Very good point, Apos…I think if we had all grown up in a society in which men kissing men was as common as men kissing women, it wouldn’t bother us so much. Of course, for some strange reason, not only am I not grossed-out by the thought of 2 women kissing, I’d kind of like to see more of it. Weird, huh?
Homosexuals put unreasonable pressure on straight men to dress stylishly, work out and look like models, go shopping with their girlfriends or wives, and be sensitive. Having to live up to these impossible standards makes straight men depressed and also makes straight women constantly ask them “why can’t you be more like my gay friends?” This creates friction in straight relationships, and that’s why homosexuality damages society.
—I think if we had all grown up in a society in which men kissing men was as common as men kissing women, it wouldn’t bother us so much.—
I don’t see why that would be the case. I grew up in a society that likes cilantro… but I hated it. These “dislikes” crop up sometimes for idiosyncratic reasons: perhaps just from very very mild associations with some other bad event. From there, they seem to reinforce themselves almost purely by you having remind yourself that you don’t like something. I decided to stop not liking cilantro… and it worked. Works for a whole lot of other things, and frankly, it’s so much better. You don’t have to make yourself like everything, but what the heck is the point in NOT liking something? It’s a pure waste of energy: and all you get for it is enjoying your time on earth a little bit LESS than you otherwise would have. (I’m talking about questions of mere taste here, not moral wrongs)
I will!
Actually, Neroli, you are wrong. The human brain is an amamizingly flexible organ. For example, they did some experiement once where they put glasses on people that made their image of the world appear flipped upside down. The people wearing these glasses stumbled around for a couple days, until one day the image righted itself, and everything appeared normal. When they took the glasses off, everything looked upside for a few days.
People with some pretty amazing neurolgical disorders live pretty ordinary lives. Sometimes they don’t notice anything is wrong because the brain does such a good just compensating. At other times, they manage to teach a different part of the brain to take over.
Our modern lifestyle is evidence enough. Humans are “hard-wired” to live outside amongst tall grasses and spend their lives running around and hunting raw meat. And yet we live in houses, drive around in cars, spend our days doing stuff like filling out paperwork and eat Cadberry creme eggs. You’d think that living a sedentary lifestyle would cause more damage do to “hardwiring” than shooting for a different hole.
Homosexuality does not cause problems with the brain’s “hardwiring”. Would anyone like to take on Neroli’s interesting interpretation of natural selection?
Neroli, you may be surprised to discover that your argument, as beautiful as you may think it is, has no supporting evidence. To be quite blunt, there is nothing you have given to your post other than your word that gives any indication as to why it should be taken on its own merit. Try a cite:)
And to Mr. OPer:
Because they fear that which they do not understand. And I doubt I have to go down the “why don’t they undersand it?” road with you;)
Perhaps, then, you could explain why there is a sizable majority of the straight population that has a definite fetish about homosexual pairings of the opposite gender. Have you considered why woman-on-woman porn is so popular amongst men? Can you tell me why a large percentage of male/male erotica is written and read by women? The rest of your post doesn’t really deserve a response, but I wanted to point out that saying the population has some kind of built in disgust for homosexuality is ridiculous. Women like me, who are turned on by men kissing (among others thing…), are hardly unique, as Guin cheerfully pointed out. I would suggest that the extreme disgust some people feel with regard to homosexual behavior is largely culturally based, rather than any kind of innate instinct, though I don’t think there ARE any cites that could definitely disprove or prove this kind of thing.
As for me, not only would I not get rid of homosexuality, I would drastically increase its occurence. (And not just for my own titillation.) The world has too many people as it is; less babies being born could only be a good thing for the world. IMO.
[hijack]What’s with this new “evolution” religion? First God’s against gays, now “natural selection” is. Look, reality is what’s given; gays exist. You’ve got then got to fit your ideology around that, not the other way around. You can’t “logic” gays out of existance. If the existance of gays doesn’t make sense according to the way you understand nature, then your understanding of nature is wrong, not gays. Duh.[/hijack]
Neroli: Your understanding of evolution through natural selection is superficial at best. Please read up on the topic.
Your first major error: the false dichotomy of adaptation or aberration. In fact, some traits are neutral and hence free from the pressures of natural selection.
Your second major error: you seem to think that natural selection is synonymous with progress and that there is some goal or endstate that “it” is working to achieve. In fact, neither of these things are true.
[hijack2]And must anal sex come up everytime gays are discussed? It’s not the “defining gay act” that everyone thinks it is, and some gays don’t want to be associated with it.[/hijack2]
Pun, it might help to spell that out. God knows I do my best to be empathic and feel things as others might, but even I often don’t understand something unless you or Matt or Gobear puts it in words of one syllable for me. (Peacefully, thank God!)
I’m confident that others may be sympathetic but find your or a gay man’s perspective very hard to grok without some help.
Just FWIW…
Wow, what responses! Thanks everyone.
To the questions at hand:
**Bricker wrote:
You’re kidding.
You’ve never heard anyone place the blame for the spread of HIV squarely at the feet of homosexual behavior?**
Before there was AIDS and HIV, homosexuals and their behaviour was still being blamed for all sorts of things, like the fall or the Roman Empire. AIDS/HIV is simply the latest in a long line of accusations. I’m just waiting to hear one that makes sense.
Mangetout wrote
I’ve heard some fundamentalists argue that God will smite nations for their collective behaviour, so maybe when the national gayness and other nasty sins meter slides up past, oh I dunno, 20%, he’ll send along some folks (who incidentally belong to a completely different belief system) to fly planes into buildings. 19% gay he’ll probably just ignore, but 20% really gets him mad.
Understood. Wasn’t this argument used by Falwell and Robertson right after Sept. 11th? It seems weird to me that (the J/C/I) God would punish a whole nation for the behaviour of a small minority within said nation. Is that response biblically based?
**vanilla wrote:
Having listened to many fundies, my understanding is if homosexuality becoems “accepted” and “okay” then (it being a sin) ALL other sins will soon be “okay” and the world will go to hell in a Handbasket.**
Yes, that makes sense. Tho I wonder what they base that upon. Society has changed a lot since biblical times, what was once accepted them is now discredited and vice-versa. Yet we’re still here, as strong as ever.
**Cat Fight wrote:
It stops people from making babies. Seriously. While that may not be entirely true with lesbians, I have heard white supremacists argue that their “people” aren’t having enough kids, leaving the door to American domination open to inorities, and that homosexuality and abortion are to blame. I saw one specific leader speak on a Canadian news program,a lthough it shouldn’t be too hard to find documentation if you feel like wading through some racist sites.**
I’ve heard this too. I think Paul Cameron makes this arguement, if homosexual behaviour were made legal or seen as acceptable, soon EVERYONE would want to do it and then the human race would die out because no one would be reproducing.
**Pezboy2U wrote:
The argument I’ve often come across is that if society grants the same level of acceptance to gay relationships/unions, it somehow devalues str8 relationships/unions…at least that’s how it was explained to me by a homophobic relative. Personally, I don’t see how my shacking up with my boyfriend is any different from a male/female couple shacking up, but that’s how some folk view it.**
I’ve heard this, too, but again, exactly WHAT is the damage done? It sounds as if men and women will wake up one morning and suddenly realise, “Wow, gay men and women can marry their Significant Others! That means I don’t love my own spouse like I use to!” That’s a non-sequitor if ever I heard one!
**Ethilrist wrote:
The basic life track of growing up, learning a trade, marrying someone of the opposite sex and cranking out the babies, teach the kids to do the same, grow old and die, has been derailed.**
Yeah, I can see that, too. Sorta along the same tracks as I mentioned to Cat Fight. If we all don’t band together and do the same thing, society was we know it will disappear. Again, a non-sequitor.
**Eddie the Dane wrote:
Well, I’m going to stick my two cents in here. I personally find the sight of two men kissing/making love/whatever revolting. I would tend to avoid any occasion or occurence where that was likely to occur. That’s not to say I’m damaged by it or in some way changed by it - I just don’t like being subjected to it.**
In keeping with the OP, then, you’d agree that society isn’t damaged by homosexual behaviour, it’s simply that some people find it “icky” or “repulsive” ??
**ElJeffe wrote:
Right now, marriage is typically a man-woman thing. By allowing gays to marry, that breaks the restriction of marriage being explicitly a union between a man and a woman, and allows a union between any two people. Once this barrier has been broken down, then there will be less resistence to further changes in what a marriage can be, and it may not be long until we see a change in marriage to accomodate unions of 3 or more people, as well. And that is a legitimate concern to the sanctity of traditional families, if it can be demonstrated that the bonds between two people in a “normal” marriage are weaker than those between X people in an “abnormal” marriage (which, I think, could be pretty successfully argued). **
I could agree that this would be a legitimate concern. But as you said, this usually applies to the idea of gay marriage, not gays or homosexual behaviour in general.
For the record, I’ll kind of second Eddie’s comment. I don’t find two men kissing to be revolting, but I do find it… icky.
So, it’s the ick factor again? Hrm. How does one make homosexual behaviour less icky? 
**anonplz wrote:
There are many people who would object to the notion that anal sex between a husband and wife is verboten - some people enjoy anal sex. I’ve also found that women who enjoy being receptive during anal sex are most open to the idea that a man would be, too.**
I find this weird. Some straight couples enjoy anal sex, yet there’s no condemnation of them, yet when gay men do it, people scream that society is falling or our moral fabric is being damages? WHY!?!?!?
**Neroli wrote:
Though I don’t find homosexuality morally wrong, I would say that it is a bad thing to have for the following reason: the human brain is hard-wired for heterosexuality–even, for the most part, the homosexual brain. Homosexuality seems to be related to a malformation of a very small area of the brain. Human psychology, as we’re finding out, is not some concatenation of the ether twixt your ears; it is, rather, frighteningly dependent on the inherited wiring.**
Neroli, do you have a reputable cite for any of this information?
Well, I was hoping we’d get UnoMundo in here to answer. I’ll just have to wait and see if he shows up.
I don’t know why so many people get so upset about homosexuality. What’s the big deal?
Re prison rape. I disagree with the suggestion that the rapists are not hetero. I think the important question is, how do they behave on the “outside”? If, when not in prision, their sex lives are exclusivly hetero, I would say that they are hetero. Their behavior in prison may be about power, bullying, sadism, or about “making do” with what’s available. Or both.
They (the prison rapists) “respond” to images of gay male sex? So what? Doesn’t make 'em gay. If they are aroused by depiction of gay sex, that’s probably because (a) it’s SEX! and (b) it’s exotic. They are probably also aroused by depictions of lesbian sex.
I think many straight people, men and women, find depictions of gay and lesbian sex titilating. They don’t want to DO IT; they just want to WATCH.
It’s UnuMondo. Why can’t people every spell it right on the boards? I’ve been addressed as UnoMondo, UnoMundo or what have you much more often than by the right name. It’s not fucking Spanish, people (although ironically I reside in Spain).
I’ll return and actually contribute to the discussion after I calm down. 
UnuMondo
Now there’s an idea. Anyone have a few thousand acres they’re not using at the moment that they’d like to donate for scientific research?
:rolleyes:
There might be something to the whole natural selection theory. After all, my grandmother told me she thinks God created gays so that the truly gifted wouldn’t be burdened with children.
(Just injecting a bit of humour…and I agree with grandma)
This is actually completely true.
Every time I talk or e-mail or communicate with my gay pals, I have the urge to be ever more fabulous, but…since I know I can never measure up to their fabulosity (plus I’ll never be a snappy dresser. Even a freshly pressed tux looks rumpled on me). Thus, I’m constantly in the depressed funk for which I’m characteristically known. And it’s all the fault of gay people.
Fenris, unfabulous
Hmm, I guess the definition of behavior seems a bit too broad. Behavior being defined as how one conducts themselves, I don’t really see how we homersexualzz differ from y’all straights (and what about the rarely persecuted bisexuals, I guess it’s hard to have a prejudice when it strays from black and white.) What with the jobs, laundry, occassional clipping of the toe nails, etc etc.
I’ve heard the voices raised about the “ick” factor. Well, I’m right there with ya, then again, I don’t wanna be watching anyone PDAing in my face. Straight or gay, I don’t even like to see someone get a lick from a dog on the face. Ick. I think those dog licked people should be put on an island. People aren’t hardwired for that kind of behavior.
Good OP! I’ve always wondered about why gays were disliked, too. Explanations mostly seem to have a “it’s bad because it is bad”-ring to it.
I have thought of another explanation, that has not yet been mentioned in this thread. It might explain why especially straight, insecure, masculine men hate male gays.
Not so long ago, masculinity was all about being strong. A real man would do heavy, often dangerous work. Farming, working in a factory, in a mine, in the army, all these jobs are (at the workers-level) backbreaking and not very well paid.
So both the employers and the workers themselves would try to get some extra immaterial satisfaction. Working like that was for real men, not for girls or sissies. So working like that made them real men. Some comfort, eh?
Manipulative women had a lot to do with it, too. Girls get told they have to be sweet&pretty. Young boys get told they have to work hard, get over their fears, get over their weaknesses.
Boys have to get rich or they have to slay the dragon (whatever comes first) and then they will be loved. Then they will get the girl.
So there we have our straight, insecure, masculine man. He has an unfulfilling, tiring job, and a wife he can barely keep financially satisfied. But hey, at least he’s a real men and no sissie!
Now this man sees a gay sissie. The sissie is surrounded by beautiful women who call him their best friend! The sissie has a well paying job where he doesn’t get all dirty and sweaty. Interior decorater, hairdresser, you name it. And the sissie gets all the sex he wants from other gay men.
The sissie is everything our straight, insecure, masculine man has been spoonfed to be the exact opposite of and guess what: **God does not punish the sissie! No-one does! ** The sissie does not feel worthless or guilty! He seems to think he’s just another decent human being, worthy of respect!
But how can that be true?
Either everything our straight, insecure, masculine man has been taught has been a ploy to keep him slaving away for his boss, his sergeant, his wife or is mother.
Or …the sissie is an vile-not-worthy-to-breathe-the-same-air-(our guy cannot think of a term deranging enough) SISSIE.
I’m sure I do not need to explain why our guy chooses the second option.
**UnuMundo wrote:
It’s UnuMondo. Why can’t people every spell it right on the boards?**
My apologies for the mis-spelling. I look forward to your contribution to this thread.
**Maastricht wrote:
Good OP! I’ve always wondered about why gays were disliked, too. Explanations mostly seem to have a “it’s bad because it is bad”-ring to it.**
Not quite. The idea in the OP is that homosexual behaviour causes some sort of damage to society. I’m asking what, exactly, that damage is. Of course, an interesting follow up would be, are the two related (ie: dislike for homosexuals and this “damage” that homosexual behaviour causes)?