The Inside Story of How the NFL's Plan for Its 1st Openly Gay Player Fell Apart

[hoosier]

The vast majority of male-female relationships are entered into with the understanding that marriage and reproduction are desired and likely outcomes - that is and has been an essential biological and cultural fact since before history began. It is only in the last 40-50 years that anyone would have considered that a similar relationship would be attempted by members (ostensibly) of the same sex.

Not quite. Same sex unions were pretty common in non-European and pre-Christian cultures, including Greece, Rome, China and Mesopotamia. There are even same-sex union traditions in early Christianity. The strict equation of marriage with one man-one woman came later, around the 4th century AD.

[woodbuck27]

That ain’t the only thing I think is thinly veiled with ziggy.

It’s hard to follow all these threads these days with Woody becoming the Bridget Anne Kelley of Packerrats…..but I always thought the main thing that is important is two people who “love” each other is what is paramount in all of these matters. Gay marriage, etc.

Over the past few months I have realized that my identity is asexual. I have met other people who are asexual as well and we love each other deeply. What we have found really quite hateful is the lack of respect and rights that we have in today’s White-Male America. Why can’t my asexual lovers have the same rights as a typical Christian breeder couple?

Hi HowardRoark:

I always thought the main thing that is important is two people who “love” each other is what is paramount in all of these matters HowardRoark

Please see post #250 this thread....where I try to support anyone in your position as an asexual or one of the three minority variations of sexual orientation and including also homosexuality and bisexuality.

Write of support in terms of generalized public acceptance. How that support essentially impacts any relationship in terms of it's openness and resultant zero or diminished anxiety due to controlling the negatives brought on with any stigmatization.

Most importantly that support resulting in enhanced overall health.

Here's something for you to read from a Canadian perspective.

http://www.ellecanada.com/living/a-s...uality/a/25071

[woodbuck27]

Just because it's not "the norm" doesn't mean you have to say anything. This isn't about the norm, or sexual behavior. I don't need to know if a husband's viagra is working, or if a player is getting laid. It's none of my business and none of yours either. But if a player is out and has a boyfriend or husband, which appears from the initial discussion could very well be the case, then you're working very hard to stigmatize that relationship (which again, is none of your business). And if that stigma and fear were to disappear, it would not be an issue. It is not my problem. I think people can marry whichever consenting adult they like. It appears to be your problem which I don't understand because again, it's none of your business. If a player is gay and wants to talk about his loved one, that should still be his business. The problem with your problem is that it's causing heartache and a trampling of rights for a whole class of people. You can be with the one you're attracted to and in love with. They should have that same right.

Exactly.

nailed it MJ.

[HowardRoark]

Hi HowardRoark:

I always thought the main thing that is important is two people who “love” each other is what is paramount in all of these matters HowardRoark

Please see post #250 this thread....where I try to support anyone in your position as an asexual or one of the three minority variations of sexual orientation and including also homosexuality and bisexuality.

Write of support in terms of generalized public acceptance. How that support essentially impacts any relationship in terms of it's openness and resultant zero or diminished anxiety due to controlling the negatives brought on with any stigmatization.

Most importantly that support resulting in enhanced overall health.

Here's something for you to read from a Canadian perspective.

http://www.ellecanada.com/living/a-s...uality/a/25071

I didn't see anything addressing me and my asexual lover wanting to marry each other and get all the cool rights of married people.

Some haters here might just define us as roommates.....I dream of the day we can beyond that sort of bigoted thought.

Was it the green, red or black text?

[mraynrand]

Not quite. Same sex unions were pretty common in non-European and pre-Christian cultures, including Greece, Rome, China and Mesopotamia. There are even same-sex union traditions in early Christianity. The strict equation of marriage with one man-one woman came later, around the 4th century AD.

I've seen this a common attempt to justify and normalize today's behavior. But conditions are not the same and understanding of what such relationships meant were very different.

I read about this when a Yalie Boswell tried to make these same claims about the catholic church twenty years ago. My recollection is that he completely misunderstood the church, but I'll look for something on it. I know for pretty sure that the Greek in Roman unions were in no way an attempt to equate them with oppose sex unions, but don't know about China and Meso. The 'modern' view is decidedly distinct.

[mraynrand]

That wasn't hard to find. Here's a pretty in depth analysis of at least the christian and roman perspective. Again, perhaps there were unions, but it was well understood that they were very different relationships. Still, what lesson exactly should modern man learn from Roman same sex tolerance or encouragement?

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2...rch-history-50

First, it is highly implausible that homosexual unions either in antiquity or in the Middle Ages would have been blessed by a religion that promoted ascetic devotion to the kingdom of God rather than that condition which contemporary Americans understand as the healthy expression of erotic drives. In that sense the book is, as Boswell himself admits, counterintuitive in its very premise.

[woodbuck27]

I didn't see anything addressing me and my asexual lover wanting to marry each other and get all the cool rights of married people.

Some haters here might just define us as roommates.....I dream of the day we can beyond that sort of bigoted thought.

Was it the green, red or black text?

If you identify a hater here in terms related to any hurt on you or your standards. Place that member on ignore (using that option afforded to you here) as that certainly works. The hater doesn't dictate to and consequently control you. You ignore or control 'the perceived hater'.

You know that. That's simply a reminder.

I certainly recommend that you have 'no fear' and that you and your loved one:

Make every effort to get actively involved in any necessary pro-active group that represents the majority of your best interests.

Good Luck.

[mraynrand]

If you identify a hater here in terms related to any hurt on you or your standards. Place that member on ignore (using that option afforded to you here) as that certainly works. The hater doesn't dictate to and consequently control you. You ignore or control 'the perceived hater'.

[HowardRoark]

If you identify a hater here in terms related to any hurt on you or your standards. Place that member on ignore (using that option afforded to you here) as that certainly works. The hater doesn't dictate to and consequently control you. You ignore or control 'the perceived hater'.

You know that. That's simply a reminder.

I certainly recommend that you have 'no fear' and that you and your loved one:

Make every effort to get actively involved in any necessary pro-active group that represents the majority of your best interests.

Good Luck.

Oh, I'm sorry Woodman....I think I was high on stacking my Lo-T pills and Viagra when I posted that earlier stuff.

I like women and like to have sex with them and get married to them and whatnot. I also believe that Homosexual stuff is wrong because I'm a Christian. I don't get hung up it or anything, but I guess those are just my standards.

Should I still take your advice?

[hoosier]

I've seen this a common attempt to justify and normalize today's behavior. But conditions are not the same and understanding of what such relationships meant were very different.

I read about this when a Yalie Boswell tried to make these same claims about the catholic church twenty years ago. My recollection is that he completely misunderstood the church, but I'll look for something on it. I know for pretty sure that the Greek in Roman unions were in no way an attempt to equate them with oppose sex unions, but don't know about China and Meso. The 'modern' view is decidedly distinct.

You're the one who is talking about norms, not me. My only point was that the religious institutionalization of marriage as one man-one woman is not as universal as you like to claim. You could have written that one man-one woman is the standard that the Christian tradition in the West has always adhered to and there would have been little problem with that. But you didn't. You reached even further and tried to assert that the restriction of marriage to monogamous heterosexual relations is a timeless practice, and that the inclusion of non-heterosexual relations in such an institution is only a recent invention. It's not enough for you that one man-one woman be the hallmark of certain traditions, you need it to be synonymous with human nature. But cultural history says that it isn't.

[mraynrand]

You're the one who is talking about norms, not me. My only point was that the religious institutionalization of marriage as one man-one woman is not as universal as you like to claim. You could have written that one man-one woman is the standard that the Christian tradition in the West has always adhered to and there would have been little problem with that. But you didn't. You reached even further and tried to assert that the restriction of marriage to monogamous heterosexual relations is a timeless practice, and that the inclusion of non-heterosexual relations in such an institution is only a recent invention. It's not enough for you that one man-one woman be the hallmark of certain traditions, you need it to be synonymous with human nature. But cultural history says that it isn't.

It's certainly the dominant cultural norm though history. Your other examples were not considered equivalent in form or standing to male-female unions and are completely different than the modern push in the past 40-50 years to normalize same sex unions into something equivalent (in form and standing) to heterosexual unions. That should be obvious, but you kinda have to go to graduate school in the social sciences these days to effectively have the obvious taught out of you, it seems. I think reproduction is pretty synonymous with human nature, since without it, you don't have any humans to have a nature. And last time I checked ya kinda need man-woman coupling to get that accomplished.

You don't need religious institutionalization of marriage norms to know that relationships between men and women are fundamentally different than those between men and between women. Why should it come as a surprise that society would institutionalize - recognize and promote - this important and essential difference? Unless you went to graduate school, that is....

BTW, in the post you responded to, I used "biological and cultural" fact. you introduced religion into the conversation. That's a significant part of the cultural aspect, but it certainly depends on the obvious biological differences (you know, man-women reproduction).

[hoosier]

It's certainly the dominant cultural norm though history. Your other examples were not considered equivalent in form or standing to male-female unions...

.

Nonsense, you overgeneralize and lump everything together to suit the needs of your argument. In Athenian society, to take one counter-example, pederasty was considered socially superior to heterosexual unions. The relation between man and boy was considered a relationship of spiritual mentorship and cultivation of virtue, in contrast to the masses who were mere machines or animals destined to the repetitive stupidity of producing and reproducing themselves.

...and are completely different than the modern push in the past 40-50 years to normalize same sex unions into something equivalent (in form and standing) to heterosexual unions.

Of course they are different, the historical contexts are completely different. Nobody said otherwise. I only introduced the non-Christian, non-modern examples to refute your reductive claims about the universality of hetero-only unions.

I think reproduction is pretty synonymous with human nature, since without it, you don't have any humans to have a nature. And last time I checked ya kinda need man-woman coupling to get that accomplished.

Reproduction may be synonymous with human nature but so is perversion. But you're twisting the argument. My point was that human nature does not require the limitation of the range of socially accepted sexual relations to hetero couples, that limitation is only found in certain traditions.

You don't need religious institutionalization of marriage norms to know that relationships between men and women are fundamentally different than those between men and between women. Why should it come as a surprise that society would institutionalize - recognize and promote - this important and essential difference?

You are leaping from a (weak) historical argument to a moral argument. That is called a category error. Just because it makes good moral sense (to you) doesn't mean that history agrees.

BTW, in the post you responded to, I used "biological and cultural" fact. you introduced religion into the conversation. That's a significant part of the cultural aspect, but it certainly depends on the obvious biological differences (you know, man-women reproduction).

Right, you assume that the be all, end all of marriage is procreation, so you cannot understand why anyone would try to throw non-procreative permutations into the mix. In other words, you are begging the question. If marriage means exactly and only what it is defined to mean by Christianity then logically you would have to accept that "marriage" as institution is not universal to the history of humanity.

[SkinBasket]

Nothing like stealing something, twisting it beyond recognition, then claiming, by virtue of the distortion you've caused, ownership over the original object.

Kind of like sneaking into a church, stealing a crucifix, tossing Jesus off it, and rounding off the base to make a mighty fine, double handled ass ram named the CruciFix®. Then when the church complains I stole their cross, I can just tell them they don't get to tell me what I can and can't do with that cross shaped ass ram just because I took it from them. It's an ass ram now, and just because I took it from them and named it the same as their beloved holy symbol, does not mean they own it, because I'm a person too, and you have to tolerate my behavior while I show no tolerance for your beliefs that are offended by me shoving a defiled crucifix up my partners colon.

[Rodgers12]

I think reproduction is pretty synonymous with human nature, since without it, you don't have any humans to have a nature. And last time I checked ya kinda need man-woman coupling to get that accomplished.

I think you should check your facts again b/c the facts have been updated.

Nowadays, a man needs not fuck a woman to procreate. There's cloning and a bunch of artificial reproduction stuff scientists took right out of Huxley's Brave New World.

For the record:

I support homosexuality and gay rights.

Homosexuality is a genetic phenomenon, not a paranormal activity.

David had sexual relations with Jonathon, so you bible bubbling brooks can shut it.

[mraynrand]

Nonsense, you overgeneralize and lump everything together to suit the needs of your argument. In Athenian society, to take one counter-example, pederasty was considered socially superior to heterosexual unions. The relation between man and boy was considered a relationship of spiritual mentorship and cultivation of virtue, in contrast to the masses who were mere machines or animals destined to the repetitive stupidity of producing and reproducing themselves.

But at least they knew that it was different than male-female relationships

Of course they are different, the historical contexts are completely different. Nobody said otherwise. I only introduced the non-Christian, non-modern examples to refute your reductive claims about the universality of hetero-only unions.

I said that up until 40-50 years ago nobody tried to equate the two type of relationships, due to biological and cultural facts. Only modern graduate students were able to achieve a notion of equivalency.

Reproduction may be synonymous with human nature but so is perversion. But you're twisting the argument. My point was that human nature does not require the limitation of the range of socially accepted sexual relations to hetero couples, that limitation is only found in certain traditions.

People pretty much know that reproduction is more important to the propagation of the species than perversion. Again, except for the modern Left that tries to sell perversion as normalcy

You are leaping from a (weak) historical argument to a moral argument. That is called a category error. Just because it makes good moral sense (to you) doesn't mean that history agrees.

Am I? The argument is that everyone knows the difference in result from putting the male reproductive organ into a female organ versus into a mouth or an anus. The consequences are dramatically different. In case you forgot, one propagates the species and one tends to give another difficulty pooping. It's not a category error to argue from this simple biological fact to the the second fact that human species tend to have placed a special importance on the reproductive act - whether as an evolutionary consequence or as an intentionally specified property of humans, one act propagates the species, the other does not. Pretty significant difference - you could say they are different categories, and one is an error (if the goal is to make offspring). I see absolutely no attempt in my post to make any moral argument.

Right, you assume that the be all, end all of marriage is procreation, so you cannot understand why anyone would try to throw non-procreative permutations into the mix. In other words, you are begging the question. If marriage means exactly and only what it is defined to mean by Christianity then logically you would have to accept that "marriage" as institution is not universal to the history of humanity.

"marriage" was established to give significance as a result of the significance and the specific nature of the act. See above. Marriage subsequently is tied directly to the reproductive act and it's consequences. Call it "Fshtyyllaggummalta" if you prefer, or call it marriage, it is conceptually and absolutely distinct from other forms of relationships. Thus the Greeks called their male-male relationships something else, did they not? They were significant for another reason, and identified as something different, were they not? You'd have to go to graduate school to not understand that. Thus calling a relationship between two beings that don't reproduce by the same term as those who do, is to deliberately confuse and conflate concepts. Someone called that "floating abstractions." But once you are stuck in the head with beings of reason and not real beings, it's hard to relate to the real world.

[mraynrand]

Homosexuality is a genetic phenomenon, not a paranormal activity.

which genes? Please elaborate.

[Kiwon]

David had sexual relations with Jonathon, so you bible bubbling brooks can shut it.

So the self-described "extreme liberal" and "Marxist" wants to educate Christians on their holy book? Yeah, it's such a stupid thing to do I can confirm that you are a liberal.

Well, pagan twit, what is your evidence for your unfounded assertion? Might it be:

1 Samuel 18:1 - "Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself."

1 Samuel 18:3 - "Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself."

1 Samuel 20:17 - "Jonathan made David vow again because of his love for him, because he loved him as he loved his own life."

What? No mention of butt plugs and rimming? No matter, in 2014's version of America, "love" between members of the same sex HAS TO BE sexual, right? It can't be brotherly, can it, because the historic, cultural, and linguistic contexts mean nothing.

It's one thing to be an "extreme liberal." I can respect that. What I don't respect is intellectual laziness as you vainly set about to reshape the world according to your fantasies.

Next time, junior, get an education before you start toying with God's Word. - http://biblehub.com/hebrew/157.htm

[Rodgers12]

So the self-described "extreme liberal" and "Marxist" wants to educate Christians on their holy book? Yeah, it's such a stupid thing to do I can confirm that you are a liberal.

Well, pagan twit, what is your evidence for your unfounded assertion? Might it be:

1 Samuel 18:1 - "Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself."

1 Samuel 18:3 - "Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself."

1 Samuel 20:17 - "Jonathan made David vow again because of his love for him, because he loved him as he loved his own life."

What? No mention of butt plugs and rimming? No matter, in 2014's version of America, "love" between members of the same sex HAS TO BE sexual, right? It can't be brotherly, can it, because the historic, cultural, and linguistic contexts mean nothing.

It's one thing to be an "extreme liberal." I can respect that. What I don't respect is intellectual laziness as you vainly set about to reshape the world according to your fantasies.

Next time, junior, get an education before you start toying with God's Word. - http://biblehub.com/hebrew/157.htm

David himself admitted it: "Jonathon's love to me was more wonderful than the love of women."

David was a guy who banged Uriah's whore while the latter was away at war. Only a gay dude would find making "love" to man more "wonderful" than making "love" to a woman.

[Rodgers12]

which genes? Please elaborate.

The gay gene?

Homosexuality is profound in not just homo sapiens but all sorts of animals throughout the animal kingdom.

Bigots and conservatives argue that homosexuality is a choice. Man's big brain allows him to make choices, and some chose the homosexual lifestyle.

Animals don't have choices. They survive via instincts. The fact that some beasts practice homosexuality is proof that the gay gene does exist.

[SkinBasket]

Animals don't have choices. They survive via instincts.

You don't get out of the city very much do ya?

Are you typing out of choice or instinct, because either way you're making some poor decisions.