“What is preferable in any responsible scholarship is objective, measureable or replicable studies from reputable sources.”
Since responsible scholarship in this field is not currently possible, good-faith observations of honest men who are sincerely seeking the truth are preferable to the tendentious junk science that now tries to pass for science.
“Science-based research at its best is not just a bunch of talking, it measures tiny things like galvanic skin response, heart rate or eye movement to stimuli such as photos of males or females in seductive poses, or it follows individuals for 30 years, the baseline for longitudinal studies of behavior.”
A bunch of talking? Talking may be the only way to discover some things—such as, every male who suffers from SSAD was traumatized by a homosexual seduction or molestation in the pre-adult years. I don’t think one can discover that from galvanic skin response.
“I would say that there was somewhat less chance of total politicization of results in this arena then.”
I guess one can quibble over the definition of the word “total,” but in my opinion it was at that time sufficiently corrupt for any purpose.
“But I did become aware at that time that the American Psychological Association in 1973 had removed its definition of homosexual behavior as a disorder due to political pressure”
I remember. I was a student member from 1971.
“So, yes, I’m well aware that the politicization of the issue affects both sides of the debate.”
Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote, “It is a wise man who said that there is no greater inequality than the equal treatment of unequals,” and that is just what you have done.
We human-type persons seem to like symmetry. We want a “sensible center,” with people becoming less sensible and increasingly extreme the further away from this “center” that they get, until you reach equally repulsive moonbat extremists on both sides.
In real life this symmetry does not exist. One side of the debate is striving for honesty, the other is trying to dupe people and get its way. The politicization is all—all—on the “sodomy is wonderful” side of the debate.
“The kind of study that I would point to would be the studies that were done on identical twins, only one of whom identified as gay, or longitudinal studies of individuals that showed a tapering off of homosexual activities in their 20s and 30s in a substantial number of men in the study sample who had earlier participated in those behaviors during adolescence.”
Those can yield useful information. Almost the only thing they tell us about causation is that it is not genetic. The twin studies should have included a *complete* sexual history of each twin, extending to the molestation or seduction of the twin who developed SSAD. The longitudinal studies are congruent with studies that show PTSD often (but not always) diminishing in severity as time passes.
“Just speaking from the surprising conclusions I drew when actually looking for the other conclusion, having believed at that time in the “born that way” approach.”
Yeah, the “born that way” approach just doesn’t hold water.
When the debate about gay marriage first started in the 70s-80s, defenders of traditional marriage seemed often confused about the difference between scientific studies and quotations from scripture. Although many, if not most Americans still believe to some degree in Christianity, it cannot be used to shame others into believing they are sinners and that this belief is enough to convince them to leave a life they may have been abused into in childhood. Religious belief is no longer sufficient as testimony in today's courts or in Congress. So the right wing was politicized to the extent that it still believed our judiciary would support the Christian culture that had informed our Founding documents and was often reflected in U.S. jurisprudence until the early 70s.
Since the late 40s, the "separation of church and state" issue has been a distortion of common sense as well as an abrogation of our Founding principles of Natural Law, but that's another thread. But to the extent that the left wing constantly waves it as a bloody shirt, the right wing's religious bombast about homosexuality has done nothing but hurt their own policy objectives. Characterized by the left as offering shame instead of love, the right's shocked repulsion from gay "pride" failed to arrest the snowballing of the "pride" movement. Prohibition didn't work with alcohol, and it hasn't worked on this issue, either.
The Brown v. Board of Education case (1954) was the first SCOTUS case to employ references to social science; in that case, studies of children affected by segregation. Kind of recent in the general scheme of things. And the right wing has been extremely slow to understand how to fight fire with like fire. Meantime, the left has moved beyond reputable stuies to just making statistics up or promoting piss-poor, tiny or utterly biased studies and arguing them forcefully, which our lefty district judges have been only too willing to let pass unexamined, as gospel.