In fact, they are exercising considerable restraint by merely PROTESTING Gay marriage, adoption, rights, etc. If they followed the Bible's instructions to the letter, they would be out there murdering homosexuals.

To me, this sort of works against the likelihood of total genetic determinacy. "

I do believe that sexual orientation is a spectrum. Just as we have variations of blue in eye color or brown in skin tone from one individual to another, why wouldn't we in orientation?

It was mentioned an individual going into prison and coming out gay. I don't think this was an issue of denial, incarceration generally does not do much for one's self confidence and comfort at opening up. But, if there is variance to the "amount," a situation could be all one needs to find a predisposition one direction or another.

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Thanks for using that as the example. I fear that many people will think, "It's genetic, therefore it's a disease, and we need to find a cure."

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Took me a longish time to write that sentence! I was thinking Got to make this idiot-proof. . . !

While natural acceptance of difference is certainly a desireable trait in the long term for humanity, historically it's the opposite behavior which has most contributed to its survival to date ... unfortunately.

Spent last week with my in-laws. My two daughters (2 and 4) love playing with their cousin who is eight years old and all a parent could hope to have in a male child.

Nathan enjoys playing with my daughters and -- or course -- joins them in their activities. When the time came for Emma and Paige to get their finders and toes painted, he jumped at the chance to help.

His grandfather and uncle poked fun at him and thouroughly deflated his enthusiasm. Earlier in the day, I heard the same kind of comment when he said that he liked a pink garment.

I told Nathan that it was OK to help paint my kids' toe-nails and it was OK to like to wear whatever color he wanted. Don't know why I intervened, but he's a great kid. Kinda truned my stomach that he's already getting the "You don't want to be a sissy" treatment -- from his family!

From his male family, mind.

As for the common perception that gays are more accepting of difference than straights; my own experience is that there are gays  who like to rag on bisexuals for not "committing to being gay".

I don't know whether gay parents would necessarily be better equipped to handle gay kids. Again, in my experience growing up, I've been ragged on for being an "ethnic", for having a weird name, for wearing glasses, for being overweight, for acting gay (I didn't like sports growing up, so naturally, I was destined to fancy nekkid men), for not speaking the "right" language, etc, etc, etc

Kids are going to be persecuted for tons of other reasons than their sexual orientation. Gay parents might be great at dealing with the gay issues, but not necessarily other equally important issues.

I believe that the trick for a parent is to really fall in love with their children. Once in this state, a parent is going to be very accepting of their children as people. This would facilitate serenely working past the many exhausting sleepness nights, the difficult toilet training, the outrageous meltdowns, the relentless demands.

I have never been under the impression that homosexuality was a learned response, but at the same time I'm not aware of any largely-accepted conclusive evidence that it is entirely genetic either. I personally would have a hard time believing that something as varied and complex as human sexual preference / response / behavior can be entirely determined by genetics, any more than I would believe that something like social skills or common sense would be 100% genetic and not influenced by one's environment and upbringing.

From what I have seen I would go more with hormones as opposed to strictly genetic, since there is such a wide variety of exposures possible to a developing fetus. Every baby is exposed to estrogen from the mother, not all mothers have the same levels, a previous male baby can change how the mother's body reacts to the next one, etc, etc. Hormone levels can also be affected by enviromental things, such a wide variety of sexualities, I think, can only be explained by something equally as variable. I think genetics comes into play by affecting how much a person is influenced by hormones, more hormone receptors = more influence for example.

From my perspective, I find "being gay" perfectly acceptable on the level of choice, and I'm wary of using the "nature" justification as we all know that there are some types of behaviour that probably are "natural" but still not OK.

I saw one documentary about some klansman one time and he used the argument that saying that being gay was okay because they were born that way was stupid, because pedophiles are probably "born that way", too. And however vile his comment, it does point to a flaw in the argument. It's an argument that doesn't lock itself on to a principle that can be widely applied.

Saying "Consenting adults whose actions don't negatively affect anyone else", that, to me is a solid, defendable principle.

I know that "natural" is in part a response to the religious claim that it is "unnatural" in the sense of  "against God's natural laws". Not against actual natural laws.

To me being gay is like being a Republican (no offense to gays intended) in that it's not a choice I would make myself, not even a choice I fully understand, but I think it's a choice people should be allowed to make. And whether they feel that they chose to be Republican or they know in their hearts they were born Republicans, it's okay.

It's just that to me, the most defendable, most solid principle is the one of choice.

No need to be snarky, Mike. I'm just asking out of personal interest. While I'm sure that genetic predisposition is a large part of homosexual determinacy, I'm not aware of any clear evidence that it is ALL. The word "entirely" was intentional and important to my earlier post.

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Sincere apologies.  No snark intended.  I'm all for science and figuring out the genetic components of this.  But I get a bit frustrated when the empirical evidence isn't used as an obvious starting point.  When so many people who are gay insist they were born such, shouldn't we be making an assumption that it's probably so?  Do I know why?  Not a clue.  But do I know absolutely that I have always been gay?  Not a doubt. 

••

I've experienced so many instances of telling some fan why I did something in a story, only to have the fan tell me I am WRONG, I would not hold out any real hope of this ever happening!

It's just that to me, the most defendable, most solid principle is the one of choice.

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But being defendable doesn't make it true.