Poor Ryan Sorba.
It is clear that he is about to humiliate himself with his upcoming book, “The Gay Gene Hoax”. Although I have not read much of his polemic, what I have so far seen is as insufferable as it is inaccurate.
Sorba is a dilettante who has no understanding of the topic matter and essentially footnotes bad information hoping his audience is too uneducated to notice.
His book is also a poorly orchestrated hit job on activists, such as myself, who have shown the notion of “ex-gay” to be a myth.
For example, on page 77 of his sophistic screed Sorba writes, “In all likelihood, the man (Wayne Besen)is a calculating and manipulative liar.” (Needless to say, the unbalanced minds at Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) chortled over this attack.)
Interestingly, a few pages later (89) the presumably honest and forthright Sorba quotes the debunked 1979 Masters & Johnson book, “Homosexuality in Perspective” to support his flimsy arguments.
It seems that Sorba is shockingly unaware that the book he quotes was disavowed last year 
by Virginia Johnson in Thomas Maier’s groundbreaking book Masters of Sex.
Indeed, the results were said to have been entirely fabricated.
Virginia Johnson actually argued in 1978 that “Homosexuality in Perspective” should never have seen the light of day — but it was already too late in the publishing process to undo the damage.
For someone who fancies himself an expert, it is incredible that Sorba was not informed on this major development, considering articles were published on Maier’s book in major newspapers, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Maybe Sorba was so busy watching FOX News and reading The Washington Times that he missed the widely publicized information. To help bring him up to speed, here is an excerpt from the Washington Post:
He (William Masters) was also the driving force behind the team’s controversial embrace of conversion therapy for gays. In “Homosexuality in Perspective” (1979), he and Johnson claimed they could straighten out gay men or women in a matter of weeks, with a “failure rate” of only one-third. Buttressed with phony case studies, the book’s findings were quickly denounced by the medical establishment and seized upon just as quickly by the religious right as evidence that gay lifestyles were a choice, not an orientation.
So Masters and Johnson bear some of the blame for the “ex-gay” ministries that currently litter our cultural landscape…
The very foundation that Sorba uses to back his case is a house of cards that had already fallen. Clearly, Sorba is profoundly ignorant of his subject matter, irredeemably truth challenged or so contemptuous of his conservative readers that he believes they will take his erroneous words at face value.
I found this glaring error in about five minutes of research. I can only imagine the treasure trove of embarrassing gaffes to be found with a full-length reading. Even a cursory five-minute glance at Sorba’s sloppy research shows that he is not ready for Prime Time.
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Poorly researched indeed, and chock full of hate. I need a shower now.
Comment by Buffy — March 3, 2010 @ 7:32 am
Sorba’s Book qualifies for a Book Burning Event.
Comment by Roger — March 3, 2010 @ 8:43 am
I have perused — very cursorily, I have to admit — the draft copy of Sorba’ “The Gay Gene Hoax”. Is it meant seriously, or is it itself just some kind of hoax? If it is the former, he needs to take to heart Alceste’ advice in Moli?®re’ play “Le Misanthrope”:
“A gentleman should always be at pains to control that itch for scribbling to which we are so prone; one should keep a tight rein on any desire one may have to advertise such trivial diversions, or in eagerness to display one’ work one runs a risk of cutting a pretty poor sort of figure… to put him off writing I pointed out the harm this sort of craving had done to some very worthy people in our own time.”
Comment by William — March 3, 2010 @ 9:22 am
But I find no reference to who has published Mr Sorba’s book, and who has reviewed it. Can anyone enlighten me on this?
More of his idiocy, supporting Intelligent Design junk science can be seen here: http://ryansorba.blogspot.com/2007/01/intelligent-design-dembski-darwin.html
Comment by adrianT — March 3, 2010 @ 10:14 am
What, Adrian, do you really mean to tell us that Ryan Sorba is actually one of those “Intelligent Design” freaks? Well, how you do surprise me!
Comment by William — March 3, 2010 @ 10:33 am
If he’s a proponant of ID (which all peer reviewed scientific literature has shown to be complete bullshit), then it is no surprise that he would fail to do proper research on homosexuality as well.
Comment by Gyeong Hwa Pak — March 3, 2010 @ 11:00 am
Indeed not surprising – so is NARTH http://www.narth.com/docs/reflection.html and FOTF has poured millions into ID ‘research’. The point being, if you believe in Creationism, you do not and cannot believe or understand genetics in the first place. Or understand science, or the definition of ‘natural’, the cornerstone of his reasoning on human sexual orientation.
Comment by adrianT — March 3, 2010 @ 11:23 am
All the more reason not to trust those organization. If they truly did any science, there wouldn’t an obvious Christian bias in their “research”. Support for homosexuality and evolution, OTOH, is found by people of all/no faith including Christians.
Comment by Gyeong Hwa Pak — March 3, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
So NARTH also are in on this “Intelligent Design” lark, are they?
I wonder what other hidden links there are between these various groups of cranks. I know that, incredible as it may seem, some who believe in so-called Creation Science also believe that Copernicus and Galileo got it wrong, and that the earth is the centre of our universe. See:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/2/part3.html
Comment by William — March 3, 2010 @ 2:41 pm
William,
There’s a faction of them that still think the earth is flat (see Flat Earth Society on Wikipedia). That’s how disconnected they are with science.
Comment by Gyeong Hwa Pak — March 3, 2010 @ 2:46 pm
FYI, Randy Thomas believes in the six-day creation myth.
Comment by Mike Airhart — March 3, 2010 @ 2:50 pm
So, does anyone suspect that Mr. Sorba might be gay himself?
Comment by Joseph — March 4, 2010 @ 1:19 pm
Thanks for the link. It has cheered me up immensely. What a laugh…. he says at one point that “sometimes people develop same sex attractions due to lack of attention”. So, I wasn’t concentrating at 11-3 and suddenly liked boys? Or nobody would talk to me so I became gay? LOL LOL LOL
Comment by Paul Mc — March 4, 2010 @ 3:03 pm
“So, does anyone suspect that Mr. Sorba might be gay himself?”
RAGING homo of a clown.
Comment by Scott — March 10, 2010 @ 12:00 am
Flash graphic says “Roy Sorba”
Comment by error — March 28, 2010 @ 8:07 am