That's a wonderful story, but you still use the world 'natural' without a definition and thus avoid debate.

Who's debating? I'm only making observations.

I thought you were making a claim about homosexuality and whether or not it is 'natural'. I am interested what you mean by the word 'natural' and think this is something worth talking about. But you are correct, by using the word 'debate' I am just assuming we will disagree (this is probably spurred on by your analogies with garbage dumps being a generally negative image), but I have to admit that until I know what you mean, I have no idea whether or not I agree with you or not. Perhaps I should have said 'discuss' - less formal and less antagonistic. I apologise.

The commonality between several threads here is Who decides? Who decides whether a person can pay another person to play in her fun palace, or play in a garbage dump or pay $20,000 for pet oncology or $50,000 for someone's kidney or if a woman can use a "day-after pill" or other abortifacient? Should it be up to Popes and Ayatollahs interpreting God's will for us, or up to philosopher kings deciding what's best for some ill-defined "society"?
Or should it be up to sovereign individuals to decide what voluntary agreements they want to make with other sovereign individuals? Why should anyone want to have an Ayatollah or "society" have last say over their actions any more than they'd want to have Hunter have last say? (And if anyone wants to say that one has to go along to get along in "society", please define what "society" means to you in concrete terms, and perhaps describe just how much a conformist one must be)

It looks like the gaying of England is even further along. OMG.
Their education system is already in decline, and I don't think this will enhance it any. What are parents allowed to teach their kids now? Not much. No wonder the birth rate is shrinking.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... unity.html

Is this based upon the idea that diversity of sexuality causes a decline in mathematics and spelling, as well as science? Personally I think there is more evidence that religion is detrimental to the study of science, predominantly in science in Muslim countries, although also in examples of creationism. I don't think acceptance and inclusion of homosexuality in culture and education will prevent students from learning about maths, etc.



As much as ever. They can teach their children that 2+2=5 if they like, but I think they will be contradicted as school and later in life. They can also teach people to sideline particular members of the community (or perhaps their children) if they want, but their children will now find contradictory information at school.



Lower birthrates have been mainly associated with the development of the area - underdeveloped countries generally have higher birth rates and highly developed countries have lower birth rates. Some of the correlations proposed for this are the higher survival rates of children in highly developed countries (in poorer countries parents often have many children to better their chances that some will survive), as well as more education about contraception.

mcfate,
It's unlikely the gay educational content will all be 2+2=4 squeaky clean and honest.

Will they tell the kids that a gay twenty year old man has only a 32% chance of living to be 65, whereas a heterosexual 20 year old man has 78%?

What about the twelve (in the olden days we used to call it a dozen) diseases of the anus that are common in homosexual practioners of anal sex, but rare in the hetero sexual community.

Anal cancer
Chlamydiatrachomatis
Cryptosporidium
Giardia lamblia
Herpes simplex virus
HIV
Human papilloma virus
Isospora belli
Microsporidia
Gonorrhea
Virus hepatitis B and C
Syphilis

"Row, row, row your boat gently up the stream................ I don't think so, not with those poxes in your backside!

and poorer countries usually don't have general pensions, hence you need kids to support you in old age.

Those probably won't come up in the maths lessons mentioned in the article.

Also, many (though I admit, not all) of those diseases are not common amongst people who practice safe sex, which just goes to show what education does. Mind you, heterosexual partners are more likely to have nongonococcal urethritis, herpes genitalis, pediculosis pubis, scabies, genital warts, and others. These are things that would be taught in health - and yes, there is a lot of accurate information about them so that parents could be wrong and teachers right about these health claims.

But I do not think that this is about health claims - the article says:



i.e. They are concerned about the way that people treat other people, not about health claims. Even if homosexuality and bisexuality was solely a health issue, this does not concede the premise that people with health issues should be treated as second-class citizens, shown no respect, treated as if they were not part of the community, not given equal rights, and so on. But clearly 'homosexuality and bisexuality as health issues' does not cover some of the most important aspects of people's lives - love, emotion, partnership, happiness, and so on.

By the way, the percentage "chances" you quote do not depict the likelihood of something occurring, they are the current statistics of the occurrence, which is a big difference (and again, not relevant to the proposed inclusion in the maths class, which is about accepting people).

All the health reasons you point out also only affect the male community, so my understanding is that you are fine with lesbianism, and would have no problems with it being promoted to students as an acceptable way of living?

I mentioned the male gay's habits because they are more gruesome; 37% practise some sort of sadism, but lesbians are statistically more promiscuous than normal women, 4.5 times more lesbians have also had over fifty male partners than their heterosexual sisters.
A gay lifestyle carries risks, why shouldn't children be taught about them? They handle the fact that cigarettes can cause cancer OK and I've heard four year olds scold their elders for smoking.
Safe sex is good in theory but not popular and realistically often not practised by any group, so promiscuity is the main cause of all those heterosexual diseases you mention too, but which I've certainly never had.
Thank God.

As I said, that would be appropriate in a health class. I see no problem with that. However, the topic of the article was including recognition that homosexual and bisexual people are still people in a maths class, not the correct place for a health discussion. They plan to create an awareness of these community members by including them in examples where previously they have not been included.



Yes, there are two strategies. One is not having sex, and one is having safe sex. You could promote either strategy, or both, and let people choose between them. In fact, the better the education, the increase in the use of protection during sex, as shown in comparative statistics of countries with different access to education. So including this information in education is key.


(Bold mine)

Do you mean "fifty more male partners" - because otherwise I do not know what you are saying.
Also, I'm not sure I trust your statistics, because someone who has male and female partners is bisexual, not a lesbian, so the quote cannot be true. Maybe if you put the link up, we can check it out.



You didn't answer this, and I am curious about your thoughts.



I am also curious as to your response to this. Do you see it only as a health issue? Do you think that emotion, love, partnership and happiness lay an important role in life, and if so, is this different for homosexual and bisexual people?

There is a third "strategy"; virgin marries virgin and then they both stay faithful.
To answer your query about the lesbians, my understanding is that lesbians start off by having boyfriends and then change to girl friends. 4.5 times more lesbians have fifty male partners than an equivilant number of heterosexual women. The article is below.

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articl ... o0075.html

Without question I think a happy life is important. Any two people should be able to live together, be happy together, even get Centrelink benefits. It's when male/male and female/female unions are sold as the same or equal to opposite sex unions and the talk turns to "marriage" that I have a problem. The use of artificial means and a cast of thousands to conjure up a cosmetic family as a way of extending this illusion is abhorrent to me.
The fact that there is the odd gay penguin does not prove same sex unions are normal any more than an albino Tanzanian proves that white is the normal or desirable skin colour for the indigenous people of that country.
I conclude that opposite sex unions are normal and that the natural conception of a child is a wonder.

Children need only be taught to treat everyone well, there's no need to itemise the reasons.

Homosexuals are subject to higher rates of mental illness, and this is discussed in the article below.

http://www.narth.com/docs/whitehead.html

A definition of 'Natural' might read that anything that is natural is as nature has made it. There are some streatches of this, of course, 'natural fibres' such as cotton have a natural origin but they've been modified by man, same with leather, very few people would want to, or do, wear untreated animal skins but tanned leather is a 'natural product' as is the raw leather.

With this in mind we can confidently state that 'natural' is as nature intended, as evolution has shaped the nature of living things.

I will respond to Samuel's post first, and reply to Christine O when I have read the articles.



This is a bit cheeky, because you'd then have to define 'nature' so we knew the domain we were talking about. Which bit is 'nature' and how does the 'making' process work? You answer this a bit by saying:



First, 'nature', as a non-conscious entity, does not 'intend' things. Stuff just happens. But the second part 'as evolution has shaped the nature of living things' is a reasonably structured claim, so I'll look at that. Evolution does not 'intend' stuff, stuff just happens and the stuff that is most suited to survival in a particular environment is the stuff that tends to survive. There is also mutation and diversity.

Heterosexual nature and homosexual nature are both products of evolution - the examples we see today arrived here as a result of evolutionary processes. Mind you, so did Bubonic plague, cancer, capacity for love and warfare, dwarfism, hair colour, predisposition for morality and so on. So while the domain of 'things created by biological evolutionary processes' is a (relatively) specific definition, it includes quite a lot of stuff and doesn't tell us much.

Now perhaps one might say, "Well, only those things that assist survival". Of course, there are two ways of looking at this, (a) that which assists an individual's survival, and (b) that which assists the species survival (at least, until they evolve into a different species, etc.).

Both homosexuality and heterosexuality have very little impact on (a). But, of course, heterosexuality has a positive impact on (b) and homosexuality has a negative impact. So if you wanted to split up heterosexuality and homosexuality into 'natural' and 'unnatural', this might be a way to do it.

There would still need to be an argument as to why things that impact negatively on category (b) ('unnatural' things) should be universally condemned or avoided, or why it would be the responsibility of all members of the species to participate in all aspects of this. For example, if reproduction is necessary for the survival of the species, and an argument is made for the survival of the species being a 'good' or 'moral' thing, there still needs to be an argument why every member of the species needs to reproduce when the species would continue if only a portion of the species reproduced (especially in an environment with a finite amount of room and resources). And it is certainly not negating the effects of reproduction as murder or SIDS does. A sterile person also does not have the ability to reproduce, and yet can be a loving, active member of the species.

So, if marriage were off limits to sterile people, would it be off limits to sterile people?

___
Fixed some typos of>off and is>if

Okay Christine, I have had a quick look at the second article.



I'm not sure I have a clear understanding of what the 'problem' is. Firstly, by what method are we measuring equality between same-sex marriage and heterosexual marriage?



I also might need the explanation of the 'artificial means' and the 'cast of thousands' and what defines the 'illusion'. You might know what you are referring to by this, but I do not.



I agree. Einstein was unusual - there are not many people throughout history that have had his capacity for thought. Indigenous Australian languages are unusual in that their grammar is unlike the rest of the world's, and they have very small language families, making them statistically small. Whether any of these things is desirable, however, depends, again, on how you want to measure it. I think it is a bit of a leap to say that things that are not statistically common are undesirable - as a lottery winner might tell you, or someone who survives on a one-in-a-million chance. There are not many Prime Ministers compared to non-Prime Ministers, but this does not automatically make Prime Ministers undesirable. In fact, genetic mutations which caused humans to evolve from pre-humans would have been a comparatively small percentage of the population when they first appeared. As would be the first white Australians when they came to Australia.



If normal = common, then this is a fair first conclusion. However, you presented no evidence about natural conception of a child, so I have not been able to fit this in to your argument, unless your reference to 'artificial means' was a reference to the way that a homosexual couple might have a child. Of course, not everyone reproduces, some by choice, others because of health, so if this really is a criteria, I would think that you would treat these people the same way. Any attempt by a heterosexual couple to conceive 'artificially' would be 'abhorrent'. Marriages involving people who cannot reproduce for genetic reasons would not be 'equal' or the 'same' and would, I assume, have the same 'problem' as homosexual marriages.



Quite correct. Of course, they have to know who 'everyone' is. The aim of the integration into the maths lessons is to increase the awareness of the diversity of people to increase the effectiveness of promoting 'treating everyone well'. If I said, "Let's teach our children to treat everyone well, but only ever use white males as examples" this might work, but it is probably not the most effective way of it working. Anyway, if the point is to treat everyone with respect, and if this is effective without having to show the diversity of people, it should not matter who is in the examples at all, so there is no reason to exclude anyone.



If the findings in the article are correct (mind you, the conclusion is: "Further research--uncompromised by politics --should be carried out to honestly evaluate this issue") then social stigma is potentially not the main cause for mental health issues in homosexuals. This doesn't explain what is, though (for example, the genes or other causes that make one predisposed to homosexuality might make one predisposed to mental health issues, or they could be two different sets of causes that are usually found in the same environment). It has the phrase, "Surely it should be considered "mentally disturbed" to risk losing one's life for sexual liberation." but I wish it also compared the mental health issues of people who wished to remain homosexual and those who wished to change (a study he references points out that this is a cause of stress), because that would illuminate what the best responses were.

I note that you have selected a Christian, and when I went jumping around the internet checking out his references and searching for similar articles etc., I noted that a lot of other articles disagreed with him (including the article he references about the Netherlands, though he does not go on to explain the details of the article). So while I hope he writes 'uncompromised by politics', I cannot vouch for the veracity of his single article.



You are correct in that limited sexual partners means limited chances of having a sexually transmitted disease. If, however, your virgin partner is a carrier then unprotected sexual intercourse with them will likely result in transmission. So, whether you have one partner or many, you would want to use protection, and possibly get your partner tested.

I notice all your other information about homosexuality comes from a Catholic website. While I am not going to contend that any of the information on the website has been invented, I must admit that a website with an obvious pre-existing bias gives me the impression that the information might have been carefully selected. However, if for our purposes on this thread we were to assume this was all true, we could then take one of two tacks - what is the causation of such a correlation? (i.e. between homosexuality and mental health, promiscuity, etc.), or What is a moral response?

and very much in demand, as was an army friend of mine, back in the pre-pill days.

mcfate, I will try to answer the points you raised.

I'm a Catholic mcfate, so maybe with you and me and concepts of marriage, it's a case of "never the twain shall meet"

"The use of artificial means"= turkey basters, test tubes and surrogates.
"Cast of thousands"= a facetious reference to all the science and medicine underpinning IVF.
"Cosmetic family" An observation that gay families are like breast augmentation. A way of purchasing something that is never as good as the real thing just to make yourself feel better.
Heterosexual couples getting helped by science and surrogates is not so abhorrent, because at least the baby will have a parent of each sex.

"I conclude that opposite sex unions are normal and that natural conception of a child is a wonder"
Well intercourse between man and woman is natural. Before people had grown so far removed from the natural world, they lived in rural settings where mating animals were a familiar sight, so it was common knowlege what normal was. While it's good to question things, perhaps you can over do it!

As far as getting a potential partner "tested", that is something I would never do. If you have to wear protective gear to have intercourse with that person how can you have a close relationship with them?

While I feel there could be a whole thread dedicated to the discussion of this one, I will only say that I will agree with your premise as long as you apply it universally. That is, if a heterosexual couple needed artificial means, you would view that the same way as an artificial couple (ditto the cast of thousands).



Again, this could be a whole thread, but succinctly, I feel the problem here is with the assumption that it is "as not as good as the real thing". Obviously you are equating real with a lack of surrogacy or technology, but the debate is about the measure of "good" and the evidence behind the results. For example, if a father loves his son or daughter, is that love "fake" or "less" because the other member of the partnership is also male? What about single parents? What about heterosexual people who adopt, whether because they cannot have children or because they chose to?



I think this needs explanation, as per the nature of "good" and the measure of love above. What is the reasoning behind the more or less measure of abhorrence? What about single parents? What about a single parent who is single because their partner has died - should they give up the baby? Et cetera. There is obviously something that you believe to be of critical value in raising a child, and I think it is appropriate to address and understand that.



Perhaps you disagree with the definition of natural that Samuel proposed, or disagree with my assessment of it posted above.




I think if you want to make a claim about natural you will need to address these points.

mcfate,

Maybe we should establish what you consider not normal, because I suspect the answer is not much.

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-m ... 0566.story

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8658327.stm

What do you make of the news stories above concerning male humans marrying female animals?

The thrust of the argument about 'natural' or 'normal' is not so much what defines it, but why we should or shouldn't react a particular way to people that fall within these categories. I have not raised the argument about 'natural', in particular, because I think that in relation to this subject the variously cited definitions of 'natural' are not relevant.

But I'll try to be clear. I don't care what word we use, I can about the meaning that we are trying to convey. If you are going to distinguish two categories (for example, 'natural' and 'unnatural'), go for it, but you'll have to provide an explanation of how things are sorted into the two categories. It is this explanation that I can about and will respond to. If, for example, you define 'normal' as 'statistically common', I will respond to that, and I will not argue about the word you chose to represent that meaning. If you don't define 'normal', I'll have to guess, and we will not communicate very efficiently.

So, I'm not going to put forward a definition of 'normal' or 'natural' - I'm going to try and respond to yours. Why? Because I believe you are making a claim which relies upon a category distinction, and therefore if we are to understand, accept or refute that claim, we must investigate the particulars of that category distinction. I am not making a similar claim about these two types of categories, so I will not put forward a definition of them. I am trying to understand the meaning of your claim, and to do so I have to understand your category distinctions. So far, I believe that the category distinctions presented (normal vs. abnormal, and natural vs. unnatural) do nothing to prove the conclusion of different treatment.

I do recognise the categories of heterosexual and homosexual, as well as bisexual, and I think these are accurate categories and are useful in situations which pertain to them - if I was looking to start a relationship with a girl, for example, and I knew she was a homosexual, I, being a guy, would understand the relevance of that category distinction and not pursue the matter. I do not see a need for further categories.