Outrageous LTTE in today's Cincy Enquirer -- gays are "mutants"

[theHandpuppet]

Gay isn't normal, no matter who says
Your voice: Dr. Daniel W. Nebert

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060314/EDIT02/603140333/1090

I agree with Peter Bronson's assessment of "The slippery slopes of Brokeback Mountain" (Feb. 26), echoed by Charles Krauthammer's thoughts regarding another movie ("'Syriana' reeks with betrayal," March 3). This is simply more of Hollywood's agenda to push the secular-progressive movement: "Let's give that movie Oscar nominations in many categories, just to make a political point."

Genetically and evolutionarily speaking, homosexuality is not normal - no matter how Hollywood and other secular progressives wish to spin it. "Normality" (in genetic or evolutionary terms) is defined as reproductive success that leads to future healthy generations of the species. Sexual orientation, as well as courtship behavior, is regulated in the fruit fly by Fruitless, a gene that functions specifically in the brain. Fruitless mutants show aberrant mating behavior. Many fru mutations result in male flies that court indiscriminately. When fru mutant males are grouped together, they form male-male courtship "chains" in which each male is simultaneously both courting and being courted; all mutant combinations show some male-male "chaining."

Specific chromosomal regions have been associated with the human "gay" phenotype, but no gene has been identified with certainty.

As with any other biological defect, the risk of homosexuality reflects the combination of multiple mutated genes plus environmental factors. In the case of human homosexuality, "the environment" is likely to be an imbalance of sex steroid levels at some critical point during pregnancy, affecting the fetal brain, most likely in the third trimester.

Studies have now shown that differences in diet and stress in the pregnant mother can affect the fetus in the uterus - which can lead to increased blood pressure, risk of heart trouble and/or kidney disease in that baby 40 or 60 years later. In fact, even if a grandmother had smoked cigarettes, her daughter's daughter can show substantially greater risk of asthma and other lung diseases.

Subtle environmental effects on our genes continue to be discovered, as more and more exciting medical research is being carried out.

Dr. Daniel W. Nebert is a professor in the Department of Environmental Health, Center for Environmental Genetics and Department of Pediatrics & Molecular Developmental Biology at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

[xchrom]

1. dr. nebert has a mutant gene in his brain.

homosexuality is widely distributed throughout the animal kingdom -- with some species even changing their sex.

if it was all that aberrant -- nature wouldn't ''choose'' for it with such regularity.

[sui generis]

16. it's a straw man of the mutant variety

The real issue now is whether adults who choose to play around with other adults of the same sex "should be allowed".

Or whether heterosexuals who don't use the missionary position are mutants too, or whether that kind of sex "should be allowed"

Or whether people who don't have sex and don't want sex "should be allowed" to not have sex.

The only freak-ass motherfuckers here are people who think their ideas of what other people "should be allowed" to do is what's right for everyone.

I would venture to say that Dr. Nebert is more concerned about what I do with my nads than I am. Now that's just weird.

[xchrom]

17. ''I would venture to say that Dr. Nebert is more concerned

about what I do with my nads than I am. Now that's just weird''

lol -- i thought that was definetely worth repeating.

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. Can Dr. Nebert consume milk and other dairy products?

Then he is a mutant; the ability to digest lactose into adulthood can be found in only about 30% of the human population, making them mutants from "normal" humans. :toast:

[ThomCat]

3. So, we have brain defects because of hormone imbalances

in the womb?

Who the hell is this guy? That's awefully hateful speculation from someone claiming to be explaining science.

[Occulus]

4. Actually,

There's other evidence suggesting that it may be due to a mother who is too fertile- as in, she has too much of one of the sex hormones in her system during the pregnancy.

Since this is the "fault" of neither the mother nor the child, if this guy in this article is against homosexuals somehow, he's going about it in exactly the wrong way- he just, for example, obliterated the idea of it being a choice.

[Maven]

5. Exactly.

This is why the idea that "biological proof will cure intolerance" is misguided. These people are monsters, and would exterminate (or at least attempt to breed out) groups of people they don't like.

I think Dr. Josef Mengele would be proud of this shithead.

[ThomCat]

6. Good Point.

Choice or biology doesn't matter. They've got their arguments lined up to hate us no matter what.

God tells them to hate us because we made the wrong choice.
Or God tells them to hate us because we were born deviant.
Either way, God tells them to hate us.

[readmoreoften]

19. A lot of this hormone stuff smacks of pseudoscience to me.

Particularly the study that shows that lesbians forefingers are shorter than their ring fingers because male's forefingers are shorter than their ring fingers and that proves that lesbians are washed in masculine hormones, that's why they're more masculine than straight women and that's why they dig chicks.

And I supposed femme lesbians like me with high heels and relatively long forefingers are just confused? :shrug:

[Maven]

7. My email to Herr Doktor

Dr. Nebert:

Your attempt to lend a “scientific” veneer to such sheer, vicious hatred of a politically unpopular group would make Dr. Josef Mengele proud. As you characterize homosexuality as a “biological defect,” one wonders with horror and amazement just what your final solution to this “problem” would be.

In case you haven’t noticed, homosexual men and women reproduce every day. I suppose then under your arbitrary definition of “normality” (a coarse word for any serious scientist to use), gays and lesbians are an entirely normal subset of the species. I notice you also fail to mention the hundreds of other animal species that interact homosexually, some of which form long-term same-sex pair bonds. In any event, to impose your own normative standards on what you observe is entirely contrary to the ethos of your profession. Your article is a perfect example of why: basically, you stop just short of voicing support for eugenics. I’m sure in due time our people’s sense of fairness and decency will be so eroded by what charlatans like you paint as “morality” that you’ll be able to speak your conclusions aloud. No doubt at that point you’ll thank that terrible, awful “secular-progressive movement” for pushing federal funding for scientific research in areas other than weapons development and space exploration.

Shame, sir.

Yours,
(me)

Sent from my law school address. I hope that burns him up even more. :grr:

[theHandpuppet]

12. Great letter!

Just in case this guy's fundamentalist, RW credentials are in doubt, check out this other LTTE he wrote in January:

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060314/EDIT02/603140333/1090

[Maven]

13. Thanks.

I have a good mind to contact the Department Chair or the Dean's Office there. This guy can write hateful letters and articles as a private citizen, but he's trading on his affiliation with their institution to give an aura of authority to his sick ideas. I'm sure he's gotten plenty of hatemail from within his own institution about this.

Edit: I hope he caught the "final solution" reference. Not that I was too subtle about it...

[theHandpuppet]

14. I was wondering about that, too

Can you imagine being a gay or progressive student in this creep's class? Or perhaps just a straight person who has decided not to have children?

I think your "final solution" reference was totally apropos and I'll tell you why. Google a search on this doctor and you'll see he has written, on several occasions, about "evolutionary solutions" to disease in relation to genetics. What does this tell you? His homophobia, in combination with his hatred of secularism and his pulpit-pounding agenda, should make us all nervous. This guy is considered to be one of the tops in his field. I'm worried about just which direction his research is taking. In any case, I'm appalled that this man would use his credentials to give legitimacy to his fundamentalist hatred.

[Maven]

15. If I were a student in his class

I would publicly embarrass him and then get a group together to appeal to the Dean. He makes their university look academically unsound.

Funny that he should write about "evolutionary solutions" to inborn problems, since homosexuality has been recycled in animal populations throughout evolution to date.

[BR_Parkway]

8. The secret Gay Agenda Exposed - we all want to be declared

disabled, so we don't have to work anymore, simply sit back drawing checks from the honest hardworking taxpayers, buying new Lexus (Lexi?), fabulous clothing and working on our tans.

Who leaked it to the media?

[Ayesha]

9. Cool! I'm a mutant!

Can I join the X-men now?

Seriously, MANY traits are the result of mutations. But do we deny people with left-handedness, male pattern baldness, asthma, spina bifida, heart disease or diabetes the right to marry? This argument is bullshit even if it is factually true.

[JoshWatermanMN]

10. Mutants

>>Can I join the X-men now?

Dang! You beat me to it. When do I get my superpowers to go with my "wanna screw boys" gene?

[Nightflurry]

11. Beat me, but I agree

Do we get superpowers? Can we fry the fundies with deathrays? :D

[donco6]

20. I get to be the flying one!

Shotgun!

I've dreamed about that since I was a kid.

[BlueStorm]

22. You mean Storm?

Hell, I wanna be her!!!

Being a lesbian and having the ability to control the weather...

I wonder how the fundies would think of that one, lol!!!

Fundies: "She controls the weather and she's gay too!!! Destroy her so she can go to hell!"

Blue

[BlueStorm]

21. Heh... I was gonna say that about joining

the X-Men...

You make a valid point about the other things. Genetics is not absolute anyways. There are many mutations in the genomes so why is the "gay" gene any different.

It's just another thing that is unique.

Blue

[readmoreoften]

18. And this is where the "born gay" rhetoric gets really problematic.

That's why I shy away from it. Is it a crude "choice"? Of course not. But I'd rather be hated than have my love for my partner be considered a birth defect than can be corrected.

[keithkam]

23. The real problem

is that papers are even publishing this BS. We should embark on a LTTE campaign and stop this nonsense from being published. Can you imagine the reaction if a doctor wrote a LTTE on how being black is a "biological defect" and a paper entertained it and had it published? Enough is enough. If they want to allow for these people to have their voices heard they must allow the racists, misogynists, neo-nazis, among others to "fairly" have their ideas presented in the public shpere. Now this really pisses me off to no end!