Opposing same sex marriage is based on disgust

[Blind groper]

Fair comment. I meet Americans here in New Zealand on rather a frequent basis. Most I would define as liberals. I have to say my experience would be different, but your experience is still worth listening to.

[Audley Strange]

perhaps liberals are less likely to smell shit even when it's right under their nose as long as someone tells them it's fair-trade.

The authors of the article seemed to think it was because liberals could divorce themselves from their emotions better, and make decisions based on cognitive, rather than emotive reasons.

Personally, I do not have an opinion on that, but I am interested to see if this matches with other people's experience.

Actually no. It's not my experience. My experience is most people make decisions based on knee jerk reactions due to social and political conditioning left, right centre up or down which is akin to religion in so far that people have faith in parties rather than party policies and everyone LOVES to think they're cleverer and more sophisticated than their perceived enemies when really they are defined by them.

[Rum]

In which case I am opposed to my parents marriage! EWWWW!

Wait..

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's been my experience that liberals tend to be less likely to deny gays equal rights, but ascribing that to their liberalism doesn't seem shown. It could well be that both their tolerance, and their liberalism, are fueled by something else.

There was an interesting memo circulating in the Republican party recently arguing that if the party doesn't change its stance on gay marriage, it risks irrelevance. I sure hope the party-base takes heed. Any party arguing for small government and expansive freedoms has no business arrogating to the states the right to discriminate.

[mistermack]

I can remember clearly the first time I was told about gays.
I was very young, and my older brother delighted in telling me that some men wanted to kiss other men etc.
I WAS disgusted, and refused to believe it. I shoved my fingers in the ears, refusing to listen, my disgust was that bad. I was probably aged eight to tennish.

I wasn't prompted, or openly conditioned to think that. I had never even HEARD of it before.
So I can only conclude that that is a fairly natural reaction. And I didn't even know about sex then, it was just about kissing etc.

I'm not saying there's any right or wrong about it, just that my dna and possibly conditioning gave me that attitude, for whatever reason.
I wonder if I was gay, would I have felt that way about heterosexual attraction?
I suppose you would be more conditioned to find it normal, so maybe not so much.

I'm not ashamed of that reaction. I didn't choose it, it chose me.
Nowadays I like to live and let live of course. But I see no reason to pretend that gayness is no different to straightness.
I would have a struggle if I had a gay son, for example. I'm sure I'd get used to it, but I'd have to work at it.

[Robert_S]

I am disgusted by canned green beans and canned peas. They always come close to making me puke, but it would take a fair bit of busybodiness for me to prevent anyone from enjoying them to the fullest if that's what floated their boat.

It's been my experience that liberals tend to be less likely to deny gays equal rights, but ascribing that to their liberalism doesn't seem shown. It could well be that both their tolerance, and their liberalism, are fueled by something else.

There was an interesting memo circulating in the Republican party recently arguing that if the party doesn't change its stance on gay marriage, it risks irrelevance. I sure hope the party-base takes heed. Any party arguing for small government and expansive freedoms has no business arrogating to the states the right to discriminate.

Wasn't it Ronald Reagan who once said that liberals were prone to laying awake at night worried that someone, somewhere might be having a good time?

perhaps liberals are less likely to smell shit even when it's right under their nose as long as someone tells them it's fair-trade.

The authors of the article seemed to think it was because liberals could divorce themselves from their emotions better, and make decisions based on cognitive, rather than emotive reasons.

Personally, I do not have an opinion on that, but I am interested to see if this matches with other people's experience.

Actually no. It's not my experience. My experience is most people make decisions based on knee jerk reactions due to social and political conditioning left, right centre up or down which is akin to religion in so far that people have faith in parties rather than party policies and everyone LOVES to think they're cleverer and more sophisticated than their perceived enemies when really they are defined by them.

The mainstream conservative party in the US makes it very very easy for liberals and centrists to feel cleverer and more sophisticated than them. They would boo a man who served in combat because he is gay. In the face of a faltering economic recovery they rush to pass laws to prevent gay marriage. In the face of a declining educational system, they cozy up to the creationists. They deserve nothing but contempt.

There are sane, intelligent and reasonable US conservatives out there (and on this forum) and they are being sidelined. It's not smug liberals that threaten them right now, but the batshit crazy bunch that are gaining so much power in conservative politics.

[Audley Strange]

I see what you're saying Robert. The Liberals were all hot for mocking the tea-party but very few recognised that they essentially have the same complaint. They want a Government by the people not by banking cartels. I recognized way back in about 2004 that Chomsky and Alex Jones were saying exactly the same things about the U.S Corporate politburo, even to them occasionally reciting the same reports and evidence.

Now how fucking dumb do you have to be, on both sides of the argument, if you agree that they need to be removed and then keep voting in the people you want removed?

It's deliberate divisiveness and it is sustained primarily by the media, but also by those in power and others who have a vested interest in maintaining a narrow band political status quo. They pander to the Liberal's intellectual vanity and the Right's morality (I've yet to see ANY pandering to the left in U.S. media) They know these are ego not political issues and thus drive a wedge in. Anyone who was as smart as liberals think they are would have found a way to bridge that gap. But they're not, they just like to be told so.

Now while I might personally disagree with some of the more invasive policies that are touted by the "batshit crazy bunch" I have to wonder, genuinely, if this is a reaction and a challenge to both liberals and their fantasy about democracy. How stupid do you have to be to agree with a system that allows people who are clearly "stupid" and "dangerous" to gain even a modicum of power.

The left have no issues with altering the democratic process to to suit their ideology, nor do the right. Only the liberals really believe this idea of fair and free elections and then are the first ones to bleat every time it does not go their way. Which they know it is designed to. What is it called when you repeat the same actions over and over expecting differing results? They are the ones perpetuating a machine that most people think is detrimental needs dismantled and rebuilt.

[Tyrannical]

Homosexuality as well as Gay marriage is abnormal, and society has a long history of regulating deviant behavior.

[Bella Fortuna]

Wasn't it Ronald Reagan who once said that liberals were prone to laying awake at night worried that someone, somewhere might be having a good time?

That was Mencken, defining Puritanism.

Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time

Homosexuality as well as Gay marriage is abnormal, and society has a long history of regulating deviant behavior.

Like permitting free speech for people who have nothing intelligent to say?

[mistermack]

Homosexuality as well as Gay marriage is abnormal, and society has a long history of regulating deviant behavior.

That's right.
I wonder if it's less fun, now it's legal?

As far as disgust goes, If I'd been in charge I'd never have been born.
Who can bear the thought of their own parents shagging?

[Svartalf]

Your dad fucked your mother, without protection, and you are the unfortunate result, live with it or commit suicide, that's equal to me.

[Tero]

Bella and Robert, I'm still trying to get rid of the part of Lutheranism that makes me bring bike inner tubes home and try to repair them. All that money wasted on repair kits. I never reuse the tubes.

[JimC]

It's been my experience that liberals tend to be less likely to deny gays equal rights, but ascribing that to their liberalism doesn't seem shown. It could well be that both their tolerance, and their liberalism, are fueled by something else.

There was an interesting memo circulating in the Republican party recently arguing that if the party doesn't change its stance on gay marriage, it risks irrelevance. I sure hope the party-base takes heed. Any party arguing for small government and expansive freedoms has no business arrogating to the states the right to discriminate.

There seems to be a deep-seated tension between a tendency within the Republican Party to keep government away from people's private business, and a conservative/theocratic tendency to proclaim moral imperatives...

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's been my experience that liberals tend to be less likely to deny gays equal rights, but ascribing that to their liberalism doesn't seem shown. It could well be that both their tolerance, and their liberalism, are fueled by something else.

There was an interesting memo circulating in the Republican party recently arguing that if the party doesn't change its stance on gay marriage, it risks irrelevance. I sure hope the party-base takes heed. Any party arguing for small government and expansive freedoms has no business arrogating to the states the right to discriminate.

There seems to be a deep-seated tension between a tendency within the Republican Party to keep government away from people's private business, and a conservative/theocratic tendency to proclaim moral imperatives...

Indeed. I think it's a result of the Cold War. The fundamentalist evangelists gravitated to the Republicans in the early 80s because of their antipathy to godless communism, and with it they brought their willingness to not only be meddlesome, but vocal about it. Goldwater Republicans who could be both extremely conservative and unwilling to legislate matters of faith became very rare, and moderate, Howard Baker-types even more so, due to the influx of evangelist fervor.

That's my take on it.

[Robert_S]

Bella and Robert, I'm still trying to get rid of the part of Lutheranism that makes me bring bike inner tubes home and try to repair them. All that money wasted on repair kits. I never reuse the tubes.

That's because you're suppose to make a giant slingshot from them!