Thanks for the comments.

Peter Tatchell (who over the last 30 years has gone from Being ‘a threat to society’ etc. to ‘a national treasure’ via a spectacular but ill-fated attempt to arrest Robert Mugabe) does some fine work and I hope you find time to have a look at some of the other stuff on his site.

In the meantime, back on the subject in hand, I’ve just remembered this interesting article from The Economist a while back:

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12465295

Of course, having said all this, it’s religion, the source of so much anti-gay rhetoric, that is without doubt a lifestyle choice.

It should be a non-issue – like being left handed, or red haired.

Yes, indeed, it should be.

But it will not be until orientation is perceived as innate and immutable… like being left handed or red haired.

Orientation is likely based to some extent in genetics (the latest twin studies suggest as much as a 50% contribution) and the rest is either biological or non-biological environmental influences. Some suggest that these are pre-natal but in any case they are determined early and do not seem to be changeable by means of therapy or other efforts.

“Born gay” and “gay gene” are inaccurate shorthand for arguing ideology.

On a more serious note, Alan, Timothy and others here might find interest in these articles by Peter Tatchell (a well known human rights activist in the UK) re. homosexuality being genetic or not and the implications of this

While Mr Tatchell does make several salient points, he falls into the same trap as the “gay gene” proponents he aims to discredit – that genes are on/off switches – that the presence or absence of “the gay gene” is all that it would take, if there was a genetic cause for homosexuality.

If the on/off idea of genetics were true, every person with green eyes would have the same color of green, every blue eyed person would have the same color of blue – because this “eye color” gene would be either “on” or “off”.

In reality, genes often work in groups – this set of genes works together to determine which shade of green, that group of genes works together to determine which shade of hair color, another group of genes determine your height.

Some genes, when present, work to inhibit the expression of other groups of genes, or to change the result so that is is different than if the one group were not present.

We are complex people, we humans, and to think that we can point to one spot and say “there, that’s the one” is naive at best. To say that a single on/off switch is solely responsible for the gamut of human sexuality is to exhibit a gross lack of understanding of the complexity of the genetic code, but at the same time to pretend that genetics has no role, or a limited role, is also to misunderstand the significance of genetics in the makeup of our bodies.

That being said, I agree with Mr Tatchell on the main thrust of his argument – that the cause of homosexuality shouldn’t matter – that we shouldn’t point to genetics and say “pity us, we can’t help being gay” – we should fight for our right to be treated the same as all other human beings because it is the right thing to do, not because we are victims of some unfortunate genetic curse. In the end, it shouldn’t matter who or what or how we are gay. It should be a non-issue – like being left handed, or red haired.

On a more serious note, Alan, Timothy and others here might find interest in these articles by Peter Tatchell (a well known human rights activist in the UK) re. homosexuality being genetic or not and the implications of this:

http://www.petertatchell.net/

(Scroll down the left hand sidebar to “gay gene”. The article titled “Gene Genie” is probably the most relevant of the bunch.)

Never fear, heterosexists will find an excuse to justify their beliefs. Maybe they’ll say everyone is “born” with clockwise hair and the hair must change as their mothers overbear and fathers underbear.

I think Jones and Yarhouse should include the hair patterns of their ex-gays. If their orientation has changed, their hair should change too, right?