“How many nights have I spent sick with worry and distraught by my homosexual feelings because I thought I was going to be punished by God for being gay”, asks Ahmed. And how all the time, he remembers, did he pray “that God would cure me of my homosexuality?”
Ahmed’s dilemma begs one very important question. Are people really born gay, or does upbringing or even conscious personal choice play a part? Gay people are born this way; that has long been one of the rallying cries of LGBT movement in the West, and sometimes the core of its argument. The-born-this-way notion is often invoked by LGBT activists to explain why homophobia is inexcusable and discrimination inane. There is even a song in support of this argument. However, opponents do not see it this way and say that homosexuality is unnatural. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Homosexuality is a completely natural phenomenon which is also observed and documented in more than 1,500 animal species. It is highly essential in the lives of a number of species. Dolphins for example indulge in same sex behavior to build strong social bonds within a group. Different animal species use same sex behavior to satisfy all sorts of needs like pleasure, pair bonding, looking after the young, and social advancement. So the entire argument that homosexuality is unnatural loses merit in the light of clear evidence of sexual diversity from the animal kingdom. Also there is a substantial evidence of various connections between genes, brain, and hormones in the determination of sexual identity. One research study conducted last year with 409 pairs of gay brothers found that homosexuality was more common amongst brothers, showing that sexual orientation is not a choice but that people are born gay or straight.
Other research has propounded or identified common anatomical and chromosomal traits among gay men or lesbians, and there is also ample discussion of a gay gene . The push to identify and isolate the gay gene is connected to the belief that establishing sexual orientation as an unyielding matter of biology, like a person’s skin color, will make homophobia as unconscionable as racism and win the critics over.
But the more important question is, why do we need biological evidence to evade condemnation of homosexuality? Our constitution and laws protect religious freedom and that is not due to the fact that there is a Muslim, Christian or Hindu gene. We don’t need a biological imperative to accept people who carry and openly display arms as their cultural or constitutional right in this country. We don’t need to be born this way to reject the notion that homosexuality poses threat to the stability of the family. We need only note that heterosexuality as practiced by majority of Pakistani husbands who regularly beat their wives is nothing to celebrate, and yet no one is trying to cure the straights. There is no rational explanation for bigotry. Who is to say that fundamentalists who preach reparative psychotherapy for gays now won’t suggest medical interventions instead when presented with biological evidence of homosexuality? Because a person’s lack of control over his or her skin color has hardly ended all discrimination against blacks.
“It is so difficult to live a gay life but if people are still living this difficult life, it has to be beyond nurturing and choice”, says an LGBT activist from Lahore. In the light of both this and the unanswered questions about development of sexuality, there is more wisdom and less harm in accepting and respecting homosexuality than not. Instead of debating whether people are born gay or not, we should focus on making sure everyone has rights and opportunities regardless of who they love.
