Leslie Stahl piece

Leslie Stahl did a nice piece on 60 Minutes last Sunday on how the research is progressing on the root causes of homosexuality. There is a growing body of evidence that the homosexual brain is present quite early in the growing child.

[I must note here that the homosexual-brain-denial crowd finds it particularly difficult to even conceive of this kind of discussion. For them, homosexuality is about the sex act. So any discussion of sexual orientation independent of sex acts simply does not compute. Typically these are the same people who tend to exaggerate the differences between the sexes at even a quite young age. Little boys are supposed to behave like boys and little girls like girls. To me, having gender-based behavorial expectations without recognition of a human sexual nature long before awareness of the sex act does not compute. For the purposes of the following discussion I am going simply set the homosexual-brain-denial lunacy aside.]

[It should also be noted that homosexuals are no more all alike than are heteros so allowance needs to be made for the occasional non-typical individual.]

In one study people were able to predict with significant accuracy which children would grow up to be homosexual by simply observing old home movies of them. So clearly there is something different about them even when they are quite young.

There are fraternal twins cases that disprove the idea that parental style influences sexual orientation. There are identical twin cases that disprove the idea that orientation is strickly a genetic matter. It is clearly more complex and more subtle than that. For that matter we really don't understand that much how the heterosexual orientation develops.

There are some studies that indicate an "older brother" effect in males. The more older brothers a man has, the more likely that man will be homosexual. The hypothesis is that the mother's body becomes more and more intolerant of the
"alien" male protein. With each pregnancy she generates more antibodies to them until those antibodies suppress the male hormones enough to slightly influence brain development. It needn't be much to cause an alternate cascade of development. In fact typical male homosexuals have "masculine" style of preference for promiscuity. Some of the areas of the brain are unaffected by the sexual preference brain changes.

The evidence supporting the contention that homosexuality is a choice or is curable is pretty much non-existant. It really looks like it is no more curable than left-handedness.

And it is certainly no justification for any limits on full and equal rights for homosexuals in our society.