Studies!

SCIENCE!

People read STUDIES when they reproduce!

" the children tend to be more nurturing, less aggressive, more open to diversity themselves."

Tis is good how? Really? Do you think boys need to be less aggressive and more nurturing? Do girls, for that matter, since we're already so unaggressive we don't ask for pay raises or other career boons, according to Studies. And how much diversity do we need to be open to? We're already so accepting of diversity that black people ahve a more htan 70% out of wedlock birthrate with all the cultural crap that comes with it, and no one dares say a peep to them. We're already so accepting of diversity that people who speak out against islam here in the west have to hide for their lives, and we don't say a peep to muslims about it. So do tell what exactly is so great about what they've found.

Wow, sorry about the typos.

>>" the children tend to be more nurturing, less aggressive, more open to diversity themselves."
This is good how? Really?

Well, it's better than hearing the children of gays turn into, say, brutal little bigots who stomp on baby birds, isn't it momof4?

"Well, it's better than hearing the children of gays turn into, say, brutal little bigots who stomp on baby birds, isn't it momof4?"

Yes, Jody, because there's no middle ground there, at all. I believe momof4's point was that Amy pretty consistently decries our society's emasculation of men and boys. But hey, just ignore that in favor of making a completely non-nonsensical "point."

>>Yes, Jody, because there's no middle ground there, at all.

You'll find there was little middle ground in momof4's splendidly argumentative comment, Tom.

And people who admire childish aggression as evidence of masculinity are twits.

I marvel at the arrogance in assuming that we have some special insight into the way kids' souls work. Of course it's about science. Because how individuals feel about it ain't good enough.

People read STUDIES when they reproduce!

Sometimes. I certainly am.

People read STUDIES when they reproduce!

Far too few do. Most people just want kids and then go about having them, whether or not they have a sufficiently relationship, financial situation, or emotional makeup to provide their children with the kind of loving hand ome that most predisposes them to thrive. As a result, we have too many children growing up impoverished, in single-parent homes, being raised by teens, or the emotionally unhealthy (and often a combination of these). I'm sure that nearly all of the parents in these bad situations love their children, and would like to be able to better for them. If more of them read the research on what leads to children to grow up to be successful and well-adjusted adults, they might think a bit before bringing them in to conditions that deprive them.

You can't generalize these outcomes to all homosexuals, and you can't compare them to those for children raised by heterosexuals. These studies incorporate an inherent selection bias which restricts their applicability to broader questions concerning gender orientation and parenting.

It's like looking at kids conceived by IVF, or adopted, and then comparing them to all other kids. You've got a small self-organized cohort of people who've gone to great lengths to have a child. Not surprisingly, they tend to be highly engaged and caring parents. But you can't say that this behavior is indicative of all people who share their gender orientation.

Also I'm a little skeptical that there's no effect, except that the kids have a big advantage over other children, yet they face harassment and discrimination. These findings are contradictory. Because for all other groups, harassment and discrimination are purportedly ruinous.

As soon as I saw "Children of Gay Parents" I knew Crid would be the first to respond!

The only thing that sparks my curiosity about this, is exactly how many such children are there?

The NLLFS study is of 78 childrent over a 7 year period from 10 to 17yrs old... I dunno if that's a good sample size or not.

My Q? is in our overall polulation of 310m... how many kids are born this way? And is there anything to take away from the fact that it can be done?

What difference does this make?

Jody: "And people who admire childish aggression as evidence of masculinity are twits."

Well, condescension has its place, I suppose. But there may be more to the concept of aggressive masculinity than you're accounting for here.

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Muhammad/myths-mu-qurayza.htm

Those in the process of becoming widows at Qurayza may have condescended strenuously at their captors, for all the good it did them. (See also, Sabines.)

Masculine aggression is a fact of nature, seen in the majority of sexually dimorphic species. Human cultures channel and direct it in various ways. Qurayza illustrates the fate of pacifism.

Let me propose a non-theological definition of evil. Evil is a really simple concept, a shorthand for a shared set of rejections within which a relatively peaceful society is possible.

We seem to be endowed with a capacity for extreme social indignation in the presence of evil. Or if you use a different spelling, that which is haram. One is pulled towards vacuous socio-biological speculation about this .. aptness .. to being a member of a coherent society competing with other coherent yet incompatible societies. But let it be.

On the ground, this introduces the possibility of societal conflict based on incompatible sets of rejections.

To paraphrase Greg Gutfeld: If you disagree with me about what evil is, you're my enemy.

Concretely, I consider pillage, slaughter, and rapine to be evil acts. If you don't, we're at war.

Evil exists. Where it is not confronted it flourishes. Confronting evil requires aggressiveness.

As I would say of my highly decorated father: "Warriors are a pain in the ass - but when you need one nothing else will do.".

--
phunctor

Color me suspicious, but any longer I expect any 'research' on homosexuals to be colored by political correctness. This study would never have been made public if it couldn't be spun to endorse homosexual parenting. That seems to have been its intent, judging by the interpretation presented. The claim that these kids are even better than other children because of their magical 'diversity' is just icing on the cake.

Jody: "And people who admire childish aggression as evidence of masculinity are twits."

Jody commented on childish aggression, not masculine aggression. Kicking your little brother and taking his toy is not a sign of masculinity, it is a sign that you're still in the process of being civilized.

I'll always think a mother/father arrangement is in children's best interest. I still think it is the optimal scenario.

However, a two parent household will always be preferred and to me considered a better alternative to a single parent household.

I'd also like to see who makes up more of this study: gay women who are raising children, or gay men?

Jody you might want to look up definitions for aggression and sadism. I think you're using them interchangably, and they aren't. Aggression is a pretty good thing, overall. Unaggressive people don't ask for raises, raise their hand in class, go for the extra assignment at work, ask that cutie on a date, etc etc. Yes, it can also be the guy who starts a fight. Alphas are aggressive. Yet we like alphas-both the male and female versions. There is a reason they succeed in life.

Past that, I think the childish aggression issue was covered nicely by others. Don't you come from that country that doesn't allow people to defend themselves, even in their own homes? Yes, you are british. I think that may be coloring your view here.

Quote:
It has been going on for 24 years and follows children of lesbian families who received donor sperm.
- - - - - - - - - -
Which was how many families, how many kids?

Miniscule sample size - strike one.

What yardsticks are being used to measure the kids' adjustment - the "professional assessment" of the folks conducting the study?

What corroborating evidence is that feedback being crossed with - school and police records?

We just had another study all over the media that made the same claim - turned out it was just 70 lesbian mothers, self-reporting about their kids. No evaluation, no report cards, nothing.

Sorry - the entire gay rights movement has been a parade of lies. I'm not buying this. And the UCLA pedigree makes me even MORE suspicious of PC fantasy-science.

> Far too few do.

You're a white, middle-class, spirit-smothered American, aren't you?

> As soon as I saw "Children of Gay
> Parents" I knew…

No other issue so crystallizes the trend-mongering fashion of Amy's beliefs. This woman is not interested in children. See also "spirit-smothered", above.

> Color me suspicious, but any longer I expect
> any 'research' on homosexuals to be colored
> by political correctness.

I color you thoughtful and perceptive. This is part of the foolishness of our age. I don't even think Amy regards science as the pristine temple of human virtue by which she so often describes it, or she'd get a degree in chemistry and go work in a lab somewhere. This is a transparent pose to leverage the broader respect American feel for seemingly serious people. Some of us, raised the the putrid, pre-adolescent milieu of academe, know better than to be impressed.

The laboratory is no less susceptible to political contamination than any other realm. (And God knows what it means when people would turn to such sources rather than looking into their own hearts and the hearts of their peers, especially when they themselves were raised in loving homes by two parents. We need not be too taken with the petty resentments of others.)

People who really believe this, TRULY believe it, ought to be able to say one of these sentences:

Children don't need mothers.

and/or

Children don't need fathers.

They need to say it out loud, in public, frequently.

And then they need to STOP TALKING... No codicils or amendments or "research". No anecdotes about how their own drunk Daddy used to beat them or their own cold Mommy wouldn't breast feed. No other pouty displays of their compassion and their righteousness. No fraudulent storytelling about how actually they are very connected to other people, even though they think human souls are crafted in the chemistry lab,

They ought to have the courage to say what they mean concisely, and find out what the average loving parent thinks of it.

"Wendy Lee Walsh, Ph.D."!

>>Yes, you are british. I think that may be coloring your view here.

Raising two sons who happen to be built like brick shithouses has probably colored my views on childish aggression more than the name of the country on my passport, momof4!

And I qualified my reference to aggression with "childish" for very good reason.

It's a quality that needs to be employed with discrimination (as in some of phunctor's examples) - and with the smarts that mainly develop with maturity.

The commentary on the study Amy cited also referred to the children simply being "less aggressive" (presumably compared to others) and not "unaggressive" - which was your term.

(Like others here, I am not sure how conclusive the study will prove.)

Conclusive studies! SCIENCE!

My main question is "better" is defined as how exactly.
If as is pointed out better means more tolerant to "diversity" that is the same as saying Mormons kids are better because they end up more Mormon.
How about grades, suicide rates, drug addictions?

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics"
Mark Twain (attributed to Disraeli)

However the quality of the study, I find interesting that aggressiveness is thought to be a quality by some (even mistaken by sadism at some point in the discussion).

I strongly disaagree with this: "Since lesbian and gay parents may show more understanding for social diversity..."
Gay people are much more intolerant towards the people who disagree with them. They are hating and abusive towards those, who dares to have their own opinion.

>>Gay people are much more intolerant towards the people who disagree with them. They are hating and abusive towards those, who dares to have their own opinion.

Maybe, Me, it's because the gay people you know didn't have gay parents themselves?

They are hating and abusive towards those, who dares to have their own opinion.

That's everyone, everywhere.

People who may or may not have, or even want kids, are foaming at the mouth about what others do with their crotch puppies.

Whatever the reason, they are not _showing more understanding for social diversity_, they are showing it less, very much less.

Sorry, that should have been post-adolescent, not pre-adolescent. And "putrid" was kinda harsh.

Bad things happen when telecomm majors try to invoke Posner.

Studies!
SCIENCE!
People read STUDIES when they reproduce!
Posted by: Crid

Crid given you were the one to push Amy in to looking in at what the "Studies!" showed about the outcomes with children of single parents I find it odd that you are the one leading the charge to say such studies dont matter.

Or do they just not matter when you dont like the findings?

You've got a small self-organized cohort of people who've gone to great lengths to have a child. Not surprisingly, they tend to be highly engaged and caring parents.

Exactly

But you can't say that this behavior is indicative of all people who share their gender orientation.

One, I think you meant sexual orientation,
Two, no one is saying all gays would make good parents, It says the children of commited gay parents do as well as children of commited hetero parents

Cite.

"It says the children of commited gay parents" lujlp

actually it says the children of LESBIAN parents do better. There is no Longitudinal of gay parents that I could find...

and even if so, we are still back to 78 kids ALL TOLD.

Again with the meaning, I'm just not seeing that this means anything. I'd LOVE to see the comparison with children of single women that have done the same kind of fertilization, to see if there is a difference. Because THEN you would have something semi relevant to compare, ESPECIALLY with the engaged parenting styles, and would one mother be less good than two?

Why is there no study on gay parents and their offspring?

Because there are no offspring of gay parents.

(Like candy from a baby sometimes....)

one truism that the PC crowd will not touch is the absolute crap that these kids will have to put up with growing up with either 3 daddies or 2 mommies. Dad taught me how to fish, hunt, and be a man, mom taught me how to cook. No thanks on this constant experimentation with our society

"If your parents never had sex [with the opposite sex], there's a strong chance you won't either."

Remember when that used to be true?

It's an interesting result, but the study is far from persuasive:

* Very small sample size
* Self-selected audience
* No objective evaluation criteria
* No control group

Further, the reasoning expressed in the conclusions sounds like the same kind of tripe the left wing of the social sciences has been feeding us ever since Margaret Mead starting publishing her repressed sexual fantasies, and the rest of anthropology accepted them as science. Plus, the authors commit the logical fallacy of assuming that minority members are necessarily more tolerant and understanding than the majority, which does not follow and for which plenty of counterexamples exist.

Read this:

Instead she makes a great case for an elaborate system of parents, relatives, and even non-biological same-sex friends. She calls members of this extended family "alloparents" and gives plenty of stone cold facts about how humans evolved, gained intelligence and grew the capacity for empathy through multiple, consistent, caregivers.

The nuclear family is a rather recent invention.

How many of you know gays or lesbians with children?

I know two very masculine boys raised by two lesbians -- to name one example. The plural of anecdote is not data, no, but those of you who are screaming and yelling that gay parenting is terrible should maybe meet a gay parent or two and their children.

> The nuclear family is a rather
> recent invention.

So is germ theory, but you shouldn't try to live without it.

> How many of you know gays or lesbians
> with children?

Right, right... This is all about the fabulous people you know and how fabulous they are. You're putting their interests, and your mutual fabulousness, before the needs of the kids. After all, what are they going to do, revolt? Towards the people who give them food? I can hear you now- 'Those kids are doing great! They love their two mommies/daddies!'

A mean, there's a reason you declined my challenge this morning, and have instead fallen into a Hillary Clinton it-takes-a-village frame of mind... And it ain't the needs of the kids.

> I know two very masculine boys...

This is pathetically hokey. It would be comical if the stakes weren't so high.

No Mommies, no Daddies. That's 'love', huh?

(Like candy from a baby sometimes....)
See, that's what I mean - hating and spiteful, intrested only in claiming their own righteousness.
I am not competing for it, you know, just disagreeing with the statement that gays are _showing more understanding for social diversity_ so I have to thank you for yet another proof.

> See, that's what I mean

I haven't a CLUE what you mean. I'm guessing that you disagree with me, but it's only a guess. Like so many people with strong feelings about this issue, you might not be in the habit of taking sides on issues of public importance.

> hating and spiteful, intrested only
> in claiming their own righteousness.

Where's the hate and the spite? There are people so enamored of their own vectorless compassion, and so eager to be saluted for it, that they're offended when reminded of the biological realities. They think the inability of two people of the same gender of have a baby is an attitude problem, a policy oversight, evidence of darkness in the hearts of less evolved people than themselves.

So here we got Amy, who is transparently, obviously, CONFESSEDLY looking for the 'studies' that support the conclusion she's already certified as her favorite (though the scientific method would as more her): That not having a mother or a father should mean nothing to a child... And more importantly, that the problem is that THE ADULTS face a "huge challenge: discrimination."

Amy loves that! "Discrimination"! It sounds so much like the very genuine evil faced down during the civil rights battles of the previous generation, from which she was excluded by the cruelty of the calendar.

Well, I discriminate proudly: People who love their children enough to be certain that the kids get intimate parental love from both a man and a woman from the day they're born are doing it better than others.

I think we should figure out what definition of "aggressive" they are using. Because frankly, if someone said to me "Little Bobby is an aggressive child", I do NOT get visions of a kid standing up for what's right, I get a vision of a kid shoving other kids in the sandbox and stealing their shovels and dumptrucks. But I could be wrong.

I mean, there's a balance, we want kids to be aggressive enough to defend themselves and to strive for what they want in life, but not so aggressive that they run around tormenting others. But I think the word "aggressive" often carries the latter connotations.

NicoleK:
I think we should figure out what definition of "aggressive" they are using.
- - - - - - - - - -
Sure - just after we figure out what "well adjusted" means.

And what "longitudinal" means - since only a handful of the already tiny sample were likely to even get sperm 24 years ago.

And what "well-adjusted" and "normal" mean - what objective criteria and control groups the kids are used to evaluate these kids.

This is Red Queen Science - everything means just what "progressives" want it to mean at any given time.

Is the study online somewhere?

Why am I agreeing with all the usual opponents this week?

> Sure - just after we figure out what
> "well adjusted" means.

Here's a guiding principle: We shall not ask children how their development is going... Any more than we'd ask them, on a beautiful spring afternoon in a classroom learning 'rithmetic, whether they'd rather be out playing ball. Childhood isn't about children, it's about what they are when they're 30 and 50 and beyond.

Well, that's what my interest in YOUR child is about... Though I suppose there's some desire to see that they're not deprived of intimate exposure to the emotional makeup of half the human species.

But shucks, maybe that's just me being sentimental again. I can be so gushy sometimes!

(Amy's "two very masculine boys" still rankles... As if this were about measuring or inculcating butch-edness, rather than symmetrically forging immortal souls. And even then as if, at least in stereotype, two male gay 'parents' were more likely to produce manful youths than were two lesbians, achieving some sort of flavor balance.)

(And Ben-David, what were you saying about the Rutgers kid, about how he knew he was being recorded? If true, it adds a new dimension of teenage psychodramatic tomfoolery to the story. I'm pleased not to have to withdraw any comments made heretofore. Again- The compulsory 'friendships' of our schoolchild times are like nothing else in life, and ought not be taken too seriously, no matter how it feels at the time.)

Those of you saying being less aggressive is good should be sure to keep your own kids out of daycare, as time spent is daycare correlates highly with higher aggressive tendencies, as well as some other antisocial tendencies.

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/news/releases/child_care.cfm

Will you be arguing as strenuously against working parents as you do for gay parents? It's all about the aggression, after all.

>>That not having a mother or a father should mean nothing to a child... And more importantly, that the problem is that THE ADULTS face a "huge challenge: discrimination."

Actually, Crid; the commentary indicates THE KIDS can face the problem of ignorant prejudice too. The study is not just about wounding challenges to THE ADULTS.

"Dr. Gartrell warns that one dismal fact came out of the study. Lesbian mothers have one huge challenge: discrimination. "The biggest challenge is protecting their children from homophobic stigmatization." Some of the kids are targeted because of their parents' sexual orientation."

Heh, Momof4, its one of the reasons I'm staying home with Juniorette.

Cite.
Posted by: Crid

Just so I understand you crid, I said the guy claiming the study says gay people make good parents (via pretesting that it couldnt make such a claim) that it acctually said the children of gay parents turn out as well as he children of hetero parents.

And you want me to cite that?

Well press the page up button until you see the link at the start of this blog page, click on that link and tke a look at the study the article is citing.

A few things.

One, the average life expectancy of a human until the last hunndered yrs or so was around 30, and thats assuming there were no wars, famine, political or religious upheaval, or random ecoligical disasters.

So basically everything anyone has ever done to raise a familly is suspect because until about a hundred yrs ago people were married off as teenagers had babies really quick and were more ofthen then not dead before having the chance to become grandparents.

Now before anyine objects ofcourse there are exceptions. Im mearly stating the facts of humanity in the boadest possible terms.

Some say the nuclear familly is the way to go - while others point to the high isntances of familial abuse that it invariably seems to foster.

The point is what we know, what we think we know, and more importanly what we think we know about what we acctually know is constanly changing.

Only in the last fifty years have we developed enough in medicine and public sanitation to allow people to live long enough to discover that our diet over the last few millenia is bad for us. And even with our discovery of the problems with articical sweeteners, complex carbohydrates, and the different types of colesteral it still takes years if not decade for the knowledge, and more importantly understanding to seep past the barriers of political ideology and into public awareness.

Back to my point about familal structures

In less than five generations we have devolved from extended famillies and comunities rasing children - to the close knit singular nuclear familly - to neruotic overinvolved helicopter parents who cant seem to function unless they act as one of their childs apendegges at all times.

Two, crid mentioned germ theory in relation to family sturcture.

Thanks to everyone over medicating every little snifle we have now eveoled superbugs resistant to drug treatment.

The explosion in childhhod allergies has been linked to the immune response over reacting to slight problems becuase parnet keep their children too healthy and the immune system not given anything to fight is overwhelmed by small things, and the lack of any major deadly epidemics has lead to brain dead parnets refusing immunizations which result in death, a loss of herd imunity and will result inevetably in a major epidemic.

The problem isnt how kids are raised, crid. As alays it comes down to good old fshioned human stupidity.

ANd people acting in what they think they know and being fine with their assumptions and not othering to reach beyond them.

Is a mom and a dad better that just two moms or teo dads? Of course, but two moms alone is beter than one mom. and one mom alone is better than 15 kids shaing a room at an orphange.

And a mom and a dad and two sets of granparents and an aunt and an uncle and half a dozen cousins both older and younger then the child in question are bettter then just one mom and one dad.

There is always something that could be better about everyones entire life.

And finally two gay people deciding to have a baby together is no less a selfish act then two heteros deciding to have a baby. Becuase choosing to have kids is about the parents, not the child.

Lujlp, actually in the 1600s in Europe people used to get married in their mid to late 20s for men, and early 20s for women, because they needed to make money and get a nest egg. This would not be happening if they were dying at 30. (I forget where I read that, it was a source for a college paper, the fact stuck with me because it surprised me. At least Wikipedia backs me up "The average age of marriage in the late 13th century into the 16th century was around 25 years of age", and has a footnote source)

It's important to take the child mortality rate out when discussing lifespans, as that draws averages down. When we are talking about people who get married (as in this thread), they've already lived to adulthood, obviously.

Even the !Kung who live in the Bush live way beyond 30 if they reach adulthood. (Marjorie Shostak, "Nisa, the Life and Words of a !Kung Woman") Though not as long as we do in the West.

This is not the only study to conclude that parents who are gay raise healthy, happy, well-adjusted children. It is so easy for hetero people to have children whether they want them or not, or they have them purely because it is expected, whereas the gay parents want it so badly they will jump through hoops to get a baby. A couple (any couple) who desparately wants a child will be more likely to raise the child in a healthy, loving environment. That is not to say that all gay couples make better parents than straight couples, only that their child will grow up as loved and well cared for as the child of a loving happy straight couple who really want that child.

I grew up around two families headed by gay women. All of the children grew up to be incredibly successful in business and in love. They all have strong loving families of their own, they all have great careers and they are all involved with their local communities as volunteers.

There are families in my neighbourhood with same sex parents and I have never observed a problem with others. The children in the neighbourhood and at the school accept that families come in different forms. People may raise the issue that children of gay parents should expect to be bullied but the reality is that children would not 'know to bully' unless their own family teaches them that there is something wrong with those families.

I don't think there can be any question that 'less aggressive' means not violent or bullying and does not mean passive. Asking for a raise or promotion is about confidence not aggression.

Me: Gay people are much more intolerant towards the people who disagree with them. They are hating and abusive towards those, who dares to have their own opinion.

What attitudes do you present to them that they are so "intolerant" of?

People often say this of gay people, but to the best of my knowledge, gays don't go out of their way to harass straight people just for being straight...or even if the opportunity presents itself.

I find myself flummoxed by the suggestion that gays are supposedly so intolerant of those who disagree with them. It wouldn't be, by any chance, the way certain people present themselves.

"You chose to be what you are..." "You're sick, unnatural and perverted..." "You're going to burn in hell for being an abomination to God..." "You're child molesters and shouldn't be around children, and of course you're unfit parents..."

Then these same people seem so utterly perplexed when these assertions are met with hostility. "Why are you so intolerant? You preach tolerance, but you're the most intolerant ones of all!"

There goes Crid with his usual Nazi-esque demands that the parameters of the discussion be couched in his terms...as always.

Children can be successful, happy and well-adjusted, as much as any of their peers, despite the absence of a mother/father.

That's as far as it's going to go, demagogue, much as you would like to poison the well with your imperious demands that we couch our views with your terminology.

So did you miss my disclaimer or just ignore it NicoleK?

I said I was generalizing all of human history, the first signs of wide spread agriculture show up over ten thousand yrs ago, human fossils show(depending on how their dated) it was around before that. Some geologists and climotologists theorize that rice cultivation in china led to a global warming effect 12,000 yrs ago and might have led to(or at least helped along) the current interglacial period in which all of human history has unfolded

the first four of the last five centuries make up 16% of the sum total of human history which doesnt even take into account how long genetically modern humans existed with the period of prehistory.

Which is why I said there were SOME exceptions

Patrick, you just Godwin'd the thread... how is it that crid gets you to give up and start calling names so easy? Make your own argument, make it stroong, and then let it go.

Anyhow, for NicoleK, here is the PDF:
NLLFS Study

And here is the regular site to poke around in:
NLLFS

I'm still wondering exactly how prevalent this even is... I'm sure you could find this in Boulder, as I know of at least one couple... but I've never seen it in any of the schools my kids have been in in Highlands Ranch or Littleton.

So what point is actually trying to be made here?

This is not the only study to conclude that parents who are gay raise healthy, happy, well-adjusted children. It is so easy for hetero people to have children whether they want them or not....

In most cases, a child of adoption is economically better off than a randomly-chosen child.

People who pass the screening process to be adoptive parents must pass a better of tests (economic, psychological, legal, etc.) before being considered fit.

That means randomly comparing chilren of adoptive couples to children of non-adoptive couples is apples to oranges...whether the adoptive couples are gay or straight.

--------------------

Interesting viewpoint on adoption from "A Ghetto Mom Talks Back" in Salon a few years back:

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2000/02/25/james_traub

Each day, I remember that I had a chance to buy my son a one-way ticket to the middle class. Yes, you can change mothers -- if you do it at birth. Many of us who became pregnant when we were single and without resources considered adoption, at least briefly. I could have given my son up. By definition, every couple seeking to adopt in America is middle class or better -- sometimes very much better -- since only middle-class couples can pass an agency's screening or afford a private adoption.

The cost of that ticket was that I would never see my son again. I would never know what happened to him. I thought the price was too high. In any case, I was unable to pay it. Anyway, I thought, using the classic flawed reasoning of desperate women, I loved my son and that meant he would be OK. Right? Love would conquer all.

Fourteen years later I believe, on most days, that I made the wrong choice. I see the evidence in front of my eyes. ... I love my son. But by choosing to keep him, I have greatly circumscribed his chances to succeed -- or even to survive -- in life.

SwissArmyD: Patrick, you just Godwin'd the thread... how is it that crid gets you to give up and start calling names so easy? Make your own argument, make it stroong, and then let it go.

I called Crid nothing but a demagogue, which he is. If the shoe fits and all that.

Crid's arguments are stale and tiresome, rather like his rhetoric. He has used the same arguments on this subject for years, literally. And his methods of countering opposing arguments are simple, but regrettably effective. He simply pretends not to hear opposing POVs. You could write the most thorough, comprehensive, and sound argument in the world, but if it doesn't jibe with his opinion, he will simply ignore it, then relaunch the same refuted claptrap, as if vehemence is a substitute for sound rationale.

Goebbels applied the same technique. So if the reference to Nazi-esque bothers you, that's where the technique comes from. Repetition of a lie allows it to become believable...a technique which Crid also enjoys, and is also regrettably effective.

It is no more appropriate to insist that we say "children don't need mothers" than it would be to try to box him into a statement like "a child will always fail as an adult unless he was raised by his mother."

And my argument was strong. Also irrefutable, which is why Crid employs the "stone deaf" approach to it.

A child can grow up to be a happy, productive and self-actualized human being without having an involved mother or father in their upbringing. Sorry that bothers you and Crid so much, but it is the truth.

I'm on the light-hearted amused side of things Patrick, so I was joking...
I'd point out the word "CAN" in your last statement: "A child can grow up to be a happy productive and self-actualized human being without having an involved mother or father in their upbringing."

Yes, yes they can. An orphan CAN also do this, and many have done. Is that the best thing for them? Or do we try to put small children in with families, because we know the outcome is generally better?

What I have said all along on this, is what is anyone trying to prove with such a study? Has anyone studied Single women who get a child the same way? Essentially what is it that they are trying to prove, and why? Beyond that I don't care much, because the Q? is entirely subjective, about who raises children better.

Even In the SAME family, raised by the same parent[s] of whatever gender and type, some kids may thrive and some may fail... even amongst triplet+ where they are the same age.

Nature is kind of messy in this regard.

"He simply pretends not to hear opposing POVs."

Pot...meet kettle....

> Actually, Crid; the commentary
> indicates...

Really? Oh! My mistake. If the commentary says so...

Is there any reason yet to imagine that the needs of the children are what's first on anyone's mind?

As people have presented these issues, has anyone ever, ever sold this –in their first breath– as something what's best for children? Of course not. So they'll always be on their back foot for the compassion net game. They have to be; they WANT children brought into fracture families.

Amy's scrambling for studies to help her pretend this isn't about her need to be nice to grownups (as anyone called "gay" must certainly be). There's really no best case: She's excluding one gender's love from the life of a child on purpose, and then asking us to trust that it's no big deal. As a bonus, she gets to prattle about how other people have "the problem of ignorant prujudice." AMY will never go through childhood without the love of her mother or her father, so there's no loss.

> Just so I understand you

Too late, Lou.

> you want me to cite that?

No, I want you to cite the part where I told you to trust what "science" (especially Amy's seventh-grade kind) had to say about the love a child should receive from a mother and a father.

Your entire larger comment is a pean to idiocy and inaction. But in the shortest view:

> two gay people deciding to have
> a baby together is no less a
> selfish act then two heteros
> deciding to have a baby.

Two gay people deciding to have a baby together is like me deciding to sprout wings and fly up the coast. It won't work. Nature is telling me something. Two gays will need to hire a surrogate of some time, a person who will instantly step away from their progeny... Unless someone decides to sue. Is there a faster recipe for social, legal and intimate disaster. Again, you're on your back foot.

> his usual Nazi-esque demands...

I resist the habit of the simple-minded to ignore core issues, and a child calls me a Nazi... Well, doggone it, I think I'll be able to roll with the punch.

I just don't think you people are that kind. You aren't compassionate. You're not being adult about it. You want to think there are no boundaries to how humans can find and build happiness...

But there are.

SwissArmyD: I'm on the light-hearted amused side of things Patrick, so I was joking...

No, you weren't.

SwissArmyD: I'd point out the word "CAN" in your last statement: "A child can grow up to be a happy productive and self-actualized human being without having an involved mother or father in their upbringing."

And I'd like to point out to you that a child CAN grow up in a family within your narrow parameters of having a married man and woman as parents, and STILL grow up to be troubled, anti-social, colossal failures, even criminals.

Yes, yes they can. An orphan CAN also do this, and many have done. Is that the best thing for them? Or do we try to put small children in with families, because we know the outcome is generally better?

So, put children in families. But I'm a little fed up with everyone treating as a given that we somehow just know that children will do better with a man and woman parent.

This is not a given. If you've got the proof of this statement, present it. Until you do so, this is an unsupported assertion; not a fact.

Crid: I resist the habit of the simple-minded to ignore core issues, and a child calls me a Nazi... Well, doggone it, I think I'll be able to roll with the punch.

I didn't call you anything but a demagogue, which you are. I did not call you a Nazi. I said your demands are Nazi-esque, which they are.

This strident, jackbooted pronouncement that we must all state our position in the precise terms you lay out is dictatorial, and yes, Nazi-esque. And quite frankly, it affords me a bit of smirk and grunt to watch you do it.

Like, who the fuck do you think you are, oh imperious one, demanding that we state our position precisely as you have dictated? Apparently, the demagoguery only works (or works most effectively) if we capitulate and state our stance on the issue in the terms you lay out.

Well, too bad. I'm not walking into that one. You can throw yourself on the floor and kick and scream all you want to, although you're apt to get dirt on your frilly pink dress and scuff up your patent leather Mary Jane shoes, little girl.

A child can grow up to be a successful adult, well-adjusted, productive and self-actualized, even if the co-ed parentage was missing from their childhood. That is my stance. That is how I'm going to say it. Period.

And by the same token, a mother and father raising a child is no foolproof recipe for success.

"No, you weren't."
Sorry Patrick, about this you are entirely wrong, because I actually know what I am thinking, and you actually don't. But you have certainly decided for yourself what it is you percieve I am thinking, and discarded clues you might see. You say:
"A child can grow up to be a successful adult, well-adjusted, productive and self-actualized, even if the co-ed parentage was missing from their childhood. That is my stance. That is how I'm going to say it. Period.

And by the same token, a mother and father raising a child is no foolproof recipe for success."

How is that different from what I said:
'Even In the SAME family, raised by the same parent[s] of whatever gender and type, some kids may thrive and some may fail... even amongst triplet+ where they are the same age.

Nature is kind of messy in this regard. '

Or did you not read that far?

Some children thrive, and some don't, End of story. Because those people are individuals, and their life is one story of it's own. Longitudinal studies and the science are about statistics not people. Statistics fail in the granularity of one single life. The only thing that is apparent as a trend is that instinct and tradition keeps the species going. But that has nothing to do with being well adjusted, whatever that is. It's kind of like a statistic, it isn't granular, applying to an individual. I don't particularly care how you decide to have children, I hope they are wonderful and don't decide to be drug addicts or illinois nazis, but you are bound to find out, that it isn't up to you or your nurturing entirely. Sometimes good little children grow into adults and choose the EXACT OPPOSITE of what their parents did or would. Sometimes they lose their live to a drunk driver on the day they get their driver's license. Sometimes they have fights with their parents, and never talk to them again. And sometimes they grow up to be this well adjusted thing you go on about.

Remind me exactly what they has to do with your logitudinal study? You never did mention what you are trying to prove.

OK, I think we can safely say Crid isn't a nazi or the next Nazi or whatever. He may bit a bit stubborn on the gay issue, but he isn't a psychopath. Also, Patrick, using "girl" as an insult is sexist and a bit ironic given this thread's defense of gender issues.

Thanks for the links Swiss Army.

You know what I was wondering, though. You know how in the 60s homosexuality stopped being considered a mental illness? Well... isn't the definition of mental illness kind of subjective and random? Some traits which don't fit in well in this society might be just fine in others. Did they make some discovery about the chemical nature of homosexuality in the 60s, or was that just when they decided they didn't care so much if someone was gay or not?

My concern with a "gay issue" begins and ends with gays as parents. If you're a guy and you wanna blow another guy, or stick your pooky-pook in his wooky-woo, then have at it. If you're a girl and you wanna munch carpet every day of your life, go forward and enjoy. Why should I care? My only concern is what happens to kids.

To assert that there's no penalty when children don't have mothers or fathers in their lives is madness, absolute moon-barking lunacy.

But of course, the kids won't tell you that, will they? They'll never complain about things like that, especially to the ones they're compelled to attach to, the ones who are supposed to be looking out for their best interests. In these generations, we're abusing our authority over their lives just as surely as the plantation owners 200 years ago abused their slaves.


Y'know, I think a child could grow up eating nothing but cold food. He could sleep on a bed no softer than a blanket on the floor. He could never visit a farm or eat a vegetable fresh out of the ground. He could never go hiking through a forest, or camping in a tent, or walking on a beach or a mountain. He could never visit a concert hall or an opera house, or a sports arena or a ball park. He might never handle a musical instrument or ride a bicycle. He might never visit a friend in a hospital or go with someone to a religious service. He might never have a consistent group of friends from year to year, or even get to know any extended family... In fact, the family he does know might even be mean. The kid might not even learn to read.

But still... But still, it's possible that such a child would grow up to be a loving, dependable, responsible and responsive member of society. It could happen.

But is that what you want?

Some people DO want risks like that. They'll gladly throw grotesque roadblocks into the lives (and hearts) of children they'll never meet, just to prove a point. It might turn out OK!

But it's a monstrous game to play. Children are literally delivered to the intersection of a man and woman. That's the best signal "science" will ever give you about who should provide their nurturing. Biology is not concerned with culture or compassion or personal taste.

Gays have always and will always perform as parents and seniors to kids. But to consign children to a life without maternal or paternal by design is unspeakably cruel.

NicoleK: OK, I think we can safely say Crid isn't a nazi or the next Nazi or whatever. He may bit a bit stubborn on the gay issue, but he isn't a psychopath.

And no one said he was. I said his tactic of demanding that those of who support gay parents much state our position in his terminology, verbatim (which he is doing) is Nazi-esque, which it is. The whole attitude of "You mahst say it dis vay, und exactly dis vay!" brings to mind loud, angry pronouncements in staccato German, accentuated with a riding crop.

"A bit stubborn," you say...which would be an understatement. He's allowed to choose his terminology for his side of the issue.

The presumption that he's also going to phrase the arguments for the other side is...nutty.

As convenient as it might be to pick the arguments for both sides of an issue - hell, you'd never lose a debate again if you got to decide how the other side was going to argue - most adults realize that everyone else is an autonomous entity, and we don't get to pick their words for them. Sadly, they're going to do it for themselves.

Why would someone be ashamed to say–

Children don't need mothers.

and/or

Children don't need fathers.

and then stop talking...

...if that's what they really believed?

Crid: To assert that there's no penalty when children don't have mothers or fathers in their lives is madness, absolute moon-barking lunacy.

And your proof of this would be...? (So sorry, that's not a given. Evidence will be required.)

And I enjoyed the flattering comparison of the apparent affliction of having gay parents to the long-winded, tedious list of hardships that resembles something out of a Dicken's novel.

I will look forward to your crusades against deliberate single parents then. Strangely, I don't remember you having done any so far.

Why is it so imperative that a person has to state their position in exactly the manner prescribed by someone else?

> Strangely, I don't remember you having
> done any so far.

You haven't been reading. Ask some of the single mothers who've been around the blog for awhile.

Neither apparently has Amy:

> Children need intact families and they
> need male role models.

I've covered that, too: The ideal "role model" couldn't be farther removed from fatherhood. The whole concept is the product of naive, often bitter thinking from woman who can't make peace with masculinity (or probably any OTHER source of closeness), and want to pretend it's just a pepper seasoning to spread on the dish just before serving.

Golly, Amy, the longer this goes on, the more you seem entrapped by the typical contemporary feminist distrust of all things manly.

The Goddess writes: You're arguing here from emotion,

True. Crid is doing exactly that, and it's the classic definition of "demagogue." This is why it's so almighty important to him that I phrase my stance on the issue in his terms. Because his choice of words is likely to get a passionate response, not a reasoned one.

The question is, why doesn't he phrase his stance on the issue in one sentence and shut up about it?

But then again, since when has Crid been able to do anything in one sentence and shut up? I think the necessary restraint required to be concise would kill him.

What's this? You wouldn't even think of converting to Islam? Hon, I think you could make even a burqa look hot!

I believe a child raised by two same sex parents can be just as happy, successful, productive and all that good shit as any child raised by two opposite sex parents.

> Could a supposition about me get
> more wildly wrong?

Nope, it all fits too perfectly. Your formulas about "stability" aren't beliefs, they're incantations. You're pulling it out of your ass, otherwise you'd accept that simplest condensation of your argument: Children don't need daddies or Children don't need mommies.

There's a reason you're afraid of plain language, and it doesn't flatter you.

Crid: Nope, it all fits too perfectly. Your formulas about "stability" aren't beliefs, they're incantations.

You're in no position to denounce anyone's beliefs, and I have to smirk at the idea that you seem to think you're coming from the strong position. You have never ever forwarded evidence to support your contentions. It's as if you're afraid to look.

Amy has backed up her positions with scientific studies. Granted, there may be some flaws, but still better than nothing, which is what you have.

"Incantations"? Coming from someone whose contentions read like royal decrees rather than facts...

NicoleK:
You know what I was wondering, though. You know how in the 60s homosexuality stopped being considered a mental illness? Well... isn't the definition of mental illness kind of subjective and random? Some traits which don't fit in well in this society might be just fine in others. Did they make some discovery about the chemical nature of homosexuality in the 60s, or was that just when they decided they didn't care so much if someone was gay or not?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
The decision to remove homosexuality from the APA's diagnostic manual happened in the 70s - and it was not the result caving to violent protest by gay activists who took over the APA convention, not any new research.

Until then, Freud, Jung, Rogers, and the other major lights of modern psychology identified homosexuality as a dysfunction - a personality caught in an adolescent, narcissistic habits of thought, and compulsive sexual behavior. Based on this diagnosis, the literature - up until the activists took over in the 70s - also contains reports of successful therapy to cure homosexuality.

No new evidence was cited to overturn this view.

It was pure thuggery by leftie gay rights activists, who used pity-me PC victimology politics to get their toe in the door, then shouted down their opposition.

And gay behavior has not changed - compulsive sex and open relationship are the norm. Wonder if that's covered in this study...

... and in the interim, other progressive notions - like no-fault divorce and radical feminism - have moved the general population further towards perpetual adolescence and narcissism.

Which may make gays seem more normal, but isn't exactly progress...

It's no accident that self-indulgent, elite-urban segment of society that the Goddess travels in is also the one most likely to declare its support for the gay rights movement - as Crid has pointed out, they are invested in a worldview that throws over responsibility to others in favor of personal entitlement.

>>You're pulling it out of your ass, otherwise you'd accept that simplest condensation of your argument: Children don't need daddies or Children don't need mommies.

Here's an even simpler version of some of the arguments here, Crid.

Three words, instead of your silly, negative four-word "condensations":

Children need parents.

> Children need parents.

You're dodging. This is obvious, and it gets more obvious each time you do it. You know perfectly well how heartless and impersonal your position is. Else how come you can't say the words? They're exactly what you mean:

Children don't need Mommies. Children don't need Daddies.

Such short sentences... Should be no problem.

AdviceAmy: How rude. You don't know who my friends are.

Just to set the record straight, I consider myself Amy's friend. Elitist I am not. She even invited me to let her know if I ever make it to her area, and we'll get together for coffee.

I will someday, Amy. It's just that besides being a massage therapist, I am an education junkie.

I'm always in school!

Crid, I'm not going to waste my time sorting thru blog posts form the first have of this decade to locate the first time you said children need intact famiile and two parents, not when you say it every time this subject pops back up.

You claim that you never told Amy to look at studies in the differences of how children of intact and broken homes turn out(by infering that I shoukd search for a post by you that doesnt exist)

I'll take your insistance at face value.

That does leave us with a bit of a problem though. If you have no evidence that children of intact hertosexual parented homes turn out beter than children in other situations - perhaps you should provied us with some before continuing to claim so.

> I'm not going to waste my time sorting
> thru blog posts

So, like, it didn't happen is what you're saying, right? I never said it. You just don't have the rhetorical ponies to concede the point, so we're all supposed to look the other way now. Kind of like that Ziegler thingy.

So, howzabout you, Lou? Do you have the 'nards to put it in sentence which clearly expresses your belief? Something like, maybe:

The love of a mother for her child is neither distinctive nor essential.

How 'bout it? Go or no go?

(See, there comes a point when dealing with contemporary American uptight white people where their interpersonal detachment is so profound that they obviously have no skin in the game. They'll say anything, and do. 'Let the kids be raised by raccoons or bluejays... Whatever.')

> What seems to matter is that

You can't say it out loud, can you? You can't say that kids don't need Mommies.

Children need parents...why can't you accept that? Do you not agree with this premise?

I thought it was interesting that the article that Amy originally linked to mentions the movie "The Kids Are All Right" which is about a lesbian couple and their two children. But from the review I read, it's more about how the kids search and find their biological (sperm donor) father (? what's the term for this?) and try to convince him to be a part of the family. Because...maybe they want a father figure?

It's also puzzling to read from the article how Wendy Lee Walsh, Ph.D (!) describes the film:

The teens in the comedy are as well-adjusted and angst ridden as any "normal" teen, until they invite a heterosexual male into the mix -- their sperm donor. And from there the laughter ensues.

Oh, the "heterosexual male", without which, the kids wouldn't even exist. Hahahahaha. Yeah, from there the laughter ensues.

Wha?

Patric: gays don't go out of their way to harass straight people just for being straight... Enough that from the legislative seats, pretending to be some "enlightened minority", they managed to legally declare themselves a norm. That is harassment all right.

Patric: Then these same people seem so utterly perplexed when these assertions are met with hostility.
That is exactly the problem. You cannot imagine that these are not the same but different people. Those who attack the gays are some rare strawmen whom you specifically ponder to justify your agression and hate. Most of the normal people don't harass gays, they just want to stay away from them, to have as little as posssible to do with this fight for something they claim but will never posses - acceptance as a norm.

Me writes: Most of the normal people don't harass gays, they just want to stay away from them, to have as little as posssible to do with this fight for something they claim but will never posses - acceptance as a norm.

Irony.

> Gay parents are just as boring
> as straight parents

It's all about adult judgments; the kids remain a distant consideration for you.

Goddess:
How rude. You don't know who my friends are.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
I was describing a social class - but your response is a nice example of a PC sidestep response: instead of discussing the point raise, talk about how offended you are.

Pro-gay sentiment is concentrated and prevalent among single, well-educated singles 20-40 years old, living in in Blue State cities like Portland, NY, and LA.

Well known, and parallels other left-wing poses that serve as markers of class in the USA.

So go be offended.

I find it really creepy that people care about the sort of sex that turns other people on, and to the point where they go out of their way to harass them and deny them rights.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
The "no" serves a larger cultural "yes".

Most people in our culture - and in most cultures in human history that you would want to live in - view healthy adult sexual expression as connecting intimacy and commitment with physical sex acts.

That is what our legal definition of marriage expresses.

Throughout history - and in our day, too - homosexuality has been typified by promiscuity and exploitation, including exploitation of minors.

People who embrace a behavior that diverges strongly from society's values don't have a "right" to change the majority's values, or the legal structures that express them.

Nice try - I especially liked the use of "creepy" in the PC emotional appeal to nonexistent "rights".

> Throughout history - and in our day,
> too - homosexuality has been typified
> by promiscuity and exploitation,
> including exploitation of minors.

And Jews have been "typified" by cupidity and connivance.

Hmmmm... Do you suppose there's anything to it?

Ben David: People who embrace a behavior that diverges strongly from society's values don't have a "right" to change the majority's values, or the legal structures that express them.

Homosexuals can either "embrace" their homosexuality or be self-loathing.

And no one's trying to change anyone's values. However, your particular set of values does not give you the right to govern my conduct. Nor does your misconceptions are not a basis to legally prohibit me from raising children if I choose to do so.

should be allotted the same rights as straight parents
Lots of things can disqualify people as adopting family, but no one can stop people from having their own kids, everyone has this right, easy.

Crid: It's all about adult judgments; the kids remain a distant consideration for you.

She referred to them as "gay parents," Crid. Do we not understand the prerequisites of the word "parent"?

And this is not helping your cause. Your assertion that kids will just naturally do better with opposite sex parents is still without proof.

Again, vehemence and repetition are being substituted for evidence.

And now, it seems, you're going to resort to smear.

Crid's arguments in a nutshell: kids do better with opposite sex parents, because I say they do...They do! They do! They do! They do! They do!...why do you hate children?

The same kind of a proof that you have: "gay parents may show more understanding for social diversity" is an outright lie. They are hating and mean towards any diversity which somehow argues with their self-proclaimed notion of truth.

Crid, I already conceded that you never backed up yur cliams yrs ago.

Silly me I assumed you offered proof on that subject as you seem to on other subjects.

So I apologise for assuming you were smart enough to back up your claims with some sort of evidence.

But as I just said in my last post, if you have no proof that your line of thinking is correct, then how do you know your line of thinking is correct?

> but no one can stop people from having
> their own kids, everyone has
> this right, easy.

Biology can get in the way. Let's say you have two people of the same sex: Having their own kids is impossible. So there's that.

> where's the proof of your assertions?

In your responses; For example in the seven or eight times in this thread alone that you've declined the invitation to say:

Children don't need mothers.

or

Children don't need fathers.

This discussion has been going on for years; time and time again I've seen, Amy, that you're too distracted to read anything but the first sentence of anything posted in here, especially when the logic defeats you. After nearly ten years and a fresh rhetorical pummeling, you meekly whimper "Where's the proof?" as if there were some pie chart that would pull the meaning of motherhood and fatherhood into focus for you.

That this isn't about children for you is obvious in that you've never said "We need to do this for children!". And why would you? You're working ot create these diminished families, not working to relieve them.

Why do you hate Mommies, Amy? Or Daddies?

You're confusing many issues: Not having a mommy or a daddy is different than having one who earns a living. And by my count, that's the 9th time you've dodge the challenge.

Can we explore you feelings on this a little bit?

Is there a REASON that you don't want to say "Children don't need Mommies?" I mean, it's the directest consequence of your lab-tested system of belief....

You really believe there's nothing distinctive or essentially about the love mothers give to children...

Right?

Crid:
And Jews have been "typified" by cupidity and connivance.
- - - - - - - -
That reminds me - Amy, did you get your check from George Soros this month? The Elders seem to have fallen behind...

Crid - the association of homosexuality with exploitation and pedophilia is supported by data - on how many sexual partners gays have (even those in "committed" relationships) and the well-documented structure of "thriving gay communities" that are organized around bars-n-baths.

Regarding pedophilia - Maintream gay organizations have been trying for years to convince the rest of us that they've FINALLY severed ties to NAMBLA - and then they keep being caught taking checks from 'em.

If you can find similar statistical evidence of Jewish cupidity, go right ahead...

Patrick serves up:
Homosexuals can either "embrace" their homosexuality or be self-loathing.
- - - - - - - - -
Or work with psychologists to resolve their dysfunction.

There is ZERO evidence for the Big Lie that gays are "born that way" - and as I said, the literature was full of papers describing successful resolution of homosexual problems - right up until the 70s, when the activists started shouting down all other opinions.... which leads us to:

And no one's trying to change anyone's values. However, your particular set of values does not give you the right to govern my conduct. Nor does your misconceptions are not a basis to legally prohibit me from raising children if I choose to do so.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1) By equating compulsive hookups with committed matrimony, the gay rights movement most definitely want to change society's values.

2) Of course the majority's values govern your conduct. We don't care if you think pot should be legalized, or your open relationship with Bruno should be treated like committed matrimony.

3) And we can certainly determine that the open (and usually unstable) relationships that typify your subculture disqualify you as a candidate for adoption or other optional child-rearing gigs.

Nice attempts at emotional PC grandstanding, though - I love a good scenery-chewer. Are you channeling Judy or Liza?

Goddess:
They are hating and mean towards any diversity which somehow argues with their self-proclaimed notion of truth.

Oh, come on. What an asinine statement.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Well, no.

I've working in multinational hi-tech firms in three continents (US, Europe, Israel) and in each location gays - and other choice leftie-liberals - came over to me to pick fights, or attempted to coerce me into mouthing agreement with them.

I was perfectly content to live and let live. Never start discussions about religion at work.

But they couldn't seem to stand the thought of a beanie-wearer in the vicinity - or anyone who may not agree with them.

So yes - most gays I've met are obnoxiously intolerant while whining about tolerance.

Like many PC left-liberals.

There is ZERO evidence for the Big Lie that gays are "born that way" - Ben David

Except ofcourse for the documentation of homosexual activity in most land based mamillian species and many bird species as well.

And Crid, children dont need a mother or a father. They need parents, stright, gay, adoptive, famillial adoption, & even single if there is nothing better.

Becuase children of single parents turn out better than homeless kids with no parents.

The most well rounded person I know was raised by his grandparents after his mother went to jail for drugs.

I'll say it again though. If you dont have any proof the children with only one mother and only one father turn out better then those in other situations - then how do you know your assumptions are true?

>>There is ZERO evidence for the Big Lie that gays are "born that way" - and as I said, the literature was full of papers describing successful resolution of homosexual problems - right up until the 70s, when the activists started shouting down all other opinions.... which leads us to...

Oooh, I know this one, Ben David!

This is from the guy you love to cite who I once checked out, right?

Lemme recall what I found? Yup, self-published (free download) expert in sciencey stuff about gays and their pervy fibs and your expert's sole credentials were in...geothermal activity in NZ?

> children dont need a mother or a father

Tell all the parents you know. Good luck.

> There is ZERO evidence for the Big Lie
> that gays are "born that way" -

Why exactly are you concerned enough about the source of homosexual feeling to describe it as the "Big Lie" complete with capital letters? Born or made gay... Why exactly do you care, big fella?

Ben David: Or work with psychologists to resolve their dysfunction.

I know of no psychologist that would even attempt such a thing. The APA says that human sexuality is fixed and immutable and attempting to adjust it is foolish and dangerous. Thus consigning homosexuals to an even greater degree of self-loathing.

Crid, I dont have to tell parents anything.

Our legal system tells fathers they arent needed all the time.

And as I said - and you always ignore - every situation could in one way or another be made better.

Also you keep ignoring your own challange. What evidence do you have that children of hetero, married or seperated(just because they arent living in the same house doent mean they're no longer a parent) parents are better off then the children of gay parents

> I dont have to tell parents anything.

You don't have the balls.

> Our legal system tells fathers they
> arent needed all the time.

So it's time to pile on, right?

> you always ignore - every situation
> could in one way or another
> be made better.

Why would I pay attention to that? If that's your approach, why have standards for anything at all? This is just petulance. (See "interpersonal detachment", above.)

You're last graph is mud: I think children deserve a loving mother with a loving father.

Anything else?

"Except of course for the documentation of homosexual activity in most land based mamillian species and many bird species as well." There's an obvious genetic paradox there, though: how does a genetic variation get propagated if the nature of the variation is such that the individual who has it is unlikely to reproduce? Yes, I know that some gay men still have hetrosexual sex, either to hide their preference or specifically to reproduce, and I know that some lesbians do the same or use artificial means. I also know that straight/gay isn't a binary thing; there's various levels of bisexuality and homosexuality.

Nonetheless, you'd think that over many generations, a preference for homosexuality would be selected out. Yet the demo data I've looked at indicates that about 5% of the American adult population self-identifies as homosexual. An interesting comparison can be made to something called "Robertsonian translocation", a genetic variation that from what I've read usually, within two generations, results in severe birth defects or non-viable fetuses. It looks like the percentage of the population with Robertsonian translocations is less than 0.1%, so it's a much smaller percentage than the (self-identified) homosexual population.

So it looks like evolution works against the Robertsonian translocations. However -- it hasn't completely disappeared. Why not? That's not at all clear to me. A possible explanation would be that Robertsonian translocation is a mutation that happens repeatedly because the structure of human genes is such that this genetic error has a non-trivial possibility of reoccurring. Does the same thing happen with the theoretical homosexuality gene? Maybe. It would be interesting to do some research to see how many gay men and women do/don't come from families that have no previous history of homosexuality in the family.

Typical feminist research. Totally self-serving. Absolutely no facts, no controls, no objectivity.

Everyone should ignore this study.

Kids need two parents: A mother and a father. And that is for all you single mommies out there too...

Your, not you're. Sorry. I hate that.

I DO so love it when "freethinkers" try to do science!

We have luj with:
There is ZERO evidence for the Big Lie that gays are "born that way" - Ben David

Except ofcourse for the documentation of homosexual activity in most land based mamillian species and many bird species as well.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Yeah, and the NY Times ran an article about gay mosquitoes. As if the behavior of a creature with 24 brain cells and a 2-week lifespan has anything to do with the rich learned, emotional experience of human sexuality.

This is why I call it a "Big Lie" - misinformation is repeated to encourage sloppy thinking. In this case - the sloppy notion that "occuring in nature" somehow equals "normal, well-adjusted, and moral".

Sorry - I know the Goddess has fallen for the "dating tips for chimps" approach to modern love, but I don't think our sexual mores should be determined by ignoring the unique aspects of being human.

Jody Tresidder goes ad-hominem with:
This is from the guy you love to cite who I once checked out... your expert's sole credentials were in...geothermal activity in NZ?
- - - - - - - - - -
And YOUR scientific credentials are.... what, exactly?

One site that debunks the junk science of the gay-rights movement is run by a fellow with a doctorate in a hard science. Other critiques come from peer reviews in biochem and other fields.

I trust their ability to parse scientific papers more than I trust you, dahling... but you get PC points for trying to cover your ad-hominem attack with feigned elitism.

Which leads us to Crid, who asks:
Born or made gay... Why exactly do you care, big fella?
- - - - - - - - - -
Because "born that way" is used to sidestep discussion of whether homosexuality is dysfunctional and moral. It is used to divert the conversation towards pity-me PC victimhood.

As Patrick tried to do earlier with his "boo-hoo don't condemn me to self-loathing" post above.

He still pushes that narcissistic argument - as if gay self-loathing is our fault for having moral standards - in this next post:
I know of no psychologist that would even attempt such a thing. The APA says that human sexuality is fixed and immutable and attempting to adjust it is foolish and dangerous. Thus consigning homosexuals to an even greater degree of self-loathing.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Yet as I described above, the APA's decision was the result of arm-twisting by activists, not new scientific understanding.

And a large, silent sector of the psychological community is opposed to the takeover of the APA by extreme left elements (remember the awful "official" APA statement that conservatives are mentally ill?)

So people interested in treatment do have alternatives - and they work, with the same success rates as therapy for drink, drugs, and other compulsive behaviors.

> Because "born that way" is used to
> sidestep discussion of whether
> homosexuality is dysfunctional
> and moral.

Not really. People will use all sorts of trickery to distract the confrontation of issues if you let them. They'll they'll talk about how things are "typified", as if that mattered. When discussion go off the rails, they're easy enough to bring back on track, if people care about the topic.

How exactly would it be "dysfunctional"? It's a response to a feeling of affection... Do you know the purpose of every affection that happens in the hearts of other people, such that you know when their interests aren't served? How could it be immmoral?

I've never much cared how it happens, though I strongly suspect that for some large percentage of homosexuals, wiring gets scrambled by bad events in early days. But it's not the kind of wiring that can be wholly re-routed, even if you have such intimate responsibility for other people's behavior... Which you and I certainly do not. So a guy comes to you and says he's gay. Do you care why? I don't. Famous Los Angeles moral philospher Chick Hearn put it like this: No harm/no foul.

So like, let's a say a gay guy DID come to you... Not for your own affection, but just for a social enough friendship to talk casually about the love in his life. (Or a lesbian did, whatever.) Would that be a problem for you?

For a couple of years now, homosexuality itself has been a big topic with you on this blog. ("Bug catchers!" "Dysfunction!")

Why?

Cousin Dave, let's make this simple (and I really tire of having to repeat what should be obvious to intelligent, thoughtful people like you): "Born that way" does not mean "genetic."

Crid: For a couple of years now, homosexuality itself has been a big topic with you on this blog. ("Bug catchers!" "Dysfunction!")

Why?

Good question, Crid, and one I would like to ask you...but I'm still waiting on the evidence that children do better with coed parentage than with same sex parentage.

http://www.stfucouples.com/post/1277147413/unintentional-irony#disqus_thread

2 parents & racked up 8 kids already

I'm sure it will all turn out fine

Actually, with so many people vested in being AGAINST gay marriage/families, I'm surprised they haven't done studies to show that its bad.

>>One site that debunks the junk science of the gay-rights movement is run by a fellow with a doctorate in a hard science.

Such sophistry, Ben David!

This was indeed the guy I referred to earlier - the internet dude you cite as an expert on the origins of homosexuality, on the vague grounds that he's a "scientist".

>>And YOUR scientific credentials are.... what, exactly?

I'm glad you asked. It is precisely because I lack scientific credentials that it is critical I make sure the "experts" I do trust have the right sort!

Your internet dude with a PhD not only lacks a PhD in the area he claims to be an expert. But he fails, I seem to recall, the other test.

He has no peer-reviewed publications in his hobby area either.

So he's just another guy with a website.

Sorry - I know the Goddess has fallen for the "dating tips for chimps" approach to modern love, but I don't think our sexual mores should be determined by ignoring the unique aspects of being human.

-Ben David

No, you think they should have been set in stone after being determined by the drugged ravings of neolithic stoners who founded your religion

What the hell do you think is "unique" about the way humans fuck in regards to other animals?

> What the hell do you think is "unique"
> about the way humans fuck in regards
> to other animals?

Properly executed, human fucking leads to human babies... Who, when properly nurtured and disciplined, are the best thing that ever happened inthe known Universe.

Between this comment and your earlier one about the unimportance of a mother's love, you're starting to come off like a tremendously disaffected human being.

Crid:
How exactly would it be "dysfunctional"? It's a response to a feeling of affection...
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Historically, most cultures in which you would want to live have defined healthy adult sexual expression as something that is accompanied by intimacy, affection - and commitment and fidelity.

Because real intimacy and affection don't develop without commitment and fidelity.

Whenever homosexuality has been tolerated in human history, it has been associated with compulsive promiscuity and exploitative sex - often involving exploitation of minors.

So: how much "affection" is a gay man responding to in a bath house hookup?

We know from the health ministries of gay meccas that compulsive, anonymous sex is the norm in this subculture.

That is why homosexuality is dysfunctional - or more precisely, a behavior that indicates dysfunction.

I (and most non-PC psychologists, including Freud and Rogers) agree with you that "wiring gets scrambled" in childhood or youth.

But I don't agree with you that it cannot be unscrambled.

Regarding "no harm, no foul" - tolerating compulsive, exploitative behavior does harm society. Certainly equating this behavior with marriage undercuts the widely held values I described above - whose legal expression is marriage.

We also know that 1/4 to 1/3 of teens have transient same-sex crushes as part of growing up - they are now being brainwashed into thinking they are "born that way", causing them considerable distress and harm even if most of them do manage to integrate healthy hetero identities.

I certainly treat gay coworkers like everyone else - unless/until they throw PC tantrums.

Ben-David: So: how much "affection" is a gay man responding to in a bath house hookup?

My uncle lived with his same sex-lover in a committed monogamous relationship for 52 years, before his lover died of complications from diabetes.

But of course, you'd like to pretend that people like that don't exist. You sound like a birther, Ben-David. When evidence is presented, you pretend it doesn't exist and thunder away that "ZERO EVIDENCE EXISTS!" You're kind of like Crid, that way.

Cousin Dave, "born that way" is not synonymous with "genetic." Saying gay people are "born that way" is not saying it is genetic.

Jody T:
Such sophistry!
- - - - - - - - - -
Indeed.
You freely admit you're unqualified to parse statistical studies - then dismiss someone with a scientific background... why? Because you disagree with his conclusions?

Neither he nor I set him up as an "expert on the origins of homosexuality" - the website critiques the pseudo-scientific claims put out by the pro-gay lobby.

And despite your calling him a "dude" - he still is more qualified than you to evaluated the soundness of the claims.

I also don't have any published papers - but I have enough statistics, calculus, and scientific experimentation under my belt to understand where the corners are being cut, and what statistical results are significant.

Oh, and Jody - do the pro-gay folks you rely on all have PhDs in relevant fields? Do they all have published papers?

Talk about sophistry!

Patrick:
My uncle lived with his same sex-lover in a committed monogamous relationship
- - - - - - - - - -
Caught on the spot, every gay person claims to be monogamous, or to have a friend who is.

But the numbers come from the ministries of health of Holland, London, NYC, San Fran, and other gay meccas. And the numbers don't lie.

Like the study from Holland in which gays in "committed" relationships had sex with about 20 people a year.

Open relationships are an open secret in the gay "community".

Your uncle is a statistical anomaly - or more likely, the relationship was not monogamous.

- oh, and is this the uncle who "inducted" you into the gay lifestyle?

Ben-David: - oh, and is this the uncle who "inducted" you into the gay lifestyle?

Hmmm...so how long have you felt one sexually molest children ("induct" them) and still be committed and monogamous? Does your wife know you feel this way? Perhaps she should ask why you do.

Gay is an orientation, not a lifestyle. And I was not "inducted." I became aware, over a period of time, of what I always was.

Statistical anomaly? What statistics and where did you get them from?

Promiscuity happens when the fear of intimacy meets the need for intimacy. In a society that doesn't affirm or even tolerate homosexuality, it's not hard to understand how this unhappy marriage of fear of intimacy and the need for it occurs.

And anyway, monogamy isn't the natural or typical inclination among heterosexuals, so why insist that gays have to do what heterosexuals don't?

> Historically, most cultures....

Due--ooood, didn't we just go through a round of this?

> Throughout history - and in our day,
> too - homosexuality has been typified

Why yes, we have just gone through a round of this!

Historically, Jews have been irrationally persecuted. This is beyond dispute. Should we honor this pattern as we compose the Bold New Future of your dreams?

> most cultures in which you
> would want to live

I'm rapidly loosing faith in your ability to speak on my behalf in this regard, and the fact that you're not an American is the least of it.

> real intimacy and affection don't
> develop without commitment and
> fidelity.

Even if this were true, you seem to be picking fruit from the top of the tree (so to speak).... and not the best pieces, either. We suffer much more "compulsive, exploitative behavior" from the heterosexual world than the gay, but you've never mentioned it on this blog. I've chased away a few dozen single mothers from Amy's readership, and I'm proud of their pelts. Whatcha got?

(Y'know, I always kinda admired Moshe Dayan... But he was famous for his [single] wandering eye, and it only wandered towards women.)

> I don't agree with you that it
> cannot be unscrambled.

First of all, I never said the wiring couldn't be unscrambled: I said that I wouldn't bother even where it could... Because even if I thought it needed doing (and I don't), it's not my place to do so in the lives of non-intimates. An important component of adulthood is judging others on what they choose to present of their own experience. People are as you find them.

Secondly, if you think the elements of human nature are so easily re-composed, we'll expect you to shamelessly describe your own most intimate reformative experiences in this regard.

> I certainly treat gay coworkers
> like everyone else - unless/
> until they throw PC tantrums.

I didn't say "coworker". I said "just for a social enough friendship to talk casually about the love in his life", which is a fairly tepid standard for friendship.

But even going only so far as coworkers, the horrific tableau you painted for us earlier ("Dysfunction"! "Compusion"! "Pedophilia"!) isn't so intrusive that it intrudes on your everyday encounters.

So, no biggie. Right?

Intrusive twice in one sentence. Sorry. It's platelet day, so I'm a quart low and kinda sleepy.

Today they're giving everyone a size-hyooge lime green beach towel as an incentive. You should try this.

Patrick agrees with Freud!
quote:
Promiscuity happens when the fear of intimacy meets the need for intimacy.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Yes, that's one of the ways psychologists explained homosexual behavior until the activists shouted them down.

Although it doesn't begin to explain why the gay subculture is still characterized by compulsive promiscuity.

As far as my statistics, I've already told you their provenance, and linked to documents in previous posts on this blog. Use google.

Crid builds a straw man named Moshe Dayan:

Historically, Jews have been irrationally persecuted. This is beyond dispute. Should we honor this pattern as we compose the Bold New Future of your dreams?

We suffer much more "compulsive, exploitative behavior" from the heterosexual world than the gay
- - - - - - - - - - - -
(BTW I am American born and educated, moved to Israel in my 20s...)

I am not arguing the blind value of tradition - so your anti-Semitism analogy falls apart.

I am arguing the defense of widely held values that yield demonstrably better, more humane results than the debased alternative being offered.

Laws express values in the aggregate.
Values are ideals. The fact that heteros are human and fail does not invalidate those ideals.

This is a particularly childish type of argument, used often by PC folks - who then go on to excuse all kind of lapses in people on their A list of sacred victim groups.

I am defending the connection between commitment, emotional intimacy, and sexual intercourse against the debasing hookup culture which has made inroads in the hetero world - and virtually defines the homo world.

I most definitely agree that I am picking from the top of the *moral* tree - the best, sweetest, and most humane fruit.

And you?

Crid suddenly goes live-n-let-live:
People are as you find them.
- - - - - - - - - - -
Yet the progressives are not satisfied with our society as they find it, and want to drastically change one of its core legal/values structures - marriage.

Once they get power, they twist any hand extended to them.

I treat individual as with respect as equals - as my religion dictates. "All men are created equal" comes into the West from MY religious tradition - despite your own prejudices about Jew or Christains, I am not in need of instruction in this matter.

But the gay-rights movement does not intend to leave The Rest of Us alone. And I have a right - perhaps an obligation - to oppose their changes, and expose their lies.

Your religion dictates that you afford "respect as equals" to 'dysfunctional compulsive pedophiles'?

> I am not arguing the blind value
> of tradition

Good, because I was worried there, when you repeatedly used the word "historically" in that leading, open-ended way. You see how that might have been a problem.

> I am arguing the defense of widely held
> values that yield demonstrably better,
> more humane results than the debased
> alternative being offered.

Not really, or this whole "divorce" thing would be making you apeshit.

> defending the connection between commitment,
> emotional intimacy, and sexual intercourse
> against the debasing hookup culture which
> has made inroads in the hetero world

Dude, you think the GAYS taught men to cheat on their wives? You think it never occurred to any straight guys to chase some new tail until the nancy-boys made it look like fun?

> The fact that heteros are human and
> fail does not invalidate those ideals.

So the "failures" of gays are more "debased" (two usages!) because they aren't human?

Crid, don't be so obtuse.

Divorce is allowed in Judaism - again, evidence that traditional value structures have more understanding of fallible human nature than the petulant "progressives" who demand inhuman perfection from their political opponents.

Enough with this puerile, hypocritical line.

Similarly - I don't think gays are responsible for hetero infidelity.

I think that the gay rights movement is part of a larger Gramscian attempt to reset the moral values of our society. Other Gramscian actors include radical feminists and those promoting the notion that we can do no better than our ape ancestors - the "why fight it" approach to infidelity.

Finally: Please don't twist - or purposely misunderstand - my words. I never said that gays were inhuman. I was addressing your straw man demand that all heteros be perfectly faithful.

Repeatedly, in this thread and others, I have compared homosexuality to other compulsive behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse, or eating disorders.

None of these sufferers are "inhuman".
But the Rest of Us are not obliged to be codependent with their skewed worldview, or to restructure our society to accommodate their dysfunction.

Pointing out that dysfunction does not make us "hateful" or "chauvinist".

You can do better than this childish argument-by-exaggeration.

Although it doesn't begin to explain why the gay subculture is still characterized by compulsive promiscuity.

As far as my statistics, I've already told you their provenance, and linked to documents in previous posts on this blog. Use google.

Posted by: Ben David

Its simple men like sex, if women said yes as often as men asked then hetero men would be having sex as often as they like too.

Also you still havent answered why homosexual behavior is prevalent in animals, nor have to clarified how humans are different when it comes to sex than other animals

Tell me Ben, why can you never answer the questions put to you?

Crid: "Your religion dictates that you afford "respect as equals" to 'dysfunctional compulsive pedophiles'?"

My name is Jody Tresidder, and I am not standing for office, but I approve this comment by Crid.
(Also an earlier one by lujlp, which was very funny too.)

> don't be so obtuse.

See, now, this is the part where you get embarrassed for not thinking it through. Inappropriate resentments sometimes appear at this point, as feelings of shame and annoyance are disguised in taunts. Sure, it's unpleasant, but I'm cool with it... It means the healing has begun.

Let's continue.

> evidence that traditional value
> structures have more understanding
> of fallible human nature than the
> petulant "progressives" who demand
> inhuman perfection from their
> political opponents.

Who's demanding "perfection" of anyone, and what's that got to do with a guy who loves another guy or a gal who loves another gal? That sentence has both "human" and "inhuman" in it. And I'm pretty sure that if we put it in one of those new digital rhetoric dehydrators, it would report that you're saying gays aren't human. Again.

Which is kinda aggressive.

> Enough with this puerile,
> hypocritical line.

Um, this isn't argument.... Not until you specify the puerile and hypocritical parts. (You could probably draw some blood on the 'childish' thing, but you'll find no hypocrisy. My beliefs and practices are spotlessly coherent. You will find, hidden discretely in my desk, letters of personal commendation from the European Society for Analytic Philosophy, the Metaphysical Society of America, the National Council of Churches, and the National Paint & Coatings Association. Friends encourage me to frame and hang these citations of integrity on the wall near my front door. I think that would be gauche.)

> the gay rights movement is part
> of a larger Gramscian attempt to
> reset the moral values of our
> society

No, the only real question is whether Mill’s utilitarianism a workable ethic under Wittgensteinian verbal indeterminacy.

> I never said that gays were
> inhuman.

Good, because when you specifically, exclusively described heterosexual misconduct as forgivably human, I thought you were trying to make a point. And now you've conceded that you weren't. You weren't trying to make a point. So we can move forward now, unafraid that you've got weird ideas knocking around in your head about what the lives of the homosexuals in your vicinity might be worth. Again, I think you can understand why we were concerned.

> Pointing out that dysfunction
> does not make us "hateful" or
> "chauvinist".

First of all, who's "us"? Second, this is the first time the words "hateful" or "chauvinist" have appeared in this comment stack: Why the quotation marks? Are you responding to challenges you've faced elsewhere? Can we see the transcripts?

> You can do better than this
> childish argument-by-exaggeration.

I've quoted you precisely. But go with it... Trust your feelings... Breathe deeply, and feel the burn.

>>Oh, and Jody - do the pro-gay folks you rely on all have PhDs in relevant fields? Do they all have published papers?

Here you go, Ben David!

http://www.noglstp.org/

(National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals)

Don't know why I'm bothering, Crid has obviously already blown off the discussion - but:

you specifically, exclusively described heterosexual misconduct as forgivably human
- - - - - - - - - - -
Nope, and this is a mean-spirited twisting of what I said.

There is a difference between a person who largely upholds social norms that link sex to emotional intimacy and commitment, but momentarily fails (or bends things by flirting) - and someone who is caught in pathological, compulsive patterns of sexual behavior.

There is no kindness in "forgiving" or indulging pathological behavior. Doesn't matter if it's drink, dope, anorexia - or homosexuality.

That doesn't mean that everyone who condemns dysfunctional behavior considers drunks, addicts, or homosexuals to be "inhuman".

In fact, the greater mercy is to refuse to indulge the behavior rather than looking the other way.

Yes, you already know this.

Yes, you are being obtuse.

... Oh LOOK - Jody learned how to use Google!

- did you even click through to the website?

It's a professional organization not at all focused on vetting data regarding homosexuality itself.

And I don't need reminding that there are well-educated gay people out there - I mentioned having gay colleagues, and I work in hi-tech.

Duh.

But nice try - and here is another for you, with a much larger membership:

http://www.asa3.org

Ben David,
Are you personally friends with any homosexual?

Going by the definition Crid offered earlier: "a social enough friendship to talk casually about the love in his life", which is a fairly tepid standard for friendship."

> In fact, the greater mercy is to refuse
> to indulge the behavior

Buttercup, no one on the surface of this globe is requesting your "indulgence".

You describe these people with your sharpest terms for savagery: Compulsive, dysfunctional, and pedophilic. But when asked about the homosexuals in your life, it all just flutters away... Because it's NOT REAL, no more than are the frothings of the pro-lifers about murder. (See also.)

You don't mean it. You just want an excuse to use really aggressive language.

By the way, back here in the 'States, such a person is often called a "drama queen."

Bungled link. Sorry.

> this is a mean-spirited twisting

Oh, dude, I'm WAY harsh. When I walk down the street, tall, broad-shouldered men avert their glance so as not to risk an encounter; fertile women clutch their collars at the throat, as if defending their bosom; children cower behind their mother's skirts with terror in their eyes. I am so mean-spirited.

> a person who largely upholds social norms
> that link sex to emotional intimacy and
> commitment, but momentarily fails

The most devastating failures are by no means momentary, or even homosexual.

>>- did you even click through to the website?It's a professional organization not at all focused on vetting data regarding homosexuality itself.

Of course I clicked through, Ben David!

I was not under ANY impression my offered website was "...at all focused on vetting data regarding homosexuality itself."

Seriously, are you kidding?

That's YOUR hobby!

And yes, there are indeedy Christians who are also scientists.

Take, for example, big shot geneticist & devout Christian Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., the 16th director of the National Institutes of Health.

I've even (properly) read his "The Language of God, A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief" (2006).

He totally fudges the key chapter!
(My synopsis: "how can you NOT believe in God when you look at a waterfall? 'Cos I sure believe in God when I look at a waterfall!")

http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/0743286391

Still going on?

Washington Post seems to thinks gay suicide is a two-sided issue

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201010130014

The article also reported that the researcher who conducted several of these studies was "concerned that these findings may give ammunition to people who want to falsely promulgate the argument that gay people are by nature mentally ill." The article added:

For one thing, she says, "these are certainly not levels of morbidity consistent with models that say homosexuality is inherently pathological." For another, the data simply don't prove either pro- or anti-gay arguments on the subject, whether it's that the inherent biology of homosexuality causes mental illness or that social stigma provokes mental illness in LGB people, she says.

Are you personally friends with any homosexual?
- - - - - - - - - -
I've had gay fellow students and coworkers. One of whom was raising a son from a failed marriage. Another of whom (a long-term colleague of my mother's) died of AIDS.

As a life-long New Yorker who grew up in the 70s and 80s, I hand a front-row seat for the emergence of the gay rights movement.

What difference does this make?

I also had up-close, personal experience with substance abuse and eating disorders - which affected (and killed) people dear to me.

Some of these people were the life of the party before they fell apart.

So?
Should that have changed my mind about whether *those* behaviors are dysfunctional?

Again: despite your own prejudices about Judeo-Christians, I am not in need of instruction about tolerance or compassion. I do not hold my opinions out of ignorance - or ill will.

I am convinced that the gay people I have met would be happier and better adjusted if they resolved the issues that diverted them into the gay identity.

You have been brainwashed into thinking about this issue in the emotional, PC tropes of pity and victimology politics.

The normalization of the promiscuous gay lifestyle undermines important values - this isn't just about a childish, kumbaya sort of *liking* each other.

>>I am convinced that the gay people I have met would be happier and better adjusted if they resolved the issues that diverted them into the gay identity.

Have you convinced any of them, Ben David?

Seriously, my own experience (I was in London in the 70s and 80s so I understand what you mean) is that gay friends (some) regretted the excessive behavior that would fell them, but could no more change their core sexual identity than - I imagine - you could today.

>> Are you personally friends with
>> any homosexual?

> I've had gay fellow students
> and coworkers.

You'd already said so, but that wasn't the question... A "front-row seat" isn't a friendship.

> What difference does this make?

Because your language is so clear. Can't you just cop to it?.... Or are you going to make us review it yet again?

> dysfunction - a personality caught in an
> adolescent, narcissistic habits of thought,
> and compulsive sexual behavior

> pure thuggery

> homosexuality has been typified by
> promiscuity and exploitation, including
> exploitation of minors.

As you describe homosexuals, these are top-order vipers, indisputably monsters, who your religion inexplicably directs you treat with respect. Furthermore, you say you've gotten along OK with them.

So we're wondering if you've ever gotten any closer to them, to test your assessment of their "thuggery".

Sounds like you haven't.

Wo-kay fine. But that's an important data point for us.

Jody:
my own experience (I was in London in the 70s and 80s so I understand what you mean) is that gay friends (some) regretted the excessive behavior that would fell them, but could no more change their core sexual identity than - I imagine - you could today.
- - - - - - - - - -
I respect you for sharing your personal experiences.

1) It seems that they were also disillusioned about ever having a truly committed relationship - being gay meant participating in the meat-rack culture... which confirms the picture we have from statistics.

2) If you've ever tried to help friends with drinking problems, you will have peeled the same layers of justification, defeat, and denial.

Imagine how much harder it would be for drunks to admit their problems, and start to heal, if their condition were celebrated as a "lifestyle option" - and the community surrounding them shushed up their regrets about the consequences of the alcoholic life!

So acceptance - which is basically an invitation to codependence - is not, ultimately, compassion. On the larger social level, it just means more young people will fall into these dysfunctional behaviors.

3) The "born that way" lie closes like a shackle over people, convincing them that change is not possible. Yet the studies show that it is possible, if difficult.

Crid still running his scam:

BD> What difference does this make?
Crid> Because your language is so clear.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
... and it's not the language of "monsters and vipers" that you put in my mouth.

The "do you know any" scam is win-win for PC operatives.

If I say I don't know many gays, you can huffily dismiss my ignorance. Even when I detailed my (probably typical or greater) contacts with gays, you can still write:

> A "front-row seat" isn't a friendship.

See?
Never enough - the problem can always be cast as the cliche of the ignorant Judeo-Christian lummox in need of broader horizons.

But unfortunately for your ragged little caricature of faith, I grew up in a world cultural (and gay!) epicenter, attended both elite universities and community colleges (studying both humanities and sciences), and have worked and interacted with people on 3 continents.

And I still agree with the majority of humanity - in all cultures, throughout history:

- Healthy human sexual expression should be based on emotional intimacy and commitment.

- People who don't want to live by those values should not have their behavior legally equated to marriage.

- People who want to, but can't get it together to live by those values are dysfunctional.

All of it based on widely observed human insight, not particularly Judeo-Christian, not puritanical, not the result of ignorance or ill-will.

>>It seems that they were also disillusioned about ever having a truly committed relationship - being gay meant participating in the meat-rack culture... which confirms the picture we have from statistics...Imagine how much harder it would be for drunks to admit their problems, and start to heal, if their condition were celebrated as a "lifestyle option" - and the community surrounding them shushed up their regrets about the consequences of the alcoholic life!

Ben David,
I think I see where we shall never agree on one point in particular.

To me, the "meat-rack culture" specifically described how a person behaved. That was the "lifestyle option" part.

Personally, I found aspects of that meat-rack culture mystifying. I talked about it - at torrid length! -with friends who eagerly participated, friends I platonically loved - and at times, as a straight woman with a lifestyle preference for monogamy - I felt like an anthropologist amid the alien corn.

But the homosexuality of my male friends remained separate - that was the fixed, unalterable part of their identities just as your heterosexuality is for you. That is what you will never accept...because there are studies, you insist, that show gayness can be cured.

I am, of course, not holding my breath for you to offer a single, persuasive, peer-reviewed study cite!

And as long as you continue to rub your own nose - in a selective ecstasy of disgust - in meat market culture that you remember "as a life-long New Yorker who grew up in the 70s and 80s, [who] had a front-row seat for the emergence of the gay rights movement" you'll never change your own thinking.

That's why - for my own part - I remain fascinated with the question of whether you have gay friends now. Boomers your own age, I mean.

Because when you say: "I am convinced that the gay people I have met would be happier and better adjusted if they resolved the issues that diverted them into the gay identity..."

..I have to conclude that you're still sitting, appalled, in that "front row seat" from way back in the 70s and 80s.

>>Men are promiscuous because they are men, not because they are gay. If straight women would be more like men in their sexuality, men who go for them would behave more like gay men.

Amy,
I've always thought there was amazing perception in that observation.

But - and hey, maybe I'm talking crap! - I've always thought there was an unusual intensity to the pre-AIDS big city meat-market scene (possibly analogous to 'summers of love' in the early days of The Pill).

I have gay friends my age who were avid observers of that scene (or just plain lucky, in other cases) but who say it wasn't for them.

Of course, I also have wonderful former slut-bucket female friends - as many of us were before we figured out our lifestyle preferences!

I want to know why Ben David keeps ignoring the fact that homosexual behavior has been noted in thousands of species other than humans

Jody:
To me, the "meat-rack culture" specifically described how a person behaved. That was the "lifestyle option" part....

But the homosexuality of my male friends remained separate - that was the fixed, unalterable part of their identities just as your heterosexuality is for you.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
But does that distinction hold up?

It doesn't.

The number of gay men living lives of fidelity and commitment is vanishingly small.

The compulsion for more sex partners, the objectification of those partners, the immaturity and jealousy that either force relationships open or shatter them entirely within 18 months - these are all the norm in the gay world.

Not the world of NYC as I remember it, but here and now: the studies I've linked to about promiscuity in "committed" couples came out in 2004 and later, and document the behavior patterns in the out-n-proud younger generations of Holland - who have never known strong prejudice, and can access legal marriage.

So the dysfunctional behavior persists - and is the norm - even after all the gay-rights demands are met.

It is not a "lifestyle choice" separate from the "core identity" - it is endemic to homosexuality.

Yet you (and Crid, and Amy) keep insisting that I must hold my opinions because I'm an ignorant old religious fogey - a pose of PC condescension that I am familiar with from other issues.

I've posted all the links before - including the well-known study by the psychologist who first removed homosexuality from the DSM, and who himself now says that motivated people can change their orientation.

For some folks - the need for self-affirmation means that facts will never be allowed to interfere with the PC pose. And anyone who disagrees with them couldn't possibly have reached that conclusion by examining the facts.

Yet that's what I did.
Instead of handling this like a PC popularity contest - I've compared actual behaviors in the gay subculture with widely-held values of mainstream society.

I've reached the same conclusion as most cultures on this planet.

The same conclusion as Freud, Jung, Rogers, and the other major lights of modern psychology.

That conclusion has been confirmed by almost all my dealings with gay people - including very recent interactions here, in Israel, with people my age (like the gay dad).

I respect your personal experience - yet my experiences are still dismissed by people like you who "know better". Do you see that - how you "conclude" that my perception and experience couldn't possibly be up to date, couldn't possibly be true?

Can you address the factual and values arguments - the gutting/exposure of other twins studies and other pseudo-science, the evidence of promiscuity, my not-at-all-extreme framing of the marriage issue - instead of trying to cram me into the PC pigeonhole reserved for religious nutcases?

Men are promiscuous because they are men, not because they are gay.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Nonsense that guts most of your other writing here about personal choice and responsibility.

From sports teams to army service, men value and uphold loyalty.

Why don't you leave the "dating tips for chimps" to the PUA blogs, with their talk of alphas and betas?

Oh, and take luj with you:
I want to know why Ben David keeps ignoring the fact that homosexual behavior has been noted in thousands of species other than humans
- - - - - - - - - -
Because even gays draw the line at altar boys... but let us know how it goes for you, mmmkay?

> it's not the language of "monsters
> and vipers" that you put
> in my mouth.

Forgive my extrapolation. Your relentless, tautologically-orbital deployments of "dysfunction", "compulsion" and "pedophilia" put me in a "mean-spirited" frame of mind.

> See? Never enough

Aw now, Ben David, our standards aren't that high....

> - the problem can always be cast
> as the cliche of the ignorant
> Judeo-Christian lummox in need
> of broader horizons.

...We're just wondering if the JC Lummox has any friends. Apparently not, but he gets great seats to the theater. Center orchestra. Sits alone.

> I grew up in a world cultural
> (and gay!) epicenter

Again, that's all just ducky. (And so did I, in important respects... Size-hyooge, international-attractive college campus.) But that wasn't the question.

> Healthy human sexual expression should
> be based on emotional intimacy and
> commitment.

You sound like Marlo Thomas. I always disliked her, especially after she became That Guy's second wife.

> People who don't want to live by those
> values should not have their behavior
> legally equated to marriage.

Partial credit— With respect to children, actually FOR respect to children, marriage should be an exclusive club.

> People who want to, but can't get it
> together to live by those values are
> dysfunctional.

[1.] Says who? Whence the certification, beyond the judgment of your own torpid little heart? [2.] Do you really think you can make these nuanced, western-world-narrative readings of the immortal souls of people you've never met, people of the sort with whom you confess to never having shared even the most moderate intimacy? You think you can fix people THAT far away from you? [3.] What the fuck does "dysfunctional" mean? Do you seriously contend that the forces of sacrifice and regret and lost opportunity that fidelity demands of people, gay or straight, are forces of "dysfunction"? Is your emotional perspective foreshortened to THAT degree? You aren't even permitted to think about what life would have been like if you HAD kissed that blond girl in summer camp all those years ago, instead of the brunette?

I mean, maybe this is an really personal and nihilistic thing between you and your Creator... Like, maybe people aren't "functional" until they've actually closed off their souls to anything else that might have become of their lives. You want others to be as erotically oblivious as you have perhaps chosen to be.

This would be the part where we'd all drop where we stand, surrounding you to sit indian-style, with gentle body language and solemn facial expressions, and whisperingly implore you to tell us your personal story...

'Cept none of us really wants to know. No more than we want to hear your prattle about the propensity of strangers for "dysfunction".

> All of it based on widely observed
> human insight

Oh, well if it's widely observed... I mean, why didn't you say so?

Y'know, slavery of blacks was once tremendously popular. Practiced all over. The United State was only the second nation in the hemisphere to give it up. Slavery of blacks was widely observed. And the persecution of Jews? You wouldn't believe it if I toldja.

>> Men are promiscuous because they are men,
>> not because they are gay.

> Nonsense that guts most of your other
> writing here about personal choice and
> responsibility.

Nope, Amy is precisely on point with this (lesser) part of our discussion.

AIDS devastated gay males because when men are given an option to have penetrative sex with a dozen complete strangers over a weekend, partners who share their preferences, they'll do it. And by Monday afternoon they'll have forgotten about it. Women, as a rule, will not do this. So AIDS didn't ravage the straight world, and it didn't ravage the gay sisters.

What year is this, 2010? Let's shuck right down to the cob: I'm 51, and have never heard a single anecdotal story of a woman who got AIDS from straight fucking. Not one... Not even the most distant, we-never-liked-that-cousin kind of gossip. It just didn't happen.

And, therefore, all that horseshit we (straights) put up with for a quarter-century about heterosexual AIDS was just pop media stupidity. The condoms, all of it. That's how fraudulent the public understanding of an important matter can be. (Imagine what this means in terms of the mortgage crisis and other current events).

I'm not completely angry about it. Feminism had fallen into the hands of personally skittish, socially incompetent academics and lefties; there was no one left in our culture to give young women any reason to put the brakes on a sexual encounter she might not have wanted. All the other media and impersonal voices were saying Whassamatter? You aren't UPTIGHT, are ya, Honey?

So in a backhanded way, the public health numbskulls may have returned to girls some authority over their lives and conduct that they wouldn't otherwise have had. Nonetheless, their fraudulence doesn't flatter the modern mind.

(Offtopic- Flynne, promise me you're teaching your little girls to scratch and gripe and spit bitch juice sometimes.)

Seriously, Ben David, your dismissal of this straightforward truth as "nonsense", more than anything else in this thread, indicts you understanding of human nature. That you offered no support for your dismissal implies that you think there's another school of thought on the topic, one well known to us all, such that you needn't even mention it by name.

The is no such body of thinking. When you so imperiously disregard a sturdy, ancient and CONSERVATIVE principle like that one offered by Amy –that boys and girls are not the same– you'd better be prepared to make better case for a more intuitive truth, like, instantly.

>>I've posted all the links before - including the well-known study by the psychologist who first removed homosexuality from the DSM, and who himself now says that motivated people can change their orientation.

Can you repost that link here, please Ben David?

PS—

> From sports teams to army service, men value
> and uphold loyalty.

No; in sports teams and army service, men are TAUGHT to value loyalty.

Easterbrook and others have reported that the mere athletic impacts of Title IX have been powerful. You can literally chart the improved success of women in business when they've begun their lives playing soccer in the afternoon with other little girls. Those lessons of camaraderie and role-assignment and sportsmanship have paid off, just has they had for their fathers and grandfathers back through the centuries.

Sure, there's some lesbian chic in college
- - - - - - - - -
... because when it suits the progressive agenda, we are told that sexual orientation is fluid.

'cause it's not science, it's political posturing.

I have two boomer feminist cousins - one of whom dreamt up false memories of abuse, one of whom spent years in a lesbian relationship before reverting to hetero. Her sexual orientation pretty closely tracked her political views and her proximity to academia.

Lefties just make up the pseudo-science as they go along.

Here's what geneticists say:

We are sexual beings, yet this does not mean that we are born homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. Our sexual expression can change over time, towards different people, through different experiences. A lack of understanding about this type of human variability often leads to a perspective that our genes define who we are.... By not considering evidence of human sexual fluidity, debates regarding origins and biology are not substantial or complete. Current efforts fail to tell the whole story. And even if we were to accept that the assigned sexual orientation of the individuals participating in these studies accurately reflected their lifelong expression, conclusive proof of a link between this and their genes has yet to be found.

Link:
http://www.councilforresponsiblegenetics.org/ViewPage.aspx?pageId=66

Here's the APA's revised statement, now that the activists have been challenged:

According to current scientific and professional understanding, the core attractions that form the basis for adult sexual orientation typically emerge between middle childhood and early adolescence....

There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors.

Link:
http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/orientation.aspx#

The Spitzer study is summarized here - on a page that gives the citation of the original peer-reviewed article.

http://www.narth.com/docs/evidencefound.html

Spitzer was lionized by the gay-rights movement for his original decision - but when he published this study, the lefties mounted a vicious campaign of character assassination against him.

Truth that does not fit the program must be suppressed.

There used to be a youtube video of him discussing his disillusionment with the activists.

Before Jody steps in, and I think she'll let me speak for her on this point.... (it's a time zone thang)...

"Peer reviewed" is NOT "meaningless." I think Amy gets a little nuts about this, as if every citation should be understood by a 7th-grader.

But citing "a fellow with a doctorate in a hard science" doesn't give anyone a truth-boner, either.

Seriously... Ben David... You don't like it when boys kiss boys and when girls kiss girls. OK! We get that. But there's no overwhelming reason for you to be such a dork about it. Where these matters affect only adults, how could you possible care?, any more than when a short/fat/religious/black man marries a tall/skinny/atheist/white woman? Let's say you were really grossed out when a man kissed another man. Fine, understood. Are you any less grossed out when a man kisses a woman you don't like?

And doesn't that happen every day of your life?

Happens every day of mine. Men in my life, men I admired and often loved, married harridans and shrews and scolds and fuckwits, and they've been happy ever since. Their fathers have loving daughter-in-laws, and their sons have loving mothers.

What else do you want out of this planet?

So Ben David, you are arguing that beacuse scientsist have thus far been unable to find a biologiacal reason for the formation of sexuality - homo, hetero, or bi - that homosexuality must be a perversion of the natural order?

The evidence you offer to support your argument seems to work against you.

And again you side step homosexual activity noted in other species - why is that?

What exactly does molestaion by religious officals have to do with kola bear females finglering each other, or male chimps sucking dick?

The fact that something is "peer-reviewed" is pretty meaningless.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Boy are you getting desperate!

Peer reviewed journals are a major venue for exchange - and critique - of scientific findings.

Read your own global-warming posts to remind yourself what sanity looks like - next thing you know you'll be talking about "false consciousness" and other reality-bending bolshie intellectual loop-de-loops.

luj, I have stated my positions repeatedly early in the thread.

1) I discuss genetics only to disprove the "born-that-way" lie which is used to sidestep discussion of widespread dysfunctional behavior in the gay "community".

2) Citing animal behavior is part of this sloppy attempt to conflate "occuring in nature" with "normal, emotionally healthy, and moral".

Animal sexual behavior has little to teach us about the richly emotional experiences of humans - which have moral, legal, and communal dimensions beyond animal cognition. No scientist ever makes this connection - only leftie media idiots and activists.

What else do you want out of this planet?
- - - - - - - - -
As a minority I have an interest in government leaving me alone - but as a Jew I certainly don't sympathize with the more extreme "I'm all right Jack" libertarianism that is sometimes expressed on this blog. This has come up on posts about legalization of drugs and prostitution.

And this sudden claim of "what do you care" represents a real inconsistency compared with how you and others approach similar issues, which sets my BS meter off.

Within the context of the gay rights issue - this is an amazing reversal.

The one thing I do not dispute with the gay activists is the clear record of gay mental distress. This is constantly cited as a reason to upend the legal and moral foundations of our society.

(It's often amusing to watch gay activists seesaw in a single conversation between assertions of normalcy and pity-mongering tales of PC victimhood - which invariably end with the hook of an entitlement claim....)

But now, after exhausting all the misinformation dodges and attempts to sidestep application of plain, widely-held moral standards - just a few posts after condescendingly suggesting that I get to know more gay people - you are left with the sad-ass assertion that I'm a kook because I care too much about my gay neighbor's suffering ?????????

Now I should ignore the evidence that gays are suffering?

Boy are you people getting desperate - and tying yourselves in knots.

Jut beacuse as huans we posses the ability to think abstractly and self delusionally does not make homosexual behavior "immoral"

Ben David,
I am glad I had a hard squint at your evidence – despite Amy’s earlier admonishment that no one should be interested in a study by a “well known” scientist.

My main motivation was – why do you hold your opinions?

I’ve looked at the famous (2003) Spitzer study (synopsis – some motivated people can change their sexual orientation).

I have to say, kudos to Amy for instantly, unhesitatingly honing in on the overwhelming weakness in the Spitzer study. Amy said: "Motivated people"? What bullshit.

Everyone (with the right credentials) who has critically assessed the Spitzer study agrees: there is, and was, a huge problem with the self-selected, highly unrepresentative, non-randomly targeted people Spitzer hunted down for his study.

They were – almost all - "extraordinarily religious," (admits Spitzer) individuals who already firmly believed that homosexuality was morally wrong. (Trust me I have all the links, will provide on application, I am just trying to avoid Amy’s spam defense)

Key claws-bared swipe at the study: “Former APA president Lawrence Hartmann, a professor at Harvard Medical School…noted the study was retrospective, that it lacked controls or independent measurements, and was based entirely on self-reports by people who were motivated to say they had changed because of their affiliation with ex-gay or anti-gay groups.”

Crid is also correct on a critical point: “"Peer reviewed" is NOT "meaningless."
Spitzer’s study does indeed pass this authoritative test.

It appeared in a legitimate publication. Then it was immediately criticized as deeply flawed because, as Spitzer himself openly admitted: “The subjects of his study were not representative of the general population because they were considerably more religious…”.)

That’s partly WHY peer-review is so vital. It allows studies to be ruthlessly examined/ autopsied by experts in the field. (As distinct from jobbing scientific memoir editors with liberal arts backgrounds, like me.)

Ben David says: “Peer reviewed journals are a major venue for exchange - and critique - of scientific findings.”

Which is exactly at it should be.

Lujlp has also managed to summarize what appears to be Ben David’s favorite straw man. Lujlp writes: “You {BD] are arguing that because scientists have thus far been unable to find a biological reason for the formation of sexuality - homo, hetero, or bi - that homosexuality must be a perversion of the natural order…?”

Although Lujlp finishes this thought with his own (fair) questions about “chimps sucking dick” etc, the point he has already made is huge.

Homosexuality as a perversion, a disorder, a degeneration, a harmful adaptation is a conclusion from ideology – not science.

The “perversion” angle is NOT a direct part of the study, as such, except it’s WHY the study subjects agreed to be interviewed. And – though I am happy to be corrected – it’s where you, Ben David, come in – right? It’s just wrong to be gay, right?

But the biggest problem Ben David faces with citing this flawed study as proof that homosexuality is all in the head – is the conclusion of the flawed study itself!

“As for completely reorienting from homosexual to heterosexual, only 11% of the men...reported complete change”.

That’s the very disappointed “official” conclusion of the folk who can only wish the number was much, much higher. The "only 11%" quote is from Ben David’s own link – the statement from The National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality – the anti-gay lot.)

(The study interviewed a total of 143 males and 57 females)

Given that the study started with 143 guys – who already assume being gay is wrong because they believe their faith tells them so, who had already undergone gay-lifestyle aversion therapy, of whom THREE-QUARTERS were married (to women) despite having gay feelings, and who had told Spitzer IN ADVANCE they were pretty sure they were feeling “less gay” as a result of the therapy – that 11% who believe they have successfully changed to not-gay is a hell of a lousy result, Ben David!

Spitzer himself agrees: "What they [the Christian right who have latched on to his own study] don't mention is that change is pretty rare."

And where – might I ask – is the all-important follow up study of the 11% who thought they were straight in 2003?
(I can’t find it?)

Although I very easily found that clip you mentioned of Spitzer “discussing his disillusionment with the activists”. I can assure you it has NOT been suppressed!

My own conclusion is that your study’s “scientific” finding is about as generally useful as one that concludes: “therefore, a nun could indeed be a professional trombone player.”

(To be fair, I can understand where you are coming from. You think being gay is a dreadful state of affairs. But, to be honest, I knew that already!)

BD has gotten to the point where he is just not speaking to me anymore. I love that.

Oh shit, he did reply, and I missed it!

He didn't answer any of my points, but he never does...

Anyway, full slap-back after work.

>>He didn't answer any of my points, but he never does...

Just to say Crid - since no one is here - and just because it's Friday - glad you put your last 2 comments here.
Kind of an off-handed thanks from me. Or something!

> As a minority I have an interest in government
> leaving me alone

As a middle-aged WASP male (aka Humanity’s Pinnacle™), I have an interest in government leaving me alone, too. The impact of your practice of Judaism on your political beliefs is your own beeswax... But you’ll not be forgiven for wrongheaded policy approaches (‘compulsively dysfunctional pedophiles’) because you think your faith compels you to make them without explanation. Maybe Judaism says what you say it does, and maybe it’s correct... But others need only take notice of the latter.

> Within the context of the gay rights issue -
> this is an amazing reversal.

What is?

> you are left with the sad-ass assertion that I'm
> a kook because I care too much about my
> gay neighbor's suffering ?????????

I never said anything of the kind. I mean, I never said anything of the kind!!!!!! People can look at the text just above and see this.

I said your characterizations of homosexuality are disproportionately gruesome, as evidenced in your own ability to make peace with the gays you routine encounter, however diffidently, in your daily conduct. I further suggested that if you actually made friends with a few of them, your skittishness would evaporate.

For years I've been trying to get Amy to visit a Christian church, instead of moving silently and sullenly through her largely Christian community with all these bogus presumptions about what religion means to people. So, like, your isolation isn’t entirely novel here. I think, you, like Amy, enjoy your naive fear of boogiemen more than you’d enjoy the enlightened consideration of nuanced differences between people. And golly, who can blame you?

I can. Homosexuality has some real consequence for how lives get lived, and on behalf of those who can’t speak for themselves, society has to think clearly and speak bluntly about these impacts. Fear-mongering mumbles about ‘compulsively dysfunctional pedophiles’ aren’t helpful.

How recently?

Y'know, we need to harass you about this at least as much as we harass BD about Teh Gay. Saying something like 'I had a front row seat in D.C.' or 'I've worked near them without apparent conflict' doesn't really cover the matter.

The basic premis of religion hasnt changed scine manknd first began to think.

And the details of most organised religions havent changed in nearly 200yrs, not counting the moromons, shakers, christina scientists and jehovah witnesses - and even those havent changed in the last 20.

How many times must you sample somthing to prove you still dont like it?

> How many times must you sample
> somthing to prove you still
> dont like it?

Is that what you'd say of BD's reflections on homosexuality? Is it cool with you that his perceptions have been closed to reconsideration?

If Amy's complaint were merely that she 'didn't like it', that would be cool. But she's often described religion as a much more dangerous influence in people's lives than it actually proves to be.

Lets see -

Classifying all homosexuals as sexual deviants in defiance of the natural order (with no evidence in support of such a position and plenty against it) due to the drug fueled ramblings of men dead 6000yrs

vs

Rational arguments against the ever shifting "moral" tennants of logically inconsistant beleif structers. Structures in which the very people who claim to beleive in them have to ignore more that half the edicts set forth by their god in "holy scripture" in order to, not only feel good about themselves, but avoid a liftime jail sentance.

Yep, totally the exact same thing.

Oh, wait - its they're the opposite of each other as one relys on reason and logical thought and the other relys on sticking fingers in ones ears and babbaling incoherently to block out the chance that one might be exposed the fact that their is no rational basis for their religious beleifs and world view

> Lets see -

Be sarcastic!

> Rational arguments against the
> ever shifting "moral" tennants of

You're too quick to admire your own "rationality".... You're having far to much fun to pretend your resentments aren't emotionally fulfilling for you. Aren't you glad that morality, even in the churches, has shifted over the years? Isn't humanity better for it?

> Oh, wait -

Be sarcastic again, Lou! The religious folks love that! It makes them more receptive to your critiques!

Like that.

Am I glad that religious morality has shifted?

Of course I am - the thing that bothers me is that the religious folk like to pretend that their religion is the same now as it was 2000 yrs ago even if they belong to a denomination that is less than 150yrs old

The other thing that bothers me is the irrational disconnect they experiance when argueing that the rules they still follow are commandments from god while at the same time they ignore the commandments from god that they have moral qualms about.

And crid, just because I find it mildly emotionaly satisfiying - doesnt mean I'm wrong.

Jody:
I am glad I had a hard squint at your evidence
- - - - - - - - - -
It's one study, not the whole picture.
Spitzer is a good scientist, and draws only the appropriate conclusions. He states clearly that it is anecdotal - but against what "everybody knew" in the profession, he was surprised to find so many positive outcomes. Even those who did not completely change their orientation benefited from the insight into their more self-destructive behaviors.

He was subjected to an avalanche attempting to discredit the study and put words in his mouth.

There are larger survey studies that support the idea that homosexuality can be cured.

What is your reaction to the articles by both the APA and the geneticists about the range and fluidity of sexual behavior?

Or has that been discarded in order to maintain your opinion?

>>What is your reaction to the articles by both the APA and the geneticists about the range and fluidity of sexual behavior?

Keen interest, Ben David.

>>Spitzer is a good scientist, and draws only the appropriate conclusions.

Actually, I agree with that, BD.

I also admire that he bothered to get his study peer-reviewed in order that its unusually narrow limits could be evaluated.

But, please, make sure that YOU draw only the appropriate conclusions from his study!

I will be watching:)

BD —

> I will be watching:)

She doesn't mean that... She just means she'll be looking for some pedestrian misreading which she can twist and inflate into disagreement. It's not like she's reading you for your clearest meaning. Bear this in mind. She's not into the ideas or anything.

You're still wrong, BD... hideously wrong, pathetically wrong... But you shouldn't let the bastards get you down, either.

>>She just means she'll be looking for some pedestrian misreading which she can twist and inflate into disagreement.

Which bit of my Spitzer study comment here was a "pedestrian misreading" Crid?

Show your hand.

> Which bit of my Spitzer study comment
> here was a "pedestrian misreading"

So you were behaving in here today? Good on ya'... Keep it up.

But time and time again, you've demanded extra text, hoping to find some trivial ambiguity to exploit as rhetoric is (needlessly) fattened.

You've pretended to be stupid.

Jody, it's been all too easy to play along.

Here's my new fortune cookie:

"Gotcha!" is not a principle.

It is a good teaching tool however

I've learned that Jody is incapable of thoughtful argument, if that's what you mean.