UPDATED VERSION: There's yet more bad news for the Christofascists and their "ex-gay for pay" puppets who strive to keep alive the myth that sexual orientation can change and that being gay is a "choice" this time in the form of new research out of Italy. The study confirms that sexual orientation is genetic - even while it seems counter intuitive - and is offset in family genetic lines by the increased fertility of women who carry the homosexual gene. Thus, the argument of the Catholic Church and the Christianists that homosexuality goes against "natural law" - a concept developed in the 13th century, a time of abject ignorance on matters of science, biology and genetics - is false when the countering benefit for perpetuation of the species is factored in. Indeed, the Catholic Church's anti-gay arguments based on "natural law" rank right up there with condemnation of Galileo. Not that the Church ever seems to learn from its enormous number of past mistakes. Here are excerpts from Think Progress:
Italian researchers have made a new discovery that solidifies the understand that homosexuality — at least in men — has a strong genetic component. Though this study does not identify a specific gay gene, which probably does not exist, it does demonstrate what role genetics play.
Andrea Camperio Ciani at the University of Padova discovered that the mothers and maternal aunts of gay men tend to have significantly more offspring than those of straight men. Tthere seems to be at least one gene on the X chromosome that creates a trade-off in men and women. The men turn out gay (and hypothetically less likely to reproduce), but the women’s fecundity increases, making them more likely to have more offspring. In a sense, the gene makes men more attracted to men, but the women more attractive to men. Not only are they more fertile and have less complications during pregnancy, but these women are also more extroverted and have few family problems and social anxieties.
This is called the “balancing selection hypothesis,” and it effectively demonstrates how male homosexuality —as documented not only in humans but hundreds of species — does not actually contradict expectations that evolution favors reproduction. Still, homosexuality is clearly not determined by a single factor. Studies have shown, for example, that exposure to certain levels of hormones in the womb can play a role in sexuality. . . . . But this research may help explain why female sexuality tends to be more fluid while men’s tends to be more fixed; this “trade-off” gene may just not be playing the same role.
Scientists may never fully identity what complex combination of factors determines sexuality, but there is still plenty of evidence to conclude that it is natural and healthy part of human diversity. With each new discovery about the nature of homosexuality, discrimination against people for being gay becomes more repugnantly indefensible.
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