“This is the Way God Made Me” - A Scientific Examination of Homosexuality and the “Gay Gene”

TrueOrigin Archive ^ | Brad Harrub, Ph.D. and Bert Thompson, Ph.D. and Dave Miller, Ph.D.

[Conservative Coulter Fan]

Who exactly is "you people?"

[Vaquero]

Gay Gene????

didn't he play the construction worker in the Village People?

[Vaquero]

You people actually read that whole article?

No! I just read the title and enough of the text to make sarcastic remarks.

[Clint N. Suhks]

If there was, in fact, a “gay gene,” then all of the identical twins should have reported a homosexual orientation.

This looks like pretty goods info but unfortunately it misses the mark with some old NARTH mistakes.

There are no genetic traits that are passed on 100% of the time. If they were then genetic disease would be passed on 100% of the time but they aren't.

There's been many twin studies since the Bailey/Pillard twin studies, and even given the inherent sampling flaws in that study, the real smoking gun is the concordance rates of the dozen or so other twins studies. Without going into specific twins studies there's been concordance rates as high as 65% and as low as 0%. If there's one thing we can say about science it's replicable and the lack of consistent concordance rates proves Bailey/Pillard 1992 was invalid.

[spaced]

Sorry, but I think that you're wrong. We have become a society where truth is not important. As long as the gay crowd has control of the microphones, we will continue to hear that there is a gay gene and most people will believe it. Just another example of the "big lie" school of behaviour.

[DirtyHarryY2K]

Homosexual Agenda Ping!

FReepmail if you want on/off the ping list.

Free Republic homosexual agenda keyword search

[Muleteam1]

Something sounds really odd about inter-generational passing of homosexual genes. Maybe they place them in a safe deposit box for their heirs but I'd rather not go there.

I would like to see an objective study of socially conservative and socially liberal parents to see if parenting has anything to do with this abnormality.

Muleteam1

[Bommer]

The problem with the whole "Gay Gene" Theory is that there would have to be a "Pedophile Gene" and a "Bisexual" gene as well, since all are out of the sexual norm, not to mention that there would have to be a "Heterosexual gene"! Sexuality is learned behavior. To the level of perversion it is taken is determined by ones dark side of their soul.

[ElkGroveDan]

what part of Montana are you from smartass?

[horse_doc]

The basic assumption of this article is ridiculous.

I'm no fan of "Will and Grace", but yes, the fundamental assumption of the article is that having a map of the genome, means understanding what every single gene does.

And we are so far from that, that it isn't even funny.

He might as well write that nearsightedness has no genetic basis, because we can't point to the gene that controls that, either.

[Dutch Boy]

LOL.... Sorry, that's not what I meant to say.

What I intended to say was that some do have children due to a biological urge. Lesbian celebrities come to mind. Some had normal lives then for some reason started playing for the other team. The latter is the category I personally know. I don't believe it is common though.

[Fielding]

socially conservative and socially liberal parents

That is a very interesting angle to pursue. Would a study like based on this criteria violate somebody's or something's constitutional rights?

[reaganandme]

There is no gay gene.

[Kahonek]

"Eh, ok so there is no "gay gene" as such. But if they're trying to pretend that that's the end of the project, WTF are they talking about?"

It IS the end of the project. The problem with the assertion is that the project was never DESIGNED to explain the functions of the genes -- simply to sequence them (as taxed2death pointed out). They never LOOKED for the gay gene in the Human Genome Project. Thus, the argument is something of a straw man.

I do think they will have a very hard time finding any single gene that determines sexual orientation. It's pretty clear from existing research that there is a genetic influence (likely multi-gene, and very possibly nonspecific) and there is an environmental influence, which we don't understand at all yet. Anyone who has determined "THE" reason for sexual orientation is talking complete nonsense from a scientific perspective.

There is a very good explanation for why we don't know what environmental influences cause sexual orientation. To understand a causal question like this one would have to conduct a controlled experiment. Such an experiment would be highly unethical. I suspect that we will NEVER know what environmental factors are causal. We can rule things out as causes (and have ruled many things out), but we cannot make a causal statement with only correlational data.

[dcnd9]

Send this to Leslie Stahl of 60 minutes fame on CBS.
Maybe she will do an honest report to follow up her made up report 3 weeks ago!

Only 1-2% of the POP is gay. We've led those with SSA down the wrong road for 30 years. Time to re-educate them to the fact EX_GAYS exist therefore their arguments for special rights is blown out of the water. Help them overcome not succumb.

[SkyPilot]

By trying to find a "gay gene", homosexuals wanted science to give them an excuse for their sins.

It won't work.

Ever.

Homosexuality and homosexual acts are clearly condemned by God.

Several years ago, I heard the brilliant Christian apologist, Dr. Ravi Zacharias debate a college student who angrily approached him and said that just as racism was terrible, so was the failure of Christians to abide by homosexual acts.

Ravi gently told the woman that race is a gift from God. He said:

"Madame, your race and mine is sacred, because it is derived from the Almighty. But sexuality is also sacred, and God has clearly defined that as well."

The woman expressed her uncontrollable rage at God, and then Ravi asked her:

"Ma'am, you previously said you are an atheist. Why do you express such anger at a God you do not believe exists?"

[Muleteam1]

I'm not sure it would violate a constitutional right, but it would certainly be controversial for the simple fact that it would be research that may tie homosexual behavior to environmental factors.

Muleteam1

[Muleteam1]

I've got it! Horizontal gene transfer. Yea, that's the ticket.

Muleteam1

[pax_et_bonum]

ping to read later

[GOP Poet]

Homosexuals sometimes do procreate. I personally know several.

Huh? Examples? How?