Originally Posted by Gilda

I agree completely with what you say here, but I wouldn't limit it to gay people. I dislike anyone who makes it a point to flaunt their sexuality in public and, as you say, "shove it their faces", regardless of their orientation. The guys who are exposing themselves that Cynthetiq refers to bug me, too, but the problem isn't that they're gay, it's that they're exposing themselves in a public situation where it isn't warranted. A jerk is a jerk regardless of orientation. It's also entirely irrelevant to the issue of whether parents have the moral right (they obviously have the legal right) to use force on their teen children to try to alter personality characteristics of which they disapprove.

But let's explore this a bit. If a homosexual couple are walking down the street holding hands or with their arms around each other, does that constitute shoving it in your face? If a homosexual makes casual reference to an SO in a conversation, does that qualify? If I were to take my wife to a school dance that I was chaperoning and dance with her (as some heterosexual couples sometimes do) would that qualify? If someone assumes that my wearing a wedding ring means that I have a husband, and I correct them, is that shoving my sexuality in their faces? If a lesbian dresses "butch", or a gay man effeminately, is that flaunting their sexuality?

I'm not saying that any of this is what you meant, but I have encountered those who mean exactly what I say in the paragraph above when they say they disapprove of homosexuals who shove their being gay into everyone's face.

There's a psychological phemonenon at work here called selective perception. You tend to notice certain things of interest far more than similar things that aren't of interest. A great many people who make the above complaint don't seem to realize that heterosexual people advertise their sexuality in a myriad of small ways all the time, in ways that usually go unnoticed because they are so common. Lovers holding hands, or dancing together, or sitting on a park bench making out, the casual reference to one's SO in conversation, the appreciative glance at a sexually attractive person, all of these are ways of casually advertising one's sexuality, and all are things heterosexuals do every day without thinking and without anyone taking any special notice, but it quite often can be labeled differently when engaged in by homosexuals, merely because selective perception causes it to be noticed more when engaged in by homosexuals.

I also tend to suspect that for some, the complaint of shoving it in your face is really a way justifying a predjudice that is against the person's sexuality and not their actions.

Again, I'm not saying that this is what you are doing. I assume that what you're referring to is public exhibitionism of one's sexuality, and if so, I agree that's it's distasteful, but I also think orientation has little to do with what makes it distasteful.



I absolutely agree with you. So long as their belief systems don't harm others, or coerce others who operate outside their belief system into compliance with that belief system, I have no right to object to the right of a person to adopt and act on that particular belief system.



Well, there really are two issues here, the moral and the legal. The boy's parents have the legal right to do what they have done, and parents in general have great legal authority over their children until the age of 18.

But the moral issue is a separate one. For some fundamentalist Muslims, killing a sister or daughter who has been raped is a morally honorable thing to do. I disapprove of this, not because it is illegal in the US, but because I believe murder is wrong, and what's more I do believe I have the right to tell any and everyone who does this that what they are doing is wrong and immoral.

I've drawn my line at behavior that harms or coerces another who is capable of making a moral choice of their own. You seem to have drawn you line at legality. Fine, we disagree about where to draw the line, but we're both drawing lines.

This boy's parents are physically coercing him in an attempt to force their moral code on him. Do they have the right to teach him their moral code and religious belief system? Certainly. Do they have the right to force this belief system on him once he is capable of making his own moral decisions? I'd say definitely not. The ability to make moral decisions does not manifest itself with legal adulthood. Separate issues, separate arguments.