Help me debate anti-gay people.

skoomi

I was debating the legalization of homosexual activity in Africa, and the anti-legalization crowd said that gay people are a risk because HIV is particularly high among them.

Here is the particular quote:

In Kenya where we are allegedly homophobic, homosexual activity accounts for 16% of the new infections. In the US and Europe where they are arguably more informed and have superior programmes etc, the rate of new infections doesn't reduce, it actually increases.

I never know what to say when they bring up the HIV thing.

So, why is HIV amongst gays so high?

And how can I reply to that guy?

nozzferrahhtoo

Hard to reply to a sweeping comment like that without citations and links to the numbers they are using.

skoomi

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men represent approximately 2% of the US population, but account for 53% of new HIV infections.

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/index.htm

I don't know where to find the Kenyan figures he mentioned, but I don't think he's lying about those either.

nozzferrahhtoo

Best to assume anyone is lying about sweeping generalisation figures until they cite their source because I have noticed, especially on fora like these, they generally are.

But lying aside it is still good to read the stats and what they were based on and how they were formed. More often than not you find they are not comparing like with like, or normalizing for factors that very much are different between the things they are comparing.

In other words very often in debates like this someone will quote a single statistic for each country and then compare them and extrapolate a conclusion from that. Usually they hope you will not look further (many people do not) or even if you do that you will not be someone who is able to read and unpack studies (again many can not).

Correlation does not imply causation and very often there are many factors influencing the difference between such statistics that have nothing to do with the conclusion they are trying to force at you.

Take stories like this for example which show one clear difference between the US and the Africas in how HIV is transmitted. There are many others. Disease vectors are a massively complex thing and if someone tries to reduce the entire complex thing down to a single "The number of infections with disease X is bigger in country Y because of factor Z" they are likely bulling you or as misinformed themselves.

Plek Trum

Quite simply out it is down to a lack of educated awareness of sexual health issues.
Dont know if you were around in the 80's early 90's when the whole HIV issue was dominating the world scene and it was even branded as a 'gay only' disease.

Health professionals, Governments and even celebrities all stood up and began educational campaigns policies to inform people correctly about the disease, how it is transmitted and how this can be prevented.

I imagine this policy isn't too high on the African Gvoernment's list of priorities right now, but my guess (and that is all it is, dont have the time to go find stats here) is that HIV is high among African gay men simply because of a lack of awareness of sexual health matter snad available clinics for sexual health screening.

As I say, not based on fact, but merely an opinion!

nozzferrahhtoo

skoomi wrote: »

Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men represent approximately 2% of the US population, but account for 53% of new HIV infections.

Statistics are dangerous that is why you need to be careful. For example let us use very simple numbers to imagine how %s can be twisted to make them look like they say something they do not.

Imagine both US and Africa have 100 HIV cases each and they both are 25% homosexual cases. Let us imagine for the fun that US is Homo friendly and Africa Homophobic. Let us also imagine they are 50% male-female.

Now tell all the men in Africa that they can be cured if they rape a virgin so many of them do just that.

This means new cases are created in women that the men infect. Suddenly now the % of homosexual men infected out of the number of people infected is less than 25%. Less than the US, because men, both straight and homosexual, are infecting women in the hope of a cure.

So now we have a case where its 25% in the US and maybe 20% in Africa that can be blamed on homosexuality.

Then someone who does not realize that “Correlation does not imply causation” looks at these figures and all he sees is “Africa is homophobic and the % of cases of HIV in male homosexuals is less than in the US….. therefore being homophobic is a good thing” and that person therefore goes quoting those figures to you and you come quoting them to us. They look good on paper and convincing and you fret over them. All because neither of you know how to open up the figures, analyze how they are compiled and REALLY check if they are comparing like with like and whether the sweeping conclusions drawn from the figures hold at all.

% are really easy things to mess with to get good looking results that convince the guillible. If you for example test 1 million people with one thing and get a 0.0001% result and then you test 1 million people with another thing and get a 0.0002% result then the difference is quite small. Guaranteed however that some news paper will run a story saying “X causes 100% increase over Y” and people will read 100% and go “wow! That’s a lot!”.

So when people throw a couple of % at you and follow it up with a sweeping conclusion… even if they are not lying about the figures which very often that are…. You may still be being decived by only being given a part of the picture.

Ambersky

Had a little look at that link to the CDC gov site and as I am Lesbian I also looked up HIV/AIDS among Women Who Have Sex With Women from the same source The Centre For Disease Control Prevention as the OP quoted.
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/women/resources/factsheets/wsw.htm

To date, there are no confirmed cases of female-to-female sexual transmission of HIV in the United States database (K. McDavid, CDC, oral communication, March 2005)

Obviously this means that Lesbians,(those women who only have sex with women) as the lowest risk group for any sexually transmitted disease including HIV AIDS are truly Gods Chosen People
Not that I believe in a God that would operate like that.
I also know that in parts of Africa some anti gay people believe that rape cures Lesbianism. So not much reverence shown there to Gods people.
Teenage Lesbian is latest victim of "corrective" rape in South Africa
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/09/lesbian-corrective-rape-south-africa

Campaigners say so-called corrective rape, in which men rape lesbians to "cure" them of their sexual orientation, is on the increase in South Africa. Thirty-one lesbians have been killed because of their sexuality in the past decade, campaigners say, and more than 10 lesbians a week are raped or gang raped in Cape Town alone.
Last month, a 24-year-old woman who belonged to a gay and lesbian rights group was stoned to death after an apparent gang rape.

You cant have it both ways, saying that the prevelance of HIV is an indication of the goodness or evil among a population and quote only the group with the high incidence. Not that that is a reasonable or scientific way to be looking on the spread of any disease, but even according to their own paramaters it doesnt make sense. If this were the case all women should be encouraged to try their very best to be Lesbian in order to stop the spread of these horrible heterosexual diseases.

Anyway if anyone chooses to look further down the article quoted http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/index.htm# they give all kinds of reasons why HIV may be so high among MSM in the USA
For example they say, and this is only a short quote do go on to read the rest of it.

Stigma and homophobia may have a profound impact on the lives of MSM, especially their mental and sexual health. Internalized homophobia may impact men’s ability to make healthy choices, including decisions around sex and substance use. Stigma and homophobia may limit the willingness of MSM to access HIV prevention and care, isolate them from family and community support, and create cultural barriers that inhibit integration into social networks.
Racism, poverty, and lack of access to health care are barriers to HIV prevention services, particularly for MSM from racial or ethnic minority communities. A recent CDC study found a strong link between socioeconomic status and HIV among MSM: prevalence increased as education and income decreased, and awareness of HIV status was higher among MSM with greater education and income.

And of course lets not forget the resistance to providing or using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV AIDS in Africa and it seems among certain populations in the USA.
Again another quote from the article

Sexual risk accounts for most HIV infections in MSM. These risks include unprotected sex and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The practice of not using a condom during anal sex with someone other than a primary, HIV-negative partner continues to pose a significant threat to the health of MSM

All this is just classic scapegoat behaviour. Many Africans resist condom use and any education or distrubution of condoms for cultural relligious and personal reasons. Instead of using condoms to prevent the spread of HIV AIDS they look for someone to blame. One of the scapegoats used are Gay People and it is believed that if they get rid of the Gays they will get rid of AIDS. It is magical thinking, not even good religious thinking and certainly not science. Scapegoating pure and simple.
Africans resist condoms message
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3278619.stm
BURUNDI: Religious leaders' resistance to condoms hurts HIV fight
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/92817/BURUNDI-Religious-leaders-resistance-to-condoms-hurts-HIV-fight
RESISTING CONDOM USE AS AIDS DEATHS SOAR
http://www.abstinenceafrica.com/library/africa-condoms/resisting-condom-use-as-aids-deaths-soar/

28064212

A good analogy always helps illustrate absurdity:

1. Homosexual activity should be illegal because there is a greater risk of HIV infection
2. [orientation] activity should be illegal because there is a greater risk of [unwanted outcome]
3. Heterosexual activity should be illegal because there is a greater risk of an unwanted pregnancy (I'm pretty sure straight people have a monopoly on this one!)

It's also worth noting that vaginal sex has a higher transmission rate for gonorrhea and chlamydia

seamus

The primary transmission vector for HIV is when sexual secretions come into contact with mucous mebranes, but not the other way around.

This means that in general the "receiver" is at a higher risk of contracting the disease than the "giver". Which is why heterosexual women and homosexual males are in the two highest risk groups.

Anal sex in particular is considered exceptionally risky because it will often involve tearing or damage to tissues, even on an unnoticeable scale. The more elastic vagina is less susceptible to this.

So while I don't think any citation is particularly needed to assert that gay men are more at risk of contracting HIV, for the reasons that 28064212 points out, it's completely irrelevant to the debate of legalisation. If HIV transmission was their concern, then all forms of sex except for lesbian sex should be illegal.

1ZRed

These debates annoy me. The only real reason straight guys wrap it up is because they don't want to get the girl pregnant not because they want to avoid catching an STI. But then when they have anal sex how many of them use a condom? I doubt very few would because there is no pregnancy scare involved.

Now look at bi/gay men, we use condoms because we are more educated about the higher risk factor of anal sex. We protect ourselves way more than straight people when it comes to anal sex and it's still more or less seen as the 'gay disease'

I can only speak for myself but whenever I have sex with a man or woman, I use a condom regardless. It's just stuck in my head to play safe. Yeah it kind of makes me boring but I'd rather not get a girl pregnant or catch HIV thanks!

Pedant

If I were you, I wouldn't waste my time debating such bigots, it just fuels their own ego and gives them publicity.

Azure_sky

Arguing with ultra religious people is like urinating against the wind. Trust me, it's a waste of time as they cannot be moved by rationale argument.

1ZRed

Azure_sky wrote: »

Arguing with ultra religious people is like urinating against the wind. Trust me, it's a waste of time as they cannot be moved by rationale argument.

I learned that the hard way by getting into massive arguments here. It's actually pointless and the "debate" goes nowhere with them:rolleyes:

Ambersky

If only the OP was talking about a fringe group of radical religous bigots.
Homosexuality is illegal in some African countries its not just against religious laws. It is a crime punishable by prison sentences and even the death penalty.
Even in countries that have legalised homosexuality there can be a lot of opposition based on all kinds of traditional beliefs against homosexuality.
In South Africa gay marriages are legal but as I quoted earlier Lesbians are "correctively" raped every week.
It is very important for people to learn to argue against these beliefs and to politically organise. It is especially important for Africans to learn how to argue against homophobia among their own people. We dont know the origins of the OP or what s/he has to deal with.
Africans need the support of those of us who have already argued these issues in our own countries over the years with the understanding that things are different in Africa.
For a good example of the kinds of debates they have about Homosexuality in Africa have a listen to this which is a relatively recent programme.
Skoomi this programme may help you with your arguments, especially as you can use them to argue the opinions of respected African thinkers. YouTube may have an extended version of this programme.

We in Ireland may have the luxury of ignoring anti gay sentiment in Africa but not everyone has that luxury.
Remember that when you are arguing publically with someone who is anti gay you are not only trying to convince them that you are right and they are wrong. The words that you say are also very important for those people listening or reading who may be gay themselves and trying to work the messages of hate out of their own heads. A discussion or debate like this is a wonderful opportunity to get some positive messages across and who knows gradually even changing the hardliners.

Untense

skoomi wrote: »

I was debating the legalization of homosexual activity in Africa, and the anti-legalization crowd said that gay people are a risk because HIV is particularly high among them.

I never know what to say when they bring up the HIV thing

There's plenty of holes in that argument. Firstly, there's an association being made between risk of disease and human rights.

If the risk of catching a disease was higher among interracial couples, this would it be like using this fact in an argument that inter-racial relationships be criminalised. Or saying that white women shouldn't be permitted to have sex because they're more likely to have stillborn children. They're also more likely to get breast cancer. Breast cancer is a threat, so maybe we should ban white women.

the anti-legalization crowd said that gay people are a risk because HIV is particularly high among them.

They're two totally separate issues. Although note the use of an objective/vague "is a risk", implying that they're simply a risk to everyone. It's weasel language. The question is a risk to whom? People infected with AIDS are in risk of infecting anyone they engage with sexually. Whether homosexual or not. And whether homosexuality is legal or not.

Note also that gay men are the most likely group of contracting AIDS despite homosexuality already being illegal.

In Kenya where we are allegedly homophobic, homosexual activity accounts for 16% of the new infections. In the US and Europe where they are arguably more informed and have superior programmes etc, the rate of new infections doesn't reduce, it actually increases.

This isn't true.
Take the USA, where AIDS first became known in the media and was originally considered a 'gay' disease, since it was almost exclusively gay men who contracted it at that point.

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) figures on AIDS in the US from 1980-2000 show a consistently lowering incidence of infection since 1992, when the gay community organised to educate each other. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5021a2.htm

The rate of infection reduced dramatically when the gay community began organising themselves, educating eachother on risk and prevention. (There is a good account on this on one of the various 'Stonewall' documentaries, I think it was 'After Stonewall').

The rate of infection continued to fall in the US till 2000, though there are no figures on their site tracking the last decade it apparently stabilised at about 40,000-50,000 new infections per year. The same data also points out that heterosexual AIDS incidence has increased in the USA. So maybe there should be a ban considered on heterosexual relationships.

So, why is HIV amongst gays so high?

It's irrelevant to whether gay people should be considered criminals in the eyes of the law. Though I think the unsaid implication by those who raise this question is that "deviant" sexualities are dirty, immoral, have god's wrath brought down upon them, etc. Evident since they are more likely to contract this disease.
Yet the US CDC statistics coupled with the actions taken by the gay community in the USA show that AIDS risk is related to sexual behaviour and hygiene rather than sexual orientation. ie: A gay couple who are not already infected, monogamous, and use a condom are no more likely to contract AIDS than a heterosexual couple who are uninfected, monogamous and use a condom.

wonderfulname

I'm actually disgusted by this;

In Kenya where we are allegedly homophobic, homosexual activity accounts for 16% of the new infections.

Try this on for size;

transmission among men who have sex with men contributes to less than 6% of incidence in Nyanza but over 11% in Nairobi.

If you are stigmatised and discriminated to the level gay people are in Africa, you don't go to hospital, you don't go to clinics, you don't get relevant sex education, you don't get what you need for safe sex and you don't fit into the normal parameters for HIV awareness. The most successful model for increased awareness is to get a local HIV+ person to sit down with other local people and talk about their experience. It works great for women, however I can't imagine an advertised room full of gay men going down so well.

Through discrimination, they are ostracised from health services, even refused outright at times, this means it is more likely for HIV to remain undetected, more likely for it to be passed on to others, including of course the wider population. Would you go to hospital because you thought you might die if you knew that you would once you explained why? The advancement of gay rights is viewed as vitally important in combating HIV as a whole, never mind some patronising idea that you would be denying them their rights for their own benefit, there is an overlap between MSM and MSW, ignoring the gay issue completely undermines any attempt to eradicate HIV.

Even to reference Kenya, the country has been an absolute shambles with regard HIV, they didn't even do condoms until this side of the millennium, rape is one of the leading concerns in the epidemic, HIV prevalence is twice as high amongst women as men largely because of it. Stupid fake statistic.

I don't know if I'm making sense so here's some reading.

As for the situation in Europe and the US, they are completely misleading you, especially with regard Europe where the areas with the education are not the areas with the increases, you can find stuff relevant to that on the AVERT site but it's completely irrelevant to gay rights in Africa.

Annasopra

skoomi wrote: »

I was debating the legalization of homosexual activity in Africa, and the anti-legalization crowd said that gay people are a risk because HIV is particularly high among them.

Here is the particular quote:



I never know what to say when they bring up the HIV thing.

So, why is HIV amongst gays so high?

And how can I reply to that guy?

Sometimes I think there is no point in debating because no matter what you say they will remain strongly homophobic and closed minded and bigoted

Ambersky

It may not in all circumstances be productive to debate and argue with anti gay people. Some debates are set up to cause conflict as entertainment.
However we do know that through debate, argument, meeting actual LGBT people and legal challenges, people can be persuaded away from their homophobia. Maybe not everyone is completely convinced, but a society eventually as they hear the arguments again and again and as they meet and hear the stories of real LGBT people, can shift their attitudes from a majority being against homosexuality to a majority supporting equality.
This is what has happened and is still happening in Ireland. It doesnt happen over night and it doesnt happen without work and argument and discussion. It took a long time to change the laws and attitudes in Ireland towards homosexuality and we are still working on it. Africa is kind of like we were years ago, ok quite a bit worse than we were with the death penalty and all, but the basic arguments are still the same and Africans will in time change their countries attitudes too.
Just so we dont forget where we came from and all the arguing that was done with anti gay people in Ireland to get us where we are now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_Homosexual_Law_Reform

Norris took a case to the Irish High Court in 1980 seeking a declaration that the laws of 1861 and 1885 which criminalised homosexual conduct were not in force since the enactment of the Constitution of Ireland. Article 50 of the Constitution provides that laws enacted before the Constitution that are inconsistent with it would no longer be in force. The case was lost on legal grounds and the decision was upheld on appeal to the Supreme Court of Ireland which referred in its judgment to Christian moral teaching and the needs of society.

Norris then took a case in 1983 to the European Court of Human Rights claiming that the Irish laws breached the state's obligations under Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, regarding respect for private life (Norris v. Ireland). In a 1988 ruling, the court found that the Irish laws were in breach of the convention and directed the state to pay costs to Norris.

No reform action was taken by the then government of Taoiseach Charles Haughey. When Albert Reynolds succeeded as Taoiseach in 1992, he declared that it was low on his list of priorities. However, in his subsequent coalition Fianna Fáil/Labour Party government, as a result of pressure from the Labour Party the laws were reformed by the Minister for Justice, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn in 1993. She was noted for insisting that an equal age of consent be provided for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike.

Annasopra

True I suppose

I was shocked this week that quite a lot of posters in an after hours thread were pro trans rights and berating Transphobia

Untense

Ambersky wrote: »

It may not in all circumstances be productive to debate and argue with anti gay people. Some debates are set up to cause conflict as entertainment.
However we do know that through debate, argument, meeting actual LGBT people and legal challenges, people can be persuaded away from their homophobia. Maybe not everyone is completely convinced, but a society eventually as they hear the arguments again and again and as they meet and hear the stories of real LGBT people, can shift their attitudes from a majority being against homosexuality to a majority supporting equality.

+1. If you can discuss matters without taking it personally and losing the rag. Otherwise you're better off not bothering, for your own sake as well as your argument's.

mango salsa wrote:

Sometimes I think there is no point in debating because no matter what you say they will remain strongly homophobic and closed minded and bigoted

That's assuming they're already bigoted. The people you're speaking to might just have absorbed the beliefs of those around them and might still be open to seeing things another way.

Aurongroove

just wanna throw this in as well.

Remember homosexuality isn't a person. i.e. it wouldn't matter if all a particular country's homosexuality somehow accounted for any any all woes imaginable in that country. It doesn't change the fact that there are safe sex practices and unsafe practices which any one person can educate themselves on or not and that the same country's STD issues probably came from unsafe sex practices rather then the fact the country has homosexuals in it (since every country has homosexuals in it and only some countries have STD epidemics).
If you practice safe sex, like you should, then homosexuality isn't a factor in STI transmittion.

If anything the only relation Gay Men and Bi Men have to higher instances of STIs is the fact that Men statistically have near-consistently higher sex drives then women. (more sex, with more people) and that the Sexist cultures of certain countries treat women's virginity, and Women themselves like items to trade, so straight sex is usually several times more administrated by the fact that women are administrated.

Yes if there's an STD outbreak in a place where men sleep with other men unprotected several times more often and with no cultural barricade equivalent to those forced upon women then the STD in question will spread to those Men faster and wider. If those men practiced safe sex though, like they should anyways, then the one difference their homosexuality makes to their sex lives (i.e. that they have sex more often with more people) becomes completely irrelevant in the matter of STDs. The issue is they don't practice safe sex, not that they're having gay sex. Two men who are both clean and STD free don't "produce" a disease by having sex together and neither do a community of gay people all of whom practice safty.

Homosexuality is irrelevant in the matter of STD's, it is the misinformation about safe sex which is to be held accountable.
If it wasn't, then western nations where safe sex is practiced would be suffering STD epidemics as well. It's not that the countries without STD outbreaks don't have gay men, it's that the population mostly practice safe sex.

ninty9er

More of a statistics rant. Note that the figures are not real, just here to prove a statisical point.

Consider amongst the male population in Bikinibottom that 1,000 are gay and 8,500 are straight and 500 are bisexual; all of them are continuously sexually active (the lucky bastards)

[GENERALISATION WARNING]
Of the 1,000 gay and bisexual males 60% (600) have regular STI tests due to the perceived higher risk of infection.

Of the 9,000 straight males, their reasoning for having an STI test is ordinarily a symptom, so maybe 10% (900) have regular STI tests.

If there gay and bisexual positive HIV result of 15% of those tested that equates to 90 cases, if there is a straight positive HIV result of 3% that equates to 27 cases.

Now, take that as a representative sample. If 15% of the gay and bisexual population is positive, that's 150. If 3% of the straight population is positive, that's 270.

So that leads to the conclusion that 37% of cases are amongst gay and bisexual males and 63% of cases are amongst straight males.

The point I'm trying to make, very badly, is that it is of those TESTED and not of the entire population.

john47

ninety9er

Or put even more simply...

More Gay/Bisexual men get regularly tested that their straight counterparts therefore the figures are not on a like-for-like basis.

Instead I would like to see a comparison, eg - out of every 1000 gay men tested there were X amount with HIV and for every 1000 straight men tested there were X with HIV.

As a poster previously pointed out, in America more straight people are now testing positive than their gay counterparts. This may be due to the lack of safe sex practices.

John Ryan

Silvics

There are more HIV+ heterosexual people in the world than gay people.
Also, ask him why he is so anti-gay-is he possibly vocalising on a topic intrinsically important to his own identity,but which he dare not broach except by attacking gay people, simply because he's closeted? Ask him if he is married/ in a hetero relationship...if not why not?
I remember a gaypride march in NY in the mid-90s, and group of christian activists who had travelled 1000 miles to shout and abuse the gay marchers. Their signs also said "GAY= AIDS".
I confronted them, asked them to equate their christianity with their words and actions, and asked would their bus fares not have been better spent on helping PWAs in their home city. I got some of them to come to an AIDS hospice, to see and personalise some of the unfortunates they were demonising. I got an apology from some of them and I think thy were deeply ashamed of what they had gotten caught up in.
You have to personalise it, because when faced with the living, breathing object of their vitriol, and when forced to justify their behaviour with the underpinnings of their beliefs, you can make some of them really examine what they are doing.