So, What's so bad about being gay?

[fgoodwin 23]

Sally Turner, a retired Carlisle mother, said she picked up the booklet at a table at Brookline High School set up by Fenway Community Health. ``I was quite horrified they were promoting homosexuality all the way down to the youngest grades,'' she said.

 

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=83610

 

 

[tjhammer 10]

fgoodwin, thanks for finding that Boston Herald story, it confirms my prior assumptions better than I could have with my limited web research.

 

Staff -- not sure what was objectionable on the link I provided earlier to the GLSEN, but will defer to your judgment. I do however encourage you to leave the link that fgoodwin has provided above, because I think it explains how a safer sex pamphlet intended for adults and distributed in local bars was inappropriately (and mistakenly) sitting on one of many information booths at this conference, which was held by this association over the weekend in a high school gym they paid the school district to rent.

 

I suppose as good a question as why that pamphlet made it into that room (or at least that's the claim made by one of the Christian activists that attended the event but is denied by all the event organizers), is why the Christian activist was in the room in the first place. (Maybe, like Ed, they were wondering what's so good about being gay?) ;-)

[evmori 11]

tj,

I'm not wondering. I already know the answer. Nothing.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[hacimsaalk12 10]

i know im just jumping in on the end of this, but put it this way, what is so good about being gay?

why not just have a normal relationship w/ a girl? as far as im concerned, gays are gay because they are A. they are too chicken to have anything to do w/ the oposite sex B. they have terrible skills when it comes towards the opposite sex C. the are just really, really sick.

 

[DugNevius 10]

Fgoodwin, i dont presume to know who made or distributed that, if it were GLSEN or NAMBLA or the Boston Red Sox, and it seems, going by the Boston Herald article, no one realy does. Therefore, i think i would need a bit more information before i so quickly criminalized an expansive group of millions because of the actions of a few unknown.

 

hacimsaalk12, im going to assume you have never been around many gay men. The ones i know are constantly around girls and are much better with girls then many strait guys i know.

[Trevorum 24]

packsaddle said, '... [homosexuality] is evolutionarily maladaptive ..."

 

pack, I strongly disagree with that widespread but inanely simplistic notion. Of course, I realize you were being flip, but many people really do reject any biological basis for homosexuality because they assume the genes would be self-eliminating from a population.

 

Think a moment about the advantages of human homosexuality in the context of Dawkins' Selfish Gene. In a foraging society (which characterizes 98% of human history), an adult male who contributes to the food supply but who does not add population pressure to the band would clearly enhance the survival probability of his neices and nephews (which share 25% of his genes). These uncles would bring home lots of food for their relatives, would protect them from predators, etc. Any gene which tinkers with hormones to result in a disinterest in the sexual signals of females (odors, shapes, etc.) would clearly be selected for and passed on through his neices and nephews!. Of course the frequency of this gene would need to be kept in balance with population fertility and mortality. Perhaps a 10% frequency would be optimal? (hmmm?) To carry this idea further, if the allele was recessive and on the X chromosome, females would be homozygous at about 1% frequency ... (hmmm?)

 

At the very least, it's an interesting line of thought and we need to do more research.

[packsaddle 753]

That, ahem, IS one feature of the inclusive fitness aspect I mentioned shortly thereafter. Thanks for expanding on it though. I have sometimes heard a quip that Jesus had the greatest inclusive fitness of anyone in all history (a little more evo humor there).

 

But to continue on your latter idea, I have occasionally been frustrated by what I have read in these forums regarding the understanding of genetics. My frustration isn't so much with the writers but rather with the fact that either the educational system has failed so many, or else people have chosen to be so ignorant of new knowledge that is crucial for decisions related to such aspects of our lives as sexuality, behavior, development, reproduction, etc.

My prejudice is that most people simply have not been presented this information during their academic years and I greatly fault our educational system for this deficiency. And for those of us in the geezer group, it would take some diligent work to keep up with it even if it WAS reported extensively in the popular literature (which it isn't).

 

Some of this new knowledge is fairly recent (coincidental with completion of mapping the human genome and later) and some is more than a decade old. For a teaser see:

http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/eduweb/virtualembryo/hox.html

And this is just a taste of the wonderful ideas that are emerging. (I read similar articles and then think about George Bush...it may be hopeless)

The old Mendelian approach is still valid but very limited in its ability to explain. The new developments in genetics have a huge impact on the way we view development and behavior. And evidently, very few people are prepared to employ these new ideas in the decision making process - thus leaving the process susceptible to influence by myth (religion?), and deception (politics?).

[packsaddle 753]

You know, I just realized that someone might think I just called them a 'geezer'. I apologize in advance. I apply that term only to me and to others shameless enought to admit it themselves.

[Fuzzy Bear 12]

Pack,

 

You are correct about education failing us. I read the article at the site you posted. I couldn't make anteriors or posteriors out of it. I don't believe most college programs have caught up with the technology either. I am sure that it makes sense to a specialist but to most everyone else, someone will need to translate.

 

What is your definition of a geezer?

 

 

FB

[packsaddle 753]

Fuzzy, that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. And bad enough for most people to have little awareness of these things, the same persons then watch the television fantasies regarding DNA-related topics and think it is reality. But it sure works for the talk shows I suppose. Dittoheads anyone?

It should pain everyone to read the dialogue on topics such as this, or embryonic stem cell research, or for that matter most topics related to human reproduction. Technology and understanding have run far ahead of public awareness and the gap is widening. I guess it's no wonder that our representatives offer such thoughtless and superficial legislation. The best optimistic view that I see is that because the gap is so large, corporations are essentially free to pursue these things at will, not to mention other governments who give their scientists greater freedom. I note that many of our top minds on these topics are leaving their posts for those other opportunities.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2005/5/20/144559/471

The net effect: everything that our government wants to suppress will occur anyway - only elsewhere. And any of us that wants access to it will be able to, if we have the cash to travel.

 

Borrowing from a former justice, I don't know how to define 'geezer' but I know one when I see one (mostly in the mirror).

[Trevorum 24]

pack, you make excellent points. The current attempts to insert biblical creationism into public school science curricula are scary cases in point. In Kansas, some folks are even trying to redefine 'science' so that their approaches will fit into the socially acceptable 'good' way of knowing.

 

see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/15/AR2005051500513_pf.html

 

I've never understood how some people can willingly accept SOME kinds of scientifically obtained knowledge (eg., chemistry) and yet reject other fields of knowledge obtained through the same scientific method (eg. biology). It's a mystery.

[Prairie_Scouter 10]

I believe very strongly that the quest for knowledge always "wins" eventually, regardless of the efforts of some governments or religions to stifle the process. The human desire to explore and learn cannot be denied. There was a time when teaching that the earth was not the center of the universe would get you burned at the stake.

 

Nowadays, as conservative governments push scientific research into the private sector, the danger is that this knowledge is gained without the openness of a true scientific process to confirm validity, and that this knowledge becomes available to a privileged few, and then only for profit. This has the potential to put us all at risk.

 

Putting the scientific process in the hands of legislators is problematic. You end up with space shuttles built by the losest bidder, launched by engineers forced to push the safety envelope for the purpose of political expediency. You end up with stem cell reserch, a scientific endeavor, limited not because of scientific ethics but because of the political clout of particular religious groups.

 

Knowledge is the only way I can see to combat this. Our country used to develop the best minds in the world. We need to get back to that, and keep those minds here. The quest for knowledge just for the sake of knowledge has to be re-introduced into out culture and supported by our government, with the belief that this will eventually show tangible benefits. The space program put men on the moon and the spinoffs of the program gave us Teflon, medical monitoring systems, and computer systems that would have taken much longer to develop without government support.

 

Science, religion, and government politics can all survive and thrive together, but only if we recognize their appropriate places in society. Like the theoretical separation of church and state, they work best if left to their own devices, with minimal intrusion from each other. This provides, we might say, "balance in the Force".

 

 

[Trevorum 24]

My definition of "geezer' is anyone who's ever been offered the "senior discount" ...

[packsaddle 753]

Trevorum, took a look at your link. GADD! The spirit of T.D. Lysenko is alive and well, it seems.

[Trevorum 24]

It may be true that "the quest for knowledge always "wins" eventually, regardless of the efforts of some governments or religions to stifle the process". However, do we here in the US really want to wait for several decades while this process runs its eventual course? Can the USA afford to let the rest of the world pass us by? Packsaddle alludes to the early 20th century debacle that stifled biological research in the Soviet Union for decades. Can we aford to allow a modern Lysenkoism infect us? I see this happening increasingly and it is troubling.