Last week’s publication of a survey of hohe relevant scientific literature regarding gender identity and the biological basis if any for homosexuality has reignited the debate over whether homosexuality is a moral choice or an inborn trait analogous to race.  The survey found that there is no conclusive evidence that being gay or transgendered has a genetic origin. The gay rights community has falsely claimed the survey places the burden on those who are skeptical of the claim, as if the burden of proof is on those skeptical of a proposition to disprove the contention rather than the reverse. More importantly, however, even if it were true that sexual preference is genetic, that would not take homosexuality out of the realm of moral debate the way gay activists claim it would.

First, gay activists are trying to flip the burden of proof onto the skeptics. If homosexual preference is the result of some genetic or other physiological process, it is observable. The debate over whether homosexuality is genetic is a physical rather than metaphysical debate. Physical processes and characteristics are observable and predictable.  If no one has yet found some predictable and observable process that results in people having a sexual preference for the same sex, then the default answer is that it homosexuality is not the result of a genetic or physiological phenomenon.  If something can be seen but is not seen, we don’t assume it is there until we see it. So the burden of proof lies with those who claim that sexual preference is somehow genetically driven.

Does this study rule out the possibility that sexual preference could be genetically driven? No it doesn’t. You can’t prove a negative. It may be that every choice is driven by our genes. What this study does do, however, is show that based on the evidence we have there is no reason to believe that it is.

Even if it is someday shown that sexual preference has a genetic cause, that would not mean what gay activists are claiming it means. The entire point of claiming being gay is genetic is to remove homosexuality from the realm of moral debate. The essence of morality is agency. We don’t have moral debates over things which we don’t control.  This is why someone’s physical characteristics like their height or the color of their skin is not the subject of moral debate. A person can’t control or act upon their height or the color of their skin and thus cannot be morally judged for such in any sensible way. The fallacy of the “you can’t help but be homosexual” camp is that it forgets the distinction between preference and action.

Understand by preference, I mean our base physical preferences; those things that for whatever reason give us pleasure or make us happy. I do not mean our choices. In a very real sense “because I preferred it” is always a sensible answer to the question “why did you do that?”.  I do not mean preference in this more abstract sense. Preference in this context is the concrete I like this but don’t like that sense.

When understood in that context, it is obvious that no one can choose any of our preferences. I love rice pudding and loath anise. My wife is just the opposite. Why? Who knows. But even if we did know why, it wouldn’t matter, since neither of us chose to have those preferences.  Could I decide that rice pudding is not worth eating because it makes me fat or because the smell of it puts my wife in a bad mood? Of course I could, but it wouldn’t really change my preference for rice pudding. It would just be me putting my preference to be thin and for my wife to be in a good mood ahead of my preference for rice pudding. Rice pudding would still taste good to me and be something all things being equal I preferred.

That no one controls their preferences is especially true with regard to base physical desires like sex. No one ever wakes up and consciously decides they find a certain body type or sexual act to be desirable. It just happens. Indeed, no matter how unattractive you find a particular body type or how disgusting you find a particular sexual kink, a five second search of the internet will reveal people who find only that body type attractive and that kink to be worth pursuing. None of those people made a conscious choice that those things appealed to them. They just do.

Yet, we still hold people accountable and think that it is acceptable for people to discriminate based upon how someone acts on those preferences. Just because you can’t help but find something desirable does not mean that it is okay to act on that preference.  Whether it is or not is the entire point of moral debate. If people didn’t in some cases find immoral actions to be preferable, there would be no immorality and no reason for moral debate.

One of the unsaid assumptions of this debate is that a personal preference is necessarily a good thing and that if someone prefers something no one has a right to claim that preference is wrong. This is completely false. People prefer and find pleasure in all kinds of immoral and awful things. The gangster Jimmy Burke of Goodfellas fame was said to derive intense pleasure from stealing. Even if he had money that he had made honestly, he preferred to use money he had stolen because the knowledge that it was stolen made spending it that much more desirable. Some people are sadists and derive pleasure from inflicting pain.  You could no doubt give all kinds of psychological explainations for why someone like Burke loved stealing or someone like the Marquis DeSade loved inflicting pain. Those explanations, even if valid, would not change the fact that neither DeSade nor Burke ever made the conscious choice to find such things pleasurable.

This is not to say that all preferences are bad or that homosexuality is the same thing as stealing or sadism. It does, however, show that just because something makes someone happy or is desirable to them doesn’t mean their acting on it is beyond moral question.

Indeed, this is why pedophilia presents such a problem for the gay community. Pedophilia is a sexual preference. In response to gays claiming that they cannot be morally judged because they can’t help their sexual preferences, pedophiles have not unreasonably demanded the same respect. The response of the gay community has been to claim that being gay is not the same as being a pedophile. That of course is true. It also, however, gives away the game. Being gay is not the same as being a pedophile because it doesn’t involve victimizing children and is thus not on the same moral plain as pedophilia.  Saying that, however, places homosexuality into the realm of moral conduct, which defeats the entire purpose of claiming that being gay is genetic.

So, it doesn’t matter if the elusive “gay gene” is found. That won’t mean anything that we don’t already know; namely that people don’t consciously choose what at a base level appeals to them.  People can’t help it that they are attracted to others of the same sex. Since no one chooses what appeals to them, that doesn’t make being “gay” any different than not liking to get up early in the morning or liking bread pudding and no anise or any other preference.

Moreover, the claim that because gays cannot help that they are attracted to the same sex means that being gay is like the color of someone’s skin rather than like every other preference is profoundly dehumanizing to gays. I can’t help it I like attractive women in their 20s. If I act on that preference, however, my wife is still justified in divorcing me and my boss, if he is a moralizer, can still fire me because adulterers are not a protected class. Just because I prefer something doesn’t mean I am compelled to act on that preference such that doing so is just some kind of immutable part of who I am and beyond moral judgement. To say otherwise is to deny my moral agency and reduce me to the level of an animal. Taken on its face, gays are dehumanizing themselves  with this argument.

The argument that being gay is genetic probably shouldn’t be taken at face value. Gays who make this argument do not view themselves as dehumanized animals that cannot be expected to have moral agency. Instead, gays are disguising a moral argument as a scientific one.

The purpose behind the claim that sexual preference is genetic is to compel the government to legislate morality. Many people rightly or wrongly find homosexuality to be morally objectionable. Others, find it morally acceptable. The second group wants the government to legally compel its moral view onto the other side. The gay rights community and its supporters do not admit this fact however because admitting it would require both admitting that they intend to legislate morality (something they falsely claim only the other side does) and engaging in an honest debate over the morality of homosexuality (something they consider to be beneath them).  Instead, they hide their moral claims in scientific claims and the language of race and civil rights.