[Guest]

Open to all opinions. No bashing, please. Keep it civil.

To start it off, here's my opinion: Homosexuality is a genetically favored trait. The argument is just this simple: Man is a social animal - it is our most basic evolutionary advantage. Sex has evolved beyond procreation to become a key tool for social bonding (not just in humans but in other higher primates). The community that accepts LGBT bonding has an evolutionary advantage over the one that does not.

So what do you think?

[Izzy]

If you anyone is interested in answering my next odd question, is normal alwasy better?

Nah. Normal and unnormal are just.. different, there is no better or worse. I define normal sort of as the peak of the bell curve, but the extremes on either end (the unnormal) don't really matter in any sense. Diversity is preferred.

[peace*out]

Nah. Normal and unnormal are just.. different, there is no better or worse. I define normal sort of as the peak of the bell curve, but the extremes on either end (the unnormal) don't really matter in any sense. Diversity is preferred.

so therefore, even if male/femnale is "normal", that doesn't always mean its the only thing possible, and that eveything that isn't "normal" is screwed up (no pun intended).

[peace*out]

Oh, and as for it "not being normal", Google homosexuality in animals sometime.

apparently, there was a restaurant that didn't allow a guy in because his dog was gay...according to my classmate. just random...

You're assuming it is the job of every person in the world to carry out the continuation of humanity. It's NOT. Some people don't want to have babies, some people can't have babies. They shouldn't be punished for this. Telling someone they have to be with a partner of the opposite sex so they can have kids isn't far off from eugenics. You are FORCING people to do something they don't want to do. I can't really see you carrying out a crusade against single people, so just leave gays alone, yeah? Also, adoption. I'm going to assume you have a problem with that, but honestly, it helps.

just adding my veiw...this isn't to izzy, but to some other people...so it's ok for someone to adopt or never be married/have kids, or that if someone can't have kids, it's ok, but if someone choose not to have kids because their partner is the same gender, it's suddenly all wrong?

[Guest]

i am too tired for this. At first, i just posted to give my opinion but something tells me that i will soon be the most hated person on brainden. Therefore, I have decided to remove myself from this discussion and will try my best not to post any further.

[peace*out]

i am too tired for this. At first, i just posted to give my opinion but something tells me that i will soon be the most hated person on brainden. Therefore, I have decided to remove myself from this discussion and will try my best not to post any further.

sorry. I wasn't trying to make you feel like your opion was completely wrong. And FYI: you wont be hated. It's the people who have beliefs, and fight and make a debate about them that makes BD unique. I respect your opinions, and im sorry - it's my falut for coming off harsh.

If that is youre last post, ok, but please feel free to post more. I'll try to be more...calm.

[Izzy]

i am too tired for this. At first, i just posted to give my opinion but something tells me that i will soon be the most hated person on brainden. Therefore, I have decided to remove myself from this discussion and will try my best not to post any further.

Aww, I'm sorry. I realize we disagree, but the people that actually stick up for their opinions are the ones I like most.

[Guest]

i am too tired for this. At first, i just posted to give my opinion but something tells me that i will soon be the most hated person on brainden. Therefore, I have decided to remove myself from this discussion and will try my best not to post any further.

I think that the reason a lot of us attacked your opinion is because you said that you didn't like the idea of homosexuality and didn't think that it should be accepted by society because it could lead to "worse" things. You are entitled to your own opinion on homosexuality and we (or at least most of us) won't hate you for possessing such an opinion. What upset us was the fact that you were arguing that it could lead to these worse things and therefore (at least it seemed implied), homosexuality shouldn't be allowed at all.

What most of us are arguing here is that we don't think that there should be a stigma attached to being gay and that those who are gay should have the same protections and benefits as those who lead a heterosexual life. Your statements seemed to imply that you felt that they shouldn't receive the the same treatment as everyone else because if you start letting the gays play in the reindeer games, then the pedophiles and the bestials et al. would want to play too and that would be really wrong. And most of us found that to be a very unfair comparison to make.

So please feel free to offer your opinion here. We're mostly aimed at pointing out flaws in people's arguments more than we are interested in hating on people. If you say something with which we disagree, we generally tell you why we disagree and what we would do differently. Most of us don't fly off the handle and most of the time it isn't personal (certainly not to me, but I admit I can't speak for everyone here, although I took the liberty of doing so ). Just keep in mind that we're a logical bunch and if you try to make an argument based on some sort of logical fallacy, someone (like octopuppy) will be ready to point out how your argument breaks down. Some people haven't been able to handle such attacks on their arguments and have left BD as a result and most of us were sorry to see them go, but some people have used the criticism to consider their arguments and see if they can find ways to strengthen them and overcome the fallacies they were propagating and in so doing, they were able to elevate the level of discussion.

We're not here to tear down people and their opinions, we're here to tear down poorly defended arguments. You can look at it as a way to hone your debating skills if you like, but you are also free to leave the debating to someone else and we won't hold it against you.

[tiger_lily111]

Going back to the original discussion, here's my opinion: I wouldn't say it's genetically 'favored' because then it would indicate a dominant trait which would eventually lead to zero population growth and the extinction of the human race. If you go by Darwin's theories, then that isn't plausible.

Whether or not homosexuality is a mainly genetic trait is still under debate. There is some evidence for, and some against. My *personal* opinion is that it is likely at least partially genetic - but genetic traits sometimes indicate possibilities, rather than certainties. I do believe that there are some people who identify as homosexual who do so by choice, not genetics. Before you bash, I would like to point out that there are psychological studies which indicate that some people have been too damaged by circumstance, abuse, etc. to tolerate thoughts of the opposite sex in a sexual connotation. Yes, some may indeed be genetically predisposed towards homosexuality - BUT some may be able to "choose" to lean more towards hetero- or homo-sexuality. The truth is, that we don't know yet, as a scientific community.

My personal beliefs fall towards the Chrisitan norm - The Bible says that homosexuality is a sin. Maybe it is (eg, Soddom & Gomorrah), but I also try to follow the belief of "Judge not, lest you be judged." (Also known as, "Love the sinner, hate the sin.") Meaning, to me, that how a person chooses or is predisposed to live their life doesn't matter to me so long as knowledgeable consent is freely given & accepted, and that all parties involved are happy and at peace with themselves. If there is judgement that will be rendered, I don't have the knowledge or authority to do so, and God will sort us all out in the end.

Honest curiosity here:

Since it was quasi- brought up earlier - Regarding gay marriage: I think most people's issue is with the word 'marriage.'

Some people will say it's racist or homophobic to desire a word to differentiate between 'heterosexual' & 'homosexual' unions, but from discussions I've had with other people, that is the main hang-up. (Is it racist or race identity to have differential words such as "Black" vs "Hispanic" or "Thai" vs "South-east Asian"? I prefer to think of it as identity, but that's me.) Is it awful to be able to differentiate, using a single word, whether your life-partner is the same sex or the opposite sex? In the U.S. especially, we have issues with real & imagined gender-in/equality, for example actor/actress, comedian/comedienne ... the latter of both almost out of use completely. Sometimes it's confusing, but by the time someone's name reaches household use it doesn't matter so much.

What are your thoughts on having a different word for "marriage" involving homosexual couples?

[Guest]

Honest curiosity here:

Since it was quasi- brought up earlier - Regarding gay marriage: I think most people's issue is with the word 'marriage.'

Some people will say it's racist or homophobic to desire a word to differentiate between 'heterosexual' & 'homosexual' unions, but from discussions I've had with other people, that is the main hang-up. (Is it racist or race identity to have differential words such as "Black" vs "Hispanic" or "Thai" vs "South-east Asian"? I prefer to think of it as identity, but that's me.) Is it awful to be able to differentiate, using a single word, whether your life-partner is the same sex or the opposite sex? In the U.S. especially, we have issues with real & imagined gender-in/equality, for example actor/actress, comedian/comedienne ... the latter of both almost out of use completely. Sometimes it's confusing, but by the time someone's name reaches household use it doesn't matter so much.

What are your thoughts on having a different word for "marriage" involving homosexual couples?

I'm not sure I fully understood your question, but I would say that if a church doesn't want to anoint such a marriage, that's their prerogative and the government can't force them to do it. Consequently, I think it's outside the realm of the government to mandate in the other direction and say that a church can't marry two people of the same sex if it wants to do so (the whole separation of church and state thing swings both ways ). What makes it especially egregious is the fact that our society has built up around the family unit (Aristotle would be proud), so having a marriage license and having a spouse provides a lot of benefits through government and employment. Denying a portion of the population the ability to receive these completely secular benefits is discrimination and isn't providing equal protection under the law.

So there are multiple reasons why I think opposition to marriage for same-sex couples is wrong. Like I said above, the idea that marriage is a religious matter is somewhat quaint and old-fashioned today. People can go to the county clerk's office and get a marriage license without the hullabaloo of a full-blown religious ceremony and that's been true for a long time. Why should the government be able to say who can and who cannot go to the clerk's office when two consenting adults want to be married?

To try to answer your question a little more directly, every time you create another word for something, it subdivides people. "Oh, you have a 'Civil Union' license? I guess that means you're gay..." How is that relevant? If everyone had a marriage license, then the inquirer probably wouldn't even notice the difference. If it makes some people uncomfortable to call same-sex marriage "marriage," then they don't have to get one. But as soon as you start creating a separate word for different people, you start getting into the "Separate but Equal" territory and we know that that doesn't work. People are already using the "Civil Union" thing to discriminate in places that allow same-sex unions. They stipulate that only married couples can get the benefits of a union, specifically excluding civil unions from the same material benefits. So I think that creating (or utilizing) a different name for the same thing is really the wrong way to go.

[Guest]

Going back to the original discussion, here's my opinion: I wouldn't say it's genetically 'favored' because then it would indicate a dominant trait which would eventually lead to zero population growth and the extinction of the human race. If you go by Darwin's theories, then that isn't plausible.

I think a trait could be genetically favoured as a minority trait, in other words it benefits those genes which produce it only up to a certain point, and if it became dominant it would no longer be of benefit to those genes. So it finds a balance.

Another view is that maybe homosexuality does not itself carry a genetic benefit, but it also does not have sufficient genetic cost to cause a more fixed development of gender roles. Excessive fixing of genders may itself carry a genetic cost, and we may be better off having some variation and a bit of crossing-over of tendencies between genders.

Honest curiosity here:

Since it was quasi- brought up earlier - Regarding gay marriage: I think most people's issue is with the word 'marriage.'

Some people will say it's racist or homophobic to desire a word to differentiate between 'heterosexual' & 'homosexual' unions, but from discussions I've had with other people, that is the main hang-up. (Is it racist or race identity to have differential words such as "Black" vs "Hispanic" or "Thai" vs "South-east Asian"? I prefer to think of it as identity, but that's me.) Is it awful to be able to differentiate, using a single word, whether your life-partner is the same sex or the opposite sex? In the U.S. especially, we have issues with real & imagined gender-in/equality, for example actor/actress, comedian/comedienne ... the latter of both almost out of use completely. Sometimes it's confusing, but by the time someone's name reaches household use it doesn't matter so much.

What are your thoughts on having a different word for "marriage" involving homosexual couples?

Taking gender-specific words ("actor/actress, comedian/comedienne") as a starting point, I think the problem with such words lies in how they affect our thinking, without us noticing. Usually, the female version is derived from the male one, which suggests that the male role (actor, comedian) is the primary one and the female role (actress, comedienne) is secondary. If we are unaware of the influence of this language on our thinking it may seem natural to expect that an actor would command a higher salary than an actress, or that we should write the kind of scripts in which the actor is the protagonist and the actress plays a supporting role. The job is defined in a male sense, so we will think of it as a man's job. If women also want to try, that's fine, but they can't expect to be taken as seriously as men. This is the expectation that the language gives us, so subtly it often slips under our conscious radar.

Likewise if we differentiate between the words we use for marriage, our attitude to the union will be affected. Discrimination is inevitable.

I understand that some people may think a marriage is by nature a thing between a man and a woman, and to call anything else a marriage would be calling a spade a pickaxe (just out of interest I looked it up in an online dictionary and the first definition said "man and woman", further variations followed but the choice of primary definition supports this viewpoint when it might just as easily have said "two adults"). But language usage does change over time, often with good reason, to remove preconceptions such as those mentioned above. A lot depends on who "owns" the concept of marriage. Historically religion has claimed ownership but I don't think that can be supported any more. I consider myself married but no church had anything to do with that. But marriage remains a grey area because it is both a legal and a personal commitment, and people tend to enter into both together. On the personal side, it seems to mean different things to different people. Usually it implies a commitment to sexual faithfulness, but not in an open marriage. Some people think marriage is a commitment until death, others don't.

Pared down to essentials, I'd say marriage represents a commitment for two people to stay together and retain a special intimate relationship. It bestows kinship, bringing people who are not blood-related into a single family unit. By giving it a name and special status, we publicly declare the relationship and create a degree of security in its permanence, which may be beneficial in enabling further commitments, such as the choice to raise children. It gives the union of two people a status which is recognised both officially and socially.

Looking at the previous paragraph, is there anything there which ought to be denied to same-sex couples? In my opinion there is not, and therefore no reason why "marriage" is not the right word to use to describe their unions. Otherwise we are simply denying same-sex couples the degree of respectability and acceptance that we heterosexuals enjoy. It's unfounded discrimination, and as long as such discrimination exists, we will continue to see this sort of thing.

[tiger_lily111]

To try to answer your question a little more directly, every time you create another word for something, it subdivides people.

...

But as soon as you start creating a separate word for different people, you start getting into the "Separate but Equal" territory and we know that that doesn't work. People are already using the "Civil Union" thing to discriminate in places that allow same-sex unions. They stipulate that only married couples can get the benefits of a union, specifically excluding civil unions from the same material benefits. So I think that creating (or utilizing) a different name for the same thing is really the wrong way to go.

Likewise if we differentiate between the words we use for marriage, our attitude to the union will be affected. Discrimination is inevitable.

I'm an idealist. Can't help it. But I do understand & appreciate what you're saying.

[unreality]

I'm an idealist. Can't help it. But I do understand & appreciate what you're saying.

Idealist for what?

[tiger_lily111]

Idealist for what?

Basically everything.

[Guest]

homosexuality is a persons choice it is not wrong or right it is just a choice that some some people make

[Izzy]

^It isn't a choice; it's something predetermined by your genetic code, and possibly to a lesser degree your environment. (There's been some research to suggest the latter bit may be true, but I'm not sure..)

[Quag]

This is a silly debate.

In the words of one of our ex Prime Ministers, Pierre Trudeau.

"The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation."

[Guest]

This is a silly debate.

In the words of one of our ex Prime Ministers, Pierre Trudeau.

"The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation."

that is the most true statement in my opinion, that i have heard within a debate argument

[Guest]

^It isn't a choice; it's something predetermined by your genetic code, and possibly to a lesser degree your environment. (There's been some research to suggest the latter bit may be true, but I'm not sure..)

It's the old "nature vs. nurture" debate.

Which affects how you act the most, your genetics or how you're brought up?

In my opinion, it would be mostly genetics, as pheromones are the primary cause of people being attracted to each other. If someone is attracted to the pheromones of someone of the same gender, I doubt any type of "good" nurturing could change that.

[Izzy]

Yeah, I know, definitely mostly biology, but.. man, how do I phrase this.

We were discussing this in World Religions first semester of my freshman year. It was insanely off topic, and definitely not part of the course curriculum or anything, but someone brought up the priest-little boy stereotype, and my teacher, very awkwardly, went into this lecture about the psychological damage it can do to the kid, and even if he's heterosexual, if he.. (am I allowed to say this here?) orgasms, then he could be sexually confused later on. There's been some shown correlation between people in those situations identifying with gay/bi orientations later in life. Obviously we can't prove if that would have been their preference anyway, so *shrug*

I wouldn't consider that "nurture", but it definitely shows it isn't all chemically based, or, at least doesn't have to be.

[Guest]

Yeah, I know, definitely mostly biology, but.. man, how do I phrase this.

We were discussing this in World Religions first semester of my freshman year. It was insanely off topic, and definitely not part of the course curriculum or anything, but someone brought up the priest-little boy stereotype, and my teacher, very awkwardly, went into this lecture about the psychological damage it can do to the kid, and even if he's heterosexual, if he.. (am I allowed to say this here?) orgasms, then he could be sexually confused later on. There's been some shown correlation between people in those situations identifying with gay/bi orientations later in life. Obviously we can't prove if that would have been their preference anyway, so *shrug*

I wouldn't consider that "nurture", but it definitely shows it isn't all chemically based, or, at least doesn't have to be.

I completely agree with you.

But since this debate will go nowhere if I do, I'll play the Devil's Advocate.

A large majority of homosexual people have not come into contact with the type of priests you are describing, yet they still are attracted to the same gender. Also, the "nurturing" (Not a very good word in the context of what you're talking about. ) that comes from such encounter does not always have a lasting effect on the victim's sexual preference. They may become confused for a while, but they will eventually realize what their body is telling them.

[phaze]

Yeah, I know, definitely mostly biology, but.. man, how do I phrase this.

Do you have similar views for religious fundamentalism (mostly biology)?

I think homosexuality is more complex than you are portraying.

Edited September 23, 2010 by phaze

[Guest]

Do you have similar views for religious fundamentalism (mostly biology)?

(I know this wasn't directed at me, but I want to add something.)

Actually, religion has a basis in biology. (In my opinion )

Grouping together has been a primary survival tactic for a very long time; strength in numbers makes it less likely for a predator to attack, as it would know it would be outnumbered.

But to be in a group, you have to be friendly/agreeable with the leader of said group.

Religion is our explanation of the unexplainable, and is very popular to this day; it's one of the biggest groups in the world. It is imprinted into our subconscious that if we a part of a large group that cares about us, we are more likely to survive.

So, unconsciously, you are bettering your chances of survival by being religious.

With fundamentalism though, it's mostly how you're taught your religion. (Nurturing)

I know, I'm rambling all over the place, but I hope you get the point of what I'm saying.

[phaze]

ssshhh...

I was trying to work out if Izzy had a double standard

[Guest]

ssshhh...

I was trying to work out if Izzy had a double standard

Oh!

Right, I'll be quiet now.

[Guest]

Yeah, I know, definitely mostly biology, but.. man, how do I phrase this.

We were discussing this in World Religions first semester of my freshman year. It was insanely off topic, and definitely not part of the course curriculum or anything, but someone brought up the priest-little boy stereotype, and my teacher, very awkwardly, went into this lecture about the psychological damage it can do to the kid, and even if he's heterosexual, if he.. (am I allowed to say this here?) orgasms, then he could be sexually confused later on. There's been some shown correlation between people in those situations identifying with gay/bi orientations later in life. Obviously we can't prove if that would have been their preference anyway, so *shrug*

I wouldn't consider that "nurture", but it definitely shows it isn't all chemically based, or, at least doesn't have to be.

Hope this doesn't interfere with phaze's line of questioning, which looks like fun, but I'll add to RainThinker's devil-advocation by noting that a statistical correlation between being abused by priests and subsequent gayness could also be due to the following nature-based scenarios:

1) Maybe priests home on in kids who are naturally homosexual. IMO it is possible in some cases to anticipate homosexuality in children before puberty. I remember a couple of boys at school that had always been as camp as a row of tents, even though in the eyes of fellow children this was not recognised as such (only with hindsight). That's very consistent with the notion that homosexuality is genetic. I don't know to what extent this has been scientifically established, but assuming there's something in it, your local friendly catholic priest may have finely-tuned gaydar which attracts him to those kids in particular.

2) Sexuality isn't black and white, and there's a vast category of people who may flip one way or the other (or both) depending on what happens to them in life. In that case you could say nature deals the cards, and nurture affects how you play them. Whether that's one up for nurture depends on whether you consider potentially homosexual to be just as homosexual as practising homosexual.

Well there you go, I don't want to labour the point because frankly I don't really believe that nurture has nothing to do with it