Working with the New Jersey Family Policy Counsel and speaking to the American Family Association’s (AFA) One News Now, ex-gay Greg Quinlan made statements on behalf of noted geneticist Francis S. Collins that were untrue — specifically that his work on the human genome project had led to the “fact” that homosexuality was 100% nurture, with absolutely no genetic component. This echoed a similar distortion made by NARTH’s Dean Byrd earlier this year. See our recent post for details on this.
As noted in that previous post, we contacted Dr. Collins last May and printed, with permission, his correction of what was falsely being credited to him by NARTH. In this latest challenge, Quinlan has accused XGW of fraud, claiming that quote was not accurate.
While this accusation is absurd at best — XGW has never been seriously accused of fraudulently posting anything, let alone has this ever been shown to be the case — it seemed prudent to seek public validation of the quote’s veracity. To that end, we posted the entire email exchange from May with headers intact. We also wrote Collins again and asked that he confirm to a third party that what we were reporting was accurate and that his quotes were true.
Collins has now confirmed this to Warren Throckmorton, who has posted about it on his own blog. Throckmorton is known to others who discuss these issues and understands the debate, yet has a worldview closer to that of Quinlan. His confirmation should be enough to dispel any genuine question of validity concerning our quotes. For the record, here is a message I received from Collins yesterday, after making him aware of the challenge to what we had quoted:
Dear David,
Thanks for the heads up. I am truly sorry to hear that there is a continuing effort by Mr. Quinlan and others to distort this information about genetic factors in homosexuality. The facts have not changed since the e-mail message I sent you on May 20, 2007.
Regards, Francis Collins
And then the cc’d comment after I asked that he confirm all this to Throckmorton:
Hello David and Warren,
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.
Regards, Francis Collins
We hope this demonstrates our desire to expose the truth without deception, and of course the validity of our previous quotes from Collins. Would that we could apply an equal level of scrutiny to our ex-gay friends and expect a reply! We are still waiting for retractions by both Quinlan and One News Now, not to mention the genesis of this distortion, Dean Byrd at NARTH.
So far, this is all we have heard:
What gets me is that people such as Quinlan must have such a dogmatic need for homosexuality not to be genetic. Since 1992 or so the Baptist General Conference has said:
So why not Quinlan? Though my opinion of such a belief is about as low as you can go…..
I think I’ll answer my own question: “So why not Quinlan?”
Simple, his religion has him deathly afraid of what he truly is. That’s a terrible way to be and a terrible thing for a belief system to instill in a person.
There is a newer, valid, twin study reported from Sweden, see Science Daily link below. By their estimation male homosexuality is 35% genetic, 64% non-familial environmental factors and only 1% familial/religious factors.
In any further discussion of this I believe this valid study needs to be addressed.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080628205430.htm
ScienceDaily (June 30, 2008) — Homosexual behaviour is largely shaped by genetics and random environmental factors, according to findings from the world’s largest study of twins.
Writing in the scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, researchers from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm report that genetics and environmental factors (which are specific to an individual, and may include biological processes such as different hormone exposure in the womb), are important determinants of homosexual behaviour.
Lynn ~ It is true that many religious people use circular reasoning on this issue, but be aware that others will attempt to bifurcate behavior from genetics by inserting an essential cause (namely, the “self” or a.k.a. “free will agent”) who can choose to act on the biological cause or influence to bring about the effect or behavior. I have seen some argue this way. In effect, they are maintaining that genes create desires and dispositions (or orientations), but it is the free agent’s choice whether to act in accordance with them or not. Thus, Mr. Quinlin is not asking, “Am I born with this orientation?” but rather “Should I act on this orientation of mine?” The debate then is really about the morality of the behavior. In Mr. Quinlin’s case, he derives the answer to the question from his religion with a “Thou shalt not.” However, this is a legalistic approach to religion and harkens back to young Euthyphro who had that dilemma: Is it evil because God says it’s evil, or does God say it’s evil because something inherent in the act fails to be edifying and wholesome? I posit that the answer is the latter and so, based on this assumption, one could then challenge Mr. Quinlin on that ground, and it is there that his position will collapse, as I’m sure you will agree with me that there is nothing about homosexual behavior (i.e. “acting on it”) that is unwholesome or deleterious. Thus, the logic would be as follows:
No wholesome behavior is evil.
All loving homosexual acts between consenting adults are wholesome behaviors.
Therefore, no loving homosexual acts between consenting adults are evil.
I believe strongly that if gays, lesbians, and those of us who support them pushed this line of argumentation more aggressively than the genetic argument, we won’t open ourselves to the charge of committing the genetic (or naturalistic) fallacy (i.e. that genes determine ethics). Furthermore, it would serve to reframe the question with an aim towards helping heterosexual people to realize that the essence of what gays and lesbians do in the privacy of their bedrooms, when it is done in love, is no more evil than that which they do in the privacy of their own. And, on the basis of showing the truthfulness of that second premise, we could effectively end the debate (and the vast number of testimonies to that fact [premise two] will drown out any nonsensical arguments or “junk science” that is offered against it).
I apologize if this “mini-essay” simply reminded you of what you already know. I just wanted to point out to readers that (1) there is another way religious people approach this issue besides using circular reasoning and that, despite the fact that their asserted bifurcation is true, the evidence in favor of the edifying nature of homosexual acts (upon which the debate would then focus) is disproportionately in our favor and, (2) the aforementioned dichotomy, in the end, serves only to strengthen our position further still.
Well I dont understand too much the argues, but the fact is that Dro Collins and Genome Proyect recognizes:
“No specific gene or set of genes for homosexuality has been identified”
https://www.genome.gov/25520925
I see its the same point of the NARTH in that article
And when they do identify it, it will be right next to the heterosexuality gene….
Oscar, while the focus of the post is more about what Greg Quinlan has said, the NARTH article was probably where it started. As stated in our earlier post about that, Dean Byrd did take lines from the appendix to Dr. Collins’ book, but in that instance he weaved it into a piece that makes it seem as though Collins went much further, and agreed with their “no nature, all nurture” doctrine. Collins himself lamented about this, saying the end result was not as he intended.
Yes, but both NARTH and Quinlan are framing this to mean that there is no genetic/biological cause or influence in homosexuality, and Collins did not say that. In fact, he said the opposite:
And concerning those as yet undiscovered genes, he says:
The truth is, we don’t yet know what genes might determine heterosexuality, so obviously not knowing yet does not mean they do not exist. As Quinlan said, the human genome is mapped, but we certainly don’t yet know what all those genes do yet. Quinlan used a very finite “we have mapped the human genome” phrased as though it is all complete, we know it, story over. That is just absurd.
What we do know at this point is that there is a significant genetic component to homosexuality, perhaps even a stronger one due to recent studies we have yet to cover here.
Actually, cowboy, I think it will be whatever gene or genes is responsible for a heterosexual orientation. It will simply be that gene or genes on the X-chromosome that is normally operative for the woman which produces a homosexual orientation in a man.
Whenever I get into a discussion with a anti-gay person who comes out and says “there ain’t no gay gene!” I say right (and not for his poor use of grammar), but that does not preclude that gene expression from an incompletely methylated (shut-down) X-chromosome cannot be happening in males. In fact gene-expression easily explains why not all twins are necessarily gay. You can have the same genetic make-up and both need not have the same or any genes expressed from the X-chromosome.
2008 National DNA Day Moderated Chat Transcript
Q: John C. Fremont High School in CA (10th grade student) : How about the people who are gay?
To: Belen Hurle, Ph.D. : This is not totally clear and I am not an expert in the theme. It is quite possible that there will be [found] a combination of factors – genetic and environmental. What is important is to respect the personal options of the ones that surround us.
My free-hand (free-thought?) translation from the Spanish.
Bob Stith, longtime Exodus national speaker and member minister, heads an official Southern Baptist Convention “gender issues” panel which, as it happens, is dominated by Exodus ex-gay activists.
Stith apparently could not be bothered to factcheck Quinlan’s claim — on Friday, he repeated it via his weekly Southern Baptist column.
Stith then proceeds to abuse the word “change” in the usual fashion to imply that anyone can change one’s sexual orientation.
Moderator edit: removed advertising link.