From: dac@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (David A Cooke)
Subject: Re: APA and Homosexuality
Organization: City College of New York - Science Computing Facility
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 03:06:25 GMT

In article <C0Aww2.M6q@umassd.edu> pmsc13sg@UMASSD.EDU writes:
>	There's a big difference bet/people who feel homosexual emotions and 
>know that something is very wrong and, alternatively, those who create a 
>politically-charged "lifestyle" from those emotions. I wanted to be a jet pilot 
>as a child but Momma Nature (myopia) said no. (I hope someone who wears glasses 
>and is a jet pilot doesn't write in) It is proper to feel pity for sick people 
>but not for those who glorify and politicalize sickness. As far as i know, even 
>anti-reason societies oppose, to varying degrees, homosexuality. We can guess 
>whay would happen to homo.advocates in the allegedly pro-emotion cultures of 
>the non-western world. They would be broiled and their privates fed to animals!


	Probably true.  Which is why I wouldn't cite any of these cultures
to support any argument other than that these societies are brutal and
primitive.

>But homosexuals are individuals and have a right to  have their absurdity 
>protected (not privileged) by the government. They are still sick, tho. And 
>definitely not on religious grounds. On the grounds of reality as known by 
>reason

	Interesting use of the term "reason."  You realize, of course,
that your line of "reasoning" could be used, with only minor modifications,
to argue against a whole range of human activities that we "weren't designed"
to do.  If you want to outlaw everything from bypass surgery to processed
food in addition to homosexuality, I'll have a little more intellectual 
respect for your argument.

>	Also, assholes are not naturally stretchable like vaginas, leading to 
>homo. use of poppers to psychologically and physiologically ease the act that 
>dare not name itself...Ohhhh! (That last sentence feels bizarre) Poppers, as 
>the Centers for Disease Control recognized in the mid-80s, used for a lengthy 
>time by homosexuals, caused AIDS.

	Care to cite the CDC report in which they arrived at this conclusion,
or for that mattter, a study on the use of poppers among homosexuals
relative to the general population?

> So it's not homosexuality nor needles but the 
>long-term drug lifestyle of malnutrition, sleeplessness, and chronic tension.

	This statement completely ignores the epidemiology of AIDS.  You
may believe it if you choose, but it has no basis in fact.  The most
cursory examination of epidemiologic data would make that obvious.

>Perhaps the decadence of the Roman Empire and Weimar Germany are good warnings 
>against emotion-driven behavior.

	The decadance of Weimar Germany?  Are you sure you didn't have 
Nazi Germany in mind?  I think it is a far better example of emotion-driven
behavior than any other period of German history.  They executed homosexuals,
incidentally.

> Reason or religious tradition are the better 
>alternatives. We were a rational culture but now are passing thru hedonism, 
>perhaps on the way to religiuos tradition. I, for one hope we return to reason 
>via Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.


	Well, the argument can indeed be made that our culture is passing
into hedonism.  If you feel this is so, and you feel it will lead to our
downfall, you should stop worrying about homosexuality if you want to solve
the problem rationally.  Homosexuality is a minor sideshow compared to the
hedonistic activities of the heterosexual population.


		-David Cooke
-- 
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David A. Cooke |First-Year Medical Student| (1) dac@sci.ccny.cuny.edu 
               |  University of Michigan  | (2) David.A.Cooke@um.cc.umich.edu
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Newsgroups: talk.politics.medicine