Well, you know, if they could invent that hormone patch, they could invent another one to ensure that babies turn gay.

Hey, aren't these the same folks who are opposed to Gardasil because nobody can be sure of the long-term effects, which might include sluttiness? Are they serious suggesting fucking with pregant women's hormones now?

Yes, EG, they are because they have to stop Teh Gay.

And if science is going to prove them wrong (that homosexuality is inherent and NOT learned) then they're going to use it to stop homosexuality as they know their ex-gay seminars don't really work. Like Ann said, they don't mind using science to fuck with God's will when it suits them. Or else they'll say that God gave man the ability to detect homosexuality in utero so that they may cure the "disorder" to make God happy, when in fact God could have just made the kid not gay in the first place.

But that logic would require thinking now wouldn't it?;)

On a minor personal note, I think Mohler's logic is interesting. In that, it's internally consistent. Indeed, I recall making a very similar sort of argument back in my uber-conservative days, when the right had just started freaking out about whether homosexuality was biological or not. I always maintained that this was irrelevant -- fun to see that, TEN YEARS LATER, the right is finally catching up with my brilliant (though morally misguided) fifteen-year-old brain ;)

Two other things I find interesting about the article. First, the whole tone of the argument makes me think of the "default" discussion a lot of us were having with Ivy yesterday. Ivy, if you read this comment and you haven't read the article, please click on the link to Mohler's blog. It's a perfect example of the sort of thing we were talking about, though admittedly more visible than many instance of such default. Usually when people talk about "gay persons," their default meaning is gay men. Notice that the hysteria (lol) is directed at the fear of having gay baby BOYS. No mention whatsoever of gay baby girls. I think most of us here understand why this is and why it's problematic and hypocritical.

Second, on a more disturbing note. There's a lot of talk about supposedly liberal parents who would feel differently when faced with the prospect of raising a gay child. Sadly, I think Mohler and the others are right about this. Frankly, I'm disgusted at the number of people who call themselves "liberal" or "progressive" or "tolerant" or "accepting" of gay persons, yet balk at the thought of actually sharing a bloodline with one. I used to listen to a morning show where the female host was pregnant, and she and one of her male co-hosts would joke about how they would never want gay kids, etc. It was never, ever done in terms of "gay people, EWWWW!" It was always more of a sense of "well, of course we LURVE The Gays, but isn't it a foregone conclusion that everyone would prefer that their kids be straight?" This would piss me off so much I would usually switch to a CD once they started on this topic. Even though purportedly accepting of gays, their homophobia was laid bare when it came to talking about THEIR kids.

And I think that's the problem. If you consider yourself to be accepting of gay people, yet would be significantly bothered by having a gay child (other than simply worrying about the injustice s/he would have to contend with), then guess what? You're not accepting. You're homophobic. And it's a PROBLEM.

Okay, I think I said everything I wanted to :)

Hey, what if it works? What if you really CAN "fix" gayness in utero? And then the hormones that do it cause horrible birth defects?

So what do you think these people would rather have? Gay babies, or one-eyed babies?

Well, TLF, I've always known you were ahead of your time. Thank goodness you're using your powers for good, nowadays!

prairie, ooooo, I want both! I want a gay cyclops baby!! With SUPERPOWERS!!!

Law Fairy:

I think that the radio show hosts were probably displaying homophobic tendencies, but I know that I personally would hope that if I had children in society today, they would be straight. Because I am intolerant of homosexuals? No. I myself am bisexual, which allows me to operate in society as "straight." Today's society has such anti-homosexual stigma that I would not want my children to be gay because I would not want them to have to face that stigma and discrimination. I would of course prefer society change to actually be accepting of homosexuals, but if it does not, then I would hope that my kids were straight, because I don't want them to have to go through hoops to adopt children, get married, have equal legal rights and financial/insurance protections, and not be the target of hate crimes. I would love my child, whatever their sexual orientation, but I would want them to have the least encumbered life possible. And today's society is all too willing to be oppressive towards homosexuals.

Femi, right, and I sort of implicitly (and imperfectly) noted that I can understand this rationale.

But this wasn't what they meant. They never did a good job of articulating what was "bad" about it -- I vaguely remember a gay man *sort of* calling them on it once, and they didn't really have a good response. FAR from a clear, pro-gay-rights, I-don't-want-my-kids-suffering-from-stigma approach. It had much more to do with the latent feeling that there was something "wrong" about being gay. And that's totally unacceptable.

And, again, while I understand the rationale, in my mind that's not a great reason not to want your kid to be gay -- if we're going with that, than we may as well all want white, heterosexual, Protestant children. Because anyone else is going to suffer his/her share of hardship. So I think it's a valid WORRY, but not a valid reason not to WANT kid with X characteristic.

Ugh. So if a pregnant woman refused to have the test done or submit to the patch would they try to charge her with some sort of fetal neglect? That is assuming that their nuttery ever made it into medical practice.

"So I think it's a valid WORRY, but not a valid reason not to WANT kid with X characteristic."

Thanks for the reply. I feel like that is a very good point. I know that women face discrimination, but that doesn't make me not want to have a female child. It does increase the worry for that child to not be sexually assaulted and to be able to have equal opportunities with her male counterparts. So, I definitely agree. Social stigma against homosexuals is a worry when you find out your children are homosexual, but not a reason to not desire homosexual children. And of course, we can all work as hard as possible to change societal viewpoints and actions so that life would not be as hard to get through for homosexuals (or any oppressed group).

Makes me glad I’m an Atheist when I hear stuff like this. I don’t think I would be able to handle the shame of being a white male AND that people of the same religion as me condone whacked out bollocks like that. On the one hand, I want to say live and let live for the "gay babies� sakes, but I don’t think "removing" people like the ones who want a "cure" is necessarily a bad thing.

what I think is incredibly interesting about this is how religion twists things rediculously... I have been forced to grow up in a VERY religious Catholic household and then attend k-12th grade in Catholic private schools. So many religious people are so far removed from society it is sick... but in regards to this specific article... go to www.livescience.com and check out their article on homosexuality and how it's portrayed in the Bible.. It states that in Leviticus it says that homosexuality is wrong, but right above that line is another about how eating shrimp is also an abomination and considered a huge sin... it's interesting how things are so skewed in many religions that they pick and choose what to bitch about... and like the article on live science says: you don't really see any religious activists picketing in front of Red Lobster.

Ooh, this could get good. Imagine the sputtering of the right-wing godbots if/when they find that being gay is inborn and "incurable." I can just hear the stampede to change abortion legislation to include the rape of virgins and GAY BABIES.

And messing with hormones is risky for anyone. Messing with hormones in utero is playing with fire. Then again, it makes sense that a godbot would rather have a child with flippers than a healthy child who has Teh Gay. If they ever get their "science" off the ground, I see a very lucrative future for The Law Fairy when these kids get old enough to sue. :-}

"But isn’t one of the big beefs these wingnuts have with homosexuality the fact that it’s supposedly so unnatural? If the fetuses are already gay in the womb, wouldn’t that tend to support the idea that homosexuality is an inborn trait?"

Alcoholism is an inborn trait. No-onne seems to have a problem with the church being against it, identifying it as a problem, and sponsoring meetings in their basements all over the country every day of the year to help rectify it. Just sayin.

buffy, when the fact of being gay is shown to have demonstrable positive correlation with fatal car accidents, then MAYBE the religious right might have the faint outline of a leg to stand on.

Also, kids aren't born alcoholics. People may be predisposed to alcoholism but I've never heard of any cases of alcoholism where a person was considered an alcoholic in spite of never having had a drink (that is to say, you're not an alcohlic UNLESS AND UNTIL you've engaged in a sufficient unhealthy pattern of drinking that you're psychologically recognized as such). Conversely, gay people have been known to become aware of their sexual orientation at extremely young ages (think preschool). In other words, alcoholism is DEFINED, at the outset, by behavior. Sexual orientation exists, whether or not correlated behavior occurs.

Just wondering: What if they found a gene that would make my kid turn out a racist, homophobic bigot with fanatic tendencies and a penchant for interfering with other people's lives - would I use 'the patch'?

The possibilities are endless - we just haven't considered them.

I think I'm sick.

I feel the need to clarify my earlier post. My first comment to buffy was flippant. Any contemporary statistics showing any danger like car accidents posed by gay people probably doesn't exist, but if it did I would, at this point in time, be inclined to attribute that to higher rates of depression and suicidal tendencies on the part of gay people, which is occasioned by the unfair stigma and injustices they encounter in everyday life. This is, obviously, quite distinct from such correlations in alcoholics, as alcohol is a substance which physically makes you a less safe driver.

TLF, why do you think it is that right-wingers seem to feel that homosexuality has so much more in common with alcoholism or pedophilia or bestiality than with, oh, heterosexuality? I mean, the difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality is just a matter of genitalia. Same species, same age group, not an actual illness that will destroy your life if left unchecked. I just...fail to see where they're getting their weird, unsubstantiated analogies.

EG, hard to say... for many I do believe it's just genuine "innocent" indoctrination (that is to say, I do believe that a lot of right-wingers are earnest and misguided -- of course, the older they get, the more difficult it is for me to believe this about them). For probably at least as many, it's bare homophobia. They think about gay people -- really, gay MEN specifically, with gay women as an afterthought -- and don't just think "oh, those poor people who have sinful urges" (as they would claim they do in their vast compassion). Rather, they are squicked out. They think "gay" and a part of them thinks "EWWWWWWWW" (especially the men -- though there's a decent number of female conservatives who react this way as well). It really doesn't get much more thoughtful than that for a really good number of them.

They analogize to undesirable traits because probably on some level they truly do think that heterosexual is more "normal" and therefore right (although this is interesting too, since the Bible teaches that our "natural" state is profoundly sinful), but it doesn't hurt that they're just completely weirded out by homosexuality.

So it's a combination of religious excuses (I won't call them "reasons" or "bases") and simple homophobia, heterosexism, and sexism.

You know what I’d like to see? I’d like the test for sexual orientation lead to finding out that the vast majority of people are actually bisexual to some degree or another.

Take that, straight “majority�.

I would totally want to know if I was having a gay baby - that way I could decorate the room with big ass pride rainbows and buy a maternity shirt that says "I'm Not Gay, But My Baby Is." Aaah, if only we were planning on having more kids...

In reality, though, I think if one of my kids told me they were gay, my first reaction would be pride that they felt comfortable enough to accept themselves and my second would be fear that their lives would be so much harder because of that.

"No mention whatsoever of gay baby girls. I think most of us here understand why this is and why it's problematic and hypocritical."

I suspect some of them don't want straight daughters much more than they want gay daughters and what they'd really like a daughter to become is an asexual woman who lays back and thinks of family when her husband wants sex but wouldn't ever seek sex herself ('because if she did actually *want* sex then she might want it outside marriage!!!').

Hmmm... I'm actually happy at this news.

1) I'm almost certain it won't work. Sexual desire is incredibly complicated, much more so than, say, schizophrenia, ADHD or autism, and we know that those are a combination of genes, hormones, and environment. I'd be willing to bet gayness is too (don't know for sure which ones, though). (And btw, I'm only comparing homosexuality to ADHD et al. because they're all deviations from "normal" brain patterns.)

2) They won't have institutional support. Since homosexuality isn't a disorder according to the APA, no sane institution will cooperate, so they'll have to spend a lot of money on it that would normally go to propaganda

3) It is possible that some good research might come from this. In the sense that good research came from German concentration camps, but with fewer "defectives" killed.

I've been pondering why people like this have such a hate on for gays...gay men in particular. It may be just the notion of teh buttsex that squicks them out, but given the popularity of anal sex in porn and stories like the one about that minister who regularly sodomized his wife, I suspect at least some of them think it's okay, as long as it's a man doing it to a woman. So I pondered some more, and came up with this theory:

These guys don't like women. I mean they really don't like women. The misogyny of the Bible has really taken root. Or maybe it's not that they straight-up hate women--they just think that women are "naturally" inferior, lesser, etc. A man's duty is to love and care for his women, like you love and care for your dog, even though it's not remotely your equal. Hell, it needs to be taken care of, because it's too dumb to care for itself.

Men, on the other hand, are "naturally" superior; rational, self-controlled, born leaders, and overall more "godly". They're the "better" sex, because God made them that way.

Perhaps the reason gay men offend them so very much is because they have rejected their "naturally superior" status as men in favor of a more feminine, "inferior" role. They adopt "feminine" dress and behavior, and worst of all, they allow themselves to be penetrated like women. This is of course baffling and deeply offensive to these people, because if you're born as the "superior" sex, why the hell would you want to take on the role/identity of the "inferior" sex? After all the effort they've invested into making being female or feminine as repugnant and undesirable as possible--does not compute!! Why, someone might think that maybe there's something good or desirable about the repudiated female sex after all. The horror! It's clearly the work of the Devil--tempting good, rational men away from their God-given superior status. It must be stopped!

So, that's my theory. Creepy, huh?

Fessio, the provost at Ave Maria University was fired after he made those insane comments. Check it out: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/mar/22/popular_ave_maria_provost_out/

Vervain: Two words: Greek pederasty. Back in ancient Greece it was considered shameful for a man to be the "passive" partner, so even in those city-states where homosexuality was encouraged, it rarely took the form of anal sex, but rather intercrural intercourse. It was the same thing in Egyptian mythology (a very interesting myth was based around Set raping Horus). A lot of our f'ed up ideas of masculinity come from Greece.

Vervain,

Maybe I am reading what you wrote in a way that it was not intended, but gay men haven't
rejected their roles as men, they are still "real" men. They are not penetrated "like women" as they don't have vaginas. Not all gay men act or dress feminine, that is mostly just the stereotypical ones that are put on television for entertainment purposes.

If I misinterpreted what you meant, then I apologize.

Perhaps the reason gay men offend them so very much is because they have rejected their "naturally superior" status as men in favor of a more feminine, "inferior" role. They adopt "feminine" dress and behavior, and worst of all, they allow themselves to be penetrated like women.

Sassy, I certainly can't speak for Vervain, but I believe what she meant was that this is how HOMOPHOBES, particularly male homophobes, instinctively view homosexuality. And I think that's right. Men see women, not as whole persons, but as filling a particular "role." When men step in to fill that role, men see them as "not-men" because X is what WOMEN do (where X can be housework, staying at home with the kids, enjoying romantic comedies, or being penetrated by a man). Obviously this is a problem.

What does it matter? I mean, are they hoping that women would abort gay babies if the hormones don't prove to work? I could see the religious right approving abortion if it meant preventing the lives of homosexuals. I can see it now, they will want laws in effect "Abortion should be illegal unless in the case of rape, incest and homosexuality".

I know that when my aunt came out my grandmother was terrified of something happening to her at the hands of some ignorant, homophobic nutjob.

As a mother, I would support and accept my boys no matter what their sexuality. I want them to do is right and natural to them, not what society deems as right or natural

LawFairy,

I was hoping that was the case. I do however have an issue with what you said about these homophobic thoughts (and I use that term loosely) as being instinctive. I don't think that there is anything instinctive about ignorance and hate, I firmly believe that it is learned. I am sure that you probably didn't mean it, but if you say that it is instinctive, you are essentially saying that their hatred is natural and it isn't their fault, therefore, we can't really hold them accountable, because if it is instinctive, then they can't help it.

I can be very anal when it comes to how things are worded.

Sassy, I certainly can't speak for Vervain, but I believe what she meant was that this is how HOMOPHOBES, particularly male homophobes, instinctively view homosexuality.

SassyGirl, what Vervain was saying is a rather primary idea contained in queer theory. i think that some of the wording may have been poor, and like TLF said, what she was saying is how homophobes view things. of course not all gay men are feminine. but many are, and to be penetrated is seen as a "feminizing" act. and to be feminine is "inferior" in their eyes. which is why it's okay for women to wear pants and not okay for men to wear skirts. and why one of the first things that homophobes make fun of when mocking gay men is their stereotypical, overtly "feminine" mannerisms.

Sassy, well I would still say "instinctual," because in my mind at least, instinctual does not mean unchangeable. I don't mean that we're biologically hard-wired to be homophobic -- but I think we are most definitely socialized to be homophobic, such that homophobia comes "naturally" to us. Just like as women, we often become feminists through the process of consciousness-raising, I think a lot of these issues operate the same way. We're ingrained with bigoted thoughts and feelings and we do have to make a conscious effort to overcome them. Whereas, if we make no conscious effort, but our only efforts (at anything) are subconscious, then our "instinctual," socially-inherited traits take over.

Also, almost everything is rooted in instinct. Learning language is instinct, emotions are instinct. Our brains are such a mess of genes, hormones, and environment you really have a difficult time separating them out. Most of our prejudices probably have some basis in biology (not trusting people who look differently than you, etc.) but that doesn't mean they're right, or that we have to accept them. Likewise, I'm of the opinion that adultery is largely hard-wired, and yet I believe that it's also wrong. Genetics (for the most part) only builds tendencies in psychology.

Sorry for the ramble. And I'm really not trying to turn this into yet another discussion of evolutionary psychology.

Definition for instinct:

. strong natural impulse: a powerful impulse that feels natural rather than reasoned
followed his instincts and took to his heels

2. biological drive: an inborn pattern of behavior characteristic of a species and shaped by biological necessities such as survival and reproduction
the survival instinct

Learning language is not an instinct. Maybe communicating is, but communication and language, while may be similar, are different. We are ingrained with bigoted tendencies, BUT the consensus among sociologists and social psychologists are that we are taught these through our social world and they are not "natural".

We may have a natural tendency to categorize people and objects, but not to hate them.

Whoa, sorry for not checking back sooner! SassyGirl, Law Fairy is correct. I was by no means stating my own beliefs about gay men, but theorizing about the underlying reasoning that might causes homophobes to find gay men in particular so very abhorrent. For some reason, Law Fairy always seems to "get" me--even when I say something weird. It's so cool...

Anyway, to reiterate, I don't think gay men are any less men for being gay, regardless of what they wear or how they choose to behave. I tend to lean heavily toward the "nurture" side of the "nature vs. nuture" argument when it comes to gender roles and behavior, and honestly don't think any behavior is exclusively the purview of one sex or the other, unless it's specifically linked to physical biology (i.e. women having having babies--men physically can't). So I don't think gay men act "feminine," because I don't believe there are any behaviors that are inherently feminine--just behaviors our culture has determined to be "feminine."