Posted on 01/17/2007 8:09:19 PM PST by GMMAC
When feminism and gay rights butt heads
Barbara Kay, National Post
Published: Wednesday, January 17, 2007
It isn't very often that womens' rights and gay rights collide, but we may be on the brink of just such an interesting moment.
Reports suggest researchers at Oregon State University are having some success in "straightening" homosexual rams -- about 10% of which are "gay" -- by adjusting hormone balances in their brains, after which the ewe-eschewing males start paying their procreative dues in the traditional way.
Such a breakthrough could enormously benefit people in the sheep-breeding business. But further research along these lines might eventually lead to something as rudimentary as a hormonal patch for pregnant women that would reduce or eliminate the possibility of a homosexual child. The Oregon State professor leading the study, Charles Roselli, believes that potentially "the techniques could one day be adapted for human use, with doctors perhaps being able to offer parents prenatal tests to determine the likely sexuality of offspring or a hormonal treatment to change the orientation of the child."
The social fallout from such a discovery is presently incalculable, but imaginations in various ideological quarters are doubtless working overtime on the possibilities.
Take, for example, gay tennis legend Martina Navratilova, who immediately called for a halt to the research at Oregon State, citing "the right of sheep to be gay." She seems, absurdly, to be suggesting that homosexual rams are not driven by hormonal miscues, but rather enjoy some kind of Brokeback-style "relationship" with each other.
I have been anticipating exactly such a bio-genetic plot development for some time. If hormonal adjustments can end the tormenting symptoms of severely afflicted menopausal women (I can happily attest they do), it seemed to me only natural that one day the fetal hormonal chemistry in born homosexuals could be altered as well.
Gay and lesbian umbrage will neither stop nor slow research on this file. For although feminists and gay rights advocates usually march in lockstep on issues of sexual identity and gender equity, here they will divide: Paradoxically feminists' militant commitment to a "woman's right to choose" on reproductive issues has created the exact social and legal conditions under which traditional women's preferences for straight children must be permitted to trump gay exceptionalism.
Thus there is more than a little irony in the gay sheep's story coinciding with the public recommendation by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada (SOGC) that all pregnant women, not just those over 35, henceforth be screened for genetic defects in order to widen the doorway to pregnancy terminations. It reminds us that abortion on demand, for any reason a woman deems worthy, is a settled issue amongst the elites of modern Western society (the parallel U.S. group made the same recommendation).
Technological advances and the problematic consequences in their wake from unfettered access to abortion have thus far not budged pro-choice ideologues. Abortion on demand coupled with sex forecasting, for example, has resulted in a virtual gendercide amongst some cultural communities, but feminists will not back down from their monolithic political stance.
How then can those who support a woman's unconditional right to kill her own healthy female fetus logically balk at a benign intervention that will optimize thechances of a living child having the sexual orientation preferred by the parents? Invoking state protection of a fetus's "right to be gay" -- as if the fetus itself had somehow chosen its own sexual identity -- would vitiate the very principle upon which abortion rights depend, namely, that women's wishes must always take precedence over fetal rights.
And so in a few generations, innate homosexuality may become a very rare thing. If a safe, simple and inexpensive method can be mass-produced to ensure heterosexuality in offspring, the vast majority of traditionally-minded parents will leap on it. Certainly fundamentalists of all religions will openly embrace the opportunity. Amongst progressives in the West, there may be an emotional debate, but an individual heterosexual woman's expressed compassion for gays in society doesn't mean she personally will opt for a gay over a heterosexual child.
In the politically correct public forum, sexual identity equity is de rigeur. But if and when it comes down to a personal choice, and more importantly, if that choice is guaranteed to be private (i.e. nobody but a woman's doctor would ever know) -- even most liberal parents will choose offspring who share their most fundamental human characteristic.
Bkay@videotron.ca
© National Post 2007
Since some traits skip generations, I'd have to say, "Not necessarily."
Take what you can get and don't worry about it.
The Bonnie Tyler, song, I need a Hero?
"develop a genetic test for it'
What is there was a genetic test of unborn children for conservatism?
No, only need for it to be a heritable trait, having certain genetic tendencies in your family tree will increase your (or your offspring's) probability of displaying the trait, but it doesn't have to be dominant to manifest itself.
Look at say ... diabetes which is highly hereditary, but it doesn't mean every diabetic individual has diabetic parents - it just means it's more likely that the disease runs somewhere in the patient's family genetic tree. Or if you ever seen two dark haired parent producing a blond haired child ...same idea.
Beavers and butt heads?
Yup. Great lyrics and a tune you can dance to......
"When Feminism and Gay Rights Bump Uglies"
Hormones can be deficient from organic malfunctions such as thyroid trouble or cysts or tumors in other glands.
ping
Interesting thought.....however I think in many cases homosexuals are created by their environments/sexual abuse as children.
They don't?
Well, no loss. We can see stranger things on CSPAN every day for free.
I have been thinking the ame thing for a good while myself--and have even said so to gay acquaintances---you better pray that the cause of being gay isn't genetic because most parents will not opt for having a gay baby. "oh yes, I think I'll name him Fay"---lol
Oddly enough, it'll be the more religious ones that will "choose" to have the "gay" baby because they couldn't imagine doing anything else.
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