Category Archives: Commentary

Commentary

What causes homosexuality? Is there a gay gene?

2 Comments

160x199photo

Here is an article from Trayce Hansen, Ph.D. She summarizes the evidence on homosexuality in response to proposed changes to a California school board’s curriculum that would promote and normalize homosexual behavior.

Excerpt:

ENVIRONMENT IS PRIMARY FACTOR IN DEVELOPMENT OF SEXUAL PREFERENCE AND GENDER IDENTITY

Decades of research confirm that sexual orientation and gender identity are not inborn but are primarily shaped by environmental influences during childhood and adolescence. The proposed school curriculum will affect the sexual preference and gender identity formation of some children exposed to it because it teaches that all sexual and gender variations are equally acceptable. Sexual preference and gender identity formation are fragile developmental processes that can be disrupted and altered by environmental influences such as the lessons in the proposed school curriculum.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS NOT INBORN

Many people continue to believe that sexual orientation is inborn, although that is not true. Extensive, worldwide research reveals that homosexuality is predominately influenced by environmental factors. For instance, recent large-scale studies compared rates of homosexual behavior in sets of identical twins. If homosexual behavior were inborn, every time one identical twin was homosexual, the other identical twin would also be homosexual 100% of the time. But this is not what the research revealed. Rather, every time one identical twin was homosexual the other twin was homosexual only 10% or 11% of the time. Homosexual behavior is clearly not genetic.

In fact, an accumulation of extensive research utilizing millions of research subjects finds that environment, not genetics, is the main factor in the development of non-heterosexual behavior. (To review these research studies see references 1-4 listed below).

[…]NON-HETEROSEXUAL BEHAVIOR LEADS TO INCREASED RISK OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL DISORDERS

Sadly, the research is also clear that individuals who adopt non-heterosexual lifestyles are more likely to suffer from a host of negative outcomes including psychiatric disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide attempts, domestic violence and sexual assault, and increased risk for chronic diseases, AIDS, and shortened lifespan. Schools should not affirm and thereby encourage young people to adopt lifestyles more likely to lead to such devastation. (To review these specific studies see references 5-10 below).

GENDER IDENTITY DISORDER IS A PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER THAT SHOULD NOT BE NORMALIZED TO CHILDREN

The proposed school curriculum also teaches that transgendered lifestyles are a healthy and acceptable alternative to the norm. That is not true. Many transgendered individuals suffer from a psychiatric disorder known as Gender Identity Disorder (GID) that is recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder in need of psychological treatment… (For a thorough understanding of Gender Identity Disorder, see reference number 11 below authored by world-renowned GID experts).

Read the whole thing here, at the Ruth blog. The references to medical research publications are at the bottom of the article. The majority of the research papers cited are from 2005 to the present.

You may also be interested in a recent post discussing why people oppose same-sex marriage.

Commentary

UK’s Chief Rabbi blames atheism and Darwinism for falling birth rates

3 Comments

The article is in the UK Telegraph. (H/T MercatorNet via ECM, Big Blue Wave)

Excerpt:

The leader of Britain’s Jewish community claimed the continent’s population is in decline because people care more about shopping than the sacrifice involved in parenthood.

He blamed atheist “neo-Darwinians” for Europe’s low birth rate and said religious people of all denominations are more likely to have large families.

[…]The Chief Rabbi warned that secular Europe is at risk, however, because its moral relativism can easily be defeated by fundamentalists.

And he claimed that its population is also in decline, compared with every other part of the world, because non-believers lack shared values of family and community that religions have.

Lord Sacks said: “Parenthood involves massive sacrifice of money, attention, time and emotional energy.

“Where today in European culture with its consumerism and instant gratification – because you’re worth it – where will you find space for the concept of sacrifice for the sake of generations not yet born?

“Europe, at least the indigenous population of Europe, is dying.”

“That is one of the unsayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it.

I blogged about the UK’s looming demographic crisis previously.

So the Chief Rabbi seems to be in agreement with my views on atheism and morality. Logically speaking, atheism simply doesn’t meet any of the minimum requirements for rational morality. The problem for atheism is that the decision to commit to a marriage for life and to have children involves massive self-sacrifice. But on atheism, life is just about having happy feelings before you die – so they cannot rationally ground the decision to marry and procreate.

Commentary

Did post-traumatic stress disorder cause the Fort Hood murderer to snap?

Leave a comment

Well, he never actually was in combat – he’s a psychologist!

Check out this post from an American soldier who experienced PTSD himself after having most of his arm blown off by an IED. WARNING! This post contains a lot of profanity as you might expect! (I removed the curse words and substituted by favorite words instead in the excerpt below)

Excerpt:

You want to know what [beasting] PTSD is like? I’ll tell you. You have nightmares that go on for weeks. Mine would always be the same. Wherever the window was in the room in which I was sleeping I would see a bright white flash. I would wake up screaming to my wife “Get up! Get the [ROAR!] up! An IED just went off!” Sometimes I would just wake up screaming in agony as I relived the moment where my right arm was ripped from my body by an Iranian shape charge. (I may not know what childbirth feels like, but I know what it’s like to go an hour with my am ripped off without painkillers (I’m allergic to morphine).) PTSD makes you paranoid as [monstery]. “Why is that person staring at me? Are they a threat? Where is the nearest exit? Why are these people so close to me? Why is no one pulling security? What was that noise? Where is the nearest cover? I need to get out of here.” You lie wide awake in bed at night wondering if it’s safe to go to sleep or if you should get up and start pulling security.

[…]I still get nervous and hold my breath every time I drive by a piece of trash or tire debris on the shoulder or median.  I avoid guardrails and broken down cars on the side of the road.  On a couple different occasions I yelled out “tire!” to warn my wife (who was driving) of a potential IED in the road. There was nothing there (no tire, no nothing).  One late night while driving home completely exhausted on our small two lane country roads at slow speed I locked up all four tires on my car to keep from hitting a cardboard box in the middle of the road.  At that moment I would have bet the contents of my bank account it was an IED.  That’s what [toadying] PTSD is like.  At no point in time have I ever felt the desire or need to grab a weapon and go shoot someone or something up.  At no point in time have I ever grabbed a weapon and broken a law because I felt the need to protect myself.  PTSD urges you mitigate the risk of events that happened in your life.  But if you’ve never had anything traumatic happen in your life, you can’t [snarking] have PTSD.

Why do left-wingers always make excuses for the bad decisions of evil people, then rush in with social programs provided by the good people’s hard-work? What causes them to minimize personal responsibility and moral judgment? Why do they think it is virtuous to ignore and malign the victims of crime, terrorism and taxation?

If you don’t know why, be sure and watch this video with Jewish comedian Evan Sayet, who explains the whole thing. In one sense, this whole health care fiasco is nothing but an attempt by the left to equalize the health care outcomes of those who make prudent decisions with those who do not. I.e. – those who do not use drugs should pay for the drug needles of others, so that both have equal outcomes.