It is actually a scholarly research organization, with greatly respected family scholars in residence, such as Peter Sprigg and Patrick Fagan. The results of FRC's studies are valid material on which to report, just as the MSM trumpets its usually flimsy, 100-person "studies" in support of their leftist agenda. The scientific method demands that other serious scholars who read about studies then not only examine the criteria for a study, but also seek to replicate the findings with double-blind experiments.
This particular essay is a digest of a large amount of material. Based on the findings of many other studies, the author has drawn relevant conclusions to further the discussion.
Thank you! You said it much better than I could have.
... who happen to be associated an organization that promotes a particular political and religious/moral point of view, and this report just happens to support that point of view.
Sorry, but that's just the truth. It's not enough simply to claim "scientific method" when an interest group conducts and releases a study that supports its agenda. The possibility of bias and misapplication of data (whether inadvertent or on purpose) cannot be assumed away, just because we like what the report has to say.
There are three aspects to “sexual orientation”: attraction, behavior, and self-identification. Attractions are indeed “involuntary.” But people do choose, and can be held responsible for, what overt sexual behaviors they actually engage in.
Note how, although the authors had previously dismissed all supposed causes for this "involuntary" attraction, by referring to scientific studies showing "no result." And yet the authors then admit that "involuntary attraction" is a real phenomenon -- whatever its source.
So they've got a little problem, which they try to finesse by changing the subject, from "attraction" to "choosing to act on the attraction."
Ooops. They basically took all those studies they quoted, and tossed them out the window by discussing how it's the choice that matters, not the attraction itself.
Their underlying argument has now transitioned from the allegedly scientific argument they were making before, to what is in essence a non-scientific discussion of morality (i.e., "can be held responsible for").
One might charitably suggest that the authors were simply too caught up in their own viewpoint to notice the transition.
But an honestly peer-reviewed scientific article wouldn't be allowed to get away with such a shift.
When all is said and done, this little article is just another opinion piece, published to support a particular interest group's point of view.