Pride parade funded - Conservatives in a tizzy - Ablonczy demoted

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by Azure

Should we have parades for fat people?

Absolutely! But no floats! Make 'em walk and you'll help lower the numbers for the following year.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Zarathustra

Yep. Being gay and being fat are pretty much the same thing.

I don't know why these homosexuals haven't figured out that once they start working out and watching their diet they will become straight.

Thats not my point.

All I'm trying to say is that if the only reason for a gay pride parade is to keep people from killing themselves because they can't deal with the idea of being gay....well, maybe there is a different problem at hand.

Would we like white pride parades? Black pride parades?

[HOZ]

I think the main problem with this funding is thus:

Does the Gay Pride Parade in Toronto bring in big tourist dollars?

If yes, like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, then it should be funded as it provides money for the local economy.

If no....then the funding should not have been given.

[HotHotHeat]

They should give equal money to anti-gay establishments


My first and last time using green text.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

The way I see it, most of you on this site are younger. Naturally youth has a liberal mindset. Over time however you will find yourselves more and more conservative as the NEXT generation takes what you have done and takes it many steps further into areas you don't or won't associate with...

Conservatives are more status quo. That is a given, but they can't stop the horses from moving in whatever direction they chose to go. Conservatives are but the "reigns" to keep them at a moderate pace and not a free for all. When many of you age, you will realize this.

Interesting perspective but I don't think I can agree. Many of the people my age (approaching half a century) that I know actually have become more tolerant and more liberal as they grew older.

I put it down to having gained more life experience, especially the experience to understand that the issues that trouble the world aren't (no pun intended) black & white. There are many, many shades of gray and IMO, life experience is required for a person to understand those subtle differences.

Many "young people" think they know it all at 16 or 18 or 21. I did too. But again, life experience showed me how little I knew.

[photon]

Interesting, I want to agree with Shawnski and say youth are in general more liberal, but I agree with longsuffering in that I am the most liberal I have ever been as I whiz through my 30's. Youth definitely see things as more black and white, and when I was younger I was fervently conservative.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by photon

Interesting, I want to agree with Shawnski and say youth are in general more liberal, but I agree with longsuffering in that I am the most liberal I have ever been as I whiz through my 30's. Youth definitely see things as more black and white, and when I was younger I was fervently conservative.

In today's ideological climate, I think we really need to start questioning political labels as they are thrown around. Philosophically speaking, we live in a liberal paradigm. We all believe in the individual, egalitarianism etc... to some extent.

Conservatism, depending on where you start, is more concerned with pragmatic empiricism based on the individual's relationship to their culture and community.

Does acceptance of homosexuality require political liberation? I don't think so. The early Christian Church was relatively tolerant of homosexuals. In fact, the homosexuality practiced between monks was often seen as a poorly kept secret. Likewise, the Greeks were entirely tolerant of homosexuals, even though they were a relatively conservative society.

Thus, I tend to distrust people's reasoning when they state that a more liberal view is necessary to "equalizing" homosexuality. Likewise, I find it equally annoying when conservatives and others assume that intolerance of homosexuals is a necessary part of the worldview.

All in all, we should be concerned about nihilism within our culture. Does homosexuality itself represent a degradation of values? No, that'd be very stupid. As much as some try to explain it away, there have always been gay people. However, I tend to mistrust people who state that we should accept all lifestyles as being equal and that includes subsets that transcend the values of homosexual and heterosexual.

[fatso]

I don't know that I believe the theory that young people are by nature more liberal and that they will turn conservative over time. At the least, I think that theory is patronizing and really just a fancy way of saying "youth don't know better". I've become more left-wing as I've grown older and I can think of a lot of other people I know who have as well.

Of course, many people do become more right-wing or conservative as they grow older. But I don't think change in any direction is a function of age. Rather, I think it has to do with life experience and encountering different viewpoints. Not saying change in either direction is wrong or right, just that it's context/experience specific and not age specific.

[photon]

Originally Posted by peter12

In today's ideological climate, I think we really need to start questioning political labels as they are thrown around. Philosophically speaking, we live in a liberal paradigm. We all believe in the individual, egalitarianism etc... to some extent.

Oh I agree, and I was speaking more generally not specifically about homosexuality.. I think even at my most conservative, I never really accepted my church's stance that it was an abomination.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by photon

Interesting, I want to agree with Shawnski and say youth are in general more liberal, but I agree with longsuffering in that I am the most liberal I have ever been as I whiz through my 30's. Youth definitely see things as more black and white, and when I was younger I was fervently conservative.

Depends on the type of crowd you hung out with when you were young.

If you hung around the liberal arts poetry reading philosophy type crowd you probably started out a flaming lib. However as you got older and started paying exhorbitant taxes and started paying your own way in the world, you probably got a little more conservative.

However if you hung around the hard drinking, give em hell, sports nuts crowd, you probably were a right wing conservative. However as you matured and got a little more mellow your opinions have probably mellowed too and you became a little more liberal.

[photon]

What if you got beat up by the sports nuts crowd and looked down upon by the philosophy crowd?

[peter12]

Originally Posted by photon

What if you got beat up by the sports nuts crowd and looked down upon by the philosophy crowd?

You got into computers.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Rerun

Depends on the type of crowd you hung out with when you were young.

If you hung around the liberal arts poetry reading philosophy type crowd you probably started out a flaming lib. However as you got older and started paying exhorbitant taxes and started paying your own way in the world, you probably got a little more conservative.

However if you hung around the hard drinking, give em hell, sports nuts crowd, you probably were a right wing conservative. However as you matured and got a little more mellow your opinions have probably mellowed too and you became a little more liberal.

Why does a liberal arts education always get stereotyped as terrorist training school for flaming liberals?

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by peter12

Why does a liberal arts education always get stereotyped as terrorist training school for flaming liberals?

Ummmm.... because you usually are ...?

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by photon

What if you got beat up by the sports nuts crowd and looked down upon by the philosophy crowd?

Then you probably just like the other 90% of those in school... which meant you probably swung both ways...

[photon]

Originally Posted by Rerun

Then you probably just like the other 90% of those in school... which meant you probably swung both ways...

Heh, some people call it being sociable or outgoing or being a peace maker, for others it's simply a coping mechanism to be able to fit in with different crowds to hide from the other crowds.