Daily Show Gay Marriage Debate

[muscadine]

Bill Bennett & Jon Stewart

I don't like all of Stewart's arguments, but my favorite parts:

Stewart gets Bennett to admit "family" is the long-term basis of society, not modern marriage, and Bill goes on to volunteer that gay people are already part of families.

Stewart says, "It's a debate about whether gay people are part of the human condition, or just a random fetish."

Comments

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

"There's no doubt that the biological argument "works," at least in the present political climate. Support for civil rights for GLBs is highly correlated with belief that sexual orientation is biological/genetic"

Correlation doesn't prove causation, though, and I think there's a very definite tendency for heterosexuals who want to demonstrate their non-homophobia to feel obligated to assure everyone of their belief in a gay gene in order to do so.

[legolastn.livejournal.com]

That is true!

[lady-elsinore.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely certain it's a way to "demonstrate their non-homophobia" so much as an actual belief that there's evidence for the genetic/biological basis for homosexuality. There's been a lot of conflicting studies over the years, and media does not report adequately on scientific literature anyway. It's easy for people to latch on to information and not realize the caveats inherant in the original studies, etc, regardless of what the subject of study is--health, homosexuality, etc. I think suggesting the reason heteros support the "gay gene" theory is a tendency to demonstrate anything other than their (albeit limited) understanding of the literature is to make quite an assumption.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I think there are certainly a lot of heterosexuals for whom that is an accurate description; I just also think that if a heterosexual who really has no particular opinion wants to be perceived as non-homophobic, that desire is likely to influence them to take a genetic standpoint.