Re: Fly Gene

Even if it is later demonstrated that sexual tendencies in human beings
are genetically influenced, the behavior has to be controlled by other
forces. I do not recall any passage in Torah that speaks of lesbianism,
but male homosexual activity was fatal. Heterosexual activity was
restricted to marriage, though multiple wives were tolerated, as were
mistresses in addition to the wives. However, a male who had intercourse
with a woman who was neither betrothed nor married had to marry her and
could not divorce her ever. Forcing a betrothed or married woman had two
possibilities. If she didn't make a fuss, both were stoned. If she made a
fuss, or if assaulted away from town where a cry for help would not be
answered, the man alone would be stoned. This is different from the
current attitude of the justification of doing whatever comes naturally.
But flies will be used to support the current view.
Dave

On Sat, 04 Jun 2005 12:39:54 -0700 "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net>
writes:
In case you missed it, here's a potentially explosive headline, from
yesterday's Arizona Republic:

Fly study points to master gene directing its sexual behavior

It looks to me that this has the makings of real conflict for those who
are certain that sexual preference and behavior are elective,
particularly when based on some pretty explicit scripture references.
There is some strong inference, some correlation evidence, and some
pretty decent (coherent) working hypotheses that up 'til now just formed
a tentative framework that anticipated this discovery. But this appears
very likely to be the missing genetic piece of the puzzle - and
unexpectedly focused on a single gene (at least in this case).

JimA
Received on Sat Jun 4 16:53:14 2005