Pope Francis: Who am I to judge gay people?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

Maybe he learned from this gay clerical circle in Rome that this attribute is not a disease but a very human nature like being blue eyed or left handed.

It surprises me time and again how desperately people try to declare homosexuality a wanted feature and genetic design, and compare it to any other genetic feature. It is that NOT, and the latest report on so-.called epigenes does not show this statement of mine to be wrong, but supports it (it got tremendously misinterpreted in the media since it was published earlier this year):

Let'S have a closer look on epigenes. Scientists are relatively sure that for most people, their homosexual orientation has been put into their cradle genetically. We have striong reasons to assume this since longer time now. This does however not mean that it is an option of naturally wanted genetic variation in individual traits, like eye colour. Because homosexual orientation is not transported to a person by naturally evolving genetic informaton in the existing genes, but by an accidental mishap in the regulation of the process of splitting/reproducing genes: this is what the latest finding about epigenes mean.

Epigenes are temporarily existing informations that in themselves bear no information used for deciding the future individual's physical and psychological status. They get activated when a genetic reproduction of the genes have started, and they regulate the way, the manner, the fashion in which this process takes place. After the reproduction cycle of a given gene is completed, epigenes disappear again, and their regulating information with them. At least that is how it should be. Homosexuality does not appear when this indeed the case, there are no genetic informations or markers for homosexuality. At least nobody has ever discovered any so far.

But sometimes, an accident happens, and the epigenes do not disappear, dissolve again, but maintain to be there - and then their information could get embedded in the regular genes as well, although this should not, and is not meant to be, and is not needed at all. If this happens, then this defective completion of the epigene's function - temporary regulation of a temporary process - leads to the forming of an homosexual identity, which turns out to be the result of this temporary epigenetic information being turned into a lasting piece of the lasting overall genetic code. The existence of the homosexual identity is revealing that there went something wrong and that epigenes misfunctioned: they should have gone again, but have not.

Let'S try to illustrate it in a metaphoric picture. Assume genes to be transport trucks and the informaiton being the cargo they carry, and the traffic process of these trucks being the genetic reproduction process. Epigenes would compare to traffic cops regulating the traffic when the traffic hits a crossroad, for example, or there is a problem on the street: normally, you have no traffic cops on the streets regulating traffic by hand, when you see them, then there is a problem, a car accident maybe, or a broken traffic light or whatever. The cop is not meant to transport the goods the trucks carry. The cop only tells them whether to move left or right at a crossroad, for example. After the trucks have passed the hotspot, the cop is no longer needed, and is left behind.

Homosexuality then would emerge when the cop for reasons of miscommunicating with his HQ or being a confused mind starts to board trucks and drive on with them, or using his police car to share some goods and participate in the transport business. Nothing dangerous there, nothing serious or alarming - still something that should not be, and is not normal in that the situation - traffic cop cars being used for regular transports along with regular transport trucks - is not what it should be like. Traffic cops should regulate traffic when needed, and where not needed, they are not there. The transport business should be run by the transport trucks. And the genetic splitting and reproduction should copy the information aboard the genes, not the temporarily existing information that regulates how this process should be running. Epigenes are not part of ordinary genes. They only get formed when needed, then should stop being there again.

This is the latest findings of science on genetic basis for homosexuality. It has a genetic basis, yes, yet it is not the result of a natural or normal process going well, but it indicates that something has gone wrong, it is an accidental, naturally not wanted and not needed result: epigenes not dissolving again after the real vital genetic information got reproduced in gene splitting, but prevailing and embedding their process-regulating information into the regular genom. And that end results represents, in all politeness, a deformation of the gene. This is what is meant when refusing to label homosexual as "natural". It is realp in that the phenomenon exists, but it is not natural in representing a naturally wanted end state of things, nor does it represent a natural variation in traits and characteristics like eye colour.

Homosexuality is "normal" in that it can happen to exist. It is not normal in the meaning of representing a wanted genetic design transported by genetic information in the splitting gene. There are no known genetic markers for homosexuality. It is an accidental result of a process going wrong, and temporarily existing information that should just regulate the splitting process itself becomes lasting and gets included in the gene's code - while it should not do that at all. It is an accident, no wanted natural genetic evolution. Car accidents happen. They are real and a part of reality. Nevertheless nobody would label them as "naturally" representing what car traffic is about, and that cars are driven to crash them. You do not start your carwith the inention to crash it. The accident is a reality, but it is neither a wanted part of reality, nor is it what car design and driving effort in any way aims for. Car design and driving effort aim for car traffic without accidents. And if any of this fails - then you get an accident.

Eye colour, on the other hand, is genetically encoded in the normal gene, it is not just temporarily existing, and is existing for the sake if itself, not as an interim agent for other gene's functions.

All this is no excuse to discriminate homosexuals, of course, even more so since the results of this accident do not pose a thread or risk at all. It happens. However we should really stop trying for reasons of being politically correct and socially oh so sensible to give the impression that homosexuality is a human trait with its own genetic encoding in the genes like any other physical or psychological trait encoded in the genes. It simply is not, and any ideologically motivated protest will not change that. There is no gene discovered that carries the information for becoming homosexual. It is not a natural result of genetic splitting, like skin colour, height, sex, eye colour. Live with it.

[Mittelwaechter]

Very interesting and thanks for the eloquent information.

So eye colour is a bad example, true. But what about to be left handed? Could this be caused by the same circumstances? Or did they find a genetic marker for this feature?

And don't be 'surprised'.
I never stated homosexuality to be a 'wanted feature' by nature but a natural state. I guess the feature - if wanted - would be the end of our species.

Not that this would be a problem for the planet. Maybe your explanation is a security feature? The unwanted police behaviour may be triggered by overpopulation?

The mother may live in very cramped surroundings, in a climate of war and fight for resources and she breeds a child uninterested in reproduction to regulate the overpopulation?

In any case it is nothing to blame the gay persons for and we should accept and consider their sexual orientation as completely equaly righted - including marriage and child adoption.

[Skybird]

As far as I know science still has not made a finalverdict on whether left or right hand being dominant is egnetically marked or not. I tend to think that it is a consequence from other factors, and thus an implication:

It is known that the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and the right side of the brain the left side of the body. The brain centre for speech is located in the left brain hemispheree for the huge majority of people, with very small groups only having that centre in the right side of their brain, or having speech functionality distributed over both brain hemispheres. This is no causal link between speech and hand dominance of course, but there is a strong correlation between this socalled lateralisation, and hand dominance. So while there maybe indeed are no genetic markers deciding whether your left or right hand is dominant, this nevertheless could be indirectly genetically determined by the genetic code deciding on the lateralisation inside the brain: where you have you speech centre in your brain (and then assuming that there is some kind of a link between speech and finemotoric action with hands, which necessarily includes cognition, neuroscience and psychology into the overall assessment). Complex stuff - we still do not know for sure, it seems. If there is such a link as the correlation seems to indicate, it probably hints at an advantage in the history of evolution if the species has one hand dominant and more capable than the other, and having the neural control for that located in the same brain hemisphere like that for verbal communication. Speech and tool-using, both with strong references to this other phenomenon: practical intelligence. I cannot nail it down precisely, but maybe you have the same association here like I have when putting these qualities together. To me, in a way it makes sense. But I would not want to write a paper about it.

On the marriage and child adoption equality that you mention, I of course strongly object, due to the vital importance of families for any human society, and the psychological differentiation I make between a mother and a father, also, I want the family status being given spoecial protection and appreciation by society, and I see no merits being scored fro two women or two men being homosexual and living together. They are free to do so, already now, but it deserves no special recognition or appreciation, it is no service to society to live together as they are, or to be gay/lesbian. While some children become orphants, or loose one parent to death of divorce or other factors, this nevertheless is no desirable nor a natural(in the meaning of normal) circumstance). And a female mother is not the same like a homosexual man and a male father is not the same like a lesbian women. Mother and father serve different role models, and women and man tick differently anyway. I consider it wanted by nature that children get educated by both, and that this - or the absence of this - influences emotional, cognitive and intellectual development. We know for exmaple that childrne beign risen by one parent only have a significantly higher,a much higher probability to develope a personality disorder or a neurosis later in their lives, from their 30th year on. A mother and a gay man are two very different things, and the latter cannot compensate the absence of the first. That is not an issue of wanting or not wanting, loving or not loving, but an issue of traits people carry - or carry not.

The epigene issue is saying that homosexuality is an accident, not a natural genetic design option, and that goes queer with many people, who now aggressively imply that homosexuals should be lowered by calling them the result of an accident. Well, maybe all life on earth is the result of a cosmic accident, an event with extremely low probability to happen. I do not think of gays as the incarnation of a biological accident, but I insist on not normalising what is not normal. Being an albino or siamese twin does not strip the effected individual its human rights and dignity, but still what happened to them are genetic defects, and it has as a result that they are not human people represnrting a nhaturl normality oh human species. They are exceptions. Homosexuals also are exceptions, of a different kind. Transgenderism is an exception, and probably is not a wanted design option by nature, since it makes no sense: it is an accident, something went wrong at some point. Let's recognise the fact as fact, and accept it as a reality without distorting that reality for emotional or ideological reasons. when you are born with three instead of four fingers, that also is an accident, something went wrong. It makes you different. It does not negatively hinder you in your abilities, most likely, accept certain things having to do with the way you can grab things, that is all.

Normality is to recognise these things as they are, without trying to censor their perception or lobbying for them to gain priviliges. There is no merit won by having three instead of four fingers. A three-fingered person deserve no special recognition or appreciation for it. He also do not deserve being discriminated for it.

[Mittelwaechter]

@ skybird

Your arguments against gay families are not persuasive to me. All this 'behavioural abnormality' you describe is not only with gay people but with most of the people considered to be normal.
Parents who have been violently abused by their parents tend to do the same to their childeren sooner or later.
Our kids are exposured to all stupid life experience and bad behaviour, all mental chaos and all social malformation, all prejudices and all brain f from their 'normal' parents.
Any crazy sociopath is entitled to grow some kids if only he or she is straight.
It makes no sense at all to tell gay people they shall not marry and have children. Not to live their lives the way they want to.

My personal experience with homosexuals is, they are nonviolent and very social, creative and funny. They rarely take extreme positions and are very open minded. They are nice, cultivated couples and unimportunate individuals.
I think they are at least as ideal to raise kids as any other parents. They live an example of diversity, proving that 'difference' is no reason for social exclusion. A good lesson to learn for all of us, including their kids.
I know enough heterosexual couples and singles way more absurd and socially incompetent to be justifiable parents. No one would ever hinder them to marry or breed children.
Our society should grant the freedom for both sexual orientations to express their personality and to found a family.
And for the sake of the children these families should be cared for by the law as usual.
A special treatment for gay families is only necessary right now, because we make them special. Let them live as every other couple and let them have kids to care for.
We will lern there is no difference before long. I guess we may even learn the gay parents may be more caring. Who knows?

And accidents happen. That's normal. Diversity is normal, mutation is normal, individuality is normal...
That's life.


Edit:
Even you and me could be 'accidents'. A little hole in our fathers rubber sock you know...
Our whole existence may be based on an accident, not just our sexual orientation. Should we be treated special in that case?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter

@ skybird

Your arguments against gay families are not persuasive to me. All this 'behavioural abnormality' you describe is not only with gay people but with most of the people considered to be normal.

I cut it short becasue we have been there bfore, in past discussions, and I do not want to endlessly repeat in detail what I already said there. It's a bit more complex than you paint things as. Development psychology (I once studied that) and mother-child attachement and the concept of so
-called Bonding (Bowlby) plays a role in my thinking, since these have very strong scientific backing and it is almost crooinal to ignore them. And some more. But I was about that in greater detail already in past threads on homosexuality. Other factors that must be taken into account are genbder role modelling, and the sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious differences an male and female values, and male and female ways of approaching and teaching children. I know that modern ultra-feminists, under the label of genderism now, claim that there are no gender differences between boys and girls and that it all can be socially engineered. It's just that endless repeating of already since years and decades scientifically proven wrong claims and misinformations does not make such wrong claims any less wrong.

Hell, what inane times I live in!? Children need a male father and a female mother. That should be obvious and natural so that any discussion about even this should be seen as completely needless. Can children grow without one of the two! Heck, yes, obviously they can. The quresiton is what this means for their inner development. What does it tell you that there is a significant correlation between a raise in probabilities for developing a personality disorder or a severe nueorosis - in them main: depression beyond the age of 30 when you have grown up with just one parent, and the other missing? One example. Or the correlation between the growing likelihood of showing conspicious behavior (aggression, lack of concentration, extreme introversion or extroversion, boycotting behavior within the social environment or school) and the absence of one parent in the household?

And just for the record, a gay man is no female mother. A lesbian woman is no male man. The one cannot serve as a rolemodel of the parent that lacks. What makes PC people so cvertain that they can afford to declare that children do not need a mother and a father when nature has designed our dual-sexual species with the sexual traits we have, and that effect so muczh more than just our reproduction behavior, but also our emotions, thinking, interests, priorities, perception, cognition? I recommend to liosten to mother nature here. She said "one mother and one father", and that's it. It cannot be by random chance only that this is the by far most dominant social model of families since several thouand years. It probbaly is ike that becasue iot has paye doff and is a model whose value has been well-proven.

A drunken scumbag ruining a family is no argument against a functional family as an ideal. One could as well speak against marriage becasue some men trat their women badly (and statistically more women staret fights and become physically aggressive in relations towards their men than the other way around - a statistic fact that most people do not know and that is almost never included in public discussion, and is actively hidden by feminists.

Parents who have been violently abused by their parents tend to do the same to their childeren sooner or later.

The existence of dysfunctional families as you describe them is no argument against my defence of the need for functional families. In fact you only support my demand.

My personal experience with homosexuals is, they are nonviolent and very social, creative and funny. They rarely take extreme positions and are very open minded. They are nice, cultivated couples and unimportunate individuals.
I think they are at least as ideal to raise kids as any other parents. They live an example of diversity, proving that 'difference' is no reason for social exclusion. A good lesson to learn for all of us, including their kids.

And my experience is that these are cliches if being generalised like you do here. Some gays I can immediately recongise, within seconds, it si the way they move, speak, their gesture, mimic, habitus, habits, way they dress- some of these factors, or all of them. And other gays surprised me when learning they were gay, they appeared to be completely "normal", were angry about hysteric gay activists giving them all a bad name with their public misbehavior and CSD exhibitionism. Gays can also be lazy, malicious and underhganded, crminanl, mentally paralysed - I'm sure they can, becawseue I do not idelise them anbd think they are a very mixed group like all mankind and thus have white sheep and black sheep as well. BTW, I knew two gays at university. And both shared my views and arguments on gay marriage and adoption. They were sharp critics of the political correctness frenzy that has led to the madness of today - and I knew them already in the early 90s!

You realise why I tell you this, yes? Maybe it is no good idea to start arguing with "that guy living in the appartement down the floor who is a really friendly gyu and I happen to know him." Arguing like that, using cliches, does not get you that far.

I know enough heterosexual couples and singles way more absurd and socially incompetent to be justifiable parents. No one would ever hinder them to marry or breed children.

One wrong does not make correct a different wrong. I said it above: you only support my demand for functional families., What you point at again is dysfunctional families. I also demand safe street traffic. You could deny that as well - by correctly pointing out that all car accidents include cars. But what woudl your argument be there?

Our society should grant the freedom for both sexual orientations to express their personality and to found a family.

Homosexual activism and lobbying is far more omnipresent in emdia and oublic lkife, than you seem to have realsied. In most Wetsenr states peopk,e are freee to maintain friendhsips and rrelatiosn with whom they want. People are free to live as nymphomanic or abstinent as they want, there is no state regulation on sexuality accept that pedophiles are kept out of schools and kindergardens (and even that some crazy types want to change). I cannot think of any place or time in human history where people have been more free to express their precious personality by sexuality. I personally cannot communicate well with blenders and d!ckheads and I also fail to see a link between IQ or character, and the number of orgasms somebody can have within ten minutes. But nevertheless - everybody is free to live and fnck like he wants. How much more expression of personality by sexuality can you want...?

And for the sake of the children these families should be cared for by the law as usual.

I agree. Just that a family is not a completely arbitreary thing in constellation. A very burgeoise thoguht of mine - that'S why especially the left hates it so much and Marx called for the destruction of "family". There can be no omnipresent left collectivism as long as the social core cell of society is the burgeoise family.

For the sake of children adoptions should only be allowed in constellations that give the child a mother, a father, social and material stability and protection. Nature never had it in mind that homosexuals found families. Maybe you have noted that homosexuals cannot create babies?! Want to come with the idea of factory babies now? Well, ask Mattel.

A special treatment for gay families is only necessary right now, because we make them special. Let them live as every other couple and let them have kids to care for.

Normality is not achieved by special treatments. Yes, let them live as couples, but recognise that homosexual and heterosexual couples are different, like men and women are both humans, but different still. Adoptions by homosexuals I only will when the kid is the biological kid and has lived with of one of the two adults before. In fact, the adoption then is only the adoption by just one of the two adults.

For thew record it must be mentioned that having two gays or two lesbians as your parents, at school can make you object of massive mobbing and mean behavior. Children can be cruel. This may not appear as a desirable fact of life, nevertheless it is a fact of life.

We will learn there is no difference before long. I guess we may even learn the gay parents may be more caring. Who knows?

Must we? According to the thought police, probably, they indeed force it down our neurons since long time now. Who knows, you ask Must we really speculate? Speculations are just that: speculation. I don't care for speculations. You give the impression that gays indeed are the better, the nobler, the kinder, the holier humans, and for the second time now. Well. I prefer to see them as humans, mostly similar, slightly different from the majority of people.

And accidents happen. That's normal. Diversity is normal, mutation is normal, individuality is normal...
That's life.

You have not gotten what I tried to explain on epigenes, if you still compare it to mutations and normal diversity. Homosexuality is no mutation, nor a genetic trait for diversity. It has no known genetic marker. If such a marker will ever be discovered, then this still has to happen. Until then - epigenes.

Edit:
Even you and me could be 'accidents'. A little hole in our fathers rubber sock you know...
Our whole existence may be based on an accident, not just our sexual orientation. Should we be treated special in that case?

I remember quite clearly that I said quite that in an earlier reply, haven't I? And I said that we do not know.