Note: A recent opinion piece on same-sex marriage ran at my university's newspaper. Needless to say, it generated a lot of discussion. Below was my original response to the negative opinion I submitted to the editor. The newspaper ran a redacted version. I plan on expanding the following with proper citations for the science portion and an overall sense of the issue being constitutional as opposed to moral/familial. This is meant to follow-up the recent colloquial held at my university, though the discussion seemed ad hoc and too last minute to have been of any substance.
Denton’s recent opinion piece is a remarkable conversation starter for the new semester. It addresses some key issues concerning the GLBT movement and its impact on sexual education and social mores. However, I have to politely disagree with Denton’s presentation.
Denton writes: “No biological cause has yet been discovered to explain homosexuality”. Though no precise biological cause has been discovered per se, there has been some research done in this field since Simon LeVay’s 1991 discovery in gay men of undersized neurons in the anterior hypothalamus, the region of the brain involved with sex hormones and sexual response. For instance, in 1993 Dean Hamer of the National Cancer Institute discovered that gay brothers shared a specific region of the X chromosome (Xq28) at a higher rate than gay men with straight brothers. This study was the origin of the “gay gene”. One also cannot forget the 2005 Swedish study concerning male response to female urine versus male sweat. In gay men and straight women, the hypothalamus responds to the scent of male sweat similarly. In contrast, the hypothalamus of straight men responded to the scent of female urine.
This leads into a discussion on sexual arousal, where yet again the issue becomes murky. Research at Northwestern University indicates that women are sexually aroused by pornographic images independent of the sex and sexual orientation being presented. That is, the women in the study showed brain activity indicative of sexual arousal with images of sex between a male and a female, two females, and two males all independent of sexual orientation. In contrast, gay men showed higher brain activity to images of two males having sex but showed no arousal patterns to the other images, and straight men showed higher arousal toward lesbian sex. So in men, sexual orientation is linked to a physiological response whereas in women sexual orientation is not as easily linked.
But where does this leave us? Though Denton stressed purely genetics, researchers in developmental sciences in general have abandoned such approaches even earlier than the cited Bailey and Pillard study. For instance, consider fetal development in the womb. The sex of the baby is determined by the presence of X and Y chromosomes. However, a male and female zygote is physically indistinguishable until sex hormones activate sections of the genome for gene expression. In fetuses containing XY chromosome, male features develop, and there is no reason this development is limited to anatomical components but extends to the development of the brain of the fetus.
All it takes is a certain stress to the system and even identical twins can develop differently despite possessing the same genetic sequence. This development difference is made more obvious when one compares the weights of the twins relative to one another. One twin will be born heavier than the other, and this weight difference can be more than a pound in some cases. I challenge the reader and Denton to look into twins where one twin possesses childhood gender nonconformity (CGN). CGN has been a phenomenon of interest in child development circles, and research into it will bring new light on understanding the origin of same-sex attraction and sexual orientation.
Science aside, there are other issues addressed in Denton’s article. Certainly if same-sex attraction can be fundamentally shown without a doubt to be from natural causes then the legal battle for equal rights for members of the GLBT community would enter into the very same setting of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Just as a person cannot choose their ethnicity they would not be able to choose their sexual attraction and orientation. Therefore, discriminating based on sexual orientation, a natural attribute of the individual, would go against the principles of the United States Constitution by restricting their natural rights based solely on attributes uncontrollable to the individual.
At this point I cannot help but comment on one aspect of Denton’s statistics. Denton cites a CNN poll that says only 57 percent of Americans oppose gay marriage. Did he know that nearly one year after the famous Loving v. Virginia case which struck down anti-miscegenation laws that 72 percent of Americans still disapproved of interracial marriage? Did he know that it was not until 1991 that Gallup found more Americans approved of interracial marriage than disapproved? Now, nearly 50 years from that landmark case, it is still a dismal 3 in 4 Americans approve of interracial marriage. Can anyone imagine how life would be different if civil liberties were dictated strictly by the feelings of the majority instead of the philosophy of equal protection and natural rights granted by the Constitution?
I believe this debate goes beyond the science. The United States was founded by men who believed that the government should not mandate mere opinion. This is the rationale for the First Amendment which protects this very newspaper and my letter from being censored based on content alone, which protects the ability of the missionaries to speak in Free Speech Alley, and which protects everyone’s religious convictions and expressions. The government cannot mandate what we think because that is the very definition of tyranny. As well, the government cannot prefer one opinion over another by granting special privileges to some but not all. This, in my opinion, is the very heart of the GLBT rights movement.
In other words, just as the government cannot regulate what religion I choose, the government cannot regulate my sexual orientation. Just as the government cannot give special rights to religious organizations simply due to their religion, the government cannot give special rights to a sexual orientation simply due to their sexual orientation. However, this is exactly what is happening with the issue concerning marriage. Heterosexual couples are given certain privileges unobtainable to same-sex couples via the ability to obtain a marriage license. Certainly, there are bureaucratic means to obtain a number of similar privileges, such as wills to dictate property upon decease or dual adoption measures. However, such pursuits are costly and timely, require the proper documents at all times, and can be challenged in court. However, all of this is simplified with one piece of parchment which is denied based on the sex of the two applicants, and in turn their sexual orientation. How can we as citizens of America founded on the principal of equality sit back and say that this system does not discriminate or grant special privileges based on mere opinion when, by brute fact, it does?
Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Farmer Refuted: “Civil liberty, is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society”. These are the words which echo in the Constitution and in the court cases which address restrictions on our civil liberties. The very foundation of our society is our natural rights and the protection of our opinions, not of our cultural institutions as Denton believes. So I am forced to politely disagree with Denton. Gay marriage does not threaten America; however, maintaining preferential treatment to heterosexual couples does threaten the founding principles and makes a mockery of the accomplishments of our founding fathers.
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