The other comment, you'd like to hang me on, was "the greek empire, which essentially was the foundation for western civilisation before even rome, which existed long before christians made an appearance, never had issues with homosexuality. It was a part of their culture from the beginning and they saw it as pretty harmless - in fact, many men had wives purely for procreation and young men for other pursuits."

Where did I say it was good? I said it was a fact. I did say all this sexual repression was unfortunate, though on that score, you concurred.

LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY! I don't want to have to explain this again, and I don't want you to continue misrepresenting me.

The point I was making thoughout the post was that homosexuality is not an indication of a society in decay - the greek empire began from that basis, and was the first democracy - it was a powerful empire to which we owe the foundations of western thought.

I never said anything about keeping wives solely for procreation as being good. I said it happened in Greece as it was a rising power, so you can't assume homosexuality means western society is in decay.

You then took this and blew it all out of proportion, twisting my words and pretending they're indicative of something they're not.

I can only assume you did this because it's all you've got to debate me with.
It's a weak, reprehensible debate tactic.
You never addressed the fact that you were completely wrong on the state of civil unions, so why the hell should anyone think you've got the slightest clue on anything else related to this.

JB,

To wear the mantle of rational concern, you need to show that your fears are based on fact and not prejudice. I have yet to see any study or documentation that indicates that gay marriage will lead to an increase in child abuse.

Provide even an inkling of proof and you will not be judged so harshly.

JB "Botheration no I’m just not gullible."

Actually, you're one of the most gullible posters I've ever come across. You really think that Nambla have any kind of lobbying power in that great god-fearing nation the USA? That's Nambla, the group that apparently has no members now and effectively doesn't exist. You really think that gay people want to change the age of consent even though they never mention it? I never mention that I want a robotic barbershop quartet to rule Earth from a secret satellite located directly above your house. Does that mean I secretly *do* want that? Do you really think that all psychologists are gay? Do you really think these large, amorphous groups - gays, psychologists - work as one homogeneous entity? Think they have secret meetings? "Yes, Cyril, we seem to have them fooled." *Leans back in chair and studies fingernails. "All those homo-lovin' heteros now believe we gays are set on this earth to dress amusingly in women's clothes while singing 'Locomotion' and making cocktails and redecorating their kitchens. Now that they trust us, it's time to steal their children and make them ours!" *breaks into maniacal laughter*

So, either someone's fed you this rubbish, and you're gullible, or you're inventing this stuff, which is more than a touch paranoid.

Of course, you're perfectly entitled to your opinion, and I suggest you lobby your local state and federal members if you want to promote your views.

But your views are a bit daft.

Botheration,

“Well done for calling me on it. “

You are welcome and I’m impressed that you complimented me for doing so. It hasn’t been the typical reaction in here when I pull people up on ‘methodological’ issues.

”Statistics are notoriously difficult to obtain.”

But there has been more of an effort to research it than I expected.

“ I have several friends who were abused as children, but not one who reported it.”

Obviously obtaining representative data (and methodology) are overwhelmingly challenging. I expected reluctance to research. Instead the problem seems to be conducting a study which achieves transparently accurate results.

Both the homosexual link and the link flagged relating to perpetrators considered the issue. The homosexual one took a fairly definite stance. The other one concurred in a qualified way:

“Overall, what little evidence there is, although flawed, appears to indicate that sexual orientation does not play a part in child sexual assault typologies, and that the assumption that paedophiles who engage in same-sex sexual abuse are homosexuals is more a societal myth than a reality.”

I note (although it is unrelated to the current topic) that the homosexual one’s Roman Catholic abuse cases discussion was unimpressive. Irrespective of overall incidence and correlation for same sex attracted people in general society, abuse cases in the Church typically involved same sex attraction. It is unfair to make the types of comments that were made in the article about the Church without acknowledging that.

”Say … hypothetically, 1% of heterosexual men abuse children and 2% of homosexual men abuse children. What would the community do with this information?”

Currently nothing but in a different political climate… You could get something like the going 5k above doubles the crash risk. In this case a homosexual with a child doubles the risk of molestation. Clearly such a small (1%) difference in your hypothetical example might not count for much in reality but what was done with it would depend on the motives, power and influence of the people who used the statistic.

All in all it was interesting and useful. Thanks.

mjpb,

Thank you for thanking me! I'm sure it drives us all bonkers when OLO debates become all O and no plainhardtruth. Having said that, I'm know that if I had believed the opposite of what I actually believe (i.e. the nonsensical view that gay men are more likely to abuse children than heterosexual men), I could have found four websites to back up *that* view. Sure, not official or ABS sites, but semi-serious-sounding references nonetheless. We all need to be wary.

I entirely agree with you that "conducting a study which achieves transparently accurate results" is difficult. But, to me, what's interesting is *why* people might believe poofs (not dykes) abuse children in greater numbers than straight men. Why are there so many out there fervently willing this particular, gruesome outcome? Why are some people so *desperate* to find gay men perverts?

I'm not afraid of revealing my politics. My parents are scientists and growed me up without prejudice. I have many close gay and lesbian friends. My partner and I were introduced by a mutual gay friend. I have found that solid heterosexual men who are friends with gay men are generally cleverer and sexier and higher-achieving than men who find gay men icky. In short, I'm a faghag, and I'm married to a faghag.

So when people start saying that gay men want to adopt children to abuse them, or lower the age of consent, I know enough to know that's unlikely, so people must have some other incentive to denounce gay adoption than the protection of children. If the people on this thread truly-ruly cared about protecting children, they wouldn't be banging on about gay adoption, they'd be working with low-income, broken families to support step-fathers and disaffected dads, and they'd be trying to reduce the number of wards of the state, who are abused at an alarming rate. In truth, they don't give a sh!t about the kids, they want to talk about how perverse fags are.

Somewhere, tonight, a child is being abused. What are we doing?

I've been away for a while and hope I've caught up on recent posts.

J Bennet accepts that there are other risks and issues but asks me why we should risk the possibility of abuse when we just don't know?

- I've seen no real evidence to suggest that appropriately vetted gays adopting children pose any greater risk to kids than currently exists and can see a serious case for believing that in other regards a gay couple seeking to adopt a child may be a better risk of providing appropriate care for the child than many who currently have the care of children.

- I have serious objections to limiting peoples freedoms and the government being involved in active discrimination on the basis of unfounded fears and stereotypes. As I've mentioned previously I'm a single dad, I've seen enough discrimination on the basis of my gender to make me very concerned when I see that similar discrimination elsewhere.
- Kids are much more likely to be assaulted or neglected than sexually abused and I suspect that the demographics of most gay couples seeking to adopt children would put them outside the prime risk categories for most abuse types.

Other parts of the discussion have been around the issue of the likelyhood of abuse. The point has been made elsewhere that for child abusers the issue is about children rather than gender. Serial male offenders are more likely to have access to boys than girls. I've posted links previously to material which discusses some of these issues.

R0bert