Gay children: Is it the parent's fault?

Crosswalk.com today published an article I wrote regarding the issue of causes of same-sex attraction. In it, I describe several problems with reparative drive theory as a general explanation for same-sex attraction. You can go there to read the entire article, but I want to post an email from a couple regarding their experience with the failure-to-bond idea. This segment is also in the Crosswalk article.

As parents of a same-sex-attracted son, there was no mountain too high for us to connect our son and our family to the “best help” for our issues. We found a counselor for him, and then joined him in many sessions and spent a good deal of time examining our parent – child relationships; classifying them as “close” or “distant” and figuring out why. With our broken hearts on the table each week, we looked for the magic thread, the exact moment we disabled our son’s sexuality so as to examine it, repent of it, be forgiven and put this nightmare away. Our counselor finally admitted that we were “unique” and that our son was “unique,” not fitting into the usual (how does the term “usual” apply to sexually fallen humans?) categories and that he basically did not know what else to say to help to untangle these conflicts for our son. We went on to read many books, we attended a famous conference 1000’s of miles away from our home, only to meet one of the most famous authors whose flippant response to us upon introducing ourselves to him was “Yes – I can see it, the mother who did all the research and coordination to get here, the dad who has no idea why he is here and the son who is miserable being here.” The three of us were after words of life, not words of sarcasm.
I can accurately say now that naval gazing your potential contribution to a child’s same-sex attraction is nothing short of anguish. Our son would tell you that his father and mother did not contribute to his same-sex attraction. We actually wish some days that it were that easy to put into an equation like “Dad ignored you for some formative years, mom made up for it, you identify with mom not dad – therein lies the reason!” Alas, this is not true in our family. We never ignored our children, our family has been busy bearing one another up, and our son takes responsibility for his same-sex attraction. If we were responsible, we would have accepted the blame gladly. Instead, now, we find ourselves relying on the truths of Scripture such as Romans 8 and II Corinthians 1:3-4. My husband and I come from a promiscuous past, we were products of the sexual revolution and legalized abortion. We are the right parents for this son of ours because we know restoration of sexual brokenness through a relationship with the living Lord Jesus. That is the relationship we pray that our son examines and gazes upon. In the meantime, we adore him and he us and we celebrate God’s goodness and sovereignty.

UPDATE: 2/2/09 – The Christian Post published a version of this article today.

Oprah Winfrey discusses sexual identity with Ted & Gayle Haggard

Today’s Oprah Winfrey Show gave Mr. Haggard a lot of time to describe his sexuality. Haggard’s wife joins him in this segment where they discuss ambiguities of sexual identity.

It is notable that he says he was not cured because he doesn’t view his same-sex attraction as a sickness. Also, he believes his SSA is a part of him and not due to demons. It is clear he continues to believe homosexual behavior violates his faith but he is quite open now about his experience. I liked his statement that he cannot put himself into a category. Doing so would be untrue to his experience now.

Divided Memories: Genesis Associates and Detachment

I have posted before about Genesis Associates and am now posting more of the documentary about their controversial techniques. This time detachment is the focus of the clip. I believe this documentary is so important as a cautionary tale regarding expressive therapies – such as recommended by Richard Cohen and the Mankind Project.
It is a long (over 8 minutes) but an important clip demonstrating that unfounded ideas can lead to harmful effects.

Oprah scores the Haggard interview

Today, Oprah and Mr. & Mrs. Ted Haggard on Oprah. If you can’t watch, check out the pics and narration on the Oprah website.
Not sure I’ll see it. Let’s make this an open forum on the program and all things Haggard…

Fetal Testosterone Predicts Sexually Differentiated Childhood Behavior in Girls and in Boys

This is an important study from the Psychological Science journal’s early view:

Fetal Testosterone Predicts Sexually Differentiated Childhood
Behavior in Girls and in Boys

Bonnie Auyeung, Simon Baron-Cohen, Emma Ashwin, Rebecca Knickmeyer, Kevin Taylor, Gerald Hackett, and Melissa Hines
ABSTRACT—Mammals, including humans, show sex differences in juvenile play behavior. In rodents and nonhuman primates, these behavioral sex differences result, in part, from sex differences in androgens during early development. Girls exposed to high levels of androgen prenatally, because of the genetic disorder congenital adrenal hyperplasia, show increased male-typical play, suggesting similar hormonal influences on human development, at least in females. Here, we report that fetal testosterone measured from amniotic fluid relates positively to male-typical scores on a standardized questionnaire measure of sextypical play in both boys and girls. These results show, for the first time, a link between fetal testosterone and the development of sex-typical play in children from the general population, and are the first data linking high levels of prenatal testosterone to increased male-typical play behavior in boys.

Here’s the money quote:

Thus, our data are the first documentation that androgen exposure prenatally relates to sexually differentiated play behavior in boys and in girls. In addition, the current results support an organizational, as opposed to current, activational role of testosterone, because play behavior is measured in childhood, when concurrent testosterone levels are low.

Gender non-conformity is the strongest predictor of same-sex attraction in adulthood. This study links prenatal testosterone with later gender typical behavior. The brains of children are organized in ways that react to their environment in socially typical or atypical ways. How such behavior shapes the family environment is unclear, however, it does not appear that the behavior is exclusively a response to parental bonding or modeling.