2011-06-09, 12:48 AM
I know very little of biology, so am not qualified to judge the aforementioned studies or White's objections to them.
I do know several people who grew up in very religious or otherwise "sheltered" homes, and who did not know anything about homosexuality until it happened to them. When they started having feelings about a teacher or classmate of the same gender, they did not know what was wrong with them. When they finally learned it has a name and is a sin, they tried to change, in many creative ways. They failed. Some tried to kills themselves, and failed (The ones that succeeded, I never got to know).
If it is a choice, it is definitely not a conscious one.
One might argue that they did overhear something about homosexuality, or read something they didn't consciously comprehend at the time, but later on their subconscious made this "choice" as a way to attract attention or out of a perverse self-destructiveness.
To which I can only respond: if it's so deep in the subconscious that a person fails to change despite desperately wanting to, to the point of killing oneself over it, it might as well be hard-wired.
And also: if it becomes as accepted as being left-handed*, people will no longer make the subconscious "choice" to be gay because it will not gain them attention or justify their self-hatred. Hence, if you believe homosexuality to be the result of subconscious rebellious choice, accept it, and it will lose popularity.
* the selfsame Church used to see left-handedness as a sign of demonic possession or "a sinister nature" (the very word "sinister" comes from the Latin for "left") and bind up children's hands to force them to use their right hands.
I do know several people who grew up in very religious or otherwise "sheltered" homes, and who did not know anything about homosexuality until it happened to them. When they started having feelings about a teacher or classmate of the same gender, they did not know what was wrong with them. When they finally learned it has a name and is a sin, they tried to change, in many creative ways. They failed. Some tried to kills themselves, and failed (The ones that succeeded, I never got to know).
If it is a choice, it is definitely not a conscious one.
One might argue that they did overhear something about homosexuality, or read something they didn't consciously comprehend at the time, but later on their subconscious made this "choice" as a way to attract attention or out of a perverse self-destructiveness.
To which I can only respond: if it's so deep in the subconscious that a person fails to change despite desperately wanting to, to the point of killing oneself over it, it might as well be hard-wired.
And also: if it becomes as accepted as being left-handed*, people will no longer make the subconscious "choice" to be gay because it will not gain them attention or justify their self-hatred. Hence, if you believe homosexuality to be the result of subconscious rebellious choice, accept it, and it will lose popularity.
* the selfsame Church used to see left-handedness as a sign of demonic possession or "a sinister nature" (the very word "sinister" comes from the Latin for "left") and bind up children's hands to force them to use their right hands.