My thanks to Michael R for the latest on the long-running story of the gay sheep of Oregon:-

Science told: hands off gay sheep

Experiments that claim to ‘cure’ homosexual rams spark anger

SCIENTISTS are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.

The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes.

It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the “straightening” procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.

So far so good.  But then the Times reports the reactions from a famous lesbian who won Wimbledon once or twice, a Professor of bioethics who seems, to judge from his blog, terribly interested in homosexuality (and doesn’t much like Iran), Peter Tatchell of the former Bermondsey bedsit tendency, and a spokesperson - or possibly spokes-sheep, it isn’t clear which - from animal rights group, PETA.

For some reason none of these people are advocates of parental rights.  Ovine, yes.  Homosexual, certainly.  Parents?  Children?  Not a chance.

It puts me in mind of a similar “debate” some years ago about a newly discovered and effective means to restore hearing function to certain deaf children.  The outrage from professional deafness advocates was very similar to the story here.  A hitherto undiscovered richness in deaf culture was noisily evoked.  We the public were asked to believe that something profoundly rewarding in signed interaction, something that weighed more heavily in the treasures of the personal life than the very voices of those one loves, would be lost to these children if the treatment was provided.  It was obviously untrue.  But then as now, nobody wanted to point out the reason for the deception: that it is unbearable for the disadvantaged, having fought perhaps all their lives to erect some semblance of self-respect and equal worth, to have this exposed as nothing by the simple mechanism of parental choice.  So unbearable is it, the antis will willingly deny new generations of children a normal life.

For such delusion to attend disability is no cause for our political satisfaction.  It is human farce upon human tragedy.  But it is also not really the point because rights of free speech and free association are taken from the majority not to raise others to some leftist utopia of joyous equality, but to deprive the majority of its healthy and natural cultural hegemony.  There is absolutely no morality in this, and no reason why we should hesitate to prick the “rights” balloon out of some newly learned Marxist sensibility.