Well, since Grandmaster posted no source, I suppose I'll have to look these statistics up.
Well, what do you know? No such statistics exist from my Google searches. So, I'll just post different statistics, until somebody else can get statistics with a source that's valid. 
- only 0.6% of gay men have ever searched for straight matches.
- only 0.1% of lesbians have ever searched for straight matches.
- only 0.13% of straight people's profile visitors are gay.
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/gay-sex-vs-straight-sex/
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More than one-third (36 percent) of LGBT undergraduate students have experienced harassment within the past year, as have 29 percent of all respondents.
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Those who experienced harassment reported that derogatory remarks were the most common form (89 percent) and that students were most often the source of harassment (79 percent).
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Twenty percent of all respondents feared for their physical safety because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and 51 percent concealed their sexual orientation or gender identity to avoid intimidation.
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84% of respondents identified as LGBT.16% of respondents identified as heterosexual or uncertain
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71 percent felt that transgender people were likely to suffer harassment, and 61 percent felt that gay men and lesbians were likely to be harassed.
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Forty-three percent of the respondents rated the overall campus climate as homophobic.
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Every two years the Massachusetts Department of Education conducts a version (MYRBS) of the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, exploring the health-related attitudes and behaviors of high school students. The 2003 survey found that LGBT students, when compared with their heterosexual peers, were:
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over 5 times more likely to have attempted suicide in the past year;
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over 3 times more likely to have skipped school in the past month because they felt unsafe at or en route to school; and
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over 3 times more likely to have been threatened or injured with a weapon at school in the past year.
Taken from the Campus Climate for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender People, 2003 The Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Crimes committed in 2002 due to bias against the victim’s perceived sexual orientation represent 16.7% of reported hate crime incidents – the highest level in the 12 years since the agency began collecting these statistics—according to data released Oct. 27 in the FBI report "Crime in the United States in 2002." Sexual orientation bias represents the third highest category of reported hate crimes.
http://case.edu/lgbt...statistics.html
Hey, lookie here, Myths and Facts about Sexual Orientation!
Lesbian, gay and bisexual people cannot be identified by certain mannerisms or physical characteristics. People who are lesbian, gay or bisexual come in as many different shapes, colors and sizes as do people who are heterosexual.
Sexual experiences as a child are not necessarily indicative of one's sexual orientation as an adult. Many lesbian, gay and bisexual people have early heterosexual experiences, but are still lesbian, gay or bisexual; many avowed heterosexuals have had sexual contact with members of their own sex, but are still heterosexual.
No one knows what causes sexual orientation. Many lesbian, gay and bisexual people know that they are attracted to members of their own sex at an early age, sometimes as young as 6 or 7 years old. Others learn much later in life, in their 30's, 40's or 50's. Some research indicates that sexual orientation is determined between birth and age 3, but no one is sure what causes particular orientations.
Many people accuse lesbian, gay and bisexual people of "flaunting" their sexuality when they talk about their partner, hold hands or kiss one another in public. These are activities that heterosexual couples do all the time. Due to homophobic reactions, some lesbian, gay and bisexual people are actually forced to hide their sexuality in public, not flaunt it.
People who are lesbian, gay and bisexual work in all types of jobs and they live in all types of situations. They belong to all ethnic and racial groups. They are members of all religious communities. They exhibit a range of mental and physical capabilities. They are young, middle aged, and old.
Sometimes oppression based on sexual orientation escalates into acts of physical violence. In surveys of lesbian, gay and bisexual people, 52-87% have been verbally harassed, 21-27% have been pelted with objects, 13-38% have been chased or followed and 9-24% have been physically assaulted.
Most lesbian, gay and bisexual people are comfortable with their own biological sex; they don't regard themselves as members of the opposite sex. Being lesbian, gay or bisexual is not the same as being transgender.
The majority of child molesters are heterosexual men, not lesbian, gay or bisexual people. Almost all studies show that over 90% of child molestation is committed by heterosexual men.
Homosexuality is not a type of mental illness and cannot be "cured" by psychotherapy. Although homosexuality was once thought to be a mental illness, the American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations no longer consider it to be one. Psychiatric and psychological attempts to "cure" lesbians and gay men have failed to change the sexual orientation of the patient. These "treatments" may help change sexual behavior temporarily but also can create emotional trauma.
There is no definable gay “lifestyle”. Similarly, there is no standard heterosexual lifestyle. Some people might like to think that a "normal" adult lifestyle is a heterosexual marriage with two children. Less than 7% of all family units in the U.S. consist of a mother, a father and two children living together. The most accurate generalization might be this: lesbian, gay and bisexual people are different from one another in the same ways that heterosexual people are different from one another.
Compiled by Youth Pride, Inc. with the help of The Campaign to End Homophobia.
http://case.edu/lgbt...zone/truth.html
36 -- The number of U.S. states that have banned same-sex marriage, either through legislation or constitutional provisions.
6 -- The number of U.S. states that allow civil unions between same-sex couples, but not marriage: Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey and Rhode Island. This number will go down to four this summer after Delaware's new marriage laws take effect in July and the Rhode Island laws do on August 1. (Some states that allow civil unions also ban same-sex marriage.)
12 -- The number of U.S. states that allow same-sex marriage, along with the District of Columbia: Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
1,138 -- The number of federal benefits to marriage.
30.25% -- The approximate percentage of the U.S. population affected by Wednesday's Supreme Court rulings after same-sex marriage laws take effect in Delaware (on July 1, 2013) and Minnesota and Rhode Island (on August 1, 2013).
2001 -- The year the Netherlands made same-sex marriage legal. It was the first country in the world to so.
2003 -- The year that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to criminalize sodomy.
2004 -- The year that same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to do so.
14 -- The number of countries worldwide where same-sex marriage is legal in the entire country. They are: Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and Uruguay.
3 -- The number of countries where same-sex marriage is legal in some areas: Brazil, Mexico and the United States.
27% -- The percentage of Americans who thought same-sex marriage should be legal in 1996, according to a May Gallup Poll.
53% -- The percentage of Americans who think it should be legal in 2013, according to the same poll.
3.5% -- The approximate percentage of Americans identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual, according to 2011 research by the Williams Institute at UCLA.
646,000 -- The number of same-sex-couple households in the United States in 2010, according to the Census Bureau.
80.4% -- The percentage growth of same-sex couple households in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010, according to the Census Bureau.
10% -- The percentage of people identifying as LGBT living in the District of Columbia, according to a 2012 Gallup Poll. This is the highest percentage in the country.
1.7% -- The percentage of people identifying as LGBT living in North Dakota, according to a 2012 Gallup Poll. This is the lowest percentage in the country.
115,064 -- Number of same-sex couple households in the United States with children, according to the Census Bureau.
http://www.cnn.com/2...me-sex-marriage
I must gather all the statistics. O.O
Good that you get some statistics although it would have been better for you to clarify how the statistics would have been supported gay marriage.
For the first link, I guess that you already knew that it was biased since it is only taking from a single dating site. But you still decided to put up since there are no other better resources. But I was a bit baffled by the fact that only the total number of users are mentioned but not the number of gays/lesbians. That raised the query about the sample rate of the already biased sample.
For the second link, only a couple of statement are supported by statistics. Any specific ones you want to bring up?
For the third link, the statistics appear to be quite neutral and can be used for both sides of argument.
As you so gleefully pointed out, the amount of research in the field of cloning is limited at present by ethical issues. Given that assisted reproduction for homosexual people isn't anywhere near cloning, nor is it robot-making, I think we're safe.
Also, population decline isn't exactly a problem at the moment. Baby boomers or not, I've been hearing more talk about overpopulation and straining the world's resources.
I swear I must have said this at least four times by now - until you give better evidence, you can NOT simply assume that the use of IVF et. al. by homosexual couples will directly cause scientists to push for the replacement of humans by robots. IVF is assisted conception of a complete human, not a robot. An IVF baby is not a robot, and even if the entire world consisted of people conceived by IVF, it still wouldn't be a society of robots. As I have stated before, the human race is past the point where reproduction is considered the primary purpose of life.
IVF is expensive, but the couple that wants it pays the costs. It's not funded by taxpayers' money; I'm not sure where your problem is.
Where does the labour shortage argument come from, anyway? A smaller population would require less labour to run it. No evidence has been presented so far to suggest that we will be in desperate need of a labour force if we allow gay people to get married.
I think there is an underlying assumption that scientific advance has to go from assisted reproduction to cloning, then to mass robot production. These are technology in parallel development, just that there may be limitations for cloning and mass robot production at the moment. Once that ethical barrier is removed, the technology advance can be very fast with massive number of scientists researching in that field. It may have taken centuries to develop technology in the past but today, the rate of technology development for new technologies is only a couple of decades.
By the time population declined and gay marriage legalised worldwide, it would have been too late to turn back the clock. That's why most policies and laws are enacted for long term effects. If we are considering only short term scenarios and make policies and laws according to the short term effects, then it may be impossible to offset those long term effects by the time they occurred.
Mass adoption of technology-aided reproduction is the breakthrough in the ethical frontier of the science and hence will help to advance other related technologies that are also limited by ethics. Then with combination of rationalisation of utilitarian argument, population decline and labour shortage, the mass production of robots may become a very real scenario.
Anyway, the reason why population will still be estimated to rise in the next decade or so is mainly due to higher life expectancy and developing countries. Developed countries are already starting to face ageing population and decline in population. Without immigrants to support workforce, many industries in developed countries would have gone downhill.
In 2006 the United States accepted more legal immigrants as permanent residents than all other countries in the world combined. The number of actual (first-generation) immigrants living in the United States eventually quadrupled, from 9.6 million in 1970 to about 38 million in 2007. (Source: http://en.wikipedia....e_United_States)
The idea of smaller population requiring less labour has oversimplified the situation. Most countries will hold economy paramount in their policies, they would desire to see GDP growth to be positive and in order to sustain the growth, the labour force must be kept at certain level. If labour force decline over time, countries will make plans to substitute the labour through different means, getting more immigrants or automating more processes. There would not be a government that think that because the population is declining, it is all right to have shrinking GDP year after year, or they risk to be voted out of office.
For a number of countries, IVF do get subsidies partly by government. In the UK all patients have the right to preliminary testing, provided free of charge by the National Health Service. In Sweden, official fertility clinics provide most necessary treatments and initial workup. Some treatments are covered by OHIP (public health insurance) in Ontario and others are not. Those undergoing artificial insemination or with bilaterally blocked fallopian tubes and under 40 have treatment is covered but are still required to pay lab fees (around $3,000–4,000). Israel's National Health Insurance, which is mandatory for all Israeli citizens, covers nearly all fertility treatments. In-Vitro-Fertilization costs are fully subsidized up to the birth of two children for all Israeli women, including single women and lesbian couples. Embryo transfers for purposes of gestational surrogacy are also covered. The national public health system of New Zealand covers IVF treatment in specific circumstances only, based on a 'points for conception challenges' equation. For Germany, on 2 March 2012, the Federal Council has approved a draft law of some federal states, which provides that the federal government provides a subsidy of 25 percent to the cost. For Jordan, Army forces cover the army members for all infertility investigations and treatments. It also covers three trials of IVF in primary infertility cases. Source: https://en.wikipedia...tive_technology
Even if IVF is solely paid by patients, deploying resources in that area may not be beneficial to the society overall. It's just like food wastage. Does it mean that if someone pays for food, food wastage is not considered wastage? The net cost on the society is still there considering from macroscopic point of view.
Can you explain about the adoption part and how it relates to the argument?
I don't think people are monogamous simply because it's the law. As you said, extramarital affairs happen all the time. Getting married costs a lot of money and is emotionally significant; if someone really wanted relationships with multiple men/women, they'd do it without the marriage certificate, just like homosexual couples are currently forced to. Are you arguing against gay marriage because you think it's wrong to be homosexual, or because you have a problem with the actual marriage part?
1. No, it's not reasonable, unless you can justify that homosexual acts are something to be condemned. You have not done this.
2. Haha. No. People show off all the time. I'm not sure how this is relevant, though; neither stealing nor homosexuality are "skills", unless you're a professional thief for the former.
The point about monogamy and polygamy is to demonstrate the effects of the law on human behaviours. Prior to the monogamy laws, polygamy is a widespread phenomenon. But after monogmy laws are implemented, polygamy or related acts to is significantly reduced. Likewise, for the legalisation of gay marriage, once the law is passed globally, the increase in the number of homosexual acts will increase quite significantly. My expectations were at least from 2-3% currently to 5-10% after the law is passed globally. It may continue to increase further as gay marriage concept becomes deeply rooted.
Take for instance, for China, prior to 1950's monogamy law, "Chinese marriage up until this time was often arranged or forced, concubinage was commonplace, and women could not seek divorce." (Source: Hughes, Sarah; Hughes, Brady (1997). Women in World History: Readings from 1500 to the present. M.E. Sharpe. p. 236. ISBN 978-1-56324-313-4.) After the law is established, one study of extramarital affairs in China, published in the US in 2005, said 20% of 1,240 married men surveyed in urban China and 3.9% of 1,275 married women admitted to having had an affair in the past 12 months.(Source: http://www.theguardi...online-exposure)
1. Not sure if you noticed that that is an "if statement". It is primarily to state the extent that this debate will take to. Some people seems to get the wrong idea that this debate is to kill all the gays so are violently objecting to it. But the fact is, we are only debating on whether gay marriage should be legalised or not.
2. I was proving this point that skills are invalid comparisons to homosexuality and tendency to steal when another person is suggesting skills can be used in place of tendency to steal to compare against homosexuality to make homosexuality more positively connotated. Then you seems to support my view based on your argument but you stated you disagree with me so I don't know what exactly is your stand.
...so you're against people calling themselves gay/lesbian, because of the terminology? These are labels that people create to stick on other people in attempt to simplify the world, although it usually just makes things more complicated. People do stuff in secret; you can't just make assumptions that things are more or less likely to suit your argument. Homosexuality may be punishable by death wherever you're from, but that is not the case globally. Sure, there are hate crimes, but you'll find people getting beaten up for all sorts of weird reasons; only it's dismissed as 'unprovoked violence' or 'bullying' if the victim isn't known to be homosexual.
You are still trying to fortify your arguments with the flawed premise that homosexuality is a bad thing. You cannot say that gay marriage should be illegal because homosexuality is bad because allowing gay marriage would promote homosexuality which is bad because it is.
The difference between being admitting you are gay/lesbian and admitting you engage in homosexual acts is similar to the difference admitting you have sexual attraction to an opposite sex and admitting you have sex with an opposite sex. There is a leap between thinking and doing.
While we cannot predict how many people engage in homosexual acts in secret, it is still reasonable to deduce that people engage in homosexual acts is still significantly less in the past from the amount of official reports of homosexual acts in history and the general attitude people from the past treating people engaged in homosexual acts.
While you have stated that homosexuality is a bad thing is a flawed premise, you have not established the argument that the reproduction issue and increased STDs resulting from increasing homosexual acts is of no issue. There is an earlier rebuttal on your view on these two issues that you have not responded to.
So...all the animals in the wild were influenced by their parents to engage in homosexual acts?
I know a significant number of gay people who were raised by heterosexual parents in an entirely heterosexual environment; some even had religious backgrounds, and/or were raised under the mindset that homosexuality was a sin. How is that caused by nurture? I think it's fairly safe to say that most people don't aim to be sinners.
Earlier arguments have always pointed out that it is a combination of nature and nurture factors. A nurture environment is not limited to parental nurture, it also involves peer influence and community influence. They may have been heterosexual concepts in their earlier years, but once the impact of peers influence and community influence comes into picture, they may just abandon their original concepts. It is not hard to see this happening since there are many teenagers who used to be very obedient children but after getting to know some friends, they totally turned around in their behaviours and become very rude to their parents.
How many cases, and how can you be sure they were successful? A lot of gay people just pretend to be straight to avoid being attacked for their true sexuality, and there are many cases of gay people having heterosexual marriages and children because they're in denial of their attraction to the same gender. I'm not saying it is impossible for sexuality to change; I'm just saying that trying to make a gay person straight is about as easy as trying to make a straight person gay, if you take the law out of the equation. There have been many situations where a married person realises after many happy years of marriage that they are attracted to their own gender, and not their spouse's.
You can attribute almost anything to a traumatic childhood. I don't think you'll meet very many gay people who say they magically turned gay because their childhood was horrible.
Mark Yarhouse and Warren Throckmorton, of the private Christian school Grove City College, in 2002 published "Ethical Issues in Attempts to Ban Reorientation Therapies", which argues that conversion therapy should be available out of respect for a patient’s values system and because there is evidence that it can be effective. They state that studies from the 1950s–1980s generally reported rates of positive outcomes at about 30%, with more recent survey research generally consistent with the extant data. Their paper was partly a response to Jack Drescher's 2001 paper, "Ethical issues surrounding attempts to change sexual orientation", which used the principle of "Do no harm" to argue against conversion therapy.
There are also ex-gay movements still going on.
"Despite its misleading name, Exodus International is but the North American branch and founding member of what became the Exodus Global Alliance, a network of ex-gay organizations that has expanded across multiple continents since its 1995 launch. Exodus International withdrew from the Global Alliance a week prior to announcing its closure."
http://www.voiceofth...o/ex-gay-pride/
http://www.political...x-gay-movement/
...so psychotherapy only works if the patient wants to change. This is true, but it is relevant...how? It's bad enough that people think intraspecies sexuality is something to be corrected; you can't expect people to want to be corrected, too. That's like beating someone as a punishment and demanding that they enjoy it. Outside of an erotic context that would be irrelevant to discuss, this idea is ridiculous.
As you have mentioned earlier "I think it's fairly safe to say that most people don't aim to be sinners." but yet at the same time, many reflected that they cannot control it, there's where there maybe people who are willing to change it. Controlling sexual desire is nothing new in the human history. Ever since raping is criminalized and monogamy laws have been promoted across the world, man have been continuously controlling their sexual desires.
Uh, no. I even stated that it wasn't to excuse anyone from strereotyiping. It was just to point out different world views, since most users of Neocodex are from the US, UK, or Australia. Not once did I say, Grandmaster is a BAD PERSON, because he's from Singapore. In fact, I can single out my own country of ethnicity, Russia, which has even more stricter LGBT laws, but since I'm typing this out on my phone, I can't bring up links until my little sister falls asleep nightmare free. I adore Russia, I've visited many times, and my Nana grew up there as well. My Nana is a very open minded person, hell, she attended Woodstock, and considered herself a hippie. She grew up and then defected from a communist regime. Russia is very close minded and conservative, but it didn't effect my Nana. You weren't being singled out, I was just bringing up other country's stances, which can influence how people think.
Actually, it wouldn't have constituted a personal attack if you are just using Singapore as an example. But the fact that you point out I'm from Singapore and make links of my arguments with how Singapore is unfriendly with LGBT, it is implicitly stating the biasness of my arguments.
Whenever the focus is shifted from the topic to the debater, then it is considered personal attack. If we have to consider the biasness of the debater, then we have to consider it from the arguments that he/she made, not what personality he/she is, what country or culture or tradition he/she is in, what his hobby is, etc. If not, we would have to filter out all who those live in countries which legalises gay marriage and those who live in countries which ban gay marriage, then we will never be able to reach any conclusions. Since by biasness, your points that is supporting your country's position is considered to be biased. Just like no matter how repugnant an individual might be, he or she can still make true claims. No matter which country a person is in (whether the country is legalising gay marriage or banning gay marriage), he/she can still make unbiased claims. In order to prove biasness of claim, you have to look at the arguments made by debater, not look at the debater.
Half this thread is about whether or not Wikipedia can be used as a valid resource.
Just stop using Wikipedia. Jeez.
If you can't use it for your Term paper, don't use it to debate.
Not sure if you have seen my point about quoting from wikipedia for academic works. You can use it for term paper as long as you quote from the references in the wikipedia page, instead of directly quoting from wikipedia. In fact, a lot of wikipedia references uses scientific journals or books that people nowsdays use less frequently than website links.
Grandmaster, when I stick smiley faces on the ends of my sentences, that is to emphasise that I was JOKING. Those are small asides where I bring up a point I find amusing or interesting; they are certainly not the crux of my argument, and I am sure you can see that. I would appreciate it if you would spend your time rebutting my actual arguments, rather than nitpicking at the smallest, least relevant sentence in my post simply because it is the easiest to refute.
No one is trying to launch personal attacks on you - we established that from the start, and Misha's statement about your country of origin is actually in your favour. Someone from your country is more likely to be conditioned to think in a certain way (eg. against homosexuality) due to differing laws and the mindsets of those around them. These days, many people excuse the older generation for their racism because we know that things were different in their time, and we can't expect them to radically change their views after being surrounded by a racist culture for so long. Misha is saying the same for you - that although you are against homosexuality, it can be partly explained by the rules of your society - you are not simply an obstinate, close-minded individual. Nature and nurture, as you are so fond of saying.
And I agree with everything Ivysaur said.
Actually, if you see my first sentence (at the very top before any quotes) that I will respond to the longer arguments later, but I just took those similar wikipedia points and answer them first since they are shorter.
Whenever the focus is shifted from the topic to the debater, then it is considered personal attack. If we have to consider the biasness of the debater, then we have to consider it from the arguments that he/she made, not what personality he/she is, what country or culture or tradition he/she is in, what his hobby is, etc. If not, we would have to filter out all who those live in countries which legalises gay marriage and those who live in countries which ban gay marriage, then we will never be able to reach any conclusions. Since by biasness, your points that is supporting your country's position is considered to be biased. Just like no matter how repugnant an individual might be, he or she can still make true claims. No matter which country a person is in (whether the country is legalising gay marriage or banning gay marriage), he/she can still make unbiased claims. In order to prove biasness of claim, you have to look at the arguments made by debater, not look at the debater.
So you believe that Homosexuality is in fact a mental disorder? What do you believe the state of "being homosexual" to be?
You are debating in circles without taking any firm stances. You can save the people debating with you a lot of time if you just address their points directly instead of taking offense to every little thing.
Being homosexual is just having the natural tendency to be attracted to the same-sex. But homosexual acts are the manifestation of sexual desires that may need to be controlled.
The reason why APA removed homosexuality from mental disorder list is "homosexuality per se implies no impairment in judgment, stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabilities". Mainly from the individual perspective, not from the society's perspective. Sexual desires associated with polygamy is also not a mental disorder but the laws have banned polygamy so mental disorder or not does not affect the argument whether it should be controlled or not.
It should also be noted that the decision was not an unanimous one but by majority, suggesting some divide in the opinions.
In 1973 the Board of Trustees voted to remove homosexuality as a disorder category from the DSM, a decision ratified by a majority (58%) of the general APA membership the following year.
Pointing out obvious logical fallacy is different from taking offense to every little thing. It is exactly how arguments are being validated or invalidated most of the time.
You touched a lot of subjects, but didn't actually post anything towards your argument apart from the teenager or child being unwilling. I've still yet to see a reason backed up with actual proven facts that supports why gay marriage shouldn't be allowed
When a controversial issue remains controversial, there would not be a one-sided solid proof, or else the argument would have long ended and the issue would no longer be controversial. The most a debater can do is to ensure the logical flow of the arguments supported by some examples and statistics.
Anyway, it is also good to see why the support for gay marriage in the US has been on the increase. Roughly a third (32%) who change their view from opposing to supporting say it is because they know someone – a friend, family member or other acquaintance – who is homosexual. Another indication of wider prevalence of gays/lesbians.
http://www.people-pr...g-demographics/
Edited by Grandmaster, 09 August 2013 - 04:51 AM.
) I definitely want to have the opportunity to get married. But, perhaps more important than that, I want to feel accepted. I want to be able to hold his hand across a restaurant table, and not feel self-conscious doing it. And for that to happen, for me to feel accepted by society, I think it's important to have the same rights as everyone else.
