[aldo_14]

This caught my eye for one reason;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4895012.stm

[q]
n the course of filming, Chris is diagnosed HIV positive and in an on-camera interview tells his story.

Chris came out as gay to his parents 14 years ago and was told he would be dead in the eyes of God and the Jehovah's Witness community if he embraced his homosexuality.

Chris chose to leave home and live as a gay man.

Though he engaged in a great deal of unprotected sex for years and welcomes the "inevitable" arrival of the virus, he says he is not a bug chaser.

"I wasn't scared of the consequences of getting HIV," he says. "But by accepting it, I'm going to take the sting out of its tail."
[/q]

I wonder.... is this a consequence of intolerance?

[Flipside]

With enough vicious bastards telling you 'you deserve to die for being gay', it's not really all that surprising, unfortunate, yes, surprising no.

[Ford Prefect]

Indeed. He was condemned as a person by his own parents and left his home as a result. That's certainly not a path to emotional well-being, and actively seeking self-harm is a common symptom of conditions like depression.

[SadisticSid]

I know a few people who've been in the same situation, though none, thankfully, with HIV - but all of them became much stronger and independent because of that. Abandonment manifests itself in different ways, and although I think it'll always leave emotional scars, it can be the fork in the road that leads to riches or ruin.

Something I've wondered for a while is whether modern society has reached its peak in terms of tolerance. Will we ever get any further in general towards accepting people, whatever form they take?

[an0n]

Yes.

It's inevitable. And it will be followed swiftly by the demise of civlization.

[IceFire]

Its a strange concept but if homosexuality is a genetic trait (and there is some evidence to support this evidently) then the more accepted it is the less likely it is to prevail.  Keeping it "in the closet" so to speak has only allowed the gene (if this is true) to be carried through the generations.  Its an odd thing.

To be honest, with all of the debate back and forth here in Canada over marriage and all of that sort of thing I haven't decided exactly where I stand.  In some ways its a bit unusual to me...but in other ways I don't feel that upholding a double standard is necessarily the right way either...or at least expressing intolerance.  This is the country of tolerance as much as we try for it to be (we're still not very good at it).   Like I said...its a strange thing.  In terms of peoples private lives...you can do whatever you want to do.  I know and am confident in the way that I swing and I imagine its not a bad thing if those people are confident in the other direction.

As for HIV chasing...strange...although they have found some people now that are immune to the disease and apparently HIV is becoming less lethal to humans as it slowly adapts to our physiology.  I'm interested in seeing how they find a cure because its been explained to me that a solution to HIV would likely lead to a solution to curing the common cold as the two are similar in the fact that they mutate quickly thus being difficult to protect against.

[Carl]

As i understand it, the gene makes it more likely that you'll be homosexual, but some who have it are not homosexual, and there are some people who are homosexual and do not have the gene. i guess it's sort of like the alchoholic gene in that way.

[Bobboau]

yes, but in biology statistics are god, if there is a gene that increases a tendancy for something, in the large scale, you might as well say it causes it as if everyone who has it will develop the trait.

[an0n]

Yeah, like cancer.

Oh, wait....

[aldo_14]

Its a strange concept but if homosexuality is a genetic trait (and there is some evidence to support this evidently) then the more accepted it is the less likely it is to prevail.  Keeping it "in the closet" so to speak has only allowed the gene (if this is true) to be carried through the generations.  Its an odd thing.

Albeit the procreational urge is not necessarily related to that  driving the perception of physical attractiveness; there's quite a bit of evidence that sex as an act is part of assessing mate fitness prior to procreation.

[IceFire]

Its a strange concept but if homosexuality is a genetic trait (and there is some evidence to support this evidently) then the more accepted it is the less likely it is to prevail.  Keeping it "in the closet" so to speak has only allowed the gene (if this is true) to be carried through the generations.  Its an odd thing.

Interesting.  I had never read that before...although it does make sense.

Albeit the procreational urge is not necessarily related to that  driving the perception of physical attractiveness; there's quite a bit of evidence that sex as an act is part of assessing mate fitness prior to procreation.

[aldo_14]

?