"How Did This Happen..."

Yesterday, I put forward the idea that much of the progress in GLBT civil rights that we've experienced in the last decade has been attributable to our greater visibility in society and in MSM.  Vice President Joe Biden said as much when one year ago today, he said:

"I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men marrying women are entitled to the same exact rights. All the civil rights, all the civil liberties. And quite frankly I don’t see much of a distinction beyond that. [...] I think Will & Grace probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody has done so far. People fear that is different and now they’re beginning to understand."

But beyond even this, science has also done much to substantiate that being GLBT is not a "lifestyle" choice, but is rather the result of a complex interaction of genetics, environment (in the womb) and other still to be indentified factors that make homosexuality just as innately predetermined as someone's racial characteristics or even right or left handedness.

In a fantastic article from the Boston Globe back in 2005, Neil Swidy examined the debate over "Nature vs Nurture" and highlighted the rapidly advancing science that points to homosexuality being an inborn characteristic.  Eight years later, it's still a fascinating read and a thoughtful and thoroughly insightful examination of where we'd go from there (2005), and as it turns out, where we are arriving today...

Read:

What Makes People Gay?
The debate has always been that it was either all in the child's upbringing or all in the genes. But what if it's something else?

"Fear Eats the Soul"