DNA Doesn't Act Alone
Reducing the “born gay” debate down to genetics oversimplifies and invalidates the unique experience and complexity of individual human beings. For example, I know families where cancer is common and yet not everyone gets it. Why? Because more goes into having cancer than just genetics. We have to take into account someone’s lifestyle and their environment. For someone who struggles with unwanted same-sex attraction, we must also consider the developmental and relational factors that clearly prove far more significant than any potential genetic or biological impact. I have two adopted children and every book I have read has confirmed the truth that the environment and family that they are raised in is far more influential than their genetic or biological predispositions to psychological problems.
One thing both sides in this debate agree upon is that many factors contribute to the development of same-sex attraction. Most researchers, including Dr. Dean Hamer, the “gay gene” researcher who self-identifies as gay, agree that homosexuality, like other psychological conditions, stems from a combination of social, biological, and psychological factors. Dr. Hamer has said, “Genes are hardware...the data of life’s experiences are processed through the sexual software into the circuits of identity. I suspect the sexual software is a mixture of both genes and environment, in much the same way the software of a computer is a mixture of what’s installed at the factory and what’s added by the user.”
As someone who became dissatisfied living as a homosexual, I began to examine the various influences in my life that led me down the path to same-sex attraction. I found that abuse and a poor relationship with my father drove much of my need to seek acceptance in the arms of other men. To dismiss all of my experiences to a genetic component is ignorant at best, and denial at worst.
While these events played a pivotal role in my life, they are hardly unique. I’ve sat in enough support group sessions to know that many who struggle with homosexuality deal with a similar constellation of factors, including a distant relationship with the same-sex parent, isolation from same-sex peers and a profound feeling of alienation from their own gender. Could all of this be purely coincidental? If sexual preference boiled down to an issue of genes alone, then why do we see a disproportionate number of people dealing with the same sets of root factors? Of course, this is not the case for everyone, but it happens often enough to convince me that there might be more than just our DNA at work here.
Alan Chambers is the President of Exodus International—the largest worldwide Christian outreach to those dealing with unwanted same-sex attraction.
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Quote: "We have to take into account someone’s lifestyle and their environment . For someone who struggles with unwanted same-sex attraction, we must also consider the developmental and relational factors that clearly prove far more significant than any potential genetic or biological impact."
There is little or no evidence that anything after you are born determines whether you are gay or not. Rather, it is a combination of pre-birth conditions , such as the woman's womb, and so on.
I'm sure that my lack of unprovable statistics and supportive scripture will make it easy for my contribution to this discussion to be scoffed at. However, I have been reading every one's insight from top of this page to the bottom, regarding whether or not people choose to be gay and I just had to add my two cents, for what it's worth. My brother, Michael was a year and a half younger than me. But we were best friends. We did everything together. From the time he was about five I remember people in my family making comments about how Michael was going to be gay when he grew up. At 5, people could tell. He didn't even know what sex or being gay even meant. To make a long story short, I came home from school one day. Michael had stayed home sick. My parents were at work. I walked into the room that we shared together and found my brother, my best friend, hanging from the rafter. He was only 13 and he committed suicide . The reason? Well the note he had left on his pillow, which was very obviously stained in his tears, said, and I quote "I just cant take this life anymore. I have been trying to pretend that I was not gay since I first knew what gay meant. I've tried for years, but I am. Everyone knows it. I hate it. Im afraid people will beat me up or worse. Every morning i cry in the shower knowing I have to go to school again and spend my day being laughed at by girls and insulted by the guys. I wished to God not to be gay. But God didn't answer. For the few people in my life who know Im gay and still arent disgusted by me, Im sorry if I hurt you. But it hurts too much and gay boys are weaklings. Im 13 and every second of my life is consumed by feelings of guilt, shame, fear, and disgust for myself. The average life span is somewhere in the 70's. That thought of knowing I may have another 60 years of this was just more than I could bare. Mom, dad, and Caleb (that's me) I love you guys and I don't want you guys to have to explain to people that you are related to a fag. I should have done this sooner for you guys..I love you. Michael." That was my brothers complete suicide letter. Does this sound like a person who made a choice to be gay? You could tell from 5 and he was sorry that we his family had to be related to a fag. Debates like this one will go on forever. As for me, you can lay all the studies, statistics, polls, and arguments in the world in front of me. But my brother's very short life is all the proof I need to know that people absolutely have no choice whether to be gay or straight. And 1 more small thought I'd like to put out there. What about child molesters? If being gay is a choice, is being a pedophile a choice too?
It is called life, and in life there are no guarantees. Homosexuality is empirically a perversion, and doubtfully would one chose perversion. The perverted psyche accepts the fact and reacts in different ways and manners, some repulsive to the normal society and some pathetic, earning empathy from the normal society. To debate it is futile and only exercises one's frustrations.
You sure have a fancy way of saying absolutely nothing of substance. But while you may think that being gay is a perversion, I think that condemning innocent souls to a life of fear and shame out of complete ignorance to the fact is a perversion. So I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.
The 'discomfort' caused by attempting to wield the coercive power of government against the nine out of ten Christian minority is of no consequence?
Hooray for circular reasoning: "only gays matter"
Care to explain how the desire for financial and legal equity with heterosexuals (in terms of job availability, wage discrimination, housing, civil unions and the benefits thereof, etc.) is in any way 'wield[ing] the coercive power of government" against anyone except extreme bigots who refuse to abide by the golden rule?
This tired old strawman is constantly trotted out when people who have no logical (i.e. non-religiously motivated) reason to oppose equal rights and privileges realize that they've brought a knife to the proverbial gunfight.
Went I attended The Ohio State University it was going through a tranistion in it's Psychology department. The 70's were a time of new ideas and conventions.
Our Professors were being told to teach that homosexuality was not abnormal or a disorder. But that didn't change the facts.
In particular male homosexuality is still quite rare 1/2 to 1 % of the population is actively gay or homosexual.
As for whether its is "born" or learned the answer lies somewhere inbetween.
Men and women are often born genetically inbetween male and female. This is a known fact and in some cases infants even have both sets of genitalia. Some men grow up with feminine behaviors, voices, and even build.
This however doesn't predetermine their gender identity, because often parental and peer influence is so strong that these men fall into the role of the male parent and spouse.
However, when young, they can be ostacized by alpha males, and drawn to homosexuals who might see them as an easy turn.
Others are afffected by sexual trauma inflicted by a family member or peer, and othertimes imprinting behavior is missing in a family that is not functioning prooperly because of divorce or a parent accidentlly or deliberately confusing their role. In affect, in both situations it is a learned behavior though in the latter case is dramatically affected by biologically conflicted gender identity.
It is an unpopular stand to take to say that being gay is abnormal, but the fact that it is rare and is not selected for genetically and it can not reproduce itself genetically over time says that it is an abnomally.
That said I believe that tolerance and love is called for, but not encouragement we are seeing in our society today. We don't encourage deafness, blindness, or autism , though we also are not intolerant of their condition. Then too we will strive to imprive their situation if a "cure" presents itself. Note that the deaf community is staarting to push back against curing deafness, because they see it as a threat to the normalcy of their community.
SuperDelegate says "fact that it is rare and is not selected for genetically and it can not reproduce itself genetically over time says that it is an abnomally.".
By this logic ants, bees and similar colony based societal insects would have long ago died out as most of the populaiton there is asexual. Consider that every single asexual worker ant you see has had an unbroken chain of reproducing ancestors for hundreds of years. Every single one is the offspring of a queen and a mate, yet lives its life without ever having sex. How is that selected for?
Some studies suggest that you're more likely to be gay if you have more older brothers. ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13555604 / ). This would suggest that your mother carries the genes to make you a gay man. How does she benefit genetically? Consider you have four reproducing brothers, each one impregnates a seperate girl who takes nine months to come to term. Who are you going to impregnate? Better for the family if, like ants, you assist in maintaining your nieces and nephews health until breeding age rather than fruitlessly competing with your siblings.
Given the fruit fly studies I would not be surprised if there is a gay gene, however I would also not be surprised if this is an issue of hormonal balance in gestation. I would also believe that in some instances gayness can be environmental. It really doesn't matter one way or another to me but I do believe that at least some, probably most, gays are born homosexual (for valid biological reasons) and should be allowed to live their life however they please. From a purely selfish viewpoint, more gay men means more choice of partner for me and less competition for them. In fact I may start a campaign of straight men for gays! (except lesbians, sorry but that doesn't help me at all does it?!) Joking aside I have phrased this argument with the gay being a man but it is equally as valid for the ladies.
You are quite correct that genetics is not the whole answer. Environment certainly plays a part, and may include not only emotional factors such as those you mention from your own past, but such things as prenatal influences, infant diet, whatever.
I would like to see this question rephrased to something that takes better account of these factors - "Is homosexuality preventable?" or "Can people choose their sexual orientation?" Either of those questions would better account for all the factors involved, while still getting to the root of the political issues involved.
"Is there a biological component to sexual orientation" would be more appropriate.
...there is no "cancer gene." There are a few genetic combinations that can put you at risk of cancer. But even if you live a low-risk lifestyle, you still might get cancer because of your genes. The greatest benefit to knowing a family history of cancer is not that you live trying to avoid cancer, but that you go in frequently for testing. This raises the odds that any cancer will be found early and treated.
None of this harms the idea that there may also be unavoidable genetic factors to homosexuality.
Furthermore, all research shows that sexuality is fairly well solidified by the time a child is born; people come out at 18, they don't turn gay then. So the environmental factors that cause or effect homosexuality are likely prenatal or occur quite early in development.
As to your claim that gays in "reparative therapy" treatment are unhappy with themselves and their gender, the gays I know that aren't in "reparative therapy" are happy with themselves and their gender. This is either self-selection, or something about the "therapy." Either way, it's not surprising.
"Furthermore, all research shows that sexuality is fairly well solidified by the time a child is born". That's a pretty strong and absolute statement about something that is impossible to determine. Sorry but saying that has no credibility at all and will reduce the credibility of anything else you say (even if I agree with it). The fact is it seems that being Gay is determined before puberty but when and how has never been established.
Point! I should have said later; you're right. Developmental scientists don't and haven't nailed themselves down.
...but the biggest two proven influences are a. prenatal hormones and b. genes. By the time you're born, then, those two factors are done. There's been nothing solid to prove or uphold early childhood experiences.
Genes Haven't been "proven" and won't be until the exact gene is found. None of this matters though as it's involuntary no matter how you slice it.
The gene that controls sexuality has been found in fruit flies. A Google search for "fruit fly gay gene" will show you the article. We can toggle it on and off again.
The proof is in twin studies and generational studies. It's probably not one gene, but that doesn't mean it's not a few recessive genes working together, or something similar.
Sexuality in the fruit flies seems to be regulated by how they interpret the scent of another. This has been shown to be regulated genetically or through drugs. Are you confident that human sexuality works the same way and the study shows that human sexuality is genetic?
To put this into a little more perspective: we study fruit flies for insights into human autism , and we have made breakthroughs through them. If the study had shown that some genes make some fruit flies kind of sort of showing a slight change in orientation at certain times in the day, no, this would not have any meaning. It doesn't. It shows a hardwired single gene.
Of course it doesn't work exactly the same way; we don't lay eggs, for one, and we likely have a few recessive genes that activate or not depending on the environment instead of one specific gene. (Research points to there being a couple different ones, anyway, since genetic causes of male homosexuality already seem different from female.)
If you're asking if this is the gene that controls detecting masculinity or femininity, and which one the fly is attracted to, that's the same thing in different words. And, again, it shows a lead.
As this article points out, one cannot reduce the intricacy of our physiological makeup such that we assume social constructs are defined so completely by our genes. Despite various research studies, with findings such as heightened serotonin metabolism in exclusively homosexual males, sexuality is at best a social construct haphazardly linked to one's sense of self and concept of body.
Throughout human history, society has undergone such perversions from the natural that the act of copulation has been pathologised to such an extent that most people consider the resulting neuroses a physical drive. If we take a psychoanalytic view of socialisation, we will see that 'sexuality' is constructed and not inherited. From birth, it is drilled into us that the erogenous zones are to be repressed and hidden, this causes an unnatural psychological reaction, resulting in a neurotic fixation with copulation, and genital organs. The repression that occurs is so great, that the manifestation is what we refer to as sexuality. The magnitide of the repression is directly proportional to the societal weight of this 'topic', as is obvious from media content. In nature, such a distortion of copulation does not exist.
In conclusion, it is not a case of 'are people born gay?'. For homosexuality is simply a variation on the theme. It should not be pathologised to any greater extent than heterosexuality.