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From: mara@panix.uucp (Mara Chibnik)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,alt.romance,soc.men,soc.singles
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Message-ID: <1990Dec7.133845.9204@panix.uucp>
Date: 7 Dec 90 13:38:45 GMT
References: <6128@crash.cts.com>
Organization: (hah!)
Lines: 43

In article <6128@crash.cts.com> rcf@pnet01.cts.com (Bob Forsythe) writes:

In an article for which I've lost the reference, 
gazit@duke.cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) asked:
  >What difference does it make if gay are born this way, 
  >or they are made this way, or they choose to be this way?

And, in article <6128@crash.cts.com> rcf@pnet01.cts.com (Bob Forsythe) 
responds:
  >     The difference, Hillel, is that once someone decides they are
  >made and not born, it's a much shorter step to deciding that they
  >can change if they "really want to", and the person deciding begins
  >coming up with tactics to *make* them want to.  In the case of
  >handedness, this belief led teachers to beat my grandmother and
  >mother's hands, tie their left-hands behind them, and generally
  >make them ashamed of what they were.  In my case it was more
  >subtle.  Just a teacher proudly announcing she'd never give an
  >"A" in handwriting to a left-handed person because we slanted
  >our letters the "wrong" way, and determinedly holding my wrist
  >down so I couldn't hook my hand when writing, then belittling
  >me when I smeared ink across the page.  And all because of a
  >belief that we could be right-handed "if we really wanted to".

Well, I think you're both right.

The real problem that Bob brings up is *not* the belief that handedness
is a matter of choice and subject to change; the problem-- the _evil_
if you will, is the belief that handedness ought to be made to conform
to a standard and that no liberty is to be permitted a person to write
as befits that person's style.

It's easier to argue against submitting to that kind of control if you
permit yourself to argue that it wasn't a matter of choice, but I
believe that a person who has equal facility to write with either hand
ought to be permitted the choice of which one to use-- or of which to
use when.  

No?

-- 
mara@dorsai.com                        cmcl2!panix!mara
                     Mara Chibnik                      
     Life is too important to be taken seriously.