THESE ARE JUST THE FACTS--I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW A COUPLE OF THE MYTHS--FOR THE COMPLETE STORY GO TO:
https://splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/winter/10-myths
By Evelyn Schlatter and Robert
Steinback
Ever since born-again singer and orange juice pitchwoman Anita Bryant
helped kick off the contemporary
anti-gay movement more than 30 years ago, hard-line elements of the
religious right have been searching for ways to demonize homosexuals — or, at a
minimum, to find arguments that will prevent their normalization in society. For
the former Florida beauty queen and her Save Our Children group, it was the
alleged plans of gays and lesbians to “recruit” in schools that provided the
fodder for their crusade. But in addition to hawking that myth, the legions
of anti-gay activists who followed have added a panoply of others, ranging
from the extremely doubtful claim that homosexuality is a choice, to unalloyed
lies like the claims that gays molest children far more than heterosexuals or
that hate crime laws will lead to the legalization of bestiality and
necrophilia. These fairy tales are important to the anti-gay right because they
form the basis of its claim that homosexuality is a social evil that must be
suppressed — an opinion rejected by virtually all relevant medical and
scientific authorities. They also almost certainly contribute to hate crime
violence directed at homosexuals, who
are more targeted for such attacks than any other minority in America. What
follows are 10 key myths propagated by the anti-gay movement, along with the
truth behind the propaganda.MYTH # 1
Homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than
heterosexuals.
THE FACTS
According to the
American Psychological Association, “homosexual men are not more likely to
sexually abuse children than heterosexual men are.” Gregory Herek, a professor
at the University of California, Davis, who is one of the nation’s leading
researchers on prejudice against sexual minorities, reviewed a series of studies
and found no evidence that gay men molest children at higher rates than
heterosexual men.
Anti-gay activists who make that claim allege that all
men who molest male children should be seen as homosexual. But research by A.
Nicholas Groth, a pioneer in the field of sexual abuse of children, shows that
is not so. Groth found that there are two types of child molesters: fixated and
regressive. The fixated child molester — the stereotypical pedophile — cannot be
considered homosexual or heterosexual because “he often finds adults of either
sex repulsive” and often molests children of both sexes. Regressive child
molesters are generally attracted to other adults, but may “regress” to focusing
on children when confronted with stressful situations. Groth found that the
majority of regressed offenders were heterosexual in their adult
relationships.
The Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute
notes that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and
friends. Most child molesters, therefore, are not gay people lingering outside
schools waiting to snatch children from the playground, as much religious-right
rhetoric suggests.
MYTH # 2
Same-sex parents harm
children.
THE FACTS
No legitimate
research has demonstrated that same-sex couples are any more or any less harmful
to children than heterosexual couples.
The American Academy of Pediatrics
in a 2002 policy statement declared: “A growing body of scientific literature
demonstrates that children who grow up with one or two gay and/or lesbian
parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as
do children whose parents are heterosexual.” That policy statement was
reaffirmed in 2009.
The American Psychological Association found that
“same-sex couples are remarkably similar to heterosexual couples, and that
parenting effectiveness and the adjustment, development and psychological
well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual
orientation.”
Similarly, the Child Welfare League of America’s official
position with regard to same-sex parents is that “lesbian, gay, and bisexual
parents are as well-suited to raise children as their heterosexual
counterparts.”
MYTH # 3
People become homosexual because they
were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling
by their parents.
THE FACTS
No
scientifically sound study has linked sexual orientation or identity with
parental role-modeling or childhood sexual abuse.
The American
Psychiatric Association noted in a 2000 fact sheet on gay, lesbian and bisexual
issues that “no specific psychosocial or family dynamic cause for homosexuality
has been identified, including histories of childhood sexual abuse.” The fact
sheet goes on to say that sexual abuse does not appear to be any more prevalent
among children who grow up and identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual than in
children who grow up and identify as heterosexual.
Similarly, the
National Organization on Male Sexual Victimization notes on its website that
“experts in the human sexuality field do not believe that premature sexual
experiences play a significant role in late adolescent or adult sexual
orientation” and added that it’s unlikely that someone can make another person a
homosexual or heterosexual.
With regard to Schumm’s study, critics have
already said that he appears to have merely aggregated anecdotal data, a biased
sample that invalidates his findings.
MYTH # 4
Homosexuals
don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals.
THE
FACTS
This falsehood can be traced directly to the discredited research of
Paul Cameron and his Family
Research Institute, specifically a 1994 paper he co-wrote entitled, “The
Lifespan of Homosexuals.” Using obituaries collected from gay newspapers, he and
his two co-authors concluded that gay men died, on average, at 43, compared to
an average life expectancy at the time of around 73 for all U.S. men. On the
basis of the same obituaries, Cameron also claimed that gay men are 18 times
more likely to die in car accidents than heterosexuals, 22 times more likely to
die of heart attacks than whites, and 11 times more likely than blacks to die of
the same cause. He also concluded that lesbians are 487 times more likely to die
of murder, suicide, or accidents than straight women.
Remarkably, these
claims have become staples of the anti-gay right and have frequently made their
way into far more mainstream venues. For example, William Bennett, education
secretary under President Reagan, used Cameron’s statistics in a 1997 interview
he gave to ABC News’ “This Week.”
However, like virtually all of his
“research,” Cameron’s methodology is egregiously flawed — most obviously because
the sample he selected (the data from the obits) was not remotely statistically
representative of the homosexual population as a whole. Even Nicholas Eberstadt,
a demographer at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has called
Cameron’s methods “just ridiculous.”
MYTH # 5
Homosexuals
controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the
Holocaust.
THE
FACTS
The Pink Swastika has been roundly
discredited by legitimate historians and other scholars. Christine Mueller,
professor of history at Reed College, did a line-by-line refutation of an
earlier (1994) Abrams article on the topic and of the broader claim that the
Nazi Party was “entirely controlled” by gay men. Historian Jon David Wynecken at
Grove City College also refuted the book, pointing out that Lively and Abrams
did no primary research of their own, instead using out-of-context citations of
some legitimate sources while ignoring information from those same sources that
ran counter to their thesis.
The myth that the Nazis condoned
homosexuality sprang up in the 1930s, started by socialist opponents of the
Nazis as a slander against Nazi leaders. Credible historians believe that only
one of the half-dozen leaders in Hitler’s inner circle, Ernst Röhm, was gay.
(Röhm was murdered on Hitler’s orders in 1934.) The Nazis considered
homosexuality one aspect of the “degeneracy” they were trying to
eradicate.
When the National Socialist Party came to power in 1933, it
quickly strengthened Germany’s existing penalties against homosexuality.
Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s security chief, announced that homosexuality was to
be “eliminated” in Germany, along with miscegenation among the races. Historians
estimate that between 50,000 and 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality (or
suspicion of it) under the Nazi regime. These men were routinely sent to
concentration camps and many thousands died there.
In 1942, the Nazis
instituted the death penalty for homosexuals. Offenders in the German military
were routinely shot. Himmler put it like this: “We must exterminate these people
root and branch. … We can’t permit such danger to the country; the homosexual
must be completely eliminated.”
MYTH # 6
Hate crime laws will
lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization
of practices like bestiality and necrophilia.
”
THE FACTS
The
claim that hate crime laws could result in the imprisonment of those who “oppose
the homosexual lifestyle” is false. The Constitution provides robust protections
of free speech, and case law makes it clear that even a preacher who suggested
that homosexuals should be killed would be protected.
Neither do hate
crime laws — which provide for enhanced penalties when persons are victimized
because of their “sexual orientation” (among other factors) — “protect
pedophiles,” as Janet Porter and many others have claimed. According to the
American Psychological Association, sexual orientation refers to
heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality — not paraphilias such as
pedophilia. Paraphilias, as defined by the American Psychiatric Assocation, are
disorders characterized by sexual urges or behaviors directed at nonhuman
objects or non-consenting persons like children, or that involve the suffering
or humiliation of one’s partner.
Even if pedophiles, for example, were
protected under a hate crime law — and such a law has not been suggested or
contemplated anywhere — that would not legalize or “protect” pedophilia.
Pedophilia is illegal sexual activity, and a law that more severely punished
people who attacked pedophiles would not change that.
MYTH #
7
Allowing homosexuals to serve openly would damage the armed
forces.
THE
FACTS
Homosexuals now serve in the U.S. armed forces, though under the “Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy instituted in 1993, they cannot serve openly. At
the same time, gays and lesbians serve openly in the armed forces of 25
countries, including Britain, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia,
according to a report released by the Palm Center, a policy think tank at the
University of California at Santa Barbara. The Palm Center report concluded that
lifting bans against openly gay service personnel in these countries “ha[s] had
no negative impact on morale, recruitment, retention, readiness or overall
combat effectiveness.” Successful transitions to new policies were attributed to
clear signals of leadership support and a focus on a uniform code of behavior
without regard to sexual orientation.
A 2008 Military Times poll
of active-duty military personnel, often cited by anti-gay activists, found that
10% of respondents said they would not re-enlist if the DADT policy were
repealed. That would mean some 228,000 people might leave the military in that
instance. But a 2009 review of that poll by the Palm Center suggested a wide
disparity between what soldiers said they would do and their actual actions. It
noted, for example, that far more than 10% of West Point officers in the 1970s
said they would leave the service if women were admitted to the academy. “But
when the integration became a reality,” the report said, “there was no mass
exodus; the opinions turned out to be just opinions.” Similarly, a 1985 survey
of 6,500 male Canadian service members and a 1996 survey of 13,500 British
service members each revealed that nearly two-thirds expressed strong
reservations about serving with gays. Yet when those countries lifted bans on
gays serving openly, virtually no one left the service for that reason. “None of
the dire predictions of doom came true,” the Palm Center report
said.
MYTH # 8
Homosexuals are more prone to be mentally ill
and to abuse drugs and alcohol.
THE FACTS
All major
professional mental health organizations are on record as stating that
homosexuality is not a mental disorder.
It is true that LGBT people
suffer higher rates of anxiety, depression, and depression-related illnesses and
behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse than the general population. But studies
done during the past 15 years have determined that it is the stress of being a
member of a minority group in an often-hostile society — and not LGBT identity
itself — that accounts for the higher levels of mental illness and drug use.
Richard J. Wolitski, an expert on minority status and public health
issues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put it like this in
2008: “Economic disadvantage, stigma, and discrimination … increase stress and
diminish the ability of individuals [in minority groups] to cope with stress,
which in turn contribute to poor physical and mental
health.”
MYTH # 9
No one is born a
homosexual.
THE FACTS
Modern science
cannot state conclusively what causes sexual orientation, but a great many
studies suggest that it is the result of biological and environmental forces,
not a personal “choice.” One of the more recent is a 2008 Swedish study of twins
(the world’s largest twin study) that appeared in The Archives of Sexual
Behavior and concluded that “[h]omosexual behaviour is largely shaped by
genetics and random environmental factors.” Dr. Qazi Rahman, study co-author and
a leading scientist on human sexual orientation, said: “This study puts cold
water on any concerns that we are looking for a single ‘gay gene’ or a single
environmental variable which could be used to ‘select out’ homosexuality — the
factors which influence sexual orientation are complex. And we are not simply
talking about homosexuality here — heterosexual behaviour is also influenced by
a mixture of genetic and environmental factors.”
The American
Psychological Association (APA) acknowledges that despite much research into the
possible genetic, hormonal, social and cultural influences on sexual
orientation, no evidence has emerged that would allow scientists to pinpoint the
precise causes of sexual orientation. Still, the APA concludes that “most people
experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual
orientation.”
In October 2010, Kansas State University family studies
professor Walter Schumm said he was about to release a study showing that gay
parents produced far more gay children than heterosexual parents. He told a
reporter that he was “trying to prove [homosexuality is] not 100% genetic.” But
critics suggested that his data did not prove that, and, in any event, virtually
no scientists have suggested that homosexuality is caused only by
genes.
MYTH # 10
Gay people can choose to leave
homosexuality.
THE
FACTS
“Reparative” or sexual reorientation therapy — the pseudo-scientific
foundation of the ex-gay movement — has been rejected by all the established and
reputable American medical, psychological, psychiatric, and professional
counseling organizations. In 2009, for instance, the American Psychological
Association adopted a resolution, accompanied by a 138-page report, that
repudiated ex-gay therapy. The report concluded that compelling evidence
suggested that cases of individuals going from gay to straight were “rare” and
that “many individuals continued to experience same-sex sexual attractions”
after reparative therapy. The APA resolution added that “there is insufficient
evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual
orientation” and asked “mental health professionals to avoid misrepresenting the
efficacy of sexual orientation change efforts by promoting or promising change
in sexual orientation.” The resolution also affirmed that same-sex sexual and
romantic feelings are normal.
Some of the most striking, if anecdotal,
evidence of the ineffectiveness of sexual reorientation therapy has been the
numerous failures of some of its most ardent advocates. For example, the founder
of Exodus International, Michael Bussee, left the organization in 1979 with a
fellow male ex-gay counselor because the two had fallen in love. Alan Chambers,
current president of Exodus, said in 2007 that with years of therapy, he’s
mostly conquered his attraction to men, but then admitted, “By no means would we
ever say that change can be sudden or
complete."*******************************************************
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Photos
Comments
Steinback
Ever since born-again singer and orange juice pitchwoman Anita Bryant
helped kick off the contemporary
anti-gay movement more than 30 years ago, hard-line elements of the
religious right have been searching for ways to demonize homosexuals — or, at a
minimum, to find arguments that will prevent their normalization in society. For
the former Florida beauty queen and her Save Our Children group, it was the
alleged plans of gays and lesbians to “recruit” in schools that provided the
fodder for their crusade. But in addition to hawking that myth, the legions
of anti-gay activists who followed have added a panoply of others, ranging
from the extremely doubtful claim that homosexuality is a choice, to unalloyed
lies like the claims that gays molest children far more than heterosexuals or
that hate crime laws will lead to the legalization of bestiality and
necrophilia. These fairy tales are important to the anti-gay right because they
form the basis of its claim that homosexuality is a social evil that must be
suppressed — an opinion rejected by virtually all relevant medical and
scientific authorities. They also almost certainly contribute to hate crime
violence directed at homosexuals, who
are more targeted for such attacks than any other minority in America. What
follows are 10 key myths propagated by the anti-gay movement, along with the
truth behind the propaganda.
MYTH # 1
Homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than
heterosexuals.
THE FACTS
According to the
American Psychological Association, “homosexual men are not more likely to
sexually abuse children than heterosexual men are.” Gregory Herek, a professor
at the University of California, Davis, who is one of the nation’s leading
researchers on prejudice against sexual minorities, reviewed a series of studies
and found no evidence that gay men molest children at higher rates than
heterosexual men.
Anti-gay activists who make that claim allege that all
men who molest male children should be seen as homosexual. But research by A.
Nicholas Groth, a pioneer in the field of sexual abuse of children, shows that
is not so. Groth found that there are two types of child molesters: fixated and
regressive. The fixated child molester — the stereotypical pedophile — cannot be
considered homosexual or heterosexual because “he often finds adults of either
sex repulsive” and often molests children of both sexes. Regressive child
molesters are generally attracted to other adults, but may “regress” to focusing
on children when confronted with stressful situations. Groth found that the
majority of regressed offenders were heterosexual in their adult
relationships.
The Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute
notes that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and
friends. Most child molesters, therefore, are not gay people lingering outside
schools waiting to snatch children from the playground, as much religious-right
rhetoric suggests.
MYTH # 2
Same-sex parents harm
children.
THE FACTS
No legitimate
research has demonstrated that same-sex couples are any more or any less harmful
to children than heterosexual couples.
The American Academy of Pediatrics
in a 2002 policy statement declared: “A growing body of scientific literature
demonstrates that children who grow up with one or two gay and/or lesbian
parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as
do children whose parents are heterosexual.” That policy statement was
reaffirmed in 2009.
The American Psychological Association found that
“same-sex couples are remarkably similar to heterosexual couples, and that
parenting effectiveness and the adjustment, development and psychological
well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual
orientation.”
Similarly, the Child Welfare League of America’s official
position with regard to same-sex parents is that “lesbian, gay, and bisexual
parents are as well-suited to raise children as their heterosexual
counterparts.”
MYTH # 3
People become homosexual because they
were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling
by their parents.
THE FACTS
No
scientifically sound study has linked sexual orientation or identity with
parental role-modeling or childhood sexual abuse.
The American
Psychiatric Association noted in a 2000 fact sheet on gay, lesbian and bisexual
issues that “no specific psychosocial or family dynamic cause for homosexuality
has been identified, including histories of childhood sexual abuse.” The fact
sheet goes on to say that sexual abuse does not appear to be any more prevalent
among children who grow up and identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual than in
children who grow up and identify as heterosexual.
Similarly, the
National Organization on Male Sexual Victimization notes on its website that
“experts in the human sexuality field do not believe that premature sexual
experiences play a significant role in late adolescent or adult sexual
orientation” and added that it’s unlikely that someone can make another person a
homosexual or heterosexual.
With regard to Schumm’s study, critics have
already said that he appears to have merely aggregated anecdotal data, a biased
sample that invalidates his findings.
MYTH # 4
Homosexuals
don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals.
THE
FACTS
This falsehood can be traced directly to the discredited research of
Paul Cameron and his Family
Research Institute, specifically a 1994 paper he co-wrote entitled, “The
Lifespan of Homosexuals.” Using obituaries collected from gay newspapers, he and
his two co-authors concluded that gay men died, on average, at 43, compared to
an average life expectancy at the time of around 73 for all U.S. men. On the
basis of the same obituaries, Cameron also claimed that gay men are 18 times
more likely to die in car accidents than heterosexuals, 22 times more likely to
die of heart attacks than whites, and 11 times more likely than blacks to die of
the same cause. He also concluded that lesbians are 487 times more likely to die
of murder, suicide, or accidents than straight women.
Remarkably, these
claims have become staples of the anti-gay right and have frequently made their
way into far more mainstream venues. For example, William Bennett, education
secretary under President Reagan, used Cameron’s statistics in a 1997 interview
he gave to ABC News’ “This Week.”
However, like virtually all of his
“research,” Cameron’s methodology is egregiously flawed — most obviously because
the sample he selected (the data from the obits) was not remotely statistically
representative of the homosexual population as a whole. Even Nicholas Eberstadt,
a demographer at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has called
Cameron’s methods “just ridiculous.”
MYTH # 5
Homosexuals
controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the
Holocaust.
THE
FACTS
The Pink Swastika has been roundly
discredited by legitimate historians and other scholars. Christine Mueller,
professor of history at Reed College, did a line-by-line refutation of an
earlier (1994) Abrams article on the topic and of the broader claim that the
Nazi Party was “entirely controlled” by gay men. Historian Jon David Wynecken at
Grove City College also refuted the book, pointing out that Lively and Abrams
did no primary research of their own, instead using out-of-context citations of
some legitimate sources while ignoring information from those same sources that
ran counter to their thesis.
The myth that the Nazis condoned
homosexuality sprang up in the 1930s, started by socialist opponents of the
Nazis as a slander against Nazi leaders. Credible historians believe that only
one of the half-dozen leaders in Hitler’s inner circle, Ernst Röhm, was gay.
(Röhm was murdered on Hitler’s orders in 1934.) The Nazis considered
homosexuality one aspect of the “degeneracy” they were trying to
eradicate.
When the National Socialist Party came to power in 1933, it
quickly strengthened Germany’s existing penalties against homosexuality.
Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s security chief, announced that homosexuality was to
be “eliminated” in Germany, along with miscegenation among the races. Historians
estimate that between 50,000 and 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality (or
suspicion of it) under the Nazi regime. These men were routinely sent to
concentration camps and many thousands died there.
In 1942, the Nazis
instituted the death penalty for homosexuals. Offenders in the German military
were routinely shot. Himmler put it like this: “We must exterminate these people
root and branch. … We can’t permit such danger to the country; the homosexual
must be completely eliminated.”
MYTH # 6
Hate crime laws will
lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization
of practices like bestiality and necrophilia.
”
THE FACTS
The
claim that hate crime laws could result in the imprisonment of those who “oppose
the homosexual lifestyle” is false. The Constitution provides robust protections
of free speech, and case law makes it clear that even a preacher who suggested
that homosexuals should be killed would be protected.
Neither do hate
crime laws — which provide for enhanced penalties when persons are victimized
because of their “sexual orientation” (among other factors) — “protect
pedophiles,” as Janet Porter and many others have claimed. According to the
American Psychological Association, sexual orientation refers to
heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality — not paraphilias such as
pedophilia. Paraphilias, as defined by the American Psychiatric Assocation, are
disorders characterized by sexual urges or behaviors directed at nonhuman
objects or non-consenting persons like children, or that involve the suffering
or humiliation of one’s partner.
Even if pedophiles, for example, were
protected under a hate crime law — and such a law has not been suggested or
contemplated anywhere — that would not legalize or “protect” pedophilia.
Pedophilia is illegal sexual activity, and a law that more severely punished
people who attacked pedophiles would not change that.
MYTH #
7
Allowing homosexuals to serve openly would damage the armed
forces.
THE
FACTS
Homosexuals now serve in the U.S. armed forces, though under the “Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy instituted in 1993, they cannot serve openly. At
the same time, gays and lesbians serve openly in the armed forces of 25
countries, including Britain, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia,
according to a report released by the Palm Center, a policy think tank at the
University of California at Santa Barbara. The Palm Center report concluded that
lifting bans against openly gay service personnel in these countries “ha[s] had
no negative impact on morale, recruitment, retention, readiness or overall
combat effectiveness.” Successful transitions to new policies were attributed to
clear signals of leadership support and a focus on a uniform code of behavior
without regard to sexual orientation.
A 2008 Military Times poll
of active-duty military personnel, often cited by anti-gay activists, found that
10% of respondents said they would not re-enlist if the DADT policy were
repealed. That would mean some 228,000 people might leave the military in that
instance. But a 2009 review of that poll by the Palm Center suggested a wide
disparity between what soldiers said they would do and their actual actions. It
noted, for example, that far more than 10% of West Point officers in the 1970s
said they would leave the service if women were admitted to the academy. “But
when the integration became a reality,” the report said, “there was no mass
exodus; the opinions turned out to be just opinions.” Similarly, a 1985 survey
of 6,500 male Canadian service members and a 1996 survey of 13,500 British
service members each revealed that nearly two-thirds expressed strong
reservations about serving with gays. Yet when those countries lifted bans on
gays serving openly, virtually no one left the service for that reason. “None of
the dire predictions of doom came true,” the Palm Center report
said.
MYTH # 8
Homosexuals are more prone to be mentally ill
and to abuse drugs and alcohol.
THE FACTS
All major
professional mental health organizations are on record as stating that
homosexuality is not a mental disorder.
It is true that LGBT people
suffer higher rates of anxiety, depression, and depression-related illnesses and
behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse than the general population. But studies
done during the past 15 years have determined that it is the stress of being a
member of a minority group in an often-hostile society — and not LGBT identity
itself — that accounts for the higher levels of mental illness and drug use.
Richard J. Wolitski, an expert on minority status and public health
issues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put it like this in
2008: “Economic disadvantage, stigma, and discrimination … increase stress and
diminish the ability of individuals [in minority groups] to cope with stress,
which in turn contribute to poor physical and mental
health.”
MYTH # 9
No one is born a
homosexual.
THE FACTS
Modern science
cannot state conclusively what causes sexual orientation, but a great many
studies suggest that it is the result of biological and environmental forces,
not a personal “choice.” One of the more recent is a 2008 Swedish study of twins
(the world’s largest twin study) that appeared in The Archives of Sexual
Behavior and concluded that “[h]omosexual behaviour is largely shaped by
genetics and random environmental factors.” Dr. Qazi Rahman, study co-author and
a leading scientist on human sexual orientation, said: “This study puts cold
water on any concerns that we are looking for a single ‘gay gene’ or a single
environmental variable which could be used to ‘select out’ homosexuality — the
factors which influence sexual orientation are complex. And we are not simply
talking about homosexuality here — heterosexual behaviour is also influenced by
a mixture of genetic and environmental factors.”
The American
Psychological Association (APA) acknowledges that despite much research into the
possible genetic, hormonal, social and cultural influences on sexual
orientation, no evidence has emerged that would allow scientists to pinpoint the
precise causes of sexual orientation. Still, the APA concludes that “most people
experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual
orientation.”
In October 2010, Kansas State University family studies
professor Walter Schumm said he was about to release a study showing that gay
parents produced far more gay children than heterosexual parents. He told a
reporter that he was “trying to prove [homosexuality is] not 100% genetic.” But
critics suggested that his data did not prove that, and, in any event, virtually
no scientists have suggested that homosexuality is caused only by
genes.
MYTH # 10
Gay people can choose to leave
homosexuality.
THE
FACTS
“Reparative” or sexual reorientation therapy — the pseudo-scientific
foundation of the ex-gay movement — has been rejected by all the established and
reputable American medical, psychological, psychiatric, and professional
counseling organizations. In 2009, for instance, the American Psychological
Association adopted a resolution, accompanied by a 138-page report, that
repudiated ex-gay therapy. The report concluded that compelling evidence
suggested that cases of individuals going from gay to straight were “rare” and
that “many individuals continued to experience same-sex sexual attractions”
after reparative therapy. The APA resolution added that “there is insufficient
evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual
orientation” and asked “mental health professionals to avoid misrepresenting the
efficacy of sexual orientation change efforts by promoting or promising change
in sexual orientation.” The resolution also affirmed that same-sex sexual and
romantic feelings are normal.
Some of the most striking, if anecdotal,
evidence of the ineffectiveness of sexual reorientation therapy has been the
numerous failures of some of its most ardent advocates. For example, the founder
of Exodus International, Michael Bussee, left the organization in 1979 with a
fellow male ex-gay counselor because the two had fallen in love. Alan Chambers,
current president of Exodus, said in 2007 that with years of therapy, he’s
mostly conquered his attraction to men, but then admitted, “By no means would we
ever say that change can be sudden or
complete."
*******************************************************