Good As You

yes, yes. but the "gayness is a gift from god" argument isn't really doing much good if you ask me.

I wonder if Mr. LaBarbera is really clear on Satan's role in the philosophical and religious universe. Am I mistaken, or wasn't it Satan who gave Man (read: men and women) the knowledge to be able to differentiate good from evil? Perhaps Mr. LaBarbera should have a little chat with Satan. Perhaps he could gain some -- oh, I don't know, knowledge?

And as for treating unborn babies with hormones or anything else to modify their sexual orientation, I think Mr, Knox didn't go quite far enough. The apology Albert Mohler owes is to God, for essentially saying, "Almighty God, we know you know more than we do on most things, but we really don't trust you on this one. You've made a mistake. It's OK; we'll fix it for you." Perhaps Mohler, too, could stand to gain a little knowledge.

Excellent comments, Robin Reardon.

I believe Mr. Barber and Mr. LaBarbera basically just hate, I mean deeply hate, gay people. That comes first, and the religious rationalizations come second.

Christianity teaches hatred, generally, and maintains control of its members through the use of intimidation, fear, and domination. They want to extend this domination and have tried to do so actively for 30 years, since the Reaganoids took power, and for nearly 50 years, since the onslaught of the current fundamentalist Xtian movement. This is a huge motivation for their oppression of women, gay/LGT folks, and virtually anyone who has a free thought.

Just because the Xtian church persists in saying it preaches love does not make it so: repeating something does not make it so and a quick review of the bloody history of oppression and repression throughout the past centuries will verify that this is not a religion, it is a political ideology in the guise of institutionalized spirituality.

While there may be legitimate Christians - those who are "Christ-like" - these people are too passive, quiet, and lacking influence in their religion to make much of a difference. It is time for people to realize that Xtianity needs to be relegated to the dustbins of history, along with the other monotheistic ideologies that prop up each other.

I honestly can't believe the poor biology shown by Mr Barber... Honestly! He thinks that a 50% correlation between identical twins sharing a minority sexuality is proof *against* a genetic link? Ye gad...

Gay people like to claim that 10% of the population is gay. Fundies like to claim it's 1-2%. Realistic estimates are probably more like 3-5%, with it reaching the full 10% if you include those bisexual people who don't choose to live their life as if they were totally straight.

So, we already have a 10x increase in likelihood between a random person and a twin brother of a gay man. Believe it or not, a 10x factor is significant all by itself - most genetic traits have a much lower than 50% chance of being "switched on" in any case.

Also, there's much debate about how many people are really gay who claim they are straight (and indeed, try to live that way). How many people would rather lie about themselves, and to themselves, their whole lives, rather than accept the public condemnation and scorn that folks like Mr Barber and Mr LaBarbera like to dish out? Because *that* needs to be taken into consideration, as well... With that taken into consideration, sexuality becomes near the top of the list of non-physical traits set before birth (whether by genes or by hormones, or, most likely, some combination of the two).

Of course, all this is academic. It shouldn't matter one jot where sexuality comes from. People are people, and homosexuality hurts no one in and of itself (though, of course, any form of sexuality can be abused).

However, it would be nice if Mr Barber would do some elementary research before spouting that an incredibly statistically significant number is indicative of its opposite.