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From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: History and Homosexuality (from The Village Idiot)
Message-ID: <158@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Jul-84 14:13:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.158
Posted: Tue Jul 17 14:13:34 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Jul-84 04:17:52 EDT
Organization: UWisconsin-Madison Academic Comp Center
Lines: 96

<>

> [Ron Rizzo writes...]
> Paul Dubois,
> 	Your writing style may have more elegance than Paul Dubuc's
> but your articles don't seem to have any more substance.  Why don't
> you start your own mailing list?  Folks on this one are well-acquainted
> with the loquacious brand of bigotry as well as the succinct & vehe-
> ment variety: both are tedious.
> 	If you spent as much time doing some serious thinking as you
> do vacuously manufacturing questions you might actually learn some-
> thing, instead of filling up electronic mailboxes.
> 	I hope no one else is tempted to waste time on this idiot.

Ron says I write elegantly.  Perhaps.  Apparently I do not
write very *clearly*, however, for my intent in contributing
to this newsgroup has been stated twice and again, yet that
intent has been repeatedly misconstrued.

Here, again, is my question:
                   ^^^^^^^^

	> What is the relation between the incidence of homosexuality
	> and the society in which it is manifested?  I have read
	> {heard, etc.} that every society which has allowed itself
	> to embrace homosexuality has quickly fallen.  Anyone have
	> any information on this?

Let me clarify.  Saying "I have heard" does not necessarily mean
"I think".  The "I have heard" statement seems to have been
interpreted as my personal position.  This is unreasonable.
Surely many of you have heard or read that statement?  As have
I.  I am just wondering if there is any basis for it, and, as
this is the newsgroup most closely connected with such a topic,
it seems logical to ask the question here, of those who are most
likely to have some information about it.

Perhaps it has all been discussed before.  Realize that I *am* a
relatively new net reader, and so am unaware if it has.  Those
of you who are offended by my postings might ask
yourselves the following questions.

(i)	What do I believe about homosexuality?  How do
	you know (that is, what statement can you cite)?
(ii)	What do I believe about the societal effects of
	homosexuality?  How do you know?

If you go back and read my postings, you will discover that
the answer to both of these questions is that you don't know
what my position is.  About *anything*.  You don't even know for
sure if I'm heterosexual or homosexual, *do you*?
All you know is that I have questions, and that I am not
particularly enamored of responses to my questions that
amount to (a) shut up, or (b) you are an idiot.  Or both.

Neither response satisfies my curiosity.  It seems to me
that my question is really not so unreasonable as all that,
and that it deserves to be answered, not shouted down.
If you think I'm attacking *you*, I'm not.  If you cannot
distinguish my attacking *you* from my questioning your
*arguments*, perhaps you should not advance any arguments.
Then I won't question them.  But I hope this will not be
the case; we would be left at an impasse.

It seems to me as well that few of you have considered the
possibility that I ask questions because I am interested
in the answers, as opposed to being interesting in baiting
you.

---

Miscellaneous replies:

> [S A Peduto writes...]
> By the way, what's this resistance to accepting an opinion
> at least two hundred year's old, embodied in a book considered
> a classic?

Please pardon my ignorance.  What book?

> [Ron Rizzo writes...]
> Paul Dubois,

DuBois, not Dubois.  But that is a small point.

> 	I hope no one else is tempted to waste time on this idiot.

I guess I have now been officially flamed ... It seems customary on
this net to flame back.  I do not wish to do so; would not the Master
be displeased?
-- 

Paul DuBois		{allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois

And he is before all things, and by him all things consist...
						Colossians 1:17