The Innate-Immutable Argument Finds No Basis in Science In Their Own Words: Gay Activists Speak About Science, Morality, Philosophy
A. Dean Byrd, Ph.D.
Shirley E. Cox, Ph.D.
Jeffrey W. Robinson, Ph.D
. The following article was published in the Salt Lake City Tribune, in slightly abbreviated form, on May 27th, 2001. Lead author A. Dean Byrd, NARTH's Vice President, received many responses (mostly positive) to this intellectually provocative editorial.
The Salt Lake City Tribune has published several articles in recent months regarding homosexuality. While many of the articles are well-written, they do not reflect the scientific literature. In fact, the social advocacy of many of the articles seem to suggest a greater reliance on politics than on science.
Leaving aside the politics of the issue, perhaps it is time to examine the innate-immutable argument about homosexual attraction. First of all--although the issue is enormously complex and simply cannot be reduced to a matter of nature vs. nurture--the answer to that debate is probably "yes" --it is likely that homosexual attraction, like many other strong attractions, includes both biological and environmental influences.
What is clear, however, is that the scientific attempts to demonstrate that homosexual attraction is biologically determined have failed. The major researchers now prominent in the scientific arena--themselves gay activists--have in fact arrived at such conclusions.
Researcher Dean Hamer, for example, attempted to link male homosexuality to a stretch of DNA located at the tip of the X chromosome, the chromosome that some men inherit from their mothers. Referring to that research, Hamer offered some conclusions regarding genetics and homosexuality.
"We knew that genes were only part of the answer. We assumed the environment also played a role in sexual orientation, as it does in most, if not all behaviors.... Homosexuality is not purely genetic...environmental factors play a role. There is not a single master gene that makes people gay....I don't think we will ever be able to predict who will be gay."
Citing the failure of his research, Hamer further writes,
"The pedigree failed to produce what we originally hoped to find: simple Mendelian inheritance. In fact, we never found a single family in which homosexuality was distributed in the obvious pattern that Mendel observed in his pea plants." What's more interesting is that when Hamer's study was duplicated by Rice et al with research that was more robust, the genetic markers were found to be nonsignificant. Rice concluded.
"It is unclear why our results are so discrepant from Hamer's original study. Because our study was larger than that of Hamer's et al, we certainly had adequate power to detect a genetic effect as large as reported in that study. Nonetheless, our data do not support the presence of a gene of large effect influencing sexual orientation at position XQ 28."
Simon LeVay, in his study of the hypothalamic differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men, offered the following criticisms of his own research:
"It's important to stress what I didn't find. I did not prove that homosexuality is genetic, or find a genetic cause for being gay. I didn't show that gay men are born that way, the most common mistake people make in interpreting my work. Nor did I locate a gay center in the brain.
"INAH3 is less likely to be the sole gay nucleus of the brain than part of a chain of nuclei engaged in men and women's sexual behavior...Since I looked at adult brains, we don't know if the difference I found were there at birth, or if they appeared later."
Indeed, in commenting on the brain and sexual behavior, Dr. Mark Breedlove, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, demonstrated that sexual behavior can actually change brain structure. Referring to his research, Breedlove states,
"These findings give us proof for what we theoretically know to be the case-that sexual experience can alter the structure of the brain, just as genes can alter it. [I]t is possible that differences in sexual behavior cause (rather than are caused) by differences in the brain."
....more can be found here"http://www.narth.com/docs/innate.html
I will pass on you insult!
My religion teaches that homosexual acts are wrong.....just as every major religion in the world does.
I don't want my tax dollars used by the public schools to teach my children the opposite of what their faith teaches.
Legalized gay marriage will enable just that.
Well, I doubt many lesbians are born that way. I've heard some stories about 12th grade girls in a certain high school that strongly indicate to me that lesbianism can easily spread in a wave. It probably is the case that some boys are so strongly effeminate at such a young age that it is going to be difficult for them to identify as heterosexual. So you are right there. But this is not at all true with tomboys.
It probably is for the best that homosexuals, if they are not going to be celibate, get married in a Metropolitan Community Church or some such, whatever people might think of the theology in those places. They can do that today as in the 1970's. However, as shown in Stanley Kurtz's articles on the death of marriage in Scandanavia, once gay marriage is well-established in law, marriage gradually loses its allure for men of WHATEVER orientation. Now gay marriage is this exciting new thing and so has some attraction for gays, but once it is tamed by being the subject of pictures in first grade reading textbooks, it will lose all attraction for gays, and not sound too thrilling to anybody else.
The situation is serious because I don't think the marriage amendment as currently worded can pass. I hope the President tries to water it down to something easier to get through the state legislatures -- probably just allow for pure state-by-state marraige laws not honored reciprocally. Then we'll see which kind of states are best for children to grow up in.
I'd ask you to support that statement but you cannot. If you want an education on the subject, check this out.
Have you ever completely changed your mind on a hot political issue? Dr. Spitzer changed his mind on whether homosexuals can leave the lifestyle:
"I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted--but that no one could really change their sexual orientation. I now believe that's untrue--some people can and do change." Spitzer completely changed his mind whether or not some homosexuals can change. And then Spitzer concluded with:
"the mental health professionals should stop moving in the direction of banning therapy that has, as a goal, a change in sexual orientation. Many patients, provided with informed consent about the possibility that they will be disappointed if the therapy does not succeed, can make a rational choice to work toward developing their heterosexual potential and minimizing their unwanted homosexual attractions."
Source: Spitzer made the above comments at an annual APA meeting, May 9, 2001. The study was reported in the May 9, 2001 issues of The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and it was also released to many local newspapers via the AP. ABC, CBS, FOX and MSNBC all reported the study.
Spitzer went from believing homosexuals can't change to where they can, and then he goes so far as to say mental health professions shouldn't ban the very therapy resulting in that change.
Who is Spitzer? In 1973 he played a pivotal role in the APAs decision to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder. A decision based on homosexual activism, not science.