The fact is (and this will anger the tender-hearted and tender-minded among you), homosexuality is a natural aberration. It is a deviation from healthy, natural sexual attraction just as much as pedophilia and zoophilia. In decades past, it was labeled as a psychological pathology and was only declassified as such under pressure from the forces of political correctness.
This does not give us justification for persecuting homosexuals or judging them as bad people, as the vast majority of them (except Dan Savage) are most assuredly wonderful human beings. However, just because we have been able to successfully separate those who practice homosexuality from their behavior and love them in spite of it doesn’t give us license to sweep the truth about the behavior under the rug.
39 comments
Ahuh...
Look, if you're going to appeal to tradition with psychology, then perhaps you should know that for a long time, female horniness was also classified as a "mental disorder". Perhaps we should reinstate it as such?
++"homosexuality is a natural aberration."
Agreed. Homosexuality, though a deviation from the norm, is perfectly natural. Sort of like green eyes or white hair. That is what you meant by "natural aberration", right?
No tender mind here. Homosexuality is a "deviation" from "normal," aka the majority orientation, but it is not a deviation from judgement-laden terms like "healthy" and "natural." It's obviously natural, because it exists all over nature, and there's nothing "unhealthy" about it intrinsically. The "truth about the behavior" is that it consists of free adults interacting with mutual consent. Why do you think you need to involve yourself with other people's relationships? Does the existence of happy homos make you regret your life choices??
...doesn’t give us license to sweep the truth about the behavior under the rug.
Since your entire screed is nothing but lies, hatred, and hypocrisy, I'm quite certain that you have no truth to sweep anywhere.
" it was labeled as a psychological pathology and was only declassified as such under pressure from the forces of political correctness. "
He's referring to the 1973 decision of the APA to declassify homosexuality as a disorder. But he's being unclear: it was not fully declassified at that time. One form was retained in the diagnostic logic of that era. He's right that the change was wrought by political pressures. There were no scientific breakthroughs that warranted the change in classification. In that respect it is deeply wrong that scientists change their theories according to political pressure rather than empirical reasons of science. To be fair, the earlier scientific theory that homosexuality was a disorder also had its problems such as data bias.
The author should also have mentioned that some members of the faction of psychiatric theorists who declassified homosexuality as a disorder also at a later date wanted to declassify pedophilia as a disorder but they were rebuffed. They also created a fake diagnostic category of psychopathology which was rejected because they dismally failed to find one single case. In other words their work was compromised by incompetence and intellectual dishonesty.
My own view is that early concepts of homosexuality as disorder were flawed and the later one that it was "normal" is also flawed. There is actually a middle road available for impartial theorisation but in this era where ideology trumps science few want to know about it.
@sasha
"Since your entire screed is nothing but lies, hatred, and hypocrisy"
There's no evidence that his text is motivated by hate. You are resorting to a stereotype to explain" his post. His text should be assessed as factual claims and if he is wrong then that's factual error, not lying.
He's morally right in admonishing us not to sweep the truth under the carpet. There are indeed problems associated with homosexuality e.g. young male prostitution. By failing to acknowledge a problem and deal with it we may well be aggravating a problem. Aren't we supposed to be looking after our youngsters?
@Anton:
Oh right, my apologies, he doesn't actually hate them, he just thinks of them as mentally ill, equivalent to pedophiles or zoophiles (because apparently all people are like children and animals now) and alleges that political pressure is the only thing that prevents him from throwing them in a loony bin. But he doesn't hate them. I wonder if you and your family were treated the same way, if you would be as understanding of their 'love' towards you.
Also, young male prostitutes are an effect of homosexuality? Alone? Because, of course, women never hire prostitutes? And even if they don't, even if you're against prostitution (and I know there are many legitimate arguments that can be made against it), you believe this is somehow a bigger problem than, say, young female prostitutes? A problem that is considerably larger in scope and scale? Do you believe that there are, therefore, problems in heterosexuality which may be solved by declaring anyone with a functional sex drive a mental deviant, because they may have sex with a child?
Trafficking is a problem. But don't try to combine it with another issue just to smear the latter. Should there be solutions to problems like child trafficking? Undoubtedly. But the solution is no more in persecuting gay people as a whole than in persecuting straight people, as a whole.
Y'know, at least with religious homophobes, we can chalk their bigotry to backwards superstition. But secular homophobes? No excuse. If you ask me, it's the secular homophobes, secular racists, and secular sexists that are the most reprehensible. When it's not motivated by ignorance, Tradition(tm) or blind hatred, but by this pseudo-logic, then you're just a pure bigot with no leg to stand on.
You, sir, do not have "Sufficient Reason". As punishment, by the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Virginia, I hereby revoke your breathing license. Have a nice day. :-)
Mental illness is something you're usually born with, like your sexuality. You can class them together which is stupid and wrong, but it still doesn't mean that it's something that can just change in a person or that a person with any mental disorder should be mocked,preached at, or treated with contempt as if it's there fault for being that way and assuming that's going to help them.
This just makes you look like a douche incapable of empathy or understanding.
Saying it's a deviation from a healthy, natural sexual attraction is intrinsically suggesting that it's somehow unhealthy or unnatural. As far as anyone can tell, it doesn't appear to be either...
A blonde person in China is a deviation from the norm - a statistical aberration - but it doesn't mean they're unhealthy or unnatural.
I swear, Jeremy, just meet a gay person in a non-confrontational situation and you'll find they're like any other group of people with some being assholes and others being awesome.
Also, leave Dan Savage along, he's a national treasure.
@ 1741429
He is?
I didn't click the link, so I assumed (from the language he used here) that he was, if not non-theist, then at least secular in some way. He certainly didn't OVERTLY invoke his Gawd as justification. My bad.
He's still a utter douche, though.
@ Professor von SCIENCE!!!
While I commend Savage for turning "rick santorum" into the dirtiest two-word sentence in the English language, and while I think he's a decent sex journalist, the guy's not exactly a saint.
He's made transphobic and biphobic remarks in the past, and though I'm pretty sure he's "evolved" on these issues since, I'm also pretty sure he's still mostly concerned about the "LG" portion of "LGBTQ" - B's, T's and Q's be damned.
Pedophilia and zoophilia harms individuals who can't give informed consent. Homosexuality only includes individuals who CAN give informed consent.
Can you also separate those who practice heterosexuality from their behavior and love them in spite of it?
@arcanephoenix
I gave male prostitution as an example of a problem associated with homosexuality. Of course it's not as big a problem as female prostitution. My view is that gays should not be allowed to get away with casting themselves as sacred cows above criticism, protected by the taboos of political correctness. Moslems are another emerging sacred cow in the West.
@HassanPrishtina
Right. But what would we think of physicists or chemists who changed their theories according to political pressure and not the evidence? We would see them like Lysenko the Russian geneticist who pandered to the pressures of Communist ideologues. If you read up on the policy statements of the professional organisations of psychiatrists and psychologists, you'll find that often they are officially pro-gay. That is a political stance. The correct policy statement should be a commitment to impartial scientific inquiry wherever it leads. If it happens to lead to facts favourable to gays, then so be it. And if it leads to problematic facts about gays, then bite the bullet. Science trumps ideology as much as it trumps religion.
I won't point out the guy's blatant homophobia because I'm sure everyone else already did. I just want to mention this:
This does not give us justification for persecuting homosexuals or judging them as bad people, as the vast majority of them (except Dan Savage) are most assuredly wonderful human beings.
STOP BACKROWING AND MAN THE FUCK UP. IF YOU HAVE AN OPINION, SHARE IT AND FACE THE FUCKING CONSEQUENCES. IF YOU DON'T DARE TO FACE THE CONSEQUENCES, DON'T SHARE YOUR OPINION. SIMPLE AS THAT.
@Anton
Considering that the idea that gays are somehow more likely to be paedos is unsubstantiated, the point is moot, at least for this question at this time, that is.
In decades past, it was labeled as a psychological pathology and was only declassified as such under pressure from the forces of political correctness.
No, that's a fundie myth and complete lie. It was de-listed because it didn't fit the newly formalised definition of an illness.
And Anton is lying, as usual.
@noxion
"Paedophilia doesn't have to be a mental illness in order for child rape to considered morally wrong or illegal. Just like murder, really"
True, but some human evil, certainly not all, is linked to personality disorders. Pedophilia is of course not a personality disorder however there is some research that suggests some have personality profiles like psychopaths. How general that is I don't know. Lots of loose ends in research.
This would be accurate had it not been assumed that homosexual "behaviour" is negative and that we must "separate" the people from the action.
Homosexuality is likely a product of the same malfunction that causes pedophilian and zoophilia, but that does not make the three things equivalent.
Homosexuality occurs between consenting adults and causes no discernible harm, so although it is a deviation from normal sexual behaviour, it cannot reasonably be condemned without grievously wounding our free will.
This is not really fundamentalist to be honest, it's more like a step in the right direction.
Attacking those who hold a weaker form of your own viewpoint is a sure-fire way to ensure you have no allies, and is the reason that the SJW slime are losing now that they are exposed to the public at large.
"The fact is (and this will anger the tender-hearted and tender-minded among you), homosexuality is a natural aberration."
By what rational argument does it represent an aberration, rather than simply the normal variability of human sexual expression?
Well, cares are a deviation from the natural, healthy urge to have a quick jog, and the Internet is a deviation from the natural, healthy urge to talk to one's peers in person. I don't see anyone trying to legislate against those.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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