Homosexuality
There still remain people in the world that agree with the discrimination of other human beings just because their preferences are not the same as those doing the discriminating. Even politicians - Trump - are still evoking the idea that homosexuality is unclean. I feel as though there are a lot of heterosexual men that are scared of homosexual men, in particular, and are not willing to take the time to understand their sexuality. Instead, they believe the best way to deal with it is to boycott it entirely.
Speaking about these issues such as racism and sexism etc. is essential for society to develop to equality. Do you agree? The result of discrimination is usually down to; self-loathing, fear, lack of understanding, thieving, jealousy and revenge. All concepts that are extremely negative, therefore, enforcing the idea that people who are different to themselves are portrayed to be a negative influence on the world.
Speaking about these issues such as racism and sexism etc. is essential for society to develop to equality. Do you agree? The result of discrimination is usually down to; self-loathing, fear, lack of understanding, thieving, jealousy and revenge. All concepts that are extremely negative, therefore, enforcing the idea that people who are different to themselves are portrayed to be a negative influence on the world.
Comments (83)
I don't know how bullying and discrimination can be stopped. We (humans) seem to like doing it too much. I would love to read suggestions to improve matters....
Being a gay socialist atheist works to some extent, especially among Chamber of Commerce types--of whom I know none. One could pretend to be a lobbyist for the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). That will make one persona non grata quicker than you can say "De gustibus non est disputandum". But that's a bit too outré for anybody these days. Ah! For the good old days of ancient Athens! (Relax. I'm just being provocative here.)
Thin people? I thought one could never be too thin or too rich. Has that changed just recently?
Start wearing a MAGA hat. Communist, gay Trump supporter. You'd be unique, the one and only.
Is Trump doing this?
Insert evidence here >.....................<
(Just addressing possible hyperbole. Your possibly intended message would be helped without it, I feel)
If you look any drug addiction, this shows that it is possible to become obsessive with behavior that are is natural, to the point where it appears almost instinctive. One can game the brain. Gay behavior, for example, is not sanitary. If we did not have artificial things like condoms and medications to act as prosthesis, nature would run it course and create a disease to correct this behavior.
Even if some gay individuals could develop a natural resistance, this is not passed forward biologically since this progressive change is not part of evolution. We do have choices but not all choices are natural with unnatural choices needing extra propping up. I am for free choice, but one needs to keep in mind what is natural and what is not natural so they can be objective.
There is ample evidence of homosexual behavior across a variety of mammals and birds. For instance, some male black swans pair up for life, build nests, and then steal eggs from heterosexual nests which the two guys then hatch and raise. How do you fit that into evolution? Beats me. Maybe Mother Nature is more of a twisted sister than we thought?
I don't think that homosexuality is inherited. But if it were, we know that many people who, for extended periods of time identify as homosexual, have quite successfully reproduced. My guess is that it is epigenetic in some way. But... nobody has figured it out so far, and it hasn't been for a lack of a search effort.
Quoting wellwisher
Life is unsanitary.
We are immersed in a sea of bacteria, viruses, fungi, pollen, and parasites. Gay sexual activity is generally no more unsanitary than straight sexual activity. Of course, disease patterns are related to specific types of behavior--this is true for straights and gays alike. If one has 50 partners a year (some people do) one is likely to encounter more pathogens than if one has only 1 partner. And it depends on what they are doing, and how. Sexually transmitted diseases are common infections around the world. And so are fecal bacterial infections common around the world, as well as blood borne infections, food borne, air borne, and water borne infections.
Sensible people -- gay, straight, and bisexual -- take care to reduce the probability of infection. One can reduce the chance of sexual infection with care, one can't eliminate it except by excluding sex altogether. The same goes for food borne disease. One can avoid promiscuous eating, but eventually an innocent looking bag of romaine salad contaminated with E. coli will strike you down.
Quoting wellwisher
"The only unnatural act is an impossible act" when it comes to human behavior. Good heavens, man -- look at the range of everyday activities in which people engage. Hardly any of it is entirely "natural". Some of it is downright perverse, and I'm just talking about the people who obsessively grow grass and then cut it down when it is 5 inches high. Totally perverted. Vegans? Working class Republicans? PETA? Conceptual artists? Haute couture? Nouvelle cuisine? People with more cars in their driveways than there are people in the house? Southern Baptists? Catholics? Moslems? Hindus? All unnatural, sick perverts.
Assuming this is true (I recall reading articles about evolution disputing this assumption, but that was a long time ago and I don't know where to find it.), but assuming it is true, how does it support an argument opposed to homosexuality? Are we assuming that actions that do not support biological reproduction are bad?
I could see how one might use it as an argument favoring homosexuality over heterosexuality, given that the human population has grown many times higher than what it has been for most of human existence and there's strong evidence we are consuming the Earth's resources faster than they are being replenished. Personally, I'm straight and not advocating this argument, but just pointing out that there seems to me to be a chasm in the logic when this argument is so often used against homosexuality.
There are plenty of genetic conditions that result in an inability to reproduce, yet they persist, unimpeded by evolution. Quoting wellwisher
When did you choose to be straight? Were you in the back seat with Betty Sue and you weighed the pros and the cons and then decided to become aroused? I certainly didn't decide to be straight, so I don't see how I could suggest someone else choose to be gay.Quoting wellwisher
Sanitary sex doesn't sound real interesting. Were you aware that the same sex acts performed by gay people are also performed by straight people and that sodomy isn't just a gay thing? Were you also aware that woman on woman sex does not involve nearly the fluid exchange as say, man on woman sex does? That being the case, perhaps you're an advocate for lesbianism. Quoting wellwisher
And yet homosexuality has persisted throughout the millennia without any medical assistance. I also don't follow your artificial/natural distinction, as it seems to take medical science out of evolution. I think evolution is all encompassing and that part of the evolution of humanity includes advancements in control over their environment.
There's also the who cares part of this as well. As in who cares why homosexuality is now safe. If it is, it is, regardless of whether it wouldn't be safe if we lived in a primitive society.Quoting wellwisher
Except that gay people do reproduce sometimes, straight people have anal sex, and some bisexual people have sex with straight people, which means the resistance does enter the gene pool. The world isn't divided so neatly into gays, straights, sodomites, and missionary only positioners.
If it wasn't about triggered emotions, than why would anyone care what some others are consenting to and doing amongst themselves, as long as it does not impact me?
I think the term "homosexual" is as well defined as any term. The term conveys meaning, and it's no more confusing to talk about the homosexual in the room as it is to talk about the chair in the room, despite both chairs and homosexuals having enough variations that we can't determine their essences.
I pretty much restrict myself to talking about gay men, on this topic. Lesbians tend to be very touchy about men theorizing about lesbianism.
Alfred Kinsey set up a scale, 0-6, 0 = exclusively heterosexual, 6 = exclusively homosexual. The scale can be applied to both what one actually does sexually, and what one fantasizes about doing, or would like to do sexually. So, one definition of 'homosexual' would be "a person whose behavior and fantasies are exclusively focused on other persons of the same sex". They are 6 and 6. A heterosexual would be 0 and 0. In most surveys that I have seen, less than 3% of the population fits that definition of homosexual.
The significance of rating fantasies and behavior is that people who are discordant (fantasize about homosexual sex but behave heterosexually) are conflicted, and might benefit from resolving the difference between what they think about and what they do.
I consider men who want to marry other men, father or adopt and raise children, to be seduced or deluded by "assimilationist" propaganda which sees the road to respectability looking a lot like the typical heterosexual family.
Because human behavior is so interesting. You could be straight as the day is long, and still find it interesting what kind of lives homosexuals lead. And in reverse, gay people find the various doings of heterosexuals to be interesting as well.
You missed my point. The ambiguity and vagueness of "homosexual" is no greater than any other term. Your objection is universal and invalid, as it would assume an inability to communicate, yet we do. To say I don't see a difference in your calling me a homosexual or a carrot makes the point we must know what the terms mean, even if the boundaries of both terms are ultimately uncertain and determined by context.
It will be difficult for you to accept a definition of homosexuality if you think "whatever homosexuality is has no boundaries other than 'mere social fictions'". Consistent strong physical sexual arousal, vivid fantasies, longing, desire, and so on isn't a 'social fiction' for me. It's been an integral part of my personality for as long as I can remember. The men I have met whose physical and emotional beings are homosexual aren't social fictions either. (I don't consider sexual orientation a social construct. Constructionists think they are; essentialists think they are inborn, biologically based.)
Kinsey supposed that most people were heterosexual and a relatively small number were homosexual. Between those two groups were people whose orientation was bisexual--attracted in varying degrees to both males and females. (There has always been a background nattering of doubt about whether bisexuals really exist, or whether they are really just confused homosexuals.) As far as I can tell, there really are bisexuals. There really are heterosexuals, and there really are homosexuals. The boundaries would fall between #0 and #1, and between #5 and #6. Bisexuals would be #2 - #5. Bear in mind, Kinsey's chart doesn't reflect population size at all. Most people are heterosexual (and nothing else), some people are bisexual (and nothing else), and some people are homosexual (and nothing else).
The group which may seem to have boundary problems is bisexual, because they vary from "mostly heterosexual" to "mostly homosexual" and the difference between a #3 and a #4, for instance, is arbitrary.
Tim: Are you a heterosexual? If you are heterosexual, is there any doubt in your mind about what that means?
How is this any different than a white racist saying blacks are less evolved or a misogynistic male claiming a woman's place is in the kitchen? It is every bit as offensive and untrue.
How do you know?
Your assuming my lovely young heterosexual niece isn't actually a lesbian. How do you know she's straight? How would you find out? Maybe the lesbian and gay guy are going to marry for political convenience and appearances. It has been done, after all (not often, but...)
Anyway... IF I really wanted to prove it, I could hire a private investigator to follow him around and observe whether he ever frequented homosexual hangouts (bars, baths, parks, etc.), whether he had friends who could be determined to be gay, and whether is internet and cell phone usage showed gay interests. This would involve very intrusive snooping, but it could be done.
OR I could ask a suave, observant gay male to follow this alleged fag around and cruise him (make his sexual interest subtly knowable), chat him up, etc. and observe whether there was any response. If there was, he could move to the next phase and see whether the niece's boyfriend could be gotten into bed (or a stall, or alley, or... what have you).
OR he could also be interrogated more... forcefully, shall we say to see what beans he would spill.
Finally, we asked him, and he said "not gay". Leave it at that. Gaydar doesn't have 100% accuracy.
Don't lose your time, Wellwisher is a troll.
I mean, "homosexuality is contrary to evolution". Do you really need a deep critical philology to figure out he's just inserting a more hip word in " X is contrary to the will of God"?
Beside being entirely wrong, besides, since we already have working models showing how homosexuality could be considered an evolutional advantage.
And why isn't that sufficient? Claiming to be gay in 2018 does not confer many advantages in life. There are plenty of places where it can get one killed. When we were both young men, back in the ancient post-stonewall world of the 1970s it was even less of an advantage (if it wasn't a definite risk) but still, a lot of gay men announced to the world "I am gay". I never heard anybody say, "Oh, you are just saying that to be outrageous." (Lady, if I wanted to be outrageous, I could tell you stories that would curl your hair.)
Now, not everybody's self identification is straight forward, so to speak. Laud Humphreys published Tea Room Trade in 1971, about. it was based on his PhD dissertation. Humphreys investigated what sexual activities went on in the St. Louis, Mo. public toilets in parks. Quite a bit, actually. The book recounts how encounters are managed. In order to find out more about these guys (without asking them straight out) he kept a list of the license plates of the men who parked near the toilets and whom he observed having sex with other men. He then tracked down the addresses associated with the licenses, and then arranged bogus survey interviews at the homes of the men. (Like, a company was doing a survey of planned appliance purchases -- that sort of thing.) From these surveys he obtained the demographic information.***
Many of the guys turned out to be married men living in suburbs, many with children.
IF you asked these men whether they were homosexual, they almost certainly would have said "NO" in emphatic terms. Were they gay or were they straight? Maybe they were gay, but in that time and in that place could not find a way to be openly gay. Maybe they were bisexual, and marriage gave them convenient cover. None the less, they often engaged in homosexual activity. My guess is that they did not think of themselves as gay, but liked getting head (or as they got older, giving head). Otherwise they were typical men who worked for a living and supported their families.
***Humphrey's research methods caused a fire storm of controversy. He would never be able to get away with that sort of immensely useful research today.
The Boys of Fairy Town: Sodomites, Female Impersonators, Third-Sexers, Pansies, Queers, and Sex Morons in Chicago's First Century, Jun 1, 2018 by Jim Elledge tells an older story of how men in late 19th and early 20th century expressed homosexuality. Fascinating history.
The message was never intended for him.
Troll or not, there are many people who have difficulty getting their heads around the idea of homosexuality being advantageous in an evolutionary sense. I am one.
For instance, these two male black swans hooking up, building a nest, and then stealing fertile eggs from straight black swans which they then hatch and raise the chicks. Fascinating -- but is it an evolutionary advantage or just something that happens? In their case, two male swans carry a lot of social weight in the flock, and their borrowed chicks tend to do quite well. But then, everything else being equal, most swans do a pretty good job of hatching their eggs.
And what about the wild sex lives of our primate relatives, the Bonobos. They make a gay orgy look pedestrian. Maybe Bonobos demonstrate a method for resolving the logjam in Congress. Here's an image to get out of your head as quickly as possible: Mitch McConnell trying to fuck Nancy Pelosi as a means of negotiating immigration reform.
When humans ran in hunter gather tribes adults were much more valuable than children, as adults could contribute to the tribe while children just consumed resources. So how do you keep a balanced adult child ratio? Add a few homosexuals to the mix, they can still fall in love and continue that ever vital social bonding cycle while still providing a strong back to help with the labors of the tribe
If you ask me, we'd be much better off if more people were gay.
Quoting Jeremiah
Yeah, well, I'll drink to that.
They use to leave children behind when it became too much of a burden. I would assume they also left the old behind.
Evolution becomes a useless truism if you insist upon providing explanations that support it. That is, is evolution falsifiable? Is there any occurence that disproves it?
Do sociopaths purge us of the weak and gullible? Do those born with severe handicaps teach us unconditional love and the value of life? Maybe schizophrenics teach us about the subjective quality of reality. This seems more an exercise in creativity than a scientific exercise.
People need simple answers, they like them.
Homosexuality could be considered an evolutional advantage in that families that have homosexuals in them have members that are not directly implicated in the reproduction race, but who still have a stake in it, and have ressources to contribute to the other members of the family who are directly implicated.
Lets say you, as an homosexual man, have an heterosexual sister. Her genetic material is not yours, but it is about as similar as it can possibly get. If all you can do is make sure that her child is well taken care off, and she does successfully, even if you didn't, you didn't quite lose the reproduction race.
The second possibility (which is actually not exclusive to the previous one) is that homosexuality is the result of the interaction of multiple individually-advantageous genes with specific foetal conditions. There's a gene for better health, for better diction, for shinier hair, which are all great by themselves or in group, but as a group, they come with the additionnal possibility of changing your sexual orientation. Because they are still great genes to have, and because you could potentially have all of them without the orientation trigger, and because, this is important to note, homosexuals aren't sterile , whatever genes end up in their jeans, aren't really condemned to stay there.
Quoting Jeremiah
Ah. One could have concluded the contrary from the fact that you replied to him.
...
:roll:
We were hunter/gatherers for a few hundred thousand years before we invented agriculture and urbanity. How do we know that H/Gs left their children and the old behind when they became too much of a burden? What was "too much of a burden"? Do we have any evidence?
People make a lot of claims about H/Gs; some of the claims are based on modern H/G society; there are some claims that can be made on the basis of archeology. A lot of it seems purely speculative.
It is better than your black swan story.
When I was growing up gay we were considered mentally ill and worse. What one did then and what one does now is ignore as much of the negative cultural assault as one can. Later on when one is a bit more independent and secure, one can start attacking the negative notions and rejecting them.
I was put in a mental ward for "unhealthy sexual desires". The doctors prescribed me medication that had the "beneficial side effect of reducing sex drive".
The outstanding part of the black swan story, I thought, was stealing eggs and hatching them.
I never truly engage a bigot, but I use them.
No, I didn't like it. I have observed that a predilection for male intimacy can serve to deepen social bonding even between a pair of males who are not romantically engaged regardless of their individual sexual preferences. I don't like the notion that the bar for evolutionary legitimacy is entirely based in procreation, when the healthy continuation of a species depends on so much more than that aspect and I embrace the notion that homosexuals facilitate deeper social connections and create a stronger community by giving such support. A man's man and a woman's woman if you like.
I will go to the bat for any sexual orientation that isn't based on deceipt or abuse, but I think you are patting your own back a little bit too much here. Like women who claim that there would be no wars if the politicians were all women.
I mean, you say you are homosexual, that you have lived horrible abuse and discrimination in your life because of it, but that homosexuals brings about greater social cohesion and harmony... ?
These don't follow one another.
That is because it is homophobia that is contrary to evolution.
This needs to be cleared up here. I have never lived horrible abuse and discrimination due to my sexual preference. That came from the bigotry and hate of others.
:brow:
That's doing exactly the same thing as Wellwisher, just inverted.
You are pronouncing yourselves on empirical matters out of ethical concern. At the very least, the Universe's current position on homosexuality is closer to yours then to Wellwisher. But you can't tell what natural selection with select until you have an idea of the environmental pressures that are going to be in play.
That was the point. To turn the argument back onto itself.
I corrected Wellwisher because he was clearly spouting trollish nonsense.
You are doing the same, the only difference is that you happen to be on the right side.
Doesn't mean the argument is any less faulty.
i.e : More truth, less talking-points
Rather than looking for the hidden genetic advantage - which is always going to be a long-shot given the realities of neurodevelopment - it makes more sense to view the development of sexual identity or gender as a complex process. Genetics gets things started in a general fashion, pointing the foetus is roughly the right direction. But culture and experience play a larger role in finishing the job off than perhaps we suspect.
So we can say that it is logical that at a genetic level, the intention is to produce a binary outcome. There are males and females for a good evolutionary reason. That has all the advantages, so far as biological evolution goes.
But the construction of that differentiation - at the level of the brain's sense of gender as well as the body's development of definite sexual traits - is a complex business that can wander off line fairly easily. The sex organs can lack a typical degree of differentiation. So can the brain and the endocrine system. In the womb, there could be exposure to the "other" developmental signals at a critical time. Or even while growing up - the effect of environmental hormone-mimics.
So norms might be an average that genetics shoots for. Then it is normal that genetics only shoots for norms and so there are many ways that development might wander off towards the rival pole.
Now in animals, this kind of natural variation probably encounters little selective pushback. Animals with "homosexual tendencies" likely still end up copulating with the opposite sex and having babies in the usual way. There is not a great reproductive penalty that would cause genes and neurodevelopment to become more tightly regulated. And also, genes don't really give that level of control over behaviour anyway.
Then coming to humans, now we are talking about cultural creatures. Behaviour is especially plastic in humans due to large brains - expanded precisely because of the demands of being socially-scripted animals. Even adolescence - as a phase of post-puberty continuing brain development - is a very modern human thing. It seems to have been absent even in our hominid ancestors a million years ago.
Humans become sexually capable about four years before they become sexually active and reproducing. In the "wild", the female pelvis doesn't reach full size until about 19. That is also when birth becomes the norm. Pubertal boys likewise have to wait before they actually grow into men. They are put on hold between 13 and 18 in developmental terms, unlike any other species.
So there are big differences with humans that are biologically evolved - to support social lifestyle needs. And which also make our sexual development more complex and hence prone to the biologically "unintended" happening.
Now think of the wide variety of cultural norms that can get established - further social ideas that frame gender roles and define sexual identity - because there is this basic neurodevelopmental plasticity. There is a new kind of information that can shape the individual - the cultural imprint that follow the genetic attempt to establish a binary reproductive division of sexuality.
This doesn't make homosexuality now learnt behaviour in a strong sense. But it does mean that the human individual is growing up as a response to both an inherited biology, and an inherited culture.
In animals, my argument is that even if an individual wanders off the straight and narrow, it will likely wind up reproducing anyway. There is no cultural input to create any different idea, or introduce any further possible confusion.
But humans may be far more responsive to social cues from the youngest age. And now we get into the interesting territory of how that plays out.
For example, there has been pretty crude shift in child-rearing to gender specific environments. Every new baby comes colour coded in its clothing, nursery decoration, its toys. You are either meant to be pink or blue. So a strong dichotomy is being imposed on your identity from the moment you first opened your eyes. And that forces some kind of choice - do you now accept or reject that culturally binary identity?
Instead of leaving things to be a little ambiguous and personal, society pushes the question in your face and it has to be answered one way or the other.
And likewise, coming from the other side, there is that other aspect of modern culture where society is loud and proud that it makes no judgements about your sexual identity. That too is a judgement that is constantly present in a growing child's life - even in being a "non-judgement". Some kind of definite response seems demanded. And the logical response to that becomes an identification as gender fluid or pan-sexual.
So it ain't about right and wrong, of course. But biology did have its intentions. And to look for a hidden selective advantage in homosexuality or gender confusion is a stretch.
And then humans are by design more neurodevelopmentally plastic, more designed to be developmentally completed by cultural programming, anyway. Natural selection has been at work at the level of social norms for a long time with Homo sap.
And now we get into the ways that culture forces the issues. It logically seeks binaries or dialectical divisions. And so every individual becomes forced to interpret his or her own feelings in terms of gender norms. Human culture has evolved to a point now where being non-binary is itself a binary issue of great social importance to how you understand yourself as an individual.
Didn't homosexuality use to be simpler just a few generations back? You were queer and so spoke and walked a certain way. The choice was just straight or gay. Although where homosexuals could construct communities, then they started to impose their own further binaries to create a variety of sub-types. You could have butch vs fem, and so on. As much variety as you please - so long as there was the wider homosexual community to supply and support these contrasting modes of expression.
So the mechanics of it are complex. And also, still socially evolving. The human capacity for gender fluidity - under the right social conditions - is probably far greater than anyone would believe. But also there is the issue that if you are born with one set of sex organs and cultural factors leave you confused about how to interpret that, is that a happy state of affairs for all concerned. Is there a price to that kind of social liberalism - just as we can ask about liberalism generally when it robs individuals of the identity-stabilising context they in fact often seek.
So there are philosophical questions to make both the liberal and conservative uncomfortable. Does either understand the nature of gender sufficiently to be able to arrive at sound social policy?
(And yes, I realise that political identity is another of those binaries that society likes to impose upon us as confused and unformed individuals. :) )
Well, I do also have the benefit of personal experience being gay in our society, and I have also spent an incredible amount of time studying and discussing the nature of homosexuality, with many people, both professional and not.
Ah, Apokrisis strikes again, in all his wordiness!
I mean, I know this sounds ridiculously dickish, but I really have the impression you have said nothing in those 16 paragraphs that you couldn't have said just as clearly in 16 sentences. :kiss:
Although I quite agree with the quoted part. I have always warned liberal-minded folk when they argued that homosexuality was a genetic condition and not a mental one, that this somehow did not mean that bigots would all of a sudden relent from their bigotry.
So why did you say it? If you are so smart that you could boil it down into fewer words, great. But I think what you meant was that you are unaccustomed to any demand being made on your attention span.
(Which would be about the size of Twitter. Again we see how culture is shaping neurodevelopment right there in a way everyone is now quite familiar with.)
Yes, because Nicolas Boileau is renowned for saying "What is well thought-out can be well enunciated, and should fit in 140 characters or less, #voltairesucks".
You can be so cute when you are all puffed-up. Wait, does that make me gay?
Oh, right, according to Jerimiah we can't ever be sure. :chin:
Well, how could I possibly have known that before?
And please, 'butthurt'? In this thread? I would have expected that of Hanover, but not you, oh Great Professional Writer! :broken:
Although Hanover would have at least owned it, and added more flourish.
Here is an article you might find interesting:
https://www.gla.ac.uk/0t4/crcees/files/summerschool/readings/WestZimmerman_1987_DoingGender.pdf
I can tell you the christian position on this topic, which is not necessarily my position (I am on the edge myself).
Christianity has nothing against homosexuality as such, and is only opposed to particular types of sexual intercourse. According to christianity, the functions or ends of intercourse are (1) procreation, (2) union among two people in a marriage, (3) pleasure. And the act must be used with these ends in mind, in the order shown.
The problem with homosexual intercourse is that it can meet ends (2) and (3) but never (1). As such, it is misused. Note however that this is no worse than heterosexual intercourse for the end of (2) and (3) only.
Also, christianity (at least most branches) sees nothing wrong with being a homosexual without the act of intercourse, as it recognizes that the condition is involuntary, and therefore cannot be blameworthy. At worse, it sees it as an unnatural condition like being blind or deaf.
It sort of places God as no more than a beast. A beast effectively merely tries to procreate.
The lure is the pleasure but beast does not know itself so it plunders and blunders toward a goal that often surprises with much anxiety.
I am not sure I understand your position. Are you saying a beast is moved to intercourse by pleasure or by the aim to procreate? My guess is the former, as it appears a lot of beasts, especially the males, don't take care of their offsprings.
Catholics aren't alone in this. Methodists are having a hard time with homosexuality too, as are various denominations more conservative than Methodists.
It depends what is meant by "intrinsically disordered". Maybe it only means homosexuality is an unnatural condition, which would be more of a statement of fact than a statement of judgement of the person.
To be fair, the Roman Catholic catechism also immediately state "They must be welcomed with respect, compassion and gentleness. We will at all cost avoid toward them any unjust discrimination. These individuals are called to realize God's will in their lives, and if they are Christian, to bond with the suffering of the sacrifice of the Lord on the cross through the difficulties they can encounter because of their condition".
I don't really give a rat's ass what the pope and bishops think, but I have no doubt that "intrinsically disordered" is a judgement upon my person. Evidence for "judgement", if it was needed, is that the Vatican has forbidden Catholic organizations from allowing Dignity use of its facilities (this action by a previous pope). Further, priests are not to say Mass with the group. Dignity is the gay Catholic advocacy group. They've been around since the early 1970s and have chapters across the US.
Quoting Akanthinos
And yet the Catholic Church has been one of the larger crosses gay Catholics have had to bear. So, it sounds like pious bullshit.
Granted: Unlike in the early 1970s, most openly gay Catholics find there are plenty of friendly parishes. That doesn't mean all are. As far as blessing gay relationships or being an openly gay seminarian, one can pretty well forget it.
You're correct. Maybe I should have replaced "why would anyone care..." with "why would anyone be concerned about...".
- And yet the Catholic Church has been one of the larger crosses gay Catholics have had to bear. So, it sounds like pious bullshit.
To be fair, its the Catholic Church. It is all going to sound like pious bullshit, no matter what is said.
I also think the claim would need to be explored. I'm never going to deny that the Church has its doctrinal and structural problems, but I really dont know that minus Catholicism, the situation for homosexuals throughout history would have been dramatically improved. I sincerely doubt Jeremiah's idea that homosexuals play a sort of peaceful regulating function in society, if only evil bigots would not be so evil. Bigotry does not stem from religion, spirituality or adherence to a specific creed. It is but the negative aspect of normalisation of social behaviours, and thus will always have to be defeated yet again.
And, to be perfectly candid, I think that the Church is facing a series of problems, of which its attitude and doctrine toward homosexuals is not of the highest priority. And I get that I say this to someone who is positionned to be a victim of unjust discrimination from the Church because of its ridiculous stance, and that it must suck ass to be told this. But the Church condemning homosexuals is not the Church covering up rapes of children and murders of nuns who wanted to blow the whistle. It is not its default implication in the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It is not x, y and z.
Still. Gotta wonder, really, how much effort it would really take for the Pope to simply decide that from now on, the Church stays out of the bedroom affairs of people. Shortest encyclical ever.
You know, during the decade of 1960-70 and years following, most churches - Catholic and mainline Protestant - hemorrhaged members. Tens of millions of people left and never returned. The religious left their orders in droves. Apparently millions of Christians decided that the gap between "the church" and "the world" had grown too wide. One can ask, "To what extent have the Catholic and Protestant churches found a way to address the world people are living in?" Homosexuality is just one of numerous issues where one has to conclude that they aren't making much progress.
We can say "by secular standards the church is wrong" and that will be true in some cases. It's better to say "by religious standards the church is wrong". The Lutherans, Presbyterians, Church of Christ, Episcopalians, et al have found ways to resolve the inclusion of homosexuals without losing their souls. (Of course, on a lot of other issues, like "the church as real estate operation" most churches haven't even acknowledged that the problem exists.) Most churches would not not want to give too much to ease the suffering of the poor, because... they have all these other expenses. Etc. Etc.
The Minneapolis St. Paul Archdiocese declared bankruptcy last year after a large cluster of lawsuits relating to priestly sex abuse. Priests are, of course, fallible and bad things can happen--but that isn't why the Church was sued for so much and lost its case. It was like the Nixon Administration -- it wasn't the Watergate burglary that wrecked the administration, it was the cover-up. Same here. Years of covering up, years of lying, resisting, denying, obstructing investigations, etc--right up to the day they admitted it was all true. Yes -- the priest fucked the boy, we knew about it, we protected the priest for 30 years, and we did everything we could in the last 10 years to prevent the court and investigators from finding the truth.
THAT is just a prime example of the attitude and approach that has alienated so many members for decades.
By aim to procreate. Procreation can and does often exclude raising children in a responsible manner or not at all.
The act of procreation is also not exclusive to the pleasure associated with that act, so it is not a one or the other argument.
Homosexuality, by definition, does reproduce in a biological sense. Evolution is tied into reproduction. Male-male or female-female cannot reproduce. This is biological fact. If you want to call that God's law then fine. Either way, there is no perpetuation of the DNA, even if a homosexual person offers many selective advantages. The only way for these useful qualities to perpetuate is through learned behavior, by others, which involves choice and willpower. Or, like in modern times, the cultural superego, via fake news, encourages this learned behavior since it creates political division.
On the other hand, when the bible and the Church were very strict about the enforcement of old time standards of homosexuality, homosexuals had to pretend to be straight by marrying and having children. The church helped perpetuated the DNA of natural homosexuals. When choice was taken away, the DNA was satisfied. However, it was less wide spread because learning homosexual behavior was not easy to study and copy.
If you look at alcohol and drug addiction, these were choices in the beginning. The first beer someone drank was a choice to look older or cool. However, this initial choice can become habit forming to some; internal pleasure loop into a subroutine, to where it seems like second nature to both oneself and to outsiders. If you look at an alcoholic, functional or dysfunctional, the original choice often becomes the foundation of who they will become.
That is a horrible understanding of both homosexuality and evolution; however, what is even more outlandish is the notion that "the church" has a significant role in this. Your church as you know it, has not been around long enough to be a relevant factor. Especially since "the church" in relation to the history of homo sapien evolution has not been a wide spread influence. The hominid lineage diverged from apes about 5 to 8 million years ago and humans have been around for about 100,00 years. Furthermore homosexual behavior has been observed in about 1,500 animal species, with some species having as much as 80% of the population with homosexual preferences. A realm completely outside "the church".
The data are clear, homosexuality is wide spread, has likely been around forever, and is here to stay. The conclusion that somehow it is counter to evolution could only come from a mind that has no clue what that even means.
Evolution will not falter without humans. In fact it has more chance of faltering with humans around.
In other words, some people would say that same sex attraction is unnatural because of the nature of sexual reproduction, but if partnership involving sexual intimacy/gratification is actually a function of sex, then homosexuality can serve that function without issue.
In the most straightforward terms, my point is that because we have a biological suite of sexual organs which permit same-sex intercourse, it stands to reason that a capacity for same-sex attraction evolved along with them and serve various entirely natural adaptive functions.
What you fail to take in account is that homosexuals can and do reproduce (yes, with females) all the time. Their reproduction is not tied to the Church, and it happens in lands that aren't Catholics.
And if homosexuality is the result of multiple beneficial interacting genes, it doesn't matter if it is coming from an homosexual individual or an heterosexual.