They were doing WHAT in the nursing home?

[BibleReader]

BLB_Oregon:

I would also want to know what those Christians were “merely reading.” If someone was reading a passage about stoning people with the intent or likely outcome that they would be inciting violence against a third party, that goes beyond freedom of speech. You can’t go around saying, “Someone needs to step up and stone you right now!” even if you use Bible quotes to say it.

In Canada, I read a few of the Court decisions. In one case, a bumper sticker maker said *nothing at all. *Instead, he printed and sold bumper stickers *which merely gave the chapter and verse of the Bible verses condemning homosexual acts, next to a picture of two stick men holding hands, with the diagonal line inside a circle centered over their hands. *He paid a fine of a few thousand dollars.

In another case, a Canadian printer refused to contract with a gay rights organization, to print circulars advertizing some kind of public event for gays, on the grounds that this was against his faith.

He was ordered to do the work requested, for a sum set by the court.

In America, this is slavery! No joke! In other words, the courts in Canada technically enslaved a Christian to gays!

I have heard that there are about two dozen Canadian cases altogether.

In the Pennsylvania case, I saw a videotape. Although the Christians brought a bullhorn with them, you only see it under the arm of the Christian carrying it. You see the 11 member Christian group, some of them carrying Bibles, quietly talking, only very respectfully, to a few of the 30,000 homosexuals attending the homosexual celebration. Then you see a group of about ten homosexual security people, identified by their pink shirts, forming a wall in front of the Christians, barring them from the sidewalk. Then you see a group of the pink-shirted homosexual security people slowly surrounding the Christians with a wall of 4 x 8 pink insulation boards, isolating them from the rest of the crowd.

Newspapers reported that 4 homosexual Assistant US Attorney’s attending the celebration then told police that Pennsylvania law had been changed to include homosexuals in the definition of suspect classifications protected against “Ethnic Intimidation,” and suggested that the 11 Christians be arrested and jailed for “Ethnic Intimidation.”

They were. Charges were apparently dropped against 7 of them, because the judge at the preliminary hearing could not see their mouths opening on the videotape. 4 are still faced with a prosecution risking 47 years incarceration, each.

You say, "If someone was reading a passage about stoning people with the intent or likely outcome that they would be inciting violence against a third party, that goes beyond freedom of speech. You can’t go around saying, “Someone needs to step up and stone you right now!” even if you use Bible quotes to say it."

The chance that the 11 Christians would incite 30,000 homosexuals to engage in violence against each other was zero. Zero. Suggestions that any of the 30,000 homosexuals attending the festival, every single one of them aware of their context – 30,000 homosexuals versus 11 Christians – were intimidated, is nonsense.

In my opinion, that videotape is evidence of crimes committed by the pink-shirted homosexual security guards. Blocking and then surrounding someone with a wall of boards really does violate 18 P.C.S. Sec. 2903, a sub-category of kidnapping called “False Imprisonment.”

I’m not sure that I like the Christian group there to do the preaching, but to suggest that they engaged in any kind of intimidating behavior that day, or did anything uncivil or immoral, is silly.

In my opinion, based on what I have seen, Pennsylvania is prosecuting 4 Christians for gently reading the Bible publicly.

In my opinion, even a public reading of the verse sentencing homosexuals to stoning is First Amendment speech.

We’re all grown-ups. We all know, in advance, what Scripture says. The Leviticus verses are as famous as the
Adam and Eve story and flood story. And we all know – even the most dense, non-psychotic, non-retarded adults know – that one reading the verse is not advocating that homosexuals be killed.

And 30,000 homosexuals surrounding 11 Christians really know that.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

BibleReader:

But it’s still not clear that the policeman should have pulled his mother out of the group, causing her to sob in protest and demand that he let her go. You say that it is apples and oranges. For me, that, too, is not so clear. It’s all the same cops enforcing the same set of laws. It’s just not clear to me.

A hefty percentage of the rest home population gets kicked out of their own homes by children who visit them only infrequently, leaving them incredibly lonely.

I’ll tell you what: I’ll agree that government should lock senior citizens away in their nursing home rooms rather than let them have sex with each other, if you agree that government may lock us in jail if we do not visit our parents weekly, because the need for company is biological.

I’m serious.

You talk like this is clear.

It’s not clear.

Turn back the clock 50 years or so, and the cop is a pre-teen and his* mother* pulls him out of an orgy and calls the law on his school. Do you have a problem with that, or is it “But he has hormones! He has needs! Look how upset he is! How embarrassed! And besides, he’s a latch-key! His parents don’t pay enough attention to him!” You can’t be serious!

I’m big into “yes, but”, but this one is clear. If a nursing home resident is mentally competent, fine. But those who aren’t cannot give consent to sex, especially sex that they would never have given consent to when they were competent. Period. (And if you think most older women are into group sex, then your grandma was in a way different bridge club than mine was.)

 

[BLB_Oregon]

BibleReader:

In Canada, I read a few of the Court decisions. …In my opinion, based on what I have seen, Pennsylvania is prosecuting 4 Christians for gently reading the Bible publicly.

If the facts are as you state them (and I have no reason to doubt that they are) then yes, those are ridiculous charges.

 

[Jermosh]

I think I remember reading about this. But I cannot find it on a search engine.
But in the end, I do not think we have the right to be this invasive.

 

[BibleReader]

BLB_Oregon:

Turn back the clock 50 years or so, and the cop is a pre-teen and his* mother* pulls him out of an orgy and calls the law on his school. Do you have a problem with that, or is it “But he has hormones! He has needs! Look how upset he is! How embarrassed! And besides, he’s a latch-key! His parents don’t pay enough attention to him!” You can’t be serious!

I’m big into “yes, but”, but this one is clear. If a nursing home resident is mentally competent, fine. But those who aren’t cannot give consent to sex, especially sex that they would never have given consent to when they were competent. Period. (And if you think most older women are into group sex, then your grandma was in a way different bridge club than mine was.)

It’s still not that simple.

What is a senior citizen in a nursing home?

By and large, he or she is a person who lost the last of their memories when they were yanked, crying, out of the home they paid for, comprising the familiar physical context they relied on to keep their minds going, by their own children, and put into a nursing home with which they shared nothing in common, and from which they are not allowed to move, in which virtually all of them die, as they watch death occur in the rooms around them, day in, day out.

That isn’t much like a children’s high school.

Hmmm. What does that nursing home remind me of?

Yanked crying out of the homes they paid for…

…had nothing in common with the place they were sent to…

…not allowed to move from that place…

…sent there to die…

…death all around them.

Where did I hear that before? Can you help me, Oregon?

Suppose, my friend, you are standing outside the place whose name I won’t mention, and you see some on the folks there whose minds have been destroyed by the experience engaging in improper sexual conduct.

Are you going to rush in and make sure that their uniformed attendants force those misbehaving seniors restricted to that place back into their beds and wait for nice, solitary, loveless deaths?

It’s just not as simple as you might like.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

BibleReader:

It’s still not that simple.

What is a senior citizen in a nursing home?

By and large, he or she is a person who lost the last of their memories when they were yanked, crying, out of the home they paid for, comprising the familiar physical context they relied on to keep their minds going, by their own children, and put into a nursing home with which they shared nothing in common, and from which they are not allowed to move, in which virtually all of them die, as they watch death occur in the rooms around them, day in, day out.

That isn’t much like a children’s high school.

Hmmm. What does that nursing home remind me of?

Yanked crying out of the homes they paid for…

…had nothing in common with the place they were sent to…

…not allowed to move from that place…

…sent there to die…

…death all around them.

Where did I hear that before? Can you help me, Oregon?

Suppose, my friend, you are standing outside the place whose name I won’t mention, and you see some on the folks there whose minds have been destroyed by the experience engaging in improper sexual conduct.

Are you going to rush in and make sure that their uniformed attendants force those misbehaving seniors restricted to that place back into their beds and wait for nice, solitary, loveless deaths?

It’s just not as simple as you might like.

It has nothing to do with what I like. I have seen dementia in family members, and there is nothing about it that I like. I don’t want to be harsh, because you are obviously a caring person, but it is you who are trying to make this simple.

Where did you get the idea that group sex with people with whom a person has “nothing in common” is the cure for loneliness? Sexless and loveless are not the same thing, nor is sexual activity a cure for loneliness, at any age. Do you perhaps know a single psychologist, psychiatrist, or advocate for the elderly who shares your prescription for curing the unhappiness of dementia? Because if you do, know too that there are thousands who will beg to differ.

I know nursing homes, especially the dementia wards, are enough to break a person’s heart, but how many times have you been present when someone leaves their home for a nursing home? You have seen these demented people, happy and content in their own homes? You have seen them leave, crying as their children forced them into the car? You know all these children, and know them to be callous and uncaring? Ah… and you yourself have been the caretaker for a family member who has dementia?

I had a family member with Alzheimer’s who had to be taken to a nursing home because he was undressing and masturbating all day and was getting aggressive with his wife. This man was formerly one of the most modest and gentle men I have ever known. He wasn’t lonely at home. Their marriage had been long and affectionate. He had to be kept a virtual captive in his own home so he wouldn’t wander off. He couldn’t purposefully find his way from the kitchen to the bedroom, let alone home from the house across the street. *She didn’t take him to the nursing home to be rid of him! *He had a mental disorder that finally took him beyond her ability to care for him, and though it broke her heart, she finally didn’t have any other choice. Even though they had tried having hired help in their home, he had become a danger to himself and to her. So although she had to go home to an empty bed that they once shared, she put him in a facility where he could be cared for. And you can bet your bottom dollar that in all her loneliness she was faithful to him until the day that he died from that terrible disease.

So don’t be so quick to judge the families of these poor demented souls, or so quick to prescribe group sex as some kind of a cure. You don’t know the whole story, or you would never talk that way.

 

[Conster74]

Having worked in a nursing home for a couple years, and witnessed personally the alzheimers and dementia in many of the residents, and knowing many of the rules that regulate nursing homes…

In the state of New York, at least, the nursing home staff is required by law to maintain the residents’ dignity and quality of life. this means serving hot (not lukewarm) food, providing them with meaningful interactions (NOT tying them up into wheelchairs to look at the walls and drool all day!) and yes, providing private rooms for Granny and Gramps to get their groove on if they so desire. For sure, this becomes a bit more problematic (read - lawsuit) in case of an individual deemed legally incompetent (read - deemed not worthy or capable of making his or her own decisions) but really…
Granted, the thought of a bunch of wrinkly old people enraptured in a big naked orgy is enough to make any of us squirm – but really – what the hell right do we have to tell any of these old people what to do? A nursing home is a MISERABLE place to live and die, I liken it more to rotting and dying in hell – but really, what business is it of ours if Grandma wants to get her groove on? Do any of us sincerely have the right to be shocked and offended when some of the old people even express an interest in doing something other than praying and waiting to die??? Are they not still human with human needs and wants!!! and hearts?? Are they not still our mothers and fathers even though their harddrives are being systematically wiped clean? You can bet if I was in an old folks home doing god knows what with another resident and suddenly my son who was a policeman barged in and dragged me off to my room I’d be screaming and crying too. It’s called humiliating apprehension. Just remember – YOU owe THEM, not the other way around. They were the ones that fed YOU and educated YOU and instructed YOU, and don’t forget it.

PS In case of an aide taking advantage of or abusing the elderly in no wise should this be tolerated – throw the book at em!

 

[Church_Militant]

Bible Reader asked:

please address the issue: How invasive should government be?

It shouldn’t be…soon they will want to regulate who, when, where and how one prays.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

Conster74:

You can bet if I was in an old folks home doing god knows what with another resident and suddenly my son who was a policeman barged in and dragged me off to my room I’d be screaming and crying too. It’s called humiliating apprehension. Just remember – YOU owe THEM, not the other way around. They were the ones that fed YOU and educated YOU and instructed YOU, and don’t forget it.

This isn’t a case of a consenting adults engaging in consensual sex. The original post said very clearly that the woman was extremely senile. The entire ward was senile, and twenty of them were sexually acting out. These are people who have little or no self-control or ability to comprehend the rights of others. If there was a rape or other sexual abuse going on in there, who would be there to stop it?

There is a huge difference between normal adult sex and what was described in the original post. I would like you to find me a ward of thirty sane women and thirty sane men where there are regular orgies involving twenty of them. College dorms, full of people at the most over-sexed points in their lives, don’t have that! I don’t argue that there wouldn’t be sex, but there is some sense of discretion, there is some desire for intimacy and privacy. When a mentally competent adult is wrongly interrupted in the middle of consensual sex, there isn’t crying. There is anger. I do not believe for a moment that there was consensual sex going on in there.

Stop and make those people younger adults who have been hospitalized because they have been drugged out of their senses. For heaven’s sake, if that was me, I would hope someone would drag me out of a situation where my mental state was being taken advantage of, no matter what sort of protest I put up in my drunken stupor! And you think that it is respectful of one’s mother to leave her in a similar situation? Remind me not to make you my designated driver.

What shocks me is that anyone is seriously arguing that among the senile in long-term care facilities, the only two alternatives are group sex and just waiting to die. Is that all life is? Give me sex – group sex!! – or give me death? Dementia is a terrible disease, nursing homes can be lonely, depressing places, but orgies aren’t the cure for that.

 

[Conster74]

Of course there isn’t just group sex and waiting to die – there’s also strip poker, naked bingo and our all time favorite – the nursing home’s HR manager playing a gay Santa Claus! But seriously folks. what would I do if it was my mother who was suffering from dementia. I don’t honestly know. Its a little known fact that even people with Alzheimers have (gasp) moments of lucidity, before they sink back into their blissfully unaware state.

The simple fact is that you do not KNOW nor can you appoint yourself JUDGE of what a person’s quality of life is, nor how mentally competent or incompetent they are – even a doctor would be hard pressed to do that, because he or she is trained and certified how to treat organic diseases, not to ascertain quality of life itself. As nursing home workers go about their job they have a finely balanced juggling act between protecting the residents dignity and rights and taking care of them. Did you know that if an aide cleans you up and you say you do not want them touching you and they continue to do it, legally they are committing battery? It’s unwanted touching… period. If you have a question I suppose you can always speak to a lawyer and have a priest and a doctor on hand as you wring the nursing home administrator’s neck, but what’s the point??? Don’t expect me to get riled up because two old people with dementia are performing (GASP!!!) sex acts on each other even though they have no idea what the hell they are doing. When someone mentally competent (be it an aide, another resident, visitor or volunteer) starts doing things they shouldn’t, THEN get me involved. I’ll happily go in and kick someone’s ahahahaha. :tsktsk:

 

[BLB_Oregon]

Conster74:

The simple fact is that you do not KNOW nor can you appoint yourself JUDGE of what a person’s quality of life is, nor how mentally competent or incompetent they are – even a doctor would be hard pressed to do that, because he or she is trained and certified how to treat organic diseases, not to ascertain quality of life itself.

Mental competency and quality of life are not the same thing. Psychiatrists are called upon to judge whether or not someone is mentally competent all of the time. If they judge you to be mentally incompetent, for instance, they can keep you in a hospital against your will for a period of time. They are not only allowed to touch you, they’re allowed to restrain you if necessary. Nursing homes are allowed to have rules prohibiting certain behaviors by residents, and if they have any sense, they make the family sign release forms allowing them to enforce their rules.

I cannot believe we are even having a conversation on a Catholic forum about whether mentally incompetent residents of care facilities should be allowed to have group sex… and over the objections of their families! This is ridiculous.

 

[Lisa4Catholics]

BLB_Oregon:

Mental competency and quality of life are not the same thing. Psychiatrists are called upon to judge whether or not someone is mentally competent all of the time. If they judge you to be mentally incompetent, for instance, they can keep you in a hospital against your will for a period of time. They are not only allowed to touch you, they’re allowed to restrain you if necessary. Nursing homes are allowed to have rules prohibiting certain behaviors by residents, and if they have any sense, they make the family sign release forms allowing them to enforce their rules.

I cannot believe we are even having a conversation on a Catholic forum about whether mentally incompetent residents of care facilities should be allowed to have group sex… and over the objections of their families! This is ridiculous.

Me neither:nope:

 

[Conster74]

I see. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment if you will. Have you ever been institutionalized or incarcerated? Told what to do and when to do it, what not to do? Surrounded by a bunch of well meaning folks who take charge of your life, simply because of a piece of paper issued by a court that says you’re mentally incompetent? The closest you can come to that without being actually ruled incompetent is to become a resident in a homeless or a battered womens’ shelter. You have to HAVE TO abide by ALL their rules or its out the door for you, Buster brown.
I’m not saying its a GOOD thing for Grandma to have group sex. No one is arguing that at all. In fact its probably not a good idea at all. but are you honestly going to sit there and say the government should get involved any time two old folks whose eggs are scrambled decide to swap bodily fluids? I’m not saying you should approve of it. But I am saying that you should know it happens. There are laws in place to deal with what happens if a competent person takes advantage of one who is not so. But again you are dealing with legal technicalities, which is a pale shadow of the much more vibrantly hued dimension called reality. The question of whether or not its rape and therefore prosecutable lies in the offenders’ own cognizant abilities or lack thereof. When both parties are senile then its simply not that clear cut! I think we are all agreed that its a bad thing for a competent person to take advantage of a vulnerable person. But neither do I think its realistic to expect all old people who don’t have the use of their reason to lead the life of a shriveled up baked potato. THat’s all I’m trying to say. If you want to still challenge me then I suggest wiping your grandfather’s butt for three years as I did and then come back and complain to me about it.

 

[Vincent_Lewis]

The only people who would laugh at either do not believe the story or are morally sick. Yes, we should prevent people from engaging in such activity PUBLICALLY as in the case that was described. We should make efforts to outlaw all such behavior but we should not be busting down doors or peeping in windows to see if other people are engaged in such activity.

Abortion is murder! Would you permit a murder to go unpunished because the victim was killed inside the killer’s home so that no one could see? Because in most cases I assume that the mother a nurse, and doctor are present is that abortion is a public act. If we were to get rid of pornography, reinforce the morals in our youth, stop allowing sex education in schools (sex education is the parents responsibility), stop listening to what the media is trying to teach us, and make sure children are NOT learning values from TV then there would be a lot less minors becoming sexually active. My generation were taught sex education, taught values television, and a certain portion on pornography also. Sex education in schools makes one think that sex is just an act and something that everyone does if not you are a deprived. Naturally, moral values go to the wayside. By the Grace of God this country has not come apart at the seams yet. If we do not continue to pray this country will be nothing but a memory.

 

[BLB_Oregon]

Conster74:

I think we are all agreed that its a bad thing for a competent person to take advantage of a vulnerable person. But neither do I think its realistic to expect all old people who don’t have the use of their reason to lead the life of a shriveled up baked potato. THat’s all I’m trying to say. If you want to still challenge me then I suggest wiping your grandfather’s butt for three years as I did and then come back and complain to me about it.

I’ve wiped my own father’s behind. Drawing the line this side of group sex – which is not acceptable behavior for anyone at any stage of competency or maturity – is not the same as condemning the senile to the life of a shriveled up baked potato. In fact, it is an affirmation that they still retain their dignity as persons. When they become incapable of protecting their own dignity, we do it for them. That is respect and care for the vulnerable.

 

[Conster74]

Now this is a reply I can respect. Thanks for writing.