I was arguing with a group of people about homosexual marriage, and they said they were for it, but only because that people were forced to be straight or gay because of their genes. I called bullshit on this and it went on, and they used the “why would you choose to be ridiculed?” argument, and so on, but that’s neither here nor there.
To Sin or any other people knowledgeable on this, where is the “proof” coming from on this?
There are theories on this subject, but I don’t believe any of them actually substantiate “proof”. Then again, Creationism is only a theory, but the government is trying to push that one on us, too. I googled this topic and got mostly term papers from college students.
But one of the theories is that homosexuality is genetically linked by the hormone androgen, as well as testosterone. Which disproves the theory that males with more estrogen than the average are “homosexual”. I could link to these “term papers” but they like this theory offer no actual scientific credence on the subject.
The genetic basis of homosexuality is not entirely understood, in part because the genetic basis of heterosexuality is not entirely understood. What determines gender is fairly obvious and easy to figure out. What determines gender identity and everything that spawns from that, isn’t so obvious. What we do know is that it probably may not be environmental in terms of where a person grows up and what that person is exposed to. It could either be influenced by the environment during development (like with the exposure to chemicals when the appropriate gender definitions would be imprinted on the brain) or it could be a developmental mishap (shit happens). This wouldn’t be surprising because of how sensitive development; all you’d need is probably 1 chemical messenger at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Either way, the more popular belief in the scientific community, from what I know, is that it is biological in some way. To say its genetic isn’t entirely accurate since errors in develop can occur regardless of what genes you have and these errors wouldn’t be transmitted to your offspring. Anyway, that’s just me being anal about terminology.
So they have some basis, it’s just not fully proven?
Its a hypothesis.
Why go for marriage anyway? Why not go for a kind of civil union that has the same benefits as marriage, sans the title?
I prefer to think of it as an airborne virus. That way I can point at random people and shout “YOU GOT THE GAY!!!”
Yea, thats how i feel too. I can understand them wanting the rights, but i don’t know if i’d want to be associated with the stigma of marriage.
I think most same-sex couples wouldn’t mind if it were just civil union, but then there are the hardcore (and outspoke) people who want to have all the rights, including marriage, although the Roman Catholic Church won’t marry them anytime soon.
For the most part, marriage just has the connotation of a religious approval for a civil union. Two people married in a courthouse, or through Common Law, have all the rights as those married by a Priest or Preacher. And it’s not really a Roman Catholic issue only; rather, it’s more like pretty much every mainstream religion won’t bless a homosexual union.
I’m assumming by the time I’m around 40 years old or so, we’ll have legal gay marriage of some sort.
It’ll be interesting if science can proove what exactly causes homosexuality. Untill then I think its mostly a matter if your prefer snails or oysters (metaphoricaly).
@Sinistral: Why are you so well-informed about this particular topic?
@Topic: As far as I know, and as far as Wikipedia (the German one) says, everything said about the reasons of homosexuality are, by now, hypothesis. Some say there is a genetical tendency but this tendency has to be intensified by the environment of the particular person. Others say if you have this tendency, you will surely become homosexual, and again others say it has nothing to do with genetics. What I have also heard is the theory homosexuality is a mechanism of nature to prevent people with ineffective genes from reproducing, but for me, this sounds like a way to discriminate homosexual people.
Penis: 8====D
Vagina: ( o )
Why 6+ billion people exist: 8===) )=D
So yeah, over millions of years of natural selection slowly weeding out those who aren’t particularly interested in heterosexuality, I’m more inclined not to believe it has anything to do with genetics. Maybe strange chemical exposure, like Sin was talking about, but not genes. No way no how.
Personally, I don’t think the cause of Homosexuality matters; were ALL different anyway. The point of Life is to be HAPPY, and we ALL have the right to be happy in our own ways (as long as they don’t interfere with other people’s rights, of course.)
Like 984 said, Marriage and Civil Union are basically the same thing, except the first is a religious convention and the second is a legal one. For practical purposes, a civil union (that gives you ALL the rights as marriage) would be the same as marriage; if your religion doesn’t approve, I’d say change your religion. Problem is, many people still confuse the two, including many gay people who think they need religious approval for their union to be legal- or blessed. Personally, I think gays should focus on getting their civil unions to have all the same rights as marriage; eventually, society will accept both things as equal (thought that may take a long time still.)
Yeah, I was kinda mad when someone said marriage and civil union were identical. Uh, no. Civil uniion like, doesn’t even fucking mean anything 
It’s like having the burden of prenups without the actual marriage. (And I’m talking about a real, religious marriage, the bonding of two souls by God. Not some pretentious secular marriage where nothing actually happens.)
The the future we’ll all be worshipping statues of L Ron Hubbard and his prophet; John Travolta. True story.
I just graduated top of my class with a B.Sc. in bio, Shimo. I’m well informed as to how things work, if at least on a general basis and I’m trained to be able to be able to interpret things that are more complicated than those that I have learned. I’ve also been through a couple seminars and the topic of homosexuality came up.
Hades: I didn’t say it WAS a chemical in the environment. I’m actually more prone to think it has something to do with development (and by that I mean before you’re born) before I’d say it had to be a chemical in the environment affecting development (ie I’m being more general). Precisely what that thing is, no one really knows. Everything about development is extremely sensitive in regards to the chemical messengers involved and the timing of these messengers. For example, the reason we develop into such complicated organisms and not into fruit flies, is because of how what genes are activated when and what they activate in response. If you assume that guys will want girls and vice versa naturally, because of how your brain develops to interpret information in the outside world (because brain development is in part genetically based) then it makes sense that if something goes awry for whatever is involved in gender identity, you’re screwed. All you need is to have a chemical messenger present or absent at the wrong time in order to alter development in an organism, as I hinted earlier. Boys are boys because of the Sry gene on the Y chromosome. The Sry gene is responsible for determining gender, as we are female by default. By analogy, in the event that gender identity is determined at a separate time from gender, if you have said male determining product not in the correct part of the brain, you might not get the male identity development. If anyone wonders, upper division developmental biology is the last class I tutored before graduating (ie I’m not just pulling this all out of my ass).
Sin is too awesome for words.
Incidentally, get to folding protiens with your spare CPU power!
Protestants will marry same-sex couples, if I remember correctly. Northwestern Europe is for it.
And yea, Hades said what I believe, almost. I believe it’s just that 'cause heterosexuality has been how our race survives is the reason homosexuality is considered “abnormal” by some.
“protestant” is an umbrella term for pretty much every kind of christian that’s not catholic and not orthodox. some protestant sects support homosexual marriage in the US, but the vast majority do not. also, in northern europe, about 10% of people go to church regularly, so they arent really the religious athority on the matter.