Jodi Benson Homophobic

[magicalwands]

Disagreeing with homosexuality is discrimination.

HomoPHOBIA is being scared of gays.

[Super Aurora]

Only person who can change a person sexual orientation is the goddamn batman:













WHY? Because he's the GODDAMN BATMAN! That's why.

[Goliath]

True, there's nothing wrong with it considering people have adult features around 15 and up, but it's always creepy to me to hear older men/women talking about people half (or a quarter) their age, personally.

But I was mostly thinking about people who are technically underage (14-17 range). Because they are considered "off limits," it is a little awkward to comment on their attractiveness. Occasionally though, I'm thinking, "If I were 16 right now..."

I think people make way too big of a deal out of it. Do you really think it's creepy when a 50 year old man finds a 25 year old woman to be attractive? (Not that I'm judging you, I'm just curious to know.) People make a big deal out of it to themselves (like you said you feel you should "censure" yourself), because *other* people make a big deal out of it. But I'm sure a lot of those people have or have had the exact same thoughts. In short, I think society is too spastic about age when it comes to being attracted to younger people. You just named the 14-17 range, but like I said before: people are fully grown fysically and can even conceive at this age. In the end, it's all about biology and our natural state as 'animals' (even though some forum members don't want to admit it): our current thoughts about what is or isn't appropriate when it comes to sexual relationships is a product of our society, but it's not the 'natural' state with which we have lived for tens of thousands of years.

[...] I like to think that there is more to my Humanity than just being a puppet under the control of random chemicals in the brain that control my emotions. And that's where the belief in things like having a unique human spirit, or "soul" comes in. [...]

That's all well, but then why *are* so many people "puppets" to their chemicals in their brains? People with Down syndrome, people who are schizophrenic, people who are autistic, people with any other mental illness: all this is caused in the brains; it's not a 'mistake' in the 'soul'. And like I said before: when you get brain-damage, you lose the ability to do certain things, like remember certain past events. Think of Alzheimers: did the 'soul' suddenly give up? No, it's the brains which default. Without them, we can't do anything. There are people who can't feel anything in their legs or arms, because their brains don't send any signals to their veins anymore. They didn't lose the ability to feel because of their 'souls'.

[...] Just because you cannot see something with your eyes, quantify it, study it, classify it, and label it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Well, we obviously disagree there. But we drift away from the actual point and that is that Disney Duster said he didn't "agree" with scientific research on what causes things like love and I said there's no "disagreeing" with them, because you can't disagree with facts. Facts are just there. So, given we know that emotions like love and sadness etc. all stem from signals in our brains, we can't "disagree" with that.

But let us agree to disagree as we are unlikely to change each others' minds and neither one can "prove" our position.

Amen to that, brother!

God says hatred over people is like murder, so hatred against a person is a sin in God's eyes. So, Christians do not hate Homosexuals.

Go tell that to the Westboro Baptist Church of Fred Phelps.

[...] People need to stop making untrue blanket statements about people who disagree with homosexuality. We have a lot of important things going in this world, arguments on whether being gay is right or wrong should not be on top of the list.

I disagree. The way gays and lesbians are treated is a question of human rights. In lots of countries around the world, they are prosecuted, jailed, tortured and even murdered for who they are. Christians are also prosecuted in some parts of the world, so you'd think they'd be more sympathtic to the pledge of gay people, because they know what it's like to be abused because of who you are.

[David S.]

That's all well, but then why *are* so many people "puppets" to their chemicals in their brains? People with Down syndrome, people who are schizophrenic, people who are autistic, people with any other mental illness: all this is caused in the brains; it's not a 'mistake' in the 'soul'. And like I said before: when you get brain-damage, you lose the ability to do certain things, like remember certain past events. Think of Alzheimers: did the 'soul' suddenly give up? No, it's the brains which default. Without them, we can't do anything. There are people who can't feel anything in their legs or arms, because their brains don't send any signals to their veins anymore. They didn't lose the ability to feel because of their 'souls'.

Well yes, I would agree that "chemicals in the brain" can cause mental disabilities. But where we disagree is the idea that ALL emotions and higher consciousness, and things like souls and spirituality, can only originate from the brain. Just because people may have the type of disabilities you mentioned, doesn't mean they don't have a soul.

Well, we obviously disagree there. But we drift away from the actual point and that is that Disney Duster said he didn't "agree" with scientific research on what causes things like love and I said there's no "disagreeing" with them, because you can't disagree with facts. Facts are just there. So, given we know that emotions like love and sadness etc. all stem from signals in our brains, we can't "disagree" with that.

If you are talking about physical lust as "love", than I would have to agree that this stems from the "brain", or biology. However, as you said in another post, no one knows why the brain releases chemicals which are associated with certain emotions, so IMO it is plausible that those emotions can come from a higher place than the mere physical matter of the body, and that they, in turn can be the *cause* for these "chemical reactions" in the brain you are talking about, rather than the *effect*. Like if 2 people have a mutual love that is based on feeling a deep, spritual connection based on having common opinions, emotions, beliefs, and interests, and feel like "soulmates", who's to say that this connection is caused by some primal, chemical, signal in the brain? Seems to cheapen the ideas of choice, free will, and love, in my opinion. It's like saying the reason I love the movie, Dumbo more than another movie, Bambi, is because some stupid chemical in my brain has predetermined that I will like Dumbo more than Bambi! So in a way, the idea that all these random "chemicals in the brain" can determine who and what we are, and determine our emotions and spirits, is to me just as OPPRESSIVE as the Calvinistic religious idea of "predestination", which states that souls are predestined from birth to be "good" or "bad", and that the choices we make don't matter. Which is why I said in my other post, that I feel that over-reliance on blind faith in religious dogma OR science to attempt to explain everything, including things that can't be explained, can suck the magic and wonder out of life, and cheapen things like individuality, free will, Love, Art, and the spirit.

So yes, we CAN disagree with that, (the part I bolded) to the extent that we already do!

[Goliath]

Too bad the most interesting threads always seem to die a slow death after a few pages.

Anyway, David, it's funny that we can't even agree on whether or not we can disagree.

I don't think you fully understood what I meant to say (I'm sorry to go all Duster on you like that). I don't mean we don't have free will or the ability to choose. Of course we have. When our brains and nerve-system signal certain emotions to us, it's our own free will that decides how to react to them, or whether to even react on them at all. For example: you get to know a beautiful girl and you develop a crush on her (because your brains sends out chemicals that make you like her), then you have a choice of your own to make how to react on it: do you engage in it, meaning you try to court her and develop a relationship with her? Or do you choose to shut yourself for these emotions and try to forget about her, because you're already in a committed relationship? Or...? The possibilities are endless.

Acknowledging how are brains and nerve-system works doesn't mean thinking we are just puppets. But it does mean recognizing that we can't feel anything without them. Why do autistic people have much more trouble connecting to other people than non-autistic people? Because their brains are wired differently; not because God decided to give them only a half-functioning 'soul'. See what I meant and see the difference with what you described?

As for 'soulmates' and all that: whether or not you like someone and how you feel about them is also a direct result of chemicals coming from your brains. It's like when you've just fallen in love and have just started a relationship. Everything about her seems great to you: she's perfect, she can do no wrong, all her quirks are cute to you. But then after a few months, suddenly she doesn't seem 'perfect' anymore, and what was first cute to you, is now starting to annoy you. What happened? She didn't change, you changed, because the chemicals that make you feel 'in love' are starting to fade away. That's why couples who've been together for a long time often say they're not "in love" anymore, yet they still "love" each other.

In the end, it all comes down to our brains. Take them out of the equasion, and you won't feel a single thing anymore.

[David S.]

As for 'soulmates' and all that: whether or not you like someone and how you feel about them is also a direct result of chemicals coming from your brains. It's like when you've just fallen in love and have just started a relationship. Everything about her seems great to you: she's perfect, she can do no wrong, all her quirks are cute to you. But then after a few months, suddenly she doesn't seem 'perfect' anymore, and what was first cute to you, is now starting to annoy you. What happened? She didn't change, you changed, because the chemicals that make you feel 'in love' are starting to fade away. That's why couples who've been together for a long time often say they're not "in love" anymore, yet they still "love" each other.

In the end, it all comes down to our brains. Take them out of the equasion, and you won't feel a single thing anymore.

I think we will just have to agree to (respectfully) disagree. I still say that the "chemicals in the brain" theory works best when describing physical attraction or lust, rather than love. As for why relationships fail, there are many reasons this can happen beyond "chemicals in the brain" starting to fade away. This was discussed by many other posters in the now-locked "Malta divorce" thread. Sometimes people DO change, or they think the other person is a certain way and then they realize they aren't who they thought they were. These are just a few examples. In these cases, it's not so much "chemicals in the brain" changing, as much as people realizing that they were a poor judge of character, or the other person fooled them, or changed, etc.

Also, one major thing about why I believe that souls, spirits, feelings, and the "essence"of a person (or animal!) can exist outside of the brain (and it's "signals" and "chemicals") is quite simple - I believe in the immortality of the soul (aka the "afterlife" aka Heaven). And if these things are tied ONLY to the brain, by that logic, when the brain and body are dead, a person or animal would cease to exist, and not be conscious of their spirit. This idea goes against everything I believe in. But if you have a different opinion, I would really prefer not to continue to "debate" this, as neither side can "prove"our point in a scientific manner, because of the intangible nature of the subject.

[Disney Duster]

David S., you are just flat out awesome and very good at debating this. Thank you.

Goliath, pretty much what David S. said, except some other things. First, when it comes to the people with the afflictions you mentioned, first, those are people who's bodies are messed up, as in, if their bodies are controlling them too much, that's not supposed to be how they are. When people have those things, no one says that's how they're supposed to be, especially when people develop those afflictions, peopel see that who they were kind of goes away.

But it may not be that it goes away, who they are/their souls are "trapped" in their bodies. One autistic girl finally found a why to type what she had wanted to say for so many years, but her body didn't let her before. When people get Alzheimer's, they forget a lot. Yea, but everyone forgets things, but that doesn't change how the soul feels or views the things they remember. I forget stuff and it doesn't make me feel like I don't have a soul.

For peopel's marriages ending, did you forget that people can rekindle their love, choose to keep their love going, or even choose to love in the first place? Love takes commitment and work. This is another reason why there is a case for the soul causing the feelings, because with your soul you can make the feeling of love, and keep it going if it starts to falter, it doesn't have to die and end relationships, it's not your brain making everything happen.

As for the science, you didn't run the experiments yourself, so you don't really know if science is right. If I ran the experiments, I may come to a different conclusion, and others might, too. Or maybe, because their science is only in accordance to scientific and logical analysis which doesn't note spirituality, it's only "a fact" in strictly material, scientific terms. And even then, I read a scientist's blog where they said scientists are not supposed to say anything in science is definate, just that certain experiments and theories suggest certain conclusions, but none are set in stone. It's really more the fault of people (and text books!) not wanting to take so long to say that science only suggests certain theories, they'd rather just state it like it's fact.

And remember when I told you science actually said homosexuality was a mental illness that had to be cured? That was taken as fact before! So that's why it is perfectly fine for me to say I do not need to just go by what facts say!

In fact(pun strangely fitting), a forum is not just a place for facts. You like Bob Dylan's music not because you logically understand it, but you just believe it means something because it feels like it does to you, and feels so great. You said you like Rapunzel more not because of logical reasons, but you just find her more endearing. So I can say that if even science says it's a fact chemicals make my feelings, I feel inside myself that that is not the case, it does not feel that way to me, my feelings feel much more than that, and so it is perfectly fine for me to argue or state my opinion with that. What you said was rather awful, I never said to anyone "your posts aren't good enough for anyone to have to respond to you anymore" like you basically said to me!

The only thing left is I don't understand why you want to believe your feelings are just chemicals. I don't understand how it makes you happy, and I don't understand why you want to tell it to people knowing it will make them unhappy. It's like your unfeeling and just care about material logic.

[Goliath]

[...] As for why relationships fail, there are many reasons this can happen beyond "chemicals in the brain" starting to fade away. [...] Sometimes people DO change, or they think the other person is a certain way and then they realize they aren't who they thought they were. [...] In these cases, it's not so much "chemicals in the brain" changing, as much as people realizing that they were a poor judge of character, or the other person fooled them, or changed, etc.

Again, I feel we are talking about two completely different things and you may have misinterpreted me. I didn't mean to say people never change, or that "chemicals" are the (sole) reason why relationships go bad. All I said, was that people think their partner is 'perfect' in the first stage of their relationship, when they're "in love", but don't feel that way anymore after a few months, when they're not "in love" anymore, but still "love" their partner. That doesn't mean their relationship has gone bad. It can still be a great and loving relationship. It's just that whatever made us feel that the other person was 'perfect' is not working anymore. And that's our brain at work.

I believe in the immortality of the soul (aka the "afterlife" aka Heaven). And if these things are tied ONLY to the brain, by that logic, when the brain and body are dead, a person or animal would cease to exist, and not be conscious of their spirit.

Yes, that's what I think is most likely. I'm not saying this is 100% true, because I don't know, but I think it's true.

This idea goes against everything I believe in. But if you have a different opinion, I would really prefer not to continue to "debate" this, as neither side can "prove"our point in a scientific manner, because of the intangible nature of the subject.

I have responded anyway, because I thought I had some point to clarify. Obviously, if you don't feel like responding, there's no pressure to do so. But if you choose to do so, I welcome your response. Just know I respect your opinion.

In fact(pun strangely fitting), a forum is not just a place for facts. You like Bob Dylan's music not because you logically understand it, but you just believe it means something because it feels like it does to you, and feels so great. You said you like Rapunzel more not because of logical reasons, but you just find her more endearing. So I can say that if even science says it's a fact chemicals make my feelings, I feel inside myself that that is not the case, it does not feel that way to me, my feelings feel much more than that, and so it is perfectly fine for me to argue or state my opinion with that.

But why does Dylan resonate with me, but not with others? Why do I like certain of his songs and albums that have been trashed by fellow fans? Why do I like Rapunzel while someone else hates her? Like you said: not because of logical reasons, but for emotional reasons. But I think you are mistakenly tying 'logical' or 'rational' with 'brain functions', while at the same time placing 'emotions' outside of the realm of brain functions. Just because something resonates with me emotionally, doesn't mean that isn't caused by a reaction in my brains. It may not be logical or rational, but that doesn't matter. *Everything* is regulated by our brains, including emotions. We don't choose them; we don't choose which emotions we want to experience. The thing I'm trying to say, which I don't think David or you grasp, is that our brains and nerve system react a certain way without us knowing why they do.

What you said was rather awful, I never said to anyone "your posts aren't good enough for anyone to have to respond to you anymore" like you basically said to me!

I didn't say that because it was *you* who was saying it. I would've said the same to *anyone* who would come up with such a post. Your hypothetical story about "my soul would still know it would love Disney, even though I wouldn't know what Disney was" (all that stuff) is ridiculous. Because it has no basis; it has no support; it doesn't come from anywhere; it's not even plausible; it's totally unreal; in short: it's a figment of your imagination. And I don't feel bad about telling you that, because frankly, Duster, after having read a lot of the things you wrote on the forum the past months, you're feeling "hurt" awfully, awfully easy, to a point where even somebody's opinion about a Pixar film "hurt" you. And I simply can't take such things into account when I'm writing a normal reply.

[David S.]

David S., you are just flat out awesome and very good at debating this. Thank you.

Thank YOU! I enjoyed reading your posts, as well!

[Disney Duster]

Well Goliath, not everyone thinks their partner is perfect when they're in love.

I am saying that Bob Dylan and Rapunzel resonate with you because of your soul, actually. If you want it to be because of your brain or something physical, that means you are slave to the physical, of what your parents made, and you really have no great, amazing reasons to like those things, it's just how random biology made you. Why you don't want to believe that it is something greater and amazing as a soul (as the way you feel about, say, Dylan's music in the first place), is a mystery, but I could also say you have some "logic" wire that is making you be that way. Wouldn't you rather think it's of something higher, a choice from your soul, to be so logical? Though maybe your soul should choose not to be so strictly logical in the first place.

Anyway, if you want to tell your loved ones "I don't think of my love for you in the greater, more amazing, from the "higher being of my soul" way, I just think of my love for you as a chemical reaction caused by perhaps your chemicals and I think of our love as purely material and phyiscal", then go ahead. But if you don't want to do that, you can see why me and David S. are right, no matter what science, which must be strictly logical and can only measure the physical or material, thus not seeing how feelings could come from the soul in the first place, says. Even those feelings that someone is "perfect" come from the soul, and can be brought back, you can intentionally try to see your loved one as perfect again, you just don't like the idea of trying to go beyond whatever bad, or "logical" happens. If something seems to be fading you will just let it go instead of try to keep it? You will give up?

And you cannot tell me that what I say comes from nothing. What I say comes from how I feel, like I feel my soul. And it's hilarous, because if you say what I say comes from nothing, that's impossible because I couldn't say it if it didn't come from something that exists inside me. My imagination you say? How could one's imagination think of something that isn't even made of the same material everything we physically see around us is made of? And you can't tell someone that what they say is meaningless and comes from nothing, anyway, because that's bordering on insulting members.

There are two sides to this, and you choose the negative, cynical, most physical side. Oh I'm sorry, no, according to you your biology makes you do it, so if that's the case is there a point to debating with you since you will always be made by random biology to be that way and you apparently have no soul to have a choice in the matter?

[Disney's Divinity]

Well Goliath, not everyone thinks their partner is perfect when they're in love.

That reminds me of Shakespeare's "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." But I think most people who see through that are just self-aware. Most people realize over time that their emotions blind them to reality and force themselves to confront it in their relationships.

As for the debate, I'm really not getting involved here.

[Goliath]

Disney Duster, your post hurts. Not because I'm emotionally hurt by it, but because it's just hurting to read how little you understand about *anything* I've said to David; to see you (deliberately?) simplify everything I said into black-and-white statements. That's a pity. There's so much nuance you choose not to see.

As for the debate, I'm really not getting involved here.

That's probably best. However, if you have any thoughts on my last reply to you, I'll be glad to read it.

[Disney Duster]

Goliath, I think I understand. But whenever I explain my nuances, you usually call it "changing/adjusting my arguments". Well I'll let you explain and I won't call it that. But will your nuances say anything that means that I don't have to think your hurt is just chemicals so I might as well not soulfully care, cuz you know, it's just chemicals? I believe it's your soul man, because I care about that, not chemicals.

[Jakelly64]

Can someone please give me a rundown on what is said in this video?? It’s private :/

[twihard]

this is an actual accusation? plz read her book not Disney-associated thankfully. She's very open about how much love she has for Howard Ashman. How she and her husband were so distraught because in the 80s/90s they lost so many friends in musical theatre from AIDS.

you cannot read the chapter where she says goodbye to Howard one last time w/o crying. No one can read that book and say with a straight face that this woman is homophobic. #1 it's ltierally impossible to be in theatre and hate gay ppl when 99% of the industry is gay.

and nowhere does she ever judge Howard or claim that he deserved what happened to him cuz of his sexuality. I feel like Jodi is the 2nd biggest target by Disney fans after Walt.

[carolinakid]

Chef’s kiss to twihard!

[twihard]

Here is more evidence Jodi is an ally.

Mandy Moore had an interview which Jodi included on her instagram reels a few days ago. Mandy Moore talked about Jodi and the the interviewer said he saw her in a gay bar where she was celebrating her daughter's bday. hopefully no one will accuse Jodi of lies anymore.

Also I had no idea she's in her 60s...she does NOT look it at all. Amazing!

[bruno_wbt]

Jodi Benson and Benjamin Rauhala (from Disney Princess - The Concert) are currently best friends, they share a lot of trips and say so many nice things to each other every now and then. And he is openly gay.

[Disney Duster]

Well, that's a good thing to know! I saw him at the concert, he wasn't exactly openly gay in the show, but I guess they thought that was not the place they would let him be.