Tom's Views

Dear [Mentat],

People expect to see folks of like attractiveness together.  They talk and act in ways that encourage that, and   without pity   for the less attractive person, society discourages the stunningly beautiful, fully  sighted woman   from dating that ugly loser guy. When one partner is very much more attractive than the other, the public shuns and sabotages such unions. They (intentionally or not) behave to undermine associations between differently attractive people, employing everything from off-the-cuff, innocent but diminishing comments, all the way up to lying and backstabbing. Through these tactics and others, society in large degree, dictates the   pecking order, without pity for those it casts out.

You remember when I was seeing  [Emmy], that young woman twenty years of age, and how that guy Bob in Philly went behind my back, trying to convince her not to date me? He obviously was trying to cut in front of me in the pecking order as he saw it, and he felt that he had every right to do so.  Plus, it wasn’t just him.  So too did a few women try to talk her out of me, when I visited Buffalo in 2004. Their typical comments to her, without pity or compassion for my feelings, and without ever having met me, much less knowing me, were:

• You’re too good for him.
• You need to find yourself a   hot   guy.
• You don’t want to be seen with an ugly guy like Tom, do you?
• You could do so much better, and you deserve to.
• He’s so lucky to have someone like you because ladies of your caliber wouldn’t usually pay him any mind.
• Any old man would want a young chick like you, just like Tom does. So his love isn’t anything special.
• I bet all he wants is your body, since you’re so beautiful.  He’ll never really love you therefore.
• Why he’s so ugly that he couldn’t get one date in five years. But you. You could have a great lover every night if you weren’t wasting your life with him.
• You’re a popular girl. But he’s a nobody.
• What could he possibly have to offer you?
• You’re strange if you see anything in Tom.
• Tom’s a nice guy, yes, but you could have so much more fun if you picked a more attractive and manly fellow.

You get the idea. When someone manages to butt ahead in the pecking order line, others standing there do their best to pull him back to where they think he belongs; like crabs in a boiling pot of water that pull those back down who attempt to escape. Like them, it seems that cultural forces work hard to make sure we don’t get someone any more attractive than we ourselves are.  Indeed, society dictates the pecking order, and does so without much pity for those it muscles or shames out of desirable relationships.

Now back to our sighted woman and   blind man   discussed earlier   here.  Since the sighted woman is a 9.5 out of 10 in terms of attractiveness, then in light of the discussion above, she’ll produce more romantic gratification in any fellow (including the blind man) than the blind man will in her. I’m assuming here that any romantic advantage a perfect 10 has, occurs mostly at level three in Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. This may be fallacious, I know. But I need to do it for a moment to make my point.

Now, our highly attractive sighted woman is only about forty percent as likely to be gratified romantically by the blind man because he’s only about forty percent as attractive as she is (He’s a 4 and she’s a 10). So in this simple and admittedly stilted scenario, the blind man will benefit much more in a romantic sense from the attractive sighted woman, than she will benefit from him.  This assumes that society doesn’t meaningfully thwart their relationship. Also, since the pretty sighted woman has more latitude in selecting more attractive men, I’d expect that if she’s not as gratified as she could be, and at the same time, has the power to become more gratified, then why would she stay with the blind man?

Maybe she pities him. Maybe the needs that   she   is looking to gratify through her involvement with the blind man aren’t as much level three as they are level five. Specifically, she wants to gratify her self-actualization,   growth needs   of showing compassion to a soul who yearns for it.  But the blind man on the other hand wants to gratify his  deficiency needs  of love. In short, she primarily wants to   give   in order to self-actualize herself, while he wants primarily to   get,   to quench his thirst for love. His need to receive love is thus, more urgent than her need to give it.  Thus, we have the asymmetry I spoke of earlier in my  Power Imbalance: Blind Man Dating Sighted Woman   piece. Can this sort of symbiotic relationship work in a healthful way? Intuitively, it seems not, though this would bear more complete investigation later.

At any rate given all this, I doubt that asking women to form attractions based on the compassion a blind man might inspire, will work any better than other attraction strategies that require no compassion. Sighted women probably won’t be moved by the blind man’s pleas.  But even if they are, their family and friends will probably discourage them, just as   [Emmy's]   friends dissuaded her above, from going out with me.  They may pity love the blind man.  But only without pity will they truly love him in binding, romantic ways.

Even if the sighted women answering the call to pity are so moved to love the blind man, I’m not sure most men of conscience could really let go sexually, because he’d doubt if she’s really enjoying the sex too. If the blind man ever suspected that they weren’t, then I doubt he’d enjoy it either. Now the sighted women might get some thrill at level five from making love to the blind man, insofar as they would be performing a good deed; doing a great thing that few other women would be “big enough” to do. But I’d wonder as do you, if that would be truly enough for these women over time. I personally would just feel guilty and self-conscious getting off, if I thought that she wasn’t experiencing the same degree and type of carnal joy.

Even if a sighted woman is moved to love a blind man, she’ll probably end up dominating him and holding her superior attractiveness over his head without pity; implicitly if not blatantly. I wouldn’t want to be on the short end of that power imbalance or to feel the sighted woman pulling my heart along as I run in the dirty road behind her, gasping for air while eating the dust from her boots. It’s no fun doing your best, only to have some beautiful woman say that you’re not doing well enough, or that you should be doing something different.

E. G. Marshall, on the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, summed it up well, saying:  Should a man pick a woman more capable [attractive] than he, then he gets humiliated. If he picks someone less capable, then he gets boredom. Thus the real challenge is to pick someone truly equal to ourselves. I just hope that I’m capable of finding long-term satisfaction with a woman of equal attractiveness to my own.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Power Imbalance: Blind Man Dating Sighted Woman
• Asking For Help
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References

• Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs   definition on Wikipedia

Serious problems rooted in extreme   power imbalance   can occur in a love relationship when one lover needs very much more from the other than the other needs from the one.  This sort of disparity often happens when a blind man   dates a fully   sighted woman.  In the paragraphs below, I attempt to detail this power imbalance as I have observed it in my own dating experiences with sighted women as a vision-impaired male.  I have also observed other couples, and studied Abraham H. Maslow’s   hierarchy of needs, and much of my opinion stems from Maslow’s work. So, let’s get started.

Examination of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs reveals a gaping issue. In a phrase:   power imbalance.  Take two lovers. One is a blind man, and the other is a fully sighted woman.  This blind man has fallen in love with this sighted woman. Given my experiences, it’s safe to say that the blind man is likely less gratified at level three in the hierarchy of needs (the love needs) than the sighted woman is.  I’ll make my reasons for beliving this apparent below. After all, if the blind man finds the sighted woman attractive, then the sighted woman will also be thought attractive by most of the males within her reach; sighted and blind alike. So, she’ll be in high demand.  The tastes of blind men closely resemble those of sighted men.

Let’s say that this particular fully sighted woman rates at 9.5 out of 10 in terms of overall attractiveness. In short: She’s quite beautiful.  She’s tall, thin, poised, sophisticated, educated, well-read, drug-free, gentle, gracious, vice-free, drama-free, independent, and so on. The world is at her feet, as people roll out the red carpet for her everywhere she goes, and in every endeavor she attempts. Even if she’s not an expert, they welcome her input just to get close enough to her to ask her out. Her inexperience or ineptitude in the workplace is rarely held against her because she’s so stunning. Thus, she’s known few pains of rejection, disappointment, and frustration.  Thus, tipping a power imbalance into her favor takes way less effort from her than someone less poised.

But our blind man has a vastly different life experience.  He impresses most as   notably unattractive   primarily because he’s impaired.  His handicap also produces some secondary negative personality traits within him, such as excessive loneliness and neediness.  He appears  sheltered, and significantly   less able   than other nearby fully sighted men. He attempts to dress fashionably.  But since he does not see, he typically misses some critical fine details of dressing well (keeping his tie straight, assuring that the bottoms of his pants are aligned with each other, properly positioning his tie clip, and so on).  Nor does he appear to possess the grace and agility that many sighted men exhibit. He may drink frequently to escape his frustrated love, esteem, and self-actualization needs, and he suffers moderate depression.  All of this further degrades his attractiveness and thus, overcoming a power imbalance for him is markedly more difficult.

He’s tried and failed numerous times to make a good go of life.  As a result, he’s accrued many bills from his failed endeavors; debts that he cannot repay. His life is chalk full of drama therefore, and he knows all too well the cumulative hurts of repeated rejections. The rejections have lowered his self esteem and made him less confident.  He is unsure of himself, and frequently doubts his abilities.  This additional weight of past rejections and debt therefore, further hinders his ability to rise to equal footing in a power imbalance involving himself.

Sighted people avoid the blind man, unlike our sighted woman, and they frequently dismiss what he says, no matter his level of expertise. Even with great experience, he enjoys markedly less influence at work as compared to his fully sighted colleagues. No matter how well researched and thought out his ideas, people tend to regard his advice as they would the wind. So, let’s rate him at 4 out of 10 in the pecking order.  This means that he’s in significantly less demand, and therefore less romantically attractive to the typical female than the fully sighted woman is to the average male.  This goes far to sustain  chronic power imbalances in his relationships with which he must cope.

Now assume that the fully sighted woman’s tastes in men are typical.  Let’s also further quantify the pecking order scale and say that folks who are rated 1 are one tenth as likely to inspire love-at-first-sight as those rated at a   perfect 10.  The 1’s rarely (if ever) attract lovers, while the perfect 10’s practically always woo whoever they encounter. Thus, when the 1 and the 10 meet the same stranger, the 10 is ten times more likely to spark romantic interest in the stranger than is the 1.  It follows then that the 1′s mostly reside on the low side of a power imbalance in romantic love.

For related discussion, see my    Perfect 10′s Win More Power Struggles   piece about how power imbalance tilted toward the prettier people can have disappointing consequences for those not so gifted with prettiness.

So given the great potential for lop-sided power imbalances in blind + sighted relationships, the question is: Can a blind man realistically hope to create true dating partnerships, with sighted women, despite the control deficits his handicap produces?  Can the handicapped attain equal footing in power struggles that the sighted (specifically the very attractive sighted) women wield?

I hope so.  But I’m not sure, and often, I doubt it.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Blind Hardships
• Darwinism: Bad News For Blind Lovers
• Help From Sighted Lovers
• How Blind Men Find Women Attractive
• More Help For The Blind, Please!
• Perfect 10′s Win More Power Struggles

References

• Love-At-First-Sight   definition on Wikipedia
• Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs   definition on Wikipedia

The recent story about a   child abuse   victim   (discussed   here)   who was forced by his mother to drink   hot sauce   has once again brought the debate   on corporal punishment   to the forefront here in America.  So, as having experienced a fair amount of this sort of discipline myself, my views on corporal punishment are not good.  I oppose all forms of   corporal punishment.  My reasons follow.

Supporters of  corporal punishment  claim that moderately violent forms of discipline are okay as long as no physical harm comes to the child.  Perhaps.  But a bowling ball is harmless as well, until you conk someone on the head with it! So you can’t justify conking someone just because bowling balls don’t normally hurt people.

Corporal punishment is child abuse.  But it’s not the hot sauce or the slap itself that makes it child abuse. Rather, the domineering and bullish way that this Jessica Beagley (the one who disciplines her son with hot sauce) essentially rams the stuff into his mouth.  This is just like a rapist, imposing his will, via his larger and stronger physique, on his victim. Now if you think about it, is this forced hot saucing really any different than the objectionable forcing that happens in rape? I think not, particularly given this child’s screams of distress while this mother bully hovered over him.  My view on corporal punishment is that can easily become just as domineering and intimidating as rape.  Even when no physical injury occurs, the mental damage associated with corporal punishment indeed qualifies corporal punishment as one of the most egregious forms of child abuse. 

One woman noted that hot sauce can indeed damage a child’s mouth, like mint, which can be too strong for tender gums. So hot saucing could indeed cause physical harm.  I thanked her thus, for this additional ammunition, which furthers the argument that Jessica Beagley’s hot saucing is even more ridiculous. As the hot saucing case illustrates, corporal punishment can easily get out of hand; especially when the motive of the parent becomes the venting of anger, rather than just teaching the kid right from wrong. 

When will people like Beagley finally understand that negative reinforcements like soaping, hot saucing, and hitting just do not work very well? These blatant forms of corporal punishment are ineffective because they teach children the wrong lessons, fail to teach the intended lessons, needlessly traumatize children, and endanger them.  Corporal punishment can socially hobble children for life by teaching them to overly fear authority figures, or to needlessly fight against authority. Corporal punishment often creates more rebellion than submission.  Boy, no wonder kids that suffer this wind up fighting their parents once they gain enough size and strength to do so.

Tom Hesley

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I feel obligated to answer this question of whether one can safely   wash Toms in the washing machine.  People keep finding my   My New Maytag Bravos Washing Machine   piece when searching for this answer.  That’s probably because my name is Tom (but I do not make Toms shoes), and that posts talks about a washing machine.  But I do not discuss washing Toms shoes in that post.  So to keep these folks from being disappointed and having to visit somewhere else to find out, I will answer this here.

While I’ve never owned a pair of Toms myself, I’m told by friends who do, that you indeed can safely wash Toms shoes in washing machine with caution.  Use standard temperature hot water, and your favorite soap on the gentlest cycle your machine is capable of.  Washing Toms in the washing machine can be a safe and effective way to clean them.  But Tumble drying is not recommended.  Air dry your Toms instead, to prevent the shoes from getting beat up and softening, and possibly deforming due to the heat.

Tom Hesley

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In my love quest, I’ve noticed again and again that   beauty fades   from virtually all women in a distressingly short time.  Sometimes, those intense feelings of enchantment disappear after just one date, while at others, beauty fades more slowly, but still, too quickly nonetheless.  I often meet initially very gorgeous ladies.  Then within seconds, they become just another girl in the average lot.  Indeed, in my experience, beauty’s awe-ful quality nearly always vanishes within a few months of meeting a new lover. Sadly and eventually, they assume a look of plainness that is totally devoid of romantic or sexual significance; as if I was looking at my sisters or mother. Why does beauty fade like this so often?

Most of us would love finding   lasting beauty   in our lovers.  But to do that, it’s important to first understand what makes beauty fade.  Then, we might more accurately identify and avoid those dead-end relationships, where we lose the attraction early on, but find it hard to get away due to the emotional ties that grow up in spite of the withering magnetism.  It’s sad to love somebody without being   in love   with them, and by knowing some reasons why beauty fades, we can take steps to avoid that very unfulfilling situation.

So, here are some of the behaviors that I’ve found, can degrade my perception of beauty and romantic attraction in the women I’ve dated:

1. Over-Exposing.  Beauty fades at times because we overindulge in it over too short a time, like when one eats too much candy on Easter morning.  Eat that first peanut butter egg, and it tastes heavenly. Eat the second immediately afterward, and it still tastes quite good, but not quite as yummy.  Quickly follow that up with a third egg, and the delicious sensations further decrease.  Eat enough of these cups in rapid succession and eventually, what tasted wonderfulat first, will begin tasting sickening.  Likewise with a beautiful date.  Spend too much time with her, and her beauty will cease to be stunning.
2. Over-sharing.  Beauty fades too, because people say too much.  Indeed, there’s often a mad rush in a budding relationship to tell all about ourselves during the first date or two; good and bad.  But while being completely open is ethically admirable, revealing too much can hasten the discovery of a real deal breaker, that douses the romantic fires; often forever.
3. Over-makeup-ing.  Sometimes, beauty fades once the makeup, concealing clothing, and more-pleasant-than-usual behaviors drop away.  While putting the best foot forward may be helpful when job interviewing, exaggerating the positive while downplaying the negative can have devastating consequences in dating.  It can promote beauty fading.  If one acts richer, smarter, more educated, thinner, heavier, pristine, or prettier than she is naturally, then the truth will eventually come out (sooner if she quickly reveals too much), and foil any chances of lasting beauty she might otherwise have reaped.
4. Over-Drugging.  Drugs such as alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin among others, alter one’s perception, and can exaggerate or even creat  beauty in our perceptions of others that we would not experience without the drugs.

So in light of the above causes, one might try the following behaviors to prevent her beauty from fading from her lover’s eyes.

1. Don’t date the lover too often. As a general rule, to keep her beauty lasting, I try to go on a date   only when   I’m feeling romantically inclined to do so.
2. Be honest but not too revealing. Never lie.  But don’t reveal your “bad side” until you’ve laid a significant, positive foundation of you in your lover’s mind.  Indeed, lasting beauty depends on a certain amount of lasting ignorance.  So consider carefully that urge to tell all very early.
3. Be yourself.  That is: To encourage your lover to see lasting beauty in you, act in ways that are natural to you.  These natural behaviors you’ll be able to reproduce the most consistently, and they’ll be less likely to change over time.
4. Avoid psychoactive drugs. The mind functions most consistently when not under the influence of mind-altering drugs.  So if you do not wish to go to sleep with someone beautiful but wake up with someone ugly, then do not use these drugs.  Lasting beauty lingers best without them.

Tom Hesley

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There’s a popular rule that says essentially that whether you think you can or cannot, you’re right.

So if you always think you can, then you will always be able to. Right?

But if that’s true, then a person who always thinks he can would never be able to overestimate his abilities, because as long as he   thought   he could, then he  always   could.  Failure would then be impossible therefore.

That can’t be the case though. Why?  Because People overestimate their abilities often, as exemplified by the seventy-five percent of start-up business entrepreneurs that promptly fail. Then too, there are those who struggle all their lives at a job to achieve greatness, but only manage “average” status. People routinely think bigger than they can actually achieve because they’re taught rules like this  think you can, and you will   one.

So in short, simply   thinking you can   does not always mean that you   actually can. External factors along with the forces of destiny often foil an aspiration.  In fact, sometimes you’re indeed proven wrong if you think you can when in fact,   you can’t.  If you continue clinging to the notion that   you can  without realistically taking into account the gifts and liabilities that destiny, environment, and chance have granted you, then you’re way mor likely to waste your life on pursuits that yield no fruit.  One’s destiny may not be what he wishes it would or could be.  So do make every effort to manifest your destiny.  But realize that destiny is bitter-sweet.  It can lead you to success but at the same time, overwhelm you with problems.  So to intelligently manifest one’s destiny while reducing the amount of wheel-spinning in wasted pursuits, one must acknowledge the limits that his destiny has placed upon him.

But I suppose this thinking-you-can saying is inspiring, even if incorrect some of the time. So if it works for you, use it.  But realize that there’s much more to success than just thinking that you can.  Think you can, yes.  But in the process, be sure to consider your limits.  Many thought they could without doing this, and learned sadly after wasting much of their lives, that they   could not.

Tom Hesley

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The education system, by sheer omission, makes a negative statement about gays.  This is especially likely in private and parochial schools that teach that homosexuality is wrong   just because the Bible says it is.  A favorite of those who engage in   gay bullying   in the schoolyard is to ridicule gays for being gay; many homosexuals have suffered heinous acts of this nature.  They taunt them with jeers like, “God didn’t make you,” and “God would never want you.” 

Heretofore, schools at large have barely addressed the issue of gay bullying.  They offer as their defense that, bullying is just what kids do.  So they instruct, don’t over-react to it.  So yes, in these ways, our education system has become one of many instruments of oppression used against the gays becuse it either encourages gay bullying by teaching the belief that homosexuality is wrong, or it takes insufficient action to permanently stop the gay bullying when it happens. 

In fact, the school system pays lots of lip service to being against gay bullying.  Yet they’ve consistently failed to do enough to stop it.  Gay bullying is likely a prominent force in the life of many openly gay school students and is often a primary reason why bullies pick on someone; it’s easy to find a plethora of pieces detailing the abuse that said individuals suffer at the hands of bullies.  If the school permits, or turns the other cheek when bullies abuse gays (as some cases allege), then they share some of the blame for providing an environment that fosters hatred against gays; or at the very least, an environment where gays can be easily taunted and pushed aside with impunity. 

Further, schools must be held to very high account for this, because their students are quite impressionable.  High school is perhaps our last, best chance to teach the ways of benevolent living to people, while their minds are still highly pliable.  So we should not squander that chance by allowing disruptive bullies to rein as major role models for kids.  I believe that the education system at large has sorely failed to recognize the supremely important role they play in not only educating our children, but in keeping them safe.  It’s good now to see that policies within said schools are changing to better guard against gay bullying.  But there’s still a long way to go. Squelch the hatred in its early stages, and you avert far graver consequences later if you fail to stop it.  I believe that improvements in the education system could make a big difference in how much homophobia spreads.

Shall I list other ways?  I can if so desired.  But I trust that the examples given sufficiently show that significant exclusion of gays from the main stream happens in school environments, and that a consequential amount of hatred of homosexuals spawns in said places. 

Tom Hesley

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Apple   has deemed it appropriate to remove the   Exodus International   app from the Apple App Store.  See the    Exodus International App Removed From Apple  piece for more details.

I favor Apple’s decision, and justify this opinion that opposes Exodus International‘s position with the following discussion.

So how does one resolve these seemingly conflicting premises?

1. Homosexuality is a sin;
2. Love thy neighbor;
3. Love the Lord.

The problem arises when you teach (as does Exodus International) that   homosexuality is wrong,   because these  gay is wrong    lessons very often trigger people to over react when they encounter   a gay person. In many extreme cases, such teachings incite violence against the gay, who this teaching obviously disfavors.  However, at least Exodus International attempts to prevent this over reaction by addressing the   gay bullying   that targets LGBT community members frequently.  Still though, teaching that homosexuality is wrong can provide those predisposed to committing gay bullying violence for a cause, to feel justified in acting with distain and physical menace toward homosexuals.  After perusing their web site, I do not believe that Exodus International fully appreciates this grave ramification of their anti-gay publications, and the adverse effects their teachings might have on the problem of gay bullying around the world.  Apple on the other hand, seems to have realized this, and took the highly appropriate action of pulling the Exodus International app from their app store.

Besides, who’s to say that God himself didn’t make the homosexual gay? I don’t think anyone has ever heard God himself say that being gay is wrong.

The devout believers claim that God made everything else, right? So why would he not have created homosexuality?  This begs the question: Why would Exodus International highly regard   some   of God’s creations (the heterosexual) while devaluing some of His others (the homosexual)? Perhaps God put homosexuals here to truly test just how loving and compassionate his followers could be. Who knows? If that was what He did, then many folks are failing that compassion test, including in my opinion, Exodus International, even if they offer thier opposition to gay bullying to difuse some of the molevalance of their gay-is-wrong position.

Proponents of the belief that homosexuality is sexually disordered, often claim that homosexuality is just as devient and harmful to society as other behaviors such as incest, pedophilia, and rape.  However unlike homosexuality, these crimes always have victims because the perpetrator forces himself / herself on a much weaker person, imposing the will on them. These behaviors probably have genetic components but not excuses, since if left unchecked, they can victimize and wound many in long-lasting ways.  To those who would argue that homosexual bullying victims are victimized because of their homosexuality I’d say: The bullying is by no means an inherent result of homosexuality, but rather, an inherent result of unchecked   prejudice   within those who do the bullying.  The problem here rests squarely on the shoulders of the bully; not the homosexual.

Homosexuality however is victimless. When the person being gay is amongst practicing homosexuals, and he or she does not violate some one’s wishes, then there is no victim bullied, abused, dominated, or otherwise. Thus, homosexuality is not in the same class of behaviors as incest, pedophilia, and rape.  So it’s incorrect that Exodus International regards homosexuality as a faulty fluke of nature; not to the degree at any rate, that you’d view pedophilia or incest as harmful and in need of excising.

Further, there is a constant war in every one of us between who we actually are, and what we think we should be. When society denounces homosexuality, it intensifies this war within anyone with homosexual leanings.  The result is often mental illness, deep despair, dejection, rejection, and so on. Why do people think that they should be so different than who they actually are? Unfortunately, this tendency has made psychotherapists rich, and left most of society mentally ill to one degree or another.

Now, so long as the Christians act to promote their thinking in benevolent ways (by not excluding or otherwise eliminating the gay population), then, while the whole business still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, I could live with it. However I’m not gay either. So perhaps I’m not as sensitive to the gay position as I might otherwise be. I’m sure some gays would probably still object to the notion that homosexuality is wrong no matter how benevolently it’s expressed. But for me to object further, I’d have to have firsthand experience with the gay lifestyle; which I do not.  So I’ll stop objecting further for now.

Exodus International and others who think homosexuality is wrong on principle, can express their beliefs all they want, in appropriate venues. But I’m not sure that the iTunes App Store is such a place; particularly where children have easy access and where many customers found the presence of the Exodus International app highly offensive. Maybe if they put the app in the adult content section, I’d feel less inclined to resist it, but resist it I still would.

If Apple was a part of the US government, then I’d surely oppose their censorship of the Exodus International app. But since Apple is a private-sector business, the rules against censorship become way more lax. As such, Apple need not carry anything they wish to ban, and no reason for refusal is necessary either. So, Apple is within its rights to censor this app, and personally, I’m glad that they did.

Now, about that “moral imperative” that Christians have to rid the earth of homosexuality, I’ll look at this Exodus International organization a bit further and read more of just what they’re saying about homosexuality before passing a strong judgment on them. But I’ve witnessed the sorts of oppression that others like them (who justify their anti gay sentiments with religious doctrine) are capable of. Groups such as Exodus International scare me because they act like they know so much.  Yet they know not what they know not. This particular group appears to be no different. But I’ll give them a fair shake, but will bail if they make too many claims about the wrongness of homosexuality that they fail to prove.

I’ll admit that much about the origins and motivations of homosexuality is still not well-understood. But that gives no group license to invent ideologies and “moral imperatives” that disfavor a particular sect of the population (homosexuals in this case being disfavored by Exodus International). Such believers shouldn’t act like they know something definitively when in fact, they do not; they cannot.

Already, I’m put off because a basic premise here is that homosexuality is an error, a sin, something to be expunged from humanity, and can be addressed simply by changing behavior. But I can’t make such a big leap of faith; not when the result is so much discord, hurt feelings, exclusion, and discrimination of homosexuals from mainstream society.

At least however, Exodus International admits that they don’t “cure” homosexuality and that they’re only targeting those who harbor “unwanted same-sex attractions” to quote them. I’ll review more of their writings presently.

Lastly, Apple is rich. So they don’t have to seriously consider the financial ramifications of one particular app I don’t think. They can indeed afford to include or exclude based on public feedback, which is what apparently drove them to remove the app from Exodus International. Perhaps they thought they’d lose more money by keeping the app than by getting rid of it.

Tom Hesley

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References

• What Is Exodus International   answer on Wikipedia

No. I’m not “Christaphobic.” In fact, I have high esteem for how   Christ   advanced civilization, and wish he would come back again and deflate the excessive self-righteousness that seems to have grown up in Christ’s wake.  I am however, afraid of the   religion-based gay discrimination,   exclusion, and violence even,  that happens in Christ’s name.

Indeed, I recognize limits of the teachings that Christians associate with Christ and his disciples. Not everything Christ said is timeless, and I’m certain that we do not have entirely accurate and unbiased accounts of what Christ did say. Nor do we know   everything   he said. So I will not regard what we think we know   Jesus Christ   said as absolutely correct under   all   circumstances, past present and future; he was human after all, and so were the people who’vepassed his word down through the generations.  However, based on what I know of Jeaus Christ, I don’t think he’d engage in gay discrimination by rejecting homosexual followers, and excluding him from his flock.

Yes, I believe Christ existed and was indeed a persuasive orator. But as far as the divinity that people associate with him goes, I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. At any rate, it’s not worth discriminating against a whole class of people (the gay, Muslim, and other groups oppressed on religious grounds) based on the bits and pieces we have of Christ’s word.  Gay discrimination creates more discord than harmony by far.  But since Christ was all about prommoting harmony and discouraging hatret and bigotry, then it’s doubtful that he would support gay discrimination and exclusion.

When exercising a religious preference contributes significantly to ten percent of the word population (at least, that’s the amount we know about) to be excluded from the most rewarding workings in society (the military, teaching, and yes, the ministries) and to be judged with   prejudice   in their personal interactions, then it should be closely scrutinized, and censored if necessary. It’s indeed nice to see these exclusions being challenged in court, and rejected.

Further, these teachings often cited seem to elevate those who buy into them above the gay community, as if to say that they’re “better” than the gay. Church groups in general tend to do this, sending the message that they know something powerful that those outside the group do not. Again, I find this highly offensive, because there is   no human   alive, or   no group   of humans on this planet that is any better or more righteous than me. I’m no better than they, either. But I recognize this implicitly, whereas it seems that they implicitly do not.

Finally, I’m sure any anti gay person with a bit of Google smarts could find a thousand definitions, testimonials, and qualifiers that they would say support their positions of   gay discrimination   and oppression. But   all of it   is built on the basic Christian premise that homosexuality is wrong, which   none of it   really proves.

Those opposed to homosexuality would further advance their case if they focused on proving that their basic premise is indeed correct, in an independently verifiable way.  It’s not good enough just to parrot others who, like themselves have accepted this premise without conditions and without said proof, simply because they believe that gay discrimination is what Christ would have wanted. Instead, they would need to eliminate elements of gay discrimination, prejudice and base, knee-jerk reactions of repugnance from their argument to really solidify it and make it persuasive.  They should also show why excluding homosexuals from society’s mainstream would benefit society (again, independently verifiable), while including them would harm society in similar fashions.  Good luck with that.

Tom Hesley

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• Exodus App Removed From Apple Store

On the   Three-Fifths Compromise:   True, the written law about this practice of counting each black man as only three fifths of a whole person didn’t attempt to completely lay out congress’ beliefs about just what a black man was. But it gave us clear hints that, the definition of a black man in the minds of the general population, as compared to that of a white man, were vastly different.  The Negro was deemed as almost subhuman. Indeed, this compromise would never have been struck if blacks had been universally regarded as   people   rather than   property.

Since we can’t fully quantify the worth of a human being or to precisely define what a human being is, and since doing so was not necessary in order to maintain the collars of oppression around the neck of the black man, congress narrowed the focus of the law.  They wrote this   Three-Fifths Compromise in sheer economic terms (tax distribution and congressional districting, and representation). This clearly denied the black man full human regard, as well as the inalienable rights reserved for all Americans   except   for blacks at the time.  While the   Three-Fifths Compromise   represented a big step toward black equality with whites, it still oppressed blacks, just as the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy combated discrimination against gays in the military but still contained highly oppressive elements. 

Would the Three-Fifths Compromise have been struck if people on both sides (north and south) truly believed that a black man was unworthy of fighting for, that the Negro was less smart and so, less worthy of all the liberties that white Americans enjoyed? The compromise would have never become law if much of the population didn’t feel that blacks were less-than-whole men. The basic motivations that perpetuated such a law were very much fueled by the widespread, almost superstitious belief that blacks were only partly human.

Most any social policy that expands the rights of one class of people while curtailing them for another devalues the latter; just as the Three-Fifths Compromise devalued the blacks back then, and as opponents are attempting to do today to the LBGT community, Muslims, et al.

Since freedom from oppression is a basic tenant of healthy humanity (part of the definition of a modern, healthy human being in fact), then I would argue that restricting freedoms means that the definition of the human beings being denied, in the minds of those doing the denying, is why they deny said rights. They think of them as less worthy of rights. So, the laws, while they do not say it out loud, are about what people perceive the definition of various classes of human beings to be, at which the laws are targeted.  When they deem a man as lesser than themselves, they pass laws to pen him in.  I’m pleased that the Civil War ended the Three-Fifths Compromise. 

Tom Hesley

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• Tom’s Views –> Three Fifths Compromise Definition

References

• Three Fifths Compromise on Wikipedia