Less than a year after the Bailey twin studies, a research team led by D. Hamer published a report of their link of male homosexuality to a small stretch of DNA on the X chromosome. Similar theories about depression, schizophrenia and alcoholism have come and gone after further research failed to confirm initial findings. Finally, correlation between a gene and homosexuality does not equal causation. I review here only the more publicized of a number of interesting biological approaches to sexual orientation. While all behavior must have an ultimate biologic substrate, the appeal of current biologic explanations may derive more from dissatisfaction with the present status of psychosocial explanations than from a substantiating body of experimental data.
Critical review shows the evidence favoring a biologic theory to be lacking.
Nor is it only the scientific community that is slow to jump onto the biologic bandwagon. It would be an interesting turn of events to see homosexual activists join prolife demonstrators outside family-planning clinics. But there is another twist already at work that will surprise many readers. That is, a large component of homosexual activists applaud biologic causation theories for their effect on public opinion but are philosophically committed to personal choice as opposed to any deterministic theory, biologic or environmental. In the end, science may well discover some way to describe the intricate play of genes and environment that entices any of us to make the subtle choices throughout our lives that lead us to our particular expressions, sexual or otherwise, in a conformity-laden culture.