I guess I might explain gay first-borns and only kids by using any number of explanations: genetic, non-genetic influence in the womb, nurture/culture… I was just trying to suggest a cause that was biological and non-genetic. How about this for another explanation? Perhaps certain people carry genes which produce super fertile women and gay men (and/or vice versa). I would expect the answer is a complex patchwork.

You seem to be attempting to wax intellectual about something you have no idea about. You obviously have no insight into “gay culture” or what it means in society today to be in a committed homosexual relationship.

It is a biological fact that no person is less valuable than another, genetically, reproductively, or otherwise: Darwin demonstrated that “fitness” is a species-wide measurement, not an individual one. For any selective pressure (social or environmental), potential for survival is positively correlated with genetic and behavioral diversity for all cases. My sickle cell anemia is your resistance to malaria. Today’s isolated nerd is tomorrow’s biggest sperm donor. It is therefore diversity, above heterosexuality, that makes us successful as a species. If a disease wiped out all the XX-chromosomed people on earth (aka women), our species would persist. Natural selection “chooses” freaks, geeks and deviants, just so we can get out of evolutionary predicaments like that! That is why real evolutionary scholars abhor eugenics. It’s not just a wacky human rights idea that all people have inherent value: that all people have *equal* value at any given time is a brutal fact of nature.

Putting his circular logic and “just-so stories” aside, Larratt implies that he’s just letting natural selection do the work in his imaginary future. But we don’t need to imagine what would happen if gays weren’t discriminated against. Many societies throughout history and prehistory have accepted all kinds of sexual expression and homosexuality has persisted across all known cultures, societies, and epocs. Through all her discrimination, her brutality, and her horror, mother nature apparently sees more use for gays than Zentastic does — she may beat them up, but at least she keeps them around!

At face value what Larratt is saying here is that in his mind, if it weren’t for helpful discrimination from straights, gay people would just butt-fuck themselves into oblivion and that would be the biggest favor they could ever do humanity.

But that can’t be right. This guy has done more to combat prejudice in the world than I will probably ever do in my whole life. And I understood that he even knew some of these genetically inferior “homosexuals” himself. There must be a coherent, overarching satire in this post that I’m missing. There must be something here other than “By fighting for equality, gay people have actually argued for their own demise because unless we force them to reproduce, they cant! Ha ha! All their contributions as human beings could never be as useful as their disappearance! Ha ha! What irony!” Because that’s not ironic, that’s hateful and ignorant. And I’ve come to expect more from this blog than that.

I find it hilarious that I read this article and your post on the same day.

How would that explain gay only childs? or first born kids?

Now on the gay gene thing senetics is so complicated i have no idea if such a gene exist, but as a lesbian myself, with a gay dad… i find it interesting that i know a couple of gay people ( men or women ) with gay dads… maybe coincidence but deffinitly interesting…

I took a class last year on human nature and evolution and wrote a research paper on the possibility of homosexuality persisting genetically based upon inclusive fitness. Essentially it says that perhaps the genetics could be passed on through family members, whom have a better chance of survival because of the extra support that gays may lend to immediate family for lack of their own biological offspring – so despite the lack of direct reproduction, their genetics could still be passed along albeit at a lesser degree. There have been some studies done to determine whether gays are likely to behave more altruistically towards immediate family, but all those results are pretty bogus, (so predicatably so i don’t know why the study was done) because of the cultural implications of taboo etc, making family life for homosexuals often full of conflict.

But theoretically, oppossed to “The Selfish Gene” you have “The Altruistic Gene.”

Interesting if nothing else.

Interesting article about the topic. I happen to think it is bs, but a step in the right direction towards figuring our what combination of genes cause homosexuality and what affect they have on straight “carriers”

Children are being born bigger due to the ability to preform safe C-sections. 100 years down the road we will be unable to have children without C-section because they have progressively gotten bigger.

Same goes for glasses or any other technological advancement which allows for human being to survive and subsequently reproduce more. Borg here we come!

Tay-sachs is considered a “lethal” and there are very few single gene dominant lethals, because they generaly kill the subject before they are able to reproduce. The one well known exception is Huntington’s disease, which is a lethal dominant, but has late onset, so those with the disease generally reproduce prior to knowing they have the disease.

Back to homosexuality, many geneticist believe homosexuality is genetic, but caused by a combination of several different genes (similar to height in humans). So just like two short people can have a very tall child, two heterosexuals can have a homosexual child, and two tall people may have a short child, and two homosexuals may have a heterosexual child.

Genetics is SO complicated. With all the lethals, sublethals, recombination, replication errors, etc. it’s shocking any of us actually live to be born! (Please excuse the rants… I’m pre-med, currently taking a genetics class, which happens to be my obsession/stong point, so I could ramble forever!)

I think everything that is f-ed up in this world has something to do with religion.

The hope would be that religious bigots could extinct themselves and everyone else could live in peace for a change.