Chandler Burr, author and "assimilationist" gay conservative, states that conservatives have much to gain politically from a general acceptance of the "gay gene" theory.

A recent cover story (December 16) in The Weekly Standard, a major conservative political publication, asks "Suppose There Is a Gay Gene--What Then?" and goes on to describe the possibility of a "cure" with counter-injections of non-gay genes.

"Conservatives who dislike homosexuality have always hated the concept of a gay gene," Burr writes, "and argued against it. But this is because conservatives do not understand what its existence really implies."

What it does imply, according to Burr, is that once biotechnicians locate the gene, they must follow up to find out exactly what the protein it codes for does. The biotech industry is already developing a method, he says, "that would allow doctors to insert a different version of that gene--what geneticists are now referring to as STRAIGHT-1 into human beings."

Burr says that "all of the technology for selective abortion already exists," and he suggests that this fact--once the elusive gay gene is properly located--means that the politics of abortion will be "turned upside down."

"Liberals," exults Burr, "will be faced for the first time with the fact that 'the right to choose' might be used to target one of their constituencies." The targets, he thinks, would be gay men and not lesbians, which he thinks are far fewer in number. "Sexual orientation in women," he says researchers believe, "may involve completely unrelated genes."

The principal reason for acceptance of the gay gene, believes Burr, is not merely a "biological-medical payoff" but is an ideological one. "The fundamental battle between Right and Left since the modern era began is about one thing: whose view of human nature is correct?" Burr says that conservatism must stick with biological essentialists who make their case that human nature is not changeable or malleable, but that human traits are genetically fixed. The "liberal" school, he explains, holds that everyone is born tabula rasa, "as a blank slate upon which society and environment write the adult that emerges." Such a view points to the possibility of molding a new and different society devoid of racism, sexism, or, simply, inequality in general. In Burr's view, egalitarian relationships are anathema to the conservative viewpoint.

Biological support for the gene theory, he insists, sees an end to all future gayness. Those gay liberationists accepting of the gene theory must now deal with this new conservative tactic.