cont'd ...

Shadow Minister,

BTW: I do believe that religious schools should
not be able to discriminate against student on
the basis of their sexual orientation or gender
identity. But religious schools should remain
free to teach their doctrine respectfully. And the
law should make that quite clear.

However we all need to concede as Fr Brennan points
out that some religious teaching can be confronting
and upsetting.

This comment is really another repeat of one I've made before and is not really on topic but it is tentatively associated:

In some of the comments people are bringing up the gay gene defense again. Which is basically the argument that people are born that way so it is OK to be gay.

The problem with this is that many behaviours have a genetic element that act as precursors or prime people people to certain acts. And some of the these behaviours are considered undesirable by our society's current standards (ie: standards of the majority). For example:
1) there is a genetic component to male violence (this is a very common behaviour- it occurs in pretty much all mammalian species and it plays a major role in many mammals successfully mating- especially violence between rival males)
2) there is a common argument made that psychopaths are born that way - many psychologists/psychiatrists believe that psychopathic behaviour is so strongly genetically rooted it is simply untreatable and unavoidable
3) there are most likely genes that predispose some to pedophilia
4) there is possibly a genetic basis to homophobia. The hard evidence to this rather scant and is not as conclusive as the above three because it is a tabooed research subject in today's political climate and very few studies have been done. But the fact that it occurs in almost all societies and that it is a trait that wouldn't decrease the chances of reproduction add weight to the few scientific genetic investigations that support it.

Now if you accept solely the gay gene argument as the basis for accepting homosexual behaviours then you must accept genetic based inclinations as justification of these above example behaviours if you wish to stay logically consistent. And this is why using the gay gene argument is a terrible idea.

A better (and what I believe is the proper ethical way) to argue whether a behaviour is/isn't acceptable or is not to consider what causes the behaviour but rather what the consequences of it are.

thinkabit,

Prof. Bill Sullivan's article published in
" The Conversation" makes for interesting reading.

Prof. Sullivan makes the point that:

"Sexual behavior is widely diverse and governed by
sophisticated mechanisms throughout the animal
kingdom. As with other complex behaviors, it is not
possible to predict sexuality by gazing into a DNA
sequence as if it were a crystal ball. Such behaviors
emerge from constellations of hundreds, perhaps
thousands of genes, and how they are regulated by the
environment."

He says that:

" While there is no single "gay gene,"
there is overwhelming evidence of a biological
basis for sexual orientation that
is programmed into the brain before birth on a mix of
genetics and prenatal conditions, none of which the fetus
chooses."

cont'd ...

thinkabit,

Here's the link:

http://www.theconversation.com/stop-calling-it-a-choice-biological-factors-drive-homosexuality-122764

Why should gayness be sacred but religion not?

Why should children be taught in schools that being gay is normal but religion is not?

In the past parents had to give their permission for sex education.

It is inevitable in a society that allows diverse views that these views will conflict- is someones right to say something more important than someones right not to hear it.

You rights don't end where mine begin.

It seems that diversity policy is just a "tyranny of the unusual".

Thanks also for your post Josephus.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9518#321026

To Armchair Critic- I respectfully disagree here but the reasons are complex. I think your argument is based on the principle of separation of church and state. So if church and state are separate why does the state finance church schools. In a sense there seems to be some problems with the basic principle of separation of church and state- perhaps the US shouldn't have adopted it. The UK in a sense went the other way and made the head of state also the head of the church to resolve a conflict. This issue needs more untangling. In a sense gayness could be considered a philosophy broadly similar to religious philosophy. I would argue that a philosophy built on gayness however is prone to develop a malformed unstable community based on a flat structure whereas a religious community is designed with greater hierarchical stability.

I find an Existentialist perspective useful in analysing issues in European Philosophy such as Aesthetics which some see as inherently unanswerable. Belief may be existentially subjective but your senses will tend to adjust them.

Regarding Foxy's comment on the biological nature of gayness..

You perhaps could also say that belief in religion is biological.

We shouldn't be handing over our democratic rights to choose what we believe to the scientific elite- their roles is to do research and use it to inform not dictate debate- people can choose to believe it or not.

People should be careful about outsourcing thought and responsibility for their own to the scientific world.

My understanding of the current understanding of brain science with respect to sex is the study on mice. One researcher sliced mouse brain sections from males and females and placed them in sequence on film and played the film side by side and was able to clearly see a difference in the different sexes. It appears from this research that the womb testosterone "wavefunction" is relevant to brain development- but I suspect that there is much that isn't understood.

Human research in this area is more difficult due to accessibility of human brains. Over the years there have been different views within the medical community with respect to sex and brain development. The widely promoted Tabula Rasa Sex Theory was a bit of a disaster but it dealt with a difficult issue.

There is still much to understand about the brain and it's place within the community diaspora.

I suspect that depression and other psychological conditions can produce deceptive symptoms- that could be misinterpreted as so called biological gayness- especially if it's only means of diagnoses is by secondary effects.