From some remarks to a bisexual correspondent

[fpb]

They don't try to reverse or re-engineer anything or anyone, they want to be happy with their partners, to be able to be open about their relationships, and to be respected - which I do believe is their right, no quotation marks...

That sort of talk makes me wonder on what planet you live. I lived in the same house with an openly gay couple for years. There may be some place in the Muslim world where to " want to be happy with their partners, to be able to be open about their relationships, and to be respected" is an issue, but it is not anywhere in the West. I respectfully submit that respect is not what you are talking about. Respect is something that someone gains; I have great respect for you as a highly civilized person and as [an exceptionally talented person in a particular field]. Does that matter to you less than that I should genuflect to your tastes in sex? Frankly, that is the sort of demand that would make me think less of you; because it shows that you find what is between your legs more important than what is in your head. And then there is the issue of satisfaction - which, as the song says, you can't get. You are free to do anything you please, and to practice any trade (except Catholic priest). I am old enough to remember - and I am not very old - the time when homosexual advocates insisted that the notion of "gay marriage" was a smokescreen invented by the opponents of gay rightists to defame them. That, my dear, was less than a generation ago. And no sooner you have got everything you agitated for, than the agitation for "gay marriage" began in earnest. Now history has been rewritten to the extent that you lot speak not only as though this had always been your demand, without which nothing else is worth a thing, but also as though anyone who does anything to withhold it from you is denying something so obvious that only a complete moron could imagine otherwise. Someone had been lying; whether to the public, or to themselves, does not even matter. What you are saying is that unless you are allowed to destroy the very notion of marriage, by applying it to something it simply is not, you will not be happy. And what that tells me is that you will not be happy anyway, because anything you are granted will only generate another request. You really have to consider your own attitudes.

Comments

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

There may be some place in the Muslim world where to " want to be happy with their partners, to be able to be open about their relationships, and to be respected" is an issue, but it is not anywhere in the West.

You are overstating your case. U.S. law affords no guarantees of anyone being happy and respected, even as it curtails state interference in mutually agreed upon choices of sexual practices, which are protected under the rubric of equality in the pursuit of happiness. I do not approve of the way my gay neighbor deploys his private parts, but my disapproval gives me no right to interfere with his deployment. By the same token, our Constitution forbids the state to interfere in my right of free association and protects my rights to speak my mind and to shun those I regard as morally deficient. These rights runs counter to my neighbor’s entitlement to complacency and respect in such matters.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Which is as it should be.

[larvatus.livejournal.com]

But not the way it is in Europe.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I just saw this. I don't know what you mean by "Europe", but the Italian Constitution protects the freedoms of thought, expression, belief, and association, with no reservation except for matters of outright criminality as defined by law. Italian law knows no "right" to self-respect.