What is the biggest threat to English?
To the last poster who can best be described as a deranged homophobe: Do make an appointment with your doctor poste haste - s/he may well arrange some course of treatment for your condition, which must be pretty advanced bearing in mind the crassness of your comments, especially those in brackets and their relationship to your last two words.
I do realise that if you are an American it may well cost you, or your health insurance cover provider, a hell of a lot of greenbacks, but believe me it would be worth every cent in your recovery.
There are few things more entertaining than someone who tries to promote tolerance by condemming someone with a different viewpoint.
If someone disagrees with homosexuality it is their right to think that way.
I find the idea that being a homosexual is some kind of badge of honour to be most distasteful and that the vast majority of homos are shallow and egotistical.
Freedom of speech also includes freedom of non-violent hatred. Freedom of speech includes the right to not like gays.
Freedom of speech is a double edged sword. You are free to bang a dude, I am free to dislike homos. You can dislike me too. You're free to do so. But you've got to accept that lots of people don't like you and that that is NOT a crime. I don't consider it a crime that you bang a dude, but it does make me squeamish and I am free to feel that way.
To use some of your arguments: to hate gays is a natural reaction; I was born that way; I can't help who I fall in hate with, hate is hate; some animals hate eachother too!
I agree that everybody is entitled to their opinions on any issue, be it homosexuality or anything else.
I just couldn't understand why the poster suggested that "gays" (presumably of both genders, but I feel the focus was on males) could possibly fall into the category of the greatest threats to the English Language. The idea is totally preposterous.
In my opinion a far and away greater threat to our English Language, here in the UK at least, is the current general dumbing down of spoken English under the present Labour Government, especially in many parts of England, which has a different educational system, and different procedures and policies, that we have up here in Scotland, thank goodness.
You only have to watch certain TV chat shows, like the truly horrendous "Jeremy Kyle Show" (filmed in Manchester, England) in which most of the participants are barely able to string three words together which could be considered comprehensible - and it's nothing to do with accent at all. It is possible to have quite a thick accent but still get your point across in a reasonably articulate way, but there again, we must remember that this "man" Jeremy Vyle - sorry, I mean Kyle, (a former chronic gambling addict and twice married serial womaniser) has trawled the grottiest sink estates of the UK to find the grottiest of social welfare scrounging, over randy, over fecund, over tattooed, over addicted, under educated neds and chavs /nedesses and chavesses, to appear on his stage to before a similar crowd of yelling, screeching, howing, jeering, cheering, British taxpayer funded banshees and deadbeat louts of a similar ilk.
Furthermore, stop quoting biblical texts and doing all the God and hell and damnation stuff whenever homosexuality is discussed - why on earth it was brought into this thread anyway is beyond me, but there you go - there are nutjobs all over this Antimoon Forum these days...a real pestilence in itself.
if you really want to go all religious and godly, and go all Leviticus on us, then choose far more serious issues....ones with real victims, ones which truly are evil.....please go all Biblical on really, really evil things like murder, rape, armed robberly, mass shootings, theft, domestic violence, child abuse* and all other crimes in which you will find victims and horrendous suffering.
*Child abuse - this very week a report was issued by Childline - a UK 24/7 operational telephone helpline designed for the use of children/yopung people under 16 years of age in this country who feel that they are at risk from any kind of physical or mental abuse, including sexual abuse from any individual(s).
The vast majority of cases - over 94% - involved those mentioned forms of abuse by heterosexuals, and even more shocking, was the confirmation that over the past 10 years there has been a 137% rise in cases of sexual abuse of young boys committed by women.
It is a well known fact that in the UK young children are statistically more at risk of harm or injury or mental abuse from their mothers than they are from any other individual, but of course......as ever....there is a general downplaying of these statistics and little publicity is given to them owing to the fact that it portrays women in a negative light.
It seems perfectly natural to be repelled by the idea of homosexual activity, but hating the individual is another matter entirely. I always thought, even decades ago when it wasn't fashionable, that hating homosexuals for no apparent reason was odd.
Maybe homophobia is genetic—who knows? (I apparently didn't inherit the hate gene.) I'm more inclined to believe, however, that a person who spends too much time thinking about homosexuals....well, what was it that Shakespeare said?
At any rate, homophobia on a forum devoted to language-learning is both misplaced and annoying.
The idea of hating individuals for various reasons may repel you, but I can't help that I was born that way. Why should I fight with the way I was born? Hatred is a perfectly natural sentiment, as inextricably linked to the human condition as love, and instead of feeling ashamed of hating, I've decided to feel proud of it and embrace it.
Celebrate diversity! Celebrate the negative aspects of diversity too! Celebrate hatred!
To be fair, homosexuality is mentioned in the bible as a sin so I dont see why we should pretend that gay christians are not hypocrites. I'm not religious myself but have read the bible and it seemed pretty clear on the matter to me.
Also Damian all those crimes you just mentioned are more serious than homophobia so you should follow your own advice.
"The idea of hating individuals for various reasons may repel you, but I can't help that I was born that way."
You were probably born a cretin, too.
"To be fair, homosexuality is mentioned in the bible as a sin "
The Bible is a book that also condemns eating pork, stones adulterers, and tells you to treat your slaves with compassion. <rolls eyes>
<<The Bible is a book that also condemns eating pork, stones adulterers, and tells you to treat your slaves with compassion. <rolls eyes> >>
And what if that is ACTUALLY God's word? LOL! Maybe God is actually a violent angry mofo? Maybe he actually really hates it when you eat pork and will send you to hell for it? Why not? Nowhere is it stated that God was a Western, liberal who believed in democracy, freedom of speech and free loving. Maybe God supported slavery?
Not that I'm saying you should do those things, just that the Bible is a load of crock.
atheist, I think the Bible is the single biggest hoax pulled on mankind.
Yes, it is. Burn the bible!
<< the current general dumbing down of spoken English under the present Labour Government, especially in many parts of England, which has a different educational system, and different procedures and policies, that we have up here in Scotland, thank goodness. >>
I thought I was the only person who'd noticed that. I agree, it's a huge threat, maybe a revolution is in order?