Homosexual Discussion ForumHomosexuality and the Possibility of ChangeAlyrium, if you are going to "tear me apart" then you better come up with better sources than Religious Tolerance.
Now as to LeVay, his research was discounted by his peers long ago so to continue to appeal to LeVay only shows the weakness of your argument.
As to Spitzer's and other studies conducted they only address those who sought professional help in overcoming their homosexual desires. Of all the ex-gays I know maybe 1% sought professional help so your stats are not reliable.
Home and social environment have been shown to affect one's sexuality. Any appeal to physical environment is ludicrous since homosexuality is emotional in nature. What these studies that try to prove homosexuality is not affected by environment fail to take into consideration is the personality of the people involved in the study.
BTW, hormonal differences can be the result of prenatal injury and other factors totally unrelated to our DNA. So to use hormones as a scientific basis for sexuality is also unproven.
Personality is one factor that affects a person's sexuality:
Personality trait study finds people can change. Although the picture is incomplete (namely, a lack of neuroanatomical data for lesbians), there is a clear trend for homosexuals to resemble opposite-sex heterosexuals in key neural substrates. This functional "sex-atypicality" in neuroanatomy may be due to a selective sex-atypical hormonal differentiation of the developing brain. A causative pathway is proposed whereby potential genetic contributors to sexual orientation (e.g., Hamer et al, 1993; Hu et al, 1995) produce a differential responsivity of gonodal steroid receptors in the brain to the organizing effects of gonadal hormones produced by the testis or ovaries in utero. In homosexual males, for example, the action of genetic contributors may produce an insensitivity of androgen receptors in key neural regions (e.g., the SCN, INAH-3, or AC) to testosterone and its metabolites (e.g., estradiol). In this case, those specific neural regions will become feminized by default, leading to a female-like neuroanatomy and possibly female-like behavior, namely, sexual attraction to males. For homosexual females, this process may be reversed, in which case there would be a predominant feminization of the brain by default, with minor active masculinization of key neural regions.
http://www.aacnonline.com/e-journals/ar ... ahman.html
Maybe, possible, and etc. is not empirical proof that homosexuality is innate, immutable, or unchangeable.
Doubt cast on 'gay gene'
Is There A Gay Gene?
The year 1995 marked beginning of the end of optimism for chromosome Xq28 as an indicator of male homosexuality. In this year Scientific American printed an article that mentioned the doubts in the scientific community over the genetics of homosexuality. LeVay’s findings, the article reports, “have yet to be fully replicated by another researcher” (Horgan, 1995). Also, one study contradicted Hamer’s results and Scientific American reported that he had “been charged with research improprieties and is now under investigation by the Federal Office of Research Integrity,” which was basically a result of his excluding “pairs of brothers whose genetic makeup contradicted his finding” (Horgan, 1995). This news report came in the November edition of the magazine, which was essentially presenting a retraction for the article the two scientists coauthored in 1994. Unfortunately for these two researchers, more bad news was to follow.
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/courses/gen ... aygene.htm
A scientist at Washington University School of Medicine calculated what would be required for such a replication. He:
...projected that if the trait [in question] was 50% heritable... detecting [just] one of [its] genes would require studying 175 families-that is, almost 2000 people.[7 ] Replicati[on] would require studying 781 families-another 8000 people.... [E]ach additional gene (for a polygenic trait), researchers would need... the whole business again. "Suddenly you're talking about tens of thousands of people and years of work and millions of dollars."[8]
Nothing even remotely close to this has been done with respect to homosexuality.
http://www.leaderu.com/jhs/satinover.html
In other words Alyrium the research so far has been superficial and proves absolutely nothing.
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