Homosexuality: Biological vs. Environmental

by Lauren Feldman

One of the most common and ignorant statements I hear from gay marriage opposers is that homosexuality is a "disgusting lifestyle" based on "an immoral decision." However, since gay marriage itself is a completely different issue, I'll simply address the main point of this article: the fact that gay marriage opposers everywhere are convinced that homosexuality, is, in fact, a decision.

They could not be more incorrect.

The first flaw is their logic. I ask you: who would CHOOSE to be gay? Who would make the conscious decision to be part of the minority? Who would put themselves in a state of utter vulnerability, knowing the discrimination and prejudice it would entail, if they had the choice not to? It makes absolutely no sense, and it is flat-out insulting for one to suggest that the injustice these people are subject to is simply the result of a bad decision. After all, did you CHOOSE to be heterosexual? If I asked you to look at someone of your own gender, and told you to develop sexual attraction to said person, would you have the slightest chance of being able to? No, you absolutely would not. Such reasoning is absurd, and the same applies to homosexuals: they are not physically capable of looking at someone of their opposite gender and consciously developing a sexual attraction to that person.

I also cannot comprehend how they can simply deny the medical and scientific evidence that proves homosexuality is biological. First, I'd like to clarify: homosexuality is not likely to be genetic. Since homosexuals cannot reproduce with each other, it would be near impossible for homosexuality to be hereditary. It is, however, without a shadow of a doubt, a congenital trait. The vast majority of scientists believe that there is a correlation between homosexuality and brain structure. In this (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3008) article, a study of homosexual sheep prove that there is a biological basis for sexual preference. The conductor of this experiment, Kay Larkin, found that a particular region of the hypothalamus, the preoptic nucleus, is almost twice as large in male sheep than in female sheep. However, in gay rams, its size was almost identical to that of a straight female. The hypothalamus is also known to control sex hormone release and many other types of sexual behavior. The differences are almost identical to those identified by the neuroscientist Simon LeVay in his studies of the brains of gay men. There are a multitude of studies similar to this one, and they all prove that homosexuality is completely biological, and not at all voluntary.

The last piece of crucial evidence in this case is the fact that the majority of homosexuals attribute their sexuality to biological, congenital factors. A first-hand explanation from a homosexual is obviously a very important thing to consider in this debate. Many, many homosexuals claim that their sexuality is something that they can neither help nor control, and has been present for as long as they can remember. This absolutely confirms that sexuality is determined by medical means out of a person's control, and is absolutely not a conscious decision. For this reason, discriminating against a homosexual is just as bad as discriminating against skin color; both are factors that cannot be helped and are present from birth.