On advocating "gene therapy" to eradicate homosexuality

Hard to know where to even start to "unpack" this report from Religion News Service about the lengths to which some on the religious right would go to eradicate gay and lesbian people from the human family. These would be the same people who oppose stem cell research which might lead to treatment breakthroughs for Parkinson's Disease, MS and other dread diseases on the grounds it "plays God." And yet they are willing to consider gene therapy that would reverse the sexual orientation in those they have doggedly insisted are gay "by choice."

Meanwhile we -- gay and lesbian people -- are being asked to "pause" and be "in dialogue" with those who literally advocate our extinction: a request that is making less and less sense every day.

Mohler Says Gay Gene Should Be Manipulated, if Possible
By Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service

The president of a prominent Southern Baptist seminary says he would support medical treatment, if it were available, to change the sexual orientation of a fetus inside its mother's womb from homosexual to heterosexual.The idea was floated by the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., on his blog, last Friday (March 2).

"If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin," Mohler wrote in advice for Christians.

Mohler's view, in some ways, could signal a shift away from traditional evangelical thinking on homosexuality, from a condition that is changeable to one that is actually determined by genetics. Mohler said there is "no incontovertible or widely accepted proof" that sexual orientation is based in biology, yet "the direction of the research points in this direction."In addition, the idea of genetically altering a fetus -- and which characteristics to alter -- raises deep ethical and theological questions about Christian parents' ability to change a baby they believe was created by God.

Read the rest here ...