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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