Deb sent me this link to an article written by a gay man about research biologists are doing into sexual orientation in sheep. Some folks on both sides of the issue were very worried about the research.
This little piece of faunal ephemera might otherwise have gone unnoticed outside the rarely intersecting subcultures of gays and shepherds. But a few months ago, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched a p.r. campaign on behalf of gay sheep. PETA claims that researchers in Oregon are killing gay sheep and cutting open their brains in order to learn how to turn gay rams straight. A few weeks ago, London's Sunday Times picked up the story in an unnerving article that states the research "raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual." The story has pinged around quite a few blogs since, and Rush Limbaugh and Martina Navratilova have taken their predicted positions. (Limbaugh: gay activists finally have a reason to oppose abortion. Navratilova: homophobes are murdering gay sheep.)
It had a very interesting perspective:. The research actually doesn't seem to have much implication for humans. Sexuality in humans seems to be much more varied, and the author thought that it didn't have much usage for humans.
Okay, this quote made me laugh:
(Another small but fascinating finding: all gay rams are butch--none present themselves sexually the way ewes do.)
So, apparently, the gay rams don't "baa" with a lisp. The author notes that someone should have used the phrase "ewegenics". Ouch!
For myself, I know that being gay is an unalterable fact of who I am, rather than some sort of choice that I whimsically made. It bugs me no end when some idiot tries to tell me that they know more about being me than I do. My standard retort for years has been "Great, well since you get to tell me about being gay, I now get to tell you about being pregnant." It's just pure arrogance for someone to make those sort of broad assertions about a group that they don't belong to.
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