Is homosexuality a choice?

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_Droopy
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Re: Is homosexuality a choice?

Post by _Droopy »


Yes. The APA is the American Psychological Association in this case. It has its full name in the link you didn't click if you weren't aware of that.


Funny, because that APA long ago altered its historic position (one it had held since, I believe, the 80s). In any case, this will not do you much good. Psychology contains a number of interesting theories, perspectives, and concepts, but its a philosophical and ideological mess, comprising many hundreds of modalities and theoretical approaches, running the gamut from the interesting and intriguing to the utterly vacuous (and brazenly PC).

What either APA has to say about the origins of homosexuality, given the fundamental nature of such "social science" and its vast variability and plasticine nature, philosophically over time, should probably not be bolted to tightly to our cultural floor.

Yeah, that's a thing. I like that a person pontificating on a psychological subject is scoffing at an entire subfield of psychology that is required as part of a standard undergrad degree. Here's a hint: the standard definition of a personality is enduring patterns of behavior and cognition. Think that might be related to sexual orientation?


Stop talking to yourself, Delusion. That's an indication of psychopathology. What did I scoff at? How? Are you even paying attention, or are you, as usual, in your own world tilting at your own windmills?

So, you're saying that there is overwhelming support in favor of reparative therapy, which necessarily would be psychological evidence,


I'm saying there is clear evidence for its usefulness with a specific subgroup of homosexuals who seriously desire such reorientation.

but then dismiss the conclusions of the preeminent organization on psychological research in the world?


Argument from authority (just like AGW, isn't it?) You miss the point entirely, which is that there is no consensus, agreement, or broad understanding within psychology per say as to virtually anything. Take you pick, Delusion: Freudian, Neo-Fruedian, Third Wave, Client Centered, Reality Therapy, Rational-Emotive, Family Systems, Cognitive, Congitive-Behavioral, Ericksonian, Transactional Analysis, Primal, Rebirthing etc., etc. (at last count, there were some 250 various theoretical perspectives/therapeutic modalities in the field of psychology, and that was some 25 years ago (see Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change, Third Edition, by Sol L. Garfield and Allen Bergen).

All of a sudden you're skeptical of the name synonymous with research on psychology, including therapeutic interventions?


I've been skeptical of psychology and psychotherapy for over a quarter of a century (while being fascinated by many of its valuable insights, in sundry places). I'm very skeptical of the very concept of social science, from its inception with Comte to the present.

You dismiss the APA as an untrustworthy, biased, unscientific source, but encourage people to trust NARTH?


NARTH is a scientific source, run and maintained by PhDs in the same disciplines. Its also an advocacy organization, but the APA has done more than its share of advocacy in its long life time.
Awesome. I guess that's par for the course for someone who dismisses Science and Nature as leftist propaganda while pimping right wing think tank press releases as scientific gospel.


Now you're just doing your best Exorcist imitation and spewing leftist boilerplate at me. No thanks. The editorial board of Nature, for its part, is well known to have sold its soul to Green ideology and the fantastic government funded Lysenkoist AGW fraud long ago. Science has not been far behind in purveying junk science as the government grants keep rolling in and the intellectual destruction of an entire earth science went on as the money and ideological fever it sustained took on a life of its own and overflowed its banks (the entire thing is really over now, but the corpse is going to twitch for some time to come). The tens of thousands of earth, natural, and hard scientists, engineers, statisticians, mathematicians, and other intellectuals/academics who will have nothing to do with CAGW is testament to its utter failure as a theory (a state it never achieved in any case, empirically speaking).

Still, that doesn't tell us what evidence you have of your claim.


You can do your own homework. NARTH has substantial resources and links to the relevant material.

Though you've now added the heavy burden of you dismissing the main professional organizations in the field of psychiatry and possibly psychology by associating them with failed theories in the history of those fields.


You don't understand. The entire field of psychology proper is subject to serious question - all of it - as to the origin and nature of homosexuality. The reason is that, far from being science, in the normative sense of the term, psychology is liable to deep and pervasive influence to subjective cultural, social, psychological, ideological and political factors arising in the society around it and as it is embedded in the intellectual and generational milieu in which it formulates and conceptualizes its theories and belief systems. It is (like sociology, cultural anthropology, social work, education, and other similar disciplines) a highly fertile soil encouraging the proliferation of intellectual fads, fashions, freewheeling theoretical speculation, personal ideological agenda, and politicization.
Last edited by Guest on Sat Apr 21, 2012 1:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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_EAllusion
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Re: Is homosexuality a choice?

Post by _EAllusion »

You want it both ways Droopy. You made an assertion that "The effectiveness of reparative therapy for motivated individuals is well established." When pointed out that the relevant science does not back this up, you adopt a skeptical position that casts broad doubt on the scientific field. But you still have your positive assertion to defend, which requires you to produce some evidence in its favor. That evidence necessarily would be of a scientific nature from the field that you are condemning in your defensive posture. Quite a problem there. You can't produce that evidence though because it doesn't actually exist. More specifically, it is the same flawed material that gets ripped apart in that lengthy document I linked. So you crawl into your fetal position and tell people to get educated. The problem is that several people here are educated and you are not. That's why you hear APA and think Freud. You lack a college freshman's understanding of psych. All you have is your preconceptions, hastily read religious right sources, and bluster.
_Drifting
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Re: Is homosexuality a choice?

Post by _Drifting »

EAllusion wrote:All you have is your preconceptions, hastily read religious right sources, and bluster.


To be fair, that's a lot more than he normally turns up with...
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_DarkHelmet
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Re: Is homosexuality a choice?

Post by _DarkHelmet »

I remember as a kid watching the Fall Guy on tv. I saw Heather Thomas in a bikini and it made me feel funny down there. I also saw Lee Majors in a speedo, and I felt nothing, except maybe a little nauseous. No amount of electroshock therapy could have forced my boner to soften at the sight of Heather Thomas or harden at the sight of Lee Majors. I realize that it is only my own experience, but every straight guy I talk to says the same thing. Has anyone done a study on the success of exectroshock therapy turning straight people gay?
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_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Is homosexuality a choice?

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Well, it's nice to see Mormons side with this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iran-bl ... osexuality

Probably gets Mr. Droopy hot and bothered...

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_DarkHelmet
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Re: Is homosexuality a choice?

Post by _DarkHelmet »

OK. Can any apologists explain the logic behind this?

Homosexuality is punishable by death according to fatwas issued by almost all Iranian clerics. Until recently, Lavat (sodomy for men) was punishable by death for all individuals involved in consensual sexual intercourse.

But under new amendments approved recently in the Iranian parliament the person who played an active role will be flogged 100 times if the sex was consensual and he was not married, but the one who played a passive role will still be put to death regardless of his marriage status.


Does this mean the pitcher is only flogged, but the catcher is put to death? Why would that be?
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_KevinSim
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Re:

Post by _KevinSim »

KimberlyAnn wrote:And even if it were a choice (which it's not)--who cares? Why would it be anyone else's business?

I agree with KA; what difference does it make whether homosexuality is a choice or not? Being Hindu is a choice. And yet in the US being Hindu is a protected right. Being LDS is a choice; likewise in the US being that is a protected right.

It amazes me when people who oppose gay rights say homosexuality is against what the Bible teaches, and therefore they should be denied some civil rights, like the right to adopt children. I'm not completely familiar with Hinduism, but I know enough about the faith to conclude that they don't worship the Christian God. Isn't that also against what the Bible teaches? And yet if someone tried to deny a Hindu couple's right to adopt children, there'd be a firestorm like nobody has ever seen. So why the double standard?
KevinSim

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_Morley
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Re: Re:

Post by _Morley »

KevinSim wrote:
KimberlyAnn wrote:And even if it were a choice (which it's not)--who cares? Why would it be anyone else's business?

I agree with KA; what difference does it make whether homosexuality is a choice or not? Being Hindu is a choice. And yet in the US being Hindu is a protected right. Being LDS is a choice; likewise in the US being that is a protected right.

It amazes me when people who oppose gay rights say homosexuality is against what the Bible teaches, and therefore they should be denied some civil rights, like the right to adopt children. I'm not completely familiar with Hinduism, but I know enough about the faith to conclude that they don't worship the Christian God. Isn't that also against what the Bible teaches? And yet if someone tried to deny a Hindu couple's right to adopt children, there'd be a firestorm like nobody has ever seen. So why the double standard?


Does this mean that you endorse gay marriage, Kevin?
_asbestosman
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Re: Re:

Post by _asbestosman »

KevinSim wrote:I agree with KA; what difference does it make whether homosexuality is a choice or not?

Because a two parent household with both a father and a mother is better for children. Likewise, parents who are making a good middle class income provide advantages to their children over households in poverty. Conclusion: don't let poor people get married. Also, we should remove those parts of scripture that say blessed are the poor.

[/sarcasm]
Last edited by Analytics on Thu Apr 19, 2012 8:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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_KevinSim
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Re: Re:

Post by _KevinSim »

Morley wrote:Does this mean that you endorse gay marriage, Kevin?

Gay couples should be allowed to marry in the United States. I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise. But likewise polygamous triples should also be allowed to marry in the United States. I don't know how anyone can argue for the former and yet oppose the latter. Polygamous groups tried to get legal sanction for their alternate sexual lifestyle first, so I think they should be granted it first; or at the same time; if a law were formulated that made it legal for two or three adults of any gender combination to be married, I would support that law.

Note, though, that I am not saying I want polygamy to come back to the LDS Church. I don't think that will ever happen, and for the record I do not want that to happen. Rather I'm looking for vindication. I want the United States to admit (either explicitly or, by passing said law, implicitly) that it violated the LDS Church's rights by nearly legislating it out of existence for doing the moral equivalent of what gay couples are doing today.

The short answer is that no, I don't endorse gay marriage, not before the US makes polygamy legal. But after the US does make polygamy legal, or even as soon as the US makes polygamy legal, then I have no problem with gay marriage.
KevinSim

Reverence the eternal.
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