Defeating Gay Arguments with Simple Logic

The problem here is that the researchers themselves are far from agreement on a definition of what a "homosexual" is.

The solution to that is picking one and sticking with it from data-collection to results-presentation.

If we limit the definition to non-incarcerated adults who are exclusively having sex with persons of the same gender, it would probably be about 1-2%.

See, there's an example of not sticking to a definition. From your essay, 1-2% is the number of people who admit to being "homosexual" on surveys. As a non-scientist, while I believe one can reasonably assume those who identified "homosexual" on the survey are exclusively homosexually-active, one cannot assume that everyone who is exclusively homosexually-active would or did respond such. (Please feel free to correct me if you have sources indicating that only 1-2% are exclusively homosexually-active.)

If we expand the definition to include anyone who has ever had sexual contact with, or felt a sexual interest in, another person of the same gender (including current and former prison inmates), it might go as high as 10%.

It's most certainly much higher, especially with a definition so broad. "The Janus Report", "The Kinsey Report", and "The Hite Report" all put it over 20% just for having a single "homosexual encounter", and that's just off the top of my head. (Aside: "homosexual encounter" is another term that would need to be defined to be meaningful -- would it require orgasm or just physical contact? Would kissing a cheek count, or would the situation have to be overtly sexual? What about two boys pleasuring themselves simultaneously to the same copy of Playboy?)

Whatever the definition, consistancy counts from beginning to end.

As a non-scientist, while I believe one can reasonably assume those who identified "homosexual" on the survey are exclusively homosexually-active, one cannot assume that everyone who is exclusively homosexually-active would or did respond such.

The circumstances and conditions of the surveys I have cited guaranteed the respondents' absolute privacy, and they seem reliable enough to me.

For example, a 1991 national survey of sexually active adults done by the National Opinion Research Center shows that 98.4% of adults were exclusively heterosexual. (Smith TW. "Adult Sexual Behavior in 1989." Family Planning Perspectives 1991, 23: 104.) A 1993 survey by the Battelle Human Affairs Research Centers found that only 1.1% of all Americans are exclusively homosexual. (Rensberger B. "How Many Men in US Are Gay?" Washington Post, April 17, 1993, p. A-1.)

A survey conducted by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in 1993 found that 1% of men consider themselves exclusively homosexual. (Barringer F. "Sex Survey of American Men Finds 1% Are Gay." New York Times, April 15, 1993, p. A-1.) And a 1994 National Health and Social Life Survey at the University of Chicago found that 2.8% of men and 1.4% of women identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual. (Vobejda B. "Survey Finds Most Adults Sexually Staid." Washington Post, October 7, 1994, p. A-1.)

A March 1994 article in the American Journal of Psychiatry cites several surveys of American men showing the prevalence of homosexuality. For example, the National Survey of Men found that only 1.1% of men had been exclusively homosexual during the preceding ten years. Another study found that 2.4% of men are currently homosexual. (Cited by Seidman SN & Rieder RO. "A Review of Sexual Behavior in the United States." American Journal of Psychiatry 1994, 151: 339.)

So the purpose was to get evenly matched homosexuals and heterosexuals, give them some standardized tests, and THEN see if professional clinicians could tell them apart. They couldn't. That was the whole point of the study... gays do not necessarily exhibit evidence of pathology. Whether or not sample participants were told how to act seems to be an empty allegation.

The purpose was to find the most "normal" group of homosexuals Hooker could find, and represent them as "typical." It was unnecessary to tell them how to act. By telling them that the purpose of the study was to determine whether homosexuals functioned normally in society, Hooker enabled anyone in the study group to skew the results if he believed homosexuality is normal.

Any mental health professional can confirm that mentally ill persons often conceal their symptoms and pretend to be perfectly normal. No one is more skilled at such pretending than a homosexual who was once in the closet.

The fact that homosexuals respond differently to that type of PROJECTIVE test is unsurprising, and is certainly not evidence of a pathology; but it does not provide the goal of presenting EQUIVALENT examples.

Oh, yes, it is indeed evidence of a pathology: obsession with sex, or sexual addiction.

That's debatable, especially in the case of Hooker. Landess certainly hasn't demonstrated Hooker's work to be "deeply flawed."

It is beyond debate. Hooker deliberately skewed the sample to present more "normal" homosexuals, then advised them of the purpose of the study, allowing them to modify their responses and skew the results even more.

Logical inconsistency. Kinsey was indeed a trained SCIENTIST, but you wish to invalidate him for expanding his scope.

It's clear that you wish to invalidate Landess for "expanding his scope." Remember, Landess wasn't conducting research. He was simply pointing out the methodological flaws and the bias in Hooker's research. As I said, that can be done by anyone who paid attention in a freshman biology class.

By the way, some sort of freshman-level lab science course is required to obtain a bachelor's degree at most universities. So it's perfectly reasonable to assume that Landess had at least that level of rudimentary training in the scientific method. It does not "bury my argument."

[Herek has ...] (PERTINENT credentials that Landess can only dream about.)

Cameron and Reisman have similar credentials. So does Socarides at NARTH. They all have very good credentials. Even Cameron, the "disgraced researcher" who resigned from the APA, is still a licensed mental health professional and therefore has better credentials than Kinsey, a zoologist. Cameron, Reisman and Socarides are all licensed psychiatrists and psychologists.

And yet you want to dismiss them with a wave of your hand.

If a "gay" site does it, it's a "bad" thing; but when a group that YOU like does it, you defend them to the hilt.

madg, I'm simply pointing out the deep and profound level of your own hypocrisy. You bleat, whine and squeal about the bias of such organizations as FRC. But you cite sources like Herek and QRD, which are equally biased.

FRC and other organizations that oppose the gay normalization agenda certainly have an agenda of their own. And they look for evidence that supports that agenda. There's plenty of it to be had.

So why don't you make this easy and just post the compelling, valid, and peer-reviewed evidence that supports your assertion of sexual orientation as a pathology? Go ahead... make your case.

I already did that. I again direct your attention to Posts #113-120 on this thread, where I posted an abundance of compelling, valid and peer-reviewed research, by the most renowned names in the mental health professions ... none of whom were named Cameron.

Bell & Weinberg's study indicated that the average gay man had over 100 sexual partners in his lifetime, a very large minority had over 500, and a significant minority had over 1,000. There are other studies confirming that gays are extremely promiscuous.

The result is that homosexuals are many times more likely to become infected with sexually transmitted diseases -- not only AIDS, but also hepatitis (even more contagious, equally incurable and equally fatal) and other diseases.

So we have a large fraction of the gay community that is disabled by incurable disease, another large fraction that suffers from depression or paranoia, another large fraction that is alcoholic or addicted to drugs ...

Do you think it's the same fraction of the gay community suffering from all of these dysfunctions? Of course not.

Homosexuality is a pathology, if for no other reason than that it makes other, more disabling pathologies more likely to occur. It's a great deal like AIDS in that respect. It's not the HIV virus that will kill the patient, but the other diseases that the virus will enable.

The circumstances and conditions of the surveys I have cited guaranteed the respondents' absolute privacy, and they seem reliable enough to me.

Of course you think so; you wouldn't be using them otherwise. To quote from your own essay: "Psychologist Abraham Maslow also observed that Kinsey’s work, like all sex surveys, had a high margin of 'volunteer' error because many people are not honest or willing to talk about their most intimate sexual secrets." (Emphasis mine. I tend to believe, and feel free to disagree, that such "intimate sexual secrets" are going to lie in the direction of societal unnacceptability.)

My own research, which isn't limited to sites of a certain... idealogical point-of-view... indicate a larger span of results.

For my part, I see no evidence that homosexual behavior is a pathology. What I know is that homosexual behavior is a SIN, and if you were brought up as a Roman Catholic you should know that too.

As people whose sexual behavior is uniquely homosexual are in a considerable minority, then the answer is simple if you are a Christian: you should resist your temptation to succumb to homosexual desires and if you can't bring yourself to have relations with the opposite sex then you should remain celibate and chaste.

This discussion of whether homosexuals are mentally ill or not is irrelevant. Those of us who, like Bryan, regard homosexual activity as sinful can only try to discourage it, especially among Christian folk, and try to make it unlawful throughout the United States.

Macro: the govt has no business outlawing what people do in their bedrooms (except the obviously immoral things like non-consential sex -especially by use of stupifying pharmaceuticals-, child sex, sex-4-sale, multi-wife and multi-husband, STD spreading glee/malice, cult brain washing sex and sexual harassment from those with 'office power' and 'casting couch' syndrome, snuff sex, ad nausem). Societal quality control is what -in the big picture- the govt does, okay? Get over it else you will go feral like the anarchists and libertarians. Mentally ill and/or criminal persons who endanger themselves and others must be 'restrained'.

Micro: your personal reliance on experts identifying or classifying sexual aberration percentiles and pronouncing opinions that do or do not agree with your personal prediliction is a feature of this era. Your vice was removed from the list of pathologies on a political basis but you fail to acknowledge it and ignore anything that is not orthodox gay propaganda. You say it was only a pathology by mistake and that this mistake was degrading to your fellow perversionists, so it had to be removed regardless. You want the other posters to prove why that pathology should be listed in the first place. The other 'non-faith' side of the posts asks why a patently unnatural and disturbed lifestyle was removed without any scientific study showing that it was not a pathology... you stay in your bedroom and chant 'I can't hear you'. You log off after reading the thread and continue your degrading and unnatural acts in the bedroom ignoring the world outside. You want God to be kept outside or put in the closet. You want Him to say 'I can't hear you, I can't see you'. Filibuster and froth at the mouth but you cannot change your DNA and you cannot silence your own conscience. Accept it. The APA can't, this thread can't, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance can't, the FRC can't, and I can't. Only you can deal with the deep down you.

Back to macro: I mentioned before that this type of thing is a feature, a mark, of our era. Others like you with all manner of other vices do precisely the same thing: collecting supportive articles and straws of hope. They are elated with a new report or new book this year because it validly and 'scientifically' vindicates their vice, they are disgusted and dismayed with an equally 'scientific' new report next year. We have seen it all over and over. And in the longview, these people need these secular crutches and screens to bolster their various depths of denial. Your posts sound typically confident and self-assured just as many with vices are... but God knows your inner need to be humble and at peace, and to dwell with Him: to be righteous. One day I pray that this is your choice. Your choice for now, to support -or even to personally indulge your vice- at bathouses or public toilets or exclusive west-hollywood private functions or quiet weekends with a 'partner' (of consential age) on your yacht or whatever is killing 'you' deep down. Please repent of it and go with God -and with life. Clean house!

Are you finally ready to acknowledge that you cannot demonstrate a universal diagnosis of pathology?

It's already been demonstrated. But I thought I might add the following — again, from Bell & Weinberg:

WHM = white homosexual male
BHM = black homosexual male
WHF = white homosexual female
BHF = black homosexual female

Number of Lifetime Sexual Partners (Table 7 p. 308):

	WHM	BHM	WHF	BHF
	(N=574)	(N=111)	(N=227)	(N=64)

1	0	0	3	5
2	0	0	9	5
3-4	1	2	15	14
5-9	2	4	31	30
10-14	3	5	16	9
15-24	3	6	10	16
25-49	8	6	8	11
50-99	9	18	5	8
100-249	15	15	1	2
250-499	17	11	1	2
500-999	15	14	0	0
1000+	28	19	0	0

Proportion of Lifetime Sexual Partners Who Were Strangers (p. 308):

	WHM	BHM	WHF	BHF
	(N=574)	(N=111)	(N=225)	(N=64)

None	1	5	62	56
Half or less	20	43	32	38
More than half	79	51	6	6

Proportion of Lifetime Sexual Partners For Whom Respondent Had Some Affection (p. 309):

	WHM	BHM	WHF	BHF
	(N=573)	(N=111)	(N=226)	(N=64)

None	2	2	1	3
Half or less	71	66	18	36
More than half	27	32	81	61

Proportion of Lifetime Sexual Partners With Whom Respondent Had Sex Only Once (p. 309):

	WHM	BHM	WHF	BHF
	(N=572)	(N=111)	(N=225)	(N=64)

None	1	4	38	41
Half or less	29	59	51	55
More than half	70	38	12	5

Now let me put that into perspective. Of the white male homosexuals who responded to the survey, 91% had 25 or more lifetime sexual partners, 75% had 100 or more, and 28% had 1000 or more; 70% said that more than half of their sexual partners were one-night stands; 79% said that more than half of their sexual partners were complete strangers; and 73% said that they had some affection for less than half of their sexual partners.

The figures for black homosexual males weren't very different. By anyone's standards, that is extremely promiscuous behavior. It supports a universal diagnosis of pathology, at least among homosexual males.

Regarding your allegation that the Bell & Weinberg sample wasn't representative, you quoted from the book's introduction (p.22) — but just before the portion you quoted, Bell & Weinberg said the following concerning a comparison between work by Gebhard & Johnson, using the Kinsey data, and the work by Bell & Weinberg:

"Such comparisons allow the reader to determine how similar our respondents are to homosexuals investigated elsewhere and also to get some idea of what homosexual adults, at least those willing to be interviewed in studies of this kind, typically report about various features of their homosexuality." (p. 22.)

And after the portion you quoted came the following:

"Rather, what we want to demonstrate is the relationship between homosexuals sexual life-styles and their sociological and psychological adjustment."(p. 22.)

It's clear that the portion you quoted was chopped out of context in an effort to discredit Bell & Weinberg's very valuable research.

There is a substantial section devoted to an explanation of how Bell & Weinberg recruited their survey pool (pp 30-35). You claimed they only looked for survey respondents in gay bars and bathhouses. The overwhelming majority of their respondents were recruited from gay rights organizations and from gay mailing lists.

The large pool of potential respondents from each type of source (gay bar, gay rights organization, etc.) was then narrowed down by random selection to roughly one-third of its original number.

"In an attempt to obtain as much diversity as possible, we spent a great deal of time and expense in accumulating as many potential respondents as we could ... In the effort to minimize sample error, we hoped to recruit many more prospective respondents than we would interview ... and then to select our respondents on a random basis." (p.33.)

It appears to me that Bell & Weinberg went to great lengths to "minimize sample error" and that to a very great extent, those efforts were successful.

A big Scott Lively BUMPEROO! For victory & freedom!!!

Actually, I quoted from page 22.

There's no "discrediting" of Bell & Weinberg required. No matter how random the sample of respondents in 1970s San Francisco is, the fact remains that they are in 1970s San Francisco. Ignoring any changes in the activities of the homosexual population in the 20+ years of AIDS, the fact further remains that there is no statistician or researcher worth his salt that would claim that a single-city survey is in any way representative of anything other than that city. Bell & Weinberg acknowledged that, even if you don't.

As I said, Bell & Weinberg went to great lengths to get a representative sample. And it's my opinion that to a very large extent, they succeeded. Many of their statistics are a close match with statistics produced by other studies.

For example, their survey revealed that 25% of white male homosexuals in the survey sample had sex with boys 15 years of age or younger, while they themselves were aged 18 or older. An identical question posed to one of the many Kinsey survey samples (and one of the few confirmed by Gebhard & Johnson to be methodologically sound) produced a figure of 26.5% -- very, very close.

The research results I've posted on this thread run from the 1940s to 2001. They consistently show that throughout the period, homosexuals have displayed a disproportionately high level of several different pathologies, most notably promiscuity and sexual contacts with children.

Bryan’s “take the exceptions and make them the norm” isn’t good enough ...

When 91% of white male homosexuals have had 25 or more sexual partners, and 75% have had 100 or more, promiscuity isn't the exception. It's the norm.

There are several other pathologies commonly exhibited by a very large minority of homosexuals. Some overlap between these minorities is to be expected. There will be some homosexuals, for example, who have sex with minors and also exhibit signs of depression or anxiety. There will be some who commit domestic violence and are also alcoholics.

Nevertheless, even though some homosexuals exhibit more than one pathology, others will exhibit just one. And this means that some will only exhibit the pathology of drug addiction; others will only exhibit depression or anxiety; and so forth, gradually chipping away at the population of homosexuals that you so desperately want to identify as "normal."

How many will be left when all this chipping away is done? What proportion of the gay and bisexual community is completely free from other pathologies? Five percent? Ten? Two?

Or none at all?

(You're right, madg: I should have pinged Bryan.)

Well, what I said about there being no evidence of a pathology applies to the orientation I guess, and the behavior itself would therefore not be pathological. I also see no reason to fall back on the notion of mental illness - rather than, simply, sin, or wrongdoing - in order to criticize homosexual behavior.

Of course, my own emphasis is on behavior, rather than orientation, because as a Christian I can accept that many people have strong temptations to do sinful things, but those people are not bad in themselves provided they resist such temptations. Which of us is perfect? All of us are tempted at times to perform actions that are illegal or immoral or sinful in the eyes of God. And many of us succumb to temptation. Which of us has not succumbed to the temptation to inflict hurt - physical or emotional - on a fellow human being? In this I count myself a sinner. All I can do is strive to be a better person and to try to listen more often to God's voice.

How could I forget that you were brought up a Christian? This is fundamental to your life, and you have known God, and maybe you still know God, but do you truly listen to Him?

Of course I regard "okay with gay sex" and "I am a Christian" as incompatible statements. Unlike Bryan, I do not doubt that many homosexual relationships can be loving and monogamous. Just because I condemn the behavior as a sin does not mean that I believe all those who succumb are in themselves malevolent or predatory - although obviously there are many homosexuals who are, as there are heterosexuals who are malevolent and predatory.

I reckon that the notion of homosexual orientation as a mental illness is a red herring. Although I am sure that Bryan and others who take the pathology line are sincere in believing this to be the case, I think it is good if people can honestly admit that they cannot accept homosexuality because they believe it to be entirely wrong as a behavior. The labelling of certain behaviors as the product of mental illness seems to me an easy way out.

As for legislation, well, laws are based on what society views as moral or immoral behavior, and that means that certain actions - theft, murder, etc. - are proscribed. No one is suggesting that those committing homosexual acts should be sent to death row. But what people do in their personal lives, if it involves OTHER people, is very much the business of society as a whole and therefore government and the law. What is not my business is what thoughts or desires are inside of your head or your body, but how you deal with those thoughts and desires is a matter for society. It is the ACTIONS that matter, not the thoughts that precede it.

Many people struggle against homosexual inclinations, and I think that those who have successfully fought against these should try gently to guide those less fortunate into a Christian way of life, and give advice on how to deal with the problem. It does not help to label a sinner as mentally ill.