Posted on 01/15/2010 1:04:51 PM PST by Notoriously Conservative
From Notoriously Conservative:
This is a sensative topic for many, so I'll preface it with this: I am not sharing my views in an attempt to insult or demean, this is simply how I feel and we are all entitled to our own beliefs.
I just don't believe people are born gay; I don't buy it. This is such a popular argument with the gay community, because if it is true, it means they can't change, therefore allowing gay marriage is the only right thing to do. Bull crap.
I have several firm reasons for my not accepting this argument. First, if people were born gay, then there would be a gene associated with homosexuality. Now since homosexuals and lesbians cannot have children together (For obvious reasons. Please take a look at an electric socket and a power cord if you need further clarification), this would mean that the gene homosexuals and lesbians carry cannot be passed onto offspring, unless they copulate with the opposite gender. Wouldn't this result in lower numbers of future homosexuals and lesbians? Clearly it hasn't, as evidenced by the ever growing size of gay pride parades.
Some proponents of gay rights and born gay theories cite research to support the idea that people are born gay. I say, BS; the innate theory of homosexuality is not founded on any scientific principles. Many scientists that have been cited by gay rights advocates have entirely dismissed the notion that homosexuality is biological, and unchangeable.
From David Clarke Pruden's article:
"Let's examine the words of just one of those often incorrectly cited as providing evidence for a 'gay gene.' Simon LeVay notes, 'It is important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality was genetic, or find a cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men were born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work.'"
David Clarke Pruden goes on to write:
"A new research study by a University of Illinois team, which has screened the entire human genome, reported that there is no one gay gene. Writing in the journal Human Genetics, lead researcher Dr. Brian Mustanski noted that environmental factors were also likely to be involved. "Of the innate-immutable argument, Dr. Richard C. Friedman and Dr. Jennifer Downey, noted, 'At clinical conferences one often hears ... that homosexual orientation is fixed and unmodifiable. Neither assertion is true ... The assertion that homosexuality is genetic is so reductionistic that it must be dismissed out of hand as a general principle of psychology.'"
Additionally, if homosexuality is so ingrained, why are there so many cases of homosexuals leaving past lifestyles behind, and carrying on heterosexual relationships? Dr. Ellen Schecter of the Fielding Institute studied long time, self-identified lesbians, who after age 30 were now in successful relationships with men. How many times have you heard of dyed in the wool homosexuals doing complete 180s? I know I have personally heard dozens of stories.
Well what about the argument that the APA doesn't consider homosexuality to be a psychiatric issue? Well, Robert Spitzer, "the psychiatrist who led the charge to remove homosexuality from the psychiatric manual, studied 200 gay men and lesbian women who had undergone re-orientation therapy concluded: 44 percent of the women and 66 percent of the men had arrived at what he called 'good heterosexual functioning' and 89 percent of the men and 95 percent of the women reported that they were bothered slightly or not at all by unwanted homosexual feelings." Furthermore, the APA and the American Medical Association have long been practiconers of PC in place of science, so I would hardly hold them as the end all standard.
Additionally, if homosexuals and lesbians are only truly attracted to their own sex, why are so many lesbians very masculine, and so many homosexuals so feminine? It is as if they want someone of their own gender, but someone that acts or even looks like the opposite gender.
I firmly believe that the majority of homosexuals and lesbians have very sincere, strong feelings of love and attraction. But that said, I believe homosexuality is unnatural and can therefore in many cases be fixed, and if not entirely eliminated, it can be brought under control and not acted upon.
I believe that many things can cause one to have homosexual desires. It must be stressed that these are simply my opinions, and not based on any particular research or study, but mere observation and logical conclusion. These causes include but are not limited to:
1. Simple perversion. One can simply be a pervert, and be attracted to the "dirty" side of homosexuality.
2. Psychiatric disorder. The attraction can be brought on by uncontrollable mental processes, like chemical imbalances, or under/over grown areas of the brain.
3. The result of abuse. One could be abused as a child, and as a result for an unhealthy attraction or repulsion to a particular gender.
4. Confusion. Often in early development, children and teens experiment. During this time period, they may assume since they have this curiosity, they must be gay. Not the case.
5. Acceptance. A homosexual or lesbian may find that they have nothing in common with the opposite sex, or they are unable to attract the opposite sex, so they turn to their own gender, perhaps unknowingly, confusing the frustration with homosexuality.
6. Fitting in / cool factor. Gay is the new black; kids love to be cool. Enough said.
What are your thoughts on the topic? In agreement or disagreement?
For the reason to carry on the race, yes
Watching some of my son’s school friends grow from age 3 and up I am not so sure you’re correct. I have watched two of my sons schoolmates, a girl and boy, who each display all the characteristics of their opposite sex. While these kids may not technically be gay at age 8 through 10 I am pretty sure how the movie will come out. So were they born gay?...time will tell, but I’ll take bets on it now. My take is God has a plan and I need to pay closer attention to what he is trying to tell me. Hopefully, for these children they are not gay, a meaner lifestyle I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, and they grow up to have normal lives. But like I said, I don’t think this is how the movie will end.
I’m not sure your argument is persuasive. There are plenty of genetic defects that discourage - or, in many cases, prevent - reproduction. Just consider any of the genetic problems that cause miscarriages or severe birth defects. These do not die out, largely because there are carriers who are not themselves afflicted with the condition. Who’s to say the same is not true about a hypothetical homosexual gene?
I am not saying that homosexuality is in any way genetic, only that the continued existence of homosexuals does not conclusively prove that it is not.
Minor pedantic pet peeve: this is redundant, as lesbians are homosexuals. Sometimes people make this unnecessary distinction because they think that "homo" is from the Latin root meaning "man", as in Homo sapiens, when it's actually a Greek prefix meaning "same", as in homogenized milk.
Anyway, I agree with your overall point. I think an even more fundamental point is that a genetic predisposition, even if it did exist, has no bearing on the moral rightness or wrongness of a given voluntary activity.
And of course, gay men & lesbians CAN have children together, they just claim to not enjoy it, I guess.
Well, in any case, that is only one facet of my argument.
I had a colleague a few years ago. His 10 YO son was the incarnation of Ross the Intern. I kid you not. Young man wanted a feather boa for Christmas. I’m really sure he’d never seen the Tonight Show, so I don’t think it was an act. He was that way every time I saw him. Either something is going to change or this young man is going to be flaming in a few years. Which is probably going to astound his very devout LDS parents.
2 words: Anne Heche.
Case closed.
“How could “genetic” homosexuality maintain itself in the population?”
There is another objection to the notion of a genetically
induced homosexuality. An unreproductive behavior
cannot be “genetic” and also continue to exist in the population. According to mainstream genetics,
genetically enforced homosexuality (exclusively same-sex
sex) would die out of the population in several generations.
Here’s how. A gene is retained in the gene pool when an average of at least one child is born to every
adult having that gene (one child per person). As unlikely
as it sounds, surveys show that of persons classifying
themselves as exclusively homosexual, one in five has a child. At that rate, a homosexual gene, or
genes, could not be replaced.
But most homosexuals may be married (see Chapter Two). Wouldn’t this preserve any homosexual
gene or genes? Not necessarily. A married homosexual is (usually) bisexual. According to surveys, bisexuals
have an average
of 1.25 children each.
On its own, that’s enough to replace the adult gene or genes, but the
average total number of children produced by bisexuals and exclusive homosexuals still comes to less than
one child per person
- 0.9. At that rate, any homosexual gene or genes would still slowly but inevitably breed
out of the population.
http://www.mygenes.co.nz/Ch1.pdf
I don’t see how God can allow a baby to be born a homosexual and then condem that child to hell.
You don’t get to pick your children - you just have to love them up, teach em right and wrong, shit from shinola, and then pray they will have a happy life. Don’t know what it all means, but I really love watching kids grow. As for your friend, he knows exactly what he is seeing, but he loves his son and has no power to change him. Sometimes there is grace in acceptance of things you cannot change. I am sure there is grace in love. My two cents.
Do you think hermaphrodites are born that way, those with both male and female sex organs? We know that they are born that way.
The new embryo is neither male nor female, but sex is determined later during gestation through the introduction of hormones to the growing fetus. I think the same improper introduction of those hormones which produces the hermaphrodite also probably produces people with same sex attraction. Just something slightly askew when the sex determination takes place during fetal growth.
Just my theory on the matter. But what do you think causes the hermaphrodite?
Interesting. Is this mechanism applicable to other rare genetic diseases as well?
Are you arguing about the existence of God and Hell, or about that of homosexuality?
The mistake by BOTH sides is that they see this as an either/or thing. What if some ARE born gay, and some “choose”, or are otherwise twisted into the lifestyle? Absolutists on both sides obscure what might be the truth.
Wow. That's a very good point!
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