[only1percent]

Two answers to this:

(1) many human traits reduce the likelihood that an individual will survive to reproduction, and increase the likelihood that one who has reproduced will die during his children's childhood, making them vulnerable to not reproducing themselves. Courage, audacity, risk-taking, all have the tendency to lead to early death. However, these traits have great COMMUNAL benefit, and advance the reproduction of the "tribe" (the closely related pool of genes), and hence are evolutionarily selected. Perhaps homosexuality, or, rather, the other traits that accompany it in a genetic package, have some tribal benefit.

(2) homosexuality is in some instances congenital, not (or not entirely) genetic -- i.e., caused by accidents or conditions in fetal development, not inheritance from parents. One strong piece of evidence of intrauterine causation is the correllation between birth order of sons and homosexuality. First sons of one mother are less likely to be gay, second sons of one mother are slightly more likely, and by the time you get to fifth and sixth sons of the same mother, some studies show extraordinarily high rates of homosexuality (into the 30%-40% range). The supposition is that each male carried to term changes the "starting point" balance of testerone, estrogen, and androgen.

[wardaddy]

Do you have any links on all that?

I'm not sure I agree that children whose dads die while they are still young are much less likely to reproduce themselves....particularly in post hunter-gatherer societies.

[Muleteam1]

>>Perhaps homosexuality, or, rather, the other traits that accompany it in a genetic package, have some tribal benefit.<<

I am quite sure there may be accompanying traits to homosexuality that could benefit a community as do courage, audacity, or risk-taking. However, courage, audacity, and risk-taking are not solid roadblocks to inheritance if the courageous individual survives to produce offspring. The genes of a homosexual person are not carried forward because there are no offspring to carry them. Since there are no offspring, both the homosexual characteristic and any accompanying beneficial factors become a moot argument.

>>homosexuality is in some instances congenital, not (or not entirely) genetic -- i.e., caused by accidents or conditions in fetal development, not inheritance from parents.<<

Fetal development is of course guided by inheritance. A species whose physiology causes succeeding males in its family to have an increasing chance of not producing offspring is a species carrying a deleterious genetic inheritance. As such, the causal gene would eventually pass out of the population or would be expressed less and less in American society where few families have more than three children anymore. On the other hand, if the homosexual characteristic is caused by some accident during fetal development, as well it could in a few cases, one would not expect rate of homosexuality to be as high as it is. There is no evidence that homosexuality is declining in America, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that it is increasing. If genetics or accidents do not play a significant part in this increase, there must be some other reason. It is my belief that external cultural environment serves more to preserve this human characteristic than any other thing. In other words more people choose this lifestyle than those who are physiologically inclined to it.

Muleteam1.