Homosexuality not genetic

By: Jeffrey Padgett

Posted: 10/9/06

Homosexual activity has long been publicized in the media as an inborn trait. Gay activists have been purporting the "fact" that sexual orientation is determined by a person's genetic makeup. They claim that same-sex attraction is not a choice, and that they were simply "born the gay way." The entire reason gay activism and gay marriage has gained such successful popularity is because this group presents themselves as a persecuted minority group at the same level as women, blacks and Jews.

America has been pummeled with this idea, and because we pride ourselves on being the land of freedom and equality, we are quick to eat up what the media dishes out to us. It's tasty, but not true.

Most scientists and psychiatrists agree that saying homosexuality is caused by genetics is like saying that a tall person is going to be a basketball player. It is true that most basketball players are tall, but not all tall people are basketball players. In the same way, some men are more feminine and some women more masculine, but that does not cause them to become homosexual. There is a correlation, but not a cause - this is what the media often misreports.

In a recent Australian study of more than 14,000 identical twins by Bailey, Martin and the University of Queensland, it was found that 38 percent of identical male twins were gay and 30 percent of identical female twins lesbian. Identical twins means identical genes - if homosexuality truly is genetically caused, then the number of identical twins that are both homosexual should be at 100 percent. Even if some people were stifling their homosexuality, the results should still put them very close to 100 percent. There are other studies that replicate the same results - the percent of identical twins that are both homosexual is usually much less than 50 percent. This proves there is no "gay gene," but that there are environmental factors involved.

Homosexuality cannot be genetic because people actually do change their orientation. College girls change more often than any other group, switching between straight, gay and bisexual attractions. This shows that orientation is very much choice-based, or environmental-based.

Robert Spitzer wrote in a 2003 review titled "200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation," "Although initially skeptical, in the course of the study the author became convinced of the possibility of change in some gay men and lesbians."

This was the same psychiatrist who took homosexuality off the list of psychiatric mental disorders - he is hardly anti-gay. According to Spitzer, they just need the will and help to change. Spitzer said there was no emotional harm to those who sought reparative therapy, and that they actually changed their sexual attractions - not just their overt behavior.

If a man likes a man, they may have sex, but they won't have a baby. Homosexuality serves no evolutionary or reproductive purpose. Not all homosexual men are great parents (the only possible evolutionary benefit), and some feminine heterosexual men are much better at parenting. It doesn't make sense for it to be genetic because natural selection would have eliminated the mutation by now.

There is not a single study that can prove there is a gay gene or set of genes that determines a person's orientation. Gay activists take the correlations found and present them as causes to further their political agenda. They tell homosexuals who don't want to be gay that it is impossible to change, when it is scientifically documented as possible.

I'm not saying whether I think being gay is right or wrong, and it isn't as if gays just woke up one morning and said, "Hmmm … being gay sounds fun, I think I'll try that." Homosexuality is a choice, conscious or unconscious, that people need to admit to.