Ex-Gay Watch

From the Washington Post:

A Pentagon study group has concluded that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to the current war efforts, according to two people familiar with a draft of the report, which is due to President Obama on Dec. 1.

More than 70 percent of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, said two sources familiar with the document. The survey results led the report’s authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.

Mr. President?  Congress?  Courts?  Anyone?

If this ban is finally lifted soon, the United States will be the 26th major military power to do so.  Our allies did this years ago, including Israel (nearly 20 years ago!).  No one can seriously challenge their military prowess.  None of these countries reported any problems with the move.

That we are so far behind on this, the chief champions of human rights for so many years, attests to the enormous fear certain groups have been able to instill for nothing more than the extension of their own petty prejudices.

Please America, stop being afraid.

Case in point:

“fairness and equality, those are ok to talk about in the abstract… but this is real life here”

Edit: added video (Hat Tip: Towle)

A study that was published in 2008 blows away the belief that monozygotic twins, also called identical twins, have the same DNA. Geneticist Carl Bruder of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and his colleagues studied the genomes of 19 pairs of adult identical twins and found sites of genetic divergence in each pair. Such divergences occur when there are a different number of copies of the same gene, a genetic state called “copy number variants.” For example, one twin in Bruder’s study had a genetic marker for leukemia – specific genes on particular chromosomes were missing. While this twin did indeed suffer from leukemia, the other twin did not.

This complicates the numerous twin studies that take place in the scientific world, including ones that explore the root of sexual orientation. While it doesn’t necessarily nullify conclusions reached during said studies, it does contradict the belief that any difference found in identical twins could only be attributed to factors that were epigenetic (having to do with the way genes are expressed during development) or otherwise environmental (the “nuture” factor).

Organizations like NARTH who claim to have science on their side will eagerly point to studies that show up to a 50% twin concordance for homosexuality, claiming that anything less than 100% “proves” that a “gay gene” doesn’t exist. And even Exodus International, a Christian organization that focuses on spiritual healing of homosexuality is an affiliate of NARTH and has this blurb on their site:

Current scientific research simply does not support the “gay gene” theory.

…
Researchers from all points of view have not found a 100% correlation among identical twin studies in their study groups. If homosexuality is solely a genetically based trait, there should be no variance among identical twins that share the same genetic history.

A search for the term “gay gene” on Exodus’ site yields 20 results, all in articles ranging from outright denial of genetic influence to defensive posturing that genes might determine some aspects of our lives, but not our morality.

The term “gay gene” is of course an archaic and scientifically inaccurate one, not used by anybody trying to propose a serious argument for the biological origin of non-heterosexual orientations. There is no gay gene just as there is no “left-handed gene,” though the latter trait is accepted unquestionably as biologically originated. Additionally, no serious scientific claim has been made that sexual orientation is “solely a genetic trait.” close attention has been paid to factors that influence gene expression, exposure to hormones in the womb, and physiological traits found to be common among those of a particular sexual orientation.

But now thanks to this research, scientists in all fields have a better understanding of why identical twins are so rarely completely the same – and a better understanding of why, despite genetic factors influencing to a point, one twin may be gay while the other is not.

The co-author of a major ex-gay study is a key figure in the controversy over the direction of Wheaton College, Illinois.

In the article Whither Wheaton?, appearing in the SOMA Review, Andrew Chignell names Dr Stanton L Jones, Provost of Wheaton College, as a force in the increasingly authoritarian approach to doctrine at the flagship evangelical school:

Still, when one spends time talking with Wheaton faculty, students, and supporters, alongside real appreciation one is also likely to hear expressions of deep concern about the unusually pro-active roles that [President] Litfin and his provost, Stanton Jones, have assumed as the definers and defenders of orthodoxy across the college.

Chignell notes how under Liftin the school has come to adopt a “magisterial” model, where firm doctrinal positions are imposed from the top down. So, for example, any member of faculty who took a less-than-literal view of Adam and Eve was deemed unfit for employment. Those who were not sure would be given a year to bring their doctrine in line or leave. The President eventually softened, allowing those in the second category to remain.

It appears that Stanton Jones, with responsibility for all undergraduate and postgraduate studies, was Liftin’s second-in-command when it came to implementing these changes. Chignell recounts the following episode involving Jones:

A few years later, Alex Bolyanatz, a tenure-track anthropologist who taught about human origins, decided that it might be wise to invite the new provost to sit in on his lectures: “I had no doubt that hearing my version of a Christian view of integrating the evolutionary model with a faith perspective would make anyone say, ‘This guy is just fine; does exactly what we want here.’ I now know, of course, that this was somewhere between stupid and naïve. I invited Provost Stan Jones to attend my class and he did for six sessions. I believed that I was ensuring that I would spend a long and satisfying career there. Wrong! I was, in fact, digging my own professional grave at Wheaton.”

He also relates the story of Christina Van Dyke, now a member of the philosophy faculty at Calvin College, whose appointment process was abruptly halted because of her hardly remarkable views on homosexuality and Scripture. Van Dyke signed the Wheaton Statement of Faith and its “Community Covenant,” but added the proviso that “it isn’t clear to me that the Bible unambiguously condemns monogamous same-sex relationships.”

She did not deny the traditional teaching, but expressed a view about interpretation of Scripture a little more nuanced than that of many evangelicals. Again, Jones intervened. Van Dyke recalls:

I got a call from Stan Jones, asking me a number of questions about my reservations. I kept saying that I was not claiming to have figured this out, but that it was not at all clear to me from my own research and study that the Bible’s position on homosexual behavior was unambiguous. We talked about how I would handle students who came to me to talk about questioning their own sexuality, and I said I would be willing to send them elsewhere. He sent me a whole stack of reading material (much of which he’d written) arguing that the Bible’s position on homosexual behavior was, in fact, clear. I read it all. . . . I didn’t change my mind. … [At] about 5 pm the day before my interview was scheduled, [the chair] called in tears to tell me that he’d just finished talking to the provost, and that I was no longer a candidate for their position.

Stanton Jones and the Jones-Yarhouse Study

It is unsurprising to find Jones coming in for criticism for toeing such a hard line on conservative evangelical doctrine, especially homosexuality. With Dr Mark Yarhouse of Regents University, Virginia, he authored the 2007 study Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation. The study was severely limited, with questionable methodology and negligible results – even when judged generously. Dr Patrick Chapman critiqued Jones-Yarhouse for Ex-Gay Watch here.

Ironically, it has been observed that Jones was the more outspoken of the two in trumpeting the results of the study, despite Yarhouse coming from a traditionally more conservative college. For an essentially academic work, the book is notable for its evangelistic flavour. Chignell’s revelations about Wheaton College confirm that Jones in particular has a partisan interest in the homosexuality debate.

Someone didn’t want the Wheaton story published

This website is the author’s own account of his difficult battle to get the piece published. It was written to coincide with the eve of the appointment of a new president for Wheaton College, and was originally commissioned by John Wilson, editor of Books & Culture, an often-thoughtful evangelical publication under the Christianity Today banner. It was accepted “enthusiastically,” Chignell says, in mid-September 2009.

It was due to be published last year, but was unexpectedly pulled by Harold Smith, CEO of Christianity Today International, a day or two before it was to go to press. Wilson told Chignall that “this sort of editorial control had never been exercised in the fourteen-year history of Books and Culture.”

Smith insisted that several issues with the article be addressed before it could be published. It was taken away and revised, and a few meetings later it was again scheduled to run. Just a few days after this confirmation, however, the piece was pulled for a last time. Chignell writes:

The following Monday, Smith called Wilson in and told him that the piece was irrevocably dead. In a note to me, Smith expressed sympathy but gave no explanation, except to say that “new hurdles” had arisen. He did promise that no one from Wheaton College had directly intervened.

Evangelicalism’s battle of the generations

At the heart of Chignell’s piece is a conflict between generations of evangelicals. He graduated from Wheaton himself, and recalls the effect on the school of Bill Clinton’s election as US President in 1992:

At Wheaton in the fall of 1992 (my freshman year), there was intense soul-searching about why God had denied the victory just as change on key issues like abortion seemed within reach. The night after the election, students held a massive vigil, heads bowed and leaders speaking anxiously about the coming liberal onslaught.

He compares that to the reaction to Obama in 2008:

At Wheaton in the fall of 2008, by contrast, the predominantly African American Gospel Choir took the chapel stage the morning after Obama’s election and gave a rousing performance of “God Bless America.” That night there was a panel discussion in which Litfin, too, emphasized that future evangelicals “cannot afford to be seen as in the hip pocket of any particular polity or political entity.”

These are changing times. Many younger evangelicals identify with the political progressives and liberals of the Democratic Party, rather than the social and moral conservatives of the Republicans and their evangelical forebears. In 1993, Wheaton was a place where “the culture wars were hot, with many students (presciently) advocating a hard-right turn as the path to Republican recovery,” Chignell tells us. At Wheaton in 2010, party politics has waned, with students “far more concerned with the relationship between their faith and social justice than with political affiliation,” according to Juliana Wilhoit, the head of what she calls “the most anemic College Democrats organization north of Bob Jones.”

The Jones-Yarhouse study was a valiant attempt to rescue an ex-gay movement whose once-popular claims are fading.  Likewise, the attempts of the outgoing Wheaton President Duane Liftin and his number two to instill by force on Wheaton a hardline “orthodoxy” seem to be last-ditch efforts to salvage the remnants of an increasingly threatened socially conservative evangelicalism.

Building on David Robert’s post on the Richard Cohen portion of The Rachel Maddow Show, Randy Thomas, Vice President of Exodus International, had some things to say about the exchange.

Randy Thomas: I am going to share a review of the actual interview and then move into how I believe she, and some other militant gay activists, are missing the point with regard to Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill.

Transcript, edited for brevity, emphases mine:

MADDOW: But you have told them, particularly in your book, “Coming Out Straight,” which I understand you donated multiple copies of to this organization that‘s promoting this bill. You‘re telling them exactly what they need to hear in order to justify the kill-the-gays bill. I mean, your book portrays gay people as predators who must be stopped to protect the innocent.

COHEN: Oh, no, no, no.

MADDOW: Let me ask – I‘ll just read from your book, OK? Page 49, “Homosexuals are at least 12 times more likely to molest children than heterosexuals. Homosexual teachers are at least seven times more likely to molest a pupil. Homosexual teachers are estimated to have committed at least 25 percent of pupil molestation; 40 percent of molestation assaults were made by those who engage in homosexuality.”

This is the claim that you make in your book that exactly feeds these folks who want to execute people for being gay, what they need in order to justify that. Do you stand by what you said in your book?

COHEN: Actually, you know, that one particular quote, when I do republish it, reprint it, we will extract that from it, because we don‘t want such things to be used against homosexual persons.

MADDOW: That quote is cited – you cite somebody named Paul Cameron as the source of that book.

COHEN: I see that they‘re using it, but you took that one little quote out of a 300-page book.

“you took that one little quote out of a 300-page book”

That “one little quote” may be edited out of Cohen’s next revision, but it’s a paltry excision in light of the other “little” quotes in his book.
Read more…

Randy Thomas, Vice President of Exodus International:

Freedom of speech which expresses a difference of opinion on morality and spirituality is not a crime.

The following is a case of one of the hackneyed headless monsters that the anti-gay industry loves to trot out, especially in regard to hate crime legislation that includes protections for minorities on the basis of sexual-orientation and gender identity.

In an article on the EI blog called “Canadian Decision Protects Freedom of Speech For Religious Views,” Mr. Thomas links to another article titling “Alberta judge rules anti-gay letter not hate speech, overturns ruling”:

A Court of Queen’s Bench judge has ruled an anti-gay letter written by a former Alberta pastor in 2002 was not a hate crime and is allowed under freedom of speech.

Justice E.C. Wilson overturned a 2008 ruling by the Alberta [Canada] Human Rights Commission that the letter by Stephen Boissoin that was published in the Red Deer Advocate broke provincial law.

Mr. Thomas then had this to say:

The step backwards came when freedom of speech was taken away by the oppressive will of the government through the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Alberta Human Rights Commission:

Discrimination re: publications, notices
3 (1) No person shall publish, issue or display or cause to be published, issued or displayed before the public any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that:

(a) indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate against a person or a class of persons, or

(b) is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt…

The reasoning goes; since it happened in Canada, it will can happen here. Except for the fact that Canada does not have the First Amendment which protects religious hate-speech from interference by the U.S. government. (Westboro Baptist Church, anyone?)

Despite the absence of this protection in Canada, their judicial system sided in favor of Mr. Boissoin. Ergo, even their system worked in favor of free-speech.

One of the things Mr. Thomas, et al, neglects to mention, is that Egale Canada (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) refused to take up the case against Reverend Boissoin:

We believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant.

I concur. The suppression of hate-speech does not solve the root of the problem—the climate that allows for hate-speech to flourish.

But let’s take a look at the example Mr. Thomas chooses to defend free-speech with on a moral level.

Here is the full text of Stephen Boissoin’s letter to the Red Deer Advocate that Mr. Thomas describes as  ”provocative”:
Read more…

The American Psychological Association has said that there is insufficient evidence for so-called “sexual orientation change efforts,” and has instructed mental health practitioners to avoid offering reparative or “ex-gay” therapy.

In a resolution adopted at its annual conference today, the APA officially rejected treatments that portray homosexuality as a mental disorder, and lauded approaches “that provide accurate information on sexual orientation and sexuality, increase family and school support and reduce rejection of sexual minority youth.”

The accompanying report made short shrift of recent ex-gay studies, saying they were based on “inadequate” research methods. The Chair of the APA’s Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation, Judith M Glassgold, said:

At most, certain studies suggested that some individuals learned how to ignore or not act on their homosexual attractions. Yet, these studies did not indicate for whom this was possible, how long it lasted or its long-term mental health effects.

She called for therapists to be “completely honest” about the likelihood of change, and to acknowledge the “reality of their sexual orientation,” while respecting the client’s religious beliefs.

Ex-Gay Watch has already noted how hardcore supporters of reparative therapy steeled themselves for today’s announcement.

Read full report (PDF)

NARTH’s new peer-reviewed study is not new, is not peer-reviewed and is not a study – flaws even one of its authors admitted to Ex-Gay Watch.

CitizenLink, the news arm of Focus on the Family, made much of the paper’s appearance earlier this week, faithfully reproducing the immodest claims of NARTH’s press release:

A new report in this month’s edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of Human Sexuality finds that sexual orientation is not immutable and that psychological care for individuals with unwanted homosexual attractions is beneficial and poses no significant risk of harm.

This study is … a significant milestone when it comes to the scientific debate over the issue of homosexuality.

The report itself is even bolder, announcing that its results prove the following “singular conclusion”:

Homosexuality is not innate, immutable or without significant risk to medical, psychological, and relational health.

Exodus Vice President Randy Thomas was quick to champion the claims. Other conservatives, such as the ex-gay supportive Dr Warren Throckmorton, were not convinced. UK “post-gay” Peter Ould found it positively embarrassing.

And they are right to be embarrassed, for this supposedly new, peer-reviewed study is nothing of the sort.

First, it is far from new. By NARTH’s own admission, it is merely a survey of 100 years of literature.

That it is a survey means that, second, it is not a study. Jones-Yarhouse, for all its flaws, was a scientific study. NARTH’s paper, written by James Phelan, Neil Whitehead, and Philip Sutton, simply collates a century’s worth of material that (they think) supports the pro-reparative therapy position. It contains no new or original research whatsoever.

Jim Phelan confirmed both of these things directly when XGW spoke to him last year. Phelan said clearly the report was “a literature review – no new science [italics ours].  The data is presented more comprehensively than before.”

Third, that it is peer-reviewed is a sadly risible claim. It appears in Volume I of the Journal of Human Sexuality, a publication produced by NARTH. In other words, NARTH has reviewed its own paper for inclusion in a volume that appears to have been created specifically as a vehicle for NARTH’s views. The “peer review” therefore means next to nothing. In theory, I could rehash a few bits of other people’s work, get my XGW chums to look it over, and then publish it in a new magazine I’ve called the Journal of Ex-Gay Studies and claim it as a peer-reviewed milestone study. The problem is glaring.

Again, on this point, Phelan told XGW that the paper was “to be reviewed by members,” confirming that the peer review was nothing more than an internal review by like-minded NARTH members.

These are three massive obstacles even before we reach the content of the paper itself – of which we at XGW look forward to hearing more in Dr Throckmorton’s promised analysis.

The publication, titled What Research Shows: NARTH’s Response to the American Psychological Associations Claims on Homosexuality, is a clear sign (again, an impression we also gained from Phelan) that NARTH is getting nervous as the APA prepares to revise its position on reparative therapy. This dishonest regurgitation of old material in the guise of new research is a grasping at straws that tells us less about human sexuality and more about the desperation of NARTH and its allies in the ex-gay movement.

by Jack Drescher, MD

A recent article in Scientific American by Thomas Maier has cast into doubt the veracity of a study published 30 years ago that purported to demonstrate that some people can change their homosexual orientation to a heterosexual one.

The study in question was carried out by the most pre-eminent American sex researchers of the last century, the husband and wife team of gynecologist William Masters and psychologist Virginia Johnson. In their own time they were as famous as Alfred Kinsey and like Kinsey, their names became synonymous with the study of human sexuality, if not with the notion of sex itself.

As with the Kinsey studies of the 1940s and 50s, Masters and Johnson’s scholarly books on human sexual responses attracted popular audiences in the 60s and 70s. Based on laboratory research with human subjects, they developed a model of sexual function and dysfunction that would eventually serve as a template for the Sexual Dysfunction section of the 1980 Third Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-III) and the subsequent volumes since then.

Not as well known today is their 1979 book, Homosexuality in Perspective, in which they describe their research history and objective:

A report of the basic science investigation of heterosexual function was made to the health-care professions in 1966 with the publication of Human Sexual Response . . . the second step in the investigative process was the creation of a 10-year clinical control period for the [Masters and Johnson] Institute’s newly developed techniques for treatment of heterosexual inadequacies [reported in their second volume, Human Sexual Inadequacy, published in 1970].

The homosexual phase of the open-ended investigation of human sexual response began in 1964 with the Institute attempting to respond to the overwhelming cultural and scientific need for an objective investigation of homosexual function. The same protocol of basic science precedence to new clinical treatment constructs was employed. The research program was initiated with an evaluation of physiologic response patterns demonstrated by sexually experienced homosexual men and women responding to effective sexual stimuli in a laboratory setting. This evaluation of homosexual function was completed in 1968 after almost five years of laboratory involvement.

The 10-year period of clinical control for creating and evaluating treatment techniques for homosexual dysfunctions and dissatisfactions began in 1968 and terminated in 1977. With this textual presentation, the Institute reports to the health-care professions both the basic science investigations of homosexual function and the new clinical programs designed to treat sexual inadequacies of homosexual orientation [pp. 235-236, italics added].

They go on to describe those sexual inadequacies. They excluded difficulty with anal intercourse “since rectal [sic] intercourse is not a consistently utilized form of male homosexual interaction, facility in rectal penetration could not be considered a vital factor in arriving at a definition of homosexual impotence” (p. 237).

They further asserted that, “the homosexual male has no absolute requirement for attaining or maintaining an erection of sufficient quality for accomplishing a penetrative act (Though admittedly a penetrative act, fellatio, creates only minor nomenclature confusion because the male does not need even a partial erection for oral penetration.)” and “since it is also apparent that rectal and vaginal penetration are not regularly recurrent sexual techniques employed by lesbians, these penetrative acts have not been considered in defining lesbian anorgasmic states” (p. 237). Read more…

Reparative therapist Dr Joseph Nicolosi used a conference in London yesterday to recycle a host of offensive myths about gay men.

According to David Virtue, who describes his notoriously anti-gay website as “the global voice for orthodox Anglicanism,” Nicolosi “ripped” gay organizations for promoting a “lifestyle” that is “ultimately pathological, narcissistic, self-absorbed and offers no hope for people who want to change.”

Nicolosi, the former President of NARTH, told the audience of conservative Christians that 75 percent of his clients were “completely cured” by reparative therapy, and said that he had “a great deal of evidence showing … that therapy works.”

This is an astonishing claim, given the unremarkable results of scientific studies into reparative therapy. The much-touted Masters-Johnson study of 1979 relied on dubious case studies that may even have been totally fabricated. Robert Spitzer’s 2001 study relied on anecdotal evidence from subjects with a vested interest in proving ex-gay success. The 2007 Jones-Yarhouse study was not only severely flawed, but produced only negligible evidence of change. Read more…

A survey has found that 17 percent of therapists in the UK have offered a client therapy to “reduce” same-sex attractions. Four percent said they would try to “change” a patient’s sexuality if asked.

The findings are from a study carried out by a team at University College London, whose ongoing research into conversion therapy is being documented online at www.treatmentshomosexuality.org.uk.

The reseachers, led by Dr Graham King, questioned 1,400 mental health professionals. They described the number willing to offer help for gays to become straight as “a significant minority,” and concluded that the lack of evidence for change made such therapy “unwise or even harmful.”

The study was published in the journal BMC Psychiatry, and is available to read online in full.