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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 8/10/2003 3:04 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by DLW

well since OVtheism only maintains that some events are not predetermined that leaves the degree to which we choose who we are in this life potentially quite determined.

But the fact that we inherit so much makes the choices we do make even more important.

dlw

As you abstract it, lots of what is "predetermined" is our created nature. Created good, and not entirely destroyed by the fall. If we forget that, then we might feel that walking by faith is impossble, or even "unnatural."

But I agree very much with your second paragraph.

DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 8/11/2003 12:41 PM (GMT -6)

As I abstract it I make no commitment to the goodness or badness of what is predetermined in our lives.

But part of answering the problem of order is making fallible judgement calls about what can be changed or what should be taken as given(at least for now).

dlw

Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes."

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 8/11/2003 4:10 PM (GMT -6)

Take Two:

quote:
Originally posted by PotOnWheel

quote:
Originally posted by DLW

well since OVtheism only maintains that some events are not predetermined that leaves the degree to which we choose who we are in this life potentially quite determined.

But the fact that we inherit so much makes the choices we do make even more important.

dlw

You nicely abstract it. And now that I look at the parts, I notice that lots of what is "predetermined" is our created nature. Created good, and not entirely destroyed by the fall. If we forget that, then we might feel that walking by faith is impossible, or even "unnatural."

And I particularly agree very much with your second paragraph.

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 8/11/2003 4:14 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by DLW

As I abstract it I make no commitment to the goodness or badness of what is predetermined in our lives.

What "PotonWheel" is refering to as "predetermined" in the above post is the Created Nature, which God himself called Very Good. "PotonWheel" mentions that as one among several things that are "predetermined." And mentions it as something not open to "our" call on the matter. But makes the valuable observation that: "Created good, and not entirely destroyed by the fall. If we forget that, then we might feel that walking by faith is impossible, or even 'unnatural.'"

Approve

"Time is the freedom to love."
(from Ware's "The Inner Kingdom")

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 8/11/2003 4:18 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by fred

quote:
Originally posted by DLW

As I abstract it I make no commitment to the goodness or badness of what is predetermined in our lives.

What "PotonWheel" is refering to as "predetermined" in the above post is the Created Nature, which God himself called Very Good. "PotonWheel" mentions that as one among several things that are "predetermined." And mentions it as something not open to "our" call on the matter. But makes the valuable observation that: "Created good, and not entirely destroyed by the fall. If we forget that, then we might feel that walking by faith is impossible, or even 'unnatural.'"

Fred, if you could kindly inform Pow that his point is correct but the context of the link in which it was made made his meaning more difficult to discern.
dlw

DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 8/20/2003 4:40 AM (GMT -6)

I just got this on a listserve...

JONAH, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality, is a non-profit international organization dedicated to educating the world-wide Jewish community about the prevention, intervention, and healing of the underlying issues causing same-sex attractions.

http://www.jonahweb.org/html/mission.phtml

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 8/25/2003 8:14 AM (GMT -6)

More firms adopt gay-friendly policy

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/export...news/956903.asp

Study: 21 big U.S. companies have anti-discrimination rules

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 — More large U.S. companies prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and adopted other gay- and lesbian-friendly policies during the past year, according to a gay rights’ group survey released Monday.

THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN said 21 companies — nearly double the number from last year — received a perfect score on its “Corporate Equality Index” of how firms treat gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees and consumers.
“The bottom line is that successful businesses are increasingly recognizing that equality works,” said Kim Mills, the group’s education director.
The group’s survey covers 250 companies from either the Fortune 500 or the Forbes 200 list of the nation’s biggest businesses.
Ninety-five percent had written policies banning discrimination based on sexual orientation, a rise from 93 percent a year ago. Seventy percent provided domestic partner health insurance, up from 67 percent last year.
Each company was rated on a scale of zero to 100 on seven factors. They included whether the companies had written anti-discrimination policies covering sexual orientation, provided health insurance for employees’ same-sex domestic partners and held diversity training.

Corporations scoring 100 included Aetna Inc., Bank One Corp., Intel Corp., Lehman Brothers Holding Inc. and Nike Inc.
Among the five lowest-ranked companies, with a score of 14, were Exxon Mobil Corp., whose shareholders repeatedly have voted down proposals calling for the company to explicitly oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians, and Domino’s Inc.
Exxon Mobil spokesman Tom Cirigliano said the oil company prohibits discrimination or harassment of any form. The company’s written policies do not specifically mention sexual orientation because it wants to make clear all discrimination is unacceptable, he said.
“You don’t discriminate, period, is our policy,” he said.
Domino’s spokeswoman Lynn Liddle said the pizza delivery company has instituted nationwide diversity training and education and “strives to be the employer of choice for every high-quality individual who wants to excel” at its business.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., known for its conservative values, improved its rating to 43 after broadening its non-discrimination policy to cover sexual orientation and instituting diversity training.
The Cracker Barrel restaurant chain, part of CBRL Group , jumped from zero last year to 29 after it dropped opposition to a shareholder proposal asking the company to include sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policy and later adopted the policy.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 8/26/2003 9:07 AM (GMT -6)

Homosexuality in devout families

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/htm..._families_.html

[Homosexuality] PBS looks at homosexuality in devout families
Item 4150 • Posted: Tue, Aug. 26 2003 • Weblogged by Religion News Blog

Associated Press(USA), Aug. 26, 2003
http://www.tribnet.com
By LYNN ELBER, The Associated Press

In this summer of lighthearted gay-themed programming, a new PBS documentary is a reminder of how disconnected glossy TV images can be from real life.

"Family Fundamentals," from filmmaker Arthur Dong, is an intimate look at homosexual children and their devout parents. It debuts at 10 tonight on Channel 9.

Dong's film records the heartache of people trying to reconcile familial love and their beliefs.

"The Bible is, and says, that homosexuality is a sin, and it's wrong," one mother says in the film. "It's a destructive behavior and will not bring happiness. ... You can't argue with that."

"It's really hard to change their point of view. Almost as hard as changing my point of view," says a gay son.

"Family Fundamentals" intercuts three stories: a man estranged from his Mormon family; a Pentecostal woman faith and her homosexual daughter and grandson; and a gay man who was a longtime aide and surrogate son to former U.S. Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Calif.). News stories about prominent conservatives who have homosexual children piqued Dong's interest in making "Family Fundamentals."

The film reels off examples, including Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is lesbian; and conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, with a gay son.

Dong cites the example of California state Sen. Pete Knight, a Republican who helped strengthen the state's ban on gay marriage. Knight has a gay son and a brother who died of AIDS.

"I found that such a strange paradox," Dong said. "What must Thanksgiving dinner be like for this family?"

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 8/27/2003 11:42 AM (GMT -6)

Top 10 Gay Myths

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16648

A Queer Girl's Top 10 Gay Myths

By Jennifer Holladay, AlterNet
August 25, 2003

I had a long conversation with a straight conservative the other night. We were both standing in the "Christian smoking section" outside the Alabama Supreme Court. There were about 1,000 people there, most of them gathered to protest the removal of Chief Justice Roy Moore's two-ton Ten Commandments monument from the building. I wasn't one of the protesters, but my smoking companion was.

He felt strongly that the monument had to stay, because the Commandments represent the "moral foundation of America" and because our nation has strayed from its roots. Divorce rates, spousal abuse and sexual violence against children can all be traced back to the abandonment of prayer in public schools and to the homosexual agenda, he said.

I decided this wasn't a good place for a queer girl and went home.

Gay folks have been in the news a lot lately. We can have sex legally now, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Episcopal Church got itself a gay bishop. But these victories for "my people" don't seem to translate into greater understanding. Straight conservatives seem to hold onto gay stereotypes as if they were the Commandments themselves.

If I could, I would try to debunk some gay stereotypes and to foster some homo-hetero understanding for those on the right side of the political divide, like my smoking buddy from the other night. I might as well start with my own Top 10 list:

1. The myth of gay recruitment. I can find a spouse from the existing pool of gay people the Creator created. I am not out to convert you or your kids. Don't want to. Don't need to. God gave me plenty of people to choose from. I chose one already.

2. Being gay is about more than sex. My gayness is based in love, not sex. I have an emotional, intimate connection with my spouse. Sure, we have sex, but it doesn't define us as a couple, or as people. She rocks, in and out of bed.

3. Pedophiles come in all forms. There are "bad gay people" just as there are "bad straight people." We've got some pedophiles among our group; so do you – you actually have more, because there are more of you. Can we agree to focus on fighting pedophilia? Gay, straight. Doesn't matter. Pedophiles are bad for kids.

4. The gay community is diverse. We are not all men in leather thongs with feather boas dancing on top of Gay Pride Parade floats. (Gotta love 'em.) We're not all male, all white, all rich or all anything else. (Also, we're not all liberal. Ever heard of the Log Cabin Republicans?)

5. Some of us believe in God. If James Lipton of the Actor's Studio ever has occasion to interview me, I have a ready-made answer to one of his standard questions. When I arrive at Heaven's Pearly Gates, the first thing I hope to hear God say is: "Yes, Jennifer, you have a reservation – but I'm afraid I don't see Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the list." The God I believe in is loving, liberatory and downright radical. (OK, I know wishing hell on anyone isn’t exactly a demonstration of loving. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned....)

6. I already can get married in a church. Some Christian denominations allow for this. Others don't. I'm not asking your church to bless me and my spouse. When it comes to "gay marriage," all we're after is the civil stuff. You know, things like having the rights of a spouse when my partner's dying in the hospital. Being able to be a Mom to our kids, in a legally protected way. Those sorts of things.

7. Slurs go both ways (pun intended.) The gay community has names for you, too. I won't call you a "breeder," if you don't call me a "sodomite." (I admit "breeder" has less of a sting to it, sort of like "cracker" for white folks.)

8. Rainbows belong to us. Please quit putting rainbow stickers on your cars. Please quit hanging rainbow flower leis on your rearview mirrors. Contrary to popular belief, not all of us are equipped with 100-percent accurate gaydar, and if you have rainbows all over your person or property, we may well assume you are a "member of the family."

9. Gay TV belongs to straight people. With the ratings that "Will & Grace" boasts each season, I suspect a lot of straight people are glued to their TV sets week after week. Gay folks aren't the ones keeping Gay TV alive. We're a small portion of the market share. Were you – or anyone you know – watching "Ellen" reruns last night? Or "Queer as Folk"? Or, heaven forbid, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"? Or, gads, "Boy Meets Boy"?

10. We notice your inconsistencies. If you really, really don't like gay people and think gay sex is disgusting, quit buying porn with women having sex with women. (That's gay sex. In some cases, it's bisexual sex, if a real – not plastic – penis is involved.) Americans spend a billion dollars a year on porn; it's been a long time since someone produced a "straight" porn film that didn't have two women going at it. If you quit buying this stuff, maybe the porn industry would fold – something that, I think, might benefit women across all orientations. Go ahead. Do it. Call me a conservative.

Jennifer Holladay lives in Montgomery, Ala.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 8/28/2003 8:34 AM (GMT -6)

Here is a very good, loving response to the myths...

Re: Top 10 Gay Myths

quote:
1. The myth of gay recruitment. I can find a spouse from the existing pool of gay people the Creator created. I am not out to convert you or your kids. Don't want to. Don't need to. God gave me plenty of people to choose from. I chose one already.

Hmmm not too sure about that one.....A myth? My own personal experiences with gays and lesbians tells me its not as much of a myth as she is implying.

quote:
2. Being gay is about more than sex. My gayness is based in love, not sex. I have an emotional, intimate connection with my spouse. Sure, we have sex, but it doesn't define us as a couple, or as people. She rocks, in and out of bed.

Both agree and disagree here. I have met both sides of this coin...both gays and lesbians...and many admitted that sex was the major issue. Others had emotional reasons for their life style and others said they were simply born that way and couldnt help it. I did not here any of them ever mention love though.

quote:
3. Pedophiles come in all forms. There are "bad gay people" just as there are "bad straight people." We've got some pedophiles among our group; so do you – you actually have more, because there are more of you. Can we agree to focus on fighting pedophilia? Gay, straight. Doesn't matter. Pedophiles are bad for kids.

For the most part I agree here. Where I disagree is in the case of the boy scout issue of gay scout leaders taking a bunch of boys camping. I assume her position would be that we should not discriminate here. I disagree since the girlscouts would not allow an unsupervised male to take a bunch of girlscouts on a camping trip. So I see the logic to be the same.

quote:
4. The gay community is diverse. We are not all men in leather thongs with feather boas dancing on top of Gay Pride Parade floats. (Gotta love 'em.) We're not all male, all white, all rich or all anything else. (Also, we're not all liberal. Ever heard of the Log Cabin Republicans?)

Agree.

quote:
5. Some of us believe in God. If James Lipton of the Actor's Studio ever has occasion to interview me, I have a ready-made answer to one of his standard questions. When I arrive at Heaven's Pearly Gates, the first thing I hope to hear God say is: "Yes, Jennifer, you have a reservation – but I'm afraid I don't see Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the list." The God I believe in is loving, liberatory and downright radical. (OK, I know wishing hell on anyone isn’t exactly a demonstration of loving. Forgive me Father, for I have sinned....)

Thats all mushy and nice and all, but does it accurately reflect the God found in scripture?

quote:
6. I already can get married in a church. Some Christian denominations allow for this. Others don't. I'm not asking your church to bless me and my spouse. When it comes to "gay marriage," all we're after is the civil stuff. You know, things like having the rights of a spouse when my partner's dying in the hospital. Being able to be a Mom to our kids, in a legally protected way. Those sorts of things.

As far as marriage goes I have not heard a good enough argument yet from the gay community to change the existing laws or definitions of marriage.
As far as the kids go......it has not been shown that a child grow and develops the same in a homosexual home as in a heterosexual home. Even some of the reports I have read SUPPORTING gay/lesbian adoption admit there are some signifigant differences. Of course they argue that they are either beneficial or neutral in nature. The kid thing is kind of a sticking point that is difficult to argue from a homosexual viewpoint.

quote:
7. Slurs go both ways (pun intended.) The gay community has names for you, too. I won't call you a "breeder," if you don't call me a "sodomite." (I admit "breeder" has less of a sting to it, sort of like "cracker" for white folks.)

Agree. Slurs and insults are quite unneccessary.

quote:
8. Rainbows belong to us. Please quit putting rainbow stickers on your cars. Please quit hanging rainbow flower leis on your rearview mirrors. Contrary to popular belief, not all of us are equipped with 100-percent accurate gaydar, and if you have rainbows all over your person or property, we may well assume you are a "member of the family."

Stupid comment. Rainbows dont belong to you brainiac. People liked rainbows long before you decided to make it a political/sexual symbol. Sheesh!! Everything is a civil rights issue these days.

quote:
9. Gay TV belongs to straight people. With the ratings that "Will & Grace" boasts each season, I suspect a lot of straight people are glued to their TV sets week after week. Gay folks aren't the ones keeping Gay TV alive. We're a small portion of the market share. Were you – or anyone you know – watching "Ellen" reruns last night? Or "Queer as Folk"? Or, heaven forbid, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"? Or, gads, "Boy Meets Boy"?

Agree. The straight community is quite hypocritical here.

quote:
10. We notice your inconsistencies. If you really, really don't like gay people and think gay sex is disgusting, quit buying porn with women having sex with women. (That's gay sex. In some cases, it's bisexual sex, if a real – not plastic – penis is involved.) Americans spend a billion dollars a year on porn; it's been a long time since someone produced a "straight" porn film that didn't have two women going at it. If you quit buying this stuff, maybe the porn industry would fold – something that, I think, might benefit women across all orientations. Go ahead. Do it. Call me a conservative.

Strongly agree. Glaring inconsistency right here that I personally have been guilty of.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/4/2003 7:04 AM (GMT -6)

here is an article that shows how the gay-community thinks of the causes of sexual orientation..

Sexual Orientation

http://www.soulforce.org/main/evidence.shtml

We express the direction of our sexual interest in our sexual orientation--our enduring sexual attraction toward members of a particular gender.

As far as we know, all cultures in all times have been predominantly heterosexual (Bullough, 1990). Yet, cultures vary in their attitude toward homosexuality. Whether a culture condemns and punishes homosexuality or views it as an acceptable alternative, homosexuality survives and heterosexuality prevails.

Homosexual people often recall childhood play preferences like those of the other sex (Bailey & Zucker, 1995). But most homosexual people report not becoming aware of same-gender sexual feelings until during or shortly after puberty, and not thinking of themselves as gay or lesbian until around age 20 (Garnets & Kimmel, 1990).

How many people are exclusively homosexual?

Until recently, the popular press assumed a homosexuality rate of 10 percent. But in both Europe and the United States, more than a dozen national surveys in the early 1990s explored sexual orientation, using methods that protected the respondent's anonymity. Their results agree in suggesting that a more accurate figure is about 3 or 4 percent of men and 1 to 2 percent of women (Laumann & others, 1994; Smith, 1996).

Less than 1 percent of the respondents reported being actively bisexual, but a larger number of adults reported having had an isolated homosexual experience. And most people said they had had an occasional homosexual fantasy.

Although health experts find it helpful to know sexual statistics, numbers do not decide issues of human rights. Similarly, it's helpful in manufacturing school desks to know that about 10 percent of people are left-handed. But whether left-handers are 3 percent or 10 percent of the population doesn't answer the moral question of whether lefties should enjoy equal rights.

What does it feel like to be homosexual in a heterosexual culture?

One way for heterosexual people to understand is to imagine how they would feel...

if they were to be ostracized or fired for openly admitting or displaying their feelings toward someone of the other sex;
if they were to overhear people making crude jokes about heterosexual people;
if most movies, TV shows, and advertisements portrayed (or implied) homosexuality; and
if their family members were pleading with them to change their heterosexual life-style and to enter into a homosexual marriage.
Facing such reactions, homosexual people often struggle with their sexual orientation.

At first, they may try to ignore or deny their desires, hoping they will go away. But they don't.

Then they may try to change, through psychotherapy, willpower, or prayer. But the feelings typically persist, as do those of heterosexual people--who are similarly incapable of becoming homosexual (Haldeman, 1994).

Eventually, homosexuals may accept their orientation — by electing celibacy (as do some heterosexuals);

by engaging in promiscuous sex (a choice more commonly made by men than by women);
or by entering into a committed, long-term love relationship (a choice more often made by women than by men) (Peplau, 1982; Weinberg & Williams, 1974).
Most psychologists today view sexual orientation as neither willfully chosen nor willfully changed.

Sexual orientation in some ways is like handedness: Most people are one way, some the other. A very few are truly ambidextrous. Regardless, the way one is endures.

Nor is sexual orientation linked with psychological disorder or sexual crime. "Child molester" is not a sexual orientation. Some homosexuals do abuse children, but most child molesters are heterosexual males (Gonsiorek, 1982).

These facts led the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 to drop homosexuality from its list of "mental illnesses." Understanding Sexual Orientation

If our sexual orientation is indeed something we do not choose and cannot change, then where do these preferences come from? How do we move toward either a heterosexual or a homosexual orientation? Is homosexuality linked with problems in a child's relationships with parents, such as with a domineering mother and an ineffectual father or a possessive mother and a hostile father? As children, were many homosexuals molested, seduced, or otherwise sexually victimized by an adult homosexual? Are children who observe homosexual role models (such as parents) more likely to become homosexual?

Consider the findings of lengthy Kinsey Institute interviews with nearly 1000 homosexuals and 500 heterosexuals (Bell & others, 1981; Hammersmith, 1982). The investigators assessed nearly every imaginable psychological cause of homosexuality--parental relationships, childhood sexual experiences, peer relationships, dating experiences.

Their findings: Homosexuals were no more likely than heterosexuals to have been smothered by maternal love, neglected by their father, or sexually abused.

More recent studies have also found that sons of homosexual men were not more likely to become gay if they lived with their gay dad, and that 9 in 10 children of lesbian mothers developed into heterosexuals (Bailey & others, 1995; Golombok & Tasker, 1996).

If even being reared by a homosexual parent has no appreciable influence on sexual orientation, then having a gay or lesbian teacher or bus driver also seems unlikely to have an appreciable influence.

Homosexual people do, however, appear more often in certain populations:

In America's dozen largest cities, the percentage of men identifying themselves as gay jumps to 9 percent, compared with only 1 percent in rural areas (Binson & others, 1995; Laumann & others, 1994).

One study of the biographies of 1004 eminent people found homosexual and bisexual people overrepresented (11 percent of the sample), especially among poets (24 percent), fiction writers (21 percent), and artists and musicians (15 percent) (Ludwig, 1995).

For uncertain reasons, men who have older brothers are somewhat more likely to be gay, report Ray Blanchard and his colleagues (1995, 1996a,b, 1997). Assuming the odds of homosexuality are roughly 3 percent among first sons, they rise to 4 percent among second sons and 5 percent for third sons.

So, what determines sexual orientation?

One theory proposes that people develop same-sex erotic attachments if segregated by gender at the time their sex drive matures (Storms, 1981). But even in a tribal culture in which homosexual behavior is expected of all boys before marriage, heterosexuality prevails (Money, 1987). (As this illustrates, homosexual behavior does not always indicate a homosexual orientation.)

Another theory proposes the opposite: that people develop romantic attachments to those who differ from, and thus are more fascinating than, the peers they associated with while growing up (Bell, 1982).

The bottom line from a half-century's theory and research: If there are environmental factors that influence sexual orientation, we do not yet know what they are. If someone were to ask me, "What can I do to influence my child's sexual orientation?" my answer would have to be "I haven't a clue."

The Brain and Sexual Orientation

New research indicates that sexual orientation is at least partly physiological. Researcher Simon LeVay (1991) discovered this while studying sections of the hypothalamus taken from deceased heterosexual and homosexual people.

As a gay scientist, LeVay wanted to do "something connected with my gay identity," but he knew he had to avoid biasing the results. So he did the study "blind," without knowing which donors were gay. After nine months of peering through his microscope at a cell cluster he thought might be important, LeVay sat down one morning and broke the codes.

His discovery: The cell cluster was reliably larger in heterosexual men than in women and homosexual men. As the brain difference became apparent, "I was almost in a state of shock ... I took a walk by myself on the cliffs over the ocean. I sat for half an hour just thinking what this might mean" (LeVay, 1994).

It should not surprise us that brains differ with sexual orientation. Remember our maxim: Although we find it convenient to talk separately of psychological and biological explanations, everything psychological is simultaneously biological.

The critical questions are, can this finding be replicated? If so, when does the brain difference begin? At conception? In the womb? During childhood or adolescence? Does experience produce the difference? Or do genes or prenatal hormones (or genes via prenatal hormones)?

LeVay does not view this little neural center as a sexual orientation center; rather, he sees it as an important part of the neural pathway engaged in sexual behavior. Moreover, he acknowledges that it's possible that sexual behavior patterns influence the brain's anatomy. (In fish, rats, birds, and humans, brain structures are known to vary with experience.) But he believes it more likely that brain anatomy influences sexual orientation.

Laura Allen and Roger Gorski (1992) offered a similar conclusion after discovering that a section of the fibers connecting right and left hemispheres is one-third larger in homosexual men than in heterosexual men. "The emerging neuroanatomical picture," notes Brian Gladue (1994), "is that, in some brain areas, homosexual men are more likely to have female-typical neuroanatomy than are heterosexual men."

Genes and Sexual Orientation

The evidence suggests that genetic influence plays a role (Whitam & others, 1993).

One research team studied the twin brothers of homosexual men. Among their identical twin brothers, 52 percent were homosexual, as were 22 percent of fraternal twin brothers (Bailey & Pillard, 1991, 1995).

In a follow-up study of homosexual women, a similar 48 percent of their identical twins were homosexual, as were 16 percent of their fraternal twins (Bailey & others, 1993).

With half the identical twin pairs differing, we know that genes aren't the whole story. Moreover, a new study using a diverse sample of Australian twins found somewhat lower rates of sexual similarity--although, again, identical twins were more likely than fraternal twins to share homosexual feelings (Bailey & others, 1997).

This is the sort of pattern we expect to see when genes are having an influence. Moreover, with a single transplanted gene, scientists can now cause male fruit flies to display homosexual behavior (Zhang & Odenwald, 1995).

Prenatal Hormones and Sexual Orientation

The elevated rate of similar homosexual orientation even in fraternal twins might also result from their sharing the same prenatal environment. In animals, abnormal prenatal hormone conditions have altered the sexual orientation of a fetus.

German researcher Gunter Dorner (1976, 1988) pioneered this research by manipulating a fetal rat's exposure to male hormones, thereby "inverting" its sexual behavior toward rats of the other sex. Female sheep will likewise show homosexual behavior if their pregnant mothers are injected with testosterone during a critical gestation period (Money, 1987).

Atypical prenatal hormones may produce similar results in humans. A critical period for the human brain's neural-hormonal control system may exist between the middle of the second and fifth months after conception (Ellis & Ames, 1987; Gladue, 1990; Meyer-Bahlburg, 1995). It seems that exposure to the hormone levels typically experienced by female fetuses during this time may predispose the person (whether female or male) to be attracted to males in later life.

Some tests reveal that homosexual men have spatial abilities like those typical of heterosexual women--a pattern consistent with the hypothesis that homosexuals were exposed to atypical prenatal hormones (Gladue, 1994; McCormick & Witelson, 1991).

Curiously, gay men also have fingerprint patterns rather like those of heterosexual women. Most people have more fingerprint ridges on their right hand. Jeff Hall and Doreen Kimura (1994) observed that this right-versus-left difference is less true of females and gay males than of heterosexual males--a difference that these researchers believe is due to prenatal hormones.

Because the physiological evidence is preliminary and controversial, some scientists remain skeptical. Rather than specifying sexual orientation, perhaps biological factors predispose a temperament that influences sexuality "in the context of individual learning and experience" (Byne & Parsons, 1993).

Perhaps, theorizes Daryl Bem (1996), genes code for prenatal hormones and brain anatomy, which predispose temperaments that lead children to prefer sex-typical or sex-atypical activities and friends. These preferences may lead children later to feel attracted to whichever sex feels different. Boys with feminine interests may find masculine males exotic. This could explain why, in personal ads, gay men tend to seek masculine partners and lesbians feminine partners (Bailey & others, 1997).

The dissimilar-seeming sex (one's own, for homosexual people) becomes associated with anxiety and other forms of arousal, which eventually gets transformed into romantic arousal. The exotic becomes erotic.

Regardless of the process, the consistency of the genetic, prenatal, and brain findings has swung the pendulum toward a physiological explanation. Nature more than nurture, most psychiatrists now believe, predisposes sexual orientation (Vreeland & others, 1995). If biological influences prove critical (perhaps especially in certain environmental contexts), it would explain why sexual orientation is so difficult to change.

Still, some people wonder: Should the cause of sexual orientation matter?

Maybe it shouldn't, but people's assumptions matter. Those who believe (as most homosexual people believe) that sexual orientation is a biological given--an enduring identity, not a choice--express more accepting attitudes toward homosexual persons (Allen & others, 1996; Furnham & Taylor, 1990; Whitley, 1990).

In American surveys, agreement that homosexuality is "something that people are born with" doubled from 16 to 31 percent between 1983 and 1993. Over roughly the same period, support for equal job rights for homosexuals increased from 59 to 80 percent (Moore, 1993).

Between 1982 and 1996, agreement that "homosexuality should be an acceptable alternative lifestyle" also increased, from 34 to 44 percent (Gallup, 1996). Accepting attitudes are most common among women and those with a gay or lesbian friend or relative (Herek & Capitanio, 1996; Kite & Whitley, 1996).

To gay and lesbian activists, the new biological research is a double-edged sword (Diamond, 1993). If sexual orientation, like skin color and sex, is genetically influenced, that offers a further rationale for civil rights protection. Moreover, it may alleviate parents' concerns about their children having gay teachers and role models. It does, however, raise the haunting possibility that genetic markers of sexual orientation could someday be identified through fetal testing, and the fetus aborted.

Sex and Human Values

Recognizing that values are both personal and cultural, most sex researchers and educators strive to keep their writings on sexuality value-free. But can the study of sexual behavior and what motivates it really be free of values?

Those who think not say that the very words we use to describe behavior often reflect our personal values. When sex researchers label sexually restrained individuals as "erotophobic" and as having "high sex guilt," they express their own values.

Whether we label sexual acts we do not practice as "perversions," "deviations," or part of an "alternative sexual life-style" depends on our attitudes toward the behaviors. Labels both describe and evaluate.

When education about sex is separated from the context of human values, some students may get the idea that sexual intercourse is merely recreational activity. Diana Baumrind (1982), a University of California child-rearing expert, has observed that adolescents interpret sex education that pretends to be "value-free" as meaning that adults are neutral about adolescent sexual activity. Such an implication is unfortunate, she added, because "promiscuous recreational sex poses certain psychological, social, health, and moral problems that must be faced realistically."

Researchers have found that teenagers who have had formal sex education are no more likely to engage in premarital sex than those who have not (Furstenberg & others, 1985; Zelnik & Kim, 1982).

Moreover, we enrich our lives by knowing ourselves, by realizing that others share our feelings, by understanding what is likely to please or displease our loved one. Witness the crumbling of falsehoods about homosexuality. Witness the growing realization that some types of sexually explicit material can lead people to devalue or hurt others.

Perhaps we can agree that the knowledge provided by sex research is preferable to ignorance, yet also agree that researchers' values should be stated openly, enabling us to debate them and to reflect on our own values.

We might also remember that scientific research on sexual motivation does not aim to define the personal meaning of sex in our own lives. One can know every available fact about sex--that the initial spasms of male and female orgasm come at 0.8-second intervals, that the female nipples expand 10 millimeters at the peak of sexual arousal, that systolic blood pressure rises some 60 points and the respiration rate to 40 breaths per minute--but fail to understand the human significance of sexual intimacy.

Surely one significance of sexual intimacy is its expression of our deeply social nature. Sex is a socially significant act. Men and women can achieve orgasm alone, yet most people find greater satisfaction while embracing their loved one. There is a yearning for closeness in sexual motivation. Sex at its human best is life-uniting and love-renewing.

Dr. Myers' textbooks in psychology are widely used in schools across North America. This excerpt is from David G. Myers' Exploring Psychology 4th edition (Worth Publishers, 1999). Excerpted and reformatted with the permission of Worth Publishers. A similar section appears in Dr. Myers' Psychology 5th edition (Worth Publishers, 1998).

Link to whole essay: http://www.hope.edu/lib/special/dmyers.html

For another treatment of this partial essay see
http://davidmyers.org/sexorient/textbksumm7e.html

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/18/2003 6:28 AM (GMT -6)

'Huge crisis' on homosexual issue

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$HOEZ1NBS30Q1BQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2003/10/18/nbish18.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/10/18/ixportaltop.html

Williams foresees 'huge crisis' on homosexual issue
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
(Filed: 18/10/2003)

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said yesterday that the worldwide Anglican Church still faced "a huge crisis" over homosexuality, despite the consensus reached at Lambeth Palace this week.

He forecast that conservative areas of the Church would split from the liberal American Episcopal Church when Anglicanism's first openly active homosexual bishop was consecrated in 16 days.

Although an immediate collapse of the worldwide Church was averted at the two-day primates' meeting, some of the more hard-line provinces could walk out over the next few weeks.

Three outspoken conservatives, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Archbishop Yong Ping Chung of south-east Asia and Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, issued a brief, non-committal statement yesterday.

They said they "were grateful to God for hearing the prayers and cries" of his people "to preserve the truth and unity" of the Church.

Dr Williams, in comments aimed at them, emphasised that he upheld the Church's traditional policy on homosexuality and believed that it should be altered only with widespread agreement.

He told Radio 4's Today programme that he personally opposed the consecration of Bishop-elect Gene Robinson, a divorcé who lives with his male lover, as the next Bishop of New Hampshire.

The Archbishop said the Bishop-elect could not have been a candidate in the Church of England and his ministry would not be recognised in this country.

Dr Williams said the Lambeth Palace meeting of the primates - the heads of the 38 autonomous provinces that make up the Anglican Communion - had encouraged them to try to stick together despite their differences.

"What we have achieved is at least to find some way of talking through the crisis without instantly jumping into what appear to be quick solutions," he said.

Asked whether he believed that Canon Robinson should become a bishop, he replied: "No I don't, because I believe that on a major issue of this kind the Church has to make a decision together."

Dr Williams said the issue left the Church "with a huge challenge about co-ordinating its discipline and its legal systems across the world, which we have never had to do before".

Bishop-elect Robinson was elected as the next Bishop of New Hampshire in June and his appointment was ratified by Episcopal bishops at their general convention in August by 62 votes to 43.

Conservative hopes that he would withdraw from the post, much as another openly homosexual cleric, Canon Jeffrey John, stepped down as Bishop of Reading this year, were not fulfilled.

The diocese of New Hampshire confirmed yesterday that the ceremony would go ahead, despite the warning by the primates that the development could "tear the fabric" of the Church.

"Robinson was elected based on his nearly three decades of ministry in the diocese, his considerable pastoral skills and his vision for ministry," the diocese said. "His sexuality was incidental to his call to serve as our bishop."

The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement said it was "heartened" that the primates had called on the Church to listen to homosexual people.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/19/2003 2:19 PM (GMT -6)

Interesting reflections of a devout Catholic gay man.
dlw

Losing a Church, Keeping the Faith
By ANDREW SULLIVAN

Published: October 19, 2003

Last week, something quite banal happened at St. Benedict's Church in the Bronx. A gay couple were told they could no longer sing in the choir. Their sin was to have gotten a civil marriage license in Canada. One man had sung in the choir for 32 years; the other had joined the church 25 years ago. Both had received certificates from the church commending them for "noteworthy participation." But their marriage had gained publicity; it was even announced in The New York Times. This "scandal" led to their expulsion. The archbishop's spokesman explained that the priest had "an obligation" to exclude them.

In the grand scheme of things, this is a very small event. But it is a vivid example of why this last year has made the once difficult lives of gay Catholics close to impossible. The church has gone beyond its doctrinal opposition to emotional or sexual relationships between gay men and lesbians to an outspoken and increasingly shrill campaign against them. Gay relationships were described by the Vatican earlier this year as "evil." Gay couples who bring up children were described as committing the equivalent of "violence" against their own offspring. Gay men are being deterred from applying to seminaries and may soon be declared unfit for the priesthood, even though they commit to celibacy. The American Catholic church has endorsed a constitutional amendment that would strip gay couples of any civil benefits of any kind in the United States.

For the first time in my own life, I find myself unable to go to Mass. During the most heated bouts of rhetoric coming from the Vatican this summer, I felt tears of grief and anger welling up where once I had been able to contain them. Faith beyond resentment began to seem unreachable.

For some, the answer is as easy as it always has been. Leave, they say. The gay world looks at gay Catholics with a mixture of contempt and pity. The Catholic world looks at us as if we want to destroy an institution we simply want to belong to. So why not leave? In some ways, I suppose, I have. What was for almost 40 years a weekly church habit dried up this past year to close to nothing. Every time I walked into a church or close to one, the anger and hurt overwhelmed me. It was as if a dam of intellectual resistance to emotional distress finally burst.

But there was no comfort in this, no relief, no resolution. There is no ultimate meaning for me outside the Gospels, however hard I try to imagine it; no true solace but the Eucharist; no divine love outside of Christ and the church he guides. In that sense, I have not left the church because I cannot leave the church, no more than I can leave my family. Like many other gay Catholics, I love this church; for me, there is and never will be any other. But I realize I cannot participate in it any longer either. It would be an act of dishonesty to enable an institution that is now a major force for the obliteration of gay lives and loves; that covered up for so long the sexual abuse of children but uses the word "evil" for two gay people wanting to commit to each other for life.

I know what I am inside. I do not believe that my orientation is on a par with others' lapses into lust when they also have an option for sexual and emotional life that is blessed and celebrated by the church. I do not believe I am intrinsically sick or disordered, as the hierarchy teaches, although I am a sinner in many, many ways. I do not believe that the gift of human sexuality is always and everywhere evil outside of procreation. (Many heterosexual Catholics, of course, agree with me, but they can hide and pass in ways that gay Catholics cannot.) I believe that denying gay people any outlet for their deepest emotional needs is wrong. I think it slowly destroys people, hollows them out, alienates them finally from their very selves.

But I must also finally concede that this will not change as a matter of doctrine. That doctrine — never elaborated by Jesus — was constructed when gay people as we understand them today were not known to exist; but its authority will not change just because gay people now have the courage to explain who they are and how they feel. In fact, it seems as if the emergence of gay people into the light of the world has only intensified the church's resistance. That shift in the last few years from passive silence to active hostility is what makes the Vatican's current stance so distressing. Terrified of their own knowledge of the wide presence of closeted gay men in the priesthood, concerned that the sexual doctrines required of heterosexuals are under threat, the hierarchy has decided to draw the line at homosexuals. We have become the unwilling instruments of their need to reassert control.

In an appeal to the growing fundamentalism of the developing world, this is a shrewd strategy. In the global context, gays are easily expendable. But it is also a strikingly inhumane one. The current pope is obviously a deep and holy man; but that makes his hostility even more painful. He will send emissaries to terrorists, he will meet with a man who tried to assassinate him. But he has not and will not meet with openly gay Catholics. They are, to him, beneath dialogue. His message is unmistakable. Gay people are the last of the untouchables. We can exist in the church only by silence, by bearing false witness to who we are.

I was once more hopeful. I saw within the church's doctrines room for a humane view of homosexuality, a genuinely Catholic approach to including all nonprocreative people — the old, the infertile, the gay — in God's church. But I can see now that the dialogue is finally shutting down.

Perhaps a new pope will change things. But the odds are that hostility will get even worse. I revere those who can keep up the struggle within the channels of the church. I respect those who have left. But I am somewhere in between now.

There are moments in a spiritual life when the heart simply breaks. Some time in the last year, mine did. I can only pray that in some distant future, some other gay people not yet born will be able to come back to the church, to sing in the choir, and know that the only true scandal in the world is the scandal of God's love for his creation, all of it, all of us, in a church that may one day, finally, become home to us all.

Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at The New Republic.

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/19/2003 6:51 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
CAPITAL COMMENTARY
A Publication of the Center for Public Justice

October 20, 2003

Marriage and Homosexual Rights

With a proposed marriage amendment to the US Constitution now working
its way through Congress, it is important to clarify the difference between
the rights of citizens and the rights of marriage.
Civil rights in the American republic protect every citizen's life,
property, religious freedom, free speech, freedom of association, access to
a fair trial, and equal treatment under the law. Neither heterosexual nor
homosexual orientation should be considered the basis for citizenship and
civil rights.
Protecting these civil rights means that many activities and
relationships among citizens require no recognition in public law. For
example, friendships, including those that are intimate and enduring, have
no standing in the law as institutions or organizations. That is as it
should be. People who are homosexually oriented, just as those who are
heterosexually oriented should, as citizens, have the same right to enjoy
such freedom of association.
The civil rights of individuals are not the end of the matter, however.
In addition to the rights of individuals there are also rights of different
kinds of associations, organizations, and institutions. And this is where
marriage and the family come in. Government cannot do justice to human
society if it does not distinguish a non-profit research center from a
profit-making industry, a church from a university, and a marriage from a
friendship.
The political and legal debate over marriage should focus on the
question of the institutional identity of marriage and not, first of all, on
the morality or immorality of different kinds of sexual relationships. In
this regard, marriage should continue to be recognized, as it has been for
centuries, as an enduring, covenant bond of love between a man and a woman
that legitimately bounds sexual intercourse and the consequences of
procreation.
Sexual intercourse holds the potential for life-generation and should
therefore be contained within marriage. From marriage children may emerge,
and with children the parental responsibility of father and mother in a
nuclear family arises.
Public law does not create marriage. Marriage and family originate
outside the political bond. Yet just as the law recognizes individual
rights, so the law should recognize marriage and the family as institutions
with their own rights and obligations. Moreover, the law should regulate
marriage and family for purposes of protection, encouragement, public
health, and the ongoing stability and well-being of the social order.
Homosexual relationships do not entail sexual intercourse and do not
have the potential for life-generation. Consequently, such relationships do
not constitute marriage and cannot give rise to families through
procreation. The attempt to attain the legal identification of marriage for
a homosexual relationship is, therefore, a legal error based on an empirical
mistake.
There is no reason to identify different kinds of friendship and other
personal relationships, including homosexual relationships, as institutions.
There is ample room in the law for individuals to covenant or contract with
one another for various social, economic, and moral purposes. If there are
good reasons to make changes in health-care policies, hospital visiting
rights, and other areas to accommodate "domestic partnerships" in addition
to marriages and families, those changes should be designed to accommodate
the full range of unmarried partnerships and not only gay and lesbian
partners. In other words, it would amount to unjust civil-rights
discrimination to single out one kind of non-marital relationship for a
privilege usually granted to marriage partners and their families while
denying that privilege to other kinds of enduring non-marital partnerships
and friendships.

--James W. Skillen, President

*****
Read this Commentary online at:
http://www.cpjustice.org/stories/storyreader$1114

Download a PDF of this Commentary at:
http://static.redjupiter.com/gems/cpj/1114.pdf

*****
Copyright 2003, Center for Public Justice

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The Center for Public Justice, P.O. Box 48368, Washington, DC 20002-0368
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The Mission of the Center is to Equip Citizens, Develop Leaders, and Shape
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Transform Public Life.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/20/2003 6:00 AM (GMT -6)

Sorry for not posting a reply to Pow's post, but here is Amnesty Int'l's public release on how "discrimination against homosexuals" is violating the universality of human rights.

UN Commission on Human Rights: Universality under threat over sexual orientation reso

“ AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE

AI Index: IOR 41/013/2003 (Public)
News Service No: 095
22 April 2003

UN Commission on Human Rights: Universality under threat over sexual orientation resolution
(Geneva) The imminent vote on a ground-breaking resolution on human rights and sexual orientation at the UN Commission on Human Rights will be a crucial test of the commitment of UN member states to the universality of human rights, Amnesty International said today.

"This is the first time that a resolution specifically focusing on sexual orientation has been brought to the Commission. Its adoption is the only way to end the intolerable exclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from the full protection of the UN system."

"A vote in favour of the resolution is not a leap into uncharted territory, but a necessary reaffirmation of rights firmly established in international standards. Governments who vote against will be signalling that they no longer believe in the fundamental premise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: that all human beings are equal in dignity and rights, without distinction of any kind," Amnesty International stated

The draft resolution, presented by Brazil and co-sponsored by at least 20 countries, expresses "deep concern at the occurrence of violations of human rights all over the world against persons on grounds of their sexual orientation" and calls on relevant UN human rights bodies to "give due attention" to these violations. It calls on States to promote and protect the human rights of all people, stressing that the enjoyment of universal rights and freedoms "should not be hindered in any way" on grounds of sexual orientation.

"Greater attention by the UN to this issue could make a real difference to real lives," Amnesty International said.

"Millions of people across the globe face imprisonment, torture, violence and discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity," the organization added, reminding of the sentencing of 21 men to three years in prison in Egypt just weeks ago, following a series of arrests and prosecutions of people thought to be gay.

Individuals in all continents and cultures are at risk of these violations:
Robin Lucas, an African-American lesbian woman taunted and raped in prison custody in the United States of America;
Vanesa Piedrabuena, an Argentinian transgender activist threatened and harassed after denouncing police brutality against transgender people;
five gay and lesbian friends in Uganda who were arrested, tortured and forced to flee their country, where homosexuality is outlawed;
Irina, a Russian lesbian woman threatened with forced psychiatric treatment to "cure" her if she did not give up custody of her son;
Malaysian opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim, still imprisoned on politically-motivated "sodomy" charges after his appeal was rejected.

"Frustrated by the impunity, indifference and institutionalised prejudice they encounter in their own countries, survivors and their advocates have increasingly turned to international human rights bodies. Brazil's resolution suggests that their voices are at last starting to be heard within the UN arena," Amnesty International stated

Due to the persistent advocacy of human rights defenders working on issues of sexuality and gender, some of the UN's human rights bodies have made real progress in recognizing these patterns of abuse. Brazil's resolution also reflects a worldwide trend towards greater protection of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Many governments have introduced protections against sexual orientation discrimination in domestic law. In the case of South Africa, Ecuador and several Brazilian states, this protection is enshrined in the Constitution.

"Unfortunately many governments at the UN have vigorously contested any attempt to address the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people," Amnesty International said.

"At UN forums from Beijing to Durban, governments have systematically written out references to "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" from proposed human rights texts."

Human rights defenders working on issues of sexuality have even faced vilification and exclusion within the UN system - a disturbing echo of the violence and physical elimination many of them face back home.

Some governments, however, continue to invoke cultural and religious justifications, as well as ill- informed misinterpretations of international law, to deny lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens their basic rights. Such arguments have reportedly been used in the last few days by some Commission member states seeking to thwart the sexual orientation resolution presented by Brazil.

"Sexuality can no longer be treated as a marginal and taboo issue at the UN. Sexual orientation and gender identity are fundamental elements of what makes us human. The right to freely determine and express these without fear or coercion are therefore human rights in the fullest sense," Amnesty International declared.

Amnesty International called on governments to vote in favour of the Brazil resolution.

Background

Amnesty International called on governments deliberating which way to vote on the resolution to heed the decisions and recommendations of UN human rights bodies in this area. Both the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights have long recognized "sexual orientation" as a prohibited ground of discrimination under the two International Covenants. Both treaty-monitoring bodies have for years called on governments to end violations based on sexual orientation, from criminalization of homosexuality to discrimination in employment.

Violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity have also been increasingly documented by independent experts appointed by the Commission on Human Rights, including the Special Rapporteurs on Violence against Women, Extrajudicial Executions, Torture, the Right to Education and the Right to Health, as well as the Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has also addressed the case of the recent arrests in Egypt.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has affirmed that homosexuals may be defined as a 'particular social group' in the meaning of the 1951 Refugee Convention. At least a dozen countries around the world have provisions in their legislation making it possible for persons facing persecution in their home countries due to their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity to be recognized as refugees.

Public Document
****************************************
For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org ”

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/20/2003 6:04 AM (GMT -6)

'Changing attitudes and behavior '

The draft resolution presented by Brazil, titled, "Human Rights and Sexual Orientation," begins by appealing to a number of international human rights conventions. It concludes with:

"Reaffirming that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms the principle of the inadmissibility of discrimination and proclaims that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth therein without distinction of any kind,
"Affirming that human rights education is a key to changing attitudes and behavior and to promoting respect for diversity in societies, [the Human Rights Commission],

"1. Expresses deep concern at the occurrence of violations of human rights in the world against persons on the grounds of their sexual orientation;

"2. Stresses that human rights and fundamental freedoms are the birthright of all human beings, that the universal nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question and that the enjoyment of such rights and freedoms should not be hindered in any way on the grounds of sexual orientation;

"3. Calls upon all States to promote and protect the human rights of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation;

"4. Notes the attention given to human rights violations on the grounds of sexual orientation by the special procedures in their reports to the Commission on Human Rights, as well as by the treaty monitoring bodies, and encourages all special procedures of the Commission, within their mandates, to give due attention to the subject;

"5. Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to pay due attention to the violation of human rights on the grounds of sexual orientation;

"6. Decides to continue consideration of the matter at its sixtieth session under the same agenda item."

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/20/2003 10:04 AM (GMT -6)

Some additional scientific evidence on physiological differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals.

[url]http://www.sciencedaily.com/odp/Top/Science/Social_Sciences/Gay,_Lesbian,_and_Bisexual_Studies[url]

dlw

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/20/2003 10:49 AM (GMT -6)

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/htm...n_soldiers.html

Daily Telegraph (UK), Oct. 19, 2003
http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk
By Elizabeth Day

A meeting of Anglican primates at Lambeth last week sought to avoid a schism over the appointment of a gay bishop in America. Yet despite the conciliatory tone, the threadbare fabric of unity is unravelling, reports Elizabeth Day

The Archbishop of Canada is walking, with slumped shoulders, along the grey pavement outside the Church of England headquarters, his froth of white hair dancing in the howling wind, his clerical silver cross a pendulum swinging from his neck.

His progress is brought to an abrupt stop as a tape recorder is thrust in his face: "Are you happy with the statement, Archbishop?" someone shouts at him out of the darkness. The Archbishop sighs as he wheels his suitcase to a standstill. "We've all agreed to it," he says. "After any major controversy, some people are happy, some are not."

Last week 37 Anglican primates produced a statement on homosexuality that sought to avoid a schism. The primates, reacting to the election of an active homosexual as bishop in America and the blessing of same-sex couples in a Canadian diocese, insisted after two days of intense negotiation that they would "listen to the experience of homosexual persons, and. . . assure them that they are loved by God".

Yet they also declared that if the consecration of a homosexual bishop in New Hampshire went ahead "the future of the Communion itself will be put in jeopardy" (/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$0AV5OI3KYV1PXQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2003/10/17/nbish17.xml). The primates then did what any organisation does when desperate for breathing space and unsure of how future events will unfold: they set up a commission.

With a neat symmetry, both the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement and Anglican Mainstream, the traditionalist evangelical organisation, issued statements welcoming the outcome of the meeting, with extensive caveats outlining why the primates did not go far enough.

The threadbare fabric of unity is rapidly unravelling. Canon Gene Robinson, the homosexual clergyman due to be consecrated as bishop on November 2 in New Hampshire, has issued a statement insisting that he will not stand down.

The tenuous hope that the American Episcopalian Archbishop, the Most Rev Frank Griswold, would ask Canon Robinson to withdraw was swiftly extinguished.

The American Archbishop demonstrated where his loyalties lay as soon as the emergency meeting closed its doors on Thursday evening. His first action after signing a declaration condemning the election of a homosexual as bishop in his own diocese was to call Canon Gene Robinson in America to let him know the outcome and reiterate his support.

At the post-meeting press conference, Archbishop Griswold refused point blank to be pinned down on whether he would boycott the consecration. "I might do many things," he said flippantly. "The second coming might occur."

Archbishop Griswold, determined to make public his position, had even organised his own rival press conference at St Matthew's Church in Westminster on Thursday night. "Luckily he agreed not to do that," confided Canon James Rosenthal, the rotundly cheerful director of communications for the Anglican Communion.

For all the conciliatory tones of the final statement, then, it has made precious little real difference.

The evangelical primates are already joining forces in preparation for November 2. One of them, the Primate of the Southern American Cone, the Most Rev Gregory Venables, conceded that schism already existed. "The commission is not going to say: 'Do we make a break or not?' The break is there. It is going to examine what does that mean."

With conservative primates talking openly of schism and the liberal faction urging Gene Robinson to stand fast, the Archbishop of Canterbury may well have his hand forced sooner than he likes.

The evangelical wing of the church is set to declare itself "out of communion" with the Episcopalian Church of the USA (ECUSA).

Pressure will then be put on the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York, Dr David Hope, to make a declaration on behalf of the Church of England on whether it will explicitly condemn ECUSA or tacitly support the ordination of homosexuals by remaining silent.

Without a condemnatory statement, the fastest-growing churches in the Anglican Communion - the southern American and African countries, which are the most conservative - will refuse to acknowledge Canterbury's jurisdiction. As Archbishop, Dr Williams is the head of the church, but not a Pope. He cannot decree a position.

Nor is schism the cataclysmic end-game it is made out to be. The autonomy of each individual province means that the Anglican Church has been out of communion with itself since 1989, when the American church appointed Barbara Harris as its first woman bishop.

The opponents of women priests attended the 1998 Lambeth Conference alongside her, but did not acknowledge her as a priest and refused to dress in clerical garb in group photographs with her.

On this issue, however, the conservative primates do not want a compromise solution.

"The homosexuality issue is of massive importance because it makes mission incredibly difficult when the Anglican Church is presented in terms of Western decadence and lax morality in largely Muslim countries," said Bishop David Evans, the retired general secretary of the South American Missionary Society. " The southern primates are very angry about this. They have got a strategy planned for November 2."

There is a growing feeling, however, that the traditionalist wing of the church is losing momentum in the face of America's bullishness. An indication of the increasing isolation of the conservatives was evidenced by the circulation of a letter at the emergency meeting asking primates to sign up in condemnation of ECUSA. The letter failed to get the expected majority of signatories.

"It happened over the ordination of women, just as it happened over the marrying of divorced people," said an adviser to one prominent liberal primate. "America pushed the envelope and everyone else followed suit. America is embracing change and modernity which the rest of the Anglican Church must do to survive."

That the southern primates will refuse to recognise the authority of any openly homosexual bishop is clear, but the question remains: will it make any real difference? The Anglican Church is practised at compromise. It is also very good at riding out controversies.

"You've got to put things in perspective," says the Archbishop of Southern Africa, the Most Rev Njongonkulu Ndungane, the only African primate to have spoken out in favour of homosexual ordination. "We've been there before as a church not so long ago when the first woman bishop was elected, there was a big hype in the communion. And we survived. It's in the nature of the church to live in this creative tension."

For now, the primates' statement has delayed any real decision until a fortnight's time. Even then, it is likely that the Archbishop of Canterbury will react to a conservative schism simply by asking the church to wait for the outcome of the 12-month commission. The preliminary findings are due to be discussed at the General Synod in February. "That's when we will see the real battle begin," said Bishop David Evans.

For all this fighting talk, one can't help feeling that the guns will go off with a whimper rather than a bang. The Christian soldiers of the Anglican Communion are masters of stalling, compromising and, in the end, accepting that moving forward is inevitable.

"November 2 will not be a day of blood-red skies and catastrophe," says Rev Colin Jones, the personal secretary of the Archbishop of Southern Africa.

"The Anglican Communion will carry on as normal, just as it did after the ordination of women, but it will take time. There is a satirical version of the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers that goes: 'Like a mighty tortoise/Moves the church of God. Brothers we are treading/Where we've often trod.' That sums it all up really."

In good time, the mighty tortoise may well carry on marching but, for the moment, it is hiding in its shell.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/20/2003 10:57 AM (GMT -6)

I still think there is a need for further research on this, but as I recall the work cited never claimed it was all hormones.

Study: Sexual identity hard-wired by genetics

www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/10/2...reut/index.html

“ LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- Sexual identity is wired into the genes, which discounts the concept that homosexuality and transgender sexuality are a choice, California researchers reported on Monday.

"Our findings may help answer an important question -- why do we feel male or female?" Dr. Eric Vilain, a genetics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, said in a statement. "Sexual identity is rooted in every person's biology before birth and springs from a variation in our individual genome."

His team has identified 54 genes in mice that may explain why male and female brains look and function differently.

Since the 1970s, scientists have believed that estrogen and testosterone were wholly responsible for sexually organizing the brain. Recent evidence, however, indicates that hormones cannot explain everything about the sexual differences between male and female brains.

Published in the latest edition of the journal Molecular Brain Research, the UCLA discovery may also offer physicians an improved tool for gender assignment of babies born with ambiguous genitalia.

Mild cases of malformed genitalia occur in 1 percent of all births -- about 3 million cases. More severe cases -- where doctors can't inform parents whether they had a boy or girl -- occur in one in 3,000 births.

"If physicians could predict the gender of newborns with ambiguous genitalia at birth, we would make less mistakes in gender assignment," Vilain said.

Using two genetic testing methods, the researchers compared the production of genes in male and female brains in embryonic mice -- long before the animals developed sex organs.

They found 54 genes produced in different amounts in male and female mouse brains, prior to hormonal influence. Eighteen of the genes were produced at higher levels in the male brains; 36 were produced at higher levels in the female brains.

"We discovered that the male and female brains differed in many measurable ways, including anatomy and function." Vilain said.

For example, the two hemispheres of the brain appeared more symmetrical in females than in males. According to Vilain, the symmetry may improve communication between both sides of the brain, leading to enhanced verbal expressiveness in females.

"This anatomical difference may explain why women can sometimes articulate their feelings more easily than men," he said.

The scientists plan to conduct further studies to determine the specific role for each of the 54 genes they identified.

"Our findings may explain why we feel male or female, regardless of our actual anatomy," said Vilain. "These discoveries lend credence to the idea that being transgender --- feeling that one has been born into the body of the wrong sex -- is a state of mind." ”

DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/21/2003 4:20 AM (GMT -6)

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/10/12/wgay12.xml

New research published last week claims that homosexuals and lesbians who undergo psychiatric therapy can change their sexuality. Charles Laurence in New York meets three of the study's 'converts'

From his earliest memories, Jeff Johnston was one of the girls. Before he was five, he would shun the rough and tumble of boys' play, and stay in the house with his mother and sisters. He looked liked his mum and, relatives would say, acted just like her, too.

At seven, he ran away, terrified, from several encounters" with older boys. At high school, he joined the girl gang as a "peer" rather than a suitor, and realised that he was homosexual while reading pornographic magazines, and finding the men in the pictures far more attractive than the women.

But these days Johnston, 40, is married with three sons: Nathaniel, six, and Aden and Brendon, twins of three. "Gay, I was ashamed and afraid," he says.

"There was a constant conflict between my Christian faith and my feelings, I always wanted a family and children in the normal way, and I was terrified of Aids. Now, I have a wonderful marriage and my children, like those of every dad, are brilliant and beautiful."

Johnston is one of the 200 former homosexuals and lesbians who took part in a study by Dr Robert Spitzer, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, New York. The publication of his findings, in the US journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour, has created an uproar.

Dr Spitzer concluded that homosexuals can change their sexuality. His study, first revealed at a conference in 2001 but published only last week, created even more of an impact among psychiatrists and homosexual organisations because, in 1973, he had been instrumental in deleting homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's list of official mental disorders.

That decision - the foundation of the belief that homosexuality is nature, not nurture, and therefore beyond free will and moral choice - is at the heart of the "gay liberation" movement.

But his new study found that 78 per cent of males and 95 per cent of females who voluntarily underwent the "reparative" or psychiatric therapy reported a change in their sexuality.

And of the 143 men and 57 women who participated, 66 per cent of males and 44 per cent of females had achieved what he called "good heterosexual functioning".

This he defined as being in a sustained, loving heterosexual relationship, getting "emotional satisfaction" to a point of seven on a 10-point scale, having heterosexual sex at least once a month, and never, or rarely, fantasising about someone of the same gender during heterosexual sex.

"My conclusion is that the door is open," Dr Spitzer said. "I came to this study as a sceptic - I believed that a homosexual, whether born or made, was a homosexual and that to consider their orientation a matter of choice was wrong. But the fact is that if I found even one person who could change, the door is open, and a change in sexual orientation is possible."

Dr Spitzer has said repeatedly that as an "atheist Jew" his only interest in the issue is scientific truth, adding that an orthodoxy which forbids acknowledgement of the possibility of change is as flawed as that which labels homosexuality an act of will and morally wrong.

But gay rights groups insist that Spitzer is a "cultural conservative" who is supporting "therapies" for changing behaviour which are doing psychological damage to troubled homosexuals.

According to Joan Garry, the executive director of Glaad, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation: "No research nor findings should have any bearing on whether people - gay, lesbian, bisexual or straight - are treated fairly.

Spitzer's conclusions are based on a self-selected sample of people who are so troubled by their sexual orientation that they will go to any lengths to try to 'change' it."

In London, Peter Tatchell, a gay rights campaigner, said: "Everyone I have spoken to who has been through this so-called treatment says it has not only failed to convert them to heterosexuality, but it has caused them immense psychological and emotional harm."

Both the scientists and the campaigners complain that Dr Spitzer's sample of 200 people is bogus because most came from Christian fundamentalist communities and were simply tormented by the social pressure brought to bear against their natural sexual orientation.

Dr Spitzer agrees that the participants were "highly motivated" but that none the less they managed to change to his definition of "good heterosexual functioning". And in their own words, homosexual "converts" describe social pressure as only part of the cause of their misery and faith as only part of the cure.

"Changing was a long process that took many years, and at the heart of it was relationship issues," said Richard Cohen, 50, who became a psychotherapist and now works with troubled homosexuals. "To make behavioural change, you have to go into the past and discover the wounds that created the problem.

"This is what I found for myself: I had a fear of my father, an angry man who frightened me; my mother was overbearing and I was too close to her; I had an older brother who was physically abused - beaten - by my father and who in turn abused me; my uncle saw my needs, and then polluted our relationship with sexual abuse; and I was a sensitive kid who was bullied at school."

Mr Cohen, a married father of three children aged 20, 18 and eight, says the key to change is to fit into gender roles that have nothing to do with sex: "A man must first be able to be a man with men, to find his gender identity. When he does, opposites attract and he will want a woman."

Ashley, 47, was a lesbian committed not only to sex with women but to the "activist" lifestyle in Los Angeles, until she started therapy in her late 20s. Now she is married, with a son of 10, and was among the women studied by Dr Spitzer.

But although she started going to church during her therapy and says that her faith and the church community helped her change her orientation, it was a search for emotional stability that turned her from her lesbian lovers.

"I knew as a teenager that I was a lesbian, and at 18 the magic moment came and I acted on my feelings with a woman 13 years older," she said. "For years I was totally committed to the lifestyle. But I was not happy. Some of my relationships lasted three or four years, and my family was tolerant and I would go home with my lovers. But something was wrong."

Ashley realised in her 20s that her lesbian community seemed unable to offer calm, stability and a sense of security. "Every relationship was so intense," she said. "There was anger and jealousy and I could not bear to be away from my lover for even a few minutes.

There was also violence and a great deal of alcohol abuse. These things - unhappiness, alcoholism - are symptoms of people functioning in a way they are not designed to, and, yes, I think that is morally wrong."

Ashley found herself turning away from women for sex after realising in psychotherapy that, all along, she had been looking for a mother figure.

Her mother had been an emotionally unstable woman who would one minute be an attentive, safeguarding parent, and the next "absent". Her father, meanwhile, was a hard-working provider whom she hardly knew.

"I was looking for my mother in all the wrong women. When I realised that, I slowly started to find men more attractive, or at least I found the guy who is now my husband attractive," she said. "And I simply no longer want to have sex with women."

For Jeff Johnston, the transition to physical attraction to the opposite sex was not as immediate. Even with the woman he fell in love with, Judy, with whom he recently celebrated his 10th wedding anniversary, the chemistry was elusive in the beginning.

"It was terrifying, horrible," he said. "Our dating relationship was really rough. I was in my early 30s, and I was trying to do stuff that guys do when they are 16 or 18.

"But now it's wonderful," he says, describing how the couple found true happiness after their wedding. "We had a two-year honeymoon."

Laika
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433

Posted 10/21/2003 4:23 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Originally posted by DLW
A meeting of Anglican primates at Lambeth last week

I heard the cafeteria ran out of bananas....

inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/21/2003 4:27 AM (GMT -6)

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_spit.htm

ANALYSIS OF DR. SPITZER'S STUDY OF REPARATIVE THERAPY

Professional organizations and conversion therapy:
Various professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, and the National Association of Social Workers have stated that a person's sexual orientation cannot be changed by reparative therapy. 1,2

The one exception is the very small group: National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). NARTH was founded in 1992 as a "non-profit, educational organization dedicated to the research, therapy and prevention of homosexuality." It currently consists of "more than 1,000 mental-health professionals." -- fewer than 1% of the therapists who belong to either of the APA's. 3,4 NARTH strongly advocates the use of reparative therapy, believing it to be very effective and safe. They regard homosexual behavior as a treatable disorder.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Counseling Association, American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, American Psychological Association, American School Health Association, Interfaith Alliance Foundation, National Association of School Psychologists, National Association of Social Workers, and National Education Association have formed the "Just the Facts Coalition." In 1999, they developed and endorsed "Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation & Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel." It includes a number of quotations from major professional organizations expressing concern about reparative therapy and other methods of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation. One example is the American Academy of Pediatrics, which stated: "Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation." 5

Background of Dr. Spitzer's study:
Dr. Robert Spitzer is a Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. During his three decades of psychiatric research, he has specialized in the topic of human sexual orientation. In 1973, he was one of the members of the American Psychiatric Association who was instrumental in removing homosexuality from their list of mental illnesses. The APA was the first major mental-health agency to do so.

For their annual conference in 2000-MAY, the American Psychiatric Association had scheduled a panel discussion to debate whether there is any hard evidence that an adult's sexual orientation can be altered through reparative therapy. Dr. Robert Spitzer was scheduled to be the moderator. Two psychiatrists withdrew from the panel, stating that the topic is too politically charged to permit scientific discussion. The debate was then cancelled. According to the APA: "The doctors who were to debate on the topic decided there was not enough scientific information to have a proper debate. They felt that any debate would turn into a political debate and not a true scientific debate. While there is information on reorientation therapy, there have been no controlled research studies." 6 Dr. Spitzer said: "I think we ought to be able to talk about anything in a dispassionate way." Referring to the speakers who dropped out, he said, "I think they [the psychiatrists who withdrew] felt that to even debate it was to legitimize the topic and they felt that since the groups that they regard as their enemy were kind of salivating over having the debate, they didn't want it."

Exodus International, a Fundamentalist Christian group who tries to help gays and lesbians change their sexual behavior, protested the cancellation. Their national board chairman, John Paulk of Colorado Springs, CO, said: "I'm here as one representative for a virtually unseen but sizable population. I once lived as a gay man, but now I'm heterosexual, something the American Psychiatric Association says does not exist." 10 It is notable that he did not say that he was once gay; he said that he "lived as a gay man." We suspect that he has had a bisexual orientation during all of his adult life, engaging first in homosexual behavior, and more recently in heterosexual behavior.

At the time of the proposed debate, Dr. Spitzer suspected that an adult's sexual orientation is fixed. He said: "There is no documentary evidence showing someone’s sexual preference can be changed by therapy.

The term "sexual preference" is normally only meaningful when used to refer to persons with a bisexual orientation -- adults who are attracted to both men and women. Bisexuals are often attracted to one gender more that the other. They can thus be described as having a "preference." who The vast majority of adults have either a heterosexual or homoosexual orientation. They are attracted to only one gender, and thus cannot accurately be said to have a "preference." Dr. Spitzer appears to have used the term here in place of the more generally used term "sexual orientation."

He continued: "There is only anecdotal evidence, mostly from the therapists themselves, claiming that what they do works. That’s not very scientific. On the other hand, there’s no scientific evidence to show that this is impossible...It hasn’t been studied."

Before the scheduled debate, Dr. Spitzer had decided to conduct a study of "ex-gays" and "ex-lesbians," These are individuals who:

Had once identified themselves as homosexuals.
Had attempted to change their sexual orientation by: either engaging in reparative therapy with a therapist, or
through spiritual counseling from a conservative Christian transformational ministry.

Now consider themselves to be heterosexual.

Almost all are Evangelical Christians.

Definitions of terms:
Since essentially all "ex-gays" and "ex-lesbians" are conservative Christians, they generally use the same definitions of words as do Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Christians. That is:

They regard a homosexual as a person who has sex with others of the same gender. That is, their definition is based on a person's behavior. This differs from the definition of "homosexual" by most therapists, human sexuality researchers, religious liberals, gays and lesbians. These latter groups define a homosexual as a person who is sexually attracted only to members of the same gender -- whether these feelings are acted upon or not.
They rarely refer to bisexuals -- persons who are attracted to both men and women. They generally lump them together with gays and lesbians or with heterosexuals, depending upon their behavior at the time.
A person with a bisexual orientation who enters therapy and makes a decision to confine their sexual relationship(s) to members of the opposite gender are considered to have "left the homosexual lifestyle," to have become "ex-gays" or "ex-lesbians," and to have become heterosexual. They are counted as success stories by reparative therapists or transformational ministries. Non-Evangelicals would suggest that the individuals are still bisexual; their orientation has remained unchanged.
A person with a homosexual orientation who decides to become celibate is also considered a victory for reparative therapy or a transformation ministry; they have become an "ex." Again, non-Evangelicals would suggest that the individuals have not changed their orientation, which remains homosexual. They are simply celibate homosexuals.

About the study:
According to Parul Varnell of the Chicago Free Press, "Spitzer admits that he had 'great difficulty' finding people who claimed to have changed their orientation from gay to straight. Ex-gay groups regularly claim to know of 'thousands' of people who have 'changed' or 'left homosexuality.' But after searching for nearly a year and a half, Spitzer could only find 274 possibilities." 8

Dr. Robert Spitzer finally studied 143 "ex-gays" and 57 "ex-lesbians" who had reported that they had become "straight." During 45 minute telephone interviews with each subject, they were asked 60 questions about their "feelings and behavior before and after their efforts to change orientation. They discussed their motives for change; their strategies, which included counseling, support groups, prayer and mentoring; and their current relationships with the opposite sex". 7

Dr. Spitzer reported:

"Some people can and do change. Like most psychiatrists, I thought that homosexual behavior could only be resisted, and that no one could really change their sexual orientation. I now believe this to be false." 17
That 86% of the men and 63% of the subjects emerged from therapy still having feelings of attraction to persons of the same-sex. That is, after therapy they are bisexuals, not heterosexuals.
That sixteen (11%) of the men and 21 (37%) of the women report that they now have a heterosexual orientation. It is not known how many of these had entered therapy as bisexuals and how many had been homosexuals.
That 66% of the males and 44% of the females had arrived at "good heterosexual functioning." According to Cnn.com, that term is defined as having been "in a sustained, loving heterosexual relationship within the past year, getting enough satisfaction from the emotional relationship with their partner to rate at least seven on a 10-point scale, having satisfying heterosexual sex at least monthly and never or rarely thinking of somebody of the same sex during heterosexual sex."
"Of the 112 men (out of the total 143) who acknowledged that they masturbated, more than half (56 percent) said they used homosexual fantasies some of the time and about one-third (31 percent) said they seldom had opposite-sex masturbation fantasies." 8

Of the 200 subjects, 86 had been referred to Dr. Spitzer by conservative Christian groups specializing in converting homosexuals. NARTH referred 46 subjects. Some other sources provided 68. It is apparent that the individuals that Dr. Spitzer interviewed were hand-selected from a very large group of persons who had either a homosexual or a bisexual orientation. Those who had been unable to change their sexual behavior would not have become subjects in the study.

There are more than 1,000 professional therapists who belong to NARTH. Assume that the average member has treated 50 clients a year for the past five years. That means that there are over 250,000 clients from which NARTH could select subjects for this study. Assuming that reparative therapy had a "cure" rate of 0.02% then NARTH would have been able to provide the approximately 50 "successful" clients to this study. But a cure rate of 0.02% can be expressed as a failure rate of 99.98% -- not a promising form of therapy! If one considers the anecdotal accounts of gays and lesbians who have committed suicide after failed reparative therapy, then it becomes even less attractive.

Dr. Spitzer reported his findings at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association on 2001-MAY-9.

In later interviews, Dr. Spitzer said:

"Our sample was self-selected from people who already claimed they had made some change. We don't know how common that kind of change is. . . . I'm not saying that this can be easily done, or that most homosexuals who want to change can make this kind of change. I suspect it's quite unusual." 13
"I suspect the vast majority of gay people would be unable to alter by much a firmly established homosexual orientation." 14
"...the kinds of changes my subjects reported are highly unlikely to be available to the vast majority [of gays and lesbians]... "[only] a small minority -- perhaps 3% -- might have a "malleable" sexual orientation." He expressed a concern that his study results were being "twisted by the Christian right." 15

Responses to Dr. Spitzer's study:
In response to Dr. Spitzer's study, the APA issued a statement affirming its position and cautioning that "there is no published evidence supporting the efficacy of reparative therapy as a treatment to change one's sexual orientation." Quoted in Ref. 2

Other comments were:

David Elliot, spokesperson for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said, "The sample is terrible, totally tainted, totally unrepresentative of the gay and lesbian community."
Psychologist Douglas Haldeman of the University of Washington commented that there is no credible scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed, "and this study doesn't prove that either." He noted that the participants appeared unusually skewed towards religious conservatives and people treated by therapists "with a strong anti-gay bias."
Joan Gerry of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) referred to the subjects as "a self-selected sample of people who are so troubled by their sexual orientation that they will go to any lengths to attempt to ‘change’ it....These are people who live in a world where gays, lesbians and bisexuals are treated like second-class citizens."
The CNN.com report on the study claim that "some gay people can turn straight if they really want to."
Doug Nave of Covenant Network of Presbyterians commented: "...the subjects did not have any anonymity that might help them candidly report unfavorable outcomes; Spitzer could not assess their credibility face-to-face; and the findings were based entirely on the subjects' self-report (rather than, e.g., physiological measures of arousal), which research has shown is often very misleading. In addition, Spitzer's study has not been subject to any peer review or other normal professional tests of validity. Some therefore believe that the study merits no credit at all." 12
Barbara Pogue of the Lone Star Citizen, wrote: "Spitzer concluded that sexual orientation shifts are definitely possible, albeit rare, unusual and difficult." 16
Joe Nicolosi, president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), said that the study is "an historic event in the history of psychiatry's understanding of homosexuality." 17
Family Research Council, a Fundamentalist Christian group, simply reported that: "Dr Robert Spitzer's study of 200 former homosexuals found that change is possible... [He] found that 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of the women had achieved 'good heterosexual functioning.' The vast majority of the study participants reported that they were bothered only slightly, or not at all, by unwanted homosexual feelings." The implication is that the subjects were chosen at random from among homosexuals who had gone through therapy, and that most homosexuals can change their orientation. This is deceptive reporting. 18
Family Research Council reported that the Spitzer study was not widely reported in the media. However, Exodus International, the largest Fundamentalist Christian umbrella group of transformational ministries stated that: "The Spitzer study is reported in today's issue of USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and was released to hundreds of local newspapers by the Associated Press. The story is also being widely reported on the World Wide Web through such prominent news sites as foxnews.com, cbsnews.com, abcnews.go.com, and msnbc.com. Dr. Spitzer was featured on this morning's edition of 'Good Morning America.' " 19
ABC News interviewed Dr. Spitzer about the hazards of "change therapy." He replied: "There's no doubt that many homosexuals have been unsuccessful and, attempting to change, become depressed and their life becomes worse...I'm not disputing that. What I am disputing is that is invariably the outcome." He later told ABC news that some of his subjects had become despondent and even depressed after having been told "...by many mental health professionals that there was no hope for them, they had to just learn to live with their homosexual feelings." 19

Conclusions:
We have not been able to find any information on the 200 subjects' original sexual orientation. We suspect that most or all had a bisexual orientation and had previously engaged in at least some homosexual activity. After therapy, we suspect that they remained bisexual, and feel that they have successfully developed a relationship with a person of the opposite gender.

Telephone interview data on behavior and practice are notoriously unreliable. Individuals often answer questions according to what they think others expect of them. For example:

17% of American adults say that they tithe (i.e. give 10 to 13% of their income to their church). Only 3% really do. 9
Many polls indicate that the percentage of adults who say that they regularly attend religious services is about 40% in the U.S., 20% in Canada and perhaps 10% or less in Europe. But when noses are actually counted, the true figures are about half the stated figures (about 20% in the U.S. and 10% in Canada.)

On a topic as incendiary as changing one's sexual orientation, a lack of honesty can be expected on the part of many of the participants.

Assuming that the more than 1,000 therapists in NARTH each have had 50 clients per year over the previous five years, then they have treated over 250,000 homosexuals and bisexuals with reparative therapy. Various transformational ministries have treated other gays, bisexuals and lesbians who were seeking change. Yet, Dr. Spitzer was only able to find 274 potential subjects for his study in all of America. This data alone indicates that reparative therapy is almost always a failure.

Author's note:
I am personally enraged at the irresponsibility of the large professional mental health organizations. They have not had a good record about emerging therapies. They took little effort in the 1980's and 1990's to curb recovered memory therapy which generated false memories of incest, Satanic ritual abuse, abuse in former lifetimes and abuse onboard UFOs. This experimental and untested therapy caused the destruction of tens or hundreds of thousands of families of origin, and probably triggered many hundreds or thousands of suicides. Today, there are at least 1,000 therapists conducting reparative therapy. There are many dozens of Fundamentalist Christian ministries also attempting to convert clients' sexual orientation. Yet no statistically valid, peer-reviewed study in this field has ever been attempted. Mental health professionals know that these forms of therapy are dangerous and can induce suicide attempts. Yet the therapy's safety and efficacy can only be guessed at. As in the case of recovered memory therapy, if less than 1% of the money spent on therapy had been directed to a meaningful study, then we would now be aware of the therapy's hazards and effectiveness.

References:
1."Answers to your questions about sexual orientation and homosexuality," American Psychological Association, at: http://helping.apa.org/daily/answers.html

2. Doug Nave, "Organizations of US Mental Health Professionals are unanimous," at: http://www.covenantnetwork.org/chgther.html

3. The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) has a home page at: http://www.narth.com/

4. As of 2001-JAN, NARTH can be reached at: 16633 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 1340, Encino, CA 91436-1801. Phone: (818) 789-4440. Fax: (805) 373-5084

5. "Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation & Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel," at: http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/

6. APA response copied from a reader's Email

7. Ethan Campbell, "Score one for politics," Boundless Webzine, at: http://www.boundless.org/2000/features/

8. Paul Varnell, "Those Not Very 'Ex' Gays," Chicago Free Press. 2001-MAY-16. Online at: http://www.indegayforum.org/articles/varnell65.html

9. See our essay on Christian practices in the U.S.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prac.htm

10. Psychiatrists cancel gay debate," Associated Press, 2000-MAY-18, at: http://cobrand.salon.com/news/wire/

11. Queer Resource Directory has an ex-gay section at: http://abacus.oxy.edu/qrd/www/rrr/exgay.html

12. Doug Nave, "Organizations of US Mental Health Professionals are unanimous," at: http://www.covenantnetwork.org/chgther.html

13. CNN, 2001-MAY-9. Cited in Reference 12.

14. Wall Street Journal, 2001-MAY-23. Cited in Reference 12.

15. Advocate, 2001-JUL-17. Cited in Reference 12.

16. Barbara Pogue, "My Brother's Keepte - Part II," Lone Star Citizen, 2001-SEP issue. Online at Focus on the Family, at: http://www.family.org/cforum/

17. Pete Winn, "A life-changing study," Focus on the Family, at: http://www.family.org/cforum/

18. "Spitzer study is news but doesn't make the news," Family Research Council, at: http://www.frc.org/get/

19. " 'Some Gays Change," prominent Psychiatrist Says," Press release, Exodus International, at: http://www.exodusnorthamerica.org/news/

This essay was based partly on a number of information sources which are no longer online, including:

"Ex.Ex" examines and explores "the reality of the Ex-Gay movement." See: http://hometown.aol.com/exexgay/index.htm
Randall Edwards, "Can sexual orientation change with therapy?" APA Monitor. Online at: http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep96/
"Study suggests some gays can go straight," CNN.com news, 2001-MAY-9, at: http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/09/sexual
Malcolm Ritter, "Some gays can turn straight, controversial study suggests," Associated Press, 2001-MAY-8.
Stuart Shepard, "Ex-gays protest APA," Focus on the Family, at: http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 10/25/2003 5:57 AM (GMT -6)

Nothing new here, and the author is quite selective in how he deals with the "facts", for example he emphasizes the genetic aspect of the determination of sexual orientation instead of the non-genetic hormonal determination of sexual orientation.

He also glosses over how much of sexual behavior is not due to orientation but social mores and other aspects that would go against the liberal orthodoxy wrt homosexuality.

dlw

wetzelld@pilot.msu.edu

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Gay at Birth?

October 25, 2003
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Some people say we should settle gay rights disputes on the
basis of the Old Testament. I say we should rely on
blinking patterns.

In case you've misplaced your latest copy of Behavioral
Neuroscience, there's a fascinating article about how
people blink. It turns out that when males and females are
exposed to a loud noise, they blink in somewhat different
ways - except that lesbians appear to blink like men, not
like women.

The study (peer-reviewed but based on a small sample) is
the latest in a growing scientific literature suggesting
that sexual preferences may be not simply a matter of
personal preference but part of our ingrained biology.
Indeed, some geneticists believe that sexual orientation in
men (though not women) may be determined in part by markers
in the Xq28 chromosomal region.

One needs to be wary of these kinds of studies, partly
because researchers drawn toward this field may have
subconscious biases of their own. Moreover, many of the
studies on the biological basis of homosexuality are flawed
by small numbers or by the difficulty of finding valid
random samples of gays and heterosexuals.

Still, while the data has problems, it is piling up - there
are at least seven studies on twins. If there is a genetic
component to homosexuality, one would expect identical
twins to share sexual orientation more than fraternal
twins, and that is indeed the case. An identical twin of a
gay person is about twice as likely to be gay as a
fraternal twin would be.

Earlier this year, the journal Personality and Individual
Differences published an exhaustive review of the
literature entitled "Born Gay?" After reviewing the twin
studies, it concluded that 50 to 60 percent of sexual
orientation might be genetic.

Many studies also suggest that sexual orientation may be
linked to differences in brain anatomy. Compared with
straight men, gay men appear to have a larger
suprachiasmatic nucleus, a part of the brain that affects
behavior, and some studies show most gay men have a larger
isthmus of the corpus callosum - which may also be true of
left-handed people. And that's intriguing because gays are
39 percent more likely to be left-handed than straight
people.

Now look at your fingers. Men typically have a ring finger
that is longer than the index finger, while in women the
two are about the same length. However, two studies have
suggested that lesbians have finger-length ratios that are
more like those of men than of women.

Studies suggest that ring-finger length has to do with the
level of androgens in the womb, and that may help explain
another puzzle of homosexuality: a male is more likely to
be gay if he has older brothers. It doesn't matter if he
has older sisters, but for each older brother he is about
33 percent more likely to be gay. Some scientists speculate
that a woman's body adjusts the androgen level in her womb
as she has more sons, and that the androgens interact with
genes to produce homosexuality.

O.K., these theories are potentially junk science until the
studies are replicated with much larger numbers. But we
also shouldn't ignore the accumulating evidence.

"There is now very strong evidence from almost two decades
of `biobehavioral' research that human sexual orientation
is predominantly biologically determined," said Qazi
Rahman, the University of London researcher who led the
blinking study. Many others don't go that far, but accept
that there is probably some biological component.

Gays themselves are divided. Some welcome these studies
because they confirm their own feeling that sexual
orientation is more than a whim. Others fret that the
implication is that homosexuals are abnormal or defective -
and that future genetic screening will eliminate people
like them.

For me the implication, if these studies are to believed,
is different: It is that something is defective not in
gays, but in discrimination against them.

A basic principle of our social covenant is that we do not
discriminate against people on the basis of circumstances
that they cannot choose, like race, sex and disability. If
sexual orientation belongs on that list (with the caveat
that the evidence is still murky), then should we still
prohibit gay marriage and bar gays from serving openly in
the armed forces?

Can we countenance discrimination against people for
something so basic as how they blink - or whom they love?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/25/opinion/25KRIS.html?ex=1068097729&ei=1&en=5513132070ed53a0

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