Scientists finally give up on "strictly genetic link" to homosexuality

By Bryan Fischer

Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"

Researchers Peter Bearman of Columbia and Hannah Bruckner of Yale furnished proof that, as a matter of fact, gays aren't "born that way."

If gays are "born that way," then the concordance rate in identical twins should be 100%. If one twin is gay, the other one ought to be 100% of the time since they share identical DNA. After all, if one identical twin is tall so is the other. If one is blond, so is the other. If one has green eyes and red hair, so does the other.

But what Bearman and Bruckner found, after studying data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, is that the concordance rate is only 6.7% for males and 5.3% for female identical twins. This is overwhelming scientific proof that homsoexuality is not genetically determined.

In one small step for mankind, scientists are starting to bend in the direction of actual data rather than blindly adhering to the kind of political correctness that punished scientists like Galileo who followed the truth rather than prevailing, intimidating and threatening cultural trends.

In a piece in US News, Jason Koebler reports that scientists from the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis are now saying that whatever the hereditary link may happen to be, it is not "a strictly genetic link, because there are many pairs of identical twins who have differing sexualities." Well, good for them.

Koebler adds, quite sensibly, "Evolutionarily speaking, if homosexuality was solely a genetic trait, scientists would expect the trait to eventually disappear because homosexuals wouldn't be expected to reproduce." I've often observed that Darwinians should be even more resolutely opposed to the normalization of homosexuality than evangelicals, since the whole point of evolution is the propagation of the species.

So scientists have abandoned the search for the gay gene. As I have said before, I suspect that not even homosexual activists today want the gay gene to be found, even if it exists, because of advances in prenatal genetic testing. It is now possible to routinely screen for 3500 genetic defects while a child is still in the womb.

So these activists rationally fear that preborn children who are detected with this gene will be aborted before they even have the chance to be born. After all, if 90% of babies in the womb who are diagnosed with Downs syndrome never draw their first breath, what are the chances that parents disposed to abortion will not exercise the same choice with regard to the gay gene?

The scientists in Koebler's article, in my view, are now resorting to genetic subterfuge and are coming dangerously close to saying that homosexuality is the result of a genetic defect, a genetic abnormality. In other words, read from one angle, these same scientists are saying that homosexuality is the result of a birth defect. All this in an effort to maintain some ever thinner thread of connection between biology and homosexuality.

They posit that "homosexuality seems to have an epigenetic, not a genetic link." (Carefully note the word "seems.") These "epi-marks" are "extra layers of information that control how certain genes are expressed."

Now these epi-marks are "usually, but not always, 'erased' between generations. In homosexuals, these epi-marks aren't erased — they're passed from father-to-daughter or mother-to-son." This according to William Rice, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California Santa Barbara and lead author of the study.

According to Rice, these epi-marks "provide an evolutionary advantage for the parents of homosexuals: They protect fathers of homosexuals from underexposure to testosterone and mothers of homosexuals from overexposure to testosterone while they are in gestation."

But if these epi-marks are not "erased," as they normally are, then when they "carry over to opposite-sex offspring, it can cause the masculinization of females or the feminization of males," which can lead to a child becoming gay.

So in other words, when something goes wrong genetically, and these markers are not erased, the epi-markers which provide an evolutionary advantage to parents instead do evolutionary damage to their offspring.

Now these researchers are quite at pains to avoid saying anything like this, but the logic to me seems inescapable: Homosexual children, on this theory, are born evolutionarily and genetically disadvantaged. They have been overexposed or underexposed to testosterone because something has gone wrong in the process of genetic transmission. In other words, they are the product of a genetic abnormality at best, a birth defect at worst.

Now Rice is quick to add all kinds of qualifiers. These markers are "highly variable" and only "strong" epi-marks will result in homosexual offspring. But if Rice is correct, I expect many abortion-minded parents will want to know exactly how strong this epi-marker is in their unborn children so they can decide whether or not to exercise reproductive choice.

In fact, I expect that if this theory gains some currency, it will not be long before we have legislation from the homoexual lobby prohibiting "sex-selection" abortions on any child carrying this epi-marker. They'll be happy to let you abort anyone else, but these children will be as protected in the womb as unhatched bald eagles.

Koebler's article adds even more qualifiers and caveats. The model "still needs to be tested on real-life parent-offspring pairs," "is a "story that looks really good," although "more verification [is] needed," and "we need other studies to look at it empirically."

Rice says his theory "can be tested and proven within six months," because "it's easy to test." And, he concludes, "If it's a bad idea, we can throw it away in short order."

I'm guessing this is a theory that will soon find its way to the scientific dustbin, if only because homosexual activists will find themselves not wanting it to be true even if it is.

Under a Judeo-Christian moral construct, we can freely admit that we do not understand the origin of all of our impulses. But it is not necessary to understand the source of every impulse to know that self-destructive impulses must be resisted at all costs. That's what the message of the gospel is all about — that there is power in Christ to resist dark impulses, no matter what the source, that will destroy us if indulged.

It was fashionable for a time — and it may be still — to believe that alcoholics were born with a predisposition to alcoholism. But even if they were "born that way," genetics was disallowed by those who loved them as an excuse to engage in behavior that would destroy them, their lives, their health, their marriages and their families.

I do not for one moment believe that homosexuality is pre-determined, either genetically or epigenetically. But even were it true, it would make no ultimate difference. We are still back to the simple truth that homosexual behavior, regardless of the source of the impulse, is always a matter of choice. And by God's grace, everyone is capable of making better choices, starting today.

© Bryan Fischer