Category: Uncategorized

Lengthy op-ed by Charles Haynes in USA Today about the First Amendment Center’s Guidelines regarding discussions of sexual orientation schools. My perception is that these are not being well received on the hard right or hard left.

From a Gay365.com article regarding Equality Ride’s visit to the media, I mean campus of Union University:

Dawn Davridge said that she and her partner, Kathryn Davridge, were expelled from Union two years ago after administrators found out they are lesbians; and in a relationship.
“I fell in love with my best friend,” Davridge told about a dozen students who gathered to hear from the riders. “I am not sick, and I am not a sinner. Two years ago, our story was suppressed.”

The terms sick and sinner have been in numerous quotes from Equality Riders. I assume that this is one message designed to be a take away point from the entire effort. Seems strange to hear someone who is claiming to come from a Christian perspective saying, “I am not a sinner.” To anyone who reads this blog and is up to date on gay integrative theology: When did homosexually attractions come into the human condition, before Adam and Eve fell or after?

In an email Mark Yarhouse, detailed his account of the E Ride visit:

We had Equality Ride come to the campus on Monday and Tuesday. The university had made arrangements to hold three forums with ER: one meeting in one of my classes, one panel discussion, and one training through the institute I direct. However, due to the way the university was being portrayed on their web page the week prior to the visit, the administration withdrew the offer, in part because they were dealing with a number of questions from the media based upon how the university was being portrayed.

Several students from the School of Psychology and Counseling went out to engage and dialogue with the ER participants. That led to an invitation by the students to have some of the ER folks attend a worship service that evening. I understand that five ER participants attended that time of worship.

On Tuesday six of the ER folks crossed over the property line and were arrested by VA Beach police. Several university students continued to interact with the ER participants and they shared a meal that evening at a local restaurant before they left for Lee University. I interacted with several of the ER folks. They were quite young (18-27, I believe), and were consistent in their use of non-violent protest. I think they admitted that much of their concern was to raise awareness of what they viewed as discriminatory policy, but it became clear that the university does not have any admissions restrictions based upon whether a person has a homosexual orientation or identifies as gay or lesbian.

I think the media coverage has been fairly accurate. The focus was more on the arrests than on the informal interactions and dialogues, but some of the media coverage did capture that as well.

Mark Yarhouse

I didn’t see media coverage of anything except the arrests. Perhaps Mark meant the local media.

It’s the second most wonderful time of the year. March Madness. My bracket is already corrupted but I love it.

During the segment, Leslie Stahl asked Michael Bailey’s views of how gay and straight men compare.

“… Straight men are more interested than straight women in having casual, uncommitted sex. Gay men are like that, too,” says Bailey.

“One has the impression that gay men are much more inclined toward casual sex than straight men,” Stahl said.

“They’re just more successful at it, because the people they’re trying to have sex with are also interested in it,” Bailey explained.

“But don’t you find this interesting that the one big area where gay men are more like straight men is in sex? I mean, that is…both amusing and odd,” Stahl said.

“It suggests that whatever causes a man to be gay doesn’t make him feminine in every respect. There must be different parts of the brain that can be feminized independently from each other,” Bailey replied.

Could be. Or this lack of consistency could mean that the theory is wrong. Saying “there must be different parts” doesn’t make it so.

The producer Shari Finkelstein was defended by Brian Montopoli on the CBS Blog by saying:

“The key for Finkelstein – as it was for Scott Pelley in a piece on global warming – was to stick to science.”

If the writers had stuck to the science, then the show would not have come to the conclusions it did. In fact, given the state of the science, there would not have been conclusions. On point, here is a quote from the piece: “There are many more questions at this point than answers, but the scientists 60 Minutes spoke to are increasingly convinced that genes, hormones, or both — that something is happening to determine sexual orientation before birth.” If there are many more questions than answers then how can the scientists be “increasingly convinced?”

How is this stance sticking to the science?