My Eighty Nine Year Old Mom Gets It

[DemocratSinceBirth]

She was watching Countdown and they were showing last night's GLBT debate where they aked Bill Richardson and the other candidates if being gay was a choice or one is born that way...

She answered the tv as if it was a quizz show without any prompting from me "you're born that way."

[CountAllVotes]

1. I believe that way too

having known many gay people in my life - I see some patterns too - like it is GENETIC for one thing.

Any other thoughts on this?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. Mind You This Is An Eighty Nine Year Old Woman Albeit A Liberal One

I then asked her if two men or two women can get married and she said "they don't bother me"...


My parents were very progressive but not in a "hoity-toity" kind of way...


When we first moved to Florida in the early 70's my dad instinctively started to hang out with the African Americans on his job site... He sat down to have lunch with them and they had to tell him he would get in trouble with the white workers if he did so...

He would take my mom and I to see his black friends from the job... This was a time when there wasn't much mixing of the communities... I can remember being the only white kid walking around with three or four African American kid in an all African American neighborhood...

I can also remember some of the denigrating comments from our neighbors when they came to see us...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. .

[OffWithTheirHeads]

8. As a Lesbian trapped in a mans body, come on. Why on earth

would anyone subject themselves to the rampant discrimination and hatred espoused by our society against homosexuals if they didn't have to? It would be like white people painting themselves black because they enjoy sitting in the back of the bus. Don't see a lot of that going on, do you? As a white, Anglo Saxon, straight, middle class male, I find life difficult enough. Why would I want to add to that burden by "choosing" to be queer, or black, or Mexican or any of the numerous other things you could be that make life in this country more difficult? The Question, on it's face, is stupid. Just think about it. You don't need to be Queer, or black or Mexican to understand that life would be more difficult. You just need to listen to Republics. They are very clear on the fact that you should be a White, Anglo Saxon, Protestant, closeted Queer to prosper in our society.

[Hepburn]

4. Very cool mom there....

....for ANY age....but particularly cool for someone approaching 90!

:hi:

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. She's Pretty Alert For Her Age Too...

eom

[AlCzervik]

5. good for her. My gun loving never met a tax loop hole he didn't exploit Dad also gets it.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. It doesn't take much hormonally speaking to feminize a male in the womb,

the environmental estrogen mimicking chemicals we swim in so to speak certainly have taken their toll.

[David__77]

WHAT?!

I'm sorry, are you trying to say that "hormonal feminization" of male fetuses causes male homosexuality?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. I am stating a fact, and that is that the male nervous system can be

affected (brain) by these chemicals, why don't you check out this article and then tell me what you think.

http://www.enviro-net.com/main.asp?page=story&id=6&month=02&paper=fl&year=2005
Under the Clean Water Act, the NPDES program regulates discharges to waters of the U.S. from point sources such as municipal sewage treatment plants and industrial facilities.

EDs in drinking water. Scientists are finding trace amounts of endocrine disrupters-drugs, herbicides and fragrances-in the nation's drinking water.

One water industry investigation into 18 drinking water plants nationwide found the compounds in 14 of them. The amounts being found are tiny-in parts per billion or trillion.

But studies on fish living in streams show that male and female fish can develop the other sex's proteins and organs when there are endocrine disrupters in the water in parts per billion. What is unclear is the effect this has on humans, if any.

The American Water Works Association Research Foundation in Denver, which funded the nationwide drinking water plant survey, is conducting a two-year study on the health effects of the chemicals.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. Not All Gay Men Are Effeminate And Not All Straight Men Are Macho

eom

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. ..... agreed, and I didn't state that they were. I said that endocrine

disruptors can affect the endocrine/nervous system. Where that may or may not lead has not been proven one way or the other.

[David__77]

12. There's nothing in it linking "hormonal feminization" with homosexuality of males.

I don't see it. How would that cause homosexuality? Are you saying that you think male homosexuality is caused by female hormones? Do you think male homosexuals are more feminized that their heterosexual counterparts?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

14. I think that we live in a chemical soup that no one can definitively say

has little or no effect on the feminization of males. I did not say that all male homosexuals are feminine... that would be a mistake as you have pointed out.

[David__77]

9. ...

accidental double post