Answered on Queera.
Believe it or not, all of the answers said that if a country’s population was 100% gay, that would be absolutely wonderful! I’m sure having all the population of your country gay would be the greatest thing since sliced bread! What the Hell’s the matter with people? It would be catastrophic for any country to be 100% gay, though we’re probably headed that way in the US at the rate we’re going here.
How could having 100% of the population of your country gay possibly be a good thing!? Color me mystified.
A given population as in for a country? 3%. That’s the percentage in the US, and it’s just fine by me.
Understand that homosexuality is bad for society in the sense that it causes a lot of costly problems for society. Furthermore, taxes paid by gays do not make up for the costs that society incurs from homosexuals.
- Homosexuals live 20 years less than heterosexuals. This is horribly sad for gay people that they miss out on so many years of wonderful life, but it seems to me that reduced lifespan is costly to society.
- Gays have higher rates of mood and anxiety disorders. While this causes a lot of suffering to gay people, and this is sad, at the same time, mental illness is costly to society.
- Gays have much higher rates of drinking, smoking, and drug abuse than straights. The gay male party and play, scene revolving heavily around methamphetamine and club drugs is particularly alarming. Lesbians in particular smoke a lot. The costs of drinking, smoking, and drug abuse to gays themselves are no doubt significant in terms of disease, mortality, and the suffering that can come from excessive substance abuse, nevertheless, this incurs a lot of costs to society.
- Gay men obviously have a very high STD rate. At 20% infection rate, the HIV rate is especially alarming. Most of these diseases remain confined to the gay community and have not broken out significantly to the straight community, with the exception of the Black community with all the down low men. But the great heterosexual HIV epidemic spreading from gays to straights never occurred mostly because HIV goes from men to women and then it stops, as spokesmen from the New York Department of Public Health said as early as the 1980’s. That’s not completely true, but it is very hard to get HIV from a woman. Hepatitis A, B, and C are or were very common in the gay community, vastly more common than among heterosexuals, most of whom only acquire B and C from IV drug use. Parasitical diseases such as shigella, ameobiasis and giardiasis are also extremely common among gay men, whereas they are quite rare among straights. In recent syphilis epidemics, up to 85% of cases are among gay men. Syphilis is quite uncommon among straights. Gay men have elevated rates of anal cancer, and the rate is rising. The rate is vastly higher than the rate among straights.I would like to point out that it is gay men themselves who suffer most from these diseases, and this suffering, although self-imposed, is often tragic, horrifying and heartbreaking in particularly in the heart-wrenching case of HIV. Lesbians have very low rates of STD’s but higher rates of breast cancer. I doubt if lesbians impose a disease burden on society. The very high gay male STD rate, in particular the HIV rate, obviously imposes considerable costs to society.
- Tragically, gay men have a suicide rate 3X higher than straight men, even in San Fransisco, the most gay-friendly place in the US. The attempted suicide rate is also very high. Gay male teenagers have a tragically very high attempted suicide rate at 8X the normal rate. Suicidal behavior causes unfathomable and heartbreaking suffering on gay men. However, attempted and completed suicides impose considerable cost on society.
- Domestic violence rates are very high in gay and lesbian couples, especially the latter. A gay man is much more likely to beat his partner than a straight man is. A woman is much less likely to be beaten by a male partner than by a female partner. This causes immense suffering to the partners of gay and lesbian batterers. In addition, domestic violence is costly to society.
- In gay areas, gay men typically take over all of the public restrooms and turn them into miniature sex clubs. This renders most public restrooms unusable by the rest of us. Most gay men typically vociferously support the use of public restrooms as sex dens for gays. I don’t have much sympathy here. Gay men are simply being very irresponsible with this depraved mindset. Further, this is a cost to society.
It is first of all most important to point out that gay men themselves suffer worst from most from these largely self-imposed conditions, a suffering so profound that it almost moves you to tears. Compassion is essential. Nevertheless, there is a cost to society. Some of these issues may be caused by discrimination (see the high teenage gay male attempted suicide rate), but there is a cost to society no matter what causes it. Some of these problems would lessen with increased acceptance of gays, but others would linger or possibly even worsen.
The question comes up whether gays pay for the costs they bring to society. Many gays seem to have above average intelligence for some reason, especially gay men. Gays seem more artistically talented than straights. More gays than straights seem to get college degrees, in particular gay men.
Gay men seem to earn higher than average wages and are disproportionately employed in high paying and prestigious professions. I am always hearing about a homosexual, often a gay man, who is contributing something noteworthy and exemplary to our society such that it mentions a media notice. Obviously, gay men contribute more to the tax base per capita than straights. So gays, especially gay men, offer considerable benefits to society, not flowing from their homosexuality but from other aspects of their lives.
I have not discussed lesbians here because I know little about them, but I doubt that they impose serious costs on society other than reduced lifespan.
However the question rises whether gays pay for themselves. Despite their excellent contributions to society and their higher than normal tax contributions, I still do not think that homosexuals pay for themselves.
The question then arises about whether the rest of us should be willing to carry a small burden for our gay brothers.
Personally I feel that at 3%, I am willing to shoulder the costs of homosexuals to society, as the numbers are so small that it is something we can cope with. I would be willing to tolerate up to 6% gay men in society. I think we could deal at that rate.
However, if the rate of male homosexuality went higher than that, all of these problems above would increase in scope with attendant costs.
Honestly, even when you get to 10% gay men in any country, your problems are going to go up a lot. The % of gay men in New York and San Francisco is quite high, and they definitely impose considerable costs on these cities.
Once you start heading up to 15–20% of any country’s population being gay, I think it would be unsustainable for many reasons (see above).
Homosexuality in society seems to be one of those things, like many things in life, that is best in small doses.
