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Gay Athletes and Homophobia | 62 comments (62 topical)

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AfI and Rampancy (none / 0) (#61)
by Gabriel Malor on Mon Feb 19, 2007 at 02:15:40 PM EST
Squeaky, you haven't provided a breakdown by industry to support your assertion that "most professional athletes" are gay, either.

At best, yours is an argument from ignorance, a logical fallacy whereby you assert your position simply because it hasn't been unproved. You haven't actually provided any reason to believe that most pro athletes are gay, you just want to believe that because...well...just because.

On the other hand, Jim (and I) suggest that there is no reason to believe that pro athletes have any more likelihood of homosexuality than the general population. I went a little bit further and mentioned that studies lead us to believe that homosexuality occurs in somewhere between 1 and 10  percent of the population. I also noted that studies like this are difficult, thus the wide range of findings.

Also, describing homosexuality as rampant is inaccurate because studies, to the extent that they can show us, show otherwise (taking "rampant" to mean "profusely widespread" and we have no reason to believe that it occurs in anything but a fraction of the general population. In any case, even if it were the case that homosexuality were "rampant," this doesn't help your argument that most pro athletes are gay.

[ Parent ]

Gayness test? (none / 0) (#62)
by squeaky on Tue Feb 20, 2007 at 05:29:30 PM EST
Squeaky, you haven't provided a breakdown by industry to support your assertion that "most professional athletes" are gay, either.

Hardly an assertion, I said:

I always thought that most professional athletes were gay. But then again, what do I know.
Maybe it is just taboo to utter it.

Then I said:

Most gay people don't look gay. and are very private about their sexual preference.  Same with straight people. Hetero marriage is no clue either.
So I'll just have to take your word that most pro athletes are not gay. Glad to see that you are on top of it all.

Neither of us can prove gayness of pro athletes, which happens to be my point.

Your assertion is hogwash.

On the other hand, Jim (and I) suggest that there is no reason to believe that pro athletes have any more likelihood of homosexuality than the general population.
Pro athletes have are not representative of the general population.

Also, describing homosexuality as rampant ...

Has the topic of homosexuality impaired your reading ability or are you just flummoxed by big words.

What I said was this:

The point of the thread is that homophobia is rampant in our society. Obviously that is true. That fact skews any statistic since there is no blood test for being gay.


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Gay Athletes and Homophobia | 62 comments (62 topical)

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