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[what?]

"I have noticed, without exception, that homosexuals have this strong impulse---no, almost obsession---to parade their sexuality in front of others."

this would be funny if it wasn't such a blatant homophobic response. where exactly is it that homosexuals are parading their sexuality in front of others? why don't you conduct a mini non-scientific experiment and note who is parading their sexuality out in public? ask yourself:

1. who are the people who hold hands in public?
2. who are the people who kiss in public?
3. which sexual orientation is portrayed in the media?
4. who are the people who freely and openly talk about their husbands or wives?
5. who are the people who snuggle together at movie theaters?

i too have noticed something about sexuality. what i have noticed is that heterosexuals, without exception, have this strong obsession to parade their sexuality in front of others. i have no problems with heterosexuals, but why should i have to watch it on t.v., see them on the sidewalks holding hands, watch them kiss in front of doors, at airports, at bus stations, or just about everywhere else? why can't they keep their sexuality private?

[hard scientist]

more complicated,

"I think your argument that your lesbianism is "inherently" connected to your teaching philosophy is actually a fallacy of argumentation."

You are 100% correct. Hiring decisions need to be made based on qualifications, and being either homosexual or heterosexual is not a qualification.

What if a member of the hiring committee is worried that a homosexual is unable to approach a course without bias? Would that mean it is justified to refuse someone an interview based solely on sexual orientation? If you allow homosexuality to be taken into account, it might help or hurt the candidate, and in my opinion that is senseless.

[%sig%]

[ks]

I think hard scientist has it right on the nose.  The mintue we start allowing anything but tangible measures of accopmlishment influence our hiring decisions, we are lost.

The problem of course is that hiring in itself is largely based on perception and bias; we see what we want to see in candidates, we craft their accomplishments (or lack of them) and personalities around what we so much want to believe to be true about them (i.e., a background in one area is inherently better than a background in another area, training in a big name science lab in a particular area (and slick talk) automatically endows them with a strong back ground in this area when their tangibles indicate otherwise (i.e. no/few pubs).  

So as long as we continue to hire based on intangibles such as big name institution, big name supervisor, perception of strength of background completely un-supported by tangible evidence, why not hire someone based on being gay if our search committee thinks (in their bias) that gayness confers a set of special traits on the applicant (i.e., more sensitive to students, neat, better cook for the departmental picnic).

So hard scientist, while in theory you are correct that we should hire based on tangible measures of accomplishment, the reality is, we don't already.  Hiring based on one intangible/undemonstrated attribute is as good as hiring based on another. One is as obscene as the other.

[hard scientist]

ks,

I agree that some intangibles do enter the hiring decision. (Though I think the lab in which one is trained does send an important signal about one's background.)

The problem I have is that homosexuality is not one of those intangibles. When you make decisions about hiring or not hiring based on sexuality, that is discrimination. In this case, putting positive weight on one candidate's being a lesbian is discrimination against heterosexuals, because each department has a fixed number of openings. And what about other homosexuals who choose not to reveal their "situation"? This puts pressure on them to reveal aspects of their private life, and that's not fair.

I once had a professor as an undergraduate make the statement that "Blacks should pay more for student loans because they have a higher default rate. Of course, that means putting aside emotion and focusing on the evidence." I couldn't disagree more. If race is correlated with factors such as credit rating, place of residence, etc., that actually do influence the probability of loan repayment, then you should base the loan rate on those factors.

By itself, homosexuality does not tell us anything about what an individual will bring to a department. And how would you handle the closet heterosexuals who lie about being a homosexual because it will help them get a TT job? Do you refuse them tenure if you suspect they are dating someone of the opposite sex? This is a legitimate question if it becomes standard practice to take sexual orientation into account.

[%sig%]

[Tenured Feminist]

Hard scientist, you need to spend a little more time outside of the lab.  I think that the risk that individuals will pretend to be lesbians or gay men to get tenure track positions is about as significant as the risk that whites will try to pass as members of minority races for the same purpose.  A real danger that one must contend with in movies and Freeper threads, but otherwise not something I'd spend a lot of time fretting over.  After all, if one is unscrupulous enough to lie to get a job, why wouldn't one choose a more effective lie (i.e., forge a letter of recommendation, make up a post doc, plagiarize an article)?

And as for all those poor heterosexuals who are failing on the job market because of rampant political correctness, answer these questions: When was the last time a heterosexual was denied the right to marry because of sexual orientation?  When was a heterosexual most recently fired from a job because his/her boss found out the gender of her/his partner?   When was a heterosexual last ordered to leave a partner or family member's bedside at a hospital because the hospital staff refused to acknowledge her/his relationship due to sexual orientation?  When was a heterosexual most recently denied access to a partner's social security benefits because of sexual orientation?  When was a heterosexual turned down as a prospective adoptive or foster parent because of the gender of her/his partner?  And when was a heterosexual last murdered simply because of her or his sexual orientation?  No LGBT person faces all of these threats every day, and many of these discriminatory practices are happily illegal in many cities.  But your flippancy completely ignores the reality of the lives that LGBT folks live and the threats they face that you have the luxury of never having to consider.

And I remain confused as to why you keep trying to turn the OP's question into a question about affirmative action on the basis of sexual orientation.  You keep missing the point.  

I take the question to be the extent to which one should reveal how one integrates identity and experience in teaching if that identity and experience are strongly connected to non-dominant sexual orientation.  If your identity is part of who you are when you teach, but revealing that identity might cause you to fail in the job search process, what should you do?  Huffing and puffing about preferences and unfairness and political correctness run amok is completely orthogonal, except insofar as it demonstrates to the original poster that she indeed faces a difficult dilemma.

[biologist]

I think it has to come up at some point.  I want to know if my partner will get benefits, etc.  when I am applying for a job.  In Biology there are always spousal hires and I wonder if a department would do the same for a same-sex couple?  If I'm not mistaken, heterosexual couples who are in the same field and want jobs in the same dept. often include that information in a cover letter of application.

[%sig%]

[ks]

hard scientist writes:
1.  "I think the lab in which one is trained does send an important signal about one's background."

Only when it is backed up by tangible measures of accomplishment.

2.  "homosexuality is not one of those intangibles."

who is to say which/what intangible is important for any particular sub-field?  that's something a search committe needs to come to terms with.

3. homosexuality does not tell us anything about what an individual will bring to a department.

being in a particular lab without a tangible measure of accomplishment in the area of that lab also doesn't indicate the person is well-trained (if anything it indicates the opposite but you assert "I think the lab in which one is trained does send an important signal about one's background" no it tells us about the lab interest in which they accomplished very little; you are making an inference about what they know or might be able to do based on the lab when there is a mechanism (publications) to directly determine this).  If simply being in a certain type of lab is enough to make or break someone then how can you write that one's experiences in or out don't.

The other issues you raise like "pressure on them to reveal aspects of their private life" are more important.

Let's say someone has a significant hobby.  Is this important?  As a scientist who likely spends the hours in the lab I do, you know it is.  Instead of in on weekends, getting the lab up and running and grants out during the first year, their hobby takes their weekends.

[ks]

hard scientist:

I think that for some reason there are not some many homosexuals in science or at least if there are, they are in the closet.

We have a lot to learn by reading the thoughts of those in other disciplines like tenured feminist.  For some fields, the life experience of living out may be very important.  I'm not sure one is a different scientist based on living in or living out but we can't put a value on it for fields which deal more openly with these issues.

The degree to which one is willing to be revealing about who they are as a person and how this influences them as a professional is a personal choice.

[Randy Strephens]

To whatever you are if concerned:

Your concerns are way outdated.   In most places your attitudes
and behaviors are welcome and unduly accepted.  If not there is
probably an allowed power cliche controlling and protecting
your interests in a well funded secure environment.

From my point, I have experienced quite the opposite.  Exclusion
has occurred to me by my being truly conservative in action.
Moderate in political expression, well-mannered, courteousand
fair to all identifiable factions of communities and more importantly
have exhibited and modeled the same behavior to individuals on
the all too important 1 to 1 interaction.   All done with good attitude
and humor.

Never in the history of mankind has a timeset and mindset such
as those in our country (and others?) has such enlightened
endeavor been impossible.  The behavior I've chosen and modeled
is individual, community, and child friendly in intent and effect.

Now, "counter-culture" traits (homosexuality, drug use, dishonesty,
abusive manipulation of individuals and groups for personal gain,
and numerous others) are in vogue, allowed, and gain daily cultural
boosts as their proponents rail agains exclusion.   I can't imagine
whats going on?   These behaviors are extremely damaging to
children, families, communities, individuals, and institutions.  They
lesson individuality, expand disease, confuse the young, diffuse honest
expression, and create a faux government which protects it's
employees over its contituent population.  

Not paranoia, Reality all!

[Randy Strephens]

To whatever you are if concerned:

Your concerns are way outdated.   In most places your attitudes
and behaviors are welcome and unduly accepted.  If not there is
probably an allowed power cliche controlling and protecting
your interests in a well funded secure environment.

From my point, I have experienced quite the opposite.  Exclusion
has occurred to me by my being truly conservative in action.
Moderate in political expression, well-mannered, courteousand
fair to all identifiable factions of communities and more importantly
have exhibited and modeled the same behavior to individuals on
the all too important 1 to 1 interaction.   All done with good attitude
and humor.

Never in the history of mankind has a timeset and mindset such
as those in our country (and others?) has such enlightened
endeavor been impossible.  The behavior I've chosen and modeled
is individual, community, and child friendly in intent and effect.

Now, "counter-culture" traits (homosexuality, drug use, dishonesty,
abusive manipulation of individuals and groups for personal gain,
and numerous others) are in vogue, allowed, and gain daily cultural
boosts as their proponents rail agains exclusion.   I can't imagine
whats going on?   These behaviors are extremely damaging to
children, families, communities, individuals, and institutions.  They
lesson individuality, expand disease, confuse the young, diffuse honest
expression, and create a faux government which protects it's
employees over its constituent population.  

Not paranoia, Reality all!

[%sig%]

[hard scientist]

I think it is best to say we agree to disagree. I've spent too much time posting in this forum.

My position is that sexual orientation should not be taken into account. If it is acceptable to consider the benefits of hiring a lesbian, it is also acceptable to consider the drawbacks of doing so. It gives me the willies to think a department would not make someone an offer because she is a lesbian. That is discrimination in my opinion. (Incidentally, I think that actually makes me politically correct.)

It's been a fun debate. Have a happy life. May we never meet in the forums again.

[%sig%]

[TC]

So....

Are you equating sexual orientation with mutable qualities that suggest criminal activity, or a lack of ethics and/or decorum:  "drug use, dishonesty, abusive manipulation of individual and groups for personal gain, and numerous others"?

If so, then the original writer's concerns are *far* from outdated.  And, if so, then you are appropriating the word "reality" and using it in an attempt to speak for an entire society.  

Finally, are you referring to reputable, multi-sourced studies from sources who carry a solid reputation across a wide variety of cultural/intellectual/scientific/sprititual bodies -- or to studies that rely on a narrowly-defined coterie of sources that are exclusively based on religious-right principles and beliefs and/or have been largely disproven?

You do have the right to believe that homosexuality is not a positive thing, and you have the right to express that viewpoint.  But when you seek to extend that belief, and extend the desire to communicate such viewpoints, to all of society by making broad, unproven statements that homosexuality damages children, etc., you imply that those who do not share your views are *not* moderate, *not* well mannered in expression, *not* courteous or fair, and so on and so forth.

[%sig%]

[Randy Stephens]

My remarks were an expression of the results of my
very proper current and continuing behavior.  Just my
remarks and thoughts.

Hey, maybe we shoud all keep our private lives quiet
and not affect other people not concerned with them (i.e.
constituents, co-workers, students, children.)   I am
certain that would solve most concerns, everywhere by
doing so.  We do not need public relations activities by or
on behalf of aberrent (spell ck?/still a word?) factions.

[%sig%]

[ks]

I am always happy to agree to disagree.

[ks]

Hard Scientists writes:

"If it is acceptable to consider the benefits of hiring a lesbian, it is also acceptable to consider the drawbacks of doing so. "

I do not disagree.  When one opens oneself up to this type of discussion, it should be a full, multi-sided discussion.  One can not have it both ways.


"It gives me the willies to think a department would not make someone an offer because she is a lesbian."

And it gives me the willies to think an institution would make an offer to someone and invest 525K in start-up for a laboratory for someone that has no real publications or other tangible measures of accomplishment, but comes from a particular type of lab and has only a particular type of doctoral background (unrelated to the job but a pet area of someone on the search committee). It gives me the willies to know that this happened when there were candidates with solid tangibles whose only "short-coming" is that someone on the search committee has crafted a perception about the first candidate based on intangibles when they had every opportunity to generate the tangibles and did not.  Nonetheless, I have seen it with my own eyes, in my own department.