They are at it again *sigh*

[vrikasatma]

Can you post a link to some kind of scientific article that discusses this? I have long *suspected* that this (overpopulation) was a cause of homosexuality, but I've never heard anyone else mention this.

Not a scientific article, but Wikipedia's a good source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_control

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/1997/nov/97112204.html

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_prof.htm

This link isn't a scientific article per se, but from the get-go one of the groundrules of this discussion was "keep religion out of it." I'm having a hard time finding real objective scientific material on the subject:

http://forum.physorg.com/Homosexuality_1907.html


Tried a different set of search terms:

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/homosex1.html

http://allpsych.com/journal/homosexuality.html

http://www.viewzone.com/homosexual.html

http://www.reference.com/browse

I'm going to leave it at that because I wasn't prepared to do a multi-hour, multi-search scouring of the Internet, and it's been a long, tiring day for me.

My main point of homosexuality as a means of population control was a gestalt observation: obviously, if every available male pairs off with every available female, and every available couple conceives and gives birth, you're going to have a population explosion. That's not rocket science. But, if a certain segment of the population — the magic number everyone seemed to agree on was 10 - 15% — didn't, stayed out of the the gene pool, by pairing up with the same sex, then we see an upgrade in reproduction but the 10 -15% abstinence is a gentle form of growth curbing. Predation and natural disaster can do the same thing but a wholesale bloodletting is traumatic to a population.

Hypothetical scenario. A hypothetical populace is located in a relatively stable, benign natural environment: no live faultlines, no volcanoes, offshore reef to break tsunamis, steady Mediterranean type climate, no prowling bears or lions. There is the potential for two different deviant types to join this populace: one is a serial killer/cannibal, and one is a gay man. Would you rather have Jeffrey Dahmer or Elton John as a neighbour?

[Renorei]

Thanks for posting those! I'll read them as soon as I have some free time on my hands.

[vrikasatma]

[Vilkacis]

Ugh. School has been keeping me busier than ever. It's been too long since I last checked up at the Pack.



For this particular issue, I'm going to take a slightly different stance. For me, the biggest issue at hand isn't the conflict between Christians and homosexuals -- it's the legal aspect.

Let me first say that I'm not condoning intolerance, on either end. I believe racism is wrong. I do not think it is right for gay people to be harassed for their choices* any more than I believe it is right to harass Christians for their beliefs.

(* Let's not start a debate about this. Suffice it to say that I believe humanity is such that anyone may overcome their nature--real or imagined. We are, if nothing else, incredibly malleable.)

What I see here is a conflict over law more than anything else. Honestly, I have a hard time calling their disagreement anything but petty and poorly handled by both sides. (Why, exactly, is this considered newsworthy?)

Let's put it this way: although I believe such blatent intolerance to be wrong, I do not think it should ever be a matter of law! Unless it comes to fisticuffs, this should be nothing more than a civil dispute with a private resolution. It really scares me that the government is telling us whether or not we can even be rude to each other. And I don't like where those thoughts lead me.

As I see it, the Christians should be free to be intolerant of the gays, the gays should be free to be intolerant the Christians, and the Georgia Institute of Technology should be free to refuse its services to either, based on whatever criteria it wishes (not that I think that's right, either).


"Land of the Free"? Where's that?


-- Vilkacis

[vrikasatma]

The problem with that is "Christian intolerance" is an oxymoron, if you go with the canon. Jesus preached against intolerance and would probably smack the Reverend Fred Phelps across the chops and denounce him as a Pharisee.

Keep in mind that some of Jesus's followers were tax collectors; back then, that didn't mean the relatively benign pencil-pushers we know and love, it was closer to what we'd call mobsters running a protection racket. Whether Mary Magdelene was a prostitute, Jesus's old lady (a whole other can o' worms that I won't go into), or just a woman who was unlucky in love and had yet to find a fella to settle down with remains a point of debate, but she was clearly in the "social outcaste" column, too.