Homosexuality: The Truth Will Set You Free (Yes, Even You)

[Guest]

Droopy,

Are you familiar with any of the social science work that was "used" to support this piece you posted? I went ahead and looked over one of the articles in the "Sources" list, and I'm wondering if you think the FRC is using the conclusions in an honest way. For example, the authors of the article from the Journal of Interpersonal Violence cite statistics that actually show that women in heterosexual relationships suffer more abuse:

Brand and Kidd (1986) studied the extent of physical aggression experienced by 75 heterosexual women and 55 lesbians to determine whether men or women were more abusive in their intimate relationships. The results of their study indicated that men (76%) were more abusive against their female partners more often than were females (51%) in their lesbian relationships. Brand and Kidd also found that physical abuse occurred more frequently in heterosexual relationships than in lesbian relationships.

(pp. 471-472)

So... As you can imagine, I'm kind of wondering what a citation from this article is doing in your FRC piece. Granted: your FRC piece mentions "verbal aggression." So what do you think that is, exactly?

Sulking and refusing to talk (85.5%, Md=3.6) and everbal insults or profanity (75.8%, Md=4.8) were the most common forms of verbal aggression reported.

(p. 479)

By that definition, Droopy, you'd really have to classify yourself as being someone in need of "the truth" about your own lifestyle.

In any case, if you are actually interested in "the truth," you'd be a lot better off going and chasing down the actual research. I bet it would be a real eye-opener for you to see what the actual, peer-reviewed research says in comparison to something like the article you've just cited.

ETA: I realized that I mis-transcribed the numbers from the Brand-Kidd study. I can possibly send you a .pdf of the study if you're interested, Loran.

[_Jersey Girl]

Loran,

I'm not planning to go around in circles with you on this, know that in advance.

You're really trying hard to fudge it here, Jersey Girl, but no matter.

Please provide evidence for your assertion that I am "trying hard to fudge it", and I mean evidence, not more assertions. Or here's a suggestion, how about address exactly what I said instead of characterizing it?

After all these years, you should know that I when I attempt to engage you, my rhetoric alarm is functional and fast.

Deal with my words.

A major aspect of the empirical evidence here is the very clear (and long known) fact that the vast majority of male homosexuals never have, and never will, avail themselves of marriage, whether or not it is legally available. It is not a part of the homosexual culture, mindset, and sexual orientation itself.

Your basis for this is what, European stats going back to 1995? And we're doing what with this, making predictions about US culture?

Let's talk about the effects of the civil rights movement in the US compared to racial attitudes in, oh, England, okay? Or not.

Homosexual relationships are substantially different then heterosexual relations along a number of dimensions, the most salient being the brevity of such relationships, the number of relationships per individual, the extreme promiscuity as a norm in Gay culture, and the dearth of formation of long term partnerships and marriages vs. heterosexual.

You know, I would really like to address the reason for the high rate of promiscuity in gay males, but you'll just have to use your brain, which if you are male, is located just below your belt line and any hetero male who is honest with himself, knows good and well that he, too, would maintain a high rate of promiscuity were it not for societal expectations and opportunities for the right (or curse, you decide) to be legally married which is just now being afforded to gay men in the US.

Take from that what you will.

These are empirical data from a wide variety of scholarly social science sources.

You cannot attempt to compare apples to Honda's. One of them is still food and other is still a car. Until you've got comparable apples in both baskets or comparable Honda's in each garage, you've got literally nothing, Loran. I can rip stats out of a multitude of sources and you still wouldn't make the apple road worthy.

One may weep when one reads, but wipe the tears away and read on.

Rhetoric alarm.

The truth, as the title of the thread suggests, will set you free.

More rhetoric.

If you want truth, Loran, go to some place besides a faith promoting website for your material. It's biased for a reason.

[_Droopy]

Let's factor in to all of this that the numbers on the "gay side" of this are skewed because of the massive bigotry that still exists in many parts of the country.

Many gays are not out, and don't make their sexuality known to the general public.

I also love how at the very beginning of that useless data, that on the heterosexual side, it only counts "first marriages".

The funny thing about statistics and reports like this can be manipulated based merely on the sample used. If you are "pro" something, you are going to go to areas that support your position before you venture into areas that don't.

Duh

In other words, you didn't read the study, have no intention of reading it, and even if you do read it, you have no intention of thinking about it.

Standard.

[_Jersey Girl]

Loran,

Stop shoving walls of text in my face. Deal with the comments that I made and change my mind.

[_Droopy]

If I must...


Here's the first area of comparison:

RELATIONSHIP DURATION

Here is who we are using:

Married Couples

Male Homosexual Relationships

Here's the next area for comparison:

MONOGAMY VS. PROMISCUITY: SEXUAL PARTNERS OUTSIDE OF THE RELATIONSHIP

Here is who we are using:

Married couples



Male Homosexuals

I'm sorry, Loran, but this is bull scheisse. Try to change my mind.

I've already spoken to this. There are not enough homosexual marriages, and never will be, to do anything but use homosexual relationships and rates of initial entrance into civil unions as proxies.

Get over it. This is the reality of homosexual life and homosexual culture, and always has been.

[_Jersey Girl]

Let me show you what you are doing that's pissing me off.

Jersey Girl

The introduction of gay marriage is a new relationship trend. We've not been down this road before. We can't measure it against hetero marriage until we've got something to measure and that's going to take time.

Loran

We have generations (in not centuries) of observation of homosexual culture and psychological dynamics and a great deal of social science data from the late 20th century to go by, and there is no reason to believe that homosexuality as a syndrome and practice will be in the slightest altered by the simple availability of marriage, something that Gay culture as a whole was never interested in and, indeed, has been viscerally opposed to in the recent past.

Here you dismiss the impact of gay marriage without it ever having done it's time to determine impact. You cannot simply thumb your nose at what hasn't been had, what hasn't been available, what hasn't had a chance to exist in our society.

If the Gay culture "was never interested in"...then where in the HELL did the Gay marriage movement come from?

Please stop this. I am not going to spend my time dealing with your Bunkerisms.

[_hobo1512]

Let's factor in to all of this that the numbers on the "gay side" of this are skewed because of the massive bigotry that still exists in many parts of the country.

Many gays are not out, and don't make their sexuality known to the general public.

I also love how at the very beginning of that useless data, that on the heterosexual side, it only counts "first marriages".

The funny thing about statistics and reports like this can be manipulated based merely on the sample used. If you are "pro" something, you are going to go to areas that support your position before you venture into areas that don't.

Duh

In other words, you didn't read the study, have no intention of reading it, and even if you do read it, you have no intention of thinking about it.

Standard.

Buzzzzzzz....wrong, but thanks for playing.

One simple thing you fail to realize is that studies of this nature are biased from the start.

Do you honestly think (maybe you do), they would publish a study that didn't support what they were trying to push?

Come on, even you can't be that dumb. (I'm giving you alot of credit here)

[_Droopy]

Droopy,

Are you familiar with any of the social science work that was "used" to support this piece you posted?

Are you?

I went ahead and looked over one of the articles in the "Sources" list, and I'm wondering if you think the FRC is using the conclusions in an honest way. For example, the authors of the article from the Journal of Interpersonal Violence cite statistics that actually show that women in heterosexual relationships suffer more abuse:

Brand and Kidd (1986) studied the extent of physical aggression experienced by 75 heterosexual women and 55 lesbians to determine whether men or women were more abusive in their intimate relationships. The results of their study indicated that men (76%) were more abusive against their female partners more often than were females (51%) in their lesbian relationships. Brand and Kidd also found that physical abuse occurred more frequently in heterosexual relationships than in lesbian relationships.

(pp. 471-472)

This demonstrates precisely nothing, as the statement the FRC authors used in this one, single instance was to verbal abuse

· A study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence examined conflict and violence in lesbian relationships. The researchers found that 90 percent of the lesbians surveyed had been recipients of one or more acts of verbal aggression from their intimate partners during the year prior to this study, with 31 percent reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse.

And the rest?

· In a survey of 1,099 lesbians, the Journal of Social Service Research found that slightly more than half of the lesbians reported that they had been abused by a female lover/partner. The researchers found that "the most frequently indicated forms of abuse were verbal/emotional/psychological abuse and combined physical-psychological abuse."

· A study of lesbian couples reported in the Handbook of Family Development and Intervention "indicates that 54 percent had experienced 10 or more abusive incidents, 74 percent had experienced six or more incidents, 60 percent reported a pattern to the abuse, and 71 percent said it grew worse over time."

In their book Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence, Island and Letellier postulate that "the incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that in the heterosexual population."

The National Violence against Women Survey, sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, found that "same-sex cohabitants reported significantly more intimate partner violence than did opposite-sex cohabitants. Thirty-nine percent of the same-sex cohabitants reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by a marital/cohabitating partner at some time in their lifetimes, compared to 21.7 percent of the opposite-sex cohabitants. Among men, the comparable figures are 23.1 percent and 7.4 percent."

A Bureau of Justice Statistics (an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice) report found that married women in traditional families experience the lowest rate of violence compared with women in other types of relationships.[51] Women who were not married to their "intimate partner" (i.e., were cohabiting), experienced a rate of violence four times higher than that of married women (11.3 per thousand vs. 2.6 per thousand).

47. Gwat Yong Lie and Sabrina Gentlewarrier, "Intimate Violence in Lesbian Relationships: Discussion of Survey Findings and Practice Implications," Journal of Social Service Research 15 (1991): 46.
48. William C. Nichols, et al, editors, Handbook of Family Development and Intervention (New York:John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2000): 393.
49. D. Island and P. Letellier, Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence (New York: Haworth Press, 1991): 14.
50. "Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence," U.S. Department of Justice: Office of Justice Programs (July, 2000): 30.
51. "Intimate Partner Violence," Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report (U.S. Department of Justice, May, 2000): 11.

In any case, if you are actually interested in "the truth," you'd be a lot better off going and chasing down the actual research.

Go try and fool someone else. I've had far, far too much experience with you for this.

[_Droopy]

One simple thing you fail to realize is that studies of this nature are biased from the start.

You haven't read the study, have no intention of doing so, and no intention of thinking seriously about it in an intellectually honest manner if you did.

Move along...nothing to see here.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Droopy,

Are you familiar with any of the social science work that was "used" to support this piece you posted?

Are you?

Yes.

This demonstrates precisely nothing, as the statement the FRC authors used in this one, single instance was to verbal abuse

· A study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence examined conflict and violence in lesbian relationships. The researchers found that 90 percent of the lesbians surveyed had been recipients of one or more acts of verbal aggression from their intimate partners during the year prior to this study, with 31 percent reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse.

Yes, I know. It was sprinkled in there amidst a lot of citations that are meant to portray homosexuals in a bad light. The actual article makes it quite clear that there really isn't much difference in terms of abuse between homosexual and heterosexual couples. If anything, there is more violence and abuse in hetero couples, as the Kidd et al. article cited above indicates.

And the rest?

I can go through and look at them if you want. I'm guessing that I'd find something similar: i.e., that the citations have been lifted out of context, and that they don't really demonstrate what you want them to. It's clear that both you and the FRC piece want to "prove" that homosexual relationships are somehow "worse" or "more evil" compared with heterosexual relationships, but the social science just doesn't bear out that assumption.

But consider:

· In a survey of 1,099 lesbians, the Journal of Social Service Research found that slightly more than half of the lesbians reported that they had been abused by a female lover/partner. The researchers found that "the most frequently indicated forms of abuse were verbal/emotional/psychological abuse and combined physical-psychological abuse."

How does this measure up with women in heterosexual relationships? Why is that comparison (rather conspicuously) absent from the piece? The same question seems relevant to the other items you list:

· A study of lesbian couples reported in the Handbook of Family Development and Intervention "indicates that 54 percent had experienced 10 or more abusive incidents, 74 percent had experienced six or more incidents, 60 percent reported a pattern to the abuse, and 71 percent said it grew worse over time."

In their book Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence, Island and Letellier postulate that "the incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that in the heterosexual population."

This one:

The National Violence against Women Survey, sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, found that "same-sex cohabitants reported significantly more intimate partner violence than did opposite-sex cohabitants. Thirty-nine percent of the same-sex cohabitants reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by a marital/cohabitating partner at some time in their lifetimes, compared to 21.7 percent of the opposite-sex cohabitants. Among men, the comparable figures are 23.1 percent and 7.4 percent."

...is bizarre. "[S]ponsored by the National Institute of Justice"? What does that mean, exactly? It sounds almost as if someone was paying the researchers to "get" these findings. But the even wierder thing is the "marital/cohabitating partner" thing for "same-sex" couples. Where did they get numbers for such a thing?

A Bureau of Justice Statistics (an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice) report found that married women in traditional families experience the lowest rate of violence compared with women in other types of relationships.[51] Women who were not married to their "intimate partner" (i.e., were cohabiting), experienced a rate of violence four times higher than that of married women (11.3 per thousand vs. 2.6 per thousand).

This one isn't really relevant to your basic thesis, since this is more about marriage in general, rather than homosexuality per se.

In any case, if you are actually interested in "the truth," you'd be a lot better off going and chasing down the actual research.

Go try and fool someone else. I've had far, far too much experience with you for this.

I'm not trying to "fool" anyone, Droopy. I just think your article is misrepresenting the research.