Did someone say horses?

[_Jersey Girl]

People doing things because they think they are for the good of their children or anyone else doesn't automatically absolve them of being wrong, even very wrong. And consequently, that doesn't mean we shouldn't respond to them with shame and disgust.

Let's put the above in perspective, EA. Gaz hasn't done anything wrong or very wrong. He is a parent of young children, offering what action he would take based on a hypothetical situation. What parents think or predict they would do in a given situation is far different then what they do when actually faced with when the hypothetical becomes reality.

Just as if I were to say to you, if a pedophile abused one of my children, I would take one of our guns, shoot the ever loving life out of the person and stand there and watch him/her bleed out in front of me.

So get off it.

In addition to that, people having some positive character traits doesn't preclude them from having negative ones, even very negative. Not to get all Godwin on this thread, but Hitler was generally good with animals.

Get off it with the Hitler reference.

You're an evangelical. So you might appreciate the aptness of my favorite C.S. Lewis quote for what's going on with your reasoning here:

I am?

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

See my first response to your post.

[_Gadianton]

Gaz's apologetic goes something like this -- and of course he can't see what's wrong with it, being an apologist and all.

Let's say you are a detective equipped with the toolbag of Mopologetics and set out to solve a murder mystery. Let's say the party line is that professor Mustard did it in the study with the knife, dropped his gear and fled out the back door. Critics point out that no body was ever found nor was a knife ever discovered on the premisis. Later, some excavation work is done on the property, and among other things a knife is found from a civilization that occupied this same space some 10,000 years ago. You raise your hands and declare victory over the critics and announce that evidence is now pouring forth to establish the credibility of your conjecture.

...and you are a little credulous toward your fellow sleuths who are instead of rejoicing with you, declaring that "knife" really meant a billiard stick and "murder" was sort of a metaphor for an intense gentlemanly disagreement.

[Guest]

Let's put the above in perspective, EA. Gaz hasn't done anything wrong or very wrong. He is a parent of young children, offering what action he would take based on a hypothetical situation. What parents think or predict they would do in a given situation is far different then what they do when actually faced with when the hypothetical becomes reality.

The mere fact that is his instinct, even if it is an idle threat, is a problem. It is a monstrous desire he plainly is expressing. He also is spending electronic ink to advocate that viewpoint, which is pretty awful even if it is just bluster. Ideally, he's just trolling by pretending to be an e-thug.

Get off it with the Hitler reference.

Yes, an incidental Hitler analogy is totally out of line when talking about someone who advocates executing homosexuals. Wait, no it's not. That's kind of right in line even if the analogy wasn't about an abstract point. But funny you should say that when you just got done illustrating an argument about a man who favors killing his child if he or she were gay by talking about your potential desire to kill a hypothetical pedophile who abused your child. Good call there.

I am?

Used to be in accordance with the theology you've expressed to me in the past. It's been a few years, so maybe you're a Jainist by now for all I know.

See my first response to your post.

Good thing you've dropped the "but he means well" argument. I look forward to you dropping the one contained in this post as well.

[_Jersey Girl]

The mere fact that is his instinct, even if it is an idle threat, is a problem. It is a monstrous desire he plainly is expressing.

What monstrous desire?

[Guest]

What monstrous desire?

Let's requote this exchange he had with Beastie:

Let's just hope for gaze's kids' sake that none of them end up being gay. Poor things would be turned out on the streets.

They would only be turned out into the streets because it is currently against the law to drown them in a sack in a river.

Awesome. I call this monstrous. You come rushing in to defend him against such a charge because you've briefly met him and he seemed funny and didn't beat his kids in front of you or anything. Fantastic.

[_Jersey Girl]

EA,

Do you think that this:

Just as if I were to say to you, if a pedophile abused one of my children, I would take one of our guns, shoot the ever loving life out of the person and stand there and watch him/her bleed out in front of me.

represents a "monstrous desire" on my part?

[_Jersey Girl]

Let's requote this exchange he had with Beastie:

Let's just hope for gaze's kids' sake that none of them end up being gay. Poor things would be turned out on the streets.

They would only be turned out into the streets because it is currently against the law to drown them in a sack in a river.

Awesome. I call this monstrous. You come rushing in to defend him against such a charge because you've briefly met him and he seemed funny and didn't beat his kids in front of you or anything. Fantastic.

What's the date on that exchange? What were his follow up comments? Did he ever later demonstrate that he determined that his position was inappropriate? Did he ever demonstrate later that he needed to think and reflect more on his position in the above excerpts?

Or do you give a damn enough to find out before condemning him based on a few reposts from a long ago discussion thread?

(When you use the quote feature, you need to place the posters screen name in quotation marks)

[_EAllusion]

EA,

Do you think that this:

Just as if I were to say to you, if a pedophile abused one of my children, I would take one of our guns, shoot the ever loving life out of the person and stand there and watch him/her bleed out in front of me.

represents a "monstrous desire" on my part?

If you think they are directly comparable, a desire for vigilante retribution against someone who has deeply hurt someone you care about is more understandable than a desire to kill your child because they are gay. Sure, it's still a desire to do wrong and worthy of disapproval, but at least it's related to a real harm someone has committed and implicates the ambiguities of justice. At least the instinct that the person should face some sort of punitive/restrictive measure isn't off like it is in the case of homosexuality. One can imagine you plugging in this argument against any insanely immoral viewpoint.

"People who question the president should be rounded up by police and shot."

Whoa. That's evil.

Jersey Girl - defender of the downtrodden:

So are you saying it's evil for me to want to kill someone who sexually abused my child?

[_Jersey Girl]

The fact that you met Gaz in person once or a few times and he seemed cool does not in any way detract from the fact that he would murder his children if he could if he found out they were in a homosexual relationship. That is monstrous. It's actually ridiculous to suggest that your intuitive character judgment based on superficial face to face familiarity Trump's his consistently advocating grotesquely evil things in front of all of us, including potentially abusive treatment of his own children. The only real out for him here is his being a disingenuous troll and more of a nuisance, but you don't seem quick to play that card.

It's sad that you want to play the knight in electronic armor and offer up some minimal personal contact as evidence of basic decency for a person you can't possibly know well. This is only compounded by the fact that we all have access to his own thoughts on the subject which are plainly abhorrent. On the brightside, while this is deserving of ridicule, it isn't nearly as deserving as Gaz's vile thoughts about gays.

EA,

Your inaccuracies in the above, clearly evidence that you don't follow Gaz's posts nor do you accurately interpret mine.

There is no place on this thread nor on this board where I've claimed to have met Gaz in person once or a few times (or briefly) for that matter. What contact I've had with Gaz and his wife over the years is sufficient for me to evaluate that he adores and deeply loves his wife and children.

On this thread, you've reposted a repost of an older series of comments, pulled them out of the context of Gaz's ongoing attempts to come to terms with his religious convictions as they relate to his family under the category of "homosexuality".

Are you willing to admit that you cherry picked a repost on this thread because it is more convenient for you to do versus reading and observing Gaz as he continues to post on the topic?

Do you see anywhere in his current comments on this thread, where he displays a "desire" to kill his any of his children were he to become informed they were homosexual?

Do you, infact, see a "desire" in his old reposted comments to kill any of his children?

[_Jersey Girl]

If you think they are directly comparable, a desire for vigilante retribution against someone who has deeply hurt someone you care about is more understandable than a desire to kill your child because they are gay. Sure, it's still a desire to do wrong and worthy of disapproval, but at least it's related to a real harm someone has committed and implicates the ambiguities of justice. At least the instinct that the person should face some sort of punitive/restrictive measure isn't off like it is in the case of homosexuality. One can imagine you plugging in this argument against any insanely immoral viewpoint.

"People who question the president should be rounded up by police and shot."

Whoa. That's evil.

Jersey Girl - defender of the downtrodden:

So are you saying it's evil for me to want to kill someone who sexually abused my child?

EA,

I have gone directly up against Gaz's views regarding homosexuality on this board. Not that you know that, any more than you know that cherry picking a repost of an old post fairly represents his developing position on homosexuals and what his response might be where he confronted with homosexuality on the part of one of his children.

From your above comments:

If you think they are directly comparable, a desire for vigilante retribution against someone who has deeply hurt someone you care about is more understandable than a desire to kill your child because they are gay. Sure, it's still a desire to do wrong and worthy of disapproval, but at least it's related to a real harm someone has committed and implicates the ambiguities of justice.

Yes, it's directly comparable to what Gaz has stated. You are struggling to find ways to condemn him when he has expressed NO "desire" to kill one of his children and when he is predicting what his response would be to the hypothetical instead of knowing what he would do when faced with the reality of the hypothetical say, 10 years down the road.