Lesbian tennis star Martina Navratilova is condemning hormone-altering experiments on sheep that have displayed what researchers claim are same-sex attractions, attempting to determine how to breed only "straight" sheep.

Researchers at Oregon State University and Oregon Health & Science University have in some papers on the subject referred to the sheep as "gay". The research is funded by taxpayers through the year 2008.

[...]

According to PETA, OHSU experimenter Charles Roselli is drugging pregnant sheep to prevent the actions of hormones in their fetuses' brains and cutting open the brains of rams he calls "male-oriented" -- homosexual -- in an attempt to find the hormonal mechanisms behind homosexual tendencies so that they can subsequently be changed. 

Roselli's cohort, Frederick Stormshak of OSU, has surgically installed an estrogen device in rams' bodies in an effort to alter "gay sheep's" sexual preferences and make them "heterosexual."

According PETA the grant applications say the experimenters plan to extrapolate the test results to humans -- with the insidious implication that homosexuality in people can be "cured."

Okay, granted that this comes from those PETA wack-os, but if there is ANY truth to this....

But, like I said, I didn't know Dr. Roselli -- so I asked him. I wrote, "Do you think homosexuality is something that can or should be 'cured'?" His reply: "No," he said. "And I find it appalling and offensive that PETA has suggested that I and my collaborators do."

If PETA can defend their claim that his intention is to cure homosexuality, I would like to see that. Because it is a damn nasty thing to say. And as far as I can tell, it is a bald-faced lie.

As the culture wars rage over gay rights, a flock of sheep at Oregon State University may help answer a key question behind the controversy: Is homosexuality a matter of choice or biology?

The Corvallis herd includes a group of rams that scientists delicately refer to as "male-oriented." These animals consistently ignore females and bestow all their amorous attentions on members of their own sex.

Researcher Charles Roselli says a decade of study suggests sexual orientation is largely hard-wired into the sheep's brains before birth. Now, he's trying to figure out how that happens, zeroing in on genes and hormones. In a bold test of his ideas, he hopes to engineer the birth of gay rams by altering conditions in the womb.

Roselli is waiting for a group of lambs born last spring to reach sexual maturity. Their mothers were dosed with drugs to block the action of male hormones in the fetuses. If Roselli's hypothesis is correct, rams born of this experiment will be disproportionately gay.

Before Friday, Siegert was best known for being arrested for driving under the influence after he and an ex-teammate stole a ram from an OSU research project on gay sheep after the 2004 season. Some called for his dismissal, as that escapade followed several other legal misadventures that put the program in a bad light.

Who knows -- if it's magical enough, maybe it could even cure homosexuality one day (not a choice, right?). So when they finally find and isolate the gay gene, they can look for it in developing embryos, weed those out, and use those for embryonic stem cell therapy.

How'd that be? A stem cell cure for homosexuality! If anyone is still gay after that, it's obviously a choice (tsk tsk!).

A piece considers the moral and political implications of gay babies. Fetal screening technology may soon let parents detect homosexuality, and scientists predict that within a decade parents will have the option of applying a hormone patch to set a gay fetus straight. But until such a "remedy" exists, pro-life conservatives and gay rights opponents "will have to ask themselves whether the public shame of having a gay child outweighs the private sin of terminating a pregnancy."

But until such a "remedy" exists, pro-life conservatives and gay rights opponents "will have to ask themselves whether the public shame of having a gay child outweighs the private sin of terminating a pregnancy."

If the Right can garner 80% of the vote in plebiscites over Equal Marriage (and they have), what sort of numbers do you suppose they could pull for a pre-natal Final Solultion of the Gay Problem?

Most people who defend homosexuality as a biological trait assume it can't be changed. Martina Navratilova, for example, is asking the universities to shut down the sheep research and spend the money instead on fostering "acceptance for people of all sexual preferences." What if the research destroys that assumption, too? What if it proves that sexual orientation is biologically based and that we don't have to accept it? What if science makes it possible to chemically reduce the prevalence of homosexuality without oppressing anyone?

That's the first reason not to squelch basic research. If you let it run its course, it might disabuse you of the assumptions that made you want to squelch it. The same can be true of technology. Looking back at the wretched history of hormone therapy for homosexuality, it's easy to say, "Never again." But the latest, albeit unsuccessful, interventions in sheep are at the fetal stage, when the brain is taking shape. If you don't regard the human fetus as a person—precisely because its brain hasn't fully formed—can you really say it was ever gay? Does your objection to medicating gay people still apply?

That's another reason to let research go forward: It might expose contradictions in your politics. You might find yourself in the odd position of pleading for acceptance of homosexuality as a natural condition while at the same time denouncing Catholic bishops who plead for acceptance of infertility as a natural condition. Is one kind of infertility more sacred than another?

The final reason to be wary of stifling research is that half-developed technology can be worse than the finished product. The sheep investigators have already identified brain markers that roughly correlate with homosexuality. What they deny doing—and PETA, in its efforts to stop the research, accuses them of doing—is trying to alter orientation in the womb. But if doctors learn to spot emerging gay brains and are unable to alter them, parents who are determined not to raise gay children will do what's already done to female fetuses in much of the world: abort them.

Science is scary. It can change your body and your mind. But smothering it can be just as dangerous. The wisest course is to keep an eye on its participants, their motives, and potential applications of their work, never letting one motive or application obscure others. Political attacks that blur these differences don't help.

we hear "extermination"

we hear "extermination

One of the nation's leading Southern Baptists has called for a policy that would support medical treatment, if it were to become available, to change the sexual orientation of a fetus inside its mother's womb from homosexual to heterosexual.

[...]

Acknowledging the strides that genetic science is making in identifying and isolating genetic abnormalities, defects and diseases, Mohler embraces this advance in medical science as yet another tool in the war to root out and cleanse sin.

[...]

Simply put, Mohler believes that homosexuality is one of God's ways of punishing us for original sin. And now science promises to provide a new means to root out sin and temptation even before birth.

"If a biological basis [for homosexuality] is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin," Mohler wrote in advice for Christians.

Mohler restates his opposition to aborting fetuses or embryos who "are identified as homosexual in orientation," but said advancement on determining a biological basis for such orientation should be used "for the greater glory of God."

After all, whenever a gay nation-state is discussed by more than a handful of people, the notion that it would (of course) be immediately attacked arises. [..] Just which all-powerful country is it that is going to sweep down and wipe some gay state off the globe? No one ever says, yet they are convinced of its inevitability.

Oh wait, isn't this what straight people are already doing all the time?

Is this not an established crime under international law? Is it not customary to prosecute such persons (or at least call for their prosecution)?

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

( a ) Killing members of the group;

( b ) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

( c ) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

( d ) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

( e ) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III

The following acts shall be punishable:

( a ) Genocide;

( b ) Conspiracy to commit genocide;

( c ) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;

( d ) Attempt to commit genocide;

( e ) Complicity in genocide.

In a speech at University of California Santa Barbara this week, ex-gay leader Chad Thompson seemed to welcome the elimination of gay people if a gene that determined sexual orientation were discovered. This is quite ironic, considering Thompson wrote the book “Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would.”

“I think it would be cool if a gay gene were discovered. Then God would get more glory when people are changed,” Thompson said.

“Sounds like Thompson would ‘love’ gay people right out of existence if he had his way,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “If this is how ex-gays love, I’d be afraid to see them when they hate.”

...

Thompson runs the Iowa-based group Inqueery that works to get ex-gay speakers placed in public schools. Thompson also holds the odd belief that people become gay as punishment for the sins of dead relatives. He calls this malady a “generational curse.”

Radar, March/April 2007



Does anyone have easy access to the magazine? A copy of the article would be fine...

I believe this is exactly what you seek, and if it isn't, then I suspect it will interest you anyway.

There are always warning signs...

The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the country's pre-eminent evangelical leaders, acknowledged that he irked many fellow conservatives with an article earlier this month saying scientific research "points to some level of biological causation" for homosexuality.

[...]

However, Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was assailed even more harshly by gay-rights supporters. They were upset by his assertion that homosexuality would remain a sin even if it were biologically based, and by his support for possible medical treatment that could switch an unborn gay baby's sexual orientation to heterosexual.

[...]

Mohler said he was aware of the invective being directed at him on gay-rights blogs, where some participants have likened him to Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor notorious for death-camp experimentation. "I wonder if people actually read what I wrote," Mohler said in a telephone interview. "But I wrote the article intending to start a conversation, and I think I've been successful at that."

[...]

"I realize this sounds very offensive to homosexuals, but it's the only way a Christian can look at it," Mohler said. "We should have no more problem with that than treating any medical problem."

Mohler's argument was endorsed by a prominent Roman Catholic thinker, the Rev. Joseph Fessio, provost of Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla., and editor of Ignatius Press, Pope Benedict XVI's U.S. publisher.

"Same-sex activity is considered disordered," Fessio said. "If there are ways of detecting diseases or disorders of children in the womb, and a way of treating them that respected the dignity of the child and mother, it would be a wonderful advancement of science."

[...]

Paul Myers, a biology professor at the University of Minnesota-Morris, wrote a detailed critique of Mohler's column, contending that there could be many genes contributing to sexual orientation and that medical attempts to alter it could be risky.

"If there are such genes, they will also contribute to other aspects of social and sexual interactions," Myers wrote. "Disentangling the nuances of preference from the whole damn problem of loving people might well be impossible."

"Same-sex activity is considered disordered," Fessio said.

As a wise man once said: in English, the passive voice is only used to facilitate lying.

Some further enquiry into this subject continues to contradict PETA's claims. The project is called "A Ram Model of Neuroendocrine Function Objectives." The stated objectives of the project are quite simple, though they are not worded all that simply:



They are most assuredly trying to demonstrate the accuracy of their hypothesis that "sexual orientation" in sheep is biologically determined, and they are trying to do this by creating "homosexual" sheep.

Researchers are often very quick to point out that sheep are not people -- probably because they really aren't. Still, the sheep research has come up with remarkably similar results to earlier research on the biological determinants of orientation in humans.



Now, PETA is welcome to oppose this research -- after all, they are killing sheep. They are drugging pregnant ewes in an effort to alter the mating behavior of their offspring. I can certainly see how that runs afoul PETA's stated principles and objectives. I am not especially amused by their Orwellian double-speak though. Certainly the research might be applicable to humans. I fail to see how a medical technique for enhancing the chances that your children will be born gay is a bad thing.

I have not yet found any information specifically regading the researchers' grant application -- or PETA's claim that the "experimenters plan to extrapolate the test results to humans.

One of my favorite bloggers, Thomas Kraemer is one of the founding benefactors of the Magnus Hirschfeld Fund for sexual orientation and gender identity research at Oregon State University. One hundred percent of his estate will be used to endow the fund. It's rather a moot point at the moment, because Mr. Kraemer has not died.

The endowment specifically may not be used to fund certain types of research -- namely what most reasonable people would call "anti-gay" research.




Mr. Roselli's and Mr. Stormshak's research into ovine preoptic hypothalamuses, however, is specifically cited as an example of acceptable research to be funded by this endowment.

I wonder if there is a stem cell cure for conservatism? Or for assholishness?

If they could determine wheter their embrios will be gay or not, straight parents would have little scrupples to weed the gay ones out. In India they are weeding out female embrions because boys are more profitable.

Quite likely, yes. I think it is inevitable that a fairly precise group of "causes" of homosexuality will be identified, and that tests to identify orientation will one day exist for most if not all of these "causes." And yes... I do not hesitate to agree that the straights will be highly motivated to obtain these tests, and to use them in just the way you describe. It is rather unfortunate that we will so readily presume this degree of wickedness on their part, but we do so. In fact, if someone were to suggest that the straight people would not promptly consider aborting a gay child if it were possible to determine it's orientation... well, that would just be naive. I find it odd that on this point a great many gays have little hope for the "goodness" of straight people, but on almost every other point gays are willing to assume a basic altruism on the part of straights that just isn't in evidence. Such tests do not currently exist, so of course I do not know what proportion of straights would act on this information. Even so, I readily believe that they would kill us all if they had the chance and it was convenient.

To use an EM metaphor, I think the attitude is a gay version of the Infosaturated Syndrome... or to place it further back in history, the Briggs Gambit.

There are so many of us who do believe that the vast majority of str8s actually mean us no harm, no, not in thought nor deed. But... these same gay people will often attest that they can kinda-sorta understand why str8 parents wouldn't want, say, their kids to be taught by gay teachers and the like. Or they can kinda-sorta 'understand' why str8 people get stereotypical attitudes toward us... I mean, look at Gay Pride parades... oh yes, these particular gay people will tell you.

No, no, it's not *right*, these particular gay people will tell you, but it is "understandable" because, ya know, lotsa times parents go overboard in trying protect their kids... even from imaginary risks... even at the expense of other people's rights.. even gay parents sometimes... so you can kinda-sorta see why.... ya know?

That's why, these particular gay people will tell you, it's so terribly important that we *educate* str8 people... so that, ya know, they aren't afraid anymore and will eventually stop doing stuff like this.

And so I am given to wonder, how many Jews thought education was the answer when the Weimar government fell? I'm betting there were plenty... and those particular Jews ended up just as dead as the Jews who went placidly, just as dead as the ones who tried to flee (but failed), and just as dead as the ones who fought back in Warsaw.

It doesn't matter how 'understandable' your enemy's attitude is. He remains your enemy.

To pretend otherwise is fatal... particularly when we pretend it to ourselves.

And now the genocide advocate is getting backing from a leading Roman Catholic priest and educator

The 66-year-old said he was doing well one day after he resigned after Ave Maria officials asked him to step down, citing irreconcilable differences.

Fessio’s dismissal came after statements he made were published Tuesday in an article in the California Catholic Daily titled, "Hey, Hey, Baby Gay! What Do You Do? What Do You Say?" and on the personal Web site of one of the country’s preeminent evangelist leaders, the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr.

Fessio said his comments about homosexuality in the California Catholic Daily article or on Mohler’s Web site were not the reason for his dismissal.

Research into the human genome and the possibility of germ-line therapies raises all kinds of moral concerns, ranging from the creation of designer babies to the redefinition of humanity. In one article, I was said to advocate genetic therapies. I never said that, and I resolutely oppose such proposals. I would not advocate the use of genetic therapies to create heterosexual babies — or any other therapy of this type. The hypothetical question I addressed had nothing to do with genetic factors at all. Furthermore, genetic factors are likely to be so complex and inter-related that no single genetic factor or set of factors is likely to be found to cause anything as complex as sexual attraction.

If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.

It seems that genocide has become a label to be stuck on your worst enemy, a perverse version of the Nobel Prize, part of a rhetorical arsenal that helps you vilify your adversaries while ensuring impunity for your allies. [..] Darfur gives the Warriors on Terror a valuable asset with which to demonise an enemy: a genocide perpetrated by Arabs.

‘When I spoke at Cornell University recently, a woman asked why I always harp on Darfur. It’s a fair question. [..] We have a moral compass within us and its needle is moved not only by human suffering but also by human evil. That’s what makes genocide special – not just the number of deaths but the government policy behind them. And that in turn is why stopping genocide should be an even higher priority than saving lives from Aids or malaria.’

If many of the leading lights in the Darfur campaign are fired by moral indignation, this derives from two events: the Nazi Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. [..] Again, the encounter between the two seemed to take place outside any context, as part of an eternal encounter between evil and innocence.

Homosexuality in the animal kingdom is as natural as green grass in summer. Amusing or appalling as some might find it, this ‘weird proclivity’ has been recorded in 1,500 animals species from mammals to crabs and worms.

Same sex pairs of animals kiss and caress each other with obvious affection and tenderness. Any homosexual behavior you care to name — anal sex, same sex kissing, long term pair bonding between members of the same sex, courtship rituals unique to homosexual couples and more are commonly found in the animal kingdom. Yet this not yesterday’s discovery.

The earliest mention of animal homosexuality was by Aristotle, who spoke of homosexuality between hyenas.

The earliest mention of animal homosexuality was by Aristotle, who spoke of homosexuality between hyenas.

Hyena females are considerably larger than the males. The females are masculinized due to the excess testosterone in their bodies; they have more testosterone in their bodies than most male hyenas. As a result of this masculinization, females are a third larger than the males, have more muscle mass, are more aggressive, and have masculinized genetalia. Their vulva is fused to look like a scrotum and testes, and their clitoris is large and looks like a phallus, and can be erected just like a penis. The vagina runs through the pseudo penis. This makes it hard for them to mate and give birth, since they do so through this pseudo penis. It was once thought that hyenas were hermaphroditic animals because the females sported genitalia similar to the males. In fact, the only sure way to determine the sex of a hyena is that after giving birth the female's two black nipples become enlarged.

The erect 'penis' of both sexes plays a prominent role in ritualized greeting
.

Golly... that'd mean it pre-dated the bible, wouldn't it?

Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC)