Are People Born Gay?

INTRODUCTION

As I write, in late 2016, Australia is in the midst of a raging debate over the legalisation of same-sex marriage. This would be the ultimate victory for the normalisation of homosexuality, and a defining moment in the devaluation of the Judeo-Christian worldview on which our country was once built. The normalisation of same-sex marriage assumes that homosexuality has a biological origin. But is homosexuality biological or a dysfunctional expression of normal male-female biology? Is it a fundamental part of the human condition or an aberration? This essay will attempt to answer those questions as fairly as possible by looking at the true causes of homosexuality. An honest answer is crucial to understanding who we are as humans, what behaviour is under our personal control, the origins of our sexuality and what defines normal/abnormal behaviour. A scientific answer, rather than a politically correct answer to these questions should lie at the heart of the same-sex marriage debate.

ARE PEOPLE BORN HOMOSEXUAL?

One of the most powerful weapons in the gay rights arsenal is the allegation that they are born that way. The homosexual lobby universally uses this claim when pushing for equal rights. If it is true that homosexuality is a genetically determined trait, then homosexuals do indeed have a legitimate claim to being a legally protected social group. This would create a string of laws protecting their status in society in the same way we have laws protecting women, people of different races and ethnic minorities. This genetic weapon has been very effective indeed at convincing those in power that homosexuals should indeed be a protected class. Same-sex marriage laws would be the capstone in this offensive. This would make their lifestyle normal and one that should be taught to the general public, especially school students as an acceptable personal choice. Anyone opposing what is obviously decreed by law to be normal will be classified as intolerant and a homophobic “bigot”. Indeed they already have.

Although many laymen still believe the myth that homosexuality is genetically imprinted, most professional researchers have moved on from this space and there is little research in this area. Biologists discarded genetic determinism decades ago. Edward Wilson, the father of socio-biology denies determinism: “Scientists never speak of genes causing behaviour except as a kind of laboratory shorthand and they never mean it literally” (What Philosophers Think p 65). To emphatically illustrate this point, the American Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists (AAGLP), has publicly said that “There are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological aetiology for homosexuality” Please read that again as it is a profound statement from the very people you would expect to say the opposite. Intriguingly, in the same paragraph they also say that Homosexuality was once thought to be the result of troubled family dynamics or faulty psychological development. Those assumptions are now understood to have been based on misinformation and prejudice. This claim is soundly proven false by a multitude of studies, many of which are documented below. One wonders why they even made this claim.

One of the reasons for that first position taken by the AAGLP is very obvious. If it was to be found that there is a direct biological link to homosexuality, then it is a very small step to finding a similar biological link to paedophilia and any other form of sexual expression. Such a move would have hugely destructive ramifications for the public, politicians and law makers. It would tear at the very fabric of modern society.

This essay will now explain, using peer-reviewed research, why there is no biological evidence for homosexuality by looking at brain structure, the study of twins, the myth of the gay gene, the influence of hormones, whether orientation can change over time, and the influence of the environment.

1. Brain Structure

Since sexual attraction begins in the brain, researchers in the 1990’s began to examine the question of sexual orientation by comparing the anatomy of brains taken from deceased males and females. A study by Allen and Gorski (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U S A. 1992 Aug 1; 89(15): 7199–7202) examined the anterior commissure (connecting tissue between the two hemispheres) of the brain, finding that females and homosexual males did indeed exhibit a larger connection than heterosexual males. However, later studies using larger sample sizes found no such differences (K. M. Bishop, K. M. and D. Wahlsten. 1997. Sex Differences in the Human Corpus Callosum: Myth or Reality? Neuroscience & Bio-behavioral Reviews 21: 581-601).

Other studies showed that male and female brains showed sexual dimorphism (physical appearance) in the pre-optic area of the hypothalamus, where males demonstrated a greater than two-fold difference in cell number and size compared to females. A study authored by confessed homosexual, Simon LeVay and published in the journal Science, suggested that a section of the hypothalamus, known as INAH-3, is an important biological substrate for sexual orientation. This article reported the INAH-3 to be smaller on average in homosexual men as compared to heterosexual men, and is approximately the same size in homosexual men as in heterosexual women. However, when analysed in detail in follow up studies, this LeVay’s research was strongly criticized as having various methodological flaws, including the use of brain samples from patients who had died from AIDS-related illnesses (Hegarty, P. (1 August 1997). “Materializing the Hypothalamus: A Performative Account of the `Gay Brain’”. Feminism & Psychology (3): 355–372).

Complicating the issue of brain differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals is the problem that sexual experiences themselves can affect brain structure. The new and powerful field of neuroplasticity, which has now found that use dramatically affects brain structure, suggests that this specific proof of genetic influence on homosexual behaviour can never come from studying brain structure. Any change in the brain structure of homosexuals can now just as easily be accounted for as a result of behaviour.

2. The Study of Twins

Researchers have extensively used the study of identical twins in their search of a genetic disposition toward homosexuality. Twin studies are a proxy for the presence of possible genetic factors. However, the one significant academic study of identical twins in Australia (Bailey et al, 2000) suffered from small sample size, non-return of questionnaires and admitted that “It was difficult, in general, to disentangle genetic and shared environmental contributions to the familial variance”  and that “that any major gene for strictly defined homosexuality has either low penetrance or low frequency.” The study did find however that if an identical twin has same-sex attraction, the chances the co-twin has it are only about 11% for men and 14% for women.” (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology). Copyright 2000, American Psychological Association, Inc. Volume 78(3) March 2000 p 524–536)

Identical twins are nurtured in equal pre-natal conditions. If homosexuality is caused by genetics or pre-natal conditions and one twin is homosexual, the co-twin should also have a very high chance of being homosexual. In 2001 Bearman and Brueckner (Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, Working Paper No. 2001|04) studied over five thousand adolescent students in the U.S.A, coming up with an even weaker correlation. They found the same-sex attraction concordance between identical twins was only 7.7% for males and 5.3% for females; almost half the 11% and 14% in the Australian study. Since these levels are above the norm it could be argued that twin studies have shown that there likely very minor genetic influences for a predisposition toward homosexuality. Some researchers do take this position. However, these levels could also easily be alternatively explained by social factors such as increased exposure and familiarity. Bearman and Brueckner’s abstract is instructive:

They show that male but not female opposite-sex twins disproportionately report same-sex attraction; and that the pattern of concordance of same-sex preference among siblings is inconsistent with a simple genetic influence model. Their results provide substantial support for the role of social influences, reject the hormone transfer model, reject a speculative evolutionary theory, and are consistent with a general model that allows for genetic expression of same-sex attraction under specific, highly circumscribed, social conditions.”

Intriguingly, similar studies using similar methodologies have also shown some “genetic influences” for homophobia and even opposition to abortion! (Eaves, L. J., and P. K. Hatemi. 2008. Transmission of Attitudes Toward Abortion and Gay Rights: Effects of Genes, Social Learning and Mate Selection. Behavioural Genetics 38:247–256.). To be consistent, society would have to grant these people the same rights as homosexuals, and this could in the future be extended to paedophiles.

3. The “Gay” Gene

Darwinian evolution postulates that those genetic mutations that favour survival and reproduction will be selected and passed on, whereas those that compromise survival and reproduction will be eliminated. Obviously a gene, or series of genes, that produce non-reproducing individuals, such as those who express pure homosexual behaviour, will be rapidly eliminated from any population. So, using evolutionary logic alone, it would be expected that any “gay gene”, even if it did exist, would be quickly and efficiently removed from a population. However, this has not stopped an army of scientists looking for it over two decades and trying to fit homosexuality into a Darwinian narrative.

The initial genetic study that made headlines around the world, leading to the widespread belief in a “gay gene”, was a 1993 examination of family pedigrees (Hamer, D. H., S. Hu, V. L. Magnuson, N. Hu, and A. M. Pattatucci. 1993. A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and male sexual orientation. Science 261: 321).  It revealed that gay men had more homosexual male relatives through maternal linages than through paternal lineages, suggesting a linkage to the X chromosome. Head researcher, Dean Hamer (the same Dean Hamer who wrote The God Gene, in which a 1% statistical variation in questions on transcendence was attributed to genetics!), found such an association at region Xq28. He hypothesised that if male sexual orientation was influenced by a gene on Xq28, then gay brothers should share more than 50% of their alleles (gene pairs) at this region, whereas their heterosexual brothers should share less than 50% of their alleles. His analysis of 40 pairs of gay brothers and found that they shared 82% of their alleles in the Xq28 region, which was much greater than the 50% allele sharing that would be expected by chance. However, a follow-up study by the same research group, using 32 pairs of gay brothers and found only 67% allele sharing, which was much closer to the 50% expected by chance. Attempts by Rice et al. to repeat Hamer’s study resulted in only 46% allele sharing, insignificantly different from chance, contradicting Hamer’s results (Rice, G., C. Anderson, N. Risch, and G. Ebers. 1999. Male Homosexuality: Absence of Linkage to Microsatellite Markers at Xq28. Science 284: 665-667).At the same time, an unpublished study by Alan Sanders (University of Chicago) corroborated the Rice results.

Ultimately, no single gene or gene product from the Xq28 region was ever identified that affected sexual orientation. When Jonathan Marks, an evolutionary biologist, asked Hamer what percentage of homosexuality he thought his results explained, his answer was that he thought it explained 5% of male homosexuality (Marks, J. 2002. What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes American Journal of Human Genetics. 2002 Oct; 71(4): 1000–1001).

Since the year 2000, DNA sequencing has been perfected and become cheap enough to do detailed searches for a homosexual gene. The accuracy of the new technology should, once and for all, settle the issue of a genetic component to homosexuality. The largest genome-wide scan was conducted by E. M. Drabant et al, in a project called 23 and Me (Genome Wide Association Study of Sexual Orientation in a Large, Web-based Cohort. Abstract presented at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting in San Francisco, 2012). Some 7887 unrelated men and 5570 unrelated women of European ancestry were analysed by a genome-wide association study. Although unpublished, the data showed that there were no loci associated with sexual orientation, including Xq28 on the X chromosome. The preliminary studies on possible genetic causes of homosexual orientation therefore tend to rule out any dramatic genetic component to sexual orientation.

4. The Influence of Hormones

Since sexual differentiation occurs within the womb as a result of hormonal influences, specifically oestrogen, progesterone and androgen, it has been hypothesized that homosexuality may result from a different hormone balance in the wombs of those who eventually exhibit a homosexual orientation. However, since hormonal levels within the womb are not available for testing, proxies for hormonal influences have been used to examine the question of how hormonal influences might impact sexual orientation. These proxies include differences in skeletal size and shape, finger length, left-handedness, sibling order, sibling ratio and others.

For example, a study by McConaghy Et al, 2006, found that the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to develop a homosexual orientation. They found that homosexual men had a greater than expected proportion of brothers among their older siblings (229 brothers: 163 sisters) compared with the general population (106 males: 100 females). It is hypothesised that these babies experience greater levels of oestrogen in the womb than their older siblings. This could well be true, and possibly create hormonal influence on homosexuality, but this is still open to further study.

However, all studies on possible hormonal influence on homosexuality suffer from the lack of any direct evidence that hormones actually play any role in sexual orientation. The research on hormone proxies suffers from conflicting findings. Take the example of androgens.  Some studies come out in favour of the influence of increased androgen (Williams, T. J. Et al, 2000. Finger-length ratios and sexual orientation. Nature 404: 455-456) and other findings dis agree with the influence of increased androgens (Martin, J. T. and D. H. Nguyen. 2004. Anthropometric analysis of homosexuals and heterosexuals: implications for early hormone exposure Hormones and Behaviour 45: 31-39). This situation doesn’t provoke confidence that the proxies are really true. Obviously, a study that documented real hormone levels, as opposed to proxies, would probably provide more definitive data.

Studies involving a rare hormonal imbalance, congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), caused by defective 21-hydroxylase enzyme, do indeed suggest that hormonal abnormalities can, on rare occasions, influence sexual orientation. CAH results in increased production of male hormones during foetal development. In males, increased CAH has little effect. However, female foetuses that develop in this environment have ambiguous external genitalia, which often complicates subsequent development. In utero treatment with dexamethasone reduces the androgen imbalance, resulting in an individual who is genetically and phenotypically female. However, dexamethasone treatment also results in reduced homosexual orientation among treated females. This finding opens the possibility that homosexuality may be hormonal AND curable. This idea outrages homosexual activists, who insist homosexuality is fixed at birth.

5. Can Homosexual Orientation Disappear over Time?

If homosexual orientation were genetic, one would expect that it would not change over the course of a person’s life. However for females in particular, sexual preference does seem to change dramatically over time. A 5-year study of lesbians found that over a quarter of these women relinquished their lesbian/bisexual identities during this period: half reclaimed heterosexual identities and half gave up all identity labels (Diamond, L. M. 2003. Was it a phase? Young women’s relinquishment of lesbian/bisexual identities over a 5-year period. J. Personality & Social. Psychology.84: 352-64.) In another survey of young minority women (16-23 years of age), half of the participants changed their sexual identities more than once during the two-year survey period (Diamond, L. M. 2000. Sexual identity, attractions, and behaviour among young sexual-minority women over a 2-year period. Developmental Psychology, 36: 241-50).

New research is also challenging the notion that such fluidity is rare in men. It is now known that about half of the homosexual/bisexual population (in a non-therapeutic environment) moves towards heterosexuality over a lifetime. About 3% of the present heterosexual population once firmly believed themselves to be homosexual or bisexual. From these significant studies it is clear that sexual orientation is not set in genetic or biological concrete.

A 2011 study of religious homosexuals who wanted to change their sexual orientation found that 23% of the subjects reported a successful move to heterosexual orientation and functioning, while an additional 30% reported stable behavioural chastity with substantive dis-identification with homosexual orientation. However, 20% of the subjects reported giving up on the process and fully embraced a homosexual identity, while another 27% fell in between the two extremes. Obviously, for at least some individuals, being homosexual or straight is something they can choose (Stanton L. Jones & Mark A. Yarhouse. 2011. A longitudinal study of attempted religiously-mediated sexual orientation change. Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 37: 404-427).

Interestingly, the numbers of people who have changed towards exclusive heterosexuality are greater than current numbers of bisexuals and homosexuals combined. In other words, ex-homosexuals outnumber actual homosexuals. This fluidity is even more pronounced among adolescents. Bearman and Brueckner in the study cited above (Opposite-Sex Twins and Adolescent Same-Sex Attraction, 2002) found that in 16 to 17-years-old, if a person had a romantic attraction to the same sex, almost all had switched one year later. The authors were pro-homosexual and they commented that the only stability was among the heterosexuals, who stayed the same year after year.

Katz-Wise and Hyde (2014) surveyed a sample of young adults (ages 18-26; 118 females, 70 males) who reported a same-gender orientation.  These researchers defined sexual fluidity as a situation-dependent flexibility in sexual responsiveness which may manifest in changes in sexual orientation identity over time. They add to this definition their belief that change in sexual orientation identity follows from change in attractions. The researchers asked participants about their experiences of sexual fluidity and sexual orientation identity change, as well as intriguing questions about their attitudes and beliefs regarding their sexuality.  These included whether their sexuality was something they were born with or something influenced by their environment and how subject their sexuality was to change. Change in attractions was reported by 63% of females and 50% of males.  Among those who reported change in attractions, 48% of females and 34% of males reported experiencing a change in sexual orientation identity.

Countering claims that this change simply reflected a coming out process, the researchers reported that 21% of females and 19% of males reported multiple changes in their attractions.  Furthermore, age of reported initial change in sexual attractions averaged 17.5 years for females and 15.6 years for males.

Among the most interesting findings regarding the interplay of sexual fluidity status and beliefs about their sexuality, Katz-Wise and Hyde found that females were more likely than males to endorse the belief that sexuality is influenced by the environment, whether or not they reported the experience of fluidity.  However, among males, non-sexually-fluid individuals were more likely to report they were born with their sexuality than were males who reported sexual fluidity.

This fluidity is well illustrated in the following two stories. Kerry Pacer was a prominent high school gay advocate who was publically awarded for her initiation of a “gay-straight alliance” at White County High School in Cleveland, Georgia. However, four years later, she is raising her one year old daughter, along with the baby’s father. Michael Glatze came out at age 20 and went on to be a leader in the homosexual rights movement. At age 30, he came out in the opposite direction, saying, “In my experience, “coming out” from under the influence of the homosexual mindset was the most liberating, beautiful and astonishing thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.

The overwhelming evidence in favour of homosexuality being a transitory phase for most people who at one time identify as homosexual is damning to say the least.

6. The Influence of Environmental Factors

If homosexuality were purely biological, one would expect that parenting would not influence it, but it does, and dramatically. Paul Cameron published a study in 2006 that claimed the children of homosexual parents expressed a homosexual orientation much more frequently than the general population. Although claims of bias were made against the study, another study by Walter Schuum in 2010 confirmed Cameron’s results by statistically examining the results of 10 other studies that addressed the question. In total, 262 children raised by homosexual parents were included in the analysis. The results showed that 16-57% of such children adopted a homosexual lifestyle. The results were even more striking in daughters of lesbian mothers, 33% to 57% of whom became lesbians themselves. Since homosexuals’ makeup only about 2% of the population, it is clear that parenting powerfully influences sexual orientation. To quote from Schuum, “evidence is presented from three different sources, contrary to most previous scientific opinion, even most previous scientific consensus, that suggests intergenerational transfer of sexual orientation can occur at statistically significant and substantial rates, especially for female parents or female children.

To back this hypothesis, a highly significant national cohort study of 2 million Danish citizens by Morten Frisch and Anders Hviid found that children who experience parental divorce are less likely to marry heterosexually than those growing up in intact families. In addition, persons born in cities were significantly more likely be homosexual than their rural-born peers. Heterosexual marriage was significantly linked to having young parents, small age differences between parents, stable parental relationships, large families, and late birth order. For men, homosexuality was associated with having older mothers, divorced parents, absent fathers, and being the youngest child. For women, homosexuality was more frequent when maternal death occurred during adolescence, being the only or youngest child, or the only girl in the family. This highly significant study provides population-based evidence that childhood family experiences are important determinants of heterosexual and homosexual marriage decisions in adulthood.

A study of 13,000 New Zealand adults aged over 16 examined sexual orientation as a function of childhood history. The study found a 3-fold higher prevalence of childhood abuse for those who subsequently engaged in homosexual activity. However, childhood abuse was clearly not the major factor in homosexuality, since only 15% of homosexuals had experienced abuse as children compared with 5% among heterosexual children (Multiple Aspects of Sexual Orientation: Prevalence and Sociodemographic Correlates in a New Zealand National Survey J. Elisabeth Wells, Magnus A. McGee and Annette L. Beautrais DOI: 10.1007/s10508-010-9636-x )

Two recent research papers offer confirmation and theoretical justification that childhood sexual abuse may play a formative role in the development of non-heterosexuality for many individuals. O’Keefe, Beard and colleagues procured retrospective data from 1,178 anonymous adult men who were students, faculty, and staff at two West Virginia universities as well as other men from the same area who had completed their educations The researchers focused on brother-brother incest (BBI) and sister-brother incest (SBI), but also assessed participants’ experiences of child sexual abuse from an adult male (CSA-AM) and child sexual abuse from an adult female (CSA-AF).

The researchers found that same-sex sibling incest, sibling rape, child sexual abuse were powerful predictors of adult same-sex orientation They postulated that this was partly the result of these events taking place during a critical phase of sexual conditioning and imprinting in adolescence and may help explain three phenomena used in the past to support claims that there is a genetic basis or other biological basis for same-sex orientations. These are concordance of sexual orientations between twins, an increase in same-sex orientations among men with older brothers, and earlier puberty in gay men than in heterosexual men.

The November 2002 issue of the Childhood Abuse and Neglect research journal took data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) and measured childhood experiences with parental emotional and physical maltreatment and adult sexual orientation in 2,917 heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual individuals, age 25–74 years, separately by gender. Homosexual/bisexual men reported higher rates than heterosexual men of childhood emotional and physical maltreatment by their mother/maternal guardian and major physical maltreatment by their father/paternal guardian. In contrast, homosexual/bisexual women, as compared to heterosexual women, reported higher rates of major physical maltreatment by both their mother/maternal guardian and their father/ paternal guardian. Differences among individuals with differing sexual orientations were most pronounced for the more extreme forms of physical maltreatment. The researchers concluded that homosexuality is a risk indicator for positive histories of experiencing parental maltreatment during childhood.

ARE HOMOSEXUALS 10% OF THE POPULATION?

There is one last myth I would like to demolish before concluding this essay, and that is the idea that approximately 10% of the population is homosexual. This widely held belief is used by some advocacy groups to justify the push for the legal and social accommodation of this minority sub-culture. The figure of 10% was lifted inaccurately from the famous Kinsey report (1948) that we now know grossly exaggerated the truth because of his use of prison populations, male and female prostitutes, convicted sex offenders and non-random samples. In truth, Kinsey reported various rates for various groups, using the figure of 10% when referring to white males who are more or less exclusively homosexual during at least a three-year period between the ages of 16 and 55.  In one section Kinsey clearly stated that: “Only about 4% of the men were exclusively homosexual throughout their entire lives” and “only 2 or 3% of these women were exclusively homosexual their entire lives” (Reinisch and Beasley, 1990, p. 140).

It is also now known that Kinsey was a sexual experimenter himself as admitted by Paul Gebhard, an associate of Kinsey’s between 1946 until his death in 1956. Gebhard said in an interview with PBS “So all I can say is, Kinsey was an experimenter. He was interested in things, and so he did some experimentation. But it was rather infrequent.”.

Bruce Voeller, a scientist and gay activist, whose activism led to the establishment of the National Gay Taskforce has admitted in his book, Some Uses and Abuses of the Kinsey Scale, that the 10% figure was a myth used to promote the homosexual agenda. According to Voeller, “after years of our educating those who inform the public and make its laws, that concept that 10% of the population is gay has become generally accepted as “fact.” As with so many pieces of knowledge and myth, repeated telling it made it so” (p35-36)

So what is the real figure? Reputable research that appeared in The Australian Journal of Public Health (Sex in Australia, 2003) found that the percentage of those self-identifying as homosexuals to be 1.6% for males and 0.8% for females, dramatically lower than the Kinsey figure. The most widely accepted study of sexual practices in the United States is the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS).  The NHSLS found that 97% of the American population identified themselves as heterosexual, 1.6% of the population identify themselves as permanently gay and lesbian, and 0.7% identified as bisexual.

In the June 2003 Supreme Court case, Lawrence vs. Texas, which overturned all sodomy laws in the USA, a coalition of 31 leading American pro-homosexual activists groups did not use the 10% figure for the number of homosexuals in America. These groups quoted in their legal brief directly from the NHSLS giving the same percentages as listed above.

A decade earlier USA Today magazine, in its April 15, 1993 issue published the statistics from a Planned Parenthood/Alan Guttmacher Institute study which found that only 2.3% of males ages 20-39 said they had experienced a same-sex relationship in the past decade. Only 1.1% said they were exclusively gay.

Having established the true level of homosexuality in the USA, and by assumption western society in general, to be somewhere around 2%, the imperative to accommodate the agenda of this very vocal minority group is dramatically diminished. They are not “everywhere”, as the American National Gay Taskforce once arrogantly proclaimed, but are very small and highly organised.

CONCLUSION

Regardless of the shrill claims made by the powerful and increasingly popular homosexual lobby, it should now be clear their claim for protected legal status based on a biological/genetic foundation for homosexuality is false. In summary here is the evidence against this claim:

  1. The American Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists itself claims there are no replicated scientific studies backing a genetic origin to homosexuality.
  1. Brain structure studies cannot claim any authority on the issue as we now know brain structure is heavily influenced by the way we use it.
  1. Gay gene studies showing some links to homosexuality in the early 1990’s were not replicated and complete genome studies in the early 2000’s failed to find a genetic link to homosexuality.
  1. Hormone proxy studies have found some physical differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals, especially in those who suffer from congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which can be treated and eradicated.
  1. Studies into homosexual/heterosexual fluidity have found huge swings from homosexual orientation toward heterosexual orientation over time.
  1. Studies of family structure likewise show significant differences between homosexuality in the children of functional and dysfunctional families.
  1. Evolutionary biology, if true, would quickly eradicate any gene for homosexuality due to the much lower reproduction rate, if any, among these individuals.
  1. Homosexuals number only 2% of the adult population, and this number falls off rapidly as people age.
  1. If we indeed do have a genetic origin for homosexuality then we must also investigate the origins of paedophilia and all other sexual dysfunction. If likewise found then we must likewise de-criminalise these behaviours. At what point do we hold people accountable for their actions.
  1. It is clear from the above that the cause of homosexuality is not biological, and indeed cannot be given the lack of evidence to this end. The cause therefore lies almost universally in the environment in which a child is raised. Homosexuality occurs at much higher levels in adults who lived in neglectful and abusive environments as children. At this stage such a conclusion is unacceptable to western society as it requires us to face our shortcomings. Instead we make excuses that allow us to live as we please, then promote public policy that encourages further dysfunction.

To conclude I will play Devil’s Advocate: What if there was a 10% genetic, biological or hormonal element to homosexuality? Should we use this as excuse to neglect the far more powerful factor in creating homosexuals, a dysfunctional childhood environment? If homosexual activists want to claim the high ground of victim status, then intellectual consistency would see them marching for the true victims, the children of dysfunctional parents. Why do we not see them advocating for child safety, child security, child welfare and better parenting skills, as we now know that this is 90% of the problem?

The silence is stunning.

Kevin Davis