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    Homosexuality---A reply to the discussions' tone
    Finley · 6/27/99 at 11:55 am ET

    First, while evolution itself is apparently a fact the
    way gravity is, the mechanics of evolution are under great
    debate with no proven conclusion, last I knew. Of course
    the debates are sources of much fruitful thought and must
    be done, but it seems rather risky, when people's welfare
    is at stake, to base a shaky thought on another shaky thought.

    Second, it would be very nice to separate science from
    politics and culture in general,but it's not possible. Politics and culture determine what questions we ask of science, and science is geared towards answering those
    questions.

    For example, current questions seem focused on the issue
    if homosexuality is right or wrong. We aren't getting a
    discussion on this website if masturbation or manufactured
    forms of birth-control are right or wrong, yet these practices inhibit population growth. (Of course, if this
    website were the property of certain religious denominations, I guess we woould be reading that the practices were against God. But in some ways, evolution for
    some people seems to have become a disguised form of Divine
    Purpose, just as the idea of dysfunction contaminating everyone in a family seems at times a disguised form of
    original sin.)

    Third, we would have to ask what are the motives in
    framing these questions. Apparently if we see homosexuality
    as biologically caused, we can't "blame" homosexuals and we
    can't "change" them, but, if the preference is psychological, we get to blame them and it is considered
    legitimate to try to change them. To ask a radical question,
    why not just let people be who they are, as happily as they
    can be?

    Of course there is,regardless of preference, the issue
    of people hurting each other, sometimes deliberately, sometimes in confusion. The issue of cutting down the amount of pain seems a fruitful topic to pursue.

    Replies:
    • Re: Homosexuality---A reply to the discussions' tone, by Anonymous, 6/27/99
      • Re: Homosexuality---A reply to the discussions' tone, by Edward Brown, 10/26/99
        • Re: Homosexuality---A reply to the discussions' tone, by Anonymous, 10/26/99
    • Re: Homosexuality---A reply to the discussions' tone, by Edward Brown, 6/29/99
      • Re: Homosexuality---A reply to the discussions' tone, by Finley, 6/29/99
    • Re: Homosexuality---A reply to the discussions' tone, by , 7/25/99
    • Re:Homosexuality---A reply to the discussions' tone, by ed., 06/09/01

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