If encouraging gays to marry actually has the effect of lowering reckless behavior, why would you say the rate of STDs among men having sex with men actually went up following the landmark 2015 Supreme Court decision that allowed gay marriage? That evidence does not follow from your premise.But if gay people were encouraged more to get married and be in monogamous relationships, then this would be less of a problem. Some people think that gay people don’t experience discrimination any more, including from their own families, but they do, more so in some parts of the country than others. That has an impact on self esteem and makes people more likely to engage in reckless behavior.
It is an attempt to make gender itself into a cultural construct.It is an attempt to erase any type of legitimate gender.
Three years isn’t enough time to have much evidence of anything and the percentage of gay men who are married is still quite small.I realize that epidemiology is rarely that simple. I was pointing out the objection @Thorolfr was trying to make doesn’t fit the evidence, but quite the opposite. (I’m assuming you don’t need a citation that the Supreme Court decision was in mid-2015, which was over 3 years ago.)
That’s what happened to gay men my whole life. When someone is gay and doesn’t conform to heterosexual expectations, it can be challenging emotionally, especially when they’re only 13 or 14 and their classmates start calling them a “f*g” or something like that because they don’t seem masculine enough and aren’t good at sports. And when they go to church, the pastor says that people like them are an abomination or the priest says that their inclinations are “disordered”. And family members, not knowing that they’re gay, tell homophobic jokes or say demeaning things about gay people.Honestly, I feel sorry for anyone with as much anxiety about their sex as the people I see today. It is hard to feel you don’t “conform” to expectations, and I can understand how that could be emotionally debilitating.
If people made their judgments about homosexuality using STD statistics from lesbians, they’d have to conclude that homosexuality is a good thing and is superior to being straight.Homosexual men are at the most risk, then heterosexual men and women, and homosexual women are at the least risk. So it’s really more of a ‘men’ thing than a same-sex thing. But @edwest, if you’ve got a source showing a significant spike in STDs in the last 3 years I would be very interested.
I remember our sons relaying that kind of talk, and telling them, “How would you feel if that were you?”That’s what happened to gay men my whole life. When someone is gay and doesn’t conform to heterosexual expectations, it can be challenging emotionally, especially when they’re only 13 or 14 and their classmates start calling them a “f*g” or something like that because they don’t seem masculine enough and aren’t good at sports. And when they go to church, the pastor says that people like them are an abomination or the priest says that their inclinations are “disordered”. And family members, not knowing that they’re gay, tell homophobic jokes or say demeaning things about gay people.
I’m not really seeing an argument against gay marriage here. If anything I would want to encourage more monogamy.More than two million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were reported in the United States in 2016, the highest number ever, according to the annual Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The majority of these new diagnoses (1.6 million) were cases of chlamydia. There were also 470,000 gonorrhea cases and almost 28,000 cases of primary and secondary syphilis – the most infectious stages of the disease. While all three of these STDs can be cured with antibiotics, if left undiagnosed and untreated, they can have serious health consequences, including infertility, life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth in infants, and increased risk for HIV transmission.
Epidemic accelerating in multiple populations—impact growing in women, infants, and gay and bisexual men
While young women continue to bear the greatest burden of chlamydia (nearly half of all diagnosed infections), surges in syphilis and gonorrhea are increasingly affecting new populations.
Syphilis rates increased by nearly 18 percent overall from 2015 to 2016. The majority of these cases occur among men – especially gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM). However, there was a 36 percent increase in rates of syphilis among women and a 28 percent increase in syphilis among newborns (congenital syphilis) during this period.
More than 600 cases of congenital syphilis were reported in 2016, which has resulted in more than 40 deaths and severe health complications among newborns. The disease is preventable through routine screening and timely treatment for syphilis among pregnant women.
“Every baby born with syphilis represents a tragic systems failure,” said Gail Bolan, director of CDC’s Division of STD Prevention. “All it takes is a simple STD test and antibiotic treatment to prevent this enormous heartache and help assure a healthy start for the next generation of Americans.”
While gonorrhea increased among men and women in 2016, the steepest increases were seen among men (22 percent). Research suggests that a large share of new gonorrhea cases are occurring among MSM. These trends are particularly alarming in light of the growing threat of drug resistance to the last remaining recommended gonorrhea treatment.
MSM also bear a great syphilis burden. MSM make up a majority of syphilis cases, and half of MSM diagnosed with syphilis were also living with HIV – pointing to the need to integrate STD and HIV prevention and care services.