“Although a third of the subjects in my study reported having had serious thoughts of suicide related to their homosexuality, not one of them blamed the gay rights movement’s advocating a ‘born-gay’ theory of homosexuality as the cause of their suicidal thinking,” said Spitzer.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 20, 2006
Contact: Wayne Besen
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@TruthWinsOut.org
FOCUS ON THE FAMILY TAKES RESEARCHER’S WORDS ‘OUT OF CONTEXT’ IN EFFORT TO DEFEND PREVIOUS DAY’S DISTORTIONS
Dr. Robert Spitzer Says Group Used His Work to Support Fight Against Gay Rights
Miami Beach, Fla. — For the second time in two days, Focus on the Family was accused of distorting research in their efforts to attack gay and lesbian equality. Today, Columbia University’s Dr. Robert Spitzer said in an e-mail statement to Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, that the conservative organization took his controversial 2001 study on sexual orientation “out of context.”
“Unfortunately Focus on the Family has once again reported findings of my study out of context to support their fight against gay rights,” said Dr. Robert Spitzer, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University.
“Focus on the Family has a bottomless capacity for audacity,” said TWO’s Wayne Besen. “They are trying to dig themselves out of a hole caused by distorting the work of one researcher by misrepresenting the work of another. It is time they shut down their fib factory and started helping real families.”
On Monday, the Colorado Springs-based group was criticized by a Canadian researcher who says she was “baffled” by the conclusions the organization drew from her research. The study by Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, showed that lesbian teenagers were more likely to attempt suicide. Reacting to survey results, Focus on the Family blamed the very people trying to help teens enter a more accepting society.
“Regrettably, they think they have to embrace homosexuality because pro-gay advocates told them that they were born gay,” claimed Melissa Fryrear, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, on their website.
Truth Wins Out challenged Fryrear’s statement by informing Dr. Saewyc of Focus on the Family’s interpretation of her work. She told the Canadian Press that, “The research has been hijacked for somebody’s political purposes or ideological purposes and that’s worrisome.”
Focus on the Family defended itself in the Canadian Press article by invoking Dr. Robert Spitzer’s work. TWO contacted Dr. Spitzer and he was dismayed that his study had been twisted for political gain.
“Although a third of the subjects in my study reported having had serious thoughts of suicide related to their homosexuality, not one of them blamed the gay rights movement’s advocating a ‘born-gay’ theory of homosexuality as the cause of their suicidal thinking,” said Spitzer.
This is not the first time that the far right has misinterpreted Dr. Robert Spitzer’s work. In 2001, he released a controversial study reportedly showing that a small fraction of gay people might be able to shift sexual orientation. This received international media attention because Spitzer is the doctor who played a key role in taking homosexuality off the list of mental disorders in 1973. His 2001 findings were immediately disputed by many scientists and gay advocates who complained his study sample relied heavily on anti-gay activists, many of whom made a portion of their living by claiming they had become straight through prayer and therapy. Still, Dr. Spitzer concludes that change is “a pretty rare phenomenon.”
“While TWO disagrees with Dr. Spitzer’s findings, we are in solid agreement that right-wing groups have wrongly drawn conclusions that were not presented in his work,” said Besen. “Focus on the Family should stop falsifying the facts and misquoting the Spitzer study.”
Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit organization that counters right-wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org.
Thank you, Dr. Spitzer.
All I can say that isn’t absolutely angry or obscene is…I’m a survivor, I tried because of these issues when I was 13, I know I’m not the only one, and Melissa Fryrear clearly has absolutely no compassion in her shriveled little excuse for a heart.
We need to respond exactly to these results- hijackings, as Wayne has done.
Same with the original Spitzer study: call their bluff: “Sure, some gays can change – about 3% according to Dr. Spitzer. Do you really want to take that kind of chance?” Ex-gay organizations should be forthcoming about the real chances of “change.”
Figure given by Spitzer to The Advocate defining malleability which goes to explaining what he means by change being a “pretty rare phenomenon.”
quoted in: https://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_spit.htm Footnote no.15
They lie, they lie.
This goes along with saying that gay people want all manner of marriage groupings if they get married.
It’s not GAY people saying it, or even advocating it.
Gay people aren’t trying to make anyone gay. It’s impossible.
So false witness is being borne all over the place. Even casually, when it comes to straight people pontificating on the motives and abilities of gay people.
When it’s not the gay people saying it, how can the gay folks be called the liars?
See what I mean. How is it possible that all the straight people are telling the truth, but ONLY gay people lie?
Why lie about not being discriminated against, assaulted, expelled from your school, home or faith community?
Why lie about being fairly treated as a person and determining your own life?
Why would you lie about wanting what other people have freely?
Gay people don’t want to lie and shouldn’t have to and wouldn’t but for extenuating circumstances created BY straight folks.
Don’t the straight folks want to hear what gay people have to say and honestly?
It’s fair to wonder, why NOT?
From Americans For Truth and the Lambda Report, by Director Peter LaBarbera:
The entire piece is a refutation of a 1989 study on gay youth suicides — with the implication the results of the original study haven’t been replicated by other studies over the years. Salon’s Michelle Goldberg seems more and more to me to have caught the essence of the religious right movement in her book Kingdom Coming: right-American wing religion resides in a parallel world with parallel facts. It just doesn’t seem suprising to me that FOF keeps twisting the facts / misinterpreting the studies. They’re “creating” new parallel facts so support their parallel world view.
“For starters, it ignores the possibility that homosexuality is a condition-apart from societal acceptance or nonacceptance-that often leads to unhealthy behavior, which leads to unhappiness.”
If the observation of suidical thoughts (or “unhappiness” as the LaBarbera dismissingly calls it) is in teens and if the teens have not engaged in “unhealthy behavior” (as the study seems to suggest) then we can pretty much dismiss that as a “possibility”.
So sorry, Peter, I guess it’s back to the old bigoted theory drawing board.
How does that La B guy get to say that?
Everything a gay person says is supposed to be suspect according to him.
That’s disgusting.
Hasn’t he noticed sucessful gay people? High achieving gay teens and young adults? Guess it’s just too much for him to handle.
Positive affirmation brings positive results.
Low expectations and negative reenforcement brings negative results.
That would happen to anyone.
But excluding gay people especially for negative reenforcement, and not even wanting affirmation to be applied uniformly and regularly to young people smacks of irrationality.
And by the way…what did Throckmorton expect?
He’s a part of the negativity crowd, and different degrees of it is STILL negativity.
Just because he may not be as extreme as some of the others, they thought he was good enough for them and their ideas and plans.
Now that he’s backing off…just how too late is it for some people that he’s doing it now?
Considering how quickly ex gay supporters like to call gay people and homosexuality a failure of some kind.
How soon can we expect them to concede that a therapy abandoned long ago, was abandoned for a damn good reason?
Funny, given that Antonin Scalia demanded we not offer gays equal rights because they were successful.
Not to necessarily resurrect a dead thread, but it seems Focus (which is to say, Dobson) has a real truth problem.
Numerous researchers are commenting on how there is systemic mischaracterization (e.g., lying) about the results of their studies. See https://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FOCUS_ON_THE_FAMILY_PROTEST?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US on a more recent incident where Dobson twists the results of parenting studies to attempt to take children away from gay parents / deny adoption. We all know who the father of lies is, more and more, as in this case, his name is James Dobson.