Blag Hag 2010 Census Results

I want to thank everyone who participated in my Blag Hag 2010 Census! 467 people filled out the survey (before I closed it due to eagerness to crunch the numbers), which is absolutely amazing. I was expecting something like 50, but I guess you guys like data just as much as I do. Considering that I have slightly over 1000 subscribers (holy crap!), we did almost as well as voter turnout for the US Presidential elections! Feel special, or maybe depressed, depending how you interpret that.

Because I got a decent sample size, I actually felt safe doing some statistics and trying to interpret the results. Now, as a warning, it’s been a couple of years since I took a statistics class. It is highly probable that I screwed something up, that there was a more appropriate test to use, that one of the first five commenters will correct me, etc. I think we can see some interesting trends here, but it’s no scientific study. Also keep in mind these results don’t necessarily apply to atheists as a whole, just the atheists who read my blog and like to take surveys. Take it with a grain of salt!

Before we get started, here is how I indicated statistical significance on graphs:
* P-value less than 0.05
** P-value less than 0.01
*** P-value less than 0.001
**** P-value less than 0.0001

As always, click the images for a larger, nicer version.
We had 335 males, 135 females, and 7 transgendered readers. This actually surprised me a bit. As you can see, male readers vastly outnumber my female ones. People always ask “Where are the female atheists?” and I usually reply “We’re out here!” I know a lot of female atheists aren’t outspoken enough to want to go to club meetings or be visible, but I would have thought there would be more equal ratios on a blog written by a female atheist that often talks about feminism. My ladies are still drastically outnumbered!

I have a couple of hypotheses.

  • Females hate filling out surveys (unlikely)
  • Male atheists currently do, in fact, outnumber female atheists.
  • Male atheists currently tend to read blogs more than female atheists.
  • My blog is new, so more females haven’t found it yet.
  • This is a better sex ratio than other blogs. Who knows, maybe blogs like Pharyngula and Friendly Atheist have a 9:1 ratio.

Oh, and to my transgendered readers who thanked me for including that option, you’re welcome! Can’t forget you guys. Though I am going to apologize now – most of my analyses look for differences in responses between males and females, and your sample size was too small to work for any of my statistics. Sorry! Please don’t take it personally.
Not surprising that most of my readers fall close to my own age (22). The one bit that surprised me was that I was expecting to have a grand total of two readers over the age of 30. Nothing against my older readers – I just still feel very young and immature in many respects, and I was surprised that so many “adults” would enjoy my blog. So, thank you! There we no difference in the age distribution of males and females.

Now, onto the cool stuff!
I think this result was so cool because it didn’t surprise me. Many studies (and anecdotes) point to females having more fluid sexual orientations and more bisexual tendencies. Our results follow that pretty nicely, with the vast majority of guys considering themselves exclusively heterosexual. Or at least, that’s how they reported their sexual orientation on the survey. Who knows how honest people are even when it’s anonymous.

Oh, and one fun observation: My friends who responded tend to be gayer than my readership as a whole. I think I’m a bad influence on people. Maybe we should see how that chart changes once I get another year to recruit blog.

Favorite open responses:

  • “Science nerd” – The best sexuality ever.

Here readers were allowed to respond with as many answers as they wanted, hence the use of percentage instead of raw numbers. Unsurprisingly, “atheist” was the most common choice. The popular choices seem to be the positive labels – skeptic, humanist, secularist, freethinker – with terms with negative connotations not doing so well. And this supports my opinion that “Bright” comes off as a kind of douchey label that not many non-theists like, since it came in last.

The gender differences here are interesting. Men are significantly more likely to call themselves skeptics, freethinkers, and anti-theists. Anti-theists sort of makes sense, since I think some men are more likely to be aggressive and in your face about things (this does not mean aggressive female anti-theists don’t exist). The other two completely baffle me, though. Women aren’t using skeptic as much, even with the delightful pun of the Skepchicks? And…I have no idea about freethinker. Feel free to come up with your own hypotheses in the comments.

Another interesting thing to note is that men tended to list more labels for themselves than women did. Men used an average of 4.4 labels with a variance of 9.3, and women used an average of 3.7 levels with a variance of 5.7 (p less than 0.01). Of course, this could entirely be from the couple of terms that men like to use a lot more than women.

Favorite open responses:

  • “Awesome”
  • “Belief challenged”
  • “Human” – Two people said this, I liked it!
  • “Depends on my mood and whether I want to be annoying”
  • “Too lazy to be a secular humanist” – Ditto
  • “Shiny?” – I don’t know, are you shiny? Do we have a Twilight vampire amongst us?

Moral of the story: get PZ to link to your blog repeatedly. Seriously though, it seems being linked to by other respected, popular blogs is the best way to get new readers and to retain them. To put this in perspective, Reddit usually gives me as many hits as a Pharyngula or Friendly Atheist plug, but those people don’t tend to stick around. Getting linked to by a great blog is a level of quality control, since that blogger is saying that they like your stuff.

I wasn’t expecting to see any differences here, but there they are! Is this because Pharyngula does have more of a male bias? And what’s up with the ladies liking Google Reader suggestions so much? I have no idea, but thank you, Google Reader!

Favorite open responses:

  • “Girlfriend read occasional blog posts to me” – Aw, oddly sort of cute/cool!
  • “Divine Ordinance, a.k.a. Holy Handgrenade (I don’t remember. Shhh..don’t tell Jen)” – Divine Ordinance is an acceptable answer.

Women like posts on feminism a lot more than men – absolutely shocking! You guys better learn to love them, because they’re not going anywhere, haha. On the flip side, I have no idea why men like posts about me attending local atheist and theist events more than women. Hmmm, maybe because I tend to post a lot of photos when I go…

Other than that, the topics don’t surprise me. Politics is my least favorite topic to blog about since I don’t feel as well read in that area, and apparently my readers don’t love it either (not that they hate it, just that it’s not a favorite topic). Everything else I enjoy blogging about equally, and readers seem to enjoy them equally. Lesson: write about what you like!

Favorite open responses:

  • “Reading about Jen’s boobs” – Got this from multiple people, almost all of them from my friends. Can’t exactly get annoyed, since I am the one writing about my boobs (seriously though, thought this was funny)
  • “The review of those wretched sex scenes were read aloud at a party I threw. Good stuff.” – This is made of ultimate win.

A lot of the free responses said that they loved the blog the way it was and to not feel like I needed to drastically change anything to improve. I didn’t consider this question an ultimatum or some drastic overhaul. I mainly wanted to know if 1. I should increase the attention I put on certain things that I already enjoy doing or 2. if I should start doing things I was thinking about doing. A couple of things:

  • Apparently you guys like my art! Thanks! It’s something I always want to do more of, but a piece of artwork takes something like 6 hours, compared to a short bout of writing. You’ll probably see a lot more art this summer, when I’ll have a lot of free time.
  • On the flip side, you guys don’t care about me making any money. Sadness. A gal’s gotta eat, you know.
  • I’ve avoiding rigid Daily features (like PZ’s Friday Cephalopod) mainly because that takes planning and I’m lazy. However, I may start doing a “List of all the random cool stuff I saw this week but didn’t have enough of an opinion to blog about it” thing. But with a better title. Anyway, I amass awesome links on Google Reader, so it wouldn’t be too hard to post them here.
  • Yeaaah, don’t hold your breath on the videoblogging. I don’t own a webcam/videocamera and I hate watching myself on video. Oh, and apparently Australians have a raging hate-on for videoblogging since their internet service is so shitty, as multiple responders explained. Don’t want to ostracize my readers down under!

Oh, and of course “More sexy pirate outfit photos” did really well, with men wanting them a lot more. Mind blowing. Maybe I can combine that with community building and contests, and make you send me sexy pirate photos of yourself! Much better than photos of me, right? …Right?

I’m saving the final open response suggestions for the next post, since this post is already getting massive enough. What do you guys think of these findings? Have any comments or hypotheses? Do you have any other things you want me to look at (if certain terms are correlated with each other, etc)? Just let me know, and I’ll crunch some more numbers! Data is fun!

Greta Christina on Atheism & Sexuality (with video)

Greta Christina‘s talk at Purdue last night was awesome! We had about 80 people in attendance, which I consider a great success, especially because 1) it was snowing pretty good and 2) that’s more than IU had even with good weather (neener neener, insert silly disparaging remarks about our rival here). Thankfully you don’t have to take my word for it, because we have it on video*.

My favorite bits:

– Her Broccoli Analogy against emotivism
– Sex connecting us to our tetrapod cousins
– Her closing remarks about porn and other media

Yeah, now you have to watch it, don’t you? It’s long but worth it. (podcast?)

I actually think one of the best parts was the Q&A at the end, because it really showcased Greta’s talents. She’s prepared to answer pretty much any question about atheism, and she can do so in a concise, punchy, memorable matter. This was especially important for the couple “questions” that were really people (probably philosophy students) pontificating for 20 minutes about some theological concept against atheism that didn’t relate to the topic at all. While my response probably would have been a short “Irrelevant, moving on,” Greta replied intelligently just as quickly.

The drive home was probably the most interesting part of the night for me. The weather was pretty crummy, so a two hour drive to Chicago took three, and I think I counted 5 cars in ditches along I-65. Hooray for snow! But talking with Greta for three hours was a special pleasure – I should have been taping that, since it was effectively the Extended Edition of her lecture (featuring Jen McCreight). We discussed everything from our annoyance of feminists who reject science, to why she totally needs to get a Twitter account, to why the hell there are so many billboards for adult stores and strip clubs in conservative Indiana (backlash? truckers? Illinois laws? Anyone have a better hypothesis?)

I’ve heard nothing but happy reviews from other Purdue students – thank you so much for coming, Greta!
Secretary, Treasurer, Greta, and President. Who says there aren’t any female atheists?!

*Yes, I know the audio has some annoying background hum. If anyone out there is savvy with audio editing, let me know and I can send you the mp3 file.

1,000 Rabbis blame natural disasters on gays

Apparently it’s not just Christians like Pat Robertson who like to blame gays for natural disasters. The Rabbinical Alliance of America issued the following statement about the profound effects of allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military:

“When Americans are suffering economically and millions need jobs, it’s shocking that the Administration is focused on its ultra-liberal militantly homosexualist agenda forcing the highlighting of homosexuals and homosexuality on an unwilling military. This is the equivalent of the spiritual rape of our military to satisfy the most extreme and selfish cadre of President Obama’s kooky coalition.

We agree with Eileen Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness that this will hurt the cohesiveness of the military, cause many to leave the army, and dramatically lower the number of recruits, perhaps leading to the reinstatement of a compulsory draft.

“Thirteen months before 9/11, on the day New York City passed homosexual domestic partnership regulations, I joined a group of Rabbis at a City Hall prayer service, pleading with G-d not to visit disaster on the city of N.Y. We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl.

“We plead with saner heads in Congress and the Pentagon to stop sodomization of our military and our society. Enough is enough.”

Little did the Rabbi mention, 9 months before 9/11 I bought an mp3 player. I think I have a new theory to propose – iPods are the cause of all of these disasters. It makes so much sense! Haven’t they been rising in popularity as all these natural disaster have been taking place? Good god, what’s going to happen when the iPad is officially released? It must be a sign of the apocalypse!

Wait, natural disasters have been occurring since the dawn of mankind? …Since before mankind was even around? …They don’t have a causal or correlational relationship to human behavior, least of all how people listen to music or where they stick their genitalia?

Oh yeah, that’s called reality. I forgot how the natural world functions for a moment, silly me.

Seriously though, people like this infuriate me. He says the mere existence of homosexuals rapes the spirit of the military. You know what? Why don’t we worry about all the women serving our country who are being raped and sexually assaulted by their fellow servicemen before we start worry about any spirit rapage. Since you know, women actually exist.

(Via Unreasonable Faith)

Church is too girly, and this article is too sexist

Rarely a day goes by that I don’t find something on the internet that makes my head explode. Seriously, this blog is starting to get so negative. I get linked to so much mind boggling garbage; you guys need to start sending me happy awesome stuff to renew my faith in humanity.

But until then, here’s more stupid shit:

Real men don’t like going to church because they don’t want to “sing love songs to a man”, because the “vicar wears a dress”, because they feel like “mongrels on parade at Crufts” and because they want to be waited on by women rather than queue for coffee after the service.

Okay, that’s an interesting hypothesis. It would annoy me if this was the case, but I’m being realistic. I’m sure there are plenty of guys out there who like to make ludicrous gender stereotypes. What exactly should churches do about this? The charity Christian Vision for Men has some suggestions:

These include redesigning the interiors of church buildings to make men feel more at home. Instead of the usual flowers and statues of the Virgin Mary, they suggest, “How would it go down to decorate with swords, or pictures of knights, or flaming torches?”

Because I know all men decorate their abodes with swords and knights and torches. Well, at least the ones into Dungeons & Dragons.

The charity continues: “Maybe it’s not ‘politically correct’, but men quite like the attention of women! They also like to be waited on – so long as they are not made to feel guilty. Instead of having to queue for coffee, why not ask some of the women to go round with trays of coffee and biscuits or chocky bars? Coupled with a charming smile, many men would find that very attractive!”

…So let me get this straight. Christianity, which is notorious for its patriarchy and oppression of women, is still not manly enough? We need to go back to the 1950s and have women do their duties of serving men? I’m surprised they didn’t suggest the women make them a sandwich while they’re at it.

“Jesus, I am so in love with you,” or “Beautiful one I love, beautiful one I adore,” – many men wouldn’t sing that to their wives, let alone another man, the charity advises. …

Men don’t want to feel brainwashed by reciting words that they don’t believe: “The language can be offputting, even the word ‘love’ has undertones of the love of a man for his woman – they’d rather ‘admire’ or ‘respect’ another man. Think how they will respond if called to be Jesus’s lover, or to be ‘intimate’ with him. Don’t play into Satan’s hands by using language that he has corrupted.”

So not only is it unmanly to love your wife, it’s kind of gay to love Jesus, because Satan changed love to include icky homosexuality.

I was going to make an “I love Jesus! No homo” joke, but the internet beat me to it.

Oh, and the brainwashing part? Yeah, I think that’s always been a bit of a problem, girly decor or not. Kind of may explain why so many people are becoming atheists. But apparently women love being “brainwashed by words they don’t believe,” because we’re just mindless coffee-serving baby machines, after all.

Other suggestions to attract more men:

  • Don’t talk about “Jesus’ love, compassion and grace” because they’re “not male concepts.” Men are all robots and leave all that silly worrying to the little ladies.
  • “Men want to know about his great decision making and leadership,” because men have to be the head of the house, you know!
  • When holding men’s group discussions, pick topics like “pornography,” which men obviously love and women have no interest in talking about (lest we offend their fragile sensibilities).
  • Play the World Cup during services. Because all men love sports, and much rather watch them in church than in the comfort of their own home or a pub.
  • To correct for the previous point, start holding church services in a pub! The only downside to offering free beer is that you’ll likely attract a bunch of godless heathens who are just using you.

You know what? I kind of like this marketing idea. Yeah, it’s horrendously ignorant, offensive, and constructed on both male and female gender stereotypes. But it’s going to attract manly testosterone filled douchebags who are too homophobic to sing songs and expect women to wait on them. Religion can have those assholes. Atheism will gladly take all the thoughtful, open-minded, non-douchebag men that you scare away.

Though the one flaw in that plan is all the religious women who will have to deal with being transported back in time 60 years. We’ll take them too, once they realize they need to escape.

Friday Feminist Roundup

No, I don’t plan on making this a weekly tradition – I’m not organized enough to have required themes for certain days. I just have a bunch of feminism related articles that I’ve accumulated throughout a busy week, and I figure I’d dump them all at once.

  • Australia bans porn containing female ejaculation and small breasts. Why? Apparently they think female ejaculation is just urination and fake body fluids. Yeah, not sure how it can be both. And the small boobies? Apparently if you’re an A cup, that’s too close to pedophilia. Thank you Australia, as if women weren’t insecure enough about their bust size, now a huge group is too creepy to think about sexually because they’re not womanly enough. Awesome.
  • School district pulls Diary of Anne Frank because Anne, a developing young woman, dared to talk about vaginas. Apparently female genitalia is the most horrifying aspect of the book, not the fact that she was forced to live in hiding from fear of death and then later died in a concentration camp. Overprotective parents are awesome.
  • In case games for girls weren’t mollifying enough, you can now get a Ouija board in pink! Because apparently the gender neutral versions don’t channel ghosts who can answer girl specific questions like “Who will call you next?” and “Will you be famous?” Come on, we all know girls only care about talking on the phone, becoming the next Paris Hilton, and pink woo bullshit.
  • Being attractive and feminine in the sciences isn’t easy. Go read about this chemist who also happened to be an NFL cheerleader, and the stereotypes she faced along the way. I actually think being more of a tomboy has helped me avoid negative stereotypes – which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Indiana still pushing for a constitutional ban on gay marriage

Want to know why I didn’t apply to any graduate schools in the Midwest? Here’s reason #1264:

A Republican-controlled Senate committee voted 6-4 to approve a proposal that could eventually lead to a constitutional ban on gay marriage and civil unions in Indiana. Even if the proposal clears the full GOP-led Senate, it will likely go nowhere in the Democrat-controlled House.

Democratic House Speaker Patrick Bauer of South Bend has repeatedly said that amending the state’s constitution isn’t necessary because Indiana law already prohibits same-sex marriage. The Senate has voted several times since 2005 to pass a proposed amendment banning gay marriage, but the proposals have not cleared the House.

Oh, what a great reason to argue against a constitutional ban on gay marriage! We already have a law! You know, not because it removes basic rights from a significant group of people and is morally reprehensible. Thank you, Indiana.

The kicker is that Indiana cares so much about hating on the gays that it’s repeatedly wasted its time on this stupid law since 2005. Don’t we have better things to be figuring out? Maybe, I dunno, the horrible budget that’s resulted in tons of funding being cut from education across the state? Nope, an education would probably just make people more accepting of others who are different from them – therefor we gotta focus on banning gay marriage!

You know why Indiana suffers from such a brain drain? Because educated people like myself run the fuck away and never come back.

But since some people will be stuck in Indiana in the future, if you care about marriage equality, go here to tell your Senator to vote NO on SJR-13. Or better up, look up your Indiana Senator here and give them a call.

Sherlock Holmes too gay? Is that even possible?

Robert Downey Jr., sexy sexy man and star of the new Sherlock Holmes movie, was recently on Letterman and made the following statements:

Letterman: “Now, from what I recall, there was always the suggestion that there was a different level of relationship between Sherlock and Dr. Watson.”
Downey: “You mean that they were homos…”
Letterman: [Laughs.] “Well…”
Downey: “That is what you’re saying?”
Letterman: “In a manner of speaking, yes…that they were closer than just out solving crimes. It’s sort of touched on in the film, but he has a fiancee, so we’re not certain. Is that right?”
Downey: “She could be a beard. Who knows?”
Paul Shaffer: “What are they, complete screamers? Is that what you’re saying?”
Downey: “Why don’t we observe the clip and let the audience decide if he just happens to be a very butch homosexual. Which there are many. And I’m proud to know certain of them.”

If anyone saw Sherlock Holmes, you can’t deny the occasional homoerotic subtext. I admit my Gay Subtext Dial is turned up higher than most, and I can titter girlishly at almost anything, but some things in this movie were just blatant. Holmes’s jealousy over Watson’s sudden new fiancee. The constant couple-like bickering. Holmes’s devilish sounding “Don’t get too excited” as he’s digging through Watson’s pocket.

Needless to say, I enjoyed the movie.

And needless to say, others did not.

The US copyright holder, Andrea, Plunkett, has threatened to withdraw permission for a sequel if Holmes and Watson become gayer.

She told Total Film: “I hope this is just an example of Mr Downey’s black sense of humour. It would be drastic, but I would withdraw permission for more films to be made if they feel that is a theme they wish to bring out in the future.

“I am not hostile to homosexuals, but I am to anyone who is not true to the spirit of the books.”

Oh boo.

Is it really not in the spirit of the books? People have been contemplating Holmes’s sexuality for a long while now. He’s attached at the hip to Watson, shows varying levels of fear, disdain, and disinterest in women…and the late 19th century wasn’t exactly a time where one hopped around flamboyantly and wore their homosexuality on their sleeve, so his actions are in alignment with closeted homosexual behavior. It’s personally reasonable to take that sort of interpretation.

And you just know when someone starts with the effective “I’m not a homophobe, but” that they’re about to say something stupid. Renee sums up my sentiment nicely:

When we watch a Sherlock Holmes movie, is it really that disturbing to have the character portrayed as gay? He is not going to whip out his penis instead of a magnify glass to solve crime. It is just a facet of his life, in the same way that it would be a part of heterosexual mans life. Honestly, the hand wringing and whining over teh gay really needs to end. We need to acknowledge that gay men and women are a part of every single society and as such, portrayals of them should be considered acceptable.

And for the people who think that gaying up Holmes would scare people away from the box office…well, I’ve already talked about that. With much fangirling and drool.

Erotic pottery, sleeping around, and the gaydar

Okay, now that I have your attention…

Today was just full of sexual news! Usually each of these stories would win their own post, but I guess I’ll just make one super sexy entry. Try not to get too hot and bothered.

1. A new exhibit has opened featuring the erotic artwork of ancient Greece and Rome. Ah, I’m so proud of my ancestors. I can’t imagine having the dishes in my apartment covered in drawings of gay sex. …Well, okay, I can, but some of my guests probably wouldn’t want to eat off of them. …Who am I kidding, my friends are all strange like me. They’d love it. That being said, I love their description of the prostitutes kiosk, with the walls covered with illustrations on what’s on the menu. “Eh, you like the retrograde wheelbarrow over there? That’s two chickens and a loaf of bread.” (Via Boing Boing)

2. A new study from University of Minnesota researchers has found that casual sex does not have a negative psychological impact on those that practice it. So to all of those people out there who say sex without love is evil or imply that something is wrong with people who enjoy sex for the sake of sex – HA!

3. Oh, the inner workings of the Gaydar. Not only do people fair better than random guessing when it comes to speculation on a stranger’s sexual orientation, but they can make that decision in under a second. Original article talks about the evolutionary implications and some of the studies flaws, though it left out my major criticism – how do fag hags do compared to the general public?!? I’m pretty sure I would have been an outlier if you threw me in that study.

Bigotry is okay if you have a religious excuse

As most of you probably know, equal rights took another blow after the gay marriage bill was shot down in New York. I wasn’t going to say much about it since this is becoming a sad trend in the US, and I’m running out of witty things to say. But last time people accused me of hating on Maine and no other state (apparently some people had their Sarcasm Sensors turned off – seriously, read some of those crazy comments), so I figured I needed to mention it.

New York Senators, you suck.

I’m not really sure what more I can say without repeating myself. This is sad, but I honestly think the best way to get gay marriage to pass isn’t to change minds, but to wait 10 years. Old bigots will die off, young people (who are significantly more accepting of gays) will become voters, and the tides will turn. It may be a while, but do we seriously think we can reason with people like Senator Ruben Diaz?

Diaz, the second speaker during the debate, set the tone early for the discussion about religion. “Gay marriage,” he said, “is not only opposed by us evangelicals.

“All the major religions in the world also oppose it,” Diaz, who grew up in Puerto Rico, said. “The Jewish religion opposes it. The Muslim religion opposes it. The Catholic religion opposes it.”

You know, when I hear that, the first thing I think is that there’s a problem with religion, not gays. Bah, crazy talk.

(Hat tip to Bryan)

Two mommies are better than one

Japanese researchers have found that female mice made from the DNA of two egg cells (bi-maternal or BM) have significantly longer lifespans than female mice made the “normal” way – from the DNA of an egg and a sperm. They think this is due to Rasgrf1, a imprinted gene on chromosome 9 of the father. BM females were also significantly smaller and lighter, which makes sense when you think of sex-specific selection. Males have increased fitness if they spend more energy growing bigger quickly because that will increase their number of mates. Females, however, get no benefit in growing bigger, since they’ll probably have the same number of mates no matter what. Losing paternally inherited genes dealing with this growth means they conserve energy and can live longer.

… *ahem*

SCIENCE IS SO FREAKING COOL!

Seriously, can you believe that we’re doing research like this? I actually remember asking a biology teacher in high school why we can’t just combine DNA from two eggs or two sperm and get a viable organism. They said it was impossible because of genetic imprinting – you need a set genes imprinted from mom, and a set imprinted from dad. But now we have the power to manipulate imprinted genes and do what we thought to be impossible just a few years ago. How cool is that?

And on top of that, I have to wonder what this means for gay couples. Obviously there’s a huge step between animal research and human research, but wouldn’t this be awesome for lesbian couples who could afford it? Not only do you actually get a daughter who is a genetic blend of both of her parents, just like any other child, but they may even have an extended lifetime? Awesome! I guess that would take away one of the ridiculous arguments fundies like to use – that you shouldn’t allow gay marriage because they can’t produce children. Ha, TAKE THAT FUNDIES! SCIENCE!