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From: keith@seismo.UUCP (Keith Bostic)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Notes on last few submissions
Message-ID: <1608@seismo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Jun-84 10:58:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: seismo.1608
Posted: Fri Jun 22 10:58:28 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Jun-84 08:55:02 EDT
References: <1497@decwrl.UUCP> <3100@cbscc.UUCP>
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 43

[Chomp, chomp CHOMP!!!]

>	Sorry, Jeff, but that view isn't supported by psychology and psychiatry
> at large.  The American Psychiatric Association voted in 1974 that homosexual-
> ity is *not* mental illness.  (There was dissent, but it didn't take.)

The APA voting on something does not make it so.  We know so little about the
workings of the human mind that there just isn't any way at all anyone could
conclusively make that statement.  The fact that they voted on it; hell, is
anyone voting on the wavelength of light these days?  You don't vote on 
"science", you're either right, wrong, or you just don't know.  For support,
I suggest that the gentle reader compare a few of the current views on 
psychology that are floating around.  Don't even go to rolfing or some of the
more offbeat ones.  The mainstream is so clogged with viewpoints (viewpoints
that differ to the extreme) it isn't funny.  At this point, psychology isn't
science, it's fuzzy like a rug.

> It seems
> to me that the same sociological evidence that would give intrinsic
> rights to homosexuals would also give them to those who claim to have
> been born with pedophilic tendancies.

Bingo.  That's absolutely correct.  And there is nothing "wrong" with that.
And to those born with tendencies to eat small animals alive.  (Oysters?)
Each society determines a code of behavior; each society condemns the other
societies' behavior as "wrong".  Currently, the definition of "wrong" in our
society is changing with respect to homosexuality, or at least appears to
be changing.  I have no problem with that; I have a large problem with those
people who wish to say that gay rights are inherently "right"; that women's
liberation is inherently "right"; that black rights are "inherently" right.

> genetically determined condition) then kids will learn that "anything goes"
> as far as sex is concerned long before they have the capacity to deal
> with, or even assess, the consequences of their decisions.

Not disagreeing here, possible thought that until very recently "children"
had kids by 13 and were dead by 25.  Think that your feeling that "anything
goes" is wrong colors this thought.

		Now where *did* I put that hamster?
		Keith 
			ARPA: keith@seismo 
			UUCP: seismo!keith