DanKroh

"One must remember that when they take a comment out of context, it can and often times leads to a completely different intent than what was originally meant." Stosh, it was not my intent to take your comment out of context. I know what you meant by "break the cycle" of behavior. However, from what little info Sharky has relayed, there is some reason to doubt the young man's ability to react in a rational way to such an event. I don't know his mental state, so I'm just urging a little caution in thinking that there cannot be serious negative consequences of a permanent sort in this s

I think those who bring up that this behavior could just be the result of parental "giving in" have valid points. And I did not rule that out in suggesting getting the young man professional help. And here's why. At 14-years-old, IF the pattern of inappropriate behavior is due to parents not curbing it at a younger age, the behavior is now so deeply rooted that they are unlikely to be able to change it themselves without some professional intervention. IF the behavior does have some sort of organic (either neurological or somatic) cause, then it is worth (in my opinion) ruling t

"Unless you're a medical professional willing to take this kid on as a patient, keep your diagnoses to yourself." Can't speak for anyone else, but I only see advice being offered here, not diagnoses. That advice being, to see the appropriate medical professional who CAN make a diagnosis.

What Calico said. As far as the possibility of it being Asperger's, lots of behavioral problems are characterized by tantrums. It could also be an underlying somatic condition (like hypoglycemia) that is impacting his behavior. Finally, not all behavioral conditions have an neurological basis, but it is still a behavior problem. Professional help can both aid in distinguishing which it is, as well as treating it, whatever the cause. Talk to the parents. Get the boy some help.

"I've always been a bit disappointed in da prejudice shown by the gay rights movement against religions like the Mormons and Catholics." Or perhaps it is in reaction to the Catholic and LDS churches pouring millions of dollars into political campaigns to restrict the rights of gays. Prop 8 comes to mind.

"They show pretty clearly that there wasn't any scientific basis, just da normal actions of a political lobby with a viewpoint" Yeah, because the opinions of all those professionals psychiatrists were only influence by their political opinions, and not informed by years of reading and conduction research in their own field, huh? Pot, meet kettle.

"Can we get a scientifically derived conclusion or position on this subject from the American Psychiatric Association?" Yes. The general position on homosexuality is here: http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/199216.aspx The position statement on same-sex marriage is here: http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionStatements/200416.aspx Position statement on gays in the military: http://www.psych.org/Departments/EDU/Library/APAOfficialDocumentsandRelated/PositionState

"That's fine, but the Center for Disease Controls has at least a prima facie appearance of being a respectable source of information. I believe there are other ostensibly credible entities among those I ran across." Yes, some of them, like the CDC, are credible sources. But when you pull information from them out of context, without a basis for comparison, then it just becomes meaningless. All you've done with the info from credible sources is quote statistics that cast gays in a bad light, without providing comparable statistics about heterosexuals. That's introducing bias. Anyone could

"It's easy to impugn motives (in my case, your assumptions are quite mistaken). But the more you do this, the less facts you present. Show me something real and substantive. If you have something factual that argues against these studies, please present it." I am not so much impugning your motives as I am asking you if you understand why someone WOULD impugn your motives, given the type of material you continue to present. I'm not making assumptions. I'm asking you why you chose to present the articles you did, and continue to disregard the other resources pointed out to you. But you

"I'm trying to find facts. I'm keeping an open mind until I do so." Really? And yet, every article you quote here presents an obvious anti-gay bias, some from very disreputable sources. Why is that? Do you see why it gives the strong impression that you have already made up your mind and are looking for material to support your own opinion? "My motive here is finding out the truths that have been established---is this a bad thing? If so, why can we not discuss the facts? We have a multi-billion dollar scientific establishment in this country, and I'm trying to locate facts about homo

Ok, I'm going to preface all of this by saying, "So?" Does any of this (assuming any bit of it is gathered by legitimate scientific methods, and that's a big assumption for most of it) make homosexuals any less worthy of respect or the right to be treated with the dignity and equality due any other human being? Now, on to the meat of this: "* A 1997 New York Times article reported that a young male homosexual has about a 50% chance of getting HIV by middle age." Yeah, because the NYT does so much scientific research. Without knowing where they got these numbers from, can't comme

"we have a jalapeno patrol and their yell is "muy caliente!" or sometimes "arriba - muy caliente!"" Personally, I think the best yell for a jalapeno patrol would be "On a STEECK!" But I watch waaaaay too much Jeff Dunham.

Older son's first patrol was the Rock patrol. The badger patrol emblem turned upside down looks surprisingly like a rock Their yell was "THUNK!" Younger son's first patrol is the "Killer Poptarts", for which one crafty mother made an iron-on for the blank patch. Their yell is "Suh-WEET!"(This message has been edited by DanKroh)

"Yah, do yeh really want to go there? Justifying arguments based on stereotypes because they have a correlational basis?" Again, not what I said at all. I MADE no arguments based on the stereotype, so I don't know how I can justify such an argument. All I did was refute that someone else's assumption (again, not *my* assumption) based on such a stereotype is not necessarily a character attack, as you wanted to label it. That's twice now that you've tried to put words in mouth, Beavah. Gee, I guess it's not really a good day for you on that account. "I reckon you're only going to

"Nah, Dan, yeh really didn't just claim that it's OK to dismiss an individual's viewpoint because the demographic group they're part of tends toward certain beliefs or practices, did you? " No, actually, I didn't. I just pointed out that rather than being an attack on a person's character, such a stereotype actually has a basis in fact, and it not something that just gets pulled out of the blue. So I see, dismissing a viewpoint of an individual because of their demographic is bad, but mocking an entire profession (or at least, a professional organization) because the conclusion of on

"Aw, poor Dan. Surely you're not going to tell me yeh never criticized a lawyer or a public policy decision. I reckon there are a lot more lawyer jokes, and even more engineer jokes, than psychologist jokes." Sure, I have criticized the decision of A lawyer or A judge. However, I didn't put that criticism on a public forum, and then use it as an excuse to mock the entire profession. Psychologist jokes? I know some good ones. But my favorite ones are a little too risque for this venue, since they involve pointing out that psychologists' clients are usually laying on a couch and paying

"Yah, but da registration fees for non-members are often enough to buy a cheap used car, eh? There are certainly all kinds of conferences that are open only to members in my field. And da other ones require the title to your car, as described." Except most press memberships are usually paid for by the publications the reporters work for. I guess they feel it is worth it. And yes, press are free to attend any session, in my experience. "I don't want to pick on da psychologists more than they deserve, eh?" I guess you don't *want* to, but you will continue doing it anyway, huh?

"Da notion that those who oppose a homosexual lifestyle must be living on some desert island is just an attack on da character of a person because of their viewpoint." Or, there could be a documented correlation that people who have negative viewpoints of homosexuality are more likely NOT to have close relationships with openly homosexual people. There are people who study the demographics of prejudicial attitudes.

"Males 30-44 report an average of 6-8 female sexual partners in their lifetime (Mosher, Chandra, & Jones, 2005)." Yep, that jives with the numbers I have heard, including the report that I cited that said 7.3 partners for heterosexual men. However, if you look at the other report I cited, it said that gay men have an average of 4-5 partners over their lifetime, which is actually lower than the heterosexual average. However, the number from that one report is not definitive, and I do believe the average is probably similar to the 7-8 partners that heterosexual men average. But def

"For homosexuality to be fully accepted as moral behavior, the culture will have to restrict, discriminate against and eventually out law the practice of religion." No, the culture will just have to outlaw using the practice of religion as an excuse to discriminate against and restrict the rights of others. Oh wait, we already do that in theory. Now we just have to put it into true practice. Many religions have no problem with accepting homosexuality as a variant on *normal* human sexuality, including some Christian denominations (just to point out that it's not all just us heat

OGE, believe me, I recognize the fruitlessness of trying to convince people about something that for many of them has no rational basis. I try not to get involved in these debates unless someone presents information as truth/fact when it is really opinion, a distortion of the facts, or just plain false. I think there are people out there who are undecided, and I would like them to have possession of valid information rather than falsehoods from which to make up their own minds.

At the risk of being accused of being close-minded, I'm at least going to be intellectually honest. No, there is nothing that I can conceive of that could be said or shown to me that would convince me that homosexuality is wrong/bad. Because not only would the evidence have to be compelling in its own right in making a case that homosexuality is wrong, it would also have to somehow invalidate the vast volume of research to the contrary. It would have to somehow invalidate almost 20 years of professional experience in working with homosexual clients, as well as 30 years of deep friend

Where are those first two paragraphs quoted from? "I don't accept that animals of the same sex appearing to have sex makes it OK. Animals react to instinct, so what ever is going on, its not a gay action. For example, sometimes a dog mounts another dog to show pack dominance. Its not a sexual thing, it purely a show ranking." I agree, dominance is a different thing entirely (kinda like the huge difference between a consensual gay relationship and a man raping another man). However, there is evidence of animals in long-term pairings with other animals of the same gender, including sex

"Your basing that explination off pain? What?" I didn't say anything about pain. Where exactly does pain come into the equation, since homosexual sex generally causes no more pain than heterosexual sex. I asked what you meant by "It is certainly real". If "it" refers to pain, then my argument still stands. Lots of things we do to our bodies cause "pain" (which is not the same thing as "injury", just to be clear). Pierced ears, smoking, sports, just to name a few. I'm still trying to understand why some activities that "the body isn't designed to do" and "cause pain" are "bizarre and devia

"Yah, shame, because you clearly got it wrong. But then, I reckon there is great psychological research that shows folks tend to significantly overestimate their own competence." Well, whether I got it right or wrong (sorry, not going to argue about that), clearly what kind of fallacy I labeled it was important enough to the debate that you needed to point it out, rather than focusing on the substance of the fallacy itself. As you say, shame that. "Since conference presentations aren't available outside da conference, of course I haven't read the work yet, which you knew." Well,