Homosexulity & A sexual behavior Essay

A sexual behavior involving attraction towards individuals having the same sex is called Homosexuality. People have been wondering whether a homosexual couple should come out and tell all that they are homosexual. (Sullivan, 05) This is a great debate of present society over homosexual marriage, adoption by homosexual couples and the fight for homosexual partners to be treated the same as heterosexual partners in society‘s eyes. Homosexuality is not a disease even though it is treated as such. Homosexuality has been condemned in modern day society but was widely tolerated by the Greeks and Romans. When looking back at the history of the Greeks, Spartans and Romans , it is revealed that they were great fighters; one reason for this is because most soldiers were homosexual and their fellow soldiers were their lovers and they would do anything to save their lovers life. Homosexuality was actually encouraged by the ancient Greece which was written about in the heroic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad by Homer. It was thought that homosexuality would boost morale as well as bravery amongst the soldiers. The Greeks even practiced pederasty as a way of population control, education and crime reduction. It was also encouraged within the military to boost troop morale, bravery and overall fighting. Pederasty is a sexual relationship between an adolescent boy and an adult male who is not a family member. This could be referred to today as pedophilia. Some of the greatest men in history were homosexual or had homosexual tendencies such as (President) Abraham Lincoln, (artist, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, architect, writer) Leonardo da Vinci, (Greek King) Alexander the Great, (Roman Leader) Julius Caesar to name a few. According to the church and modern day society, homosexuality is wrong, Most of the religions believe that God hates homosexuals, homosexuals will never go to heaven and God destroyed Sodom because of homosexual behavior within the city. However, the church also says not hate the homosexuals but to only hate their behavior. Homosexuality is much more prevalent that one may want to admit; the figures are actually startling. ‘Alfred Kinsey‘s 1948 study of the sex lives of 5,000 white males shocked the nation: 37 percent had at least one homosexual experience to orgasm in their adult lives; an additional 13 percent had homosexual fantasies to orgasm; 4 percent were exclusively homosexual in their practices; another 5 percent had virtually no heterosexual experience; and nearly one-fifth had at least as many homosexual as heterosexual experiences. Two out of five men one passes on the street have had orgasmic sex with men’. (Nicolosi, 105) According to that study close to 80% of the male population has had or is having homosexual experiences. The reason why it is so shocking is because of the number of people that speak out against homosexuality far outweighs the 20% that supposedly is not or does not have homosexual experiences. Society ‘s misperception of a homosexual is an effeminate man that goes around talking in a feminine manner, talks about clothes or a butch woman who dresses like a man and talks like a man. However this perception is often wrong and in reality most homosexuals are people who we say are normal, our neighbors, friends, hairdressers and police. This has really opened my eyes and I am now questioning everyone around me; are they outspoken about gays because they are but they do not want to draw attention to themselves by keeping quiet so they shout the loudest? The numbers are quite astonishing which means they also may encompass any man a girl dates or even someone’s ex-husband. Is this study flawed? This means that two out of five men one may see walking down street have had some form of homosexual experience. Then question arises, should gay marriages be allowed? To date there are only two states that allow homosexuals to marry and they are the state of California and the state of Massachusetts. In 2004 Massachusetts became the first state to allow same sex couples the right to marry. California became the second state in 2008. Looking back at interracial marriages in the United States, the first state to allow interracial couple to marry was in 1948 in the state of California and it took 19 years before the U. S. Supreme Court changed the definition of marriage in 1967 and made interracial marriage available to committed couples that were in love throughout the entire country. If it was to use this as an example as to how long it will take same sex marriages to be accepted in every state, it would probably not be until 2023. In the bible it says marriage is a union between a man and a woman. Why does society cares about what other people do if it will never affect us in any way? Is homosexuality a genetic thing? It is for sure that there is a great excuse for homosexuals to use in order to brush people off and explain why they are gay. A scientific study that was conducted by a university in Ontario Canada suggested that male same sex orientation is linked to having older brothers even if they are not all rose together. They suggested that homosexuality results from an immune response to the mother to her male child in the womb. The research claims that a woman that has given birth to multiple males will be more susceptible to this abnormality. After having a male child or children sometimes the mother‘s immune response to her succeeding male pregnancies is to affect the child‘s future sexual orientation; which would be maternal anti-male antibodies on the sexual orientation of the brain. The immune response by the mother‘s body would damage the sexual differentiation of the brain of the male child in the womb which will in turn produce an abnormality in the fetus. This would conclude that homosexuality is not learned but a birth abnormality. There have not been enough studies done on this and there are no scientists that would come out and say this is definitive. (Sullivan, 305) However, after saying that homosexuality in animal world is widespread and has been well documented; this makes me rethink that there may be some validity to the genetic study above or maybe it ‘s just something that is a learned behavior in both the human and animal world. After all, it is known that animals do learn and explore different things so it may be that they learned this behavior and all others learned by example. Homosexuals believe that to have children is more about dependability and dedication, not sexual point of reference. They say that there is no valid reason behind passing the anti-homosexual adoption law by the government. Those who are against homosexual adoption believe that being adopted by parents who are living together as homosexuals, may bring out unrestrained homophobia from the rest of society. Children can be very harsh with their words and actions against others who know not how to react and defend themselves because they do not know the â€Å"normal† lifestyle in which the other children lead. They would probably be teased and tormented to no end and there is nothing anyone could to about it. If the male and female household has not been the norm for millions of years, this may not propose such a problem. The children may not even be the main problem. It is most likely that parents of male/female relationships would not allow their children to associate with gay or lesbian adopted children, and would probably create a major dispute with the school system in which they are attending school. (Mark, 3) Those who disagree with homosexual adoption also think that in response to being a child of such a lifestyle, it would encourage the children to be homosexual themselves. Whether this is true or not, I don’t know, but I do think that because that is all that they know they would most likely turn to a form of it sometime during their life ,which would in turn increase the homosexual population. This could also pose a problem for the many people who disagree with homosexuality and it is scary to think of the extremes people may take to rid or exclude this population from their lives. Think of the times of the Civil War days, when blacks were practically banned from the majority of public places because they were not the majority or the â€Å"normal† color. Could this ever happen to gays and lesbians? This is a question we must ask ourselves. I know there are laws prohibiting such acts, but there are laws discouraging many things that still go on today, like murder, sexual abuse, etc. There is nothing really stopping people from moving out of town ,taking their kids out of school, or utilizing the same public places that they share with homosexual people. There are cases where this has already happened. (Nicolosi, 104) Children have been moved to different schools because parents don’t want their child to be influenced in any way by a homosexual, or even a child of one. There is nothing to stop them from taking such actions or even actions much worse. It is hard to tell the extremes that people may go to in order to carry out their beliefs. There are several different web-sites that contained a lot of good information on homosexual adoption. First ,http://www. homes4kids. org/gay. htm is a web-site that explains some of the problems that gay and lesbian adoptive parents encounter. One of the problems that may be encountered is trying to find an agency that will work with them. A growing number of agencies are accepting applications from gay and lesbian adults, however, when the child to be adopted is a child with special needs. If the home study reveals that the applicant will be a good parent, his or her sexual orientation is immaterial. If state law does not prohibit gays and lesbians from adopting, most agencies will be willing to work with you. If you are successful in finding an agency, there are great places where you can find adoption support groups for gay and lesbian adults. One of these places is the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse, NAIC. The address and a little of their information is posted on the web-site mentioned above. Web-sites such as this one are good in my opinion because of the fact that I’m sure that people get down when they are turned away adoption agencies because of their sexual orientation, even though they know they would make fantastic parents and provide greatly for a child. Therefore,support groups may be needed at times to help individuals to keep their heads up and to keep trying until they find someone who can see it from their point of view. They may even be able to point you in the right direction in helping you to find an agency who works well with gays and lesbians wanting to adopt. This is a good site to utilize because like mentioned before, sometimes we need some assistance when we are trying to make a lifetime decision. People who have experienced such times as we may be going through are often times a lot of help and usually have a lot of information to share. This site was created by the North American Council on Adoptable Children. They are a valuable resource because they have experienced many different situations and know a lot about what the possibilities are of becoming an adoptive parent as a gay or lesbian. This particular web-site has any downfalls except that the could’ve put a few more links on it to point people to other options if these certain ones aren’t working for them. There are homosexuals in today‘s society that resist identifying themselves as homosexuals. They have homosexual encounters but have girlfriends so they do not consider themselves to be homosexual and they are mostly black college students. However alarming this may seem one can understand in the black culture homosexuality is looked down on more than in the white culture. (Gerard, 4) Like in Jamaica homosexuality is not tolerated at all, if you are found to be having a homosexual relationship whether it is men or women they are almost always stoned or hacked to death. The killers are never brought to justice since the society considers homosexuality as an immoral thing. Homosexuality is usually seen as abnormal however one should not forget that there are a number of other things too in present world that can be said as aberrant. However, a lot of individuals also believe that consenting adults are free to choose who they want to be with sexually as long as it does not include minors and we as society should not have a say in what other people do. Modern day society is way too concerned with what others do and not concerned enough with what is going on in their own household. If it does not directly affect us no one really care. Works Cited Baird, R. M. Same-sex Marriage: The Moral And Legal Debate Contemporary Issues, Prometheus Books, 2004, pg 135-150. Gerard, J. M, Aardweg. V. The Battle for Normality: A Guide for (Self)Therapy for Homosexuals. 2006, pg 1-5. http://www. religioustolerance. org/homosexu. htmhttp://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Homosexualityhttp://www. narth. com/menus/born. html . Mark. L. Homosexuality, Morality, and the Truth of Church Teaching, 2007, pg 1-4. Nicolosi. J. A ‘Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality’ IVP Books, 2002, 100-120. Rauch. J. ‘The Marriage Amendment : Constitutional issues’ , National Review, 2001, Retrieved from http://old. nationalreview. com/23jul01/letters072301. shtml. Sullivan. A. ‘Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality’, Vintage, 1996, 10-20. Sullivan. A. ‘Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con’ Vintage, 2004, 300-310. Sullivan. A. ‘What are homosexuals for? ’ 2010, Retrieved from http://mrglennjchs. files. wordpress. com/2010/01/sullivan. pdf