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On Geeks and Gays

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Re: On Geeks and Gays

#121

Post by doug_m »

sjs wrote: post #100
lincolnq wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem obvious to me. Inventions can change many lives, but the scope of a person's social life is necessarily limited. Why do you say that?

I don't think any amount of human suffering is really worth some perceived progress. Not only because the progress will likely come around eventually anyway if it's for the better, but if we're trying to better humankind we shouldn't start by harming even a single human.

Really? even Alexander Fleming before his accidental discovery of penicillin?

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#122

Post by dejb »

aphyr wrote: post #76
dejb wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an arrangement that is extremely uncommon through most of human history/evolution so it seems reasonable to believe that humans may not be well adapted to brought up by gay couples. You could argue that the lack of genetic relationship to the parents overwhelms any difference between heterosexual and homosexual couples. But on balance it is not difficult to see why being reared be both a male and female parent…

Luckily, plenty of gay couples have tried raising kids, and they do just fine, thank you very much. :) http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/parenting.aspx "Beliefs that lesbian and gay adults are not fit parents likewise have no empirical foundation."

I have no doubt that many gay couples do quite well at raising children. I would however put those cases were one of the biological parents was present in a different category to what we are talking about (which I suspect is your case).

> "Beliefs that lesbian and gay adults are not fit parents likewise have no empirical foundation."

As I argued in my post, most studies are likely to effected by selection bias so it is going to be tough to get a solid "empirical foundation" either way.

The real question is who should have the burden of evidence? Should we say that 'until gay couples are proven to be good parents we won't allow adoption' or 'unless it is proven that gay couples are bad parents they should have identical adoption rights'. I don't think either is sensible position and some sort of middle ground would be best as more evidence accumulates.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#123

Post by jacquesm »

j-g-faustus wrote: post #33
mpk wrote: post #11

I'd say that geeks tend to think about their environment a lot more than other people because geeks tend to think about systems in general. I have never encountered a rational argument for homophobia. Gay people seem to me to be just as likely to be virtuous or decadent as straight people. Discriminating against people for having a different sexual orientation seems totally irrational to me. As far as I'm concerned,…

I've always thought that [gay | labor | women's | black's | etc] rights all collapse to merely human rights, and find it curious that we see the need to carve it up in a whole bunch of special cases.

Interesting you should say that. I was reading the declaration of human rights the other day and it struck me that we have a long long way to go before we can even begin to say that the majority of the countries that are signatory to it actually practice them all the time.

It's really quite shocking how many of those 'basic principles' are trampled on a daily basis. There should be a long term trend towards respect for those principles in the countries that are signatory to them, but in fact, on some fronts especially privacy the trend is backwards.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#124

Post by philwelch »

caryme wrote: post #119
sketerpot wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a better word for "anti-gay bigotry". Or, better yet, a set of such words which apply to common subsets of the LGBTQ alphabet-soup categorization. Right now all we have are words like homophobia and transphobia, which would do alright if only they didn't have the mental illness connotations.

Heterosexism: discrimination or prejudice by heterosexuals against homosexuals (Merriam-Webster)

That term actually has a much more specific meaning among the "academic left" (for lack of a better term).

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#125

Post by caryme »

philwelch wrote: post #124
caryme wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heterosexism: discrimination or prejudice by heterosexuals against homosexuals (Merriam-Webster)

That term actually has a much more specific meaning among the "academic left" (for lack of a better term).

What meaning is that? The meaning I am actually more familiar with is "the belief that one sexual orientation is inherently better than another."

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#126

Post by ErrantX »

tman wrote: post #29
puredemo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about just not discriminating?

Before I reply, I'd like to find out what you mean by that statement. Do you mean, "Let us be willfully blind and refuse to engage our senses, not recognizing any differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals despite large behavioral differences (beyond sexual preference) which do exist." Or do you mean, "Despite your arguments, I categorically state that no differences between these groups exist (beyond the sexu…

No, what he means is that, certainly differences exist - and there is nothing wrong with that or them (as you seem to be suggesting).

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#127

Post by jacquesm »

xenophanes wrote: post #112
caryme wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the thing. If we could realize that it's the same issue over and over again, perhaps it would become less of an issue. If only. In US-parlance, all men are created equal. We said that right off the bat. Once we decided that by men , we meant people , what further argument is there to have? All means all.

Let me know when you realize that 4 year olds are people too, and should have full human rights. If you won't accept that case, then you're part of the problem that doesn't see it's the same issue over and over.

Some of the human rights are conditional upon whether or not the person they are applied to is 'of age' or not.

There are some inconsistencies but they've definitely managed to avoid most of them.

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#128

Post by ErrantX »

sophacles wrote: post #20

This is just odd to me. It never even occurred to me that the sexuality of a person running a campaign like that would matter. I mean, its Turing -- a name most known for inventing the freaking computer. Sure there is the whole "gay angle" and it being the reason for the treatment -- but I figured the campaign was more about, lets clear this extremely important historical person's name, and for Britain to admit the w…

I'm only guessing but my thinking on how the thought process went was..

People wondered why he was sticking up for Turing in particular - a lot of people have been abused by the government (and society) in the past. They wondered if he had a certain interest in this specific case; and they falsely assumed it was an issue of sexuality, forgetting that Turing was a geek too :)

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#129

Post by philwelch »

caryme wrote: post #125
philwelch wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That term actually has a much more specific meaning among the "academic left" (for lack of a better term).

What meaning is that? The meaning I am actually more familiar with is "the belief that one sexual orientation is inherently better than another."

The connotation of "heterosexism" seems closer to "heteronormativity" than "homophobia"--basically the assumption that everyone is heterosexual, or the establishment of heterosexuality as a social norm. For (potentially poor) example, if a television series has a homosexual character who is stereotyped and portrayed in a negative light, that's homophobia. If a television series has no homosexual characters at all despite prominently portraying heterosexual characters and relationships, it's heterosexist or heteronormative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosexism

Re: On Geeks and Gays

#130

Post by jacquesm »

neodude wrote: post #117

It's nice to see so many gay geeks 'come out' on this thread. I had assumed I was the only one. Sexuality is such an infrequent topic on HN.

> I had assumed I was the only one.

That's strange then because there are plenty of people here that have stated openly and without reservation that they are gay or transgender.

In a population of this size you should be very surprised if you are the only gay person.

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