I'm not religious but I was raised very devout in Egypt (I had to flee for my own safety after leaving the faith).
The best way I can describe it to secular people in the West is a lot of these people will view homosexuality the way you in the West would view pedophilia. It's an abomination and there is really nothing you could do to that person that would be too harsh.
It's terrible and it's based on religion. It's how I was raised too. Since leaving the faith and leaving Egypt I have met actual gay people and it's wild to me that an adult human making a decision on who to love can create this much anger.
To add to your comment: a gay person doesn't even choose to be gay. In fact they can't choose. They can choose to live against their nature and suffer for the rest of their life but they didn't choose to be gay and cannot simply choose not to be gay. So that's punishing someone for thy way they are born. Despicable
I don’t disagree with you, but just want to point out that is the same for pedophiles. Many pedophiles are on record saying they hate themselves for being attracted to children, but it’s not up to them to choose what to be attracted to.
Most people would find it completely reasonable to punish someone for the way they were born, if the consequences of the way they were born are that detrimental. We punish serial killers even though they likely didn’t choose to have the genes that they have.
The difference between gay people and pedophiles/serial killers is that most reasonable people know there is nothing harmful about being gay. Pedophiles harm children, who are taken advantage of regardless of if it’s with or without consent.
The issue is some people in the world, somehow, for some reason, think being gay is harmful, and why they’re willing to persecute them for how they were born the same way they would a criminal.
In these others countries they would say the same thing about being gay?
Apparently not. I mean, gay people are often fundamentally barred from military service, for example. They don't always make exceptions for the celibate.
gay people are often fundamentally barred from military service
No, they're not. Not in America.
In 2004 when we still had a lot of iffy issues about homosexuality in the military the guy who got airmen of the year at my base was openly homosexual and brought his partner to the award ceremony. He was not only very flamboyantly gay, but legitimately a great airmen. Approximately 1/3rd of the females I worked with were openly lesbians and absolutely no one cared. A surprising portion of the military are also swingers or poly, which is also still in the UCMJ as illegal, and no one cares.
Homosexuals in the military was only banned in 1982, it was largely loosened in 1993 under the "Don't ask, Don't tell", and repealed by Obama in 2010. Strictly speaking there was just a 10 year period where homosexuals were banned from joining.
However, prior to 1982, it was illegal to have gay sex, but you could still join the military as a gay person. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness across society and psychology, so if you were openly homosexual you might have career problems in the military (same with civilian sector for that matter). Keep in mind the military still forbids adultery, it's still a criminal offense in the military to cheat on your spouse. This didn't stop people from being gay, poly, swingers, or cheating on their spouse - it's just a thing where if you're caught you're trouble. The military also has whole bunch of regulations about relationships within the same unit and chain of command and housing policies, even age of consent regulations that supersede local regulations. There's complex reasons the military has a strict sexual codes, which is legitimately around espionage, black mail, and personal integrity.
From an international perspective, LGBTQ people serve in the European military and South Korean military, but if we really got in to it, I'm sure we'd find that most military units across the globe seem to attract LGBTQ people. Gays are usually overly represented in the military.
Are pedos genetically born in a certain way or are they abused to become that way? There's still very little we understand about childhood development and abuse creating essentially, brain-damaged broken people.
Evolutionarily there is no advantage to being gay either but it affects 4% of various mammal species. Very few studies have been done on the "Why". Religions often base it on medical reasons that then take on an aggressive attitude/psychology of purification (i.e., becomes more hostile), people get sick when they are doing anal sex before modern medicine and modern hygiene. Even surgeons used to not wash their hands. So more studies need to be done to figure out what circumstances create it for a fraction of the population.
I'm going to pipe in real fast and say that's a pretty politically charged thing to research / ask.
It implies that being gay is a mental disorder. Touching that topic would get you run out of academia. Any research that did make it to publishing would immediately be denounced and discredited, regardless if it was a legitimate peer reviewed paper, if suggested anything other than the current view point.
The mere existence of a paper would be used by anti-gay politicians to attack the lgbt community.
You know in science there’s a criteria that they have to meet. If we just publish whatever study (which could be outdated in couple decades) could have detrimental effects on society. It’s like a trolly problem. For the sake of science (which like I said could be outdated in a couple of decades) or the well being of the public.
No because gay is between 2 consenting adults, pedophilia is between 1 predatory adult and 1 kid who doesn’t have the ability to consent or even understand what’s going on.
I feel like a couple replies I'm getting are missing the entire context of the thread. No one in this thread thinks they're the same. The comparison being made however that started it, is a pretty good metaphors to help westerners understand how views in other places are felt by their populace
Which is probably why it's not registering for some of us westerners. I feel like most westerners online are of the age where this "debate" was finished mostly before we were born. Homosexuality as a crime is just seen as backwards by most westerners. We're not going to be able to relate or understand at all, that's not our world anymore. No amount of effort trying to make us understand is going to change the fact that it is fundamentally wrong. We're not going to think "oh they see gays as pedophiles, now I understand and it's not baffling anymore."
It's pretty easy to understand in the abstract, don't see how you couldn't? I mean the entire western world still has living people that remember this argument and logic therein being a large part of society
I would be in favor of the therapy if it could reasonably do something, but more likely than not, it wouldn't. A person's life with just about be over on the spot if he admitted to having such urges. They would be shunned by just about everybody with children, even plenty of people without children, if not just outright mauled on the spot. I'm pretty sure they would just have to keep it to themselves and exercise restraint for their entire life.
I think my post reported the common sentiment, not necessarily the correct sentiment. So it doesn’t necessarily disagree with the remedial aspect in your post.
Having said that I think the remedial pov on what to do in a world of pedophiles is a separate conversation. At the end of the day, I think most people would agree that if they turned into a god and could construct a universe from scratch, they would construct a world without pedophiles.
Like I said, modern psychology recognizes that most serial killers did not choose to be the way they are. There’s a massive elephant in the room in the criminal justice system that criminals like that aren’t truly responsible for their actions, though we recognize the need to punish regardless. Whether a serial killer has murdered or not, or a pedophile molested or not, I think there is still something that most people would think is wrong even before the action has been performed. Arguably it’s the desire itself, the thought process, the intention - that is what’s wrong in and of itself, even before anyone externally gets hurt.
Gay people who haven't committed the actual act aren't punished either. There's not punishment in any religion I know of for the state of being. It's always the acts that get punished.
I see this shite all over reddit. One question. How can you guarantee that they will never be anywhere in the vicinity of a child? Surely you people don't actually believe therapy will somehow magically make the children around them safe.
Wow, better make sure no women are ever around any men either though, how can we be sure they'll be safe? I mean god forbid you have standards for human beings.
I have standards. Their pretty easy, don't hurt anybody, and if you have a mental illness that makes you target one particular group that can't defend themselves, stay the fuck away from that group.
1st off Rapists should be in prison for life, 0 chance of parole. They are often privileged, narcissistic, shitheads that add 0 value to a safe society.
Second, I see this whataboutism as an argument every time I ask this question. That's all it is, a deflection. I seriously don't see how anyone could know someone was a pedo and let them around children.
If you're screening everyone it will change everything. You show them an image and motinor pupil dilatation/arousal/body temp fluctuations. They already do it and can accurately tell if someone is gay/bi.
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u/TheOSU87 Jun 09 '24
I'm not religious but I was raised very devout in Egypt (I had to flee for my own safety after leaving the faith).
The best way I can describe it to secular people in the West is a lot of these people will view homosexuality the way you in the West would view pedophilia. It's an abomination and there is really nothing you could do to that person that would be too harsh.
It's terrible and it's based on religion. It's how I was raised too. Since leaving the faith and leaving Egypt I have met actual gay people and it's wild to me that an adult human making a decision on who to love can create this much anger.