Thank you for taking the time to address these issues thoughtfully and openly, I appreciate this.
No problemo. :mrgreen:
I would tend to agree with you that while some apparently can, not everyone who is homosexual is capable of changing their orientation. I again refer to my own life-experience in an example: a gentleman I've known since childhood, a man of the highest character and quality, very bravely chose to marry an "ex-lesbian" woman who had supposedly changed her orientation and wished to pursue a hetero life. They were married and had a baby...and when the baby was about a year old, she left him and went back to her former lesbian partner. He was heartbroken... but he also said that he felt like she had honestly tried and just couldn't cope with the change.
Your story illustrates an important point. It usually comes down to whether or not the "cured" person can repress reality, and for how long. I mean, the propaganda tells us that X number of people are "cured" every year, but how much follow up is done on those stories to see if it sticks, or if the person ends up developing mental illness like depression because of it?
And what are the motivations for wanting to rid oneself of homosexuality? Is it truly because the person believes they are ill, or because of social pressures? I mean, people are only as functional as their surrounding community permits them to be. I can walk down the street in Vancouver holding hands with a guy and not get harassed; but maybe in a small town on the interior of BC I would get
attacked, which, as a teenager, might give me pause to think that there is something wrong with me to deserve it. That is how the seed of abnormality gets planted, coercing people to seek "cures" for something that isn't even an illness.
Well, I myself belong to a religion which views homosexuality as a sin. As an adherent of that religion, I am morally obligated to view homosexual activity with disapproval. Consider yourself "viewed with disapproval". :naughty
Okay, now that that's out of the way... :mrgreen: ... politically I don't think Gov has any business sticking its nose in the bedroom. Nor do I have any business sticking my nose in your bedroom. It's when these issues move into the public eye that things become more complicated. On the issue of gay marriage I have concerns and have not yet been convinced that the normalization of SSM is altogether desireable.
I myself belong a predominantly heterosexual society, and as a member of that society I'm morally obligated to view homosexuality as an abomination. Accordingly, I am married to a woman and have two kids whom I love.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, here is my gay lover Paul. We've been together for 22 years. :lol:
Gay marriage is a contentious issue for the U.S. The debate arose in Canada earlier in the decade and was swiftly dealt with. Yeah, there are pockets of conservatives in Canada (particularly religious ones) who would love nothing more than to have it overturned, but the majority don't care. And actually, it's a non-issue now. Churches that are against it have the right to not perform ceremony, and gay married couples, much like straight married couples, lead low profile lives, especially if they have kids.
I really think that people who hate homosexuals are just hating a concept. They have some idea in their mind of what it means and are aligned against it, but most of them have not befriended a gay person, gotten to know them, and had the chance to see what normal lives they live.
In other words, I think the whole issue has been blown out of proportion. There are more important things to worry about. Anyway, I don't want this to become a SMS debate; we've both been down that road and it's never ending.
There was a time when I viewed science, and scientists, with enormous respect and a sense of awe at the "pure quest for knowlege". This was back in my early years at college when I still had some thought of becoming a scientific researcher myself. That was before I was actually exposed to the world of academia and researchers, and the pursuit of grants/funding/tenure/publication. The cut-throat internal politics I saw quite disgusted me and changed my perceptions of science and scientists dramatically. Further experiences with agenda-driven "polling" and "research" left me highly suspicious of all such sources, and extremely reluctant to believe in anyone's objectivity.
Accordingly, I take what any "expert" or researcher says about any subject that is politically charged with a large helping of salt. Actually I am more inclined to listen to the well-reasoned words of individuals, who have impressed me with their honestly on a personal level and have some valid experience with the topic in question, than some faceless academic I've never met.
I do agree that science is politically charged. We could get into a whole other discussion about this, but I think the politicization of it has intensified over the past 15-20 years
a lot. Part of the problem is that science can now be bought by huge, huge corporations. Research funding also tends to determine the result. Peer reviewed journals are one of the last bastions of protected material. If it's not peer reviewed, I basically distrust it.
I understand what you mean about individual stories. To me it's sometimes more important to listen to those, and after years of hearing them I have begun to make my own observations about trends. Some of them correspond to science, others do not. Homosexuality was removed from the psychiatric diagnostic books in 1979. I do think the gay rights movement had a lot to do with it, but not in a manipulative way.
It was the gay rights movement that allowed scientific dialogue about homosexuality to happen at all, whereas prior to that era it was considered a mental illness because it conveniently coincided with the prejudices of the mainstream. Once science sobered up to reality, it quickly realized that it couldn't call an aspect of sexuality an illness like that. The prejudices of the mainstream still exist and science, in a lot of ways, is counter-culture to those sentiments; but science can sometimes back up the mainstream. It really depends on the topic.
Let me just say, in short, that I don't think there is systemic bias when it comes to science supporting homosexuality. It is still actively looking for a genetic explanation without regard to the potential consequences if one is found. I have no doubt that we would see a movement - one that would perhaps infiltrate government policy - to exterminate homosexuality from the gene pool entirely.
If science were pro-active in protecting gays, I don't think it would be looking so hard for a genetic explanation. After all, is there intensive research into the heterosexual gene? No, I don't think so. So they're searching for a homosexual gene under the premise that it's a deviation from the normal model: heterosexual genetics. As you can see, science also contains the same biases as the mainstream, that the base, or normal point of comparison, is heterosexuals, whereas the thing that sticks out or doesn't look right is the gays.
I read a study recently that sisters of homosexual men tend to be more fertile and have a higher chance of multiple-baby births. There may yet be an evolutionary explanation for why this happens and we shouldn't be quick to eliminate it.
Okay, this makes a certain amount of sense, though I wouldn't overemphasize the religious "coercion" aspect when typically people enter these programs voluntarily....not to say that some might not do so reluctantly.
Well, you have to put this into perspective. People may not be entering these programs with religious intentions, but virtually all of the programs stem from religious groups. The intentions of the "diseased" and the intentions of the groups are completely different. Most homosexuals go through a period where they are coming to terms with how they don't fit into social norms, and I dare say many even wish they weren't gay. But that's just the intense part of coming out and it has to do with fears of how your community will view you. People coming to be cured are largely caving to social pressures, whereas those providing the "cure" are doing so out of religious motivation.
As I've said, I don't claim to be an expert on this topic. My chief objection has been to the way some people want to paint it as strictly black-and-white, and assert that "NO homosexual-oriented person could possibly change their orientation ever" when I don't think it is at all that simple, nor that the evidence supports a strictly A-or-B viewpoint.
Nothing is truly black and white but there are definitely trends. If we're just having a coffee table discussion about this then I am open to talking about fluidic sexuality, but if it's a government policy discussion then you have to look at the trend which is that gay people tend to stay gay their entire lives (as with straight people), and should not be expected to change or conform to a social norm that isn't in line with who they are.
Intresting discussion, thank you.
Ditto.