Much Ado About Nothing, We Hope

Is anyone else becoming annoyed with all this “research” on why gay men are, well, gay? And have you ever wondered why no one is trying to find out why lesbians are, well, lesbian?

I mean, if I were trying to put importance on it, I would lump it in with all the other unimportant things people think about under the label “Who gives a damn?” Honestly, I really do not care about why I am gay or where it came from. I have more important issues on my mind, such as dealing with the reality of my life now without worrying about something that I have no control over (or should care about); why I am gay. Do straight people go around asking themselves, “Why am I straight?” No, of course not, and they shouldn’t.

So why are so many people obsessed with this? Since it keeps coming up in “scientific research” all the time, let’s break it down a bit.

One of the great mysteries of human sexuality is what causes some men to be gay.

Couldn’t the exact same thing be said about heterosexuals? Why are we so obsessed with this? If I were a gay geneticist, I guess I could delve into why straight men are straight, but what would honestly be the point? Unless, of course, I was looking for a way to “correct” the “mutation” (not normal) for future generations to come. If that isn’t your objective, then why waste your time?

Scientists have rejected earlier notions that homosexuality is a mental illness. The thinking now is that sexual orientation is determined by roughly 40 percent genetic factors and 60 percent environmental factors.

And now researchers at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute are hoping to identify one or more genes that help determine sexual orientation.

Again, who cares? I have a pretty good idea that I was born gay. I remember knowing I was gay when I was 6 years old. Back then, we weren’t as savvy with labels as we are today. I didn’t know what “gay” meant (other than “happy”). I just knew that “gay” was a word used in show tunes a lot. I also knew deep inside that I was different. I honestly wouldn’t have been able to put it into words if I were asked about it at that age. So, in all honesty, I cannot tell you if I was born that way, or if something extraordinary happened to me between the ages of 0 to 6 years old. I can only tell you that nothing in my memory would indicate that my childhood up to that point was anything other than normal.

I lost my father when I was six years old, and that was of course traumatic for me, as it would be for any child that age. But then again, many kids that age or younger go through the same thing, and they turn out heterosexual. My brother, for example, was much more traumatized by my father’s death, being four years older than me, and he is heterosexual, as is my sister.

But some gays are wary. They fear discovering gay genes could lead to efforts to “cure” homosexuality, or to prenatal tests for gay genes.

Researchers say that’s not their intent.

Researchers are in no position to make any claims on how their research will be applied in the future. So their good intentions are worthless. It’s the condition of mankind. We will do anything to justify the end if it works to our advantage, just like today we are talking about different degrees of torture that is “acceptable”. What they are really saying is, “How much torture (we prefer to call it ’coercion’) can we put on someone, and still walk away with warm fuzzy feelings (public opinion will accept) inside?” Once we determine that, then we can deal with making the law do what we want it to do to allow us to do that, by bending the rules of the Geneva Convention a bit. It’s easy, since we no longer care what other people in the world think of the United States.

With this research, I could see laws being put on books to force “known homosexuals” to “register” with their state. I can later see that registry being used to round up these individuals to make them straight. Sound crazy? Well, it’s happened before, and it can happen again. This is why we are wary of this kind of research.

First the radial religious right in this country wanted to “defend marriage” so they passed amendments to stop gays from getting marriage. But that wasn’t enough. They also went on to ban gays from having civil unions or domestic partnerships. But that wasn’t enough. They also went on to say that anything that resembles marriage cannot have any rights or privileges in law given to it. That effects a lot of unmarried straight folks as well, but they are willing to live with that as long as gays don’t reap the benefits.

That being said, how much of a reach do you really think it is to say that this research on human sexuality won’t be used to “help” us poor homosexuals who want to change, but we don’t know we want to change?

Homosexuality tends to run in families. While 2 percent to 4 percent of all men are gay, 8 percent to 12 percent of brothers of gay men are gay. [...]

Possible environmental factors include family upbringing, exposure to certain hormones during pregnancy and having older brothers. (source)

Again, who cares? What difference does this all make? None, as far as I can see. I guess we will see in 20-30 years if these statements will turn out to be laughable or not, or if they will turn into something less laughable - human experiments. Why is the gay community so wary of this? Because, it’s happened before.

If you really want to look at something that’s going to bit us in the ass, and soon, you might want to look at this.

Global warming at 12,000-year high

“If further global warming reaches 2 or 3 degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know. The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about 3 million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 meters (80 feet) higher than today,” Hansen said. (source)