It’s a pleasant Sunday afternoon. I’ve got my yardwork done for the weekend so how better to spend the time than checking out the happenings on asmainegoes?

All connoisseurs of radical Maine Republican politics will be happy to see that there is a new gay thread! It is called “One in ten children “born gay,” or so they say!”

It starts when “woodcanoe” expresses his dissatisfaction with all the “gay activism” on facebook these days. The “gay activism” woodcanoe is so upset about is a bunch of facebook postings regarding the recent spate of suicides by gay youths. It must be very upsetting to have friends that care for other people.

Regarding whether the news of suicides is accurate of not, Woodcanoe states with a sense of disappointment: “It is difficult to find genuine unbiased news when most all of the sources were gay oriented websites.”

The other thing woodcanoe is upset about is the oft-repeated line, “One in ten children are born gay.” Now, I don’t know if that it true or not – I really don’t care. The fact is that many people are gay and it doesn’t matter if it is 1% or 10%- they shouldn’t be driven to suicide by a lack of tolerance and understanding among their peers.

AMGers though, take a slightly different view.

Here is The Distributist acting as his usual hateful self, doubting that discrimination against gays even exists:

Same as if there were actually any real-life instances of discrimination … those, too, would be front page news. They aren’t because they do not exit.

[...]

Existing information could lead one to conclude that homosexual behavior is to genetics what islam is to religion.

Read that last sentence again. He managed to insult the two most-hated-by-Republican groups in the same sentence in under twenty words. He’s a pro.

Next we have Michelle Anderson equating homosexuality, which is not an unhealthy addiction nor a danger to others, with alcoholism, which of course is an unhealthy addiction and a danger to others:

Alcoholics DO commit suicide. And there are statistics that prove that. In fact, alcoholism is one of the top “reasons” for suicide.

I’m not seeing a lot of “in your face” activism to let alcoholics who were born that way to drink and drive, to be neglectful parents, or to change the laws so that people have to hire and rent to people who are drunk.

Michelle is the master of completely inept analogies. She is like the Wile E. Coyote of analogy-makers: always going off a cliff. See how easy that was, Michelle! I’m available to be your analogy subcontractor. Just send me an email whenever you’re thinking of making one, and I’ll let you know the depth of its stupidity.

Speaking of stupidity, “pmconusa” brings us the kind of thoughtful, deep analysis of the issues we have come to expect from your average asmainegoes poster:

I once witnessed a cow in a field perched on the back of another cow going through the motions as would a bull. I concluded that nature does have a way of producing mutants of one form or another and with the number of humans now in the billions that this same anonomly applies to two legged as well as four legged animals. Those who consider themselves different have now parlayed their differences, whether real or imagined, to garner special treatment. It is not surprising that many would imagine themselves as such to get on the bandwagon and gain their 15 minutes of fame. Minorities have been doing it for years.

If I were going to write a parody of how an idiot determines his worldview regarding homosexuality, I might start with “I once witnessed a cow perched on the back of another cow.” Unfortunately, reality has stolen my joke. And what is the deal with the minorities have been getting “their fifteen minutes of fame” thing? What does that mean? The civil rights movement was a desperate ploy for attention by fame-seeking minorities? Good lord.

Meanwhile, Melvin Udall is perpetually illogical:

It’s interesting to juxtapose the confidence in new generations of voters allowing gay marriage to become legal, which I suppose is “normalized,” with those same new voters setting the stage for Islamification of our country, and the imposition of Sharia.

Voting for gay marriage is voting for Sharia law! Holy crap. How ludicrous. But he really, really thinks that. I bet his grandpa didn’t want to let the women vote because it would help the communists.

And I’m just realizing how long this post already is and I’m not even onto the second page of this particular AMG thread. Oh boy. We’ve got a long ways to go.

Someone named “samadams” presents this theory:

If you accept the premise that homosexuality is biologically based, then don’t you also have to accept that otherbehaviors are also biologically based?

That is to say:

Blacks are lazy
Mexicans lie
Pollocks are stupid
Chinese are inveterate gamblers
Irish are drunks…

First: Chinese are gamblers? Man, my knowledge of stereotypes must be out of date because I didn’t know that one. Bad drivers? Sure. Gambling? New to me.

Anyways, samadams, let me point out that there is a genetic component to drinking. It isn’t tied to being Irish, but it is there. There are probably genetic components to laziness, too- some part of our energy levels are controlled by brain chemistry and hormones. But again, this isn’t tied to a certain race, which is what makes your examples so disgusting. What you are doing is comparing completely faulty biological explanations that were created by human prejudice with something totally different- specifically, the idea that attraction is biologically based and, like anything else in biology, can vary.

This next one might make you snort milk out your nose. You’ve been warned. If you continue to read without putting down the milk carton, you have no one but yourself to blame for your soppy keyboard.

It is another Michelle Anderson masterpiece. You know it is promising because it starts like this:

I don’t know a whole lot about biology or genetics, other than what I learned in high school and college,but…

Well that’s good. We’ve established that Michelle doesn’t know much about the topic. So why is there a “but” at the end? Oh, because she’s probably going to give us some ridiculous explanation regardless of her lack of reasonable knowledge. Let’s hear it.

….but I do seem to remember that genes are passed down from both parents.

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that there is such a thing.

THAT’S IT!? That is what you had to preface with “I don’t know a whole lot about…?” You weren’t sure if genes are passed down by parents to offspring? (SMACKS FOREHEAD) Yes, Michelle, for the sake of argument, lets pretend that there is, in fact, something called a gene that is passed from parent to child. What does that mean to you?

If both parents have the theoretical “gay gene,” then the children are likely to have that gene. But I doubt that there are a whole lot of births where both parents have the gay gene.

That being the case, children in families with two mommies or two daddies are less likely to carry the gene.

And the same for their children.

So we would end up with fewer people who are the result of a “gay gene” rather than more people.

As I said, I am not an expert, but that sure seems to be logical to me.

As someone who is also familiar with genetics from high school and college, but who either paid a lot more attention or went to much better schools, let me try to make a short list of the incorrect assumptions Michelle puts in this trainwreck of thought:

1. Michelle assumes that hereditary traits are tied one-to-one with a specific gene, rather than often being the result of a bunch of different genes all of which can be passed on independently (In other words, Michelle assumes monogenetic inheritance).
2. She forgets that genes can be dominant or regressive. Or, if you want to blow Michelle’s mind, incompletely dominant or co-dominant.
3. The expression of genes is affected by the environment.

All of which make her conclusion meaningless. But hey, don’t worry Michelle, we’re used to it. Keep typing away! And to be honest, I’m not even sure what the point of her little vignette was, anyways.

Lastly, Pastor Bob Emrich helpfully gives us some insight into how he views the interaction between homosexuals and their families. He states that gays are told to “come out” in order to force families to approve their lifestyle and thus help the greater gay rights movement:

Yes. It is a deliberate, planned strategy following the “community conversation” approach. Part of the plan is to encourage more people to “come out”, forcing families and friends to give approval.

No one is forced to give approval. Obviously, I would hope that families and friends could see beyond a person’s sexual identity and decide, notwithstanding such identity, to approve of that person, but notice how Pastor Emrich uses the word “force.” It is as if the gay person is to blame for other people loving them even though they are gay. In Emrich’s mind, love is a bludgeon that the gay person uses on friends and family to force acceptance. It is apparently every gay person’s duty to hide who they are from everyone so as to not take advantage of that love.

Very uplifting, Mr. man-of-God dude. Where is that in the bible?

So, dear reader, are you disgusted enough yet? I’ll give your stomach and conscience a break. See you at the next gay thread!