I was born traditional
My kids were having a shouting match the other day. “They need to learn to fight”, I thought to myself. “Perhaps it's best to stay here on the lounge and leave them to it.”
When the noise started to interfere with my comfort, I decided it was time try a spot of refereeing. I separated the combatants, and tried to initiate a rational discussion. Of course, every time we got even close to talking calmly and rationally about what the real problem was and what we might do about it, someone would start shouting again, and then everyone would be shouting, and all possibility of reasonable discussion would evaporate (like my patience). Eventually I just left them to duke it out.
This seems to be how a great many things function in our society. Politics, arguably. The media, without a doubt. Why do we seem so incapable of sustaining any kind of reasonable discussion before the shouting takes over?
Take what happened to poor Albert Mohler in the last couple of weeks. Dr Mohler, who is President of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, and an articulate voice for Reformed Evangelicalism in the US, offered some musings on his blog about what the consequences would be if a genetic test became available that was able to predict for homosexuality. Despite the caveats and qualifications with which Dr Mohler hedged his brief online musings, the media frenzy started almost immediately. “Seminary president says babies born gay” screamed the headlines. Before he knew it, Dr Mohler was inundated with hate mail both from conservative Christians (accusing him of selling out to the devil by saying that homosexual was biological) and gay activists (pouring vitriol upon him for proposing that ‘gay babies be cured’). Neither group it seemed had taken the time to read the original blog article, because Dr Mohler had said neither thing.
No-one seemed to care. It's easier, after all, just to shout.
Ironically, quite soon after Al Mohler's brief entry into the media shouting match, another far more significant story slipped quietly under the media radar. Francis Collins, the head of the Human Genome Project, spoke about what genetic research has actually discovered about the ‘heritability’ of traits such as homosexuality. According to Professor Collins, there is a genetic, heritable element to many human behaviours. Studies have suggested for example, that cognitive ability is about 50% traceable to genetic inheritance—likewise extroversion (54%), agreeableness (42%) and traditionalism (54%). Professor Collins had this to say about homosexuality:
An area of particularly strong public interest is the genetic basis of homosexuality. Evidence from twin studies does in fact support the conclusion that heritable factors play a role in male homosexuality. However, the likelihood that the identical twin of a homosexual male will also be gay is about 20% (compared with 2-4 percent of males in the general population), indicating that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations. (Source.)
In other words, genetically inherited predispositions play some role in many behaviours—including homosexuality—but they are in no sense determinative. Environmental factors, and the choices of the individual over time, also play a massive part. And in the case of homosexuality, the level of likely genetic influence is relatively small—compared to, say, traditionalism.
What's that? I can hear the shouting beginning in the distance: “Christian author says babies born traditional ...”