Inconvenient Evidence for the Religious Right: Gay Sheep

Time Magazine just published an article about the uproar in the blogging world over Oregon Health & Science University's research on homosexual rams. It turns out the claims made by PETA were blown out of proportion, but I'm not going to cover that here (I suggest you read the article because it's interesting to see how quick rumors can get out of control on the internet). What I'm going to cover here is the findings of the study.

One finding was that about 8% of rams have sex exclusively with other rams, which is about the rate of incidence found in human populations. Another finding is "that gay rams have different brain structures from heterosexual ones."

It all goes to show how reality goes completely against the claims of fundamentalist Christian organizations such as Focus on the Family who insist that homosexuality is a "morally deviant choice." Come on people, the only reason you think that is because of a few lines in a Bronze Age text. If they really think humans are the only living things with free will, then how do they explain a part of nature engaging in "morally deviant behavior?" Of course, the willing ignorance of conservative Christians means these findings will probably be ignored and James Dobson will keep doing "research," a.k.a. making shit up, to justify his interpretion of the Bible.

If we really want to be a moral and just society, then we need to look away from ancient myths, not towards them. Otherwise, millions of Americans will continue to suffer from irrational, pointless hatred based on a distant culture's prejudices that have no bearing on the modern world.