Homosexuality, Biology, and the Gay Marriage Debate
Yesterday the Los Angeles Daily News ran a story about chemicals derived from testosterone. Apparently, when subjects who identified themselves as homosexual smelled the chemical, they showed brain activity that subjects who identified themselves as heterosexual did not. While this doesn't conclusively prove that homosexuality is biological, it is a strong piece of evidence in favor of that argument.
Now, if it turns out that what we are talking about here is effectively pheremones, then there is a biological, not social, issue at hand. If that is the case, the denial of equivalent rights under marriage laws is akin to the denial of other rights based solely on biochemical factors. No, equating gay marriage to the civil rights movement of the 60s is not quite right, based on the conclusive evidence we have right now, but this study moves us toward a validation of that position.
It gets worrisome, however, as my friend Jim pointed out in a conversation today. What happens if Bush's "scientists" (selected for what they believe, not what they can prove, in too many cases) decide that homosexuality is a disease, and one that we should "cure"? What happens if we revert to the position once held by Freud (he later recanted) that homosexuality is abnormal? What happens if we end up with a country that tries not only to deny equal access to marriage rights for homosexual but to the freedom to live as their bodies—not their minds—are telling them to live?
posted by Andrew Purvis @ 4:55 PM
18 Comments:
i really hope you meant "smelled" not "spelled".
heh. hooo doggies...there's a joke--or eight--in there somewhere.
Oh, somehow I think I will hear one or two, even now that it's fixed.
So what, homosexuality is also a behavior, a preference, and ooh... sometimes it is a deviance from the norm. Homosexuality is normal or abnormal depending on your frame of reference, it just depends on what population you're referring to.
As to what Bush's scientists, whoever they are (I am not informed), I don't see how their decisions should carry any weight. They got to bring forth the evidence to affect anything. Or are you trying to deride their scientific credentials,… slick Andrew but not slick enough ;;)
Mm, the Constitution bestows the right to privacy, which brings with it the right to be gay if one so wants or can’t help it. Either way, why must it be called marriage, why can’t it be called a civil union and carry all the rights of marriage. I bet that would be acceptable to most people.
Constitutional right to privacy? Please tell me you are joking! Not even the 14th Amendment contains that. Whether or not we want use "normal" or "abnormal" is irrelevant. The question here is biology. Are dwarves abnormal? Biologically, yes. Should they be banned from having access to legal proceedings adjudicated by people over six feet tall? Probably not.
Bush scientist: the stars move across the sky, so they must be pin holes in velvet. Yes, I jest, but during his first term he engaged in an extensive purge, firing high-ranking scientists who did not subscribe to what he wants the truth to be. That's not science. That's politics.
Your question about the language amuses me. It can be called a civil union and carry all of the rights as marriage. Then again, if it were truly identical to marriage in every way, why not just call it marriage? What frightens some people so about that? Better yet, let's eliminate marriage. Why does anyone need it? Let me now go back to the "civil union" issue and ask this: can two things that are different, even in name only, ever be equal in fact and under the law? Is that not the problem that "separate but equal" caused? When the names are different, the definitions will be different. That means that either can be altered without changing the other, so they are not inherently equal.
No, I’m not joking. The right to privacy is implied from the constitution. If for no other reason, it is so because the Supreme Court says so, remember Roe v Wade?
I agree that the normal/abnormal distinction is irrelevant, it just annoys me when people on either side brings it up to sling it.
It was Bush’s prerogative to fire agents of the presidency. I won’t look up the quote but “these are the president’s men and he is entitled to have them.” The president governs through them, so they should reflect the president’s views. Yes, this is politics, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the end product is not science.
You can’t say that these people are dishonest just because they are republican. Plus, I am pretty sure they weren’t doing actual research, they are heads of agencies, in charge of goals and finances and morale etc...
You had a good point about the language. Theoretically, marriage and unions could be made identical in most ways, but I see the limitations. Yet, let’s not do away with marriage, it’s a good thing, it is a basic building block of society, it creates stability, it makes people happy (more than not), and it is optional anyway. But if we include gay unions under marriage, why not include having multiple partners as well, why not include unions between people and animals, or between people and virtual partners? Why draw the line to include gay unions?
Well-there are reasons why a gay couple should have limitted rights. First of all and very borring I'm sure, they can't support the survival of our specie,which is one of the primary goals-this being the very reason why a man-women couple is protected by society.Our human nature rational and all,which makes us superior to animals leads us to making room on this earth to everybody, which is great.Still-the truth is our actions are based a lot on primary instincts such as self-preservation, survival, etc.The best adapted individuals win(succes, better living, better partners).Best adapted individuals in this case are heterosexuals.So, you as a society would want more of those.Encouraging homosexuality by giving same rights and pretending that gay couples and heterosexual ones are similar, it's just an artificial idea.They're not similar.They're not abnormal,but not an equitable alternative to straight.
Having a child,bringing up a child and most important educating a child it's something gay people either cannot do or shouldn't be allowed to,based on the fact that environment has a great importance in the child's future choices in life in general and sexual in particular.A person biologically gay, born like that it's someone that had no choice.A person that became gay it's generally somebody's fault.
Gay people should be able to live the life they want within the limits of not harming arond.
I would say that this anonmous poster amost deserves a new post, if only to point out the lack of thought inherent in his or her ideas. It is truly stunning.
The initial argument is the procreative case. As we'll see, our delicate commenter wishes to deny marriage rights to sterile men, post-menopausal women, and anyone who chooses never to have any children. They are not going to procreate, so they don't deserve the right to get married. We can let widows and widowers who fall in love in the nursing home just wither away outside of marriage.
This next argument is beyond incomprehensibly bad. We are a well-adapted species and should thus not allow gay people (not as well-adapted) to carry forward to new generations. Oooh, yeah. They are going to pop out lots of gay babies with their ""gay-people sex." This is how we already know that anonymous commenter's brain is unsuitably adapted for survival, but there is yet more evidence.
On this next point, I can hardly fault the commenter. After all, how many people can know the results of multiple time-and-motion (spanning 10 and 20 years) that have shown no increase (note that the word "no" here means "none") in homosexual identification among children raised in same-sex household. Suicide rates were no higher. Grades were no lower. No measure was significantly different. Wow! In other words, over a child's entire childhood, that child's gay parents do no more damage than a straight couple.
Gay people do live the lives their biologies make them feel comfortable living. Nothing any gay person has done has in any way damaged the commenter. If the commenter was once hit on by a homosexual, I would suggest that he or she consider the number of unwanted advances many people, gay or straight and male or female, have to rebuff from other people, even those they may normally find attractive.
I understand that there are the technologically challenge, so entering a name is not always within the scope of a commenter's brain adaptation. I refuse to ban anonymous comments, though I hold that position on principle. If the level of intelligence exhibited by anonymous commenters continues to sit below that of a high school sophomore, I may have to go against my principles.
The procreative case is not the only argument.Things are very different with post-menopausal women,that might have had their share to "survival of specie".Couples that choose not to have kids and sterile man are exceptional.Furthermore,I never said that gay people shouldn't marry(no matter how you call it-marriage or civil union),I said that they shouldn't be given equal rights like the right to adopt and raise a child.
Both the mother and the father in a heterosexual family have their precise role in the development of the child as a social being.There's no evidence that a child was properly brought up in low rate suicides or good grades,and their behaviour in a future family or society is hard to quantify but cannot be normal.Would you explain to me how can 2 women raise a man that is psychologically man?In the childhood people grow up using the model of parents.I know what you're gonna say"now the anonymous is trying to deny the right of single mothers to have babies".Well-single mothers had a male partner,they might choose another father figure at some point,they would know better how a man is supposed to behave in adulthood than a lesbian that rejected man in her adult life.
I was not concerned that lots of gay babies would pop up,not the ones that will choose to be gay, I'm more concerned of the whole rest that will be insecure,with no model of what a heterosexual life looks like.
No, actually I had no traumatic experiences with gay people,so I don't hold a grudge against them cause of an unpleasant sexual incident as suggested.
But I do like the wonders of technology that allow me to post a comment as anonymous.As far as your principles against banning anonymous comments, what can I say-your blog, your rules.
There is no evidence that children raised by same-sex couples are in any way different as adults than children raised by heterosexual couples. I hate to have to repeat myself, but I will: time-and-motion studies have shown that children raised same-sex couples fare no worse than children raised by heterosexual couples.
I am still waiting for any evidence of damage to the children. Give me one study that has ever shown such damage. Many have been done to assess the effects of such an environment; none have revealed any troubles.
I never suggested that this commenter held a grudge. I said that no damage had ever been done (whether or not such an incident ever took place) because no damage can be done by such an incident, which is to that heterosexual incidents have no lower potential for damage than homosexual incidents.
The claim that a child raised in a same-sex household "cannot be normal" in society amazes me. Where, I want to know, is the evidence? Let us review a very simple axiom of debate: when the affirmative makes a claim (in this case that a child raised in a same-sex household cannot be "normal"), the burden of proof rests with affirmative. In forensics, it is enough for the negative to indicate this lack of foundation to win the point. Suggesting that something is simply because that's how things are is a fallacy known as dogmatism. Suggesting that "everyone knows" that something is a certain way is no less fallacious.
Where is the evidence?
While it is noot incumbent upon the negative side in a debate to produce evidence to refute a lack of evidence for the affirmative's central claim, I will do so:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1783758
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1907673
I am not confident that anyone reading this will actually listen to those stories in toto, but then again, they do bear directly on the complete lack of evidence by our anonymous commenter.
Anonymous has a point with equity, i mean fairness. It's not fair that people who go through the trouble to have children to have the same rights of people who don't. Plus society doesn't want to encourage homosexuality, society wants to encourage babies. And he drew a reasonable line for me in his first post.
But I don't see why he should prove anything. Anyway anonymous can't proove what he maintains and ultimately your side Andrew has the burden of proof, you're trying to change society. We're just for the status quo.
Lastly, can you be more arrogant? So you think annonymous is wrong, can't you just say that and not revert to personal attacks? That is also a falacy.
oh my.
Ok-I did listen to those talkshows and the only thing I can conclude is that there is a debate on the topic,and that studies on gay parents and their children are not conclusive,cause: they were made on volunteers, which were of course the ones that worked best and each study taken separately is not statistically relevant.Basically,the main argument is that a number of small studies made on gay couples with children that agreed to be part of the study,probably cause they found a way to function better than others,all reveled the children in a gay couple can develop pretty well-which was the goal of the study anyway.
Still-people that called, coming from this kind of families did mention they grew up pretty hard cause of stigmat the others threw on them and that as teen-agers and young adults they were"one foot in the gay world and one foot in the heterosexual wold"that they had to discover for themselves at that time in their lifes.So,in the best interest of a child, why would you want to make a kid go through all this?Cause I think stigmat on gay people won't change soon, I suspect never.And this is how things are.
Well-in the end,I supose we're both entitled to an opinion.I stick to mine.:)
I think we can agree on your first point here: there is certainly a debate on the topic. That the first long-term studies of any phenomenon are not conclusive should come as no surprise, though they do suggest that children raised by same-sex couples fare no worse than children of single parents, and often are as well-adjusted as those raised in traaditional households.
I cannot agree with your assumptions regarding the participants in the studies. While I do not wish to suggest this is a parallel, I will offer this next part as an example from my own life:
As an epileptic, I have taken part in perhaps half a dozen studies over the years, all designed to evaluate the possible damage to mental capacity of epileptics—many people believed that epileptics may have had, on average, below-average intelligence. The results of every one of those studies (all done with voluntary participation) demonstrated that there was no difference in IQ (or, more properly, g) and motor skills for epileptics. Does the fact that my IQ is over 100 skew these results? Does my being a volunteer make a difference (true, in the first few, I was volunteered by my parents, but I have continued to take part since those few)?
My concern with your assertion that the parents who volunteered were in some way above average parents is that there is no foundation for such a claim. It's great if there is evidence, but until there is, it is a non sequitur.
As for the stigma attached to being raised by a same-sex couple, I can say nothing more than this: there once was a stigma against children of interracial couples, against people raised by stay-at-home fathers, against numerous other groups. Stigma is cultural, and if we were to base laws regarding adoption and child-rearing on the attempt to protect those children from the cultural perspectives associated with a given time and place, we would never have moved beyond the 18th century in the U.S.
In fairness, I have recently held an exchange with someone whose friend has raised two children with her lesbian partner. She (the friend of my friend) has appparentlly said that she would have liked her son to have had a domestic male role model. But I have to wonder what a single mother who never marries (or remarries) or has a stable male figure in the household might say.
The world is going to change, and there is nothing you or I, or anyone else, for that matter, can do to prevent change. We can work to shape that change, but we cannot prevent it. Will rights for same-sex couples expand in the U.S.? Almost certainly. Knowing that, I want to know the best way to work with those changes. To me that means studying, learning, challenging assumptions, and looking at ways to make the world that will be better than the world that is. That is my approach and the reason I hold to my opinion on this issue. Time will tell, though time has a way of speaking in vague generalities. We may never find common ground, but we have the debate, and at least we are asking the the questions as well as we can right now.
How should we know if you skewed the results without knowing anything about the other participants and the population at large? Such studies are based on the assumption that the sample is random and thus a good representation of the population.
In the current issue, it is probable that the participants self-select themselves. These parents may think they "got something to prove." So the sample wouldn't be random, and methods for correcting bias in this situation are weak.
All your noble aspirations are remarkable, but we have them also, so there is no point in bringing them up.
Will the world change? Certainly, butterflies bat their wings, the wind blows, and people do all kinds of random things. Will rights of same-sex couples expand in the U.S.? Maybe. Can we do something to prevent that? Certainly, we can vote, we can debate, we can campaign, we can lobby, and we shout our opinions.
A few things:
1st: To the annoymous blogger who made all of the assinine comments re: gays not having the same rights, you are an idiot, plain and simple. It is people like you that are secretly homosexual but who cover it up by being homophobic.I have known gay couples who have raised children and the children are happy, healthy, well adjusted people. Honestly, the most fucked up kids usually come from what we deem "regular" homes. It does not matter WHO you love, it is that you choose to love at all. Times are changing and just as women finally got to vote and blacks finally got equal rights, so shall the gay people get their right too. Why do you care? What harm does it POSSIBLY cause you?
By the way--yes, Andrew can be a bit obtuse at times, you will have to forgive him. He has played WAY too many "magic" games in his life.
I am puzzled. This is apparently someone who knows me. Furthermore, it must be someone who knew me between 1994 and 1998. I have a theory. My theory scares me. Yep. Something about a troll doll.
there is nothing wrong with being gay. does it really matter if it is bilogical pr not? a person is still a person if they are gay and they deserve to have the same rights as everyone else. the government is far too discriminative towards homesexuals and i think they should really take another look at the situation, maybe from another point of view.
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