That is a provocative idea, but not necessarily a new one. The impulse to eliminate a homosexual population is tempting, but it could backfire in ways we cannot yet imagine. I’ll make my point with an analogy.
Due to recent technological innovation it is now possible to preselect the sex of an unborn child. Through genetic testing it is also possible to screen embryos for a number of illnesses that have a genetic basis or predisposition (such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes, colon, breast cancer, and many other illnesses) which may develop later in life. As of right now, this screening can take place when an embryo is as small as eight-cells in a petri dish. This screening is called preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or P.G.D. and it has been available for about 10 years. You can read an article about it here
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/health/03gene.web.html?ex=1173502800&en=de323c864d6562f5&ei=5070As our technology advances we are able to screen for more and more potential “problems” in embryos and increasing numbers of couples are taking advantage of this technology. I put that word in quotation marks because sometimes Nature has a reason for introducing what we think of as a “problem” and using new technology to eliminate some of those “problems” may result in much bigger problems down the road that we cannot anticipate.
PGD is still in its infancy. We are starting to learn that genes and mutations that cause certain illnesses also have benefits that we either do not yet understand or would not want to live without. We have recently learned, for example, that a mutation of the CCR5 gene -- called "delta 32” renders the carrier immune to HIV. People who have this mutation cannot contract the HIV virus even when they are exposed to it in the usual ways. Obviously, studying this population and their genetic make up is one angle researchers are pursuing . . .
It is a good thing that we have discovered this when we did, because if given a choice, many people might elect to screen out what they thought were defective or mutated genes in their embryos without really understanding the future implications of doing so.
My point is simply this: Nature knows what it is doing.
We may not always like it, but it generates and mutates genes for reasons we cannot always immediately understand. We shouldn’t be quick to interfere with this. Similarly, Nature has decided that for some reason, a certain percentage of the population should be homosexual. We may not like it because of social or religious reasons, but the fact is Nature has been producing a homosexual population since mankind has existed. It has done so in the animal kingdom as well. Nature has a
reason for doing this. The fact that we do not yet understand that reason does not mean we should try to solve a “problem” that Nature has decided should exist.
