Undoubtedly, the greatest civil rights issue of the millennial generation is that of equal rights for the LGBT community, following in the same vein as the struggles for equality of both women and African Americans in the 20th century. Julian Bond, National Chair of the NAACP, said recently reaffirmed his belief that “marriage is a civil right,” and that the movements are coupled by a defense of immutable characteristics: “and you cannot be discriminated in this country for who you are. To be certain, large strides have been made across the world, and in the United States with 17 states and the District of Columbia legalizing same-sex marriage, along with four (highly conservative) states having their unconstitutional laws stayed by federal judges under precedent set by Kitchen v. Herbert, in which the Supreme Court held that Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, upholding stays by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah by reaffirming their 1996 ruling in Romer v. Evans that “the Constitution protects individuals from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”
To this point, the scientific community has held firm in their rulings since 1993, when a team of geneticists with the National Cancer Institute led by Dr. Dean Hamer found that a gene for homosexuality is found on the Xq28 strand of the X chromosome. In his report for this finding, Hamer states that he has found with “99.5% certainty that there is a gene (or genes) in this area of the X chromosome that predisposes a male to become a heterosexual.”
I understand if one study done two decades ago is not enough empirical, scientific evidence for the hereditary passage of homosexuality. As recently as two months ago, scientists have been further proving Hamer’s point. In February, at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, Dr. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University presented research based on the DNA of 409 homosexual men, finding that “sexual orientation has nothing to do with choice. Our findings suggest there may be genes at play and we found evidence for two sets that affect whether a man is gay or straight.” Dr. Bailey’s study has also found a region on chromosome eight to play a role in male sexual orientation.
It is obvious that the study does not conclusively determine heterosexuality or homosexuality, as the finding of a “gay gene” is an oversimplification of the issue at hand. A colleague of Dr. Bailey, Dr. Alan Sanders, stated at the meeting in Chicago, “There’s more than one gene, and genetics is not the whole story. Whatever gene contributes to sexual orientation, you can think of it as much as contributing to heterosexuality as much as you can think of it contributing to homosexuality. It contributes to a variation in the trait.”
The scientific criticism has a similar thought. Even while stating that Bailey’s studies only account for about 40 percent of homosexual traits, Qazi Rahman of King’s College London says that the rest of the findings can be found through scientific means, and that “historically, the persecution and awful treatment of LGBT groups has been because politicians, religious leaders and societies have viewed sexual orientation as ‘choice’ or due to poor upbringing.”
Also, in reference to the supposed lack of historical precedent for homosexual relations, I reference the classical stories of Zeus and Ganymede, which at the very least suggest that the ancient Greek society was aware of homosexual relationships, and the 14th century King Gongmin of Goryeo (Korea), who was famous for chasing after the men of his kingdom. Even Virgil’s Aeneid contains evidence of homosexual relationships between Nisus and Euryalus, two Trojan soldiers.
With such overwhelming evidence, both from ancient anecdotes and modern science, it is remarkable that we still regard those who chose to ignore science as worthy of equal treatment as those who consider scientific explanations of fact. Surely, the most important choice Mr. Peter seems to be involving himself in is the choice to be ignorant of scientific evidence and hateful towards an entire group of the population trying (and succeeding) to gain equal rights as citizens of this country. I implore him to follow the wisdom of the Supreme Court, in it’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas: “[T]imes can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress.” More importantly, however, I wish for the entire community to take heed of the words of the actress Ellen Page at a Human Rights Commission event: “this world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another.”
—Cory Alpert, first-year sociology student