(Untitled)

[neilvanders]

So I got asked to prom yesterday. By Adam. My mom laughed at me and asked me who was going to wear the dress. Mildly funny and stereotypical. It sorta got me thinking. Specifically, it reminded me of a conversation I had with Jesse Laurence once upon a time

Comments

Eugenics: Talk Amongst Yourselves

[steve_hamster]

"But don't you think sexual pressure warps everyone's identity while they're still trying to get it together?"

This seems patently true. I am thinking of an entire tirade on why it's necessary for the homosexual movement (and those who share its values) to work to end sex/gender binaries, but it will take longer than the space available. As that's my view, though, I must agree that heterosexuality is not a discrete category that is unproblematically and objectively portrayed by our or any other culture.

As to your tangent, it seems like how one feels about that argument is largely pre-determined by how one perceives the gay movement and its goals. If indeed the goal is to introduce the idea of choice into sexuality, then this argument perhaps runs counter. However, the gay movement in the '90s seemed to face much condemnation from people based on people's perception that homosexuality is a choice. The argument, then, was that if sexuality was indeed a choice, it became possible to make it a moral argument. If sexuality was genetically pre-determined, then sexuality became amoral. That is, people had no more control over their sexuality than whether or not they were born an Arian. So at least those advocates would agree with your author that "morality can't be encoded genetically, . . ." Which (if any) of these perspectives furthers the homosexual agenda is not a conclusion I'm prepared to make here, if ever.

Re: Eugenics: Talk Amongst Yourselves

[spearofsolomon]

Even if genetics and choice are mutually exclusive categories, it does not mean that together they comprise all the reasons "causing" homosexuality. For instance, genetics could serve as a base which might be over-ridden in certain strong circumstances. I keep reading this statistic that says that of identical twins for which one twin is gay, 52% are both gay. That seems to indicate a strong genetic corrolation without showing that genetics is solely responsible. I haven't read the research but it feels like if there were "certain strong circumstances" then identical twins would be more likely to share them, as well.

It doesn't seem clear that a sexuality determined by genetics is amoral. In fact, if you prescribe the correctness of sexual acts by genetic orientation, then a homosexual engaging in hetero sex is performing an immoral act. You might be saying that sexuality becomes an amoral act in the sense that whatever you do is "permitted" by your DNA, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to do it. That argument seems to be a dead-end, because you could take that approach to any type of action while steering firmly clear of assigning responsiblity for choices. To say that sexuality is the only area of morality in which DNA assumes all responsibility for our actions seems absurd. I tend to read this "genes cause it" argument more in the sense that if we align ourselves with our natural genetic inclinations, then we are behaving morally, which I don't buy either.

I think the argument hangs more on, "Is homosexuality immoral?" than "Is homosexuality genetic?", and I don't know of any convincing moral arguments against it. Nobody wants to look at the possibility that it could be both, and I understand why, but skirting the issue doesn't help. Unfortunately, I think Chappelle correctly summarized most anti-gay sentiment in his "Black George Bush" skit . . .

http://www.m90.org/download.php?image_id=843

Chappelle

[spearofsolomon]

I don't think that video has the whole skit. Maybe the one at Comedy Central does.

http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/chappellesshow/showclips.jhtml?startIndex=7