It's because they Hate Gays, there is no other reason

Oddly enough, Kinsey was the latest DVD in my NetFlix queue. My partner and I watched it last night. Although I was vaguely familiar with Kinsey's research back in the 40's and 50's, the Kinsey institute still operates at Indiana University. I really had no idea just how groundbreaking and controversial his research really was back then -- even its inclusion in the McCarthy hearings! My my, the power we ascribe to sex...

Now, I grant you that (at least as portrayed in the movie) Kinsey was somewhat aghast at society's attempt at moralizing sexual behavior. Nevertheless, one thing seemed clear to him: That the sexual habits and practices of humans vary radically from the self-imposed norms that society and religion would like to place upon human sexual behavior. If Kinsey's studies prove nothing else, it's that humans tend to reject that which appears to be abnormal. Knowing that homosexuality is not a statistical anomaly means that we have to deal with the topic and not just whitewash it with a plethora of moral platitudes.

Here are a few excerts from the Kinsey Institute.
http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey

Kinsey Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale
Development of the Scale
Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories... The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects, (p 639).

While emphasizing the continuity of the gradations between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual histories, it has seemed desirable to develop some sort of classification which could be based on the relative amounts of heterosexual and homosexual experience or response in each history... An individual may be assigned a position on this scale, for each period in his life.... A seven-point scale comes nearer to showing the many gradations that actually exist, (pp. 639, 656)
Kinsey, et al. (194. Sexual Behavior in the Human Male

Kinsey Scale



0- Exclusively heterosexual with no homosexual
1- Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
2- Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3- Equally heterosexual and homosexual
4- Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5- Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6- Exclusively homosexual

(Kinsey 194, p. 638

The 1948 and 1953 Studies of Alfred Kinsey
Kinsey's samples are best for younger adults, particularly the college-educated; they are poorest for minorities and those from lower socioeconomic and educational levels. The original male sample included institutionalized men. Paul Gebhard (Gebhard 1979), a Kinsey research associate and later director of the Institute, described Kinsey's sampling method as "quota sampling accompanied by opportunistic collection" (p. 26). Kinsey's data came from in-depth, face-to-face interviews (with 5300 white males and 5940 white females providing almost all of the data).

Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (194 and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) reported that:

37% of males and 13% of females had at least some overt homosexual experience to orgasm;
10% of males were more or less exclusively homosexual and 8% of males were exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55. For females, Kinsey reported a range of 2-6% for more or less exclusively homosexual experience/response.
4% of males and 1-3% of females had been exclusively homosexual after the onset of adolescence up to the time of the interview.
Kinsey devised a classification scheme to measure sexual orientation. It is commonly known as the Kinsey Scale
Reanalyses of Alfred Kinsey's Data
In the Final Report and Background Papers of the National Institute of Mental Health's Task Force on Homosexuality (Gebhard 1972), Gebhard reanalyzed Kinsey's data to eliminate sample bias. His refined figures showed that between one-quarter and one-third of adult white males with college education had had an "overt homosexual experience since puberty" (mostly in the adolescent years); weighting by marital status, he estimated that 4% of the white college-educated males and between 1-2% (and closer to 1%) of white females were predominantly or exclusively homosexual.

In The Kinsey Data, Gebhard and Johnson (1979) reexamined the amount of homosexual experience in Kinsey's basic sample of noninstitutionalized males and females. They found 9.9% of the males in the College Sample had extensive homosexual experience. 3.7% of females had extensive homosexual experience.

Tabulations by Gebhard (McWhirter 1990) on Kinsey's basic sample of noninstitutionalized males and females indicated that "13.95% of males and 4.25% of females, or a combined average of 9.13%" had had either "extensive" or "more than incidental" homosexual experience. These figures were not weighted by marital status.

John Gagnon and William Simon (1973) also reanalyzed Kinsey's data, focusing on the college sample. In their tabulations, 30% of males reported a homosexual experience to orgasm for the male or his partner; of this group, 25% had the experience(s) as adolescents or had only isolated experiences before the age of 20. The remaining 5-6% broke down evenly, with 3% having had "substantial homosexual histories" and 3% having had "exclusively homosexual histories." The comparable figure for females having had a homosexual experience was 6%. Of these, 4% had experience limited to adolescence or scattered experience before the age of 20, leaving 2% with significant adult homosexual experience, and less than 1% with exclusively homosexual histories.

How are numbers in a college context relevant here? We all know most opposition comes from the " lower socioeconomic and educational levels", and we suspect that the incidence of homosexual behaviour (at least overt) is much, much lower there (which is of course partly why).

This is a very old study, and there are doubtless much better modern sources.

What I'm sure is not in dispute is that homosexuals are very much in the minority, and they want something they can only get by the consent of the majority.

I suggest it is only rational, and not humiliating in any way, for them to devise their strategy on the basis of how best they can get that support. Concentrating on correcting the real injustices, and not making unnecessary enemies by treading on long entrenched and understandable sensibilities. Sensibilities which can in my opinion be respected without in practice diminishing or endangering the equality under the law which justice dictates.

Maybe the cultural myths and resonances around the words appeal wistfully to homosexuals too. But its very dangerous for a minority to engage in battle for possession of such highly-charged emotional intangibles. Like snatching his favourite Teddy from a very powerful baby indeed.

More like making an exact duplicate of the teddy bear actually. Calling it marriage wouldn't change anything for straight people, it just makes it non-exclusive.

A powerful, greedy baby.

Kind of sounds like the reasoning founders such as Benjamin Franklin used to pre-empt the abolition of slavery in the 1789 draft of the Constitution. Might have been the only way to get a Constitution approved by southern delegates in that era, but it ultimately resulted in the Civil War less than a century, later.

As for Kinsey, the legacy of his work continues to this day. Did you visit the link? This page -- http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/resources/bib-homoprev.html -- details latter studies on the topic. I'd also recommend the film as a good primer.

Certainly. But one holding a big junk of the power. And maybe rather more willing to behave fairly and with justice if Teddy is undisturbed in his arms.

Its not a copy you're asking for, its Teddy himself.

A second copy would happily and naturally be given, and accept, a new name of its own. This probably wouldn't trigger the baby into a tantrum at all. Just can't bear to see other people actually kissing and cuddling HIS teddy, with the name he gave it.

Its childish, its irrational, but these things do run deep, I'm afraid.

As was the irrational series of justifications put forth to preserve slavery in 1789.

Sure, the path toward full gay marriage may be an evolutionary one. But, don't soft sell or sugar-coat the gay community's desire to be recognized as full equals. Majority rule can be tyrannical rule. One's human dignity should trump the majority's ill-conceived notions.

Actually I have a copy of the several volumed Kinsey report itself, Paulo, thanks (somewhere). I just don't think the precise numbers are terribly significant. This undoubted minority is in the majority's power. Part of the majority is increasingly (and unfortunately) mobilising against them, triggered into action by the gut need to defend "marriage", rather more than by meanness about legal equaity. Though that now follows along. This I feel is what is significant.

Don't you think that "marriage" is a highly charged trigger button, unnecessary to push if it dramatically increases opposition to the really crucial stuff we all know about ?

I see lots of bald statements here about it being an essential part of the package, but I haven not yet seen one sane detailed explanation of WHY which can stand up to calm impartial scrutiny. Can you offer such an explanation, Paolo? Why its so vital as to risk doubling or trebling the opposition, and forcing otherwise fair-minded people into the other camp? Why is it worth that risk ? Can someone please explain, in a way which doesn't begin by just assuming that it "must be so", or does nothing more than merely restating it differently as a self-evident fact ? It isn't self evident to me, or to millions of others, it seems.

It's important to me to call my marriage a marriage, even though one of my partners is the same gender as myself (the triad aspect of my situation is a complicating factor, but it doesn't need to enter into this discussion).

I can't imagine it was any less important to Sappho or Plato or any of the other prominent gay figures throughout history. Committed relationships between same-sex partners are not anything new, and I'm sure that they also defined themselves as married (or whatever their society's equivelent was).

What is at issue here is the motivation behind Erlich's veto. Is it posession of a word? Of course not. Nobody owns a word, not straights, not gays and especially not bisexuals (who tend to get the short end of all sticks, and not in a good way).

He has said that he plans to sign a bill to add sexual orientation to classes covered by hate crime laws, over opposition from his own party. So I don't know that he's a rabid homophobe. Given that he rejected 23 other bills that afternoon, including better oversight of juvenile corrections, electronic election monitoring and an increase to the minimum wage, it looks like he's marching in lockstep with the hard right base most of the time, regardless of his personal feelings.

I didn't vote for him, and I won't vote for him... but I think he's more a sheep than a rabid dog.

OK, I'll give you more than a few. Above all, the majority's objection to gay marriage is based on a series of logical fallacies. We don't long tolerate logical fallacies in the realm of other more benign topics within the public domain; why, then, should we acquiesce to them in the case of gay marriage? Among the logical fallacies that I've personally witnessed in opposition to gay marriage are the following:

Appeal to Tradition (which seems to be the basis of most of your own rebuttals) - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-tradition.html

Appeal to Common Practice - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-common-practice.html

Begging the Question -
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html

Circumstantial Ad Hominem - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/circumstantial-ad-hominem.html

Hasty Generalization - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/hasty-generalization.html

Poisoning the Well - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/poisoning-the-well.html

Questionable Cause - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/questionable-cause.html

Red Herring - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.html

Slippery Slope - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html

Spotlight - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/spotlight.html

Strawman - http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

Now, I suppose the next thing you are going to ask is for me to cite specific examples of each of the above. I simply don't have that kind of time, and I'd be happy to let others help fill in those gaps. Suffice it for now to say that I have either witnessed or experienced examples of each of the above. Yes, I am asking you to take my word for it, and in a way, that may be a logical fallacy of my very own.

While I totally, absolutely, disagree with having the items listed above shot down. The way legislation works is that it is generally wrapped in things. For instance, note the use of, "Among those" which means there were others that are not listed. For example (an extreme one granted)

Proposed Bill:
The right to be treated as an immediate family member during hospital visits.
To make health care decisions for incapacitated partners.
To have private visits in nursing homes.
The right to beat kittens senseless.
The right to shoot small children walking on your lawn.

They can not take part of a proposal and not the rest. It has to be either accepted or vetoed.

While yes, those things that are mentioned should not have been vetoed, we really can't determine whether or not THE ENTIRE BILL should have been vetoed without seeing all of the items on that particular bill.

In truth, it could very easily have been wrapped in some rather unpleasant legislation that might have had nothing at all to do with gays.

Jess

The complete text of the bill is available here:

http://images.ibsys.com/2005/0325/4318949.pdf

For anybody who has more free time than I to wade through it for hidden surprises. I don't think there are any.

I take that back.

Governor Ehrlich's Reason for Vetoing the bill found at the following website:
http://www.gov.state.md.us/billvetoes/2005/message_SB796.html

can be summed up with the following excerpt:
"While Senate Bill 796 has the noble goals of ensuring that couples have access to important health-related decisions – compassionate goals that I embrace – the mechanism it uses, the creation a new term of life partner, will open the door to undermine the sanctity of traditional marriage."

Basically the cold hearted son of a bitch is using the use of the term life-partner as an excuse to veto the bill.... because the thinks that the use of that term undermines the sanctity of traditional marriage?!?!?! WTF! That is absolutely illogical, cold hearted, and bigoted. Neehai is right, sorry for my previous post, I posted it without having researched it at all.

Jessica

The government has no business defending the "sanctity" of anything. That should trigger the establishment clause right there.

Thanks, Jessica

At minimum, Governor Ehrlich's veto justification exemplifies the fallacies of: Appeal to Common Practice, Appeal to Tradition and Circumstantial Ad Hominem...

Neehai, see a lawyer and arrange to have power of attorney for you over your partner in times that it would be needed. I’ve had to do that here in the UK, as we have no rights. My partner is estranged from his family for over 20 years yet if anything happened to him I wouldn’t even get to see him!!

Yeah they hate us, but they still sneak away from their wives for c**k. Hypocrite bastards.

What the fuck is "more than equal rights"? Why would you even come up with something like that. Please explain to me what rights I want that are more than equal? Do you think I want a civil union and then also require by law that every heterosexual has to buy me a civil union gift? I think you are a hateful bigot like the rest who just comes up with more and more bullshit to strengthen your case.

You seem to refuse to read anything and blame me for wanting equal rights. You have repeatedly said in this thread that it is somehow a problem that people want to call it marriage. I have REPEATEDLY told you that both issues in this thread to NOT USE THE FUCKING WORD MARRIAGE. However, you seem to want to frame the discussion on something else entirely. Why? You tell me Miss Ellie.


Evidently they also want to protect their concept of "life partner", "friend" and "civil union" as well. You tell me, what fucking word will be good enough for this gracious majority? What should I beg for on bended knee?


Exactly. The very compromises that Miss Ellie is preaching seem not to be good enough. Her argument that it is simply the word marriage is a smokescreen. When you get down to brass tacks, they don't want homosexuals to have the basic rights afforded to heterosexuals no matter what we call it. I honestly thought giving two specific examples to Miss Ellie would be good enough, but clearly conveying the facts just makes me "want more than equal rights". Whatever the hell that means.

No doubt. That was kind of my point with the Kinsey research. A LOT of men have had some sort of homosexual encounter, and many experience some level of ongoing homosexual attraction throughout life. (Apologies to the women folk; I am less acquainted on the data on women.) If Yahoo chat rooms are any indicator, a lot of married men are clamoring for an outlet for their homosexual urges. I digress... At any rate, having to go through the hassle and expense of hiring an attorney to afford the same basic rights as a heterosexual spouse -- though the best we can really hope for, now -- is really just band-aiding the situation.

Oh, and some day, Ewan, you may get a knock on your door from some Merkins (well, my partner's from S. America, but close enough haha) for a nice chat and some tea. Totally off topic here, but my Scottish ancestors hail from Lanarkshire (the other side is mostly made up of crazy Italians ). I guess their emigrating to the US ~130 years ago didn't help me to gain any new freedoms in the US of A of the present day.

*rolls his eyes...

Here we go again with you, Neehai. Sorry, but the Log Cabin Republicans and other, non-homophobic members of the party totally negate your sweeping generalization.

-Kiamat Dusk

Congrats, you found some gay Republicans.

So denying basic human rights to homosexuals is not homophobic? Plus, if you paid attention the Log Cabin Republicans did not support this administration. As a matter of fact they ran ads against Bush because of his homophobic stances.

Nini nini boo boo!

Read sometime.

The point is, I can support the Republican Party without supporting idiots like Ehrlich.


-Kiamat Dusk

I used to think the same thing, Kiamat. Up until this last election cycle, I have voted a Republican ticket ever since I was old enough to vote. I used to believe that the party represented what I now understand to be a form of Libertarian idealism; in reality, I believe the party has become mired in a coagulated group-think mindset that it uses to self-justify its emerging role as America's Supreme Ayatollah and moral dictator.

Neehai, I wasn't justifying it, I was offering a possible explaination to explain something--which by now is probably a knee jerk reaction for most extreme conservatives.
However, now I'm done discussing the topic here.

Paolo, that's why you don't always side with one party, EVER. You have to go on an individual basis. People that vote exactly the same year after year, and plan to keep doing so, worry me.

Well, obviously over the span of ~20 years, there have been a few notable exceptions. On certain issues where the party platform was contrary to my own convictions, I voted off-ticket. Maybe 1 in 100, but obviously no one can ever be a complete party purist. This last election cycle, I felt like a giddy school boy playing hooky when I marked candidates from three parties (Dem, Rep, Lib) and voted against a couple of particularly heinous conservative proposals.

At any rate, your admonition brings up an interesting point of discussion. In the state of Texas -- and perhaps elsewhere -- there is a ballot checkbox where you can vote the party plank in one fell swoop. Although I have never checked that option myself, it is worth considering whether or not this practice should be allowed. Why should we allow something as important as an election to be "dumbed down" for convenience sake? A vast majority of the electorate is woefully un(der)-educated when it comes to ballot proposals and/or candidates. I think I have implicitly revealed my own distaste for this practice. Other thoughts?

yet, somehow, you claim all Liberals are all traitors and devoid of morals.

Double standards are nice.

In Washington and I know elsewhere, the ballots are such that you determine your party at the beginning, and then you can only vote for people in that party or independent.

I have no idea the justification for making them that way, I heard the reasoning a while ago, but it was so freaking absurd that i've forgotten by now. I'll go look it up.

[edit] Ah, I see. The blanket primary system made it so that only one person from each party advanced to the general election. The new system allows people to vote for whoever they like in the primary, and the top two advance to the general election. Then in the general election ballots are limited to party lines.