Scarce a week goes by without the great – allegedly yet deceptively morally crucial - “gay gene” debate flaring up, prompted by anything from queer goings on amongst penguins at New York zoo, to “against nature” jibes lobbed by right-wing fascists or religious thugs.

A tiny, genetically-altered female fruit fly (what else!) that scientists had endowed with a single male-type gene recently went down into the annals of gay history - after humping another female fly. Repeated experiments all engendered swarms of lascivious lesbian lady bugs! Likewise, males that were artificially given the female version of the gene became more passive and eyed each other up (so-to-speak). One breathless researcher - confessedly “awed and shocked” by the results - buzzed: "We have shown that a single gene in the fruit fly is sufficient to determine all aspects of the flies' sexual orientation and behaviour."

Elsewhere, a new queer corker - Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sexual Orientation (by Rahman & Wilson) - has likewise concluded that (admittedly more complex) human leanings are determined by a combination of genetics and hormonal activity in the womb - and that upbringing, childhood experience and personal choice have little or no influence.

Such developments buttress a recent opinion-poll that found that two thirds (66%) of gays themselves thought their orientation was the result of a gay gene.

Live-and-let-live liberals may insist it’s utterly morally irrelevant whether one’s sexuality is, in fact, the result or “nature” or “nurture” or both. Yet beware: knowledge is a power that can be spun, either way.

Indeed, even if a human gay gene does exist, that will not end gay hate – quite the reverse, as with the case of clearly gene-determined race. It might help stop the odd half-hearted homophobe on the grounds that “well, they can’t help it” or “it’s not so unnatural after all, I guess”; likewise, and far more likely, it could provoke fundamentalist regimes - sustained by oppressive social theories or the “Word of God” - to identify and eradicate potentially gay embryos, or neuter all queer-begetters who seek to pro-create.

Adrian Gillan