Gay interest: Discussion v campaigning

[MrGongGong]

We have forced valuable Catholic adoption agencies to close because the beliefs of those who ran them no longer fit in with the mandatory dogmas of modern liberal secularism. So much for 'human rights'!

NO NO NO that is not true at all
THEY have decided that their "fundamental" dogmas are more important than the interests of vulnerable children
So much for "christian" compassion then ...........

Strange , as they don't seem to have any problem with abandoning the idea that killing people is wrong

[scottycelt]

I'm sorry, Scotty, but you have a bad habit of looking only for things that support your point of view (typical Christian apologetics, if you don't mind my saying...). Of course the right to family life should be protected, but against those who want to destroy family life. You have given no evidence (and I suspect you couldn't anyway) that gays threaten family life at all. If you believe they do, please produce real evidence.

And stop talking about letting the Russians decide if you wouldn't say the same about Germany in the 1930s.

I didn't bring up the issue of human rights to support my view. That was Mr Barrett.

Stop talking about letting the Russians decide on gay activism and let's talk about Nazi Germany instead?

Okay ... want to start another thread, Pab?

[Beef Oven!]

Well, in a sense I agree, which is why the UN issued this declaration in 1948 when it was founded. All UN members are signed up to it (including Russia) though there's no policing mechanism (as there is with the ECHR).

However, it is a public statement of what nations say they agree are unalienable rights (and, importantly, what they agreed at the end of the catastrophe of WW2 were unalienable rights). Its principles are also what much post-war human rights law concerns itself, although in fact most human rights law has come from the ECHR, through which the Universal Declaration has been filtered.

Thus it's rather more than an 'administrative' document.

Fair response Pabs.

When I refer to an administrative consensus, I mean in the sense of an instrument of application (not merely a document) by some political body, rather than a consensus around some 'no-brainier', universal and inalienable set of 'human rights' that many in this forum would have us believe (either as an expedience, or out of lazy thinking).

By way of a simple example, the mooted right to a home and/ or property has proved to be anything but universal and cannot be inalienable as many people and countries have rejected it in the first place. Over the last ten years UN negotiations on the matter resemble horse-trading (and what place does 'negotiations' have regarding something that is supposed to be a priori, inalienable and universal?).

It is a highly complicated area (too abstract for my common or garden brain) that suffers from too many sweeping statements, value-judgements and political expediencies.

For those that can be bothered (count me out), scholars Bob Jessop and Mike Freeman are two powerful minds (and most certainly not right wing or reactionary) and Alain Pellet is worth looking up too.

[ahinton]

I see amateur's back and is apparently attempting to make up for all the posts he hasn't made over the last few days by saturation bombing this thread.

He's apparently never heard the phrase "Quality, not quantity....."

...whereas you have heard it but seem congenitally incapable of providing the former...

[ahinton]

For the umpteenth time, it is up to the Russians themselves to make the judgement on any apparent conflict on the issue of 'human rights' in Russia, not scottycelt, jean or even Mr Barrett.

No, scotty; it's up to the Russian government to decide, just as it's up to anyone inside or outside Russia to propest about any such legislative changes that may occur if so they choose; now whether you would consider active protest (boycotts and the like) to constitute an example of "the West" dictating to (even if only by the back door) or lecturing the Russian government as to what it may or may not do is up to you, but I doubt that even you would suggest that no one anywhere say or do anything to criticise or protest...

[jean]

• (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Crikey, no wonder that was missed!

I don't think it's been missed - it's just that not everyone believes that the family entitled to protection can consist only of a man and a woman and their natural children.

That would rule out 'families' with adopted children , 'families' with step-parents, 'families' where death or divorce has removed one parent or the parent was never much in evidence in the first place, as well as 'families' where the parents are gay.

How do you define 'family', scotty?

Our own Section 28 dreamed up the category of pretended family as I recall. Is that helpful?

[MrGongGong]

How do you define 'family', scotty?

I think he might use the "Sister Sledge" test ?

[jean]

Stop talking about letting the Russians decide on gay activism and let's talk about Nazi Germany instead?

It's a fair question - any talk of it's none of our business invites the question where do you draw the line?

[Richard Barrett]

stop talking about letting the Russians decide if you wouldn't say the same about Germany in the 1930s

I wasn't planning on bringing up this comparison but of course it is staring us all in the face. As we know, the Nazi government was enthusiastically supported by millions of Germans. Presumably it would have been their "human right", according to the super-flexible Scottycelt interpretation of the term, to persecute gays, Jews, gypsies, the mentally impaired and so on, and it would have been inappropriate for anyone in the rest of the world to express revulsion at this. Oh no, you say, this is a different discussion and should be on a different thread. But no, it isn't. Either persecuting gays is wrong or it isn't, whatever form it takes, and wherever or whenever it happens. You define "promotion" of gay issues as attempting to put across the idea that gays should be treated equally. So in other words you don't think that gay people should be treated as equal members of society. That puts you in what you presumably think is good company with all those Russian people in the opinion poll; but it also puts you in very dodgy company indeed.

[Beef Oven!]

All this straw's terrible for my hay fever.

[Beef Oven!]

I think he might use the "Sister Sledge" test ?

What does Sly think?

[scottycelt]

How do you define 'family', scotty?

Difficult one to ascertain these days ...at least one member has claimed a word can mean what you want it to mean so maybe it's a recently undiscovered mammal in Southern Patagonia?

Anyway, according to OED ...

'a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit:'

So maybe a Mummy, Daddy (assuming both still alive) and Kids (natural or legally adopted)?

Could be, could be ...

[ahinton]

Difficult one to ascertain these days ...at least one member has claimed a word can mean what you want it to mean so maybe it's a recently undiscovered mammal in Southern Patagonia?

Anyway, according to OED ...

'a group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit:'

So maybe a Mummy, Daddy (assuming both still alive) and Kids (natural or legally adopted)?

Could be, could be ...

I don't know how much of the OED definition that represents, but if a family ceases to become a family when its children or its only child dies or when one of the parents dies or when a divorce or separation occurs or when adoption or fostering occurs or...then that part of the definition which you cite here seems at the very least to be extremely rigid, inflexible and limited.

[Pabmusic]

I wasn't planning on bringing up this comparison but of course it is staring us all in the face. As we know, the Nazi government was enthusiastically supported by millions of Germans. Presumably it would have been their "human right", according to the super-flexible Scottycelt interpretation of the term, to persecute gays, Jews, gypsies, the mentally impaired and so on, and it would have been inappropriate for anyone in the rest of the world to express revulsion at this. Oh no, you say, this is a different discussion and should be on a different thread. But no, it isn't. Either persecuting gays is wrong or it isn't, whatever form it takes, and wherever or whenever it happens. You define "promotion" of gay issues as attempting to put across the idea that gays should be treated equally. So in other words you don't think that gay people should be treated as equal members of society. That puts you in what you presumably think is good company with all those Russian people in the opinion poll; but it also puts you in very dodgy company indeed.

I do hope that, by 'you' you don't mean 'me', as none of these are necessarily my views.

[ahinton]

I wasn't planning on bringing up this comparison but of course it is staring us all in the face. As we know, the Nazi government was enthusiastically supported by millions of Germans. Presumably it would have been their "human right", according to the super-flexible Scottycelt interpretation of the term, to persecute gays, Jews, gypsies, the mentally impaired and so on, and it would have been inappropriate for anyone in the rest of the world to express revulsion at this. Oh no, you say, this is a different discussion and should be on a different thread. But no, it isn't. Either persecuting gays is wrong or it isn't, whatever form it takes, and wherever or whenever it happens. You define "promotion" of gay issues as attempting to put across the idea that gays should be treated equally. So in other words you don't think that gay people should be treated as equal members of society. That puts you in what you presumably think is good company with all those Russian people in the opinion poll; but it also puts you in very dodgy company indeed.

I cannot imagine what credible argument could be mounted against any of this; in fact, it is so simple that it astonishes (as well as depresses) me to disover that some people do nevertheless seem content to maintain (at least in their own minds) double standards in such fundamental issues of human rights. As you have pointed out before, whilst the proposed legislation applies to Russia alone, Russia does not exist in some kind of isolation or vacuum, so it's hardly surprising that those outside Russia - especially those with interests of one kind or another in that country or who may be visiting it from time to time - will express their dismay, protest and such like in the face of it; this is not just about Russia, its govenment and people. As to the reliance of certain poeople on the apparent outcome of one possibly dubious poll of a mere handful of Russians, it would seem almost comical were the subject matter itself not as serious as it is.