Today in class we started to talk about one of the touchiest subjects in America, maybe even the world right now. Gay marriage. Before I start to go off on what I learned, I would just like to make a quick notice that this is a very hard subject to talk about. All opinions are my own and I would hope you would respect that. Feel free to comment below, but if you do please be respectful of mine and others opinions and be mature about what you say. Thank you.
So, we talked about a survey the APA did when they were trying to pass gay marriage in the state of California. Propositions 22 and 8 were trying to keep marriage civilly between a man and a woman.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has expressed clearly in The Family: A Proclamtion that marriage should only be between a man and a woman and they are to multiply and replenish the Earth so that we may continue this stream of children for generations to come.
I strongly agree with this. I am not afraid to say that I am opposed to gay marriage. I know people who have "came out" and are building relationships with people of the same gender. Now, don't get me wrong, I still love them the same way. They are still my friends and that will never change, but I don't agree with gay marriage or even gay relationships. I don't support it and I would never choose that lifestyle for myself. Like I said, that doesn't mean I hate gays... that's like saying I hate someone because they are deaf, their leg is broken, or they have the highest grade in my class. Gays are still people and it's just one of their traits and I would never look at them any differently than I did before they "came out."
Why am I so opposed to gay marriage/relationships? I know people have strong tendencies and desires for the same gender because they feel more compatible or that "the other gender would never like me so I need someone else" or who knows what other reasons. Men and woman are bred to create children and to build a strong home where a male has qualities and a woman and they work together to become as one whole family unit. "Coming out" is starting to become a trend and feels more like something people do to just be cool and not because of a struggle they are having. If society starts to see that it is a trend, more and more people are going to start to think that "coming out" is what everyone needs to do. That everyone secretly has passion for someone of the same gender which is no way true, but society is going to try to aim it that way. And then what? What happens several decades down the road when every single person is in a relationship with someone of the same gender? How will kids be developed? Yeah, they can "just adopt", but breeding has to be done to or else our society will diminish.
Yes, I know that might seem like a super crazy resolution to draw to, but is it really that crazy? Think about when people started "coming out" years ago... it was such a small thing, and now it's all over. Media, elementary schools, even in a walk in the park you may see a homosexual relationship.
What do you think? Where do you draw the line on homosexual standards in society? Is it ok that it is being taught in schools to children as young as 5 years old, on Disney Channel, and in the government system?
Here are a couple other articles to read and you can make up your minds for yourselves:
http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html
http://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation
http://www.mormonsandgays.org/
Very well said, and good presentation of the facts. I feel like sometimes people jump to conclusions without learning all there is to know and why so many people are opposed or in favor of gay marriage. In the state of Idaho, we are a very "mormon" based culture. We have been told all of our lives the marriage is between a man and a woman. I'd like to put some of my own opinion in this. God created Adam and Eve. God did not create Adam and Michael or Eve and Samantha. He created opposite genders to replenish the earth. Some people may bring up the argument that the romans practiced same sex relations in their time. That this isn't just a new fad. I would however, like to see a child born because of these relations. It is impossible. Men and women are given separate roles to raise and teach children. It is one of the most sacred roles that we are given as parents. How would a child be raised differently with two dads or two moms? Education and other important worldly traits would be taught but they would be taught with only one view. The beauty of men and women is that they are opposites to bring different lights into the world. We have to look at both angles to become truly orientated. I think in today's society its very difficult to keep your child sheltered from all of these evils in the public school system. We just need to teach our children at a young age the principles and teachings of our prophets and other media like a Family Proclamation and other wholesome works.
ReplyDeleteLike you said earlier, it is a touchy subject, but I think you did an excellent job putting the facts out there and adding your opinion.
So...when do you move into your office at the New York Times?
ReplyDeleteI love this raini! Everything you said in it was so true! And i'll stand up to whomever says your wrong. Because your opinion matters.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree with what you wrote, you need to do a little better job presenting your facts. Just remember that asking a bunch of rhetorical questions doesn't exactly support your claim. Broadly claiming that gay rights will cause a population decrease may be a bit far-fetched IF you have no other facts to back it up beyond your opinion. Taking on such a sensitive topic requires you to do some serious research beyond just reciting headlines of various conservative news outlets. You need to help us look at this issue from a new perspective that we haven't thought of before. And to do that you need to do research and synthesize the existing data into a new form coupled with your own opinion. Just something to think about next time!
ReplyDeleteBut you are just starting to write, so good job otherwise, way to take a stand.
Gay rights is such a interesting problem for religious people, especially Mormons who believe that the churches stance against gay marriage is brought about by direct revelation from God. They need to learn how to both be accepting of all people without selling out their own virtues.
I don't see gay rights as much more than a philosophical problem. Like I said, their isn't much way that population growth would change so ultimately this is a moral problem.
Thank you all so much for your wonderful feedback! I really appreciated everything you said. I just wanted to say that I am still friends with people who are gay and I still love them nonetheless. They are still people. This was just my opinion and it does not need to be a credible source. I was just stating what I believe from my religious beliefs, not with statistics. If you think Mormons are that opposed to gays I would suggest reading this webpage as well: http://www.mormonsandgays.org/
ReplyDeleteUhm. Hate to be that person but not everyone is religious. If you wanna believe in god and be religious have at it, but by having this whole view on gay marriage you're stopping people from being happy. This is the same argument that happened for interracial marriage. While I respect your opinion, I would hope that you respect mine, and respect that someday I would like to married to a beautiful wife and adopt children. Just because a child is raised by two women, that doesn't guarentee they won't see all the different sides of things.
ReplyDeleteI am Bisexual. I have been in a relationship with my girlfriend for more than 3 years. I'm one of your friends, and while I respect your opinion I want to hear my side of the story. Imagine this, you have a secret; one that you guard with your life, because if anyone knew all of your friends would hate you if they knew. Oh your family too, like disown hate. This secret isn't something you did wrong; it's not even something you have in your power to control, that's just how it is. That is how it feels to be in the closet. I'm not over reacting either. Feeling so bad because people feel like you're a freak, and gross, something to be stared at or even taunted by strangers. Feeling like maybe god does hate you like everyone says. I thought and prayed about it, god doesn't hate me, and I’m a good person. We’re all here for a reason. I'm going to adopt as many babies as I can handle so they have a safe and loving environment to grow up in, someday I'll be totally out because I'll need to closet space for shoes instead of secrets. All I ask is that I not get fired for being gay, that I don’t have to worry about getting beat up for holding someone's hand. Maybe visit my GF in the hospital if she's sick (maybe dying). I don’t want to encroach on anyone's feelings; I just hate being treated like a second class citizen because they don’t approve of my "lifestyle decisions"
ReplyDeleteVery well said. And I completely agree. There are very few people that know my sexuality because I know most people wouldn't like me anymore. Even my family doesn't know. So when you say its not a struggle anymore, you obviously haven't really seen it. It's hard, for everyone. Even the people who seem so confident in their sexuality. I can guarantee it was hard for them to come out.
DeleteI really find this topic fascinating!
DeleteYes, the research does show that children reared by two adults of the same gender (of course they cannot both be the birth parents) ARE more likely to experiment with sexuality, including same-sex relations. They are also more likely to experience forms of confusion around sexuality and state so as young adults.
You might want to take a look at the data: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0049089X12000610
You can also find a link to that article in Slate, were the topic is discussed in some detail: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/06/gay_parents_are_they_really_no_different_.html
Michael Williams
I respect your views. But the way it is, homosexuality is genetic. Not a choice. Breeding of the human race would not end. One of the most understood things about homosexuality is the idea that they'll teach their adopted kids to be gay. That is not true. You cannot be gay if you were not born that way. Gay is the new black. It took hundreds of years for blacks to have rights and people believed that if black people were to be treated equally as whites the white race would end. It has not. I am white and it is 2013. I am not trying to upset you but I wanted to throw in my own opinion on it.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say genetic that means if my mother were gay that would make me gay? Which in fact I LOVE men I like to see the D instead of the V. Wrong.
DeleteAnd can't be born with it? Wrong again What are bi-sexual people? What if I really liked women 7 years ago and now i'm married to a MAN. Was I born with it?
You're right, Raini. This IS the toughest subject in the world right now. There is nothing wrong with stating your opinion--you said it yourself, you're not hating homosexual people, nor are you forcing your opinion down their throat.
ReplyDeleteHomosexuality IS genetic in a lot of cases. That's fair to say. But that doesn't change our stance! I reserve the right to think it's wrong for marriage to be anything other than a sacred union between a man and a woman.
But my opinion does not justify any sort of hateful actions, words, or thoughts towards any homosexual people. I personally don't believe that you should be fired, treated like a second-class citizen, or even scared for yourself just for being homosexual. That is in no way fair, just as it is in no way fair to punish someone for being blonde (I think you'd agree with me, Raini, that blondes punish themselves enough for that! :P I'm joking) or left-handed.
Being Christlike means treating all people, regardless of opinion or action, the very same. All human beings deserve respect, and being a human means that you are obligated to give out respect to all other humans, homosexual or not. THAT is what I believe, and THAT is what I live.
I think you're brave, Raini, and very poised about responding to comments and subjects that are hard. Keep writing! I'm enjoying reading.
Wow! This is a fascinating topic and I think it is great that you've developed an online forum for discussing such important stuff.
ReplyDeleteI was interested to see that several of the people posting comments stated that homosexuality is genetic, as if the discussion is over. I happen to be a licensed psychotherapist and was very interested in this topic, as I had a lot of "gay" clients come into my practice in California. I took a good look at the research often quoted to support the genetics model of homosexuality and found the following:
1. "The Gay Center of the Brain": Simon LeVay was a biological scientist at the Salk Institute in San Diego. He studied the brains of several dead men, about half of whom had self identified as gay. When he compared the brains of these men against the others (presumed to be heterosexual) he said that he found "subtle but significant differences" in the a particular cluster of cells in the hypothalamus.
At the time this was hailed in the media as "finding the gay center of the brain" or the part that makes one person attracted to individuals of the same gender. Later it was pointed out that there were some problems with the research, including the fact that several of the "gay brains" belonged to men who had died of HIV, and it has long been known that AIDS/HIV creates changes in the brain. But LeVay said something more:
"It's important to stress what I dind't find. I did not prove that homosexuality was genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people making in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain. INAH-3 [the center identified] is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than a part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior...Since I looked at adult brains we don't know if the difference3s I found were there at birth, or if they appeared later."
LeVay later wrote in his book "Queer Science":
"Though there are significant differences between the attitudes of lesbians and gay men it is clear that both groups are far more inclined to consider their sexual orientation a biological given than is the general population...Should we take these assertions seriously? Not entirely, of course. No one even remembers being born, let alone being born gay or straight. When a gay man, for example, says he was born gay he generally means that he felt different from other boys at the earliest age he can remember. Sometimes the difference involved sexual feelings, but more commonly it involved some kind of gender nonconformist or sex atypical traits--disliking rough and tumble play for example, that were not explicitly sexual...."
2. "The Twin Studies": This is a fun one!
ReplyDeleteMichael Bailey and Richard Pillard focused on sets of identical twins, non-identical twins, non-adopted siblings and adopted siblings. They found a gay concordance rate of 52% with gay identical twins--the identical twin of man who identified as gay was also gay about half the time. So what about the other half?
Identical twins have exactly the same genes, so would it be a 100% concordance rate? (For non-identical twins the concordance rate was 22%, and adopted brothers actually had a higher concordance rate than non-adopted siblings--strongly suggesting that the environment in which the boys grew up had some significant influence on sexual attractions.
Also, the concordance rates between the identical twins was 50% for extroversion, 50% for religiosity, 52% for divorce, and 58% for racial prejudice and bigotry. So, what do you think?
3. "The Gay Gene": (This got a ton of attention as the issue of homosexuality in military in the Clinton administration was a hot topic.) Dean Hamer of the National Cancer Institute attempted to link male homosexuality to a strand of DNA located at the tip of the X chromosome (the one inherited from mother). But when the research was reviewed they found that there was NOT a significantly higher connection with the brothers, uncles, etc who had the same strand of DNA. Hamer responded in defense of his research, but with a surprising twist:
"We knew genes were only part of the answer. We assumed the environment also played a role in sexual orientation, as it does in most, if not all behaviors....Homosexuality is not purely genetic...environment plays a role. There is not a single master gene that makes people gay...I don't think we will ever to be able to predict who will be gay."
4. "The Gay Victim": (This is not a studies of biology/genetics, but a likely explanation for people often getting some confusing information on the topic.) Krik and Madsen in "After the Ball: How America will conquer its fear & hatred of Gays in the 90's" (1989)
"Now, two different messages about the Gay Victim are worth communicating. First, the public should be persuaded that gays are VICTIMS OF CIRCUMSTANCE, that they no more chos their sexual orientation than they did, say, their height, skin color, talents, or limitations. (We aregue that, for all practice purposes, gays should be considered to have been BORN GAY--even though sexual orientation, for most humans, seems to be the product of a complex interactions between innate predispositions and environmental factors during childhood and early adolescence.) [their emphasis]
Ironically, the very best research suggests the same thing: that those men who consider themselves to be gay experienced themselves as feeling very different from same-gender peers, and then sexualized those feelings later in life. Most girls/women who identify as lesbian experimented with sexual relations after already have romantic/sexual connections with males and determined that it was easier or more comfortable for them.
That is also was I observed as a counselor, and found it amazing that people who developed emotional and relationship skills sometimes sponteneously experienced changes in how they felt about their own and the other gender.
Interesting, huh?
Michael Williams
Marriage & Family Therapist