Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Civil Rights and Homosexuality

Over the weekend I watched President Obama speech to the HRC. I have heard some comments from family members who are Christians that they thought his speech was wrong and homosexuality is a sin. Also, a few years ago a cousin who is like a younger brother to me came out of the closet to my aunt and every time she gets a chance she preaches to him about living with his lover and so forth, I never thought about his homosexuality because he lived in another state plus his sexuality did not negate the fact that he is still my cousin. As a result of these comments I decided to do some conscience raising to myself, plus as a heterosexual male I did wonder from an evolutionary standpoint why didn't Natural Selection select against homosexuality. I have been listening to the Audiobook called the Greatest Show on Earth Evolution Explained by Richard Dawkins and Natural Selection is about competition, variation, and it’s about successfully passing on genes, we like other species have an innate desire to add our genes to the gene pool of the next generation and in order to do this you need to be attracted to the opposite sex. From my research and conscience raising, I now think homosexuality is a biological difference that occurs in individuals and that it is not a choice, just as being born an African American is not a choice. I think homosexuality comes from a variety of sources, in a recent study a brain scan shows that the amygdala in homosexual males are wired the same as heterosexual women, and Lesbians symmetry scans were similar to Heterosexual males. Moreover, it appears that homosexuality develops in the embryonic stage of the individual fetus because the amygdala is develop early in a fetus, in other words it appears that homosexuals are born gay, also for some reason (there are a few hypotheses being suggested) a male who have older male siblings have a greater chance of being born gay. Some may worry that this will be viewed as a physical abnormality I neither feel this way even as a Black Heterosexual male this would be like saying a person skin color is an abnormality nor do I feel homosexuality is unethical. Therefore if our laws are going to be based on fairness then homosexuality should have equal rights as heterosexuality. As I tried to explain to my family, I don’t know how African Americans who have fought for equality and wants equality can deny it to others, I find that hypocritical and morally reprehensible. Think about it...
References:
Ivanka Savic and Per Lindström. PET and MRI show differences in cerebral asymmetry and functional connectivity between homo- and heterosexual subjects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2008; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0801566105
The Greatest Show on Earth: Evolution Explained Richard Dawkins
Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life by Sam Wang and Susan Aamodt.

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