The article, at least, seems a little out of touch with science: not-so-current knowledge (scientists have been making fruit flies gay for a long time) is being touted as brand-new. Personally, I think that the article is sensationalistic and underreasoned. 'The facts' don't really put any kind of final letter on a debate which seems driven in large part on both sides by emotion rather than reasoning; science doesn't guide one in crying "My uncle isn't an ape", nor does 'the so-called Word of God' do much for your average positivist. Suppose we found a gene in fruit flies causing them to kill and eat each other. Would that end the debate for those of us that think that murder-cannibalism is immoral? Humans have the privelege of being both natural and unnatural: sort of the killer app of evolution, if you think about what civilization has done. As such, our societal laws of operation do not and should not harken to genetic statutes.

Personally, I don't see any reason to restrict the liberty of someone because of sexual orientation. Let there be gay marriage, but I'd prefer it be done by legislation rather than judiciating if possible, for at least a few reasons. Polygamy also should be ok in principle.

Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.

Someone who sees homosexual behavior as evil, or as destructive to society, would well see noses breaking, though, and scream bloody murder.

And people are often blinded by what they see.

\God, I hate flamewars
\\suck on that awhile

xenomino:

That research is complete crap.

Oh. If you say so then it must be true. After all the article in Cell was written by stoopeed research scientists, while you wield the power of TOTALFARK!!! Forgive us for doubting you, oh Great One.

/Farker, puhleaze
//way too much info about your personal life btw...

There needs to be a "troll of the week" award.

/wouldn't it be great
//voting for the most obnoxious asshat
///I'm all for it
////what?

Fruit fly: a gay man's zipper?

/got nothing

2005-06-05 02:05:12 AM bigforearms

Ugh.

I felt the same way after reading your post.

First, humans are not fruitflies. Just because they found that manipulating the biological processes in a fruitfly in a certain way switches their sexual behavior does not mean that that's how it works in humans, and it especially doesn't rule out that some or even most humans are gay through learned behavior.

Ahh, so you're in the camp that thinks physiological and biological responses that are caused by genetics in nature are somehow not caused by genetics in humanity? So... When did you choose to be ticklish? You could always choose not to laugh and flinch away when someone tickles you. How about bright lights? When did you choose the physiological reaction of shutting your eyes automatically when you see a blinding light?

Second, even if they did isolate a method by which they could turn heterosexual humans gay (which will never be experimented on, for obvious ethical reasons), that would say absolutely nothing about the morality of homosexual behavior or whether it should be illegal.

You heard it here first, folks... Now that homosexuality is demonstrably genetic, the people who can't stand homosexuals are going to start arguing the morality of farking genetics!

I might have a genetic or biological propensity to violence greater than that of the general public, but that doesn't excuse me from conviction for assault or murder. That homosexuals have a longing for intercourse with people of the same sex doesn't mean they are incapable of stopping themselves from acting on it. Even if they are incapable of stopping themselves from having homosexual sex, that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop the behavior; it's just an argument for why we should mitigate the punishment to some extent.

That logic can apply to any behavior! You could use it for absolutely ridiculous things, like restricting people to hopping on one foot. After all, just because we're predisposed to walking on two feet, doesn't mean it's right. After all, some people have "a genetic or biological propensity to violence."

The same applies to other consentual behavior that we have deemed illegal: pedophiles, statutory rapists, pluralist marriages, drug/alcohol abuse, duelling to the death, etc.

Since when did pedophilia or statutory rape involve consent by both parties? God, I hate it when homophobes lump gays and pedophiles together. It's a logical fallacy. I can try to give anything guilt by association that way. Don't like accountants? Well darn those pedophiles, accountants, and rapists!

And it's an argument I see all the time, as if somehow by putting something on a list with violent offenses, it becomes a violent offense!

The "I can't help it, it's genetic" argument is a major farking cop-out. There's obviously a good case to be made that a pair of adults sodomizing each other in the privacy of their own home doesn't hurt anyone and shouldn't be punished. Whether they're doing it because they're genetically inclined to be attracted to someone of the same sex is completely irrelevant.

So what's your problem?

Oh, and just to head off the people who are going to skip attacking the logic of this post and instead attack specific examples provided above as if that was a perfect refutation of my argument, don't mix the legal fiction of inability to consent with true inability to consent. We could tack that on to any crime we wanted to, given the right reasons. You could, I suppose, even say that sodomy is so egregious or the power structure is such that consent is not a defense. Just because we say people under 17 or 16 or whatever can't consent, legally, to sex, doesn't mean that they really can't individually consent. We, as a society, decided to remove consent as a defense for a certain type of crime at an arbitrary age. There are reasons for choosing that age, and they may be good ones, but you can't simply dismiss a moral argument about consent by referencing legal fictions. Doesn't work that way. Sorry. And no, I don't wanna screw anyone younger than college-aged, I just don't want people losing sight of the point of this long-winded post just because I said "pedophilia".

Then you shouldn't have said "pedophilia," asshat. I'm sorry, but your argument had no logic other than the bullshiat slippery slope and guilt by association fallacies.

mediaho and cargrrl82: I'm fully aware that anti-sodomy laws were struck down by the SC. The point of that paragraph, if you read the whole thing and not one portion of a sentence, was that whether there's a genetic basis for homosexuality is not a good argument for the morality or legality of the behavior practiced. Maybe my "other" before "consentual" was poor wording. My bad. If you'd been paying attention to the rest of the paragraph you'd know that it doesn't matter what my belief as to the legality or illegality of sodomy currently is, because this argument has nothing to do with that.

I was worried about people going off on one example and pretending the thesis doesn't exist, but I guess I picked the wrong example. My bad. I'll put more disclaimers next time I try to post a coherent argument on Fark for all the people who never mastered reading comprehension.

2005-06-05 02:14:29 AM Oracle of Bandwidth

Honestly I'm quite torn between wanting to live and let live, and worrying that this will lead to increased sexualization of society (May not even be rational worry).

Sexual repression has got us this far...

BuleBile
Polygamy also should be ok in principle.

Ya, other than spiting Mormons (I kid) why is polygamy illegal in the US? I'm just curious of the reaosn.

etoof

There needs to be a "troll of the week" award.

This is not a troll, this is a serious discussion on a very important issue in our society. Just because you have decided for the rest of us that gay rights, gay marriage, and the nature vs. nurture argument aren't worth your time, doesn't mean the rest of us do. Go away and post to a yahoo account or something. Let the adults continue with our informed discussion.

etoof:

There needs to be a "troll of the week" award.

Seconded.

2Wolves: Wouldn't be prudent.

Well I'm as prude as they come, and whereas I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want it, why's the government stopping the rest of you? I mean, as far as I know men are a minority in the united states, so their'd be less lonely women right?

BearToy

I could care less about your pics, but the guys-kissing pics are obviously NSFW. You should be posting links and not the pics. Mods, please delete them.

bigforearms wrote:
"I might have a genetic or biological propensity to violence greater than that of the general public, but that doesn't excuse me from conviction for assault or murder. That homosexuals have a longing for intercourse with people of the same sex doesn't mean they are incapable of stopping themselves from acting on it. Even if they are incapable of stopping themselves from having homosexual sex, that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop the behavior."

It used to be claimed by various wingnuts and fundamentalist freaks (still is in the case of those less in touch with reality) that homosexuality was "unnatural," that it was perverse and wrong in humans because it did not exist in the animal kingdom. Penguins, swans, fruitflies, slowly but surely the notion that homosexual is "unnatural" is being ground into dust.

We all know why assault or murder are wrong. Why do some people think that homosexuality is "wrong?" I don't know, but those people can no longer claim that homosexuality is wrong because it is "unnatural." Just about the only argument they have left is that some charismatic person that they know, who mimicked another, and so on, and so on, was able to twist a few of the many words of a man of love and peace and those words written about him from two millenia ago in multiple extinct languages, translated multiple times, and horded for centuries by a secretive, power-hungry religious organization in the Dark Ages, into words of hatred and tolerance. Real strong argument you've got there.

xenomino

You're not in on the informed discussion, indeed you're very uninformed. But we can overlook that. Tell me in exact specific language what exactly would be bad about gays marrying. That is bad as in having definite negative consequence first to society at large and then to you personally.

xenomino

This is not a troll,

Uhuh. Yeah. Right. Sure. Sooooo...on your planet it's OK to hate?

2005-06-05 02:19:08 AM bigforearms

mediaho and cargrrl82: I'm fully aware that anti-sodomy laws were struck down by the SC. The point of that paragraph, if you read the whole thing and not one portion of a sentence, was that whether there's a genetic basis for homosexuality is not a good argument for the morality or legality of the behavior practiced. Maybe my "other" before "consentual" was poor wording. My bad. If you'd been paying attention to the rest of the paragraph you'd know that it doesn't matter what my belief as to the legality or illegality of sodomy currently is, because this argument has nothing to do with that.

I'm generally inclined to agree with you. Whether I'm gay because I'm genetically/biologically predisposed to it, or my mother decided one day that she wanted to raise a faggot, it doesn't decide whether it is right or wrong.

The problem is, the undertone of your argument is that since we haven't proven it right or wrong, it's okay to go ahead and treat it like it's wrong. So you're probably at least partially right, fruit flies farking doesn't do a lot to prove that homosexuality is good or bad. We still have to deal with the facts that it DOES occur in our society, and that people ARE discriminated against because of it. There's no rational basis for the discrimination.

I was worried about people going off on one example and pretending the thesis doesn't exist, but I guess I picked the wrong example. My bad. I'll put more disclaimers next time I try to post a coherent argument on Fark for all the people who never mastered reading comprehension.

You picked an emotionally-charged and falsely-associated example that did nothing to rationally back up your point, and insulted your audience when they pointed it out. You are solely responsible for articulating your argument.

[B]xenomino[/B]

Looks like I got to you. Funny how easy it was.

By the way, where did I decide anything for anyone? I can post comments just like you can. In fact, I think mine makes more sense than any of the 30-40 you've posted.

/can troll too

BearToy

Although I will not respond to any of his posts anymore it would be fun to hear the 'balloon-jetting-across-the-room' sound of his head imploding if I find the right image that makes him furious and gives him a boner at the same time.

Where's that clapping audience animation when you need it?

Although I will not respond to any of his posts anymore it would be fun to hear the 'balloon-jetting-across-the-room' sound of his head imploding if I find the right image that makes him furious and gives him a boner at the same time.

Then

I could care less about your pics, but the guys-kissing pics are obviously NSFW. You should be posting links and not the pics. Mods, please delete them.

I think you found it, BearToy

cargrrl82

I'm not against gay marriage. I think it should be allowed, and have said so numerous times.

xenomino: but the guys-kissing pics are obviously NSFW

What about the girls kissing? That okay?

bigforearms wrote:
"whether there's a genetic basis for homosexuality is not a good argument for the morality or legality of the behavior practiced."

Sure. But it does eliminate the counterargument that a lack of genetic base for homosexuality is reason for the immorality or illegality of the behavior. So what is your reason for homosexuality being immoral or illegal?

mediaho

What about the girls kissing? That okay?

Yup.

Damn you cosmiquemuffin

2005-06-05 02:25:04 AM xenomino [TotalFark]



NSFW, how exactly?

xenomino

Then why argue against a peer reviewed study about homosexuality in fruit flies? And why argue like a banshee about human homosexuality? Why not just go with what homosexuals say? Namely that it is just how we are.

I think it's pretty SFW. In fact, I think my boss would ask me for the link....

Subversive: So what is your reason for homosexuality being immoral or illegal?

They're doing everything they can to not bring the Bible into it when that's exactly the reason. That or their own repulsion.

Those pics are just gross. Stop it. fap fap fap.. LOL

BearToy, would you please post more hot man-kissing-man pics in this thread? I'm sure that xenomino is either the best troll I've ever seen or the worst-closeted homosexual I've ever seen, and I'd love to see him throw fits as the same mods who don't delete the girl-kiss pic (gawd, that's so farking hot...) utterly fail to delete the guy-kiss pics, as long as they're safe for work (as the above obviously is).

Bear Toy for President!

Whoooooooooooooooo! Hayell yas!!!

/so very, very fit-shaced
//rumblin stumblin commode huggin drawnk

bigforearms

Let's take it into the realm of legal philosophy. On what grounds would a law against homosexuality stand as a benefit in a material way to individuals at large? Remember society doesn't count, only inidividuals. Law doesn't recongize society, just individuals.

NSFW, how exactly?

_______________________

:: snickers::

Not safe for his mental stability more like it ;)

Sharwnthla