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Model On PFOX's "Ex-Gay" Virginia Billboard: I'm Proudly Gay And Not A Twin

Potoooooooo

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http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2014/12/model-on-ex-gay-virginia-billboard-im.html#disqus_thread
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It's no surprise that the "ex-gay" movement uses stock photo models, considering how few spokespeople they have and how many past participants have come out to repudiate the whole charade. But this is just hysterical:
VIDEO: [video]http://www.nbc12.com/clip/10940599/openly-gay-model-in-nobody-is-born-gay-billboard-reacts[/video]
 
This is even more ironic seeing as just last month:

A genetic analysis of 409 pairs of gay brothers, including sets of twins, has provided the strongest evidence yet that gay people are born gay. The study clearly links sexual orientation in men with two regions of the human genome that have been implicated before, one on the X chromosome and one on chromosome 8.

The finding is an important contribution to mounting evidence that being gay is biologically determined rather than a lifestyle choice. In some countries, such as Uganda, being gay is still criminalised, and some religious groups believe that gay people can be "treated" to make them straight.

"It erodes the notion that sexual orientation is a choice," says study leader Alan Sanders of the NorthShore Research Institute in Evanston, Illinois.
http://www.newscientist.com/article...thers-homes-in-on-gay-genes.html#.VIsnDnvGIxA
 
Pwnd. What are the chances the random stock model they chose turned out to be openly gay himself? :)

As to PFOX, is that the homophobic version of PFLAG?
 
I don't see why it should make a difference. Even if being gay were a lifestyle choice, if it doesn't hurt anybody else then who cares?
 
I don't see why it should make a difference. Even if being gay were a lifestyle choice, if it doesn't hurt anybody else then who cares?
Well, if it's not a choice, then God would be wrong for punishing people who are simply the way God made them, and if that's true then believerscannot be sure God won't send them to hell for something beyond their own control, so it has to be a choice, AND bleevers want to reserve the right to judge people for making that choice so they can punish the choosers and discriminate against them all to make sure they're living as if God's right so He will notice and He won't send them to Hell for disagreeing with Him.
And if it's not a choice then all the gender-pref-correction therapy is a lie, and many people who got a 'not gay no more' diploma are living a lie and the gays who refuse to change and refuse to be depressed from their perversions are actually more right about things than the bleevers which is just an intolerable state of affairs so shut up, you hear me! Shut up about that icky choice because god would never make someone icky gay perversion lovers without their say-so.
 
I don't see why it should make a difference. Even if being gay were a lifestyle choice, if it doesn't hurt anybody else then who cares?

It's a very important theological difference. If being gay is a choice, then it's a matter of free will, and anyone has the free will to do either good things or bad things. After that, it's just a matter of cataloging the good and the bad.

If being gay is an innate trait which is present in the body from conception, then being gay is God's choice for that person. This raises very sticky theological problems for some people.
 
Of course, Santorum beat him to it a decade ago, but without the performance piece aspect.
What's silly about Christians saying one man and one woman is all the polygamy in the Bible by righteous and wise men that God condoned.
 
If the research shows nobody is born gay it also shows nobody is born straight.

It shows being gay occurs the same way being straight occurs.
 
Identical twins do not have 100% correspondence of traits. All this shows is that it's not 100% genetics.

Since they have found the later the birth order the higher the odds of being gay that suggests it's something developmental--thus it looks like you can be born gay without it being genetic.
 
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Identical twins do not have 100% correspondence of traits. All this shows is that it's not 100% genetics.

Since they have found the later the birth order the higher the odds of being gay that suggests it's something developmental--thus it looks like you can be born gay without it being genetic.

'This shows' nothing of the kind.

See the words "We believe..." At the start of the phrase "We believe twins research studies show"?

Those words carry EXACTLY the same meaning as "There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that..."

It is a masterpiece of bald-faced propaganda. And you fell for it hook, line and sinker, because you came away from looking at the ad thinking that, even though the basic message was fraudulent, there was nevertheless a 'this' that showed something. But there is not.
 
The queer community and its allies needs to re-frame the debate, and the fuckwits need to be called on their fuckwittery.

i) Even if no-one were 'born gay' (whatever that means), that says nothing about that person's ability to convert to 'ex gay' (which is zero).
ii) Even if no-one were 'born gay' (whatever that means), that says nothing about what was "God's plan" for that person. (Also, God is imaginary).
iii) Even if all gays had libertarian free will in the matter of their sexual orientation (which they don't, because libertarian free will is incoherent nonsense), so what?
iv) Can't you be satisfied that God will eternally punish the filthy sodomites in Hell? Or is She so impotent that the gays need to be hunted down while they're eking out their miserable existence before being bathed in the eternal fire?
v) Judas Iscariot was born to betray the baby Jesus. Jesus says so at the last supper, says there is nothing that Judas can do about it, says that it would be better for Judas had he never been born. So, there is precedent for God specifically making evil people destined to betray the baby Jesus and then punishing them for being the way he made them. Why would you first need to establish gays were 'evil' of their own 'free will'? Gays are evil because God made them evil, and God has no problem with punishing people for stuff God did on purpose, so why do you seem to have a problem with it?
 
The queer community and its allies needs to re-frame the debate, and the fuckwits need to be called on their fuckwittery.

Within the assumptions of Abrahamic Theism and the authority of the Bible, anti-gay sentiments make sense and strongly depend upon the notion of gayness as a choice, either of the gay person or the choices of those around them, rather than an uncontrollable product of biology. Below are what I think would be a theological response to your arguments.

i) Even if no-one were 'born gay' (whatever that means), that says nothing about that person's ability to convert to 'ex gay' (which is zero).

If gayness is either chosen or a by-product of experiences, then it is plausible that new choices can made and/or new experiences be had (conversion experiences) to produce non-gayness.


ii) Even if no-one were 'born gay' (whatever that means), that says nothing about what was "God's plan" for that person. (Also, God is imaginary).

God is the creator of the material universe and thus of human biology, and thus these inherently covey his "plan". The actions people choose are part of free will, thus do not inherently reflect his plan and can be against it. Thus, only if gayness is chosen and not biological can it be against God's plan.


iii) Even if all gays had libertarian free will in the matter of their sexual orientation (which they don't, because libertarian free will is incoherent nonsense), so what?

The so what is that it means gayness is against God's will, and therefore evil, since under monotheism, morality is determined by coherence with God's will.

iv) Can't you be satisfied that God will eternally punish the filthy sodomites in Hell? Or is She so impotent that the gays need to be hunted down while they're eking out their miserable existence before being bathed in the eternal fire?

We are here to do God's will and to shape out societies to be in accord with that will. Punishing those against his will is our duty to God. God could and will do it himself in the afterlife, but us doing it here is a kind of test of our love and loyalty to God.

v) Judas Iscariot was born to betray the baby Jesus. Jesus says so at the last supper, says there is nothing that Judas can do about it, says that it would be better for Judas had he never been born. So, there is precedent for God specifically making evil people destined to betray the baby Jesus and then punishing them for being the way he made them.

Why would you first need to establish gays were 'evil' of their own 'free will'? Gays are evil because God made them evil, and God has no problem with punishing people for stuff God did on purpose, so why do you seem to have a problem with it?

Judas is a special case, because Jesus was a special case. Judas represents creating one person born to commit one particular act of betrayal for the express purpose of bringing about Jesus' Crucifixion central to his theological role. That is much easier to cohere with the general conception of God and his plan, than creation of about 5% of the human population born to be "evil" and think evil thoughts most days of the entire life for no clear and specific purpose. This relates to the more general "problem of evil" that theologians have a hard time providing a viable account of.

Of course there are counters to these theological position and you point to some of them in your parenthetical comments. But ultimately those counters are about exposing the idiocy of theism itself, and of theistic-based ethics, and exposing the clear self-serving and ugly motives behind creating and accepting many of those theological ideas. While I agree with such arguments, the gay community is not going to go that route. Plenty of gays are still pathetic enough to be religious and cling to those identities. That is why they unreasonably deny the rather clear homophobic bigotry in the Bible. So, even if most gays aren't very religious, taking on theism itself would divide their political movement. Also, their practical political aims would be harmed by such an anti-religious approach. They are more likely to achieve social and political equality by arguing "Your God doesn't hate me", than arguing "Your God doesn't exist, so its dumb to base you feelings about me on how you think he feels about me."
 
See the words "We believe..." At the start of the phrase "We believe twins research studies show"?

Those words carry EXACTLY the same meaning as "There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that..."
That's not what "we believe" means. Its simply stating the evidence they found supports their hypothesis. And research has shown that birth order corresponds with probability of being gay for males. So there is certainly something happening within a mother's body that can "turn" her male children gay.
 
If gayness is either chosen or a by-product of experiences, then it is plausible that new choices can made and/or new experiences be had (conversion experiences) to produce non-gayness.

I disagree that theists would accept that gayness could be totally a by-product of experiences. Or, if it were shaped by experiences, the person is still making an active choice to be gay. (E.g. I think theists would be very uncomfortable to know that conditions in the womb, including exposure to certain androgens, shapes sexual orientation -- but even though that is a clear case of non-genetic environmental influences, I don't think they'd be happy to admit that).

God is the creator of the material universe and thus of human biology, and thus these inherently covey his "plan". The actions people choose are part of free will, thus do not inherently reflect his plan and can be against it. Thus, only if gayness is chosen and not biological can it be against God's plan.

Since the God of the Bible is consummately capricious, I don't see why theists just couldn't argue that God made people gay and it was the duty of gay people to resist that temptation their entire lives. This is not inconsistent with what I'd been taught -- God made us so that we can't help but sin, but we had to try and not do it.

God's just given some extra hurdles to the gays.

We are here to do God's will and to shape out societies to be in accord with that will. Punishing those against his will is our duty to God. God could and will do it himself in the afterlife, but us doing it here is a kind of test of our love and loyalty to God.

It seems to me that all Christians should be dominionists then, but they're not. Perhaps they should be confronted with their own lack of consistency.

That is why they unreasonably deny the rather clear homophobic bigotry in the Bible. So, even if most gays aren't very religious, taking on theism itself would divide their political movement. Also, their practical political aims would be harmed by such an anti-religious approach. They are more likely to achieve social and political equality by arguing "Your God doesn't hate me", than arguing "Your God doesn't exist, so its dumb to base you feelings about me on how you think he feels about me."

"Your God doesn't hate me" is self-evident nonsense, for if God is anything at all like She's supposed to be, She hates a lot of people for no good reason at all. But then, I suppose Christians will buy it eventually, since they already believe self-evident nonsense (like the Abrahamic God existing).
 
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