Sketch of an argument from unhappiness for homosexuality as pathological

[Keith&Co.]

So what is hte logic you used in favor of P2?
Why would we expect variants of normal sexuality in humans to be directly indexed to their happiness?

Fair question. I don't know how to answer this directly, but we expect normal states of an individual to be directly linked to their health, do we not?

What if i do not? You really shouldn't be asking me to do your homework, or just accept your premise because it's a premise.

The range of 'normal' in humans is pretty wide, really. They normally do lots of things that are bad for them. Do we call appreciating the taste of a bacon cheeseburger a pathology, then?
The only way your P2 makes any sense is if we accept the theist position that humanity is a construct. That there was thought involved in our makeup. Then a perfect creator would have given us perfect sexuality. THEN we could conclude that a drift towards harmful interests was pathological.

But if we're atheists, we tend to assume 'shit happens' from time to time. Even if homosexuality causes uhappiness more than heterosexuality causes unhappiness, that doesn't mean it's not normal, or not to be expected.

Is it your assumption that we're designed to be hetero and happy?

 

[ronburgundy]

I'll get to the "science" for P1 in a moment, but first I want to point out that P2 is false and without foundation, and thus P4, P5, and C are not supported.

Average differences in some trait are completely "normal", "typical", "natural", and non-pathological. Women are shorter on average than men. By your logic, women suffer from a height pathology. You are below average on countless variables, thus by your logic, these are all "pathologies" you suffer from.
At bare minimum, variance in some trait only hints at a pathology, if the differences are so extreme that the most the people in the "pathology" group are below or above the value of the vast majority of the "normal" population. IOW, at least 2 standard deviations away from the mean.
Even the stats from your completely unscientific and rabidly political source fail to show that nearly all homosexuals are even close to being outside of the bounds of what is normal and common among heterosexuals.

As to P1, your source provides zero evidence for it. Nothing cited even speaks to the issue of causality. Every results is completely explicable in terms of social attitudes about homosexuals. Your source makes the absurd claims that homosexuals in the Netherlands are more suicidal "even in a country where the so-called "homophobia" is non-existent". There is no such country where it is non-existent and the researchers say nothing close to that. The researchers merely point out that homophobic intolerance is less in relative terms to other nations, such as the barbaric US. There is still plenty of homophobia in the Netherlands as the Netherlands Institute for Social Research points out "Hostility towards homosexuality is common in schools, making life more difficult for homosexual teachers and pupils than for their heterosexual counterparts. Gays and lesbians are not infrequently insulted in the streets or even physically assaulted; in some neighbourhoods their lives are made a misery, and in orthodox religious circles homosexuality is regarded as a sin.
...
The majority of gays and lesbians have encountered negative experiences, on the streets or in nightlife centres, but also from family members, at work and in sport. These experiences relate to denigrating comments about homosexuality or homosexuals, malicious gossip or bullying, and verbal or sometimes even physical violence. 'Faggot' is a widely used insult at work and in sport."


In addition, everyone in the Netherlands older than 14 lived in a society where gay unions were not legal, and a 2006 study showed that 22% of the population still opposed gay unions. Not to mention, in an internet world where homophobes go to lengths to cyber-attack gays everywhere, the fact that your immediate neighbors accept you is only a partial factor.

Finally, the gender differences right at the beginning of your own source refute that homosexuality itself impacts suicides. Among males, there is a massive difference in attempted suicide rates of 28% to 4%. But among females, the difference is much smaller, only 20% to 15%. Also, hetero women are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than hetero men, Yet gay women are notably less likely to attempt suicide than gay men. How does homosexuality itself have such a different impact on men and women? Because it isn't homosexuality but social mistreatment. Gay men suffer far more mistreatment and lack of acceptance, thus the much greater difference compared to their same gender counterpart.

I don't think that is the logic I used in favor of P2.

Your entire argument rests upon P2 which logically assumes that any differences in happiness = pathology. Without this assumption, no amount of merely showing differences can support the conclusion of
"non-normal" and "pathology". You provide no scientific basis to claim that the level of differences in happiness shown would qualify as non-normal or pathological.

In the case of women, such differences are expected because they are another gender than the man, so obviously many biological factors would differ both.

Um, absolutely not. Biological differences between genders overall do not predict differences in how gender interacts with homosexuality. The fomer is a main effect, while the later is an interaction, and one does not follow from the other. Nothing in your arguments or cited research is capable of explaning the strong reversal of the gender effect on suicides between hetero and homosexuals. In contrast, the "social treatment" explanation of suicide rates easily predicts each aspect of that reversal pattern between genders, plus the overall higher rates for gays.

I didn't say : any diference between man and women should be considered a pathology.

You didn't say it, you just logically implied this is true by your argument in P2. IF this implication is false, then your argument for P2 is invalid.

By your logic, my claim would be "homosexuals suffer from a suicide pathology" and not "homosexuality is a pathology itself".

First, both are objectively wrong and unsupported by anything you have offered.
IF we assume that attempted suicide is a pathology, then only homosexuals who actually attempt it suffer from a pathology, which means 72% in the US do not. Thus, "homosexuals suffer from a suicide pathology", and "homosexuality is a pathology" (which is what your thread title claims) are objectively false. It might be valid that "some minority % homosexuals suffer from a suicide pathology", but it would be also be true that "some % of heterosexuals suffer from a suicide pathology". IOW, homosexuality is usually not accompanied by the suicide or unhappiness pathology, and such pathology occurs most often in the absence of homosexuality. That tells any honest and rational person that there is no reliable or direct relation between homosexuality and the pathology, thus any difference in rates must be due to indirect context-dependent pathways (that most probable and evidence supported being social mistreatment).

About the study in Netherlands, I think the researchers did just fine pointing out that there is no institutional anti-gay prejudice, everything supported by evidence and so forth.

They provide zero evidence showing the total non-existence of homophobia, which is the claim, and the presumption required to interpret the differences in suicide rates as having nothing to do with social treatment (which is what you are trying to claim). You must show evidence of no prejudice at all in any aspect of society (parents, community, church, etc.), in order to claim as you have that the social mistreatment cannot account for the suicide rates.
Note that since none of the research you cite supports a biological route between homosexuality and suicide, your positions rests entirely upon ruling out any other route (experience) as implausible. Nothing you present comes close to doing this, and what I presented shows that experience differences clearly exist and thus are highly plausible route between homosexuality and suicide.

When it came to where you quoted them, however, they cite nothing in support of it. Nothing in support of the homophobia in schools, nothing in support of the 'faggot' word being used. It sounds to me like if they needed to point out something bad happening so that their study would not pass the idea that Netherlands is perfect.

I quoted the summary of the empirical findings by a national research organization in the Netherlands that studies many kinds of social attitudes. I linked you to their site where they have many publications you could look at. In addition, the fact that gay marriage was not legal until 14 years ago means that more tha 50% of the population opposed it at prior to 2000. This is clear evidence of social mistreatment of gays that is more than enough to account for their greater suicide rates.

However, the part of 22% still opposing gay marriage sounds true.

And this fact alone can completely explain why gays attempt suicide more often, even the Netherlands. This sole fact falsifies your premise that homophobia is "non-existent" there and establishes that 1 in 5 Dutch are homophobic enough to oppose basic legal rights to gays, even though it has zero impact on them personally. Given that we know that such views are not evenly spread out, we know that the % is closer to 50% opposition in some areas. Which means gays in those areas would live every day knowing that every other person in their community wants to rob them of basic civil rights for being gay. That would be more than enough to drive many people, gay or straight, to have suicidal thoughts.

 

[fromderinside]

If it turns out that homosexuals are naturally a bit happier than heterosexuals, then---by your logic---heterosexuality is a pathology.

Would you actually agree with your own logic if that turned out to be the case? Because, if not, then you should be able to recognize the bias behind your argument. The only appeal of your dubious premises and twisted logic is that it lets you disparage homosexuality.

Or, here's another way to run the logic to another conclusion: Suppose instead of talking about self-killing, we consider other-killing. Heterosexuals murder homosexuals a lot more than homosexuals murder heterosexuals, don't you think? Does this make heterosexuality a pathology, something that should be cured?

Heterosexuals do kill others more than homosexuals, but that is because the number of heterosexuals is incredibly higher than the number of homosexuals in the general population. For instance, 69% of serial-killing crimes were practiced by homosexuals. http://www.adherents.com/misc/hsk.html

Where did someone at Liberty University get that number?
Another source where you will find homosexuality was probably a factor in Dalmer's behavior: Neurodevelopmental and psychosocial risk factors in serial killers and mass murderers http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178914000305. But as for the rest on 'list' of your reference other factors, not homosexuality, were the sex associations. Factors like childhood sexual abuse, ASD, and head injury. As far as I can tell your citation takes any evidence that one ever had a homosexual event that one was classified as homosexual. With those standards over ninety percent of all males are homosexuals and that's a low ball estimate.

Everybody who hinted that you were biased in your 'argument' are right.

This trash does not belong in any science thread.

 

[Wiploc]

If it turns out that homosexuals are naturally a bit happier than heterosexuals, then---by your logic---heterosexuality is a pathology.

Would you actually agree with your own logic if that turned out to be the case? Because, if not, then you should be able to recognize the bias behind your argument. The only appeal of your dubious premises and twisted logic is that it lets you disparage homosexuality.

Or, here's another way to run the logic to another conclusion: Suppose instead of talking about self-killing, we consider other-killing. Heterosexuals murder homosexuals a lot more than homosexuals murder heterosexuals, don't you think? Does this make heterosexuality a pathology, something that should be cured?

Heterosexuals do kill others more than homosexuals, but that is because the number of heterosexuals is incredibly higher than the number of homosexuals in the general population. For instance, 69% of serial-killing crimes were practiced by homosexuals. http://www.adherents.com/misc/hsk.html

You won't answer the question? I'll ask it again: If it turned out that homosexuals were happier than heterosexuals, would you then regard heterosexuality as pathological?

You should either agree that, in that case, heterosexuality would be pathological, or you should admit that your test for determining whether something is pathological is absurd.

 

[Dekusta]

Hello,

I've been doing a bit of thinking these days on the issue of homosexuality and an argument just crossed my mind. Here it goes (sorry for my bad skills at writing arguments if they show up):

(P1) Homosexuals are more unhappy than heterosexuals because of homosexuality itself;
(P2) It is not expected from a normal variant of human sexuality to make individuals more unhappy compared to other normal variants of human sexuality;
(P3) Homosexuality is a variant of human sexuality;
(P4) Homosexuality is not a normal variant of human sexuality (from P1, P2 and P3);
(P5) If homosexuality is not a normal variant of human sexuality, then it is a pathology;
(C) Homosexuality is a pathology (From P4 and P5).


P1 must be supported by science. To provide me from quoting at length, this link provides the scientific support for P1. Of course it is still open to deny, but I'm not an expert on statistics, so if anyone wants to go that path, be my guest. Here it is (it's on google translate because the site is italian, I think, but the translation is awesome) : http://translate.google.it/translat...dei-gay-lomofobia-non-centra-7283.htm&act=url

Another line of evidence for P1 is the evidence from Netherlands. Netherlands has a culture of acceptance and tolerance of homosexuals but still suicide is a major problem among LGBT youns and married adults. I'll leave a link if anyone's interested: http://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/10/21/just-what-is-behind-these-suicides/

The term 'unhappy' here means that the homosexual invidual is more likely to suicidal thoughts and attempts, and also more likely to be discontent with his/her marriage, compared to their heterosexual counterparts. 'Normal' is defined as "correspondent with the state of mind of a group of individuals that we would expect given the feature that unites them in that group". A normal variant of human sexuality should be expected to have more indivuals happy and less suicidal thoughts produced by that sexuality. As for homosexuality does not show the expected levels, it is not a normal variant of human sexuality.

I used P2 to avoid the objection of other groups of individuals who also show to be more unhappy than others. Physicians and women, for example, are more likely to suicide than non-physicians and men, respectively. However, that is expected from physicians and women, because it is reasonable to believe that a normal occupation will have a higher risk of unhappiness than other occupations and remain normal, since more deep thinking might be required, and so forth. And with women, it is still reasonable to believe that it is a normal gender because of the biological differences between genders: hormones, and so forth.

However, when it comes to homosexuality, there is nothing really to it. I can't see how we can expect, given a normal variant of human sexuality, that the indivuals would be more unhappy than others and that variant would remain normal. Of course, there is the issue of homophobia, but the science I linked above deals with it. And it seems that pro-gays would not be willing to accept that homosexual relationships make people more unhappy than heterosexual ones.
The other options are that what causes homosexuality also causes this increased unhappiness. If that is a biological cause, then we have a biological cause that leads some individuals more unhappy. If it is a social/environmental cause, then we have a social/environmental cause that leads some individuals more unhappy. Either way, it should be considered a pathology, shouldn't it?

P3 and P5 sound obvious to me. If something is not normal, then it should be considered a pathology. Take schizophrenia, for example.

I appreciate the comments.

I'll get to the "science" for P1 in a moment, but first I want to point out that P2 is false and without foundation, and thus P4, P5, and C are not supported.

Average differences in some trait are completely "normal", "typical", "natural", and non-pathological. Women are shorter on average than men. By your logic, women suffer from a height pathology. You are below average on countless variables, thus by your logic, these are all "pathologies" you suffer from.
At bare minimum, variance in some trait only hints at a pathology, if the differences are so extreme that the most the people in the "pathology" group are below or above the value of the vast majority of the "normal" population. IOW, at least 2 standard deviations away from the mean.
Even the stats from your completely unscientific and rabidly political source fail to show that nearly all homosexuals are even close to being outside of the bounds of what is normal and common among heterosexuals.

As to P1, your source provides zero evidence for it. Nothing cited even speaks to the issue of causality. Every results is completely explicable in terms of social attitudes about homosexuals. Your source makes the absurd claims that homosexuals in the Netherlands are more suicidal "even in a country where the so-called "homophobia" is non-existent". There is no such country where it is non-existent and the researchers say nothing close to that. The researchers merely point out that homophobic intolerance is less in relative terms to other nations, such as the barbaric US. There is still plenty of homophobia in the Netherlands as the Netherlands Institute for Social Research points out "Hostility towards homosexuality is common in schools, making life more difficult for homosexual teachers and pupils than for their heterosexual counterparts. Gays and lesbians are not infrequently insulted in the streets or even physically assaulted; in some neighbourhoods their lives are made a misery, and in orthodox religious circles homosexuality is regarded as a sin.
...
The majority of gays and lesbians have encountered negative experiences, on the streets or in nightlife centres, but also from family members, at work and in sport. These experiences relate to denigrating comments about homosexuality or homosexuals, malicious gossip or bullying, and verbal or sometimes even physical violence. 'Faggot' is a widely used insult at work and in sport."


In addition, everyone in the Netherlands older than 14 lived in a society where gay unions were not legal, and a 2006 study showed that 22% of the population still opposed gay unions. Not to mention, in an internet world where homophobes go to lengths to cyber-attack gays everywhere, the fact that your immediate neighbors accept you is only a partial factor.

Finally, the gender differences right at the beginning of your own source refute that homosexuality itself impacts suicides. Among males, there is a massive difference in attempted suicide rates of 28% to 4%. But among females, the difference is much smaller, only 20% to 15%. Also, hetero women are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than hetero men, Yet gay women are notably less likely to attempt suicide than gay men. How does homosexuality itself have such a different impact on men and women? Because it isn't homosexuality but social mistreatment. Gay men suffer far more mistreatment and lack of acceptance, thus the much greater difference compared to their same gender counterpart.

Heterosexuals do kill others more than homosexuals, but that is because the number of heterosexuals is incredibly higher than the number of homosexuals in the general population. For instance, 69% of serial-killing crimes were practiced by homosexuals. http://www.adherents.com/misc/hsk.html

You won't answer the question? I'll ask it again: If it turned out that homosexuals were happier than heterosexuals, would you then regard heterosexuality as pathological?

You should either agree that, in that case, heterosexuality would be pathological, or you should admit that your test for determining whether something is pathological is absurd.

I see no problem in biting the bullet here. If heterosexuality caused more unhappiness than homosexuality and it was confirmed that there were no social factors involved, then it would be a pathology. It has beem claimed here that my source's claims are completely explicable in terms of social pressure/ homophobic persecution and so forth. But one of the studies it cites clearly identified unhappiness with marriage as a factor, among others that did not include homophobic persecution. How can that be explained in other terms other than homosexuality itself brings more unhappiness than heterosexuality does?

 

[fromderinside]

...and when one looks at those serial killers who were unhappy with marriage. How did they rank compared to heterosexuals? Hmmmnnn. You can't keep all in the serial murder category and call it unhappy with marriage homosexuals can you? I'm thinking that the unhappy with marriage serial murderers are definitely biased toward the heterosexual ones even with one homosexual experience as your criteria for homosexual

Really. This stuff has nothing to do with social science and everything to do with prejudice. Time to put in pseudoscience or elsewhere.

 

[Dekusta]

That is what I wanted an example about. My source claims that many suicidal thoughts are explicable in terms of unhappiness with marriage. How can you explain that in terms of social attitudes towards homosexuals?

 

[fromderinside]

That is what I wanted an example about. My source claims that many suicidal thoughts are explicable in terms of unhappiness with marriage. How can you explain that in terms of social attitudes towards homosexuals?

See in particular the sections on Stigma, prejudice, and discrimination, individual discrimination, and institutional discrimination in Suicide and Suicide Risk in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Populations: Review and Recommendations http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00918369.2011.534038?mobileUi=0#.VQMG6o54rYg


You should butress tthe above analysis with overviews of suicide factors like Depression and Suicide http://www.med.or.jp/english/pdf/2001_08/359_363.pdf

Please resist using the stuff you like as evidence for your prejudices since I've read the articles. I'll know that if I see it which will make my suspicions about your motives stronger.