Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

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_Rollo Tomasi
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Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _Rollo Tomasi »

The Nehor wrote:They may not have a corner on the market but let's look at the statistics:

Previous investigations have indicated that the ratio of sex offenders against female children vs. offenders against male children is approximately 2:1, while the ratio of gynephiles to androphiles among the general population is approximately 20:1. The present study investigated whether the etiology of preferred partner sex among pedophiles is related to the etiology of preferred partner sex among males preferring adult partners. Using phallometric test sensitivities to calculate the proportion of true pedophiles among various groups of sex offenders against children, and taking into consideration previously reported mean numbers of victims per offender group, the ratio of heterosexual to homosexual pedophiles was calculated to be approximately 11:1. This suggests that the resulting proportion of true pedophiles among persons with a homosexual erotic development is greater than that in persons who develop heterosexually. This, of course, would not indicate that androphilic males have a greater propensity to offend against children.

They're more likely to be. Considering that less then 5% of the male population is homosexual or bisexual they make up a larger proportion of pedophiles then the general population. This of course does not mean that it is exclusively tied to homosexuality.

Are you to citing to Cameron? If so, his thinking has been highly criticized:

One individual has claimed to have data that prove homosexuals to be child molesters at a higher rate than heterosexuals. That person is Paul Cameron. As detailed elsewhere on this site, Cameron's survey data are subject to so many methodological flaws as to be virtually meaningless. Even so, his assertions are sometimes quoted by antigay organizations in their attempts to link homosexuality with child sexual abuse.

In a 1985 article published in Psychological Reports, Cameron purported to review published data to answer the question, "Do those who commit homosexual acts disproportionately incorporate children into their sexual practices?" (p. 1227). He concluded that "at least one-third of the sexual attacks upon youth are homosexual" (p. 1228) and that "those who are bi- to homosexual are proportionately much more apt to molest youth" than are heterosexuals (p. 1231).

Cameron's claims hinge on the fallacious assumption that all male-male molestations are committed by homosexuals. Moreover, a careful reading of Cameron's paper reveals several false statements about the literature he claimed to have reviewed.

For example, he cited the Groth and Birnbaum (1978) study mentioned previously as evidencing a 3:2 ratio of "heterosexual" (i.e., female victim) to "homosexual" (i.e., male victim) molestations, and he noted that "54% of all the molestations in this study were performed by bisexual or homosexual practitioners" (p. 1231). However, Groth and Birnbaum reported that none of the men in their sample had an exclusively homosexual adult sexual orientation, and that none of the 22 bisexual men were more attracted to adult males than to adult females. The "54%" statistic reported by Cameron doesn't appear anywhere in the Groth and Birnbaum (1978) article, nor does Cameron explain its derivation.

It is also noteworthy that, although Cameron assumed that the perpetrators of male-male molestations were all homosexual, he assumed that not all male-female molestations were committed by heterosexuals. He incorporated a "bisexual correction" into his data manipulations to increase further his estimate of the risk posed to children by homosexual/bisexual men.

In the latter half of his paper, Cameron considered whether "homosexual teachers have more frequent sexual interaction with their pupils" (p. 1231). Based on 30 instances of sexual contact between a teacher and pupil reported in ten different sources published between 1920 and 1982, Cameron concluded that "a pupil would appear about 90 times more likely to be sexually assaulted by a homosexual practitioner" (p.1232); the ratio rose to 100 times when Cameron added his bisexual correction.

This ratio is meaningless because no data were obtained concerning the actual sexual orientation of the teachers involved; as before, Cameron assumed that male-male contacts were perpetrated by homosexuals. Furthermore, Cameron's rationale for selecting particular sources appears to have been completely arbitrary. He described no systematic method for reviewing the literature, and apparently never reviewed the voluminous literature on the sexual development of children and adolescents. His final choice of sources appears to have slanted his findings toward what Cameron described as "the relative absence in the scientific literature of heterosexual teacher-pupil sexual events coupled with persistent, albeit infrequent, homosexual teacher-pupil sexual interactions" (p. 1232).

A subsequent paper by Cameron and others (Cameron, Proctor, Coburn, Forde, Larson, & Cameron, 1986) described data collected in a door-to-door survey in seven U.S. cities and towns, and generally repeated the conclusions reached in Cameron (1985). Even Cameron himself admitted that his conclusions in this study are "based upon small numbers of data points" (Cameron, 2005, p. 230). As before, male-male sexual assaults were referred to as "homosexual" molestations (e.g., Abstract, p.327) and the perpetrators' sexual orientation apparently was not assessed. This study also suffers from fatal methodological problems, which are detailed elsewhere on this site.

In yet another article published in Psychological Reports, Cameron claimed to have reviewed data about foster parents in Illinois and found that 34% were perpetrated by a foster parent against a child of the same sex, that is, female-female or male-male (Cameron, 2005). Not only did Cameron again make the fallacious claim that all male-male molestations are committed by homosexuals, he also made the same claim about female-female molestations. Once again, he had no data about the actual sexual orientations of the molesters.

Cameron continues to produce reports that essentially repeat the same inaccurate claims. Perhaps one of the best indicators of his diminishing credibility in this area is that his work was not cited in the 2004 FRC report discussed in detail above.

Conclusion

The empirical research does not show that gay or bisexual men are any more likely than heterosexual men to molest children. This is not to argue that homosexual and bisexual men never molest children. But there is no scientific basis for asserting that they are more likely than heterosexual men to do so. And, as explained above, many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on children.

Here is the link to the full article:

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/H ... ation.html

Also, here's a link to another article criticizing Cameron's findings:

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/H ... urvey.html
"Moving beyond apologist persuasion, LDS polemicists furiously (and often fraudulently) attack any non-traditional view of Mormonism. They don't mince words -- they mince the truth."

-- Mike Quinn, writing of the FARMSboys, in "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," p. x (Rev. ed. 1998)
_The Nehor
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Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _The Nehor »

No, that data didn't come from Cameron. Here's the link. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1556756
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics
"I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
_GoodK

Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _GoodK »

The Nehor wrote:
I stand corrected. I tried to do a search to verify that report but it didn't pull up much of anything and I was rushed.



Ha. You were rushed trying to justify a position that you have and -- surprise! Another one of your arguments falls flat on its face. How many is that now?

The Nehor wrote:On further reading, I find that the violence claim (one I just found) is most likely unsupportable as it is difficult to contrast heterosexual vs. homosexual murder rates. Fair enough.


Make claim after claim and see if anyone can disprove them. Is that how this works?

The Nehor wrote:I'll stick with rampant STD infection and short life span.


I guess it is.

The Nehor wrote:Anyone want to contest those?


Sure.

Your most credible study (curiously you don't provide links to where you saw these studies) is Oxford, and it is only talking about men who have sex with other men.

Ehhhhhh. Try again.


The Nehor wrote:They may not have a corner on the market but let's look at the statistics:




The following study seems to disagree:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/di ... &aid=39895

So does this research paper:

http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/threat.htm

Let's look at some statistics:

On September 11, 1857 a small group of Mormons murdered approximately 120 men, women, and children.

Between 1979 and 1983 Gary Bishop (a return missionary) killed at least five young boys. He molested countless others, and also admitted to abusing puppies.

Jason Derek Brown (a return missionary) shot a man in the head five times and stole $56,000 in cash.

Ted Bundy - one of the most prolific serial killers - converted to Mormonism in the mid 70's. One of his many victims was a 12 year old girl whom he kidnapped and mutilated in 1978.


Mark Hacking (return missionary) killed his pregnant wife and dumped her body in the trash.

Glenn Taylor Helzer killed five people in the bay area in the summer of 2003. "His defense attorney argued that he spent his boyhood as a Mormon surrounded by religious influences so outside the mainstream that acquaintances and family members made him believe God chose him as a prophet."

The infamous Mark Hofmann - a return missionary and married in the temple - killed two people.
_The Nehor
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Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _The Nehor »

The study you cited has to do with one specific STD. If I picked a specific STD that might mean something.

I'm not sure why you brought in the research paper. I brought studies. You brought a gay man explaining that homosexuality isn't wrong.

I had no idea making a mistake on one of my points due to hurried research meant I had failed. So far you've brought nothing. Your study is limited and your research paper shows nothing. I admit bringing violence in was a mistake until I looked a little deeper.

This is perhaps a little more telling regarding homosexual violence: http://everything2.com/node/1799527

"In a recent issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, it was estimated that 22.1% of women and 7.4% of men experience some sort of domestic violence during their lifetime, while the factsheet on domestic violence from the Center for Disease Control placed the numbers higher at 29% and 22%, respectively (Domestic, 2005; Intimate, 2006). While these numbers are representative of both homosexual and heterosexual people, a study by Stephen S. Owen and Tod W. Burke specifically focusing on self-identified homosexuals revealed that 56.1% of the respondents had been the victims in some sort of domestic violence. When they compared these findings to a representative group of heterosexuals, they found that "intimate partner assault may be more prevalent against gay men than against heterosexual men, but there was no significant difference between lesbians and heterosexual females" (129). Due to the highly controlling nature of the abuser in domestic violence situations, however, it tends to be a crime that is grossly underreported, and in cases of non-physical abuse, can be difficult to prove. Also, reporting domestic violence does not necessarily stop an abuser's ability to "out" his/her partner, or an abuser's final and possibly lethal session of battering.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics
"I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
_GoodK

Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _GoodK »

The Nehor wrote:The study you cited has to do with one specific STD. If I picked a specific STD that might mean something.



It does mean something. It means that your statistics don't say what you want them to say.


The Nehor wrote:I'm not sure why you brought in the research paper. I brought studies.* You brought a gay man explaining that homosexuality isn't wrong.

(*editor's note - Some of the "studies" have proven to be completely false.)

I guess I thought you would read it. My bad.

Here, read this:

from the gay man explaining that homosexuality isn't wrong wrote:According to a fact sheet from UNAIDS, the joint AIDS program sponsored by the United Nations and The World Bank, between 5-10 % of the total HIV infections in the world at the end of 1996 had been caused by male homosexual intercourse - which corresponds to most estimates of the proportion of homosexuals in the general population. Almost no cases of lesbian sex has resulted in HIV spreading. And over 70 % of the total number of HIV infections had been caused by heterosexual intercourse. Are we to conclude that "heterosexuality causes AIDS"?

"So it does not do to argue that homosexuality threatens society because homosexuals cause AIDS more than heterosexuals; as we just saw, the opposite holds. Actually, it is more fruitful to analyze the types of behavior that are conducive to HIV infection, and such behavior can be displayed by gay and straight alike. That is, e.g., why gay men in the West and straight people in parts of Africa and Thailand experience high rates of HIV infection: because they engage in high-risk behavior. Hence, there is nothing inherent in homosexuality that causes AIDS."






The Nehor wrote:I had no idea making a mistake on one of my points due to hurried research meant I had failed.


You haven't failed completely, you are just showing a pattern at failing at trying to support this particular position. At least you are trying, though.
And at least you acknowledged that you failed.

I'm hoping that eventually you will notice this trend and change your mind about this issue.


The Nehor wrote: So far you've brought nothing.


Hold.... are you waiting for me to prove that homosexuality does not destroy civilization? I'm not going to do that Nehor. I am letting you make your case, like you said you would. So far - well, you can do a lot better.

The Nehor wrote:Your study is limited and your research paper shows nothing.


Your study is also limited - to men who have sex with other men. I think the research paper addresses your claim regarding STD's quite nicely, and the only study I found so far seems to dispute it.

The Nehor wrote: I admit bringing violence in was a mistake until I looked a little deeper.


Commendable.
_Roger Morrison
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Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _Roger Morrison »

Knock, Knock...May I intrude this feud? Well I am anyway, to get at what's really in the LDS craw:



Quote:
Legalizing same-sex marriage will affect a wide spectrum of government activities and policies. Once a state government declares that same-sex unions are a civil right, those governments almost certainly will enforce a wide variety of other policies intended to ensure that there is no discrimination against same-sex couples. This may well place “church and state on a collision course.”

The prospect of same-sex marriage has already spawned legal collisions with the rights of free speech and of action based on religious beliefs. For example, advocates and government officials in certain states already are challenging the long-held right of religious adoption agencies to follow their religious beliefs and only place children in homes with both a mother and a father. As a result, Catholic Charities in Boston has stopped offering adoption services.

Other advocates of same-sex marriage are suggesting that tax exemptions and benefits be withdrawn from any religious organization that does not embrace same-sex unions. Public accommodation laws are already being used as leverage in an attempt to force religious organizations to allow marriage celebrations or receptions in religious facilities that are otherwise open to the public. Accrediting organizations in some instances are asserting pressure on religious schools and universities to provide married housing for same-sex couples. Student religious organizations are being told by some universities that they may lose their campus recognition and benefits if they exclude same-sex couples from club membership.



Seems LDSism feels very threatened by legislation that will bight into their Secret Rituals Regulations and their Secret Financial Government exclusion from tax payments.

Seems human rights might Trump church rights in a moral and just society. Social progress, what a bane to conservative retrogressives...

OK guys, back to yer one-upmanship. Seems you might be at a stalemate??? :-)
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_antishock8
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Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _antishock8 »

The Nehor wrote:
antishock8 wrote:So, ah, do you consider rape to be a sexually deviant act?


Yes, I do.


Game.

Set.

And match.
You can’t trust adults to tell you the truth.

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_Tarski
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Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _Tarski »

The Nehor wrote:1. to affect with perversion.

Like a perversion of the one Catholic Chrstian faith?

2. to lead astray morally.

Like polygamy?

3. to turn away from the right course.

Like to join Mormonism?

4. to lead into mental error or false judgment.

To fall victim to a belief in nonexistant gold plates?

5. to turn to an improper use; misapply.

TO misused the Bible as support for the Book of Mormon?

6. to misconstrue or misinterpret, esp. deliberately; distort: to pervert someone's statement.


Like you think I am doing to your statement?

7. to bring to a less excellent state; vitiate; debase.

To descend into superstitions such as Mormonism?

8. Pathology. to change to what is unnatural or abnormal.

To baptise the dead?


9. to convert or persuade to a religious belief regarded as false or wrong.
–noun

Mormonism?

10. a person who practices sexual perversion.

Such as sex with teenagers or polygamy?


(Maybe you should ask if oral sex is perversion before you get married)?
11. Pathology. a person affected with perversion.


Such as a perverse hatred of those who have different sexual orientation?


12. a person who has been perverted, esp. to a religious belief regarded as erroneous.

Mormonismmmmmmm.
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_bcspace
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Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _bcspace »

Legalizing same-sex marriage will affect a wide spectrum of government activities and policies. Once a state government declares that same-sex unions are a civil right, those governments almost certainly will enforce a wide variety of other policies intended to ensure that there is no discrimination against same-sex couples.

Yes, heaven forbid we take away a religious person's right to discriminate against homosexuals!


One discriminates all the time when making judgements of good and evil, right and wrong, good or bad, etc. If one is not discriminating when making decisions, then one has lost all reason.

Therefore, since we all know that homosexual behavior is dangerous to life and health, is it good to discriminate against such behavior.
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_Rollo Tomasi
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Re: Latest Church 'statement' on gay marriage ....

Post by _Rollo Tomasi »

bcspace wrote:Therefore, since we all know that homosexual behavior is dangerous to life and health, is it good to discriminate against such behavior.

Spoken like a true Morgbot.
"Moving beyond apologist persuasion, LDS polemicists furiously (and often fraudulently) attack any non-traditional view of Mormonism. They don't mince words -- they mince the truth."

-- Mike Quinn, writing of the FARMSboys, in "Early Mormonism and the Magic World View," p. x (Rev. ed. 1998)
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