
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.