An Open Letter to Dr. Dobson - Focus on the Family

[Maraya1969]

This organization has responded to my emails in the past. This one however has yet to receive a reply. So I am posting it here and I will send them the thread. The first paragraph is what they send you right after you email them. I received this and nothing afterward. (I apoligize for the length but I wanted to post the exact letter)

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In your argument against homosexuality being an inherited trait you quote ONE study from 1993! I find this misleading and self serving. I have collected a few NEWER studies that suggest that homosexuality, (and especially gender disphoria symdrom) indeed has gentic origins. They all come from respected scientific journals.

In your response to whether homosexuality is genetic or not you state:

"Demonstrating that any behavioral state is not only biological but genetic is well beyond our present research capacity. This is especially true for something so complex and nuanced as homosexuality. One psychiatric researcher, Brian Suarez, calculated that at least 8,000 people would be required for a study to confirm a behavioral trait as genetic. No study of homosexuality has come remotely close to these requirements."

Dr. Dobson you are admitting that the case has not been proven one way or another, the "jury is still out". How then can you treat homosexuals as "sinners" when there is so much that you admit you do not know? There is more and more evidense coming out that our sexuality is determined by genetics and/or situations that occur during develpment in the womb.

I ask you Dr. Dobson, what will you do if in 5 years you are PROVEN to be wrong? How many lives will you admit that you ruined, (or caused to be ended because of suicide or violence)? because of your personal beliefs? I think it is reprehensible to target gays as "sinners" and I believe the ramifications of your anti-gay agenda is reprehensible, especially when you personally admit that you do not know whether it is a trait that is created by God or not.


Remember that the Bible says not to eat shell fish, not to plant certain crops next to one another and not to wear certain garments made of different cloths. Could it be that these were directions given as practical advice? Perhaps homosexuality was frowned on because it did not result in procreation? In Biblical times the more people your tribe had the safer it was and the better chance it had for survival. Just as eating shell fish could have caused death and was thus deemed an "abomination" homosexuality may have been given the exact same admonition because it resulted in loss of man power. Even the planting of crops is easily explained by modern agriculture knowledge. We know that certain crops deplete the soil of specific nutrients thus it is resourceful to rotate them with other crops that will allow nature to replete the soil. And yet the word "abomination" is still used to translate this message into modern language in the Bible. Amazingly your theology does not even mention shell fish, crop rotation or the use of different cloth fibers when listing "things that are abominations" but you stick to the word when referring to gay people. This is, at least very inconsistent.

It is impossible to translate an ancient language into modern language with complete specificity. Indeed there are words in other languages that cannot be translated into English even today.

I would like to add one additional fact that that you may not have considered. Heterosexuality, Bisexuality and Homosexuality are not clear cut labels. They are more prudently explained as a continuum with Heterosexuality on one end, Homosexuality on the other and Bisexuality very close to the middle. Thus when you give examples of persons who have changed their sexual orientation you must first discover and divulge how "gay" the person was in the first place. Some heterosexual persons would be entirely repulsed at the idea of a homosexual encounter and others would find the idea either less repulsed, curious or enticing. These persons can live their entire lives as heterosexuals and be labeled "heterosexual". The same is true for homosexuals. There are some who can make the change to a heterosexual lifestyle much easier than others. One could even say they are "less gay" than some of their peers. I heard one gay man say in a meeting, "This is not to be insulting to the ladies, but I have never drawn a heterosexual breath in my entire life." I'd say this person would have a much harder time going through your heterosexuality boot camp than another man who has a partial attraction towards women. So for you to use individual experiences as general evidence is misleading. It is also very hurtful to the person who is unable to change their sexual orientation because they happen to be father down on the continuum.

I will end my letter now. The abstracts I refered to follow.

Sincerely,

Pennee Atkinson

These abstracts can all be found at pubmed.com keywords homosexuality +genetics There are several hundred articles which appeared under these keywords. Some are directed towards illness among gay people but many are specific studies of the relationship between sexual orientation and gentics.

: Neurol Neurochir Pol. 2003;37 Suppl 3:19-38. Related Articles, Links

Kula K, Slowikowska-Hilczer J.

Zakladu Andrologii i Endokrynologii Plodnosci, Instytut Endokrynologii, Uniwersytet Medyczny w Lodzi. [e-mail]

Experimental studies revealed that transient action of sex steroids during perinatal period is crucial for the development of male sexual behavior and sexually dimorphic brain anatomy. Meanwhile, the lack of gonadal steroids in female foetus and estrogen effects at puberty determine female behavior together with female type of anatomical brain structures and of endocrine functions. In men psychic sex consists of gender identity (self-estimation), gender role (objective estimation of sex behavior). In addition, a sexual psycho-orientation (hetero-, bi- or homosexual) has been distinguished. Although it is believed that gender depends on the socio-environmental influences such as rearing, learning and individual choice, the biological factors are considered to be most important. This concept arises from recent study on patients with gender dysphoria syndrome (transsexualism). In intersexualism, in genetic men with disturbances of sexual differentiation of external genitalia because of the lack of testoterone production or action in peripheral tissues (male pseudohermaphroditism) or in genetic women with ambiguous genitalia because of the presence and action of androgens (female pseudohermaphroditism), a discordance between the formal sex (assigned after the birth) and the psychic gender may appear. In these individuals the legal sex established according to somatic and/or genetic sex at birth may be incompatible with their actual gender identity and role. The knowledge about gender identity is necessary at the decision of eventual (!) surgical correction of sex organs in patients with ambiguous genitalia. This decision should depend not on the expected, but on the actual gender identity of the individual patient. Meantime, early bilateral gonadectomy in patients with gonadal dysgenesis and male pseudohermaphroditism is an indication for life because of the highest risk of germ cell carcinoma.

Publication Types:

* Review


PMID: 14560698

Gynecol Endocrinol. 2004 Dec;19(6):301-12. Related Articles, Links

Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation.

Swaab DF.

Netherlands Institute for Brain Research, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. [e-mail]

Male sexual differentiation of the brain and behavior are thought, on the basis of experiments in rodents, to be caused by androgens, following conversion to estrogens. However, observations in human subjects with genetic and other disorders show that direct effects of testosterone on the developing fetal brain are of major importance for the development of male gender identity and male heterosexual orientation. Solid evidence for the importance of postnatal social factors is lacking. In the human brain, structural diferences have been described that seem to be related to gender identity and sexual orientation.

Publication Types:

* Review
* Review, Tutorial


PMID: 15724806



J Genet. 2004 Dec;83(3):251-5. Related Articles, Links

Proc Biol Sci. 2004 Nov 7;271(1554):2217-21. Related Articles, Links
Click here to read
Evidence for maternally inherited factors favouring male homosexuality and promoting female fecundity.

Camperio-Ciani A, Corna F, Capiluppi C.

Department of General Psychology, Universita di Padova, via Venezia 8, 35100 Padua, Italy. [e-mail]

The Darwinian paradox of male homosexuality in humans is examined, i.e. if male homosexuality has a genetic component and homosexuals reproduce less than heterosexuals, then why is this trait maintained in the population? In a sample of 98 homosexual and 100 heterosexual men and their relatives (a total of over 4600 individuals), we found that female maternal relatives of homosexuals have higher fecundity than female maternal relatives of heterosexuals and that this difference is not found in female paternal relatives. The study confirms previous reports, in particular that homosexuals have more maternal than paternal male homosexual relatives, that homosexual males are more often later-born than first-born and that they have more older brothers than older sisters. We discuss the findings and their implications for current research on male homosexuality.

PMID: 15539346

Excess of counterclockwise scalp hair-whorl rotation in homosexual men.

Klar AJ.

[e-mail]

While most men prefer women as their sexual partners, some are bisexual and others are homosexuals. It has been debated for a long time whether a person's sexual preference is innate, learned, or due to a combination of both causes. It was recently discovered that the human right-versus-left-hand use preference and the direction of scalp hair-whorl rotation develop from a common genetic mechanism. Such a mechanism controls functional specialization of brain hemispheres. Whether the same mechanism specifying mental makeup influences sexual preference was determined here by comparing hair-whorl rotation in groups enriched with homosexual men with that in males at large. Only a minority of 8.2% (n = 207) unselected 'control' group of males had counterclockwise rotation. In contrast, all three samples enriched with homosexual men exhibited highly significant (P < 0.0001), 3.6-fold excess (29.8%, n = 272) counterclockwise rotation. These results suggest that sexual preference may be influenced in a significant proportion of homosexual men by a biological/genetic factor that also controls direction of hair-whorl rotation.

[Kerrytravelers]

1. Being willfully ignorant is what puts the "fun" in Fundie!

I can't wait for the response... but I won't hold my breath, either.

[Maraya1969]

2. Can you keep this kicked so it stays on the front page for a while

I want that man and his cronies to know a whole lot of people KNOW about the real person that he is.

[wtmusic]

5. you bet

unfortunately you have to assume the man has a logical mind to comprehend an argument like this.

[Maraya1969]

6. Thanks I wonder where he got his Doctorate from

Sears? It always amazes me when people go through so much schooling and still insist on remaining ignorant.

[catzies]

3. and the "mental" in fundamental.

n/t

[LightningFlash]

4. You really layed the smackdown on Dobson.....

I doubt he will even reply to your letter ever, it embarassed him! :toast:

[NMMNG]

7. Excellent letter Maraya

Shows him for the hypocrite he is. :toast:

[Tsiyu]

8. Nice!

I have read - and I believe it was on DU -some Israeli Rabbis' comments on the Old Testament admonition against " a man laying with another man." According to these SCHOLARS, that admonition was specifically concerning a fertility ritual - that God would be displeased if a woman was substituted for a man in the ceremony. Hmmmm. Seems the BIBLE is also more complex and nuanced than simplistic fundamentalists want you to know!

Hope you get an answer, but I believe Mr. Dobson makes too much money calling others "sinners" and he isn't about to change that. But if there is a hell, my belief is that men like him will be sent there, because they are calling out some sinners yet refusing to acknowledge the biggest sinner of our time: George W. Bush. And the bible says we are not supposed to play favorites with humans. Even if we benefit. ESPECIALLY if we benefit!