http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/13508298.htmGeneticist Dean Hamer says he never chose to be attracted to men. As we talked inside the renovated Washington, D.C., townhouse he shares with his partner and two dogs, the scientist popularly associated with so-called "gay genes" told me he knew he was gay since he was about 5.
That's what partly motivated Hamer, 54, to switch from basic molecular genetics to studying sexual orientation in 1992. When he told his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute what he was doing, they were puzzled. "It was pretty far out there," he says. Others thought the answer was too obvious - that of course it was genetic.
But outside the scientific community, Hamer says, it's still widely believed that gay people somehow choose their orientation and this further fuels discrimination. (Bush was asked in the presidential debates whether being gay was a choice. He said he didn't know.)
But will studying sexual orientation fight hatred or give it new tools? If scientists identify a "gay gene," will expectant parents use it for selective abortion?