Homosexuality is not biologically determined

The Titanic of Gay Rights, leaving all in its wake, is about to founder on a large and immovable fact.

My concern is not for the glamorous first-class passengers - the prominent doctors and judges - or for the Mardi Gras exhibitionists leering and lurching across the deck - but for the unknown homosexuals down in their lonely cabins feeling sick.

These are the ones who want to stop the ship and get off. The homosexuals who do not want to be homosexual but who are told that change is impossible, and that any talk of change is disloyal to the Gay crew, even mutinous.

The iceberg of clinical fact looming up in the dark is this: that homosexuals who want to become heterosexual can and do change, as authoritative medical research has now demonstrated. Given the will, and skilled therapy, there can be an end to the nightmare of same-sex attraction. That is the best news for our heartsick friends down below deck, but it is bad news for the complacent triumphalists of the Gay Titanic.

Bad news for their tall tale that being gay is like being black, an immutable inborn identity. Bad news, in the debate on gay marriage, for their false analogies with apartheid and Aborigines, since blacks cannot stop being blacks, but gays can stop being gay.

Homosexuality emerges in its truer light, not as a minority "genetic identity" but as a complex conditioned behaviour, which can and does change.

As to the exact causes of homosexuality, the medical jury is still out. But the baseless claim, promoted by Justice Michael Kirby and others, that gays are just born that way, is given no support by the American Psychiatric Association. Their Fact Sheet on Sexual Orientation (2000) sums it up: "There are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality".

As to the ability for homosexuals to change, late last year a remarkable research paper was published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour (October 2003) by one of America's senior psychiatrists, Dr Robert Spitzer. Significantly, this was the same Spitzer whose reforming zeal helped delete homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's manual of mental disorders back in 1973. Now he has published a detailed review of "200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual orientation". He writes of his research: "Although initially sceptical, in the course of the study, the author became convinced of the possibility of change in some gay men and lesbians."

In his structured analysis of homosexuals who claimed to have changed their orientation through "reparative therapy", he concluded that the therapy had been genuinely effective: that "almost all of the participants reported substantial changes in the core aspects of sexual orientation, not merely overt behaviour". Against critics who say that attempts to change sexual orientation can cause emotional harm to homosexuals, he notes: "For the participants in our study, there was no evidence of harm".

So our seasick travellers down below in the Titanic can take heart: the desire to shake off sexual disorientation can be, in this eminent and gay-friendly doctor's opinion, "a rational, self-directed goal", and for some it can be successful. The enforcers amongst the ship's crew who accuse you of desertion, of "irrational internalised homophobia", are wrong.

To our shame, some of these enforcers are health professionals. To them Spitzer says: "Mental health professionals should stop moving in the direction of banning therapy that has as its goal a change in sexual orientation. Many patients can make a rational choice to work toward developing their heterosexual potential and minimizing their unwanted homosexual attractions."

Spitzer, once a medical darling of the Gay Rights movement, may now have to walk the plank, because his stubborn telling of the clinical truth has political implications.

The success of Gay activism has been due to portraying Gays as a persecuted minority group, identifying with historically persecuted minorities like blacks, women, Jews. This illusion cannot survive Spitzer's findings, that being Gay is a treatable psychological condition like any other, not an inborn identity.

In the current political debate about same-sex marriage, all talk is of persecuted minorities and human rights, while Spitzer's truth of a treatable condition is nowhere to be heard. Gay activist Rodney Croome thinks back to the Aborigines and accuses the Prime Minister, who opposes same-sex marriage, of denying gays "the full humanity of a disadvantaged group".

In The Australian, Former AMA President Dr Kerryn Phelps likewise accused the Prime Minister of "apartheid" against the gay "minority" in denying them marriage rights. But turning from that bogus racial minority model to Spitzer's therapeutic model, we see that gays can in fact marry, and in Spitzer's study many were married - but first they had to become biologically marriageable by successfully reorientating from homosexual to heterosexual.

The titanic illusion of homosexuality as a fixed inborn identity will take time to sink, but Spitzer's therapeutic iceberg will be more liberating than destructive. Below decks are the passengers I care about, and they need to know that it is OK to want to escape the suffering of same-sex attraction, and possible to do so. And our health professionals, who alone can man the life rafts, owe them a duty of care in aiding that escape.

Dr David van Gend is a family doctor in Toowoomba, Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine, University of Queensland, and a medical advisor to the Australian Family Association.

Why would a kid whose parents didn't lie, wasn't exposed to others who lied, wasn't lied to as a child, becomea liar?

Some people have certain temptations, some have other temptations. For some people, it's easy not to lie, but hard not to fantasize about sex all the time. Some people can't speak without lying.

Some people used to lie, decided it was wrong, and stopped. Some people had a hard time with sexual promiscuity, decided it was wrong or dangerous, and stopped.

Similarly, some people - for various reasons - have difficulty with SSAD - Same Sex Attraction Disorder. Some people consciously choose to engage in same sex acts, some choose to engage in bisexual acts. Others just find themselves drawn to such sexual behavior, for many reasons.

I know a woman friend years ago (early 80s) who confided in me that at one time in her life she had engaged in "three ways" with a man and another woman. I was shocked (not ever having hung around with people who did that kind of thing). This woman was at that time (and still is, AFAIK) happily married to a man. When I asked her how could she do such a thing, she said: "An orgasm is an orgasm, however you get it."

A lot of activities are shocking or hard to do the first or second time, but if a person keeps indulging or engaging in them, they become habituated - especially if there is some kind of gratification or pleasure.

For instance, smoking. I started smoking when I was 12 or 13. It was horrible, it made me sick, nauseated, headachey, but gosh! I persevered. Within a few months I was smoking unfiltered Camels with the best of them.

But now? You couldn't pay me enough money to smoke a cigarrette. I decided it was wrong for me, unhealthy, and so on, and I quit.

>>They are talking about traits, also referred to as gifts.<<

I understand, but this part of his opening to the article is critical. Traits are inherited.

>>Some of these traits might be inherited (genetic), while others might have been caused by the "intrauterine environment" (hormones). <<

This part of his opening to the article is super critical, at least it is to me.

>>What this means is that a youngster without these traits will be somewhat less likely to become homosexual later than someone with them<<

What can be more clear than certain people with certain traits (gifts), maybe with a higher degree of these traits than usual, will be more likely to be homosexual later than someone without them, or as he specifically states, a youngster without these traits will be somewhat less likely to become homosexual.

Now, I understand that the general thrust of his entire article is toward the behavioral side and how this behavior can be "modified". But I can't ignore his opening statements regarding genetic traits and their predisposition to homosexuality.

I have known tiny children who knew nothing of sexuality who acted almost exclusively like the other sex. Now they are adult and they are gay. Strangely enough, they are not transexuals (women trapped in men's bodies thing) but are very masculine but attracted to men. There must be something biologic in sexual attraction.

These two that I know were not molested, though I would be willing to believe that molesting can well IMPRINT a poor child to respond sexually to his own sex.

I believe that someone who is born homosexual (I definitely think most are) COULD live life as a heterosexual EXACTLY as easily as heterosexual men could live life without sex. I believe that when sex was private, in earlier days, many G-dfearing men were forced to live without sex (perhaps they were military yet married back home, or perhaps their wives refused them, and they would not use a prostitute), and they just did, focusing on other things in their lives.

It is too easy to live the "out" lifestyle, so why would a gay man want to sublimate all of his sexual desires and marry and live with a woman for the rest of his life? He wants to be like us, free and open about sex all day long. Who can blame him, really?

The genie hates the bottle. So do all of you.

Why would a kid whose parents didn't lie, wasn't exposed to others who lied, wasn't lied to as a child, becomea liar?

Because he's afraid of punishment, he did something he shouldn't do, doesn't want his parents to be mad at him or think less of him, to protect a friend...these are all reasons that come to mind.

Does this apply to someone becoming homosexual..
does he become gay to avoid punishment..
does he become gay because he did something he shouldn't do..
does he become gay to make his parents think more of him..
or does he become gay to protect his friends.

I think we're talking two different things other than the propensity to lie may also be a trait.

We're talking about the same thing - we're talking about an activity which some people seem to be "naturally" attracted to, and some learn. Children can learn to lie by never being believed, for attention, to avoid too harsh punishment, because they're lied to, or just because it "comes naturally".

But since lying is wrong, unethical, etc - some people even though EITHER "natural born liars" or "learned liars" - some people TRAIN THEMSELVES out of the bad habit, even if they are attracted to doing it, whether born that way or learned.

Same thing with homosexuality. If, however, you see same sex sodomy as neutral, or morally equating marital sex between man and woman, or even unmarried sex between a man and a woman, then the discussion has to start at a different place.

For instance, if someone sees lying as morally equivalent to truth telling, then what's the big deal? Same with homosexual behavior. If you (or a theoretical someone) things same sex behavior - and therefore its promotion - as morally benign, then the platform of discussion has to be changed.

The reason the "gay" community is so adamant about clinging to the theory that they're "born that way" is to attempt to make it morally equivalent to natural sexual relations between a man and a woman, and to defeat the legions of "ex-homosexuals".

But there are thousands of ex-homosexuals.

Homosexual advocacy research on children with homosexual "parents" has been thorougly debunked (also see post #155). Children's development is mostly dependent upon what they are taught by their guardians.

Tony Perkins, "Gay Adoption 'Study' is a Fraud," Family Research Council, October 29, 2003; http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR03J09.)

The Howard Center

Family Research Abstract of the Week: Gay, not Happy

Using content analyses of six clinical studies examining the children of homosexual parents, Paul and Kirk Cameron of the Family Research Institute attempt to answer the following question: "Are the childhoods of children of homosexuals more difficult, and if so, does this greater difficulty appear in the published narratives of such children?" The researchers reply: "The answers to both questions appear to be 'yes.'"

Using material gleaned from the narratives of 52 homosexually parented families, along with case files from 40 appeals court cases involving custody disputes between homosexual and heterosexual parents, the authors were able to draw some significant conclusions as to the nature of childhood problems: "Children mentioned one or more problems or concerns in 48 (92%) of 52 families. Of the 213 score problems, 201 (94%) were attributed to the homosexual parent(s)." Indeed, in the appellate cases, 97% of the harms were attributed to the homosexual parent by the courts.

These are by no means merely abstract "harms"; these are problems with faces. From one twelve-year-old's narrative: "Mum...has had several girlfriends in my lifetime...I don't go around saying that I've got two mums...If we are sitting in a restaurant eating, she'll say, 'I want you to know about all these sex things'. And she'll go on about everything, just shouting it out...sometimes when mum embarrasses me, I think, 'Oh God, I wish I had a dad'..." Multiple permutations of children's embarrassment, harassment, and ostracism are to be found in these reports, and if this were all there was, it would be bad enough. Unfortunately, it is not all, as the boy continues, "...[I've b]een to every gay pride march. Last year, while attending we went up to a field..., when two men came up to us. One man started touching me. I didn't want to go this year because of that."

The researchers report, "Sixteen narratives mentioned parental encouragement to engage in homosexuality or parent-sponsored exposure to homosexuality."

The results of this sort of pressure are sadly predictable. In the family narratives that included adolescent or adult children, 30% of the children were either homosexual or had engaged in homosexual behavior. Furthermore, several children were "unsure" of their sexual orientation, and "[o]lder daughters in at least 8 (27%) of 30 families and older sons in at least 2 (20%) of 10 families described themselves as homosexual or bisexual."

In all six of the analyzed studies, the original authors had concluded that the childhoods of children of homosexual parents were "ordinary," that there are no significant differences between these children and those raised by heterosexual parents. In light of these findings, one has to wonder, with Cameron and Cameron, as to the "'ordinariness' of their lives that [these authors] reported."
(Source: Paul Cameron and Kirk Cameron, "Children of Homosexual Parents Report Childhood Difficulties," Psychological Reports, vol. 90, no.1 [February 2002], p. 71-82.)

BTW, the info I'm sending is all from fathers' rights discussions. It's select stuff, as to post everything from fathers' rights discussions that counters homosexual activism would take years. Homosexual activists (who work with feminists) have heavily infiltrated, misrepresented and generally opposed fathers' rights work for a very long time.

We also have quite a few studies in homosexual activist/feminist revisions against Christian church beliefs (mostly done covertly from inside of churces by those activists).

Here's one about Susan B. Anthony. See the last piece in the series of four--especially the part of about Beecher and his wife. Homosexual activism has been happening in America for much longer than most people know. It was only more concealed behind associated agendas back then.

Although I have no doubts that there are ways to 'reprogram' early stage homosexuals I find it hard to believe that young kids would choose a homosexual lifestyle over a heterosexual one.

Until someone can adequately explain that one I will continue to disbelieve that homosexual is totally behavioral. There HAS to be more to it."

Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse

Scandals involving the sexual abuse of under-age boys by homosexual priests have rocked the Roman Catholic Church. At the same time, defenders of homosexuality argue that youth organizations such as the Boy Scouts should be forced to include homosexuals among their adult leaders. Similarly, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a homosexual activist organization that targets schools, has spearheaded the formation of "Gay-Straight Alliances" among students. GLSEN encourages homosexual teachers--even in the youngest grades--to be open about their sexuality, as a way of providing role models to "gay" students. In addition, laws or policies banning employment discrimination based on "sexual orientation" usually make no exception for those who work with children or youth.

Many parents have become concerned that children may be molested, encouraged to become sexually active, or even "recruited" into adopting a homosexual identity and lifestyle. Gay activists dismiss such concerns--in part, by strenuously insisting that there is no connection between homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children.

However, despite efforts by homosexual activists to distance the gay lifestyle from pedophilia, there remains a disturbing connection between the two. This is because, by definition, male homosexuals are sexually attracted to other males. While many homosexuals may not seek young sexual partners, the evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners. In this paper we will consider the following evidence linking homosexuality to pedophilia:

see link

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS02E3

This part of his opening to the article is super critical, at least it is to me.

A lot of folks have read that article and commented on it, but none pulled that statement out of it's context. I don't know your reasons for concentrating on that one statement when the context and the rest of the article does not support your position.

We're talking about traits in point 1 of the article. The author ends point 1 with:

In any case, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the behavior "homosexuality" is itself directly inherited.

When read in context, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that homosexuality (behavior) is itself directly related to the inherited traits he was just talking about. For some reason you're pulling one statement out of context and ignoring the last statement of point 1.

I can't ignore his opening statements regarding genetic traits and their predisposition to homosexuality.

But you can ignore context? Regarding the traits, there is no predisposition. He doesn't use that word nor that thought. He mentions common features. He said there is absolutely no evidence whatsover homosexuality (behavior) is directly related to the traits. If you can't see this then there's little else I can say.

The rest of the article is written along these same lines. It almost seems as if you read point 1 of the article, skippped the last line of point 1 and concentrated on the one line you think supports your statement. If we ignore context we can believe just about anything we want and support our bias no matter what the articles original intent was. For me I'll stay consistent and read the article in context.

The problem today is that the society is publicly oversexed. Even FR is not immune. So much sex talk in public, on TV, in magazines, makes it too easy to succumb to temptation. We are not helping the world by acting as though one would DIE if one did not have sex every day. Joke if you must, but we have brought sex out into the open and gays just tagged along for the ride. It is too easy to live the "out" lifestyle, so why would a gay man want to sublimate all of his sexual desires and marry and live with a woman for the rest of his life? He wants to be like us, free and open about sex all day long. Who can blame him, really?

I couldn't have said it better. So true... The world could use a good dose of old-fashioned inhibition.

It's all about EMOTIONAL neglect, EMOTIONAL abuse and other EMOTIONAL deficits.

I'm no expert on this subject by any means, but I am related to someone who is homosexual and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Not really, I just had to say that. Seriously, my little brother is gay (we are in our late forties). His experience is an enigma to me. He had girlfriends in high school-- a seemingly normal social life. No abuse that I know of, but I could be wrong about that, as an old man who lived on our street made sexual advances to me and to my sister, so he could've just as well tried something with my little brother, too. He met a pretty little girl in college and they married. This happened in the 70's when women were insisting on their liberation by doing such things as refusing to let a man open the car door for her! You know, really dumb stuff like that. His wife was really into "women's lib"--- I don't know what exactly went wrong with their marriage, but it only lasted a year or two. The two of them were friends with another couple who were having problems, too, and when THAT couple broke up, my brother and the other husband became closer friends..... until the two of them became a couple.

So, I don't get this. My little bro, all his formative years, was straight. Can a failed marriage make one change his sexual preference? Can homosexuality be a coping mechanism for failed heterosexual relationships? That is sad, if this is true. Because I knew plenty of girls in college that would've loved to get to know my brother better.

The man who has been his partner for going on 20 years, on the other hand, came from a family of 3 kids, all of them gay. The father was very inhibited with his kids, so maybe this contributed to their lifestyle choices, even though the one who became a friend of my brother and later his partner was also married for a couple of years. I don't know the reason for their failed marriage either.

I feel like my brother could possibly fall in love with a woman--- I mean, I don't think he's beyond being smitten by a beautiful (to him) women with a soul to match his; but I think he's so emotionally comfortable in his present long-term relationship that he doens't even consider it. He is so handsome, and is not effeminate in any way. But I can tell he is so happy with his partner-- I notice that they pat each other on the back a lot--- kind of an encouraging, supportive, sweet pat.

What can a sister do? If homosexuality is sort of a fetish, as someone suggested, there's not much a sister can do about that. But if homosexuality is a coping mechanism (say, for a broken heart or feelings of inadequacy as a husband) or an emotional support, what can a sister or a brother do? Anything? I mean, I don't want to ruin his happiness (20 years with one man is a long time), but I just want the best for him. Is it possible that his homosexual relationship IS what's best for him?

Who of the straights among us believe that we could learn to be gay and like it?

For my part, I think it would be possible for me to form an emotional bond--- like a best friends type of attachment. But the minute that physical contact entered the picture--- even holding hands or a kiss on the cheek---- would send me running I think. That thought, as well as a kiss or anything sexual, totally grosses me out. I can't even make myself think about it.

I've never been married and I quit dating several years back when I realized that I'm way too settled to change anything about myself or my routine. It would be nice to have a best friend... but a heterosexual one.

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