Homosexuals and Bisexuals

[Shane Roach]

Simple:

You bring up the map. Click on a state, and bring up the list of known hate groups. Next to each group is a description of their particular category - "Neo-Nazi," "Anti-Gay," "Christian Identity," "Black Separatist". If you click the particular category, it brings up a national list of all groups in that category, as well as the specific definition used for the category. For instance, if you click on "Black Separatist", you'll find the United Nuwabian Nation of Moors in Athens, GA, as well as the Nation of Islam's national offices. Under "Anti-Gay", you'll find Westboro Baptist in Kansas, and Mass Resistance in Massachusetts, and various others.

And the whole point is that no one is doing anything resembling decent research on their claims in this thread - it would've been much easier to point out that NARTH isn't listed as a hate group by the SPLC than to point to a generalized definition of the activities of a hate group and go on the defensive. For instance - handing out pamphlets full of the poor research of Paul Cameron is dishonest, but not on the level of printing copies of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion for free distribution, nor the WBC's insistence that killing a homosexual for being homosexual isn't a crime. Thus the varying levels of activities that are required for each category. Also, it would've taken two seconds to see that while NARTH is condemned as encouraging hate groups by the SPLC, they are not considered to be on the same level as the WBC or Mass Resistance.

I'm winding up my class in Reference and Research Services, and these things are making me crazy.

Sir, I've gone to the library, checked out books, read them, cited them by page number and chapter in some instances, downloaded studies and actually GiMPed them so that you can see the actual screen shots of the studies. On multiple occasions now I have been able to demonstrate that what gay activists say even about specific studies is false.

Please refrain from making unsubstantiated accusations against me.

You say the method was simple? I think what would have been simple would have been a link to a list, not "click the state, then pick and individual type of hate group if it happens to exist in that state, and it will lead you to the list of hate groups of that type."

That's a weird way to organize a list, sir. It is not "simple" compared to how most people would imagine searching for a list. Nor are there even instructions on the main map page.

Your accusation is spurious, and very typical of the supporters of the gay agenda here. Someone posts a false accusation, that NARTH is on this list, and you find it more questionable that someone is having difficulties with the strange way the SLPC organizes that list than you do with the fact that two separate people claimed NARTH was on this list when it is not?

I think what's obvious is I was right to doggedly insist that someone show this list instead of just taking gay activists at their word on the subject.

 

[sidhe]

The problem is, by your standards, suggesting that blacks have any control over their urge to have sex would be tantamount to racism. Any community push to increase awareness of STD's and how to avoid them in a black neighborhood would be racist. Any religious organization preaching against irresponsible sex and citing as a risk the danger of STD's would actually be racist because, after all, STD's affect blacks disproportionately.

The comparison would be more if African-Americans were told that having sex with one another was a sin, as is obvious from the increased levels of STDs, and they shouldn't be allowed to get married. Education on safer sex is a good idea in general.

All of the accusations of bigotry that spill across these boards are spurious when it deals with the gay agenda. Homosexuality is a behavior. It is referred to as such by many psychiatric papers. It is not a race or gender. No one so far has even presented a cogent argument for comparing the regulation of any behavior with laws specifically singling out people of various colors.

Religion is clearly a chosen behavior. Is discrimination on religious grounds valid?

The second link, on this thread, the idea that if you calculate the number of gays it only samples .01% spread within a page or so of my posting it, whereas if you do the relatively simply math it takes to check that accusation, it is actually 1.7% rounding off. 33/1955. If you roll the gays and bisexuals together, it comes out exceedingly close to 9%. If anything, one might think that is over-representing bisexuals, not under-representing gays.

P values are the issue here. As a general (and disputed) rule, any p value over 0.05-0.10 means the statistic may not be in fact significant. It's in dispute because there are multiple other factors that contribute, concerning "closeness of fit" and such, but even then smaller p values are considered more statistically significant. The p value of the comparison between homosexuals and heterosexuals is approaching 0.70, meaning there's not enough information to really depend on these statistics as a universal. If you look at the other p values, where the comparison may be statistically significant, the numbers are considerably closer.

One thing is for certain, there is no shortage of reports indicating gays are comparatively promiscuous, yet we are constantly told otherwise.

See p values above. Also, why is being promiscuous automatically bad?

 

[sidhe]

Sir, I've gone to the library, checked out books, read them, cited them by page number and chapter in some instances, downloaded studies and actually GiMPed them so that you can see the actual screen shots of the studies. On multiple occasions now I have been able to demonstrate that what gay activists say even about specific studies is false.

Please refrain from making unsubstantiated accusations against me.

You say the method was simple? I think what would have been simple would have been a link to a list, not "click the state, then pick and individual type of hate group if it happens to exist in that state, and it will lead you to the list of hate groups of that type."

That's a weird way to organize a list, sir. It is not "simple" compared to how most people would imagine searching for a list. Nor are there even instructions on the main map page.

Your accusation is spurious, and very typical of the supporters of the gay agenda here. Someone posts a false accusation, that NARTH is on this list, and you find it more questionable that someone is having difficulties with the strange way the SLPC organizes that list than you do with the fact that two separate people claimed NARTH was on this list when it is not?

I think what's obvious is I was right to doggedly insist that someone show this list instead of just taking gay activists at their word on the subject.

Nice job. I criticized everyone who didn't bother to do their research. Not just you.

ETA: Who're you calling "sir"?

 

[Shane Roach]

^ Homosexuality is not a behaviour.

I've now found studies where the term is used. I'm not going to go to the trouble of cutting and pasting instances of professionals using the English language as everyone knows it can be used. This argument is at its core disingenuous. If people are referring to the homosexual act itself, it is of course a behavior. To argue otherwise is simply to state an obvious falsehood.

 

[Shane Roach]

Nice job. I criticized everyone who didn't bother to do their research. Not just you.

ETA: Who're you calling "sir"?

I was trying to check my facts when I ran into the problem that I cannot find the list.

There are 66 hate groups in Texas. 66!!!!!!!! Not one of them was a gay hate group. It is not immediately intuitive to me how to find the information. That's not me NOT following up, that's me just asking for help.

The problem is in accusing me at all. I've gone miles father than anyone else I have seen post here to try to look up and present the actual studies and facts. The people making their assertions that NARTH was in here at all are the ones that should be providing the links, Seidhe, not me -- not everyone else who is trying to figure out what in the world it means when you or BigBadWlf continually say, without reference to source at all, "NARTH is a recognized hate group," but you and/or anyone else who makes the statement.

As for calling you sir....

Well....



I could have sworn you were Lighthorseman.

 

[sidhe]

I was trying to check my facts when I ran into the problem that I cannot find the list.

There are 66 hate groups in Texas. 66!!!!!!!! Not one of them was a gay hate group. It is not immediately intuitive to me how to find the information. That's not me NOT following up, that's me just asking for help.

The problem is in accusing me at all. I've gone miles father than anyone else I have seen post here to try to look up and present the actual studies and facts. The people making their assertions that NARTH was in here at all are the ones that should be providing the links, Seidhe, not me -- not everyone else who is trying to figure out what in the world it means when you or BigBadWlf continually say, without reference to source at all, "NARTH is a recognized hate group," but you and/or anyone else who makes the statement.

As for calling you sir....

Well....



I could have sworn you were Lighthorseman.

You post studies, but you only post clips. That's all you can do, due to copyright issues of course, but without full-context, it's all meaningless.

Then other people look at your study, out of context, and address it, out of context, because unless you have academic databases at your disposal most of the studies aren't publicly available.

Like the chart you posted in the other thread - without the surrounding text explaining the conclusions the researchers drew from the study, it's just numbers. I had to brush up on statistics to figure out that the comparisons in sexual behavior presented by the study aren't all statistically significant, but even that's only an assumption because I don't have the full-text available to look at other factors.

 

[David Brider]

I've now found studies where the term is used. I'm not going to go to the trouble of cutting and pasting instances of professionals using the English language as everyone knows it can be used. This argument is at its core disingenuous. If people are referring to the homosexual act itself, it is of course a behavior. To argue otherwise is simply to state an obvious falsehood.

Thing is...if homosexuality really is a behaviour, then what exactly does it consist of? Because I can't think of any behaviour which is both universal to all homosexuals, and exclusive to all homosexuals.

And i you're going to suggest some sort of sexual activity, bear in mind that a.) nowhere near all homosexuals are sexually active and b.) many of the sexual activities that sexually active homosexuals might take part in, might also be taken part in* by non-homosexuals, often in opposite-gender sexual unions.

David.

*Sorry, appalling grammar...

 

[Shane Roach]

P values are the issue here. As a general (and disputed) rule, any p value over 0.05-0.10 means the statistic may not be in fact significant. It's in dispute because there are multiple other factors that contribute, concerning "closeness of fit" and such, but even then smaller p values are considered more statistically significant. The p value of the comparison between homosexuals and heterosexuals is approaching 0.70, meaning there's not enough information to really depend on these statistics as a universal. If you look at the other p values, where the comparison may be statistically significant, the numbers are considerably closer.

Sidhe, no one mentioned p values before. It's a fine distinction you make, but what people said before was that it was showing a .01% sample of gays.

If you want to talk about p values, fine, but don't do it in the context of defending people who are disseminating false information, especially since you are also now supposedly making an issue about people doing their research.

So walk me through this, because this is not a coin toss where it is more or less self explanatory that you're testing to see if the coin is actually behaving as expected. What are you stating as the null hypothesis, and what have you set as the significance level?

 

[sidhe]

Sidhe, no one mentioned p values before. It's a fine distinction you make, but what people said before was that it was showing a .01% sample of gays.

If you want to talk about p values, fine, but don't do it in the context of defending people who are disseminating false information, especially since you are also now supposedly making an issue about people doing their research.

So walk me through this, because this is not a coin toss where it is more or less self explanatory that you're testing to see if the coin is actually behaving as expected. What are you stating as the null hypothesis, and what have you set as the significance level?

I'd need to see the study in full to state that. All I have is the chart. What do they say is their null hypothesis and significance level?

I didn't do the research, so I'm just going by the standard of 0.05-0.10 being acceptable p values. Seeing a p value of 0.689 in a study where most p values are between 0.00 and 0.025 is setting off warning bells to me.

 

[Shane Roach]

You post studies, but you only post clips. That's all you can do, due to copyright issues of course, but without full-context, it's all meaningless.

Then other people look at your study, out of context, and address it, out of context, because unless you have academic databases at your disposal most of the studies aren't publicly available.

Like the chart you posted in the other thread - without the surrounding text explaining the conclusions the researchers drew from the study, it's just numbers. I had to brush up on statistics to figure out that the comparisons in sexual behavior presented by the study aren't all statistically significant, but even that's only an assumption because I don't have the full-text available to look at other factors.

In most of the cases so far, I post clips because someone has made claims about a study that turn out to be demonstrably false.

Also, I simply do not accept as axiomatic that people cannot discuss with any relevance the facts presented regarding these papers. The assertion I am questioning here is whether or not the APA and others are correct in stating certain things about homosexuality. If they are not going to release the data openly, then we have no choice but to ferret it out for ourselves, and while I would agree that nothing terribly conclusive can be determined from snipping little bits from studies all over the place, one thing that is becoming very clear is that the assumption that gays are just as healthy as straights in a number of areas is simply not holding water. We don't need to dig into the minutiae of these surveys to see a trend here. Whether they are comparison studies that include gays as a portion of their sample, or whether they are specifically aimed at gays, they are all of them showing significant increases in promiscuity among the gay population, specifically male. But I am beginning to see some evidence in reading a lot of various studies that this is not necessarily absent in lesbians.

Various people make various arguments for why promiscuity is important. For one, since there is no such thing as 100% safe sex when one discusses intercourse, promiscuity increases the chance of spreading disease. For another, I have noticed a number of papers about the link between low self esteem and promiscuity.

The assumption of gay activists is that homosexuals suffer low self esteem because of society, but there are other things that simply cannot be changed about homosexuality that could also easily explain low self esteem. I imagine for one, finding one's self wired in such a way that something as fundamental as having one's own family, and raising them with the mother or father of one's biological children is simply impossible could make one feel none too pleased with one's lot in life. Social disgust at the practice, even if people were to say, "oh, it's ok for you, but not for me," with all the accompanying gestures and such to indicate the reason why it is "not for me" is that it is "totally disgusting to imagine", that is going to have its effect on a person's self confidence.

So unless you are pondering illegalizing people having emotional reactions to things they find extremely repulsive, and also going to somehow change the very fabric of reality itself to somehow make pregnancy possible when men have sex with each other or when women have sex with each other, there simply are differences here that no gay person will ever be able to avoid. Those differences are at the very least very likely to be a major part of why gays might suffer from low self esteem.

Imagine now a mental health organization that tells you they cannot help you, and that indeed your real problem is in not accepting yourself for who you are, and the rest of it is society's fault...

That is a recipe for disaster, in my opinion. Now not only does the person have a false perception for why they are bothered, but they have all of society as a target for any inappropriate reactions they may have to their pent up frustrations.

It is exceedingly unethical for the APA to be setting up a situation like this on such a grand scale, in my opinion.

 

[Ben-AG]

It seems to me the people who are presented with evidence have already conducted their own primary means of gathering the said information. I do not presume to know the facts, thus the reason I turn to accredited sources who have actually conducted the studies themselves to inform me. Now you can bring up the argument that you do not agree with the presented observations because you do not like the source; does that null their observations? Do you have the authority to null data gathered from such studies by pointing out flaws that the people who published the concerning articles missed somehow? Of course, I know, they must have been so reckless in the processes of publication that they did not ask us, the experts, to proof read it.

 

[b&wpac4]

It seems to me the people who are presented with evidence have already conducted their own primary means of gathering the said information. I do not presume to know the facts, thus the reason I turn to accredited sources who have actually conducted the studies themselves to inform me. Now you can bring up the argument that you do not agree with the presented observations because you do not like the source; does that null their observations? Do you have the authority to null data gathered from such studies by pointing out flaws that the people who published the concerning articles missed somehow? Of course, I know, they must have been so reckless in the processes of publication that they did not ask us, the experts, to proof read it.

I believe the problem with some of the studies that have been posted is that they have been exposed as frauds. Not all of the studies, mind you, but some of them. If a person is shown to have produced data out of thin air to backup their claims, it no longer is a valid study.

 

[Shane Roach]

I'd need to see the study in full to state that. All I have is the chart. What do they say is their null hypothesis and significance level?

I didn't do the research, so I'm just going by the standard of 0.05-0.10 being acceptable p values. Seeing a p value of 0.689 in a study where most p values are between 0.00 and 0.025 is setting off warning bells to me.

Ok that was dumb of me. For some reason, since you did not acknowledge that many of the p values indicate statistical significance, I thought you were trying to assign p values of your own.

The only one that is showing as not statistically significant is the direct comparison of exclusive homosexuals to exclusive heterosexuals. I am not sure what sort of hay you can make out of that. In the comments they observe that the homosexual data is skewed by a number of homosexuals having exceedingly high numbers -- something I personally have noted in a number of discussions about this topic.

It seems to me that what you're doing here is a pretty weak argument though. The stepwise manner in which heterosexuals compare to bisexuals at statistically significant levels, and the bisexual in turn compares to homosexuals at statistically significant levels, while not perhaps important in the purely statistical sense, seems to me to provide a good bit of insight into how the p value for comparing heterosexuals to homosexuals is skewed. It's probably just a function of the necessities of the limited percentage of homosexuals provided in this specific sample. It still coincides though with other studies which establish, without comparison to heterosexuals within the sample itself, that homosexuals have high numbers of partners in comparison to what can be established by studies exclusive to heterosexuals.

I've included one such study in this thread already.

So what is the point of raising the issue of the p value on that one comparison? Are you still arguing that homosexuals have not been demonstrated in various studies to your satisfaction to be relatively promiscuous?

 

[Shane Roach]

Again, to just touch base with the broad outlines of what I am seeing here, people are saying they have concerns that homosexuals are being presented as every bit as healthy and normal as heterosexuals. One of several objections being voiced is that it appears homosexuals are highly promiscuous. We are then called upon to produce proof of this, or else to admit that we only think that because we are bigots.

We come up with the evidence, and the argument shifts. It is now being haltingly conceded that at least in this one situation, there is evidence to show that indeed, there is promiscuity, but now the new argument is, "what is so bad about promiscuity?"

Should that not have been the argument days ago? If it doesn't matter to someone whether people are promiscuous or not, should they not either cede the point or at least state that they do not find it important? It would save people a lot of time looking up facts if folks would define beforehand which of the facts they are even willing to cede are important.

 

[Skaloop]

Are you still arguing that homosexuals have not been demonstrated in various studies to your satisfaction to be relatively promiscuous?

So what? Even if the numbers in the studies you cite are totally accurate and homosexuals are having sex with hundreds of different people; what does that have to do with marriage?

A straight guy could have sex with as many women as he likes and still get married, so I don't see how the possible promiscuity of some members of a group matters to other non-promiscuous members of that group.

And you know why straight men don't have as many sexual partners as gay men? Because gay men don't have to convince women to have sex.*

*This was said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and I don't have any studies to back it up, but it's pretty self-evident that men are generally more open to having random, casual sex than women.

 

[sidhe]

Ok that was dumb of me. For some reason, since you did not acknowledge that many of the p values indicate statistical significance, I thought you were trying to assign p values of your own.

The only one that is showing as not statistically significant is the direct comparison of exclusive homosexuals to exclusive heterosexuals. I am not sure what sort of hay you can make out of that. In the comments they observe that the homosexual data is skewed by a number of homosexuals having exceedingly high numbers -- something I personally have noted in a number of discussions about this topic.

It seems to me that what you're doing here is a pretty weak argument though. The stepwise manner in which heterosexuals compare to bisexuals at statistically significant levels, and the bisexual in turn compares to homosexuals at statistically significant levels, while not perhaps important in the purely statistical sense, seems to me to provide a good bit of insight into how the p value for comparing heterosexuals to homosexuals is skewed. It's probably just a function of the necessities of the limited percentage of homosexuals provided in this specific sample. It still coincides though with other studies which establish, without comparison to heterosexuals within the sample itself, that homosexuals have high numbers of partners in comparison to what can be established by studies exclusive to heterosexuals.

I've included one such study in this thread already.

So what is the point of raising the issue of the p value on that one comparison? Are you still arguing that homosexuals have not been demonstrated in various studies to your satisfaction to be relatively promiscuous?

Observe that the highest p value is a comparison of bisexuals to homosexuals concerning number of sex partners in the previous 12 months. Also, observe that the researchers themselves mention that the results are skewed by a few unusually high numbers in the homosexual study group.

Here's my argument, essentially: Why does it matter? With a larger sample size, the number of heterosexual respondents who can have larger-than-normal figures without skewing the results increases. People, by and large, are promiscuous by someone's standards. I would be above the median in the study for bisexuals re: lifetime partners, but I've been monogamous for almost 7 years. Promiscuity isn't a reason to deny marriage rights, nor is any correlation between crumbling "family values" (whatever that actually means) and acceptance of homosexuality, otherwise we'd have to deny many, many heterosexual individuals marriage rights.

If you can show me one, single, really concrete cause-and-effect that shows allowing two people of the same sex to enter into a legal contract with the state that affordably provides many legal and financial rights, responsibilities, and protections will result in things that are tangibly negative (i.e., not the crumbling of your version of family values, because I might not find that negative to begin with), please present it.

 

[Shane Roach]

So what? Even if the numbers in the studies you cite are totally accurate and homosexuals are having sex with hundreds of different people; what does that have to do with marriage?

A straight guy could have sex with as many women as he likes and still get married, so I don't see how the possible promiscuity of some members of a group matters to other non-promiscuous members of that group.

And you know why straight men don't have as many sexual partners as gay men? Because gay men don't have to convince women to have sex.*

*This was said somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and I don't have any studies to back it up, but it's pretty self-evident that men are generally more open to having random, casual sex than women.

In the post from which you clipped this single sentence, I went into some detail as to the importance of it in regard to mental health. If you have any specific questions let me know, but I am getting to the point where I am going to only put the amount of effort into responding to posts that I perceive being put into asking me questions.

There are a number of posters here who have a tendency to just bury deeper conversation under one line questions having little or anything to do with the posts they clip their comments from. It makes it difficult to keep track of the more involved conversations when they finally do pop up.

 

[Shane Roach]

(i.e., not the crumbling of your version of family values, because I might not find that negative to begin with)

My version of family? Mine? My own, personal version? I invented men, women, sex, pregnancy, and child rearing all on my own?

The demonstrable damage to children where marriage has been undermined cries out against such personal agenda driven politics.

 

[Skaloop]

In the post from which you clipped this single sentence, I went into some detail as to the importance of it in regard to mental health.

Fine. Then when is mental health ever an issue for allowing people to marry (outside of those who, due to their mental illness, are not deemed fit give informed consent)?

ETA: looking back, the post from which I clipped that sentence mentioned nothing of mental health; all it talked about was pretty much p-values. Which was unrelated to my point, so I left it out.

 

[Shane Roach]

Fine. Then when is mental health ever an issue for allowing people to marry (outside of those who, due to their mental illness, are not deemed fit give informed consent)?

That's not the line of discussion that led to this exchange. If your argument is that whatever exists now is the standard, then gays are not currently allowed to marry.