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Origin of homosexuality unresolved despite study
Washington Times ^ | Sunday, November 28, 2004 | By Cheryl Wetzstein

Posted on 11/27/2004 11:30:26 PM PST by JohnHuang2

The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

Origin of homosexuality unresolved despite study

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published November 28, 2004

Even presidents don't have an answer to questions about the origin of homosexuality.
    And it's no wonder. Science doesn't have a clear answer either.
    During the third presidential debate, moderator and CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer asked the candidates, "Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?"
    "You know, Bob, I don't know. I just don't know," said President Bush, who then urged tolerance, respect and dignity for homosexuals.
    "We're all God's children," answered Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee. Referring to Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Kerry said, "She would tell you that she's being... who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice."
    So what does science say?
    Is homosexuality inborn? Is it caused by outside influences? And, regardless of where it comes from, can it be changed? The answer to all three questions is: yes and no.
    If lawmakers, judges, educators and the public are frustrated by such answers, it's because they've been bombarded all year by supporters and opponents of same-sex "marriage," who have boiled research down to their favorite sound bites.
    "Decades of research all point to the fact that sexual orientation is not a choice and that a person's sexual orientation cannot be changed," say homosexual rights groups such as Human Rights Campaign, which are flanked by the nation's premier medical, mental-health and therapy professional groups.

(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abomination; abortion; gay; homosexualagenda; homosexuality; origins; perversion; sin; study; wetzstein
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To: cherry
that was very interesting but I have one question.......how does any of that research explain away the variations of homosexual men?
afterall, there are homosexual men who are very bossy,dominant, hard-wired, etc....
then there are homosexuals who are very effeminate , and are more like gentle-minded women.....
and then there is the female side of homosexuality that is almost as complex

The same reason that there are a wide variety of personalities in any population. There are many areas that are involved and many different experiences in different lives.

Also, the female side of homosexuality seems to be more complex from what the research indicates.

141 posted on 11/29/2004 10:08:47 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: Ophiucus
Let's get real here and stick with HUMAN BEINGS if you don't mind, which was the original point of your argument - the hypothalumus study. I hope you will agree that as human beings there is a lot more involved regarding relationships beyond the basest animal instincts.

Please explain to me how a chemical imbalance causes someone who is looking at another with certain physical characteristics to become sexually attracted to them? Are you saying this imbalance causes homosexual males to confuse their gender? If so, I ask again, why are they not repeating these EXACT SAME STUDIES on women? (Human women, not monkeys)

My contention is that any sexual behavior is in one's head - not the hypothalamus, but the cognitive, sensory, and memory portions. I don't believe there is a gene that emits some kind of cosmic rays that causes a sexual attraction to someone with certain physical characteristics. That defies logic.

142 posted on 11/29/2004 10:50:14 PM PST by Shethink13
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To: Shethink13
Let's get real here and stick with HUMAN BEINGS if you don't mind, which was the original point of your argument - the hypothalumus study. I hope you will agree that as human beings there is a lot more involved regarding relationships beyond the basest animal instincts.

All physiological research begins with animal studies. you can not in any ethical manner do invasive or alteration studies on human beings. Just to do post-mortem studies requires a mountain of regulatory work and to do live human studies requires wading through endless Federal regulations that eliminate most studies from the financial strain. Thus animal models are valuable research and are amazingly informative. Believe it or not - almost every neurological system, receptor mechanisms, control/feedback systems in the human body were determined from animal studies. The drugs we use know were developed from this type of research - the surgical techniques, the treatment modalities, the physiological paradigms that give rise to modern medicine are all from animal studies. They can't be discounted.

Yes, relationships are more complicated than "basest animal instincts" but are all based upon those instincts and the neural pathways that produce those behaviors. The brain is not a magic box that produces complex behavior from nothing - all must be laid down in a pathway - a sequence of interneural connections.

Please explain to me how a chemical imbalance causes someone who is looking at another with certain physical characteristics to become sexually attracted to them?

When you see someone with certain characteristics, there are chemical changes, neurotransmitters, hormones, proto-oncogene expressions, etc., that can alter your behavior towards them. When a woman sees her baby for the first time, there is a massive oxytocin release. Serotonergic and dopaminergic pathways alter in action and form new connections. The woman becomes bonded to that baby and feels an onrush of maternal, nurturing, and love feelings. If the serotonin pathways are defective, such as can occur in postpartum depression, this onrush of emotions is not a positive one but one of anger and rejection to the baby. By the way, the structural geometry of an infants face activates similar pathways which is part of the the "aww, how cute" nurturing reaction initiated in most people. The theory being that this is a protective mechanism for groups to care for all young in the group and not just their own.

If so, I ask again, why are they not repeating these EXACT SAME STUDIES on women? (Human women, not monkeys)

The original study was a simple anatomical comparison. It showed that a difference in neuronal density, size, and connectivity produces a different sexual behavior. The next step is determine why and what other factors are involved. Thus studies on men and women have been performed involving neurotransmitter levels, receptor binding, second messenger signaling, proto-oncogene expression, and more. These are more in depth and get to the microbiological mechanisms behind behaviors.

As mentioned above, human studies are very limited - by ethics (do you want everyone to be a lab rat?, by regulations, by finance, and by limited resources. Again, animal models are much more efficient.

My contention is that any sexual behavior is in one's head - not the hypothalamus, but the cognitive, sensory, and memory portions. I don't believe there is a gene that emits some kind of cosmic rays that causes a sexual attraction to someone with certain physical characteristics. That defies logic.

Like I said before, the brain is not a magic box. All behaviors have pathways in the brain that initiate and control them - anger, fear, happiness, etc. You can not have a thought or an emotion without neurons interacting.The limbic system of the brain, especially the hypothalamus, is deeply involved in emotional states and sexual behavior. Defects in this area has been shown to be responsible for depression, PMS, and altered sexual activity.

There is no magic gene either. No one gene codes for the brain. No gene emits "cosmic rays" to cause sexual attraction. That requires the interplay of neurons within neural systems. To believe that the personality operates independently of brain function is the illogical stance.

143 posted on 11/30/2004 3:41:51 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: Bob_Dobbs
(sorry for the late reply; I've got more important things on my mind, like the upcoming destruction of the Republic by the "9/11 Bill".)

If this is right, than the bulk of "natural" human intercourse is not reproductive, but geared towards bonding,

The impulse is there for a number of reasons. The biology is designed for reproduction - that, as I said, is obvious right on the face of it.

If the biological wiring is discovered, there will be rejoicing in the gay community.

There isn't... they're afraid of getting marginalized as "mutants". They're at best uneasy about the research, if not outright in favor of stifling it.

Wouldn't this prove it to be "natural," a part of Mother Nature's design?

The problem is, you can't make that argument about the reproductive biology...

144 posted on 12/01/2004 10:41:27 PM PST by fire_eye (Socialism is the opiate of academia.)
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To: Ophiucus; fire_eye; Shethink13
Going through a 2-week-old thread...

The landmark studies were done by Simon LeVay at the Salk Institute and published in Science in the early 1990's.

Here is what LeVay said of his own work in a March 1994 interview with Discover magazine:

"[His 1991 research] made the unassuming LeVay one of the most misunderstood men in America. "It's important to stress what I didn't find," he points out with the courtly patience of someone who long ago got used to waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. "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. My work is just a hint in that direction--a spur, I hope, to future work."
Source: Interview with David Nimmons (March, 1994) "Sex and the Brain", Discover, Vol. 15, No. 3, p. 64-71.

There are tens of thousands of former homosexuals. This fact supports environment being the major factor behind homosexuality. This article summarizes it well:

How Might Homosexuality Develop? Putting the Pieces Together

145 posted on 12/15/2004 7:36:02 PM PST by scripter (Tens of thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle)
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To: scripter
You, and the zealots at NARTH, completely misunderstand the work, the neural systems, and their meaning.

Never has it been sated in the research that homosexuality is genetic. LeVay's work pioneered work into evidence that there is a developmental disorder. Developmental NOT genetic. That is when something goes wrong between the "blueprint" of the gene and the production of proteins and the structuring of cells.

The subjects in such studies are genetically male and have no genetic abnormalities but something went awry in their early development that affected areas within a neural pathway of a neural system that controls sexual behavior. The hypothalamus, the basal ganglia, the amygdala are not 'gay centers' they are portions of a system that effects emotions and behavior. Alter the system - alter the output of that system.

As to "tens of thousands" of former homosexuals - that is a gross exaggeration. There are some who engage in homosexual behavior as a result of sexual abuse from when they were younger. The homosexual behavior is a symptom of a deeper trauma that produces many deviant behaviors. With proper therapy, some of these individuals can become more well adjusted in their sexual behaviors and relationships. This is one reason why homosexual behavior should remain in the DSM. However, that is a homosexual aberration from abuse - not the 'born gay' developmental disorder.

Cults like NARTH have a falsely inflated success rate. In actuality, the failure rate is about 85% and the recidivism rate of those "cured" is extremely high. This is from not understanding the population that requires treatment and the population that simply has a developmental disorder. It is easier to give sight to someone born blind than to 'cure' a homosexual with the NARTH brainwashing methods.

I'll leave you to trolling other old threads.

146 posted on 12/18/2004 2:15:38 AM PST by Ophiucus
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To: Ophiucus
... zealots at NARTH...Cults like NARTH

Yawn. There are many, many organizations that help homosexuals leave the lifestyle. Even Dr. Spitzer changed his mind that homosexuals can change, but don't let facts get in your way.

As to "tens of thousands" of former homosexuals - that is a gross exaggeration.

The facts state otherwise.

I'll leave you to trolling other old threads.

I'll leave you with some links regarding former homosexuals:


 Year

      Title
Posted
On FR



2004 
Critic Ignores Whole Truth About Ex-Gays  N/A
 
John Kerry's 'born-gay' science: Caleb Price debun  Yes
 
Kerry Discriminates Against Ex-Gays; He Denies The  Yes
 
Ex-Homosexuals Feel Insulted by Kerry's 'Born Gay'  Yes
 
More Than One Way Out  Yes
 
The Seeds That Grew  Yes
 
I Do Exist! -- New Video Focuses on Ex-Homosexuals  Yes
 
Changing minds  Yes
 
Homosexuality and the Possibility of Change: Intro  No
 
Masters & Johnson. Homosexuality in Perspective. (  Yes
 
The Great Escape (Mike Haley)  Yes
 
God's Amazing Grace (Stephen Bennett)  No
 
Matthew Manning's Testimony  No
 
Canada: Seven ex-gay clergy and laity to make stan  N/A
 
Study: Some Gays Can Go Straight  Yes
 
Eagles Wings Testimonies  No
2002 
Confession from a former homosexual  No
 
At least 50 others here  No
2001 
Former Homosexual Alleges EEOC Bias in Investigati  No
2000 
TV show ridicules former homosexuals  No

147 posted on 12/18/2004 7:37:49 AM PST by scripter (Tens of thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle)
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To: scripter
Organizations and websites where homosexuals can get help leaving the lifestyle:

Abiding Truth
Becoming Real
Choice 4 Truth
Christians No Longer Gay Living For God
Courage
Courage Online
Desert Stream
Eagles Wings Ministry
Exodus
Find Out
Gay to Straight
Help for Jewish Homosexuals That is Consistent with Torah Principles
Homosexuality and Gender
JONAH
Living Hope
Living Stones Ministries
Love Won Out
Matthew Manning
Metanoia
Narth
National Listing of Help
New Hope Ministries
One By One
Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays
People Can Change
Portland Fellowship
Positive Alternatives to Homosexuality
Realty Resources
Regeneration Books
Stephen Bennett Ministries
Transforming Congregations
Witness Ministries

148 posted on 12/18/2004 7:42:51 AM PST by scripter (Tens of thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle)
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To: scripter
Homosexual Urban Legends - The Series
149 posted on 12/18/2004 7:52:36 AM PST by scripter (Tens of thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle)
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