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An interesting study out Monday suggests that sexual attractions direct primary appraisal (unconscious attention). What one pays attention to may relate to one’s sexual orientation. The study, “A gender- and sexual orientation-dependent spatial attentional effect of invisible images” by Jiang, Costello, Fang, Huang & He and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science masked nude images of men and women in such a way as to make them virtually invisible. They found however, that the attention of the participants were consistent with their sexual attractions. Gay men preferred to look at nude men, straight men at nude women and women were moderately focused on nude men but with a mixed response to pictures of women. I calculated effect sizes for the differences and they are huge. Sexual orientation accounts for nearly half of the variance in attention. Along with the pheromone and serotonin challenge studies, this new work adds to the idea that sexual orientation differences are quite substantial, no matter how they came to be.

I will update this as I am able.

There is an interesting conversation happening over at the “Straight into gay America” blog. Host, pastor/author Lars Clausen has invited pastor/author (Understanding Homosexuality) Dave Glesne to discuss various aspects of Rev. Glesne’s book. They cover much of the same ground that we cover here on this blog, including reparative therapy, use of the term — “gay lifestyle,” and causation of same sex attractions. I plan to join in the conversation as time permits.

New York Times is reporting that these guidelines will be voted upon in mid-November. Judging from who opposes them, they are likely to be a centrist document. I have not seen them, however. Some who have indicate that reorientation therapy is not recommended nor condemned.

This is a little off-topic for my blog but I am glad to put some light on my friend, Paul Kengor’s new book: The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. I have done some writing on this topic on Blogger News Network, specifically about the role of Sen. Ted Kennedy in attempting to undermine Reagan via Yuri Andropov. I also did a Q&A with Paul that I posted this evening. I think there are some tantalizing analogies between communism and Jihadism for us today. We must win the war against Jihadism and make no mistake we are at war.

So, in part, the posting of the Foley emails was an “October surprise” related to the elections. Good for the HRC to fire the person responsible.