Gay at Birth?It will be very interesting to see the response to Nicholas Kristof's eloquent, reasoned, compassionate column in today's The New York Times. At the very least, we will see if Andrew Sullivan, who seldom agrees with Kristof's alleged "liberal media bias," will acknowlege it. But, more importantly, how will the Gay/Lesbian community respond? We already know how self-righteous Christians and ignorant homophobes will respond and we don't care unless they act-out their boorish self-loathing upon others.
For what it's worth, it makes so much sense to me--a nonscientific type--that sexual persuasion would be a part of our genetic package upon arrival into this world. It also makes sense that this is not the case all of the time and that environmental factors and choices that we make play a role in which gender we choose to sleep with regularly.
What makes no sense to me is that we are not yet a live and let live society. I don't have to like what you do to believe in your right to do it. As long as what you do does not infringe upon my rights or others, please feel free and happy to do whatever you wish and by all means marry and cherish and live with whomever you choose. Not that you, or anyone else, need my approval, of course. It would be appropriate and welcomed for state and federal laws to approve, however.
"There is now very strong evidence from almost two decades of `biobehavioral' research that human sexual orientation is predominantly biologically determined," said Qazi Rahman, the University of London researcher who led the blinking study. Many others don't go that far, but accept that there is probably some biological component.
Gays themselves are divided. Some welcome these studies because they confirm their own feeling that sexual orientation is more than a whim. Others fret that the implication is that homosexuals are abnormal or defective — and that future genetic screening will eliminate people like them.
For me the implication, if these studies are to believed, is different: It is that something is defective not in gays, but in discrimination against them.
A basic principle of our social covenant is that we do not discriminate against people on the basis of circumstances that they cannot choose, like race, sex and disability. If sexual orientation belongs on that list (with the caveat that the evidence is still murky), then should we still prohibit gay marriage and bar gays from serving openly in the armed forces?
Can we countenance discrimination against people for something so basic as how they blink — or whom they love?
