Sexual behaviour and romantic relationships are strongly influenced by a person’s sexual orientation though hormonal, psychological and anatomical factors are also implicated. Sexual orientation refers to your degree of emotional and erotic attraction to members of the same sex, opposite sex, or both sexes.

Heterosexual people are romantically and erotically attracted to members of the opposite sex. Homosexual people on the other hand, are those who are attracted to people whose sex matches their own. A person who is bisexual in his or her sexual orientation is also attracted to both men and women. People with the bisexual orientation are “snakes under grass” and are more dangerous because, they seem to live a normal life with their opposite sex partners while at the same time, still in their nocturnal business with their homosexual partners.

Sexual orientation is a deep part of personal identity. Starting with their earliest erotic feelings, most people remember being attracted to either the opposite sex or the same sex. The chances are practically nil of an exclusively heterosexual or homosexual person being “converted” from one orientation to the other. If you are heterosexual, you are probably certain that nothing could ever make you have homoerotic feelings. If so, then you know how homosexual persons feel about the prospects for changing their sexual orientation (Seligman, 1994).
What determines a person’s sexual orientation?
Available evidence on the subject suggests that sexual orientation is at least partly hereditary, although biological, social, cultural and psychological influences are also involved (Garnets, 2002). Some researchers now estimate that sexual orientation is from 30 to 70 percent genetic (Mustanski, Chivers, & Bailey, 2002).
How could genes affect sexual orientation?
Possibly, heredity shapes areas of the brain that orchestrate sexual behaviour. Support for this idea comes from the work of neuroscientists who have shown that various brain structures and brain chemicals differ in heterosexuals and homosexual (Kinnunen et al., Levay, 1993)
According to Bank and Gartrell, 1995, homosexuality is not caused by hormone imbalances. It is also a mistake to think that parenting makes children homosexual. There is little difference in the development of children with gay or lesbian parents and those who have heterosexual parents (Patterson, 2002; Wainwright et al., 2004). It appears that nature strongly prepares people to be either homosexual or heterosexual.
Rathus et al., (2005) are of the view that discrimination against homosexuals is much like rejecting a person for being blue-eyed or left-handed. Do you agree? Yes, you may choose to agree or disagree because you are in the University of Choice!
In many cultures, heterosexuality has long been regarded as a norm and homosexuality has been seen as a disease, a mental disorder or even a crime (Hooker, 1993). Attempts to alter the sexual orientation of homosexuals in the past using psycho-therapy, brain surgery, or electric shock, were seen as exercise in futility (Haldeman, 1994). In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association dropped homosexuality from the Diagnostic and statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, thus ending its official status as a form of psychopathology.

Support or against homos?
For President Mills, this was no more about “DZI WO FIE ASEM” but it was about “ALL DIE BE DIE” when he replied the Western Powers, “CUT YOUR AID, Ghana will not support “HOMOS UNDER MY WATCH”.
WHAT THEN IS THE WAY FORWARD FOR HOMOSEXUALS?
The debate continues unabated!

By
David Banaaleh (King-Dave)
BSC (Psychology)
CEO (Network of Budding Psychologists and Associates)
Department of Educational Foundations
University of Cape Coast
0247113859