One would think a scathing criticism on the National Institute of Health from NIH director Francis Collins would be enough to stop misuse of his book, the Language of God. However, not so for a relatively new Latter Day Saint sexual reorientation organization called Foundation for Attraction Research. Writing in the Salt Lake City Tribune, FAR Board members Dennis V. Dahle, John P. Livingstone and M. Gawain Wells provide the same quote that led Collins to rebuke the American College of Pediatricians.
As to science, contrary to a source cited by Hansen that same-sex attractions are of purely biological origin, Dr. Francis S. Collins, former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and the current director of the National Institutes of Health, reached a very different conclusion. Collins, in addressing the etiology of homosexuality in his book, The Language of God, offers the conclusion that homosexuality is “genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations.”
Exgaywatch first reported on the misuse of Collins’ words back in 2008. At that point, Dr. Collins wrote to me in order to verify his communication with David Roberts, editor at XGW.
Then, the American College of Pediatricians cited Collins in an effort to establish the mutability of sexual orientation. Collins did not take kindly to their citation and wrote the following on the NIH website.
Statement from NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., in Response to the American College of Pediatricians
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
DirectorApril 15, 2010
“It is disturbing for me to see special interest groups distort my scientific observations to make a point against homosexuality. The American College of Pediatricians pulled language out of context from a book I wrote in 2006 to support an ideology that can cause unnecessary anguish and encourage prejudice. The information they present is misleading and incorrect, and it is particularly troubling that they are distributing it in a way that will confuse school children and their parents.”
Now the Foundation for Attraction Research takes up the same line of argumentation, although in a somewhat more subtle manner. While the first quote from Collins is clearly about homosexuality and represents Collins views about that specific trait, the second one is not. The FAR authors write:
Collins offers the following additional insight on homosexuality: “There is an inescapable component of heritability to many human behavioral traits. For virtually none of them is heredity ever close to predictive. Environment, particularly childhood experiences, and the prominent role of individual free will choices have a profound effect on us. Scientists will discover an increasing level of molecular detail about the inherited factors that undergird our personalities, but that should not lead us to overestimate their quantitative contribution. Yes we have all been dealt a particular set of cards, and the cards will eventually be revealed. But how we play the hand is up to us.”
While the quote is in Language of God, the statement leading up to it – “Collins offers the following additional insight on homosexuality” – is not. In the book, Collins makes a general statement about the role of genetics and environment but does not offer this view specifically about homosexuality. He does not suggest that “free will” or “childhood experiences” have anything to do with homosexual attraction. The authors want you to think that he does but he does not.
Regarding sexual reorientation which seems to be the real issue for FAR, Collins said this to Roberts and me in the earlier correspondence:
The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable. (emphasis mine)
No one knows what sexual attractions to be directed toward the same sex. Collins does not opine on these factors in his book beyond saying that they may not be strongly related to genetics. There are other biological factors besides genes that could be involved. Whatever those factors turn out to be does not mean that they are alterable.
Throbert,
My mistake. The word gay has more than one definition. It can simply mean homosexual, OR it can involve more. I suppose I think of it in both ways depending on the context
Ann,
It just seems odd to me, Replace the word gay, with straight and the word homosexual with heterosexual in Throbert’s post. It makes sense but seems unnecessary
I’ll be darned!
@ ANN –
Ok, LOL
Jayhuck,
I appreciate you
Ty Ann – I appreciate you as well!
Maybe the problem is that “member of the majority” does not necessarily map well onto “member of a minority.”
What I mean to say is that, at least in a U.S. context, perhaps the difference between “black” and “African-American” is more significant than the difference between “white” and “European-American,” because the former is talking about the experiences of a minority ethnic group, and the latter is talking about the experiences of a majority ethnic group?
By the way, in case anyone missed that thread, I did get a response today from Drs. Dreger and Blanchard about the methodology of the “penile plethysmograph” tests on heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles.
I can’t believe Michael is making this statement in the same thread where we have references to Alan Chambers, the EXODUS president, admitting that he still has homosexual temptations. And I think we acknowledge that the married EXODUS leaders are few–which translates that the others are living their lives in sexual abstinence. (Yeah, I know, miss the point and jump on it and insinuate that most are probably getting some on the side. The point is that such characterizations of the ‘message of EXODUS’ are exaggerated and without solid grounding.)
And, by the way, can ANYONE define the what that heterosexual ‘real thing’ is??? Is it the Charlie Sheen example?
And, please, for Jayhuck’s sake, can everyone please say in every post that it works both ways?
And, I’m sorry, but I’m really put off by the response ‘we’ve already discussed this’. If we haven’t at least summarized what we’ve discussed in the months and years preceding in the current discussion, this seems a bit rude to those who have only recently come on board. It would be far better to say “As we’ve discussed before” and then summarize either the conclusions arrived at or points of disagreement that were still left hanging.
Thank God! It’s the room I needed to grow!
Perhaps, but it is accurate in this case. At least the viewpoint he expressed is clueless, as is the one-dimensional response about the “gay agenda.”
Now Eddy is back with the same argument he has made for the past three years which signals my exit.
I’m sorry for being at all caustic, but this blog has become some sort of twisted, sad parody of what it once was. The recent commentary has only served to accelerate that process. Nothing against you, Mary, but it’s sad to see the decline. It draws out the wost in everyone, including me.
Actually David you seem to exist when people talk about change. Seems like a difficult subject for many.
Michael, after having been caught in his own bias that he at first did not want to admit – has also left.
Bye, David. Your comments were not helpful or appreciated.
Think you probably meant “exit” and no, that subject is only trying by way of the bat poop crazy people it sometimes draws to the blog. What I said is what I meant — there have been serious and productive discussions here before, but it’s been a while and I suspect Warren is too busy to weed out the most recent crop of loons. If you can really get anything worthwhile out of this, knock yourself out.
I can’t speak to your dig at Bussee as I didn’t read any of his comments, but he’s always seemed like a decent guy to me.
Preston, if you would, please click on my username — it may give you some insight and backstory into how, when I was about 35, I came to be involved in an affair with a married evangelical Christian father of two, about 55, perhaps similar to NickC.
“Daryl” and I saw each other for about two-and-half years — he was the second guy that I really and truly cared about, after my seven-year relationship with Juan in my 20s (Juan was about my own age and also out-of-the-closet as homosexual, but not particularly fond of “the gay community”). And he was such a caring and sensitive lover — generally, he knew how to touch a man, but he was never shy about asking for coaching if he “wasn’t doing it good enough.”
I had to break things off with Daryl because I loved him too much, and he loved me too much, but he also loved his wife — in a different way — and was torn up by lying to her. And I very much wanted to say to him, “Could we ask your wife’s permission for me to be your boyfriend?”, but I began to realize that he would never take that step.
However, he left a lasting good impression on me as an example of a Christian man who was struggling to balance his need for homosexual intimacy with his commitment to his wife and family.
@ThRobert
Adult humans exposed to hormones for the first time (Intersex conditions that block puberty), and adult humans exposed to cross-sexed hormones as well as the original.
Some areas of the brain change depending on whether Estrogen or Testosterone predominates, and can switch back.
Others masculinise or feminise when exposed to hormones of either type. A potentially male structure masculinises regardless of whether exposed to T or E for example.
Yet others have 1-way trips in both directions: repeated exposure has no effect.
This is of particular interest to me in light of my own Intersex condition. My brain has been masculinised as much as it was possible for it to be, and feminised as much as it was possible for it to be. The plastic parts are now of the F pattern due to continued HRT. In terms of lymbic nucleus, F and always was. Other structures though are more M, and as is typical with Trans people, other parts just plain weird, matching neither M nor F nor anywhere in-between.
It’s not as simple as M type brain or F type. There’s overlap. FtoM and MtoF are not mirror-images either
— Dichotic Listening, Handedness, Brain Organization and Transsexuality Govier et al International Journal of Transgenderism, 12:144–154, 2010
Warren wrote:
What about someone who is generally attracted to the opposite sex but falls in love with one person of the same sex, marries that person…
It’s not that I’m tempted to infidelity. It’s that I wish she were a man – or I was – or that we were both lesbian. I want a love life, but only with one person.
When I was asexual, and appeared (mostly) male, at least I could please, if not be pleased. Now I’m fully functional sexually, anatomically, even orgasmic, all dressed up but nowhere to go. I do finally understand sex though, how powerful it can be, something I never understood before. The advice my father gave to me – “relax, your body will know what to do” makes sense now, not only don’t I have to think, but I actually can’t think, too swept up in the feelings. Before, it was always “what happens if I do this…. then this… then THIS?” and taking joy from my partner’s feelings. I had to think about everything, as my instincts were either missing, suppressed, or in mismatch with my physical biology. I just wasn’t physically equipped to do what my instincts called on me to do.
Intersex sucks, you know? Or at least, transsexuality does, because I was for all intents and purposes transsexual, no matter what the biologists might say.
Meh. There are worse things than chastity. It’s one of life’s little ironies that now I know what it’s like to have “chemistry”, an actual sexual attraction, that it can’t be to the one who I want to spend the rest of my life with. She seems OK with that though, so it could be a lot worse.
Which argument is that I wonder? That Michael makes exaggerated and negative comments about EXODUS that I find fault with? That Jayhuck keeps rebutting with ‘it’s the same for the other side’? That I wish people wouldn’t just dismiss a comment with “we’ve already talked about that’? Or ‘would someone please define what that heterosexual ‘real thing’ is?
Or is David referring to my only other comment on this thread several days ago?
Why isn’t Eddy allowed the freedom or courtesy to maintain his argument, in David’s view? Is it wrong to feel the same way he did three years ago? Sorry, Eddy. You haven’t evolved your thinking to the watered-down standards of the it’s-all-relative class. So you are dismissed.
Everyone should take a deep breath, back away from the keyboard and then read the rebuttal to this article which I post about here.
My! When I posted yesterday, I thought this thread was winding down. I can’t even get through all those comments, so I’m not sure what the conversation is focused on right now.
But I did see a couple of responses to my own story from Debbie Thurman and Preston, raising questions I can answer.
From Debbie Thurman: ” at least (it) worked for a while for you. Do you really feel you were living in denial during your “good” married years?” And Preston raises a similar point: “I worry about the phrase “living in denial” which sounds awful but is probably not as bad as that. ”
Well, yes, Debbie,. I do feel my wife and I were living in denial even during the best years of our marriage. And yes, Preston, it was as bad as that.
We were denying the reality, of which we were both fully aware, that I was fundamentally a gay man pretending to be heterosexual. We thought we could just pretend that my sexual orientation didn’t matter, and move through life like any straight married couple, and somehow our faith in God would make all that work out.
Long story short: My sexual orientation DID matter. The more successful my marriage and family and career appeared from the outside, the more disassociated I became from myself. Eventually I had to tell my wife that I couldn’t continue in the marriage because “I cannot not be gay anymore.” My life had become focused on trying not to be something. (Again, if anyone wants the details, go to the tape.)
Debbie, do you think it was a lot of consolation for her at that point to think, “Hey, at least it worked for a while?”
My life today has plenty of problems and struggles. I am often amused by how many of the small and large conflicts in my relationship with my partner are almost exactly the same issues my wife and I used to fight about. And there are plenty of little denials of reality I practice every single day.
But one thing I can say today is that I never feel the dissassociation within myself I experienced throughout my years as ex-gay. I feel a wholeness, knowing that I am the same person, for good or for bad, in all parts of my life.
And one more point, to Throbert:
I will say that in my current life as an openly gay man, I have muchbetter fashion sense!
Probably not, but I hope she at least cherishes the memories of the life you made together.