I have a very close friend who makes lots of authoritative-sounding pronouncements about many different subjects. They sound especially authoritative because we all know how much smarter and better educated he is than most of us. Recently he made the proclamation that homosexuals choose to be homosexual and there is definitely no such thing as a “gay gene.” He said he knows that because he studied genetics in college, neglecting to mention that it was almost 60 years ago.

But the fact is that nobody knows YET whether or not there is a “gay gene.” Much less 60 years ago when he was in college. (He’s a medical doctor; so he’s had a lot more training since then. I don’t know how much of it involved genetics, but evidently not enough.)

Most likely there is NOT a single gene that turns homosexuality on or off, but there may very well be a few genes that work in concert (when present, as we see in cancer, for instance) that may affect a person’s sexual desires and attractions. Homosexuality is present naturally throughout most of the animal kingdom — maybe more than most people realize — and I see no reason to think humans would likely be exempt.

Could you — if you are a heterosexual man — have chosen to be gay? When you were 9 years old, or 15, or 19, as many gays are when they realize they are “different” in that way? Could you have chosen to find other males sexually attractive instead of women?

I don’t believe any normal, healthy, heterosexual man could have possibly made that choice. And even if it were possible, why would anybody ever want to change himself in such a way? Just to rebel against society or God and bring major discrimination upon himself? Not likely.

Same questions apply to women and girls in reverse, of course.

We can choose what we do, but not what we are. I am a 74-year-old heterosexual man; and I don’t believe it would ever in my entire life have been possible for me to choose to be homosexual. And being heterosexual, I can’t imagine myself ever enjoying homosexual behavior.

For around 15 or 20 years, I used to have a middle-aged gay barber. Actually, a hair dresser. Several times we talked as he cut my hair. He told me once he had never in his whole life been sexually attracted to any woman. I believe him.

Homosexuals choose what they do or don’t do, just as the rest of us choose what we do or don’t do. But I don’t agree that they choose what they ARE. Whether it’s genetic or environmental (possibly in utero), or more likely some combination of the two, all the evidence indicates they are either born homosexual or become homosexual in very early childhood. It is NOT an adult choice.

Of course, all of the above applies equally to people all along the sexual spectrum, from hetero to bi to homosexual and if there be any other. All the evidence indicates the matter is settled during early childhood. Very possibly even sooner.