The Mystique of the Phantom "Gay Gene"
By Philip L. Bereano,
Seattle Times
| 02. 26. 1996
"If homosexuality is inherited, shouldn't it have died
out by now?"- two women talking in a New Yorker cartoon.
Last October 10th the US Supreme Court heard arguments in the
case of Romer v Evans, concerning Amendment 2 to the Colorado
Constitution, adopted by referendum, which would bar all state
and local laws protecting homosexuals from discrimination. The
courts in Colorado had thrown out the Amendment by claiming
that it infringed on the "fundamental right to participate
equally in the political process" by "fencing out
an independently identifiable class of persons" without
showing that the amendment "support(ed) a compelling state
interest" and was "narrowly tailored to meet that
interest."
In the proceedings in the lower Colorado courts, one of the
witnesses was a Federal scientist, Dean Hamer, who testified
that homosexuality was a genetically caused, rather than a cultural
or chosen, behavior. He was put on the stand by gay rights activists
trying to utilize language of an earlier Supreme Court case
which suggested that government's ability to protect a group
of people from discrimination might somehow be linked to...
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