I've been looking forward to this ever since Palin was announced. I knew that Camille Paglia was going to pee her britches over Sarah and it gave me something to look forward to - all the letters on Salon.com in response to what i knew would be her daft and shallow take on the Republicans VP pick. It's always the letters that are far more interesting and entertaining than anything Paglia has to say.

Wow, all these nasty, hateful, intolerant, fascistic letters bashing Democrats and progressives as nasty, hateful, intolerant and fascist. Those letters all sound so sophomoric, like they were written by high school students. Must be all those low information voters Paglia has corrupted with her sensationalist malarky while shopping at Wal-Mart. Are your books on the remainder shelves there yet?

I just don't buy it, and I'm a gay man. I'm left unconvinced by the reductionist thinking in the "everything is determined by our biology" thinking in contemporary science and popular culture. These gay scientists in a mad rush to "prove" that queerness is "caused" by chemistry I believe are still struggling with the emotional and psychological effects of growing up in a homophobic culture. They're still operating from the paradigm of homosexuality as "disease". That it must have some "cause" unlike the more "natural" and "expected reproductive heterosexual behavior." That leaves out all kinds of questions regarding heterosexual behavior (the Darwinian assumption is that its thrust is reproduction.) and the role of homosexual behavior in stimulating heterosexual behavior and the reverse. AND we haven't begun to look at homosexual DESIRE that is often present during a heterosexual act, and the reverse.

The "gay gene" theory has been debunked and I believe these brain scan studies don't really prove much except that different parts of the brain are more active during different varieties of sexual conduct. Which parts of the brain are turned on during S&M sex? or pedophilia?, etc. The human brain is a many-splendored thing.

The need to find some biological basis for homosexual sex (other than sheer horniness and the availability of a willing partner) is rooted in the need to overthrow the tyranny of homophobia as much as it is science. That is perfectly understandable, but the arguments are ultimately misguided in this regard. Even if most people can be convinced of a biological basis for homosexuality, it wouldn't stop the homophobes from hating and fearing homosexualists. They will simply equate that biological function with other known human frailties or diseases (cancer, a bad heart, down syndrome, fused skulls, cleft palettes, etc.) and still insist on its cure.

The true picture of homosexual (and hopefully the full picture of heterosexual) desire and behavior may yet be presented, which I suspect will include such influences as environment, culture, gender identities, cultural expectation and training, nurturing, and experience as much as it will any single biological component - a variation (failure?) of the feedback system to entirely impose heterosexual behavior as the norm. The human animal is far too complex to be reduced entirely to material substance.

Recommended reading, Robert Lancaster's "The Trouble With Nature, Sex in Science and Popular Culture."

duh, everything is biological

No knappa, it isn't. We're more than a collection of biological urges. We make choices and we remember the past and project ourselves into the future. We live in highly complex societies, which is one of the hallmarks of being human. I have no need to explain or justify my sexual choices to jealous scolds and sexual "moralists", or to overcome the scars of homophobia by telling myself that it's "in the genes." What difference would it make, even if that were true? None of that would stop me from making love to my own gender whenever I felt like it and have the opportunity.

The hate and fear mongering, and condemnation, of homosexual behavior says everything about the people doing the mongering and not a thing about me.

There is one very important thing to keep in mind about sexuality and sexual orientation in general, or the words we use to describe it. Homosexuality is a behavior. Gayness is a cultural identity. Heterosexuality is a behavior. Straigtness is a cultural identity. These phenomenon are not equal.

Homosexuality is frequently engaged in by people in prison, but few of those identify as "gay".

Many, many people, who would never identify as "gay" either sometimes or frequently engage in, or simply desire to engage in homosexual behavior. The internet is FULL of married men, or men otherwise partnered with a female, looking for hookups with other men. In fact the internet has been a great boon to these men because they can control the parameters of their hookups without exposing themselves to being "found out" in ways that were not available to them before.