Focus on the Family caught distorting research . . . again

This week ought to be fun. It's Black Pride Week in the state of South Carolina.

Which means I'm going to be ripping and running to get things done.

How nice is it to celebrate Black Gay Pride in a state where a Republican activist compares the First Lady to an ape.

But I will hold my head high and pray that I get through this week without having to cut anyone with my razor.

Nevertheless, last weekend yielded some very good news. Focus on the Family has been caught in another attempt to distort credible research. Via Box Turtle Bulletin (I skimmed to a few choice parts. Click on the link to get the full story):

Focus On the Family is preparing to have their Love Won Out roadshow make its stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan this weekend. One of the principle arguments they are likely to spring on unsuspecting parents (if past history is any guide) is Melissa Fryrear’s assertion that she has never met a gay person who hadn’t been sexually abused, while drawing the insistent link that this abuse somehow is a major cause of homosexuality. (We saw Pat Robertson mine this same material earlier this week.) This damaging and abusive claim — imagine the horror of parents of gay kids in that audience who will hear her say that — has been a very steady theme in Love Won Out’s arsenal.

To bolster that claim, Focus On the Family recently issued one of their “reports” by Jeff Johnston, who is touted as the “gender issues analyst” at Focus On the Family (his degree and qualifications are never mentioned). That report, “Childhood Sexual Abuse and Male Homosexuality,” is further intended to reinforce the claim that most gay men have experienced some form of sexual abuse in their childhoods, and that this is the reason they became gay. To back up his claims, he cites the book, Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States, edited by Richard J. Wolitsk, Ron Stall and Ronald O. Valdiserri. That book contains a large number of research papers on various topics related to men’s health, including child sexual abuse.

. . . Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton contacted Ron Stall and Ron Valdiserri and asked them to comment on the Focus On the Family report. They responded with a statement condemning the report as “inaccurate and, in our opinion, a distortion of the scientific literature.” They go on:

Most basically, the Focus on the Family characterization of the literature on childhood sexual abuse among gay men represents a misunderstanding of scientific approaches to distinguishing between correlation and causation. The book chapter in question reports that gay men are more likely to report childhood sexual abuse by men than are heterosexual men. This correlation does not mean that the reported abuse caused the adult sexual orientation. If that were the case, then the fact that some heterosexual men report sexual abuse by women means that sexual abuse by women “causes” heterosexuality in men. It is also worth noting that the argument that childhood sexual abuse causes homosexuality in gay men is undermined by the fact that the vast majority of gay men are not sexually abused as children.

I guess we can include these researchers with the others who complain about how the religious right distorts their work.

This is something that needs to be brought to the public's attention as of yesterday. Instead of waiting for the religious right to attack us, the lgbt community need to be on the offensive and make the religious right explain themselves for their consistent misuse of science.

How long do we have to wait before the powers that be in the lgbt community, including those with stroke in the lgbt media (i.e. The Advocate magazine) bring attention to this issue?