Study: Sexual Orientation is "Hard-wired."

[Brucey]

http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=world&cat=gays_and_lesbians

The origins of sexual orientation may be evident in the blink of an eye. In what is the first study to show an apparent link between a non-learned trait and sexual orientation, British researchers have discovered the way peoples' eyes respond to sudden loud noises may signal differences between heterosexual and homosexual men and women that were developed before birth.

[Liberal Veteran]

1. This ought to send the anti-gay fundies into a tizzy.....

Of course they will now go out of their way to claim the study was erroneous.

[TahitiNut]

3. But, but ... many of them seem to be sure it's a 'choice' ...

... maybe because it was such an agonizing 'choice' for so many of them? :eyes:

Methinks they protesteth too much. So sad; so conflicted; so unfulfilled. :silly:

I'm ceaselessly amazed at how often people can have the same experience and interpret it so differently. It's not just a river in Egypt, it seems.

[aquart]

45. Only because they have to fight so hard against the inclination.

The people who say "choice" are choosing to deny the truth about themselves. The rest of us know we have no choice. We like who we like. We love who we love.

Who on earth gets turned on by "choice"?

[Wednesdays]

12. They'll more likely say the study is biased...

because the scientists who conducted it are just a bunch of liberals pushing their agenda. :eyes:

[Wickerman]

13. I used to work where a fundy was pres

we were not allowed to send correspondence out that had the word erroneous in it. Errata either. The reason, erroneous looks much too much like erogenous. Erotic for Errata. Geez, I miss that place, it was at least a laugh a day.

[Fridays Child]

20. Get out! No way! Really? That's just flat out demented!

Holy cow!

[zekeson]

40. Serious

it was a publishing firm, part of a fortune 500 conglomerate. It was the most screwed up place I could ever imagine working. I gave it nearly a decade of my life and surely have much more gray hair than I would otherwise. Memories of this kind of insanity make it almost worth while.

[chaumont58]

15. They almost have to!

If they were to believe that sexual orientation is NOT a choice, than they would have to admit their own cruelty, for a large, large segment of Christianity and Judism has been very cruel to gays.

[schultzee]

38. There is one in vote.com whose whole life is anti-disney gay day

and her signateur is anti-gay. I can't imagine storing up all that hate. And these people are religious? Sure. She, of course, believes everything that the administration says.

[Loyal]

2. I posted this in civil rights/equality/privacy

already, Brucey. Don't know if you know that.

[ursacorwin]

5. this is bad

first off, let me state that i do believe it is 'hard wired' that is, that there is a biological component to being gay.

that said- this is the last thing we want 'discovered.' why? because as soon as they do, you can bet money on the fact that dozens of groups will spring up overnight, counseling couples on what they need to do to avoid the horror of gay children. after that, groups will step up and offer families treatments which will 'correct' this 'disability' with drugs and surgery. eventually, employers with 'family values' clauses will force new hires to take genetic tests, to 'prove' they don't carry the gay gene.


i'm a dyke, and i'm happy to be one. but the last thing i want to see is for my whole existence to be reduced to some gene, it's a vastly oversimplified approach to why i am what i am. part of me is because i was 'born this way' but part of me is what i have fashioned myself into, thanks to nature, culture, education, and experience. no gene contains all that.

[Liberal Veteran]

7. Then we play the eugenics card.

Once it's proven that it's part of god's natural design or evolution we simply point out that any attempts to correct homosexuality in utero is a form of eugenics.

[TahitiNut]

9. Well, there's a 'biological component' to race, too.

It's as true today as yesterday: We have to be taught to hate. All such hatred seems to attack love itself - whom other people find themselves in love with. It is one of the most appalling of human failings: to somehow think that how and whom people love is any kind of problem whatsoever in a world so overrun with the problems of how and whom people hate. It's the root of such evils we must always address: hatred itself.

[Cheswick2.0]

28. I don't see that happening so much

Yes there may be people who would abort a homosexual child, or who would adopt rather than have one. But I don't think that would be a huge group of people and in any case, would you want some poor homosexual baby to be born to one of those people?
Heterosexual and homosexual fetus are getting aborted now anyway and that is not going to change.

[Lindacooks]

4. Doesn't surprise me at all.

n/t

[patdem]

6. Science...we don't need no stinkin science....remember the dark ages?

Old dark ages same as the new dark ages!

[slackmaster]

8. I thought this had already been well established by research

Sounds right to me, and most of my gay friends agree based on their own personal experiences.

[Nevernose]

29. Only in the United States

Efforts to reproduce the homosexual twin studies came up with the opposite results in other Western nations, such as Austrailia. Was there something wrong w/ the methodology here? The methodology there? Is it something about American culture?

Another recent study found that homosexuals were seven times as likely to have been molested as children, strongly suggesting that environment plays an important role. Rarely are things all nature or all nurture; a biologic predisposition does not mean a guarantee of homosexuality, merely an increased likelihood.

Like you, many of my gay friends agree that they were gay at birth -- but fully half of them (five, off the top of my head) swear that they made a conscious choice, or some other life-event led them to be gay. I really don't even care WHY they're gay, 'cept maybe intellectual curiosity. What diffrence could it possibly make to me?

[foreigncorrespondent]

43. I can remember the day...

...when I decided I was going to follow my life path as a lesbian.

When I was born, I was attracted to other girls. Growing up I was attracted to other teenage girls. In my adult life I have always been attracted to women, yet I chose to live a straight life believing that is what I was meant to do.

Yet I can remember the day I told my ex (male) that I could no longer live a lie, that I am a lesbian. I had been born a lesbian, but had fought it all my life.

The only choice I made was to stop living a lie, and begin living my life.

[trent21]

48. I've never seen a credible study that says that

"Another recent study found that homosexuals were seven times as likely to have been molested as children, strongly suggesting that environment plays an important role."

Where did you see this study? I've yet to see a cridible study (outside of FRC and other Fundie fake studies) that show anything of the sort. So where did you supposedly see this one?

[Flubadubya]

10. It's like being right or left handed...

Does anyone choose which they're going to be? I think not.

[Khephra]

14. Not really, but some people set out to be ambidextrous on

their own.

Personally, I think it's some combination of both biology and environment, with biology tending to play a larger part in the process.

[Flubadubya]

25. The effort to be ambidextrous is a choice...

but it's not natural. :-)

[ninkasi]

11. I've always believed sexual preference is hard-wired.

I don't think it's a choice, any more than height, race, eye color, or any other feature you're born with. Tahiti Nut is right, the ones who so loudly oppose being gay are really just using that as an excuse to hate.

When my younger kids were teen-agers, 20 years ago, one of our dear friends, who was my daughter's age, struggled with accepting his orientation. Believe me, the agony that this kid suffered by being gay in a very conservative school district in Texas is nothing anybody would go through by choice.

Today, he and his partner have been together many years, have a beautiful home, and many loving friends. My children and I still stay in close touch with him. He's happy today, but the struggle he went through is not anything somebody decides to do on a whim.

Let the fundies, and narrow minded, spiteful conservatives, tend to their own lives and leave the rest of us alone!

[rocketdem]

47. What if it is a choice?

Then so what?

I've never understood what the hubbub is. Personally, I've always beleived that it was something intrinsic, but even if it isn't, so what?

Why should I not be allowed to love anyone that I want? Why should I face discrimination based upon whom I love?

The fundies will screech and yell no matter what science does or does not prove. That's what they do, screech and holler and moan and wail. That's how they think they buy their way to everlasting heaven. Good for them.

In a free society there can never be any justification for differentiation in the law or discrimination based upon consenting, adult sexual preference. Period. And this is independent of whether it's a matter of nature or nuture or personal whim.

[moondust]

16. Know any gay kids in grade school?

I knew two for sure. 40 years ago, before the gay movement. Everybody around knew it. Both grew up to be gay and both died of AIDS.

[slackmaster]

17. With 20/20 hindsight, yes I did

A neighbor of mine, a kid that I used to spend quite a lot of time with around age 10. He's dead from AIDS.

By high school it was abundantly clear who was gay and who was not, with very few exceptions.

[veganwitch]

22. im not sure what the last part...

of you post has anything to do with the first part.

the sentence structure seems to imply that getting AIDS is caused simplying from being gay or that they deserved it or whatever.

it draws up memories of that one fundie woman who said, in reference to the gay realities shows, that real gay reality tv would show 5 men dying of aids.

maybe im just reading too much. its been a long day.

[moondust]

23. Just the facts. n/t

[Flubadubya]

27. Not really "just the facts"....

rather a deliberate juxtaposition to imply an ineluctible relationship... which is NOT the case. A rather disdainful and ugly implication at that, I might add.

[moondust]

30. Wrong and unacceptably presumtuous.

Go have a drink. See a specialist. Do something.

[Flubadubya]

31. Wrong?

I don't think so. I choose to retain my presumption. Your passive-aggressivity is showing miserably.

I don't drink. I don't need a specialist. I am doing something... I am refuting your inauspicious statement.

[moondust]

33. Yes, utterly wrong.

You have invented a pack of bullshit. I am encouraging you to seek help in finding a way out of your unbelievable arrogance.

[Flubadubya]

34. "I am encouraging you to seek help..."

Transparent as glass. 'Nuff said.

[Selwynn]

24. Yes.

[Cat Atomic]

37. I knew three guys and one girl that I thought

were clearly gay from 4th grade on. Well- I just noticed they were different in 4th grade, and never thought they might be gay until about 7th grade.

All have remained friends of mine. Two of the guys are indeed gay today, as is the girl.

The third guy went the opposte way, joining the military. After that, he worked in Alaska as a deep water diver for some sort of oil industry stuff. He got married, and seems happy enough to me.

But you know what- everyone in high school thought *I* was gay. I only discovered this upon visiting my high school reunion, where several (drunk) people became extremely relaxed and chummy, and expressed their surprise at my female date.

[schultzee]

39. I knew a family that had an adoped child who was very feminine

in voice, walk, actions when he was 4 years old. They noticed this and sent him to see a clinical psychologist, and he grew up to become a very effeminate gay man, despite the therapy. He was adopted as an infant by a hetrosexual couple. To me that is some evidence that it is biological.

[Teaser]

18. I'm already sure this study is crap

And I haven't even read it yet.
Once I get done my day of hell, I'll see if that opinion stands up.

[Fridays Child]

19. Oh, fun! Let's test Falwell, Robertson, that evil Topeka, KS dude...

...who else?

[AntiCoup2K4]

21. Here's a dillemma for the reich wingers...

If sexual orientation is proven to be inborn, will the Robertsons and Falwells of the world suddenly become proponents of abortion. (Provided the fetus is a "sodomite", of course.)

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cat Atomic]

32. Fascinating stuff.

.

[0007]

35. Who cares?

I've read many opinions and studies during a half century. And personally I don't give a goddamn as long as you know that your freedom ends where my nose begins.

So if your trying to convince me of your two for a nickle and one for a dime BS, forget it!

[bread_and_roses]

36. I am not an "anti-gay fundi"

nor am I literate enough in science to have an opinion about the merits of this particular study, but the interpretive remarks in the full story at Yahoo are so culture-bound, and so biased, that to my ear they reflect a very judgemental expression of heterosexism.

on edit: I realized after hitting the post that the leader I used could be interpreted, in light of the original post, as disputing the genetic basis for sexual orientation. To be clear, I neither dispute nor fully agree with that conclusion. Several posts, ursacorwin's, khephra's, others, made thoughtful comments about the difficulty of assigning causation to human behaviour in either genes or environment. We are so much more complex. I also think that the sort of absolute demarcation between hetero-and homo-sexual behavior that seems to be presented in these studies is suspect and incongruent with reality. But I DO worry that basing policy arguement on genetic grounds is dangerous and can backfire; the civil rights issues, though more controversy provoking, are stronger and better and worth the fight in the long run.

[schultzee]

41. There are other stories that I have read that were done in Seattle

Washington that are supposed to be sound.

[schultzee]

42. Studies, not stories. lol typing too fast

[whirlygigspin]

44. BANG!

eyes wide open? hmmmm.
better not squint!

[GOPBasher]

46. Did you hear that Jerry Falwell????

Oh yeah, like he's going to listen to reason anyway. I like Sharptons's quote: "It's time for the Christian Right to meet the Right Christians."

[Liberator_Rev]

49. Need any help fighting for the Liberation of GLBT?

We have gathered some great, free, materials to help secure freedom and equality for GLBT's at

http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/equality4gays


See what Christ might say about the "Christian Coalition" & "Religious Right" imposters.