Hilarious. All I said was that there wasn't any real scientific evidence that explains, defines or "normalizes" homosexuality. And I am right about that, of course.

I never suggested any discrimination against homosexuals, encouraged any hate crimes, nor did I say characterize homosexuals in any other sense, other than to note the (absolutely true) historical fact that up to 1973, homosexuality had a definitional place in the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

And so what happens to me on Salon? I am called a bigot, and it is suggested that my speech be banned.

Welcome to the open-minded, free-speech, science-based-reality world of Salon.

No matter what anybody below has said, I still love this debate. The more that the advocates for the normalization of homosexuality argue the point from a scientific perspective, the more that the world will realize, "Wow, we really don't understand this orientation at all, do we?"

Michael Gendler's post got me to thinking, and I do so with all due respect to his thoughts. Haven't Americans cast all their enemies since 1914 as enemies not only of the USA but of Liberty and freedom of thought? The Kaiser, the Fuhrer, the USSR? Even Ho Chi Minh? Can we justify what is presently being done on our authority on the basis of such an overriding Mission? of such an "emergency"? Is it so immediately and urgently an issue of literally the life or death of the American way of life such that all of things that are being done in our name are justified? I don't doubt the existence of terrorists, but what is the practical 'reality' of al-Quaeda? It is not a nation so it's hard to see how we can go to war with it in any accepted sense of the word. It isn't a conventional military, so it's hard to successfully come to grips with it with any military thinking or resources we (or any of the developed nations)have. Are these people going to destroy Western civilization unless we abandon all of our defining values in order to destroy them? Or will we ourselves destroy it before they do, while trying to twist ourselves into whatever shape necessary to successfully squash them?

Everything suggested here as a defense of the psychologists could have been written by a decent German citizen in 1941: concerned for the safety and continued existence of his (or her) country as it was faced by unprecedented "emergencies" and militarily engaged against stubborn and lethal enemies who were trying to destroy their nation and culture, and seeing themselves as the front-line defenders of Western civilization. For the German citizen of that era, the things their government and military claimed to need to do seemed eminently understandable (granted that the massacre of millions of civilians was hidden from the average citizen, and certainly never raised by the national media of the day). It was only when the war was over and lost that the citizens sustained the added shock of realizing that they would be held responsible in the eyes of the world for not trying to change what was being done in their name and on their authority.

This week we can read of our government's concern that it and its military is now liable to prosecution for war-crimes even under our own laws (the most recent that I've read about was passed overwhelmingly by Congress in 1996). Is it time for us to ask ourselves whether we as "citizens first" shouldn't be taking a more active role in judging the conduct of our national affairs? The President is the active military's commander-in-chief. For all the rest of us (and I include veterans here) he is simply Mr. President, and is answerable to us. We have to bestir ourselves to exercise our judgment and then our authority. Otherwise, we may "meanly lose" this flawed but magnificent experiment in democratic self-government. The President is not our "leader" (so described in Administration emails; the Italian translation is "Duce", the German is "Fuhrer"); he works for us, for "We the People". And what happens happens not so much on his watch as on ours. And we are accountable for it. And that is one of the stern but magnificant Gifts of Democracy. Let us make the most of it.

Straightman wrote: "My oppostion is based on the notion that there isn't a bit of good science to prove that homosexuality is anything other than a psychiatric abnormality."

In 1851, Dr. Samuel Cartwright wrote of a treatable mental illness affecting African American slaves, drapetomania. The primary symptom was a desire to escape from servitude. The prescribed treatment for this mental illness was whipping to submission.

There never was good science in the first place to prove that homosexuality is anything other than a normal variation. The anomaly was the strong anti-homosexual writings by some American psychoanalysts in the 1940's through the 1960's, and even before 1973, opinion was varied. Freud wrote in 1935 that homosexuality "cannot be classified as an illness." Evelyn Hooker's work showed that gay men who were not psychiatric patients were not distinguishable from heterosexuals on psychological testing. Psychoanalysts in the 1940's to 1960's merely documented pathology in patients who were in psychiatric treatment-- from which one cannot generalize to non-patient populations.

The removal of homosexuality from the the DSM in 1973 was part of a broader effort to define mental illness, and to have solid scientific evidence to support each illness. This effort reflected not only changing views on homosexuality, but also the misuse of psychiatric diagnosis on Soviet political prisoners. The goal of sound science behind every diagnosis still remains elusive, as the APA begins work on DSM V.

I'm shocked that Salon chose "Straighman"'s bigoted and sophomoric comment concerning the APA and homosexuality for a star. Here is the comment again:

"The thing I like about this story is that it exposes the essentially political nature of the APA. This is the same organization that "voted" to amend the DSM so as to end the longstanding classification of homosexuality as a mental disease or disorder; not because of any new or dispositive psychological science, but rather because of the social/political predilictions of enough of its membership. With science like this, who needs creationism?"

In reality, the research of Dr. Evelyn Hooker (which began in the 50s), which was primarily conducted years before the APA's decision to remove homosexuality from its list of disorders, is the reason for that decision. Her work was different from previous research because it didn't result in the illusory correlation between homosexuality and mental disorder. Prior researchers used a tainted sample: they studied homosexuals with a history of mental illness and thus concluded erroneously that homosexuals are always mentally ill. Dr. Hooker found, because she studied men homosexuals had no history of mental illness, that homosexuality is not a disorder.

Try to be a bit more careful, Salon. A soapbox for the distribution of pure bigotry by the ignorant is not what I expect from your publication.

"Straightman"'s point about the APA's policies being swayed by politics is ironically appropriate, since the organization took so long to change its policy regarding homosexuals! The reason it took so long was because of politics. The joke is on you and your kind, "Straightman". If you were interested in the truth instead of your agenda of prejudice, you'd realize that the political bias present in the APA at the time was anti-homosexual, and the decision to, correctly, remove homosexuality from the list of disorders was prompted by science, and that's what ultimately matters. In this case (interrogation, I believe science will ultimately prevail, too.

And, "Straightman", why don't you cite some peer-reviewed credible research that shows homosexuality is a disorder? You can't, because there is none.

Salon, I hope you either remove his post from your starred items or add mine. Misinformation to further a hateful agenda is not positive in any way.