(November 12, 2012 at 9:55 pm)festive1 Wrote:

(November 12, 2012 at 9:29 pm)Gooders1002 Wrote: Imagine if they found out they were being played this whole time? The sad thing is they will never well because they're not educated enough to figure it out.

I think Africans know how the game is played, they did endure colonialism after all. Some are highly educated, it's just too few and the masses have very low levels of education. In some cases it's the Africans playing the Western systems. It's all about power. People use whatever means necessary to enhance their power, political or otherwise.

I meant the majority of those, who are uneducated.

(November 12, 2012 at 6:39 pm)festive1 Wrote: Thanks to all of the missionaries spreading the hate in Africa! Not that many traditional African societies were particularly fond of homosexuality to begin with, but mixed with the fundamentalist religious dogma, BOOM...

Shows what you know about Africa. In africa promiscuity, adultery and prostitution are pretty much normalized accepted civil behaviour. Granted, they have no right to be anti-gay without also being equally against the rest of "sinful" sexuality. Sinful? Oh that's offensive isn't it I know. The most recent study of the gay community here in Canberra found that over 1/4 are drug users and over 20% are unemployed (the 2011 unemployment rate in Canberra was 3.8%). Also, almost 1/4 have engaged in group sex within the past 6 months. Link.

Okay, so killing gay people isn't the correct response. How would you address these problems politically?

One shouldn't. It's not the business of the government to tell you who to have sex with or to make you get a job.

You misunderstood. 20% unemployment, 24% engage in group sex and 25% use illicit drugs. These are all clear problems, how would you address them politically (besides ignoring the fact that there is a problem)? I'm not suggesting the criminalization of homosexuality at all FYI, that's really not what I'm about.

You think group sex is a problem? Wedged right between illicit drug use and unemployment no less?

Of course it's a problem - it spreads STI's and causes sexual addiction. If you don't think it's a problem ignore it and move on to the other two, and tell me how to address those.

I think unprotected sex and poor awareness of ones own health spreads those things amigo, I didn't realize that group sex was the culprit...and I'm pretty sure that you can manage the spread of sexually transmitted diseases one partner at a time (pretty sure you can be "addicted to sex" one partner at a time as well....I know I am).

Now, as for the other two, my opinions on the matter are likely to be unsatisfying. I'm a decriminalization type, and I have serious misgivings about "employment"...not the institution of it mind you, but the chain of effects. For example if employment did not determine whether or not you had access to food, water, and shelter than what sort of problem would "unemployment" present? In any case, I didn't realize I was required to offer a solution to the worlds drug or employment "problems" by way of poking at your puritanical piggybacking.

(November 13, 2012 at 9:59 am)Daniel Wrote: I'm not suggesting the criminalization of homosexuality at all FYI, that's really not what I'm about.

Then why don't you give us some of your wonderful christian ideas Danny boy? Or is it all on us atheists to solve the worlds problems?

Quote:tell me how to address those.

Condoms and sexual therapy.

(November 13, 2012 at 9:38 am)Daniel Wrote:

(November 12, 2012 at 6:39 pm)festive1 Wrote: Thanks to all of the missionaries spreading the hate in Africa! Not that many traditional African societies were particularly fond of homosexuality to begin with, but mixed with the fundamentalist religious dogma, BOOM...

Shows what you know about Africa. In africa promiscuity, adultery and prostitution are pretty much normalized accepted civil behaviour. Granted, they have no right to be anti-gay without also being equally against the rest of "sinful" sexuality. Sinful? Oh that's offensive isn't it I know. The most recent study of the gay community here in Canberra found that over 1/4 are drug users and over 20% are unemployed (the 2011 unemployment rate in Canberra was 3.8%). Also, almost 1/4 have engaged in group sex within the past 6 months. Link.

Okay, so killing gay people isn't the correct response. How would you address these problems politically?

Ummm... I studied history in school, mainly African diaspora history (ie. African American, Caribbean, etc.). But there was a healthy dose of African history, anthropology, and culture thrown in the mix as well. I have personally only visited Kenya, however, I live with and am married to someone who works exclusively in the politics of Africa and has visited about 50 different countries on the continent. I've learned a lot through discussing various political and cultural issues with him.
You are correct, in many cultures in Africa, what we in the West would consider "promiscuous" sexual behavior, is normal. This includes multiple partners and polygamy. This does not make their views "bad" or "sinful," just different. To say they are "bad" or "sinful" is to impose a Western sense of morality on a non-Western society. Because these are not Western societies, this is an incorrect stance to take. However, these societies have their own limits on what is acceptable. For instance, a woman can have multiple lovers and a husband, but isn't allowed to be "open" about these extramarital relationships. Everyone knows about them, but no one talks about them. This taboo of talking about one's sex life is a big contributor to the AIDS rates in Africa. People claim they only have sex with their spouses, but in fact they have multiple sex partners.
The figures you present are from an African diaspora community currently living in Australia. These are not exactly representative of Africans as a whole, rather those who left their home countries, which is decidedly different category of people. And these types of things vary widely from culture to culture, even within the same country in Africa. One can use broad generalizations, however, one must also admit that such sweeping generalizations are often not representative of the whole of all Africans or African cultures. Plus you say these are figures from the homosexual community. Many traditional African societies frown upon homosexuality, many cultures view their wealth in terms of people, as homosexuals do not produce offspring, their social standing within many traditional societies is pretty low.
The issue of accepted sexual practices is not political. It is a social and cultural issue. Traditional African societies have markedly different views of what is "sinful" in comparison to Western culture. For instance, polygamy. It's a normal practice in various African cultures, though not all by any stretch of the imagination. As in any culture, there are societal norms attached to this practice. A man can have many wives, but he is also expected to care for those wives and any children resulting from those relationships, sometimes having a compound where each wife has her own hut or small home and everyone lives in a small sub-community in a larger town or village. This practice is generally limited to men of means, not every man. Women tend to be more restricted by their societies and rarely have multiple husbands, instead they have lovers. Indeed, in some traditional African cultures when a man goes out of the village on business, upon his return he typically stays with a cousin, brother, or other male relative the first night he returns to the village. Why? So his wife has time to kick out her lover so as not to cause a conflict between the two men. However, with the import of Western Christianity, these systems are thrown out of whack. Instead of openly having multiple wives, a Christian African man will claim to only have one wife, while the reality is that he spends many nights a week with another woman or women. But he doesn't recognize these women as his wife/wives and doesn't support the children from those relations, because he wishes to uphold his "Christianity" (and it's rule to only have one wife) of primary importance (normally either for social standing or political power). In some cases this leads the secondary wife or wives to turn to prostitution in order to support themselves and their kids. There are some men who support their secondary wife/wives as well, though secretly, not openly as was done traditionally. Women throughout the world, with little education or the means to support themselves, often turn to the one thing they can sell, themselves. This is true everywhere, not just in Africa. It's just in the case of Africa, there are a lot of women who have relatively fewer ways of supporting themselves.
Again, this is not so much a political problem as a cultural/societal one. Traditional African societies had a series of balances for their traditional sexual practices, but when Christian missionaries came to Africa, these balances were discarded as being "uncivilized" or "barbaric" without any true changes to the underlying sexual behavior. This results in a sort of social chaos, open sexual societies without balances. (A quick clarification on my use of "open" in this context, is not to imply they necessarily talk about sexual practices, the act of having multiple partners is definitely more open than in Western culture.)