damien

Artt, Maybe it's just because black skin feels like velvet on the tongue, whereas I distinctly remember yours feeling a bit like Ghandi's sandal. "Why are people so unkind?" - Kamahl.

LAND RIGHTS FOR BLACK GAY WHALES!!!

Works every time!

Now boys, settle down. You know you both mean a lot to me too. You'll all get a turn, ok?!

Harut, If you would like to get more familiar with a forum participant, I would think the correct etiquette would be to send an email or personal message. But since you ask, i can't say that I go for any particular "type". Though I've seen a couple of yummy armos in my day! Damien. [ September 23, 2002, 03:16 AM: Message edited by: damien ]

quote:Originally posted by Sip: quote:Originally posted by THOTH:My 2 cents - what difference does it make to the rest of us - or to society etc if some choose to love their own sex? Why is it OK for children of the same sex to play together - but not adults? I don't see any difference - nor any reason for such a big fuss. The "problem" as I see it dear Thoth, is that many believe that homosexual behavior is learned. Therefore, it can be taught ... it can be "contagous". I don't know if I agree with that or not, but if that is true, then I can easily understand the paranoia, the distrust, and the hatered that many heteros seem to have against homos. People generally remember how they learned to tie their shoe laces and who taught them their multiplication tables. Queers generally have no logical connection between their sexuality and environmental influences / education. To conclude that homosexuality is "learned" simply due to the absence of scientific proof of a genetic link is absurd. It is like any of us who don't really know Vahe G, for example, concluding that he is a righteous, angry and aggressive man because of one reason or another. We just don't know. BUT...what would happen if someone took a personal interest and thought to simply ask him what HE thought was the root of his angst? Some peace and understanding might just come of this method. Similarly, a non-heterosexual person would probably be the best source of an opinion on their own situation. I don't for a moment speak on behalf of queers world wide, because every one person has a different history, but I know that I had homosexual tendencies since I was a very young child. Neither of my siblings nor any of my childhood friends were gay to warrant talk of "recruitment" to the other side. I just always knew that I liked boys more than girls. It's just how I always have been. There is no need for anyone to justify to others why they desire those things in life which make them feel true to themselves. So the best we can do is accept that some people are different to others, and for some of us this may mean simply agreeing to disagree. No one of us is right when it comes to desire. It is simply a human trait that we all share, however diverse in its flavours. So next time we think of a derogetory remark to dish out to someone, just stop first and think," is this really necessary?". The correct answer - no.

Hagarag jan, It distresses me to read your words equating satisfying your sexual desires for men with a "death sentence". For all out there who do not know, or are confused over the issue,whether you're a dirty fag, a weird bisexual or a filthy breeder, here are some points of clarification over HIV and AIDS. Here are the ways one may contract the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, no matter what your sexual orientation... 1. Through unprotected anal or vaginal intercourse with another person. Whether you are the receptive or the insertive partner, you are at risk of contracting the disease UNLESS YOU USE A CONDOM AND WATER BASED LUBRICANT (i.e. have safe sex). 2. By sharing needles and syringes when administering intraveinous drugs. 3. By an HIV+ woman giving birth to a child who may have any wounds sustained during the birthing process come into contact with her bodily fluids. (very rare actually). 4. By taking another persons cum in your mouth during oral sex while you have any kind of ulcer or dental/gum irratation at the time. Having oral sex while your mouth is perfectly healthy, absent of any cuts or irritation is considered a VERY LOW RISK activity. YOU CAN NOT CONTRACT THE VIRUS BY KISSING OR SHARING A DRINK WITH A POSITIVE PERSON!!!! Even if you are unfortunate enough to contract the virus, this is no longer the 1980s and testing positive is no longer a death sentence. By no means would I ever suggest that life with HIV is a barrel of laughs, but HIV drug combination therapies are so advanced now that people are still living meaningful, active lives 20 years and more after first being diagnosed HIV+. It is frustratingly clear to me that so many people in the western world are so miseducated about an epidemic that has profoundly changed the way that people have interacted with each other over the past 20 years. I make no apologies to anyone who found this little lesson disgusting or whatever, because it is only through frank education and open discussion that we as human beings (not armenians or gays or americans etc) are going to be able to deal with this dreadful disease once and for all. Case in point: an estimated 1 in 6 men, women and children in Central Africa carry the virus to their early deaths. They die so young mainly because countries like ours are too interested in McDonalds Happy Meals and bombing the crap out of Iraq (not to mention all those other naughty Muslims!), and too greedy not to provide those people with the medication that we know would improve and sustain their quality of life. But even a smaller financial outlay and a bit of energy put towards educating the people about how the virus is spread could prevent so many casualties of ignorance. I guess this is slightly off the topic, as many years have passed since the disease was referred to as "Gay Mens Cancer", but obviously people still relate it to issues of sexuality. Please realise that we are at no less and no more risk than each other when it comes down to this. Sin Safely! damien.

TWO THINGS... 1. ON BEING A CHRISTIAN Come on people! Being a christian is not a team sport which involves "playing by the rules" and "doing what your told". It is acbout the pursuit of being more like Christ, as the word suggests. This is about extending the hand of friendship and kindness to the outcasts of the world. For this Jesus was cast out of his community and persecuted, and through his death the world saw the incredible amount of good that came of his actions. He was an activist for persecuted minorities. If he sat back and did simply what he was told by his spiritual leaders we probably would not be speaking of him today. We need to follow his example rather than count the number of times we have been to church or recite page numbers from the bible like robots! It is by being passive about our faith that we lose any sense of human dignity. For those on the forum who throw around flaccid comments about communism, nazism and genocide, these phenomena are proof of the failure of entire nations being passive about their faith. Heaven and Hell are only what you feel after you commit any action towards another human being. They are the means, not the end. 2. ON WINNING. Forgive me if I sent out the wrong vibe, but this topic was never intended to be a competition to "win" or "lose" an argument. If that's what you're interested in, turn off your computer and tune in (or tune out, as the case may be) to your local sports channel. If you don't have anything constructive to say, or have any questions to ask to may contribute to the discussion, don't bother...so many of you are clearly making yoursleves angry, and in the process are forcing everyone else to read your childish banter before they get to something that is actually an INFORMED opinion. Someone mentioned the word, "respect" (was that you Thoth?). Thank you. Now could we please continue the discussion from there? Kind Regards, Damien.

This reply is particularly for people like Vahe G and Tigrannes III who seem particularly stuck on the details of the Holy Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah and what it has to do with homosexuality. I have quoted an excerpt from an article written by a correspondant and friend of mine who is an Armenian man in Romania. He is an ordained priest in the orthodox church and has dedicated his life to study the scriptures much more thoroughly than I'm sure any of us have done ourselves. If it's verse numbers and referees you want, he has them, and out of respect for human intelligence I would expect any arguments against it to be equally as thourough and insightful. Whether you agree or not, it is a very good read...please take the time to read it with an open mind... Sodom & Gomorrhah...was there some homosexuality? I don't think so. The traditional condemnation of homosexual acts or practices is found in the Sodom and Gomorrah story in Genesis 19:4-11. Churches taught and people universally believed in their excellent authority that homosexual practices had brought a terible divine vengenance upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. That repeating of these "offences against nature" had provoked similar instances of divine wrath in the form of earthquakes, floods, famines, outbreaks of pestilence, etc. It was also assumed, therefore, that both church and state must discipline and restrain through penalties and laws these acts to ward off God's wrath. And the assumption was taken for granted the sin for which the cities were destroyed was because of habitual "perverse homosexual practices among men." How much of this tradition is truly founded in scripture? What was the meaning of the encounter of the angels and Lot with the angry men of Sodom as the J or "J(Y)ahwist" author of Genesis 19 writes? What were the gkrounds, if any, for the persistent belief that the men of the city were addicted to male homosexual practices and were punished for it? Specifically, as D. S. Bailey points out in Father John McNeill's book, The Church and the Homosexual, (pp. 42-49) the demand of the Sodomites made to Lot: Bring them out unto us, that we may know (Hebrew, yadha "to know") them, can mean eiyher sexual coitus; or to get acquainted with, introduce, welcome, or socialize with. This latter sense of acquaintenship is used 943 times, according to the Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testement, and is used only 10 times including a derivative form (Judges 19:22) to denote heterosexual coitus! Moreover, the Old Testament word normally used for both homosexual coitus and bestiality is shakhabh. To continue, Bailey says this passage could also be interpreted that Lot, a resident alien (ger) in Sodom, may have exceeded his rights by receiving and entertaining the two foreigners/angels, who might be hostile, and whose authorization had not been determined nor examined. Hence the demand to get acquainted with them. But what was the sinfulness of Sodom and Gomorrah? They were called wicked and greviously sinful cities but no specific grievance is actually described! Only outisde of the text of the writer, and on a priori grounds such as ones willfullness to read a soley or predominantly sexual characterization into the passage (eisegesis) versus exegesis, or interpretation within the meaning of the biblical text, itself, is not and cannot be supported. There is no evidence here or in any other parts of the Old Testament that show homosexual behavior was rampant in these cities of Sodom and Gomorrah! Such a scurrilous pretext is dishonest and a slander to prove and impute homosexual behavior as unconditionally condemmned by God; and by implication a condemnation of an entirely different, modern discovery of a person's inherent and unlearned biological giveness as homosexual orientation. Lot's willingness to sacrifice his daughters to the heterosexual abuse and intercourse (yadha) by the hostile crowd in verse 7 is both shocking, and a desperate, spur of the moment attempt to appease and derail the angry men. Here the double meaning of yadah as both carnal and social is used as an ambiguous play on words to allow there may have or could have been sexual mistreatment of strangers, by extension, to Lot's daughters. Taken as a whole, the entire Biblical commentary seems to support the main sin to be inhospitality to strangers and stiffnecked pride of the Sodom and Gomorrah citizenry. For example, the J(Y)ahwist writer indicates in the previous verses of Genesis 18: 1-4, how angelic strangers came to Abraham's tent and how hospitable his reception was of them for food and shelter (Genesis 19: 1-3). A most significant interpretation of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is Jesus the Christ who calls for judgment upon the cities who are inhospitable to the reception of his disciples! "I tell you, on that day [when the Kingdom of God is at hand] Sodom will fare better than that town!" (Luke 10: 10-13) No where in the Old Testement is Sodom referred to as a symbol of utter destruction identified with the sin being homosexual behavior! Among many examples, Ezekiel 16: 49-50 reads: "Behold, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters lived in pride, plenty, and thoughless ease; they supported not the poor and needy; they grew haughty, and committed abomination before me; so I swept them away, as you have seen." Isaiah stresses lack of justice, Jeremiah cites moral and ethical laxity. Even the Deuterocanonical books, like Wisdom (19: 13-14) identify sin as pride and inhospitality:" "...whereas the men of Sodom received not the strangers when they came among them; the Egyptians made slaves of the guests who were their benefactors." In Ecclesiasticus (16: 0) the sin is pride. Later New Testament books of 2 Peter and Jude, find the sin as "transgression of orders" between human and angelic beings. Wherever these homosexual practices have been traditionally condemned in the Old or New Testament, no mention is made of the Sodom story, which if that were the case, Sodom would have been definitely mentioned! So why is there any mention of sex with men at all? Two main factors are presented by John Mckenzie; 1. the idea of "the absolute dignity of the male sex" because of the Jewish hostility to homosexual practices. And by Peter Ellis in The Yahwist: The Bible's First Theologian, who suggests that 2. the writer is attacking as idolotry the Canaanite nature worship directed to the fertility gods, where sacred prostitutes of men and women were part of the climax to obtain a special relationship with the god or goddess so that rain and fertility would come to the land. This polemic against Canaanite idolatry is thus directed against the five Canaanite cities which are also wiped off the face of the earth, and not because of homosexual acts. McNeill states, "If the interpretration of the true sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is correct, then we are dealing here with one of the supremely ironic paradoxes of history. For thousands of years in the Christian West the homosexual has been the victim of inhospitable treatment. Condemned by the church, s/he has been the victim oif persecution, torture, and even death. In the name of a mistaken understanding of the crime of Sodom and Gomorrah, the true crime of Sodom and Gomorrah has been and continues to be repeated every day." (p.50) So in everyday terms, what do we learn? Be kind and hospitable to those about whom we know nothing, and our souls just might have a much more pleasant time on this earth, because you're right Seaphann, we only have a short time here and then, for all we know, it's all over red rover! Oh, and Vahe G., please don't call me a "moron". It's very rude and childish. And I'd rather be a dirty faggot bound for hell in your eyes than to die with people remembering "What a rude man he was!". Remember...Courtesy is Catching! damien.

Harut, To say that being gay is a choice that some sickos make in life is like saying that you choose to have brown eyes (or whatever colour they are). Why on earth would anyone choose to be gay or bisexual when they have to put up with the bigotry so proudly displayed by people as we see in this forum? I suppose ducks choose to be ducks during shooting season too? Clear up your logic. It clearly is not working. Or, sorry, but maybe it's just an unfortunate "condition that can not be cured these days" (whichever poor old creature from the dark ages came up with that line!). Don't worry darlin', Jesus still loves you. I'll pray for your misguided soul. Love, Damien.

Vahe G. and Hmayk, It's great to see that your knowledge of God and Nature is so extensive! Actually, God also created fags and dykes. What was he thinking that day? ...oh, and pansexuality has been well documented over hundreds of animal species. Maybe it's time to start watching less crap american TV and and maybe read a bit of non-fiction. You'll be amazed at how many "disgusting" things God put on this earth. Yours in Christ, damien.

PURE?!? Do you mean her hymen or her heritage? If it's her hymen and she's not pure, you'll probably have more fun. If it's her heritage, you might just learn a thing or two about another culture. How bad could that be? Loosen up, man. Join the global community.

Within a nation (including the global diaspora) which has historically been at odds with and persecuted by its neighbours there is a significant number of Armenians, young and old who have been and still are persecuted by their own people. I am speaking of gay men and lesbians, bi-sexual, trans-gender and generally sexually uncategorical people. The law in Armenia still deems it a crime to have a homosexual relationship and "offenders" face up to five years in gaol. For those of us living outside Armenia, who still encounter discrimination and verbal and physical harassment on a daily basis (from people who wouldn't know us from a bar of soap!), the last thing we need is rejection, punishment or denial from the communities that profess to love us. Most of our churches denounce us as sinners, many of our families (though luckily not mine) deny our need to love another - some face excommunication as a consequence - and the Armenian community largely does not support our struggle for equal rights and a peaceful existence. Apart from the integral nature of love and sexuality, another important facet of our identity which is often denied is our cultural heritage. One in ten people, INCLUDING ARMENIANS, identify as non-heterosexual. If the community that is meant to be nurturing our love of our culture and language rejects us, that is ten percent of young armenians who will no longer care about keeping those cultural and community ties. If ten percent of armo kids have nothing to do with their communities as each generation passes, eventually there will be no-one left to tell all those great stories about their armenian heritage. Make sense? We are such a small nation, whether full-bred, half-bred, living at home or abroad, that we should all be able to find support and kindness within each other. Happily there are associations appearing around the world which provide forums and meeting places for gay armos. Maybe any interested heteros out there could drop one of them a line and congratulate them for the work that they are doing because thay know what hard work it was to grow up gay AND Armenian. Feel free to reply with any comments, but if you're just out to spread your hate, don't bother, you can't shock me. Here's to love and romance for all boys and girls, no matter what team you bat for!! Kind Regards, Damien. melbourne, australia.