Rev. David Holwick
Ledgewood Baptist Church (Evening study)
February 2, 1997
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"Born Gay?" Joe Dallas, Christianity Today 6/22/92, p. 20.
I. Arguments for inborn homosexuality.
A. Based on several recent studies. (see below)
B. Conclusions made from research:
1) Homosexuals are born that way.
2) Homosexuality is a normal condition.
3) What is normal cannot be immoral.
4) Therefore, prohibitions against homosexuality make no sense.
C. Four essential questions.
1) Were studies conducted in an unbiased and fair way?
2) What are the true implications of the results?
3) Are the results accepted almost universally by the
scientific and medical communities?
4) Are the results compatible with biblical truth?
II. Agendas and outcome.
A. Many of the researchers are open about their homosexuality.
1) Their goal is to educate society.
2) Randy Shilts: "It will reduce being gay to something like
being left-handed."
B. Counter-concerns of evangelicals.
1) If something is genetic in origin, does this make it normal?
a) What about birth defects?
2) Should the standard for normality be determined by what is
inborn?
3) Facts must be examined, and also what they imply.
III. Simon LeVay and hypothalamus research.
A. One-third smaller in homosexuals than in heterosexual men.
1) But can this area be accurately measured?
2) Is size critical, or the number of neurons? (Newsweek)
3) Does size determine homosexuality, or vice-versa?
a) Neurophysiologist Kenneth Klivington of the Salk Institute:
"You could postulate that brain change occurs
throughout life, as a consequence of experience."
b) A "feedback loop" could affect the organization of the
brain.
c) Therefore, are homosexuals born with a smaller hypothalamus
or does the size decrease later in life?
B. Methodological questions:
1) The sexuality of the cadavers may not be certain.
2) The number of bodies was small, and the study has not been
replicated.
3) LeVay is conservative in his own assessment - "perhaps and
maybe." (Time magazine)
IV. Michael Bailey and Richard Pillard and identical twin research.
A. Higher incidence among identical twins (52%) than fraternal
or adoptive.
1) Therefore something in genes must cause homosexuality.
B. Methodological questions:
1) Study is flawed because twins were raised in same environment.
2) Pillard concedes, "There must be something in the
environment."
C. Opposite results from a similar British study.
1) March 1992 "British Journal of Psychiatry" reports only 20%
of homosexual twins had a homosexual co-twin.
2) Conclusion: "Genetic factors are insufficient explanation
of the development of sexual orientation."
V. Evident facts.
A. Differences may exist in the brains of some homosexual men.
B. However, the suggestion that homosexuality is therefore inborn
is interpretive and arguable.
C. The implication that society should therefore accept homosexuality
as common, normal, and morally neutral cannot be supported from
the medical facts alone.
1) "Different" does not mean "inborn."
2) "Inborn" does not mean "normal."
D. Society often acts from basis of bias.
1) LeVay's and Pillard's studies garnered much media attention,
while a study that found a gene present in 77% of alcoholics
and absent in 72% of non-alcoholics was ignored.
(Published in the "Journal of American Medical Association")
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"Homosexuality and Biology," by Chandler Burr, Atlantic Monthly,
March 1993, p. 47
I. Psychology.
A. Psychologists cannot distinguish homosexuals from heterosexuals.
B. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed it from
its diagnostic manual.
II. Neurobiology - brain structures.
A. In rats, "the default brain" for both sexes seems to be female,
and the introduction of testosterone produces maleness.
1) Known as sexual differentiation of the brain.
2) Rat male and female brains are different (sexual dimorphism).
B. Research of Simon LeVay.
1) The human hypothalamus is dimorphic, not just with sex but
also with sexual orientation.
2) Possible problems with research:
a) Small sample size.
b) Great variation in individual nucleus size.
c) All the gay men had AIDS.
d) No replication by other researchers.
3) Status is tantalizing supposition.
a) Human brain sexual dimorphism itself is disputed.
b) Establishing a distinction is not the same as finding
a cause.
III. Endocrinology - hormones.
A. Hormone alterations in rats causes sexual changes.
1) Human studies have found no significant differences in
hormone levels of heterosexuals and homosexuals.
2) Prenatal hormone exposure is unproven as an influence.
B. Research of Richard Pillard.
1) He speculates that Mullerian inhibiting hormone, which
defeminizes a fetus, may have brain-organizing effects.
Its absence or failure to kick in sufficiently may
prevent the brain from defeminizing.
2) In this view, gay men are basically masculine males with
female aspects, including perhaps certain cognitive
abilities and emotional sensibilities.
3) Gender-atypical play in prepubescence may indicate hormonal
influence.
C. Caution: if the prenatal-hormone hypothesis is correct, we
might expect to see prenatal endocrine disturbance (genital
abnormalities) in a large proportion of homosexuals, but this
is not found.
IV. Genetics.
A. Fruit flies exposed to radiation can become "fruitless."
1) The gene is recessive.
B. Richard Pillard and identical twins.
1) Concordance rates:
a) 11% for adoptive brothers.
b) 22% for dizygotic twins.
c) 52% for monozygotic twins.
2) "The findings suggest that homosexuality is highly
attributable to genetics - up to 70%."
a) Other factors would also be responsible.
V. Ramifications of science.
A. Biological factors play a role in determining sexual orientation.
B. Potential for abuse.
C. "Five decades of psychiatric evidence demonstrates that
homosexuality is immutable, and nonpathological, and a
growing body of more recent evidence implicates biology in
the development of sexual orientation."
D. "One cannot justify discriminating against people of the basis
of such a characteristic. Yet it would be wise to acknowledge
that science can be a rickety platform on which to erect an
edifice of rights."
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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