NARTH blog updates response to Schoenewolf controversy

Sojourneer, the anonymous blog administrator at the Narth blog has revised his/her statement about the Schoenewolf article controversy:

I am going to revise my comments on the Schoenwolf article. Many people have misinterpreted my defense of Schoenwolf, as speaking for Narth. I do not speak for Narth and any comments I have made on the blog are my personal opinions. Please read the Narth disclaimer regarding the blog. In addition, Schoenewolf can defend himself and his views are not endorsed by Narth. Regarding his comments about slavery, I regret his choice of words and think his point could have been made with a better choice of words. The comments were incendiary and have inflamed the debate. Therefore, for the sake of continued dialogue with all sides I am going to retract the first letter from Timothy Kincaid as an example of gay intimidation.

I don’t know when this revision was actually posted since it took the place of one that labeled negative reactions from a variety of quarters as attempts to discredit NARTH and Dr. Schoenewolf. This statement is the first that implies that Schoenewolf’s views are not endorsed by NARTH. However, since Sojourneer does not speak for NARTH, I cannot see how the statement can be accepted as an official position. Silence, thus far, is the only official response from NARTH.

Gay brothers study

The Chicago Sun-Times posted an article about the Alan Sanders study of gay brothers currently recruiting pairs of gay brothers for a genetic linkage study. The website for the study is www.gaybros.com. The brochure describing the study is on the site as a pdf.

I wrote Alan Sanders several months ago and asked if he was including measures of gender nonconformity as a covariable but received no reply. Environmental measures would also be helpful in the event they did not find linkages. I wonder if ex-gay brothers should apply?

As I read the comments of the researchers about what they hope to accomplish both in the article and in the brochure, it occurred to me that the researchers may be introducing bias into the sampling.

Given Bailey’s last twin study, I have to wonder about this statement to prospective participants:

Earlier studies suggest that homosexual orientation runs in families; 8 to 12% of brothers of gay men are also gay, compared to 2 to 4% of men in the general population. Twin studies suggest that this pattern is largely due to heredity rather than environment, but we cannot be sure of this unless we actually locate genes that affect sexual orientation.