To even contemplate "medicating" against gayness you would have to acknowledge that gayness is a medical "problem", when in fact it isn't. Would you even contemplate "medicating" non-white race identity, or heigth? To even suggest that "gayness" is a disease is to express an anachronistic prejudice our society is well on its way to being rid of.

I don't think it's right either, but I also don't think our society is so close to being rid of many anachronistic prejudices. I fear many people would change their or their child's sexuality, skin tone or height, if they could. Actually, many of them do try to change those things already.

This is an extremely uncharitable reading of Saletan, and is not consistent with the context in which he speculates about medicating gayness.

There is nothing in the piece to suggest that Saletan himself believes homosexuality is a medical disorder or that it needs to be "treated."

The speculation about medicating gayness is in the context of a discussion about the cultural impact of this scientific finding. Essentially, Saletan is asking "Since we now know gayness is genetic and that the gene has benefecial effects on reproduction, can we expect the homophobes to shut up?" He then answers his own question, "No, this finding probably won't shut up the homophobes, because..."

Nowhere does Saletan promote this point of view as something he himself actually believes. He's only predicting how a homophobe might react to this information.

It is akin to me saying "Nazi propaganda portrayed Jews as dirty and verminous." This is not an anti-Semitic statement: it is a statement about anti-Semitism.

I agree. Saletan too often is accused of bigotry for the simple crime of asking rhetorical questions. It takes quite a leap to assume that such questions illuminate his personal opinions regarding the issue at hand.

It's not a question of my reading being "uncharitable" or charitable toward Saletan. It is merely accurate. What Saletan wrote was:

"Would male androphilia be treated like sickle-cell anemia—the unfortunate cost of a genetic mutation that's beneficial in other people? We medicate sickle-cell anemia. Would we medicate homosexuality?

"I don't know, and neither does Dr. Camperio Ciani." [emphasis added]

Saletan is clearly leaving open the posibility that he would support "medicating" homosexuality, as if it were a disease.

"Would we invade a soverign country just to gain control of their natural resources? I don't know."

Do you take the above to be advocating in favor of invading soverign countries to gain control of their natural resources?

I think your'e just looking for ways to be offended. You have a lot of company, I guess. It's apparently the new national pastime.

Again, Saletan isn't advocating medicating gayness. He's speculating about whether we, as a culture/society, would do so. He's not saying it is the right thing to do. He's speculating that some elements in our society might do it whether or not it's the right thing to do.

No, it's you who are acting "offended."

I didn't say Saletan is advocating for medicating gayness. What I clearly said is that he leaves open the possibility of supporting it, which he clearly does in the quoted passage, and which is clearly a morally feeble, cowardly -- dare I say, candyass? -- response to an issue concerning which a "time will tell" attitude hardly counts as "objectivity."

Especially in light of the general tone of the "Human Nature" column under Saletan's guidance. If you scroll through his recent posts there is no doubt that he believes in a principle of his own devising according to which technology trumps morality in all instances where liberal values are in question (although, for some strange reason, conservative values are never undermined in the same way). He not only suggests, he states straight out, that gay rights as a political position is doomed by medical advances, because it is beyond discussion that given the choice our society would use technology to eliminate gay fetal development.

Thus, it is you are wrong to act offended at the idea that poor William Saletan's "objective" analysis is being so unjustly accused of bias. The bias is beyond dispute, least all by Saletan himself, who has made a slanted reading of the relationship between science and morality central to his career as a middling unctuous hyperlinker.

Maybe you're right Mark. Maybe they are all out to get you.

make a point, Swimmer, and spare me the mediocre snarkiness.