Homosexuality in Australia (3 Viewers)

[Silver Persian]

An ideology is merely human. All of humanity is alienated when too much trust is placed in merely human projects and false utopias. Ideological rejection of God and an atheism of indifference, oblivious to the Creator and at risk of becoming equally oblivious to human values, constitute some of the chief obstacles to development today

Ideologies oversimplify reality in artificial ways

So you would be using ideology in the Marxist sense - aetheistic ideology suppresses the inherent truth of Catholocism.

Hurrah.

 

[Iron]

no dar shit for brains. Above all it is a human construct which denies a greater truth

 

[Slidey]

no dar shit for brains. Above all it is a human construct which denies a greater truth

Your mum is a greater truth.

 

[Iron]

u have a death wish or wot m8

 

[Erotic Cakes]

Iron, from what I've read you have a seriously distorted view towards homosexuality in general and I suspect many other things.

There's overwhelming scientific evidence that homosexuality is not a choice, and if you looked at things from a purely logical perspective - if it was a choice, why would about 10% of the Earth's population choose to do something so heavily discriminated against.

Here are the facts, homosexuals are human beings just like you and me, it doesn't matter who they're attracted to, they're living people who are completely equal with the rest of us. So isn't it obvious they deserve equal rights? Denying gay marriage is like denying women the right to vote, or blacks to own land.

I know this isn't going to make any difference to your opinion and a few sentences aren't going to help remedy your warped outlook on life, that's what you'll hopefully do yourself when you grow a pair of balls and think for yourself. Think about what you're doing and why you're doing it, why do you refuse to treat other human beings with the respect they deserve, you're hurting and marginalizing those around you.

I could end this post here, but I know exactly what you'll do. You'll reply with a knee-jerk reaction, never doubting that you could be wrong but rather scrambling for straws that will help to back up your opinion, straws which will inevitably come from your faith-based ideology.

I have nothing against religion, if you believe in a particular faith, then good for you, in this day and age it's going against the grain, so obviously you're capable of some individual thought. Now don't let your religious beliefs impinge on someone else's freedom. One day, when you've wisened up a little you'll regret the discriminatory attitude you've taken.

There's nothing else to say, you need to mature and use your brain to actually think and question what you're doing - till then, you need to realize you're not just having an opinion, you're hurting people.

 

[katie tully]

i'm seeing a lot of words but all im reading is rah rah generic rant about homosexuals being people too rah rah

 

[dolbinau]

Learn to read?

 

[Kwayera]

I think environment has been heavily discounted in this debate. I think it is dishonest for prominent homosexuals to claim they were born that way like it's some inalienable truth in order to legitimise the agenda they are campaigning for. For if a homosexual had no homosexual friends or partners, her or she would perhaps not understand the nature of their homosexual feelings and not identify as gay. After all our self-image is the only way we quantify this, so i think it's an empirical hurdle in demystifying the debate.

There's no evidence for the "environment" having any sort of role, however (see twin studies), nor is there any real mechanism for environmental cause being the basis for the significant physiological (not just psychological) differences between gay and straight people, not even epigenetically.

 

[Kwayera]

It has been postulated that environment may turn on or off genetic influences.

Which is what I just said - epigenetics. But this is a mechanism for, say, activating the final development of our guts post-birth (via introduction of gut flora from the mother during birth), which is already encoded for.

 

[Kwayera]

My criminology professor says that sexual arousal (not drive) is learned by situational cues, much like gender identity is. So how does this fit into a "final development of our guts post-birth"?

Environment might include things like phytoestrogens in plastics and industrial pollution

Sexual arousal is also determined by pheromones, so idk quite what he's going on about there. Situational cues may certainly effect it but the main driver is biology.

I was making an example of what kind of a mechanism epigenetics is: environmental (in a biological sense) factors that activate genes.

 

[Iron]

Um arent almost all child abusers people who were themselves abused as children?

But I have no problem accepting that homosexuality may sometimes be a genetic disposition. I also accept that discrimination against these people in the public forum is wrong and that modern society has an acceptable view on how to treat such people.
Having said that, Christianity and most religions are clear that their members should not engage in homosexual acts, based on some rather sound theology. If you disagree then you are obviously free to live your life however you like, or leave the church etc if you are already a member.

It's pointless and potentially dangerous to denounce the sin of homosexuality to people who refuse to accept God or even the notion of sin. The government should just give everyone reasonable and just rights, while the Church takes care of its own members

 

[Kwayera]

Couldn't homosexual arousal occur when sexual stimulus is combined with homoerotic behaviour and combined with positive reinforcement at some initial stage?

That takes a lot of conditioning however, and may be the case in some instances of sexual arousal - but all homosexuals? Come on.

 

[Erotic Cakes]

We have moved away from a postitivist determinism view of human behaviour. This ended after world war 2 when the nazi holocaust led us to believe that biological typing wasn't a good way to determine how human behaviour is formed. Oddly enough, it was charles darwin's the origin of species that sparked this scientific movement. Nowadays, social scientists say that human behaviour is a biopsychosocial construct and is an interaction of biology, psychology and environment. While one can argue that sexual desire is latent in all of us, arousal is learned from social and environmental cues. Some have argued that homosexual arousal may be a result of some kind of mismatch in this socialisation process, perhaps in combination with the biological determined basis you claim there is so much evidence for. It has been shown that patterns of arousal are learned early in life and extroadinarily hard to change. I would only consider this to be a problem when it impacts negatively on the person and their surroundings. eg. Paedophilia and its associated harm. This is why electroshock therapy etc. has become out of fashion in psychiatry today.

slively03, I never said anything about whether the cause was environmental or biological, that's a pretty hotly debated topic. All I wanted to make clear is that homosexuality isn't a choice, that's why it's called an orientation rather than a preference these days.

Um arent almost all child abusers people who were themselves abused as children?

But I have no problem accepting that homosexuality may sometimes be a genetic disposition. I also accept that discrimination against these people in the public forum is wrong and that modern society has an acceptable view on how to treat such people.
Having said that, Christianity and most religions are clear that their members should not engage in homosexual acts, based on some rather sound theology. If you disagree then you are obviously free to live your life however you like, or leave the church etc if you are already a member.

It's pointless and potentially dangerous to denounce the sin of homosexuality to people who refuse to accept God or even the notion of sin. The government should just give everyone reasonable and just rights, while the Church takes care of its own members

That sounds more like it

I must say I got a rather different vibe from your earlier posts, this seems far more reasonable, I apologize if I misjudged you.

 

[Kwayera]

Well you know the example with Ivan Pavlov's dog? Where he would give a dog food, and it would salivate while they ring a bell? And then he took the food away and rang the bell and the dog salivated?

The example he gave with sexual arousal and festishes was something along the lines of that. The example he gave was there was this woman who took her kid to a friends house to play while they had coffee. She went to a psychiatrist because when the kids would play on the electric organ she had, whenever they played a particular note she would get aroused. The psychaitrist found out that that particular tone sounded identical to her vibrator.

Couldn't homosexual arousal occur when sexual stimulus is combined with homoerotic behaviour and combined with positive reinforcement at some initial stage?

And now I read this further, you pretty much argue my point anyway - "Pavlovian" stimuli such as that woman reinforces behaviour/"tendancies" that are already there.

 

[klaris]

If that what they like, then I have no problem with it. I mean it doesn't make them a lesser person or anything. They're still equal. There is nothing wrong with being gay. I'm sure a lotta people are.

 

[HumanDichotomy]

In the end, does it really matter what exactly causes homosexuality? The fact is that it exists, and, imo, it is more important to work on how we interact with others than to pinpoint an exact cause, ofc, for some people, knowing it's biological rather than choice is important...but I think even that knowledge serves only a limited purpose. I agree with klaris and that's what it should boil down to.

 

[David Spade]

but if it existed and was curable why shouldnt we cure this disease?

 

[HumanDichotomy]

Well I guess that depends on what you define as a disease...it's no longer listed as a mental illness within the DSM criteria. But if someone who is gay truly wants it 'cured' and there was a way to do that, then it's their choice. I still think that doing that is less important than looking at our current attitudes and trying to fix them.

 

[David Spade]

lol

 

[brittanica-]

But I have no problem accepting that homosexuality may sometimes be a genetic disposition. I also accept that discrimination against these people in the public forum is wrong and that modern society has an acceptable view on how to treat such people.

HALLELUJAH!
you know how long ive waited to hear you finally denounce your closemindedness and realise that you are in fact prejudice.

for once you sound ok.
im proud of this change in heart of you, please stay this way. It will be better for mankind.