[Lucern]

I have a couple of late responses to interject, as I assumed someone else would do it a few days ago.

Azred said: It is very easy: "it's a choice." As I stated earlier, logically if homosexuality is not a choice then it must be at best a mental disorder and at worst a genetic disorder. Honestly, I would want to accept either of those conclusions and I am not homosexual. I have friends who are homosexual and they agree that with me that their lifestyle is their choice. Like I said, they are homosexual because they want to be. I respect them for being true to themselves even though many others disagree with their choice.

I don't worry about possible repercussions to professional diagnoses of homosexuality at least. In 1973 the APA removed homosexuality from it's diagnostic list of mental disorders.

In December 1973, the American Psychiatric Association's Board of Trustees deleted homosexuality from its official nomenclature of mental disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Second Edition (DSMII). The action was taken following a review of the scientific literature and consultation with experts in the field. For a mental condition to be considered a psychiatric disorder, it should either regularly cause emotional distress or regularly be associated with clinically significant impairment of social functioning. These experts found that homosexuality does not meet these criteria. The Board recognized that a significant portion of gay and lesbian people were clearly satisfied with their sexual orientation and showed no signs of psychopathology. It was also found that homosexuals were able to function effectively in society, and those who sought treatment most often did so for reasons other than their homosexuality. When the DSMIII was published in 1980 homosexuality was not included although "ego dystonic homosexuality" was recognized as a category for people "whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward people of the same sex and who are either disturbed by, in conflict with, or wish to change their sexual orientation." When the DSMIII was revised in 1987, "ego dystonic homosexuality" was deleted as a separate diagnostic entity because "In the United States, almost all people who are homosexual first go through a phase in which their homosexuality is ego dystonic." (DSMIIIR)

http://www.psych.org/public_info/homose~1.cfm

This, as well as just about any practical individual experience we might have, should prevent us treating homosexuality as a genetic disorder like Down's Syndrome(*), to use a particularly disabling genetic disorder. From a social perspective, homosexual people are fully functional, and what I've read would indicate that they've got higher than average education and income levels in the United States. You'll also note that the APA does not endorse "reparative therapies" that attempt to 'cure' people of homosexuality. On that point, this says more than I care to, though it does assert a failure rate of 99.98%, enough to provoke the explanation that only bisexual people may be 'repaired', or trained to repress urges for the same sex. http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_exod.htm


The hypothesis that homosexuality is purely a matter of choice is one that is currently, as it will always be, an opinion that cannot be examined as a falsifiable hypothesis (a prerequisite to scientific inquiry). In other words, there will never be any remotely objective evidence supporting it. In my opinion, it started on shaky ground and will be chipped away piece by piece as we learn more about human (and other animal) sexuality, the exact role of hormones in sexual development, and not just 'the brain', but how each brain differs. Ask yourself, what kinds of evidence could ever support this? The hypothesis that sexuality has biological components tempered by cultural influences, however, can be, and some would say, is already supported by scientific evidence. I bring this up because the scientific debate is about origins, between nature and nurture, not the choice of behavior.

Of course that wasn't stated as a hypothesis. More philosophically, is free-will a cross-spectrum universal assumption for humans? If so, it colors homosexuality, and indeed all behaviors in an entirely different light. To me, absolute free will is bad assumption. To say that "I make my choice" without considering the role that "I" have in that choice, what contributed to that choice, and what contributed to the development of the individual making that choice is tantamount to ignoring everything, be it biological or social, that goes into that person's development. It would be silly to pretend that we are slaves to fate, not responsible for anything we do, but IMO it's equally silly to pretend that we are fully free to make decisions without the clouding of emotion, biases, ignorance, or the benefit of experience and any capacity for human cognition. For a look at free will in a deterministic world, particularly in the evolution of human cognition, check out Daniel C. Dennet's Freedom Evolves.

An underlying point of mine is that we don't know the nature of human sexuality. I am obviously of the opinion that scientific inquiry, with a healthy dose of skepticism, supercedes any other method we have where it can be appropriately applied. However, if you find me making claims of absolute truth, which has taken this thread in loops already, it is sheerly by mistake or oversight. Even in the most well grounded science it's not right to say we can absolutely prove something. That's for mathematicians.**

Some have chosen to invoke personal experiences, anecdotal evidence, historical, theological/philosophical, and I do too, you know, being a fallible human and all that. None of those lead to absolute truth either IMO, though some such claims have come out of a couple of those lines of inquiry in this thread already. I think it puts us in the wrong by default when we speak of absolute truths (especially) when we're dealing with people, behaviours, or any other observable entities in real time (ie, in which falsifiable hypotheses could be tested).

I cannot recommend this article more as a reasonably up-to-date overview of scientific efforts to understand sexual preference. As I stated before, you won't find a definitive answer here, but you will probably learn something you didn't know before. I did. That's why we're here right? Maybe not...

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


*I'm only guessing this what Azred meant by the term genetic disorder, at least in the context of how it would be a VERY undesirable classification. Of course, in the strictest functionalist-materialist definition, not having sexual desire or the wish to form lasting bonds with a person whom you could procreate with IS disadvantageous to a trait's chance to be replicated, but that's a practical problem between that trait and natural selection. Given any biological role in sexual preference, any moral decision on the matter is arbitrary and, if it's a moral judgement of condemnation, wholly at odds with the prevailing sense of justice others have described. It would be very similar to racism and sexism as I see it. Note that I happily noted Azred's fair equal disdainful treatment of all of us lessers

**I didn't want to interrupt the body with the following snotty comment: for those of us that accept that we don't yet know the exact nature of human sexuality, perhaps we shouldn't err on the side of discrimination, just as a precaution.