Monday, December 10, 2007

Rabid Anti-Gayness = Gayness?

It's a theory that just won't go away, what with all these wide-stanced politicians screaming "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" by day and screaming "Oh Adam! Oh Steve!" by night. Is homophobia, especially the rabid fire-and-brimstone variety, just repressed homosexuality leaking out? The evidence in the political arena is starting to get voluminous enough to matter.

And consider this beauty of a post on the American River Christian Club website (hat tip Pharyngula):

"EVERYWHERE I LOOK, ON TV IN SCHOOL EVERYWHERE BUT IN CHURCH ALL I SEE IS GAY THIS, GAY RIGHTS THAT OPEN DISPLAYS OF THIER LIFESTYLE BEING PUSHED DOWN OUR THROATS, I KNOW THAT JESUS LOVES THE SINNER BUT HATES THE SIN, IT JUST APEARS THAT, THAT SIN IS BEING THRUST UPON US IS THERE NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE, IS THIS WHAT WE HAVE TO LOOK FORWARD TO, SODOMITES RUNNING AROUND, OPENLY PROMOTING THIER LIFESTYLE, GAY MARRIAGE, GAY PASTORS, GAY CHURCHES, ITS LIKE GETTING OUT OF CONTROL, AND ITS VERY SAD TO SEE THIS DAY COME TO LIGHT, AND THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT IT.
THATS THE SADDEST THING EVER"


The lifestyle being pushed down our throats? Sin being thrust upon us and there is nothing we can do? Sodomites running around? This guy isn't complaining, he's fantasizing. As one of the most heterosexual guys around, I have never, not once, concerned myself with the fact that some guys are attracted to other guys, and I've always wondered about those that do so to such an obsessive degree. I know, it's a sin according to the Bible. So what? So are various ways of cutting one's hair, working on the sabbath, eating shellfish, and a whole host of other offenses, depending on which parts of the book one arbitrarily decides to interpret literally. Yet no one is going stark raving bonkers over people doing any of those things. Why homosexuality then?

Let's examine some comments left me here by Little David, who I consider a good example of this obsessive attitude towards homosexuality. In an article responding to some commentary of mine on Intelligent Design, he responded with:

"The Science Avenger evidently believes in evolution. Well, then let us examine just how much he is willing to bow to 'science' and 'evolution' and how willing he is to sacrifice the bullshit 'liberal' viewpoint.

What does the Science Avenger think about homosexuality?"


Nice transition eh? And what is it with conservatives and their scare quote tourettes syndrome? None of the words he put quotes around needed them. It's just a dishonest rhetorical trick to cast doubt on a concept without having to do the hard work of doing so with evidence. He also treats us to this gem:

"What Is Wrong With Huckabee

Alternatively I could have titled this post 'I'd Vote For A Flaming Faggot Before I Would Vote For Huckabee' except the title would have been too lengthy."


Cute huh? I count no less than 8 articles on his site citing homosexuality in one fashion or another. His justification for his attitudes? Well, he was kind enough to leave them on another thread of mine, one about a different topic of course, atheism in this case. This is where it gets good, because nothing brings out the stupid (and the MSU) like homophobes trying to rationalize their views:

"Homosexuality is not as prevalent in other species as it is in the human species. There are occasional examples of homosexuality even amongst birds for example. However these examples are fairly rare. Many of the instances I have read about only describe a platonic relationship (best friends?) without any sexual activity."

This ladies and germs, is what we in the reality-based community call MSU, Making Shit Up, a favorite pastime of too-many conservatives these days. Homosexuality is prevalent throughout the animal kingdom, as any biologist, or farmer could tell you (google "freemartin"). There is even a species of bedbug that procreates via homosexual stabbing rape. Examples are plentiful, and no one has any excuse for missing them when the facts are easily ascertained.

But homophobes aren't interested in facts, they are interested in maintaining their view, and they'll keep moving the goalposts to do so. They used to claim that there was no homosexuality among animals at all, until the weight of evidence against that position made it untenable. So they moved the goalposts to "it's not as prevalent", as if any of that matters.

And indeed, why does it? There are many traits of human beings that are not as prevalent in other species, such as tool use, culture, bipedalism, and drinking beer. Why is less-prevalence relevant to homosexuality and nothing else? They can't ever answer this question without mentioning more traits that bring even more inconsistencies into the picture, like danger:

"Homosexuality is a threat to society through the homosexual community suffering from Sexually Transmitted Diseases (and I am not just talking about Aids) at higher rates then heterosexuals do."

Just when I thought the Chicken Little award was a shoe-in for those that claim terrorism represents the greatest threat our nation has ever faced, we get this wingding of a claim that homosexuality is a threat to society.

How? Homosexuality has been around as long as humanity has, and here we are. STDs are not a threat to wipe out humanity, and given that 99% of their spread can be controlled by individual decisions (ie wearing a condom, being celibate, or being monogamous), that is not likely to change. It is also worth noting that homosexuality has little to do with the plights of the areas of the world hardest hit by STDs (ie AIDS in Africa). So once again we find the homophobic argument completely at odds with the facts. But then, given the disdain and ignorance with which homophobes address scientific issues, can we really be surprised by comments like that, or this:

"Homosexuality goes against evolution because those who practice it faithfully can not reproduce and this is the purpose of sexuality in our species."

It is sad that in what was once the greatest nation on earth, technologically and scientifically advanced beyond all others, we could have such deep-rooted scientific ignorance. Evolution, as beginner biology students learn, is purposeless. It has no goal, no agenda, no conscious intent. Species simply mutate and are selected and change over time. No trait of a species can be "against evolution", because there is nothing to be against.

Further, even if we assign a meaning to "against evolution" that makes sense, say "threatening he perpetuation of the species", the logic of this argument still does not follow. Consider worker bees and ants. They are born sterile females. Yet they perform a crucial function towards the perpetuation of their species. There is some speculation that homosexuality among humans might have played a beneficial function by giving society a few workers who did not produce children.

Let's get down to brass tacks on that topic. Many, if not most, of the serious problems human beings face right now are caused by the huge population of humans we have. It is beyond question that humanity would be very well served right now by having a lot of people that don't procreate, which means that the good Christian who has 14 children is FAR more of a threat to humanity than is a homosexual.

Finally, note the implicit claim above that having sex for no purpose other than the pleasure of it goes against nature. That's the bottom line with these people. As one famous person put it "A promiscuous person is someone who is having more sex than you are". Homosexuals have a lot of sex, as do we single liberated people, and in the end, that's what really gets the goat of homophobes. Of course, I don't suspect they restrict their sex lives to having children. They no doubt have healthy sex lives with whoever they choose to have sex with, whether childbearing is part of the equation or not. That is as it should be. Now if they can only stop being such hypocrites and let everyone else do the same, despite the fact that some of us see no need to restrain our sex lives as they do, we can put all this nonsense behind us and get on with solving real human problems. I know, I'm not betting on it either.

So my political strategy, and I encourage everyone else to implement it, is to raise the issue of repressed homosexuals ranting about homosexuality. Make the legends of Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, and all the other homohypocrites live forever, and throw them into the faces of everyone who insults our intelligence with bullshit arguments like the above. As to whether or not individual objectors to homosexuality are themselves repressed homosexuals, it is worth considering and suggesting, at least until they give us arguments with even the slightest respect for science and logic. Their individual peccadillo's are not our problem.

10 comments:

Harriet said...

Don't worry; I am not trying to "spam" your blog, but I want to tell you something that happened on mine.

I practice yoga and I reported that I had made improvement on a certain pose, and I showed a photo of a male shirtless yogi doing the pose.

One of my right wing trolls accused me of posting "homoerotic porn" on my site!!!

I never dreamed that anyone would find this photo attractive, but evidently my (male) troll did. :-)

Little David said...

You argue for homosexuality like those that argue for prostitution do.

Since prostitution has "always been here" and homosexuality has "always been here" we should accept the broader evils and accept the inevitability.

Science Avenger is starting to argue like a Libertine (oops, slip of the tongue, Libertarian is what I meant).

Perhaps next we will hear Science Avenger coming out to support the Ron Paul candidacy.

When it comes to sexuality, we should not exercise the ability of human reason to weigh what threatens our species existance. We should throw reason out the door and let the fools reign!

Gauche said...

Add one more case to your study...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/us/07scoutmaster.html?ei=5124&en=d5f98688c4f3f11d&ex=1354770000&adxnnl=1&partner=digg&exprod=digg&adxnnlx=1197244964-qHvqKUHHqTPbhkWegs1U1w

Little David said...

To see a rebuttal of the opinions expressed by Science Avenger about my own viewpoints please (go here).

I would attempt to engage in the comments section, however Science Avenger has shown a willingness to exercise dictatorial censorship on this blog.

ScienceAvenger said...

Typical of people who can't win the logical argument: scream conspiracy.

I allow any substantive comments, whether they agree with me or not. However, I do have a low tolerance for trollish irrational meanderings and baseless personal attacks, and those I filter out without apology. Those so-inclined are welcome to ramble on at their own blogs. Such is the free market of ideas.

ScienceAvenger said...

Little David, you're making shit up again. I never argued that we should accept homosexuality because it has always been here. I argued that the fact that it has always been here calls into question any claim that it poses a serious threat to humanity.

And no, I do not support the Ron Paul candidacy, but nice second helping of MSU.

On the contrary, my opinion is precisely that we should exercise reason to weigh what threatens our species, and by that reason it is easy to see that homosexuality is a tempest in a teapot compared to our real problems.

And yes Little David, any future posts you attempt which ascribe views to me I do not hold, while conspicuously ignoring the arguments I do make, will be edited. Ramble on at your blog in any manner you wish, but here such intellectually dishonest grafitti will not be tolerated.

Little David said...

I did not scream conspiracy, I screamed censorship.

I will allow anyone who reads your explanation of your censorship policy to judge it for themselves.

I will agree with your assessment that homosexuality is a tempest in a teapot relative to many other concerns. However the willingness of science to ride to the rescue of one side of the debate while unreasonably dismissing arguments from the other side causes many to dismiss such a scientific viewpoint expressed on any issue automatically.

But that's just my opinion.

ScienceAvenger said...

Science dismisses the claims of the homophobes because those claims fly in the face of the evidence, which is all science cares about. There is no other "side" to consider. Of course those who form their views based on tradition or faith will find fault with this, as will those who think everything should be "fair and balanced". Science will progress nonetheless as it always has.

Little David said...

Science has yet to point to a gay gene.

Until then I am going to be homophobic and wear the label as a badge of honor.

I am willing to bow to science, but will continue to complain when someone expresses an opinion as being proven, scientific fact.

ScienceAvenger said...

It is a proven scientific fact that homosexuality exists in the nonhuman world. It is a proven scientific fact that it is unsafe sex, not sexual orientation, that spreads disease. It is a proven scientific fact that having members of a species naturally oriented to not procreate does not impede the evolution, and therefore continuance, of the species. These were the pillars of your argument, so clearly you do not bow to science when it conflicts with your religious views. This is why, as I said in my very first post on this issue, it is pointless to argue with such people. The facts simply do not matter to them. And that my friend, is the end of this discussion, unless you shock me and come back with something with some actual substance that you didn't just make up.