Col, two comments:
First, I agree that marching around and ranting is non-productive activity. You want equality? People only need to learn just a tiny bit of psychology to know that change comes from within. Whether it is breaking a drug habit, an alcohol habit, a tobacco habit, or some other equally bad habit, you have to "hit bottom" in order to find the motivation to stop. Once it is within YOU to stop, you can go forward and do constructive things.
Second,
Poofs must have a strange brain
If you do the following web search, you would find out that (sadly) you are right: Homosexual + brain scan
If you do the search (and include the plus-sign to do it) you will find some UK articles from the 1990s where a medical research team was playing around with Positron Emission Tomography (a.k.a. a PET scan). They discovered that when they mapped human brains, there were distinct structural differences between males and females. In phase two of their study (I presume after they got more grant money), they widened the population of their scans - and found that it was possible for a "male" brain to be found in a female body and a "female" brain to be found in a male body. After further investigation, it was learned that all such cases were homosexuals.
Here's where the problem comes in. The brain's physical configuration doesn't change based on a decision you made. The brain grows
in utero to whatever configuration it is going to have when you pop out of the womb. The research suggests that part of the problem therefore is that long before you could even MAKE a choice, you are destined to have or not have gender dysphoria based on whether your body gets mixed or uniform signals. And it has LONG been known that the BRAIN is the ultimate sex organ. If it says GO then you go. If it says NO then you move on to seek another partner. And it is that way from birth.
I have known many gay people because in New Orleans there was an active public sub-culture in the French Quarter where I played music to work my way through college. I also met a lot of gay folks in college. Uniformly, they report that it is not a choice for them. Many of them go so far as to say they feel as though they were born into the wrong body. I try to not speak ill of homosexuals because for them, life has dealt them a crap hand. Like in bridge or poker, it isn't the cards you are dealt - it is what you do with them. So I just get out of their way and let them strive.
I am still forgiving - but perhaps less so - for people who had choices like drugs, alcohol, or tobacco and they got sick from excessive use thereof. Starting down that road WAS a choice. But for the gay/straight dichotomy, there was no choice.
My best friend in college was lesbian. People were always asking why I hadn't married her, but I knew better and respected her wish to "stay in the closet." So I helped her with the illusion. I had many gay friends in my gaming circles - Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: The Gathering - and found them to be decent people who just happened to have slightly different tastes than my own. And I have a gay stepdaughter. She got a degree in IT, has certifications as a UNIX system admin and a security admin, owns her own home, is a U.S. Air Force veteran including reserve activation during Operation Desert Storm (in a comm unit). She pays her taxes, supports battered women's shelters, and stays out of trouble. She and her (female) spouse got married a while back when that became legal in the USA. The two of them are perfectly normal in all respects except one. What ticks ME off is that so many religious extremist IDIOTS condemn them for what is essentially a condition of birth. Which might help some of you better understand why I sometimes go ballistic on fundamentalists if they show up here.
