A Stitch in Haste

The apparent discovery of a set of genes that correlate with homosexuality certainly has the gay world buzzing — see, for example, here, here and here.

Some are starting to ask the obvious ethical questions — especially regarding premarital testing ("Do I want to marry someone who might give me gay kids?") and prenatal testing ("My unborn baby is gay — do I want to keep it?").

The latter question was the topic of a fairly decent play and 1997 indy film titled "Twilight of the Golds," starring (subjective evaluations in parentheses):
--Brendan Frser (great)
--Jennifer Beals (awful)
--Faye Dunaway (very good)
--Garry Marshall (in a dramatic role?)
--Jon Tenney (okay)
--Sean O'Bryan (irrelevant but oh so cute)

with cameos from Rosie O'Donnell (surpringly good) and a very rare post-larynx-cancer appearance by Jack Klugman (awesome and far too short).

Not a movie for the ages, but worth a slot in your Netflix queue.

Ex-Gay Watch has a good post on the latest back-and-forth on the “genetics versus environment” debate regarding the root causes of homosexuality. Bottom line:

On a philosophical level, getting bogged down in the genetics debate will get us absolutely nowhere. Is homosexuality genetic? I believe it to be, but until someone proves (or disproves) it definitively the argument is a dead end. For now, who cares?

That conversation is fruitless because it's simply hair-splitting about how we got here. I'm far more interested in the fact that we ARE here...and now that we are, what everyone is going to do about it. Let's try to stay grounded in reality here.

I concur completely. From the perspective of the bigots, does it really matter whether being gay is genetic, prenatal, or postnatal? If it’s genetic, then “it’s a disease” that should be cured, treated, or even aborted.

If not, then families and schools should, the bigots will argue, be subsidized, or penalized, into raising children in a “non-gay” way, whatever that might mean (Mandatory Little League enrollment? Compulsory Britney Spears video marathons?).

Gays will never, ever win this debate, and politically it doesn’t really matter anyway. From the perspective of science, medicine and sociology, sure -- let’s find out. But let’s always keep the legal, political and moral implications -- or lack thereof -- in the proper context.

Related Post:
On the "Gay Genes Discovery" -- Movie Recommendation

Like most, I'm mildly interested in the news that researchers seem to have located a "master gene" that controls sexual behavior (i.e., sexual orienation) in fruit flies:

"The results are so clean and compelling, the whole field of the genetic roots of behavior is moved forward tremendously by this work," said Dr. Michael Weiss, chairman of the department of biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University. "Hopefully this will take the discussion about sexual preferences out of the realm of morality and put it in the realm of science."

Still, I stick to my caveat that gays should not expect discoveries such as this to change many opinions, especially among those not eager to have their opinions changed.

From the anti-gay perspective, sexual orientation is either genetic or it isn't. If it is genetic, then it's a "disease." If it's not genetic, then it's a "choice" (or the result of bad parenting or schooling).

As I blogged previously:

Gays will never, ever win this debate, and politically it doesn't really matter anyway. From the perspective of science, medicine and sociology, sure — let's find out. But let's always keep the legal, political and moral implications — or lack thereof — in the proper context.

This latest shift toward the "genetic" camp may significantly advance the science, but it will not significantly advance the politics.

Other thoughts at Jump In and Ratboy's Anvil and Beaverhausen. See also Scrappleface.

One of my long-standing theses is that, in the "gays versus bigots" culture wars (especially the "gay libertarians versus bigots" culture wars), we will never win the "Is it genetic?" argument, for a very simple reason. To the bigots:

--If it's genetic, then "it's a disease" that should be cured (or alternatively, screened out via prenatal testing).

--If it's not genetic, then "it's a choice," so to hell with us anyway.

With that in mind, try to follow the bouncing ball:

1. University conducts research showing that "gay" rams prefer other rams because of differences in brain structure (i.e., it's genetic).

2. PETA decries experimentation on "gay sheep." Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil university!

3. Gay rights activists decry attempts to "cure" gay sheep. Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil university!

4. Pro-research group decries opposition to scientific research. Oh, wicked, bad, naughty, evil gay rights activists!

I'm so confused...

Best as I can tell, the weak link in the chain is Assertion #2 (the PETA people):

To put it simply, these experimenters believe that homosexuality is a defect that needs to be fixed, and they're cutting open and killing gay sheep to do it.

I see no evidence of that claim. Yes the university is conducting research into same-sex attraction in lower mammals, but that does not translate into "homosexuality is a defect." I love rams as much as the next guy, and I love gay rams as much as the next gay guy, but I can't, without more, get too indignant about these studies.

Assertion #3 (the gay rights group) piles on with this blockquote from Assertion #2 (the PETA people):

Roselli has made it very clear that he intends to use the findings of his experiments to "cure" humans next.

Yes, I'd get pretty indignant about that too — if there were any evidence of it. PETA provides none. And given that it's PETA, I'm not at all surprised.

So I hope that the proponents of Assertion #4 (the pro-animal-research blog) might consider cutting the proponents of Assertion #3 (the gay rights group) some slack — it's a touchy subject for us gays. And they simply might not have known better than to trust the proponents of Assertion #2 (PETA).

My conclusion: I should not be thinking this hard on a Sunday evening! I so need a boyfriend...

"Homosexuality has been documented in almost 500 species of animals, signaling that sexual preference is predetermined."
--Gay Animals: Alternative Lifestyles in the Wild

And it's not like researchers are intentionally seeking out same-sex activities in animals — they pretty much stumble across it while studying the animals in other contexts, so the number is undoubtedly much higher.

Also interesting is the fact that same-sex encounters in animals appear to be widespread among females. That thought hadn't occurred to me. There's a fashionable theory these days that male homosexuality is determined in the womb as a sort of immune response by the mother: the female womb simply does not like having a male fetus in it and alters the hormonal mix in the womb as a defense mechanism. This is evidenced, supposedly, by a statistical tendency of gay males to have older brothers: the mother's system "turns up the anti-male volume" the second time around, which makes it more likely that the embryo will develop gay.

Cute theory — but how does it explain lesbians?

Anyway, check out all the cute gay critters — especially the cock-of-the-rock (don't look at me that way, I'm just a reporter).

A comment I left at John Tierney's blog on the return of the great gay fruit fly debate:

Given that we still allow parents to mutilate their newborn baby boys for no legitimate medical reason (and "legitimate religious or cultural reason" is of course an oxymoron), it's not hard to deduce that parental "compulsory heterosexualition" of their offspring would also be allowed today -- if it were scientifically possible. (See also the movie "Twilight of the Golds.")

Tomorrow, meanwhile, is an open question.

My thesis is unchanged: To the bigots, this sort of research is irrelevant, because to them if being gay is genetic (or "neurochemical"), then it's a "disease;" if it isn't, then it's a "choice." Either way, they have an entire canon of lies with which to respond. Which means gays and the gay-friendly need to be prepared for either potentiality.

For the uninitiated:

Researchers using brain scans have found new evidence that biology — and not environment — is at the core of sexual orientation. Scientists at the Stockholm Brain Institute in Sweden report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that gay men and straight women share similar traits — most notably in the size of their brains and the activity of the amygdala — an area of the brain tied to emotion, anxiety and aggression. The same is true for heterosexual men and lesbians.

Study author, neurologist Ivanka Savic–Berglund, says such characteristics would develop in the womb or in early infancy, meaning that psychological or environmental factors played little or no role.

Images showing the symmetry here. One should note that the study is relatively small: "90 volunteers — 25 straight and 20 gay members of each sex."

The most interesting aspect of this report to me is the fact that it, unlike the current (and popular) "older brother" theory of male homosexuality, actually explains lesbianism. It also has a clear causal underpinning; the "older brother" theory is merely a strong data correlation but without any obvious physiological cause (hormonal responses in the mother during gestation are suspected, but as yet unproven).

In any case, my standard hasty stitches, first chronicled in this post and also here, remain unchanged:

--Immutability of characteristics (i.e., "born that way") has long been a major prerequisite for warranting suspect class status for equal protection purposes (i.e., strict scrutiny for discrimination based on race; intermediate scrutiny for gender or national origin, etc. — see, e.g., Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677 (1973)). The more evidence that homosexuality "is a biologically fixed characteristic" (which, remember, is not quite the same as "is genetic"), the more defensible granting suspect class status to gays becomes, as the California Supreme Court just did in In re Marriage Cases. Perhaps other courts will follow suit.

--To the bigots, all the research in the world won't make a scrap of difference. If it's not biological, then it's a "choice." If it is biological, then it's a "disease." Either way, it's wrong and deserves no equal treatment (other than in a hospital or asylum). All they'll do is run a search-and-replace in their talking point documents. But they will definitely not stop talking.