POLL: Homosexuality: Good or bad?

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I wanted to add my $.02. Perhaps I am oversimplifying things here, but:

I do not understand the debte over whether homosexuality is a "choice" or a "genetic disorder".
Does it really matter? If you are gay, and are happy with it, who cares?

Do you sit there and examine the reasons you like D&D or fantasy in general? Do you analyze the reasons you are a computer nerd? Is Sorcerer's Place the result of a genetic disorder?

I don't even want to get into the religious aspect of it. God will judge us all in the end. Not you or me. I think the idea of religous types leading crusades against homosexuality is appalling. If you are not gay, and you lead your life according to Christ (and how many can truly say that?), what does it matter to you? Why don't you speak out against government sanctioned murder (wars) or urge people to help the poor and end poverty? To me these are much bigger issues than two consenting adults doing as they please with no harm to anyone else.

[ September 19, 2002, 06:01: Message edited by: Nutrimat ]

 

Maybe SP is genetic disorder .
Jesus never mentioned anything against homosexuals.
Why bother about the sexual life other people have?
If someone is without sin he/she may throw the first stone.
A heterosexual man told me, that pressure against the prostate gland provokes interesting feelings. I have no prostate gland. So you need not to call an exorcist.

[ September 19, 2002, 11:07: Message edited by: Oblate ]

 

yep, SP is a genetic disorder- a dominant allele at a single locus. every other past-time is recessive. classic Mendelian inheritance.

 

Another biologist here and I must turn everybody's attention to the following article:

Gay flies turned on by heat
By Sylvia Pagán Westphal
A mere change in temperature is all it takes for the males of a new line of genetically engineered flies to switch from being heterosexual to suddenly courting other males.

The switch occurs within minutes and is fully reversible, meaning scientists have for the first time a system they can manipulate to study how some brain regions may be involved in determining sexual orientation.

Whether the secrets unveiled by these peculiar flies will shed any light on human sexual preference is still unclear. Some of the neurons affected by the genetic changes are involved in sensing pheromones. These play an important role in fly courtship behaviour, but their influence in human sexual behaviour is unknown.

Toshihiro Kitamoto of the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope in California created the flies, but is reluctant to extrapolate the findings: "It's a very sensitive issue."

"Plain silly"

Others are more willing to express enthusiasm. Dean Hamer of the National Institutes of Health says the research should inspire other scientists hunting for genes involved in sexual orientation in humans.

There is no reason to think similar features will not be present in mammals, he says, noting that homosexual behavior is widespread among many animal species and suggests a strong genetic influence.

Hamer's team has published two highly publicised studies suggesting there is a "gay gene" on human chromosome X, though a different group failed to reproduce their results.

But many disagree. Sexual orientation in humans is mostly a social behaviour, contends Ruth Hubbard from the Council for Responsible Genetics. "To try to find analogies in flies, who have their own agendas, is just plain silly," she says.

Pheromone sensor

Nonetheless, in flies there is no doubt that genetics plays a major determining role. A handful of genes have been identified that, when mutated, lead male flies to lose their preference for females and instead go after other males.

It has been previously suggested that some regions of the nervous system are connected to sexual orientation, but there was no way to focus on them. Now Kitamoto has genetically engineered flies so that only a subset of their neurons stopped working.

The mutation is temperature sensitive, meaning neurons carrying the mutation suddenly become inactive above 30°C. At the normal 19°C, males are heterosexual. But ramp up the heat above the critical temperature and in about two minutes their behaviour changes.

When put in a chamber with virgin females, the males become largely disinterested. Add them instead to a vial with other males and they pursue them vigorously. Flip the temperature back to normal and the flies become heterosexual again.

Kitamoto does not yet know why the flies change their preference so quickly, but says the system should become a valuable tool to define further which regions of the brain, and which genes, interact in determining sexual orientation.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.202489099)

 

That's it!

Homosexuality is caused by global warming!

 

Would this stand to reason that there are more homosexuals living in warm climates than there are in the colder areas of the world? I wonder if a study has ever been done on that.

 

Er... there are more PEOPLE (irrespective of their sexuality!) living in warmer than colder areas of the earth...

So such a study would probably be a waste of time

 

You could just look at the percentage of the population that lives in warm climates that is homosexual vs the percentage that lives in colder areas. Of course, due to a number of different factors it would be impossible to accurately measure this. But still.

 

it was a joke.

 

the god, thank you.

 

I don't think it is wrong. If one of my friends told me he was suddenly gayI would still be friends with him even though it may be a little wierd at first. I don't shut out people just because they are gay. That bible is just a bunch of crap to make you think a certain way. The only time I think it's wrong is when a gay guy starts hitting on me that's is where I draw the line. That would just be to much for me. So no I do not think it is wrong to be gay.

 

I, as most of the swedish people are for homosexual adoptions and marriage....
Nothing wrong with that.