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Homosexuals are particularly vulnerable in this situation because, distinct from most other minorities, they are born into a family of people unlike themselves. Even the most liberal-minded heterosexual may stop for a moment and think, "Well, do I want my child to be gay?" In that moment of reflection lies the danger of genocide. No, it wouldn't have the calculated and theatrical horror of the concentration camps, but a minority population would be destroyed.
Well, so what? If people have such a distaste for homosexuals and subject them to discrimination and violence, why not remove this gene that brings with it so much controversy and suffering? The answer to this chilling question is simple. Because we'll lose too much. Being gay is not just a question of sexuality. When you are gay, you are part of a community, and it's not just the one shown in that cheesy footage of bare-chested guys slamdancing on the evening news. (When they need "heterosexual" footage, do the cameramen run to the local Chippendale's?)
Gay people are exactly that, "a people." When you come out, you discover a mysterious, close bond with others like you that is based on something much deeper than sex. What we share is unrelated to geography, religion or ethnicity. What links us is our feelings. This may be why there is such a thriving gay culture, filled with wit and celebration. Even the ravages of the AIDS epidemic haven't destroyed the gay spirit. Can you remove what makes a person gay and maintain that unique sensibility that has played a disproportionate role in the world's art and history? I don't think so. As the character of David Gold points out, "Every human being is a tapestry. You pull one thread, one undesirable color, and the art unravels. You end up staring at the walls."
The way to prevent this nightmare is not to put limits on scientific research or on a woman's right to have an abortion. Those are Band-Aid solutions that attack the wrong problem. The only solution is a frank discussion through which people understand the richness of the gay community and that to attack one unpopular group is to attack us all, no matter how skilled the rhetoric used in the cause of bigotry. The sooner such discussions take place, the better, for science will not wait.
When Twilight opened recently in Washington, I was fortunate enough to spend a day at the brand-new and heartbreaking Holocaust Museum. Yet again, I was stunned by the Nazis' painstaking "scientific" attempts to rid the gene pool of unwanted traits. Now, barely 50 years later, science is giving us the knowledge and tools that Hitler's medical staff only dreamed of. Our society will be forced, whether it wants to or not, to answer this question and others like it: Was Hitler wrong about the Jews but right about the homosexuals?
For those of us who think he wasn't right at all, it's time, once again, to get to work.