I recently discussed American foreign policy with an attorney over lunch. Over the years, this fellow had generally shown himself to be thoughtful on many issues. He is a meticulous lawyer, charged with parsing out bits of relevant evidence regarding the dozens of cases on which he works every day. It eventually became…
In an earlier post, I summarized an Elliot Aronson interview on the topic of cognitive dissonance. Because I find this to be such a critically compelling topic, I took the time to listen to a recent Point of Inquiry podcast featuring Dr. Carol Tavris, Aronson's co-author regarding Mistakes Were Made…
Senator Larry Craig’s defiant claim that he is “not gay” is an interesting one. He didn’t say “I don’t hang around in public restrooms where men commonly have sex with men.” He said he was not “gay.”
Is it possible for a man to have sex with other men but not be “gay”? I suspect that most people would claim that a man who has sex with other men is, by that very fact, “gay.” But is it that simple?
Scientist Alfred Kinsey argued that “heterosexuals” and “homosexuals” were both located on the same continuum running from “Exclusively heterosexual” to “Exclusively homosexual.” This continuum is represented in Kinsey’s scale of sexual orientation. He argued that society’s efforts to pigeonhole people into one type or the other was a political move. It was possible, according to Kinsey, that a man (or a woman) might be predominantly heterosexual, but only incidentally homosexual. Perhaps, this is what Senator Craig meant when he claimed that he was not “gay.” Perhaps he was honestly (and desperately) claiming that he liked sex with women as a rule, though he did the public restroom gig with other men on the side.
Senator Craig obviously feels the pain of the “gay” label a lot more than he feels the pain of being caught in a restroom where men commonly have sex with other men. Thus, his continued protests denying his alleged homosexuality. But maybe he’s protesting the “gay” label for yet another reason. Maybe he is honestly (and …
Freethinkers, in their attempts to cast light on culture’s many logical foibles, can lose focus. Like the more traditional naysayers, who bemoan our times while looking foggily to those good-old-days that never existed, liberal critical thinkers can come to a similarly deluded doom-and-gloom conclusion. Of course, the evidence used by…
What happens when you forget to mention something important to your spouse? When you are running late or distracted, for any number of reasons? Bills get paid late because you forgot to ask him to mail them, Johnny misses soccer practice because you forgot to tell Dad he needed to…