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> Singling out sexuality on this particular front is patently perfidious. Perfidious it may be, but the question of innateness has very real policy effects. Th

> Singling out sexuality on this particular front is patently perfidious. Perfidious it may be, but the question of innateness has very real policy effects. The best comparison is probably religion. Parents are allowed to send their children to religion camps. Should they be allowed to send their children to conversion therapy camps? Perhaps therapy is too coercive, but what about something less coercive, but more effective? If it is innate then conversion therapy can be easily banned on grounds of inefficacy and therefore active harm. If sexual orientation is entirely mutable then the question shifts altogether. > I think it's more likely that "value" is an inapt word I very intentionally chose "value" because I think many members of the homosexual community value homosexuality in the same way that I think many members of the heterosexual community value heterosexuality. This is the whole point of why "pride" is more than just a simple slogan. Indeed I think even the very act of calling "singling out sexuality to be perfidious" demonstrates just how much value it holds for people. If it were as simple as whether one liked broccoli or not, why would anyone ever care? I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I think an illuminating example is the Deaf community's attitude towards cochlear implants, where large swaths of the community actively reject cochlear implants and value their own Deafness as an intrinsic attribute to be celebrated on its own. Indeed among members of that community there is a tendency to try to value Deafness as an immutable attribute and to shun attempts to make it mutable (it is extremely controversial for parents to outfit children with cochlear implants, even were these cochlear implants to perfectly replicate normal hearing and for people born Deaf segments of the community view it as a sort of betrayal for them to attempt to use cochlear implants). The question of mutability remains an important one that has many implications.

BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
> Parents are allowed to send their children to religion camps. Society's desire to bend itself backward to accommodate religious sectarian meme indoctrination is a huge moral blind spot. I don't think many communities are able to honestly discuss consent as applied to religious obedience and obeisance. That doesn't mean we should consider it a moral standard. > Indeed I think even the very act of calling "singling out sexuality to be perfidious" demonstrates just how much value it holds for people. It's not the sexuality that has value. The value is in not being the subject of a lie constructed to mask arbitrary oppression because of a religious meme. > If it were as simple as whether one liked broccoli or not, why would anyone ever care? I think we can turn this on its head to make it more apt to demonstrate why this reasoning doesn't work for me. Heterosexual people don't form communities for themselves on the basis of heteroidentification (I mean, some definitely do, but it's also definitely an extreme minority). There are communities and there are LGBTQ-oriented communities and there are even (we should acknowledge) straight-exclusionary communities, but we might rightly look askance at anyone who desires LGBTQ-exclusionary communities. So then we have to ask ourselves why, and we can look to your broccoli example... Maybe you enjoy eating broccoli. Let's say you do. For the sake of argument, let's also say that while you like broccoli you don't identify yourself as "a broccoli person". Like...when you're at parties and people ask you what things you enjoy, you don't even mention broccoli. Then someone comes along and says "everyone who enjoys broccoli has to die". That's you. You're the person who they want to die. Now you care about the broccoli situation, but you care about not being oppressed and you care about solidarity and support, not about broccoli. In that environment you will form bonds with other broccoli eaters, not because of the broccoli, but because oppression forges bonds among the oppressed. Now non-broccoli-eaters, on the other hand, don't have to spend their lives in fear that someone will beat them up or kill them for enjoying broccoli (because they don't), which means that broccoli isn't on their minds. Like basically ever. At best you could say that once in a while a non-broccoli-eater might be relieved that they aren't in the difficult position of someone wanting them dead because of what they like eating. The bonds of identification are a consequence of the oppression, not of the broccoli. Broccoli is just the point of intersection.

BugsJustFindMe 6y ago

> Parents are allowed to send their children to religion camps. Society's desire to bend itself backward to accommodate religious sectarian meme indoctrination is a huge moral blind spot. I don't think many communities are able to honestly discuss consent as applied to religious obedience and obeisance. That doesn't mean we should consider it a moral standard. > Indeed I think even the very act of calling "singling out sexuality to be perfidious" demonstrates just how much value it holds for people. It's not the sexuality that has value. The value is in not being the subject of a lie constructed to mask arbitrary oppression because of a religious meme. > If it were as simple as whether one liked broccoli or not, why would anyone ever care? I think we can turn this on its head to make it more apt to demonstrate why this reasoning doesn't work for me. Heterosexual people don't form communities for themselves on the basis of heteroidentification (I mean, some definitely do, but it's also definitely an extreme minority). There are communities and there are LGBTQ-oriented communities and there are even (we should acknowledge) straight-exclusionary communities, but we might rightly look askance at anyone who desires LGBTQ-exclusionary communities. So then we have to ask ourselves why, and we can look to your broccoli example... Maybe you enjoy eating broccoli. Let's say you do. For the sake of argument, let's also say that while you like broccoli you don't identify yourself as "a broccoli person". Like...when you're at parties and people ask you what things you enjoy, you don't even mention broccoli. Then someone comes along and says "everyone who enjoys broccoli has to die". That's you. You're the person who they want to die. Now you care about the broccoli situation, but you care about not being oppressed and you care about solidarity and support, not about broccoli. In that environment you will form bonds with other broccoli eaters, not because of the broccoli, but because oppression forges bonds among the oppressed. Now non-broccoli-eaters, on the other hand, don't have to spend their lives in fear that someone will beat them up or kill them for enjoying broccoli (because they don't), which means that broccoli isn't on their minds. Like basically ever. At best you could say that once in a while a non-broccoli-eater might be relieved that they aren't in the difficult position of someone wanting them dead because of what they like eating. The bonds of identification are a consequence of the oppression, not of the broccoli. Broccoli is just the point of intersection.