Posted on 02/16/2005 3:15:22 PM PST by churchillbuff
The numbers of homosexuals compared to hetero is so small that they are nothing less than fringe elements using choice to be deviants
Your comments verbalized quite elegantly what I have always believed: homosexuality is a pathology with different causes. However, while I agree that it is probably an inborn condition -- brain damage or hormonal imbalance of some sort -- I wonder if this condition actually indicates someone's sexuality.
Someone may be born with traits associated with the opposite gender. But whether he or she actually becomes a professed homosexual later on may depend on the environment in which that person was raised. Here, the domineering mother/passive father part may come in.
I have met shy & sensitive heterosexuals, or tomboys who later married & had kids. I am inclined to think they grew up in a more nurturing or stable atmosphere. Couple someone with certain biological vulnerabilities and an abusive or chaotic envionment, you've got the ingredients for a hairdresser in the making.
There is, of course, the chicken or the egg question. Do bad genes/biological conditions make for chaotic family life? Or poverty? That is another problem.
It is a result of conditioning, especially between the ages of 3 and a half and eight years of age. What someone is unaware of can influence their conceptual models of the universe and their subsequent behaviour.
It's not necessarily, simply a gene. Sexuality most likely is a combination of biology -- probably more than one gene at that -- and environmental factors. I seriously doubt there is any single cause.
There are plenty of multi-gene traits in the human genome; however, we don't choose whcih ones will or will not be expressed or to what degree. You don't choose how curly your hair will be. You don't choose your skin tone. You do choose who you're going to have sex with and what their gender will be.
However, you don't choose who you are attracted to.
For that matter, natural curliness of hair is genetically determined. However, you can choose to have it straightened or permed. Or dyed, for that matter.
It's not biological -- it's psychological. It's just another fetish, like a foot fetish, but uglier and more dangerous.
Well s)aid. All behaviors, it can be fairly argued, are part of the "human condition" and therefore biologically programmed, to a certain extent. Murder, rape and arson are all behaviors that humans have exhibited since man has existed. And no, I am not equating homosexuality with any of these behaviors, only making the same point (although obviously not as eloquently and succinctly) as Right Wing Assault.
My response to the genetic homosexuality argument is "so what"? Others say it better, but no sense not repeating it.
You said: I believe they were born with a tendency to be gay. That's why so many of them became preists and nuns...they knew they were different...and believed God made them that way. I do not believe it's a CHoice. You are either attracted to the opposite sex or you're not....it is not a choice.
I agree, our tendencies and desires may not be a choice. I have the tendency, desire and inclination to fondle almost all attractive women I see, but restrain myself (and if I didn't my wife would). The fact that we have these tendencies as biological characteristics does not excuse them nor make them acceptable.
You choose how to react to attraction, but you don't choose to be attracted. So, if the right pheromones came off Moore or Thomas, I might well be attracted.... OTOH, I'd also have the brains to realize that it wouldn't work for other reasons....
All I am saying is that I believe many of them were born attracted to the same sex. I didn't mention my opinion of accepting it or excusing it. Although......I do not want them to be able to marry (religiously).
So, in other words, you could choose to have gay sex.
If you mean that as me, personally, except for a few very, very good drag queens, I've never been attracted to a man. And then, the attraction was that they looked like really good looking women. (BTW, I've never acted on such an attraction.)
If you mean do people, in general choose to have gay sex, except for rape, everyone who has sex makes a choice to do so. However, I do believe that at least some gay people cannot help being gay.
The question is, if two people of the same sex are attracted to each other -- something that they can't help -- should they be expected to resist acting on that attraction -- something that they can help?
But even that doesn't apply only to gays. I'm a married man, who believes in being faithful. Therefore, even if am attracted to a woman, I would not pursue having sex with her (unless, by some wild chance, my wife told me to).
Is homosexuality biological? Who the F cares?
Anne Heche was bi-sexual. Some of the greediest bastards on the planet.
If you want on/off the ping list see my profile page.
Celtjew Libertarian, you make some excellent points, and frankly I agree with you 100%.
I used to think of gays as total freaks until someone close to me tried to kill himself because he was gay. Nobody had any idea at the time, but looking back I recognize the signs were there. Anyway, unbeknownst to all of us he tried for many years through therapy and hormone treatments to change but for whatever reason - biological, hormonal, phsycological, metpahysical - he was gay and nothing could change that.
That's why I cringe when people say it's a "choice". Perhaps for some people it is, but I'm convinced that for many others it's not. Needless to say this whole incident challenged a lot of my views and things were downright awkward for a little while. Thankfully he's not one of those "in your face" types and he avoids too much physical contact with his boyfriend in public.
He's happy now and frankly, now that I've accepted it, so am I. We've been through so much crap together, and we were such good friends before he "came out" that it would have been a shame to loose all that just becuase I couldn't overcome my own prejudices.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.