In the blink of an eye

Interesting op-ed in today’s Times by Nicholas Kristof, on recent studies on the biology of homosexuality:

Gays themselves are divided. Some welcome these studies because they confirm their own feeling that sexual orientation is more than a whim. Others fret that the implication is that homosexuals are abnormal or defective–and that future genetic screening will eliminate people like them.

For me the implication, if these studies are to believed, is different: It is that something is defective not in gays, but in discrimination against them.

The blinking study referenced in the piece is “Sexual Orientation-Related Differences in Prepulse Inhibition of the Human Startle Response” (Qazi Rahman et al. Behavioral Neuroscience, 2003, Vol. 117, No. 5, 1096-1102).

Also, speaking of gay issues, there are a couple of good opinion pieces in the fall issue of Dissent: “Privacy without the Closet: Lawrence vs. Texas” by Jean L. Cohen; and “Gay Marriage and the Domestication of Sex” by Murray Hausknecht, which makes a conservative case for gay marriage:

This reveals a logical contradiction between “family values” and “traditional morality.” The latter’s opposition to same-sex marriage encourages a promiscuity that monogamous, lifetime relationships, a basic premise of “family values,” are expected to prevent. Logic aside, though, one would expect that conservatives, who value social order for its own sake, would support same-sex marriage, albeit reluctantly, if only as a means of controlling disorderly sexual behavior.