Slate, msn's online magazine, has an article that looks at some new research that indicated homosexuality may have a genetic basis and, moreover, it may play a roll in enhancing the fertility of women who have gay relatives. No doubt, Porno Pete LaBarbera, Daddy Dobson, and Robert Knight, among others, will be having violent fits and splattering spittle all around them at this news. God, forbid, gays might have a role in God's plan. Oh, but I forgot - the Christianists don't believe in science or evolution. Here are highlights from the Slate story:
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Gay couples can't have biological kids together. So if homosexuality is genetic, why hasn't it died out? A study published last week in PLoS One tackles the question. It starts with four curious patterns. First, male homosexuality occurs at a low but stable frequency in a wide range of societies. Second, the female relatives of gay men produce children at a higher rate than other women do. Third, among these female relatives, those related to the gay man's mother produce children at a higher rate than do those related to his father. Fourth, among the man's male relatives, homosexuality is more common in those related to his mother than in those related to his father.
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The theory is called "sexually antagonistic selection." It holds that a gene can be reproductively harmful to one sex as long as it's helpful to the other. The gene for male homosexuality persists because it promotes—and is passed down through—high rates of procreation among gay men's mothers, sisters, and aunts. . . . it does explain the high similarity of sexual orientation between identical twins, as well as patterns of homosexuality in families. It's also plausible because sexually antagonistic selection has been found in other species. And many scientists who think environmental and prenatal factors influence homosexuality also believe that genes play a role.
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I don't know to what extent this theory will end up explaining male homosexuality. But its emergence threatens to change our thinking about gay men in several important ways.
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The full scientific article can be found here.
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