Obama's church buddies on his new gay marriage stance

[Annik]

If you're going to run with my comparison, I'd prefer if you didn't run it straight to Crazy Town at the first opportunity. Why are you bringing all that religion into things? Again, I'm not sure if you're purposely ignoring what I said or if you're misunderstanding it, but what you're saying here has no relation to what I've said at all. All of that religious baggage you're bringing with you has no relation to an argument on what constitutes a choice.

Please read my previous post again and try not to bring your own views of what I'm saying into it. I was comparing one kind of choice (Coke vs. Pepsi) with another (hetero- vs. homosexuality). My point was that saying homosexuality is not a choice, but that picking between other options in a similar situation is a choice, is contradictory.

I was merely using the persecution homosexuals face to illustrate that saying homosexuality is a choice to be ridiculous, because very, very few would choose that kind of life and then follow it to the bitter end. It's not my fault that the majority of people who are anti-homosexual are religious. "Devil Drink" was most just a phrase, much in the way weed is the "Devil's Plant".

Persecuting homosexuals is ignorant, though calling it outdated would be a stretch. Being shitty is timeless. Considering homosexuality a choice is simply something you disagree with.

I feel like I was extremely clear in my earlier post, but I'll go over it again here. You are not able to choose what you have a preference for, be that Pepsi, rice, or penis. You are still able to choose what you do about that preference.

If I hand you a Coke and a Pepsi, are you able to choose which one you will drink? If your answer is yes, then I would like you to explain to me how this situation is fundamentally different from human sexuality.

You can choose to go against your sexual preference, although it does not change your sexual preference. If I am a homosexual man and I am only sexually attracted to men, I could still sleep with a woman. That does not make me any less homosexual. The difference between what soda you like and who you're attracted to... There really is little difference. However, you can love Pepsi and still drink Coke. You can prefer Coke and still drink Pepsi. This will not change which you'd rather have. If we say that Coke is a man and Pepsi is a woman (and we still assume I am a homosexual man), I would want to drink Coke, even if I am drinking Pepsi. You cannot decide on which flavor appeals to you more because of your biology. Choosing to drink one or the other is another matter entirely. I think this is where we are miscommunication. You can be homosexual without ever having slept with the same sex. You can't choose who you're attracted to any more than you can choose what tastes your tongue prefers.

You can choose to ignore your preference and in this way, choice is maintain. There is always some form of choice and the choice for homosexuals is if they should act on their feelings. Our current society is demonizing homosexuals for acting on their feelings (the nature of these feelings is not choice), which I believe to be wrong. There is nothing wrong with being true to yourself.

If your answer is no, then I'd guess there's a fair chance you think choices are illusory (as I do). In that case, it's not fair to say that sexuality is not a choice, since what you really mean is that nothing is a choice. While that's my view, I consider it ultimately useless to the human experience, since we clearly feel as if we are making choices in life.

There is always choice. Everything in our lives essentially boils down to "Do or do not". Sexual preference is not really as much a part of this conscious process, though. The reason being is that our biology (coupled with sociological factors) assigns these. The choice is if one should act on them or not. You must pick either do or do not.

To that end, I consider the "choice" between Coke and Pepsi to exist. To humans, it does. When given options, we sometimes honestly feel that we are actively choosing between them. Not all choices feel that way, though, since the choice of jumping off a cliff or eating a candy bar has one option almost no one would take.

I also view sexuality to be a choice in the same way, as it operates under identical principles to the Coke/Pepsi or rice/bread choices. I'll continue to stick with that unless someone shows some sort of evidence that sexuality is fundamentally different than other human preferences. As of yet, there is nothing to point in that direction.

For some reason, many people feel that it's okay to persecute homosexuals if sexuality is a choice. This is not my position any more than persecuting people who choose Coke is my position. I simply see no convincing argument that sexuality is different from all other human experiences.

Edit: I just realized that part of this conversation is likely us talking past each other. If your view of homosexuality simply includes preferences, but not actions, then we don't disagree there at all.

Your edit got it right, although I did not notice it until I had already written all of that (so I'm posting it anyway!). There is always a choice of action, but preference... not so much.