Dean Hamer testifies on SB 1

HONOLULU, Hawaii – Of the 57 hours of testimony this past week at the Hawaii State Capitol on Senate Bill 1, which if passed would recognize marriages between individuals of the same gender in the Aloha State, one video in particular has exploded in popularity on the internet.

Dean Hamer, who has a PhD from Harvard Medical School and is a geneticist, author, and filmmaker, said he wasn’t going to go to the Capitol to testify before the Joint House Judiciary and Finance Committees, but said “some of the nonesense” he saw on the live feed broadcast on the local public access channel, ‘Olelo, drove him to speak to the lawmakers.

House Republicans tallied 87 percent of the 1,032 oral testifiers were in opposition to Senate Bill 1. And many of those speakers did not pull any punches when they explained how same sex marriage conflicted with their faith and family values.

Hamer had come to impart a different message in support of SB 1.

“Sexual orientation is a deeply ingrained innate trait,” Hamer testified, “with strong genetic and biological roots. Gay people can no more choose their sexual orientation than straight people. Its part of all of our makeup. Being gay isn’t a choice. Its just a part of people’s makeup. Its not a choice anymore than being straight is a choice.”

“There’s been a vast amount of psychological research and anthropological research to support this” Hamer said under questioning from lawmakers. “Its not just the molecular biology.”

The video of the testimony was taken from the Capitol TV broadcast, isolated and uploaded to Youtube by Occupy Hawaii. The video has gotten over 11,000 views (at last count) in less than a day.