Midas Dekkers on Homosexuality

[leo-rcc]

[youtube]R8SVf5Zn5_A[/youtube]
I think it is a nice viewpoint.

[Tiberius]

How is that a nice viewpoint? That's just the same fundie message but it's been sugar-coated to make it sound almost good. The underlying message is clear though: homosexuality is not natural, science is wrong, and the bible is the only truth.

[leo-rcc]

No it isn't saying that at all. He is saying that you shouldn't use "homosexuality can be found in naturel" as an argument and not make a big moral deal out of homosexuality. And if you know Midas Dekkers you would know he does not regard the bible as the only truth, far from it. He finds the concept of a god ridiculous, and regards it as a human made invention.

If he says he has found no evidence of homosexuality in nature than that is exactly what he means, he has no ulterior motive. So it is throughout possible that humans are the only species known to date to have homosexuality.

[Tiberius]

Sorry, but I guess we must be watching different videos...the video I watched had the guy saying that homosexuality wasn't natural, that all the examples in a certain scientific book are wrong because they happened in captivity, and that the bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is wrong. I can't see how it can be taken any other way.

Unless the subtitles are wrong, I can't see how this message is correct at all. I don't care if he doesn't mind gay people, I care that he thinks they are not natural and can change.

[Edwardo Piet]

How could a homosexual change his sexuality any more than a hetrosexual or a bisexual could? That doesn't make any sense! At least to me.

[leo-rcc]

Sorry, but I guess we must be watching different videos...

Obviously

the video I watched had the guy saying that homosexuality wasn't natural,

No he is saying that all homosexual behaviour as documented in nature are NOT exclusively homosexual, and when it comes to it the animals in the books will revert to heterosexual sex immediately.

that all the examples in a certain scientific book are wrong because they happened in captivity

No he is saying that the only example of pure homosexual monkey was in captivity, the rest that showed homosexual behaviour in the wild revert back to heterosexual behaviour

and that the bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is wrong.

Which is also true, the bible does teach that. You are missing the last point obviously. He says humans should not stare blindly at other animals behaviour to explain yours or mine.

I can't see how it can be taken any other way.
Unless the subtitles are wrong, I can't see how this message is correct at all. I don't care if he doesn't mind gay people, I care that he thinks they are not natural and can change.

He NEVER, and let me make that perfectly clear, he NEVER said homosexuals can change. But he made it absolutely clear that homosexual behaviour in the wild by any other species than homo sapiens is not exclusively homosexual. And people should not use that argument to explain homosexuality as natural. Natural for Homo Sapiens maybe, but not for other animals.

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I just watched it for the fourth time, I think the main problem is that you cant really detect the irony in the subtitles.

Like in the end what he says is not that he doesn't mind they are gay but:

As the saying goes, some of my best friends are gay. Some might say as gay as a horse. That they are gay is because thats what they are. That they are my friends is because they don't blame the horses for that.

[Tiberius]

This is the point Leo, you are accepting blindly what he says without question. He presented no data to back up his assertion that homosexuality in animals "reverts", neither to back up his claims that all animals observed in homosexuality were in captivity. What are his credentials anyway? Does he have any history in biology?

Remember: question everything
I make it a habit not to trust things relgious people say about homosexuality. I'll leave it to others to put their opinion on this, but to me the guy seems to have the same old religious bigotry as every other fundie. He just wants to appear to be the nice guy.

[leo-rcc]

This is the point Leo, you are accepting blindly what he says without question. He presented no data to back up his assertion that homosexuality in animals "reverts", neither to back up his claims that all animals observed in homosexuality were in captivity.

This segment is a column of five minutes not a lecture, you don't expect Dawkins to cite peer reviewed papers if he writes a column in the Times. Midas Dekkers is one of the Netherlands leading biologists. He was already writing peer reviewed papers on animal behaviour studies before I was born.

What are his credentials anyway? Does he have any history in biology?

Midas Dekkers is a biologist, probably one of the mose true core ones, because he doesn't classify humans as anything special over other animals, just that humans have some different behavioural patterns.

http://www.nlpvf.nl/basic/auteur1.php?Author_ID=6

Remember: question everything

Yet because his assertion doesn't fall into YOUR view that homosexuality is natural which you don't back up either, you will take that Italians word over that of Dekkers. I am showing in interpreting his viewpoint for you because you fail to grasp his message through the subtitles, and even have him pegged as a fundie whis couldn't be further from the truth. But you classify him as such and that is all she wrotes for you isnt it?

I make it a habit not to trust things relgious people say about homosexuality.

Dekkers is not religious, he is an atheist.

I'll leave it to others to put their opinion on this, but to me the guy seems to have the same old religious bigotry as every other fundie. He just wants to appear to be the nice guy.

No it is because you react to him pointing at a bible you can't see it in the proper context anymore.

[leo-rcc]

It appears Richard Dawkins agrees with the stance Midas Dekkers makes:

As for your particular desire not to stigmatise homosexuality as unnatural, why bother? In one sense it is unnatural (it doesn't result in procreation which is obviously the ultimate Darwinian function of sexual behaviour). On the other hand it is natural (lots of people do it for preference and enjoy it). isn't that enough? Why drag in bonobos, as if the fact that it is common among them made it any more natural than the fact that it is common in humans? Let people do what they feel like doing (so long as it doesn't hurt others). You don't need to justify it by looking to other species.

Also see "the Bonobo's Tale" in Richard Dawkins' book, The Ancestor's Tale

[lukec]

Yes- I got what you're saying when I watched it, Leo. He's saying it doesn't matter what is "in nature" and what isn't (and a nice point with the dogs on the lamp posts), homosexuality is not a matter of choice, and is not wrong. I like the point that he makes about his friends being his friends because they feel no need to apologize, or blame others, for being gay.