The NZ Herald Gay Marriage Poll discussion

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Reply # 788647 28-Mar-2013 14:03

da5id:

And you wonder why the suicide rate is so high, It's because walking down the street people stare and some make rude comments. The suicide is NOT because of who they are, but how they are treated in this world by others.

I don't believe that. In places like San Francisco and the Netherlands where gay sex is normalized, the stats are worse, so I have difficulty with the theory that the cause of unhealthy stats is "homophobia".

And more people die in Canada from suicide than die from AIDS, where gay marriage has been legal since 2005.

And more New Zealanders commit suicide than Australians, where banana consumption is 40% lower than in New Zealand.

Not even knowing if your "facts" are right, at a minimum you seem to be confused between corelation and causation.

Putting two stats or trends together and saying that one causes the other is tenuous unless a lot of work has gone in to explore the connections. While my example is clearly fatuous, I don't think yours would hold up much more...

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Reply # 788673 28-Mar-2013 14:34

Klipspringer:
jonathan18:
Here's hoping none of your children happen to be gay, for their sake - I can't imagine how difficult such a situation would be for them. Or perhaps you're of the school of thought that believes people "choose" to be gay?

But it is wrong as per my religion.

Are you saying I should teach my children against my religion?

And yes I believe people choose to be gay. Sure not all of them but the absolute majority of them.

In my opinion the way I see it is that gay thoughts could be switched off just like any other sinfull thoughts.

Its like being married. I can choose to have sexual impure thoughts about other women while I am married. I can choose to switch those thoughts off. Everybody has them and I don’t care how faithful people are. We all at some time will have impure thoughts about someone else and will be tested I suppose, if we in a relationship or not. The morality comes into effect on how we act on these thoughts.

I can choose to act on those thoughts and have an affair. Or I can choose to stay faithful to my wife.

I can choose to have gay thoughts while I am married to my wife. I can choose to have a gay relationship too. Or I can choose to switch these thoughts off. I switch off all impure thoughts as I plan on living happily ever after with my wife. Being married is all about commitment, its not about sexual urges or thinking with one’s other head. We can control our thoughts and urges just as much as we can control ourselves against other things we should not be doing.

Probably will get shot downs for this post. I don't care! But thats my view on the whole thing.

So yes. I believe people "choose" to be gay. Life is all about choice and the way we end up is normally due to the choices we have taken in our lives.
.

One of the problems with this line of seeing homosexuality as a "choice" is that at the extreme it can end up with attempts to "cure" people of their "gayness". Reprogramming, if you will. The damage such actions cause, as well as the that from people being forced (or electing) to live a life of lies (ie, hiding their homosexuality, even within a hetrosexual relationship), is well-known.

Your religion is your business, and that's where it should remain. It's inappropriate for your belief system (ie that which you have been inculcated with by your religion) to limit the rights of others that do not necessarily share your belief system or morals.

That people practicing the one faith and the organised religious groups of that faith (let alone other faiths) have such a wide variety of views surely is evidence enough that the matter is far from clear-cut, and that it's just not possible or appropriate to have such matters as gay marriage decided on the basis of morals or religion?

Even if I was of the mind that being gay was "wrong", I hope I'd still have the sense to see that this is a matter of basic human rights - and that my moral view on such a matter shouldn't get in the way of ensuring those rights are upheld.

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Reply # 788674 28-Mar-2013 14:36

Klipspringer:
Do all gay relationships involve sex?

The answer to that one is No. So yes I could probably choose to start being gay just as long as it does not involve any of the above.

.

I didn't say anything about sex. Are you attracted to members of the same sex? Could you be if you tried? (I can't).

You say you suppress thoughts about your attraction to other women, are you also suppressing thoughts about attraction to men?

If not, then your argument is not valid. You can't choose who you are attracted to. If yes, then you are probably bi-sexual.

A relationship that doesn't involve a physical attraction is really just friendship.

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Reply # 788678 28-Mar-2013 14:43

ajobbins:
Klipspringer:
Do all gay relationships involve sex?

The answer to that one is No. So yes I could probably choose to start being gay just as long as it does not involve any of the above.
.

I didn't say anything about sex. Are you attracted to members of the same sex? Could you be if you tried? (I can't).

You say you suppress thoughts about your attraction to other women, are you also suppressing thoughts about attraction to men?

If not, then your argument is not valid. You can't choose who you are attracted to. If yes, then you are probably bi-sexual.

A relationship that doesn't involve a physical attraction is really just friendship.

No I am not attracted to members of the same sex. To be honest I have never allowed my mind to go down that road and even entertain the idea.

No I am not suppressing thoughts about any attraction to men. No attraction LOL

"You can't choose who you are attracted to."

But I do at times. I choose to remain attracted to my wife and choose to block any lust that suggests otherwise. Do you practice this with your partner too? Imagine if every man had to chase after every women he was attracted to. I'm pretty sure gays do it to. They choose to remain attracted to their partners?

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Reply # 788685 28-Mar-2013 14:50

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Klipspringer:No I am not attracted to members of the same sex. To be honest I have never allowed my mind to go down that road and even entertain the idea.

No I am not suppressing thoughts about any attraction to men. No attraction LOL

Thanks, you have proven my point.

"You can't choose who you are attracted to."

But I do. I choose to remain attracted to my wife and choose to block any lust that suggests otherwise. Do you practice this with your partner too?

You have said that you can choose to suppress thoughts of attraction, but you can't choose who you are attracted to. Before you met your wife, I am sure you didn't think everyone in the world was attractive. There will be certain attributes about a person that you personally are attracted to that just are. You can't change them. Maybe you are attracted to blondes but not brunettes etc. Maybe you are attracted to women but not men.

Gender is one attribute of your own personal view on who you do or do not find attractive. You've admitted you can't control it, therefore your assertion that being gay is a choice is not true even to yourself.

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Reply # 788689 28-Mar-2013 15:02

ajobbins:

You have said that you can choose to suppress thoughts of attraction, but you can't choose who you are attracted to. Before you met your wife, I am sure you didn't think everyone in the world was attractive. There will be certain attributes about a person that you personally are attracted to that just are. You can't change them. Maybe you are attracted to blondes but not brunettes etc. Maybe you are attracted to women but not men.

Gender is one attribute of your own personal view on who you do or do not find attractive. You've admitted you can't control it, therefore your assertion that being gay is a choice is not true even to yourself.

You right. I said I can’t choose to be attracted to a man.

But like I said it’s still an area that I have not allowed myself to explore. An area that I don’t want to explore because to me its sinful and immoral. Sure if I did explore this area who knows where it would end up. I am not denying that there is a possibility.

But my moral self being stops it in its tracks before I could take it further, explored it and find out. I don’t want to find out. I don’t want to be gay.

I am finding this debate very interesting. Maybe if we can keep the namecalling out of it we can get somewhere.

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Reply # 788691 28-Mar-2013 15:06

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Klipspringer:
mm1352000:
Christians believe thoughts can be sinful:

Matthew 5:28 says, "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

I read that like this:
If you allow yourself to have those thoughts of lust you will eventually commit adultery.

Rather turn those lustful thoughts off if you married. Thanks for quoting this.

Curious interpretation, to my way of thinking. As a matter of straightforward reading comprehension it seems to state rather plainly what it means, which to me doesn't bear any particular resemblance to how you have read it. I don't know, perhaps my reading of that is an outlier and I'm all on my own there.

Paragraph and thought break/

In relation to discussions of imperatives: those who believe on religious grounds that homosexuality is wrong/against God/whichever riff on that idea you select have a very strong imperative to believe it is a choice. To do otherwise calls far too much into question. In a scenario where people must believe something or jeopardise their entire belief structure, most will choose consciously or unconsciously to continue to believe that thing no matter what evidence there may be to the contrary. The situation becomes even more difficult when their world view is essentially faith-based, because they have no requirement for their views to be based on evidence or rationality, and as such are often singularly unmoved by evidence no matter the abundance or clarity of it. In short, probably futile effort pointing out the scientific papers that point to material differences between hetero and homosexual people at the biological level.

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Reply # 788694 28-Mar-2013 15:10

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Klipspringer:But my moral self being stops it in its tracks before I could take it further, explored it and find out. I don’t want to find out. I don’t want to be gay.

I am finding this debate very interesting.

Your augments are getting more and more far fetched (IMO). On one hand you assert gayness (or straightness) is a choice, but on the other you concede that if you did in fact ask yourself if you could be attracted to another man, the answer may be no (or yes), but that it's wasn't so much a choice as a realisation. The 'choice' you are referring to is not the choice of your sexual orientation, but the choice of whether you want to be honest with yourself about what your sexual orientation is. You're choice is suppression, not gay or straight.

I find your argument invalid because you refuse to put to the test what you assert.

Having asked myself the question just now, 'Adam, are there any guys you find attractive and could you ever willingly and happily choose to be in a gay relationship', the answer I give myself is no, I do not and cannot choose to find men physically attractive.

Therefore, as someone who is willing ask that of them self, I can assure you that being straight is not my choice, it's just the way I am.

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da5id

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Reply # 788697 28-Mar-2013 15:14

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Well, as far as the last few posts about being gay or not, I read recently that the world's foremost expert on homosexuality says that it is not innate.

The world’s leading expert on the history of homosexuality is Dr David Greenburg, a New York sociologist, who is gay himself and is the author of a 635 page academic study of homosexuality through the ages called “The Construction of Homosexuality”. It has been hailed within academic circles as the most “extensive and thorough” analysis of homosexuality ever published. And what does he say? That homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. He said he had “an obligation to the truth”. Greenburg looked at all recorded examples of homosexuality. Every single one, he wrote, could be traced back to sexual behaviour practice rather than an innate sexual identity.

And many people who say they are gay are mow coming out and saying that there are very few people who are solely homosexual. That the dirty little secret in the community is that their sexuality is fluid and that they will sleep with whomever they are attracted to at the time, regardless of gender.

“Things are more three-dimensional and less compartmentalized than they once were”, lesbian activist Nan Golden wrote in The Advocate. “Maybe that has to do with getting older and understanding the ambivalence of things. At the moment I’m actually dating a man. And I’ve known people who were active in ACT UP and were very defined as lesbian or gay but who were secretly sleeping together. I think people are more complicated than those categories. being gay to me isn’t just who I sleep with, it’s how I live my life”.

In other words, it’s a political statement, not a true sexual identity. International surveys of the gay community have shown that a staggering 91% of gay men have become aroused and had sex with women. Ninety-six percent of lesbians have had sex with men. It’s the dirty-little-secret that the gay community doesn’t discuss with outsiders, but gay media reports off some insights: “I must confess that I am both elated and terrified by the possibilities of a bisexual movement”, lesbian activist Dr Lillian Faderman told Advocate magazine. “I’m elated because i truly believe that bisexuality is the natural human condition. But I’m much less happy when i think of the possibility of huge numbers of homosexuals (two thirds of women who identify as lesbian, for example) running off to explore the heterosexual side of their bisexual potential and, as a result, decimating our political ranks. What becomes of our political movement if we openly acknowledge that sexuality is flexible and fluid, that gay and lesbian does not signify a ‘people’ but rather ‘a sometime behaviour’?”

New Zealand’s gay community may not like it, but the book title Queer by Choice sums it up, and it’s author – American lesbian academic Dr Vera Whisman – explains the political ramifications for the “rights movement”:

“The political dangers of a choice discourse go beyond the simple notion that some people genuinely choose their homosexuality. Indeed, my conclusions question some of the fundamental basis upon which the gay and lesbian rights movement has been built. If we cannot make political claims based on an essential and shared nature, are we not left once again as individual deviants? Without an essentialist foundation, do we have viable politics?”

Is all very interesting.

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Reply # 788703 28-Mar-2013 15:22

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Also, Professor Elizabeth Wells from Otago University did a study of some 13,000 people and found that those who identify as homosexual or bisexual were more than three times as likely to have been abused as children.

New Zealanders who identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual, or who have had a same-sex encounter or relationship, tend to come from more disturbed backgrounds, a University of Otago researcher has found.

Information extracted from 13,000 face-to-face interviews clearly showed those with same-sexual or bisexual orientation were more likely to have experienced negative events in childhood, Associate Prof Elisabeth Wells said yesterday.

People who had experienced sexual abuse as children were three times more likely to identity themselves as homosexual or bisexual than those who had not experienced abuse, she said. Also, the more adverse events someone experienced in childhood, the more likely they were to belong to one of the "non-exclusively heterosexual" groups.

Associations between adverse events and sexuality group were found for sexual assault, rape, violence to the child and for witnessing violence in the home.

Otago Daily Times, 2010

This is obviously only one possible cause or viewpoint.

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Reply # 788705 28-Mar-2013 15:23

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da5id: Well, as far as the last few posts about being gay or not, I read recently that the world's foremost expert on homosexuality says that it is not innate.

"Worlds foremost expert on homosexuality". If you read that and didn't immediately say, "says who?" and have some healthy sense of scepticism about that I don't know what to say to you. If you are going to state anything like that as a fact you had better credential it to the nth degree.

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Reply # 788707 28-Mar-2013 15:26

da5id:
The world’s leading expert on the history of homosexuality is Dr David Greenburg, a New York sociologist, who is gay himself and is the author of a 635 page academic study of homosexuality through the ages called “The Construction of Homosexuality”.

That study was published in 1988 and when I Google it I don't find all that much on it - so it can't be all that well regarded these days.

The world had a very different view on homosexuality back then - so perhaps a more recent study would be better used as example. However, to my knowledge there aren't any recent ones that aren't still heavily contested.

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Reply # 788711 28-Mar-2013 15:30

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interesting how we just dismiss things isn't it

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da5id

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Reply # 788713 28-Mar-2013 15:32

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NZtechfreak:
da5id: Well, as far as the last few posts about being gay or not, I read recently that the world's foremost expert on homosexuality says that it is not innate.

"Worlds foremost expert on homosexuality". If you read that and didn't immediately say, "says who?" and have some healthy sense of scepticism about that I don't know what to say to you. If you are going to state anything like that as a fact you had better credential it to the nth degree.

I thought I did in my post?

Dr David Greenburg, a New York sociologist, who is gay himself and is the author of a 635 page academic study of homosexuality through the ages called “The Construction of Homosexuality”. It has been hailed within academic circles as the most “extensive and thorough” analysis of homosexuality ever published

When he undertook the project, gay rights activists were hoping Greenberg would prove that people were “born gay”. Instead, he shocked them by reaching the overwhelming conclusion that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. To those who were stunned at the finding, Greenberg responded that he had “an obligation to the truth”.

Greenberg looked at all recorded historical examples of homosexuality. Every single one, he wrote, could be traced back to a sexual behaviour practice rather than an innate sexual identity. Homosexual behaviour was rife in Greece and Rome, for example, because it was tolerated and even expected, and had much to do with male initiation ceremonies.

Older men enjoyed the power of raping young boys. These men then went home to their wives and fathered children. In essence, human sexual behaviour in ancient times was bisexual.
“The Greeks assumed that ordinarily sexual choices were not mutually exclusive, but rather than people were generally capable of responding erotically to beauty in both sexes,” writes Greenberg. “Often they could and did.

“Sparta, too, institutionalised homosexual relations between mature men and adolescent boys.” He noted that homosexual behaviour was “universal among male citizens”.
Greenberg quoted one report from second century Rome where the writer stated the Romans “consider pederasty (man-boy sex) to be particularly privileged and try to round up herds of boys like herds of grazing mares.”

These men were not exclusively homosexual. They were multi-sexual. In a very real sense, they were addicted to sex, with anyone and – in many cases – anything. This concept of same-sex attraction as a sexual addiction rather than a set-in-concrete sexual identity goes a long way to explaining why gay men are so much more promiscuous and sexually active than heterosexual men – they are simply addicted to it.

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Reply # 788715 28-Mar-2013 15:33

ajobbins:
Klipspringer:But my moral self being stops it in its tracks before I could take it further, explored it and find out. I don’t want to find out. I don’t want to be gay.

I am finding this debate very interesting.

Your augments are getting more and more far fetched (IMO). On one hand you assert gayness (or straightness) is a choice, but on the other you concede that if you did in fact ask yourself if you could be attracted to another man, the answer may be no (or yes), but that it's wasn't so much a choice as a realisation.

I am not denying that some people are gay! But (IMO) they took some choices to get there. Somewhere after they were born they “became gay”. Obviously there are a few that don’t fit into this category.

ajobbins: The 'choice' you are referring to is not the choice of your sexual orientation, but the choice of whether you want to be honest with yourself about what your sexual orientation is. You're choice is suppression, not gay or straight.

Honest with myself? Should I be honest with myself and see if I really like the blonde girl in the hot dress that walks past my office every morning. Maybe I like her, maybe I don’t? Come on!!! I’m not going to try it out. In the same way I am not going to try to find out if I have gay tendencies.

ajobbins: I find your argument invalid because you refuse to put to the test what you assert.

I cant believe that you think I should test it out? Just proof that our views are so very different. As per my previous comment why should I test out to see if I like the blonde girl? Or maybe “try out” a brunette because I have never really been into brunette’s before and find out if I can be attracted to her? I am happy where I am.

ajobbins: Having asked myself the question just now, 'Adam, are there any guys you find attractive and could you ever willingly and happily choose to be in a gay relationship', the answer I give myself is no, I do not and cannot choose to find men physically attractive.

I am willing to bet that there are some gay people there that will have a different opinion. Some may say they had no idea that they were attracted to the opposite sex until they tried it out. Do we agree on that? Its sinful (IMO) so its a step that I would never take. Like committing Adultery. Others have different opinions and they take the leep. But somewhere along the way they made a choice.

Being gay is a lifestyle choice

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