PFOX revamps website

Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-gays has revamped their website with a more streamlined look. Much of the same content is in place formatted as a series of bulletin boards where it appears comments can be posted. PFOX also has a blog.

A flash video clip of Dr. Robert Spitzer is featured on the front page and loads automatically. I cannot tell from what video the clip is taken but it appears to be edited from a longer produced video. Anyone know from what this is taken? It seems to be a bit sparse to be included on the site without context. If you do not know who Dr. Spitzer is, then it won’t make much sense to you. If you know what Dr. Spitzer believes (change occurs but it is quite rare), then it will seem plucked out of context. I have a lengthy interview with Dr. Spitzer (pdf file opens in this window) where he covers the same ground in great detail.

Wayne Besen has a more recent clip of Bob Spitzer saying essentially the same thing he always does about his work although here he says he is not happy with how he believes Focus on the Family has used his study. I do not know what he is referring to exactly as he only mentions that he was unhappy that his broadcast with Dr. Dobson was distributed widely. If anyone has evidence of where Focus has misstated the study, please post it. I cannot recall where they have said more than what he says.

UPDATE: 2/19/07 – I spoke with Bob Spitzer by phone this morning. He does not know from what video the clip on the PFOX website comes. He said he is not a spokesman for PFOX and hopes that they will note a disclaimer on their site that he believes change in sexual orientation is infrequent.

Why Can’t Heterosexuals get it Right?

An article today in the Daily Mail, Betrayal of a Generation, outlines the difficulties experienced by children in the United Kingdom. The UK performed as follows:

Rates of teenage births were the worst in the developed world. British children were most likely to be drunk from the age of 11 onwards, most likely to have had sex by 15 and highly likely to smoke cannabis. Their diet was also poor.

The Netherlands ranked highest according to the UN study. The difficulties cited by the article suggest that pro-child social programs in the UK have not been effective at improving the plight of these children.

It leads me to the question which has long troubled me in the same-sex marriage debate: how can heterosexuals who have so neglected their obligations as parents dictate to gays and lesbians the limits of marriage and parenting rights?

It has been my opinion that if we indulge the selfishness and self-gratification of heterosexuals (sex without love, love without commitment, children as an afterthought) then we have no right to refuse gays and lesbians in their assertion that there should be exemptions from moral absolutes as well.

Kinsey, in his landmark studies on sexuality, from a population of participants sought to “describe” what America’s sexuality really was. To dispel myths and “get down to the facts.” We now know how agenda-driven his research was, and how flawed his population selection was. Kinsey is the left’s, Paul Cameron. Nevertheless, his work was championed and set the foundation for a sexual “revolution” which has had enormous negative consequences for multiple generations of children.

I may not agree with gay marriage based upon my religious beliefs and my interpretation of some social science data, but my larger concern, and the larger concern of our society’s future should be how heterosexuals are treating sex, love, commitment and parenting.

Taiwanese study links parenting and adult homosexuality

This study from authors, For-Wey Lung and Bih-Ching Shu in Comprehensive Psychiatry (opens a pdf file in this window) assess adult ratings of parent-child relationships as correlated with sexual orientation. The authors find significant differences between the gay and straight groups in parental overprotection and parental concern. There appear to be significant issues with this study but I thought I would note it since it is quite appropos to discussions we have here. I have written the authors with questions regarding sampling, definitions and assessments of sexual orientation and the lack of non-clinical homosexual group. Readers: post any other questions or observations you have.

UPDATE – 2/15/07: In further review of the study, it appears that the flaws in design outweigh any conclusions that could be drawn from it. Not only was the homosexual group a clinical group (they were diagnosed with an adjustment disorder), they had much higher neuroticism scores than the other two groups which stacked the deck against them. In essence, the authors varied two independent variables (sexual orientation, & neuroticism) simultaneously and attributed all the effects to the homosexual variable. You can’t tell what predicts what and certainly not causes what. Without adequate controls, you cannot say how much of the variance in perceived parenting was related to being gay and how much was due to higher neuroticism.

About all you can say is that a small non-representative group of homosexual soldiers in Taiwan who have an adjustment disorder and are high in neuroticism perceive their parenting as worse than a larger group of heterosexual soldiers in Taiwan who have an adjustment disorder but are significantly lower in neuroticism. All of those who have an adjustment disorder perceive their parenting as worse than those soldiers who do not currently have an adjustment disorder. I am careful to say perceived parenting because neuroticism as a trait may impact recalled parenting. In other words, if you manifest the temperamental trait of neuroticism (negative, prone to depression and worry, generally unhappy), this is likely to color your recall of upbringing. Some research suggests that the relationship between perceptions of parenting and adult pathology are related in a bidirectional manner (children impact the parent’s relationship and vice versa – this essentially means that some kids are harder to parent than others and the quality of the parental relationship and hence the recollection of that relationship will be colored by the temperamental traits of the children).

Donnie Davies & Joey Oglesby: Together at last

They meet!. I believe that my original theory should be revisited. If you are still interested in this bizarre story, you should go check out the link quickly because it was on YouTube once for a few hours and then pulled. If you aren’t that interested, then you might be annoyed, disappointed, upset or worse. Donnie Davies’ C.H.O.P.S. program is starting to take shape though.

UPDATE: 2/14/07 – We interrupt your V-Day celebrations to bring you news that Donnie Davies has now posted the footage MTV did not want you to see on his website. He has actually hired Joey Oglesby part-time. What a guy!