Re: OT: What? the clean-shaven outnumber the bearded?"YerUgly Mug," etc.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christophe Grandsire" <christophe.grandsire@...>

> En réponse à Nik Taylor :
> >I've never heard the word CHOICE used.
>
> http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_fixe.htm. It makes it clear that
most
> conservative Christian organisations call homosexuality "something that
one
> does, a chosen lifestyle", denying that it is an unchosen orientation.
I've
> often seen the expression "chosen lifestyle", both by American
rightwingers
> and French ones (in French of course :)) ). I find it surprising that you
> never heard it.
Well exactly.  I have heard, however, some of my liberal gay friends refer
to it as a "chosen lifestyle."  I had just read the article in the New
Yorker some years ago about "The Homosexual Brain," which tried to show that
homosexuality is not a "chosen lifestyle" but a genetic predisposition.
When I brought this up, my friend exploded and said that he found this
premise threatening.  If it's a genetic predisposition, then it can be
"fixed" in the future by genetic tampering.  He preferred, he said, to stick
to his guns and call it a "chosen lifestyle."  I told him that I had sent
this article to my (I keep hating to dump on him but there it is) rightwing
born-again father, who has always insisted, with a great deal of heat, that
homosexuals have been seduced by the Devil into a lifestyle that they have
chosen in sin.  "I don't believe everything I read," he told me.  !!  We
can't talk about this, because he won't change his views or see reason.
That, I explained to my friend, is why I have promoted this premise.  No,
said my gay friend, I can understand your beef with your father, but I would
say to him, yes!  Call me a sinner!  This is the lifestyle I have chosen.  I
like to have control over my life, and not be told that I am subject either
to the Devil or to a brain disorder.  I said it's not a brain disorder,
anymore than redhair is.  People won't see it that way, said my friend.
When genetic tampering is the order of the day, they will squash it.

Interesting, right? I think the problem is in the term "the homosexual
brain."  "Innate quality" I prefer.

> >   I've heard homosexuality called
> >a disease or a perversion, or comparing it to addictions, but never
> >called a *choice*, except by left-wingers and homosexuals debunking the
> >alleged claim!
Right, I think my friend was debunking it out of sheer chutzpah.

> Well, if you listen carefully, you'll hear that right-wingers opposing
> homosexuality always call it a "behaviour", an "addiction", a
"preference",
> clearly implying that a choice had been made and can be unmade, rather
than
> an innate orientation.
Yes, my father's view, and that of some other Fundamentalist Christians I
know.


Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."

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