So lesbians are actually rebelling against their monthers' obsessive dieting while they were in the womb. Kind of shaky ground to stand on, but it would explain Rosie O'Donnell now, wouldn't it?

Sigh.

Whether there is a gay gene or not, there's some evidence that homosexuality could be developmental.

Like cleft palate.

We don't claim that people choose to have cleft palate, though there is no cleft palate gene.

I think the idea is that taking these slimming and thyroid pills can affect hormone levels in the womb.

Harry:

Yes we do. You can have a cleft palate repaired. So could you your homosexuality.

And where does pedophilia come in?

OJ:

You can have a cleft palate repaired. So could you your homosexuality.

Perhaps you didn't get the memo. One of your coreligionists at http://www.courage.org.uk/articles/change.shtml, who apparently has put some effor into doing just that has concluded very much otherwise.

We don't know how there happen to be XY women. But there are. And they aren't repairable.

It is very hard for a movement to be forever committed to physically irreconcilable positions.

All good feminists know that sex (oops I meant gender) is a social construct that has zippo to do with biology. The assigment of sex roles to individual persons is completly arbitrary and a function of the patriarchal hegemonony in late stage capitalism or something like that.

The LGBT advocates understand that if the constructivists are correct their case is toast. Their case is that their sexual preferences are hard wired into every fiber of their being and they can no more shed them than can a black man shed his skin, which is the basis on which they have errected their claim that theirs is a civil rights campaign, just like that of black people.

Of course if the LBGTs are right, the Constructivist Feminists (not to mention all of the Froggie Philisophes) are wrong -- sex roles are not constructed by late stage capitalism, they are found in our DNA independent of any social system.

Ms. Bindel has chosen to sit on the other pole. Fine, its a choice, she made it, she has to live with it, but I do not see why her nasty habit deserves legal protection any more than whistling or talking loudly on cell phones does.

Jeff:

Whittaker Chambers was one of many who proved otherwise.

Given how much dieting has become part of the modern conciousness, you would think if the correlation was true, there wouild be some way to track a rise in lesbianism over the years in conjunction with the increased use of diet medications and thyriod pills, much in the same way thalidomide was linked to birth defects in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

OK, severe spina bifida.

Let's see you repair that.

So if it's a "social construct," is this article arguing that it's chosen? Certainly Kerry argued in the debate that anyone disagreeing that it was they way someone was born was just wrong.
W. was clearly correct in answering that he didn't know why people were homosexual.

Harry:

We have:

http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/spinabifida/a/101902.htm

It never made sense to me that homsexuality was genetically predetermined. If there was a gay gene (or more exactly a combination of genes) this genetic trait would die out after only a few generations since its carriers, by definition, have few if any offspring.

Fetal development as a cause of gayness OTOH is a real possibility. Whether the mother drinks to much alcohol or the RH factors in the blood don't match, inter-uterine development factors do affect the physical and mental development of the child. Now days, the RH factor can be compensated for with a simple injection during pregnancy.

My guess is, within a decade or two, those factors or hormones that divert fetal development towards homosexuality will be isolated (assuming political factors don't impede research). And like the RH factor, it will be prevented with a simple injection during pregnancy.

So what is it? Are those in prison or on sailing ship voyages genetically one thing at one point in time and possessed of transformed DNA when their circumstances change?

Behavior is behavior. I hold that it is probable that some individuals may be genetically predisposed to homosexual behavior. Half or everyone's ancestors were members of the opposite sex. That does not mean that those who may be thus tempted to stray should be deprived of society's support for their moral choices.

Lou:

Did you choose to become heterosexual?

OJ:

Whittaker Chambers was one of many who proved otherwise.

One of how many? Did you even read the link? The good pastor, after much effort, has regarded the whole enterprise of "curing" homosexuals a fools errand.

I'll bet I'm on pretty firm ground in suggesting no amount of treatment could "cure" you of your heterosexuality. Why should it be any different for gays?

Regarding your reply to Harry above, how are XY females "fixed?" Just how is it that some babies are born with absolutely indistinct genitalia?

Jeff:

Prison, a sea voyage, or boarding school would cure my heterosexuality just as quickly as a fraternity did my resistance to bestiality. A better culture would cure the pastor's flock equally quickly.

You're wrong about severe spina bifida, but let's not wrangle. How about Down syndrome?

Let's see you fix that.

Harry:

Fix? I know plenty of loving families with Down syndrome kids and worked with them in Special Ed classes. We'll obviously cure it (prevent it) in many cases when we figure out how to though.

OJ:

"Prison, a sea voyage, or boarding school would cure my heterosexuality ..."

I suggest that susceptibility is far from universal. But never mind.

Society as it stands bears no resemblance to any of these things, so what relevance do they have to the conversation?

After all, gays in American society are subject to none of them.

Jeff:

They're subject to a secular MSM and Academoa which tells them it's okay. Return to societal disapproval and they'll stop.

Harry:

And so, you having reaced the end of the branch, it's time for the saw:'

take 1,000 healthy newborn baby boys and give them to practically any aboriginal tribal culture to raise:

None will develop spina bifida, Down syndrome or cleft palate.

Take 333 with each of the actual biological diseases and none will be cured by such an upbringing.

But of the thousand healthy babies none will be gay.

Homosexuality is cultural.

OJ:

Before you start sawing, Harry's original point above was:

Whether there is a gay gene or not, there's some evidence that homosexuality could be developmental.

Like cleft palate.

We don't claim that people choose to have cleft palate, though there is no cleft palate gene.

Which you have singularly failed to refute.

Since Homosexuality is cultural, perhaps you could identify a few cultures where it doesn't exist.

All aboriginal ones. Homosexuality only exists where there is sufficient privacy to hide shameful behavior.

Not true, Orrin.

There is at least one aboriginal society in which all the men are homesexual.

Anyhow, you may hope or believe that Down syndrome will be cured, but in fact it has not been.

That's where we stand now, and I could have gone on for many, many more developmental problems.

I doubt there is a gay gene (or gene complex), though I could be wrong.

That is is, sometimes, a developmental reaction, seems most probable.

Harry:

See. It's purely cultural.

That one was.

But you said homosexuality was unknown among aboriginals. You just made that up.

Among both the Hawaiians and the Tahitians, there were organized homosexual fraternities, and in Tahiti they gave public performances.

So privacy and shame have nothing whatever to do with it.

Being mahu was a repectable social position in pre-Contact Hawaii. Still is, though the religiously-sponsored fraternities have lapsed.

Yes, you keep driving the social construct nail home.

OJ:

Provide one specific instance of a society without homosexuality. You can't.

It is just as much a social construct as cleft palate.

It persists even where the payoff is to be shunned as touched by the devil.

Homosexuality persists even where the payoff is to be crushed, or stoned, to death.