Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site fortune.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!ihnp4!fortune!brower From: brower@fortune.UUCP (Richard Brower) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: reply to Richard Brower Message-ID: <5168@fortune.UUCP> Date: Tue, 2-Apr-85 20:07:13 EDT Article-I.D.: fortune.5168 Posted: Tue Apr 2 20:07:13 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 15-May-85 01:29:10 EDT References: <237@cvl.UUCP> Reply-To: brower@fortune.UUCP (Richard brower) Distribution: net Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA Lines: 87 Summary: In article <237@cvl.UUCP> david@cvl.UUCP (David Harwood) writes: > Do I have to prove this to you? Do you yourself want to live >as a large proportion of homosexuals do? > I am simply giving my opinion based on discussion with homosexual >individuals, 20 or so, over 20 years, also based on listening to televised >discussions by physicians who are said to be expert. My impression is >that the rates of suicide, drug abuse, promiscuity, transience, infection, >and death are considerably higher among this population than among non- >homosexual groups, especially married persons. Certainly, the health and >happiness of those with whom I talked was not good, even according to them. >The thing I always wondered was -- how can you live this way? And why? As I stated in my previous article, much of the unhappiness of gay people, evident in the above symptoms, is due to the oppression we suffer rather than being intimately connected to homosexuality. As for how I can live "this way", I cannot live any other way than gay. "Why?" you ask, so that the gay people who come after me don't have to suffer such shit. Finally, a sample size of "20 or so" is a very small sample to base such a judgement on out of the 30,000,000 or so homosexuals in the United States... obviously most of the homosexuals that you have met didn't trust you enough to mention it. > You should understand that nearly everyone who is not homosexual, >not matter how liberal or religious, recommends against this life. Further- >more, as I have been informed by Indian and Chinese friends, who are from >ancient countries representing 1/3 of world population, homosexuality is >not accepted, and rare among these comparatively restrictive cultures. >Neither do Muslim nations, who represent another very large proportion, >accept this. All these tradtionally reject it. One has to go back to >pagan Greek and Roman days to find such widespread acceptance. You are >very mistaken. You forget that 15% of *all* men are gay or bisexual, actually I doubt you forget, but wish to conviently brush the facts aside. You are right about the fact that many non-gays recommend against a gay lifestyle, *mostly due to Christian spread intolerence* however. I don't even recommend it, if one can be straight, one may save ones life, job, home and health by not being gay and thereby incurring the wrath of bigots. > If you and your friends are not 'promiscuous', then are you really >representative of most homosexuals? Yes. > We all want to have secure relationships with others; the question >is -- what sort of relationship are we securing? Is it to be recommended >to young people? Whether or not it is 'voluntary', is it to be recommended? 15% of all male children will grow up to be gay/bisexual. Is it healthy to teach children that the life they will lead is somehow sick, evil, etc? No. Isn't this a method of making sure that they will have problems for the rest of their lives? Yes. Will it change their orientation to tell them such things? No. Will some of the larger percentage of children that aren't gay take these concepts about gays and use them to justify going out and "bashing queers" and otherwise denying gays human rights. Yes. Do you wish to continue the cycle? > Being homosexual as you are, also does not make you very >'enlightened' I'm afraid. Besides this, it almost certainly does not >mean the same thing to you as it does to me. To begin with, it is >said that the life of Christ is the light of mankind. How many are >living as he did? Also, as you may not know, the Greek word for >'enlightenment' was, in very early Christian writings, used to >refer to baptism, in the sense of the experience at conversion, >or initiation. (It was also similarly used by the pre-Christian >Essene Jews at Qumran.) What is your initiation? What has set you >on your way? But my point is that the expression 'enlightenment' >has a specific religious meaning, which you do not appreciate, and >is generally confused with a quality of opinion. enlighten: 1. to free from ignorence, prejedice, etc. 2. to inform, instruct. enlightenment n. _Webster's_NewWorld_Dictionary_ Perhaps the Christians who used it that way were enlightened. Some Christians today are enlightened, but certainly you are not one of those. Quit trying to use some obscure definition of the word enlighten as *the* definition. What enlightened me, by the way, was having to live with prejedice every day of my life. Since one of the major teachings of JC that I still believe and use in my own religious/moral code, is that you should love your neighbor as yourself. Since I do not like prejedice against myself, I assume that my neighbor doesn't either. Therefore, I try to enlighten others, like you, who are in need of enlightenment. -- Richard A. Brower Fortune Systems {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd,hpda,sri-unix,harpo}!fortune!brower