Via Vodkapundit, here's an article with more confirmation that sexuality and gender are hardwired from birth.

I suspect that the conservative blank slaters will remain in denial, but the fact remains that the only ones who truly have a choice are those born, to one degree or another, bisexual. I certainly don't now have, and never have had, in living memory, a choice.

I've always thought it was hardwired, and a few people are hardwired bisexual. Bisexuals confuse matters because they can choose their orientation (whether they're really happy about it or not) and give the appearance that homosexuals can be reformed.

I think we need to be real careful and adopt a more skeptical attitude to what particular scientific developments can tell us about human nature. There is a great danger in thinking that, because a test establishes a statistical correlation between two things, we know more than we actually do about whether one thing causes another, especially when we don't understand the underlying mechanism or have a testable hypothesis for why we're getting the results we're getting.

i never understood the popular line of thinking that sexual yearnings were a choice. who chooses to be driven wild as a teenager about sex. no one chooses to have that switch thrown at 12 to 15. given how we all go nuts from early teen years until we FINALLY get to start having sex regularly, most of us would prefer that the switch would stay in the off position for a while. if we all have these feelings NATURALLY, why then is being attracted to "the wrong partner" not normal for that given person.

if you can be born with an extra ear or without a spleen, why then can an outwardly male body, NOT be wired to be attracted to other males. or female to female. who wrote these rules??

we can all remember kids who were not the same as the rest, girls who were very "tomboyish" or boys who were "girlish". is it their fault, no more so than the guy with no spleen. our culture is changing to admit its error on this.

personally i like girls, and my wife is happy about it, so far anyway.

Here?s my take from the traditionalist Catholic perpective:

Even if certain people are ?hardwired? for same-sex attraction, so what? Some people may be ?hardwired? for alcohol addiction, depression, or compulsive behavior. In each case, it is not the disordered desire that poses a moral problem, but the disordered actions that those afflicted with such ?wiring? may commit. A sin is an act of will in which a person in full possession of their reason knowingly acts contrary to the revealed Will of God; with this in mind, it is obvious that sexual orientation (over which a person can have no control) cannot be in and of itself sinful. Only sexual acts (sodomy, adultery, fornication, masturbation, objectification of persons as sexual objects, etc.), with their vital component of free will, can constitute sins.

In other words: it is not immoral to merely have an homosexual attraction towards another person; one must voluntarily act upon that attraction (through intercourse, etc.) for a mortal sin (adultery) to have been committed. Therefore, even if people are mechanistically ?hardwired? to have homosexual desires ( as reductionist/immanentist fundamentalism would teach us), from a moral standpoint such ?wiring? is irrelevant. We are judged for what we do, not for what we can do.

We are judged for what we do, not for what we can do.

Of course, but a) it's not clear to me just how "revealed" the wisdom is on this subject, and the degree to which it's simply interpreted that way by a conservative Church hierarchy (isn't it possible that those coming up with the doctrine might have thought differently if they understood that homosexual behavior was a natural behavior for those unfortunate individuals, rather than simple venality?) and more simply b) not everyone subscribes to Catholic, or even Christian doctrine.

Anyway, my point is that the accumulating scientific evidence undermines the beliefs of those who cannot, or will not, separate the sin from the sinner.

The Church is entitled to whatever doctrine it wishes (it would be nice if it lived up to it, itself, at the least when it comes to pedophilia), but it's not reasonable for it to expect to retain gay parishioners, given that doctrine, if their only realistic choice is indulging in the natural human desire for physical intimacy (surely one of God's greatest gifts to mankind--why would he so cruelly deny it to those unfortunate enough to be born homosexual?) outside their faith, or remaining members of that faith only in lifelong celibacy (which, as required for priests and nuns, is also an unrealistic doctrine for which there's little scriptural support, as far as I know).

I myself am fascinated by the way that so many of the "Environment determines personality" people suddenly become raving genetic determinists when it's a matter of political correctness that they do so. In any event, if we accept the premise that homosexuality is indeed genetically determined then we must regard it as a reproduction hindering genetic defect for the purposes of space colonization, and exclude the "transgendered" lest they contaminate an already small and frail gene pool. After all, immigration alone will hardly allow us to expand our numbers. Is that what we wish to believe when we plan our colonies in the Lagrange Points and on Luna and Mars? o_O

OTOH, Vilain does seem to be providing us with an interim theory rather than authoritive proof and in any event truly valid experiments should be verifiable by duplicated results elsewhere. Moreover, unless the methodology has been summed up incorrectly, the data does not seem to justify Vilain's conclusion (In which he said it "*_MAY_* explain" such things rather than proclaim that it does) let alone your own conclusion that this article, by itself, constitutes "confirmation" of the notion.

So offhand I'd say that we should wait for a better form of verification before we all start wearing the little "I Heart B.F. Skinner T-Shirts" that an excessively uncritical acceptance of this would require and be a little bit less dogmatic in assuming that "biology is destiny". ^_~

I myself am fascinated by the way that so many of the "Environment determines personality" people suddenly become raving genetic determinists when it's a matter of political correctness that they do so.

Do you have anyone specifically in mind? I'm certainly not one of those. I'm generally quite politically incorrect, but it's utterly obvious to me that gays don't have a "choice" since I (as a straight) never had one.

...we should wait for a better form of verification before we all start wearing the little "I Heart B.F. Skinner T-Shirts" that an excessively uncritical acceptance of this would require and be a little bit less dogmatic in assuming that "biology is destiny".

Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Skinner would have been appalled at the implications of this research. He was one of the ultimate blank slaters--he believed that all human behavior was a result of operant conditioning.

Twin studies are vital to homosexuality research. Controlling for possible environmental influence is virtually impossible, since twins almost always share the same environment during the formative years. Such study has determined that some sets of monozygotic twins) (all such twins are genetically identical) have one homosexual and one heterosexual, thus proving that at least some homosexuality has no genetic or uterine-environmemt component whatsoever.

Why would two children raised in the same environment develop differing sexual orientations if environment is a factor? Because, as Dr. Neil Whitehead points out:

"A fascinating sidelight on all this comes from the work of Bailey [see footnote]. His team asked non-concordant identical twins (one was homosexual, one not) about their early family environment, and found that the same family environment was experienced or perceived by the twins in quite different ways. These differences led later to homosexuality in one twin, but not in the other."

Footnote: Bailey, NM; Pillard,RC (1995): Genetics of human sexual orientation. Ann. Rev. Sex Research 6, 126-150.

It's very easy for me to accept Vilain's conclusion that sexual preference is hardwired; I watched my sister grow up as a lesbian, and she was always oriented that way. I have a picture of her as a toddler, wearing my cowboy boots and hat, with a cap pistol stuck into her diaper; she always wanted to play with the boys, not the girls (and there was ample opportunity for both).

I also watched her grow suicidal, trying to fit her body's knowledge into the fundamentalist christian environment she was raised in. Fortunately for her, she got some decent counseling... and rather than killing herself, she was able to settle into her sexuality. As has often been said, why in the world would someone choose a sexual orientation which is so violently deprecated by much of the world? It makes no sense -- but understanding it as hardwired makes it obvious.

I remember commenting to her one day, when she was in her early twenties, that it really surprised me when she began to develop female secondary sex characteristics; she'd been one of the guys as long as I'd known her. Her reply: "You think you were surprised!"

As Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot by just watching."

Biblical basis for priestly celibacy - it's in one of the letters of Paul, who was celibate himself. The passage makes it clear that the ideal is celibacy, and marriage is provided as a bulwark against human weakness, sort of a second rung of holiness.

If one twins turn out to be of differing sexualities, one genetic explanation that fits the facts is that both were born bisexual (i.e., they actually did have a choice), and for various post-birth reasons made different choices.

The passage makes it clear that the ideal is celibacy, and marriage is provided as a bulwark against human weakness, sort of a second rung of holiness.

I guess it's a good thing that we're not all ideal, or God hisself would be out of new worshippers!

> the ideal is celibacy

Says Paul. God Himself said, "Be fruitful and multiply," and it's hard to imagine that He had artificial insemination in mind when He said it. I think His Word trumps Paul's (not that my opinion has much standing since I'm an atheist).

If one twins turn out to be of differing sexualities, one genetic explanation that fits the facts is that both were born bisexual (i.e., they actually did have a choice), and for various post-birth reasons made different choices.

One would have to prove that each one of the nonconcordant sets in the several twin studies actually has two bisexuals - that the subjects were lying to the researchers and/or themselves about their own sexuality.

Researchers have yet to credibly refute the findings that homosexuality is the result of subconscious reaction to one of several types of trauma encountered during childhood. One such type is sexual abuse by adults. Dr. Charles Socarides identifies another - apparently the most common:

(1) Homosexuality arises experientially from a faulty family constellation.

(2) It represents a disordered sexual development not within the range of normal sexual behavior.

(3) There is a continuity and severity of pathological parent-child relationships in the background of all homosexuals studied to an extent not found in the comparison groups.

(4) The majority of the mothers of homosexuals interfered with the development of their sons' peer group relationships, heterosexual development, assertiveness, and decision-making. The fathers of homosexuals were demasculinizing.

Conservatives are blank slaters? Blank slaters conservatives?

Homosexuality is pathology, not part of any 'wiring'. Sexual interest erupts along lines laid out in early childhood, before any awareness much less accountability is understood. Do others choose to be interested in children or animals?

Do the violent choose that sexual preference? We're told the extra Y chromosome leads them to be violent. But, yes, they do choose. But at age 2 or 3 or 4 or earlier when seminal experiences are taking place.

Alan K. Henderson if you assume bisexuals have some choice in the matter everything you posted could also apply to the predesposed sexuality question as well.

I think there is also a lot of cultural brainwashing that makes bisexuality, especially among women, far more accepted than male bisexuality. This explains why more women in college are willing to experiment but generally go straight after graduation. It also explains why this sort of thing peaked in the 90s when the MTV brainwashing had worked on an entire generation.

Anyway, that's my opinion, I could be wrong.

Regarding the moral issue, it seems many good Christians are unable to hate the sin and love the sinner on this issue. Not sure what to read into that but it appears to be true.

it is not immoral to merely have an homosexual attraction towards another person; one must voluntarily act upon that attraction (through intercourse, etc.) for a mortal sin (adultery) to have been committed

Which is exactly a part of the reason why I am not a Christian. I can not accept a god who would hardwire specific desires into people, and then would condemn them to lifelong suffering by banning ACTING on these desires. In other words, to me Christian god is fundamentally cruel and IMMORAL.

Ruprect,

I have not address bisexuality - until now. I believe that its origins are similar to that of homosexuals - subconscious response to traumatic events during childhood.

("Trauma" often conjures John Carpenter-esque degrees of horror. Here it is used in its clinical sense, meaning any "disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from mental or emotional stress," quoting Merriam Webster.)

Ilya,

If homosexuality is pathological and not hardwired, God can't be blamed for it.