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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Sorry, Jeff
Message-ID: <3100@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Jun-84 12:31:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbscc.3100
Posted: Wed Jun 20 12:31:06 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 06:30:52 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus
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[Jym Dyer:]
>	Jeff Sargent would have us think that homosexuality is a mental ill-
>ness.  He recommends a book that agrees with him.
>	Sorry, Jeff, but that view isn't supported by psychology and psychiatry
>at large.  The American Psychiatric Association voted in 1974 that homosexual-
>ity is *not* mental illness.  (There was dissent, but it didn't take.)
>	The view that everyone is heterosexual at heart isn't supported by the
>findings of psychologists - the ones who approach this issue scientifically.
>The prevailing theory - formulated by Kinsey of the famous Kinsey studies and
>supported by several studies since - is that humans' sexual orientation exists
>on an ambisexual continuum.  This accounts for bisexuality, heterosexuality
>(with a few homosexual encounters here and there), etc.
>		<_Jym_>

I would agree that homosexuality is not a mental illness.  Moral issues
cannot be reduced to a matter of mental health.  The way I see it homosexual
practice is largely a moral issue.  I just don't understand how the contention
that homosexuals are born--not made--is really supported by scientific data.
It is certainly not in the same category with the evidence that women or
blacks are born and not made.  Has science demonstrated that sexual preference
is in our genes?  I don't think so.  (The idea seems really weird since
the gene would have to be transmitted by heterosexual practice.) Yet from
what I have seen the Gay Rights Movement is trying to place the sexual
preference in the same boat with women's rights and racial discrimination
issues.  When they do this they go beyond claiming the right to believing
in, and practicing, homosexuality;  they claim the right to impose on others
the belief that homosexuality is right.  Not only will a dissenting opinion
not hold, it will be actively supressed (e.g. by including it in the
Affirmative Action agenda).

It seems to me that what social science has shown is that each individual
has the capacity to develop in a variety of ways concerning their sexual
preference.  I can even accept the notion that the individual makeup
of some may bias them toward developing one preferance over the other.
But demonstrating the possibility of such bias through psychology, or
whatever, does not answer the moral question of whether or not homosexual
practice is right, or whether the sexual tendencies in these
individuals are indelible (like their gender or race would be).  It seems
to me that the same sociological evidence that would give intrinsic
rights to homosexuals would also give them to those who claim to have
been born with pedophilic tendancies.  Should we honor their sexual
behaviour with consenting minors?  (This may not be far off.  There is
a group (name escapes me now) that is actively trying to influence
the sex education cirriculum in the public schools. Thier motto is,
"Sex before eight, or it's too late". -- Not with my kid you don't.)
It seems to me that the sexual preference issue is going to get pulled
down to the young child's level along with the increasing pressure being
put on children to make decisions about sexual activity in general.  If 
sexual preference is largely a learned moral behaviour (rather than a
genetically determined condition) then kids will learn that "anything goes"
as far as sex is concerned long before they have the capacity to deal
with, or even assess, the consequences of their decisions.

I've seen the reasoning used here that the fact that there are "repentant"
homosexuals only goes to prove that those individuals were not natural
homosexuals.  That does'nt make sense to me.  Good scientific theorems
need to have some predictive value.  You don't get that from making post
hoc assumptions.  On what basis can the sexual preference of an individual
be predicted, or even determined at the earliest stages of their development?

I'll probably be sorry I posted this.  But I am trying to express my
opinion honestly.  Please send all responses that you want me to see
by mail.  News delivery to cbscc is not very dependable.  Thanks.

-- 

Paul Dubuc 		{cbosgd, ihnp4} !cbscc!pmd

  "The true light that enlightens every man was coming
   into the world..."		(John 1:9)