Hacker News Reader

>Science agrees. It has been scientifically proven that the brain and the hypothalamus is gendered within the first trimester of a pregnancy and that the gendered brain may not match the body's gender due to androstendione, a stress hormone similar to testosterone that binds to receptors that testosterone should have bound to creating a female hypothalamus in a male body, creating a third gender class - males, females and homosexuals.

I believe this has been discredited long ago. Some googling finds

"Although clear sex differences were evident, Swaab, Gooren and Hofman (1992) found no differences in the size of the SDN of the preoptic anterior hypothalamus between "gay" and "heterosexual" men, contrary to what the androgen underexposure theory predicts. Dorner's (1988) contention that "gay" men have a female hypothalamus was not upheld."

http://books.google.com/books?id=PzDKr-qCdTAC&pg=PA127

The article referenced is

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v378/n6552/abs/378068a0...

He's right, but probably not for the reason he thinks he is. There is no reason the church should be forced to marry homosexuals if that is not part of its religious theory; the church is a private institution and can do as it pleases. Likewise, however, there is no reason that the state should codify "marriage" under the law, homosexual or otherwise. The proper state of affairs is fully-legally-robust civil unions for all, with some backed religiously, and some not. Trying to make the church recognize gays in order to get them rights under the state is just the absolutely wrong order to do things.

And I apologize in advance for my continuation to this inanity, because this entire thread is so completely the opposite of Hacker News.

The state makes a distinction between 'marriage' and 'civil union' right now, I don't think that the gay movement would be too upset to be equal before the law and let the archaic church sort out if it wants to move in to the 21st century or become irrelevant at some point.

Flagged the thread btw, this is getting out of hand.

>> "A quick read of your other comments on HN showed me that your also racist.."

Yeah that's won the argument. Why not label people as communist or socialist next?

No one is really persecuting you. Paying a bit extra tax/insurance is hardly in the same category as what Turing had to endure with chemical castration etc.

Life is about discrimination. I'm discriminated against because I didn't go to a posh school. Because I'm not a woman. Because I wear glasses. Because I'm not big+muscular. Because I don't know any famous people.

Retirement age is 5 years older for men than it is for women. Men die earlier than women.

Either you can whine about it, or you can get on and enjoy life. Life is far too short to spend it trying to change the minds of people who don't want their minds changed.

Having said that, I have no clue why this is on hacker news. Flagged.

Just my 2c, YMMV

> Paying a bit extra tax/insurance is hardly in the same category as what Turing had to endure with chemical castration etc.

That there exist other people who are worse off than you doesn't mean that you're treated fairly, or that you shouldn't try to do something about it.

> I'm discriminated against because I didn't go to a posh school. Because I'm not a woman. Because I wear glasses. Because I'm not big+muscular. Because I don't know any famous people.

You can change some things about you: work out, wear contact lenses, etc. You can't change your sex (or you probably wouldn't want to), so you can try to change your environment. This is the situation he's in.

Why does the fact that he has an opposing view on a given subject make him prejudiced? Is it not possible for someone to hold an opposing view on a subject such as Gay Marriage (or God, or whatever) yet still be perfectly fine with Gay people (or God-loving folk, or whatever)?

Voted you down for the last sentence, which ruined an otherwise measured and reasonable response.

Yet is also true.

There is a time and a place for ad hominem arguments, but this is not it.

I am explaining to you that you are trying to call a steak a cake. The biological nature of your preference is irrelevant.

You want to redefine marriage, but by the current definition there is no inequality. You are as free to marry as anyone else.

Your desired redefinition is stupid for two reasons: 1) The obvious biological and social dynamics of heterosexual reproduction. 2) The entire first world has shared a common definition of marriage whereas those places with weirder norms are all shit holes. It's a proven institution and fucking with it is a dangerous slippery slope. This is not about mean religious crazies who want to make you sad. There's a lot more at stake when you go tinkering with this stuff.

I think you need to distinguish between the religious/cultural definition of marriage, and the legal definition.

I agree that we can't force priests to marry in the name of their God, because that's a matter of faith. That decision should be made by each individual church.

But it is also not fair to impose our cultural definitions on others when it comes to legal status. It seems strange that we give non-christian marriages the same status, while homosexuals in the same situation are treated differently.

It is also false that the definition of a marriage is the same in the "first world". Other countries have managed to separate the religious definition of marriage from the legal definition.

I'm not gay, and I have to admit that I look another way when two men kiss. But that doesn't mean I don't respect their situation, and want to give them the same rights as myself.

"The law, in its majestic impartiality, forbids the rich and poor alike to sleep under the bridges of Paris"

I hope you just wanted to turn a phrase and can actually see how facile that is.

And that (this entire thread) is why we try to keep politics and such off Hacker News.