Over the rainbow

This article was written in response to ignorant statements made by a local MP, claiming homosexuality to be a curable disease. The article was published in Estonian in Õhtuleht 06.04.2013.

Hieronymus Bosch - The Garden of
Earthly Delights. Source: Wikimedia

in a kingdom far-far away, there… And this is where the stories part. In one, there are dragons, in another there are witches, and in the third one — kind fairies. Fairy-tales reflect beliefs about the world around us, and it is not possible to say that one of them is more precise, more correct or better in any way than another. The value and magic of fairy-tales comes exactly from there being many different ones, and there always being room for new ones, that will not replace any, but add to the magical-mystical world over the rainbow. And even though this claim is not entirely correct from the standpoint of folkloristics, let it illustrate the larger one — there are domains, where multitude of opinions is the valuable resource, and there is no truth as such, but each description, point of view gives new information. Wonderful information, that has given birth to the most beautiful and moving works of art, books, songs — the best achievements of human culture, that life would perhaps not even be worth living without.


And there are domains, where all previously said is not simply the other way around, but is irrelevant, where measurable and controllable truth will remain such regardless of all opinions. Truth can be measured with the help of special apparatus, for example, or with in-depth research, but not by following one's preferences or simply making a more interesting argument. Such domains are the territory of science and thanks to them, humans live longer and better than ever before, planes fly and communication satellites orbit the earth, carrying what I previously called the best achievements of human culture.

However they do not carry the best only, but what lies in between these two domains — that I here call art and science, respectively — , the grey and murky waters, where opinions are presented as facts in order to make the world seem more like one's favourite fairy-tale. Such topics are more often than not related to the functioning of societies and among them is definitely present the one of homosexuality.

Let it be said that I am not a scientist and neither am I an artist. I am, however, the manager of a printing museum, and based on this experience, have spent quite some time pondering over the interesting questions of how has the invention of printing influenced the development of scientific thought historically, how have people come to discern opinion from fact, and how the digital revolution has upturned it all once again. For the problem is that without much effort spent, it is today possible to find confirmation from every claim from others believing in the same. Thus those believing autism to be caused by vaccines will frequent messageboards and blogs, where other believers preach the same. Those, who would believe the climate to be safely under the lid, will search for support to their opinions from other like-minded. And those who believe homosexuality to be a curable disease, the sufferers of which stalk schools to recruit and influence underage children, will search the world wide web for pages supporting their claims.

Well, none of the examples given are from the domain of art, but that of science. No serious scientific study has found connections between vaccines and autism, there are no serious doubts about global warming and its man-made causes among climatologists, and doctors, psychiatrists and sociologists are of consenting opinion that homosexuality is not a disease, it is not curable and to a large extent, it is a preference one is born with, that cannot be changed, and the acceptance of which will not lead to the collapse of civilization as such, but to a stronger society instead, as more members will be able to give their input, instead of being persecuted by delusions based on faith, not science.

Most beautiful about all this is that the reader will not have to believe me. All scientific papers to support these claims can be found online, if only one takes fifteen minutes instead of five, to research the topic on even a rudimentary level. Of course one can always claim that scientists are all under the influence of Jewish homosexual megacorporations (or were they extraterrestrial beings, I always forget), but …. Somewhere runs the threshold, where I too would agree to pronounce someone clinically insane without demanding proper scientific evidence. And that threshold runs close to where real world is mixed up with that of fairy-tales, one that starts somewhere there, over the rainbow.