Changing topics, since this thread went nowhere.

In another discussion, Rcade said:
"I don't know what book Bill is frightened of. There's a lot of fear of books from right wingers who never read any."

The topic was progressiveness, and I brought up the fact that schools are putting books in libraries that contain explicit content. Books that walk kids through gay sexual acts step by step. That's not made up, that's fact. Rcade's response? A smug, lazy jab to avoid the actual issue.

So here's a real example that aired on national television.

I watched a recent Steve Wilkos episode where a woman brought her fiance on the show because of something she'd heard about his past. Years earlier, he and another boy had reportedly been caught in a sexual situation. She wanted him hooked up to a lie detector to find out if he was gay.

The test said he wasn't. It was something from his youth, and it should've stayed private. But instead, she dragged it onto national TV and humiliated him and by extension, the other boy involved too. That was wrong. Flat-out wrong. And I'm sure she saw nothing wrong with doing this.

She has serious boundary issues. If I were the guy's parent, I'd be urging him to think long and hard about whether this marriage makes sense. Even Steve Wilkos looked unsure by the end. The guy looked humiliated and he should've been, not for the past, but for what she just did to him.

This is what I mean by the risks and dangers of progressiveness. It's not about being anti-gay. It's about the message being pushed, especially to kids, that sexual experimentation is just casual. That it's no big deal. "Try both, see what you like." And if you question it? You're labeled a bigot or supporting censorship or something worse.

But this isn't about fear. It's about boundaries. It's about pushing back on the idea that childhood is some kind of identity lab to be used for ideological and political purposes. And now the rights of parents are coming into play.

Progressiveness used to mean equal rights. Now it means no rules. And if you're not okay with that? You're the problem.

Well, some of us aren't buying that anymore.

Laura,

"Funny that heterosexual sexual exploration in youth is considered no big deal"

Who says?

Just more of your progressive training.

You're so up to the neck in it you have no idea how lost you are.

Laura,

I'm not judging anyone.

You can't speak to progressives without your sort of comeback.

No...no one is claiming I'm without fault or I did't do things too.

But at least I wasn't brought up being taught it's ok.

That sort of teaching actually encourages experimentation.

Young kids are hungering for someone to tell them, "no...it's not ok or good for you to experiment...try to refrain".

Laura,

I'm convinced that many young people today, despite what the media tries to sell, are actually craving boundaries.

Not because they want to be restricted or ordered around.

No, it's because they're hungry to understand where the limits of propriety are. They want to learn how to become better adults.

They want values, real ones, and not the hollow, aimless, rudderless values pushed by the so called adults around them.

They want to know what "normal" looks like, because no one's showing them anymore.

Snoofy,

You don't see anything except what you want to see.

If I did provide a link, you'd reinterpret it to mean something else.

Snoofy,

I doubt you got the meaning of what I just said do I'll make it clear.

I'm not in the mood for any games or insults and won't talk to you.