Posted on 03/04/2015 6:34:54 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Does prison sex prove that sexual orientation is a choice? Given that much of what constitutes “sex” in prison occurs under some sort of duress, using it as an example of “choice” seems like … a stretch, to say the least. Dr. Ben Carson, who just announced the formation of a presidential exploration committee, defended the traditional definition of marriage in an interview this morning with CNN’s Chris Cuomo by relying on that argument to differentiate same-sex marriage advocacy from the civil rights movement (via Twitchy):
Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and potential Republican presidential candidate, said Wednesday that “a lot of people who go into prison straight, and when they come out they’re gay.”
The remarks were made on CNN’s “New Day” in response to a question from host Chris Cuomo, who asked if Carson thought being gay was a “choice.”
“Absolutely,” Carson replied.
Asked why, he went on to explain his prison theory. “So did something happen while they were in there?” he said. “Ask yourself that question.”
Actually, please don’t. It’s entirely possible to defend the traditional definition of marriage and even the position that sexuality is a choice without citing prison sex as an indicator. Even some in the LGBT community see sexuality as a choice rather than innate, and the real answer probably lies somewhere in between — and individually, all over that range.
This is the kind of answer that makes it pretty clear that Carson’s winging it. There are plenty of ways to defend the traditional definition of marriage, perhaps especially as protection for children in procreative relationships, which is really the only real stake the state has in regulating interpersonal relationships between consenting and non-consanguinal adults anyway. Non-procreative relationships can acquire most if not all of the legal benefits of marriage through partnership contracts. The real free-market solution is to get government out of marriage altogether and let the churches define it for their congregants and have everyone rely on contracts, which government is actually suited to enforce.
This argument only serves as fodder for those who want to Akinize the whole Republican Party. If Dr. Carson wants to compete at the highest level, he’ll need to either learn the issues a lot better, or learn how to parry the obvious media attempts to make him look like a nut from the fringe. And don’t think for a moment that the media will refrain from painting all Republican presidential contenders as nuts for this, either. They will be looking for a distraction from Hillary Clinton’s meltdown, and this might do nicely for a cycle or two. Want to bet this comes up in a primary debate?
It's definitely up there. I've never understood why people thought this man was presidential material in the first place. It is the ultimate in arrogance for one to think their first attempt at elective politics should be the highest office in the land.
Dear Ed Morrisey, Dr Carson has a point. He was asked if homosexuality was a choice. Carson said ‘no’, and went on to explain that prisoners changed their behavior in line with their circumstances.
That said, I like Dr. Carson, but he’s not as high on my list as is Cruz, Sessions who are top tier. 2nd tier would be Pence, Walker, Perry, Rubio, Martinez. He’s about even with Rand Paul in the 3rd Tier. And ahead of Bush, Christie at the bottom of the ladder. I don’t believe either Palin or Trump about a candidacy.
At least some don’t leave hetero. I was watching some reality show involving prisons and their inmates, one man came right out and said as much, “I wasn’t gay before I came here, now I am”. He was back in jail for prostitution.
I think sexuality is far more complex than we understand. Your body doesn’t care how it orgasms, so you can probably learn to desire different practices. Many hetero’s have bizarre sexual fetishes that others find abhorrent.
I’ve also heard from gays about “turning” someone, of course they advocate they’re just getting somebody to embrace who they are but what if there’s more to it than that? We probably reinforce some desires early in life and assume “that’s how we are” but it may well be that this is learned behavior that isn’t necessarily fixed.
That said, even if true, I’m not sure Dr. Carson is ready to handle this. This kind of language is going to be a pile on, it’s a complete no-no to the left.
Sex does not equate “food”.....You can live without sex and many people have quite successfully. Today’s culture is saturated with sex (sexualizing even children as the Cultural Marxists intended (like Lukacs)-—and sexualized because of media 24/7 and physical laziness—no real life exercise needed in this ‘technological’ artificial world which disconnects all emotions from Reality and Truth/God (intentionally).
Behavior is learned and habituated. As Aristotle stated: Virtue is habit.
What people “desire” is a cultural construct —especially when unnatural.
Pederasty was always essential in homosexual cultures, like the Spartan and Samurai and today’s Afghani cultures-—because hate and dislike for women is learned and unnatural since a nurturing mother is the first humane contact a child has.
People who have warped desires were abused or neglected as young children. People who can do immoral deeds-—are immoral because they are not virtuous.
Habits are formed in childhood, and normal sexual identity formation is one which is not warped by peer rejection or by sex abuse or by neglect and emasculation by parents or culture.
Worldview is mainly formed by your environment and the attitude of parents and peers toward you, With attitudes of those around you (peer rejection) or the emasculation by not having a loving father or male role model will “normalize” any odd, unnatural “desire”. The sex drive is one of the strongest ones, so when that is warped, it will destroy all relationships and you will “see” others only with lust-—as a Means to an End. You are incapable of true Love, which is selfless always. It warps all relationships and destroys the ability to have true (same sex) friends. You can never become one with the same sex, so the void will always exist-—the meaninglessness of “life” will never cease.
Our culture since 1960 has been using operant conditioning in schools and on TV to normalize evil and vilify God/Truth/Good-—to destroy Individual Natural emotions and make sexual addicts out of our boys/girls who are dumb. Wisdom is being able to discern Good and Evil and with Classical Education destoyed, children have mush for brains. They understand none of the great ideas, philosophy, and the greatest religion-—no Christian apologetics—even in Catholic schools the curricula was destroyed in most “schools”-—for “group think” and sexual addiction-—so they have slave mentality and are easily controlled and manipulated for “happy slavery”.
Homosexual “desires” are sexism and narcissism and idolatry. It is a learned desire-—by sexualization of children which warps normal sexual identity formation. Innocence in children is a Virtue and virtue is destroyed by Sex Ed in the schools which normalize group sex and destroy the privacy and intimacy of the sex act-—reducing it to a doggy act with no meaning. Most TV does the same-—it desacralizes sex and destroys Virtue.
Without Virtue, there is no Freedom. (Socrates/The Founders).
The straight prisoners engaging in homosex while in prison then go back to finding their preferred female partners when they are released. Those who were homosexual to begin with keep seeking out male partners regardless of whether females are available or not.
The GOP needs to nominate plausible conservative in 2016 and you're not it.
Your first elective office isn't going to be POTUS and you know it. Your book-promotion novelty vanity candidacy is a useless distraction that has already worn thin. Take up another hobby.
Carson is Herman Cain minus the sexual harassment charges. Carson and Cain are only plausible candidates in the mind of some because there's a certain type of GOP voter who is so desperate to show how inclusive and non-racist they are that they'll grasp at any straw to nominate "minorities" to high office. You know as well as I do that nobody would have considered either Cain or Carson as viable candidates if they were whites with the same credentials. In other words, liberals aren't the only ones with an affirmative action problem.
By the same logic, lonely people have made the lifestyle choice of being into hands...
Choice involves having an option.
So you’re saying not all gays started out that way, some got sucked into it?
And once again, whether "gay is a choice" or not is completely irrelevant vis a vis "gay rights". Is necrophilia a choice? Say it's not, do we then let dudes marry dead bodies, no. At least not until necros get politically organized as well as the gays are.
Ben Carson is like a poor man's Herman Cain. He's not gonna be a major factor in the race. He's woefully under-qualified and under-prepared. A novice. If he had half a clue he wouldn't have sauntered down this ridiculous street. I agree with the article that he's "winging it". And have we forgotten his stance on guns?
I'd say he should take a look at the MD Senate race, but he'd lose.
He should be considered for HHS Secretary, that's about it. . And have we forgotten his stance on guns?
I think there might be a “chemical” abnormality, maybe even occurring in utero. I mean we all know “gays” that are gentle little creative people.
Clearly, it’s more complex than what I or Ben Carson may say, but whatever it might be the gay lobby has taken “medical science” off the case, and you have people like your son who have something inherent and those johnny come latelys that have something that is chosen.
” And have we forgotten his stance on guns? “
I sure haven’t forgotten.
Idiotic! But, I don’t expect much from him regarding politics. Someone needs to sit Mr. Carson down and ask that he advocate for a Constitutional Conservative that has been studing conservatism, our founding, political philosophy and that understands the meaning of liberty.
Mr. Carson is a brilliant man and deserves to be treated honorably and as an example for all of us. However, his lifetime of experience and considerable intellectual capacity has been used heroically in the medical field. When it comes to political thought, he is still an infant. I am sure that had he spent his life studying the subject, that he would be ready for primetime. As it stands, he is not.
Well, for most of the guys in prison, it kind of is something that they do to get some kind of pleasure in a gender segregated environment. I would say that sometimes the act is an obvious choice. But the attraction is a separate category altogether. However, the problem comes where I doubt their genes programmed them to be promiscuous or commit other risky behaviors. I am sure that some of them don’t need that many orgies or partners.
The guy’s a clown, period.
He makes the “Matlock” fans think they’re urban and hip.
Agreed.
I’d go one further. Premarital sex with multiple partners blurs the imprinting that one would normally have on a life’s partner, and makes it much more difficult to avoid being attracted to extramarital affairs.
I’m saying I think it’s possible and I’ve seen evidence for it, yes.
Many boys that are molested grow up to be gay. Many molest as adults. You’ll hear from the media that there’s a complete separation between child molesters and being gay, yet many molesters also identify as being gay.
There’s more complexity than we really understand, it’s just such a PC topic we’ll never have open and honest research.
If it is malleable then there must be ways to coerce oneself in either direction. That said, if you’ve embraced your entire identity as being gay it might be too difficult to change. Given the health statistics, if somebody CAN change it shouldn’t be discouraged. Having same sex attraction is one thing but embracing the promiscuous gay lifestyle is another, it’s like encouraging a drunk to drink more.
The whole problem with this matter is the fact that Ben Carson fell for a bait that the liberal media will personally air repeatedly to make sure any common person is just sick of seeing Carson.
Other than that, in the case of everything from teen sex to out of control promiscuous homosexual acts, I feel that the whole teens or homosexuals being programmed into the act is a rediculous idea and also one that is pretty dehumanizing as well, think about it, do you buy the idea that you should just give your kid birth control and medicine for STDs because they are just programmed genetic hormone zombies. I am one of those people who decided not to do that as a teen in the 1990s/early 2000s, in fact, I was a virgin until I was on the honeymoon at 27. It’s possible, and there is no problem encouraging kids to go that route. In fact, it might even offer a little optimism about the same for them to see a parent who managed to accomplish that. If not, that’s fine, I don’t hold it against anyone who didn’t but getting on to the whole genetically programmed behavior, that’s too much for me to buy. Attraction, possibly, but actual unconstrained behavior, that’s a stretch.
In the end, I do agree that it’s complicated.
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