On Sept. 28, Truth Wins Out protested a Baptist Press article by ex-gay activist and longtime Exodus member Bob Stith. While mourning the sexual honesty of Christian contemporary singer Ray Boltz, the article unnecessarily and falsely quoted Human Genome Project former director Francis Collins as saying:

Homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.

Collins never said that; ex-gay political activist Greg Quinlan did. Good As You made the same observation.

Collins had said almost the opposite: He told Ex-Gay Watch:

The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence.  But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved.  That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.

Collins added:

No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up), but it is likely that such genes will be found in the next few years.

Ten days later, Baptist Press finally changed the wording of the article — without acknowledging to readers the nature of the falsehoods that had previously been conveyed, without apparent effort to correct syndicated copies of the article that were circulated around the Internet, without apology to Dr. Collins, and — most importantly — without apparent reforms necessary to prevent future errors.

The only hint of the two-week deception appears at the top the article with this brief note:

REVISED: October 8, 2008 to reflect more accurate wording from “The Language of God” by Dr. Francis Collins.

Stith’s article now accurately conveys what Collins said — but the damage has already been done among readers who walked away from the article (and more than a dozen syndicated copies) believing that a leading geneticist had declared homosexuality a purely environmental choice.

Thus far, it seems Stith might walk away from the damage with nothing more than a quiet admission of fault to one web site, Ex-Gay Watch, which his regular audience never reads. Meanwhile, Quinlan has not acknowledged any deception whatsoever. We have asked Stith for assurances of complete remedial action; he has declined to respond.

Stith’s peers say that he is a man of good character; at one time I believed that, but I became very doubtful 10 days ago and now I am nearly convinced otherwise. True accountability, transparency, and penitence require more effort and integrity than I’m seeing, at present, from a prominent Exodus speaker and policy wonk for the Southern Baptist Convention.

Longtime Exodus International member “minister” and speaker Bob Stith on Sept. 25 became the third ex-gay activist entity in recent times to falsely imply that the Human Genome Project or its director support ex-gay ideology.

In April 2007, A. Dean Byrd of the ex-gay advocacy group National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality cherry-picked partial statements by Francis Collins, Ph.D, of the Human Genome Project, for an article which falsely implied that Collins supported NARTH’s ideological position opposing the existence of sexual orientation as a biological phenomenon.

Collins told Ex-Gay Watch the following month (and repeated this on Sept. 21, 2008):

It troubles me greatly to learn that anything I have written would cause anguish for you or others who are seeking answers to the basis of homosexuality. The words quoted by NARTH all come from the Appendix to my book “The Language of God” (pp. 260-263), but have been juxtaposed in a way that suggests a somewhat different conclusion that I intended. I would urge anyone who is concerned about the meaning to refer back to the original text.

The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.

[Ex-Gay Watch’s] note indicated that your real interest is in the truth. And this is about all that we really know. No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up), but it is likely that such genes will be found in the next few years.

Earlier this month, New Jersey ex-gay activist Greg Quinlan and the American Family Association ignored Collins’ warning against NARTH’s interpretation — and further distorted Collins’ position. Quinlan said:

When [gay Christian contemporary singer Ray Boltz] says he’s born that way, we know now for a fact that that’s false. In fact, just last year in March, the director of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins, said this: homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.

Collins said nothing of the sort, and a few days after Quinlan’s article, Collins repeated his earlier assertion that NARTH had distorted his position. Quinlan refused to retract his claim — turning it from a mere falsehood into an outright lie.

Despite those events, Stith repeated Quinlan’s lie to his Baptist Press audience on Sept. 25:

For example, in 2003, the International Human Genome Consortium announced the successful completion of the Human Genome Project, which, among other things, identified each of the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA. The press release read: “The human genome is complete and the Human Genome Project is over.”

While this accomplishment was widely reported, almost no one reported the words of Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the project. Collins, arguably the nation’s most influential geneticist, said, “Homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.”

Somehow the major media missed that little tidbit. Collins and others
acknowledge that genetics can predispose but not predetermine. This supports other studies that clearly document the possibility of change for people who struggle with unwanted homosexual desire.

Stith is now the Southern Baptist Convention’s “National Strategist for Gender Issues.” That SBC “gender” panel is actually an ex-gay policy group within the SBC administration. It is dominated by Exodus member activists.

In other words, Stith is no longer a spiritual minister; he has become a professional spin artist.

Stith not only parrots the exposed lie of Quinlan, but also connects that untruth to an illogical assertion that if one bisexual person can “change” their behavior, then any homosexual person can “change” their orientation.

If anything good is to come from all of this ex-gay truthlessness and spin, perhaps it’s that Stith, Exodus, NARTH, Quinlan, and the AFA have become so untruthful that many concerned families of gay people are leaving Exodus and NARTH behind, and seeking help from trustworthy sources of information in mainstream therapeutic and gay-tolerant religious communities.

I invite Stith to apologize, to distribute a retraction to the same media outlets that received his original statement, and to condemn the stubborn untruthfulness of Quinlan and NARTH.

Addendum:

In 1998, Stith spoke the following in his Sunday sermon as an apology to a gay man who attended the church that day:

We have not lived in transparency. We have often cloaked our own weakness and pointed instead at the sins of others. We have settled for a form of godliness which manifests respectability but has no power to change the core of our being.

We do humbly ask forgiveness.

We have manifested more of an interest in being right than in being loving and often succeeded in being neither.

We do humbly ask forgiveness.

Forgiveness requires true repentance, and repentance requires actual change — not merely a token expression of regret followed by more of the same misconduct.

If Stith is truly penitent, then why did he not bother to factcheck — and why does he continue to abuse the word “change”?

Truth Wins Out reported Sept. 15 that the American Family Association and New Jersey ex-gay activist Greg Quinlan lied earlier this month when they claimed that Francis Collins, Ph.D, of the Human Genome Project, supported a core myth of ex-gay ideology. Quinlan said:

When he says he’s born that way, we know now for a fact that that’s false. In fact, just last year in March, the director of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins, said this: homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.

That claim about Collins apparently originated in April 2007 from the ex-gay think tank NARTH. It was repudiated by Collins in May of that year, via Ex-Gay Watch. Collins wrote:

The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.

[Ex-Gay Watch's] note indicated that your real interest is in the truth. And this is about all that we really know. No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up), but it is likely that such genes will be found in the next few years.

But NARTH didn’t retract its deception then — thereby making the claim an intentional lie. Quinlan and the AFA then proceeded to parrot the lie.

Late last week, Quinlan retaliated against the exposure of his lie, accusing Ex-Gay Watch of fabricating its 2007 interview with Collins. Ex-Gay Watch responded early this week with hard proof and confirmation from Collins that the interview took place. Collins said:

I am happy to confirm that these e-mail communications from May 2007 and yesterday are indeed authentic, and represent my best effort at summarzing what we know and what we don’t know about genetic factors in male homosexuality. I appreciate your continuing efforts to correct misstatements that seem to be circulating on the internet.

Quinlan, AFA, and NARTH still refuse to retract and apologize for their lie.

Against freedom: An antigay Catholic group is upset that many Catholic universities permit freedom of speech and freedom of association among their gay-tolerant students and faculty. Styling itself as “The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property,” the group claims that, out of 211 U.S. Catholic universities and colleges, at least 96 have pro-tolerance clubs on campus. Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society equates tolerance of homosexual persons and their constitutional rights with promotion of homosexual activity, and he insinuates that sexual honesty is incompatible with “students’ moral formation.” Focus on the Family appears sympathetic to both Catholic antigay groups. (Focus)

Freedom from crime a “special right”: In its ongoing war against young victims of violence, the antigay American Family Association of Michigan has targeted state Sen. Valde Garcia, a Republican, for his support of legislation to protect students from bullying. Gary Glenn of AFA/M asserts that protection from bullying amounts to “special rights” if youths’ specific at-risk demographics are acknowledged. But Garcia says he had already threatened to withdraw his sponsorship of the legislation unless a list of protected demographics was removed. However, Garcia then contradicted himself — admitting he would hypothetically support legislation granting explicit anti-crime protections if they were limited to seniors, children and police. According to Sean Kosofsky of The Triangle Foundation, “If it’s not specific, it [anti-bullying legislation] will end up having little impact.” Kosofsky added, “There’s nothing gay about this bill whatsoever. It protects all students.” (Daily Press & Argus)

Gay genetics study: ABC News oversimplifies research into ties between genetics and homosexuality by falsely suggesting up-front that researchers seek a single gene that might explain sexual orientation. That’s not the case. According to the fine print in ABC’s own news story, the hypothesis is more complex:

Dr. Alan Sanders, a psychiatric geneticist at Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute, is currently heading the biggest study ever undertaken on sexual orientation. He’s looking at the genetic makeup of more than 700 sets of gay brothers.

“I think the evidence is pretty convincing already that a substantial contribution to sexual orientation comes from genetics,” he said. “It’s probably the single biggest factor that we know about.”

FRC apologizes: Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council apologizes for suggesting that America export its gay citizens in lieu of granting legal immigration to their foreign partners. (FRC Blog)

Kern meets with PFLAG: Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern still says equality for gay people is a bigger threat to America than terrorists — and further calls her opinion “Biblical.” But she has also met with members of the Oklahoma City chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and stated that she opposes discrimination against gays in the workplace. That should infuriate Concerned Women for America, which defended Kern’s terror talk as something that “reasonable people can debate.” Earlier, Kern debated a gay Christian pastor on KFOR-TV. (Queerty, PageOneQ, Good As You)