[Aver-aging]

You guys need to spend more time watching TV. It was talked about on The Colbert Report with one of his guests who just recently wrote a book on homosexuality.

So far the evidence is showing that there is a gene that is carried by mothers that is more likely to be activated the older the mother is at the time of conception. That's why statistically gay men are more likely to be the youngest sibling in the family. So yes and no, it is kind of the product of a gene and kind of not.

It actually makes some sense, there is a fair amount of evidence out there that having children later in life for women inevitably raises their child's risk of having a birth defect. Really puts that whole nature vs. nurture thing into perspective.

As for the natural selection thing, it probably won't be bred out of the population. For one, the gene usually is not activated, so it gets passed on successfully with no change in the typical heterosexual phenotype. Secondly, if a woman is having children in her mid 30s, chances are she's already had at least a couple children before that who also have that gene but aren't gay. Third(ly?), even some gay people manage to reproduce before really understanding that they are homosexual. Homosexuality is pretty much here to stay.

The crazy thing about this is that even with new magical In Vitro gene-analyzing technology you can't prevent homosexuality, because the gene will be present regardless if the offspring is homosexual or heterosexual. They would have to figure out if the gene has activated or not, and by that time it would probably be in the later stages of fetal development.