I am really surprised there is as much opposition to gay marriage as there is. Frankly I have seen no evidence that homosexuality is not a choice but I really don't care if they get married.
I'm sorry American civil rights are annoying you. Now you tell me who sounds more self serving on this issue.
It wasn't. And, um, gross. If I were gay, I wouldn't go anywhere near an anti-gay bigot. Sorry. But if you change your mind, I'm fairly certain there are whole fetishes set up around that sort of self-loathing stuff. Google it or something if you're inclined. None of the rest of us need to know about it at all.
I'm afraid you're correct, it's not. If you wish to take the Mother Nature route, then it's an open and shut case. Since you share exactly 50% of your genes with your siblings there are times when it is better for you, from a genetic perspective, if you forgo reproduction in favor of helping your siblings with their offspring. Kin selection is a powerful force in biology and I suggest you look at the work of Haldane, Hamilton and the people who came after them. In case you're unaware, kin selection is essentially when an organism sacrifices its own reproductive success in order to favor the reproductive success of its relatives. Combined with the fact that the odds of being born gay increases by 33% with each previous son born (see Blanchard and Klassen's work, I can provide journal articles if you'd like to read them) and it is quite clear, especially in light of epigenetic studies which show that phenotype can be altered by environmental factors without altering the genotype. I can give you a long explanation of epigenetics if you are confused by this concept. I can go into further detail on all of this with examples and some deeper biology, but I have a feeling you'll just dismiss it and blow it off, despite Biology being my field, since it doesn't fit with your preconceived notions. Hopefully you prove me wrong and display some intellectual curiosity and willingness to learn, but I'm afraid I'm pessimistic at this point given your previous posts.
If you say it's a choice and you didn't choose then it doesn't make any sense. That being said the comments you made about chimps isn't entirely true. Chimps take care to separate and go to different groups to avoid mating with the same gene pool. I don't know about dolphins or penguins or the other species that all have naturally homosexual behavior. What I do know is that it is natural for them, so being designed to reproduce doesn't make sense. edit... oops I see someone answered this far better than I.
I don't doubt that happens but do you have some info to back that up? Here is some info from National Geographic of all places regarding homosexual behavior among animals: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0722_040722_gayanimal.html Anyway your point that Nature made you heterosexual, evidence though shows that Nature is perhaps bi-sexual since it appears that other animals, ones that we might not consider having enough of a consciousness to make a choice engage in homosexuality. Now if you want to point out that animals engage in all sorts of behaviors we don't approve of like incest well then apparently Nature is seriously messed up to begin with so the agument that Nature is determinative of anything is pretty messed up too.
See the National Geographic link that I posted that shows that there are many animals that engage in homosexuality There's also been some findings that there are differences in homosexuals brain structures and that certain factors in neo-natal development might lead to homosexuality. http://www.kqed.org/quest/blog/tag/homosexuality/
i think that's not true. his coalition was broad enough, and blacks would have come out for him in any case. he had an opportunity to really take a stand. i'd love for him to go back on Ellen see her press him on this. in any case, i still think Prop 8 would have passed, since the black church is largely homophobic. and, just as liberals have demonized white evangelicals over this issue for the past 8 years, i look forward to equal demonization of black fundamentalists over the same issue. Jon Stewart- you're up.
Please do. I've read some of the birth-order determining sexuality research, and I would have come to the exactly opposite conclusion. In almost all traits determined by birth order, it seems that the trait is something that develops because of environment, mostly family structure. It would seem to be a major crack in the "born gay" theory.
i'll ignore most of the slams, but feel i must point out, i do not have a party, i have "issues" (no snark), and foremost among them is national security. Bush has been steadfast on that point, Obama and the entire democratic party have been reprehensible in that regard. had he not been, it's highly likely i would have voted for Obama. and for the record, there's not a single national politician that has a good record on this issue. and i repeat what i said in the post above. Obama could have taken the high road and still won. he's as cynical as you accuse W of being, worse actually, since W sincerely believes it, but Obama just uses religion as a cloak. if he isn't, then he's exactly the same as Bush, and i'm surprised you didn't recognize that.
what's the high road? this is a religion issue. its beyond politics as rocketsjudoka stated earlier in the thread. Obama didn't push for this to be on California's ballot, he didn't even support it.
i'd like to hear more about this. does the same concept apply to lesbians (ie, incidence increases with each successive daughter)?
of who? You? Most Christian churches are not supportive of the homosexual lifestyle. no one has been a hypocrite. this isn't about the black or white church. its about christianity and homosexuality.
Had this been true, you wouldn't post nonsense like "the market votes" or blame Obama for Prop 8 passing. You may have once just had issues, but somewhere in there, you became a partisan hack that just regurgitated any ignorant attacks you saw posted on right-wing blogs.
