The whole Mormon thing - prop 8 in CA

[packsaddle]

Dan, I would say that it is definitely complex - in the sense that there is a lot we still don't understand about it. The term 'disorder' has connotations I wouldn't apply as it's largely dependent on the view of the individual. For example, I know some women who think 'maleness' is a disorder. I obviously don't share their opinion (nor do some other women, but I like all of them regardless of their view of my disorder;)).

I often wonder why it is that so many of us seem to want to judge others? And we seem to want to do this on the basis of any difference we can identify: skin color, gender, religion, politics, sexual orientation, creativity, intellect, etc.

[Mr. Boyce]

Unfortunately, most of what people know about homosexuality is sound bite particles coming from television.

 

And much of what television and other popular media understand about homosexuality has been supplied to them by the homosexual propagandists.

 

Read the book "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth" by Jeffrey Satinover. Your library should be able to fetch this for you.

 

 

[DanKroh]

"Unfortunately, most of what people know about homosexuality is sound bite particles coming from television. And much of what television and other popular media understand about homosexuality has been supplied to them by the homosexual propagandists."

 

The first part is certainly true, and is particularly frustrating to those of us who have spent our professional careers, including actual scientific research, in the field of sexuality and gender. As to the second, is there anyway to be supportive of homosexuality and *not* be labeled a homosexual propagandist? Similar to the misconception that everyone who supports equality for homosexuals is him/herself a homosexual.

 

"Read the book "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth" by Jeffrey Satinover. Your library should be able to fetch this for you."

 

No need. Have it on the shelf (but glad I didn't actually spend money on it). A fine example of someone who has let his obsession with religion cloud his scientific judgment. Sorry, but Jeff lost most of his credibility among his colleagues when he joined up with the likes of NARTH. I wish him better luck in physics.

[Gold Winger]

"And ignorant people with no training in psychology/psychiatry who have done no scientific research in the area have tried to convince us for decades that it is a "mental disorder", but it isn't."

 

I find it hilarious that it was considered a mental disorder for decades until the homosexual apologists invaded the world of psychiatry. Suddenly, there is a massive campaign to prove that homosexuals are normal.

 

At best, psychology is a pseudoscience and flops about in the wind promoting whatever cause is popular.

 

You can present all your 'research' and 'facts' that you want but that doesn't change the fact that homosexuality is not normal any more than a man having sex with a sheep is normal. Or does your 'research' indicat that that's "okay" as well?

[DanKroh]

"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

--George Bernard Shaw

[Gold Winger]

Interesting. Quoting a homosexual, no wonder you think that they're "normal."

[OldGreyEagle]

Becareful GW, owning slaves was viewed as being normal for quite awhile before that attitude changed

 

Older men(like B-P) and younger women(like Olave St Clair Soames) frequently married, she was 23 and he was 55 when they married. Today that might be termed "creepy", or not if it occurred in Hollywood.

 

As a youth it was a known fact that you HAD to wait 1 hour after eating before swimming else you would cramp up and drown

 

When I was in Park City, I had to go by the Wasatch Brewery. They have a great motto, "Still Drinking our Share and Seling the Rest". My favorite is their Polygamy Porter, with its slogan. "Why have just one?"

 

Those wacky Utah people, or as Vinny Gambini would say, Utes are such cards

 

Then again, I have to relay a story about my trip to Park City. it was January 2, 2000. A coupel of weeks before the Winter Olympics. I has to fly to Atlanta to get to Salt Lake City. It was raining and while waiting for my connecting flight, the rain turned into ice. Now, the busiest airport in the US does not handle ice very well and flights were delayed, and canceled and I and a group of people were scheduled to fly to Salt Lake City. Being January 2, most were recent BYU grads who had just attended what ever Bowl game BYU was in that year. A flight that was supposed to take off at 8:30am didn't take off until 9:00am the next day. Part of the adventure included 12 hours in a plane taxing around waiting to be "deiced" which never happened. Atlanta only has one deicer machine. As the people thought they would have been home 18 hours earlier, many started to run out of diapers and baby food. Beleive, each couple had at least one baby. They borrowed from each other, kept a positive attitude, had the kids play with others and generally kept things as pleasant as could be. I often think of that day and what it would have been like has I been headed to New York, or Boston or (shudder) Philadelphia.

 

In a tense situation, give me a bunch of LDS'ers any time, and I am Roman Catholic

[DanKroh]

"Interesting. Quoting a homosexual, no wonder you think that they're "normal.""

 

He was also a socialist!

 

 

[Gold Winger]

"As a youth it was a known fact that you HAD to wait 1 hour after eating before swimming else you would cramp up and drown"

 

I don't know about you but I can't swim well shortly after eating. Running flat out after eating doesn't do me any favors either.

 

"Becareful GW, owning slaves was viewed as being normal for quite awhile before that attitude changed"

 

Sex with sheep may be considered normal some day as well by the apologists. What then? Necrophilia? Why not pedophilia? After all, they're just wired funny and it isn't their fault.

[Mr. Boyce]

Dan, I have a question you may be able to answer.

 

If it took concerted threats of physical violence from homosexual activists to overturn the American Psychological Association's definition of homosexuality as a disorder. . . is this proper scientific procedure?

 

I've read much. The best explanation for homosexuality remains a disorder created by a child's difficulties in relating to the genders. His or her environment and family count for much of this phenomenon. And so, too, is the "as a twig is bent, so forms the tree": a sexually immature person can be "taught" homosexual behavior and come to see himself or herself as a homosexual through the machinations of an experienced older homosexual who is preying on the youth. THIS is one of the dangers most people are apprehensive about.

[DanKroh]

Sorry, Mr. Boyce, I don't answer "gotcha" questions.

 

I was 8 years old in 1973. If you want to know what really happened, ask someone who was actually there. But be prepared to get 11 different versions from 10 different people. I know what I read of current research, as well as what I have learned by empirical evidence. Policy is not science. Policy can be informed by science and well as social pressure. But the use of social pressure (included alleged violence) does not ipso facto invalidate the science. Current research indicates that homosexuality does not have the hallmarks of a mental disorder, as we currently define them. You can believe that future research may prove otherwise, just as I believe it won't; but they are still just beliefs, which carry even less weight than opinion.

 

The "explanation" of homosexuality you are quoting is outdated and debunked. I suggest finding more current research to read. Try the Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy or the Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality; but stay away from Christian-based agenda-driven look-alikes like the Journal of Human Sexuality.

 

Are there people around who express a messed up childhood as homosexuality when they are really not? Sure, just as there are people who expressed a messed up childhood as heterosexuality when they are really not. So because in a small percentage of the population, heterosexuality is the way a troubled mind behaves, we should label heterosexuality as a "mental disorder", right?(This message has been edited by DanKroh)

[Mr. Boyce]

I would be highly skeptical of those journals you mention since, as you note, the field is politicized. As you know the "genetic theory" has been discredited, so the environment must be a genuine influence. Or so research suggests.

 

My dime's done on this topic.

[DanKroh]

"As you know the "genetic theory" has been discredited, so the environment must be a genuine influence. Or so research suggests."

 

Not so much actually. Jeff Satinover and NARTH do not a discrediting make. The genetic theory has certainly been found to be much more complex than simple Mendelian genetics, but then again, most traits affecting cognition are.

 

Actually, the environment that the best *current* theory credits with a great deal of influence is the womb. Yep, lots of homosexual recruiting going on inside those pregnant women. Best find a way to stop that.

[diogenes]

Seems we have wandered way off the two original points.

 

1. LDS involvement in Scouts. Seems to have been answered pretty well by others. I've never heard of Venturing for Young Women (probably to avoid mixing the unit with the Priests' Qurorum Venturing Crew), but that may be a local leader decision.

 

2. Prop 8. A very heated subject. My in-laws have told me about how ugly the "Vote No" crowd has been. I'm going to take a guess that the person got upset because they were surprised and maybe caught flatfooted by your intention to vote "No" because they probably assumed your involvement with Scouts put you in the "Yes" camp. Should they have responded as they did? Probably not, but I'll refer back to how heated Prop 8 has been and consider it at the low end of the scale versus the other things I've heard going on from the "No" camp.

 

Hopefully we can go back to being fairly civilized with each other once the final election votes and all are completed and made official. I'm already dealing with the whole Obama thing. What a mess.

[Gold Winger]

At least it looks like Prop 8 is winning.