Pity the poor fetus. There’s a lot coming its way. And now there’s talk on a conservative evangelical blog of a hypothetical hormone patch that an expectant mother might wear to eradicate her fetus’s natural gayness.

The patch, the biological determinism: It’s all conjecture, for now. But it hit like a theological IED when it turned up earlier this month on the blog of the Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the leading voices of the 16 million-strong Southern Baptist Convention. He blogged on these issues under the appropriately provocative headline: “Is Your Baby Gay? What if You Could Know? What if You Could Do Something About It?” In his postings, he raises the possibility of a biological basis for homosexuality and prods his flock to think about how it should respond.

In an interview on Friday, Mohler said that Christian couples “should be open” to the prospect of changing the course of nature

“I think any Christian couple would want their child to be whole and healthy