Friday Gay Blogging

Since I don't presently have a cat, and my orchid is not quite ready to bloom.

From Independent Gay Forum, an interesting article by John Corvino on the "gay fruit fly" experiments. I think the title is a little misleading -- the research wasn't "bad science" that I can see. It's more a matter of bad science reporting (which is more or less a given) and making unwarranted extensions of the result of experiments on fruit flies to human behavior.

There is one basic flaw in Corvino's comments:

To put the point another way: while scientific study can reveal the biological origin of our feelings and behaviors, it can’t tell us what we should do with them. Should we embrace them? Tolerate them? Change them? Those are moral questions, and simply observing fruit flies—or humans, for that matter—is insufficient to answering them.

But can’t these studies prove that homosexual attraction is “natural”? Not in any useful sense. Specifically, not in any sense that would distinguish good feelings and behaviors from bad ones. Discovering the biological origin of a trait is different from discovering its value.

The question here (and I think this reveals that Corvino has bought into the right-wing framing of this issue to a certain extent) is simply the anti-gay article of faith that homosexuality is a choice, to which many of them still subscribe and which any thinking person has to reject as ridiculous on its face. The value of experiments on sexual orientation is that such research has been piling up evidence that position is wrong. (That's not going to make any difference among the hard-core believers: they don't believe in evidence anyway.)

In that light, Corvino's argument about science vs. morality gets pretty thin: the arguments against gay rights are based on morality as promulgated by people who reject any contact with the realities of human behavior. (Think "Prada Pope," among others.) For those of us who still believe that public policy should be a matter of rational thought -- which still seems to be most of the country on most issues -- the scientific evidence has an impact: the studies do demonstrate, over and over again, that homosexual behavior is "natural" and makes those who fulminate against "crimes against nature" look like the ridiculous blowhards they are.

An equally interesting article by Paul Varnell about the misconceptions that underlie a lot of research into male homosexuality.

Take the issue of research into the origins of (causes of, reasons for) male homosexuality. That would be interesting to know, just as it would be interesting to know the equally mysterious cause(s) of heterosexuality. But scientists aren't quite researching the right thing. Most researchers seem very confused about what homosexuality/homosexual desire actually is. And most seem overly impressed with the fact that most women are also attracted to men and so draw the logically invalid conclusion that male homosexuality must be caused by something female in gay men—as if desire for men can have only one cause.

Bingo!

Salt Lake City, of all places, has passed legislation for a domestic partner registry. (I realize SLC is to the left of Utah as a whole, but "left of Utah" is sort of like saying "Left of Atilla the Hun.") It looks like it's not quite as toothless as Chicago's DP registry, which carries no rights or benefits at all.

The irony here is that the ordinance makes DPs "available to same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples who cannot or chose (sic) not to marry."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out just exactly what's doing the most to weaken marriage here. I think it's pretty funny, actually -- every time some anti-gay loon tries to water down a civil union or domestic partnership law to de-emphasize gay relationships, it makes marriage more and more superfluous. Good work, guys!

I've commented on this case already: it appears the Parkers and Wirthlins will appeal to the Supreme Court. Frankly, this one is so open and shut that I doubt the justices will take it. If they do, the anti-gay ideologues on the court are going to find themselves in a quandary: how to balance anti-gay bias against their need to preserve the power of large institutions over common citizens?

OK -- this is a transitional post. I've already commented on some of these stories, and there are others that I've posted on in the course of normal, day-to-day outrage venting. Unless something gay-related is totally egregious or really time-sensitive, though, I think this weekly spot will be it for gay-related news and commentary.