From: carlson@ab24.larc.nasa.gov (Ann Carlson)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: TWISTED LOGIC!
Date: 22 Dec 1992 19:01:55 GMT
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA  USA
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: ab24.larc.nasa.gov

In article <22DEC199212063217@zeus.tamu.edu>, crr4574@zeus.tamu.edu (LARUE, CHARLES L.) writes:
|>  
|> Also, to answer another post, yes I do know statistics.  Among other things, I
|> have a degree in Math.  So yes, I understand how statistics work.  I also
|> understand that 10% means 1 in 10.  In my experience the number is definitely
|> high.  I have gone through my high school annual and calculated the percentage
|> who are known homosexuals.  It is about 1%.  Sure, there may be some that I
|> don't about, but I know most of these people pretty well.  So maybe there were
|> twice as many homosexuals in my high school.  This makes about 2%.  

I don't understand why you feel yourself qualified to make this assessment.
Even people you know very well can manage to keep some things from you 
if they have reason to believe that they should.  I called one of my best
friends a "best friend" for about two years before he finally came out to
me as a gay man.  He said he was afraid a negative reaction would hurt our
friendship and he didn't want to risk it.  Since he doesn't exhibit any of
the stereotypical behavior straights think of when they think "gay", and
manages to keep his private life *very* private, I truly did not suspect.

I attend a medium sized Southern Baptist church.  Southern Baptists are
very anti-gay in general and I never expected there to be any gays in our
church.  There was one guy I sorta suspected, he had some of the stereotypical
mannerisms.  I progresses from wondering why he behaved like that when 
people might think he was gay, to wondering if he might possibly *be* gay.
But I would have said that no one else in the church could possible be
gay or lesbian, until somebody else accidentally came out to me (used the
unexpected gender personal pronoun when talking about a lover - then got
all confused and finally just decided to be honest with me).  When he 
and others saw that it was OK with me, some of them started to come out
to me also.  Now I know for sure of 5 gay and lesbian members of our
congretation and am convinced that there are others.  

|> I am
|> looking only at high school juniors and seniors and pretty much know what they
|> are all doing now, 7 years after graduation. 

7 years after high school graduation would put them about 25.  I know
several gays and lesbians who were not even out to themselves at that
age.  Yet, they would say that they were always gay but spent that much
time trying to deceive themselves because of their cultural conditioning.
What makes you think that *you* can tell, if they are able to deceive
even themselves?
-- 



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*Dr. Ann B. Carlson (a.b.carlson@larc.nasa.gov) *       O .
*MS 366                                         *         o  _///_ //
*NASA Langley Research Center                   *          <`)=  _<<
*Hampton, VA 23681-0001                         *             \\\  \\
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