Scientific data should not yield moral judgments

I read with interest Andrew Longman's letter on Sept. 4 in regard to the proof that "homosexual behavior leads to a culture of disease and irresponsibility." As a scientist, and therefore one of the rational persons to whom Mr. Longman refers, I beg to differ with the conclusion he comes to from his data.

I do not deny that the figures Longman quotes from the CDC, Bell and

Weinberg, etc. may very well be accurate; however, it is irresponsible to make the jump from these figures to the conclusion that homosexuality, i.e. being gay, itself is the direct cause of irresponsibility and diseases such as HIV. Do individual gay men make irresponsible choices about sex? Most definitely. That having been said I know many straight men who make choices which are just as irresponsible, if not more so. It seems to me that Mr. Longman is attempting to make a moral judgment about homosexuals based on scientific data. This is a dangerous and irresponsible use of science. In addition, Longman's logical leap is akin to me examining, say, the incidence of alcoholism among Catholic priests and jumping to the conclusion that the priesthood in and of itself causes this dreadful disease. The evidence just cannot support such a conclusion.

As a gay man I cannot deny that there is a certain amount of

irresponsibility infused in gay culture, though the gay community is doing a great job of improving the situation. However, I also cannot deny that taking medical/scientific facts and figures and using them to come to moral and philosophical conclusions about a certain group of people is a gross and indeed dangerous misuse of science.

Doug Mersman

Graduate Student

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