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Forums - General Discussion - France legalizes gay marriage despite angry protests

 

Do you want gay marriage in your country?

Yes, It would just be fair 241 58.78%
 
No, get the gay out of my country 102 24.88%
 
meh, I don't really care 66 16.10%
 
Total:409
dsgrue3 on 24 April 2013
Slimebeast said:

You seem unable to understand that, as far as we know, there is no fundamental difference between homosexuality and ADHD/Aspbergers on a biological level (you also seem confused about the brain's primary role in causing the end result and what implications that has or doesn't have).

You seem unable to understand the criteria of what constitutes a disorder in the medical field and how they're influenced by contemporary (arbitrary) politics.

You're not offering any information, you're just saying "no."

No proper rebuttal, no explanation for anything - just "no."

There is a gigantic difference between homosexuality and ADHD. One is actually classified as a disorder and one isn't (and hasn't been since the 1970s).

Nothing more to say really. Your opposition to facts proves your dedication to ignorance.



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DarthVolod on 24 April 2013
aikohualda said:
DarthVolod said:

Gay or straight, I can't understand why you would ever want to get married. The whole thing is really absurd in my opinion at least by its current legal definition. Maybe divorce laws are less harsh in France (doubt it) but I don't know. Marriage should be no different than joining a club, a local sports team, a fraternal organization ect. ect. You agree to join together for life or whatever, and you have your ceremony and then go on with your business without the lawyers involved.

The government should stay out of my love life ... and my life in general while we are at it.

you havent heard of tax? and having the rights to be in your wife or husband if they were in an accident????? you have no idea why we want to practice marriage.... most of the time we cant adopt because we are consider as "single" because we can never be married in other states....

I am completely opposed to taxation in any form so I feel for you in that regard, and I consider it discrimination (in our current system) that married couples (gay and straight) get special benefits and tax breaks that singles do not. I thought you could be with your husband/wife/significant other in an accident regardless of marital status ... there are ways around that outside of marriage I believe (could give power of attorney to virtually anyone I believe as long as a lawyer sets it up). Adoption is a farce the way it is structured right now ... way too expensive, and it is really only an option for married couples which is definately discrimination against singles.

Let me repeat, I am against marriage as a legal institution. All of the benefits given by marriage are discriminatory against those who choose to not get married, or those who have not gotten married yet. If a man and woman/man and man/woman and woman want to get married and spend there lives together that is fantastic for them. All I am saying is that marriage as a legal institution with special rights should cease to exist for straight people and gay people. It is just like the concept of a corporation ... a company is a company it is not a person with rights no matter what the government says. We should be fighting for the fact that singles should not be treated like second class citizens. We should fight for marriage as a special bond between a couple and not as a legally binding contract. Like I said, keep lawyers out of love.



allenmaher on 24 April 2013

So as a resident of a country that had it's first legal gay marriage in 2001 and universally legal gay marriages in all provinces and territories in 2005. Here are the things that have happened to marriage since:

1. nothing


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/gay-marriage-is-a-non-issue-in-canada-but-it-still-riles-america/article10193881/

Extending civil rights to all does not harm anyone.



Slimebeast on 24 April 2013
Scoobes said:
Slimebeast said:
dsgrue3 said:
Slimebeast said:

You're talking against facts here because you hope that to be the case, while we in fact don't know that to be the case.

I personally, partially based on my experience as a medical doctor and because there are studies that suggest it, believe that homosexuality largely is caused by dysfunctional hormonal regulation during embryonal development, which would be enough to meet the criteria for it to be classified as a "brain disorder" (that's how diagnostics work).

I do believe that some homosexuality is programmed and even selected for at the genetical level too, but we don't have clear evidence for that yet.

Note that I don't think this is dramatic in any way because "disorder" doesn't automatically mean something can be or should be "cured".

 

I'm not "talking against facts," I'm bringing them to the table. This is where scientists believe the fundamental control occurs. 

Epigenetics and hormones go hand in hand and it is absolutely thought to be hormones sent as epigenetic signals during development that produces sexuality. Epigenetics aren't set in stone, they are environmentally impacted. 

Classifying homosexuality as a brain disorder is absurd. Call it a recessive disposition, but disorder in this sense is a pejorative. Like I said, it's not thought of as different to left-handedness - and I think you'll fail to classify this as a disorder. 

Furthermore, what the hell does "hope" have anything to do with anything? I'm not homosexual, so I've no vested interest in a scientific explanation. I'm bringing clarity to an outdated opinion that it's a brain disorder. It simply isn't; any other assertion is baseless and, quite frankly, ridiculous.

 

You claimed that homosexuality "is controlled by epigenetic markers which promote a predisposition". That is not fact, that's a theory. Some homosexuality seem to be controlled by genetic markers, while some homosexuality cannot yet be connected to any predisposition, that's all we can say.

He says epigenetic markers which potentially supports your original hypothesis about hormonal changes in the mother during embryonic development influencing homosexuality. Hormonal changes in the mother could potentially influence the transcription of non-coding regulatory RNA in the developing embryo. This in turn could influence DNA methylation and effect gene regulation in the baby.

I'm not getting into the brain stuff between you two as I've not read up enough on the topic but you're potentially arguing over a shared viewpoint.

Yes, I know the implications of his argument - namely that genetic markers in combination with epigenetic factors could cause the hormonal changes needed to produce an altered sexuality in the brain (through the mechanisms you explained). I'm not against that theory at all. It most likely explains a large part of homosexuality prevalence.

But he makes a big deal out of the markers only (because they're genetically tied and therefore could suggest that homosexuality is an evolutionary selected trait), and ignores the possibility that there are cases where no genetic predisposition is needed. Just a hormonal imbalance during embryonal development resulting in a homosexual brain, just like other common embryological disturbances that aren't linked to any genetical predisposition.

No matter what he says, the facts are that:

1. we know hormonal imbalances during embryonal development can alter a person's sexuality

2. we've discovered genetic markers that are shared between some groups of homosexuals (only male homosexuals as far as I know, and not by all of them).

Those are the facts. But that doesn't mean these two things are connected, and it certainly doesn't mean that they're always connected like he claims. To go beyond those facts and connect them is just speculation, which I was very clear about.

He also is very dogmatic about the definition of "disorder".

He lastly put forward another factor, whether the brain is the chicken or the egg, but when it comes to this topic, and disorders in general, that's irrelevant.



Slimebeast on 24 April 2013
dsgrue3 said:
Slimebeast said:

You seem unable to understand that, as far as we know, there is no fundamental difference between homosexuality and ADHD/Aspbergers on a biological level (you also seem confused about the brain's primary role in causing the end result and what implications that has or doesn't have).

You seem unable to understand the criteria of what constitutes a disorder in the medical field and how they're influenced by contemporary (arbitrary) politics.

You're not offering any information, you're just saying "no."

No proper rebuttal, no explanation for anything - just "no."

There is a gigantic difference between homosexuality and ADHD. One is actually classified as a disorder and one isn't (and hasn't been since the 1970s).

Nothing more to say really. Your opposition to facts proves your dedication to ignorance.

Classified on psychiatric grounds, but not on biological grounds. Biologically there is no difference (as far as we know today).



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Tom3k on 24 April 2013
Slimebeast said:

Yes, I know the implications of his argument - namely that genetic markers in combination with epigenetic factors could cause the hormonal changes needed to produce an altered sexuality in the brain (through the mechanisms you explained). I'm not against that theory at all. It most likely explains a large part of homosexuality prevalence.

But he makes a big deal out of the markers only (because they're genetically tied and therefore could suggest that homosexuality is an evolutionary selected trait), and ignores the possibility that there are cases where no genetic predisposition is needed. Just a hormonal imbalance during embryonal development resulting in a homosexual brain, just like other common embryological disturbances that aren't linked to any genetical predisposition.

No matter what he says, the facts are that:

1. we know hormonal imbalances during embryonal development can alter a person's sexuality

2. we've discovered genetic markers that are shared between some groups of homosexuals (only male homosexuals as far as I know, and not by all of them).

Those are the facts. But that doesn't mean these two things are connected, and it certainly doesn't mean that they're always connected like he claims. To go beyond those facts and connect them is just speculation, which I was very clear about.

He also is very dogmatic about the definition of "disorder".

He lastly put forward another factor, whether the brain is the chicken or the egg, but when it comes to this topic, and disorders in general, that's irrelevant.

I'm curious... Which markers? Are you talking about so called "HMS1 homosexuality 1" that is apparently located on Xq28?



JEMC on 25 April 2013
Jay520 said:

I have a solution to settle this madness.

Some people want "marriage" to be defined under religion only. Others think "marriage" should be free to be used by everyone. Here is the solution: we create a new term for homosexuals and nonreligious couples. That new term should be "marriage." Of course this looks and sounds like the religious "marriage" but it's actually different. It would just be a homonym, like "left" and "left" - one is the opposite of right and the other is the past tense of leave. They are spelled and pronounced the same, but have entirely different meaning.

We can reach a similar compromise with religion. The religious "marriage" will be exclusively under religious authority, while the other "marriage" will be a general term for marriage in general. No one group of people has a dictatorship over a particular arrangement of letters and syllables.

Who agrees?

I don't.

First, as others have said marriage is older than religion, so why should the term "marriage" be kept for the religious ceremonies?

Second. I don't know how it works in other contries, but here in Spain the religious ceremonies have 0 legal validity. People that go to a church to marry also have to sign the same legal documents to make it official that a couple signs when marrying on the town hall or in a court. The only difference between those couples are the religious ceremony, making it nothing more than an (expensive) extra.

So, why not leave the term  marriage as it is now, which is the common term that we use to refer people that decides to legally declare that they are together and create a new term for the religious ceremonies, even giving the option that every religion have their own term? We would have marriages (no religion), catholic marriages, jewish marriages, muslim marriages, buddhist marriages, etc.

In the end, the truth is that you can't use different names to call the same thing based on which sex the couple have because, like it or not, that is discriminatiory. It's either a marriage or not.



Please excuse my bad English.

Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet    Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.

Slimebeast on 25 April 2013
Tom3k said:
Slimebeast said:

Yes, I know the implications of his argument - namely that genetic markers in combination with epigenetic factors could cause the hormonal changes needed to produce an altered sexuality in the brain (through the mechanisms you explained). I'm not against that theory at all. It most likely explains a large part of homosexuality prevalence.

But he makes a big deal out of the markers only (because they're genetically tied and therefore could suggest that homosexuality is an evolutionary selected trait), and ignores the possibility that there are cases where no genetic predisposition is needed. Just a hormonal imbalance during embryonal development resulting in a homosexual brain, just like other common embryological disturbances that aren't linked to any genetical predisposition.

No matter what he says, the facts are that:

1. we know hormonal imbalances during embryonal development can alter a person's sexuality

2. we've discovered genetic markers that are shared between some groups of homosexuals (only male homosexuals as far as I know, and not by all of them).

Those are the facts. But that doesn't mean these two things are connected, and it certainly doesn't mean that they're always connected like he claims. To go beyond those facts and connect them is just speculation, which I was very clear about.

He also is very dogmatic about the definition of "disorder".

He lastly put forward another factor, whether the brain is the chicken or the egg, but when it comes to this topic, and disorders in general, that's irrelevant.

I'm curious... Which markers? Are you talking about so called "HMS1 homosexuality 1" that is apparently located on Xq28?

I suppose. Those are the ones I am aware of since I studied the subject over 10 years ago in med school (on a small litterature study I made, actually promoting the theory that homosexuality is geneticially linked and evolutionary selected for through the kin-mechanism).

I'm not updated though, but one would think they should have found other markers by now (if there really is strong disposition for this trait). But I haven't read any big news about it so I suspect they haven't made any major discoveries yet.

Do you have some interesting to tell us about the whole thing?



Jumpin on 25 April 2013

All anti-gay people I know hate religion as much as they hate "fags." It is just a product of ignorance that people seem to think that all Christians are homophobic. There are easily more homophobic atheists than homophobic Christians. If you ever see someone accusing another of being homosexual as a form of an insult, they are very likely an atheist.



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

Tom3k on 25 April 2013

Slimebeast said:

I suppose. Those are the ones I am aware of since I studied the subject over 10 years ago in med school (on a small litterature study I made, actually promoting the theory that homosexuality is geneticially linked and evolutionary selected for through the kin-mechanism).

I'm not updated though, but one would think they should have found other markers by now (if there really is strong disposition for this trait). But I haven't read any big news about it so I suspect they haven't made any major discoveries yet.

Do you have some interesting to tell us about the whole thing?

The existence or even relevance of HMS 1 was never independently confirmed, and the "gene" itself was in 2007 withdrawn by HGNC. If you do an Entrez search for "homosexuality" you'll see that the only result you'll get is the (withdrawn) HMS 1. There isn't anything new.

From the studies I've read recently the current focus seems to be on epigentics.

(And I would argue that there is significant biological difference between ADHD and homosexuality. To see what I mean do an Entrez search for "Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder").