Re: Research

[DonaldH675@aol.com]

John Harrell  has assembled an interesting collection of ideas which are
intended, I think, to demonstrate the pathology, or perhaps the criminality,
of gay and lesbian people.  Some of them are worth examining in greater 
detail.

Dr. Spitzer's study has been widely misrepresented.  Of his 200 research
subjects, only about 40% of his subjects were exclusively attracted to
partners of the same sex before they attempted to change. They were
primarily "ex-gay" activists (78%) whom he characterized as "unusually
religious."  And the study found that only 66% of men and 44% of women had
achieved self-reported "good heterosexual functioning."   In other words,
some very highly motivated people, many of whom were bisexual to begin with,
felt that they had achieved, not a change in orientation, but the ability to
function as heterosexuals.  Spitzer himself said in a New York Times
interview that the success rate was "pretty low" and couldn't be generalized
to the gay and lesbian population in general.

The Family Research Council pamphlet on the physical health risks for gay
men and lesbians is based on the work of Paul Cameron, an independent
researcher who has been expelled from the American Psychological Association
and the American Sociological Association for ethical violations, including
deliberately misrepresenting other scientists' research
(http:/psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_cameron.html)

Cameron's median age of death study has been repudiated by no less a person
than former supporter William Bennet, who wrote in a letter to the New
Republic (1998, February 23, page 4): "Given what I now know, I believe
there are flaws with Paul Cameron's study. One cannot extrapolate from his
methodology and say that the average male homosexual life span is 43 years." 

Dr. Timothy Daily's study employs a common logical elision to arrive at his
conclusion: he classifies all male-male sexual assault as homosexual.  Dr.
Nathaniel McConaghy (1998) clarifies this point: "The man who offends
against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal boys is typically not
sexually interested in older men or in women" (p. 259).  In other words,
most sexually predatory men who molest boys are pedophiles--mentally ill men
who harm children.  They are neither gay nor straight.  Gay men and
lesbians, like their heterosexual counterparts, seek adult partners. 

Melynda Huskey, Ph.D.