@ Draug Here we disagree. I would feel it necessary to clarify what was meant by the ''I was born like that''. After discussing it with you this evening though, I might limit my response to saying something like ''I do not think that sexual orientation is purely a matter of genetics''. You never know he might even agree with me and I would have made a friend!

Errr, I suppose gay is alright, but I don't want to exclude lesbians and bisexuals and transgendered individuals, so I'll switch back to LGBT. May I ask Draugnar about your objection to the word Queer?

I think again this is the nuance you're not getting fulhamish. In this context truth =/= fact. Fact is that which is scientifically demonstrated as actually being the case. Truth is more complicated than that. Ultimately as humans, the things we believe and think, and even "know" aren't always scientifically and empirically, demonstrated. Knowledge is socially agreed upon. Now ideally anything that wasn't scientifically shown wouldn't be widely held and believed, but really, have you gone outside at any point in your life? Have you read a newspaper? Have you spoken to virtually anyone else in the world? That simply isn't the way the world works, and that kind of social osmosis is such an important way of creating beliefs and knowledge that we can't simply ignore it, (I'm not saying we should accept those things, just that we should pay attention to them). Relativism doesn't mean that everything is equally factual. Obviously that's nonsense. All of existence isn't just some enormous Schrodinger's Cat, both alive and dead, and yet neither, all at once. In different contexts many different, even contradictory things may be true, but only one such truth is actually correct. Do you see the distinction?

Draug is right, it's a figure of speech, for want of a better term, except that it differs from a figure of speech in that it's actually very important to at least some of the people who say it. Usually figures of speech don't have a lot of someone's self concept tied up in them, in this case they do.

Exactly. It's in the approach. You could even ask him "Do you think you are purely genetically gay?" and see what entails. But don't be in your face and look tot he person's response. They may be hurt a little and not wanting to discuss the nature vs. nurture aspect and jumping straight into "do you think maybe you made a choice" *will* offend them unnecessarily. Gary and I (Gary is my dear friend who happened to be gay. He passed about 15 years ago). Anyhow, he and I would talk about it, but never once did I suggest it was a conscious decision. On his part, it clearly was not. He even tried dating a girl from work (and a rather hot red-head at that) who showed interest in him but could never find interest for her within himself.

Errr, that should say "May I ask you, Draugnar about your objection to the word Queer?"

My objection is that my friend Gary found it almost as offensive as 'fag'. Considering he was gay, if he found offense, I find offense. It implies that they are not only different from the mainstreem, but that something is wrong with them. Different =/= wrong. but I understand it has become more mainstreem even for the LGBT community to say 'queer' now.

Also, I like that we managed to so thoroughly hijack one of King Atom's hateful, biggoted threads and actually have an edifying discussion about relativism as it relates to LGBT identity politics.

Ah, yes. Generally I am in the "reclaim the word so that it can't be used as a weapon camp", and I feel that has been done quite thoroughly with the q-word that I have no problem using it (I actually think progress is being made with the word "fag" too) but I also realize that there are people who've been through a lot more than I have, and am therefore always willing to defer to their preferred word choice. So yeah, fair enough, and I'm sorry for any unintentional offense I may have caused.

I can't believe I misspelled mainstream twice in the same post.

You didn't personally offend me as I look to intent before being offended and I know that isn't the intent here on anyone's part (apart from KA and maple).

@ Mafia, may I ask if you saw my post on the dangers of subjectivity? The trouble with relativism be it distinguished with the qualifying labels ''knowledge'', ''truth'' or ''fact'' is that who gets to pick what subjects it can apply to and which not. I do, however, think that as scientists we have a couple of problems (amongst many!). Firstly, we should say more often - ''I don't know the answer to that one''. And, secondly, we are loathe to accept that today's truth/fact/knowledge will likely be tomorrow's untruth; in the final analysis that is what makes science a creative process. Note that this is not a relativist argument because one can only strive for the truth given the currently available data. The ''truth'' thus should not acquire an aura of automatic permanence, but that doesn't mean that we should cease to strive for it. Indeed my archaeologist friends are doing just that, not withstanding the arithmetic involved!

Finally, I would like to thank you and Draug for not throwing the homophobe label at me. The truth of the matter is that my argument about genetics/natural selection spring from the view that it this particular pudding has been over-egged as an all encompassing explanatory paradigm of human behaviour.

Why would I? I never thought you were anti-gay and wanted to repress them, I just figured you were inquisitive and wanted to understand and discuss the socioeconomic and environmental versus genetic predisposition. The only thing we completely disagree on is whether any aspect of non-heterosexuality is a conscious choice. The only concious choice is whether one acts on their impulses, not whether they have them. a transexual may choose to live the lifestyle and get the implants or wear falsies or they may choose to restrict their more flamboyant nature to the privacy of their home and try to blend in. That is a choice they have to make and both sides of that coin have repercussions due to the nature of society both now and in the past. Likewise, a gay man or lesbian woman may choose to stick to seeking lovers in the classifieds of their local LGBT newspaper or magazine instead of going out to the alternative lifestyle bars and nightclubs or they may even choose celibacy. But choosing the celibacy isn't choosing to be not gay. It's just choosing not to act on it. Being one of the four major alternate sexual classes is not a conscious choice any more than being heterosexual is.

Queer has actual meaning. Gender queer is someone who identifies as both male & female, or neither male or female, or for one reason or another has a very fluid gender identity. To ban its usage is to deprive such people of their right to self-identification.

Ah, but then to use it to describe a gay man would be to appropriate it for a different use.

As a catch-all for LGBTQ people it could be offensive yes, and shouldn't be used by non-members of that group to describe them, imo.

The term "homosexual" though, is far more offensive, generally speaking. It is a relic of the era when being gay was considered a mental illness.

I used to think labels were important, I mostly don't any longer. The appropriation of the ''n'' word has taught me that.

Good thing the people who declare so-called 'labels' meaningless don't get to dictate how other people feel about people misidentifying them as female when they identify as male or androgynous.

@fulhamish - I did see it. I just had some stuff to take care of and didn't have time to formulate a reply to that before I had a chance to go. I will make an attempt to do so, more fully, now.

I still think you're not quite understanding how relativism works in this context. Perhaps instead of "true" I should use the word "valid", it has less absolute connotations. I would never argue that YEC is factually true, but if you've grown up and lived in an environment where biblical literalism is the norm then believing in YEC would be valid. That is to say, under the circumstances, it is a perfectly reasonable conclusion, and not in any way evidence of stupidity or an unsound mind. Now, perhaps this distinction doesn't seem important to you, indeed you've ignored it every time I've brought it up, which has been quite frequently. But I don't think that a statement about the way in which you construct your own identity is in the same category as an ostensibly factual claim about the age of the earth. Those are different things.

This discussion is really going in too many directions for me to follow and add any interesting input. I will, however, say this in connection with my last comment (about common ethical grounds).
The idea is not that we need to all share beliefs and values. Liberalism, as a political view, says nothing of the sort. It's rather that we need to agree what the terms of the debate are. If we believe that moral values (and this is a moral debate, as far as I was understanding it then) are grounded on what is deemed the best consequences, then we need to argue about the consequences of homosexuality in our world. If we rather believe that moral values stem from our free agency and our capacity to decide for ourselves, then we need to discuss how homosexuality limits the freedom of others and whether or not such limits are acceptable.
If, however, we discuss this issue in a religious context, where values are very much as real as trees are (since both were the result of a divine agency), then we need to compare our interpretations of the relevant texts and move from there.

Different moral contexts do not mean that we should all agree. It just sets things up so that we can have a proper discussion. Liberals and consequentialists cannot agree with theists, not because of their views on homosexuality (or other) but because they do not solve moral issues IN GENERAL the same way. In fact, their ways are often incompatible. I don't believe that such radical incompatibility exists between liberalism and consequentialism, however, even if their moral intuitions are quite divergent.

@ Draug - ''The only thing we completely disagree on is whether any aspect of non-heterosexuality is a conscious choice.''

It would appear so. We ahve been having a similar debate here in thre UK (and indeed on this website) over whether the behaviour of the Tottenham rioters was ''a conscious choice'' or not. I tend to think it was because I feel that we all in the final analysis have free-will. Indeed this does seem to be the overwhelming take on the matter.

Similarly our sexual behaviour, be it homo- or hetero-sexual, is a ultimately matter of choice. Now I fully agree that some people's choices are more constrained than others, but in my view those choices remain extant.

@ Mafia, you have used this term several times - ''construct your own identity'' to apply to gay people. My point, to which you seem to be deaf, is that this is exactly what some young-Earth creationists do, whether they be raised in atheist or God-fearing homes. Why treat them differently?

As to relativism, I do not think that I can usefully add to what I have already said.

I initially wasn't going to comment on this thread - as the nature of it and the poster seemed completely puerile, asinine, and vacuous of any sincerity or intelligence.

However, I wanted to commend the way the thread has been turned around into a sensitive and earnest discussion particularly by posts by spyman, fulhamish, and Draugnar.

It strikes me that one of the most difficult things so far has been simply, even for those trying to offer the most reasoned arguments, moving the argument away from stereotypes and generic typecasting.

I'm gay but I like football.
I'm gay but I don't find the word 'queer' or 'homosexual' offensive.
I do find it offensive when people use the term 'gays' though. It isn't seen as acceptable to call black people 'blacks' or disabled people 'disableds' and I don't see why gay people should be any different. That feeds into the problem of typecasting and stereotyping - of course stereotypes exist for a reason - but it is difficult to generate a greater understanding by simply homogenising a group of people based on one identity marker. That's one of the reasons why moral absolutisms and dogmatic points of view fail - but also why it's often so difficult to argue against them.

Interesting what this has turned into without me even posting...

my question for this esteemed board is. Why do our trolls always suck so very very badly at this game?

@ Cachimbo - we recently had a very interesting discussion on this board around the issue of free-will in a context of quantum mechanics. This obviously carries religious connortations, yet people deliberately didn't bring these up on one side or the other. The result was a very informative and well-tempered debate without the initial declarations you propose. I think that, so far, this particular debate has largely followed that example and is all the better for it.

For the record when I said the thing about football, I was being sarcastic.

And fulhamish, the difference is that when a gay guy says "I was born that way." He's talking about himself, and no one else really has any right to tell him who he is or why he is who he is, if he chooses not to accept that.

When a YEC says "The earth is 6000 years old" he's not talking about himself. He does not the have right to determine or shape the identity of something that is not himself. And the last I checked the planet earth itself was not a young earth creationist.

@ Mafia
Round and round the mulberry bush we go. This is a point I made earlier, with which I thought you had agreed -

''Mafia someone's religious beliefs can be every much a part of their own individual identity as their sexual orientation. Why be precious about one and not the other?''

The fundie effort to falsely equate beliefs with biological/physiological impulses doesn't seem to ever get old, does it?

I would be interested in hearing if Fulham thinks gay conversion therapy has merit. I wouldn't be surprised if he does.