Homosexuality: nature or nurture? Part 1

In keeping with our theme of going Science Mad, and as a follow up to James’ post on homosexuality, I thought it might be good to examine this idea that homosexuality is a product of nature, a genetically determined behaviour, rather than a choice. But first – why are we doing this? Why the posts on homosexuality? It’s not because we hate gays, nor is it because we fear them. We believe that the homosexual lifestyle is not the one God intended for His creations to live in, just as He didn’t intend for us to live in drunkenness or addicted to drugs, or in any type of sinful lifestyle. We want to see all people fulfil the potential God has for them, and for some people what stands in their way is their sexual orientation. With that said, let’s move on!

The idea that sexual orientation is determined by genes is put about by many homosexuals and gay rights activists, but does it really hold water? I don’t believe it does for four reasons: firstly, the search for the so-called ‘gay gene’ has, as yet, proved unfruitful; secondly, children raised by same-sex couples are more likely to be gay, suggesting that nurture, not nature, is at work; thirdly, it is possible for a person to change their sexual orientation; and finally because of the propaganda put about by the people behind the gay rights movement in the 80s. Let’s examine the first three here, and the fourth in Part 2.

The search for the ‘gay gene’:
Despite much fanfare in the media in 1993 when Professor Dean Harmer published his initial findings in the journal Science suggesting a link between homosexual behaviour and genetics, little more has been discovered in the intervening 16 years to support his claims. Indeed, the following year the same journal published this by Yale’s Dr Joel Gelernter (speaking about the repeatability of studies like Harmer's), “All were announced with great fanfare; all were greeted unskeptically in the popular press; all are now in disrepute.” In line with Dr Gelernter’s thoughts, a study done by the University of Western Ontario, again in Science, showed no support for “the presence of a gene of large effect influencing sexual orientation”. In more recent times, the research is no closer to consensus. Dr Alan Sanders, a psychiatric geneticist, said in an article published in 2008 on the ABC news website that “the evidence is pretty convincing already that a substantial contribution to sexual orientation comes from genetics”. Yet his colleagues at the American Psychological Association disagree. The APA publish this in their brochure “Answers to Your Questions for a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality”: “no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles....", which is a revision of their position in 1998 that there is considerable evidence that biology plays a significant role. So it seems we have scientists on both sides, with neither clearly in the lead. Indeed, one needs to look not just at the data, but also the interpretation. For example, commenting on a study that found “if one of a pair of identical twins is homosexual, the other member of the pair will be, too, in just under 50% of the cases”, which the authors claim is proof of genetic link, Billings and Beckwith claim it is “strong evidence for the influence of the environment”. This is a good point with which to move on from the undecided genetics to my second point.

Children raised by same-sex couples are more likely to be gay:
In a 1999 comparative study of 39 children in 27 lesbian families versus a control group of heterosexual families published in the journal Developmental Psychology, 15% of children in the lesbian families went on to have same-sex relationships compared with none of the children in the heterosexual families. Compare that 15% to less than 1% of the general population who are gay. Additionally, other children from the lesbian families stated that they had either already considered, or thought it likely that they would at some point in the future, having a ‘same-gender sexual relationship’.

A person can change their sexual orientation:
The most recent edition (March 2009) of Essential Psychopathology and its Treatment states, “While many mental health care providers and professional associations have expressed considerable skepticism that sexual orientation could be changed with psychotherapy and also assumed that therapeutic attempts at reorientation would produce harm, recent empirical evidence demonstrates that homosexual orientation can indeed be therapeutically changed in motivated clients, and that reorientation therapies do not produce emotional harm when attempted (e.g., Byrd & Nicolosi, 2002; Byrd et al., 2008; Shaeffer et al., 1999; Spitzer, 2003)” (p488). If it is possible that sexual orientation can be changed, not just ignored but changed, and that such a change does not produce harm in the subject, then that lends weight to the idea that it is not genetics at work. After all, how can one change a behaviour that is determined by genes? The genes cannot be changed, not by the methods at work here, in any case.

That brings us to the conclusion of Part 1. Stay tuned for Part 2, where I look at the way in which the gay rights activists have promoted homosexuality over the last few decades.

In this series Previous | Next