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From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Biological basis for homosexuality? (some ?? to S. Dyer)
Message-ID: <10205@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Dec-84 15:59:38 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.10205
Posted: Fri Dec  7 15:59:38 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Dec-84 03:48:33 EST
References: <2159@randvax.UUCP> <1184@bbncca.ARPA> <663@amdahl.UUCP>, <1187@bbncca.ARPA> <1166@ihuxm.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 102

> 
> Well, hetero parents will, probably, always prefer a hetero baby;
> gay parents will ... there aren't too many of those.
> The reason is not necessarily the dreaded homophobia.
> The word "eradication" sounds repulsive, sure, but nobody in particular
> is getting eradicated. Lifestyles, habits, traditions, orientations, if 
> you will, are continuously eradicated ih the course of history. 
> If you want some tradition to continue, you should be able to show
> that it is a good one. Whatever is your definition of goodness, it
> must show.
> To rephrase it: what are the world's merits of having gay population?

I think the answer to that are pretty obvious:
1/ stop in growth of world population (overall)
2/ acceptance of different ways of loving people (and not mere replacement of
one kind for the other either.  There ARE some bisexuals around too!)

> Why should gay (straight) tradition continue?
> Yes, it creates charming diversity, own subculture, but is that enough 
> of a merit to make parents upset about having a child that can not
> fulfill their expectations? Again "homophobia" does not totally account
> for that attitude.

I don't think that Steve is worried about the continuation of gay "tradition"
but the impact on the gay population that the ease with which homosexuality
could be prevented in utero would have.  Another analogy can be drawn with
these proposed devlopments and the development of other methods to determine
abnorbalities in fetuses.  The reason amniocentecis (sp?) is performed is not
in order to cure potentially "damaged" fetuses in utero, but rather to give
parents of such fetuses the opportunity to have an abortion.  Now, of course,
retardation, birth deffects, etc, will never be erradicated, but if it becomes
a common practice to "cure" such problems by abortion, then society will
probably be less compassionate towards people who refuse the "cure" and their
offsprings.  This issue is apparently causing great concern in groups for
disabled people.

While I am certainly not in favour of restricting women's right to abortion
for any reason (and anybody who reads net.abortion can attest to this)  I am
worried about the impact of the widespread acceptance of abortion of deformed
fetuses.  Like many of the pro-lifers, I too am worried that people might
abort problem fetuses just because there are no societal structures in place
to support disabled people.  And it is a vicious circle: it becomes easier
to abort those fetuses rather than accept them into our society, and as there
are less and less of them, the ones that are there are not as easily accepted
or can even be blamed (or their parents can be) for existing in the first
place, and thus refused assistance that they might have been given if they
were a more visible minority.

I think there is a parallel with this situation and the problem of "detecting"
people's homosexuality in advance.  If homosexuality is seen as undesirable,
and can be detected earlier on, and people can "cure" it by aborting would-be
homosexuals,  and this becomes common-place, then existing homosexuals will
certainly not be tolerated as well by society.
> 
> Summary: you want gay tradition to be around forever, to be powerful.
> But you are not just as concerned with costs of keeping it around,

costs of keeping it around? huh? what are you talking about?

> as you are with possible disadvantages of doing away with it.
> There are usual parallels with ethnic groups (of questional legitimacy)
> I can understand the concern - you are a member of potentially threatened
> minority - but most of these are not applicable.
> 
> Also: effect of changing male/female ratio are far more serious then
> any possible changes in the percentage of gays. Why? It affects more
> people more seriously.

That is all a matter of opinion!  One possible side-effect of drastic
changes in male/female ratios would be an increase in homosexuality so
it is all related.

****** FLAME ON ******

How can you DARE say that the problems that heterosexual people might
have in finding mates might be more "serious" than problems homosexuals might
encounter because of discrimination!  Seems to me that food & shelter
are much more basic needs than sex and companionship.

This kind of attitude really pisses me off!!!!  I find it SOOOOO reminiscent
of the usual crap that men used to feed women about how men's worries were
so much more "serious" than women's worries, and how men's work was so much
more "serious" than women's work...  etc.. ad infinitum.  And usually in
this kind of situation, the truth was that those who were concerned about
"seriousness" could afford to do so because they had free time on their hands
unlike those who were spending all their lives working at less "serious"
tasks such as making sure that their families did not starve.

Your attitude is so patronising, it is disgusting!  Just because a concern
is not yours, then immediately it is less serious, and just because a
concern is shared by a majority of people, then it happens to be more
serious then other concerns minorities might have.  Yes, I bet there are
more people in the world who are worried about sex than there are who are
starving (or are things worse than I think they are?).  I guess that makes
the problems of the starving people less "serious" too by your definition.

*****  FLAME OFF *******
>                           Mike Cherepov
>                        REPLIES to ihnp4!ihlpm!cher

Sophie Quigley
...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley