Homosexuality and Objectivism

[Selene]

Gs:

Ok, some are "pre-disposed" which still needs refining, but that works for now.

Let us take Leopold and Loeb who were the children of wealthy Chicago families who randomly kidnapped a young boy, clubbed and strangled him in the back seat of the car, before stuffing his broken body in a drainage pipe.

We agree that they were "unhealthy". However, their environmental influences did not involve poverty, lack of education and socialization skills, etc. What do we do with that "strain" of individual?

Adam

Hang them high. But that is not what happened. The taxpayers of Illinois fed them for decades.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Correct on one of the convicted Loeb was killed in his 11 year of incarceration at Joliet. "Murdered" in a straight razor attack in the shower where his throat was slashed from behind. It was ruled that Day the person charged with the death acted in self defense as Loeb allegedly made "advances" to him. According to Wiki, one reporter, Ed Lahey, wrote this lead for the Chicago Daily News: "Richard Loeb, despite his erudition, today ended his sentence with a proposition."^[17][18]

Leopold died in 1971 of a heart attack.

In 1944, Leopold participated in the Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study, in which he volunteered to be infected with malaria.^[19] Early in 1958, after 33 years in prison, Leopold was released on parole.^[2][4] While in prison he mastered 27 languages.^{[citation needed]} That year he wrote an autobiography entitled Life Plus 99 Years.^[2][4][20] Leopold moved to Puerto Rico to avoid media attention, and married a widowed florist.^[2][4] He was known as "Nate" to neighbors and co-workers at Castañer General Hospital in Castañer, Puerto Rico, where he worked as a lab and x-ray assistant."^[21]

At one time after his release from prison, Leopold talked about his intention to write a book entitled, Snatch for a Halo, about his life following prison. He never did so. Later, Leopold tried to block the movie Compulsion (see below) on the grounds of invasion of privacy, defamation, and making money from his life story.^[21]

He died of a diabetes-related heart attack on August 29, 1971 at the age of 66.^[2][4] He donated his organs.^[2]

Darrow's closing argument. Darrow plead them guilty to avoid a show trial with a jury and made his argument in one day before one County Judge. Smart boy Clarence. I think we have another smart boy named Clarence on the Supreme Court today.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/leoploeb/darrowclosing.html

[tjohnson]

I am asking you what an enlightened society should do with these "sick people"? For example, a person robs a bank, kills a security guard by smashing in his skull with a metal pipe and while escaping takes a pregnant woman hostage. In his apprehension, the woman is traumatized and loses the child. What do we do?

Here is what I would NOT do. Crowd a bunch of social misfits into close quarters under lock and key so they can become even more unable to function when they get out, which they will because the system is so overcrowded they don't even serve the sentences they were supposed to. Obviously we need to address prevention AND treatment simultaneously. We are doing nothing in terms of prevention. The first thing I would do is decriminalize all drugs and set up programs to treat drug addicts. There is a lot of crime related to drug abuse.

[Selene]

I am asking you what an enlightened society should do with these "sick people"? For example, a person robs a bank, kills a security guard by smashing in his skull with a metal pipe and while escaping takes a pregnant woman hostage. In his apprehension, the woman is traumatized and loses the child. What do we do?

Here is what I would NOT do. Crowd a bunch of social misfits into close quarters under lock and key so they can become even more unable to function when they get out, which they will because the system is so overcrowded they don't even serve the sentences they were supposed to. Obviously we need to address prevention AND treatment simultaneously. We are doing nothing in terms of prevention. The first thing I would do is decriminalize all drugs and set up programs to treat drug addicts. There is a lot of crime related to drug abuse.

Finally, ok. We completely agree.

Yes, so the first step is to define what a crime is. It is not a crime to slide a needle in a vein and inject anything, including battery acid. Agreed.

Now we probably eliminated a good 30 to 40 % of the Federal and State penal systems.

Now we still have the non drug addict who committed the bank robbery etc. from my example. What do we do with him?

Adam

[nicholasair]

http://www.pnas.org/content/102/20/7356.full

This site has the information about the study.

In biology I learned about theory about a gay gene It passes from mother to son and father to daughter. Also brain scans of gay men and straight men look different when the patient is smelling a sample of female urine.

might you have a source on that second example with the brain scans and female urine stimuli?

Adam

[Selene]

http://www.pnas.org/...02/20/7356.full

This site has the information about the study.

In biology I learned about theory about a gay gene It passes from mother to son and father to daughter. Also brain scans of gay men and straight men look different when the patient is smelling a sample of female urine.

might you have a source on that second example with the brain scans and female urine stimuli?

Adam

nicholasair:

Thanks! Excellent website. http://www.pnas.org/

Adam

[Guyau]

*

Edited August 11, 2009 by Stephen Boydstun

[Guyau]

A, B, C, D, E

Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation

Chris Matthew Sciabarra

The Hijacking of a Philosophy: Homosexuals vs. Ayn Rand’s Objectivism

Reginal Firehammer

Those are a couple of books written on the topic of this thread. I have not read them, but they may be just the thing for some readers here. A pertinent work of fiction—not only about gay relationships, but straight one’s too—one I can personally recommend, is:

Another Country

James Baldwin

From a New Yorker article by Claudia Roth Pierpont:

“His new novel, Another Country, was hopelessly stalled; the characters, he said, refused to talk to him, and the ‘unpublishable’ manuscript was ruining his life. He was drinking too much, getting hardly any sleep, and his love affairs had all gone sour. He wrote about having reached ‘the point at which many artists lose their minds, or commit suicide, or throw themselves into good works, or try to enter politics. To fend off all these possibilities, it seems, he accepted a magazine assignment to travel to Israel and Africa, then, out of weariness and fear, took up Cezzar’s long-standing invitation, and found himself at the party in Istanbul. It was a wise move. In this distant city, no one wanted to interview him, no one was pressing him for social prophecy. He knew few people. He couldn’t speak the language. There was time to work. He stayed for two months, and he was at another party—Baldwin would always find another party—calmly writing at a kitchen counter covered with glasses and papers and hors d’oeuvres, when he put down the final words of Another Country. The book was dated, with a flourish, ‘Istanbul, Dec. 10, 1961’.”

Those immortal words:

“He stared down the extraordinary steps. When he hit the ground, a voice above him said, ‘Bonjour, mon gar. Soyez le beinvenu.’ He looked up. Eric leaned on the rail of the observation deck, grinning, wearing an open white shirt and khaki trousers. He looked very much at ease, at home, thinner than he had been, with his short hair spinning and flaming above his head. Yves looked up joyously, and waved, unable to say anything. Eric. And all his fear left him, he was certain, now, that everything would be all right. He whistled to himself as he followed the line which separated him from the Americans, into the examination hall. But he passed his examination with no trouble, and in a very short time; his passport was eventually stamped and handed back to him, with a grin and a small joke, the meaning but not the good nature of which escaped him. Then he was in the vaster hall, waiting for his luggage, with Eric above him, smiling down on him through the glass. Then even his luggage belonged to him again, and he strode through the barriers, more high-hearted than he had ever been as a child, into that city which the people from heaven had made their home.”

Edited August 24, 2009 by Stephen Boydstun