Gay or Straight?
Here's an episode of "60 Minutes" which I think may just be worth missing the Simpsons for.
"GAY OR STRAIGHT?"It was posted by "Gary the Grouch", a reg'lar on the yahoo group Free-for-All. A snippet of his comments:
There are few issues as hotly contested -- and as poorly understood - - as the
question of what makes a person gay or straight. It's a political question, a
social question, a religious question. But it's also a science question, and
one that might someday have an actual, provable answer. The handful of
scientists who work in this under-funded and politically charged field will
tell you that the answer is a long way off. But their efforts are already
yielding tantalizing clues. Lesley Stahl looks at the research being conducted
in the field of sexual orientation on this week's "60 MINUTES,"
Sunday, March 12 at 7PM ET/PT on CBS.
To be succinct, I think question of choice or no choice is bogus.I'm with ya 100% on this one Gary.
My social libertarian perspective, let's keep the government and the church out of our personal lives.
I'll never forget an article in the Sunday Times Magazine after Tennessee Williams died. It was one of his last interviews. He was asked about the issue of sexuality. He referred to it as something that was not black or white, but as a spectrum. People TEND to lean one way or the another, but there are in fact people spread all along the spectrum. THAT obvservation struck me intuitively as having a huge amount of validity.
ReplyDeleteSo, therefore, I, too, agree with Gary the Grouch. And Michael Bains.
I've thought it was a spectrum for a long time, too. There are very few things in nature that are truly "either/or;" even DEATH is merely a transitional phase (and I'm not speaking spiritually; our molecules go on to be absorbed into something else).
ReplyDeleteI think many people are afraid to the point of paranoia that they might have even a slight homosexual tendency; they'd rather condemn the OTHER person than acknowledge parts of themselves that find their own sex attractive.
That's so typical of a Xian-fueled society: We're taught to believe we're "sinners," that we as individuals are flawed. These people don't like themselves. Hell, look at one of the 10 commandments: for men, simply thinking about a WOMAN is "committing adultery," never mind acknowledging a little attraction to another GUY.