I think anyone who is responsible for creating a gay person in this fucked up world should be made to suffer a horrible excruciating death.

SEE? Anton agrees with me!

Never have I said anywhere that people voluntarily choose to be gay. I believe I said it is who they are, or rather I said "who the person is." And if I was unclear before, I will clarify now - sexual preference is innate; there is no why. You decided that my use of the term preference, as in sexual preference, meant voluntary choice; I am suprised at your ability to read into this term, considering that preference is most commonly used when describing whether people are gay/straight/bi, and wonder if you decided to read "voluntary choice" into the word "preference" simply because you have a point of view you want to express.

Unlike what the moon is made of, it is impossible to pinpoint every single factor as to why a person is the way they are. There is no scientific answer for your question, and more importantly, there doesn't need to be one. If someone is gay, it should suffice to say that they are gay. There does not need to be an explanation. I am sorry if you misunderstood my use of the word "preference". I meant sexual preference; that it's an innate preference that they simply have; no choice in the matter. And while this study may have shown that a percentage of gay people may be attributable to some gene, I do not think that there is some scientific "answer" to why people are gay.

And why do I think this way? Because I believe that there are certain things that make up humanity that cannot be attributed to science. I believe that outside of the tissue and cells, there are the things that make people who they are, and that there is no definitive explanation as to where these things come from. And again, I don't think there needs to be.

Besides. Why does it matter if someone is gay? Why do we need to pinpoint why? They're gay because they're gay, they have the right to be gay, and that's just the way there are; no genes or scientific reasoning needed. Call me philosophical, but I guess I don't get why you care enough to ask for the reasoning behind it. People are who they are, and we should let be who they are. I don't need any scientific reasoning. If someone tells me they are gay I'm willing to accept it as that. Mostly because it's not that important; sexual preference tells you little about a person other than their sexual preference; I'll never understand why people focus on it so much; it's not more telling about someone as my like for the rolling stones tells people much of anything about me.

As for that, I think I've said my peace on this matter and am tired of having my words like preference twisted into voluntary choice; leaps like that make me realize there's no point in expressing your point of view on much of anything any more.

Fee

Look at it this way. If I found your initial posts in this thread glib and vague, others likely did too. At least now you've clarified for more than just me.

I assume you won't continue posting here but anyway...

1. Yes, I morphed from "sexual preference" (cause undetermined) to "choice" (potential explanation). But partly because you made it hard for me to do anything else. Let's put forward three possible paradigms for "why-gayness", for sake of argument.
a) Personal conscious choice. (Like, at age 12, you tick a box saying "I think I'll choose to be 'gay'...")
b) Social influence. (Choice of sorts, but not so deliberate.)
c) Predetermination of some sort. ("Born that way.")
You seemed to be saying that predetermination of any sort was ruled out. At least, that's as far as I could interpret you. I never asserted you meant a voluntary and deliberate choice as per option (a); just that you were abjuring any "natural" explanation. Now you're using the word "innate", so again, I can't see quite where you're coming from, since that takes us in quite a different direction. It really feels to me like you're trying to dodge the issue, which makes me curious as to why.

2. Why does it matter? Why do we care? In terms of whether or not we decide to accept homosexuality as just part of the interesting patchwork of human experience, we don't need to know. I agree.

3. But is that a reason not to care? Is that a reason to stick our fingers in our ears and simply stop asking questions? The fact (if we can uncover the facts) that gayness is largely the result of some biological switches being thrown (or not being thrown), or the fact that it is largely the result of social influence and learned behaviour is simply downright interesting. And it has the potential to shed light on other nature/culture debates. And it has interesting implications for looking at societies that in different places or times have been far more accepting of homosexuality than our own cultures typically have been recently.

4. I don't know how to say this to you except bluntly. When you say "I believe that there are certain things that make up humanity that cannot be attributed to science. I believe that outside of the tissue and cells, there are the things that make people who they are, and that there is no definitive explanation as to where these things come from", that is no more useful or meaningful than saying "I think cars work by magic." If you want to pretend science is of no use to us here, that's up to you. But the question of whether science actually IS able to shed some light here or not will be independent of your preferences and opinions, and certainly independent of your belief that you "don't think there needs to be" a scientific explanation.

5. Lastly, and personally, I'd like to see less public outrage and government pressure brought to bear when a lesbian couple is shown on a kids' TV program. I think if we understand the actual causes of homosexuality, that might just increase the degree of enlightenment and tolerance just one tiny little bit. That's the foolish optimist in me, of course. But part of me remains resolutely foolish.

If its proven its genetic it may get a few religious people to shut up, put some homophobes fears to rest and create better understanding. Most people believe in equal rights but only for people who they feel are equal. Some think that homosexuality is some sort of disease or mental defect or just a sin but if they knew its only a genetic difference like hair color or something they might see that there is no difference and look for equality.

really? tell that to the people tho post "redneck" and "hillbilly" on a daily basis.

ooooh, you mean non-white-male racial slurs.

nevermind.

"Redneck" is a race?

I’m really not posting this to be confrontational...just the opposite I hope. But I think that what TheFuckOffKid is getting at is:

There IS a reason why someone is Gay...just as there is a reason why someone is anything. And that’s what makes a scientists mind tweak :-) The reason some people like sushi and others don’t is:

A. They were raised on Sushi and know nothing else.
B. Were raised on sushi and associate positive feelings with it.
C. Have a biological disposition for liking sushi (I.E. the arrangement of taste buds to neurons is such that sushi stimulates a greater biochemical pleasure response in their brains than does the Rolling Stones.)
D. They have a biochemical need for the nutritional components found in sushi...thus their body craves or enjoys it.
E. Some combination of the above.
F. All of the above
G. None of the above.

The reason scientists do research like this is to figure out the damn WHY! Does this research have any real practical sociological value besides keeping them in grant money for another year...probably not. Could it be valuable...potentially. Could it be harmful...potentially.

When Einstein was working out the whole E=MC2 thing...he wasn’t looking to come up with products...he was looking for answers. He had a question that was bugging him nights, AND he had the particular skill set to solve the problem. So he did.

Man, then, made both nuclear bombs (bad) and Nuclear reactors (good) out of it.

My foolish tendency to assume good things will come keeps me going

And thanks for playing good cop to my bad cop, BK

Sure thing :-) I'll expect the same the next time I feel like getting all firey on the boards :-)

Just to go down a different tangent, there have been well established and well documented differences between the brain structures of men and women. Recently, some researchers have noticed some statistically different sizes in specific lobes between heterosexual and homosexual males as well. Structural lobe differences have also been accounted for in other personality traits. I personally knew a man who’s entire personality dramatically changed after frontal lobe damage due to an accident.

The question that remains is...if the lobe size and structure differences are significant in homo/hetero sexuality, are the differences caused by genetics, or environment pressures on the developing brain.

I don't think about social programming as love or anything but about a predominance of our cultures.
Your example with child trauma is very useful ; if a biological thing creates psychopath, all abused children will be psycopaths. I don't deny what you cann predisposition but we know (and there are studies about it) which showed culture can cover natural behaviours.

are you kidding ? I will do a study with me. I'm french a I'm heterosexual. so all french people are heterosexual.

absolutly not. In a study you have to see all behaviours (here, homosexuality and heterosexuality). Ig you just study one of them, you take the second as the normality, as your basis.

Good point ; nothing to say :o)

First, do you really think all men all around the world love to see sex ? Lots of tribes don't work with that way. Some tribes live naked and don't especiaclly like it.
A male animal is not threatened by another male who can catch his "harem". He just kwows if the other one takes the "harem", he won't be the alpha anymore and will die.
do you think you will die if someone take your harem ? :o)

Yes it is. That's why I was saying the study is biaised.
If the subject was sexuality (in general) is genetic we can consider it. By saying homosexuality is genetic, they put heterosexuality as their basis, their normality.

[Edited on Feb 27, 2006 by mathilde74]

That's not what he said, and that's not a correct assessment of how biology works.

He's agreeing with you.

????

If I have millions of years of evolutionary programming as the legacy of my species and my gender, then it doesn;t matter what I consciously think. A status threat is a status threat, regardless of my conscious reasoning as to what it represents.