Is homosexuality a choice?

[Tdarcos]

My sister and I once talked about the idea of whether someone being homosexual was choice or perhaps it was genetic. For a long time I saw gays as basically unfortunates who, through no fault of their own, got stuck with the short end of the stick - no pun intended - because their genetic defect makes them unable to be interested in women sexually.

My opinion is to an extent scientific: a lack of desire in methods that could result in reproduction is a contrasurvival trait. Contrasurvival traits are ones that are either bad for the race as a whole, like lack of desire to reproduce or a propensity to commit murders, or bad for you personally, like a tendency to commit suicide.

Robert A. Heinlein gave a brilliant example. A mother cat who dies saving its kittens is prosurvival no matter how short her life is. A cat who kills her kittens is contrasurvival no matter how long she lives.

Not that everyone is going to or should reproduce, but if you're not aligned heterosexually you reduce even the chance of passing on your genes. Unless you're a defective that's a bad trait to carry.

The fact that in animals, homosexuality is very common and in cases of excessive population and overcrowding it can often cause increases in homosexual-oriented members of a particular species in those regions is ignored by the haters of gays and lesbians. It seems to imply that nature itself triggers homosexuality in animals as a means to reduce overpopulation.

My sister put it simply why she saw homosexuality as genetic, not a choice: Who in their right mind would choose to be gay considering how much crap they would have to put up with by a lot of straight people?

As I see it, a person doesn't choose their sexual orientation any more than they choose whether they are right or left handed. It might be possible to choose to act in a way one wouldn't, like gays who have to pretend to be straight in order to hide their condition from intolerant people.

Another unfortunate point to all this is there are a lot of very bright and talented people who are gay and thus may be leaving the gene pool to the stupider who by the luck of the draw happen to be straight.

Because of my disability causing problems in my right hand I sometimes have to do things left handed. That's no more a "choice" than a gay guy who pretends to carry on a supposed "normal" life or someone like myself who does not want it that way but ends up having sex with men because, say, he's in prison and has no other outlet for his urges.

I think it's the bigoted small-mindedness of essentially stupid people - usually related to misguided religious-based hatred - who would make the ridiculous claim that sexual orientation is anything but genetically caused. But others might not agree with me.

[pinback]

Nothing is a choice.