Russia...Politics...Beliefs.

[elenhil]

By the way, should a person, hypothetically, be banned from posting here for insulting others (like having 'disingenuous at best and offensive at worst' moral views), would any of you see that as a discriminatory subjective morality-driven limitation of their freedom of speech? Because a comment is insulting only as far as it subjectively diminishes another person's notion of their dignity (which is likewise subjective). Not to mention that whoever judges the hypothetical incident is subjective, too.

 

Just askin'.

Edited December 16, 2015 by elenhil

[oqhansoloqo]

Honestly, I don't care what opinions Boris has about lifestyles, values, or traditions.  I say that he's got every right to have his own opinions about what's right and what's not.  As long as Boris is creating software and sharing it, I'm happy with him.  I personally have mixed feelings about homosexuality myself, and I do see the propaganda element that Boris talks about to have some validity to it.  There is plenty of misinformation out there currently about the cause of homosexuality, being widely spread and taken as fact and aggressively shoved into everyone's face.  The current idea is that it's a condition that's solely genetic.  This is absolutely not true, and I say that with very strong conviction.

 

Like any other psychological preference, the truth is that it's part genetic and part experience.  For some it's more genetic, and for others it's more experience.  There is a choice involved, as there is with any psychological condition/preference.  For some who are strongly predisposed, it's an easier choice to make than for others who are not.  It's that simple.  That's the truth about it.  Of course that truth sheds light on the fact that people can learn to be gay, which can be politically damaging to proponents of gay marriage/public acceptance/etc.  Being able to deny the experience/choice aspect of a behavior/preference strengthens one's defense, even if it's not true.  So there is validity to the idea that greater public acceptance will lead to more homosexual behavior in more people.  It's there where my feelings are mixed, as that result does take away from the traditional concept of families and relationships.  When you lose standards for basing opinions and determining which behaviors are correct and which behaviors are not, the ideas of right and wrong start to become grey and society could go in strange and undesirable directions.  Same can be said of multiculturalism, as the habits of some cultures are absolutely taboo to other cultures.  Religions as well.

 

Anyway, don't fall for propaganda out there.  Various interests will find all kinds of ways to lie to you and influence your opinions.  To a degree I understand what Boris is saying.

I'll quote my previous post again.  It summarizes what was said in pages and pages worth of subsequent comments.  And also, since it seems that more people on here (not surprisingly) tend to think that genetics play a much larger role than experience, I'll share some of my own experience with sexual preferences to balance out a lot of very unbalanced argument.

 

I am very much a breast guy currently.  I used to be satisfied with smaller breasts (like B cups, however, never A cups), but I choose to focus on breasts and have spent many hours thinking about large ones, OK?  So now I am not satisfied with small breasts, like B cups - they don't turn me on even though they used to.  It's gotta be large Cs or bigger.  I also used to not get turned on at all by pictures or thoughts of asses or vaginas.  After hanging out with a friend of mine (interestingly, a black friend - you know the stereotype...  lol) who is very much into large posteriors, my preferences changed.  As he spent time pointing them out to me over and over again, going into details about what he liked about them, I decided to try to take in his visualizations and feelings on the matter.  Over time I came to appreciate the posterior curves.  They turn me on.  They used to do absolutely nothing for me.  In fact, they probably turned me off, as I associated butts with poop (and I don't like poop).  Now they can even turn me on, on their own.  I used to not get turned off when I would see porn involving men (and I'm referring to a man having sex with a woman), but rather only like porn with women alone or with other women.  I believe it was due to the fact that I was only viewing it from the standpoint of what I was looking to see in a sexual partner.  Over time I came to appreciate porn involving men, because I changed the way that I perceive it.  I changed my opinion about how I wanted to internalize what I was witnessing.  Now I see the other men as avatars for me - I visualize myself as them in their role and can experience what they are experiencing by the way I chose to think about it.  Nowadays I also don't mind seeing anime representations of hermaphrodites (chicks with penises, for instance) - they turn me on, because there have been games where I was able to place myself into their shoes (like an avatar).  I used to be like - "HELL NO".  I used to not like red hair, but now I find it sexy as hell.  Etc...

 

I've known other men who have had similar, but different experiences.  Sometimes people open up to me and share very personal information, because I'm very honest and sometimes in certain situations that leads others to confide a bit.  I know guys who have admitted to having gay interactions with other men and told me not to tell anyone else.  One of them told me that they know a lot of people who are sexually flexible and have experimented with different things.

 

I could go on and on.  The point is, for me I see a LOT of the experience aspect involved in sexual preferences and you would have to either kill me or aggressively brainwash me to get me to ignore that truth.  I'm not going to sit here and tell you what kind of percentage is nature versus nurture.  I do not know that, and I would not do that, as it's got to vary from individual to individual (how they think, how they choose to conceptualize body parts or their role in a sexual interaction, etc.).  But I will tell you that it is absolutely total crap to say that sexual preference is something like 99.9% nature and 0.1% nurture.  That is completely nonsense.

 

I feel this whole conversation is being very much driven by viewpoints that are very much not balanced, and while many of them are very interested in details (many of which are very open to interpretation), they are lacking in truth apparent in basic concepts and basic observations.  That has to do with personality differences, but I also think it is blinding many from understanding.

 

That's all I have to say, so go ahead and try to justify your intellectual superiority by breaking apart my message into bits and pieces with cross-references to other opposing viewpoints.  Or calling me a Nazi or something, because I am willing to consider those who have conservative opinions.

[elenhil]

 

I'm really not sure where you are getting your definition of discrimination from.

From ECtHR, for example. According to which, a difference in treatment (that's discrimination for you and me) 'is discriminatory if it has no objective and reasonable justification' (cf. para. 37 of ECtHR judgement on Karner v. Austria, application no. 40016/98, 24 July 2003).

 

How's that for a case of legitimate discrimination: 'protection of the family in the traditional sense is, in principle, a weighty and legitimate reason which might justify a difference in treatment' (Ibid., para. 40)?

 

Have a bit of a read on the subject, will you:

 

56. Precisely because equality and nondiscrimination are inherent in the idea of the oneness in dignity and worth of all human beings, it follows that not all differences in legal treatment are discriminatory as such, for not all differences in treatment are in themselves offensive to human dignity. The European Court of Human Rights, “following the principles which may be extracted from the legal practice of a large number of democratic States,†has held that a difference in treatment is only discriminatory when it “has no objective and reasonable justification.†... There may well exist certain factual inequalities that might legitimately give rise to inequalities in legal treatment that do not violate principles of justice. They may in fact be instrumental in achieving justice or in protecting those who find themselves in a weak legal position. For example, it cannot be deemed discrimination on the grounds of age or social status for the law to impose limits on the legal capacity of minors or mentally incompetent persons who lack the capacity to protect their interests.

 

57. Accordingly, no discrimination exists if the difference in treatment has a legitimate purpose and if it does not lead to situations which are contrary to justice, to reason or to the nature of things. It follows that there would be no discrimination in differences in treatment of individuals by a stare when the classifications selected are based on substantial factual differences and there exists a reasonable relationship of proportionality between these differences and the aims of the legal rule under review. These aims may not be unjust or unreasonable, that is, they may not be arbitrary, capricious, despotic or in conflict with the essential oneness and dignity of humankind.

 

 

from The Principle of Non-Discrimination in International Law by Curtis F. J. Doebbler

 

To wit: the Constitutional Court of the Russian Feederation defined the prohibition of propaganda of homosexuality to minors as prohibition of “actions to purposefully and without supervision disseminate information able to harm the health, moral and spiritual development of persons whose age deprives them the possibility of critically evaluating such information themselvesâ€. You are perfectly free to see Russian morals as subjective. It does, however, seem obvious to me that active homosexuality is a threat to the health of children in form of a substantially higher risk of HIV, STDs, and mental health issues, because that is the statistical fact on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

Let's see what Russia just did today:

Isn't Cameron, basically, doing the same thing by, for example, ignoring ECtHR rulings on prisoners' voting rights (or, more generally, threatening to leave the Convention because he does not like some of these rulings and likes to bring back British legal sovereignty)? Bet he doesn't get nearly as much bad press for it.

Edited December 16, 2015 by elenhil

[Spock]

It is rather obvious that an analogy, by it very nature, deals with two essentially separate (and therefore different) objects. Isn't it a spectacular failure of logic that someone would focus on the difference between the objects in question, while ignoring the very purpose of the analogy - that is, similarity of relationship?

 

I might have illustrated this particular point by giving the classic hand:palm sole:foot example, but I really fear I will get "The main difference between a hand and a homosexual is..." as a reply :(

 

The point of my analogies (that homosexuality is as inherently incompatible with traditional morals the above-mentioned phenomena are, respectively) seems entirely lost on you. 

 

Still, even if your attempt at underlining the difference between homosexuality and everything else I mentioned is entirely misguided, you are nevertheless making a number of incorrect assumptions I might want to point out.

The analogy only makes sense of the two items portrait similar reasoning. As I pointed out, the reason for the ban on the things you mentioned is someone getting seriously hurt among other things. But there is no reason to ban homosexuality.

Might have been true, had cohabitation been an entirely private affair that no-one outside the bedroom knew of or cared about. However, in a society, the matter of any two individuals' marital (or quasi-marital) relationships is far from private. As evidenced by the very existence of family legislation from antiquity to modernity. Like it or not, every state thinks it its business to define how a family should look like. The reasons for it being explicitly stated in UDHR Article 16(3) - because it is the natural and fundamental group unit of society. It stands to reason that something fundamental to a society cannot be outside its jurisdiction. A matter of existential survival, frankly.

 

So, a society might well decide that a particular form of relationships directly related to the matter of the family is not conducive to the well-being of this its fundamental unit. And (as has been shown above) will be entirely within its right to protect it (including though necessary and justified limitations on personal freedoms). It just so happens that the Russian society think this is the case, and homosexual 'families' are undermining families proper. And not without reason, I believe.

But devorce also cuts into the perfect family picture. Why would having to moms be any worse then a single mom?

Our family model is very much based on love, mutual understanding and good education. There is no evidence that a homosexual families are any better or worse at providing those ingredients.

So is being homosexually active. 200%+ increase in HIV infections is quite a severe health problem, in my book.

Corellation is not causation.

Besides, you are not prohibited from smoking, you are just prohibited from smoking near others. Rape is illegal.

 

It is hardly in my power to 'construct' a moral tradition; are you implying that I have just made it up and, in fact, in Russia none exists?

Sometimes in logic you construct examples with the system you provide to see if there are any contradictions or undesired (undesired like in axiom of choice in math) outcomes.

 

My point is to show, that your reasoning can be used to justify any amount of cruelty. I did read your text on juristicion but I'm not talking international law.

[z929669]

By the way, should a person, hypothetically, be banned from posting here for insulting others (like having 'disingenuous at best and offensive at worst' moral views), would any of you see that as a discriminatory subjective morality-driven limitation of their freedom of speech? Because a comment is insulting only as far as it subjectively diminishes another person's notion of their dignity (which is likewise subjective). Not to mention that whoever judges the hypothetical incident is subjective, too.

 

Just askin'.

This seems a bit of a goad to incite a discriminatory action

 

Of course your not going to be banned for your posts here! Your methods of argument and certain of your views are a offensive (to me), and you do present many fallacies in your arguments (as do we all to more or less extent), but you are civil and apply your offenses in general rather than attributing them to a single person (or overtly to a single group).

 

As long as you remain civil and not overtly offensive, you (and all) are entitled to express your views and arguments here, however much I or others may disagree with them. At worst, in some of your posting in this thread, you come off as controversial, scathing, aloof and arrogant ... but I would entirely disagree with myself were I aligned with your views.

 

Rest easy, because we administrate these forums in alignment with our political and world views :D

 

I'll quote my previous post again. It summarizes what was said in pages and pages worth of subsequent comments. And also, since it seems that more people on here (not surprisingly) tend to think that genetics play a much larger role than experience, I'll share some of my own experience with sexual preferences to balance out a lot of very unbalanced argument.

 

I am very much a breast guy currently. I used to be satisfied with smaller breasts (like B cups, however, never A cups), but I choose to focus on breasts and have spent many hours thinking about large ones, OK? So now I am not satisfied with small breasts, like B cups - they don't turn me on even though they used to. It's gotta be large Cs or bigger. I also used to not get turned on at all by pictures or thoughts of asses or vaginas. After hanging out with a friend of mine (interestingly, a black friend - you know the stereotype... lol) who is very much into large posteriors, my preferences changed. As he spent time pointing them out to me over and over again, going into details about what he liked about them, I decided to try to take in his visualizations and feelings on the matter. Over time I came to appreciate the posterior curves. They turn me on. They used to do absolutely nothing for me. In fact, they probably turned me off, as I associated butts with poop (and I don't like poop). Now they can even turn me on, on their own. I used to not get turned off when I would see porn involving men (and I'm referring to a man having sex with a woman), but rather only like porn with women alone or with other women. I believe it was due to the fact that I was only viewing it from the standpoint of what I was looking to see in a sexual partner. Over time I came to appreciate porn involving men, because I changed the way that I perceive it. I changed my opinion about how I wanted to internalize what I was witnessing. Now I see the other men as avatars for me - I visualize myself as them in their role and can experience what they are experiencing by the way I chose to think about it. Nowadays I also don't mind seeing anime representations of hermaphrodites (chicks with penises, for instance) - they turn me on, because there have been games where I was able to place myself into their shoes (like an avatar). I used to be like - "HELL NO". I used to not like red hair, but now I find it sexy as hell. Etc...

 

I've known other men who have had similar, but different experiences. Sometimes people open up to me and share very personal information, because I'm very honest and sometimes in certain situations that leads others to confide a bit. I know guys who have admitted to having gay interactions with other men and told me not to tell anyone else. One of them told me that they know a lot of people who are sexually flexible and have experimented with different things.

 

I could go on and on. The point is, for me I see a LOT of the experience aspect involved in sexual preferences and you would have to either kill me or aggressively brainwash me to get me to ignore that truth. I'm not going to sit here and tell you what kind of percentage is nature versus nurture. I do not know that, and I would not do that, as it's got to vary from individual to individual (how they think, how they choose to conceptualize body parts or their role in a sexual interaction, etc.). But I will tell you that it is absolutely total crap to say that sexual preference is something like 99.9% nature and 0.1% nurture. That is completely nonsense.

 

I feel this whole conversation is being very much driven by viewpoints that are very much not balanced, and while many of them are very interested in details (many of which are very open to interpretation), they are lacking in truth apparent in basic concepts and basic observations. That has to do with personality differences, but I also think it is blinding many from understanding.

 

That's all I have to say, so go ahead and try to justify your intellectual superiority by breaking apart my message into bits and pieces with cross-references to other opposing viewpoints. Or calling me a Nazi or something, because I am willing to consider those who have conservative opinions.

Literal "sexual preferences" cannot be bundled within the domain of inherent sexual alignment. One's sexual alignment to same or different gender is mostly biological programming, which influences manifest behaviors. Sexual alignment is almost entirely driven by one's physiology (with all arguments of epigenetics and environmental influences on physiology aside ... the template and propensities are genetic and genetically dictated, respectively).

 

Now, if you spent time with a gay friend who constantly pointed out the merits of the relatively muscled male rump and swagger and found yourself becoming more and more attracted to men to find that one day you have fully converted from hetero- to homosexual, THEN I would indeed be impressed into advocating for an alteration of the the prevailing biological hypotheses on the matter!

 

As I mentioned previously, there is no clear scientific evidence that states 99.9% nature and 0.1% nurture ... for posterity: I was simply exaggerating the fact that sexual alignment is indeed physiologically (and thus biologically) driven (apologies, that was a bit disingenuous on my part!). It is almost never a manifestation of one's environment (excluding some traumatic life event, hormone augmentation, or inherent psychological/personality disorder), and underlying sexual alignment is almost certainly not inherently or fundamentally influenced by the environment outside of the context of physiological environmental response (unless you are a 'lower' vertebrate of certain phylogenetic classification).

 

I do see and agree with your argument concerning sexual preference though, as that changes over time like food or general aesthetic preference.

 

This is a behavior that I attribute to elenhil as I previously mentioned ... taking bits out of general context to disingenuously illustrate a subjective viewpoint. Although, others of the opposing viewpoint have also done so (not me!) ... but most of these do not seem as disingenuously cherry-picked (but that is only my opinion).

 

Nobody in here is name calling or being overtly offensive AFAIK. That is definitely a forum-rules offense, so do let me know if I missed something.

 

@Sparrow (AKA, Firestarter) ... your are now being watched carefully throughout these forums

[EssArrBee]

Rest easy, because we administrate these forums in alignment with our political and world views :D

We do?

 

Literal "sexual preferences" cannot be bundled within the domain of inherent sexual alignment. One's sexual alignment to same or different gender is mostly biological programming, which influences manifest behaviors. Sexual alignment is almost entirely driven by one's physiology (with all arguments of epigenetics and environmental influences on physiology aside ... the template and propensities are genetic and genetically dictated, respectively).

 

Now, if you spent time with a gay friend who constantly pointed out the merits of the relatively muscled male rump and swagger and found yourself becoming more and more attracted to men to find that one day you have fully converted from hetero- to homosexual, THEN I would indeed be impressed into advocating for an alteration of the the prevailing biological hypotheses on the matter!

Also, it might just mean that you are a 2 or 3 on the Kinsey scale. It's not like there is only A or B, it's more like 0 though 6. Most of us fall somewhere in between. Biology and Chemistry are like that. I'm probably a 2 myself. The majority of straight people are probably 1 or 2 and majority of homosexuals are 4 or 5. I'd bet being a 0 or 6 are the most uncommon places to fall. 

[z929669]

 

Rest easy, because we administrate these forums in alignment with our political and world views :D

We do?

Well, I think I do, and if the rest of the staff have typical socially conservative positions on topics like 'fairness' & 'discrimination' & 'tolerance', then you must be acting in conflict with your nature most of the time ;)

 

Literal "sexual preferences" cannot be bundled within the domain of inherent sexual alignment. One's sexual alignment to same or different gender is mostly biological programming, which influences manifest behaviors. Sexual alignment is almost entirely driven by one's physiology (with all arguments of epigenetics and environmental influences on physiology aside ... the template and propensities are genetic and genetically dictated, respectively).

 

Now, if you spent time with a gay friend who constantly pointed out the merits of the relatively muscled male rump and swagger and found yourself becoming more and more attracted to men to find that one day you have fully converted from hetero- to homosexual, THEN I would indeed be impressed into advocating for an alteration of the the prevailing biological hypotheses on the matter!

Also, it might just mean that you are a 2 or 3 on the Kinsey scale. It's not like there is only A or B, it's more like 0 though 6. Most of us fall somewhere in between. Biology and Chemistry are like that. I'm probably a 2 myself. The majority of straight people are probably 1 or 2 and majority of homosexuals are 4 or 5. I'd bet being a 0 or 6 are the most uncommon places to fall. 

Makes sense, although, I cannot imagine myself being or having ever been anything higher than a 0 on the Kinsey scale (so technically, I should be rather intolerant and non-understanding of homosexuality) ... nevertheless, he was drawing an analogy that excluded anything at all homosexual but rather variation in heterosexual preferences. Also, the Kinsey scale, like any measurement of human behavior (the only animal corrupted by subjective 'reasoning'/'rationalization'), is prone to error due to many factors (e.g., culture, attitude, experiences, insecurity, weather, day of week, time of day, breakfast, hangnails, etc.). People are not the most consistent animals :P

 

... but physiology is probably still by far the most significant predictor of one's variable position on the Kinsey scale. However, I must concede that human behavior certainly can be erratic enough to lend some supposed validity to the 'nurture' argument, so I get why there is and always will be a persistent nature/nurture argument when it comes to anything, including sexual alignment.

 

[elenhil]

The analogy only makes sense of the two items portrait similar reasoning.

You still don't get analogies, do you? Analogies by definition say absolutely nothing about intrinsic similarities.

 

Try this one, then:

 

Libel is illegal

High treason is illegal

 

Which can be presented as an analogy:

 

Libel is just as* illegal as is high treason

 

*Here 'as' does not imply degree of illegality.

 

Which is an analogy, implying that both constitute an offence (that is, have a similar relationship to legality - similarity of relationship), while most certainly not implying similarity of nature (the nature of the offence, indeed, being quite different), or even similarity of the gravity of the offence.

 

Notice that both libel and high treason can be construed as one person's exercise of free speech. Which, in this instance, a state can legitimately limit.

But devorce also cuts into the perfect family picture.

 

And the state is within its right to ban divorce. Which, historically, many states did, and only stopped doing under explicit pressure from the public (that is, through a publicly initiated constitutional amendment, for example). Which the public, naturally, had a right to exert. You might find it interesting to know that while divorce was still illegal in Ireland (that is, before 1996), there were cases brought before ECtHR arguing that divorce is, essentially, a human right. ECtHR ruled otherwise. See, for example, Johnston and others vs Ireland, Application no. 9697/82, December 18, 1986.

 

So, the people of the Republic of Ireland decided to allow divorce, which made it legal. Theoretically, they could just as well decide to outlaw it back. Which will make it illegal once again. Notice any similarities (not analogies this time) with Russia?

 

BTW, if Z is watching this: the example of Ireland does not prove such matters can only be dealt with via a constitutional amendment. It just so happened that in Ireland divorce had been banned at the highest legal level. So it took an appropriately high-level measure to legalise it.

 

A more appropriate example world be Russia legalizing polygamy. Since it is, to the best of my knowledge, not contrary to the Constitution per se (only to Russian morals), a hypothetical future Muslim majority (they are, after all, rather diligent in terms of procreation) might one day have it legalised without having to change the Constitution.

 

Our family model is very much based on love, mutual understanding and good education. There is no evidence that a homosexual families are any better or worse at providing those ingredients.

 

The state does not protect the family simply because (or as long as) it is based on love, mutual understanding and good education. It protects the family because of the special value the society places on the family as the primary natural establishment for its reproduction. Which does not apply to homosexual unions, extramarital cohabitation, or other forms of relationships contrary to the idea of a family.

 

Notice that the Constitutional Court's judgement, when justifying its decision to protect children for attempts at making them form notions of traditional and non-traditional conjugal relations being socially equivalent, is, in fact, applying ECtHR's own logic that 'protection of the family in the traditional sense is, in principle, a weighty and legitimate reason which might justify a difference in treatment'. It is precisely because homosexual unions by their very nature do not constitute 'families in the traditional sense' that the court does not extend them the special protections enjoyed by natural families (that is, treats them differently).

 

 

Smoking is also a completely different case because it causes measurable health problems

So is being homosexually active. 200%+ increase in HIV infections is quite a severe health problem, in my book.

Corellation is not causation.

Indeed, it is not. Proving causation or otherwise would have required human experiments, which most states bans on, incidentally, moral grounds. So, in the absence of proven causation, the whole condition itself is instead considered dangerous to health, whatever the underlying causes and mechanisms. Which, incidentally (seem to be having a lot of incidents lately), is similar to what we have with smoking. You can't really prove that smoking causes cancer in humans because of the above. You can just observe degrees of correlation and linkage and conclude that the likelihood is high enough for everyone to agree to call that a fact (which, in strict terms, it is not). Doesn't stop the government from thinking being a smoker (or, for that matter, a MSM) is bad for your health.

Besides, you are not prohibited from smoking, you are just prohibited from smoking near others.

 

Not quite. In Russia, you are also prohibited from encouraging people to smoke or, indeed, from propagandising to that effect. More importantly, propaganda of smoking among minors is explicitly prohibited as part of the very same legislation that bans... you guessed it: propaganda of homosexuality among minors!

 

By the way, I personally believe that a total ban on smoking per se is just a matter of time.

 

Now, would you like to share your thoughts on the legality of it?

My point is to show, that your reasoning can be used to justify any amount of cruelty.

 

Not quite (though Nebulous112, as you might have noticed, concludes that anything can be justified so long as it is enshrined in law).

 

My reasoning so far rested on the ECtHR definition that required the justification to be objective and reasonable, and the legal action itself to be proportionate and strictly limited. So, my reasoning would not justify, for example, for propaganda of homosexuality among minors to be punishable Sharia-style.

Edited December 17, 2015 by elenhil

[elenhil]

By the way, should a person, hypothetically, be banned from posting here for insulting others (like having 'disingenuous at best and offensive at worst' moral views), would any of you see that as a discriminatory subjective morality-driven limitation of their freedom of speech? Because a comment is insulting only as far as it subjectively diminishes another person's notion of their dignity (which is likewise subjective). Not to mention that whoever judges the hypothetical incident is subjective, too.

 

Of course your not going to be banned for your posts here!

:sigh: I was not saying I was afraid you were going to ban me. I was presenting a genuine logical question (with a bit of hypothetical relevance to make it less dry). I am rather disappointed that you seem to have totally overlooked it (even if it really paints a sympathetic picture of you personally).

Edited December 17, 2015 by elenhil

[z929669]

:sigh: I was not saying I was afraid you were going to ban me. I was presenting a genuine logical question (with a bit of hypothetical relevance to make it less dry). I am rather disappointed that you seem to have totally overlooked it (even if it really paints a sympathetic picture of you personally).

How rhetorically aloof? Thank you? ... I am not sure if I should be offended or gladdened. Either way, I am pleased to offer you more fodder for your inexhaustible intellectual exercise

 

elenhil & onlookers, please excuse the thickness of my earlier-referenced post

[elenhil]

How rhetorically aloof? Thank you? ... I am not sure if I should be offended or gladdened. Either way, I am pleased to offer you more fodder for your inexhaustible intellectual exercise

 

elenhil & onlookers, please excuse the thickness of my earlier-referenced post

Sorry if it did offend you. I had sincerely meant it as a compliment that you rushed to reassure me, to the point of overlooking my point. Kind of shows that for you human feelings are more important than logic. As I said, sympathetic.

[Nebulous112]

From ECtHR, for example. According to which, a difference in treatment (that's discrimination for you and me) 'is discriminatory if it has no objective and reasonable justification' (cf. para. 37 of ECtHR judgement on Karner v. Austria, application no. 40016/98, 24 July 2003).

 

How's that for a case of legitimate discrimination: 'protection of the family in the traditional sense is, in principle, a weighty and legitimate reason which might justify a difference in treatment' (Ibid., para. 40)?

 

Have a bit of a read on the subject, will you:

from The Principle of Non-Discrimination in International Law by Curtis F. J. Doebbler

 

To wit: the Constitutional Court of the Russian Feederation defined the prohibition of propaganda of homosexuality to minors as prohibition of “actions to purposefully and without supervision disseminate information able to harm the health, moral and spiritual development of persons whose age deprives them the possibility of critically evaluating such information themselvesâ€. You are perfectly free to see Russian morals as subjective. It does, however, seem obvious to me that active homosexuality is a threat to the health of children in form of a substantially higher risk of HIV, STDs, and mental health issues, because that is the statistical fact on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

Isn't Cameron, basically, doing the same thing by, for example, ignoring ECtHR rulings on prisoners' voting rights (or, more generally, threatening to leave the Convention because he does not like some of these rulings and likes to bring back British legal sovereignty)? Bet he doesn't get nearly as much bad press for it.

 

I agree that Cameron is basically doing the same thing. Like I said, nations will opt out of treaties when it is in their best interest. However, I do find it amusing that you quote the ECHR to defend your point in the first part of your post, then in the second part you completely dismiss Putin signing a law to overturn any ECHR rulling he doesn't like. 

 

My point is to show, that your reasoning can be used to justify any amount of cruelty.

 

Not quite (though Nebulous112, as you might have noticed, concludes that anything can be justified so long as it is enshrined in law).

 

My reasoning so far rested on the ECtHR definition that required the justification to be objective and reasonable, and the legal action itself to be proportionate and strictly limited. So, my reasoning would not justify, for example, for propaganda of homosexuality among minors to be punishable Sharia-style.

 

You are misrepresenting my position. I certainly do not "conclude that anything can be justified so long as it is enshrined in law". I'm not sure how I could have been more clear:

 

 

Of course Russia's laws regarding homosexuality negatively discriminate against homosexuals! Just because this is law in Russia does not magically make it any less discriminatory.

 

[...]

 

To answer your question regarding why I think Apartheid was illegal:

 

I do not think it was illegal. That is, until the new government came into power and made it illegal. Legality does not make something moral or immoral.

 

[...]

 

I think the crux of the issue is the fact that my morality != your morality. I disagree with Russia's laws regarding homosexuality; I find Russia's homophobic laws immoral. However, Russia obviously has a different stance.

 

For what it's worth, I would also agree that Russia's law is "legal". Any nation can pull out of a treaty at any time. For that matter, any nation can change the law to suit their circumstance. It has been done many times in the past, and it is still being done.

 

[...]

 

I have bolded relevant sections above. Honestly, I thought what you were accusing me of believing (that anything can be justified as long as it is enshrined in law) was the position you took. I do not find this treatment of homosexuals as objective and reasonable, but the majority of the Russian people do, and it is enshrined in law in Russia. You argue that this treatment is acceptable, and to justify it, you quote UN and ECHR rulings. Perhaps I am missing something here...I readily admit that I am no academic.

 

I may be misreading your position, elenhil, but I believe we generally agree on the rights of parents and nations to decide what morals to follow. The main difference is that I find nothing immoral about homosexuality, and therefore I don't find the discrimination, or "difference in treatment" of homosexuals to be reasonable or justified. I do agree that Russia can do what it pleases in this regard, I just don't agree with what they are doing.

 

Legality and morality are separate things. Legality infers explicit rules; legality is objective. Morality varies from culture to culture and person to person; morality is subjective.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Nebulous112

[Spock]

The state does not protect the family simply because (or as long as) it is based on love, mutual understanding and good education. It protects the family because of the special value the society places on the family as the primary natural establishment for its reproduction. Which does not apply to homosexual unions, extramarital cohabitation, or other forms of relationships contrary to the idea of a family.

This argument is very bad, you start out with state policy and end with a generelization of your idea of family.

Analogies by definition say absolutely nothing about intrinsic similarities.

Isn't it a spectacular failure of logic that someone would focus on the difference between the objects in question, while ignoring the very purpose of the analogy - that is, similarity of relationship?

The point I was making is, that the differences show that the similarities you pointed out provide nothing to the argument.

 

 

Not quite.

 

My reasoning so far rested on the ECtHR definition that required the justification to be objective and reasonable, and the legal action itself to be proportionate and strictly limited. So, my reasoning would not justify, for example, for propaganda of homosexuality among minors to be punishable Sharia-style.

You are claiming, that the justification is objective. But in reality, the same logic you applied can be applied to justify racism or any kind of discrimination.

 

I see a small problem with that logic. Just how much is unanimity? And does this logic really apply to regular democratic process? After all, doesn't a liberal administration with a, say, 51% majority mandate impose its subjective opinions and policies upon the conservative 49%? And that is if the representation is proportional. With first past the post elections the numbers can be even crazier.

If you don't see that as something inherently undemocratic, then you shouldn't really object to a state upholding the moral views of some 86% of the population (which, to my knowledge, is the extent to which the laws under question are enjoying public support in Russia).

You truely seem to oppose democracy, at which point your wold views and ways of believing things are 'ture' are probably so fundamentally different that there is not much point in arguing any further.

You still don't get analogies, do you?

I very much take this as Ad Hominem. It is very condescending and deplaced given all your fellacies pointed out to you. You want to belief in 'just' discrimination, you are not open to arguments against it, no matter how good.

[z929669]

Sorry if it did offend you. I had sincerely meant it as a compliment that you rushed to reassure me, to the point of overlooking my point. Kind of shows that for you human feelings are more important than logic. As I said, sympathetic.

I am glad that it was meant positively in that case, but I honestly did not know how you meant it.

 

Thanks for the kind reassurance though ;)

[elenhil]

I do find it amusing that you quote the ECHR to defend your point in the first part of your post, then in the second part you completely dismiss Putin signing a law to overturn any ECHR rulling he doesn't like. 

And what do you suggest I quote instead? Russia's own legislation, only to be summarily dismissed as inadmissible (because it is, allegedly, 'clearly' dictated by homophobia, not genuine justice)? You were in need of a legal definition of discrimination (not a dictionary one), so I obliged. So, unless you were prepared to summarily dismiss ECtHR as, for example, a corrupt organisation wholly in the pocked of their LGBT lobby paymasters (or the Freemasons, whatever), I thought you might find its definition useful enough. Still, being a legal commonplace, it won't be all that difficult to find a similar one elsewhere.

 

If you are interested in my personal opinion, I personally do not subscribe to ECHR (or, for that matter, UDHR) in their entirety. I feel that some of the rights enshrined in them are bogus human rights. Like the right to free (and compulsory) education. Or a right to housing. Or to a protection against unemployment. This is wishful thinking, not a fundamental human right. My two cents (with which I have, I believe, been rather frugal so far). Please do not rush to assume that I'm against education or housing of employment. It's just that I don't think they are as much a human right as a right to life or a right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty is. More like a politician's manifesto than actual law.

 

I certainly do not "conclude that anything can be justified so long as it is enshrined in law". 

My apologies. I genuinely did use 'to justify' in legal, not moral sense. Got a bit carried away with the Legalese, I think.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2015 by elenhil