SMOCK, you bring up a good point. That is one argument for homosexuality not being strictly genetic. Evolution is not strictly genetic either. Changes in environment can produce changes in populations independent of the genes in the species. Genetic evolution is more permanent and longer lasting, but takes too long do develope in short-term situations (we're talking thousands of years here). Changes in habits, especially in such a social species as humans, can be very powerful but separate from any genetic evolution.

Also, gay people still have the capability to reproduce, and many do (thus rises the issue some people have with gay couples raising children); this is a possible way for the continuation of the gene. I don't disagree with you that the evolutionary problem arises when trying to describe homosexuality in purely genetic terms. I'm not sure whether or not homosexuality is even exclusively genetic or not. But if it is, then the evidence would point to the fact that gay people ARE having children, either naturally or through other techniques like artificial insemination, or perhaps what Wolfy suggested as the gay gene being recessive. This would mean a vast number of people could carry it and produce homosexual children while still producing straight offspring that carry on the genes.

I have no idea what you're talking about

Tenshu, evolution is something that doesn't happen over night. Look at us and look at us 500 years ago. People then were pretty similar as far as brain size, muscle, etc. We were identical. Sure we live longer due to advancement in medicine. You could travel back in time and bring someone from 1505 to this century and they'd most likely pass for a modern day human. Maybe a white trash human. But still human.

Now go look at a Neanderthal, would that possibly pass for a human? Think you could pass one off today in a suit and tie?

Evolution doesn't happen over night and he is saying that perhaps the homosexuality being genetic is a result of human evolution, hence why it's been around for thousands of years.

Yeah thanks I understand all that... i just don't understand how he's making a distinction between 'genetic evolution' and 'non-genetic evolution', which stems from the fact that I don't know what 'non-genetic evolution' is.

evolution occurs when dna mutations end up being beneficial, not DELETERIOUS.



still not right. no dislike or aversion, just stating the facts.



heh, they don't. or at least, relatively, they do not pass on their genes are succesfully as people with normal dna, without any dna mutations or polyploidy.

Oh yeah?



Mmmhmmm.

Now you see, that would imply you do dislike homosexuals.

Quit being an idiot, and a biggot.

The only reason to have a law against homosexuality is would be keep people from doing self-righteous gay pride parades. It wouldn’t and shouldn’t stop homosexuality from occurring, it would only show that society as a whole rejects that kind of behavior. It’s not the government’s place to punish it. Governments can't enforce personal morality, however you want to define it. Nor do they have the right. The only function of a government or society is to protect it's citizens from each other or from foreign threats. If two men are gay in their closet, they haven’t really hurt anyone. If two men have sex with each other in their neighbor’s yard, it is a nuisance. It doesn’t physically harm anyone, but it’s well with-in a society’s right to ask them to take their business somewhere private.

Even from the view point that homosexuality is morally wrong, the wrong is not committed against you, or any other member of society, but against God. It is God’s place to take care of such thing, not society’s. Even if we were able to enforce it, you really haven’t done anything. The desire to do it is still there, and physically preventing it from happening would not make any better in the eyes of a God who says such activities are wrong.

Governments have only the right to protect members of its society. The government’s jurisdiction stops where there is no victim. A victim can be defined broadly. A victim could be a person who has to listen to his neighbor’s loud music a 3:00 AM in the morning. But when a person or persons do something in private under mutual consent with out any deception either party’s part, there is no victim.

Gay marriage itself is meaningless. Giving people special rights weather they have heterosexual or homosexual partners is entirely up to the society. A law that legalizes Gay marriage is an indication of what a society thinks, it does not form what a society thinks or accepts. No laws or government can force society to have one moral view. Society forms the government’s moral view. These “laws” are just litmus tests that show that society rejects homosexuality or condones it. If a society does not condone homosexuality they can certainly tell gays to keep it to them selves.

Weather or not it is good for society is irrevilent. A society must keep it-self healthy, and a government can only do it’s limited part to keep it healthy. The government’s part, like I have said, is limited to protecting it’s citizens from itself and each other.



Sorry if that was difficult to read. The composition juices are not flowing freely tonight. :-/

Post something that's intelligent and not flame for once.

I don't agree with your choices. Does that make me Robophobic?

I thought that was fear of robots.

Sorry, but I'm calling bull**** here. Surely you don't mean to suggest that if you disagree with someone's actions, you automatically have to dislike them.

Why does everyone else get to debate, but my partner just pops in and makes blanket statements, then doesn't respond to my post until way later and it's all fresh out of my head? TSM, POST!

I used to think to be gay was unnatural (didnt even know Bi's existed).
In fact I really didnt like the idea, and I used to preach about how we should round up all gays on an island, and let nature take its course. (ie they die out within a generation)

but after a while.... I GREW UP!!!

My teenage angst stopped altering my perceptions of how people should be, and I became more understanding.

It was just as well, because my Brother came out of the closet at 17, after a LOT of time trying to hide it (slept with more women than me before he was even 18, I didnt get laid till i wa.... nevermind, he's a sob).

He wanted to take his own life at one point, after hearing me go on about gays in the way I did, and how society sometimes condemns it.

But we learnt to be more understanding, and now my brother is a happier person.


[My parents always thought I be gay one, yeah thanks guys, go **** off and die :p)

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Darn tootin!

[QUOTE=Michael MacFarlane]Sorry, but I'm calling bull**** here. Surely you don't mean to suggest that if you disagree with someone's actions, you automatically have to dislike them.[/QUOTE]


Come on.

Prejaduce isn't so gray.

This thread is still going?

do you "disagree" with retarted people?



I already replied to your posts, your last reply to me was a weak attempt at an insult, therefore no need to reply ("insecurities of the english language" or something along those lines)

Homosexuality is unnatural. That doesn't necessarily make it wrong, but it is still obviously not natural.

Soooo... How did the vote go? or all you all to busy argueing and flaming to care?

Homosexuality occurs on its own in many different species, how is that unnatural? It's not something we have artifically created. It is completely natural.

It's natural to create things. Is anything unatural by that definition?

What? It's natural because it occurs, own it's own, in nature.

the distinction between natural and unnatural in this case poses the problem of equivocation. Depending on how you define it homosexuality can be considered both.

You REALLY only read what you want to, don't you? Twice now you've totally taken things out of context and ignored the entire message of a post.

not necessairly, there is no proof that it is a choice or that it is an inhereted thing quite yet.

So basicly, anything that can possilby happen is natural.

It's funny you say that, because just this summer the New York Times reported on scientists who experimented with a group of rats and came up with very interesting results. With the simple switch of a gene from "off" to "on", male rats went from being completely heterosexual to exhibiting extreme homosexual behavior (i.e., performing more feminine mating dances and trying to attract other male rats, showing no interest in the females).

Now, you can try to explain this away with something like "rats aren't humans" which is sort of obvious and pointless considering the reasons we use rats/mice in the first place, or you can deny that the study was accurate, or repeatable, or anything else to try to stubbornly hold onto your worldview, but I hope you'll be open-minded... we don't have definite answers, and maybe we never will, but we're at least getting closer.

No. What he said was that anything that "occurs, own it's own, in nature" is natural.

Drag queen rats?

Name one thing that has not occured on it's own in nature.

A bright pink llama.

shotguns

I think I can solve this whole issue right now.

Stop caring about who other people are having sex with. Instead, take that energy and focus on getting some tail for yourself.

[QUOTE=Mr. Stafford]shotguns[/QUOTE]

"You're the reason God invented shotguns.
I'm the reason you invented God.
Prepare to meet your creator.
Or is it... your creation?"
-Me before cocking my shotgun in CSS

[QUOTE=Mr. Stafford]shotguns[/QUOTE]

Man evolves beyond other creatures, develops ingenuity and superior brain power, invents simple tools, invents shotgun. Sounds like that happened by itself in nature.

Using evolution as the given, of course.

For the purposes of this debate, natural is essentially meant to mean "not man-made." It's an arbitrary distinction, but that doesn't really matter since you're arguing against your original point now. It's like you're adopting a "scorched earth" debating policy, which kinda hurts your credibility. :p

No, I'm just saying that your definition of "natural" leaves a bit to be desired. "Not man made" is a totally different meaning of unnatural than the unnatural I used when I said homosexuality is unnatural. The type of natural I’m talking about the type of unnatural you might use to describe a creature that enjoys pain.

Your "natural" is totally subjective and therefore has no value whatsoever. Going by your rules, I could say I think worshipping God is "unnatural" and that churches should get no tax breaks. In other words, unless you present a solid definition for liberals to disembowel, it holds no weight in a debate.

Anyway, a creature that enjoys pain has a mutated gene. Genes are supposed to mutate. So it's totally natural, if not useful. :p

I hope you wernt refering to me about stubbornly holing on to a world view, because i've been more under the impression that homosexuality is natural, it just makes the most sense, and if cases like these turn out to be true, then there is proof.

but over all (this is just one experment) there is no answer.

my example is usually "do you choose who you are attracted to?"

I am attracted to women, but I didn't wake up one day and choose to be, as im sure homosexuals didn't wake up one day and choose to be attracted to men

Go read what I said in my last post to you, TSM, than PLEASE respond to what I've been begging to debate about for a while.