Our new troll, mynym, has been a busy little beaver, leaving no fewer than 16 comments in under 2 hours. Looks like he is trying really hard to make his prediction of getting banned a self-fulfilling prophecy by being a major league pain in the ass. His M.O. isn't hard to discern; it appears to be a three part strategy:
A. Leave a quote from a book or article he found, then draw a conclusion from it as though the mere fact that he quoted it proves it to be true
B. Phrase the conclusion by lumping whoever he is answering into an easily dismissed category. His favorites seem to be "leftists", "radical egalitarians" and "socialists". Is there anything funnier than seeing a so con accuse a libertarian of being a socialist? It's the furthest thing from a socialist, of course. But since folks like mynym are only capable of thinking in a simplistic dichotomy, anyone who disagrees with them must be everything they hate, so why not just throw around such terms willy nilly without justification?
C. Dismiss all evidence against his position as being "biased" or having an "agenda" - while simultaneously citing people like Lynn Wardle whose work practically reeks of an anti-gay agenda, so much so that he bases much of it on the work of Paul Cameron, whose work is so dishonest that he was literally thrown out of two major social science organizations for his persistent invention and misrepresentation of data in studies.
Oh, and he also seems to have a penchant for making up words. My favorite words he's made up out of thin air so far are "complementarity" and "agendized". And let's not forget his use of the entirely unresponsive and irrational argument. For instance, when Jason informed him that this domain is private property and therefore if I prevented him from commenting here it would no more be censorship than if I stopped him from coming into my home and insulting me, he responded with this delightful little non sequitur:
Oh, so now morally degenerate or ignorant and stupid ideas are private property?
Exactly how logic-impaired does someone have to be to so blatantly change the terms of an argument like that and expect it not to be obvious to everyone? The logic seems to be that if he considers someone to be saying something that is "morally degenerate", they no longer have any right to police their own property and he can barge into their home and say anything he wants to them. Then again, perhaps he is merely rehearsing his theocratic ambitions in advance and awaiting the Orwellian world in which this would actually be the case.
Now, let's get on to the substantive arguments, which is really all that matters. I'll give my intrepid correspondent one more round of replies, with the admonition that he stop posting 15 comments to say what could be said in one, and that he try and stick to the actual substantive arguments and leave behind the inflated rhetoric about "socialists" and the like. The primary issue of contention is the validity of the large number of studies that have concluded that children raised by gay parents are no better or worse off than children raised by straight parents. In response to this, mynym has essentially two responses - that the studies are "agendized" (sic), which I take to mean that he thinks they have an agenda, and that the methodologies of said studies are flawed. Let's take those arguments one at a time.
The argument of an agenda is one of those essentially meaningless arguments that is constantly trotted out in debates. It's meaningless because everyone with an opinion has an "agenda", and only the credulous or blindly partisan are inconsistent enough to think that they and those who agree with them are agenda-less. Does he really think that Lynn Wardle, the conservative law professor from a conservative Mormon university, isn't biased by his political and religious viewpoint in evaluating the question? Perhaps he does, but he would surely be wrong. Everyone is "biased" because everyone comes to the table with background beliefs. The only relevant question is not whether they are biased, but whether their arguments are logical and supported by the evidence. And the fact is that the arguments made by Wardle, Philip Belcastro, and others that mynym cites simply do not hold up under scrutiny. Let's take Wardle's arguments first.
Wardle is a law professor, not a psychologist or sociologist, so when it comes to evaulating the social science data he relies on the findings of others. Naturally, he relies on those who confirm the anti-gay position he seeks to have confirmed. And make no mistake about it, Wardle is virulently anti-gay. He has close ties to the ex-gay movement and is an advocate of "reparative therapy" for gays. He also has a tendency to make the same bad arguments we constantly hear against gay marriage. He does the same song and dance about how wonderful marriage is, as though this was an argument against gay marriage. But as I keep saying, if you don't have an internal link between allowing gay marriage and damaging straight marriages - and no one has come up with a rational one so far - this argument is irrelevant. Yes, marriage is a great thing for society. All the more reason to allow gay couples to marry as well.
As stated previously, Wardle relies upon the work of Belcastro, who I'll get to shortly, and a man named Paul Cameron. Wardle's reliance upon the work of Cameron has caused a good bit of trouble for him and caused many anti-gay groups to stop citing him because of it. Why? Because Cameron is an outright fraud. Paul Cameron is the head of the Family Research Institute, and he was trained as a psychologist. So consistently has he distorted and invented data that the American Sociology Association in 1984 passed a resolution officially condemning his abuse of the sociological evidence. Likewise, the American Psychological Association in 1983 expelled Cameron for his refusal to cooperate with an investigation and turn over data to them to resolve accusations against him. And in 1985, a Federal judge ruled that Cameron had committed "fraud and misrepresentations" in his testimony in the case of Baker v. Ward. The judge wrote:
"(i) his sworn statement that "homosexuals are approximately 43 times more apt to commit crimes than is the general population" is a total distortion of the Kinsey data upon which he relies - which, as is obvious to anyone who reads the report, concerns data from a non-representative sample of delinquent homosexuals (and Dr. Cameron compares this group to college and non-college heterosexuals);(ii) his sworn statement that "homosexuals abuse children at a proportionately greater incident than do heterosexuals" is based upon the same distorted data - and, the Court notes, is directly contrary to other evidence presented at trial besides the testimony of Dr. Simon and Dr. Marmour. (553 F. Supp. 1121 at 1130 n.18.)"
Cameron has been thoroughly discredited as a researcher and has proven an embarrassment even to many people who agree with him. Unfortunately, Wardle has often relied upon Cameron's findings, as well as those of Philip Belcastro. Belcastro is not the controversial figure that Cameron is. But does he really raise serious objections to the studies? I maintain he has not. In 1993, Belcastro published a review of 14 studies that had been done up to that point. In this review, he poked holes in the methodologies of those studies, but many of the criticisms were invalid. For example, he argues that many studies did not have control groups. But in a simple comparison study of children raised by gay parents and children raised by straight parents, the children raised by straight parents are the control group.
A second criticism he had was that "not a single study remotely represented any sub-population of homosexual parents". But then Belcastro turns around and also criticizes the studies for not representing all gay parents. Well you can't have it both ways. You can't isolate subgroups AND represent the larger population. Charlotte Patterson of the University of Virginia, in evaluating Belcastro's criticisms, says:
As is true in any area of research, questions have been raised with regard to sampling issues, statistical power, and other technical matters (e.g., Belcastro, Gramlich, Nicholson, Price, & Wilson, 1993); no individual study is entirely invincible to such criticism.One criticism of this body of research (Belcastro et al., 1993) has been that the research lacks external validity because it may not be representative of the larger population of lesbian and gay parents. This criticism is not justified, because nobody knows the actual composition of the entire population of lesbian mothers, gay fathers, or their children (many of whom choose to remain hidden) and hence researchers cannot possible evaluate the degree to which particular samples do or do not represent the population. In the long run, it is not the results obtained from any one specific sample, but the accumulation of findings from many different samples that will be most meaningful.
And she is surely correct. You cannot look for perfection from a single study, especially a social science study, and even more especially if your standards of perfection are to criticize the sample group both for being too specific and for being too broad. You have to look at the results of a wide range of studies.
Belcastro also accuses researchers of ignoring their own data to reach their conclusions, but this accusation reflects his own bias more than the biases of the researchers he is criticizing. What he does is pick out things that he thinks should be significant, while ignoring the more important measurements, and then conclude that the researchers are ignoring relevant data. For instance, he makes a big deal out of the fact that in one study, the daughters of lesbians were more likely to engage in "male activities" while the sons of lesbians were more likely to engage in "female activities". But here we are talking about things like boys playing with dolls and girls playing with trucks. Yet we have likely all known lots of girls and boys who routinely engaged in this type of "other gender" activity. For crying out loud, hasn't he ever heard the term "tomboy"? There is no correlation between such "other gender" behavior in young children and negative effects. It is quite common to see that sort of thing. Indeed, it may well be a healthy thing. Especially in light of the voluminous evidence that shows that the children of gay parents are no worse off in terms of self-esteem, sexual confusion, school performance, and the ability to form social relationships, this sort of nitpicking and exaggerated importance seems rather petty and irrelevant. But it suits the anti-gay agenda, so the conclusion is often cited without bothering to look at the actual claims supporting that conclusion.
It should also be noted that this research did not end with Belcastro's review in 1993. In the intervening 12 years, there have been many new studies done, some of them trying to incorporate the concerns of critics and control the variables even further. And again, every single study has reached essentially the same conclusion. There have been two recent reviews of all of the research to date, one by Stacey and Biblarz in 2001, and one by Anderrson and Amlie in 2002. Both reviews of all of the research to date concluded that the children of gay parents were not significantly worse off than children of straight parents. The second study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, said:
Twenty-three empirical studies published between 1978 and 2000 on nonclinical children raised by lesbian mothers or gay fathers were reviewed (one Belgian/Dutch, one Danish, three British, and 18 North American). Twenty reported on offspring of lesbian mothers, and three on offspring of gay fathers. The studies encompassed a total of 615 offspring (age range 1.5-44 years) of lesbian mothers or gay fathers and 387 controls, who were assessed by psychological tests, questionnaires or interviews. Seven types of outcomes were found to be typical: emotional functioning, sexual preference, stigmatization, gender role behavior, behavioral adjustment, gender identity, and cognitive functioning. Children raised by lesbian mothers or gay fathers did not systematically differ from other children on any of the outcomes. The studies indicate that children raised by lesbian women do not experience adverse outcomes compared with other children.
As for the first one, you can see what Stacey has to say in a long interview here. She goes through the results of such studies, and the criticisms by people like Belcastro, in this interview. For instance, she says:
The studies that have been conducted are certainly not perfect--virtually no study is. It's almost never possible to transform complex social relationships, such as parent-child relationships, into adequate, quantifiable measures, and because many lesbians and gay men remain in the closet, we cannot know if the participants in the studies are representative of all gay people. However, the studies we reviewed are just as reliable and respected as studies in other areas of child development and psychology. So, most of those so-called experts are really leveling attacks on well-accepted social science methods. Yet they do not raise objections to studies that are even less rigorous or generalizable on such issues as the impact of divorce on children. It seems evident that the critics employ a double-standard. They attack these particular studies not because the research methods differ from or are inferior to most studies of family relationships but because these critics politically oppose equal family rights for lesbians and gay men.The studies we discussed have been published in rigorously peer-reviewed and highly selective journals, whose standards represent expert consensus on generally accepted social scientific standards for research on child development. Those journals include Child Development and Developmental Psychology, the two flagship journals in the field of child development. The first is published by the 5,000-member academic Society for Research in Child Development, and the second is published by the American Psychological Association...
There is not a single, respectable social scientist conducting and publishing research in this area today who claims that gay and lesbian parents harm children. The dubious studies you mention were produced primarily by people who have been discredited and even expelled from the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Sociological Association (ASA). When people claim that studies show gay parents harm children, they often cite people like Paul Cameron. Paul Cameron is the primary disreputable and discredited figure in this literature. He was expelled from the APA and censored by the ASA for unethical scholarly practices, such as selective, misleading representations of research and making claims that could not be substantiated.
You can find summaries of a wide range of studies, and links to more detailed examinations of each one, here. Now I will encourage mynym, should he decide to respond, to stick to the facts and make clear and concise arguments rather than ideologically-charged dismissals of the "that's just like you socialists to say" type.
- Log in to post comments
mynym . . . Ah, I remember the wanker now. He's the asshole who went on Adam Felber's blog to jerk off about Creationism.
Way to go, Ed! Both guns blazing! Let 'em have it!
Ed, Nice. If they ever have a quiz show where prizes are awarded for finding stuff on the internet, you'd win the $100,000 Grand Prize, for sure.
I have to say that I am always amazed how individuals such as yourself and contributors to Pandas Thumb can find the time to now only answer a challenge, but do so in such an exemplary manner. Not only do you answer his specific issues, but you chase down examples and links to back up each claim in superb detail. I can only hope that someday I can be as much of a credit to issues that I care about. You should be paid to do this. Posts like this are why this web log has become my first stop whenever I get online. Keep up the good work, you are an example to us all and help provide us with the tools to debate these subjects with those we argue with in our own lives.
But Ed, you are expecting a regressive to be progressive. Isn't it interesting that theocrats like mynym have to reach back over 20 years to find cherry-picked studies that agree with their "aggendized" pre-suppositions.
What kind of scores were the previous top contenders for highest number of pointless, meandering, incoherent comments per unit time earning again? This fellow sounds like he's determined to be a winner.
I for one am impressed Ed. You have to respect anyone that takes their job seriously these days. Why you hardly ever even get to see this level of trolling anymore. Most trolls nowadays really don't care about their profession like they once did. Don't you remember the old days of the Internet? When usenet ruled, when a Troll tried to be the best darn Troll they could be? They were craftsmen in those day, true artistes. So let the Troll stay a little longer if possible, it's refreshing to see someone who truly cares abot their work, and it brings back such pleasant memories, of that innocent time of plenty, we called nineties..
Good job, Ed. It's good to see trolls get trounced. I wish I had the patience to do so.
I'll give my intrepid correspondent one more round of replies, with the admonition that he stop posting 15 comments to say what could be said in one, and that he try and stick to the actual substantive arguments and leave behind the inflated rhetoric about "socialists" and the like.
Anyone want to bet that mynym will follow these rules?
Dan I will wager 25 quatloos that the newcomer cannot function in this environment, and will have to be destroyed.
Great replies, Ed. I mean, I know everyone else said that too, but really... this is extremely good work.
I think you're being too hard on mynym about inventing words though. He could always get a job writing speeches for GWB.
Quatloos? Sorry. I only take Republic credits.
Not to pile on, but I have to echo Joshua White's comments (above) on this matter. He speaks for many. And not just w/r/t this post, either.
" his sworn statement that "homosexuals are approximately 43 times more apt to commit crimes than is the general population" is a total distortion of the Kinsey data upon which he relies - which, as is obvious to anyone who reads the report, concerns data from a non-representative sample of delinquent homosexuals"
That's quite ironic. Sexual libertines have been citing the Kinsey data for a long time, from the ten percent myth to the myth that Americans of the 1950s were just a bunch of hypocrites, yet now it suddenly turns to fraud in an attempt to discredit other research. (A note to any conservatives who happen by, notice how it is taken as some sort of self-evident truth with sexual libertines that being "anti-gay" is a sign of some sort of intellectual or moral falling. That is ironic.)
As to pushing an agenda, yes everyone has one. That is why it is ironic to say that anyone is "anti-gay." Who else will be against the creation of the Gay© identity other than those who are anti-gay? There is a difference between having an agenda and being agendized. (Yes, that's a word. I hope you are not too illiterate.)
This, which I noted before, is agendized:
"Recently this same myth-breaking tradition has focused on gay parents and their children. This literature has responded to lesbians' need for information when they fight for custodial rights in the legal system. In an effort to inform the court that lesbians are reasonable parents, a number of small studies have shown that lesbians compare favorablly to other single mothers...."
(Sociological Research on Male and Female
Homosexuality
by Barbara Risman and Pepper Schwartz
Annual Review of Sociology, 1988, 14 :125-47)
And that is the general pattern of the "studies" you are trying to refer to.
For instance, Charlotte Patterson, who you rely on, seems to be agendized.
"Children born to or adopted by lesbian mothers who were examined by Charlotte Patterson showed more symptoms of stress and were 'more likely to report feeling angry, scared or upset.' " (cf. Belcastro/Wardle)
Another example, if one reads a study by a pro-gay pediatrician and they say something like, "There is no difference between gay parents and straight parents. [......] Here is a list of special challenges faced by the children of gays."
That is the work of an agendized researcher, yet it still contains the truth of all the "special challenges. I noted one "special challenge" to the little girl who had two of her gay dads die. That is not "anecdotal," given that the life expectancy for gay men is around 53 or so. (As I recall, for smokers, it is 64 or so)
"[L]ife expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men." It is estimated that "nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years will not reach their 65th birthday."
(A 1997 study: "Modelling the Impact
of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and
Bisexual Men" in the International Journal
of Epidemiology (Volume 26))
Perhaps that is why many of the "studies" on gay parenting exclude gay men altogether.
Do you think it is good to put children into a situation where high rates of death, domestic violence, alcoholism, etc., is common?
It is little wonder that some researchers have to be as agendized as they are. That is the only way to get around the psychological, biological and innate physiological complementarity of the sexes.
(Yes, complementarity is also a word. I hope you are not too illiterate to understand it.)
"....children of gay parents are no worse off..."
If you take the agendized pro-gay position and instist that "gay is good," then even their being gay at higher rates will not be included as a negative in the research.
But let's look at "being gay," vs. this:
"...in terms of self-esteem...."
". . For each year's delay in bisexual or homosexual self-labeling, the odds of a suicide attempt diminish by 80 percent."
(G. Remafedi, J. A. Farrow, and R. W Deisher "Risk Factors for Attempted Suicide in Gay Bisexual Youth," Pediatrics 87, no.6(1991), pp.869--75)
"The very experience of acquiring a homosexual or bisexual identity at an early age places the individual at risk for dysfunction. This conclusion is strongly supported by the data."
(G. Remafedi, "Adolescent Homosexuality: Psychosocial and Medical Implications," Pediatrics 79, no. 3 (1987), pp. 331--37)
So if the kids of gay parents did tend to self define as gay and so on, that would be a negative, correct?
"...sexual confusion..."
You pro-gay libertines do not agree that homosexuality is a sexual confusion. So you, and your "researchers," are not even speaking the language that the average American would. You do not say that "gay" is sexual confusion, correct?
"...school performance, and the ability to form social relationships...."
You would not agree that the disability with respect to the basic social relationships having to do with the Yin and Yang are a disability, after all. You are pretending that some of the most basic sexual functions can be treated on a par with dysfunction.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that "gay" parents tend to raise "gay" kids.
Some research,
"The adolescent's experiences may ultimately contribute to a variety of physical and mental health problems.
......
[A list of health problems] Major Categories of Sexually Related Illness in Homosexual Males: "Classic" venereal diseases, Pediculosis pubis, Gonorrhea Nonspecific urethritis, Venereal warts, Scabies, Syphilis, Sexually transmitted viral illnesses, Cytomegalovirus, Hepartitis A, B, and non-A, non-B Gay bowel syndrome, (Etiology: trauma, infection, allergy, others possible) Proctitis, Proctocolitis, Enteritis, Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome and its complications, Viral, Bacterial, Fungal, Parasitic, Neoplastic, Autoimmune, Psychosocial Problems.....
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality ["]per se["] from the DSM II classification of mental disorders. It was replaced by numerous other diagnostic categories, including sexual orientation disturbances, dyshomophilia, and homosexual conflict disorder."
(Clinical Pediatrics Clin Pediatr (Phila) 1985; 24: 481-485
September, 1985, Social Pediatrics
Adolescent Homosexuality;
Issues for Pediatricians.
Gary J. Remafedi, MD)
That sounds as negative as does a little girl havng three "dads" because they keep dying of AIDS, correct?
If "gay" parents begin to raise "gay" kids, that would harm the general welfare, correct?
"Yet we have likely all known lots of girls and boys who routinely engaged in this type of "other gender" activity. For crying out loud, hasn't he ever heard the term "tomboy"? There is no correlation between such "other gender" behavior in young children and negative effects."
How about the negative effect of homosexuality, which is associated with other negative effects?
These reports indicate that 46% to 64% of boys with untreated gender identity disorders develop homosexual or bisexual orientation during their
adolescence.
(Davenport CW: A follow-up study of 10
feminine boys. Arch Sex Behavior. 15: 511, 1986.)
(Green R: The "sissy boy syndrome" and the development of homosexuality, New Haven. Conn. 1987, Yale University Press.)
(Zucker K.J: Cross-gender-identified children. In Steiner BW, editor Gender dysphoria: development. research, management New York, 1985, Plenum Press.)
(Zuger B: Early effeminate behavior in boys: outcome and significance for homosexuality, J Nerv Ment Dis 172: 90, 1984.)
(Zuger B: Is early effeminate behavior in
boys early homosexuality? Comp. Psychiatry 29: 509, 1988.)
Even homophiles note,
"Most sissies will grow up to be homosexuals,
and most gay men were sissies as children...
Despite the provocative and politically incorrect
nature of that statement, it fits the evidence.
In fact, it may be the most consistent, well-documented, and significant finding in the entire field of sexual orientation research and perhaps in all of human psychology."
(Simon LeVay
Queer Science (The MIT
Press: 1996) :166)
Now look farther, to see if the impact of promoting such sexual confusion on the general welfare, specifically of children and youth, will be negative or positive.
The answer is negative:
""Model I, Onset of Behaviors Before Age 13, showed use of cocaine before age 13 years as strongly associated with GLB orientation (odds ratio [OR]: 6.10; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.45-15.20). Early initiation of sexual intercourse (2.15; 10.6-4.38), marijuana use(1.98; 1.04-4.09), and alcohol use (1.82; 1.03-3.23) also was associated with GLB orientation. Model II, Lifetime Frequencies of Behaviors, showed that frequency of crack cocaine use (1.38; 1.06-1.79), inhalant use (1.30; 1.05-1.61), and number of sexual partners (1.27; 1.06-1.43) was associated with GLB orientation.
Model III, Frequency of Recent Behaviors, showed
smokeless tobacco use in the past 30 days (1.38;
1.20-1.59) and number of sexual partners in the previous 3 months (1.47; 1.31-1.65) were associated with GLB orientation.
....Overall, GLB respondents engaged disproportionately in multiple risk behaviors, reporting an increased mean number of risk behaviors (mean = 6.81 +/- 4.49) compared with the overall student population (mean = 3.45 +/- 3.15)."
(American Academy of Pediatrics
Pediatrics 1998; 101: 895-902
May, 1998 Section: Articles.
The Association Between Health Risk Behaviors
and Sexual Orientation Among a School-based
Sample of Adolescents Robert Garofalo, MD.
R. Cameron Wolf, MS; Shari Kessel, ScB;
Judith Palfrey, MD and Robert H. DuRant, PhD)
If you are a libertarian, you are agendizing yourself on this issue for one reason or another.
Perhaps you feel, "I know a nice gay. Therefore I will act like a gay activist!" Or, "I am gay. Therefore, I will be pro-gay and cling to that position in an obstinate way, no matter what."
But whatever your motivation, you seem intent on being wrong by going against facts, logic and evidence.
"I have to say that I am always amazed how individuals such as yourself and contributors to Pandas Thumb....
Now that IS funny!
"The dubious studies you mention were produced primarily by people who have been discredited and even expelled from the American Psychological Association...."
There are the sweaty little hands of the Leftist censors. Note that even if the worst example (Cameron, supposedly, as I have not looked into it.) is true, the totally different response that Leftist libertines have with respect to Kinsey vs. Cameron.
Kinsey, a homosexual, homosexualist, masochist who most likely brought about his own early death through masochism and drug abuse. His research is like excrement, trash.
Cameron, he's seems to be a social conservative. I don't know about his research. But the first element is all that is necessary for the sweaty little hands of the censor to emerge, so I predict that the writer of this blog will bear the same pattern. He shares the same tendencies of those fighting their usual Kulture Kampf against decent and common sense type people who stand opposed to things like SSM. (For various of the obvious reasons I've listed already. Not to mention the fact that those fighting their Kulture Kampf are trying to go against millenia of moral teachings and human experience.)
One more thing,
"Leave a quote from a book or article he found, then draw a conclusion from it as though the mere fact that he quoted it proves it to be true."
Often, the quotes that I consider worth saving are so obviously true based on basic facts, logic and evidence that all that sexual libertines can do is try to snivel about the source. (In a similar way, they try to snivel about me personally. There is not much to go on there.)
So enter the research into Google, as it seems some have been. It seems you will do anything but to look at it on its merits. Instead, you must go to the source, declare them to be "anti-gay" or some such nonsense, and then discard their text.
You cannot seem to look at text, as text, as that goes against your immanence based type of philosophy.
(A side note to conservatives, did you know that fascism has been defined as the practical and violent resistance to transcendence? It begins as the practical.)
Dan I will wager 25 quatloos that the newcomer cannot function in this environment, and will have to be destroyed.
Good thing I didn't take that bet; I'd be down 25 quatloos.
Well mynym, I gave you a chance to actually give substantive responses, and you failed miserably, doing the same thing you did before. 9 comments in less than an hour and a half, none of them substantive. You didn't engage any of the actual analysis on the various studies and why the criticisms you cited don't invalidate them, you just repeated the charge of being "agendized". And of course, the inaccurate claim that I'm "illiterate" for pointing out that the words "agendized" and "complimentarity" don't exist. But I was right about that. Plug them into dictionary.com, which offers definitions from a dozen or so different dictionaries and it comes up snake eyes on both of them. So your entire strategy goes like this....invent words, then accuse people of being illiterate for pointing out that they're invented; quote from people on your side, then completely ignore all substantive criticism of the claims in the quotes; accuse everyone else of "bias" without actually pointing out any factual errors in the arguments; and of course, spam the blog with as many comments as you can until they ban you. Oh, and predict the ban, which is of course a self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, I'll give you what you're dying for - martyrdom. I'll stop you from dropping this insubstantial drivel on my webpage, so you can now go back to yours and puff yourself up and say, "A-ha, those socialists just can't handle the Truthtm, so they have to censor me!" Crow to your heart's content, it doesn't budge reality one little bit. Goodbye.
". And of course, the inaccurate claim that I'm "illiterate" for pointing out that the words "agendized" and "complimentarity" don't exist. But I was right about that. Plug them into dictionary.com, which offers definitions from a dozen or so different dictionaries and it comes up snake eyes on both of them.
I find five entries for "complimentarity", but none for agendized.
Kinsey couldn't dream of the fradulence of one Paul Cameron. And while there were various problems with getting the right sample size and some other marginal issues, much of Kinsey's work has been vetted by peer review. Or replicated correcting for the initial sampling problems.
Read Julian Sanchez's piece on him in Reason. He never claimed that 10% of the society was gay, another right-wing myth. "His actual claim was that about 4 percent are exclusively homosexual, while 10 percent are predominantly homosexual for periods of two years or more."
Cameron is a complete crank who has no professional respectability whatsover. Citing him is like citing a Holocaust denier. To those right-wingers who would cite Cameron but bash Kinsey, I'd remind them of what Jesus said about looking for the speck in your neighbor's eye while ignoring the mote in your own.
BTW: Your "53" figure and the "8-20" figures are trash as well, even though that doesn't stop the revisionists from pushing it.
That figure was derived from one study taken from one Canadian city, never replicated. It didn't even purport to take a representative cross-sample of the gay population but rather focused solely on the urban sub-culture gays in that Canadian city.
But most importantly, the figure was derived during the worst period of the AIDS crisis, before the newer treatments took effect. And the authors of the study even claimed that the figure is no longer relevant because of medical developments.
Check it out:
http://ije.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/30/6/1499
"In our paper, we demonstrated that in a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 21 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality continued, we estimated that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years would not reach their 65th birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre were experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by men in Canada in the year 1871. In contrast, if we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996. As we have previously reported there has been a threefold decrease in mortality in Vancouver as well as in other parts of British Columbia.4"
You know it's amazing. This person isn't the only one who is still citing this dated figure. Robert Knight cited it a few years ago during the Boy Scouts v. Dale case, right before Bryant Gumbel called him a "f--king idiot." Now that Knight et al. realize that Paul Cameron's "43" figure -- something else that they used to cite before it was debunked -- is not true, grasping at straws, this one has become their mantra. But gay people aren't dying like they were before during that fairly brief period of time in history -- the early 80s to the mid 90s. It's as though this is BAD NEWS to mynym, Knight et al., that they want gay people to be dying young in such high numbers again that they pretend it's still happening. Why else would they cite this figure from that era as if it were true?
It should also be noted that the greater gay lifespans today don't only come from better HIV drugs. They also come from a much lower infection rate compared to the worst years. People really are having safer sex, fewer partners, and more long-term relationships.
Now, now; "agendized" and "complimentarity" are both perfectly promulate words Ed. Mynym's nobalized and courageacorious use of those terms, embiggens us all.
Mynym -> obviously obsessed with homosexuality.
"Poof," be gone!
Thanks, Ed.
mynym left a similarly perplexing and non-responsive comment on my blog recently about creation theories. After a few back-and-forth comment conversations with him on HIS blog, I'm seeing the pattern. But it was not time wasted, as I followed his link here and instantly become a regular reader. Thanks! :-)
I just took a look at Mynym's own blog. He seems to carry out long arguments with himself, so that he can control who seems to win.