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Sangath, www.sangath.com, is looking to build a centre for services, training and research and seeks to buy approx 1500 to 2000 sq mtrs land betweeen Mapusa and Bambolim and surrounding rural areas. Please contact: [email protected] or [email protected] or ph+91-9881499458 http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-July/180028.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This continuation of homophobic propaganda in the post appended below nicely illustrates the conflict of interest that I had pointed out earlier in respect of the claim by religious priests of fighting for human rights, and for minorities and oppressed people. It reveals to us why religious priests and organizations cannot be trusted to fight for the rights of minorities. They are primarily motivated by their religious ideology, not by concerns about the life and health of people who happen to be homosexual in sexual orientation. Any rational person would understand that the material copied and pasted below from the website of a religious agency serves a homophobic religious agenda, and has absolutely no scientific value. In most cases the paraphrased statements in the material itself and the conclusions drawn from them are unscientific and irrational. Indeed, they are simply wrong from the standpoint of secular morality and common sense. For example, no sane and responsible person would claim that a certain social group is immoral and criminal because its members are more prone to commit suicide or to suffer from depression. Such a claim would be absurd, if for nothing else then because, on this basis, an unscrupulous ideologue with an Anti-Christian agenda can claim that Christianity is immoral and criminal compared to Judaism, Islam and Buddhism because scientific studies have shown that Christians have a higher suicide rate than adherents of the latter religions. All he has to do is cherry-pick and cite these studies. Here are the reasons why the copied and pasted material from the religious website in question is an assault on our rationality and sanity: 1. As indicated above, the claim that homosexuality is immoral and criminal because of any kind of scientific evidence is fundamentally irrational, irresponsible and illiberal. 2. None of the papers cited makes a claim on any rational or scientific grounds that homosexuality is immoral and criminal because of what has been reported. 3. The references have been cherry-picked in a lawyerly fashion for the ignoble purpose of anti-homosexual advocacy, mischaracterizing the original findings and ignoring the fact that other scientific studies have refuted many of the claims. Scientific objectivity, honesty and ethical responsibility would prohibit any scientist from doing such a thing. 4. Most of the claims made are false representations of the findings of the original papers. 5. Many of the claims made have been directly contradicted by other scientific studies. 6. Some of the references cited as "research articles" have nothing to do with science or research of any kind. They are actually opinions of the gay journalist Andrew Sullivan and the right-wing commentator Stanley Kurtz. Cheers, Santosh Fr. Ivo wrote: > >***I have "copied and pasted" from Catholic Answers and Catholic News >Agency, where I found the reference to research articles: C. Bagley and >P. >Tremblay, "Suicidal Behaviors in Homosexual and Bisexual Males," >Crisis 18 >(1997): 24-34; R. A. Garofalo et al., "The Associations Between >Health Risk >Behaviors and Sexual Orientation Among a School-Based Sample >of Adolescents," >Pediatrics 101 (1998): 895-902; ............. >............................. >Stanley Kurtz, "What Is Wrong with Gay Marriage," >Commentary, September 2000, 35-41; Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal: An >Argument About Homosexuality (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1995);......... >.................... >As you all see, the information used by the author of the article comes >from >scientific research articles: >
