Wikipedia: Causes of sexual orientation/Talk

Showing revision 21

I think RK, Dmerrill and I may be able to work together on constructing a balanced article. Some points from old talk:

I intend to avoid mentioning Cohen's religious views. I am unaware of his political views. I intend to concentrate exclusively on his psychological views and on genetic research his website and book have brought to my attention.
I think some mention of religious views of causation are appropriate, but they should take a lot less space to describe than the genetic research and psychological theories.
My religion specifically disclaims eternal torment in Hell. In fact, that's one of the reasons I chose to join it.

: Ed Poor

Nice move. Causes of sexual orientation is a much better title.

I agree that this is a better title, but the article now needs to reflect this balance, since right now it just focuses on the causes of homosexuality. My point in creating an article on the causes of heterosexuality was to provide balance. This article should address what causes someone to be either heterosexual or homosexual, not just focus on what causes someone to be homosexual. -- Egern

A lot of this talk was really /Debate as to what "normal" is. Please show how this is relevant to causation. Then come back to /Talk Ed Poor

: You also snipped the debate about use of the word "abnormal", which is a fighting word, not NPOV. But there's no surprise, since you are a man, and we all know that there are more women then men in the world, so you are therefore abnormal. GregLindahl

: I won't argue that (my wife says pretty much the same thing :-) Ed Poor

You won't argue that "abnormal" is a fighting word, and not NPOV? Why, Ed, that's unusually perceptive of you. Normally you mostly ignore what I say, and only respond to my jokes. GregLindahl

I don't know much about this field, so I don't want to get involved in improving the article. I just have a comment about this: "Scientists are now in agreement that homosexuality is not a freely made choice or "lifestyle" that someone decided to follow, and many religions are updating their theologies to conform with science." Is it true that all scientists, as this implies, believe that homosexuality is not a freely made choice? No scientists believe that homosexuality is, to any degree, a matter of choice? I find that difficult to believe, but maybe that's because I'm just ignorant about this stuff. --LMS

I'd like to remove 4 or 5 sentences from the middle of the article. They don't say much.

This is largely because heterosexuality was considered the norm and homosexuality an aberration, although this view has been contested and weakened by the results of the research as well as political activism.

There has also been a realization that any attempt at understanding the causes of sexual attraction to the same sex will be more successful if we understand the mechanisms that underlie sexual attraction per se, and more specifically what causes many people to feel sexual attraction primarily towards members of one particular sex.

The traditional Judaeo-Christian view that homosexuality was caused by mingling with non-Israelite tribes, man's rebellious or fallen nature, or demonic temptation has given way to scientific explanations which regard homosexuality as normal and natural.

Scientists are now in agreement that homosexuality is not a freely made choice or "lifestyle" that someone decided to follow, and many religions are updating their theologies to conform with science.

The last 20 years have seen an explosion in the scientific knowledge available on the genetic, biological and psychological causes of homosexuality.

Ed Poor

Ed, it seems to me those sentences say quite a bit. What is needed is more information in addition to this, e.g., about the traditional Chinese and Indian views of homosexuality. The way forward is not to delete sentences that you simply disagree with. That way lies madness, and more importantly, less content! What's important is that we try to phrase things in such a way that everyone can agree with; and when that seems impossible, the way forward is to describe the controversy fairly, rather than try to force each other to make the article say something controversial. --LMS