> No, you don't get it. It doesn't matter if it's possible to "figure out
> a gene therapy"; anti-gay bigots will simply use any claim about the
> biological roots of homosexuality to reinforce their preexisting belief
> that homosexuality is an aberration. --And just as genetic flaws like
I responded to just what you wrote, that if gay-bashing groups who deny biology's role in homosexuality were to accept it, they'd turn to advocating gene therapy for homosexuality. As a practical matter, a gene therapy for any polygenetic trait, let alone homosexuality, is way, way off in the future, but hey if these groups were to invest all their time on such a fruitless pursuit it would at least contain us from the real-world damage they do with promoting these personally destructive therapies to change sexual orienation.
If your wider point is that hardcore gay-bashers are going to keep on pressing for an end to homosexuality whatever its origins, that is obvious. But this takes nothing away from my original point, that acknowledging the role of biology in the homosexuality illuminates the particular cruelty of these social/psychological re-programming efforts. I'd assume that many of people who undergo these "conversion therapies" come
to see it as a failure of will that they remain with their sexual orientation when in reality they likely had no personal role in acquiring it and have no control in relinquishing it. I see a similar burden placed on ADD patients I've worked with, that after a lifetime of being being disciplined for inattention they've come to believe some personal failure to act has lead them down a road of absent-mindedness and poor resolve when actually there is little doubt in the research that the causes of these symptoms reside entirely outside of the domain of will power. I don't see anything negative about biological evidence illustrating how many traits aren't freely associable or personally malleable and the tragedy of punishing people for them as if they were.
> Also, the concordance in twin studies does not provide a "compelling
> case for homosexuality's biological roots"; in fact, it demonstrates
> that sexual orientation is not genetically determined. Yes, the
I don't know why you assume I meant "genetically determined" when I wrote "biological roots."
> concordance rate for gay/lesbian sexual orientation is higher for
> monozygotic twins than it is for dizygotic twins; that suggests a
> genetic influence. However, the concordance rate for monozygotic
> twins--genetic clones!--is only around 50%. This means that I can be a
> genetic clone of a gay man, and I am just as likely to be straight as I
> am to be gay.
The twin studies do show that environmental triggers come into play, something I never denied, but it also shows that the prerequisite genetic base, or "roots," has to be there to trigger. The biological factor does have primacy in in this sense and hence the compelling case for biological roots/predisposition.
Anyway, this thread has drifted quite a ways from my response to Brian Dauth and I don't want to imply that advocacy for homosexual rights has to be based on biological evidence. The moral evidence that homosexuality is a freedom of expression that harms no one should more than suffice. But I do find Brian's suggestion (which I acknowledge he meant partly as a joke) of re-organizing society to reduce or eliminate a heterosexual instinct to rest on some bad assumptions about the potentials of socialization and I think the cruel futility of these conversion therapies for homosexuality, which are premised on similar socializations assumptions, is a testament to how inaccurate they are. Yes to eliminating harassment by heterosexuals and heterosexual privilege, but heterosexuality itself? I've illustrated why I think reduction through socialization isn't possible but is it really in any way desirable?