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Texas Republicans have decided on a platform that includes abolishing minimum wage, cancelling climate research, banning the teaching of evolution at schools, and repealing the voting rights act, among other things, but hilariously (or depressingly) the one thing on this laundry list that people are angry about is their plan to "rehabilitate" homosexuals, a practice that many say is harmful.
BBC News has more: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27774102
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Texas Republicans Adopt Extremely Controversial Platform
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Your lucky number is 3552664958674928. Watch for it everywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @11:44PM
It isn't, actually. I don't have the research in front of me right now but there is plenty of work showing that the mass of a certain region of the brain is directly related to the sexual orientation of the person.
Actually you do have it right in front of you because I just linked to it - the region is called INAH3. Read the link, it is a lot more complicated of a relationship that you are making it out to be.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Monday June 09 2014, @11:57PM
I did actually, and it's not supporting your point. Basically the article says: "There are quite a few biological reasons whe some people are gay, but the brain changes and that was proven by taxi drivers growing more 'do-my-job' gray matter."
You're right, it is complicated, but not in a way that makes those who are against mistreatment of homosexuals bigoted.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10 2014, @12:11AM
not in a way that makes those who are against mistreatment of homosexuals bigoted.
That is a really messed up way to mis-state my point.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday June 10 2014, @12:13AM
"The idea that sexual preference is not a choice just lets the bigots dictate the terms of the discussion."
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10 2014, @12:31AM
The point is that if you reduce it to something that is biologically predetermined then you are implicitly saying that for people who do choose (e.g. every bisexual person ever) that there is still a right choice and a wrong choice. That the person who "experimented in college" is a sinner. That "waist up lesbians" are immoral. etc.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday June 10 2014, @12:49AM
That's a stretch. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' being pointed out in that argument. It simply an explanation of the origins of the behaviour that has a direct impact on how altering said behaviour would have to happen, or even if it should. It does not attack bisexuals in any way, other than some making an assertion that the word 'curious' means "I'm a hetero who wants to try out gay stuff!"
I suppose you're right that somebody will try to make that argument, but if they really understand what they're talking about they have a heck of an uphill battle.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10 2014, @02:57AM
There is no 'right' or 'wrong' being pointed out in that argument.
Of course there is, the argument for about three decades has gone like this:
bigots: Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice and you are choosing to sin
gays: It isn't a sin because god made me this way
It isn't an explanation, it's a defense in an argument defined by the bigots. If the bigots weren't attacking gay rights as a choice the whole idea of it not being a choice would never have become such a popular meme. Anytime someone says, "when did you choose to be straight?" they are rebutting the argument that being gay is a choice.
Compare it to racism, nobody ever argues that being black is a choice and thus no one ever says "when did you chose to be white?"
If you go back to the 70s, even the gay rights people referred to it as a lifestyle [thewrap.com] because the bigots had not yet settled on "choosing to sin" for their central argument.
The one thing both sides do agree on is that choice/not-a-choice is the shape of the modern gay-rights debate. The idea that choice/not-a-choice is irrelevant has been a minority opinion because people have thought it was a lot easier to get the religious bigots to agree with their god than it is to get them to agree with a purely secular argument.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday June 10 2014, @03:54AM
The reason it's an explanation and not an argument is that it means that no form of rehabilitation will, and I'm using quotes for this on purpose, 'cure' them.
"Compare it to racism, nobody ever argues that being black is a choice and thus no one ever says "when did you chose to be white?""
No, instead they pull up statistics about the incarceration rates of certain groups of people and say things I will not repeat. They can't make the choice argument and ... well, guess what, we're not segregated anymore.
"If you go back to the 70s, even the gay rights people referred to it as a lifestyle because the bigots had not yet settled on "choosing to sin" for their central argument."
Actually they chose it to soften the journey of coming out of the closet. Only two decades before there were people claiming that homosexuality was the root cause of child molestation. By the 70's that calmed down and now it was time for people to start coming out and telling their family. Which sounds better, "Oh it's a lifestyle" ... the same way you'd describe city-living to a country-bumpkin, or "well I was born this way" and end up taking a trip to the hospital to be 'cured'? I'll put it another way: Back in the twenties a rather large portion of the United States would have identified themselves as gay. Think about it.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 10 2014, @04:58PM
The reason it's an explanation and not an argument is that it means that no form of rehabilitation will, and I'm using quotes for this on purpose, 'cure' them.
I feel like you are being deliberately obtuse so this is the last response I will make. The gay rights debate is much larger than the question of rehabilitation. That's only one small corner of it, but the "born this way" argument is used as a defense in all cases.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday June 11 2014, @03:33AM
Obtuse? Consistent! Go read my first post and then my last post, I was responding directly to the rehabilitation debate! You're trying to make it sound like they're trying to stand on both sides of the fence and that is plainly not true. What is true is that for most of the issues brought up in the debate, why it happens is important. If you have an issue with that then I suggest you start getting specific.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Tuesday June 10 2014, @03:44PM
republican views:
1) "its icky!"
2) what we were tought about god, says this is wrong
#1 is none of your business. I find it 'icky' also (I'm straight) but I would NEVER tell someone else how to live wrt to relationships. if I don't see it, I don't care and you have every right to do what you think is right for YOU.
#2 is pure bullshit and a non-issue for anyone in the modern age. hiding behind bronze-age fairy stories should never be a reason to deprive others of their rights and pursuit of happiness.
the republicans are on thin ice, here. the younger generation already has rejected this 'its against god!' argument and they are also ok with #1, in a live-and-let-live kind of way.
if the R's don't do an about-face soon, they will be completely irrelevant. then again, that's not such a bad thing - maybe we should let them destroy their own party. perhaps something good can come from its rebirth.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 10 2014, @12:52PM
I think you're missing the point that the haters are mostly creationist christians who believe "biologically predetermined" = God made the decision not them.
Then step two of this strategy resembles my favorite scene from Bladerunner, the intro, you know the one with the HR drone interviewing the applicant / replicant?
"Yes. You're in a city, walking along the street when all of a sudden you look at the bathhouse and see a..."
"What city?"
"Doesn't make any difference what city... its completely hypothetical."
"But how come I'd be there?"
"Maybe you're fed up, maybe you want to be by yourself...who knows. So you look at the bathhouse sundeck and see Father God and Holy Jesus have created a gay."
"The gay that our Holy Father God and Sweet Baby Jesus created lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun... But you're hating it."
Leon's upper lip is quivering.
"Whatya means, I'm hating?"
"I mean you're hating! Why is that, Leon? Why do you hate the creation of our Holy Father God and his son Sweet Baby Jesus in violation of his word and disrespect of his actions? Are you implying you know better what is right and what is wrong than your own all knowing and all powerful creator, the same creator who created that gay? Are you implying you're better and more powerful than your own Holy Father?"
This has the obvious tasty analogy of the fictional replicant and the "real world" neocon both being somewhat subhuman, into gunplay and murder, a little slow in the head, angry and antisocial... its really a very good analogy.