The "gay" gene?

[Flower]

[Font color ="green"

] Rod mentioned the "gay gene" in the thread entitled "Gays and Brothers" and the concept has often crossed my mind.

 

My first reaction to hearing there was a "gay gene' theory was one of hopeful validation that such a gene would be found so as to somehow rub it in the face of the religious right -- as if to say: "see, your god made queers queer, so now how can you criticize or belittle?" Of course they'd figure a way to do so anyway, but regardless I was hopeful.

 

Then I got to thinking about the implications of being able to isolate a gay gene--to do so, would mean that it could be identified before birth and "irradiated", much the way breeders do with Downs Syndrome and other genetically discovered birth defects. Even the gender of "new conception" is not only attempted to be controlled by chemistry and timing of conception, but in parts of the world the final outcome controlled by abortion of the undesired gender -- like females in India.

 

So, I quess I'd be interested in knowing how you feel about the significance if any, of a so called "gay gene?" And if there was one, would it be a good thing or not?

[VaHawk]

RE: The "gay" gene?

 

Hey Flower,

 

I have often thought about the same thing, and I have to admit that to me personally, such isolation and eradication is a very frightful concept ala Hitler and Arayanism. I truly believe that being gay is part of the natural order of the world, or if you are religious, part of God's plan. Speaking only for myself, I knew from age 7 that there was something different about me, as even though I didn't know what sex was, much less what gay sex was, I know that I was attracted to men (Peter Brown on the old Lawman series and stole all the baseball cards of the good looking guys from by brother, esp. Rocky Colavito).

 

I apologize if I wandered off track there, just reminiscing a little. As the old commercials used to say "Don't mess with Mother Nature" and that includes gene therapy, cloning and selective breeding. However, I feel it is a losing battle, as like all the old scifi stories, if it keeps going the way it is going, that in the future we will indeed be a society of cloned automatons.

 

Here's an idea, let's get gays in charge of the whole program and clone each other, then we won't need breeders! Sick concept for a world rapidly going sick.

[foxy]

RE: The "gay" gene?

 

For those interested, there was a play that became a movie called "Twilight of the Golds" starring Brendan Frasier. He plays a gay guy who gets along great with his family. His married sister becomes pregnant. Her husband works in a lab that discovers the "gay" gene and has her tested. The husband wants her to have an abortion when he finds out the child she is carrying will be gay. Brendan is shocked that sister and family go along with the idea knowing his parents would have aborted him if they had known. Lots of sturm and drang with Hollywood happy ending. Not a great movie but it makes a few good points. Personally I believe I was born gay and environment had nothing to do with it, so I think there may be a gay gene

[Flower]

RE: The "gay" gene?

 

> The husband

>wants her to have an abortion when he finds out the child she

>is carrying will be gay. Brendan is shocked that sister and

>family go along with the idea knowing his parents would have

>aborted him if they had known.

 

[font color="green"

] Scary indeed. I guess what really makes the theme of that movie so scary is that there are a lot of people out there that would feel the same way.

 

Would that present a dilemma to the Moral Right or what...I mean having to choose between one of their children being gay OR an abortion. Any bets what these anti abortion-anti gay folks would choose? }(

[Rod Hagen]

RE: The "gay" gene?

 

Nobody worth a damn in the Scientific Community (isn't that a pompus expression) believes that there is a GAY GENE perse, meaning that one could find one gene and if you have it, you'll be gay, and if you don't your straight; just as there isn't a straight gene where if you were missing it, you'd be gay.

 

What they have theorized, and so far it seems pretty conclusive, is that there is a heritability factor to being gay; most likely it's maternal, and certainly this factor seems to be located on XQ28 (X chromosome, Q (right) arm of that chromosome, Loci 28). This is only a FACTOR. All scientists conducting this research agree that there is a lot more involved in developing as a straight, gay, or bisexual being than simply the absence or presence of a gene.

 

Therefore bullshit discussions regarding bullshit scenarios where naziDocs rip potentially gay fetuses out by the roots, only serve to fan the flames of ignorance and fear. It isn't going to happen, there is no definitive Gay Gene. Drop it.

 

-Hagen

[Will]

RE: The "gay"...

 

Rod is absolutely right. It's unlikely that something as complex as sexual response could be managed by a single gene. Like all hereditary effects, homosexuality is almost certainly an expression of complex interactions among various genes, all of them responding to environmental factors of which we have absolutely no understanding. This morning I went on at some length about the birth-order study as a theory for the determinant of homosexuality, so if you really want to know what I think about the "gay gene" theory, you can read it there.

 

As I said, I think the whole "search for origins" is nothing more or less than ideology masquerading as science. Of course, the twentieth century offers plenty of other examples of justifying bigotry by resort to so-called objective, scientific "proofs." It was a great specialty of the Nazis. Social engineering through eugenics, however legal and even well-intended, is very scary. I agree with someone who reminded us that it's not nice to fool Mother Nature.

[Flower]

RE: The "gay"...

 

>Therefore bullshit discussions regarding bullshit scenarios

>where naziDocs rip potentially gay fetuses out by the roots,

>only serve to fan the flames of ignorance and fear. It isn't

>going to happen, there is no definitive Gay Gene. Drop it.

>-Hagen

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]

Oh, Excusssssse me--guess we might as well lock this thread down. We're being told to "drop it."

 

If you read my post under gay brothers, I stated as much, except not quite as dogmatically }( The research that has gone on with identical twins with at least one twin being gay, indicates that the vast majority are not both gay, thereby strongly discrediting the gay gene theory.

 

However, I've always been intruiged with the "what ifs" and as long as NO ONE really knows, it's all still up for grabs for speculation, wondering and Message Center posts. :+

[Luv2play]

RE: The "gay&a...

 

I have never been a fan of eugenics but it is interesting how the movement developed. It is most often associated with the Nazis and their quest to develop the "superior race". But, in fact, while they were certainly following that path in the 1930's, on taking power in Germany, other societies were also engaged in eugenics. And these were not right-wing governments. Rather they were democratic-socialist governments (the type that typify the "nanny-state").

 

Eugenics was practiced in the Nordic countries such as Sweden and even in Canada in Alberta, which had a provincial democratic-socialist type government at the time. These governments forcibly sterilized people who they considered would produce inferior children. Moreover these practices continued well after WWII. When they came to light in the early 60's they were quietly shut down, and only years later have the victims been seeking redress. A scary period in our recent past!

:-(

[Guest feisty1]

RE: The "gay&a...

 

>Rather they were democratic-socialist governments

>(the type that typify the "nanny-state").

 

North Carolina is currently considering some sort of compensation plan for the thousands of prisoners it sterilized under a eugenics rubric. Most of the victims were considered retarded or mentally unstable, some were simply considered undesirable (mainly blacks), and some were considered to be sexual deviants, including male homosexuals. (The point, in the latter case, presumably being to dampen the sex drive, since the risk of procreation amongst gay men would be rather low!)

 

One needn't look as far as Sweden or Norway to find examples of these kinds of programs ... there were instances all over the U.S.

 

--Michael

N.P. "88 Seconds in Greensboro" - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

[Guest feisty1]

RE: The "gay" gene?

 

I don't see any significance to the hypothesized "gay gene," nor frankly do I see any significance to the endlessly repeated entreaty that gay people don't choose to be gay. In fact, it irritates the hell out of me when gay pundits and activists and the like resort to this homily as a means of justifying equal treatment under the law.

 

Of course people who identify themselves as gay have chosen to do so -- we wouldn't have a community otherwise. We'd have a bunch of people slinking off to urban and suburban parks getting arrested on morals charges if none of us chose to be gay. IMO, the proper responses to Falwell, Robertson & their ilk when they criticize people who choose the gay lifestyle is 1) mind your own business, and 2) which gay lifestyle do you have a problem with?

 

You don't need and shouldn't resort to psycho-biological arguments to justify your own identity. All you need is enshrined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

 

--Michael

N.P. "It's Alright (The Way That You Live)" - Yo La Tengo

[Will]

RE: The "g...

 

I said only that it was "a great specialty" of the Nazis. I didn't say they invented it. I didn't know about the North Carolina program that Michael cites, which is indeed far closer to home that Scandinavia and, for some of us anyway, even Canada.

 

I was simply trying to point to a slippery philosophical/political issue when highly moral and well-intentioned people think that the state should intervene in the natural processes of heredity. Let me be quick to state that I am not talking about the right of an adult to make medical decisions regarding his or her own body. I am talking about a state-supported program of deliberate intervention, whose purpose is to "improve" the genetic quality of the population as a whole.

 

As far as gay men are concerned, of course, it's only too clear that many developed societies -- not only Nazi Germany but sections of the democratic United States -- have concluded that homosexuality is bad for society and that it needs to be eradicated, if possible, or controlled, if not.

 

On this view, if homosexuality is a "choice," then it can be controlled and eventually eliminated through criminalization of the behavior, with all the attendant legislative, executive, and judicial apparatus needed to prosecute such an agenda. If homosexuality is not a choice but an involuntary expression of genetic disposition, it obviously cannot be controlled. However, through genetic engineering, it could be eliminated. Of course, nobody can eliminate homosexuality without eliminating homosexuals. There are various methods of achieving that end, two of which are abortion or direct genetic manipulation.

 

The possibilities for unleashing another form of genuine evil that inhere in the programs suggested in the paragraph above are enough to make me wary of those who want to search for the "origins" of homosexuality. If they were more concerned with the majority phenomenon, i.e., the "origins" of heterosexuality, then I think I might feel differently about it. Rod Hagen and I may differ in our interpretation of this kind of research program, but he and I are on the same page when it comes to the fact that research is a tool. As a tool, it has no inherent moral purpose. Thus, the moral purpose of scientific research rests entirely in the moral purposes of the scientists carrying out the research.

[Guest jwraustin]

I have a close friend who comes from a large Hispanic family. Of the 7 siblings, 4 are gay. He also has an aunt that is gay, and an uncle in Mexico, whom the family lovingly referrs to as Tio Carlo, who is probably gay. He also has an aunt, and 4 cousins who are gay.

 

I have always thought that was a bit interesting to say the least.

 

Jon Dean

http://www.manfuck.net

[Guest Callipygean]

I have found this to be always an interesting topic for speculation. I doubt that either science or philosophy can yet resolve the "nature versus nurture" argument over the "cause" of homosexuality. It can't even do that for heterosexuality at this point. We do know one certain thing about the human animal, however, it is, undoubtedly, the most curious beast on the planet. And a chief object of its curiosity is itself. It is in our nature, as it were, to seek to understand ourselves, and science is a tool towards that end. Not the only tool, to be sure, but a powerful one. We can't always predict where the search will take us, but we cannot help but look. Our sexuality is such an integral part of our being that it seems strange we are still so baffled by it. That, as much as anything, should be a clue to its complexity. Whatever the truth of it, socio-biological and/or psychological, we do know this. There has been evidence of homosexuality for as long as we have had records of the human condition. In wholly differing cultures and in wholly differing social circumstances. This, too, despite concerted attempts in some (not all) of those instances to eradicate it through means sometimes subtle, sometimes horrifyingly Draconian. None of these attempts have succeeded. However rooted, homosexuality appears to be an enormously resilient, fundamentally pervasive human trait. Why that should be so is another unanswered question as interesting as the contemplation of its origins. What we do not understand, often we fear. What we fear, often we hate. As the great scientist Marie Curie observed, "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."