Researchers are finding common biological traits among gay men, feeding a growing consensus that sexual orientation is an inborn combination of genetic and environmental factors that largely decide a person's sexual attractions before they are born.
Hmm. Science is bullshit, but okay, I'm listening:
Such findings — including a highly anticipated study this winter — would further inform the debate over whether homosexuality is innate or a choice, an undercurrent of the recent Proposition 8 campaign in which television commercials warned that "schools would begin teaching second-graders that boys could marry boys," suggesting homosexuality would then spread.
Some scientists say the political and moral debate over same-sex marriage frequently strayed from established scientific evidence, including comments by vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin that homosexuality is "a choice" and "a decision."
Look, I don't need scyence to tell me Sarah Palin basically sucks. She made a decision to be annoying yet pretty and I totally tolerate that. Okay what else?
A host of studies since the mid-1990s have found common biological traits between gay men, including left-handedness and the direction of hair whorls. The likelihood that if one identical twin is gay, the other will also be gay is much higher than the "concordance" of homosexuality between fraternal twins, indicating that genes play a role in sexual orientation, but are not the entire cause.
"In the past decade, I think the pendulum has swung more toward biological theory and biological causes," said Richard Lippa, a psychology professor at California State University-Fullerton, who has studied hair patterns and other biological traits in gay men."
Sven Bocklandt, a geneticist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, is bewildered by the argument that people choose their sexual attraction. He said that virtually every animal species that has been studied — from sheep to fruit flies — has a small minority of individuals who demonstrate homosexual activity.
"I really believe the reason most humans are straight is the same reason that most crocodiles are straight, and the same reason most whales are straight," Bocklandt said. "Nature would not leave something so important for reproduction, for the survival of the species, to coincidence."
Less understood is the degree to which sexual orientation is determined by genes or environmental factors, such as hormones or immunological factors that may act on a fetus. What scientists call "the fraternal birth order effect," the fact that each successive boy born to the same mother has a greater chance of being gay,may be due to an increasing immunological response by a mother's body to each male fetus in her womb.
Long discredited are theories that parenting — one mid-20th century
theory held that boys raised by a domineering mother with a distant father were
more likely to be gay — has anything to do with sexual orientation.
Wow, that was a long one. I suggest you go read the article because it's interesting and actually well-written, which I am not ever, except sometimes when I'm drunk and no one tries to stop me. I'm gay (if you're into labels, which I'm not, blahblahblah just love me pleez), and I believe all this biological research, and I also know that it doesn't account for closets, dudes who you may hit on but who are all like [whiny voice], "I have a girlfriend, I fuck chicks, I like football but Brady Quinn is a homo" etc etc. So they could have all the hair whirls and swishy walks (one study I read pointed out that biologically gay men tend to pivot their hips when they walk and straights pivot their shoulders; KEEP AN EYE OUT!) in the world, if they aint touchin peenies at sexytime it don't mean a whole lot, now does it, Charlie? No, it does not.
The other thing is, Dr Drew Pinsky of the LurveLines and Celebrity Realityhabs, he used to always ask gay guys who would call up about stuff "was your mother an overbearing bitch?" and they'd be like, yes! Why would this be common among gay males (which it was) if it didn't have some affect on how they turned out? The other thing is, it could be a symptom of mothers of gay sons--they emasculate them in a misguided attempt to change the behavior that they perceive leads to gayness when it in fact is simply a sign of it. Who knows.
The other thing Dr Drew would do, is he would ask gay guys if they had been molested when they were younger, at an age where they could remember it, and if it was by a dude. Whenever he would ask this, he would almost always be right (I don't remember what about these gay guys would tip him off, sorry [sadface]). Our boy Mark Foley, of congressional page texting fame, acknowledges being gay, has a partner, but says he was molested when he was young too. Again, this doesn't mean the kid-touching is causing it, it could just be that these pervs see a particular sign in these kids and take advantage of it. These are simply relationships I have come across in the past, is all I'm saying. In the movie Happiness, by Todd Solondz, the gay kid is molested by Dylan Baker's character. In Augusten Burroughs's Running with Scissors, he is taken advantage of by an older male, at about the age of twelve if I'm not mistaken (he was pretty certain he was gay before this ever happened). Whatever, my point is, there is science, and there is what you think, and if you ain't quotin' science of some other smart soundin' shit, please don't talk about BIG TOPICS or something ignant if you CAN avoid it only, unless you are a philosopher, LIKE ME, whereupon ignorance is not only allowed, but MANDATORY ARRGH!
[walks away, trips over endtable and breaks face]
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