Conversion Therapy

There was a study published August 30 in the journal, Science titled “Large-scale genome-wide association study reveals insights into the genetic architecture of same-sex sexual behavior.”

For decades researchers have been searching for a genetic cause of homosexuality because it is believed that if we can prove it’s genetic, that removes any moral component. If it’s the way you were born, how can it be morally wrong?

So they are constantly doing research to discover a gay gene, and this is the largest such study yet.

I read the abstract of the study, and what it found was no genetic cause, but the study did make the news because while they didn’t find a genetic cause, they did find a genetic correlation. That is, there are certain genetic traits that often appear among homosexuals.

The reason they can’t call it a cause is because many heterosexuals also have those genetic markers. So those markers don’t predict homosexual orientation.

In a scientific study, finding a correlation tells you nothing about the cause. In fact, by itself, it tells you nothing at all. There is a correlation between the female cycle and the phases of the moon, but that doesn’t mean one has anything to do with the other.

The actually admit this in the study. “We emphasize that the causal processes underlying these genetic correlations are unclear and could be generated by environmental factors.”

What that means is, it could be that the genetic traits cause certain personality characteristics which place the person in a position where environmental influences affect the sexual behavior.

So what they are saying is, “We don’t know what the cause is. It could be genetic; it could be environmental—or both” (which is exactly what they already knew before doing this study).

You get more insight into that when you read further into the study. It says, “These … genetic influences partly overlapped with those on a variety of other traits, including … behaviors such as smoking, cannabis use, risk-taking, and the personality trait ‘openness to experience.’” So people with these genetic traits tend to be more open to new experiences, smoke more, take risks more, smoke pot more, and they are more likely to experiment with homosexuality (the study didn’t focus on orientation or desire, but only on whether a person had ever had a same sex sexual encounter).

So all that to say, if you wade through the bias in the news articles that reported this study, what you find is that the study really didn’t discover much of anything. And what they did discover points just as much to environment as to genetics. When they say, “It might be genetic, therefore it’s not the person’s decision and there can be no moral component,” using that same logic they would also have to say, “It might be environmental, therefore it is a free decision and there could be a moral component.”

But really, the whole genetic argument is completely irrelevant to the moral question. Suppose one day they do find a clear genetic connection. That would say nothing about the morality of the behavior. It wouldn’t surprise me if they found genetic markers connected with murder or alcoholism or pedophilia or laziness. But would that mean there is no moral component to killing or getting drunk or child molestation or laziness? No. Just because you have a genetic predisposition toward something doesn’t mean it’s moral behavior.

If you are a parent, you know that children are born liars. As soon as they are able to speak, they are capable of lying. You don’t have to sit them down and train them, “Here’s reality, here’s falsehood—if you make mom and dad believe the falsehood instead of reality, you can avoid trouble.” They don’t need any training or instruction, they don’t have to observe others lying—they are born with that propensity. And yet it’s evil. We are born with all kinds of evil propensities. But that doesn’t make them any less evil.

Conversion “Therapy”

There was another headline that caught my attention that involved New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, who recently made a public service announcement video encouraging Christian students to bring their Bibles to school. Here’s what he said in the video: “One of my favorite verses in the Bible is 2 Corinthians 5:7 ‘For we live by faith, not by sight.’ So I want to encourage you to live out your faith on Bring Your Bible to School Day and share God’s love with friends. You’re not alone.”

So that’s what Drew Brees said. Here’s the headline in the USA Today article: “Saints QB Drew Brees defends himself after appearing in video produced by anti-LGBTQ group.”

Here’s how the article started: “New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees on Thursday defended his participation in a video that was released by the religious organization Focus on the Family, a group that is widely recognized as anti-LGBTQ. Focus on the Family has, among other things, promoted “conversion therapy,” a radical pseudoscientific practice that aims to change an LGBTQ person’s sexual orientation.”

How’s that for some unbiased, non-opinionated reporting?

I suppose they feel like it’s unbiased because that definition of conversion therapy is copy and pasted right out of the Wikipedia article on conversion therapy.

Let me read you one paragraph from that Wiki article:

“Techniques used in conversion therapy in the United States and Western Europe have included ice-pick lobotomies; chemical castration with hormonal treatment; aversive treatments, such as “the application of electric shock to the hands and/or genitals”; “nausea-inducing drugs … administered simultaneously with the presentation of homoerotic stimuli”; and masturbatory reconditioning. More recent clinical techniques used in the United States have been limited to counseling, visualization, social skills training, psychoanalytic therapy, and spiritual interventions such as “prayer and group support and pressure” …”

So if someone in your prayer group comes to you and says, “I’m having some homoerotic temptations. I don’t want that. Would you please pray for me?” that’s in the same category as giving him an ice pick lobotomy. The effort to poison people thinking toward helping homosexuals change by associating it with all kinds of barbaric practices is so transparent, but, I fear, effective. Even Drew Brees come out with a statement disassociating himself from anything to do with conversion therapy. (If he read the Wiki article, you could hardly blame him.)

One of the many ridiculous claims in that article is that “there is no valid scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.” Think about that statement for a second. How do we know what a person’s sexual orientation is? There’s only one way—they tell us. If someone says they have same sex attraction, that is our one and only way of determining that they have a same sex orientation. And if they claim to have heterosexual attraction, that is our one and only way of knowing they have that orientation. So are they claiming that no one has ever claimed to have attraction to one sex and then later have an attraction to the other sex? It’s absurd.

I personally know people who used to have same sex attraction and no longer do.

One reason that’s such a bizarre claim to make is the fact that in today’s culture, sexual identity itself is believed to be fluid. Think about it—they believe a man can become a woman and a woman can become a man, but there’s no possible way a person’s sexual desires could ever change? Why pick that one human trait as the only thing that can never change?

And the claim that there is no valid scientific evidence, and that any thought of a person changing in that area is pseudoscience, is refuted by the study that I referred to at the beginning, which found that homosexuality appears to be influenced by both genes and environment. If it is influenced by environment, that means it can change. If it were impossible for it to change, then it couldn’t be influenced by environment.

And the whole anti-change attitude is one-sided. If a person came along and claimed, “I used to be heterosexual, but now I have same sex desires,” they wouldn’t ridicule that person for being pseudo-scientific. They would applaud the person. They don’t have any problem at all with people changing in that direction; only in the reverse direction.

This is a serious issue, because as of this year, in the state of Colorado, what they call “conversion therapy” on minors is illegal. So if a 17-year-old is having same-sex desires, and he doesn’t want to have them anymore so he asks for some help, if you help him you could go to jail (if the State decides you’re in the category of a mental health professional, which is a slippery categorization).

If he says, “I’ve been smoking, and I’d like to change,” then you can help him. If he says, “I was raised Christian and now I’d like to change,” you can help him with that. You can help him change anything about him except this one thing—even if he desperately desires to change.

And the ironic thing is, on the same day that law passed, they passed another law saying you can now change the sex on your birth certificate. You can change your sexual identity in the past, but you can’t change your sexual desires in the present.

The good news of God’s Word is this: the truth of God’s Word is the exact opposite of this world’s twisted beliefs. You cannot change your sex, but you can change your desires, inclinations, orientation, and behavior to align with the life-giving truth of God’s Word.