This makes for interesting reading.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/26/AR2006062600456.html?nav=hcmodule
It seems males who have several older male brothers have a
higher rate of homosexuality, even when raised separately from
others siblings. Yet another piece of evidence for those who
say it's genetic, not choice. (Personally, I say it's both.)
I guess this means the catholic cult's plans and anti-gay idiocy
are backfiring when they tell couples to have many children.
Bob Dog
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Changes in the Womb Tied to Homosexuality In Boys With Brothers
Tuesday, June 27, 2006; Page A02
Many men are gay because of biological differences wrought by
their mothers before the boys were born, according to a study
that opens a new and contentious front in the same-sex marriage
wars.
Anthony F. Bogaert of Brock University in Ontario had already
documented that boys who have several older brothers are more
likely than others to grow up gay -- a phenomenon known as the
fraternal birth order effect.
But why? Some scientists have suspected social and environmental
factors, such as the large amount of time such boys spend
fraternizing with male siblings during their sexual development.
Others have wondered whether, after carrying multiple male
fetuses, women undergo biological changes that affect the
development of brain areas related to sexual orientation in
subsequent sons.
To find out, Bogaert looked at the family structures of 944 gay
and straight men, including men who grew up with multiple
stepbrothers rather than biological brothers and men whose
mothers had many sons before them but who did not grow up with
those brothers.
The results, in short: nature, 1; nurture, 0.
As described this week in the early online edition of the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it is the
number of boys a boy's mom has already had -- not the number of
boys he grows up with -- that best predicts whether that boy
will be gay.
The mechanism behind this apparent maternal alchemy remains a
mystery. But many scientists suspect that women mount a subtle
immune system response against male fetuses that becomes
stronger with each male pregnancy, ultimately affecting fetal
brains in ways that influence sexual orientation.
No similar links have been noted for lesbianism. And even among
boys, the birth order effect -- which becomes a prominent
influence in boys with two or three brothers or more -- accounts
for only about one in every seven gay men, Bogaert and
colleagues have calculated.
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