LOL! When I took a minute to actually digest your instructions this morning, it looks so easy to do. I can’t wait to hit ‘submit’ and see if I get ‘digest’ in italics and easy in bold . Victory dance to follow if it works. I’ve had a block against HTML for years! Oh, cool, I don’t have to hit submit…it’s there in the preview! A thousand thanks! I think I’ll still have plenty of occasions for my single quotes and the dot-dot-dots.

Now to the meatier stuff.

Timothy

Is there a separate word for ‘environmental’ as I described it or would that simply be ‘post-natal environmental’ or something to that effect?

JAG and Jayhuck

Sound reasoning from both of you. Consider my understanding now enhanced. I think I’ll even be able to read animal studies now without wincing!

Jayhuck

Wound up singing two Roy Orbison songs and my new favorite, “Volare”–complete with Italian verses, instead last night. If weather permits, I’ll karaoke again tonight and slip in at least one Van Morrison. Our snow started earlier than expected and they’re talking up to a foot!

Okay, I’m off for a second cup of coffee and playing around with HTML codes. I’ll victory dance the whole way to the kitchen.

Parents and siblings, for example, would be a part of our environment. Is this a common consensus here?

I would agree with Timothy on this and my answer would be no as well. I think he did a good job of trying to help us understand what researchers might be saying when they use the word.

I wonder sometimes just how important things like parents or siblings might be considering the wide variety of parents and siblings that gay people have.

We do need to be mindful though of the important distinction that we have soul, spirit and an awareness of our creator as we evaluate how the animals experience may relate to our own.

I agree that this is an important distinction, but I also think we need to be made aware of the lack of Biblical guidance surrounding animals – we don’t really know to what extent they may be aware or have a soul. God created everything, including animals and us – did he create living creatures without souls? I’ve been wondering that for quite some time.

I’m a HUGE Van Morrison fan – FYI 😉

I followed the genetics link from your post 68696 and found very little information. The only science was the twins studies and it, as we already know, is inconclusive. The article seems to allow as much, or more room for environmental factors. LOL! I can actually envision using that one to support my pov.

Wow – that was a Stanford Geneticist talking about the science that shows a somewhat strong genetic basis for homosexuality – It also supports my POV. Perhaps we will need to differentiate?

Your environmentalist assumptions are false if they are PURELY environmentalist. For example, we know that every personality and physical trait we have has some genetic contribution…how much or little its influence varies. If you are meaning to say that there is absolutely no genetic contribution, I think science would indicate that you are wrong on this.

Saying that, I do agree that some areas of sexual arousal are reinforced environmentally. But what we know of sexual arousal and desire is that the object of our desires – be they pathological (pedophilia) or considered normal (heterosexuality or homosexuality) are likely to remain firmly in place, despite efforts to alter them. That is not to say that you cannot have some movement on these, but even our best efforts at changing have not shown stellar results.

Although I know that many discount animal models (even though we use them on everything from physical to psychological studies), we can certainly learn something from them…at least we can answer the question – what are creatures at their most basic, when NOT influenced by their environment? Dragonflies, for instance, that show homosexual behaviors can hardly be said to have had turned to other female dragonflies due to conflict with their mothers, etc. They are basic creatures who function solely on instinct…their brain power and reasoning isn’t exactly what directs their movements. If instinct is leading a percentage of them toward same-sex interactions, maybe that is something to look at. But we see it even in the more cognitive creatures…bears forming same-sex pairings, dolphins, penguins, etc…and the list goes on and on.

So while I think it is convenient to believe that orientation is purely environmental for many, it simply does not fall in line with scientific reasoning.

We do not know how much is genetic/biological, we do not know if everyone is equally affected (between the genders, and even within the genders), but it can be said with some certainty that orientation does have a biological contribution. If you would disagree, I’d humbly ask that you review the research that’s out there.

BTW: I’m hoping we’re all on the same page with ‘environmental’. When I use it, I’m not talking about the weather, the climate, wealth or poverty…but rather, any outside influences on the brain and emotions. Parents and siblings, for example, would be a part of our environment. Is this a common consensus here?

Nope.

When discussion origins of orientation, “environment” also includes the womb and its environment such as hormones or (Drowsap’s favorite) pathogens. Thus when discussing, for example, Bogaert’s speculations about birth order, that is all environmental but it is also all pre-natal.

You have to be careful that when you read a researcher allow for environmental factors that you don’t assume that this means psychoanalytic notions such as a distant father or confusing admiration for eroticisation. That’s not what they are talking about. Generally, they are speaking of things like hormones, pre-natal parental stress, or other conception or fetal devolpment issues though, of course, they may also be allowing for post-natal physical or psychological factors.

As for italics, practice away. It’s really very easy. 🙂

Thanks for the italics tip you offered Ann. I’m fried from work right now but I plan to add italics to ‘things I can do’. Some time back I noticed the confusion of leading off with someone’s quote and then commenting. At the time, I think Ann was quoting you. I tried to explain how the comment came off confusing but didn’t succeed. You not only said it better but gave an excellent lesson! Thanks.

Until I have time to practice though, you’ll still find me using old fashioned quotation marks. Hopefully, I’ll have italics mastered by the end of the weekend. LOL! (Tonight’s agenda is learning 3 Van Morrison songs well enough to do them at karaoke.)

I followed the genetics link from your post 68696 and found very little information. The only science was the twins studies and it, as we already know, is inconclusive. The article seems to allow as much, or more room for environmental factors. LOL! I can actually envision using that one to support my pov.

I believe it is possible to be gay due to environmental reasons AND not to have chosen it consciously. I hate when people say “It’s a choice” or “you chose it”. It sounds like you went to Wal-Mart, saw a shelf full of sexual possibilities, and said “Hmm, I’ll take the gay one.” We DO choose how we act and react but, many times, we feel we have no other choice. We’ve already picked up the notion that we are different, perhaps and think that homosexuality explains it. Or we notice a preoccupation with the physicality of others of our gender without realizing that it’s more envy than sexual desire. Perhaps a deficit in our upbringing has created a hunger for same sex affirmation and affection. “Desire” often gets misinterpreted as sexual when it’s another want altogether. In any case, the individual feels gay without ever having made a conscious choice to be gay. The “you chose it” bashing does nothing to help an individual sort through any of these issues if they do exist.

BTW: I’m hoping we’re all on the same page with ‘environmental’. When I use it, I’m not talking about the weather, the climate, wealth or poverty…but rather, any outside influences on the brain and emotions. Parents and siblings, for example, would be a part of our environment. Is this a common consensus here?

Although I’d already read Jag’s post re animals that you linked to, I did re-read it. I still have my reservations regarding using animals as our models but can appreciate that perhaps there are some things we can learn. We do need to be mindful though of the important distinction that we have soul, spirit and an awareness of our creator as we evaluate how the animals experience may relate to our own.

I am very sorry if you have taken my remarks to be insults. They were certainly not meant to offend and I take it that I have touched upon an issue that is sensible in a way that is less familiar to me than it is to you. If there was any unintended hurt from any remark I made here, on you or on any other person here I appologise. It was not my intention, and it may be due to the fact that I don’t know your background of endeared assumptions, things that you take to be your core beliefs and are implicit in your judgement. It’s one of the reasons I have told you that I do not understand why you would need scientific research to feel solid in your own identity. It’s a tricky thing to base one’s identity on issues that are the object of intense debates in our society. Usually when I expose an argument, I try to disconnect making a judgement from my being in a certain way, because what I am can never be pinned down to statistic equations or gene mapping.

That part you quoted from my message is missing the punchline, which would have clarified its thrust:

You cannot always have right reactions just because you do the right thing.

So please, do not attribute to me any intention to justify any type of crimes, because it is just as offensive. No crime is justified, no putting to death of a human by another human can ever be justified by any thought or judgement; remember, I am from Europe and we have no death penalty here for any type of crime. Do not attribute to me the idea that there could be any sort of “deserved” death, because that notion is simply missing from my brain or from the present background I live in. Just as a side point to make, I find it disappointing that this is the case in the US with death penalty.

The idea presented in that paragraph was to only point out the possibility — marked by using the adverb “maybe” — that some people have a greater associated risk of acting in a violent way and that certain problems will always be “legacy” problems, things that resurface even if we think that we made great progress; that risk must be managed in some way. If this possibility is proved wrong, then we can move on to identifiying other reasons that may be lying behind the “hostile environment” or even hate crimes. I can even question our way of understanding these things, which comes from the Enlightenment idea that any human problem can be addressed by education and knowledge — basically by exposure to the educating position. I won’t elaborate on this, unless there is anyone interested in this debate.

Warren, I hope this clarifies your inquiry too. Let me just add that the argument you wanted me to further explain was devised to show that Timothy’s assumption that there is a climate of hostility towards gay people was too simple to make. I argued that there are different levels of acceptance, exemplifying with areas where gay contribution is greatly appreciated and very influential in society, and that the same graduality could be found in relation to violence towards gay people. I may also have a bias I must declare: in all European countries where I lived, I haven’t seen or heard about hate crimes against gays or noticed a hostile environment towards gays. It may be because they are less than in the US, they were given poor media coverage or I failed to notice them.