The Homosexuality Discussion Thread

  • Thread starter Duke
  • 9,138 comments
  • 446,605 views

I think homosexuality is:

  • a problem that needs to be cured.

    Votes: 88 6.0%

  • a sin against God/Nature.

    Votes: 145 9.8%

  • OK as long as they don't talk about it.

    Votes: 62 4.2%

  • OK for anybody.

    Votes: 416 28.2%

  • nobody's business but the people involved.

    Votes: 765 51.8%
  • Total voters
    1,476
Me and my wife were talking about the legalisation of gay marriage last night, something I'm all for, by the way - if I get to be miserable, homosexuals should be able to as well. When the subject of laws around sexually came up, The missus made a bit of a head scratcher of a statement that has been puzzling me ever since: "other than the ridiculous because god said so nonsense, I can't think of one good reason that homosexuality should be illegal".

I can't think of one either, but find it hard to believe the laws stuck around for so long without there being one.

Any ideas (however outlandish)?
 
Probably because "my way is the right way" is the dominant mindset among people who are into politics. Glad we are slowly growing out of our "modern middle ages" and common sense finds its way into law from time to time.
 
ScouserInExile
Me and my wife were talking about the legalisation of gay marriage last night, something I'm all for, by the way - if I get to be miserable, homosexuals should be able to as well. When the subject of laws around sexually came up, The missus made a bit of a head scratcher of a statement that has been puzzling me ever since: "other than the ridiculous because god said so nonsense, I can't think of one good reason that homosexuality should be illegal".

I can't think of one either, but find it hard to believe the laws stuck around for so long without there being one.

Any ideas (however outlandish)?
Click to expand...

If you're trying to build a society in which you maximise the sheer number of heterosexual, monogamous, child producing couples/families, then it makes a warped kind of sense. No interest in whether the participants are happy, as long as they pair up with an opposite and pump out sprogs. Peer pressure to the max.

This would be the same sort of society that would make things like divorce and abortion extremely hard or impossible to come by.

Why would you want to maximise child production? For a lot of human history there's been a fairly high rate of child mortality, so having lots of them at least assures that your society stays above the replacement rate. And the more people you have, the bigger your armies are, and the less likely you are to get mowed down by other societies. Or the more likely you are to mow down other societies and take their stuff, whichever way you want to look at it.

That's probably not the reason, just me being a cynical old bastard. :D
 
ScouserInExile
Me and my wife were talking about the legalisation of gay marriage last night, something I'm all for, by the way - if I get to be miserable, homosexuals should be able to as well. When the subject of laws around sexually came up, The missus made a bit of a head scratcher of a statement that has been puzzling me ever since: "other than the ridiculous because god said so nonsense, I can't think of one good reason that homosexuality should be illegal".

I can't think of one either, but find it hard to believe the laws stuck around for so long without there being one.

Any ideas (however outlandish)?
Click to expand...

The same reason polygamy is illegal in the States I suppose. Tradition.
 
KSaiyu
The same reason polygamy is illegal in the States I suppose. Tradition.
Click to expand...

Traditions don't start for no reason at all. Usually they're started for good, valid reasons, and continued because they have value to the people who uphold them. Only when they've been going for so long that people have forgotten why they started to people follow them "just because".

At some point polygamy being illegal wasn't a tradition, and somebody or some group of bodies decided to make it one. Just as once upon a time homosexuality wasn't illegal, but it became so for such a long period of time that it became "just one of those things".
 
ScouserInExile
Me and my wife were talking about the legalisation of gay marriage last night, something I'm all for, by the way - if I get to be miserable, homosexuals should be able to as well. When the subject of laws around sexually came up, The missus made a bit of a head scratcher of a statement that has been puzzling me ever since: "other than the ridiculous because god said so nonsense, I can't think of one good reason that homosexuality should be illegal".

I can't think of one either, but find it hard to believe the laws stuck around for so long without there being one.

Any ideas (however outlandish)?
Click to expand...
I always kinda just assumed cause Muricah. I've got this feeling there's a legitimate reason (especially for other countries that aren't Muricah), but I'm going to stick with that. :P

In all seriousness, the most common opposing argument I hear or see is simply because a homosexual couple can't procreate. Which to me is pretty dumb, cause you know there's about 8 or 9 billion of us so I'm not sure fearing extinction is something we really have to worry about anymore. There's also the counter-argument that if we're defining marriage by the ability to procreate then what about couples that are sterile or choose to become so with something such as a vasectomy? Are they still entitled to marriage? If there's no longer an ability to procreate then should the marriage be nullified? That seems to be where the argument ends though. Too many questions, I guess. :lol:
 
Ishikawa M
And who wants to put up with a baby in which all they do is eat (a lot of your money at the same time), cry majority of the time, and have to clean their excrement?
The perks of being gay...

/sarcasm
Click to expand...
I see the sarcasm tag all right, but I just feel like noting that you don't need to be gay to avoid that. ;)
 
Ishikawa M
I'd like to see you say that once you deal with a woman going on her period.

You'd never have that problem with being just gay.
Click to expand...

Really? I imagine my friend has that problem, as does her partner. Biologically it's normal for women in a group to synchronise cycles, that's often true in gay female couples. It's very quiet round there sometimes. Veeeeery very quiet.
 
TenEightyOne
Really? I imagine my friend has that problem, as does her partner. Biologically it's normal for women in a group to synchronise cycles, that's often true in gay female couples. It's very quiet round there sometimes. Veeeeery very quiet.
Click to expand...
Synchronicity in female couples :eek:
I always thought Lesbian couples risked being 'out of order' for up to 20 days a month!
 
Pete05
Synchronicity in female couples :eek:
I always thought Lesbian couples risked being 'out of order' for up to 20 days a month!
Click to expand...

Something called the McClintock effect could, I believed cause synchronicity... but the Wiki says the research was criticised and that a 2013 study cast doubt on it.

That's strange because groups of women I've worked/lived with over the years have found the effect to be true. That makes you wonder if there's a psychosomatic self-fulfilling-prophecy. Which becomes difficult to think about at 10am on a Saturday.
 
TenEightyOne
That's strange because groups of women I've worked/lived with over the years have found the effect to be true. That makes you wonder if there's a psychosomatic self-fulfilling-prophecy. Which becomes difficult to think about at 10am on a Saturday.
Click to expand...

I suspect that the anecdotal evidence is likely more influenced by selective memory (ie. only remembering when the result you're looking for happens) and a general misunderstanding of statistics.

If a group of women all have different length cycles, then there's a reasonable chance of them getting closer together and at some point being very close indeed. Particularly in small groups it would be very easy to notice and totally expected without any outside influence.

Not that it isn't possible that there's something going on, but it's one of those things that really can't be confirmed by anecdotes. It requires fairly rigorous statistical methods to even begin to sift through that data and produce a statistically significant conclusion, and Jane Bloggs sitting in the cafe doesn't have the skills necessary to even begin (putting aside entirely the problem of bias on the part of an observer taking part in the experiment). That and it requires a lot more data than any one group of women.

Apologies to your friends, @TenEightyOne, but I'm calling it as I see it. :)
 

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