My Mixed Heritage and Iowa's Gay Marriages

One of the reasons I'm interested in the Civil War is that my father's family is from Iowa while my mother's family is from Georgia. My mother's grandfather fought in the Confederate Army, while Iowa contributed the most Union soldiers of any state in proportion to their population. Rumor has it that family members enlisted, but I haven't been able to verify that.

Indeed, when the Union Army invaded Georgia, many units from Iowa fought; there is even a monument to the Iowa dead at the Chickamauga battlefield in north Georgia.

So it was with interest that I noted the gay marriages taking place in my home state of Iowa. According to Reuters News, gay couples were lined up to apply for marriage licenses when the doors to the Polk County (the county that Des Moines is in) Courthouse opened this morning.

Perhaps the enthusiasm will change some minds.

Toilets, Closeted Hypocrites, and the Signals

What is it about toilets and closeted hypocrites? Larry Craig is just the most recent closeted politicians to be arrested for soliciting sex in one.

In a way, it's interesting. Here I am an openly gay man and yet I'm never had sex in a restroom, and don't know the signals for soliciting sex. Yet a closeted politician who denies he is gay not only knows these signals but is arrested for using them to solicit anonymous gay sex.

It's an amazing world!

Are Religious Fundamentalists Bearing False Witness?

When the religious fundamentalists decry sexual orientation as a choice, are they violating the commandment to not bear false witness? ("Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16).

• Most gays (including me) believe that we did not choose our sexual orientation. Indeed, we often struggled against it for years.
  
• More and more scientific studies support that sexual orientation is biologically determined. (For a synopsis of the studies supporting sexual orientation as being biologically determined, click here.)
• The American Psychological Association believes that sexual orientation is not a choice. (Click here for further information.)
• Gays who try to become heterosexual through programs like Exodus International only have a success rate of one-half of one percent. (See my previous post on this statistic.) If sexual orientation were a choice, wouldn't they be more successful in changing their sexual orientation?

If sexual orientation is not a choice, are people bearing false witness when they claim it is?

The Exodus "Success" Story

Since religious fundamentalists believe sexual orientation to be a "choice," naturally they have provided a way for gays to change: Exodus International, which takes gays and "changes" them into heterosexuals. But wait, Exodus only claims a success rate of 25% to 50%. (Kind of a big range, isn't it? Wouldn't you think they would know their success rate more precisely?)

Let's be clear: here is a group that only takes people who are highly committed to changing their sexual orientation, places them in an environment designed to maximize success and minimize temptations, and the group can only claim a success rate of 25% to 50%?

One independent analysis concluded that the 25% to 50% rate was vastly overstated. Their conclusion was that less than 1% (one percent) changed. (Their actual number was 0.5%, or one half of one percent.)

And the religious fundamentalists never tell you that the two founders of Exodus, both male, fell in love and held a gay commitment ceremony.

Face the truth: sexual orientation is not a choice.

Religious Fundamentalists: Frustrating, Wrong, and Afraid

Religious fundamentalists are certainly exasperating to me. Their belief that sexual orientation is chosen is wrong. If being gay is a choice, is being heterosexual a choice? Did they choose their orientation?

I remember giving up talking to a religious fundamentalist; as I was turning away, he told me very loudly to "stay away from the children." I was amazed, as he apparently thought that gays were pedophiles or that gays recruited (if any fundamentals are reading this, he was wrong. Statistically, a pedophile is more likely to be heterosexual in orientation than to be gay. And recruiting is a myth to explain why people "choose" to be gay). It certainly wasn't a good experience for me.

Perhaps the real reason some of the religious fundamentalists are so vocal concerning gays is that they are afraid of their own sexuality. Christianity, at least, has certainly discouraged sexuality except for procreational purposes (and then when married). Of course, their virulence could also be hiding their attraction to the same sex.

I'm ready for the fundamentalists to get a new cause: feeding the hungry, providing health-care for the sick, or providing shelter to the homeless.

Republican Senator Arrested for Lewd Conduct in the Men's Room

Idaho U. S. Senator Larry Craig, a Republican, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct at the Minneapolis airport after a plainclothes officer investigated complaints of lewd conduct in one of the restrooms.

Craig denies he's gay, and voted in favor of the Defense of Marraige Act (DOMA).

Wouldn't it be more honest to himself and to his constituents to admit the truth?

Here are the links:

News Report of Guilty Plea
DOMA Senate Roll Call

Do These People Think?

Twice in the last two weeks I've read someone expressing the view that Washington is screwed up because of the liberal politicians. Hello! The most "conservative" president in years has been in power for six years, and had a conservative, Republican Congress through most of his term.

Let's look at some issues:
1) Are they blaming Iraq on liberals? Would that be Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or George W. Bush?

2) Who would they be blaming the deficit on? (Remember, it was a huge surplus when Clinton left office).

3) Are the "liberals" (such a nebulous term) responsible for global warming, for high prescription drug prices, for the healthcare uninsured, for high gas prices, or for the illegal immigrants?

What are they thinking?