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Amid all the debate over gay marriages, advocates for both sides have mostly seemed to avoid the core issue.

Those who are for gay marriage talk about civil rights, which are important, but they often do so in a dispassionate lawyerly manner.

Those who oppose tend to talk about tradition, sanctity and the importance of definition.

The definition argument is my favorite. They would have us believe that protecting the integrity of a word is of premiere importance.

They also say strange things like the purpose of marriage is to procreate. Yet, we don't see these people lining up to prohibit infertile couples from marrying.

Besides that, observe the vows people take when they get married. This is, I believe, the most potent refutation of the "procreation" argument.

All marriage ceremonies, even among the devout, are codified by the vows. These vows talk about the commitment between two people (and sometimes God), to love, honor and cherish, but make no mention of children. Think about it.

Why don't we just say it like it is?

There are those who believe that homosexuality is unnatural, a sinful choice and should not be accepted by a moral society. They won't tolerate homosexual marriage because they don't want to be complicit in the approval of the homosexual lifestyle.

Then there are those who are observant enough to notice that homosexuality isn't a choice. Acting on lust, whether of a "deviant" or more predictable nature, is a choice. But the true feelings one feels inside are beyond conscious control.

The argument over gay marriage is just a cover. It is really about whether we will allow gays to be full members of society.

Fortunately, this isn't just a value judgment. The question of whether homosexuality is a natural occurrence or an artificial choice is investigable by science.

In fact, some scientists from our own lovely state have studied this question. A group at OHSU, with contributions from the USDA lab in Dubois, Idaho, and OSU's own Prof. Fred Stormshak in the Department of Animal Sciences, have just published a paper in the February edition of the Journal of Endocrinology.

A more accessible version of the results is available as an OHSU news release at: www.ohsu.edu /news/2004/ 030504 sheep .html.

In the paper the authors describe their observations of rams. Sixteen- to 18-month-old rams, that is, male sheep, from the USDA herd in Idaho were individually tested. Each was determined to be either "female-oriented" or "male-oriented," based on whether they preferred mounting females or other males.

Eight percent were found to prefer males.

The very existence of gay farm animals is enough, in my mind, to suggest that the behavior isn't wholly unnatural. But there's more.

After the sheep were classified by "sexual partner preference," 27 of them were brought to Oregon and raised on fields right next to our university. These ten ewes (female sheep), eight female-oriented rams, and nine male-oriented rams were then allowed to grow to the age of four. On a good day, we could probably smell them.

After that, the animals were sacrificed and their brains dissected. This is the interesting part.

According to the press release, "the hypothalamus is the part of the brain that regulates sex hormone secretion, blood pressure, body temperature, water balance and food intake, while it also plays a role in regulating complex behaviors, such as sexual behavior." This region of the brain is present in all mammals, including humans.

When they examined a region of the hypothalamus, specifically the "medial preoptic area /anterior hypothalamus," they found differences correlating to sexual preference.

Basically, the "straight" rams had big ones, the female ewes had little ones, and the "gay" rams had small ones like the females.

This finding is very significant to our current gay marriage debate. It suggests that homosexuality is a function of brain morphology rather than choice or a sinful nature.

Some will ask: What does this have to do with gay people? Aha!

Well, what if someone were to find a similar result in human studies? Would this convince any of the naysayers?

Actually a similar result was found in humans, published in the prestigious journal Science way back in November of 1991.

In that study, the researchers performed measurements on the brains of dead gay men, straight men and women.

Upon examination of the anterior hypothalamus region the researchers found an equivalent dimorphic wad of cells, with size corresponding to sexual preference.

The author noted dryly that "this finding indicates that INAH (a part of the anterior hypothalamus) is dimorphic with sexual orientation, at least in men, and suggests that sexual orientation has a biological substrate."

Some people are just gay. It isn't a choice. Nobody would choose to be judged and ostracized by mainstream society in this manner.

Many people will continue to believe, in the face of what is sure to be mounting scientific evidence, that homosexuality is simply a sinful lifestyle decision.

They will continue to believe that the best way to deal with gay people is with scorn and disapproval, because God wills it.

I don't belong to a church or claim to know about God's existence. But I know that we were blessed and born with free will and reason.

Many people cite the last thousand years of tradition as the reason to keep gay people from getting married.

While religion has existed and does exist as a force for morality and enlightenment, in these same last thousand years many proclaimed Godly people have been on the wrong end of a number of issues.

The Crusades, the feudal system and aristocracy, the geocentric theory of the universe, slavery, racial segregation and the Holocaust were but a few of the horrible causes and wrong ideas carried under the banner of God.

If there is a God, he gave us the ability to reason for a reason. Many old interpretations and dogmas have rightfully died in the face of logic and people's inherent, and I dare say pious, greater sense of justice.

It is in this sense that society and our laws must not just tolerate, but accept our gay brothers and sisters, for that is the way they were created.

Sanjai Tripathi is a columnist for The Daily Barometer. The opinions in his column, which appear every Wednesday, do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Barometer staff. Tripathi can be reached at sanjaitripathi@netscape.net.

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