This has additional context in that the right has spent time and energy promoting anti-gay homophobic culture war legislation, that was based on a totally, ludicrously inaccurate ideology-based notion rather than fact-based thinking, INSTEAD of addressing jobs and economic recovery. The position of the right, as expounded by Bachmann, Pawlenty, and the rightwing fraud (in my opinion) Bradlee Dean is untenable, unsupportable. It is no longer the wedge issue that it has been used as in the past by the right (thank you Grover Norquist and Karl Rove).
What underlines the antiquated intolerance is that at the same time, we have more new same-sex relationship households in Minnesota than ever before, per those Census questions that Bachmann didn't want you answering. This gives greater emphasis than ever before to how out of touch the right wing theocrats and culture warriors are with the citizens of Minnesota, and the entire country. From the recent STrib article, "Minnesota sees 50% rise in number of gay couples":
Minnesota has seen a quiet surge in the number of same-sex households over the past decade, and the trend has moved beyond the core of the Twin Cities into many suburbs.At the same time, in an article posted in the same edition of the STrib, "Pawlenty likes GaGa, but disputes that Gays are born this way", another STrib writer perpetuates trying to deny the science that sexual orientation is something we are born with, even if it is not specifically genetic in origin, that is addressed by Politifact.com., and way down near the bottom of the article:
The U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday released its second-ever count of same-sex partners in Minnesota, and the numbers detailed a dramatic picture of change:
• A 50 percent jump in same-sex households, a rate of growth five times faster than households overall. The census counted 13,718 same-sex couples in 2010, accounting for about 1 percent of all couples statewide.
•A pronounced spreading-out of traditional "gayborhoods." Minneapolis accounts for nearly one in four same-sex couples, towering over the rest of the state in sheer numbers, but its dominance is fading. Neighboring Golden Valley now claims the highest concentration among cities of ample size. A lesbian Realtor who lives there greeted the news in two words: "Not surprised."
•Although other states are also seeing big jumps, the Twin Cities could well retain its 2000 position as the gay mecca between the coasts. Only a sprinkling of state numbers have yet been reported, but it's known that Hennepin County by 2010 was roughly equal in concentration to Sonoma County north of San Francisco, the second-highest-ranking county in California.
"Pressed, Pawlenty wavered on whether being gay is a choice, but clarified that "there's no scientific conclusion that it's genetic."
This ignores an established area of the science of genetics which addresses that the same DNA inheritance is expressed differently under differing conditions. This is the reason, for example, that identical DNA produces cloned animals that differ in coloring and pattern from the animal which supplied the DNA, and each other, even though their DNA is identical. If you clone your beloved pet dog or cat, you will not necessarily get a new pet that looks identical to the original. Likewise, the same DNA which produces a heterosexual individual can produce the differences in the genetic expression of a trait in a person who has a different sexual orientation, and it explains why gay parents don't produce gay offspring in any greater numbers than straight parents. I find this to represent some of the greatest problems with understanding as an anti-science ideology-based cultural attitude among the political right. The cultural right is willing to deny their fellow human beings equal civil rights on the basis of ancient religious texts, instead of acknowledging how much we have learned and still have to learn about how our own reproductive biology operates.
'Born This Way': What do scientists say about the origins of being gay?
By Louis Jacobson
Published on Wednesday, July 13th, 2011 at 1:22 p.m.
Related rulings: Says scientists are "in dispute" over whether being gay is a choice.
Tim Pawlenty, Sunday, July 10th, 2011.
Ruling: False
Details
"There's no scientific conclusion that (being gay) is genetic."
Tim Pawlenty, Sunday, July 10th, 2011.
Ruling: Mostly True
Details
Marchers in a gay pride parade in New York. GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty recently discussed the highly charged topic of whether being gay is caused by genetics, personal choice, or something else.
During a July 10, 2011, appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty about his views on the origins of homosexuality.
The debate over gay rights has been gaining increasing attention in the GOP primary, including news accounts about secret tapes made of counseling sessions inside the clinic run by the husband of fellow Republican candidate Michele Bachmann.
So we decided to check Pawlenty’s comments on whether there’s a scientific consensus on the origins of being gay.
We looked at two related, but distinct, comments made by Pawlenty during his interview with host David Gregory.
One statement was that "there's no scientific conclusion that (being gay) is genetic."
We found that Pawlenty’s word choice -- "genetic" -- was pivotal. The way he phrased it, he’s pretty close to accurate. But if he’d said instead that "there's no scientific conclusion that (being gay) is biological," he would have been incorrect. On balance, we rated the claim Mostly True.
The other statement was that scientists are "in dispute" over whether being gay is a choice.
This comment hinges on the difference between sexual orientation and sexual behavior. Scientists don’t doubt that it’s possible for someone who’s gay to choose, through sheer willpower, to ignore sexual impulses and abstain from homosexual activity. But scientists add that for such people, those sexual impulses don’t go away.
So, scientists argue, even if sexual behavior is a choice, sexual orientation -- the state of being gay or heterosexual or bisexual and the impulses one feels -- is not a choice. For that reason, we rated this statement False.
"Sexual Orientation" is not a scientific term, Dog Gone. It does not describe behavior or a measurable physical state.
ReplyDeleteThis is why these "fact check" articles are so often easy to dimiss. They try to turn matters of opinion into matters of fact.
"Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions to males, females, both, or neither. According to the American Psychological Association, sexual orientation is enduring[1] "
ReplyDeleteFrom the opening paragraph of wikipedia's sexual orientation entry.
"While sexual orientation is reported in this article primarily within biology and psychology, including sexology, for reports within anthropology and history,... "
and lists these following organizations that use the term:
United States
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Medical Association
American Medical Student Association
American Psychological Association: for public or educators
Catholic Medical Association
Christian Medical and Dental Association
and not included in the list, the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research has used it extensively.
That would seem to give it a scientific usage, certainly a medical one.
Further there is a legal usage:
2.^ a b c Case No. S147999 in the Supreme Court of the State of California, In re Marriage Cases Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding No. 4365, Application for leave to file brief amici curiae in support of the parties challenging the marriage exclusion, and brief amici curiae of the American Psychological Association, California Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, National Association of Social Workers, and National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter in support of the parties challenging the marriage exclusion (California amicus brief of APA, APA, & NASW).
and here is another instance of medical usage:
3.^ a b c Pediatrics: Sexual Orientation and Adolescents, American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical Report. Retrieved 2009-12-08.
Here is one from outside the U.S., showing it used in the neurosciences:
5.^ a b Garcia-Falgueras, Alicia, & Swaab, Dick F., Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation, in Endocrine Development, vol. 17, pp. 22–35 (2010) (ISSN 1421-7082) (authors are of Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) (author contact is 2d author) (vol. 17 is Sandro Loche, Marco Cappa, Lucia Ghizzoni, Mohamad Maghnie, & Martin O. Savage, eds., Pediatric Neuroendocrinology).
36.^ Expert affidavit of Gregory M. Herek, Ph.D.
37.^ a b c Statement from the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Gay and Lesbian Mental Health Special Interest Group.
38.^ Australian Psychological Society: Sexual orientation and homosexuality.
Spitzer R. L. (1981). "The diagnostic status of homosexuality in DSM-III: a reformulation of the issues". American Journal of Psychiatry 138: 210–15. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/138/2/210.
That was a random sampling of uses of the term sexual orientation in the bio SCIENCES, Terry.
I don't know who provided you that information, but they were inaccurate; including that there is not a measurement of physical states.
You are incorrect Terry.
That wasn't even serious research this time by me; I've done far more serious fact checking on it previously. As I've reitereated before - I even fact check the fact check organizations. Politifact.com was not only correct, if anything they erred by understating the status quo.
Care to cite YOUR source Terry, if you'd like to be taken seriously?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/09/60minutes/main1385230.shtml
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=8902D6F8-F97C-E6FE-74B6D67845F05FEA
http://www.healthyminds.org/More-Info-For/GayLesbianBisexuals.aspx
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2571907/pdf/jnma00294-0015.pdf
http://www.ct.gov/dcf/cwp/view.asp?a=2639&Q=393548
medical dictionaries use the term:
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sexual+Orientation
or......don't you consider medicine to be one of the scineces?
Or universities that use the term in conjunction with sciences - are you claiming they don't know what they are doing?
http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/SEXOR4.HTM
Terry,
ReplyDeleteNeither is axial orientation of homosexuality or lesbianism considered a pathology either by the AMA or the American psychological comment. Perhaps therefore, the fact of orientation is no longer coalesced a choice and thus the factor someone's orientation is no longer considered opinion. Consequently FactCheck's position is hardly grounded in opinion unless you consider the AMA and board certification for psychology to be not grounded in fact.
Perhaps, rath, it is the incorrect opinion of the far right that orientation and that it is a choice which is the problem. Clearly your assertion that orientation is an opinion identifies that you feel orientation is a choice, or at least seems to. Considering you seem to put great stock in the opinions of experts and the professional community, how do you reconcile your seeming point and opinion which rus directly counter to the foundational position of the experts?
Hey, Terry.......I hope your information that sexual orientation is not a scientific term (you know, one that measures things like they do in endocrinology) did not come from Michele Bachmann's husband who claims to have a PhD in Clinical Psychogy, from a correspondence school that has never offered such a degree, and which has had serious accreditation issues. The closest thing they do offer is a PsyD doctorate, and they've only done that since 2001.....and so far no one can find any indication that Bachmann has that either.
ReplyDeleteAnd he is unlicensed as a psychologist, (which is legal in MN, although THAT is a loophole in professional standards that should be closed) and is apparently offering treatment which is reputed to cause patients to become suicidal.
Whatever happened to that premise of medicine, even basic first aid? First do no harm.
Hope THAT wasn't your source Terry; I don't think Marcus Bachmann could be more discredited than he has been recently....but hey, we might still be surprised.
I'm wondering if after the credentials kerffufle, they're going to be investigated for medicare and medicaid fraud, or insurance fraud.....tsk tsk, all those federal and state dollars going for crap in the guise of medicine.
Yeah, I can believe THEY would tell you there is no such thing as sexual orientation - not that they know anything whatsoever about science, of ANY kind.
Dog Gone, I can not take you seriously when you begin with references to user-edited Wikipedia entries.
ReplyDeleteHere is an interesting discussion of the issues involved in scientifically defining an individual's "sexual orientation".
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/context/defining.html
FYI, the term used to be "sexual preference". "Sexual Orientation" is a term of art (meaning a term created for a purpose), it describes . . . what exactly? Not behavior. Not a medical condition.
Also FYI, there is considerable controversy about whether or not psychology can correctly be called a science.
Don't you have any curiosity about the methodologies used to determine the validity of the term "sexual orientation"? Do you just dig through the internet for web citations that agree with your POV and plaster them on your blog?
Terry, that is a false criticism.
ReplyDeleteI gave you a single source to check, one that listed the professional organizations which use the term in different sciences.
Then I followed up that comment with a second comment which listed a number of professional organizations, state entities, academic institutions, medical institutions, scientific journals, etc. NOT remotely connected to wikipedia.
It is a term which has biology and related scientific acceptance, medical acceptance, behavioral sciences acceptance, legal acceptance (in the context of medical usage).
Would you agree ENDOCRINOLOGY is a science? You didn't look nearly closely enough at all the citations I provided.
Your ONLY source is...a PBS Frontline page - ONE page? Written by someone with a degree in Public health? That is hardly a usual public health area of expertise.
Aren't YOU the one doing the cherry picking here Terry? If you do a fair and objective search of the source material, overwhelmingly, this is an accepted concept, with measurable aspects to it.
this is an accepted concept, with measurable aspects to it.
ReplyDeleteOf course I did not write that "sexual orientation" was not an accepted concept. By asking me to prove that "sexual orientation" is NOT an scientific term, you are asking me to prove a negative, Dog Gone. Not fair in anyone's book.
Boy this is tough.
Let me start from the beginning: "science" is a term used to describe findings that are made using inductive reasoning and something called the "scientific method".
The scientific method of finding "facts" or "truths" is observe, hypothesize, experiment (the last two steps are iterative).
I won't bother to provide a link to "prove" that this is an adequate description of the scientific method because it is covered in the foreward or first chapter of virtually all 1st year college physics textbooks.
I'll give you a chance to prove a positive:
In what sense does the term "sexual orientation" derive from the scientific method?
The reason I included the link to the PBS discussion re sexuality was not to "prove" anything, but to illustrate the difficulties a public health professional -- with PhD and an job at Columbia -- has found in trying to measure "sexual orientation". The last paragraph is quite illuminating.
Your ONLY source is...a PBS Frontline page - ONE page? Written by someone with a degree in Public health? That is hardly a usual public health area of expertise.
This part of your last comment was ludicrous. In your post you had no problem accepting the word of journalist (Louis Jacobson), who has no expertise not only in the field in the human sexuality, but in any field that requires knowledge of science, that Pawlenty was wrong when he said that scientists are in dispute whether "being gay was a choice". What expertise does Jacobson posess that Pawlenty does not?
Your methodolgy for determing whether some things are "true" or "false" is flawed, Dog Gone.
Terry,
ReplyDeleteSee: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616122106.htm
I'm sure you can find other similar articles that are not in Wikipedia if you look. Most people that I know who have worked extensively with animals acknowledge the realities of homosexual animal behaviors.
Do you think that homosexual behaviors among these other animals are the result of a "choice"?
Just wondering...
You are apparently unwilling to accept that some sciences are scientific; you seem to be asserting that some are not scientific enough for your discriminating acceptance.
ReplyDeleteI'm not an engineer, and I have a great deal of respect for that area of specialization, because of the practical nature of the problem solving that it entails.
My own area of scientific interest tends to be in the area of the biosciences, which I where I have the greater education and experience (compared to what I know of other sciences). (We can happily skip any suggestion that I am unaware of the criteria required by the scientific method, and avoid that pissing contest.)
I cited enough scientific studies for you to evaluate the application of the scientific method that justifies the term sexual orientation as a scientific term - your original comment was that sexual orientation was not a scientific term. It in fact describes very definite behavior and physical states.
So here are two, quite different, scientific studies of sexual orientation. Critique away, understanding as you do so please, that these are also considered to have undergone scientific critiques by individuals with advanced degrees in these areas of specialty.
You know - SCIENTISTS (although not specifically PHYSICISTS).
http://www.williamapercy.com/wiki/images/Neurohormonal_functioning.pdf
if you have trouble opening that - try this one as an alternate:
http://postcog.ucd.ie/files/2881563.pdf
and this one:
http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~jbp/publications/GLB_vowels.pdf
and then decide if you wish to assert that there is nothing measurable about the differences in sexual orientation.
Leslie, thanks as always for your comment.
ReplyDeleteHere would be another scientific study that addresses specifically sexual orientation in animals, but it parallels research into human sexual orientation as a result of similar external chemical influences:
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=11-P13-00001&segmentID=7
I have particularly been interested in the affect of BpA on humans, including potentially sexual orientation, because it is a synthetic estrogen. It is linked to unusually early emergence of secondary sexual characteristics in girls, and an earlier onset of menarche, and an earlier onset of certain stages of sexualization. In men it is associated with feminization.
This would track with some of the in utero differences that are being researched in understanding sexual orientation:
http://endo.endojournals.org/content/early/2011/06/15/en.2011-0277.abstract?related-urls=yes&legid=endo;en.2011-0277v1
and
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091302211000240
FYI, these are the kinds of material I like to read generally; it is not research specific to this post, much less cherry picked research.
This is all so silly!
ReplyDeleteWhy can't Michelle Bachmann just have a scandal like her Northern Irish counterpart, Iris Robinson?
I'll post these without further comment:
ReplyDeletehttp://io9.com/5214130/seven-mostly-scientific-devices-for-measuring-sexual-arousal
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0005796781901091
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B0123430100001562
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0092656684900382
Let me know when the research gets scientific enough for you.
There is so much scientific research which supports that sexuality, human and other species, is not a choice, that it is innate, and that it cannot be changed, certainly not by trying "to pray it away", that anyone who believes otherwise, is a science denier, not an objective scientific critic.
The right promotes the premise that we are all heterosexual, and that those with same sex or bisexual attraction have made a choice. There is absolutely no credible evidence that supports that premise; it is nothing more than a religious belief and an ignorant societal preferance, one which has become a political ideological one as well.
There is no more justification for the right wing beliefs, largely religion driven, about homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender sexuality than there was for the belief during the time of Galileo that the sun orbited the earth.
ReplyDeleteThe right, particularly the religious right which also denies the science of evolutionary theory, and conservatives generally, appear to have exclusively emotional objections rather than objective ones to the sexuality of others when it differs from their own.
That is not a legitimate or justifiable basis on which to direct criminal prosecutions, or denial of equal civil rights.
Cherry picking?
ReplyDeleteThe author you quoted - out of the many articles included in the frontline
wrote these sentences which I consider seminal to your argument against the scientific validity of sexual orientation:
"Researchers wanting to measure sexual orientation today have four basic choices of measurement tools. These are dichotomous measures, the Kinsey Scale, the Klein Scale, or the Shively and DeCecco Scale. None of these is completely satisfactory."
and
"Researchers wanting to measure sexual orientation today have four basic choices of measurement tools. These are dichotomous measures, the Kinsey Scale, the Klein Scale, or the Shively and DeCecco Scale. None of these is completely satisfactory."
There is a lot 'may' thrown around in this paper, not so much the more definitive 'is' or 'is not'.
That is challenging and questioning, it is not 'debunking'.
You seem to have selectively ignored all the other research associated with this frontline piece, Assault on Gay America, as well as any other homosexuality related topics on Frontline, which do not support your point. That would be what I consider cherrypicking, to the point of intellectual dishonesty.
Further, the piece you quote is not only criticism lodged by someone not directly involved in any of the fields which deal with sexual orientation or the research of it, it is from 1997, more than ten years out of date in terms of current scientific research. Beyond that, most of the material included in the 1997 piece, seems to be focused on the earlier misunderstanding of sexuality, treating it as if it were equally valid, which I would argue it is not. That earlier largely pseudo scientific data has been pretty much repudiated as, essentially, bad / unscientifically valid science. This provides a useful overview:
"http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html"
This piece I believe addresses why your point of view - or that of the Bachmanns and Pawlenty - and the author you cited are unscientific, inaccurate, and simply wrong.
Terry,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments.
First, I have to point out you appear to be shifting your argument from , "sexual orientation" as a term, is opinion, seeming to say that the concept isn't really scientifically relevant to now one saying it isn't "scientific" because it didn't come about by/isn't suppported by the Scientific Method. This is shifting sand at best. First, of course much knowledge comes from observational data that cannot necessarily be repeated. Would you suggest, for example, that our theories on quasars or black holes, much of which is not repeatable, is not "scientific"? Further, some other data, such as the existence of tumors, is accepted as scientific fact without needing to be "proved" by repeated experiment. Certainly the TREATMENT or CAUSE of tumors can and is experimented on and theorized about, but the basic nature of the fact that cells mutate, even if we cannot cause the exact same mutation, isn't in question and IS considered fact.
Second, I spent 2 years in college (initially) as a chemical engineer (then computer engineer). I've had 2 years of chemistry and another of physics. I suspect DG has similar training. My brother is a genetic counselor with a masters degree from LSU. Why does this matter..? I don't need a primer on the scientific method, neither does DG, I'll let Laci speak for him/herself. Your shorthand of the method, while not "inaccurate" is also not fully descriptive. I assuume that wasn't intentional, but what you left out is meaningful. First, the method of reasoning does NOT have to be inductive, certainly we theorize, and often such theory is intuitive, but just as Galileo OBSERVED bodies falling at a constant rate, such reasoning, e.g. observing the underlying fact, can be deductive. Now, that's not particularly the point here, though, the larger point is this, homosexuality and human behavior, like the tumor, is observable. What is the "theory" is the cause. However, to suggest that it is not "scientific" because the theory isn't being subjected to scientific methodology is false, entirely so in fact (I'll get to that later).
Sexual orientation as an observable phenomenon, is no longer in question as being "truth". The medical community, without reservation among the qualified bodies, accepts the fact of orientation. LIke a tumor (although orientation certainly can't be described as a pathology), it is observable, it repeats, it presents itself in all cross sections of society, across ethnicities, races and cultures. It is unquestionably a fact of human (for that matter animal) condition. Like taste or smell, differennt people have different things which attract or repel them, things which affect each differently. I'm sure you aren't goin to claim sense of taste is not scientific, nor I assume would you claim that people have different tastes is somoehow not "scientific." It is observable, and repeatable.
ReplyDeleteThe cause for different tastes, just like the cause for homosexuality or lesbianism, IS something which is theory, but there again you are mistaken, it IS being tested, it IS accepted as scientifically valid to test. The cause isn't yet entirely quantified, but there are both markers (predictors) and a pretty good start a theory.
One marker, believe it or not, is hand structure. Women prone to lesbianism have finger structures more akin to men than women, specifically, their third digit is longer or as long as the index finger, whereas in many women this isn't true. Conversely, men are more prone to homosexuality IF their third digit is as substantially shorter than their index finger. The WHY isn't known, but it points to a genetic adaptation/presentation.. NOT CHOICE.
The most compelling causation theory is this; as the number of male children born to particular mother increases, the propensity for homosexuality also increases markedly. The THEORY is that the competition between x and y chromosomes in the females body produces a higher number of y chromosomes over time for each gestation (as I understand it). This seeming increase appears to have some effect on the fetus. Now, obviously that doesn't speak to lesbianism, but I'm not trying to provide you answers as much as point out you are 100% in error.
ReplyDeleteThis goes to something larger Terry, though, and that is this. You have consistently attempted to present yourself and your ideas as superior because of soem perceived greater level of knowledge or understanding of science. In this, just as in economics, that presumption is both wrong (science comprises much more than just that whcih has been subjected to the scientific method, the data itself, the observational information, as well as axioms/postulates are all part of the whole body. Further, medical sciences accept as valid both treatment and cause those things which appear consistently true, even if they cannot be repeated in the laboratory.
My brother knows far more about the theory of homosexuality and lesbianism than I do, and candidly, I would say easily than you do. After doing research on genetic markers and teaching at LSU, he is now a science teacher at a prestigious private school, and when I discussed your comment with him, he laughed out loud. I don't say that to embarrass you, but to point out that your stance is not considered scientifically respected in the SCIENTIST COMMUNITY doing the research here. In essence, you are speaking out on something on which youo aren't an expert, complaining about the lack of expertise of others. Do you see the irony?
In the end this comes down to the reality that the professional community accepts sexual orientation as a basic manifestation of human differences, like red hair or the fact that some people like chocolate while others don't. The professional medical community accepts that it isn't a pathology (mental deviance or illness). The FACT is that reparative therapies mostly fail, and even those which don't are those which teach teh person to DENY their basic attraction, does that sound like "choice" teaching to you? Further, it is FACT that science IS researching this as NOT OPINION, and is making strides toward identifying the root cause. Now, it may never be fully known, because, like Global Climate Change, there are MANY contributing factors in a very hard to control environment, and so identifying all variables may prove nearly impossible, but much of the research points to genetic and chromosomal differences.
Consequently, your statement, I'm sorry to have to say, I believe is wrong.
Actually, if any of you checked out the list of scientific studies I provided, it is clear that since the source Terry provided that is some 15 years out of date, the criticism that Terry brought up has been addressed and resolved in the interval, actually in the early years of the previous decade.
ReplyDeleteThe studies I provided, heavily taken from the science of endocrinology for the most part, with a sprinkling of other disciplines, goes far further.
What you mentioned Pen about the frequency and the theory of causation from birth order is one of the better known areas of research. However I also provided research on a specific loci on a specific chromosome which does appear to be involved.
Further, the statement by TPaw reflects a fundamental lack of understanding of genetics. It is not only what the DNA carries that determines the resultant individual as it develops throughout life, but particularly in utero, it is what parts of the DNA are activated, and at what times.
Take a quick read of the last three:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0005796781901091
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B0123430100001562
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0092656684900382
and then tell me if there is solid science, and scientific consensus, that supports the politifact.com conclusions and sexual orientation. It addresses measurement, both physical state and behavior, specifically. VERY SPECIFICALLY.
Not Terry, not nut-jobs like Bradlee Dean who promote lies about homosexuality, not the Bachmann's or T-Paw, can produce ANY scientific evidence that supports the premise that we are all born heterosexual. There is NONE. All of the evidence supports the opposite. The Scientific Evidence.
The 'we are all born heterosexual' idea is like the Galileo era notion that is is just 'obvious' that the sun orbits the earth. It is as wrong, and for the same reasons.