Posts made by raphjd

But you did say that in order for secular governments to be preferable over religious governments, they have to be A LOT BETTER.

Nice excuse for the church (all churches) to amass obscene wealth. Am I assuming correctly that your philosophy teacher was at a catholic school?

Just because there are other ills in the world, doesn't mean that religion gets a pass.

The Vatican library could be done just like the Library of Congress, which is open to most and you can see anything you want.  You may not get to see the exact original but you get to see an exact copy of the original.  That is not the case with the Vatican library.

I never said it was secret, but they are extremely selective on who can see it and what is allowed to be seen.

That is the problem though, secular governments are riddled with religious nutters.  So a lot of the problems in secular governments go back to religion.  The Vatican threatened to excommunicate politician if they voted certain ways on issues.  It happened in Canada, the UK, the US, Spain, France and I would guess every other country on the planet.

Churches are getting taxpayer money to run their charities and they are using that money to discriminate. It's another example of religious nutters in secular government pandering to their religion.  SO again, secular governments are never truly secular.

Tony Blair gave the catholic church special rights to continue discriminating against gays for 7 years after everyone else had to stop doing it. Tony Blair was a closet catholic and he loaded his cabinet with catholics, like the Opus Dei member Ruth Kelly.  So the catholic church gets special rights over the countries own state church, because the country was run by catholics.  Ruth Kelly was a well known homophobe when Tony Blair made her the Minister for Equality.

Millions of Americans don't have health insurance, but I'm willing to bet that many of them would qualify for medical benefits under the welfare system.

I could have gone to the emergency room, but read up on that, people can wait days in there before being seen.  On the next working day they would have just told me to go see my GP.

BTW, I'm a dual national (US/UK, American by birth) so I am well aware of what goes on in the US.  I am forced to live in exile so I can be with my British partner.

You are putting an extreme burden on secular governments by saying they have to be "a lot better" than religious governments if they are to be preferable. That shows your bias in favor of religion.

Why is the Vatican swimming in such extreme wealth?  All that money could be used to help people, but NO, they need some more artwork.  The same applies to other religions and churches around the world.  Sell off all that obscene wealth and fund aid for the people.

While priests may not be multi millionaires, the church is obscenely wealthy.

Here's just some of the wealthy that the catholic church has in the Philipines;  hXXp://moneygurado.blogspot.com/2011/06/catholic-church-in-philippines-has.html

Why is the Vatican stifling knowledge by keeping it's library so secret?

We could do a nice little tit for tat of what secular governments and religious governments did to their people. You also have to remember, that even though secular governments, such as the US, aren't supposed to be based on religion, they are quite often run by religious nutters; ie Michelle Bachmann, GWB, Rick Perry and countless others in the US.  Papa Bush famously said atheists aren't citizens or patriots.  So how can you be so absolute in claiming it's the supposed secularism of the government that did wrong and not the believers that run it?

On the other hand, anything done by a religious government is the blame of religion, as that is at it's core.

Can you name me a religious government today that supports total equality for gays and women?

Even though the CofE is the official church in the UK, it's the catholic church that is screaming for blood and demanding that they should be allowed to discriminate against gays and they have been getting their way.

In the supposedly secular US, churches are getting tax payer money to run their charities and discriminating against gays.

I think you've been reading some wonky websites, if you think that the UK has better health care or personal heath than the US.  The UK has shockingly horrible health compared to most of Europe and countless other places around the world.

According to the UK's Office of National Statistics, life expectancy at birth for a male is 63 and 65 for a female, for an average of 64.  In the US, the average life expectancy for both male and female is 78.14.  78.14 is a lot higher than 64, so the US wins this one.

Even though I had private insurance, I still had to wait 3 months before my doctor would refer me for an ear infection.  The whole one side of my head was swollen and extremely painful, I was taking toxic levels of OTC pain killers to dull, not remove the pain, because my doctor wouldn't give me anything for it.  Finally I got refered to a specialist.  If I had to wait for an NHS doctor I would be dead because the infection was eating away the bone between my ear and brain.  I was rushed into emergency surgery after the CT scan by my private insurance specialist.  It would have been another 17 weeks at the earliest before I would have been able to see an NHS specialist, meaning I would have been dead 17 weeks prior.

Religion should be banned.

If religion was such a good thing and helps people, other than those who are directly in it (priests, etc), then why are they amassing so much obscene wealth?  They should be using that money to help people rather than buying paintings and statues.  Their libraries should be public, not secretive.

I find it dishonest to say that if secular governments aren't 100% perfect at everything, then it's better to have a religious one.

Religious governments are hostile to gays and women, without exception.  The same statement can't be said for secular governments.

The UK has a failing National Health System and it's costing us a fortune through extremely high taxes.  It's a post code lottery on how good your medical care is.  It almost killed me a couple years ago because of the procedures that you have to go through before you can get referred to a specialist.  I'm also left with permanent nerve damage in both hands thanks to the NHS.  If you want even a slightly decent level of health care, you still need private health insurance.

Married gay service members will still be discriminated against because of DoMA.  They will not receive any of the benefits hetero married service members get; ie base housing, housing allowance, use of the commissary, etc, etc, etc, etc.

So you want a word that separates us from the heteros, than a word that includes us into the whole of society.

The whole "separate but equal" has always been a lie.

By not giving us "marriage" they are saying that we are not good enough to have the same things they have.

As I explained before, marriage is included in every international agreement.  If we start making up words just for fags, the we have to make new international agreements.

All the bisexuals I know are complete sluts.

They justify it by saying they can't be satisfied by just one person.

Of course a few also use the excuse of "I want to get married and have kids and I can't do that with a guy".

PS:  There's a "bi" guy in the current UK Big Brother, but he's never had sex with a woman.  It's like he's trying to pull the "I'm not a nasty faggot, I'm bi".

Military officials also say the disparity in benefits between gay married couples and heterosexual couples also must be addressed.

Gays and lesbians will share the same barracks and bathroom facilities as other troops. But those legally married will be treated differently from heterosexual married couples when it comes to assigned housing, relocation packages and some other benefits.

Yep, Jim Crow is alive and well in the US still.

Married gays won't get any of the benefits that married heteros get.

The movie in question is RocknRolla.

We (the staff) are slagged off because we have an Auto Approval system, which means things slip past us.  We (the staff) are slagged off if we suggest that Auto Approval be ended so things don't slip past us.

As I said earlier in this thread, AA users are posting a lot of stuff that has no business being here.  They are violating our trust in them, then bitching at us for correcting the situation they caused.

We have had a rash of movies uploaded here recently that have nothing to do with GLBT whatsoever and many that break one or more rules; ie the blockbuster rule.

Of course you don't say what movie it was that you uploaded, so I can't give an opinion on why it was deleted.

If the rules are followed, you won't have to worry about your uploads getting deleted.

Since you have been entrusted with AutoApproval, your uploads bypass staff scrutiny.  We usually only see then if we happen to come across it on accident or if someone complains about it and we check it out.

If the pope didn't know it was going on, then he must be extremely negligent in his duties of running his religion.

If he knew it was going on and did nothing to stop it, he's guilty.

NOTE:  Anyone reading this, don't ask to have your torrents "refreshed" as it won't happen.

So you can never get HIV from pussy?  That's apparently what they are telling us with the "new" restrictions.

It's still anti gay, but a tiny bit less so now.

Like most of Europe, the UK gives some extremely weak punishments for crimes.

I've long advocated banning RM file since they are ALWAYS crap quality.  Sadly, too many people complained so we still have that crap video format.

I don't care for WMV files because I don't think you get quality for the size of the file.  The quality seems to be half that of an AVI of the same size.

We're starting to get HD porn, so I don't see why we shouldn't have MKV files for them.  I only download MKV files for movies now, but only on titles I know are Blu-ray or HD.  MKV does seem a bit of a waste for DVDs.

My rule of thumb for AVI porn is 1gb for every hour of video.  1.5 hour video is 1.5gb (ish) of AVI.  That's for a DVD.  Blu-ray and HD should be 1.5gb per hour of video.

are telling would-be voters the new mandate would inappropriately expose young children to sex, infringe on parental rights and silence religion-based criticisms of homosexuality.

Conservatives can't win on the facts, so they always go for the scare tactics.

Thanks for this.

One problem though, it lists a bar that is only "friendly" as being gay.

YES, it would depend on your country.

Most western countries can't prosecute you unless they have direct evidence that you committed a crime; illegal downloading in this case.  Just being a member of a site isn't proof of anything.  Also, there are members here who only download/upload stuff from the perfectly legal members' section.

This isn't anything really all that new.

Women have been renting their stuff to make money for college for ages.

When I was in college, I knew a guy (hetero) and a girl who tricked with men for cash.

HMMM, someone was being naughty by looking at gay porn to "catch" him.

25 Henry VIII. C6
Le Roy le veult”Forasmuch as there is not yet sufficient and condign punishment appointed and limited by the due course of the Laws of this Realm for the detestable and abominable Vice of Buggery committed with mankind of beast:

That doesn't say gay sex to me, but rather bestiality (fucking animals).

Also, "buggery" means any anal sex with a human or animal and vaginal sex with an animal.