In 1991, following the death of his homosexual lover from AIDS, researcher Simon LeVay decided to search the brains of cadavers (of six women and thirty-five men) to find a physical determinant for homosexuality. He examined the size of a particular brain structure known as INAH3, which has been linked to sexual behavior in animals, and reported that INAH3 was larger in heterosexual men than in heterosexual women, but also larger in heterosexual men than in homosexual men. This result, LeVay concluded, “suggests that sexual orientation has a biological substrate.”
There are numerous problems with this interpretation. For example, six of the sixteen supposedly “heterosexual” male subjects had died of AIDS—an extraordinarily large percentage in comparison to the general heterosexual population. As one analyst put it, because of this unlikely circumstance “it seems quite possible that LeVay . . . classified some homosexuals as heterosexuals.”
Other problems included the significant overlap in the overall range of INAH3 sizes between the “homosexual” and “heterosexual” groups and the possibility that the observed effect was a result of AIDS (which caused the death of all of LeVay’s “homosexual” subjects).
A 1993 critique in the Archives of General Psychiatry concluded that this and two other studies of brain structures remain “as yet uncorroborated” and noted that even if such studies are replicated, “we will not know whether the anatomic correlates are a cause or a consequence of sexual orientation.”
The Gene Study
Only one of the three most famous “gay gene” studies actually looked directly at genes. This was the 1993 study by Dean Hamer, a geneticist with the National Cancer Institute. Studying patterns of male homosexuality in extended families, he found a correlation between the existence of
homosexual brothers and homosexuality among maternal uncles
and other male relatives on the maternal side. From this, he theorized the existence of a gene influencing the development of homosexuality that is transmitted through the maternal line (that is, on the X chromosome, which men inherit from their mothers). Hamer then examined DNA from these related men, and claimed to have found “a gene that contributes to homosexual orientation in males” at a location called Xq28.
This supposed discovery of a “gay gene” made headlines. Hamer’s numerous caveats were less widely reported. Hamer reported that “the observed rates of homosexual orientation . . . were lower than would be expected for a simple Mendelian [i.e., directly inherited] trait.” He also admitted that not all cases of homosexuality could be explained by this gene marker, and that no conclusion could be drawn as to what percentage of homosexuality might have a genetic link. Finally, Hamer said there was a need to identify “environmental, experiential, or cultural factors . . . that influence the development of male sexual orientation.”
Even with those qualifying remarks, however, Hamer’s finding remains suspect for one key reason—other scientists have been unable to replicate it. One team of researchers, who tried but failed to confirm Hamer’s findings, declared in the journal Science in 1999 that their “results do not support an X-linked gene underlying male homosexuality.”
Two scientists who reviewed the data regarding biological or genetic theories on the origin of homosexuality concluded that “the appeal of current biologic explanations for sexual orientation may derive more from dissatisfaction with the present status of psychosocial explanations than from a substantiating body of experimental data. Critical review shows the evidence favoring a biologic theory to be lacking.”
In other words, the scientific evidence is that homosexuality is not inborn.
Is Homosexuality Involuntary?
There are three aspects to “sexual orientation”: attraction, behavior, and self-identification.
Attractions are indeed “involuntary.” But people do choose, and can be held responsible for, what overt sexual behaviors they actually engage in. A heterosexual married man might feel sexually attracted to a woman who is not his wife, but if he acts on that attraction, he is rightly condemned for an act of adultery. The fact that his sexual attraction was “involuntary” is no excuse for failing to control his actual behavior.
Homosexuals complain, however, that in effect they are being asked to refrain from sex altogether. Yet this argument only makes sense if “homosexuals” are utterly incapable of engaging in heterosexual relationships—a contention not borne out by the research. According to the 1994 National Health and Social Life Survey, the most comprehensive national survey of sexuality ever conducted, 2.8 percent of American adult men and 1.4 percent of American adult women identify themselves as homosexuals. But the same survey showed that only 0.6 percent of men and 0.2 percent of women report having had only same-sex sexual experiences since puberty. In other words, about 80 percent of self-identified “homosexuals” have engaged in heterosexual relationships.
So homosexual attractions might indeed be involuntary, but such attractions are psychological, invisible, and secret, and therefore essentially irrelevant to public policy. Homosexual behavior (and the desire of homosexual activists to have official governmental affirmation of such behavior) is what is really relevant to the debate over protecting homosexuals under “civil rights” laws. Such behavior is clearly voluntary, and thus the criterion (for civil rights protection) of being an “involuntary” characteristic does not apply.
Is Homosexuality Immutable?
There is no such thing as a former black person, nor, despite sex-change surgery, is there such a thing as a former woman or a former man, since even such surgery does not change the sexual identity inscribed in a person’s chromosomes. There are, however, thousands of former homosexuals.
The strongest scientific evidence of this was provided by one of the most unlikely sources. Robert L. Spitzer is a psychiatrist who was instrumental in pushing for the controversial 1973 decision of the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. That event was a crucial early victory for homosexual activists.
Nevertheless, Dr. Spitzer had the intellectual honesty to accept a challenge to study the results of what is called “reparative therapy” for homosexuality. Reparative therapy is a mental health treatment designed to reduce unwanted homosexual attractions and behavior.
Dr. Spitzer studied 200 people who had reported some measure of change from a homosexual to a heterosexual orientation. He published his conclusions in 2003:
This study indicates that some gay men and lesbians, following reparative therapy, report that they have made major changes from a predominantly homosexual orientation to a predominantly heterosexual orientation. The changes following reparative therapy were not limited to sexual behavior and sexual orientation self-identity. The changes encompassed sexual attraction, arousal, fantasy, yearning, and being bothered by homosexual feelings. The changes encompassed the core aspects of sexual orientation.
Spitzer also notes that a survey of the literature in 2001 by another researcher found at least 19 studies that include tangible data suggesting a homosexual orientation can be changed.
https://www.frc.org/DL/29-SEP-08__EF...BA3C67E078.pdf
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