Homosexuality

It's late at night (or early in the morning), but I can't sleep until I finish this note. People, I BEG you, please wake up. (not from sleep, but from ignorance, misunderstanding, and delusion)

As a gay man, I can't say that I'm biased about this issue, but I am just really upset and frustrated that people's argument against homosexuality and same-sex marriage. I'm going to present my opinion about the arguments and statements that are frequently brought up by THOSE people. Before I begin, I inform you that this is my personal point of view and does not represent that of others. Additionally, I'm open for discussion from anybody, but if your comments start like..."God loves everyone", "God hates the sin, not the sinners", "The Bible says...", don't even bother typing it--it's waste of your&my time. The purpose of this note is not to argue about the existence of God (or any other deities). I'm going to mention the Bible just to point out how some of the arguments contradict itself. Other than that, if you don't agree with me, go ahead and write LOGICAL comments. I will be glad to read them.



1. "Homosexuality/same-sex marriage HARM children."

; Some argue that children of same-sex couple tend to become homosexual. Whether homosexuality is caused by biological factors or environmental factors (or both --which I believe to be true) is not proven so I'm just gonna assume that they have increased chance to become homosexual since there are empirical studies about modeling in developmental psychology--which is that infants base their actions from what they see (what their parents do). Even if there is an increased chance to become homosexual, one cannot say that it HARMS children because that statement would be true only with the assumption that homosexuality is wrong, which makes the statement invalid.



2. "Oh, I'm not homophobic. We have gay couples at my church and I'm really nice to them. Our church accepts everyone. Gays, lesbians, and also drug addicts, murderers, thieves, ..."

; I don't even know how to comment on this statement without being rude. According to them, being gay is equivalent to being drug addicts and criminals. God help them, well, if there is one.



3. Leviticus 18:22 "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. "

; Yes, it is a bible quote. This verse is frequently quoted by people who are against homosexuality. I personally don't value the Bible anything more than a history book with a lot of fascinating stories, historical facts, and social norms during the era when it was written. But I still respect people who have belief in the Bible and try to live their life from it. (Honestly, I don't, but at least I don't say anything in their face...most of the time). I won't directly comment on this verse since homosexuality was against their social norm that time. But for the people who quote this to argue against homosexuality, I want to ask, "do you eat shrimp?" Let's take a look at the SAME book in the Bible, Leviticus. Leviticus 11:9-12 reads, "9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.

10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:

11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.

12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you."



I love the fact that people can just pick and choose only what they want to believe and talk shit about homosexuals for being SINNERS. People who quote Leviticus 18:22 to argue against homosexuality must not eat shellfish, but most of them do, which makes them hypocrites. People really need to stop putting their personal emotions (disgust of homosexuality) on their arguments and start being reasonable and logical human beings.



I also want to point out that this nation has clearly declared the separation between the states and the church. Therefore, any religion-based arguments should not affect the political judgment--same-sex marriage debate.



4. "Homosexuality leads to pedophilia"

; Again, I don't know what to say to this. There was a research that showed homosexuality leads to pedophilia ("CHILD MOLESTATION AND THE HOMOSEXUAL MOVEMENT" by Steve Baldwin) . I've read the research article myself, and as I expected, it was total BS. Here are some reasons.

-The author Steve Baldwin has no publication besides this (I'm not saying that it's not a good research because the author has no other publication, but it simply shows the credential of the author. Also, take a look at his degree :) Masters? NO, Doctoral? NO.

*Steve Baldwin-Attended UT Austin Film school - graduated 1990. Attended Regent University Communications & Divinity - RTF 1990-1997

-REGENT UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW, which is Christian-based college, published this. (shows how biased the paper is)

-If you read the introduction of this paper, you will notice that he wrote this paper IN ORDER TO malign homosexuals. Here are some quotes,

"A vast amount of data demonstrating the deviant nature of the gay lifestyle is ignored by the media as well as the leadership of the psychological, psychiatric, and medical professions."

"An unmistakable manifestation of the attack on the family unit is the homosexual community’s efforts to target children both for their own sexual pleasure and to enlarge the homosexual movement."

"It is high time that America’s elected officials, health authorities, education leaders, and law enforcement officials act to not only tell the harsh truth␣the homosexual community has targeted America’s youth␣but act now to counter this horrible trend. Failure to do so will have disastrous consequences for both our culture and for the health of our children."

-Sadly, it is true that pedophilia is statistically higher among gay males than others in terms of percentage, but one cannot argue that homosexuality LEADS to pedophilia because pedophilia is more of an individual issue than the issue of gay males as a group. (Clearly, there are significant amount of heterosexual pedophilia cases comparing to homosexual pedophilia as well.)

-None of information he used was empirical except the statistics (since it's not feasible for me to disprove it)



Thankfully, academia is not dumb enough to miss these significant flaws of this paper, no one ever cares about this paper except some christian schools, newspapers, and other homophobic personals, but I find it appalling that some people naively read this kind of paper, or media articles, without any criticism of their own.



I tried not to offend anyone except Mr. Steve Baldwin. As I mentioned earlier, I am open to any comments with the exception of religious debate.



I wrote this note primarily because I am sick of defamation of LGBT community via illogical, invalid, and ignorant statements. I hope, some day in the future, we can live in an understanding world where people overcome their fear toward differences (which is totally natural), and all these struggle become a part of history.



"Hope will never be silent"

-Harvey Milk