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Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (866)	9/7/1999 3:54:00 PM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6418

racism has nothing to do with homosexuality . Homosexuality is not a race.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (866)	9/7/1999 6:23:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6418

It wasn't what I intended to say. If that's what you heard me say, I did a bad job explaining myself. But this is complicated stuff. What I tried to do was differentiate between characteristics and behaviors. Race and gender are characteristics. Except perhaps on the fringes where you can "pass," or in the case of certain cosmetic surgery or sex change operations, there is nothing you can do about it. At the moment you are born -- people can look at you and say "Ah ha, a girl, or a boy, or a white, or a black," etc. But they cannot look at you in your cradle and say "Ah ha, a gay, or a lesbian, or a risk taker, or a future lawyer," etc. As a person grows up their genetic makeup starts to predispose them toward certain beahviors -- shyness, or risk taking, or nurturing, or cruelty, or whatever. If their behaviors are too much on the fringes, parents try to guide them into the fairly broad but still bounded path of "acceptable" behaviors. For example, if a boy delights in shooting toy guns at people the parents may steer him toward (or, depending on their proclivities, away from) playing cowboys and indians and give him toy guns, but I hope won't give the five year old a real loaded gun to play with and shoot somebody with. The risk taker may be encouraged to play football, but not to jump off 100 foot cliffs without a parachute. Etc. After which digression, to which, though, there was a point, back to homosexuality. As I said, nobody knows that a boy or girl lying in the cradle is or is not predisposed to homosexuality. As I understand the process, which I admit is based on limited reading and talking with homosexual friends (and client I had who engaged my services in the very painful break-up of a long term homosexual relationship) the child gradually comes to know that he or she has different than usual feelings toward members of their and the other gender. Over time, the person must decide whether to behave in a homosexual manner or behave in a hererosexual manner. That sounds a little cold and too rational for a very emotional process, but it is a decision making process. Now: does society have the right to punish those who choose to accept their genetic predisposition to homosexuality? That's a question I am quite deliberately not going to answer here, because it isn't part of the point I was trying to make. Instead, I will ask this: if gender abuse is also, as it appears to be, based on a genetic predisposition, does society have the right to punish those who translate that predisposition into behavior and beat up their girlfriends or boyfriends and spouses? That one I WILL answer: unequivocally yes. IMO, the fact that a person may be genetically predisposed to gender abuse is NOT a justification for beating people up. Period. They simply have to deny their predisposition and behave in a way society considers acceptable, or they will go to jail. I assume (I hope!) you agree with this. This is what makes behavior-based genetic predispositions fundamentally different from established genetic characteristics such as race and gender. Nobody in his or her right mind would say that a woman had to deny and overcome her gender and pretend she was a man or go to jail. But people in their right minds can and will say that a person with a genetic predisposition toward gender abuse must deny and overcome that predisposition or go to jail. That's the distinction I was trying to make as a principle. If you understand it, and agree that the distinction in principle is a fair distinction to make, then we can move on to the harder question: how does society decide which predispositions can acceptably be translated into behaviors, and which cannot. And in our specific case, on which side of this line does homosexuality fall?