Do you really have such a poor grasp on reality that you can type that without your brain saying, somewhere - “hey, wait a minute…”?

There are around 300 million people in the US. At a rough estimate, that means around 4 million Americans die each year. And you’re typing something about 2.9 million dying because of AIDS without thinking about how implausible that is?

According to the Wikipedia, there are between 2.4 and 3.3 million deaths worldwide from AIDS. I can understand making a mistake like that - assuming it was possible you were talking about global deaths. But you were talking about “the gay community” and club bathrooms.

The (small) majority of people living with AIDS are women, mostly in Africa and Asia. Most HIV transmission is via heterosexual intercourse. AIDS kills somewhere in the region of 15-20,000 Americans each year.

I can understand making a simple mistake like typing “US” when you meant “worldwide”. I can’t believe the stupidity in talking about the US and throwing out “2.9 million” without recognising the utter implausibility of that statement

You, sir, are an idiot.

Yes, there are gay men who think they’re invincible and practice unsafe sex. Yes, there are other gay men who mean to practice safer sex, but forget when they’re really drunk. There are non-white gay men who think HIV is a white gay man’s disease. THere are gay men who don’t use condoms because they’re in a monogamous relationship and they trust their partner. There is also a very small fraction of gay men who seek out unprotected sex for the adrenaline rush, but they are statistically insignificant compared to the vast majority.

There isn’t a person in the gay community who doesn’t know how AIDS is transferred from one individual to another.

Even if that’s so (which it isn’t, or there wouldn’t be so many new infections to men who don’t think they’re at risk), it’s equally true to say there’s not a person in the straight community who doesn’t know how pregnancy occurs. And yet many, MANY straight couples don’t use contraception because they’re young and they think it can’t happen to them, or because they’re ignorant of the facts of life, or because each assumes the other is “taking care of it,” or because they know about contraception in theory, but when they get really drunk they forget, etc etc etc.

Are vast numbers of straight men deliberately and maliciously impregnating straight women? Are the many, many couples who don’t want to get pregnant but don’t use birth control doing violence to one another? Is that a symptom of self-loathing such that we ought to encourage people to struggle against their heterosexual orientation?

You’re comparing apples and oranges, Dr T, and you damn well know it. I’m done here. If somebody else wants to pander to your intellectual dishonesty and constant shifting of the goalposts (to obscure the fact that every argument you’ve brought up has been knocked down), they can go right ahead, but I’m done.

No, have all the sex you want. Just do not kill the catcher while you’re pitching. 2.9M AIDS deaths in 2006 in the US. There isn’t a person in the gay community who doesn’t know how AIDS is transferred from one individual to another. If you stick a needle filled with AIDS infected blood into someone in a club bathroom you can be prosecuted criminally. If you stick your needle full of AIDS infected semen into someone in a gay club bathroom you’re still criminally assaulting them. Your partner signed up for a little fun, not a long, painful death. Now we could devolve into a discussion about why gays men seem to hate eachother and therefor engage in behavior that kills one another - is it self loathing? who’s responsible for the self loathing? But that’s not the point. The point is it’s violence, within a minority group. It’s one type of harsh treatment. There are others.

Mike, I will agree that moral judgments of an action can theoretically exist without concept for the person who commits it. But to judge an act is to hold contempt for it.

No, that’s only true if you conflate aesthetic and moral judgments. Contempt is a form of disgust, an aesthetic phenomena. Contempt is also mixed up with a healthy dose of resentment. Yes, commonly enough, people do mix contempt and resentment with their moral judgments, but it is unnecessary.

And since being gay is something that you are, not something that you do (like, say, going to the movies) it is a moral judgment of that person.

This is a particular perspective on sexual identity, and it’s one that has only been around for about a hundred years. The writer Michel Foucault did a lot of work on the history of sexuality, and it was his conclusion that homosexuality as an “identity” rather than merely an “act” is only a century or two old.

Even if you disagree with Foucault, on whatever grounds, making sexuality an “identity” rather than a behavior pattern is a precarious theoretical leap.

And even if you insist on making that leap, it would be ridiculous - even resentful - of you to complain when others do not make the same leap.

Would you honestly suggest that person who thinks that being female is morally wrong does not have contempt for women?

The analogy only works if one condemns homosexuality as an identity. Substantial numbers of Christians insist they condemn it as an act. You can call them liars, and for a certain number of them you’d even be right. That doesn’t chase away the irriducable remainder that do make moral judgments without contempt.

“Can counseling make you straight? I don’t know . . . money can make you Republican.”

Be proud - but don’t hate and kill.

Except that as per comment 50, when you say “don’t hate and kill” you apparently mean “don’t have sex”.

Which in combination with your protestations that you want people to “be queer and be proud”, makes your apparent overall message seem very strange– It’s okay to be gay, as long as you’re abstinent?

Get the fuck out of here you jackass.

[Cue “I must have hit a nerve cuz u got angry fag” happy dance by Dr Fucker.]

By your logic, lesbians have a wonderful community, one which should be emulated by straight men and women.

Seriously.

Does anyone else take a mean little joy in realizing that “objective” observers like Dr. T trip themselves up seriously — and reveal that most of this “objective” defense of self-loathing closeted gays is about the ick of menz kissing — whenever “the gay community” is all about BUTTSECKS! BUTTSECKS HAVING ORGY HOMOS, I TELL YOU! (and of course, they always want to point out the HORRIBLE VIOLENCE done by gay men to other gay menz)

It makes you wonder if it’s just because men have no problem with girls kissing (because they don’t think lesbians are real, or because they like watching girls kiss), or because there aren’t as many Scare Statistics for lesbians.

Loud and proud queers do not hate on uneasy queers and it’s interesting that you seem to have shifted your shabby argument.

I’m not sure why you’re dropping in black on black crime, which is a crime of proximity rather than a crime of prejudice or bigotry. Unless you can find that vigilante group of the light and bright.