"Homosexuality, the choice of a partner of the same sex for orgiastic satisfaction, is not innate. There is no connection between sexual instinct and the choice of a sexual object. Such an object choice is learned, acquired behavior; there is no inevitable genetically inborn propensity toward the choice of a partner of either the same or opposite sex" (Socarides, C.W., "Homosexuality: Basic Concepts and Psychodynamics," International Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 10 [March 1972, pg. 118], emphasis added).

"The genetic theory of homosexuality has been generally discarded today... Despite the interest in possible hormone mechanisms in the origin of homosexuality, no serious scientist today suggests that a simple cause- effect relationship applies" (Masters, Johnson and Kolodny, Human Sexuality, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1984, p. 319)

"No one has ever found a single, replicable genetic, hormonal or chemical difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals" (Dr. Judd Marmor in Homosexual Behavior: A Modern Reappraisal, New York: Basic Books, 1982 [Marmor is past President of the American Psychiatric Association]).

"Homosexuals are made, not born `that way.' From my 25 years' experience as a clinical psychologist, I firmly believe that homosexuality is a learned response to early painful experiences and that it can be unlearned" (Dr. R. Kronenmeyer, New York Tribune, May 6, 1983).

"We're born man, woman and sexual beings. We learn our sexual preferences and orientations" (William Masters and Virginia Johnson, interview, UPI, April 23, 1979).

Alfred Kinsey was convinced "that the psychologists were making matters worse by starting with the assumption that homosexuality was an inherited abnormality which could not be cured simply because it was inherent. Kinsey was confident that there was absolutely no evidence of inheritance..." (W.B. Pomeroy, Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research, New York: Harper & Row, 1972, p. 247).

"There is little evidence of the existence of such a thing as innate perversity... There is an abundance of evidence that most human sexual activities would become comprehensible to most individuals if they could know the background of each individual's behavior" (Alfred Kinsey, as reported by W.B. Pomeroy, Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research, New York: Harper & Row, 1972, p. 273).

"The experiences of homosexual arousal during childhood and adolescence and involvement in genital-type homosexual activities were very strong indicators of future, adult homosexuality" (A.P. Bell, M.S. Weinberg, S.K. Hammersmith, Sexual Preference, Bloomington, Indiana University, 1989, p. 113).

"Contrary to once popular belief, there is little evidence to suggest that genetic, chromosomal, organic, and other physical variables play any role in the development of the sexual preference of the overwhelmingly vast majority of homosexuals. Male homosexuals simply are not `female' in hormonal makeup, and lesbians are simply not `male' in hormonal makeup" (Abnormal Psychology, Schumer, D.C. Heath & Co., Lexington, MA, 1983 [citing Masters and Johnson, 1979; Tourney, Petrilli and Hatfield, 1975).

"Neither present day endocrinological tests nor microscopic or clinical examination have revealed any physiological differences between the heterosexual and homosexual individual" (McCary, J., Sexual Myths and Fallacies, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971, pg. 94).

In his 1987 publication, Psychoanalytic Theory, Male and Female Homosexuality: Psychological Approaches, Dr. Reuben Fine, director of the New York Center for Psychoanalytic Training, wrote: "I have recently had occasion to review the result of psychotherapy with homosexuals, and been surprised by the findings. It is paradoxical that even though politically active homosexual groups deny the possibility of change, all studies from Schrenk-Notzing on have found positive effects, virtually regardless of the kind of treatment used... a considerable percentage of homosexuals became heterosexual...

"If the patients were motivated, whatever procedure is adopted, a large percentage will give up their homosexuality. In this connection, public information is of the greatest importance. The misinformation spread by certain circles that `homosexuality is untreatable by psychotherapy' does incalculable harm to thousands of men and women" (pp. 84-86, emphasis added).

Dr. Michael Ross, an Australian AIDS/homosexuality researcher commented in a recent study on fluid change from homosexual/bisexual involvement to heterosexuality:

"Married men with homosexual experience were, predictably, significantly more personally concerned about AIDS and more scared of the disease. They were more likely to know homosexual people, and less likely to think that sex should be limited to marriage. In terms of sexual behavior, those with homosexual experience were also significantly less likely to have had sex with a woman in the past 12 months, and more likely to have ever used intravenous drugs.

"On the Kinsey Scale, predictably, they were more likely to consider themselves bisexual (although 63 percent now rated themselves as completely heterosexual; category 0). This last piece of data suggests that a substantial proportion of men who have had previous homosexual experience may now think of themselves currently as completely heterosexual, and that sexual behavior is, as Kinsey et al. (1948) found, reasonably fluid across the lifespan" (Marriage and Family Review, 14, no. 3/4, 1989, pp. 35-57, excerpt p. 40).

One wonders how "immutable" behavior can be "reasonably fluid across the lifespan."

"Homosexuality is not an immutable characteristic; it is behavioral and hence is fundamentally different from traits such as race, gender, or alienage... The behavior or conduct of such already recognized classes is irrelevant to their identification."

Elsewhere, the Court said in a footnote:

"After Hardwick... It would be quite anomalous, on its face, to declare status defined by conduct that states may constitutionally criminalize as deserving of strict [or heightened] scrutiny under the equal protection clause."

But significantly, the "study" (by Bailey and Pillard [an avowed homosexual]) fails to compare twins raised in separate environments. Only studies of twins raised separately in very different environments might even conceivably be true indicators of physiological origins for homosexuality.

Anne Fausto Stirling, a developmental biologist at Brown University has said, after analyzing Bailey's and Pillard's study: "In order for such a study to be at all meaningful, you'd have to look at twins raised apart. It's such badly interpreted genetics" (Newsweek, Feb. 24, 1992, p. 48).

Several quotes from The APA [American Psychological Association] Monitor highlight serious doubts about Bailey's and Pillard's "twin study":

"... Leon Kamin, a psychologist at Northwestern University, said twins studies do not show that any trait is hereditable. Twin studies `tell you absolutely nothing' about the influence of genes versus the environment, he said. `There is nothing new here.' Identical twins share many more experiences than do other siblings and are more apt to be similar in all regards, he asserted.

"Moreover, Kamin said, the researchers did not include in their hereditability estimate their finding that only 9 percent of the subjects' non-twin siblings were homosexual. This is lower than what Bailey and Pillard found for adopted brothers and fraternal twins. If homosexuality had a large genetic component, then siblings should be more apt to be alike than adopted brothers, and as similar as fraternal siblings, who are no more genetically similar than non-twin siblings, Kamin said.

"... `A lot of people think this [study] says something about whether people can choose to be straight,' Bailey said. But the study `really can't' do that. Just because sexual orientation `is biological [which we do not concede] does not mean it is immutable,' he said. However, he added, research does show that one's sexual orientation is very difficult to change.

"... Also, advertising in gay publications [how Bailey and Pillard secured their study's sample] does not necessarily guarantee a representative sample. `The sampling method in this study falls short of the ideal genetic epidemiological study, which would involve systematic sampling from a well-specified population,' the authors acknowledged." (Vol. 23, #2, Feb. 1992, "Study links genes to sexual orientation," pp. 11-12, emphasis added.)

Another "gay twin" study, providing very different results, has recently been reported in The British Journal of Psychiatry (March 1992, Vol. 160, pp. 407-409). Michael King, M.D., senior lecturer in a British medical school, and Elizabeth McDonald, a psychologist/researcher with a London psychiatric institute, reported a much lower concurrence of homosexuality among twins than was reported in the Bailey/Pillard study.

Only two among 20 identical twins reported that their twin was also homosexual. Three reported having a bisexual twin. Combined concurrence of homosexuality was only 25%, compared with 52% in the Bailey/Pillard study. Two fraternal twins reported that their twin was homosexual; only one reported that he or she was bisexual. Concurrence in this case was only 12%, compared with 22% in the Bailey/Pillard study. The authors concluded that "genetic factors are insufficient explanation of the development of sexual orientation." Despite these disparities, this study was very sparsely covered in U.S. media. Furthermore, in this study, as in the Bailey/Pillard study, "contagion" offers a more reasonable explanation than genetics for the concurrences reported.

Nor does a recent, much-publicized study by an avowed homosexual, purporting to discover "homosexual brains" (LeVay, S., Science, 253 (1991): 1034), afford any credible substantiation to a "genetically determined" hypothesis for the origins of homosexuality.

Simon LeVay's study of the brains of 19 homosexual male corpses (all died of AIDS complications) noted a difference in size compared with that of a group comprised of 16 presumably heterosexual male and six female corpses. Dr. Paul Cameron has commented:

"If... all homosexual brains contained smaller INAH3s [a neuron group], then we might have an interesting hypothesis to work with. But that's not the case. First, LeVay couldn't verify the sexual orientation of his non-gay subjects -- a fact that severely limits the meaning of general differences in his study.

"Second, 3 out of 19 homosexuals had a larger INAH3 than the mean size for `heterosexuals' (the 2nd largest INAH3 belonged to a gay) and 3 of 16 `heterosexuals' had smaller INAH3 than the mean size for homosexuals...

"According to [LeVay's] theory, 3 of the `heterosexuals' `should' have been homosexual, and 3 of the homosexuals `should' have been heterosexual. When you completely misclassify 6 of 35, you don't have much of a theory."

"... It turns out that LeVay doesn't know anything about the sexual orientation of his control group, the 16 corpses `presumed heterosexual.' A sloppy control like this is... enough by itself to invalidate the study. LeVay's defense? He knows his controls are het[erosexual] because their brains are different from the HIVer corpses. Sorry, doctor; this is circular logic. You can use the sample to prove the theory or vice versa, but not both at the same time."

In another of the study's serious lapses, 6 of the reportedly "heterosexual" men had died of AIDS. This represents 37.5% of LeVay's sample -- a much higher percentage than men in the general population. LeVay himself has admitted that, even were his findings totally consistent, they would not distinguish whether the observed difference in brain size was a probable cause of homosexual orientation, or an effect of AIDS infection or the gay lifestyle itself. Obviously, more study is required. But LeVay won't conduct it. He has left science to become a full-time gay activist.

(A number of prominent gay activists have recently attempted to disparage LeVay and his "findings" and hold that homosexuality is indeed non-innate and mutable, for a curious reason: They fear that if "gayness" can be proved to be genetically determined, it will therefore be "surgically correctable." They fear "fascists" and "homophobes" may try to round up gays and "correct" their sexual orientation "under the knife" or even kill infants determined genetically to be homosexual!)

Self-identified lesbian writer Donna Minkowitz comments on the "innateness" question in a recent Advocate article, entitled "Recruit, recruit, recruit!": "Remember that most of the line about homosex being one's nature, not a choice, was articulated as a response to brutal repression. `It's not our fault!' gay activists began to declaim a century ago, when queers first began to organize in Germany and England. `We didn't choose this, so don't punish us for it!' One hundred years later, it's time for us to abandon this defensive posture and walk upright on the earth. Maybe you didn't choose to be gay -- that's fine. But I did" (December 29, 1992).

As is often the case, gay activists speak out of both sides of their mouths, depending on the audience. Author and American University associate history professor Jerry Z. Muller observes, of gay "sexual politics" on America's college and university campuses:

"In political arguments toward the non- homosexual public, the homosexual movement has tended toward a deterministic portrait of homosexuality as grounded in irrevocable biological or social-psychological circumstance. Yet among homosexual theorists in the academy, the propensity is toward the defense of homosexuality as a voluntarily affirmed `self- fashioning.'

"The confluence of feminism and homosexual ideology has now led to a new stage, in which the politics of stable but multicultural and multisexual identities is being challenged by those who regard all permanent and fixed identity as a coercive restriction of autonomy, which is thought to include self-definition and redefinition" ("Coming Out Ahead: The Homosexual Movement in the Academy," First Things, August/September 1993, p. 20, emphasis added).

The same author discovered, about male homosexuality in prisons . . .

"For males [behind bars] homosexual activity seemed to focus primarily on physical gratification; in many instances it represented a commodity for economic exchange; and it was likely a transitory act" (Ibid., pg. 71).

At the 1994 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, University of Washington (Seattle) sociologist Pepper Schwartz presented an opinion on the "innateness" question now gaining increased currency in scientific circles:

"SAN FRANCISCO -- There are subtle shades of sexual orientation -- and there's more than one way to become gay or straight, according to scientists. `There are different types of homosexuality -- and some are more "hard- wired" than others,' said Pepper Schwartz... In the `nature vs. nurture' debate over sexual orientation, the pendulum of scientific opinion is swinging once again. Sexual destiny is not always shaped at birth. It can be influenced by family dynamics, an adolescent crush or the availability of sex partners -- not simply DNA, Schwartz believes.

"`Gayness' or `straightness' are not necessarily immutable traits like eye color, she says, but more like one's taste in fashion: variable over the course of a lifetime and influenced by upbringing and opportunity. `There may be biological input, but also important are your social and environmental experiences -- for instance, the way you're brought up, your family history, important life events,' [Schwartz said]... `If you want to train boys to be gay, send them to an English "public" school... where their only credible experiences are with their (same sex) chums,' she said... Schwartz cautioned -- `Homosexuality is something which individuals do; it is not who they are. There is more than one way for them to be.'"("DNA alone doesn't make a person gay, scientists say," Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, March 7, 1994, p. D- 3)

"The American Psychological Association [APA] asserts that homosexuality is not a matter of `individual choice,' `does not increase or decrease with any particular moral code or set of social or moral attitudes,' `is found consistently in about ten percent of the male population' and, in `different historical eras and in totally different cultures the incidence of homosexuality remained the same irrespective of public attitudes and prohibitions' [Testimony of Bryant Welch, Executive Director for Professional Affairs, APA, before the American Bar Association House of Delegates, 2/6/'89]... Since the APA holds sexual orientation to be heritable and constant across cultures, the proportion of Blacks who engage in homosexuality, bisexuality or exclusive heterosexuality should not differ from the proportion of Whites in those same categories. If the proportions vary significantly, application of the APA's position on intelligence [and crime, i.e., that ethnic group differences in measured I.Q., and crime statistics, etc., must be due to cultural and environmental factors] would suggest that environment and learning must influence sexual orientation. In addition, the APA's claim that 10% of males are universally `born that way' would become untenable" (Family Research Report, March-April 1992, pp. 3,8).

The figures would seem to indicate, Cameron comments, that if "people are `born' with immutable homosexual desires and act on them irrespective of `moral code' or `prohibitions,' then it would appear that Blacks are born homosexual over twice as frequently as Whites! Application of the same logic would have Blacks born bisexual over four times as frequently as Whites! Since Hispanics (7% of the population) fall in between Whites and Blacks on proportions participating in both homosexuality and bisexuality, would the APA contend that homosexuality and bisexuality are a function of skin color? Obviously not. So how can these substantial racial differences be explained? The same way the APA accounts for other racial differences: the learning experiences must have been different... If the rate of homosexuality did not vary by subculture, we might suspect that the APA was correct about homosexuality's immutability. But the finding that the proportion of U.S. men claiming to be homosexual as well as those who behaviorally engaged in homosexuality varies among the races/subcultures suggests that homosexuality is no more immutable than criminality or scores on I.Q. tests. We must look to adverse learning experiences, not defective genes as the root cause of homosexuality."

Gary Remafedi, an avowedly gay researcher, found, surveying nearly 35,000 Minnesota youth, that students' confusion about their sexual orientation decreased with age. Remafedi found that older students were less likely to identify themselves as gay or bisexual than younger students: "The percentage of students reporting a predominantly (`mostly' or `100%') heterosexual orientation increased slightly with age from 98.4% at age 12 to 99.2% at 18 years of age, with a corresponding decline in the percentage who adopted the bisexual label" (Remadedi, op. cit.). Findings like these indicate that a sizeable percentage of people experiment with gay behavior during their youth, but go on to lead heterosexual lives in adulthood.

In March, 1992, The National Association for Psychoanalytic Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) "was founded... by psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically informed individuals who believe that obligatory homosexuality is a treatable developmental disorder," according to the group's literature.

The group, which includes distinguished therapists from across the U.S., was formed to counter what NARTH leaders called "disturbing recent movements within the psychiatric and psychological professions" and to "Combat efforts to declare homosexuality a `non-condition' and label those who treat it as `homophobic' and `unethical,' and to "make available to comprehensive referral system of informed psychotherapists" able to treat and correct the condition of homosexuality.

The group said, in a joint position statement: "We have seen many homosexual men and women who are profoundly distressed by their condition. Homosexuality is completely contrary to their social and/or religious values and their conviction that all men and women are created naturally heterosexual." The group will "Endeavor to protect the rights of [such] patients to receive treatment" to change their homosexuality. As of this writing, more than 300 psychologists and other professionals have joined the new organization.

Columnist Joseph Sobran wryly commented in his December 30, 1992 column on the duplicity of gay activists' and supporters' claim that "gayness" is innate:

"Lately we have been told that homosexuality is implanted by nature, not by nurture or free preference. So far, though, the scientific evidence for this is at best tentative. Yet gay rights advocates are already treating the idea as established fact. This strikes me as a case of wishful thinking... The wish that begets this thought, it seems to me, is the desire for a public morality and a public policy that treat homosexuality not as a fluid category of conduct, but as a fixed `natural' category, like gender.

"Yet it was only yesterday that the Latest Progressive Thinkers were eager to minimize the stubborn biological differences between the two sexes. Feminists jeered at Freud's dictim that `biology is destiny.' We were all expected to assent. Now today's Latest Progressive Thinkers are telling us that when it comes to homosexuality, biology is destiny after all. And again, with their passion outrunning their proof, they want us all to assent. Wishful thinking is as old as the human race. But when did it become our democratic duty?"