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Let us be perfectly clear: every major mental health organization states strongly that homosexuality is not a choice but a genetic condition. If you need more convincing, if you or someone close to you is gay, if you need information, advice and resources, read on.
Dr. Tara's Reality Check!
Homosexuality Is Not A Choice: Homosexuality Fact & Fiction
FACT: In response to a new wave of claims by such groups as Exodus as well as some of our own very powerful but ill-informed political leaders advocating 'reparative therapy,' as a 'cure' for homosexuality, the American Psychiatric Association as well as the American Psychological Association has voted unanimously to reject therapy aimed at turning gays into heterosexuals.
Though some insist that they can persuade homosexuals to undergo treatment to convert to heterosexuality, there is no evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. In fact, such treatments may be extremely detrimental.
The associations claim that there are serious psychological repercussions to those who attempt to go against their inborn biology. Those who will themselves to go against their natural biology as a result of 'reparative therapy' and similar 'treatments' have been shown to suffer clinical depression, anxiety and various self-destructive behaviors
"All the evidence would indicate this is the way people are born. We treat disease, not the way people areÄ. The very existence of therapy that is supposed to change people's sexuality, even for people who don't take it, is harmful because it implies that they have a disease" -- Dr. Nada Stotland, head of the American Psychiatric Association's joint committee on public affairs.
As far back as the early 1970's, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association deleted homosexuality as a mental disorder from it's official diagnostic manual of mental disorders.
FICTION: "God hates fags." After the brutal beating death of 21-year-old University of Wyoming student Mathew Shepard, Westboro Baptist Reverend Fred Phelps blamed the victim for being gay.
FACT: According to research conducted by the prestigious Salk Institute, the brains of gay men may differ structurally from those of straight men.
Salk researchers found that part of the brain's hypothalmus tends to be "significantly smaller" in gay males as compared to straight males. Studies indicate that the hypothalmus, located under the thalmus in the brain, helps to regulate sexual behavior.
FICTION: Gays need treatment "just like kleptomaniacs." - Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott
FACT: The Journal Behavioral Neuroscience gives us more evidence that sexual orientation is determined before birth. Researchers at the University of Western Ontario found a link between the number of ridges in fingerprints and male homosexuality. According to the study, most homosexual men show more ridges on the right hand.
FICTION: "Thirty percent of the parents of gay children have slept with their children." Armstrong Williams, right wing talk show host. (Human rights activists called this hateful statement the most disgusting, bile, reckless lie ever heard on television.)
FACT: Fruit flies are delightful little subjects for sexual studies because they are horny little guys. To put it in lay terms, they are notoriously heterosexual.
When researchers injected the gene for homosexuality into the male fruit flies, the male flies immediately removed themselves from their female counterparts, forming a lively, all-male fruit fly conga line. The abandoned female fruit flies were left huddling together in a corner in astonishment and horror. More proof that homosexuality is biologically driven.
What does this mean? Homosexuality is not a sickness, psychologically or physically!
Check out our resources for parents and friends of lesbians and gays.