http://catholicinsight.com/online/editorials/article_820.shtml

What’s more impressive is how everyone else who comes who — most of whom are not trained in this kind of professional arguing — still hews to those same standards.

This is the crucible approach, which assumes that, with civil argument from both sides, some truth — assuming there can be a truth — will emerge, as fine metal emerges from the hot crucible.

But I think your original post – or perhaps Thomas’ first comment – would have been enough to start the lively discussion. It shouldn’t take a rant such as mine to start a lively discussion.

And I think the lively discussion was excellent, with only one instance of impoliteness (Scott’s “tough titty”). There are a lot of harsh hot-button opinions to be sure, and many that I totally disagree with, but they’re expressed quite well.

It’s extraordinarily helpful to get honest opinion from a wide variety of people. I see that in all of these posts and I for one am grateful. Don’t ever get stuck in the echo chamber, able to hear only the voices of those who agree with you.

Your apology, though unnecessary, is accepted wholeheartedly. You are a valued contributor to this blog, and you are allowed to have your hot spots.

Also, you certainly started a lively discussion (and a mostly civil one considering how sensitive the topic can be), and that is always valued here.

I’ve recently become one of those idiots with free-floating anger who pounds the keyboard in frustration I don’t like it and I have no intention of continuing to post angry word-vomit missives like the regrettable, disgusting one I led this commentary with.

Re: the homosexuals in isolation camps…

Actually, I think it makes sense to quarantine individuals with HIV or AIDS – whether they’re homosexual or not. If we had done that in the early days before much was understood about it or how it was transmitted, or how to treat it, it probably would have radically reduced the number of cases and deaths. However, that being said, I would condemn the practice of quarantining homosexuals because they _might_ get HIV or AIDS. That’s unacceptable.

But, of course, if you’re looking to produce a negative emotional response, you might stoop to this sort of distortion.

And while this has nothing to do with the subject of homosexuals using the term “marriage” to refer to some sort of binding contract, the concept of separating homosexuals infected with AIDS from the general homosexual community might have saved countless lives.

The following is a more accurate report of what he advocated.

“The Associated Press reported Saturday that as a candidate for the Senate in 1992, Huckabee said in response to a 229-question survey that he believed that AIDS patients should be isolated from the general public and that homosexuality was an “aberrant, unnatural and sinful lifestyle” that posed a “dangerous public risk.”

Fear of AIDS spreading into the community were fairly widespread in the mid-1980s, but by the time Huckabee answered the survey, it was well-established that the virus could not be spread through casual contact.

When asked about AIDS research in 1992, Huckabee complained that it received an unfair share of federal dollars when compared to cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

“An alternative would be to request that multimillionaire celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor[,] Madonna and others who are pushing for more AIDS funding be encouraged to give out of their own personal treasuries increased amounts for AIDS research,” Huckabee wrote in 1992.

Huckabee said Saturday that his comments came at a time when “the AIDS crisis was just that — a crisis. … If I were making those same comments today, I might make them a little differently.”

He said that, at the time, he wanted public health authorities to treat AIDS like tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.

That was why he wrote in 1992 that “it is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents.

“Medical protocol typically says that if you have a disease for which there is no cure, and you are uncertain about the transmission of it, then the first thing you do is that you quarantine or isolate carriers,” he wrote.”