Gay Marriage Down in Flames!

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
703

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Clearly homosexuality, per se, does not meet the requirements for a psychiatric disorder since, as noted above, many homosexuals are quite satisfied with their sexual orientation and demonstrate no generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning

Oh, yes, I must not have ever read that part, right?[/quote]

I was wondering about that. Either you didn’t - and that would reflect on your thoroughness. Or you did - and that would reflect on your motives.

Which we have clarified in an earlier thread to be seen by medical professionals (including the CDC) as influenced by homophobia and other social factors - but not as a direct effect of their homosexuality.

So let’s agree then, that at least based on this your chosen source (by Spitzer himself no less), it wasn’t the ‘gay agenda’ which warranted the reclassification, but the scientific status at the time. As for the blame ‘argument’ - I’ll go with the experts in the field any day before I trust ‘research’ from NARTH or some Family Values Institute.

I’m not worried so much about that you don’t believe in what forlife or I have consistently proven to you. I am worried though about the persistent ignorance of contrary evidence and scientific consensus. It sets a bad example.

We can’t change the Mick28s out there, that’s it’s kinda pointless, but this site praises itself for its belief in scientific evidence - so we continue to contribute accordingly.

Makkun

705

[quote]Lorisco wrote:
[…]Well if the criteria is whether the person has distress or is satisfied with their ‘orientation’ than a child molester, beastiality, would meet this criteria as well.

So perhaps this is not as scientific and unbiased as you may want to believe?[/quote]

Well, technically it was originally PRCalDude’s source. It’s a bit dated for my taste (1972), but it helped destabilise the myth that it was the ‘gay agenda’ rather than the scientific status of the time that brought on the reclassification.

There’s of course a basis for questioning the classification of mental illness per se, but within the recognised context of the DSM as a standard repertoire, it’s valid.

As for your point above - I think you’ve missed the whole quote:

'[…]For a mental or psychiatric condition to be considered a psychiatric disorder, [b]it must either regularly cause subjective distress, or regularly be associated with some generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning.

With the exception of homosexuality (and perhaps some of the other sexual deviations when in mild form, such as voyeurism), all of the other mental disorders in DSM-II fulfill either of these two criteria.[/b]

(While one may argue that the personality disorders are an exception, on reflection it is clear that it is inappropriate to make a diagnosis of a personality disorder merely because of the presence of certain typical personality traits which cause no subjective distress or impairment in social functioning.

Clearly homosexuality, per se, does not meet the requirements for a psychiatric disorder since, as noted above, many homosexuals are quite satisfied with their sexual orientation and demonstrate no generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning.[…]’
http://www.psychiatryonline.com/DSMPDF/DSM-II_Homosexuality_Revision.pdf

So Spitzer argues not only on the basis of distress but also an impairment in social functioning. People who struggle with the urge to molest children (besides being in general massively distressed) or bestiality are impaired in their social functioning.

Both subject their urges on victims who cannot give consent to the acts performed - and are therefore victimised. If that’s not an impairment of social functioning, I don’t know what is.

Makkun

711

[quote]makkun wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
[…]Well if the criteria is whether the person has distress or is satisfied with their ‘orientation’ than a child molester, beastiality, would meet this criteria as well.

So perhaps this is not as scientific and unbiased as you may want to believe?

Well, technically it was originally PRCalDude’s source. It’s a bit dated for my taste (1972), but it helped destabilise the myth that it was the ‘gay agenda’ rather than the scientific status of the time that brought on the reclassification.

There’s of course a basis for questioning the classification of mental illness per se, but within the recognised context of the DSM as a standard repertoire, it’s valid.

As for your point above - I think you’ve missed the whole quote:

'[…]For a mental or psychiatric condition to be considered a psychiatric disorder, [b]it must either regularly cause subjective distress, or regularly be associated with some generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning.

With the exception of homosexuality (and perhaps some of the other sexual deviations when in mild form, such as voyeurism), all of the other mental disorders in DSM-II fulfill either of these two criteria.[/b]

(While one may argue that the personality disorders are an exception, on reflection it is clear that it is inappropriate to make a diagnosis of a personality disorder merely because of the presence of certain typical personality traits which cause no subjective distress or impairment in social functioning.

Clearly homosexuality, per se, does not meet the requirements for a psychiatric disorder since, as noted above, many homosexuals are quite satisfied with their sexual orientation and demonstrate no generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning.[…]’
http://www.psychiatryonline.com/DSMPDF/DSM-II_Homosexuality_Revision.pdf

So Spitzer argues not only on the basis of distress but also an impairment in social functioning. People who struggle with the urge to molest children (besides being in general massively distressed) or bestiality are impaired in their social functioning.

Both subject their urges on victims who cannot give consent to the acts performed - and are therefore victimised. If that’s not an impairment of social functioning, I don’t know what is.

Makkun[/quote]

I see your point, but where is the line for ‘social impairment’? Does behavior like frequent unprotected sex and engaging in known risk factors for disease count as social impairment? It certainly has an overall negative impact on society in the cost of healthcare.

Also, with gays having a significantly higher rate of suicide and depression, how can you legitimately state that it doesn’t cause distress?

I know many would like to believe that this distress is caused by those who do not accept the lifestyle, but there is nothing to prove that assumption.

712

[quote]So Spitzer argues not only on the basis of distress but also an impairment in social functioning. People who struggle with the urge to molest children (besides being in general massively distressed) or bestiality are impaired in their social functioning.

Both subject their urges on victims who cannot give consent to the acts performed - and are therefore victimised. If that’s not an impairment of social functioning, I don’t know what is.

Makkun [/quote]

Now we’re arguing over the pronunciation of “potato.” What do you call a person who regularly plays roulette with HIV, MRSA staph, and resistant gonorrhea?

It’s like beating yourself in the head with a bat. The person doing so may enjoy it, but everyone else knows it’s a Bad Thing for the person doing it and that it will catch up with him eventually, no matter how much he insists he’s just fine. The only question is, how long will it take?

Look at Andrew Sullivan, for crying out loud. He’s one of the most vocal gay advocates out there, and he’s HIV positive. I even sat through an upper division lecture one time in a class on HIV where a gay activist came in and discussed his life as a promoter of condom use amongst the gay community.

At one point in time, he decided he wanted to start “barebacking” himself, and promptly contracted HIV. The HIV educator contracted HIV through the very behavior he was educating against. If such behavior doesn’t indicate mental illness, then there is no such thing as mental illness.

713

[quote]Lorisco wrote:
[…]I see your point, but where is the line for ‘social impairment’? Does behavior like frequent unprotected sex and engaging in known risk factors for disease count as social impairment? It certainly has an overall negative impact on society in the cost of healthcare.[/quote]

I could follow your view more, if it was supported for example by the CDC, which is responsible for recording and fighting STDs and HIV infections. Interestingly, they do not see homosexuality as the underlying cause for risky behaviour - but a host of other social factors, including ignorance or discriminatory practices wrt homosexuality.

Just because men having sex with men have a higher incidence of certain illnesses does not mean that their homosexuality itself is at the core of the problem. Feel free to go through my postings - I’ve posted extensively on the approach the CDC takes.

And that’s why the CDC for example concentrates its approach on education and strengthening the positive bonds developed within the gay scenes to combat STDs and HIV - it has understood that an inclusive approach which doesn’t disenfranchise MSM from the rest of society actually helps reduce risk behaviours and infections.

In other words, uninformed people who can’t assess the risks of their behaviour are the problem - whether they are gay doesn’t really come into it. People tend to be more uninformed and engage in riskier behaviours when they are isolated from the societal mainstream and its benefits, especially education.

Hence the CDC’s approach. It has nothing to do with political correctness - it’s just what works better.

I don’t really need to state it - it’s been the experts’ consensus for quite a while now. Besides that, men have a higher suicide and depression rate than women (in the western world), minorities generally normally more than the social mainstream, poor people more than the economically secure.

I wouldn’t be so sure - being disenfranchised and isolated from society, being underprivileged or directly discrimintated against are proven and known factors for promoting delinquent and risk behaviours, as well as mental illness.

And let’s clarify - it’s not only the people who openly don’t accept to what your refer to as ‘the lifestyle’. If a society is inherently biased against you, it causes distress.

Just trawl through some of the postings on T-Nation - and I don’t mean PRCalDude who has an open viewpoint and wields an argument - just look at the dumb kids who use the ghey as a put down and have to clarify no homo when they’ve made another man a compliment.

That sets a subtle signal which finds it recipients among their gay peers. The homophobic bully who beats up the gay boy in class is the exeption - the silent majority who doesn’t help or secretly condones it has a far greater effect.

Makkun

714

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
[…]At one point in time, he decided he wanted to start “barebacking” himself, and promptly contracted HIV.

The HIV educator contracted HIV through the very behavior he was educating against. If such behavior doesn’t indicate mental illness, then there is no such thing as mental illness.[/quote]

If you study psychology (or anything that deals with people for that matter), you’ll learn that human behaviour tends not to be consistent and not always oriented on long-term self-interest - sad but true. We’re terrible at assessing risk and our self-perception is often out of touch with our actual behaviour. In some cases this has dire consequences leading to illness and death.

Mental illness as a concept is useful to deal with disturbances that go far beyond these basic limitations - especially when the individual’s choices are limited beyond the normal range and they suffer from not being able to interact socially in a rewarding way.

There are simply too many gay people functioning perfectly well and too many clearly external factors identified for the impairments they face. I agree with Spitzer therefore that mental illness just doesn’t apply in this case.

Makkun

715

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
[…]At one point in time, he decided he wanted to start “barebacking” himself, and promptly contracted HIV. The HIV educator contracted HIV through the very behavior he was educating against. If such behavior doesn’t indicate mental illness, then there is no such thing as mental illness.[/quote]

If you study psychology (or anything that deals with people for that matter), you’ll learn that human behaviour tends not to be consistent and not always oriented on long-term self-interest - sad but true. We’re terrible at assessing risk and our self-perception is often out of touch with our actual behaviour. In some cases this has dire consequences leading to illness and death.

Mental illness as a concept is useful to deal with disturbances that go far beyond these basic limitations - especially when the individual’s choices are limited beyond the normal range and they suffer from not being able to interact socially in a rewarding way.

There are simply too many gay people functioning perfectly well and too many clearly external factors identified for the impairments they face. I agree with Spitzer therefore that mental illness just doesn’t apply in this case.

Makkun

716

[quote]forlife wrote:

If you really believed marriage was appropriate for couples with children, you would support marriage for gays with children. Since you don’t, [u]it’s obvious you have a different reason for hating gays.[/u][/quote]

See the highlighted section.

And so it always is with Forlife - disagree with him, and it can never be a bona fide good faith issue of disagreement - disagree with him on gay marriage and you definitionally must be a “bigot” or “hate gays”.

Forlife is the same punchline to a joke that gets told on every gay marriage thread.

Note, dear reader, that only a few posts ago I replied to Makavali:

I wouldn’t go that far, but I wouldn’t restrict certain contractual rights that I think should be afforded between the partners.

And, I actually voted against a state constitutional amendment that outlawed gay marriage and secondary laws related to homosexual relationships.

But no, disagreeing with gay marriage on social or political grounds can’t be based in anything except “hatred” - or at least, that’s what Forlife tells himself to make himself feel better about himself.

What an empty, insecure hack.

717

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:

But “we” are certainly quick to site the high incidence of sexually transmitted infections in the gay community to justify bigotry against them.

Also, to go back to the “poisoning the well” theory, lower incidence of STIs in the gay community means less overspill into the straight community (by those damn dirty bisexuals).[/quote]

But “you” need to take Ritalin - I never made the argument that we are justifying a lack of public marriage (your loaded “bigotry!” term) based on STDs, etc., so instead take it up with who did.

Not just “fidelity” - fidelity with a particular harm to prevent in mind: children out of wedlock. Marriage isn’t just trying to prevent sex outside of marriage - it is primarily trying to prevent sex outside of marriage that leads to children out of wedlock.

You keep peddling the false assertion that society has marriage around just to keep couples together - that is incomplete, and thus, incorrect.

718

[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:

I disagree, I think it’s a good example. So answer the question: Would you be ok with that?[/quote]

Your example is terrible, it is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Mine is more on point:

If the government decided that anyone who never finished high school and made little money was eligible for special benefits not afforded to those who are worth over seven figures… would you consider this fair?

Different treatment of different classifications on people, based on something that is not ordinarily elevated as a matter of “natural right” (religion is, that is why your example is dumb).

So, to my question: unfair? If not, why not?

719

[quote]Mick28 wrote:
My point is that gay men are particularly “randy”. The stats that you’ve posted about heterosexual men don’t even come close to being as outrageous as what I’ve posted regarding gay men above.

The gay community does in fact have a problem but it’s not gay marriage, it’s gay fidelity.

[/quote]

The problem isn’t that they’re gay, it’s that they are MALE and have two parties in a relationship who have very high libidos. Fidelity on a males part isn’t a male idea, it’s a female one.

720

[quote]Mick28 wrote:
forlife wrote:
Not only are you misrepresenting the data, but you are ignoring the fact that not all gays fit your stereotype of disturbed, drug pushing, sex crazed, love starved, militant fanatics.

The majority do however…[/quote]

Bullshit. Now you’re just flat out lying.

721

[quote]Makavali wrote:
Mick28 wrote:
My point is that gay men are particularly “randy”. The stats that you’ve posted about heterosexual men don’t even come close to being as outrageous as what I’ve posted regarding gay men above.

The gay community does in fact have a problem but it’s not gay marriage, it’s gay fidelity.

The problem isn’t that they’re gay, it’s that they are MALE and have two parties in a relationship who have very high libidos. Fidelity on a males part isn’t a male idea, it’s a female one.[/quote]

Exactly. The only reason straight guys dont have near the same number of partners is because women say no more often.

722

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
CappedAndPlanIt wrote:

I disagree, I think it’s a good example. So answer the question: Would you be ok with that?

Your example is terrible, it is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Mine is more on point:

If the government decided that anyone who never finished high school and made little money was eligible for special benefits not afforded to those who are worth over seven figures… would you consider this fair?

Different treatment of different classifications on people, based on something that is not ordinarily elevated as a matter of “natural right” (religion is, that is why your example is dumb).

So, to my question: unfair? If not, why not?[/quote]

No, mine is a workable example, because in both the government is rewarding an action that is an intrinsic part of something, but those who wish to keep the benefit to themselves act as though the government is simply rewarding an action.

So, when the anti gay marriage advocates say things like “A gay man can get married, it just has to be to a woman! They have equal rights!”… it’s the same as my example, wherein you COULD get the benefits of praying facing mecca five times a day, since doing that is just a choice (nevermind that it does not follow that a christian would act like a muslim any more than it follows that a homosexual would act like a heterosexual).

My example shows the government endorsing islam, denying marriage benefits (name and all) to homosexuals is the government endorsing heterosexuality.

Perhaps our basic problem is this whole “natural right” business: why should sex, race, and even religion (which is inarguably a choice) be considered natural rights, while sexual orientation is not?