Final word.

From the Can-West Global News Service:

A Chicago genome researcher says he has found a group of genes that strongly influence whether a man is homosexual--not a single "gay gene," but a group of genes acting together. This provides at least part of the explanation for what makes men gay, a question that gene scientists have sought to solve for more than a decade.

The University of Illinois at Chicago and U.S. National Institutes of Health searched through the genes of 456 men from 146 families—each of which has at least two gay brothers, and have essentially determined that there are three genes, two genes from the X chromosome and one from the Y chromosome, acting in combination.

There is concern among some geneticists as to how some expectant parents will respond to this information. The fear is that some parents, if, prenatal DNA testing shows the fetus carries this combination of genes, may opt to terminated the pregnancy. An abortion of an otherwise perfectly normal human being—who is destined to be homosexual.

And to some parents, this may pose a real dilemma. Those who are opposed to both homosexuality—AND to abortion, who oftentimes are religious, holding a rigid set of beliefs on both subjects.

The research is reported in the Journal of Human Genetics.

Don Firth