How should society view gays and lesbians

They should be viewed as human beings that have the same rights as everyone else!

The opposite of war is not peace. It is Creation!

I forgot, one isn't without the other, even though I could be confused but not gay, but not surely gay without confused.

Better ideas?...ufff, too many, but you know its not a matter of running out of ideas. You go ahead and build your idea database tower on top of loosely sand and then ask an engineer what went wrong.

Now you went totally out of the discussion in this thread.

There is more than a force, but simple observation. A penis is not meant for the anus. Let me know when the first person gets pregnant with sperm on its mouth...it might be considered pleasure, but certainly not the fulfillment of design. Tell me, come on, will your heart start digesting food and your lungs process waste. Are you able to use simple observation ?

Thank God I'm not homosexual.

"Homosexuality Is Not Hardwired," Concludes Dr. Francis S. Collins, Head Of The Human Genome Project
By A. Dean Byrd, Ph.D, MBA, MPH

April 4, 2007 - Dr. Francis S. Collins, one of the world's leading scientists who works at the cutting edge of DNA, concluded that "there is an inescapable component of heritability to many human behavioral traits. For virtually none of them is heredity ever close to predictive."

Dr. Francis S. Collins
In reviewing the heritability (influence of genetic factors) of personality traits, Dr. Collins referenced the estimates of the percentage of various human personality traits that can be ascribed to heredity from the Bochard and McGue research.

The heritability estimates for personality traits were varied: General Cognitive Ability (50%), Extroversion (54%), Agreeableness (42%), Conscientiousness (49%), Neuroticism (48%), Openness (57%), Aggression (38%) and Traditionalism (54%).

Kirk et al. (2000) in their research using a community-based cohort of Australian twins reported a heritability estimate of 30% for homosexuality. Whitehead (1999, 2006) in his extensive review of the research cites 30% as the estimate of heritability for homosexuality as well, though he views the estimate as a maximum.

Estimates of heritability are based upon careful analyses of studies conducted with identical twins. Such studies are important and lead to the conclusion that heredity is important in many of these traits. It is important however, to note that even in such studies with identical twins, that heritability is not to be confused as inevitability.

As Dr. Collins would agree, environment can influence gene expression, and free will determines the response to whatever predispositions might be present.

Dr. Collins succinctly reviewed the research on homosexuality and offers the following: "An area of particularly strong public interest is the genetic basis of homosexuality. Evidence from twin studies does in fact support the conclusion that heritable factors play a role in male homosexuality. However, the likelihood that the identical twin of a homosexual male will also be gay is about 20% (compared with 2-4 percent of males in the general population), indicating that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations."

Dr. Collins noted that environment, particularly childhood experiences as well as the role of free will choices affect all of us in profound ways. As researchers discover increasing levels of molecular detail about inherited factors that underlie our personalities, it's critical that such data be used to illuminate, not provide support to idealogues.

Citing such dangers, Dr. Collins referred to the book written by activist Dean Hamer who declared the discovery of the God Gene (this same author also is associated with "discovering the gay gene").

Dr. Collins noted that the "evidence" in Hamer's book "grabbed headlines," but was "wildly overstated."

A reviewer in Scientific American suggested that Hamer's book on the God Gene should have been titled, "A Gene That Accounts for Less than One Percent of the Variance Found in Scores on Psychological Questionnaires Designed to Measure a Factor Called Self-Transcendence, Which Can Signify Everything from Belonging to the Green Party to Believing in ESP, According to One Unpublished, Unreplicated Study."

Unfortunately, much of the research in areas such as homosexuality, has been not only misrepresented in the media but by the scientists themselves through the tendency to overestimate the quantitative contribution of their findings.

Perhaps the best example of this media misrepresentation was the two studies conducted by J. Michael Bailey. In Bailey's first study, he reported a concordance rate of 52%. In a second study, Bailey reported a concordance of 20-37.5%, depending on how loosely you define homosexuality. The first study received a great deal of press. The second study received almost no media attention.

Bailey himself acknowledged probable selection bias in his first study---he recruited in venues where "participants considered the sexual orientation of their co-twins before agreeing to participate." The second study, using the Australian Twin Registry with its anonymous response format, made such bias unlikely.

Regarding the contributions of genetics to areas such as homosexuality, Dr. Collins concluded, "Yes, we have all been dealt a particular set of cards, and the cards will eventually be revealed. But how we play the hand is up to us." *

Bailey, Michael J., Michael P. Dunne and Nicholas G. Martin (2000). Genetic and environmental influences on sexual orientation and its correlates in an Australian twin sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 3, 524-536.

Collins, Francis S. (2006). The language of god, a scientist presents evidence for belief, New York: Free Press.

Kirk, K. M., J. M. Bailey, M. P. Dunne and N. G. Martin (2000). Measurement models for sexual orientation in a community twin sample. Behavior Genetics, 30, 4, 2000, 345-356.

Whitehead, Neil and Briar (1999). My Genes Made Me Do It! A Scientific Look at Sexual Orientation. Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Press.

Whitehead, Neil (2006). "What do first ages of SSA or OSA tell us about their origins?" In NARTH Collected Papers.

* Dr. Steve Simon (in an email correspondence) noted quite appropriately that heritability is a measure of the ratio of two variances and is not a simple proportion. A heritability index and a proportion are calculated on different scales. In this case, however, both the data from the heritability index and the proportion support the conclusion that homosexuality is not hardwired (or simply biologically fated). Though Dr. Collins offered a 20% concordance for monozygotic twins, it should be noted that this figure is the proband concordance. This is mathematically correct. However, Dr. Neil Whitehead offered a correct pairwise concordance of 11%. For the lay audience, it should be understood that different answers will emerge with different models. However, the conclusion is the same: current data provides little evidence to support the conclusion that homosexuality is hardwired.

How Might Homosexuality Develop?
Putting the Pieces Together
Excerpted from "The Complex Interaction of Genes and Environment: A Model for Homosexuality" by Jeffrey Satinover,M.D.

It may be difficult to grasp how genes, environment, and other influences interrelate to one another, how a certain factor may "influence" an outcome but not cause it, and how faith enters in. The scenario below is condensed and hypothetical, but is drawn from the lives of actual people, illustrating how many different factors influence behavior.

Note that the following is just one of the many developmental pathways that can lead to homosexuality, but a common one. In reality, every person's "road" to sexual expression is individual, however many common lengths it may share with those of others.

(1) Our scenario starts with birth. The boy (for example) who one day may go on to struggle with homosexuality is born with certain features that are somewhat more common among homosexuals than in the population at large. Some of these traits might be inherited (genetic), while others might have been caused by the "intrauterine environment" (hormones). What this means is that a youngster without these traits will be somewhat less likely to become homosexual later than someone with them.

What are these traits? If we could identify them precisely, many of them would turn out to be gifts rather than "problems," for example a "sensitive" disposition, a strong creative drive, a keen aesthetic sense. Some of these, such as greater sensitivity, could be related to - or even the same as - physiological traits that also cause trouble, such as a greater-than-average anxiety response to any given stimulus.

No one knows with certainty just what these heritable characteristics are; at present we only have hints. Were we free to study homosexuality properly (uninfluenced by political agendas) we would certainly soon clarify these factors - just as we are doing in less contentious areas. In any case, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the behavior "homosexuality" is itself directly inherited.

(2) From a very early age potentially heritable characteristics mark the boy as "different." He finds himself somewhat shy and uncomfortable with the typical "rough and tumble" of his peers. Perhaps he is more interested in art or in reading - simply because he's smart. But when he later thinks about his early life, he will find it difficult to separate out what in these early behavioral differences came from an inherited temperament and what from the next factor, namely:

(3) That for whatever reason, he recalls a painful "mismatch" between what he needed and longed for and what his father offered him. Perhaps most people would agree that his father was distinctly distant and ineffective; maybe it was just that his own needs were unique enough that his father, a decent man, could never quite find the right way to relate to him. Or perhaps his father really disliked and rejected his son's sensitivity. In any event, the absence of a happy, warm, and intimate closeness with his father led to the boy's pulling away in disappointment, "defensively detaching" in order to protect himself.

But sadly, this pulling away from his father, and from the "masculine" role model he needed, also left him even less able to relate to his male peers. We may contrast this to the boy whose loving father dies, for instance, but who is less vulnerable to later homosexuality. This is because the commonplace dynamic in the pre-homosexual boy is not merely the absence of a father - literally or psychologically - but the psychological defense of the boy against his repeatedly disappointing father. In fact, a youngster who does not form this defense (perhaps because of early-enough therapy, or because there is another important male figure in his life, or due to temperament) is much less likely to become homosexual.

Complementary dynamics involving the boy's mother are also likely to have played an important role. Because people tend to marry partners with "interlocking neuroses," the boy probably found himself in a problematic relationship with both parents.

For all these reasons, when as an adult he looked back on his childhood, the now-homosexual man recalls, "From the beginning I was always different. I never got along well with the boys my age and felt more comfortable around girls." This accurate memory makes his later homosexuality feel convincingly to him as though it was "preprogrammed" from the start.

(4) Although he has "defensively detached" from his father, the young boy still carries silently within him a terrible longing for the warmth, love, and encircling arms of the father he never did nor could have. Early on, he develops intense, nonsexual attachments to older boys he admires - but at a distance, repeating with them the same experience of longing and unavailability. When puberty sets in, sexual urges - which can attach themselves to any object, especially in males - rise to the surface and combine with his already intense need for masculine intimacy and warmth. He begins to develop homosexual crushes. Later he recalls, "My first sexual longings were directed not at girls but at boys. I was never interested in girls."

Psychotherapeutic intervention at this point and earlier can be successful in preventing the development of later homosexuality. Such intervention is aimed in part at helping the boy change his developing effeminate patterns (which derive from a "refusal" to identify with the rejected father), but more critically, it is aimed at teaching his father - if only he will learn - how to become appropriately involved with and related to his son.

(5) As he matures (especially in our culture where early, extramarital sexual experiences are sanctioned and even encouraged), the youngster, now a teen, begins to experiment with homosexual activity. Or alternatively his needs for same-sex closeness may already have been taken advantage of by an older boy or man, who preyed upon him sexually when he was still a child. (Recall the studies that demonstrate the high incidence of sexual abuse in the childhood histories of homosexual men.) Or oppositely, he may avoid such activities out of fear and shame in spite of his attraction to them. In any event, his now-sexualized longings cannot merely be denied, however much he may struggle against them. It would be cruel for us at this point to imply that these longings are a simple matter of "choice."

Indeed, he remembers having spent agonizing months and years trying to deny their existence altogether or pushing them away, to no avail. One can easily imagine how justifiably angry he will later be when someone casually and thoughtlessly accuses him of "choosing" to be homosexual. When he seeks help, he hears one of two messages, and both terrify him; either, "Homosexuals are bad people and you are a bad person for choosing to be homosexual. There is no place for you here and God is going to see to it that you suffer for being so bad;" or "Homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable. You were born that way. Forget about your fairytale picture of getting married and having children and living in a little house with a white picket fence. God made you who you are and he/she destined you for the gay life. Learn to enjoy it."

(6) At some point, he gives in to his deep longings for love and begins to have voluntary homosexual experiences. He finds - possibly to his horror - that these old, deep, painful longings are at least temporarily, and for the first time ever, assuaged.

Although he may also therefore feel intense conflict, he cannot help admit that the relief is immense. This temporary feeling of comfort is so profound - going well beyond the simple sexual pleasure that anyone feels in a less fraught situation - that the experience is powerfully reinforced. However much he may struggle, he finds himself powerfully driven to repeat the experience. And the more he does, the more it is reinforced and the more likely it is he will repeat it yet again, though often with a sense of diminishing returns.

(7) He also discovers that, as for anyone, sexual orgasm is a powerful reliever of distress of all sorts. By engaging in homosexual activities he has already crossed one of the most critical and strongly enforced boundaries of sexual taboo. It is now easy for him to cross other taboo boundaries as well, especially the significantly less severe taboo pertaining to promiscuity. Soon homosexual activity becomes the central organizing factor in his life as he slowly acquires the habit of turning to it regularly - not just because of his original need for fatherly warmth of love, but to relieve anxiety of any sort.

(8) In time, his life becomes even more distressing than for most. Some of this is in fact, as activists claim, because all-too-often he experiences from others a cold lack of sympathy or even open hostility. The only people who seem really to accept him are other gays, and so he forms an even stronger bond with them as a "community." But it is not true, as activists claim, that these are the only or even the major stresses. Much distress is caused simply by his way of life - for example, the medical consequences, AIDS being just one of many (if also the worst). He also lives with the guilt and shame that he inevitably feels over his compulsive, promiscuous behavior; and too over the knowledge that he cannot relate effectively to the opposite sex and is less likely to have a family (a psychological loss for which political campaigns for homosexual marriage, adoption, and inheritance rights can never adequately compensate).

However much activists try to normalize for him these patterns of behavior and the losses they cause, and however expedient it may be for political purposes to hide them from the public-at-large, unless he shuts down huge areas of his emotional life he simply cannot honestly look at himself in this situation and feel content.

And no one - not even a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, sexually insecure "homophobe" - is nearly so hard on him as he is on himself. Furthermore, the self-condemning messages that he struggles with on a daily basis are in fact only reinforced by the bitter self-derogating wit of the very gay culture he has embraced. The activists around him keep saying that it is all caused by the "internalized homophobia" of the surrounding culture, but he knows that it is not.

The stresses of "being gay" lead to more, not less, homosexual behavior. This principle, perhaps surprising to the layman (at least to the layman who has not himself gotten caught up in some pattern, of whatever type) is typical of the compulsive or addictive cycle of self-destructive behavior; wracking guilt, shame, and self-condemnation only causes it to increase. It is not surprising that people therefore turn to denial to rid themselves of these feelings, and he does too. He tells himself, "It is not a problem, therefore there is no reason for me to feel so bad about it."

(9) After wrestling with such guilt and shame for so many years, the boy, now an adult, comes to believe, quite understandably - and because of his denial, needs to believe - "I can't change anyway because the condition is unchangeable." If even for a moment he considers otherwise, immediately arises the painful query, "Then why haven't I...?" and with it returns all the shame and guilt.

Thus, by the time the boy becomes a man, he has pieced together this point of view: "I was always different, always an outsider. I developed crushes on boys from as long as I can remember and the first time I fell in love it was with a boy, not a girl. I had no real interest in members of the opposite sex. Oh, I tried all right - desperately. But my sexual experiences with girls were nothing special. But the first time I had homosexual sex it just 'felt right.' So it makes perfect sense to me that homosexuality is genetic. I've tried to change - God knows how long I struggled - and I just can't. That's because it's not changeable. Finally, I stopped struggling and just accepted myself the way I am."

(10) Social attitudes toward homosexuality will play a role in making it more or less likely that the man will adopt an "inborn and unchangeable" perspective, and at what point in his development. It is obvious that a widely shared and propagated worldview that normalizes homosexuality will increase the likelihood of his adopting such beliefs, and at an earlier age. But it is perhaps less obvious - it follows from what we have discussed above - that ridicule, rejection, and harshly punitive condemnation of him as a person will be just as likely (if not more likely) to drive him into the same position.

(11) If he maintains his desire for a traditional family life, the man may continue to struggle against his "second nature." Depending on whom he meets, he may remain trapped between straight condemnation and gay activism, both in secular institutions and in religious ones. The most important message he needs to hear is that "healing is possible."

(12) If he enters the path to healing, he will find that the road is long and difficult - but extraordinarily fulfilling. The course to full restoration of heterosexuality typically lasts longer than the average American marriage - which should be understood as an index of how broken all relationships are today.

From the secular therapies he will come to understand what the true nature of his longings are, that they are not really about sex, and that he is not defined by his sexual appetites. In such a setting, he will very possibly learn how to turn aright to other men to gain from them a genuine, nonsexualized masculine comradeship and intimacy; and how to relate aright to woman, as friend, lover, life's companion, and, God willing, mother of his children.

Of course the old wounds will not simply disappear, and later in times of great distress the old paths of escape will beckon. But the claim that this means he is therefore "really" a homosexual and unchanged is a lie. For as he lives a new life of ever-growing honesty, and cultivates genuine intimacy with the woman of his heart, the new patterns will grow ever stronger and the old ones engraved in the synapses of his brain ever weaker.

In time, knowing that they really have little to do with sex, he will even come to respect and put to good use what faint stirrings remain of the old urges. They will be for him a kind of storm-warning, a signal that something is out of order in his house, that some old pattern of longing and rejection and defense is being activated. And he will find that no sooner does he set his house in order that indeed the old urges once again abate. In his relations to others - as friend, husband, professional - he will now have a special gift. What was once a curse will have become a blessing, to himself and to others.

Millions of words, sources, quotes, won't take away the simply obvious...

Let me know where in life does going against design was healthy? Have you tried breathing water with your lungs? Homosexuals are going against design. Is this ignorant thinking? I and billions more think not. This is obviously why humans are still around; because most use some sort of discretion and reason. Also because homosexuals, gays, etc, are not more than 2% of humanity.

Once again, a reminder:
Legs are for walking,
eyes to see,
ears for hearing,
men to women.

For every design there is purpose.

If your design is to go against design, let it be, but don't drag others with you.

Did i miss something...shouldn't gayminded be narrowminded?

Gay and lesbian people are really no different from anyone else. Sodomy is sin, but so is stealing, lying, killing, etc. As far as I can tell, no one is immune from sin or has any right to look down on others for it. On the other hand, I wouldn't make any laws saying that it is okay to steal(this would put a lot of businesses out of business); I wouldn't make it legal for murder, either; and I wouldn't make it legal to soddomize either . But treating someone as scum because they are gay or lesbian is wrong. A person is a lot more than just their sexuality.

Sorry what I said offended you; I am not against you or hostile to you at all. I am hostile to hypocrites---the people who are out there stealing and killing and hurting other people and then pointing their fingers at other people and accusing them. Jesus was against those who accused others of wrongdoing-He said concerning the woman caught in the act of adultry: "Let him who has no sin cast the first stone." In other words, what right does anyone have to point their fingers at you and condemn you, anyway? Even God does not condemn you. He just wants your love because he loves you. He wants you to know he loves you. Religious people and hypocrites were always the ones repulsive to Jesus not the sinners. Those religious people and hypocrites are still around today making accusations and pointing fingers. So don't you ever believe it if anyone tells you that you aren't good enough or worthy to be treated in a respectable manner. And you are right btw, sodomy is heterosexual in nature too. Love is the greatest force in the world. And God is love; he is real and he would welcome you with open arms and do all kinds of things for you even if you aren't perfect(who is?)

i think that if gay rights are accepted, gay marriages should be too because there can't be one without the other.

The point of this blog is that the author appears to be supportive of gay rights however, the title of this blog kinda rubs me the wrong way. I'm sure there was no intention of it however, 'how should society view gays and lesbians?' To me, being a lesbian, I read that as 'how should I be viewed' by you... heterosexuals. I read it as... let the heterosexuals 'view' me first. Maybe I'm analyzing it a bit too deep. Regardless, this blog can go on and on disputing what is 'normal' and really, what the hell is NORMAL in this day in age. What's 'normal' to you may not be 'normal' to me. There may that definitive defition in good old Webster's Dictionary however, how often do we, as a society relate that in everyday lives.
Different strokes for different folks. If my love is not hurting you but you don't like it, so be it. That's your opinion and you can choose to walk the other way. Remember, opinions are like assholes.. everyone has them.

JM

I agree because I am SICK AND TIRED of everyone bringing religion into this situation. How will it affect YOU (hetero.) is a homosexual gets married. YOU probably wont even know about it anyway. I think people just want to be able to say they are 4 or against something when they need to think about it and put it in real perspective.

~*~THE LOVELY ONE~*~
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/renee-edelin

I don't have a problem with homosexuals making out in public...I have a problem with PEOPLE making out in public. It's gross. Your sex life is private, and it should be kept that way. Nobody really cares, nobody wants to see a couple sticking their tongues down each other's throats and groping each other. Keep it behind closed doors or don't do it at all.

I think that PDA is perfectly ok as long as it doesnt involve anything sexual

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In my opinion am all out for gays and lesbians i get along with them and i have had long conversation of all types with them. They are no differnt than us, but the only thing i dislike is the fact that some lesbian or gays just start kissing in public, those really long kisses, well that is disgusting to me because not even i do it with my boyfriend because that's disrespectful.
Great Article By the way