Friday, April 08, 2005

Deaf "Culture" and Gay Kids

I've heard of this before--deaf people have a "culture" that is unique, one they want protected. Some will protect it to the degree that they won't allow their children to have cochlear implants so the children can hear.

What constitutes a "culture"?

I recommend this very short article from the Independent Gay Forum. The article works from the supposition that if it's ok for deaf people to have their culture, would it be ok for parents to somehow, through the miracles of modern technology, "de-gay" their children in the womb so as to perpetuate heterosexual "culture"? "Designer babies" have already been addressed on the covers of leading news magazines; would it be acceptable to have "heterosexual" as one of the attributes? Would it be acceptable to have "deaf" as one of the attributes?

The comments (16 as of when I type this) display some very astute observations and raise some very interesting questions. Hey conservatives! Get past the name of the web site and go expand your horizons.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spotter

A curious thing...if you can select the sexual orientation of your baby in the womb. It will be interesting to see how many homosexual rights groups who are adamantly "pro choice" become "pro life" when (not if) sexual orientation becomes one of the things you can judge in the womb...and will be a part of your "choice" to abort or not..

Mike

Darren said...

Yet another interesting point.

Anonymous said...

As a gay HOH student, I've never bought into the idea of a deaf OR gay culture. Other than the trait in question, members of the group have no ethnicity/religion/race/ideology that joins them. Another issue mentioned in the update, "the (incredibly offensive" gay/deaf analogy", actually makes some sense. As most gay kids are born to straight parents, 90% of deaf kids are born to hearing parents. Besides the likelihood of being born to parents different from us, common issues are feelings of isolation, low self-esteem, lower graduation rates, and access to education that serves us. Or if nothing else, the deaf/gay analogy makes much more sense than the interracial marriage/gay marriage analogy often thrown about by lefties.