Warren Throckmorton

Associate Pastor, Ross Parsley says there is something to these allegations in an interview and email to the church. A voice recognition expert believes the voice on Mike Jone’s voicemail is indeed Ted Haggard. The accuser, Mike Jones, failed the first polygraph but the examiner said that fatigue and emotion may have played a role and they will try again. I am getting emails from men I have worked with in counseling who are troubled by the story. Some because it brings up their own struggles; others are saying they remember what this kind of time was like and they really feel for him and his family.

UPDATES:
1. Focus on the Family, also based in Colorado Springs, issues press release.
2. Haggard says he bought meth and received a massage from Jones.

This is a difficult story. Apparently, there is something to these allegations. (NAE = National Association of Evangelicals). This morning a voice recognition expert weighs in. The accuser, Mike Jones, failed the first polygraph.

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.