Commentary

Peer-reviewed paper looks at the causes of homosexuality

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Muddling Towards Maturity writes about a new paper about homosexuality.

Excerpt:

Stanton L. Jones, provost and professor of psychology at Wheaton College, has for years been a student of the latest research on homosexuality.  His most recent article, “Same-Sex Science: The social sciences cannot settle the moral status of homosexuality,” was published in the February 2012 issue of First Things magazine (http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/01/same-sex-science) and is a condensed version of his longer paper with citations,“Sexual Orientation and Reason: On the implications of False Beliefs about Homosexuality” (http://www.wheaton.edu/CACE/Hot-Topic)

Stanton offers authoritative analysis of current research.  He sets the record straight and corrects popular misimpressions.  I am posting the links in anticipation of giving these two articles a careful reading at my earliest opportunity.  Stanton previously published (with Mark A. Yarhouse) in 2000, “Homosexuality: the Use of Scientific Research in the Church’s Moral Debate.”

I read over the condensed version of the paper, and found some interesting things.

Regarding the healthiness of homosexuality:

Evelyn Hooker, in her 1957 study, was careful to reject only the claim that homosexuality is always pathological. She never made the logically distinct assertion that homosexual persons on average are just as psychologically healthy as heterosexuals. It is well that she did not, because the consistent findings of the best, most representative research suggest the contrary, despite a few scattered compatible findings from smaller studies of less representative samples. One of the most exhaustive studies ever conducted, published in 2001 in the American Journal of Public Health and directed by researchers from Harvard Medical School, concludes that “homosexual orientation . . . is associated with a general elevation of risk for anxiety, mood, and substance-use disorders and for suicidal thoughts and plans.” Other and more recent studies have found similar correlations, including studies from the Netherlands, one of the most gay-affirming social contexts in the world. Depression and substance abuse are found to be on average 20 to 30 percent more prevalent among homosexual persons. Teens manifesting same-sex attraction report suicidal thoughts and attempts at double to triple the rate of other teens. Similar indicators of diminished physical health emerge in this literature.

And regarding the notion of being born gay:

Recent studies show that familial, cultural, and other environmental factors contribute to same-sex attraction. Broken families, absent fathers, older mothers, and being born and living in urban settings all are associated with homosexual experience or attraction. Even that most despised of hypothesized causal contributors, childhood sexual abuse, has recently received significant empirical validation as a partial contributor from a sophisticated thirty-year longitudinal study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Of course, these variables at most partially determine later homosexual experience, and most children who experienced any or all of these still grow up heterosexual, but the effects are nonetheless real.

To say that psychological and environmental variables play a part in causation does not mean that biology does not, rather just not to the extent that many gay-affirming scholars claim. The two most influential contemporary theories of biological causation focus respectively on fraternal birth order and genetics; each has some level of support, but for modest-sized causal effects at best.

[…]Contrary to the assumptions of many social conservatives, biology does appear to play a modest part in determining sexual orientation. Contrary to the assumptions of many social progressives, psychological and environmental variables also appear to play at least a modest part in determining sexual orientation.

And what about reparative therapy?

Is sexual orientation immutable? With Mark Yarhouse of Regent University, I recently studied people seeking to change their sexual orientation. We assessed the sexual orientations and psychological distress levels of 98 individuals (72 men, 26 women) trying to change their sexual orientation through ministries organized under Exodus International, beginning early in the process and following them over six to seven years with five additional, independent assessments. Our original round of findings was published in a book titled Ex-Gays?; the latest round, in theJournal of Sex and Marital Therapy.

Of the 61 subjects who completed the study, 23 percent reported success in the form of “conversion” to heterosexual orientation and functioning, while 30 percent reported they were able to live chastely and had disidentified themselves from homosexual orientation. On the other hand, 20 percent reported giving up and fully embracing homosexual identity, and the remaining 27 percent continued the process of attempted change with limited and unsatisfactory success.

Are heterosexual and homosexual relationships the same?

Even so, intriguing hints of differences, of “nonequivalency,” between heterosexual and homosexual couples emerge from Peplau and Fingerhut’s survey. They mention one large study that found that 28 percent of lesbians had had sex outside their primary relationship—comparable to the 21 percent of women in relationships with men and 26 percent of men in relationships with women. By contrast, 82 percent of gay men had had sex with someone other than their main partner. However one construes such a striking difference in sexual monogamy, whether as a trivial stylistic difference or as indicative of something fundamental and pervasive, such a finding seriously challenges the equivalency hypothesis.

Stability is a relational characteristic of direct relevance to the types of functional concerns intrinsic, for instance, to evaluation for adoption fitness. How does equivalence look in this area? Peplau and Fingerhut cite one study that found that over a five-year period, 7 percent of married heterosexual couples broke up, compared with 14 percent of cohabiting male couples and 16 percent of cohabiting lesbian couples. They also summarize, without mentioning specific numbers, a more representative study from Norway and Sweden, which have sanctioned same-sex partnerships since the 1990s, reporting “that the rate of dissolution within five years of entering a legal union is higher among same-sex partnerships than among heterosexual marriages, with lesbian couples having the highest rates of dissolution.” Their rendering underplays the magnitude of the actual findings, which was that gay male relationships are 50 percent more likely to break up than heterosexual marriages, while lesbian relationships are 167 percent more likely to break up than heterosexual marriages. Odd that they would not mention these actual numbers.

There’s more – I just cited a few bits that jumped out at me.

I recommend reading the condensed paper just to get an idea of what the issues are and what the research says.

 

 

 

News

Rick Santorum gets endorsements from James Dobson and John Stemberger

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First James Dobson.

Excerpt:

James Dobson, the founder and former president of Focus on the Family, has joined a number of social conservative and pro-life leaders have who announced endorsements for Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

Dobson today announced his personal endorsement of the former Pennsylvania senator, and is not speaking on behalf of the pro-life Christian group he led before his retirement.

“The institution of the family is the key issue facing this great nation. It is the foundation, the bedrock, upon which every dimension of Western Civilization rests,” he said. “If it is undermined or weakened by cultural and governmental forces, the entire superstructure will collapse in short order. And indeed, today it is in serious jeopardy. The very definition of marriage is threatened, which has implications for the next generation and the stability of society itself.”

“Of all the Republican candidates who are vying for the presidency, former Sen. Santorum is the one who has spoken passionately in every debate about this concern,” Dobson continued. “He has pleaded with the nation and its leaders to come to the aid of marriages, parents, and their children. What a refreshing message.”

“The Congress voted in 1969 to impose a marriage penalty tax on husbands and wives who were struggling to raise their children. That unfair tax continued for 32 years, until George W. Bush rolled it back,” Dobson added. “Now, if Democrats and some Republicans have their way, the marriage penalty tax will be re-imposed in 2013. We desperately need a president who will intercede on behalf of those who are caring for the next generation and working to build this nation.”

“While there are other GOP candidates who are worthy of our support, Sen. Santorum is the man of the hour. His knowledge of international politics, especially Israel and the turmoil in the Middle East, is highly relevant to the dangerous world in which we live. This is why I am endorsing former Senator Rick Santorum for president of the United States, and urge my countrymen to join us in this campaign,” Dobson concluded.

[…]Previously, Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance, former Planned Parenthood director turned pro-life activist Abby Johnson, and pro-life nurse and blogger Jill Stanek issued endorsements for Santorum. They follow a weekend meeting in which key evangelical leaders saidthey supported him.

Santorum also picked up the endorsement of CatholicVote as well as former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer.

You can’t get a better pro-life and pro-family endorsement than James Dobson! I also like that Dobson talked about Santorum’s foreign policy credentials. Indeed, Rick Santorum is the best candidate if you like social policy and foreign policy. He even sounds better on fiscal policy in the debates – and even better on illegal immigration than Gingrich. Those were his weak points.

But there’s more – a key endorsement for Rick Santorum in Florida:

The Rick Santorum for President campaign is proud to announce that Rick Santorum has received the endorsement of Florida pro-family leader John Stemberger. Stemberger had previously endorsed Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) and served as Perry’s state co-chairman during the Florida Presidency Five event in Orlando. This marks the latest in a line of national conservative leaders to coalesce behind theSantorum campaign.

John Stemberger, in a statement released to his supporters, said: “Senator Santorum has been a champion for the timeless values of life, marriage, family and religious liberty. His personal life and character is a genuine reflection of the principles he stands for in every way. He is the only candidate in this race who has consistently argued during debates for the primacy of the family unit as the basis for social order and a sound economy. As an economic conservative, Rick Santorum can also unite the tea party, evangelicals and pro-life Catholics to form a winning coalition. I am proud to give my full support to Rick Santorum for President of the United States.”

Rick Santorum said: “I am honored to receive John’s endorsement today. John has been a stalwart defender of the family and the traditional values. I am looking forward to working with John in the coming weeks to help our campaign win the primary in the critical swing state of Florida.”

Stemberger has been a leading conservative voice for Floridians, leading the successful marriage amendment campaign in 2008 and serving as the former political director for the Republican Party of Florida in the1990s.

Don’t count Rick Santorum out yet in Florida – he has a week to make his pitch to Floridians.

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Why Mitt Romney lost to Newt Gingrich in South Carolina

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A couple of days ago, Mitt Romney was leading by 14 points in South Carolina – and he lost it by 12 points. What happened?

First, here’s a snippet from Gingrich’s victory speech:

“One of the key issues and I’m prepared to take this straight at the president and frankly straight at the elite media. One of the key issues is the growing anti-religious bigotry of our elites, and if you go to newt.org, my campaign site there’s a 54-page paper there on the balance of power, putting the judiciary back in its proper role in eliminating dictatorial bigots such as justice Berry in San Antonio who issued a ruling not only could the students not pray at their graduation, if they used the word “benediction” the word “invocation,” the word “God,” asked the audience to stand or a moment of silence he would put the superintendent in jail. Now we don’t have speech dictatorship in America by anti-religious bigots, period.

The second big theme, frankly, is one that every South Carolinian understands. It’s jobs, economic growth, balancing the budget, having stable money, and let’s be very clear, and again this makes some of the elite media nervous. President Obama has been historically the most effective food stamp president in American history. I worked with ronald reagan to create jobs and 16 million jobs were created by the American people in the 1980s. i worked with Bill Clinton, a democrat to create jobs and 11 million jobs were created by the American people during the four years that I was speaker.

I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history and I want to go into every neighborhood of every ethnic background in every part of the country and say to people very simply, if you want your children to have a life of dependency and food stamps, you have a candidate as Barack Obama. If you want your children to have a life of independency and paychecks, you have a candidate that’s Newt Gingrich, and I’ll bet you we have votes everywhere.”

That’s red meat for conservatives. We like policy papers and statistics. We like substance and bold contrasts.

Byron York explains how Newt won in the Washington Examiner. (H/T Smitty @ The Other McCain)

Excerpt:

Romney stages perfect events.  For example, on the eve of the primary, Romney’s rally in North Charleston was perfect from a production point of view: stage just right, big flags, big Romney signs, smooth introductions from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, all topped off by a showy entrance by Romney, who arrived in his big campaign bus that drove right into the room.

It was perfect in every sense but engaging with the voters.  Romney’s stump speech was a clipped — some would say dumbed down — list of generalities, concluding with this: “I love this land, I love its Constitution, I revere its founders, I will restore those principles, I will get America back to work, and I’ll make sure that we remain the shining city on the hill.”  Romney offered his supporters very little to chew on.  In this primary race, voters are hungry for substance, and Romney didn’t give them much.

Gingrich’s last event before the voting, a couple of hours later, was a rally on the hangar deck of the USS Yorktown, a World War II aircraft carrier that is now a floating museum across the bay from Charleston.  It was a most un-perfect affair.  To begin with, it just so happened that dozens of Cub Scouts were having an overnight on the Yorktown at the same time as Gingrich and the press showed up for the rally.  Their presence contributed to an air of happy chaos on board, and Gingrich was delighted to invite a few scouts on stage with him at the beginning of his speech.  When Gingrich got to the substance of his remarks, he was wandering, expansive, and detailed, where Romney had been brief and canned.  But Gingrich kept the crowd with him the whole way, and in the end had engaged his audience more than Romney could have hoped for.  Gingrich respected them enough to discuss issues with them seriously.

[…]Gingrich’s success here in South Carolina shows more than just a skepticism toward establishment Republicanism.  It also shows a hunger for real substance in the campaign, for a candidate who will talk to voters and give them more than phrases like “I believe in America.”  Mitt Romney’s team of seasoned campaign professionals may not think Newt Gingrich has any business playing a deciding role in the race.  But they better believe it, and they better take seriously what the Gingrich challenge represents — before it’s too late.

If you listen to Romney closely in debates, he never speaks like Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. With those two, you get specifics. Rick Santorum talks about his efforts to push for balanced budgets or his bill to ban partial birth abortions.  Newt Gingrich talks about the millions of jobs created when he was Speaker of the House and his 98.5% pro-life voting record.

What does Mitt Romney talk about? He never talks about his record – because it’s liberal. He passed socialized medicine with taxpayer subsidies for abortions. He raised taxes by $740 million dollars. He handed out licenses for gay marriages. When he speaks, he talks about how much he loves the United States, and how he would like to achieve results – results he never achieved when he was governor of Massachusetts. Mitt Romney has a Democrat record.

Note: Gingrich was losing to Romney 43-18 in Florida according to the January 17th CNN poll, but the latest ARG poll has Gingrich up 34.4 to 25.6, and the latest Rasmussen Reports poll has it at 41-32 for Newt. That’s how quickly things change because of a couple of good debates, with some real substance.

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