One of the issues surrounding homosexuality leads back to the long-lived debate of nature vs. nurture. Is a person born homosexual? Or nurtured to become homosexual? Homosexuality is a trait spawned of genetics and genetics only. One cannot be nurtured to become homosexual or not.

There is the twin study issue. Probably Nature’s best argument when it comes to studies. Jerry Levey and Mark Newman for example, were twins who did not meet until the age of 30. When they were reunited, both had similar mustaches and hairstyles, aviator glasses, big belt buckles and big key rings. Each was a volunteer firefighter and made his living installing safety equipment. Each drank Budweisder and crushed the cans when he finished. Jerry and Mark are the rule experts say, not the exception. Researchers found that 70 percent of the intelligence quotient is accounted for by genes, the strongest correlation found for any characteristic. Genetics accounts for about 50 percent of personality difference, including traits such as extroversion, 50 percent of religiosity, including how often someone attends religious events and about 40 percent for job variations. (Maugh 1)

In December of 1991, Michael Bailey of Northwestern University joined Richard Pillard of the Boston University School of Medicine in publishing a study of homosexuality in twins. Their conclusion is that sexual orientation is something one is born with. Bailey and Pillard surveyed homosexual men about their brothers, and they found some statistics that were rather unexpected. Of the homosexuals who had identical twin brothers, 52 percent of those twins were also homosexual. 22 percent of those who had fraternal twins said that their twin was gay, and only eleven percent of those who had adopted siblings said that their adopted brothers were also homosexual. Bailey and Pillard attributed the differences in these percentages to the difference in the amount of genetic material shared. Since identical twins have the same genetic code, they are far more likely to share sexual orientation than fraternal twins. In the same way, it is obvious that fraternal twins have more in common genetically than do their adopted siblings.

Much media attention has been given to a number of recent attempts by researchers to associate homosexual behavior with certain brain structures, hormones or genes. Such biological explanations may relate to one another, since brain structures may develop under the influence of hormones, which in turn operate under instructions from the genetic code. The research is only beginning, and the early theories that have garnered much media attention have not yet withstood the crucial test of replication by other researchers. Below is a study of a researcher that takes nature over nurture when it comes to homosexuality.

In 1991 neurobiologist S. LeVay dissected the brains of thirty-five male cadavers, including those of nineteen known homosexual men who had died of AIDS, and discovered that a part of the hypothalamus in the brains of the homosexual men was on average smaller than that of the other men and the same size as that of women. A year after the publication of LeVay’s study, the research team of L S. Allen and R. A. Gorski reported that a cluster of nerve fibers between the hemispheres of the brain, the anterior commissure, was on average larger in thirty-four homosexual men. Although this part of the brain has no known connection to sexual behavior, some researchers suspect a connection to the fact that homosexual men are much more likely to be left-handed, dyslexic and tend to stutter; all factors related to the development of the brain hemispheres.

Researchers report that they have linked male homosexuality to a small region of one human chromosome. The results have yet to be confirmed by other laboratories, and the chromosomal region implicated, if it holds up under further scrutiny, is almost surely just a single chapter in the intricate story of sexual orientation and behavior. Nevertheless, scientists said the work suggests that one or several genes located on the bottom half of the sausage-shaped X chromosome may play a role in predisposing some men toward homosexuality. In men, the X chromosome pairs with the Y chromosome to form the so-called sex chromosomes, the final set of the 23 pairs of chromosomes found in all cells of the human body. A man’s X-chromosome is always inherited from the mother, who bestows on her son a reshuffled version of one of her two copies of the X chromosome. The latest results indicate that the newly reported genetic factor is passed through the maternal line, a curious twist given that in the past psychiatry has held women at least partly responsible for fostering their sons’ homosexuality.

“The key factor is that these genes both influence homosexuality in men, higher fecundity in females and are in the maternal and not the paternal line,” Andrea Camperio-Ciani, who headed the research team, said in an interview. “We know that at least one of these genetic factors in on the X chromosome but that it not enough, there must be other genetic factors that are important but are elsewhere,” Camperio-Ciani added. The results are based on a study of 98 homosexual and 100 heterosexual men and about 4,600 of their relatives. The scientists compared the frequency of gay men on the maternal and paternal lines of the families. Among homosexuals there were a greater number of gay men in the maternal line of the family, as well as greater fertility in the female relatives. “We can no longer say that is it impossible to have a gene that influences homosexuality because we found out that genes might have different effects depending on gender,” Camperio-Ciani.

Aside from all the medical research and studies as talked about above, if a person looks at homosexuality from their own perspective, than the point of a person’s sexual orientation being inborn can become more clear in most cases. The term “coming out of the closet” is often used and most people understand it’s meaning; which is a person who is gay, and than decides to “come out” and make his sexual preference public. That right there should tell you that a person’s sexual orientation is inborn. The person was shunned from his inborn calling to become homosexual by society and therefore kept it a secret to try to “fit in” to society or a certain clique or community. Don’t you think homosexuals would love it if they could just pick and choose their sexual being? Do you really think that if they could avoid the pressure from society and all the controversy surrounding homosexuality they would?? But the fact of the matter is that a human being does not pick and choose his or her sexual orientation and it nobody can be “taught” or “nurtured” to become homosexual.

To emphasize my point I will provide an example, take our small community of Cardinal Mooney High School. We have several homosexual kids who “came out of the closet”. Now, I believe it’s fair to say that our community in Cardinal Mooney High School is overwhelming heterosexual related. So you if one can be nurtured to his or her sexual orientation, than why did these couple of kids face the embarrassment and take daily harassment from people in our little community? They tried to cover up and “fit in”, even went as far as to have a “cover up girlfriend” to try to fit in and seem like he was normal. It’s amazing how much society and peers can pressure a person to deny their own sexuality, which they were born with just to try to fit in. But in the end, we face the facts. The couple of openly gay kids in our High School should be respected because they stopped lying to themselves and were brave enough to face our community and stay true to their sexuality that they were born to live. Now that’s just our very small community of Cardinal Mooney High School, now think of a much larger community and you can see that homosexuality is determined by nature, there’s no recipe to create a persons sexual orientation.