If I may get a little philosophical, there is evidence that the structure of all physical reality is wave-like. It oscillates. I think we can ride the wave to its source. That’s kind of what I feel like we’re doing here, you know, the handful of people who are drawn to this subject of hate, not out of hate, but out of a sincere wish to make things better. It’s not a beeline, but we’re getting somewhere. Sometimes I get disappointed, really. But I think we are getting somewhere, making a difference by concentrating our minds on the problem. That in itself represents a kind of wave or current. It may not seem like each comment does much, but together, they do influence minds and action.

Here’s to a world without hate…

He seems unusually obsessed with homosexual acts…a lot of gay-bashers are, to an absurd length. One wonders where they have learned their expertise in the subject…..

Thank you, though, for covering for a terrible little old lady all this time. I appreciate it.

Nope, I wasn’t referring to Deep Ecology. Rey picked up my reference immediately. As I wish to take his advice in not invoking him any further, I suggest you attempt to discern the identity from the previous comment.

You’re not talking about Deep Ecology, are you? I’m sure that ruddy-faced little sophist is happily sipping schnapps and playing the althorn with his bruder somewhere. Thank goodness, far from here.

I once made a small contribution to an article published by an Oxford University law journal…the process was very rigorous. Reputable magazines, such as Atlantic Monthly, require authors to verify sources for each and every sentence before publication, and usually there is an editor who fact checks. Editors can’t recruit good authors if they have a bad reputation, nor do they gravitate to the better publications. Who wants to be put in the same basket as a bonehead?

It seems the further one goes into esoteric subjects, the thinner the author pool. Thus, you may have biased professors trying to sell their crazy to obscure journal editors who agree politically with the conclusion…either without much academic merit. It takes a fair amount of reading to know which journals have credibility and which don’t. The test of merit isn’t whether we agree, it’s whether the journal has gravitas. And we only know that if each and every article is watertight.

Nobody ever said that even in a first rate journal that you have to agree with any particular findings. It is perfectly valid to question the legitmacy of an article of journal you don’t agree with and it happens all the time. I disagree with Dan Zabetakis and Tom in this regard. Reactionary intolerance is distinct from informed dissent.

Academic research best follows a mode of inquiry that others can recognize, refer to, expand upon … or debunk. Thus a full body of research is required for intellectual enquiry, not a single article. Who is carrying forward these findings? Cameron’s voice in the wilderness is an insignificant footnote to bigotry, at best.

And Jan, how in the world does asking someone to teach them how to sew curtains equal loving for attention? Knowing how to sew is a useful skill and sewing curtains generally takes place in private.

And did you know that many heterosexuals also love attention? Have you ever watched so called “reality” television where what are presumably otherwise sane heterosexual women do degrading tasks in skimpy clothes* solely for a chance to be on television? How about gone to a straight bar? How about gone to a beach?

* Obviously men also degrade themselves on reality television but they are not universally required to exploit their bodies while doing so. See also those news tarts on Fox News, Haw Haw!

I won’t utter his name, but I think we all know to whom I’m referring.

a) distract attention from their own sexuality
b) try to kill the closet gay within them.

Gay-bashers are obsessed with and fascinated by gay sex practices, which makes me wonder why they are so obsessed with and fascinated by something they think is so repulsive. How do they know so much? If they’re not bothering you, who cares?

Roy Cohn and J. Edgar Hoover are the archetypes of this kind of person, but there are others. I vividly remember the chief gay-basher in my middle school 35 years ago, leading a little group of like-minded bullies in attacking all gays, real and imaginary. Two years later, I saw him in front of the gay church in my neighborhood. He recognized me and called me over.

He was going into the church’s service that evening, having discovered his “true self.” I realized why he battered suspected gays so much…and I had never seen him with a girl.

freedom of speech does not mean that you have the right to have someone publish you.

freedom os speech also does not mean that just because someone is published in a seemingly “creditible” source that they are beyond criticism.

and anyone who gives too much credence to the fact that something is in a peer reviewed journal just remember that some of the most prestigious medical journals around published tobacco industry sponsored research questioning the dangers of smoking well into the 1980s. some very prestigous scientists attached to very prestigious medical schools were on the tobacco industry payroll solely to call into question the danger of smoking.

That also goes on with teh pharmaceutical industry, the oil industry and global warming denial. The scam that the tobacco industry perfected is you fund a ton of research – then publish that which supports your side and burn what doesn’t.

Scholarly journals are not above political manipulation – especially if operated by someone with an agenda.

if you really believe that “free speech” means that someone has to publish what you are saying, go to your local television station and ask to be put on the air (for free so leave infomercials out of this) for a half hour to talk about a subject of your choice – especially if that subject is something (and repreesnts an opinion) that the large corproation doesn’t want to appear..

Especially in cases where a field is relatively new and expanding, some “out there” articles may be published because we are still finding our way around the block and creating some of the core literature that later professionals (or scholars) will examine, expand upon, debunk, etc.

In this case, however, it seems a stretch that this article, which flies in the face of accepted research, would be up to snuff for most journals. One would hope that the vast majority of readers will look at Cameron’s work and realize that it is highly dubious.

I do find it interesting how the “science” and “facts” challenged Far Right is so anxious to embrace “science” or other faux “scholarship” when it suits their purposes and defend it vigorously on the basis of its science or scholarship.