Posted on 04/20/2015 5:01:58 PM PDT by xzins
“I don’t believe that your sexual preferences are a choice for a vast and enormous majority of the people. The bottom line is I believe that sexual preference is something people are born with.” ~ Sen. Marco Rubio, April 19, 2015
Marco Rubio has become the latest GOP presidential candidate to stumble badly over the issue of homosexuality. Sen. Rand Paul hurt himself by saying that gay “marriage” is okay, as long as it’s a matter of private contract, a view which will satisfy no one.
Dr. Ben Carson hurt himself by asserting that people do change their sexual orientation (correctly using prison as an example) and then retreating under fire and promising never to talk about homosexuality again.
Sen. Rubio is now the victim of a self-inflicted wound, by saying something that is politically correct but scientifically, medically and genetically wrong. Our public policy on homosexuality should be based on the best in scientific research, and Sen. Rubio’s position isn’t.
As I have written before, it’s time to send the “born that way” myth to the graveyard of misbegotten ideas, buried in the plot next to the myth that the sun revolves around the earth.
Psychiatrists William Byne and Bruce Parsons wrote in Archives of General Psychiatry (March 1993) that, “Critical review shows the evidence favoring a biologic theory to be lacking … In fact, the current trend may be to underrate the explanatory power of extant psychosocial models.” In other words, nurture plays a greater role in sexual preference than homosexual activists want you to believe.
As Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council points out, rigorous studies of identical twins have now made it impossible to argue seriously for the theory of genetic determination. If homosexuality were fixed at birth, as the misguided thinking of homosexual activists goes, then if one twin is homosexual, the other should be as well. The “concordance rate” should be 100%.
But it’s not. One early proponent of the “born that way” thesis, Michael Bailey, conducted a study on a large sample of Australian twins and discovered to his chagrin that the concordance rate was just 11%.
Peter Bearman and Hannah Bruckner, researchers from Columbia and Yale respectively, looked at data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and found concordance rates of just 6.7% for male and 5.3% for female identical twins.
They determined that social environment was of far greater significance, and their research led them to reject “genetic influence independent of social context” as an explanation for homosexuality. They concluded, “..[O]ur results support the hypothesis that less gendered socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent same-sex romantic preferences.” In other words, post-birth experiences shape sexual orientation, not genes.
Bearman’s and Bruckner’s research is born out by no less than eight major studies of identical twins in the U.S., Scandinavia and Australia over the last two decades. They all arrive at the same conclusion: gays aren’t born that way.
As Sprigg observes, “If it was not clear in the 1990’s, it certainly is now -- no one is ‘born gay.’”
Strikingly, honest homosexuals agree. In an astonishing column published in the winger-left publication, “The Atlantic,” openly “queer woman” (her words) Lindsay Miller says flatly, “In direct opposition to both the mainstream gay movement and Lady Gaga, I would like to state for the record that I was not born this way.”
Tellingly, she argues that saying people are “born this way” is a form of condescension, and she resents it mightily. “I get frustrated with the veiled condescension of straight people who believe that queers ‘can’t help it,’ and thus should be treated with tolerance and pity.”
Ms. Miller concludes her piece by saying, “The life I have now is not something I ended up with because I had no other options. Make no mistake -- it’s a life I chose.”
The implications, of course, of this simple truth are far-reaching. If homosexual behavior is a choice, then our public policy can freely be shaped by an honest look at whether this behavioral choice is healthy and should be encouraged or unhealthy and dangerous and consequently discouraged.
The elevated health risks associated with homosexuality are by now so well established that not even homosexuals pretend otherwise. The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association warns that active homosexuals are at elevated risks of HIV/AIDS, substance and alcohol abuse, depression and anxiety, hepatitis, a whole range of STDs such as syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, pubic lice, Human Papilloma Virus, and anal papilloma, and prostate, testicular and colon cancer.
Bottom line: this is not behavior that any rational society should condone, endorse, subsidize, reward, promote or sanction in domestic policy or in the marketplace. It’s a choice, and a bad one at that. It’s long past time for our culture - and our presidential candidates - to say a simple and direct “No” to homosexuality and the homosexual agenda.
Social conservatives need and deserve a candidate who will base his social policy agenda on genetics, science, biology, the best in health research, and on biblical morality. Sen. Rubio has failed that test.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
The better study would have been to examine the lives of twins who had been separated before 12 or 13. (There are such studies, but not for homosexuality).
I'll have to poke around to find the original article I saw this in.
Good point.
Others have made some good points about the idea that even in similar circumstances kids don’t get the same experience. I’m somewhat sympathetic to that concept as well.
that is very rich of Rubio since his state does not outlaw sex with animals...
Xzins! I’m still alive - still checking FR pretty often, usually every day now. I am not keeping up so much with homonazi agenda stuff, got lots on my plate. I do not have any links handy, but will look through my (crazily disorganized) files and see what surfaces. Any figures I have will not be super up to date. The % I remember are basically one third of all child molestation is same sex. It might be higher by now; but also a lot of it goes unreported, especially male on boy, and if the boys are adolescents, they often do not report out of shame.
If I find anything, I’ll get back to you.
I hope all is well with you and yours.
That's curious. Are you suggesting that identical twins somehow receive different hormonal signals? It seems unlikely to me.
It wasn't until I was thirty that I finally recalled being molested at the age of four. I have since confirmed who the perp was and have also established that I was not his only victim. So I would question the conclusion in that the first number might actually be higher.
You are assuming they are always together and/or that the home environment alone is determinative. I would argue against both. It is very common for public schools to break up twins. They thus end up with different friends, go to different parties, etc.
ONE experience of sexual assault as a small child is sufficient to cause sexual identity confusion. The key is to realize that pheromones evoke powerful neurotransmitters that lock that behavior into a loop that gets reactivated at every appropriate stimulus, which can be as "innocuous" as a TV commercial. Stimulate the signal, mylenate the nerve axa and voila, a habitual behavior.
You are forgetting about epigenetics. It is provable that environmental factors can induce heritable traits transmitted via messenger RNA. Now recall that G_d punishes bad behavior to the fourth generation.
Actually, "essentialism" is a Trojan horse cobbled up by Lambda Legal, a homosexual law association.
It was built for consumption by the Supreme Court as a parallel to racial consciousness as the Court understood it in the 60's. The argument is that homosexuality, like race, is innate and inborn, and that therefore homosexuals are unfairly made a suspect class (as opposed to counterfeiters and pickpockets, who are fairly so regarded).
This war on the majority will, if not cured, controvert the American idea of majority rule and the American necessity of a well-defined public morality and public virtues to continue as a free society.
I think you are describing instead the worldview (or lack of one) of a bisexual man, who will screw just about anything in sight.
Most homosexual men are traduced and seduced young, by older homosexual men (the 25% or so who voraciously and viciously pursue teens and preteens), and about 1/3 are the "essential" gays some people are commenting about, who are lacking in masculinity possibly because of influences in utero (youngest sons of older women, that kind of thing).
Gay women are almost all head cases, as best I can make out; many psychologists believe it, too, despite 40 years of unremitting propaganda put out by the gay orgs embedded in the big APA's. [Of which there are three: Psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy.]
At any rate the idea that at some point in their lives people, who supposedly naturally are attracted to people of the opposite sex, would decide that "hey, let me try that homosexual thing and maybe wreck my marriage and/or ruin my career" is ridiculous. The idea that switching/choosing between heterosexuality and homosexuality is like choosing different beverages or snacks is ludicrous.
Before the modern era many homosexuals lived in literal fear of physical harm and possible loss of their jobs if exposed. Why would you choose to be one if the costs were so dear? Especially if you looked like Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, or many other Hollyweird objects of female adoration. Why risk it all for a same-sex fling or relationship when you could plow your way through a universe of pretty and willing females?
The only logical thing to conclude is homosexuals are naturally attracted to people of their own sex. Hormonal abnormality is the only thing that sounds semi-logical to me.
Exactly.
Elsewhere I cited a shrink who said that in 20 years of practice ALL of his homosexual patients had been molested.
My conclusion from all sources is that the number is north of 80%.
I agree that it obviously is the idea of the so-called 'bisexual'. Overtly.
But, it is true of homosexuals as well, and all MSM and WSW. They have been provided sexual outlets that will be repeated and some consistently repeated. A male stuck in pre-adolescence where girls are scary and rejection is the worst thing possible, all the way to those who are titillated by some form of 'rebellion' or 'domination' or 'sublimation'.
And females, the same, with their sometimes bizarre rejection of males, but then seeking a dike relationship of 'male'/'female'. Totally weird. Strap-ons, artificial insemination, 3rd party insemination....all of which testifies to this being in the realm of accepted outlets.
This is your first fallacy of several. Schools are known to prefer breaking up twins, for lots of reasons. First, the teachers don’t want camaraderie directed to adverse purposes. Second, the state will do anything to break down families, for reasons I will address later. So they have different friends, go to different parties, encounter different adults... It happens.
At any rate the idea that at some point in their lives people, who supposedly naturally are attracted to people of the opposite sex, would decide that "hey, let me try that homosexual thing and maybe wreck my marriage and/or ruin my career" is ridiculous.
There are lots of reasons for sexual expression. If a person has been sexually violated, especially as a child, there is a marked predisposition to express sexually the responses associated with the event: shock, anger, dependency and either compensatory dominance or habitual submission associated with having been subjected to such a powerful imprint. Said imprint is physical, it is stored as responses that generate a positive feedback loop of neurotransmitters that themselves modify cellular expression. In short, being raped changes a person for life, generating consequences that are heritable. That these are “natural” does not make them either beneficial or tolerable should they be consequently visited upon others.
The idea that switching/choosing between heterosexuality and homosexuality is like choosing different beverages or snacks is ludicrous.
Sexual expression is indeed compelling. People express all sorts of compulsions. That does not make them tolerable. Let’s try an example: A child witnesses the rape and murder of his mother. He starts beating up his friends out of anger. It gives him a thrill. That thrill becomes habituated, and as he grows, it turns him into a homicidal maniac. That does not make his compulsions socially acceptable. How does a society preclude expression of that compulsion? Treatment and the threat of punishment should he submit to his compulsions. One would rationally expect that threat to be serious, else why seek treatment when the compulsion is at least psychologically justified?
Your argument is effectively that homosexual expression is not sufficiently damaging that we should allow it. Yet its consequences are visited upon others for generations, particularly if they were children at the time. Nor is it isolated to the individual, because the crime affects anyone the victim encounters differing only by degree.
Before the modern era many homosexuals lived in literal fear of physical harm and possible loss of their jobs if exposed.
So what?
Why would you choose to be one if the costs were so dear? Especially if you looked like Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, or many other Hollyweird objects of female adoration. Why risk it all for a same-sex fling or relationship when you could plow your way through a universe of pretty and willing females?
Because compulsions locked into chemical loops are powerful instigators of destructive behavior.
The only logical thing to conclude is homosexuals are naturally attracted to people of their own sex. Hormonal abnormality is the only thing that sounds semi-logical to me.
No, none of what you have argued makes homosexuality “natural.” It may be a natural response to an act propitiated upon a child, but that does not make it inherent.
OK, that’s Part I of my response. Here comes Part II: Why is homosexuality such a destructive behavior that prohibiting it in law might be considered necessary?
First of all, sexual expression is a powerful compulsion. Genesis 6 teaches how even G_d’s angels couldn’t restrain themselves from responding to the temptation of all those horny women. There is no doubt that people are hard wired to produce hormonal and physical responses to visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile inputs accordingly with lots of cognitive feedbacks that amplify those responses that themselves become inputs (else why would anyone masturbate?).
Those compulsions compete with commercial, intellectual, social, and educational inputs. They make cooperation with a person more difficult. Lack of cooperation increases conflict. Conflict requires resolution. Enforcing settlements requires authority backed by physical power sufficient to override those sexual compulsions. The more sexually crazed a society becomes, the more conflict results, and the more centralized power becomes necessary to maintain order. This is why socialists seek to destroy self government via promoting sexualized children.
Sexualized people do not focus well on work. They have conflicts and traumas that require remedial education, counseling, “conflict resolution,” policing, adjudication, prison guards, parole officers, welfare case workers… i.e., they “make jobs” for unionized Democrat thugs. Thus they concentrate power. The more power becomes concentrated, the more easily one can sell favors to the highest bidder, the more the bidders control the government for their own ends and at the expense of everybody else. This means you.
Now perhaps you can understand why it was the Rockefeller Foundation that funded and promoted Alfred Kinsey’s “research” (he was in fact a sadomasochistic homosexual pedophile) and his ideological heirs that are still calling the shots on “sex education” in public schools to this day. This is the source of your ethic. Sexual expression outside one’s spouse is destructive to liberty. That is why it is prohibited in the Bible. The Biblical system required no government, no police, no army, no social welfare system, just teachers and judges. Got it now? OK, so we’re ready for Part III!
What do we do from here? In my humble opinion, it is the enforced uniformity from the Federal government that is the problem here. Were the States free to define their own moral laws, we would soon find out by natural law competition whether homosexual conduct leads to destruction. We would soon find out whether the isolation resulting from rigid criminalization of sexual depravity results in a happier more prosperous society. Federalism is the answer. After all, there is a big difference between taxes and the condition of roads in Utah versus California.
Sorry GLarry, I meant to include you among the victims of the response above. :-)
This is your first fallacy of several. Schools are known to prefer breaking up twins, for lots of reasons. First, the teachers don’t want camaraderie directed to adverse purposes. Second, the state will do anything to break down families, for reasons I will address later. So they have different friends, go to different parties, encounter different adults... It happens.
At any rate the idea that at some point in their lives people, who supposedly naturally are attracted to people of the opposite sex, would decide that "hey, let me try that homosexual thing and maybe wreck my marriage and/or ruin my career" is ridiculous.
There are lots of reasons for sexual expression. If a person has been sexually violated, especially as a child, there is a marked predisposition to express sexually the responses associated with the event: shock, anger, dependency and either compensatory dominance or habitual submission associated with having been subjected to such a powerful imprint. Said imprint is physical, it is stored as responses that generate a positive feedback loop of neurotransmitters that themselves modify cellular expression. In short, being raped changes a person for life, generating consequences that are heritable. That these are “natural” does not make them either beneficial or tolerable should they be consequently visited upon others.
The idea that switching/choosing between heterosexuality and homosexuality is like choosing different beverages or snacks is ludicrous.
Sexual expression is indeed compelling. People express all sorts of compulsions. That does not make them tolerable. Let’s try an example: A child witnesses the rape and murder of his mother. He starts beating up his friends out of anger. It gives him a thrill. That thrill becomes habituated, and as he grows, it turns him into a homicidal maniac. That does not make his compulsions socially acceptable. How does a society preclude expression of that compulsion? Treatment and the threat of punishment should he submit to his compulsions. One would rationally expect that threat to be serious, else why seek treatment when the compulsion is at least psychologically justified?
Your argument is effectively that homosexual expression is not sufficiently damaging that we should allow it. Yet its consequences are visited upon others for generations, particularly if they were children at the time. Nor is it isolated to the individual, because the crime affects anyone the victim encounters differing only by degree.
Before the modern era many homosexuals lived in literal fear of physical harm and possible loss of their jobs if exposed.
So what?
Why would you choose to be one if the costs were so dear? Especially if you looked like Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, or many other Hollyweird objects of female adoration. Why risk it all for a same-sex fling or relationship when you could plow your way through a universe of pretty and willing females?
Because compulsions locked into chemical loops are powerful instigators of destructive behavior.
The only logical thing to conclude is homosexuals are naturally attracted to people of their own sex. Hormonal abnormality is the only thing that sounds semi-logical to me.
No, none of what you have argued makes homosexuality “natural.” It may be a natural response to an act propitiated upon a child, but that does not make it inherent.
OK, that’s Part I of my response. Here comes Part II: Why is homosexuality such a destructive behavior that prohibiting it in law might be considered necessary?
First of all, sexual expression is a powerful compulsion. Genesis 6 teaches how even G_d’s angels couldn’t restrain themselves from responding to the temptation of all those horny women. There is no doubt that people are hard wired to produce hormonal and physical responses to visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile inputs accordingly with lots of cognitive feedbacks that amplify those responses that themselves become inputs (else why would anyone masturbate?).
Those compulsions compete with commercial, intellectual, social, and educational inputs. They make cooperation with a person more difficult. Lack of cooperation increases conflict. Conflict requires resolution. Enforcing settlements requires authority backed by physical power sufficient to override those sexual compulsions. The more sexually crazed a society becomes, the more conflict results, and the more centralized power becomes necessary to maintain order. This is why socialists seek to destroy self government via promoting sexualized children.
Sexualized people do not focus well on work. They have conflicts and traumas that require remedial education, counseling, “conflict resolution,” policing, adjudication, prison guards, parole officers, welfare case workers… i.e., they “make jobs” for unionized Democrat thugs. Thus they concentrate power. The more power becomes concentrated, the more easily one can sell favors to the highest bidder, the more the bidders control the government for their own ends and at the expense of everybody else. This means you.
Now perhaps you can understand why it was the Rockefeller Foundation that funded and promoted Alfred Kinsey’s “research” (he was in fact a sadomasochistic homosexual pedophile) and his ideological heirs that are still calling the shots on “sex education” in public schools to this day. This is the source of your ethic. Sexual expression outside one’s spouse is destructive to liberty. That is why it is prohibited in the Bible. The Biblical system required no government, no police, no army, no social welfare system, just teachers and judges. Got it now? OK, so we’re ready for Part III!
What do we do from here? In my humble opinion, it is the enforced uniformity from the Federal government that is the problem here. Were the States free to define their own moral laws, we would soon find out by natural law competition whether homosexual conduct leads to destruction. We would soon find out whether the isolation resulting from rigid criminalization of sexual depravity results in a happier more prosperous society. Federalism is the answer. After all, there is a big difference between taxes and the condition of roads in Utah versus California.
Interesting comments. Certainly food for thought.
I have been a rather tolerant person when it comes to homosexuals. I am giving this more thought.
There are some serious issues existing beneath the surface of this movement, and yes it is a movement. It does seek to attract ‘followers’ and new recruits. There’s just no denying it.
The part of the movement directed at our kids, it’s something that reveals the whole uncivilized body of the homosexual movement for what it truly is.
Kids and what happens to them seems to be too integral to overlook. Are kids born that way, or are they co-opted (corrupted) that way?
Sorry, you can believe what you want, but all evidence points to homosexuality being natural. Like pyromania, that doesn't make it normal. But there's rarely any choice involved.
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