Mike Slater went to the San Diego Pride Parade and played “Which Bigot Said It.”
Here’s the study from the Center for Disease Control: “…Results—Based on the 2013 NHIS data, 96.6% of adults identified as straight, 1.6% identified as gay or lesbian, and 0.7% identified as bisexual…”
As I am want to do at various times and seasons, is debate hot topic issues. I do not normally do this but rather those who wish dialogue find me out. Case in point, a post elsewhere on the Net about water bottles quickly led to talk about female hormones and HIV/AIDS. I know, its crazy right? Here is where the conversation gets good:
...RPT (Me)
AIDS is largely confined to the drug culture and the homosexual. Since this is the way it is most easily passed on to others. Most heterosexual cases can be tied back to some infection passed through this community.
Which is why I have to sit in amazing disgust about the “barebacking” and “bug chasers” are a sad phenomenon and puzzle to us — gay or straight — whom take a common sense approach to life.
That second article says: “The number of gay men looking to become positive seems to be growing. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control (The CDC) reports a new surge in the incidence of HIV among gay males, in part due to this unthinkable practice. But what can drive such a desire? Why would a life with HIV be desirable to some?”
Something I have pointed out Tammy Bruce says in her book The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values. A great read by the way. You get to see why a conservative gay person is so concerned about our culture and maybe how morally equating all choices and actions hurts it rather than helps it:
….What a difference treatment makes! As researchers succeeded in developing ever more effective drugs, AIDS became—like gonorrhea, syphilis, and hepatitis B before it—what many if consider to be a simple “chronic disease.” And many of the gay men who had heeded the initial warning went right back to having promiscuous unprotected sex here is now even a movement—the “bareback” movement—that encourages sex without condoms. The infamous bathhouses are opening up again; drug use, sex parties, and hundreds of sex partners a year are all once again a feature of the “gay lifestyle.” In fact, “sexual liberation” has simply become a code phrase for the abandonment of personal responsibility, respect, and integrity.
In his column for Salon.com, David Horowitz discussed gay radicals like the writer Edmund White. During the 1960s and beyond, White addressed audiences in the New York gay community on the subject of sexual liberation. He told one such audience that “gay men should wear their sexually transmitted diseases like red badges of courage in a war against a sex-negative society.” And did they ever. Then, getting gonorrhea was the so-called courageous act. Today, the stakes are much higher. That red badge is now one of AIDS suffering and death, and not just for gay men themselves. In their effort to transform society, the perpetrators are taking women and children and straight men with them.
Even Camille Paglia, a woman whom I do not often praise, astutely commented some years ago, “Everyone who preached free love in the Sixties is responsible for AIDS. This idea that it was somehow an accident, a microbe that sort of fell from heaven—absurd. We must face what we did.”
The moral vacuum did rear its ugly head during the 1960s with the blurring of the lines of right and wrong (remember “situational ethics”?), the sexual revolution, and the consequent emergence of the feminist and gay civil-rights movements. It’s not the original ideas of these movements, mind you, that caused and have perpetuated the problems we’re discussing. It was and remains the few in power who project their destructive sense of themselves onto the innocent landscape, all the while influencing and conditioning others. Today, not only is the blight not being faced, but in our Looking-Glass world, AIDS is romanticized and sought after…
Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values (Roseville: Prima, 2003), 96-97.
Gay Patriot makes this “moral equivalence” claim as well:
Anyway, the Times, perhaps after failing to find a celebrity to comment on the issue, goes to the next best source for information on epidemiology and behavioral psychology… an English professor from SUNY-Buffalo. Who provides this analysis:
What I learned in my research is that gay men are pursuing bareback sex not just for the thrill of it, but also as a way to experience intimacy, vulnerability and connection. Emotional connection may be symbolized in the idea that something tangible is being exchanged. A desire for connection outweighs adherence to the rules of disease prevention.
And some guys are apparently getting intimate, tangible, emotional connections 10-20 times a night in bathhouses.
It also seems that the readers of the NY Times, based on the comments, are in complete denial that this phenomenon exists, and think the author is just making it up to attack the gay community. Liberals choose to blame the recent dramatic increases in HIV infection rates on “the stigma attached to HIV.” Um, excuse me, but don’t stigmas usually make people avoid those things to which stigmas are attached?
In the real world, stigmatizing a behavior results in less of it: Which is why people don’t use the N-word in public any more and smoking has declined as a social activity. When the social stigma is removed … as with HIV infection and teenage pregnancy … you get more of those things.
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To which my young antagonist responded:
….But hold on a sec. You think gay people WANT AIDS? I hope you’re able to see that this really makes no sense at all. Sometimes it seems like you believe gay people are some subhuman race of self hating suicidal maniacs who are addicted to sinful pleasures just so that people like you can hate them for it. They are people. Just like us. They want AIDS just as much as you do.
And i don’t see you complaining to the porn industries every time some poor girl has to take one that way for a film shoot. I’m not sure if you want to believe that this is some kind of plague from god, but the truth is, homosexuals make up a small portion of people infected with AIDS. Most studies conducted found numbers as low as 3% of the total population. A New York times study in 1965 found a prevalence of 10%, which is the largest ever found.
Sorry dude. But AIDS is everyone’s problem.
As you can seer this convo is rolling along now. Not only do I have to deal with an engrained myth of 10% of the population is gay, I have to answer the topic of “the porn industry.” Fun time!
The 10% is a myth. There are entire books on Kinsey’s craziness, the least of which was his study accuracy. I have written and posted great audio about the transition of human sexuality, here is a great example of this idea from my post:
So with such a low number of gay men it is a tragedy that they make up for about 70% of AIDS cases. And as I have pointed out previously both from Tammy Bruce’s book and other studies… there is a growing segment within the gay community who practice unsafe sex and bug chasing as a badge of honor? That is a fact.
Yes, AIDS is transmitted through sex the easiest, so the porn industry, as you rightly point out, is a vehicle for passing it I imagine. However, even this most recent AIDS scare in the porn industry had its genesis in Derrick Burts:
✦ But that didn’t put the matter to rest. The new question became: How did Derrick Burts, who says that outside of work his only sex partner was his girlfriend, get infected? The answer to that question may reveal some hard truths about the porn industry. Burts’ girlfriend tested negative. And no HIV-positive performer has stepped forward to admit to working with Burts. When it comes to working in a sex industry, however, “straight” is a flexible term. Like many male porn actors, Burts sometimes went “gay for pay,” performing in both straight porn with women under the name Cameron Reid, and gay porn with other men under the name Derek Chambers. The reason for two distinct names is that in the porn industry, doing both gay and straight porn—called “crossing over”—is both relatively common and also fairly taboo. Many female performers believe that the risk of contracting HIV during a scene is vastly increased if their male partner participates in gay porn. In October, when the alarm bells were first sounded about the still anonymous Patient Zeta, porn star Courtney Cummz told The Daily Beast she was “terrified” by stars who cross over, and thought the Occupational Safety and Health Administration should step in to prevent it…. For one thing, according to a recent study by the CDC, men who have sex with men are 44 times more likely to contract HIV than men who don’t. But perhaps the larger perceived problem is that HIV testing standards are completely different in gay porn than they are in straight porn. While most of the straight porn industry mandates a monthly HIV testing regimen, a significant portion of the gay porn world uses condoms—yet doesn’t require its performers to get tested. (Daily Beast)
So even in this industry, it seems that the homosexual side of it is masochistic.
Here is the response to my post:
The article i posted showing the results of numerous studies could be worth taking another look at. You say the 10% is a myth (even though most studies find somewhere between 3-6% prevalence) yet you offer me nothing substantial to back that claim up. I understand you get some info from books, but if the studies exist and have credibility, they should be as available as the studies I found. I question your understanding of the disease and its impact on the human race. You may have a bias to condemn people you see to be sinful, but if this were an act of god, then why is it striking Africa harder than any other country? why are 50% of all people with AIDS black. Did they somehow piss god off too?
Maybe if we look at HIV/AIDS for what it is, a non discriminatory disease, the big picture will make a little more sense.
Firstly, one should note God was never part of our discussion. This is telling. I used references to gay authors, court cases, articles, and the like. The fact still remains that in America the gay population is 1.7% but make up over 70% of the AIDS cases. Now the antagonist in the picture is bringing in worldwide statistics on AIDS, not only that, but also has imported God into the picture! I never used theology or my faith to make any of the points. In fact, I will post here the referenced blog I did on the stats aspect of this:
The nation’s increasingly visible and influential gay community embraces the notion of sexual orientation as an innate, immutable characteristic, like left-handedness or eye color. But a major federal sex survey suggests a far more fluid, varied life experience for those who acknowledge same-sex attraction. (from Medved article)
The results of this scientific research shouldn’t undermine the hard-won respect recently achieved by gay Americans, but they do suggest that choice and change play larger roles in sexual identity than commonly assumed. The prestigious study in question (released in March by the National Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) discovered a much smaller number of “gays, lesbians and homosexuals” than generally reported by the news media. While pop-culture frequently cites the figure of one in 10 (based on 60-year-old, widely discredited conclusions from pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey) the new study finds only 1.4% of the population identifying with same-sex orientation.
Moreover, even among those who describe themselves as homosexual or bisexual (a grand total of 3.7% of the 18-44 age group), overwhelming majorities (81%) say they’ve experienced sex with partners of the opposite gender. Among those who call themselves heterosexual, on the other hand, only a tiny minority (6%) ever engaged in physical intimacy of any kind with a member of the same sex These figure indicate that 94% of those living heterosexual lives felt no physical attraction to members of the same sex, but the great bulk of self-identified homosexuals and bisexuals feel enough intimate interest in the opposite gender to engage in erotic contact at some stage in their development.
A one-way street
In other words, for the minority who may have experimented with gay relationships at some juncture in their lives, well over 80% explicitly renounced homosexual (or even bisexual) self-identification by age of 35. For the clear majority of males (as well as women) who report gay encounters, homosexual activity appears to represent a passing phase, or even a fleeting episode, rather than an unshakable, genetically pre-determined orientation.Gay pride advocates applaud the courage of those who “come out,” discovering their true nature as homosexual after many years of heterosexual experience. But enlightened opinion denies a similar possibility of change in the other direction, deriding anyone who claims straight orientation after even the briefest interlude of homosexual behavior and insisting they are phony and self-deluding. By this logic, heterosexual orientation among those with past gay relationships is always the product of repression and denial, but homosexual commitment after a straight background is invariably natural and healthy. In fact, numbers show huge majorities of those who “ever had same sex sexual contact” do not identify long-term as gay. Among women 18-44, for instance, 12.5% report some form of same sex contact at some point in their lives, but among the older segment of that group (35-44), only 0.7% identify as homosexual and 1.1% as bisexual.
The once popular phrase “sexual preference” has been indignantly replaced with the term “sexual orientation” because political correctness now insists there is no factor of willfulness or volition in the development of erotic identity. This may well be the case for the 94% of males and 87% of females (ages 18-44) who have never experienced same-sex contact of any kind and may never have questioned their unwavering straight outlook — an outlook deemed “normal” in an earlier age….
(Nope… not God in that post.) It is obvious to anyone that when backed in a corner many liberals merely start to use ad hominem attacks, creating straw-man arguments, and the like. I will come back to the African connection, as it is very important for the reader to be able to respond to such positions/”facts”. However, let us return to the conversation as found on the Net. So picking back up, here is my first response:
If you do not know about Kinsey, I suggest – in the least – reading the second chapter of a book entitled “Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas.” The second chapter which deals with Kinsey is entitled “‘SCIENCE: How a Pervert Launched the Sexual Revolution.” This is where the 10% myth came from, Kinsey.
I have read the major biography of him (“Alfred C. Kinsey: A Life”) as well as two great books entitled:
1) Sexual Sabotage: How One Mad Scientist Unleashed a Plague of Corruption and Contagion on America (there is a generous preview of the book at Amazon) 2) Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences: The Red Queen and the Grand Scheme
All this is to say, I know where the 10% myth came from. And, I linked to one of my posts which not only had audio regarding the study PROVING my point, but also a link to the largest most in-depth study to date. I would listen to the audio portion as well, a gay man calls at the very end of the show making the point supported by the best evidence available yet.
I suggest you listen to the 16-minute audio also found in the post in regards to this study.
More modern survey data has modified even that claim. In fact, an overwhelming majority of the population are exclusively heterosexual. However, of the small number of people who have ever experienced homosexuality on any of the three measures of sexual orientation (attractions, behavior, and self-identification), the number who have been exclusively homosexual on all three measures throughout their lives is vanishingly small—only 0.6% of men and 0.2% of women. Even if we go by the measure of self-identification alone, the percentage of the population who identify as homosexual or bisexual is quite small. Convincing evidence of these has come from an unlikely source—a consortium of 31 of the leading homosexual rights groups in America. In a friend-of-the-court brief they filed in the Supreme Court’s Lawrence v. Texas sodomy case in 2003, they admitted the following:
✦ The most widely accepted study of sexual practices in the United States is the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). The NHSLS found that 2.8% of the male, and 1.4% of the female, population identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. See Laumann et al., The Social Organization of Sex: Sexual Practices in the United States (1994). So it’s fair to say that the “ten percent” myth has been discredited even by pro-homosexual groups themselves.
…More:
The CDC reported that a 2002 National Survey of Family Growth set the number closer to 2.8% of adults claiming homosexuality.
In 1993, USA Today reported that only 2.3% of males ages 20 to 30 said they had a same-sex experience in the last decade.
In 1991, the National Opinion Research Center found that respondents who claimed they were active homosexuals only numbered .7%.
As far back as 1988 a Canadian survey found that 98% of first-year college students under 25 indicated they were heterosexual.
And the 2000 Census found that only .42% of American households consisted of same sex, unmarried couples as heads of households. This is less than 1%.
Still, the largest and most thorough study done yet puts the number of firmly gay people at 1.7%. Some studies put it at slightly more, some less.
So what about Africa? One of my favorite columnists/authors is Michael Fumento. He has some great insights into the problem of Africa. I will post his article on the issue, as, i think it is an important topic… I will highlight portions I think are fitting for this discussion. you will see Michael’s true care and concern near the end:
Ninety-nine percent of AIDS and HIV cases in Africa come from sexual transmission, and virtually all is heterosexual. So says the World Health Organization, with other agenciestoeing the line. Some massive condom airdrops accompanied by a persuasive propaganda campaign would practically make the epidemic vanish overnight. Or would it?
A determined renegade group of three scientists has fought for years – with little success – to get out the message that no more than a third of HIV transmission in Africa is from sexual intercourse and most of that is anal. By ignoring the real vectors, they say, we’re sacrificing literally millions of people.
These men are no crackpots. John Potterat is author of 140 scholarly publications. He began working for the El Paso County, Colorado health department in 1972 and initiated the first U.S. partner-tracing program for AIDS/HIV.
Stuart Brody, who has just accepted a full professorship in Psychology at University of Paisley in Scotland, has published over 100 scholarly publications, including a book called “Sex at Risk.” Economist and anthropologist David Gisselquist has almost 60 scholarly publications to his name and is currently advising the government of India on staunching its potentially explosive epidemic.
These renegades point out that a reason we know vaginal sex can’t be the risk in Africa it’s portrayed to be is that it hasn’t been much of one risk in the U.S. Here 12 percent of AIDS cases are “attributed to” heterosexual transmission, meaning they claimed to have gotten it that way. Of these, over a third are males.
Yet San Francisco epidemiologist Nancy Padian evaluated 72 male partners of HIV-infected women over several years, during which time only one man was infected. Even in that case, there were “several instances of vaginal and penile bleeding during intercourse.” So even the small U.S. heterosexual figure appears grossly exaggerated.
So if vaginal intercourse can’t explain the awful African epidemic, what can? Surely it’s not homosexuality, since we’ve been told there is none in Africa. In fact, the practice has long been widespread.
For example, German anthropologist Kurt Falk reported in the 1920s that bisexuality was almost universal among the male populations of African tribes he studied. Medical records also show that African men who insist they’re straighter than the proverbial arrow often suffer transmissible anorectal diseases.
Yet almost certainly greater – and more controllable – contributors to the African epidemic are “contaminated punctures from such sources as medical injections, dental injections, surgical procedures, drawing as well as injecting blood, and rehydration through IV tubes,” says Brody.
You don’t even need to go to a clinic to be injected with HIV: Almost two-thirds of 360 homes visited in sub-Saharan Africa had medical injection equipment that was apparently shared by family members. This, says Brody, can explain why both a husband and wife will be infected.
For those who care to look, there are many indicators that punctures play a huge role in the spread of disease. For example, during the 1990s HIV increased in Zimbabwe at approximately 12 percent annually, even as condom use increased and sexually transmitted infections rapidly fell.
Or consider that in a review of nine African studies, HIV prevalence in inpatient children ranged from 8.2% to 63% – as many as three times the prevalence in women who’d given birth. If the kids didn’t get the virus from their mothers or from sex, whence its origin? Investigations of large clinical outbreaks in Russia, Romania, and Libya demonstrate HIV can be readily transmitted through pediatric health care.
Good people can differ on exactly how much of the HIV in Africa is spread vaginally – including our three renegades themselves. Nevertheless, their findings readily belie the official figures. AIDS studies in Africa, Potterat says, are “First World researchers doing second rate science in Third World countries.”
There’s no one reason for the mass deception. In part, once people have established any paradigm it becomes much easier to justify than challenge.
“These guys are wearing intellectual blinders,” says Potterat. “Only a handful are even looking at routes other than sex. They have sex on the brain.” Other reasons:
● Grant money goes to those who follow the dictates of the paradigm, not to those challenging it. “Sex is sexy,” notes Potterat. ● There’s fear that blame for the epidemic will fall on the medical profession. ● To the extent vaginal sex does play a role in spreading the disease, there’s fear people will stop worrying about it.
Finally, says Brody, for researchers to concede they were wrong would be “to admit they’re complicit in mass death. That’s hard to admit that to yourself, much less to other people.” Hard, yes. And too late for many. But not too late for millions more in Africa and other underdeveloped nations – if we act now.
So what has been done in the above. The porn industry example was annihilated, the Africa example decimated, and the 10% myth blown apart, and the best available evidence puts AIDS as an epidemic in the bi-sexual, gay, and drug culture, except in Africa, where it is partly the medical fields issue as well. Why is this a problem with anal intercourse?
Homosexuals also continue to contract and spread other diseases at rates significantly higher that the community at large. These include syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis A and B, a variety of intestinal parasites including amebiases and giardiasis, and even typhoid fever (David G. Ostrow, Terry Alan Sandholzer, and Yehudi M. Felman, eds., Sexually Transmitted Diseases in Homosexual Men; see also, Sevgi O. Aral and King K. Holmes, “Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the AIDS Era,” Scientific American). This is because rectal intercourse or sodomy, typically practiced by homosexuals, is one of the most efficient methods of transmitting disease. Why? Because nature designed the human rectum for a single purpose: expelling waste from the body. It is built of a thin layer of columnar cells, different in structure than the plate cells that line the female reproductive tract. Because the wall of the rectum is so thin, it is easily ruptured during intercourse, allowing semen, blood, feces, and saliva to directly enter the bloodstream.
This is why any anal sex should be rejected even in hetero relationships/marriage.
Ahhh, just another day in the trenches… this one just a bit deeper than others.
Meet Sheikh Abdul Wahab. He’s a top cleric in Saudi Arabia. And he’s from the Wahabi sect that believes homosexuality should be punished by death. Well, turns out, he’s gay.
From the British blog, theMuslimissue.wordpress, DESCENDANT OF WAHABI FOUNDER ARRESTED IN BURKA SOLICITING GAY SEX IN SAUDI ARABIA:
(PART 2 discusses homosexuality and biblical dietary law) I was graciously invited to a site that is a depot for many conservatively minded homosexuals as well as supporters of these Republican leaning folk. For the record there are many independents and libertarian leaning guys and gals in the group as well. The person that invited me to the Facebook group, JK, soon after posted a link to one of my blog posts to help submerge me into the site’s ethos a bit. Which I did. I have to say, it makes my heart joyous that good, calm dialogue — even in disagreement — can happen. Why can it happen? Because they are conservative. No matter if I talked to heterosexual or homosexual persons from the Left about this, almost always you are hit with name-calling, pigeonholing, and straw-man arguments. So kudos to the guys and gals on the Facebook group.
Which leads me to the below. While being a bit long, I must post this dialogue here in the hopes that others will a) find what I am arguing for persuasive, and b) be able to incorporate these arguments into ones apologetic. And I must say, that the only positive argument I have seen put forth is one from the Left. That is “equality” (not liberty) being the main driving force. It is an ethic closer to the French Revolution which denied [capital “N”] Natural [capital “L”] Law but almost an earlier form of “legal positivism.” Here is Francis Canavan speaking to this topic just a bit for the person interested in this dichotomy, after which I will post the dialogue from FB:
Liberty, equality, fraternity was the slogan of the French Revolution. Liberty and equality were the Revolution’s operative goals, and fraternity was brought in as a cement to hold them together. For liberty and equality are not necessarily in harmony and, in fact, are often at war with each other. Keeping the peace between them therefore became the role of fraternity. Alas, fraternity has not been terribly successful at it, as the history of class struggle since the French Revolution has shown.
In the evolution of democratic theory in the past two centuries, two main currents have emerged from the same wellspring of radical individualism: the liberal stream, emphasizing liberty while acknowledging equality of civil rights, and the egalitarian stream equality of civil rights, emphasizing equality while preaching the liberty guaranteed by civil rights.
Liberal democracy understands rights as immunities from governmental interference. Their function is to prevent government from unduly restraining any individual’s liberty. The egalitarian conception of rights is much broader than the classical liberal one and includes a wide range of positive benefits to be conferred by government. It tends toward an equality of results rather than merely of opportunities. To put it crudely, it means not only that you are free to apply for the job, but that you get it and you keep it.
Liberal democratic thought has as its economic counterpart the ideology of capitalism and a free-market economic system. The egalitarian stream ushers in the ideology of socialism and a government dedicated to bringing about substantial economic equality among all citizens.
Liberalism as it exists in the United States today is an effort to have the best of both ideological worlds. It assigns to government the duty of fostering, not complete economic equality, but general and a more equal share in it for all citizens. At the same time, through an ever-expanding array of civil rights, it seeks to emancipate the individual from religious, moral, and social restraints that are not of his own choosing. The contemporary liberal ideal would be a country in which everyone was employed at high wages in work which he/she found fulfilling, without distinction of race, color, creed, gender, ethnic origin, educational background, or sexual preference, and could live by any “lifestyle” that he/she chose.
Contemporary American conservatism is largely a reaction to this brand of liberalism, and therefore is a mixed bag of views. Among its adherents we find “conservatives” who are really nineteenth-century liberals eager to get government off the back of business. We also find “social-issue” conservatives angered by the liberal dissolution of our public morality. Still others are “libertarians” who want no public morality at all but oppose liberalism because of the large role it gives government. Another group of conservatives are regionalists or “states-righters” who are against not government as such, but the federal government.
The ideological conflict between and among liberals and conservatives is carried on in terms of liberty and equality.
Francis Canavan, The Pluralist Game: Pluralism, Liberalism, and the Moral Conscience (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), 127-128.
What is the founding zeitgesit of our country?
Remember, if marriage is just about happiness or love, then why not polygamy, polyandry, or the like (“I’ve married my sister – now we’re having our second baby” ~ Daily Mail). Because, marriage is NOT about those things. JK is the person who invited me to the group, and who promptly posted a link to one of my excerpts from a book I posted on my blog (see, right). (*Caution, RAW Language*) Without further adieu:
JK: I have not found many gays that were molested. I can only think of two that were in fact. Have you known many? I’m just wondering.
AC: I “think” I was at a YMCA camp when I was very young,I DO remember sitting on the head (lol) dudes lap and being felt up after that its a blank,I do remember crying that I didn’t want to go the next year and I was able to NEVER go back,wish I could sue LOL
JA: Yep… when I was 10 here, 17 year old next door to grandma’s got me. No entrance but got froddled. I held a long grudge until I talked to a psycologist that suggested the same sex attraction was going to happen anyways, but the event was the first same sex stimulus, etc. I think it was reported the percentages of perfectly straight men that were molested is 17%… it happens to be the same 17% for gays which indicates molestation is not the shooting gun for guys being gay.
AC: I KNOW I always have been gay,even “thought” of stuff I wanted to do BEFORE I knew what gay was and what sex was……it was like natural?
JA: On the other hand of that above statement from me. We know the act of writing, which hand we use, language or languages spoken, at young ages the brain physically modifies itself to adapt to be able to do what is taught well. I believe there may be some genetic capability to go gay, but actually playing with other boys or being molested at ages under 15 can actually concrete in the gayness and once the brain molds itself into same sex attraction, it is irreversible.
AC: I wore a pink ballarina dress to kindergarden LOL yes escaped from the nanny and ran to school in it and refused to take it off THANK GOD I aint into drag LOL but what straight boy would do that LOL
JA: Maybe because you had that gay potential, it made you more vulnerable to being used? I think that’s what happened here. The older kid asked if I wanted to do what the big kids do and took out what looked like a 12 inch dick to me, I never had an erection before then but looking at his made me get one and I was intrigued. I had no idea was sex was or that boy/boy stuff was wrong.
JPC: I only know one that was molested. And he had a very difficult life as a young man.
KC: My (maternal) first cousin (4 yrs older than me) lived with us for about a year when I was about 12 (he was in high school) and he used to fondle me. He made me jerk him off while he did me. I was afraid at first but I didn’t see that it was wrong … also, whenever I would spend the night with my school mates, we slept in the same bed and the same thing would happen. Then, in high school, I remember riding in the back seat of the coach’s car going to an away game and some of the guys would fondle each other. As far as I know, I’m the only one who has admitted of being gay. The rest are all “happily” married (or divorced). My older cousin (the one that fondled me first) is also still married. We’ve not had communication in over 20 years. Looking back, I now realized my cousin actually molested me but the fact that I liked it, is that still considered molestation?
[….]
What’s the difference in “molestation” (my cousin) and “experimentation”?
GC: I consider molestation to be an abusive situation with an adult over a child. Most of what I’ve read here falls under the experimentation category.
This is where I finally wade in. So far, as you can see, many have had a sexual encounter during a young age with someone older involved in leading these people (adult or teen) to be fondled or to fondle them.
PAPA GIORGIO:
About me. I have over 5,000 books in my home library (politics, religion, philosophy, science, history, ethics, theology, economics, and the like) as well as many DVD documentaries/lectures/presentations that are not “Time to Kill” with Prince’s protege movies (“The Last Dragon” or “Time to Kill”). Some could argue they need to be these types of movies and I should lighten up a bit. But so be it.
“By-the-by, for those reading this I will explain what is missing in this type of discussion due to the media used. Genuflecting, care, concern, one being upset (does not entail being “mad”), etc… are all not viewable because we are missing each other’s tone, facial expressions, and the like. I afford the other person I am dialoguing with the best of intentions and read his/her comments as if we were out having a talk over a beer at a bar or meeting a friend at Starbucks. (I say this because there seems to be a phenomenon of etiquette thrown out when talking through email or Face Book, lots more public cussing and gratuitous responses.) You will see that often times I USE CAPS — which in www lingo for YELLING. I am not using it this way, I use it to merely emphasize and often times say as much: *not said in yelling tone, but merely to emphasize*. So in all my discussions I afford the best of thought to the other person as I expect he or she would to me… even if dealing with tough subjects as the above. I have had more practice at this than most, and with half-hour pizza, one hour photo and email vs. ‘snail mail,’ know that important discussions take time to meditate on, inculcate, and to process. So be prepared for a good thought provoking discussion if you so choose one with me.”
About me. I have over 5,000 books in my home library (politics, religion, philosophy, science, history, ethics, theology, economics, and the like) as well as many DVD documentaries/lectures/presentations that are not “Time to Kill” with Prince’s protege [movies]. Some could argue they need to be movies and I should lighten up a bit. But so be it.
Dialogue is important, and I will discuss my many years of research on this and any topic. But if we, discuss, say rape ~ there are two levels we can discuss this on. The emotional, or the legal/ethical/etc level. When I talk rape, and universal absolutes, I will bring up books like,
▼ Dale Peterson and Richard Wrangham, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, 1997). ▼ Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000).
showing that if evolution (atheistic, philosophical naturalism) rules the day, that “rape” is a process used by our species (in the past, and in nature) as a way to propagate our kind. It is therefore, ethically speaking, merely [currently] “taboo.” In theism it is morally wrong at all times and places in the universe. So when we are talking “foundational aspects” of worldviews (side-note: all 10,0000 religions in the world can be broken down into 7-at-the-most worldviews), we leave the emotional and deal with the many other aspects of the issue.
RAPE:
✂theism: evil, wrong at all times and places in the universe — absolutely;
✂atheism: taboo, it was used in our species in the past for the survival of the fittest, and is thus a vestige of evolutionary progress… and so may once again become a tool for survival — it is in every corner of nature;
✂pantheism: illusion, all morals and ethical actions and positions are actually an illusion (Hinduism – maya; Buddhism – sunyata). In order to reach some state of Nirvana one must retract from this world in their thinking on moral matters, such as love and hate, good and bad.
ALL THAT [above] makes no difference to a woman who was raped. Especially the closer you are to the event. It is emotional. And I would never talk about the above with a women versus doting over her emotional needs. Agreed?
SO, if you cannot get into the weeds with me if you truly want to see the hurdles that need to be jumped in this discussion with thoughtful conservatives. Then you shouldn’t engage in polite, but sometimes emotional, topic such as what JK has really given his blessing to. (Never thought you would be a priest, huh JK?)
Are you — who are reading this — tracking? Sound fair? Reasonable? Take note, I am a federalist, and lean libertarian (small “l” on this). If states pass these initiatives by the consent of the people in those states (same-sex marriage), then so be it. It is how our Constitution was set up. If we want to codify marriage as between a man-and-women, legally binding for all the states. Then we need 2/3rds of Congress and 3/4ths of the states. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. So I am only here talking about societal impacts and reasons behind many of the “choosing” of this lifestyle.
To better explain, here are two calls from gay listeners to conservative talk radio (full audio upload):
And this is just the call:
So know as well that I believe a very small minority (but still due to environmental reasons) do not truly “choose” this lifestyle.
We all on the same page? Somewhat? Decorum being the word in the face of personal subjects.
JK:
So when I was about 10 I was kissed on the lips by a kid 3 or 4 years older. Was I molested? I was certainly surprised and knew I didn’t like it. That girl really pissed me off. When I was 12 I went to church camp as I was a very pious child. Living with, being with and showering with boys helped me to know my place in the world.
PAPA GIORGIO:
Just got to work… I will share that I have talked to Walt and he has mentioned that the many people he helps and deal with in his ministry have sexual trauma when they are young. I shared with you two co-workers that I love (one when I worked at Borders, the other at Whole Foods). One friend had his “coming out experience” when he was 12, by a family member. The other, who was very flamboyant with his past (and shared it with anyone who would listen) had his “coming out experience” by a stranger when he was thirteen.
Also, I shared with you that my mom has known quite a few lesbians that are fellow trailer-parkers (I am sure there is some colloquial term to use better than that?) and they have all confided sexual acts done by close family or close confidants to the family.
There is also this from a favored author of mine, Tammy Bruce:
✿ Here come the elephant again: Almost without exception, the gay men I know (and that’s too many to count) have a story of some kind of sexual trauma or abuse in their childhood — molestation by a parent or an authority figure, or seduction as an adolescent at the hands of an adult. The gay community must face the truth and see sexual molestation of an adolescent for the abuse it is, instead of the ‘coming-of-age’ experience many [gays] regard it as being. Until then, the Gay Elite will continue to promote a culture of alcohol and drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, and suicide by AIDS. (Tammy Bruce, The Death of Right and Wrong: Exposing the Left’s Assault on Our Culture and Values [Roseville: Prima, 2003], 99.)
This may not be everyone’s experience JK, but it is enough for some to say that unlike color/ethnicity [immutability], that homosexuality is mutable.
I believe there are a whole strain of environmental causes (abuse, issues in the home, hormonal influence in and out of utero, etc.) But you must admit that one cause CAN BE taking an adolescent when they are sexually vulnerable, and damaging this delicate time in a youths life? Right? In other words, if this life (the gay life) is something you (the general you, not you specifically) didn’t choose, and it has been hard, you would want to then try to make sure the ideal environment to teach young men and women the proper relationship between their sexuality and the world they live in (while respecting peoples choices and private matter) would be your goal. Yeah?
Just a side-note. There seems to be an unhealthy dislike for the sexes in the gay community. This has worked its way into many areas of the same sexes who happen to be gay. For instance, when I was in jail many years ago I was a trustee (worker) that fed the jail masses. Some of those masses were the gay men, who were pretty normal in appearance and attitude. A separate group were the very feminine gay men, and the third group were transvestites. I asked why they were separated and the officer said that they would kill each other if not. Similarly, there is some good work showing that the very “butch type” female gays and men were key in helping incarcerate the many effeminate homosexuals in the camps during WWII. While the next response isn’t as extreme, it does offer up some insight into gay community and its biases brought on by nurture [or nature]? (I will emphasize where someones experience and scholarship is rejected do to gender):
JK: I believe that the clergy and social service types would get more stories like this naturally and from my own experience I never hang out with lesbians. Lesbians stay to themselves mostly as many do not like men. I love Tammy, but I will bet she doesn’t hang with the boys too often.
PAPA GIORGIO: By-the-by, just to explain why I posted those two calls
I am making clear that I believe some — a very small minority — are born with no desire for the opposite sex. But in a person, like Walt Heyer’s life, much of what happened to him likewise was not his choice either. Choice sometimes comes later in life. One example from faith is this, and Ravi mentions Henri Nouwen in his response:
[….]
Ravi refers to Henri Nouwen as a Saint. Many of us cannot keep a “lid on it” like Henri did (that is Saint status in my book), but society as a whole should seriously discuss what IT should normalize or keep in the private sphere. I believe a mutable attraction is one of them. this is what serious discussion should be over.
Just saying “Tammy doesn’t know” is not good enough. She knows a lot of gay men in the field she has chosen to be in over the years. As she even states in that quote. Time to get to work. Love your way JK.
JK: I have lived in L.A. all my life and don’t know any gays that know Tammy Bruce other than listening to her on the radio. I have been in all the bars since I was a kid and have never seen her or heard her mentioned, but let’s say she is a huge fag hag lesbian. Her experiences like mine are probably skewed. I know I have slept with far more men that Tammy Bruce and the subject rarely comes up. That’s why I am trying to get some dialogue here to see what other peoples experiences have been.
[….]
Ravi also says that being a polygamist wouldn’t work in Christianity. We it worked for Solomon, Abraham, Gideon, Elkanah, Saul, and David. David had many wives and loved Jonathan more than any of them btw.
PAPA GIORGIO: @JK, you mentioned Bible camp. But have you studied the Old Testament (New as well) as an adult? Maybe with some reliable Bible helps by people who know the language, culture, history they comment on? Or….
and I am not trying to demean you in ANY way, these are serious questions
… have you traversed the internet to liberal and gay sites to see that the Bible has stories of polygamy? I do not mean to get religious, but since you quoted characters from the Bible, I will lightly touch on the same issue in it that I have talked about above. that is, “ideals” vs. the “private.” This same subject/object distinction takes place in your mentioning these stories.
But the question I am curious about is if you have gone to reliable sources on the matter. in other words, if you are to share stories that challenge an ideal about good music and you share stories of, I don’t know, say John Lennon. Would you have a wider more trusting conversation with the person you are conversing with if they knew you got much of your information from “John Lennon: The Life,” by
Philip Norman, who had unprecedented access to archives, interviewed over the years the Beatles, wrote the previously definitive book on the Beatles, “Shout.” Or the book “The Lennon Prophecy,” where author Joseph Niezgoda says Lennon made a pack with the devil, lauded by the once good WND site. Now crap.
So. like my analogy, have you [honestly, and this is not to judge you, I truly am curious and want an honest answer] done the hard work to see if the above statements about polygamy in the Bible make your case?
Side-note, I dealt with a popular meme in an older post on this topic. I explain some of the “hard work” here:
JK: Thanks so much Papa Giorgio. I love your insight.
[….]
I don’t actually want to change biblical marriage, but state sanctioned marriage. Nobody straight or gay should have a tax benefit over another as we are all guaranteed equal status under the law. Marriage is between you and God. The government should not be involved.
HH: Papa, Anyone who reads the OT will be horrified to read some of the strange tales it harbors.
PAPA GIORGIO: No, that wasn’t my question JK, I will ask again:
⚑ “So. like my analogy, have you [honestly, and this is not to judge you, I truly am curious and want an honest answer] done the hard work to see if the above statements about polygamy in the Bible make your case?”
I will continue to the main point after you respond openly/honestly to this simple question. Yes or no will suffice.
I continue, but in response to HH.
PAPA GIORGIO: @HH, I would recommend a book for you, two actually:
Ideals vs. Practice (per God [Jesus & YHWH]). You do not have to respond to this, consider it as a short lesson in what God has designed as an ideal (or if believing in neo-Darwinian non-God guided evolution, what nature has set as an ideal), and how we dilute that ideal. All men/women, not just homosexuals.
The interesting thing about the Bible JK, is that it records many of the foibles, murderous acts, and missteps men and women make. UNLIKE comparable writings of the day that re-wrote their histories to display a sense of perfection in both battle and life in order to lift whichever king to an almost deistic level. For instance, if the Apostles had been attempting to create a story about (lie) about Jesus’ Resurrection, they would have not inserted the first people to find the tomb empty, women. In that day and custom women’s testimony was not allowed or accepted.
This goes a long way to realize God set up an ideal. Which Natural Law does as well (which is the spirit and philosophy our Founding documents were written):
—————————————— In Matthew 19:4 we are told by Jesus that God created one “male and [one] female” and joined them in marriage. Mark 10:6-8:”But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, ‘and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh.” The two as one is the pattern on how marriage was to be conducted from the start. NOT three or four as one.
The Hebrew is very specific, God always spoke of man’s “wife,” as singular, not wives. Notice it also states one father one mother. It wasn’t until sin made man fall (Gen. 4:23) that polygamy occurs. Cain was cursed, Lamech is a descendent of Cain and the first to practice polygamy. The first time polygamous relationship is found in the Bible is with a thriving rebellious society in sin; when a murderer named “Lamech [a descendant of Cain] took for himself two wives” (Gen.4:19, 23).
The same Godly pattern of one man and one wife is lived by Noah. At the time of the Ark (Gen. 7:7), Noah took his one wife into the ark, all his son’s took one wife; God called Noah’s family righteous and pure. If polygamy were ordained of God, it would have made sense that Noah and his sons would have taken additional wives with them to repopulate the earth faster from the cataclysm.
This was to be a permanent union between man and woman that they might be helpful to one another (Genesis 2:18). Marriage represents a relationship of both spiritual and physical unity.
[….]
God never condoned polygamy but like divorce he allowed it to occur and did not bring an immediate punishment for this disobedience. Deut. 17:14-17: “I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,’ “you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again.’ “Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.” This is the command of God, and he has never changed it.
1 Kings 11:3 says Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines violating the principle of monogamy that he was given through the law of Moses. Consider that Solomon at one time was the wisest man in the world. In I Kings 11:4: “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.” Notice Solomon became a polytheist because he was influenced in polygamy. In his case many wives, became many gods. Scripture has always commanded monogamy (Ps.128:3; Prov. 5:18; 18:22; 19:14; 31:10-29; Eccl. 9:9).
The fact is that God never commanded polygamy or divorce. Scripture says (Bible) He only permitted it because of the hardness of their hearts (Deut. 24:1; Matt. 19:8). Matt. 5:31-32: “Furthermore it has been said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.” God hates divorce as well as polygamy, since it destroys the family (Mal. 2:16). Whatever the patriarchs or any Christian did wrong does not change the fact the Bible condemns it….
JK posted a video he quickly mentioned to me at a dinner meeting with like minded conservatives:
PAPA GIORGIO: I have already dealt with the non-sequitur of comparing the mutable aspect of homosexuality with the immutable characteristic in color/ethnicity of one’s skin color. There is no difference between a black man and a white man. There are differences between male and female. Ann Coulter notes one black women who was questioning John Kerry:
////////////
When gay marriage was first thrust on the nation by the Massachusetts Supreme Court during the 2004 presidential primary campaign, Senator John Kerry said what was at stake was “somebody’s right to live equally under the same laws as other people in the country.”
But of course, gays do live equally under the same laws as other people. There are no special speed limit laws or trespassing laws or murder laws for gays. What gays can’t do is get married to members of the same sex. Nor can heterosexuals, immigrants, whites, blacks, the rich, the poor or the homeless.
The Democrats’ comparison of gay marriage to civil rights ultimately led to the ridiculous spectacle of Kerry basically accusing a black woman of being a bigot because she did not appreciate the comparison of gays to blacks under the equal protection clause. It had to happen.
At a “town hall” meeting in Mississippi during the campaign, a black woman in the audience asked Kerry to reject the comparison of gay marriage to civil rights. “I don’t care what they say,” she said, “there is no correlation between gay rights and civil rights in terms of what black Americans have gone through.”
In response, Kerry said it was important to recognize that “we have a Constitution which has an equal protection clause.” (Because black people had probably forgotten that.)
The woman “was not satisfied” with Kerry’s answer, in the delicate phrasing of the New York Times. She said: “My point is, homosexuality is an idea. You have never heard a doctor say, ‘Mr. and Mrs. John Doe, you have a bouncing baby homosexual.’ It’s an idea.”
Ann Coulter, Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama (New York, NY: Sentinel [Penguin], 2012), 149-150.
/////////////
Similarly, through abuse or hormonal influence one cannot “become” “black” or “Asian,” etc. Again. Mutability vs. Immutability. Ted Olson is wrong in his view of the 14th Amendment.
[….]
I also reject the idea that marriage is a religious institution. My chapter on the matter (✌http://tinyurl.com/8unujfs✌) in my book is where I explain how civil law recognizes the already codified nature of marriage, in nature. The state does not create the ideal of one-man one-woman ideal. Just as it does not create the First and Second Amendments in the Constitution. These are…
…truths [that are] self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…
So, for instance, Nature and Natural Law (since Grecian/Roman days) have recognized a pattern (ideal) in nature. Robert George notes this in a more modern way — analogy:
——————————– However, there is a “created order,” or, even a natural order (if you do not believe in God). My argument for heterosexual (between a man and a woman) unions is usable both by the atheist (non believer in God) and the theist (a believer in God – in the Judeo-Christian sense). Here is the crux of the matter in regards to “nature’s order:”
✂ “…take gold as an example, it has inherent in its nature intrinsic qualities that make it expensive: good conductor of electricity, rare, never tarnishes, and the like. The male and female have the potential to become a single biological organism, or single organic unit, or principle. Two essentially becoming one. The male and female, then, have inherent to their nature intrinsic qualities that two mated males or two mated females never actualize in their courtship… nor can they ever. The potential stays just that, potential, never being realized…..
✂ “….Think of a being that reproduces, not by mating, but by some act performed by individuals. Imagine that for these same beings, movement and digestion is performed not by individuals, but only by the complementary pairs that unite for this purpose. Would anyone acquainted with such beings have difficulty understanding that in respect to movement and digestion, the organism is a united pair, or an organic unity?”
So you see, the two heterosexual organisms that join in a sexual union cease being two separate organisms for a short time and become one organism capable of reproduction. This is what the state and the church are sealing in a marriage, this intrinsic union. The homosexual couple can never achieve this union, so “natures order” has endowed the heterosexual union with an intrinsic quality that other relationships do not have or could never attain. Both the atheist and theist can argue from this point, because either we were created this way or we evolved this way. Either way, nature has imposed on the sexual union being discussed.
Remember, the Constitution was written with Natural Law as its ethos. Do you wish to undermine this understanding of Nature and man’s relationship to it (It)?
[…] Small Talk […]
HH: I don’t know why anyone wants to get married with the divorce rate well over 50%. Of course, there are economic factors when it comes to end of life or catastrophic illness decisions or taxes (can’t forget taxes). I have been saying for years the homophobes need to shut up. It’s beneficial to the economy to have weddings and divorces. It’s all about $$$.
PAPA GIORGIO: I am with you (in many examples, and if I ever get on a high horse), just ask my wife to knock me down from it. And I understand many a persons frustration in talking about issues with me, it is not too often I have met people who have read 2,000 books (or so) cover-to-cover and have another 3,000 (or so) for reference/future reading. Often times this knowledge can come across as prideful, and I admit that whether my fallen nature tends that direction or I inadvertently come across as an asshole — I apologize.
I have to laud YOU however JK. Many will have already broken down to personal attacks. These are tough, personal issues. And I would only want YOU to “know that which you reject.” What do I mean? Often times (and you know this from dealing with Leftists I am sure), that there is little understanding of the better arguments out there. For example, I would want a Democratic friend or family member (someone I care about) to read the following:
☮ The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek;
☮ Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, Thomas Sowell;
☮ The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, Thomas Sowell;
☮ A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, Thomas Sowell;
Etc.
Likewise, I would want you to chase after the cream of the crop arguments making the case FOR MARRIAGE (hetero) so the case for homo-marriage can begin to respond. However, as you know from dealing with the Left, often times we are left with trying to fill in fallacious thinking we encounter in order to properly respond.
This may be YOUR clarion call to revisit the issue with a new mind or drive.
I will recommend a book to start: “What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense”
It will set you on a path to see what will surely be used as a resource in the upcoming SCOTUS review of marriage.
Much Thought and Love your way JK, Papa G
[….]
PAPA GIORGIO: @HH, if I can show what you have done to the dialogue. You are attempting to mute it, a sort of non-intellectual “fascism”
⌛ “I have been saying for years the homophobes need to shut up.”
No one here is a homophobe. The following is via Prager:
——————– Here is a list of terms liberals apply to virtually every idea or action with which they differ:The “Sweep Under the Rug” Argument
And here is the list of one-word descriptions of what liberals are for:
✪ Peace ✪ Fairness ✪ Tolerance ✪ The poor ✪ The disenfranchised ✪The environment
These two lists serve contemporary liberals in at least three ways.
FIRST, they attack the motives of non-liberals and thereby morally dismiss the non-liberal person.
SECOND, these words make it easy to be a liberal — essentially all one needs to do is to memorize this brief list and apply the right term to any idea or policy. That is one reason young people are more likely to be liberal — they have not had the time or inclination to think issues through, but they know they oppose racism, imperialism and bigotry, and that they are for peace, tolerance and the environment.
THIRD, they make the liberal feel good about himself — by opposing conservative ideas and policies, he is automatically opposing racism, bigotry, imperialism, etc. ———————
You can see this played out in higher education via Indoctrinate U (full movie): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHyvRHrYYBA
[…] Small Talk […]
PAPA GIORGIO: @ SMW, JK, and GC, and MA. Since I do not know you, and my viewpoint of man (me included) tends toward selfishness, pride, and our fallen nature, I will kindly allow people I do not know — and the fact that my close friend refused to share with me his experience until we were friends enough for him to feel comfortable enough to share them with me, to tell me nothing untoward happened to them as a child. Fine. You have read in my very specified thoughts above the following:
⚤ I believe there are a whole strain of environmental causes (abuse, issues in the home, hormonal influence in and out of utero, etc.) But you must admit that one cause CAN BE taking an adolescent when they are sexually vulnerable, and damaging this delicate time in a youths life? Right?
Father issues seem to be a major CONTRIBUTOR. So do gene expressions through hormonal output in utero, diet (low cholesterol stagnates testosterone growth, high soy [milk, tofu, etc] also may have be CONTRIBUTING factor. I do not know the magic soup, but even if one were born that way, the question remains “what IS marriage.” It is not — as Danial said — happiness. [Added: the high rate of mutations in our genome since the fall: Most of the deleterious mutations in the human population arose in the last 5,000 to 10,000 years, a survey claims.]
The ideal need not be replaced. Granted, laws need to be much more open and fair to gay couples (shared property, visitation, etc) — as Ryan Anderson said in his interview (http://youtu.be/g8S9_O9Ln0M). But we are talking the big picture.
In order for the gay community to succeed you have to come out with something more than non-sequiturs and straw-men and labeling.
JK: As a preacher you are concerned foremost with religion Papa, and it’s views. As a constitutionalist I care about the views of the founding fathers when it comes to law, but I don’t really worry about things too much. Staying happy is my foremost concern.
PAPA GIORGIO: @JK, I am not a preacher? And I made the case for Natural Law, Biology, and the like? You brought up Solomon [religion], I merely corrected you on your self-admitted knowledge about the Biblical ideal. Religion has nothing to do with it.
[…] Small Talk […]
GC: I had a very strong father figure and a quite Catholic mother. She did moderately drink and smoke while pregnant with me, but that was in 1959 when that was common. My brother is ‘supposedly’ straight (unmarried), although effeminate and all his friends are gay. My sister is straight, but was a tomboy as a child. I definitely think my gayness is genetic, although I know of no aunts/uncles/first cousins who are also gay (I think one lesbian 2nd cousin). But even if environmental or by choice – as an American I do have that choice between consenting adults – right?
ES: I was molested at the Age of 11 by a 35 year old man. He dressed me up like a girl and did things to me I still detest to this day. No one knows. I feel like I can share with this group.
PAPA GIORGIO: @GC – Yes, in all my rantings lets be clear. I think you can have any relationship you want. But matrimonial law and Natural Law since Grecian/Roman/Church times has noted the new organism created when the two become one (if you haven’t read my posts above you may…. it is a lot though, I sympathize). I am also a Federalist, so I think the states have the right to make the choice themselves, or for them to change their mind on same-sex marriage. What this does is get it out of the courts and a few judges opinions and makes your community have to make a strong case. And making a strong case entails having one. Which is why many WANT unelected officials jumping in.
You can see my little “l” come out (*No* that isn’t a name for anything) in my libertarian streak in many issues that fall to the purview of the state. For instance, where conservatives should stand on marijuana: “Marijuana and the Conservative: Where Should We Stand?“
But society as a whole should not fully endorse or put their stamp of approval on the behavior either, for reasons enumerated in the post.
GC, you also asked, “Why no one turned in Sandusky?”
Shame. Guilt. A feeling that they themselves caused the situation. In the many cases of Buddhist monks, Catholic priests, school counselors, dentists, teachers, etc. (often males molesting males [per capita, males-on-male is astoundingly high], but also males molesting females), these people have often sought out positions of authority over youth where they have the opportunity of privacy and leadership over these youth.
Schools and the church try also to hide their shame by merely shuffling around these teachers due to contractual reasons, and the Church due to embarrassment. Only to prolong the abuse.
Jimmy Savile was an equal opportunity guy:
————————————————- ☁ A total of 18 girls and 10 boys under the age of 10 were abused by Savile, with 23 girls and 15 boys aged 10 to 13…. Of the 34 rape offenses, 26 victims were female and eight male. (http://tinyurl.com/ahzmgbd)
This is about where the substantive discussion petered out. I wanted to add this larger thought to elucidate the crux of the issue. that is, this debate revolves around some very important questions one should be asking, rather than simply defining marriage as “happiness,” or claim that “love” is the binding factor of what marriage “is,” or that some warped progressive view of “equality” is the way Republicans should head. Questions like these:
Disagreements over public policies regarding homosexual conduct and relationships certainly reflect different, incompatible understandings of sexual morality connected to different ‘comprehensive views.’ Underlying and informing these different understandings are, once again, profound differences about the nature of human persons and values. Is pleasure intrinsically good and, as such, a non-instrumental reason for action? Or can pleasure, in itself, provide nothing more than sub-rational motivation? Is the body an aspect of the personal reality of the human being whose body it is? Or is the body a sub-personal part of the human being whose personal reality is the conscious and desiring self which uses the body as an instrument? Is the idea of a true bodily union of persons in marital acts an illusion? Or are marital acts realizations of precisely such a union? Do non-marital sexual acts instrumentalize the bodies of those performing them in such a way as to damage their personal integrity? Or are mutually agreeable sexual acts of whatever type morally innocent and even valuable means of sharing pleasure and intimacy and expressing feelings of tenderness and affection? (Full context embedded at end)
These are questions I see none of these conservative gay men ask themselves in all my hunting around at this group. Instead, many are happy with court room interference, much to the delight of their liberal foes.
The excerpt of questions came from the book by Robert P. George, In Defense of Natural Law (New York, NY: Clarendon Press-Oxford, 1999), 213-218:
EXCERPT
III. HOMOSEXUAL ACTS, MARRIAGE AND PUBLIC REASON
If abortion is the most explosive issue in our ‘culture war,’ questions pertaining to the legal treatment of homosexual acts and relationships are emerging as the second most incendiary. Assuming that public policy issues regarding sex and marriage go to matters of constitutional essentials and basic justice, Rawlsian political liberalism offers itself as the morally best, or most reasonable, way to resolve political issues concerning homosexual acts and other questions of public policy pertaining to sex and marriage. This way avoids, indeed rules out, appeal to underlying moral and metaphysical questions in dispute among people who give their allegiance to competing comprehensive views. If Rawls is right, reasonable people who reject comprehensive liberalism in favor of views which include more conservative positions on homosexual acts and other questions of sexual morality ought reasonably to be able to join comprehensive liberals in an overlapping consensus on the proper political resolution of these questions.
Disagreements over public policies regarding homosexual conduct and relationships certainly reflect different, incompatible understandings of sexual morality connected to different ‘comprehensive views.’ Underlying and informing these different understandings are, once again, profoundly differences about the nature of human persons and values. Is pleasure intrinsically good and, as such, a non-instrumental reason for action? Or can pleasure, in itself, provide nothing more than sub-rational motivation? Is the body an aspect of the personal reality of the human being whose body it is? Or is the body a sub-personal part of the human being whose personal reality is the conscious and desiring self which uses the body as an instrument? Is the idea of a true bodily union of persons in marital acts an illusion? Or are marital acts realizations of precisely such a union? Do non-marital sexual acts instrumentalize the bodies of those performing them in such a way as to damage their personal integrity? Or are mutually agreeable sexual acts of whatever type morally innocent and even valuable means of sharing pleasure and intimacy and expressing feelings of tenderness and affection?
People’s judgments and understandings regarding these and related issues, judgments and understandings that are rarely formal and are usually merely implicit, determine their places on the spectrum ranging from various forms of sexual liberationism to strict forms of conservative sexual morality. Some proponents of moderate liberalism on questions of sexual morality oppose promiscuity and adultery but maintain that the judgment of traditional natural law theorists and others that fornication and sodomy are intrinsically non-marital and immoral is misguided. They believe that non-adulterous and non-promiscuous sexual acts and relationships between loving and devoted partners, whether of opposite sexes or the same sex, can be morally good even outside of marriage. Moreover, they argue that the state should, to be fair to people who are homosexually oriented, make marriage licenses, or at least benefits equivalent to those conferred by legal marriage, available to otherwise eligible same-sex couples.
Together with a co-author, Gerard V. Bradley, I recently debated issues of marriage and sexual morality, including the question of homosexual acts and relationships, with Stephen Macedo in the pages of the Georgetown Law Journal. Professor Macedo argues that government has an obligation in justice to its homosexually oriented citizens to issue marriage licenses on a nondiscriminatory basis to same-sex couples. If I understand Macedo’s argument correctly, he defends a conception of marriage as essentially an emotional and, possibly, spiritual union of two loving and devoted persons who may be of opposite sexes or the same sex. The intimacy and overall value of their union is, or may be, enhanced by the partners’ cooperation in the performance of mutually agreeable sexual acts. Professor Bradley and I defend an alternative conception of marriage—one which we believe to be reflected in traditional American and British marriage law, especially in the law governing consummation of marriage. We argue that marriage is a one-flesh (i.e., bodily, as well as emotional, dispositional and spiritual) union of a male and a female spouse consummated and actualized by sexual acts that are reproductive in type. Such acts consummate and, we maintain, actualize the intrinsic good of marriage whether or not reproduction is desired by the spouses in any particular marital act, or is even possible for them in a particular act or at all.
Macedo is no sexual liberationist. He evidently opposes promiscuity and believes that even consensual sex acts can, in some cases, violate personal integrity or some other moral value. Nor does he maintain that marriage is a mere social or legal convention that lacks a nature of its own and can therefore legitimately be manipulated to serve the subjective ends of individuals or the state, whatever they happen to be. He shares with people such as Bradley and me the view that not all forms of consensual sexual association ought to be recognized as marriages by the state.103 He disagrees with us, however, on questions of the nature of marriage and the role and value of sex within it.
Bradley and I summarize our argument as follows:
Marriage, considered not as a mere legal convention, but, rather, as a two-in-one-flesh communion of persons that is consummated and actualized by sexual acts of the reproductive type, is an intrinsic . . . human good; as such, marriage provides a non-instrumental reason for spouses, whether or not they are capable of conceiving children in their acts of genital union, to perform such acts.
In choosing to perform non-marital orgasmic acts, including sodomitical acts—irrespective of whether the persons performing such acts are of the same or opposite sexes (and even if those persons are validly married to each other)—persons necessarily treat their bodies and those of their sexual partners (if any) as means or instruments in ways that damage their personal (and interpersonal) integrity; thus, regard for the basic human good of integrity provides a conclusive moral reason not to engage in sodomitical and other non-marital sex acts.
Macedo denies these claims. He argues that the organic bodily union of persons we believe to be possible in marital intercourse, whether or not procreation is possible, is illusory. Thus, the reproductive-type acts of spouses cannot possibly have the unitive value and significance we ascribe to them. Marital intercourse cannot be what we claim it is, namely, the biological matrix of the multilevel reality of marriage. The most sex can do for people, beyond making it possible for them to become parents, is to enable them to share pleasure, thus enhancing and enabling them to express in a special way the caring, affectionate and intimate emotional bond between them.
Macedo also argues that, by confining humanly valuable and morally upright sex to marital intercourse, natural law theorists such as Bradley and I unreasonably exclude sex acts which, though non-marital (at least in our sense), are nevertheless humanly valuable in their capacity to express and enhance the emotional bonds between lovers. Moreover, he maintains that we are wrong to deny, as we do, that pleasure is an intrinsic good, or that the instrumentalizing of the body to the end of gaining or sharing pleasurable sensations is intrinsically bad. Thus, he denies that non-marital sex inevitably damages personal or interpersonal integrity. Bradley and I respond to Macedo’s critique of our views by arguing that his understanding of sex and marriage implicates him in a philosophically untenable person-body dualism. This is most apparent in his denial that human males and females unite biologically when they mate, and in his related understanding of sexual organs as ‘equipment’ that serves the goods of pleasure and procreation but cannot make possible a truly personal union of spouses as the biological matrix of the multilevel (bodily, emotional, dispositional, spiritual) reality of their marriage. Implicit in these denials, we believe, is the idea that the body is a sub-personal aspect of the human being that serves the conscious and desiring aspect—the true ‘self’—which inhabits and uses the body. Were Macedo to acknowledge what we believe to be the case, namely ‘that the biological reality of human beings is “part of, not merely an instrument of, their personal reality,”‘ then it is difficult to see how he could resist our claim that ‘the biological union of spouses in marital acts constitutes a truly interpersonal communion,’ whose value is intrinsic, and not merely instrumental to pleasure or the sharing of pleasure, the expression of tender and affectionate feelings, or any other extrinsic goal.
My point in recalling the debate between Macedo and Bradley and myself is not to try to settle the issues but merely to illustrate that the arguments advanced on both sides plainly implicate a body of assumptions reflective of our respective commitments to very different ‘comprehensive views.’ As a result, I suspect, people whose comprehensive view is essentially liberal will find Macedo’s argument much more persuasive than ours; those with non-liberal comprehensive views—including traditional Christians, Jews, and other believers—are likely to find our argument more compelling. Still, neither side makes any appeal to principles or propositions that are not publicly available to rational persons. Neither side invokes any form of secret knowledge or revelation. Each side offers people on the other side reasons, which such people may or may not find persuasive, for changing their minds.
My concern for now is not with the truth or falsity of the claims made on either side, or the validity of the arguments advanced on either side to support its claims, but with the relevance of the truth or falsity of these claims to the resolution of questions of public policy pertaining to sex and marriage and particularly to questions of homosexual acts and relationships. My claim is that political liberalism does not provide a workable alternative to the conflict of comprehensive views on such questions. On the contrary, law and policy in this area should be shaped in accordance with the truth and will inevitably be shaped by people’s ideas about the truth of the moral and metaphysical claims at stake in the debate among advocates of competing comprehensive views.
The case for resolving policy questions in this area on the basis of ‘political liberalism’ is articulated by Macedo himself. Although he contends that the view of marriage and sexual morality that Bradley and I put forward as a ground for public policymaking ought to be rejected as unreasonably narrowing the range of morally valuable sexual conduct and relationships, he argues, in the alternative, that our view constitutes an illegitimate ground for public policy even if it is true and the competing moral view he defends is false. The upshot of his position for questions of public policy pertaining to homosexual acts and relationships is that justice requires the state to grant marriage licenses to same-sex partners and to recognize their relationship as marital even if, in truth, their sex acts cannot be marital (or morally upright) and their relationship cannot, morally speaking, be a marriage. That is the proposition I am interested in here.
Noting that ‘it may be, indeed, that Bradley and George and I disagree . . . deeply in our understandings of what it is to have reasons for action, about the nature of goods, and perhaps even about the relationship between mind and body,’ Macedo argues that, ‘if our disagreements indeed lie in these difficult philosophical quarrels, about which reasonable people have long disagreed, then our differences lie precisely in the territory that John Rawls rightly . . . marks off as inappropriate to the fashioning of our basic rights and liberties.’ He continues:
It is inappropriate to carve up basic rights and principles of justice on the basis of reasons and arguments whose force depends on accepting particular religious convictions. So too it is inappropriate to deny people fundamental aspects of equality based on reasons and arguments whose force can only be appreciated by those who accept difficult to assess claims about the nature and incommensurability of basic goods, the relationship between intrinsic and instrumental value, and the dispute over whether pleasure is a reason for action.
Macedo’s Rawlsian argument is certainly appealing on its face. The deep moral and metaphysical questions to which he refers are indeed difficult ones about which reasonable people have long disagreed. Claims on either side of these questions are, as he says, difficult to assess. How could it be right, then, to ‘deny people fundamental aspects of equality’ on the basis of such claims? I certainly do not think it is ever right to deny people fundamental aspects of equality. The question is whether we can identify fundamental aspects of equality pertaining to marriage while prescinding from questions of the nature and value of marriage which, inevitably, implicate deeper moral and metaphysical questions of the sort that Rawls and Macedo wish to rule out of bounds as grounds for public policymaking. Macedo implicitly supposes that we can; I think we cannot.
Macedo’s claim about ‘denying fundamental aspects of equality’ can be sustained only if we presuppose the truth of his own comprehensive liberalism. If the nature and value of marriage are, in truth, what Macedo’s comprehensive view supposes them to be, then it is indeed a violation of equality to deny marriage licenses and the full legal benefits of marriage to same-sex partners. This violation occurs, however, only because homosexual partners can in fact realize in their sexual acts and relationships the same constitutive value or values (pleasure, intimacy, the expression of tender feelings) that can be realized by heterosexual spouses. No principle of equality is violated, however, if, in truth, homosexual sexual acts and relationships cannot realize the constitutive value or values of marriage—if marriage truly is, as Bradley and I contend, a bodily communion of persons consummated and actualized by sexual acts which are reproductive in type.
On Macedo’s view and on mine, marriage is an important value which society and government have an obligation to help make available to people and which the government should not deny to people who are capable of fulfilling its requirements. What follows from this, in my view, is society’s obligation to ‘get it right,’ that is, to embody in its law and policy a morally sound conception of marriage. This obligation seems to me especially stringent in view of the fact that whatever understanding of marriage is embodied in law and public policy will profoundly shape the public’s understanding of the nature and value of marriage, and, thus, affect people’s capacities to live out true marriages and participate in their value. This is an area in which moral neutrality strikes me as not only undesirable, but unattainable. The conflict of comprehensive views is unavoidable.
When leftists create special rights, rather than equal rights, you get the below (via The Blaze):
The case now presents a unique legal dilemma, according to reports, since Oregon law forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation, and the U.S. Constitution protects Klein’s freedom of religion.
Klein has two weeks to file his official account what happened before the attorney general’s office decides how to proceed.
Some reflection on the issue at stake here:
Liberty, equality, fraternity was the slogan of the French Revolution. Liberty and equality were the Revolution’s operative goals, and fraternity was brought in as a cement to hold them together. For liberty and equality are not necessarily in harmony and, in fact, are often at war with each other. Keeping the peace between them therefore became the role of fraternity. Alas, fraternity has not been terribly successful at it, as the history of class struggle since the French Revolution has shown.
In the evolution of democratic theory in the past two centuries, two main currents have emerged from the same wellspring of radical individualism: the liberal stream, emphasizing liberty while acknowledging equality of civil rights, and the egalitarian stream equality of civil rights, emphasizing equality while preaching the liberty guaranteed by civil rights.
Liberal democracy understands rights as immunities from governmental interference. Their function is to prevent government from unduly restraining any individual’s liberty. The egalitarian conception of rights is much broader than the classical liberal one and includes a wide range of positive benefits to be conferred by government. It tends toward an equality of results rather than merely of opportunities. To put it crudely, it means not only that you are free to apply for the job, but that you get it and you keep it.
Liberal democratic thought has as its economic counterpart the ideology of capitalism and a free-market economic system. The egalitarian stream ushers in the ideology of socialism and a government dedicated to bringing about substantial economic equality among all citizens.
Liberalism as it exists in the United States today is an effort to have the best of both ideological worlds. It assigns to government the duty of fostering, not complete economic equality, but general and a more equal share in it for all citizens. At the same time, through an ever-expanding array of civil rights, it seeks to emancipate the individual from religious, moral, and social restraints that are not of his own choosing. The contemporary liberal ideal would be a country in which everyone was employed at high wages in work which he/she found fulfilling, without distinction of race, color, creed, gender, ethnic origin, educational background, or sexual preference, and could live by any “lifestyle” that he/she chose.
Contemporary American conservatism is largely a reaction to this brand of liberalism, and therefore is a mixed bag of views. Among its adherents we find “conservatives” who are really nineteenth-century liberals eager to get government off the back of business. We also find “social-issue” conservatives angered by the liberal dissolution of our public morality. Still others are “libertarians” who want no public morality at all but oppose liberalism because of the large role it gives government. Another group of conservatives are regionalists or “states-righters” who are against not government as such, but the federal government.
The ideological conflict between and among liberals and conservatives is carried on in terms of liberty and equality.
Francis Canavan, The Pluralist Game: Pluralism, Liberalism, and the Moral Conscience (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), 127-128.
From video description, but first let me say, not all gay people want this, but enough of the larger movement does. Even if I agree with my Federalists friends who are gay about states rights, I can only warn these kindhearted souls that everything the Left touches it destroys… and it controls the gay-agenda. Maybe these conservative gays should really, and finally yell louder than the leftist who speak for them!
Do you see a theme? The video is from an old documentary. (Posted by: Religio-Political Talk)
(Source) In 1977, Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote “Sex Bias in the U.S. Code” for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In it, Ginsberg advocated lowering the age of consent from 16 to 12. She writes:
“Eliminate the phrase “carnal knowledge of any female, not his wife, who has not attained the age of 16 years” and substitute a federal, sex-neutral definition of the offense. … A person is guilty of an offense if he engages in a sexual act with another person. … [and] the other person is, in fact, less than 12 years old.”
She was an attorney for the ACLU at the time and later appointed to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton. She remains on the Supreme Court today.
1993 Homosexual Platform
The implementation of homosexual, bi-sexual, and transgendered curriculum at all levels of education.
The lowering of the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual sex.
The legalization of homosexual marriage. Custody, adoption, and foster care rights for homosexuals, lesbians, and transgendered people.
The redefinition of marriage to include the full diversity of all family structures.
The access to all programs of the Boys Scouts of America.
Affirmative action for homosexuals.
The inclusion of sex-change operations under a universal health care plan.
1972 Homosexual Platform
Repeal of all state laws prohibiting private sexual acts involving consenting persons, equalization for homosexuals and heterosexuals for the enforcement of all laws.
Repeal all state laws prohibiting solicitation for private voluntary sexual liaisons; and laws prohibiting prostitution, both male and female.
Enactment of legislation prohibiting insurance companies and any other state-regulated enterprises from discriminating because of sexual orientation, in insurance and in bonding or any other prerequisite to employment or control of one’s personal demesne.
Enactment of legislation so that child custody, adoption, visitation rights, foster parenting, and the like shall not be denied because of sexual orientation or marital status.
Repeal of all state laws prohibiting transvestism and cross-dressing.
Repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent.
Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.
If homosexuality is really genetic, we may soon be able to tell if a fetus is predisposed to homosexuality, in which case many parents might choose to abort it. Will gay rights activists continue to support abortion rights if this occurs?
(Dale A. Berryhill, The Assault: Liberalism’s Attack on Religion, Freedom, and Democracy)
“If homosexuality is really genetic, we may soon be able to tell if a fetus is predisposed to homosexuality, in which case many parents might choose to abort it. Will gay rights activists continue to support abortion rights if this occurs?”
Dale A. Berryhill, The Liberal Contradiction: How Contemporary Liberalism Violates Its Own Principles and Endangers Its Own Goals (Lafayette, LA: Vital Issues Press, 1994), 172.
Ann Coulter has a penchant for making controversial statements that often lead to snickers, jeers and plenty of other reactionary responses. In an upcoming episode of Logo’s “A List: Dallas,” the well-known conservative pundit told Taylor Garrett, a gay Republican and a cast member on the show, some things about liberals and abortion that will surely get people talking.
The general premise of her words: Gays and lesbians should become pro-life, because liberals may start aborting their unborn gay children once a homosexual gene is discovered.
“The gays have got to be pro-life. As soon as they find the gay gene, guess who the liberal yuppies are gonna start aborting?,” she said. Watch her comments, below:
Some of the players rights offended are spoken of over at Wide Rights:
…The case, if you have not heard about it yet, arises from an incident at the 2008 Gay Softball World Series. At the tournament, D2, a team in the A Division (the highest division you of NAGAAA), was challenged for having too many non-gay players.
The interrogation process was the most offensive part of the story. Three players from D2 were brought into a room individually and questioned in front of 25 random people about their sexual histories, whether they were predominantly attracted to men or women, etc.
(You can read a thorough description of the facts of the case in the plaintiff’s complaint, available here, starting on page 7.)
(Although the judge ruled to allow NAGAAA to keep its policy to limit the number of “non-gays,” the case is proceeding to determine if the players have any remedy for the intrusion and subsequent emotional damage from the interrogation.)…
A gay softball league is being sued for discrimination for disallowing men who weren’t gay enough from participating. According to the Seattle Times, one of the teams attempted to gain a competitive advantage by sneaking in more not gay enough men than are allowed by the rules. In addition to two declared non-gay men, the team fielded three men who claimed to be bisexual, which, according to officials of the organization, is not gay enough.
But, as to whether there even is such a thing as not being gay enough, the sponsoring organization say, on its website, “Created in 1977, the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA) is a 501c(3) organization that promotes amateur sports competition, particularly softball, for all persons regardless of age, sexual orientation or preference, with special emphasis on the participation of members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community.” So, it would seem that “sexual orientation or preference” shouldn’t count at all.
[….]
The three men who are suing the league are being represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights. So, the lesbians are hooking up with the bi’s to go after the gays. Only in America!
SAN FRANCISCO – A California demographer has released a best guess of how many homosexual adults are in the U.S.
Gary Gates puts the figure at 4 million adults, representing 1.7 percent of the 18-and-over population. That’s much lower than the 3 to 5 percent that has been the conventional wisdom in the last two decades, based on other isolated studies. It’s also a fraction of the figure put out by Alfred Kinsey, who said in the 1940s that 10 percent of the men he surveyed were “predominantly homosexual.”
Gates has advised the Census Bureau. He’s a demographer-in-residence at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.
He derived his results from five studies that asked subjects about their sexual orientations.
So, for years I have posted a quote from a 1995 book, The Assault: Liberalism’s Attack on Religion, Freedom, and Democracy, by Dale A. Berryhill. I recommend his other book as well, The Liberal Contradiction: How Contemporary Liberalism Violates Its Own Principles and Endangers Its Own Goals. (Both are out of print so you know.) The quote is this:
“If homosexuality is really genetic, we may soon be able to tell if a fetus is predisposed to homosexuality, in which case many parents might choose to abort it. Will gay rights activists continue to support abortion rights if this occurs?”
This quote, in my mind’s eye, hits close at the contradictions present in equal rights versus special rights. Well, the gay community has another medical procedure to contend with soon. First Things, a wonderful conservative Catholic Journal, has a great article entitle, “Gay Gene Eugenics,” by Joe Carter. In it (I recommend the entire reading of the article if you have time) this idea of special rights is in conflict with societal norms, humanity, and medical ethics. Joe Carter points out that soon homosexuality may be a thing of the past:
Ironically, such an explanation could have just the opposite effect of what they hope for. As the Los Angeles Times recently reported, a prenatal pill used to prevent ambiguous genitalia may reduce the chance that a female with the disorder will be gay. A bioethicist quoted in the story worried that the treatment could lead to “engineering in the womb for sexual orientation.”
The ability to chemically steer a child’s sexual orientation has become increasingly possible in recent years, with evidence building that homosexuality has biological roots and with advances in the treatment of babies in utero. Prenatal treatment for congenital adrenal hyperplasia is the first to test—unintentionally or not—that potential.
No one who has followed the trajectory of eugenics-oriented biotechnology will be surprised that one the first targets for manipulation would be sexual orientation. In 2002 Francis Fukuyama speculated that within twenty years we would be able to devise a way for parents to sharply reduce the likelihood that they will give birth to a gay child. Even in a society in which “social norms have become totally accepting of homosexuality,” he argues, most parents would choose the treatment.
Fukuyama is right. Even if homosexuality were considered a benign trait such as baldness or left-handedness, the majority of parents would opt to have a heterosexual child (“What if we want grandchildren?”).
WOW. of course this whole choice of orientation creates an ethical mess, Carter continues:
Although they will naturally abhor the aborting of such children, many conservative Christians will be amenable to changing sexual orientations in the womb. A prenatal treatment seems a humane solution for a moral problem, an easy way to deliver children from a particularly difficult temptation.
This acceptance of the “medicalization” of sexual orientations is misguided. Treating orientation as a malady promotes a reductionist view in which human behavior is explainable by chemical and physical laws. As we’ve seen in other areas of bioethics, reductionism inevitably undermines both moral autonomy and the dignity of the individual.
But even Christians who disagree with me should recognize that embracing the use of drugs and genetic engineering to correct for behavioral orientations opens the Pandora’s box of natal eugenics. Bioethicist Samuel Hensley also warns that rather than unconditionally accepting offspring as a gift of God, we will be tempted to redefine parenthood to include choosing the particular characteristics we want in children.
Christians should reject this cult of choice. We should be vigilant in expressing the truth that children are a blessing from God, not a product we manufacture to our specifications.
Out of the frying pan into the fire? The radical homosexual community will be in an awkward place of teaming up with Christians to not allow genetic engineering to eradicate them. Carter says that we
“need an entente [an international understanding providing for a common course of action] between Christians and gay activists to prevent the issue of homosexuality from being determined by genetic engineers and abortionists. This will not lead to an agreement about whether such behavior is benign or immoral. But at least we will be able to discuss the issue with our human dignity intact.”
Oh what a tangled web technology weaves. (read more)
U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who ruled last week that a voter-approved amendment to California’s constitution that limited marriage to the union of one man and one woman violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, based that ruling in part on his finding that a child does not need and has no right to a mother.
Nor, he found, does a child have a need or a right to a father.
“Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted, and having both a male and a female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well-adjusted,” the judge wrote in finding of fact No. 71 in his opinion.
“The gender of a child’s parent is not a factor in a child’s adjustment,” the judge stated in finding of fact No. 70. “The sexual orientation of an individual does not determine whether that individual can be a good parent. Children raised by gay or lesbian parents are as likely as children raised by heterosexual parents to be healthy, successful and well-adjusted. The research supporting this conclusion is accepted beyond serious debate in the field of developmental psychology.”….
