In the hours after the new study linking homosexuality with heredity was released, I was asked several times if I possessed psychic powers. The play I wrote, The Twilight of the Golds, is the story of a family thrown into turmoil when a pregnant woman is told through genetic testing that her fetus will most likely be homosexual. "It's like The China Syndrome and Three Mile Island," people said. "How did you know to write about this a year and a half ago?"
At first I replied, a bit smugly, "Well, if you followed the recent developments in this kind of research, the Simon LeVay hypothalamus study and all that, it was obvious that this was the direction in which we were headed. Blah, blah, blah."
But that's not the real answer. The truth is, I knew, as just about any gay person did, that it was only a matter of time. I knew in my bones that my own sexuality was not a decision but a natural part of who I am. I was confident that it wasn't a sign of psychiatric illness or of a dysfunctional upbringing -- my father was just as smothering as my mother, thank you, and in the best way possible. The coming-out process is not one of choice but of self- discovery and acceptance. To find a biological or genetic basis for this variation of human nature made perfect sense.
So my first reaction to the news (after "I hope this sells some tickets") was one of excitement and relief. So much of the anti-gay legal and social argument is based on the premise that it is a learned behavior and an immoral choice. This would prove them wrong! That feeling lasted about a minute and a half. The notion that Pat Robertson might look at a chart of DNA and say, "Well, I'll be; I've been wrong all this time. I'd better send an apology, maybe a small gift to Larry Kramer . . ." is absurd. Indeed, conservatives have already come forward with their own interpretations of the new findings; a representative of the Family Research Council compared homosexuality with illnesses like alcoholism. It seems that those who have a fundamental hatred of homosexuals will not be swayed.
And without the potential good this new information can do in changing people's minds, the potential dangers are terrifying. Some may search for a "cure" or, in the more immediate future, consider aborting a fetus that is predicted to be gay. This is the scenario in The Twilight of the Golds, which I expected to remain in the realm of science fiction for much longer than it apparently will.
The title of the play is a pun on The Twilight of the Gods, the final opera in Richard Wagner's Ring cycle. The Ring is a sprawling work about gods and mortals deciding the fate of the world. The information the Gold family receives in the play puts them in the same godlike position, just where the current crop of genetic discoveries puts all of us. It is impossible to overstate the significance of these questions, What kind of world do we want? How will we make these decisions? Whom do we let in?