Same Gender Attraction

So over the last couple of months my family’s lives has been changed, My brother-in-law came out of the closet, bringing back so many memories of when my cousin came out, nearly ten years ago.  My husband’s family is what I would consider very close and they are all LDS members.  My brother-in-law has 4 children which completely threw our families into turmoil trying to understand why he has made this choice.

Having an aunt and a cousin who are lesbian/gay it wasn’t as big of a challenge for me to understand where I stand on the issue, as it is and probably will be for my in-laws.  I wanted to write some of my feelings and ideas on the subject to shed some light on not only my point of view but also where most of the literature (current literature anyway) from the LDS Church stands today on the issue of Same Gender Attraction.

Over the last 9 years my cousin, who is also a homosexual, and I have talked a lot about his feelings about being gay.  He did everything just like the other kids in high school.  He had great friends both male and female and dated many girls.  He did what was socially accepted.  He was supposed to like girls and he tried.  When he went to college he continued to try to like girls but it felt wrong.  He told me he knew he was gay since he was 12 and tired to do what everyone told him to do. He says he was born this way and tried to have feelings for the opposite sex but it just felt wrong.  My cousin also says that he would not choose to be gay if he had a choice.  He said things would be much easier if he was heterosexual.  My cousin, as well as my brother-in-law, feels the same way, that they were born this way but would change it if they could. 

My brother-in-law did what he thought to help him not have feelings for the same gender.  He got married, had kids, and then thought what now.  He still had these feelings for the same-gender and didn’t know what else to do to be happy.   After months of therapy he and his wife decided to get a divorce and move on.  He didn’t want to have these feeling for the same gender but did.  He has tried fighting these feelings his whole life and now has come to accept himself for who he is.  He loves his family and wants the best for them as well as the best for himself.  

I came across a really good study about twins; it has to do with identical twins vs. fraternal twins having SGA.  It says that 52 % of idenitical tiwns were both homosexual and fraternal twins 22 % were.  In this study they see that 52% of identical twins are both homosexual, so if homosexuality is strictly genetic, I would think that if one identical twin was homosexual the other would be 100% of the time.  This study does show that homosexuality can be genetic, but isn’t always genetic.  You cannot prove that someone is strictly born with homosexual traits.  This article seems to me that with nature and nurture it is more likely that both are likely causes of same-gender attraction rather than one or the other.

Through my experiences with family members I feel that homosexuality can be either nature or nurture.  What I find interesting is that the LDS views have been radically changing. Showing that regardless of any characteristic or sin, love and understanding should precede rejection or spiritually harmful conflict.  I highly recommend anyone who is curious on the subject of where the LDS church stands on the issue today they should read the pamphlet “God Loveth His Children” found at: http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=3e05c8322e1b3110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=e1fa5f74db46c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD