Posted on 06/19/2005 8:47:14 PM PDT by Crackingham
As the culture wars rage over gay rights, a flock of sheep at Oregon State University may help answer a key question behind the controversy: Is homosexuality a matter of choice or biology? The Corvallis herd includes a group of rams that scientists delicately refer to as "male-oriented." These animals consistently ignore females and bestow all their amorous attentions on members of their own sex.
Researcher Charles Roselli says a decade of study suggests sexual orientation is largely hard-wired into the sheep's brains before birth. Now, he's trying to figure out how that happens, zeroing in on genes and hormones. In a bold test of his ideas, he hopes to engineer the birth of gay rams by altering conditions in the womb.
Sheep aren't people, but the Oregon work adds to a growing body of research that bolsters biological explanations for sexual orientation across species — including humans. Despite those scientific findings, some religious groups say homosexuality is a lifestyle that can be treated, if not prevented. One such group, the conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family, is sponsoring a one-day conference in Bothell Saturday. The social and political implications of the research are impossible to ignore, leading to unease on both sides of the gay-rights debate. If science proves homosexuality is innate, is there any basis to deny gays equal treatment — including the right to marry? But if scientists unravel the roots of sexual orientation, will it some day be possible to "fix" people who don't fit the norms or abort fetuses likely to be born gay?
Much of the cutting-edge research is being conducted in other countries, because the political pressure cooker in the United States makes it difficult for scientists to get money, said Brian Mustanski, who juggles studies of the genetics of homosexuality with his main work on HIV prevention at the University of Illinois, Chicago. But controversy can't obscure the facts, he said.
"It's pretty definitive that biological factors play a role in determining a person's sexual orientation."
Austrian scientists reported this month that switching a single gene was enough to make female fruit flies rebuff males and attempt to mate with other females. Swedish researchers recently found the sexual center of gay men's brains lit up when they sniffed a pheromone-like chemical from men's sweat, but didn't respond to a chemical from women.
And last fall, Italian scientists offered a possible explanation for the persistence of gay genes — even though evolution tends to weed out traits that discourage reproduction. The team from the University of Padua found that mothers and aunts of gay men had more offspring than female relatives of heterosexuals, suggesting genes that influence homosexuality in men may increase fertility in females.
That the evidence comes from such disparate directions leads scientists to suspect several different biological pathways may lead to homosexuality. Both genes and hormones appear to be important. Nor do researchers discount the possibility that social factors may play a role.
"I tend not to be a nature-versus-nurture kind of dichotomist," said Roselli, of the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine in Portland. "I think there's probably a very complex interaction that's going on between both biology and the environment that is involved in determining these types of behaviors."
ping
These animals consistently ignore females and bestow all their amorous attentions on members of their own sex.
Really...so how do they reproduce?
Do you think it might be possible that animals don't understand the concept of Male and Female and will try and rut whenever the feeling hits them?
So homosexuality is a birth defect, or a defect caused while in the womb, I just might buy off on that one.
There are some aspects of biology that pertain to this question.
1. The default development for the embryo and fetus is female. No testosterone, or an inability to respond to testosterone, the child will develop as female. That means female external genital structure and a female pattern of brain development. It does not matter, if the child is XX or XY, the child will develop as female.
2. Furthermore, the presence of anti-mullerian hormone (AMH)is necessary for the internal sexual organs to develop in a male pattern. If there is no AMH, the child may be XY, but will have a uterus and fallopian tubes. However, in the case of the XY child, with gonadal agenesis, there will be no testes or ovaries.
A good example of the condition, where the embryo and fetus are not able to respond to testosterone is androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS). The child has female external genitalia, a blind vagina and no uterus. The adult phenotype is taller than average, slender, attractive woman. These girls grow up identifying as girls, but they are XY.
The medical ethics pertaining to this condition is to accept the patient as they are (female), and give them supportive treatment. Usually, the indication is to remove the gonads, because there is an increased risk of cancer. Since, they do not respond to testosterone, there is a runawy stimulation of the gonads by pitutary hormones.
Maybe they recruit a lesbian sheep to bear their young?
It's late.
Forgive me.
I know.
That was baaaaaaad.
yes exactly. Why would gay people want to prove they were born that way? Wouldn't that just make them freaks and mutants? Their right to marry goes out the window if theyre not genetically gay, and they can't have that.
To increase or decrease?
"Wouldn't that just make them freaks and mutants?"
and they are not?
What does a gay baby look like?
Gee, I feel better already.
Jesus said: "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." -from THE BIBLE: Matthew 19:4-6
I haven't seen definitive scientific evidence that this is true. In all biology everything tries to procreate, even lesser organisms that are both sexes reproduces itself, else any living organism that can not reproduce itself in some biotic way would go against nature since it harbors a 'Fatal Gene'. If the homosexual community wants to believe they are born that way then they should also accept that it's a birth defect as it leads to their own extinction since they can not procreate. IMO, homosexuality is a 'behavior', a psychological malady, and an immoral one at that, nothing more.
Good point about the paedo bit -- dogs and cats practise incest, shoudl THAT be allowed???
The Greeks weren't polygamous. They were monogamous, both sexes.
Even if assuming arguendo, there is an impulse in some (and I am not conceding it is genetic) to be attracted to the same sex, there is also an impulse to kill, steal, commit adultery, etc., in some. It doent make it right, and people need to control their impulses.
But that would require a moral code.
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