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Ed Justice Barrett

angrysoba said:
Really? Is that a controversial term?

I think that even if we are talking about something as a preference, then:

a) it would not mean that the preference is not determined (or even strongly influenced) by biological factors

and

b) why should there even be a moral distinction between someone being born with a sexual orientation or a "freely chosen" (to the extent that any concept of "free choice" is even coherent) one?

Oh, I forget.... America and Jesus F Christ!
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HironO, right? My mistake.

It's a new development, but my impression is that saying "sexual preference" implies that someone can choose to adopt a different orientation whenever he feels like it, which in turn implies that he can be judged by the behavior he "chooses." Read the links.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/14/sexual-preference-coney-barrett-hirono/
 
Lennart Hyland said:
In case someone missed Sen. Whitehouse speech abouth how dark money is connected to the courts and this nomination:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcMPTNmq2ns
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Is there a transcript? I'd be interested in the references and the verifiable claims. It's a lot easier to get those from a written transcript. I'm not so interested that I'm going to stare at a half-hour video clip waiting for keywords to drop.
 
theprestige said:
Is there a transcript? I'd be interested in the references and the verifiable claims. It's a lot easier to get those from a written transcript. I'm not so interested that I'm going to stare at a half-hour video clip waiting for keywords to drop.
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I watched it, and I really recommend it. It's not just some keywords!
 
carlosy said:
I watched it, and I really recommend it. It's not just some keywords!
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Yeah, but all I'm really interested in is the keywords. "Study X shows that... Rate Y has increased n times in m years, according to research published by DepartmentZ... "

Etc. I don't really care about the speech. I do care a little bit about whatever facts the speech contains.
 
Bob001 said:
That's extremely unlikely.
https://time.com/3975630/pope-francis-lgbt-issues/
https://people.com/human-interest/p...s-they-are-describes-children-autism-flowers/
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https://readersupportednews.org/new...kes-anti-gay-marriage-comments-in-philippines

Bergoglio is a PR man, and he will say what his audience wants him to hear. But he is still at heart the junta's best friend in the church and still the man as cardinal in Buenos Aires viciously opposed to gay rights.

Do not be fooled by what his lying mouth says, look at his actions. And like his actions with respect to spiriting paedophile priests from justice, his actions on LGBT+ rights betray his lying mouth.
 
Bob001 said:
HironO, right? My mistake.

It's a new development, but my impression is that saying "sexual preference" implies that someone can choose to adopt a different orientation whenever he feels like it, which in turn implies that he can be judged by the behavior he "chooses." Read the links.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/14/sexual-preference-coney-barrett-hirono/
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Sexual orientations are things like homosexual, asexual, heterosexual, etc.

Sexual preferences are things like, 'handcuffs but no rope', or 'I like big butts'.

When people say they 'respect/won't discriminate based on people's sexual preferences' it either means they still think orientation is a choice and could be legislated around, but what it SOUNDS like is that they won't judge people for being a passive bottom or lazy top.

Which, I mean, they are more forgiving than I am if the latter, but it pretty much never is.

EDIT: It isn't really new. It's been that way even in writing guides for more than twenty years.
 
Bob001 said:
HironO, right? My mistake.

It's a new development, but my impression is that saying "sexual preference" implies that someone can choose to adopt a different orientation whenever he feels like it, which in turn implies that he can be judged by the behavior he "chooses." Read the links.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/14/sexual-preference-coney-barrett-hirono/
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tyr_13 said:
Sexual orientations are things like homosexual, asexual, heterosexual, etc.

Sexual preferences are things like, 'handcuffs but no rope', or 'I like big butts'.

When people say they 'respect/won't discriminate based on people's sexual preferences' it either means they still think orientation is a choice and could be legislated around, but what it SOUNDS like is that they won't judge people for being a passive bottom or lazy top.

Which, I mean, they are more forgiving than I am if the latter, but it pretty much never is.

EDIT: It isn't really new. It's been that way even in writing guides for more than twenty years.
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Okay, fair enough. Also, to be fair to her, if we must, she did actually apologize for using the term, FWIW.

dudalb said:
Barett would make a great judge in the Republic of GIlead.
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She is dressed like a handmaid after all.
 
tyr_13 said:
Sexual orientations are things like homosexual, asexual, heterosexual, etc.

Sexual preferences are things like, 'handcuffs but no rope', or 'I like big butts'.

When people say they 'respect/won't discriminate based on people's sexual preferences' it either means they still think orientation is a choice and could be legislated around, but what it SOUNDS like is that they won't judge people for being a passive bottom or lazy top.

Which, I mean, they are more forgiving than I am if the latter, but it pretty much never is.

EDIT: It isn't really new. It's been that way even in writing guides for more than twenty years.
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Both things you describe are aspects of brain chemistry, completely unchangeable except for a change in that chemistry.
 
Bob001 said:
Sen. Hirona is challenging Barrett on her use of the term "sexual preference," as if it's casual choice, rather than biological "sexual orientation," and sees it as worrisome for gay marriage and other LGBTQ rights.
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No doubt people are expressing the same concern about Joe Biden, who used the term "sexual preference" a few months ago.

During a roundtable discussion in May, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate promised to "rebuild the backbone of this country, the middle class, but this time bring everybody along regardless of color, sexual preference, their backgrounds."
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Imagine if Barrett were to utter something like this...

"I realize that the majority of Americans feel a new SCOTUS appointment should await the next Presidential term. And it's apparent that to continue this process of confirmation now would most likely only further inflame passions and entrench partisanship. For these reasons I must decline to accept a nomination to the Supreme Court at this time. I would be happy to resume the process after the commencement of the next Presidential term."

I think this would be the honorable course. Courts of law must never be political, for the entwining of the two debauches the law. A justice who appreciates this and acts accordingly should never permit himself to be compromised so.

The eager applicant who forges ahead in this kind of politicization of the process of nomination and confirmation, where the results are *known* to be essentially strictly along party lines, participates in a corrupted system. The more strenuous the desire to be installed, the more suspect the motives. Power, or Service?

This is reinforced when convenient 'oversight' in disclosure of past activities and opinions comes to light. A justice who is dishonest about potentially compromising or 3embarrassing aspects of his life, in order to better secure the position sought, must be held to the most stringent standards and face disqualification at a low threshold.

For positions of great power, it should almost be axiomatic that those who most strongly desire such ought to be deemed ineligible out of hand. Power tends to attract the power hungry. I feel that a lottery drawing from a large pool of candidates selected by a 3rd party committee applying established qualifications would be more likely to result in a more widely acceptable and accepted office holder. (Naturally, the new danger would be the corruption of the selection committee. ;)

As Beau of the Fifth Column always closes, "It's just a thought."
 
theprestige said:
The more I think about it, the more I doubt anyone ever actually thought sexual preference was a voluntary thing.
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Then you'd be wrong. The belief that homosexuality is a voluntary choice is a common belief among people in anti-gay groups and communities. That's why they believe in and support gay conversion programs, and why they oppose having gays be one of the groups covered by anti-discrimination laws and policies. A common refrain among people in such groups is that being Black is a way some people are born, something that can't be changed, so it's fair to have anti-discrimination laws that prevent discrimination against Blacks, but being gay is a choice and something people can change if they choose to so it's wrong to include gays in anti-discrimination laws.

Now you can say that those people say such things but don't really believe it if you want, but I'm not aware of any evidence that they're lying about believing that. There are parents who forced gay children to undergo gay conversion therapy -- which has been an unpleasant and emotionally harmful program for many of the people who have been forced to undergo it -- because the parents apparently held a genuine belief their children could be helped to renounce homosexuality and choose to be heterosexual by undergoing such treatment.

If those parents really did not believe homosexuality was voluntary and could be changed, as you are asserting when you say "I doubt anyone ever actually thought sexual preference was a voluntary thing", then those parents were deliberately inflicting pain and harm on their children. Do you believe that?

That would be a criminal offense for them to force their children to undergo such treatment if they knew it could not help and knew that it would inflict pain and suffering. So do you believe that parents who put their children in gay conversion programs should be prosecuted for that crime? I don't recall you ever having expressed that opinion, and it doesn't sound like an opinion I'd expect you to hold.

I don't believe those parents were deliberately torturing their children. I think they honestly believed they were helping their children, based on the opinion they had heard repeatedly from speakers in the anti-gay movement that homosexuality is a choice. They honestly believe being gay is simply a choice, a lifestyle, which is why many people in anti-gay groups resist using the term "sexual orientation" and continue to use the phrase "sexual preference" instead.

I think this controversy is entirely artificial.
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Then I think you're wrong again. There are many people who have been speaking out about this issue over the past decade, and they appear to me to be sincere. And since this issue about homosexuality being a sexual orientation rather than a sexual preference is something which arose long before Amy Coney Barrett became a supreme court nominee, the current controversy is not simply something people created in order to oppose her confirmation -- it's about an important underlying issue, the use of the phrase "sexual preference" by people who oppose gay rights as part of their effort to keep gay women and men from being covered by anti-discrimination laws.

There have been a number of good articles written about this over the past decade or so. Here's a link for you to one of these, a Slate article by Jesse Bering from 2013:


Stop Saying “Sexual Preference”
You may mean well, but it makes you sound ignorant.​

There are some phrases that should just be done away with, but over time they are used and heard so routinely that we develop a sort of soft spot for them and can’t bear the thought of chopping off their heads. The term “sexual preference”—at least when it’s used interchangeably with “sexual orientation”—is one of these seemingly harmless phrases whose cultural execution, I’d say in this month of pride, is long overdue.

This is more than a matter of pedantics, and it’s definitely not one of political correctness. You’re more than entitled to continue using “sexual preference” right alongside “the gay lifestyle” or “avowed homosexual” or whatever term you’d like to broadcast just how dense you really are. Just know that it’s simply flat-out incorrect to refer to a person’s sexual orientation as a “preference.” More than that, it’s dangerous.

Having said that, sexual preference is unlike other terms in this particular social arena in that most people use it without any bad intentions. Naiveté is their only offense, and that’s far easier to fix than willful ignorance...
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That last bit I quoted is especially relevant to the current controversy, so I'd like to talk about that a little. But since this comment is probably already a bit long for some people, I'll do that in a separate comment.
 
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Parents wanted to believe it was a choice because it gave them hope that their children could change and become 'normal'. To believe otherwise meant they either had to accept their homosexuality or condemn them/ exclude them from their lives according to their religious teachings.
 
Nova Land said:
Then you'd be wrong. The belief that homosexuality is a voluntary choice is a common belief among people in anti-gay groups and communities. That's why they believe in and support gay conversion programs, and why they oppose having gays be one of the groups covered by anti-discrimination laws and policies. A common refrain among people in such groups is that being Black is a way some people are born, something that can't be changed, so it's fair to have anti-discrimination laws that prevent discrimination against Blacks, but being gay is a choice and something people can change if they choose to so it's wrong to include gays in anti-discrimination laws.

Now you can say that those people say such things but don't really believe it if you want, but I'm not aware of any evidence that they're lying about believing that. There are parents who forced gay children to undergo gay conversion therapy -- which has been an unpleasant and emotionally harmful program for many of the people who have been forced to undergo it -- because the parents apparently held a genuine belief their children could be helped to renounce homosexuality and choose to be heterosexual by undergoing such treatment.

If those parents really did not believe homosexuality was voluntary and could be changed, as you are asserting when you say "I doubt anyone ever actually thought sexual preference was a voluntary thing", then those parents were deliberately inflicting pain and harm on their children. Do you believe that?

That would be a criminal offense for them to force their children to undergo such treatment if they knew it could not help and knew that it would inflict pain and suffering. So do you believe that parents who put their children in gay conversion programs should be prosecuted for that crime? I don't recall you ever having expressed that opinion, and it doesn't sound like an opinion I'd expect you to hold.

I don't believe those parents were deliberately torturing their children. I think they honestly believed they were helping their children, based on the opinion they had heard repeatedly from speakers in the anti-gay movement that homosexuality is a choice. They honestly believe being gay is simply a choice, a lifestyle, which is why many people in anti-gay groups resist using the term "sexual orientation" and continue to use the phrase "sexual preference" instead.




Then I think you're wrong again. There are many people who have been speaking out about this issue over the past decade, and they appear to me to be sincere. And since this issue about homosexuality being a sexual orientation rather than a sexual preference is something which arose long before Amy Coney Barrett became a supreme court nominee, the current controversy is not simply something people created in order to oppose her confirmation -- it's about an important underlying issue, the use of the phrase "sexual preference" by people who oppose gay rights as part of their effort to keep gay women and men from being covered by anti-discrimination laws.

There have been a number of good articles written about this over the past decade or so. Here's a link for you to one of these, a Slate article by Jesse Bering from 2013:




That last bit I quoted is especially relevant to the current controversy, so I'd like to talk about that a little. But since this comment is probably already a bit long for some people, I'll do that in a separate comment.
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I'm not clear on what makes sexual orientation different from any other preference.

We dont have free will in preferences.
 
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