Posted on 04/08/2002 11:29:29 AM PDT by Notwithstanding
The documentary was mostly about the deaf daughter of the deaf son. There was considerable torment in the family about the possibility of implanting the daughter and how this would effect her "deaf culture" identity. The son decided to move to an all "deaf community" and not to implant the child.
It was a heart rending film. The father had embraced his identity as part of the "deaf community." He felt that "deaf culture" embraced him and his family in this extended family The pressure from hearing relatives to have the child implanted hurt him deeply - he took it personally as an indication that his family fundamentally perceived him as defective and had not truly accepted his differences as "ok."
From another perspective, the man's deaf wife looked into the implant for herself and her child and found that it was not really effective in adults.
Similarly, the deaf monther of the hearing woman was deeply hurt that the woman put the implant in her deaf baby. It was like a sign of rejection.
The "deaf community" has its own language. Language helps articulate and influences the form of world views. Apparently a special cultural identity has been forged from this for this minority. They are not looking at this as a "handicap" but as a cultural identity.
Personally, I would have the implant for my child. Of course, I am a hearing person.
Why, consider the work of painters who went blind like Monet who turned his vision loss into a new technique (impressionism, now painters with 20/20 paint abstract images exclusively).
People with correctable vision loss have a culture too you know, we just have a hard time bumping into each other...
Here's Amazon's list of the "customers also bought these books" (most frequent purchases by people who bought this one):
Queer Science by Simon Le Vay, Simon LeVay
The Mismeasure of Desire : The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation (Ideologies of Desire) by Edward Stein
A Natural History of Homosexuality by Francis Mark Mondimore
Love Stories : Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality by Jonathan Ned Katz
Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez
What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality by Daniel A., Ph.D. Helminiak
Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Anne Fausto-Sterling
Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality : Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century by John Boswell
That being said, I would suggest that those who are so suited and desire to be nurturing either give their skills to a community center aiding the deaf or take a child that has been born deaf into their home.
Give birth to a kid if that is what they want, but to purposely will that they want a deaf child is detrimental to the child's best interest. In your example, self-interest of the parents dictated that it would be easier if the child were deaf. In this article's example, self-interest in the parents controlling a "mini-me" led them to seek out a deaf man to procreate (twice) with (the adoptive "mother" of the child, hinted that the son was conceived with the aid of a turkey baster).
Just like the Origin of Species? Ha...
Are they arguing that being black is a handicap? Looks like they're racist as well as sick and stupid!
I did not say that homosexuality did not exist in the animal kindgom only that it was abormal or preverted as it is in the human kingdom.
As far as science goes they're not always right. According to science and the laws of aerodynamics a bumblebee cannot possibly fly.
But -- where is the animal that FORSAKES mating, in favor of its own sex? Where is there an example of a healthy male animal, in breeding season (if it's a seasonal breeding species), and who hasn't been driven off or threatened by a rival, turning down a chance to mate with receptive females? I've seen celibate rams, celibate roosters, but never "gay" ones... and the celibacy quickly ends if the results of today's battle happen to change the pecking order.
To quote Zorba the Greek: "There is one thing the gods will not forgive -- when a woman calls a man to her bed, and he will not come."
To quote an unchallengeable authority: "Women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and likewise did the men -- leaving the natural usage of woman, they burned in lust for one another, men commiting indecent acts with other men, and suffering in their own bodies the punishment of their error" --- Paul the Apostle.
Well, good luck. Fighting God's messenger is a losing battle. It would be much easier and less painful to just give up homosexuality, if you're involved in it.
As far as gay mating in the animal kingdom goes, it occurs.
So you say. But murder, adultery, and theft definitely occur in the animal kingdom. So what? The fact that animals do something, does not constitute permission for us to do likewise.
On the other hand -- and back to the original thread topic -- it's possible to sink BELOW the animals. Where did an animal ever deliberately handicap its own child? Only humans, posessing fallen spirits, could sink so low.
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