littlebillie

just as the major parties are blending more and more ("my blender is broken" - Dr Dolittle), so I think more and more we as individual tend to pick and choose from those parties' planks. And indeed, that's the way it should be - how can 2 parties totally and definitively represent the hundreds of millions of us in this country?

I'm all for welfare - but only for those who are citizens or here legally.

I am not entirely opposed to the death penalty - but anyone convicted who requests DNA analyses should be able to get it.

I am strongly opposed to NAMBLA, but I would support gay unions.

And so it goes.

liberal? conservative? I guess I'm a coniberal.

"If you would like to use this line of thinking, feel free to do so. But please do not limit it to one issue."

ahhh - I begin to understand why your posts seem to remind me of core dumps! Apparently you don't recognize the validity of a single topic in a thread or conversation, and additionally feel a need to apply ANY comment to EVERY topic...

a strange kind of dialogic Turrette's?

USE LIMITS! FREE YOURSELF! You have nothing to gain but time!

"Packsaddle, not sure what all that meant. Whatever it was, it certainly didnt appear to unequivocally prove anything."

and

"I understand your point, but if misinformation was used to gain peoples hearts and minds, one has to wonder how many might change their opinion. Or if the misinformation wasnt disseminated in the first place, one has to wonder how many would currently be supportive of homosexuality."

I DID understand packsaddle. And if I understand the comments above, aren't they tantamount to saying that one doesn't understand something, it's gotta be wrong? Or at kindest, if one doesn't understand, it MUST be misinformation?

I'm not trting to step on toes, but that's really what seems to have been said...?

Rooster - here's what you said about me: "You claim that its the mothers risk to take."

And here's what I actually said: '...here's where I intellectually take the PC cop-out of individual choice"'

Frankly, I thought my entire post was full of references to my indecision, still weighing all sides, and so on.

Moving right along... "Or, how about this amoral premise the day you can rape a man, you get the

chance to decide whether or not a rapist goes to jail." Technically, Bobbitt (sp?) was raped. Statutory stories of female teachers and underage boys abound these days, as well. If you care to make some searches, you'll come up with others, much more alarming.

I'll assume that if you have a firm and unequivical stand on abortion, that you yourself have asked God these questions. What did you two come with? I'm seriously interested.

malpractice insurance on the one hand, amortizing office technology on the other...

in the local news regularly, there are stories of this hospital or that clinic closing their doors. always in the more disadvantaged neighborhoods, of course. above and beyond cost, then, there are issues of simple access (and not just to HMO facilities).

I sometimes wonder if there's anyway for the government to partner with such places to avoid shutting them down, diverting some Medicare dollars to salaries, maint., etc, and providing good free care for the needy... sorta semi-social?

and just out of curiosity, does socialized medicine really differ that much from HMOs and Blue Cross? isn't it just a public versus private point of view?

Wow - I am VERY impressed by what seems to be a LOT of folks who wouldn't engage in bonding or recreational sex, and who recognize sex as a procreative act only. Big families, or long periods of abstinence? 'k, ', I'm kidding.

IF WE OUTLAW ABORTION in this country, of course, we will simply be sending a lot of folks across the border or down the alley. I think that a responsible clinic - one that offers counseling and asks iteratively "are you sure?" is a better and safer way to go.

But that doesn't really address the morality of abortion, though, does it? As a parent, I believe all children are precious and the thought of deliberately ending and one of those precious lives.... ugh.

But as a male, I also recognize that I can never fully understand a woman's point of view - and here's where I intellectually take the PC cop-out of "individual choice". See, it's not just a question of "well, if you're pro-life, why don't you adopt?". That should also say, "If you're so pro-life, why don't you sponsor a single mother and help her and her baby out so the kid won't drop out of school and she can finish hers and get a decent job and give'em day care too while yer at it, yadda-yadda-yadda."

Many of the same folks who decry abortion also decry welfare, and that seems to be a vicious circle just waiting to start spinning. Bringing kids into the world when you know they will only suffer doesn't seem right, does it?

okay. here's another aspect that confuses me. when sperm hits egg, boom - does it have a soul? or does it take splitting to get that sould? at what point, and by what mechanism does a soul happen? this is a key question, obviously. is there a soul before there are brain cells? does the soul co-exist with the body, and grow as the embryo, fetus and child grows? or is it somewhere else, and associated remotely with the body?

if the soul is associated with just the first cell, what does that imply about clipping my fingernails? very confusing this - spiritually, I have to think well, on the one hand, just to be safe, no abortion or even prevention should be allowed, but on the other hand, you have to have tolerance for others' beliefs.

and - are there ethical atheist objections to abortion, or is that one of those things atheists ALL agree on?

for those of you who are rock-solid certain of your positions - well, my hat's off to you, and indeed, I envy you, whatever side of the fence you fall on.

and now, all THAT said - what about test-tube babies carried in host mothers? right? wrong? when does the soul happen? in the test tube, or after being placed in the host-womb, or...?

"Why would mother nature intend this?"

Well, as population control with reduction of sexually induced stress, for one reason. Rat studies have demonstrated that in a limited space, with unlimited food, rats will breed to a point of overpopulation; one of the results of that is an increased incident of observed homosexual contact.

The bonobo also displays a wide range of non-procreative behvior.

Ed,

a good, reasonable response. we disagree on this, I know, but I'm proud to have someone like you to disagree with! you are a principled man of conscience - there's no point talking this kind of thing with any other kind of person...

"There is no proof that one is born gay. Therefore it is a learned behavior. Therefore it is a lifestyle. Until there is absolute proof that one is born gay, I will not change my opinion."

There is no proof that one is NOT born gay. (or, There is no proof yet, although there are certainly some suggestions, that one is born gay - take your pick.) Therefore it may or may not be a learned (or acquired or imparted) behavior. Therefore, it may be a genetic predisposition or a lifestyle choice, or both...

apparently the concept of "innocent until proven otherwise" extends so far, and no farther.

this kind of absolutist rhetoric - while providing no truly logical argument - IS proof that prejudice can be self-blinding.

Every time a gay couple adopts an older child that has been bypassed over and over by straight families, I think society and the adoptee have been helped. Now I know there are those that say kids without families are better off being institutionalized until the age of 18 and then being placed on their own, than to be placed with a gay couple - but I disagree. Strongly.

When folks argue that homosexuality is unnatural because it doesn't lead to procreation, yet counter all the examples of homosexuality among animals with the further argument that MAN has a moral sense, I really wonder if man doesn't have a practical sense? WE ARE OVERPOPULATED to the point where MAN with his moral sense is destroying the soulless natural world - species gone to extinction, thousands of acres of rain forest burned and levelled every week, the soil that grows our food daily leaching out to sea... yes, you're right - breeding is a certainly good and moral thing to do.

Every time someone says, it hasn't been shown that gays are borns so, they leave out that corollarily it hasn't been - oh, you go ahead and finish that one.

Man is the only animal with a conscience? I think that statement can only be made by someone who's never kept a dog...

Isn't it odd that a religion becomes myth after all its adherents have died? there are more Moslems than Christians across the world - if we reach a point where there are NO Christians, does Christianity become a myth, I wonder?

And every time I hear that the Bible is the Last and Final Word, I refelct that I have yet to hear of any version that has been definitively proven to be an exact and Final translation. Does "...no other gods before Me" really equate to "There are no other gods"?

As far as the 100-gays-on-an-island-for-50-years reality show goes, it's probably a good thing there's no procreation, or everyone would die a lot sooner as the island was stripped of all things edible.

Sure we'll take tax money from gays - and then get upset when Merlyn fights to make sure that the tax money gets allocated by the rules that the Scouts themselves fought to have applied!

Y'all folks is crazy!

By the way, is it ok to put camp and jamboree patches on the back of the merit badge sash? I'm starting to see this more and more, and my son wants to start doing it - I tend to be a purist when it comes to this, but I'm not sure what's evolving generally...?

NIAGARA FALLS? slo-o-o-o-wly I turn. step by step, inch by inch....

Is it religiously significant when a THREAD is resurrected? This one seems to have risen from the recycle bin... :-)

"Would I dare say that it might even be a moral absolute?" Probably not while the wedding of a 12 year old Gypsy princess is in the news...

"for an adult to have sexual relations with a minor at the age of thirteen, then we should allow homosexuals in the Scouting program in New Mexico?" well, since you pose it as a question, the answer is currently no - the BSA has rejected the local standards premise, maintaining their OWN absolute.

btw, the gays I know - family folk from school - are all repulsed by the idea of pedophilia.

"Nature did not design men to share sexual intimacy with one another. Nature did not design women to share sexual intimacy with one another."

yet nature has made allowances among other species for exactly this kind of activity - esp. during times of overpopulation! rats, bonobos, fish, dogs, sheep... it can be seen as a part of a system of population checks and balances.

"The only additional concept one must accept is that the 16-year-old has the ability to make the decision on his own. And I believe that our court system has established that they do by waving them into adult court and trying them as adults." if the age of consent is 16, then the act is not pedophilia in the eyes of that state.

to some extent the line may be seen as arbitrary - there are different ages. but there is a huge difference between mutually consenting ADULTS and the picture you are drawing. Arguably, even if the CHILD *seems* willing, the law does not recognize that CHILD'S ability or right to make such a call - I have, all along, excluded the emancipated minor - which is also why the kid can't sign a contract, either.

and any act that takes criminal advantage of a child - EVEN IF THE CHILD IS WILLING - cannot be be called harmless.

1.Pedophiles are born as pedophiles

2.Pedophilia is not a disease

3.Pedophilia is an act of love

4.There are no victims

well, first off, under the law there ARE victims - any unemancipated minor in such an entaglement is a victim. let's not forget the school ma'arms and their boy toys of recent notoriety. even tho the kids involved seem old enough to be non-victims, they certainly ended pretty messed up.

but let's try some paraphrasing.

1.Downs babies are born as Downs babies.

2.Downs syndrome is not a... no, better stop here.

1.Aggressors are born as aggressors

2.Aggressive murder is not a disease

3.Murder is an act of survival

4.whoops

1.Pedophiles are born as pedophiles

2.Pedophilia is not a disease

3.Pedophilia is an act of rape so

4.there are victims

1.SOME gays are born as gays

2.Homosexuality is not a disease

3.Mature adult homosexual behavior between consenting adults is an act of love that doesn't increas the population

4.There are no victims

re: pedophilia, from scoutings real gay policy thread

"What if some scientist says pedophiles are born that way? Well, I think there's precedence for this. There are people who are "born" more aggressive, but when that aggression expresses itself in murder or maiming - well, the "I was just doing what comes natural" argument isn't going to fly. Nor does it work for statutory rape. So frankly, i think that's more of a red herring than a red flag. "

As has been wisely pointed out, the "consenting adults" rule does not extend to children (save emanicpated minor)s. even where a social norm (kids who count their years in single digits are wed in some parts of the world), and including such sanctioned relationships, virtually all societies operating above a subsistence level protect their children fiercely. (I choose not to address empoverished actions of desperation, slavery, and the selling of daughters into prostitution - i do not believe these are actions made in fully reasoned choice or in keeping with anyone's religion. that'd all be a topic for another board, I think.)

Protection - that's part of what Scouting's about - by training and empowering our youth, we can help them protect themselves, fend for themselves, when we're not around.

But sadly, even on the straight side of the pedophilia question, we don't seem to really address things head on. Yeah - don't talk to strangers, sure, we tell our kids that. But we seem to have a sense that warning kids about pedophiles in any kind of explicit fashion robs them of some innocence.

Even when NAMBLA hit national journals, there was a whole BUNCH o' backpeddling when the message that "we're not putting up with any o' THAT crap, buddy" came thru loud and clear from all across America, even from within their own professional ranks. FLIP SIDE OF THAT IS, do not equate NAMBLA with that nice gay family down the street, with the two kids. That's like saying some dirty old man messing with a minor girl is representative of all straights, isn't it? that's part of pedophilia too - and it's all ugly and unconscionable.

CULTURE is part of the human animal, and it is culture that transcends the individual and puts the brakes on certain things.

It's our culture that will keep pedophilia of whatever color from becoming accepted.

"Personally I think it is really sad that if people are gay and in scouts they have to hide it." Actually, the single heterosexuals are supposed to hide it, too. Scouting would do itself a big favor by kicking out some known (avowed?) straight fornicators and adulterers. Public display of ANY unmarried sexuality just ain't part of the program, and married sexuality is only implied, never made obvious. THIS ALL belings at home. That said, and within that perspective, I wouldn't have a problem with the whole avowal thing if "unsanctioned" straight relations were dealt with the same way.

==================================

What if some scientist says pedophiles are born that way? Well, I think there's precedence for this. There are people who are "born" more aggressive, but when that aggression expresses itself in murder or maiming - well, the "I was just doing what comes natural" argument isn't going to fly. Nor does it work for statutory rape. So frankly, i think that's more of a red herring than a red flag.

=============================================

""They can have moral fibers and exceed every standard ever set by the BSA and loose it all when they realize they are Gay."

Now honestly, they haven't exceeded EVERY standard have they? Because one of the standards is that they not be avowed homosexuals."

Bob, in the example, they REALIZE they are gay - the point you seem to have responded to (or at least that you quoted) did not have anyone ANNOUNCING they were gay. Are you truly equating realization with avowal, whether they say anything or not? Just curious...

Just some thots hittin me while tryin to ketchup....

"Being gay is a lifestyle while being black and/or Jewish isn't. It's like comapring apples & oranges"

well, just for the record, the jury's still out on this. undoubtedly, for some, it's a 'lifestyle' choice. for others, it may very well be unalterable hard-wiring.

and besides, it looks like Michael Jackson has made being white a lifestyle choice, so maybe the two aren't so far apart... :-) (it's a JOKE, people!)

"how many other organizations...?" well, if they support the GSUSA, please consider the following, from http://www.girlscouts.org/adults/beliefs.html

=================================================

We, the members of Girl Scouts of the United States of America, united by a belief in God and by acceptance of the Girl Scout Promise and Law,... Do dedicate ourselves to the purpose of inspiring girls with the highest ideals of character, conduct, patriotism, and service that they may become happy and resourceful citizens.

We believe that the motivating force in Girl Scouting s a spiritual one.

We affirm that the Girl Scout Movement shall ever be open to all girls and adults who accept the Girl Scout Promise and law.

Preamble of the Constitution of Girl Scouts of the USA

==================================================

Since I am NOT aware of any atheist challenge to the Girl Scout credo at the SCOTUS level - the Girl Scouts leave "the interpretation of spirituality to each individual and the family" - I just wonder if their OFFICIAL stance, as stated above, is enough to warrant Mervyn's attention?

Frankly, I don't see the foregoing as that much different from district officials offering an Eagle candidate this possibility: "Mother Nature would be acceptable [as a Higher Power], says Brad Farmer, executive of the Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts." from THAT

recent ruckus. The only difference I can see is lack of a completed court challenge.

So - does Phillie support those pro-God Girl Scouts??? And if so, what does it all mean?

"foil cooking has been in the scouting program for decades hasn't it?... I see nothing wrong with that, do you?"

in moderation, no - always good to learn different methods and approaches, part of being prepared. I even support the teaching of this kind of cookery - just NOT to the regular and standard exclusion of pots and pans, etc., frankly.

the needs of backpacking can be seen as different to the needs (and abilities) of a fixed camp - at least by me.

after you've boiled your -scrambled-egg-to-the-nth in a plastic bag (and not even the smaller sandwich sized!), maybe it's time to move on to a griddle or skillet, for scrambling AND for poaching, frying, over-side-sunny-up-and-down, toad in the hole, whatever! If Johnny Appleseed had worn foil over his head, he'd'a been too busy listening to the alien broadcasts to worry about planting anything...

The troop in which my son maintains membership and that I support (is that right?) is doing more and more plastic bag and foil cooking - and then, of course, throwing out the 'cookware'. Half of the boys forget their messkits, but not to worry - we have plenty of paper plates and plastic utensils!

When I was a Scout, this kind of thing was just not done - heck, even our potatoes baked off to the side of or under the fire, and to this day I do enjoy a little burnt potato skin. If water was in short supply, we scoured with sand. etc.

So my question is, is this just somekind of local aberration, or is there some shift in philosophy that I just haven't caught up with yet? I really hate to have the kids model disposable culture on a camp-out...

"So it's OK for the city of Philadelphia to discriminate but not OK for the BSA? I'm confused! MAybe it's a w i d t h thing."

You know, I keep seeing this kind of comparison - that a response to discrimination (say, the refusal to fund or otherwise support a discriminatory group) is itself discriminatory. That's rather like saying that if the NEA wants to be non-discriminatory (or perhaps non-censorial?), they need to give a grant to EVERYONE who applies for arts funding.

Ed, would your immediate response be to call it discrimination if the city were to deny access to the KKK or NAMBLA? Or would you approve?

it really seems apples and oranges to me. is capital punishment justice or murder? eye for an eye, and all that - but vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. If you believe something is unjust, well, too bad? Ya gotta support it anyway, or you yourself are unjust?

I dunno, it seems specious to me...

been away, y'all - remediating viruses in Southern California... sigh.

Some families have religious injunctions against alcohol, while others have members who are recovering from real drinking problems - these families have their own good understandable reasons to hope that their children are not exposed to something that might make alcohol seem ordinary and ok, on either side of the fence. Out of respect for these families, there should probably be zero tolerance for cooking sherry, or any other ingestible alcohol, regardless of salt.

other families, for religous, cultural or other reasons, stand at the other end of the spectrum - and would choose not to have, say, something THEY see as sacramental demonized by some well-intentioned passer-by.

In such cases, the best way to respect these families' own choices is to have NO identified alcoholic ingredient along on the camp-out. If it isn't there, then NO toes get stepped on.

if it IS there - well, I'd say it's not the place of Scouting to infringe on those areas that arguably belong to the family. when you know you have Jewish kids in the troop you serve, ya don't just plan pork sausage for breakfast. (I hope)

(I don't really see anti-abuse programs as getting in the way here, because what I'm picturing is much more subtle, by the way. I'm talking about just not putting a kid - needlessly - into a position where his parents' good teachings may be undermined. On the other hand, if the family is teaching that heavy drinking is good, and supplying beer for the patrol meeting - well, it's time for Social services!)

BTW - if cooking sherry has no alcohol, then is it really avowed wine?

I've seen Cub and Boy Scouts wearing the non-standard vests over their standard uniforms with all kinds of non-uniform-authorized patches. I've seen these at Pack and Troop meetings and at Flag Placement - and of course while not part of the official uniform, I've never seen any Scouter request or suggest their removal at any event.

Since these are unofficial in the first place (aren't they?), I'd guess there'd be nothing to keep a UU group from employing the same non-standard to display the patch.