Blogger Illuminaria (who often comments here as Raina) has an excellent post about a proposed law to ban the abortion of homosexual babies. Now, I'm in favor of banning the vast majority of abortions, but I think it's pretty ironic that homosexual babies would be specially protected.
Jackie Malone, executive vice president of PLAGAL [Pro-life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians] said, "We recognize that at this time the gay gene has not been isolated, but with all the advances of genetics, we believe that it may just be a matter of time before a test for the predisposition of homosexuality will be developed."
As Illuminaria goes on to describe, no studies have yielded any evidence of a "gay gene", and even in twin studies twins raised together there's only a bit of correlation. Based on the Genetic and Environmental Influences on Sexual Orientation and Its Correlates in an Australian Twin Sample study,
Sexual orientation was measured on the Kinsey scale, which measures homosexuality in a more continuous fashion, with scores ranging from 0-6, 0 being completely heterosexual and 6 being completely homosexual. 92% of the subjects scored 0; 94% of the males and 97% of the females scored 0-1, putting aside once again the myth that homosexuals comprise 10% of the population.Their results were that if one twin was homosexual or bisexual, the other twin was homosexual or bisexual 20% of the time for men and 24% of the time for women. It must be noted that each of these sets of twins were reared together, so those values are based on both genetic and environmental factors.
So having a gay twin indicates that a person is about three times as likely as average to be gay. That's not a very strong predictor for a "gay gene", but it could be in the right range if homosexuality is influenced by environment. For comparison, the relative hazard of death from heart disease:
Among the men, the relative hazard of death from coronary heart disease when one's twin died of coronary heart disease before the age of 55 years, as compared with the hazard when one's twin did not die before 55, was 8.1 (95 percent confidence interval, 2.7 to 24.5) for monozygotic twins and 3.8 (1.4 to 10.5) for dizygotic twins. Among the women, when one's twin died of coronary heart disease before the age of 65 years, the relative hazard was 15.0 (95 percent confidence interval, 7.1 to 31.9) for monozygotic twins and 2.6 (1.0 to 7.1) for dizygotic twins.
Which means that having an identical twin who died from heart disease before age 55 indicates that a person is 8.1 times as likely as average to die from heart disease; and there are obviously significant environmental factors that affect death from heart disease.
I don't understand why such legislation is "ironic". It may be useless if there is no clear biological contribution to homosexuality (I think there is), but ironic? Why?
Marc, it's ironic because it flies in the face of all the "my body, my choice" arguments typically advanced by the hard core pro-abortionist crowd. If pregnant women have a right to kill a fetus simply because they don't want the hassle of raising a child, why shouldn't they also have the right to kill a fetus because they don't want the hassle of raising a child with a particular trait they find undesirable?
Were I a true-blue pro abortionist, I could see carving out an exception for gender selection. Perhaps society at large has an interest in maintaining a roughly equal balance between the sexes, which interest may outweigh the relatively vain desire of any individual parent to choose the gender of his biological children. But that would not apply to abortion for characteristics society can do fine without. If they gay population went from 2% to 1%, or if the gay gene ultimately died out completely, so what?
If abortions remain legal, they should remain legal regardless of any purported predisposition the baby may have toward one characteristic or another.
The same should be applied if abortions are made illegal.
Xrlq said: "But that would not apply to abortion for characteristics society can do fine without."
If you really believe that abortion should be okay only if the child has the "gay gene" (assuming there is one)... then the question becomes: Who decides what characteristics society should keep and which should be eliminated? In the late 1930's and 1940's, the person who assigned himself that authority was named Adolf Hitler.
Mark, I believe you were misinterpreting Xrlq's statement. He was referring to abortion not being banned if the child is gay, not to abortion only being allowed if the child is gay.
Raina...
You're probably right. It wasn't very clear to me what Xrlq was saying, exactly.
I don't think there is really much irony in the situation that Michael is referring to. PLAGAL is the Pro-Life Association of Gays and Lesbians. They're pro-life as a general principle, not just regarding babies who may be gay. It's actually a very worthwhile organization-- it's made up of gay and lesbian people who don't buy the Left's line that support of abortion is some sort of universal gay/lesbian duty. I've seriously considered joining. It's not a huge group, of course, but it's gaining influence among the gay sphere of influence. Unfortunately, their influence in the pro-life scene is still minimal... they are often refused permission to participate in pro-life marches and rallies.
JS: You may be right, but it's ironic in a more general sense. I've also heard that the legislator who drafted the bill did so specifically to get a foot into the abortion prohibition door.
There have been other twin studies that demonstrate a greater concordance between identical twins: I'm thinking of the Baily and Pritchard Study, which shows a 50% concordance rate for Identical twins.
Also, a genetic basis is not the only kind of biological basis.
Evidence also points to an in utero hormonal cause. At least for homosexual males. It is likely that the orientation results when the male fetus is literally bombarded with a delicate hormone balance that takes a default "female" fetus (all fetuses -- even XYs -- are female by default) and "masculinizes" it.
If the balances if "out of whack" then certain switches can get turned on and off. The genetic predisposition are most likely the switches that get turned on and off during the hormonal process.
John Derbyshire has a pretty good article on this where he demonstrates that in all liklihood (where the best science seems to be pointing) self-identified gays were "born that way." Although I think a stronger case can be made that this applies to male homosexuality.
Also I think that the notion that "94% of the males and 97% of the females scored 0-1" is patently absurd.
True, I would agree that only 3% of the population are properly understood as being "gay or bisexual," but I understand "gay or bisexual" to be Kinsey 3-6s. Kinsey 1s and 2s usually identify as "heterosexual" and are best understood that way; they are not part of the "gay community," nor should they be. And most of them -- at least the males -- never admit to their homosexual encounters during surveys. (Because admitting to homosexual acts raises the inference of a "homosexual identity" and that's something that they do not want). Those surveys most likely suffer from what I'd call the "masturbation" effect; everyone does it. At least all males do it when they are not regularly getting sex, but a huge % can't get themselves to admit to it.
You need to take deeper look into human nature. And when you do, you'd see that 1s and 2s are at minimum 25% of the population, probably between 25%- one third.
Jon Rowe
First of all, I'm not sure if you understand that the scale used in the study included a 0. Thus 0 (heterosexual) and 1 (heterosexual with slight homosexual feelings) are lumped into heterosexual. 2,3,4 (heterosexual with strong homosexual, equally heterosexual and homosexual, and homosexual with strong heterosexual) are lumped into bisexual. 5 and 6 (homosexual with slight heterosexual and strictly homosexual) are lumped into homosexual. The study explicitly said this was the standard, and it makes perfect sense to me since that makes the scale balanced.
In regards to your assertion that the heterosexual group makes up 25-33% of the population; that's an interesting idea and it does seem logical that self-reporting would affect survey results. However, being logical doesn't prove that it's true, and it certainly doesn't prove that the effect is as huge as you say it is. If you have any numbers on this, bring them on, otherwise you're just talking out of your a**.
And don't bring out the Kinsey studies. While Kinsey did some groundbreaking work in sexuality, he also used a lot of prostitutes and inmates and child molesters as subjects. I'm sure this overcomes the "masturbation effect," in fact, I'm sure it overcomes it way too far in the other direction. His results are interesting, but they are not good science.
I don't deny that a huge majority in human nature a "0s" I just disbelieve that 92% of the subjects scored 0.
It's probably more like between 50-75% of human society are "0s" or exclusively heterosexual.
The number is an educated estimate; I assure you I didn't pull it out of my *a--."
If you are a "0" and no member of the opposite sex is available, you will not turn to a member of the same sex for release, but rather would masturbate.
Yet if you look in all boys-schools, or Navy Boats, and in prisions, a much higher % than 8% are having homosexual sex. Ditto, if you look at populations, like in Islam, where women are either sequestered or hoarded through polygamy. And keep in mind in Islam, this homosexuality is going on while homosexual acts remain in many places, a captial offense.
An educated guess based on prison sex? I would argue that a prison population is not a randomly selected sample of the actual population, so any generalizations you are making with those numbers don't carry any weight. Prison populations are, in fact, genetically unlike the general population. I also don't think that all-boys schools or Navy boats could be considered random samples either, since the populations in them are typically self-selected (or parent-selected.)
Not to mention if we believe that homosexuality is caused by some combination of genetics, environment, and personal choice, then basing your numbers of the rate of 0's among Americans or Australians or the world at large on a small subset with a very different culture and quite possible a different genetic distribution, be it prison, boys school, the navy, Muslims, or Romans 2000 years ago is not accurate.
"An educated guess based on prison sex? I would argue that a prison population is not a randomly selected sample of the actual population, so any generalizations you are making with those numbers don't carry any weight. Prison populations are, in fact, genetically unlike the general population."
Interestingly, the genetic and social characteristic of those who go to prison lead one to believe that they are less likely to be homosexual than the general population.
The stereotype of the homosexual man is someone who is better educated, makes higher income, (thus probably has a higher IQ than average) and more effeminate.
The stereotype of the typical prisoner on the other hand is the exact opposite: someone who is more masculine (than an average heterosexual male), less educated, and makes less income. And lower IQ.
However, I think it's generally accepted that these prisoners are not *real* homosexuals. But if they did have some type of bisexual orientation, it would probably be closest to a Kinsey 1. And interestingly enough, Kinsey 1s may indeed be the stereotypical opposite of real homosexuals.
Richard Posner theorizes in "Sex & Reason" that opportunistic homosexuals (that's heterosexuals who have homosexual sex) fit the stereotype of an "Alpha male" -- someone who happens to have more testosterone, and thus needs more sexual release. Such males are able to "get it up" and use other men as they would use women; but their orientation is clearly directed towards women. And they tend to be more promiscuous with women (they tend to be the "lothario" types).
And prisoners do tend to be more masculine and have higher rates of testosterone than the general population.
Latin American cultures are another example. Among the Alpha male-Don Juan types in Latin cultures -- it's considered "okay" (read: not "gay") to use other men as women and many of them do, so long as you are playing the part of the male in the sex. It's not okay on the other hand (read: it is "gay") if you are a man and you play the female role.
In America any kind of homosexual contact gives rise to a homosexual or bisexual identity; and that's why our Alpha males -- our jock-studs -- don't admittedly have homosexual sex for release, even though this is quite common in other cultures.
But many of them probably do; they just don't admit to it.
But my overall point was that a pattern is observable in a whole host of circumstances with radically different populations -- the men in prisons are not the same as the men in Navy boats or the men in all boys schools or in Islam or in Ancient Greece and Rome -- But they all have one thing in common: Women, for whatever reason, are not available at the moment. And disproportionate numbers of them turn to homosexual sex for release. And this does nothing to alter their primary orientation, as the homosexual sex is used as a stop-gap. The prisoners once they get out, haven't "turned gay"; they go back to women.
But if someone is a "0" in their orientation, they wouldn't turn to same-sex activity in such circumstances. And if "0s" are 92% of any given population, then no more than 8% of any male population would turn to same-sex activity, even in the absence of the opposite sex. But that's not what we see when we take the women away from the boys.
"Marc, it's ironic because it flies in the face of all the "my body, my choice" arguments typically advanced by the hard core pro-abortionist crowd. If pregnant women have a right to kill a fetus simply because they don't want the hassle of raising a child, why shouldn't they also have the right to kill a fetus because they don't want the hassle of raising a child with a particular trait they find undesirable?"
You seem to be assuming that this legislation was either put forth by pro-choicers or supported by pro-choicers. In fact, it was suggested by a pro-life Republican and supported by a pro-life homosexual organization. No irony there.