference to the biological and chemical anatomy of a person but there is a mental/behavior component to the word. It was made up back in the 50's and I think we've moved beyond template systems for identifying human sexuality. Instead of 50 genders, Facebook should just have sex and orientation.
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Telika: This is a bit vague.

Sometimes, in some contexts, you need a descriptive term.

Plus, "default" is a bit normative (like, saying "normal"). Seriously it shocks you so much that some technical terms pop up to shorten long descriptive sentences into one unambiguous concept ?
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StingingVelvet: A roughly 95% majority needing a special term so you know people are referring to the 95% is just kind of dumb. I get the point behind it, to make "trans" less of a small minority or sound less abnormal, but it's going too far. It's like if we came up with a term for people that never lost a limb in an accident, or for people who use their TVs to watch TV shows.
There are names for those people. An accident victim who survives an accident with no limbs lost is called a casualty. One who has lost a limb is now a disabled casualty. A person who watched TV just for TV shows is called a "couch potato". We label everyone in society, Some labels are wanted, some are not.
Changing my gender to The Joe.
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Telika: This is a bit vague.

Sometimes, in some contexts, you need a descriptive term.

Plus, "default" is a bit normative (like, saying "normal"). Seriously it shocks you so much that some technical terms pop up to shorten long descriptive sentences into one unambiguous concept ?
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StingingVelvet: A roughly 95% majority needing a special term so you know people are referring to the 95% is just kind of dumb. I get the point behind it, to make "trans" less of a small minority or sound less abnormal, but it's going too far. It's like if we came up with a term for people that never lost a limb in an accident, or for people who use their TVs to watch TV shows.
Yeah and i suggest that we say "foreigners" and "normal people" when we talk of a country's residents.

Guh.
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Rohan15: Changing my gender to The Joe.
I wonder where he's been. Guess all the non-gaming topics got to him.
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AlCapowned: The more options there are, the more informative the gender field is.

It's along the same lines as a question of agreement. You can have "agree" or "disagree," but that isn't as detailed as a question that includes "agree," "strongly agree," "N/A," "disagree," and "strongly disagree." It may be a "hip thing" to you, but to the people who identify with one of the given options, it's a signal that they matter.
Things are already complicated enough as they are, there is no need to make them needlessly complicated.

At the base, gender refers to the status of your XX/XY chromosomes.

Granted, there are specific genetic anomalies to include and one could argue, those who do cosmetic changes to functionally emulate the opposite gender.

It's reasonable to include the later given that people often talk about gender from a functional perspective (but medically, it may still be relevant to call a transgender a guy or a girl based on the status of their chromozone for things that involve gender specific diagnostics).

Beyond that, I find it's stretching the definition of gender a bit much and we do need the notion of gender to be usable for practical uses so we can't just go apeshit and blur it too much just to cuddle people's sensibilities.

Lifestyles should never be tagged on gender. Just use something other than gender to define them. A man who likes to moonlight as a female, but doesn't go under the knife is not a new gender, it's a man. The fact that he likes to moonlight as a female may define him and it may be pertinent to describe him this way, but it doesn't change his gender, especially when determining which locker room he should change in or whether or not he should get checked for prostate cancer.
Post edited February 15, 2014 by Magnitus
More proof the Y generation is retarded.
low rated
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Firebrand9: More proof the Y generation is retarded.
More proof it's time for the old farts to go off and leave the Rest of us In Piece.
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itchy01ca01: More proof it's time for the old farts to go off and leave the Rest of us In Piece.
Lol Awesome case-in-point. Thank you for that. That's "peace".
Post edited February 16, 2014 by Firebrand9