Genetics and Homosexuality

Time magazine just recently ran a story about a new study that strongly suggests a genetic component to being gay. I have mixed feelings about this kind of study because, while having a genetic component for orientation is not much different than having a genetic component for hair color or eye color or skin color, orientation is not merely a physical trait.  I intentionally do NOT use the words “sexual orientation” because orientation has nothing to do with who you have sex with. It’s about who you can fall in love with. Not love, as in friends/siblings/cousins/etc. But fall in love with. Additionally, studies like this bring up the whole “free will/predestination” debate as well. Scientists have, for many years now, been telling us that our emotions are the result of a complex series of chemical reactions. This, in my humble opinion, is a bit “dehumanizing” because if it is true, then we really are nothing more than preprogrammed robots reacting as the chemicals in our body tell us to react. I also worry that, if a “gay gene” is found— or even a sequence of genetic coding— that some firm will eventually start offering tests to determine if your child is likely to be born gay, giving parents the opportunity to abort before they have a gay child.

But that’s not really why I’m writing this post. I’m writing it because the article in Time is so full of inappropriate comparisons and has so many subtle enforcements of old stereotypes that I’m surprised it made it past the copy editor. Let me show them to you.

“If homosexuality is hereditary, why doesn’t the trait gradually disappear, as gays and lesbians are probably less likely than others to have children?”

This subtly implies that having gays in society is detrimental to the continued existence of society since traits that have no “survival of the fittest” advantage usually die out. Additionally, it implies that it would be in humanity’s best interest if it just disappeared. Yet there are animals who show homosexual affinities. And there are many reasons why having a “gay” animal in a pack can be of great benefit to the pack. No, the animal will likely not reproduce. But it eventually leads to having another adult to act as guardian and/or as a food provider without adding additional mouths to feed. This can be the difference between life and death in times when food is short and predators are many (sometimes because food is short.) It also acts as a form of natural birth control, especially if it’s a male animal that is “gay”.

The very same reasons can be used for the human population in its beginning stages. Having another man around to help hunt who wasn’t looking to mate with a female could have decreased the competition between the heterosexual males, thereby keeping life with in the clan a bit more harmonious. Having another female around who wasn’t giving birth to kids but who could, conceivably, be a wet nurse or at the very least help provide maternal care to the children while mom was recovering from birth or illness would have benefited the entire clan.

Additionally, in human society, the “need” to reproduce disappeared a long, long time ago. Man has become “master” of his environment (notice “master” is in quotes…). Now reproduction is usually a matter of choice. One’s orientation is of no importance in the ability of man to survive. While traditionally, gays were less likely to have kids, with the advent of sperm banks and surrogate mothers and open adoptions and gays coming out of the closet, gays now have as many options to have children as infertile straight couples.

Moving on…

In a related, unpublished study, Hamer added to growing evidence that male homosexuality may be rarer than was long thought — about 2% of the population, vs. the 4% to 10% found by Kinsey and others. Hamer notes, however, that he defined homosexuality very narrowly. “People had to be exclusively or predominantly gay, and had to be out to family members and an outside investigator like me. If we had used a less stringent definition, we would probably have found more gay men.”

So why even make the point that it “may be rarer than was long thought”? I am bisexual. When I was married to a man, I was no less bisexual. Yet, I’m guessing that according to Mr. Hamer’s study, I would not have been included because I was not “exclusively or predominantly gay”. Nor was I out to family members or outsiders like him. So if he altered the definition, there’s no “probably” about it: he would have found more gay men! Gay men are much more in the closet than lesbians or bisexuals because there is still such a huge stigma against being a gay male in US society. There are out lesbians in professional sports of all genres. In fact, there are many professional sports where it’s almost automatically assumed that any woman playing it is a lesbian (ie, women’s football or women’s basketball). And society in general doesn’t have a problem with that. But let a professional sports figure come out as a gay man and it’s major news. So if Mr. Hamer was able to find 2% of the population who were “homosexuals” according to his definition, then I’d be willing to bet that the real number is closer to the 10% often claimed by gay rights advocates.

The article continues.

Simon LeVay, who won wide publicity for an analysis of differences in brain anatomies between straight and gay men, acknowledges that the brains he studied were of AIDS victims, and thus he cannot be sure that what he saw was . [sic] genetic rather than the result of disease or some aspect of gay life.

I admit: I am not a scientist. But please, tell me exactly what “aspect” of “gay life” is so drastically different from “straight life” that it would alter one’s brain? There is no such thing as a “gay lifestyle”. A lifestyle is a conscious choice. One can choose to be altruistic or miserly, pious or hedonistic, promiscuous or prudish, law-abiding or criminal, lavish or within-our-means. Or anything in between. About the only aspect of “gay life” that is different is having to hide who we are from society and the abuse that’s heaped upon us because of who we are. But, from my understanding of the effects of abuse on the brain, it doesn’t matter what kind of abuse you suffer (physical, verbal, mental, emotional, sexual or any combination thereof), the effects on the brain are similar. So the brains of gay men would not have been all that different from the brains of straight men who were abused as children. (And that number is higher than most think.)

Might it have been the AIDS that caused the differences in the brains? Sure. But AIDS is not a “gay” disease. It may have hit the gay community harder and faster than other communities at first because it was not understood initially how it was transferred from person to person. But in today’s society, the fastest growing population who are getting AIDS are young people under 25. Of the more than 14000 new cases of HIV infection every day, 50% fall into the “under 25″ age bracket and more of them are women than men. And the vast majority of them are poor, living in third world countries without access to the plethora of drugs Americans have to slow down the disease’s progress or even bring it to a complete stop.

Comments like the one quoted only serve to perpetuate the mistaken belief that there is a “gay lifestyle” that separates gays from straights.

Dr. Richard Pillard, professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and co-author of some twin studies — showing that identical twins of gay men have a 50% chance of being gay — is almost as laudatory. Says he: “If the new study holds up, it would be the first example of a higher-order behavior that has been found to be linked to a particular gene.”

“Higher-order behavior”? Being gay is not a behavior. Stealing is a behavior. Praying is a behavior. Laughing is a behavior. Loving is the essence of the human soul. (Yeah, I know, there are those who don’t believe we have a soul.) I’m not sure exactly what Dr. Pillard is considering a “higher-order behavior”, but it sounds as if he’s referring to one’s orientation. If this is the case, it once again supports the mistaken belief that being gay is a choice because behaviors (at least those without a pathological cause like Tourette’s) are choices that we make. Gays do not choose to be gay. They may choose to acknowledge that. They may choose to embrace that. They may choose to hide that. But they do not choose to be gay.

Now let’s get into the statements that really are absurd.

“If homosexuals are deemed to have a foreordained nature, many of the arguments now used to block equal rights would lose force.”

This statement assumes that those arguments are now valid (have force). And they aren’t. This country is a constitutional republic. It is governed by democratic principles. The rights of the majority rule ONLY IF they do not violate the constitutionally guaranteed rights of even one individual. The Declaration of Independence states that all people have certain unalienable right, and that among these are the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. In simpler terms, that means the freedom to live our lives in the manner we think will make us happy. The DoI goes on to state that “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” Read that again, please. “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” So the government’s main reason for existence is to secure each and every individual’s right to live their life in the manner they think will make them happy.  Every single law in the US should have one litmus test: does this protect the rights of EVERY individual to live his/her life in the manner s/he thinks will make him/her happiest? If you can answer yes to that question, the law is valid. If you cannot, then the law is unconstitutional.

Murder (intentionally taking another’s life) is not legal because it is inherently evil. We justify homicide every day: self-defense, war, “justifiable” homicide, etc. The very fact that we have different “degrees” of murder/manslaughter and accept extenuating or mitigating circumstances to reduce the “degree” of murder is proof that we do not view murder as inherently evil. Murder is illegal because it violates the rights of the victim to live life in the manner they think will make them happiest. Same with theft, rape, etc. Drunk driving laws increase the risk to the lives of others without their consent, thereby interfering with their right to live their life in the manner they think will make them happiest. So those laws are valid. There is NOTHING in the laws that ban gay marriage that protects the rights of ANYONE. Including the rights of those who oppose gay marriage. Because if we allow such laws to stand, we are setting a precedent that the government can tell us who we can and cannot marry based on what the majority of society says is “right/wrong”. And that undermines the very foundations upon which this country was founded: equality and personal freedom.

Here’s another one that gets my goat.

“Some legal scholars think that if gays can establish a genetic basis for sexual preference, like skin color or gender, they may persuade judges that discrimination is unconstitutional.”

Hello!? Understand this: We do not need a genetic basis for discrimination to be illegal! ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. Does that ring a bell for anyone? Simply because laws have been written in the past that condoned or legalized discrimination (and make no mistake, laws are still being written to condone and legalize discrimination) does not mean they were constitutional! That’s why they’re being overturned. The only “activist judges” are the ones like the judge in Houston who restricted a gay man’s ability to enjoy his visitations with his children by imposing undue restrictions on those visitations. The judges who throw out laws because they violate the US Constitution, no matter how much popular support they have, are only doing their jobs.

Oh, it keeps on coming…

In addition, genetic evidence would probably affect many private relationships. Parents might be more relaxed about allowing children to have gay teachers, Boy Scout leaders and other role models, on the assumption that the child’s future is written in his or her genetic makeup. Those parents whose offspring do turn out gay might be less apt to condemn themselves.

Parents are “uptight” about leaving children with gay teachers, Boy Scout leaders and other role models because parents have these fucked up misconceptions and stereotypes about gays that are being perpetuated by radical religious right like James Dobson and Pat Robertson in their quest to make this into a fundamentalist Christian nation. And those fucked up misconceptions and stereotypes are being spread by politicians like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry and by news outlets like Faux News and even Time. Radio personalities like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and all those other hate/fear-mongerers are keeping the lies and misconceptions about gays alive because they make a whole shitload of money when they get people so pissed off.

And then there’s this…

Says Cherie Garland of Ashland, Oregon, mother of a 41-year-old gay son: “The first thing any parent of a gay child goes through is guilt. If homosexuality is shown to be genetic, maybe parents and children can get on with learning to accept it.”

Again, you’re putting the cart before the horse. What we need to get rid of is the idea that there’s anything WRONG with being gay. Does a parent of a child feel guilty if the child is blond vs brunette? No, because no one thinks there’s anything “wrong” with being blond vs. brunette. Society doesn’t discriminate against blonds (well, to a certain extent they have their own stereotypes, but there’s no laws prohibiting blonds from marrying who they love.). The guilt Ms. Garland feels is due to her programming by society that being gay is a sin or wrong or deviant or harmful or somehow hurtful to her son. It’s not the being gay that’s hurtful or harmful: it’s society’s attitudes and preconceived ideas and stereotypes.

“On the other hand, mothers who used to blame themselves for faulty upbringing may start blaming themselves for passing on the wrong genes.”

Again, see how this article itself is perpetuating the stereotype that there’s something wrong with being gay by saying “the wrong genes”? The attitudes of straight society have to change and they’re not going to change until gays have equal rights and even then, it’s going to be several generations before attitudes change. The same thing happened when blacks won equal rights: attitudes started to change as people were essentially “forced” to deal with blacks as their equals. And then they saw that a lot of their stereotypes and preconceived ideas were plain wrong.

Even some of the gay participants in the study subtly reinforce the preconceived notion that there’s something wrong with being gay. One of the participants states: “I always believed that homosexuality was something I was born with. If homosexuality is genetic, there is nothing you can do about it. If there is more research like this in years to come, hopefully homosexuality will be accepted rather than treated as an abnormality.”

Why should you have to do anything about it? It is NOT something that needs “fixed” or “cured”. What needs “fixed” and “cured” are the attitudes of society in general who fear anything that is different from them.  I even find the notion of homosexuality being “accepted” to be subtle reinforcement that something is wrong. It feels like “We’ll tolerate you being here…”.  “Accepting” homosexuality seems to me to be about as necessary as “accepting” that some people are artistic or musical geniuses or childhood prodigies.  Those people are probably (strictly speaking by the numbers) more “abnormal” than gays. And yet there’s no problem not merely “accepting” them but embracing them as equals. And in large part, in this country, the attitude that there’s something wrong with being gay is directly contributed to modern Christianity (which, for the record, I believe has about as much relevance to the message of Love taught by Yeshua, the Christ, as paint has to bananas.)

Even when the article addresses some of the points I have made above (on page 4), they still don’t really get it right. Donald Suggs of the New York chapter of the GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) believes that homophobia will go away when people accept us.  Truth of the matter is, that nothing will make homophobia go away except education. Phobias are fears— often irrational fears. And the only way to get rid of a fear is to confront it and take away its power.

Changes in laws can gain us tolerance and, even to a certain extent, acceptance, but it won’t wipe out homophobia any more than passage of the Civil Rights Act more than 40 years ago wiped out racism. It’s more a matter of respect. When we are respected as equals, not merely accepted or tolerated, then homophobia will begin to disappear. Yes, it begins with changes in the law that “force” tolerance and acceptance, but it doesn’t end there.

And there’s nothing that’s going to change those who hate/fear gays due to faith because faith is beyond logic and reason. Faith is the belief in what which is beyond proof. But what has to stop is allowing the faith of a few to dictate the public policy of the masses. The wall of separation between church and state must be rebuilt and protected against any attack by any faith.