Texas' Hateful Stance

[Paperman299]

How exactly is it "hateful"? Misguided perhaps, wasteful even but you lefties are wearing out the word "hate" almost as fast as you did "Racist".

"Hateful" is probably not a good word here. You're right, it is becoming the go-to word when defending gay rights, and when you've got a hammer...

Whether hateful or misguided, though, the attitude is still harmful.

 

[Picaro]

So, what does "Gay" smell like?

Don't know; you'll have to ask De Vay, who is homosexual himself. He studied brains, and claimed to have found a difference in the hypothalamus of homosexual males, which could affect smell and sexual arousal based on sex. Some homosexuals claim to be repulsed by the smell of women.

 

[Picaro]

No, it's not. In fact, I've already posted a sizable crop of findings which show homosexuals and heterosexuals to be different at the biological level.

I've read a lot of those, and sorry, but the methodologies are junk for the most part, and seem more like exercises in confirmation bias and poor sampling.

 

[Paperman299]

I don't use Wiki as a source, hope that actual science doesn't confuse you.

The above problems aside, even the data from LeVay's study did not prove that anyone was born gay. This is the case for at least two reasons:

• Both groups of men covered essentially the same range of sizes. One could be gay (HM) with a small INAH-3 or with a large one. One could also be in the "heterosexual" category (M) with either a small or large INAH-3. Clearly, these men were not held to a sexual orientation by their INAH-3 biology! As the data shows, the INAH-3 size of three of the homosexual men puts them clearly in the "heterosexual" category (with one having the second largest INAH-3!). If all you know about any of LeVay's subjects is INAH-3 size, you could not accurately predict whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, male or female.
• A study that showed a clear difference in INAH-3 sizes, would still leave another question unanswered: are men gay because of a smaller INAH-3, or was their INAH-3 smaller because of their homosexual actions, thoughts, and/or feelings? It is known that the brain does change in response to changes in behaviour and environment. For example, Newsweek reported that "in people reading Braille after becoming blind, the area of the brain controlling the reading finger grew larger." As well, in male songbirds, "the brain area associated with mating is not only larger than in the female, but varies according to the season" (Newsweek, Feb. 24, 1992, p. 50).

Are People Born Gay?

Oops, that blew the biggest piece of your argument out of the water, so sorry.

Even PFLAG scoffs at the "Born gay" meme.

Why Ask Why?: Addressing the Research on Homosexuality and Biology - Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays - Google Books

Feel free to keep believing in astrology though, I know it makes you feel smart. I prefer to go with the evidence and not make excuses for people's sexual preference. In otter words, I accept them as they are, I don't try to force them into a box to make myself feel better about them.

You should try it sometime.

You actually promised to do all of them, and this is only one. Which is fine, but even if you could discredit this tidbit, it hardly blows my argument out of the water. Even if it was from a real scientific source, which it’s not.

This is from New Direction Ministries, a religious organization which its own web-site admits has a troubled history of shaming gays. They’ve changed their ways, but this web page you've cited is from about 1996, well before they came around. Here’s a link from their own web-site, with someone’s brutal story of their experience of New Direction’s tender ministrations - from the era of their history you’re citing for your “science." But hey, atleast it’s not Wikipedia, right?

Also, both of those critiques are ridiculous. First, LeVay observed trends, and you can’t get around that by pointing out the overall range of each subset of samples. Second, what is this ex-gay ministry claiming caused those gay thoughts? At the time, their scientific position was probably that they didn’t pray hard enough.

Seriously, suggesting that there is no solid science suggesting differences between heterosexual and homosexual brains is sort of silly at this point. Care to offer some gay-shaming church’s critique of this study as well?

Swedish researchers did MRI scans of 50 heterosexual men and women and 40 homosexual men and women and found surprising parallels. The brains of lesbians and straight men were anatomically symmetrical while the brains of gay men and straight women had a larger right brain hemisphere.

The researchers also looked at the amygdala, a part of the brain that’s associated with emotions, and found that straight women and gay men both have more connections between the amygdala and brain regions associated with anxiety and mood disorders. Meanwhile, the amygdala of lesbians and straight men had more connections to the region that controls fight or flight reactions.

These clear differences suggest that sexual orientation is determined by biology, not by social factors.

You have a lot of these points still to go, I hope your next critique will have a little more meat on it than some “pray the gay away”-style ministry’s frustrated attempt at robbing the scientific vocabulary.

 

[Paperman299]

No, it's not. In fact, I've already posted a sizable crop of findings which show homosexuals and heterosexuals to be different at the biological level.

I've read a lot of those, and sorry, but the methodologies are junk for the most part, and seem more like exercises in confirmation bias and poor sampling.

At least you're polite about it. All I can say to you is, I disagree.

 

[Picaro]

"A few years ago?" The American Psychoanalytic Association stopped classifying homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1991. The American Psychological Association did it in 1975 and the American Psychiatric Association in 1973. Many of the organizations on that list finally came together and released a document on homosexuality which, among other items, definitively stated they were opposed to so-called reparative therapy in 1999.

Not very convincing that they did so for scientific reasons.

The 1973 vote by the American Psychiatric Association, for instance, came about from some three years of '60's style mau-mauing; less than half of the membership voted at all, slightly less than 10,000 out of a membership of around 20,000, and the vote against changing the classification was 3,800 to 5,800 for, not exactly a landslide indicating the vote was based on conclusive scientific evidence of any kind.

 

[Picaro]

At least you're polite about it. All I can say to you is, I disagree.

I have several homosexual friends, some are lifelong friends, a couple died from complications from AIDS in the mid '90's. I'm not homophobic, nor do I support this junk 'therapy' thing; I think it's junk science as well. I do read as much as I can on the issues.

 

[Peach]

I don't use Wiki as a source, hope that actual science doesn't confuse you.

Are People Born Gay?

Oops, that blew the biggest piece of your argument out of the water, so sorry.

Even PFLAG scoffs at the "Born gay" meme.

Why Ask Why?: Addressing the Research on Homosexuality and Biology - Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays - Google Books

Feel free to keep believing in astrology though, I know it makes you feel smart. I prefer to go with the evidence and not make excuses for people's sexual preference. In otter words, I accept them as they are, I don't try to force them into a box to make myself feel better about them.

You should try it sometime.

Try reading some biological studies:

Science: Homosexuality Isn't Genetic, but It Is Biological

Not "genetic". biological.

I don't recall saying it wasn't biological, but thanks for your input to something you are totally ignorant about.

If you want to know about epi genetics, and why you should be skeptical about claims about it that come from a science fiction blog, read this.

Epigenetics: It doesn?t mean what quacks think it means « Science-Based Medicine

Political beliefs can blind one to science, thank you for the article, one of about 50 I have read, the conclusion remains the same, "...looks like homosexuality is biological in origin, but there is no "catch phrase" the public will accept". And there are chinks in the armor of evolution also. My what a piece of work is man.....

 

[GHook93]

While Texas is right on most things esp economically! They are dead wrong on the the gay issue.

Still the best state in the nation, but they have their flaws!


Sent from my iPhone using USMessageBoard.com

 

[Paperman299]

"A few years ago?" The American Psychoanalytic Association stopped classifying homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1991. The American Psychological Association did it in 1975 and the American Psychiatric Association in 1973. Many of the organizations on that list finally came together and released a document on homosexuality which, among other items, definitively stated they were opposed to so-called reparative therapy in 1999.

Not very convincing that they did so for scientific reasons.

The 1973 vote by the American Psychiatric Association, for instance, came about from some three years of '60's style mau-mauing; less than half of the membership voted at all, slightly less than 10,000 out of a membership of around 20,000, and the vote against changing the classification was 3,800 to 5,800 for, not exactly a landslide indicating the vote was based on conclusive scientific evidence of any kind.

Link? Not doubting your numbers. I'm just exhausted with hunting for stuff.

It's true that there was still strong resistance to the idea of non pathologizing homosexuality at the time the APA made its change. However, I would argue that it was actually the resistance which was mostly cultural and political. New research had been ongoing since the 50's which showed homosexuality was not a mental illness, but the APA refused to make changes which reflected those findings. President Nixon shelved a National Institute of Mental Health recommendation suggesting the same. Dr. Robert Spitzer of the APA only came around when he discovered gay psychiatrists existed.

I have several homosexual friends, some are lifelong friends, a couple died from complications from AIDS in the mid '90's. I'm not homophobic, nor do I support this junk 'therapy' thing; I think it's junk science as well. I do read as much as I can on the issues.

Sorry to hear about your friends. And I'm glad you're not in favor of this reparative therapy stuff. I feel that, as far as we've come, a lot of gay people are still in the closet. No one throws the individual a guy pride parade when he comes out to his parents; there's a good chance he'll be attacked even by people closest to him.

When the GOP makes statements like this, no matter how pleasantly or apparently compassionately they couch the sentiment, they're still saying "we don't want you to be gay." And that's something that causes more people to stay in the closet, and more people to feel ashamed.

Maybe I've been a little too aggressive in this thread. But I'm just so exhausted with explaining to people why acceptance is better than guilting and demeaning people.

 

[bodecea]

When are homos going to stop whining about the most tolerant Country in the world. Move to a freaking Shria dominated country and find out what hatred is all about. Better still, organize a "gay rights parade " in Iraq or Syria and let us know how you make out.

Yes yes...the "Be grateful you live here....it's a lot worse in the Middle East" line.

The RW and Texas new license plate motto..."Hey, at least we're not Iran"

 

[Peach]

When are homos going to stop whining about the most tolerant Country in the world. Move to a freaking Shria dominated country and find out what hatred is all about. Better still, organize a "gay rights parade " in Iraq or Syria and let us know how you make out.

Yes yes...the "Be grateful you live here....it's a lot worse in the Middle East" line.

The RW and Texas new license plate motto..."Hey, at least we're not Iran"

But they have no objection to a Christian imitation thereof.

 

[Stephanie]

omg, at least we're not Iran
the dramatics all over one state having some therapy that should up to the person if they want it

why would cnn post something like this and how is this helping anything? This doesn't help anyone as I'm sure most people aren't thinking some therapy for homosexuals a big priority when voting.

and unless you live there why does it matter who's backing what?

 

[WorldWatcher]

omg, at least we're not Iran
the dramatics all over one state having some therapy that should up to the person if they want it?

So you agree with states like California and New Jersey that restrict such therapy to consenting adults so that teenagers can't be forced into it, correct?


>>>>

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I don't use Wiki as a source, hope that actual science doesn't confuse you.

The above problems aside, even the data from LeVay's study did not prove that anyone was born gay. This is the case for at least two reasons:

• Both groups of men covered essentially the same range of sizes. One could be gay (HM) with a small INAH-3 or with a large one. One could also be in the "heterosexual" category (M) with either a small or large INAH-3. Clearly, these men were not held to a sexual orientation by their INAH-3 biology! As the data shows, the INAH-3 size of three of the homosexual men puts them clearly in the "heterosexual" category (with one having the second largest INAH-3!). If all you know about any of LeVay's subjects is INAH-3 size, you could not accurately predict whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, male or female.
• A study that showed a clear difference in INAH-3 sizes, would still leave another question unanswered: are men gay because of a smaller INAH-3, or was their INAH-3 smaller because of their homosexual actions, thoughts, and/or feelings? It is known that the brain does change in response to changes in behaviour and environment. For example, Newsweek reported that "in people reading Braille after becoming blind, the area of the brain controlling the reading finger grew larger." As well, in male songbirds, "the brain area associated with mating is not only larger than in the female, but varies according to the season" (Newsweek, Feb. 24, 1992, p. 50).

Are People Born Gay?

Oops, that blew the biggest piece of your argument out of the water, so sorry.

Even PFLAG scoffs at the "Born gay" meme.

Why Ask Why?: Addressing the Research on Homosexuality and Biology - Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays - Google Books

Feel free to keep believing in astrology though, I know it makes you feel smart. I prefer to go with the evidence and not make excuses for people's sexual preference. In otter words, I accept them as they are, I don't try to force them into a box to make myself feel better about them.

You should try it sometime.

You actually promised to do all of them, and this is only one. Which is fine, but even if you could discredit this tidbit, it hardly blows my argument out of the water. Even if it was from a real scientific source, which it’s not.

This is from New Direction Ministries, a religious organization which its own web-site admits has a troubled history of shaming gays. They’ve changed their ways, but this web page you've cited is from about 1996, well before they came around. Here’s a link from their own web-site, with someone’s brutal story of their experience of New Direction’s tender ministrations - from the era of their history you’re citing for your “science." But hey, atleast it’s not Wikipedia, right?

Also, both of those critiques are ridiculous. First, LeVay observed trends, and you can’t get around that by pointing out the overall range of each subset of samples. Second, what is this ex-gay ministry claiming caused those gay thoughts? At the time, their scientific position was probably that they didn’t pray hard enough.

Seriously, suggesting that there is no solid science suggesting differences between heterosexual and homosexual brains is sort of silly at this point. Care to offer some gay-shaming church’s critique of this study as well?

Swedish researchers did MRI scans of 50 heterosexual men and women and 40 homosexual men and women and found surprising parallels. The brains of lesbians and straight men were anatomically symmetrical while the brains of gay men and straight women had a larger right brain hemisphere.

The researchers also looked at the amygdala, a part of the brain that’s associated with emotions, and found that straight women and gay men both have more connections between the amygdala and brain regions associated with anxiety and mood disorders. Meanwhile, the amygdala of lesbians and straight men had more connections to the region that controls fight or flight reactions.

These clear differences suggest that sexual orientation is determined by biology, not by social factors.

You have a lot of these points still to go, I hope your next critique will have a little more meat on it than some “pray the gay away”-style ministry’s frustrated attempt at robbing the scientific vocabulary.

Feel free to point out where I said anything in support of reparation therapy. In fact, if you go back and look you will see I dismissed the hole field of psychotherapy as quackery. What I have said is that, as long as they are consenting adults, what the fuck business is of anyone else?

That said, people are not born gay, and that link I supplied actually debunked more than one of your arguments.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Try reading some biological studies:

Science: Homosexuality Isn't Genetic, but It Is Biological

Not "genetic". biological.

I don't recall saying it wasn't biological, but thanks for your input to something you are totally ignorant about.

If you want to know about epi genetics, and why you should be skeptical about claims about it that come from a science fiction blog, read this.

Epigenetics: It doesn?t mean what quacks think it means « Science-Based Medicine

Political beliefs can blind one to science, thank you for the article, one of about 50 I have read, the conclusion remains the same, "...looks like homosexuality is biological in origin, but there is no "catch phrase" the public will accept". And there are chinks in the armor of evolution also. My what a piece of work is man.....

I don't let any of my beliefs trump science, I leave that to people that think that think politics is more important than truth.

I can lay out hundreds of scientific experiments that prove that free will exist. There is absolutely no conclusive proof that sexual preference is not a choice. Every single biological indicator that has been found that shows that sexual preference is an innate biological trait has been found in people of all sexual preferences. The science is all on my side of this discussion and always will be because all the science that attempts to prove that we do not have a choice is based on political views, not facts.

I have been having this discussion for years on various discussion boards, often with actual homosexuals that didn't understand the science but were enthralled by the idea that they had no choice. Not once has anyone even come close to changing my mind because I read the studies from both sides, not just the ones that support my opinion. I dig into them and find the methodological flaws are consistently on the side of the people who want to disprove free will.

Good luck with holding to that position, it is a guaranteed loser.

 

[bodecea]

What's really unfortunate is that same sex marriage has been forced on an unwilling public ANYWHERE. What is a medical travesty is not recognizing that some men were led into homosexual lifestyles early and now recognize that they are not homosexual at all and need to be integrated into being a whole and heterosexual person.

Same-sex marriage has not been "forced" on an unwilling public.

Every time a court overturns a state law to that effect, the court, necessarily, forces gay marriage on an unwilling public.

So..you would be forced to have a gay marriage. That's brutal, man.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

omg, at least we're not Iran
the dramatics all over one state having some therapy that should up to the person if they want it?

So you agree with states like California and New Jersey that restrict such therapy to consenting adults so that teenagers can't be forced into it, correct?


>>>>

Not until they also restrict therapy for sex change for anyone under 18, until they do they are picking and choosing for political reasons that have nothing to do with actual science.

 

[Silhouette]

omg, at least we're not Iran
the dramatics all over one state having some therapy that should up to the person if they want it?

So you agree with states like California and New Jersey that restrict such therapy to consenting adults so that teenagers can't be forced into it, correct?


>>>>

Any therapist would quickly discover if a teen was being forced into reparative therapy. So it's a ruse. What the laws were actually intended to do was to keep any child from seeking to leave the "gay" status and go into the hetero camp. It's hard work for the chicken hawks to imprint their prey. The last thing they want is for some therapist to help a molestation victim repair the damage by their own request.

However, in those same states, if a child wants to explore leaving hetero camp for homo camp, endless resources of therapy, outreach groups and enticements exist.

If a minor wants to change their sexual orientation, they can only do so legally from hetero to homo, but not the other direction. You know, because LGBT cult believes in personal autonomy in sexual identity...and equality...

 

[AntiParty]

How unfortunate that at a time when over one-third of the states in the United States are allowing for same-sex marriage and are condemning hate against GLBT people, Texas has to come out with this crud. Gay conversion therapy has been shot down by many medical professionals as not working and causing great harm to many. Yet Texas, the backward state, has to introduce this as the *main* part of the Republican's agenda for Texas. The following article explains it quite well and exemplifies the need for Republicans to gather more love and compassion for people who may be different from them and to stop feeling they are far superior to them. But people are taking note of this everywhere. And in the end, it can only be remembered as a black mark against Texas and a black eye for the nation as a whole.

Why is Texas GOP backing gay conversion therapy?
Opinion: Why is Texas GOP backing gay conversion therapy? - CNN.com

Texas is still trying to figure out why the devil took their water.......and openly support oil fracking. Texas is the testicle state of this nation. Big, hanging low, making bad decisions due to testosterone.