Reading Richard Dawkins’ latest book – the Ancestor’s Tale – has introduced me to a lot of ideas (should they be called "ideas" since they’ve pretty much accepted by all but the most committed Harry Potter burning fundamentalists?) about genetics. One question which came up recently in a BBCi news article was about the so called gay gene. Does it exist? What are the implications if it does?

A worryingly short period of time ago homosexuality was considered by many to be a disease. A treatable disease which required sufferers to be shipped off to special sanatoriums (sanatoria?) where they would be shown pictures of naked women, read specially selected passages from the Bible, have electrodes attached to their genitals and generally taught not to be queer. Gay pressure groups denounced this practice and told the world that homosexuality wasn’t a disease, it was a way of life.

Now they are swapping sides. It’s weird but true. The anti-gay factions are denouncing homosexuality as a mere lifestyle choice while the pro- lobby says it is genetic. They carry around placards like the one shown as they march against homophobia. I’m troubled by this stance. I’m troubled by the claims of supposedly well meaning people that being gay isn’t a choice. Not because I think it IS a choice but because the implication is "I’m gay – I don’t want to be, I didn’t ask to be but I’m stuck with it". You could also add "At least it gives me something to be really grumpy about so I suppose that’s one thing in its favour" and smutty comedians would close with "But generally it’s a pain in the arse."

That then brings up the question "What is a choice?" On the simple level a choice is deciding between two or more things. But that covers everything from whether you put on a coat or not on a gloomy day to whether you press the nuclear button and condemn the world to a radioactive death. Sometimes it’s not that simple – do you take sugar in your coffee? Some people cannot or will not drink coffee without, others live in fear of having to drink coffee with. Is that a choice or not? Smoking cigarettes is choice but you ask a smoker whether they choose to smoke and their answer will very possibly be different than if you asked them whether they could stop.

Is being vegetarian a choice? Do I choose not to eat meat because I don’t like it or because I have a deep rooted aversion to it? Is an ethical decision like that a choice? I could go to McDonalds tomorrow and have a double cheese burger (or could I? That might be Burger King – it’s been a good while since I darkened either of their doors). But I don’t want to. I just am vegetarian. It feels right and I know I look at it differently from the majority of people. This isn’t simply a case of taking black and white facts and picking either option A or option B. Other people, in my experience, simply don’t understand how I feel about it which suggests there is more to the matter than simply reason and logic.

Some would say that a gay gene is impossible as gay people don’t (on the whole) reproduce therefore the gene would die out. Genes are funny things. Did you know that you could, theoretically, have absolutely no genetic inheritance from a relative as close as a grandparent? Each parent gives you half of your genes so supposing your father gives you a half made up entirely of the half he got from his mother then your paternal grandfather’s genes would be entirely absent. This is, of course, highly unlikely but it shows that genes can move in mysterious ways.

Not to mention that homosexuality has, throughout history, been even more persecuted than it is today. Most just ignored their "unnatural" feelings and got on with the business of marriage and breeding. And genes can lay dormant in one generation and spring into life in the next. So the concept of a gay gene isn’t as silly as it first sounds.

Some would ask what purpose a gay gene would have. After all, Dawkins describes living beings as simply vessels to carry and reproduce genes. Why would a gene which would defeat the purpose of genes be brought into existence? One answer could be population control. Survival dictates than the population is kept at a level which doesn’t endanger the whole by exceeding the resources available. If, say, ten percent of the workforce can live productive lives whilst not adding to the growing population then that is to the advantage of the whole.

The implications of a gay gene are more worrying. If a gene can be identified and understood then it can be modified or even eliminated. At the moment, the best a doctor can do is tell prospective parents whether the foetus looks a bit poofy or whether it’s decorated the womb in a worryingly stylish fashion. They can then recommend that the mother listens to lots of Metallica or Guns’n’Roses (though not Judas Priest) and that it be exposed to lots of talk about football and beer. In the future we could see parents aborting because their baby is going to be gay. Don’t think it will happen? Think again. It may not be legal in our civilised countries but there are parts of the world where female children are killed by parents who want only sons. Marriage is still a currency around the world and I somehow don’t think they’ll solve the problem by legalising gay marriage.

One day we’ll know for sure whether there really is a gay gene. It’s something that will always get scientists publicity and scientists like publicity. So they’ll carry on researching and posing for photographs with test tubes. But the issue of choice still bothers me. I prefer to think of it as comparable to falling in love. Is falling in love with a particular person decided by your genes? Probably not (though there are no doubt scientists with test tubes and practiced smiles who will mumble something about pheromones and such like determining who you will fall in love with). Is falling in love with a particular person decided by you? Not consciously. So there must be a third factor somewhere between genes and conscious decision making. It is this third realm that decides whether we are gay or straight, vegetarian or carnivore, sugar takers or non-sugar takers. It decides the things that we "know" or "feel" are right or wrong, true or false without us having to weigh up the facts.

And people change. I really do believe that. The standard bigot line was that lesbians just haven’t met the right bloke yet. That is a crude and ignorant viewpoint to hold because it assumes it is true in every case. But equally ignorant is the idea that a lesbian who does find the right man is somehow a traitor to the cause. In an ideal world of course everyone would be relaxed and groovy enough to be whatever felt right at the time. Minds and hearts wouldn’t be closed to other possibilities. In the meantime let’s just try to ignore the extremists on both sides and be as relaxed and groovy as possible.