Rathus, I agree with you 100% on the inspection thing, but as far as the term gay, While that was it's meaning, once a group of people took to using the term to describe themselves, it took another meaning.
As far as the gay life-style is concerned, as I said, I'm not gay myself, but I have at least one friend who is gay. Even if I didn't have a gay friend, I don't like the idea of people insulting other people so I'd take the same stance on the usage of gay to mean lame as I do. Life is hard enough without people making it harder for eachother.
I was born with a Cleft-Palate and lip, and know what it means to be made fun of or made to feel bad about yourself so I have an insiders view on the pain. My mother and daughter were born with the same defect. Thanks to technology, my daughter barely has any scar at all(she'll be 3 this month btw) and is currently getting speech therepy to help her talk correctly(I had speech when I was young too). Because of this I am more sensative to how people treat eachother, and am more sensative to how I treat people. There will always be people who just don't care, but that's a sad thing.
As far as sodomy, In a gay relationship it's one thing, when it's forcing themselves on someone else it's another. It's not my place to tell other people how to live and I don't need anyone telling me how to live, I think we all feel that way. The fact of the matter is that there are people who are gay and they should have all the rights any other people would have because in the end we are all people and supposed to be equal. If there is no victim, there is no crime.
Just like with my birth defect, I can't make people accept me for having looked a little different, it's just the way I was born and I can't do anything about that. People are born the way they are and that's just life and there will always be people who don't tollerate others for looking different or talking different, or for being a Man or a Woman or Black or Jewish, Gay, Irish, whatever. I happen to be Irish, my wife is Jewish, my best friend is Black.
This post was started about INSPECTING people in EQ of all things, but it's really about interacting with people and being understanding to their feelings. When people do things with concideration to others, the world will be a better place. Unfortunately, till then people will live in their own little worlds rarely seeing outside of their own wants and needs wondering why the things they do annoy people, and/or not tollerating others because they don't fit into their idea of what acceptable is.
Edited, Wed Mar 10 08:10:18 2004 by KerikDaven