My Earlier article: Homosexuality in Genes and in Animals?

PRINCETON, NJ, May 20, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) — For the first time, a majority of Americans say that homosexuals are “born that way.

According to the latest Gallup poll, 51 percent of Americans say that people are born gay or lesbian, while only 30 percent say outside factors such as upbringing and environment determine sexual orientation.

However, science would not bear that out. No fewer than eight major studies from around the world have found homosexuality is not a genetic condition.

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council says that these numerous, rigorous studies of identical twins have now made it impossible to argue that there is a “gay gene.” If homosexuality were inborn and predetermined, then when one identical twin is homosexual, the other should be, as well.

Yet one study from Yale and Columbia Universities found homosexuality common to only 6.7 percent of male identical twins and 5.3 percent of female identical twins.

The low rate of common homosexuality in identical twins – around six percent – is easily explained by nurture, not nature.

Researchers Peter Bearman and Hannah Brueckner concluded that environment was the determining factor. They rejected outright that “genetic influence independent of social context” as the reason for homosexuality. “(O)ur results support the hypothesis that less gendered socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent same-sex romantic preferences.”

“Less gendered socialization” means, a boy was without a positive father figure, or a girl was without a positive mother figure.

In light of the evidence, Sprigg said simply, “No one is born gay.”

Psychiatrists William Byne and Bruce Parsons summarize the science: “Critical review shows the evidence favoring a biologic theory to be lacking. … In fact, the current trend may be to underrate the explanatory power of extant psychosocial models.” In other words, homosexuality is a psychological malady, not something people are born with.

Some homosexuals openly admit that their lifestyle is a choice. Lindsay Miller, who describes herself as a “queer woman,” complained in The Atlantic monthly, “I get frustrated with the veiled condescension of straight people who believe that queers ‘can’t help it,’ and thus should be treated with tolerance and pity.”

“I was not born this way,” she wrote. “The life I have now is not something I ended up with because I had no other options. Make no mistake – it’s a life I chose.”

“It’s time to send the ‘born that way’ myth to the graveyard of misbegotten ideas, buried in the plot next to the myth that the sun revolves around the earth,” Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association has written.

And yet, the myth continues to gain believers, even among conservatives. According to the new Gallup poll, Republicans are divided on whether Americans are born homosexual (40 percent) or whether same-sex orientation is determined by environmental factors (36 percent).

In previous polls, a majority of Republicans have said homosexuality is not innate. Now, according to this poll, they are equally likely to view sexual orientation as inherent, rather than a choice or a consequence of how people were raised. In all, 62 percent of Democrats believe homosexuals were born that way.

The issue affects Republican politicians who, like all politicians, base their public statements on the polls. Presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson recently apologized for merely suggesting people choose to be gay or lesbian. Sen. Marco Rubio has said that, while he does not support same-sex “marriage,” he believes that people are born gay or lesbian.

Fischer says our society and particularly our presidential candidates should make policy based on medical and scientific reality, not polls. “If homosexual behavior is a choice, then our public policy can freely be shaped by an honest look at whether this behavioral choice is healthy and should be encouraged, or unhealthy and dangerous and consequently discouraged,” he wrote.

There is no debate over the health threats posed by engaging in the homosexual lifestyle. Fischer notes that the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association admits homosexuals are at greater risk of AIDS, substance and alcohol abuse, depression and anxiety, hepatitis, STDs, and prostate and colon cancer.

“This is not behavior that any rational society should condone, endorse, subsidize, reward, promote or sanction in domestic policy or in the marketplace,” Fischer wrote. “It’s a choice, and a bad one at that.”

The Gallup poll, taken May 6-10, also reports a new record high number of Americans support same-sex “marriage.”

The poll is based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,024 adults, aged 18 and older, living in the United States. The organization says its margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.

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This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. John G. Boulet, M.D.

    All sin, including homosexual behavior, is subject to free will. An adulterer might just as well argue that there is an “adulterer’s gene”. A liar, a “liar’s gene” (?congenital? liar). And so forth.
    At heart, there is a kind of willful refusal to accept responsibility that does accompany our free will. This is a kind of denial of our very nature, formed in the image and likeness of God.
    Without free will, of course, there is no sin — how convenient. “They have their reward,” says Jesus of those who live selfishly. They appropriate creation to themselves, never acknowledging the Creator, intent upon “domination” rather than the “dominion” that God intends for us.
    Ultimately, then, of course, the real issue here is whether the universe and existence are personal. If not, then there is no “god”; and there is no love. Indeed, there is “nothing” at all, because “we” do not exist. “We” exist only because of the One Who is, the “I AM WHO AM”.
    People who exclude the “I AM” from their lives — and we who periodically fall, sinning, though repenting — people who systematically exclude the personal Being Who made us, will in the end be “frozen” in a non-malleable, eternal state — called hell. The hell will be nothing more or less than the aloneness of eternity with nothing but themselves, without Love, without the Author of Love.
    So sad!
    And, so, dear friends, we should take care, lovingly and persistently, to invite anyone who we know to be stuck in a rut of mortal sin, to repent. St. Francis himself: “Woe to those who die in mortal sin!”
    And, I might add one last tidbit: Do not ignore our venial sins, for our very failure to count these sins as offenses worthy of repentance will itself become mortal — that we should presume and take it for granted that God automatically will forgive us. Let us not be guilty of presumption even in little things, for there is the way to hardening, and to mortal sin!!

  2. Tom Govern

    Don’t know if people are really born that way (homosexual) but if that is true, people are born with all types of issues, mental and physical handicaps. We might not know Gods purpose in this but it does not change the truth. The mental and physical handicap persons do not have a lot of choices, that is indeed how they were born. If sexual identity is a “the say they were born” problem, I think those effected need to face it as a handicap. It is unnatural and the way things should not be. We, not afflicted, should be tolerant and pray to help them in their efforts.
    STEVE RAY HERE: Well said Tom!

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