Stupid Questions, Very Stupid Questions

So, some quite stupid people decided to create a list of 28 quite stupid questions about gay people, in the hopes that somehow they are so unanswerable that everyone would instantly convert to their ideology simply because they can't answer those questions.

Before I answer their unanswerable questions, let me point out that science actually determined that homosexuality was biologically based...

In 1972. Dr. Ingebog Ward was doing testing on pregnant rats, and discovered, quite by accident that pregnant rats when placed under stress would produce male rats that would then have sex with the other male rats, and not the female rats. In fact, let's quote Dr. Ward's study all the way from the distant seventies:

"Abstract: Male rats were exposed to prenatal (i.e. before they were born) or postnatal (after they were born) stress, or both. The prenatally stressed males showed low levels of male copulatory behavior and high rates of female lordotic responding (i.e. "lordotic" refers to mounting behavior which usually occurs during mating). Postnatal stress had no effect. The modifications are attributed to stress-mediated alterations in the ratio of adrenal to gonadal androgens during critical stages of sexual differentiation. Specifically, it appears that stress causes an increase in the weak adrenal androgen, androstendione, from the maternal fetal adrenal cortices, or both, and a concurrent decrease in the potent gonadal androgen, testosterone."

~ "Parental Stress Feminizes and Demasculizes the Behavior of Males", Science, January 7, 1972 (83-84).

If you really want to, you can go in your garage and make all sorts of gay little animals. In fact, I'm friends with one psychologist who has.

When scientists say they haven't discovered the "cause" of homosexuality, they mean exactly that. They haven't figured out the exact series of trigger mechanisms, although they are quite close (specifically it seems that pre-natal hormones cause epigenetic modification on the fetus, the same process that causes identical twins to have different finger prints). It does not mean they don't think it is biologically based.

With that out of the way... let's get to some stupidity.

1. GENETIC HOMOSEXUALITY: If heterosexual behavior produces offspring and homosexual behavior does not, then how can it be said that homosexuals are born that way since their genetic tendencies would have died out long ago through natural selection?

This is based on a serious misunderstanding of how evolution works. Most people have the idea that evolution works in such a manner that whatever helps a individual pass on its genes will drive the process. This could not be more false, and to prove it is false, all one has to look at is an anthill.

Over 99% of ants born do not pass on their genetic material. That's because evolution could not give crap-all about individuals. The driving force behind evolution is the mother, and whatever is in the best interests of the mother will warp both the children and the males, often in ways that are against their evolutionary interests. Hence why mothers will eat their young, why entire colonies of insects will not produce offspring except for one, and why foolishly ostentatious male birds like the peacock exist.

If being gay had no affect on the mother's chances of reproducing, it would get passed down generation after generation after generation without so much as a care in the world. And there are some indications that is what happened. The sisters of gay men often are what is considered hyper-fertile, and thus what lowers the evolutionary fitness of the boy children increases the evolutionary fitness of the female ones, something quite common in evolution.

2. GENETIC HOMOSEXUALITY: If sexual orientation is a genetic predisposition and the homosexual community wants cultural and social support since, as they say, “they are born that way,” then shouldn’t they also support “homophobia” since it could be legitimately argued that homophobes are born with heterosexual-orientation and possess a natural aversion to homosexuality?

No, it can't be legitimately argued that there is a natural aversion to homosexuality. Humans feel a natural aversion to a very small number of things. All of them because it indicates poison or disease. And we're not talking subtle things, in order to kick in our natural disgust reflex, something has to be pretty rotten.

Most of what we feel an aversion to involves things that we learn via our culture. For instance in Morocco they use the left hand for certain bathroom cleanliness activities, and so they have a "natural aversion" to eating with the left hand. Unless you can prove that gay sex falls into the 30-day-old rotting meat category, it's pretty obvious it is in the eating with your left hand category.

3. GENETIC HOMOSEXUALITY: If heterosexual behavior produces offspring and homosexual behavior does not, then doesn’t it make sense to say that homosexuality is a learned behavior since the implication is that pro-homosexual genes would have been wiped out generations ago?

Repeat question! Failure to understand evolution!

4. GENETIC HOMOSEXUALITY: If this is not the case, can you please explain the mechanism by which “homosexual genes” aid in survivability and are then passed on to descendants?

Look at the assumptions! The simplified genes aspect allows for your simplified view of evolution. What if it isn't strictly genetic, and instead is, much like autism, handedness, and finger prints a combination of factors?

Going back to Dr. Ward, the two most common causes of stress for animals are a lack of food and over crowding. That situation would indicate that the best way to preserve the family genetic line (for the mother, remember this is all about the mother) would be to have unattached males aid in hunting and gathering, protecting resources, and raising children. In black swan communities, fully 25% of all pairings are male/male for this reason. They successfully raise almost ten times as many chicks because two males can secure a larger territory with better resources, and neither of them are exhausted from giving birth.

Having more children that die of starvation is much less preferable than having a smaller number of children that thrive while everyone else's children die of starvation.

5. GENETIC PEDOPHILIA: If genetic predisposition is used as a support for stating that homosexual behavior is morally okay (because they are born that way), then shouldn’t pedophilia behavior also be considered morally okay since they claim they were born that way?

Pedophilia is having sex with children. Whether it is okay or not has nothing to do with being born that way.

This is one of those weird "end runs" around the actual language of the Bible that certain Christians preform. The conversation often goes something like this:

AGC (anti-gay christian): Homosexuality is unnatural, therefore it is a sin.
Me: No, it's not unnatural. It's found in nature all the time.
AGC: So? Animals kill their children in nature. Are you saying that's okay?
Me: Infanticide's morality has nothing to do with it being natural or not. No one's arguing, nor has anyone ever argued that infanticide okay because it happens in nature. But you were the one who staked you objection to gay people based on it being natural or not, that's your basis, not mine.

6. GENETIC PEDOPHILIA: If pedophiles are morally wrong because they violate the wishes and will of the younger individuals, then at what age is a person too young to engage in sexual activity in accordance with his or her natural predisposition (i.e., being born that way)?

Historically it has depended upon the culture. 18 works as a nice point at which psychological development reaches a critical stage where it can be considered more like adulthood than childhood, if we must pin down a specific point.

7. CONSENT: In light of being born with a sexual orientation (like homosexuality, frotteurism1, voyeurism2), if pedophiles are morally wrong because they are acting out their sexual orientation upon minors who are not mature enough to consent, then what do you do when minors become mature enough to consent and also claim they are born wanting a sexual relationship with an older person?

Neither frotteruism nor voyeurism are sexual orientations. Both frotteurism and voyeurism are paraphilias. Paraphilias are more commonly known as "fetishes" and they are just things that, due to psychological development, resulted in sexual arousal in certain people. One of the most odious things the anti-gays have done lately is to claim that paraphilias are sexual orientations, they're not and they never will be. Sexual orientation is specifically and only who you experience sexual and romantic attachment to. Hence why people with shoe fetishes don't want to marry shoes, they still want to marry women...who happen to ware the type of shoe they love.

With that out of the way, this question is unbelievably stupid. Clearing up the needlessly opaque language designed to occlude just how stupid it is, the question is asking "what if a person reaches the age of consent and decides to have sex with someone older than they are." Well, that's pretty obvious, they can go have sex with that person.

8. CONSENT: If what is sexually permissible is what is based on consent, then what do you do with with younger-than-18 adolescents who consent to having sex with much older people? Is it okay?

In some places it is considered "okay," including some places in the United States. Following the law is generally the way to go.

9. MORAL STANDARD: From where do homosexuals get their moral standard by which they can judge what is sexually right and wrong?

It's called "harm." When something causes objective, measurable, unwanted harm to someone else, that's where you draw the line between right and wrong.

10. MORAL STANDARD SOCIETY: If homosexuals derive their standard of morality from society, then what justifies the idea that society is the proper place to obtain a standard of morality?

I don't. I don't know anyone who does. If gay people derived their standard of morality from society, then all gay people would consider being gay immoral. Because society for the last 2,000 years (and especially the last 100) that being gay is immoral. As they don't consider it immoral, obviously they don't derive their standard of morality from society.

This question is so stupid even a second of thought would falsify it.

11. MORAL STANDARD SOCIETY: If homosexuals derive their standard of morality from society, then which society has the right moral system if it contradicts another?

Again, based on a faulty premise. Although I do love how a group of people who absolutely believe they have the "right moral system" would think to bring up the impossibility of deciding which society has the right moral system.

12. MORAL STANDARD SOCIETY: If homosexuals derive their standard of morality from society, then are the morals derived from society obligatory to all members of society?

Still based on a mindbogglingly faulty premise.

13. MORAL STANDARD SOCIETY: If homosexuals derive their standard of morality from society, then what gives them the moral right to change society’s morals when the majority condemn homosexuality as morally wrong?

In this question you literally falsify your entire line of argument for the past four questions. You openly admit that you know this, and yet you chose to ask them anyways. Why?

14. MORAL STANDARD PERSONAL: If homosexuals derive their standard of morality from themselves, then do they have the right to judge the morals of anyone else, including those who disagree with them?

See "harm" above. Yes, they do have that right. If you are causing objective, verifiable harm, they have every right to judge.

15. MORAL STANDARD PERSONAL: If homosexuals derive their standard of morality from themselves, then do they have the right to condemn those whom they label “homophobes” when they are just expressing their personal moral preference?

See "harm" above.

You do realize that those who are "just expressing their personal moral preference" have resulted in at least a dozen suicides over the past couple of years? That behavior deserves to be condemned.

Again, see "harm" above.

16. MORAL STANDARD PERSONAL: If homosexuals say that “homophobes” are wrong because they want to restrict homosexuals’ rights and impose their values on them, then what gives the homosexuals the right to impose their sexual values on others?

Please offer an explanation of how any gay person has imposed his or her "sexual values" on anyone else.

Think about it like this:

If the anti-gays have their way: they are still free to marry the opposite sex, gay people can't marry the same sex.
If gay people have their way: they are free to marry the same sex, while anti-gays are still free to marry the opposite sex.

Gay rights are not an imposition on you, unless you believe an imposition consists of someone, somewhere in the universe doing something you disapprove of. And that's not an imposition.

17. MORAL STANDARD PERSONAL: If homosexuals derive their standard of morality from themselves, then do they have the right to try and change society to suit their own moral preferences?

Again, this question invalidates itself. If gay people derived their standard of morality from themselves, they would have a moral imperative to try to change society to their own moral preferences. Seriously, did you not notice that when you wrote it?

18. MORAL STANDARD PERSONAL: If homosexuals derive their standard of morality from themselves, and they also believe they have the right to try and change society to suit their own moral preferences, then how is that not arrogant?

What the hell does arrogance have to do with anything? This whole thing has always been ridiculous, but this really crosses a line. This question is just a snippy "Take That" over how you perceive gay people sounding. Which, of course, is just projection. You were the one who claimed that someone, somewhere doing something you disagreed with was an imposition to you. That's arrogance.

19. CIVIL RIGHTS: If civil rights should be granted to homosexuals because of their sexual orientation (i.e., sexual behavior), then shouldn’t equal civil rights be granted to those of Alternate Sexual Orientations (ASO) such as pedophilia, incest, voyeurism, exhibitionism, sadism, fetishes, frotteurism, necrophilia, autoerotic asphyxiation, etc.? If not, why not?

This is really descending into every single stupid rhetorical line that has ever been uncritically said. No, sexual orientation is not sexual behavior. No one thinks that. If you thought that, it would mean that you think believe gay people are straight except for when they are physically having sex with another member of the same sex, and afterwards they would be straight again. You would beleive that there can't be such a thing as a gay virgin. You don't believe that. You don't at all.

Again, see my discussion of paraphilia above. None of those are sexual orientations.

20. CIVIL RIGHTS: If civil rights should be granted to homosexuals based specifically on their sexual orientation (behavior), then shouldn’t equal civil rights also be granted to heterosexuals based specifically on their sexual orientation (behavior)? If not, why not?

Again, you don't believe being gay is a behavior, you believe it is an identity, quit lying about that fact.

What, exactly and precisely, civil rights do straight people not have that gay people do? I'm going to assume this is based off a misunderstanding of how hate crime legislation works. Hate crime legislation only lists "Sexual orientation" as a category where a crime can be considered a hate crime. Therefore it protects straight people from anti-straight crimes just as much as it protects gay people from anti-gay crimes.

21. CIVIL RIGHTS: If equal civil rights should not be granted to people of Alternate Sexual Orientations (excluding homosexual behavior), then what is it about homosexuality that deserves special status protection where other sexual behaviors do not?

You actually might be stupid enough to believe that paraphalias are "alternate sexual orientations" but I doubt that fact. I suspect you are openly lying on this point. You certainly do not believe it is a sexual behavior. So either way, this question is premised on something you believe to be a lie, and thus invalid.

22. CIVIL RIGHTS: If homosexuals are granted privileges due to civil unions and domestic partnerships, shouldn’t the same be offered to heterosexuals?

In many cases such as France, the Low Countries, and Scandinavia they are. This, of course, has lowered the number of marriages in those countries since more people opt for the Civil Union contract than the marriage one. If this was a legitimate concern for you, you'd be fighting for full marriage equality, instead of making stupid lists of questions you don't believe are valid.

23. FAIRNESS: Shouldn’t an equal amount of sexual-orientation-promotion be offered to people of Alternate Sexual Orientations (i.e., pedophilia, incest, necrophilia, autoerotic asphyxiation) such that they are also promoted in parades, schools, movies, sitcoms, magazines, schools, etc.? If not, why not?

Paraphalias aren't sexual orientations.

24. FAIRNESS: Would you, if you are pro-homosexual in practice and/or ideology, promote and support heterosexual parades, heterosexual oriented TV, and overt heterosexual appreciation and promotions in school classrooms – the same as is occurring with homosexuality? If not, why not?

All those things already happen. Like all the time:

Heterosexual parades: What, exactly, do you think Mardi Gras in New Orleans is, if not a heterosexual parade?
Heterosexual oriented TV: GLAAD actually watches every single hour of primetime TV for the networks and the top ten cable networks, and complies what percentage of those hours feature gay characters. As of the current season 2.9% of all scripted series regular characters are gay. So what, exactly do you think the other 97.1% of characters are?
Heterosexual appreciation and promotion in school: When I was in school, I learned about George and Martha Washington, Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain. We also had Sex Education which only taught about diseases and how babies are made. That's pretty much heterosexual appreciation and promotion.

25. FAIRNESS: If being intolerant of homosexuality is somehow wrong, then why are the homosexuals not wrong when they express their intolerance of those who disapprove of homosexuality?

Oy vey. This BS again. You can be intolerant of gay people all you want, as long as you in no way impose your intolerance upon them.

26. FAIRNESS: Isn’t it hypocritical to say that homosexuals want tolerance for everyone, but at the same time they practice intolerance of the those who disagree with their behavior?

See above.

27. FAIRNESS: If homosexuals want tolerance, then when they try and change the rest of society’s views about homosexuality, aren’t they demonstrating their intolerance of the majority position?

See above.

28. FAIRNESS: If you affirm that it is okay for homosexuals to show their intolerance for the majority view against homosexuality by trying to change the rest of society’s view to conform to their own, then shouldn’t it be okay for the majority to try and change the moral view of the homosexuals and have them conform to the majority?

See back to our "harm" discussion.

Frak, this was one exceedingly long, incredibly stupid post.