Gay Marriage - Is It Really Bad for Family Values?

The purpose of this paper is to show the history of homosexual behavior, scientific research studies, homosexuality throughout history and the effect that allowing Same-Sex Marriage would have on the ideal of marriage within American family values. In looking at the scientific studies of the hypothalamus, the area of the brain that secretes substances that influence pituitary and other gland function, of homosexual males we will see that a same-sex attraction is not a choice but one that has biological bases. We will look at the recorded history of homosexuals and how it has been demonized by the extreme Evangelical Right Wing Conservative movement to incite fear and prejudice against the homosexual community and how the Bible has been used to promote these prejudices. Looking at same-sex couples found in the Bible and how even Christ spoke of homosexuals we will see that there has been a large mis-interpretation of biblical scriptures. Then finally we will examine the social and economic impact that Same-Sex marriages would have on the ideal of the "Ideal American Family".

"When we're free to love anyone we choose; When this world's big enough for all different views; When we all can worship from our own kind of pew; Than we shall be free. We shall be free." Garth Brooks', We Shall Be Free from his album, The Chase, stands as a testament to what we should all be thinking. That once we are allowed to live, worship and love who and where we choose only than will we know true freedom.

In no other time in the history of America has the issue of marriage been such a heated debate. Well, there was one other time and to think about it now seems crazy. This law would have kept African Americans from marring Caucasians. We look back now and can't believe that in our free country there could have ever been a law forbidding an interracial marriage. I do believe that one day the same will be said for the battle over same sex marriage of today.

In recent years, hotly debated topics have been looked at through the eyes of sociobiologists, trying to figure out their cause and their origins. One of the strongest debates, in the most recent years, is the topic of homosexuality. Homosexuality was originally thought by the American Psychological Association (APA) to be a mental disorder, but thanks to research into its causes, origins, and development have led to the APA removing homosexuality as a diagnoses or disorder (APA 2013). Currently the public and scientists are debating whether or not homosexuality is a result of nature: a person's environment and surroundings, or their biology and genetics. The debate continues because both sides have the ability to create a scientific environment to support their own causes. On one side you have biological scientists arguing that a monkey and a human child raised in the same setting , will develop with very different outcomes, while sociologists theorize that monozygotic twins, one raised normally and the other raised isolated for 18 years, will also develop with very different results, but differ even more than the first experiment.

Biology theorists have substantial findings in anatomy, genetics, and the endocrine system to support their arguments for a biological cause of homosexuality. Biological experiments date back as far as the late 1930's with controversial research by sexuality pioneer Alfred Kinsey from the University of Indiana. Dr. Kinsey had two goals for his research: first to find out how many adult males had engaged in homosexual behavior, and secondly to suggest theories on how this came to be. When the participants were asked if they had engaged in homosexual relations, a large percent of the participants tested answered no, however when asked if they had engaged in "same-sex" relations the percentage answering yes nearly doubled. This experiment yielded that 30% of males had experienced at least orgasm in a homosexual act. The results from the research became known as the Kinsey Scale of Sexuality. This scale rates all individuals on a spectrum of sexuality, ranging from 100% heterosexual to 100% homosexual. The study established that as many as 10% of adult males reported having sexual relations with same-sex partners and put the word homosexual into the common English language. (Kinsey Institute, 2013)

Dr. D.F. Swaab professor at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam conducted an experiment on the hypothalamus in 1990. His experiment became the first to document the physiological difference between the anatomical structures of a homosexual man's brain. Dr. Swaab found in his post-mortem examination of homosexual men's brains that a portion of the hypothalamus was structurally different than that in a heterosexual man's brain. In the homosexual brains that he examined, a small portion of the hypothalamus, termed the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), was discovered to be twice the size of the heterosexual counterpart.

During the same time that Dr. Swaab was conducting his tests another scientist Dr. Laura S. Allen, made a similar discovery in the hypothalamus also. She found that the anterior commissure (AC), the connective fibers between the two parts of the brain, was also significantly larger in the homosexual subjects than that of the heterosexuals. Both Dr. Swaab and Dr. Allen's results became the standard for the argument on homosexuality.

Prenatal and perinatal hormones organize in the components of the human brain and create either a male brain or a female brain and in turn produce either male or female typical behavior. The sexually dimorphic region of the brain would be located in the hypothalamus which is responsible for the sexual behavior of humans. The sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area (SDN-POA) is the most differentiated portion of the brain between males and females. In humans, the SDN is twice as large in a young adult male as it is in a female's. The SDN-PDA also plays an essential role in the secretion of gonadotropin, the chemical responsible for sexual behavior in many mammals and thus implies that it is critical in human sexual behavior. There are four cell groups located in the preoptic-anterior hypothalamic area. These four groups have been termed the Interstitial Nuclei of the Anterior Hypothalamus (INAH 1-4). Research on these cell groups shows that the INAH-3, third interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus, is about three times larger in a male brain than in the brain of a female. The INAH-2, the second interstitial nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus, is twice as large in the male brain than found in the female brain. The importance of these regions of the brain in sexual differentiation, between the male and female, led scientists to believe that sexual orientation could be on a continuum