OT – social change

Social change is often hard on people. Technology is easier to accept – it is just a new toy, or is it?

But are some changes needed, and are some other changes harmful?

Many people like to pick and choose the changes that they want OTHER people to have.

But life doesn’t go smoothly that way – forcing OTHER people to live a life they aren’t geared for.

Today there is a 6 page article on “Women Who Want to Want”, about women who want to feel sexual desire, but can’t.

http://nytimes.com/2009/11/29/magazine/29sex-t.html

More interesting, I think, is the idea that although homosexuality was once though of as a mental illness, it has not been considered an insanity for nearly 20 years, but women who don’t feel sexual desire are getting a page about them written into the official reference that decides if you are nuts or not.

Times change.

Then there is the story about a murder in Italy. Was the young woman killed because she refused to go along with some group sex act, or was she killed for daring to have condoms and a sex toy? Heck give the jury both stories?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,578716,00.html

To me, why she was murdered is beside the point – the point is that she was murdered.

But I guess to some people, it makes a difference – but here we see the two sides of the issue, she could have been murdered by a raging sex gang, or she could of been murdered by a right wing anti-sex gang of women.

Then there are the women claiming to have had an affair with Tiger Woods – not any of my business, that’s between him, them, and his wife.

Then here’s another about just how social change can change us individually.
Meredith Baxter, who played Elyse Keaton, on Family Ties (80s TV show) has announced that she is a lesbian, but that she didn’t know it until after many years of marriage to 3 different men (I wonder if her husbands knew?).

At 62 years old, she just started dating other women 7 years ago. I have to feel sorry for any men she was with, who could never figure what was wrong with the relationship. Yet, Meredith said that she did not know that she was a lesbian. And I can believe that does happen.
Read the article here:

http://www.people.com/people/news/category/0,,personsTax:MeredithBaxter,00.html

Which is yet another case, where I believe that it is better to welcome people to come out of the closet and marry people of their own lifestyle.

I believe that it is cruel for churches to tell gays that they should marry a straight person and pretend to not be gay – cruel to the gay person, and crueler to the straight person they marry.

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Gay Astronauts?

Are there any gay astronauts? Historically, it’s going to look real bad if NASA takes a dog into space before they take a gay.

That’s it for being up on the news on National Coming Out of the closet day.

Oh, yeah, George Takei (StarTrek) isn’t really an astronaut.
But I guess he could pave the way for one.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2009/09/16/2009-09-16_whoopee_takei_and_husband_to_appear_on_newlywed_game.html

NewlyWed Game on GSN
http://www.gsn.com/shows/thenewlywedgame/

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I Love Dogs.

I listened to part of the gay rights speeches on TV – now I realize I should have watched the whole show, because arguing for any group’s rights is a skill, and I could of learned more about how to speak up for better treatment of animals, and the rights of pet owners.

Drat! Maybe the producers will put it on YouTube or something.

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Animal Rights

Because the Internet had been down several days (where I am), I was planning on blogging Sunday afternoon. But the Internet went down here again, so I turned on the TV. The Gay Rights movement was on. I watched more than an hour before I fell asleep.

I am more interested in the issue of ANIMAL rights, but I listened to the speeches. I guess gay rights have a lot of things in common with animal rights.

The gays are able to learn from the African American rights movement, because some people are both GLBT and black. So once a gay/lesbian black person won their rights, they still had to move on to fighting for their rights because they can still be fired from their jobs (in many states in the US) simply because they are gay.

That must be a hard row to hoe. Spend 40 years fighting for basic rights as a black person, and then get fired for being gay.

They had a big crowd in Washington DC. Think that there were any Animal Rights people there in the crowd, learning the ropes? Any hunters there just to learn the lobbying ropes, pick up new tricks? Rights issues are rights issues, no matter who the issue is about.

I guess that crowd had quite a number of people who were both gay and hunters, and other people who were both gay and Animal Rights supporters.

The gays are a huge crowd – a sizable percentage of the American public, they will win.

Politically, I don’t believe that it was a very smart move on the part of the church that openly opposed them in California last year. (It was mentioned in one of the speeches). Like people still remember when a church had to be taken to court to get them to let black (male) adults have the same position that white (male) teenagers had in that church. That’s been over 35 years now.

No group wants to go down in history as the last ones to get off the old bandwagon, and into the new bus.

Free tip here (if anyone there is reading this): You do NOT want to go down in history TWICE as the last ones to get with it. At some point in time, you are going to have to say “Okay, I get it”, (just like before). It might as well be sooner than later.

I’m not trying to be mean, just helpful. Despite what happened in California, in the long run, the gays are going to win, surely you can see that?

Smart people know when the tide is going to change. And it is called a “tide” because it changes as it pleases, it persist, and it tends to eventually win over those who oppose it.

Change comes and goes in cycles, like the tide. We have periods of right wing, left wing, right wing, left wing. Could a bird fly if it didn’t?

Progress and rest, progress and rest – that’s the way things grow and change, it is the rhythm of life. Day and night, up and down, birth and death.

People who insist on holding back change, are at first welcomed by those needing a rest from progress. But then people start to wake back up and work to progress our society. To try to hold back people, who have rested enough, is unwise, and tends to get you called bad names.

Eventually, people will find that working to advance our society is tiring, they will want a break from it, older voices will prevail, and progress will rest, for a while.

But you can bank on it, that too will change, again, and again, and at a faster pace than before, as technology lets the night owls and the early birds work on progress, while others slumber peacefully as they have been.

Nature moves us along, right, left, right, left. Like the margarine commercial said: “It’s not nice to fool mother nature”.

We have had many years of political right wing, don’t try to stop the left wing from having its turn – that’s how things are meant to change.

Just as your right leg must rest while your left leg is stepping forward, (if you tried to work both legs at the same time, you would fall on your bottom), the right wing of our society must rest and let the left wing have it’s turn.

It is NOT that one side is bad and one is good, they are different sides of the same society, and they need to each have their turn.

Permission to crosspost.

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Animal Rights

Because the Internet had been down several days (where I am), I was planning on blogging Sunday afternoon. But the Internet went down here again, so I turned on the TV. The Gay Rights movement was on. I watched more than an hour before I fell asleep.

I am more interested in the issue of ANIMAL rights, but I listened to the speeches. I guess gay rights have a lot of things in common with animal rights.

The gays are able to learn from the African American rights movement, because some people are both GLBT and black. So once a gay/lesbian black person won their rights, they still had to move on to fighting for their rights because they can still be fired from their jobs (in many states in the US) simply because they are gay.

That must be a hard row to hoe. Spend 40 years fighting for basic rights as a black person, and then get fired for being gay.

They had a big crowd in Washington DC. Think that there were any Animal Rights people there in the crowd, learning the ropes? Any hunters there just to learn the lobbying ropes, pick up new tricks? Rights issues are rights issues, no matter who the issue is about.

I guess that crowd had quite a number of people who were both gay and hunters, and other people who were both gay and Animal Rights supporters.

The gays are a huge crowd – a sizable percentage of the American public, they will win.

Politically, I don’t believe that it was a very smart move on the part of the church that openly opposed them in California last year. (It was mentioned in one of the speeches). Like people still remember when a church had to be taken to court to get them to let black (male) adults have the same position that white (male) teenagers had in that church. That’s been over 35 years now.

No group wants to go down in history as the last ones to get off the old bandwagon, and into the new bus.

Free tip here (if anyone there is reading this): You do NOT want to go down in history TWICE as the last ones to get with it. At some point in time, you are going to have to say “Okay, I get it”, (just like before). It might as well be sooner than later.

I’m not trying to be mean, just helpful. Despite what happened in California, in the long run, the gays are going to win, surely you can see that?

Smart people know when the tide is going to change. And it is called a “tide” because it changes as it pleases, it persist, and it tends to eventually win over those who oppose it.

Change comes and goes in cycles, like the tide. We have periods of right wing, left wing, right wing, left wing. Could a bird fly if it didn’t?

Progress and rest, progress and rest – that’s the way things grow and change, it is the rhythm of life. Day and night, up and down, birth and death.

People who insist on holding back change, are at first welcomed by those needing a rest from progress. But then people start to wake back up and work to progress our society. To try to hold back people, who have rested enough, is unwise, and tends to get you called bad names.

Eventually, people will find that working to advance our society is tiring, they will want a break from it, older voices will prevail, and progress will rest, for a while.

But you can bank on it, that too will change, again, and again, and at a faster pace than before, as technology lets the night owls and the early birds work on progress, while others slumber peacefully as they have been.

Nature moves us along, right, left, right, left.

We have had many years of political right wing, don’t try to stop the left wing from having its turn – that’s how things are meant to change.

Just as your right leg must rest while your left leg is stepping forward, (if you tried to work both legs at the same time, you would fall on your bottom), the right wing of our society must rest and let the left wing have it’s turn.

It is NOT that one side is bad and one is good, they are different sides of the same society, and they need to each have their turn.

Permission to crosspost.

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Coming Out Day.

Is this your favorite day or what? Your least favorite day? Don’t care?

Today is national coming out of the closet day. I have no idea why people say that gays live in a closet, they don’t have a problem with a clothes fetish. At least not more often than straights.

The gay side of the issue:
Gays are born gay. Many gays have tried very hard to become straight.
(Actually you might say it is the lack of HARD trying with the opposite gender, which identifies them as gays).

So it is like skin color – they are what they are. “A leopard can not change his spots”.

So, while we can always want people to handle their sexuality responsibly, we can’t be angry at people who can’t change what they are.

If your child grows up gay or lesbian, then how can you be disappointed at their being what they have always been? Baby lions grow up to be lions, baby tigers grow up to be tigers.

You loved your baby, the child he became, you should love him when he turns out the way he was always meant to be.

If you buy a spaniel puppy you can’t make him grow up to be a Rottweiler. Things are what they are. And they have to go through their whole life being whatever they were handed.

That’s the gay side of it.

How the other side feels:
There are people, whole churches of people, who feel differently.
Their church teaches them that homosexuality is wrong.

But what to do about the gay children of their congregation?

They feel that if a person hits puberty, and is found to be gay, then they should have to remain a virgin all their lives, or “do the decent thing” and force themselves to marry a person of the opposite gender.

That’s how these churches feel.

Who is right?

Gays argue the same line that got blacks their freedom – that we are all people, and that differences of color, culture, hair, or sexual orientation never erase the basic fact that we are all people. And people should be free.

Many churches don’t agree. It’s a stalemate, a standoff, an issue between the right wing churches and the gays.

Many people who pride themselves with being Christian, are filled with hatred towards gays. They might not want to be filled with hatred, but they can’t help it, it is the way that being around gays makes them feel.

And gays counter, that they feel the way they do, and should be allowed to go their own way. You are free to be hetero, let them be free to be gay.

Stalemate, stand-off, no ability to reach an understanding.

But what about the third group? What about those who aren’t celebrating Coming Out Day, and aren’t blowing off steam about it?

To many people, they shrug their shoulders and move on to an issue they care about.

What is the self-interest point of view of a person who doesn’t care one way or the other?

They don’t date gays, have no gay relatives, and care no more about the issue than what they care about polar bears at the north pole, lions in Africa, or the characters in your soap operas.

It isn’t an issue among their friends, it is a story in the newspaper.

They don’t care one way or the other, if gays get married that’s okay, if gays can’t get married that’s okay too. It isn’t their issue, Get it?

Maybe this group can help the two extremes find a middle ground.

I have found such a site.
The gays wont like it.
The right wing wont like it.

It is just 13 post long and a year old.
It is a yahoogroup, with open archives.

It is tucked away in the relationships-adults only section,
even though it talks cleaner than most dog breeding sites.

It is written by (a) Christian(s) who have looked at homosexuality,
and decided that, like prohibition, the laws against the vice are doing more harm than good.

It is written from a personal ‘selfish’ point of view – I don’t mean that badly, just that the point of view is “How is this going to affect me?”

Like: If you AREN’T gay, should you be for or against gays getting married?

No, not because you give a fig about other people’s rights or lives,
or care if they are happy or dead.

But what is good for you, as a not-gay person?

The question the site asks is: Is it better for churches:
1. to push young people, who they know to be gay, into marriage with someone of the opposite sex, or
2. should churches acknowledge the people of their congregation who are gay, as they are?

This site tells the personal problems that heterosexual people (straights) have suffered, because of laws against homosexuality (gays). It’s a moving read.

The site lets you cross post.

It is called:
better_marriage_laws
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bettermarriagelaws/messages

This post is gifted into public domain by the author.
You may make a copy and do whatever you want with the copy.
Permission to cross-post.

Read Full Post »

Coming Out Day.

Is this your favorite day or what? Your least favorite day? Don’t care?

Today is national coming out of the closet day. I have no idea why people say that gays live in a closet, they don’t have a problem with a clothes fetish. At least not more often than straights.

The gay side of the issue:
Gays are born gay. Many gays have tried very hard to become straight.

So it is like skin color – they are what they are. “A leopard can not change his spots”.

So, while we can always want people to handle their sexuality responsibly, we can’t be angry at people who can’t change what they are.

If your child grows up gay or lesbian, then how can you be disappointed at their being what they have always been? Baby lions grow up to be lions, baby tigers grow up to be tigers.

You loved your baby, the child he became, you should love him when he turns out the way he was always meant to be.

If you buy a spaniel puppy you can’t make him grow up to be a Rottweiler. Things are what they are. And they have to go through their whole life being whatever they were handed.

That’s the gay side of it.

How the other side feels:
There are people, whole churches of people, who feel differently.
Their church teaches them that homosexuality is wrong.

But what to do about the gay children of their congregation?

They feel that if a person hits puberty, and is found to be gay, then they should have to remain a virgin all their lives, or “do the decent thing” and force themselves to marry a person of the opposite gender.

That’s how these churches feel.

Who is right?

Gays argue the same line that got blacks their freedom – that we are all people, and that differences of color, culture, hair, or sexual orientation never erase the basic fact that we are all people. And people should be free.

Many churches don’t agree. It’s a stalemate, a standoff, an issue between the right wing churches and the gays.

Many people who pride themselves with being Christian, are filled with hatred towards gays. They might not want to be filled with hatred, but they can’t help it, it is the way that being around gays makes them feel.

And gays counter, that they feel the way they do, and should be allowed to go their own way. You are free to be hetero, let them be free to be gay.

Stalemate, stand-off, no ability to reach an understanding.

But what about the third group? What about those who aren’t celebrating Coming Out Day, and aren’t blowing off steam about it?

To many people, they shrug their shoulders and move on to an issue they care about.

What is the self-interest point of view of a person who doesn’t care one way or the other?

They don’t date gays, have no gay relatives, and care no more about the issue than what they care about polar bears at the north pole, lions in Africa, or the characters in your soap operas.

It isn’t an issue among their friends, it is a story in the newspaper.

They don’t care one way or the other, if gays get married that’s okay, if gays can’t get married that’s okay too. It isn’t their issue, Get it?

Maybe this group can help the two extremes find a middle ground.

I have found such a site.
The gays wont like it.
The right wing wont like it.

It is just 13 post long and a year old.
It is a yahoogroup, with open archives.

It is tucked away in the relationships-adults only section,
even though it talks cleaner than most dog breeding sites.

It is written by (a) Christian(s) who have looked at homosexuality,
and decided that, like prohibition, the laws against the vice are doing more harm than good.

It is written from a personal ‘selfish’ point of view – I don’t mean that badly, just that the point of view is “How is this going to affect me?”

Like: If you AREN’T gay, should you be for or against gays getting married?

No, not because you give a fig about other people’s rights or lives,
or care if they are happy or dead.

But what is good for you, as a not-gay person?

The question the site asks is: Is it better for churches:
1. to push young people, who they know to be gay, into marriage with someone of the opposite sex, or
2. should churches acknowledge the people of their congregation who are gay, as they are?

This site tells the personal problems that heterosexual people (straights) have suffered, because of laws against homosexuality (gays). It’s a moving read.

The site lets you cross post.

It is called:
better_marriage_laws
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bettermarriagelaws/messages

This post is gifted into public domain by the author.
You may make a copy and do whatever you want with the copy.
Permission to cross-post.

Read Full Post »