Study: Gay Parents More Likely to Have Gay Kids

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Brian Foley, Oct 18, 2010.

  1. Brian Foley REFUSE - RESIST Valued Senior Member

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    Why is there such negative reaction about a study showing gay parents are more likely to raise gay children, is it because the results in this study indicate homosexuality is a choice?

    I think because this strikes at the heart of the argument that Homosexuality is not a choice, in the American Proposition 8 marriage lawsuit, the judge stated there was no evidence that adopted children of homosexuals are more likely to produce homosexuals via adoption.
     
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  3. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    Great. So what does this mean?
    I know! All gayz are frenzied pedophiles! That's what it's got to mean!!!
     
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  5. Mr MacGillivray Banned Banned

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    The study is probably a case of flawed statistics, since if this actually would be true, there wouldn't be any gay people any more over the course of a few thousand years.
     
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  7. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    A 'choice'?

    If a study said that red-haired parents were likely to have red-haired offspring, would you think that was the child's choice, or because of some hereditary factors?
     
  8. WillNever Valued Senior Member

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    I didn't read all of the article but is this about adopted children of gays or biological offspring of gays?

    If it is the latter, this also might be evidence of a genetic component. Also, be aware that this is a meta-analysis. That means that the authors didn't conduct any actual experiments. Instead, they chose sets of data from other studies in order to come to a conclusion. This study is interesting but it isn't of much use until it is reproduced elsewhere.

    As well, this is not groundbreaking. The APA has long held that gayness is caused by a combination of biology and environment.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2010
  9. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Being gay is not a choice, but admitting it and living it is. Many gay kids repress themselves and try to fit in; I have a gay friend who married a woman and had five children before she died and he finally came out.

    Gay kids raised by gay parents will not be (consciously or unconsciously) guided by their parents into "acting straight." That's where your statistics come from.
     
  10. Anarcho Union No Gods No Masters Registered Senior Member

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    The fact of the matter is, what the hell does it matter? Gay, straight, bi, who gives a damn?
    We arent studying "straight couples are more likely to raise straight children" so why should homosexuals be targeted?
    We need to get over this, it shouldnt be politics. Just like being green. Why has it become a right vs left political topic?
    Is it just me, or do political parties just like picking a fight?
     
  11. visceral_instinct Monkey see, monkey denigrate Valued Senior Member

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    If homosexuality were a choice, I'm fairly sure that all those homosexuals who got persecuted for not managing to pretend well enough that they were straight would have simply chosen to be straight and never suffered more abuse again.

    I think yes, political parties just enjoy picking a fight.
     
  12. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Everything on which people disagree is, by definition, politics. The key to being a great politician is to get people to disagree on something that they used to agree on.
    People are confused about politics because they've been convinced that it's a one-dimensional spectrum, left-liberal or right-conservative. It's not that simple. There's a second dimension to it, measuring how much power the government has, or should have, to make things the way people want them. Fascists, the ultimate conseratives, and socialists, the ultimate liberals, both agree on one thing: We must hand over all of our power, rights and money to the government because only they know how to make things right. That's called statism, and if you chart politics on a two-dimensional grid it goes at the bottom of the Y axis. The opposite is called libertarianism, or "classic liberalism" since the leftists stole our name, and we libertarians naturally put that at the top of the Y axis. No matter how well-meaning a government is, and no matter how much they agree with your personal political views, they are not magicians and they can't make everything right. Moreover, the more powerful they become, the more they are seduced by their own power and the less they care about you.

    Many libertarians pretend to be anarchists because they'll never be given a chance to prove it, but in reality most of us understand that we need government. We just don't think we need so goddamned much of it. Parents should decide whether their kids have to wear helmets on their bicycles in rural areas with no traffic, not some career bureaucrat a thousand miles away whose kids ride in a bullet-proof limo.
    I lived in Hollywood for ten years so I got to know a lot of gay people. Every single time the question came up, they stared at the questioner and said, "Are you fucking serious??? Do you really think I or anyone else would have chosen this life of secrecy and persecution?"
     
  13. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    For most of human history there were very strong incentives for gay people to procreate even if they weren't so into the sex itself. You need kids to help run the farm, take care of you when you're old, go kill those jackasses in the next village, etc. A few thousand years ago, a rational gay person would probably decide to have kids anyway.
     
  14. superstring01 Moderator

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    Beat me to it.

    Also, even if it were a choice (and, I wonder when I made the choice, while sleeping with chicks. . . ), so what?

    ~String
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    If it is a choice made by the child, then it becomes quite reasonable to ask how much influence parents, teachers, friends, scholars, celebrities, politicians, priests, the media and everyone else should have and do have on that choice.

    That's the whole point of this thread. Is a child more likely to become gay under the unavoidable daily influence of his gay parents, or was he born that way and all anyone can do is tell him he's not, or at least encourage him to pretend that he's not?
     
  16. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    The conclusion that can be surmised by this study.
    1) Gay parent when procreating (how ever they can) are more likely to have gay children. Not a surprise if we assume predisposition to homosexuality is genetic or In utero.
    2) Children with foster gays parents are not measured in this study and still no evidence that gay parents can transmit homosexuality by a non-genetic mechanism

    The question of choice is a difficult one, certainly a sexually liberal society and parents without repression of homosexuality allows people to make the choice, but who makes such choices? Don't these people not need to have at least a bisexual predisposition to even make the choice to begin with? I ask my self how could I make such a choice, I can't get arose by sight or idea of homosexual sex of my gender, I've seen many attractive men but I never had the urge to fuck them, never got arose by them, how do I choose to have such urges and arousal? I figure you must be capable of having such urges to begin with to make such a choice. After that of course if your society is repressive you will choose not to do such things, and if the society is the opposite people will be more prone to be who they are really are.
     
  17. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    I don't think that even the most hard-headed, anti-gay christian fundi thinks that gay people literally make a conscious, willful decision to be gay. What they usually mean when they call being gay a "choice" is that they think it's possible for a gay person to decide to not be gay, and successfully become straight with enough prayer, counselling, mental discipline, etc. It's much the same as if someone says "being fat is a choice." I don't personally agree with that view, but straw-man attacks on other people's positions are usually a waste of everyone's time. Except for the purpose of allowing oneself to feel smugly superior to their idiot opponents, anyway.
     
  18. DRZion Theoretical Experimentalist Valued Senior Member

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    I do think that some homosexuals consciously make this choice. Working with the stereotype of the man-hating woman, she chooses to be a lesbian to avoid contact with men. Sometimes its a matter of convenience. Choosing not to admit it is a personal choice too, which should be respected like most choices in people's personal lives. IMO
     
  19. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    She could not make that choice if she did not already have the ability to get aroused by and sexually attracted to other women.
     
  20. DRZion Theoretical Experimentalist Valued Senior Member

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    So we have a subset of people who can make this choice, everyone outside of which is 100% heterosexual. But to address your statement, I do think that its a matter of conditioning and training. I think that even the most stalwart heterosexuals could be brainwashed/converted/persuaded to be gay given enough time and effort.
     
  21. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    One study does not constitute scientific consensus.
     
  22. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    So your saying through "training" I can somehow get arouse by men and have the urge to have sex with them? I wonder if it would work in reverse can we train a homosexual not to get aroused by their own gender, not to have sexual urges,heck if we can train for that can we also train people not go get tired, not to get hungry, not to feel pain? Truly I must know how this training you suggest could work, because all I can think of is actually removing sections of the lower brain where these urges and emotions stem from!
     
  23. krazedkat IQ of "Highly Gifted"-"Genius" Registered Senior Member

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    Wait wait wait, Kansas? No that whole thing makes sense -.-. It's like Texas, an intellectual midget (sorry for the somewhat deregetory term).
     

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