The Gays and Lesbians aren't going to like this!

[Guest]

Here is an interesting scientific article that impacts the argument that they "are born that way":

Jacob's Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History

Here are a couple of quotes from near the end of the article if you are pressed for time:

Genes, as Goldstein shows, are interesting to unravel and fun to study. But they are emphatically not destiny. We make existential choices about how we live and what we pass on as culture and values to our children.

The great and beautiful irony is that this ancient assessment of position and potential in society, this hostility to biological determinism and respect for free human choice and its consequences, is also at the core of modernity. It is refreshing to have this truth now affirmed, and in this context, by a geneticist.

[Guest]

If genes were the determining factor then no man could change his mind about how he will live his life. Happily we are creatures possessed with an intelligence that is above mere animal instinct. Which is why you always find scripture presenting the choices a man must make.

Genes may determine that a man's skin will be black, but how that man chooses to live in that skin is a choice only he must make!

[Guest]

It seems that a person's mental characteristics are inherited along with his physical characteristics. Many or most monozygotic twins, for example, have similar preferences, even to marrying similar type of spouses. However, in saying that such similarities, though inherited, are "determined" is claiming too much. As has been pointed out, human beings normally have free wills, that is, the ability to choose.

As Christians, we believe everyone has inherited a sinful nature from Adam. Thus our mental and spiritual natures are genetically inherited as well as our physical natures.

However, in spite of affirmations by homosexuals, there is no evidence that there is such a thing as a "homosexual gene". It is possible in some cases that tendencies to homosexuality may be genetically inherited, but it is by no means genetically determined. Indeed in most cases, the propensity for homosexuality almost always results from learned behaviour, not being genetically influenced at all.

[Guest]

My son is left-handed, though my wife and I and his grandparents are all rightys. Being left-handed has been cause for minor inconveniences (a limited selection of golf clubs to rent at the local course, for example). He is not aware of a point in his life when he chose to be left-handed. It appears that he was "born that way". In fact, a group of scientists at Oxford announced recently that they may have discovered one of the genes that plays a role in 10% of the population being left-handed. The evidence is still very scant and preliminary, however. After all, the modern scientific study of genetics is still relatively new.

Fortunately, in our time and culture, left-handedness is not considered evil or inferior.

I believe that for many homosexuals, same-sex attraction is a genetic trait along the same lines as left-handedness. The majority don't choose it. In fact, they generally try desperately to be hetero and blend in (at least, for a while).

The idea of finding (or not finding) a "gay gene" or, for that matter a "left-handed gene" is to grossly oversimplify the extreme complexity of what makes people the way they are. Other factors include prenatal hormone levels, chromosome linkage in the parents, early social or environmental triggers, etc, etc. In other words, no one really knows at this point what causes homosexuality (or left-handedness).

What we do know is this: Most homosexual people cannot turn off or switch their orientation any more than a heterosexual person could. Think about it guys... Do you think--if you tried really really hard--you could make yourself genuinely sexually attracted to other men and not attracted to women? Do you think you could simply choose to switch your sexual orientation? I think not.

[Guest]

What we do know is this: Most homosexual people cannot turn off or switch their orientation any more than a heterosexual person could. Think about it guys... Do you think--if you tried really really hard--you could make yourself genuinely sexually attracted to other men and not attracted to women? Do you think you could simply choose to switch your sexual orientation? I think not.

No, it's not a matter of "deciding" or "simply choosing".

But what about early sexual experience of a younger person seduced by an older person or even forced by an older person of the same sex, for example a homosexual enticing or even assaulting boys of his acquaintance? Boys who had no tendencies due to any genetical factors? Cannot such experiences can have a profound effect in "switching" one's "sexual orientation"?

[Guest]

Such traumatic events can lead to deep seated psychological and behavioral issues regarding one's sexuality. They don't, however, explain the majority of gays who where not molested as children or the majority of molested children who do not become gay (even if the perp was of the same-sex).