'The iceberg's alive with the sound of music'

'Was I born this way or was it something in my childhood?' The nature-versus-nurture debate has been going on for years and shows no sign of abating, but the Science Museum in London promises a fascinating insight into the question next week, when it stages a discussion on some of the latest thinking at its Dana Centre bar and café in South Kensington.

The event will see Sven Bocklandt of the University of California talk about his continuing research into the 1990s theory that homosexual orientation could be genetically passed to men from their mothers via the x chromosome.

City University psychobiologist Dr Qazi Rahman, the author of Born Gay, will explain how attempts to find a sociological cause for homosexuality have little foundation, as well as why male sexuality tends to be polarised while female sexuality is more fluid.

They'll be joined by British academic, sociologist, social historian and gay activist Jeffrey Weeks, who will look at the other interpretations of sexuality.

But perhaps the real question is whether any of it matters.

It shouldn't. Nobody should care an iota about anyone else's sexuality, but that's not how the cookie crumbles, unfortunately.

And there's no shortage of repression and violence against people whose sexuality is 'different' to prove that.

Many people use justifications like 'it's not natural/normal' or that pass-the-sick-bag classic, 'God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve', to explain their homophobic views or acts. Then there are the crackpot beliefs that growing up without a father but with a domineering mother can turn a boy gay. Or that living with gay or lesbian parents would inevitably lead to children being gay or lesbian themselves.

So if research shows, for instance, that homosexuality is prevalent throughout nature, then it helps to strip away any 'legitimacy' that these objectors claim.

Indeed, we now know (because scientists finally bothered to enquire) that there are many species other than humans that display homosexual behaviour. Dolphins are just one example; males have been observed to screw another male's blow-hole. Kinky.

There's the delightful story of four gay storks at a zoo near Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

Ananova reports that staff at Overloon Zoo were unsure whether the gay and lesbian storks would still have the same natural urge to raise offspring.

But after giving one egg to a pair of gay males to sit on and another two eggs to a pair of lesbian storks, they say the storks took to parenthood straight away, so to speak.

And don't forget the penguins. First there were the gay penguins at New York Zoo. Then more were noticed elsewhere.

Bremerhaven Zoo in Germany found itself in trouble when it tried to break up two gay penguin couples – although it remains to be seen whether it gave up the plan because of protests or because the four female penguins that it brought in just didn't interest the males.

Even now, there's probably a rabid debate in penguin society about the possible consequences if interfering zoo staff place eggs with these perverts.

'I tell you Doris, it'll turn out for the bad, you mark my words.'

'But Hilda, didn't you hear? They've been tampering with nature already. That's what went wrong with Feathers McGraw.'

'Unnatural is what I call it. Unnatural.'

'Oh, I know. Sandal-wearing, liberal do-gooders!'

And, forced to grow up in this unnatural satire of a Spheniscidae family, imagine the tormented cries of junior as he stamps his little flipper on the ice and announces: 'I don't want to be an Emperor penguin – I want to be a queen!'

Of course there are advantages: being a gay penguin keeps down the cost of costume hire when you want to attend a karaoke screening of The Sound of Music dressed as a nun.

No, the question of someone's sexuality shouldn't bother anyone, but since it does, it's lovely having the ammunition to shoot down the myths that supposedly lend homophobes' arguments some validity – and reveal them for the bigots they really are.

• Tickets for the Science Museum event are free (contact 020 7942 4040), but the museum promises that a live webcast of the event will be available at www.danacentre.org.uk, from 7-9.30pm on Tuesday 18 July.