Interesting Article

From the Denver Post. I'll post some of my thoughts in the next couple of days:

Prominent evangelical Ted Haggard's murky admissions of sin following allegations of an affair with a male prostitute have reignited a volatile argument over the roots of homosexuality - a debate where religion, politics and science collide.

Haggard, who has said he isn't gay, was fired this month from New Life Church in Colorado Springs and now faces what church officials call a "restoration process" that will include a clinical exploration of his sexuality.

Details of that process remain vague. But evangelical leaders who will shepherd Haggard through his ordeal do so amid questions about how evangelicals balance emerging research and their religious beliefs.

Although the nature versus nurture debate - biology versus psycho-social factors - has simmered for years, most recent research has pointed toward sexual orientation being hard-wired into humans, at least to some degree, said Anthony Bogaert, a psychology professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, who studies sexual orientation development.
That finding holds for men more than women, who may be more "flexible" in developing sexual orientation, he added.

"The pendulum is probably pushed at least a little toward the biological end of things," Bogaert said. "Certainly some argue that psycho-social processes play a role. But for guys, it looks as if it's determined very early in life, and that determination is probably influenced strongly by biology."

Americans have gradually changed their thinking on the origins of sexual orientation over the past 30 years.

Steve Smith, 43, of Denver once enrolled in Exodus International to try to overcome his attraction to men. Initially consumed by guilt because of his fundamentalist Christian background, Smith said he eventually rejected the idea that he could change and accepted who he really is. (Post / RJ Sangosti)a 1977 Gallup poll, only 13 percent thought people were "born with" homosexuality, while 56 percent attributed it to "upbringing or environment."

Those numbers shifted in opposite directions until this year, for the first time, the "born with" responses surpassed "upbringing" 42 percent to 37 percent.

Eleven percent think it's a little of both - a figure that hasn't changed much over the decades.
Alan Chambers, president of Orlando-based Exodus International, which advocates "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ," describes more accepting attitudes in his movement toward the role genetics may play.

Exodus' stance is that homosexuality is "multicausal," Chambers said. One side of the debate is guilty of saying it's only genetics, and the other side is guilty of saying homosexuality can "go away" with prayer and reading the Bible, he said. Chambers said biological and developmental factors play a role.

"Whatever the root cause, people make a choice," Chambers said. "Not about their feelings, but about what they do with those feelings based on convictions and not on science."

Debating change
Steve Smith, a 43-year-old Denver massage therapist, said he first experienced same-sex attractions shortly after puberty, acted on them in college and - owing to his fundamentalist Christian background - felt overwhelmed by guilt.

Soon afterward, Smith enrolled in an Exodus International program with other young adult men who lived in a nondescript house near San Antonio.

People who feel same-sex attractions lacked healthy relationships as children, Smith said he was told, so living together like a family for a year would create nonsexual bonds and "delete" their homosexual thoughts.

Although the program "offered a lot of camaraderie and connection," he said he came to reject its premise.

Ultimately, Smith said he found clarity about his identity lying alone in bed at night.
"You know who you really are in those quiet moments," Smith said. "I knew then that nothing had changed in me fundamentally except my behavior."

Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family also has championed the belief that gays can change. The ministry has staged one-day "Love Won Out" conferences nationwide, often accompanied by protest and publicity. Ministry officials declined interview requests for this story.

Joseph Nicolosi, president of the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), coined the phrase "reparative therapy," a controversial treatment that claims to help people change their sexual orientation.

NARTH holds that biological, psychological and social factors shape sexual identity at an early age for most people - but it places greater emphasis on family, peer and social influences. The group doesn't see homosexuality as "normal and a part of human design" or unchangeable.
Robert Spitzer, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, conducted a study often cited by NARTH as evidence that gays and lesbians can change. But he bristles at how reparative therapy proponents gloss over his further determination that in the general population, such change is rare.

"The Christian right never mentions that conclusion," he said. "I find their whole agenda obnoxious. They want to humiliate gays and deprive them of civil rights."

"Therapy" draws fire
Major professional groups decades ago rejected the concept of homosexuality as a "mental disorder" - that change dates back to 1973 - and have more recently published their opposition to reparative therapy.

The American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics all have issued statements recognizing concern for the harm such treatment can cause patients.

Jack Drescher, a New York psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who holds "counter-conferences" to the "Love Won Out" gatherings, disagrees with the notion that there's no harm in trying to change sexual orientation.

He echoes many researchers who say there are no solid, peer-reviewed studies showing reparative therapy works and no accepted standards of practice.

"They're not invited to give lectures in medical schools, they're just marketing these ideas to the public," Drescher said. "They like to create in the public's mind the false impression that there's a controversy you need to know about."

Not that there isn't lively discussion exploring the origins of sexual orientation.

For example, Cornell University psychology professor Daryl Bem's "Exotic Becomes Erotic" hypothesis melds nature and nurture. He embraces research showing a genetic element at work but submits that genes simply code for "temperament" that can lead a child to be either gender- conforming - as in boys acting like boys - or nonconforming.

For the nonconforming boy who identifies more closely with girls, other boys become the "exotic." And as that boy moves into adolescence, the exotic becomes erotic - and the object of sexual desire.

Reparative therapy proponents have cited Bem's work to support their own - something Bem challenges as a politically driven agenda.

"I don't think my theory, even though there's room for experiences, gives any strategy for changing a gay child to a straight child," he said.

At the same time, he notes that politics tinges all sides of the scientific debate. "People start with attitudes," he said, "and then figure which theory they like."

Open to change
Warren Throckmorton, psychology professor at Grove City College in western Pennsylvania, disagrees with some of the tenets of reparative therapy. But while he firmly asserts that he's not a reparative therapist, he doesn't discount those who claim to have been transformed.

"For people of the evangelical persuasion, they believe that the core of their being is about their relationship with God," Throckmorton said. "If they're truly being who they are, for them that means bringing their sexual feelings into alignment with their religious beliefs."
And that, he added, could be the next step for Haggard.

"It appears he's struggled with his feelings secretively," Throckmorton said. "And now he has the opportunity, if he can be completely candid with some counselor or adviser, to sort out how he wants to live and what boundaries to place in his life."

But some in the gay community worry about repercussions of the Haggard scandal.
"I am concerned he will go through this restoration process and come out the other end a confirmed heterosexual and become a poster child for the illegitimate process of reparative therapy," said Michael Brewer, public policy director for the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Community Center of Colorado.

From its Denver offices, the Christian ministry Where Grace Abounds offers support groups, counseling and other resources for people struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction.
Director Mary Heathman, poring over Haggard's two-page apology read at New Life Church last week, was struck by one thing in particular. Haggard wrote about seeking assistance "in a variety of ways" to his struggles, with none working. Then he admitted that when he stopped communicating about it, the "darkness" increased.

"That's the key point right there," she said. "Transparency for any problem is the beginning of the solution. As (Alcoholics Anonymous) says, we are only as sick as our secrets."