I KNOW it did; do you think otherwise? Technically, the specific term “pedophilia” was coined by a psychiatrist (i.e. NOT the Roman Catholic Church) barely a century ago, after the custom of treating adolescent (or younger) girls as marriageable adults began falling into disrepute despite centuries of nigh universal acceptance (including the Catholic Church.) The previously preferred term “pederastry” is extant (and condemned as often as not) in pagan Greek works centuries before Christs birth, but has strong homosexual connotations unsuited to reference heterosexual pedophilia, hence the neologism. So homosexual pedophilia and its immorality were widely known long before the first pope lived, and heterosexual pedophilia accepted by the Roman Catholic Church and most people for nearly 2000 years after him.

I have never heard any claim one is more dangerous than the other. Except in per capita terms, comparing the number of heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles is pure selection bias: If a group an order of magnitude larger than another did NOT hold more pedophiles it would strongly indicate a pedophiliac predisposition in the other. Wanna compare per capita pedophilia cases in straights, gays and Catholic priests? PubMed has a study showing hetero- pedophiles outnumber homo- pedophiles 11:1, yet STILL stating that shows pedophilia is more common among homosexuals (while carefully noting the study surveyed pedophiliac DESIRES rather than acts, whose incidence rates could be wholly different.)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1556756of

Remind me to purge my browser history (and bleach my brain) after this discussion.

Please, the old saw is "when Democrats circle the wagons, their guns face inward," though I concede that is less true since the Clintons (a big reason I am no Democrat.) When (and before) I was a kid EVERY Dem presidential primary looked like the current and previous Republican one. Dems are also as notorious for spitefully boycotting elections when their candidate loses the primary as Republicans are for holding their noses and voting as told. Maybe that is changing, but for now Republican desperation to REDUCE voting is matched only by Democratic desperation to INCREASE it, which speaks volumes of how each feels about letting everyone voice be heard (whether or not either listens.) Even if anecdotal charges of Dems bribing homeless people and registering non-citizens were substantiated (which they virtually never are) it would not change the reality that Dem leaders want EVERYONE (i.e. regardless of faction) to vote because they believe (accurately or not) it helps their party, and Republicans agree so strongly that they systematically PREVENT voting for the same reason.

View original post

but remains integral to the US and Christianity (else life would be deterministic and each persons feelings, works, faith, submission to Christ and salvation pre-ordained/denied and unalterable; did you become a Calvinist without telling anyone? ) Liberty of conscience is Americas seminal contribution to the world, our solution to the bloody Thirty Years War and English Civil War that spawned so much American colonization, so our "fundamental" birthright, respect for which is incumbent on all American conservatives. A mans right to swing his arm ends where it meets anothers nose, and not until. If it meets no nose but his own (even if some BELIEVE but cannot PROVE it does) it is no one elses business.
Tumors are human LIFE too, but since they are not human BEINGS their removal is not murder.

No one argues against the removal of tumors. Only fetuses. Or are you now exerting presumptuous authority to declare that they are not human life, or that you have the ability to discern the point at which those qualities become present in a human being?

I never denied fetuses are human life, but so are the tumors you just stated "no one argues against remov[ing],” so LIFE is not the issue: The question is when human life (be it living sperm, zygote or whatever) becomes a human BEING, an answer I do NOT presume PROVEN. What I or anyone KNOWS is irrelevant to law; knowledge absent proof indicates what evidence to seek, but is otherwise worthless. Last I checked, murder convictions required proof beyond reasonable doubt in all US jurisdictions; anyone having such proof about abortion is welcome and encouraged to produce it, but until then….

"Defender" overstates it: The SOLE alternative is a far greater evil (mainly because it spares virtually no fetuses, only ensures many ADDITIONAL deaths.) Demonstrating abortion bans reduce total mortality rates would change my position (heaven knows I have switched sides on the issue many times over the years: "when the facts change, I change my mind; what do you do, sir?") "Fatuous hypocrisy" is demanding to kill DEFINITE human beings "because life imprisonment would cost me $0.17/yr" while ALSO forbidding anyone kill POSSIBLE human beings whose eventual birth would doom both of them to perpetual poverty. Or, y'know, almost certainly kill both fetus AND the twelve-year-old rape victim whose rapist father sired it (but at least it would protect the fetus and justice? )

Was Jesus' statement commendation, condemnation or merely observation? If He were being crucified again tomorrow I could see an argument to spend finite funds on His honor rather than on starving kids who will (mostly) still be here next week, but He is only "crucified again" by modern Pharisees draping themselves in the flag and pretending to carry His cross solely for the sake of public spectacles (they have their reward.) Any government program to provide for the poor takes money from people who demonstrably COULD but DO NOT provide for them: Christian charity (and human decency) mandate SOMEONE should, so we should have the integrity to either honor Christ in THAT or else own our Social Darwinism as what it is. At least Objectivists are THAT honest.

US GDP is almost $17 trillion; last I checked (~5 years ago) US wealth was >$62 trillion. Census numbers show 45 million Americans below poverty level: Do the math. >$1 MILLION PER POOR PERSON, or nearly $200,000 PER AMERICAN. Sure, individuals and private groups could extinguish all US poverty instantly an instant if so inclined—yet they… do not. That is where public servants come in: To SERVE the PUBLIC, Social Darwinists be damned (which, though not their judge, is how I would bet.)

Proving them PEOPLE would prove that point relevant, maybe even valid; proving them LIFE is pointless. Blood cells are human LIFE, but killing them is no crime; I am a human BEING, so killing me is.

I must admit, that ex cathedra thing is handy; far better than fundies running around insisting Pauls advice Timothy drink wine for indigestion and every other word he ever wrote was the Holy Spirits divine eternal decree. Not that it stops any such absurd claims anyway: Even when he EXPLICITLY SAID the wish everyone remained unmarried was NOT GODS, but his, and that "it is better to marry than to burn," some folks still declared "priests may not marry" doctrine. The sole consistency in putting words in Gods mouth (or removing His) is self-indulgence.

Regardless, killing people who threaten none is either wrong or not; certainly killing DEFINITE people is no better than killing “maybe” people.

For what it is worth, private business discrimination is a rare instances where I trust the market (or rather, public censure and enlightened self-interest) will do the job, and far better than punishment and compulsion that only firm rather than remove resentment and hatred. Boycotts work fine; I bet that bakerys lost business has cost far more than any fine or other penalties would have. You are quite right boycotts often arise and are celebrated precisely because businesses do NOT refuse service to unpopular groups, and that we should apply that standard uniformly or not at all.

Segregation withstood even torching Americas cultural and economic heartland and waging a war that took more American lives than all others COMBINED, and even a century later neither law nor force could more than briefly mitigate it: The Screaming Eagles moved Faubus, but could not deploy to every schoolhouse in the US, much less as a permanent garrison. We just observed the semicentennial of the most famous case of what worked best: Boycotts, because the one thing bigots hate more than other people is insolvency. That approach obviates preaching bigotrys foolish self-destructive costs to people who will ignore the arguments anyway; instead, they learn the costs by experience (which “is a hard teacher, but a fool learns from no other”) as their competitors gain all the profits of both rejected customers and those who refuse their patronage in solidarity with those rejected.

I confess difficulty pitying bigots, but the bottom line is that, just as the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, so the universal right of self-determination rests with each of them. Society can and should encourage tolerance and discourage intolerance, but the moment we use the tool of government to COMPEL rather than PROTECT beliefs we put everyone liberty of conscience at the mercy of a majority that frequently has none. Acceptance must always be optional because tolerance includes everything—even hatred—else it is not tolerance, only consensus.

With that in mind, your comments in this thread deny the transgendered not only acceptance but tolerance as well, which is the main reason they were so broadly condemned. Token acknowledgement of someones right to surgical alteration (for whatever reason) does not excuse consistently incendiary insulting descriptions of them, their beliefs and their behavior. While often difficult (as I know too well,) one can and should candidly state objections without being abusive, not just for the pragmatic purpose of persuasion, but for the much more basic principle of human respect. Short of inciting violence, the First Amendment certainly protects your right to speak of and to people as if they are bad dogs, but if legality bestowed morality your argument would not exist in the first place.