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Italian Regional Government Runs Ad Using Newborn Baby to Promote Homosexuality

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

TUSCANY, October 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A pro-homosexual ad campaign, run by the regional government of Tuscany in north-central Italy, has lead to criticism from both sides of the issue.

The campaign, which aims to promote the idea that homosexuality is genetic, uses a photo of a newborn baby whose hospital identity bracelet bears the French word "homosexual". The poster caption reads "Sexual orientation is not a choice". The image is expected to appear on billboards across Tuscany.

The Vatican's Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone told ANSA that "Doing a publicity campaign like this is not a good idea. This is a bit strange. They shouldn't have gone that far."

The Catholic UDC party called the campaign a "chilling" exploitation of a baby to push the "erroneous" message that homosexuality is innate.

While the initiative has been praised by Italy's main homosexual rights association ArciGay, Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo, who is openly homosexual, criticized aspects of the publicity campaign. He doubted that homosexuality could be explained away by genes.

"The initiative is in bad taste, in fact they've made a mess of it," he said in comments reported by the daily Corriere della Sera.

The theory of genetic predisposition to homosexuality has been discredited by numerous studies.

Dr. Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, found "... that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA."

An analysis of a study completed at the University of Illinois  in 2005 concludes, "... one cannot know with any degree of certainty that a gene or combination of genes will distinguish why one man is homosexual and another is not."

Dr. Douglas A. Abbott, an expert on behavioral genetics and professor of Child, Youth and Family Studies at the University of Nebraska says that homosexual politics and not good science is behind the search for the "gay" gene. The "hypothetical evidence for genetic determinism of homosexuality" is both "overstated" and "overrated."

Please see the related LifeSiteNews.com articles:

"Homosexuality is Not Hardwired." Concludes Head of The Human Genome Project http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07032003.html

Search for "Gay Gene" is "Bad Science" Says Nebraska Professor http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/aug/07080805.html

New Genetics Study Undermines Gay Gene Theory
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/feb/05021002.html

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