HOMOSEXUALITY: CHOICE OR FIXED ORIENTATION?

There are many different beliefs. However, most people hold one of the following concepts:

1. Homosexual Feelings as a Choice:

   Homosexuality is an evil, unnatural and sinful lifestyle. It is a matter of choice that can be changed at any time. It is caused in males by a emotionally distant father and/or by an aggressive mother. This causes men to not bond with other males as friends, but rather to look upon them as potential sexual partners. Keeping children ignorant of homosexuality will assure that they will grow up heterosexual. To grant homosexuals the same protection under law as is granted to other minorities is to give them "special privileges". If homosexuals are allowed to adopt children, they will raise them to become gay and lesbian adults. Recognizing long term, committed, monogamous homosexual partnerships or allowing them to marry will damage traditional heterosexual marriages.

2. Homosexual Feelings as a Fixed Orientation:

   Homosexuality is a natural orientation for a minority of people. Like other sexual orientations, it is determined early in life, sometimes at conception. Most children grow up heterosexuals; the orientation of their parents and friends have little influence. Since gays and lesbians are extensively discriminated against, they need the same protections as are granted to other minorities. Recognizing gay and lesbian partnerships is simply accepting their equivalence to heterosexual marriages, and will not impact negatively on traditional marriages.

Varieties of Sexual Orientations

• Heterosexual - a person who is sexually attracted only to members of the opposite gender, or
• Homosexual - a person who is sexually attracted only to members of the same gender.

This is not a useful model, because it ignores two minorities:

• Asexuals - people who have feelings of sexual attraction to neither gender
• Bisexuals - people who are attracted (perhaps to different degrees) to both genders

Most researchers into human sexuality look upon sexual orientation as a continuum:

• Those with solely heterosexual feelings form one extreme; they are free to select celibacy, or to seek sexual activity with members of the opposite sex.
• Those with solely homosexual feelings form the other extreme; they can be celibate or enter into relationships with members of their own gender
• In the middle are bisexuals. Being sexually attracted to both genders they can choose:
  • only heterosexual relationships
  • only homosexual relationships
  • relationships with both men and women
  • celibacy

Most researchers believe that one's orientation is fixed and unchangeable. A number of techniques have been used to try to suppress homosexual feelings and/or create heterosexual feelings:

• aversion therapy; e.g. clients were shown pictures of naked men and simultaneously shocked with electricity
• brain surgery in the form of frontal lobotomies
• castration
• counselling and psychotherapy
• drug therapy: e.g. animal-organ extracts, cocaine, estrogen, testosterone
• positive therapy: e.g. men were asked to masturbate and then were shown pictures of women just before orgasm
• prayer and spiritual counselling
• therapy by tedium: men were shown homoerotic pictures until they became totally bored

What Determines a Person's Sexual Orientation?

1. Orientation is a decision made perhaps at puberty and can be changed at any time by prayer or counselling
2. Orientation is fixed early, at least by the time the child reaches school age. In many cases, it occurs before birth; perhaps at conception; the cause is outside of a person's control.

The vast bulk of evidence favors the second belief:

• The National Institute of Health (a US Federal Government agency) reported that about 30% of youth suicides are by gays and lesbians who recognize that they are homosexual and realize that they cannot change their sexual orientation - they are stuck being gay or lesbian for the rest of their life. These young people who commit suicide may have been taught to hate or reject homosexuality by their families, religious institutions, schools etc. If they had any hope of changing their orientation, they obviously would seek counselling instead of killing themselves. Their deaths are one more price that society must pay for its current level of homophobia.
• Suppose that every heterosexual asked themselves two simple questions:
  1. what would it take for me to be attracted to a person of the same gender and want to enter into a sexual relationship with her/him? The answer is that it is impossible to create such feelings of sexual attraction where they do not exist. This test would be a good indicator of the fixed nature of sexual orientation.
  2. at what age did I choose my sexual orientation? The answer is that, as far back as a person can remember, they were either asexual or heterosexual
• In the forward to the book "We Were Baptized Too: Claiming God's Grace for Lesbians and Gays", Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Tutu of South Africa writes "Someone has said that if this sexual orientation were indeed a matter of personal choice, the homosexual persons must be the craziest coots around to choose a way of life that exposes them to so much hostility, discrimination, loss and suffering."
• One important type of study involves determining the sexual orientation of identical twins who were separated at birth and raised in different homes. If sexual orientation is decided genetically at conception, then if one twin is gay or lesbian, the other would be as well. If sexual orientation is determined by life experiences, then if one twin is gay or lesbian, the other would have only about a 5% chance of being homosexual. This type of study has been performed and replicated. In most cases, the identical twin of a homosexual was found to be also homosexual.
• Simon LeVay, a Neuroanatomist at the Salk Institute in California published a study which examined the brains of men who had died of AIDS. He found that the INAH 3 (a structure within the hypothalamus) differed in size between heterosexual and homosexual men. This suggested to the researcher that "sexual orientation has a biological substrate".
• Psychologist Michael Bailey of Northwestern University and Psychiatrist Richard Pillard of Boston University (1) studied the sexual orientation of male siblings raised together. If one was homosexual then the chance of their sibling being homosexual was:
  • 52% for their identical twin (29 out of 56)
  • 22% for their non-identical twin
  • about 10% for adopted or non-twin brothers.
  This would point to a strong genetic factor at the time of conception. This type of study tends to have the same serious flaws as in the identical twin studies described above. The second twin might not be willing to admit to being homosexual. One sibling could be bisexual and identify themselves to the interviewer as a homosexual; the other could also be bisexual and be behaving as a homosexual.

  J. M. Bailey, R. C. Pillard and others conducted a similar study of female identical twins (2) raised in the same family, in which one twin identified herself as a lesbian. 48% (34 out of 71) of their twins also said that she is homosexual.

• J.A.Y. Hall and D. Kumura at the University of Western Ontario at London ON Canada found a relationship between the number of fingertip ridges on men and their sexual orientation. (3) They compared the number of ridges on the index finger and thumb of the left hand with the number on the corresponding fingers of the right hand. They found that 30% of the homosexuals tested had a surplus of ridges on their left hand, whereas only 14% of the heterosexuals did. This is a particularly interesting finding, because fingerprints are fully determined in a fetus before the 17th week of pregnancy, and do not change thereafter. This would seem to prove that for some adult homosexuals, their orientation was pre-determined before birth, perhaps at conception.
• Children who grow up to become homosexuals often engage in "gender inappropriate play" in early childhood. This indicates that the factor which determines sexual orientation takes effect very early in one's life (perhaps before birth).
• Gays and Lesbians do not appear to be any less common in societies which condemn homosexuality; they do not seem to be any more common in accepting societies. This would argue against sexual orientation being learned.
• Almost all children raised in families headed by two gays or two lesbians grow up heterosexual. The sexual orientation of one's parents appear to have little influence over the orientation of their children.
• Researcher Dean Hamer, and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute studied over 100 gay men (4,5) and found that many of their uncles and male cousins were also gay. This suggested that a genetic effect was determining sexual orientation. They compared the DNA of 40 pairs of homosexual brothers and found that almost all shared genetic markers in the Xq28 region of the X chromosome (one of the two sex chromosomes). This "gay gene" has yet to be isolated precisely; however, they have found its approximate location. Eventually, it might be found that a group of interacting genes (including this one) might determine sexual orientation in males.

  The DNA of 36 pairs of lesbian sisters were also studied; no corresponding pattern has yet been found.

• There is general agreement among researchers into human sexuality that one's sexual orientation is determined before one reaches school age. Once established, sexual feelings are unchangeable. In terms of behaviour by sexually active adults researchers accept three normal, natural expressions of sexual feelings:
  • Heterosexuals (over 90% of the adult population) can chose to enter into sexual relationships with members of the opposite sex, or be celibate.
  • Homosexuals (less than 10%) can chose to become involved with members of the same gender or be celibate
  • Bisexuals (less than 10%) can become involved with members of either gender or be celibate
• Many conservative Christians disagree. They feel that sexual orientation is a matter of choice, is sinful behaviour, and can be changed through work and prayer. Some ministries, professional organizations and mutual support/self help groups specialize in attempting to change homosexuals and bisexuals into heterosexuals. Their long-term successes appear to be in two areas:
  • convincing bisexuals to restrict their sexual activities to members of the opposite sex
  • convincing homosexuals to be celibate.
  An outside psychiatrist was allowed to search the files of Exodus International in 1978, two years after the group was founded. He found that of the 800 members, 30 were termed "no longer gay". He interviewed the 30 and determined that only 11 had really been "cured" of their homosexuality. Two of them were Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper, the founders of Exodus, who fell in love and were married to each other a year later. A "success" rate of 9 in 800 (about 1%) can easily be accounted for by bisexual clients who simply decided to confine their sexual activities to members of the opposite sex. These data are almost 20 years old, but no more recent information has been found.

  Some of the organizations are:

  • Courage a Roman Catholic group with about 15 centers in North America.
  • Evergreen International Inc. is a Mormon treatment centre, founded in 1989, which has 13 branches in the US, Australia and Canada. They claim a 30% success rate.
  • Exodus International was founded by Michael Bussee and Gary Cooper in 1976. As shown in the documentary movie One Nation Under God they fell in love three years later, and criticized their own organization and other ministries for gays as fraudulent. Exodus currently has about 75 ministries in the US, and has a presence in Asia and Europe.
  • HA Homosexuals Anonymous has chapters throughout North America. They have a 14 step program that is similar to Alcoholics Anonymous' 12 step recovery program.
  • L.I.F.E. is a New York City based group.
  • NARTH (The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) is an association of about 500-member therapists and social workers who hold these beliefs.
  • Transforming Congregations is a ministry within the United Methodist Church.