Anti-Gay Ignorance

[xander]

Okay, so recently I've been going to this Christian youth group thing after school on Thursdays because one day my I was walking around after school with my friend and one of her other friends dragged her to it, and I kind of got dragged into coming too. Don't get me wrong, I'm Catholic ( I know! ) but I just tend to stay away from stuff like that because Catholics DO tend to push their beliefs in your face (yeah, I'm Catholic and I hate when other Catholics do that).

 

Anyway, so Day of Silence was Wednesday the 18th. For those of you who don't know, my friend Jacob and I organized the first Day of Silence event at my school and it was a great turn out...we got like 35 people in a school of mostly right-wingers. But anyway, we expected prejudice and hatrid, but it was way worse than we had anticipated...don't worry, no one got hurt or anything...it was just stuff like people calling us fags or homos, and heck, like 25 or more of those 35 were straight friends of ours, and people automatically assumed that they were gay or lesbian if they were wearing a shirt for the day. One kid came up to one of my friends and said, "God hates gay people and so do I!" and then he screamed it out loud in the lunch room...do you think he got in trouble for it either? Psh...no big deal. But yeah, my close friends and I realized how big of a problem it is, and we're currently working on an effort to make the school a better place and more open-minded.

 

So the day after the Day of Silence was a Thursday, and I found myself at that youth group again. One of the youth group leaders (my age) asked us if there was anything we felt needed attention. I took a bold move (I'm talking in front of fellow Catholics and a young Pastor here, its bold) and brought up the Day of Silence. My friend Sarah who was also there didn't think it was a good idea, but I did anyway. So I go into a very deep, heart pouring speech about how terribly we were treated, how even strong-Catholics that were our friends (one was sitting right beside me) said derrogatory remarks at us or said something negative about gay people and then acted like nothing was wrong with it (and you know that they will just go to confession and think everythings all fine and dandy). So my little speech lasted for about 5 minutes and I brought it up because I was looking to discuss other peoples views on it and why that they thought it was okay to be a strong catholic and treat others as they wish to be treated, but apparently its okay to treat gay people like that. I get done, there was about a 5 second awkward pause, the Pastor looks at me and says "Okay..." and changes the subject, completely disreguarding me.

 

So I was pissed off. I put my heart into that, and he just disreguarded it and changed the subject. So I decided, screw it, I'm not going anymore. So yesterday during lunch, a few of us were talking, and one of the other leaders of it asked me if I was coming to it again after school. I'm like..."No..." and she asked why and I explained that I didn't really care for the Pastor at all because I wanted to go into a deep discussion about it and he just changed the subject and I didn't really care to go anymore. So I wasn't planning on going, but I had to finish a spanish test after school and I wanted to quick look something up but didnt have my book, so I borrowed one from someone who was going to that youth group. So I get done finishing my test and come to the library where they have the meeting to give him his book back and I didn't really want to stay, but they conned me with cookies so I stayed . Litterally two seconds after I sit down, the pastor says, "I have something I want to get off my chest.....last week, I felt really uncomfortable when we started talking about the Day of Silence. I don't know how many else of you felt it, but it felt like the temperature in here went up like 150 degrees."

 

So he gave his views on the whole "h-o-m-o-s-e-x-u-a-l-i-t-y" topic and I found it to be really ignorant based. You won't believe what he had the balls to say. He said that, *ahem* "Studies show that most 'homosexuals' have been raped or sexually molested as a child and that that could be the cause of their perversion, their twist, in attraction to the same sex."

 

What the hell is wrong with people! The audacity of him!! But wait, it doesn't end there. He even went to the point to compare someone "choosing" to be gay to the choice of being a pothead, made by one of his friends.

 

He then pulled a statistic out of his ass and said that in a lifetime, a straight person will have on average, a total of 70 sexual partners, and a gay person will have 700!!! I couldn't even comprehend having that many sexual partners! That would be like me having sex with everyone in the Junior and Senior class at my school! I haven't bothered to do research on that study, but my friend mentioned that she had heard that somewhere too. Okay, so say it does turn out to actually be that number. However, as sad as it is, in this country, you cannot always believe the studies made, because time after time again, the groups conducting the studies pick certain people or twist the experiments in a way that they get the result they want. Let me give you an example. Sugar. Kids like sugar. Sugar makes kids hyper, there's no doubt about it. Back when Redlin (ADHD drug) was huge, it was mentioned to help a child be less hyper-active, lessen their sugar intake because sugar makes them hyper, as we all know. The sugar companies weren't too happy with this. Would you if you were affiliated with the sugar companies? It was just stated that if you want to make your child less hyperactive, reduce their sugar intake. Uh-oh. People aren't going to be consuming as much sugar, we better do something quick. There was a study conducted whos results proved "that an increased sugar intake in a child does not affect behavior or hyperactivity." Oh, thank god. Our kids are safe. They can eat all the sugar they want because that's not doing any harm, they just must be destined to take Redlin until they're 16 or older. However, take a close look at the survey conducted, and you will see that the control group was fed a diet which included an extremely high amount of sugar! Adding more sugar to the test group is going to have little to no effect on a child that is already as hyper as hell and bouncing off the walls. So I'm curious whether or not the same techniques were used to gather this data. Who were these people that they surveyed? Could it be possible that they surveyed only gay prostitutes? A number of 700 sounds more fitting to a prostitute than anyone else I can think of, even the most horny, whorey of people..even Lorena . The same goes for the forestated ignorant comment about being raped or molested. Who did they ask? Is it not possible that they selected a group of gay people who happened to have been sexually abused as a child, or taken away from their parents or something along that lines? Because I don't know about you, but I was not raped or molested as a child, and I know two gay guys here that weren't. Two of my friends each have a gay uncle. They werent. My one friend's mom is a lesbian. She wasn't. So the odds arent exactly equalling the study based on the people I know, even if that is only a few.

 

So what do you guys think about this whole ordeal. I mean, I knew it was a problem after the DOS and everything, but I can see where the hatred starts...I mean kids who go to groups like this typically look up to the person leading it, and if they have these kind of views (which is pretty much a given with most church groups), no wonder its so bad. Post your comments/opinions on this, I want to here them.

 

Ronnie

[Drewbie]

Not much to say, but lets just say I've been a non practicing catholic since 8th grade, I've been very happy.

[Demetz]

The Day of Silence at USF coincided with a day when crazy christian fundamentalists were protesting the existence of gays (among other undesirables). Our day of silence event involved t-shirts with the slogan "sometime you have to be silent to be hears," little flyers explaining what the day of silence is, and a hate wall, on which people could write various things they'd been called to be symbolically torn down at a breaking the silence rally later in the day.

 

Twice our people had to get the cops to intervene when the christian protestors were harrassing us. After the first time the police said if they started harassing us again they would be removed from campus, when called in the second time, the protestors told the police they were about to leave anyway. Two hours later they were still there.

 

Two days ago they were out in force, carrying huge signs that said "Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve, Aids cures Gays" "Sodomites burn in hell" and various others. Had I not spent the past several days working constantly on my papers I might have lost it at seeing those and hearing their invective hate speech.

 

We discussed this at the last PRIDE meeting and it seems they intend to bring this issue directly to University President Judy Genshaft, but I'm hesitant to expect her to actually do anything. University police certainly haven't done anything.

 

And please, before someone initiates a lecture about the freedom of speech, I'm very familiar with the concept and believe it to be a generally good idea, but were it in my power to edit the constitution I would do so such that among our freedoms in this country existed also the freedom from unsolicited, unwanted proselytizing. Its already been established that freedom of speech is not absolute, that it does not give people the right to incite violence nor to conspire to various crimes, I'd like to see an additional limit such that blatant hate speech be likewise unprotected by the constitution.

[tesIII]

sounds to me like an altogether worthwhile effort on your part. maybe even an opportunity to do some real good by sticking with it.

the philosophy of the day of silence is some wonderful stuff. somehow I always find myself in communities and cultures where it wouldn't mean anything but silly activism because there really is no problem. both high school and college are like that. but you and your thirtysome friends, like the peaceful sit in protesters of the 60s and 70s, raised consciousness to something many of the kids and adults at your school don't want to think about. their responses indicated tension (from which they felt the need to defend themselves), and your action made them more susceptible to education and attitude changes when they encounter things they never thought they would later in life. hopefully...

 

and as for the catholic guy, his figure is based on some partially-scientific, outdated research, but, sadly, it is an exaggerated version of the truth. there is some sociological reality in the fact that gay culture is (for perfectly logical reasons) more sexually libertine than straight culture. Those gay men who would admit to it on a survey in the 80s or whenever were probably the most involved in more radical corners of gay culture, and they were indeed much more likely to have more partners (though 700 is more of a crazy maximum than an "average." PLEASE!) The way I would respond to the youth minister's argument is not "your fact is bullshit" but rather "your fact is shaky, and you can help change the trend it reflects." gay people can't choose or change, and if they felt more welcome in your church, they would hear your more important messages about sexual morality. the liberal philosophy on sexual orientation is plainly better than the conservative one, which states that it is unnatural and wrong, groundlessly and damningly. but the conservative and liberal philosophies on the meaning of sex are equally valuable and either choice of philosophy can be very beneficial in someone's life. the liberal philosophy is that sex is an act of pleasure and there is no crime in promiscuity or anonymous sex, and the conservative one, championed by the church, is that sex is an act of love and vulnerability, so monogamy is sacred. instead of using that (crummy) figure as proof of gay wickedness, why shouldn't the church see it as a challenge to spread its viewpoint on the meaning of sex, thus making the figure more desirable?

[Lugh]

ok...

 

I'm going to help put that 700 thing into perspective for you:

 

In HS many (NOT ALL) teenagers have more than one sexual encounter (meaning more than one person, not multiple encounters with the same person). Lets say that number is 4. Gay teenagers have fewer unless they are out and even then... so lets say 2.

 

NOW... Johnney Queer goes off to college... all bets are off.. and he does not care who knows he is gay!

 

If he looks he can find a gay club and pick up someone (or be picked up) he finds sex to be a recreational activity (not unlike his straight friends) and every weekend is out at the club. Lets say he picks up / is picked up one night out of each weekend for a semester... that is 16 encounters. Eight semesters in 4 years of college... 128 different sexual partners not counting summers!!!!!. Most young men carry on this behavior until they are ready to settle down... say 5 or more years AFTER college... say they get "lucky" every other weekend that is 130 more partners.... Johnney Queer isn't even 30 yet!!!! at he's had 260 partners....

 

That's how you get to 700.

 

 

As for the other stuff... (religion)... blah.

[Bondwriter]

(...)Those gay men who would admit to it on a survey in the 80s or whenever were probably the most involved in more radical corners of gay culture, and they were indeed much more likely to have more partners (though 700 is more of a crazy maximum than an "average." PLEASE!) The way I would respond to the youth minister's argument is not "your fact is bullshit" but rather "your fact is shaky, and you can help change the trend it reflects." gay people can't choose or change, and if they felt more welcome in your church, they would hear your more important messages about sexual morality. (...)

Wisely said. And this "study" (but it's likely to be total BS anyway) must have been done by interviewing ten people in gay clubs in San Francisco in the late 70s. If you look at the maths, as Lugh does, it starts being obvious such a figure is ludicrous at best. And 70 partners for an heterosexual? That's 69 too many, since the Catholic doctrine still doesn't allow sex before marriage, divorce and adultery. So are gay people ten times more sinful than an "average" heterosexual who's 69 times more sinful than a righteous, pious Catholic guy?

 

You might try to get your point across to this pastor in a one-to-one meeting in which he won't have to "keep face in front of kids", or in writing if you deem him able to consider your POV. This would be a nice lesson in tolerance; from my experience, though most Catholic priests I got to meet in this type of settings were not too bad, I remember a couple who were so stuck up in their prejudice and misconceptions that I soon learned discussion was impossible.

[NickolasJames8]

You ought to ask the pastor how many heterosexuals he knows who've had 70 different partners.

[Graeme]

As I side point, I remember talking to a young man in England once who claimed to have had 100 different sexual partners -- and he was straight and in his very early twenties. Some of that may be boastful exaggeration, but there are definitely straight guys who are very promiscuous.

 

My main concern with any sort of research on homosexuality is that they are unlikely to get a representative sample, simply because there is still a large percentage of homosexuals that won't tell anyone that they are gay. This means that they are automatically excluded from any research and hence distorts the results of that research.

 

It's like the old cartoon of someone doing research on voter intentions outside a G.O.P or Democratic convention -- it's not going to give accurate results.

 

As for the rest, I don't think the circumstances make it worthwhile trying to argue with the pastor. If you want to take action, I would assemble a small paper on the subject, with detailed creditable references, and drop it off to him, with a note that says you want to correct the mistakes and misunderstandings in his talk from the other week.

[JamesSavik]

Xander-

 

After the American Psychology Association and the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM as a disorder in 1973, the big Churches created their own "scientific" bodies to justify their discriminatory policies toward GLBT people.

 

All of the big Christian Churches created and funded a proxy organization that it could use to create anti-gay propaganda and act as "experts" on the subject of homosexuality for the media, talk shows and other interested parties.

 

The Catholic Church formed a pseudo-scientific organization called NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality). In the early eighties, NARTH recruited a University of Nebraska psychologist/researcher named Paul Cameron. They funded his own organization, Family Research Institute. As the organizations director, Cameron was immune from problems with the University which disassociated itself from his activities.

 

Over the next few years, Cameron published a number of papers which make the case for some of the worst anti-gay propaganda that the churches and Ex-gay organizations use today. Among these are: people become gay though childhood sexual abuse, gays have outrageous numbers of sexual partners, gays have short lifespans, have numerous psychological problems, are a serious danger to molest children.

 

Cameron's research was worthless. Most of his work was based on hear-say and secondary sources. Where Cameron actually did primary research, it was with prison inmates self-identified as homosexual (which were primarily drug addict prostitutes and sex offenders).

 

Cameron's research and methods were so bad that the APA expelled him and other scientific organizations have condemned his activities and conclusions. Paul Cameron's work is the worst sort of scientific prostitution which starts with a premise and then finds the necessary evidence whether it exists or not.

 

Although Cameron's lies and distortions have been refuted time after time, you still hear them quoted by a number of church sources which don't believe in science or objective truth in any case.

[tesIII]

Yeah, go with Graeme or Bondwriter's format if you intend to follow it up. I meant argue figuratively not literally. A private meeting or letter would be more appropriate.

 

Bondwriter, your sin math is off. Leave it to us experienced Catholics. <heh> A heterosexual with 70 partners is actually infinitely more sinful than a righteous Catholic, because the Catholic has committed zero sins and the 70-partnered heterosexual either 69 or 70, depending on whether he/she married one of them. 69/0 and 70/0 are both infinity. The 700-partnered homosexual is also infinitely more sinful than the Catholic, but is also more sinful than the heterosexual, don't even ask me why, it's complicated ma-th-eology.

But good news. All sins are absolved anyway if you just go to confessional a few times before you die and do/believe everything the Church says. So you're good to go.

[Drewbie]

Sighs is a recovering catholic Haven't been in a long time. So many things from ccd, Some of thinking with this type of stuff.. eh dunno anymore.

[Raro]

Hey,

 

Three things I wanted to mention:

 

There's a relatively standard evolutionary psychology argument for why gay men typically have more partners than other people (not that I'm recommending arguing evolution with a conservative South-Dakotan). Both men and women are under evolutionary pressure to try to have as many children as possible. For men this means having sex with as many different women as possible; for women this means waiting until one finds a good partner, then trying to get him to impregnate you, and further hang around long enough to possibly help protect the child. So there's a fundamental pressure on men to switch partners frequently, and on women to aim for more selective long term relationships. In the modern hetero dating scene these two forces balance each other out, but in the gay male dating scene both sides are under pressure to switch partners frequently. End of story -- nothing particularly different about the sexual inclinations of gay or straight men, just no counterbalancing influence of women in one case.

 

The second thing that's perhaps relevant to the discussion is the Catholic philosophy about sex. The Catholic church is an ancient organization with deep philosophical roots, and behind all the modern media-oriented rhetoric lie principles that haven't changed in a thousand years. As I understand it the purpose of sex in the Catholic worldview is to reproduce. "Go forth and multiply" is viewed as one of the fundamental commands of the Bible, and God sweetened the deal by making it enjoyable. So, in some sense, God orders us to do certain work but pays us for doing it with pleasure. Catholics take a dim view of those who take the payoff but refuse the work of child-bearing: maturbation, contraception, homosexuality all fall into this category. When your Pastor cites anti-Gay rhetoric, this argument is most likely what he has at the back of his mind.

 

How can you be a good Catholic and gay? I don't know, I'm not Catholic. But the fundamental issues that arise for you may not be so different than those for heterosexual teenagers: masturbation and contraception are quite popular, even among young Catholics I'll bet.

 

As a third and final point, I'd be careful getting yourself into a head-on debate with a pastor. As a trained member of the church he's been carefully schooled in how to be persuasive, how to lead others' hearts and minds with his voice alone. To quote an ancient Chinese text: "Kings and dukes always lord it over others and fight to win the argument. You will find your eyes growing dazed, your color changing, your mouth working to invent excuses, your attitude becoming more and more humble, until in your mind you end by supporting him." This is a good thing for the church, a bad thing for someone in your position. I'm not saying you shouldn't confront him. I am, however, warning you not to hope for too much. But if you go into a meeting knowing (1) that he'll never make you feel ashamed, and (2) that you're ready to leave at any time if there's no sign of progress, then I think it could be a good experience, hopefully for both of you.

 

Best of luck!

 

Raro

Edited April 29, 2007 by Raro

[Razor]

Xander-

 

After the American Psychology Association and the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM as a disorder in 1973, the big Churches created their own "scientific" bodies to justify their discriminatory policies toward GLBT people.

 

All of the big Christian Churches created and funded a proxy organization that it could use to create anti-gay propaganda and act as "experts" on the subject of homosexuality for the media, talk shows and other interested parties.

 

The Catholic Church formed a pseudo-scientific organization called NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality). In the early eighties, NARTH recruited a University of Nebraska psychologist/researcher named Paul Cameron. They funded his own organization, Family Research Institute. As the organizations director, Cameron was immune from problems with the University which disassociated itself from his activities.

 

Over the next few years, Cameron published a number of papers which make the case for some of the worst anti-gay propaganda that the churches and Ex-gay organizations use today. Among these are: people become gay though childhood sexual abuse, gays have outrageous numbers of sexual partners, gays have short lifespans, have numerous psychological problems, are a serious danger to molest children.

 

Cameron's research was worthless. Most of his work was based on hear-say and secondary sources. Where Cameron actually did primary research, it was with prison inmates self-identified as homosexual (which were primarily drug addict prostitutes and sex offenders).

 

Cameron's research and methods were so bad that the APA expelled him and other scientific organizations have condemned his activities and conclusions. Paul Cameron's work is the worst sort of scientific prostitution which starts with a premise and then finds the necessary evidence whether it exists or not.

 

Although Cameron's lies and distortions have been refuted time after time, you still hear them quoted by a number of church sources which don't believe in science or objective truth in any case.

 

James has a very good point here. When asked about this subject, the youth director at Exodus, Int. replied that the APA was "heavily controlled and influenced by gays and lesbians". They work to discredit the real scientific organizations in order to make their religious convictions not lies.

 

In order to validate a lot of their very outragous claims, they reach back to the eighties and early nineties. Including these years in studies, especially studies in certain geographic locales, means they can come out with a very biased and lopsided result. Churches and Christians will always do this sort of thing. In order to stop it, I propose a very simple sociologic control mechanism that we have all experienced...

 

 

 

You know those times when you say something stupid that was quite thoughtless, and massive amounts of people immediately begin to chew you out for it? Well... hehe, it's like positive peer pressure. The more like minded people in one place there are, the more minds we change. It's all a matter of uniting and speaking out. That's why I'm always so rawr about closeted gays who don't say anything when someone's getting picked on or in situations like that. So... some of you guys come to MS. We're getting the bottom half of the state under control, just gotta queer up the north a bit... you know, make it inhabitable.

[AFriendlyFace]

Hi all

 

He then pulled a statistic out of his ass and said that in a lifetime, a straight person will have on average, a total of 70 sexual partners, and a gay person will have 700!!! ... Could it be possible that they surveyed only gay prostitutes?

Yep, there was one notable study conducted in the 1970s in which researchers interviewed Seattle prostitutes, drug addicts, and institutionalized gay people and found instances of some guys reporting more than 3,000 sexual partners. 700 may indeed be some kind of "average" from that number, or simply some number that's been adjusted in an attempt to make it more believable and counter-balance the initial subject pool (which it obviously still doesn't do). In any case, chances are the research does indeed come from a sampling of prostitutes, drug addicts, or the mentally ill.

 

ok...

 

I'm going to help put that 700 thing into perspective for you:

 

In HS many (NOT ALL) teenagers have more than one sexual encounter (meaning more than one person, not multiple encounters with the same person). Lets say that number is 4. Gay teenagers have fewer unless they are out and even then... so lets say 2.

 

NOW... Johnney Queer goes off to college... all bets are off.. and he does not care who knows he is gay!

 

If he looks he can find a gay club and pick up someone (or be picked up) he finds sex to be a recreational activity (not unlike his straight friends) and every weekend is out at the club. Lets say he picks up / is picked up one night out of each weekend for a semester... that is 16 encounters. Eight semesters in 4 years of college... 128 different sexual partners not counting summers!!!!!. Most young men carry on this behavior until they are ready to settle down... say 5 or more years AFTER college... say they get "lucky" every other weekend that is 130 more partners.... Johnney Queer isn't even 30 yet!!!! at he's had 260 partners....

 

That's how you get to 700.

OKAY, sorry but I personally think that math just doesn't hold up! The key term to remember here is different partners. IMO, that may indeed be a perfectly legitimate way to estimate Johnny Queer's number of sexual encounters (though it still seems high to me unless he's at least periodically in a relationship), but I find it highly unlikely that he would be able to find 260 different partners by the time he's 30 unless finding new sexual partners was one of his main focuses in life (in which case he obviously wouldn't represent the average, modern queer).

 

First off, almost everyone who's "out" and "active" enough in the gay scene to be picking up that many partners is going to have at least a few relationships over that period of time. I know alot of gay people under 30 and the overwhelming majority have had at least one, "mostly monogamous" relationship (rather one or both parties ended up cheating, or even if it was an "open" relationship, it was at least monogamous to the point that the members wouldn't have been having sex with outside parties to the extent you described above). The few individuals in my age bracket that I do know of who haven't ever been involved in a gay relationship have all had comparatively very little gay sex/sexual encounters in general. So if Johnny Queer represents the average, modern day American queer, then he's not average unless he's involved in at least a couple of relationships by the time he's 30, and unless these relationships have at least briefly destracted him from his pursuit of anonymous sex.

 

Now let's pretend that Johnny Queer really is avoiding all romantic relationships and instead just having casual sex. Even in that scenario it seems pretty likely that if Johnny wants to have that much sex he's going to have to have a couple of "FBs" or at least occasionally go home with the same person more than once, in which case he is of course not finding that many different partners.

 

The inherent problem with all this reasoning is that Johnny Queer is constrained by the population in which he lives and the methods he chooses to find his tricks. Let's suppose he frequents gay clubs. I can tell you first hand that it's generally the same crowd the frequents the same clubs. Not completely of course, but generally and overall. I go out to a gay club about once a month, perhaps a little less (certainly less than Johnny Queer in the above example), yet I still see the same guys over and over. Sure I usually see mostly new ones, but chances are if I were there every weekend I'd see remarkably few fresh faces, and I live in one of the largest cities in the United States. Presumably Johnny Queer does not live in a city as large as the one I do. In which case he's likely to have many fewer gay clubs/bars, in which case there's likely to be even fewer fresh faces every weekend. Let's suppose Johnny is instead getting his tricks from visiting gay hook-up sites, or other local listings. Even in this case, that does readily facilitate anonymous sex, it's more or less the same core group of people that are always prowling (and again this would be even more true if the local area were even smaller and less densely populated).

 

We've also got to remember that if Johnny Queer is indeed a typical gay guy, then chances are several of the people who hit on him won't interest him, and at least some of the people he wants to have sex with won't be interested.

[rknapp]

Yeah, go with Graeme or Bondwriter's format if you intend to follow it up. I meant argue figuratively not literally. A private meeting or letter would be more appropriate.

 

Bondwriter, your sin math is off. Leave it to us experienced Catholics. <heh> A heterosexual with 70 partners is actually infinitely more sinful than a righteous Catholic, because the Catholic has committed zero sins and the 70-partnered heterosexual either 69 or 70, depending on whether he/she married one of them. 69/0 and 70/0 are both infinity. The 700-partnered homosexual is also infinitely more sinful than the Catholic, but is also more sinful than the heterosexual, don't even ask me why, it's complicated ma-th-eology.

But good news. All sins are absolved anyway if you just go to confessional a few times before you die and do/believe everything the Church says. So you're good to go.

 

Uh, no. That "infinately sinful" math would never hold water. Actually, that math means that a a heterosexual with 69 or 70 partners is imaginary in his or her sinfulness... since 69/0 and 70/0 are both imaginary numbers. You cannot divide any number by zero, as it will become an imaginary number!

 

Sorry, had to be a math geek for a second there

[Andy]

Uh, no. That "infinately sinful" math would never hold water. Actually, that math means that a a heterosexual with 69 or 70 partners is imaginary in his or her sinfulness... since 69/0 and 70/0 are both imaginary numbers. You cannot divide any number by zero, as it will become an imaginary number!

 

Sorry, had to be a math geek for a second there

 

 

Um.. umm... No.

 

They would not become I (the imaginary number used on maths) because I is the square root of minus 1.

 

They technically become infinity (which while it is technically imaginary (in that it cannot truely be defined), isn't the imaginary number) dividing closer and closer to zero trends towards infinity. (Zero is the asymptote of the function f(x)=1/x)..

 

*drops out of maths geek mode*