Merriam-Webster - “Sexual Preference” is an offensive term

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You and me are hardwired for our left hands to to work better. Call it a preference call it an orientation or just call us lefties we have no choice. Yes we can train to make our right hand work better, that does not make us righties or ambidextrous. One can be straight and learn to orgasm from another male. There are endless prisoner jokes about that. That does not make you a homosexual. While you might enjoy the experience that does not mean you are going to find the dude “hot” unless there is something latent.

But what about hating vanilla and learning to like it? Does that not mean taste is purely a choice? No, it means some sort of latent hardwiring for vanilla was already there.


So was “queer” oh how it was the slur, now it is a pride thing with people.

With my analogies I like to think of vanilla as sort of agender. It is sort of bland, but sometimes it can be nice if you want neither extreme.




Oh, I am not a leftie. But you got a little closer with the rest of the paragraph.

Yes

But dictionaries change.

So it would be correct in the past to put 'offensive' next to 'queer' in the dictionary. Today, it would be more debatable.

If people start using preference as a term of pride then it will be correct to make it more debatable.

If no bigots use 'queer' anymore in the future, the dictionary ought to update itself so it stops including 'offensive' next to it.

I find it hard to imagine a world where sexual preference wasn't seen as an offensive term though. Or just inaccurate. Cos as much as it's true for bisexual/pansexual etc people, it's not just a preference when it comes to gay people.

The job of an up to date, basic (non etymological) dictionary is to reflect how language is currently used.

I find the focus on the dictionary slightly silly... but I can definitely see why Amy Coney Barrett's choice of words raised some flags...

First of all, it is very common for the Christian Right in the US to speak of homosexuality as a preference, not an orientation. The term "homosexual lifestyle" has often been used, as they want to uphold their scriptural conviction that homosexuality is a sin, and thus not innate. I suspect this is also an attempt to bypass the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment, as it is difficult to argue that an innate trait (not a preference) is not protected by this amendment.

And Amy Coney Barrett has even herself suggested that her religious views may jeopardize her ability to be an impartial judge, as per my post in a previous thread:

So there is really very little reason to suspect that she would set her religious anti-LGBT convictions aside when deciding cases before the Supreme Court.

Second of all, there may be - if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed (which is almost certain by now) - a majority in SCOTUS in favour of overturning the right to gay marriage in the US:

Here is a 17 year recap (sorry for the longwindednessizationity):

The US Supreme Court has handed down two landmark opinions on LGBT rights recently (2013 and 2015):

- United States vs. Windsor (5-4) - Federal recognition of gay marriage under the 5th amendment
- Obergefell vs. Hodges (5-4) - Gay marriage protected by 5th and 14th amendment

Here the dissenters (in both cases) were: Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas (the latter two also dissented in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, which fully legalized homosexuality in the US).

Since then Scalia has died (replaced by Gorsuch), Kennedy has retired (replaced by Kavanaugh) and Ginsburg has also died (likely to be replaced by Barrett).

However, Gorsuch authored Bosten v. Clayton County (6-3), which protected the rights of LGBT individuals. Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh dissented.

Earlier this month, Thomas (joined by Alito) have - again - spoken sharply against the Obergefell decision, so there is little reason to suspect that they have changed their mind in the intervening 5 years:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/05/poli ... index.html

Now, Barrett has literally stated that Scalia's judicial philosophy is hers too (at the September 26 event at the White House), so it is quite likely that she would view gay marriage as he did.

So with Barrett's confirmation that makes it 5 justices (a majority even *without* Gorsuch) who may want to overturn Windsor and Obergefell:
Barrett, Roberts, Alito, Kavanaugh and Thomas.

It is perhaps no surprise, then, that there is now significant pressure on Joe Biden and the Democratic Party to expand ("pack") The Supreme Court with 2 additional justices if he wins the election.

I lived in one or more accurately part of one for a large part of my life. Come to think of it up until I was a well into adulthood I do not recall anybody using "sexual preference" at all.

I am finding it hard to imagine living in a part of the world where "sexual preference" is not a neutral descriptor and only a neutral descriptor.

Since I am trying to get up to date here is saying "ASPartOfMe plays for both teams" offensive nowadays?

As far as Barrett her use of "sexual preference" is not suggestive she will rule as a homophobe, it is her history and organizations that she has belonged to that suggests that. SCOTUS judges often surprise so we shall see.

Did they say sexual orientation though?

Because for eg saying 'coloured person' is offensive but less offensive than saying the n word.

So they might have been saying homosexual lifestyle etc which would be worse.

To me it's simple...

If you're straight/gay, you're orientated towards sexuality and it cannot be changed. You might drift (lesbian/straight guy perspective...) from liking blondes to brunettes but you're not suddenly going to like blokes.

If you're bi, it really is a sexual preference. But your orientation is bi.

If you're allergic to ice cream, you can't train yourself to like ice cream.

If you like chocolate ice cream, you can train yourself to prefer vanilla ice cream unless you're allergic to vanilla of course...

It would have been my “choice” to dig women, anyway

What gender you’re turned on by is almost purely biological, though.

I am fortunate that I have known what gender I dig since I started talking.

"Choice" is a matter of semantics.

I don't choose to be straight but I can say I chose to get married and have kids. But I didn't choose my biological clock to tick. I don't think people choose to not be into kids and being a parent, sure they can still "choose" to have kids but I don't think they would be happy people as parents.

People can choose to be single or be in a relationship but would they really be happy if they didn't really want one but forced themselves to?

So if "Sexual Orientation" is an immutable trait and not a choice, could other things we argue about also be immutable traits such as being left or right leaning in their political views? Or could racism be a hard wired trait? If so what are the implications?

Actually, there seem to be measurable, hard-wired differences between people voting left or right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_a ... rientation
A tendency to prefer in-group to outsiders seems universal but only some societes divide people by visible traces of their ancestry.
Depending on your area of interest. Knowledge is a tool, now the question is - how do you want to use it?
Make a fertilizer or a gas chamber? Produce electricity or destroy cities?
Everyone chooses for themself.

It does not make sense to claim that "left" or "right" leaning political views are innate, as the concept of a political left and right wasn't invented until the late 18th century. And many of the current political divisions (capitalist/communist, conservative/liberal etc.) are even more recent 19th-20th century inventions.

In comparison, humans have been around in about 200,000 years in our modern form.

These categorizations of political beliefs are also (unlike sexual orientation) largely specific to one cultural domain (The West), which in turn suggests that they are not innate traits.

It is an interesting - yet controversial - question, though, if political views more generally (to a lesser or greater extent) can be explained by innate (and thus biological) traits.

Based on the research I linked above, it seems two different, and likely hardwired, cognitive styles are corelated to political alignments.
Probably a tragedy of our times is that people with these cognitive styles view each other as enemies instead of applying both cognitive styles for the collective sake of a richer toolbox.

I have always thought some people are more prone to being racist than others. For example, I was picked on a lot as a kid, lot of them were white but few of them were also black and had given me a hard time, not once had it occurred to me to think "bullying=/=being black trait" same as if I had another rough experience with a kid of color but I also have troubles with another white child too. But it never occurred to me to just assume people of color were bad.

All humans are capable of prejudice but I think we all do it differently and some will just do it with skin color or background, etc.

Stereotypes about people of color, Jewish people, etc. have always went over my head so I never noticed any stereotypes.

See Magz Response

Interesting. I think what I'm getting at is that there is a school of thought that we are hardwired to go about our lives in a certain way. Kinda like a program that we are each acting out. This is distasteful to our modern sensibilities of having free agency, but is a theory that is out there.

This is the one time in history that the Dictionary changes as soon as the word became offensive! LOL!!