An excerpt from "Myth and Reality about Homosexuality--Sexual Orientation Section, Guide to Family Issues"
*Documentation to support the arguments in the Myth/Reality Section can be found in the section entitled "Fast Facts" located toward the end of the document.
Myth: Research shows that there is a "gay gene." Homosexuality is genetic.
Reality: Homosexuality is not a genetically encoded condition. Contrary to media hype, there is no conclusive or compelling empirical evidence showing any absolute biological, genetic, or hormonal causation for homosexuality. Homosexual activist and molecular biologist Dean Hamer’s study claiming the existence of a homosexual gene has been scientifically discredited. Studies that claim to prove homosexuality is genetic have been purposefully designed from a homosexual advocacy perspective and seek to convince society that homosexuality is innate, psychologically normal, and thus socially desirable.
There may be a possibility of the existence of a genetic predisposition toward homosexuality, which is far different from causation. But even this possibility is far from scientifically proven. Predisposition toward something does not mean that it is inevitable, or that such a predisposition cannot or should not be resisted and overcome. Some people may have a predisposition to alcoholism, yet we do not affirm their disposition, but rather treat their condition and help them change. Current evidence suggests that environmental, familial, and personal influences contribute significantly to the development of homosexual tendencies. Seventy years of therapeutic counseling and case studies show a remarkable consistency concerning the origins of the homosexual impulse as an uncompleted gender identity seeking after its own sex to replace what was not fully developed in childhood. ( NARTH.com )
Although individuals who experience homosexual attractions and thoughts may not have chosen these tendencies, they do have a choice as to whether or not they will act on the feelings. It is the acting on these feelings that constitutes homosexuality. Many people have left the homosexual community and live successful heterosexual lives, which often includes marriage and raising children. See Fast Facts #73-83...
Myth: In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed homosexuality from its list of "disorders." Homosexual behavior should be considered normal.
Reality: The decision to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) was made after APA leaders and members had endured several years of intense political pressure and disruptive lobbying efforts by militant homosexual activist groups. (Ronald Bayer, "Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis," 1981) Homosexual activist groups pressured APA committees to remove homosexuality from the APA’s approved list of disorders. In spite of the long documented history showing that therapists have helped homosexual clients reduce and change their homosexual tendencies, professionals who persist in viewing and treating homosexuality as a changeable condition are labeled unenlightened, prejudiced, homophobic, and unethical. There is currently a movement within the APA to normalize pedophilia that appears to be following the same path to legitimization as homosexuality. See Fast Facts #1-3, 4-23, 35-40, 41-58, 77-82
Myth: The mental and emotional problems that homosexuals experience are due to the straight community’s persecution and intolerance of their lifestyle.
Reality: If this were true, then one would expect to find lower rates of suicide and mental illness among homosexuals in areas where homosexuality has been mainstreamed and widely accepted for decades (i.e., San Francisco, European countries, particularly the Netherlands). However, research shows that there is no reduction in the rates of suicide, mental illness, substance abuse, alcoholism, and homosexual domestic violence in areas where homosexuality is more widely accepted. High rates of emotional trauma in homosexuals are not induced by society but rather are the result of deviant behavior that assaults the emotional and physical health, of those who engage in homosexual sex. See Fast Facts #1-23, 24-34, 35-40...
Myth: Schools are not a safe place for homosexual students. This problem should be specifically addressed in school curriculum, clubs, and safe-school policies and programs.
Reality: Public schools must be safe for every child, without differentiation. Most schools already have policies prohibiting harassment of every kind. Many children suffer from the same kind of harassment purportedly directed exclusively at homosexual students, including children who are overweight, undersized, timid, suffering from acne, or who belong to ethnic minorities. Anti-harassment policies should cover all students, in all circumstances, equally, and not provide special protection for specific groups.
Federal crime rate statistics (www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm) reported a total of 140 incidents of hate crimes based on sexual orientation within U.S. schools and colleges during the year 2000. The nation has roughly 55 million students. The incidence rate of 140 crimes based on sexual orientation relative to 55 million students is 0.00003 percent, or three in 100,000.
Pro-homosexual organizations such as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), and the National Education Association (NEA) see safe school policies as an opportunity to establish clubs and develop curriculum that will indoctrinate student populations toward pro-homosexual advocacy. These organizations use the "safe school" notion as a Trojan horse. Once sexual orientation is established as an issue of safety rather than of sexual behavior, activists demand the entire fabric of public instruction be modified to promote, validate, and even celebrate risky sexual practices and lifestyles that are unacceptable to the majority of students and their families. See Fast Facts #1-4, 13, 20-23, 41-58, 101-113...
( EdReform's note - See "Documentation showing that the "saftey in the schools" issue is a ruse by GLSEN and other homosexual organizations" and "An excerpt from 'Queering the Schools'" )
Fast Facts 77. "The removal of homosexuality from the DSM 2 (American Psychiatric Association) was all the more remarkable when one considers that it involved the out-of-hand and peremptory disregard and dismissal not only of hundreds of psychiatric and psychoanalytic research papers and reports but also of a number of other serious studies by groups of psychologists, psychiatrists, and educators over the past 70 years. It was a disheartening attack upon psychiatric research and a blow to many homosexuals who looked to psychiatry for more help, not less." (Socarides, 1978, pp. 421-422 Sourced in: P. Scott Richards, "The Treatment of Homosexuality: Some Historical, Contemporary, and Personal Perspectives," AMCAP Journal Vol. 19, No. 1, 1993)...
Additional documentation:
An excerpt from "Evelyn Hooker and the Normalization of Homosexuality" by Dr. Thomas Landess
"Evelyn Hooker has been among the most influential figures in the highly successful movement to convince the American people that homosexuality is a "normal variant" of human sexual behavior. Her 1957 study, "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual" (Journal of Projective Techniques, 1957, 21, 18-31) is the most frequently cited scientific source for the argument that homosexuality is not a pathology, that homosexuals are as free from mental disorder as heterosexuals.
Such assertions have not only found their way into standard psychology textbooks but have also provided a scientific basis for decisions in major court cases involving the legality of state sodomy laws and prohibitions against homosexual employment in certain state and local agencies (e.g., schools, police departments). Indeed, when the American Psychiatric Association debated the issue of homosexuality in 1973, Evelyn Hooker's work was Exhibit A for those who wanted to remove homosexuality from the group's list of mental disorders.
For many commentators and activists, the Hooker study effectively ended the debate over whether or not homosexuals were in any way abnormal in their relationships with each other and with the community at large. Today many Americans have accepted the idea that homosexuality is "normal" and "healthy" without realizing that such an opinion is derived in large measure from a single study -- one conducted by a UCLA professor whose previous laboratory subjects had been rats...
CONCLUSION This unquestioning acceptance of "authorities" on the basis of professional reputation or political correctness threatens the integrity of our legal system. Judges must take greater responsibility for assessing the soundness and accuracy of testimony by so-called experts; yet, paradoxically, such a task is manifestly beyond the competence of the court. This dilemma is the consequence of the politicizing of the scientific community over the past several decades, particularly in questions of sexuality. The recent exposure of Kinsey's errors indicates just how long researchers have been careless or deliberately misleading in approaching sexual questions. And the widespread acclamation of recent, flawed studies "proving" that homosexuality is inherited genetically is evidence that the problem has only worsened over the years."
Myth and Reality about Homosexuality--Sexual Orientation Section, Guide to Family Issues