HUGE Conundrum for theists, especially fundies.

[Pikachu]

Let us assume there is a correlation between the "gay gene" recently discovered in fruit flies and the sexual orientation of humans. If a genetic test is performed which determines an unborn human baby is gay, would you carry to term and give birth to a blatant abomination, or would you abort it and break the 4th(?) commandment?

 

[gaijin178]

Interesting question....I'm all ears.

 

[Blackguard_]

If a genetic test is performed which determines an unborn human baby is gay, would you carry to term and give birth to a blatant abomination, or would you abort it and break the 4th(?) commandment?

The baby would not be more of an abomination than any other baby. The fallen nature of man means everyone is born with a disposition to evil no less than someone with a gay gene. So to prevent giving birth to blatant abominations you would have to abort all babies.

 

[freealaska]

Lets get the usual arguments out of the way...

"There's no such thing as a gay gene because the bible says being gay is an abomination" and "Homosexuality is a choice"

That being said lets talk a little bit about the reality of such a conundrum. I suspect that even though the vast majority of fundamentalists will agree that the worst thing you can be is a homosexual (whether born or not), the worst thing you can do is kill an unborn baby. To that end I would expect things to proceed pretty much the same as they always have: allow the baby to be born and then persecute for being gay it until it is old enough to commit suicide, then blame it for living a vile-lifestyle. Having a prenatal test for homosexuality doesn't really change things for fundamentalists since in their pea-brains the bible supercedes science even when science clearly disproves the bible (science is the Devil, evil, liberal, etc.)

For the more rational set (read: liberal theology, liberal Christianity) the discovery of the process whereby a homosexual is created prior to birth could be easily assimilated into their worldview. For them (and myself) the past OT conditions that made homosexuality an "abomination" don't really apply to non-ancient-Hebrews and the supposed NT condemnations of homosexuals are clearly the result of a blatant mistranslation. Of course if you do believe anal sex is a sin there's still no need to be dogmatic. Afterall even if it can be demonstrated that a person is genetically programmed to be the "world's most flaming queen" if they never have anal sex, they'll never have a problem (harassment and teasing maybe).

The biggest problem I could see is that when this test becomes availible it won't be the fundamentalists (who abhor abortion) or the liberal theology crowd (some of whom might actually get a kick out of having a gay son or daughter) who will be using it to screen fetuses. Its going to be the ones who want the "perfect" child and for whom a gay child just doesn't fit in with their view of the way it ought to be. That sets off alarm bells in my mind because if they can do that how long is it going to be before they want only pro-athlete, nobel prize winning, supermodel children? Has anyone else seen GATTACA?

 

[Matt Never Existed]

Let us assume there is a correlation between the "gay gene" recently discovered in fruit flies and the sexual orientation of humans. If a genetic test is performed which determines an unborn human baby is gay, would you carry to term and give birth to a blatant abomination, or would you abort it and break the 4th(?) commandment?

Well, if I had a baby, I'd be more worried about HOW such a thing happened, since last I checked, both myself and my partner are males.

But other than that, I honestly think that if such a test existed, Fundies wouldn't use it, and if they still found out through such a test, they wouldn't have an abortion, since most fundies are Pro-Life. Though, I do imagine they would put that child through a litteral verbal/mental hell, and probably force them to do 'manly' things to 'prove that god can change anyone, even those vile homosexuals'.

I feel sorry for children who are born into such families right now.

~~~~~

"world's most flaming queen"

~raises hand~ That is soo me! Do I get an award or a cookie or something?

That sets off alarm bells in my mind because if they can do that how long is it going to be before they want only pro-athlete, nobel prize winning, supermodel children? Has anyone else seen GATTACA?

That movie freaked me out.

 

[ChristianCenturion]

Let us assume there is a correlation between the "gay gene" recently discovered in fruit flies and the sexual orientation of humans. If a genetic test is performed which determines an unborn human baby is gay, would you carry to term and give birth to a blatant abomination, or would you abort it and break the 4th(?) commandment?

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

So you like a hypothetical, huh?

I've got one for you.

We have medications for people with mental conditions, medications to regulate the body such as controlling the menstrual cycle and Erectile Dysfunction, etc.

What if there was a PILL that made a homosexual become heterosexual?


Would people take it?

Would there be many that would fight against even the existence of such a PILL?

Would there be many that would fight against even the distributors of such a PILL?

The answer is YES!
Yes, few do take it. Yes, there are those that fight against it. Yes, there are those that fight against those that help distribute it.

The Persistance In Loving the Lord is that P.I.L.L.
It also works on heterosexuals that practice sexual immoralities of their own.

 

[The Seeker]

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

So you like a hypothetical, huh?

I've got one for you.

We have medications for people with mental conditions, medications to regulate the body such as controlling the menstrual cycle and Erectile Dysfunction, etc.

What if there was a PILL that made a homosexual become heterosexual?


Would people take it?

Would there be many that would fight against even the existence of such a PILL?

Would there be many that would fight against even the distributors of such a PILL?

The answer is YES!
Yes, few do take it. Yes, there are those that fight against it. Yes, there are those that fight against those that help distribute it.

The Persistance In Loving the Lord is that P.I.L.L.
It also works on heterosexuals that practice sexual immoralities of their own.

Better questions:
Why should anybody want to take it?
What if there was reems of evidence showing that the "PILL" was a placebo with a deeply misleading name, often leading to severe pyschological side effects for little or no benefit?
What if theists kept coming up with really naff analogies that made people laugh at them?

 

[dcrowther3]

Perhaps the man who fell among thieves in "The Good Samaritan" was gay. Who knows? Who cares? The point is that he needed unconditional support.
We should all go and do the same.
Humans are humans.

 

[jnhofzinser]

Please supply evidence for a "gay gene" -- in fruit flies or otherwise. When such a thing was published in the popular press in the early nineties, the scientific community immediately distanced itself from the report. Currently, the evidence indicates that homosexuality is substantially cultural. (NB: I said "substantially", not "exclusively")

(willing to do the work to accumulate and cite the sources for the "evidence for cultural homosexuality" if Pikachu will supply the "evidence for a gay gene" )

cheers, jn

 

[The Seeker]

Please supply evidence for a "gay gene" -- in fruit flies or otherwise. When such a thing was published in the popular press in the early nineties, the scientific community immediately distanced itself from the report. Currently, the evidence indicates that homosexuality is substantially cultural. (NB: I said "substantially", not "exclusively")

(willing to do the work to accumulate and cite the sources for the "evidence for cultural homosexuality" if Pikachu will supply the "evidence for a gay gene" )

cheers, jn

I don't know about a "gay gene", which strikes me as more than a little simplistic, since human sexuality is hugely complicated and is unlikely to be purely based upon a single gene, however, there is strong evidence that there is a strong genetic factor in sexuality:

http://allpsych.com/journal/homosexuality.html
J. Michael Bailey and Richard Pillard also studied the gayness between MZ twins, DZ twins, and non-related adopted brothers. They examined how many of the sample population examined were gay and how many were straight. They found that 52% of MZ twins were both self-identified homosexuals, 22% of DZ twins were so, and only 5% of non-related adopted brothers were so. This evidence, repeated and found to be true a second time, showed to the biological camp that the more closely genetically linked a pair is, the more likely they both are to exhibit gay or straight tendencies. Later experimenters found similar evidence in females. One such scientist is Dean Hamer. Hamer examined the possibility of homosexuality being an X-linked trait. He examined the family trees of openly gay men, and thought he saw a maternal link, leading him to investigate his theory of X-linkage. He took 40 DNA samples from homosexual men, and genetically examined them. He found that there was a 'remarkable concordance' for 5 genetic markers on section of the X-Chromosome called Xq28 [2]

 

[jnhofzinser]

I have no beef with that: "substantially cultural" and "strong genetic factor" can peacefully co-exist.

However, having said that, it is useful for anyone inclined to credit Hamer's "Gay Gene" publications to read the Scientific American review of his more recent offering (www-dot-carlzimmer-dot-com/articles/2004/articles_2004_hamer.html). Moreover, the studies on the MZ and DZ twins are muddied by the fact that the twins in question share the same environment (a good review is found in www-dot-ferris-edu//isar/bibliography/beckwith/twins.htm). Twins raised apart studies show weaker correlation among male twins, and none at all among female twins, though sadly not enough data is available in those studies to claim statistical significance.

Please note that my citations are not in any way homophobic.

 

[freealaska]

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

So you like a hypothetical, huh?

I've got one for you.

We have medications for people with mental conditions, medications to regulate the body such as controlling the menstrual cycle and Erectile Dysfunction, etc.

What if there was a PILL that made a homosexual become heterosexual?


Would people take it?

Would there be many that would fight against even the existence of such a PILL?

Would there be many that would fight against even the distributors of such a PILL?

The answer is YES!
Yes, few do take it. Yes, there are those that fight against it. Yes, there are those that fight against those that help distribute it.

The Persistance In Loving the Lord is that P.I.L.L.
It also works on heterosexuals that practice sexual immoralities of their own.

You're a pill

Matt gets a cookie.

I suppose if the so-called straight pill were availible and its use was completely voluntary there'd be no reason to oppose it. Of course it would be forced on minors and I'm sure there would be more than a few right-wing vigilante groups would try something retarded like put it in San Francisco's water supply. Still as this is a discussion relating to gay genes it bears mentioning that a treatment that has the effect of changing a gene or supressing its expression is still tampering with God's intended creation.

Besides, who's to say someone won't come up with a "gay pill" ?

 

[The Seeker]

Moreover, the studies on the MZ and DZ twins are muddied by the fact that the twins in question share the same environment (a good review is found in www.ferris.edu//isar/bibliography/beckwith/twins.htm).

Yet MZ twins still show a higher correlation than DZ twins:

They found that 52% of MZ twins were both self-identified homosexuals, 22% of DZ twins were so, and only 5% of non-related adopted brothers were so. This evidence, repeated and found to be true a second time, showed to the biological camp that the more closely genetically linked a pair is, the more likely they both are to exhibit gay or straight tendencies.

Edit to add: IMO, a study of the concordance between DZ twins compared with that between brothers or sisters of similar ages would be interesting.

Re-edit: it seems from your link that the concordance between "ordinary" brothers is 9%. Just a thought, but doesn't that lend support to the theory that hormone levels in the mother's womb during early development might be a factor in sexuality? I seem to remember seeing an article which suggested that higher levels of stress during pregnancy can lead to an increased chance that the child will be gay.

 

[Code-Monkey]

Let us assume there is a correlation between the "gay gene" recently discovered in fruit flies and the sexual orientation of humans. If a genetic test is performed which determines an unborn human baby is gay, would you carry to term and give birth to a blatant abomination, or would you abort it and break the 4th(?) commandment?

I think the bigger question is, should we pursue funding to find the "atheist gene"? And then would people seek to terminate pregnancies of babies with that gene?

Or... if there was a gene, then would people support genetic engineering to fix the "gay" or "atheist" or "militant" or whatever gene?

 

[SnowBear]

Please supply evidence for a "gay gene" -- in fruit flies or otherwise. When such a thing was published in the popular press in the early nineties, the scientific community immediately distanced itself from the report. Currently, the evidence indicates that homosexuality is substantially cultural. (NB: I said "substantially", not "exclusively")

(willing to do the work to accumulate and cite the sources for the "evidence for cultural homosexuality" if Pikachu will supply the "evidence for a gay gene" )

cheers, jn

Can you provide studies published in peer reviewed journals to support this claim?





I ask because as far as I know (and trust me I do keep up with such things) there exists no evidence to suggest that sexual oriention is the result of choice, familial relations, mental illness, cultural factors or any other social, psychological familial trait.





As far as your assertion that the scientific community somehow “distanced” itself from the study of fruit flies and sexual oriention you are very wrong. Google Scholar produced these studies on the topic and this represents the first page, there was an additional 180 that I didn’t go look at.



Yamamoto D, Nakano Y Cell Mol Sexual behavior mutants revisited: molecular and cellular basis of Drosophila mating. Life Science 1999 Nov 15;56(7-8):634-46



Ferveur JF, Savarit F, O'Kane CJ, Sureau G, Greenspan RJ, Jallon JM. Genetic feminization of pheromones and its behavioral consequences in Drosophila males. Science. 1997 Jun 6;276(5318):1555-8.

B. I. Katsoyannos, N. A. Kouloussis and N. T. Papadopoulos Response of Ceratitis capitata to citrus chemicals under semi-natural conditions. Entemologia Experimentalis et Applicata82, 2 .Feb. 1997: 181 – 188.



Ritsuo Nishida, Todd E. Shelly, Timothy S. Whittier and Kenneth Y. Kaneshiro Alpha-Copaene, A Potential Rendezvous Cue for the Mediterranean Fruit Fly, Ceratitis Capitata? Journal of Chemical Ecology26, 1: January 2000: 87 - 100



Toshihiro Kitamoto. Conditional disruption of synaptic transmission induces male-male courtship behavior in Drosophil. Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Science of the United States of America. 99. 20 . October, 2002 .| 13232-13237



Yong-Kyu Kim and Lee Ehrman Developmental Isolation and Subsequent Adult Behavior of Drosophila paulistorum.IV. Courtship. Behavioral Genttics. 28.1, January 1998. 57-65.



Wendi Neckameyer, Janis O'Donnell, Zhinong Huang, William Stark. Dopamine and sensory tissue development in Drosophila melanogaster. Journal of Neurobiology. 47.4. May 2001. 280-294.





Patiently waiting for peer reviewed published articles showing evidence that sexual orientation is “cultural”.

 

[jnhofzinser]

As far as your assertion that the scientific community somehow “distanced” itself from the study of fruit flies and sexual oriention you are very wrong.

If I had said that, I might have been wrong. But since that was NOT my assertion, I'll accept your apology any time. Besides, I've already set the ground-rules for my providing citations.

But for Snowbear's enlightenment, the terms "cultural" and "biological" can be used as exclusive and exhaustive general desriptions of the factors pertaining to any human trait. Even the Bailey/Pillard study indicates that homosexuality is "substantially cultural" (that's the difference between 52% and 100%).

And, for the record, NONE of the citations that you provided had ANYTHING at all to do with the recent Dickson paper that Pikachu is referring to (albeit through the filter of popular media). Nor do they provide any evidence for a "gay gene".

 

[SnowBear]

If I had said that, I might have been wrong. But since that was NOT my assertion, I'll accept your apology any time. Besides, I've already set the ground-rules for my providing citations.

allow me to refresh your memory....

“When such a thing was published in the popular press in the early nineties, the scientific community immediately distanced itself”

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=16358380&postcount=9

hope that helps.

But for Snowbear's enlightenment, the terms "cultural" and "biological" can be used as exclusive and exhaustive general desriptions of the factors pertaining to any human trait. Even the Bailey/Pillard study indicates that homosexuality is "substantial cultural" (that's the difference between 52% and 100%).

And, for the record, NONE of the citations that you provided had ANYTHING at all to do with the recent Dickson paper that Pikachu is referring to (albeit through the filter of popular media). Nor do they provide any evidence for a "gay gene".

You may wish to note that I made no such claim that any of the studies were in reference to the study Pikachu discussed. As I wrote I was dressing your claim that somehow following that particular study “the scientific community immediately distanced itself” (your words) as noted the scientific community did not distance itself from the topic at all.



Still patiently waiting for peer reviewed published articles showing evidence that sexual orientation is “cultural”.

 

[jnhofzinser]

Dear Snowbear,

Distancing oneself from a topic is by no means the same thing as distancing oneself from a conclusion. The topic (i.e., sexual orientation) is still very much an item of scientific study (did you really think I was saying otherwise? please forgive me for my lack of clarity!) The conclusion (that there is a "gay gene") was actually published in 1993 by Dean Hamer. But as Scientific American correctly reports: "In 1993, [Hamer] reported a genetic link to male homosexuality in a region of the X chromosome. The report brought a huge media fanfare, but other scientists who tried to replicate the study failed." In 1999, Rice, Anderson, Risch and Ebers published "Male Homosexuality:absence of linkage to microsatellite markers at Xq28" (referring directly to the report by Hamer). When scientists negatively target a conclusion in the TITLE of a paper published in SCIENCE, they are CERTAINLY "distancing themselves" from that conclusion, no?

 

[SatKat]

Lets get the usual arguments out of the way...

"There's no such thing as a gay gene because the bible says being gay is an abomination" and "Homosexuality is a choice"

That being said lets talk a little bit about the reality of such a conundrum. I suspect that even though the vast majority of fundamentalists will agree that the worst thing you can be is a homosexual (whether born or not), the worst thing you can do is kill an unborn baby. To that end I would expect things to proceed pretty much the same as they always have: allow the baby to be born and then persecute for being gay it until it is old enough to commit suicide, then blame it for living a vile-lifestyle. Having a prenatal test for homosexuality doesn't really change things for fundamentalists since in their pea-brains the bible supercedes science even when science clearly disproves the bible (science is the Devil, evil, liberal, etc.)

For the more rational set (read: liberal theology, liberal Christianity) the discovery of the process whereby a homosexual is created prior to birth could be easily assimilated into their worldview. For them (and myself) the past OT conditions that made homosexuality an "abomination" don't really apply to non-ancient-Hebrews and the supposed NT condemnations of homosexuals are clearly the result of a blatant mistranslation. Of course if you do believe anal sex is a sin there's still no need to be dogmatic. Afterall even if it can be demonstrated that a person is genetically programmed to be the "world's most flaming queen" if they never have anal sex, they'll never have a problem (harassment and teasing maybe).

The biggest problem I could see is that when this test becomes availible it won't be the fundamentalists (who abhor abortion) or the liberal theology crowd (some of whom might actually get a kick out of having a gay son or daughter) who will be using it to screen fetuses. Its going to be the ones who want the "perfect" child and for whom a gay child just doesn't fit in with their view of the way it ought to be. That sets off alarm bells in my mind because if they can do that how long is it going to be before they want only pro-athlete, nobel prize winning, supermodel children? Has anyone else seen GATTACA?

wow very well thought out.

 

[mshupe1959]

You are basing your conundrum on an assumption?