Foolocracy

John Ragan

A Middle Tennessee State University student, Kristin Johnson, sent a letter to state Rep. John Ragan, asking that he oppose HB 1153, considered by many to be a “license to bully” bill against those of same-sex orientation.

The response that Johnson received was long and detailed but appalling. Ragan compared homosexuality to overeating, murder, pedophilia, prostitution and any other social ill that popped into his mind as he was writing. Ragan’s view is that homosexuality is a behavioral choice like choosing which clothes to wear in the morning.

Here are Ragan’s words, and his amazingly distorted thinking process:

Logically, homosexuality is defined by behavior, i.e., unless one engages in sexual activity with a member of the same sex, he, or she, is not a homosexual. (The term sexual orientation is a description of feelings.) Feelings do not control the behavior of a mentally healthy adult human being.

By way of emphasis, let’s examine a few questions: If a person “feels” so angry with another that he or she “feels” like killing the object of their anger, is that person “controlled” by that “feeling?” Alternatively, can the possessor of that “feeling” choose not to act on it? If that person fails to act on that “feeling,” is he or she still referred to as a “murder?”

Can a person feel so much lust toward another that he “feels” like committing rape? If such is a possibility, is that person “controlled” by that “feeling” or can he choose not to engage in that action? If that person fails to act on that “feeling,” is he still referred to as a “rapist?”

Can a slender person “feel” like overeating, but choose not to do so? Is that person still called “fatty?” Can someone “feel” like not going to work, but get up and go anyway? Is that person still called “lazy?” Can a nun “feel” like engaging in sexual relations, but choose to remain celibate? Is she called a “whore?” Can someone “feel” like committing adultery, but choose not to do so? Is that person still called an “adulterer?”

Can a parent feel so upset with the misbehavior of a child, that he or she “feels” like “beating” that child? Alternately, can a distraught parent choose to merely “discipline” a child with a lecture, a “time-out” or a “grounding” (dependent upon age) to reinforce a prohibition against poor, or dangerous, behavior.

The list of questions about “feelings” that do not control people could go on and on. However, the point is sufficiently made. Mentally healthy adult human beings are not “controlled” by their “feelings.”

Please note that I did not contend that people do not take “feelings” into account when deciding on how to behave. Rather, it is my position that mentally healthy adult human beings use many criteria in addition to “feelings,” and, in numerous cases, consciously over-ride “feelings” when determining how they will behave.

Ragan, trained as an aeronautical scientist, seems to think that he is an expert on “feelings.” Right from the beginning his premises are wrong.

This line sums up his wrongheaded thinking: “Feelings do not control the behavior of a mentally healthy adult human being.”

Feelings are not the result of mental illness. A couple who stay faithful to each other do it because of the intensity of their feelings (love) to one another. People get married on the basis of their feelings. Perhaps Ragan is advocating going back to arranged marriages based on status and wealth. Most Americans will stick with the mentally unhealthy process of falling in love.

There are all kinds of things that we do that are dictated by feelings: eating, entertainment, reading, etc. Yet, Ragan wants to use only feelings that are connected to something negative to prove his point. For a man who starts out praising logic, his blinders have shielded half the field of reason.

Homosexuality is behavioral. So is heterosexuality. So is sleeping, eating and breathing. While sex can be split between preferences of homosexuality and heterosexuality, that doesn’t mean those preferences are any more a choice than when people choose to go to sleep and some sleep well while others have insomnia. Some people love certain foods and hate others. Even though all people have taste receptors, the food doesn’t taste the same to everyone. Even though all of us have sex drives, it doesn’t register the same way in whom we want to love.

Ragan doesn’t understand that behavior is both innate and learned. It is innate in a honey bee to search for nectar to make honey. It can’t change its behavior and become carnivorous because it wasn’t born that way.

Studies have increasingly shown that genetics and hormones play the primary role in sexual orientation. Being gay isn’t something that someone wakes up with the thought one morning and decides to do.

Ragan has the concept of feelings convoluted. A rapist feeling like raping is not the same the same thing as a gay or lesbian seeking love. Some people are psychopaths and only their feelings matter. I don’t know how anyone can compare two people making love to someone being raped as the same thing.

If Ragan thinks overeating is solely the result of losing control of one’s feelings, he may be partially right. We all have overeaten at times. Yet, there are people who are born with the genetic predisposition to becoming overweight. This is a perfect example that some things are controlled by bad behavior, as Ragan points out, but sometimes it is just the way we are born, as Ragan refuses to admit.

Johnson’s letter specifically referred to the suicide of gay and lesbian children from bullying. Ragan has an answer for that too.

As a fitting critical thought question, it could be asked if other identifiable groups that engage in behavior of which “others may disapprove” commit suicide at similar rates? In other words, do prostitutes, pedophiles, polygamists, murders, etc., commit suicide at the same, or similar, rates to homosexual behavior practitioners? If similar rates were hypothetically so (not proven to be the case), do these behavior practitioners commit suicide at a higher rate because someone may have disapproved of their behavior or for other reasons? Should society avoid disapproving of pedophilia, prostitution, murder, etc., because practitioners of those behaviors may commit suicide at higher rates?

Isn’t that interesting that Ragan lumps homosexual behavior in with criminal behavior that “others may disapprove.” For Ragan, homosexuality is interchangeable with murder as a social ill. Forget minority rights, if a majority disapproves something then there should be a law against it — or so it seems that Ragan is thinking that way.

People disapprove the behaviors of others all the time. Most of it is needless gossip. Ragan doesn’t appear to have bought into the idea of a diverse country with diverse lifestyles and ideas. The point is that if those who live different lifestyles can be harassed and hounded into suicide. With this thinking, American society is not safe for anyone who lives a life different from that of the majority. That means all of us are at risk because we all have little quirks that make us unique individuals.

It will be nice when the day comes that consenting adults can do whatever they want, people can put into their body whatever they want and people can live anyway they want as long as they don’t bother another’s rights. In the meantime, we have to live with ignoramuses like Ragan who wants everyone to live a lifestyle approved by him.