I am equally baffled by the idea of being born into homosexuality; my fear is that we will eventually be trying to convince people that terrorism is also a born trait, and that we need to open are minds to the idea, embrace these people, and accept them as part of society! Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?! But its not unimaginable at this point...I have found myself not suprised by anything the liberals do, or CHOOSE to support these days.
I am of the belief that liberals do not want God, and Christianity around because that would mean that they would have to accept the idea of wrong doing, and sin, and that is not somthing they are willing to do; accepting responsibility for their actions is not a trait of a liberal. I was reminded of this hypocrisy during the resent Larry Craig fiasco when republicans were accused by the left of being hypocrites because we allegedly had a GAY person in our party; I thought they were ok with gays, ok sorry another topic all together. What struck me as odd was that the republican party immediately dealth with the problem, and demanded Craig's resignation, as well as the last politican who had been caught sending pornography to teenagers. What they failed to see was that their elected president took part in a extramarital affair, IN the white house, lied to all of us, and they did what???? they embraced him, told us to mind our own business ect, drinking and driving, illegal land deals, congressional scandals, ect. you name it. I do have a point, sorry for the rant. My opinion is that much of these issues are derived from the liberal refusal to take responsibility for their actions. Think about it, many of these ideas have spiraled out of control as a result of our societys tolerance for blaming someone, or somthing else. To believe that homosexuality is a result of psychological abnormalties, and conditioning from outside influences would mean someone would be responsible.

God Help Us!

I am equally baffled by the idea of being born into homosexuality...

Actually, I should probably clarify: I have no problem (other than scientific) with the idea that people might be born with a predisposition towards, say, homosexual attractions (or sexual malleability), just as people are born with a predisposition towards, say, alcoholism, or toward being an educator or composer (think of the Bach family of Germany), etc.

Women with high testosterone levels (a genetically-influenced component) are more likely to have sexual partners of both genders, for example. That's partially a heritable trait.

But there's a vast gulf between one's attractions and one's actions. I might have been born with a high libido and find myself married to a wife with less desire (as many men are) -- but that doesn't mean I'm destined to cheat. I still get to make decisions.

And there's an even larger gulf from that discussion to questions about gay marriage, which is a question of social policy.

As it is, I think homosexuality arises from a large number of different factors and circumstances, though I don't think it's genetic, and certainly no sexual behavior is beyond our will.

(I also find it odd to claim that sexual "orientation" is unchosen, but gender is freely changeable. That's hilarious.)

Larry Craig fiasco when republicans were accused by the left of being hypocrites because we allegedly had a GAY person in our party...

Yes, it's rather amusing to hear that Chris Matthews (I think it was) called Larry Craig a "deviant". I thought that was all supposed to be okay now. ;-)

What struck me as odd was that the republican party immediately dealth with the problem, and demanded Craig's resignation...

Yes, a big difference in the way the parties react. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R) is caught taking bribes, and he's ejected. William Jefferson (D), same thing, and Democrats close ranks around him and try to protect him.

What was amusing this time was watching the media switch from "The Republicans are putting up with this pervert!" to "See how intolerant Republicans are of gay men like Craig?"

It amazes me the American people take them seriously anymore. I'm hoping someday we'll finally wise up and notice these gyrations, but it doesn't seem to be happening.

There has never been a special debate event for, say, blacks, or Christians, or Jews, or left-handed people, but Democrats felt that this 3% of the population was apparently more important that all those other special interest groups.

I fail to see what's wrong with holding a debate on this topic, especially if it's a real debate.

Ryan,

Thanks for commenting here. I was especially hoping you would, on this particular topic, as I appreciate your perspective.

I fail to see what's wrong with holding a debate on this topic, especially if it's a real debate.

I don't think there is a problem with holding special-interest-specific debates. I'd be just fine if the Republicans held a debate for the insurance industry, or married nuclear families.

The reason I mention this is to illustrate how much influence and importance the GLBT political agenda (distinct from the desires of GLBT individuals, just as Jesse Jackson doesn't represent all blacks) has with the Democratic party -- in contradiction to the usual disclaimers.

But it seems so trivial to find debates centered on topics of concern to Christians or Jews or Blacks that I'm sure I've somehow misunderstood your claim...

You have (mea culpa for the unclarity!): I was talking about President Political debates -- not academic or religious debates, which occur frequently, as you say, on a wide range of topics.

So you have the lincoln douglass debate in Freeport Illinois. That seems to fit, to pick something famous. No?

No. The fate of the union and the status of slavery in new states (the primary topic of said debates) was of general interest. And the debates were done for the public, not at the request of a narrow set of special interests, with questions focused only around their desired policies.

I'm sure you have other criteria that I've just failed to grasp.

Incorrect again: I had another criteria *I* failed to communicate, when it would have been quite easy to do so. You have no fault at all here for that and are wrong (but characteristically polite) for implying so.

I'm not for schools doing anything more in regard to gay rights than curbing some of the intolerance and violence which exists in many schools...

I agree: Queer-bashing or -baiting is utterly unacceptable. (As is fat-bashing, geek-bashing, etc.)

Maybe voucher programs would allow more choice?

Perhaps. I hate to be anti-utopian, but I'm afraid scapegoating *is* a behavior intrinsic to our species. If it's not gays, it'll be Muslims or Jews. If it's not Muslims or Jews, it'll be non-gang members. If it's not non-gang-members, it'll be smart kids, or kids who refuse to do drugs, or black kids who study hard, etc, etc, etc.

That doesn't mean we should just accept it, but it does imply that all can do is keep fighting it, however it crops up.

Maybe it's also attractive because it's more accurate than competing theories in that it doesn't assume people are gay because of toilet training techniques or how their mothers raised them...

Actually, the reason I raise the question is because for years the "gay gene" thesis has generally won out despite the dearth of scientific evidence in favor of it, and much to the contrary.

Given that disconnect, the question is one of psychology, not science. If the science swings around and ultimately proves it (or something similar, like the many-sibling theory (which sounds, at the moment, more plausible)) that still won't answer the question why people *wanted* the gay gene narrative so badly in the interim.

that still won't answer the question why people *wanted* the gay gene narrative so badly in the interim.

I agree totally with the bogus science in this area and that it was odd that so many people accepted the "gay gene" narrative despite the fact that it didn't fit the evidence.

Well, a few guesses why this might have happened. I think there's some truth in each;

1. There seems to be a strong push to include homosexuality under the Civil Rights umbrella. If homosexuality was purely a behavior or learned response, this would be much more difficult. And protection under the ADA would carry a strong social stigma that a lot of gays and lesbians would protest.

2. In a society which dissuades many of those people who might sexually experiment, those who continue to pursue same sex relationships are those with strong predilections, and in that atmosphere people talk about how they always knew that they were gay since a very young age. So homosexual identity in a society that disapproves of homosexuality will be different than in a society where heterosexuals are encouraged to participate, and there was an attempt to explain this change in identity. People are certain that their condition is congenital and jump to the conclusion that it must therefore be genetic.

3. Your thesis, that people don't see resisting sexual desire as a choice, probably has some validity. What you want is what you're supposed to have. At best, such people behave as
evangelical epicurians.

4. People have made a choice regarding their lifestyle. They feel they have a right to make the choice they have made and they see their happiness and love as tied to that choice. They are acting defensively because they feel persecuted, and history seems to validate them in this regard.

In contrast, I don't think there are any studies which disprove any environmental component to sexual orientation. But I could be wrong.

What would you be looking for? This sounds dangerously close to trying to disprove a negative. Or did you have something
specific in mind? Or are you just saying that no attempts have been made?

I don't see where one might read him as saying that gays themselves are like terrorists.

I should rephrase;

Part of opposing an action, lifestyle, etc. requires deliniating the harms it causes. Many opponents of civic unions
seem to have a hard time with this part and therefore jump straight into discussing slippery slopes to show the harm such unions would eventually lead to. Almost every opposition to (consensual) civic unions evokes a slippery slope argument where we end up with acceptance of some non-consensual relationship, be it murder or bestiality or forcing temples to keep swastikas on their lawns (an actual example I heard used) or something fundamentally different than a consensual relationship. And I might not fixate on it so much, if it wasn't so common. To me, these slippery slope arguments come across like a vegetarian arguing that if we allow folks to eat meat, what's to stop them from killing and eating people?

as we learn to dismiss behavior after behavior as "natural" or "genetic", we will eventually end up dismissing crime or even terrorism as also something a person isn't responsible for.

If a person is a danger to others and also not responsible for their actions they can and should be forcibly committed to a psychiatric institution and treated, or else simply incarcerated.

there are people who are currently arguing criminality is genetic. Consider that.

But do they also argue that criminals should be allowed to perpetrate crimes without consequences because of it? That's the key.

And likewise, there have always been those who argued that terrorism is the inevitable result of poverty, etc. Despite the fact that most Islamic terrorists have been relatively wealthy, and that impoverished (or even non-impoverished) Buddhists, Baha'is, Hindus, and Christians don't seem to embrace terrorism at even remotely the same rate.)

If those people say terrorists shouldn't be punished for their actions because of this, I'd disagree with them. I just think enough people can see the clear difference between mutually committing your life to another person and killing them that a slippery slope from one to another is pretty ridiculous.

And I don't see how we can avoid moving from "attraction to my gender is inborn" to "attraction to children is inborn."

I don't claim to know anything about the cause of pedophilia and whether it's innate or not. But sex with children is considered harmful to an unwilling party and thus criminalized. Homosexuality is not.

Though the age of consent differs radically from state to state, that seems to be an important consideration.

And to be clear, I'm not claiming that all sexual responses are inborn and inalterable. Fetishes, for instance, are often considered to be acquired. I'm open to the idea that sexual responses are malleable, though I doubt that they're infinitely so.

But he's right in implying that a party should worry equally (if not more) about misbehavior among it's own members, and be more severe in such cases, than towards the opposite side.

I'll buy that. The Democrats could do better at keeping their house clean in that sense.

So you have the lincoln douglass debate in Freeport Illinois. That seems to fit, to pick something famous. No?

No. The fate of the union and the status of slavery in new states (the primary topic of said debates) was of general interest.

Granted, slavery had economic impacts on those who were neither slaves or slaveholders; free whites who had to compete, for instance. But special interests tuck their issues into larger bills and see them passed all the time, with much less noise than this. The fact there's so much opposition to these issues (and maybe even conflict within the Democratic party) seems to testify that they are of general interest. Nor are these issues strictly of interest to the ideological "left". There's the "Log Cabin Republicans." And IIRC, Bush recently made it easier for same sex couples to adopt, without so much as a debate on the topic.

Hello friends!

To respond to various and asundry comments, all thoughtful...

BTW, Ryan, before starting, I should add that I think there was some merit to the previous reason you mentioned as well: that if people can't help it, they also can't be rightly mocked. It's utterly wrong to make fun of a retarded person, but it's fair game to point out an otherwise brilliant person who promotes foolishness.

1. There seems to be a strong push to include homosexuality under the Civil Rights umbrella.

I agree. Traditionally, protected categories have been those where the category is easily visible. An exception is religion, but in years past, that wasn't hard to deduce either. (O'Malley? Probably a Catholic. Abramowitz? Jewish. Muhammad? Scientologist for sure. ;-))

Who you'd rather sleep with is a bit harder to deduce in an interview, unless you make it voluntarily known.

Of course, all this changes once we move into the "T" in GLBT. "T" is for transgendered (not transsexual), and it's relatively easy to detect men dressing as women.

And of course the "B" in that equation makes things interesting too: Is bisexuality decided at birth as well?

... behave as evangelical epicurians.

Well, for a change I'm verbally stumped. Care to translate to more pedestrian language?

4. People have made a choice regarding their lifestyle. They feel they have a right to make the choice they have made and they see their happiness and love as tied to that choice. They are acting defensively because they feel persecuted...

Gays *have* been persecuted. But it's intellectually dishonest to argue for, say, a "gay gene" an antidote to persecution.

And (as a total aside) I think we're on strong grounds when we protect basic civil liberties (right not to be assaulted), but on very dangerous ground when we move into restricting speech. We have a right not to be pounded into the dirt. We don't have a right to be free from disparaging remarks.

What would you be looking for? This sounds dangerously close to trying to disprove a negative.

That's my point, actually. It's rather hard to rule out environmental influences. Yet by saying it's "decided at birth" one is saying exactly that.

I'm also pointing out that people who say there are environmental influences or factors can't be accused of ignoring the research data, on that basis at least.

(To be fair, they could be accused of such if they also said it was impossible for a genetic component to exist, but I'm not aware of any sizable or influential group making that claim.)

Part of opposing an action, lifestyle, etc. requires delineating the harms it causes. Many opponents of civic unions seem to have a hard time with this part and therefore jump straight into discussing slippery slopes to show the harm such unions would eventually lead to.

I think you see a slippery slope as a last straw to grasp, whereas I think slippery slopes are quite real. Slippery slope arguments have certainly been abused at times (think "Reefer Madness") but they're not inherently fallacious.

In the case of gay marriage, I'll be quite frank: I'm not sure there *are* any (or many) non-slippery-slope arguments. But that doesn't make them imaginary.

How does Steve and Bob's "marriage" hurt me? It doesn't Ryan, it doesn't. I'll still drive to work in the morning, my girlfriend will still care for me (or if she doesn't, it won't be because of Steve and Bob). I'll still be able to do the things I like, etc.

Much to the same effect, I don't think the Federal Deficit will hurt me. But I'm pretty sure it will make the world worse for our children and grandchildren. Slippery slopes exist.

I could certainly enumerate a few of the "slippery slope" effects mentioned -- if desire or "love" is the basis of union, how can we prohibit polygamy or incest? If "marriage" includes two men, won't our schools and textbooks be pushed to reflect (and thus model) those kind of families as well? And isn't all that likely to have some impact? And what about the increasing trend of preventing "persecution" by silencing speech?

Unlike my opponents, Ryan, I believe human sexual desire and behavior is deeply malleable. And I believe what we do makes a difference. I'll be utterly frank: when you study history, societies with prominent male homosexuality (Greece, Rome, etc.) have tended to have a low view of women, tended to use children sexually, tended to be more comfortable with slavery, polygamy, etc. I don't view that as a massive odd coincidence: when male sexuality is allowed to run amok, society as a whole suffers greatly.

(Do you think the percentage of Greek men who were engaged in homosexual relations was a mere 3%, as it is in our society? If not, what does that suggest? Study prisons, too, to get some measure how malleable male sexuality is.)

Is that a slippery-slope argument? You bet. I dearly wish it were invalid on that basis, Ryan, but slippery slopes do exist. The job of the constructive critic is to disprove those slopes, not dismiss them because one (incorrectly) assumes SS arguments are inherently fallacious. (They aren't.)

Ryan, most of conservatism is based on concern about slippery slopes. Example: In theory, as government gets more powerful, special interests will try harder to capture it (rent-seeking). When they succeed, more laws will be passed, making government again more powerful. And so on and so on.

It begins quite innocently with well-intentioned minimal laws (a minimal Department of Education, which harms no-one, and might even help a little, for example), and grows steadily out of control (a huge Department of Education which apparently does nothing, and huge indirect costs and harms). And as government grows, more people make their money by working for it, and vote to make government still more powerful.

How did that little Department of Education and National Endowment for the Arts hurt you, right?

You end up with France, where civil workers paralyze society at will, and over half the kids have no greater dream than growing up to be civil employees.

Is that a slippery slope argument? You bet. Is it real? Yes, Virginia, there is a France. :-)

To me, these slippery slope arguments come across like a vegetarian arguing that if we allow folks to eat meat, what's to stop them from killing and eating people?

Yes, that's an invalid argument, but it's not invalid merely because it's a slippery slope. To test it, one can study meat eaters (or even better yet, hunters and butchers) and discover if they have higher rates of homicide or cannibalism.

When we do so (and discover they don't), the argument fails. Not because all slippery slopes are false, but because that particular one has no supporting evidence.

[What if criminality is genetic?] If a person is a danger to others and also not responsible for their actions they can and should be forcibly committed to a psychiatric institution and treated...

Great argument. If you live in 1952, that is. But today, many people believe it's immoral to incarcerate or confine people, period. That's why we tend to put mentally ill people who cannot care for themselves (and even can be reasonably argued to pose a danger to others) out on the street.

And comfortable, humane confinement negates any deterrent effect.

But do they also argue that criminals should be allowed to perpetrate crimes without consequences because of it? That's the key.

No, quite to the contrary, that's completely irrelevant. The question is how they treat the criminal once caught. Nobody directly "allows" criminals to commit crimes, or argues for that. Instead they/we embrace this or that policy which then raises or lowers the crime rate.

I'll make a few wild predictions: (1) When crime is de-stigmatized, you'll get more of it. (2) When it's someone else's fault (or at least not mine), you'll get more of it. (3) When societal responses are more lenient and comfortable, you'll get more of it.