And same sex couples are also complementary in their emotional makeup or else they wouldn’t be a couple. Nice to see you acknowledge that the nature of gay couples creates healthy families and the lack of unhealthy ones.

Whatever the hell that means, except when they aren’t.

I have to add, timothy– I don’t thing kosle knows much aobut heterosexual couples, either.

What would you call someone, kosle, who acted as though their opinion based in blind ignorance were of more value than one based in knowledge, experience and education?

oooh! . . . oooh! . . . I know!, I know!!!
But I’m not allowed to say. Sigh.

When I speak about gay couples, I am speaking from knowledge, experience and education. You, on the other hand, know absolutely nothing whatsoever about gay people. You haven’t even the teensiest tiniest clue about gay families and what makes them healthy. None.

Oddly, though, you seem to think that your argument out of ignorance is going to sway my opinion based in experience.

Don’t you find that peculiar? What would you call someone, kosle, who acted as though their opinion based in blind ignorance were of more value than one based in knowledge, experience and education?

Ah, you’ve identified precisely the problem. Male and female are complementary in their emotional make-up, as a general rule, and it’s the general rule that creates the healthy families and the lack of it the unhealthy ones.

I’d say this thread demonstrates the main thing I learned getting a master’s in social science — that you can prove pretty much what you want if you design the study carefully. You basically have to return to common sense, if you’re talking about an area where everyone has had a great deal of experience.

By Albert Einstein:

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Anyone raised by his mother would tell you that you can’t just add one of dad’s buddies and have the same kind of love and nurturing.

That is absolutely true. One of Dad’s buddies would not offer the same kind of love and nurturing.

But we aren’t talking about Dad’s buddies, are we? We are talking about two people who have committed to each other, who love each other deeply, who see themselves as two halves of a whole, who are there through thick and thin, who complete each other, who would forsake all others and defend each other to the death. We are talking about spouses and parents, not buddies.

And I think that may be why you have difficulty understanding this concept. Because you somehow need to diminish love to “buddies” so as to be able to hold onto your views. Intellectually you know that isn’t true, but you can’t let yourself believe it, can you?

Because if you really and truly thought of gay people as people – not caricatures or stereotypes – then you just couldn’t have the views that you have.

Every reputable researcher, the APA and every other major mental and physical health organization disagrees with you. Speaking personally I can think of several buddies who could have replaced either my mother or father and provided better love and nurturing than what I received. I would have happily traded my opposite sex parents for a competent same sex couple.

Yes, HIV is significantly higher in the gay community than among heterosexuals. In fact, in 2006 about half (57%) of new HIV transmissions were in men who have sex with men. And with about 3/4 of one percent of gay men contracting the virus in a recent year, that is of very significant concern.

But I think that you misunderstand the extent to which HIV is present within the gay community.

Currently about 12% of gay men (but no gay women) are infected with the HIV virus. Which means, of course, that 88% of gay men and 100% of gay women are not.

Further, studies are showing that for those persons who are on HAART and for whom the drugs are effective, there is currently no predicted reduction in life expectancy.

So while HIV is a serious concern in the gay community, it is certainly not a “slow-motion homicide.”

As for syphilis, that too is a concern. In the early 2000′s the majority of cases in men were in men who have sex with men, though that trend is reversing.

But this too seems to be an inflated risk in your mind.

About one tenth of one percent of men who have sex with men contract syphilis. But, of course, syphilis is treatable and if detected fairly soon is a relatively minor procedure.

Of course the real threat of syphilis is to pregnant women. While it is currently demonstrating less prevalence in women, the consequences are tremendously higher.

So, as the vast majority of gay men never contract HIV or syphilis and as HIV is no longer likely to lead to death and syphilis requires a shot to clear it up, I do not see any evidence of a “slow-motion homicide.”

But here’s the real kicker, kosle. If we encouraged gay men to establish long-term monogamous relationships, then the HIV and syphilis rates would drop even lower. If more stood before God and their community and promised to have and hold for this day forward, then the rates would go lower yet. You can’t pass on an STI when neither partner has one.

You, see, kosle. When you let go of bias and animus and rely of facts instead of myths then your presumptions just don’t hold up.

The only thing that allows STDs to persist is the ignorance of people like you who stupidly focus on people’s sexuality instead of their sexual practices, which can easily be made safer.