The "Gay Gene"
/Research what you support
During the 1960’s, a gay rights movement was taking place, hoping to ensure that homosexuals were treated equally to heterosexuals. Western society has been based on Christian heterosexual values since… well, since man “civilized” the West. Christian values laid the blueprint on how societies should function. They have built the foundation for modern democracy and the model has been successful for the most part.
Homosexuals eventually grew frustrated and attempted political action. However, the majority of legislators made a very clear case against homosexual equality. Why should a group of people who consciously defy our society’s core values be treated as equally as those who do follow our core values? Why should they be rewarded for choosing to act outside of our rules?
For the homosexual advocate an obvious rebuttal appeared that seemed to be irrefutable: We are not choosing to go against society, we are born this way. This stumped the courts, because now the gays would have to be legislated along the same lines as the African-American Civil Rights Movement. It was their right not to be discriminated against for something you can’t control.
“O.K.,” the legislators said, “in order for anti-discrimination laws to be made you have to prove that people are actually born entirely homosexual and that there is no choice involved. If there is even a slight choice we see no reason to twist the laws because of your minority’s opinion. The same way we cannot give over-weight people extra rights because they were genetically predisposed to likely be overweight. Although it can be seen as morally wrong to not hire someone because they are overweight, it is not illegal. You are allowed to believe that an overweight person may contribute less and be more of a liability than a healthy person. At that point, if you are the overweight applicant you can choose to take your talents somewhere else and boycott the company that didn’t hire you. That is the beauty of a free capitalist democracy. However, if you are refusing to hire an applicant solely on the fact of how they were born that is another matter. You cannot punish someone for something they had no cognitive choice over. So, is homosexuality a choice or a genetic anomaly?”
The homosexuals responded with, “We are born this way.”
The legislators asked one final question, “Can you prove it?”
The general consensus of most scientists is, “No, the gay gene hasn’t been found. But that doesn’t mean that a gay gene or something similar to a gay gene doesn’t exist.”
This essentially means that the research is still in the works. The environmental research however is highly interesting. Dr. Paul McHugh, a professor of psychiatry at John Hopkins University, has been studying sexuality for over forty years. He said to look at the Framingham study for evidence. The study showed that “If you are a man and you grow up in a rural environment, you are four times less likely to have homosexual relationships than if you grow up in a metropolitan area,” and “If you are a lesbian, you are much more likely to be college-educated.” Dr. Paul McHugh adds, “My point is that we now know that the environment is very important.”
Still, that does not necessarily mean you have a choice in the matter. The environment you grew up in could have shaped your sexuality from a young age. This is a grey area for legislation. Can a murderer’s childhood environment influence him so greatly that he has no choice but to be a murderer? It is definitely an argument. This example may seem extreme in comparison to homosexuality but it serves the purpose of demonstrating how crucial environmental factors are, and how difficult they are to take account of when legislating.
It is difficult to believe that society and psychology have no influence on your sexuality. Sexuality is thought to be more than simply just an act. It is a kind of identity. A prominent voice on the topic, Richard Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Cornell University, wrote about this topic in his book Sexual Orientation. He said “Homosexual orientation results from interaction of many factors, including genetic influences in varying degrees across individuals... The assertion that homosexuality is genetic is so reductionistic that it must be dismissed out of hand as a general principle of psychology. " and that “Sexual orientation of any type - homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual - is best conceptualized as part of the psychology of men or the psychology of women..."
The reason for writing this article was for positive analysis. I support homosexual activism in politics, and in order to support anything I have to know the facts. Instead of taking the “Born this way” proposition on blind faith, why not dig a little deeper? It’s O.K. to question movements that you support, if you don’t then they may turn into something entirely different from what you once thought they were.
The only way to be taken seriously in the intellectual world is to challenge your own ideologies and take your opponent’s into deep consideration. Intellectual ignorance may feel like bliss, but you will never know the truth until you engage all alternative ideas.
