Oregon. I want to add to what WEB saifd above. When you are young, you are surrounded by the idea that homosexuality is not natural. Parents say it, fathers jok about gay men, in church you are taught it is a sin, at school you see boys who are a bit different being bullied. So you try and convince yourself you are not gay. You do not wantto dissapoint your folks, go to hell, and be beaten up every day do you? You want to fit into 'normal' society and be like everyone else. Only later do you realise it is a. impossible to be anyone but yourself, b. get the courage to be yourself and or c. get so depressed and sometimes suicisal since youare just not like everyone else.

To sa there is no more discrimination against gays is either very naive, or very uninformed. Yes, in the eyses of the law, there is no more discrimination (in my country anyway), but does this mean there is no more discrimination? In lawbooks thre is also no discrimination against blacks, does that mean there is no more racism in the US?

Gay people get discriminated against, beat up, made jokes about, called names and things like that all over the place every day. Here in my country, where gays can even marry, a girl was killed last year because she was a lesbian.

So under the pressure of society, combined with fear, and with added Christian guilt, you try and supress your homosexuality as long as you can.

AH

Ps. Can someone PLEASE tell me now, why does it matter wheter you are born or choose to be that gay?

__________________
“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”

If you ask me, it doesn’t at all.

__________________

Thank you Seer, some one that is willing to answer, and then have the good grace to agree with me!

AH

__________________
“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”

I'm not saying that there is no more discrimination to gays, I've never said that. What I'm saying is there is less, being picked on is not okay for a society to do, but it is closer to acceptance than lableing them as crazy.

That's my point, this shows that they are forced by society to change, meaning it's not genes. If it is genetic, you can hide from everyone for years, but it is always still there. There was the analogy earlier of dying hair to change it's color. It doesn't matter how much and how long you dye your hair, your genetics will still produce the same color hair (accept for when your hair turns grey, but you can't permenately change the color of your hair to whatever color you want).

i find this argument quite absurd. A question to anyone who thinks people choose to be gay. When did you choose to be straight ?

Well Oregon, i all honesty, I do not follow you. You say the fact that there are few younggays, proves that it is a choice, i counter by saying that that only proves that descrimination is still rife, and people of that age is afraid to come out, and then you agree. This means the fact that we don't know of all the youngergay people, thus proofs nothing.

AH

__________________
“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”

No, I'm saying that there are fewer older gays indicates that it is a choice. If it was genetic, we'd expect to see the same amount of gays in old people as young people, but the older people would be the first to come out because they have the least amount of preasure to stay straight (young people can have parents, work, spouse, and kids that they feel they would let down...older people would have less, kids have grown up and moved out, parents have passed away, might be retired).

Does anyone have a reason or a stress that would effect older people so much more than younger people to keep older gays in the closet?

What stats do you haveto say there are less older gays then traight ones? Because there are not that many old people ar Gay Pride/ I would guess it is not their thing.


So what leads you to say there are less older gays?

AH

__________________
“The subject no longer has to be mentioned by name. Someone is sick. Someone else is feeling better now. A friend has just gone back into the hospital. Another has died. The unspoken name, of course, is AIDS.”
“From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8, 000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.”

I don't have any sicentific studies, I just have my observations of the Gay Pride marches that occure every year hear in Portland and in Seattle, friends that hang out at well known gay bars, and other people that are gay that don't know of many older gay people. From my observations, I have tried to find out why these things appear so and I believe it is because there just aren't as many older gay people as younger gay people. If being gay was in the Genes, than this observation wouldn't make sense unless I am missing some factor.

not to put it crudely, but older people die. Considering their age the diseases like aids that were prevelant in gays in the 70's and 80's, of course there is going to be less older then young now.

__________________