Gerard

I was talking about Gay marriage, not the death sentence for homosexuality. In this CHRISTIAN country I'm not allowed to marry because of CHRISTIAN values, and there are christians here saying they agree with that because of their religious text. They don't say we should be killed, unlike others, which is a good start. Are you using that as proof of Christian tolerance? Islam may feel the same way (or indeed worse) but that is not relevant to the situations we've been discussing, nor the rights I am denied because of my sexual preference. I think I can clarify Connor's sentence. He said atheists don't kill people JUST because a book told them to - but many extreme monotheists do. Some atheists and theists kill people for reasons other than religious reasons, such as personal (not communal) beliefs or whatever circumstances/situation they're in. He was NOT saying that atheists don't kill - he's just saying that they aren't blinded by an ancient mistranslated book of heartwarming fables.

We're talking about Christians because most of us live in Christian countries, and gay marriage is outlawed in those Christian countries because of Christian values. The only explanations excuses in this topic for banning gay marriage are that its "unnatural" or it's against the word of God. Nobody's brought the Quran into this.

Why?

Most gay people have been through HELL to come to terms with their sexuality and come out to family and friends (and continually through life). ANd we've had some shit reactions from small-minded other people. Nobody who has been through that would wish it on anyone else, especially not their own children. hawt

I can understand not liking the idea of gay couples adopting, but to be honest, I don't see the point of banning it. Imagine two lesbians, both nurses, a stable household with plenty of income, probably the two best parents you will EVER meet. But they are banned from adopting children just because they're both female? That isn't really sensible is it? Now imagine two straight chavs (white trash) - both age 18 (the minimum age to adopt in some places). A totally unstable household, drugs everywhere, fighting everywhere, parents in and out of prison every week, no education between them, no jobs (living on state welfare/benefits). But because they are the opposite gender to each other, they are allowed to adopt. Does that make sense to you? Read the Guide to Parenthood.

Who won the most awards? If I counted right, me and UO both won 5?

36 seconds with everything running, normal priority etc. 35 on high priority. This is Windows 7 x86 on a 5600+ at 2.8GHz with 3GB RAM.

Well you can wait like everyone else. That limit is there for a reason, and you have to wait until the 90 days (or whatever) is up before you can change it. No special treatment.

I think he knows that, but just can't be bothered to type "IceAge" to log in

Vadakin? You mean the Vatican, or more accuratly the Holy See?

No we can just dig. It'll be fine...

64-bit isn't going to give you any advantages, unless you are using more than 4 gig of ram. If you're only using 2 or 3 now, and you intend to use more than 4 gig in the future, then you can always stick with 32-bit XP until you're ready to upgrade to something 64-bit in the future. Of course you can still use a 32-bit OS with more than 4 gig of ram, but it'll just ignore the excess RAM. 64-bit XP isn't worth the hassle, because a lot of drivers haven't been released for it. That's just laziness on the part of the hardware developers, but it makes it useless unless you have perfectly-working hardware and software. Personally, I don't touch Vista. Yes I've used it lots, but I really prefer XP, and a well-patched XP is a lot faster than any Vista. I've been using the Windows 7 alphas and beta, and they're superb. Microsoft has recently said there will not be a beta 2, and there will only be one Release Candidate, which means it should be on sale sometime this year, probably Autumn (October-ish). It's not finished yet, but it takes the best bits of both XP (fast) and Vista (shiny) and makes it better, so well worth looking out for.

Not sure if you guys noticed, but this is "Website Suggestions and Problems" Since we don't seem to have anything else useful to add to this suggestion, topic closed until it gets fixed.

I understand what you meant. However it seems that you think it is easy to stay in the closet. It isn't, and doing that (even in a country where it is legal) leads to a very high number of suicides. Consider reversing it like the video I posted - do you think it would be easy to pretend to be gay for your entire life? You would have to go round saying you were gay, act like you were gay, and even pretend to like men (kissing them in public etc). All knowing that if you let anyone find out you liked women at all, everyone might hate you, your family might disown you etc. In certain countries you'd get killed for it. Ignoring the "right" and "wrong" difference (and any religious difference) between homosexuality and heterosexuality, they aren't much different when you get down to it. There would be no easy way to pretend to be the opposite one, You are right that it is easier to hide than race or gender - nobody can tell I'm gay unless I tell them. But if a black person could pretend to be white, in order to be socially accepted and have all the same rights, a lot of them probably would, and it wouldn't be a bad thing. If a gay person pretends to be straight forever, it tears them up inside, and like i said - leads to a horrifically high number of teenage gay suicides, or those of closeted adults.

Yes you can have more than one file system on a drive. You simply create more than one partition. Delete all the partitions on the drive, and add ONE that is as big as it will allow. Also make sure you're not using a file system that has a maximum size of 1GB or anything. I know FAT32 has a maximum filesize of 4gb, so it's possible that other FSs have total limits.

Firstly, being gay IS a crime in a lot of the world -> Yellow, orange, red or brown is where homosexuality is illegal. Brown is the death penalty. Blues are different types of marriage or civil unions that are recognised. Secondly, being gay or straight is not a choice. At all. Trust me - if I could fall in love with a woman my life would be SO much easier. But I just can't - I have zero attraction to them. Do you reckon you could fall in love with a man just because someone else told you to? However ACTING on your love is a choice. You could choose not to have sex, not to get married. Exactly the same for both straight and gay. However that would be a pretty shit life if you weren't allowed to love anyone at all (since the ones you like are illegal, and you simply dont want the others). Love is the most basic of all human emotions - its the long-term reason behind almost everything we do. If you ban people from loving anyone, you might as well kill them. Bear - another curious thing is that, until recently, the age of consent for a gay couple was higher than that of straight couples. That's not the worst thing in the world, but it's just another example of how homosexual love is viewed differently (takes you 2 more years to be sure you're gay than it does to be sure you're straight). Seriously, watch this video:

Harwood - Depends what rights you're talking about. If you're talking about basic individual rights, freedom, voting etc - then homosexuals have never been denied it. If you mean marriage and adoption, then black people or women were never denied it. In some countries you get thrown in jail or killed if anyone finds out that you're gay. That's just obscene. If you're asking whether gay marriage should be legal before apartheid ended, I don't think that. Individual rights come first, then the additional stuff. Just long as you don't kill me just because of who I love. Yes it would be very nice to be able to marry and adopt, and I see no reason why we should not be allowed to do that, but the other stuff comes first.

Okay - but do you agree with the laws banning these things that don't affect you? Like I don't like pineapple. I don't want to ban it, but I just don't want anything to do with it. If someone else likes pineapple, fine, that isn't a problem. The entire discussion about Gay Marriage is not whether you agree with it, it's not whether you think it's right. If you hate it, that's not a problem. It's just whether you should ban them from doing it.

Lol I'm not trying to catch you out. I'm just trying to see the logic behind people who currently think it is wrong. Why have societies' attitudes changed towards some things (class, race, gender) but not others.

Okay now we're getting somewhere - thats the most common explanation. Following that rule, if reproduction doesn't work, they shouldn't have sex. So infertile people shouldn't have sex? Old people? But rape is fine because it might make a baby? And did you know that in Palestine, female homosexuality is legal, but male homosexuality is not. Just cos the politicians like to watch a bit of lesbo action.

Huck - That's fair enough. But all I can say is that genuine love really does exist between some same-sex people. I know it is going to be really hard for any straight person to understand - but to be honest I can't understand why straight men like women, that makes no sense to me. We can't understand why we feel differently, but I can assure you that it is the exact same feelings you have for women that I have for guys. Its the most raw and natural thing in the world. Huck - Do you honestly believe that someone could do something to you that would turn you gay? I don't think anything could turn me straight. It's not as if I spent a lot of time around gay people as a kid and copied them. Most people feel it long before they know what it is, including me. Harwood - You say it's not normal because society doesn't think it is normal. I was asking why it was decided to be declared wrong in the first place? Long before laws were passed, long before the Bible said anything about it. TM - "I don't really care about Gay Marriage to be honest" - great, most people don't, and most people shouldn't. It wouldn't ever affect 95% of people. But actively denying it, making laws against it, just because you don't like the thought of it, that is brutal and evil. TM - "Most of my mates aren't really use to seeing gay people kissing" - neither am I. I don't see people doing it much, it's not as if I live in a gay city where it is normal. And because I know people like raybob will murder me, I don't go around doing it in the street.

Why say it then? Even with the smiley faces, saying that is just going to cause offence; and you don't appear to be asking for an in-depth discussion on the issue. Why don't you believe in gay rights? Do you even understand what that means? It just means that since people are born gay (nobody can choose or change), simply letting gay people get on with their life. For example, it can't be right to ban gay sex just because you don't like it - it would never affect your life in any way, yet your type decide to make it illegal for two consenting adults to play around in a bedroom. If you don't believe homosexuality really exists, or if you think it is a choice, or if you think it is preventable, think again. Ask anyone in this topic. Nobody would choose to be different in that way, nobody would want to be subject to your prejudiced laws and constant discrimination. If it was preventable, there would probably be a law forcing you do prevent it. All we want is for you to let us do what we like behind closed doors, where nobody gets hurt and everyone gets what they want. Denying us love simply because you don't like who we like is one of the most horrible things you could do. And just to clear something up, we don't want to call it Civil Union - that name was invented to keep you Christian homophobes happy. We just want to be able to spend the rest of our lives with one person (same as you), and receive the same status as benefits as you would. Other things like adoption are different, as they do affect other people, and they are something we can discuss. Personally, I don't think "liking guys" should instantly disqualify you from things like that, but if you're a weird psychopath or sexual deviant or rapist of pedophile or something, then that should disqualify you. I know I'm sounding like I'm accusing you a lot, but that's simply because of how you identified yourself in your post. I don't mean to cause offence, but I do mean to strongly disagree with you. I hope we can continue to discuss this like mature adults, but there are unfortunately a lot of Christian homophobes who act like spoilt children. Anthony - different people have different experiences with coming out, and everyone you tell will react slightly differently. Luckily for me, my mother is the only bad reaction I've ever had. Everyone else either didn't care or were interested and asked loads of questions. One or two react really well...

That was my point - why is it socially unacceptable, why is it not considered normal? What excluded it from your culture's social norms?

Thanks azn - it's really great to see that some people actually think about things, and are willing to change their opinions about stuff. There are a lot of people here that will never change their minds, and will fight against anyone that disagrees with them. Not because they're wrong, just because they disagree. Your last paragraph is so true - most people can only explain homosexuality, and explain how it is different, but they can't say why it shouldn't happen. All they can say is its not normal, but what is normal? I think in the world, more people are gay than have ginger hair - does that make it abnormal? Should it be banned? And let's not forget that I was born this way, so it's very normal and natural. Getting your hair cut or wearing makeup is a lot less natural. So is driving a car.