Alonzo Fyfe

Sorry

Machiavelli

I'm not advocating involuntary preferential treatment for anyone. I'm talking about ideals. If homosexuality is considered just as ideal as heterosexuality, then we are completely ignoring the evolutionary benefits of being heterosexual. Just the way I have to accept that I'll never ride my bike the way Lance Armstrong does, a homosexual has to accept that they will not further in the evolutionary course of humanity from which he has deviated. Whatever was good about him genetically will die with him.

Why choose evolution? It shapes us emotionally and physically. Self preservation, sexual appetite, and competition all mold desires and actions which determine our evolutionary success. Can you suggest a better standard? Other than your opinion.

Daleth

We don't choose evolution, Mach. Evolution happens. There's no choice to be made. It's going to keep happening unless we all stop breeding. Evolution happens to the species, not the individual.

Is there any kind of immorality in choosing not to reproduce?

Can society look at homosexuals on the same level (whatever that means) if they reproduce? Say a lesbian who goes to a sperm bank or a gay man who hires a surrogate or maybe either of them has a child in a marriage before they come out as gay.

Dal

scigirl

If heterosexuality is considered just as ideal as homosexuality, than we are completely ignoring the benefit that homsexual sex never results in an unwanted pregnancy.

See - any situation has its good and bad points, and you are arbritrarily defining what is good. I think it would be quite ideal to be a lesbian, then I woudn't have to take a freaking pill every morning that could possibly give me cancer someday. Also, I don't want to be Lance Armstrong. I'd rather have a brain like Stephen Hawking (minus the ALS of course). But that's me.

Should our society admit that genetics plays a big role in shaping who we are? Yes. I agree with you there. However, this has nothing to do with how moral we are. The morality comes into play with how we use this information. Should we discriminate against people with certain genetic conditions? No I don't think so. In addition, no matter what our genetic makeup is, genes do not shape who we are - ever. Rather it is the complex interplay between genes and the environment. Lance Armstrong may have been born with good athlete genes, but he did not win the Tour de France by sheer luck. Rather, he has a resting heart rate of 34 ( ) because he trains every freaking day.

I'm still unclear about how you wish to apply your idea - could you give some specific examples as to what society is doing wrong, and how it is hurting the gay (or the biking) community? I don't think this society does indeed promote the idea that being gay is ideal - a great many people still believe that gays will burn in some hell when they die. So what society are you talking about?

Yes our evolutionary success. All that means is producing offspring. That's it. It doesn't mean "healthier" or "better at winning the tour de france." Nowadays, a great many factors go into determining our ability to produce offspring that have nothing to do with evolution. Everything else is just anecdotal stories. If I have more children than Lance, I am MORE evolutionary fit than Lance. Then if he has more kids later, he is more fit. Do you see the problem now with your theory?

Oh, and your standard is not based on your opinion? Because you use science words in your theory, that makes yours more objective? Well in that case, because my name is sci girl, my opinions are all more valid!

Yes I do think that human society can (and has) found better standards for morality than whether or not we can produce offspring.

scigirl

Machiavelli

Scigirl,

Suppose you are jaunted forward in time, and genetic manipulation makes it completely up to you whether or not to let your child be homosexual or heterosexual. Which would you choose? Why?

Voluntarily having a child establishes that you believe having a child is a good thing to do. Would you not want your child to have the same?

What is your ideal sexual orientation?

scigirl

Interesting question - first off, I'm not entirely convinced that sexual orientation is completely genetic - I think it's a combo of other factors. But let's just say it is - and the question is actually relevant. I'm not sure - I'll have to think about it. One thing is for sure - it would depend on how society at the time viewed homosexuality.

You bring up a point that we discussed this year in my medical genetics class. Often, patients with serious but not necessarily deadly medical conditions will undergo genetic counselling and choose to adopt children if it is deemed likely that their offspring will have the same condition. This causes feelings of guilt and confusion, because in a sense, by choosing not to have offspring with that illness is tacitly implying that the parent with the illness is less worthy in some way. Although I can totally see why they would think that, I don't think this line of reasoning is entirely accurate. I need to get to the library to do some work, but I'll ponder this idea and post later if I think of anything.

I don't think this is true. Just because I think it's good for me personally to have a child, this does not automatically imply that I think everyone should have a child. If I, darwin forbid, have a sociopath for a child, I would hope that he DIDN"T reproduce.

See - I don't buy into the idea that having children is automatically a good thing. In fact, there are a great many people who I think should never ever reproduce. However, that does not mean I would support a governmental ban on those people or force sterilization (although there are days... ). Rather, I would hope that people become educated about birth control and only choose to have a child when they are emotionally and financially ready to have one.

In addition - adoption is always an option, and I don't see that going away anytime soon. While it is true that adoptive parents are missing out on the wonderful experience of childbirth, there are ways to simulate breastfeeding, and in certain cases you can even get adoptive mothers to lactate using hormone therapy. Also, in this future you speak of, it may be possible for gay men to combine two sperms together to make a child with their genetics, and same for lesbian couples. In fact, it is already possible to take an egg and fertilize it it with another egg nucleus, then implant that egg back into one of the women. I'm sure in time we could do this with sperm DNA somehow. If this technology becomes possible, then will you be ok with equating homosexual and heterosexual relationships?

Well for now does it really matter? I'm hetero and that's just how it is. But if it really was a choice? I don't know, I have no empirical data on what it is like to be a lesbian. I'd have to try it out and see (and no you can't watch ).

Let's consider your question for something that we CAN choose - professions. What is your ideal profession? Everyone obviously has a different one, and it changes as we change. My current one for me personally is MD. I love medicine and torturing people with sharp things. My brother on the other hand wants to be a stock broker. He loves reading the wall street journal, whereas that would bore me to suicide. Ideals are different for everyone - depending on what you are using to define ideal. Since there is no objective way to say whose criterion for an ideal profession is better, than the question becomes very difficult to answer.

How do you define "ideal," and more importantly, do you think that everyone has the same ideals?

scigirl

scigirl

To re-emphasize a few points I wish to make...

Whether or not homosexuality is a choice makes no bearing on whether I think it is immoral or not. If we found out that some murderers had the "murder" gene, I would still think murder is immoral. It would, however, change my view on how we should treat murder, or perhaps prevent it.

Homosexuality, on the other hand, does not hurt anyone (at least any more than heterosexual sex does). Two consenting adults who choose to have sex, and take responsibility for the consequences of their actions - are not hurting society in any way. Therefore, whether or not they are "chosen" or "born" decisions is irrelevant - we as a society should simply learn to deal with the fact that some men like other men, and some women like other women, and act accordingly.

Should we acknowledge that there are certain complications to homosexual relationships? Sure. Should we also acknowledge that some heterosexual relationships can have damaging effects on society (for instance, unwanted pregnancy)? Absolutely. I still don't get your argument, and what you are saying society should DO about homosexuality. You seem to have a problem with the idea that homosexuals and hetersexuals are equal, because they are different in a biological way. But since there are myriads of ways to be biologically different from each other, and many of these could affect our "fitness" or our "happiness," I'm confused why you focus on this one particular issue.

scigirl

Alonzo Fyfe

Choice is immaterial.

Choice is relevant only when there is a presumption that there has been a wrong, and one is now interested in whether or not a person is blameworthy for that wrong.

One commonly accepted method for deflecting blameworthiness is by saying that the wrong (or bad) was not a matter a choice. Thus, a driver who mows down a dozen pedestrians may be able to defend himself from blameworthiness by arguing that the blame failed, and mowing over the pedestrians was not a matter of choice.

But where there is no wrong (no bad), then choice does not matter.

The fact about homosexuality (or homosexual acts) is that there is nothing wrong with CHOOSING to be a homosexual or to engage in such acts (standard caveats about consent and harm to others apply).

If there was an injection that would cause one to be homosexual, so that it was a matter of choice, there would be nothing wrong with it. Or if there were a pill that would 'cure' homosexuality, and a person refused to take it, there would be nothing wrong with that either. No more wrong, that is, than choosing to become proficient at a particular computer game, or a good artist, or to become a fantasy writer, or any of a billion other things one can be that do not directly result in procreation.