This is just one of the many THEORIES. The question really is about self perception until we have a definitive answer, and the general perception is that the homosexual didn't choose to be homosexual, it was factors beyond their control. All of the real science points to a combination of nature and nurture which are both outside the control of a child who grows up to be gay.

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Actually, I've always wondered the same thing when I hear that gays are caused by domineering mothers and absent fathers.

What about all the straight siblings?!

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"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities."
...Christian Nestell Bovee

From the article:

Individual-specific environmental factors may include biological processes such as different hormone exposure in the womb -- not societal attitudes, family or parenting which are shared by twins, the researchers say.

This explicitly conflicts with anybody's ideas that SOCIETY is the "environmental factor".
Gays have always been around. We've typically just been more closetted, and that's not the same thing as not being there.

I knew about the Greeks and the Romans, but I was looking for a prehistorical accounting (a same sex couple clasped in an embrace found eons later by archeologist's?) But here is what I have come up with so far:

As an adjunct to the following poem, here is a link to a paper on the subject written by M. Jimmie Killingsworth, Texas A&M University, and presented at the Modern Language Association Convention, San Francisco: Whitman's "Calamus": A Rhetorical Prehistory of the First Gay American--J. Killingsworth

Then there is the ritual of some Native American tribes to determine if a boy is two-spirited. If so he is educated in womens work and men's tasks and is often a highly respected healer or medicine man, being mentored by a medicine man who is often also a two-spirit.The two-spirit tradition in Native American experience

There is much in the world of visual art to support the fact homosexual relationships have been around forever: Male Love and Gay Sex in Art - World History of Male Love

I apologize to those interested in more historical accounts of Lesbian love. I did a lot of reading and googling to get this much. I'm tired.

Here's something just for fun:

Channel 4's Gay-O-Meter

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"All right, then, I'll go to hell!"
-Huck Finn

it says I'm 43% gay - congratulations! you've scored right in the middle and you're a happy well-adjusted homo guy!

does this mean I'm versatile?

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"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities."
...Christian Nestell Bovee

It mean you're gay...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

If homosexuality is genetic, how does it continue to be passed from generation to generation? A few "deviants" (not trying to use a term with negative connotations, simply indentifying those who deviate from thier "natural" tendencies) from their homosexual nature cannot carry on a demographic trend that is pretty consistent (2-3%).

If someone is a homosexaul, they have less of a chance of passing on a supposed homosexaul gene, than a heterosexual. Over time, homosexuality would simply breed itself out of existence, but oddly enough it hasn't.

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Our nation has not always lived up to its ideals, yet those ideals have never ceased to guide us. They expose our flaws, and lead us to mend them. We are the beneficiaries of the work of the generations before us and it is each generation's responsibility to continue that work. - Laura Bush

God is a conservative -

Ecclesiastes 10:2--"A wise man's heart inclines him to the right, but a fool's heart to the left."

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Right now America spends $700 billion every year on foreign oil. That's our money going overseas when it could be staying here. We have to stop this.
That's why I support the Pickens Plan. Check out the website at www.pickensplan.com. If you like what you see, please join me as a Pickens Plan supporter.

If a certain course of action makes the mouth-breathers furious, then that’s a good policy. – The Practical Environmentalist

1)
2) Italian geneticists may have explained how genes apparently linked to male homosexuality survive, despite gay men seldom having children. Their findings also undermine the theory of a single “gay gene”.

The researchers discovered that women tend to have more children when they inherit the same - as yet unidentified - genetic factors linked to homosexuality in men. This fertility boost more than compensates for the lack of offspring fathered by gay men, and keeps the “gay” genetic factors in circulation.
Survival of genetic homosexual traits explained - 13 October 2004 - New Scientist
5 selected items - PubMed Results


Gays are beneficial to society, improving its survivability aspects.
When the society over-procreates, gays can help raise some of the offspring without adding additional over-burdening of society by having their own kids.
If society were under-procreated, gays could help by having kids themselves. Just because we're not attracted doesn't mean our reproductive parts don't function.

No...wait...

Hold on...seriously...

Melissa Ethridge just called...she said to go screw yourself...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd