Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> "linda" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>Daniel J. Stern wrote:
>>
>>>On Sun, 14 Nov 2004, linda wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>It's no use, Linda; Matt places more trust in dogma than in science.
>>>
>>>
>>>>i guess you are right.. it is a shame, too..
>>>
>>>
>>>It is, really. Have you heard or read some of the horror stories of
>
> severe
>
>>>emotional scarring from those who've been suckered into the "ex-gay"
>>>movement?
>>>
>>
>>yes, i have... there is even a "homosexuals anonymous".. and they have a
>>14 step program, heck, alcoholics only get 12. doesn't sound quite
>>right... does it?
>>I am cutting and pasting most of the following: so don't think i am
>>smart: (Ted, you are right, i am not intelligent enough to hold a
>>conversation with a peanut, much less you..)
>>
>
>
> I never said you wern't intelligent enough to hold a conversation with
> a peanut.
ok, you never said it, however, you made me feel it.


If you recall I strongly emphasized that you needed to have
> your internal philosophies worked out so that they were not inconsistent,
> before you started posting on a topic.
My internal philosophies are not consistent on a lot of matters, that i
am working on. thanks to you and having made me aware that i was
inconsisent, i am questioning all that i have learned in the past years..

If you recall that was right
> before you stopped e-mailing me privately.
I did not stop emailing you privately, i sent you an email. you did not
respond. the second email that you sent, however, i did not get to
respond to since Matt was not here to take care of my computer glitch.
i had the best argument, well documented and my philosophy was
consistent with what i believe. however, since my computer glitch, i
lost everything....and unfortunately, i do not remember what it was that
we were supposed to be discussing. please resend if you still have the
last email you sent, and i will do my best to respond intelligently..
(but please let me be lazy and not use the shift key, pay attention to
the content rather than the capitalization.)

>
> In any case, if you hold with the idea of a biological basis for
> homosexuality,
> you are going to have to also hold to the idea of a biological basis for
> both hetrosexuality, and for bisexuality, in order to be internally
> consistent.
i might be wrong, but i think that goes without saying.. or at least
that was kinda the way i was going. there is something, biological that
switches one way or the other. I am sorry if i did not make myself
clear. i will try harder next time.

>
> And if you are then consistent there is a perfectly reasonable explanation
> for Matt's assertion that there are a lot of homosexuals that are now happy
> hetrosexuals. And that is simply that these people are not, in fact,
> hetrosexuals. What they are, is they are bisexuals, who have decided to only be with
> partners of the opposite sex, and don't realize that they are bisexuals, or
> are ignoring that they are bisexuals, and are claiming to be hetrosexuals.

i agree...


>
> In any case, as you know this is one area that I tend to agree with Matt -
> that
> there is no physical/genetic reason to explain homosexuality. I see lots of
> evidence that homosexuality AND hetrosexuality and bisexuality is a choice,
> but little evidence that it is physical/genetic. However, just because I
> think
> the evidence points to it being a choice, doesen't mean I think that there
> is
> any evidence that this is a choice that occurs later in life or even as late
> as
> adolescence. Nor do I believe that there's credible evidence that this
> choice
> is one that the person has much control over.

I believe that Daniel is sitting at his computer laughing his ass off at
us for arguing for and against him.. trying to prove, disprove his
sexuality. of course, i have no documentation for this.. unless Daniel
wants to verify???? Daniel????
I also believe, that science, and i deal with science every day, being
in its infancy, will one day verify, document, prove that what i and
others believe to be biological/genetic is true. please research this
specific topic: SEXUAL ORIENTATION, MALE Gene map locus Xq28
I found an article in PubMed after looking at the Human Genome under
genetics of different behavioral traits.

Are you still laughing your ass off Daniel? i would be too...

>
> I certainly remember myself as a very young pre-adolescent. The very first
> time I ever saw a nudie picture of a naked woman, AKA pornography,
> I got hard. And this was quite some time before I started growing hair
> around my pubes, etc.


that is not a pretty picture... however, i get your point.. you
apparently are heterosexual, by choice?
>
> And as a parent I have watched both my children, both son and daughter,
> under the age of 2, obviously getting a charge out of touching themselves.

it is nice that you are not telling them that it is "dirty" to touch
themselves.....
>
> So I pretty much think that the idea that children are asexual and have no
> sexual feelings until adolescence to be a big bunch of dogcrap perpetuated
> by really sexually screwed up adults.

I never said it was.. i remember feeling those feelings when i was a
child..

>
> We know that a great deal of things happen in the womb and in the first
> 6 months of life that are essentially programming. If you look at people
> that have really deviant, to the point of sicko, sex patterns, such as
> abusing
> children, not being able to get hard unless they are whipping their partner
> to
> the point of drawing blood, etc. it seems that there's a coorelation between
> these folks
> and really screwed up home lives, and/or sex abuse when they are young.
> Another way of saying this is that if you want to take a child and warp
> them into a sexually sicko adult, you have a really good chance of doing so
> if you get started abusing them really, really young.


I don't believe this to be true, otherwise, i would have been an
alcoholic, abusive, child molester. and i am not any of those things.
there is proof that in families where abuse takes place, environmental
influences make family members different, rather than making them more
similar to one another.
>
> What we can draw from this is that there is evidence that external
> environmental
> factors can program in certain kinds of sexual proclivities, if those
> factors
> are present during conception/incubation/early childhood development.
>
Granted. The Ted Bundy's of the world... But how can you explain a Jeff
Dahmer? he was raised in a very loving family (or so they say on Larry
King Live)...

> SO, it would not surprise me in the least if 50 years from now some
> researcher
> announces that if you want to increase your kids chances of being straight,
> then have them listen to 4 hours of Mozart a day while they are a developing
> fetus, and if you want to increase their chances of being gay, have them
> listen to 4 hours of Richard Simmons workout tapes while they are a
> developing fetus.
>
Give me Lynnard Skynnard everytime!!!!!!! hey, my mom listened to Hank
Williams while she was pregnant with me, what does this make me?

> Now, where Matt and I differ, however, is that Matt apparently believes that
> if someone is programmed to be gay, that they can later in life choose to
> switch back, and that furthermore them switching back is somehow in the
> interests of society. I don't believe that the first supposition has worked
> when
> dealing with cases of repeated child abusers, indicating that the
> supposition
> is totally bogus. And, I think the second supposition is a bunch of
> bull****,
> and is completely without merit.
>
> Ted
>
>

Still laughing, Daniel?