Why so few homosexuals?

[wenglund]

20 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

"Natural" doesn't strike me as a particularly helpful term, regardless of which side uses it.  Extract of hemlock is "natural".  So are uranium and petroleum, Behaviorally, in certain animal communities, infanticide is "natural"; and so are killing, theft, torture, and rape. 

"Natural" ≠ "good" or "pure" or "wholesome" or "desirable" or "right".

It depends upon what connotation of "natural" one is speaking to, doesn't it? Do you disagree that things that naturally exist may be put to unnatural use?. Both the finger and the eye occur naturally in nature, but poking the one in the other...

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Good people,

I may be wrong, but as previously indicated, I understand that, on the subject of homosexuality, and over multiple decades, many minds have been filled with what I view as truckloads of manure (figuratively speaking) by public education, mainstream media, Hollywood, the culture, political establishment, and more recently junk science and leading corporations 

I would be foolish to think that little O'l me was anywhere close to a match against all that.  Thus, my intent on this thread isn't to shovel anyone's mind free of the "manure," but to plants seeds of logic to chance the seeds will use the "fertilizer" to grow.into a rose garden of truth.

We'll see.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Just_A_Guy]

40 minutes ago, wenglund said:

It depends upon what connotation of "natural" one is speaking to, doesn't it? Do you disagree that things that naturally exist may be put to unnatural use?. Both the finger and the eye occur naturally in nature, but poking the one in the other...

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Barring morality and God, I don't know what "natural use" is.  One could argue that an eye-gouge, used in physical combat to safeguard food or shelter or procreational opportunities, is a very natural use indeed.

If we're making moral or religious claims, IMHO we should go ahead and say so; and then draw the link about why such arguments should have influence even in a secular civil society.  Cloaking them in arguments about what is or isn't "natural" strikes me as not particularly helpful.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Just_A_Guy

[Rob Osborn]

33 minutes ago, wenglund said:

Good people,

I may be wrong, but as previously indicated, I understand that, on the subject of homosexuality, and over multiple decades, many minds have been filled with what I view as truckloads of manure (figuratively speaking) by public education, mainstream media, Hollywood, the culture, political establishment, and more recently junk science and leading corporations 

I would be foolish to think that little O'l me was anywhere close to a match against all that.  Thus, my intent on this thread isn't to shovel anyone's mind free of the "manure," but to plants seeds of logic to chance the seeds will use the "fertilizer" to grow.into a rose garden of truth.

We'll see.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Trust me, the indoctrination of justifying immorality runs real deep. I have been banned from most LDS blogs and forums on the web because of my decrying of homosexuality and those supposed Mormons who promote the justification of such.

[wenglund]

17 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Barring morality and God, I don't know what "natural use" is.  One could argue that an eye-gouge, used in physical combat to safeguard food or shelter or procreational opportunities, is a very natural use indeed.

If we're making moral or religious claims, IMHO we should go ahead and say so; and then draw the link about why such arguments should have influence even in a secular civil society.  Cloaking them in arguments about what is or isn't "natural" strikes me as not particularly helpful.

If you have read my arguments, you would know that they are entirely secular. I intentionally left morality out of the "natural" equation, though I will deal with it separately, and also in secular terms. Rob's astute comments are a different matter.

There are secular meanings of "natural" that have nothing to do with morality or religion, and which fit very well what I have argued. My arguments attempt to lead the reader to ideational water, but I can't make them drink.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

9 minutes ago, Rob Osborn said:

Trust me, the indoctrination of justifying immorality runs real deep. I have been banned from most LDS blogs and forums on the web because of my decrying of homosexuality and those supposed Mormons who promote the justification of such.

It is easy for me to trust what you have said because I have somewhat experienced the same. Silencing opposition seems the only refuge when defending the indefensible. The "viruses" of cultural emoting don't fare well under the daylight of reason or morality.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Moving on to the health argument against homosexuality:

Another explanation for why, proportionately,  there are much fewer homosexuals in the population, is that they tend to die 20 years sooner than the general population (see HERE and HERE)

So, not only are much fewer homosexuals born (see previous arguments), but many more die sooner. They have it bad coming and going.

The rational follow-up question is: Why is the mortality rate for homosexuals so high? (Documentation for the answers below can be found HERE)

Well, STD's and HPV and HIV could be significant contributing factors. (see also  HERE and HERE and HERE) Even more disconcerting is, as indicated in the citations, the prevalence of these diseases are on the rise--for the most part they were declining until same-sex "marriage" began to be legalized. (see HERE) And, the prevalence has reached levels where many gay supports are concerned about a "new epidemic."

Also, homosexuals are 2 to 3 times more likely to be suicidal than the general population, particularly the youth. (see HERE and HERE)

Granted, many studies attribute this to "homophobia" and social stigmas and discrimination. But, this is easily debunked as junk science because suicide rates have been climbing as acceptance of homosexuality has also increased.

A more valid study indicates that it is  relationship problems, not family rejection, leading cause of higher gay suicides   This makes some sense since homosexuals are more prone to domestic/partner violence than heterosexuals.  (see HERE and HERE) Other studies attribute it to the ";ifestyle." (see HERE)

However, these studies fail to grasp that 90% of suicides involve mental illness (see HERE), and that homosexuals are much more likely to suffer from mental illness. (see HERE)

What is most disconcerting to me about all of this is that because of Political Correctness and so-called Social Justice, homosexuality has been whitewashed, and the unique homosexual social ills swept under the rug, which, while seemingly “compassionate,” has left the social ills unacknowledged and somewhat untreated by public policy, and thus allowed to fester and grow. (see HERE and HERE) Our culture is literally killing homosexuals with kindness. (Actually, I believe homosexuals and their supporters are being played, and used to forward a Marxist agenda, but that is a topic for another time and place.)

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited March 31, 2017 by wenglund

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, wenglund said:

A more valid study indicates that it is  relationship problems, not family rejection, leading cause of higher gay suicides   This makes some sense since homosexuals are more prone to domestic/partner violence than heterosexuals.  (see HERE and HERE) Other studies attribute it to the ";ifestyle." (see HERE)

I have an anecdote to support this.  I rented a room from a gay couple in Louisiana for about a month.  I figured I'd get used to the weirdness -- which I did after about a week.  But what I found to be unbearable was the level of dysfunction in their relationship.  HOLY COW!  There was hardly a day that went buy when one of them wasn't yelling or crying.  The senior partner was clearly a barely functional alcoholic.  And I'd judge their relationship to be emotionally abusive.  But that's just me.

They seemed to like me ok as a tenant. But I had to leave.  I didn't leave because they were gay.  I left because they were dysfunctional and I just kept getting a lot of negative vibes from them.

Edited March 31, 2017 by Guest

[The Folk Prophet]

The problem with the suicide and homosexuals ideas as many present it is that it presupposes that the problem is the condemnation of homosexuality by others. That is logically invalid. It makes no sense on any level.

[person0]

7 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

The problem with the suicide and homosexuals ideas as many present it is that it presupposes that the problem is the condemnation of homosexuality by others. That is logically invalid. It makes no sense on any level.

There are approximately 5 million LDS in the Continental United States.  Of 300 million population that is roughly 1.7%.  It is estimated that 3% of the population is homosexual.  Members of the church are generally not in the norm/mainstream of societal thought. It can be argued that there are an equal if not greater number of the population who condemn the LDS Church and/or its members for one reason or another.  Why are we not committing suicide at the same rate?

Edited March 31, 2017 by person0

[Guest MormonGator]

9 minutes ago, person0 said:

It can be argued that there are an equal if not greater number of the population who condemn the LDS Church and/or its members for one reason or another.  \

Not really. Most people out of the church usually are complimentary of LDS. I hear "I don't believe in their faith but they are super nice people!" quite often actually. 

I think all groups like to play the persecuted martyr card to some degree. Catholics, LDS, Gays-human nature to partially think "They're out to get us because we stand for all that is holy!! Poor us! " 

Edited March 31, 2017 by MormonGator

[person0]

Just now, MormonGator said:

Not really. Most people out of the church usually are complimentary of LDS. I hear "I don't believe in their faith but they are super nice people!" quite often actually. 

I think all groups like to play the persecuted martyr card to some degree. Catholics, LDS, Gays-human nature to partially think "They're out to get us!" 

I could potentially concede to that for our current day. However, in the early days of the Church there no doubt was mass persecution and animosity; I doubt suicide statistics would support similar suicide rates between the two groups.

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, person0 said:

I could potentially concede to that for our current day. However, in the early days of the Church there no doubt was mass persecution and animosity; I doubt suicide statistics would support similar suicide rates between the two groups.

Oh I agree, there WAS persecution in the early days. No doubt. For sure. Not so today though. Of course you'll hear someone from another faith say something obnoxious and ignorant about ours-but I've also heard LDS say obnoxious and ignorant things about other faiths too. 

 

[wenglund]

19 minutes ago, person0 said:

There are approximately 5 million LDS in the Continental United States.  Of 300 million population that is roughly 1.7%.  It is estimated that 3% of the population is homosexual.  Members of the church are generally not in the norm/mainstream of societal thought. It can be argued that there are an equal if not greater number of the population who condemn the LDS Church and/or its members for one reason or another.  Why are we not committing suicide at the same rate?

Agreed. By the same "illogic" suicides among blacks should have been prodigious before the civil rights movement  It wasn't.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited March 31, 2017 by wenglund

[wenglund]

23 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

The problem with the suicide and homosexuals ideas as many present it is that it presupposes that the problem is the condemnation of homosexuality by others. That is logically invalid. It makes no sense on any level.

Agreed. Were that the case, one would expect suicides to decline as acceptance of homosexuality increases. However, the opposite has occurred. Ironically, though in a sad way, homosexuals were much safer when they were in the closet.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[person0]

Quote

Agreed. By the same "illogic" suicides among blacks should have been prodigious before the civil rights movement  It wasn't.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I'm not sure if you were in agreement or disagreement with me, but what you just said actually further proves the point that I and @The Folk Prophet were in agreement on.  The condemnation/persecution of homosexuals within society should not be viewed as causal to their suicide rates.

Edited March 31, 2017 by person0
undo edit: too late :-)

[wenglund]

3 minutes ago, person0 said:

I'm not sure if you were in agreement or disagreement with me, but what you just said actually further proves the point that I and @The Folk Prophet were in agreement on.  The condemnation/persecution of homosexuals within society should not be viewed as causal to their suicide rates.

I edited my reply to you so as to express agreement. I am pleased to see I am not alone in my thinking, at least on this specific point.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

27 minutes ago, person0 said:

There are approximately 5 million LDS in the Continental United States.  Of 300 million population that is roughly 1.7%.  It is estimated that 3% of the population is homosexual.  Members of the church are generally not in the norm/mainstream of societal thought. It can be argued that there are an equal if not greater number of the population who condemn the LDS Church and/or its members for one reason or another.  Why are we not committing suicide at the same rate?

Ironically, many detractors cite above average anti-depressant use and suicide rates in Utah as reason to blame the Church instead of themselves for the problem, though, as we seem to agree, neither is the cause.  in fact, the Church and its wonderful support system, may rightly be viewed as a factor for reducing suicides, not just through decreasing the prevalence of high risk factors like alcohol and drug abuse, but social support and beliefs that discouraging suicide. (see HERE)., . 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Since people have evidently lost interest in this topic, I will close by expressing my sympathy for homosexuals (it can't be easy on their minds and emotions having sexual attractions that are at odds with the laws and order of nature as well as their heterosexual bodies), and suggest that we do them a disservice by condoning, artificially normalizing, and promoting and celebrating homosexual behaviors and lifestyles. Again, our culture is literally killing homosexuals with misguided "compassion." It is in their interest and ours to publically discourage the behaviors while leaving the government entirely out of their private lives, and treat them with the same kindness and love as any other fellow human with challenges.

And, even though I believe that strong secular arguments can be made against homosexual behaviors/lifestyle, there isn't much in the way of viable secular alternatives to offer amenable homosexuals. This is where Christ, and his restored gospel, may be best suited:

Thanks, -Wade Englund- 

[MrShorty]

I figured that it would be interesting to see where you went with this. Do you feel that you have succeeded? A few things that I note:

The natural law argument still seems underwhelming. It seems so obvious that homosexuality is maladaptive that it is almost not worth talking about whether it is maladaptive or not. The most interesting part of this is that you clearly state that you reject the "kin selection" hypothesis for why it is even present, but you also state that you are not going to further try to explain its presence in the population. As poorly understood as the inheritance patterns and mechanisms are for homosexuality, there is very little solid support for a kin selection hypothesis, so I have no problem with you rejecting the hypothesis. In the end, it just seems to be, "Homosexuality is a maladaptive trait, I reject the kin selection hypothesis for reasons, I have no better explanation for its presence in the population and don't want to pursue any explanations for its presence." As I noted earlier, I think the most interesting parts of the natural law discussion would be explaining the presence of such a strongly maladaptive trait,. since we are not going to go there, the argument feels empty.

The health argument seems to be trying to draw causation from correlational data. You promised me that this would not take high statistics, but it seems that you are going to need higher statistics to tease out causation here. Leaving the data as merely correlational does not seem to say very much. There are correlations between race and heart disease and diabetes and other diseases, but one would never argue that a person should not be a certain race or that a certain race is "less than" because of these health correlations.

From one point of view, all that your health data shows is to quantify that homosexuality is maladaptive (see natural law argument). Since we are not interested in trying to explain why the homosexual trait is not extinct, then this again just feels like an open ended, incomplete question.

[wenglund]

1 hour ago, MrShorty said:

I figured that it would be interesting to see where you went with this. Do you feel that you have succeeded? A few things that I note:

It depends upon the measurement used to determine  success.. In terms of changing minds, at this point, and from all indications, I wasn't successful at all.  However, I didn't expect to be. I mentioned several times that I knew what I was up against and that I was likely not up to the task. In terms of planting ideational seeds, only time will tell.

Quote

The natural law argument still seems underwhelming. It seems so obvious that homosexuality is maladaptive that it is almost not worth talking about whether it is maladaptive or not. The most interesting part of this is that you clearly state that you reject the "kin selection" hypothesis for why it is even present, but you also state that you are not going to further try to explain its presence in the population. As poorly understood as the inheritance patterns and mechanisms are for homosexuality, there is very little solid support for a kin selection hypothesis, so I have no problem with you rejecting the hypothesis. In the end, it just seems to be, "Homosexuality is a maladaptive trait, I reject the kin selection hypothesis for reasons, I have no better explanation for its presence in the population and don't want to pursue any explanations for its presence." As I noted earlier, I think the most interesting parts of the natural law discussion would be explaining the presence of such a strongly maladaptive trait,. since we are not going to go there, the argument feels empty.

The reason I didn't pursue an explanation for the presence was because to do so would require assuming that homosexuality is genetic. While I allow for that, particularly for argument sake, I don't take a position one it one way or the other. Yet, if one assumes that homosexuality is genetic, then it can easily be explained by the fact that homosexuals have had heterosexual sex, resulting in offspring.

Quote

The health argument seems to be trying to draw causation from correlational data. You promised me that this would not take high statistics, but it seems that you are going to need higher statistics to tease out causation here. Leaving the data as merely correlational does not seem to say very much. There are correlations between race and heart disease and diabetes and other diseases, but one would never argue that a person should not be a certain race or that a certain race is "less than" because of these health correlations.

From one point of view, all that your health data shows is to quantify that homosexuality is maladaptive (see natural law argument). Since we are not interested in trying to explain why the homosexual trait is not extinct, then this again just feels like an open ended, incomplete question.

I provided reasoning and evidence for two causal factors: 1) lifestyle; and 2) internal conflict (homosexual attraction at odds with heterosexual body and heart). You may not agree, and that is fine. Again, I understand what I am up against. I am not trying to convince. I am just planting seeds.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[person0]

Too much of society seeks to validate homosexuality based on the theory that it is genetic, and if so the individual did not have a choice in the matter and so it should be accepted because it is 'natural'.  There are many decisions we must make each day that pertain to things that are out of our control, yet there is never sufficient justification for wrongdoing.

When one takes into consideration the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its doctrines, it does not matter one way or the other.  Whether the root of homosexuality lies in a genetic trait, a social development, a personal decision, or anything else, the only thing of real importance is that it is contrary to the commandments of God for an individual to act upon homosexual attraction.

Edited April 5, 2017 by person0

[wenglund]

2 hours ago, person0 said:

Too much of society seeks to validate homosexuality based on the theory that it is genetic, and if so the individual did not have a choice in the matter and so it should be accepted because it is 'natural'.  There are many decision we must make each day that pertain to things that are out of our control, yet there is never sufficient justification for wrongdoing.

When one takes into consideration the Gospel of Jesus Christ and its doctrines, it does not matter one way or the other.  Whether the root of homosexuality lies in a genetic trait, a social development, a personal decision, or anything else, the only thing of real importance is that it is contrary to the commandments of God for an individual to act upon homosexual attraction.

Agreed!

And, while the principle you astutely expressed will ring true with most believing LDS and perhaps many Christians, it bears little sway with the majority of the world. My purely secular arguments are meant to counter decades of socio-political propaganda that is unwittingly hurting homosexuals and society, though I doubt my relatively nominal efforts here will have any immediate impact.

Thanks, -Wade Englund- 

[wenglund]

As further evidence that the Left and gay activists care more about PR than about homosexuals dying: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-aids-felony-20170315-story.html

Sick minds!

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Mormonheart]

On 19.3.2017 at 5:06 AM, Vort said:

Do practicing homosexuals reproduce? Not very much. So if homosexuality is an inherited trait, it would be quite strongly selected against in normal situations. This is a rational, convincing argument for the comparative rarity of homosexuality that has nothing to do with it being otherwise socially undesirable.

It is not the question whether homosexual can become or make Children (not with each other, but with somebody of the opposite sex); but whether can we accept homosexual in and beyond the church? As a person I can accept everybody which is no sexist, racist or anti-Semite. So also homosexual. Only that what they ACT, is against the commandments of God, against the commandments of the church, and a sin which is called in the Bible an abomination. The prophets warn us many times about the sin of  homosexuality.

Edited April 8, 2017 by Mormonheart
mistake