bigot
n
a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race
Jehovah's Witnesses have been tolerant and analytical of ideas other than their own when addressing this topic.
g96 9/22 p. 5 Are We Predestined by Our Genes?
What of Infidelity and Homosexuality?
According to an article published in The Australian, some genetic research asserts that “infidelity is probably in our genes. . . . It appears that our cheating hearts are meant to be that way.” Just imagine what havoc this attitude could wreak on marriages and families by creating a loophole for anyone who wants to claim diminished responsibility for a promiscuous life-style!
Regarding homosexuality, Newsweek magazine carried the headline “Born or Bred?” The article stated: “Science and psychiatry are struggling to make sense of new research that suggests that homosexuality may be a matter of genetics, not parenting. . . . In the gay community itself, many welcome the indication that gayness begins in the chromosomes.”
The article then quotes Dr. Richard Pillard, who said: “A genetic component in sexual orientation says, ‘This is not a fault, and it’s not your fault.’” Further strengthening this “no fault” argument, Frederick Whitam, a researcher in homosexuality, observes that “there is a tendency for people, when told that homosexuality is biological, to heave a sigh of relief. It relieves the families and homosexuals of guilt. It also means that society doesn’t have to worry about things like gay teachers.”
Sometimes, so-called evidence that homosexual tendencies are determined by genes is presented by the media as factual and conclusive rather than as a possibility and inconclusive.
The New Statesman & Society magazine puts cold water on some of the flair for rhetoric: “The dazzled reader may well have overlooked the sketchiness of the actual hard physical evidence—or, indeed, the total absence of a basis for the scientifically egregious [flagrant] claim that promiscuity ‘is encoded in the male genes and imprinted on the male brain’s circuitboard.’” In their book Cracking the Code, David Suzuki and Joseph Levine add their concern about current genetic research: “While it is possible to argue that genes influence behavior in a general sense, it is quite another matter to show that a specific gene—or pair of genes, or even a score of genes—actually control specific details of an animal’s responses to its environment. At this point, it is fair to ask whether anyone has found, in the strict molecular sense of locating and manipulating, any stretches of DNA that affect specific behaviors predictably."