Brian
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2 months ago
in The Gay Mafia That’s Redefining Liberal Politics - TIME article on ETC: Everyday Thoughts Collected
Something seems terribly lacking in an article focusing on money buying politics (especially when it comes to LGBT issues) that fails to acknowledge the stream of money pouring into Yes On 8 coffers from outside groups. In our current political system, money does talk ... it talked support for Prop 8 up from a 17% trail.
2 replies
Randy
Are you ready to say the same to allllll the articles that did focus on the pro prop 8 money that had zero mention of the gay money?
Because there are dozens of those as opposed to the two I have found on the pro-gay money.
Brian, this moral equivalency thing your doing here is indulgent. The focus of the article is the focus of the article.
Because there are dozens of those as opposed to the two I have found on the pro-gay money.
Brian, this moral equivalency thing your doing here is indulgent. The focus of the article is the focus of the article.
2 months ago
in Attacking People Instead of Principles - Far Left Hate Mongers on ETC: Everyday Thoughts Collected
Randy, seriously?
"Here is the one difference I see between the far left and the religious right [...] the far left attacks people personally … the religious right goes after issues."
People, across the political and religious spectrum, engage discourse and debate in differing ways. Jerry Fallwell blamed the attacks of Sept 11 on liberals, feminists and gays (people, not issues). Jim Wallis speaks exclusively to issues, refusing to endorse candidates. Someone wrote "bigot" on a car in that picture, I met an young man at CMU recently who very respectfully told me that he believed homosexuality to be sinful.
People are individuals and making blanket generalizations is neither accurate nor productive.
Rather, in making sure I'm on the lookout for specks in my own eye, I gently remind my (straight) college roommate that punching a wall when he sees a Yes On 8 ad is not going to help anything. I make sure that none of my friends rip out yard signs (even when they've had their own ripped out). And I look for connection with those who hold differing opinions on marriage equality. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. Thank God (literally), that Christ has done the hard work of redemption and reconciliation for us! I feel so blessed with the gift of grace that I look--even during this emotional election--to pass that on to others. Loving them as I would be loved. I never want to be lumped into a group and defined by the actions of others. Dear God, let me never do that to others.
"Here is the one difference I see between the far left and the religious right [...] the far left attacks people personally … the religious right goes after issues."
People, across the political and religious spectrum, engage discourse and debate in differing ways. Jerry Fallwell blamed the attacks of Sept 11 on liberals, feminists and gays (people, not issues). Jim Wallis speaks exclusively to issues, refusing to endorse candidates. Someone wrote "bigot" on a car in that picture, I met an young man at CMU recently who very respectfully told me that he believed homosexuality to be sinful.
People are individuals and making blanket generalizations is neither accurate nor productive.
Rather, in making sure I'm on the lookout for specks in my own eye, I gently remind my (straight) college roommate that punching a wall when he sees a Yes On 8 ad is not going to help anything. I make sure that none of my friends rip out yard signs (even when they've had their own ripped out). And I look for connection with those who hold differing opinions on marriage equality. Am I perfect? Absolutely not. Thank God (literally), that Christ has done the hard work of redemption and reconciliation for us! I feel so blessed with the gift of grace that I look--even during this emotional election--to pass that on to others. Loving them as I would be loved. I never want to be lumped into a group and defined by the actions of others. Dear God, let me never do that to others.
1 reply
Randy
That's nice Brian.
As someone who is personally attacked because I simply believe that calling Christ "Savior" also means that he redeemed me from sexual sin ... I know for a personal fact that the left goes after people by name far more than the right (nowadays.)
I am glad you seem to want to be different.
As someone who is personally attacked because I simply believe that calling Christ "Savior" also means that he redeemed me from sexual sin ... I know for a personal fact that the left goes after people by name far more than the right (nowadays.)
I am glad you seem to want to be different.
5 months ago
in CDC Underestimates US HIV Cases by 40% on ETC: Everyday Thoughts Collected
@Ellie -
As a male former-teen driver, I'd like to go on record saying I only received one speeding ticket (it was a trap! and I was going with the flow of traffic! they pulled over every single car on the road in both directions, no seriously!) and was never in an accident! In fact, most of my teenage friends were better drivers than our parents. But I digress...
I totally get where you're coming from, Ellie. I used to BRISTLE at AIDS-related fund raisers thinking, "They should have known better, I'd rather spend money helping others." Though, I'm not questioning that attitude. As an affluent, white, suburban teen who attended school in Montgomery County, Maryland, I was given comprehensive sex education--which included abstinence. We did reports on various types of birth control and safer-sex methods, STDs, etc.
I then went to the University of Southern California which had multiple LGBT groups and counseling programs. RAs on every floor have a bucket of candy and condoms. I was educated and I had access (though, I was also not sexually active but... if I were, I could have protected myself).
I took a Broadway musical class with my friend Jessica and the professor managed to work a lesson in by one of the Health Center staff (the tie-in was Rent). She went to Catholic school and had never been taught about this. Not condoms, not birth control pills, not different STDs and how you get them, not anything. Thankfully she wasn't sexually active, but imagine if she! She's a responsible person too.
Another friend of mine went to Notre Dame, which unlike USC does not distribute condoms. She told me that many of her (straight) friends ended up having unprotected sex because they weren't planning on it, didn't have access to any, and were taught to keep such things secretive.
A recent study found that over 90% of Americans 15-44 had premarital sex ... including individuals born in the '40s! It's not "kids these days" or "those type of people" that are having sex before marriage. Nearly everyone is. Should we teach kids to wait to have sex? Should we teach them how to be responsible with it? Absolutely.
But what about Jessica and her school friends, we've sent them into the world without talking about. What about all of the kids at Notre Dame, we're not talking about it with them either. What about those in districts were health classes don't include a frank discussion of sex and sexual orientation?
It is my hope that every child in Americas receives the quality education that I was blessed with but I know it's not the case today. There are young people in America who have HIV because they were taught to worry about pregnancy and thus went on the pill instead of using a condom. There are young people in America who were never told that it's OK to be gay and act out in shame and secrecy. There are young people in America who were simply never taught about HIV, the real risks, how to get it, and how to prevent.
What do you propose we do with them?
As a male former-teen driver, I'd like to go on record saying I only received one speeding ticket (it was a trap! and I was going with the flow of traffic! they pulled over every single car on the road in both directions, no seriously!) and was never in an accident! In fact, most of my teenage friends were better drivers than our parents. But I digress...
I totally get where you're coming from, Ellie. I used to BRISTLE at AIDS-related fund raisers thinking, "They should have known better, I'd rather spend money helping others." Though, I'm not questioning that attitude. As an affluent, white, suburban teen who attended school in Montgomery County, Maryland, I was given comprehensive sex education--which included abstinence. We did reports on various types of birth control and safer-sex methods, STDs, etc.
I then went to the University of Southern California which had multiple LGBT groups and counseling programs. RAs on every floor have a bucket of candy and condoms. I was educated and I had access (though, I was also not sexually active but... if I were, I could have protected myself).
I took a Broadway musical class with my friend Jessica and the professor managed to work a lesson in by one of the Health Center staff (the tie-in was Rent). She went to Catholic school and had never been taught about this. Not condoms, not birth control pills, not different STDs and how you get them, not anything. Thankfully she wasn't sexually active, but imagine if she! She's a responsible person too.
Another friend of mine went to Notre Dame, which unlike USC does not distribute condoms. She told me that many of her (straight) friends ended up having unprotected sex because they weren't planning on it, didn't have access to any, and were taught to keep such things secretive.
A recent study found that over 90% of Americans 15-44 had premarital sex ... including individuals born in the '40s! It's not "kids these days" or "those type of people" that are having sex before marriage. Nearly everyone is. Should we teach kids to wait to have sex? Should we teach them how to be responsible with it? Absolutely.
But what about Jessica and her school friends, we've sent them into the world without talking about. What about all of the kids at Notre Dame, we're not talking about it with them either. What about those in districts were health classes don't include a frank discussion of sex and sexual orientation?
It is my hope that every child in Americas receives the quality education that I was blessed with but I know it's not the case today. There are young people in America who have HIV because they were taught to worry about pregnancy and thus went on the pill instead of using a condom. There are young people in America who were never told that it's OK to be gay and act out in shame and secrecy. There are young people in America who were simply never taught about HIV, the real risks, how to get it, and how to prevent.
What do you propose we do with them?
1 reply
B.T.Carolus
Brian,
If it makes you feel any better, I have not recieved any speeding tickets or been in any accidents, either. This is largely because I have never passed the behind-the-wheel test. The scary thing: I'm a much better driver than the average LA driver (I'm sure you know what I mean), so I'm really wondering how everyone else managed to pass. This is also why I'm a big fan of public transportation, even if it means raising sales tax to do it (I'm fiscally conservative, so it hurts just a little to say that).
I think you're kind of missing the point of my example. My friend and I are both super well educated on the topic of skin cancer. If we were talking safe sex, her sun exposure practices are equivalent to somebody who had your school's sex-ed course deciding to have casual, unprotected sex whenever they wanted. I, on the other hand, would be waiting until marriage, and still using condoms after the fact (unfortunately, I will never get to stop using sun screen, and I'm trying to be true to the analogy). So how come I made the wise choice, and she made the totally foolish one? She's not significantly less smart than I am. We both scored well enough on the PSAT to qualify for the National Merit contest, we both got good scholarships to good schools. We both are very well educated.
You might say that she is an isolated case, and most people like us would make the right decision regarding safer sex as long as they have effective sex-ed. But in point of fact, people like us make the decision to have unprotected sex all the time. In the HIV/AIDS edition of JAMA (Vol. 300 No. 5, August 6th 2008) where the CDC study Randy is quoting was published, there's an editorial called "A Person of Status" written by a young black female physician. By being a young, black female she is in one of the highest risk categories for HIV infection, and yet she'd only been tested for HIV once, years ago in med school in response to an accidental needle stick. But since then she had put herself at risk for HIV, which presumably means that she had unprotected sex. And to compound this fact, even though she often exhorts patients, especially high risk patients, to get themselves tested, she hasn't been tested since med school (the rest of the article is about how she does get herself tested again, and her experience with that process). This is a doctor; she knows all about STDs and protection, not from sex-ed but from med school. And yet she's having unprotected sex. And a whole lot of other well educated people choose to have unprotected sex, all the time, even though they are fully informed about what they are risking.
You seem to be calling for more widespread sex-ed. I'll admit that this would probably result in slightly lower new-infection rates, because the highest increases in the CDC studies are among young black males and usually if something that isn't obviously genetically determined hits the black population harder it is a good bet that it's because there is a lack of education on the subject; eg, more black men die of prostate cancer, largely because they don't get screened as often as white men, and more black people die of drowning, largely because less can afford swim lessons as children.
So if people who are clearly smart and well educated and who have recieved sex-ed training choose to have unprotected sex, then what about people who are less smart, and less well educated? I'm sure you've seen the amount of college students who have never quite figured out who George Washington was, or which continent the U.S. is on. Do you really think they'll absorb the lessons of comprehensive sex-ed any better?
I also have a question about the 'recent study' you quoted as saying that 90% of Americans aged 15-44 have had premarital sex, including those born in the '40s. By my calculations, and assuming that you're considering something published in 2003 as recent, the people in the 44 to 15 age bracket would have been born between 1959 and 1988 (my birth year). In order for this study to have included 44 year olds born in 1949, it would have to have been recent circa 1993 (when you were what, 7?). So, what study are you quoting?
If it makes you feel any better, I have not recieved any speeding tickets or been in any accidents, either. This is largely because I have never passed the behind-the-wheel test. The scary thing: I'm a much better driver than the average LA driver (I'm sure you know what I mean), so I'm really wondering how everyone else managed to pass. This is also why I'm a big fan of public transportation, even if it means raising sales tax to do it (I'm fiscally conservative, so it hurts just a little to say that).
I think you're kind of missing the point of my example. My friend and I are both super well educated on the topic of skin cancer. If we were talking safe sex, her sun exposure practices are equivalent to somebody who had your school's sex-ed course deciding to have casual, unprotected sex whenever they wanted. I, on the other hand, would be waiting until marriage, and still using condoms after the fact (unfortunately, I will never get to stop using sun screen, and I'm trying to be true to the analogy). So how come I made the wise choice, and she made the totally foolish one? She's not significantly less smart than I am. We both scored well enough on the PSAT to qualify for the National Merit contest, we both got good scholarships to good schools. We both are very well educated.
You might say that she is an isolated case, and most people like us would make the right decision regarding safer sex as long as they have effective sex-ed. But in point of fact, people like us make the decision to have unprotected sex all the time. In the HIV/AIDS edition of JAMA (Vol. 300 No. 5, August 6th 2008) where the CDC study Randy is quoting was published, there's an editorial called "A Person of Status" written by a young black female physician. By being a young, black female she is in one of the highest risk categories for HIV infection, and yet she'd only been tested for HIV once, years ago in med school in response to an accidental needle stick. But since then she had put herself at risk for HIV, which presumably means that she had unprotected sex. And to compound this fact, even though she often exhorts patients, especially high risk patients, to get themselves tested, she hasn't been tested since med school (the rest of the article is about how she does get herself tested again, and her experience with that process). This is a doctor; she knows all about STDs and protection, not from sex-ed but from med school. And yet she's having unprotected sex. And a whole lot of other well educated people choose to have unprotected sex, all the time, even though they are fully informed about what they are risking.
You seem to be calling for more widespread sex-ed. I'll admit that this would probably result in slightly lower new-infection rates, because the highest increases in the CDC studies are among young black males and usually if something that isn't obviously genetically determined hits the black population harder it is a good bet that it's because there is a lack of education on the subject; eg, more black men die of prostate cancer, largely because they don't get screened as often as white men, and more black people die of drowning, largely because less can afford swim lessons as children.
So if people who are clearly smart and well educated and who have recieved sex-ed training choose to have unprotected sex, then what about people who are less smart, and less well educated? I'm sure you've seen the amount of college students who have never quite figured out who George Washington was, or which continent the U.S. is on. Do you really think they'll absorb the lessons of comprehensive sex-ed any better?
I also have a question about the 'recent study' you quoted as saying that 90% of Americans aged 15-44 have had premarital sex, including those born in the '40s. By my calculations, and assuming that you're considering something published in 2003 as recent, the people in the 44 to 15 age bracket would have been born between 1959 and 1988 (my birth year). In order for this study to have included 44 year olds born in 1949, it would have to have been recent circa 1993 (when you were what, 7?). So, what study are you quoting?
I should have said something like making a moral equivalency argument is "easy." It really obfuscates the point of the article which is to point out that there are rich homosexual people playing the same nefarious background games as the "vast right wing conspiracy."