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Saddening News


Cole Parker

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It really and truly comes back to the religious bigotry, time and time again. If any books deserve to be banned, burnt, and destroyed it is those ancient texts that have poisoned so many minds for so many years. Why oh why are so many taking those ancient books, scrolls, and scribblings as being the only 'way'.

Sometimes I wonder if all gays should just up and move to one country somewhere in the world, and effectively take over; work to make it a place of love and tenderness, and just forget about the rest of humanity. I'm not well read or knowledgeable about it, but didn't Israel start off that way (although forcibly), and then Jews from around the world moved there to join in? Sadly, they seem to have lost their way, hurting others in the process. I suppose the same would happen to us; it needs a change in attitude all around the world. Probably not going to happen in my lifetime.

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In many parts of the US, specifically the South, cops and courts are very homophobic. If the cops decide to, they'll run you out of town or trump up some BS to charge you with.

Until the US has some national civil rights protections for gay people, we're still not a whole lot better off than Senagal.

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There is hypocrisy in Australia too, on gay issues.

While we have laws forbidding discrimination against sexual orientation, there is a strong homophobic undercurrent from the religious right which has all the appearance of being in control of our left wing political parties.

While gays live in reasonable safety in Australia, nearly everyday we read of yet another "pedophile" being charged with offences from upto fifty years ago. often it appears as if these "offenders" have become the object of a witch-hunt; as if somehow by persecuting them, then the occurrence of homosexuality in the community will be minimised. I am not talking about or defending the child molesters, but circumstances where consent was believed to have been given by a mid-teens male to an older man and now suddenly upto fifty years later, withdrawn.

Doubtlessly there are genuine cases amongst these, but our police force do seem to be acting disproportionately in actively chasing male-male offenders as opposed to male-female instances.

Some headway has been achieved in the application of the Romeo-Juliet clauses, but the situation can still arise where an 18 year old could be charged with molesting a person not yet 16, even though they have been sexually active together (if not in love) for 2 or more years.

A bigger, but more difficult issue for discussion is the nature of human sexuality and the understanding of the younger-older mentor relationship expressed sexually, having been a natural occurrence in human societies since we first jumped out of the trees. This knowledge and discussion is prone to long term concealment as well as a bad press by those who are nothing more than homophobic.

Make no mistake, I am not condoning child molestation in any way shape or form, but we have not yet made allowance for a younger person to lawfully seek the form of his orientation in consultation with an older man, without condemning his attempts, or placing blame on the mentor of his choice.

For this Trab is correct in alluding to the inappropriate influence of ancient texts and bigoted lawmakers.

I don't however think we should form our own nation on an island somewhere. The proper answer is to educate all societies in the naturalness and almost universal propensity of the homosexual expression of affection, to which so many have reacted negatively, wrongfully and without understanding.

I agree that won't be achieved anytime soon, but isolating us is not the answer.

Is it really that difficult to understand and accept that human beings love each other and wish to express that love physically?

I suspect that statement will require all of us to examine our own conditioned prejudices.

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The question of the morality of sexual expression between an adult and a minor has plagued me for a long time. I'd like to comment on Des' comments about youth/adult relationships.

On the one hand, the laws are written to protect the minors. That on the surface is quite laudable. A questioning teen wants answers, but those answers can be devastating if he/she gets the wrong ones. They are vulnerable and quite open to exploitation, hence the laws that we have. I think the laws are heading in the right direction. However, they are so shallow in thought that they lump all teen sexuality with an adult into a narrow 'one case fits all' scenario.

The other hand has the idea that a teen is mature enough to make up his/her own mind and should be allowed to follow his/her own instincts. That's not entirely true either. Remember, the teen years are a time for growing up, of discovery, of finding oneself.

It's not just the gay society, but also the heterosexual society, that has a fixation on youth. We all look at our youth of by gone days and dream of recapturing it. But...pedophilia is wrong. It's taking advantage of someone that is vulnerable. But a loving, consensual relationship also needs to be recognized.

Laws need to be revised to allow for each case to be evaluated on the individual merits of the relationship between the two people. The current blanket sentence for a sexual relationship between a minor and an adult is as narrow as you can get.

Yes, some of these people need to go to jail. And some of them need to be praised for having a loving, understanding, altruistic relationship.

I have never had a sexual relationship with a minor, nor do I even want one. I'm older and don't relate to teens that well. But their (along with their partner's) humanity needs to be understood and respected.

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