Canines and other non sentient creatures cannot speak in defense of themselves and therfore cannot consent to sexual relations. That argument under the laws of every state in the Union is a non starter.

74. FmrMarine | May 26th, 2008 at 11:40 am

Nice talking point. That article is 24 years old and so outdated that any physician citing it in a scholarly work would be doing so only to point out how far Terran medicine has progressed since 1984.

Look, if you dislike homosexuals that is your business but opposite sex marriage is leading to far more child abuse cases, divorces and spousal battery incarcerations than same sex marriages in Massachusetts. Mean stupid people with agendas marry in churches every day and if you don not think that causes more harm to the “sanctity” of marriage than gay marriage well then you are just a close minded person in Our opinion.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1876122

>>>Yet if an ex KKK Grand Master Dragon can change and become an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement then I guess there is some hope left.<<

Dont you mean the entire southern democRAT party?

Homosexuality IS a vile filthy disease ridden lifestyle.To legitimize it is pure insanity.

I can hardly wait for the first dog/human marriage, we all know how much we love our pets.

“Here’s an ‘acceptable’ citation”

Which means you deicde what is and is not appropriate? Ahh We love the smell of Theoconservatism in the morning.

Chromosome linkage studies

In 1993, Dean Hamer published findings from a linkage analysis of a sample of 76 gay brothers and their families. Hamer et al. (1993) found that the gay men had more gay male uncles and cousins on the maternal side of the family than on the paternal side. Gay brothers who showed this maternal pedigree were then tested for X chromosome linkage, using twenty-two markers on the X chromosome to test for similar alleles. Thirty-three of the forty sibling pairs tested were found to have similar alleles in the distal region of Xq28, which was significantly higher than the expected rates of 50% for fraternal brothers. A later analysis by Hu et al. revealed that 67% of gay brothers in a new saturated sample shared a marker on the X chromosome at Xq28. Sanders et al. (1998) replicated the study, finding 66% Xq28 marker sharing in 54 pairs of gay brothers. These studies only examined homosexuality in males.

However, two later studies (Bailey et al., 1999; McKnight and Malcolm, 2000) failed to find a preponderance of gay relatives in the maternal line of homosexual men. A study by Rice et al. in 1999 failed to replicate the Xq28 linkage. More recently, Mustanski (2005) failed to find the Xq28 marker in a complete genome scan of gay men’s DNA. Mustanski did however find autosomal markers at 7q36, 8p12 and 10q26.

The evidence for the Xq28 marker is therefore preliminary and has yet to be fully proved or disproved. Even at face value, the discovery of the Xq28 region would only show one genetic correlate of male homosexuality. Hamer’s study was important though, as it was the first experiment to claim such a correlation. These findings do not suggest that the Xq28 region is necessary for homosexuality or singularly causes homosexuality, but rather that it might be one of many factors which influence sexual orientation in some males.

A recent study supports X-linkage from a different perspective. Women have two X chromosomes, one of which is “switched off”. The inactivation of the X chromosome occurs randomly throughout the embryo, resulting in cells that are mosaic with respect to which chromosome is active. In some cases though, it appears that this switching off can occur in a non-random fashion. Bocklandt et al (2006) reported that the number of women with extreme skewing of X chromosome inactivation is significantly higher in mothers of homosexual men than in age-matched controls without gay sons. 4% of controls showed extreme skewing compared to 13% of the mothers with gays sons and 23% of mothers with two or more gay sons.

Also, male homosexuality appears likely to be influenced by a complex genetic interaction which may be mediated by H-Y antigens in the mother’s immune system (see below). Whichever genes are implicated they almost certainly cause male brains to differentiate in a female typical direction.

As for female homosexuality, there remains little evidence from replicated genetic linkage studies.

Maternal linkage, birth order, and female fertility

Blanchard and Klassen (1997) reported that each older brother increases the odds of being gay by 33%. This is now “one of the most reliable epidemiological variables ever identified in the study of sexual orientation.” To explain this finding, it has been proposed that male fetuses provoke a maternal immune reaction that becomes stronger with each successive male fetus. Male fetuses produce HY antigens which are “almost certainly involved in the sexual differentiation of vertebrates.” It is this antigen which maternal H-Y antibodies are proposed to both react to and ‘remember’. Successive male fetuses are then attacked by H-Y antibodies which somehow decrease the ability of H-Y antigens to perform their usual function in brain masculinisation.

Bocklandt, Horvath, Vilain and Hamer (2006) reported that some mothers of gay babies have extreme skewing of X chromosome inactivation. Using a sample of 97 mothers of homosexual men and 103 mothers of heterosexual men, the pattern of X inactivation was ascertained from blood assays. 4% of the mothers of straight men showed extreme skewing compared to 13% of the mothers of gay men. Mothers of two or more gay babies had extreme skewing of X inactivation of 23%. This extreme skewing may influence male sexual orientation through the fraternal birth order effect.

An alternate theory was proposed by Italian researchers in 2004 supported by a study of about 4,600 people who were the relatives of 98 homosexual and 100 heterosexual men. Female relatives of the homosexual men tended to have more offspring than those of the heterosexual men. Female relatives of the homosexual men on their mother’s side tended to have more offspring than those on the father’s side. The researchers concluded that there was genetic material being passed down on the X chromosome which both promotes fertility in the mother and homosexuality in her male offspring. The connections discovered, however, would explain only 20% of the cases studied, indicating that this might not be the sole genetic factor determining sexual orientation.

Homosexuals of either sex are more likely than the general population to be non-right handed (see Handedness and sexual orientation)

Pheromones correlation

Recent research conducted in Sweden[24] has suggested that gay and straight men respond differently to two odors that are believed to be involved in sexual arousal. The research showed that when both heterosexual women (lesbians were included in the study, but the results regarding them were “somewhat confused”) and gay men are exposed to a testosterone derivative found in men’s sweat, a region in the hypothalamus is activated. Heterosexual men, on the other hand, have a similar response to an estrogen-like compound found in women’s urine. The conclusion, that sexual attraction, whether same-sex or opposite-sex oriented, operates similarly on a biological level, does not mean that there is necessarily a biological cause for homosexuality. Researchers have suggested that this possibility could be further explored by studying young subjects to see if similar responses in the hypothalamus are found and then correlating this data with adult sexual orientation.

Early fixation hypothesis

The early fixation hypothesis includes research into prenatal development and the environmental factors that control masculinization of the brain. Studies have concluded that there is empirical evidence to support this hypothesis, including the observed differences in brain structure and cognitive processing between homosexual and heterosexual men. One explanation for these differences is the idea that differential exposure to hormone levels in the womb during fetal development may block or exaggerate masculinization of the brain in homosexual men. The concentrations of these chemicals is thought to be influenced by fetal and maternal immune systems, maternal consumption of certain drugs, maternal stress, and direct injection. This hypothesis is also connected to the fraternal birth order research.

Imprinting/critical period

This type of theory holds that the formation of gender identity occurs in the first few years of life after birth. It argues that individuals can be predisposed to homosexual orientation by biological factors but are triggered in some cases by upbringing. Part of adopting a gender identity involves establishing the gender(s) of sexual attraction. This process is analogous to the “imprinting” process observed in animals. A baby duckling may be genetically programmed to “imprint” on a mother, but what entity it actually imprints upon depends on what objects it sees immediately after hatching. Most importantly, once this process has occurred, it cannot be reversed, any more than the duckling can hatch twice.

A sort of reverse sexual imprinting has been observed in heterosexual humans; see the section on the “Westermarck effect” in Behavioral imprinting.

Several different triggers for imprinting upon a particular sexual orientation have been proposed.

One hypothesis is that something about what young children see in the gender-roles behavior of adults, or some differences (possibly unconscious) in the way adults treat young children, somehow influences or determines a child’s eventual sexual orientation.

Exotic becomes erotic

Daryl Bem, a social psychologist at Cornell University, has theorized that the influence of biological factors on sexual orientation may be mediated by experiences in childhood. A child’s temperament predisposes the child to prefer certain activities over others. Because of their temperament, which is influenced by biological variables such as genetic factors, some children will be attracted to activities that are commonly enjoyed by other children of the same gender. Others will prefer activities that are typical of another gender. This will make a gender-conforming child feel different from opposite-gender children, while gender-nonconforming children will feel different from children of their own gender. According to Bem, this feeling of difference will evoke physiological arousal when the child is near members of the gender which it considers as being ‘different’. Bem theorizes that this physiological arousal will later be transformed into sexual arousal: children will become sexually attracted to the gender which they see as different (”exotic”). This theory is known as Exotic Becomes Erotic (EBE) theory.

The theory is based in part on the frequent finding that a majority of gay men and lesbians report being gender-nonconforming during their childhood years. A meta-analysis of 48 studies showed childhood gender nonconformity to be the strongest predictor of a homosexual orientation for both men and women. Fourteen studies published since Bailey & Zucker’s 1995 also show the same results. In one study by the Kinsey Institute of approximately 1000 gay men and lesbians (and a control group of 500 heterosexual men and women), 63% of both gay men and lesbians reported that they were gender nonconforming in childhood (i.e., did not like activities typical of their sex), compared with only 10-15% of heterosexual men and women. There are also six “prospective” studies–that is longitudinal studies that begin with gender-nonconforming boys at about age 7 and follow them up into adolescence and adulthood. These also show that a majority (63%) of the gender nonconforming boys become gay or bisexual as adults. There are very few prospective studies of gender nonconforming girls. In a group of eighteen behaviorally masculine girls (mean age of assessment: 9 years), all reported a homosexual sexual orientation at adolescence, and eight had requested sex reassignment.

I’m aware that EBE theory is the most attractive to those who refuse to consider biological links but something has to be said. One, from what I have read children that have grown up with a gay/lesbian parent(s) do not usually grow up to be gay/lesbian. Secondly, if EBE is a cause you have to realize that once behaviors are imprinted in humans they are nearly impossible to erase. The human brain is like a machine once it has been built there really is no concrete way of changing it. You can modify but it will often not act the way it should or just stops working. In the 50’s and 60′ when homosexuality first began to become an issue gays and lesbians tried drugs, psychotherapy, and religion to “change” their sexual orientation. The result was not quite what was expected and A LOT of people committed suicide mostly out of shame and guilt. Case in point with imprinting behaviors- people who have been brought up to believe that gays and lesbians are disease infected sexual deviants will never change that view. I would like to think people can change to at least be tolerant but that isn’t how it works. Yet if an ex KKK Grand Master Dragon can change and become an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement then I guess there is some hope left.

Yes. Here’s an ‘acceptable’ citation:

http://www.desiringgod.org/resourcelibrary/sermons/bydate/2004/179_What_Is_the_Will_of_God_and_How_Do_We_Know_It/

Interesting, very interesting.

I will, Pain, just be sure and step out of the way when the rock comes your way….wouldn’t want to find your impression upon the earth.

Keep pushing that rock up the hill brother. You do realize that there aren’t 1 million people in America that would agree with your views, right? But nevermind you will never listen to reason so there is no point.

Pain,

No! Heterosexuality is not a disorder.

However, it can be gone about the wrong way, and taken overboard (Fornication, adultery, multiple partners etc, etc.)

That’s why we stress … One man and One woman for … Life.