Homosexuality: A chosen trait, or gentetically aquired?

[The Persnickety Platypus]

This question is a major underlying factor of the general homosexual debate, the answer of which can narrow the scope in questioning its morality.



Are people born gay, or do they choose to be?
Can someone be blamed for their sexual orientation, or is it subject to factors we have no control over?

[Wyvern]

As an addendum to my previous post and also as an example of alternate behaviors whose origin is in question is handedness. Being lefthanded I can speak of this with some knowledge and firsthand experience. When I was in grade school my teachers tried to make me write right handed even though the idea was totally alien to me(I doubt they still do this, maybe I'm just showing my age).

From your standpoint Scorpia should I try to control my left handed behaviors even though from my perspective it is not a behavior but simply part of what I am? As far as you seem to be concerned everything is just a matter of control, I know from personal experience this is not true, for me at least I couldn't write legibly with my right hand if my life depended on it.

Another point to consider is that while control is indeed possible in some cases all this does is stop the behavior not change it as you seem to think is a simple matter. You can not truly change something which is at the core of a person without changing the person, whether it be sexual orientation or handedness. Yes I think a persons handedness is just as important in the makeup of a person as their sexual orientation is.

[GhostBear]

So if the individual harms him or herself in an attempt to change their sexual orientation, this is wrong? Or is it simply misguided? Should we not allow a person to attempt this on their own? Can we prove that all such attempts by an individual are harmful?

Why would it be necessary to show ALL attempts at X are harmful for one to declare X to be harmful? If a pharmaceutical company were to produce a pill that served to clear up the acne of one person who took it but killed the nine hundred and ninety nine other test subjects would we sit around saying that since it gave one person clear skin it can’t be all that bad…

[micatala]

Why would it be necessary to show ALL attempts at X are harmful for one to declare X to be harmful? If a pharmaceutical company were to produce a pill that served to clear up the acne of one person who took it but killed the nine hundred and ninety nine other test subjects would we sit around saying that since it gave one person clear skin it can’t be all that bad…

I can see your point. I guess it depends if you think reparative therapies as practiced by anti-homosexual Christians groups is necessarily the same as an individual taking his own measures to attempt to change his sexuality. I am not saying the latter is necessarily a good idea, or that it is likely to succeed, or that it might not be harmful. I am just saying that without evidence, to conclude it will also be harmful is jumping to a conclusion.

To use your analogy, if drug X kills 999 out of 1000 people and successfully cures only one, does this necessarily mean that all other acne medications are likely to be just as harmful? It seems to me one would have to know something about the details of how these drugs work, and why X proved to be so lethal.

With Christian reparative therapies, we certainly have some knowledge of the details, and I think can formulate very reasonable hypotheses and even conclusions about why they are harmful. They are coercive. They play on peoples feelings of guilt. They buy into the false premise that homosexuality is always either a 'choice' or an 'illness'.

Having said all this, I am largely in agreement with you. The handedness comparison is a good one, I think. Even if it is shown that some efforts to change sexual orientation are not harmful, which may indeed be the case, I think they are by and large doomed to failure, and for this and other reasons, are pointless. Certainly, IF it were possible to do so, there could be advantages, even if only to avoid the persecution that many gays experience.

BUt if one is only 'pretending' not to be gay in order to fit in, this brings possibly as much harm as being persecuted, only in a different way.

Then what other reason is there to promote the notion that of changing sexual oriention.

Control.

I would agree that one might be able to 'control' one's behavior or even to some extent one's feelings. I think where we differ is on the question of whether one can change feelings that are so inherent, like one's sexual orientation.

Perhaps, through discipline, one could expunge most or even close to all sexual thoughts from one's mind. However, I don't believe this would change one's sexual orientation. The latter would require a change of what the evidence seems to show are inborn sexual feelings. In general, I don't see that this has been shown to be possible.