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I guess I partly don’t understand it because I’m not using it as a behavioral label. My dictionary defines the word “homosexual,” when used as a noun, as “a person, especially a man, who is sexually attracted to people of the same sex.” It doesn’t say anything about behavior. This is the definition that I think is most accepted by scholars and non-scholars alike today.

Ok, let’s tackle this issue once more:

A man who marries more than one woman, is called a polygamist and suffers legal sanctions if caught. However, his merely being attracted to, and wanting to marry, more than one woman does not result in him being called a polygamist or suffering legal sanctions.

What do your dictionary, scholars and non-scholars say about this word?

A woman who sells her sexual favors is called a prostitute and suffers legal sanctions if caught (except in Nevada). However, if a woman merely wants to sell her body, but does not, she is not called a prostitute.

What do your dictionary, scholars and non-scholars say about this word?

Does polygamy involve sexual activity? Does prostitution? Is some one who merely feels like they wish to engage in these activities but doesn’t labeled with these words? Does homosexual behavior involve sexual activity? Why should someone who merely is attracted to the same sex but does nothing about be labeled such? In short, unless it is a psychosis, why is the term “homosexual” any different? Is the logic clear, yet?

No one except God can know what attractions a person feels absent some action. … what if the action you take is to tell others about it, or to date other people of the same sex?

Is a person called a thief who merely tells others that he or she is attracted to taking the property of others? Is a person who picks up some else’s property, looks at and replaces it called a thief? How about someone who picks up another person for a movie and drops them at their quarters? How about some one who says “you make me mad enough to kill you” and then slaps the object of his or her hatred but does no real damage. Is this person called a murderer merely because he or she says the activity was attractive?

Clearly, there is a difference between a young man who says “I have never been attracted to women, but I find men arousing,” and one who says “I have never been attracted to men, but I find women arousing.”

You are correct, there is a difference assuming they both are being truthful. This is a different dimension of the discussion. See below.

I think you recognize this, which may be why you didn’t respond to my inquiry about your sheep comment. You asked the question, and I responded. Do you agree that there’s a difference between someone who is aroused by sheep and someone who is aroused by women?

Yes there is a difference. However, let me point out that it was originally my question about whether there was a difference. My purpose in posing the question was draw a parallel between being “men being attracted to sheep” and “men being attracted to other men” (from your earlier question). Carrying the point just a bit further, most people would see being sexually attracted to a sheep (or any barnyard animal) as a psychosis. Now, do you see it?

Frankly, I fail to see the false dichotomy.

Your dichotomy presented to me was Would you distinguish between which one you’d want to marry your daughter. (Note: a dichotomy is, by definition, only two choices. A false dichotomy is where there are more than two choices despite the presentation of only two.) I answered that I would choose neither of the alternatives you presented, but a third option, on which you did not comment.

Most research shows that the vast majority of young men find women (and only women) attractive, while a small minority of young men find men (and only men) attractive, and that there’s not much in the middle. Sounds pretty much like a dichotomy to me.

Since there are only two sexes, choosing one is obviously a dichotomy. However, since you brought it up, let me put a few facts in the discussion:

Homosexual individuals are incapable of reproduction if they are exclusively homosexual. (If these individuals do not practice exclusively homosexual activity, then, by definition, they can choose not to be homosexual.)

By the principles of genetics, exclusively homosexual practitioners would appear in the population at no greater rate than that of genetic disorders that prevent their victims from procreating e.g., Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome. This rate is far lower than the currently observed/reported homosexual proportion of the population.

Therefore, we are back to homosexual behavior being a choice or a psychosis. Robbing banks is a behavioral choice and kleptomania is a psychosis. All behavioral choices have consequences. Rational people weight the consequences before engaging in the activity, psychotics do not.

I’m quite familiar with what a false dichotomy is. I just don’t think that I presented one. Are you familiar with the term “false analogy?” I appreciate your effort to argue by analogy, and it makes sense up to a point, but all analogies fall short eventually. I could just as easily argue using the analogy of an extrovert, who might be quiet as a mouse while sitting in a library or courtroom, but is no less of an extrovert there.

I would agree that there is a difference between one who has acted on homosexual inclinations and one who has had them but has not acted. However, both are homosexuals, and they are fundamentally different from heterosexuals. Not only science recognizes this, but the Vatican and the Army, as well. Clearly, the Catholic church finds it necessary to distinguish between “heterosexuals,” “active homosexuals,” and those “with deep-seated homosexual tendencies” (even if they’ve never had sex). Who is excluded in ordination and military service? Both of the latter categories, or (in other words) “homosexuals.” In fact, someone who has had a same sex encounter in the past is qualified for both military service and the priesthood, as long as he is not a “homosexual” (meaning, a member of either of the latter two categories).

Clearly this distinction is a meaningful one for the Church, for the military, and I daresay for the marital satisfaction of a spouse. I don’t think I presented a false dichotomy — I am fairly certain that you’d choose someone who is attracted to women, rather than men, if you were choosing a husband for your daughter. I believe that this is likely implicit in the answer you provided.

It’s very clear that homosexual orientation is not a choice, except perhaps in some very unusual circumstances. Homosexual behavior is most certainly a choice. As for whether orientation is a psychosis or not, that’s largely a semantic game. Your arguments about genetics notwithstanding, a genotype does not have to confer a reproductive advantage specific to its bearer in order to persist. Creative evolutionists have found ways to explain the persistence of homosexuality. However, whether it is genetic or not does not have any bearing on whether it is a psychosis. After all, there is very strong evidence that schizophrenia, which is widely recognized as a psychotic condition, is largely genetic.

By the principles of genetics, exclusively homosexual practitioners would appear in the population at no greater rate than that of genetic disorders that prevent their victims from procreating e.g., Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome. This rate is far lower than the currently observed/reported homosexual proportion of the population.

Not necessarily true. Suppose that a particular gene were to cause carriers, whether male or female, to be particularly strongly attracted to men. Such a gene might reduce the reproductive success rate of male carriers, but increase the success rate of female carriers. If the latter effect counterbalanced the former, the gene could be passed on indefinitely through generations. If the 'enhancement' effect of the gene on females was reduced at higher concentrations(*) it could achieve a stable concentration in society.

(*)The gene might make females compete more effectively for certain mates, but if too many females carried it they would crowd each other out, thus losing their advantage.