I’m sorry, I should have been more specific with my metaphor. My point was that the scenario outlined in your hypothetical is like the 50’s guy with the the hat and pipe driving around in a Jetsons space car. It’s an anachronistic contrast. The current attitude(s) toward gay people and abortion are the 50’s guy. Having a level of information at our disposal that enables us to parse out and detect complex character traits on a genomic level is the sapce car. The act of developing and posessing that technological ability will change the entire ethical landscape surrounding how we would use that information.
You hypothetical is akin to asking how a caveman would deal with the power of a a machine gun. He wouldn’t. The act of acquiring ti would change the landscape.
I think the questions of whither human reproductivity in the (presumably) imminent age of genetic manipulation is interesting and involved enough without the homosexuality angle.
ALthough it is fascinating that both conservative and liberal see the dilemma, such as it is, as belonging solely to the other side.
treis: I maintain that there are no added advantages to being heterosexual. Sure a heterosexual and his/her partner can pop out a kid in theory, but that kid can be born into a family that is not ready or does not in fact want them. Accidents happen. Women get abandoned. Heck, sometimes even men get abandoned.
I call gay advantage. Gay men and women can have kids through multiple routes purely at the time of their choosing. We can hold our child immediately after it’s born. We can adopt a child without a home. Most of all, we can do it when we feel the time is right, when we can nurture that baby in the healthiest environment we can provide. I call that 100% ability a slim advantage to homosexuality.
Heck I could even say we’re doing the world a service, as well as ourselves. We live in a race that is expanding to the maximum limits of the resources provided to support it. Can we say that not creating that other mouth to feed is somehow disadvantageous? I would talk about it as a trade-off.
Does that mean homosexuality is somehow better than heterosexuality? No. Not really. I consider sexuality, the romantic intimacy between two people over the long or short term, to be separate from family love. If my sexuality has given me the ability to love and treasure another human being with all my heart, then it has done what it should do in this day and age. If I wish to go on further and foster a family with that partner, then I certainly have the ability without regard to my innate sexual orientation.
On occasion, my principles force me to accept things I may be extremely uncomfortable with. Like the right of Nazis to march in a neighborhood populated by holocaust survivors. This issue poses the same difficulties for me.
However, if women have control over their own reproduction, that means they have the right to make decisions motivated for reasons which I find absolutely repugnant.
Other couples should have the right to choose. I do not want children, ever. However, if I were to start a family, and there were two hormone cocktails my (hypothetical) wife could choose from that would promote heterosexuality or homosexuality, I would choose the heterosexual cocktail over both the homosexual one and the god-baby option of not taking either. (Love those Gattaca references.)
I would simply prefer my child be hetero, in much the same way I’d prefer my son be circumcised. That would make him more like me, with fewer questions I had no experience with to deal with. Plain and simple.
And hem and haw all you want, but heterosexuals have a clear advantage over homosexuals. Hets can create a baby that shares both of their genes. I think adoptive emotional bonds are every bit as strong as genetic, but for countless medical reasons, it’s nice to be genetically linked to your child. And that means both of you.
Again, you’re wrong. A straight couple, for example, can’t engage in mutual fallatio. And mutual fellatio/cunnilingus is not the same thing.
D’oh! That was a typo on my part. I should’ve said:
Let’s just say if you think they’re the same thing, you may want to work on your technique :).
Priam also raises a great point. While many straight couples find the birth of their child to be the happiest moment of their lives, there are plenty of other straight folks whose lives have been ruined by an unwanted pregnancy. While it’s not unheard of for this to happen to a gay couple (rape, one member not being entirely gay, etc.), it’s far rarer. Gay couples overwhelmingly only have kids when they want to, and they don’t need to fuss with contraception, and they don’t need to worry about whether to abort an unwanted fetus. All the pleasure, none of the worries. And you say reproduction puts gay couples at a disadvantage?
I’m being facetious, of course: you can’t weigh them on the same scale. Which is precisely my point.
They have less absolute control over this factor. As so many abstinence only people are quick to point out, birth control of any sort is not 100%. Women forget to dose, men use condoms improperly, vasectomies heal up… all this stuff happens every day. Gay people don’t worry about that at all.
If you’re referring to transplants and blood transfusions, let’s talk surrogate pregnancies and artificial insemination. Generally the genetic father or genetic mother are accessible and at least somewhat active in the child’s life. A close uncle/aunt if you will. Still, I will concede the odds are lowered.
That would mean gay/straight is roughly even. Though, like Left Hand of Dorkness, I would say it’s just different and not completely comparable. Certain studies show that gay male couples, in general, tend to act differently than straight couples, who tend to act differently than lesbian couples. To simply scratch the surface and say “hah! hetero/homo is better” would be disingenuous. We could talk about the stability and healthiness of lesbian relationships. We could talk about the overall ability to break out of gender expectations in a relationship and find your own comfort zone. We could talk about all these things and debate for ages, but it just comes down to difference.