Lots of proponents of homosexuality have, historically, argued the reverse of (1).

And, of course, the Church has always claimed, against most of the evidence, that people not only can overcome their natural heterosexuality, but should by entering convents.

As in most things, I take a middle position.

It is obviously not true, as some homosexual advocates claim, that you cannot create homosexuals out of heterosexuals.

It is unlikely, though, that homosexuality is either all cultural or only an individual personality defect.

It's probably a good thing to ignore the sexuality of anyone outside your immediate family.

The truth is that sexuality is very complex, and no one knows what causes homosexuality. Although I oppose same-sex marriage because it would harm the marital institution, and I oppose gay adoption because it denies children both a mother and a father and because it is very likely that gay parents would be very permissive in their child rearing, I am highly skeptical of homosexuals being able to change into heterosexuals. If homosexuals can change, I think we can all agree that it is a very arduous process, and the result is nothing more than plain abstinence similar to the abstinence practiced by recovering alcoholics and drug addicts--they never really get over their desire to intoxicate themselves.
For all of you who think that homosexuals can change, ask yourself this question: If your daughter came home and told you that she met a wonderful man with whom she is in love and engaged, but he is an "ex-gay," who used to perform oral sex on strange men in rest area restrooms; would you feel comfortable letting your daughter marry a man whom just might really be a closet homosexual?

The self-loathing argument just never holds water. Why do so many obese people keep eating fatty foods when they know it's making them fat and subjecting them to further ridicule not to mention the health problems? because fatty foods taste good.

Humans are not Vulcans, they make choices that aren't always logical.. for some it's obesity for others it's deviant sex.

Obese people eat fatty foods because it tastes good, and homosexuals have sex with members of the same sex because it feels good too. Obese people can swear off fatty foods and start eating healthier, but they will always crave the food that tastes good. Have you ever heard a person who has changed their diet and lost a tremendous amount of weight say that they no longer find that fatty foods taste good? It is all abstinence--plane and simple.

Vince-- What about the many people who were gay, but now are straight and are happily and heterosexually married? Do they simply not exist? That's what the gay lobby argues, unconvincingly.

Harry:

Not being a Roman Catholic, I'm guessing that the Church doesn't ask monastists to 'overcome' sexual desire when entering a convent, but merely to abstain.

You wrote:

"It is obviously not true, as some homosexual advocates claim, that you cannot create homosexuals out of heterosexuals."

So why shouldn't I object when the San Francisco School District runs lesbians through my daughter's fourth grade classroom? To teach her and her gal-pals that bein' a lesbian is just another lifestyle choice. Maybe because it might influence her? As though that weren't the intent?

If, as you would have it, "homosexuality is [n]either all cultural or only an individual personality defect", then why should the government place its collective thumb on the side of the cultural side of the scale?.

Just askin'.

I'll leave for another day how this propaganda backfires (at least in the case of my daughter and her gal-pals).

Fred, where did I say I think the SF school district is doing something right?

And, not being a Roman Catholic, you're wrong. It was all about overcoming sexual desire. The operative word was 'wrestle,' not something you'd use if merely abstaining.

It's why I left the church; I got tired of them dissing my parents, of whom I was fond.

I never quite bought the "born Gay" thesis, because it's counter-Darwinian. If Gayness is genetically determined then such a trait would have died out eons ago since Gays by definition have few if any offspring to carry on this trait. And as the recent decoding of the human genome showed, there is no gene for Gayness anynore than there is a gene for athletic skill or musical ability.

It may be possible that Gayness is the result of hormonal imbalances affecting the developing fetus in the womb. But then a mother's tendancy to produce such imbalances would tend to result in fewer "viable" (i.e. straight) offspring which would carry on her hormone imbalance trait. Again, over time, this trait would also die out though it would take longer.

Harry: I'm really intrigued by your catechesis. Sometime, you must share which catechism you were reading.

Daniel:

You have an insightful point, but there are other possiblities: if most gays ended up marrying and having kids anyway due to social pressures, they'd only start to become extinct now... alternately, it could be caused by a (sexually transmissible?) virus; or perhaps it could be one of those traits that's helpful at a low level (you're a sensitive, snappy dresser) and only harmful to reproductive fitness at high levels.

Daniel:

You have confused genotype with phenotype. Homosexuals may very well get that way through hormonal disturbances during gestation, and the cause of those disturbances may have nothing to do with genetics.

Which means natural selection has nothing to work with, since, for evolution to occur, there must be recursion.

BTW--there was an article of a week or two ago regarding children born with amorphous (I think that was the word used) genitalia. Due solely to disturbances during gestation, these children are born with mixed, incomplete, or contradictory (that is, phenotype not matching genotype)genitalia. The article discussed the problems of raising children when gender is indistinct.

Given that developmental disturbances create such outcomes, do you think there just might be developmental impacts on brain wiring?

OJ:

This has to be the first time you've given any credence to anything the Psychiatric association says. Never mind the author chooses language to imply, without actually saying, that the APA fact sheet contradicts the "born that way" theory.

You should all read "Nature via Nurture" by Thomas Ridley, particularly Chapter 7. He specifically states that the "cure" rate so warmingly noted here is actually as close to zero as darnnit is to swearing.

>...none of us much wants to be held responsible
>for our behavior, so biological determinism is
>attractive, even if evil.

Biological Determinism is just the secularized version of Total Predestination -- i.e. "your fate written on your forehead at the creation of the world", except in your DNA instead of your forehead.

Chesterton skewered it in his Father Brown mystery "Doom of the Darnaways" back in the Twenties.

"As to the exact causes of homosexuality, the medical jury is still out."

I thought it had to do with staying home while your wife went out and earned the family paycheck.

Robert:

It takes a tough man to run a taut cabana...not to mention working a pumice stone...

Oooh, work that stone, you taut cabana boy!

I not only read but memorized almost all of The Baltimore Catechism. There was not a great deal of explicit stuff there about sexual desire, which was taught later, in the context of praying to be granted a 'vocation.

Like (didn't give name), I was surprised to see Orrin cite a psychiatric claim, even more surprised to see him citing this particular claim, inasmuch as it contradicts the stand he took a month or so ago re John Money.

Money believes gender itself is a social construct. It's not. Sexuality is.

Only words have gender.

Sexuality is not, in itself, a social construct. Even mental defectives with unmeasurably low social understanding are sexual.

Harry:

(Didn't give a name) was me. I moved to a new position last week, and forgot to unanonymize myself.

Harry:

Every creature's sexual but society determines what is appropriate and what not.

Kind of knocks a hole in your argument about homosexuality, though. Or heterosexuality, for that matter.

Why?

Whatever is, is right, then, no?

There are, in fact, reasonably successful, though small, societies that encourage male homosexuality, which they find (the men, I mean, perhaps the women would feel different, but they follow the traditional wisdom and don't speak up) easily compatible with breeding and raising children.

Harry:

No, what is is wrong. That's why we require morality and society to control our animal appetites and make us human.