Everyone knows that Mormons, Catholics, and Evangelical Christians love their big families. They're anti-abortion, sure, but that's not all. They know the best way to spread their religion is in numbers.
The more the merrier, right?
Seems like there's a hidden benefit to all those large families.
Let's just say the phrase shouldn't be the more the merrier, it should be The More the Gayer!
The theory holds that the same genetic factors that induce gayness in males also promote fecundity (high reproductive success) in those males' female maternal relatives. Through this trade-off, the maternal relatives' "gay man genes," though they aren't expressed as such, tend to get passed to future generations in spite of their tendency to make their male inheritors gay.
While no one knows which genes, exactly, these might be, at least one of them appears to be located on the X chromosome, according to genetic modeling by Camperio Ciani and his colleagues. Males inherit only one X chromosome — the one from their mother — and if it includes the gene that promotes gayness in males and fecundity in females, he is likely to be gay while his mom and her female relatives are likely to have lots of kids. If a daughter inherits that same X-linked gene, she herself may not be gay, but she can pass it on to her sons.
I'd like to take the time to thank all of the homophobic religious nutcases out there, regardless of religion, for adding to the numbers of gays.
Keep on having those children!