I usually state what I mean clearly... and I don't jump into suppositions, reactions and defensiveness...
Touche, although I'm sure you can understand my defensiveness.
A good psychiatrist is one who is excellent at his craft and doesn't yield to pressure and heavy lobbying....
I agree. However, what do you mean by "excellant at his craft"? The majority of psychiatrist these days acknowledge that homosexuality
is not a disease, mental disorder, etc, because scientific study has proven that it is not. It is merely a matter of preferance, whether it be voluntary preferance or not.
No one is persecuting you for your life style... but no one is applauding it either... your judgement doesn't lie with what people or society allow or disallow....
I'm going to have to disagree there. When you state that "you are not ok with homosexuality", that's discrimination. Is not deeming a person's lifestyle as "sexual deviance" a form of persecution?
in certain aspects there is a definitive line of right and wrong -- which is not subject to change to fit the tides...
Back before it was legalized, people said the same of inter-racial marriages. They said that such unions "bred only evil". I'm sure you don't agree with that, just as I am confident that thirty years from now when homosexual marriage is mosly legalized, people will look back at the fuss over homosexual marriage and think "Wow, how primitive that whole conflict was."
Again, this ties into the "morality" issue. Our upbringings and environments have caused our opinions on the matter to differ. Your point of "deinitive right and wrong" is like Grace Seeker's point of "moral absolutes", and I agree with both of you, to a certain extent.
Of course, some religious people would disagree with me when I say that one of those absolutes should be that religion has no play in the law of any nation, and should not be able to dictate what is legal and what is not.
What a nation deems collectively as "right" and "wrong" should be decided by the courts, according to human rights laws and regardless of a nation's religious sway and prejudices. This is the beauty of a secular society.