This thread's turning to ****, one more reference to religion(which should never have cropped up in this thread anyway) and I'll close it. If you want to carry on discussing the homophobia in football, then fine, but keep it on topic.
Quite. But "normal" is an inherently subjective term, and one that has more to do with social conventions than biological facts. I suspect if you were transplanted to ancient Sparta, you would suffer the same fate for some or other twenty-first century idiosyncrasy. Ancient Athenians thought it normal to bugger small boys and have homosexual relationships, among other things. In physiological terms, it was once normal to be 5' flat. Now you'd be lucky to find a woman willing to let you reproduce with her on grounds of being an abnormal short arse. In fact, genetic variation (abnormality) is the key driver in the continuation/cessation/mutation of a species or society, and that is in turn determinant upon the interplay of human mores and biological necessity. Point being, it's all a rich tapestry, and it takes all sorts to define what is "normal".
Agreed, but considering if the worlds human population all decided to turn homosexual we'd be extinct in around 100 years time, I don't think it takes much insight to discover which sexuality is to be considered normal.
What nonsense. Conversion therapy is something only done by nutters in America and that report that on 200 people in which it was claimed had 70% been 'cured', they were all tracked down and in fact 88% of them were still gay and the other 12% were lying.
It would be showing the subject a picture of David Beckham/Pamela Anderson (depending on your leaning) and see if they get excited.
I suppose it's not the utility of the term 'normal' I am questioning, more the normative baggage it carries with it. Obviously we're not all going to become gay, even if we were to treat homosexual people as though they were gods made mortal. We might live in a society where gender barriers completely dissolved and people decided their sexual proclivities on the basis of individual fancy, but I doubt that would mean we'd bugger ourselves into extinction. But this is because people are generally born with a certain predisposition, and a rough estimate would suggest 90% or so of all men quite enjoy having sex with women. So really normalising 'abnormal' behaviour would likely have zero biological impact, it would at best have an impact on the way we order ourselves in terms of monogamy, family units, etc. But then gay marriage has shown that homosexuals are simply replicating heterosexual social conventions anyway, effectively normalising their own behaviour within hetero convention. No big deal. If it's all consensual and adult it's none of anybody's business, and if that means proactively asserting the insignificance of individual sexual behaviour by wearing rainbow laces, more power to them.
Should gay people be allowed to **** each other? Yes. Should they be allowed to get married in church, use egg donors or adopt children? No. Is homosexuality 'natural'? Yes. Is homosexuality 'abnormal'? Yes. That's my contribution to this thread.
I don't think they used the 'pray away the gay' method in that case. It's also actually very big in the Far East.
There's gay people everywhere, whether they be make or female. EVERY Country will have gay people. Isn't it 1 in 4 people are gay? It shouldn't even be a debatable subject, it's 2014. The homophobic views are generally from Older people (in relation to England) and they're entitled to that because they was brought up that way. Just like many are racist. Scandanavia is a prime example to follow, they just don't give a **** over there and teach about Sex from a very young age including homosexuality
