Being gay is in your genes

[livingwordunity]

Well, that is one of two possible opinions. What an irony it would be if parents could check for genetic disposition and abort babies they think will be gay. I bet abortion would be illegal within five years.

That’s a cynical (and trumped up) notion I believe.

It’s already common for people to have sex-selective abortions, so it follows that people could also choose an abortion based on the belief that the baby might have a so-called “gay gene”. If this gene is real then there would be a steady decline in the world’s homosexual population if these kind of abortions become as common as the sex-selective ones. But, I suspect that talk of this so-called “gay gene” is more the product of politics and wishful thinking than a real scientific discovery. It would be too easy to cook up a fake scientific study and lie to the public about this since the public trusts whatever they are told is science.

 

[SMGS127]

It’s already common for people to have sex-selective abortions, so it follows that people could also choose an abortion based on the belief that the baby might have a so-called “gay gene”.

I have no doubt people will, if a biological cause is p(name removed by moderator)ointed and testable. One of the biggest fears of many parents is that their child will be gay. I’d imagine that the % of abortions in “gay-positive” genetic tests would be astronomically higher than sex-selective, though the numbers would obviously not be since 52% of the country is women but less than 4% has SSAs.

 

[EIF5A]

There’s no single “height gene”, either. But there is a genetic factor (and environmental factors) that contributes.

Attraction is not a choice regardless of the cause. Acting upon it is.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

This is your field and you still fall for the blunder of making universalizing statements like that? People are complex, as you should well know. While I certainly agree that many, perhaps most people with same sex attraction experience it as a fixed, deep seated personality feature, **it’s just plain ignorant to assert that people don’t exist who FOR A TIME in life, self-identified as gay but later recognize that their inclinations in that direction were caused by something resolvable. **

In any case, I find the whole subject of genetics and homosexuality to be a red herring. The source of the motivation has nothing to do with whether acting on that motivation is good for the person or not. Gay activists take for granted that if they prove that their desires are innate, then they are good. Do we REALLY want to adopt such a principle for human behavior?

And then there are those who try to fool everyone including themselves that they are heterosexual, but eventually fail.

My goal is never to split hairs but the origin of homosexuality should not be overlooked as not important. The fact is there is a very well developed logical argument used by the gay lobby to promote homosexuality as normal based on the assumption that it is biological. I have been aware and been part of many discussions for almost 25 years in person and on forums where this argument is first planted and then followed up with relentless pseudo science and supposed “consensus” to try to sway public opinion. This is clearly evident on protestant websites that have embraced homosexuality. The first step of course is to convince the audience that homosexuality is biological or at the very least “the possibility” that it could be. The second step after establishing enough consensus of the probable biological origin of homosexuality is to propose that all that God has created is good, and thus since homosexuality is innate it must be good. The third step is of course embracing homosexual doctrine.

Understanding this nefarious, well developed and very, very successful argument by the gay lobby to convert people to their cause it is only prudent to investigate the facts thoroughly before assuming that homosexuality could be innate:

1. Anything ordained by God’s plan is good, such as heterosexual desires, with qualifications of course. Homosexuality, on the other hand is not ordained by God under any conditions but is an unnatural psychological condition.
2. There is absolutely no definitive scientific evidence that any biological condition can cause a person to sin, none. Certainly here are many suggestive studies about homosexual, alcoholic and “murder” genes but these are very speculative and not definitive.

Furthermore, in the case of a truly biological condition, such as severe mental retardation, the person cannot sin. Using the same logic if homosexuality were biological it would not be a sin to manifest it in certain situations. Nonetheless, the Bible is clear, God hates homosexuality - even much more than many other sins, such as adultery, because He is certainly aware of it’s overwhelming corrosive effects to the person and society. The fact is that homosexual sex does not fulfill but rather creates spiritual desolation which causes the person to become even more desperate for false fulfillment inducing them to find more partners. This is truly a downward spiral with no positive end.

Finally, I think it should be self evident to my Christian brothers that these tactics which I have discussed are used frequently here on CAF with no doubt similar objectives and as such we need to be prepared to withstand this barrage of pseudo logic, pseudo science and neglect of Scripture in order that people aren’t misled. Paz.

Do you know what concupiscence is?

Thank you, my friend,well said. Something along the lines of what you said should be a sticky note on any thread discussing homosexuality.

The real horror of the biological argument for homosexuality is that it wrenches away from the victim, the homosexual, all hope of deliverance, leaving them helpless to fend for themselves once they swallow this poisoned potion.

I can only hope that the earnestness of their false belief, like St. Paul, will serve to mitigate their culpability. But I am persuaded that believing sin virtue, does not exempt it from the agonies and effects that must surely accompany it.

Christians should increase their prayers for the conversion of avowed homosexuals now more than ever before.

That’s not actually hope.

Isn’t this a roundabout way of saying they aren’t born gay by nature?

No it isn’t; left handedness isn’t genetically caused, but it appears to be fairly set by birth.

I have no doubt people will, if a biological cause is p(name removed by moderator)ointed and testable. One of the biggest fears of many parents is that their child will be gay. I’d imagine that the % of abortions in “gay-positive” genetic tests would be astronomically higher than sex-selective, though the numbers would obviously not be since 52% of the country is women but less than 4% has SSAs.

Especially considering many people have only one child

 

[pepipop]

Isn’t this a roundabout way of saying they aren’t born gay by nature?

Exactly, which is what I was inferring in my first post. It’s not genetic through heredity but the 2 genes they have ‘discovered’ may have developed due to environmental or other circumstantial changes, i.e. epigenetics, that occur due to acting out a gay lifestyle.

 

[pnewton]

Aquinas did some great work on this exact point.

Again, neither God, nor the Catholic Church has said this. I will choose to disregard this. St. Aquinas was mistaken about when life began. He believed in delayed ensoulment. I think he was also wrong about the harm that adultery does. Destroying a soul is worse than destroying the body. I would love to debate this with him, but by the time I will be able to do that, one of us will already know better.

The article is good. The Saint’s reasons are expounded well. You are right we need to take him seriously. Yet his reasoning is only evidence, not doctrine. His explanations of harm are genuine, but they do not mandate the ranking he gives. There can be other evidence of increased harm, like greater apostasy in children of divorce, that he did not factor or was aware of.

zenit.org/en/articles/study-children-of-divorce-less-likely-to-practice-religion

I guess in the end, I live in a world filled with the fruits of homosexuality and the fruits of divorce. We all do. St. Aquinas was thinking theoretical. We know have more experience. In the end, data trumps theory.

 

[JackyB]

My goal is never to split hairs but the origin of homosexuality should not be overlooked as not important. The fact is there is a very well developed logical argument used by the gay lobby to promote homosexuality as normal based on the assumption that it is biological. I have been aware and been part of many discussions for almost 25 years in person and on forums where this argument is first planted and then followed up with relentless pseudo science and supposed “consensus” to try to sway public opinion. This is clearly evident on protestant websites that have embraced homosexuality. The first step of course is to convince the audience that homosexuality is biological or at the very least “the possibility” that it could be. The second step after establishing enough consensus of the probable biological origin of homosexuality is to propose that all that God has created is good, and thus since homosexuality is innate it must be good. The third step is of course embracing homosexual doctrine.

Understanding this nefarious, well developed and very, very successful argument by the gay lobby to convert people to their cause it is only prudent to investigate the facts thoroughly before assuming that homosexuality could be innate:

1. Anything ordained by God’s plan is good, such as heterosexual desires, with qualifications of course. Homosexuality, on the other hand is not ordained by God under any conditions but is an unnatural psychological condition.
2. There is absolutely no definitive scientific evidence that any biological condition can cause a person to sin, none. Certainly here are many suggestive studies about homosexual, alcoholic and “murder” genes but these are very speculative and not definitive.

Furthermore, in the case of a truly biological condition, such as severe mental retardation, the person cannot sin. Using the same logic if homosexuality were biological it would not be a sin to manifest it in certain situations. Nonetheless, the Bible is clear, God hates homosexuality - even much more than many other sins, such as adultery, because He is certainly aware of it’s overwhelming corrosive effects to the person and society. The fact is that homosexual sex does not fulfill but rather creates spiritual desolation which causes the person to become even more desperate for false fulfillment inducing them to find more partners. This is truly a downward spiral with no positive end.

Finally, I think it should be self evident to my Christian brothers that these tactics which I have discussed are used frequently here on CAF with no doubt similar objectives and as such we need to be prepared to withstand this barrage of pseudo logic, pseudo science and neglect of Scripture in order that people aren’t misled. Paz.

:thumbsup:It’s frightening enough reading as you have mentioned, nefarious and successful arguments by the gay lobby in the MSM, but to witness them here on CAF reminds me just how successful they really are.

 

[ringil]

It’s already common for people to have sex-selective abortions, so it follows that people could also choose an abortion based on the belief that the baby might have a so-called “gay gene”. If this gene is real then there would be a steady decline in the world’s homosexual population if these kind of abortions become as common as the sex-selective ones. But, I suspect that talk of this so-called “gay gene” is more the product of politics and wishful thinking than a real scientific discovery. It would be too easy to cook up a fake scientific study and lie to the public about this since the public trusts whatever they are told is science.

My wife is a scientist and she conducts studies for a living. You are way off base in thinking there is some kind of “agenda” driving research.

However this forms a basis for your invincible argument, preventing any fuller understanding in reading studies.

So, you will only trust those studies which confirm your preconceived notion.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

So, the theory has been reversed. I’m sure there were studies of identical twins that indicated their was no genetic link and that their sexual orientation was a choice. Not really a good research piece, as the two sets of genes ‘at play’ could have resulted from epigenetic changes due to the participants living a homosexual lifestyle.

dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2559021/Being-gay-DNA-researchers-claim-controversial-new-study.html

That research, the first to find evidence of a ‘gay gene’, created a storm of controversy, which was further fuelled when other scientists failed to find a genetic link.
Dr Michael Bailey from Northwestern University in Illinois, who contributed to the latest study, said it is the biggest of its kind.
He added: ‘Sexual orientation has nothing to do with choice. Our findings suggest there may be genes at play – we found evidence for two sets that affect whether a man is gay or straight.
‘Although this could one day lead to a pre-natal test for male sexual orientation, it would not be very accurate, as there are other factors that can influence the outcome.’
Despite this, he would not would not object to a prenatal test being developed.
He said: ‘Clearly parents should not be allowed to torture or kill babies. But they can currently choose to terminate a pregnancy early on, so they should be allowed to have as much information on the future child as possible.’

The pro-gay crowd likes to repeat wide and simplistic error about the “concordance” for identical male twins.

That’s what happens when “scientists” start out with a predetermined conclusion that homosexuality is genetically based.

So we hear of yet another study by Dr. J. Michael Bailey, American psychologist and professor at Northwestern University, who started out a research in the 1990’s with Dr. Richard Pillard, whereby

They reported a widely misinterpreted 52 percent “concordance” for identical male twins, compared with 22 percent for fraternal twins, 9 percent for non-twin brothers, and 11 percent for adopted brothers. The results generated wide and simplistic media coverage. It had been settled, the media suggested: Sexual orientation was determined by one’s genes. What was not widely understood was that only in 14 of the 41 identical-twin pairs did the two twin brothers match for sexual orientation; in the remaining 27 sets the identical twin brothers did not match.

But this study was actually based on a sample that was apparently distorted by volunteer bias and hence not representative of homosexual persons in general. Bailey’s own study of a decade later, and the recently published “gold standard” study by Långström et. al. of the Swedish Twin Registry, both found even lower matching among identical twins with much larger and more representative samples. Both studies reported about 10% matching (for Långström, 7 identical twin pairs matched with both identical brothers gay out of 71 total pairs of male identical twin pairs).

So in plain English, the best contemporary scientific findings are that when one identical twin brother is gay, the probabilities of the second twin being gay are approximately 10%. This suggests that the contribution of genetics to the determination of homosexual orientation is modest at best.

Science will not solve our culture’s struggles about sexual orientation, according to psychologist Stanton L. Jones. He maintains, rightly so, that when science is cited, we should at least get it right.

 

[EIF5A]

Why does it matter what the relative contributions of genetics and environment are? No one chooses who they’re attracted to.

For all we know, homosexual orientation may be due to mostly stochastic/random convergence of multiple factors, biological or otherwise. For some people with a genetic predisposition, a certain environment may have a causative role, whereas for people with a different genetic background, the same environment has no effect.

The bottom line is: it’s not a choice.

And the Catholic Church does not teach that it is a choice.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Why does it matter what the relative contributions of genetics and environment are? No one chooses who they’re attracted to.

For all we know, homosexual orientation may be due to mostly stochastic/random convergence of multiple factors, biological or otherwise. For some people with a genetic predisposition, a certain environment may have a causative role, whereas for people with a different genetic background, the same environment has no effect.

The bottom line is: it’s not a choice.

And the Catholic Church does not teach that it is a choice.

To whom one is attracted is not a choice. To act on the attraction is a choice.
,

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

Exactly, which is what I was inferring in my first post. It’s not genetic through heredity but the 2 genes they have ‘discovered’ may have developed due to environmental or other circumstantial changes, i.e. epigenetics, that occur due to acting out a gay lifestyle.

1. Lamarckian evolution was debunk a very long time ago
2. not genetic≠not biological
3. Homosexuality is more concordant than left handedness despite the latter being much more common in the general population.

 

[frobert]

Why does it matter what the relative contributions of genetics and environment are? No one chooses who they’re attracted to.

And the Catholic Church does not teach that it is a choice.

Well said. I stopped reading the voluminous posts on the issue out of empathy and sadness for poorly informed Christians.

Empathy because many on both sides of the divide sincerely believe what they write and desperately try to drown out the other side in proving there Christian credentials.

Sadness because many, not all, form their views from titbits in the main street media which often attempts to bait controversy with poorly researched and language that purposely misinforms. Misinformation is not only from the media but also from sources with vested interest frequently with little or no regard for the truth such the right and left, from conservatives and liberals, secular and religious.

 

[John_Savage]

Is the epigenetic change counted in the 40%? Do epigenetic changes show up on genes? Are epigenetic changes noticeable to scientists?

 

[pnewton]

I have a silly question. How could a genetic disposition to be homosexual exist if there is any truth to natural selection? Homosexuality produces no offspring. A “gay gene” should disprove Darwin and acceptance of natural selection should preclude any disposition that produces no children.

 

[estesbob]

Why does it matter what the relative contributions of genetics and environment are? No one chooses who they’re attracted to.

For all we know, homosexual orientation may be due to mostly stochastic/random convergence of multiple factors, biological or otherwise. For some people with a genetic predisposition, a certain environment may have a causative role, whereas for people with a different genetic background, the same environment has no effect.

The bottom line is: it’s not a choice.

And the Catholic Church does not teach that it is a choice.

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,141 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."142 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I have a silly question. How could a genetic disposition to be homosexual exist if there is any truth to natural selection? Homosexuality produces no offspring. A “gay gene” should disprove Darwin and acceptance of natural selection should preclude any disposition that produces no children.

It’s actually a quite valid question. If not everyone who has the genes is homosexual those could reproduce, There is also the fact that historically marriages weren’t about love and so people got in them whether interested or not (though those uninterested could join the clergy and be protected from being coerced into marriage) and even after it switched over to being largely about love they got married to appear normal. There is also the “gay uncle hypothesis” I think it was called that gay family members (in males at least) could increase the probability that related children survived to reproduce as there are more providers and for lesbians those could function as surrogate parents in case the mother died (childbirth was a common killer of women).

 

[Catolico65]

Why does it matter what the relative contributions of genetics and environment are? No one chooses who they’re attracted to.

It is** false logic** to assume then that the source of attraction is biological, especially given the fact that for most people SSA is temporary.

As far as to the “why” a lot of what happens is young persons are confused about sexuality. That is why it is of utmost importance to understand that SSA is not biological so that children aren’t being misled. Jesus has warned us from doing this. Why so many Christians disregard this is beyond me.

 

[Catolico65]

It’s actually a quite valid question. If not everyone who has the genes is homosexual those could reproduce, There is also the fact that historically marriages weren’t about love and so people got in them whether interested or not (though those uninterested could join the clergy and be protected from being coerced into marriage) and even after it switched over to being largely about love they got married to appear normal. There is also the “gay uncle hypothesis” I think it was called that gay family members (in males at least) could increase the probability that related children survived to reproduce as there are more providers and for lesbians those could function as surrogate parents in case the mother died (childbirth was a common killer of women).

It is apparent you will propose anything to support the biological source of SSA. Ironic that you say the gay lobby doesn’t exist.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

It is apparent you will propose anything to support the biological source of SSA. Ironic that you say the gay lobby doesn’t exist.

I was answer the question "How could a genetic disposition to be homosexual exist if there is any truth to natural selection? Homosexuality produces no offspring. A “gay gene” should disprove Darwin and acceptance of natural selection should preclude any disposition that produces no children. "